Happy Thanksgiving

What I am Thankful For,
1. My family
2. Friends
3. Food and Shelter
4. Air that we breath.
5. My dogs
6. God because he created us.

~Arwen age 6

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The two writers above show us that the things we love, cherish, and give thanks for today are essentially universal, except dogs perhaps. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

The Salmon

Flotsam and Jetsam

The object of the game is to destroy American capitalism by having the government take over everything.
Wanna play? No? Too bad, you're already playing.
And in this game, nobody wins.

Thx Rick

Flying Inspiration

The following was borrowed from AOPA Blog.

My Dear Mother,

The red letter day of my life has come and gone–I have driven an airplane through the sky. I have done banks, spirals and straight flying. It is great and glorious and worth all the efforts I have (made) to attain it, and when I cross the great divide, I will do so knowing I have toyed with the clouds and frolicked in the skies; that I’ve raced through space with a joystick in my hand.

I know now what “pockets” in the air are, how they make you skip, toss and rock, and I want you to know that, sitting there 5,000 feet above ground, nothing matters much; you feel as secure as if in a rocking chair. You ride easier than the most luxurious limousine. I repeat, it’s great!

Driving an airplane is more like a combination of swimming, steering an auto, scenic railway riding, and roller skating than anything else. You have three controls: directional, longitudinal, and lateral, and the first time an instructor turns them over to you some 3,000 feet above the earth, you love so well a strange and lonesome feeling that comes over you. But there you are.

He signals what to do, say it is for a bank, your heart comes up into your mouth, and then if never before you realize you’re helpless–and all you have learned seems one tremendous pile of ignorance, but dauntlessly you lower your right wing and shove your right rudder–then, mother of mine, that right wing goes to the bottom and your machine turns practically on its side, your left wing nearly straight up and you seem to turn around in the length of your ship, which you don’t.

Then still alive and happy at your success, you bring her out, and once again you’re tearing through great gobs of atmosphere at 75 m.p.h. And you’ve done your bank.

About my commission, I’m not terribly interested in it. It’s a secondary thing, not the primary. The great and only thing is to fly. Being a flyer naturally brings a commission, but you’re not a flyer until you’ve done 75 hours in the air. I have been up four times, each time with an instructor, so you see I am not just on the verge of being haled as an “ace,” but just the same, an accident is the only thing that can keep me from being a pilot . . .

Van B. Foster, Army flight student. June 25, 1918

I'm sure that everyone that has ever gotten the urge to fly has a story like this that sums up the joy and excitement so inherent in flying. I am reminded of this piece I wrote several years ago.

Hawkeye Heartache

Photo: Freshman Quarterback James Vandenberg

On a Saturday when a bruised and battered Iowa Hawkeye team could have folded and given credence to the the season long naysayers, they proved once again that they could hang with the best despite the loss of Ricky Stanzi and others. They lost in overtime against an Ohio State team that by all accounts should have dominated.

I for one thought that freshman back up quarterback James Vandenberg would get chewed up and spit out but as one commentator noted Vandenberg, "played like a fifth year senior." And once again in the third quarter when it looked like the game was over the Heartattack Hawkeyes hung tough, tied up the score and sent the game into OT.

Of course the outcome was not what we wished but there is a bowl game in the Hawkeye's future and we can rest easy that a large part of this team will return next year.

Next week, Minnesota.

Fasten Your Seatbelt

US Airways Hudson River Ditch

Via Ace of Spades HQ

Warrior Song

Flotsam and Jetsam

The Miracle Comes to An End: Iowa vs. Northwestern: Stanzi injured; Hawkeyes Fall 17-10
From the Des Moines Register

Raiders get a bye Week: Pretty sure they still suck.
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We moved another step closer to Dystopia on Saturday as the House Passed Healthcare Reform 22o-215. Despite the Salmon's letter writing campaign Iowa's congressmen voted along party lines.

