EckerNet.Com

First Rule of Obama Leadership : Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Second Rule of Obama Leadership : Narcissism Can Be A Virtue

Flowery speeches and lofty language only get you so far in leadership, eventually you actually have to do something.  And what you do and how you do it, often means more than what you said in the first place.  Obama has truly mastered the first part, but apparently needs lots of practice on the second part.

Just yesterday, Obama was ridiculing the city of DC from not having \”Chicago toughness\” to deal with the wintery storm that just hit the East Coast.   According to Obama, Washingtonians are \”weak\” and \”unable to handle things\”.

Before that Obama has lecturing us on how we are just gonna have to learn to live with a lower thermostat.

We can\’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times….That\’s not leadership. That\’s not going to happen.

For once I agree with Obama, it would not be leadership to tell others to do one thing but then the leader does something else, which brings us to Obama\’s actions in His new office.

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

Yeah, that\’s leadership.  Does as I say, not as I do.

The people of the US should just toughen up and live with the cold, and turn down their thermostats to conserve energy, while Obama lives in a greenhouse.  I\’m all tingly with Hope™ and Change™ from that display of leadership!

He\’s from Hawaii?? I thought He was from Chicago….remember that Chicago toughness He was lecturing us about?  He likes it warm?? But I thought we couldn\’t keep out house at 72 degrees all the time?  Remember that\’s not leadership??

Well, you\’re right Obama, it\’s not.

While people are out of jobs during an especially cold winter, a lot of people are having to live with thermostats much lower than 72 degrees….much MUCH lower in some cases.  To lecture people on it one minute and then to turn around and do the opposite the next isn\’t leadership.  It isn\’t Hope.  It isn\’t good Change.

I believe the term I\’m looking for is Hypocrisy.  Welcome to the Era of Hopenchange!

Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop.

Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.

For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives; then you\’ll be afraid to cough.

You only need two tools in life – WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn\’t move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn\’t move and does, use the duct tape.

Remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

If you can\’t fix it with a hammer, you\’ve got an electrical problem.

The Era of Hopenchange is upon us.  His Holiness has descended from Mount Olympus to rule us and usher in a new age of bipartisanship.  Except this \”bipartisanship\” looks a lot like the old partisanship.

While the Obama Rape Every Citizen’s Pocketbook Swindle of 2009 passed the House today, not only did it pass without bipartisan support, it actually had bipartisan opposition.  Not a single Republican voted for it and a number of Democrats actually voted against them.

Can\’t say I\’m surprised and it\’s nice to see the GOP showing a backbone.  Especially when Obama gave Republicans not a whole lot of reason to vote for it.  Having meetings with someone doesn\’t do much good if you aren\’t even going to consider what they have to say.

When it comes down to it, Obama made it pretty easy for Republicans to turn this into a win-win situation.  He couldn\’t keep his stooges in line, and despite his promises of this bill being pork-free, it is absolutely loaded with it.  So much so that only 12% of the \”economic stimulus\” bill actually goes to stimulating the economy.  Not only does this give Republicans good reason to vote against it, but it also gives them political cover even if this bill accomplishes anything other than driving this country further into debt.

If the economy doesn\’t turn around in the next two years, Republicans can claim vindication.  If it does turn around, Republicans can point out that it did so at an amazingly steep and unnecessary cost.  If the economy doesn\’t turn around, Democrats look monumentally bad for not only porking the thing up but also spending a lot of money to accomplish nothing.  End result, is a political win for Republicans.

But that \”win\” is tempered by the fact that no matter how this turns out it\’s a big loss for Americans.  If it works, the economy recovers but we\’re drowning in debt.  If the economy doesn\’t recover we\’re still in a recession but now drowning in more debt.  And it\’s all because Democrats couldn\’t help themselves from porking up a bill to bribe their favorite special interest group.

It\’s 1 HC (Hopenchange) but it still looks a lot like 2009 AD.

Bubba had long heard the stories of an amazing family tradition. It seems that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been able to walk on water on their 21st birthday. On that special day, they\’d each walked across the lake to the bar on the far side for their first legal drink.

So when Bubba\’s 21st birthday came a round, he and his pal Jim Bob took a boat out to the middle of the lake, Bubba stepped out of the boat …. And nearly drowned! Jim Bob just barely managed to pull him to safety.

