This is just cool (from Popular Mechanics):

A team at the University of Washington has created a contact lens assembled with functional circuitry and LEDs.

Potential uses include virtual displays for pilots, video-game projections and telescopic vision for soldiers. A working prototype of a lens-embedded antenna that draws power for the device from radio frequencies has also been created. The next steps are to build a version that can display several pixels—and then to test it on a person.

The UW team uses a technique called self-assembly to manufacture the eyewear. Researchers dust a specially designed contact lens with microscale components that automatically bond to predetermined receptor sites. The shape of each component dictates where it attaches.

“There’s a lot of room to expand,” Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at UW, says of the technology. “You can let your imagination run wild."

Now this is funny!

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Shawn Turschak of Chapel Hill was tired of someone stealing McCain-Palin campaign signs from his yard. Turschak, with a degree in electrical engineering, hooked up a third sign to a power source for an electric pet fence Monday and also put up a surveillance camera.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that a 9-year-old boy with an Obama-Biden sign grabbed the McCain-Palin sign and got a jolt on Tuesday.

The boy's father, Andrew Noble, upset that his son had been shocked, showed up at Turschak's door. Soon an Orange County sheriff's deputy also showed up at the Turschak's home.

Noble said his son just wanted to see how the sign was put together. Turschak said the boy intended to swap out the signs.

Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass said he doesn't plan to file charges.

