Archive for October, 2008

Election Year Sanity

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

…from Stossel.

H/T: Becky the Girl in Short Shorts Talking About Stuff.

What’s it gonna take for everyone to stop being so stupid? Maybe we can elect a President who’ll get us all smartened up.

Just kiddin’. Calm down.

Banned Hotel Commercial

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

In-Laws…

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

DTS Conversion PSA

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

This is definitely my kind of humor. Whenever I find out the hard way that my ISP has set me up with a router model that is known to be out-of-date, or start doing a bunch of goofy crap for no reason at all, or my cable company didn’t configure something right, or the land-line phone company left some switchbox a block away all messed up, and I lose minutes and hours to just that basic step of figuring out something isn’t working right, then have to hop from one phone representative to another until someone ‘fesses up — my standard comeback has come to be “What the hell do OLD people do when they subscribe to your service?”

Because that’s the world from which I come — that customer service isn’t put together & working properly, until it can work with the folks who, we used to say…”their talents lie elsewhere.” Apparently, that idea has gone out of fashion. Which means I’m now one of the old people.

That was how many ‘W’s?

Bipartisanship, It Is Possible

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

Yes, it is.

The Ticket at LA Times, via Instapundit. H/T: Duffy.

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXIII

Friday, October 17th, 2008

…but blogger friend Cassy Fiano just compared us to the Sarahcuda. Wow, now THAT is a compliment. Kinda headed in the opposite direction from where it needs to go, though, ya know what I mean? Like having Dracula call you a vampire, or Yoda call you a Jedi Master, or…or…

…those metaphors are all lame. I get that way when I’m all giddy and overwhelmed. Wow, you could fry eggs on my big red ears right now.

She threw us all that attention on her way out of town. Letting go of the wheel. We already said we’d get a post ready to go, for our “guest blogging” stint sometime tonight…and wham, bam, here it is Friday already. We’ll get something locked & loaded, because hey, we said we would. And it’s not as if there’s a shortage of nonsense stuff going on already.

Seriously…we are just humbled, and overwhelmed. No, Cassy, you are the Sarahcuda! YOU are!

I’m a Terrible Person Who Must Be Stopped

Friday, October 17th, 2008

Ah…fame is on its way. Perhaps in the next month or two, we’ll make Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World. For now, we’ve been identified by a flog, or feminist blog, as a terrible person who must be stopped. So says Ethical Slut.

Once again, we’re reminded that our modern-day feminists don’t actually disagree with anyone about anything. They identify targets, announce to all within earshot how the target makes them feel like barfing, and then demand moral and spiritual support from their peers in their quest to virtually destroy it.

As you can see, mkfreeberg judges women for a behavior that hurts no one. Sure, he tries to make a straw man argument, that Jessica Valenti is bitter and angry and disorganized in her life (we have to protect her from herself!), when simple facts (extremely successful career as a writer at a very young age, good relationships) all say otherwise.

Jessica Valenti’s schtick is to be bitter and angry. She runs a website that is dedicated to bitter and angry behavior. If she isn’t bitter and angry in real life, and has no desire to be seen as bitter and angry, then her communication skills must be truly abysmal.

As for being disorganized — hey, here’s a challenge. Name one single curriculum…or elixir…or some other agent…possessing an inimical relationship to sexual recklessness, particularly within young people — that does not simultaneously earn for itself an inimical relationship with post-modern feminism in general, and the Feministing flog in particular. Name five of those. You probably can’t even find one. To call for sexual discretion, good judgment, monogamy, standards in selecting a partner, et al, is to become an enemy of our modern feminists. Their words say they are all about privacy, people minding their own business, etc. etc. etc. Their actions say something else.

Feminists are not about privacy. Here’s a typical flog post:

1. Embedded YouTube clip, this commercial just started airing
2. It makes me want to vomit
3. When drunk horny dangerous men watch this, they will want to…etc…etc…etc…
4. It objectifies women
5. Did I mention it makes me want to vomit? What were they thinking??
6. Here’s the contact info for you to lodge your protest. Let’s whack ’em now, and make it look like we all got offended at the same time over the same thing, without actually collaborating on this.

But “Ethical slut” isn’t lashing back in the same way as Valenti herself. No, her whole thing is to whine and moan about the double standard.

We’ve been talking about neo-conservatives as if the “neo” meant that their arbitrary condemnation of people is something new. Anyone who has studied the role of religion in our world knows that this sort of thing is as old as time. Women as commodities is as old as time too. You see it in things like honor killings, women killed because their “value” has been damaged, even through rape. Would mkfreeberg ever write a long diatribe about men who use their dicks as jackhammers, cheap meat, who disrespected their own chastity? Never. (Except in the context of “ruining” a future man’s wife).

Yup, men and women are treated differently in our society, Ethical Slut. And, as long as our society remains somewhat strong, it’s gonna stay that way. One stigma for male sluts, a different one for female sluts.

Oh, and yeah, if I saw someone put up a blog about men using their dicks as jackhammers, and then follow it up with several books on the same — especially if the books were about a societal obsession, while the individual writing said books clearly suffered from a counter-obsession — yes, I’d write a long diatribe about it. Male sluts do suffer from a stigma. It isn’t the same as the stigma for female sluts…real people don’t treat the sexes exactly the same, any more than post-modern feminists with feminists blogs do (!). But out here in the world of reality, we recognize that male sluts aren’t exactly elevated to tall pedestals and then worshipped, as feminists seem to think they are.

There’s a certain urgency involved in desiring to cool the behavior of a female slut, and there’s a good foundation of reason for this urgency. There are reasons why their family members are ashamed and sad. There’s the whole thing about women getting pregnant, something men can’t do. Feminists know that, right? And then there’s the time honored position women have in our culture, of resisting. Slowing things down. Putting the brakes on things.

That’s their role. You may not like it, but who cares…you don’t like that men have penises and women have vaginas, but that’s just the way things are. A man is sexually reckless — his behavior is put into check by the lady he is attempting to seduce. A woman is sexually reckless — that’s different. There’s nobody to put that behavior in check. I mean, what…you think the man will do it? Seriously?

I like it when feminists decry that double standard. I like it a lot, because it enables others to see how silly and ridiculous feminists really are. The keymaster-gatekeeper relationship dates back to biblical times, those times when feminists claim women were being treated like property and cattle and dirt and what-not…when in reality, this particular social custom that has spanned so many continents, in which men make things go and women make things stop, is perhaps the one social custom that has conferred the greatest respect upon the fairer sex. And put them in charge of something rather important. Civilization itself, one could argue.

Feminists want to get rid of it. I find that ironic and interesting.

Homosexuals can be wonderful parents. Sluts can be happy, productive people. People who follow religious rules to a T can stone a person to death and watch them die slowly of internal injuries and starvation. This is why you’re a terrible person who must be stopped, mkfreeberg. Is that simple enough for you to understand?

Uh…it will be, as soon as you show me some examples of those, and “prove a negative” with regard to the opposites: That homosexuals can be crappy parents, sluts can be unproductive, people who follow religious rules to a T can do wonderful things for those less fortunate. As to whether I understand how this shows I’m a terrible person who must be stoped, I’m having trouble making the connection because I didn’t say too much with regard to homosexuals being good or bad parents or sluts being productive or unproductive.

