Happy Halloween, Bethie

Friends in low places

Famous anti-slut Christine O'Donnell gets help from an unexpected source:

The National Organization for Women on Thursday condemned the tabloid website Gawker for publishing an anonymous account of a man’s sexual encounter three years ago with Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell.

If there's a funny thing about this hit piece, it's that there was actually no sex*. If you really care to know why, read the piece, though I warn you that it's a crass story and highly unlikely on a couple of levels. I'm not going to bother with the details here; they are simply not important.

That said, good on NOW for coming to her aid. Given O'Donnell's unapologetic pro-life stance, it might have been tempting to let this one slide. And now that the Smoking Gun has figured out who Mr. Anonymous is, here's to hoping he gets all the recognition that he didn't crave. Sideways and without lube.

* at least by the Clinton standard.

That ain't no bobcat

Why, that ain't nothing but a lint-picking little weasel:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist would caucus with Senate Democrats if he wins Florida’s three-way U.S. Senate contest on Tuesday, a close advisor told Washington Wire Friday...

“Crist is going to caucus with the Democrats,” Mr. Morgan said. “I don’t think there’s any ifs, ands or buts about it. It would be, in a very tight year, almost like a Democratic pickup in a solid Republican state.”

Mr. Morgan says the question of whether Mr. Crist would side with Democrats had nothing to do with any purported deal under which Mr. Meek would quit the race.

Watching Crist implode has been a heck of a lot of fun. Crist is the quintessential Republican 'moderate,' a man whose "positions" exist only to gather enough votes to keep him in power.  He went into the GOP primary a heavy favorite*, and as soon as it turned out that he was going to lose the primary, he bolted and began a run as an independent**. He's pulling a solid second, still trailing Marco Rubio by double digits in a number of polls, but leading the Democrat, Kendrick Meeks.  Then began the desperation of this week, trying to get Meeks to drop out, first via Bill Clinton, and now by promising to be for all intents and purposes a Democrat***.

Not that it will work anyway, even if Meeks decided to roll over and play dead. Early voting has already started, and cast votes can't be changed. Meeks is already on the ballot, and that can't be changed.  Meeks is black, and that can't be changed - there is a not insignificant portion of the Democrat population who will vote for him on that score alone whether he drops out or not. Crist is not only a weasel: at this point he's roast weasel.

And not just for this election.  If Crist had been smart and a true team player, he'd have taken his lumps, endorsed Rubio, and run against the incumbent Democrat for Florida's other senate seat in two years.  He would have had - most likely - a united party behind him in what has the potential to be another Republican year. But the problem with Republican moderates is that they are too often not team players, they are just players. Karl Rove and other nose-counters notwithstanding, the GOP is better off without them, even if they have to wait another 2 years to get the senate. And maybe even if they never get the Senate at all.

If the Tea Party has done anything in this election****, they have exposed a strange fact about much of the GOP establishment: if forced to choose, they will gladly pick 'establishment' over GOP.

* And with the support of the GOP establishment, mostly because he was 'electable.' FWIW, I'm glad he's still in the race, as he hurts Meeks more than Rubio, IMO.
** See "Murkowski, Lisa"
*** See "Specter, Arlen," who actually became a Democrat and then lost anyway. Democrats are not completely stupid.
**** And it's too early to tell. Ask again in 5 years. But I am hopeful.

How in the world is this liberal?

A strange journey of feelings called "thinking:"

I don’t remember when I decided I was a liberal, but I can pinpoint a moment of conscious indoctrination: It was when my 10th grade Social Studies teacher was talking about the U.S. government. Reagan was president at the time, and I remember Mr. Dreyfuss (we’ll call my teacher that, since he was Richard’s doppelganger) explaining how dangerous it was for the executive branch to have too much power. So, he said, thank goodness for the legislative and judicial branches to keep his ass the president in check.

The author goes on to detail her journey from liberal to conservative, but it is a strange brand of conservatism that does not fear executive power just because one of their own wields it*. While these conservatives pay lip service to the corruption of power, they consistently carve out exceptions for themselves. The term "cult of personality" is fitting for this, I suppose, but "fool" is probably more to the point: if you do not believe you or your power-seeking friends can be corrupted by that power, then you are very foolish indeed**.

There's a reason that the founders divided government, placing each branch to serve as a check on the others. There is a reason they were especially concerned with executive power.  The Constitution, it is said, "was written by fifty-five men - and one ghost." While perhaps one ought not expect someone who watches, cares about, or writes about Joy Behar to know who the ghost was, a conservative with a degree in history ought to know better than to forget about him.  