An Open Letter to an Obama Supporter

xxxx,
Since you have no problem sharing your personal views with me, I hope you can take the time to read and consider mine. This "hope and change" you are discussing is an illusion. It is a campaign strategy created by David Axelrod. It was used successfully to get Deval Patrick elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2006. Since then, he has not delivered, he has low approval ratings, and he has done nothing he promised. Why should we believe Obama now? It is just a marketing campaign, with a likeable, albeit unvetted, candidate. The amount of ignorance and denial over Obama's background is staggering. I don't know about you, but when I went to Emory, I did not seek out the Socialist and Marxist professors, but that is what Barack says he did in his own book (nor would I brag about it, esp. if running for Pres.). He cites a known Communist professor as one of his major early mentors. He has been strongly supported by numerous anti-Semites, including Edward Said (former Columbia professor, also good friend of Bill Ayers), Khalid Rashidi (former PLO operative, why won't the LA Times release the tape of Barack toasting him?), Khalid al-Mansour (helped Barack get into Harvard, try youtubing him to see his views on Jews), Father Pfleger, Jeremiah Wright ("Israel is a dirty word, AmeriKKKA"), Louis Farrakan ("Judaism is a gutter religion, Barack gave 26,000 to Wright's church last year, and they gave a lifetime achievement award to this guy; Barack was at the ceremony). Then there is former radical Bill Ayers, who picked Obama to head up the Annenberg Challenge so they could distribute funds to orgs like ACORN, Barack shared offices with him for years, and essentially launched his political career at Ayers house. Add in Ayer's wife, Bernadine Dohrn, who was on the FBI's Top Ten most wanted list for years. With these associations, Obama wouldn't qualify for the FBI or the Secret Service.
Then you get onto his politics and beliefs. He has done nothing but vote against tax cuts throughout his career, but now we are supposed to believe his promises of tax cuts. Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut in 1992, but reneged and instead raised taxes. That lost him Congress in 1994. Hope Barack remembers that if he wins. Barack proposes slashing the defense budget drastically, while eliminating missile defense. What is Israel supposed to do when Iran shoots a nuke missile at them? Oh, right, we are more concerned about the opinions of everyone else in the Middle East, like Syria(dictatorhip), Iran(religious dictatorship, endorses Obama), Saudis (exporting militant Islam all over the globe, women have no rights), Russia(ex-KGB dictatorship), Libya (dictator Qaddafi endorses Obama), the Palestinians (endorse Obama), etc. That is suicide for the free world. It is called appeasement. See how well it worked in 1938. Obama promises to invade a nuclear-armed Pakistan to find bin Laden? That is insane. How about health care? Europe countries are currently trying to find ways to reduce their health and pension obligations, as the governments cannot afford their own programs while they are flooded with immigrants seeking free benefits, and they must have very high business and income taxation to support it, which greatly harms their economies. And we are rushing towards that here? Where will the money come from? The richest 10% already pay like 90% of the taxes. Why are we punishing success? Obama and Biden brag about their plans to cut taxes for everyone making under a certain rate, but in the last month that level has been variously $250,000, $$150,000, and $100,000. Then they want to raise capital gains taxes 5%, raise the corporate tax rate, and let the Bush tax cuts expire. In this economy, that is insanity, and I would love for someone to tell me otherwise and why. The fact is everyone will be getting higher taxes to support all these grandiose plans. I mean, tax oil companies' profits? That is so silly. It has been done before, in the 1980s, and it was abandoned because the companies cut production and ended up passing the costs along to the consumer. Same thing will happen again. Then you get to Obama's statements, which just came out in the last week, from that 2001 interview on Chicago public radio, where he is discussing how there are too many limits in the Constitution, and it makes it very hard to deal with the problem of income inequality. Hmmmm, do you know what socialist means anymore? Does anyone?
And are you just going to ignore Obama's role in the sub-prime meltdown? Everyone blames Bush for "deregulation", but someone tell me exactly what was deregulated in the last 8 years that caused this? Meanwhile, Bush and McCain BOTH pushed plans that would have closely regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government backed agencies that guarantee over half the mortgages in the country. Who stopped those efforts? The Democrats on Capitol Hill. Then you had Barack in the 1990s, representing ACORN in a suit against Citibank, charging them with not making enough sub-prime loans. That is what ACORN does, plain and simple. They have advocated for banks to issue sub-prime loans, often with no money down and adjustable(ballooning) rates so everyone can have a home, regardless of whether they can afford it. Anyone think that had something to do with the current mortgage crisis? I sure do. And we are supposed to accept one of their former leaders and trainers? Sounds fishy to me.
Then you have John McCain, a moderate Republican. He supports immigration reform(against the wishes of his party), action on the environment(again, against his party), and he twice voted against Bush tax cuts because he felt they benefited the rich too much. He has worked across the aisle on numerous occasions. You say Obama and Biden will "change the tone", but when have they ever worked with the other side on anything significant or controversial? All they do is accuse their critics of racism. How is that changing the tone? How is paying more taxes patriotic? Especially from a man like Biden, who hasn't donated even one-half of one percent of his income to charity in the last ten years. And he makes 200K a year! McCain promises an honorable end to the Iraq War, rather than cutting and running like we did in Vietnam when people got tired of it (a move which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths). Why is that so bad? Shouldn't someone be keeping an eye on Iran, Syria, et al? And then Obama wants to "renegotiate" NAFTA. Is he nuts? Canada and Mexico are our biggest trading partners. Meanwhile, Barack helped oppose a free trade agreement with Colombia, our ally against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela(also an Obama endorser). That makes no sense. How is trade protectionism good for our economy? Try looking up how the Smoot-Hawley trade tariffs prolonged the Great Depression. And now they are a good idea? McCain is a free trade enthusiast. He is also a national hero, who proved he valued his country over himself when he turned down an early release from the Hanoi Hilton and refused to sign false statements against his country, even when he knew he would be severely tortured(one reason why he has trouble using a computer, he can't type from having his hands broken). Where has Barack Obama ever showed character like that?
I too am ready to get past the Bush years, but despite Obama's claims, McCain is very different than GWB, and I think represents a significant departure from his style of leadership. People around the world know where he stands on issues, which is a good thing. It is called peace through strength. Obama wants to sit down and talk with our enemies. That is not a change we need. Iran has already issued preconditions for such talks, in that they won't discuss their nuclear program. What else is there to say?
I hope you can see some of my points, and I hope you will take the time to google some of this stuff on the internet and check it out for yourself if you do not believe me. I stand by everything I have said here, as it is all true, even though most Obama supporters just pretend like it isn't. But I can't stick my head in the sand just because someone looks good and sounds intelligent. I need to look at their past actions and records and that has shown me that John McCain is FAR more suited to be President than Barack Obama. I only hope reason and good sense can prevail in America in the next few days, as the Democrats controlling our government could cause irreparable harm to our domestic budget and foreign policy objectives for years to come.

Mike Wotka
www.wotkaworldwide.blogspot.com

Real estate sales are finally starting to show a resurgence.

