Ben Kenobi: Private Jedeye

US to spend $200 Million a Day on Obama's Mumbai Visit

From NDTV:

The US would be spending a whopping $200 million per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.

"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President.

Holy crap. Wait. Did they say 3,000 people would be going on the trip?

What the hell is this trip for, anyway? And how soon can we have another election?

Demi Lovato Now, Too?

From MTV:

Demi Lovato is currently seeking treatment for "emotional and physical issues," and the promoter behind her tour with the Jonas Brothers is sending her the best.

The article is kinda vague, but you know what is a classic emotional and physical issue?

Pregnancy.

I'm just sayin'...

I Love the Sound of Droid in the Morning

I'm an iPhone kinda guy, but I absolutely love the sound design in the Droid spots.

Miley's Mom is a Tramp Now, Too

It's not bad enough that Miley Cyrus is slowly turning into a Ke$ha and Christina Aguilera wannabe, but now she's dragging her mom down, too. I wonder who's setting the example for whom...

From UsWeekly:

The reason Miley Cyrus' parents are splitting after 17 years of marriage: Mom Tish had an affair with rocker Bret Michaels, reports the new Us Weekly (on newsstands Wednesday).

When Billy Ray learned of it — as well as at least one other fling — he filed for divorce Oct. 27, sources tell Us Weekly.

Michaels, 47, "became close to the entire family" this past February when he and Miley released the racy duet "Nothing to Lose," an insider tells Us Weekly.

You stay classy, Miley's mom. And Brett Michaels? Seriously? You traded in a '90s reject for an '80s reject?

Poor, Poor Nancy.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Nowhere will Nancy Pelosi's loss of the House speakership be felt more acutely than here in the Bay Area, where her power - and the power of fellow local Democrats in Washington - has been used to help steer hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure projects.

"Just look around," said Jim Lazarus of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. "The $400 million for the Transbay Terminal project, the Doyle Drive rebuild, the Hunters Point Shipyard cleanup. If she wasn't there, I'm not sure we would have gotten the funding, and we certainly wouldn't have gotten it as fast as we did."

And there are projects still on the table, such as the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles high-speed rail project that is just getting off the ground and looking for big federal money.

This is exactly the kind of spending that the rest of the country is in revolt about. Why the hell should all of us pay for local projects in your city. If it's such a necessity, then find a way to pay for it locally. But stop digging into my pocket because you feel like you need a new ferry terminal or need to clean up a damn shipyard.

Ugh.

Democrats Get Un-friended

Last night, the Republicans - check that - the conservatives won big. We took back the House and narrowed the gap in the Senate. By and large, it was a bad day to have a (D) next to your name if you were on the ballot. Of course, there are always a few head scratchers, such as this, and this and this and this. Seriously, people, what are you thinking???

Anyway, what struck me more than the Republican wins were the margin of victory for most Republicans:
89% to 11%
82.1% to 17.9%
64.4% to 32.2%
67.9% to 29.5%

As I posted on Facebook, that's not a landslide, it's a drubbing.

And in the down-ballot races, it was just as one-sided. In one state senate race, it was 90.5% to 9.5%.

Holy crap. Not only did the country send a message yesterday, they were out for blood. They actually wanted to punish the Democrats. And they did. Obama's agenda was on the ballot, and I'd have to say that it was met with a resounding "hell no!" And it's clear that the country is saying that the track we've been on for the past two years has got to stop. Now.

So now we have an interesting situation: Republicans now have a mandate and a majority in the House, but not the Senate. That means that it's still going to take a lot of fighting to get anything done, much less repealed. It's going to be another long two years, my friends. And it's going to get ugly.

My only hope is that the Republicans hold true to their principles this time, unlike in 1994 when,once they were elected, they abandoned their conservative message and turned into mushy, compromising, spineless moderates. But understand this: there's a new wind blowing - one of accountability and unrest. It's what gave birth to the tea party movement. And it's what will throw the Republicans back out if they go weak and abandon their principles.

Today is One of the Most Important Days of Your Life

One simple message today: VOTE!

It's raining here in Destructoville today, but even if it were flooding, that wouldn't stop me from getting out to vote. We live in civilized society. We don't take down our leaders with military force. This is the closest thing we have to a coup. Today we're going to shift our government back in the right direction. It may be a small step, and one that we will need to keep making in the coming years. This election is not the end of the work. But it's a step, at least. It's a step that will say to our government that it works for us and that constant encroachment into our freedoms, into our lives and into our wallets is NOT okay. And this message goes for both Democrats and Republicans, alike. We. Will. Throw. Your. Ass. Out.

So just remember today while you're voting what the Democrats have done to our country - done to us - and have tried to do to us in the last six years, and especially in the last two. Remember Porkulus. Remember Cap & Trade. Remember Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Remember Czars. Remember the Health Care bill. Remember all the new fees and regulations. Remember that they refused to renew the Bush tax cuts. Remember how defiant they were toward their constituents during the town hall meetings of '09 - and then refusing to have them again in '10. Remember all the handouts of OUR money. Remember the divisiveness. Remember the constant class warfare. Remember them raising the debt ceiling - twice. Remember the recession. Remember the gutting of NASA. Remember the government takeover of Ford and GM. Remember the new 1099 regualtions. Remember that Democrats exempted themselves from most of the laws they subjected us to. And remember that Obama wanted this election to be a referendum on his policies, as well. Let it.

See you on the other side of the election, friends.

