Yet Another Stupid Idea

I used to think we lived in the capitalist U.S. of A. Now every time I pick up the newspaper I read of another attempt to get the government to intervene in the economy. The most recent involves increasing the limit on deposit insurance coverage by the FDIC:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama both pressed for a deal from the campaign trail, announcing separately their backing for an increase in the U.S. federal deposit insurance limit to $250,000 from $100,000 -- a plan that some House Republicans had pushed earlier. The candidates hope such a move would reassure nervous Americans. U.S. House Financial Service Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) told committee members the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. intends to seek such an increase.

This change will have two effects:

(1) Those people who keep between more than $100,000 but less than $250,000 in one bank will no longer have any incentive to monitor their bank nor criticize bank management if they do something stupid.

(2) This will increase the liability of the taxpayers, if any more banks fail and have to be bailed out by the FDIC.

I have had it with people who hold high positions in government, and some of those who work in finance, who feel that they hold title to the wallets of the taxpayers.

I would like for all of the following people to leave their government positions immediately:

George W. Bush

John McCain

Barack Obama

Nancy Pelosi

Harry Reid

Henry Paulson

Ben Bernanke

Sheila Blair

Barney Frank

Charles Schumer

Joe Biden

And many more....

1,150 Illegal Aliens Arrested

Here's some good news:

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - Federal immigration authorities say more than 1,150 people have been arrested in a special three-week sweep in California.
The sweep targeted those who ignored deportation orders or returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Monday that more than 400 of those arrested were from Los Angeles and several Southern California counties.
ICE teams from San Francisco and San Diego also participated in the sweep, which concluded Saturday.

1,150 down. 12,000,000 to go.

Will Failure to Bailout Wall Street Cause a Stock Market Crash?

According to the UK Telegraph, here's what some US Treasury officials are saying:

The US stock market could suffer a devastating crash with shares losing a third of their value this week if Hank Paulson’s financial bailout plan fails, US Treasury officials have warned.

The financial system could face a meltdown of 1929 proportions unless US politicians succeed in their efforts for a $700bn rescue scheme, experts added.
The warning came as Republicans and Democrats met in Washington for a rare weekend debating session to attempt to seal agreement on the contentious plan, aimed at preventing a long-lasting recession in the US.
Officials close to Paulson are privately painting a far bleaker portrait of the fragility of the global economy than that advanced by President George W Bush in his televised address last week.
One Republican said that the message from government officials is that “the economy is dropping into the john.” He added: “We could see falls of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow [the New York market that currently trades at around 11,000]. That could happen in just a couple of days.
“What’s being put around behind the scenes is that we’re looking at 1930s stuff. We’re looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe. Everybody is extraordinarily scared. It’s going to be really, really nasty.”

Predicting the future course of stock prices is difficult. If it were easy we would all be millionaires. But I don't see any evidence that people who invest and trade in stocks believe that a major decline in prices is imminent nor even likely.

The US S&P 500 closed at 1213.01 on Friday, September 26. It has been in the same price range for the last four months:

June 30, 2008 1280.00
July 31, 2008 1267.38
August 31, 2008 1282.83

The current Congress has shown a remarkable inability to pass any legislation of any type. If stock traders felt that there was a strong probability that the proposed bailout will not happen, resulting in a crash, they would have already bid down the prices of stocks by a significant amount.

Actions speak louder than words.

Bailing Out the Billionaires

This article at Bloomberg will give you an idea of what kind of money the wall streeters have been earning in recent years. And now they expect us mere mortals to bail them out:

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system.
Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James ``Jimmy'' Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress are demanding that limits be placed on executive pay as part of the $700 billion financial rescue plan proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO, who received about $111 million between 2003 and 2006, said in testimony to Congress on Sept. 24 that he would accept such limits as part of the plan, after initially opposing them.

And its not just the top executives that are on the gravy train:

Wall Street firms have shared profits liberally with employees. The five biggest -- Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns -- paid their 185,687 employees $66 billion in 2007, as problems with subprime mortgages mounted, including about $39 billion in bonuses. That amounts to average pay of $353,089 per employee, including an average bonus of $211,849. The five firms had combined net income of $93 billion during the five years through 2007.

