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And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill." Twenty-five million people. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: Csharp Labels: homosexuality Labels: cars Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Steve Corbett, a radio talk show host in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, accidentally received a copy of an internal email sent by Grant Olin who heads the Wilkes-Barre headquarters of the Obama campaign. The email went to 627 Obama campaign volunteers in the Wilkes-Barre Scranton region, saying that Obama Headquarters reported an internal poll which shows that Obama is only 2 points up in Pennsylvania. Sean Smith, who is heading Obama’s Pennsylvania campaign, was interviewed by Steve Corbett via phone at 5:35 today to discuss this. He said that Grant "went rogue", and aknowledged that Grant was "reprimanded" for this. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates There have been a smattering of incidents reported in which people have seen credit card charges surface suggesting they donated to Barack Obama when they did not. Now comes the story of Mary T. Biskup, of Manchester, Missouri. Biskup got a call recently from the Obama campaign, which was trying to figure out why she donated $174,800 to the campaign -- well over the contribution limit of $2,300. The answer she gave them was simple. "That's an error." Biskup, a retired insurance manager who occasionally submits recipes to the local paper, says someone used a credit card to donate the money in her name. No charges ever showed up on her credit card statement. "We're not out a penny," Biskup said. "I gather that someone has hacked into something using other people's credit cards and putting my name on it." Obama's campaign spotted the irregular donations, more than 70 of which all arrived on the same day, and aides to the senator said they refunded the money. The campaign began investigating immediately. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: history Labels: 2008 presidential candidates WASHINGTON---The Obama campaign is putting a hefty price tag on the best camera and reporting positions for news organizations covering Barack Obama's outdoor election night activities in downtown Chicago. If a reporter wants access to the file center--which will be the best place to find Obama officials and spokesmen--be prepared to write a check for $935. The cheapest place a reporter could stand on a riser with a view is $880. That $935 covers one reporter in a heated file tent, power, cable tv, internet and food. I am told by an Obama spokesman who did not want his name used that this just covers costs and they are not turning a profit on this. The planners could have built in more al a carte options for Grant Park coverage. This is an outrageous pay to play plan that caters to national elite outlets with deep pockets. I am not asking for a free ride--news outlets pay for plane seats, other transportation organized by the campaign, hotel rooms, plus associated costs for filing centers. But this Election Night list is pricey and does not take into account some reporters won't need power, cable, internet or food but will crave the access more than the food. As I was talking to this unnamed spokesman about this enormously expensive set-up, he did say--that a news outlet could rotate people in and out of the tent on that one credential. Great. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, humor Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Meanwhile, Obama’s real, quite verifiable and public religious background (and mentor) was not even mentioned by the Secretary of State - namely, the execrable Reverend Wright. That is far more disconcerting than some vague Muslim association (whether by birth or otherwise) and indicates a lack of judgment on Obama’s part that any person of gravitas (like a Colin Powell) should find difficult, almost impossible, to defend. Yet the racist Wright, we all know, was Obama’s chosen minister for twenty years, married him, baptized his children, gave him spiritual guidance and provided the inspiration for his memoirs - even the title of the second one. It’s hard to imagine a closer relationship with a pastor, except perhaps a spousal one. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, global warming Labels: 2008 presidential candidates A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions. The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them. To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C. The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet. Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the “negative laundry options” outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity. Labels: enviromental lunacy Labels: economics Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, terrorism From the New York Post: Wow. What were you eating at 4:00 yesterday? From Obama's book, Dreams from My Father: You can hear this portion of his audiobook and find more questions that the Mainstream media didn't find interesting here. These days you really can't get away with this kind of hypocrisy unseen. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to make much difference to Obama's followers - or the mainstream media. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: freedom of speech Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Sen. Schumer, chairman of a Senate banking subcommittee, was criticized at the time for publicly raising questions about the bank's solvency and regulators' oversight of it. What wasn't known then was that a group of potential investors, led by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management LP, had been inside the bank looking over its books. They had already decided not to invest in the bank, but were scouting assets that might become available if the bank failed and was taken over by the government. Sen. Schumer's office said recently he didn't know anything about Oaktree's possible interest in IndyMac until after the bank failed. Oaktree Chairman Howard Marks said he never talked to the senator about IndyMac. Labels: economics, politicians behaving badly
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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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Determining Which Ports Are Open
I'm trying to use the Remote Desktop Connection feature of Windows XP Professional. When I was in Bend, Oregon, it worked great to connect to another Windows box through VPN. Now that I am back home--it doesn't work! Port 3389 is what allows Remote Desktop to work--and I have read that some ISPs block 3389 as a security measure. (And no, I turned off the Windows Firewall--that wasn't it.)
