* Obama has a new jobs plan he says he thinks could add up to one million new jobs. When asked why didn’t he unveil this plan sooner then, Obama said, “Because I didn’t think people could handle that many awesome jobs.” And when asked if these would be those invisible type jobs where he says he added them but the unemployment rate doesn’t go down, Obama said, “Hey! Some people would be happy for magic jobs!”

When Obama calls presses conferences to announce stuff, the reporters need to just stop showing up. We really have to stop encouraging him.

* Rick Perry is already responding to the dumb charges against him of being dumb with the obvious response: Pointing to Obama and his performance with the economy and wondering if that’s supposed to be the benchmark for smart. Do people really think the vague charges of dumb are going to work against a Republican when there is stark evidence of dumb for Obama?

“Wow, that Republican is a drooling moron.”

“Well, I believe he had a spike that went through his head and took out a quarter of his brain.”

“He’s barely coherent.”

“Yeah, I even saw him trying to eat a book.”

“He should be at least ten times better a president than Obama, though.”

“Oh, yes; indisputably.”

* So Canada is getting oil from tar sands. I don’t know what that means, but it’s got a lot of protesters so it must be extremely useful to society while being fairly innocuous to the environment. And the Canadians are striking back in an ad campaign, pointing out that if we get oil from Saudi Arabia, we fund oppression of women, but if we get oil from Canadian tar sands, all we fund is weird hockey obsessions. So there’s the choice: Do we help stop oppression of people by moving away from Saudi oil or do we stop… whatever bad thing whiny actors think getting oil from the tar sands is supposed to cause. I’m going to vote we do the thing that helps people. And gives us more oil.

* BTW, Vice President Biden has said that failing to invest in clean-energy technology would be “the biggest mistake this nation has made in its entire history”. Hmm… can you think of any other big mistake in American history? Martin Luther King, can you think of anything? No, I guess we’ve got a pretty good record, so not working on clean-energy would certainly be our biggest mistake.

Rick Perry sure is dumb.

* So some supposed election expert is predicting Obama has the election in the bag. Apparently, he’s predicted every election since 1984 using his formula. He has thirteen keys, and if a candidate gets six of them, that candidate wins. It’s really stupid. For one thing, every keys is equal, so huge unemployment, huge debt, and the S&P downgrade are just one strike against Obama of equal weight to him not being contested in his own primary. And for some reason he wins the key “Major domestic-policy changes in his first term” despite everyone hating all his major policies.

Now, I don’t usually try to do political predictions because I consider that witchcraft, but maybe I’ll make my own list of keys. A candidate needs to score well on these to ensure reelection:

– Doesn’t keep interrupting prime time TV to say nothing of interest to anyone.

– Has at least some idea what he’s doing.

– Doesn’t spend half the day with a bucket stuck on his head.

– Can pronounce “corpsman”.

– Doesn’t keep claiming to pivot to jobs eighty times while doing nothing useful.

– Doesn’t have giant Dumbo ears.

Ooh. Not looking so good for Obama on these points. Science!

* The Navy is working on a new stealth boat. I e-mailed Aquaman for comment, and here’s his response:

Bah! I mock and deride their “stealth” boat. No matter what people do to try and hide, my fish friends will find you and tell me about you. And then I’ll call the appropriate authority to handle you, as boats aren’t really my thing. I deal with things underwater, not above water. Though I also don’t deal with submarines; I consider those like an embassy of above waterness, so they’re also out of my purview. But if an octopus is robbing someone, I’m there.

That’s what I think of the Navy’s stealth boat.

* So the federal government is going after a guy who shot and killed a grizzly bear to protect his family. The state officials — and anyone who isn’t a heartless bureaucrat — thought the shooting was completely justified; you know a bear — on someone’s property near children — that’s the sort of thing a sensible person shoots. But the federal government, so concerned for our safety and wisely spending our money, has decided to pursue this case so society doesn’t break out into a fit of bear-murder. So, the Obama administration is not going to worry about illegal immigrants, but try and protect your family from a wild animal and they’re all over stopping that.

