Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: We hunt because of economic anxiety

• Vanderleun links to this amazing video. Watch it now. I'll wait.

• Gateway Pundit spotlights the support of Hamas and Hezbollah by Obama's church of 20 years. But maybe he was sick all of those days.

• Tom Harkin (D-IA) says John McCain, with his history of military service and that of his family, might just be too tight with the military to be President. Coming from a guy who embellished (i.e., made up) his own military record, Harkin's statement is particularly galling. GM Roper and Big Dog shred Harkin's pathetic pronouncement.

• Just a Grunt catches a mysterious news story: "State Representative from Unknown Party Arrested for Fourth Time."

• WKYX AM 570 reports that two protestors were ejected from a massive Bill (oops, I meant Hillary) Clinton rally in Murray, Kentucky. Given the increasing scale of Hillary's loans to her campaign, I'd say that the odds of Peter Paul getting repaid are about the same as Lindsey Lohan getting tagged as Obama's running mate.

• CNN covers Karl Rove's speech at the NRA Convention (via PrairiePundit):

You probably didn't know you hunted out of economic anxiety, and if gas was a $1.50 a gallon, you probably wouldn't be hunting... You probably thought you hunted because you enjoyed the outdoors and companionship with family and friends...

We here have news for Barack Obama. The values of those people you diminished are the values of America. And those people don't like getting patronized, or viewed as an alien species, by a fellow who pretends to embody a new kind of politics, and especially by someone who wants to be president not of red states or blue states, but the United States...

It is distracting to say in a Democratic primary when you are trying to cozy up to Moveon.org that an American flag on your lapel is a quote 'substitute' for true patriotism. Belittling all those who care to wear our country's flag, calling them false patriots, and then when you focus on the general election, like this week, start to showing up with an American flag on your lapel again.

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Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Obama 57 State Sauce

• Suitably Flip unveils the Barack Obama patriotic flag lapel pin featuring all 57 states he's visited. Shush... don't discuss the fact that Obama could be losing his bearings.

• Gateway Pundit exposes Hezbollah's war crimes in Beirut, Lebanon. Why the lack of mainstream media coverage? Remember, Sparky, only the US and Israel commit war crimes (hat tip: Nahanni).

• Harper's Bazaar features the next First Lady -- Cindy McCain and her family service to America and ecology, though to read a newspaper you'd never know it. Michelle Obama, one supposes, is the wife of the anointed one, which explains the skewed amount of coverage.

• Macsmind highlights ICE's busts of faked marriages in Florida -- Operation "Knot so Fast."

• And another GP must-read: this will be the year of the GOP. Watch for the ads that ask (and answer) the following questions regarding U.S. policy over the last 30 years.

Which party blocked the development of new sources of petroleum? -- Democrat

Which party blocked drilling in ANWR? -- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off the coast of Florida? -- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off of the east coast? -- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off of the west coast? -- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast? -- Democrat

Which party blocked building oil refineries? -- Democrat

Which party blocked clean nuclear energy production? -- Democrat
Which party blocked clean coal production? -- Democrat

If the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was the size of a football field, the portion from which we would extract oil would occupy the area of a postage stamp.

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Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Times delinks Iraq and oil prices

• Larry Kudlow:

It’s rather amusing watching the liberal media in full-scale attack mode on George Stephanopolis and Charles Gibson, with the Washington Post’s Tom Shales as the general leading the charge. Oh my gosh! Their hero Obama has been wounded!

What’s the problem here? Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopolis actually challenged Obama with tough, well-informed questions on tax policy and politics? That’s what they’re supposed to do. . . .

Look, here’s the deal: Obama bungled the tax question, big time. Period. End of sentence. End of story. To my liberal friends out there all I can say is: Get over it. Your guy has a very poor grasp of basic economic principles.

First off, you don’t raise taxes during a recession. That’s a no-brainer. Second, doubling the capital-gains tax affects Americans up and down the income ladder, not just rich hedge-fund managers. In addition, capital-gains tax cuts are self-financing, and they stimulate jobs and the economy. You want to raise budget revenues? Cut the cap-gains tax rate. That’s what history shows. Finally, hiking the payroll tax also affects people up and down the income ladder.

• New York Sun -- Carter's Conceit:

When Mr. Carter was given the heave ho, the Misery Index, an index combining rates of inflation and unemployment, was at an all time high of 21.98% — up from 13.5% when he was elected in 1976. After his last full year as president inflation was at 13.5% and unemployment at 7.2%.

