Of Interest to Every Marine

A letter to Marines from a Marine on the USMC in Iraq.

Click to enlarge.

H/T, Theo Spark

Symptom of poor leadership: Bad Lying

One President. One administration. 3 officials from said administration. 1 "party line" on jobs created? Not so fast, my friend. According to Politico, three flacks from the administration were on three different shows... and gave three figures for the fabled "jobs saved and created" meme:

From The Politico:

White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act.

The discrepancy was pointed out by a Republican official in an email to reporters noting that “Three presidential advisers on three different programs [gave] three different descriptions of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill.”

Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

Read the whole thing to get the quotes in more context. But you'd think a well oiled machine like the Obama administration, run by the best and the brightest could at least have a huddle and settle on one lie before they fanned out for the Sunday yak-shows. Maybe they are getting their statistics from recovery.gov, a website that makes up Congressional districts and can't even get zip codes right.

Jarret did speak some truth. The jobs saved were government jobs. I have nothing against teachers, cops, etc. I, in fact, am employed by government. We government workers are net drains on the economy. And we do not deserve more consideration than folks in the private sector.

TPM Photo selection

I clicked on a link to Talking Points Memo posted on Twitter to see how they will be reporting the Senate race in Mass. I noticed they had a few pictures of Coakley and Brown on their main page. Every picture of Brown was pale, washed out looking. Every picture of Coakley appeared to benefit from some post processing. Photoshop for the Democrat, but not even a Picasa "I'm feeling lucky" click for the Republican?

A couple of examples:

An Israeli View of US Airport Security

The Israelis know a thing or two about airline and airport security. And they know ours really is a joking matter. H/T Brian of London via twitter. And if you don't all ready listen, you should really check out Shire Network News, and the "full fat, non-Vegan podcast".

Gaming the Canadian System

I love the variety of speakers you see in the TED talks. Astronomers to Zoologists, and everything in between; including a young woman who needed a hip replacement. In Canada. So it would be free, and all. She would just have to wait. But she didn't want to wait (and I can't blame her for that!). So she did what she needed to do to get her surgery done quicker. She can justify what she did, but it just shows an Animal Farm-esque form of favoritism, if not downright corruption:

KT Tunstall's Footwork

This video is of KT Tunstall performing on a UK tv show called Later with Jools Holland. Watching her technique is an education. But good lord, what is she wearing on her feet?

Did Patton Say That?

The quote in this "motivator" sure sounds like Old Blood and Guts... as they say around the blogosphere "too good to check". Via Hookers and Booze