Incidentally, I Own Five of Them...

Television is pure capitalism in action; with almost laboratory-contol perfection. Did you ever think about that?
Simply - if viewers watch a particular program, broadcasters reward them with additional episodes of said programming. Should they ignore it, or sample it and dismiss it, broadcasters then eliminate that particular title and replace it with something else to try to win back disaffected viewers.

Ratings = Revenue (or "Revenue Follow Ratings"), so there is no affirmative action in TV land; no boosts up the ladder due to race/color/creed, no loans to help tide over "struggling" shows...no quarter given, none asked. Viewers vote with their eyeballs, and the networks react to the numbers. Perhaps it is The Ultimate Democracy, as well (cue Star Trek theme music here).

So what to make of the ratings debacle known as the 2008 Academy Awards? This year's viewership sank to as-yet unrecorded depths:

According to figures from Nielsen Media Research, Sunday's three-hour-long ceremony at the Kodak Theatre averaged an audience of only 32 million viewers, the worst since records began in 1974...
Final figures are due to be released on Tuesday but are not expected to change significantly. If the 2008 figures are confirmed, it would represent a drop of more than 20 percent from last year's average audience of 41 million.

Could it be that the idea of honoring a parade of plotless anti-American screeds (or "dark films", as the media likes to call them, alluding them to be over the head of the commoner) was sickening to most Americans?

Well, good idea we tuned out. Because there was more of this self-indulgent ignorant I-hate-my-country egotism on display at the award ceremony. Via Gateway Pundit, we get an explanation for the glut of orange ribbons worn on the lapel of so many of these pretentious poseurs:

These represent the orange jumpsuits worn by Guantanamo prisoners, and call for the closing of the prison, and the cessation of a range of controversial U.S. behaviors. But how did do-gooders get this cause to accessorize the glitterati?

Enter Allison Walker, the entertainment industry liaison for the ACLU, which sponsors the Close Guantanamo campaign and distributes the ribbons. Walker is a former talent agent who once worked at William Morris. She left the biz after a spiritually cleansing sabbatical studying orangutans in Borneo, at which point she realized she wanted to use her industry connections to do good....

"I like to ask things that are simple and specific," says Walker. "The ribbon campaign is a very trusted sign in the artistic community." So. Walker and her colleague Jenny Egan took out a full-page plea in Variety, which read, in part: "Whether you are walking the picket line, the red carpet or standing on the supermarket line, wear an orange ribbon."

Well, gee, an ad in Variety! Hollywood was certainly convinced! Bet they also buy those magic Buddahs ("Rub his belly to earn riches!") sold in the back pages of the tabloids as well...what a bunch of gullible, vacuous psuedo-intellectual waifs they all are.

Interstingly enough, I found another tie-in to the orange ribbon campaign, which may or may not have been known to the Dupes of Hollywood - according to one Dr. Dennis Loo, alleged Associate Professor at California State Polytechnic , the ACLU stole the orange idea from his Declare It Now! Wear Orange against the Bush Regime manifesto.

Or perhaps they were simply a homage to Canada, where orange ribbons are worn as an awareness ribbon symbolizing Addiction Recovery.

The orange ribbon is also a a symbol for the freedom to own guns, and to indicate opposition to the Israeli "disengagement" plan of 2004. Hmm, maybe Hollywood really is owned by a bunch of pistol-totin' Jewish neocons !

Or not....

Anyway - will the low ratings given by Americans to the self-loathing Oscars wake the Left Coast up to the fact that this type of , eh, "dubius patriotism" does not pay off? Or will we see more of the same sh*t in 2008?

Guess what happens in a democracy when the elite fall out of touch with their constituents? Or when a company stops producing products that people desire?

Yup....

And Obama says: "Amen!"

Really, someone ought to get this girl a job with the Barack Obama campaign; she perfectly epitomizes the loathing of America that permeates the spirit of so many of his supporters. I am talking here about one Citra Wilson, who does an annual "insta-summary" of the Oscars ceremony for Salon. She explains, quite clearly, why so many of the key awards went to international movies/stars:

Our country, on the back end of a rapacious tear of sophomoric jerkbag behavior, is moving into the slightly more mature adolescent phase of starting to hate its own smell.

