Google Unconscionably Leftist

I suppose this post may result in shutting out the word jourtegrity or jourtegrity lost from proper searching on Google, but I don't care.

Google has been accused of being leftist, anti-Iraq war, anti-Bush and supremely ProBama. It surely is, and for a search engine to filter its searches by ideological agenda is outrageous, shameful and frankly fascist. I will search via other search engines from now on.

Today's example. I wondered why I wasn't finding anything on the normal news sites about the historic Iraq elections today. Guess why, they are running smoothly and with almost no violence. A tremendous victory for the Iraqi people and its democratic government and of course by association the American military and horror of horrors the Bush administration.

So I typed in "Iraq election" into google and the first 9 results were tagged with the line "this site may harm your computer" I was blocked by google from entering the sites. Curious if this coincidence that the first 9 sites on the front page could be all corrupted I decided to do a test.
I then typed in "Iraq casualties" all sites came up with no warning.

In other words; enjoy reading about casualties in Iraq on google, but don't expect us to allow you to read about democratic elections in Iraq on google.

I am absolutely flabbergasted and outraged about this.

Update: Two hours later a check has revealed that the "The site may harm your computer" caveats have been taken down from all search results. Hmmmmmmmmm

Seven Pages and 63 questions of fluff

Sixty three questions was supposed to be a "thorough and exhaustive" vetting process by Obama in choosing people to work for him. Apparently the 63 questions weren't all that tough. I got a copy of the list; #1. Do you like me? #14 What kind of dog should we get for the children? #26 Was Bush our worst president ever? #44 What's your favorite color? #63 Do you now, and did you ever, have a BMI over 28?

Given what's happening with the discoveries about the character of some of Obama's Cabinet picks let me suggest that questions #64 and #65 should have been added.

#64 While holding public office did you ever collude with gov't vendors to your personal financial gain?

#65 Do you pay your taxes like we expect the great unwashed to do?

#64 would have been particularly helpful in vetting Bill Richardson and Tom Daschle. #65 might have sent a red flag up about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner AND Tom Daschle.

I realize these are both unfairly intrusive questions but you'd think for an administration with the most "thorough and exhaustive" vetting process ever they wouldn't be that bad.

By the way - what d'ya think the chances are that Obama has read the stimulus bill?

Entire basketball crowd clearly drunk or very stupid

There can be no other reason why President Bush twice received a "prolonged standing ovation" at a womens' basketball game in Dallas. I'm guessing there weren't alot of Georgetown cocktail party participants in the stands. Good on you GW.

I'm hoping there are more basketball games to come.

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BHO, above the fray

A recent Boston Globe report suggests that Barack Obama will be a more "presidential" president than those in the recent past; Bush, Clinton, Bush et al. Less chummy, more formal. He holds his chin a little higher and uses grey poupon on his hamburgers, according to writer Peter Canellos


You may recall that after he won the nomination and took a big lead in the polls several reporters, not sufficiently ProBama, were bumped off the campaign aircraft.

Perhaps you recall the reporter who was advised to "not waste your question" when he took a wrong line of questioning (anything apparently that didn't have to do with dog selections or school choices).

Then last week Obama came to the press room to visit reporters and he advised a reporter, while grasping both his shoulders, that "this is not a time for questioning". Mingling and photo ops were allowed but questions should wait for another time and place. No questions in a press room?

There have been whispers from the press that "access" to Obama has been too limited. What? Is it possible that President Obama is a "user"? Think of how Obama treated Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, Tony Rezsko and others when he was done with them. Look under the next Greyhound.

The press - gawking, fawning about Obama and fabricating negatives about Palin and McCain have served their purposes for him. They, through their biased delivery of campaign coverage, got Obama the win. And now I suspect he realizes that he can let them eat cake.

But don't worry I'm sure he'll be more accessible in three years and they'll be the loyal, tail-wagging lap dogs he'll need again.

Suckers.

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60 Senators have decided it's okay to cheat on your taxes

And there's plenty of time before April 15th. Although you won't need much time because creativity isn't even needed. You can just say "I forgot" or better yet "I am the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."

Yup, stupidly, arrogantly and unpatriotically (remember how Biden says it's patriotic to want to pay more taxes?) our esteemed US Senate has confirmed Timothy (you mean an overnight summer camp is not deductible as child care?) Geithner for Treasury Secretary.

Seriously let's imagine, just for a moment, if he had been a Republican.

It's laughable, really.