But nevermind. I think I understand why Ethical Slut would think I’m terrible, and why I must be stopped. I said something outside her value system. Time for the fire-ant treatment. Let’s all attack mkfreeberg, and can I get an amen here from my fellow nattering-nabob feminists?

Post-modern feminists, for people who are supposed to be champions of freedom, liberty and free expression, are, in their own way, quite puritanical. As I’ve said about other factions of grumbling, snarky outspoken people — they’ve exchanged one religion for another.

Shut Up and Architect

Friday, October 17th, 2008

Nobody reads this blog, of course, but for those who do there has been an unmistakable trend in which we favor individual decision-making over group-based decision-making. We haven’t been moderate about this at all; we’ve had very few good things to say about the group decision-making process, and there’s a reason for this.

Baseline Mag has an article up that happens to be about one of my career specialties; it’s called It Projects Done Right. It specifically deals with risk management in the application development process. This has to do with effective group-based decision-making. It requires a lot of tools and a lot of collaboration, which is certainly possible, but usually isn’t done. Much more typical is the kind of group-based decision-making you see in the prior article, IT Projects Done Wrong.

In that older article, you see a way of thinking that is much more in harmony with the decision-making process embraced by your average Obama/Biden supporter:

When I got back to my cubicle, I wrote up a memo detailing (as I recall) about a dozen major risks I saw with the KAID project and the proposed schedule. Here were some of the risks:

 • We didn’t yet have a sufficiently complete set of specifications and requirements for the system that would allow us to even begin to estimate the work required.
 • We didn’t have an architecture for the system yet, much less key design solutions.
 • The system was to be developed using an obscure and specialized programming language.
 • None of the team members had ever developed in that programming language; they had been to a two-week training course in it back in September, but had done no work in the language since then.
 • Why? Because the development tools – integrated development environment (IDE), libraries, and so on – were not yet available commercially. Version 1.0 of the development suite was scheduled to be released at the start of December. (That alone should be enough to make any software engineers and team leads reading this shudder.)
 • Also, no other vendor was providing development tools for that language, so there were no alternatives if any problems cropped up with the version 1.0 development suite.

And so on, and so forth. For each risk, I assessed both the probability of the risk coming to pass and the likely impact on the project if it did. I distributed this memo to the entire project team, with cc’s to the division head and the technology manager just under him.

The response? While some of the engineers on the team sent me private e-mails thanking me for pushing back and for writing the memo, the client told me – in just about these exact words – to “shut up and architect.” The client wasn’t willing to risk the business with the customer by being honest about the risks, uncertainties, and unknowns surrounding the KAID project.

Recall what Tom Hagen told Jack Woltz during the dinner conversation, after Woltz had refused to offer the movie role to Johnny Fontaine: “If your driver will take me to the airport, Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately.” Now here, group-think can be quite adequate, and compatible with the success of the project — it can even in some cases be superior. But in order for that to happen, you’ve got to have a supporting culture which addresses the selfish whims of the individual. It has to do that in such a way that people are told, and comprehend, bad news immediately.

Simply put, people have to be rewarded for finding risks. Not to the point where the project is paralyzed as people concentrate all their energies on collecting a virtual “bounty” on identified risks. But certainly, to the point where potentially damaging risks are identified early on, in such a way that the level of effort required to mitigate them is reduced, and the effects of their residual impact can be effectively compensated.

Information Technology is a tricky thing. It doesn’t weather the challenges offered by the stagnation of group-think very well. That’s because group-think has a distinct tendency to pressure each individual to do things the same way other individuals are already doing them; and technology, when you get down to brass tacks, is the exact opposite of that.

Can We Get This Meme Going?

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Let’s borrow one of Cassy Fiano‘s ideas. I find, in general, if you plagiarize the brilliant ones…crime does pay. We need a payout.

I am Joe the Plumber. His story is my story.

I don’t have my quarter-mill-a-year quite yet, Sen. Obama; but I will someday, and if you’ve got a problem with my pal Joe you’ve got a problem with me.

Yeah. Like that.

Do you understand how tender and soft Obama’s armor is in this one spot? He doesn’t have any armor there at all. It is a gaping, yawning chasm in the hull of his battleship. Every single response he’s offered on this issue, in the debates as well as on the campaign trail, has had something to do with taking this 95% who’d get a tax cut…and pretending as if that’s 100%. Every single response has been a variation of that theme.

Tell you what — you prove to me that 95 and 100 is the same, I’ll agree the math is on Obama’s side, and if you can’t, then we have to agree it isn’t.

He’s raising taxes on the people who create jobs, and he does not want to talk about it. The situation is no more complicated than that. What’s complicated, is getting that message out to the people who haven’t been paying attention.

I Am NOT Liveblogging

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

This is not liveblogging, got it? I don’t live-blog.

Having said that, it’s 1813PDT, and I think McCain’s doing alright here. Shaky start, but he landed some blows on this Joe the Plumber thing.

Nobody’s nailing The Enlightened One on this “cut taxes for 95%” thing. He uses it as a catch-all, which is a sign of being backed into a corner.

McCain proposes a spending freeze (1817). I wonder how that’s playing in Peoria.

Schieffer wants to know what he’ll do line-item by line-item. The correct answer is that the President doesn’t get to decide this. Our two candidates are debating what kind of plan they would signal Congress would be warmly received at the White House. Which is a powerful influence, but it’s not appropriate for Presidential candidates to define their plans to that detail, because they don’t control it that way.

Obama wants to lose the war (1820) in order to balance the budget. He’s using different words, but that’s his plan.

McCain retorts with what’s obviously a pre-canned talking point. He delivered it okay, though. Hope it does some damage.

I like how Sarah Palin’s running mate is doing tonight. He’s on the attack, but he doesn’t look desperate. You can’t really ask for more than that, all things considered…

Obama supports clean coal technology. I hope he cleared that with his running mate.

Save (1822). This is NOT liveblogging.

We’re getting into negative campaigning as a campaign issue (1824). You SUCK, Schieffer. How’s that for negative campaigning. This is not a legitimate issue. It isn’t worth talking about. Period. If we want to elect the best guy, the candidates should be able to tell us how they’re better than the other guy…PERIOD. And yeah, that includes William Ayers’ buddy up there.

Oh, that’s clever. McCain is going after the money angle. Yeah Obama spent more money on negative campaigning because he’s had several times more cash to spend on campaigning period. But it’s truthy.

Obama says a hundred percent of McCain’s ads have been negative. Let’s keep an eye out for those “fact checkers” to go to work on this.

Did Obama just say that campaign ads (1828) should be about policy? Did he really say that? So…he says “McCain’s policies are 90% the same as Bush’s policies” that’s what he’s got in mind? I’m sorry — who the hell is falling for this??

Save (1829). This is NOT live-blogging.

Uh…I think McCain just lost the Dallas Cowboy Fan Vote.

