The only strategy capable of defeating the communists is the widest possible unity of all the class and social forces whose interests run counter to those of the most socialist section of the transnationals.

You know we might like to start with economics.

If the party was focused on

1. Economics
2. Defense
3. Individual liberty

and left the social issues to ministers, priests, and rabbis, we might broaden the base.

As I understand it Reagan gave minor lip service to social Conservatives and focused on the above issues. That is the Republican core. Huckabee was a huge distraction and more socialist than McCain.

Given that, I can see why social conservatives have no problem sitting this one out. They like Socialism. Just a different brand than the Democrats. It is funny that Social Conservatives do not see themselves as Socialists.

The Federal Governments job is to protect our liberty, defend our country, and protect our property. Any thing else exceeds its mandate.

The less we want government to do the broader our coalition will be.

Prompted by the comments at Hot Air

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Here I am in a cold-to-the-bone (mid-thirties) rainstorm in Madison, Wisconsin -- a place which seems more full of itself than any of the Midwest places so far. I liked Ann Arbor, which seemed more laid back and reminded me of a snowy Berkeley, but this place.... Maybe it's just the weather; maybe I'm a bit travel-fatigued. But right now I have nothing to do but wait for few hours with no umbrella, so finally I found parking and a Wifi cafe, which beats walking around in the drenching cold rain.

I shouldn't be such a bigot; on a nice day I'll bet this is beautiful.

It was beautiful last night:

In fact, it is beautiful even in today's awful rain. I have no idea what this fortress-like building is, but I saw it when I was driving around so I rolled down the window and pulled out my camera just in time.

Last night I perused a fascinating history of Madison, which has been a left-wing city for over a century (with socialist governments going back to the turn of the century).

Madison also has had a long history of antiwarism. In 1864, Madison's voters were so anti-war that they rejected President Lincoln in favor of Democrat George McClellan (discussed in a previous post). A local pro-Democratic Party newspaper, the Daily Patriot, ran an ad asking, "Who do you want?" and highlighted what they deemed the important differences between the pro-war Lincoln and the anti-war McClellan.

Lincoln was presented as the warmongering, constitution-destroying, inflation causing renegade, and as someone hell-bent on destroying the culture:

Geez, that's almost as bad as Bush. (Er, I guess McCain will have to do as a substitute for leftist wrath.)

As to McClellan, he was presented as the man of peace who would restore the Constitution, take care of the poor, bring back habeas corpus, and finally end Republican corruption:

I'm guessing McClellan was the progressive candidate. Anti-war is left, right? Or is that right?

Anyway, that was Madison in 1864, when it was Lincoln versus McClellan.

This is now (a bookstore window on State Street last night):

As I was writing this post, I heard the sounds of a demonstration on State Street. A demo in the rain? That struck me as beyond the call of duty, so I went outside to investigate. It involved immigrants rights -- especially those of Tope Awe, a local activist facing deportation back to Nigeria for some sort of technical violation.I found a blog post explaining the situation and calling for an emergency demonstration today, which is obviously the one I witnessed.

I took a video, which I tried uploading to Youtube twice unsuccessfully. (Wifi and large uploads don't seem to mix.)

So, this is the only clear picture I have:

As demos go, it was pretty lame; there were around 25-30.

Madison is a mixed bag. If it would stop raining I could have a little more fun, and would probably like it more.

All in all, both Madison and Ann Arbor make me homesick for the Bay Area. Madison is a bit more like San Francisco, and Ann Arbor like Berkeley. (And of course I prefer Berkeley.)

Republicans are not happy with John McCain. Captain Ed has the news. The remorseful are mostly in the comments. Like this one:

McCain will never fail to disappoint Republicans and kiss the asses of his true political opponents.

And why you place so much emphasis on candidates is beyond me. What about the voters? It seems to me that until we get voters turned in our direction we will get the candidates we deserve.

Why don't all the McCain scourgers blame themselves for not making Republican values more popular?

I blame myself for not doing a better job for Fred. What I heard from many was Mr. Too Old. Thanks. Now we have Mr. Too Old and Too Liberal. Way to go guys.

I'm reminded of what Mayor Daley Sr. responded when asked why his candidate lost. He responded, "He didn't get enough votes."

Get over yourselves. Blaming McCain for your inability to properly educate voters is stupid and puts the blame in the wrong place. Which is convenient. It means no self examination is required. How Democratic.

Maybe there is something wrong with the conservative message. Maybe the way it is presented. To blame McCain for our failings is idiotic. It will fix nothing.

There are always people willing to open the gates of the city because of some slight by the governing powers. The Bible (you have read it I presume) is full of examples.

I will never join those ranks. Even if it means voting for McCain.

OK I know. McCain will defend some parts of the city and not others. The Ds will give it all up.

I'm for preserving what we can. It will make recovery easier.

H/T Insty

Cross Posted at Power and Control

This is an oldie but goodie that I first posted at Power and Control in October of 2005. I think it still rings true.

==

Front Page Magazine is doing a symposium with a number of leftist who have broken with the faith. Tammy Bruce has some very interesting things to say about the kind of people the left tends to draw from.

Narcissism, while frequently thought of as "self-love," is in fact the opposite. It is self-obsession based on victimhood and paranoia. Narcissism is actually the belief that everything that happens, happens because of you, or revolves around you. As an example, feminist narcissists see the pro-life movement as being against women, or as a jihad against women, as opposed to an expression of those peoples' concern for life. The issues for narcissists, whether they be feminist, gay or black, is always about them, surrounding them, or about how the opposition is out to get them. Paranoia is a key factor in narcissism and easy to exploit.

Leftist politics, like a vicious circle, rely on the damaged as footsoldiers, while the most damaged, the "Malignant Narcissist," as I explain in The Death of Right and Wrong, move into positions of power and leadership, furthering the cultural and political destruction of our culture and of the left in general.