How can I determine which ports my ISP is blocking (while waiting for their customer support to get back to me on Monday)? This website has a port tester that claims to let you enter an IP address, and see which ports are open. Using my external IP address, it claims that port 3389 is closed--but it claims that all ports are closed--and that clearly isn't true, or I wouldn't be able to use a browser.
So, is there a free tool out there that will let me know if my ISP is blocking a particular port?
UPDATE: Thanks for all the helpful responses. I was able to do a remote desktop connection--so it may be because I am using the same address range (192.168.1.*) as the far end.
UPDATE 2: Problem solved; see above.
Bush = Hitler As Projection
The progressives spent a lot of time comparing Bush to Hitler over the last few years--and now, they are comparing McCain to Bush. So what would you call a group that wanted to engage in the murder of millions of people? Confederate Yankee found a clip from a 1982 documentary in which an FBI informant discusses his involvement with William Ayers' organization, Weather Underground (both the text and the video are over there):I asked, "well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" and the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated.
Zombietime (one of my favorite reporters from Progressive Pervert Central, San Francisco) has dug up copies of Prairie Fire, written by Ayers and Dohrn and others while they were underground, and scanned in pages from it. Read it, and you will see that there is nothing implausible about the idea that these lunatics were prepared to kill 25 million Americans who couldn't be "re-educated."
By the way, the progressive academics at SupportBillAyers.org (who are a strong argument for political quotas in university teaching jobs) have described Ayers' involvement in planning bombings of buildings this way:The current characterizations of Professor Ayers---“unrepentant terrorist,” “lunatic leftist”---are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Thanks to Professor David Bernstein at Volokh Conspiracy for pointing out how the progressive academics describe bombings and plans to murder 25 million people for their refusal to accept socialist dogma: "participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s."
I remember in the late 1960s or early 1970s running into a book titled Pigtown (not the same as the novel by William J. Caunitz) set just a little ways in the future where progressives are being rounded up and exterminated by conservatives in concentration camps. (It was so stupid that I didn't get past the first chapter.) Like I said, an awful lot of progressive thinking is projection: taking their deepest and darkest desires and projecting them onto their opponents.
I don't assume that Obama has this same genocidal madness as other progressives do. But Obama's attempts to pretend that William Ayers was "a guy in the neighborhood," instead of a significant political ally in Obama's rise to power, is dishonest, and pretty darn scary. I can only hope that President Obama will be more influenced by crooks like Rezko than ideologically driven mass murderer wannabes like William Ayers. But for that later situation: I think it would be a good idea to make sure that you have a few thousand rounds of ammunition for your rifles--just in case Ayers and friends end up in positions of power.
Confidence Building
I've been doing some contract work in C#/.NET the last two weeks--and it has been a confidence building experience. I showed up, spent the first two days building a rather complicated mail merge utility, and then started on the third day writing unit tests for their product. By the time I left Friday evening, I had written more than 40 unit tests, a few of which were modeled on existing unit tests, but most of which were built from scratch--and thoroughly tested some of these methods. By the fourth day I was there, I was building unit tests for classes that were, by their own account, complex.
I feel really smart at times like this. My unit tests were sufficiently thorough that I produced dozens of bug reports, most relatively minor, but some of which shook rather important bugs. What bothers me is that my ability to do work like this is of no apparent value to the vast majority of employers--who work on the assumption that if you don't have at least two years of experience in C#/.NET, you can't possibly be worth hiring. Most employers seem to work on the assumption that a software engineer with 30 years of experience is some sort of dullard, who will require years to learn what really only takes days to weeks.
Oh Yeah, I See The Teaching Connection Here
I know a public school teacher here who insists that teachers unions aren't political--they are just looking out for the interests of their students. From the October 24, 2008 San Diego Union-Tribune:Escalating the divide: a $1 million contribution by the California Teachers Association to defeat Proposition 8, the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.
