New POWIP is LIVE

http://powip.com

Ok - it hasn't been prettied up, but it is nonetheless live.

Some News About the Site

Sometime soon, perhaps in the next few days, I'll be moving to a new site, not hosted by Blogger. Among the advantages will be that I won't have to worry about being flagged for content, of course, but I'll also be moving to the much more flexible Typepad. The address will simply be powip.com.

This has been made possible, not by any sudden windfall I've gotten from Obama, but because Enoch and his business partner have purchased sunant, a web-development company. So, I'm sure they'll do a bang-up job for me, and if any of you are likewise interested in having your sites designed and hosted through them, let me know, because the scuttlebutt is that I'll receive a commission for referrals.

The other big news is that I have a part-time gig with The BCast, doing research and lining up guests and such-like. They're going to be making a push to expand soon, so with any luck, and a lot of hard work, it could develop into a full-time gig. So, please do check out The BCast, if you don't already, and feel free to forward stories to me for them, particularly if there's video attached.

One of the issues that they've been covering some, lately, that's of particular interest to me is the privacy issues attached to new media and increasing government intrusion into our lives. I'm not going to go any way towards dedicating this blog to that, but I imagine that it's something that concerns many of my readers, anyway. So, please be on the lookout for any information that might be of use to me.

Now that I'm employed, I'll presumably be able to restore internet at home, soon, and then I'll be back to blogging as usual.

The most important single piece I saw today was this, about what's actually contained in the health care proposals being floated. Please read it and familiarize yourselves with it.

If anyone knows of a surgeon who's willing to go on the record as being appalled by Obama's claim yesterday that a physician would prefer to amputate than provide treatment to save a limb, because of economic incentive so to do, I might like to have that person write something for us, and maybe appear on the show. As you can see from the Google page that appears when you type in the phrase, "surgeons respond to Obama," plenty of ENT surgeons are on record regarding Obama's tonsillectomy remarks, but there's literally nothing from vascular surgeons. Why?

Seems to me there are radical surgical procedures that Obama ought to be more concerned about.

Buy These Books

Jules's wife's book has received great reviews, plus . . . she's hot.

Velociman's probably not the same kind of hot, but you should buy his book anyway.

I'm not hot, but I'm waiting for Iowahawk to write the preface. I SWEAR!

Early to Bed

Moral imperative:

For those of us who believe that the absence of universal health care is America’s burning shame, the spectacle of opposition to Obama’s health-care plan is Alice-in-Wonderland bewildering and also enraging—but on one point the plan’s critics are absolutely correct. One of the key bills under consideration in the plan—sympathy for limitations on end-of-life care—is morally revolting. And it’s helping to kill the plan itself.

Make no mistake about it. Determining which treatments are “cost effective” at the end of a person’s life and which are not is one of Obama’s priorities. It’s one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal healthcare affordable.

Read the whole thing, before they "nudge" you into your grave.

UPDATE: Via Zip, News Busters quoting Neil Steinberg at the Chicago Sun-Times:

I don't know if it's 40 percent, but a considerable minority -- who voted for John McCain are galvanizing into, not just an opposition party in exile, but a kind of fifth column, an enemy within trying to undermine the operation of our government, opposing the president at every turn for purely ideological, if not pathological, reasons.

If Obama tries to fix the economy, then they're against fixing the economy. If Obama tries to reform health care, then the current medical mess is fine and they descend on congressional town hall meetings to shout down and intimidate. If Obama were mobilizing the nation to fight off invaders from Mars, they'd oppose that, too.

About Transparency

The specter of nationalized health care is making strange bedfellows. Democrats have attacked medical insurance and pharmaceutical companies as evil for wanting to stop the government takeover of health care. But at the same time, Democrats are working closely with these industries to push the initiative forward. In exchange for favorable treatment in the plan, health care companies are financing a massive ad campaign to support government care.

Fox News reports that pharmaceutical companies are prepared to spend at least $150 million, and possibly as much as $200 million, to promote the changes President Obama wants. Private insurance companies, which funded ads that helped defeat President Clinton's takeover of the health care industry in 1993 and 1994, have launched ads supporting Mr. Obama this time around. These campaigns will dwarf any opposition efforts to highlight the dangers of the proposed reforms, according to Fox.

