Weekend open thread

I’m about to hit the road for a good bit of the day. I’ll check back in later

10 Responses to "Weekend open thread"

Lorica says:

May 6, 2007 at 1:43 am

Lookie, Lookie, The new Democrat ally in Iraq, is making fun of them.

In a new video posted today on the Internet, al Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman al Zawahiri, mocks the bill passed by Congress setting a timetable for the pullout of U.S. troops in Iraq

I didn’t find anything all that funny, but I did consider it highly delusional. And for a guy who doesn’t have long to live, I think he better start watching more reruns of “Everyone Loves Raymond” if needs to understand how to make a good joke. – Lorica
Lorica says:

May 6, 2007 at 1:48 am

OMG Bill Clinton is taking lessons from the prophet Al Gore!!!

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that disasters such as worldwide famine and an obesity epidemic could destroy the U.S. health care system unless politicians begin to look ahead and cooperate.

Shall we all start to grovel now or wait until the Clinton/Gore reunion tour? OHhhh mighty Bill who’s nose we are not worthy to pick. – Lorica
Lorica says:

May 6, 2007 at 1:55 am

More funnies from Newsweek!!

George W. Bush has the lowest presidential approval rating in a generation,

What you find out is…

The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979.

And you all know that if anything the news media is trying to tear down Bush in these polls. So I assume that they had to prop up Carters!!! – Lorica
Drewsmom says:

May 6, 2007 at 6:12 am

Fuuny Lorica, you crack me up.
I wouldn’t wanta get near bill’s nose although its kinda big, ugh.
Had to work Sat. and gotta work Sunday, hope we don’t get alot of patients today, work in a walk-in urgent care facility, still alot of flu and walking crud going around.
Tom TB says:

May 6, 2007 at 9:28 am

Everytime Queen Lizzie comes to the “Colonies” as some Brits so patronizingly still refer to the U.S.A., I’m always fascinated when I see her with that monster purse. If I ever had an audience with this living relic, I’d ask her why she carries it at all! She has a security detail, maids in waiting, lords a’leaping; so why would she carry currency and ID’s with her own likeness on them? Anytime she pops across the pond with her Crown Prince, I Bless my Revolutionary ancestors!
Severian says:

May 6, 2007 at 12:18 pm

Interesting article on the Bush Economy, and the fact that the MSM and libs are misrepresenting it:

Last summer, a national poll taken by American Research Group showed 38% of Americans thought the economy was in a recession. By last month that had fallen to 28%, but it’s still a big share. Of course, we weren’t in a recession. Nor is it the case, as also has been asserted, that “things got worse” under Bush.

What factually is true is Bush faced the greatest economic challenge of any incoming president since President Reagan. Like Reagan, Bush met the challenge — something for which the media and his foes refuse to give him credit.

It’s hard to overemphasize how nasty things were. But the media were too busy penning loving tributes to President Clinton to note that the economy was falling apart as he left office. Here are the facts about what Bush faced:

â€¢ The economy was already in recession. It actually began shrinking the summer before Bush entered office — by 0.5% in the third quarter of 2000.

â€¢ The stock market, as measured by the popular Nasdaq, had already plunged 46% from its peak in 2000 — the biggest drop since 1929, slicing nearly $8 trillion from Americans’ wealth.

â€¢ Not until Jan. 3, 2001, a mere three weeks before Bush took office, did the Federal Reserve cut interest rates — a first step in reversing six rate hikes over the prior two years. Since there’s about a one-year lag between Fed rate moves and the economy, the bank’s tardy response to the slowdown pretty much doomed Bush’s first year.
….
On the heels of that devastating decline, of course, came 9/11 — a national psychological trauma that created mass fear and even panic. We tend to forget how people just stayed home, stopped shopping and traveling.

An IMF study reckoned that 9/11 cost the U.S. economy about $75 billion in lost GDP — not counting property losses of well over $100 billion. The U.S. also incurred future yearly costs of roughly 0.75% of GDP to pay for greater security, another big hit.

No question: The year 2001 marked a major break for the economy, with one of the largest hits ever to the wealth of Americans.

It could have been an epic disaster. But it wasn’t. Bush did exactly the right thing — though he’s still criticized for it today. To get the economy moving again, he pushed through tax cuts in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Some 113 million people got an average tax cut of $2,216. Families with children got even more — $2,864 on average.

