In the middle of his tirade against House Republicans’ “mean-spirited” budget bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, the Senate Majority Leader lamented that the GOP’s proposed budget cuts would eliminate the annual “cowboy poetry festival” in his home state of Nevada. (See also: Reid’s prostitution lecture bombs.)

Reid clearly has a soft spot for the Baxter Blacks of the poetry world and thinks Republicans don’t.

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

Reid was attempting, of course, to criticize the spending proposal crafted by House Republicans that would cut $61 billion from the budget before he began praising the annual festival in his home state. The Senate majority leader also insisted Tuesday that he would do everything he could to schedule an up-or-down vote on H.R. 1 in order to force his GOP colleagues to take a position on the budget bill that Democrats argue includes “draconian” cuts.

For the record, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is in Elko, Nev., next January. The 28th annual festival, a “week-long celebration of life in the rural West, featuring the contemporary and traditional arts of western ranching culture,” is expected to draw thousands of people, according to the festival’s website.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0311/Reid_Save_federal_funding_for_the_cowboy_poets.html

Face Forward Comments:

I have nothing against Cowboy Poetry in fact I enjoy the images of the west and the simple life that their words evoke.  However, I don’t know if I would ever pay to go see a cowboy poetry competition (or any other poetry competition).  But guess what readers?  I have been paying for it all along.

That is the problem with Federal funding for the Arts.  We, the individual tax payer, end up paying for “Art” that we don’t like and in some instances, find offensive.  If an “Artist” wants to put picture of Mohammed, Jesus and The Buddha in a toilet bowl and call it art, that is his/her business.  When he/she wants me to pay for it, I have a problem.

From the American Spectator

For example, as it stands, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod’s firm, AKPD Message and Media, which employs his son, and which owes Axelrod money, is one of the contractors on the Chicago Olympics bid. Senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett has been deeply involved in the strategizing for the Olympics bid since before the 2008 election, and until accepting her job in the White House she was a deputy chairwoman of the Chicago Olympics Host Committee. Both have close ties to a number of Chicago 2016 committee members. 

Crain’s Chicago Business reported Monday that Jarrett and Chicago 2016 committee president (and recent chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley) Lori Healey met with officials of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to discuss financing options for construction of the Olympic Village. According the HUD sources, the Obama Administration will seek to use low-income housing grant funding options to help the city build the Olympic Village, and when the Olympics are over, some portions of the village will be used for low-income rental and purchased residences.

Healey and Jarrett’s relationship goes back years to Healey’s times as a senior staffer on the city’s planning and development department in the 1990s, around the same time that Jarrett would have been running one of the city’s largest low-income housing projects. Healey was also vice chair of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Board of Commissioners, which would have overseen Jarrett’s company’s projects.

Another member of the Chicago committee is Martin Nesbitt, who the New York Times last December identified as one of President Obama’s “closest friends,” and whose wife is a close friend to Michelle Obama. Nesbitt, the godfather to one of the Obamas’ daughters, was also the Obama presidential campaign’s treasurer, and is credited with introducing Obama to Penny Pritzker, one of the most influential fundraisers for Democrats in the United States. His ties to Pritzker go back to a time when he worked for Pritzker’s real estate companies, and she later invested in Nesbitt’s airport off-site parking business, the Parking Spot, a company that stands to make millions from the Olympics bid. The Pritzker family, which holds a number of real estate properties in Chicago, also

I guess these people are not close enough to the Obamas to make money from the Olympics

stands to reap tens of millions from a successful Olympics bid. Nesbitt is also the chairman of the board of commissioners of the Chicago Housing Authority.

Nesbitt did not join the board of Chicago 2016 until March 2009, when he replaced … Valerie Jarrett, who resigned from the board to accept her post in the White House.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/29/obamas-olympic-spirit

Face Fwd Comments:

You didn’t really think it was because Obama had the Olympic spirit did you?  Of course not.  It is more dirty Chicago style politics. And now you know why he flew to Denmark.

Frigid 2010 Forecast: How Cold will the Winter Weather Be? Old Man Winter doesn’t want to give up his frigid hold just yet, but his hold will mostly be in the middle of the country.

According to the 2010 Farmers’ Almanac, this winter will see more days of shivery conditions: a winter during which temperatures will average below normal for about three-quarters of the nation.

A large area of numbingly cold temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to west of the Appalachians (see map). The coldest temperatures will be over the northern Great Lakes and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But acting almost like the bread of a sandwich, to this swath of unseasonable cold will be two regions with temperatures that will average closer to normal—theWest Coast and the East Coast.

What about snow/rain/ice? Near-normal amounts of precipitation are expected over the eastern third of the country, as well as over the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, while drier-than-normal conditions are forecast to occur over the Southwest and the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes.  Only the Central and Southern Plains are expected to receive above-average amounts of precipitation.

Blizzards?  While three-quarters of the country is predicted to see near- or below average precipitation this winter, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any winter storms! On the contrary, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. For the Middle Atlantic and Northeast States, for instance, we are predicting a major snowfall in mid-February; possibly even blizzard conditions for New England (indeed, even shovelry is not dead).

Thanks to the Farmers Almanac for their information.  If you would like more information on weather or for information on the Farmer’s Almanac click on the following link:

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/a/could-this-winters-weather-add-to-economic-woes

Face Fwd Comments:

If you have been following the Sunspots in the news you know that there is a huge correlation between our sun’s activity and the weather.  Sunspot activity over the last 18 months has largely abated which has brought on last years cold weather and this years predicted cold winter.  Does it surprise anyone that Sunspot Activity over the last 400 years and that the weather patterns (yes Al, there is no human induced global warming) including the warmer weather during period between the industrial revolution and now almost perfectly are in sync.  Check out this graph:

If you are interested in learning more about how sunspots impact our weather you will want to look up information on the Maunder Minimum.  You might be surprised to see what all of the hub bub is about. 

 In my opinion the science has now become undeniable that the sun is the villain (or hero depending on your stance) in climate change.  I firmly believe that the only thing stopping Al Gore/the Obama administration and the United Nations from embracing this science, is that they have not figured out how to tax the sun.   Don’t worry America…….Al is working on it.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is refusing to quickly release government records on its “cash-for-clunkers” rebate program that would substantiate — or undercut — White House claims of the program’s success, even as the president presses the Senate for a quick vote for $2 billion to boost car sales.

The Transportation Department said it will provide the data as soon as possible but did not specify a time frame or promise release of the data before the Senate votes whether to spend $2 billion more on the program.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday the government would release electronic records about the program, and President Barack Obama has pledged greater transparency for his administration. But the Transportation Department, which has collected details on about 157,000 rebate requests, won’t release sales data that dealers provided showing how much U.S. car manufacturers are benefiting from the $1 billion initially pumped into the program.

For the rest of the article go here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090804/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_cash_for_clunkers_transparency

Face Fwd Comments:

Man I don’t even know where to begin on this……first we bailed out the automobile industry with our (that’s mine and yours) tax money.  It was supposed to be a “loan” but I think we all knew better than that.  Now we are stealing tax money from the tax payer again to buy the cars from the same car industry that we (the American tax payer) are supposed to own. HUH?

Just when you thought it could not get any more stupid……giving money to support the automobile industry, twice.  The Administration in all of their wisdom is also giving money to the same competition that drove the big three out of business.  It may say american Toyota on the plant but aI think we all know it is Japaneese owned. 

Watch as Toyota crushes a Ford…… the only american car company not on the take: