Heres my winner folks. It wins because of the title, lyrics and the almost half dozen horror movie refrences. From what I can gather it refrences, I know what you did last summer, Halloween, Psycho, The Ring, Scream (possibly), and I think Friday the 13th. Great tune, great band. Also the Kid Rock/Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee fight, Kayne West being a douche and Paris Hilton refrences are thrown in for good measure too.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
#2-Rob Zombie - Living Dead Girl
Once again Rob makes the list. Who will be #1? Check back tomorrow to find out.
#3-Rob Zombie - Dragula
No explaination needed again, its Rob Zombie, what else can you say? What will the top two be? Stay tuned to find out. And don't be surprised if you see Rob again
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Shake Weight for Men Workout: aka the funniest infomercial EVER...
Good god, who was the genius that let this get through. "30-45 seconds and I'm already covered in sweat " yea... no sexual innuendo there. Seriously unless the (painfully) obvious sexual puns/innuendo was part of the marketing strategy. Ellen found it first and it was just for women (infomercial wasn't as funny as this one) then these people called her back and said they were making a bigger, longer... (no I'm not making this up, how could I) version for men. Jon Stewart showed it on the Daily Show last night and I nearly choked to death on my pasta from laughing so hard. Worst, or best infomercial ever depending on how you look at it.
#4- Seether- Remedy
one of the creepiest music videos EVER made. Fire coming from the end of a guitar, guy looking like a psycho carnie (oxymoron I know). Its a nice headbanger tune and thoroughly nasty all throughout.
#6-Marilyn Manson -The Beautiful People
Best Manson song out there. I thought about using sweet dreams but seeing as how its a cover (albeit arguably better than the original) I chose some original work by him. Too bad he sold out. Even Trent Reznor regrets to a certain extent making him hit it big. Creepy video though
Monday, October 26, 2009
#7-Animal I Have Become Three Days Grace
Animal I have become, as in werewolf sort of? Not exactly but still kickass video and the last one I have to explain why its "halloween" related. The top 6 will be pretty self-evident
#7 Duality-Slipknot
I'm not explaining this one. Print out the lyrics and you'll understand. Plus they always, and I mean ALWAYS wear those masks in public. They showed up to the grammies in tuxedos and still had the fucking masks on! They get on the list for that reason alone
Saturday, October 24, 2009
#9-Lithium (Nirvana)
The reason I've put this up on my list is because it is a downright creepy song. For those of you who don't know Lithium is used to treat bipolar disorder, in 1992-3 its all they really had. Kurt was painfully bipolar as am I so this song has special meaning to me, plus it shows his fall into madness here. Doesn't get much creepier than that.
Friday, October 23, 2009
#10 scary music video- Halloween "Meet the creeper Rob Zombie" Music Video,
Ok a thing I'm doing for halloween coming up a top 10 list of the 10 best/scariest music videos. #10 is "Meet the Creeper" by Rob Zombie
Monday, October 19, 2009
Remember Hamid Karzi? Yeah...
This guy was supposed to be the "savior" of Afghanistan. Frankly I'm amazed he's still alive because of all the assassination attempts there have already been on his life it also turns out he's a corrupt little bastard too. Seems that he has learned the Chicago style of voting, stealing votes. According to the UN (yeah they did something useful, I'm stunned too)
A UN-backed election watchdog has declared invalid hundreds of thousands of votes for Afghanistan's president in the disputed August election, apparently stripping Hamid Karzai of outright victory and setting the stage for a second round.
After nearly two months of investigations, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) – controlled by a majority of non-Afghans – found Karzai's total had fallen to 48.3%, according to an independent analysis. He needed 50% to clinch another term in office.
A separate election commission that backs the president will have to endorse the findings and call for a second-round vote to be held in the next few weeks.
I wonder if the UN monitored our election how many votes would have found out to be stolen by either side. Just food for thought. Just what we need now...
A UN-backed election watchdog has declared invalid hundreds of thousands of votes for Afghanistan's president in the disputed August election, apparently stripping Hamid Karzai of outright victory and setting the stage for a second round.
After nearly two months of investigations, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) – controlled by a majority of non-Afghans – found Karzai's total had fallen to 48.3%, according to an independent analysis. He needed 50% to clinch another term in office.
A separate election commission that backs the president will have to endorse the findings and call for a second-round vote to be held in the next few weeks.
