You see, I had some similar interactions with him before.

A little while back, Farago… "borrowed"… my "graphics matter" images without any sort of attribution or citation indicating that it came from my site or pointing back to the copious quantities of explanations and number-crunching that went into creating it and help explain what it is trying to show. Instead he indirectly implied that the graphic was the product of the warped minds at the Brady Campaign, completely ignoring the rather obvious "(C) wallsofthecity.net" I placed on the left side of the chart, and perpetrated the falsehoods fielded by that organization.

I left a comment calling Robert on the carpet for failing to do his homework – a rather significant shortcoming for a self-appointed "journalist" – and pointing people to the posts from which the graphic originated. He edited the comment (but did not make it publicly known that he did so), removing my calling him out, and sent me the following email, entitled "Comment edited":

Sorry, I can take it, but personal flames lower the tone and stifle debate.

I replied:

Hardly surprising. You cannot stand being questioned on your own turf – that we both already knew.

That you are too damned lazy to look up the source of an image when the hyperlink clearly indicates it and the copyright on the image clearly shows it… well, that is new and different, and observing that character deficiency and journalistic shortcoming of yours is hardly a "flame", and sure as hell "stifles" nothing.

But, hey, go ahead and confirm that my already low opinion of you is warranted.

Robert:

Who pissed in your cornflakes?

Look at the text beneath the image. I linked back to the source of the graphic. What else do you want, exactly?

(In fairness, through the course of this conversation, he did finally add a citation of "…or click here for the www.wallsofthecity.net original." Note that the link still does not go to the actual post, and that the web address was not hyperlinked.)

Me:

Here is a quick hint, Robert: "image" != "post".

I am almost having a hard time believing I actually had to write that, actually…

Robert:

Just curious: which charm school did you go to?

FYI There’ve been 92 click-throughs to you site since the post went up. A pittance, but my pleasure. No really.

Me:

You really do not grasp the difference between "post" and "image", do you? In truth, there has been a grand total of 14 hits on my site so far from your post, and only because AK and I took it upon ourselves to fill the holes you left.

And you somehow expect me to thank you for disdaining one of the most basic tenets of any public writing – cite your souces?

Uhm, yeah. If egos had mass, yours would probably upset the rotation of the planet.

Robert:

I do not expect anything from you. I’m just trying to do my thing, and do it the right way.

The post linked back to you from the git-go. I have added the blog name to that link.

Normally, we just put a courtesy in the caption, so that reader can click on the image to make it larger.

Me:

Well, Robert, I have absolutely no problems informing you that you are not doing your thing in the right way.

When you take someone else’s image (and I made it pretty obvious that it *was* my image, what with the whole (C) wallsofthecity.net going up the left side of it), it is customary to, at the bare minimum, link back to the website that originated it, or, if you want to do it completely "right", link back to the actual souce post (which, in this case, would have been massively beneficial, given that the data, statistical analyses, and explanations were all contained within that post).

On the other hand, what you did was scant better than the old "hotlinking" bullcrap, though at least you hosted the thumbnail on your own site.

And I will say this again, since you seem to be having the darndest time understanding it – linking back to an image is NOT the same as linking back to a page (for clarification, "pages" typically have text in them). What you did was not "linking back", and it was not "courtesy of" and it sure as hell would not even come close to passing muster as an actual citation.

In the future, if you want to use an image, picture, or any other content of mine, I expect to be contacted with a request for permission; if I am not, I will pursue it appropriately.

(Note: This entire conversation was blind-carbon-copied to Weer’d Beard – given how he misappropriated my images, it would not have surprised me if Robert tried to do the same with my words, and given how he recently misrepresented Bob S.’ words, it would appear as though my concerns where wholly and completely warranted. Also, amusing aside – the address Farago was writing from was "loadsofmoney@me.com". Really? And secondary amusing aside – being accused of "stifling debate" by someone who ninja-edits comments that criticize him? Really?)