Dave Loebsack Will Rue This Day
Reed Sets his Sights on Loebsack in Iowa’s 2nd CD

What Iowa's Delegation Had to Say
From the Des Moines Register

What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says
From the Wall Street Journal
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These are the folks that have possesion of your childrens minds 7 hours a day.
Recommended Reading List at the National Education Association, "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky
From the NEA

Ten Components of Emergency Preparedness
From Preparedness Pro

Ice Queen President

I doubt that this was intentional, but George Bush highlighted that America has elected an Ice Queen. Friday, under the cover of darkness, George Bush snuck into Fort Hood to console the victims of the Fort Hood Massacre. From the LATIMES:

Last night former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura made a secret visit to the devastated military families at Fort Hood.

The Bushes instructed the commander of the mourning military base that they wanted no publicity. With their Secret Service detail, Bush and his wife made the 30 mile trip unannounced from their ranch near Crawford, Texas Friday evening.

Fox News broke news of the visit this afternoon. Other sources said the former first couple spent about two hours meeting with the wounded, family and soldiers, talking quietly and at times hugging them as they did in private at other times of crisis such as post-9/11.

Bush’s selfless act would probably not seem so extraordinary but for the fact that it comes on the heels of Obama’s midnight excursion to Dover AFB, complete with press, staff, and photographers so he could "see first hand the human cost of the Afghanistan war."

Now, as USA Today reports. "President Obama will visit Fort Hood soon to pay tribute to the victims of Thursday's shooting, a decision that scrambles the rest of his schedule, possibly including next week's trip to Asia." Gee, sorry for the inconvenience. Perhaps the President can persuade them to hold the memorial on Veterans Day and get some real mileage out of it.

I’m not saying that Obama is cold, calculating, or heartless it’s just that by all appearances he is an automaton; cold, calculating, and heartless. A case in point was the President’s address to the nation on Thursday. Obviously the events in Texas were still unfolding but I for one sat stunned as Obama rambled on for two minutes and gave a Palinesque shout out to someone in the audience before he coolly stated the obvious. Soldiers were being killed on a US military installation and the Presidents schedule proceeds uninterrupted? The disconnect here is disturbing.

His performance on Friday was equally obtuse. He sounded more like a local news caster as he moved deadpan from the Fort Hood update to the economy story. I half expected him to say “Now let me shoot you over to Rohm Emmanuel at our weather desk.”

Perhaps I'm just longing for the days when a President could at least feel our pain, and if necessary command a tear when appropriate. It is often said that what made FDR so effective was his ability to make people feel that he connected to them personally. These recent events leaves you wondering if the Ice Queen is connected at all.

Iowa vs Oakland

As many of you know I have been pretty excited about the Iowa Hawkeyes this season but come Monday mornings I have have been forced to post "Raiders Suck" about 8 times. Oh the humanity!

Could the Big 10 Hawkeyes beat the NFL Raiders? HMM, interesting question.

From The Badger Herald.

If Cable took his Raiders and brought them to college football’s best conference in the Midwest, would Oakland succeed? Well, the answer is simple: No...

Do the Raiders have the fattest quarterback-kicker combination in the league?

Do they have a senile old man who has possibly turned into a zombie as an owner?

Are they the first NFL team to lose at least 11 games in six straight seasons?

The Raiders have been such a laughable organization since their Super Bowl run in 2002, never doubt the ways in which they can screw up. Sure, they might give Indiana a run for their money and a game against Illinois could end up in negative total points, but the Raiders could never compete with Big Ten heavyweights.

Ohio State has more future NFL hopefuls currently on the Buckeyes roster than the Raiders do.

Penn State wins in an old man competition pitting JoPa against Al Davis.

And Iowa would win ugly, because that is what the Hawkeyes do.

Letter to the Iowa Congressional Delegation

Dear Sir.

As the healthcare bill inevitably moves toward the reconciliation process in congress I would ask you, as a fellow Iowan, to take a moment and reflect on the four basic goals that congress set out to achieve with this legislation. Reducing medical costs, insuring all Americans, and reducing the deficit all without increasing taxes on Americans.

By every metric this bill fails to accomplish those goals. It does not cover everyone. It does not bend the cost curve of medical care. It will negatively impact the deficit while raising taxes on a majority of Americans. To ignore these facts and still vote for this bill would require, as the great Senator Hillary Clinton once declared, “ the willing suspension of disbelief.”