I wonder if the UN monitored our election how many votes would have found out to be stolen by either side. Just food for thought. Just what we need now...
Friday, October 16, 2009
Song of the week #1 A Town Called Hypocrisy
eh, maybe its the fact that I've been sick or just lazy updating my blog but I thought I'd give this a try. A song each weekend that captures my current mood.
Story of Stuff, Full Version; How Things Work, About Stuff aka indoctrination...
ok the reason I am posting this to my blog is that I really believe in a debate an exchange of the ideas that are out there. No matter how batshit crazy they are. I am in a critical thinking class this semester at the U of M where I will either have to debate for (god forbid), against this video and the statements this crazy bitch puts forth, without much citation mind you or be a mob and go after both sides. I hope I get to debate against the video, for obvious reasons. I actually saw this on Glenn Beck about a month ago and I plan on also posting the video that debunks this. The biggest problem I have with this video is that its being used like "An Inconvient Truth" was. That is that this is fact and there is no debate about this, the issue is settled. This is being used in schools as an indoctrination method for young school children. This is disgusting propganda that Gobbles and Pravda (look it up) would be very proud of. First tool in taking over a society, indoctrinate the children (see: Hitler youth), it might already be too late.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Fox vs.Obama
It has seemed to me that ever since MSNBC/NBC have essentially went into the tank for Obama after Super Tuesday 2008 FoxNews has been in an interesting position. Faux, as the left likes to call it, is seemingly the only opposition voice left in the TV media. I can't believe how far the other networks have fallen, I used to watch MSNBC and I literally can't anymore. I do try but the seething liberalism soaks through on everything, except their weekend series where they interview prison guards and prisoners (a lot of whom I bet voted for Obama, including the dead ones but I digress). I might just be viewing it through partisan glasses but Fox actually tends to have balanced views and has liberals on, Maddow and Olberman on the other hand take people from DailyKos and AirAmerica and treat them like objective observers. Hint to MSNBC, if you want more viewers stop sucking Obama's dick and have people on that are critical of him. Fox has great debates from respectable liberals (Juan Williams and Maria Liason from NPR come to mind) and MSNBC needs to have more than just Bill Bennett as a token every now and then. Here's the article from the NYT of all places...
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, in a telephone interview on Sunday. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
Attacking the news media is a time-honored White House tactic but to an unusual degree, the Obama administration has narrowed its sights to one specific organization, the Fox News Channel, calling it, in essence, part of the political opposition.
Her comments are only the latest in the volatile exchange between the administration and the top-rated network, which is owned by the News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch. Last month, Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, and David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, met for coffee in New York, in what Politico, which last week broke that news, labeled a “Fox summit.”
While neither party has said what was discussed, some have speculated that a truce, or at least an adjustment in tone, was at issue. (Mr. Ailes and Mr. Obama reportedly reached a temporary accord after a meeting in mid-2008.) But shots are still being fired, which animates the idea that both sides see benefits in the feud.
Fox seems to relish the controversy.
“Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality,” Michael Clemente, the channel’s senior vice president for news, said in a statement on Sunday. “Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about.”
Fox’s senior vice president for programming, Bill Shine, says of the criticism from the White House, “Every time they do it, our ratings go up.” Mr. Obama’s first year is on track to be the Fox News Channel’s highest rated.
One Fox executive said that the jabs by the White House could solidify the network’s audience base and recalled that Mr. Ailes had remarked internally: “Don’t pick a fight with people who like to fight.” The executive asked not to be named while discussing internal conversations.
Certainly, Fox continues to aggressively bolster its on-air talent, most recently with the hiring of John Stossel, the libertarian investigative journalist from ABC News, for its spin-off channel, Fox Business. The business channel is also keen on another administration critic, Lou Dobbs, who met for dinner with Mr. Ailes last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The shift for Fox News — the favorite network of the Bush administration, now the least favored one of the Obama administration — has financial implications for the News Corporation, especially given the network’s status as a growth engine in a perilous time for media companies.
Fox’s programs have drawn record numbers of viewers this year. Through last week, Fox averaged 1.2 million viewers at any given time this year, up from one million viewers through the same time last year. Previously, the channel peaked in 2003, the year the Iraq war started, with nearly 1.1 million viewers.