Phyllis Chesler expands on that theme:

As a Jew, I was always concerned with the suffering of others--and while I agree with the earlier analysis that this victim-identification can be both megalomaniac, narcissistic, and ultimately irrational, rigid, totalitarian, I also still believe that trying to help others, to repair the injustice in the world, is an ethical choice.

John R. Bradley has noticed Tammy's money quote and comments:

Tammy Bruce's observation, that "Leftist politics, like a vicious circle, rely on the damaged as foot soldiers," is nowhere more relevant than the love affair of the Left with the Palestinians. The great French writer Jean Genet, who had a sympathy for the Palestinian cause, nevertheless got it just right when he wrote in Prisoner of Love that they only really come into their own when a camera is trained on them and they are playing the role of victim, basking in the media spotlight.

And then Instapundit this morning links to an article about Lebanon by Michael Totten which has this to say about Lebanon:

I also wonder if this entire culture is still wracked with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is accordingly paranoid about worst case scenarios.

Dr. Tod Mikuriya says that cannabis is the best medicine for PTSD.

So now we know why a lot of lefties keep their bongs always at hand. They need them. The leftist cadre were always exhorting the dopers to give up the evil weed. Why? Not from any moral point surely. Of course not, it was because it dulled the will to fight. Now from a social and medical stand point might it not be best to let the left (and libertarians on the right) have their pot, mellow out and thus be less interested in fighting the rest of us and possibly even be more open to reason. Pot after all causes brain cell growth.

And why pot? Well for one thing it is unpatented. That will save a fortune in fees to the drug companies and since pot is a plant you just deliver seeds and growing instructions.

In the end Nixon's idea to use the War On Drugs to go after the left may have been one of the most counter productive things he ever did.

I believe we must turn to a source we can trust. Al Jazeera. The headline is: Sadr orders his fighters to stand down.

What are the terms?

UPDATED ON: SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2008 19:27 MECCA TIME, 16:27 GMT - [it is currently 1805z]

Al-Sadr's nine-point plan, agreed with the Iraqi government, was issued by his headquarters in the city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shia mosques.

James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Baghdad, said: "The main elements are that Muqtada al-Sadr's fighters should leave the streets ... in return, apparently, they will not be pursued, the Iraqi government will not arrest any of them unless they have arrest warrants for them.

"The big question now is whether the Mahdi army fighters will obey this command because there are all sorts of factions and splinter groups in existence."

Basra operation

Despite the order Iraqi troops will continue military operations against "criminals" in Basra, al-Dabbagh later told the Reuters news agency.

"The operation in Basra will continue and will not stop until it achieves its goals. It is not targeting the Sadrists but criminals," he said.

How can you tell the difference? I suppose the criminals are the guys with weapons.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Karl Rove has a word or two about the recent Al Gore bubble.

"You know you got a problem if the answer is Al Gore."

H/T Irish Trojan in Tennessee via Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Kandahar in Afghanistan is named after Alexander the Great.

It's not every day you see a fire hydrant like this:

But there it was, staring at me in Ann Arbor on Friday night.

Right now I'm in Rockford, Illinois (only overnight), soon to be on the road to Madison, Wisconsin.

A picture from last night with M. Simon, taken in front of a the Big CIties Lounge right after we'd seen the great Reverend Raven:

I'd be exaggerating if I said we were teetotalers.

(Not exactly like a fire hydrant, but the beer was flowing nonetheless!)

A great time.

JD Johannes is asking for help. He has produced a pro Victory in Iraq movie and needs to sell 2,900 CDs of his movie in six weeks to give Hollywood a wake up call.

People often complain about Hollywood's leftward tilt when it comes to Iraq, but few do anything pro-active about it.

I am trying to do something about it.

I have nearly died a few times trying to do something about it.

Hollywood and the entertainment industry is a business focused on the bottom line. If people want Hollywood to produce a pro-victory film, or a pro-troop television series, they will have to demonstrate that it is economically viable.

Most of the anti-war films have taken a beating at the box office.

Brian DePalma's 'Redacted' grossed $65,388, but cost $5million to make and 'Home of the Brave' only brought in $51,708 domestically.

To put that in perspective, I made my documentaries for under $60,000--that is the trip to Iraq and editing, audio studio, music, digital animations, etc., EVERYTHING.

To beat 'Redacted's' box office gross, takes the sale of 2,900 DVDs. Just 2,900 DVDs sold.

To demonstrate to Hollywood and the cable TV networks that a pro-victory documentary is viable, I need to sell 2,900 in 6 weeks.

This is one way to put your money to use for better reporting from Iraq and stick a finger in Hollywood's eye for their anti-American slant.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Gateway Pundit has a story up about many of the groups lined up to protest the Republican convention. He quotes from a linked source.

On Saturday, April 5th radical Trans and Queer people from the midwest and beyond will be gathering for a series of workshops about regarding the strategy for the RNC, queer/trans militant history, current radical trans/queer/anarcha-feminist resistance, self defense, diy sex toys, etc.

...Those attending the, "Bash Back! Convergence" organizing session for Crashing the RNC must agree to the Points of Unity put forward by Bash Back! Chicago. While we understand and respect all groups organizing against the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in the name of furthering the LGBTQ cause, it is important that our actions at the RNC have a unified message. These points of Unity do NOT mean that Bash Back! refuses to work with groups who disagree. They are simply what we as a group believe and we want the messaging of our actions to reflect that.

And what do you know. A blast from the past. The Students For A Democratic Society will be involved. You may be more familiar with their radical offshoot The Weathermen. You may also recall that a couple of Weathermen, Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres, helped give Obama a political boost early in his political career. That reminder should give Obama's campaign a real leg up just when he needs it, going into the general election.

Gateway has also provided a list of the organizations who have endorsed the protest action at the Republican National Convention so far.