I could go on to argue about the increase in the bureaucracy, the history of the government’s inability of to operate similar programs efficiently, the loss of personal liberty, or the question of constitutionality but those issues while very important are secondary to the fact that this bill fails to live up to its original intent.

I don’t believe any Iowa legislator would intentionally pass legislation that would ultimately harm their constituents, their neighbors, or their family but a vote for passage of this legislation would be a travesty for the people of Iowa and all Americans. Please vote no on this healthcare legislation.

Sincerely,


Cc: Iowa Congressional Delegation

Speaking Truth to Power

I came across an interview of Obama’s Frau Blucher the other day when she was lamenting the dissenters of the B.HO administration, “The administration has said very clearly is that we're going to speak truth to power.”

As John Steel wrote in the WSJ, “Much of the American political world collapsed in laughter, pointing out that her boss was president of the United States, the most powerful man on earth.” I personally have always pictured David waging his finger at Goliath.

From what I have since been able to ascertain the phrase originated in the Quaker community in 1955 as the title of a study “Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence” which sought a way for the US and the Soviet Union to peacefully resolve their differences. Historian Larry Ingle writes:

Its title, which came to Friend Milton Mayer toward the end of the week in summer 1954 when the composing committee finished work on the document, has become almost a cliche; it has become common far beyond Quaker circles, often used by people who have no idea of its origins. (One current example: Anita Hill entitled her memoir of her sensational charges of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, Speaking Truth to Power.)

The best contemporary definition of the phrase comes, from of all places, the Urban Dictionary which reads in part.

A vacuous phrase used by some on the political Left. Ostensibly, it means to verbally confront or challenge conservative politicians and conservative ideals using the overwhelmingly logical and moral arguments of liberalism. Doing so would naturally devastate the target individual, leaving them a stuttering, stammering bowl of defeated jelly. That or cause them to experience an epiphany that would have such a profound, worldview-changing effect that they would immediately go out and buy a Che t-shirt and start reading Noam Chomsky.

I think that is the best explaination for the point that Frau Blucher was trying to make.

The Warning.

I caught the documentary "The Warning" on PBS a couple weeks ago.

It is the story of lone regulator Brookley Born as she tried to sound the alarm in the mid 90s that the derivatives market was a ticking time bomb. In 1998 the system nearly collapsed, but was bailed out by the bankers in that instance. Despite the evidence congress, republicans and democrats, along with the Fed refused to reign in Wall Street.

The players, particularly Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Obama's economic advisor Larry Summers who fought against regulations went on to make millions in the market that they were charged with overseeing. Also fighting to discredit Born was Alan Greenspan. When Greenspan recently announced that, "Gee, I didn't see this coming" he is a liar in the first degree, he knew the systemic risks but elected to defend Wall Street.

I am beginning to believe that we are living in an oligarchy. I'm not sure what other conclusion to make after seeing this program. If you feel that your level of disgust at your elected officials, the Fed, or Wall Street just isn't high enough then this is the documentary for you.

Looking for a True Conservative

From Forbes

...The noisiest single lobby in the world today is the Climate Change/Global Warming/Green alliance, of which the supposedly liberal President Obama is an enthusiastic member and which has the support of left-wing ideologues all over the world.

This is essentially a reactionary movement, for its aim is to confine and even reverse capitalism, returning to a precapitalist arcadia in which woods and forests expand, the sea is no longer harvested, energy is strictly rationed and controls on human activity, especially wealth and job creation, are universal...

Indeed, many of its supporters would prefer a pristine world in which Homo sapiens remained primitive or did not exist at all. Their faith, like most forms of political absolutism, is a substitute for genuine religion. In fact it is, in one sense, a crude form of religion--pantheism, the worship of the Earth and all its manifestations.

Children of the Corn at 9-0

I have been searching for a Halloween analogy for the Hawkeyes come from behind win against Indiana today and the best I have come up with is the Children of the Corn. Fitting because this is after all Iowa where corn is king plus, another team wandered into town thinking they were meeting just a ragtag bunch of misfit kids but were then dragged out into the corn field for the ritual sacrifice.

In the third quarter the Hawks were down by ten points and Stanzi had just thrown 4 perfect passes to the Hoosier defense. Then with the Hoosiers on their own 2 yard line "He That Walks Behind the Rows" blocked an Indiana pass that bounced off four players and miraculously landed in the hands of Iowa's Tyler Sash who took the unexpected gift 86 yards for a TD.

