'You is who you is, and you ain't who you ain't'

No truer words were ever spoken, although these words as spoken sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to English teachers. Regardless, the late Dizzy Gillespie, great musician that he was, is dead spot on when he uttered this sentiment. (and no, Louis Jordan did not pen these words, he's the one who did that catchy little ditty back in 1944 'Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby').

And I wonder I just wonder what Diz would say about our president?

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Is he who he is, or ain't he who he ain't? Barack Obama ran his presidential campaign as a vessel of 'hope and change.' We have all seen the changes that have come out of his 'new and improved' vision for the future of the United States. Is this the kind of change everyone who voted for Obama wanted? If the Zeitgeist were to answer this one right now, the answer would be a resounding, deafening, bold and capitalized "NO!" Note the author has also added an exclamation point, in addition to jacking up the font a smidge. I'm sure the Zeitgeist won't mind.

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For those Obama voters who may be reading this by mistake, if they can read at all, the term "Zeitgeist" is simply the German word for 'spirit of the times.' More literally, it translates to "Time Ghost", but I'm sure you Obama voters have already lost interest in this and have moved on at this point.

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I'm not inclined to go into the meat of what all Obama has done to our country so far, we all know and feel it, and most of us don't like it. I would rather point out the poignancy of Dizzy's words uttered so long ago, and yet ring so true today.

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We all would love to believe that we can do anything we set our minds to. Our parents, teachers and mentors have always said so. Or at least recently it seems to be the mantra of the day. If one listened to all of this and took it to heart, then the following thumb nails would certainly provide an interesting take on that view of the future.

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Yoshi (his friends call him 'Tiny') has dreamed of riding like the wind, his long hair trailing back as he streaks to the finish line aboard a thoroughbred such as Smarty Jones in the Kentucky Derby. He has set his mind to achieve this dream, and all he has to do is just do it, right? After all, everyone has told him that's all there is to it. First, of course, he has to tell his trainer that he no longer wishes to compete in the upcoming Sumo wrestling tournament, and would rather pursue his dream of being a competitive jockey. His trainer moans, wails and gnashes his teeth at this news, asking Yoshi, 'where am I going to find another 490 pound Sumo wrestler to replace you on the spur of the moment?' Yoshi tells the trainer that this is no longer his problem, and lumbers (or more accurately, waddles) off into the sunset, destined to achieve his dreams...

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Or perhaps we should examine Ernie's aspirations and desires (Ernie's friends call him 'pencil neck'). Ernie has a burning desire to start at center for the New York Knicks. He can just see himself blocking Shaq's slam dunk, and feel the crowd roaring its approval. Yes, he can picture it all now, the cachophonous chant from the adoring crowd at the arena: 'Ernie! Ernie! Ernie!....' Well, Ernie has always been told that he can do anything, once he sets his mind to it. So Ernie rises out of his chair, stretching to his full height of 5 feet 6 and one half inches, heads towards the boss's office to give his notice and reach for that brass NBA ring.....

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Not so fast, Yoshi and Ernie. Just remember: 'you is who you is, and you ain't who you ain't.' Or as Clint Eastwood said in the film "The Unforgiven,": 'a man's gotta know his limitations.' Before anyone ups and quits their day job, a firm reality check must be done. Life is, as most conservatives but few if any liberals are aware of, most definitely and assuredly not fair.

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Is it fair that homely, big-boned gals with complexion issues never seem to win the Miss America crown? Is it fair that old, bald, fat guys never seem to anchor the network news? Does it seem fair to you that all of this is the harsh reality of the world, despite some of these homely gals and a few of these old, bald fat guys still dream of achieving a beauty pageant crown and anchorman chair, respectively?

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Listen to Diz, and trust that his words are golden: "you is who you is, and you ain't who you ain't." Take these words to heart, and you will live a much happier life.

The newly elected Republican majority has its work cut out for them

For Republican candidates looking to cash in on the dissatisfaction of the American public with the Obama administration and its disastrous policies on November 2nd, 2010, they should know that their work is cut out for them once they are sworn in next January, and that they should put off measuring the windows for new drapes; they have urgent business to attend to immediately.

Not only do these newly elected Republican majorities in both the House and Senate need to jump immediately on getting Obamacare repealed, they also need to attend to rolling back many of Obama's disastrous decisions:

1. The 112th Congress needs to immediately reinstall the Bush tax cuts to their 2010 levels. Without doing so as their first order of business, the economy will most certainly tank in 2011. And this would not be just another run of the mill downturn, the term 'collapse' would more likely be the case. This is not speculation by general curmudgeons and malcontents, but by Arthur Laffer (you know him, he's the guy that invented that curve of his) in an op ed piece in the Wall Street journal last week. And when Arthur speaks, people listen.

2. Capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, death taxes, all going up enormously. The newly elected conservative majority needs to nip that in the bud right away. Unless these new guys get on the stick and halt these increases, doing nothing will cause an immediate economic collapse like long term (12 months or more in which an asset is held) capital gains rate going from its current 15% to 20%, and an estate tax rate going from 0% to 55%.

3. End this idiocy of that moratorium on off shore drilling. We need that oil, and we need it bad. 'Drill baby, drill' should be brought back to the forefront. Just hang this spill on Obama, whether he deserves it or not (hey, politics ain't beanbag, as Tip O'Neill once noted), and get back to finding that Texas Tea and getting it to market.

4. Decertify all national, state and local public unions. Do this immediately on Constitutional grounds that public employees unions do not have the right to hold the public hostage by threats of strikes, and these unions do not have a constitutional right to bankrupt the U.S. with their unfunded public pension obligations. Once decertified, eliminate all these onerous public pension obligations as unconstitutional as well. These organizations are bankrupting America and everyone knows it. Decertify them immediately, and deal with the fall out later. Yes, this one will be tough, much like #5 below.

5. Privatize social security immediately. This Ponzi scheme has gone on long enough. Everyone knows it's broke, and its time to fix it, Third Rail be damned.

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Yes, this new bunch on Capitol Hill has its work cut out for them. If they don't get it done, they will get all of the blame for the depression that hits in 2011.

Obama couldn't run a lemonade stand, much less the U.S. economy

We are watching the most incompetent, inexperienced, in over his head, out of his league manager of our national affairs ever in this nation's history. Barack Obama was widely known to have the absolute thinnest, most pathetic, skinniest resume of anyone ever seeking the presidency, but the voting public overlooked all of this when it came time to pull the lever, because he spoke very well, and could pronounce the word 'nuclear' ('noo-klee-er,' and not 'noo-kyoo-lar'). Quite the accomplishment, if you ask me (but ask him to pronounce the word 'corps', and see what you get). .

Turns out the guy can't manage his way out of a wet paper bag, and why should anyone be surprised? This incompetent, arrogant foolish moron has never managed anything in his entire life, not even a lemonade stand. He has held absolutely no executive positions in his existence on this planet. How can we expect a community organizer (read: rabblerouser) to get our nations' economy running like a well oiled machine? Because we overlooked this obvious inexperience when we elected this guy, we are now paying the piper.

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He has expected to have things go well only on the basis that he wants them to go well, and tells everyone as much. He has never had to actually make decisions as to how best to solve problems, bring assets to bear and determine which assets to put more here and less there, etc. You know, things that even a simple lemonade stand owner understands. And yet these basic economic principles elude Obama's understanding completely.

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'Obama's Lemonade Stand' would have been set up roughly like this: shake down some successful lemonade stands down the street for his supplies, such as lemon juice, sugar, ice cubes and water. If they don't provide it, he will get the community to march on them for reasons of social injustice, corporate greed, etc. Then he will set his prices according to a progressive agenda: poor people get it free. Rich people will pay $1,000.00 per glass. It's only fair, everyone knows that. Once word gets out among the poor people that there's free lemonade afoot, Obama's stand will be flooded with 'patrons.' Word also gets out among the rich folk that Obama is gouging them, and they avoid the stand.

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Now Obama has lots (and LOTS) of demand for lemonade, and yet no revenue to show for his efforts. He needs more supplies, but the nearby lemonade stands have been bled dry by Obama's incessant shake downs, and have closed their doors. To make up for this lack of revenue, ever more shake downs of increasingly distant but successful lemonade stands for his growing demand of lemonade is arranged. In the long run, as long as there are more successful stands to shake down to keep supplies flowing, things will work out just fine at 'Obama's Lemonade Stand' : that is, until there are no more successful lemonade stands anywhere to shake down. But he has never arrived at that point yet in his sophomoric experience, and accordingly thinks he can run America in much the same way.

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Right in front of America's eyes, Obama's abysmal lack of experience in managing anything has come to the surface when his problem solving rhetoric was clear for everyone to see: solving the oil spill by decree - 'plug the damn hole.' There you have it. Done deal, right?