Never trusted bears, anyway. Their diet is mainly berries and fish, and yet they’re these giant killing machines. What is up with that? And am I now going to get a knock on my door from the feds for asking these questions? They’re not on our side; they’re on the side of the bears.

* So Obama’s working on a new jobs plan. He’s worked on lots of jobs plans before, but this time is different: He’s going to put his plan in a red binder instead of the usual green binder he’s used in the past. It’s a bold move, but will it get results? Probably not; Obama hasn’t had a very close relationship with results. Him and results are kind of estranged. Actually, a couple of times Obama has seen results on the street and has yelled out, “Hey, results! It’s me, Obama!” And results just kept walking and acted like it didn’t see him.

But Obama and spending are good friends; maybe those two can make something happen. Who wants more spending? No one? Well, too bad.

* I notice they have this fancy work for trying to reduce spending: “austerity.” Why do we need exotic terms for trying to balance the budget? Shouldn’t that just be normal and anything else called “FAIL”, i.e., “Obama’s proposing some FAIL policies.”

* Michelle Bachmann joked about the earthquake and hurricane being a warning from God about D.C.’s spending, and people took it seriously and freaked out because you have to freak out about something. Still, it’s pretty obvious God’s position on debt. Just take Proverbs 22:7 for instance:

“The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender.”

Of course, when the economy collapses like it does, hitting us with an earthquake as a warning is just overkill.

* Wikileaks has dumped a whole bunch more documents, and these ones include diplomatic sources the government was trying to protect. You know, in the movies, the CIA is always being evil and murdering people to cover things up, but why hasn’t this happened with the Wikileaks people? Did Obama defang them and forbid evil murders? Poor CIA; they just get kicked around these days.

* Dick Cheney offered to resign as vice president three times. Of course, each time Cheney had a shotgun in hand and the Secret Service were shouting at George W. Bush, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”

* Al Gore wants to treat skeptics of global warming as racists, and skeptics of global warming want to treat Al Gore as a fat weirdo. Let’s see which view become more popular in the mainstream.

BTW, here’s a must-see takedown of Al Gore from the Glenn Beck radio show.

* The Democrat running for Anthony Weiner’s seat was asked how big the nation’s debt was, and he guessed $4 trillion. He’s running for Congress and he had to guess how big the debt is. And his guess was off by $10 trillion. Do you ever get the feeling the Democrats don’t take this debt thing very seriously? You’d think maybe after the credit downgrade, they’d think that maybe it’s worth looking into, but apparently some Democrats don’t even think it’s important enough to know the correct order of magnitude of the debt. This is like running for Congress during WWII and when asked who we’re at war with, the candidate answered, “Someone in Europe — Finland maybe.”

I’ve made this point before and I’m going to keep making it: The people we send to D.C. are really really dumb and really really useless. That’s why it’s crucial to give them as little power as possible, and certainly as little spending power as possible.

* Do you know yesterday was the “Summer Bank Holiday” in the UK? I mean, they don’t even try to come up with a pretense for a holiday. They’re just like, “We’re a bank, we like being closed a lot, and it’s the summer.” I mean, we have next Monday off for “Labor Day”, but we at least named it to act like it’s actually about something. No one actually knows what the holiday celebrates, but at least we pretend.

* Obama’s illegal alien uncle was arrested in Massachusetts for drunk driving. I remember that Obama also had an illegal alien aunt in this country to. I bet there is going to be a lot of pressure on immigration official to deport as many Obamas as they are legally able.

* There’s some talk about extending legal protection to ugly people. How about just handing out free paper bags with eye holes in them?

* Though it didn’t get great reviews, I’ve really enjoyed Resident Evil: The Mercenaries for 3DS and played it a ton. What’s it really made me want to do, though, was go back and replay Resident Evil 4, which I owned for both Gamecube and Wii and probably ranks in my top five all time favorite games. Resident Evil 5 was pretty good and seemed to follow in the same vein as Resident Evil 4, but there was just something off about it where it just seemed like a pale imitation of Resident Evil 4. Even disregarding the forced co-op throughout the game that everyone complained about, the way it was setup — the level structure or something — just never felt as immersive as Resident Evil 4. It was more like playing through levels of an action game than being in a Resident Evil game. The 3DS will be getting it’s own full-fledged Resident Evil game next year, so high hopes they get that one right. And bring back zombies.