Dipshits of the Day: Gizmodo

It's the day before the big election and all the nutjobs are coming out of the woodwork screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" and that if you vote Republican (or worse *gasp* conservative) that the whole world is going to explode in a fiery ball of pollution and dead baby seal carcasses. And it seems that tech site Gizmodo is no exception. Here are some excerpts from this craptastic hit piece on anything that isn't straight up the Democrats' asses, including this on NASA:

Surprise! NASA's having money problems. Republican gains in the midterm elections will likely make matters worse for the agency. After a review called it underfunded and overambitious, Obama opted to end to the Constellation program last February. In its place, the administration said it wanted to reallocate that money for new technologies and private spaceflight. The problem? Congress balked. In late September, it passed another act actually requesting funds for projects initiated under Constellation, but also granting less than half of the administration's request for private spaceflight. Now, with Congress in recess and still unable to get a revised budget, NASA is locked into its current funding level. In essence, that means the agency has to keep spending on programs that it's going to have to kill anyway, and can't start new ones. It's thought that if Democrats retain control of the Senate and House, they'll probably pass an appropriations bill to allocate additional money for NASA. And if the Republicans prevail? Well, negotiations will likely be deferred until January, when the party would take over the appropriations subcommittee.

I love that the commenters are refuting, logically, the crap that the article spews forth. Silly commenters - you can't fight hysterical bullshit with reason!

Net Neutrality is hardly neutral. This kind of title is just what George Owell was talking about in 1984. When you come upon a bill or project with such a specific name, and find it is the opposite of that name, how can you be for it? Net Neutrality is about forming a club of companies that get what they want and the government sanctions that. Vote Republican so that the free market will remain the internets rule of law.

Obama killed all of NASA’s manned space flight. The congress has an overwhelming amount of Democrats in the majority. Constitutionally the President DOES NOT spend the money nor allocate its spending. It is congress and congress alone that spends the money. Any change of Obamas proposals has been done by DEMOCRATS in congress.

Global warming due to human activity is a hoax. Everyone is starting to understand this. It was not helpful that the core temperature data that has been used in all such research has been uncovered to have been intently corrupted by the folks who have the most to gain from this hoax. The folks who did this have in fact left their posts at the University of East Anglia when their emails about this were reveled.

Lowering the tax to a proposed 5% would bring massive amounts of jobs and money to the USA. As it stands now that money and all the jobs it would bring are held overseas because the tax rate for it is the highest in the industrialized world. Putting off this transfer just makes good sense, why not wait to see if our government will change its ways and prefer jobs and some tax money rather then significantly more money then any other country.

Just as in Holland, if prop 19 should pass, and it does not look likely, the folks of California will repeal it within ten years. It might pass, but it will have the effect of strengthening our war on illegal drugs. Will it be worth a few years of pot smoking to get much harsher laws in a few years? If it should happen, enjoy it while it lasts and don’t complain that it was directly responsible for a crack down you cant even imagine.

Who is not for the miracles of our bio science industry from coming up with solutions to any disease or human malady? But what are the facts? You don’t need stem cells from dead babies to pursue this line of research, umbilical cord cells and other cells are an equivalent solution to cells from dead babies. Why are there no great breakthroughs in this research overseas where there are no restrictions? Its simple, this line of medical research is filled with mystery, it is unknown whether anything will come of it. There has been lots of talk, and I am hopeful, but, there is no there there yet. If it were proved that the cells from dead babies could actually be the key to solving just one major medical problem I think we would all choose some nebulous middle ground to help this on its way. We are not there yet and no country outside the USA has any such restrictions, so, where is the miracle?

Regarding that picture, I guess Republicans are bad in your view. Is this picture a way of starting a level headed discussions? Is there nothing wrong with this photo in your view, when connected to a discussion on political issues?

Three of the elected officials in the photo have been out of office for years and one is dead. So you had to reach back that far to find a photo you thought was a reasonable representation of Republicans in power? Senator Frist was one of the most middle of the stream Republicans in office in his time, Stevens was in love with Demarcates because they would fund anything he wanted as long has he just voted with them enough.

...and this short, yet awesome response:

1. NASA Budget: Democrats were the ones who defunded NASA, not Republicans. Because of them we don't have any plans within the next 2 decades of landing on the moon. Privatized? A corporation can't reach the moon without being accused of harming the environment and poluting the air. There's very little for a corporation to gain from attempting moon colonization. It just isn't easy, this isn't a Bond movie where an individual with enough wealth could accomplish military-like precision of reaching the moon.

2. *sigh* Really? How many times do I have to explain that not ALL stem cell research is embryonic and there's a good reason people oppose government funding of it. I've proven here: [gawker.com] that embryonic stem cell research is very far behind adult stem cell research, so why fund it when it shows very little promise to the medical community?

But I have to paraphrase another commenter: "when did I get lost and end up on MSNBC?"

Talk about the need for net neutrality. I come to Gizmodo to read tech news, not get Democrat propaganda.

Attack Ads, Old School...

Amazingly, the statements in this video are taken from statements made by, for, and against the nation's founders.

All Things Non-Christian Are Demonic

Demonic? Demonic? Really? People who aren't Christians - and entire other religions - are demonic???? I could see if he just says they're wrong, but DEMONIC????

Holy crap. What a soft-spoken, likable nut job.

RIP Pontiac

From ABC News:

The 84-year-old brand has been moribund since GM decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy and was in decline for years before that.

It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes.

...but really heavy on the poor corporate decisions side...