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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Change we can believe in!
Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system.... I feel lost a lot. And I recognize that the past is gone, and that change is in the nature of reality. So how come I'm not supporting revolution? Forgive me, but when I hear the word "change" (especially from people who seek greater power over me), I generally assume they want to make things worse -- but for what they claim is my own good. posted by Eric at 11:51 PM | Comments (4)
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Why did we wreck our economy?
One of my pet peeves involves ideologues who misuse the word "we" -- especially in a scolding manner which implies that "we" all oppress the poor, have abortions, engage in hedonism, hate God, etc. Whatever it is that that's the ideological complaint of the moment, "we" are said to all be guilty of it. Predictably, the latest misuse of the "we" pronoun involves the economy. Richard Miniter tears into the idea that "we" did it in post titled "No, We didn't Cause This Wall Street Mess": You must be as tired of hearing it as I am. Somehow, we are all at fault for Wall Street's meltdown. We demanded cheap loans for houses we couldn't afford and voted in corrupt dolts, who took from Fannie Mae and told us what we wanted to hear. Now, we are getting what we deserve.Yes, and I imagine that if Obama is elected president, I'll have to listen to endless scoldings about how "we" are all guilty for living in a country shameful enough to elect him. (Never mind that I oppose him.) Likewise, if McCain wins, I'll have to listen to the left complaining about how "we" are a very guilty and racist people for letting it happen. In neither case am I given credit for being an individual; I'm lumped into a group in which I don't belong, and my motives are impugned. Miniter points out that "we" did not elect Barney Frank or Chris Dood: Rep. Barney Frank was elected by a majority of the people of his district in Massachusetts. Senator Chris Dodd is brought to us by many but not all of the voters of Connecticut. And so on. Most of us never had the chance to vote for or against these solons. So why should we be blamed?Well, I guess I should be glad that at least they're not blaming the blogosphere. The misuse of the "we" pronoun also helps the guilty parties escape blame: What about cheap mortgages? Sure, some of us took them when they were offered. But who offered them and why? Yes, it is the Clinton-era changes to the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to lend more for "affordable housing." Law firms, including ones connected to Obama, sued banks that failed to meet their low-income quotas for mortgages. Bankers were not driven by greed, as everyone says, but by fear. Fear of the baying hounds of regulators and lawyers would call them racist and ruin their careers. But who unleashed the hounds on the bankers?Many of them were the same people who are now releasing the "we" pronoun on everyone except themselves. posted by Eric at 10:02 PM | Comments (4)
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Donations requested
If you visit this blog regularly, you probably know that I have no tipjar, but that I occasionally urge readers to donate to other bloggers instead. Right now, Dean Esmay could really use your help. Details and tip jar here. While it's a real drag to ask people for money, I'd like to give a couple of reasons why I think readers should donate to Dean. One is that while I don't ask for money, I like to think that if readers like what they see here, they might consider it worth an occasional donation. So, as I'm lucky enough not to need to ask for money for myself, shouldn't I be allowed to redirect some of that "goodwill" to others? As I see it, I have a responsibility to use this blog that way if I can. Two is that Dean is a great blogger and thoroughly worthy of a donation even if he wasn't in need (which he is). He's been a personal inspiration, and he was one of the first bloggers to link and encourage me when I was completely unknown and he was well established. Which means that any readers who like this blog and also like Dean's World have a double obligation to make this donation. In fact, I'd go so far as to say to any reader who likes both blogs, you have no excuse not to hit Dean's tip jar! So please, go donate now. UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post. Please help out if you can; I donated yesterday and I'm donating some more today. I'm not George Soros and I can't afford to match your contributions dollar for dollar, although I would if I could, because I think helping Dean is a worthy cause right now. posted by Eric at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
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Who gets to define rights?
What's shocking (to me) about the clamor to "save people's homes" (see M. Simon's earlier post) is that in many cases, they're trying to "save" people who owe more than the house is worth. I think it is economically dishonest to talk of "saving" homes in this context. When someone is allowed to walk away from a loan in excess of the property valuation, he is the opposite of a victim. To illustrate, suppose I had bought a house with a $350,000 taxpayer-guaranteed mortgage, and the house is now worth only $250,000. I'm financially screwed, and I'm on the hook -- in a bad way. I'd be far better off renting. If the bank is willing to let me walk away from the indebtedness (or will allow a short sale, which many do) I'd be ahead $100,000. Being able to walk away from a bad investment and have the debt forgiven is hardly victimization. (It is even considered income by the IRS, although there's legislation pending to change that.) How the left and the MSM are able to spin as victims people who manage to walk away from legitimately incurred debts is beyond me. I used to think that buying a house was a big decision fraught with risk -- something to be engaged in by responsible adults. That contracts were binding, you should read them carefully, etc. Something must have changed. I think it might involve the profoundly evil meme that "housing is a right." I say "profoundly evil" because such a "right" cannot exist except at the expense of other people. From where derives the idea that anyone has the responsibility to provide housing for anyone else? I'm not saying people who cannot care for themselves because of disability or mental incompetence should not be cared for, but there's a huge difference between that and defining housing as a "right." Of course, it's easy for libertarian cranks like me to prattle on about how "we" don't define housing as a "right" here in the free United States. Many of "us" do. And they vote. Quite incidentally, the United States adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of its support for the United Nations. Article 25 provides as follows: 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.Fortunately, this is not binding on the United States as would be a treaty, so it cannot be enforced. In her "Address to the United Nations General Assembly On the Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," US Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt said this: ....my government has made it clear in the course of the development of the Declaration that it does not consider that the economic and social and cultural rights stated in the Declaration imply an obligation on governments to assure the enjoyment of these rights by direct governmental action. This was made quite clear in the Human Rights Commission text of article 23 which served as a so-called "umbrella" article to the articles on economic and social rights. We consider that the principle has not been affected by the fact that this article no longer contains a reference to the articles which follow it. This in no way affects our whole-hearted support for the basic principles of economic, social, and cultural rights set forth in these articles.I guess it should be comforting to know that even Eleanor Roosevelt recognized that there is no "right" to housing in the United States. Needless to say, the US faces ongoing criticism like this for its failure to recognize what amounts to an obligation as a "right": The refusal of the United States to recognise the right to housing is of course symptomatic of a wider problem in the international community which arises with the tendency to give a higher priority to civil and political rights over economic and social rights.I suspect this is something that Obama would like to change. Consider the following proposals from his Democratic colleagues: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding the right of citizens of the United States to health care of equal high quality (Jackson, D-IL)--H.J.Res. 30. Creates a constitutional right to equal health care.(Links added; more here.) Considering that Jackson is Obama's national campaign chair, I think it's worth asking Obama how he defines rights. But just as the word "socialism" is taboo, some questions can never be asked. MORE: Suppose a clear majority of Americans decide that there is a "right" to property at the expense of others. Founder James Madison cautioned that what a majority might want is not necessarily an ideal standard: There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore, needs more elucidation than...that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. Taking the word "interest" as synonymous with "ultimate happiness," in which sense it is qualified with every necessary moral ingredient, the proposition is no doubt true. But taking it in the popular sense, as referring to immediate augmentation of property and wealth, nothing can be more false. In the latter sense, it would be the interest of the majority in very community to despoil and enslave the minority of individuals; and in a federal community, to make a similar sacrifice of the minority of component States. In fact, it is only re-establishing, under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right....Tyranny by the majority is still tyranny. It's comforting to know that such things were on the minds of the founders. posted by Eric at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
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Vote for Obama! Or else!
Victor Davis Hanson has one of the best analyses of the current predicament vis-a-vis the election that I have seen in recent days. (A must read.) He thinks time is running out (that's the title of the piece!), and even though the most moderate Republican in history is running against the most left wing Democrat in history, ordinary voters still don't get it: The truth is that we have an election between a moderate Republican whose centrist positions worry conservatives, who is pitted against a fringe-hyper-liberal candidate who must somehow assure the voters he is merely liberal. Never in recent history, have Republicans nominated one so moderate, never Democrats one so hard left. Yet we are not getting from a proud and unapologetic Obama "My left-wing views have at last proven prescient and arrived, and McCain's namby-pamby moderation is not what these crisis times call for."I couldn't agree more. The Bill Ayers connection needs to become known. Hanson thinks the race card has been played very skillfully: The most brilliant prepping has been an anticipatory demonization of the white working class in an effort through shame, fear, or pity to sway them to vote Obama. The narrative advanced is that if McCain wins, the real reason is because working-class Democrats--once they collectively get into the privacy of the voting booth--sighed and voted against Obama because he is of half-African ancestry, despite telling pollsters they would not.However, it's being overdone, and he thinks they need to cool it: The white working class is tiring of the constant sermons on race, either chauvinism or veiled threats or overt insults. Obama's supporters really need to cool it, and stop suggesting that at each dip in his polls, Americans are proving less than noble people. The only thing that will really lose them the working-class vote is the gun-to-the-head, you'd better vote this way or else attitude.Good advice for the Obama campaign. I hope they fail to heed it, and I hope they continue to overplay their hand. Endless accusations of racism and thuggish Obama Truth Squad tactics may be McCain's best hope. UPDATE: My thanks to Sean Kinsell for linking this post in a great discussion of elitism. posted by Eric at 09:34 AM | Comments (4)
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ITER vs The Stone Axe
Stephen Strauss takes a look at big science and comes away unimpressed. He talks about two exhibits he saw. One for the $15 billion ITER (pronounced EATER - heh) and another about neolithic technology - mat weaving, pottery making, chipping stone axes. At the recent European Science Open Forum conference in Barcelona, for example, I was strolling through exhibits aimed at -- please don't gag -- science outreach. The underlying theme of all these displays seemed to me to be: since their schooling actually teaches many ordinary people to be discomforted by -- if not to actually fear and loath -- science, let's see if we can't do something in these venues to get people to hate science a little bit less.And why do people hate science so much? Well it is hard to understand and requires a lot of complicated math and difficult concepts. I'm pretty good with that sort of thing. I understand Einstein but the math is beyond me. String Theory? Fuhgeddaboutit. So how about neolithic technology? Right across from ITER was an exhibit in which a group of paleo-archeologists had set up a display to show the technology of the past in operation. So you had a guy sitting cross-legged, banging away at a rock to make a hand ax. Chip, chip, and chip. You had someone else weaving plants together to make a mat. Weave, weave, and weave. Someone else was taking clay and making a pot. There was no placard asking: Hand axe making, will it always be 40 years away? There were no critics of the effort calling it a huge waste of national resources.So how should we be thinking about such projects? A little differently to be sure. What you put in place with these vastly expensive research efforts is a "can't afford to fail" paradigm. Unlike trying to find the best plant material to weave into a mat, ITER, the Large Hadron Collider, etc., must succeed on first go-round. With ITER, there is no second kind of rock to be chipped away, no other plants to be woven, no different type of clay to be baked into a plate.So what should we be doing about fusion? Lots of small "understand the science" and "proof of concept" projects. Say 100 two million dollar efforts. About 10 twenty million dollar efforts based on the successes of the two million dollar jobs. And one or two two hundred million dollar efforts based on the promise of the $20 million efforts. Total cost of around a billion dollars a year when everything is fully ramped up. Nothing that is too big to fail and nothing where testable results are fifteen to thirty years off. Of course I have my favorites. Here is one that I described in the Fusion Report of 29 August 2008. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 05:32 AM | Comments (19)
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Who Stole The Chairs?
So who is to blame for the mess we are in? Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughts on the subject. no one dares to ask what really drove the wheeler-dealer portfolio managers. Who re-elected these shady politicians of both parties? Who fostered the cash-in culture in which both Wall Street profit mongering and Washington lobbying are nourished and thrive? We citizens did -- red-state conservatives and blue-state liberals, Republicans and Democrats, alike. We may be victims of Wall Street greed -- but not quite innocent victims.I'm one of those 4 in 10. And you know what? I'm renting. I may have no assets but my liabilities are limited as well. Call it a form of reverse security. If my income goes down I can move to cheaper digs. What can a home owner do when the market tanks and his income goes down? Marx had a term for it: Stucco. That would be Groucho not Karl. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 04:39 AM | Comments (3)
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Karl Rove On How Democrats Failed
Simon's Law: It is unwise to attribute to malice alone that which can be attributed to malice and stupidity. posted by Simon at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, September 29, 2008
At least conservatives still smoke red meat
We all know that smoking is conservative, because Republicans tend to defend tobacco, while Democrats tend to attack it. With that principle in mind, I decided to look back in time at cigarette ads. Sure enough, I spotted what can only be called "cultural conservatism" in this ad: And there's no denying that genuine Paleo Conservatism is at play in this one: Finally in the 1960s, LSD was added, and people started coming out of the TV! But it was still a form of conservatism that had not yet been snuffed out. (I hope there's no serious message here. I'd hate to think that conservatism might be as endangered as smoking. But nothing ever seems to remain the same. And therein lies the paradox.) posted by Eric at 11:19 PM | Comments (2)
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With Friends Like These
![]() It looks like the community dis organizers need some help. From Mr. Obama. WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.I have covered this at length but it you missed it try ACORN Is Not About Nuts and The Best Congress Fannie Could Buy and Barney Frank Frankly Not Frank. What is going on in my opinion is nothing short of a coup attempt. The American Thinker explains who planned it and how they plan to pull it off. Obviously these events are way beyond my control. The only chance we have is on November 4th. If Obama gets in with a Democrat Congress you can kiss the Republic goodbye. Let me add that Eric has a very nice chart from the American Thinker article that gives the basics in a very quick look. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 07:48 PM | Comments (1)
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So why isn't it cool for presidents to have terrorist friends?
Via Glenn Reynolds, I am delighted to see that the Ayers story is starting to be reported in the MSM. Well, the New York Post might not be the New York Times, or the Washington Post, but it's a start: CHICAGO - While Barack Obama has long downplayed his connection to Bill Ayers, a co-founder of the violent Weather Underground radical group, new documents show the two worked much more closely together in starting an educational foundation than has been previously known.It's going to take time to get this story out, and it will be denied, minimized, and obfuscated, in every possible way. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't remember Ayers and the Weather Underground, and a new generation of young people have either never heard of them, or think it's no big deal, because they've heard they were cool. Like "Weren't they working for social justice or something?" Or "I think my English teacher used to be with them, so it's no big deal." That's the problem; young people simply do not understand why it's a big deal. Many of them have been raised and trained by people who think a guy like Bill Ayers is perfectly acceptable. Mainstream, even. So, in addition to getting this story out, there needs to be an effort to remind people that doing things like blowing up an NCO club is way uncool. Definitely not part of the mainstream. And that people who were into stuff like that but wish they were more successful, well maybe they shouldn't really get to be mainstream. And maybe their close cronies shouldn't get elected president. posted by Eric at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)
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So many dots! So little time!
I'm of two minds about the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" theory of Obama and Ayers, which is explained here and represented in the following chart: While I first heard about it last night thanks to a comment from Donna Barber, it is a very interesting theory and it might well be true. In that respect, it is worthy of study. As is Gramscian Marxism. However, there's another side of me that tends to worry about conspiracy theories (whether true or not) being used as an obfuscatory tactic, especially when they complicate relatively simple issues and appear out of nowhere and muddy the waters just when relatively simple issues have become tough to ignore. I refer to Bill Ayers, and his close association -- possibly even mentorship of --Barack Obama, over a long period of time. Over the past few days it has struck me that this is just about to "break through" from the blogosphere and talk radio and into the MSM. And now that it seems about to do that, there's a sudden interest in what may or may not be the "root cause" of the Ayers-Obama association. Forgive me if I seem blunt, but what's damning is Obama's association with an unrepentant terrorist. A guy wearing a bracelet bearing the name of an NCO killed by a terrorist IED was a close collaborator and friend of a guy who wanted to kill other American NCOs with IEDs, and who regrets he did not do enough. This -- the one thing that will outrage middle America more than anything about Obama -- is the subject of a desperate media and campaign coverup. Yet suddenly, the topic shifts to a tactic floated by obscure Columbia professors in 1966. Again, the theory might be correct. But why right now? I'd hate to think that when Obama is finally asked about Ayers, he'll be able to snark back with something like, "Yes and they're also saying that my friendship with Ayers is part of something called the 'Cloward-Piven Strategy,' which I'd never heard of until now" -- to great laughter from a pliant and clueless audience. If Obama is elected, there will be plenty of time to look for root causes. I may be wrong, but right now, I think the focus should be on Ayers. MORE: M. Simon aptly summarizes the Cloward-Piven strategy as a practical application of Lenin's "Worse is better," and Alinsky's Rules for radicals. No doubt it is both. As I've noted many times, the fact that socialism does not work because it requires more socialism means that failure is success. But saying that won't win an election. posted by Eric at 10:19 AM | Comments (9)
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Barney Frank Frankly Not Frank
The Boston Globe, normally a reliable liberal paper, says that Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (D - Corruption) has a lot to do with the mortgage crisis. It opens with a quote from Cong. Frank 'The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."I go into more detail on all the components of the problem at ACORN Is Not About Nuts and at The Best Congress Fannie Could Buy. However, I just came across an American Thinker article which asks the question: are the people behind this stupid? Or was it a plan? Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors -- Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.So this is a long time coming. The American Thinker article points out that the strategy behind it has a name. The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis. Lenin also had a name for it: Worse Is Better. I think a deeper look into what the American thinker has to say is in order: Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?You know that sounds a lot like the Alinsky Method - Rules For Radicals. The American Thinker article goes much deeper into Cloward-Piven with lots of links and how the players are connected (see the connection chart - it is a beaut). May I suggest that a thorough reading is in order? H/T commenter Dan at Classical Values for the Boston Globe bit. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 06:33 AM | Comments (2)
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ACORN Is Not About Nuts
ACORN is about vote fraud in Michigan. Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families.Well. Two hundred thousand potentially fraudulent voter applications. I think it is a pretty good bet that those voters would be voting for Democrats since B. Obama has hired ACORN to do work for his campaign. I think it would be instructive to learn more about ACORN. If you thought the New Left was dead in America, think again. Walk through just about any of the nation's inner cities, and you're likely to find an office of ACORN, bustling with young people working 12-hour days to "organize the poor" and bring about "social change." The largest radical group in the country, ACORN has 120,000 dues-paying members, chapters in 700 poor neighborhoods in 50 cities, and 30 years' experience. It boasts two radio stations, a housing corporation, a law office, and affiliate relationships with a host of trade-union locals. Not only big, it is effective, with some remarkable successes in getting municipalities and state legislatures to enact its radical policy goals into law.That is very interesting. It may explain why Bill Clinton was so interested in welfare reform and why he worked with Republicans to get the job done. It may also explain why a certain faction of the Democrat Party hates the Clintons so. He was ruining their game. What else has ACORN been involved in? Would you believe that part of their organizing has been an effort to get voters enrolled in states other than Michigan? And that in the original bail out plan ACORN was to get money from the plan? Washington, Sep 27 - House Republicans have made clear that they will fight for an economic rescue package that protects the interests of families, seniors, small businesses, and all taxpayers. And as discussions continue in order to forge an agreement that reflects these principles, the American people are taking note of a left-wing giveaway Democrats are pushing to force taxpayers to bankroll a slush fund for a discredited ally of the Democratic Party. At issue is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - better known as ACORN - an organization fraught with controversy for, among other scandals, its fraudulent voter registration activities on behalf of Democratic candidates. Here are just some examples of ACORN's most recent scandals and unlawful activities:Those ACORN folks are some busy beavers. They kind of give a new twist to the idea of a work party. I wonder if they get their training in Chicago? Well no. ACORN Headquarters is in New Orleans, Louisiana. That might explain the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Curiouser and curiouser. So who else was going to benefit from the mortgage bail out bill? The housing package signed into law by President Bush extends an unlimited line of credit to troubled mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and rescues homeowners near or in foreclosure. The measure also increases the federal debt limit by another $800 billion -- and sends millions of dollars in aid to [the National Council of La Raza] and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.Did you know that La Raza means "The Race" in Spanish? Fortunately they are not racists. At this point funding for ACORN and La Raza has been stripped out of the funding bill for the stock market bail out. I think that funding for them is still included in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bail outs unfortunately. I wonder why ACORN has not been prosecuted under the RICO Statutes? WASHINGTON, Sept 25, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- James Terry, Chief Public Advocate for the Consumers Rights League, today testified at a joint House Administration and House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on "Federal, State and Local Efforts to Prepare for the General 2008 Election," where he highlighted "corruption at every level of ACORN including embezzlement, cover-ups, misuse of taxpayer funds and voter fraud." An excerpt of his testimony follows:Pretty good question. Why isn't the government going after them? One thing is for sure, if B. Obama gets in nothing will be done about them. Oh yeah. If you want to learn more about how ACORN was also involved in mortgage fraud may I suggest reading: The Best Congress Fannie Could Buy. Update: 29 Sept 008 0723z Here is a present for ACORN that Chris Dodd and Barney Frank included in the mortgage bail out bill (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). A similar provision in the Wall Street bail out bill has been eliminated in the current version. So I'm told. H/T commenter JBean at Just One Minute. Update: 29 Sept 008 1129z The American Thinker has an article that explains that the above documented methods of vote fraud are not an accident but part of a plan. Fraudulent names. The same name multiple times. Names out of the phone book etc.
