Political Punditries

The gov't won't even leave your toilet alone

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:55:00 +0000

When I built my house in Raleigh in 1986, I couldn't figure out why I had such wimpy pressure in my shower. (This was a common Delta head, not some luxury version.) I finally took the head apart and found there was a pressure-reducer (a glorified washer) installed as a result of government fiat. I removed it and voilà, a normal shower experience!

Since I had my own well, it was clearly no damn business of the government how much water I used in a three-minute shower.

But the bureaucracy didn't stop there. When I bought my Minneapolis house eight years ago and decided to replace a worn tile floor in the master bath, I wasn't allowed to re-install the beautiful 1928 toilet! The remodelers informed me that "If you ever take the toilet up, code won't allow you to put it back in place. You're only permitted a 1-1/2 gallon one."

So I had to do cartwheels to find a new Kohler that roughly matched the delicate pink color and have the old American-Standard one destroyed. (So no scofflaw could salvage it!)

But worse —how shall we say this delicately— it doesn't do its job properly.

These incompletely-flushing toilets are such a travesty that they became the subject of a whole episode in "King of the Hill," where users had to flush the johns five or six times to finish the job.

It seems that when it comes to crap, the government giveth but not taketh.

The following is from Powerline.com

Get your hand out of my shower

Posted: 22 Jul 2010 06:10 AM PDT

Before the advent of the modern environmental movement, Bill Buckley used to assert with a glint in his eye that a liberal is someone who wants to reach into your shower and adjust the temperature of the water. Man, oh, man, was he right. The liberals' environmental agenda has brought Buckley's satirical thrust uncomfortably close to reality.

See, for example, the Wall Street Journal article "A water fight over luxury showers." Stephen Power reports:

Gene Goforth sells showerheads--big ones, like the Raindance Imperial 600 AIR. Selling for as much as $5,457, it has a 24-inch spray face, 358 no-clog channels and a triple-massage option. "You can just stand under it, and it helps your psyche," says Mr. Goforth, who has one in his home.

Now, Mr. Goforth is in a lather over the federal government's tough new line on water-hogging showerheads, part of a new effort to enforce energy- and water-use regulations. "Leave my shower alone," Mr. Goforth recently wrote in a letter to the Department of Energy.

Regulators are going after some of the luxury shower fixtures that took off in the housing boom. Many have multiple nozzles, cost thousands of dollars and emit as many as 12 gallons of water a minute. In May, the DOE stunned the plumbing-products industry when it said it would adopt a strict definition of the term "showerhead" in enforcing standards that have been on the books--but largely unenforced--for nearly 20 years.

The Journal explains in the handy sidebar to the story that the federal maximum for a showerhead is 2.5 gallons per minute, at 80 pounds per square inch.

I have a great idea for a political movement. How about a movement devoted to the restoration of limited government?

Rx for dems who think Obamacare will help them: get a second opinion

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Mon, 17 May 2010 06:54:00 +0000

If Spector gets defeated in the democratic senate primary, it may go down as yet another example of Obama's toxic "help" in campaigns.

Needless to say, the White House is doing everything they can to aid this quisling. They've also sent in Joe Biden, which always presents the possibility that he will put not one but both feet in his own mouth.

As to trumpeting Obamacare, there's just one problem: most of the public hates it.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2010/health_care_law

Cut Gordon Brown some slack!

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Thu, 06 May 2010 02:28:00 +0000

Tomorrow’s election in the UK is critical.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7683391/General-Election-2010-five-possible-result-scenarios-for-the-Conservatives.html

David Cameron (Conservative) was comfortably ahead of Gordon Brown (Labour) just months ago. And Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) was far behind.

Then they had a US-style televised debate where Clegg charmed viewers, and now there’s a possibility, God help us, that he could win.

This could mean a radical change in the special relationship between the UK and America, with Clegg bowing and pandering Obama-style to Europe.

