Carolina upholds ACC's honor

I'm going to digress from politics for one post, and give a big shout out to the University of North Carolina football team, who upheld the tainted honor of the ACC by beating the crap out of Rutgers last night.

With only Wake Forest beating a BCS conference school til last night (Ole Miss), the ACC was teetering on being laughable if they couldn't beat a Big East also ran. Of course, we have seen why those NC schools don't want to schedule East Carolina.

When Georgia Tech (my alma mater) with a new coach, and new offensive scheme, is being discussed as a favorite for the Coastal Division championship, that should tell you how bad the ACC is in football this year. We'll know a lot more about that tomorrow, when Tech faces Virginia Tech on the road.

So, kudos Tar Heels and prepare to lose November 8th.

end...

Dems are starting to worry

With today's Gallup poll showing the generic Congressional ballot narrowing to a 48%-45% lead for Dems, you can bet a lot of Democrats are worrying that 0bama is going to be a drag on the ticket. Among likely voters, the generic vote has the Republican candidate leading 50% to 45%. That should be a warning for the 18% approved Congress.

Since I'm in Virginia this weekend, I happened to just see a Jim Gilmore for Senate ad that is actually tying his opponent, Mark Warner, to Barack Obama. Now, this might be a bit of a long-shot for Gilmore, who trails Warner badly in the polls and in money (the NRSC is not giving him money, because he says they're broke, more likely because he's a lost cause), but, it indicates that Gilmore, at least, thinks 0bama is likely a liability for Warner in Virginia.

How come in Virginia, with all the military population, we can't get better candidates than Gilmore? Or, is Warner just a phenomenon of the modern Democrat party -- rich guy who buys his way to power, and the easiest way to power these days is via the Democratic party?

end..

McCain is computer illiterate? Shocking![updated]

Updated: New text in red bold italic

Apparently, the 0bama campaign is writing off the over 65 vote. Today, they released this video, which slams McCain for being computer-illiterate.



Well, so what, so here's a 72 year old guy and he's computer illiterate? So what? Did Barack Obama ever land a fighter on the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier? I didn't think so, that takes something Barack doesn't have.

I have news for you, 0, I work in the I/T industry, and there are plenty of people under 65, and 55, and 45, and 35, who are computer loons. Believe me, I work with these people everyday. They're intelligent (mostly), sales reps (mostly), executives (nearly universally, unless they're in the tech industry), and they actually have better things to do than learn computers - like make money and decisions mostly.

Sure, the 2-25 crowd is perfectly familiar with computers. So what? How many 14 year olds are you going to get to vote for you? McCain doesn't need to learn anything about a PC. He has staffers for that.

Anyway, here's my idea for a rebuttal to the 0 ad, which starts "A lot has changed since 1982..."

"A lot has changed since 1973...the year Joe Biden was sworn in for his first of six terms in the Senate (show picture of Biden and his hairplugs).

"John McCain was released after 6 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, tortured so badly he can't lift his hands above his head to this day (video of McCain's release)...

"A lot has changed since 1988, the year Barack Obama first sat down in this man's church (show picture of J. Wright saying 'God damn America')...

"John McCain was establishing his conservative credentials pushing for fiscal responsibility in Congress (show some newspaper article of McCain supporting Gramm-Rudman).

"A lot has changed since 1995, when Barack Obama was first meeting with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers (show great picture of Ayers and Dohrn in their hippie days)...

"While John McCain was earning the 'maverick' level by supporting legislation that was unpopular in his own party (not sure we need to remind republicans that McCain-Feingold was going on here, LOL).

"A lot has changed since 2005, when Barack Obama was getting a sweetheart land deal from indicted Chicago developer, Tony Rezko (insert sinister mugshot of Rezko here)

"And John McCain was working to get Samuel Alito and John Roberts confirmed as Supreme Court justices.

"A lot has changed in our world in the last 35 years. What hasn't changed is that John McCain will put this country first as he has done his entire life."

Obama is Jesus?

Wow! The Democrats are completely off their rockers!

In a chorus of talking points, the last couple of days they have seized upon the idea of 0bama as "community organizer" just the same as Jesus.

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) put it best, when he said, "Madam Speaker, I know Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is a personal friend of mine. Sen. Obama is no Jesus Christ." Here's another good analysis.

I don't know what religion these guys are following, but to compare the Son of God, and Savior of Mankind to a "community organizer" should be something that Christians of all colors, genders, and sexual orientations should find insulting to their intelligence and faith.

To complete their analogy, they liken Pontius Pilate to Governor Sarah Palin, with the talking point that Pilate was also a governor.

Now, I don't know what Democrats suddenly have against governors, but I'd like to ask my democrat friends, how can democrat governors absolve themselves of their sins of governance? Is it enough for someone, as Evan Bayh, former governor of Indiana, has done, to be elected to the legislative branch? Is Senator Bayh now immune from future charges that he is Pilate? Or, does the governor tag stay with him his entire career, and now makes him ineligible for national office (at least for the VP or President's job).

If the democrats really believe this, then I call on ALL democrat governors to immediately resign, so as to protect themselves from becoming Pontius Pilate's. Turn these jobs over to Republicans immediately, since we all know that republicans are evil, nasty people, who want to order the murder of our Lord.

Could this be the hidden reason why 0bama passed over Tim Kaine, the aforementioned Evan Bayh, and Kathleen Sebelius?

end...

Biden. Brain dead?

You have to wonder, reading this, is Joe Biden suffering from Alzheimer's or some other age-related affliction?

My "Neighborly" Tax Plan

0bama speaking to O'Reilly really hit the skids talking about socialism and "neighborliness" and telling the rich they need to give more to waitresses (I didn't realize the rich were such poor tippers!). See the video




I have been pondering this tax idea for a while, but, since 0bama thinks we should be more "neighborly" I want to propose this modification to our tax tables to make them more "neighborly:"

Whatever the tax bracket you're in, take the last 1/3 of the taxes you pay, and, instead of paying them to the Federal Government to redistribute, let the taxpayers themselves decide how to distribute them to charities of their choice.

I suggest the United Way administer this program. That way, in our neighborliness, we could target the final 1/3 of our taxes to organizations that want to receive them, can receive them, and would put them to good use, frequently even in our own "neighborhoods." And, they would get more of the money to people who could use it than the redistributionists in Congress, and we might feel better about sending in our money to be redistributed, if we had some say in it.

And, for those liberals, who feel that the Feds are the best positioned to apportion their money, they can choose the government, instead of the charity(ies) of their choice.

The rich might not feel so bad giving all that extra money that way, since they do it anyway.

Come on, 0bama, don't you think that is pretty darn neighborly?

I even have a name for my bill: "The Mr. Rogers Tax Reform of 2009"

More on pigs and fish

Ok, by now, you've all probably seen the internet ad, "Lipstick" that the McCain/Palin campaign put out in response to Barack 0's Pigs/Lipstick comments on Tuesday.

The media are abuzz over whether Barack intended this as a slam on Palin, and Barack was even crying "Enough" over the uproar. When I first heard this, I thought it wasn't intended as a poke at Palin, and, I don't think he thought it would be perceived that way. However, there were two comparisons made, and only the Pig/Lipstick one is getting the outrage, but the second one was,

"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

These were prepared remarks, Obama didn't just pick these idioms out of thin air (he's not really capable of that in a speech).

He meant the lipstick pig remark to apply to Palin, and he meant the "old fish" remark to apply to John McCain.

So, Obamaniacs, let's be honest here with each other, 0bama has decided to get nasty, by taking gratuitous swipes at the female VP candidate and the Presidential candidate by calling him an "old" guy.

This 0bama is really all about the politics of change, isn't he?

My rebuttal to a rebuttal on energy plans

From my co-worker who says he's a "moderate" in response to my energy policy comparison:

"The good news is at least this topic is getting some serious attention. Our lack of a robust energy policy is not only short sighted it is a huge national security issue.

"Some rebuttals:

"Gov. Palin calls oil company “windfall profits” tax a “clear and equitable share” tax. Last year she gave Alaskans an extra $1200 due to increased oil revenues. I guess McCain will put a stop to this?"

My reply:
Actually, the extra $1200 was to offset higher oil prices. Alaskans have received money from the state’s oil royalties since oil was discovered in 1976 on the North Slope. McCain can’t put a stop to this, since it’s a state decision, not a federal one (and sharing mineral revenue with the population is in the Alaskan Constitution). I’m okay if Obama wants to give me $1000. I’m not sending it back, but I think this move on the federal level is pandering for votes. At least in Alaska, where it’s cold and home heating oil is expensive, they can make a rational argument for giving the people more, in a one-time payment. Plus, what Palin did really isn’t the same as what Obama is proposing, as the source of the money is not a “windfall profits tax.” My understanding of ACES is that the money is coming in anyway, due to a restructuring of the tax, and this $1200 is just going to the people of Alaska, vice the state treasury. My reading of the facts could be wrong, but I think this article gives some explanation. Also, you can look at the actual description of the "Alaska Clear and Equitable Share" tax program on the State of Alaska’s web site.

He goes on:
"Higher MPG standards will improve our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and will reduce emissions"

My reply:
I think I agreed with that statement. I also posited that an unintended consequence of higher fuel mileage standards might be to cause the prices of smaller vehicles to increase and lead people to hold on to their less efficient cars longer. McCain says he wants to more effectively penalize automakers for failing to comply with existing CAFÉ standards. Sort of like immigration, what’s the point of new laws if we don’t enforce the existing ones?

He continues:
"McCain’s $300m prize is just a gimmick since many companies are already working on better batteries and they will make a bunch of money on a market hungry for this technology. But hey, go for it dude."

My reply:
And an extra incentive might not be enough to spur development by some new entrepreneur? This has worked in the past in the aviation industry, why not try it with battery technology? Sure, it’s a gimmick, but $300M is small gimmick.

He says:
"The issue with oil company land leases is why do you want more when you aren’t using the ones you have?"

I say:
Oil companies pay for these leases, if they can’t get oil out economically, or they find that the reserves on the leased land are not worth the effort, they don’t drill. Plus, the bigger problem is that much of the known oil reserves are not on those leased lands, and many of the leases are in deep water areas, while the oil companies would prefer to drill in shallower-water areas that are not available to them now (these are parts of the acreage being held back by Congress). 97% of offshore areas are not leased, and 94% of onshore areas. How much oil do those contain, and when can we tap it? The clock won’t start at all if the Feds don’t move on leases.

Congress is welcome to say “Hey, Big Oil, you have leases that may be potentially valuable, but they will cost you more money than drilling in the other areas we’re holding back, but, hey, at $135/bbl, you can make it profitable, so go do it, pretend these other areas don’t exist.”

Congress can say that, and they’re welcome to, but I don’t think it’s a politically sound judgement for them. But, hey, they’re democrats, they can do what they want.

He says:
"The whole “drill here, drill now” thing is another gimmick since: 1) It will be years before any new oil sources hit the market,"

I say:
The clock ticks with every passing day….but, if you believe that oil speculators have anything to do with the run-up in prices, then signaling an intent to drill , without even taking one bbl of oil out of the ground, would have an impact on speculators(and, indeed, it has). The fact that something takes time used as a reason NOT to act? Is this conversation at your house, Mama: “Honey, I want to have a baby.” Daddy: “Oh, honey, I’m sorry, but it takes 9 months, when they have the technology to deliver that baby tomorrow, then we’ll do it.”

He says:
"2) All the best estimates are the US has only a small fraction of the reserves compared to our demand"
I reply:
We don’t have to satisfy all our oil needs to have a measurable impact on the market. Granted, we have to add to the world market a significant amount of oil to move the price meter, but we don’t have to be self-sufficient, though it would be nice to be able to theoretically say we could supply all of our energy needs, which is what we’re shooting for anyway Why not get the oil that is recoverable out as soon as possible, while we pursue other avenues – cellulosic ethanol, natural gas, biodiesel? What’s the harm in that? Those technologies will not be widely exploited overnight, either.

He says:
"3) New US oil supplies will go on the open market to the highest bidder so US oil will not necessarily go into US cars."

I say:
The highest bid will be less with more supply. But, I agree (I think) with your point, the thought that we’re going to close the walls and be self-sufficient and charge $0.25/gal is idiocy. But, we can affect the price of oil by adding to the supply.

Speaking of earmarks...and pigs...and lipstick...

It didn't get much airplay, but the watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste, issued their report on top earmarkers a couple weeks ago. The results:

• Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) 2007 rating was 10 percent, making his lifetime score 18 percent. The 2008 Congressional Pig Book contained 53 earmarks worth $97.4 million for Sen. Obama, including $1,648,850 for the Shedd Aquarium.
  
• Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) received the worst possible rating in 2007 with 0 percent, while his lifetime rating is 22 percent. According to the Pig Book, Sen. Biden had 70 earmarks for a total of $119.7 million in fiscal year 2008, including $246,100 for the Grand Opera House in Wilmington.
  
• Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) received a score of 100 percent and has a lifetime rating of 88, has never requested nor received a single earmark, and has pledged to veto any spending bill that contains any earmarks. (Sen. McCain was only present for 11 of the 35 Senate votes that CCAGW tallied. Therefore, he was not eligible for the Taxpayer Super Hero Award)

And, in case you missed it, 0bama got $3.4M in earmarks for Joe Biden's lobbyist son's clients.

In this December 2007 article (so, before anyone could accuse her of posturing to be VP), the Seattle Times reports that the Alaska governor's office (that'd be Sarah Palin) was asking for far fewer earmarks to restore Alaska's image. Clearly, Sarah Palin was out ahead on this issue, despite the protestations of the pork-meisters in the Congressional delegation (all Republicans, by the way).

You know, 0bama is right, no matter how much you put lipstick on it, it really is still a pig!

Why the Left needs to fear the unscripted Palin

By special request, I eased my derision of J-school graduates in this version.

This weekend started the inevitable cry on the Left about when would Sarah Palin face the scrutiny of the MSM on their Sunday shows or their dumb press availabilities.

The (all-knowing) Left thinks that because Sarah is a former small town mayor, and governor of a red, small, gun-loving, outdoorsperson-friendly state like Alaska, that she's an uneducated rube who won't be able to hold her own against the intellgentsia as embodied in the MSM's chattering class.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am not a fan of the people who choose journalism as their careers. J-schools are made up of underachievers (with a few exceptions) and a few idealists who think they're going to change the world by joining the noble call of the 4th estate. They're indoctrinated by liberal professors into the the club and pretty soon they're all aglow with the righteous indignation they usually scoff at when presented by the religious (or the pious, as Cynthia Tucker might call them). At the national talking head level, we mix these folks who have come up through the ranks with refugees from politics (the Russerts, Snuffs, Kristols, Matthews, et.al.) and we have a bunch of egotistical blowhards who think they are smarter than any small-town mayor or little state governor.

The reality is some of those blowhards are actually smart (and they'll tell you so, just like Joe Biden), but, most of those toiling a layer below these guys (the Cynthia Tucker's of the world), are not as smart as they want to believe.

Anyway, they misunderestimate Sarah and the reason is the same one that led them to not get Ronald Reagan. People see in Palin that she stands for something, that she has honed her core beliefs, and she actually holds them dear to her.

For her, answering questions from the MSM is not going to pose a problem. She will answer truthfully and her answers won't need scripting. She will answer from her core beliefs and she'll mean what she says. She won't have to stammer around wondering how it's going to sound, or what the "correct" answer is, because she already has the confidence that people know what her views are, largely share them, and she can just be herself, which is what we ask, just as we asked Reagan to just be himself.

See, we knew who Reagan was. We knew his core, because we shared his core, and, when he spoke, he spoke from that core, and it was usually good to hear.

I think Americans, and the conservative movement, sense that same core in Sarah Palin, and we're excited that she's one of us, and she will, I pray, and ask you to also, speak from her core and not fear the ramifications.

This is something the average Liberal politician can't understand, nor can their sycophants in the MSM. It drove them nuts about Reagan, and it will drive them nuts about Palin. They'll say, "How can she say all these outrageous things against Liberal heterodoxy and get away with it?" and they'll be dumbfounded. Those that share her views will love her absolutely, and those that don't share all her views and aren't died-in-the-wool Kossacks, will respect a leader who speaks honestly and from the heart, and they'll decide, that despite the fact that they don't agree 100%, they want someone who speaks honestly to them, and brings their heart to the game.

Libs, be very careful what you ask for.

Important Political Message

Watch this commercial, I command you! Pass it along to your friends.

Too bad he didn't vote "Present"

You know, Barack 0bama should think before he speaks.

The latest DNC and 0 campaign talking point is that Sarah Palin was for the "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it.

As has been detailed, Palin cancelled the "Bridge" project after Congress released the money to be spent as the state saw fit, vice as "earmarked" (get it?) for the bridge. She did this over the objections of the AK Congressional delegation and it is for that she's lauded - taking on Ted Stevens and the AK pork crew.

Of course, when you're a Senator, as the other three candidates are, you have a record, and in this case, both 0bama and his running mate, Mr. Biden, voted FOR the bridge, twice. They voted for a bunch of other earmarks, as well.

