U.S. President Barack Obama smiles after making remarks on regulatory reform in the East Room at the White House in Washington October 9, 2009. Earlier in the day, Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES POLITICS)

Apparently, SNL’s skit was premature. Maybe President Obama hasn’t actually accomplished the following:

1. Closing Gitmo (same as Bush)
2 Outlawing torture by revoking Bush’s EO that said much the same thing
3. Withdrawal from Iraq (thanks to Bush)
4. De-escalation of war in Afghanistan (campaigned that it was the necessary war and now dithers as more American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, than in the previous 7 years)
5. peace between Israel and Palestine
6. Olympics in Chicago
7. Supporting democratic movement in Iran
8. Supporting democracy in Honduras
9. nuclear disarmament

But, hey, so what?! At least he’s now won the Nobel Peace Prize for non-accomplishment; and delivered a presidential promise to use this award as a rallying “call to action”. It’s the thought and rhetoric that counts, right? Basically, he’s being awarded for what he may accomplish in the future (Even supporters are questioning, “Why?”). If his pretty words actually inspires us to achieve peace, enhances international relations, then some day in the future, maybe the award will have been earned. Here’s a novel idea: Why not award the prize to him THEN?!

I’m not trying to be funny, here; I wouldn’t want to be accused of siding with the terrorists.

But seriously, folks…

WASHINGTON/OSLO (Reuters) – Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision that honored the first-year U.S. president more for promise than achievement and drew both praise and skepticism around the world.

The bestowal of one of the world’s top accolades on a president less than nine months in office, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo.

Awww….they love him not for the leader he is, but for the leader he wants to be; for saying what they want to hear.

Kim Priestap writes:

“If just wanting world [peace], talking about world peace is enough to get the Nobel Peace Prize then every beauty pageant winner should have gotten one. “

Obama said he felt humbled and unworthy of being counted in the company of the “transformative figures” of history who had won the prize.

Maybe CNN and Wolf Blitzer would care to factcheck this one for actual accomplishments in the pursuit of peace? Even President Obama isn’t buying it. He doesn’t sound humbled; more like embarrassed.

“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership,” he said, speaking in the White House Rose Garden. “I will accept this award as a call to action.”

Kanye West, at this point had to interrupt the acceptance speech with the following:

“Hey, hey Barack, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but I just want to say his teleprompter had one of the best bids of all time. OF ALL TIME.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” citing his fledgling push for nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world.

What about Reagan’s push for nuclear disarmament?

What about Bush’s “outreach to the Muslim world”?

Just 12 days into his presidency, what had President Obama done thus far to join the ranks of Carter, Gore, and Arafat in garnering such a prestigious nomination as the highly credible Nobel Peace Prize?

1. He campaigned in 2008 to escalate the “necessary” war in Afghanistan
2. He campaigned in 2008 to invade a sovereign ally, Pakistan, to go after al Qaeda and out-Bush, Bush.

153+ were killed within the first week of of his peace presidency, including the continuation of Predator drone attacks in Pakistan.

Obama has been widely credited with improving America’s global image after the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, who alienated both friends and foes with go-it-alone policies like the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Bush alienated friends with “go-it-alone” policies? Really?!

So Bush can be credited for the Obama peace prize award.

President Obama campaigns in ‘08 against President Bush; and goes around the world on his grand Apology Tour and wins acclaim.

Niiiiiiice….

But critics called the Nobel’s committee’s decision premature, given that Obama so far has made little tangible headway as he grapples with challenges ranging from the war in Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

The White House had no idea the Nobel announcement was coming. Obama, who got the news of the prize in a pre-dawn call from his press secretary, now also has the burden of living up to its expectations.

The first African-American to hold his country’s highest office, Obama, 48, has struggled with a slew of foreign policy problems bequeathed to him by Bush, while taking a more multilateral approach than his predecessor.

Despite troubles at home including a struggling economy that have eroded his once-lofty approval ratings, the Democratic U.S. president is still widely seen around the world as an inspirational figure.

How did President Bush not exercise diplomacy and multilateralism?

Yes. Bush’s fault.

Also blogging:
The Anchoress
Bottomline Upfront
Brutally Honest
Bookworm Room
Gateway Pundit
The Radio Patriot
Michelle Malkin

Adiba, 17, of Kabul, showed her support for Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai at the bidding of her teacher as he met with women from the Malal group at his home in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 12, 2009. Although she planned to vote on Aug. 20, she had not decided which candidate would get her vote.
Nikki Kahn-THE WASHINGTON POST

This is indeed the dawning of the Age of Barack Hussein Obama….mmm…mmm….mm:

The anti-war group Code Pink, which rose to prominence with high-profile protests against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the past seven years, is softening its stance against the war in Afghanistan over concerns that a troop withdrawal could harm women’s rights in the country.