Clegg’s surge is IMHO a good reason not to have televised debates, which give an advantage to slick pretty-boys, and a disadvantage to anyone remotely cerebral.

We’ve been cursed with these sound-bite charades since 1960. Why Britain chose to introduce them after all these years is beyond me.

Earlier tonight, PBS aired a parade of British voters saying they weren’t “excited” about Brown’s appearances or “leadership.”

Since I regularly watch Prime Minister’s Question Time on C-Span, I wonder if I don’t have a better feel for Brown’s qualities than a lot of these UK voters.

(God knows US voters are criminally uninformed when they vote, and I’m sure the UK is working to catch up. With TV debates now a major factor, you can deduct another 20 points from the collective IQ.)

Brown is smart, albeit not as engaging as Tony Blair, and acquits himself well when being questioned on a bewildering array of subjects from his critics on the right and left.

True, so have previous prime ministers. Their system puts more emphasis on having political leaders who can think on their feet instead of making canned statements.

(In contrast to Obama, for example, always with a background of adoring listeners or other props, like “doctors” issued white coats before they’re allowed to sit in the Rose Garden and listen to him blather about health care.)

But the other factor is reported to be Gordon Brown’s comments after a voter encounter, where he forgot his mike was still on after he got in his car.

I heard the entire audio clip. What’s the worst thing he said? “That bigoted woman.” And for this he had to call on her and apologize!

So people are offended by that, compared to Crazy Joe Biden’s obscenity when he didn’t know his mike was on? Or pinhead Carl Levin producing a whole string of comments that had to be bleeped while he was grilling a witness at his House committee?

Naturally, I’d prefer to see Tory David Cameron win.

But for God’s sake, Brits, give Gordon Brown a break on this tempest-in-a-teapot.

You don't need a UK equivalent of John Edwards.

The “birther” conspiracy: glorified horse-puckey

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Wed, 05 May 2010 08:42:00 +0000

There are endless charges right-thinking Americans can make against Obama, including his unparalleled combination of arrogance and incompetence.

But one thing that makes us look stupid and paranoid is this continuing obsession with Obama’s alleged non-American citizenship.

Depending on which of the trumped-up emails you receive, he was born in Kenya or Indonesia or Mars.

Note that all this stuff appears only in endlessly-circulated emails. No legitimate right-wing media outlet talks about this.

But for the fanatics, any signature and seal on any presented birth certificate is contested, carbon-14 dating is demanded, subterfuge and bribery is alleged, ad nauseum.

These are the grassy-knoll conspiracists of the right wing.

There is no “cover-up.”

Nobody wants Obama out of office more than me, but only a fool will waste one moment of attention on this distraction instead of the main objections to the re-election of The Anointed One and his congressional cronies.

Yes, there’s no question the lamestream media is ignoring or downplaying all sorts of Obama flaws.

But journalists' greed for fame would trump this.

Ask yourself this: If there was the slightest scintilla of evidence supporting this conspiracy theory, wouldn’t the win-at-any-price Hillary campaign have jumped all over it?

That is what campaigns do through their “oppo research.” The Clintons’ ruthless staff already did that.

Yes, the mainstream media is overwhelmingly liberal, but Fox, the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, and a host of other reliable anti-Obama conservative voices will jump on any remotely-credible lead in a heartbeat.

If you want to get technical:

Part of this baloney-fest is based on two things:

a) Ignorance of the law, specifically the legal concepts of jus sanguinis (right of blood) and jus soli (right of birthplace)

and

b) A willful attempt to conflate evidence about his birth certificate being faked, the ludicrousness of which, once examined, recalls Oliver Stone’s paranoid “JFK.”

These claims have been exhaustively debunked by UrbanLegends, Snopes.com, the Chicago Tribune, FactCheck, the US Immigration Service, Grolier Online, and Wikipedia, to name just a few authorities.

