Sleepless in Midland

A modest post in which I request the local paper to do some reporting on how the unwanted Energy Tower got to this point

Someone called me a couple of hours ago dunning me for payment for my morning paper subscription. Hey, it's in the mail. Or more precisely, it was in the electronic banking system, which for a payment to the Midland Reporter Telegram takes longer than it does for the other payees. But each year it raises the same question: Why am I paying so much money for this?

Well, there are times when the newspaper hits a homer. For example, on Sunday there was an editorial about the Energy Tower that the city council rammed down our throats. The editorial writer was actually questioning the process by which it came about. Not the result, mind you, just the process.

So if the newspaper is interested in an examination of the process, we can make a few suggestions for reporting.

First, this very same newspaper reported on September 17, 2013, this:

Three council members -- Mayor Wes Perry, at large Councilman Scott Dufford and District 1 Councilman Jeff Sparks -- abstained from voting because of conflicts of interest regarding the property.

Those "conflicts of interest" would be a pretty good starting place.

Second, the newspaper reported on December 29, 2013, this:

He [Mayor Wes Perry] then told the audience that the courthouse was going to be torn down.

The site was going to make way for Energy Tower at City Center, a 53-story skyscraper planned for construction in the heart of downtown.

Perry said at that point he didn’t know the impact his announcement would have. “I had no clue of the extent of the project at that time; the concept wasn’t final yet. But I knew afterward that we had to make an announcement.”

What did the mayor know and how did he know it? Were any other council members privy to this information? The destruction of the courthouse and the construction of a skyscraper is a pretty big deal, and citizens have wondered how it simply popped up out of the blue. How many secret meetings involving elected officials took place in which they discussed this thing? There's a law in Texas prohibiting those, you know.

So please, Midland Reporter Telegram. Prove to us you're worth $208 a year to subscribers. After all, we're the reason you can pull in the big bucks from the advertisers.

Downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7

Windows 8 has been disparaged up one side of the internet and down the other. Combine an unpopular operating system with an economic downturn and computer buyers have sent the PC business into a tail spin.

So it was interesting to hear a remark from an IT guy today. He said people are bringing new PCs into the store's repair shop and asking them to be downgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 7. Can't be done, he says, because the manufacturers haven't produced drivers to accommodate that change.

Maybe that's true for the PCs they sell. However, a little bit of search engine research tells us there is an exception. Most of the off-the-shelf computers probably came preloaded with the everyday Windows 8 system. However, those with Windows 8 Pro can be downgraded. See this item at the Microsoft Support page: How to downgrade from Windows 8.

Of course, there's the upgrade to Windows 8.1, which for my old laptop was a half measure. I ended up installing Classic Shell again to get the superior look of Windows 7. Then there's the possibility of another upgrade, and maybe Windows 8.2 will finally give users the control they once had.  But who knows?

But if the gentle reader will tolerate a slight detour, now would be a good time to point out an obvious analogy. There's a parallel here between Windows 8 and Obamacare. Both were promised to be super awesome. Both disappointed. Maybe Obamacare can take a cue from Microsoft and offer a downgrade program to allow people to go back to the insurance plans they had before. New Democrat bumper sticker: "If you liked your health care plan, you can go back to your health care plan. This time we mean it."

Tips for guys and gals on the singles scene

This is going to be a departure for Sleepless in Midland, but since diversity is supposed to be of such social importance, we're all in. Herewith are some tidbits that may be useful for singles.

First off, the odds aren't in your favor:

The mathematical chance of meeting your soul mate is one in 10,000.

But maybe time factors may be useful:

Women look their oldest every Wednesday at 3:30pm.

However:

Sleep deprived men think women are more amorous than they actually are.

A sleep deprived guy meets a woman at 3:30pm. MATCH!

But be careful how you say that:

Women really are satisfied by deep, husky voices.

Heck, it's a jungle out there. Maybe the social networks are better. But,

Using "don't" and "won't" correctly in online dating messages boosts response rates by more than a third.

Hmm. Good luck out there. We hope this helps in the dating arena, although the word "date" may have slipped out of the hook up lexicon. Anyway, all of these factoids came from a BBC article titled 100 things we didn't know last year.

Fox Friday 12-27-13 -- They're baaaack!