I have no problem with anyone who earns a fortune. So long as they do it fair and square, and don't rely on government coercion. But if they foul up they should eat their losses. Its ridiculous for those of us who have much lower incomes to be forced by the government to bail out the silk stocking crowd.

Yow!

Andrew Sullivan supposedly put this video of Sarah up on youtube, probably to try to discredit her. I see no problem here!

I guess because Sullivan is gay, he would prefer to see some guy strutting across the stage in swimsuit and high heels.

Hat tip to Powerline,.

If con is the opposite of pro, then the opposite of progress is?

First Lady of France

Every woman should look so good.

Gorelick Got a Sweetheart Deal From Countrywide


Wherever there is a problem, be it the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the financial industry meltdown, or the Duke rape hoax case, you can count on Jamie Gorelick to be involved in it. Now we learn that she got a mortgage loan on very favorable terms from Countrywide, one of the biggest culprits in the current mortgage meltdown

Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, made large, previously undisclosed home loans to two additional executives of Fannie Mae, the government-chartered firm at the center of the U.S. credit crisis.
One of Countrywide's previously undisclosed customers at Fannie was Jamie Gorelick, an influential Democratic Party figure whose $960,000 mortgage refinancing in 2003 was handled through a program reserved for influential figures and friends of Countrywide's chief executive at the time, Angelo Mozilo. Ms. Gorelick was Fannie Mae's vice chairman at the time.

Note the Clintonesque reply when she is asked about the matter:

In an interview, Ms. Gorelick said she had no knowledge of receiving special treatment. A financial adviser to Mr. Mudd said he received interest rates in line with the prevailing market.
The Fannie loans -- including a series of already reported preferential loans to former Fannie chief executives James Johnson and Franklin Raines -- underscore the close connections between Countrywide and Fannie Mae and raise potential conflict-of-interest issues.
Countrywide loans on preferential terms to influential figures are the subject of a federal grand jury investigation in Los Angeles, according to people involved in the inquiry. Prosecutors subpoenaed records of many of the so-called "Friends of Angelo" loans in August, lawyers and others familiar with the matter said.

Jamie learned the fine art of BS from two experts: her mentors Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"I do not believe there was any special treatment given," said Ms. Gorelick. A former Countrywide employee, Robert Feinberg, said that Ms. Gorelick's business was handled through the firm's VIP lending department in California, and the staff there was aware of her position as a senior Fannie executive.
"I know 100% she went through the VIP department," Mr Feinberg said, adding that VIP clients such as Ms. Gorelick typically received a one percentage point reduction in their interest rate.
Real estate records show that Ms. Gorelick received nearly the same interest rate that Countrywide provided to then-Fannie chief Franklin Raines, who received a similar loan about 40 days before Ms. Gorelick in the spring of 2003.

When congress finally gets around to appointing a commission to investigate the mortgage mess, will they put Jamie on it? Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

A Few Modest Proposals

(1) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be barred from spending any money on lobbying or on campaign contributions

(2) The salaries of all employees of Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac should be adjusted to federal civil service guidelines

(3) Likewise, the salaries of the employees of any financial institution that must be bailed out by the taxpayers should be adjusted to civil service guidelines

(4) Former officials of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac such as Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick should be required to forfeit all compensation they earned.

(5) All financial institutions undergoing federal bailout and their employees should be barred from making any contributions to politicians

I'll bet that over a hundred different artists have recorded this song. But this woman does the best by far. I'm sure my readers have a good idea of what I think of Joan's politics. But I just don't concern myself with the political rants of artists. Joan can go ahead and say she thinks that Sarah Palin is a lizard for all I care. I'm not listening to anything but her music.

Here's a neat site that tells all about the song.

Poem of the Week: Dante's Inferno

«S'i' credesse che mia risposta fosse

a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

questa fiamma staria sanza più scosse;

ma però che già mai di questo fondo

non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,

sanza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Canto XXVII: 61 - 66

Obama's Advisor on Mortgage and Housing Policy Matters

If you vote for Obama, here's who will be advising him on mortgage and housing policy. Franklin Raines, the Clinton Administration crook who looted Fannie Mae to the tune of $90 million and presided over disastrous policies that caused bubbles in the housing market and massive mortgage loan defaults. Here's what the WaPo had to say about him back in July:

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae's chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.

