Sep 24 2008

Opinions Are Like Noses, Everybody’s Got One!

Category: appeasement,Obama — amuzikman @ 12:50 am

Someone recently remarked they were somewhat surprised by how unyielding and inelastic the opinions on this blog seem to be.  I think the statement was in reference to Barack Obama.  This person said they were surprised that Obama never received much of a break, the benefit of the doubt, or even the smallest nod of positive expectation, (the word “unfair” was actually never spoken).

I think this person’s observation is pretty accurate. But, it should be noted it is not because conservative mantra is chanted here, there are no Republican talking-points and we do not engage in group Kool-Aid toasting. These are individually formed opinions.  They are also informed opinions.

It’s OK to form an opinion, The very word “form” refers to a process: gathering information, investigating various points of view, then filtering them through the prism of life experience to arrive at a conclusion.  Two people can view the same facts and form two entirely different opinions, and that’s OK too.  But the opinions expressed here are considered and fact-based.  (if not, PLEASE feel free to have at us!)

But the conversation did get me to thinking… How could I, an admitted conservative, demonstrate giving Obama “a little slack” as it were?  How can I “reach across the aisle” in the name of fairness?

Perhaps individual liberty could be co-mingled with a dose of Marxism.  For example, one might have the freedom to pursue the American dream, but only to a point.  After reaching a certain level of wealth – that level to be determined by the government – you will have all “extra” money taken from you and given to someone else who didn’t work for it like you did.

Maybe a strong pro-life stance could be balanced with a nod to the pro-abortionists – some sort of mutually acceptable quota perhaps.  After all, If we can just get those botched-abortion live baby killings down to a bare bones minimum….well, that would be a compromise, wouldn’t it?

Rather than immediately bring our troops all the way home from Iraq, we can just put them somewhere close by in case they might be needed later.

Since so many seem to have discovered a Constitutional “right” to healthcare, and since we strict Constitutionalists do get a bee in our bonnet about “original intent” lets just go for the simple solution in this case. Someone grab a black Sharpie pen and simply write in “universal, government-paid healthcare” on the original document, say between the 16th and 17th amendment.

Taxes? Another easy one.  Simplification of the tax code is all that’s required.  Let’s go to a flat tax system....

These are just a few preliminary proposals. I’m sure with just a little thought you too can find ways to be a little less dogmatic and a little more open and inclusive of other ideas.  Guaranteed to keep you from forming an actual opinion.

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Sep 21 2008

Obama: China, the model for all nations

Category: China,Obama — harmonicminer @ 6:50 pm

China, the nation lauded by Obama for its wonderful infrastructure, the very envy of the world, to hear him tell it, can’t seem to maintain a safe milk supply for its children.

China said nearly 13,000 children were in hospital Sunday after drinking toxic milk powder in a dramatic escalation of Beijing’s latest safety scandal.

No doubt some of those funds that would have been used for milk supply testing and production quality control were diverted to make pretty buildings in downtown Beijing. Yep, we should definitely nationalize the production of everything in the USA, too, so those good folks in the federal government can exercise proper control over everything.

By the way: HERE is what happens when you search Google for “Obama China infrastructure”.  Go ahead and look.  You discover an utter silence of any mainstream media.  That’s right:  nothing from NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NYTimes, LATimes, Boston Globe, WAPO, etc.  It seems that it wasn’t newsworthy for them. 

More evidence, as if it was needed, that the mainstream media is totally in the tank for Obama.  What’s that mean to you?  If you get most of your election info from those sources, you’re probably hopelessly uniformed.

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Sep 21 2008

When your enemy likes your leaders….

Category: election 2008,Hamas,Israel,McCain,middle east,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:35 am

Yoni, former Israeli special forces operator, makes this cogent comment.

When your enemy supports the election of a candidate then you should be afraid, no you should be very afraid.

He is saying this in reference to the recent election of Livni to replace the corrupt Olmert, but it might just as well apply to the possible election of Obama, who is endorsed by all the wrong people.

I doubt that either Hamas or Al Qaeda (or Iran or Russia, for that matter) is happy about the possible election of McCain. Now, that’s a recommendation.

Sep 20 2008

Obama should have taken the chance to practice

Category: election 2008,McCain,media,Obama,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 11:31 pm

Which Obama will show up for presidential debates? – Yahoo! News

Which Barack Obama will show up for the first presidential debate?

It could be the tone-deaf debater who condescendingly told Hillary Rodham Clinton during a Democratic debate that she was “likable enough.”