I am the greatest country in the world / I am the piece of shit at the center of the universe.

After shaving its head and driving drunk around the globe with no panties, calling itself the Antichrist, and finally abandoning its children, totaling its SUV and getting its ass kicked in the parking lot of the Persian Gulf, America is realizing that it is internationally loathed, broke, soulless, tasteless, fat, drunk, malicious, greedy and stupid, and has been generally behaving like a lousy excuse for a world superpower for long enough to lose all its friends and position.

Yuk. Seeing Citra Wilson express her own self-loathing in such a way is not unlike the written equivilent of watching a pus pimple pop. Sorry, should've posted this one with an advisory....

THE ICE AGE IS UPON US !

OK, probably not. But if scaremongering politicians can call up the spectre of global warming every time a tornado touches down, I can scream for ice (cream!) after an entire winter of deadly and dasterdly cold:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

More interesting tidbits, from scientists who are not suckling at the UN's teat:

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt...

...Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

We cannot take the risk. While global warming would lead to shorter winters, less fossil fuel use, more useable farmland to feed the world, and other sundry benefits, "Little Ice Ages" can be deadly. One must note, going back in history a bit (further than 1972, if you'll pardon), that the period encompassing the years 1200AD-1380AD was marked by extreme cold and moisture, according to written records of the time. Of course, just coincidentally, that period happens to intersect with the raging of the Black Death, the Plague that killed off over 1/3 of Europe's entire population.

So trade in that Prius for a Hummer, gas up those two-stroke snowblowers, and revv up those ATVs. When the summer comes (if it ever does), turn that thermostat down to 65 degrees, and thank the Lord for the flurocarbonated by-product. Make sure - for the enviornment's sake - that you are equipped with a good gas mower (five-speed ride-on preferred) and hedge trimmer. Got a pool? Keep that heat going; nothing like a bathtub temperature. And when autumn arrives, don't forget to arm yourself with the loudest, smokiest, most abusive leaf blower you can afford.

And remember: It's for the sake of our children, and their children....

Update: They agree at More Monmouth Musings:

CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray commented, "Temperatures ought to be at a peak, but instead they've held steady for at least the last five years and by some accounts, they've actually dropped. The case for urgent action to restrict energy use is getting weaker, not stronger. Given that affordable energy is the best hope of escape from poverty for billions around the globe, politicians need to ask themselves "where's the beef" before pushing their anti-energy policies."

Save the world. Take your next flight on a Gulfstream!

Obama: Messiah

Kathleen Parker captures, and nicely defines, the lighting in a bottle that is Barack Obama:

....It is hunger, and that hunger is clearly spiritual. Human beings seem to have a yearning for the transcendent -- hence thousands of years of religion -- but we have lately shied away from traditional approaches and old gods.

Thus, in post-Judeo-Christian America, the sports club is the new church. Global warming is the new religion. Vegetarianism is the new sacrament. Hooking up, the new prayer. Talk therapy, the new witnessing. Tattooing and piercing, the new sacred symbols and rituals.

And apparently, Barack Obama is the new messiah....

After a generation of Catholic-bashing, the Left attempts to offer up its own version of religion, and give us...a Pinball Wizard.

Absolute Liberalism...

....corrupts absolutely. The soul, I mean. Excellent analysis is found over at The Brussels Journal; where the laboratory rats may be French but the results are exactly what the Clintons and Obamas would wish for America:

Some time ago, during the demonstrations about the ‘first job contact’ in France, a statistic became ubiquitous in the news reports: three quarters of the French youth aspire for a job in government bureaucracy....But there is something else to be said about the fact that the vast majority of young people in France desire a career whose often main contribution is increased red tape and public debt.