McCain, on the other hand, was voting against the bridge.

So, on one hand, we have a Washington neophyte, schooled in the patronage ways of the Chicago political machine, passing some goodies to his Senate buddies; a lifetime Senator with hairplugs, doing the same, and on the other, we have McCain, opposing it, and Palin, taking her state's money, and spending it, instead of on the bridge, on more meaningful projects.

You tell me who's for change in this picture.

O'Reilly vs. Tucker, redux

Dear Ms.Cynthia Tucker,

Will you retract these statements about Sarah Palin in your 9/7/08 editorial in light of their clear falsity as spelled out at factcheck.org?

You wrote these two proven falsehoods:
“…she urged an Alaska librarian to ban books; she believes “creationism” should be taught in public schools;”
Those statements are false, as debunked in this factcheck.org article.

You wrote these statements which are either distortions or phrased to place her in the worst light (for your followers):

“She opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incest…”

She has made it very public that her personal opinion is that abortion is only acceptable to her, in the case of the mother’s life being in jeopardy, even if it was her own daughter. As this Alaska Daily News article points out, she has not pushed that agenda as governor. It should be noted that under Alaska law, a 17 year old girl can get an abortion without her parent’s consent, though that is a law that Palin is trying to change.

You wrote, “she asked ministry students at her former church to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it ‘God’s will.’” Only, that’s not exactly what she said. What she said was, “I think God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.” I know it’s a small distinction, but she’s asking these students to pray that God’s Will be done. If Palin was certain that God’s will was that the pipeline be built, why the need for prayer? Anyway, it’s certainly not outside the realm of Christian doctrine for people to pray for all manner of things and ask God to reveal His will. I realize attacking evangelical Christians is sport for Liberal Columnists, but, do so at your peril.

On a different tack, it’s interesting that you rail at Bill O’Reilly for his double-standard in the Palin/Spears cases. It’s not hypocrisy as you suggested in his driveway “interview” with you. Double standard, sure, hypocrisy, no. While you’re at it, can you supply a definition for “Christianist?”

Finally, you have no problem repeating proven falshehoods in your column and distorting other statements to serve your political views, which is par for the course for the AJC editorial page and why I no longer pay for this newspaper. I’d also suggest that if you want a little more truth and better context, instead of pulling your information from The Daily Kos, you use a search engine and look for some local Alaskan news sources, you’ll get more complete coverage there.

While O’Reilly practices a journalistic double standard, you outright lie.

I’m not surprised.

end

O'Reilly and his double standard (update)

Updated 9/9/08: Found the "Christianist" reference!!

Whether you like Bill O'Reilly or not, you have to agree he's an in-your-face and sometimes obnoxious commentator.

Here in the Atlanta area, he created a bit of a row, because he is in a tiff with our local newsrag, the Atlanta Journal Constitution's editorial page editor, Cynthia Tucker. Let's stipulate that the AJC is a leftist rag and that Tucker is a reliable liberal, who will spout the party line on cue from her daily talking notes.

Tucker recently took O'Reilly to task for his comments regarding the Palin's eldest daughter and Jamie Lynn Spears. I agree that O'Reilly needs a beat down, and was practicing a double-standard, but, you can see the hatred for social conservatives in Tucker's column, where she uses the adjective "pious" in a pejorative sense to describe Christians, accuses the Palin's of providing little instruction to her daughter about contraception (as though she has some inside information), and essentially accuses social conservatives of not caring about the mothers or the babies of less well off teenage girls. She has previously referred to those supporting Palin as "Christianists." I tried finding this word in dictionary.com, but couldn't. I also tried finding the column with this word in it, but couldn't so I am going on the quote from her O'Reilly used in his story tonight. Clearly, Tucker has a problem with some Christians.

Furthermore, Cynthia, in your driveway interview with the O'Reilly producer, you accuse O'Reilly of "hypocrisy." Well, a double-standard, maybe, hypocrisy, no. That would be true if he himself had a teenage daughter who was pregnant. Maybe you can get the definition of that when you find Christianist.

It is nice to see that Tucker cares so much about the mothers and babies that get born, but, I know if she had her way, there'd be much fewer of these.

Cynthia, and Jay Bookman, if you're reading this - there's a reason why the AJC is not read by anyone, and why I haven't subscribed to it for 10 years, and it's largely your editorial page. I'm sure, judging by Cynthia's BMW, she's saved enough to survive the unemployment line sure to come, hopefully the rest of the staff has been so lucky.

end..

Debunking Palin Myths

I previously took factcheck.org to task for what i considered was a poorly done rebuttal of some McCain attack ads against the 0.

Today, they do take on some of the attacks against Palin, many of them uttered by members of the MSM, who should have known better. Kudos to factcheck.

end...

Who's doing the "reinventing" here?

0bama is lashing out at Sarah Palin, saying "You can't just recreate yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself," with respect to her change in focus on the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere."

Let's look at the Big 0's weekend:

On "This Week," 0bama was telling George Snuffalufagus that he "considered" joining the military after high school, saying "You know, I actually did. I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school." However, he didn't sign up with the selective service in 1979, when he graduated from high school in 1979, he did it in 1980, since it wasn't required from 1975 til summer 1980, having been rescinded by President Ford following Vietnam. So, it's interesting how this memory of "considering" the military corresponds with another bad memory regarding the timing of when he would have had to register with the SSS. In other words, it couldn't have been the SSS registration that triggered pangs of desire for the military life in 0Bama after high school, since it was during his freshman year in college when it was required again, and when he, to his credit, signed the required paperwork.

In the same interview, 0 told Snuffy that he would consider keeping the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest in place, if the economy were in recession.

Finally, on Snuff's show, he admitted his answer to life's beginning at Saddleback was a rotten one. Just enjoy the dissembling in his answer.

end...

More 0 vs. the Muslim Issue and some random posts

Continuing on the 0bama/Muslim meme, California Yankee (who I have added to my political blogroll to the right!) has a great post on this, and how 0 should address the issue head-on.

I agree with him.

In a related post, Ann Coulter discusses Sarah Palin.

Michelle Malkin mocks Barack's community organizing days.

Sarah Palin rocks, continued

Charles Martin has a blog post where he is keeping track of Sarah Palin rumours (most spread by the MSM) and debunking them (h/t The Corner on NRO). Check it out, many of them are quite good, and you can use it with your Liberal friends in debunking their lies and distortions.

On a related topic, on FNS today, Chris Wallace tried to pin McCain's campaign manager down on when Palin would have a press conference (when was the last time a VP candidate held a press conference during a campaign?). He was pretty adamant that it would happen on the campaign's schedule, but, I think an even better approach would be to tell these people,

"Sarah Palin is campaigning across America and taking the message of reform that this campaign represents directly to the people, taking questions from the good citizens of this country and sharing her experiences as one of them. As the unprecendented attempts to smear her by the mainstream media highlight this past week, I think the voters are much better served by hearing from Sarah directly, rather than through the distorted prism of liberal media Washington elites. Thank you for asking, though."

end...

Wear that lapel pin, Obama!

So, the 0 (my new moniker for them) campaign is all in a twitter that GOP operatives "rescued" several thousand flags from the Obamevent at Invesco Field, and used them at a McCain rally in Colorado Springs.

Simultaneously, the 0 himself said, “what they’re really saying is ‘we’re going to try to scare people about Barack. So we’re going to say that you know, ‘Maybe he’s got Muslim connections or we’re going to say that, you know, he hangs out with radicals or he’s not patriotic.’”

Well, Barack, I will take those on:

1. That you have Muslim connections - no, you don't have any known current Muslim connections, but I don't think you need to deny that your father was a Muslim. Though you are a Christian, you ought to speak about what brought you to your faith. I think it would be good for all to hear it. I find it ironic that you and your acolytes embrace your father's skin color, but, not his religion.
2. Hangs out with radicals - I think the Bill Ayers/Bernardine Dohrn questions need to be answered directly by you, as well as questions about some of the groups (ACORN,The Gamaliel Foundation, etc) that you ran with as a "community organizer." Will anyone in the MSM ask you those questions, or are they too busy finding out about Sarah Palin's pregnancies?
3. Not patriotic - I'll let the voters decide that one. Leftists like to say that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" and give credit (wrongly) to either Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine. Regardless of who you give credit for the statement, dissent is not the highest form of patriotism. I'm pretty sure none of these guys were practicing dissent, and I think they showed the highest form of patriotism.

Palinfacts.com

I have to point my readers to this site, palinfacts.com (H/T Blunoz). You'll like it, whether you like Palin or not.

Taxes and junk email

I was recently forwarded this internet email virus, with the questions at the end of this post added to it in a variant and I have now edited them (9/6, 2pm) to reflect more reality than the original email.