You're all corporate lackeys, though.


Hey, what about carrying water for the pharmaceutical companies?



One of the principal reasons that the unions seem so desperate to do Obama's bidding is that they are. And one of the reasons that they are is that their pensions have been raided so often that they're dying. Via Warner Todd Huston, from the WSJ:

In April, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund—which covers some 101,000 rank-and-file members—announced that its pension has been put into what the feds call “critical status,” or “red zone.” In other words, it lacks the cash to pay promised benefits and may have to cut them. As of 2007, the last year for which it reported results to the government, the fund had 74.4% of the assets needed to pay its benefits.

Thirteen of the bigger plans operated for the Teamsters have, together, a mere 59.3% of reserves necessary to cover obligations. Or consider that 26 pension funds at the food workers union, the UFCW, are at 58.7%. Seven locals at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters fare better at 67%. As a rule of thumb the government considers a fund to be “endangered” at below 80%, and in “critical” status at below 65%, and requires them to come up with a plan to get off probation within a decade.

So, Obama can't necessarily give a controlling interest in a US automaker to everybody to bail out their pensions, but the SEIU and related interests are sure showing their dedication to his policies, in hopes he'll find a way to save theirs, too.

That might turn out to be less likely than they think.

Oh, well. Like Congress, the unions know how to take care of the truly important:

Poor management probably deserves a lot of the blame for the union decline, but the exact causes are a mystery. An even bigger mystery is that the unions do a far better job with funds created for their officers and employees than for mere workers. The SEIU Affiliates, Officers and Employees Pension Plan—which covers the staff and bosses at its locals—was funded as of 2007 at 102.2%. The plan for the folks at SEIU international headquarters was funded at 84.8%.

Union officer benefits are also far more generous than anything dues-paying workers enjoy. Consider again the SEIU, probably the country’s most powerful union. Their officers and employees get a yearly 3% cost of living increase, but SEIU members get none; officers qualify for an early pension at 50 or after more than 30 years of service, but workers can’t retire early with a pension; officers qualify for disability retirement after a year’s service, but workers need 10 years. In the land of union retirement, some workers are more equal than others.

Total Douchebaggery Achieved

Congratulations, Think Progress, Steve Benen and The Moderate Voice (sic), you've achieved absolute douchebaggery. You see, according to these people, the issue at hand isn't one of Mr. Gladney being beaten up, but of Mr. Gladney not being insured.

Last week, during a scuffle between health care town hall protesters and SEIU members at a town hall hosted by Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO), anti-health care reform protester Kenneth Gladney was injured and required hospitalization.

Oh, it's true that there was a scuffle. It was initiated when an SEIU thug grabbed some merchandise that Mr. Gladney was selling (because he's out of a job), calling him "nigger" for good measure, and Mr. Gladney snatched it back. Then, a couple, maybe three of the Purple Army knocked him to the ground and started stomping on him.

Note the passive voice, "was injured." He was beaten, you dolt. By a union Public Service Director and Baptist minister by the name of Elston McCowan. As you can see on the Gateway Pundit piece, the SEIU immediately published an article claiming that they were the ones attacked, and, as I've noted below, tweeted the same, what would Linda Douglass call it? disinformation through their official Twitter handle, @SEIU. Now, they've created a video (will link later) that tries to depict the "teabaggers" as the violent ones, just as the Democrats, paying for astroturf through OFA and other organizations actually practice the astroturfing that they claim health care protesters are the product of.

Linda Douglass tried to claim that Pam Key's video showcasing Obama's repeated claims that a transition to single-payer would have to be accomplished in stages over 15 or 20 years was a hatchet job, and rejoined. Now Pam has upped the ante by showing Obama repeatedly claiming that the health care negotiations would be held on C-SPAN so as to insure accountability, just as he claimed that all pending legislation requiring his signature would be posted for public comment for a minimum of 5 days prior to enactment.

