Thursday, October 13, 2011

Olive Garden: Presence of the American flag disrupts the dining experience

Olive Garden: Presence of the American flag disrupts the dining experience « Hot Air
Poor Warren had to ask her fellow Kiwanis members to just picture the flag waving in the breeze as they said the Pledge of Allegiance.
Here’s a bit of common sense for the Olive Garden: The restaurant in question is in America!

When the Zealots Are No Longer Zealous

When the Zealots Are No Longer Zealous - By Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner - National Review Online
The chief symptom of this embarrassment is silence.
Gone are the sloppy charges of “war criminal,” the Hollywood movies, the outbursts by celebrities, the anguished op-eds.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

How Walmart and the Retail Lobby Used Regulatory Robbery to Squeeze Banks, Consumers

CARPE DIEM: How Walmart and the Retail Lobby Used Regulatory Robbery to Squeeze Banks, Consumers
Here's some more public choice economics to follow the post below about Google's Chairman - this public choice analysis comes from Washington Examiner's Tim Carney about the recent announcement that Bank of America will begin charging a $5 monthly fee to debit card customers:
"The real culprit is Walmart and the retail lobby, which used government to squeeze banks and fatten their own bottom line.
Walmart won, banks lost, and now customers are stuck with a new monthly fee.

American flag display would disrupt dining experience- Olive Garden

American flag display would disrupt dining experience garden, flag, olive - Olive Garden - WPEC 12 West Palm Beach
"To be fair to everyone and avoid disrupting the dining experience for all other guests, they're unable to accommodate flags or banners of any type in the dining room," according to the statement.

Obama Tried to Apologize to Japan for the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The PJ Tatler » Obama Tried to Apologize to Japan for the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Obama Tried to Apologize to Japan for the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Let’s replace the American president with someone who goes out of his way to humiliate the country and see if anyone notices.
Oops, it looks like Japan did notice.

One stop on his tour was Prague in August 2009.
There he spoke of “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” ignoring that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure.

Another stop on the tour was in Japan, where Obama in November 2009 bowed to the emperor, something no American president had ever done.
It could have been worse if plans to visit Nagasaki and Hiroshima to apologize for winning the war with the atom bombs had come to pass.

A heretofore secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, was recently released by WikiLeaks.
Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling U.S. Ambassador John Roos that “the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘nonstarter.’”
The Japanese feared the apology would be exploited by anti-nuclear groups and those opposed to the defensive alliance between Japan and the U.S.

Yes, that’s exactly what the anti-nuclear activists would do. As an old anti-nuclear activist himself, Obama may have known that. Or he may just be an idiot.

Let me tell you a military story.
I joined the US Air Force and got sent to Japan in 1993.
I was a military reporter, and wound up spending much of my time with the US Navy.
At one point, I deployed aboard the USS Blue Ridge, the 7th Fleet’s flagship, for a cruise down the coast from Yokosuka to Nagasaki.
The visit was the ship’s first ever to that city, and took on many of the trappings of a state visit.
It was a big deal, and I was privileged to be a part of it.
The US history with Nagasaki is complicated, as you might expect, but less complicated than folks like our president seem to think.
The Blue Ridge and her crew were greeted with a welcoming flotilla of private boats (that had to get out of the way to keep the harbor clear), aircraft and hundreds of well wishers on the shore.
I toured the city with some sailors after our arrival, and found the people almost shockingly friendly everywhere we went.
They weren’t looking for apologies or an America that’s unsure of herself.
They were happy to have a visit by a major ship from their closest ally.

As weird as this sounds, having studied the war and the post-war period extensively and having lived in Japan for years and visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I’m convinced that the atomic bombings saved Japan.
They saved Japan from her own militarism and from potential Soviet invasion and partition.
America bequeathed to our bitter enemy a democracy that functions well to this day, and Japan is our strong friend despite its having raised its hand against us.
America has nothing to apologize for in its conduct or conclusion of that war.

Nothing at all.

