Coldwarrior has the story on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

(Reposted with permission)

This report does not look good. Frankly, he is highlighting what we are already hearing and have suspected from reading various other reports and hearing from on the ground from people in our own lives.

Please check out the LTC’s website linked here. He knows this will wreck his career by not going along. We need more leaders like him, not like the current batch of ‘leaders’.

Here is the article in full from Armed Forces Journal:

BREAKING:

Truth, lies and Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down
By LT. COL. DANIEL L. DAVIS

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base.

I saw little to no evidence the local governments were able to provide for the basic needs of the people. Some of the Afghan civilians I talked with said the people didn’t want to be connected to a predatory or incapable local government.

From time to time, I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency.

From Bad to Abysmal

Much of what I saw during my deployment, let alone read or wrote in official reports, I can’t talk about; the information remains classified. But I can say that such reports — mine and others’ — serve to illuminate the gulf between conditions on the ground and official statements of progress.

And I can relate a few representative experiences, of the kind that I observed all over the country.

In January 2011, I made my first trip into the mountains of Kunar province near the Pakistan border to visit the troops of 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry. On a patrol to the northernmost U.S. position in eastern Afghanistan, we arrived at an Afghan National Police (ANP) station that had reported being attacked by the Taliban 2½ hours earlier.

Through the interpreter, I asked the police captain where the attack had originated, and he pointed to the side of a nearby mountain.

“What are your normal procedures in situations like these?” I asked. “Do you form up a squad and go after them? Do you periodically send out harassing patrols? What do you do?”

As the interpreter conveyed my questions, the captain’s head wheeled around, looking first at the interpreter and turning to me with an incredulous expression. Then he laughed.

“No! We don’t go after them,” he said. “That would be dangerous!”

According to the cavalry troopers, the Afghan policemen rarely leave the cover of the checkpoints. In that part of the province, the Taliban literally run free.

In June, I was in the Zharay district of Kandahar province, returning to a base from a dismounted patrol. Gunshots were audible as the Taliban attacked a U.S. checkpoint about one mile away.

As I entered the unit’s command post, the commander and his staff were watching a live video feed of the battle. Two ANP vehicles were blocking the main road leading to the site of the attack. The fire was coming from behind a haystack. We watched as two Afghan men emerged, mounted a motorcycle and began moving toward the Afghan policemen in their vehicles.

The U.S. commander turned around and told the Afghan radio operator to make sure the policemen halted the men. The radio operator shouted into the radio repeatedly, but got no answer.

On the screen, we watched as the two men slowly motored past the ANP vehicles. The policemen neither got out to stop the two men nor answered the radio — until the motorcycle was out of sight.

To a man, the U.S. officers in that unit told me they had nothing but contempt for the Afghan troops in their area — and that was before the above incident occurred.

In August, I went on a dismounted patrol with troops in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Several troops from the unit had recently been killed in action, one of whom was a very popular and experienced soldier. One of the unit’s senior officers rhetorically asked me, “How do I look these men in the eye and ask them to go out day after day on these missions? What’s harder: How do I look [my soldier’s] wife in the eye when I get back and tell her that her husband died for something meaningful? How do I do that?”

One of the senior enlisted leaders added, “Guys are saying, ‘I hope I live so I can at least get home to R&R leave before I get it,’ or ‘I hope I only lose a foot.’ Sometimes they even say which limb it might be: ‘Maybe it’ll only be my left foot.’ They don’t have a lot of confidence that the leadership two levels up really understands what they’re living here, what the situation really is.”

On Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the infamous attack on the U.S., I visited another unit in Kunar province, this one near the town of Asmar. I talked with the local official who served as the cultural adviser to the U.S. commander. Here’s how the conversation went:

Davis: “Here you have many units of the Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF]. Will they be able to hold out against the Taliban when U.S. troops leave this area?”

Adviser: “No. They are definitely not capable. Already all across this region [many elements of] the security forces have made deals with the Taliban. [The ANSF] won’t shoot at the Taliban, and the Taliban won’t shoot them.

“Also, when a Taliban member is arrested, he is soon released with no action taken against him. So when the Taliban returns [when the Americans leave after 2014], so too go the jobs, especially for everyone like me who has worked with the coalition.

“Recently, I got a cellphone call from a Talib who had captured a friend of mine. While I could hear, he began to beat him, telling me I’d better quit working for the Americans. I could hear my friend crying out in pain. [The Talib] said the next time they would kidnap my sons and do the same to them. Because of the direct threats, I’ve had to take my children out of school just to keep them safe.

“And last night, right on that mountain there [he pointed to a ridge overlooking the U.S. base, about 700 meters distant], a member of the ANP was murdered. The Taliban came and called him out, kidnapped him in front of his parents, and took him away and murdered him. He was a member of the ANP from another province and had come back to visit his parents. He was only 27 years old. The people are not safe anywhere.”

That murder took place within view of the U.S. base, a post nominally responsible for the security of an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Imagine how insecure the population is beyond visual range. And yet that conversation was representative of what I saw in many regions of Afghanistan.

In all of the places I visited, the tactical situation was bad to abysmal. If the events I have described — and many, many more I could mention — had been in the first year of war, or even the third or fourth, one might be willing to believe that Afghanistan was just a hard fight, and we should stick it out. Yet these incidents all happened in the 10th year of war.

As the numbers depicting casualties and enemy violence indicate the absence of progress, so too did my observations of the tactical situation all over Afghanistan.