Today the Misery Index is at 8.83%, though the Democrats have not a nice thing to say about Mr. Carter’s Republican successors.

• Mark Steyn:

...I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent's accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

Sorry, it doesn't work like that. If you don't understand that there are times when you'll have to fight for it, you won't enjoy it for long. That's what a lot of Reade's laundry list – "gun-totin'," "military-lovin'" – boils down to. As for "gay-loathin'," it's Oscar van den Boogaard's famously tolerant Amsterdam where gay-bashing is resurgent: The editor of the American gay paper the Washington Blade got beaten up in the streets on his last visit to the Netherlands.

God and guns. Maybe one day a viable society will find a magic cure-all that can do without both, but Big Government isn't it.

• Politico -- Obama linked to gun control efforts:

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has worked to assure uneasy gun owners that he believes the Constitution protects their rights and that he doesn’t want to take away their guns.

But before he became a national political figure, he sat on the board of a Chicago-based foundation that doled out at least nine grants totaling nearly $2.7 million to groups that advocated the opposite positions.

• The New York Times' Martin Neil Baily says Don’t Blame the War for the Economy:

I am no fan of the war in Iraq, but it simply has not been a major contributor to the financial crisis and the impending recession. The high price of oil is largely the result of strong demand, notably from China and India, pressing against a limited supply. The global oil supply is growing more slowly than it could because of politics and policies in many places — Russia, Mexico, Nigeria and Venezuela as well as the Middle East. Fears that the turmoil in Iraq might spread have probably given a boost to oil prices, but nowhere near enough to account for the huge price surge...

One sign that the war in Iraq is not the primary cause of the rise in oil prices is that metals and commodity prices across the board have risen sharply. Surging demand in Asia, coupled with supply that grows only slowly when prices increase, is the main story not only for oil, but for commodities broadly. The sinking value of the dollar has also played a role.

• Robert Ferrigno:

William Jefferson Clinton watched the two cheerleaders give him a manicure, and realized he missed Rush Limbaugh. The man was always good for a laugh, particularly when he played Hillary’s cackle over and over, or Farrakhan going off about the mothership. The reenactment of the Fairness Doctrine had closed down Rush, and the rest of the talkers who wouldn’t dance to the new tune. You could spin the dial for an hour and never hear anything that got your blood pumping...

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: Clintons can't agree on anything!

• Lee Cary at American Thinker asks Norman Hsu Who?:

The list of benefactors from Hsu's fund-raising slash Ponzi scheme turned out to be a Who's Who among Democrat luminaries. The top three names suggest that Hsu was betting on a rollout of influence coming from a Clinton victory next November. As was widely reported, she received $850,000 in donations. As was not widely reported, nor recently noted when he became Client #9, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer received $72,600. He was the third highest recipient of Hsu money.

The second highest might have been the man that a Governor Spitzer would have appointed to complete a President Hillary Clinton's unexpired Senate term - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, $86,600. And, oh, Fiona Ma, the California Assemblywomen who arranged for Raymond Chow to receive a "Certificate of Honor" from the City of San Francisco, also received Hsu & Associates money, $27,600 ($9,600 from Norm himself). Pure coincidence, surely. (When Senator Feinstein retires from the Senate might Ms. Ma run for her seat?)

• Thomas Sowell outlines the message Republicans must take to the Black community:

The teachers' unions are just one of the sacred cow constituencies of the Democratic Party whose agendas are very harmful to blacks... Black voters also need to be told about the tens of thousands of blacks who have been forced out of a number of liberal Democratic California counties by skyrocketing housing prices, brought on by Democratic environmentalists' severe restrictions on the building of homes or apartments.

The black population of San Francisco, for example, has been cut in half since 1970-- and San Francisco is the very model of a community of liberal Democrats, including green zealots who are heedless of the consequences of their actions on others.

Then there are the effects of tort lawyers in raising prices, liberal judges turning criminals loose and other influential Democratic Party constituencies whose effects on blacks are strictly negative...

• Anthony Cordesman's Nuclear Wake-Up Call:

Based on the best current knowledge of the Israeli and Iranian nuclear arsenals in the years after 2010, Cordesman concludes that a nuclear war between them would kill up to 800,000 Israelis and up to 28 million Iranians. Israel might just be able to recover as an organized society, but Iran would not.

