Sep 04 2008

John McCain convention speech

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 10:00 pm

I watched McCain’s speech to the Republican National Convention tonight.

There will always be some policies that he’ll promote with which I’ll disagree.  I don’t expect to approve of his approach to illegal aliens, campaign finance “reform”, “global warming” or “climate change”, “bipartisanship”, etc.  He is starting to make the right noises about drilling…  now if he’ll add Anwar to his offshore drilling commitment, and nuclear energy as well.  We’ll see on that.  He occasionally makes populist sounding noises, and seemed to be suggesting a new entitlement program for people who have “lost jobs due to globalization”.  That’s worrisome, but maybe he only means to suggest a different way of allocating current unemployment compensation funds.

Nevertheless, with all the likely policy disagreements I’ll have with him, I have nothing but respect for McCain the man, and I think he’ll do the right things on foreign policy, taxes, spending, judges, education, etc.

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Sep 04 2008

Universal lifestyle coverage

Category: election 2008,healthcare,humor,politics,Uncategorized — sardonicwhiner @ 8:52 am

Bluntly, the huge majority of people who “can’t afford health insurance” of any kind at any level have simply made other choices.  They need to:

1)    turn off all the devices that don’t need to be on (save money on electricity),
2)    drive less,
3)    eat at home, simply, no fast food, don’t buy expensive prepared meals from the freezer section, buy basic foods and prepare meals to a menu,
4)    turn in their cell phones back to the phone company and cancel the plan  (paying the turn off fee if they must…  they’ll still save money),
5)    cancel satellite or cable tv plan (you can live without tv if your antenna doesn’t work…  really),
6)    cancel internet service (use the library for “research” and email, listen to the radio for news),
7)    run the air conditioning in your home or apartment much less, or don’t use it at all, like the rest of humanity for all of human history,
8)    give the expensive car back to the loan company, or better yet, don’t buy it to start with…  drive a simple, reliable, middle aged car, and as little as possible,

9)    knock off the “dollar here”, “dollar there” expenditures on soda, coffee, etc.

10)    refuse to buy gadgets, trinkets, techno toys, designer clothes and shoes, etc.
11)    review all the ways they spend money, and impose some budget discipline, not spending on anything that isn’t really essential.

12)   maybe consider getting a job, if they don’t have one, and are able.

This sort of thing used to be taught in economics courses in high school, both “regular” economics and “home” economics.

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Sep 02 2008

THE ONE

Category: election 2008,humor,Obama,politics,White House — sardonicwhiner @ 9:41 am

Obama being THE ONE and everything, do you ever find yourself wondering if there are any Obamas left in the alternate universes of the multiverse?

I’m trying to remember:  I used to live in an alternate universe myself, and I’m pretty sure there was no Obama in it.  Maybe there’s a reason he’s so accepting of “illegal aliens“…  Just ask yourself:  if the Obama we know is from another universe, how would we know?  Would it be the sparks when he makes an entrance (no border fences will be stopping this guy)?  Or something else?    Maybe like this?.

If Obama starts in with the flashy kung fu stuff, I’m outta here.

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Sep 01 2008

I Hate, Therefore I Am

Category: Bush,Clinton,election 2008,Group-think,McCain — amuzikman @ 8:00 am

It is clear to anyone paying attention to the Presidential race that a primary strategy being employed by the Obama campaign is to establish political equivalence between George Bush and John McCain. The Democratic candidate often repeats that a vote for McCain is a vote for 4 more years just like the last 8 years. The daily drumbeat is to fix in the minds of voters this simple equation, Bush=McCain.

The thinking behind this effort is fairly obvious. Bush is despised by the Left. McCain is like Bush. Therefore McCain should be despised as well.

Where did this hatred for Dubya come from? Why is he the object of such revulsion and animosity? The obvious answers are things like the 2000 election, the war in Iraq, the housing slump, high gas prices, hurricane Katrina, “global-warming”, Dick Cheney, “connections” to Big Oil, etc, etc, etc.

But I think the source of “Bush-loathing” goes a little farther back and is helpful in pointing out one rather significant difference between liberals and conservatives. I believe the genesis takes us to Bill Clinton.

Clinton did and said some things while in office that were considered pretty despicable by many people. They do not need to be reiterated here, no one has forgotten Monica Lewinski et al. But as a result of despicable actions he came to be despised by many, especially conservatives. But for those who did (and do) have contempt for Bill Clinton, it was because he earned it.

Enter George W. Bush. From day one he has been despised by the Left. At the time Bush took office I almost had the feeling  liberals (and their mainstream media shills) were saying, “OK, now we’ll show YOU how to detest a president!” But the difference is this. Because he was despised by the Left at the outset, EVERY action he has undertaken, seen through those lenses is considered to be despicable. Bush didn’t have to earn it, it was waiting for him when he got there and it has been that way for 8 years.