Credibility Gap

I’m hardly the only one who has noted the discrepancy between official statements and the truth on the ground.

A January 2011 report by the Afghan NGO Security Office noted that public statements made by U.S. and ISAF leaders at the end of 2010 were “sharply divergent from IMF, [international military forces, NGO-speak for ISAF] ‘strategic communication’ messages suggesting improvements. We encourage [nongovernment organization personnel] to recognize that no matter how authoritative the source of any such claim, messages of the nature are solely intended to influence American and European public opinion ahead of the withdrawal, and are not intended to offer an accurate portrayal of the situation for those who live and work here.”

The following month, Anthony Cordesman, on behalf of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that ISAF and the U.S. leadership failed to report accurately on the reality of the situation in Afghanistan.

“Since June 2010, the unclassified reporting the U.S. does provide has steadily shrunk in content, effectively ‘spinning’ the road to victory by eliminating content that illustrates the full scale of the challenges ahead,” Cordesman wrote. “They also, however, were driven by political decisions to ignore or understate Taliban and insurgent gains from 2002 to 2009, to ignore the problems caused by weak and corrupt Afghan governance, to understate the risks posed by sanctuaries in Pakistan, and to ‘spin’ the value of tactical ISAF victories while ignoring the steady growth of Taliban influence and control.”

How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by U.S. senior leaders in Afghanistan? No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan. But we do expect — and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve — to have our leaders tell us the truth about what’s going on.

I first encountered senior-level equivocation during a 1997 division-level “experiment” that turned out to be far more setpiece than experiment. Over dinner at Fort Hood, Texas, Training and Doctrine Command leaders told me that the Advanced Warfighter Experiment (AWE) had shown that a “digital division” with fewer troops and more gear could be far more effective than current divisions. The next day, our congressional staff delegation observed the demonstration firsthand, and it didn’t take long to realize there was little substance to the claims. Virtually no legitimate experimentation was actually conducted. All parameters were carefully scripted. All events had a preordained sequence and outcome. The AWE was simply an expensive show, couched in the language of scientific experimentation and presented in glowing press releases and public statements, intended to persuade Congress to fund the Army’s preference. Citing the AWE’s “results,” Army leaders proceeded to eliminate one maneuver company per combat battalion. But the loss of fighting systems was never offset by a commensurate rise in killing capability.

A decade later, in the summer of 2007, I was assigned to the Future Combat Systems (FCS) organization at Fort Bliss, Texas. It didn’t take long to discover that the same thing the Army had done with a single division at Fort Hood in 1997 was now being done on a significantly larger scale with FCS. Year after year, the congressionally mandated reports from the Government Accountability Office revealed significant problems and warned that the system was in danger of failing. Each year, the Army’s senior leaders told members of Congress at hearings that GAO didn’t really understand the full picture and that to the contrary, the program was on schedule, on budget, and headed for success. Ultimately, of course, the program was canceled, with little but spinoffs to show for $18 billion spent.

If Americans were able to compare the public statements many of our leaders have made with classified data, this credibility gulf would be immediately observable. Naturally, I am not authorized to divulge classified material to the public. But I am legally able to share it with members of Congress. I have accordingly provided a much fuller accounting in a classified report to several members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, senators and House members.

A nonclassified version is available at www.afghanreport.com. [Editor’s note: At press time, Army public affairs had not yet ruled on whether Davis could post this longer version.]

Tell The Truth

When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our senior leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid — graphically, if necessary — in telling them what’s at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be. U.S. citizens and their elected representatives can decide if the risk to blood and treasure is worth it.

Likewise when having to decide whether to continue a war, alter its aims or to close off a campaign that cannot be won at an acceptable price, our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start. AFJ

Please visit afghanreport.com.

Remarks from 1389:

Relying on “local troops” is insane, all the more so when those “local troops” are Muslim.

Peace never comes from peace conferences, peace studies, peacekeeping, Nobel Peace Prizes, or anything like that. It comes only from defeating our enemies so thoroughly that they can trouble us no more.

If we cannot let our warriors be warriors, we will be defeated every time.

Conan, what is best in life?

(h/t: mfhorn):

Click here to view the embedded video.

From Fox News:

Obama says adding $4 trillion to debt is unpatriotic.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by maywhitley31 on Aug 23, 2011

On July 3, 2008 — the day before Independence Day — Barack Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt was irresponsible and “unpatriotic.

Obama: The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.

Obama to Seek Third Debt Ceiling Increase Since Summer Deal

The Obama administration will ask Congress to raise the nation’s borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion this week, marking the third and final increase from a deal negotiated over summer.

Treasury officials say the increase will boost the nation’s borrowing limit to $16.4 trillion. Treasury officials say the increase is necessary because the nation will be within $100 billion of the current limit by Friday.

In August, Congress and the administration agreed to raise the borrowing limit by $2.1 trillion in three steps. The parties also agreed to cut more than $2 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years.

Congress can reject the increase, though Obama can then veto their objection. If Congress doesn’t act by Jan. 14, the increase will take place automatically.

Such stuff as nightmares are made on…

• It’s All Your Money: Possible New Federal Debt Limit
• Fox: Debt Ceiling News and Video

Obama Spanish Language Ad For Jon Corzine

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by Akaczynski1 on Nov 21, 2011

A Barack Obama partially Spanish language ad for former Governor and MF Global head Jon Corzine in his 2009 reelection bid. Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Akaczynski1 for more great political videos.