I’ve made this point before. People in the crowd who shout things when Gov. Palin speaks…they are somehow connected in some substantial way, a way not definitively named, to John McCain. Every little left-wing sympathizer who makes jokes about Sarah Palin’s vaginer, however, is acting indepdently and nobody else is responsible for the content. On the left-wing side of the fence, nothing is connected to anything else — so there’s more complaining about what’s said in McCain/Palin’s defense, even though the Obama/Biden supporters say nastier things, and say them much more often.

This is such a moose-feces issue. Can we please move on? (1833)

Saving…this is NOT liveblogging.

Ah…he landed a blow on the tee shirts. Obama protests that he has no control (or something, it was kind of a half-sentence). The proper thing for Palin’s running mate to say, would have been a reiteration of what I just said — how come I’m fastened to anything and everything, and my opponent isn’t responsible for anything??

(Even better) Are we ready for that lack of accountability in the Oval Office?

It didn’t happen. We’re still hashing over this phony issue. Yawn (1835).

Obama’s obsequiously chuckling and shaking his head at the mention of ACORN, a signal that he’s going to stick with his talking point that he has nothin’ to do with ’em nowadays. Note to self, this is another place to check for how the “fact checkers” handle this. Obama’s tossing out a bunch of stuff with regard to this, which is all fodder for the fact-checking “process” we have in place (1838).

Obama just said democrats and Republicans have shaped his ideas. Huh. I wonder what Republicans those would be.

What’s really called for here, is a challenge for Sen. Obama to lend his support to a call going out to ACORN, to clean up their shenanigans. That’s only reasonable.

Obama says Joe Biden has great “foreign policy credentials.” I wonder if he read this.

Fox is asking people to text their votes about “Who Won The Debate?” to a number, A for McCain, B for Obama. We’re only forty-one minutes in. Who’s texting?? I can’t think anybody can be more decided on this than I am, but I wouldn’t dream of texting something now…isn’t it traditional for a fight to be over before it’s “won”?

Saving again. But don’t call it live-blogging, because that’s not what I’m doing (1843).

Obama’s been slick and polished throughout this first hour. He starts talking about Gov. Palin, and it’s like his teleprompter burned out. Uh, er, uh, er…sounds like Ted Kennedy when he’s sober. Wonder what that means.

Just finished dinner (1928). Hey — they were talking about education when I left, they’re talking about education now that I’m back. **burp** Anyway, I’m not live-blogging so it’s okay.

Obama…policies of the last eight years. “Failed policies.” Should’ve made a drinking game outta this. For a guy looking forward into the future and change we can believe in, he sure spends a lot of time looking back over the last eight years.

Hey, I just noticed something. He said if we give him his vote, he’ll work tirelessly on “your behalf.” Now, I’m not votin’ for him, and I don’t make more than 250k a year…but what if both of those were the case? I don’t think jacking up my taxes so that he can “spread the wealth” he took away from me, is working on my behalf. That would come under the heading of “common good” or some such rot, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that a lie right there?

Joe the Plumber got fifteen mentions from McCain and another five from Obama. Ha! Yay, Joe. Draft Joe. I like Joe. Hey, there’s his last name on the screen…crickey…I think I could memorize Mr. Spock’s last name quicker. W-u-r-z-e-l-b-a-c-h-e-r. Huh. Palin/Wurzelbacher/2012. It does have a certain ring to it.

Best Sentence XLIV

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

The forty-fourth Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award goes to a nameless interviewer in a New Yorker cartoon. The interviewer, conducting a job interview, has a line that is reconciled against the situation involving unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers, buddy-n-pal of Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama.

I’m trying to find a way to balance your strengths against your felonies.

H/T: Kate at Small Dead Animals.

I’ll Pick You Up, No Questions Asked

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Priceless. And adorable.

Everyone in the commercial seems to have been born well after Jimmy Carter left office. And yet they seem so sure of themselves. Cute.

What I Really Want to Learn from the Debate Tonight

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

More than anything else…is…

…what’s the setting on the thermostat in Obama’s hotel suite? It isn’t 72 degrees, is it?

Mahoney…

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

The kollege kids at FARK are trying to come up with ways to make this more innocent than the hijinks and shenanigans of the Congressman’s predecessor, Mark Foley.

For the uninitiated, Mahoney is a democrat. Foley was a Republican. Mahoney won Foley’s seat after, and as a direct consequence of, Foley’s problems. In fact, Foley’s problems are consequential to the entire nation because they were central to the impetus for throwing the Republican bums out of Congress and entrusting our legislative branch to the democrat party.

Mahoney’s scandal is a heterosexual one. Foley’s scandal was homosexual. And yes, you’ll be surprised how many FARK kollege kids are bringing that up. Maybe.

Mahoney’s scandal seems to involve some hush money. Foley’s did not. It involved underage pages.

The FARK kollege kids needed to check the party affiliation of these two “gentlemen,” and then engage in a little bit of collaboration with each other, to figure out what their opinions would and should be. And they’ll *never* admit it. That’s where it gets fun to watch.

Green Halloween

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

It’s an article in MSNBC. Who’d of thought it:

Halloween can be an especially eco-unfriendly holiday. There’s the single-use plastic of red devil costumes, countless candy wrappers (not to mention the refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial color of the candies themselves) and disposable decorations. According to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, Americans will spend more than $5 million on Halloween paraphernalia this year. That’s more than $5 million worth of stuff that ultimately ends up impacting the earth.

Green CostumeSo this year I’m going to seize the opportunity to right my wrongs. As I get ready to introduce my child to his first Halloween, I’m making sure that I add a bit of earth awareness to the preparations. This is how I plan to make Halloween green:

There follow a whole bunch of helpful tips. Together, we can do this!

Well, the missus and I are going to a green costume party ourselves, so I can’t snicker too hard. And I’ve been riding my bike for all my errands all month long. It’s my way of “protesting” the whole enviro-whacko movement: The best way to devastate a silly idea is to take it seriously, so the notion my car can kill the planet, is one I intend to take one hundred percent seriously. I rode my bike this week and the week before! If I didn’t, the planet would be dead! Yay me!

Like I tell some of my environmentally conscious friends: “You ‘global warming’ people always drive such big cars.”

All this zeal about environmentally-sound tips and tricks, is strangely focused on “coming together.” It’s presented as success in the face of overwhelming odds. But it’s not about success, it’s about togetherness. “I’m on the bandwagon; are YOU on the bandwagon?” A wonderful way to get that deer-in-the-headlights look from an environmentally conscious goo-gooder is to ask — hey, what if we don’t band together on “this thing,” and succeed anyway? In fact, what is the goal exactly?

And if we work together doing all the things like good little ants, and the planet dies out anyway, did we fail?

The enviro-people can’t answer questions like those. They aren’t ready to admit that environmentalism is a way of life…a group-based, anti-individualist way of looking at things, and of living life. It is the replacement of one religion with another.

Last time I saw this going on, it had to do with reducing the size of cars. Here it is thirty years later, and it’s all about the little things…while the environmental zealots go ahead and drive whatever they want. To work. Ten or twenty miles one way. Shuttling back and forth nothing besides their own asses plus a Blackberry or Palm Pilot, maybe a laptop.