Yet another reason not to vote for Obama.

Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.

A Stupid Idea... From a Stupid Man

Anyone can make a mistake. It's a quite natural part of being human. But it stands to reason that once you make a mistake, you stop doing it. It takes a real idiot to keep doing whatever you were doing wrong.

That is why Paulson's plan to 'rescue' the financial system is a bad idea.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans Friday to quickly set up a "bold" government program to take over troubled mortgage assets from financial institutions, along with other efforts to step up the purchase of mortgage-backed securities. "The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy," Mr. Paulson said in prepared remarks for a press conference.

More immediately, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which were taken over by the government earlier this month -- will increase their purchases of mortgage-backed debt, he said. To facilitate that effort, Treasury will also expand the MBS purchase program it announced earlier this month.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the ultimate source of the problem. By providing a ready market for mortgage loans that were made to people who could not afford them, and secured by houses that were overpriced in the housing bubble, Fan and Fred created this problem. Washington players like Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick made fortunes while overseeing this mismanagement.

So why the hell are you expanding the activities of Fan and Fred in the mortgage market? We need to get both of those companies out of there.

Mr. Paulson, why don't you try giving some consideration to those of us who did NOT purchase more house than we could afford? Those of us who did not take out mortgage loans that we had no hope of repaying.

And what about those of us who do NOT work for Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley?

Hillary Afraid of Sarah...Cancels Joint Appearance at UN Protest

Whatsamatter, PIAPS? Why don't you want to appear with Sarah?

Hillary Rodham Clinton canceled a planned protest appearance outside the United Nations on Monday after learning that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin would also be there. "This was never billed to us as a partisan political event," Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines told the Associated Press.

Of course, we know that Hillary would never get involved in any partisan political event. I wonder if Hillary was afraid that Sarah might mistake her for a moose?

CBS News Investigates

Here is a list of the headlines concerning the President/VP candidates on CBS News Investigates:

KTVA: Reaction to New Troopergate Evidence

Palin Shuns Reporters

Palin Troopergate

NYT: Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

Rumor Watch: Governor Sarah Palin

KTVA: McCain camp "stonewalling" Troopergate

Palin: Government Can Fix Social Ills

McCain camp "stonewalling" "troopergate" (again)

Primary Source: Life in Wasilla

The Sarah Palin Phenomenon is Doomed

State Probing Palin's Troopergate

Palin Puts Spotlight on Alaska

Reality Check: Sarah Palin's Claims

CBS Evening News: How the Alaska Governor Really Stacks Up on Earmarks

Sarah Palin's Political Past

Photos: John McCain

Sarah Palin Swimsuit

Washington Post: Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms

FBI Probes Possible Obama Death Threat

KTVA Anchorage: McCain camp "stomewalling" "Troopergate" (third time)

Score:

Sarah Palin 17

John McCain 4

Barack Obama 2

Joe Biden 0

ABC News Blotter

Here is a list of the headlines on ABC News Blotter that concern the upcoming presidential election:

Suit Filed to Stop Palin Troopergate Probe

Fired Official: Governnor Palin Did Not Tell The Truth to ABC

Palin Backstab? Commissioner Praised Then Fired

FIRED OFFICIAL: Governor Palin Did Not Tell The Truth to ABC (again)

Critics Question Palin's Record on "Epidemic" Rape, Domestic Violence in Alaska

"Troopergate" Inquiry Reaches Palin Husband

Palin Backstab? Commissioner Praised Then Fired (again)

PALIN'S RECORD ON PORK: Less Sizzle Than Reported

LIBRARY SNAFU: Did Sarah Palin Try to Ban Books?

McCain Alaska Ally Criticizes Palin Probe

Investigation into Palin Now On Fast Track

Fired Alaskan Official Says Palin Hasn't Been Truthful (third time)

Palin Aide Ducks State Probe

Tanning Bed to Troopergate: Palin Aides Kept Scrambling

NEWSWEEK: A McCain Lawyer Scrambles to Block a Palin Ethics Inquiry

AP: McCain Campaign Releases "Troopergate" Emails

SALON: The Pastor Who Clashed With Palin

Should Biden Share Blame for Foreclosure Crisis?