They've been boycotting my back yard because of the dog. So the critter cam was moved to an undisclosed location with no dogs. But unfortunately, there's still competition -- a mean old cat.

Read my lips. "Hissssssss!"

A Texas stand off. Look at those eyes in the photo on the right.

It ain't easy being at the bottom of the carnivore food chain. The feline bully gobbled all the food that night, and the fox had to forage for leftovers.

A few nights later the cat arrived too early and left with an empty stomach. The fox got the food. Yes! Go foxes!

Norway -- rich in oil rich, high in debt

Finding a buried treasure of black gold has been a blessing for some and a curse for others. For Norway, a blessing so far. But there are clouds on the horizon as politician promise more and more while using the Norwegian Oil Fund as collateral for more and more debt. See in Washington Times, VITENBERG: Norway’s shame: How a nation squandered its oil riches. Excerpt:

Some 50 years ago, Njord, the mythological Norsk god of wealth, smiled on the hardworking fishermen and lumberjacks, and presented Norway with the gift of oil. In financial terms, this was a handsome gift indeed, currently translated into a natural bounty worth $740 billion.

Successive Norwegian governments pledged to save this wealth for the welfare of future generations. Yet, half a century after this windfall began, questions increasingly arise of whether Norway’s handling of its oil wealth has even withstood the test of the past, much less the future. ...

First, the oil fund is a mathematical artifice. At three-quarters of a trillion dollars, the Norwegian Oil Fund appears to provide plenty for a country with scarcely 5 million citizens. Yet the country has accumulated a foreign debt that, at $657 billion, is almost as massive. Subtracting the debt from the fund’s $740 billion leaves a balance of only $83 billion. In other words, there is a treasure chest, but it is almost empty: Njord’s prize for future generations is only a little more than 10 percent of its putative value.

Actually, to be fair to the politicians, party-like-there's-no-tomorrow is more or less a trend among most governing bodies. So they are simply following the herd, if that can be claimed as a defense.

Careful what you wish for with the fix for income inequality

You don't have to look very far to find someone in the msm complaining about income inequality. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer," is a popular refrain among the envious. In reality, during those phases of the economic cycle when the rich get richer the low income people generally do better, too. During bad time, both the rich and poor get hurt, but the rich generally have built a cushion that softens the blow during down times.

Anyway, someone using the name Jonathan Fast has penned a wonderful little satirical recipe for reducing inequality. Click Some Modest Proposals to Solve the Inequality Problem.

He notes three factors that have contributed to inequality: The 30 year stock market boom, globalization, and the two earner family. So what's the solution to inequality? Simple. Eliminate those three things. Cause the stock market to crash, get some trade tariffs and barriers to curtail global buying and selling, and put working women back in the kitchen. Hilarious.

Via Newmarksdoor.com.

Rand Paul knows how to celebrate Festivus

As Frank Costanza said to his son, "George, Festivus is your heritage. It's part of who your are." I can't quite picture Ron Paul saying that to his son. But never mind.

To be fair, the holiday isn't widely celebrated, but Christmas falling two days later probably distracts a lot of potential celebrants.

The airing of the grievances is a major part of the Festivus celebration, and Rand Paul may be the only Senator to do it this year, so far. Check out his Twitter feed.

Among his grievances:

I liked my plan. I did not get to keep it.

Too often politicians try the same thing over and over again even if it is clear it isn't working. We need to give new ideas a try.

People who think shrinking our party and getting rid of those with more libertarian ideas will help us win elections.

And of course, this one:

Every single item in @TomCoburn wastebook. http://www.politico.com/story/....

Way to go, Rand Paul. Festivus! For the rest of us!

photo ID -- not so easy to get

Trying to do a good deed sometimes sends you jumping through dozens of government made hoops. In this case your loyal blogger was trying to help an elderly person sell a 20 year old automobile that hasn't been driven in a while. So what might that entail? Well, it might involve a few minor repairs to get it street legal and running. But an important part of the sale of an automobile involves a transfer of a document called a title, so before opening the hood it might be worthwhile to locate the title. And that's where the problem begins. There's a title somewhere, but it has long been absorbed somewhere within one of numerous hills of papers, mail, photos, and cat hair.