More hope on the HopeNChange arrogance bus

Ah, bipartisanship. Isn't it grand? You may have heard Obama's response to people deigning to disagree with how he wants to spend the $825 billion...
"I won. I'm the President."

Well winner's arrogance is the hot new thing in ProBama journalism these days. Here's what Paul Krugman ProBama economist-in-residence at the NY Times has to say about it.


"But here’s the thing: Most Americans aren’t listening. The most encouraging thing I’ve heard lately is Mr. Obama’s reported response to Republican objections to a spending-oriented economic plan: “I won.” Indeed he did — and he should disregard the huffing and puffing of those who lost."

Kind of a my way or the highway approach. Hope and Change.

Wish I had thought of that

Howard Kurtz media critic of the NEW YORK TIMES essentially has called MSNBC the Obama network.

Can euthanasia be far behind?

Nancy Pelosi said that one way to save money is to have more birth control. On This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

"The family planning services reduce cost," Pelosi said, "One of the elements of this package is assistance to the states. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
"So no apologies for that?" I asked her.
"No apologies. No," Pelosi said. "And this is a, to stimulate the economy, is an economic recovery package and as we put it forth we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Wow. Maybe Nancy can crank up the capital punishment bill again. And hey, is there any way we can maybe release a few of those birds with that killer bird flu here? Just until the recession is over, of course.
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Even the Hilarious Lefties realize this is Bush's third term

Hope and Change? Even the Daily Show is picking up on the sleight of hand.

Former reporter Bernie Goldberg's new book about the biased election coverage

What I really would like to see is a series of confessions. Confessions from media "reporters" who were in on the gag. Headline writers who toyed with headlines, editors who sanitized the stories to fit the agenda, assignment editors who only gave out one type of assignment. Publishers (some of them had to be old, honest types!) who gritted their teeth and looked the other way. With the layoffs in the industry somebody is going to start the flood of tattling.

Bernie's book should be good. I haven't read it yet, but will.

"Never in my memory were so many journalists so intent on effecting change as they were during the campaign of 2008. Sure, mainstream journalists always root for the Democrat. But this time it was different. This time journalists were not satisfied merely being partisan witnesses to history. This time they wanted to be real players and help determine the outcome. This time they were on a mission, a noble, historic mission, as far as they were concerned. In fact, I could not remember a time when so many supposedly objective reporters had acted so blatantly as full-fledged advocates for one side--and without even a hint of embarrassment.
"...Make no mistake: this is not the same old liberal bias we have witnessed for years. In 2008, the mainstream media crossed a line. As a result, their credibility is in tatters. Hardly anyone trusts them anymore. This is not good for them, of course. But it may be even worse for us."

Remember this when the energy czar bullies us about saving the planet.

Hansen of NASA says Obama has 4 years to save the planet. Gore says don't buy property within 20 miles of the coast. Uh, huh. The bottom is falling out of the Global Warming hysteria.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?

The elephant's in the room. The emperor's naked. C'mon people admit that you were wrong and put another log on the fire. It's going to be a cold millenium or so.

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Praise for Obama, and a request from the press

Tomorrow Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as our next president. I congratulate him in advance and I hope that he does well in leading our country to a better tomorrow. He seems like a decent man who has the appropriate amount of idealism mixed with grasp of reality to make positive strides in a very difficult time. He'll need our patience and our support. A 70% approval rating seems to indicate that he has that right now.

But what he doesn't need, and what we don't need as a country, is a fawning press that will not interpret his actions as president fairly. The title of this blog, Jourtegrity Lost, is what scares me the most. Without a questioning press Obama will feel any step he takes, any step, will be received as correct and brilliant. No man or woman is flawless and without criticism can only become more flawed.

I'm hoping the giddy optimism and deification of Obama by the press - Brokaw "he's Lincolnesque", Chris Matthews "he gives me a thrill up my leg" and on and on, is toned down a bit because true journalism is supposed to be balanced. The liberal press got away with running journalism into the ground during the campaign with it's shameless misreporting and biased "analysis". It has shown no penchant for being anything less than an arm of the Democrat National Committee since.

When the hangovers from the inaugural parties subside I hope journalists take stock of their profession and seek to become real journalists who report fairly, evenly and with an inquisitive air.

If they do, I will shut this blog down.

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The Dalai Lama loves President Bush

Bush bashing has been popular this week as the MSM means to draw a negative parallel between this administration and the new "heavenly" one coming in. Kind of a - tear others down to build yourself up - meme. Hey it worked in the campaign for the MSM.

