[Guest post by Aaron Worthing]

A lot of people noticed recently when the President admitted that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”  Professor Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection had fun chiding the president and more than a few people thought, “wow, it took him how many billion dollars to figure that out?”

Well, it turns out, it didn’t take as many billions as we thought.  David Brooks reveals that the President confided in him over a year ago that he knew there were no “shovel-ready” projects.  So the President has been lying to us on this point for at least a year.  This is one of many examples.

So he sold all of us on crippling debt based on lies.  He lied to sell us this (and this is a chart of the deficit, not the debt):

There is no spin possible here.  This is an outrage.

Meanwhile, at the video link above, keep watching and witness David Brooks’ cognitive dissonance.  At about the 42 second mark, he tells us for instance that “the thing that you like about this administration they can have debates and they can be honest about what the shortcomings they face.”  No, Mr. Brooks, you have just told us they are not being honest about what the shortcomings are to their policies.

(Hat tips to Michelle Malkin and Hot Air)

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing]

From a game called Medal of Honor, to real life heroes, DRJ directs us to some of the testimony in the Ft. Hood shooting case where we see some of the heroism that emerged that day.  I dare say that at least some of these acts might qualify for a medal of honor.  The money quote:

Amid the carnage described Friday were moments of heroism. Spc. Logan Burnett said he saw Capt. John Gaffaney try to attack Hasan with a chair before he was shot and killed. Burnett said he also tried to throw a folding table at Hasan, but was shot in the hip before he could throw it. Burnett was shot another two times as he crawled to safety.

CW2 Christopher Royal testified that he saw Hasan chase another soldier, Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, out of the building and shoot him before going back inside. Royal said that Hasan left the building again shortly after and began shooting at him, hitting him in the back. Royal said he saw Hasan move toward a crowded theater hosting a graduation ceremony.

“I ran to try to get there before he got there,” he said. Royal was able to tell soldiers at the theater to lock up the building.

There is plenty more coverage of the trial, here.  But the depressing thing in reading all of that is it also makes it clear how unnecessary these deaths were.  Reading of these soldiers having to hide behind locked doors, having to resort to throwing chairs in the hope of stopping him, it reminds you of an absolutely insane fact: this military base was a gun-free zone.  It illustrates exactly how easily this whole thing would have been stopped if only everyone was allowed to carry a gun.  And no, I am not the first person to notice.

From the missed warning signs to this gun-free idiocy, it is clear that our military bureaucracy failed those soldiers in Ft. Hood, not only failing to protect them but positively impairing their ability to protect themselves.  Their heroism is an indictment on that bureaucracy.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; adapted from a post at my blog]

Okay, I am really going to earn by geek card today, by talking about video games.  But these days video games are getting to be big business, and a bastion of straight-forwardly patriotic entertainment when Hollywood is incapable of producing very many movies that portray our current wars in a positive light.  One huge success has been Activison’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series.

So EA games decided they wanted to try to match that success by rebooting their Medal of Honor series.  Here’s their official box art:

And after months of anticipation, and controversy, the game has arrived, to thoroughly mixed reviews.  But Marc Ambinder discusses some of the expert consultation in the game.  It’s good to know they are investigating something over there other than Sarah Palin’s womb, and joking aside it’s an interesting piece.

The controversy, meanwhile, was over the fact that you could play in multiplayer as either the U.S. forces, or the Taliban.  Yeah, that’s right, you can pretend to be our enemies, shooting our soldiers.  I mean of course we have had that for years in other games, but I don’t believe it had ever been done in a war we were currently fighting.  They have since renamed the Taliban in multiplayer as the “opposing force.”

But I also have to suspect that the controversy was manufactured.  I remember a few years ago the Army made a game called “America’s Army” which was exclusively multiplayer, American soldiers v. terrorists.  But this being from the U.S. Government, it was unacceptable to allow players to pretend to shoot our soldiers.  So the army came up with an eloquent solution.  If you were on team A, you were told you were in the army, and your teammates would look like United States soldiers, while everyone on team B looked like terrorists.  But if you were on team B, you were also told you were in the army, all your teammates would look like soldiers, while everyone one team A looked like terrorists.  So both sides believed they were the U.S. Army, killing terrorists, at the same time.

Now these America’s Army games were a pretty big success.  Are you telling me no one at EA knew about it, and how it might be used here?  Color me skeptical.

Of course the other controversial thing about it is that they are turning a real live shooting war into entertainment.  That is obviously a questionable concept.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing]

IMAO once said that Alan Grayson (D-unce) “really is what would happen if you grabbed a random internet troll and made him a Congressman.”  To prove that theory, we are going to hit you with both barrels here, two clips of Alan Grayson.

The first one, honestly, I struggled to watch it all.  I had to stop several times in order to keep from throwing something at my screen.  And I was watching it on a laptop.  Grayson is interviewed by Ed Schultz.  Yes, Ed Schultz.  Fast Eddie recently demonstrated his lack of credibility by lying through his teeth about the size of his rally.

So it is a lying liberal love fest.  I mean it is really proof of the complete lack of integrity that Fast Eddie and Grayson have, and its frankly an embarrassment that this aired on MSNBC.  Some tidbits you learn:

• Grayson will just keep telling the truth.
• Bush was a Tea Party President, because he looked like one of them.  Yes, really.
• The Tea Party is trying to destroy America.

Mmm, I just threw up in my mouth a little just reading all that.

And as an antidote, at Big Journalism we have Anderson Cooper interviewing Grayson and pwning him. No wonder Grayson went on Schultz’s show—he is the only person unscrupulous enough not to go after Grayson for his lies  I even liked the way Cooper slammed Grayson for his first ad attacking Daniel Webster’s patriotism.  (Yes, his opponent is named Daniel Webster.)  My only critique is I wish Cooper talked about how unfair the chargers in the first ad were. But still nice going and thank you for that palate clenser.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]