In what is becoming typical Iowa form, a fired up Stanzi then led the Hawks to 28 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to put away the Hooseirs. Trick or Treat.

University of Iowa

You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination...

You are entering the Obama Zone

Pulled from yesterdays post and updated:

Thomas Sewell; the dismantling of America Part I
From RCP

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Thomas Sewell; the dismantling of America Part II

Obama poised to cede US sovereignty

"Affordable Healthcare for America Act" All 1990 pages worth.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Alaska's Sarah Palin to Visit Iowa
From The Iowa Republican

In what has to be the irony of all ironies, The Iowa Republican reports that Sarah has been invited to speak Nov 21 at the Family Policy Center’s fall fundraiser in Des Moines. Across the street on that same night Joe Biden is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Democrats Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Sounds like a good opportunity to have a tea party.

Update: 10/30/09 Pleasant Hill, IA – Iowa Family Policy Center ACTION received word this morning that Governor Sarah Palin is unable to accept our speaking invitation due to her book tour contractual commitments, which cannot be changed.
We extended our invitation knowing she would be in the middle of her book tour and the chances of her being able to accept any invitations were extremely slim.
She has asked if she could speak at a future mutually agreeable date. She will not accept any fees for her appearance.


While we are on the subject of Alaska...
Alaska's Great Wide Open
From The Smithsonian

A land of silvery light and astonishing peaks, the country's largest state perpetuates the belief that anything is possible.

Interview with Charles Krauthammer: 'Obama Is Average':
From Speigel International

The Attack on Americanism

Illustration from The Masses. ca 1910-1920

During the same era as the illustration above, German sociologist Werner Sombart questioned why socialism never became viable in America while the rest of the world was embracing the ideology. He suggested that, “all the socialist utopias have foundered upon roast beef and apple pie." Sombart believed that Americans had no need for socialism because they were living in the land of plenty. The reality of the time however was far from a land of roast beef and apple pie. In fact if Sombert was right in his assumption then it would seem that conditions were ideal for the establishment of another socialist state.

The second industrial revolution was under way; mechanization was eliminating skilled jobs at a time when waves of unskilled immigrants were flooding into the country. Anarchist, sydicalists, and socialists existed in fairly large numbers and the new European immigrants were not strangers to the radical tradition. The social conditions included high unemployment, high levels of poverty with masses of people living in squalid urban conditions.

Many Americans were in fact foundering and yet, even with the roast beef and apple pie offered by the left, socialism still did not take hold in America. The left never jelled into a cohesive force capable of unseating the cultural norms inherent in Americans. The reason for that lies in the fact that Americans are cut from a different cloth. As Seymour Lipset wrote in "American Exceptionalism";

Born out of revolution, the United States is a country organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society. Americanism, as different people have pointed out, is an "ism" or ideology in the same way that communism or fascism or liberalism are isms. As G. K. Chesterton put it: "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed (not on ethnic identity).

That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence. . . ." the nation's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire. The revolutionary ideology which became the American Creed is liberalism in its eighteenth- and nineteenth century meanings…

Polls show that the majority of Americans still adhere to this creed but Americanism is once again under attack. This time led by a president that openly rejects Exceptionalism.

The battle that is raging over health care and the rest of the left's agenda is not that there are problems that cold hearted conservatives would rather ignore as the left claims. It's that the majority of Americans, like our ancestors in the early 1900s, are not willing to fundamentally reorient the Ameican Creed in a new and dangerous direction to ameliorate these conditions.

The outcome of this latest attack on Americanism remains to be seen but if we hold true to our values, as a nation, we should once again emerge intact. Battered perhaps but not beaten.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave: Americas Progressive Hexagon
From The Founding Blogger

mmmm Charts and Graphs: Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group
From Gallop

Obama's Rift With the Military
From Foriegn Policy

President Obama is presiding over a slow-motion civil-military crash occasioned by his meandering Afghanistan strategy review.

