Why the economy still sucks

Here we are in Obama's much-touted "Summer of Recovery," where those flying unicorns are going to be crapping Skittles on us any day now. They'd have been in the air sooner, but they were held up at the airport since the TSA didn't know how to remove horseshoes.

If you can call "not yet screaming into the abyss at Ludicrous Speed" a "recovery," then I'm forced to admit the term is technically correct. These are positive numbers, not negative, so I guess that's something.

2009 - Q3: 1.6%
2009 - Q4: 5.0%
2010 - Q1: 3.7%
2010 - Q2: 2.4%

(Anyone notice that we seem to have peaked in Q4 of '09?)

How do the first 4 quarters of economic growth during the Obama Recovery compare, for example, to the first four quarters of economic growth during the Reagan Recovery? The economy grew at 8.1%, 9.3%, 8.1%, and 8.5%, respectively. Why such a dramatic difference? Obama is hostile to business, Reagan supported business. Obama is taking over industries, Reagan deregulated them. Obama has huge tax increases planned, Reagan cut taxes.

None of this is complicated. Obama has no idea what he's doing and seems hell-bent on following the failed Keynesian policies that have worked so "well" in Greece.

RTWT at Conservatives 4 Palin.

WANT!!!

This is the coolest--and most useful--Chinese puzzle EVAR.




It's a table sculpture! It's a puzzle! It's an emergency weapon system! And if you order now, we'll throw in the Ginsu Knife set, the Ronco Turnip Twaddler, and the TurboJuicer absolutely FREE!

Truly stunning. Many people can machine metal, but how many could design and build something like this?

Blogroll Update, Part III

Larry Correia at Monster Hunter International takes on one of the Left's raving psychos with the Sunlight of Logic and the Holy Water of Reason.

For. The. Win. (Warning: very long.)

Don't forget to read the comments!

What happened to you, Mr. President?

A couple of commenters (where else? On HillBuzz) got me to thinking today.

Poster 1: One other thing – has he EVER displayed a pleasant face in his speeches? It is always this dour look, look of scorn, hatred. I keep thinking that this is some nightmare and that one day, I will wake up from it and be relieved that it was only a bad dream…

Poster 2: I was just going to concur with Chrissy’s general take on these specific speeches/facial expressions…I noticed it at the time and, as usual, didn’t think to “make a big deal of it” because “we’re supposed to be nice”….so I love what she did here. But then I read your comment, I realize, y’know what? YOU ARE RIGHT! This is the way he ALWAYS looks! Dour! Sour! Full of scorn and bitterness. I can’t imagine living with such sourness filling my insides. This is not a person who EVER has a private chuckle with the family dog, talks to God about how beautiful the sunset is, tells a flower it is really, really beautiful today, or enjoys the arms of small child around his neck. He is just plain, 100% unpleasant. Yuck. I do believe he is dog poop on the bottom of America’s shoe.

It's true. Like all Leftists, Barack Obama is a very angry and bitter man. And I know about anger and bitterness. I carried a ton of it around for many years, and still struggle to get rid of it. And I know most, if not all of the reasons why. Coming to terms with those reasons is part of the healing process.

And now I ask: What evils have befallen you, Mr. Obama? At whose hands have you suffered so much, and so cruelly, that you would destroy the greatest nation on Earth in an act of revenge on life in general? Have you even one iota of your soul left untouched by cynicism and sullen hatred, or have you simply given up on the entire idea of redemption?

Likely, our President wouldn't read this even if I sneaked it onto a teleprompter. Introspection is scary. And the more damage your anger has caused, the more frightening it is to analyze your actions and take responsibility for them. I'm not putting much hope in a sudden epiphany occurring at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, or, for that matter, anywhere on Capitol Hill. But, today, the epiphany was mine. I realized something.

I do not hate Barack Obama.

I hate his policies. I despise his continued efforts to undermine our traditions, our economy, our national security...efforts, indeed, to unravel the very fabric of our great Republic. I loathe his offhand dismissal of the will of the American people. I can't wait until noon on 1/20/13--it can't get here fast enough.

But I do not hate Barack Obama.

I pity him.

Have I mentioned...

...my utmost admiration for the LawDog recently?

No?

There is not one single, gods-be-damned thing "culturally sensitive" about war. It's war. It's killing the other guy, and breaking his stuff, in job lots, until his side gives up.

Period. Full stop.

It doesn't get any better than a full-on, take-no-prisoners, Shakespeare-meets-R. Lee Ermey-style LawDog rant.

HillBuzz gives us a lesson in honor

HillBuzz has been covering a nasty scandal in the IL GOP for the past couple of weeks. It's at the point where even the Leftist blogs are picking up the story. They story itself has been well-covered already, and that's not where I'm going with this.

In this piece, the Boyz wax eloquent about Pat Brady, the IL GOP State Chair. Mr. Brady and his wife reached out to the Boyz on the eve of HRC's destruction and was instrumental in forging the independent, all-inclusive alliance of Americans we now know as HillBuzz. He is very, very dear to the Boyz, but...