So, in short, Robert posted an image of mine without appropriate citation or attribution, he failed in his "due diligence" duties of a "journalist" by carrying the Brady Bunch’s water and reposting their blatant misinterpretation of that graphic without bothering to look up what it was actually portraying, and, when I called him on this repeated failing, he "stifled" public dissent against him and his site, sneakily edited comments, and not only failed to admit to his wrongdoing, but damn near demanded my adulation for his behavior.

As you can see by my not posting about this incident back when it occurred, I had little to no interest in making an issue out of it – why give attention whores that which they crave the most? However, Bob S.’ interactions with Robert Farago showed me that bringing behavior like this to the public eye is the right thing to do, simply so people will know who and what they are dealing with… Especially since here he is, displaying some predictably similar behavior all over again.

In truth, I do not know Oleg Volk. Despite being in the same city a few times, I have never had the opportunity to meet the man (which is more my failing than his), but I do know how much time and effort he has invested in the defense of individual rights, especially relating to the Second Amendment, how powerful and effective the products of that work are, and how many fruit those efforts have borne over the years. With that, I have absolutely no idea why Farago has such an obsession with demeaning and demonizing Oleg’s work at every available opportunity… well, no idea, aside from the aforementioned "attention whore" aspect of the man. Likewise, I do not know the folks behind The Firearm Blog. I cannot say as though I am terribly fond of their affiliation with Lucky Gunner, but taken as a weblog by itself, they tend to be one of the first places I hear about big changes in the firearm manufacturing community, and one of the most drama-free sources of hard facts about the same – like their "about" says, they focus on the hardware, not the politics. Why Farago chose to attack TFB for posting an official product image, as taken by the product’s manufacturer (not TFB), rather than pointing his concerns at the manufacturer, I have no idea… again, aside from the whole "attention whore" thing.

Being a good "journalist", I am sure Farago knows that there is no better news than contentious news, and if no such material is available, well, you are just going to have to fabricate some, are you not? (Actual students of journalism would probably be familiar with the term used to describe behavior like this.) So he found something he considered to be "low-hanging fruit", but also something that has a relatively substantial fanbase, and decided to go on his own personal little crusade against it, complete with childish innuendo, aspersions cast to the winds, and more water-carrying for the anti-rights community. Then he just waited and saw whether the people coming out of the woodwork to defend his new sacrificial anode would be enough of a traffic bump to be worth it. I guess it was.

It is small wonder Robert Farago and Michael Bonomo get along so well – not only are their mentalities similar, but their methodologies are damned near indistinguishable.

But that is all good and well. The world would be a very boring place if we all agreed with one another all the time; Farago is running his site as a business and the only way to make money with webpages is to increase pageviews; and since it is his site, he is more than welcome to write whatever and however he so desires…. just like Bob S. and I are more than welcome to point out just how much of a self-righteous, hypocritical, childish ass he is, just, apparently, not on his site.

And that is really the rub, is it not? As Bob said in one of his Memory Holed comments:

Since you feel free to offer a critique of Oleg’s work, shouldn’t others be allowed to critique YOURS?

Time and time again, the answer has clearly been "NO!"

Point out that Robert failed to accurately source a certain image, to the detriment of his readers? Have your comment secretly edited to remove that particular observation. Question why Robert is attacking an intermediary entity who reposted an image, taken by someone else, for a product, made by someone else? Have your comment deleted. Appropriately criticize Robert’s baseless criticisms of a staged piece of art? Have your comment secretly edited, then deleted, and then be banned from The Truth About Guns for your troubles.

Apparently neither Farago’s maturity nor whatever passed for his personal integrity made it off the kindergarten playground – he can dish it out, but, despite his claims to the contrary, he just cannot take it. Fine, it is his site, and he can run it however he likes, but, unfortunately for him, another thing he cannot do is stealth-edit our sites.