Since the last round of cuts in 2003, we’ve had the quietest, and most significant, boom in wealth, income and profits in our history. This explains why the economy, to the surpise of economists and the chagrin of liberal pundits, keeps humming. We’ve gone over the numbers before, but they bear repeating. Since 2002:

â€¢ Real gross domestic product has soared $1.64 trillion, or 16.5%, during a five-year stretch that has yet to see a downturn and that has witnessed average annual growth of 3%.

â€¢ Disposable personal income — what’s left after taxes — has jumped $2.16 trillion, or 29%, to $9.68 trillion.

â€¢ Productivity, the fuel for future standards of living, has improved 14.3%.

â€¢ Overall employee compensation has expanded 4% a year.

â€¢ Net wealth, the amount people would have after paying off their debts, has swelled $15.2 trillion, or 38%, to $55.6 trillion. That gain in just five years is more than the total wealth amassed in the first 210 years of America’s existence — an unprecedented surge.

â€¢ About 69% of Americans now own their homes, an all-time high.

â€¢ The jobless rate, now at 4.4%, remains below its 40-year average. Since August 2003, 7.8 million new jobs have been created.

â€¢ Tax receipts have surged 43%, or $757.6 billion, again thanks to economic growth.

Today, some signs point to slowing. All the more reason to keep Bush’s tax cuts, the engine of our prosperity. But the new Democrat-led Congress has threatened not just to roll back Bush’s cuts, but to impose new taxes that would sink the economy.

A recent study by economists Tracy Foertsch and Ralph Rector for the Heritage Foundation found that letting Bush’s tax cuts lapse in 2010, as they are scheduled to do, would cost the U.S. $75 billion in GDP each year, kill 709,000 jobs and slice $200 billion from real personal income. It’d be a crime to let that happen.

George W. Bush’s economic miracle is both real and sustainable. Too bad he won’t get credit for it until the current generation of biased journalists and academics has retired.

Read the whole thing.
Severian says:

May 6, 2007 at 5:05 pm

I saw this at another site. Go check this out, this is one of the most incredible stories I’ve seen in ages! A guy is interviewing people for a job, and their parents keep showing up demanding that he hire the kid and telling him in no uncertain terms what he’s to pay them!

Anyone want to bet that the parents in question are, ahem, not conservatives or Republicans? Bet they still have Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers on their cars.
Great White Rat says:

May 6, 2007 at 7:33 pm

Sev, apparently that’s not uncommon anymore. By bizarre coincidence, this was on the front page of this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer. And some companies are actually trying to adjust to this nonsense.

As for me, I’m with the commenter you linked. Whenever I’ve hired, I’ve been looking for adults who can do their own thinking, not have mommy nosing around trying to tell me what I can pay their brat.
Severian says:

May 6, 2007 at 7:55 pm

Unfreaking-believable GWR! Apparently not an isolated incident, so this is what liberals and the modern educational system has wrought, a generation of complete mental and emotional invalids, incapable of even getting a job by themselves and expecting everyone else to take care of them and be “sensitive.” Sheesh.

Maybe it’s different in my line of work, if you can get thru 4+ years of science and engineering school, maybe the people are tougher, but I’ve never ever had something similar happen. Of course, since even the applicant has to be escorted all the time they’re in the facilities, that does tend to cut down on such nonsense.

An old boss of mine, a favorite of mine, had this sign on his desk that sums up the work world pretty well:

“The world cares not what storms you encountered, only whether or not you brought the ship home safely.”
Lorica says:

May 6, 2007 at 10:46 pm

Children ‘bad for planet’
By Sarah-Kate Templeton in London
May 07, 2007 12:00am
HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21684156-5009760,00.html

I would like to thank Al Gore for his massive stupidity!!! Due to all of his blah blah blah on “global warming”, Al only encourages fools like this. Perhaps if Liberals would close there mouths there would be so less hot air and the earth could cool for a moment. When the Liberal elite give up their private planes, I will start to listen. I am a pretty good study on the human condition, so I am not to worried about listening to these door knobs.

Ohhh and by the way, I would love to have like 6 kids and a couple of puppies and kitties. That’s the only kind of family to have, well in my mind. Sis, you wanna help me with this please – Lorica

Comments are closed.