Are you Smarter than the Vice President?

Today, Joe Biden was interviewed on ABC's "This Week". Here are some excerpts,  as reported by AP (Biden Says Bad Economy Was `Misread'):

Vice President Joe Biden said the Obama administration "misread how bad the economy was" but stands by its stimulus package and believes the plan will create more jobs as the pace of its spending picks up.

Makes sense. They misread how bad the economy was, so we should trust them to predict what will fix it. Makes perfect sense, to a partisan political hack like Joe Biden.

The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures...

Consensus. That is the basis for the global warming scare and the demonization of CO2. The "consensus" was wrong about the economy. How do we know the "consensus" is right about the climate? By the way, Joe, the climate is orders of magnitude more difficult to predict than the economy.

Major programs will take effect in September, including $7.5 billion for broadband Internet service, plus new money for high-speed rail and the nation's electrical grid, he said.

I can not wait. I fully expect upstate New York, economically stagnant for the past 30 years or so, to bounce back in September, when Obama and Biden start working on the electrical grid, and reinventing the internet.

Biden, asked whether the United States would put the lives of U.S. troops on the line should violence flare up again in Iraq, said "no." The U.S. still plans to withdraw all troops by 2011, Biden said. "That is the intention," he said. "We believe the Iraqis will be fully capable of maintaining their own security."

Why will the Iraqi's be fully capable of maintaining their own security. Could it be that the USA has given them their country back, and trained them, and gave them a few years of relative peace so that they could start governing themselves. This is incontrovertible: President Bush was right about Iraq, and our mission there has been nothing short of miraculous.

Biden said if the Iranian government seeks to engage in a dialogue with the United States, the U.S. will engage. "If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage," Biden said. "The offer's on the table."

I hope Der Fuhrer Khamenei and his toady Ahmadinejad treat Biden and Obama better than they treat their own citizens.


Are you smarter than the Vice President? Anybody is smarter than the Vice President.

Letter to Schumer*

Dear Senator Schumer:

If John McCain were President--or George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, or JFK--there would be no doubt about America's position on the events in Iran, and we would be foursquare behind the people who are fighting for liberty against their tyrannical Islamo-fascist government.

But the position taken by President Jimmy Carter, Jr. (aka Barack Obama) can best be described as wishy-washy. Is the President afraid to offend the Persian Fuhrer Khamenei or his lackey Ahmadinejad?

I am particularly concerned by the President's behavior toward Iran because I am a Jew, and care deeply about the security of Israel. His wishy-washy appeasement of the Iranian tyrant has already emboldened said tyrant, and does not bode well for Israel.

I would like you, Senator Schumer, as a leader of your party, as a fellow Jew, and as someone with influence in the White House, to encourage the President to take a more courageous stand: WITH the forces of good and AGAINST the forces of evil in Iran.

Sincerely yours,

The staff of "Are You Smarter Than Congress"

*Photo of Chuck conserving CO2

Lessons Learned from Liners*

My swimming pool is a font of knowledge.   Just from taking care of this financial sink-hole in my back yard I am achieving greater and greater understanding of envirnonmentalism and what it is doing to us.   Perhaps you have read my blog "The True Cost of Global Warming," which explains the impact of the CO2 scare on our every day lives through the story of one small ingredient of pool water, namely, lithium hypochlorite.  

In this essay, I reveal the sheer stupidity of  envirofascist involvement in the vinyl liner industry.

This morning, I had a pool guy over to fix my filter, and fix it he did.   As he was leaving, I asked him for a quote on a new liner.  The existing liner is at least 20 years old, and is ready for hospice care.   He told me a standard liner would be around $3600.00,   and an extra thick liner around $4600.   "What's the benefit of the thicker liner?" I asked naively.

He replied, sagely, "When your liner was installed, the expected life span was around 20 years.  But since then, new regulations have outlawed used of certain anti-algae chemicals in the liner,  because the chemicals can get into the environment when the liner is discarded;  and there are all kinds of rules and regulations and red tape regarding removal and recycling of used liners.  The problem is," he continued, "that removing the chemicals reduces the life span to about 10 years.   So, you might want to consider getting the thicker [more expensive] liner."

What does this mean for me, and what does it mean for the environment?   For me, it means an extra thousand bucks.   Mucho dineros.  'Scarole.  10 Benjamins.  Cha-ching!   For the environment:   it means less algaecide, BUT TWICE AS MANY LINERS HAVE TO BE MANUFACTURED AND DISCARDED!   Do the math,  environmentalists.     

*Apologies for the title to Athol Fugard, author of "Lessons Learned from Aloes."

Photo credit:www.mellowmonk.com/ labels/sights%20to%20see%2...

President Moses

It appears that Obama is going to be more aggressive about pushing for his version of health care reform.  According to the New York Times (Stolberg 1), "With Congress beginning a burst of work on [health care legislation], top advisers say, the president is determined to make certain the final bill bears his stamp."  

Stamp?  I do not think so.   Based on his first five months in office, President Obama is clearly not one for mere stamps of approval.   Buried deep in the Times article is the Biblical truth:  

Aides say he will not dictate the fine print. "It was never is intent to come to Congress with stone tablets," said his senior adviser, David Axelrod.  But he will increasingly make his preferences known. (Stolberg 20)

Previously, Obama has been compared  to JFK, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln,  Warren Harding, Jefferson, Martin Luther King, and the Messiah, among others.   This is the first instance, to my knowledge, where he has been compared to Moses.

I wonder how the President's new muslim friends will react to this revelation.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay.  Obama to Forge a Greater Role on Health Care. New York Times, 7 June 2009,   1, 20.