Simply put, being inveterately incapable of accepting valid criticisms of your methods, styles, or actions is not indicative of a mature, adult, responsible human being. To be certain, if Bob S. had rolled up into Farago’s grill (or whatever the phrase is) with some approximation of, "You’re a [deleted] idiot who can’t get his [deleted] head out of his [deleted] ass, and this entire [deleted] post is [deleted] [deleted]," then I would probably be siding with the attention whore rather than Bob. But he did not. Instead he raised some poignant and appropriate questions regarding Robert’s behavior – questions that bore significantly less innuendo and fewer insinuations than the average comment left by Bonomo on Farago’s site, I would point out – and while Robert had no problems criticizing other people’s works, he simply not could stand the prospect of his being targeted. Likewise, stealth-editing comments is an integrity violation, and is no better than writing up entire comments and posting them under someone else’s name. It misleads the audience, warps the person’s original intent for his words, and, amusingly enough, "stifles" debate; after all, why try debating when you know that the site owner will simply remove anything he does not like?

And lying about people’s words and actions – after you delete those words so no one can fact-check you – in some vain attempt to marginalize and malign those people? That is a play straight out of the anti-rights cultists‘ book, and my disdain for folks who employ it cannot be adequately expressed within the PG-13 rating I impose on my posts.

A term from my Legal Officer training days in the Navy stuck with me throughout my career and afterwards, predominantly because of the frequency it came up: "pattern of misconduct". Basically, the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows commanding officers to discharge enlisted personnel if the CO can demonstrate that the sailor has repeated "discreditable involvement with civil or military authorities" and that the sailor’s conduct is consistently "prejudicial to good order and discipline" – in other words, if the sailor just keeps screwing up, even at a low level, and despites attempts to "counsel" the sailor or correct his behavior, he might get booted.

Taken as individual actions, none of the complaints I have against Robert Farago amount to much – he blames victims of theft for being victims of theft, since they obviously did not "secure" their property "enough"; he stole an entire post from Tam, and when she objected, his response was to offer her a job (I guess you have to admire the nerve… or something); he claims no one except "high risk" individuals should receive firearm-related training, and then ridicules those who do not meet his arbitrary standards but still seek out training; he has an obsession with attacking Oleg and his work (it is not "flaming" when he does it); he hijacked my "graphics matter" image; he constantly not only gives airtime to blatant "gun control" extremists, but even gave one of them (the aforementioned Bonomo) keys to the site; and now he resorts to stealth-edits, raw censorship, and blatant lies to squelch any sign of dissent or disagreement he does not like. But when taken as a whole… "pattern of misconduct" indeed.

So, thanks, Robert, for continuing to prove that my choice not to link to you or associate with you was the correct course of action; as Breda once famously said, "People don’t like to read assholes. Imagine that." and I see absolutely no reason to encourage folks to do so.

Perhaps "Don’t be a dick" should be rebranded as "Don’t be a Farago"?

At the time, those same leftists showed a typical propensity for ignoring similar political rhetoric being used by their compatriots, so I really do not have to wonder where their outrage is over this video “game” that centers around zombified right-wing politicians:

Tea Party Zombies Must Die is a “game” in the sense that it looks like something created under the guise of diversionary fun. You collect weapons and powerups while roaming around a level killing zombies. Pretty standard fare in today’s gaming world, except that the zombies are all representatives and supporters of the Tea Party, from generic zombies like “Generic Pissed Off Old White Guy Zombie” all the way up to a two-headed Koch Brothers monstrosity and ol’ “Cryin’ Eyes” Glenn himself.

No joke. This game apparently took the visages of these and other “big name” folks on the right side of the political spectrum, slapped them on the pixellated-and-crappy bodies of zombies, and made a game out of whacking them. Apparently a crappy game, at that. And yet, since the people being shot are right-wingers, the left-wingers are… conveniently, and unsurprisingly, silent; after all, it is not X when they do it.

[Update] Unbeknownst to me (since I am just now catching up on my RSS feeds), wfgodbold actually tried to give the game a chance. It failed. Miserably. [/Update]

But wait, there is more! IkeaHackers is a wonderful site for learning how to do creative things with that big-blue-box’s stores collection of flat-packed furniture and home accessories. Unfortunately, it has also recently been targeted by thuggish, bullying “gun control” extremists:

I’ve removed the Browning .22 hack. Not because I don’t think it is a valid Ikea hack but because it has generated a great amount of negativity and ill-will on the blog, which is not the purpose and mood of this blog.

