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"Now that President Obama has made it safe to hate Fox"

Tiny's main squeeze Earl Grey stopped by early morning for a nip. After we suggested the feral fellow not enter the house, he scurried into Tiny's hosta blind to reconnoiter before heading off for parts unknown.

"Obama has authorized 40,000 more troops to fight Fox News" deadpans Jay Leno in his latest monologue — available for your viewing pleasure at Weasel Zippers (via Infidels Are Cool) — playing off the Leader of the Free World's recent full frontal assault on Fox News as Faux News," side by side with the President's deeply demoralizing dithering over when/whether to send in the Afghanistan reinforcements requested by his generals. Then comes Claudia Rosett with the deliciously headlined "First they came for Fox News …" [Wish we'd thought of that. Actually, we did, but like President Obama, we dithered so she beat us to the punch]:

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was hammering home the same message, that Fox is "not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” and urging “More importantly is not have [sic] the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization …

 

Caption from our March 3, 2009 "Obama's sledging strategy of intimidation": “I do think he's an intellectual force, which is why the Republicans pay such attention to him," Rahm Emanuel told CBS News's Bob Schieffer on Sunday in a rare moment of truthfulness before spinning off to repeat the big lie that Rush wants Obama the President of the United States — as opposed to Obama's socialist agenda, the real object of Limbaugh's critique — to fail.

We've had Rahm "Toes" Emanuel's number from early on when he showed his cards:

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said, explaining "What I mean by that, it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do."

As we wrote back in April in our post "Roll over, George Washington, and tell Ben Franklin the news":

You remember Emanuel's quotable quote about fooling all of the people some of the time. As we wrote in our recent appreciation of Roger L. Simon, "Part of my leftism was a sales pitch," re Rahm Emanuel's conscience-free self-revelation:

Translation: Take the money and run when people are preoccupied, and you can get away with spending it in ways they would never agree to were they paying attention.

A brief encounter over catnip sets Tiny's heart aflame.

Enter center stage ABC's White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, who had the cojones to challenge Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to explain the Fox attacks:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one.

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock [Hannity] tonight. Or 5 o’clock [Glenn Beck] this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say.

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

We loved Fox & Friends anchors' comments this morning:

Steve Doocy: Jake Tapper is a great reporter, who asked Robert Gibbs a lot of fair and balanced questions.

Gretchen Carlson: If I were Jake Tapper's boss, I'd give him a raise.

But even as Jake Tapper speaks truth to power:

One of MSNBC's Keith Olberman's guests last night snickered "Now that President Obama has made it safe to hate Fox ..."

Perpetual adolescence, the legacy of the the Gramscian infiltration.

Update: Way cool: Karl Rove tells Hannity "I have to compliment Jake Tapper of ABC News."

Update: We have to compliment Modulator for Friday Ark #266, now boarding.

Roll over, Alfred Nobel, and tell Jimmy Carter the news

"Barack Obama is the third sitting US President to be given the prize after Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson," The Times captions above image. It figures (see Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism). Kevin Lamarque/Reuters photo.

Vanderleun trumps Drudge on Twitter:

Drudgereport still has Nancy Pelosi up. Guess he's got to sleep sometime... that or he's crafting the headline "WTF!!?"

But what could be more appropriate? As we twittered, while Drudge slept:

PEACE IN OUR TIME. NOBEL COMMITTEE CHANNELS CHAMBERLAIN Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

ROLL OVER, ALFRED NOBEL, and tell Jimmy Carter the news.

Update: Greg Pollowitz twitters:

Breaking News:  President Obama has been awarded the Nobel in Physics for his 10th grade science fair project.

Appeasement in our time.

According to sources, the President is "humbled." First time?

Update II: Drudge scores: "OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE" headline and triumphal image paired with "Iran to 'blow up the heart of Israel' if attacked..." So much cognitive dissonance, so little time.

Update III: "No freakin way" rants blog buddy Dan Riehl, whose disarming outspokenness has attracted a BBC World Service radio producer (tune in at 11:30 ET to hear what he has to say). The blogosphere, twittersphere and immediate world are abuzz. We're off to immerse ourselves in the irresistible awfulness of it all!