...But Cordesman adds that Israel would need to keep a reserve strike capability to ensure no other power can capitalize on Iran's strike.?This means Israel would have to target key Arab neighbors, and in particular Syria and Egypt. Were this escalation to take place, up to 18 million Syrians and tens of millions of Egyptians could also die.

The Cordesman report goes on to list the oil wells, refineries and ports along the Gulf that could also be targets in the event of a mass nuclear response by an Israel convinced that it was being dealt a potentially mortal blow. Such a nuclear exchange might not be Armageddon for the human race; it would certainly be Armageddon for the global economy.

• Gateway Pundit notes there is a fine line between genius and insanity -- and that line is the split between husband and wife Clinton.

Hillary Clinton said she opposed the Dubai Ports deal... -- Her husband was getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to support it.

Hillary Clinton said she opposed Colombian free trade agreement. -- Her husband was getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to support it.

But, the latest Clinton controversy is the most outrageous:

Hillary Clinton said she opposed the slaughter of Tibetan protesters. --Her husband received hundreds of thousands by the company that posted the photos of the Most Wanted Tibetan activists on their internet page.

• Gaius observes that Joe Klein will be savaged for telling the truth:

Joe Klein at Time will doubtless raise even more fury than he usually does over on the hard left with his latest post. He makes a number of points contradicting the analysis today by The Politico which pretty well savaged Obama as unelectable...

...There are a lot of people who are not at all amused with Obama's condescending dismissal of small town America. Just as there were a lot of people seriously angered by Obama's pastor and his anti-America screeds. The latter was not quite as personal as Obama's disdain for average Americans. The personal slight are harder to get around...

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Best of the First Quarter 2008 posts

Actually, the left column has some of my favorite posts from the first quarter of 2008. The right column has some older articles that are ready for the archives.

Star Trek: The Olbermann Gambit Ten Worst Brands of All Time China introduces new Olympic sports Hero of Bosnia Hillary hits the red button More things change, the more they stay the same Convicts await stoning deaths in Nigeria No country for young men 796 (Superdelegates, not Spartans) ADAA presents: Super Tuesday Bowl 2008 Iran TV: Naval Victory over Great Satan

John Edwards love child saga and the MSM Al Gore: Set to Profit from Eco-Suckaz... again "I'm having a conversation. With sock-puppets." CNN reveals a 'safe house' -- and more! SCHIP for Dummies (and others) Hurricane Paul threatens to swamp campaign The Adventures of Barack Obama A Senator faces a reporter's inquiry: 2036 Google Street Views: Beltway Edition

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: "You, sir, should be NOT running this committee!"

 
• Dan Rather says I'd Probably Just Sit Here And Drink" If I Had To Read CNN's News: does that mean Rather's given up huffing glue? Well, I just figured he huffed glue because that would be about the only substance powerful enough to convince him he could foist the Bush Air National Guard scam on the American people.

• Obama's other spiritual mentor and the Catholic Church: Christopher Hitchens uncovered a years old newspaper article in which the candidate named "three spiritual mentors or counselors: Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks, and Father Michael Pfleger."

• Has global warming stopped?: "The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly." Related news: ICECAP discusses the Wilkins Ice Sheet break-up.

• A well-meaning, liberal Philanthropist makes a stunning discovery.

• Code Stink gets kicked out of the Petraeus hearing by Slow Joe Biden, no less (that won't please MorOn.org). Hilarious dialogue: "You, sir, should be NOT running this committee! ...Did you hear me speak? Did... you... hear... me... speak??"

• Michelle Obama Describes American Gleichschaltung. Gesundheit!

• Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid Warns: Freedom of Speech Might Lead to Freedom of Belief. Indeed it might.

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: gain a wife, lose a speeding ticket

 
• Jay notes that the ACLU has assembled a "Dream Team" (plus Janet Reno) to defend the Gitmo terrorists including KSM, the mastermind behind the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans. The fact that Reno's on the team could only mean one thing: the diabolical Bush administration has stashed David Koresh and Elián González in a secret dungeon underneath Gitmo.

• AJ Strata asks why European Al Qaeda-types are traveling to Pakistan via Iran. Maybe they're just getting cheap duty-free liquor?