US Special Forces strike inside Syria. It's about time! We should have been doing this years ago, consequences be damned. They have been getting away with all kinds of nasty stuff for years, like funding Palestinian terror, terror against Iraq, and destabilizing Lebanon. We should make those decisions of theirs have more consequences besides harsh rhetoric.

Twitter for terrorists?

More on the impacts of the global financial crisis on Europe and Russia. Turns out they are significantly more over-extended than on this side of the Atlantic. Plummeting oil prices have some questioning the solvency of the Russian economy, as they owe $47 billion over the next two months with half a trillion in outstanding debt remaining. Just goes to show that the more governments meddle in the economy, the worse bursting bubbles can impact the global economy. Just ask Iceland, where the government is down $74 billion.

37 year old hedge fund manager retires after betting heavily against the sub-prime mortgage market, earning one of his funds an 866% return last year. He publicly issued "an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots" and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich."

More from him: "The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.

Gotta love it!

Oil prices, and subsequently gasoline prices, have fallen nearly a dollar per gallon in less than a month. Oil prices even fell 5% after OPEC announced a major cut. This is a great example of something that is saving significant cash for poorer Americans, but gets no coverage from national media outlets while they wail about the financial crisis. I am saving probably $25 a week, and I don't even drive that much. People with long commutes must be seeing huge savings. Perhaps this partially explains why the mall is always so crowded. If gas prices stay down or go lower, I could see the holiday retail being much stronger than anticipated, as consumers will have much more cash on hand from gas savings. More details on oil prices here.

This issue is also why it is so vital for the US to develop more oil drilling and refining capacity in the near future. The significant impact on major oil producers cannot be overlooked. Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are seeing, and will continue to see, major reductions in their incomes. I think this is a good thing, as it gives the countries opposed to US interests much less money to throw around funding problems for free societies (like terrorism in the Middle East and South America and military buildup in eastern Europe). I would much rather see this money flow to American oil companies (and by extension American stockholders, with an estimated 100 million Americans having investments in oil companies), and also our government, which makes billions off of taxing our oil companies. Keeping oil plentiful and cheap will only benefit our economy while hurting our enemies.

Looking at Signs Pointing to a McCain Victory, at The American Thinker. Of particular note, the phenomenon of Democrats for McCain, with many notable Democrats endorsing John McCain and appearing at rallies for him, and even articulating why his world view is dangerous. This has been significantly under-reported. Joe Lieberman isn't exactly a centrist or right-leaning Democrat, but everyone ignores his endorsement of McCain. Also, the news that the supposed 1.3 million new voters registered by ACORN has been slashed by 800,000. So much for that influx of new voters. Add in the massive oversampling of Democrats in major polls (does anyone really think there are 25% more Democrats than Republicans in this country, after the last two incredibly close elections?). Taken together, I think John McCain has much more reason for optimism than you will see acknowledged on nightly news programs and in national papers. He stands a solid chance of winning Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, all of which make a win for Obama very difficult. It will be an interesting stretch run to Nov. 4th, no doubt.

Funny how Sarah Palin is the one facing down her haters on SNL, holding huge pep rallies, and holding press conferences, while Joe Biden is apparently in hiding, for fear that he will say something else bad. He hasn't given a press conference in nearly two months and he hasn't taken town-hall type questions since he suggested during a town-hall event on Sept. 10th that Hillary would make a better VP candidate. Why did Barack think this guy would help his campaign?

LORNE MICHAELS ON Sarah Palin's SNL appearance. "I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she's powerful. Her politics aren't my politics. But you can see that she's a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she's had a huge impact. People connect to her. . . . I think she could have her own show, yeah."

For those still on the fence, or those who have been steadily ignoring all the negatives about their candidate, here is The Comprehensive Case Against Barack Obama, from hotair.com. This piece does a nice job of showing how far left Obama is, and uses his own words to illustrate this. I especially like the clip with Charlie Gibson, where he asks Barack why he would want to raise capital gains taxes when every time the rate has been cut, revenues have gone up, and Obama can only talk about "fairness". Let's also not forget Obama's complicity in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, neatly illustrated here by the Wall Street Journal. Democrats hope everyone isn't paying attention to the record this time around, but there are still two weeks to go, which is plenty of time to get the message out.