For proof, just read the following and their linked articles:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/obama_citizen.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/28/hawaii-declares-obama-birth-certificate-real/

Anyone who receives one of these silly emails should send this link to whoever sent it to you. Not that it’ll do much good.

Carly for California?

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Mon, 03 May 2010 08:38:00 +0000

A response to a California correspondent (who says she prefers Devore to Fiorina):

If I were a betting man, I'd have guessed that this is where you'd come down. It's your back yard, so I can only watch and hope from a distance.

I think they're both impressive in this Hannity debate:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/31/video-fiorina-vs-devore-on-hannity/

My two cents:

I can't believe anyone would go for Campbell, who's lost races for Senate twice. If so, we could dig up Harold Stassen for your primary voters.

I'd probably like Devore (though his mailings are such hackneyed direct mail tripe that I can't bear to read them), and after reading the article from WSJ magazine (that came with yesterday's issue), I sense that there are parts of Carly that are less than perfect.*

BUT, your state is now heavily dem, and we can only reminisce fondly of the days when Hayakawa and Murphy were Senators backing up Governor Reagan.

I think it's dangerous for Republicans to hope for another Scott Brown upset in any blue state. IMHO "angry" swing voters will determine elections mostly in purple states.

I think under those circumstances Fiorina is the only real chance to drive Boxer from office. And if she spends millions of her own money, thank God for it.

* Re her H-P record: I'm a Mac person and only care about their printers. But as for the stock price during her tenure, everyone got pummeled after the 2000 meltdown. I don't even want to figure out how much I lost on Sun micro.

“Never been reported in the media” and other myths

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:22:00 +0000

One of my favorite real-life anecdotes: (I’ve witnessed this numerous times over the years):

C-SPAN CALLER: “I want to talk about X, because it’s never been covered by the media.”

C-SPAN HOST: “How did you learn about this?”

C-SPAN CALLER: “I heard it on the radio.”

What the caller is unconsciously saying is that it’s not being reported in the mainstream media.*

Fortunately, the days are long gone when three networks, the NYT, WaPo, and AP pretty controlled everything being reported. But today thanks to everything from the web to Twitter, there’s virtually nothing that goes unreported.

That doesn’t mean you don’t have to dig for it sometimes, but Google makes that easy, especially if you know a little about structuring search parameters.

And if you bookmark about half a dozen websites, a conservative can get all the less-reported information he could want. Or he can enjoy Fox news or talk radio. It’s no coincidence that these broadcast resources have overwhelming ratings. They are the antidote to the MSM.

But you don’t even need a computer or television. The Wall Street Journal is now the nation’s largest daily, which I have delivered to me each morning instead of the local rag.

It’s “straight news” reporting is scrupulously unbiased, and its editorial page —which is conservative— provides a refreshing alternative to the knee-jerk liberalism of most of the nation’s newspapers.

More important, the WSJ is big and profitable enough to have a very large news staff. This is in stark contrast to the average daily newspaper which simply regurgitates AP and NYT stories for its national reporting.

The UPI is effectively gone,** and Reuters is rarely used as a news feed in this country, even though it’s offensively liberal.

The real tragedy of journalism is that US newspapers are folding at record rates. Almost all afternoon papers (historically “the working man’s paper” in every city) have disappeared. And only a handful of cities have more than one paper, period.

Unfortunately, this means that through attrition, The New York Times essentially drives all American newspaper coverage. Newspaper and network editors look at what the NYT is covering and follow it like trained monkeys.

NYT stories —and more important, its slant on the news— get passed through with no scrutiny or editing. When I was in journalism school, at least AP stories were typically rewritten by the local pubs.

Such concentration of orientation would be bad under any circumstances, but it's especially dangerous since the Times management has passed on to one of the idiot children, “Pinch” Sulzberger.

Many of us can exult in the Times’ slide towards bankruptcy, but know that won’t help. The execrable Minneapolis Star & Tribune (referred to locally as the Star & Sickle or Red Star) is hemorrhaging money, but even as it lays off staff by the carload, the most brain-dead liberals within the publication cling like lamprey eels.

