From the Michael Curl op-ed piece on Sunday (11-27):

Over the last decade, we became a country that relied too much on what we bought and consumed.”

– President Obama, Nov. 19, 2011

“Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.”

– President Carter, July 15, 1979

For the past 36 months, Americans have hoped for the best. But it hasn’t turned out that way. In fact, some argue that Mr. Obama actually made the economy worse – the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week that his 2009 stimulus package may have sustained as few as 700,000 jobs at its peak and that over the long run it will be a net drag on the economy.

But then, this. The president, traveling the country purportedly to look for votes in 2012, decided to lecture the American people on their shortcomings: fat, lazy, stupid. And now, he’s channeling – of all people – Jimmy Carter.

Don’t doubt the premise here. Democrats must spend – spend and spend and spend. It’s in their DNA. Mr. Obama offered a $3.8 trillion budget this year, to be paid for by – $2.1 trillion in revenue (read: your money). He knows that over the next four years, with automatic budget cuts set to take effect and the American people’s rising ire over the profligate spending in Washington, he’s going to have no money to redistribute to the masses.

Curl finally asks Obama: “why not just bail?”

I concur: Mr Obama, if you’re on the fence, if you’re uninterested in communicating, if you’re disengaged, if you don’t much care for the office or for the people around you —

Just bail.

BZ

P.S.
And as Europe begins to burn, ObaNero keeps fiddling, learning nothing from the history unfolding before his very eyes.

From their 10-year anniversary tour, in 2008:

LTE’s personnel lineup:
John Petrucci – Guitar
Jordan Rudess – Keyboards
Mike Portnoy – Drums
Tony Levin – Bass, Chapman Stick
John Petrucci sources from the bands

Live in Tokyo from 1995:

This iteration of King Crimson consisted of a unique six-piece, where Robert Fripp (guitarist, founder and the only continuing member of King Crimson) decided to essentially run what he called a “double trio:” two electric guitars, two bass guitars and two drum kits:

• Robert Fripp: guitar
• Adrian Belew: guitar
• Tony Levin: bass guitar
• Trey Gunn: Chapman Stick
• Bill Bruford: drums & percussion
• Patrick Mastelotto: drums

Trey Gunn and Tony Levin are known for playing the Chapman Stick plus other somewhat conventional bass guitars, and the Warr Guitar.

The original song is from the 1974 album also entitled “Red,” featuring the triumvirate of Robert Fripp on guitar, John Wetton on bass guitar and Bill Bruford on drums.

BZ

This was the first time I’d ever seen it in my area:

A dark-skinned man, with dark short hair, no beard, contemporary clothing (as in a short-sleeved shirt, jeans, Vans) in the company of a woman who was completely obscured from head to toe, with an unimproved vision area directly in front of her face. A full burqa.

And they were attending a movie, this Sunday, at a local theatre.

Muslims, clear.

With a remarkable exception: apparently HE didn’t much feel like keeping with Islam whilst, on the other hand, he felt compelled to keep his wife or girlfriend or “friend with benefits” close at hand and in totalis obscurum.

And therein lies the rub:

For those of you who love to embrace the opposite of this country’s foundation, here is your future:

If you’re a misogynist male, you’ll love it.

If you’re a female — ahem — not so much.

Because, under True Islam, under Islam As Practiced, the male is simply Superior and the female is simply Subservient. And subject to killing if the male is displeased.

Doesn’t quite sound to me as though met with egalitarianism.

Because if you’re a Leftist and female you simultaneously disapprove of this post and will be the first to be sublimated as chattel or killed under Islam.

Islam and Sharia are here, ladies and gentlemen. Just waiting for you to be weaker and stupider.

BZ

P.S.
This might be better for the summer:

No finer album in 1973.

Lark’s Tongues In Aspic, by King Crimson.

• Robert Fripp on guitar & Mellotron.
• John Wetton on bass guitar.
• David Cross on violin & viola.
• Bill Bruford on drums.
• Jamie Muir on percussion & allsorts.

BZ