“We would leave with the same parameters of an exit strategy but we might perhaps be more flexible about a timeline,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told the Christian Science Monitor. “That’s where we have opened ourselves … to some other possibilities. We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban. So many people are saying that, ‘If the US troops left the country, would collapse. We’d go into civil war.’ A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider that.”

The apparent shift in policy comes in the wake of a week-long trip to Afghanistan by Code Pink members, where activists were surprised to find a lot of support among women’s rights activists for maintaining the US and NATO presence in the country.

They are just now awakening to this fact? Where were their brains at for the previous 8 years? Angelina Jolie “got it“, in regards to safeguarding Iraq on humanitarian grounds. Why couldn’t they?

Was opposition to the war all about political opposition to President Bush and not about promotion of peace and human rights (let alone democracy)?

Some observers have been pointing out for years that the Western troop presence in Afghanistan is the principal reason that women in the country are now able to get an education, and that there is now at least a modicum of gender equality in Afghanistan. Many observers fear that the withdrawal of troops could allow the return of severe discrepancies between women’s rights and men’s rights in Afghanistan, as well as widespread violence against women.

“In the current situation of terrorism, we cannot say troops should be withdrawn,” said Shinkai Karokhail, an Afghan member of Parliament and a women’s rights activist, at a meeting of international rights groups. “International troop presence here is a guarantee for my safety.”

Afghan girls attend a class at the Ishkashim high school for girls in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, near the border with Tajikistan, April 23, 2008.
REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

Here’s another case of government over-regulating and attempting to control our lives:

It seemed like such a practical and good arrangement, the kind that moms have been making with each other since the beginning of time: One woman would watch her friends’ kids while they waited for the school bus so the other women could go to their jobs.

And then the Michigan Department of Human Services stepped in to tell the Good Samaritan mother that she was facing fines and possible jail time for running an illegal day care center.

“To me, this is just a friend helping a friend, plain and simple,” Lisa Snyder said during an interview with TODAY’s Matt Lauer from her Middleville, Mich., home Tuesday.

With Snyder were her friends and fellow moms Francie Brummel, Mindy Rose and Lori Forbes, who began the school year by dropping their kids off at Snyder’s house to wait for the school bus. With them was Michigan state Rep. Brian Calley, who is working to change a law that he and the women feel is being misapplied to punish friends and neighbors for helping each other out.

“It takes a village, but I guess in Michigan we’re saying it takes a licensed village,” Calley told Lauer, referring to the title of Hillary Clinton’s book about raising children.

An unwelcome letter

The bizarre story began on Sept. 8, the first day of school, when Brummel, Rose and Forbes dropped their young children off at Snyder’s home in a rural neighborhood to wait for the bus. The kids all regularly played together and they were at Snyder’s house for not even an hour every morning.

But just three days later, on Sept. 11, Snyder got a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services (DHS) telling her that someone — presumably another neighbor — had complained that she was running an illegal day care center. Snyder was told that she had to either get a license to run such a service, or face fines and up to 90 days in jail.

The law, which dates back to 1973, says that anyone who watches an unrelated person’s child for a period of 28 days a year is running a day care center and has to have a license. It doesn’t matter if the child is being watched for five minutes a day or five hours.

So if you are “merely” a family friend or neighbor and happen to babysit the kid 28 days in a year or host more than one birthday party or slumber party for your own kids, you have to license your home as a daycare center?! This sounds like you could apply the same law if your own child invites a playdate to spend time over at your house, as well. (Note: I wrote this thought before reading further down)

‘Buy an umbrella’

Snyder then called the DHS to try to find out why she needed a license when she was just watching her friends’ children and wasn’t being paid.

“I started asking questions, and I told them I thought it was ridiculous,” Snyder said. “Some of the answers that they gave me, I just started getting angry, and I said, ‘I don’t agree with this.’

“I said that the children should be able to come into my house if it’s raining or there’s a snowstorm,” Snyder went on. “The lady said to me, plain and simple, ‘Tell the parents to buy an umbrella.’ She was serious.”

The supposed purpose of requiring people to file for a daycare license is what, exactly? Perhaps to create a safe and healthy environment for children? Do you suppose the state of Michigan is creating just that with this kind of braindead application of the law? Perhaps Michigan should be required to apply for a childcare license to demonstrate that it is qualified to look after the welfare of its state’s children.