Ah, Barack Obama, man of anything to anyone. He even supports all your favorite sports teams! Recently, he has expressed support for both the Phillies, while in Pennsylvania, and the Rays, while in Florida, in the upcoming World Series. And he is supposed to be a White Sox fan! Someone should get him or make him one of those caps that has two cut in half and joined together, half Phillies, half Rays. Maybe they could have Joe the Plumber present it to him!

Anyone remember this news from Iraq over the summer?

(AP) The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" - the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment - was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

No? I don't remember either. I'm guessing our trusty news sources buried this one on the back pages, right next to the story about Saddam sending his other WMDs to Syria.

Looking at the New York Times stock price since 2004 just makes me smile. Especially when you read that their reporters are Facebook stalking kids that may have attended school with the McCains' daughter, in an attempt to dig up dirt on Cindy McCain. Just sad. But they can't be bothered to report on John Edwards' affair until he says it is ok. Or to look into Barack Obama's incredibly numerous questionable associations throughout his life. What a classy newspaper...

Considering the implications of the McCain and Obama tax plans. From The American. I still can't figure out why Obama and the Democrats think raising taxes on anyone is going to help grow the economy. McCain's proposal to lower the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35% sounds like a great idea, as it would make the climate in the US more amenable to businesses and corporations, which more than anything else, will drive the long term growth of the US economy. Ireland recently slashed their corporate taxes to 11%, and they have seen a huge spike in their economy and job creation as a result. What is so hard to understand about this?

So what does the "change" Obama keeps promising actually mean? Well, if he wins and the Democrats win a 60 seat majority on the Senate, they will be able to override any Republican filibuster and pass a whole host of legislation that leftist Democrats have been drooling over for years. The Wall Street Journal does a good job going through what is at stake. This list includes Medicare for all as a prelude to universal health insurance, defunding of the Iraq War (how do you think we lost Vietnam? Congress axed funding), tax increases on personal, business, and investment income, a strict regulation of the economy and Wall Street that will go way beyond the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, windfall profit taxes on oil companies (which will be passed right on to the consumer, just like they were the last time they passed such a law), supremacy of unions via the "Employee Free Choice Act" which will end secret ballots in union elections, a cap and trade carbon output control system, more relaxing of voting laws, Congressional representation for the District of Columbia (Democratic of course), a revival of the "Fairness Doctrine" which will attempt to curtail talk radio, and a multitude of handouts for Democratic special interests like trial lawyers and ACORN. Just what this country and our struggling economy need! Read the whole thing, if you can stomach it, and then tell your friends to get out and vote. This thing is far from over!

Another must read from Charles Krauthammer. An excerpt:

Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.

But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.

McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.

Read the whole thing.

Only in St. Louis cont.

ST. LOUIS -- Federal prosecutors announced today the indictment of 14 people in a wide-ranging racketeering and fraud case in which money from criminal activities in the United States was being funnelled to the Palestinian territories.

Since 2000, the organization has profited from bank fraud, the selling of stolen property and contraband cigarettes and conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business, federal prosecutors said.

U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said the Hamed organization, led by Bassam Hamed, 33, may be responsible for $1.5 million in criminal activity. At least $250,000 has been tracked to have ended up in Palestinian "entities."

Although the FBI's joint terrorism task force was involved in the investigation, officials would not comment about whether terrorism was involved.

From the Post-Dispatch, which I'm sure left out most of the really fun details, like locations.

The Best Laid Plans..., from Jonah Goldberg. All this nonsense about the candidates' plans get so much analysis and discussion, but so much of it is a pointless distraction from the issues. Especially considering Congress makes the laws. Read the whole thing...

President Bush signed into law on Monday a bill which gives music and film companies greater ability to sue individuals for copyright infringement, while also stiffening federal penalties for such offenses. This is truly egregious, especially considering ample redress already exists for companies to pursue infringers. It also creates a federal intellectual copyright czar. Please note, empowering "czars" seems inherently undemocratic to me, and no czar has ever helped improve a problem in the US. Worst of all, the bill allows for asset seizure, which means many parents will stand to lose their computers for the actions of their children (as if getting sued for thousands of dollars wasn't enough of a penalty already!). All this is allowable for illegally downloading one song. Way to get after those law-breakers! The sad thing is both parties were major supporters of this issue, mainly because groups like the RIAA are major donors to so many politicians in Washington. And they didn't even let the objections of the Justice Department hold them up on this one either. If only there was a legitimate third party!!!