• Copious Dissent examines the New York Times polling methodology and comes away stunned -- but not surprised -- at the inherent dishonesty. You may remember the headline: Weak Economy Sours Public’s View of Future, New Poll Finds. The Times studiously misrepresented the most important question of the poll. It asked How would you rate the financial situation in your household these days? Is it very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad?. A mere 72% of respondents answered "Very Good" or "Fairly Good."

• Redstate documents the ties between Barack Obama and Intifada:

Obama's association with the ISM through his church and lobbying in Chicago goes even deeper than just his past links to Al Awda and Ali Abunimah. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the Trinity Union Church of Christ in Chicago, are both equally involved with the ISM.

Hmmm. Obama's church supports Hamas terrorists, Farrakhan's Nation of Islam and now this. But I'm certain that Barack never knew that any of these haters and murderers were associated with his church.

• Fausta finds that polygyny is now an acceptable excuse for speeding:

Mohammed Anwar said a ban would make it difficult to commute between his two wives and fulfil his matrimonial duties... His lawyer told a Scottish court the Muslim restaurant owner has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow - he is allowed up to four under his religion - and sleeps with them on alternate nights... Airdrie Sheriff Court had heard that Anwar was caught driving at 64mph in a 30mph zone in Glasgow, fast enough to qualify for instant disqualification... Anwar admitted the offence, but Sheriff John C. Morris accepted his plea not to be banned and allowed him to keep his licence.

Extra wives to avoid speeding tickets, you say? Hmmm.... interesting...

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Larwyn's Links: RIP Dith Pran

 
Remember, there's no links like Larwyn's links.

• RIP, Dith Pran, one of a tragic few survivors of Cambodia's Killing Fields.

• In Pennsylvania, Hillary's got a friend in Murtha

• Can Obama disown Rev. Wright? Yes, he can!

• Reaction to Obama's comments on his participation in Farrakhan's Million Man March: "It doesn't seem like Barack had any real problem with cursing out white folks or making anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements, it's just not as productive as he'd like."

• In Iran, more homosexuals are rounded up and some are executed. Human rights groups and the LGBT community are utterly silent on the matter.

• The pantsuit is a skinflint: Hillary Rodham Clinton's cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys, but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small business circles.

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: Heart-warming climate news

 
• Heart-warming climate facts from The Australian:

Duffy: "Is the Earth still warming?"

Marohasy: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

• Barack Obama's Public Relations consortium -- also known as Newsweek magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the rest of the mainstream media -- is brutalized by the Bulletin's Herb Denenberg.

• Obama's Trinity Church says that Jeremiah Wright was "Publicly lynched and crucified." The act of broadcasting Wright's sermons, apparently, now constitutes a set of monstrous crimes.

• The Joshua Fund reports that Muslims in the Middle East are converting to Christianity in record numbers.

• Very amusing computer woes from Stotting over again. Well, they're mostly amusing because they're not happening to us.

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: "Undocumented hitmen for hire!"

 
Junk Science: The Washington Post-er Child for Climate Bias: Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin leads the pack in this year’s contest for misguided climate analysis disguised as "news."

The Mexican Consulate: "San Diego has been and will be Mexico."

Obama's pals: "Guilt by Assocation". You'll also went to check Vanderleun's "Change and Obey".

Need a hitman? Illegal aliens (for progressives: "undocumented workers") are available for hire!

"It's time to take a stand against Sharia":

Maryam Namazie leads the Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain. She says that rights are for individuals, not religions or beliefs...

Picture this, says Maryam Namazie: “A child is swathed in cloth from head to toe every day. Everything but her face and hands are covered for fear that a man might find her attractive. At school she learns that she is worth less than a boy. She is not allowed to dance or swim or feel the sun on her skin or the wind in her hair. This is clearly unacceptable, yet it is accepted when it is done in the name of religion."...

Transitional Fossils: Science puts a stake in the heart of creationism.

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: The Mummy Returns

 
• The Apostate Factory: Faith Freedom: ""O ye who believe! Ask not questions about things which if made plain to you, may cause you trouble. Some people before you did ask such questions, and on that account lost their faith."