Also see:

• Wikipedia: Jon Corzine
• Corzine expected to testify at House hearing: source
• 2009 Corzine campaign
  (from hard-left campaign consultants VShift; third image shows “Obama & Corzine” signs)

If you can read this blog, you probably are.
For that matter, if you have successfully made it through toilet training, you probably are.

Take this quiz and find out for sure.
(To view the correct answers, click the link below each question.)

Occupiers from all over the US will be voting, bless their hearts, though they lack any coherent understanding of the candidates and issues that they plan to vote for. None of them can clearly articulate what they are upset about, other than the fact that they want what someone else has.

Most of the Wall Street occupiers have been to college. They didn’t get much of an education in return for those student loans that they won’t be able to pay back. In place of an education, all they got was more of the same indoctrination that they already had in K through 12.

FAIL.

Weapons-grade lollage for those in the know!

Rally For Sanity, 10/30/10

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by TheSecondCityNetwork on Nov 1, 2010

It’s a reasonable question. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/the-economic-narrative/
Like us on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/TheSecondCityNetwork
Follow us on Twitter! http://twitter.com/secondcitynetwk
©2010 The Second City Inc./Andy Cobb
Based on a concept by Michael Damanskis with Marc Warzecha and Mark Kienlen.
For more satire by Andy Cobb: http://www.AndyCobbOnline.com

What’s a Keynesian, anyway?

Voters and taxpayers need to know why Keynesian economics is EPIC FAIL. Obama’s “stimulus” left us with a huge deficit and did NOT restart the economy.

“Fear the Boom and Bust” a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by EconStories on Jan 23, 2010

Econstories.tv is a place to learn about the economic way of thinking through the eyes of creative director John Papola and creative economist Russ Roberts.

Visit us at http://econstories.tv

In Fear the Boom and Bust, John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek, two of the great economists of the 20th century, come back to life to attend an economics conference on the economic crisis. Before the conference begins, and at the insistence of Lord Keynes, they go out for a night on the town and sing about why there’s a “boom and bust” cycle in modern economies and good reason to fear it.

Get the full lyrics, story and free download of the song in high quality MP3 and AAC files at:
http://econstories.tv

Plus, to see and hear more from the stars of Fear the Boom and Bust, Billy Scafuri and Adam Lustick, visit their site: http://www.billyandadam.com

Music was produced by Jack Bradley at Blackboard3 Music and Sound Design. It was composed and performed by Richard Royston Jacobs.
http://www.blackboard3.com
**Charging Bull© Arturo DiModica, 1998

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs Hayek Round 2

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by EconStories on Apr 27, 2011

“Fight of the Century” is the new economics hip-hop music video by John Papola and Russ Roberts at http://EconStories.tv.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession ended almost two years ago, in the summer of 2009. Yet we’re all uneasy. Job growth has been disappointing. The recovery seems fragile. Where should we head from here? Is that question even meaningful? Can the government steer the economy or have past attempts helped create the mess we’re still in?

In “Fight of the Century”, Keynes and Hayek weigh in on these central questions. Do we need more government spending or less? What’s the evidence that government spending promotes prosperity in troubled times? Can war or natural disasters paradoxically be good for an economy in a slump? Should more spending come from the top down or from the bottom up? What are the ultimate sources of prosperity?

Keynes and Hayek never agreed on the answers to these questions and they still don’t. Let’s listen to the greats. See Keynes and Hayek throwing down in “Fight of the Century”!

Starring Billy and Adam from http://www.billyandadam.com

Visit http://www.econstories.tv for the full lyrics.

The next video describes Keynesianism from Keynes’ own point of view:

Keynesianism Part I – It’s All About Spending

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by EconStories on Oct 24, 2010

Is our prosperity derived from a continual circular flow of spending? Is it impossible for a society to increase it’s total savings? Can deficit spending by a government step in to replace private activity in order to maintain full employment and restore lasting economic growth? What is a liquidity trap and what does it mean for the economy? What did Keynes really mean by “in the long run, we’re all dead”?

In this EconStories mini-documentary, we explore the foundations of Keynesian economics with Keynes most famed biography, Lord Robert Skidelsky.

In the next episode, we’ll dig deeper into some of the most controversial aspects of Keynesianism including the notion that ditch digging or world war could provide a pathway to economic recovery and prosperity.

Hayek on Keynes

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by Malthus0 on Jun 9, 2009

Friedrich Hayek discusses Keynes and his influence on a Britain facing economic difficulties.

For Hayek’s critiques of Keynesianism see his book; A Tiger by the Tail: The Keynesian Legacy of Inflation which can be found in PDF at:
https://sites.google.com/site/malthus0splace/home/hayek/pure-economics

The Pure Theory of Capital can be found at the same above link as Tiger by the Tail.

This is an excerpt from a longer interview which can be found here:
http://www.vimeo.com/4063439

Any more questions?

• See this article: The Brilliance of That Hayek vs. Keynes Rap
• Or download a MP3 audio file of the article HERE.

Basement Cat made me post this!

Top Gear dubs the Yugo 45 “the second worst car ever built.” More about Zastava Automobiles here.

Top Gear Yugo 45

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by MasterZeeeee on Aug 17, 2009

Kako su englezi opisali cuveni Yugo45. Auto je testirao Jeremy Clarkson, voditelj emisije TopGear. Ovo je njegov utisak o jedinom srpskom automobilu koji su ikada testirali.