Snyder also asked if the kids could come to her house for playdates. She was told that if the children’s parents were at home during the playtime it was OK, but if they dropped the kids off to play and then went to the store or out to dinner, it was no longer a playdate — it was day care.

Un…frakkin’….believable!!!!!!!!!

‘Difficult to believe’
Calley, who got involved when one of Snyder’s friends told him about the situation, agrees that it’s absurd.

“I found it very difficult to believe when I read the letter and the account of what happened,” the state legislator told Lauer. “I thought surely I must be missing something. I called the department personally, and they confirmed that the letter and everything in it was true, and that it was the position of the department that a day care license was necessary for the kids to wait for the bus in this house.”

Lauer suggested that if one of the children were injured while in Snyder’s care, there could be legal issues, and that might be a basis for the DHS position.

“I understand the idea of regulating a business in that way, but when friends are helping friends, I think parents are in much better position to determine what’s safe for their kids than the Department of Human Services,” Calley replied. “There’s no amount of testing or interviews or applications that somebody could fill out and send them to the Department of Human Services that would make them more capable of determining a safe environment for kids than the parents themselves.”

FA friends and countrymen, please note: Rep. Brian Calley who serves people not politics is a Republican. *Ahem*….just sayin’….

James Gale of the Michigan Department of Human Services confirmed the facts of the case and told NBC News that the department must look into all complaints about illegal day care centers. “In the interest of protecting children, we will investigate all allegations or complaints of unlicensed child care.”

And then after investigating Snyder, DHS will have determined, out of common sense, that the complaint is misapplied, right?

Snyder is sure that one of her neighbors must have complained, but said she has no idea who it might be.

Despite the DHS warning, Snyder continues to allow two of her friends’ children to wait for the bus at her house. Brummel has stopped dropping her son off while they wait for the issue to be resolved. And Calley is working to rewrite the law to allow people who aren’t paid to look after friends’ children.

“The law itself is taken way out of context. It’s meant to regulate the business of providing day care services. It’s not meant to apply to friends helping friends in this way,” Calley said. “What I’d like to do is clarify the law and take away the ability of the department to apply in this way.”

Added Forbes: “It’s not a day care — it’s a bus stop.”

This is just utter stupidity. I suppose since I help a friend carpool her child to gymnastics practice, I need at least a taxi license and a childcare license in addition to my regular driver’s license. If I get reimbursed gas money (which I don’t) or paid for my services, I suppose I’d also have to get a business license; just like kids selling lemonade on the neighborhood sidewalk. It’s not safe- either for the child or the consumer, since she could be kidnapped and the customer could get sick from spoiled lemonade or from an unsanitary lemonade stand. (I guess if I should be disallowed from giving my child’s friend any snacks, either, since I’m an unlicensed food handler).

GOOD GRIEF, GOVERNMENT!

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the “Star Wars” film saga, fans gather for Star Wars Celebration IV at the L.A. Convention Center downtown. Jasper Manning, 2, assumes the character of Yoda in the company of his father, Chad Manning.
(Mel Melcon / LAT)

The Force is weak in this one….

First we have Muslims crying foul when not allowed to “cover up”; and now this?! Unbelievable:

Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.

Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor.

The 23-year-old, who founded the International Church of Jediism, which has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules.

But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.

“It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head,” he said.

“You have a choice of wearing headwear in your home or at work but you have to wear a cover for your head when you are in public.”

He said he’d gone to the store to buy something to eat during his lunch break when staff approached him and ordered him to the checkout where they explained he would have to remove the offending hood or leave the store.

“They said: ‘Take it off’, and I said: ‘No, its part of my religion. It’s part of my religious right.’ I gave them a Jedi church business card.

“They weren’t listening to me and were rude. They had three people around me. It was intimidating.” Jones, who has made an official complaint to Tesco, is considering a boycott of the store and is seeking legal advice.

Tesco said: “He hasn’t been banned. Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores although we would ask them to remove their hoods.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all appeared hoodless without ever going over to the Dark Side and we are only aware of the Emperor as one who never removed his hood.

“If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they’ll miss lots of special offers.”

Just what kind of Jedi is this Daniel Jones Morda Hehol? You’d think he’d use his Jedi mind-tricks on his persecutors; otherwise, what good is his religion?

McAfee did a study on what search terms constitutes the most dangerous on the web:

Those searching for Obama are four times more likely to get infected with a virus than those searching for viagra (6.2% vs 1.6% risk)!

Check out The Most Dangerous Search Terms…and beware what you search for!

Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

President Barack Obama plans to order that all U.S. combat troops be withdrawn from Iraq by August 2010, administration officials said Tuesday, ending the war that defined his upstart presidential campaign three months later than he had promised.

Obama’s plan would pull out all combat troops 19 months after his inauguration, although he had promised repeatedly during the 2008 campaign that he would withdraw them 16 months after taking office. That schedule, based on removing roughly one brigade a month, was predicated on commanders determining that it would not endanger U.S. troops left behind or Iraq’s fragile security.

Pledging to end the war in 16 months helped to build enormous grass-roots support for Obama’s White House bid.

The withdrawal plan — an announcement could come as early as this week — calls for leaving a large contingent of troops behind, between 30,000 and 50,000 troops, to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to protect U.S. interests.

~~~

Obama’s campaign promise to withdraw troops in 16 months was based on a military estimate on what would be an orderly pace of removing troops, given the logistical difficulties of removing so many people and tons of equipment, a U.S. military official said.

The 19-month strategy is a compromise between commanders and advisers who are worried that security gains could backslide in Iraq and those who think the bulk of U.S. combat work is long since done.

The White House considered at least two other options to withdraw combat forces — one that followed Obama’s 16-month timeline and one that stretched withdrawal over 23 months, The Associated Press reported earlier this month.

A little late to the frat/sorority party, aren’t we girls? Duh wuh….

Withdrawal was already in the cards from Bush’s original Iraq liberation plans as a result of marked success, and was confirmed as achieving that benchmark when they agreed to the SOFA passed before the end of the year. But let’s not stand on semantics, shall we?

*No where* in the article is the SOFA agreement for troop withdrawal, as agreed to by Bush and the Iraq government, mentioned. *No where* in the article is the historical fact that Bush had said over and over to media deaf ears that the US would leave when the Iraqis were capable of governing and providing their own security.

They may pull the wool over the less educated in the world, but this crap really sticks in my craw.

Big demerits to these two. Perhaps there’s a fashion gossip column open that is more befitting of their research abilities and truth meter. Because that, IMHO, is all they are worthy of.

Feh

It doesn’t take political bloviating, however, to show just how dysfunctionally bizarre some of these people are.

Last night, Joaquin Phoenix was on Letterman, trying to out-do Crispin Glover and Farrah Fawcett:

Here’s the classic Crispin Glover interview: Perhaps the penultimate in celebrity bizarredom interviews:

Just what are these folk smoking before they go on air?

Hat tip: Freedom Eden

You can help build our gallery of faces from people who see a part of President Barack Obama in themselves.

We’ve got a photo of Obama you can cut out for yourself — click here to download it. Then follow the instructions, take a picture and send it to us here. Tell us what part of Obama is in you and we’ll add your comments to your photo.

See more photos at freep.com/obamaportraits.

Hat tip: Brutally Honest

Any other good Obamessianic quotes I missed?

Rapturous “Dear Obama” song by the Ron Clark Academy (Cute kids, but…my…God, already!):

Related posts [DISCLAIMER/WARNING: FA is in no way held liable for whatever happens to your keyboard and monitor]:
Celebrities Who Have Torn Down Bush For 8 Years Suddenly Want To Serve Their President
Ok…Enough with the frivolous “distractions”; let’s talk about the real issues…
The Obama Cult Of Personality
The Cult of Obama
Water bottle…woman fainting…and Barack Obama: What do these three things have in common?

Images like the one above make me sad. Sad not only because I do not share in the happiness, the revelry that she and so many other of my fellow Americans are feeling when they look upon and listen to Senator Obama speak of “change” and “hope”; but sad also because I believe the adulation they give him is so richly undeserved.

There’s a piece of my heart that aches when I look at this picture. I want to believe….I want my fellow citizens to feel healed and whole….I, as much as anyone, want this country to move beyond the divisiveness of race. I want my fellow citizens back; the ones who I can disagree with, but who haven’t fallen for the snake-oil rhetoric. I want to empathize with those who claim it’s impossible to understand what it means to be black in America; yet my head tells me other truths; and they will never know what it’s like to not be black and live under siege by those who carry a generational chip on their shoulder over the shame of slavery and civil rights issues that happened decades and centuries ago. Both slaves and slavemasters have been dead for well over a century; yet their ghosts live on because of those who refuse to “let it go”.

When they look at Senator Obama, what do they see? A black man, running for president? When will race cease to matter? It’s not the color of his skin that frightens me; it’s the content of his character. It’s his far from the center and way to the left political ideology.

What is it that Cleopatra Nelson, the American voter in the photo, see and hear when she looks upon Senator Obama? The Once and Future reincarnation and second coming of JFK and MLK, rolled into one? It is romanticism and wishful thinking, that Senator Obama will be what many of his supporters wish him to be. Nothing in his past history tells me that he can unite the country, that he actually will lead as a centrist, willing to cross party lines and hear out the other side, in earnest, with an open mind and an open heart.

Senator Obama has acknowledged in flippant, casual passing- almost under his breath and very quickly so as not to dwell on it or have the words sink into people’s consciousness- some of the positives that occurred under President Bush; but the tone and substance of his clarion call is to divide this country by tarnishing and slandering the legacy of President Bush, because it serves him politically.

“In words, Obama is a uniter instead of a divider. In deeds, he’s spent years promoting polarization”- Thomas Sowell

A history filled with radicals, black liberation theology, Marxist/communist ideology….where’s the balance? Where’s the voting record that indicates to me, he is willing and able to come to the center and unite people?

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