The CBO continues to state that the savings that Obama and company insist are there are fantasy. Obama hasn't followed through on his promises of transparency or accountability during his mad spending spree. He's telling those responsible to hold their tongues, without acknowledging the role of Congress--of which he has been a member--in the production of the problems that he feels are so urgent. Why the heck should we believe anything he says?

Commenting on the Gladney incident, The Moderate Voice writes, “Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. If anything was more calculated to make the Right look foolish than this St. Louis incident then I’d love to see it.”

Under the House’s health care proposal, Gladney would be guaranteed a coverage option and would likely receive a subsidy to purchase affordable health care.

Well, you know, Mr. Gladney wouldn't need that at the moment, if some racialist bastards hadn't kicked the snot out of him for the crime of selling Gadsden flags while black. Oh, but it gets even better . . .

Update The Washington Independent contacted Brown, who said his client Gladney is not uninsured after all. “He’s just unemployed,” says Brown, and “has insurance through his wife.”

D'oh! Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. If anything were better calculated to make you all appear as the mendoucheous morons you are, I can't think, offhand, of what it might be. This is the supreme autopwnag3.

Thriller Night

Soundtrack Title Track: Possum Kingdom, The Toadies

Runner Up: Thriller, Michael Jackson
Songwriters: Temperton, Rod;

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl!
But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind
You're out of time

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes, girl
Thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

Night creatures calling, the dead start to walk in their masquerade
There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time
(They're open wide)
This is the end of your life

They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side
They will possess you unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night I'll save you from the terror on the screen
I'll make you see

That this is thriller, thriller night
'Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a
Killer, diller, chiller, thriller here tonight

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller, ow!

(I'm gonna thrill ya tonight)
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood

I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, ooh baby
I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, oh darlin'
Thriller night, baby, ooh!

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

Identity of Flag@WhiteHouse.Gov Revealed

developing...

Let's Face it - This is What They Are Acting Like

Yeah - sounds mighty familiar come to think of it...

Chavez Rant, and a Miscellany of Other Links

I don't know whether Obama's timing on the Honduras turnabout had anything to do with his trip to Guadalajara, but I do know that it was timed and executed so as to minimize any press scrutiny of the issue. Meanwhile, as Fausta notes, Hugo is making noises claiming that Columbia is making plans to war against Venezuela. He wants the US to leave the seven bases that are used to help Columbia execute its war against narcoterrorists.

Given Chavez's cozy relations with Hezbollah and company, it's not surprising that in the very same rant he rails against the Israelis. What we have here is Chavez essentially taking a page from radical Islam in stating that the US has imperialistic designs on the region and must pull out.

Whatever Obama's reasons for the timing of his "reset" policy towards Honduras, it's clear that Chavez's rant was spurred by the news that the US isn't going to help make Zelaya a Junior Dictator. How frustrating.

Mimes explain ObamaCare. Maybe they could give Gibbs some help.

Hard to know where the $700 billion to bail out the financial sector went.

We're sorry, you're just going to have to perish. Can I get you some tea?

Tea Partier pokes liberal in face for no reason at all.

SEIU still claiming to be the victim.

Snitch policy apparently still in effect.

Tea Partier calls in to slap down Astroturf slur on C-SPAN, gives them large piece of well furnished mind.

Another Dem Rep walks out of Town Hall to sound of derision.

Donald has plenty more on the Astroturf accusations.

Preview of Tomorrow's Press Conference

Tapper: What caused the President to change direction on Honduras?


Gibbs: What do you mean?


Tapper: According to the Miami Herald, he's not insisting on Zelaya's return, now.


Gibbs: Cuz, when you said, "change direction," I was like, was he going left and turned right? Was he going up, then went down? You know, so . . . I don't think you can call it a "change in direction."


Tapper: But, wasn't he insisting that Zelaya return?


Gibbs: I'm not following you . . . what do you mean, insist?


Tapper: And now he's not insisting Zelaya return? Why?


Gibbs: Well, you know, things change. That's what foreign policy's like, Jake. I'm sure you know that. So, things changed, but . . . but the President's approach hasn't changed. Look it up. It's at Whitehouse.gov. What? Do I have to read it to you?

The Serr8d Version