Here's my reply:

I realize that it is popular to “tax the rich” and, if Obama follows through on his plans as snopes describes them, our family stands to do slightly better than under McCain, but, I ask, at what point should we stop taxing the rich? Would any of you support a tax of 100% on any income above $250k? Above $1M? At what point do “the rich” have enough and we should take every penny of their money? At what point will “the rich” decide they have had enough and take their money, their investments, and their businesses elsewhere? Let’s face it, “the rich” are the most mobile members of our society, and while I know most of them love this country, it’s an increasingly global world. I realize it scores some cheap political points to vilify them, but I have yet to hear of a poor man giving anyone a job.

As for the questions at the top of the list, they are all a matter of your personal political views.I will make a point for Obama here – that some of our most successful presidents have had no military service at all (Lincoln, FDR) while some of the worst were in the military (Grant, Andrew Johnson, Carter),and there were successful military men (Washington, JFK, TR). It certainly is not a prerequisite for the presidency – but it does say something about character, particularly in McCain’s case.

REST OF EMAIL (updated 2pm, 9/6/08):

Favors new drilling offshore US
Yes - McCain - supports plans to open off more off-shore sites for drilling immediately
No - Obama - doesn't generally support offshore drilling, but has indicated a recent wilingness to speed the exploitation of currently allowed drilling spots, as part of a "comprehensive" energy plan and with restrictions (the cynical can still interpret this is a No).

Will appoint judges who interpret the law not make it
Yes - McCain - supports judges who will interpret our Consitution, who recongnize that the legislative branch legislates, and not the bench
No - Obama - pretty much standard Liberal fare expected here. Not able to get what you want through your elected officials? Your friendly non-elected judiciary will do it for you.

Served in the US Armed Forces
Yes - McCain - though certainly not a prerequisite
No - Obama - but has great experience as a "Community Organizer"

Amount of time served in the US Senate
22 YEARS - McCain - not sure this is a good thing
173 DAYS - Obama - likewise

Will institute a socialized national health care plan
No - McCain - Will support increased use of health savings accounts and tax credits for those unable to get insurance through their employer. Supports making health care more portable, and allowing residents of states to get insurance from out-of-state insurers. Will NOT put government in the position of being a health care insurer.
Yes - Obama - While his plan ostensibly won't lead immediately to a single payer, socialized system, its long-term effect, by placing the government in competition with private health care plans, and requiring coverage, will eventually force more and more employers to drop their health care plans and push people into the public system, essentially creating a government run system.

Supports abortion throughout the pregnancy
No - McCain - supports restrictions on abortion and the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would place this issue in the hands of the states to decide at the state level. A return to Federalism, how novel.
Yes - Obama - has never voted to restrict abortion, when he wasn't voting "present". While an Illinois state senator, refused to support legislation to protect infants who survived abortions.

Would pull troops out of Iraq immediately
No - McCain - pushed the "surge" strategy and the recommendations of General Petreus, which has put us on the verge of victory in Iraq, and is enabling us to significantly reduce our troop strength in Iraq, has allowed the Iraqi government to push reforms, and take control of their government, and will leave a functioning Islamic democracy, friendly to the US, in the Middle East.
Not really - Obama - Well, we now know what he said to Moveon.org and the General "Betrayus" crowd wasn't true, he really didn't mean an immediate pullout. Refuses to admit the surge worked and has demonstrated an unwillingness to respect the capabilities of American military power.

Supports gun ownership rights
Yes - McCain - record speaks for itself
No - Obama - typical Liberal position on gun control. This "Constitutional Law Professor" supported the unconsitutional DC gun ban before he was against it.

Supports homosexual marriage
No - McCain - but does support civil unions and the right of states to allow civil unions. Has not favored a federal marriage amendment, preferring the states to decide for themselves.
Yes - Obama - favors it if states decide to permit it. Would not be an advocate in his administration against this. His judicial appointees would likely be inclined to overturn laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Proposed programs will mean a huge budget deficit or tax increase - read the link - neither candidate has a real plan to reduce the budget deficit, though McCain's probably isn't as unfriendly to it as Obama's.
Probably - McCain - has stated he will eliminate earmarks and veto any bill that comes to his desk with earmarks in them. Has been a pretty consistent opponent of government waste in his time in the Senate. Pledges to push legislation requiring a supermajority vote to raise taxes.
Probably - Obama - either huge tax increases, or massive deficits. Take your pick.

Voted against making English the official language
No - McCain - though his position on immigration has, to be generous, "evolved."
Yes - Obama - told us we need to learn Spanish. For the record, Obama knows no foreign languages himself, not that it's important.

Voted to give Social Security benefits to illegals
Mixed - McCain - McCain has actually voted for this but now is against it. We know McCain's stance on illegal immigration, and while his 2007 conversion may be sincere, he has a long record of being for amnesty.
Yes - Obama - The Democrats see illegals as an important voting bloc, and are beholden to agriculture interests in some "leaner" farm states (Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri) and California, so it's no surprise that they're for amnesty. If you think we need to control the borders, in this election McCain is an imperfect choice, but Obama is obviously rotten.

Barack says...

That the GOP convention ignored the middle class and focused on McCain's biography.

Could it be that Barack is envious that McCain has a biography?

Fact Check.org,is it always right?

Even this site needs to be read with some discernment.

Ok, I had a heated discussion with a co-worker today who describes himself as a moderate (i.e. Liberal, but scared to admit it). He suggested that Obama's energy plan is better than McCain's, when it was obvious from his description of McCain's plan that he had never actually read it, which is really what set me off. As you can tell from scrolling down, I have previously posted a pretty detailed look at these two plans. If you're against new sources of American fossil fuels and nuclear power, Gobama. If you think we ought to get some of our own darn oil and use nuclear power, Nobama, choose McPalin.

In this discussion, he stated that he uses factcheck.org as a resource to sort the wheat from the chaff in candidates advertising. Well, I have perused the factcheck site, and it's not awful. Interesting that most of the items today above the fold are all about McCain ads,in fact of 12 front page articles, 8 are about McCain ads,4 concern Obama misdeeds. 2/3, 1/3 - I'd say it qualifies as balanced as far as MSM sites go!

Just to prove that even an even-handed site like this can be misleading, I am going to take it to task for one of it's rebuttals - the McCain ad about Obama and Iran. Known as "tiny" in McCain parlance.

In their "fact check"on McCain's ad, which correctly states and shows clips of Obama saying Iran and Venezuela are"tiny" countries who don't "pose a serious threat," factcheck.org does correctly show the context that Obama was comparing them to Russia, both in size and in nature of the threat, or at least of the threat we once associated with Russia (all out nuclear war).

Of course, you could re-do this ad today, post Georgia invasion, and we could show Obama's naivete' about Russia, but, that's not the point. The "Tiny" ad goes on to question that "destroying Israel isn't a serious threat?"

In their factcheck, they attempt to use a June 4th Obama speech to refute that McCain is misleading on his Israel comments. The problem is, as anyone who was paying attention after May 18th, when Obama uttered the initial statements, they will recall that the June 4th speech, in which he spoke of the threat of Iran to Israel, was accomplished precisely to counter these statements he had made previously, as a sort of salve to put on what was then a festering wound.

So, it's a little disingenuous to suggest that the June 4th comments that Factcheck uses to "refute" the "Tiny" ad actually refute it. Put into the proper context themselves, they were made to put Obama back in the good graces of the pro-Israel lobby and to correct the mistake he made 2 weeks prior.

The "fact" remains that when Obama spoke on May 18th, he may have been speaking in the larger context of comparison to the former Soviet Union. But, words do have meaning, and as a President, he has to know every clause he speaks will be parsed and judged,and in his May 18th speech, he slipped, and it showed an inexperience that a more seasoned foreign policy expert would not have made. That's not to say that he wouldn't learn from his mistake, but, I still think the criticism from the McCain camp is a fair one, though I think they ought to show his June 4th attempt to clean up the mess, because that is a pattern of the Obama campaign, that, if elected, I hope we don't see repeated over and over again.

Brazil Will Build Nuclear Submarine

The Brazilians are going to build a nuclear submarine, with help from the French. They hope to have it done by 2020, at a cost of $3.5B. Why don't we just build them a decontented Virginia and sell it to them, with a training package, for $3B and take the profits with us?

Doris Kearns Goodwin is an idiot

Doris Kearns Goodwin just said on MTP that "Nearly 1 out of 3 vice presidents have actually become president, mostly because of the death or assassination or the resignation of a president."

Huh?