Furious and confused, Bubba went to see his grandmother. \’Grandma,\’ he asked, \’it\’s my 21st birthday, so why can\’t I walk \’cross the lake like my pappy, his father, and his father before him?\’

Granny looked deeply into Bubba\’s troubled eyes and said, \’Because your father, your grandfather and your great grandfather were born in January, when the lake is frozen, and you were born in July, you dumbass\’.

I know our military is one of the best trained force in the world, but I think we might be taking things a step too far.

\”The Stimulus Is Coming!\”

That\’s a phrase that probably strikes as much terror in some people as \”The British Are Coming!\” once did, and \”The Rapture Is Coming!\” someday will.

But at 1588 pages and $850 billion, nobody really has a clue what\’s in the The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, hereafter known as the Obama Rape Every Citizen\’s Pocketbook Swindle of 2009.  But thanks to one of the better inventions of Al Gore, you can find the entire thing on the Intertubes, helpfully indexed at ReadTheStimulus.org.  So join thousands of other Americans in doing what our legislators will probably never actually do, reading the damn thing.

The work has already begun and the findings are rather depressing.

For example, a stimulus bill is meant to:
A) Drown the country in pork
B) Bribe any potential Democratic voters
C) Stimulate the economy

If you answered \”C\” you clearly are not familiar with government programs.  One would expect a stimulus bill to stimulate the economy immediatly by giving the economy a spark and creating jobs, or at least create an environment to soften the landing and ease the recovery.  Which doesn\’t explain why most of the money isn\’t scheduled to be spent for many years…presumably once the economy is recovering.  This doesn\’t really strike me as spending that belongs in a stimulus bill.

Plus many of the programs started in this bill don\’t have a sunset, which means just like most of the New Deal, we\’ll still be living with a lot of this new spending decades down the road.  Decades after it was useful (if it ever was) and far past when it was necessary (if it ever was).

Plus there are figures like this:

The House Democrats’ bill will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

The bill provides enough spending – $825 billion – to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.  $825 billion is enough to give every person in Ohio $72,000.

There\’s lots more where that came from.

So join the effort and read through the Obama Rape Every Citizen\’s Pocketbook Swindle of 2009 and find your favorite passages of all the porky goodness.

[Crossposted at True North]