Solution: Obtain a duplicate title from the Texas DMV. Simple, right? Well, that depends on whether you've got the proper identification. In order to obtain a duplicate car title the applicant must have a photo ID. And in this case, the owner's Texas driver's license had expired two and a half years ago, so the DMV refused to accept it. Their advice was to obtain and submit a new driver's license or a state photo ID.

OK, so they threw a small hurdle in the way. No biggie. It shouldn't be that hard to obtain a photo ID from the same agency that issued the driver's license, should it? Not so fast. The DPS has its own set of requirements for a state photo ID which include proof of identification, citizenship, and Texas residency.

Click on the links to see exactly what they'll take. But in sum, they want one Primary Identity Document, or if one isn't available, then they'll take two Secondary Identity Documents. If the applicant can't produce two of those, then he/she can supply one Secondary Identity Document and two Supporting Identity Documents.

An expired Texas driver's license will serve as a Primary if it expired within the past two years. In our case we're SOL on that one, so we're down to the Secondaries. The easiest of the Secondaries would seem to be a certified copy of a birth certificate. If you're old enough you may remember when you could write a letter to the county clerk of the county of your birth, and with a small fee, get a certified copy of your birth certificate. Not today.

In the state of Texas they have to come from the Department of State Health Services. And right there in bold letters on the application (PDF) is this:

INCLUDE A PHOTOCOPY OF YOUR VALID PHOTO ID WHEN SENDING THE REQUEST

And farther down:

(APPLICATIONS WITHOUT PHOTO ID WILL NOT BE PROCESSED)

So you need a photo ID to get a photo ID. What would we do without bureaucrats?

As for the car, a junk dealer will pay $200 without a title. That's starting to look better and better.

President's NSA review group issues warning

If we weren't suspicious of President Obama before the revelation that the IRS was helping with his re-election campaign, we certainly were afterward. And the information leaked by Edward Snowden about the NSA telephone meta-data sweeps heightened those suspicions.

The President's hand picked panel issued a report the other day which attempted to placate those fears. But even they warned of possible abuse. See President Obama's Own Experts Recommend End to NSA Phone Data Spying:

But its report warned, "We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking."

Duh, as the kids say. And if there are any "high-level government officials" for whom consequences outweigh any moral inhibitions they are Obama and the crowd surrounding him.

Who knew it was that easy to get an Obamaphone?

"Cell phones have become a necessary part of your day-to-day survival, and to be without one is unthinkable." Oh, I don't know about that. It's thinkable. But the quoted sentence comes from a website promoting the Obamaphone.

To get one the applicant has to earn less than 135% or 150% of the HHS Federal Poverty Guideline, depending on the state of residence, or already be on a state or federal assistance program. So all of the people currently holding a food stamp card are probably eligible. Just ask the Obamaphone lady.

Who pays for it? Silly question. However, if you said it's the taxpayer, you're only partly right, because the tax only applies to people who pay their phone bills. It's tacked on as a "Federal Universal Service Charge," which on my last monthly phone bill was $3.63.

But apparently the program is rife with fraud and the wireless companies that collect the money haven't been very diligent about making sure the applicants were really qualified. Not to worry. The FCC is on the case.

Obamacare is doing a good job -- of convincing people what's wrong with big government

We all remember how enthusiastic Democrats were in the buildup and passage of Obamacare. But what wasn't so obvious, and which Michael Barone points out in Obamacare shows America's aversion to big government policies, is that Americans already had an aversion to big government.

You could have fooled me. It seems that we've been creeping toward a bigger government with more and more programs for a long time. Obama has merely made it obvious.

But here's an interesting passage from Barone's article:

Gallup reports that 72 percent of Americans see big government, not big business or big labor, as the biggest threat to the nation’s future—the highest number since the question was first asked in 1965.

So what happened in 1965? Among other things, Medicare.

We all know what a disaster Obamacare has been. And odds are it will continue to be a disaster for a long time, unless lawmakers are able to repeal it. But that's a big "unless."  After all, Medicare is still limping along.

 

Texas is doing well and Wendy Davis wants to change that

I've long said that the best time for a Democrat president is when the nation has nowhere to go but down. During times of prosperity there's lots of money to go around, and it's harder to get exited about government largess and waste. But during bad economic times the largess and waste are too obvious, and Democrats really haven't demonstrated any skills at anything but ineffective Keynesian economics. So Obama and his blue crew came along at just the wrong time.