Government bureaucracies, especially bloated ones, have an unparalleled freedom to define the scope and limits of their role and authority; a freedom to ‘produce’ goods and services of their own choosing at their own chosen prices...From this environment of ironclad job security, onerous benefits, light workloads and early retirements emanate the most self-serving occupations.

The young people of France demand those careers without any moral or intellectual reservations. Often this choice is viewed as morally superior to a career in the private sector. This prejudice, where the tax consumer is considered the moral superior to the tax producer is a unique achievement of the welfare state, and representative of the most insidious effect of the welfare state.

It is feared that the welfare state might crowd out philanthropy and good works. That may be true but the more important effect is that it gradually corrupts and alters the meaning of caring, benevolence and common good. It is an Orwellian dystopia where taking is giving and selfishness is altruism.

Hillary and Barack look down upon this landscape and say, "Behold, it is good", and pose policy platforms to install its equal here.

The American people will face a stark choice this November - one with ramifications that can reverberate well past one term (one still sees the felonious mistakes of Jimmy Carter splashed upon the front pages of the newspapers on a daily basis, a generation hence). One hopes, of course, that the coverage evolves a bit past chucking mud on the honorable Mr. McCain while gushing over Obama's winning smile and charming "rhetoric"....

If you want to see something beautiful in Jersey...

...sometimes you need to look way, way up high.

I took these pictures of last night's lunar eclipse from my back deck out in Old Bridge, in my own ham-fisted style - that is, I grabbed an older-model digital camera and stuck its snout down the throat of my telescope and snapped away. Suprisingly, I got a few good ones (I think):

Not quite yet total....

Funky colers; cool contrast. Is this natural or just a by-product of my amateur style?

Now it has that rust color going....and the man in the moon looks like he is shrieking....

..and now the Rock styles itself in blood-red....

Nice....thanks, God! What an awesome Creator we have, that can make something as galactically commonplace as the transiting of space rocks look so damned beautiful !

Obama's Mirror

Is he the perfect reflective source for the outsized egos of those whom laughingly call themselves "progressive"? The Secret is revealed at Just One Minute:

Obama's basic message is that he is a smart and reasonable guy who will reach out to people representing a wide range of views and bring them together to bring about "change".

But what people actually hear is something somewhat different, namely, "Obama is smart and reasonable and he will listen to me; since my ideas are smart and reasonable, he will ultimately embrace them as his own".

This creates a very different dynamic from the typical political campaign. Rather than trying to convince a majority of voters (primary or general election) that his ideas are superior, Obama simply needs to convince a majority that their ideas are superior.

The post also refers to the "Mirror of Erised", a Harry Potter reference that meant nothing to me until I did some research:

Symbolically, the Mirror of Erised is a mirror into the soul, because it reflects your heart's deepest desire ("Erised" is "desire" spelled backwards). The mirror image of the inscription "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" reads "I show not your face but your hearts desire." In the Mirror of Erised you do not see reality, you see exactly what you want to see.

If true, and Americans are only seeking someone that seems to validate their sense of world order, then it is a poor reflection on us as a people. Even worse, it would authenticate every pop psychologist's analysis of Americans as narcissistic feel-gooders, who believe that deeper insight and true understanding of cost/consequence are irrelevant as long as it all looks good on TV.

Well, that may explain his popularity among Democrats (the ultimate ostriches), but questions will be asked over the general election cycle that will cause the mirror to crack; at least for those whom are not bound to vote by race or party.

Can John McCain and a Republican/Independant coalition be the ones to smash this false mirror and expose the truth?

"Si, Se Puede !!"

Praying For Our Defeat In Iowa

If dhimmitude has hit the Christian heartland, than we are all truly f*cked. The Iowa Legislature, as is its tradition, opened up their session with a prayer, and on this particular day a lawmaker invited an Iman to deliver said invocation. And thus he spoke:

The prayer asked of "Victory over those who disbelieve," and "Protection from the great Satan" among other things....

Well, at least one lawmaker got a bit irked:

"I can't sit here while jihadist statements are made from the rostrum of the people's House of Iowa," said Rep. Gary Worthan, (R) Storm Lake. Worthan said he was angered by one specific line in the prayer offered line by the Muslim Imam, that morning.