ACTIVATE (Grand Rapids, MI Students for a Democratic Society - SDS) * Anarchist Black Cross Para-Legal Services (twitchon@hotmail.com) * Animas SDS (Colorado) * Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous (Milwaukee) * Asheville Rising Tide * Athens, OH SDS * Attentat Collective * Bash Back! * Brainerd Anarchists (georgewchrist@hushmail.com) * Chicago Anarchist Black Cross (PO Box 1544, Chicago, IL 60690) * CrimethInc. Far East * Delaware SDS * End to Apathy * Frederick Progressive Action Coalition * HammerHard MediaWorks * Industrial Workers of the World - NYC GMB Branch * International Solidarity Movement - Chicago Chapter * Iowa Organizing Against the RNC * MKE to RNC * Milwaukee Anarchist Black Cross * Milwaukee Anti-Racist Action * NC State SDS * Northeast Anarchist Network * Northwest Indiana Anarchist Black Cross (PO Box 1511, Portage, IN 46368) * People's Networking Convention Organizing Committee * Potomac Earth First! * Queer Action Network * Rising Tide North America * RNC Welcoming Committee * Rolling Thunder magazine * Sabot Infosquat * Shepherdstown Progressive Action Committee * Tacoma SDS - UPS Chapte * Talking Tree Infoshop * Tuscarora High SDS * UA Central NC * UA in the Bay * UCLA SDS * Unconventional Denver

Rove you magnificent bastard.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Here is something interesting Howard Dean, head of the Democrat Party, had to say a while back.

"The real issue is this, Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

H/T Just One Minute

Cross Posted at Power and Control

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are to arrive today.

Why such inaction in the Senate?
Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
What laws can the Senators pass any more?
When the barbarians come they will make the laws.

Why did our emperor wake up so early,
and sits at the greatest gate of the city,
on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
And the emperor waits to receive
their chief. Indeed he has prepared
to give him a scroll. Therein he inscribed
many titles and names of honor.

Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
today in their red, embroidered togas;
why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,
and rings with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
why are they carrying costly canes today,
wonderfully carved with silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today,
and such things dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't the worthy orators come as always
to make their speeches, to have their say?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today;
and they get bored with eloquence and orations.

Why all of a sudden this unrest
and confusion. (How solemn the faces have become).
Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,
and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?

Because night is here but the barbarians have not come.
And some people arrived from the borders,
and said that there are no longer any barbarians.

And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were some kind of solution.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1904)

Unbelievable as the above title may seem, I'm afraid it's true.

Reading that I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sean Kinsell emailed me a link to an Amy Alkon post which discusses an unbelievable story.

A local Ann Arbor hamburger restaurant is called "Quickie Burger" and their logo shows a not-even-scantily clad girl riding a hamburger, rodeo style. (Harmless and innocuous stuff by any reasonable standard.)

Incredibly, the logo has upset a gay student group at the University of Michigan, because, claims leader Kolby Roberts, the sign is "offensive" and "objectifies women." So they've started a petition drive to force the owner to change it:

The Stonewall Democrats, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender caucus of the University's College Democrats chapter, has taken offense with the restaurant's logo and recently began circulating a petition to sway the owners to change the logo.

LSA senior Kolby Roberts, a member of the Stonewall Democrats who has led the effort, said he finds the logo's message inappropriate and offensive.

"I have a problem that you take a women riding a hamburger and you put it next to the word 'quickie,' " he said. "It just seems like it's not putting a good message out there for the objectification of women."

Maria Arman, whose family owns the restaurant, said the logo was meant to invoke a cowboy theme.

"We were thinking beef, rodeo, so instead of putting a cowboy, we just picked a cowgirl," she said. "It's a rodeo-style cowgirl riding a bull, but instead, it's a burger. It was put together to be funny and different. No offense was meant to anyone."

Before selecting a logo for the restaurant, which features a maize and blue color scheme with televisions tuned to ESPN on the interior, the owners showed the logo to more than 100 people and none of them objected, Arman said.

"The people who we talked to told us, 'It's a college town and the kids will think its funny,'" she said.

LSA freshman Dan Yeomans said while he wasn't personally offended by the logo, he could see how others might interpret it in a negative way.

"I could see the same people who were offended by the South Quad T-shirts taking offense to this," said Yeomans, referring to a batch of dorm-sponsored shirts that featured lyrics from the popular, but controversial Soulja Boy song "Crank That."

Roberts said he believed the image was distasteful, regardless of the person.

"Basically, what it has is a provocatively dressed woman straddling a hamburger, and she's very busty and its kind of really horrible," he said.

Of course, I'm assuming that Kolby Roberts would also object to a sexy man riding a burger in an, um, "objectifying" manner. ("We have nice buns" comes to mind.) Or that the group would be just as upset by the same sign at a burger joint operated by lesbians.

Otherwise, he and his group are simply hypocrites.

But hypocrites or not, they are scolding and judging adult humans for what they do with their genitals -- something I find shocking coming from any gay person.

While it would be a bit of a stretch for me to assert that this "Stonewall" group typifies the sorry state of gay activism today, I can remember a time when gay activism (and most gays) wholeheartedly supported an outmoded concept I still support but which is in ever shorter supply -- something called sexual freedom.

This attempt to bully an honest mom-and-pop business is a grotesque display of heavy-handed, humorless gay Stalinism (a term I think Camille Paglia coined), and I'm inclined to agree with what Amy Alkon said:

Clearly, Kolby spends his nights curled up with Andrea Dworkin (the printed version, that is, since the old cow mooed her last not long ago).

Whatever the motivation of these people might be, it's an attempt to tyrannize a small business owner and it just pushed my buttons, so I thought I'd drive down and check the place out.

Here's the building from the outside, with the "offensive" logo on the awnings:

It "objectifies" no one, and i's not offensive at all. What offends me is that anyone would think it's offensive.

While I arrived in the mid-afternoon (normally a sleepy time for restaurants), there was nonetheless an enthusiastic-looking line inside, and I noticed that the employees were wearing very cool T-shirts with the same design!

Here's part of the menu:

I talked to a couple of the employees, and they told me that the controversy has been great for business, with almost everyone supporting them.