• John Tyler succeeded WH Harrison, who died in office
• Fillmore succeeded Zachary Taylor, who died in office
• Andrew Johnson succeeded the assassinated Lincoln
• Chester A Arthur succeeeded Garfield, who died in office
• McKinley was assassinated and succeeded by TR
• Silent Cal Coolidge succeeded Harding
• Truman succeeded FDR, who passed in office
• Johnson succeeded JFK, who was assassinated
  
• Ford succeeded Nixon, who resigned

So, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that exceptional presidential scholar and master of the obvious makes a statement that VP's succeed presidents on the heels of their death, assassination (isn't this death?), or resignation, then she demonstrates why she wasn't a math major by inflating the number of VP's who have succeeded Presidents for those causes, it's less than 1 in 4, not nearly 1 in 3.

She's another Democratic partisan hack and always has been.

Pawlenty on Meet the Press

I haven't watched MTP in a while, since Russert died. It's amazing how partisan and left-wing Tom Brokaw is.

Fortunately, today, I am seeing Tim Pawlenty (Republican governor of Minnesota) also for the first time, who is giving it to Brokaw on his questions passed to him this morning by the DNC.

I would swear that Pawlenty has been reading this blog, since he's giving my answers. I also find Brokaw to be very defensive himself. Pawlenty gave a great defense of he Palin choice, and went on the offensive comparing her to Barack Obama, and pointing out it's the top of the Democratic ticket that has absolutely ZERO foreign policy experience, and began running for President on day one when he entered the Senate. Brokaw also brought up some stupid Liberal talking points (must've also been on the morning Moveon fax) about Intelligent Designand Palin's views on it. I thought Pawlenty gave a reasonable defense and passed his own view that he believes ID. If the Dems think they're going to woo white, suburban women by disparaging their religious views, then I guess they all share Barack's views about those who cling to their religion and guns.

Brokaw - please, the Economist is an anti-conservative magazine. Don't try to sell it as some kind of right-wing oracle.

All in all, Pawlenty would have been a good choice as well, and he basically ate Brokaw's lunch.

End.

McCain on Fox News Sunday

How McCain should address Palin's lack of foreign policy experience:

"The top of this ticket will be setting the foreign policy agenda, and I didn't feel the need to choose a VP to improve my foreign policy knowledge."

When you're comparing the VP choice on one side of the ticket to the Presidential choice on the other side, that Presidential candidate is diminished.

End.

McCain for Change in Energy Policy

This is going to be an incredibly long post, and I apologize in advance.

There's a great discussion going on over at Bubblehead's site following his post on the Palin selection and I encourage all to read it. This post will focus on Obama's and McCain's energy policies, as expressed on their campaign web sites. So let's get to the specifics.

• Obama wants to enact a windfall profits tax to provide a $1000 rebate to American families. McCain has no analog to this. While I am always in favor of giving the American people more of their money back to them, I am not in favor of taking from one group and redistributing their money to others, even if I'm one of them. How about just reducing our tax burden by $1000? Inasmuch as this will remove money that would have been used for R&D or pulling oil out of the ground, or investing in new technologies, I have a newsflash - oil companies have a responsibility to their shareholders, and they'll deliver on that promise to them by keeping their net income growing - so, they will cut somewhere else to make up for that new tax. So, we'll all get $1000, but we'll get less of something that we really need - energy. Advantage: McCain.
  
• Obama will crack down on excessive energy speculation. McCain doesn't advocate this. Since the FCTC allowed much broader rules for oil speculation in 2003, it has soared and much more money is invested in energy speculation. Dick Morris argues passionately that this is one of the biggest problems we have with high oil prices. Of course, this is true as long as speculators are betting that oil prices will go up. We saw recently, when the President lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling what can happen to oil prices driven by speculators. In theory, speculation ought to just reflect what investors see as the future of oil prices. Speculators take risks and are rewarded if they bet right, just as in any market. However, for years prior, there were tighter rules around speculation in oil commodities. I guess I could live with this as part of an approach, but, I don't see it as something that will have any real meaningful impact. Advantage: Neutral
• Obama will release oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, McCain is silent on it (I assume he wouldn't). Again, I don't have a major problem with this, it's been done by presidents of each party to address short term spikes in oil prices. It could help in a very short term, but, as a long term solution, it's a meaningless feel good measure. Advantage - neutral.
  
• Obama will increase CAFE standards 4% per year. McCain supports CAFE, but instead of increasing the standards, he wants to enforce them where automakers can't just pay the penalties for non-compliance, but have to comply, by making the penalties severe. I guess if we believe the automakers can meet the 4%/yr requirement, it's not a rotten approach, but I don't generally support either of these, since I'm against CAFE to begin with. Since both candidates support CAFE, if we're going to have it, let's make it meaningful, and I suppose the 4%/yr requirement is technically feasible, so it would be ok. Beware the law of unintended consequences here, though. If the 4% requirement drives up prices on those new cars so much that they are too expensive to replace an existing car, it could find people holding on to their less economical older cars longer, and would have the ultimate effect of not improving conservation. It will also result in lighter and smaller cars. Do Americans want these? With $4/gal gas, I think there's a market. Advantage: Slight for Obama
• Obama would get 1M plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015. He claims they will get up to 150MPG. I don't know where that 150MPG figure is coming from. McCain is proposing a $300M prize for for full commercial development of plug-ins and fully electric cars to spur battery development. I actually think McCain's idea more accurately reflects the current state of technology here and is more likely to produce results than Obama's mandate. And, it's much more of a free-market approach. Auto state representatives will resist any mandate, and they're mostly Democrats, so that's a non-starter for Obama. McCain's idea is much more likely to produce results. Advantage: McCain
• Obama is going to give a $7000 tax credit for purchasing advanced vehicles. He doesn't have any specifics on this. Is this to entice us to buy those plug-in hybrids? Of course, McCain is going to give a $5000 credit for purchasing no-carbon cars. He's going to pro-rate the credit for really low carbon emitters. McCain's credit is lower, but it's going to more purchasers. Advantage: Neutral
• Obama is going to establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard - McCain has no analog to this. If Obama is proposing this to put a national standard in place of the hodgepodge of state laws around oxygenated fuels, then I think this is a good idea and will help refiners to make one standard of fuels. If that's what he means, good idea. Advantage: Obama
• Obama will place a "use it or lose it" requirement on oil leases - we already have this. I believe oil leases expire after 10 years today. Does he mean to shorten it? Since Democrats all love to tell us it takes 10 years to get oil to market, isn't 10 years the right length? Anyway, meaningless since it's already in place. Advantage: Neutral
• Obama will "promote the responsible domestic production of oil and natural gas." He says he'll remove barriers to production in fields that are already being exploited. I believe this is good, but it's pablum. McCain is silent on this, but it's so obvious as to not need stating and something Congress could do tomorrow (if they were in session). Advantage: neutral
• Obama will reduce domestic energy consumption by 15% by 2020. He doesn't say how, but we might be able to reduce the growth in energy requirements, but I don't see us using 15% less without either seriously slowing immigration or somehow cutting population, or a serious change in our lifestyles. Maybe since we'll be providing so much less health care (since it'll be rationed following an Obama administration) we can cut their energy consumption? It's unrealistic. Fortunately, McCain is a realist and doesn't have such a goal. Advantage: McCain
• Obama will weatherize one million low income homes annually for ten years. Good idea, but how are you going to pay for this? It's a good idea for individuals, but I don't support a government program to do this. We already have tax credits for energy efficient appliances and windows (among other things). Advantage: McCain
• Obama will develop clean coal technology. McCain will devote $2B annually to this same goal. Obama is short on specifics, but, the goal is the same. Advantage: Neutral
• Obama will accelerate completion of the Alaskan natural gas pipeline. McCain is for increased production of natural gas, particularly from offshore sources. Again, Obama wants to help get an existing source to market quicker, while McCain is going after new sources, while Obama is silent on this. I think the ANGP sounds like a good idea to speed up, but McCain adds the new sources, so Advantage: McCain
• Obama wants to institute cap and trade to reduce greenhouse emissions 80% by 2050. See McCain-Lieberman. He's Mr. Cap and Trade. I'm opposed to cap and trade, so, Advantage: Neutral (actually, bad for both)
• Obama will re-engage the US in the UN's ridiculous UNFCC. McCain's silent on this. There's a reason we voted 98-0 in the senate against Kyoto. The UN is only interested in limits on the West. Advantage: McCain
• McCain will commit to increased oil exploration from domestic sources. Obama is silent (but has expressed limited willingness to drill). Advantage: McCain
• McCain wants to increase our sales of Flex Fuel Vehicles from the pledged 50% by 2012, to sooner, in the Brazilian model. Obama is silent. Advantage: McCain
• McCain believes alcohol based fuels hold great promise and he wants to remove tariffs that prevent us from importing non-corn based alcohol-based fuels, and subsidies that promote the creation of these fuels from corn, vice cellulosic ethanol. If one believes that alcohol based fuels are part of the solution, then one needs to accept that cellulosic fuels are our best hope, not corn-based. McCain's approach would allow us to get these fuels from sources such as Brazil, and ultimately develop them here ourselves, vice subsidize corporate farmers and raise the cost of corn. Obama is silent. Advantage: McCain
• McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, eventually building 100 new plants. Now, these are the kinds of high-paying jobs I can get behind. Advantage: McCain
• McCain wants to make a 10% tax credit for R&D permanent. Obama is silent. Advantage: McCain
• McCain wants to rationalize the tax credit system that exists for wind, solar, and hydro power. It's a small step, but one Obama is silent on (I expect he wouldn't resist this, though). However, his silence makes it Advantage: McCain.