But be sure and wear that organic costume once a year.

Tasteless democrat Humor

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

What, you didn’t know they could be beyond the pale sometimes, too?

This is like…a “worst ever” list. But only penciled-in. In very light pencil. I know I’ll recall other examples, later on, richly deserving of being added in.

1. President (at the time) William Jefferson Clinton, May 1, 1993: “Did you like the way [Rush Limbaugh] took up for Janet Reno the other night on his program? He only did it because she was attacked by a black guy.”

2. Joe Biden:

“You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent. I’m not joking.”

No, nobody really is too sure what he was trying to say there. But it couldn’t have been anything good.

3. I’m not entirely sure what the intended point is here, either.

4. Colbert

5. Maher, who yeah I know, is probably not a democrat…whatever. He’s a left-wing dipwad. And I know he was trying to be poignant, not necessarily funny, but it makes the cut. It showed off what filth and ugliness was between his ears back then — and is still there now as far as I’m concerned.

The world needs to be reminded.

We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.

6. Via Rick, we learn of this innovative way some guy named “Smooshie” has of letting us know he (or she) is not a Palin fan:

7. That Bush assassination film…

Just trying to get a clear idea here where the boundaries are. I keep hearing about how McCain, Palin, and some of the folks who appear at McCain’s rallies are “over the line.” So there’s a line somewhere. You figure out where it is, you let me know. M’kay?

Also, as you can infer from the footage in a previous post, it is near-undeniable that Obama’s getting some votes from people who don’t give a rat’s ass what he’s going to do once he’s our next President. They just, as the cliche goes, “want to be a part of this thing.” I guess if you vote for The Chosen One it just goes to prove you’re a Good PersonTM.

Well you know, it’s a funny thing about people.

They have a pressing, urgent need to “prove” things that they know aren’t really true. Really. If you’re strong, confident, sure of your own good character, and you see that donating to a worthy cause will support some principles in which you really believe and help out people you think are deserving of it…you aren’t going to be talking about it too much. You’ll start bragging about it when you don’t really believe in your own little gimmick — and its value to you exists in the capability it has to fool people into perceiving altruistic motives within you that you don’t really have.

Some democrats, it should be noted, are really decent people.

They just don’t understand that much what our country’s history is with enacting certain policies, and getting results from them that fall short of — or directly contradict — what was intended.

But there’s a lot of democrats that aren’t decent people at all. They’re hideous monsters. They need their gimmicks, to fool people into perceiving altruistic motives about ’em that they don’t really have. And when they go grasping for “humor” to show off what good people they are, sometimes that ugliness comes out.

That explains why they do it. Why the rest of us let ’em get away with it, is something I’m going to have to have explained to me by someone who understands better.

Land Shark

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

I’ve been looking and looking and I finally found a copy…

McCain’s Positions, The Messiah’s Glorious Name

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

What happens when you pair the two of them together?

What indeed…

Simply amazing. Each one of these folks casts a vote every bit as influential and meaningful as yours.

Wouldn’t it be great if the questioner went on to say, “…and what do you think of all these people who say Sarah Palin is unqualified? What do you think their real motivation might be?”

But you can’t have everything, I suppose.

H/T: Black and Right, and thanks to Phil for pointing it out to me in an offline.

D’JEver Notice? XII

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

It’s tough to remember right now with all this talk of bailouts and subprimes and economy this and jobs that…but killing terrorists is still the most important issue of this election. The more the better.

Now, they’re telling me, in that authoritative way “they” tell me things when there are no real faces or reputations or identities behind the “they”…that history’s verdict is in on Bush. We don’t like ‘im, and while a lot of folks didn’t like him from the get-go, the big hairpin turn by which “all” of us decided “we” don’t like him, was when he invaded Saddam Hussein’s turf.

“They” tell me “we” hate George Bush because he lied to us to make it happen.

Because he didn’t have “proof” Saddam Hussein was developing or storing WMDs.

Because he didn’t have a more legally sturdy delegation of authority from Congress with an actual declaration of war.

Because if we knew the facts, we wouldn’t have supported the invasion of Iraq.

Because the U.N. didn’t bless it.

Question: Are these, like, either-or things? It’s an important question. Our country’s going to have to know the answer to that next time this has to be handled.

If the next ne’er-do-well around the world is caught engaging in his skulduggery and hijinks, what’s President Obama or McCain or Palin supposed to do, exactly? Get the approval of the electorate? Of Congress? Prove the shenanigans beyond the shadow of any doubt? Get the approval of the United Nations Security Council?

All of those? One of those? Two of those?

This is the trouble with that nameless faceless “they.” “They” are great at stating an argument or a case, but not in such a way that it makes sense. Is our lesson for future events that you can’t invade a nation until you P-R-O-V-E that you have to…and then…get U.N. approval? Why? What if you prove it, irrefutably, and then one deliberative body approves it and another one doesn’t?

Shouldn’t someone be debating that somewhere? Preferrably, out in the open with some high profile and visibility? Like before November 4th? I mean…”they” tell me “everybody” is really concerned about this. Seems like the question should’ve come up before now.

“When You Spread the Wealth Around It’s Good For Everybody”

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Perhaps, Barry. Perhaps. We’ve been debating it hotly for the better part of a century. Some say it’s indisputable. Some say the “supply side economics” of the Reagan era, with the Laffer curve, and all that stuff has been “discredited.” Some will try to pull a global-warming-type fast one and insist “all the world’s economists agree” that a society thrives in an economy most helpful and robust when everyone has the same standard of living.

Well, here’s a question.

If the “science is settled” on economics and informed economists have long ago concluded that wage gaps and net-worth gaps are inherently toxic to the performance of a local economy…that “when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody”…how come when we vote in favor of that, it’s only for a little while? And if this is how economies work all the time, how come we only vote it in when the time is right? War protests. Republican scandals involving congressional pages. A clean and articulate young guy from Chicago…or Hope…or Plains. How come so many tumblers have to be tripped before the lock on that Pandora’s Box is opened?

How do you explain all these episodes in our nation’s history in which we gave this wealth-spreading the ol’ college try…and never once, in the aftermath, have we gotten together and said “Well jolly good, that settles it! Let it never be questioned again, now that we know that’s how it works!” Why would we continue to retreat from this if it isn’t a cul de sac? How come nearly every “fan” of Jimmy Carter’s that I find, was born after the day we fired Carter?

How come I have yet to have a job or paycheck offered to me by a poor or middle-class person?

When Reagan put a stop to that and let the evil rich keep their filthy lucre, we did not see a decade of blight and poverty. No, today the liberals tell me that was a “decade of greed.” Which means prosperity. Where, in our history, did we “spread the wealth around” so it would be “good for everybody,” at the advent of a similar decade of prosperity? When did that ever happen?

You say you’re going to cut taxes for 95% of everybody. And yet the government you’ll be running will collect more revenue. Which means you’re going to be whacking the other five percent more than twenty times as hard as the amount by which the average among the 95 will see his taxes go down. That’s just sixth-grade math, isn’t it?