I had a nice talk with the owner, a good natured Armenian American who said his name was "Arman," and whose bottom line couldn't have been expressed more articulately or simply:

"This is America."

He told me that calls of support had come in from all over the country, and that he had no intention of taking down or altering the sign. I congratulated him, told him I was just visiting from Philadelphia, and explained that I supported him and Quickie Burger wholeheartedly, but I'd already eaten. I explained that I had a blog and asked if he could sell me one of the T-shirts the employees were wearing. He explained that they really weren't ready to start selling them officially yet, but he'd made an exception in my case, so he went to the back and got one for me. Thanking him for his trouble, I paid for the shirt and took it back. Here I am, shamelessly modeling the T-shirt in my hotel room for my camera's delay shutter:

Here's their business card:

I hope these activists have helped Arman and his business with their tactics. No revenge is sweeter than success.

Hmmmm...

(Maybe I should have titled this post "Fighting gay antiburger bigots! Been there. Done that. Got the T Shirt.")

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome (from the road) to all!

And (via Glenn) Gay Patriot weighs in:

...if he objects to the objectification of woman, he must also (favoring gender equality) oppose the objectification of men. So, therefore, I would assume he's leading the charge against ads for gay bars, sexy photographs in gay magazines and any other media representation of scantily clad men designed to appeal to men like us who find such images alluring. And I trust he's been leading a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch, given how that clothing company's ads "objectifies" young men.

Please. No gay man on Earth is in any position to be complaining about others' sexually objectifying anyone. Sorry. Just, no. You can complain that it's inappropriate in a given context, but that would require more precise thinking. It would also require thinking about manners and the evolution of beneficial social mores and stuff, and you might end up saying something judgmental.

...some of your commenters (not that this reflects on you at all!) are falling into the old "Nutcases who march in pride parades do wacko things...ergo all other queers are just like them!" routine. Plenty of us are self-aware and self-critical like normal people, guys.

Why, it's a small step from imputing "heteronormative" hamburger paranoia to assuming gays belong on the left!

The Lacrosse players have a www site that Duke is asking the judge to take down, not because any information on the site is incorrect but, because the site is "incendiary". Jamie Gorelick is one of the lawyers for Duke as is the son of Robert Bork.


Update: 29 March 008 2347z

In the comments Robert Bork Jr. informs me that he represents the players in a public relations capacity. I stand corrected.

On Wednesday I listened to Rush Limbaugh devote two segments of his show to bashing primarily two people: Barack Obama and John McCain.

Considering his longstanding antipathy to McCain, and his urging of Republicans to vote for Hillary, and considering that the polls show Obama is easier for McCain to beat, it strikes me that Limbaugh does not want McCain to win. I realize that he does not speak for all Republicans, but there is a fairly sizeable contingent of hard core McCain haters who have long maintained that they Absolutely Will Not Vote for McCain. When I was supporting Fred Thompson, I worried that some in the anti-McCain wing -- especially the angry pledge taker types -- might be cementing themselves into positions they might regret later.

Am I off base (ugh, that word!) in speculating that Obama might be causing them to have serious second thoughts? Because, if you think about it, for those McCain haters who are also Obama haters, sitting it out as they promised they would look less and less attractive.

And what about those who advocated -- who seriously advocated -- voting for Hillary against McCain? Are they going to vote for Obama? Or are they now facing the unpleasant possibility that Obama might be less palatable than McCain?

In addition to this, I think there's an emergent conservative Republican paradox: Obama is making Hillary Clinton downright attractive to conservatives.

This is crazy, and it is something Hillary never could have done. I can remember when she was the She Devil incarnate, and the mere mention of her name would sent any red-meater into a frothing, foam-flecked frenzy. But look at the stages they've gone through. First, they saw McCain -- the epitome of a base-betraying RINO -- actually win. Meanwhile, cheap demagogues like Ann Coulter softened them to vote for Hillary against McCain, and while Rush Limbaugh only urged them to vote for her "strategically," I think this has had a corrupting effect on that group called "the base." It's human instinct to defend what you've done, and by voting for Hillary once, many people will defend that vote.

Add Obama hysteria to the mix, and little wonder the old-fashioned conservative Hillary hatred has almost entirely dissipated. Right now (save a few cranks like me), most of the criticism of Hillary is coming from the Obama left. (This will most likely generate more sympathy for her, and with any luck, red-meat conservatives will start seeing her as a quasi-Lieberman.

There's nothing logical about this, as Hillary has not changed. She remains what she has been all along: a corrupt and venal socialist, and her campaign is a Peronist style end-run around the 22nd Amendment.

So, I worry that the driving force behind some of the current opposition to Obama is stuff is that the anti-McCain "sit it out" Republicans find him wholly, terrifyingly unacceptable. They fear that if Obama is the candidate, it will wreak havoc with their "sit it out" or "vote for Hillary" strategy, so they're in a panic. They would hate to have to swallow their pride and get behind McCain, so they're fighting Obama with everything they've got.

What makes this even crazier is that if Obama is the candidate, all signs point to him being easier for McCain to defeat. Perfect example:

"PRINCETON, NJ -- A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination. This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters, more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee."

"The conventional wisdom among Republicans is that they would much rather run against Clinton than Obama. But McCain insiders see Obama as more vulnerable to McCain than Clinton in the West, partly because of the Hispanic vote -- in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico."

Wouldn't any reasonable person think that Republicans who want to win in November would be positively jubilant at the prospect of having him as the nominee? Instead, some of them seem terrified of the prospect of Obama being on the ticket.

Why?

What gives?

What could possibly explain such irrationality?

I mean, if we test out this theory by applying it to the other side, let us suppose that through some combination of factors Huckabee instead of McCain were poised to be the Republican nominee, and that all the polls and statistics showed that he was likely to lose in the fall. The Democrats would be delighted, ecstatic, even. The last thing they would do would be to attempt to derail Huckabee before he had clinched the nomination.