…then you have to believe the following 40 things…

1. That incidents where people shoot criminals in self defense are very rare, and shouldn\’t be used as excuses to own guns, just as incidents where presidential press secretaries are shot are very rare, and shouldn\’t be used as excuses to ban guns.
2. That guns are the real cause of crime, but we will blame and jail the owner of said gun for the crime, even if the owner wasn\’t the person involved.
3. That a mugger will kill you in the half-second it takes to draw from the holster, but won\’t harm you while you dial 911 on your cell phone, talk to the dispatcher and wait half an hour for the cops to arrive.
4. That gun control works, which is why there are no illegal weapons in Northern Ireland or Beirut.
5. That the Second Amendment only applies to flintlocks, just as the First Amendment only applies to quills and lead type.
6. That the proper response to an attack is to call the police, but only unarmed police, because \”Violence never settles anything.\”
7. That it\’s wrong to make snide, sexist comments about women, unless the comments are about women who own guns.
8. That a gun with an 11 round magazine is dangerous, but a gun with fifteen 10 round magazines is much safer.
9. That we should rehabilitate criminals and treat them as people, but never let them own guns, even if their crime was nonviolent.
10. That a hijacker could easily take a gun away from a pilot, but the hundreds of passengers aboard would then be unable to take the gun away from the hijacker.
11. That if there\’d been a gun aboard American Airlines Flight 93, someone could have been hurt.
12. That pilots have enough to do in the cockpit, without having to worry about distractions like firearms to stop hijackers and fire extinguishers to stop fires, and these activities should be left to \”trained professionals.\”
13. That such \”trained professionals\” will only be available on one flight in five.
14. That rather than have the pilot risk human life by shooting at a hijacker, we should simply have the Air Force shoot down the plane, thus preserving life.
15. That rapists prefer to attack armed women so they can take the guns and use them against the victims.
16. That 1 firearm owner in 10,000 will commit an act of violence in his or her lifetime, and this is far more frightening than the 25% of drivers who will cause a serious or fatal accident.
17. That you should rely on police in lieu of your gun, just as you should rely on a dentist in lieu of your toothbrush.
18. That the press reporting a shooting is \”responsible,\” but failing to report that the shooter was stopped by an armed citizen is an attempt to prevent the \”glamorization of guns.\”
19. That car keys, umbrellas and hairspray are good tools for self-defense, despite the fact that police continue to carry guns.
20. That Washington DC\’s low murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, but Arlington, Virginia\’s high murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000 is attributable to the lack of gun control.
21. That the depressed and emotionally disturbed should not be allowed to own guns that shoot bullets with 250 ft-lbs of energy, but should be allowed to own 4000 lb cars with 1,136,000 ft-lbs of energy (at 65 mph).
22. That \”assault weapons\” are \”very powerful\” but big game hunters oddly prefer .30-06s and .375 H&Hs.
23. That assault rifles are \”underpowered\” for hunting, but can \”punch through police body armor.\” More powerful hunting rifles, however, cannot.
24. That we should outlaw bullet proof vests so criminals can\’t use them, and private citizens should be then proud to be killed in the crossfire, knowing they are doing their part for society.
25. That we don\’t need the Second Amendment or arms to protect our Constitution, but should instead use the courts and the government system, just as we did in 1776.
26. That the lack of mention of guns in wills in colonial American cities proves that most Americans didn\’t own them, just as the lack of mention of outhouses proves that most people squatted in the yard.
27. That this alleged lack of ownership is as relevant to the Second Amendment as the lack of interest in newspapers at the time was relevant to the First Amendment.
28. That among the hundreds of documented cases against anti-gun freaks we note that: the press secretary of Handgun Control was arrested in DC for discharging an illegal handgun, a ranking regional officer of the Million Moron March was convicted of felony assault, and other Million Morons in Colorado have been arrested for attacking firearm dealers and activists, but \”gun nuts\” are \”obsessed with violence.\”
29. That the laws against specifically named weapons have been found unconstitutional, that the laws against \”types\” of weapons have been considered vague, that the laws against cosmetic features are easy to comply with and still produce the identical mechanism, and that laws against particular mechanisms are unconstitutional is an indication of the \”obsessiveness\” of firearms enthusiasts to do what they enjoy doing, against the wishes of the narrow minded prudes who wish to stop them, and not an indication of the obsessiveness of the ignorant paranoids who fear them.
30. That NASA, the military, physiologists, anatomists and trainers all agree and Olympic scores confirm that men on average have tremendously more upper body strength than women, but women should try to defend themselves with martial arts and not a gun.
31. That according to investigative reports, alarm systems are expensive, often easily defeated, and the alarm company may not respond for three hours, even then only driving by rather than stopping, but an alarm system is a more reliable means of protecting the home than a firearm.
32. That less guns in an altercation is a good thing, so you should not be armed against a criminal to keep yourself safe.
33. That rather than spend a few hundred dollars on a firearm and an afternoon learning how to use it, one should instead spend thousands of dollars and several years learning a martial art, so you\’ll be well-prepared to fight anyone, as long as they\’re in your gender division and weight class.
34. That it\’s terrible when police officers plant weapons on a suspect to enable them to make an arrest, but we should have tougher laws against weapons and trust the police not to abuse them in this way.
35. That police arriving at 80mph are a better way to stop criminals than bullets arriving at 800mph.
36. That because of the bombing at Oklahoma City and the knife-point hijacking on September 11, we should take guns away from people who weren\’t involved.
37. That a police officer under 21 shouldn\’t be able to buy a gun for off duty use, because his competence depends on that blue jacket.
38. That people buy guns as \”substitute penises,\” because they know that only people with small penises ever get attacked by criminals.
39. That Hitler and Stalin didn\’t disarm citizens, only Jews, Gypsies, gays, unionists and other \”undesirables.\” (Yes, a liberal member of the MMM actually said this in the Washington Post, quoting www.potomac-inc.org.)
40. That to properly understand Nazi gun control, one must consider the \”legitimate fears\” they had of the Jewish population. (This was another self-proclaimed liberal. I\’m beginning to wonder.)

And there are 316 more located here but you probably get the point of how silly gun control really is.

So now that the inauguration is over with, I figured I was due some relaxation since the next four years are going to be rather \”interesting\”.  So I decided to go ice-fishing, and because I\’m paranoid of a break-in I decided to bring my entire gun cabinet with, along with every round of ammo I own.

Well it started out fine enough.  Got out on the ice, got the gun cabinet situated and started fishing.  Well wouldn\’t you know it, that gun collection was just too heavy and the ice beneath it gave way and every firearm and every round of ammo I own sank to the bottom of the lake.