• The Mummy Returns: so says Mark Steyn... "Well, we will have Hillary Clinton to kick around some more, at least for another few weeks. The Mummy (as my radio pal Hugh Hewitt calls her) kicked open the sarcophagus door and, despite the rotting bandages dating back to Iowa, began staggering around terrorizing folks all over again. “She is a monster,” Obama adviser Samantha Power told a reporter from the Scotsman — and not a monster in a cute Loch Ness blurry long-distance kind of way but something far more repulsive and in your face. “You just look at her and think, ‘Ergh,’” continued Ms. Power, warming to her theme perhaps more than is advisable even in an interview with an overseas newspaper..."

• The nuanced, evolving policy positions of Barack Obama: "In July of 2004, the day after his speech at the Democratic convention catapulted him into the national spotlight, Barack Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an 'absolute obligation' to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success."

• Setting the stage for a Civil War in the Democrat Party: Hillary Clinton sets her sights on three ways to win the nomination.

• Disney steers clear of "Path to 9/11" DVD: "Top brass at Disney were called on Thursday to defend their decision not to release the controversial miniseries 'The Path to 9/11' on DVD and to justify CEO Robert Iger's $27.7 million pay package... [the movie was] a 2006 ABC miniseries critical of President Bill Clinton's handling of terrorist threats, was so controversial that leading Democrats asked Disney not to air the program... At Disney's annual shareholders' meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., one mutual fund portfolio manager said it was high time Disney turned "Path" into a DVD and recouped some of the $40 million it spent on the project... The fund manager, Tom Borelli, accused Iger of protecting Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign at the expense of shareholders, and pointed out that Iger has been a steady Clinton donor since before the former first lady was elected to the Senate... He claimed to have a letter from a representative at indie studio Lionsgate proving that Disney has no intention of even selling the DVD rights to another company... "

• Israel's Siege Continues: Richard Baehr on the survival of Israel and Judaism itself.

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Larwyn's Link Explosion: ''Hillary's not a monster. As far as I know."

 
Hillary wants to run on her "experience", so why is she hiding as much of her experience as possible? This time, the Clintons decided to lock up the "Pardongate" papers, which describe how Bill Clinton issued hundreds of controversial pardons at the end of his second term. Ed Morrissey calls this internal conflict "curious". I call it a run-of-the-mill Clintonian coverup, along with the redacted pages in the Barrett Report, the still unreleased portions of the Cox Report, the millions of "classified" HillaryCare documents, her undisclosed tax returns and the financial backers of the Clinton Foundation Library and Gentlemen's Lounge. Hell, we could save the world's rain-forests simply by recycling some of these stashed archives.

Will Puerto Rico decide the Democratic nomination? Fausta notes that Puerto Rico has 8 superdelegates and 55 conventional delegates. If the race comes down to the wire those relative few may hold the keys to the nomination.

Conflict-of-interest: On July 27, 2007, Nancy Pelosi received more than $20,000 is contributions from drug-maker Amgen. On August 2, Pelosi introduced a bill that would benefit Amgen by permitting expanded Medicaid coverage for some HIV-positive patients. In addition, to the $20K Pelosi received in July, another $20K was received by Pelosi's re-election campaign from Amgen executives and the corporate political action committee. Ethical!

Rick Pearson has a funny: commenting on Obama's Samantha Powers debacle (she who called Hillary a "monster"): "Obama might have said, 'Hillary's not a monster. As far as I know.'"

Another unexplained windfall for Bill Clinton: Eagle-eyed PrairiePundit spots a WaTimes mention of another odd "contribution" to the Clintons

The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government...

Sweet deal, Willie!

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Larwyn's links: the Jimmy Carter platform returns

 
• Obama's Communist Mentor. Listening to Obama's victory speech last night was a little like a flashback to a Pravda editorial, circa 1978. I'd call Obama's vision the nanny state, but a nanny for every citizen is a lot less expensive. At Commentary Magazine, Abe Greenwald lists some of Obama's negatives: Plagiarism, broken promises, questionable advisors, an extreme liberal voting record, and classic socialist economic policies. Can you say "wealth redistribution"?

• The Canadian High Commissioner of Thought Crimes who interrogated Ezra Levant has resigned. Perhaps there's an opening at the BMV; she certainly has the requisite intelligence and personality.

• Pamela went to a newsstand at the airport and had a difficult time determining who the media was rooting for.

• What did Michelle Obama really say? The Dread Pundit Bluto reports it was doubly shameful.

