Here's hoping that you'll find this very special day to be filled with joy, love, warmth, and reverence. And please include a moment in your celebrations to give special thanks to our military men and women who are so far from home today.
Whatever your faith and whatever your politics, please accept my very sincere wishes that you and your loved ones enjoy a Merry Christmas!
-Stilton Jarlsberg
-
As a final parting gift to Americans before heading to Hawaii to get lei'd, Barack Obama herded enough lame ducks to pass his START missile treaty with Russia. And if you weren't worried about our nuclear defenses before, now would be a good time to START.
According to the U.K. Telegraph, "The United States, the greatest power on earth, has been browbeaten into agreeing to a one-sided treaty that rewards Russian aggression and intimidation."
In essence, the treaty prevents the United States from increasing or enhancing its anti-missile defense systems...leaving us increasingly vulnerable to nuclear threats from rogue states like North Korea and Iran. And in return for lowering our defenses, Barack Obama's team received almost nothing in return (other than the ability to inspect Russian missile sites at so slow a rate that some estimates say it will take us 40 years to visit them all).
Still, team Obama considers this Christmas START treaty to be a crowning foreign policy accomplishment which advances their continuing agenda of "peace through weakness."
To which our enemies in the world say "Ho, ho, ho."----
Want to track Santa's travels on NORAD? Just click here!---
"Net Neutrality" has been pitched by the government as an idea that is largely about assuring unfettered access to broadband Internet services. Which, um, we already have.
Unfortunately, the government didn't control that unfettered access (which is what "unfettered" means)...and so the FCC has just voted to put itself in charge and help do for the Internet what the government has previously done for jobs, healthcare, and world peace.
Of course, the government argues that they don't want to interfere with actual content on the web, or exert political influence. But that gets a bit harder to believe when you find out that the people who have been bankrolling the "net neutrality" push include such liberal whackjobs as George Soros.
And add to that the pronouncement of FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who says "universal access to broadband needs to be seen as a civil right." Because the Founding Fathers sure as heck didn't fight and die to create a country in which people would be stuck paying for dial-up service and 56k modems with which to access their online porn.
As is the case with everything else the Obama administration has touched, "Net Neutrality" is both deceptively named, and exclusively about taking away freedom and replacing it with big government control.
Which far too many Americans seem to be neutral about.
(PS: A special Hope n' Change "thank you" to Obama's Aunt Zeituni for portraying the role of "underprivileged, taxpayer-supported, martyr who wasn't invited to go to Hawaii with the family for Christmas" in today's cartoon.)--
Just when it seems that political correctness can't possibly get any more annoying, NPR's Nina Totenburg has managed to lower the bar.
While appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Ms. Totenburg said "I was at – you should forgive the expression – a Christmas party at the Department of Justice."
This wasn't an idle slip. Viewing the video, you can see her deliver the apology with an added little shrug of guilty shame, as if saying "I was at - you should forgive the expression - an orgy for pedophiles," or perhaps "I was at - you should forgive the expression - a baby seal clubbing party."
Because obviously even the word "Christmas" is that offensive to her...and she expects it to be equally offensive to her listeners.
We rather doubt that Ms. Totenburg feels the need to apologize when discussing Ramadan or Kwanzaa. And we also doubt that Ms. Totenburg is apologetic for accepting the check she received for appearing on Inside Washington...even though she was surrounded by, you should forgive the expression, Christmas decorations.
Showing us once again why Hawaii is called "the sense of humor" state, authorities there placed Barack Obama's dog under quarantine until it could prove its identity and show irrefutable documentation.
Which means that at this point, Bo the dog is better documented than the alleged president himself, and more eligible for a future political career than Obama's Aunt Zeituni who has no papers whatsoever (nor, apparently, an invitation to spend Christmas in Hawaii with her alleged nephew).
In order to get out of quarantine, Bo had to get a medical inspection and prove identification. Interestingly, it's far easier to get a Hawaiian "Certification of Live Birth," the only document Barack Hussein Obama has ever showed to prove citizenship. All someone has to do is tell a grass-skirted clerk "there's a baby at my house, gimme a certification of live birth" and pay a small fee consisting of pineapples and coconuts.
Such a "certification" is not considered acceptable proof of identity or birth even in Hawaii (which isn't exactly a place where they're sticklers for formality). To get a real birth certificate, you need to have a doctor's signature (or in Bo's case, a veterinarian) along with other verification.
Assuming that such a document even exists, it remains unseen. And just last week, the alleged president refused to show it even though this seemingly simple act would have prevented a military doctor from being sentenced to six months in prison for asking to see it.
Then again, maybe Barry can take the birth certificate out of the vault while he's vacationing in Hawaii...rather than let everyone continue to be dogged by the ongoing mystery.-
It's official: the Senate has voted to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which kept Gays from serving openly in the military, and the alleged president is expected to sign the bill into law as soon as his metrosexual nail gloss dries.
Here at Hope n' Change, we have genuinely mixed feelings about this policy change. We didn't like "Don't Ask" because it was forcing men and women to live a lie. Moreover, we support the notion of Gay Rights (not greater rights than straight folks have - simply the same). And though it sounds cliched, some of our best friends really and truly are Gay, and we have great respect for the monogamous longterm Gay relationships we've seen firsthand.
All of that being said, the military is a special situation. Individuals must mesh together and work as a team, or people will die. Which makes this a very high-stakes environment for social experimentation.
Some hand-picked military experts have said they expect the transition to be problem-free. Others have said that they expect the presence of openly Gay troops to hurt morale and weaken our fighting strength and security. And if the experts can't agree, how could the rest of us hope to know what's best?
So we hope that the reversal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a success...and that the integration of Gay troops has no negative impact. But if it does have a bad outcome, we also hope that leaders will have the courage to come forth and say so, and change the system back...even if it offends the politically correct.
In closing, we leave you with this clip from the film "Full Metal Jacket" in which you can see the way military team-building is, and must be, done. The language is "not safe for work," but the reason you're safe at work is because soldiers who look, sound, and act like this have made it safe. And we dare not weaken them.
This week, there was terrific news for the math-challenged when the Associated Press ecstatically proclaimed that the new Obama tax cuts "will save taxpayers, on average, about $3000 next year."
Wow! Who couldn't use an extra $3000?! Is this the greatest frickin' president of all time, or what?!
And of course, "or what" is the correct answer...or more appropriately, "wtf."
Because the recent tax bill, which the alleged president very reluctantly signed while wearing his frowny face, doesn't contain any cuts for income tax, and simply extends the current rates which were set by President George W. Bush. So the average taxpayer won't be getting any new cash flow whatsoever, and the $3000 "saved" is simply the money the Democrats weren't allowed to add to the average taxpayer's bill in the midst of an economic meltdown.
But according to the Associated Press, the "Obama tax cuts" represent a $3000 windfall for average shmoes, and this "significant new tax law" will also give tax breaks to those who are married, those who have children, and those who make investments...by keeping current rates exactly the same as they've been for the past 10 years.
So the "Obama tax cuts" aren't tax cuts at all. The "new tax legislation" isn't new. And the Associated Press isn't reporting real news...it's simply spinning lies to cover Obama's rear end. Which, ironically, isn't news either.-