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| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, September 28, 2008
I hate football! (But when in Rome....)
A sports blog this is not. Regular readers know that the above might even be understatement, as I have less than zero interest in athletic events. Where it comes to sports, I'm like an alien visiting a strange planet. This has never been more true than since the move to Ann Arbor, Michigan where I find myself living just a block away from the Michigan athletic complex, in an area dominated by students, many of whom would be stereotyped as "jocks." However, I very much like the fact that even though they have loud parties, they generally mind their own business, don't care what other people do (nor do they express busybody fears of "pit bulls"), and I can enjoy the relative anonymity of being an older guy who happens to live in the neighborhood. Just because I'm generally uninterested in organized athletic events does not mean that I'm hostile, though. I'm also ignorant about science fiction, but I'm not hostile to that. Why, were I to be plunked down in the middle of a Science Fiction Fair somewhere, I'd probably be curious enough to at least ask questions, and maybe read some of the most important things. (You know, the stuff that SciFi folks might see as basic "cultural literacy.") Additionally, there's that slogan "When in Rome." Considering the absolute intensity of what happens when there's a football game down the street, I don't think it is any exaggeration to say that living here and not attending a football game at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor would be a bit like time-traveling back to ancient Rome and not bothering to attend a gladiatorial event. You'd not only be violating the "When in Rome" rule, you'd be missing out on an important aspect of the culture. I think that's enough by way of a background explanation of what happened to me yesterday, which was in and of itself a highly unusual event in my life: I went to a football game. And not just any football game, but Michigan versus Wisconsin. The Wolverines versus the Badgers! Yes, by a process of inverse anthropomorphism, football apparently turns people into animals -- in this case it was a battle of the mustelids versus a weasel like group. Interestingly, both animals are quite vicious in real life, and although combat is unlikely in nature, I think wolverines could defeat badgers. (As happened yesterday with the human variety.) The human variety of wolverine can be just as wild as the natural variety, especially when seen in its characteristic blue and gold phase:
Yes, that's me on the left, wearing a very fraudulent T-shirt. This year's official T-shirt is bright yellow gold. Too bright for me. So my blue color is out of date, plus I never attended Michigan Law School. And even though I am a lawyer, my only connection with "Michigan Law" is a blog post I wrote criticizing one. But I'll leave the T-shirt ethics to others; I am in Rome doing as Romans do, and that shirt is the "When in Rome" equivalent of a toga. When I first entered the stadium, here's what it looked like:
Eventually, it was filled to capacity; around 110,000. The first half of the game went so poorly that I was beginning to wonder whether everyone was a bit deluded about the Wolverines being such a great team. The Badgers scored two touchdowns and a couple of field goals, and were ahead 19-0. But finally, in the third quarter, the Wolverines showed their stuff. During halftime, I had heard someone talking about how they had "worn out" the Badgers and allowed them to get ahead, but they'd definitely come back and finish them off, but I thought this was wishful thinking. To my astonishment, the Wolverines did just that, and pulled off a wildly impressive upset victory. I don't think I've ever heard a crowd go as wild. A couple of action pictures I took:
In the stands, a couple of very blue Wolverine fans:
And in the air, the Goodyear Blimp was replaced by the DIRECTV Blimp!
The final score was 27-25. Here's a video of the final "Hail to the Victors" as the team leaves the field in triumph. To show what a total ignoramus I am, I was already familiar with the tune, but because I'd heard it played repeatedly at Republican events and conventions I had assumed that it was a traditional celebratory tune intended for political rallies. Once I learned that it is the official Michigan victory song, I put two and two together, and realized that it had been seared into my memory as a "political" tune only because I had heard it played for years to honor President Jerry Ford, who was a noted football star here in the 1930s. (Fool that I am, I had unwittingly put a political spin on something that wasn't political.) I can't believe that I had so much fun doing something I'm not supposed to like. posted by Eric at 11:16 PM | Comments (4)
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Macsmind Hacked - Obama Plans To Disarm America
Gateway Pundit has the details. This is MacRanger of Macsmind. As you know I was hacked by operatives of the Obama Campaign last month. Well, it happened again. Basically they flooded the site with "sql bombs" according to the host that caused the shared server to stop running. Subsequently be had to disable the site. This had to do with running the "Obama wants to Disarm America" post which more than 2 million people viewed on the site. Just like the goons in Missouri, the Obama truthers can't let the truth be known. I've now moved the blog back to blogspot at macsmind.blogspot.com at least temporally. Because of the hacking job I had to move to another host but unfortunately they haven't got the server up yet to redirect the traffic to blogspot. I would appreciate a mention to your readers. I'm getting a couple of hundred emails about "what happened", but as you can imagine it hard to get the word out by reply.Macsmind can currently be reached at blogspot. Here is the video they didn't want you to see: Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 05:07 PM | Comments (3)
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Bracelets, NCOs, and improvised explosive devices
Remember Barack Obama's "me too!" bracelet? In an amazing twist, it turns out that the woman who gave it to him does not want him to wear it anymore: Ryan's father Brian -- who is no longer married to Tracy -- told Wisconsin Public Radio that his ex-wife had misgivings about Obama wearing the bracelet and mentioning their son on the campaign trail. It seems as though just as Tracy Jopek supports Obama and wants to end the war, Brian Jopek has a different take on what should happen in Iraq and may be more inclined to support McCain.Obviously, this is going to heat up. Whether it will become MSM news is another matter. What seem not to be getting much attention are the dead soldier's thoughts on the war. What did Sgt. Ryan Jopek think? Who knows? When I read that Ryan Jopek's father had also served in Iraq, I just found myself wondering. Obviously, there's a family quarrel underlying this story, and if there's one thing I've learned, there are always two sides in a family dispute. If Obama has weighed in on the mother's side, and she has changed her mind, it doesn't make his campaign look any better. But any better than what? Considering what Obama's friend Bill Ayers and his Weatherman group had in mind for Army NCOs back in 1970, I don't see how anything could make his campaign look worse. I'm not a member of the military, but according to Wiki, all grades of sergeants are NCOs. Which means Sgt. Jopek (the guy whose name is on Obama's bracelet) was an NCO. Here's what was planned for the NCOs at the Fort Dix NCO Club: In less than the blink of an eye, the blast of eight tightly-bound sticks of dynamite shattered the brittle wooden shell of the building hastily constructed during the Second World War, adding jagged splinters and rusting nails to the shrapnel that ripped through cheap tables and chairs, taffeta and chiffon, uniforms, and flesh.Fortunately, that did not happen, as the anti-personnel bombs didn't go off at Fort Dix. Instead, they blew up in a Greenwich Village townhouse, killing three of the bombmakers. One of them, Diana Oughton was at the time romantically involved with Bill Ayers, who will never forget her as long as he lives. Touchingly, they met while working for CCS -- an educational program of the sort to which Ayers has dedicated his life: Oughton dedicated herself to the school and teaching and designed a fund-raising button that read, CHILDREN ARE ONLY NEWER PEOPLE.[13] It was at CCS that Diana Oughton met Bill Ayers. The two fell in love and soon began living together. In 1968, when the school ran into severe problems and lost its funding, Oughton and Ayers sought to become active elsewhere in the community.This led the lovebirds to the SDS, the "Jesse James Gang" and ultimately, to the Weathermen (and of course the failed Fort Dix bombing which killed Oughton instead). I'm sure Ayers considers his deceased ex worthy of a bracelet; I don't. However, I find irony in the wearing of a bracelet to honor an American NCO killed by an improvised explosive device, by someone who befriended a guy who believed passionately in killing American NCOs by an improvised explosive devices. Should I? Am I making more of this than I should? I realize that Obama was just a kid when the improvised explosive device failed to kill the NCOs, and took out Ayers' girlfriend instead. But Ayers has expressed a lack of remorse, and has said he was sorry he and his group didn't do more, has he not? My question is simply this: Should someone who worked closely with a guy like that and may have been his protege be elected president? I can't believe it's necessary to pose a question like that. But it's a damned serious question, and it isn't being asked. Seriously, of all the reasons Obama should not ever be elected president, I think the Ayers issue is Reason Number One. It's why I keep writing post after post after post about it. Forgive me for saying this, but I'm seeing more irony than sincerity in Obama's wearing of the bracelet with that NCO's name on it. MORE: Here's Joe Trippi (who thinks the election will be a rout for Obama): In my view McCain may have sounded more dangerous to voters as he tried so blatantly to make them think Obama wasn't a safe bet in this very "scary" world.If he's right, then McCain needs to turn up the volume on Ayers. (And on Obama's lack of respect for dissent.) Anyone who thinks McCain is scarier than Obama needs a dose of reality. posted by Eric at 02:14 PM | Comments (6)
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No justice! No peace! And this means you!
Is there a First Amendment right to intimidate people? What is intimidation? I don't see easy answers to these questions, because to a certain extent, demonstrations -- and demonstrators -- are intended to intimidate. (I have experienced this personally on a number of occasions, and I won't bore readers by quoting yet again from numerous posts.) Not only do demonstrators fully intend to intimidate their targets, but their goal is to discourage people from sympathizing with their targets. If the target is popular (or sympathetic), the goal is to make him unpopular (and unsympathetic). And if the target is unpopular or unsympathetic, the goal is to send a message along the lines of "Don't even think of sympathizing with this scum!" Open mindedness becomes a casualty. In the name of "free speech" of course. Whether demonstrations constitute intimidation in the legal sense is another issue. The standard legal definition provides no clear line: INTIMIDATE - means to intentionally say or do something which would cause a person of ordinary sensibilities to be fearful of bodily harm. It is not necessary to prove that the victim was actually frightened, and neither is it necessary to prove that the behavior of the person was so violent that it was likely to cause terror, panic or hysteria.A concerned old lady holding a sign would certainly not constitute intimidation, because a "person of ordinary sensibilities" would not fear bodily harm. But a huge angry crowd, hurling insults and shouting obscene slogans, that very well might be. The larger the crowd, the more intimidating it is. Intimidation can be accomplished by sheer numbers alone. But then, even a smaller crowd of demonstrators can be extremely intimidating, especially if they are known for a history of violence. Angry large tattooed bearded men holding signs saying "TEAMSTERS LOCAL 666 -- DO NOT CROSS OUR LINE!" would frighten most people away. Why? Because they would have a reasonable fear of bodily harm. Where this gets especially dicey is in the case of demonstrators targeting people who have to be at a certain place -- i.e. a captive target group. If you have to go to work, and the Teamsters are there in force, they have their First Amendment rights, but what about your right to earn a livelihood? And what if the demonstrators target your home? Even if that's done in a "peaceful" manner, it's enough to make most people give way to whatever the demands are. So I would call it intimidation. What about jurors? While there are strict laws prohibiting "jury intimidation," these laws typically contemplate criminals, mob cronies trying to frighten individual jurors. Where it comes to demonstrators, it's a fuzzy area. Not so fuzzy, though, to have escaped the attention of the Village Voice's Nat Hentoff. Writing about the trial of a police officer in the Abner Louima shooting case, he describes the scene: And when this federal jury declared itself seriously divided, Reverend Al, in a televised weekend press conference, urged his supporters to insist that Schwarz [the accused cop] be thoroughly convicted. Accordingly, on the following Monday, while the jury continued to deliberate, busloads of anti-Schwarz demonstrators descended on the courthouse, shouting dire epithets and becoming so boisterous that Schwarz and his attorney, Ronald Fischetti, needed a police escort to get through. The intent was to convince the jury to do the right thing. Remember: This jury was not sequestered.If that's not intimidation, then what is? Remember, these jurors are not like military recruits trained and hardened in boot camp. They are ordinary people, who have to ride the subway home, and they know that what they are doing is a matter of public record, and that thuggish activists will remember whatever they do long after the case has faded away into oblivion. How many people remember Abner Louima today? Two groups: political junkies and angry activists. Political junkies won't hurt you, but it's in the nature of activists to always be angry, and never forget. The thing is, our legal system requires that these cases be tried, and juries have to hear them. But who in the hell would want want to be a juror in a high-profile case that attracts the presence of demonstrators? This is not to say that demonstrators are necessarily wrong (in some cases I would agree with their position), but I do think their very presence has an intimidating on those inclined to be fair and impartial. These are just a few examples. I can't draw the exact line, but I think there is real tension between the First Amendment and the right to be free from intimidation. Hmm.... Maybe I should have titled this post "Why Activists Win, Part IV" posted by Eric at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, September 27, 2008
new hood, old friends
I've been in Ann Arbor for almost two months now, but I've hardly met anyone other than a few people in the neighborhood. One of the coolest things about blogging, though, is that it can turn out you know more people in more places than you realized. I tend not to think of bloggers in terms of their geographic location, and perhaps for that reason, I had not realized (or remembered) until a couple of weeks ago that one of my very first friends in the blogosphere -- the legendary Dean Esmay -- lives within driving distance of here, and visits Ann Arbor regularly. So after touching bases by email, we arranged to meet up for a post-lunch coffee today at Mark's Midtown Coney Island, where I'd never been (I'm still finding my way around), but very much enjoyed. It was a real honor for me to finally meet Dean after all these years. There aren't all that many classical liberals, but Dean is one of them, and he's been an ongoing inspiration to this blog from the very beginning. We might not always reach identical results in our thinking (does anyone?), but we share the same principles, and I wish there were more bloggers like Dean, whose integrity is impeccable, and whose ability to see through bullshit is second to none. It's incredibly cool that I've moved more or less into Dean's hood. Having a respected old friend living in the area makes Ann Arbor go up in my estimation. And speaking of hoods, after we had coffee and talked for a couple of hours, we went outside and posed on the hood! (Of Dean's car, that is....) There was no one around to take the picture, so I positioned my camera on a USA Today box, and set the timer. Here are the two troublemakers on the hood:
And if you don't find that picture enlightening enough, you'll definitely be enlightened by Dean's bumper, which has the bumpersticker to end all bumperstickers:
Dean's own design, of course. Naturally I'm jealous, as they can't be bought anywhere. Of course, now that I've unleashed Dean's logically unassailable meme on the world, just watch some leftist whiner design another bumpersticker that says, "If Bumper Stickers Are the Answer, Then What Was the Question?" While it's probably just a coincidence, I see that since our little get-together, Dean has issued a death threat against his readers. (Geez, he seemed so peaceful over coffee....) Seriously, though, it's not easy being in a new place, and I'm grateful to Dean for making me feel welcome here. It's amazing to think that I was lucky enough to have an old friend, right here in my new place. Another lesson in the magic of the blogosphere. posted by Eric at 10:36 PM | Comments (5)
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It Wasn't Broke
The video is about 9 minutes. If you would like more details on how we got into this mortgage meltdown mess may I suggest The Best Congress Fannie Could Buy. H/T No Quarter posted by Simon at 11:11 AM | Comments (17)
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"Ben is far better informed than the critics" (Including yours truly!)
I don't think I've ever said "I'm not an economist" as many times as I have in the past few weeks. But I'm not. My point is that I, along with a lot of people who are not economists, continue to sound off on a daily basis about extremely complex economic issues of vital importance to the country, without really knowing what we're talking about. While this is our sacrosanct right as American citizens, I somehow find myself doubting we would do quite the same thing if the issue involved the details of whether Ted Kennedy's brain surgery had been performed correctly. Oh, I'm no brain surgeon either. But it doesn't a brain surgeon to comprehend that brain surgeons know more about brain surgery than non-brain surgeons. With that it mind, I could readily understand what leading economist Greg Mankiw said about Ben Bernanke and the bailout plan: I know Ben Bernanke well. Ben is at least as smart as any of the economists who signed that letter or are complaining on blogs and editorial pages about the proposed policy. Moreover, Ben is far better informed than the critics. The Fed staff includes some of the best policy economists around. In his capacity as Fed chair, Ben understands the situation, as well as the pros, cons, and feasibility of the alternative policy options, better than any professor sitting alone in his office possibly could.(Via Eric Posner whose post was linked by Glenn Reynolds earlier.) If only Greg Mankiw were a member of Congress right now. He's not, though -- any more than I'm an economist. My admitted ignorance about economic matters is analogous to my admitted ignorance of military matters. I can't count the number of times I've pointed out that I'm not a war blogger, and it's one of the reasons I can't offer much more than stressing the importance of victory. I want our side -- meaning this country -- to win. While I know it's not an exact analogy, I tried to point out earlier that economists are like generals. Especially Ben Bernanke, who strikes me as the economic equivalent of General Petraeus: If we were going to face the conditions which might trigger another Depression, we couldn't pick a better man to possibly prevent it than Ben Bernanke:I'm in no position to second guess either General Petraeus or Ben Bernanke, so I won't.Bernanke is particularly interested in the economic and political causes of the Great Depression, on which he has written extensively. On Milton Friedman's ninetieth birthday, November 8, 2002, he stated: "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve System. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."I think it's fair to say that (at least in academic terms) Bernanke's Depression-prevention expertise is roughly analogous to General Petraeus's Vietnam-prevention expertise. I just wish our politicians and the chorus of self-appointed experts would try listening to him before grandstanding. This is not to say "the experts" are always right. But what kind of track record does Congress have? Why did they ignore Alan Greenspan's warnings? BAIER: The legislation was blocked.So, while I'm not recommending mindlessly following the experts, I think there's a lesson here that mindlessly ignoring proven expertise is reckless. posted by Eric at 10:43 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, September 26, 2008 posted by Simon at 10:44 PM | Comments (2)
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I want my narrative shift, dammit!
