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Obama has reinstated a 27-year offshore drilling moratorium, "effectively putting the entire continental shelf off-limits to new oil and gas exploration until 2035."

He's good people.

h/t

Oh c'mon, give the poor guy a break:

"The family of a critically-ill transplant patient hoped their son might say he loved them when he emerged from an eight-day coma but instead demanded a KFC chicken burger meal."

In related news, the wife of a man wedged upside down in a well for two weeks hoped her husband might compliment her on her new shoes, but he instead said "nngrrhhhrrmmmph....."

I see the Spanish banks are keeping their perspective despite running out of money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBaHPND2QJg

Nice celebration though.

"Obama donor who helped enact assault-weapons ban ran Fast & Furious."

Oh man...that has to be one of my all-time favorite songs.

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of having lunch with Sylvia, actually if memory serves me correctly, I bought...what a delightful and interesting person. I never had the opportunity to meet Ian, to my regret.

Actually it is funny how life works sometimes. Years ago I was at a 35-seat bistro in Montreal and Gordon Lightfoot was the entertainer, on a stage the size of a dining room table. The place was only two-thirds occupied. He sang his songs and I thought he was fantastic. I invited him over after his set and we had a few beers together. Great guy.

Next thing I knew, his first album was out and the rest was history.

But is kind of cool to meet these people in a genuine setting, without the accompanying media BS.

"Will you please rise for the singing of Alberta's national anthem."

Some may think this is insulting, but I actually attended an Ian Tyson concert in Calgary where a number of attendees did just that.

By the way, Bruce, great recollections. Thanks for sharing those. I had a very similar experience with Corb Lund just after he'd left the Smalls to go solo. A very genuine individual, and a great Albertan.

Thanks EBD - nice to hear the original version of this song. Having heard it sung badly around so many campfires, I had forgotten what a beautiful song it was.

"Communist Monopoly" game goes global.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/28/polish-game-on-communist-hardships-goes-global/

A popular Polish board game based on the hardships of communism is now available in international editions.

Poland's National Remembrance Institute released the Polish version of the game — called "Kolejka" — last year. The goal was to teach youth about frustrations and shortages during the decades of communism, which Poland shed in 1989.

Although referred to as "Communist Monopoly" the game doesn't let players collect rent or buy land. Instead, they often get frustrated because they can't buy anything even after waiting in long lines. "Kolejka" means line, or queue.

Game developer Karol Madaj said Thursday that he chose that theme because standing in lines was a common experience under communism. He also knew he could "transform a queue into a board game, arrange the pawns in lines and make players elbow their way to the shop door."

Details about the game with some amusing photos can be found here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/85325/kolejka

"...According to the Toronto Sun, MusicAction, a non-profit organization primarily funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage, contributed more than $100,000 to a francophone artist who produced a rap video glorifying the Taliban and applauding the slaughter of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan..."

Read it at,

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/ottawa-funds-then-condemns-manu-militari-rap-video-190037194.html

Alberta Joe, I went to school with Dug Bevans of the Smalls - got into a fistfight with him in grade 8. Ah, good times, good times.

"Oh man...that has to be one of my all-time favorite songs. " -- Me too. Truly a great song.

Re: Four Strong Winds

Thnaks!! Brought back good memories. Ian Tyson has now lost much of his voice. Sad!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18645823

Another example of how the UN perverts everything it touches.

Highly recommended: Thomas Sowell's "A Political Glossary".

h/t

EBD I like your music picks
but as a 30 something
may I suggest this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al12WO5x23w
Kansas, before my time but still epic.

dwright

Re: Obama threads generally.

I dunno, folks: Obama might be a space alien, but I'm really concerned that he might be OUR space alien again for the next four years. I'm seein' a whole lot of blue over at Real Clear Politics's horse race polling page, and despite a pretty significant move ten days or so ago at Intrades, he's still well ahead: we might think that the Bloomberg poll was a howler, but, low and behold, the margin at Intrades is the same -- thirteen. And there's been a significant deterioration in the Rasmussen and Gallup tracking polls this past week.

A big part of the narrative against Obama has been that he's making up the constitution as goes along, which is fine, until we get SCOTUS saying twice in the last week on big issues that he's not.
I think I know more than average about the US constitution, but I have no confidence is my ability to argue with anybody about it: I only know what I see, and I'm seein' a significant (hopefully short-term) advantage accruing to our friend over Arizona Immigration and Obamacare.

Further, as I suggested at another point in these deliberations, I'm not sure that Fast and Furious, as serious as it is, really highlights what needs to be highlighted right now: I think we're whistling past the graveyard to think that folks really understand it in terms of the Democrats' Watergate, or that people very much like the Republican leadership in the House. And for some unknown reason, Americans respond to Nancy Pelosi -- Fast and Furious and Obamacare have given her a yet another chance to be her obnoxious self. And, I would hasten to add, we all know how well the contempt nonsense worked against Stephen Harper.

I'd say that the Republicans need to get back on message -- it's definitely the economy, stupid. I see Obamacare as being valuable to the GOP only in terms of a slam against "the job-killing health tax". Trying to fight this thing on the basis that's it's against the principles laid down by the Founding Fathers, etc., given the sclerotic condition of American thinking about politics today, is only going to generate a bunch of blank stares (as in, the lights are on, but nobody's home).