This is not to say that the attacks on him wouldn't come later, and quite viciously, but for now, they'd mostly be quiet, holding their breath and keeping their fingers crossed.

Yet counterintuively, the closer Obama gets to the nomination, the more the Republicans freak out.

As to what's going on, the explanation that makes the most sense is that hatred of Obama is being coupled with hatred of McCain -- especially in the minds of those who want McCain to lose, and who believe he will lose.

Once again, I worry that the problem is with this fanatic, hard-core, loser wing of the GOP.

It wasn't enough to lose Congress, and I think they badly want McCain lose this race -- but their outrageous and childish demand is that he must lose it to Hillary, a trusted (and above all, profitable) old enemy.

As far as I've seen, none of the angry Republicans who declared for Hillary have ventured that they'd vote for Obama -- because they wouldn't. I think that if McCain loses to Obama after they sit it out, they'll be unable to live with themselves. So they are having an absolute fit.

This can be called many things, but it's hardly a victory strategy.

Quite the opposite.

Let me be blunt here: I think the GOP loser wing is engaged in treachery to their own party.

The irony is that they'd call me a RINO. And not just for the crime of wanting the Republican Party to win. But for a reason I find astonishing:

For not supporting Hillary Clinton!

I admit I'm very cynical. I've seen a lot of crazy things in politics, and for years I've been predicting that Hillary would be depending on the right wing to win.

But I never thought I'd live to see anything like this.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I hope this post doesn't sound too dark, because I think there might be bright side once all these shenanigans have subsided...

The conventional wisdom used to be that Hillary Clinton was the great uniter of the GOP. The way things are going now, Barack Obama may be (assuming he becomes the candidate) on the verge of doing what Hillary Clinton could not have done -- unite the conservatives behind McCain.

(I don't know how much more irony I can take....)

HT Hot Air. Hot Air has a lively comment section on the subject. Live Leak also has an active comment section on the video.

Now if only we could get some Americans to moderate their views similarly, we might have more progress in the "can't we all get along" project.

Update: as you can see the movie has been pulled. However (for as long as it lasts) there is a version up at Youtube. HT LGF. The video is also being hosted by Say Anything. Google also has the video. HT Instapundit.

I've been in the air and on the road all day, and only now have I been able to get online, for a few minutes of questionable Wifi time.

Right now I'm visiting Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is being hit by what seems like a small blizzard. Something I didn't expect to see this time of year...

Has Al Gore been here recently or something?

Heading downtown towards the campus, a few sights as I was driving.

A fraternity:

An incredibly cool Victorian funeral home, which the sign said was founded in 1852:

I'm sure that both the fraternity house and the funeral home were full of spirits, although of different varieties.

So in the spirit of things, I visited this store:

And brought back something to make me feel roguish:

Blogging will be erratic and spotty until Tuesday.

UPDATE: Geez, look at what I've been missing!

And to think that I imagined Hillary was lying!

Shame on me.

(I need another Rogue!)

Dr. James Hal Cone is one of the leading lights behind the Black Liberation Theology that Obama's Pastor Rev. Wright espouses. Here is some of what he believes:

* "Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him."

* "All white men are responsible for white oppression."

* "While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism."

* "Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man "the devil.""

* "The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples."

* "We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal."

Go Obama!

You might also like Liberation Theology and this video of James Cone in his own words.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs....There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who do not want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.

- Booker T. Washington

It's probably not very wise of me to do this, but since Ace and all those nice people have been defending Hillary against her "lies," I thought I should at least try to be fair, and take a crack at defending Obama against his "lies."

Glenn Reynolds links this from Hot Air:

"Barack Obama has promised a new kind of politics. Unfortunately, he has the same problems with calculating birth dates as Hillary does. In his speech commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the march on Selma, Alabama, he credited the march with his existence -- even though he was almost 4 years old at the time."

Here are the unfair details from Hot Air:

The first march on Selma took place on March 7, 1965 (there were three of them). At the time, Barack Obama was three and a half years old. Now, Obama also mentions the Birmingham march as part of this speech -- but that took place in May 1963. Obama would have been 20 months old when Dr. King led that demonstration.

That's not the only bit of fabulism here. Obama's birthdate is August 4, 1961. It doesn't take a doctor or a math whiz to calculate his conception as sometime in 1960 -- before John Kennedy took office. In fact, it might have taken place on Election Day, when Kennedy won the presidency. That would tend to indicate that Mom and Dad met sometime before the African airlift that Obama credits for his birth.

It's like, how could a little four year old or a 20 month old keep his dates straight or know who or what to credit for his existence? To say nothing of an unborn baby!

I'm telling you, this time, they've gone too far!

Really, what kind of mean-spirited people would attack unborn babies over stuff that hasn't happened yet?

How many ways are there for me to say how sick to death I am of this, this sordid excuse for a campaign? Campaign, hell. It's as if there's a permanent national election, and I've been complaining about it for so long that I've forgotten when it started or when I started complaining about it.

Complaining in blog posts is a cheap form of therapy but still, I try to accept reality. While my biggest fear from day one has been that those awful Clintons might some day be returned to the White House, I have clung for dear life to my denial, and I still hope that they won't. But like a pair of twin Jasons from the movie Halloween, they just keep popping up and popping up. There is no stopping the Clintons and their driven, zombie-like relentlessness.

This is not to say that I support Barack Obama. There's one thing after another that's wrong with him, with more every day, and more to come after that. (The latest -- that his military advisor General McPeak is anti-Israel -- is something I find very disturbing.)

I understand the concerns over Obama, but few people who have themselves worked up into a lather are taking the time to think about how and why the Obama phenomenon came to happen.

In a word, timing.