Notwithstanding all the above, “never been reported in the media” is the unicorn of modern communications: a wholly mythical creature whose attraction borders on the mystical.

And one of the perverse results of this myth is that it creates endless bogus “never been reported” emails, which pretend to be some sort of magical truth unavailable anywhere else.

Refer to my upcoming post “Top Ten ways to spot hoaxes, urban legends, and bogus emails."

* Often abbreviated as MSM. Or as ex-CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg wryly describes it, the lamestream media. It is so heavily biased nowadyas as to be something of a joke, if it weren’t a disservice to the American public.

** Its share plummeted with the disappearance of afternoon newspapers, its primary niche. It was finally sold by the founding Scripps family, with two subsequent bankruptcies. Now owned by the Unification Church.

"Last train from Hiroshima" pulled due to fraud

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:27:00 +0000

One again, a book with a political agenda turns out to be a canard.

Remember the Bellesiles book that claimed early Americans didn't own firearms? It too was full of blatant fabrications, and its author was stripped of the Bancroft Prize and given the boot from the college where he taught.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Bellesiles

Holt to Cease Publication of 'Last Train to Hiroshima'
Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 3/1/2010 12:58:17 PM
After Charles Pellegrino, author of Last Train to Hiroshima, became embroiled in a dust-up over being deceived by a source for his book about the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the Japanese city, publisher Henry Holt has decided to go with the drastic move of ceasing publication of the title. The Macmillan imprint announced last week that it would make corrections to future editions of the book but now, after questions have surfaced about the validity of other accounts Pellegrino sourced in the book, Holt has decided to shelve the title entirely.

In a statement issued today Holt said that while Pellegrino "fully admitted his mistake" and went about immediately fixing it, in the wake of the initial discovery "questions about other sources and the author's credentials arose." Holt went on to say: "The author of any work of non-fiction must stand behind its content. We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction." A Holt spokesperson said that following the initial disclosure the publisher began receiving other questions from media sources about the book and while Pellegrino answered the questions, Holt was not fully satisfied with the answers.

Holt shipped 18,000 copies of the book and will issus a credit to wholesalers and retailers on returns of the book. Consumers can also seek a credit from their retailer on the title.

Here's the NYT story:

file:///Users/garyknutson/Documents/Doubts%20Raised%20on%20Book’s%20Tale%20of%20Atom%20Bomb%20-%20NYTimes.com.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/books/21hiroshima.html?pagewanted=print

An illuminating review appears on Amazon:

1.0 out of 5 stars What's Gone Wrong With Book Reviewers?,February 21, 2010
By Thomas J. Frieling (Athens, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I just read the New York Times article about the deception Mr. Pelligrino fell for--a Mr. Fuoco claiming to have flown on the bombing run on Hiroshima and also related a story about a pre-flight accident with the bomb that killed a scientist and rendered the bomb a "dud". (Some dud--70,000 people killed when it hit.)

All of this not true.

My problem here is not so much that Mr. Pelligrino wrote a bad book--anyone can do that. Or that the errors in the book amount to historical mal-practice which is deplorable as this book will be held by many libraries for many years, perhaps duping many more readers down the years.

My problem is the fact that this book got positive reviews in the mainstream press (including the NYT). I have to ask--what has gone wrong with the process of reviewing books? And backing up one step--what's gone wrong with the publishing industry that allows error-riddled books to pass muster? Doesn't the publishing industry employ copy editors and fact-checkers any more?

And who gets selected to review books like this--reviewers who obviously aren't qualified to pass judgemnet on the book's quality or accuracy? Where are the experts who could vouch for a book's accuracy--why aren't they being sought out to review books about which they are recognized subject experts? It should be a scandal.