* Or which considers "separation of powers" some weird commie doctrine dreamed up in the boardroom of NPR or during some ACORN circle chant.
** Either that, or you just don't care about corruption - you just want to rule.

The deed is done

Libertarians: 3
Republicans: 3
Democrats: 2
Write-ins for Lisa Murkowski: 2*

Yes on 1, No on 2**.

And in what might be a new record, the judges went 0-for-14. Those judges are amazing, truly.

How, oh how did I ever find two Democrats to vote for, you ask?  One is my next door neighbor who is running for township treasurer.  He's a good guy, even though I hate his dog's guts. The other is some Democrat I've never heard of but who is running against my union-endorsed, Common-Core-State-Standard-Initiative-voting communist Republican state school board member****. Only one guy running against her, he gets my vote, natch.

* Actually, I did not vote for Murkowski after all.  There are a pair of other ladies who earned those write-ins by actually being sentient***.
** In which I stand against every senator and representative in the state. Apparently I am the only person who thinks it's a bad idea that the mentally ill are allowed to vote.
*** In response to JD's note that Ole Murky would be to the right of either candidate for AG, I only note that I voted for Martin Hawver's little brother for that office. He's pretty right-wing. Or was that left wing? I can never keep them separate.
**** "moderate," in PressSpeak.

Unwashed perhaps, but middle?

Go west, old woman:

[Katie Couric] really looks for opportunities to feel the earth and touch people.”

That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is touring what she calls “this great unwashed middle of the country” in an effort to divine the mood of the midterms.

Therein lies a key reason why Couric has sometimes struggled in her current job...

A non-key reason is that, apparently, she considers an Atlantic port to be in the middle of the country*.

But this does explain in small part why the national press, and especially its analysts, gets things so wrong so much of the time. It's not just that they consider Chicago to be in the sticks, but that at Chicago they have reached the carmelly center of this great tootsie pop called America.

On the flip side, because they get the 'mood of the midterms' from a bunch of urban Democrats, they are quite likely to be flabbergasted by the results on Tuesday. Call me cruel, but I'm going to be watching NPR's election coverage** that night; I want to see if Nina Totenberg cries on the air.

* I guess the country now extends from Manhattan all the way to Kennebunkport.
** If I can find it in the midst of all those channels. I honestly don't know where it is. Like CBS, it's probably somewhere in that large, unimportant group of channels known as Surfover Country.

Still making excuses

and Carter is still bad at math:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could prevent President Obama from winning re-election by running in a third party, former President Jimmy Carter said Monday night...

Carter reminded Matthews that Ronald Reagan beat him in 1980 with less than 51 percent of the vote, aided by the candidacy of a third-party candidate.

Carter actually told half the truth: Ronald Reagan did get less than 51% of the vote. He got 50.75% to Carter's 41%.  But in the other part, he told the Carter Truth*.

The first problem with the Carter Truth is that - assuming percentages are important** - Carter still could not have received more votes nationwide than Reagan even if he had received every vote cast for every third party candidate. Reagan got 50.75% of the vote. How much more does Carter think is available?***

Ignoring percentages and going by the electoral vote, Reagan got 50% or more of the raw votes in states adding up to 254 electoral votes.  So even if there had been no third-party candidates, and if everyone who voted for one of them voted for Carter instead, Reagan still would have been elected. 

The major third party candidate that year, John Anderson, was a Republican****, a fact that did not likely aid Reagan since it gave Republican liberals an 'out.'

The fact of the matter is that Reagan beat Carter without respect to what any third party candidate did or didn't do. Reagan beat Carter in large part without respect even to what Reagan did or didn't do.  Reagan beat Carter - and 6 in 10 voters voted against Carter - largely because of what Carter did or didn't do.

But you can still fix it, Jimmy.  You see, you're still eligible to run for President. You've got experience, and - to hear you tell it - the vision and wisdom to set us all aright.  You can do it.

Run, Jimmy, Run. Or go away.

* A falsehood wrapped in an irrelevancy which seeks to assign blame for Carter's failures on someone other than Carter.
** Technically, they're not, but Carter brings them up as if they were.
*** It seems like a rhetorical question, but in this case, I'm genuinely curious.
**** In the John McCain style, but still.

Genius

And not just legally:

According to two witnesses, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took fellow Justice Elena Kagan out for a lesson in skeet shooting at his shooting club in Virginia last week...

Scalia was bending down in order to teach Kagan how to hold the shotgun, the witnesses say, and the pair were shooting skeet.