... President Obama has been slowly veering off into a civil-military ditch of his own digging. Despite his relative inexperience in national security matters, this was not inevitable; during the campaign President Obama showed himself to be fairly deft rhetorically in regards to civil-military relations and he carried this strong performance through the first several months of his presidency. However, in recent months he has seemed far less at ease with his wartime Commander-in-Chief role.

From the Pet Peeve Department: 'Yuppie 911': Beacons make calls for help too easy
From the Anchorage Daily News

In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls. What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty."

I wrote several months ago about the "Washington pussies rescued from Alaska's Killer Midnight Sun." I also was incensed when the pinheads on this seasons "Survivor" opted to take pillows instead of a tarp. Perhaps I'm just being too critical but I'm convinced some people are just too stupid to survive.

Almost forgot the weekly shoutout to the Raiders: Still Suck!

Iowa Hawkeyes 8 and 0

Wow, after a defensive battle between the Hawks and the Michigan State Spartans the Spartans scored a TD to put them into the lead with less than two minutes to go. All hope was suddenly drained. Then miraculously the Hawks marched 70 uncontested yards in 11 plays and with 2 seconds on the clock QB Ricky Stanzi connected on a seven yard pass in the end zone to Marvin McNutt to win the game. I am still stunned and amazed. 8 and 0... Wow.

From the CR Gazette:

Ricky Stanzi’s slant to Marvin McNutt immediately gets its own wing in the Hawkeye Athletics Hall of Fame. It gets replayed over and over and over and over in Iowa this week, the rest of this year, maybe the rest of this half-century.

Here’s how a big a play it was: It made you briefly forget its big-picture significance, which was to keep a perfect season perfect and take Iowa to 8-0 for the first time since football was invented.

From KCRG Sports: Video Here.

BCS Standings: See #4 HERE

Graphic borrowed from the University of Iowa

Flying the North Country

The following was brought to my attention by alert reader and fellow pilot MrTex:

One rule to remember when flying the Alaska back country is to remove all those tasty bear treats before leaving your aircraft unattended. The unfortunate Super Cub pictured below fell victim to one such inquisitive ursine critter that thought he happened on a giant can of pink salmon. Heartache! See all the pictures HERE

In typical Alaskan fashion the pilot,with a little plastic wrap and a generous supply of hundred mile an hour tape, was able to effect repairs and get the plane home. A little fresh paint and this one would be good as new.
This type of innovation is not that unusual although you would probably have a hard time getting a field approval from your local AI. I had a friend that once ground looped his Cessna 180 while glacier landing in the Wrangle Mountains. He proceeded to secure the upturned wing tip with climbing rope for the flight back to Anchorage.

When the Revolution Comes to America

I have been making the claim for some time now that Obama is a radical but I have never really taken the time to explain myself. First let me describe the character of revolutions in general and then Obama’s revolution in particular.

When revolution comes to America it will not be in the form of an AK47 toting, cigar chomping, beret wearing radical. Although Obama is outwardly atypical of the radical’s persona his ends are identical. The goal of the revolutionary obviously is to overturn the status quo and replace it with some alternative.

It is probably fitting that one of Obama’s first stops was Turkey and it was humorous when he praised Turkey’s long rich history. The long rich history that Obama was paying homage to is barely a century old. Following World War I Mustafa Kemal Ataturk buried the Ottoman past , sometimes brutally, and installed a western style democracy.

Other examples include Iran during the 1920s when the Shah likewise undertook a revolutionary project to replace the Persian culture with a western culture; modernity was the buzzword of the post Ottoman Middle East. In more recent memory Iran rejected modernity and replaced it with Islam. In Africa most nations replaced imperialism with communism. In colonial America, monarchism was replaced by a liberal republic. Etc.

There is little doubt about Obama’s radical intentions but socialism has never played well in America. Therefore Obama has a special challenge before him; how to replace the status quo in America without openly declaring what will replace it. The closest that any democrat comes to full disclosure is the ubiquitous phrase “leveling the field”. (Google - level the field Obama” 25 million hits)

The first phase of the revolution requires the dismantling of the old order. Outwardly this has been largely rhetorical. America is not exceptional; America is not a Christian nation, capitalism has failed, etc. The second phase is Obama himself; the Obama blitzkrieg, all Obama all the time, the continuous campaign. World Tours, television appearances, speeches overloaded with self adulation are just tactics in the larger strategy.

