Iran has launched a rocket containing a rodent, turtles and worms to 500 kilometres above the Earth.

Iranian TV reports that the Kavoshgar-3 rocket carries an “experimental capsule” holding the creatures and other experiments, which will send data back to Earth. It is the first Iranian rocket to carry animals.

Such scientific experiments will help Iran break the “global domineering system” of Western nations, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejadis reported to have said on state TV. “The scientific arena is where we could defeat the [West's] domination.”

Rest assured, comrades, this experiment is in no way intended to develop long-range warhead delivery capability, any more than acquisition of nuclear material and centrifuges is meant for anything other than peaceful energy development.

NewScientist: Iran Launches Animals Into Orbit

Today marks the 45th Anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s magnificent address at the 1964 Republican National Convention.

These are words that would not win him a Nobel Peace Prize – they did not then and they would not now. Reagan’s revolution was a revolt against the policies of appeasement that had us in a state of perpetual stalemate in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It was a stalemate in which the Soviets had gradually and consistently gained ground through subversion and deception, and used our own agreements and treaties against us.

In his Presidency, he reversed our course, from belief in a peaceful coexistence between superpowers, from “getting over our inordinate fear of Communism” as Jimmy Carter whimpered, to recognizing the Soviet Union for what it was – an ‘Evil Empire,’ a cancerous regime that could only devour more liberty as it rotted away from its own corruption. The strategy became not to contain, but to work actively to accelerate the collapse of Soviet Communism.

His ideal of ‘Freedom wins, tyranny loses’ was ridiculed for its lack of nuance. He was despised by Academia, the media, and Hollywood. Pundits spun neverending tales of the woe his “Cowboy” stance would bring upon us. And then he won.

Which Beverage Were You Drinking?

And so, dear readers, I ask you: Will you choose the deadly red Kool-Aid of Socialism, or turn once again to bold, rich Capitalist Coffee? The choice is yours.

Hat tip to The People’s Cube

Steve Wynn Continues criticism toward Obama

Steve Wynn made his views on the Obama Administration’s handling of the economy devastatingly clear on Fox News Sunday, as I posted last week.

Now, from ReviewJournal.com:

Wynn Resorts Ltd. Chairman Steve Wynn said Monday he plans to continue speaking out on what he calls the Obama administration’s mishandling of the economy.

And he believes others in the business community should be taking a similar approach.

“I feel very strongly about this, and it needs to be discussed,” said Wynn, founder and chief executive officer of the company that operates Wynn Las Vegas, Encore and a casino in Macau. “I plan on speaking up every chance I get. Every businessperson ought to speak up or things are going to get much worse.”

But he plans to do more than talk. Wynn said he may establish a political action organization within Wynn Resorts that will empower his Strip casino’s 14,000 employees.

Read the entire story…

Ken Lewis, Capitalist Boss Defeated by Pay Czar

‘Pay Czar’ Kenneth Feinberg today made use of a Constitutional ‘cheat code’ discovered by the Obama Administration, similar to those used to subvert rules in videogames to accomplish certain objectives. The exact syntax of the cheat code is classified, but it is reputed to be in the vein of “ALL YOUR WEALTHS ARE BELONG TO THE GOVERNMENT”

The cheat code was used to convince Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis to forgo pay and benefits for his last year of work at the company.

From the Guardian:

Kenneth Feinberg, the US treasury department official who is scrutinising pay packages at bailed-out banks, said that Lewis – besieged by regulatory investigations and lambasted by shareholders – should get no salary or bonus for the year. Lewis agreed.

He will pay back about $1m (£612,000) he has received so far out of a $1.5m annual salary. But the ruling does not apply to his previously negotiated retirement package, estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

Constitutional Cheat Code

Mark Lloyd, Mr. Obama’s Diversity Czar, is reported to be working on a variation of the classic “Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A” code for leftist South American leaders. Such a code may be used by the likes of Hugo Chavez and Manuel Zelaya to gain extra lives and become impervious to Contra-style constitutional democracy.

Update:
Constitutional Cheat Codes featured on The People’s Cube

Steve Wynn - For the Win!

Steve Wynn was part of a panel discussion on Fox News Sunday, hosted by Chris Wallace. Also on the panel were Democratic Governor  Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan and economist Mark Zandi.

The full transcript is here. Hat’s off to Lexonex for the similar batch of quotes.

Steve had some scalding insights into what is really going wrong with the U.S. economy, and why we’re not seeing a strong recovery. You’ll find it refreshing to hear someone who has actually created jobs go against the tide of neo-Keynesian macroecono-babble pouring through the news shows and opinion pages.

In other words, if you want to know what’s going wrong in a free market capitalist economy, ask a capitalist:

On whether we are beginning to see a turnaround (Nevada and nationwide):

No, in the sense that I think that the priorities of the administration should have been more directly focused on job creation from the day of the inauguration forward. That’s the thing that changes America.

People will buy cars in Governor Granholm’s state. They’ll buy homes they can afford. They’ll shop and they’ll have a positive attitude towards tomorrow when they’ve got a job.

Health care and all of — and all that other stimulus should have been held back, and the priority should have been job creation. And the most powerful weapon and the tool that the government has for that is its tax policy.

They seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. And if the government had used its power to restrain its tax collection, they would have given everybody who runs small businesses, large businesses, a chance to hire more people, and that could have been done in an entirely different way.