Kagan, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama in May and confirmed by the Senate in August, is generally believed to hold negative opinions toward the Second Amendment.

The facts that she does not know how to hold a shotgun and that she hates the Second Amendment are not unrelated. The vast majority of anti-gun liberals I have encountered* have never held a gun. The reason they have never held a gun is that they are afraid of guns. That fear of guns, rather than facts about guns or about shooting or - God forbid - about history are what drives their irrational hatred of guns. It is, like most things liberal, primarily emotional. So how does one overcome that primal fear of guns? If you can, if the liberal will go, you take the liberal shooting**. I'll give you even odds you can make a gun nut out of them in a few hours.

UPDATE: Not wholly unrelated, but this did rather crack me up:

Alamogordo, New Mexico (CNN) – When CNN interviewed Susana Martinez, New Mexico's Republican candidate for Governor, we got a surprise. Our cameraman John Torigoe was trying to clip the microphone pack to the candidate's belt when she pulled away and said "Be careful, that's a gun back there." Martinez tells CNN she has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

She was packing heat when she addressed a gathering in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Monday.

I suppose I don't really wonder why that fact leads off a really lengthy story on the Republican who will most likely be New Mexico's next governor. CNN finds it bizarre that anyone would carry a concealed weapon. Little do they realize how much they are helping her campaign by leading off with that fact.

* Of course, not all gun-control advocates hate guns. Some even use them to shoot people. Those folks just don't want anyone ELSE to have guns.

** It's quite possible that Scalia in one afternoon could move the nation to the right the equivalent of about 4 senate seats. What that says about our electoral system is rather sobering.

Quick shots

Having gotten home from Maryland early Friday morning, working Friday, then driving 600 miles today, I'm pretty whooped. But I figured I'd throw out a couple thoughts before I start creating my presentation for church tomorrow*.

The first note is that it's becoming apparent to everyone else that the primary win of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware is just what was necessary to put Sharron Angle over the top in Nevada:

Angle benefited from two sets of managed expectations this year - the over-the-top Reid ads calling her "crazy" and "nuts," and, strangely, the rise of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. Angle may not be a conventional politician but compared to the picture Reid painted and the "not a witch" from Delaware, Angle looks rather plausible.

She looks more than plausible, she looks downright senatorial. The fact that O' Donnell is a nut will likely result in 2 or 3 conservative Republicans winning, because they are now out of the firing line of the conventional press. As I mentioned before, this is exactly why Karl Rove - who assesses each race individually - should be ignored.  The selection of the liberal Castle in Delaware would have likely been a disaster for conservatives; they would have had one more Republican senator who was indistinguishable from the Dems, and surely 1 and probably 2 fewer actual conservatives elected.  It is almost always better to follow principle than experts.

The second note is that it's becoming more plausible that I underestimated the GOP wave, maybe significantly. Not only was Huck's number** bigger than mine, Election Projection, whose insight I admire no little bit, has now passed me as well, at least as far as Washington goes.  They now have Senate at 49 GOP and House at 237, both higher than my numbers (48, 235). But the important point is that they have passed me in both numbers in the last day or 2; before Thursday, I was more GOP positive than them by 2 senators and I think 5 house seats.  On governors they still trail me by 1, but I don't count Tancredo in Colorado out no matter what today's polls say. In addition, the GOP tends to outperform pre-election polls by 2-5% on a regular basis, meaning that Huck may be right and I am underselling the GOP by 20 house seats.


* We have a "communion thoughts" segment presented by a member of the church each week.  Though mine is generally something of historical interest, tomorrow's thought will be an exercise in forgiving other people even when we really don't want to.  

** +72 in the House, I believe

Is capitulation a deal now?

Biden gives the GOP an offer they can't refuse:

Vice President Joe Biden has a message for Republicans... the administration is willing to consider raising from $250,000 the threshold at which higher taxes kick in under President Obama’s tax proposal.

The quid pro quo: Democrats get the tax cut they want – extending the Bush-era tax cuts for middle class families...

“I don’t have any problem with wealthy people getting a tax cut. I mean, for real,’’ he said. “I mean, these are good guys.”

If I understand this right, 10 years ago Bush cut taxes on everyone, and as payment for going along, Democrats limited the cut to 10 years. The GOP wants to make the whole shebang permanent, but the Dems picked an arbitrary amount above which they would not go along*. Now the Dems want to make a deal to give the GOP exactly what they asked for the whole time, and all they have to do to get it is to accept exactly what they asked for the whole time.