Palin Could Be Deposed in State Probe

On the "Troopergate" Inquiry Reaching Palin's Husband (again)

"I Would Not Trust Palin to Empty the Kitty Litter Box. I think she is getting a little giddy about the fact that she might be able to start WWIII with Russia and bring about the 'End of Days' and thus creating the biblical environment for the second coming of Christ..."

'October Surprise' Over Palin Investigation?

WATCH: Hillary Clinton on Economy, Palin

Score:

Sarah Palin 21

John McCain 3

Joe Biden 1

Barack Obama 0

(Hat tip to Drudge)

Are Democrats Afraid They're Gonna Lose?

They certainly are not acting very confident. Their attacks on Sarah range from comical to hysterical to ridiculous. Caroline Baum has a good idea of why they act so scared:

No, the real reason the Democrats are scared to death of Palin's popularity is because if they lose this election, it will mean they are bankrupt as a party.
If the Democrats can't win a presidential election after eight years of an unpopular president, five years of an unpopular war, in the face of a lousy economy, a collapse in the housing market and overwhelming sentiment that the country is on the wrong track, it means something is terribly wrong.
This is as good as it gets for a party out of power. A loss in November would be embarrassing -- no, humiliating -- to the Democrats.
If they lose in '08, they will have no one to blame but themselves. Sarah Palin has raised the odds of a Democratic loss. That's why she has to be destroyed.

In a democracy, those who govern derive their power from the consent of the governed. The Democrats have won only three of the last ten presidential elections because the policies they advocate are unpopular, especially with white voters. Probably the most unpopular of all are the racist, so-called "affirmative action" programs that give preference to a member of a minority group over a white. Many whites, myself included, have experienced the unpleasant effects of racial discrimination.

It is likely that both Barack and Michelle Obama were given racial preference when they were admitted to the elite universities they attended. These policies were supposedly put into practice in order to correct past injustices. But the vast majority of the people who are being punished had nothing whatsoever to do with the injustices. And the influx of blacks and hispanics from foreign countries into the USA shows that this is not such a bad place for them at all.

So long as the Democrats continue to advocate racist policies, they will continue to lose elections.

Should Women Be in Power?

The answer is yes, provided they are qualified and have the right ideas. A woman like Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi would take the country in the wrong direction and cause more harm than good to the women's movement.

I recall during the reign of the Clinton administration, whenever anyone criticized Hillary for her ridiculous attempt at nationalizing the health care system, or whenever anyone criticized her for her numerous ethical lapses (Whitewater, Castle Grande, cattle futures trading, Travelgate, selling pardons, etc, etc), some pundit on the left would attack the criticizer and claim that they were "afraid of seeing a woman in power" or something to that effect.

So where are the pundits now that Sarah Palin is being savaged? The answer is that they could care less about Hillary's or Sarah's gender. The left were engaging in gender baiting in order to pursue their political agenda. Peter Brown has some interesting thoughts on the subject:

This election will go a long way toward settling the question of whether groups that purport to speak for American women really do, or merely represent a narrow band of those who tend to be politically active, upper-middle-class and left-leaning.
It is worth remembering that Hillary Clinton got about 10 million votes from women in the Democratic primaries, but expectations are that roughly 62 million women will vote this November. Most of those 52 million are among the majority of American women who shy away from calling themselves feminists because they see it as having a negative connotation, and most of those who didn’t vote in the primaries tend to be more moderate and less interested in politics.
The fact that Gov. Palin doesn’t come from Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco; that she didn’t go to an Ivy League school; that her husband works with his hands; and that she has family problems to which many of these 52 million can relate on a nonpolitical plane makes her attractive to them.
Much more so than Sen. Hillary Clinton or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who are now the country’s highest-profile women politicians. Their views, values and way of life could not be more different from those of Gov. Palin.
If Gov. Palin becomes Vice President Palin, the clearly political National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood, as well as a host of other officially nonpolitical but left-leaning women’s groups, have a problem.
How could such groups and their political allies claim to speak for American women when the country’s highest-profile female politician represents everything they don’t?