So what you’re asking us to believe is…some folks will be hit with tax increases, thirty or forty times as large as the other folks’ tax cuts. And, in the wake of that, they will not be changing their plans. Particularly with the businesses they run, and the jobs they would have been creating. Even a tiny bit. To the contrary, those businesses will be expanding more, with less capital, because you’ll be…uh…er…ya know…uh, telling ’em to.

H/T for the video to Gerard.

Negative Advertising

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

I was just wondering when, exactly, it became known as “going negative” to rattle off one or several reasons why people should vote for you over the other guy. Along comes Thomas Sowell

When the truth about what he actually did as governor was brought out during the Presidential election campaign, the media were duly shocked — not by Dukakis’ record, but by the Republicans’ exposing his record.

John Kerry, with a very similar ultra-liberal record, topped off by inflammatory and unsubstantiated attacks on American military men in Vietnam, disdained the whole process of labeling as something unworthy. And the mainstream media closed ranks around him as well, deploring those who labeled Kerry a liberal.
:
…those in the media who deplore “negative advertising” regard it as unseemly to dig up ugly facts instead of sticking to the beautiful rhetoric of an election year. The oft-repeated mantra is that we should trick to the “real issues.”

What are called “the real issues” are election-year talking points, while the actual track record of the candidates is treated as a distraction — and somehow an unworthy distraction.

Yup. Invariably, when someone says “let’s get back to the real issues” the next two or three sentences that come after have something to do with “eight years of Bush.” These are people who credit themselves with looking boldly forward into the future. And so seldom do I get to see ’em do it.

Nor is anyone accused of “going negative” when they spew their bile and venom about “Bush.” Somehow, that ‘un gets a pass.

Feminists: Inherently Nasty

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.

The demands of the feminists have not been met here, but they got the very next best thing: A man, one not particularly sensitized to feminist complaints, who sincerely admits “I understand what women are enduring, now that I’ve been put in their shoes.”

I’m married. Been married for 14 years. I moved away from my family to be with my wife’s family, left my career, friends, & family behind. I now work out of my house because my wife got a “better” job else where and now I do ALL of the cooking and cleaning and take care of my 3 kids. She’s the typical MALE now…comes homes, I have dinner ready. She works more at home. I play with the kids. She goes to bed, I have to go to bed. My whole life revolves around her now. She’s the Sun and I’m Uranus. She leaves dirty clothes on the floor. Trash on tables. HAIR everywhere!! I SIT to pee now cuz I hate to clean up pubic hairs off the toilets….it’s disgusting. I feel I’m being converted to a female in some sick way. I AM NOT A WOMAN! I love women. But I now know what they put up with. It sucks. No thanks for dinner….not even “dinner was great dear…how ’bout I clean up the dishes”….NNOOOOOO. Just a couple of grunts and it’s off to work….kinda like a guy going to the garage for the evening. I have tools. I’d love to go to the garage and work. But I think my kids come first. I’d love to have an affair but don’t think I can deal with the guilt. If I start to PMS…….I’ll scream. Oh…and don’t think she’s “MAN” enough to mow the yard or shovel the drive…nope…that’s me too. Who gets the groceries….ME. My nipples stick out in the frozen food section too by the way. No one tries to pick me up though. I did get asked by the cashier what was for dinner once!!! I must have something written on my forhead. So women, ladies, how do you put up with it??? I read an analogy once about a cup. Love is like a cup of water. You give some to people in need. But eventually that cup goes dry with no one to refill it. MY CUP IS AS DRY AS A 100 YEAR OLD BONE.

Go ahead — explore the comment section. How many notes of congratulation to you see? How many notes of “Welcome to the Fold”? How many feminists treating him as a compatriot?

How much “Go forth, my son, and help us spread the word”?

Please note…if feminism was about equality, and increased empathy between the sexes, that’s pretty much all you’d see. But here in the plane of reality that is not what you see.

What you see is spite.

Let the record show — as far as my own, not-so-humble opinion is concerned — there is a problem with men appreciating the household contributions of women. It’s not altogether possible to be resolved; it’s part of our internal design. Men are built to manage enclaves of responsibility only so large, and only to a certain limited extent. We exchange depth and breadth of such an enclave, for the potential of the elements within it. We lack the organizational skills women are built to have; and, of course, there’s the matter that we can’t see dirt.

Feminists, however, are not women who seek a resolution where it may or may not be possible. A resolution is not what they want. What they want is to be angry.

And if, when you skimmed those thirty-plus comments, this did not become obvious to you — you need to skim them again. Here’s a guy who sincerely understands the problem, admits it, and all he gets from the feminists is a bunch of bullshit and snark.

And then there’s that other matter.

How many feminists do you know, who threw their feminist temper tantrum and tirade, got those household chores equitably distributed, and then proceeded to whistle an ecstatically satisifed happy tune as they scrubbed the toilet bowl but only fifty percent of the time? How many feminists do you know like that? How many feminists can you name, like that? Doing half the chores, but happily, because it’s only half and the stud of the household is doing his half?

Can you name even one?

I can’t.

They’re just inherently nasty people who like to complain about things, and be angry.

And they don’t want fifty percent of the household chores. They want zero. The bitches are just lazy.

Lazy…and angry. And if they get every little thing they want, they will not stop being angry. They’ve had forty years to stop being angry, and it’s never once happened. Anger is part of the identity. Anger, and laziness.

She Said What??

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Hillary Clinton, in response to the “Drill, Baby, Drill” mantra of the Republicans…

“Jobs, baby, jobs”

Well…now we know which one of the Clintons has the ballz. If I was her, this was the last thing I’d say.

Quoting myself from last week…and not a damn thing’s changed since then, so far as I know…

Sometimes the right side of the issue is to “do something!” and the left side is “don’t do that!”…With raising the minimum wage, it’s the left that says we should do something and the right that says we should not…But here’s something that remains consistent:

The “left” answer always has to do with making things more expensive.

And the drilling, which is supposed to be exactly what Hillary had in mind, is a great example of that. Import our oil and don’t drill for it, gas stays expensive; import it and drill it, price of gas comes down. Supply and demand. So of course the democrats are opposed to drilling. They say it’s all about global warming or the caribou or “pristine arctic wilderness” or some such rot. But with this issue, and many others, the democrat way keeps prices high, high, high.

And Hillary’s concerned about jobs baby jobs? The jobs directly connected to the drilling that the democrat party voted down — all by themselves — may number in the thousands.

And then, as just a few of the hundreds of comment authors noted directly, there is the matter of how to tax the businesses that would be creating these jobs. But look at the rest of the comments. They think this three-word rejoinder of Hillary’s was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So the democrats are all about creating jobs? While making it more expensive to employ people, in every single way they possibly can?

I don’t blame the politicians; I have to blame the people who fall for this. What is it with people on the left? Do they honestly believe when you make something more expensive for people to provide, you’ll get more of it? Or do they just not care?

Tapper

Monday, October 13th, 2008

I was looking up Jake Tapper’s column and in that very instant, Mr. Tapper pops up on channel 10 as a “political correspondent” or some such.

