Happy New Year 2010

2010

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~Bill Vaughan

-- written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s --
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

3 days to respond

Report: Rush Limbaugh taken to Hawaii hospital

HONOLULU (AP) — Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital with chest pains on Wednesday, a Honolulu television station reported.

Paramedics responded to a call from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing, KITV reported. The station, citing unnamed sources, said the 58-year-old Limbaugh was taken to The Queens Medical Center in serious condition.

Voter Attitudes Towards Health Care Plan Harden - 58% Opposed
Many have questioned whether those who favor or oppose the health care plan in Congress really know what’s in it. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey suggests that they have a decent understanding of the bill and that voter attitudes towards the legislation have hardened


December 30, 2009

Top Ten reasons it took Obama 3 days to respond to terror attempt

William Tate
Barack Obama has received considerable criticism for waiting three days to address the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253. In the holiday spirit of giving, I would like to offer Obama ... the Top 10 excuses Obama can use for why it took him so long to speak up.

10. My teleprompter was on vacation last week.

9. Polishing a Nobel Prize takes longer than you think.

8. It was Bush's fault. (Hey, it worked last year.)

7. The waves here in Hawaii are bitchen, dude.

6. Janet Napolitano said the system worked great, even if I couldn't get email on my Blackberry for a while there.

5. This sort of thing just ain't supposed to happen on my watch.

4. It was Bush's fault.

3. Axelrod never told me I'd have to work holidays.

2. I was busy celebrating Festivus.

And the Number One excuse Obama can give for taking so long to respond to the attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253:

I was busy looking for my birth certificate.

Cut and run Dems

What he meant, of course, was that everyone would have to sacrifice to lift American out of the worst recession since the Great Depression except for Barack and Michelle Obama.

This week the Obamas are staying at an $8.9 million estate for an estimated $4000 per night.
Kristinn at Free Republic reported that First Lady Michelle was photographed last night in Hawaii wearing $635 per pair designer shoes by Maison Martin Margiela.

The shoe style is called “Leather open toe flat pumps.” It features a “thin nude leather strap across the top of the toe.”

Remember: Everyone must sacrifice.
The First Family feels your pain.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/

KN: Why is the Left so afraid of Palin? She is a private citizen and they still can't stop talking about her. But they think Biden and Gore are great. And Obama is the next coming.
I am still waiting for my tax cut.

Three days later

Kliphnote: Sorry to interrupt your(again) vacation, Mr. President.
BTW, How many vacations do you get? For being in office less than a year you seem to have a lot of vacation time.
It took me three years to get one week off.

“This is a moment in history, and he’s missing it.”

Drunk?

Kliphnote: Not that I give a damn.

But if that was a Conservative the media would have a fit.

Mandate that people buy health insurance

Sen. Feinstein 'Assumes' Commerce Clause Gives Congress Unlimited Authority to Mandate Health Insurance
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that Congress has the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance and that there is no constitutional limit on Congress’ power to enact such mandates, adding that this unlimited authority stemmed from the Commerce clause of the Constitution.
Kliphnote: Well that was easy, just tell everyone to but health insurance. If not, than what? Jail? Let us see how this goes over.

December 25

Merry Christmas

It is the time of the year for joy.

For most people.

For those of you that don't like Christmas

and don't like the the lights and the

Christmas trees and the ornaments

all I have to say is 'lighten up' enjoy life

because you won't life forever.

Why do you want to go on being so sour?

Enjoy while you can.

Rep. Louise Slaughter

Senior Dem: Kill the Senate health reform bill and start over

By Michael O'Brien - 12/23/09 02:12 PM ET

The Senate's healthcare bill is fatally flawed, a senior Democrat atop a powerful committee said on Wednesday.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), [Erie County, Monroe County, Niagara County, and Orleans County. Parts of Buffalo and Rochester, the second and third largest cities in New York,] [the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee and co-chairwoman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said that the Senate's bill is so flawed that it's unlikely to be resolved in conference with the bill to have passed the House.

"The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago," Slaughter wrote in an opinion piece for CNN's website. Slaughter argued that while the House bill is far from perfect, the Senate bill's exclusion of a public option, along with abortion funding restrictions and other measures, make the bill undeserving of a vote.Specifically, Slaughter said, the Senate bill would charge seniors higher premiums, would fail to nix health insurers' antitrust exemption and would not go far enough in extending coverage to people in the U.S.

Schumer Says Every State Got Special Treatment in Health Bill

By Jonathan D. Salant

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- New York Senator Charles Schumer defended the special Medicaid payments that Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska obtained for his state before agreeing to support health-care legislation, saying all states got something in the measure.