All this data was taken directly from the candidates' web sites (except any mention of cap and trade on McCain's site, whichI expect he wants to soft pedal since so many conservatives oppose it). It doesn't take much reading to see that, much like Obama, his plans are short on specifics, while McCain's are detailed enough, and his plan is much, much more comprehensive. Obama is going to rely largely on conservation measures, doesn't talk at all about new domestic sources, and specifies several mandates.

It's pretty clear that unless you believe the conservation goals Obama sets can be reached, his plan has little chance of reducing our dependence on foreign oil by very much. This is both a supply and demand problem, and Obama really on focuses on demand. If you want a lower standard of living, with reduced energy consumption, Obama's your man. If you want the same, or greater standard of living, with continued growth in the economy, and less greenhouse emissions, then McCain's ideas are superior, and much more of a change to the way we do business today.


End.

McCain/Palin

In my previous post about the McCain "surprise," I was a whopping 0 for 4 in my predictions. However, happily so.

Learn a little more about Palin here (h/t: Big Sis).

The Obama camp was quick out of the gate to blast Palin for her inexperience in foreign affairs. Well, Obamaniacs, Palin isn't being chosen for her expertise in foreign policy (unlike Joe Biden). I think John McCain has plenty of experience here, and has plenty of successful things to talk about in his foreign policy views. Plus, every time the Obama camp tries to emphasize Palin's relative inexperience (in foreign policy to Biden/McCain), they are going to be emphasizing also their own standard bearer's lightness of being here, and that's something they don't want to do.

Anyway, what has Palin got over Obama/Biden in spades:
1. She has executive experience and is the only candidate among the four who has this (though, I believe McCain's military command as a Captain is pretty good executive experience, too, and more than either Obama or Biden has)
2. She has actually fought for reform, and against her own party, something she shares with McCain, and for which there is absolutely no analog among Obama or Biden.
3. Did I mention she's a woman?

CSS Hunley Replica Tour

The full-size CSS Hunley replica is touring California. September 5-7, it will be at the Benicia Historical Museum in Benicia, Ca, Sept. 12-15 it will be stopping in Nevada City, California. I tried searching for information about this tour without luck. If you have any, please send it along.

Update 8/30:
The Hunley replica is in Virginia City, Nevada this weekend. Excellent article here. Still looking for details about this exhibit's schedule!

Visit the Hunley web site.

Comcast Sucks

Ok, I am going to take a break from Obama/Democrat bashing to bash one of my favorite targets, the horribly run and disgusting company known as Comcast.

They have finally made it official. If you're a Comcrap customer and are seriously addicted to Internet file sharing (and you'd have to be to transfer 250Gb/month), you're getting cut off.

Hey, guess what, there are other ISP's still out there. Go get one and run as far away from Comcast as you can.

Exciting McCain Stuff Tonight

Drudge is reporting some pretty exciting stuff in the McCain campaign that is going to happen tonight as the Obamamessiah delivers his acceptance speech. It is said he will directly address Obama. Drudge is also threatening to leak the McCain VP announcement around 6PM.

There's much speculation, but here are my ideas:

• He will challenge Obama directly to a series of joint town hall meetings to begin immediately after the GOP convention.
• He will choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate (who will switch to be pro-life), and he will challenge Obama to similarly show he is willing to risk his base by pledging to work in a truly bipartisan basis to tackle some of the pressing problems of our generation, particularly tackling health care and entitlement reform.
• We will make some reference to the success of the surge and Obama's continued denial of its success.
• He will bring up Obama's refusal to accept federal matching dollars for the campaign

I am going to have to say that I am pleased with the way McCain's camp has run the campaign the last couple weeks. As an underdog, McCain has run a kind of guerilla campaign that I have never witnessed. Maybe because I watch Fox, I see the McCain ads every night, and we hear about him every night, but this year, it seems the McCain camp has been really pushing cloudying the message coming out of the DNC. Of course, it helps that the DNC has no message, and that no one is watching it anyway.

Let me also say something about Lieberman. He is the only pro-choice VP choice that I can live with for McCain. I personally love Lieberman, and I think his pro-choice stance is a necessity that he was forced to adopt when he decided to be a Dem. I wouldn't be surprised, if selected, to hear him actually come out and say that and that personall he is opposed to abortion and he can get behind policies and support judges who will overturn Roe.

Wouldn't it be refreshing to see the Presidential candidate and the VP candidate actually speaking their minds and being honest, rather than pulling the wool over our eyes as the Dems are going to try to do.

Hey Romney evolved on abortion, how about Joe going back to his roots?

Doc riles me again

I'm going to point my readers to this post over at Doc MacDonald's blog. I freely admit I have personal problems with Doc's Objectivist anti-religious scribes. Sure, Ayn Rand was an atheist, but you don't have to hold any kind of religious view to know that we can, and should, and have an obligation to be able to draw a line somewhere to define when life begins.

I appreciate that Doc and other Objectivists hold and express these opinions, however wrong I believe they may be. I appreciate the purity of thought that this reasoning displays. And, we need a debate about this in this country, because Roe cut that debate off.

Unfortunately for Objectivist, Western Civilization and this country were not founded on Objectivist principles, they were founded and evolved largely on Judeo-Christian principles, and Western society has succeeded quite well under those principles for 100's of years. We do need thinkers like these, because we share a common belief in limited government, both in its use of our tax dollars, and in its ultimate intrusion in our lives and on our liberties, but, conservatives find a rightful place for government intervention in enforcing some of the basic tenets of human rights, as stated in the Declaration of Independence that among these are the right to life, one of those inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator. I would like to frame this argument as a technical one over when does that life begin, and how do we balance that right with the same rights (not less, not more) held by the mother.

Unfortunately, Roe is a horribly reasoned piece of jurisprudence that doesn't really help draw that line, instead it really draws no lines, leaving us in a position where the "right" to abortion, or, as Doc would euphemize it, the "right to self-determination," is whatever the mother declares it to be. Doc posits that somehow, Laura Ingraham and others of her ilk, from conception forward, want to confer more rights on the baby (or "clump of cells" to use their phraseology) than on the mother. This is a patently false statement. We want to confer equal rights on the mother and on that "clump of cells." This is clearly not an easy or pleasant task for anyone, but amongst reasonable people, we can agree that mothers that find themselves in this situation as a result of some act beyond their control (rape, incest, a credible threat to the mother's life) should be able to avail themselves of abortion technology. Only the most ideological would argue against that, and in a national debate, I think they'd find it very tough going selling that argument. So, while we might be disappointed that not ALL life could be protected, regardless of its genesis, again, reasonable people would likely have to accept some compromise to reach national consensus, because, yes, the mother does have rights, too.

The problem is that abortion has come to be a favored method of birth control, of rolling back the clock, to somehow allow the mother to "regain control of her own existence." I just find this argument extremely uncompelling. Except in the unusual and rare instances above, women in today's sexed-obsessed society know that pregnancy is a risk of intercourse. In case no one's looked, they're teaching sex ed before kids reach puberty these days. In my opinion, and I think it's quite reasonable, the decision about "control of her own existence" was already made at the time of the act.

Doc's post elevates "self-determination" to the highest level of concern, and, I guess, on re-reading, and understanding a little of Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy, I can see where Objectivists, being ideologically pure, would actually support abortion up until the moment a child is born, maybe beyond (which you can see, I am attempting to draw out of Doc in my reply to him). After all, at what point is a human actually capable of really considering their right to "self-determination?" Are we born with it? Or, do we learn it? If the latter, at what point does one become truly capable of making self-determinant decisions? I mean if a Down's Syndrome child, or a child born with some horrible birth defect or illness, or even into seemingly downtrodden and hopeless circumstances can't make their own decisions about self-determination, why shouldn't their parent, or even the state make the decision of whether they should live? Or, how about a panel of Objectivists, they seem to be doing a higher level of thinking than the rest of the proletariat?