But as usual, leave it to a press located outside our country to give Bush some props. Turns out even the world's most renowned living pacifist sees Bush's approach to Islamofascism as legit.

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New, New Deal same as the Old, New Deal (only worse!)

The Obama stimulus plan, now soon to be bolstered not just by the $825 billion he wants, but by the control of the 2nd half ($375 billion) of the TARP bailout money, will be so rife with good ol' boy pork projects that it will put at the absolute minimum 600,000 people to work in the federal government. Making, as I've pointed out here before, NOTHING that can be sold/exported. It is a recipe for fiscal disaster and long term diminution of the American brand.

via Tax Prof.com

By 1939 Roosevelt's own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed. "We have tried spending money," Morgenthau wrote in his diary. "We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

I don't think we realize what's going to happen with a Democrat President, Democrat Senate, Democrat House of Representatives, and Democrat majority of Governors. 1.2 Trillion dollars to be spent by like minded big government politicians with no controls, no oversight. When these folks get together in a room to divvy this money up they'll be lighting cigars with million dollar checks and the corruption is simply going to go out of sight.

This is very, very scary and makes me terrified for the future of my children and their future children. One party rule and taxpayer money - a sure recipe for disaster.

An ethical, steadfast President in a very tough time

I'm not talking about what Barack Obama needs to be, I'm describing what George W. Bush was.

Not a single attack by terrorists on American soil since 9/11 and an economy that had 52 straight months of job growth before the Democrats took over Congress over 2 years ago. Inflation over his term was basically non existent, tell me of any other two term President who had that.

The Iraq war, though roundly critcized by the left, is over and is a success. A democratic country now exists in the Mid East with 25 million free people whose GDP is 30% greater than when Saddam was in power. The benefits of having a free Iraq in the Mid East will become very obvious over time. The benefits to the freedom of women alone will empower millions in that part of the world.

There's lots more, but we will need to get past the hysteria of an Obama inauguration before we hear much about it in detail. In fact, it takes a writer from the UK to even begin to address the issue.

George Bush wasn't glib, I'll give you that, but he always believed he was doing the right thing for the country and he has paid dearly for that.

Maybe a smooth talker with no experience is what we need as President, it certainly matches up well with our current vacuous cultural state.

C'mon Hill, Smart Power?

Yes We Can. Hope and Change.

I suppose SMART POWER belongs right there with the other meaningless chants. Hillary Clinton figured a nice little catch phrase would keep the Senators drooling and the press from making much of the 498 million dollars her husband has elicited from countless foreign powers over the past few years. Some people might be concerned that the guy you share your corn flakes with may have a suggestion or two on foreign policy that would somehow reflect positively on the next half billion clams of "donations".

I'm on record as already behind the Hillary Sec of State nomination, but SMART POWER has got to go. We're not selling an SAT studies DVD set here.

How about Strength Through Appeasement. That should sum it all up.

The Tim Geithner Defense.

Next time you find yourself talking to the IRS try the "Tim Geithner Defense"

It goes like this. "I forgot" or "It was an honest mistake" or "I didn't know I had to pay" or "I'm embarassed" or "It was an oversight". If those don't work try - "I'm Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York" That always works. Apparently.

For not paying Federal Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001 to 2004 Mr Geithner spent no time in prison, and had his penalties waived. Nice. Penalties for a four year period assessed two years later can be huge, representing a large percentage of the total owed.

Mr Geithner also had an undocumented immigrant as his nanny, and had many spurious deductions overruled (one claiming thousands in deductions for his kids away at sleepover camps as child care!).

Kimba Wood and Zoe Baird were back to back appointments for Attorney General by Bill Clinton who resigned from consideration when it was learned they had undocumented nannies. Keeping Geithner would smack as sexism for me. I'm not kidding.

So all you landscapers, plumbers, house painters and other self-employed entrepreneurs who have to pay self employment taxes forget it. Simply use the Tim Geithner defense.

Or work your way up to Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

UPDATE: Uh oh, turns out that Geithner not only didn't pay his share of the taxes but the IMF actually paid him extra to cover the amount. I think the HopeNChange bus might be leaving the station without Timmy.

It's all about who you know

So Bernie Madoff bilks 50 billion dollars from investors and gets to go home and stay in his $7 million dollar condo. And today we find Treasury Secretary designate Tim Geithner didn't pay $34,000 in personal income taxes and he gets to have a job in the new Obama cabinet.

