Mr. Batchelor as always, a very thoughtful and insightful read on what is going on in our nation right now. Despite the recent stock market surge things are not well at all. Our politicians, especially our President pat themselves on them back while they fly all over the world and spend our tax money on these lavish dinners. It would be nice if they could at least lead by example and maybe tone it down a little. The country is sinking further into an abyss and our ruling elite are partying like theres no tomorrow.

This whole administration has been a prank from way back when the campaigning first started (how many years ago?). It's a prank foisted upon us by our political class, the major media and academe. As the strains and tears in the sheer fabric of this two-dimensional illusion grow more pronounced, it also has become obvious that the damage resultant of this particular prank is real and building.

What may have started as a cynical attempt to poke a stick in Republican's eyes has turned into a looming disaster of epic proportions. Don't think the Indian guest-of-honor was impressed by the incongruous state dinner bursting at the seams with Hollywood types, gang bangers, frauds and gate crashers. He knows very well that he was simply used as a prop in a meaningless and ill-conceived parody meant to impress its childish, not-ready-for-prime-time host. The erudite and cultured Manmohan Singh would never lower himself to publicly point out the nature of the farce he was subjected to by the American pretender-in-chief. Yet, you can be certain that not a detail of Obama’s attempted humiliation of him escaped him. Singh now knows what we ourselves have been painfully aware of for quite some time: that every day Barrack Hussein Obama gets up in the morning and fancies himself president, he humiliates himself.

http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/

They were not a threat, dire economic news.

I did a yayhoo/gargle of "Americas best presidents" Liberals place FDR at #2 and Conservatives did the same for Reagan. Both Reagan and FDR were given terrible economic news , so which one got the economy working quickly, the Keynesian President or Friedman POTUS?

Because of FDRs Keynes-style economic policy, the recession double-dipped and went into the great Depression.

POTUS BHO, holy be his name, is following the same refuted economic course of centrally planned government-controlled economic policies. Main Stream Media (MSM) is fully supportive of "The Economic Stimulus" and refuses to question the efficacy of current economic policy. Tough, hard-hitting questions are not emanating from the White House briefing room. Lord help us.

JB Said:

"The prancing, the video cameos, the grinning, powdered aimlessness, the prop of the stately India PM Manmohan Singh, and the gregarious male-model POTUS, and then here comes the silly duo to pretend they were invited to a pretense of national worthiness."

National worthiness hasn't mattered since Jethro was in the white house giving flute lessons to Monica and teaching her about cigars.

To Sapienta:
Read Amity Shlaes "The Forgotten Man" if you want a look into FDR and his megalomania. If you want to see my take on Obama, holy be his name, look at this: http://the-right-guy.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-i-am-thankful-for.html

Don't you remember Jethro played the saxophone? Rather badly too. From what I recall, he was quite satisfied with Monica's musicality though.

As far as the congress learning from the depression, remember what party controls the congress and who they hold in high esteem: The democrats and the megalomaniacal FDR with his keynesian template. The forgot the results...and the fact it took a war to get us out of the depression.

There isn't any meat...it looks like a left coast greenie feast. I am not particularly fond of white wines either, at least to drink. Well, all I can hope for is the Mario Batali and Emeril kick Bobbie Flay's and the white house's executive chef's ass on the next season of Iron Chef America. The crap they served at the white house for thanksgiving surely isn't very american.

ALL IT TAKES IS A SNAP OF THE NECK

If an op is trained properly, he doesn't need any weapons to kill. He can do it w/his bear hands. That's why when I first heard the Secret Service report, I thought this couple had not even met POTUS.

Bear correction: That should read: bare

from colleague Aaron Klein at Jerusalem:
Klein: White House ‘gatecrashers’ tied to Obama’s Palestinian friend. Harsh critic of Israel excuses terrorism

November 29, 2009 by Brenda J. Elliott

Americas Polo Cup Pre-Event – Invite Only – with President Elect Obama and Black Eyed Peas — and Michaele and Tareq Salahi

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports:

The Virginia couple who allegedly crashed a White House state dinner are tied to Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian professor who excuses terrorism and has been a close associate to President Obama.

Michaele and Tareq Salahi (above) met Obama in a receiving line at last week’s event, with a “deeply concerned and embarrassed” Secret Service stating it never checked whether the two were on the White House guest list.

Tareq Salahi served on the board of the American Task Force for Palestine, where Khalidi (right), currently a Columbia University professor, served as vice president. Both Salahi’s and Khalidi’s names have been scrubbed from the Task Force website, although Salahi’s bio still comes on a Google cache search of the site.

The Task Force lobbies for a Palestinian state and demands the so-called right of return for Palestinian “refugees” – a formula Israeli officials across the political spectrum have warned could destroy Israel by population genocide, with the Jewish state forced to accept millions of Arabs, thus diluting its Jewish majority.

Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel. He has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an “apartheid system in creation” and a destructive “racist” state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings a response to “Israeli aggression.”

He dedicated his 1986 book, “Under Siege,” to “those who gave their lives … in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon.” Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism.

Obama, Khalidi closely tied

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, Obama first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama’s failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.

Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor radio show, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama.

“I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician,” Khalidi stated.

Khalidi said he supports Obama for president “because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause.”

Khalidi also lauded Obama for “saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can’t talk with the Iranians.”

Obama sat on the board of the Woods Fund, which describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged. In 2001, the fund, with Obama on its board, provided a $40,000 grant to Mona Khalidi’s Arab American Action Network, or AAAN. The fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit titled “The Subject of Palestine” that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe” of Israel’s founding in 1948.

In 2003, Obama delivered an in-person testimonial for Khalidi, who at the time was departing the University of Chicago for a new teaching position at Columbia University in New York. At the 2003 event, poetry reportedly was read comparing Israelis to Osama bin Laden and accusing the Jewish state of terrorism.

In May 2008, WND noted Obama termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a “constant sore” in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an opinion piece in the Nation magazine in which he called the “Palestinian question” a “running sore.”

In his piece, “Palestine: Liberation Deferred,” Khalidi suggested Israel carried out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians and Western powers backed Israel’s establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust. He lamented the Palestinian Authority’s stated acceptance of a Palestinian state “only” in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem, and he argued Israel should be dissolved and instead a bi-national, cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside.

White House ‘gatecrashers’ posed with Obama in 2005

Meanwhile, a statement issued by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said the agency was “deeply concerned and embarrassed by the circumstances surrounding the State Dinner” and added that “the preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.”

Sullivan suggested that the couple had been screened for weapons, but should not have gained entry. “That failing is ours,” he said.

Reached by telephone Friday evening, the couple’s attorney, Paul W. Gardner, declined to comment. In an e-mail to Bloomberg News, Gardner added, “My clients were cleared by the White House to be there.”

Yet, a June 2005 photo from Polo Contacts Worldwide shows the Salahis with Obama at a pre-event to America’s Polo Cup. Others in the photo include American Idol’s Randy Jackson and members of the rock group Black Eyed Peas.

And with Obama, it's a pencil neck at that.

This is a distraction. The couple offered their SSN and Drivers licenses, I presume. Unless they had spent time in jail they would be allowed into 1600.

Bigger issue is this White House and current Administration cannot execute. Bush 43's White House was a flawless timepiece of execution. 43 did not have a compliant press and mistakes were over amplified (e.g. Katrina). 3000+ US children have died from h1N1 and no-one has asked Obama, blessed be his holy name, on whom to place the blame.

JB, enjoyed the Bird Flu discussion last night, appears we are doing *nothing* to prepare for a very deadly plague. Google Avian Flu and you will see it is hundreds of times more deadly than Swine Flu. No vaccine on the horizon. What good is free health care if we are all quarantined?

Wisdom

Sorry, I do remember about the saxophone now that you mention it. Being a classical pianist myself, I consider any instruments not found in the performance of Brahms' First Piano Concerto to be suspect. Jazz is merely something to be avoided whenever possible, and is an improvement on silence less than 10% of the time.

>appears we are doing nothing to prepare for a very deadly plague

Rather than wait for orders from headquarters, you should begin to *take 5,000 units of vitamin D3 per day*. If Mr. Batchelor has mentioned this safe and effective strategy on his show, I somehow missed it.

Isikoff at Newsweek:

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Posted Sunday, November 29, 2009 2:03 PM
White House Guest List Chief Says She Quit Post
Michael Isikoff
The White House staff member whose job was to supervise the guest list for state dinners and clear invitees into the events says she was stripped of most of her responsibilities earlier this year, prompting her to resign last June.

The account of Cathy Hargraves, who formerly served as White House "assistant for arrangements," raises new questions about whether changes that she says were made by President Obama's social secretary, Desiree Rogers, may have contributed to the security lapses that permitted Virginia socialites Michele and Tareq Salahi to crash the state dinner for India's prime minister last week and get themselves photographed with the president.

Hargraves tells Declassified in an exclusive interview that, while she had originally been hired as a White House political appointee in 2001, she landed a new position on the White House residence staff in 2006 and was specifically detailed to the social office to work on state dinners.

Her job duties included overseeing the invitations for guests at state dinners and keeping track of RSVPs, she says. On the evening of state dinners, she says, she physically stood at the East Gate portico entrance and greeted each of the guests as they arrived, checking their names off a computerized printout of those who had been invited.

But when she met with Rogers last February and went over her job responsibilities, she says the new social secretary told her, "We don't feel we have a need for that anymore." Rogers's explanation, according to Hargraves: "In these economic times, I don't think we're going to have very many lavish expensive dinners. It wouldn't look very good."

A White House official (who asked not to be named because of the ongoing investigation) has refused to comment on any aspect of Hargraves account, saying, "it doesn't matter," because the Secret Service has already publicly apologized for violations of its own procedures that allowed the Salahis to crash the Tuesday night event.

Not only were the aspiring reality TV contestants not on the invited guest list for the evening, according to a Secret Service official who also asked not to be identified talking about an ongoing probe, "it does not appear" their names had even been entered into the Secret Service's computer system, the standard step for any guest coming into the White House complex. "There is no question this was a huge mistake on our part," says the official, adding that the Secret Service may provide a more detailed accounting in the next few days.