And one other problem -- the gasoline price has started to fall again, which could trigger another "go" period in the "stop-go" cycle we've been experiencing (potential Obama advantage). I'd say the GOP needs a pretty convincing argument that a fall in gasoline prices is not a fix for the economy.

No one wants me to be wrong on this stuff more than me, but's that my view this a.m.

Yesterday we had a tranny parade in Toronto. It featured lesbian mud wrestling; queer anti-Semites; guys in dresses and an NDP politician, who stated that all of that is the new "normal". Here are some pictures:

http://www.blogwrath.com/?p=3042

On the topic of European banks, I have decided that this morning I am going to a Canadian bank and opening a new account and transferring all the money that I have in my ING Bank tax free savings account into it.

ING, which a lot of Canadians bank with was down graded a bit a while ago. And while it is probably a lot better off than most European banks, I think that once one fails they will all start going like dominoes. Will a Canadian bank be safe? Maybe not but it should be safer.

David Southam - I Fear you are right. I assume you are American. Here in Canada we have the same Problem. Harper doesn't walk on water, but he is the first PM in my memory who hasn't been an incompetent embarrassment, and there is a good chance that we will replace him with a hard core socialist whack job.

EBD,

Thanks for the memories! "Four Strong Winds" was one of my few Christmas gifts in 1963 (not a lot of money in the house) and I still have the LP in good condition. It was also the first song I taught myself on the guitar. The chord change from G > Am took a little mastering.

Ian & Sylvia were a ground breaking duo and had a huge effect on the evolution of acoustic guitar music. And to have been signed to the historic "Vanguard" label was a stellar achievement for any musician much less a duo from Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_Records

Thanks again!

G

YES, EBD. It is indeed a timeless classic.

In 1963 I was 14. One of the first things I learned to chord on the guitar. Instant recognition that it was a timeless classic even at that tender age. Consider this was in the middle of the awful HOOTENANY era.

Sylvia's harmony lines: strangely stilted but indispensable.

AND, ending on the dominant chord! Radical.
I can still remember waiting for the re-appearance of the tonic that didn't.

Minuteman 8:16 a.m. --

Sorry for the incorrect impression. I'm Canadian and a Harper supporter from S.W. Ontario. I'm not particularly concerned about the throw-back Mulcair, although his arguments need to be progressively and credibly destroyed over time.

I just want the GOP to produce a winning argument so that they can get rid of Obama. It's of no value to anyone, least of all Canadians and Americans, to have this sort of wallowing drama of sell-pity and self-absorption going on south of the border (like the nauseating Obama identity voyage I had to listen to yesterday morning on CBC's The Current interview with David Maraniss -- Genevieve and the Veil; give me a break).

Always liked Ian's singing, and his songs. A very good voice...one of the few I can stand to listen to...

It's gonna be hot in Richmond VA.

Hot, hot, hot.

More at here:
http://americandigest.org/

An excellent piece by Andrew McCarthy.

ObamaCare Ruling: Pure Fraud and No Due Process

ANALOGY - CHANGING THE CHARGE AFTER A FAILED PROSECUTION.

"Let’s suppose, however, that the appeals court instead said, “Eh, drugs, stolen property, what’s the big whup? You just wrote the wrong commodity into the indictment. So let’s not bother with a whole new trial at which you’d have to prove the correct charge to a jury. Let’s just rewrite the indictment and pretend that it says ‘stolen property’ instead of ‘narcotics.’ Then we can uphold the conviction and call it a day.”

MADISON CONTRA HAMILTON on taxation/enumerated powers

"Madison — correctly in my view — thought the General Welfare Clause (which is in the preamble to article I, section 8 — it is not a separate, enumerated power) was simply an affirmation that Congress had the power to tax and spend to achieve the specific grants of power exactingly set forth in that section. Hamilton, by contrast, argued that the General Welfare Clause was an independent (i.e., not restricted to the enumerated powers), open-ended grant of authority to the national government to tax and spend on anything that would support someone’s idea of the overall betterment of society. Madison rightly contended that Hamilton’s interpretation would defeat the purpose of enumerating Congress’s powers — namely, to limit it to only these functions and no others. It would also usurp the rights and authority of the states and the people, in whom were retained all rights and authority not expressly assigned to the national government by the Constitution."

All the Lonely People

The Corrosive & Far-Reaching Fallout of the Sexual Revolution

by Anthony Esolen

Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=25-04-030-f#ixzz1zIOcPysm

The lunatics are still on a roll........

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/b-c-carbon-tax-to-increase-1-cent-on-canada-day-1.860598

I saw Ian and Sylvia in concert in the late '60s and heard them sing Four Strong Winds live. What a duo! Their harmonies, like the McGarrigles, are sublime. It's too bad they broke up so early in their careers.

This was one of my Dad's favourites; when he died, I inherited a copy of Ian and Sylvia's first album.

Latterly, I caught Ian and Sylvia together at Hugh's Room a few years ago, at a tribute to them, I think it was. Ian was sipping wine on stage and when he asked Sylvia if wanted a glass as he called for another one, she gave him a withering look and said, dripping with venom, "not now."

The made beautiful music together ...