I know that many teachers do not support gay marriage--as the article points out--but I fear that as long as there are teachers' unions pulling in big money in mandatory dues (in most states) from public school teachers, the left's control of teachers' unions will continue this type of behavior.
I have some serious criticisms of libertarian atomism: the belief that each of us is an individual, with no legally enforceable obligation or duty to the society as a whole. But stuff like this, and the corruption and near destruction of capitalism by mandated subprime mortgage lending makes me increasingly sympathetic to the view that there can be middle path because collectivism and libertarian atomism. It seems that the wealthy and powerful will always twist governmental power to increase the left's control over individuals.
Those trying to rein in the California Supreme Court, and return authority to make laws to the people, are short on funds. They need your help.
Corvette As Rapid Transit
I was planning to work into the early evening last night (the advantage of being paid by the hour!) and then leave bright and early this morning for home. But I reached a convenient breaking point, and having already worked about 50 hours, I really didn't want to start writing unit tests for yet another company's record formats.
So I jumped in the Corvette, and drove home. Aside from being a little loud from wind noise, the Corvette is a splendid car for a fast drive on a two lane highway. Aside from a couple of...biological necessity stops and a stop for a burger at Carl's in Ontario, I drove straight through. Especially with the Michelin Pilots, the ride is smooth without being floating, there's relatively little tire or road noise, and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries makes a great accompaniment through the windy parts between Burns and Vale.
If only there was a decent paying job that involved traveling around the United States by Corvette.... Wait! Wasn't that the whole premise of the TV series Route 66?
I Have A Job Interview in Reno Next Tuesday
It sounds intimidating--but it is both faster and cheaper to travel to Reno than to Bend, Oregon. For starters, there is a non-stop flight to Reno on Southwest Airlines that only takes about 70 minutes (versus five hours of driving to Bend). At least right at the moment, that's a $180-$220 round trip--a bit cheaper than the cost of the drive to Bend. And once winter starts, I would need a 4WD to get to Bend--assuming that I could get here at all.
I still would prefer a job in Boise or nearby--but the way the economy is going, any permanent job at all is an improvement.
Spreading the Wealth: At Least The IRS Won't Disfigure You
This account from October 23, 2008 WTAE channel 4 is obviously not going to get national attention--unlike people saying unkind things about Obama at McCain/Palin rallies. I wonder why?PITTSBURGH -- A 20-year-old woman who was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield was also maimed by her attacker, apparently because of her political views, Pittsburgh police said.
The Obama campaign was upset about this, of course. Freelance socialists implementing Obama's "share the wealth" program take away jobs that properly belong to union members who work for the IRS! You know, I think there's a reason that Democrats want state laws that take the vote away from convicted felons to go away; it's too much of a part of their constituency.
According to WTAE's news exchange partners at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ashley Todd, of College Station, Texas, was using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her and put a knife to her throat.
Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the robber took $60 from Todd, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using the knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.
The Tribune-Review reported that Todd, who isn't familiar with the area, drove to a friend's house and together the pair located the Citizens Bank ATM at Liberty and Pearl where the attack happened and called police.Todd declined to comment to the Tribune-Review. Friends said she is in Pittsburgh volunteering for the McCain-Palin campaign.
...
The robber is described as a dark-skinned black man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, 200 pounds with a medium build, short black hair and brown eyes. The man was wearing dark colored jeans, a black undershirt and black shoes.
UPDATE: I have had people ask me if I really believe this story. At this point, I don't see a strong reason to disbelieve it, and apparently, the police are taking it seriously as well. Of all the claims that I have seen about why this couldn't have happened, the only argument that is worth even a little attention is that the "B" is backward on her cheek--which is what might happen if you scratched yourself in a mirror. (A lesbian "victim" of a hate crime was caught some years ago in San Francisco because she had written several words on her face in a mirror, and had not realized that they would be backward.) However, if you write a B from above (as, for example, if you were holding a much shorter person by the hair, and scratching a B from above), it will be "backward" in the sense that it appears in the picture.
There are multiple violent incidents every election cycle by leftwing Democrats who are clearly too mentally unstable to handle the excitement. Why is it so hard to believe that it is happening in this election cycle?
UPDATE 2: She confesses now that she made it all up.