Sarah didn't go to Wellesley and Yale like Hillary, she went to the University of Idaho. She and women like her don't call themselves feminists because feminism is primarily a philosophy that demonizes men and advocates legalized discrimination against them.

The nomination of Sarah Palin for VP has been met with enthusiasm among Republicans, Independents, and even some Democrats. She is even more popular among men than women. This has exposed the left's ridiculous charges of sexism to be nothing more than cheap gender-baiting.

Our Leftist Media

I recall when I was a student at the University of Texas, I sometimes dated a young woman who was one of the producers of the evening news of one of the local network stations. This was some time in 1982 or 1983, when Reagan was president and the left were calling for his head. They were blaming the 1980-82 recession on him and were also accusing him of being hostile towards the Soviet Union. Many of them ominously predicted that he would plunge us into a nuclear holocaust.

I was a staunch supporter of Reagan, through thick and thin. At the time, he was one of the few politicians who openly proclaimed that socialism and communism are sheer lunacy. He stood up to the Soviets and did not try to appease them. He supported limited government at home.

I had a "Reagan '84" bumper sticker on my car. That was quite a bold statement at a leftwing university like the University of Texas in a leftwing town like Austin.

The first night this woman and I went out, we were were walking out to my car and she saw my "Reagan '84" bumper sticker. She almost had a conniption when she saw that. She loudly exclaimed that she couldn't stand Reagan nor anything he did. I decided not to debate politics that night. We had a pleasant evening after all and many more after that, but she never quite got over my bumper sticker!

That was my first direct experience with the leftwing ideology of the news media. We have seen most recently how the leftist media have become nothing more than shills for the Democrats. Read what Tod Lindberg has to say about the differential treatment between Republicans and Democrats

Remember reading the discussions of Vice President Al Gore's parenting skills in all the papers the day after his teenage son got busted for dope at high school? No? That would be because Gore called around to all the papers (including the Washington Times, where I was editorial page editor at the time) and asked us not to publish it, kids being kids and being owed some privacy. The newspapers didn't. That was then: Given a preposterous Internet rumor that Sarah Palin was never pregnant with her four-month-old baby but faked it to cover up for her daughter, Bristol was fair game. This was a judgment shared among Democrats and, coincidentally, the media (the same ones who were also all over the John Edwards love-child story, remember?).

Those clowns in the media have hit a new low. With few exceptions, most of them are nothing more than political hacks. And amateur ones at that.

Hurricane Hammers Houston

Anyone care to guess how long it will take the lefties to blame it on Bush? Or perhaps now they will blame it on Sarah. If you believed the articles written by people who call themselves 'journalists' nowadays, you would think she is the antichrist.

So what caused Ike to hit Houston so hard, lefties? Was it Sarah's proposal to drill in ANWR? Or was it because she failed to abort her baby son with Down syndrome?

Oklahoma's OK

If only the rest of the country felt this way:

John McCain is holding a two-to-one lead over Barack Obama in the Republican stronghold state of Oklahoma, according to the first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters there this election year.
McCain has 63% of the vote versus Obama’s 32%.
Not only does the GOP presidential nominee have the backing of 95% of Republicans, but 41% of Oklahoma Democrats support him, too. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Democrats favor Obama. Unaffiliated voters are nearly evenly divided over the two candidates.

Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May Says 'Canadians are Stupid'

h/t to Kate

Global Warming Justifies Breaking the Law

Up until now, the global warming hoax was largely a harmless lunacy. Reminiscent of the Flat Earth society or those who believe that the Apollo moon landings were staged. But now, some greenpeace terrorists have used the hoax as a justification for vandalizing a coal-fired electric power plant in England:

The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.
The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.

And on what authority did the defendants justify the damage? None other than the moonbat-in-chief, James Hansen:

During the eight-day trial, the world's leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to "take a leadership role" in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.
Professor Hansen, who first alerted the world to the global warming threat in June 1988 with testimony to a US senate committee in Washington, and who last year said the earth was in "imminent peril" from the warming atmosphere, asserted that emissions of CO2 from Kings-north would damage property through the effects of the climate change they would help to cause.
He was one of several leading public figures who gave evidence for the defence, including Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park and director of the Ecologist magazine, who similarly told the jury that in his opinion, direct action could be justified in the minds of many people if it was intended to prevent larger crimes being committed.