This "mystic" can't convince atheists of the existence of God. They can't touch Him, or feel Him, or see any objective evidence (despite it being all around them), so, therefore, He doesn't exist, and we're all derided as "mystics" who want to deprive women of their rights to correct their mistakes through a specious right to self-determination which legalizes abortion on demand and send them to back rooms where they will be butchered (trust me, if we overturned Roe tomorrow, that would not happen, and to think otherwise demonstrates a massive misunderstanding of the ruling).

About Doc's slippery-slope argument about masturbation and gay sex and condom use - it's easy to use extreme arguments to prove a point, but the fact that extreme arguments have to be used to prove the point should tell you something about the point being made. This part of his post is just meant to be sensational. Read it though, it's interesting.

To the kinds of people that rail at the legislation of morality, I posted on this days ago. That train long ago left the station.

If anyone's reading, feel free to chime in.

Mississippi named

I know it's old news, but it's nice to see another Southern state get a submarine named after it, with the newest Virginia class being named USS Mississippi.

McCain Camp Reads this blog, evidence herein

Sunday, I gave the McCain campaign advice on how to deal with the "homes" issue.

Last night, they took my advice.

Also last night, did anyone notice Barack Obama, who doesn't know how many states there are (57?) also didn't know whether he was in Kansas City or St. Louis? But, hey, it's a long campaign, we're prone to mistakes.

Can we afford these mistakes in the White House?

Obama hates the first amendment...

Once again, Democrats are showing their hatred not just of the Second amendment of our Constitution, but also of the First.

Barack Obama's campaign is trying to block the American Issues Project (a 501c4 organization, just like Moveon.org) from running the ad below that calls into question his relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground murderer and bomber, William Ayers, whose home and hospitality was used by Barack Obama in 1995 for a meet and greet for the up and coming Obama and Chicago area intellectuals.

Video:



The Obama campaign, in a letter to radio and TV stations, said, "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."

To the Obama campaign, what specifically is false in this ad? I have viewed the ad, and it merely states known, given facts. To any of my readers who support Obama, please specify the falsity in this ad?

Obama campaign attorney Bauer also wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney, noting that the ad is a "knowing and willful attempt to evade the strictures of federal election law."

I'd like to know, also, Obamaniacs, what stricture of federal election law this ad is knowingly and willfully violating. Apparently, so would Mr. Bauer, since he fails to point that out.

Finally, while the McCain campaign can legally have no coordination with the American Issues Project (just as the Obama campaign can have none with Moveon), that didn't stop them from accusing McCain of trying to further this link, in an Obama attack ad, they say, "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers. McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old." As though the fact that Barack was only 8 when Ayers was killing somehow absolves him. Geez, if Joe Biden gets to be a Pennsylvanian because he lived there until he was 11, then Barack Obama should have known something about Bill Ayers when he was 8.

I hate to keep harping on this, but if the Obama camp is going to continue to use his youth as an excuse for why he did stupid things (or why we should dismiss them as things "of the past"), let me remind all that while Bill Ayers was blowing up or plotting to blow up the Pentagon, NYC PD, and the Capital, and Barack Obama was learning to divide, Joe Biden was cavorting around some college campus somewhere, and John McCain was in his second year at the Hanoi Hilton.

Who would you trust to lead your country?

Michelle, ma belle...

Tonight, Michelle Obama will introduce the world (ok, America, since the world has already had its introduction) to Barack Obama. Swell.

And, no, I have no intention of listening to the speech (unless I can catch it on my ipod while I work out!), I'll just let the media (well, Fox) tell me what gaffes she says.

I previously posted about Michelle's being open to scrutiny, and how Barack's desire to have everyone "lay off" his wife, needs to be ignored, since she is being made a centerpiece of his campaign. We've all by now heard her thoughts about pride in her country and hopefully, tonight, will represent another episode of "real" pride.

I wonder how much Michelle's lack of pride in America is driven by the fact that, apparently, Barack and a white girlfriend were very much in love long ago (Dreams from My Father), but he could not find his way to marry her because she was white?

It might be interesting.

McCain and homes...

What McCain should have said about how many homes he owns:

"I spent a few years in a place that made me appreciate my home, this country, and my family. And, yes, I was fortunate enough to marry a woman who's family provides a product people enjoy (beer!), and that has enabled us to maintain several homes for ourselves and our children. I won't apologize for my own success or the success of Cindy's family. I wish the same for everyone in this country."

Or something like that.

Joe Biden, the Clinton's choice...

According to PMSNBC, Va Gov Kaine, and Indiana Senator Bayh have been told they are not Obama's choice for VP.

If you believe the press, that leaves Joe Biden (Sen, DE) as the remaining top candidate.

Why Biden?

The guy who wanted to break Iraq up into three partitions (instead of win the war and keep the country united) is thought of (by Democrats) as a foreign policy guru who will lend sufficient gravitas (a la Dick Cheney) to the neophyte Obamamessiah's candidacy.

I guess otherwise, he's pretty much a standard fare Democrat liberal. We can likely count on him saying some stupid stuff during the campaign season. He's got diarrhea of the mouth, and has some tendencies to spout racist things. He's certainly not an outsider, and doesn't represent any kind of real change. Plus, during the primary season, he had some less than flattering things to say about the Obamamessiah,

• "Having talking points on foreign policy doesn't get you there."
• "I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."
• “Barack Obama hasn’t passed any [bills]." (Note - when Biden said this in December 2007, it was actually false, Obama did get one bill passed)
• “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." (Biden later apologized for this statement)
  
• Biden wonders whether Americans will elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”
• In August 2007, the Biden campaign said in a statement that Obama had belatedly arrived at “a number of Senator Biden’s long-held views on combating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Much of what Senator Obama has proposed Senator Biden has already initiated or accomplished.”

Anyway, those are just what you find in the first 20 minutes of research.

But, I think there is something more sinister in this nomination, and it has to do with...The Clintons.

If Obama is elected, the VP normally would become the likely frontrunner for the nomination. Hillary has to be thinking that if Obama is lucky enough to serve 8 years, the VP will then by 73, and probably too old to run for president. She'll still be relatively young, and can be the frontrunner again. Of course, with Biden as the VP choice, and Obama's continued free fall in the polls, if he's not elected, he's revealed as a weak candidate in the most democratic of years, and she takes the reins. Both Obama and Biden are hurt in that case. And, of course, if he proves to be a rotten president, in 4 years, Hillary mounts a save the party campaign to replace him as the Dem nominee.

I'm telling you, Biden is the Clinton's choice. They do not want a Bayh, Kaine, or Sebelius raised to the level of national prominence.



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Boomers eligible for VFW

Today I learned that all those deterrent patrols were good for something, membership in the VFW. If you likewise qualify and want to join, go to the VFW's web site.

Harry Reid - Hater

So, Harry Reid hates John McCain.

As if we didn't have enough reasons already to vote for McCain.

Legislating Morality. What's the Problem?

I have friends on the left who always rail against the "Religious Right" or "Fundamentalists" or "Religious Fanatics" and how they want to "legislate morality."

Today, on The Regular Guys show, someone called in to their FU line (you know what it means) and railed that if the republicans won the White House, our women would all be wearing Burkhas (I thought that was one of the things women no longer need to do in Afghanistan, thanks to a Republican war?). And, the Left wants to call us dirt ignorant!

I don't really get this irrational fear of "Fundamentalist" Christians. Is it that a single Supreme Court justice stands in the way of these supposed nuts and all your freedoms, or is it that the left is just paranoid? I don't know.

Anyway, what they used to mean was they were scared that if conservative republican presidents continued to get elected, the national "right" to abortion (usually defined as abortion on demand, as codified in Roe) would be repealed and states would have to enact their own laws regarding abortion. They like to use the argument that the government shouldn't tell women what they can do with "their" bodies, even though the government already tells us plenty of things we can't do with or to our bodies - things like stuff them full of illegal drugs, sell them for sex, heck, if the Left had their way, you wouldn't be allowed to ingest cigarette or cigar smoke, or trans fats. The right has no monopoly on telling people what they can do with their bodies.

I'm not going to take the Libertarian view that we should be allowed to do anything we want to ourselves, sometimes moderated by Libertarians with the caveat, "as long as it doesn't harm anyone else."

Instead, my view is that the "You can't tell us what to do with our bodies" ship has sailed. We've already crossed that line, and for good reason. What we do with our bodies in large measure effects society as a whole, sometimes in macro ways (the costs of addiction, the impact to our children, the health costs borne by society), and sometimes in personal, micro ways (the same, just at the personal level). I think these effects give us plenty of good reasons to debate legislation.

