Staff at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre in Llanelli have been dumbfounded by the effect the cold weather has had on birds’ migratory cycles.
In recent days the centre has seen “unusually” large numbers of birds arriving “abnormally early” at the wetlands. According to the centre’s website this has included over 800 curlew, 3 whimbrel, 10 greenshank, 100 redshank, 90 oystercatcher and 190 black-tailed godwits. These are birds that would normally only be seen in Carmarthenshire in either Autumn or Winter.
The birds seem to be leaving Iceland early because it is really cold and heading to Wales (yes, part of the United Kingdom) early. Obviously, this is your fault for leaving your DVR plugged in as you head off to work, because greenhouse gases now cause the Earth to get cold.
BTW, it has been pretty darned cool and rainy in southern England as of late, so far another British year without a summer. They may get a brief break for a short spell, but many are predicting a rainy and cool Olympics.
Trying to shift the presidential campaign narrative away from his personal finances and tenure at Bain Capital, Republican Mitt Romney will launch a fresh assault this week accusing President Obama of political cronyism at the expense of middle-class workers.
In a coordinated offensive starting Monday, the Romney team and its allies will say that the president has been a “typical politician†and has demonstrated “systematic favoritism†toward top campaign fundraisers by lavishing them with federal appointments and their companies with taxpayer money and special government deals, according to campaign officials.
What this does is shift the debate back to the economy, where Obama is pretty weak, and wants to avoid the discussion. Unemployment has been stuck above 8% for 41 weeks, the longest stretch since the Great Depression. Consumer confidence is weak. Housing is still in the doldrums. Cities are declaring bankruptcy. People have given up on the jobs market in historic numbers. Disposable income is at its lowest point ever. The cost of living is rising fast. All despite Obama’s massive Stimulus which mortgaged our grandchildren’s future. But hooked up quite a few Obama donors.
Consider that two words came into our lexicon during the Obama administration: funemployment, which is where people say “to hell with the jobs market, there aren’t any out there, I’ll just stay on unemployment and have fun”, and staycation, where people have no money to go anywhere during their week of vacation so just stay home.
The challenge for Team Mitt will be putting this in easy terms for the average voter who tends not to spend a lot of time on politics. There are plenty of examples, such as Solyndra. And how about
Goldman Sachs: Owns Cogentrix and US Geothermal. Donated over $1 million to Barack Obama. Received $96.8 million in stimulus funding.
BP Oil: Gave more money to Barack Obama than to any other candidate in 20 years. BP Oil received $308 million in stimulus funding. BP Oil was the only oil company in the world to receive free stimulus grants. A government audit revealed that the $308 million created a total of 23 jobs.
Of the vaunted $862 billion stimulus in 2009, which Obama had claimed would build roads and bridges and “invest in the future,” Cogan and Taylor found that only $4 billion was devoted to infrastructure projects as of January 2011. Fully half of all stimulus spending went to fund Medicaid — which may or may not be good social policy but is hardly a stimulant to economic growth. And arguably, the strings the federal government attached to Medicaid funds — insisting that states could not restrict eligibility rules or reduce benefits — was bad policy.
Further, as John Lott observes, the stimulus funds were hardly targeted to help “those hardest hit by the economic crisis” as Obama had promised. Instead, “the states hardest hit by the recession received the least money. States with higher bankruptcy, foreclosure and unemployment rates got less money. And lower-income states also received less.” The key was politics. “Having an entirely Democrat congressional delegation in 2009, when the bill passed, increased the per capita stimulus dollars that the state receives per person by $460. In addition, the states that Obama won by the largest percentage margin in 2008 got the most money.”
Expect to hear the phrase “this is a distraction from issues that Americans care about”, which is usually trotted out when Democrats know that they are getting killed on the subject.
Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the bill to know what’s in it. Democrats did just that, by offering bribes and using cheap parliamentary tricks, despite massive outcry over the legislation, and now that we know what’s in it, it hasn’t gotten more popular. People are not resigned to accepting it. And the polls prove just how bad the American People think it is
(Politico) Most Americans think President Barack Obama’s health care reform law will harm taxpayers and businesses, while helping those directly threatened by a lack of health care, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.
Sixty percent believe the law will make things worse for taxpayers, 57 percent think it will do so for businesses, 51 percent think it will do so for doctors and 46 percent think people with health insurance will be worse off.
For those without health insurance, 59 percent think the law will help, with just under a third thinking it will hurt. Fifty-five percent think the law will benefit those who get sick, and 34 percent think it will harm them. The public is split on whether hospitals will benefit or suffer.
There’s a little sliver of sunshine in the poll for Team Obama in that last paragraph. Yes, it could help those who get sick, because they cannot be denied purchasing health insurance when they get sick. And they cannot be dropped by their insurance carriers when they get sick (a notion that I heartedly agree with). Overall, this is what the poll looks like
We could have assumed easily that Democrats would respond positively and Republicans would respond negatively in all categories. The ones to look at are the Independent voters: in 6 of the 8 categories, they respond negatively. That doesn’t give Team Obama a lot of room for campaigning on his signature achievement, eh?
He’s quite cool with spreading Other People’s money, but, his own? Not so much
(SacBee) A website sued by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign for selling T-shirts and other merchandise with the campaign’s signature “O” logo is taking down the offending merchandise.