But controversial comments by the host Glenn Beck have also prompted an ad boycott. And the perception of Fox News as an opposition party has also affected its news correspondents, including Major Garrett, its chief White House correspondent, who Ms. Dunn says is a fair reporter. Mr. Garrett and other Fox correspondents have been directed by Mr. Clemente not to appear on the channel’s most opinionated programs.
Still, Paul Rittenberg, who oversees ad sales for Fox, said the channel existed in a climate where viewers choose cable news channels based on affinity. His channel, he said, stresses in its pitch to advertisers that “people who watch Fox News believe it’s the home team.”
To many Democrats, of course, the “home team” is conservative, a view only compounded by Fox’s at times skeptical coverage of Mr. Obama this year.
“I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration,” he said in June, though he did not mention Fox by name. He added, “You’d be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.”
The White House has limited administration members’ appearances on the network in recent weeks. In mid-September, when the White House booked Mr. Obama on a round robin of Sunday morning talk shows, it skipped Fox and called it an “ideological outlet,” leading the “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s prime-time show and call the administration “the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”
Ms. Dunn called that remark juvenile and stressed that administration officials would still talk to Fox, and that Mr. Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she added, “we’re not going to legitimize them as a news organization.”
In an interview, Mr. Clemente suggested that there was an element of “shoot the messenger” in the back and forth. “Sometimes it’s actually helpful to have an organization or a person that you can go up against for whatever reason,” he said.
Fox argues that its news hours — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays — are objective. The channel has taken pains recently to highlight its news programs, including the two hours led by Shepard Smith, its chief news anchor. And its daytime newscasts draw more viewers than CNN or MSNBC’s prime-time programs.
“The average consumer certainly knows the difference between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page,” Mr. Clemente said.
The White House rejects the news and editorial page comparison, and officials there can rattle off any number of perceived offenses. They date to the month before Mr. Obama formally started his presidential campaign, when one of the network’s morning hosts falsely claimed that he had attended a madrassa, an Islamic school. (The incident happened on what Fox calls an entertainment show, “Fox and Friends”; the mistake was corrected on the air later.)
More recently, Fox hosts have promoted tea party rallies against big government and steered attention toward a number of White House czar appointments. Mr. Beck, in particular, was credited with forcing Van Jones, a low-level White House adviser for environmental jobs, to resign last month. Mr. Beck devoted numerous segments to Mr. Jones and called him a “communist-anarchist radical.”
“If it wasn’t for Fox or talk radio, we’d be done as a republic,” Mr. Beck said in the wake of the resignation.
Mr. Beck, whose 5 p.m. program consistently draws three million viewers, is a “cultural phenomenon now,” Mr. Shine said. But this success has come at a price: he is the source of considerable discomfort for Fox’s journalists, especially for false statements on his program. In August, for instance, Mr. Beck claimed that Mr. Garrett was “never called on” at White House press briefings, but Mr. Garrett had asked a question that day.
Weeks earlier, Mr. Beck labeled Mr. Obama a racist, leading to an advertising boycott by ColorOfChange.org, an advocacy group that Mr. Jones helped found. Dozens of advertisers have distanced themselves from Mr. Beck’s show, causing headaches for Mr. Rittenberg’s advertising team, although he said Fox “hasn’t lost a dime” because the ads were moved to different hours.
Fox has made the channel’s tensions with the White House a story. In August, the network’s top-rated host, Mr. O’Reilly, dispatched one of his opinion program’s producers to ask why the administration seemed “so thin-skinned” at a White House briefing. The deputy press secretary disagreed, and said that Mr. O’Reilly had interviewed Mr. Obama during his candidacy last year. The administration’s aggressive stance suggests that it does not view Fox’s audience as one that can be persuaded. During the presidential campaign, Ms. Dunn said, it booked campaign representatives on Fox to try to reach undecided voters, but by mid-October, the campaign had mostly withdrawn them from the channel’s programs.
“It was beyond diminishing returns,” she said. “It was no returns.”
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, in a telephone interview on Sunday. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
Attacking the news media is a time-honored White House tactic but to an unusual degree, the Obama administration has narrowed its sights to one specific organization, the Fox News Channel, calling it, in essence, part of the political opposition.
Her comments are only the latest in the volatile exchange between the administration and the top-rated network, which is owned by the News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch. Last month, Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, and David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, met for coffee in New York, in what Politico, which last week broke that news, labeled a “Fox summit.”