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Wrong.

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When the solution by decree doesn't work (which it won't, duh), Plan B consists of sending a few battalions of attorneys, armed to the teeth with briefcases, to figure out whom to sue. Why should we expect anything else out of this guy? We shouldn't. And as we all know, and especially Obama's mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright knows, 'America's chickens have come home to roost.' We elected a boob who doesn't know how to do anything except cause chaos, and we are getting what we elected: a guy who couldn't even run a lemonade stand and who is now in charge of our national affairs.

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Perhaps a lesson has been learned here. I certainly hope that this coming election in November bears this out.

Musicians should play music, and not spew politics

Paul McCartney can really pump out a great ditty now and then, there's no debate there. But when it comes to political prowess, this ex-Beatle can't get to first base. His obsequious bowing and scraping to Barack Obama earlier this week was just a little too much to put up with, all truth be known.

McCartney's comment at a White House function this week galls me, as he states, "after the last eight years, it's great to have a president who knows what a library is." That slur was over the top. This, from a bloke who had less education in merry old England than a typical high school drop out has in the U.S, bad mouthing a former president (G.W. Bush) for poor education when that particular president graduated from an Ivy League school with a bachelors degree from Yale and a masters degree (MBA) from Harvard. Paul McCartney wouldn't know a library from a urinal, while Bush spent much of his young adult life in them.

This is really not a new phenomenon, however. Recall the brilliant Rhodes Scholar Cher Bono calling G.W. Bush a 'retard.' Oh, that's right. Cher was (and still is) a stupid, idiot high school drop out as well. And of course we all recall the larger than life producer and uber liberal Michael Moore constantly harping on the low intellect of G.W. Bush, when he himself was a University of Michigan-Flint dropout.

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All of these celebrity dropouts berating arguably accomplished scholars and labeling them as morons is ludicrous. You celebrities should stick to what you know: music, acting, dancing, singing, sports, etc. Leave politics to people who actually cracked a book or two in their day. Unlike you celebrity cretins, who dropped out because you didn't have the brains to stick it out.

These celebrities should concentrate on their day jobs. You know, the stuff they actually know something about: music, sports, dance and film.

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Leave politics to their betters.

Obama joke of the week

Cletus went to the neurosurgeon to have his brain checked out, since it didn't seem to work right. He told the neurosurgeon, 'Doc, I just cain't seem to thank ('think') right, kin you hep me?'

The neurosurgeon, after thoroughly examining Cletus said, 'yes, just as I suspected, Cletus. You need a new brain. I can schedule you for a brain transplant next week. All you need to do is choose which kind of brains you want to use to replace your rotten brains.'

Cletus, somewhat stunned at the prognosis, asked 'whaddaya mean, what kind o' brains? Is they more than one kind?'

The neurosurgeon patiently explained, 'yes, Cletus. If you want to use the brains of people who voted for George W. Bush, those go for $1,000.00 per ounce. If you wanted to use the brains of people who voted for John McCain, those brains are $2,000.00 per ounce. And Obama voter brains, those are $1,000,000.00 (1 million) per ounce.'

Cletus gasped: 'A million bucks, for an ounce of Obama voter brains, why so much, Doc?'

Again, the neurosurgeon patiently explained to a slow thinking Cletus, 'Obama voter brains are extremely expensive for a simple reason, Cletus. Do you realize how many Obama voters we would have to harvest to yield just a single ounce of brains?'

(rim shot inserted here.)

America's 'Cargo Cult' Administration

A few years ago, Dan Jacoby wrote a piece criticizing President George W. Bush as trying to emulate Ronald Reagan, without any knowledge as to how Reagan operated. Jacoby referred to Bush as the "Cargo Cult President." This piece was retrofitted to our current president a few months ago as the summary of it was covered on the Rush Limbaugh show, and that particular comparison was much more accurate than the original Jacoby piece in 2004.

I believe it would be fair and accurate to extend this comparison to Obama's entire administration, as he and all of his advisers have virtually no real life experience in capitalism, and yet want all its goodies to magically appear if they simply go through the motions, all the while they demonize the very system that provides their coveted yet elusive prosperity.

If you are not familiar with the term 'cargo cult,' it refers to the primitive native peoples in the Pacific Islands and remote areas whose territories were pressed into service during WWII to service the U.S. Pacific Fleet, in addition to the Japanese Imperial Navy. These native people would watch as these foreigners (both Japanese and American troops) moved in, and subsequently build landing strips and control towers. Then as if by magic, planes would land on these strips full of food, water, supplies, gasoline, clothing, etc. Much of it would be distributed to the indigenous populations in addition to serving the war effort.