“Every state has its own unique situations,” Schumer said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “That’s why we have a Senate.”

The Senate is scheduled tomorrow to vote on an $871 billion measure that would extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans. Lawmakers will then face the challenge of melding the Senate bill with legislation passed in the House on Nov. 7.

The Medicaid deal hasn’t been well received in some corners. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called the agreements “backroom deals that amount to bribes.”

Kliphnote: Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand what did NY get? Besides costing NY between $1.1 billion and $1.25 billion, per year!

Thanks for nothing senators.

How about NY

I told you so

Bloomberg/Paterson: Reform bill will cost N.Y. billions

How complicated is passing a health care reform bill?

Even people who love it, hate it.

Case in point:

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson are pressuring Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to fight a little-noticed in provisions in the Senate health care reform bill that could cost the state a fortune in Medicaid reimbursements.

In a letter sent yesterday, Bloomberg and Paterson -- who strongly support the overall bill -- complained that an arcane reimbursement formula for low-income patients would add about $1 billion per year to already-scary state and city budget deficits.

Buy out

The High Price of

Ben Nelson's

Low Vote

Marc Sheppard
It appears that the current health care bill’s plan to insure about 30 million uninsured Americans includes a provision to move a good portion of them onto the Medicaid rolls. Needless to say, that’s quite the unfunded mandate to force upon the budgets of our already cash-strapped states.

But there’s one state that today was guaranteed immunity from such a budget-annihilating burden -- Nebraska. While 49 other states will be forced to scramble and cut and tax and reappropriate in order to meet the new mandates, Nelson’s home state won’t.

That’s because Nelson sold his vote for Reid’s assurance that the feds will pay 100% of any new Nebraska Medicaid costs -- forever.

And that leaves non-Nebraskan taxpayers picking up the tab – forever.

This sordid sell-out certainly represents a new low in opprobrious political payoffs.

Sen. Reid’s Government-Run Health Plan STILL Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee

Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on December 19th, 2009

Fixed it is not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest health care “manager’s amendment” would STILL levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans under the Democrats’ health care plan. Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) and the last version of Senator Reid’s 2,074-page bill, this latest 383-page amendment levies an abortion premium and does not fix the problem of government funds being used to subsidize elective abortions.

****************************

NEW YORK (AP) -- Federal prosecutors in New York say the U.S.
government didn't violate a terror suspect's right to a speedy
trial by detaining him for five years without charges.

Kliphnote: What rights do terror suspect have? NONE!

I said it in the past, here on the "CFO" Medicaid is one the main reasons property taxes are high in New York state. Because the state mandates that the county pick part of the cost. Now it is going to get worse, big time. It may be time to move.

Weekend viewing

Barack Obama’s speech disappoints and fuels frustration at Copenhagen

US president offers no further commitment on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries

Suzanne Goldenberg and Allegra Stratton in Copenhagen
Friday 18 December 2009 12.53 GMT

Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act "boldly and decisively" on climate change.

Team Obama threatens vocal democrat; tells him, “Don’t think we’re not keeping score.”
The Hill reported:

Rep. Peter DeFazio’s phone rang. On the other end was Rahm Emanuel.

The White House chief of staff last month expressed frustration with DeFazio’s resignation calls for President Barack Obama’s top two economic aides — Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House chief economist Larry Summers — and appealed for cooperation, according to DeFazio.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort — and a 10-day meeting — from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton’s announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months.

Kliphnote:

The recession Obama inherited from his predecessor, President George W. Bush (R)--not from the Democrat dominated Congress, of course.
The recession started by Bush, not the Democrat dominated Congress.
The housing market crashed was started by Bush, not the Democrat dominated Congress.
The financial market crash was caused by Bush, not the Democrat dominated Congress.
Bush had the worse recession since the Great Depression, not Democrat dominated Congress.

Obama saved use from going into a depression, according to Obama. But check the Misery Index and it's not even close. It was just what the Democrats said about Bush and the Republicans in an election year. http://www.miseryindex.us/customindexbyyear.asp

You can't make this up

U.S. to Capture Cow Farts to Save the Planet

SARAH GILBERT Posted 8:00 PM 12/16/09 Green

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In the future, America will harness cow farts to curb pollution and power the grid. What? It sounds like a joke, but it's actually a real promise. By 2020, dairy industry emissions will be reduced by 25%, largely by persuading dairy farmers to capture methane gas, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced at the Copenhagen climate change summit this week. Farmers will be able to buy anaerobic digesters that convert cow, errr, emissions into electricity.