While neither party has said what was discussed, some have speculated that a truce, or at least an adjustment in tone, was at issue. (Mr. Ailes and Mr. Obama reportedly reached a temporary accord after a meeting in mid-2008.) But shots are still being fired, which animates the idea that both sides see benefits in the feud.
Fox seems to relish the controversy.
“Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality,” Michael Clemente, the channel’s senior vice president for news, said in a statement on Sunday. “Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about.”
Fox’s senior vice president for programming, Bill Shine, says of the criticism from the White House, “Every time they do it, our ratings go up.” Mr. Obama’s first year is on track to be the Fox News Channel’s highest rated.
One Fox executive said that the jabs by the White House could solidify the network’s audience base and recalled that Mr. Ailes had remarked internally: “Don’t pick a fight with people who like to fight.” The executive asked not to be named while discussing internal conversations.
Certainly, Fox continues to aggressively bolster its on-air talent, most recently with the hiring of John Stossel, the libertarian investigative journalist from ABC News, for its spin-off channel, Fox Business. The business channel is also keen on another administration critic, Lou Dobbs, who met for dinner with Mr. Ailes last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The shift for Fox News — the favorite network of the Bush administration, now the least favored one of the Obama administration — has financial implications for the News Corporation, especially given the network’s status as a growth engine in a perilous time for media companies.
Fox’s programs have drawn record numbers of viewers this year. Through last week, Fox averaged 1.2 million viewers at any given time this year, up from one million viewers through the same time last year. Previously, the channel peaked in 2003, the year the Iraq war started, with nearly 1.1 million viewers.
But controversial comments by the host Glenn Beck have also prompted an ad boycott. And the perception of Fox News as an opposition party has also affected its news correspondents, including Major Garrett, its chief White House correspondent, who Ms. Dunn says is a fair reporter. Mr. Garrett and other Fox correspondents have been directed by Mr. Clemente not to appear on the channel’s most opinionated programs.
Still, Paul Rittenberg, who oversees ad sales for Fox, said the channel existed in a climate where viewers choose cable news channels based on affinity. His channel, he said, stresses in its pitch to advertisers that “people who watch Fox News believe it’s the home team.”
To many Democrats, of course, the “home team” is conservative, a view only compounded by Fox’s at times skeptical coverage of Mr. Obama this year.
“I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration,” he said in June, though he did not mention Fox by name. He added, “You’d be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.”
The White House has limited administration members’ appearances on the network in recent weeks. In mid-September, when the White House booked Mr. Obama on a round robin of Sunday morning talk shows, it skipped Fox and called it an “ideological outlet,” leading the “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s prime-time show and call the administration “the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”
Ms. Dunn called that remark juvenile and stressed that administration officials would still talk to Fox, and that Mr. Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she added, “we’re not going to legitimize them as a news organization.”
In an interview, Mr. Clemente suggested that there was an element of “shoot the messenger” in the back and forth. “Sometimes it’s actually helpful to have an organization or a person that you can go up against for whatever reason,” he said.
Fox argues that its news hours — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays — are objective. The channel has taken pains recently to highlight its news programs, including the two hours led by Shepard Smith, its chief news anchor. And its daytime newscasts draw more viewers than CNN or MSNBC’s prime-time programs.
“The average consumer certainly knows the difference between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page,” Mr. Clemente said.
The White House rejects the news and editorial page comparison, and officials there can rattle off any number of perceived offenses. They date to the month before Mr. Obama formally started his presidential campaign, when one of the network’s morning hosts falsely claimed that he had attended a madrassa, an Islamic school. (The incident happened on what Fox calls an entertainment show, “Fox and Friends”; the mistake was corrected on the air later.)
More recently, Fox hosts have promoted tea party rallies against big government and steered attention toward a number of White House czar appointments. Mr. Beck, in particular, was credited with forcing Van Jones, a low-level White House adviser for environmental jobs, to resign last month. Mr. Beck devoted numerous segments to Mr. Jones and called him a “communist-anarchist radical.”
“If it wasn’t for Fox or talk radio, we’d be done as a republic,” Mr. Beck said in the wake of the resignation.
Mr. Beck, whose 5 p.m. program consistently draws three million viewers, is a “cultural phenomenon now,” Mr. Shine said. But this success has come at a price: he is the source of considerable discomfort for Fox’s journalists, especially for false statements on his program. In August, for instance, Mr. Beck claimed that Mr. Garrett was “never called on” at White House press briefings, but Mr. Garrett had asked a question that day.