"You are the pardoner, supporter and protector; and give us victory over those that disbelieve," said Imam Muhammad Khan, Islamic Center of Des Moines.

"Victory over disbelievers," Worthan said. "Disbelievers, non-believers are synonymous with infidels. The only way to have a victory over an infidel, or nonbeliever, is to convert them is Islam, or kill them."

No wonder the Muslim world is so smug and sure about their upcoming victory over the West. When else in history have government bodies allowed representatives of the enemy to present themselves in their chambers for the purpose of praying for victory over them?

And in closing....whom do you think the "us" is that the Iman refers to below? The people of Iowa, or...?

Khan's prayer lasted about four minutes and he closed with a few words for legislators. "On behalf of the Muslim community of Des Moines and Iowa, I wish you all the success in this year for making the right decisions for us," Khan said.

Khan was the guest of State Representative Ako Abdul Samad of Des Moines, who is also a local Muslim leader...

And a Democrat, of course. Funny, I could not find that little bit of information mentioned anywhere - and as a matter of fact, all of the news reports on the controversial invocation leave out not only Samad's party, but refuse to identify him whatsoever. I wonder why?

And I only thought this type of idiocy happened in the People's State of New Jersey. Scary to know the disease is spreading throughout the body....

Why We'll ALL miss George W. Bush

As soon as Hillary and/or Obama is elected, we'll have buyer's remorse. Just as the wise are in Australia after booting conservative stalwart John Howard:

Howard was very much Australia's John Galt: it was against his shoulders that movement leftists railed and to which he yielded not an inch. Howard's removal....unravelled that Newtonian relationship, foisting insane ideas, held back for 11 years by Howard, straight into the most vulnerable demographic - our children. Almost from swearing in of the new government, the leeching and corrupting the youth has recommenced.

It is not hard to see why Howard was so hated by the left: he was the centre-right's buttress against leftist stupidity and indoctrination. It will be a long three years...

Or four, in our case. As we wander in the wilderness, will Americans of the future cry out plaintively, "Oh, who is George W. Bush?"

And somewhere, Ayn Rand smirks...

Why John McCain?

Because the alternatives are too awful to contemplate:

One can agree or disagree with his peripheral positions, but political orthodoxy is political death. If those who are in a hissy fit about Sen. McCain would rather have Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, they will get Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton -- how delightful to go to jail for building your house on land once visited by an exotic moth -- and they will wake up to a great regret, as if in their drunkenness they had taken Shrek to bed.

Yup.

Whoops!

Looks like the enviorn"mental"ists are well on their way towards speeding the planet to the very destruction they claim they are trying to prevent:

Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

“Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis.” ....

The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”

In the wake of the new studies, a group of 10 of the United States’s most eminent ecologists and environmental biologists today sent a letter to President Bush and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, urging a reform of biofuels policies. “We write to call your attention to recent research indicating that many anticipated biofuels will actually exacerbate global warming,” the letter said.

Ah, just as I thought: It's all George Bush's fault!

Too bad Bush paid any mind to all this "global warming" (oh, sorry, now it's "climate change") bullspit to begin with. The increasing production of ethanol - supported by Bush - has already jacked up the price of food; and the legislation he signed phasing out incandescent bulbs in four years will force us to pay $5+ for fluorescent replacements. It's the same energy bill which mandates that auto manufacturers must increase their fleet mileage to an average of 35 MPG....hmmm, let's see, will Detroit wave a magic wand and create new technology out of thin air, or will they just make cars that are built with significantly lighter materials than the ones used today?

These two pieces of enviornmental legislation will do more harm to poor people than any of the "Bush tax cuts" ever did. Thanks to his kowtowing to the Cult of the Goreacle, poor folks will have to choose between light and food, if they can afford either. That is, if they can even survive driving around in cars so lightly made that a common fender-bender becomes a Pinto-esque inferno....