By starting her campaign way, waaay too early, Hillary Clinton caused people to be way sicker of her than they would have been had she started the campaign at the normal time. She did this because she thought America would need time to get used to the idea (or get over the shock, depending on your point of view) of having a woman as president. But as issues and ideas go, having a woman in the White House is not quite as much of a thing to get used to as the reality of this particular woman, who is not just a woman, but the Clintons. Many Americans -- and in particular, many American politicians and political people on both sides -- were fatigued after eight years of the Clintons, and would just as soon have forgotten about them completely the way one forgets a bad dream.

What Hillary failed to anticipate was that by starting her campaign far too early, she would reactivate the dormant Clinton fatigue might have seemed to have been laid in its natural political grave. A grave which, it's worth remembering, the 22nd Amendment is supposed to ensure. But the 22nd Amendment failed in the case of the Clintons when Hillary's campaign resurrected them as a political force.

Getting used to the Clintons again is not the same thing as getting used to the concept of a woman president. The Clinton resurrection made the fact of Hillary's sex only a secondary feature. It was the resurrection of the Clintons that became the primary feature.

And here's where Hillary's math was wrong: the Clinton resurrection wasn't something to get used to, as it was the resurrection of Clinton fatigue -- something people were sick of.

Not only that, but it was a premature resurrection. She should have waited, but she didn't. Instead, she gave the fatigue plenty of time to trickle down and reach into every home like a thick and overpowering fog -- until at last every American family was thinking not "Hey, a woman in the White House!" but "Oh, the Clintons again," and "Oh the Clintons again." Over and over.

There's a fine line between "getting used to" and "getting sick of," but the Clinton campaign missed it completely.

And there was Obama -- a new, refreshingly fresh face offering a way out of all that prematurely resurrected but still smoldering Clinton fatigue.

OK, that's my fix on this, and I know I'm repeating myself. What set me off this morning was to read more about Hillary's latest explanation of the lie that she had come under sniper fire in Bosnia (the story won't die gracefully because, as might be expected, military leaders and Secret Service officials have been put on the defensive):

Clinton began retracting the remarks in a series of private interviews Monday and Tuesday before addressing about two dozen reporters here after a speech.

She told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."

She told KDKA radio in Pittsburgh: "You know, I have written about this and described it in many different settings, and I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign."

And who's fault is that?

(I'm thinking that conservatives who fear an Obama presidency might want to ask the same question, but that's another topic....)

UPDATE: Commenter Van Helsing points out that Jason was in Friday 13, and not Halloween. My mistake.

There's also some discussion of when the Hillary campaign began. I don't honestly know how that would be measured. Officially, she announced in January of 2007, but she was raising money through the "Friends of Hillary" for some time before that, and there were financial irregulaties reported at least as early as March of 06.

Official or unofficial, her campaign has been going on for years, and many say it dates back to her first Senate run.

The Jews have the right idea.

Never forget what happened in Germany.

Never hold present day Germans (other than the haters) responsible for the sins of their ancestors.

That is what is so toxic about Wright. Did he thank the dead of Gettysburg for their sacrifice on his behalf?

Did he thank the Jews for their unwavering anti-racism? For their early support of the NAACP?

I drank out of a Colored Only water fountain when I was five (I knew what it meant and it offended me). My best friend in high school (drinking buddy) was black. I could go on. I can honestly say I don't have a racist bone in my body.

So why am I being held responsible for the racists in America? Most of whom are by now gone or out of power any way. BTW I'm a member of the original anti-slavery party. The party that first stood against slavery. A Republican. Why is that a dirty word in most of the black community? After the Civil War most blacks were Republicans. Why can't Wright remember that? There is so much else he has no trouble remembering.

How about the original KKK Party - the Democrats. How about the original surrender to the slave states party? The Democrats?

Does the Rev Wright want to build bridges and make alliances or just spew? What ever fills the collection plate, eh?

Obama will never, never, ever get my vote. The Jews are deserting the Dems en mass over Obama/Wright.

I just don't get it. Probably because I'm too white and too Jewish.

Let me remind you also of the "Battle Hymn of The Republic". Just in case you think anti-slavery did not motivate the Northern troops.

Do you think they might sing that at Wright's church?

It is the closing song at Republican Party conventions.

And yet we are being accused of being the racist party. I don't get it.

Obama/Wright has done a better job of denying the black community allies than David Duke could ever have done. Is a simple "Thank you for your sacrifice" too much to ask?

Jews are eternally grateful for what America did in WW2 (even though it could have possibly done more). Where is the love that Jesus preached - at least love for black allies, let alone enemies?

I just don't get it.

Prompted by A Dream Defeated.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady - a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation - is a congenital liar.

-- William Safire, Jan. 1996

I was startled when earlier I saw Glenn's link to a very spirited defense of Hillary's "coming in under sniper fire" remark.

"Hillary told the truth, and all the dishonest hacks and hate-filled liars and Caesarist bootlickers saying otherwise can go hang. . . . Her Story's Still Changing: But so what, Right Wing Haters? It's just getting better, more truthful, and more filled with pulse-pounding action-adventure and executive experience with each retelling."

What happened? Has Ace been turned? Did Gleen Grenwald finally get to him? What could be going on with a statement like that coming from Ace?

And even if we assume that Ace has been turned, why would Glenn be linking it?

Wanting to know more, I used the clever trick suggested by experts on the Glenn Reynolds style of passive aggressive linking techniques: I went to Ace's home page, and I began to scroll.

Surely, I thought, this must be some kind of joke. (After all, Ace has never been known for praising Hillary.)

No! No! No! Not a joke at all! Why, in another post (titled "When It's Too Dangerous For the President, Send the First Lady") Ace links with approval an analysis arguing that "Hillary did not lie":

Yes, we understand that people have bad memories. Yes, we are reconciled to the fact that politicians often have conveniently bad memories. But Hillary has an excellent memory, and furthermore she wasn't lying.

Shocked, I tell you!

But I'm sorry I quoted Safire. And I'm sorry I said Hillary lied about NAFTAgate. Because even if she lied, there had to be either an explanation or a justification of some sort.