This is why even though Stormhound is correct that "Realistically, Gregg is right...the only thing they have any chance of doing with Obamacare is shuffling the deck chairs," Judd Gregg's "open the bidding where you expect it will end" approach is exactly wrong***. Maybe all you'll get in the end is reshuffling - you still have to have the balls to demand all the aces. Maybe you don't get them, but 'realistically' assumes the Dems are waging a defense based on principle. What if they are not? There is always a chance they will roll over and give you what you want, so long as they can claim half of the credit for tearing down a good part of their own creation.

Of course, it may not be a real offer at all - the Dems are not above a little Good Cop, Bad Cop. Either way, the GOP ought to make no move to accept it until the votes are counted. Then they ought to use every means at their disposal to tie up Congress for the rest of the year on this and only this. Pelosi and her majority, like a defeated Saruman fleeing the Shire, can still do a little damage in a mean way before the clock is run out. Still this could provide the rhetorical equivalent of Frodo's mithril coat to turn away a dagger or two.

* "The rich," meaning "those who make more than a senator**."
** Before adding in shady real estate 'investment' income, obviously.
*** Even though that has been the Republican opening position for decades.

What won't get you fired from NPR

(h/t: Reason)

UPDATE: If you leave me alone, you're censoring me:

Juan Williams is right; NPR was way off base firing him for having expressed himself on a TV show. But some are going too far in Williams' name; they vindictively want to totally de-fund the left-leaning NPR because of this outrageous firing.

Big mistake. There ought to be uninterrupted public dollars in support of public radio.

Withdrawal of public dollars would raise the specter of official censorship and selective bans on "objectionable ideas, and that would only strangle independent voices on public radio, and on public television as well...

Giving programmatic vetoes to politicians' constituencies will amp up the list of demands and conditions for government funding and thereby change, neuter and defeat the independence of public radio.

I'm probably going to get kicked out of the VRWC for saying this, but I give to public radio. In fact, I give more than the vast majority of liberals who listen to it. But at least I put my money where my mouth is when I say that it ought to be completely defunded, and not because its filled with lunatics like Nina Totenberg*.

It ought to be defunded because there ought to be no such thing as 'independent" public radio and TV**, programming that relies on tax dollars but is not under the control of those who pay those tax dollars. Independent means they can use your money with no say so from you.  Independent means that they can provide you with what they think you need, charge you for it, and then buy themselves halos for their foresight, urbanity, and good breeding with your money. It is taxation without representation for your own good.

* Williams I've always found to be that rare beast, a reasonable liberal. But his firing simply brings the issue to the fore, it does not affect my opinion.

** 'Independent' public radio is a contradiction in terms. If removing its taxpayer support would kill it, then it is dependent in the worst way. If removing that support would not kill it, there remains no reason not to remove it.

And now for something completely different

The big brains on the left catch Palin in a dummy moment:

Party like it's 1773? What a maroon! What a nincowpoop! What a ... what?

---

Via email: You can smell the panic:

Dear MoveOn member,

There are just 13 days left until the election, and with many Democrats trailing in races across the country, Republicans are now within reach of taking over the Senate.

That means Democratic control of the Senate is likely to come down to just a handful of races, including these three which are basically tied but still very winnable:

•   Illinois—Alexi Giannoulias: Every poll in this race for two months has been tied. It's the closest Senate race in the country and Alexi is a real progressive fighter. 

• Washington—Patty Murray: Murray is the highest-ranking Democratic woman in the Senate. She's been narrowly ahead, but with lots of secret outside money attacking her, her seat is still at serious risk. 

• Colorado—Michael Bennet: Outside interests are spending $750,000 each day in the race, but Bennet has been gaining on his extreme right-wing opponent, and the polls are now showing a statistical dead heat.

If Republicans win these seats, they'll likely gain control of the Senate. And big corporations are flooding Illinois, Washington state, and Colorado with campaign cash—Karl Rove's organization alone has spent more than $5 million on these races in the last two weeks...

It's interesting to see the difference between how the right and left are campaigning these last few weeks - in fact, it's almost the polar opposite of how McCain and Obama campaigned the last weekend of the 2008 election. It was about the Saturday before the election when McCain started in on the "it will be horrible if I lose" meme, which meant, of course, that his campaign and party were resigned to losing, and they did not disappoint. The left has been in that mode for a few weeks - they are not trying to win*, they are trying to avoid losing.