The Yugo Sana a/k/a “Yugo Florida” got a much better review. The US/NATO wars against Serbia made it impossible to continue making and selling the car. The original Zastava factory was totally destroyed in the 1999 bombing of Serbia.

Old Top Gear 1990 – Yugo Sana

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by celticmadliam on Aug 11, 2010

Tiff Needell tests the new Yugo Sana. Taken from season 13 episode 2.

The Peugeot Concept BB1 is a mix between the Peugeot scooter and car. More at Topspeed.

Peugeot BB1 Promo Clip

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by worldcarfans on Sep 15, 2009

Peugeot has unveiled the BB1 Concept car which is not really a car. Dubbed “a totally new solution to the current and future needs of urban mobility”, the BB1 combines the utility of a car and the flexibility of a quad bike.

Jeremy Clarkson – “stupidest cars ever”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by x4mmm on Aug 22, 2009

In a Yugo – A liberal guy n gal buy a Yugo (In the Ghetto)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by tacoma5050 on Sep 22, 2006

A liberal guy and a liberal gal buy a Yugo. “In a Yugo” Lyrics:
As the snow flies

At a used car lot on the edge of town
A liberal guy and a liberal gal
Buy a Yugo

And they drive with pride

Cause if there’s one thing that this world needs
It’s environmental friends who’ll take the lead
In a Yugo

They say, “people don’t you understand
Those suburbans are ruining the land”
But they’ll wish they had a full size van one day
They point fingers at you and me
They say we’re too blind to see
But do we simply use our heads
And choose another way?

As those small wheels turn
Fifty miles to the gallon
And their knees on their chest
They’re gonna save enough gas
For all of the rest
In a Yugo

Then one day on the interstate
They suddenly lose control
They swerve to miss a baby duck
They’re squashed beneath a produce truck

But they drove with pride…

And as the crowds drive past a little flat car
You know they saved a lot of gas
But they didnt get far
In a Yugo

And as they’re trapped inside
At a used car lot on the other side of town
A liberal guy and a liberal gal
Buy a Yugo….

And they drive with pride…

Many viewers have posted comments stating that the car used in the video is not a Yugo. Unfortunately after several weeks of searching for a Yugo, one could not be located for filming. It was decided that instead of re-writing the song, to just go ahead and use another small car as the main idea behind the parody is not really about a Yugo. Apologies to all Yugo enthusiasts.

I mean, the dude can’t even call his DOG without a teleprompter.

The Blaze: Thieves Steal President’s Teleprompter

TOTUS was taken — at least for a little bit.

That’s right, a truck carrying the president’s teleprompter (jokingly referred to as TOTUS, or the teleprompter of the United States), podiums, and audio equipment was stolen in Virginia, WWBT-TV reports.

The Department of Defense confirmed the heist, but it’s unclear if the thieves targeted the vehicle for what it contained or simply got “lucky.”

WWBT has more:

We‘re told the truck was parked at the Virginia Center Commons Courtyard Marriott in advance on Wednesday’s presidential visit to Chesterfield.

Sources said inside that vehicle was about $200,000 worth of sound equipment, several podiums and presidential seals, behind which only the President himself can stand.

They told NBC12 around 12:30 Monday afternoon that truck was recovered in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express near the airport and hotel staff confirm police activity.  One guest we spoke with said he saw various law enforcement agencies examining a white box truck parked there.

Still, even though the truck was recovered it’s unclear from reports if any of the equipment was removed from the vehicle or if it was just missing temporarily.

“No classified or sensitive information was in the vehicle,” a Defense Information Systems Agency spokesperson told WWBT. “We take incidents such as this very seriously and a formal investigation is continuing.”

(H/T: Business Insider)

Video here.

Iowahawk: A Special Message from Barack Obama’s Teleprompter

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by iowahawk on Sep 29, 2008
Hope, Change, and concert riders

More lollage here: Investors.com: Obama’s stolen teleprompter recovered, national silence averted

Please retweet!

If Nazis, Commies, and Soros are on your side, YOU ARE WRONG! http://shar.es/bqJGY http://shar.es/bqJ7w http://shar.es/bqJrd #iamthe53

Click on the image to view the original tweet on Twitter. I would very much appreciate a retweet!

A variation on this theme…

Click to view and retweet the above message!

Follow 1389 on Twitter!

Also, be sure to follow me, blog admin 1389, on Twitter. Those tweets bring you a much greater variety of counterjihad, political, and economic news links than any of us could possibly put on this blog. You’ll also find occasional links to offbeat news and humor!

So how do you tell if a lefty rally is an EPIC FAIL?

Here’s my take: If the rally is so small that observers can’t fill up a respectable number of squares on the above bingo card, the rally is a FAIL. If the rally was billed as “nationwide” and almost nobody shows up, the additional element of hubris makes the rally an EPIC FAIL.

Zombie’s articles deserve a Pulitzer Prize. Problem is, acceptance of a prize could threaten the anonymity that Zombie needs in order to bring us these marvelous photo essays.

How big a FAIL was the “National Day of Rage”? Check out this photo essay and see how many bingo squares you can fill!

Zombie: Day of FAIL: Nationwide anti-capitalist revolution flops

September 17 was supposed to be the Day of Rage, the starting point of an anti-capitalist revolution that (in theory) was going to sweep the country coast-to-coast. As I noted yesterday, “The plan is to protest in state capitals and major cities across the nation, but the focus of the revolution will be in New York, where a hoped-for 20,000 anti-capitalists will ‘occupy’ Wall Street.”

