Nov 01 2008
An interesting report here about the Obama campaign dumping reporters not willing to be “useful idiots”. Much more at the link, but first check the cartoon below.
The Drudge Report is running a story about three newspapers having been kicked off the Obama campaign plane for the last 72 hours of the race— the Dallas Morning News, the NY Post, and the Washington Times, all of which endorsed McCain on their editorial pages.
Nov 01 2008
Security Should Be the Deciding Issue – WSJ.com Introductory graphs, though all is worth reading:
As the scale of the economic crisis becomes clear and comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s are tossed around, there is a very real danger that America could succumb to the feeling that we no longer have the luxury of worrying about distant lands, now that we are confronted with a “real” problem that actually affects the lives of all Americans. As we consider whether various bailout plans help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the subtext is that both are much more important to Americans than Haifa Street.
One problem with this emotion is that it ignores the sequel to the Great Depression — the rise of militaristic Japan marked by the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, both of which resulted in part from economic dislocations spreading outward from the U.S. The inward-focus of the U.S. and the leading Western powers (Great Britain and France) throughout the 1930s allowed these problems to metastasize, ultimately leading to World War II.
Is it possible that American inattention to the world in the coming years could lead to a similarly devastating result? You betcha.
The major media have lulled us into a soft sense of security that if only we elect a hopey/changey therapist in chief that we’ll somehow be safer, because he’ll take really good care of us at home, and talk those mean people elsewhere into being nicer.
History says otherwise, bluntly. Our descendants will study this era, and perhaps they will say, “What were they thinking?” Remember how you have felt when reading about the run up to NAZI Germany’s wars, and the feckless response it received from Europe (and the USA)? It’s a bit like watching a horror movie you’ve seen before, and saying to the soon-to-be-victim on screen, “No! No! Don’t open that door!” You know what’s about to happen, and yet you watch with a sick fascination, almost suspending disbelief, as if it could turn out differently this time.
But we’re about to open the door ourselves, this time.
Nov 01 2008
Power Line – Professor Busse’s lesson
Phil Busse is a visiting professor at the college. In his spare time he pulls down McCain-Palin lawn signs posted on homes up and down Highway 19, the east-west road that runs through Northfield. He brags about it at what James Taranto calls the Puffington Host in “Confessions of a lawn sign stealer.”
Nov 01 2008
Derbyshire has a great idea that doesn’t go far enough. Media Blog on National Review Online
Take away their vote. If you let public employees vote, what do you think they are going to vote for? For more public spending, more government jobs, higher government wages. Can you vote yourself a pay raise? No, and neither can I. Bill Bureaucrat and Pam Paperpusher can, though, and they do. Bill and Pam have no problem at all with ever-swelling public budgets, with ever-expanding public services, with the creeping socialism that is slowly throttling our liberties out of existence.
He should include public school teachers, who are essentially government employees, and, as a group, always vote for more government.
Nov 01 2008
If my aunt was an illegal alien living in a slum and I was running for president as the candidate of hope and change, I’d want her kicked out of the country, too.
Better get used to this. For at least the next four years, if Tuesday climaxes in the big O being elected, we can expect a steady patter of “I didn’t know” and “I don’t know” and “I was not informed” and “That was done without my knowledge” and “I will have my staff look into that” and “The President has been informed and will have a statement later” (much, much, much later) and “Don’t you think you should verify the credibility of your source before asking me about it?” and “That is not reflective of the person I knew” and on and on and on and on and on.
“I didn’t know” will become the new version of “I don’t recall, Senator”, or its other variant, “Senator, I don’t recall.”
Just to account for the campaign period, we’re starting the “I didn’t know” counter at 100, and counting.
Obama says he didn’t know aunt’s illegal status – Yahoo! News
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Saturday he didn’t know his aunt was living in the United States illegally and believes that laws covering the situation should be followed.
The Associated Press found that Obama’s aunt had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. The woman, Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama’s late father.
A statement given to the AP by Obama’s campaign said, “Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed.”
The campaign said it was returning $260 that Onyango had contributed in small increments to Obama’s presidential bid over several months. Federal election law prohibits foreigners from making political donations. Onyango listed her employer as the Boston Housing Authority and last gave $5 on Sept. 19.
Nov 01 2008
In 2007-2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) and computer modelers who believe that CO2 is the cause of global warming still predict the Earth is in store for catastrophic warming in this century. IPCC computer models have predicted global warming of 1F per decade and 5-6C (10-11F) by 2100, which would cause global catastrophe with ramifications for human life, natural habitat, energy and water resources, and food production. All of this is predicated on the assumption that global warming is caused by increasing atmospheric CO2 and that CO2 will continue to rise rapidly.
However, records of past climate changes suggest an altogether different scenario for the 21st century. Rather than drastic global warming at a rate of 0.5C (1F) per decade, historic records of past natural cycles suggest global cooling for the first several decades of the 21st century to about 2030, followed by global warming from about 2030 to about 2060, and renewed global cooling from 2060 to 2090 (Easterbrook, D.J., 2005, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008a, b); Easterbrook and Kovanen, 2000, 2001). Climatic fluctuations over the past several hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling, on a general rising trend from the Little Ice Age.
It is not clear that global warming is a net bad thing. It is clear that global cooling IS. We’ll adjust to a little warmer planet, and may even thrive, but some will starve on a cooler one.
As usual, the eco-panic crowd is worried about the wrong thing.
Buy a Hummer. Save the planet with extra greenhouse gasses.
H/T: Jerry Pournelle
Nov 01 2008
Mark Steyn, author of the brilliant America Alone, has taken off the three-D glasses and looked directly at the screen, finding it out of focus but still disturbing.
Obama in 2-D by Mark Steyn on National Review Online
In Tokyo last week, over a thousand people signed a new petition asking the Japanese government to permit marriages between human beings and cartoon characters. “I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” explained Taichi Takashita. “Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?”
Get back to me on that Tuesday night. We’ll know by then whether an entire constitutional republic has decided to contract marriage with a two-dimensional character and to attempt to take up residence in the two-dimensional world. For many of his supporters, Barack Obama is an idea. He offers “hope, not fear”. “Hope” of what? “Hope” of “change.” Okay, but “change” to what? Ah, well, there you go again, getting all hung up on three-dimensional reality, when we’ve moved way beyond that. I don’t know which cartoon character Taichi Takashita is eyeing as his betrothed, but up in the sky Obamaman is flying high, fighting for Hope, Change, and a kind of Post-Modern American Way.
Continue reading “In cartoons, nothing is real”
Nov 01 2008
No, I’m not saying that Democrats are terrorists.
Nov 01 2008
(A celestial conversation overheard just outside the gates of Heaven)
ST PETER: Welcome to Heaven! Well done, good and faithful servant. Your name is written in The Book of Life! Enter into the joy of the Lord!
NEW ARRIVAL: Not so fast!
ST. PETER: I beg your pardon.
NEW ARRIVAL: What makes you think I want to go in there.
ST PETER: But….I don’t understand.
NEW ARRIVAL: I have a bone to pick with God.
ST PETER: Oh Dear! This is most unusual. I’ve never seen anyone who wasn’t overjoyed about going through those gates and entering Heaven.
NEW ARRIVAL: Yeah? well, I guess I’m not overjoyed quite yet.
ST PETER: So it would appear!
Nov 01 2008
Opinion: Robert P. George on ‘Obama’s Abortion Extremism’ – Catholic Online
Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals – who aggressively promote Obama’s candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.
What is going on here?
Indeed. The entire article above is worth reading. Just click the link.