Trying to avoid losing is the best way to lose. But one thing I have noticed - and which makes me wonder if my 48 Republicans call is too low - is the number of candidates dropping off the panic list.  Like Russ Feingold of WI, a perennial Move On favorite.  I have not seen recent polls, but I suspect his absence means that he's toast. I'm not going to change the call - I still don't think the GOP will take the senate. But if I'm wrong by more than 1 seat, it's sure to be because more Republicans won than fewer.

*  Think of it like Childress trying to send the game into overtime instead of going for 2 with :02 on the clock.

Too early for this post

So I'll not mention what it's about:

Huckabee:  No. And for the same reasons as last time.

Romney: No. Hell, no.  Not even a little bit of a chance.  If forced to choose at gunpoint, I'd take Obama first.

Palin: No.

Gingrich: Uh-uh.

Pawlenty: Not even the littlest chance of a chance.

Giuliani: Why he's even being mentioned I have no idea.

Jeb Bush: Nope

Bobby Jindal: Probably not.

Haley Barbour: Probably yes.

Chris Christie: Very probably yes.

Most likely: The GOP runs with one - or two - of the first 5.

UPDATE via email:

Given up on Ron Paul so soon?

Well, he was never my savior, so 'given up' is a little harsh.  I don't think he'll run. If he ran, I don't think he'd win. If he won, I don't think he'd succeed.  But I do hope for all of those things, and yes, I would vote for him*.

* I wish I could say, 'again,' but the one chance I had, I wasted on Bush I.

Who's the party of communism?

An email from the Communist Party USA:

In just two weeks we will know if there is hope for funding a massive jobs program, extending unemployment benefits and passing the Employee Free Choice Act. On November 2nd, we will either continue on with the Democrats as a majority party in the House, or we will have Speaker John Boehner. We know that none of the above improvements will happen under Boehner. We must get out and vote like a worker - this election will determine whether we move forward or move backwards!

If the folks who voted for Obama show up at the polls on November 2nd, Democrats will keep the House and Senate in their hands. Our job right now is to make sure the "enthusiasm gap" doesn't keep people from casting their ballots...

I have always said I don't think Obama's a communist. I don't even think he's a proper socialist - if he was, he would not be looking to sell off GM or AIG. Rather than dumping loser companies back onto the capitalists, he would, like Chavez in Venezuela, be stealing the winning ones from them. He would at least be removing legitimate government assets, like mining claims on public land, from their control. Rather Obama's "socialism" is that of Bush: dumping the losses of the foolish and greedy onto the workers and then freeing those fools to resume their foolishness.  From what I can tell, Obama does not believe in any 'system' but his own intelligence* and wisdom.  In that sense, he is far more autocrat than socialist.

But it is rather funny when the Communist party, those who claim to be doctrinaire in their communism, promote not themselves for office but instead look to one of the major parties to fulfill their objectives. Perhaps its unfair to paint the Democrats as a 'communist' party, or even as a party that the communists would love to see remain in power.  If that's the case, don't complain to me, complain to the Communists who seem so hell-bent on tarnishing the Democrats' sterling reputation.

* A lot of marginally intelligent people promote the idea that Obama is extraordinarily intelligent. I don't see it. Then again, I make no claims of being marginally intelligent.

You don't need papers to vote

That will be changing in Kansas soon enough, I think.

Do they believe their own BS?

Or are they really just covering for the Democrats:

The public panned it. Republicans obstructed it. Many Democrats fled from it. Even so, the session of Congress now drawing to a close was the most productive in nearly half a century...

"The amazing thing is that we have had such a productive Congress despite the obstructionism," Hoyer said. "Republicans and their media have successfully sent out a message that the Congress has failed."

Let's say you take your car into the shop for winterization. While it's in there, you tell the mechanic, change the oil, blades, and check the air filter. The mechanic, a very productive fellow, decides that you ought to have a new motor.  Against your express wishes, he installs one, replaces the entire drive train, paints the car and tints the windows, replaces your leather interior with pink fur, then sends your kids a bill for $41,000.  Has the mechanic failed?

When you are doing things the customer does not want - has expressly and consistently said they don't want - you are not being productive, you're being an asshole, and an expensive one at that.

That said, with preposterous assertions like this:

In the 1960s Democrats paid the price for events largely outside their control - an escalating war in Vietnam going badly, rowdy anti-war protests and violence in American cities, said Linda Fowler, professor of government at Dartmouth College.

it becomes obvious that the basic logic of cause and effect still escapes a whole lot of people*.  Too many of them become professors of government, and in more ways than one.

* Maybe at Dartmouth College they don't teach that when you control the Presidency and Congress, then wars that you escalate cannot be reasonably considered outside your control. Surely they confuse activity with accomplishment. No wonder their students do so well in middle management.

