gloogle goin’ image giggy

Useful?  how?!?

it speaks

The EU is in deep doo-doo.  And the doo-doo storm is coming our way.

WTH is this guy’s angle?!?

...

So makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large a portion of euroland to be helped in this way. The survival of Greece would still leave the future of the euro in question. Even if it handles the current crisis, what about the next one? It is clear what is needed: more intrusive monitoring and institutional arrangements for conditional assistance. A well-organised eurobond market would be desirable. The question is whether the political will for these steps can be generated.

*clicky*clicky* to see who’s big idea this is.

act now or forever hold your ankles

Since climate legislation stalled in Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to circumvent the legislative process and pass rules to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA’s proposed plan is an attempt to control the economy. Virtually every person and every business emits carbon dioxide and the EPA is attempting to use the Clean Air Act to control it all.

Under the EPA’s rules, if a business emits more than the limit on carbon dioxide, it would be required to obtain a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit to build or a building.

These permits are costly and time-consuming. They will delay our economic recovery by stifling business development and will cause $7 trillion in lost economic activity, according to the Heritage Foundation.

...In order for the EPA to review and issue these new permits, it would require 17,320 full-time employees and the compliance costs would exceed $5 billion, according to information requested from the EPA by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Here’s the key phrase:

This is the most expensive and expansive environmental regulation in history and would bypass the legislative process completely.

Let me repeat that for the ‘Lympians in the crowd:

bypass the legislative process completely.

Why bother even mouthing the words “Democracy” or “Constitutional Republic.” If we allow this—no matter how stupid or how valid the reason behind it—we will have signed off on government by Board, Commission and fiat.

This, to my mind, is the most important issue of our times.  If we don’t set up a howling to rival the demons of Hell over this, the Progressives will take as granted our permission to do any damned thing they wish.

Don’t be fooled:  this is taking place on a state level all over this nation.  We must fight those as well.

Luckily, there is still time to act. Once the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is published in the Federal Register, all members of the public can comment. You can tell the EPA this is bad for American businesses.

There is time for our elected officials to intervene. Congress can amend the Clean Air Act to ensure the EPA cannot regulate our economy. There are several actions that have been introduced in the House and Senate.

rly?

After repeated attempts to notify Toyota of a problem with its vehicles, Smith said the automaker eventually blamed them for incorrectly applying the brakes.

Great. I don’t have enough to worry about, now I gotta watch out for renegade Toyotas?!?

permanent dependency

Black farmers – possibly over 70,000 of them – will get cash payments and debt relief from the federal government totaling $1.25 billion, in reparation for alleged racial discrimination suffered under the Department of Agriculture’s loan programs, the Obama Administration has agreed.

The president announced the deal on [2/18], applauding Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder for “bringing these long-ignored claims of African American farmers to a rightful conclusion.”

The Washington Post called the settlement “part of a wider effort by Obama and senior officials to dispense with lawsuits stemming from America’s checkered civil rights legacy.” ...The charges made by thousands of black farmers, with culpability finally accepted by Washington, accuse the USDA of decades of racist practices.

rly?  I would think these lawsuits had been/are being processed through the courts and handled.  If any “raaaaacist practices” were uncovered, wouldn’t there have been prosecutions?  Or are the courts “raaaaacist,” too?  [wouldn’t that generate another suit?]

Oh.... wait.

That $1.25 billion is only a fraction, however, of the sum that the reparations movement has called for to compensate for all the injustices committed against blacks in American history.

...The National Legal and Policy Center some years ago examined slave reparations activism and found one proponent calling for the federal government “to pay $500,000 to every slave descendant,” which would total “more than $15 trillion and require a surtax of roughly $50,000 on each non-African American man, woman and child in this country (the median family income is not even that high).”

Another estimate from a 1990s Harper’s magazine article calculated that reparations would cost $97 trillion – based on 222,505,049 hours of forced labor between 1619 and 1865, plus 6% compounded interest.

...According to the reparations mindset, therefore, President Obama’s $1.25 billion for 70,000-plus black farmers is hardly even a beginning.

wow.

Obama-style

The United States has unveiled plans for its new $1 billion high-security embassy ... — the most expensive it has ever built. ...

A moat ... 100ft wide and rolling parkland will separate the building from the main road…

Wow.  Moat… Free fire zone… This must be in Baghdad, right?
um, no.

The State Department sought to play down the cost of security measures… But the price puts the London embassy above the US’s most fortified missions, including the Baghdad embassy, which cost $600 million but required a further $100 million of work on air conditioning, and the Islamabad embassy, still under construction, which has cost more than $850 million.

Isn’t a “moat” supposta go all the way around?

A Republican candidate for Congress in California is calling on U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra to “clarify his reaction” after the Democrat was caught on a YouTube video laughing at a suggestion that the Pledge of Allegiance be recited prior to a union meeting in Los Angeles.

“On the morning of February 20th, I was invited to address some 500 people gathered to discuss the human tragedy of a broken immigration system and the need to fix it. At some point during that meeting, a political operative for a congressional campaign asked if we could recite the pledge of allegiance. The meeting was already under way and the question was unexpected. It took us all by surprise. When the speaker explained that he was serious and asked me specifically if we could say the pledge, I said yes and gestured to the moderator, who then led the entire gathering in reciting the pledge.”

Rush

TimO (for the link)

or Progress

The Navy is ending its ban on women serving aboard submarines

I got no dog in this fight; whatever those who serve think will make things better is ok by me. 

My cousin, who did serve on subs, showed me around the museum one in the SF harbor once, explaining that one was much larger and roomier than the ones he had known.  Me?  I was ready for the rubber truck about 37 seconds in—and the museum sub had all the doors hatches bolted open.
*shudder*

I like boats—I really do.  So long as I know I can swim to shore.

(*)

Pass the poppers!

Fischer presses his face to the passenger windows of Hot Air, and sees Green Room contributor Repurblican crouched on the wing, tearing pieces of conservative purity from the starboard engine.