With eight or $900 billion, we could have created 4 or 500 — 4 or 5 million jobs, which would have made a big difference.

On whether we need another stimulus:

Chris, Chris, the economists have had their moment. Really, everybody who has absolutely no experience in insuring people, creating jobs, have had their moment.

And again:

The housing market — the housing market will improve when people have a job so that they can buy a home that they can afford or a car that they can afford.

The stimulus package, which is antithetical and counterintuitive to Washington, is to restrain, restrain government power. You can — the most powerful tool is tax policy.

Had the president stood up the day after he got inaugurated and said, “We’re going to pass a bill that says if you can prove to the IRS that you’ve increased your permanent employees, with health insurance, we will subsidize 30 or $40,000 of that in the form of a tax credit,” there would have been jobs created in this economy within 60 days in every corner of the economy, not just in civil construction, no, no, no, not at all.

There would have been jobs created everywhere, because businesses — you pointed out — have cut back out of fear. They’re suffering from a lack of consumer confidence. The day that that unemployment figure goes from 9.6 and climbing to 8.9 is the day that consumer confidence will return, and this country will be on its way out of the recession.

On the proper roles of government and the private sector:

Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization’s history. For some reason, that simple truth has evaded everybody.

The only thing that creates an increased standard of living is giving someone a job, the demand for their labor, whether it’s you and I, Chris, or anybody else.

The people that are paying the price for this juggernaut of federal spending are the middle class and the working class of America. And soaring rhetoric and great speeches, with or without a Teleprompter, aren’t going to change the truth. And the truth is the biggest enemy, the biggest obstacle, that working middle class America has is government spending.

Steve was challenged by the Democrat Governor, who accused him of implying that “government is all evil,” and being simplistic and unbalanced.

I didn’t say that at all. I’m saying that the source of government revenue, the source of well-being in this country, is employment. That allows companies to pay taxes, employees to pay taxes. That’s the source here. And it’s gotten out of focus….

…believe me, ma’am, I’ve got 20,000 employees. I’ve had as many as 150,000 families that I’ve been self-insuring. There’s nothing simplistic about my approach to this problem.

On health care, and developing in China:

Well, health care, something I know about, is a complicated technical issue for which practically everybody in this administration has absolutely zero experience. It was not a priority.

Job creation was the priority from the day that this president was inaugurated. It has been eclipsed by a technical, confusing conversation in which hardly anybody has read the small print on a thing called health care.

That’s a proper subject, along with infrastructure, for a healthy economy. But infrastructure and health care are things that come later. Right now our concentration should be on job creation…

I’m grateful that I’m in China generating foreign currency. But my decision — I hired — I’m the only one in Nevada so far — I hired 5,000 people this year. My return on investment is not exactly handsome. I’ve never laid off anybody in 40 years.

But if this president and this administration and Nancy Pelosi get their way, I and all other employees — employers like myself will be hit, with my employees, with a barrage of taxes that will result in more layoffs, that will not be helpful, and will be counterproductive to the very goal that we should have as a nation.

Final Thoughts, including the money quote of the show, in my opinion (emphasis added):

[It is a] Punishing attitude — take it to the government, we know what’s best. I don’t think they do. I think these are complicated subjects. Job creation, the chance to build more cars, comes from people having a job. Focus on that simple truth. Simple truths hold institutions together. We’ve lost our focus, and that’s my opinion.

Amazing thoughts by an amazing guy. The next time you hear a pundit or economist, macro or otherwise, give you his or her insight into creating jobs, think of whether or not you can truly call it “insight” if the person has never actually created a job.

Read more about Steve Wynn on Wikipedia.

Barack Obama and His Medals

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today. He was selected over Sima Samir, Afghan women’s rights activist, and both Hu Jia and Wei Jingsheng, who have served time in prison for criticizing communism in China. While the others were nominated for accomplishments in the real actual world, the Nobel Committee took note of Mr. Obama’s speeches, handshakes, bowing skills, Hopeychangeyness, ability to convice a crowd they could lower sea levels, and not being George W. Bush.

We have taken the liberty of projecting Mr. Obama’s second and third Nobel Prizes, as demonstrated in the following headlines from the future:

2013: Barack H. Obama Awarded Second Nobel Peace Prize. Cited were his accomplishments in installing Taliban government in Afghanistan. Sima Samir, who could not be identified in sea of burquas, was unable to comment.

2019: Barack H. Obama Awarded Third Nobel Peace Prize, for being a former U.S. President not named George W. Bush. This comes on the heels of the 10th annual U.S. celebration of Chinese Communism ascendancy, which began in his watch. Also notable is the 30th anniversary of the Tianenmen Square massacre. Hu Jia, still in prison for criticizing the Chinese government, was unable to comment. Also unable to comment was Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, who is currently in prison for crimes of criticizing income redistribution and failure to enroll in a healthcare plan, both of which became crimes in Mr. Obama’s Presidency.

Ed Driscoll: Woody Allen Was Wrong – Showing up is 100% of Success

Hugh Hewitt: Congratulations, Mr. President, but…

Jonah Goldberg: Hilarious and Sad

Mark Steyn: Nobel Peace Bribe

Roundup from Glenn Reynolds – InstaPundit

Times Online: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize

John Podhoretz: Barack Obama is the Michael Moore of Oslo