Maybe he’s balanced and centrist the rest of the time. He isn’t here.

I can’t do a better job of fisking his list of complaints than this fellow did.

Hey Jake, it’s not that simple of a matter. It started out pretty simple…but then Stephen Branchflower put out a report in which his factual conclusions went in one direction, and his opinionated conclusions went in the other direction. For whatever reason. And now we have a mess.

Great report, Mr. Branchflower. You started out with one question, now you’ve generated a whole fistful of ’em.

Tapper did do something fair, though: He included Taylor Griffin’s comments at the end of his own column in an “update” (albeit, while misspelling Griffin’s last name). These comments of Griffin’s do a serviceable job of addressing both sides of the issue fairly, I find:

The investigation set out to determine whether Gov. Palin had acted properly in reassigning Walt Monegan, it concluded that she absolutely did. The Legislative Council’s investigation offers an opinion based on a very tortured reading of the Ethics Act, but, as Legislative Council Chairman Kim Elton pointed out yesterday, it has no force in law.

Unable to find wrongdoing under the original investigation, Mr. Branchflower tried to stretch the Ethics Act to fit facts that are well beyond the scope of the law. To say she is in violation because she did not stop Todd Palin from raising concerns with appropriate authorities about a rogue State Trooper who had threatened their family and abused the public trust really defies commonsense and has no basis in the law. Besides, as Todd pointed out in his interrogatory responses, she did ask him to “drop it.”

Also, the Council made clear that the vote to make the report public was not an endorsement of its findings. In fact, five members of the council spoke up to say they do not agree with the report’s findings. The lengths that were taken to stretch the scope of the investigation to find something damaging to say, when the facts bore out that the Governor acted appropriately, show that our concerns about the politicization of this investigation were entirely justified.

Trooper Wooten has a history of violent and intimidating behavior and threatened the life of Sarah Palin’s father. As anyone would, the Palins raised these serious concerns to the proper authorities. As Todd Palin said in his interrogatory responses, “I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family and wanting to publicize the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge and abusing the workers’ compensation system.”

Go on, moonbats. Tell me Taylor Griffin is owned by the Rothschilds and is spreading his lies in Karl Rove fashion…and how…and where he lied. Can’t wait to see it.

Moonbat Alert

Monday, October 13th, 2008

In the same spirit as the post previous: Those who have so much better judgment than I do about politics and how humans should live together in a civilized society, are so smart, they need help getting the word out about their smartness.

Behold the cool-headed clear thinking and luminous wisdom of “McCain” commenting at Rick’s place.

McCain’s problem is not that he doesn’t understand, it is that he picked the wrong party this time around.

Bush and the Neocons have bankrupt our economy, constitution, world stature and too many parts of the American way of life.

(quick… what is the fear, I mean, security threat color level today?) Bin Laden GOT what he wanted when the US pulled out of Saudi Arabia. (one week before “Mission Accomplished”)

James A Baker ( “I fixed the Election for Bush”) was first in line to DEFEND the Saudis against lawsuitsfor the 9/11 attacks. The Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) was NEVER about Saddam as a threat, or WMD but controlling (slowing!) the flow of oil to keep the Texas Mafia in the money. ( windfall profits $300+ Billion for the US Oil Companies in the first three years after OIL.) Saddam was pissing them off by turning off and on the oil spigot and they couldn’t keep the price where they wanted.

( Wake up there is lots of oil but they have to keep YOU believing that there is a shortage so you swallow the $3.99 /gal)

The connections between the Bush/Cheney/Baker crew and the real home of America haters, the Saudis, are criminal. McCain was not their poster boy, to be sure, but he fell in line during the campaign. ( He said on Meet the Press,” I agree with GW”, big mistake for an eventual “change” campaign)

You have to enjoy the irony of the Welfare Daddies now on Wall Street. You know the fox has been watching the hen house when it has melted down to the point that the many conservative voices are calling for Nationalization of our banks. But fortunately the genius W. has enlightened us that “it turns out that these economic factors are interrelated” and ” its a house of cards” . Thanks Capt. Obvious. (I would love to see the polling of how many Americans think the Federal Reserve is a branch of the govt. vs. a private corp.)

The people who are still spewing the hate against Obama, I need to ask how this “dangerous sleeper cell” got into the US Senate! Where were you to “save” us before he got access to all of capitol hill…? If you knew all this important information, I think it was very unpatriotic of you to keep it secret until now.

What ? oh… you just made it up as he got closer to the White House. And why is McCain holding out on how to get Bin Laden, (“I know how to get him”). Is that “Country First”

I’ve read both OBama’s and McCain’s books and it is obvious to me that ONE worked his way up, like many of YOUR forefathers (“that one”) and ONE rode both Admiral’s coattails along for the party. (How many Nominees have strippers mentioned as part of their past at the national convention?) How many pilots in the military crash three jets and still get reinstated? Only when the base you are on is named after your granddaddy.

I do not think Obama is the messiah or anything close, I also am not stupid enough to think the decline of the US in the world can or will be reversed. But it is obvious that John McCain, when he gets under pressure starts to act mean and erratic.

He has moved too far in line with the Bush/Cheney admin. and he has no where to go to find votes except to send his Barracuda into the hills with her winking fear message. But even these people have seen the price of shotgun shells double since they “elected” W. last time. I’ve even heard that some of them think the (R) stands for Recession, probably just a MSM rumor.

Palin’s foreign policy “experience”, watching Putin fly over the Matanuska Valley, is the joke of the free world. Although she only just got a passport, she does have the distinct advantage of speaking in tongues, which should come in handy with any “End Times” world leaders she may encounter.

It is also interesting to see John McCain’s wife hit Obama with “walk in my shoes” rhetoric, but I would bet Obama would not know what to do with a $3500 pair of Manolo Blahnik’s and I’m sure the chill that went through her was a Percocet post- addiction flashback.

It’s over… unless Diebold can fire up their executable files one more time and if they do, it will be appropriate as the the US Executive Branch will turns into the equivilant of a Reality Show.

I can see it now ” Tune in this week, As Cindy gives us decorating tips with Dale Chihuly blowing Anheuser Busch bottles into $20,000 door prizes for your next fundraiser, and Sarah, gives us a tour of the new rabbit hutches at Number One Observatory Circle and we”ll accompany John to his anger management class where he tries to pick up the counselor.”

John McCain…do something really maverickesque and suspend your campaign permanently.

McCain’s problem is not that he doesn’t understand, it is that he picked the wrong party this time around. After straddling the fence for years , Mr “Not Congeniality” finally had to take one side of the dodge ball court. He would have had a better chance of forming the “hermaphrodite” party and picking Joe Lieberman.