Hillary is probably a congenital unliar. (Besides, what sort of mean-spirited wordsmith would ever use a word that looks like someone put "con" in front of "genital" to describe a First Lady he should have known would some day be running for president?)

The more I thought it over, the more I thought I should atone by requoting William Safire to reflect the better reality better reflect reality:

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the... realization that our first lady - a woman of undoubted talents ... was a role model for many in her generation.

I should take Ace more seriously more often. (How I hate it when these right-wing conspirators force me to be passive aggressive!)

But alas!

Now that I've apologized and corrected history, I see that the unprincipled haters at Daily Kos are accusing Hillary of even more lying -- the new lie, ironically, coming from the very explanation she gave to the Philadelphia Daily News explaining the last lie:

Clinton yesterday acknowledged to the Philadelphia Daily News that there was what she called a "minor blip" in her account of the visit.

"I went to 80 countries, you know," she told the paper's editorial board. "I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement." (Emphasis added.)

....Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had over 191,000 words in it. In addition, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had over 255,000 words in it. So unless you talk really really fast, you wouldn't even get through 500,000 words in two days, let alone one.

But there's an even better example out there: The Bible. I don't think there's ANYONE out there who can claim to read the Bible cover-to-cover in a day. And how many words does it have?

Number of Old Testament Words (Hebrew) = 306,375
Number of New Testament Words (Greek) = 138,020
Total Number of Words in the Bible = 444,395

Hillary, I'm sorry, but it simply can't be done. You have been exposed as a serial exaggerator. Your hemming and hawing over your Bosnia trip throws all of your claims of experience out the window. Let's look at the facts: you had no security clearance in the Clinton Administration. Most of your time on trips overseas with Bill was spent with the wives of presidents and prime ministers. You did not play an important role in the Northern Ireland peace process. You were not a factor in SCHIP. You had nothing to do with the FMLA. You were a cheerleader FOR NAFTA.

What's really going on?

I'm telling you, things is getting krazy.

Next I'll be wondering whether I was completely serious in this post!

(I do know this: were I one of Hillary's handlers, I'd be trying to shut her up fast, before she undoes her recent advantage completely.)

MORE: Check out this inspiring and heroic video!

MORE: The book!

UPDATE: OH YES! My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking to "linking with approval!"

This is not to suggest that Glenn actually approves of linking with approval, mind you. In order to understand the nuances of what linking to linking with approval means, you'd have to ask the expert(s) in Brazil, for only (t)he(y) can discern the true meanings and root causes of the "deeply irrational and incoherent" methodology and bigoted "cultural tribalism" involved.

Welcome everyone. All comments gleefully approved! (Yes, even from sock puppets.)

UPDATE: More from former Clinton Svengali Dick Morris:

Interviewed on the "Today" show one week after 9/11, she spun an elaborate yarn. The kindest thing we could say was that it was a fantasy. Or a fabrication.

She said that Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 and happened to duck into a coffee shop when the airplanes hit. She said that this move saved Chelsea's life. But Chelsea told Talk magazine that she was in a friend's apartment four miles from ground zero when the first plane hit. Her friend called her, waking her up, and told her to turn on the TV. On television, she saw the second plane hit, disproving Hillary's claim that "she heard the plane hit. She heard it. She did."

So why did Hillary make up the story about Chelsea? Most likely to was because her co-senator (and implicit rival for the voter's affection), a real New Yorker Chuck Schumer spoke of his daughter, who attended Stuyvesant High School (Dick's alma mater) located next to the TRade Center, being at real risk on 9/11. Hillary needed to make herself part of the scene.

She invented the entire story on national television, the "Today" show, and didn't blink an eye.

Her fabrication on the "Today" show was no unique foray. It is her standard M.O.. It gives us pause in evaluating all of her stories and calls into question her entire credibility.

So little time. So many revisions!

MORE: Do not miss "Hillary's True Lies," by Rick Moran at Pajamas Media:

only a Clinton could "misspeak" while telling a whopper of a tall tale to demonstrate superiority over a rival and then have the unmitigated chutzpah to add that such "mistakes" in not telling the truth are as rare as hen's teeth.

What this little morality tale will do to the campaign is remind Democratic voters of just what it is about the Clinton's that everybody marveled at during their 8 years in office; their spectacular ability to lie without batting an eyelash or showing any remorse when the lie was exposed.

I hate it when I click on links and don't find what I want. Plenty of times I click on the wrong link. Or a dead link. Or I'll get those infuriating popups which sometimes hang my machine.

But imagine if they made clicking on the wrong link a crime!

Well, they have, or at least, the FBI has taken it upon itself to arrest people in pre-dawn raids for what they say is the crime of clicking the wrong link:

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who's using an open wireless connection--and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.

The scariest part is that the FBI does not even care where the link-clickers got the links. Anyone might have emailed or posted them:

When anyone visited the upload.sytes.net site, the FBI recorded the Internet Protocol address of the remote computer. There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.

With the logs revealing those allegedly incriminating IP addresses in hand, the FBI sent administrative subpoenas to the relevant Internet service provider to learn the identity of the person whose name was on the account--and then obtained search warrants for dawn raids.

The search warrants authorized FBI agents to seize and remove any "computer-related" equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any "addressed correspondence" sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements, and credit card statements.

While it might seem that merely clicking on a link wouldn't be enough to justify a search warrant, courts have ruled otherwise. On March 6, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Nevada agreed with a magistrate judge that the hyperlink-sting operation constituted sufficient probable cause to justify giving the FBI its search warrant.

The defendant in that case, Travis Carter, suggested that any of the neighbors could be using his wireless network. (The public defender's office even sent out an investigator who confirmed that dozens of homes were within Wi-Fi range.)

But the magistrate judge ruled that even the possibilities of spoofing or other users of an open Wi-Fi connection "would not have negated a substantial basis for concluding that there was probable cause to believe that evidence of child pornography would be found on the premises to be searched." Translated, that means the search warrant was valid.