If this hack has offended you, I apologise for my poor judgement in this instance.

Yup, you read that right – a hack that made cocking a .22 pistol easier got yanked because some hoplophobes got “offended” and let loose with both barrels – metaphorically speaking – on the manager of the site. Really? And here I thought us pro-rights activists were supposed to be the crazy ones… why are “gun control” extremists so violent? IkeaHackers is, of course, Jules’ site, and he is welcome to run it however he likes, but as the theory goes, giving into terrorists never ends well.

Some days, it is really hard to separate the message from the messenger, is it not?

(Courtesy of Mad Rocket Scientist.)

On the one hand, Edward McClelland wants to violently destroy millions, of not billions, of dollars of personal property for crimes that property’s owners never committed nor are responsible for. Ever wondered why I call "gun control" supporters anti-rights cultists? Edward is a perfect example.

On the other hand, Andrew Goddard makes a rather stupid joke at the expense of a person who made a negligent discharge into his own leg. So much for Andrew’s supposed sympathy for gunshot victims… though it does dovetail perfectly with his historic exploitation of the same.

And, on the gripping hand, competitive shooters completely failed to perforate one another over a remarkably heated disagreement.

Oh. Wait. That last one does not really go with the first two, does it?

I wonder what the difference is…

There is one absolutely surefire way to lose any remaining credibility you might have had, and any respect from me you ever hoped to receive: 

Fail to take ownership of your actions. 

We are nothing if we are not men of our words, and deeds, and while there is absolutely no shame in apologizing for your actions (in fact, there may be a significant degree of honor to be retained when doing so), there is no end of disgrace indeed for making excuses for your actions, especially when those excuses are so paltry a child could see through them. 

Yesterday, a halfwitted “columnist” by the name of Eric Heyl wrote a rather misogynistic column basically boiling down to “women do not own guns because they are icky”.  In relatively short order, firearm owners, of both genders, served him his nether regions on a silver platter, pointing out the despicable nature of his stereotypes, his fallacious assumptions, and all of the other significant errors running rampant through his article. 

So what did Eric do in response?  Why, he acted like the man he supposedly is, and took ownership of and responsibility for his words! 

… Only not.  In truth, he did the exact opposite, and I will let those words stand for themselves: 

Recognizing satire obviously isn’t a talent in your skill set, but that’s OK. My sincere thanks to you for reading.

Oh.  He was only joking.  That makes all of his misogyny, all of his sexism, all of his insults, all of his demeaning comments and implications, all of his factual errors, and all the rest of that ok, right? 

Wrong. 

Oh.  It is obviously our fault for not being sufficiently erudite to adequately grasp the sophisticated humor he was attempting to express to us hickish Neanderthals, and thus the fault is entirely our own, right? 

Wrong. 

Is anyone surprised that when he is called to account for his specious insults, he simply “doubles down on stupid” and throws more specious insults on the pile? 

Is anyone surprised that he would act as though we were ignorant of his blatantly anti-rights stance in the past, and play off an intentionally offensive, attention-whoring column as a “joke”? 

Is anyone surprised that this “journalist” is too ignorant to know that using the word “satire” digs him in a deeper hole than he was already (to wit, by using that word, he probably-inadvertently admitted to “convey[ing] insults and scorn”)? 

Is anyone surprised that a “man” who gets his jollies off attacking and demeaning women lacks the spine to actually accept responsibility for that behavior? 

I sure as hell am not. 

In the end, Dirtcrashr is absolutely correct, Eric – you are a “lying sack of satire” and you have my sincere thanks for it – we could not have asked for a better detractor. 