Bush and the Neocons have bankrupt our economy, constitution, world stature and too many parts of the American way of life. (quick… what is the fear, I mean, security threat color level today?) Bin Laden GOT what he wanted when the US pulled out of Saudi Arabia. (one week before “Mission Accomplished”)

James A Baker (appointed to re-structure Iraq debt by the president of Iraq….George Bush) was first in line to DEFEND the Saudis against lawsuits for the 9/11 attacks. The Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) was NEVER about Saddam as a threat, or WMD but controlling (slowing!) the flow of oil to keep the Texas Mafia in the money. ( windfall profits $300+ Billion for the US Oil Companies in the first three years after OIL.) Saddam was pissing them off by turning off and on the oil spigot and they couldn’t keep the price where they wanted. (Wake up, there is lots of oil but they have to keep YOU believing that there is a shortage so you swallow the $3.XX /gal)

The connections between the Bush/Cheney/Baker/Rummy crew and the real home of America haters, the Saudis, are criminal. McCain was not their poster boy, to be sure, but he fell in line during the campaign. ( He said on Meet the Press,” I agree with GW”, big mistake for an eventual “change” campaign)

You have to enjoy the irony of the Welfare Daddies now on Wall Street. You KNOW the fox has been watching the hen house when it has melted down to the point that many conservative voices are calling for Nationalization of our banks. When you have to write into law (Google: Phil Gramm CFMA 2000 ) that Credit Default Swaps are “not subject to any local or state gambling laws,” that should be a red flag. ( “stop whining,” they were trying to put your Social Security on the Roulette Table.)

But fortunately, the genius W. has enlightened us that “it turns out that these economic factors are interrelated” and ” its a house of cards” . Thanks Capt. Obvious. (I would love to see a survey of how many Americans think the Federal Reserve is a branch of the govt. vs. a private corp.)

The people who are still spewing the hate against Obama, I need to ask how this “dangerous sleeper cell” got into the U.S. Senate! Where were you to “save” us before he got access to all of capitol hill…? If you knew all this important information, I think it was very unpatriotic of you to keep it secret until now. What ? oh… you just made it up as he got closer to the White House. And why is McCain holding out on how to get Bin Laden, (“I know how to get him”). Is that “Country First”. When you withhold information about the Security of the USA….I think there is a word in the law books for that.

I’ve read both OBama’s and McCain’s books and it is obvious to me that ONE worked his way up, like many of YOUR forefathers (“that one”) and ONE rode both Admiral’s coattails along for the party. (How many Presidential Nominees have strippers mentioned as part of their intro at the national convention?) How many pilots in the military crash three or is it four jets and still get reinstated? Only when the base you’re landing at is named after your Granddaddy.

I do not think Obama is the messiah or anything close, I also am not stupid enough to think the decline of the US in the world can or will be reversed. But it is obvious that John McCain, when he gets under pressure starts to act mean and erratic.

He has moved too far in line with the Bush/Cheney admin. and he has no where to go to find votes except to send his Barracuda into the hills with her winking fear message. Hey, even these people have seen the price of shotgun shells double since they “elected” W. last time. I’ve even heard that some of them think the (R) stands for Recession, probably just a MSM rumor. American’s are in their own economic “shock and awe” and that fear mongering message is being drowned out by the bill collectors ringing. Palin’s foreign policy “experience”, watching Putin fly over the Matanuska Valley, is the joke of the free world. But I have to admit, although she only just got a passport, she does have the distinct advantage of speaking in tongues, which should come in handy with any “End Times” world leaders she may encounter. Take that Rosetta Stone.

It is also interesting to see Cindy McCain hit Obama with “walk in my shoes” rhetoric, but I would bet Obama would not know what to do with a $3500 pair of Manolo Blahnik’s and I’m sure the chill that went through her was a Percocet post- addiction flashback.

It’s over…Obama will win… unless Diebold can fire up their executable files one more time and guarantee Mccain a win. If they do, The USA will dive like a Hanoi civilian bombing raid. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be curious to see that train wreck…I ADMIT that is why I watch NASCAR. With all the cameras and surveillance Cheney has installed in the White House before his departure, I’m sure a full scale Reality Show would be a cinch. Imagine a Reality show about the McCain /Palin Executive Branch…too bad “Big Brother” has already been taken for a title.

I can see it now ” Tune in this week, As Cindy gives us decorating tips with Dale Chihuly blowing Anheuser Busch bottles into $20,000 door prizes for your next fundraiser, and Sarah, gives us a tour of the new Queen Anne style rabbit hutches at Number One Observatory Circle AND we”ll accompany Pres John to his anger management class where he tries to pick up the counselor, but gets shot down again.

OK, that was just for me…

When I was young, my dad told me one thing about politics… It is a pendulum that will swing back after it has been pushed too far one direction. That sound you hear is the pendulum at warp speed.

If you really want to make history John McCain…do something really maverickesque and suspend your campaign permanently.

Much to learn…I still have…

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXII

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Our challenge to come up with an exhaustive list of reasons not to support Sarah Palin, seems to have drawn the notice of a mixed-ideology crowd over here. A couple of the most vociferous among the angry-left over there would appear to think they’ve met and surpassed the challenge…something to do with Palin being a bumpkin.

And I got chided a few times for not backing up my assertions with facts. And, by the way, I’m stoooooopid…and Palin’s a bumpkin (and the Rothschilds own her).

Just thought I’d help ’em get the word out. This kind of clear-headed thinking needs all the publicity it can get, in these unenlightened times, ya know.

“Conservatives consider liberals well-intentioned, but misguided. Liberals consider conservatives not only wrong, but really, really bad people.” — Larry Elder

D’JEver Notice? XI

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Have you ever noticed how many years it’s been since George Hamilton started looking like he’s about fifty? A long time ago. Long time. Gas was less than a buck a gallon. He still looks fifty. Is that guy going to do some aging someday, or what?

Ernest Borgnine and Abe Vigoda have looked like they’re about seventy for quite awhile too. Vigoda looks seventy now…when he made Godfather, he looked seventy. Borgnine looked kinda crusty clear back when he made Bad Day at Black Rock.

First time I saw I had gray hairs, I was twenty-one. There was a lot of ’em, too. Now I’m twice the age I was back then, and believe me, every single week I’ve seen come-n-go, has left a mark. Every single one. It’s gushing outta my ears and nose, now…that’s the complaint most guys have after they’re 65 or so.

There is no justice.

To yer health, guys.

Insane Rage

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Don’t miss Michelle Malkin’s roundup. It’s got more examples than you think.

H/T: Jammie Wearing Fool, via Cas.

BQIHORL

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Dozens and dozens of times now, this blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, has been handing out awards for the Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL). We started calling it that when we realized it was senseless to hand out awards for “This Year’s Best Sentence” or “This Week’s Best Sentence.” That’s the nature of wonderful sentences; you can go eons without hearing anything worth repeating, and then wham bam, twice in a single day you’ll get some real gems. We wanted to be prepared. So we made the time increment entirely arbitrary. And, of course, sometimes you hear these things, sometimes you read ’em. Heard Or Read covers all that.

This has worked out great. Until now. Blogger friend Phil has come up with what is, undoubtedly, the Best Question I’ve Heard Or Read Lately. I mean, there’s lotsa questions that are good; this one’s a humdinger.

It’s got to do with the Bradley Effect. Go on, read up if you need to.

