Nanny-statist Senator Jean Francois Kerry, North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, Mississippi’s Roger Wicker, and yes, Minnesota’s own Senator Amy Klobuchar think that AT&T’s exclusive contract to sell the new I-Phone is somehow unnfaaair! Somehow these lame-brained senators think that free-enterprise (did I say free?) should be run like a kindergarten classroom, by making sure everyone gets equal toys. Which is ridiculous. When I was a kid and my folks were poor – wishing I had the same RC car as the richer neighbors kid didn’t do anything. It’s why I grew up and got an education, and opportunities so that if my kid needs that RC car – I can get it for him. Competition, according to these mental midgets, is a baaad thiiing… because competition means someone might not do as well as somebody else, and someone might walk away feeling baaad. And for some unknown, godforsaken reason, competition is somehow bad for consumers.

So, in the interests of faaairness, and with a lack of other things of import on which to focus, these nanny-statist buffoons will take it upon themselves to convene a hearing on why it is sooo unfaaiiir that some wireless services should have so much while others have so very little, and to better understand why this is so.

Here’s a clue, Senators: It’s called CONTRACT LAW. It’s called COMPETITION. Sprint saw the smoke signals that AT&T had an exclusivity deal with the I-Phone, and snatched up and pre-empted the new I-Phone release with what I believe is a superior phone, the Palm Pre. And not for the $599 price tag of the new I-Phone, but for a mere $200 semolians.

Being a Palm person myself with an AT&T contract, was I happy about it? Hell no. But that’s the way the ball bounces. I know that after a while, the exclusivity on models runs out, and phones are then more widely available with a variety of carriers.

I don’t need some government nannystaters to wipe away my tears, thank you.

The point is, competition is the force that ultimately provides the drive to enhance the quality and value of goods and services; while lack thereof fosters mediocrity, poor service and just not giving a damn.

Which is, when it comes down to it, what liberalism is all about.

(h/t Chris Baker)

Because of David Letterman’s moronic, imbecilic jokes about Sarah Palin’s 14-year old daughter, there are those who want to use the opportunity to get Letterman fired.

This is where I part ways with many of my conservative brethren.

Is what Letterman said about Palin’s 14-year old daughter getting “knocked up” by Alex Rodrieguez an abominable statement in poor taste?

Absolutely.

Does David Letterman deserve to be criticized for his gross indiscretion?

You bet.

Part of the consequences of speaking your mind in a free society is opening yourself up for criticism for what you say.

But when we, as conservatives, travel down the road of the gallows for what a leftist says, we are no better than those who take that same path as a means to silence their critics without bothering to take the time nor the energy to engage those critics on the basis of their ideas.

Especially when those on the left have nothing to offer to bolster their own arguments.

Criticize Letterman til the cow comes home. The fact that he made that joke about a young teenager getting “knocked up” by an adult is enough ammunition to figuratively poke holes in Letterman til the hole between his teeth cannot be discerned from the rest of his sorry persona that resembles a putrid hunk of swiss cheese.

Awareness of Letterman’s crass behavior will lose him viewers, causing his show to wither on the vine naturally, resulting in a slow, painful death, a death caused by the changing and awakening of people’s hearts and minds. Our cause will be won in the marketplace of ideas, which will manifest itself in the free market system.

And that, my friends, is how to chalk one up for the conservative cause.

We do the conservative cause nor the advancement of our principles no favors when we adopt the thug tactics of the other side.

No hearts nor minds are changed.

All that is left is a pile of smoldering manure punctuated by a “Gotcha!”

The conservative cause is advanced in and is summarily successful in the arena of ideas.

For the sake of the cause and our priniciples, let’s not lower the bar.

On a recent “sackcloth & ashes tour,” Barack Hussein Obama (pbuh) declared that the United States is no longer a Judeo-Christian nation; in fact, he at one time stated incorrectly that the United States was now one of the largest Muslim nations on the planet (perhaps the 58th state he had in mind?).

Congressman Randy Forbes from Virginia schools ‘the one’ on a history class that “the messiah” may have been missing, or something that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright may have left out of his “God D*mn America!” sermons:

Perhaps His Eminence, Barack Hussein Obama (pbuh) would do well to remind himself that as a statesman, he speaks for the United States of America, not his own ego or wishful thinking.

In the age of Obama. In this new, enlightened age of alternative energy. A time in history that the ‘messiah‘ would usher in an era in which

"we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…"

How is it, that during this brave, new, enlightened age, that we should hear about significant job layoffs in, of all places, a wind turbine plant?

Pipestone, Minn. (AP) — A wind power company in southwestern Minnesota has announced it will eliminate 70 jobs this summer with another 90 layoffs possible by the end of September.

According to a letter sent to city officials, Suzlon will make the first round of layoffs at the Pipestone turbine blade plant by Aug. 2. Another 90 job losses will likely be added to that tally.