China's delaying tactics threaten climate deal

By Chris Green

Friday, 18 December 2009

Reuters

Barack Obama addresses the session of United Nations Climate Change Conference

Obama Welfare State

Obama Will Spend More on Welfare in the Next Year Than Bush Spent on Entire Iraq War, Study Reveals
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

President Barack Obama making announcement canceling missile defense shield. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) – As a candidate for president, Barack Obama decried the financial toll that the Iraq war was taking on the economy,

but Obama’s proposed spending on welfare through 2010 will eclipse Bush’s war spending by more than $260 billion.

“Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned,” then-Sen. Barack Obama told a Charleston, W.V., crowd in March 2008.

“This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.”

During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year--2010--more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.
Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs. These include cash payments, food, housing, Medicaid and various social services for low-income Americans and those at 200 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of four. Among that total, $7.5 trillion will be federal money and $2.8 trillion will be federally mandated state expenditures.

In that same West Virginia speech last year, Obama said, “When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war.”

The Heritage study says, “Applying that same standard to means-tested welfare spending reveals that welfare will cost each household $560 per month in 2009 and $638 per month in 2010.”

Welfare spending has taken its toll on the federal debt. Since the beginning of the “war on poverty,” $15.9 trillion has been spent on welfare programs. The total cost of every war in American history, starting with the American Revolution, is $6.4 trillion when adjusted for inflation.

Read the rest here: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/54400


Kliphnote: It's only money.
Spend all you want. And this is not health care or cap and trade. Who is going to pay for this. Not me! I'm still waiting for my tax cut. I don't know of anyone that got a tax cut. I am sure Bush will get blamed for this, also.
PS. I did not fact check this, I am sure the AP will.

Hello stupid

U.S. to contribute to $100B climate fund to help developing countries: Hillary Clinton

By Soraya Roberts
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Originally Published:Thursday, December 17th 2009, 7:36 AM
Updated: Thursday, December 17th 2009, 10:57 AM

The planet may be saved after all, and it will only cost $100 billion.

Just as the Copenhagen climate summit appeared to be on the verge of unraveling, the United States Thursday announced its support of an annual $100 billion climate protection fund, the Associated Press reports.

“The US is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

Kliphnote: What the hell is the money going to do? Spend, spend, spend. China and India will take the money but will not reduce their CO2. Are we that stupid?

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/17/2009-12-17_us_will_contribute_to_100b_climate_fund_for_developing_countries_hillary_clinton.html#ixzz0ZzwjN3GP

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/17/2009-12-17_us_will_contribute_to_100b_climate_fund_for_developing_countries_hillary_clinton.html#ixzz0ZzvzHNKI

Left wing

Putting our economy in the hands of Chavez fans

These maniacs in Copenhagen are voting on your future:

President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

And at the end of this first clip, Chavez rouses the rabble with more anti-Americanism, too:

I don’t think Obama is here yet. He got the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day as he sent 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people in Afghanistan.

UPDATE 2

And a mass-murderer at Copenhagen lectures us about our crimes:

$1.5 trillion dollars deficit

U.S. National Debt Tops Debt Limit

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Posted by Mark Knoller

(AP)

Updated 5:45 p.m. ET

The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has - at least numerically - exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill.

The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.

A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some "extraordinary accounting tools" it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling.

Were it not for those "tools," the U.S. Government would not have the statutory authority to borrow any more money. It might block issuance of Social Security checks and require a shutdown of some parts of the federal government.

Pending in Congress is a measure to increase the Debt Limit by $290 billion, which amounts to six more weeks of routine borrowing for the federal government. (The House just passed the increase, though the Senate has yet to act. It is expected to approve the measure.)

Republicans and conservative Democrats blocked moves by House leaders to pass a $1.8 trillion dollar increase in the Debt Limit so the Democratic majority would not have to face the embarrassment of raising the Debt Limit yet again before next November's midterm elections.

The White House projects a record $1.5 trillion dollars deficit this year alone, and a 5-year deficit total of $4.97 trillion.

Kliphnote: Who cares if my children and grand children will be paying off just the interest. This will not be paid off in my life or anyone reading this.

Just wait for Cap & Trade and health care.

But, who cares, it's only money. Keep on spending.

Just pass the cost and blame on someone else.

Bloomberg, Big Carbon, BIg Gun Control

ABOUT NEW YORK

Bloomberg the Bigfoot (in Carbon)

By JIM DWYER

Published: December 12, 2009

The average New Yorker uses one-half to one-third the electricity of other Americans. Our carbon footprints are just 29 percent of people who live outside the five boroughs, and City Hall has practical plansto reduce even that amount by nearly a third over the next two decades. No wonder that this month, in a talk at the New York Academy of Science, Rohit Aggarwalat, the mayor’s chief adviser on sustainability, said the city was “the most environmentally efficient society in the United States.”