There is scant little more hateful, hostile, vicious, or even violent (after all, such a muzzling must be enforced) than denying basic human rights to those you disagree with…

On the other hand, where were all the cries for calm when Our Glorious President was making some interesting comments of his own:

** Obama: “They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”
** Obama to His Followers: “Get in Their Faces!”
** Obama on ACORN Mobs: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”
** Obama to His Mercenary Army: “Hit Back Twice As Hard”
** Obama on the private sector: “We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.”
** Obama to voters: Republican victory would mean “hand to hand combat”
** Obama to lib supporters: “It’s time to Fight for it.”
** Obama to Latino supporters: “Punish your enemies.”
** Obama to democrats: “I’m itching for a fight.”

Or when the Democrats were using bullseyes to mark “ripe targets”?

Hypocrisy. You have to love it.

[Update] Once again, I was right. Go figure. [/Update]

Anti-rights nuts have a particular propensity for ironically playing the “victim card” by claiming to have received threatening, abusive, or otherwise aggressive comments, but there is a problem with that habit: invariably, these anti-rights nuts also practice Reasoned Discourse (TM) and can therefore claim whatever their little hearts desire without anyone being able to verify or substantiate those claims in either direction. These “gun control” webloggers could have received threats, they could have received spam, they could have received nothing at all, but they are all too eager to claim that they have been threatened, and thus generate sympathy for themselves, and demonize all firearm owners/carriers in the process (gotta love stereotypes).

On the other hand, when pro-rights webloggers receive death threats, they not only save them for all the world to see, they ridicule them. So, really, which is more believable – that supposed comment you deleted before anyone else saw and are now “quoting” on your webpage, or a linked-to comment that is still in its original form/location and being quoted for edification and entertainment? I will admit that Murdoc did edit one comment for gratuitous expletives, but I am not sure anyone would fault him for that.

Hell, sometimes pro-rights activists actually have to save the threats from anti-rights nuts, simply because those menacing comments have a way of disappearing as well.

What is it with the anti-rights nuts and the “delete” button? Are they trying to hide something? Or are they just ashamed of something? One thing is for certain, though – it is not doing them any favors when it comes to the whole “everyone is picking on me” schtick, especially when they are the ones plotting to undermine basic civil rights.

(Courtesy of Hell in a Handbasket.)

What was Jeff’s (the weblogger in question) reaction? Well, you can read the entire, sordid timeline here, but suffice to say that numerous restraining orders and orders of protection have been filed, arrests have been executed (but invariably end up with the stalker being released on probation), contempt-of-court charges and preliminary injunctions have been filed, and countless other legal actions have been executed, but, unfortunately, the nutcase is still strolling the streets, free as a bird to libel, slander, threaten, and verbally assault her chosen victims. However, Jeff can safely say that he has documented the threats, brought them to the attention of the authorities, and done everything he is legally permitted to do.

On the other hand, Alan Baird claimed, and still claims, to have received not one, but two death threats in response to his vile and violent invective.

What did Alan do? Why, he deleted the posts, deleted the comments, deleted the threats, and made it all disappear.

I make no claims about being an infallible human polygraph, but, sometimes, it is fairly easy to tell when someone is just fabricating threats in order to receive sympathy for being a supposed victim, and when they are not… Oh, and it probably surprises no one, but Alan has not responded to my email – I sincerely doubt he has the integrity to do so.

That was the question posed in yesterday’s popular Ethicist column, in the New York Times. Here’s the question that a reader posed to columnist Randy Cohen:

While interviewing law students for jobs as paid summer interns and full-time associates for my firm, I noticed several had résumés listing their activities in the Federalist Society. Some of my partners have conservative views similar to those of the society, but I do not. These students’ politics would not affect their professional function, but my review is meant to consider their judgment and personality (though I don’t need to give reasons for the assessments given). May I recommend not hiring someone solely because of his or her politics?
NAME WITHHELD, GREENWICH, CONN.

Ah, Greenwich — limousine liberalism, anyone? We are not surprised that this question came from the left side of the aisle. In our experience, liberals — despite their self-proclaimed commitment to “tolerance” — are far more intolerant of people with divergent views. To liberals, the political is so often personal; if you don’t agree with their entire orthodoxy, you are per se a bad person.

Okay, we’re stepping off our soapbox. How did the Ethicist respond?