The state of Texas has been bucking the national economic trend. And Democrats see a prosperous plum to pluck and devour. They have Texas in their sights with a goal of turning the electorate from red to blue to exploit that prosperity and bring Texas down to their level. Where there's inequality there's a Democrat ready to spread the wealth -- other people's wealth.

Anyway, the foregoing rant was merely a lead-in to a putdown that's so articulate and precise it should be read in its entirety. See Wendy Davis calls Texas toxic, reveals favorite charity is Neiman Marcus. Excerpt:

I typically charge for my sage wisdom on campaign communications strategy, but sometimes, a candidate is obviously in such dire need of help that I simply cannot abide not offering free advice. Case on point? Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who is stumbling haplessly through what appears to be an audition for a reality show on the Lifetime network rather than a legitimate race for governor of a state with an GDP greater than most European nations.

Whether it’s gleefully claiming that she’s pro-life because she cares for children once they’ve been medically separated from their mothers uterus, or embellishing her decidedly middle-class upbringing to engender trust in her faux compassion for Texas’s poor, or making the always-solid decision to run on a platform banning firearms in Texas, Wendy’s had a real streak of winning ideas. But none may be so bold as her more recent declaration, at a cozy SoHo cocktail party in NYC : that the state she wants to lead is a toxic cesspool.

Now that's a put down! Read the whole thing to get to the part about Neiman Marcus.

As for Texas, it has nowhere to go but down right now, but maybe the voters in Texas will be able to see what a mess Democrats have made of the nation and not want to bring it home.

Naughty or Nice? Take the test.

Most of us don't know what's important to Santa when he checks his list. Have I been naughty, or have I been nice?

Well, someone has made it easy. Take the test to see for yourself.

(Hint. For best results, lie.)

Via Presurfer.

Peter O'Toole, what an entertaining fellow!

My favorite anecdote about the late Peter O'Toole was the time he had a few too many at lunch with friends, and thoroughly drunk by evening, they decided to take in a play. He took a seat in the audience, looked at the program, and gasped, "I'm in this play!"

Maybe it's true, or maybe it was written to be told on the Carson show. Either way, it's a good one.

While others gush about "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Stuntman," the lines don't connect without "My Favorite Year." That was Mel Brooks' story from his early days as a writer for a live TV comedy. In the movie O'Toole played Alan Swann, a larger than life swashbuckling movie star who had seen his better days and who got booked for a guest spot on the show. All went reasonably well until the night of the show when he learned it was going to be broadcast live. A full fledged panic attack set in, and hilarity ensued. "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!" If you've already seen it, see it again.

A lesson we learned from Star Wars

A rule for fighting:

If they bring a knife, you bring a pillow.

Via Tastefully Offensive.

Happy Birthday Jimmy Doolittle

General James (Jimmy) Doolittle, December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993.

He was a aviation pioneer and a great American hero. One of his greatest technological accomplishments was in recognizing the importance of being able to fly with zero visibility and the development of instrument flying. But the thing for which he'll be remembered most was the Doolittle Raid -- the squad of B-25s launched from the carrier USS Hornet to drop bombs within Japan for the first time during WWII. The raid caused the Japanese to fortify their homeland defense and thus weaken their Pacific forces.

Happy Birthday General Doolittle!

Aside: An actor playing General Doolittle appeared in the 2001 movie, Pearl Harbor. That actor was Alec Baldwin, and Baldwin's convincing portrayal of a war hero like Jimmy Doolittle should be proof that Baldwin is a very talented actor.

Photo source.

Marijuana has gone to the dogs in Seattle

It's medical marijuana for pets to treat arthritis. Breitbart.com has the news at Seattle Vet Offers Medical Pot For Pets.

Anti-inflammatory drugs have their drawbacks, but marijuana doesn't, say the vets trying to sell the product.

But there's a downside there, too. They stripped out the THC, so the animals don't get high. But that's probably for the best. A dog with the munchies could be a real nuisance.

Meanwhile, here on the home front, my own new dog seems to have a fondness for cardboard. She had rather chew up a cardboard box than eat dry dog food. I haven't tried it myself, but that certainly isn't a ringing endorsement for the dog food.

Via.