A strong case can be made that when it comes to energy and climate issues, Mr. Bloomberg is the most visionary public official in the country.

And a strong argument can also be made that on a personal level, he ranks among the worst individual polluters ever to hold public office.

Mr. Bloomberg owns a helicopter and two jets, both Falcon 900s. He flies everywhere on private jets, by far the least efficient form of transportation on or above the earth. He takes his jet to Bermuda many weekends. He has flown around the globe on it. He uses it to go to Washington. He is planning to get to Copenhagen for the climate conference by private jet, too.

The carbon math works out like this: by taking his Falcon 900 to Denmark, Mr. Bloomberg will be responsible for the release of 37 times the carbon dioxide than if he and his entourage flew on a scheduled commercial flight. The calculations were done at my request by Dimitri Simos, the developer of software used by the airline industry to assess aircraft emission and performance. Mr. Simos said that a Falcon 900 carrying eight people from Newark to Copenhagen would produce 21.6 tons of carbon dioxide. By adding eight people to the scheduled Scandinavian Airlines flight, the aircraft, usually an Airbus A330-300, would produce an additional 0.58 tons of carbon dioxide.

So it makes perfect sense that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is going to Copenhagen on Monday and Tuesday to address the international conference on climate change: his administration is working to head off problems that will not emerge until long after he is gone.

Mr. Bloomberg’s routine trips to Bermuda are even more carbon costly: the private jet produces 130 times more emissions than going commercial. On those jaunts, Mr. Simos said, the Falcon produces 4.3 tons of carbon dioxide; putting another two people on an American Airlines Boeing 757-200 that flies to Bermuda would produce only 66 more pounds.

NYPD tracks gun in deadly Times Square shootout

NEW YORK (AP) — The mayor railed against gun violence on Friday, one day after a street peddler died in a shootout with police outside a hotel in bustling Times Square.

A machine pistol used by a street hustler and aspiring rapper shot dead in a Times Square gunfight was purchased from a Virginia gun shop by a woman who reported it stolen 10 days after she bought it, authorities said

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been a fierce critic of gun stores with a record of selling weapons that later wound up in the hands of criminals, suing several of them in recent years for reckless conduct and driving several out of business.

"This is one of the great public health threats. And our police officers are clearly in danger," the mayor said Friday.

The machine pistol like the type used Thursday are rare in the city: only 26 have been recovered so far this year, compared with 5,427 other guns. In 2008, there were 46 recovered, and 5,959 other guns.

**************************************************************************

Michael Bloomberg was quoted by the Daily News as saying the following: “I want to make sure that everybody in New York understands that the terrible tragedy at Fort Hood was an individual who snapped but it has nothing to do with religion.”

The fact of the matter is that religion – namely Islam – had everything to do with the Fort Hood massacre! If you believe anything else, you are a self-deceiving, self-hating, leftist moron!

http://www.gothamresistance.com/2009/11/12/michael-bloomberg’s-disgraceful-fort-hood-meeting/

In another transparent attempt to undercut the Second Amendment fresh on the heels of his hidden-camera attack on gun shows, Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has alleged that the multiple murders that took place on Ft. Hood recently could have been prevented by changes in federal gun laws.

In an ad in the Washington Post on Monday, Bloomberg’s group claimed that the Ft. Hood murder suspect’s “gun purchase could have been key to the FBI’s investigation into his association with terrorists.”

Incredible. It has already been reported that before the suspect purchased the gun allegedly used in the murders, the FBI knew that between December 2008 and June 2009, he had sent 16 emails to a radical Islamic cleric based suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda. In one, he told the cleric that he could not wait to join him in the afterlife.

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=5225&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

OMG

Here we go.....again

Senate GOP denied on spending filibuster attempt

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer – 54 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday cleared away a Republican filibuster of a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.

The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year's unfinished budget work — only a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure would remain — into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.

The 60-34 vote met the minimum threshold to end the GOP filibuster. A final vote was set for Sunday afternoon to send the measure toPresident Barack Obama.

The bill would void a long-standing ban on the funding of abortion by the District of Columbia government and overturns a ban on federal money for needle exchange programs in the city. It also would phase out a D.C. school voucher program favored by Republicans and opens the door for the city to permit medical marijuana.

It would also lift a nationwide ban on the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs.

Federal workers would receive pay increases averaging 2 percent, with people in areas with higher living costs receiving slightly higher increases.

Learn more about

us debt.