"The Secret Service said they made a mistake and they are taking action to identify exactly what happened, and they will take the appropriate measures pending the results of their investigation," says Nicholas Shapiro, a White House spokesman.

Still, Hargraves's account may be relevant because White House Social Secretary Rogers has publicly acknowledged that nobody from the social office was physically present at the White House East Gate entrance during Tuesday night's dinner to resolve any questions about whether the Salahis were invited. (This has prompted Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, to suggest the social office's policies should be re-examined as part of a congressional investigation into the incident.)

The White House official insists none of that really matters, because the Secret Service had been given the contacts for a social office employee to check with if any questions arose about any guest trying to enter. But the White House aide says and the Secret Service official has confirmed that that employee (who had replaced Hargraves within the social office) wasn't contacted either.

Hargraves, however, says the lack of a social office employee on the scene at the gate might have made a difference. During her tenure, she says, it was not uncommon for guests at state dinners to arrive only to discover that their names hadn't been placed on the official guest list. In such situations, she says, she always refused the person entry until she could verify that they had actually been invited.

If she had been on the job at the White House last Tuesday night, the Salahis "would not have made it past the East Gate portico," she says. Once she had ascertained that they had not been invited, she says she would have called in the Secret Service officer who let them through in the first place and "they would have been escorted out."

After her tense meeting with Rogers last February, in which Hargraves says the social secretary made clear she did not want her to continue in the same role she had before, Hargraves says her job was essentially downgraded to what she calls a "data entry clerk": Her new job was simply to enter the names of White House guests into the Secret Services computers for clearance, not to broadly supervise state dinners and manage the invitations and arrival of guests. Dissatisfied with her new role, she says she quit on June 5 and moved with her husband, a State Department employee, to Houston. (Her staff slot was initially filled by a volunteer, who was later promoted to a full-time position but without her broad responsibilities for overseeing the guests at state dinners, she says.)

In some ways, Hargraves's account is reminiscent of culture clashes that have arisen in the past between outgoing and incoming White House staff members. Moreover, Hargraves acknowledges that the new Obama staff may have distrusted her because she had originally served as a political appointee in the Office of the cabinet secretary under President Bush. But Hargraves, who is a registered nurse by profession, says she has never worked on a political campaign and, as far as she is concerned, her loyalty was to the White House as an institution, not to the Bush administration.

"For me, it was all about the house," she says. "For me, [state dinners] are magical moments, and you have be so organized. A state dinner requires a lot of work and maybe they didn't realize this going into it."

Cowards die many times before their death
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all things I have seen, it seems to me most strange
That men should fear
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

The only objection I have, and someone mentioned this earlier - if the White House can act without fear, why must I subject myself to these ridiculous searches? Why make a coward out of me and deny me the chance to act bravely as well? Another piece of evidence that Obama is a poor leader.

MAYBE POTUS WANTED THE SALAHIS AT THE DINNER,
BUT HE JUST DIDN'T WANT THEM VETTED.

You know, like all the czars that are roaming around the White House.

They turned themselves in.

Kenneth-
tell me more about vitamin D3. I started taking it several months ago but I can't remember why. I think it was supposed to improve one's memory. Just kidding--but is it supposed to stop the flu?
INquiring minds wan t to know.

High-dose vitamin D does a good deal more than that--*it also slashes cancer rates by three-fourths*. Similar good news with regard to its effects on heart disease, hypertension, Parkinson's Disease, and so on can easily be Googled.

What's this quote health care crisis unquote that everybody keeps yammering about? It's been solved, courtesy of a softgel that can be taken at a cost of cost of approximately three dollars per month.

Of course, lots of people in the medical field will have to get real jobs. Oh, wait, there aren't any real jobs in this country any more. My bad.

PS. Use the D-3 (cholecalciferol) form, not the inferior, toxic D-2 (ergocalciferol) type. As is the case with vitamin E and other lipid-soluble nutrients, for proper absorption take it with a meal that contains a reasonable amount of fat or oil. Those hideously unhealthy fat-free diets should be strictly reserved for unmarried feminists, since they won't be missed when they're gone.

Several weeks ago, that scoundrel, grandstander, slope-headed redneck, "unwashed" Glenn Beck presented this same information. Turns out Andrew Stern has visited the WH more often than anybody. Can't recall the number but it seemed outlandish for one man to see the president that many times in (at the time) nine months in office.

It's called hormesis.

Testing...

I like venison...

Dandelions are fine. My dad's family ate plenty. Just don't get it from somewhere they spray pesticides and wash it well.

Wild Ephedra of many different varieties grows everywhere along the PCT where we hike. Chew a couple of stalks of that and you're good for another 2-3 miles.

I used marriage records and birth records to trace my family tree all the way back to 1840! I learned so much about my past, it was truly enlightening and informative for me.

Fantastic post, You make valid points in a concise and pertinent fashion, I will read more of your stuff, thank you for your time.

Always a joy to be able to stop for a while here and also find you engaged. Love to go through your useful blog posts.