Pipestone Mayor Laurie Ness says the news is "crushing blow" to the city.

How can this be, that a company that was literally booming during the Bush Administration, would have to actually lay off workers during the environmentally-conscious, environmentally-pristine era over which which the lord and savior Barack Hussein Obama presides?

Perhaps a quick jaunt from the small town of Pipestone, Minnesota, to the small town of Willmar, Minnesota, may give us a clue:

WILLMAR (AP) – Two wind turbines are expected to be up
and running in Willmar by the end of July.

The city is finishing up construction of the turbines, which
will each generate two megawatts of power.

Wesley Hompe of Willmar Municipal Utilities says the turbines
will keep 236,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Hompe says Willmar hopes to add more turbines in the future. The
initial project has a $10 million budget.

Let’s see… two wind turbines will provide the city of Willmar with two mega-watts of power. Pretty impressive, eh? Well, hold the phone, as Paul Harvey would say:

That’s enough to cover about 3 percent of the city’s annual energy needs.

Two turbines provide three percent of Willmar’s annual energy needs. According to Wikipedia, the year 2000 census (that was, of course, pre-ACORN estimates–no doubt the 2010 census will half; Willmar leans Republican by over 10%–but I digress) showed Willmar’s population to be at 18,351. Some simple math indicates that two turbines will power the energy needs of some 550.3 of Willmar’s 18,351 residents.

Of course, the story states that Willmar has plans to further their capacity by building more wind turbines. At this rate, they will need to build a paltry 30 more wind turbines to meet the needs of all of Willmar’s residents, that is if they most likely power nothing but a small fan to keep cool and cook nothing but toast for their meals.

In other words, the layoffs at the turbine plant at Pipestone and the exercise in futility at Willmar’s taxpayers’ expense are but a microcosm of the empty promises laid out by the messiah lord Obama, Algore, and sadly, even Tim Pawlenty.

For no other reason than to make themselves feel better.

For in the end, folks, it’s not about the environment. It’s not about mother earth.

It’s about them.

You get boneheaded publicity stunts like this:

A jumbo jet being chased by a F-16 fighter jets buzzed Lower Manhattan this morning, panicking New Yorkers, many of whom were forced to evacuate their office buildings.

It was not a terrorist attack, however, but a photo opportunity for Air Force One, sources told the Post.

President Obama was in Washington at the time, but the low-flying 747 circling the Statue of Liberty was one of the planes used as Air Force One, sources said.

The NYPD and the city were notified of the planned flight, but did not share that information with Mayor Bloomberg and other New Yorkers, many of whom said they were terrified.

From a psychological perspective, this was a cruel and twisted joke. Many New Yorkers still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental disorder whereby sights, sounds and/or smells can re-trigger fight-or-flight responses associated with a past traumatic event.

But remember, ladies and gents, according to the mental giants gnats, i.e., Obama & the rest of the teenagers with credit cards (a/k/a-the democrat-controlled Congress), 9/11 never happened. It’s not even a war on terror anymore. It is a memory to be stuffed and snuffed; so I’m sure that quiz-kid Obama never thought twice about allowing this sophomoric stunt to occur.

There is a White House official who fell on the sword, but you can bet that His Arrogance and Pompancy, Barack Hussein Obama, will never apologize personally for re-traumatizing New Yorkers.

In the words of Bugs Bunny…

What a maroon.

Today marks an infamous date in history: The day when a highly placed elected U.S. official, with U.S. men and women in harm’s way (including my son, at the time), declared that we lost the war in Iraq:

He did this, of course, to give aid and comfort to those fighting our soldiers, ahead of the Bush-led surge in Iraq, so as to effect more U.S. troops coming home in body bags, so he could turn it to his and his party’s political advantage.

Why this traitor hasn’t been removed from a high-ranking leadership position in the United States Senate, or better yet, placed in a stockade, is beyond reason.

What a scumbag.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I attended the teaparty in my home town today, but what I found was clearly a pleasant, and somewhat overwhelming surprise!

Details, including pictures and video, at The Ice Palace.

With my son having a rare genetic bone disorder, we have often utilized the expertise available at Minneapolis Shriner’s Children’s Hospital. The care there is top notch, and they are tops at what they do. Nowhere else can one find more competent care with regard to children’s orthopedic issues, burn issues, and other muscular-skeletal maladies. And most of all, treatment there is of absolutely no charge to its patients.

Bruce Thompson at American Thinker brings some bad news:

The Shriners Children’s Hospitals, which have provided free medical care to children, may be closing many of their facilities. The endowment supporting these facilities have fallen in value from $8 billion to 5 billion, with income also down sharply. Supporting current operations is reportedly drawing down the endowment further at a pace of $1 million a day, according to AP.