* So I guess hurricane Irene was overhyped, but Katrina was overhyped too (remember when it was tens of thousands dead and people were turning to cannibalism?) so that doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t bad. Still, when you hear that Washington D.C. is getting hit with a earthquake and a hurricane within a week, it sounds like God is finally deciding to lay down His wrath on them, but from the results it doesn’t look like His heart was into it.

* People are acting like it’s a big deal that Rick Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, but could someone explain to me how in any way it’s not a Ponzi scheme? There are no actual investments in it, and if new people stopped paying into it, it would stop being able to pay out, i.e. it’s completely dependent on new investors to keep the image of stability making it a text book Ponzi scheme. The big difference between it and other Ponzi schemes is that the government forces you to pay into it, so it doesn’t matter if you know it’s a scam. And the big difference between politicians and Bernie Madoff is that Madoff probably had more respect for other people’s money.

* In more Rick Perry news (I’m guessing we’re going to see a lot of Rick Perry in the near future), he’s billed the federal government $349 million for the cost of Texas having to deal with illegal immigrants. But if everyone sues the government for incompetency, then soon it will be bankrupt and… actually then probably have the same or better in levels of competency. This is an idea we should run with.

* If you were thinking liberals might finally get in more touch with reality to be competitive in 2012, here’s Jonathan Alter with an article demanding people prove Obama’s been a bad president. I guess by his logic you’re a great president until proven incompetent or something. See, I would have thought the burden of proof would be on Obama that he’s actually ever done anything useful, but what do I know; I’m not a partisan nutjob. Anyway, I guess this will be their 2012 campaign slogan: “9% unemployment, skyrocketing debt, leadership that consists of repetitive, pointless speeches — but you can’t prove he’s a bad president!”

* Actually, here’s about as close as you will get to objective proof in these sort of matters: A comparison of Reaganomics and Obanomics. Both had inherited an economic mess, both had huge unemployment at about this time in their presidency, but one cut taxes while the other just spent and spent and spent and expanded government. And only one had GDP growth skyrocketing by reelection time. But those Keynesians sound so smart! They’re plans would totally work if we were attacked by space aliens.

* Inside of compound of Libyan leader Qdaffy, they found an album filled with photos of Condoleeza Rice. Everyone always thought Qdaffy was a weirdo, but it ends up he’s just like the rest of us.

* So far, the Obama administration hasn’t been seizing people’s guns like they feared — in fact, they’ve even given out guns to Mexican drug cartels — but now the Obama administration has started confiscating axes. The U.S. Justice Department raided Gibson, accusing it of having exotic wood, to which Gibson replied, “That’s what she said.” So Obama’s connecting with the young people by declaring war on rock & roll. Actually, does that pop garbage kids listen to even have guitars in them? KIDS THESE DAYS AND THEIR MUSIC!!!

* I finished reading the Hunger Games series at SarahK’s recommendation, and while I could nitpick it to death (so much important stuff was told instead of shown and why in a book about people fighting to the death was a stylist such a prominent character? Oh yeah; because it was written by a woman), it was overall very engrossing and I highly recommend it.

BTW, I’m trying to read more since it’s kind of silly that I’m trying to write scifi and fantasy but barely ever read any myself as an adult. What do you guys recommend in current fiction? I like stuff that’s fun and not so ponderous. For now, I’ve started John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.

* Make sure you read my column that was posted on Pajamas Media yesterday. In it, I apply the Coolidge Test and see whether a sack of hammers would have performed better, worse, or about the same as Obama in the various challenges he’s faced. Not to reveal too much, but SACK OF HAMMERS 2012!!!

* The GDP has gone up — 1%! You may think that’s not very much, but it’s better than going down 1%. In fact, it’s two percent points better than going down one percent. Math is fun.

At this rate, we’ll climb out of this hole by… Well, I’m not sure we’re beating inflation. Still, the point is, you can’t have a recession with positive growth. So as long as the economy can cling to growth above 0%, Obama can campaign on “Only one huge recession under my watch.”