This May Be Closer Than The Media Are Claiming
Apparently, some idiot in Obama's Pennsylvania campaign accidentally released the results of an internal poll that shows Obama only up 2 points on McCain there--far worse than the widely publicized surveys--and I'm getting this from one of the deranged hard-left blogs, Daily Kos:
I don't know what the survey size was, but a 2 point advantage is certainly within the 95% confidence interval (unless they are doing absolutely huge samples). If Pennsylvania is winnable, there's a good chance that that some of the other battleground states are still winnable.
Remember: one of the objectives of the news media is to create such disheartenment that McCain supporters don't show up to vote, or decide to vote Libertarian, or some other third party. If I had a real job, I would have been throwing money into the various independent campaign efforts right now. There's still hope for knocking Obamessiah out.
UPDATE: Investor's Business Daily says that their organization doing their daily tracking polls was the most accurate at calling the 2004 presidential election--and shows Obama 44.8%, McCain 43.7%, and undecided at 11.6%. That's winnable. That's very winnable for Sarah Palin and the old guy.
The Prospect of Riots
This report from the October 21, 2008 The Hill should make a lot of Democrats think long and hard about their continual playing of the race card when anyone (included Democrats) criticized Obama:
You notice that no one worries about Republicans rioting if Obama wins. But then again, we are the party of adults. When we lost control of Congress in 2006, there were no temper tantrums, or accusations that we lost control because of election fraud (although there were certainly individual elections decided by fraudulent votes). And the tragedy is that the big losers if McCain miraculously pulls a victory rabbit out of his hat, and blacks go on a rampage will be...blacks. As Crime, Guns, and Videotape points out:
Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.I don’t like the message that’s being spread around right now. At least one African-American columnist from the Baltimore Sun has tried to spread fear and racial divide. What I see is a lame attempt at extortionate intimidation to assure Barack Obama gets installed into the Whitehouse.
Obviously, the vast majority of blacks aren't going to lose their tempers and start rioting if Obama loses. They're just like you and me. But a small number of hotheads, encouraged by the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party, might decide that looting, pillaging, and burning makes loads of sense...and thus create a strong incentive for Democrats not to nominate another black Presidential candidate, perhaps even one who is qualified for the job.
African-Americans can’t have that short a memory. When that happens in our country the death and destruction always becomes localized in the ghettos. The impact, damage and suffering is always heaviest on the African-Americans themselves.
The Scale of the Fraud Is Massive
On one of the Washington Post blogs, there is this astonishing story:
As some bright commenter pointed out, if the donation wasn't charged to Biskup's credit card, then where did the Obama campaign refund the bogus contributions to? I've seen suggestions that what we may be seeing is a very large scale laundering of money from overseas, using the names of real Americans to hide contributions that are unlawful--and might explain why some of the amounts are for small amounts, sometimes with a few odd cents involved. (These would be the results of currency translation taking place after there had been a change in exchange rates. After all, bin Laden's cave isn't exactly Internet connected.) This would explain how Obama's campaign could "refund" credit card contributions where the person whose credit card was supposedly used claims not to have any charges on her card.
If anything this odd were going on with the McCain campaign, the mainstream media would be screaming up a storm. Isn't it odd that these reports keep popping up--and nothing happens? One would hope that someone in the Justice Department would be investigating--but I'm sure that the lawyers there all have Obama stickers on their cars.
Why Is Obama Going To Hawaii Now?
Just before the election? This article suggests that the Berg lawsuit--which Obama and the DNC are still frantically trying to make go away, rather than show Obama's certified Hawaii birth certificate--might have something to do with it:Now – belatedly – that the net is closing in on Obama, and the suspicions, as many have alleged, are that he is a Trojan Horse for Islamic interests, or a Manchurian Candidate, or a total fraud – Obama has seemingly discovered an interest in his ailing grandmother. Yes, that Grammy who he so facilely threw under the bus during the early days of his campaign.
According to Berg's filing of October 15, Obama and the DNC have missed their deadline to produce the birth certificate--and he's asking for the court to find that Obama is not a natural born citizen of the U.S.
He is now so worried about Grandma Dunham – the woman who raised him but strangely didn’t attend his nomination – that he is taking a few days off from his intense campaign to visit this ailing widow.