I dutifully sent my operatives out to cover what were to be three of the largest Day of Rage protests — in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — so humanity would have a full record of this pivotal moment in history.

Really, I should have learned my lesson by now: The bigger the build-up to a protest, and the more grandiose the promises, the louder the sound of the bellyflop onto the dustbin of irrelevancy.

In other words: “Day of Rage” was a massive FAIL.

This photo essay includes photos from all three protest sites (NY, SF and LA) integrated together, to give you the feel of the fizzled revolution as a whole.

The photographs in this essay are by:
Urban Infidel (New York);
Ringo (Los Angeles);
and Chicken Kiev, juklux, and zombie (San Francisco).
All credit goes to them.

Click HERE to view the photo essay.

From Lord of the Rings Wiki:

“One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.”
—Boromir at the Council of Elrond

According to PoorlyDressed.com:

One Does Not Simply Ride the Bus Into Mordor

One also has to make several transfers, one of them lasting 25 minutes between buses. It’s suicide!

Bzzzzzt, wrooooong!

BBC News: Obama’s battle bus no symbol of hope

In British elections we’re used to what we call “battle buses”, cheerfully painted wagons, festooned with party slogans and colours.

US President Barack Obama has embarked on his first bus tour in office.

But his vehicle for the trip through the rural parts of three Midwestern states looks like it really is heading for a battle.

Big, blocky, black, with painted-out windows, it looks more like a police mortuary van than a symbol of hope arriving on your street.
[…]
Neither inspirational nor angry enough, he needs something fresher – and to find another mode of transport than the battle bus from Mordor.

Read it all.

The Blaze: Obama’s bus tour ‘Greyhound One’ made in Canada

Now I have nothing against purchasing equipment made in Canada, even though the folks at The Blaze seem to be somewhat upset about this. That said, we do need to make major changes to the US tax and regulatory structure, so as to remove the incentives that cause manufacturers to locate everywhere but in the US.

Also see:

Mark Steyn: Empathy thrown under Obama’s bus
(h/t: Blazing Cat Fur)

Brian Lilley On Mr. Hopey Changey’s Bus Boondoggle

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by blazingcatfur on Aug 17, 2011

Brian Lilley on the Obama Bus Boondoggle – Bama bought a Prevost bus, made in Quebec to tour the heartland discussing his plans for job creation.

Hope & Change

BOHICA? Not this time around!

We must DEMAND that the GOP fight back!

Destroying the US economy, and destroying the livelihood – and ruining the lives – of non-Muslims in America and elsewhere in the world economy, is part of the agenda of the long-standing tranzi-progressive/jihadi axis. It opens the way to foreign economic and political domination, and it hampers our ability to resist the worldwide jihad.

Let The Professionals Do It (To You, One More Time)

Gates of Vienna – reprinted with permission

The Heritage Foundation has a few things to say about our mind-bending tax burden: [Emphases throughout this post are mine — D]

While Democrats want tax increases on the table in debt negotiations, Republicans have reiterated their “no tax-hike” stance — a position they reiterated following… [the latest] unemployment report that revealed only a measly 18,000 jobs were created last month.

In reality, 18K jobs in an economy the size of America’s is so horrifically minuscule that if President Obama truly understood the ramifications of these numbers, he’d crawl under his desk until someone came to take him away. 18,000 jobs = EPIC FAIL by even a statist’s definition.

As the Baron said over coffee, the mistake the Republicans made this past week was in even considering “negotiating” with the Dems. Democrats don’t “do” good-faith negotiation; that attitude is a top-down problem, starting in the Oval Office and sifting finally onto the heads of us regular folks. Obama thinks we shouldn’t be worrying about things like the debt. In the short video below the fold, O tells us to go out and live our ordinary lives and let the professionals take care of the Debt. In other words, please don’t notice that he has no idea how to fix this mess. But he doesn’t need to know; he’s the One We Were waiting For. He’s Godot.

HF continues:

If that [the 18K jobs increase] isn’t enough reason to keep Democrats from proposing tax increases, perhaps the ambiguity of our nation’s economic future is.Americans are set to face the highest tax burden in history. Families will be hit by unprecedented taxation levels by 2020 without the extension of current tax rates. This means more economic stagnation and less prosperity.

What part of Obama’s “I won” rulebook do Republicans not understand? Present-day Dems do not negotiate, they strong arm, smear and threaten. (Think of the nomenklatura minus assassinations.)

HF presents the evidence from the American Legislative Exchange Council, though the average American hardly needs persuading:

In that same post, the Heritage Foundation gives the credit to ALEC:

The American Legislative Exchange Council has found that higher taxes, new spending, and more debt will deepen the financial crisis. If tax hikes are included in any sort of deal, it is only a matter of time before workers, employers and the entire nation are burdened by more than they can handle.

The Debt isn’t rocket science, but our president says Americans shouldn’t worry their cute li’l heads about it. This subject is for professional politicians only:

Obama: ‘Professional Politicians’ Understand Debt Crisis Better Than ‘The Public’

Hubris much?

[Thanks to CNS for the video]

The man’s evasions, condescension (not to mention his high-fivin’shuckin’ and jivin’) continue to astound. In reality, he’s clueless about how the free-market system operates. Or rather, what of it he understands, he dislikes. He didn’t make his millions by starting up a business and hiring people. Instead, he learned early on to milk the Government Goat and he thinks y’all should do the same.

