News Roundup for 8/3/09

Barack Obama action figure

-Headline of the day-
"Birther news site: Did Jesus reveal Obama as the antichrist?"

Barack Obama isn't just a secret illegal alien Muslim terr'ist, but he's also Satan incarnate. And probably a vampire or something.

According to a youtube video by some lunatic who goes by "ppsimmons," Obama is the antichrist and that's good enough WorldNetDaily. See, it works like this; in the book of Luke, Jesus says, "I beheld Satan as lightning fell from heaven." And that means that Barack Obama is the freakin' antichrist!

What, that's not enough? OK, in Hebrew, the word for "lightning" is "baraq" and the word for "heaven" is "bamah." Baraq Bamah, Barack Obama -- close enough. The End Times are upon us!

The problem here is that the Hebrew word for "heaven" is actually "uvamah." Barack Uvamah... still close enough. Except, as we all know, Jesus spoke Aramaic -- and who the hell knows what "heaven" and "lightning" are in that language?

Actually, I do (thanks to an online English to Aramaic Dictionary). We're looking for a guy named B'aRQaA B'aSHMaYoA. I don't think that's close enough.

It should be mentioned that WorldNutDaily recently posted a photo of Barack Obama's Kenyan birth certificate showing that he was born in the Republic of Kenya in 1961. That story lasted the five minutes it took for someone to point out that there wasn't any Republic of Kenya in 1961.

The moral of this story is that if you ever think of WND as anything other than a joke, consider it proof that you're a moron. (Raw Story)


-Michelle Malkin is stupid-
OK, not much of a newsflash, but there ya go.

Shelly was invited to be on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos this weekend, for reasons that media-watchers are still trying to figure out. Maybe the roundtable discussion hasn't included enough crazy people lately.

When the subject of extending unemployment benefits came up, Malkin said some stuff about cheese.

"If you put enough government cheese in front of people, they are just going to keep eating it and you're just kicking the can down the road," Shelly said. "And just to hammer this point about the unemployment benefits extension again, it was Larry Katz, who's a chief labor economist for the Clinton labor department, who came out with a study -- and there are a lot of these smart economists who say this -- that if you keep extending these 'temporary' unemployment benefits you're just going to extend joblessness even more."

"When host George Stephanopoulos suggested that didn't make sense, Malkin responded, 'That was a Clinton economist who said it, George,'" reports Steve Benen. "When Stephanopoulos pressed further, Malkin added that 'this Clinton economist' made the case against extended unemployment benefits."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker brought up the unfortunate fact that there are more jobseekers than jobs, so the unemployment numbers are probably not the result of sudden and rampant laziness. But Malkin wasn't having it; Clinton economist, Clinton economist, Clinton economist!

Except the Clinton economist doesn't say that. He says this:


Traditionally, many economists have been leery of prolonged unemployment benefits because they can reduce the incentive to seek work. But that should not be a concern now because jobs remain so scarce, said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard.

For every job that becomes available, about six people are looking, Dr. Katz said. “Unemployment insurance gives income to families who are really suffering and can’t find work even if they are hustling to look,” he said.

With the economy still listing, he added, a temporary extension can provide a quick fiscal stimulus. And, Dr. Katz said, when people exhaust unemployment and health insurance, many end up applying for disability benefits, which become a large, unending drain on the Treasury.


Sooner or later, Michelle Malkin's going to be right about something. The odds are just so against someone being wrong every, single time -- even if they try. If ABC News wanted Shelly to say something stupid, mission accomplished. (Political Animal)


-Bonus HotD-
"Memoir of former White House official reveals Bush thought Barney was 'the son he never had.'"

Turns out that there's "growing nervousness these days" on the right about an upcoming book by former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer. Another book from a former Bushie? Do these people really believe we don't already know how crazy Bush was?

Man, you wish thinking Barney was "the son he never had" was the worst of it. (Think Progress)