Or could his strangely-timed trip to Hawaii really be to “clear up” the sticky case of his missing birth certificate?
I live in New York, where it is not uncommon for BIG payoffs to influence people to come up with “the goods.” A half-a-million here, a dire threat there, often influence people to do things – like perjure themselves, produce phony documents, et al – that they would never do under less “pressured” circumstances.
If the magic document doesn’t appear, it is possible, and entirely legal, that Obama could be removed from the ballots in states that are questioning his eligibility.
According to a recent article in The Daily Herald in Everett, WA, a civil action was filed in Washington State Superior Court against Sam Reed, Secretary of State, demanding that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama be removed from the ballot in Washington unless he can provide verification of his status as a United States citizen. The citizen who filed the suit, Steven Marquis, asked that Reed verify – by looking at “original or certified verifiable official documents” – that Obama is a natural-born citizen of the United States and eligible to serve as president, and that the office do so by Election Day.
Like others investigating the matter, Marquis said that answering the unanswered questions about Obama’s citizenship and background would “preclude a constitutional crisis and likely civil unrest” that would arise if information about Obama’s ineligibility came to light after the election.
We are less than two weeks from the election--and Obama suddenly decides to spend several days in Hawaii?
There's an awful lot about Berg's suit that smells bad--for example, his claim in the initial filing that a Kenyan birth certificate for Obama has been found by a GOP research team back in June. If this was really true, the GOP would have presented it--because by now it is too late to substitute someone else on the ballot. This press release concerns the suit against the Washington Secretary of State demanding proof that Obama is legally qualified. Still, the weirdness of Obama and the DNC refusing to hand over the certified birth certificate that would knock this suit completely out of the water combined with the timing of Obama's trip to Hawaii is quite mystifying.
I really hope that Berg is right--because right now, this is about the only realistic hope of defeating Obama. If there is any evidence of the utter incompetence of democracy to make good decisions, this election proves it.
If You Live in Bend, Oregon
And you have a copy of George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England, please email me! I am trying to get the last little changes made to an upcoming Maine Law Review article, and I don't have my copy of the book with me. I've checked the catalogs of the Bend Public Library, and Central Oregon Community College, and Oregon State University, Cascades--none of them have it.
An Amazing Statement About What Happens If Obama Wins
The statement was made at a fundraiser recently by a prominent national politician. He said that if Obama wins, there will be a major effort to test Obama with "a major international challenge." That sounds like something that those evil Republicans would say, right? No, it was Joe Biden!
Now, Biden claims that Obama has "steel in his spine" and will be up to the challenge. But it isn't going to be Obama who is going to be killed in a terrorist attack. It will be ordinary Americans, or members of our armed forces, or police officers.
Somehow, I doubt that any of the crowd that thinks Obama might be soft thinks that about McCain.
By the way, I am inclined to think that Biden is right. Obama is "full of steel" (as was another politician with similar attitudes about freedom of speech--what do you think the nomme de guerre "Stalin" means?). And that's what I am scared witless of--is that Obama will be the same thuggish politician in the White House that he has demonstrated in the primaries--prepared to call any criticism of him "racism" as a way of shutting up disagreement.
Maybe Obama Has Gone Too Far...
Reporters that want to cover the victory celebration are going to be paying for the privilege:
Obama's friends have already played a major part in looting $850 billion from the American taxpayer, and you can be sure that they will be looting even more once he is in office. What do you suppose the chances are that Obama will ask Congress to pass a slavery reparations bill to compensate people like himself--whose ancestors were never held as slaves in America?
The Ultimate Obama Endorsement (Humor)
I don't know if this is satire or not--there are some pretty whacky people out there!MEDIA ALERT: Prophet Yahweh Predicts Spaceships Will Appear Oct. 31st in Support of Senator Obama
Prophet Yahweh, Seer of Yahweh, Master UFO Caller says that on October 31, 2008, superhuman black men, from other planets, will appear in their spaceships and hover over his UFO Summoning School for three days as a sign that all Americans should vote for Obama as President.
Nice Little Video About The Berg Suit
I mentioned the suit by Berg against Obama, and the bizarre claims that Obama has used to avoid producing his birth certificate. For those who aren't big on reading, here's a well produced video interviewing Berg about the suit, and the very serious questions about whether Obama is a natural born citizen--or if he was, perhaps lost his citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen.
