A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of  2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100
degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.”

“She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct.  But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

The man smiled and responded, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air.  You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault !

Heh.

By the way, those coordinates put you in the middle of a river in western China.  Interesting that both participants would be speaking English, no ?

Let’s dispense with this idiocy right off the bat here….. John McCain is against “torture”, even as the liberals define it.  And John McCain is a man who knows torture.  Bones broken repeatedly, regular beatings, horrific conditions, years with no care or freedom at all.  That is what Senator McCain endured in Vietnam.  That man knows torture.  And he is against whatever mish-mash the liberals currently say torture is.

Guess what…. McCain is as wrong as wrong can be.  This is really pretty simple.

Wearing a leash and being forced into a naked pyramid by a squirrely chick from the mountains of wherever is humilitating and degrading.  That’s Ahu Grahib.  That isn’t torture.  Being in a chain-link cell in Cuba, with three-square (and religiously sensitive) meals a day, provided all the reading material and medical care you can imagine.  That is Gitmo.  That isn’t torture.

Standing up for hours at a time, living in poor climates (too hot, too cold), and being yelled at and intimidated.  That’s having a friggin job.  That isn’t torture.  Being kept up for days on end, having emotional distress, and a deep and abiding uncertainty about your future.  That’s being a parent.  It’s not torture.

And anything that our soldiers have to go through in the course of regular training isn’t torture.  If it was, every drill instructor or SERE trainer since 1953 should be brought up on charges against the UCMJ and federal charges of treason.  That ain’t gonna happen.  Know why ?  It ain’t torture.

Getting your head cut off because you are an American ?  Being blown up because you choose to dance in Tel Aviv ?  Being stoned to death because you are a teenage girl who was gang-raped in Tehran ?  Or maybe being castrated, having a hand chopped off, and then being shot in the head because your name is Abdul-Bruce bin Inhim and you wanted to steal a cute handbag from the Baghdad mall ?  That is all torture.

What the hell happened to reason and common sense ?

Here’s a morsel or three to help you through the weekend:

Obama’s first 100 days have occasioned a number of dispiriting moments, but yesterday’s attack on Chrysler’s bondholders represented a new low. In a speech announcing the company’s bankruptcy filing, President Obama blasted “a group of investment firms and hedge funds [that] decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” That is nothing short of a lie. The consortium wasn’t holding out for a bailout. It was holding out for a bankruptcy.

…

In a statement released yesterday, the [credit holding financial] firms pointed out that they would be shirking their fiduciary duty to their investors if they did not hold out for the best possible deal. For them, the best deal is bankruptcy. In bankruptcy court, secured debtholders take priority over other creditors. The administration’s plan called for secured lenders to get in line behind the UAW.

For resisting this expropriation and following the law, the non-TARP lenders were publicly denounced as vicious Benedict Arnolds by a sitting American president. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities,” Obama said — not “those who held out when everybody else is making sacrifices.” He stands, he said, “with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars.” If millions of Americans wanted to buy Chrysler cars, the company wouldn’t need the president of the United States to be its pitchman.

Just imagine how bizarre this is.  The only “American” car company that ISN’T sucking from the government teat is now going to have to negotiate labor accords with the majority owner of a competitor.  The UAW will own Chrysler.  This is a bizarro world, boys and girls.

Read the whole thing, of course.

Obama Declares War on Capital by The Editors on National Review Online.

“The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.” –  WFB

I still miss that man, and am just sick at what his son has made of his legacy.

Or maybe…..

While I am generally a proponent of term limits for elected representatives, I remain largely agnostic on the issue.  I see both sides, pros and cons, and don’t really have a firm stance on it either way.  Yes, new blood is good, and sometimes the old bastards need to be kicked out.  But sometimes the new blood is idiotic, and some institutional stability is warranted, if not necessary.

That said, I am willing to support the repeal of the 22nd amendment in exchange for a repeal of the 16th amendment.  That’s right, libs and congresscritters….  I’ll support your right to run Obama in every election from now ’til doomsday (which the longer he is Hugo et al’s ‘BFF’ seems more and more likely) in exchange for a repeal of the federal income tax.  (not to mention all the other personal taxes that are spirited in under that umbrella)

So, do we have a deal, or what ?

(h/t to Jim at The Campaign Spot on NRO)

Obama’s Third Term | End22 | Repeal the 22nd Amendment.

The money quote:

So, subtle shot at Peter Angelos? Acknowledgment that the team will not be oh-fer this season in the W-L column? A desire for the team name to be an anagram for Anal Snit, Natal Sin and/or Slain Ant? You be the judge.

Anal snit.  I like that one.  The incompetence of this team makes them more than a little hard to luv, know what I’m saying ?

(h/t to my buddy Chris Jarman of the mighty, mighty 98.1 The MAX)

I think their pitching coach is also their spell-checker

via the WaPo D.C. Sports Bog – Nationals Uniform Fail.

How do I say this so people will understand? Fascism isn’t a libertarian doctrine! It just isn’t, never will be, and it can’t be cast as one. Anarchism, secessionism, extreme localism, or rampant individualism may be bad, evil, wrong, stupid, selfish, and all sorts of other things (though not by my lights). But they have nothing to do with a totalitarian vision of the state where individuals and institutions alike must march in step and take orders from the government.

If you think shrinking government and getting it less involved in your life is a hallmark of tyranny it is only because you are either grotesquely ignorant or because you subscribe to a statist ideology that believes the expansion of the state is the expansion of liberty.

(bold emphasis in Mr. Goldberg’s original, underlined emphasis is my doing)

Full post here:  Taxes & Tyranny – Jonah Goldberg – The Corner on National Review Online.

He found a chance to get overboard again, and our Navy SEALS- as they are wont to do- swiftly distributed high velocity lead into the bodies of the “pirates”…. all but one.

Still early in the story, but the one “pirate” who is still alive should be summarily arrested, tried ship-board, and executed before sundown.  Law of the Sea, and all that.

Happy Easter to the Phillips family, and to you all.

FOXNews.com – Ship Captain Rescued From Somali Pirates – International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News.

The president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, the most…. yeah, I can’t go that far…. a very respected man in the world, actually has advisors who are talking about ridiculous shit like this.

AP Newsbreak: Obama looks at climate engineering.

In case you didn’t want to read, here’s the story.  Obama is gonna “seed” clouds (make your own joke) and is gonna put reflective shit in the sky… to reflect the sun’s rays.  These are the clowns that you Democrats elected.  These are the people that you entrusted with the safety of your children.  I’m sure you are still on the come-down from your 2-year long Kool-Aid high, but eventually you are gonna have to face facts and- I hate to say it- take some responsibility.

I would say that he and Biden and the boys from Treasury could just get on the Mall and fly kites, but…. there aren’t any boys at Treasury, and Biden isn’t good with twine.  He’s a little slow, ya know.

Because you mush-head Democrats didn’t have the intellect or the heart to either not vote, or vote for someone who actually has a tad of experience, you are getting the kinda laughable BS that this man, Obama, is pushing on us.

He’s traveled the world telling them all how bad we are, he’s made statements that are patently untrue (and he knows it) but says them because it makes him feel good about himself.

So I hereby proclaim this:  let’s get rid of the Democrats in 2010, and then let’s impeach Obama and Biden.  And we can then elect them Prom King and Queen.  That seems to be what they want anyway.

These people are an embarrasment, and they are making this country look silly in the process.