Weeks earlier, Mr. Beck labeled Mr. Obama a racist, leading to an advertising boycott by ColorOfChange.org, an advocacy group that Mr. Jones helped found. Dozens of advertisers have distanced themselves from Mr. Beck’s show, causing headaches for Mr. Rittenberg’s advertising team, although he said Fox “hasn’t lost a dime” because the ads were moved to different hours.
Fox has made the channel’s tensions with the White House a story. In August, the network’s top-rated host, Mr. O’Reilly, dispatched one of his opinion program’s producers to ask why the administration seemed “so thin-skinned” at a White House briefing. The deputy press secretary disagreed, and said that Mr. O’Reilly had interviewed Mr. Obama during his candidacy last year. The administration’s aggressive stance suggests that it does not view Fox’s audience as one that can be persuaded. During the presidential campaign, Ms. Dunn said, it booked campaign representatives on Fox to try to reach undecided voters, but by mid-October, the campaign had mostly withdrawn them from the channel’s programs.
“It was beyond diminishing returns,” she said. “It was no returns.”
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Thank you Obama
I have been sayting this since basically the "stimulus package" had been rammed through Congress back in his first couple weeks in office but Rich Lowry nails it.
The Nobel committee may have chosen President Obama as the Peace Prize winner because of its hopes for his impact on the world -- but his top achievement so far has come at home. Indeed, Obama has been on a roll.
In nine months, he has breathed life into the Republican Party, boosted pro-lifers, tarnished the reputation of regulation, bolstered traditional values, increased the public's desire for immigration restriction and shifted independent voters rightward.
No, Obama hasn't turned back the oceans. But revivifying conservatism almost before books announcing its death could be published qualifies as a feat almost as miraculous.
The 19th-century author Nathaniel Hawthorne warned of the perverse effects of grand schemes: "We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for." For Obama, proving that we live in a center-right country presumably isn't a "good" at all, but he's done it with a finality that the late sociologist Seymour Lipset -- a student of America's cussedly right-leaning attitudes -- might envy.
Obama's liberal grandiosity has reminded people why they tend to be conservative -- something they wanted to forget during the last four years of the Bush administration.
Gallup's surveys in recent months are a long catalog of the Obama snap-back. Fifty-three percent of Americans want government to promote traditional values -- "a return to the prevailing view from 1993 through 2004." Half of Americans want less immigration -- "a return to the attitudes that prevailed in the first few years after 9/11." Forty percent of Americans describe themselves as conservative -- "a level last seen in 2004." Fifty-one percent of Americans call themselves pro-life -- "a significant shift from a year ago."
It all explains the Obama administration's rush to push sweeping legislation. The fall from grace of George W. Bush coupled with the financial crisis, created a golden hour for American liberalism. The public's attitudes shifted left, and anything -- a New New Deal! a Greater Great Society! -- seemed possible. Now, public opinion is returning to its natural state, and Democrats are left in a race against the clock.
They want to pass, by roughly yesterday, a health-care program that won't take effect until 2013. The fact that the program is unpopular (53 percent oppose it, and 33 support it, according to the latest Fox News poll) only makes its swift passage more imperative. Hurry, before the window closes entirely.
The spectacle of a president elected partly on his cool, his seeming moderation and his post-partisanship jamming as much of an ideological agenda through as quickly as possible is not pleasing to the political independents enticed by all those qualities last year. More independents say they lean Republican than Democratic in a recent Gallup survey, narrowing the GOP's gap in party ID to the closest it's been since 2005.
In a feat that would be beyond Alan Greenspan and an army of "Atlas Shrugged"-touting libertarians, Obama and the Democrats have even managed to snap back attitudes toward regulation. In the wake of the financial crisis, a Michael Moore documentary trashing capitalism would have seemed superfluous. Why bother, when so many bankers did the trashing themselves? But TARP, the auto bailouts and the $787 billion stimulus have soured people on government more.
According to Gallup, 57 percent of Americans say government is trying to do too many things best left to the private sector. More Americans (45 percent) say there is too much business regulation rather than too little (24 percent). It's the worst showing for regulation ever in a Gallup survey.
"However, a March 1981 Los Angeles Times poll using this question wording recorded a 54 percent 'too much' level," Gallup says. "This was just after Ronald Reagan took office, and may have reflected Reagan's emphasis during the 1980 presidential campaign on the need to reduce government involvement in American society."