Here we go…

Question about the so-called “Bradley Effect”

Has anybody asked if the so-called “Bradley Effect” might not be so much to do with whites not wanting to appear biased toward the white candidate, but to blacks not wanting to admit that they’re voting for the white guy?

I mean, I can’t see too many whites giving two whits about the skin tone of someone I voted for. But it appears to me that if you’re black and you’re not voting for the black candidate … you’re some sort of sell-out, Uncle Tom, traitor to your race.

Just askin’. I always hear it portrayed as a phenomenon having to do with whites. Has the flip side of that question even been asked?

I suppose it doesn’t very much matter. If you have a Bradley Effect, you can measure it in terms of a number of percentage points, go forward the next election cycle, and extrapolate that many percentage points to recalibrate what’s going to happen against your polling data. That would work, except for — one candidate or the other is a bigger jackass than either of the candidates four years previous…or the region is different (one in the deep south, one not, for example). My point is, the reason would be irrelevant — which demographic is most heavily affected, would be irrelevant.

But Phil’s point is well-taken. Conventional wisdom, as summed-up in the Wikipedia article, is that “some white voters give inaccurate polling responses for fear that, by stating their true preference, they will open themselves to criticism of racial motivation.” Conventional wisdom, therefore, is going out of its way to make white voters look like dickholes. Phil’s theory relies on the premise that the social stigma involved in shunning a candidate of color is at least as odious within the black community, as it is in the white community. And, to us, this just seems obvious. We think Phil’s on to something. For whatever it’s worth.

How could it become relevant? Well, some regions of this great country have more or less of a ratio of African-American voters than others. As a whole, the last census indicates the population to be 36 million out of 301, or just under 12%.

Barack Obama is currently leading John McCain by 7.3 percentage points. Some polls have him ahead by six. Some less than that.

This is a problem for The Chosen One.

Dont’ look at me. I’m white; I’m voting against The Messiah, not because of the color of his skin, but because I want more terrorists killed. That’s the way I’m voting and that’s exactly what I’m telling the pollsters, so there’s no Bradley Effect going on here…but I live in California, which Obama’s going to win by a double-digit margin anyway.

We Should Fire Every democrat Right Now

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

There are several reasons why, already. This one is just icing on the cake, but all by itself it would be sufficient cause: They are not held to standards. Of any kind. Ethical, character, effectiveness, purity of motive…”truthiness”…sanity.

Seriously. Republicans are bludgeoned into stepping down because of teaspons of scandal, while democrats regularly imbibe gallons and barrels of the same stuff and manage to limp onward. It’s become such a regular event nobody bats an eyelash over it anymore.

The latest factor is that last one in my list, the sanity. The lack thereof. The becoming “unhinged.” Things are expected of conservatives that are not being expected of our liberals — but what else is news?

Leftist hypocrisy and the championing of same by the media

Glenn Reynolds, with brevity and brilliance:

So we’ve had nearly 8 years of lefty assassination fantasies about George W. Bush, and Bill Ayers’ bombing campaign is explained away as a consequence of him having just felt so strongly about social justice, but a few people yell things at McCain rallies and suddenly it’s a sign that anger is out of control in American politics? It’s nice of McCain to try to tamp that down, and James Taranto sounds a proper cautionary note — but, please, can we also note the staggering level of hypocrisy here? (And that’s before we get to the Obama campaign’s thuggish tactics aimed at silencing critics.)

The Angry Left has gotten away with all sorts of beyond-the-pale behavior throughout the Bush Administration. The double standards involved — particularly on the part of the press — are what are feeding this anger. (Indeed, as Ann Althouse and John Leo have noted, the reporting on this very issue is dubious). So while asking for McCain supporters to chill a bit, can we also ask the press to start doing its job rather than openly shilling for a Democratic victory? Self-control is for everybody, if it’s for anybody…

Blogger pal Rick goes on to observe, with linky goodness…

I continue to see the ignoring of Barack Obama’s past associations while those same people unashamedly focus on Sarah Palin’s.
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It’s enough to set anyone’s teeth on edge and yet, no matter how upset or angry I might get, you’ll not see me wishing for the kinds of things the left have wished on Bush and Cheney now for the better part of 8 years.

Conservatives are simply tethered to a shorter leash. Liberals want it that way, so we give ’em what they want and then call it balanced thinking.

You know how we get here? The ripcord that puts all this machinery in motion, is an elite group claiming an exclusive privilege to whine. The feminists got it going first. Thirty years ago, they “backlashed” against any mens’-rights advocate by broadbrushing any objections to the radical feminist movement, as “whining.” They asked men to be intimidated by accusations of whining…men, not wanting to be accused of whining, complied. Now it’s three decades later. The feminist movement fails sometimes, succeeds at other times, but throughout it all nobody who possesses a high profile or a reputation worth defending, will ever call them out on their crap.

And so — if you’re getting divorced and you’re a dude, you can lose custody of your kids just for…nothing. Heck, you should want to lose custody of your kids because “kids are better off with the mother.” But if you’re a chick, you have to be engaging in some pretty hard drugs to lose custody of your kids. It’s about the most uneven playing field our society has, and it’s still going strong. Shows no signs of leveling out…not soon…not in my lifetime…not ever.

Who can blame liberal democrats for wanting to try the same thing?

And so conservative Republicans, if they dare utter a peep of protest about how things are getting covered in the media, are “whining.” Therefore any double standard that comes down the pike is allowed to stand. Oh sure, it’s criticized here-and-there in the “blogosphere” but by and large, the double standard survives unscathed. And so, a conservative Republican politician cheating on his wife is a scandal, potentially a career-ending one. Probably a career-ending one. Liberal democrats can cheat all they want…they get a scandal, maybe…they act like they’re suffering…but at the end of it their approval numbers go up.

The same goes for being unhinged. Some group comes out with a death threat, and suddenly we have to wring our hands together and indulge in platitudinous bullshit about “well, we don’t know for sure that’s connected with the Obama campaign…” Do we behave the same when someone, somewhere, says something “beyond the pale” about a democrat candidate? No, we don’t. Republicans have to apologize for everything, everywhere, all the time. It’s all connected together by implication.

My favorite example: George W. Bush’s campaign, and specifically Karl Rove, was behind this rumor that John McCain conceived a black child out of wedlock. So far as I’ve come to be aware, nobody knows about that. One way or t’other. In 2008, that is being reported as a fact, that the Bush campaign was behind it.

Somebody does something ugly to advance the liberal-democrat cause, and all of a sudden nothing is connected to anything else.

They are standard-less. They are no-accounts. What may be even worse is, they are no-accounts because that is what they want to be. What may be even worse than that is…they want to be unaccountable, because they want to win. And they say so little about what it is they want to do after they win.

We should just fire every single one right now, just for being one. In a country that prides itself on holding powerful public officials up to high standards — that was founded on the principle that it should do this, always, all the time, unrelentingly — they simply have no place here.

Thing I Know #237. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between being held accountable to a higher standard, which is an act of love, and being staked to the ground by a shorter leash, which is an act of hate. There aren’t too many ways to distinguish these things. I do know of one: Love is reserved for individuals. A class can’t be loved.