The lawyer/blogger at Legal Insurrection perfectly posed our Feckless Fearless Leader in his own self-created dilemma. Hard to feel sorry for a man who “done it to his ownself” as they say around here:

The only way for Obama to stimulate the enormous private sector job growth needed to ensure Obama’s reelection is for Obama to announce he is not running for reelection, which would unleash a wave of investment and economic activity not seen since the Great Depression.

This ginormous problem is “Obama’s Catch 2012” and it should catch on… so to speak. If the Republicans don’t send that one viral, then they’re even more clueless than we’ve been led to believe by watching their naïve behavior in trying to negotiate with Democrats. They’ve now set themselves up by the mere act of sitting down with the Treachery Team: now if they refuse to raise taxes the Dems will say Republicans don’t care about The Debt. However, if they agree to the Dems’ terms for upping the tax rate, their voters back home will can ’em.

Will someone please tell the Republicans they won? According to our President, victory means you never have to consult with the losing side. In the other ear, mention the sad fact that the Losers are determined to take us all down with them.

No, I am not claiming that anybody is required by law to supply me with caviar. (Don’t I wish!) We’re not talking about that type of sturgeon at all.

Instead, we’re talking about a rule of thumb, to wit…

Sturgeon’s Law

Sturgeon’s Revelation, commonly referred to as Sturgeon’s Law, is an adage derived from quotations by Theodore Sturgeon, an American science fiction author. While Sturgeon coined another adage that he termed “Sturgeon’s Law”, it is his “Revelation” that is usually referred to by that term. Commonly cited as “ninety percent of everything is crud” or “ninety percent of everything is crap”, the phrase was derived from Sturgeon’s observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard to other art…

More here.

Theodore Sturgeon knew a thing or two about identifying crud:

Theodore Sturgeon vividly recalled being in the same room with L. Ron Hubbard, when Hubbard became testy with someone there and retorted, “Y’know, we’re all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion!” Reportedly Sturgeon also told this story to others.

I just now happened upon a blog called India Uncut by the libertarian blogger, columnist, and poker player, Amit Varma. Among other thought-provoking essays, including a fine paean to the blogosphere, I found this:

Does Sturgeon’s Law Apply To Human Beings?

Sturgeon’s Law states that “ninety percent of everything is crud”. This is certainly true in many fields, and I myself have invoked it in the context of blogging, but today I’m wondering, is this true also of human beings? Are 90% of us stupid? Like, really stupid? Consider this news story by Reuters in Istanbul:

Turkish police donned white coats and stethoscopes to disguise themselves as doctors, then knocked on people’s doors to see how easily they would fall for a confidence scam.

The undercover police officers told residents of the southeastern city of Gaziantep they were screening for high blood pressure and handed out pills, according to Turkish media.

They were alarmed when residents at 86 out of 100 households visited on Tuesday swallowed the pills immediately.

Apparently this was the actual modus operandi of a gang that got people to pop sedatives and then robbed them. But this isn’t all.

Officers in Adana in southern Turkey last week called at houses, announcing through the intercom: “I am a burglar, please open the door.”

Police said they were stunned at the number of people who opened the door, the Radikal daily newspaper reported.

Read the rest; it’s funny.

I can imagine what some of you are thinking:

“1389′s nom de guerre recalls a date in history when the Serbs fought the Ottoman Turks to a standstill. Old 1389 is just taking another cheap shot at the Turks by showing how stupid they can be.”

Guilty as charged. But then, considering that everybody, including the Turks, takes cheap shots at the Serbs, I claim the right to take them at everybody else.

And I do mean everybody. If you think you’re so much smarter than those human fish who eagerly took the bait in Amit Varma’s article, then take a long and careful look at Wikipedia’s List of cognitive biases. See how many of them apply to you!

Yeah, I thought so. Welcome to my world!

North Korea assumes presidency of UN arms control conference

(h/t: Gulfloafer)

In the latest ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ news from the United Nations, North Korea assumed the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament Tuesday.

“Bare months after the U.N. finally suspended Libya’s Col. Muammar Qaddafi from its Human Rights Council, North Korea wins the propaganda coup of heading the world’s disarmament agency,” the executive director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer said in a statement protesting the move. “It’s asking the fox to guard the chickens, and damages the U.N.’s credibility.”

According to the U.N. summary of the meeting, North Korea’s So Se Pyong addressed the 65-member arms control forum, saying that “he was very much committed to the Conference and during his presidency he welcomed any sort of constructive proposals that strengthened the work and credibility of the body.”

Neuer said that though North Korea’s new role as head of the conference, which reports to the U.N. General Assembly, would likely be justified by the U.N. by saying it was the result of a an “automatic rotation,” such an excuse was not sufficient…

Why are we still in the UN? EPIC FAIL. It’s long past time to get the US out of the UN, and the UN out of the US.

As if all of that were not enough…

The redoubtable Blazing Cat Fur reveals that Iran has been elected VP of the UN General Assembly. Words fail me.

At first glance, Anthony Weiner’s use of the Internet as a vehicle for long-distance flashing might seem to be off-topic for a hard-news counterjihad blog. (No pun intended!) Other sources, such as Andrew Breitbart and Robert Stacy McCain, have already provided ample coverage, and yes, the jokes just keep on writing themselves.