When Obama suggested he wanted to be another Reagan, surely this wasn't what he had in mind. But for now, he's the right's best community organizer.
The Nobel committee may have chosen President Obama as the Peace Prize winner because of its hopes for his impact on the world -- but his top achievement so far has come at home. Indeed, Obama has been on a roll.
In nine months, he has breathed life into the Republican Party, boosted pro-lifers, tarnished the reputation of regulation, bolstered traditional values, increased the public's desire for immigration restriction and shifted independent voters rightward.
No, Obama hasn't turned back the oceans. But revivifying conservatism almost before books announcing its death could be published qualifies as a feat almost as miraculous.
The 19th-century author Nathaniel Hawthorne warned of the perverse effects of grand schemes: "We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for." For Obama, proving that we live in a center-right country presumably isn't a "good" at all, but he's done it with a finality that the late sociologist Seymour Lipset -- a student of America's cussedly right-leaning attitudes -- might envy.
Obama's liberal grandiosity has reminded people why they tend to be conservative -- something they wanted to forget during the last four years of the Bush administration.
Gallup's surveys in recent months are a long catalog of the Obama snap-back. Fifty-three percent of Americans want government to promote traditional values -- "a return to the prevailing view from 1993 through 2004." Half of Americans want less immigration -- "a return to the attitudes that prevailed in the first few years after 9/11." Forty percent of Americans describe themselves as conservative -- "a level last seen in 2004." Fifty-one percent of Americans call themselves pro-life -- "a significant shift from a year ago."
It all explains the Obama administration's rush to push sweeping legislation. The fall from grace of George W. Bush coupled with the financial crisis, created a golden hour for American liberalism. The public's attitudes shifted left, and anything -- a New New Deal! a Greater Great Society! -- seemed possible. Now, public opinion is returning to its natural state, and Democrats are left in a race against the clock.
They want to pass, by roughly yesterday, a health-care program that won't take effect until 2013. The fact that the program is unpopular (53 percent oppose it, and 33 support it, according to the latest Fox News poll) only makes its swift passage more imperative. Hurry, before the window closes entirely.
The spectacle of a president elected partly on his cool, his seeming moderation and his post-partisanship jamming as much of an ideological agenda through as quickly as possible is not pleasing to the political independents enticed by all those qualities last year. More independents say they lean Republican than Democratic in a recent Gallup survey, narrowing the GOP's gap in party ID to the closest it's been since 2005.
In a feat that would be beyond Alan Greenspan and an army of "Atlas Shrugged"-touting libertarians, Obama and the Democrats have even managed to snap back attitudes toward regulation. In the wake of the financial crisis, a Michael Moore documentary trashing capitalism would have seemed superfluous. Why bother, when so many bankers did the trashing themselves? But TARP, the auto bailouts and the $787 billion stimulus have soured people on government more.
According to Gallup, 57 percent of Americans say government is trying to do too many things best left to the private sector. More Americans (45 percent) say there is too much business regulation rather than too little (24 percent). It's the worst showing for regulation ever in a Gallup survey.
"However, a March 1981 Los Angeles Times poll using this question wording recorded a 54 percent 'too much' level," Gallup says. "This was just after Ronald Reagan took office, and may have reflected Reagan's emphasis during the 1980 presidential campaign on the need to reduce government involvement in American society."
When Obama suggested he wanted to be another Reagan, surely this wasn't what he had in mind. But for now, he's the right's best community organizer.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Why Chicago won't get the Olympics...
If you have been listening to or reading the news or watching it over the last week you would be under the impression that the 2016 Olympics are going to Chicago hands down. You would be wrong. First of all what seems to be its strongest competitor, Rio de Janeiro just had to cancel the World Cup of swimming not due to violence (Chicago's #1 problem at the moment, more on that in a minute) but lack of MONEY. You know money, the thing that typically every city needs in order to operate and host something as big as the Olympics. Another problem I have with the Rio bid is that they're hosting the 2014 World Cup (soccer) and to turn around and host the Olympics 2 years after that would be hard, not to mention despite all the press Chicago has been getting about gang violence its a LOT worse in Rio and Brazil over all (because the games would be hosted all throughout the country, not just in Rio).