The reporters who say Ni...

CNN goes overboard with a disclaimer:

Editor's warning: This report about former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's book about growing up in the segregated South contains language you may find offensive, including the N-word. Rice explained she had to use the word in an interview with CNN to accurately portray what happened at a football game in 1964*. Should you continue reading, we must warn you that we have left her quote intact and have included the word in the story.

The sentence in which Rice guarantees to so offend? "Oooh-wee. Look at the nigger run!"

So which is most offensive:

a) the fact that a white guy 45 years ago said, "Look at the nigger run!" out loud
b) the fact that a former SecState used the magic word telling a story about her childhood experiences
c) the fact that black Americans could not attend pro football games until the 1960s

My vote is for c). Your mileage may vary. But the story itself is a bit of pablum, seemingly only newsworthy because it would necessitate a disclaimer. The magic word doesn't even make an appearance in the accompanying Rice video account of how her dark-skinned father was given an impossible "poll test**" by Democratic election officials to keep him from being able to vote. Seems to me that if we are going to drag up old racial wounds, that fact might be more newsworthy than either a) or b) as well.

* funny that the story says the game took place "A year after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed," which would be 1965 by my math. And I don't see a Vikings game against the Cowboys played in Alabama in either '64 or'65.  Maybe it was some unrecorded exhibition game?
**"how many beans are in that jar?"

There you go again

I thought the recession was over a year ago:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave the clearest signal yet that the Fed is about to act to further spur the sluggish U.S. economy, stating that "there would appear...to be a case for further action."

The Fed chairman, in a speech in Boston Friday morning, said persistently high unemployment poses too great a threat to the economy, and that the central bank needs to weigh the risk of weak prices, rather than focus on its traditional concerns about inflation. He suggested the battle against inflation has largely been won by the Fed.

Saying the battle against inflation was won by the Fed is like saying the battle against an offense is won when they score a touchdown*. The Fed has done everything they could to keep total credit rising**, which is another way of saying "people taking on more debt," and has failed. People cannot and will not take on more debt forever. But now that every tool in the Fed toolbox has failed, the obvious solution is to do the same thing, only with more money: lower interest rates further, purchase even more government bonds, jawbone about 'expectations.'

It's having some interesting effects, even beyond some members of the Fed's governing board airing their nervousness about this course of action publicly. Gold remains far above the old bubble high of $850 (it's almost $1400/oz), the dollar has spiked below 80 on the USDX (76.74) ... only oil remains remains in my arbitrary safe zone at about $83. The last time all three hit danger levels was a couple of months before the wheels came off everything in 2008. Maybe we'll be luckier this time.

But with Bernanke "weighing the risk of weak prices," I wonder.

* Hey, we got the ball back, didn't we?
** Since credit is part of the money supply, the Fed is the engine of inflation, which is properly an increase in the money supply.

Faulty maps and charts assignment is done

This one did not make the cut.

Because it's accurate.

Actually, he has led in the most important way

Norm doesn't give the Prez his due:

President Obama had to concede he would not send his own children to a D.C. public school. Sadly, the President has not led on education.

Obama is wearing two hats here. The first hat is that of father, and Obama is perfectly correct in not sending his daughters to DC public schools.  Obama's job as dad to two daughters means that he ought to take seriously and personally his responsibility to see that they get a decent education, and there is every indication that he has done so. This would be a wise course even were he not the president, but since he is - which fact would likely cause no little disruption in the DC public schools were the girls and their body guards forced to shuffle around like all the other inmates of that system - it's doubly smart.

But the second charge - that he has not "led" on education, is unfair.  No, he has not been a George Bush, looking to centralize the decision-making for the nation's 95,000 public schools. But that's not a criticism, it's an improvement.  According to the Constitution, what are the federal government's responsibilities in regards to public education? None. Therefore if he did exactly nothing*, it would be exactly the right thing.

Conservatives like Norm still appear to see Washington as the driver for reforms.  His ideas for what those reforms ought to be (charter schools, pay-for-performance, and the like) are all worthwhile.  But what he misses is that the Department of Education can no more run the schools well than the Politburo could make Soviet agriculture efficient. Competition is good for schools as it is for nearly everything else, but the managed competition of federal design is not competition at all, it always devolves into a protection program for incompetent organizations.

* he has not done exactly nothing, as his bureaus and departments still harass educators across the fruited plains, but he has done nothing to add to their burdens.