"If This Campaign plays to type, McCain will hit an absolute home run tonight and the narrative will shift yet again." So says the Corner's Rich Lowry. With a buildup like that I guess I've gotta watch. Right now I'm making blackened catfish with red beans and rice. You know, a Southern flavored dinner for a Southern flavored debate. Gimme a break; I'm in Michigan now. Maybe I'll have some time between bites to watch the narrative unfold.... 08:57 -- The narratives are warring on both CNN and Fox, and the debate hasn't even started yet. I guess you could call this live-pre-debate blogging. Damn, that catfish smells great! And the kids in the hood are driving up and down the street honking their horns. Not in anticipation of the debate, mind you. They're honking in anticipation of tomorrow's Michigan versus Wisconsin game. 9:03 -- Lehrer begins by creatively switching from foreign affairs to the economy by means of a 1952 Eisenhower quote, and starts by asking Obama about the economy. He's giving a speech. Quite credibly McCain stresses the work involved in successfully coming up with a plan. Obama is trying to reframe the issue as involving "deregulation" and saying he told them so. Incredible. I need more catfish.
Obama is stuttering. 9:13 -- McCain is talking like a president. Obama is making speeches. Wow. Sincerity debates phoniness. I didn't think I'd see that tonight. 9:17 -- Pork barrel spending! McCain tears Obama a new one, and Obama looks defensive. Rope a dope fails. McCain is barely warmed up. 9:20 -- Asked about their differences in tax policy, McCain says he wants tax cuts, and reminds people that the corporate tax rate is 35%, and notes that Ireland's is 11%. Obama says businesses actually pay lower taxes because of "loopholes." (What? Like not being taxed on losses?) Obama slams the market solution. McCain calls this an example of "walking the walk versus talking the talk." Reminds of his record against wasteful spending. McCain is relying on his record and his ethos, and it is working. Obama looks like a confused man trying to sound profound. Now Obama is bashing the oil companies. Please. 9:30 -- I'm captivated, and my catfish is getting cold. But it's looking more and more as if Lowery was right about the narrative. 9:38 -- Obama tried the old "McBush" meme, and instead of being rattled, McCain saw it as a golden opportunity to contrast his position with Bush. And he reminded everyone about his position on Iraq, and how he was proved right. Now Obama is talking about his original opposition to the war. (What was Obama then? State assemblyman or something?) 9:43 -- Glenn has a roundup of lots of other live bloggers with faster fingers than mine. I'm just licking off the catfish juice. 9:49 -- I love the way McCain smiles when he's hit. Remarkable. 9:52 -- Ann Althouse also noticed McCain's calmness -- no glee -- under pressure: McCain gesticulates and smiles. Obama looks a little pissed off and interrupts a few times with the muttered phrase "That's not true."And like a kindly schoolmaster, McCain just gently chided Obama with some gentle advice on not giving away your intent to your enemy. Brilliant. Just brilliant. 10:05 -- They went from the bracelets from mothers of sons who gave their lives (McCain wears one; Obama said he has one) to Afghanistan, to Iran. Obama stressed Afghanistan and the Taliban, while McCain sees linkage in the overall war. McCain says that opposes unconditional talks. Obama talks about direct diplomacy and cites Kissinger. (McCain is again unfazed, with that little smirk.) After Obama's speech, McCain retorts, "I'm not going to set the White House visitor schedule before I'm president; I don't even have a seal yet!"(That's the line of the evening, I think.) He got Obama to stutter again. (Pointing out that talks with Iran legitimize their insane remarks about wiping Israel off the map.) 10:18 -- Russia. McCain again shows his strength. I look Putin in his eyes and I see a K a G and a B. I think if anyone can make Putin stutter, McCain can. (He's now got the Democrats gnashing their teeth the way the right wing of the Republican Party once did. Add he does it with a smile!) 10:21 -- Noting the danger, McCain stresses the importance of standing with the Ukraine. Obama follows, first agreeing, then nitpicking. That's the pattern with a lot of this debate. McCain takes a strong position on something, then Obama agrees and tries to undercut it. (It's not man to man; it's almost leader-follower. I'd be tempted to pity Obama, except he wants to be president.) 10:29 -- Stephen Green is drunkblogging, and Bruce Carroll is Vicodinblogging (because he has some). So why don't I get any? 10:35 - Flashback to Stephen Green: 8:09PM Pardon me as I wet myself while McCain spanks Obama over his promise to negotiate with Iran "without preconditions." It's like gay porn, only this stuff turns me on. (Sorry, Bruce!) Now why didn't I think of that? It's over, and I think McCain creamed Obama. I did miss a pronunciation issue, though: Why does Obama pronounce Taliban as "Tal-ih-ban"?? It makes it sound like a Japanese restaurant.I wonder how he feels about "Chee-lay." 10:46 -- The analysts are having at it, and no one seems to think Obama won, but they think he held his own. I think the differences in levels of experience and character was overwhelming. And McCain doesn't need to say anything. 7:58PM Do a shot every time McCain says "I have a record." He doesn't *need* to say, "And my opponent doesn't." 10:46 -- CNN calls it "a tie," and they're saying McCain engaged in name-dropping. Whatever. I think McCain is so much more experienced, has so much more common sense, is so much more grounded, that it wasn't even a contest. But they keep saying Obama "held his own" Held his own? Why are his supporters even saying that? He's ahead in the polls, right? He wants to be president of the United States and Commander in Chief of the most powerful armed force in the world, right? To say he "held his own" sounds almost belittling. UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has a poll up. McCain is winning overwhelmingly. (10 to 1 the last time I looked.) Meanwhile, CNN is nitpicking over minor verbal flubs of interest mainly to snarky political junkies. MORE: On Fox, Giuliani just made a good point -- that "neither one of them demagogued on the economy." And a couple of excerpts from the Corner: Regarding McCain's "I Don't Even Have a Seal Yet" remark, Kathryn Jean Lopez says, I bet most people watching don't know the backstory.And Amy Holmes -- "From a Civilian Mom": Watching at home here in NYC with her husband and two little babies: "I hope I am not assessing out of my pro-McCain bias, but McCain has had Obama on the defensive 90% of the time. And Obama is rambling on so much- good lord I can barely follow him!"I quite agree. It will be interesting to see how ordinary voters react. MORE: Here's Ed Morrissey: McCain kept Obama on defense all night long, made Obama lose his composure, and maintained his own in a very presidential performance. This one is a clear win for McCain. UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds links this analysis at Politico (arguing that McCain "gave one of his strongest debate performances ever") -- although Glenn didn't think McCain's performance was his best: I'd say he gave a B-level performance and Obama was a B-minus. Edge to McCain, but not by a lot, and neither candidate distinguished himself. Both, I suspect, were tired and distracted from the economic events.I admit, I'm partisan here, and I'm quite a fan of McCain's style. I've enjoy watching his failure to get rattled during debates ever since I saw him smile when Mitt Romney nailed him -- despite the fact that most observers thought McCain was wrong: McCain likes a fight, he sparkles when he gets one, and he won't back down. He's turned Romney's Iraq "timetable" remark from a war over the words into something resembling a fistfight he provoked. Romney thinks it's about the words, but I think it's more along the lines of a duel.Anyway, that's my McCain narrative, and I like it. I hope the pit bull with lipstick does as well! MORE: For those who missed the debate, Dean Esmay has the video. And Dave Price thinks McCain missed an excellent opportunity to bring up Bill Ayers: I also think that when Obama rather snottily brought up the humorous "bomb Iran" song and some hyperbolic comments regarding N Korea, McCain should have countered with the Ayers card. Obama looked petulant and petty anyway with his "coming from you" remark, but pointing out that Obama had some level of relationship with an unrepentant terrorist that bombed the Capitol would have been devastating as Obama's complaint centered on McCain's national security judgment.I agree, but the problem is that it's not yet October. Also, last night was the first time ordinary people in middle America had a chance to see McCain and Obama debate and form impressions. McCain might not have wanted to come off as going straight for the jugular on their first date. MORE: Just for the record, I don't think McCain held off bringing up Bill Ayers because he feared being arrested by the Obama Truth Squads. MORE: Don't miss Jennifer Rubin's "Who Won the Debate": on foreign policy McCain simply hit it out of the ballpark. He again and again came back to Obama's opposition to the surge and to his willingness to meet without conditions with Ahmadinejad -- who, he reminded viewers, has called Israel a "stinking corpse." Likewise, he skewered Obama for his initial response on the invasion of Georgia that both sides should "show restraint."Yes, and M. Simon managed to find and embed the video before the debate stage had even been cleared! UPDATE: Here's the recipe Donna asked about in the comments: Cajun Blackened Fish Recipe Cajun blackened fish was made famous by New Orleans chef Paul Prudhommes. In this blackened fish recipe, fillets of fish are coated with a blend of herbs and spices, and pan-fried in butter.Except 4 minutes is too long. I cover the pan, then cook for 3 1./2 minutes on one side, then turn and cook for 2 !/2 minutes on the other. Use common sense and poke at it to make sure. Catfish varies in consistency. Recipes, BTW, are not to be followed to the letter, but they are intended to give a general idea. Eat your mistakes and keep practicing. The key is mixing the spices. I make a lot, store it in a jar with a screwcap, and dust the fish heavily before cooking. You don't have to cook the peppers if you don't have them, but cooking garlic in the butter ahead of the fish helps. Experiment! posted by Eric at 08:56 PM | Comments (16)
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First, they came for the radio talk show hosts...
Last night when I heard (via this link that M. Simon sent me) that the Obama campaign is threatening the licenses of TV stations that run NRA anti-Obama ads, I noted that Team Obama does not go ballistic unless the information is seen as: -- devastating; andThe way they went after Stanley Kurtz with both barrels because of his Ayers reporting was a clue. I think it's quite obvious they fear the gun issue, and they should, because they are vulnerable as hell on it. This morning Glenn Reynolds linked Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell who had a great post about this latest outrage -- the details of which turned out to be worse that I thought: So basically, stop running NRA's ads, or your broadcast license could be in jeopardy. They detail the WaPo's FactCheck.org repetition as proof. This is Chicago politics at its finest folks. If you can't win fair, win dirty. This is not how a free society is supposed to function. This is not the kind of man I want leading my country.And if you think that's bad, check out the Obama Truth Squads. No seriously, pro-Obama government officials are issuing legal threats against people who "speak out falsely" against Barack Obama! St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out falsely against Barack Obama.Look, this is the United States under the Constitution, not the Soviet Union under Communism where people could be summarily charged with "Anti-Soviet Agitation" for criticizing their rulers. I recently wrote a post about Obama being a threat to the Second Amendment, which included two of the NRA videos; M. Simon embedded the one that's upset the Obama Truth Squad in this post. Along with more links and this remark: This is politics Vladimir Putin style. Every single Democrat on the ballot needs to be defeated.Right now, I'm speechless, because apparently if Simon and I were in St. Louis they might decide to haul us up on "criminal libel charges." Excuse me, but are these people insane? Isn't the Obama campaign's hostility to the Second Amendment bad enough? Do they really have to trample on the First Amendment as well? I agree with Glenn's reader Carolyn Gockel : The whole NRA flap is going beyond gun rights advocates...I'm not as pro-gun as you and I am furious.Even I am amazed, cynic that I am. First, Obama's Truth Squads went after radio talk shows who dared to host Stanley Kurtz, and tried to silence them by threatening criminal charges: Kurtz has obviously hit a nerve. It is the same nerve hit by the American Issues Project, whose television ad calling for examination of the Obama/Ayers relationship has prompted the Obama campaign to demand that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation. Obama fancies himself as "post-partisan." He is that only in the sense that he apparently brooks no criticism. This episode could be an alarming preview of what life will be like for the media should the party of the Fairness Doctrine gain unified control of the federal government next year.Ugly, ugly, ugly. Then they tried to silence author David Freddoso, who wrote a book critical of Barack Obama. And now it's threats of litigation, license revocation and even criminal charges for running NRA ads. Anyone beginning to see a pattern here? I'm with Glenn. Where's the ACLU when you need them? I mean, who else are you gonna call? The Department of Justice? Aren't they're already compromised? See my post for more about that; I have to agree with the Volokh commenter who said,"I fear that under the Obama administration, the lawyers sending these letters will be government employees." If Team Obama is acting this way in an election, imagine what they'll be like if they get power. MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, Patterico notes a larger pattern: Let's face it: this kind of thuggery is standard operating procedure for the left. In 2006, when ABC ran “The Path to 9/11,” Harry Reid & Co. wrote a mafia-style letter threatening ABC’s broadcast license. In 2004, a group of Democrat lawmakers wrote Rupert Murdoch and threatened Fox News’s broadcast license over what they believed was skewed reporting. And the DNC threatened Sinclair Broadcasting’s broadcast license over an anti-Kerry documentary called “Stolen Honor.” Kerry spokesthug Chad Clanton was quoted as saying: “I think they’re going to regret doing this, and they better hope we don’t win.” He hastened to add that it wasn’t a threat.Bad as all this was, I think the threats of criminal prosecutions by the Obama people represent a new low. MORE: Video of Team Obama's St. Louis Truth Squad here. That prosecutors, sheriffs and other law enforcement personnel could be on board with this assault on the First Amendment is amazing, and shocking. If there is any criminal activity here, it's on the part of the officials who are violating their clear public duties. Truth squads now may have consequences later. MORE: Jonathan Gewirtz is a very careful fact checker. He has read all the posts relating to the NRA ads, and his careful analysis -- along with this fact check of FactCheck leaves little doubt that the ads are factually correct. Via Glenn Reynolds. Hmmm... Does that mean they should call the Truth Squads the Lie Sqauds? UPDATE: Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has strongly condemned the Obama Truth Squads as an abuse of law enforcement reminiscent of the notorious Sedition Acts: JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.What's shocking is that any law enforcement people would get involved in something like this. posted by Eric at 04:44 PM | Comments (6)
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What? No Ayers bailout plan?
Tony Blankley tears the MSM a new one for its blatantly biased reporting as well as the more shocking non-reporting. Especially about Ayers: ...worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply have not reported on Obama's two years at New York's Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers. Later, they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks, the media have focused on all the colleges Gov. Palin has attended, her husband's driving habits 20 years ago, and the close criticism of the political opponents Gov. Palin had when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.There's a lot more, and Blankley concludes with an anaology to Wall Street: The public will be voting based on the idealized image of the man who never was. If he wins, however, we will be governed by the sunken, cynical man Obama really is. One can only hope that the senior journalists will be judged as harshly for their professional misconduct as Wall Street's leaders currently are for their failings.I wish that ordinary people (the millions of non-activist voters who only get to have their say every few years) would realize that they are being fed a steady diet of left-wing activism, by activist journalists, carefully calculated to persuade them to vote in their favorite left-wing activist to be Commander In Chief. The non-reporting of the Ayers story epitomizes the dimensions of the problem, and I think the Wall Street analogy is not a bad one. Because at this point, by keeping the lid on the Ayers story, the non-reporting reporters are doing more than simply protecting Obama (or even Ayers). They're engaged in their own damage control, and trying to prevent a major credibility freefall. I don't think the economists will be able to help them much. posted by Eric at 12:25 PM | Comments (1)
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Cheerful thought on home economics
I'm having trouble being optimistic right now. About anything. Which probably means I should stop whining now and delete this post. But if I do that, I will have nothing to say at all. The problem is that it's bill paying time, and paying bills always reminds me of death. But hey, my checks are in the mail! Maybe I should cheer up; I'm probably worth more than the damned gummint. And I have to say that an analysis by Steve Gill of a disturbing trend in polling has counterintuitively cheered me. Gill shows how a recent Washington Post-ABC poll is "a textbook example of how partisan media outlets manipulate 'news.'" A disturbing trend in recent elections has been the intentional use of skewed polling by the media to promote their ideological bent rather than to report the news. We got another dose of this biased effort to twist the news to the liking of the media giants just this week with the latest Washington Post-ABC poll, which "revealed" that Barack Obama has moved to a nine-point lead over John McCain in the presidential race. The mainstream media breathlessly reported this information as indicative of McCain's loss of campaign steam after the post-convention bounce and the recent euphoria over Sarah Palin.Now, if I could just figure out how to interpret today's front page:
I can't help notice that the front page story is authored by "TODD SPANGLER - FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF," but the pollster is in Iowa, polling Michiganders by phone. It's all Greek to me, and I can barely remember any of my high school Latin. It's like, reconciling the above with the overall average poll results at RealPolitics (which show Obama ahead only by 5.2.% overall) makes paying bills and balancing my checkbook look easy! Which is a cheerful thought. So I guess can stop whining now. posted by Eric at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)
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Between No And Hell No
Instapundit reports: Reader John Marcoux writes:The Democrat plan is larded up with pork for ACORN and similar frauds. The Democrats are also trying to use this bill to stop production of new oil resources. The Democrats have a majority in the House and there is no filibuster there. Let them pass it and reap the results. The Republicans need to stick to their guns. A clean bill or no bill.Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) was just on CNBC and said that his mail and calls on the bailout plan are running 50-50: 50% no and 50% hell no.This is what Barney Frank is up against. Even if the Democrats ram through the plan without Republicans signing on, they will be left holding the bag if the plan fails, as it very well could, and have to face the wrath of their constituents. I have already instructed my representative. Instruct yours: Contact Government: House of Representatives Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 09:56 AM | Comments (5)
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gunbanobama.com
Instapundit has a lot of links on Obama's efforts to eliminate free speech in America. Obama threatening the licenses of TV stations that run NRA ads Shut up about Barack's Gun Banning History This is politics Vladimir Putin style. Every single Democrat on the ballot needs to be defeated. posted by Simon at 09:11 AM | Comments (3)
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"Old" news about to re-break?