John McCain is NOT George Bush (yes, I’ve seen them together). But he does share one thing with Bush without even being elected – utter contempt from the Left. And like Bush, he won’t have to lift a finger, it will simply be bestowed upon him.

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Aug 31 2008

Complaints from the Right about Gov. Palin’s nomination

Category: Biden,economy,election 2008,McCain,Obama,Palin,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:20 am

This fairly mild criticism from Powerline assumes “facts not in evidence” about the nature of economic knowledge required by a President, or Vice-President:

When I traveled with Senator McCain last November, just about the first question he answered was, what will you look for in a running mate. McCain responded that, first and foremost, he would want someone already qualfied to be president. Second, he said that because the economy is not his strong-suit, he would want someone with strong expertise in this area.

McCain did not say he wanted someone who would appeal to a potentially disaffected constituency within the Democratic party, or call attention (in an ironic way) to the inexperience of the Democratic nominee, or make such a splash as to counteract any Democratic convention bounce, or create a contrast to the Democratic vice presidential nominee, or “shake up” the Republican party, or “freshen up” the ticket, or reinforce his image as an opponent of corruption.

From the Left, such a criticism of Obama makes some sense, because the Left believes in complicated, frighteningly sophisticated economic models that supposedly allow the government appointed economic elites to tinker with the economy in the just the right way to make everything come out right.  These are essentially rooted in Keynes and Galbraith, both liberal progressive icons, because they are thought to have described a way to combine markets and capitalism with government management of the economy. Leaving out the fact the no one in the world knows enough to do such a thing, at least criticism of Obama makes sense, to the effect that he doesn’t know enough about economics to be President (economics of the liberal progressive brand, that is). Obama surely doesn’t have a detailed background in these matters, and so will be totally dependent on his advisers, economic rasputins all.

Does it make sense to level a similar criticism at Sarah Palin?

In a word, no. Here’s why.

Economics as understood from the right does not require a President who is deeply versed in complicated theories of market manipulation, and academic theories of how to rob Peter and pay Paul to make us all better off. It requires a President who knows enough to avoid wasteful spending, to keep taxes low, to keep regulation to a minimum, to encourage the development of energy resources, to remove as many barriers to free trading as possible, etc. It is not complex, and mostly requires a President who will avoid doing harm, supported by advisers who can help with the details.

Arguably, Sarah Palin has far more background in economic management than Obama, because in her executive roles she has cut taxes and spending. It is not complicated, and her behavior in office tells us all we really need to know about her economic background and perspectives, which is more than sufficient.  It is not an overstretch to say that if Congress had spent the last 8 years voting to do the sorts of things Palin has advocated, and has done as governor, we would all be in far better shape economically.  In fact, it’s more likely that the Congress would still be Republican.

So who, exactly, is unqualified here?

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Aug 30 2008

Kudos to Politico and Yahoo

Category: election 2008,Group-think,McCain,media,Palin,politics — harmonicminer @ 2:54 pm

Here is something so rare that it’s essentially a man bites dog story. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen something quite like this in political reporting. After running a story quoting various academics and political commentators bashing Gov. Palin as “too inexperienced” to be vice-president, Yahoo/Politico actually ran this update with a response from the McCain campaign.

Update: After reading this article, the McCain campaign issued the following statement: “The authors quote four scholars attacking Gov. Palin’s fitness for the office of Vice President. Among them, David Kennedy is a maxed out Obama donor, Joel Goldstein is also an Obama donor, and Doris Kearns Goodwin has donated exclusively to Democrats this cycle. Finally, Matthew Dallek is a former speech writer for Dick Gephardt. This is not a story about scholars questioning Governor Palin’s credentials so much as partisan Democrats who would find a reason to disqualify or discount any nominee put forward by Senator McCain.”

Two things, one unremarkable, one not:

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Aug 29 2008

Take A Deep Breath

Category: election 2008,McCain,Palin — amuzikman @ 11:09 pm

Did you ever walk outside after a storm has passed and the sun begins to peek out? The air is so clean and washed by the rain. I love that smell. Ever throw open a window in a room that’s been closed up for some time? What a contrast between the stale, stuffy air inside the room and the fresh breeze that blows in through the window. Have you ever gotten in your car on a hot, smoggy day, driven up to the mountains, then rolled your window down to take that first deep breath of cold, crisp mountain air? It’s almost shocking! A brisk reminder to the lungs of truly fresh air.

Now I know in the days and weeks to come much will be said, both pro and con, about John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. But just for today I do declare it feels like someone opened a window in this stuffy room.