Obama's National Day of Forgetfulness

"As if anticipating the left's insidious attempts to steal their fire — by turning their sacred precinct into an anti-American bully pulpit — the angry gods of Ground Zero blew up a sandstorm of warning on the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attack," we captioned this image in "The grave robbers of Ground Zero." (Merlin-Net Photo)

It calls to mind the "sympathetic magic" of cannibals who believe they take on the strength of slain enemies by eating them," we wrote in our June 2005 post "The grave robbers of Ground Zero." Back then leftists were plotting to "appropriate the spiritual power of this hallowed ground" with an America-bashing museum themed on man's inhumanity to man. That particular project stalled, but not to worry. The Obama White House is on the case with its cheery "National Day of Service and Remembrance," an attempt to "erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry," as The American Spectator's Matthew Vadum explains:

The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service … The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism … that helps the left …

On Aug. 4, the White House offered a glimpse into its plans to desecrate 9/11 for political advantage. [The now disgraced Van] Jones appeared in a largely ignored 33-minute video posted on the official blog of the White House to discuss the administration's plan to flush 9/11 down the memory hole just as it has tried to do by rechristening the Global War on Terror the "Overseas Contingency Operations."

"The first milestone for Green the Block will be on our National Day of Service, September 11, 2009, where we will organize Green the Block service events around the country in coordination with the President's initiative, United We Serve," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. of the Hip Hop Caucus. Click on image for "Open for Questions: Green the Block with [Under-the-Bus former Green Czar] Van Jones August 4, 2009."

Just as Obama "robbed the 'War on Terror' of its poetic fire by dubbing it the bloodless 'Overseas Contingency Operation,'" he's trying to rob the grave of Ground Zero of its spiritual power by officially promulgating 9/11 as the pallid patchwork "Patriot Day [the original designation under GW] and National Day of Service and Remembrance." Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? As the Spectator's Vadum notes, "At no time does anyone explain why this National Day of Service has to be held — of all the 365 days in a year — on Sept. 11." Here's how they try to spin it:

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 inspired Americans to come together in a remarkable spirit of unity and compassion …

Eight years later, September 11 continues to evoke strong emotion and is an homage to sacrifice and a call to action.

In fact, "It wasn't tragic at all. It was outrageous," writes Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Kevin O'Brien, who notes "the 'unity' we witnessed among Americans then was actually righteous anger [and] the 'compassion' … mourning." As for 9/11's being a "call to action," it's quite a stretch to equate the gravitas of GWs life-or-death call back then for a boots-on-the-ground War on Terror with the relative weightlessness of Obama's poll-tested, feel-good call today for a renewed commitment to community service. Not to mention the irony of sly-as-a-fox "Truther" Van Jones being put in charge of the henhouse.

"Our founders had a deep understanding of human nature"

Were Tiny's PR team to adopt a totalitarianesque approach similar to that used by President Obama's people in their NEA-directed propaganda war to recruit hearts and minds to his progressive agenda (see below), would her fellow Feline-Americans buy the false promise of "Mice & Birds" — a small warm-blooded animal in every pot? — the way so many of our fellow Americans bought candidate Obama's vapid "Hope & Change"? Have you ever tried herding cats? (Images generated via Obamicon.Me)

"I’m not a 'right-wing nut job.' It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created," writes filmmaker, market and community consultant Patrick Courrielche at Big Hollywood. As a member in good standing of the right-wing nut-job community, we appreciate his willingless to step outside his Pauline Kael tribal bubble of Obamaphilic creative types for a reality check:

It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy and environmental issues for that matter, and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time.

"The very first time I saw the HOPE poster, my aesthetic gut reaction was 'fascist,'" writes dcbsky in Courrielches' comments. Exactly. As we commented, "Creepy crawly classic totalitarianist tactics. Those who cannot remember the past, and all that."

"I was talking with a friend of mine before the election and he said, 'Have you seen those anti-Obama posters? They look like old Communist propaganda posters,'" writes Redtex in Courrielche's comments:

I had to explain to him that those were PRO Obama posters. He took a second look and realized I was right. He was shocked that the campaign was using that "look" to sell their candidate. He was also amazed that nobody seemed to notice the resemblance to the Communist propaganda. I told him "Oh, they probably notice. They just don't care."

The real Tiny behind the fascistic Obamacized images at top of page is far more persuasive to both friend and foe.