GOP to seek tighter control over 2016 primary debates

This seems like a good thing. We all recall how main stream media debate moderators sought to influence the debate outcomes. Candy Crowley's infamous bias injection in a debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney comes to mind as the most notorious example. And there was George Stephanopoulos' question about abortion in another debate which left most observers scratching their heads until it was learned that the Obama admin planned to contrive some contraception issue.

The GOP may not be able to keep the Democrat friendly moderators out of the presidential debates, but putting some restrictions on the primary debates is a good start.

So it's refreshing to see GOP Planning on Tighter Control Over 2016 Primaries: Fewer Debates, Better Moderators.

Obamacare will be tough to repeal

Some sobering thoughts from Avik Roy in an article at Forbes.com. He suggests that by the time Republicans control the White House and enough of the House and Senate to repeal Obamacare, it might be too late. He's not the first to say this -- that was one of the points Ted Cruz made around the time of his filibuster.

The theory is that many of those who now oppose Obamacare may come to like their new insurance policies. Mr. Roy speculates that there may be 24 million people covered by Obamacare either through the exchanges or through Medicaid by 2017.

So on the "Keep it" side of the issue will be those 24 million bolstered by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that helped craft the bill. On the "dump it" side will be those who will be paying a higher premium. It isn't certain which side would prevail. And so far, Republicans have not come up with an alternative that is agreeable to most of them.

Of course, Republicans have to win some elections in the meantime. Mr. Roy again:

It’s hard to imagine a Republican winning the 2016 GOP primary by stepping back from the party’s insistence on repealing Obamacare. But it’s also doubtful that a Republican can win the 2016 general election by throwing 24 million Americans off of their health plans. And therein lies the rub.

Factor in also the amazing ability of the Community Organizer in Chief to pull voters out of the woodwork, and it's easy to be pessimistic.

American tech companies feeling heat from customers want limits on government internet spying

Gamers must be reeling from the news that US and British spying agencies have been snooping on internet games. See Agency spies snooped on online gaming worlds, including World of Warcraft, Second Life and Xbox Live:

In fact, there have been so many FBI, CIA, and Pentagon spooks kicking around as elves, Orcs and supermodels, a "deconfliction" group is needed to avoid them all colliding into each other, according to the newly released, top-secret documents.

Short on the heals of that revelation we learn that eight big U.S. tech firms put an open letter online to the President and Congress asking for transparency and oversight of government internet spying. They must be feeling the heat from their customers. And they probably have good reason to worry. It seems like an easy entry point for some foreign competitors who might offer privacy and steal away customers.

Actually, there's some irony here. As NakedSecurity writer Lee Munson remarks, many of the same principles espoused by the tech coalition could be applied to themselves given how much of individuals' private data outfits like Google and Facebook collect.

As for the spy agencies, one has to wonder whether they have separate departments in which the agents do nothing but play games on the internet all day. Government agencies are probably big on giving awards to workers. Do you suppose they give them rewards for achieving the upper levels in the online games they play? What a job.

While we're at it, we might also give some thought to the agents who sit in a windowless office all day long searching porn sites for illegal content. That could very well be a career climax for many of them.

An explanation for Obama's lies -- Consequentialism

Lawrence Sellin explains at Americanthinker.com that Obama is not a Pathological Liar, He is an Ideological Liar. Here's an excerpt:

Stated simply, Obama lies because the true objectives of his fundamental transformation of the United States are incompatible with American democracy and tradition.

Barack Obama's devotion to the Machiavellian dictum of "the ends justify the means" and lying as an instrument of government policy have been the tools of political extremists throughout history.

There's a name for that principle: Consequentialism. More from Sellin:

To Obama, however, they are not lies. It is acceptable to use bad or immoral methods as long as you accomplish something "good" by using them. In other words, in order to achieve what you consider as an important aim, it is acceptable to do something bad. Morally "right" consequences often necessitate morally wrong actions and what is considered "right" or "wrong" is determined by the outcome.

Now the big question is this: How could so many people have voted for such a liar when a perceived lack of honesty in his predecessor, as wrong as that was, paved the way for his election. Surely some of them are having buyers' remorse, in which case there may still be hope. However, if they too are consequentialists then the American we once knew is gone.

"Dear Leader, please tell us a lie we can believe."

Obama admits government is too big

Was this a gaff -- A truthful statement made accidentally?