So why not allow those climate scientists who have not fallen for the hoax to give testimony for the prosecution? How about Viscount Monckton?

I hope we don't end up like this here in the USA.

Heather's pic was giving me the creeps. I had to put something easier on the eyes up on the blog.

Heather Mallick: Socialist Moonbat of the Week

With all the anti-Palin hysteria spewing from the left recently, there have been many strong candidates for Jungle Jim's coveted award of Socialist of the Week. But Heather Mallick, writing in the CBC's website, went to such effort that she deserves to not only win, but win an enhanced title of Socialist Moonbat of the Week.

There is such a wealth of riches in Heather's essay, that I don't know where to begin:

I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.
So why do it?
It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. They're unfamiliar with our true natures. Do they think vaginas call out to each other in the jungle night? I mean, I know men have their secret meetings at which they pledge to do manly things, like being irresponsible with their semen and postponing household repairs with glue and used matches. Guys will be guys, obviously.

Where to begin? For one thing, Republicans have more babies than Democrats. Leading me to conclude that if anyone is sexually inadequate, it is the Democrat men.

All my life I have heard the mantra of how the Republicans favor the rich and Democrats favor the poor and middle class. But now we hear derisively that Republicans have the 'white trash vote' sewn up.

I won't quote the entire essay. You can read it for yourself if you have a strong enough stomach. But she does return to the issue of people with lower incomes:

The conventioneers are nothing like the rich men who run the party, and that's the mystery of the hick vote. They'd be much better served by the Democrats. I know Thomas Frank answered this in What's the Matter with Kansas?; I know that red states vote Republican on social issues to give themselves the only self-esteem available to their broken, economically abused existence.

I want to know something, Heather. You have spoken quite derisively of poor people. You refer to them as 'hicks', 'economically abused', and 'white trash'. Yet you try to tell them that they would be better of by voting for people with political beliefs similar to yours. Do you really expect them to believe that you have their best interests at heart when you speak about them like that?

And are you really so surprised when these 'hicks' vote for Bush or McCain rather than Kerry or Obama?

Thomas Sowell Nails the Left ---- Again

I am trying to think of when I have ever disagreed with one word that Thomas Sowell has written. There must be something, but I have yet to read it. In his latest Op-Ed, Dr. Sowell gets to the essence of the problem of why the left are the left.. and why most working-class people aren't:

It is hardly surprising that young people prefer the political left. The only reason for rejecting the left's vision is that the real world in which we live is very different from the world that the left perceives today or envisions for tomorrow.
Most of us learn that from experience-- but experience is precisely what the young are lacking.
"Experience" is often just a fancy word for the mistakes that we belatedly realized we were making, only after the realities of the world made us pay a painful price for being wrong.
Those who are insulated from that pain-- whether by being born into affluence or wealth, or shielded by the welfare state, or insulated by tenure in academia or in the federal judiciary-- can remain in a state of perpetual immaturity.
Individuals can refuse to grow up, especially when surrounded in their work and in their social life by similarly situated and like-minded people.
Even people born into normal lives, but who have been able through talent or luck to escape into a world of celebrity and wealth, can likewise find themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose whether to grow up or not.
Those of us who can recall what it was like to be an adolescent must know that growing up can be a painful transition from the sheltered world of childhood.
No matter how much we may have wanted adult freedom, there was seldom the same enthusiasm for taking on the burdens of adult responsibilities and having to weigh painful trade-offs in a world that hemmed us in on all sides, long after we were liberated from parental restrictions.
Should we be surprised that the strongest supporters of the political left are found among the young, academics, limousine liberals with trust funds, media celebrities and federal judges?

Another homer, hit out of the park.

Another Argument Against Vegetarian Diets

The left, with their hatred of all things good, are often crowing about the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. They ignore the feact that many innocent children have been killed by incompetent parents who foolishly put them on meatless diets.