But it turns out that there’s more to the story than that. Much more.

Politically incorrect comedienne Julia Gorin mines Weinergate for some new comedy gold:

Strauss-Kahn’s Weiner

June 08th 2011 10:41:56 PM – Posted by Julia Gorin

So it turns out that Anthony Weiner’s wife is a Muslim who works for Hillary Clinton. This explains a lot. He must have figured that if she likes Hillary so much, then — like Hillary — she wouldn’t mind if he showed his pee-pee to others.

Given that the man who married them was Bill Clinton, their fate was pretty much sealed right there.

(Ever notice how people will often marry people who look exactly like them?)

Now, I haven’t been following this story or the one about the other prominent Jew and his Muslim. That would be IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the devout West African Muslim hotel maid he allegedly tried to rape. First, I must explain that it wasn’t his Jewishness that made him force himself on the woman, but his Frenchness. Jews don’t tend to be rapists, just perverts.

Not that French tend to be “rapists” per se; it’s just a hazier term there since declining sex isn’t normal or common, and so “rape” as such isn’t common.

Regardless, the news of the Jew trying to rape a Muslim should at least satisfy this woman, who won an award from Hebrew University for arguing that IDF soldiers NOT raping Muslim women is a form of racism.

In other words, Strauss-Kahn may be a rapist, but at least he’s no racist!

My main objection to Anthony Weiner is not his having tweeted his genitalia; it’s his role as point man for policies that are profoundly destructive to the US. For that, the blame belongs to the ignoramuses in his district who elected him.

From the viewpoint of US national interests, the real EPIC FAIL here is all about Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, and her connection with the Clintons. It has been going on for a very long time, and it has largely escaped notice in the press.

I find it problematic that both a prominent US Congressman and the current Secretary of State are, literally as well as figuratively, in bed with a Muslimah.

Talk about sleeping with the enemy!

If Hillary Clinton had a lesbian affair with Huma Abedin then everything in Weinergate fits

(h/t: Sparta)

By Kevin “Coach” Collins

People are motivated to follow their darker instincts by lust for money power or sex.

In mid 2007 rumors started to circulate about Huma Abedin a stunningly beautiful staffer working for Hillary Clinton. The wagging tongues of Washington asked logical questions about Huma. “If Hillary is bisexual (as had long been thought and occasionally uttered in public), what is the nature of her relationship with the dark eyed enchanting Abedin, a young lady from a strict Muslim family?”

“Is the fact that Huma was never seen twice in the same designer outfit and lived in a $649,000 condo explainable because she was trading sexual favors with Hillary for a fabulous lifestyle?” “If so what does that make Huma?”

“How did Huma, whose government salary was listed as $9,999, live as she did?”

“Is Hillary Clinton a lesbian?”

Is Huma Abedin her lesbian “kept woman?”

In 2007 Michael Musto a Village Voice columnist who writes about gay issues commented that Hillary might be “Gayle King-ing” Huma, that is getting her a higher profile in order to head off media scrutiny about her and why Clinton would be “hiding” Huma and the true nature of their relationship.

In her tell all book about her affair with Bill Clinton Gennifer Flowers wrote that when she asked Bill if Hillary is a lesbian he laughed and made reference to her being more experienced with women then he is.

The purpose of this essay is NOT to prove Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin are lesbians, but to raise the question: If they are daughters of Sapphos wouldn’t it have been a good deal for Anthony Weiner to become Huma’s beard or faux husband?

Killing any rumor of a lesbian relationship between Hillary and Huma would be very helpful to Hillary’s drive to be elected president, and a “President Hillary Clinton” would be enormously helpful to Weiner’s long held dream of being elected Mayor of New York City.

The coverage of Weinergate has nibbled around the edges. The reports have carefully avoided mentioning the scandal’s “third rail”: the relationship between Huma Abedin Congressman Anthony Weiner’s wife and her former boss Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, if this is the root of the relationship between Huma and Weiner the whole ugly affair falls into place.

Bill Clinton understands all to well what it’s like to live with a women like Hillary. He knows what it can drive an ordinary man to do. Anthony Weiner’s tweets to a porn star may be motivated by more than mere curiosity.

The biggest motivators driving human behavior are money power and sex. This one has all three.

To contact your Congressional Representative use this link: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

Much more here.

Zimbio: Hillary Clinton’s Lesbian lover Huma Abedin?

(h/t: Sparta)

The August issue of American Vogue featured an article on Huma Abedin, the traveling chief of staff for presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton. As observed on Gawker http://gawker.com/news/huma-abedin/, the Vogue article is lengthy but lacks substance similar to the Observer piece in April. Huma is characterized in short as a control freak, beautiful and a force to be reckon with. Yet, there isn’t much evidence of her intellect and capabilities outside of showing composure in designer clothes and accessories and having a keen understanding of political dynamics in the Middle East having lived there until her teens and raised by parents who are professors and of Indian and Pakistani descent. She has worked for Clinton as an intern/aide since graduating from George Washington. I just don’t see how she can be sought out for her expertise in matters related to the Middle East when she hasn’t worked in an objective international capacity outside of being Clinton’s aide. If she has, the authors of the artices in Vogue and the Observer should have pointed that out rather than rely on just the opinions of others. How about demonstrating the woman’s true smart rather than focusing on how smart and polish she looks in an Yves Saint Laurent suit?