I think 10-15 years from now (as we shiver under the grey skies of a new ice age) these "global climate warming change" people will be seen in a much harsher light, as it becomes even more clear that they distorted climate science to promote a social/politcal agenda.

And in the meantime, the poor will suffer needlessly under the benign eyes of their "progressive" benefactors...

So I Pulled the Lever For....

John McCain.

Honestly, I was torn between the top two candidates - Romney is an excellent executive who could "manage" the country quite well, and do it in a conservative style. And while I love McCain's resume, I don't know how well lawmakers like McCain can actually run the country. Both in my mind are moderate Republicans - McCain has bridged the partisan divide on many key (and sometimes unfortunate) pieces of legislation, and Romney - well, if you are a Republican governor in a blue state, you have to govern from the center-right to survive.

So why McCain? Two reasons:

- he is much more likely - due to his fame and cross-party appeal - to win the general election against either Hillary or Obama this November.

- because I was sick of the bashing he was taking from the cacophony of conservative commentators in the media. Guys I usually enjoy listening to - Rush, Mark Levin, etc - have been frothing with anti-McCain bile for weeks, because he is not "ideologically pure" (my words). It was disheartening, and disappointing, to say the least. Hey, no one tells the JerseyNut who is "right" - whether it be the klowns on the NY Times editorial board, or respected right-wing commentators. You tell me to vote Romney? I'm voting for Big John...

Although, truth be told, I was sorely tempted, when I saw Rudy's name on the ballot, to give him one final show of respect...

Barack Obama: "Hope" for More Anti-Semitism?

Well, that's what I am getting, based on the blatently anti-Isreali and subtly anti-semetic remarks made by one of his key foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power. In a recent interview, a nice mix of Israel-bashing as well as standard liberal nut-jobbery:

Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the “national interest” as a whole is defined and pursued. Look at the degree to which Halliburton and several of the private security and contracting firms invested in the 2004 political campaigns and received very lucrative contracts in the aftermath of the U.S. takeover of Iraq. Also, America’s important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.

Uh-huh. Nice use of the code words there, Sammy. When are you going to start decrying the Je - sorry, the "Zionists"?

More - on why we must close Guantanamo as part of our "long and windy road to rehabilitation" :

To strip a group of individuals – no matter what blood some number of them have on their hands – of the most fundamental constitutional rights sends a signal to the rest of the world that there are two sets of human rights that we believe in: one robust set that Americans get to enjoy, and another much diminished set that those perceived as hostile to us get to enjoy.

Er - someone ought to tell Miss Powers that the Constitution applies only to American citizens. Isn't her claim that it is some sort of a "universal document" the exact type of American know-it-all-ism that she seems to decry?

And the rank stench of no-fault liberalism - "no matter how much blood"- bespeaks of a Carter-type administration where any crime against Americans - no matter how henious - can be excused simply by the fact that America is worse, America is not perfect, and America is to blame.

But back to Obama's close cadre of anti-Semites:

First, his spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., has called for divestment from Israel and refers to Israel as "racist." Indeed, there’s reason to believe that Wright is hostile to Jews. He is a friend of Louis Farrakhan, upon whom he has conferred a "Lifetime Achievement" award....

In addition, some of Obama’s key financial backers and foreign policy advisers are anti-Israel. They include George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Susan Rice, and Robert Malley. Rice served as an adviser to the Kerry campaign and, according to Glick, persuaded Kerry to announce that he would appoint Jimmy Carter and James Baker as his envoys for Middle East peace talks...

With advisers like this, it’s not surprising that Obama himself voted against defining Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group and supports opening negotiations with Iran even if the Iranians continue to enrich uranium.

But for Glick, what makes Obama stand out even in a party hell-bent on appeasement is his active advancement of the interests of Islamists in Kenya...

Can I have the "audacity to hope" that our next President is not a virulant anti-Semite?

Or as a white male Jew, am I - to Obama and his sycophants - the epitome of all that is evil?

Let's see if the media (or Hillary) calls him out on these policy positions...or if this type of overt racism is now simply accepted dogma within the Democratic party....