Lobster, Caviar, & the Obamas: Never Mind!
The New York Post is now admitting that their source for the Obamas lobster and caviar room service feast was way wrong--the Obamas were not even in town.
How unfortunate. I really wanted to believe it!
More About Powell's Endorsement of Obama
Roger L. Simon observes that Powell's reasons for endorsing Obama makes no sense:Citing unnamed Republican party leaders (not McCain), he said these leaders made allegations to him that Obama was a Muslim and therefore a “terrorist”. Really? I would like to hear the names of those “leaders.” Sure, there are plenty of extremists on the Internet and elsewhere bantering around stuff like that (just as there are liberal-left extremists spewing nonsense about McCain), but genuine party leaders? Would Powell please name one? If not, this seems like a political smear. Why would Powell feel he needed to make it?
Writing a Personal Book Is More Effort
Way more effort. I'm working through the edits and corrections from my mother and oldest sister right now about my brother's fall into mental illness. Of course, no one's memories are ever perfect; we all remember slightly different details. Some of us remember stuff that the others don't. Compared to writing a straight scholarly history, this is hard work. Especially because it brings back so many painful memories. Sitting by myself in a little house in Bend while doing doesn't make it any easier.
Crossing Paths (Again)
Zombietime (one of my favorite San Francisco Bay Area troublemakers) has an image of the 1997 review (if you can call something that short a review) by Barack Obama of William Ayers' book--which mentions Obama on page 82!
Joe The Plumber? What About Bill The Bomber?
For all this talk about "Joe the Plumber"--why aren't we hearing more about "Bill the Bomber"? (William Ayers.)
The Coming Ice Age!
The National Post (one of the Canadian newspapers) had a nice article today pointing out how rapidly the global warming garbage is melting away, and includes this graph showing the recent trend lines based on NASA's weather satellite data:
Whoops! Unfortunately, facts are almost irrelevant to this now. President Obama intends to declare carbon dioxide as a "dangerous pollutant" as soon as he takes office. (I'm a bit surprised that he is bothering to wait until after the election to issue the executive order.)
I'm Disappointed By Powell's Endorsement of Obama
If Colin Powell is serious that his endorsement of Obama wasn't because of race, then I am really disappointed at what Powell considers important: the fear that McCain will appoint a bunch more conservatives to the Supreme Court. Rush Limbaugh asks where are all the white, liberal inexperienced candidates that Powell has endorsed? If Powell's concern about McCain's likely nominees is really what is driving this, then Powell is on my list of people that I will not support for president.
So Much for Environmentalism
Environmentalists have been screeching for some time about the importance of not using disposable diapers--that traditional cloth diapers are less destructive to Mother Earth. But the British government went ahead and studied the carbon footprint of disposable vs. cloth--and didn't get the Politically Correct results. From the October 19, 2008 Times of London:
You see, one of the problems with the modern environmental movement is that it is more about forcing people to wear hair shirts and otherwise be miserable than saving the environment. Much of environmentalism today is the modern equivalent of medieval monks flagellating themselves.
Target Ads and Learning To Live Within Means
Since the financial crisis started, Target has been running a series of ads that imply saving money by a combination of reining in absurd spending and (of course) buying stuff at Target. The ads are cute, but they do bring up a point that I have sometimes made over the last few years, such as in this piece (search for "Cutting Spending").
My experience, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and over the last few years here in the Boise area, is that an awful lot of people have bought an awful lot of expensive stuff--and the direction of ownership has become a bit inverted: the possessions increasingly become the owners, not the owned. Yes, it is awfully nice to to go to McCall and go water skiing. But the boat wasn't free, neither was the trailer, and instead of driving to the lake in a family sedan that gets 22 to 25 mpg--you need to drive a truck or SUV that gets 15 mpg, because you need the towing capacity.
I felt really, really extravagant when I bought the Corvette back in 2002--but it only cost me $32,500 for a nearly new sports car that was still under warranty. I look at people in their 20s and 30s who I see driving $90,000+ sedans (and there are a lot of them in Boise in now) and I wonder what these people must be doing to afford cars this expensive--and what they will do if this source of income disappears. Just a bit down from that are vehicles like the Cadillac Escalade. For almost $62,000, you can buy a Chevy Tahoe (which is mechanically identical) and have $25,000 left over (which should fill the Tahoe up at least several times).