According to the New York Sun, the McCain campaign is gearing up to talk about Bill Ayers: WASHINGTON -- The McCain campaign is gearing up to criticize Senator Obama for his past associations with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and a former Weather Underground operative, William Ayers, in the home stretch of the presidential race.I don't think they really need Jeremiah Wright; after all, Wright only talked the talk. Ayers is the real thing. Plus, Obama made no secret of his ties to Wright. Ayers is the real stealth scandal: a coverup within a coverup within a coverup. They are definitely hiding something. Therefore, Team Obama would prefer that this all be about Jeremiah Wright. Naturally; that way, they can scream about how it's "old" news. And of course "racism": Any decision to run ads that feature Mr. Obama's former spiritual adviser, Rev. Wright, is bound to attract jeers from the press. Already, Time magazine's Karen Tumulty has written that an ad featuring a former Fannie Mae chairman, Franklin Raines, was racist. Mr. Raines, like Mr. Obama, is an African American. An ad that pointed out Mr. Obama's longtime association with Rev. Wright, who emphatically hollered in one videotaped sermon: "God Damn America," will likely draw responses from Democrats claiming that Mr. McCain is appealing to the racial fears of Americans.Ah, but hold on. There's more. There's Ayers (although why he seems to be playing second fiddle to Wright, I'm not sure): The McCain campaign's push will likely not be limited to Senator Obama's ex-pastor, whom the Chicago lawmaker criticized in the spring after having earlier said he would not disown him. Another association will be William Ayers, the former agent for the Weather Underground, a violent left wing group that exploded defense labs and other government buildings in the late 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Ayers, in an interview with the New York Times published on September 11, 2001, said he regretted not doing more when he was in the group. Senator Obama attended a fundraiser at the home of Mr. Ayers and also served on the board of the Woods Foundation with him in Chicago.Boy, is that the understatement of the campaign. There's now a lot more than the fundraiser at the home of Mr. Ayers and their service together on the board of the Woods Foundation. Surely, the Sun reads the Wall Street Journal. By now, they must have heard that a young lawyer somehow landed the top job handing out millions of dollars to radicalize school children in the name of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Again, here's Clarice Feldman: How is it possible that Obama in writing two autobiographies could ignore his 13 year-long association with Ayers if he were not purposely trying to hide or downplay it? How is it possible that the media could continue to ignore the CAC story? How is it possible that American voters, who regularly indicate such enormous concern over educational issues, could be so long kept in the dark by the Fourth Estate about the educational project Obama ran into the ground while he aided his revolutionary pals in recruiting Chicago kids to their extreme left wing mission?I realize that the story isn't being reported, but why is the Sun being cute and dangling tantalizing hints? (The left is freaking; I found the link at Raw Story.) Unless the goal is delay, I can't -- Oh, now I get it. Is that it? Are they all locked into the traditional "October surprise" routine? I guess I should remind myself that in the blogosphere, October surprises are usually rehashes of August and September news.... Maybe I should be patient. posted by Eric at 12:46 AM | Comments (3)
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The End Of Free Speech In Missouri
Two public officials in Missouri are threatening to bring criminal charges against any one who speaks falsely against Obama. You know it should be illegal to blaspheme against The One. In a police state. St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out falsely against Barack Obama.I have been saying for some time on various blog comments that a coup is under way. I'm going to say it out loud. If one Democrat is left in office after this election the American people will deserve what they get. They don't just need to be defeated. They need to be crushed. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 12:39 AM | Comments (2)
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It Is All The Fault Of White People
Eric asks Whose fault will it be if he loses?. I think Obama has already answered that question. Listen to the video (about 35 seconds). The answer is at the end. posted by Simon at 12:15 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, September 25, 2008
Whose fault will it be if he loses?
It's not too often these days I see a headline that says "Why Obama will lose" so I was fascinated. EDMOND -- When Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France as ambassador of the United States in 1776, he won the hearts of the French through his authenticity. Rather than take on an affected and phony continental style, Franklin eschewed the powdered wig of the European gentleman and donned the fur cap of an American frontiersman. Original genius and polymath, Franklin understood that the French would see through any false pretension but respect an authenticity that sprang from an unpretentious and naive love of country.The piece is by Professor David Deming (remarkable for his struggle to speak his mind despite academic tyranny), and it was linked by Glenn Reynolds and Bob Owens, who has this to add: He [Obama] never experienced his first taste of mainland American until he was already a grown man, and his experience was further indoctrination and immersion in universities with a radical leftist bent. He was further radicalized by 20 years of indoctrination in a Christian cult founded on the teaching of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, one that taught a self-segregating, blame-casting "black values system" that added spiritual alienation to his pre-existing cultural alienation. He embraced an infamous domestic terrorist as a friend and partner in schemes designed to undermine core American cultural values to push small "c" communism and radicalism, and pissed away the future of a generation of Chicago's school children as he helped launder $150 million of educational grant money to former terrorists and radicals that sought to indoctrinate, instead of educate.Yes, but if he loses, it won't because he lacked authenticity, or was the protege of Bill Ayers, or even that he lost the debate over the issues; it will be because America is a racist nation. I guess an inauthentic man needs an inauthentic excuse. posted by Eric at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)
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And if you put lipstick on a pit bull, then what?
I'm usually a patient and reasonable person, but this time, M. Simon has gone too far.
At least, that was my reaction (Coco is in unilateral agreement, of course) to the above "Dog Man" picture. Especially when I read Beldar's link which led to this: ...wolves are more equal than caribou, says the Humane Society in its endorsement of Barack Obama. The Humane Society Legislative Fund's president writes that the group has never before endorsed a presidential candidate, but Sarah Palin simply poses too great of a threat to animals....The post mentions "the Humane Society's decision to veer off into PETA territory." That's putting it mildly; see these three posts for starters. HSUS has made a convicted Animal Liberation Front criminal activist a deputy in their organization, and he has gone from illegal pre-dawn raids on mink ranches to legal (but trumped up, IMO) raids on dog breeders. Naturally, he wants to end all dog breeding. So presumably, the cute little Fifi dog Obama is holding will be part of what the new HSUS boss wants to be the last generation: "One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding."Sorry, but these people have a very radical agenda, and the fact that they have warmly endorsed Barack Obama provides yet another reason to vote against him. I'll take a pit bull wearing lipstick any day! And really. "Dog Man"? (Surely Simon must know what the term means in pit bull lingo....) Not to get overly cute, but for the life or me, I just can't resist sharing a true story of a pit bull with lipstick: Although something of a genius in working dogs, even Tudor had a problem with Centipede. When he walked the dog, he stayed back at the end of the leash. Puzzled, Tudor stopped and looked at the dog, and the dog lay down! As patient as he was with the dogs, he wasn't sure that he could ever get Centipede in shape. He decided to rely upon natural ability and endurance for his first contest, which Centipede won handily in less than thirty-five minutes.Advantage, lipstick. NEPOTISTIC DISCLOSURE: Centipede's name appears eight times in Coco's pedigree. posted by Eric at 05:39 PM | Comments (4)
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Obama Plans To Debate Himself
A senior guy in the Obama Campaign says Obama is going to show up at the debate Friday no matter what. John McCain says he will only show up if Congress does what it has to do to resolve the Mortgage Securities crisis. No doubt Obama needs the face time on TV to bolster his failing campaign, because if it wasn't failing he would have no need to show up. Obama campaign senior strategist Robert Gibbs predicted this morning that John McCain will change his mind after all and show up tomorrow in Mississippi for the first scheduled presidential debate, rather than skip it to concentrate on the financial industry bailout. "I believe the debate's going to happen as scheduled," Gibbs told reporters at a breakfast meeting hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "I actually think he's going to come to the debate," Gibbs said of McCain. "I think he will decide a president is capable of doing more than one thing at a time." In any event, Gibbs said, Barack Obama will be there.If Obama shows up he is going to look like a fool debating himself. McCain is off in Washington trying to fix the Mortgage mess and Obama is on TV debating himself. Obama will be looking very Presidential. Very Presidential indeed. Lets see how that would work in practice. Obama on the right says I have always said... and when it comes time for the Obama on the left to respond it will be that is not the Obama I once knew. I sure hope the TV guys provide a laugh track. Did I mention that McCain has Obama pwn3d? H/T Just One Minute commenters. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 03:07 PM | Comments (9)
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Bill Clinton Fires Up The Base
It appears that Bill Clinton has fired up the Democrat base. Not necessarily in a good way. ...the straw that really broke the leftwing camel's back was Clinton's statement today to Chris Cuomo on ABC's Good Morning America defending John McCain's request for a debate delay until after the financial bailout crises is resolved. Here are a couple of things that Bill Clinton said that drove the left absolutely bonkers:We know he didn't do it because he's afraid because Sen. McCain wanted more debates.This caused a firestorm of anger at both the Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground. So just how angry is the leftwing blogosphere with Bill Clinton? You can get an idea by reading this sampling of comments posted at the Democratic Underground: If you are looking for more entertainment of a similar sort you can visit Daily KOS and/or Democratic Underground. I think Bill is a PUMA. You know the Party Unity My Ass brigade. I think Barry made a big mistake when he got Bill to promise to campaign for him. Heh. Well the long knives are out and it looks like Bill has the longest and sharpest one. What can Obama do? Well nothing. He needs those PUMA votes. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 03:04 PM | Comments (1)
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The great Obama versus Obama debate? Why not?
Now that John McCain has suspended his campaign and postponed his appearance in the debate, it appears that Barack Obama is planning to go it alone: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., McCain's representative in debate negotiations, told The Associated Press that McCain will not attend the debate unless there is agreement on a solution that is publicly endorsed by Obama, McCain, the White House and congressional leaders.Even if McCain does not show, there are still plenty of questions to ask Obama. (Beginning with how he came to be an apparently trusted asset of Bill Ayers while Obama was a new lawyer and political nonentity. Why would "a guy who lived in my neighborhood" who hardly knew Obama entrust this obscure stranger to head his pet project involving many millions of dollars?) Besides, Obama has flip-flopped on so many issues, this might be a good time for him to debate himself. They could always start with the usual YouTube video clips, and give him a chance to, you know, respond. posted by Eric at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
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Keeping Up The Burn Rate
Obama is going to have to raise a lot of money to maintain his required burn rate. His efforts should keep the television advertising business out of recession for a few more months. Democrat Barack Obama's campaign has budgeted $39 million to win Florida, and that's just one of several "robust" set asides for swing states, campaign manager David Plouffe told supporters in a fundraising appeal this month.Yep. What if they don't? And it is not just a matter of outspending. He has to do it by a large margin, because as his primary race against Hillary proved, he had to spend a lot more dollars per vote than Hillary did. Lets look at some battle ground states and their electoral votes. And assume it will take money proportional to the electoral votes (very roughly) to win a state. CO - 09 $13 That is $150 million (roughly) to win those 6 states. That means he has to raise about $75 million a month just to win those states. If his calculations are correct. In August he only raised $66 million. Given other states he has to spend in and campaign expenses I'd say he has a problem. And that does not even count providing any money to down ticket races. Look at it another way. He outspent Hillary by 3 to 1 or more in a number of states and still lost to her. No wonder why he has to rally by day and fund raise by night. If he maintains a pace like that he is going to be very tired by the last debate. And tired people make a lot of mistakes. How is McCain dealing with the fundraising problem? He has decided to Leave The Money and Get The Votes. In other words he and Palin will be campaigning and doing very little fund raising. They will be rested and refreshed for the debates. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 09:52 AM | Comments (3)
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Obama To Get Help From Johnson Brief
Mr. Obama, who already has had a Johnson problem, is sticking his oar back in the same waters. Former Fannie Mae chairman Jim Johnson was dumped from Obama's vice presidential search team, but he's still playing a behind-the-scenes role on the campaign.He must need those PUMA votes really bad to risk another attack ad from McCain tying Obama to one of the guys in charge of the Fannie Mae meltdown. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)
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the case for bailout?
If we were going to face the conditions which might trigger another Depression, we couldn't pick a better man to possibly prevent it than Ben Bernanke: Bernanke is particularly interested in the economic and political causes of the Great Depression, on which he has written extensively. On Milton Friedman's ninetieth birthday, November 8, 2002, he stated: "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve System. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."I think it's fair to say that (at least in academic terms) Bernanke's Depression-prevention expertise is roughly analogous to General Petraeus's Vietnam-prevention expertise. On a less serious note, can anyone Paul Krugman says is Satan be all bad? I'm inclined to take another look, and I want to be fair. (It's the least I can do; especially because being fair is supposed to be one of my rules.) Like Professor Bainbridge I can change my mind. Who knows? there might be virtue in waffling right now. Bernanke thinks that the government might not only be saving the economy by this bailout, but getting a good deal: Bernanke said there is plenty of blame to go around for the current crisis, as he named Wall Street firms and banks that underestimated risk of the securities they were creating, rating agencies and regulators.Here's the part I like: And he stressed repeatedly that while the Treasury Department plans to spend up to $700 billion buying the securities, it can expect to recoup most if not all of that money by selling them at a higher price later on, once markets have stabilized. He argued that doing nothing would cause the economy to slow so much that there would be a bigger hit to tax collections than the program will eventually cost taxpayers.I might be naive, but Bernanke strikes me as a decent and knowledgeable man, who is not out for himself. Maybe all the political hotheads (including myself) should try counting to ten, and at least listen to him. He might just be worthy of our trust. If he is worthy of our trust, and he turns out to have been right, it would be a tragedy to ignore him simply because there's an election and everybody wants to win. (I think it speaks highly of McCain that he suspended his campaign, btw.) Earlier today, I did not hesitate to embrace the third rail. If I can do that, I see no reason why I can't occasionally waffle too. And if the economic collapse of the United States isn't worth waffling over, then what is? MORE: Please forgive the sloppiness of my thoughts and the spontaneous way I may have presented them here. It's late at night, and I probably shouldn't be writing a blog post. But I think this is damned serious. AND MORE: For more on why this might not even be the bailout it's said to be, read The Paulson Plan Will Make Money For Taxpayers." It's fascinating, and here are former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler's conclusions: .... it is possible, all in, for this portfolio to generate between $1 trillion and $2.2 trillion -- the greatest trade ever. Every hedge-fund manager will be jealous. Mr. Buffett is buying a small piece of the trade via his Goldman Sachs investment.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) posted by Eric at 01:05 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Top Obama Fundraiser Meets Ahmadinejad
That Obama has all the best friends. A founding member of the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois met in New York City tonight with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.You know, if this gets out it is sure to give the Obama Campaign a big boost with the bitter clingers. So you know. Spread it to all your e-mail buddies and help it go viral. Obama needs all the help he can get. With so many out of work in America these days it is your duty to help him keep his job. As the Junior Senator from Illinois. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 11:46 PM | Comments (3)
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the coverup of the coverup of the coverup
The biggest story of the campaign is that a man running for president was not only a close associate, but was quite possibly even a protege of an unrepentant terrorist. It's huge, rapidly unfolding news, but aside from yesterday's WSJ article, it's still not news to most voters, and I think it's obvious that the MSM want to keep it that way. They're more concerned with investigating the intricacies of an obscure Alaska bridge that wasn't built. The Corner's Peter Kirsanow summarizes the latest: Stanley Kurtz's piece today describing what appears to be an attempt to cover-up the extent of Sen. Obama's ties to William Ayers should have journalists salivating. This is a big story that, so far, the press seems determined to avoid.Via Glenn Reynolds, who adds, "And yet, they avert their eyes." They have to. The mere possibility that Obama could be a protege of an unrepentant terrorist is immensely damaging, which is why it has to be covered up by Obama, and why the coverup itself has to be covered up by the MSM. If the voters learn about this, and have time to learn about who Ayers is, they will not want to elect Obama president. The longer it goes unreported, and questions are not asked, the better the chances that the voters will never know. As to the swarms of reporters who have investigated every facet of Sarah Palin's life, they have done their damnedest to make her minuscule association with the Alaskan Independence Party a major campaign issue, but where it comes to an unrepentant terrorist having a close relationship with a presidential candidate, and who might even have been the guy's mentor, they don't consider it even worth a look. ...What did Ayers see in (or hear from) Obama that caused the former to take such an interest in him?I don't know which is a bigger story: the close association, Obama's coverup of the association, or the media blackout. Considering the latest, I think the near total failure of reporting it is a huge story in itself. I said "near total," because a few journalists like Michael Barone of US News are behaving conscientiously. And the Washington Times's Inside Politics section ran a column titled NEWS BLACKOUT which quotes from this Newsbusters piece: "The association between Obama and Ayers has received virtually no attention from the three broadcast networks, with the conspicuous exception of a primary-season debate sponsored by ABC when George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his relationship with Ayers. Out of 1,365 broadcast evening news stories about Obama prior to the end of the primaries, only two mentioned Ayers - one a brief mention of the debate question on the April 17 'Nightly News,' and the other an April 20 'World News Sunday' story about [John] McCain raising the Ayers issue on 'This Week.'(I guess it would be unreasonable of me to expect the MSM to report on their own non-reporting, wouldn't it?) Read Stanley Kurtz's full report here. More background here. That a story of this magnitude is being ignored, involving as it does a man poised to be elected president, is nothing less than shocking. Whether it's surprising is beside the point. There's only one way to get them to stop ignoring it, and that's to make noise. MORE: Clarice Feldman looks at the close working relationship between Obama and Ayers, and asks some good questions: How is it possible that Obama in writing two autobiographies could ignore his 13 year-long association with Ayers if he were not purposely trying to hide or downplay it? How is it possible that the media could continue to ignore the CAC story? How is it possible that American voters, who regularly indicate such enormous concern over educational issues, could be so long kept in the dark by the Fourth Estate about the educational project Obama ran into the ground while he aided his revolutionary pals in recruiting Chicago kids to their extreme left wing mission?(Via Glenn Reynolds.) posted by Eric at 10:54 PM | Comments (6)
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Eight Is Enough
Evidently, despite the poll numbers, the Obama Campaign is in melt down mode. The ever popular Jane Pauley, a former NBC regular, is not a big enough draw to get many Obama supporters to come have a look. Quoting from the Times of Northwest Indiana about a panel discussion on the economy: PORTAGE Former television news anchor and Hoosier native Jane Pauley returned to her professional roots Monday during a local appearance on behalf of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.She doesn't know that real Americans play cowboys and Indians when they are kids? Or that Maverick was once a very popular TV show? Well it doesn't matter. Alas, Jane's witty comment didn't enjoy as much currency as it deserved. That's because only eight people showed up for the rally.According to carnival slang that would be a "blue one". In other words a low turn out appearance as opposed to a "red one" where the crowds are numerous. I think it has to to with Obama's numerous friends who "burned the lot". Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 10:40 PM | Comments (1)
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Jewish Democrats For McCain-Palin
I assure you that Democrat assistance for the McCain/Palin team wasn't intentional. NEW YORK (CBS) ― Politics and diplomacy were not a good mix at Monday's protest rally against Iran at the United Nations.Well it was more partisan in the aftermath than the Obama team hoped. "Republicans benefitted more than the Democrats did," political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said. "Why? Sarah Palin wanted to be there, but it looks like she was purposely told not to and rejected. It gives her standing, particularly among those people who are thinking about voting Republican anyway."For Jews in New York to be even thinking about voting Republican is a serious reversal of fortune for the Obama team. I covered the New York situation a while back in Is NY In Play? And you know what? Maybe it is. H/T Instapundit Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)
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Just Weird
It seems like Mr. Obama has heeded the call of President Bush. WASHINGTON (AP) -- With extraordinary stakes on the line, President Bush has invited both presidential candidates and the leaders of the House and Senate to the White House on Thursday in hopes of securing a bill to rescue the economy. Bush took the unusual step Wednesday night of calling Democratic Sen. Barack Obama directly to invite him to the meeting, White House press secretary Dana Perino said. An Obama spokesman said the senator would attend.Well. Isn't that lovely? Yes it is. But what were Obama and his pals saying earlier? Obama had a few words on the subject. But he disagreed with McCain's call for postponing Friday's first presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi.Yep. Having the debates on time is so much more important than helping to negotiate one of the biggest spending bills Congress has ever authored. Good ole Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, chimed in. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement saying that the presidential debate should go on and that McCain's negotiations should not be a "photo op."This is the same guy who said a day earlier that McCain's presence was essential. Evidently once McCain decided to be there he was no longer needed. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said McCain's move was "just weird."Good old Chucky Schumer. So according to Reid, Johnny Mac was essential until he wasn't and then Chucky sees McCain's move as a grand stand play. Until of course he finds out Obama has changed his mind. Then it will be Obama's being Presidential. And that evil McCain playing politics. First. You know what is missing from the Democrat Machine is earpieces. So that when the message changes every one will be on the same page and speak with one voice. Axelrod needs to get right on it. Before his team looks even stupider. If that is possible. Given enough time I'm sure it is.