After the war ended, these foreigners left, and so did all of their goodies. Not wanting to interrupt this gravy train, the natives would ape the behaviors of those foreigners in hopes of making the magic planes arrive again. They would build bamboo 'control towers,' clear rudimentary, crude 'landing strips' out of the jungle, and talk into crude 'microphones', hoping that this behavior would entice the goodies to reappear, but in reality they had absolutely no understanding of the actual nature of where all these goodies came from. They had to assume it came from out of the sky, (presumably from the 'gods' ). These cults persisted in mimicking these behaviors for years and in some cases decades after the shipments ended.

Obama and his staff, cabinet and czars all are behaving in much the same way as these 'cargo cults' did, aping the soaring rhetoric of public figures of the past, such as FDR, Reagan, and Clinton, without having even a basic understanding of free market capitalism. Obama clearly seems unfazed to his profligate spending on social programs as to where all of these trillions of dollars are eventually going to come from: 'the gods', maybe.

Obama and his administration have no experience generating capital, creating jobs, meeting payrolls and all other tasks involved in creating wealth. Obama himself, along with his entire cabinet are products of academia, where Utopian philosophies and untried or impractical (but nice sounding) theories abound. None of them will ever work, nor ever have worked if implemented anywhere, but they continue to foist these foolish pie in the sky policies (unfunded) on our system, to be paid in real dollars, and not phony pie in the sky dollars, by our grand and great grand children.

These dreamers are simple fools who somehow have taken control of our country, and now are governing much like a 'cargo cult:' aping the behaviors (or more accurately, the rhetoric) of past leaders, without understanding the philosophy and capitalistic efforts behind them, and yet genuinely hoping for prosperity that will never come.

It didn't work for any of those 'cargo cults,' either, but some still persist waiting for the gods to shower them with cases of C-rations, just like the good old days.

Socialism is crashing and burning in front of us

The economies of Greece, Spain, Italy, the UK and others are on the brink of collapse within the European Union right in front of our eyes. Socialism is a catastrophic failure as an economic system. The proof is right in front of us, and I would bet that the majority of those who voted for Barack Obama refuse to connect the dots.

Those Obama voters, who have as many TV sets as the rest of us, watch the riots, and listen to Wolf Blitzer describe the mayhem without mentioning the true cause of all of this discord: liberal socialist leaders will promise anything to anyone to get a vote. And because usually promises of anything other than money go largely ignored, then the promise of money is what most always gets the vote. This is Barack Obama's vision of a Utopian America: where the government gives everybody money, and they in turn keep Democrats in power forever. Right out of "Das Kapital,' Marx's recipe for the government to take control of the private sector and make everything the public sector.

To keep from suffering the backlash when eventually there's no more money to shovel out to the masses, these leaders have to muddy the waters, divert attention from what has gotten all of us in trouble and create demons: the banks, the opposition, the owners of the means of production such as Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Wall Street, Big This and Big That. In other words, the evil capitalists. More accurately, the problems can be falsely pinned on (in the words of their philosophical leader Karl Marx) the 'Bourgeoisie' (pronounced bush'-WAH-zee', for you Obama voters in New York, Illinois, Michigan and California).

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And who are these liberal socialist leaders aiming their demonizing rhetoric at? Their constituents who are the recipients of their redistribution schemes, or the 'Proletarians.' .

Does any of this sound familiar? It is the stuff that failed in the former Soviet Union, the stuff that failed in China, the stuff that failed in Cuba, this is the philosophy that has failed everywhere it's ever been tried. But don't expect the Proles to buy into that reality. As long as the government checks clear, whether the government check was written to a government union worker, a welfare recipient, a social security recipient, or a food stamp redeemer, it won't matter as long as those checks keep coming.

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What is as frustrating me is that these mooching slackers don't care or even bother to give it a moment's thought as to where the money is coming from. The don't give a damn about the source of their government checks ('Obama's stash,' as one lost soul in Detroit put it). The truth is that it comes from the private sector, every nickel of it, all of it. And if they expect to retire from the public sector at age 49 with a six figure pension for the rest of their lives, they can think again.

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What they are watching on TV in Greece will be in their own front yard sooner than they think, because it has reached the point where, in the words of the late great Margaret Thatcher, we have run out of other people's money.