To make it even worse, in my grief I don\’t even remember where I was on the lake or even what lake I was on…I just remember the water being really really deep.  Quite the tragedy, probably never see them again.  And it\’s probably not in the budget to replace them any time soon.

It\’s unfortunate that these things happen.

On the plus side, if President Obama decides to eliminate the Second Amendment, any authorities can skip knocking on my door, since I have nothing to confiscate.  All my guns are at the bottom of some lake.  I wouldn\’t lie about something like that would I?

Heh, welcome to the Era of Hopenchange!  Remember four years ago, you had liberals everywhere falling into deep depression and forming support groups to deal with losing the election??  So far I have yet to see conservatives exhibit any of the same bizarre behavior.  I guess if you\’re not part of the \”reality-based community\” your life doesn\’t revolve around politics and your personal worth isn\’t determined by your activism.

But heh, let\’s try this support group thing and share….

Well this is definitely change, but probably not very inspiration for hope.  President Obama\’s first call to a foreign leader was to……a terrorist. CHANGE!!

Previously we\’ve been told that the reason the US was doing the bulk of the work in the War on Terror is because of Bush, the rest of the world hated him.  So now that His Holiness is in charge, that\’s changed right??  Well, no. CHANGE!!! er…..shit.

It\’s gotta be awfully hard for President Obama to continue to claim He\’s pro Second Amendment and not looking to take away people\’s guns when His own website contradicts it.  CHANGE!!

Really?  Was anyone really going to make an issue of the oath flubs at inauguration?? They had to do it a second time, \”just in case\”.  It\’s a ceremonial thing and I don\’t think ANYONE doubts He would have said the oath right even with the bible.  Yet they felt it necessary to repeat it.  Me thinks the Democrats are projecting their destructive and disruptive antic upon conservatives.  I could certainly see Democrats questioning Bush\’s oath, but I don\’t see conservatives questioning ANY Democrats.  As further proof of that I\’d like to point out that it\’s a Democrat pushing the whole birth-certificate-Obama-isn\’t-a-US-citizen bullshit.  HOPE! CHANGE!!

Seven reasons for healthy skepticism about the Obama Administration.  Yeah, that\’s gonna come as a blow to the Obamocolytes. HOPE!!

This was supposed to be a \”Green\” Inauguration remember??  Yet it created well over 150 metric shit tons of trash and involved roughly 600 private jets.  Yet more \”do as I say, not as I do\” global warming bullshit from His Holiness. HOPE!! CHANGE!!

President Obama is closing Gitmo and it\’ll \”increase national security\”.  Funny thing is, I can\’t find ANYWHERE where they actually explain HOW that will so much as maintain the status quo on national security, much less increase it. HOPE!!

Heh, look at that….Obama only has four years to save the planet!  I\’m pretty sure we were told that four years ago, eight years ago, twelve years ago, sixteen years ago, twenty years ago….you get the idea. HOPE!! CHANGE!!

On the plus side, even if things don\’t work out with the whole saving the planet, thanks to recent advances in technology, that whole space elevator thing is looking pretty plausible.  HOPE! CHANGE!

Another reason the Founding Father\’s were f-ing geniuses.  The rest of the world is getting really good at, and comfortable with, that whole regulation of speech thing.  Meanwhile we have the First Amendment.  So theoretically all speech is protected, rather than just whatever hate radical Islam wants to spew. HOPE!!  CHANGE!!

Another example of why the UN is worthless.  There is a UN resolution declaring that Iran can\’t sell arms.  But even if US forces board an Iranian ship and find artillery shells destined for sale, there is nothing anyone can do under UN regulations.  A \”pinky swear\” on the grade school playground was more binding than a UN resolution.  HOPE!?????

How\’s your logical thinking?  You can take the test here.  I got 15 out of 15, which I think makes me either Greek or Vulcan. CHANGE!

The price of a barrel of oil has plummeted so far, I\’m pretty sure that barrel itself now costs twice as much as what\’s in it.  And yeah, I know we don\’t ship oil in barrels anymore. HOPE! CHANGE!

Speaking of low oil prices, now that prices have fallen, Hugo Chavez is in a bit of a bind.  He\’s hurting and he needs Western oil companies to bail him out by giving them access to his oil fields.  Yeah, this is the same Chavez who nationalized those field and took all the equipment just a few years ago.  Any oil company stupid enough to fall for this AGAIN, deserves to lose their ass in the process. HOPE!!!

Some good questions to have answered about the new \”stimulus\” bill.  HOPE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!

HOPE!!

CHANGE!!