Could be, but more likely they haven't a clue, just like WaPo Beltway gossipmonger Howard Kurtz and colleagues, who still don't get Sarah. Scott Ott puts 'em in their place with panache:

Sarah Palin’s brilliant, succinct term “death panels” hits home because it neatly summarizes all that’s wrong with government-run health care. Superficial efforts by reporters to “debunk the death panel myth” will continue to fail, because Americans are smarter than most journalists when it comes to practical matters of life

Journalism professionals would also benefit from reading some American history, including our founding documents. Our founders had a deep understanding of human nature, shaped by their lifelong, exhaustive study of history and philosophy and of the book that best encapsulates both — the Bible.

Too often journalists and politicians attribute imperfections in American society to a failure of our founding principles, rather than recognizing problems as simply a natural byproduct of finite, flawed humanity that would crop up under any system. So we hear the cry that our health care system is “broken” and the conclusion that government must fix it immediately. It’s a naive notion promulgated by people who think history commenced with their own appearance on the planet.

Condemned to repeat it?

The statist's astroturf vision

It's the authenticity, stupid! All over the right side of the blogosphere and the twittersphere the pictures tell the story. Heartfelt, life-affirming homemade signs created con brio by "we the people" [us the people?], above, vs top-down, bloodless party-line signs of Obamabots, below. (Images from The American Spectator's "Grassroots vs. Astroturf.")

Whom are you going to believe? Obama's henchmen or your eyes? "It's one size fits all," Ralph Reed is telling a Fox News anchor this morning, putting his finger on the essence of Obamacare.

We had a Eureka Moment when we realized the affectless, top-down graphics of the "Health Care for America Now!" signs (above) are the precise visual equivalent of the statist's astroturf vision. Even as the we-know-best-what's-good-for-you, central-planning Utopianists and their fellow travelers in the media project their own top-down, Alinskyesque tactics upon us, Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is scrawling our grassroots messages upon a shining sea of one-of-a-kind protest signs. Check out our own efforts from Tea Parties past here, here, here, here and here. The Tenth Amendment lives:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.

President Obama wants those who disagree with him to "stop talking" and "get out of the way." Begging your pardon, sir, but getting "out of the way" is not the America Way.

Update: This just in from Larry Gupta of the Newburport (MA) Republicans:

Portsmouth, NH Obama Town Hall at High School 1 p.m.Tuesday, August 11. Sold out, but join us for protest rally outside when doors open 11 a.m.

Our "JUST SAY NO" signs are hot to go!

Update: Maggie's Links: "Sissy gets it. Of course she does."

Milton Friedman: Socialized Medicine for Dummies

Milton Friedman's prescient "The Economics of Medical Care" — AKA "Socialized Medicine for Dummies" — delivered to a Mayo Clinic audience in 1978, is going viral on YouTube and Twitter. A few excerpts below, and then listen to the whole thing for yourself. Beyond the wisdom and common sense of his words, his soothingly straightforward, low-key performance is a refreshing antidote to the ubiquitous POTUSs much-ballyhooed "soaring rhetoric" and frenetic use of pumping and pointing hand gestures. Obama's teleprompter was unavailable for comment.

"I believe that this trend [towards increasing government involvement in medical care], including many of the steps that have already been taken, is very much against the interests of patients, of physicians and of other health care personnel," Milton Friedman warned a Mayo Clinic audience thirty years ago. We know in our gut that socialized medicine won't work in our interests because the incentives are perversely turned upside down when government, not the patient, is client. Friedman explains:

This trend is part of a general trend in our society toward replacing voluntary, free market arrangements by government control and regulation.

In industry after industry, producers who protest strongly their belief in free markets have fostered and helped produce government takeover, government regulation, government control … Businessmen, leaders in various areas who are very foresighted when it comes to … the concerns within their own enterprises are very shortsighted when it comes to the area of public policy and allow themselves to be led by small advantages to foster and favor policies which ultimately redound very much to their disadvantage.

In the medical case, the initial inducement is that here is a new source of money, and presumably this is why organized medicine has been schizophrenic about the trend toward government involvement …

When the government is taking over any activity, there IS more money available, but what typically happens once the government has taken it over, the situation changes. There are no more votes to be gotten by taking it over some more …

In addition to the fact that the ultimate result of a government takeover is less resources, you invariably get lower quality and a lower quantity of medical care.