And this little gem from Jim Ryan at Just One Minute. By withdrawing into inaction, McCain leaves Obama with two intolerable options: follow McCain the leader or be left standing there with his dick in his hand.It's a Zen thing. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
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Harry Reid Can't Make Up His Mind
Harry Reid yesterday said McCain's help with the financial crisis was essential. According to a McCain adviser: "Yesterday, Harry Reid said that consensus couldn't be achieved without John McCain's leadership. John stepped up and is providing that leadership.Today the Senator from Nevada changed his tune. A Democrat tells ABC News that, in a phone call late this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that it would NOT be helpful for him to come back to Washington, D.C., to work on the Wall Street bailout bill.I suppose Obama will be voting absent when it comes to hammering out a deal. Evidently in the Senate he is NOT The One they have been waiting for. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
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McCain Suspends Campaign To Work Mortgage Crisis
John McCain suspends campaign asks Obama to do the same. U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain will suspended his campaign tomorrow to work on the U.S. economy.Obama said he is talking to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. He said if you need me call me. Evidently he doesn't think his presence will help. I'm inclined to agree. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 04:46 PM | Comments (9)
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Better a fiddle than a flame thrower
There were a couple of things that came up in comments that I thought bear repeating in a separate post. One is this: check out the view of an economist I've been reading for a long time and whom I trust, Arnold Kling. Bottom line: The risks of enacting the plan are far worse than the risks of doing nothing.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) I realize that there are times when the urge to "do something!" becomes irresistible. An economic crisis weeks before an election is surely one of those times. But that does not mean that doing something is the thing to do. Sometimes, not doing something is the thing to do. It ought to at least be considered as an option. The problem is, when hysteria rules, one of the most common popular cries is what? The government just sat there, doing nothing! This was reflected in a column I saw by Rochelle Riley in yesterday's Detroit Free Press, titled "Candidates fiddle while Rome burns." Among other things, she says this: While Rome burns, I don't want to hear the gladiators fight about who, why and wherefore of the Iraq war. That ticking sound we hear isn't counting down the days since the surge changed life in Baghdad. It is the sound of America's economy nearing Armageddon.Hmm.... Even if we accept the historically problematic analogy to Nero, what is being forgotten is that the economic "fire" under discussion is in large part a fire the government started, whether intentionally or not. Unlike the Great Fire of Rome, which was falsely rumored to have been started by Nero, whose persecution of Christians was described by Tacitus as an attempt to stop the rumors by shifting blame. At any event, there were no fiddles in ancient Rome, so Nero could not have "fiddled" during the Great Fire any more than Governor Roosevelt could have gone on TV in 1929 to discuss the Great Crash. (And no, that is not a moral equivalency argument!) But hey, if the Great Fire analogy won't work, I guess there's always Armageddon. Anything to get the government to "do something!" What if the government has already done something? What if it has already done too much, and that any more will be like throwing gasoline on a fire uner the mistaken belief that it is water? What's the hurry? Who will bail out the bailout? Or, if we look at the government the way a college kid looks at daddy's money, "What happens when Daddy's check bounces?" Why aren't these questions being asked? It's as if everyone is making a kneejerk assumption that the money is there to bail everything out and make everything OK. Yes, of course it is there. Why? Because, well, it just has to be there! Because, like, this is the United States and everything, and the government is just so huge and has so much money it's awesome man! The government has enough money to bail out everything, and if they run short, why they can always print more, right? And if that doesn't work they can always take it from the rich people, all those fat cats who've stolen it from the government and the poor people, right? So it's like, there will always be plenty of money to bail everything out, because all money comes from the government and like if it weren't for the government printing it you wouldn't even get the money they let you take home with your paycheck! This is why the bailout beats doing nothing, even if it's the wrong thing. Unfortunately, telling people what they want to hear is just as important now as it was in Nero's time. And where it comes to "economic issues," the Democrats are far better at telling people whatever they want to hear than are Republicans. MORE: Speaking of the "Do something now!" mentality, Ilya Somin has the Bailout Quote of the Day, from Mike Pence: "I must tell you, there are those in the public debate who have said that we must act now. The last time I heard that, I was on a used-car lot," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana. "The truth is, every time somebody tells you that you've got to do the deal right now, it usually means they're going to get the better part of the deal." (Via Glenn Reynolds.) Used car lot? Would that be what Jeff Goldstein means when he says "Obamalot"? posted by Eric at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
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The Crony Capitalist Clique
Our financial troubles are caused by people treating the government as if it was their own piggy bank. And it is quite evident that our current troubles are a case of hogs gone wild. In the past couple of weeks, as the financial crisis has intensified, a new talking point has emerged from the Democrats in Congress: This is all a "crisis of capitalism," in socialist financier George Soros' phrase, and a failure to regulate our markets sufficiently.So we know who the pigs are. And we know who was dishing out the slop (taxpayer dollars - your dollars). Sadly the pigs are going to require one more feeding before they get slaughtered and delivered to the market. posted by Simon at 02:15 PM | Comments (2)
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Leave The Money - Get The Votes
It looks like Sarah Palin has more value as a vote getter than as a fund raiser. John McCain's campaign is scrapping, rescheduling or offering surrogates for nearly every one of the fundraisers Sarah Palin was to hold this month, instead having her campaign jointly with McCain, prepare for her sole debate next month and get some foreign policy exposure.It seems like that is a very good idea. According to the polls at Real Clear Politics Obama has been gaining ground. And that does not even include ACORN vote fraud. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 02:06 PM | Comments (1)
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The third rail is easy to embrace
George Will thinks that in the near-hysteria over how to control the current economic stampede, people are forgetting the big picture: An enormous range of complex judgments will have to be made about who will decide -- and by what criteria -- to whom money will be directed, and how to value and price the financial instruments, and the assets behind them, that the government might soon own. But these micro problems, although quite huge, pale next to the macro problem, which is:Eric S. Raymond wrote a very disturbing post about this, and he thinks it will require getting rid of the so-called "entitlements.": The IBD correctly notes: "Allowed to grind on without real reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will do what no invading army or cabal of terrorists has done or will ever do: bring this mighty republic to its knees. Increasing federal taxes by 150% will strangle economic growth."(My previous thoughts about this are here.) The problem is, even though the Big Crash is ultimately inevitable, getting rid of the "entitlements" could result in rioting in the streets. Even revolution. Politicians cannot face things like that. They can't even talk about entitlements, which have long been considered a "political third rail." Fortunately, there is no such third rail for bloggers, because bloggers don't have to worry about getting elected. In that sense, they are either part of the current flow, or else they're ungrounded, depending on your point of view. So I can reach out and touch the third rail with complete impunity. I won't get shocked, not even if I say it's time to scrap the welfare state. Why, I can even yell "Get rid of Social Security!" "Take care of yourself and your own family!" "Buy guns!" "Store food!" But I wish that those for whom this really is a political third rail would remember that there's nothing to fear but the fear of death. (Which means we have nothing to fear but the inevitable itself.) QUESTION: Amidst the endless talk about bailouts, I have a nagging question for those who think "the government" is a blank check: Who will bail out the bailout? (Or, if we look at the government the way a college kid looks at daddy's money, "What happens when Daddy's check bounces?") posted by Eric at 11:30 AM | Comments (6)
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The double-secret Tom Eagleton non-prediction prediction!
How many Eagletons do we need in this election? I mean, no sooner was Sarah Palin's nomination announced than the liberals went ballistic with Palin/ Eagleton comparisons and predictions. Which went nowhere. It was just a lame attempt to rattle the McCain campaign. So, when I read that poor Tom Eagleton's political corpse had been disinterred yet again by pundits invoking his specter vis-a-vis super-gaffer Joe Biden, I figured it was some kind of "Let's even the score!" deal. Possibly by vengeful right wingers (or by wishful thinkers on the left who want to float the idea while crediting the right wing). That might explain the peculiar attempt to make it appear that the prediction came from Glenn Reynolds -- the "notorious conservative blogger" who has been dutifully not predicting Biden's Eagleton moment right from the start. But will Glenn's "non-predictions" really fool the truly reality-based searchers for the truth? To these seasoned conspiracy theorists, the fact that Reynolds would predict by not predicting (especially because as "notorious conservatives" go, he's notoriously non-conservative) makes infinite sense. As I have explained in more posts than I have written, expert analysts (especially Gleen Grenwald) have determined that when Glenn Reynolds says something, he really means quite the opposite, just as when he links something, he's really not linking it at all, but he's playing a complex game of passive aggressive linking. This also means that when Rush Limbaugh says something but Glenn does not, Glenn actually said what Limbaugh said, whether he did or not! (Likewise, when Glenn says someone is straight, he means they're gay. Hmm... Did he ever say Joe Biden was straight?) So obviously (at least to anyone who studies these things in the detail that's required) it would be a simple thing for Glenn to predict something by not predicting it. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a more effective passive aggressive way of predicting something will happen than by predicting it won't happen! The real question no one is asking is: who didn't predict this first? posted by Eric at 09:50 AM | Comments (5)
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"The biggest story of the campaign"
That's how the Guardian describes the New York Times revelation that a lobbying firm owned by John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis "was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month.": The story is this. The lobbying firm of Rick Davis, the manager, was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month. That fact is a direct contradiction of words McCain had spoken Sunday night. At that time, responding to a Times story being prepared for Monday's paper revealing that Davis had been the head of a lobbying consortium led by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae until 2005, McCain said Davis had done no further work for either mortgage giant. Who lied to whom? This is the kind of thing we might not know for a while, or maybe never. My hunch would be that Davis concealed it from McCain and that McCain, as is his wont, just winged it Sunday night, without really caring whether it was true, because that's what he does. But let me clearly label that a hunch. I don't know. But it doesn't really matter.The author (Michael Tomasky) thinks Davis has to go. If the Times allegations are true, he's probably right. But I don't agree with the characterization of the story as "the biggest political story of the general-election campaign so far." Yes, a campaign aide taking money from a robber baron in Robin Hood drag looks bad, especially when it was denied. (Whether the "everybody else did it" defense will work is questionable.) But (IMO) nothing could top a candidate himself working with an unrepetentant terrorist to push radicalism on school kids. Obama can't say everybody else did that, can he? MORE: As commenter Debbie points out below, the McCain campaign says the Times's allegation is not true (surprised, anyone?): ...the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis -- weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual -- since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.Not surprisingly, The Times has studiously ignored Obama's campaign people: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide. posted by Eric at 08:52 AM | Comments (7)
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"white privilege" defined
From Team Obama: White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.Via Kevin D. Williamson, who fails to understand that your're either part of the problem, or part of the solution, and Obama is the solution. The full "White privilege" quote, in its superb fulminating essence, can be found here. (It's from Tim Wise, a guilty white guy who conducts the kind of seminars the bureaucrats like to make guilty white folks attend.) Here he is: Obviously, whiteness is a disease. MORE: If you liked the above, you'll love Wise's open letter to Hillary's female supporters -- "Your Whiteness is Showing": First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...And that was written before the unbearable whiteness of Sarah Palin (whose marriage to an Eskimo descended man must make her at least as white as snow...) posted by Eric at 12:28 AM | Comments (4)
| TrackBacks (0) Tuesday, September 23, 2008
"Disparate impact." A deadly remedy for a misdiagnosis
Want to understand what happened? Ace has a very terse and cogent explanation: If the federal government were guaranteeing a trillion new dollars for no-money down car purchases with no credit checks or proof of employment or income, what do you think would happen to the price of cars?(Via Glenn Reynolds.) As to what caused the push for no-money down home sales with no credit checks or proof of employment or income, it's easy. I've lost track of the number of posts I've written about it. Ace singles out Barney Frank for especially harsh treatment, and while Frank is an insufferable fool, he's as replaceable as a piston ring. (As are "Chris Dodd, ACORN, Franklin Raines, Penny Pritzker, Jim Johnson, and of course Barack Hussein Obama.") The problem is the relentless push for socialism (a word few will use), which has done enormous damage to the economy by the simple misuse of a two word phrase: This is the legal doctrine behind much of the abandonment of standards in the name of "fair lending," but it is not limited to banking. It has come to permeate almost every aspect of business culture, and it is explained here: These [disparate impact] claims do not allege, and need not prove, that individuals were treated differently because of their race. Instead, it is enough to show that a neutral practice has a disproportionate effect -- that is, a disparate impact -- on some racial group.Whether it's real, intentional, discrimination does not matter. To illustrate the dishonesty of this doctrine, let me return to Ace's example of automobile sales. Suppose I decide to sell my used car, and I run an ad offering it for $10,000. Right there, I would be having a disparate impact on the people who did not have $10,000. (I realize none of them would complain, but be patient. I'm still a low level "operator.") Suppose I decide it would be easier to sell the car if I offer financing, but only to those "with approved credit." Another disparate impact. But still no one complains. Eventually, I sell the car, use the proceeds to buy another one, then two, then five, and ultimately I find myself renting an unused parking lot for the 500 or so cars I have accumulated as my inventory. At that point, my "discrimination" will begin to attract enough public attention that one of my hapless credit-unworthy "victims" (someone I've turned down) will find a lawyer, and claim that my credit practices (which had nothing to do with anything but covering my bottom line) have a "disparate impact" on a particular group of people to which he happens to belong. Sound unfair? You bet. But this same basic operating principle lies at the heart of the heart of the crisis. In an earlier post in which I discussed the abandonment of banking standards, an angry commenter came right back at me: Sorry, but that's a rather desparate attempt to blame this Republican generated disaster on minorities and liberals. Phil Gramm is the perp here, loosening the rules for the benefit of the financial sector, not so minorities could get loans. The worse part is that you know it and can't admit it.Ever trying to be reasonable, I replied thusly: My complaint is with the elimination of standards. (No one has refuted the claim that "if Freddie and Fannie had stuck to low-risk lending they would today not be needing any government bailout.")I'm thinking I was too gentle, because I failed to point out that the charge I was "blaming minorities" was grounded in a fundamental error. The "disparate impact" movement is not about minorities. It is not about racism. It is a lie. A lie grounded in labeling as "discrimination" things which are not. A lie promulgated and perpetuated by those who want to control the business sector. A lie which is always driven by the dishonest accusation that someone is guilty of discrimination. A lie backed by an ever present witch hunt mentality. I realize, though, that "lie" might have too inflammatory a ring to it for some readers. But I think most reasonable people can agree that "disparate impact" is at least an error in logic. I think it's a huge, tragic error. One for which we are all paying a very dear price. posted by Eric at 11:25 PM | Comments (10)
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Helping to bring about "change"?
Is education still an issue? Anyone who thinks it is, or who wants to learn more about Barack Obama's background in the field should read "Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools": Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.As to why Obama is downplaying his leadership of the CAC, I think there are two reasons. For starters, the CAC was the brainchild of unrepentent terrorist Bill Ayers: The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home.As the author Stanley Kurtz argues, this work with Ayers is hardly guilt by association; "it's guilt by participation." Which comes to the second reason Obama doesn't want to talk about his work with Ayers and the CAC. The outfit promoted a radical approach to education based on Ayers' view that student radicalism should be emphasized, and educational achievement de-emphasized: The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto.Little wonder Obama doesn't want anyone to know. It's one thing to hang out with a guy like Ayers in a bar and have a few beers. I could forgive something like that. But here he was, partnering with Ayers in a radical enterprise to indoctrinate children, by messing with their heads. As if that's not bad enough, they also steered money to ACORN: CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).Of one thing we can be glad. The effort failed, because (surprise!) student test scores failed to improve. Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement.At least, I guess the fact that it failed is good. But it's money down the drain, fed into the small c communist coffers. Kurtz is right that there's a lot more to this than "guilt by association." As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.Obama's coverup is quite understandable. Associating with an unrepetant terrorist radical is one thing. Working with him is another. But partnering with him to help bring about his radical educational ideas? Appalling. Whether the voters will ever know the details, I don't know. Obama continues to insist that the issue is how old he was at the time Ayers and his outfit were bombing people, and that his critics are stuck in the 60s. What ought to matter is how old he was when they were both trying to bring about "change" in the 90s. MORE: Noting that the MSM has "quite consciously and deliberately ignored and minimized this subject," Glenn Reynolds links the WSJ piece and also a great Hot Air post (from which I'll quote liberally): Kurtz' report provides a very interesting look at the early political life of Barack Obama. He had already entered politics at the time he joined the CAC, and even at that stage had allied himself with ACORN, which has found itself at the center of more than a dozen voter-fraud investigations. Obama also allied himself with Ayers and helped the former Weather Underground fugitive push forward with his plans to radicalize an entire generation of schoolchildren in the area through the CAC. Note well the parallels to community organizing that play out in the activities of the CAC, and recall again how Obama claims that activity as a major qualification for the presidency.In an earlier post (titled "What if Ayers really is mainstream?") I speculated that the fact of Ayers being part of the Democratic mainstream is the real issue they want to hide: Is Ayers mainstream or is he not?I keep saying this is worse than Jeremiah Wright, and I think it is. Far worse. You'd almost think Wright was a distraction from this, um, mainstream issue. MORE: Joshua Muravchik, writing in Commentary, looks at the Obama Ayers collaboration and says, "There may be much more, so far successfully hidden by all concerned; but even these facts suggest that Ayers was among Obama's closest collaborators."My guess is that Obama would continue to say he hardly knew the guy. I say "would" because I'm not convinced the Ayers questions will even be asked. posted by Eric at 01:01 PM | Comments (4)
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An issue that should not be forgotten
Regular readers know that I am a Life Member of the NRA and a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I've said that I could never vote for Barack Obama because of his socialistic background. (The ACORN connection especially worries me.) But aside from being one of the most socialistic politicians in America, Barack Obama is also one of the most vehemently anti-gun politicians, and for that reason alone, I could also never consider voting for him -- even if I believed his malarkey about how he supports the free market system. Like his running mate Joe Biden, Barack Obama is rated "F" by the NRA for numerous reasons, and that last link spells many of them out. In short, Obama-Biden constitute the most anti-gun ticket in United States history. Little wonder the NRA is running this ad:
I'm glad they're running it. This is a major issue that neither the complex economic debate -- nor the relentless promotion of the "Vote for Obama or else you're a racist!" meme -- should be allowed to obscure. M. Simon sent me a link to some great NRA videos here. In this one, a veteran who fought for his country says he will never vote for a man who wants to take away his right to own a handgun:
And here's one revealing Joe Biden's appalling record :
How anyone who owns a gun (or who believes in the right to keep and bear arms) could even consider voting for the Democratic ticket is beyond me. posted by Eric at 11:54 AM | Comments (6)
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Fanning the frames of flames
According to Matthew Rothschild, "the race boils down to racism": With Election Day approaching, McCain surrogates or supporters may not be able to resist the temptation to fan the flames of racism. Expect the snippets of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to resurface. Expect video of Michelle Obama sounding militant. Expect disgusting ads about Obama's admitted drug use as a very young man. Expect that picture of Obama in Muslim garb again.Sigh. The way things are going with these endless charges of "racism," I think it's more likely to be a referendum on the intractability of the imputation of racism. Which of course the imputers would claim proves their point. That's because when an issue -- dishonest or not -- is injected into a campaign as relentlessly as "racism" is being injected into this campaign, it's there, and it won't go away easily. The old "try not to think about elephants" routine. American voters are being inundated -- on a daily basis now -- with the following, deeply ugly, message: if you're white and you don't vote for Obama it's because you're a racist. The only people who have any hope of a defense are Republican stalwarts. They can say "I just voted the Party line as I always do." Not so for Democrats and independents. If they vote for McCain, they will have to live with the unsettling knowledge that post-election inquisitors will always be able to ask them who they voted for in 2008, and if they answer McCain, it will be seen as suspect. And even if they say, "It's my business who I voted for!" leftie McCarthyites will take that as a tacit admission that they voted for McCain. And either way, they're obviously racists, right? Not that I could ever convince anyone on the left that I'm anything but a cracker, but I thought it might at least be entertaining to take a look at the "flames" Mr. Rothschild cites in his It's hard to forget a malevolent clown like Wright. I can't stand the guy, although as I have said many times, I think Obama's close association with Bill Ayers is far worse. Forgive me if I am wrong, but not only were the Wright snippets first dug up by Clinton campaign operatives, but what really upset people was the one showing the guy screaming "God damn America!" Please correct me if they were really upset by Wright's race and not by the hateful things he said, but that's my memory of it, and I don't see what Jeremiah Wright has to do with race. Unless, of course, it's the same identity politics formulation that because he is black, all criticism of him by whites is assumed to be racist. (Or might the author think that hating America is "black"? The thought would never cross my mind, but I'm just wondering.) Militant? I remember a video in which she said that she was proud to be an American for the first time in her life, but that didn't strike me as especially militant. The debate revolved around her patriotism, which Obama's opponents were questioning. Hmmm.... So what's with the word "militant"? Am I missing the videos of her calling for armed struggle against "the Beast" like Ayers and his odious wife? I doubt such videos exist, and even if they did -- even if she had been as loony as the Weather Underground -- how would pointing that out be a form of racism? I think "unpatriotic" is the correct word here. Why didn't he say "Expect video of Michelle Obama sounding unpatriotic?" Is it possible that Rothschild is uncomfortable with the word? Or does he think that "militant" is a better word to fan the flames of racism because somehow (in his mind, at least) militant equals black? (Frankly, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that was racist thinking on Rothschild's part. But he can't be the racist, because he's leveling the accusation. So forgive me!) It's news to me (an admitted former drug user) that drugs have anything to do with race. As a matter of fact, the last time I visited the leading liberal news site (Raw Story) I saw countless lurid pieces revisiting Cindy McCain's past drug use. Naturally, in any campaign, such stuff can be used to generate "disgusting ads." And I agree that they're disgusting. Certainly they don't persuade me of anything. But can anyone tell me why they'd only be racist in the case of Barack Obama? Again, unless drug taking equals black (something no reasonable person would contend) I think this might reveal a certain bias on the part of the author. Personally, I thought using that picture was a low blow, and the Clinton campaign should have been ashamed for doing it. But it fed into the meme that Obama was a Muslim, and Islam is a religion, not a race. I don't like anti-Muslim bigotry, but it is no more "racism" than is anti-Catholic bigotry. I think the racist "flames" are being fanned by the hyperventilation of Rothschild's mind. The problem is, if enough people want this race to be a referendum about race, it will become that. Whether it should won't matter. posted by Eric at 10:42 AM | Comments (3)
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Just say no! To Bush!