Cohen told the partner that he or she cannot discriminate on ideological grounds against conservatives:

If candidates can do the job, bathe regularly and work well with others, you should hire them. As you note, their “politics do not affect their function.” Is it your position that only people who share your politics should be allowed to make a living? It was odious when membership in the Federalist Society was all but required for some jobs in the Justice Department; it is no more appealing to make that affiliation a bar to employment at your firm.

This strikes us as wise advice. You can read Cohen’s complete response over here.

So what did the partner end up doing? The column includes this addendum: “UPDATE: Believing that all the applicants were qualified, but able to hire only a few, this person recommended rejecting each member of the Federalist Society.”

The folks over at Above the Law go on to explain that while the Federalist Society tends to come across as a conservative or libertarian organization, it is not actually affiliated with either (or any) party, and is strictly forbidden from being a “political” organization by dint of its IRS tax status. And, to be fair, the unnamed partner in Greenwich did not voluntarily identify himself as a “liberal”, but given that he voted against the Federalist Society members in all cases, and did identify himself as not having “conservative views”, few other choices are left.
Except, by definition, the individual in question cannot be a “liberal” – much like many others of his self-identified “liberal” ilk. The individual’s intolerance and narrow-mindedness cost multiple potentially-worthy candidates summer employment at his particular law firm – that is hardly indicative of someone with a “liberal” mindset.
To be certain, the anonymous letter-writer is a private individual, working at a private firm, and thus he is more than within his rights to recommend whatever the hell he wants, and the firm is more than within its abilities to hire and fire whomever it wants… but, in doing so, the individual abandons all personal claims he ever had to the title of “liberal”.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.

It seems sad that there really is a need to spell out what should have been patently obvious from the very beginning of our union, but there it is.
My only real quibble with the idea is that it seems to differentiate between “Senator/Representative” and “citizen” – technically, the former is dependent upon the latter. However, given that our duly-elected representatives have been trying to craft themselves into our superiors-and-better for longer than I have been alive, I guess the veriage of the proposal simply acknowledges the current situation.

In this hotbed of homogeneity, where global warming is a sacred assumption for the faithful, 15,000 people will come together from 192 countries to pray for two weeks over what can be done to save the Earth from certain doom. Few places are better suited to handle the throngs of unquestioning believers who will journey from around the globe.

[...]

Some 40,000 tons of carbon will be spewed getting this crowd together and keeping them in comfort.

That is the amount of carbon dioxide produced by more than 60 of the world’s smaller countries in an entire year — combined.

We live in a day and age where I can boot up my computer, execute a remarkably simple and low-footprint program, and talk with someone literally across the globe, with real-time video, audio, and chat. If I knew their usernames/numbers/whatevers, I could call up the harbor master of every single port I have ever visited, docked at, or even seen in my naval career and do a massive teleconference over how the international shipping industry is doing in these rough times, complete with shared doodle-space for diagrams, slideshows available to all participants, and even a recorded copy of it to pass on to those who could not make it.
And yet these half-witted global-warming cultists are flying in over 15 thousand people to sit around and commiserate over how bad the carbon dioxide situation is here on the planet? For frak’s sake, there will be over 140 aircraft used for delegates, world “leaders”, and VIPs alone, much less for reporters, support staff, cargo, lattes, and Lord alone knows what else.
Crap on a crutch – the concept of “teleconferencing” is not exactly a new one, and I can guarandamntee you that the cost of sending all those cute little electrons and photons across the oceans would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, and a hell of a lot more “green”, than flying all of the nitwits over instead.
Of course, given the amount of hot air those cultist morons create, they could probably keep their aircraft aloft by simply bloviating non-stop from take-off to landing – should be an easy task for them.
On a reated note, I will go ahead and say it now: regardless of what comes out of the Copenhagen meetings, regardless of the resolutions they suggest/pass/implement, regardless of how totalitarian, idiotic, unenforcable, unattainable, unrealistic, imbalanced, and discriminatory those goals will be, Our Glorious President will sign and adamantly support each and every one of them. Just you wait…

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That’s the least that should occur.

Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.