Unnerved by polls suggesting most Americans are happy with their medical coverage and disapprove his handling of the issue — not to mention a CBO report that his budget is on an unsustainable path, — President Obama turned up the volume in promoting Obamacare, misdirecting careless listeners with his ominous assertion that "the need for reform is urgent, and it is irrefutable." Urgency and irrefutability all depend upon what you mean by "reform." The urgency is in his mind, where time is of the essence if he is to ram through misrepresented policies before his approval ratings go further south when the citizenry wakes up to their implications. As for irrefutablity, former Economic Policy Advisor to President GW Bush Keith Hennessey — who has a must-read market-based plan of his own, complete with do's and don'ts — bursts that balloon:

It is unfair to characterize those who oppose the current legislation as opposing all health care reform, or as defenders of the status quo.

Echoing Friedman's early-warning speech, the Mayo Clinic itself "calls health plan bad medicine," the Washington Times reported yesterday:

Minnesota's not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats' version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall "the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients."

"In fact, it will do the opposite," clinic officials said, because the proposals aren't patient-focused or results-oriented. "The real losers will be the citizens of the United States."

That's the problem with good intentions based upon a refusal to take human nature and the processes common to all economic systems — competition, cooperation, adaptation and feedback — into account: "It will do the opposite."

Update: "Still relevant," says Bird Dog with a link.

An inconvenient population "we don't want too many of"

Even as the world turns and our homo sapient species' totalitarian instinct runs rampant over our better angels, Tiny and Earl Grey clowder cheek to cheek.

"This guy makes Gore look good" we twittered re Obama's new Science Czar, John Holdren, who appears to share SCOTUS judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg's unspeakably eugenistic world view that it's okay to force some of our fellow Americans — "populations we don't want too many of" in Ginsburg's words — to abort their babies against their will, to "save the planet" [via Little Green Footballs]:

Zombie has a report on the book Ecoscience, co-authored by Barack Obama’s “science czar” John Holdren (with Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich) in 1977, and its radical advocacy of mass sterilization and forced abortion to solve a looming overpopulation crisis — that never actually materialized: John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet.

We should note that the book was written 32 years ago, Holdren was not the only author (and the other authors are known for radical opinions on these issues), and the context — as far as I can tell from reading Zombie’s excerpts — is that these extreme measures would be taken in response to a massive crisis situation.

Still, these are pretty outrageous opinions by most people’s standards, and Holdren should be given a chance to explain or renounce them.

In response to a massive crisis situation? Rahm Emanuel's "Never let a serious crisis go to waste" comes to mind. The Founding Fathers are turning in their graves.

Update: And speaking of "populations we don't want too many of," judges who legislate from the bench come to mind.

"When they laugh at Sarah Palin, we feel them laughing at us"

"We're ordinary barbarians here. No one controls us. We're a horde," writes R.A. Mansour, co-editor of Conservatives 4 Palin, an unaffiliated group blog that speaks to our heart and mind as a member of the "pooh-poohed-by-the-anti-Palin-pooh-bahs" community. We love C4Ps banner (detail, above). Echoes of Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World."

"Sarah Palin is our voice. When they laugh at her, we feel them laughing at us. Someday we'll have the last laugh," writes R.A. Mansour of Conservatives4Palin:

The latest Rasmussen polling numbers were quite instructive. Palin's biggest group of supporters are young, unmarried, and not social conservative evangelicals. Her supporters do not view her as the social conservative candidate. Social conservatives prefer Huckabee as a candidate in 2012; however, they think just as highly of Sarah Palin as they do Huckabee. Sarah Palin's considerable base of supporters are attracted to her because she is the Beltway Outsider. She is the ordinary American who is fed up with the arrogant and incompetent Beltway elites who got us into the mess we're in and yet still show such disdain for the ordinary hardworking people who want nothing more than for their government to be "on their side and not in their way."

"Like virtually all political observers, I was at first surprised by Governor Palin's decision to hand the reins of Alaska governance over to Lieutenant Governor Parnell," admits Nebraska-based libertarianTim Lindell, another C4P co-editor whose perfect-pitch "Palin is now free to exercise her real power" in the Alaska Dispatch catches the commentariat mid flight, "wheeling and swooping" in self-protective unison:

On the national stage, it sent the entirety of the political and chattering classes hurtling into the air like a flock of geese flushed by a hunter, flapping wildly and honking their displeasure.

