LOL of the day: Low Effort Wealth Spread

I can’t believe it’s not Marxism! HAHA! Photo credit thePeoplesCube.com

Just in case you missed the exchange:

Plumber: “You’re new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?”

Barack Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success too. I think when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”

1. Who gives a crap what you want – it’s what you actually do. In this case: punishing success.
2. Who is “behind you”? What if I worked my butt off to provide good opportunities for my family, kids, or grandkids, and perhaps whoever else I choose. I guess that’s simply not good enough. I need the all-knowing government to come and make me pay for whomever they feel are “behind me” and who likely neither work, nor pay income tax.
3. In American, peoples inalienable rights and freedoms are (supposed to be) protected by the government from birth. What people choose to do with those rights and freedoms is up to them. They make themselves a success – the government does not (nor could it).
4. Spreading the wealth sounds good – except for the folks from whom the wealth is stolen to give to others.

“When you spread the wealth around, Senator – it depends on who’s spreading the wealth around. If the wealth is being spread around by individuals making voluntary decisions, whether they be consumers, or producers, or both – you’re spreading the wealth around in a humane and free way. When the Government, like and all powerful mob compels you to give 40, 50, 60 percent of your hard earned income to the mob – to redistribute, based on political and ideological decisions, (which are not always decisions over need, by the way) – That is Tyranny.“

-Mark Levin

Iran Missile Update – Complete Hoax!

The whole story is turing out to possibly be one huge crock of crap. And yet there are people who still think that we should talk with these abject liars… What’s the point? They will not negotiate in good faith. Plain and simple.

FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE

This in from Drudge:

IRAN MISSILE TEST BLUFF: OLD ROCKETS, BOGUS VIDEO
Fri Jul 11 2008 15:18:02 ET

Many of Iran’s claims related to missile tests during “Great Prophet III” war games — appear to be smoke and mirrors!

The missiles tested DID NOT not have 2,000-kilometer range, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Saturday. 

Iran DID NOT launch a Shahab-3 missile, able to reach Israel.

It was an older missile that was out of production, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE. 

And a video showing what appeared to be many missiles being fired — is actually one missile, filmed from different angles! 

NYT’s Bill Broad is planning to quote military insiders. 

 

Developing…

This shouldn’t be a surprise – but it makes you wonder – what every happened to investigative journalism? The fact that the free press in the world thinks anything from Iran is not propaganda…

Update: It’s official – the whole thing was a bunch of crap. Here’s the full official report. (excerpt below)

WASHINGTON – Iran’s missile test this week did not demonstrate any new capabilities, according to a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence, and the test may not have included one of the longer-range missiles Iran claims was among those launched.

Iranian officials claimed the tests Wednesday and Thursday demonstrated a new variant of the Shahab missile that had a range of 1,250 miles. Such a missile would put much of the Middle East in striking distance, including Israel — as close as 650 miles from Iran — as well as Turkey, Pakistan and the Arabian peninsula.

The tests drew immediate criticism from U.S. officials. In Eastern Europe during the launches, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the missile tests underscored the need for a U.S. missile shield in the region.

But an independent national security blog, ArmsControlWonk.com, Thursday analyzed video footage of the launch posted by the Iranian government. It determined the missiles were identical to a version of the Shahab missile first demonstrated in Iran in 1998 that has a known range of 746 miles.

In a post called “Same old Boring Shahab 3,” it compared the diameter of the missile to its length and found it to be identical to the 1998 version.

Unless the Iranians built a larger missile with the same length to width ratio, dramatically improved the thrust of the rocket or decreased its internal structural mass, the missile could not achieve the range Iran claimed it did. Otherwise, it is the same knockoff of North Korea‘s Nodong-1, according to the blog.

If Mahmoud wants to sit down and chit chat with the President and other world leaders, perhaps he should start giving us some shard of evidence that he isn’t simply a blatant liar and propagandist. Otherwise – what’s the point?

Photoshop: Images of Iran’s Missile Launch [Updated]

UPDATE – Is the whole thing a hoax??

One of the images picked up (…or, did they do it?!?) by Western Media on Iran’s missile test today – clearly photoshopped:

 

What fakery?

Oh…whoops. Sorry – here’s the real one:

Yeah – nice try Iran. This Blog made a great animated gif showing the copying…

Does our western media pick this up? Nope, a bunch of dudes sitting around on their computers sipping Mountain Dew… Gotta love that!

Also: Perhaps you missed this bone-fide classic from the AFP earlier this year:

Hit her house?!?

Click the image above or go here: Two Bullets in the Hand, One Big Crock of Bull

ht [LGF]

UPDATE: Well, the Times figured it out this morning (9:33am, that’s about 12 hours at least after bloggers picked this up…)- but that wasn’t quick enough for all the other papers to run it front page:

Here’s the money quote from the NYT story: 

“Does Iran’s state media use Photoshop?” 

Hmmm…nah – they’re trustworthy…

The NYTimes folks are blaming it on the AFP – the same jokes that ran the Magic Bullet Woman story above.

EPIC FAIL for big media, EPIC WIN for bloggers.

Here’s another great post on this at Snapped Shot.