If all of this money that people are spending were coming from a bottomless pit, I suppose that it would much matter. But I rather doubt that this is the case. I look at the vast amount of wealth that is being spent just on rolling stock around here, and I conclude that one of the following must be true:
1. There are a vast number of people in Boise who are obscenely rich (many millions of dollars in net assets) and for whom spending $90,000 for a Mercedes S-class is nothing. (This may explain why Obama bumper stickers here are at least as common as McCain stickers.)
2. There are a lot of couples in Boise making $200,000 a year or more--and who are not even slightly worried about someone losing their job.
3. A lot of this apparent wealth is built on a vast ocean of unsustainable consumer debt.
Another Variant
I mentioned yesterday a cute parable that I heard. Here's a variant:The son was home from college to watch the playoffs on dad's flat panel high def 60 inch big screen tv. A break in the action an 0bamama poly ad and the discussion was on. Sonny thought his dad should be proud to pay more taxes to help the poor and homeless. Dad just shook his head and the neighbor said to sonny, "I know how you feel, I've been at your dad for years, and there is no way to change him." "But", the neighbor said, "I can help you out." "My lawn needs to be mowed raked and fertilized, I'll give you $50 if you will do it, tomorrow?"
Sonny said, "I can use the money and I'd be glad to do that for you."
Neighbor said, "Good, good, when your done I'll drive you over to the Superette where ole homeless Joe lives under the dumpster." "You can give Joe the $50 so he can eat and maybe buy a '40' or two."
Sonny said, "If that's what you think i should do, why don't you just have ole Joe do your yard work?" Sonny's dad said, "Welcome to the Republican party, Sonny!"
Crossing Paths
Obama's story about his relationship with William Ayers has changed at least once so far. I believe that the current version is that they were on a board of directors, and that Ayers "is a guy that lives in the neighborhood," but that they weren't ever close. Over at Verumserum, some clever detective work shows that Obama and Ayers actually worked in the same building for quite a while: 115 S. Sangamon Street, in Chicago. Now, this is a multistory building, so perhaps it doesn't mean so much...except that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (which Obama chaired) and the Small Schools Workshop (which employed Ayers) have the same curious address in that building: 3rd floor.
In my experience, when an office has as its address an entire floor, not a suite number, it usually indicates that you have the entire floor. When multiple organizations share the same address, including an entire floor, let's just say that it is implausible that these organizations didn't have substantial overlap in staff and personnel. Imagine if the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the Small Schools Workshop, and ten or fifteen other organizations had no connection to each other except that they all had offices on the 3rd floor--with no suite numbers to differentiate them. Would you find that likely? No, I didn't think so.
If Ayers had actually been "rehabilitated," in Obama's words, then there would be no need for Obama to pretend that they didn't have any connection. But Ayers' defense of his terrorist bombings as late as September of 2001 shows that Ayers is not rehabilitated in the least.
If Obama is trying to distance himself from Ayers now, when they did indeed seem to have a pretty close relationship some years ago, it shows that either Obama was pretty radical back then, or very poor at making personal judgments--rather like Obama's relationships with Tony Rezko, and Rev. Wright.
Hey, we all make mistakes in life--but President of the United States picks Cabinet officers, sub-Cabinet officers, appoints judges, appoints commissioners to FEC, FTC, ICC, FBI director, CIA director, and hundreds of other terribly important posts. Either Obama has had an astonishing run of bad luck with his friends--or his choice of friends shows an astonishing lack of judgment.
Hey, McCain isn't exactly clean on this--for example, Charles Keating, back some years ago. But the mainstream news media make sure that you don't forget about McCain's friendship with Keating. So why are they largely ignoring the inconsistencies (I'm being polite) in Obama's account of his relationship with Ayers?
The Obamas and Room Service
Just about every right of center blogger is discussing the Obamas room service. Like this one:
And that really is the problem. If John McCain paid for one of his staffers to get an abortion--or worse, forced her to get an abortion--this would be on every broadcast news show every day until the election. And yet this hypocrisy from the Obamas just gets ignored by the mainstream media.THOUGH he's battling GOP accusations that he's an Ivy League elitist, Barack Obama has a lifestyle of the rich and famous, like TV show host Robin Leach, who always signed off, "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams!" While he was at a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Michelle Obama called room service and ordered lobster hors d'oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and champagne, a tipster told Page Six.