"More importantly, the news was burning up the venue in which Palin's core of supporters and advocates resides — the conservative blogs," continues Lindell:

And it was the subject of endless discussion in the places where her national constituency gather and live … at backyard Fourth of July barbeques, in the bleachers at Little League baseball games, at small-town fireworks displays, in the kitchens and around the dining tables of family gatherings over the holiday weekend. These are people who don't obsessively follow politics but are beginning to awaken with a deep sense of disgust for the condition of our national political discourse … and an equally deep sense of disgust for the politicians of both parties that have brought us here, and for the media that enabled them. To these folks, who often refer to Palin as "Our Sarah," each attack by the Beltway class simply slaps another layer of concrete on their support for her …

In our jaded and cynical times, we expect politicians to speak in the language of vagueness and spin, making it necessary to sift through endless verbal dross to find nuggets of truth. But Palin speaks plainly [same point made by Politico's Roger Simon in "The sins of Sarah Palin" the other day] and spoke clearly about her reasons in her Friday announcement, reasons both personal and political.

The WSJs John Fund has the story behind the story, great stuff:

People close to Sarah Palin say national political reporters and pundits have missed the real reasons for her surprising decision to resign as Alaska governor. The national media have dismissed or downplayed her real motives, which had little to do with any plans to run for president in 2012.

Contrary to most reports, her decision had been in the works for months, accelerating recently as it became clear that controversies and endless ethics investigations were threatening to overshadow her legislative agenda. "Attacks inside Alaska and largely invisible to the national media had paralyzed her administration," someone close to the governor told me. "She was fully aware she would be branded a 'quitter.' She did not want to disappoint her constituents, but she was no longer able to do the job she had been elected to do. Essentially, the taxpayers were paying for Sarah to go to work every day and defend herself."

This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy.

Meanwhile, stuck in their anti-Palin Pauline-Kael bubbles, national political reporters continue to miss the point. One example that caught our eye: Reporting on the Iowa GOPs invitation for Palin to headline their annual Reagan Day Dinner, CBS led with "Despite announcing her resignation, Sarah Palin is still a sought-after asset in the Republican Party." As we wrote years ago re "out-of-touch elites who have fallen for their own rhetoric" regarding GWs persistent popularity in the wake of iraq and the 9/11 hearings, "Because of, not in spite of, stupid!"

Update: Marketing and branding expert John Tantillo agrees:

She made a choice that came out of the deepest part of herself (her core brand) — no wonder the political class was left scratching its collective head. They hadn't taken her claims of loving her family seriously. But the wives and mothers who make up Palin's supporters got it …

She's a woman who means what she says and does what she believes.

It's her "core brand," stupid!

Update: "Over at sisu, there's a great piece on Governor Palin," blogs KT Cat at The Scratching Post. Thanks, Maximum Leader!

Update II: Maggie's links!

Twitter: It's not just about Iran and Michael Jackson anymore

 

Michael Jackson's untimely death may have temporarily stolen the spotlight from the crackdown on Iranian protesters in social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, not to mention the cables, and even the major networks, but unlike whiny nanny-staters who keen for handouts, the Iranian freedom fighters picked themselves up and got back in the race. Example: A montage of photographs from the past few weeks of protests in Iran set to the music of MJ's "Beat It." Above, Jacko in his heyday singing PYT (Pretty Young Thing).

"Ask and ye shall receive. Thank you from the bottom of my heart (and pocket book!)," we just direct twittered Michelle Malkin. Unlike the congressional aide we talked to about an hour ago, she's been live twittering the cap-and-trade debate this afternoon and has all the answers. See below for details, but first, re that congressional aid, we spoke earlier with Steven Carlson, energy aide to our Taxachusetts Congressman, Michael E. Capuano. Told him we'd read on Twitter that Cap-and-Trade vote count was 210-210, with 14 undecided. He said he couldn't confirm as his office was not in touch with actual vote. Hmmm. Not following Twitter, then? Couldn't confirm whether Capuano had voted yet or was among the undecided. Double hmmm.

He asked whether we objected to the bill because it didn't go far enough or went too far. Not far enough? Hadn't thought of that but told him we believe 1. Bill is based upon junk science as more and more scientists are coming out to acknowledge the fact and 2. It amounts to the largest tax hike in the nation's history. He duly noted our thoughts and said he would pass them along to his boss. The silent majority, now mobilized at the individual level, becomes the smart mob?