Did the president’s team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on — and the initial words coming out of their president’s mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.

Even with news reports coming in from a military base on United States soil indicating that numerous people have been murdered and wounded (with both sets of numbers increasing with every new bit of information), Our Glorious President just mindlessly reads off what the teleprompter tells him to, even though those remarks were remarkably out-of-place, untimely, and borderline offensive in light of the situation.
Why did his public relations officers not update his script? Why did he not tell them to? Why did he simply not turn off the teleprompter and speak Presidentially?
Well, acutally, I can answer that last part: when he deviates from the script, Our Glorious President screws things up:

Crow’s name is not included on the Society’s Medal of Honor recipient list. He was, however, awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in August.

Obama, often described as “cerebral” by the mainstream media, should know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom, especially since he personally awarded the latter to Crow. Don’t expect his blunder to receive wide coverage. It’s not something he can blame George Bush for.

In light of one of the worst attacks on the United States Military on American soil in recent history, Our Glorious President sticks to the suddenly-inappropriate script, and when he tries to wing it, he gets a simple fact wrong (a fact, I would point out, that he should have known, given he awarded Dr. Joe Medicine Crow his Medal of Freedom).
Our Glorious President does not care about our servicemen and women, he does not care about the American citizens, he does not even care about the people he is talking about/to… He only cares about “looking good”, and in his endless quest for popular acclaim, this time, he royally screwed up.

Big Hollywood has already posted a couple disturbing videos of young school children singing/speaking praises to President Obama, but when eleven more dropped in our email box it came as quite a shock. What seemed like an aberration now appears to be a troubling pattern.

Maybe “epidemic” is a better word.

Each one of the videos below is creepier than the last because the further down you go, the younger the children — brace yourself for kindergartners – except for the last and most disturbing video, which you have to see to believe.

Young captive minds, easily influenced, eager for direction, enlisted into a cult of personality focused on an individual who, other than being the first black president, has yet to accomplish anything of significance.

Can you just imagine the white-knuckle rage, the screams of “brainwashing”, the fervor, the outraged parents/pundits if these kinds of events had transpired in these numbers during our last President’s administration? And yet here we are, with a President who has done… well… not a whole lot, and young children (who do not know any better) are being induced to literally sing his praises.
And people do not see anything wrong with this? People are actually encouraging these children and teachers? Adoration of that level should send shivers down anyone’s spines, regardless of its intended target.

Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinkin’ for yourselves.

And here I could have sworn that Our Glorious President was dedicated to a sense of bipartisanship, and working together to a common goal, and bringing people together, and listening to other people, and all those other fun, tolerant things.
I guess that only applies to “the other side”.

It’s officially official.

The Obama administration on Friday said the government ran a $1.42 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2009.

That made it the worst year on record since World War II, according to data from the Treasury and the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Tax receipts for the year fell 16.6% overall, while spending soared 18.2% compared to fiscal year 2008. The causes: rising unemployment, the economic slowdown and the extraordinary measures taken by lawmakers to stem the economic meltdown that hit in fall 2008.

Consequently, the annual deficit rose 212% to the record dollar amount of $1.42 trillion, from $455 billion a year earlier.

(Emphasis added.)
Remember all of that evil spending our last President did? Remember all of Bush’s war-time spending that was such a horrible waste of money? Remember how massive deficits were something to be avoided, and they would be once Bush was gone?
… Yeah, about that.
Ah, yes, I forgot, sorry – when a Republican racks up some spending, it is 110%, incontrovertibly, unquestionably evil and The Wrong Thing To Do (TM). However, when a Democrat sets a 60-year record for deficits (and possibly an all-time record for peace-time deficits) with little to no results to show for that money, it was obviously for our own good, and we should get in line to kiss his ass for it. Yup, that is it exactly.

Without Bush, media lose interest in war caskets

… but it should be obvious that the rest of the article provides an even better castigation of journalists and the blatant biases they are not even trying to hide any more.
I find myself surprised to say this, but at least the AP still values the sacrifices of our servicemen and women, apart from simply using their deaths as political tools.