Another ereason I don't think Chicago won't get the bid is because of 2 major things, major conflict of interest for Obama and Daley (look it up or watch a replay of Glenn Beck from last night) and the lackluster support for the games. Just a few months ago support was 2-1 for the games among Chicago citizens. Now 47% approve and 45% disapprove. Not to mention the city (like most of the country) is virtually broke. I have to say even personally for me this time last week I was 100% for the games in Chi-town but I have done a complete about face in the last 48 hours due to findings that Obama's cronies would benefit a lot and that international tourist would get beat to death by the idiot gang members (sidenote, there's another tape that was just released about another beating on Drudge, to lazy to link to it).
Finally I don't want the 2016 Olympics in Chicago for a selfish reason, there is a very good chance if they don't get awarded it tomorrow (almost exactly 24 hours from now) that my own Twin Cities could get a bid for the 2020 games. We showed the world we could pull off the RNC last fall (which I am proud to say I was down there all 4 days, at Xcel, as a volunteer) and we have the infrastructure even now that could legitimately host the games.
Finally the two other cities that almost everyone else has written off, Tokyo and Madrid, have better claims but also problems. Japan hosted the 1998 winter games (sidenote: 2010 winter games are in Vancouver, if anyone cares) in Nagano and it seemed to go off without a hitch but the problem with awarding them the 2016 summer olympics is the proximity to Bejing who just hosted the 2008 summer games. Madrid has a case because its sister city (Barcelona) hosted the 1992 games that were very successful but the problem is that London gets the 2012 games and I'm not sure if consecutive summer olympics have ever been hosted on the same continent before, ever. So basically you can make a case for and against all of the finalist cities hosting the 2016 Olympics as I have to a certain extent. Everyone thinks it will be Chicago because we haven't had the summer olympics since Atlanta in 1996 (but we did have the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City). So my pick for the 2016 games? Rio de Janeiro and here's why, if the vote was last Friday, Chicago would have had it hands down. They have been their own worst enemy over the last week and citizens are literally revolting in the city (2016 games decorations were burned yesterday by anti-olympic protesters). Mark my words Chicago WILL NOT get the Olypmics awarded to them and if I'm dead wrong I will have a lot of explaining to do, which I will do, if the IOC actually does award them the games tomorrow.
Another ereason I don't think Chicago won't get the bid is because of 2 major things, major conflict of interest for Obama and Daley (look it up or watch a replay of Glenn Beck from last night) and the lackluster support for the games. Just a few months ago support was 2-1 for the games among Chicago citizens. Now 47% approve and 45% disapprove. Not to mention the city (like most of the country) is virtually broke. I have to say even personally for me this time last week I was 100% for the games in Chi-town but I have done a complete about face in the last 48 hours due to findings that Obama's cronies would benefit a lot and that international tourist would get beat to death by the idiot gang members (sidenote, there's another tape that was just released about another beating on Drudge, to lazy to link to it).
Finally I don't want the 2016 Olympics in Chicago for a selfish reason, there is a very good chance if they don't get awarded it tomorrow (almost exactly 24 hours from now) that my own Twin Cities could get a bid for the 2020 games. We showed the world we could pull off the RNC last fall (which I am proud to say I was down there all 4 days, at Xcel, as a volunteer) and we have the infrastructure even now that could legitimately host the games.
Finally the two other cities that almost everyone else has written off, Tokyo and Madrid, have better claims but also problems. Japan hosted the 1998 winter games (sidenote: 2010 winter games are in Vancouver, if anyone cares) in Nagano and it seemed to go off without a hitch but the problem with awarding them the 2016 summer olympics is the proximity to Bejing who just hosted the 2008 summer games. Madrid has a case because its sister city (Barcelona) hosted the 1992 games that were very successful but the problem is that London gets the 2012 games and I'm not sure if consecutive summer olympics have ever been hosted on the same continent before, ever. So basically you can make a case for and against all of the finalist cities hosting the 2016 Olympics as I have to a certain extent. Everyone thinks it will be Chicago because we haven't had the summer olympics since Atlanta in 1996 (but we did have the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City). So my pick for the 2016 games? Rio de Janeiro and here's why, if the vote was last Friday, Chicago would have had it hands down. They have been their own worst enemy over the last week and citizens are literally revolting in the city (2016 games decorations were burned yesterday by anti-olympic protesters). Mark my words Chicago WILL NOT get the Olypmics awarded to them and if I'm dead wrong I will have a lot of explaining to do, which I will do, if the IOC actually does award them the games tomorrow.
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