The same thing happened last summer with the publication of Craig Nelson's book Rocket Men. It got glowing reviews in the mainstream press and he even appeared as part of a panel discussion at a NASA History Office conference celebrating the fourtieth anniversary of Apollo 11. Yet his book is full of errors of fact and, perhaps, worse, very questionable assertions (e.g.; that the Gemini Program was of limited success and it should have been more integrated into the Apollo Progarm---both ludicrous assertions) both of which betray his lack of understanding of his subject.

He may have written some well crafted prose, but the demands of a good history require the author get the facts correct first and foremost.

Both of these books failed that elemental test and still got rave reviews. That's the real disgrace.

Thomas J. Frieling
University of Georgia Libraries
tfrielin@uga.edu

More about this scandal later. Suffice it to say that publishers aren't vetting books, the reviewers aren't taking the elementary step of consulting noted experts (such as, in this case, the author of "Racing for the Bomb"), and so slanted views and political agenda poison readers.

Note also that the book's author plans to make corrections only for the "paperback and foreign editions." We're supposed to ignore the lies in the 18,000 copies already publisshed.

The best and worst of conservative magazines

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:43:00 +0000

The best mainstream conservative publications are the venerable National Review founded by William F. Buckley in 1955, now edited by Rich Lowry, and the Weekly Standard edited by Bill Kristol. Both are extremely well-written and scrupulous in their approaches.

Historically, the former is probably a bit more on the literary side, and the latter more contemporary. But NRO (National Review's online presence) thrives under Jonah Goldberg's helm.

The Standard's layout is cleaner and similar to the liberal The New Republic, which I periodically subscribe to, until I'm driven off by some of the more frothing-mouth contributors. Publisher Marty Peretz is frequently commonsensical, despite having been Al Gore's mentor.

Human Events, dating from 1944, is a respected publication, and incidentally the first to publish my favorite firebrand, Ann Coulter. Unfortunately, it insists on remaining a tabloid-format newspaper with production values inferior to a small-town newspaper. So I dropped my subscription from my ink-stained hands.

If they'd convert to a decent magazine format, I'd re-subscribe immediately. It wouldn't even have to be on slick paper, or four-color, although printing breakthroughs have made the latter very affordable for publishers.

Commentary, the Jewish intellectual conservative publication, is estimable, but its slant will make it heavy going for many readers.

Slightly off-topic: Reason magazine is libertarian, but really has a first-rate magazine and website.

And I must put in a plug for Jewish World Review, a one-man operation that's truly a labor of love and selfless commitment. JWR is worth a review all of its own, to come.

After this, we get to fringe-y publications.

WorldNetDaily has a magazine called Whistleblower which is a cheapjack embarrassment. I subscribed a few years ago, only to find the 4/c glossy exterior covers up interior content that looks like it was run off on a mimeograph machine.

Publisher Joseph Farah has a journalism background, but I take anything I see attributed to his site with an enormous grain of salt. Its circulation and revenue are modest.

Alas, a home to birther and North American Union conspiracy theories. 'Nuff said.

NewsMax is a strange duck. I regard it as unreliable, but it has some stellar board members, and is vastly profitable, having found a way to "monetize" the web.

In honesty, I haven't read their magazine, and have no plans to. Warning: If you ever get on their mailing list, you'll be bombarded endlessly with junk email, which is hard to stop.

Both these outfits have a host of good conservative columnists, but I'd frankly rather access them through Drudge or some other venue.

DaddyWarbucks recommends, in rank order:

National Review/The Weekly Standard (tie)
Reason/Commentary (tie)
Human Events
Townhall.com (website only)
Jewish World Review (website only)

And none of the others.

Freebizmag.com — a total waste of time

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:28:00 +0000

I got sucked into registering for this with the promise of free tech magazines.

After long, laborious minutes wasted filling out their moronic forms, the results:

1) I get endless emails offering annual reports and other boring information about "selected companies."

2) I get endless emails offering more free magazines, but after the first few time-wasting screens, they ask you to fill out a long moronic form again. (This is information they already have!)