Or perhaps the confident candidate who absorbed a jab from Clinton about using her husband’s former advisers and responded with a devastating one-liner of his own: “Hillary, I’m looking forward to you advising me as well.”

For a man known as a powerful speaker, Obama has rarely wowed people in political debates. He can come across as lifeless, aloof and windy.

But Obama didn’t make any serious mistakes in the many debates during the Democratic primary, or when he was running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. He sometimes showed flashes of wit and charm. And, with a couple of exceptions, he got better with time.

“A year ago, he was not nearly as polished,” said Timothy O’Donnell, a professor at the University of Mary Washington and chairman of the collegiate National Debate Tournament. “He equivocates less. He’s quicker with examples.”

Continue reading “Obama should have taken the chance to practice”

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Sep 20 2008

Bigotry towards whites masquerades as reporting on race

Category: diversity,election 2008,multi-cultural,Obama,politics,race,racism — harmonicminer @ 9:08 am

It will get worse before election day, as the Main Stream Media does it’s best to guilt everyone into voting for Obama even though they disagree with his policies and/or think his leadership and experience is lacking, just for fear of being called racist.

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks, many calling them “lazy,” “violent,” responsible for their own troubles.  The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004, about two and one-half percentage points.

Of course, “deep seated racisl misgivings” on the part of blacks will cause 90+% of blacks to vote FOR him, with a total margin greater than 2 1/2% of the vote.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents, voters Obama can’t win the White House without, agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don’t have such views.

There is no foundation established here to conclude that a voter will not select a particular individual just because the voter makes generalized observations about a demographic group. And the huge piece of missing information here: how would blacks respond to the same survey? We all know the stories of black cab drivers who won’t pick up young, male blacks at night. Are they bigots, too?

Continue reading “Bigotry towards whites masquerades as reporting on race”

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Sep 17 2008

A unique perspective on abortion

Category: abortion,Obama — harmonicminer @ 9:23 pm

Born Alive Truth

Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name is Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. I’m a survivor, as are many others…but if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn’t be here.

Check the link.

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Sep 17 2008

What Obama doesn’t want you to know: part 1

Category: election 2008,Obama,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:02 am

Obama, as a community organizer, wants to have everyone volunteer. In fact, he has to take credit for inventing a new oxymoron, “Universal Voluntary Public Service”.  Let’s see:  universal, but voluntary.  I guess that means he plans to make you really, really want to volunteer.

Investor’s Business Daily has several cogent observations about an organization Obama helped to start in 1992. Significant excerpts:

The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn’t seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year “community leadership” positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They’ll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.

In exchange, they’ll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about “social change” through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation, the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul “The Red” Alinsky.

“Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities,” Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for “justice” and “equality” in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. “I get to practice being an activist,” and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.

Charming.

But it turns out that there are other things going on:

Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. “It was too
touchy-feely,” said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class.
“It’s a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of
talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias.”

One of those -isms is “heterosexism,” which a Public Allies training seminar
in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of “capitalism, white
supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege.”

The government now funds about half of Public Allies’ expenses through
Clinton’s AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a
national program that some see costing $500 billion. “We’ve got to have
a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as
strong, just as well-funded” as the military, he said.

We heard that quote before about a “civilian national security force”.  Now we know what it means.

A gentler, kinder re-education camp.

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Sep 16 2008

Defending Sarah Palin

Category: election 2008,McCain,media,Obama,Palin,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:21 am

The Bidinotto Blog has a nice summary of the failure of the mud-slinging by the Left at Sarah Palin.

A sure sign that the pro-Obama camp’s quiver has run out of arrows is that its partisans are desperately stooping to pick up mud.

It’s worth a read, and has links you can follow up, if you doubt the accuracy of his presentation.

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Sep 15 2008

If only reporters understood economics

Category: economy,election 2008,McCain,media,Obama,Palin,politics,taxes — harmonicminer @ 3:57 pm

Sarah Palin criticizes Obama’s tax plans, and the AP seems to think it has corrected her, by stating an irrelevant piece of data. (not to mention a largely wrong one)

Campaigning on her own, the Alaska governor also said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama “wants to raise income taxes and raise payroll taxes and raise investment income taxes and raise business taxes and raise the death tax.

“But John McCain and I know that’s not the way you grow the economy,” she added.

In fact, independent groups such as the Tax Policy Center have concluded that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama’s proposal, which include higher income and payroll taxes only for the wealthiest wage-earners.