If you agree with me that it is appropriate for us to "legislate morality," or, at the very least, debate the legislation of morality, then we should seek to legislate as we always should, at the level closest to the legislated. We have 50 states and thousands of municipalities, which offer thousands of places to experiment with laws to test their effectiveness, and thousands of places from which to have debates about the merits of those laws.

In our Federalist model, we have a Constitution which guides us on when to elevate those laws to the federal level. I, for one, wish we would return to our Federalist roots. Big issues like abortion, need to be debated. In 1973, Roe closed that debate by elevating a mystical right to "privacy" to something in the Constitution. All else since then has been steady chipping away at that right. For the right, it's a similar tactic to what the Left used to use succesfully with gun laws and the second amendment. Of course, the big difference here is the Constitution actually gives guidance on guns, while abortion, or even privacy, is not mentioned in the Constitution.

So, where do I stand on "legislating morality?"

I stand with the people. If we the people decide, through our elected representatives, to legislate morality, then so be it. That's the way our system works. Unfortunately, in too many cases, courts are creating rights out of whole cloth to legislate their own version of morality.

I don't care if you're Left or Right, wouldn't you rather give voice to your positions, have them debated, and let the chips fall where they may?

Immigration and dirt poor ignoramouses

David over at ramblinboy has a post that I agree with part of and disagree with another part of (like many of his posts, it presents some interesting thoughts, then becomes polemic).

The part I agree with (sort of):
"Hispanics are here to stay. They work hard. They are naturally conservative, politically. They appreciate a stable, safe society. They don't really mind if it's not particularly democratic. They don't mind if the rich get richer. They don't mind if it's a police state. Best of all, they are Christian and a large number are even observant, unlike most Americans that identify as Christians. Moving the Hispanic vote into their party, should be the number one priority of the Republicans. It would guarantee them political ascendancy for generations to come."

I don't think Hispanics are ok with a non-democratic police state, and I refute the implied argument that only "the rich" get "richer" (the poor get rich, too, after working hard or exercising their natural mental acuity,or in the case of athletes, their physical prowess), but, the rest of this is true, and leads one to need to consider that this nation needs to figure out a way to welcome the large number of immigrants we need for our economy, while respecting the territorial integrity of our borders.

To ramblinboy, I suggest that many on the right get this, but, we're wary of past efforts that promised an orderly immigration process, then reneged on that promise. Like many things our government has promised, that was botched, and we're tired of it. I think McCain heard that loud and clear last year, and he's not a nativist, as many on the right are. It is certainly true that most of our immigrants from South of the border are conservative (90% Catholic, and practicing, indeed), work hard, and inclined to be Republicans. The GOP is best positioned to both satisfy the people who already live here and obey our laws (us), and those we need to bring here, while all the Democrats offer is more unlimited illegal immigration, in the hopes of buying votes, while still satisfying their wealthier constituents (the farm lobby mostly).

It's interesting to me that two of the blocs that most reliably support Dems are those most likely to be hurt by the continued influx - blacks and union members.

Now, I disagree with this part:
"The problem is that the majority of their [the GOP's] coalition are black dirt ignorant, ethnocentric racist, sexist, scum..."

You might win that argument by saying that "some" of their coalition fit that mold, and I might also argue that black dirt ignorant, ethonocentric racist, sexist, scum need to vote for somebody.

But, when you make the assertion that it's a majority, I have to say, "Huh????"

W won in 2004 (I'll use the last national election as it's the best data we have) by 3 million votes, and he didn't win a majority in the portions of the electorate where you might think that black dirt ignorant people come from. Kerry won a majority of those making between $15k and $50k. Bush doesn't pick up majorities until we get to the $50-$75k bracket, where he took 56% of the vote. I don't know, maybe a lot of "black dirt ignorant" people are able to pull down $50k/year. Somehow, I think not. Interestingly, Bush's majority is greatest in the >$200k bracket, where he won 63%. Maybe he won all the black dirt ignorant (but no longer poor) lottery winners??

Looking at education, Kerry won the non-HS crowd (barely) and Bush carried the HS and college demos. Only until you get to the post-graduate group does Kerry win again. Surprise, surprise.

So, I don't think there's any way to really defend that statement. Lots more interesting info here.

Obama Wife Fair Game?

Remember when Barack Obama told the GOP to "lay off my wife?"

Maybe he really only meant to "lay off" her when she said something stupid that required one of the Obama campaign's many clarifications, but, I got the sense he felt criticism of her was off-limits, as he was going to be the nominee, not her.

Meanwhile, at the Saddleback forum, his wife was number one on his list for people he'd go to for advice, followed closely by his grandmother, who we know he thinks is a racist.

So, if we're not to look into the backgrounds of these people and scrutinize them and their views, then let's have Obama stop going to them for advice.

I think they're fair game, especially as he continues to inject them into the process.

Why we need to create real requirements for voting

With the political season about to enter its final, full swing, it's time I started laying out my case against Barack Obama.

Today's entry was prompted by something I heard on Sean Hannity's radio show during his "man on the street" session this past Thursday. During it, Sean interviews people on the streets of New York, and you get a real feel for just why we really need poll taxes, or a competency test to allow people to vote. Honestly, I, and likely anyone who encounters this post, spend quite a bit of time staying informed on issues, and have formed opinions of my own, based on my personal political philosophy. I really don't like my vote being canceled out by idiots.

I am frustrated at some people who are supporting Obama, and are willing to vote for a man and a party, who openly are trying to hurt them. If you believe we all vote in our own self-interest, you have to wonder what these people are smoking, or if they are just willing dupes....

In the recent segment, Hannity spoke to a reasonably intelligent sounding 22 year old recent graduate who, when pressed, stated as her reason for voting for Obama, that he is going to "end this war" and bring our troops home immediately. Clearly, by "this war" she was referring to Iraq, where she has undoubtably heard some of the constant drumbeat by the Obamedia the last three years that it is not going well, and is, of course, all about oil, and Bush's cronies in the oil business. She may, in fact, even know people who are there. But, does she know that it is but one front on the war on terror, and that it is being won, in large part due to a strategy championed by the Obamessiah's opponent, John McCain? A strategy that coupled with recent strides taken by the Iraqis themselves, will lead to the return of most of our troops, and a functioning democracy in the Middle East.

Now, let's face it, anyone who has listened to Obama lately, or has a dint of sense about how we are going to get out of Iraq, knows that the troops are not coming home immediately. Even Obama has only spoken of a 16 month timetable, in between his flopping around and leaving wiggle room for "conditions on the ground." Plus, he would be a certain one term president if he precipitously brought the troops home and Iraq became a royal mess, and required him, Obama, to resend troops back there.

Plus, this particular person, and, I believe, most of the 18-25 year olds who want their friends home, don't care whether their friends are in Iraq or Afghanistan or Sudan or South Korea. They only care that they are overseas, fighting a war, risking their lives, and they won't be happy when Obama commits some of those troops currently in Iraq, to Afghanistan, where Obama has agreed that we need to increase troop levels to bring order back to that particular front on the war on terror.

If these people actually thought about this issue, they would understand that we must win both these battles, and that it will continue to cost precious national treasure. They would also understand that we are now winning in Iraq, that we are on the path to turn the country over to the Iraqis, but that we have more work to do in Afghanistan, and that conflict is going to be bloody for a while, before we're able to leave there as well.

Not even the Obamessiah, backed by the Obamedia, is going to be able to pull the wool over their eyes on that.

Required Global Warming Reading

Global Warming Anti-alarmists and non-socialists are commanded to read this (h/t: Drudge).

Submarine tech gets into everyday life

Remember the space program? Yes, it provided all sorts of great spin-off technologies, teflon, velcro, satellites for everything, increased computing power, etc.

Now, the submarine world can add something of value. A chair that uses technology from reloading torpedoes. When you look at this chair, you'll ask, "Why?"

But, nice to see we can reuse some of the stuff that goes into our boats in commercial applications.

Does anyone know of any other developed for submarine technologies that have made their way into everyday use?


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South African Submarine Force Sets New Record...

Seems the South African navy is having to dodge some reports that their submarines, purchased from the Germans, are POS's, while their president is accused of accepting bribes from his German supplier. At the same time, have they set some kind of deep submergence record?

I report, you decide.

Global Warming, More Lies Debunked

Bothenook has an important post today on global warming, and how it is pseudo-science, with a great discussion of this article by Christopher Monkton. These are both required reading for those opposed to the drastic changes being considered by the Left to combat non-existing global warming.