Some asshole drive-by stranger could have done it!

The possibilities of abuse are enormous, to say the least.

When link clicking is criminalized, we are all at risk. I don't care whether they manage to entrap the worst child molester in the world this way; that does not justify the risk of harm to a totally clueless person.

In fact, those who imagine they have nothing to fear because they're "not into that stuff" might be more at risk than actual pedophiles, as they're less likely to be cautious. If someone dared me to click a link, I'd probably click it. (Frankly, I don't think it should ever be a crime to click on a link, because of the possibility of abuse alone.)

What kind of person would set up a hyperlink system that could trap the unwary into clicking links? These scumbuckets are worse than Nigerian spammers, and if it isn't nipped in the bud, they'll probably resort to mass spammings in order to trap more people, and increase their damned budgets.

What kind of government would allow this to go on?

They call this law enforcement? These people are behaving like Soviet apparatchiks.

I'm not on the left, and I abhor socialism, but things like this make me want to write out a check right away and send it to the ACLU.

Some of what passes for law enforcement in this country is sickening.

MORE: Commenter John Burgess links a post by Orin Kerr, which has drawn some excellent comments. Like this:

>"First, presuming the affidavit includes some expert testimony about how unlikely it would be for someone to be at that site if they weren't looking for kiddie porn, and the practice for persons searching for kiddie porn to store it on their home computers, I think there is pretty obviously probable cause here. "

This argues otherwise:

"There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message."

In fact, logging the referrer header is *standard* with most web server report generators. You have to do some configuration to exclude it. So they don't know if those
hits were from people visiting that site or not.

>"if the FBI searched the house and didn't find kiddie porn, that would be the end of it."

Sure it is. Let's see - you've lost all of your electronic devices and financial records for some indeterminate time (they're going to keep examining your drives looking for *something*). Your reputation is shot - your arrest is front-page news (at least in your local community). Good luck trying to find a new job with that publicity over your head. Even clearly-innocent people never escape from the stigma, and especially from this particular accusation.

So no, they don't have to convict you to utterly ruin your life.

>"I don't think that anyone would argue that clicking on the link is a crime (at least one that anyone would care to prosecute)"

And yet that's exactly what happened.

"From the FBI's perspective, clicking on the illicit hyperlink and having a thumbs.db file with illicit images are *both* serious crimes"

It seems the FBI disagrees with you.

The really scary thing is how open this is to abuse by malicious third-parties. It's apparent from this episode, as well as the "swatting" incidents, the LE agents are fairly easy to manipulate. Just feed them information that re-enforces their preconceptions about a situation, and watch them wreak havoc on your target. And with immunity from civil action, there is no effective mechanism to correct the problem.

Legally you may be right, but morally it's entrapment -- luring people into committing a technical crime in order to arrest them -- nonetheless. The idea that viewing an image can be a crime is outrageous in itself. This takes it a step further, making a crime of attempting to view a non-existent image. The only purpose this serves is to put people in jail.

Repugnant.

The FBI that is.

And people wonder why there is an ever larger segment of the nation with a deep abiding and visceral hatred for the government and anyone connected with it.

The irony is that predators who go out and commit actual crimes against real children can feel a bit safer, because the more time the police devote to seekers of fake Internet kiddie porn, the less time they'll have to go after the predators in real time.

This is not to defend kiddie porn, but are there any stats on how many kiddie porn violators have ever actually touched a child? What are the priorities? I'd hate to think that the cops are devoting most of their time to going after the easier cases, but the fact is that cases based on possession are a lot easier case to make.

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link. And a warm welcome to all who clicked!

I'm utterly fascinated by Inquirer writer Chris Satullo's apologia to feminists -- for the crime of not supporting Hillary Clinton:

Bless me, for I have sinned, and it has been a while since my last confession.

This, apparently, is my sin:

I have failed to support Hillary Clinton in the fashion to which her most vocal supporters feel she is entitled.

This failing exposes hideous truths about me. I am a male chauvinist pig. A sexist. A sorry excuse for a journalist:

"I'm sure you don't think of yourself as a classic MCP, but that is how you come across. . . . It's the same old same old gender prejudice."

"Are you afraid of a well-qualified woman becoming president?"

"Many of you in the media have lost your sense of perspective and grasp on reality."

These were e-mails I've received for the crime of uttering mildly critical words about Clinton while offering Barack Obama words of praise. These snippets typify the counterattacking tone her most fervent supporters have adopted as the electoral math has grown dubious for her.

This is something that he denies, but fascinatingly, he assures his female critics that were he given the choice between a race change and a sex change, he'd go with the sex change:

...why, when someone makes the choice opposite yours, assume the worst reason, one with "-ism" at the end?

Clinton supporters slinging charges of sexism need to take a deep breath. Would some American males sooner lose a vital organ than vote for Hillary Clinton? No doubt. But not many such males have "D" on their voter cards.

This is a Democratic primary, remember? You know, the women's-rights party that any self-respecting MCP fled long ago.

The sexism charge assumes poison is somehow more deep-seated than racism: Yep, these men fear a woman in the White House so much they're willing to vote for a black guy. Really, you're serious?

Geraldine Ferraro isn't the only intelligent woman to assert this. Being neither black nor female, I concede I'm not qualified to judge. But if I had to choose one burden over the other, bring on the estrogen.

Seriously, while I like to joke about changing my sex, were I given the choice at gunpoint I'd much prefer to change my skin color than my sex. Not because of the discrimination issue, for I agree that I'd face more discrimination as a black man than as a white woman. But the inescapable reality is that sex is biologically more of a physical difference than is skin color. Not being able to pee against a tree when nature called, facing the rigors of monthly processes I could not control, and not having the upper body strength to which I am accustomed, these are pretty serious nots.

Call me a sexist pig, but given the choice I'd say bring on the melanin and spare the estrogen.

As to the idea that "not many such males have 'D' on their voter cards," the clear implication is that while Republic