It is worrying too that high power people in Washington like Senator Clinton is heavily relying on the advice of people who haven’t had extensive professional experience in international politics. Even if she grew up in the Middle East, I think that things have changed drastically in the 12+ years she has been away in Washington at college and working for Clinton. Somehow I don’t think that growing up in Saudi Arabia was so bad.

I’m sure that Senator Clinton have some very smart people working for her which makes me surprise that they allow such articles to be printed. Not so much the fact that the articles has a lot of fluff painting Huma as a super-woman, a wonder-kid. By putting forth the image of Huma and Hillary has dynamic, stylish, professional women, they are widening the gap between Senator Clinton and middle America, a weakness of her campaign. I would hope that America is ready for a woman president. However, I’m not sure if America knows how to relate to a woman presidential candidate and the fact that she’s an accomplished lawyer/politician woman makes it even worse. There’s no need to paint a perfect picture of these women to give the average Joes and Janes out there more reason to stay clear of Hillary Clinton…

Much more here.

Also see:

• Hillary’s Lesbian Affair with Muslim Aide?
  (h/t: Sparta)
• The missing woman in Weinergate
  (h/t: Sparta)
• Like most Americans, Rep. Anthony Weiner can’t afford to quit the DC day job
  (h/t: Speranza)

But wait, there’s MORE:

Saleha Abedin, Huma Abedin’s mother:
Will Huma look like her in twenty years?

Anthony Weiner’s mother-in-law, Saleha Abedin, is connected with Muslim Brotherhood

Hear The Truth…

No, this is not my own parish church, but I did take the photo above.

I am certainly not the only one to notice that any attempt to predict the time and date of the Apocalypse is un-Scriptural:

Weasel Zippers: About That Whole Rapture Thing Yesterday …

News of the predicted apocalypse spread around the world. Observers in various time zones made a game of disproving the prediction:

Telegraph (UK): Apocalypse not right now: ‘Rapture’ end of world fails to materialise

Reports of the end of the world appeared to have been exaggerated today.

By Bonnie Malkin, in Sydney, and David Barrett

Inhabitants of New Zealand, scheduled to be among the first to meet the apocalypse according to a US fundamentalist preacher, this morning confirmed they were still in existence as the appointed time was reached in their time zone.

There were also unconfirmed reports that Tonga has, thus far, failed to boil into the Pacific.

Eighty-nine-year-old tele-evangelist Harold Camping had prophesied that the “Rapture” would begin with powerful earthquakes at 6pm in each of the world’s regions, after which the good would be beamed up to heaven.

This morning, Kiwis confirmed there were no signs of the dead rising from the grave, nor of the living ascending into the clouds to meet Jesus Christ.

Twitter users were disappointed by the absence of Armaggedon.
[...]
Vicky Hyde, spokesman for the New Zealand Skeptic Society said she was confident the Rapture was not imminent.

“These kind of predictions come up particularly in times of economic or social uncertainty – which is pretty much almost every year actually, you can track them, whether it’s commentary impacts or the rapture or giant space aliens or something.

“And the only thing they have in common is they are all wrong,” she said.

Camping spread his message of doom via Family Radio, which has a network of 66 radio stations and online broadcasts.

After today’s day of reckoning, he said non-believers would suffer through hell on earth until October 21, when God would pull the plug on the planet once and for all.

But after incorrectly predicting the end of the world in 1994, Camping’s prophecies have been met with derision. And it seems this time he was wrong again…

Sadly, some desperate souls looked forward to the predicted apocalypse, not because they wanted to be in the presence of God, but because they have given up on coping with life on Earth:

Patterico: Rapture Fails to Materialize; Losers Hardest Hit

Get out your small violins:

Keith Bauer, a 38-year-old tractor-trailer driver from Westminster, Md., took last week off from work, packed his wife, young son and a relative in their SUV and crossed the country.

If it was his last week on Earth, he wanted to see parts of it he’d always heard about but missed, such as the Grand Canyon and the Painted Forest. With maxed-out credit cards and a growing mountain of bills, he said, the rapture would have been a relief.

Hey, if you have a family and are deep in debt, the only rational thing to do is take a week off and travel around because you think the world is about to end.

Really too bad that Mr. Bauer couldn’t find the “relief” he sought.

Others saw the media brouhaha as an occasion for some interactive comedy:

Nothing Like A Good Prank…

Blogmocracy 2.0: After The Rapture
By Bunk X

[Tip o' the Tarboosh to CR.]

All I can think of is “that poor damned dog.” Of course, it could be that The Day of Rapture is different for canines, and one day there will be a leash laying on the ground beside a collar while its owner stands there dumbfounded.

Mongoose, also on 2.0: The Blogmocracy, had thought of a good way to prank gullible passers by: leaving pairs of old shoes outdoors, and putting dry ice in them to create rising vapor. Mongoose told me why that plan went awry:

@ 1389AD:

That is what I was going to do but when I got to Goodwill there were no shoes left.

Someone stole my idea! (b–tards…)

Also see…

• Photojournalist Zombie went to the source to chronicle the Media Circus of Biblical Proportions at Armageddon HQ. Rival groups of protesters, pranksters, and placard-bearers turned out in force at the Oakland headquarters of Harold Camping, the radio preacher who started it all by predicting the end of the world on June 21. (Some pictures NSFW.)
• Ed Morissey at Hot Air asks: Is the Rapture schadenfreude turning sinister? He points out that the misguided and panicky activities of Camping and his followers have become an opportunity to ridicule Christians in general, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with this.