~~~

“my treatment of the issues is often partial and incomplete.”
-From the pages of The Audacity of Hope

Senator Obama is what his supporters hope him to be by projecting upon him, their hopes and dreams. But he is not what they need him to be. He symbolizes for them, an optimistic future and a turning of the page; but as he admits in his book, he is a blank slate upon which people can project what it is they want to see and believe about him.

Living in the Los Angeles area, I am awash in a sea of open-Obama support. Obama constituents freely wear their buttons, their t-shirts, and their bumperstickers without fear of ridicule out here.

It’s strange to see so much- not simply support, but energized adulation! Messiah-worship. There are politicians that I like; but even if I strongly admired any of them, I just can’t see myself wanting to express it by wearing a likeness on my shirt. It reminds me of the cult-like phenomenon of Che Guevara t-shirts.

A short collage I put together of Messiah-Worship:

Meanwhile, via Patterico, a man jumped to his death from a freeway overpass in El Paso today.

Police found a note in the man’s car, which said, “Obama take care of my family.”

I hope this man rests in peace.

And while we should ask not for whom the bell tolls, this is a particularly tragic crime knowing that this man went to his death – abandoning his familial responsibilities – with the “hope” that Barack Obama would provide care and comfort for those left behind.

I wonder if he remembered to send in an absentee before he took the back exit from this woeful world we weave? Not that it would stop Democrats from casting his vote on his behalf, Tuesday.

Yes, this was a heartless post. We right-wingers are mean, cold, and compassionless, don’t you folks know.

I say “anti”, because it’s so saccharine-awful, If I were John McCain, I’d add in, “…and I approve this message.”

Just on the strength of this adoration video, alone, am I voting AGAINST Barack Obama. I hope it gets widespread airplay.

Can you imagine the next 4 years living under this kind of derangement?

There’s plenty more crazy videos coming out of Obama, Japan, btw.

Not that you’re really missing much.

Oh….and there’s more…..

Michael Medved clued me into this video from Kenya:

I should wash out my ears, but…did I hear the lyrics right: “Obama be thy name…the change shall come, thy will be done…”?!? Ugh!

Here’s the blurb:

„Obama be thy name is “Ohanglaman” MAKADEM’s musical contribution to the US presidential elections. As a world citizen, the Kenyan afro-fusion & reggae artist calls upon every American to vote. Inspired by the musicians international approach, filmmaker Katrin Ender worked out a concept bringing across the universal message of the song.

Song title: Obama be thy name
Artist: Makadem
Composer: Makadem
Production: Katrin Ender
Director: Katrin Ender
Cameraman: Willie Owusu
Editor: Katrin Ender

All of this messiah-worship is undeserved. Nothing- nothing in his past history suggests that he will be what these people are hoping for. It’s projection and wishful thinking. It’s band-wagon-jumping idolatry and celebrity rock-star fawning.

The day that we honor all the soldiers who have died for this country is not the day to air an episode in which they degenerate our heroes: (h/t Hot Air

While laughing at ones self is good for a persons character I just do not find anything remotely funny about Hollywood trying to prove John Kerry’s beliefs. To top it off we have Lisa giving the Democratic talking points:

Do you see now that an invading force can never defeat a motivated local population.

Yes, yes….we will never win so lets just “redeploy” to Okinawa and leave them Iraqi’s to fend for themselves. We were the bad guys to begin with anyways.

Geez.

It doesn’t matter how one feels about Iraq and Bush. These young men and women serving our country deserve better then this.

Other’s Blogging:

• Michelle Malkin
• Wizbang
• chez Diva