A short history of ACORN's nutty agenda, written in 2003. It is worth reading to get a real sense of the organization, and how divorced their goals are from reality. Urging cities to pass "living wage" laws that raise taxes and reduce available jobs while suing to prevent minimum wage laws from applying to their own workers, since they couldn't afford the very wages they seek to proscribe for everyone else. They are strongly allied with unions, most clearly teachers' unions, in whose stead they resist any attempts to introduce accountability, privatization, or voucher programs while endorsing a status quo that is driving our inner cities' education systems further into the gutter. They fight for justice against evil corporations, while essentially blackmailing them for donations at the same time. But mention personal responsibility and the effects of illegitimacy on the lower classes and they abstain from commenting. They would rather blame capitalism as their enemy, which is insane, particularly considering the role of capitalism in lifting untold millions out of poverty and into a middle-class existence that so many now take for granted as a given. One of their big issues is unionizing welfare recipients. Seems ridiculous, and yet it is a major goal of theirs. And not to get them off the dole either; rather, they acknowledge that "for a lot of people, it’s not right to force them to work. There should be some type of income support for those who still won’t be able to join the work force.” This is code for perpetual dependency, which helps no one, and bankrupts our already strained system.

The obvious question, then, is why Barack Obama has given so much of his time to this organization, as a lawyer, leader, trainer, and worker. His Project VOTE was funded directly by ACORN as an extension of the organization, yet now he pretends the groups have no relationship. On the various boards he sat on (with Bill Ayers), they directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN. And now their single biggest political advocate in Washington, who helped steer numerous grants their way, is on the doorstep of the Presidency. And the sad thing is, Obama's biggest supporters couldn't even tell you what he plans to do. Nor do they try and defend his associations; they just ignore the accusations while painting the other side as "racists" peddling "conspiracy theories". I'd truly like to see some of these "conspiracies" debunked, for the sake of the country if he wins, but I won't hold my breath. All while Obama's campaign adopts the tactics of ACORN, using intimidation to drive down the opposition while cramming the ballot box with fraudulent votes (ACORN is under investigation in over a dozen states this election cycle, and have had registrations challenged in nearly every state in past elections), or, failing that, shouting them down. I still don't get how this is a "change" from the politics of the past, and no Obama supporter has ever been able to explain to me how this is so. I imagine I will continue to wait...

Obama and ACORN. The full story. It ain't pretty, folks. Most people will just pretend it isn't true, because they can't deal with the reality of who this guy is.

New study at UCLA demonstrates how FDR's policies prolonged the Great Depression. They estimate by 7 years or so. Mainly, it was his price and wage restrictions, combined with policies that eliminated competition among businesses. Hopefully our leaders in Washington won't have a similar over-reaction to our current crisis!

If you are curious what really caused the current financial crisis, you MUST watch this video. They do a great job showing you, and encourage you to go to their sources to verify their claims. Everything contained is 100% true, and I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Just be prepared to read fast, as it goes pretty quick, and you might want to turn down the cheesy music after like 30 seconds. Still, they do a fantastic job marshaling the facts behind the sub-prime mortgage meltdown that is at the heart of the economic crisis. Every American should watch it. Please send the link to all your friends.

Barack Obama likes to say John McCain is always for less regulation, but an examination of the man's record shows otherwise, from the Washington Post:

In the aftermath of the Enron collapse and other accounting scandals, he was a leader, with Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), in pushing to require that companies treat stock options granted to employees as expenses on their balance sheets. "I have long opposed unnecessary regulation of business activity, mindful that the heavy hand of government can discourage innovation," he wrote in a July 2002 op-ed in the New York Times. "But in the current climate only a restoration of the system of checks and balances that once protected the American investor -- and that has seriously deteriorated over the past 10 years -- can restore the confidence that makes financial markets work."

Mr. McCain was an early voice calling for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt, charging that he "seems to prefer industry self-policing to necessary lawmaking. Government's demands for corporate accountability are only credible if government executives are held accountable as well."

In 2006, he pushed for stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- while Mr. Obama was notably silent. "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole," Mr. McCain warned at the time.