Now we have evidence that vegetarian diets are also unhealthy for adults. The lack of vitamin B12, which can only be obtained from milk, eggs, or meat, causes brain shrinkage:

A vitamin found in meat, fish and milk may help stave off memory loss in old age, a study has suggested.
Older people with lower than average vitamin B12 levels were more than six times more likely to experience brain shrinkage, researchers concluded.

It may be the case that the B12 deficiency is causing people to become stupid and demented and results in them making poor choices in life such as advocating vegetarian diets or voting for socialist politicians like Obama.

Professor David Smith, who directs the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing, said he now planned a trial of B vitamins in the elderly to see if taking them could slow brain shrinkage.
He said: "This study adds another dimension to our understanding of the effects of B vitamins on the brain - the rate of shrinkage of the brain as we age may be partly influenced by what we eat."
Shrinkage has been strongly linked with a higher risk of developing dementia at a later stage and Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said further research was needed.
"This study suggests that consuming more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk as part of a balanced diet might help protect the brain. Liver and shellfish are particularly rich sources of B12.
"Vitamin B12 deficiency is a common problem among elderly people in the UK and has been linked to declining memory and dementia."
Dr Susanne Sorensen, from the Alzheimer's Society said: "Shrinkage is usually associated with the development of dementia.

I shot some more dove on Sunday. I am marinading the breasts in red wine and will roast them for dinner tonight.

Instapunk Hits the Nail on the Head Again

When will the lamestream media jackasses of ABCCBSNBCCNN etc. realize just how far out of touch they are? Instapunk says of them

An ugly metaphor. The MSM is a bloated, rotten hog carcass that is about to burst open in the late summer heat and spill its maggot-riddled guts all over the nation.

Palin Accused of Causing Racial Animosity

Whenever the hatemongers of the left don't like what conservatives or libertarians are doing, yet they can't attack them directly, they accuse them of racism or of causing racial strife. Here's what Mary Mitchell has to say:

During her debut, Palin electrified the Republicans, but she also shook up every registered voter in the 'hood.
Besides mocking the historic breakthrough of Barack Obama emerging as the Democrats' nominee, Palin was relentless in her use of language that reinforces divisions among black and white voters -- particularly pitting small-town people against the rest of us.

Mary, your buddies in the Democrat party and their media lackeys are the ones who started the small-town versus big-town divide by saying that Palin was not qualified to be VP because she came from a small town. Where would you prefer she come from Mary? Some big town like... say Chicago?

And Palin never cut down people who live in big towns. She was merely responding to her critics.

And now this race-baiting jackass Mitchell has taken it a step further by implying that Palin is a racist simply because she defended people who come from small towns. As if there are no blacks who live in small towns.

So you can imagine what black viewers thought as they listened to Palin's acid sarcasm. Frankly, after watching her speak, it's easy to believe that she wouldn't hesitate to use her political power to punish her enemies.

Mary is projecting her thoughts into other people's heads, without bothering to ask any of them what they believe.

Then we get this tired old crap about Palin's brother-in-law, a charge that has been debunked many times:

Gov. Palin is under investigation in Alaska for allegedly trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job when he and her sister were going through an ugly divorce.

And then Mary betrays her own prejudice against people in small towns:

And for some of us, Palin reinforces every stereotype, rightly or wrongly, of what we think white people think in those small towns.

The smell of fear coming from the left is positively scary.

Sarah Palin Flamed by the Left for Hunting

I knew that we would hear from some animal-rights wacko about Sarah's hunting. Simon Barnes, writing the the Times onLine:

Sarah Palin is an obvious pseudonym. John McCain's Republican Party running-mate is clearly not a Sarah at all. It's Michael Palin in drag. There is more than a touch of Monty Python in the way that this pseudo-Palin has been launched upon the world - a fact neatly skewered in a letter published in these pages the other day. Margaret Leonard was taken with lines about Mrs Palin's “steadfast belief in the sanctity of life” and adds: “Given the pictures illustrating the piece, I find it extremely hard to believe this.” Palin was posing with the bloody corpses of animals that she had just shot.
Pure Python - a woman pouting at the camera surrounded by dead bears and neatly slotted moose, declaring that everything that lives is holy, and that she believes in the sanctity of life. The more you shoot, the more holy life gets. How can they fail to make her vice-president?