Things look pretty bad for McCain right now. The left has been pushing the McCain=Bush meme for so long that a lot of people have come to accept it through osmosis. And now that there's been an "economic meldown," there's a huge "rescue plan" being pushed by Bush. The Democrats are jumping all over each other trying to make political hay out of it. (Adrianna Huffington's "The Bailout Plan: Welcome to Economic Shock and Awe" from this morning is typical.) And so far, McCain seems to be going along with it (although not so loudly as to be irreversibly loud). Far be it from me to offer advice that wouldn't be heeded. But I can reflect on what other people are saying, and I think Newt Gingrich got it right last night when he said that McCain should go against Bush on this one. Show he is in fact real maverick he's always claimed to be. He has consistently condemned pork, and if this isn't pork, then what is? Here's Thomas Sowell: Whenever there is a lot of the taxpayers' money around, politicians are going to find ways to spend it that will increase their chances of getting re-elected by giving goodies to voters.Dodd. That's the guy who's the number one recipient of Fannie Mae's, um, largesse. He just loves this gigantic bailout (which really ought to be called the Mother of all Pork Barrels): bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos. It makes political sense only to people like Senator Dodd, who are among the reasons for the financial mess in the first place.McCain ought to say NO to all of this, in no uncertain terms. This will put him squarely in opposition to Bush, and with any luck, it will transform Obama into the status quo, Bush administration-supporting candidate. Obama=Bush! Maybe that's "change" -- but I don't know how well it will go over with Obama supporters. The reason this makes so much sense is that there's so little time. Neither the voters nor the politicians will be able to understand (much less reflect on) all of the infinite permutations of 700 billion dollars worth of pork, and process that intelligently during the next few weeks while there's an election on. (I do not mean to sound condescending; I can't process it either.) When voters are confused, they tend to proceed with caution. So I think McCain taking a true-to-his-character, anti-pork, maverick stance works for a variety of reasons. Hell, it might even be the right thing to do. (Ask me when I've had time to process the numbers, in a year or so....) MORE: Megan McArdle has a very sensible post which attempts to answer an excellent question; How close was the financial system to melting down? Conclusion: Consider that the Great Depression came upon a society much less dependent on unsecured credit than we are. Then count your lucky stars that our financial officials are moderately competent. How likely was this doomsday scenario? No way to know. But it was possible. That's quite scary enough. That it was scary is the whole problem. It's scary but economically scary, not war scary. This favors the Democratic Party, and unfortunately, their candidate is (IMO) an ardent socialist. McCain has to stop him -- even if it means opposing Bush now at the risk of making the economy wait a month. I'm no economist, but I think hasty solutions have a poor enough track record. The timing is not merely bad, it's f*cking insanely bad. (Believe it or not, I'm actually sorry for the country.) MORE: These poll results cheered me a bit: This is not to say they agree with me (or Gingrich -- a guy I generally can't stand, BTW), but it's nice to know I'm not alone in my priorities. Electing a socialist now would throw gasoline on the fire. MORE: Don't miss "Catastrophic apocalyptic armageddon! At the risk of displaying my ignorance, I do think the economy is beyond our immediate control. Unlike the election. MORE: Here's the view of an economist I trust, Arnold Kling: The risks of enacting the plan are far worse than the risks of doing nothing.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) posted by Eric at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, September 22, 2008 posted by Simon at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)
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Thirty Missing Investigators
H/T The Patriot Room Welcome Instapundit readers. Here is something else that needs investigating. Crony Capitalism. Since the cronies are in Congress and include all of the Democrats (the Black Caucus is especially strong in that area) and many Republicans the investigation will need to be done by the people. Throw the bums out. BTW thanks to commenter ZZ Mike here is some text on the Thirty Investigators. For those of you who asked: at a McCain Town Hall a woman got up and asked why there were 30 people in Alaska investigating Sarah Palin and yet no media people were in Chicago investigating the ties of Obama to Bill Ayers and the Crooks from Crook County (Chicago). posted by Simon at 07:36 PM | Comments (32)
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Condoleezza's Ambition
If one were to read Hugh Muir's politics diary at the Guardian UK, one might get the impression that Condoleezza Rice were slyly passing judgment on Sarah Palin or hints to herself by manipulating the Great Seal (cf. Barack Obama's glossy Seal 2.0, whose Latin phrase sounds whiny to me: "Really, we can!"): Is Condoleezza Rice, who was often spoken of as a potential Republican presidential candidate, fully on board with the Sarah Palin phenomenon? She seems to be dropping hints that she might be still available, for now, or perhaps when the cavalcade rolls again in four years? On her recent trip to Libya on Air Force Two, the napkins that came with the drinks bore the great seal of the US; except that instead of E pluribus unum "From many, one", the legend read E pluribus unam. Most took this to be a misprint, but Latin scholars noted that unam is a feminine form. From many, one woman, is it? Which one? It is a typo, and it says nothing about Condoleezza Rice that someone made a mistake on a cocktail napkin. How do I know it's a typo? Because I, unlike those mentioned by Muir, actually am a Latin scholar. In the phrase e pluribus unum, the word unum (neuter gender) is in the nominative case, the case that names the subject. But unam (feminine gender) can only be accusative, the case that marks the object of a transitive verb (among a few other things, e.g., extent of space or duration of time). The formulation with unam is meaningless without a transitive verb, while unum is a purely descriptive phrase not requiring a verb of any kind. As an aside, e pluribus unum makes better sense when considered not as "one out of many", which is ambiguous, but rather as "a union (composed) of a great many (states)". (The preposition e/ex with the ablative case--i.e., e pluribus--can denote the material out of which a thing is composed.) That's why it's part of the Great Seal of the United States: it speaks specifically to the nature of the union, not about a melting pot, not about pluralities, but about many states forming 'one thing' (unum). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the neuter idea underlying unum were not foedus, a kind of "covenant" or agreement underlying the idea of federalism. Then we're talking about one federal government which depends upon a great number of constituent states, and the very essence of the nation depends upon maintaining the sovereignty of those constituents. posted by Dennis at 06:08 PM | Comments (4)
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My late "Astroturf roundup"
Astroturfing by the Obama campaign? Say it isn't true! M. Simon posted about it last night, and the pieces are now all falling into place. The evidence is overwhelming. More here. Michelle Malkin has posted one of the videos they've been desperately trying to pull. YouTube accounts are being closed left and right. It appears the chief culprit is the Winner & Associates firm. Within an hour of publication of the Jawa Report's investigation, "eswinner" deleted the smear video that he had uploaded several times on September 11.There are more, and all the accounts have been closed. I figure that if they're such dishonest wimps that they can't stand behind their own work, the least I can do is republish here what they took down. That way, if they sue me for "copyright" violations, I can play "discovery" with them. So here it is. (I've also downloaded it and saved it, and so have others, so it will never go away.) (It's a lie, of course, as Palin was never a member of the AIP.) People who want an encapsulated version of this story can find a good summary here, along with an observation: If all of this is true and the Obama campaign can be connected to it, it would represent a massive set of FEC violations, as well as the ultimate repudiation of "hope and change" and "New Politics". In fact, it would be a massive demonstration of Chicago Politics on a national scale.Via Dave Price, who adds, The only question now is how long the MSM can ignore this blatantly dishonest scheme. It took weeks for Dan Rather to be discredited.As Glenn says, stay tuned. Gee, I didn't realize how the words "Astroturf" and "Roundup" look together. I guess Astroturf is not Roundup proof after all. UPDATE: Via Darleen Click in the comments below, Ethan confesses -- "But with lots of disclaimers. (heh)" Also "Ace is rolling up the sidewalks behind and catching lots of other bit players in this nasty business." posted by Eric at 05:23 PM | Comments (3)
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Fannie Mae trivia question
While many have heard about how Barack Obama took over $100,000 from Fannie Mae ($126,349, according to Open Secrets), I think I've found the Fannie Mae trivia question for the day. Who turned down $100,000 from Fannie Mae? No, that is not a trick question or a joke. (Nor is the economic crisis triggered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a laughing matter, even if these things beg for ridicule.) According to George F. Will (who is not laighing), the answer is the CATO Institute: In the 1994 elections, Republicans ended 40 years of Democratic control of the House of Representatives. So in 1995, a vice president of Fannie Mae wrote a letter to Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, saying that Fannie Mae intended to give that libertarian, free-market think tank a $100,000 grant.I guess that was supposed to be a serious denial, even if it looks ridiculous in retrospect. Will goes on to discuss another of the seemingly endless government subsidies (in this case more "corporate welfare for GM, Ford and Chrysler"), which also aren't meant as jokes, no matter how ridiculous they look. And he closes by citing Marx. Which Marx? Not Groucho, but Karl: In "The Communist Manifesto," Karl Marx marveled that, such is capitalism's dynamism, "all that is solid melts into air." Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch should not be the last to learn the truth of that."All that is solid melts into air?" (I don't know what Groucho would have said, but at the risk of sounding optimistic, I don't think Karl took into account the dynamism involved in using gaseous emissions to solidify our liquidity to prevent liquidating our solids.) posted by Eric at 04:37 PM | Comments (2)
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Who would Jesus tax?
"Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is, you take care of people who need the help the most."Don't worry, I'm not going to play "Name that Christianist" again. The speaker was Senator Joe Biden, and he was explaining how his religious views define what he thinks ought to be government policies on taxation. While there wasn't much media ink wasted on the statement (which was barely reported), imagine the uproar had Sarah Palin invoked the "social doctrine" of the Assemblies Of God. Why? Because Sarah Palin is said to be a "Christianist" and a "theocrat," while Joe Biden never is. What is a Christianist? Here's the definition, straight from the source: I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike. Precise political agenda about what? Suppose that according to Catholic doctrine, abortion is a sin. If an anti-abortion politician were to cite Catholic doctrine in advocating abortion policy, why would that make him any more of a "theocrat" or "Christianist" than if he cited Catholic doctrine in advocating taxation policy. What gives here? Why is abortion more Christianist than taxation? I mean, Jesus never mentioned abortion, yet the "render unto Caesar" line has been quoted to death. So if it is "Christianism" to have abortion policies dictated by Christianity, why isn't it even more "Christianist" to have our tax policies dictated by Christianity? Hey, Jesus hung out with tax collectors, didn't he? And while there is no biblical evidence that he hung out with either pro-abortion or anti-abortion people, he may well have, because it's beyond dispute that the Romans routinely practiced abortion, while Judaism generally frowned on the practice. (As to what the Talmudic scriptures teach about abortion, it's murky.) So the question remains, why is advocacy of one Christian doctrine called "Christianism" and the other isn't? Should start thinking of the IRS as a group of radical Christianists? No, and the answer is simple. Opposition to abortion is right wing, which makes it automatically theocratic and Christianist. Support for tax hikes is left wing, which means it cannot be theocratic or Christianist, no matter how fervently religion is invoked. Got that? MORE: Damn! I didn't see it, but Glenn Reynolds beat me to calling Joe Biden a Christianist: JOE BIDEN, CHRISTIANIST: "The political left likes to score Republicans for claiming that God is on their side, but here we have Mr. Biden claiming support from both God and Caesar. If Sarah Palin tried this, she'd send the boys at the Daily Kos into cardiac arrest. We won't get into a theological debate with Mr. Biden, except to say that Biblical tax rates tended to run around 10%, not the 39.6%-plus that Barack Obama's tax plan calls for."No, I don't have time to examine the abortion rates from the Caesars' times. My point would be the same. posted by Eric at 03:05 PM | Comments (4)
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Master Of The Astroturf
That would be David Axelrod, Obama's Campaign Manager. David Axelrod has long been known for his political magic. Through his AKP&D Message & Media consultancy, the campaign veteran has advised a succession of Democratic candidates since 1985, and he's now chief strategist for Senator Barack Obama's bid for President. But on the down low, Axelrod moonlights in the private sector.The article is kind of old (March of this year) so why did I bring it up? It might have something to do with a bit I posted earlier today: Is Team Obama Astroturfing? And for those of you not familiar with the term the wiki has an explanatory article Astroturfing. The short version: a well financed public relations campaign pretending to be a grassroots effort. It seems nothing about Obama is what it seems to be. Except for his Chicago/Crook County connections. Which are better left in the dark. For Obama. Obviously McCain has other ideas. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 01:28 PM | Comments (2)
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Not even a conspiracy theory -- much less "history"
I hate conspiracy theories, especially blogging about them. Even more do I hate spending my time checking them out to see whether they have any merit. That's because few reasonable people care. Reasonable people don't waste time with conspiracy theories, and tend not to believe them. So, if a conspiracy theory is "debunked," the reaction of reasonable people is a collective "so what?" OTOH, to the people who believe in conspiracy theories, there is no such thing as debunking. To the contrary; the latest scientific evidence is that debunking only heightens their determination to hold firm, dig in their heels, and relentlessly present "The Truth" -- and save the rest of us miserable people from our complacent selves. So, trust me when I say that few things are more tedious than what I did last night, which was to stream a very tedious BBC broadcast and listen in the hope of verifying the "evidence" in support of recent contention that not only was last week's economic bailout a Bish coup, but that sinister Bush coups run in the sinister Bush family. The Bush family, in the form of Prescott Bush, has tried a more aggressive coup before in order to install fascism in this country. This treasonous plot was called "the Business Plot," because the high-level plotters - including Prescott Bush - were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.The author argues that this "latest" Bush coup leaves us no choice but impeachment or revolution. (See Bob Owens's and Jeff Goldstein's thorough discussions of that, which Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday.) But for the "coups are a Bush family tradition" meme I would not have had much to add. And frankly, if the same argument had been made a writer at Rense.com or some other conspiracy site, I would not have bothered to examine the "evidence." The problem is, the author in question here -- Larisa Alexandrovna -- happens to be the managing news editor for Raw Story. The latter is a site I visit regularly, and while I knew it was liberal in its orientation, reading that the news editor thinks this way hardly inspires confidence. Nor is the author backing down from her claim of Prescott Bush's 1933 coup involvement. She has attacked her critics as "right wing idiots," and at her blog she also maintains -- apparently seriously -- that this is no conspiracy theory: Another one [critic] actually thinks that the infamous Business Plot is a conspiracy theory. So much for history lessons. Who needs them anyway, right?History lessons? Again, here's the "history" this Raw Story editor believes is so settled as to be beyond dispute: This treasonous plot was called "the Business Plot," because the high-level plotters - including Prescott Bush - were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.While the Business Plot (which went nowhere) has been debated by historians, no one has cited a single legitimate historian anywhere who seriously maintains that Prescott Bush was involved -- much less as a "high level plotter." Instead, the people who are jumping on the "Bush Coup I" bandwagon cite as evidence a BBC radio show. Here's how it is described -- by the BBC: The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush's Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.Ugh. I hate seeing shit like that late on a Sunday night. Honestly, it felt like homework. Very ugly homework. But like the dutiful schoolboy I never really wanted to be, I did my duty, and I found the entirety of the interview archived here, and I listened for more than 27 minutes. At no point is there any allegation that Prescott Bush was involved in the Business Plot. From the show, starting at 20:07: ...a shipping company called HAL was accused of providing free passage to Germany to American journalists willing to write favorable copy on Hitler's rise to power. The company is also alleged to have brought Nazi spies and pro-fasicst sympathizers into America.The claim is also made that names were edited out of the government archives, which does not prove Prescott Bush's involvement in a coup. In short, there's nothing whatsoever to tie Prescott Bush to the coup. (Ironically, Ms. Alexandrovna is right to maintain that this is no conspiracy theory, because there's no evidence to support it.) This is confirmed in Prescott Bush's wiki entry, which contains a heading titled Alleged plot to overthrow FDR: On July 23, 2007, the BBC Radio 4 series Document reported on the alleged Business Plot and the archives from the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings. The program does not in any way state or imply that Prescott Bush was involved in the plot. The program mentioned Bush's directorship of the Hamburg-America Line, a company that the committee investigated for Nazi propaganda activities, and the alleged 1933 attempt, supposedly led by Gerald MacGuire, to stage a military coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed at forcing Roosevelt to resign (or, failing that, to assassinate him) and at installing a fascist dictatorship in the United States. [6]OK, Wiki got it right -- but only about the contents of the actual audio portion of the radio program. However, it's simply inaccurate for Wiki to say that the program "does not in any way state or imply that Prescott Bush was involved in the plot" -- because the program description clearly states exactly that. Again, the BBC: The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bushâs Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.So, because there's a clear conflict between what Wiki says and what the BBC says, and because a news editor for a prominent web site asserts Prescott Bush's involvement in a coup is "history," I felt obligated to listen to it (and not take Wiki at its word). I suspect that some of the people citing the radio show as "proof" have not listened to it, but instead rely solely on the description. Whether this was a complete waste of time, I don't know. Those who want to believe Prescott Bush was involved in a coup may have an emotional need to believe that, so in that sense this is -- and always will remain -- undebunkable. This reminds me of the time I listened to a long radio interview with a crackpot who claimed he enjoyed sex and drugs with Barack Obama (and that the latter had acted as a sort of limousine tour guide even though he was a state representative at the time). I thought it was absolute nonsense, but I slogged through it, and eventually, the man's story was debunked. But at least there was an actual allegation made during the radio interview to be believed or disbelieved depending on whether you're a conspiracy theorist. In contrast, here there is no accuser, and no accusation. I don't think this rises to the level of a conspiracy theory. (Even for unreasonable people.) MORE: Back in 2004, Hugh Hewitt said something in another context that I think might -- and I mean might -- be helpful here: It would not be hard for intelligence services from around the world to build blogs with an intent to deceive or manipulate, putting out solid content to gain an initial audience before using it to disseminate disinformation intentionally.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Of course, there's no showing that any intelligence service has been involved in promoting the "Bush family coup" disinformation. For starters, the BBC is not a blog. posted by Eric at 12:14 PM | Comments (5)
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They can't help it, Part II