A few tasty tidbits from Michelle Malkin's live tweeting of the final excruciating hours and minutes this afternoon:

YES! Rep. Barton refers to EPA-suppressed Carlin report (my column here if u missed it) …

Barton rocks: Cites Spain's greenjobs boondoggle. Costs 2.2 jobs for every greenjob. "Not a revolutn I want 2 b part of."

Barton closing statement: Facts data inconvenient truths. Waxman closing statement: HOPE! CHANGE! SAVE THE PLANET!

Ed Markey invoking "moral imperative" again. Global warming cult at work.

Sausage history in the making!

This just in re the 14 undecideds, straight from the horse's mouth in a direct tweet from the Divine Miss M herself:

@michellemalkin: Arcuri, Boccieri, Brown (FL), Carney, Dicks, Donnelly, Al Green, Kind, Kirk, Kirkpatrick, Petri, Space, Teague, Tonko

Talk about SOURCES! 'Don't see our guy, Capuano on the list. No doubt he voted early in favor of the highest tax hike in the history of the universe, but his aide didn't want to talk about it.

A little Gingbird told us "just say no" to energy tax increase

Darwin's Starlings on Otmoor, a few miles East of Oxford: "Individuals, but moving in a single entity. And the reason for this behavior? Well, thousands of eyes looking for predators on the roost site. Nothing could escape their gaze, no raptor could surprise this soaring mass of bird flesh … The birds are also maneuvering for position, social position."Totally awesome must-watch video here. More on how flocks of birds "wheel and swoop in unison," not unlike twitterers and other social network denizens, here.

"Everyone should call their [sic] congressman this morning and demand a no vote on the unread energy tax increase. The vote is very close," twittered Newt to his 527,564 followers this morning. We'd been meaning to but hadn't gotten around to it. That little Gingbird in our ear did the trick. First we retwittered Mr. Gingrich's message for the benefit of our own exclusive flock of 288 followers, then googled up our Massachusetts 8th District Rep, Michael E. Capuano's DC phone number and gave him — and his energy specialist, Steve Carlson — a call. The woman who answered the phone couldn't have been lovelier. Fat (=well paid) and happy in her job or not too many calls? The Anchoress had a similar experience — "MOST POLITE cong. staff I've ever dealt with" — and is telling her 1182 followers she's "thinking fewer calls coming in." Lori Byrd makes it even easier for her 565 followers with her tweet:

Follow this link, put in ur zip-code, call your Rep, and say "vote no on H.R. 2454", the Cap&Trade leg.

If all of our followers and their followers retweet and make the call, we've got a smart mob self-organizing to pursue a shared goal. Meanwhile, Al Gore twitters his 1,090,925 followers with urgency:

The most important environmental vote of this generation.

Isn't everything he ever thinks, says or does "the most important" in its category? From his website:

According to news reports, the full House of Representatives will vote on the global warming and energy bill on Friday. Make no mistake, this is the most important environmental vote of this generation. If passed this legislation will put us on the road to actually solving the climate crisis, in addition to building a green economy.

Call your Representative: 877-9-REPOWER (877-9-737-6937) and make sure they vote yes.

Mr. Gore is forever saying the debate is over, but the twitterers on this side of the debate have got news for him. As Emily Zanotti twitters:

Watching these Cap & Trade/global warming debates makes one thing very clear: it ain't only the creationists who willingly ignore science.

And as The Anchoress tweets in return:

Boondoggle begets boondoggle. Global Warming a flim-flam begets this flim-flam legislation. Too much power 4 1 party.

And too many words in congressional bills that go unread by power hoarders who vote as they're told, and damn the [unintended?] consequences! Insult to injury from twitterer DarkKnight3565:

Rep. Waxman adds a 300 page amendment to cap-and-trade amendment morning of its signing. Congress now completely broken.

Pass it on.

Update: OneFineJay retweets us with apt comment:

RT @SissyWillis Update: Cap-and-Trade Vote Count: 210-210, 14 Undecided Vote out 210 congressmen in 2010!

We tried calling our rep, Michael Capuano for second time this afta:

@OneFineJay You go, boy!!! Good news?: Got thru easily to my Blue-state MA congressman Capuano this a.m. Now busy signal.

Give 'em hell!