Unless you value your time as worth absolutely nothing, avoid this simple-minded bait-and-switch like the plague. Needless to say, I had to opt out to stop this avalanche of junk in my email inbox.

(It should be obvious that any industry professional that they lust after doesn't have time to put up with crap like this.)

The real hard times

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:55:00 +0000

"Bound for Glory" ran last night. I hadn't seen it for years.

A film buff can't help but admire Hal Ashby's direction, Haskell Wexler's cinematography, and David Carradine as star — the latter having beat out many high-profile actors for the role, including Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, and even Robert Dylan.

It's a work that shows what Depression times really were like —at least for Okies— as opposed to today's proclaimed woes, where not getting enough cheese on your pizza is viewed as penury.

But as is often the case, it's a Hollywood Version of actuality, making Guthrie seem irritatingly noble, albeit self-destructive in his behavior.

In actuality, Guthrie was a pedictable liberal/radical/collectivist and naif who followed the Party Line and wrote weekly columns for The Daily Worker.

Initially Guthrie helped write and sing what the Almanacs Singers termed "peace" songs; while the Nazi-Soviet Pact was in effect, until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Communist line was that WWII was a capitalist fraud. After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union the topics of their songs became anti-fascist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie

Anyhow, it's a fine film, so long as you don't confuse it with reality.

Bombshells sometimes have long fuses

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:32:00 +0000

A correspondent wonders why I didn't spark to an email and link about a 2001 radio-interview potential bombshell of Obama talking unabashedly —and even admiringly— about "redistributive change."

I responded:

I didn’t read it because it was three screens deep of unformatted tiny type on my large-acreage 30” Apple LCD screen. (And just as tedious to read on Glenn Beck’s website.)

This is why God invented art directors. And editors.

If the content is a bombshell, I don’t need it obscured by Beck hogging the stage.

Drudge links sent me to vastly more accessible versions of the same content via Breitbart.com and YouTube.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081027191640.ak3b09o7&show_article=1

Is it powerful? Yeah, sort of. If you have enough time and GRPs to really seat the charge in the public's mind.

With respect to "October surprises," the revelation of Bush's DWI was a simple, undeniable fact, impervious to spin by W’s handlers.

Obama's comments on “redistributive change” are more amorphous and need to be inextricably linked through repetition and elaboration to the precepts of welfare and socialism.

At this late date, they've already been spun by Obama apologists into yet another Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

Accuracy doesn't even come into play when the other side has at its disposal millions of dollars and a pliant media.

Last chance at McCain gulch

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:20:00 +0000

In an email today, I forwarded Dick Morris's column for the day:

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/10/26/the-truman-show/

And in which forward I noted that

Dick Morris is the smartest strategist out there, but (a) McCain’s people would have to turn on a dime, and (b) the media swoon may be unassailable.

Note the red-highlighted section. This moronic act of omission by Bush led directly to the Florida recount debacle, which in turn led to the left’s “he’s not really President” paranoia that poisoned the following eight years, even after a thumping 2004 reelection.

The "red-highlighted" section I referenced was this:

In 2000, Bush's three-to-four point lead in the polls was erased over the final weekend when reports surfaced that he had been cited for DWI 20 years before and had not revealed the fact to the public. Bush still won the election, of course, but Gore won the popular vote by half a point.

This was a colossal, imbecilic move on W's part. Or non-move, since it was incumbent on the candidate to totally inoculate himself to the issue early on in the campaign.

At this point, I’m not sure what equivalently-imbecilic stunt Obama could do to squander his lead. Perhaps prancing around in a dress?

Oh, wait, that would probably solidify it, since there’s a part of the population who would say, “Yes! It’s time we had not just a minority but a transvestite Negro as President!”

Acorn: Not just corrupt, but incompetent

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:21:00 +0000

A Western correspondent chides this blog's author's limpid response to a NYT article on Acorn fraud:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/donor-patrol-obamas-online-site-accepts-more-fakes/?pagemode=print
"You sound so blase. This is illegal .... It is a violation of campaign finance laws. Why isn't this being investigated?"