One element of the Obama campaign's brief against Mr. McCain is that he supported repeal of the law separating commercial banks from investment banks. "He's spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," Mr. Obama said yesterday. "Phil Gramm, one of the architects of the deregulation in Washington that led directly to this mess on Wall Street, is also the architect of John McCain's economic plan." Would it be churlish to point out that another author of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley law is former congressman Jim Leach, a founder of Republicans for Obama? Or that Obama advisers Lawrence H. Summers and Robert E. Rubin supported the repeal -- which was signed by President Bill Clinton?

The UK is already moving on a European bank bailout. Thank goodness some people can move when they want to! Iceland just woke everyone up big time.

Obama and the attempt to destroy the 2nd Amendment. Obama directed funds towards anti-gun legal scholarship as a director on the Joyce Foundation, yet another leftist foundation board that he sat on. Fortunately their efforts failed with the recent Heller decision, but only by 5-4, which is scary that we were one vote away from losing the 2nd Amendment. I swear I find another shocking association of Obama's every day, it seems. This man has more radicals for friends than Woodstock had hippies.

Iceland on the brink of financial collapse. Some call Iceland the canary in the coal mine for the European economy. Can the top heavy bureaucracy of the EU get together in time to put together their own bailout for European banks, which is what is needed? It is telling about their incompetence when Russia is the one loaning 5 billion dollars to Iceland. Hopefully the individual leaders of the major European economies will get together and circumvent the EU circus and just get something done. Germany just realized the gravity of the situation this weekend. I was astounded that neither candidate mentioned this situation at all during the debate. The rest of Europe could be next, and it is deadly serious.

Obama and his radical associates - Anti-Semitic?

The New York Times just tried to white-wash the Obama-Bill Ayers connections the other day. World Net Daily has the story, along with the details they left out. Read the whole thing. And this is just the tip of the iceberg that we will be seeing in the next few weeks, as the left spin machine attempts to explain away Obama's associations with so many radicals, like his ex-pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright; Louis Farrakan, head of the Nation of Islam; and Khalid al-Mansour, advisor to Saudi royalty and early backer of Barack Obama. Try looking these guys up on youtube and checking out some of their hateful, divisive, and especially anti-Semitic rhetoric. Obama's ex-church just gave a lifetime achievement award to Farrakan in 2007 (who described Judaism as a "gutter religion"), and al-Mansour helped recruit activists to write letters recommending Obama for Harvard Law School (more details on al-Mansour here). Jeremiah Wright is no fan of Israel (he describes Israel as a "dirty word"), and the church bulletin often featured commentary from Palestinian activists. As recently as two weeks ago, when Iranian president and noted Israel hater Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited New York to speak at the UN, he was hosted at a conference purportedly discussing religious contributions to peace at the Grand Hyatt in New York, a hotel chained owned by Obama campaign finance director Penny Pritzker, who, by the way, also helped create the sub-prime mortgage securities that have been at the root of our financial troubles (causing the bank she owned and ran to fail as well). Even his old advisor and long-time friend Samantha Power, the one fired for calling Hillary a "monster" earlier this year, openly advocates invading Israel in defense of the Palestinians, which "might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import." So all through his career, he openly associates with radicals and anti-Semites, but now we are supposed to believe they had no impact on his thinking because he disassociates from some of them come election time? I question the judgement of anyone who cares about the fate of Israel if they support Barack Obama. The man has consistently supported through his associations many who hold that nation in contempt. Why do so many Jews support him?

Please check Gateway Pundit for more updates and details on these matters.

An Obama and ACORN fact sheet. ACORN is radical leftist, and is possibly the largest radical organization operating in our country today. And Obama's ties go deep, including representing them in lawsuits (particularly one against Citibank for not making enough risky loans) and helping train future leaders for them, as well as directing funds towards them as a director for the Woods Foundation, where he also worked with former bomber and terrorist Bill Ayers. These ACORN thugs mix all the tactics of the mob and corrupt unions with a concerted effort to register fake names of voters (often dead or in prison), all over the country, in an effort to elect their far left candidates. Don't piss them off or they will picket in front of your house for a week and egg your car when you drive away, as they did to a friend of mine's parents back in 1995 or so, when their church, where my friend's father was on the board, opposed attempts to open a halfway house / rehab center near the church, an effort led by ACORN (and he was a respected doctor and registered Democrat too). And one of their lawyer cronies wants to be President, so that he can institute more of their goals (like mortgages for everyone! regardless of credit or income), along with removing secret ballots in union elections? No thank you!