* A giant hurricane is headed to DC and New York City. They’re not used to that sort of thing, and since I’ve lived through three major hurricanes, I thought I’d give them some tips. First off, whatever you’re doing to incur God’s wrath, just stop it for a little while. Second, don’t make eye contact with the hurricane. Finally, remember that the most important thing about a hurricane is to have fun.

Anyway, here’s some old posts I did on hurricanes. Here’s a Know Thy Enemy post on hurricanes from over eight years ago (hmm, I guess I used to use language like that; what a little scamp I was). And here’s Hurricane preparedness tips from nearly six years ago. Wow; I bet my archives is full of junk like this.

* Someone in the military felt the need to write an editorial about how Rick Perry doesn’t speak for the military. There are a lot of people in the American military, so if your really look around, you’re going to find one or two liberals. I think the biggest tip off this is a knee-jerk liberal screed is this paragraph:

Please explain to me how a fourth-grade science teacher is less patriotic than a drill sergeant in Killeen, Texas. Or how a social worker who helps single mothers in East Los Angeles is less patriotic than a convoy driver in Baghdad. Please explain how a fire fighter in Boston is less qualified for political office only because she has not volunteered for military duty.

I guess to the first question, what does teaching science have to do with patriotism? To second, are we talking an ACORN type social work? To the last, notice how the theoretical Boston fire fighter had to be a she — probably because he didn’t know how to subtly throw in that the fire fighter is a handicapped minority.

Also, there’s this line: “I would like to ask Perry how strength, character and altruism are missing in the day-to-day work of a community organizer in Chicago.” Only a fringe element of the American public could say that sentence with a straight face.

Anyway, they point of the article is to downplay military service as a qualification for a politician. Of course, not very long ago, liberals were calling anyone not in the military on the Republican side a chickenhawk. They were also finding the few liberal military people they could and putting them as prominent as they could. In fact, in 2004, they did a whole campaign based on portraying John Kerry as a war hero (didn’t work out great). But now they have some guy trying to argue that working at the DMV is equivalent to a U.S. Marine risking his life for the country. Seems rather incoherent, which brings me to a point that should often be repeated: The left has no coherent political philosophy. Everything for them is based on “this is our side and that’s the other side we have to defeat”. So they’ll twist themselves in knots making something a virtue one day and a liability the next. Don’t be like them. Don’t give up your principles to argue for one politician and to downplay another because all politicians are idiots and just aren’t worth it.

And I thank Dan Futrell for his service. I don’t thank the science teacher.

* CERN has found out that cosmic rays are the biggest contributor to cloud formation and thus the largest factors in setting climate temperatures. And since the sun modulates cosmic rays, it’s the biggest factor in our climate. So basically, scientists spent years studying tiny particles to figure out that the giant nuclear furnace in the sky is the biggest effect on the earth’s temperature. Great job, scientists!

* Scientists have found a planet that is basically a giant diamond with five times the diameter of earth. How many carats is that? They say it’s about as massive as Jupiter which is 1.8986×10^27 kg, and a carat is 200 mg, so… about 9.8 nonillion carats. Yeah, that’s the name of an actual number. Math is fun.

This is the sort of news we need to get private exploration: There’s gold and diamonds out there! Of course, this planet is 4,000 light-years away, so we to find stuff closer… like on Mars or in the asteroid belt. Eventually we’ll mine all of space; it’s got to be filled with riches. And hopefully we’ll find life on other planets because that might mean those planets have oil. I just have a feeling we’ll be getting to Star Trek times and our warp drives we’ll be running on diesel while we say to ourselves, “Any day now, we’re going to perfect a renewable fuel source. Now let’s play laser tag with our phasers set to stun.”

* New Crowder video! Time to go green with Crazy Pete:

Them curly light bulbs are weird and scary.

* Friend of IMAO author Mike Z. Williamson has a short story available as free download from Baen if you’re looking for some weekend reading material.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Pandas seem kind of tired of fighting this whole extinction thing. We should probably hurry and take more photos.” –Tim Siedell