Do as the expert says

Reuben Navarette doesn't like* legal pot:

As for the drug war, I defer to the expert -- the person who has put his life and the lives of his family in danger to take the fight to drug traffickers: Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

He has strongly condemned Proposition 19, saying that it reflects lax attitudes toward drug consumption in the United States, which is the life's blood of the drug trade.

Calling the growing acceptance of marijuana use by the American public absurd, Calderon warns that should the measure be adopted, it would only drive up demand and undercut joint efforts by the United States and Mexico to combat the drug cartels. It's a subject he knows well.

Huh-huh, he said, "joint efforts."

But drugs certainly are a subject Calderon knows well. After all, it's been barely a year since we read this:

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.

The president who signed the bill decriminalizing casual drug use in Mexico?

Felipe Calderon. Go figure.

* his deference to the Mexican president over American policy aside, I found Navarette's most interesting statement to be this one: "If you decide that exposure to a given substance... is harmful to individuals and the rest of society, then you will naturally put in place laws that make it illegal to possess the product." It would be difficult to find a simpler recipe for totalitarianism anywhere. If you're not going to defend the rights of  people to possess things that could harm them, how can you defend their right to possess ideas that might also do so?

Predictions

Not really going out on a limb here, but I figured since I'm tired of finding errors on maps* I might as well put on the pundit hat and project the likely election results. Yes, it will be a baby seal hunt, no the GOP will not win everything. But it will win something very important which we'll discuss.

Senate Projection: GOP 48, Dems 52 (50 + 2 Independents). Sharon Angle will win in Nevada, Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell will lose in Delaware. If not for O'Donnell's primary win, Angle would have lost and Castle won, so this is a net gain for the conservative wing of the GOP and an example of why the Karl Roves of the world should be ignored. It will be spun as a GOP loss, but they'll probably pick up 5 or 6 seats in 2012, so it's a solid step for them. Boxer wins in CA.

House: GOP 235, Dems 200. Hello, Speaker Boehner. Nancy, the back row is calling you. The GOP will sweep the Midwest and Kansas will be back to all GOP Congressmen after retiring Rep. Dennis Moore's wife loses in Johnson County.

Governorships: GOP 31, Dems 19 (GOP +7). Brown wins in CA**, Brownback wins in Kansas. GOP wins across the midwest. This is where the big gains will be held, because next year comes reapportionment based on the 2010 census, and the places where seats are being gained (west and south) will have GOP governors and many (for the first time) GOP-dominated legislatures They will gerrymander*** districts that will lock in a GOP advantage for 10 years, not only for Congress, but for state-level offices as well.

The big story is not that Dems aren't going to vote, but that when a Democrat doesn't vote, the Dems lose votes all down the ticket. It's not just that Kendrick Meeks loses; every office below the Senate also loses a Democrat vote. That down-ticket effect is going to be very marked this election.

There will be a Tea Party caucus in the Congress next year. My guess, however, is that it will outlive tea parties themselves. Which is not all that big a surprise when you think about it.

* which history project I mentioned before. The present map has Vermont and New Hampshire switched, Maryland is denoted as a free state, and Missouri is denoted as one whose slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
** So CA will get what it deserves, budget-wise. It will be fun to watch.
*** or un-gerrymander, depending on your perspective.

Question of the week to right wingers

Joe Liberal wants to know:

Why do you think in every election the GOP strategy is always to try to prevent people from voting and the Dem strategy is always to help get all people to the polls?

It's a good question. Now, assuming it's true*, there is a very good reason for it. While democrats (small 'd') hold it as an article of faith that more voters is better, the truth is that marginal voters are bad for the country.

Put in economic terms**, there's not only a decreasing marginal utility to having more voters vote, but a decreasing total utility. Because the winner is determined not by the sum of the electorate's wisdom but its average, adding more voters who are less-informed, less connected, and more dependent makes the results worse than they would be otherwise.

Put in more practical terms, let's say that the GOP did manage to suppress the vote, and they did so by adding some unknown but even amount of difficulty (like rain or snow, or a Jerry Springer marathon on TV) to every voter, would that be good for the GOP?  The fact is that it would be very good.  Low turnout elections are good for Republicans, high-turnout elections for Democrats. But why is that?

The reason is that more of the people who always vote, rain or shine, hell or high water, vote Republican than Democrat. When the Democrats win, it is quite often because the marginal voter (the young, the excited, the angry, the I-just-registered-yesterday, the day-trip-from-the-nursing-home voter) comes out to the polls in greater numbers, and those people tend to vote Democrat. Democrats work so hard to get those people to the polls not because they love democracy, but because they want the votes. They  reason they have to work so hard  is because most of those people would not bother to vote if they were just left alone.