It may look on the surface look like a “cult of personality” or narcissism but Obama is at least for now the face of the revolution which explains why he was so quick to accept the Nobel. It is a persona builder much like the recent attempt at using the NEA for new Obama iconography or getting the president into the classroom.

On the other side of the battlefield however, and what makes this strategy so precarious, is the persona wreckers. Rush Limbaugh was an obvious target early on. More recently, “tea baggers”, Fox News, and particularly Glen Beck have been not just criticized but openly attacked by the administration.Obama may appear thin skinned when the administration lashes out but the revolution demands it.

Like a vampire, sunlight could be fatal to the revolution so from the administrations perspective anything that damages the persona must be extinguished immediately and forcibly. Its up to the counter revolutionaries to increase the wattage on this revolution to shatter the ediface which is Obama.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Iowa Hawkeyes Ream Wisconsin 20-10: The Hawkeyes are 7-0 overall, 3-0 in Big Ten play, and number one in the conferance. This week they are ranked No. 6 in the first BCS poll, seventh in the latest Associated Press and Harris polls and eighth by USA Today. Until they get beaten its time to put the "do they deserve this ranking" to rest. Up next Michigan State.
BCS Standings

Oakland Raiders: One upset does not a winner make. Still S...!

Decline is a Choice: A must read.
From Charles Krauthammer

The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable external forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice.

UPDATE: Crass Newweek hyphenates Krauthammer's name. "Charles Kraut-hammer doesn't represent any swing voters."

From the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Department

READY TO REVOLT: Oath Keepers pledge to prevent dictatorship in United States
From The Las Vegas Review Journal

Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

Iowa Petition for Immediate Recall and Arrest of U. S. Senators Grassley and Harkin:
From In Perpetuum Rights

We, THE PEOPLE, the SOVEREIGN ELECTORS, FREEMEN, and INHABITANTS of the State of Iowa, in accordance with our Unalienable Rights forever protected by the Constitution of Iowa (1857), do so hereby COMMAND the immediate Recall of the two U.S. Senators of for the State of Iowa and thus THE PEOPLE, Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley... in violation of their Oath of Office to Protect and Defend the Rights of THE PEOPLE, as secured by the Constitution for the United States of America,...

Wouldn't it be better to just repeal the 17th Amendment?

Be Prepared: Wow, emergency rations at COSTCO and Self contained underground composite structures. Honey, can I have the credit card?

The Road to Dystopia: The Obama Fiasco.
From NRO

Barack Obama is obviously a very intelligent man, and should be a popular and successful president. But his mandate for profound reform and a steam-cleaning of the Augean Stable of Washington is being squandered. So far the change is more of the same, only worse.

The Obama administrations "change" only looks worse if you are viewing them through the lens of past "transformative" presidents such as Reagan or Roosevelt. Those presidents largely worked within the framework of American institutions and historical political norms.

Obama is, pardon the phrase, a horse of a different color. He is a radical that plans to upend the status quo and transform America into his own image. What most view as ineffectiveness or failure is in reality what a socialist revolution would look like when it finally comes, full force, to America. An Obama Fiasco? Hardly.

I'm a racist, Your a racist, Limbaughs a racist too

From the Dr. Seuss collection c1945.

MSNBC Contributor: Rush Limbaugh Would ‘Love to Say He Owns a Plantation Full of Black Men’
From Newsbusters

Iowahawk Art Contest Wrap Up

Well Salmon fans it grieves me to announce that despite your hard work and dedication the Salmon masterpiece "A Man Among Giants" fell a little short in the Iowahawk Endowment for the Arts Contest. The actual winner graciously accepted the $33.18 prize here although I must say that the content of the acceptance speech seems vaguely familiar.

My fears that the free and fair voting process may have been compromised by ACORN-like tactics and hanging chads have been put to rest in Iowahawks winners announcement.

One reader asked where the inspiration for the Salmon entry came from. I have to admit that it was stolen from the works of Andy Thomas. For my Democrat friends Mr. Thomas also has a Democratic version available.

Once again thanks your support. Now excuse me while I go cry in my morning beer.