And if President Obama gets his wish with limiting deductions wrt charitable contributions, the future of Shrine Hospitals looks even more bleak:

The Obama administration proposal to reduce the tax deductibility of charitable donations makes the future dim for these, and many other worthy charitable endeavors, whose funding basis has been devastated.

Indeed. But it would appear that through greatly decreasing and/or eliminating charitable deductions altogether, the socialist Obama administration plans to bleed private charities dry, thereby leaving the government to step in and take up the slack; this would by necessity not only grow government, but increase its power and influence over others to the point where Big Government will be the be-all, and the end-all, womb-to-the-tomb abomination.

‘Charitable functions’ will be an exclusive function of the government, and as thus will cease to be charity, as charity itself has a voluntary component.

So, Obama voters, how do you like your ‘brave new world’ now?

I give President Obama kudos for ordering the special forces operation that freed Captain Phillips. Negotiating with these terrorists of the seas would have no doubt resulted in more and more unabated attacks on our interests.

But now that this episode is over, what is the Administration’s next step? Will he take the way of administrations prior to Bush, and treat each act of piracy as a ‘criminal matter?’ Or will President Obama rightly label any act of piracy against an American ship as an act of war and act accordingly?

President Obama would do wonders for his credibility and resolve in defense matters should he choose the latter.

Nicholas Kristof has an interesting op-ed in the New York Times, entitled, “Humanity, Even for Nonhumans,” speaking of those who believe that the human race has the moral obligation to relieve suffering of species that we tend to uh… eat. Some interesting tidbits in Kristof’s column include this pioneer in animal “rights.”

One of the few exceptions was Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher who 200 years ago also advocated for women’s rights, gay rights and prison reform. He responded to Kant’s lack of interest in animals by saying: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

Interesting line of questioning, especially the italicized phrase.

Fast forward to a modern, “enlightened” animal rights whacko, also mentioned in the Kristoff piece:

Yet the movement is also the product of a deep intellectual ferment pioneered by the Princeton scholar Peter Singer.

Professor Singer wrote a landmark article in 1973 for The New York Review of Books and later expanded it into a 1975 book, “Animal Liberation.” That book helped yank academic philosophy back from a dreary foray into linguistics and pushed it to confront such fascinating questions of applied ethics as: What are our moral obligations to pigs?

John Maynard Keynes wrote that ideas, “both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.” This idea popularized by Professor Singer — that we have ethical obligations that transcend our species — is one whose time appears to have come.

“There’s some growth in numbers of vegetarians, but the bigger thing is a broad acceptance of the idea that animals count,” Mr. Singer reflected the other day.

Kristoff goes on to further describe the encounter he had with Singer:

I eagerly pushed Mr. Singer to find his boundaries. “Do you have any compunctions about swatting a cockroach?” I asked him. “Not much,” he replied, citing reasons to doubt that insects are capable of much suffering. Mr. Singer is somewhat unsure about shellfish, although he mostly gives them the benefit of the doubt and tends to avoid eating them.

If Mr. Singer, a known leftist, would channel his compassion toward ending suffering for all forms of life, animal and human, I may have respect for what he has to say. But like most leftists with regard to their storeroom of compassion, Mr. Singer’s capacity for compassion weighs empty when it comes to human beings:

An internationally known Princeton “bioethicist” and animal-rights activist says he’d kill disabled babies if it were in the “best interests” of the family, because he sees no distinction in the child’s life whether it is born or not, and the world already allows abortion.

The comments come from Peter Singer, a controversial bioethics professor, who responded to a series of questions in the UK Independent this week.

Earlier, WND reported Singer believes the next few decades will see a massive upheaval in the concept of life and rights, with only “a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists” still protecting life as sacrosanct.

To the rest, it will be a commodity to be re-evaluated regularly for its worth.

To the irreligious left who eschew boiling lobster, who protest killing whales, or baby seals, or for that matter Mr. Singer, who eschews eating oysters on the half-shell due at the mere ‘possibility’ of their suffering, their stores of compassion somehow run precariously dry when newborn or soon-to-be-born human beings enter the equation.

Being leftists, they celebrate human death. That’s why they worshipped Stalin, Mao, Che Guevara and the North Vietnamese communists, and continue to worship Castro, Chavez and other murderers. That is why they celebrated the banning of DDT, even though they knew it would result in untold human deaths due to malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

To the left, human death is cool. Human death is righteous. For human death fits right in to the Marxist bromide, “Everything that exists deserves to be destroyed.” In their view, which is reflective of their über prophet, Karl Marx, their phoenix that is their otherwise unattainable socialist utopia must necessarily rise from the ashes of human debris.

To the leftist, death is cleansing; death means rebirth.

Human death, anyway.

In short, leftists, at their very core, operate from a platform of pure evil.