Fickled Finger of Fate

See Barak Obama's fickled finger of fate at:

The Natural Truth (Thanks to Michael Graham)

Notice the audience's reaction and his smirk.

For you who have already drunk the Kool Aid, here are the ten reasons for this smirch:
1) His face really was itchy
2) It was clearly accidental
3) He was surprised at the audience's reaction, ergo the smirk
4) Hillary video-edited this YouTube snippet
5) He was auditioning for "Animal House II"
6) Hillary disserved it (I might even agree with this one)
7) He was practicing acting “presidential”
8) His other fingers are paralyzed (from bowling)
9) It was really directed at Bush
10) This was the patriotic salute he learned at Harvard Law School

Signed,
A Typical (Bitter) White Person

Obama Nation

My many liberal Massachusetts friends (it’s in the water) have convinced me that it is inevitable that Barak Obama will be elected our next President. So, to adjust myself to this rather unpleasant thought, I have made a list of things that I’m pretty certain will occur during his administration(s):
- As a reward for his help in the election, Bill Clinton will be named our U.N. Ambassador
- The U.S. will recognize Hamas
- Bill Richardson will be named our Secretary of State
- Taxes will be increased across the board
- The budgets for the Defense Department and U.S intelligence activities will be slashed
- President Obama will sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and bin Laden
- Lani Guinier will be appointed to the Supreme Court (and confirmed this time)
- The U.S. will withdraw from NATO
- Sharia law will be made a local option throughout the U.S.
- Jimmie Carter, George Soros, and Louis Farrakhan will be given the Medal of Freedom
- All U.S. soldiers will be out of Iraq and Afghanistan by July 1, 2009
- John Murta will be named the U.S. Secretary of Defense
- The U.S. will stop all foreign and military aid to Israel
- All wire-taps will be stopped and those who have been tapped will be informed and any such evidence collected will be destroyed
- Illegal immigrants will be granted amnesty and given Social Security benefits
- Our new Attorney General will be John Edwards
- Raila Odinga, Barack cousin, will be recognized by the U.S. as Kenya’s legitimate president
- Presidential pardons – O.J. Simpson, Jose Padilla, Michael Vick, Lynne Stewart and all current and past Guantanamo prisoners
- Oil will hit $200 per barrel
- Bill Moyers will be (re)named Presidential Press Secretary
- Deval Patrick will be named the Secretary of the Interior
- A national carbon tax will be endorsed by the U.S. and implemented through the U.N.

Coal in Our Stocking

“By Reuters 07 Apr 2008 03:16 PM ET Global coal supply will fall short by up to 35 million tons in 2008 and the deficit is set to grow going forward, ensuring that prices remain strong, the CEO of coal miner Arch Coal said on Monday.”

A few weeks ago another commentator (on CNBC) said that the “United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal.” (Montana, Illinois, Wyoming and other states basically sit on hundreds of square miles of easily strip-mined coal. See US Coal Sources.) Hmm, does this suggest to you what it suggests to me? I think that the United States should form a coal cartel (OCEC = Organization of Coal Exporting Countries) just like the world oil cartel, OPEC. Since China has recently gone from a coal exporter to a net coal importer, perhaps we can drive up the price of coal far enough so that we can pay for all our stupid imports and rebalance our balance of payments.

Wouldn’t that be a sweet Christmas present?

TAXING TIMES

The Clintons have released their tax returns covering the years 2000 through 2007. During this time they earned $109 million and paid $33.8 million in federal taxes (31%). There are a few interesting twists to these disclosures:

- What about all the furniture and Presidential gifts that the Clintons trucked out of the White House in the fall of 2000. Was this largess declared on their disclosed tax forms? It has been estimated by some that this thievery was worth hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. Also did the Clintons pay taxes on all the improvements that the U.S. taxpayers made to their home in Chappaqua, NY?

- Bill and Hillary gave $10.2 million to charity over this period. However, according to the NY Times, virtually all this money was donated to a Clinton-run family foundation. (Sourced from the NY Times via Drudge). Not only does this allow the Clintons to move tax-sheltered money from one pocket to another but it also draws a curtain between the Clintons and the ultimate receivers of these "gifts". According to the Times “the Clintons ha[ve] given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy.” I wonder to whom?

- Does the income that the Clinton’s received from their book deals jibe with the number of books sold? According to the NY Times “Mr. Clinton has earned $29.6 million from two books, ‘My Life’ [$12 million advance, estimated 2.25 million sales @ $26 per book at Barnes & Noble] and ‘Giving,’ [@ $29.95 at B&N] while Mrs. Clinton has collected $10.5 million from two books, ‘Living History’ [$8 million advance, @ $14.40 at B&N ] and ‘It Takes a Village’ [@ $25 at B&N]. She donated $1.1 million from book proceeds to charity. Mr. Clinton last year earned $6.3 million from ‘Giving,’ a book on philanthropy, and reported giving $1 million of that to charity. [Assumedly both these charitable donations were also to the family foundation.]” From what I have been able to calculate, it doesn’t add up (assume a generous 15% royalty). Do the math yourself. (If the Clintons got $40.1 million from these 4 books with a 15% royalty, this means that $267.3 million of books had to have been sold. Assuming an average price of around $25 per book, this means that over 10 million books had to have been sold … or over 2.5 million copies per book. This is more than the biggest book, “My Life” sold. Are these book deals something more than arms-length transactions?)

FOOLS RUSH IN

Rush Limbaugh recently said the following: “When small men cast long shadows, it’s a sure sign that the sun is setting.” I’m not sure that this epigram is original to him, but it sure makes a lot of sense in the current context.