What was it that terrorist Ingrid Newkirk said, some thing like "A dog is a pig is a rat is a boy"? Thats how the founder of PETA feels and apparently so does Simon.

Killing is part of life, all right. I have seen the terrible drama of death in the wild world many times; lions killing slim and lovely antelopes called lechwe, leopards killing still lovelier impala, wild dogs tearing Bambi into pieces. The sight is undeniably thrilling, as well as being many other things. Life and death: questions don't get much more bigger, especially for the ones doing the dying.
But a carnivore that kills for food still represents an aspect of the sanctity of life - or at least, of the processes that make life work. Popping off a moose for fun seems to me a complete denial of these principles.

But of course, Simon doesn't mention the fact that predators in the wild also get a kick out of hunting. If he doesn't believe that animals enjoy hunting as much as humans, he should come watch my dogs hunt. You will never see a more joyous creature.

A Lefty's Worst Nightmare

Laughable

Jann Wenner, the Obama-supporting publisher of US Magazine was just interviewed on Fox. He was specifically asked what "Lies" are referred to in the title story of the above issue. His response was that they referred to the leftwing bloggers who lied about Sarah's daughter Bristol being the mother of the baby Trig.

Ha! The way the cover is worded, it makes it sound like Sarah was telling lies.

How Low Will They Go?

The latest we are hearing is the Democrats have stolen Sarah Palin's social security number and have released it to the public. They did the same to Michael Steele a few years ago.

Don't be surprised if these losers start making threats against Sarah's children.

Fred and Joe

I just got through watching Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman speak at the Republican convention.

Thompson was excellent and inspiring. He spoke eloquently of McCain's tribulations as a POW in Vietnam. He could have also mentioned how many of the Democrats were were actively favoring the brutal Ho Chi Minh regime, but he didn't.

Lieberman made a direct appeal to Democrats and independents to vote for McCain. I hope it works.

More on the Left's Hysterical Fear of Palin

Andrew Bolt has a good essay on Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS)

IF only Sarah Palin were just some famous guy's wife.
Then, as with Hillary Clinton, the women's groups and activists could love and pet her like a victim.
But the Governor of Alaska has torn up the script. Confounded the simpering stereotype.
Here is a caribou-hunting, moose-gutting, corruption-busting, oil-drilling, anti-abortion, beauty-pageant queen whose husband's greatest claim to fame is to win the world's most famous race for snow machines.
Her power is entirely her own. And it's the equal of any man's.
No wonder she's unleashed the fury of the castrated Left, which in fear has attacked her and her 17-year-old daughter with the vilest - and most misanthropic - smear campaign you'll have ever seen in politics.

How very true. The left believe that women should be shrill victims of the white capitalist patriarchy, and have their uterii scraped regularly. How Sarah could have five children, one with Down syndrome, is beyond their comprehension.

And there's one other advantage Palin has. Her critics, largely in the media, still underestimate her and, once again, underestimate her as a woman. How she's exposed the inner chauvinist of many of the Left, accustomed to thinking of female politicians as symbols, not individuals.

I can't wait to see Sarah debate blowhard Joe Biden.

Dove Opener a Gas

While all of you have been fretting over how many grandchildren Sarah Palin has, or wondering whether you will be able to swim the backstroke down Bourbon street, I have been up to more important pursuits: Hunting Doves!

We hunted a stock pond. Someone left a dead bull near there and it stunk abominably. We got there just at dawn and saw almost no birds until about 8:30 am. Then they started coming for a drink.

And they came.... and they came.... and they came...

We had one hell of a nice hunt. I got ten birds and my friend shot a limit. I brought Rocky with me to retrieve and he did good. Did several water retrieves and also blind retrieves on both land and water.

The only thing I didn't like about the hunt was my Browning 20 gauge semiauto. I gave it a thorough cleaning yesterday and it jammed after shooting less than one box of shells. Fortunately I also brought my Weatherby 12 gauge O/U and it performed admirably. I have had it with that Browning jamming on me. It has ruined several hunts by doing so, including two dove openers.