I reply thus:

Acorn is being investigated in many states, but it’ll simply come down to “justice delayed is justice denied.” And any successful prosecutions will raise cries of "racism" and “voter suppression.”

Perversely, it turns out that Acorn’s claims of the number of new voters it’s registered are wildly inflated.

As noted last evening,
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,443990,00.html

Get Out the Vote?

Despite claims by various media outlets that new voter registration is up from previous years, a new Gallup survey says that is not the case.

The poll indicates just 13 percent of registered voters will cast ballots for the first time. That is the same number found in Gallup's 2004 pre-election poll. And the number of registered voters who say they do not plan to vote has actually risen two percentage points.

These findings come as The New York Times reports a claim by the voter registration group ACORN that it had signed up 1.3 million new voters is vastly exaggerated. The executive director of ACORN affiliate Project Vote says the actual figure is closer to 450,000. He says about 400,000 registrations were rejected because they were duplicates, incomplete or fraudulent.

So Obama has been taken for a ride by the organization he’s pumped zillions into.

Meaning a better questions for the electorate would be:

"Would you trust this man to negotiate foreign treaties when he dosn't even have the skills of a Chicago politician to get delivery of the votes he's paid for?"

ObamaGötterdämmerung

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:32:00 +0000

Well, the final Obama/McCain debate is over. And I'm afraid it's over.

All Barry had to do was stick to his talking points and not yawn. He's succeeding in running out the clock.

McCain had already blown the second debate by not confronting Obama on his well-worn canards, like "95% of people making less than $200,000 a year* will get a tax rebate."

Well, no. As any bright 16-year-old could have riposted,

40% of Americans don't pay any income tax. If Mr. Obama sends them a check, it's not a rebate. It's opening the vault door of the Treasury and shoveling money out with a grain scoop. If you work hard and pay taxes, do you want those dollars (and those of your children and grandchildren) spent to mail checks to people who never pay taxes?

This time around, to capture the mood of the American people, McCain should have recalled the movie Network, in which Peter Finch as Howard Beale famously shouted, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Not that this is a unique idea. O'Reilly and Dick Morris have preached this for several weeks. Surely someone among McCain's advisors must have a television set.

But too many of his handlers want to keep John tamped down and docile, so as to pander to independents, who are perceived as people having been born without a spine.

I submit McCain could reverse the poll numbers overnight if he'd have said

If I'm elected, the first thing I'm going to do is appoint a Special Prosecutor to bring to justice the people who made this financial mess. This was partly through government interference that forced lenders to give mortgages to people who couldn't afford them.

That includes Democrats and Republicans, but especially Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd. And there'll be special attention for those who got huge political contributions from corrupted lending organizations.

Actually, that would include you, Senator Obama, since you got the second-highest Freddie Mac wad of hush money. You didn't quite catch up to Chris Dodd this time, and I'm promising there won't be a next time.

And as for those snot-nosed Wall Street shysters who packaged and peddled these sub-prime instruments that stank like Gorgonzola cheese, you can expect some perp-walks. That's where miscreants are led into courtrooms wearing manacles and leg irons, which is my idea of humane treatment.

Afterwards, I want them wearing orange jumpsuits, being led off to prison. And none of those white-collar prisons with maid service. I want them to serve hard time, where they get a 250-pound weightlifter for a cellmate who takes one look and says, "You got a purty mouth."

Thank you and good night.

*Sometimes expressed by Obama as "$250,000 a year," sometimes as "middle class." The specifics change with the barometric pressure, as near as I can tell.

Götterdämmerung being a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the gods which brings about the end of the world.

Vegan politicians need pork too!

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:34:00 +0000

If money is the mother's milk of politics, surely pork is its first solid food.