A good assessment of how we got where we are, from Michael Malone:

From where I sit, the United States government has embarked on two pieces of social engineering in the last few years. One was to make oil expensive as expensive as possible to drive people to greater use of alternative energy sources - because anything less would be irresponsible and destructive to the environment. The other was to enshrine home ownership (i.e., easy-to-obtain mortgages) as a new American right - because anything less would be unequal and racist.

None of us voted on these decisions - indeed, neither was even spoken about directly, much less debated. But nevertheless, both became national policy… and both have sparked national, now international, crises. Then, once they became crises, both were blamed on ‘greedy capitalism’, instead of what they really were: legislative interference into market forces.

Fine. We’ve been through this before, and no doubt we will see similar, government-induced crises again - inevitably accompanied by Administration officials and our elected representatives pointing at everyone but themselves.

But what makes this particular economic crisis so appalling, at least from this vantage point, is the sheer scumminess, corruption, short-sightedness and general incompetence of everyone involved. At least in the business world, especially in the take-no-prisoners world of high-tech that kind of venality and ineptitude either gets you fired or kills the company; by comparison, in Washington, it puts you in charge of the recovery effort.

Read the whole thing. I would note that when he says "last few years" it means the last three decades or so, as that is when these policies started to come into effect.

Michael Totten on Joe Biden's unbelievable statements about Lebanon and Hezbollah:

In Thursday night’s vice presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, Biden said the strangest and most ill-informed thing I have ever heard about Lebanon in my life. “When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.” Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.” [Emphasis added.]

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Joe Biden has literally no idea what he’s talking about.

It’s too bad debate moderator Gwen Ifill didn’t catch him and ask a follow up question: When did the United States and France kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon?

The answer? Never.

Via Instapundit. Seriously, this is the best "expert" Barack could come up with to strengthen his foreign policy credentials?

Scary video of Obama's plans for our military. Is this guy serious? We are going to kill missile defense when Iran is nearing a nuke and has sophisticated missiles? We are going to drastically slow developing all new defenses? Sounds like a great idea! All while Russia is on the march and China is making huge strides in developing, and probably weaponizing, space. Palin was right, they want to wave the white flag of surrender.

Fact checking Joe Biden, supposed constitutional law expert and lawyer. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about, but was really talking out of his ass. Article I deals with the legislative branch, and lists the duties of the VP. Article II deals with the executive (not Article I as Biden stated), and it doesn't proscribe duties, or even compensation, for the VP. His executive duties can be summarized as: he does what the President wants him to do. So the VP really does have legislative duties, despite Biden's claims to the contrary. Read the whole thing. Via Instapundit.

More fact checks on both candidates here. They both had a few issues with the facts. I'd still question a few of the fact-checkers' claims though.

What would happen if we let Warren Buffett run the bailout? I'd be willing to bet he could make a lot of money on it. Actually, he believes we can, if banks' bad assets are purchased at market prices, and not at an inflated rate. That issue seems to still be up in the air.

Extremist Muslim cleric Omar Bakri's daughter flees home after reports of her being a pole dancer. She now fears for her life. He currently lives in Lebanon after being refused re-entry to the UK. He is credited with being an inspiration to the 7/7 bombers, but he apparently paid $8000 for his daughter's breast augmentation surgery. I enjoy knowing that he has been made a fool by his own family, although he claims the government has planted an impostor.

Why won't the Obama campaign disclose the names and places of origin for over half their donations thus far, estimated at over $200 million? Good question. More:

And then there are the overseas donations — at least, the ones that we know about.

The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom.

More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680.

And then there is this nugget:

In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech praising Obama, claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign.

“All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man,” the Libyan leader said. “They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency..."

Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African nations were “legitimate,” the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign.

The rise of the Internet and use of credit cards have made it easier for foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns, especially if they claim their donation is less than $200.

Kinda makes you wonder what is going on? Where is the scrutiny? Oh yeah, the media is in the bag for Obama and can't be bothered with these stories. This means you won't find much about this in the New York Times. Read the whole thing. Via Instapundit.