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Aug 27 2008

She lies so casually, and so grandly, but tells the truth once… or twice

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:04 am

Hillary has always had a very distant relationship with the truth, of course, all the way from the lies she told the press to protect Bill from his dalliances, to the lies she told investigators about Whitewater (“I’m sorry, Senator, I don’t recall.”) and the White House travel office firings (she masterminded FBI accusations to taint innocent people so she could install her cronies in their places), the lies she told investigators about her role in the Vince Foster coverup (she had his office “sanitized” before investigators could get there), blah, blah, blah, the list is so incredibly long that it would take a week to write it all down.

Her speech to the Democrat convention in Denver was no different, just on a grander stage.

Just to mention one of her more minor lies of the evening, did you know that John McCain is not for equal pay for equal work for women? I didn’t either. Neither does he.

Did you know that the US government “gave” the oil companies their recent large profits? Imagine that. She is either a breathtaking liar, or breathtakingly ignorant about how the economy works. I’m betting on the former.

Nearly every paragraph (sometimes every sentence) either assumed a lie, or told one outright. Again, the list of lies in her speech is so long, I just don’t want to waste the time listing it all.

But she told the truth in two ways, at least, one explicitly, the other implicitly.

She said that unless Obama is elected, the Democrats would not be able to complete their makeover and utter restructuring of American life, the economy, universal health care (meaning, if you work, that you pay for someone else), punitive taxation, new entitlements, etc. That’s absolutely true.

And while she endorsed Obama, I did not notice much about Obama’s preparation for the job in her speech. She did not praise his character, his background, his abilities, anything at all that might be positive about Obama directly. It was all about the policies she wants, and the observation that if Obama loses, they won’t happen.

In her omission of any particular praise about Obama, she told the truth, both objectively, and in terms of her “personal truth” about him, given the disdain in which she holds him, and given her previous sober assessment of Obama’s preparation for the job:

That must have been some speech he gave in 2002.

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Aug 26 2008

Do we want the Rookie at bat in the bottom of the ninth with two outs?

Category: election 2008,Iran,Islam,McCain,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

Obama is not the heavy hitter we need to deal with this.  Neither, will all due respect, is his pinch-hitter, who has a flashy looking swing, but simply misses the ball way too often.

A senior Iranian atomic official said Sunday that Iran has chosen the site for and started designing a new 360 megawatt nuclear power plant.

Iran has yet to complete construction of its first nuclear power plant and has previously sent conflicting signals about the state of work on a planned second plant. An Iranian official said this year construction work had already begun.

Can we have a show of hands for all of you who would like Obama to be the one we depend on to navigate the treacherous waters of Iran’s nuclear armament intentions?  This is not a misused cliche…  if Iran’s nuclear facilities are attacked, they plan to close the Strait of Hormuz.  They’ve been buying Russion Kilo-class subs to do it with, along with lots of land-based ship killer missiles from both Russia and China.  We’ll reopen it, of course….  but it will take some time, and will leave huge unresolved problems.  How does $250 per barrel of oil sound to you?

Personally, I’d like to be putting at bat a player with sufficient reputation that the opposing pitcher decides to walk him instead of just throwing fastballs at his head, followed by a change-up that leaves him whiffing.

This is the big-leagues, not celebrity baseball.

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Aug 25 2008

Does Joe Biden hunt?

Category: election 2008,guns,humor,Obama,politics — sardonicwhiner @ 9:00 am

A couple of folks have pointed out that, in some ways, Joe Biden is Obama’s Dick Cheney

Joe Biden is Barack Obama’s Dick Cheney. Biden’s age and experience stand in stark contrast to Obama’s lack of both. Like Cheney, Biden is unlikely after two terms as vice president to ever seek the presidency in his own right. That will give him the freedom to be the power behind the throne. And if (God forbid) Barack Obama is elected president, he is going to need a lot of guidance. His reckless, naïve foreign policy initiatives at this crucial point in history could put the entire free world at risk.

Well. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, it’s time to ask a central question. Exactly which influential Democratic operative or donor will Joe Biden go hunting with?

Herewith, my list of hunting buddies for the wanna-be vice-prez:

William Ayers
Tony Rezko
Jeremiah Wright

George Soros
Nancy Pelosi
Harry Reid

Since they’re probably all big supporters of gun control, I hope they’ll be very careful.

Hillary or Bill, if Slo-Joe asks you to go hog huntin’, I’d suggest you just go to Vegas and sleep it off. No one knows for sure just how pliant Bitin’ Biden will be in the hands of his new boss… but prudence is indicated.  And Jesse J…  don’t even THINK about it, man.

Feel free to suggest other hunting buddies for the man who would be almost the king.

Be safe, everybody.

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