Considering the way the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin generated sympathy for her (with a resultant backlash reflected in earlier polls), I would have thought that her attackers would by now have learned to control themselves, at least for the few weeks that remain in this increasingly ugly campaign. Almost ten days ago, I opined that her critics just can't help it: ....the media feeding frenzy results from the fact that they find Palin irresistible for a variety of reasons. She's new, she's a woman (which in their twisted way of thinking makes her a traitor), she didn't go to Harvard (or Princeton, like Charlie Gibson), and she belongs to the wrong church. As Andrew Sullivan says, the mere fact that she belongs to the Assembly of God justifies the use of the Dowdification method of quotation falsification:While I was talking about the media, it's become clear that Palin Derangement Syndrome goes a lot deeper than that. Her email account was hacked (to a chorus of enormous left-wing approval by people who would howl over the monitoring of email of al Qaeda operatives), and most recently, she was first invited, then disinvited, to an anti-Ahmadinejad protest. (Such a lack of American unity no doubt delighted Ahmadinejad and the mullahs.)She is a long-time member of the Assemblies Of God. That's all you need to know.Imagine the reaction if someone said that about membership in the Catholic Church. The highly emotional "Disinvite Palin" campaign has all the earmarks of the "can't help it" mentality I described. Sources say the axes were out for Palin as soon as Sen. Clinton pulled out because she did not want to attend the same event as the Republican vice presidential candidate. "I have never seen such raw emotion -- on both sides," said someone close to the situation. The groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN were reportedly told, "it could jeopardize their tax exempt status" if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden on hand. . . ."It's an absolute shame that this has happened," Hikind said. "To threaten organizations ... to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don't withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we're going to look into your tax exempt status ... that's McCarthyism."I am quite familiar with Kunst, a gay activist with solid left-wing credentials. To see him talking that way is a real eye-opener. I don't know how much damage this will cause the Obama campaign. Noting that the activists demanding Palin's withdrawal included a man fired from the Obama campaign over his negotiations with Hamas, Jennifer Rubin asks some good questions: It remains to be seen whether this issue will plague Obama as he continues to struggle to establish both his foreign policy credentials and his support for Israel. One supporter of the McCain-Palin ticket on Capitol Hill remarked ruefully, "Has it occurred that the reason that neither Obama nor Biden would show up is maybe that they would rather meet with Ahmadinejad without preconditions than protest his presence at the UN?"Pajamas Media founer Roger L. Simon thinks it is time for Jews to reexamine their traditional kneejerk ties to the Democratic Party: From the days of FDR, the vast majority of American Jews have identified with the Democratic Party almost if it were their religion. This included most especially secular Jews like me whose blasé attitude toward their faith and toward religious observance in general made such a replacement all the more important emotionally. This same Jewish majority also identified with the cause of social justice and, as Barack Obama among many others has noted, were some of the most active participants in the civil rights movement of the Fifties and Sixties. That was all how it should have been and was a perfectly logical and praiseworthy epoch in the development of our country.And: The virtual night of the long knives played out between the Democratic Party and various Jewish organizations surrounding the Iran demonstration, including allegations that party operatives were threatening the loss of tax exempt status over Sarah Palin's appearance, with more unpleasant revelations undoubtedly to come, is obviously causing people to reconsider this allegiance to the Democratic Party that approaches fealty.Plenty, I'd say. Roger is right. (Read it all.) It is amazing that Sarah Palin is continuing to cause so many people on the left to miscalculate on such a grand scale, but for a lot of reasons, she is. The disinvition to an Ahmadinejad protest is proof that she triggers an emotional reaction which her enemies cannot control -- even when (as here) she agrees with them! Incredible. Once again, they really can't help it. AFTERTHOUGHT: This whole incident makes me wonder what other issues Sarah Palin's enemies won't allow her to agree with them on. (The more reasonable she sounds, the more they hate her. What would they do if she dared advocate separation of church and state?) UPDATE: Thank you, Sean Kinsell for linking this post! Adds Sean: The hysterical detractors are succeeding admirably--if that's the word--at getting the public to associate opposition to Palin with derangement.Be sure to read Sean's thoughts. posted by Eric at 09:37 AM | Comments (1)
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The Vice President From Rezko
It looks like Joe Biden and B. Obama have some mutual acquaintances. Or at least mutual once removed. DENVER -- No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won't give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front.So how did Biden approach Obama? My guess is that he said "A friend of a friend sent me." You can take the politician out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the politician. I'm looking forward to Obama's "I am not a crook" speech. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 04:51 AM | Comments (0)
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Is Team Obama Astroturfing?
My Pet Jawa thinks so. It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:Go and read it all.* Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe. Our findings follow. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 04:14 AM | Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, September 21, 2008
Do they really hate cowboys?
Noting Biden's attack on the "the cowboy mentality of the Bush-McCain era," Bill Quick comes out swinging in defense of cowboys: I like cowboys. They are one of the greatest American icons.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Hey wait a second! How does Biden manage to get away with attacking the "cowboy mentality" in a DC suburb while simultaneously clinging to his guns in the coal-mining country? What he ">said to the coal miners was this: "I like that little over and under, you know? I'm not bad with it.."His words, not mine. And while I know he was referring to a gun, isn't it common knowledge among the enlightened classes that guns are phallic symbols? Geez. I don't mean to overanalyze, but as I've just finished attempting to comprehend what George Lakoff calls "biconceptualism," I'm like, all primed. I'm truly in the mood for what the PoMos call "subtext." And considering Biden's remarks, there's no way to avoid the fact that the subtext of the moment involves cowboys. I think that if we closely examine all possible facets and subfacets of this subtext, if we take into account the attacks on cowboys, the "cowboyesque" statements to the coalminers, the statement about liking "that little over and under, you know" and analyze all of this in the broadest possible spirit of "biconceptualism," it might be possible to come up with a new, um, frame. Because deconstructing biconceptualism has to start somewhere. posted by Eric at 12:30 PM | Comments (3)
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Charisma is destiny?
Top Democrat issue framer George Lakoff has some advice for the Obama campaign. (From a psychiatric pdf file.) Stop talking about issues. It's all about "character" (in quotes because according to Lakoff character is just "narrative"): In 1980, Richard Wirthlin - Ronald Reagan's chief strategist - made a fateful discovery. In his first poll he discovered that most people didn't like Reagan's positions on the issues, but nevertheless wanted to vote for Reagan. The reason, he figured out, is that voters vote for apresident not primarily on the issues, but on five other "character" factors; values; authenticity; communication and connection; trust; and identity. In the Reagan-Carter and Reagan-Mondale debates, Mondale and Carter were ahead on the issues and lost the debates because the debates were not about the issues, but about those other five character factors. George W. Bush used the same observation in his two races. Gore and Kerry ran on the issues. Bush ran on those five factors."Reality," of course, is code language for the Democratic positions on the issues. I don't know whether Lakoff thinks character actually exists or really should matter, but he certainly sees it as a winner in the narrative department. It's all about manipulation and marketing: Unfortunately, it is also easy to manipulate these things with marketing techniques. As Cillizza points out, McCain and Palin are being marketed as American icons: the war hero and the ideal mom. Obama and Biden were marketed (honestly) as realizations of the American Dream, living hope that it is still possible - with Obama as the lone figure with the charisma, character and talent to actually unite the country and bring back the dream. So far, the McCain-Palin narratives are proving powerful. Palin has enormous charisma of her own. Meanwhile the Obama narrative is being given up in favor of "the issues." It is as though, after the Republicans attacked Obama's charismatic leader persona, the Obama campaign gave up on it, instead of realizing that they could capitalize on it.Notice the switch from character to charisma, as if they're as interchangeable as moving parts in a machine. It does not seem to have occurred to Lakoff that McCain might actually have character in the true sense of the word. However, he thinks Obama has character, because charisma is his "character." And because narratives and stereotypes are real reason which is reality, his charisma is also "real reason": ...the enlightenment theory of reason doesn't describe how people actually work. People think primarily in terms of cultural narratives, stereotypes, frames and metaphors. That is real reason. Through a form of trickery known as "conservative populism" which was invented in the 1960s, the Republicans have hoodwinked working people into imagining that they agree with guys like Reagan and McCain (and presumably, they've tricked the working people into believing that these man have character). The real job of Obamacrats is to show them -- by "real reason" (meaning resort to charisma), that they have been fooled: The Obama campaign has problems with conservative populism. They don't seem to understand it. Conservative populism on a national scale was invented in the late 1960s. At the time, most working people identified themselves with liberals. But conservatives realized that many working people were what I have called "biconceptuals" - they are genuinely conservative in their mode of thought about patriotism and certain family issues, though they are progressive in their understanding of nature (they love the land) and their commitment to communities where people care about each other etc. So conservatives have talked to them nonstop about conservative "patriotism" and "family values", thus activating their conservative mindset. At the same time, conservative theorists invented the ideal of "liberal elitism": that liberals look down upon working people and are not like them. Conservatives have been working at constructing this mythology for nearly 40 years and liberals have stood by and let it happen. Palin is a natural for the conservative populists. She understands their culture.See? They're clinging to religion and guns only because their "biconceptual" mindset has been cynically activated. That's why they're so easily fooled into voting against their own interests: Conservative populism is a cultural, not an economic, phenomenon. These are folks who often vote against their economic self-interest and instead vote on their identity as conservatives and on their antipathy to liberals, who they see as elitists who look down on them. Simply giving conservative populists facts and figures won't work.Well, I agree that it's not an easy job to get conservatives to see that Obama's and Biden's "values and character" are really like their own. But then, if character is really just a narrative, and is actually a phony way of marketing charisma, then maybe he has a point. If not, then Lakoff (and the people who agree with him) are some of the most cynical opportunists in the business. Call me a bamboozled biconceptual, but I think McCain's life is more than just a cleverly marketed narrative. Sure, there's a lot of political marketing involved in this campaign, as there always is. But no amount of marketing (in politics or anywhere else) can alter the fact that there can be genuine differences in the quality of what is being offered for sale. If character exists (and I think it does; hence the satirical post title), no amount of marketing can change it. There are vast character differences between John McCain and Barack Obama, and these will remain, regardless of who wins and who loses. MORE: In a stunning show of "real reason," Joe Biden (campaigning in coalmining country) is appealing to the "biconceptual" crowd, and bitterly clinging to his guns: One of rural Democrats' biggest fears about Obama? That he'll come after the Second Amendment. Not so, said Biden -- and he'd better not try. Via Glenn Reynolds, who cruelly reframes the issue by pointing out that Biden has an "F" rating from the NRA. See what happens? Biden speaks reality, while Reynolds resorts to cynical activation of the "biconceptual" mindset! Sorry. I really should take "reality" more seriously. MORE: Rex Murphy looks at Obama's narrative, and his charisma, and thinks both are depleted: ...Mr. Obama was the slate; the crowds brought their own chalk.Read it all. posted by Eric at 10:44 AM | Comments (7)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, September 20, 2008
Christianist theocrats are closing in for the kill!
I got a kick out of the Issues-O-Meter that Ann Althouse linked earlier. It lists ten issues, each one with a button which, when clicked, makes the figures of McCain and Obama slide back and forth on the scale below so you can see how close or far apart on a given issue they are. On the economy, for example, it shows them as pretty far apart: I thought this was all nice, wholesome, harmless entertainment, so I emailed the "Issues-O-Meter" link to a liberal friend. Imagine my surprise when he emailed me back with a snarky remark about their respective positions on gay marriage: "they look so cozy together!" Hey wait a minute! How did they "look"? I went back to the test, clicked the "Gay Marriage" button (if that isn't a hot button issue, what is?), and sure enough, they are close. Touchingly close, in fact. Why, they're closer than two figures on a wedding cake! What's up with that? Isn't the Culture War supposed to be tearing the country apart? I mean, according to Andrew Sullivan things have gotten so bad that the forces of theocracy are closing in: "With Sarah Palin, America has taken one very large leap toward a completely theocratic politics."(Via Ann Althouse.) Interestingly, the hated "Christianist theocrat" who's forced America to take this great leap was specifically asked about her religion was the other night, and here was her answer: Faith is very, very important in my life. I don't believe I wear it on my sleeve and I would never try to shove it down anybody else's throat and try to convert anybody. But just a very simple faith that is important to me -- it really is my foundation.Huh? What kind of "completely theocratic politics" is that? Not wearing it on her sleeve? Never trying to convert anybody? Not trying to shove her religion down anyone's throat. Not even Andrew Sullivan's? How lame can theocracy get? A hell of a way to run a culture war, I'd say.... posted by Eric at 05:14 PM | Comments (4)
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Mommy, I Learned A New Word - Psephology
Long time commenter and e-mail friend linearthinker brought that word to my attention. He quotes this definition: "...the statistical analysis of elections. Psephology uses compilations of precinct voting returns for elections going back some years, public opinion polls, campaign finance information and similar statistical data."And then he explains why it is important. One quarter of all registered voters are Catholics and Biden is losing Obama their votes.And since he was so kind to include a link to an article on the subject I will too. The Elephant Bar quotes from The Telegraph UK. Remember, you read it here first: on September 11 this blog reported a mounting backlash from Catholic bishops against Biden, Barack Obama's "Catholic" pro-abortion running mate. At that time I estimated eight bishops had come out to denounce Biden; the total is now 55. Beyond that, Biden is being trashed across every state of the Union by Catholic newspapers, TV and radio stations, and blogs. It is a tsunami of rejection.Uh. Oh. Joe is deep in it. Now here is the killer: There are 47 million Catholic voters in the United States. One quarter of all registered voters are Catholics. At every presidential election in the past 30 years the Catholic vote has gone to the winning candidate, except for Al Gore in 2000. This year 41 per cent of Catholics are independents - up from 30 per cent in 2004. Psephologists claim practising Catholics were the decisive factor in the crucial swing states in 2004: in Ohio 65 per cent of Catholics voted for Bush, in Florida 66 per cent. They were drifting away in disillusionment from the Republicans and split 50-50, until Joe Biden worked his magic. This is electoral suicide by the Democrats.Yep. And Jews are drifting away from the Democrats as well. In fact it looks like they are now being pushed. It all starts with an anti-Ahmadinejad rally. Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were both invited to the rally. When Hillary pulled out Democrats threatened to sic the IRS on the Jewish organizations if Palin showed up at the official event. CBS2 has a Democratic politician on record with the story of why Sarah Palin's invitation was rescinded after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the event upon hearing that Palin was also invited and planned to attend the rally to protest Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN, with one Democratic lawmaker calling it "McCarthyism."Jeeze Democrats. What a way to shore up support with a core constituency. First the Catholics. Now the Jews. You would almost think that this was an attempt to lose in a landslide. Here is another little bit on the subject from an article titled: Jews For John McCain Poll Shocker. The Siena Poll of New York likely voters is really going to upset the tummies of the Democrat Party, if they have any sense at all.It seems like the only identity politics the Obama team can play well is Black. That will guarantee him about 12% of the vote. Add in the Democrat "progressives" and it is still not enough to win an election. You know this is pretty stupid for a Harvard educated guy who taught at the University of Chicago. Not to mention the fact that he has spent his adult life in Chicago identity politics. He should have spent more time in the ethnic wards on the North Side. They have Catholic areas up there. Jewish areas. And don't forget the hippie contingent. He might have learned a thing or two. I think he is one of those kind of people who are over represented in academia. Too smart to learn anything new. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 03:48 PM | Comments (7)
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Unleash the squirrels!
While I haven't spent as much time as I perhaps should on the subject of ACORN, last week's Detroit Free Press article about the group's connection with local voter fraud was hard to ignore. Now (from Bob Owens, who is not surprised) I see that the group is up to the same thing in North Carolina. Via Glenn Reynolds, who posed a subconscious question: Shouldn't they be investigated by the Justice Department? Or am I dreaming here?That's a reference to the fact that even under a Republican administration, the Justice Department seems unabashedly leftist in its orientation. Headed by Obama supporters, the department's Criminal Section charged with investigating voter fraud appears to be more interested in punishing Republicans for legal activity than going after Democrats for illegal activity. the Criminal Section has been given the green light to use these same criminal statutes to harass and prosecute political activists (particularly Republicans) who are engaging in protected political activity, not violence or the threat of violence. No candidate for federal, state, or local office should take this unprecedented threat lightly. The entire apparatus of federal election law enforcement was assembled for this conference including every FBI agent and Assistant United States Attorney responsible for election-related matters.It almost sounds surreal, and it echoes the familiar theme touched on by Bill Whittle yesterday -- the persistent meme that all resistence is futile and there is nothing anyone can do. When all is said and done, Civilizations do not fall because of the barbarians at the gates. Nor does a great city fall from the death wish of bored and morally bankrupt stewards presumably sworn to its defense. Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls; that ground lost may never be recovered; and that greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren. Yes, our betters tell us these things daily. But that doesn't mean we have to believe it.(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Over my lifetime I've seen wave after wave of what might be called "urban flight." People who stay in large cities learn to put up with a lot. They accept the broken urban infrastructure and the dysfunctional schools as facts of life, as things which simply cannot be changed. Try to change them, you'll go nuts. (A good friend simply quit teaching because of it..) This is nothing new, of course. Nor is my cynicism. The term "You can't fight City Hall" goes back to the mid 1800s. Those who don't put up with it simply leave to the relative comfort, safety, and convenience of the suburbs or small towns, where they can live in ever-vigilant fear of "City Hall" -- which idiomatically is a large enough term to encompass the now-dysfunctional United States Justice Department and government in general. It probably includes the taxpayer-funded "charity" in question. ACORN. A little ACORN here, a little ACORN there, and pretty soon you're talking about real power. Most people would throw up their hands and say "There's nothing you can do about it!" I disagree, and I say this as one of the more cynical people in the blogosphere. If I can notice ACORN's fraud in the local paper, and I can take time to write a post about it, and if Bob Owens notices it in his local paper and writes a post about it, then others can. The more noise that is made, the more likely something can be done about it -- if for no other reason than the "squeaky wheel" principle. I realize that the organization's deep ties to Barack Obama might tend to intimidate those charged with investigating these things, for after all, they don't want to appear "partisan." But this is an election, right? We still live in a democracy, right? There are still laws, right? I'm cynical, but I'm not too cynical to make a little noise. Not that I'm expecting the Justice Department attorneys to start acting like pit bulls (lipsticked or not). But ACORN's conduct is so blatant, so repetitive, and so egregious that it doesn't take a pit bull. Even a squirrel would know what to do. (I might not work for the Justice Department, but I can squeak, can't I?) posted by Eric at 11:08 AM | Comments (1)
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| TrackBacks (0) Friday, September 19, 2008 posted by Simon at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
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Soros Stocks Up On Lehman
This is a story from August 15th so it is a little old. However, it ties in with this story about the interrelations among climate change profiteer Al Gore, climatologist Jim Hansen, and the financial firm Lehman Brothers. So lets look at the connection between George Soros and the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers. George Soros thinks the world may be in for a long recession and that housing prices will continue to fall more than most economists expect. He thinks a "superbubble" has been forming for 25 years--and it's currently collapsing.Lehman Brothers is trading today at about 21¢. Which is to say George has lost all his money. Unless he made money covering the positions of naked shorts. Which is way more complicated than I want to explain here. You will have to look it up. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
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Some children are born unwanted. Others aren't.