It's from WSJ.com Review and Outlook column titled The ObamaCare Buck Finally Stops. Quoting Obama, to wit:

"The challenge, I think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around White House organization," he said. "It actually has to do with what I referred to earlier, which is we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly. . . . The White House is just a tiny part of what is a huge, widespread organization with increasingly complex tasks in a complex world."

So after five years, Mr. Obama has discovered government is inefficient and wasteful, or at least it is when he needs a political alibi.

A twofer: A gaff AND a way to dodge blame.

WWII story -- a battered B-17 limps home and a sympathetic Luftwaffe ace let them pass

December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy. So said the President of the day, and the next day the U.S. declared war.

So as we remember that horrible day, this might be a good time to read a feel-good story coming from the ending days of the war. Dailymail.co.uk tells the story in A stricken Allied bomber, the German ace sent to shoot it down and a truly awe inspiring story of wartime chivalry.

The short version is that the crew in a bullet riddled B-17 was trying to get back to Britain after a bombing run over Germany. The plane was badly damaged by German fighters, and as it plunged toward the ground, the German pilots left it for dead. But the B-17 pilot was able to level off and maintain a speed barely above stall speed. As they limped toward the English Channel they spotted a lone Me109 headed for them. As the German pilot approached the B-17 he couldn't help but notice how badly it was damaged. But somehow it was still flying, and the German decided today was not these Americans' day to die.

He escorted them so the German ground anti-aircraft gunners would not shoot. But eventually the nervous Americans angled their one remaining gun toward the German plane, so the German saluted, wished them auf wiedersehen, and flew back to his own base. He expected to be met by the SS for having let an American bomber escape, but to his relief no one on his side found out. Decades later the two pilots met in person in what must have been one heck of a reunion.

Click the link to read the full story.

Maybe they could use this idea to thin out the vipers in Washington

Here's the story: Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes.

The short version is that Guam is overrun with brown tree snakes which not only eat birds but get into electric substations causing expensive power failures. The idea was to parachute 2,000 mice pumped up with acetaminophen over Andersen Air Force Base. Their little parachutes would get hung up in the trees, the snakes would eat the mice, and the acetaminophen would kill the snakes.  Ingenious.

Yeah, yeah, I hear your complaints. The analogy is all wrong. Our lawmakers are more like ticks and tape worms than snakes.  I'm trying.  I'm trying.

What is a "meteoric" rise?

A meteoroid is a small solid object traveling through space. One that enters the earth's atmosphere loses its "oid" and becomes a meteor. Once a meteoroid enters the atmosphere the heat produced by the friction will give off a bright glow visible to the naked eye. And most burn up before striking the earth or exiting the atmosphere.

I'm no astronomer, I simply read the definition at this dictionary. But what brings this to the front is the headline in the morning paper:

New data show ‘meteoric’ rise of Texas oil.

And that makes one wonder just what a "meteoric rise" is. Oil production has certainly been climbing of late. But the metaphoric meteor is rather ominous. Most likely, the headline writer simply pulled up a newsy cliche without putting much thought into it.

But if she had thought it through, she might have envisioned a flaming meteor streaking toward the earth, visible for an instant, then either crashing into the earth or simply disappearing. Either way, the metaphor isn't very encouraging to people in the oil business.

Meanwhile, take a look a this chart. What does that look like?

It looks less like a meteor than a needle in search of a balloon.  Chart source.

We get the government we deserve

There's been a lot of hand wringing among conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans over Harry Reid's nuclear option in the Senate to get Obama nominees in place with a simple majority.

Well, sometimes we get the government we deserve. Obama won, and as he is doing what he always does -- he is taking advantage of every opportunity to benefit himself and his party at the expense of the opposition. And it shouldn't be surprising that Harry Reid is helping lay the groundwork for a bunch of Obama friendly judges.

The opposition won't be out of power forever, and if there's such a thing as Karma, the Democrats will get a taste of what it's like to be in the minority under a ruthless majority.

Meanwhile, it would take an earthquake to get it in place, but Rick Perry's idea from 2011 of term limits for federal judges was a good one then and is looking better all the time.

Amazingly, 21% think Obama is going a super job

Perhaps it's the power of the main stream media. When there's such a powerful guard dog protecting the president there are bound to be people who accept the party line as gospel.  How else to explain this?

After Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the "Red Line" at Syria, getting played like a fiddle by Vladimir Putin, newly freed Iraq abandoned to fend for itself, the NSA snooping, the IRS scandal, and Obamacare, to name the most notorious Obama failures, there are still 44% of likely voters, according to Rasmussen, who approve of President Obama's job performance and remarkably 21% who "strongly approve." Astonishing.

Editor's Note:  You're overlooking something, Sleepless. The typical Obama voter is less motivated by integrity and competence than by desire for the utopian social democracy Obama represents. -- Robo-ed.

Obama is thinning out the top military brass

It's no secret that the Obama Administration has sacked a lot of high ranking military officers during his reign. It might be easy to explain away a few, but why so many? Finally someone once on the inside but now on the outside has ventured an explanation of what's going on. J.D. Gordon was on C-Span yesterday morning discussing this topic. That program is available for viewing online at c-spanvideo.org.

The reason for his appearance on C-Span was his recent article at Washingtontimes.com, GORDON: Purging America’s military. Here are a few excerpts that might provide the gist of it:

Personal indiscretions past and present notwithstanding, perhaps something even more sinister is going on today.

With massive defense-budget cuts amounting to $1 trillion planned over the next decade including sequestration, a shrinking military that includes axing 10 percent of flag and general officer positions worldwide, and 20 percent of headquarters positions at the Pentagon and top operational combatant commands, it seems entirely plausible that the steady stream of firings plays into the Obama administration strategy of military attrition.

Rather than giving these officers the benefit of the doubt, let alone having their back, there appears to be a rush and a push to get rid of them.

Senior officers must be extremely careful these days, in both their professional and personal lives. They must understand that they are under the microscope, and their careers have never been more vulnerable. If admirals, generals, colonels, captains and commanders feel like they must act like saints and walk on eggshells, well, that is today’s reality. It’s not quite 1692 Salem, Mass. — the operative word being “quite.”

Danger signs appear everywhere: disgruntled subordinates unafraid to blow the whistle on real or perceived mistakes; increased ways to get in trouble with email, social media, cameras and video recorders; heightened sensitivity to workplace behavior; political correctness run amok; ever-present investigative journalists, and now bloggers; and a presidential national security team bent on cutting down the ranks. Everyone who wears the uniform should realize they’ve been converted into de facto political pawns. They’re mostly targeted by the left, which is never shy about taking American power down a notch or two — or three.

Ahem, Obama seems to hold others to a higher standard than his own people. More:

Bad behavior and poor performance are never acceptable. Perhaps President Obama should apply the same tough standards to his political appointees at the White House and State Department over incidents such as the Benghazi terrorist attack; at the Justice Department over Operation Fast and Furious; and at the Treasury Department for the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative nonprofit groups.

NYC sends confiscation notice to gun owners proving once again gun control is more about control than guns

In a preview of what would likely come if Barack Obama and the gun control Democrats get their way, residents of New York City who own registered rifles which are capable of holding over five rounds of ammo received an ominous letter from the NYPD. Thetruthaboutguns.com has a jpg of one such letter, adding this:

Meanwhile, there it is: the reason why expanded background checks, indeed all background checks and any type of registration, set the stage for confiscation.

It looks like something a fascist dictator might send out:

You have the following options:
1. Immediately surrender your Rifle and/or Shotgun to your local police precinct and notify this office of the invoice number. The firearm may be sold or permanently removed from teh City of New York thereafter.
2. Permanently remove your Rifle and/or Shotgun from New York City and provide the following:
- Disposition Report/Registration Certificate(PD Form 641-121)
- Notarized statement of permanent removal and statement of where the firearm will be stored outside the City of New York
- Utility bill or other proof of residency regarding the address where the firearm will be stored outside the City of New York
3. You may call to discuss the matter if you believe your firearm is in compliance, or you may request the option to bring your firearm to a licensed gunsmith for a permanent modification and certification proving that it is permanently modified and in compliance. If you are granted the option of seeking a permanent modification, you must provide proof that the firearm is in the possession of a licensed gunsmith in a timely manner.
...

Apparently it's a legitimate letter. It's dated November 18, 2013, and while Theblaze.com, Washingtontimes.com and others have picked it up, no one has denied it.