Jul 22 2008

Obama wants to follow in Reagan’s footsteps?

Category: election 2008,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

Charles Krauthammer skillfully deconstructs Obama’s desire to give a speech at an historic site.

Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate.

He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast — a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins — would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

Maybe if Obama wrote a nice concerto or something. Until then, I suggest he schedule his next speech at a Bridge to Nowhere(there are several), a more fitting analogy to his current resume. Read the whole article.

UPDATE:  Reader email..

Reagan appeared at the Brandenburg Gate because it was symbolic of the challenge he was issuing to the leaders of the opposition to freedom.  Since the major leaders of the most vociferous opposition to freedom in the modern world are Islamic, maybe he needs to deliver a speech in Mecca or Medina…  Oh, wait, he can’t go there without becoming a Muslim (unclean infidel that he is).  Maybe he could stand outside the city gates and say, “Prince Faisal, tear down this wall!”

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Jul 21 2008

Yet another major scientist defects from the global warming religion

Category: Al Gore,economy,election 2008,energy,global warming,Group-think,oil prices,politics,science,technology — harmonicminer @ 11:49 pm

David Evans, consultant and scientist with the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, says no evidence of carbon dioxide based greenhouse effect

since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Continue reading “Yet another major scientist defects from the global warming religion”

Jul 21 2008

When there’s a financial crisis, look to the government as the cause

Category: corruption,diversity,economy,election 2008,politics — harmonicminer @ 10:27 pm

Thomas Sowell on the financial markets meltdown: here’s a taste, but read it all

It was government intervention in the financial markets, which is now supposed to save the situation, that created the problem in the first place.

Laws and regulations pressured lending institutions to lend to people that they were not lending to, given the economic realities. The Community Reinvestment Act forced them to lend in places where they did not want to send their money, and where neither they nor the politicians wanted to walk.

Now that this whole situation has blown up in everybody’s face, the government intervention that brought on this disaster in is supposed to save the day.

Sowell is not the first person to make this observation, though his very prominent voice is a strong confirmation.

Jul 20 2008

McCain, School Choice, the NAACP and the Feds

Category: education,election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 3:00 pm

John McCain to NAACP: It’s Time for School Choice

John McCain told the NAACP this morning that after decades of broken promises by the nation’s public school systems it is time to give all parents an easy choice of public and private schools. He is right, so long as he doesn’t propose a private school choice program at the national level.

At the link are some excellent comments about proper limits for federal involvement in a school choice program.

Nationally, blacks want school choice. Obama, as usual, is trying to have it both ways. Don’t expect a clear statement on the issue from him, given that his primary constituency, blacks, wants school choice, but his primary enabling constituency, the teachers union, does not. Actually, expect several clear statements from him, just don’t expect them to agree, and expect his campaign surrogates to spin in various directions, depending on who they’re talking to.

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Jul 20 2008

To the Left, Bush is a brilliant doofus

Category: election 2008,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

A likely error by the White House

The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined “Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan – magazine.”

The story relayed how Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the German magazine Der Spiegel that “he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months … ‘U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,'” the prime minister said.

All of which leads to overheated rhetoric at the Daily Kos as if this is a major faux pas of a panicked administration.

My take: The WH was obviously freaking out after the announcement that al-Maliki supports Obama’s plan, and of course was planning to email this around internally get some some advice from advisers and get their talking points together. This also ensures additional coverage of this issue. The Obama camp of course has already pounced on this:

But those wizards at the Huffington Post have figured out the deep conspiracy behind it all

The White House says it was an accident and the story was only intended for its “internal distribution list.” At first blush that sounds believable. After all, a story saying that the Iraqi government wants us gone certainly goes against the message Bush pushes at home about a long term presence, so it would seem to be a foolish mistake. Plus, every second term presidency is down to the “C” team in the final year because the better people have bailed.

What if it wasn’t an accident?

What if it was on purpose, a Machiavellian/Rovian method to the madness? The definitive book “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” is a primer on tricks like this.

This is part of the usual cognitive dissonance on the left: Bush is clueless, except when he’s engaging in a brilliant multi-layered conspiracy. It seems Bush Derangement Syndrome is still in full flower on the Left…. leaving me wondering what they’ll do with their time and energy when Bush has left office. Maybe they can get together and reminisce about the good old days.

Jul 14 2008

Blogging from a cell……. phone, that is

Category: Congress,economy,election 2008,energy,McCain,middle east,Obama,oil prices,politics — harmonicminer @ 8:10 pm

This is largely an experiment in blogging from a Palm Treo 700W. I don’t expect to do a lot of this.

But I couldn’t resist the temptation to blog from a rest stop in AZ w/out an aircard equipped laptop.