"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere...That's the world! On which hope sits!"
UPDATE: the New York Post is now acknowledging that the tip was false; the Obamas were not in town at the time that this supposedly happened.
The Sign Problem
I think everyone who sees a sign from an opposing politician is tempted to knock it over; what separates adults from Obamaniacs is that adults restrain the urge:
This problem of McCain signs being torn down, defaced, or destroyed is pretty widespread right now.
I can't approve of the latter part of the sign. Defacing a sign or trespassing isn't something that justifies use of deadly force or even the threat of it. But it is important for the fascists/progressives who are the core of the Obamaniac movement to remember that if they go national with their agenda of criminalizing free speech after Obama takes over, they may find the results a bit more dramatic than they really want.
The Constitution is a contract across the generations. The contract between government and people is reciprocal. A government that violates fundamental human rights that are protected by the Constitution and its amendments breaks the contract.
Polling Results
There has been a lot of discussion of how accurate Presidential polling has become since the great disaster in 1948. It is true that the polls have accurately identified the winner in nearly all the recent elections--but by what margin? Ann Coulter goes over October polls for the last few elections, and makes an interesting claim:Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.
It is only in 2004 that the polling numbers turn out to be pretty close to the actual election results. Political scientists that I have talked to tell me that one of the reasons why there is this long tradition of overestimating Democratic votes is that many of the polling organizations make assumptions that are simply not historically correct: for example, that the same percentage of blacks vote as whites. Perhaps this time around, with a black person at the head of the Democratic ticket, blacks will vote in the same numbers as whites. But I wouldn't assume that Obama's election is completely in the bag right yet. I think it is likely, but by no means certain.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter narrowly beat Gerald Ford 50.1 percent to 48 percent. And yet, on Sept. 1, Carter led Ford by 15 points. Just weeks before the election, on Oct. 16, 1976, Carter led Ford in the Gallup Poll by 6 percentage points -- down from his 33-point Gallup Poll lead in August.
Reading newspaper coverage of presidential elections in 1980 and 1984, I found myself paralyzed by the fear that Reagan was going to lose.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan beat Carter by nearly 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent. In a Gallup Poll released days before the election on Oct. 27, it was Carter who led Reagan 45 percent to 42 percent.
In 1984, Reagan walloped Walter Mondale 58.8 percent to 40 percent, -- the largest electoral landslide in U.S. history. But on Oct. 15, The New York Daily News published a poll showing Mondale with only a 4-point deficit to Reagan, 45 percent to 41 percent. A Harris Poll about the same time showed Reagan with only a 9-point lead. The Oct. 19 New York Times/CBS News Poll had Mr. Reagan ahead of Mondale by 13 points. All these polls underestimated Reagan's actual margin of victory by 6 to 15 points.
Maybe This Is Just A Coincidence
But what a fascinating coincidence it is! From the October 18, 2008 Wall Street Journal:New York Sen. Charles Schumer's public criticism of IndyMac Bancorp last summer, which critics say helped spark a run on deposits that took under the troubled thrift, came while IndyMac's assets were being eyed by investors who are major donors to the Democratic Senate campaign committee the senator chairs.
Oh yeah, I believe that! Some years ago, when I was writing Firing Back!, Microsoft Word's spellchecker didn't recognize "Schumer" as a word, and suggested an alternative choice: "Schemer." And who said software couldn't be wise?
Unfortunately, the next paragraph of the column just makes me shake my head:The bank's demise in June now is almost a footnote in the financial-sector problems that have exploded in succeeding months. Still, Sen. Schumer's fund-raising involvement with investors looking over the bank underscores how Democrats' entanglements with the financial industry will make it hard for them to score political points over the market upheavals in the remaining weeks of the election.
Well, I suppose if Americans who read the Wall Street Journal were comparable to the number who watch ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, they might have a point here.
What is just amazing is how many progressives will vote Democratic this year in an attempt to destroy crony capitalism--and either don't care, or don't realize that when it comes to crony capitalism, the elephants are inconsistent amateurs compared to the donkeys.