Reckless Government Policies, Not Private Greed Caused the Housing Bubble and Financial Crisis

CARPE DIEM: Reckless Government Policies, Not Private Greed Caused the Housing Bubble and Financial Crisis
Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute writing in today's WSJ, explains that the Wall Street protesters have been grossly misled because it was "Reckless government policies, and not private greed, that brought about the housing bubble and resulting financial crisis."

Here's an excerpt:
"Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities.
The original legislative quota was 30%.
But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.

Issues & Ideas Forum [Mackinac Center]

Issues & Ideas Forum [Mackinac Center]
The Future of Unionized Government
Click below for a video of the Mackinac Center's Oct. 5, 2011, Issues and Ideas Forum in Lansing.

Excellent video!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

"You can have sex with animals." Zucotti Sq. - YouTube

"You can have sex with animals." Zucotti Sq. - YouTube
These tools are not in power or in the high paying jobs because they are incapable of the rational clear thinking to lead anything.
I'm sorry but you have to work hard to get somewhere.
Someone has to clean the floors and someone has to run companies.
This hippie nonsense will never take hold with the mainstream.
Sionn5 13 hours ago 30

Double-Dip Recession a Foregone Conclusion

Double-Dip Recession a Foregone Conclusion: Roubini - EU Business News - CNBC
The world's advanced economies are headed for a second recession, regardless of whether there is further chaos in Europe, noted economist Nouriel Roubini told CNBC on Tuesday.

Occupy Atlanta Silences Civil Rights Hero John Lewis!



You gotta watch this to the end!

Shocking Costs Of Environmentalism

Shocking Costs Of Environmentalism - Investors.com
Those who fancy themselves to be green progressives are about to get some unwelcome "progress."
Thanks in part to environmental rules, electricity bills are headed for double-digit increases.
'Americans," the Daily Beast/Newsweek reports, "are about to get another kick in the wallet."

Westmoreland - WSJ.com

Book Review: Westmoreland - WSJ.com
The War Over the Vietnam War
A new biography puts an end to the idea that we could not win

Monday, October 10, 2011

Children to be banned from blowing up balloons, under EU safety rules

Children to be banned from blowing up balloons, under EU safety rules - Telegraph
The EU toy safety directive, agreed and implemented by Government, states that balloons must not be blown up by unsupervised children under the age of eight, in case they accidentally swallow them and choke.

Netflix Kills Qwikster DVD-Only Business Before Launch

Netflix Kills Qwikster DVD-Only Business Before Launch - Peter Kafka - Media - AllThingsD
Qwikster, we never knew ya: Netflix has killed its plans to turn its DVD service into a separate business.

Instapundit

Instapundit

HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY
Many in the West will demonstrate their fierce originality and intellectual independence today by condemning Christopher Columbus using the same shopworn cliches they used last year. For those of a different bent, I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:


At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .

Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”

Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.

Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:


This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.

Indeed. Nonetheless, Bennett thinks that a different Italian deserves the real credit. (Reposted from 2005, but it still fits.) [Doesn't this leave you vulnerable to charges of recycling too? --ed. I prefer to think of it as "They came at us in the same old way, and, you know, we beat them in the same old way."]

I post this every year, as it’s evergreen. The original link to Bennett’s column seems to have succumbed to link-rot, but I believe this is it.

Posted at 8:24 am by Glenn Reynolds

Video: 'Occupy Atlanta' Silences Rep. John Lewis Via Jazz Hands

Video: 'Occupy Atlanta' Silences Rep. John Lewis Via Jazz Hands - Guy Benson
Having watched this clip all the way through several times, I still can't stop chuckling.
Here's a quick primer to prepare you for what you're about to see:

You must watch this video to get a sense of the idiocy that is sweeping our country.
Funny.....but sorta creepy.
Actually really creepy.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

‘Time short’ for eurozone, says Cameron -

‘Time short’ for eurozone, says Cameron - FT.com
David Cameron has urged European leaders to take a “big bazooka” approach to resolving the eurozone crisis, warning they have just a matter of weeks to avert economic disaster.

Here's The Chart That Will Get Obama Fired

Here's The Chart That Will Get Obama Fired

MSU vs U of M - It's Just Starting