While we’ll never be Republicans, because the corruption in the Cook County GOP is just as bad as in the Democrat ranks, so we feel more comfortable being independents at this point, HillBuzz has evolved into what it is today, with all of you as daily readers, because of the overtures the Bradys made to us way back in the spring of 2008.

We’d give kidneys to these people if they needed them. We love them, and are so grateful to them, and are so inspired by them.

BUT, Pat Brady needs to do the right thing regarding Lee Roupas...Pat Brady needs to fire Lee Roupas.

If he won’t, then we need to cross the uncrossable bridge and start advocating for someone to fire Pat Brady and replace him with someone who WILL clean house in Cook County, get rid of Roupas and the other “Romney Guys” frat boys stinking up the place, and prove to the voters of Illinois that there really is a choice to be made in this state: either vote for the corrupt, revolting Democrat party or vote for a party that’s about cleaning up the mess in Illinois and doing the right thing.

If Pat Brady fails to act by the end of this week, then we know he’s not serious about giving voters that choice.

It will break our hearts, and highly disillusion us, but we’ll have to start calling for Brady’s removal at that point.

That, my friends, is TRUE HONOR. When politics and personal feelings are overruled by the concepts of right and wrong. It's something we've lost as a nation, and need to regain post haste if America is going to survive. HillBuzz, as I mentioned in one of my first posts, shook up my world, turned me around, and made me become a true American again.

This is one of the reasons why.

Black Death, Day 100

Conservative New Media provides a "just the facts" review of the whole debacle.

THE CRUDE TRUTH

This was a 24-karat-gold-plated, 600-horsepower, three-cornered cluster bungle from the start. Perhaps, once we get the adults back in charge of this country, we'll be able to learn from the disaster and never see anything like this again.

One can hope.

Allen West on Geert Wilders

Sorry about the lack of verbosity lately. I kept staring at the "99 posts" and wanted to come up with a milestone. Why are we intimidated by arbitrary numbers?

Anyway, this is as much of a milestone as any I could come up with. Allen West, a truly great American, speaks out concerning Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders' censure for "hate speech." I guess the truth is considered 'hateful' to cowards the world over.

All who read this post, never forget a simple maxim which I live by: "When tolerance becomes a one way street, it leads to cultural suicide."

LtC West is a frighteningly intelligent man. He has made himself intimately familiar with Islam, its history, and its eventual goal--the domination of the Earth by a global Caliphate. Those who doubt this live in ignorance of history, both ancient and recent.

Read the whole thing. Then go forth and make it viral.

Synchronicity

Just as I finished the last post, I hopped over to C4P, only to find this:




My point exactly.

The peaceful and tolerant Left

I happened upon this story today, concerning a strange phenomenon taking place in Brazil--hundreds of dead penguins, their stomachs empty, have washed up on the beach. I'm greatly saddened, because I love penguins. Hopefully, the cause of their demise will be found soon.

Browsing through the comments, I encountered the usual expressions of dismay, smartassery and the all-too-predictable "ITS GLOBAL WARMING WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!!one11one!" Then I found one that puts the Leftist mindset into perfect perspective:

"Having worked with the general public for about 12 years now I have come to a simple conclusion. I am fine with some kind of mass extinction event in the near future. I dont mind dying as long as most of you zombies die too. Drill Baby Drill, I heard there's oil in the center of the earth let's drill baby. If I was to ever run into Palin, alone, there would be no more Palin."

First off, "Pablo" might wish to be a little more circumspect about threatening a public figure, lest some guys in black suits show up on his doorstep for a little chat. (And I believe Sarah would end up kicking his tough-talking ass up and down the block...then she'd pray for him.) But take a look at the rest of the comment. This guy hates humanity. He welcomes mass extinctions of human beings, which he terms 'zombies,' and is even willing to sacrifice his own life if lots and lots of other people die in the process.

Now, granted, one comment by one dickhead does not a movement make. But when you examine the Left--particularly the environazis--closely, in the light of this person's statements, it's pretty obvious he's far from alone.

The Left, as I've been slowly realizing for years now, is based on hate. They hate people in general. They hate themselves for existing. They really hate those of us who strive to better ourselves, who achieve great things, who believe in the exceptionalism and heroic potential of all mankind. For all their propaganda about how much they 'care,' they're consumed with rage, bitterness and self-loathing. How else do you explain their hysterical, rabid attacks against anyone who advocates freedom and liberty? Their alliance with an intolerant, murderous sociopolitical system disguised as a religion? Their elevation of the 'rights' of everything from animals to plants to dirt above the welfare of humankind?

Evil rarely announces itself openly. It wraps itself in platitudes of 'justice,' 'tolerance,' 'peace' and other feel-good terms, else it would be rejected before it could spread. But good intentions mean nothing when the end result is destruction. I will close with a quote from Ayn Rand which sums up the entire mentality of the Left in three lines.

"They do not want to have your fortune--they want you to lose it. They do not wish to succeed--they want you to fail. They do not want to live--they want you to die."