Ever get dunned by the IRS? They can be very nasty, for very small money. In my case I was proved to be in the right, but I have no doubt they would have hunted me down and sucked the appropriate digits out of my checking account, had it come to that. Or worse.

But then I'm neither a billionaire, nor a Treasury Secretary designate.

Change. Or is that just the jingling in your pocket Part 10?

I have to admit that I never thought the broken promises number would reach double digits before inauguration day, but I would imagine all the people who actually voted for the guy are scratching their heads more than me.

Turns out "Close down Gitmo" was a great rallying cry for the anti-war Obamaniacs, but again reality has dealt a hard slap to their collective faces as BHO realizes that being the CEO of the USA is a little more difficult than being a community organizer for ACORN.

Wait 'til he tries "a good job for everyone who needs one" and "the oceans (levels) will begin to fall".

Jourtegrity Lost - Loser of the Week 010909

Jourtegrity Lost Loser of the Week is....dumb roll please...Boston Globe reporter Scott Helman. Mr Helman in writing a news story about John McCain's new PAC entitled Country First decided that the facts just aren't enough. McCain's PAC seeks to raise funds for future candidates to reinvigorate the party. The story was factually accurate (I assume) but Scott felt the need to editorialize as apparently Globe reporters are encouraged to do if a story has any chance of being fair to Republicans/conservatives/Bush Adminstration et al. So Scott decided to finish the story with this question (are journalists taught to ask questions at the end of factual news stories?) I don't think so.. His question:

Does putting country first mean supporting the president, or opposing him?

Predictable snark as a tagline. Keith Olbermann would be proud, but real journalists wouldn't.

Activists masquerading as reporters

That's exactly how Noah Pollak puts it over at commentarymagazine.com when he describes how reporters have been reporting the violence in Gaza. Yes civilians died, but what are the surrounding and very important details?

The spin on the reporting of this violence is decidedly one-sided. And the photoshopping specialists are at it again as they were during the incursion into Lebanon. Via Pajamas Media

Look at both pages of photos.

Nothing stimulating here..

According to Jake Tapper at ABCNEWS.com Obama's stimulus plan will add 600,000 employees to the federal payroll. I have no problem with federal employees, they are probably as hard working by ratio as those in the private sector. My main problem with this is it's 600,000 people making nothing tangible or exportable. All federal jobs are service jobs, hell they don't even make license plates - prisoners do that.

Therefore we make no movement forward on the trade deficit which could bring us out of the recession faster. Make-work, particularly the kind that makes nothing that can be sold is a dead end.

Take the money for the 600,000 jobs and create Alternative Energy subdivisions of current companies, or create new private companies that make the world's best, most efficient, solar cells, windmill blades, algae to energy plants etc. Pay quality engineers to invest themselves in making things that can be sold internationally. Maybe we get half the money to create the machines that create the products, with the other half used to hire 300,000 private sector employees who will own shares in their companies. This would stimulate efficiency in the product development making the products more likely to sell worldwide. Taxpayers would save hundreds of billions of dollars in pension building monies that would have had to go to the federal employees.

License any unique technologies derived from the research so that other countries can not rip off our intellectual property. And while you're at it give tax credits to Americans who buy American and increase tariffs on imports to stimulate American company growth. Other countries tariff our exports at draconian levels to make our products difficult to sell.

Chickens, roost up.

Gas prices lower than when President Bush took office.

To the average driver the cost savings is around $50 a week from July's high. Obama's massive tax cut will bring the average worker about $9 a week - and of course it will be offset by increasing the national debt. Lower gas prices put more money in the pocket of average Americans without costing us anything.

The gas price windfall is literally going to mean $1 billion dollars a day. Consumers are actually hanging on to that money because they fear the prediction by Obama that "things are going to get worse". Next year this money sitting on the sidelines will begin to leak back into the economy.

By the way, have you seen many television reports of happy consumers at the gas pumps talking about their joy with lower prices? Neither have I, but I saw plenty of negative stories when the prices were going up - and of course President Bush was blamed for it all.

Seems fair to me.

NBC and MSNBC Ban Ann Coulter for Life

Someone found out that Ann Coulter spends a fair amount of time examining liberal bias in her new book Guilty. Apparently the Democrat National Broadcasting Company and its attack dog stepchild MSNBC would like Ann to talk about something else.

via Drudge:

But one network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist. "We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer.
It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

I'm guessing they didn't really ask the audience...