• In Britain, big welfare cuts are on the way (if you're not British). Wait... a... second... that gives me an idea!

• No, he's not suffering from a brain-crippling fever. Gaius has good reason to quote Michael Medved. Hey! I'm serious here!

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Larwyn's Links: the incredible lightness of liberalism

 
• The Impact of Welfare Reform: child poverty fell (especially among black children), welfare caseloads were cut in half, employment of single moms increased, and the rise of out-of-wedlock child-rearing abated. So much for the disaster that Democrats, NOW, the Urban Institute and every other left-leaning group predicted. Just wondering: don't these people get tired of being on the wrong side of history?

• When it comes to Hillary and Obama discussing social security reform, their plans are crystal clear. Everything -- everything! -- is either on or off the table.

• Pull my finger: Bubba blew a gasket in Canton. Confronted by a pro-Obama heckler, Bill unleashed his vicious, wagging finger and reportedly flicked the hecker in the face.

• Did Barack Obama lie about his background in his autobiography? Former New York Times reporter Kenneth Lamb peels a few more layers off the onion (credit Richard Cohen with nationalizing the review of Obama's back story).

• When is not raping someone a crime? Vanderleun provides the I-can't-believe-it's-not-satire answer: when you're in the Israeli military.

• Dear Lou Dobbs, The middle class became the rich. Don Surber riffs on the relative luxury in which today's middle class lives, albeit with plenty of whining and envy.

...I won't go into how little we spend on food and utilities, or how computer and other gadgetry have improved as the prices dropped to the point that every teenager now seems to come with an iPod and a cell phone. Americans have never had it so good... The middle class has become the rich.

And the poor? In 2003, one-eighth of Americans - 12.5 percent - lived below the federal line of poverty... But the Census Bureau reported that 46 percent of households listed as officially living in poverty actually lived in homes they owned.

And, the Census Bureau reported, 76 percent had air-conditioning.

And, the Census Bureau reported, 75 percent had a car.

And, the Census Bureau reported, 30 percent had two cars...

Dammit, Don, there you go again. So what if the poor own cars? They're probably 2003 models!

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Larwyn's Links: David Schuster - eat your heart out!

 
Larwyn writes a relaxed, thankful note, rightfully celebrating the death of Imad Mughniyeh from natural causes. Natural, that is, for a bloodthirsty mass-murderer.

• Catfight! Maureen Dowd asserts that Hillary's failure is no litmus test for female candidates. Meeoooow!! Most guys love watching catfights, but... Hillary and MoDo? More of a cellulitefight than a catfight.

• We're sinking! Throw some metaphors off the boat! Democrat strategist Jim Duffy states that, "If Obama continues to win . . . the whole raison d'etre for her campaign falls apart and we'll see people running from her campaign like rats on a ship."

• Gaius snarks a pithy smackdown: "Hillary and Bill Clinton will never be able to pull a Sally Fields and announce that people like them. Because people don't."

• More proof that self-deportation works: "Arizona became the first state to require all employers to confirm workers' legal status via the federal "E-Verify" system... After just six weeks, Arizona's system is already working: Newspapers in the state report that illegals are self-deporting by the thousands. Apartment complexes in Phoenix and Tucson confirm that thousands of tenants have skipped town. Many are returning across the border to Mexico... This success is proof that attrition through enforcement works." Enforcement works? Who knew?

• AJ Strata asks: Are we seeing Reagan Democrats become McCain Democrats? AJ also has a must-read take on Obama's vote to protect terrorists from surveillance.

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Quick takes brought to you by Drunkenstein's

 
• Not every leak is fit to print: James Risen's got some 'splainin' to do.

• Valiant Dozen To Retake Congress: Bruce Kesler has a plan to survive the idiocy. Bookmark Iraq Veterans for Congress and lend your support.

• A nuke for a nuke: what do you call an Israeli neocon? Someone who wants to survive.

• The secret truth about Barack Obama: his inexperience and socialist leanings aren't the secrets, however.

• Hillary Uncensored: factcheck.org publishes the response to "Crooked Claims about Clinton."

• Archbishop of Canterbury calls for Sharia law in Britain: "I, for one, welcome my new Islamic overlords." Melanie Phillips has additional detail.

• CAIR's Cheerleaders: you'll never guess.

• Memo to self: never apply for a liquor license using a prospective bar named "Drunkenstein's".

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