An anti-abortion group has sponsored this anti-Obama ad, in which Gianna Jesson (a woman who survived an abortion) points out that "If Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here." It's hard hitting, and intended to highlight the fact that Barack Obama's position on abortion is to the left of Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer. While I think abortion is immoral, I oppose criminalizing early term abortion primarily for two reasons: 1. I am philosophically uncomfortable with the idea of imprisoning women who are so miserable with the idea of having a child that they decide to terminate their pregnancies. (However, this means that there is no excuse for waiting, and I therefore believe that the earlier the abortion is performed, the better. The longer a woman waits, the more immoral it becomes.) I have a problem with compulsory anything, including compulsory pregnancy, and it strikes me as especially unconscionable to require a rape victim to carry a child to term. (Again, though, there's no excuse for delay.)I am horrified by third trimester abortions (the stage at which Ms. Jesson apparently was when she was aborted), and I am shocked that any doctor would perform one except to save a mother's life. So I'm hardly in the anti-abortion ("pro life" I guess is what they call it) camp. Nor can I be considered solidly pro-choice. (I know I'll never have an abortion, though, so it's easy for me to shoot my mouth off.) I don't agree with McCain on abortion, nor do I agree with Barack Obama. But Obama's position strikes me as more outside the political mainstream than McCain's, and I think the above ad raises a legitimate point. One of the red herring memes that has long annoyed me is the idea of an "unwanted child." This is said to be the worst fate in the world. Why? Clearly, this Gianna Jesson woman was unwanted, or else why would her mom have had her aborted? But she obviously would rather have not been aborted. So she's more content with having been an unwanted child than not to have been a child at all. I think most unwanted children (aborted or born) would say the same thing. So it strikes me that "unwanted" is a rhetorically sneaky term having more to do with what the mother wants than what the child wants. Clearly, if a mother does not want a child, she can put it up for adoption. Is that really a tragedy? They make it sound like "unwanted child" is some kind of horror. I don't get it. Are there not also unwanted adults? So what? I can understand why a woman might not want to see her pregnancy through (and I have philosophical problems with forcing her), but because she is not required to keep the child after birth I don't see what the status of the child ultimately being wanted or unwanted should have to do with it. How do we know what person will be "unwanted"? It strikes me as implying a moral judgment based on the child's anticipated eventual status as a justification for the abortion. Little different than, say, a judgment that the child would be born into poverty. Or born with alcoholic (or homosexual) genes. It just strikes me as arrogant to decide based on some statistic that a child will be "unwanted," and that this is a terrible fate. Do any of us know to a moral certainty whether we were really and truly "wanted"? If any of us learned that we weren't wanted, I don't see how that would have been an argument for abortion. Whether we agree with the right to an abortion or not, it is supposed to be based on a woman's right, not a judgment on the status of her child. I know the distinction sounds like nit-picking (and activists on both sides would not care), but I think there is a huge logical difference between "I cannot face going through with this pregnancy" and "The baby would be an unwanted child after its birth." The former strikes me as an understandable reason grounded in an individual decision, while the latter strikes me as grounded in communitarian social-planning eugenics. Even if I'd thought my mother wanted to abort me, I'd rather have it be because she couldn't go through with the pregnancy. Not because she thought I'd be an "unwanted child." I think there is a difference. It may sound silly, but I'd rather be murdered by someone who hated me than by someone who thought I was part of the overpopulation problem. posted by Eric at 04:15 PM | Comments (9)
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Washington Post Says: Don't Trust Us
It seems that the Washington Post says that Franklin Raines really wasn't an Obama adviser. And by the way, you can't believe what we write in our newspaper. Talk about boosting the brand. The Obama campaign last night issued a statement by Raines insisting, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." Obama spokesman Bill Burton went a little further, telling me in an e-mail that the campaign had "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter."So yeah. Obama seeking advice from Raines is not the same as Raines advising Obama. Well there is at least one impossible thing there I can believe before breakfast. Hope and Change people. Hope and Change. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 02:21 PM | Comments (6)
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Some children are born sinful. Others are born normal.
Reflecting on the discovery that a Tennessee Democratic legislator's son was the hacker who accessed Sarah Palin's email account (see Rick Moran's post on the general subject), Richard Miniter makes a prediction: I predict that the same crowd that said that Palin should have been able to control her 17-year old daughter will defend the 2o-year old hacker by saying no one can control their kids. At least they will be right once.I agree with the prediction, but at the rate the story is being reported, the Obama supporters won't even need to put themselves to the trouble of defending the kid. There's a lot more detail at Gateway Pundit, and it's a big story. At least, most people would think so. If they had a chance to read about it. But as Michael Silence notes, maybe they won't: I find nothing on the story in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Oh, that's right, it wasn't Joe Biden's e-mail that was hacked. Seriously, unless my search was incomplete, how do you not carry something on that story?The Times and the Post aside, though, I don't even know whether the story will get tabloid treatment. The tabloids are too busy titillating their viewers with stories like these:
What this means, obviously, is that Biden's kids must be perfect angels. Well, even perfect angels occasionally get arrested, but isn't that just a technicality raised by mean-spirited Republicans to hide their hypocrisy? Yes, hypocrisy. We all know that the rule that "no one can control their kids," only applies to Democrats. And the Republicans are hypocritical to maintain otherwise. Republicans have long been held to a much higher standard, and therefore, so should their children! How hypocritical of them to demand that their kids be treated the same way as the kids of Democrats! Misbehaving Republican children are sinful and their parents are hypocrites. Misbehaving Democratic children are normal and their parents are blameless. It's, like, genetic or something. Why, they even have a bumpersticker to go with the thought: Republicans are mean people and they have mean children. Only a right wing hypocrite with bad genes could possibly disagree. posted by Eric at 01:51 PM | Comments (5)
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John McCain Is A Great Man
Yeah. We all knew that. So that is not the story. What is the story? Look at who is saying it. Former President Bill Clinton has largely kept himself out of the public eye since his wife lost the Democratic primary to Barack Obama.I'm sure Bill has Obama's best interests at heart. Like helping him keep his seat as the Junior Senator from Illinois. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 12:02 PM | Comments (4)
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The Man With No Plan
It seems like the man with a plan for solving the Iraq War has No Plan for solving the economic crisis. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said on Friday he supported efforts by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve to shore up confidence in the financial markets and said he would hold off from presenting his own economic recovery plan.But mister we has proposed no bold and decisive action. I guess voting present is bold and decisive for him. No doubt he has to confer with Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines before he can take any bold action. Or perhaps he has to visit the Mudd hut to find out what to do. After all the man whose name is Mudd personally thanked Obama for his help. And why shouldn't he? The man whose name is Mudd wound up with a 22 room Colonial mansion in return for assisting with the destruction of Fannie Mae. I'm betting that Obama is now wishing that he only had slum lord Tony Rezko to worry about. One thing you can say for sure. Mr. Obama appears to have a lot of friends who are real estate geniuses. People who can take trillions and turn them into billions while making a tidy profit on the side. It is my opinion that given his understanding of economics, we should all work hard to help Barack Obama keep his Senate seat. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 11:55 AM | Comments (1)
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John McCain Plays Race Card
Time Magazine says this video ad plays the race card. Two black guys stealing from an old white woman. This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.Well yes. Johnson is fair game. In fact Mr Johnson has been hit hard today in a video showing his connection to Senator Obama. So I guess what we have today is a white guy and a black guy teaming up to steal from the white woman. We are truly fortunate that Mr. Obama is no racist. Otherwise the number of crooks he could partner with would be severely limited. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 11:51 AM | Comments (3)
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Change I never wanted to see
I won't vote for Barack Obama. I can't, because aside from everything else, his politics and policies are too socialistic for me. However, I have a long history of defending him in this blog -- which stretches all the way back to his run against Alan Keyes, which actually prompted me to start "RepublicansforObama.com." (Yeah, I let it lapse -- probably one of many of my financial mistakes in life.) But my defense of Barack Obama (whom I saw as kind) did not end with a reaction to the candidacy of Alan Keyes (whom I saw as cruel). When he was campaigning against Hillary Clinton, I found him to be pleasant and polite (again Obama the Kind) in contrast to Hillary the Cruel. I noted it in my Pajamas Media column about the South Carolina debate: At least Obama sounds reassuring, even if his policies aren't.How touchingly naive that looks now. Well, at least I was cynical enough to recognize the political irony of this civility theme, which I amplified in a post titled "Hillary the Cruel does Obama the Kind": Seen in old fashioned, politically incorrect terms, Obama is polite, and Hillary is rude.It will be? Please. In light of yesterday's news, I don't know whether I was a rube to see Obama as kind. Or civil. Or polite. Or whatever word is allowed these days. Let me stop right there before I get to the news item. I'm not engaged in overwrought political hyperbole "whatever word is allowed these days," because apparently I'm not supposed to talk about civility. At least, not according to writer Frank Furedi who was given an official warning from his publisher: I was moved to despair when I found out that one of my favorite words, "civilized," ought not be used by a culturally sensitive author because of its alleged racist implications.So if I shouldn't praise civility, that probably goes for probably equally applies to politeness. Anyway, the news is that Obama seems to have abandoned what probably in retrospect ought to be called his "politeness meme": "I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face," he said.In your face. Great. There went my argument in favor of Obama. (With that statement, he's demonstrated that he doesn't mind moving to the style of the shrill and angry Alan Keyes. Or the venomous Ann Coulter. Yeah, or even "Anndrew Coulter.") I might not have wanted socialism, but I had at least hoped for civility. I know I'm not perfect in that regard, and I've often admitted I don't live up to my own standards. I can't say I've never lost my temper or succumbed to the temptation of in-your-face politics, because I have. But standards -- and civility is a very important standard -- set a goal, and not living up to them does not make the standards wrong. With civility out the window as a standard, can condemning civility itself be far behind? If liking civility is now considered a form of racism, what does that mean? Incivility becomes good? Rudeness and in-your-face politics are now desirable ways to communicate? Forgive me if I say that it's not looking like a better world. AFTERTHOUGHT: I realize that there are those who would accuse me of racism for disliking Barack Obama's recent angry rhetoric. (And probably for liking the older, kinder, Obama.) According to this view, not liking angry rhetoric coming from a back man is racism (if the critic is white). Well then, what about my intense dislike -- for many years -- of Alan Keyes' angry rhetoric? I don't remember any accusations of racism. And I might be wrong, but I suspect that if Keyes had a sudden change of heart (and did a Culture War about-face) his newfound white friends would not be accused of "racism" for liking him! MORE: From Glenn Reynolds, a question: if Obama is President, will Time regard every criticism of his administration as racist?Yes, just as they regard every criticism of Palin as sexist. posted by Eric at 11:28 AM | Comments (5)
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Palin Visits With Hannity
posted by Simon at 02:35 AM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, September 18, 2008
Gains Of 30 Years Wiped Out
![]() Many scary stories have been written about the dangers of catastrophic global warming, allegedly due to increased atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the combustion of fossil fuels. But is the world really catastrophically warming? NO. And is the warming primarily caused by humans? NO.You know this is really terrible news for financial outfits like Lehman Brothers. LONDON - Lehman Brothers shut down its carbon emissions trading desk after the bank filed for bankruptcy protection, a source close to the company told Reuters on Monday.Trouble ahead, trouble behind. And speaking of behind. Who was helping Lehman to make carbon trading popular? Al Gore's carbon trading business GIM was banked with Lehman Bros. It will be interesting to see how this will play in the future but I suspect that this increases the risk of participating in Carbon trading. Merrill Lynch was also deeply involved in this business.Well what do you know? Gore and Hansen. Two of the most prestigious names in the Carbon Trading and Global Warming Science business. If you have any stock in those two guys now is the time to short it, before it goes to ∅. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 09:23 PM | Comments (4)
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Raines In Obama Parade
Ben Smith had this cute little piece out on 16 July of this year on the Raines - Obama connection. An ill-timed -- for Obama -- profile of former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, forced out in an accounting mess a few years ago.Taking calls? Doesn't that mean Obama has been calling him? The McCain Campaign had a nice video out on the connection between Obama and Raines. And there is another video out of Fannie Mae head Daniel Mudd praising Obama. So who is Daniel Mudd? I think it will come as no surprise that he lives in a Mudd hut. A 22-room Mudd hut. Evidently ripping off the taxpayers pays very well. Very well indeed. As more than a million US homeowners face devastating mortgage foreclosures, ousted Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd continues to live in an opulent Washington, DC, mansion replete with expansive gardens, servants' quarters and a home theater.So the little people get fleeced and the big guys walk. That Obama has some really swell friends. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 08:12 PM | Comments (3)
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An Admission Of Guilt
It looks like Congress is planning to leave town without addressing the financial meltdown. Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Democratic-controlled Congress, acknowledging that it isn't equipped to lead the way to a solution for the financial crisis and can't agree on a path to follow, is likely to just get out of the way.Yeah. They don't know what to do. Why would that be? Maybe because they have their finger prints all over the cause of the problem? What are the chances Congress will work to fix what it broke? There is a number that expresses the odds exceedingly well. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 06:04 PM | Comments (4)
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Debunking the undebunkable
I've long thought that correcting misinformation (often called "debunking") helps enable human understanding. I think this is a principle which many bloggers believe in, to the point where it's often considered one of the basic advantages of the blogosphere. As the theory goes, the more bloggers do this, the more "self correcting" the blogosphere becomes. So I was a bit taken aback to learn about a study which claims that correcting misinformation can have the effect of causing people to adhere more strenuously to the misinformation which is being corrected. a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked -- even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information.What that means is that when you're dealing with people who really want to believe something, and you show them it is not true, they'll believe it more firmly than ever. Disconcerting, to say the least. But it might explain what it is that makes what we call the "hard core" hard and loyal to the core. The Rathergate scandal stands out as an example of what I saw as the blogosphere doing its job. Dan Rather lost his job as a result, but he maintained his innocence, and he still has a core of devoted followers. The 9/11 Truthers are probably an extreme example of this phenomenon. Speaking of "debunking," longtime readers may remember my role in debunking dishonest web site called "Capitol Hill Blue." At least, so I thought at an earlier point in my blogging career. As I was to learn (and as I explained here), there's no such thing as permanent debunking. At least, not to the loyal readers of Capitol Hill Blue: Longtime readers may remember that I devoted a great deal of time to debunking that rather ridiculous "news site" run by Doug Thompson -- which featured fictitious characters like the disappearing "George Harleigh." I remember being foolish enough to think that because Capitol Hill Blue had been "discredited" that it would just go away. Not so. Capitol Hill Blue and Doug Thompson have a seemingly endless capactity for self reinvention -- which in turn is now forcing bloggers to reinvent the wheel doing what was supposedly done long ago. In "UPDATE 2: He's Baaack - More Lies, Hilarity & Hypocrisy from Doug Thompson & Capitol Hill Blue" and "One Man, Two Phantom Sources, a Few Fictional Friends, and Zero Credibility a very thorough blogger has painstakingly built yet another case against CHB and Thompson. I'm delighted to be cited as a source, but I wish it wasn't necessary for anyone to be doing this all over again -- especially in such painstaking detail.I concluded with this question: Is there any way to debunk anything so that it stays debunked?According to this latest research, no. I guess the rule is that if you're dealing with a true believer of any kind, forget it. If the study's conclusions are right, attempts to change his mind will only have the opposite effect of strengthening his position -- especially if you're using facts as opposed to opinions. And of course, opposing opinions are also wasted on true believers, which most activists are. I don't know how scientific the study is, but it would appear confirm something I have long suspected -- that arguments are generally a waste of time. They might make things worse. posted by Eric at 02:03 PM | Comments (8)
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absence of standards guarantees success!
Yesterday I wrote a post ("The government giveth standards, the government taketh them away") in which I cited economists who see the lowering of banking standards as a major cause of the current economic mess. Investors Business Daily has an editorial titled "Congress Tries To Fix What It Broke" which notes the prominent role of Democrats (especially Barack Obama) in abandoning "lending standards that had served the banking industry well for centuries." Everyone in the subprime business -- from brokers to lenders to banks to investment houses -- absolved themselves of responsibility for ensuring the high-risk loans were good.Why there is so much resistance to discussing something which ought to be discussed, I don't know. What really irritates me is the way people misconstrue this debate as an attempt to "blame minorities" for the problem. On the contrary; they are the victims, not the problem. Abandoning lending standards hurt minorities (especially low income minorities) at least as much as it hurt the fat cats, and probably more, because the former lack the financial resources of the fat cats. But I don't think the goal here was to help minorities so much as it was to advance socialism. The more the system fails, the more socialistic things become. Abandonment of lending standards guaranteed that the system would fail. But in socialist terms, the failure was a success. posted by Eric at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)
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Krisis? or Hyperbole? Whatever it is, the Germans who write stuff like this certainly want to get people's attention over here in Amerika. I mean, look at this crap: End of an EraI'm cynical, but it's hard to ignore, because that would be a form of denial. But what form of denial would it be? Why aren't the economists I occasionally read such as Arnold Kling, Greg Mankiw, and Megan McArdle in a similar state of panic? I'm no economist, but my initial gut reaction is that what's driving stocks downward (and the concomitant panic thinking) might be connected to the huge AIG bailout. I'm not alone: Heavy-handed federal bailouts started this mutually reinforcing spiral rolling downhill by scaring anyone still holding stock in similar firms. And other regulations make it more likely to end badly.Makes sense to me. And of course regulations call for more regulations -- especially when they fail. So it really gave me an attack of "I-TOLD-YOU-SO-itis" to read this: Every blunder of government regulation invites an understandable impulse to give failed regulators more money and power. Yet financial markets invariably notice looming financial problems (e.g., Enron) months before credit-rating agencies notice anything amiss - regulators even lag behind the rating agencies. |