Change. It's here in the visage of Leon Panetta

Real change, as promised by Barack Obama. It takes a real change agent to select a man with no experience in the field of intelligence for CIA director - CIA DIRECTOR! Panetta was first a congressman and then chief of staff for Bill Clinton. Mr. Panetta was Monica Lewinsky's mentor at the White House. He testified before a grand jury that he knew nothing of their 8 month affair. Now those are the kinds of powers of observation you want the head of our most important intelligence agency to have. What Iran nukes?

Panetta was the first Democrat to tell Clinton to come clean. In my book he gets points for that. But not CIA DIRECTOR points.

Diane Feinstein, incoming Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is none too pleased about this. She'll be getting a phone call tonight and things will be just swell by tomorrow.

California pork, coming right up!

Update: I hate to be an I told you so kinda guy but....

I guess we can take the polar bears off the endangered list

Turns out the whole arctic ice melt hysteria was a little premature. Of course the number of polar bears is greater now than it was at the beginning of the 20th century which we've known for some time.

via DailyTech.com

Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.

But as we also know a picture of a polar bear on an ice floe can go a long way towards getting Al Gore's speaking fees increased.

We'll be loved around the world! Oops.

Turns out the planet's largest Muslim population is located in Indonesia and when it comes to protesting against America re the Palestinian conflict they don't love us and Barack all that much. Given that Putin and Sarkozy have maligned ol' BHO already the international support and love we were promised is shall we say not a faite accompli.

The Huffington Post Challenges Al Gore and Global Warming

Of course you've been reading our take on the fallacy of anthropogenic global warming for some time. Now the pop lefty blog Huffington Post is out with a bash on the Goracle

I may have to rethink my views if Arianna is coming on board this train.

Stop picking on our new Senator from Illinois Roland Burris

At least he held a public office. The next two Senators we're likely to have foisted upon us never held any public office. Comedian Al Franken is about to win a highly suspicious recounted election in Minnesota and Poetess Caroline Kennedy will be appointed by the Governor of NY with a little nudging from the DNC and the POTUS elect.

Holding a seat in the Senate of the United States of America is now officially a joke.

Change. Or is that just the jingling in your pocket Part 9?

Obama was going to bring change to Washington. Good judgement to overcome the "failed policies of the past". But Obama is no change agent as we've all come to find out. He is a back room politician just like all the others. Politicians pay back the people who brought in the votes for them no matter how unsavory they may be. Bill Richardson, who was to be Obama's Commerce Secretary has resigned in a shroud of scandal over accusations and upcoming investigations of his questionable business dealings while Governor of New Mexico. The Messiah's halo has been heavily tarnished by a number of incidents that have brought his "good judgement" into question even before he beds down in the White House for the first time.

A Fireworks Disappointment

So at the last minute I had to go to Omaha. I was there all day on the 31st and to my wife's consternation (we had a New Years get together with friends planned) I couldn't get back until after midnight. She reminded me that we had been together on every New Year's Eve since we met in the 70s. I was bummed too because it was a very long day and I wanted to celebrate also. So on the American Airlines flight back I assumed a little bubbly would be passed around among the lonely souls (40% filled) in the back and a feeble cheer would go up. Nothing! The pilot came on at 6 minutes to Midnight and said if we catch a little more tail wind we'll see the fireworks that go off over Boston harbor at midnight as we approach. Everyone looked out the windows - no fireworks, no bubbly. What a disappointment! I found out later that there were 45 mile an hour winds on the ground and the fireworks were cancelled. Bummer.

If I owned an airline, you can be damned well sure that the misfortunates in the back who were on a flight that crossed midnight on the 31st of December would get a small bit of champagne to soothe the fact that they were away from their loved ones. It might make them remember my airline in a fond way, instead of...this way.

Not all negative news in 2008

Yup, stock portfolios went down, but they'll be back, just don't panic. And we found out that our car industry and financial industry are suffering, on a similar scale to the rest of the globe, BUT there are indeed good things to come out of last year and Radley Balko points out a few . Crime down, life expectancy up and lots more.

Oh, and the US military has handed over the Green zone and Presidential palace to the Iraqis. No small feat for both sides.

What the LA Times did in 2008

Over at Patterico's Pontifications they've written a review of what one of the Big 3 (Washington Post and New York Times being the other two) did to add to the concept that journalistic integrity is completely gone. It's stunning really, yet you know there is a large readership at all three papers who simply nod and go "uh huh, uh huh" as they read this biased and hackneyed tripe.

These newspapers can't die fast enough.