A judge in Washington on Monday agreed to bar Washington-based Demstore.com from selling merchandise with the “O” logo trademarked by the campaign. But the judge had reserved judgment on whether the website should also be barred from selling merchandise with a logo that uses the distinctive “O” as part of the year 2012.
Amazingly, these people are such ObamaZombies that they still plan on selling generic crap merchandise supporting Obama even after being sued to stop spreading the wealth around.
And last, but not least, Gay Patriot catches CNN using the Obama campaign as a source
As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets†calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts
Watcher of Weasels has this weeks’ Council results. And thanks to all the Council members who linked back to Pirate’s Cove for an honorable mention.
The POH Diaries has Katy Perry riding a bike plus linkage (last week’s).
And ending with the always awesome The First Street Journal which has some different Rule 5, featuring military women: Rule 5 Blogging – Contemplating The Future.
Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.
The posts do take a long time, so, if you want to send me your links for Rule 5 babeage or links, use ye olde email in the header bar (remove the NOSPAM part). Preferably, create the html link so I can copy and paste how you want it to read.
Jazz Shaw writes that this is Obama channeling his inner Elizabeth “High Cheekbones” Warren, who said last year “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.” What she was saying is that no one can succeed with out the big loving embrace of The Government, so people who got rich should pay their “fair share.” Of course, she and other liberals utterly refuse to define what “fair share” is, though I reckon it revolves around giving lots to Democrat campaigns which will be repaid with cushy “green” energy DOE loans for companies that are close to bankruptcy. Anyhow
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Obama is sort of unintentionally correct: you didn’t. You probably got a loan from a bank, financial institution, seed money guys, rich people, mobsters….you know, folks/companies in the private sector with lots of cash that are looking to make more money off the investment in your business, and Obama wants to tax the bejesus out of those folks, meaning they have less money to invest in your business.
Of course, PBO means that you can’t succeed without the government’s generosity, especially since you can’t possibly be a hard worker or smart. Only Gubmint can create a business, chumps! Don’t you know that by now?
Now, I’m not one who says government has no role, or that no taxes are ever justified. Building roads, creating infrastructure, establishing the rule of law and providing access to courts to seek redress — all this plays a role. But Obama’s argument sounds like a statist’s economic version of “Field of Dreams†— if you build it, wealth will come.
Obama probably thinks $5 trillion in new debt helps businesses. As far as there being a whole lot of people who want to give something back, funny how Democrats are unwilling to write a check to the IRS, always take advantage of tax deductions (people like…..Obama!), and are notoriously uncharitable (with their own money).
Yes, liberals. We can be sure of that, and can surely believe that most are Warmists, too, since they are liberals. How do we know? In D.C., Obama took 92.9% of the vote in 2008. And now we have
(Washington Post) Dozens of irate residents and business owners lashed out at Pepco officials Friday during the first public hearing on the electric company’s response to the widespread power outages caused by last month’s violent storms.
At a heated D.C. Council hearing, which stretched well into the evening, witnesses spoke of spoiled food, sweltering nursing-home rooms, credit-card-busting hotel bills, and dangerous trips up and down dark stairwells due to powerless elevators. And they vented their frustration over how long it took Pepco to get the power back on.
One disgruntled customer said simply: “Shame on you, Pepco. Shame on you, Pepco.â€
Hey, this is the type of world Warmists want to take us to, one in which there isn’t enough supply to keep the power on. This is what a world with globull warming regulations looks like, especially a night when the solar panels are receiving no light.
Meanwhile, several Maryland legislators want to assess fines to Pepco and BGE which could be over $100 million to each company under “reliability standards.” No one could have predicted the derecho, and no one did. Taking that money just means that the companies have to cut costs from somewhere else, since they aren’t allowed to simply pass on the costs, as the costs are controlled by Government. So, there could be less people to work on the lines.
The voter registration form arrived in the mail last month with some key information already filled in: Rosie Charlston’s name was complete, as was her Seattle address.
Problem is, Rosie was a black lab who died in 1998.
A group called the Voter Participation Center has touted the distribution of some 5 million registration forms in recent weeks, targeting Democratic-leaning voting blocs such as unmarried women, blacks, Latinos and young adults.
But residents and election administrators around the country also have reported a series of bizarre and questionable mailings addressed to animals, dead people, noncitizens and people already registered to vote.
Yeah, no reason for mandating voter ID, eh? The article mentions the same happening in Florida, Virginia, and New Mexico, among others.
Sweetness and Light goes on to highlight that the Voter Participation Center is not a “non-partisan” group as the AP describes them near the end of the article, but a hardcore far left Democrat group associated with many other hard core far left Democrat groups, and is unshockingly against any voter ID requirements. The also push a great use of absentee ballots.
Elwood P. Dowd on If All You See…: “Today The Catholic Church observed The World Day of Migrants and Refugees!” Sep 28, 00:21
drowningpuppies on If All You See…: “TL;DNR Learn to edit. Learn to code.” Sep 27, 23:12
drowningpuppies on If All You See…: “More of the global warming scam. Judicial rulings against New York’s bogus Climate Superfund law marks yet another well-deserved blow…” Sep 27, 23:09
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