All congressional members tout how they bring home the bacon to their districts. This is one of the things they define as constituent service. It is true that high-priced call girls also describe what they do as a service, but let's not dwell on that for now.

What else is a politician to say? That he's gotten rather fond of those fine restaurants that Washington abounds in, much superior to those in Gooseberry Falls that he once called home? "And that I still call home!" he will hasten to add.

So in the present bailout —to distinguish it from those to come— pork became the ideal lubricant to help recalcitrant congressmen ease their consciences.

Much of the pork was especially tainted. And it is small comfort to know that most of it would likely have been slipped into future bills, if not this one. The two parties clearly indulged in a slop-trough mano a mano: "Okay, you can have this odious provision if we can have this putrid one."

It is fortunate that after the voice vote to pass the bill, Congressman Barney Frank verified the ayes and nays by asking the members to rise. It would have been difficult for them to raise their hands while holding their noses.

But the bill is passed by congress and the president quickly signed it, the former now having sense enough to leave town, although surely regretting they once again must return to their beloved Gooseberry Falls locales across America.

The bailout is rescued

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:47:00 +0000

Today congress passed the bailout bill, which by the way, is a term I find no more a pejorative than rescue, which some felt would be less offensive and presumably have led to more speedy passage.

If one envisions bailing out a boat to save its contents and passengers, how would that be less noble and no less a rescue?

But I digress. Let us jump backwards to that time long, long ago, Monday.

The bill went down to a thumping defeat, done in largely by GOP congressmen. Much was made of their philosophical opposition to this magnitude of government meddling or nascent socialism. But it was clear also that the normal fear of the electorate was galvanized to a new level by phone lines tied up by furious constituents.

(Note that I never heard about "thousands of emails." Telephone calls are probably the most effective way of registering your complaints, unless you can join a mob with pitchforks and torches.)

Alas, I submit that these callers were largely wrongheaded. All of humankind will be offended by the vision of Wall Street whiz-kids golden-parachuting their way out of the mess they profited from. And I further submit that the best way to prevent future excesses would be CEOs being perp-walked in manacles to court.

But the complaining callers comprehended neither the depth of the problem nor the domino effect that would ensue. It took a few days before the credit crisis became the disagreeable but needed medicine.

Oh, yes, we almost forgot. A generous swallow of pork helped the medicine go down. More about that in the next post.

The insidious radicals

noreply@blogger.com (daddywarbucks) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:55:00 +0000

A correspondent wrote today about former members of the Weather Underground endorsing an "independent grassroots effort" for Obama. (Clearly a front group for whom the word "independent" constitutes merely the first canard.)

Per WorldNetDaily (2 Oct 08),

The petition was initiated by Progressives for Obama, an independent organization acting to ensure the Illinois senator's election.

Progressives includes among its ranks many former members of the 1960s radical organization Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, from which the Weathermen splintered, as well as current and former members of other radical organizations, such as the Communist Party USA and the Black Radical Congress.

As vomitorious as these people are (along with Obama's deranged buddy Bill Ayers), I’m almost more frightened of the insidiousness of allegedly mainstream organizations like the NEA, which was planning to have teachers “wear blue for Obama” next week.

I’m of an age that remembers when the NEA was an innocent bucolic organization that had a meeting once a year. (So one or two more days off for us kids! Yay!) Then years later, the American Federation of Teachers burgeoned via its agressive agenda.

Before long , the NEA decided to out-militant them, and paradoxically Albert Shanker* of the AFT was actually writing sensible articles in his "Where we stand" column during his later years. I actually considered writing him a fan letter.

Incidentally, in J-school, I took classes with some members of the SDS. Their most noteworthy impact seemed to be a rebellion against soap and barbers.

* In one of Woody Allen's movies, perhaps Sleeper, he makes reference to that earlier period: "And then a man named Albert Shanker got hold of an atom bomb." This probably sailed over the heads of even his sophisticated audience.

For a fine summary of the movie, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_(film)