All of which leaves me thinking about how much has changed in a few years, and how critical it is that we give ourselves the economic breathing space to develop new energy sources over the coming decades by DRILLING NOW. Send a letter to your senator and congressional rep saying so. A PAPER LETTER.
Some of those dinosaurs pay more attention to those.

Jul 13 2008

There’s no speculative bubble in water

Category: election 2008,energy,middle east,Obama,oil prices,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

It’s popular to blame oil speculators for the high price of gasoline. These are the people who buy the right to purchase a future amount of oil product at a given price. So when there is a “bubble”, they are betting the price will be higher in the future, and so they’ll pay for that bet, and the price of oil goes up.

Factors the speculators consider include the political situation in the Middle East, rising demand in Asia, the likelihood that new supplies won’t be developed elsewhere anytime soon, etc. It’s important to realize that ALL of these reasons boil down to guessing if there will be enough supply for the demand. Everytime Iran makes a threat, the price goes up, because no one knows what Iran will do in the future, if military action against Iran or by Iran will reduce supply then, etc.

Remember, if the speculators bet wrong, they lose money.

But not everyone buys that it’s the speculators’ fault:

Continue reading “There’s no speculative bubble in water”

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Jul 08 2008

Why the Twenty-Somethings Should Vote For Obama #1

Category: election 2008,Obama — sardonicwhiner @ 10:10 pm

Because he’ll make sure the twenty-somethings pay for my retirement and medical care, even though I’ll have more money than them. Why should those lazy millenial types get to put aside any more of their own money than I did mine at their age? They OWE me.

Big Time.

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Jul 03 2008

For the politically less interested, who still plan to vote

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama — harmonicminer @ 11:00 am

If You Are Just Starting To Think About This Election… Clear thinking from John Mark Reynolds

Normal people, those with actual lives, do not follow every poll on Real Clear Politics. If you have a good life, then it is likely that you are only vaguely aware that soon you will have to TIVO past even more political ads. You know there is an election this year, but like a trip to the dentist, you have put off the unpleasant task of deciding on a candidate. Fortunately for you, there are now only two candidates left with any chance of actually being the president.

Many (if not most) American voters only know three things about the two guys running for President:

1. Neither of them is named Clinton or Bush.

(A pause to thank God for His mercies.)

2. One is young and cool.

3. The other is old and a war hero.

Blessed is the man who does not check Rasmussen Report three times a day. If you are this person, congratulations on living a peaceful life. The genius of the republic is that it allows a man to be a patriot without being a politico.

There is more, and if you’re not really up to speed on the candidates, you really need to read all of this.

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Jun 27 2008

President on training wheels?

Category: election 2008,terrorism,Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 3:56 pm

From Hugh Hewitt’s Blog:

From the San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage of a National Academy of Sciences meeting underway in D.C.:

It is a grim, almost unthinkable scenario: a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, smuggled into the United States, is detonated in a major U.S. city, perhaps even the Bay Area.

Top federal officials and medical experts gathered in Washington on Thursday to consider this nightmare vision. Their conclusion: Cities and states are frightfully ill-prepared for dealing with an attack using a small nuclear bomb.

“Few of them have coordinated response plans for the aftermath of nuclear terrorism,” said Brooke Buddemeier, a specialist in the radiological and nuclear counter-measures division at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “There is a general lack of understanding of the response needs and uncertainty over federal, state and local roles and responsibilities.”

Federal officials are worried enough to have convened a National Academy of Sciences committee on medical preparedness for a nuclear attack by terrorists. The panel is holding its first two-day meeting in Washington this week.

The presentations got specific:

The committee began its first session with a ghastly overview of what a 10-kiloton nuclear blast would look like: If detonated at the White House, it could destroy virtually every building within 1,500 yards. People in an area out to 1.55 miles could suffer second-degree burns, while others would be injured by flying debris and shattered windows. Those 4.5 to 7.5 miles away could suffer momentary “flash” blindness, causing traffic accidents.

A lethal plume of radioactive material would, depending on winds, stretch as far as 9 miles, affecting up to 300,000 people, although injuries would depend on a person’s exposure to radiation.

“It’s not just about radiation exposure,” Buddemeier said. Many of the injured would have shards of glass in their eyes, ruptured eardrums and other impact injuries from the blast’s shock waves.

Read the whole thing and understand that there are millions of people who go to sleep every night and dream of such a scenario –and take pleasure in it.

Good Lord. I don’t usually quote an entire post of someone else, but: Good Lord.

The 2008 elections are not just about health care and the economy, or even the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Which of our candidates do YOU want running the show? Which one do YOU think is likely to know more about this threat, and be highly focused on doing something about it?

This is no time for a President on training wheels.

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