Note that Palin did not say that Obama was going to raise everyone‘s taxes.  But the AP responds with a “fact check” from the Tax Policy Center that implies she did.  Surely this is simple failure to understand plain English. 

Speaking of plain English, four out of five U.S. households cannot receive income tax cuts, because two out of five U.S. households pay no income tax at all.  The last time I looked, two plus four does not equal five, a fact that apparently escapes both the AP and the Tax Policy Center.  Giving “tax cuts” in the guise of “refunds” to people who would not pay tax anyway is not a tax cut, it’s welfare, plain and simple.  It’s old fashioned socialistic confiscation/redistribution.

Speaking of the “independent” Tax Policy Center, while it is not directly affiliated with either party, it is most assuredly Left leaning, and usually favors Democratic policies.  They are sometimes subtle about it (although not in this case, calling a give-away a “tax cut”), but they are not possessed of Olympian detachment.

It would be more impressive (as journalism goes) to match the perspective of the Tax Policy Center with one from the Club for Growth, or the CATO Institute.  Both of these are also “independent” and “nonpartisan”, but simply more likely to lean Right. 

You can form your own opinion about why the AP would not seek their input in interpreting Palin’s statements.  I have mine.

In the meantime, what Palin said, quite clearly, is that if all of Obama’s tax plans are carried out, regardless of whether low-tax payers and non-tax payers get a short term “tax cut”, the economy is far less likely to grow vigorously than under McCain’s plan.  That economic growth would provide much more benefit to low- and non-tax payers than a single short term check, whether “tax cut” or “welfare”.

Go back and read her quote.  The APs rejoinder, masked as input from an “independent” think tank, is completely irrelevant to the point.

Embarrassingly, the AP seems not to know that.

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Sep 15 2008

Why the Left is flummoxed by Sarah Palin

Category: election 2008,McCain,Obama,Palin,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:25 am

Essentially, the Left thought it had a “magic candidate” in Obama.  He would be beyond normal criticism.  He would be both person and symbol.  He would speak with such power and transcendence that normal considerations of logic and rhetorical connection would not apply.  His mystical relationship with the message of the future of mankind would resonate in each person of good will without having to be explained in detail.  We would all just know that he was “the one” to change everything.  Indeed, he seemed untouchable: though there were scandals and questionable relationships in his background, it seemed not to matter to the electorate, surely another sign that he was blessed.  What other presidential candidate could have gotten away with being friends with terrorists and America haters?  Surely it must have been because people could see through these surface things to the soul beyond, and were moved by its purity and grace.  (After all, Jesus associated with publicans and sinners, and elevated them by His presence.)  His meager background was almost a plus, proving his uniquity and special annointing.  He was untouchable.

And then came Sarah.  She was, in most ways, the exact opposite of Obama.  She spoke simply, and clearly.  She seemed to get away with just being herself (unlike Obama, she was the same on home video as on stage before tens of thousands).  She did not appear to self-consciously cultivate an image or presence: she simply was.  She did not seem to need a script.  Shooting from the hip (literally and figuratively) she was on target.  People simply responded to her.  And despite the best the a scandal mongering media could throw at her, she simply sailed above it all, and let her acolytes defend her.  There were pleny of acolytes.

Obama was supposed to be special.  He would not have to make sense according to the normal rules of logic and evidence, because to know him created a faith that transcended the merely rational.

Yet, here was Sarah, actually making sense, very simple, unassailable sense, artlessly appealing to the perceptions of the people as the outsider who was the real agent of change, the unknown, waiting in the wings, whose time had come.  She, too, was the symbol of longings held by many.

Suddenly, Obama was not the only transcendant figure in the race.  He knew how to fight people who merely used logic and facts.  He appealed to the higher sense of personhood in his listeners.  But what could he do against someone who had as much mystical magnetism as he did, and also made simple, logical sense?

It was a pretty problem.  Someone would have to be destroyed for the other to prevail.  And Obama was determined that it would not be him.  His minions would see to that.

There are plenty of minions, in and out of his campaign.

The contest rages, for now, but it is no longer one of rationality against spirituality, because now both can be found on one side.  And the real game changer was not Sarah Palin…  it was John McCain, who selected her as his running mate, proving a defter hand than anyone suspected at crafting his image and staying true to his own often stated values at the same time.  And McCain is showing something else: he doesn’t care that Sarah Palin polls higher than he does, because all that matters is success in the election so he can do the work that needs doing, with her help.

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