Personally, I think the more their innate desire to stay home is respected, the better.

* It's not true, at least not as stated. If the GOP's goal was 'to try to prevent people from voting,' how would they ever be elected? Neither do the Democrats 'help get all people to the polls.' Their strategy is to get to the polls the people who will for for them. Joe displays here the liberal's lack of respect for the integrity of adjectives.
** and falsely assuming that the idea is to elect the smartest candidate, as if societal problems were like engineering problems, i.e., that they have a "solution" that can be discovered, which assumption is the main problem of progressivism.

I forgot how much I hated Donohue

Kawaika earned this one

My Saturday Night

byNicholas Hoyt on Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 11:42pm

5 o'clock. Time to go home. I clock out and drive back to my place. Open my front door, kick off my shoes and sit down to relax. *Knock Knock Knock* "Hmm", I think to myself, "Now who could that be?" I open the door

"You!"

"Me? Holy cow! Mr. President! What are you doing at my house?!"

"Are you Nicholas Hoyt? The man known as Poggin?"

"Well... Yeah, that's me, but why are you here?"

"I was in the neighborhood and decided to see what all the fuss is about."

"The fuss? What do you mean?"

"Oh I know all about you Mr. Hoyt. We've had our eyes on you for quite some time now."

*Gulp* "Ok, so what's up? What do you wanna' do?"

"Well, how about letting me hear you play some guitar, hmm?  I hear you're very skilled with it."

"ME? Oh no, I'm ALRIGHT, but I'm nothing special. Here, let me play you a little riff I made the other day."

"Wow Kid! You better stop! I can feel my face starting to melt off!"

"Oh, so sorry about that Mr. President. Maybe you'd like to hear something on piano instead?"

"Yes. That's a sound idea muh' boy."

"Ok, well here's a piece I'm working on right now. I haven't finished writing it all yet, but I'm pretty close. It's kind of a sad song, but I really like it. Ok, here we go."

"My God! This lad is just as talented at piano as he is at guitar!"

"Please... Stop before I start crying... It's beautiful.

"Of course Prez. That's about all I gots anyway.

"Whew, I need tosit down for a minuet. Take in what I just heard. "HOLY MOLY!!!! WHAT IS THAT THING!?!?!?!?!"

"AHH, A MONSTER! DON"T MOVE SIR!!!"

"Wow that was close! You almost hit ME!"

"Yeah, sorry about that. I got a little carried away."

"That's OK son. Listen, you're in school. I know you've got a think or two bouncing around up in that noggin' of yours. We've got a problem up at the big house. None of my people can figure it out. And I need an answer by tomorrow for America."

"Hmm, I see your dilemma. Just give me a sec. and I'll see what I can come up with."

"Eureka! I've got it! 42! There's your answer!

"Ladies and gentlemen, this young man is a genius!"

"Whoo!

"Oh yeah! Let me hear ya say it"

"Well Nick, I must be going now. Goodbye."

"Goodbye Mr. P."

Miff me yet?

A Rebublican, if you can keep it:

(CNN) - Americans are divided over whether President Barack Obama or his predecessor has performed better in the White House, according to a new national poll...

By 47 to 45 percent, Americans say Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. But that two point margin is down from a 23 point advantage one year ago.

I just wanted to post that because, well, I'm sick of Smarmy Obama Zombies and like to make fun of them. Too bad for me* they seem to be an endangered species lately.  But it is a rather tough question, this Bush versus Obama, given that I think that both of them will ultimately end up at the C- end of the class, wearing pointy hats and sitting on matching stools.

The irony in Obama's case is that, given a big enough GOP victory in 24 days, he has a decent chance to become a fairly decent president***. He'll never be a great one, but his choice is going to be the Clintonesque "go along" or getting nothing done; if he chooses the Clinton Way, he may end up as popular as Clinton**. HopenChange is likely in the past: all we add to his legacy henceforth is a supreme Court appointment or 2. And even more debt than GWB racked up.  Which is quite an accomplishment in itself, come to think of it.

* but luckily for the country, I suspect
** I do not know, but suspect, that Clinton would whup them both in a similar poll
*** It was an irony because GWB had the chance and the victory and wasted them both.

That's not the way the circle is supposed to work

Obama appoints a panel that blames the White House:

WASHINGTON – The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been.

That finding comes from a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in history.

There are two sides to this coin: props to the White House for appointing a panel that was willing to pin the blame where it belonged*, boohiss for being the place where it belonged.

That said, I heard this story on NPR this morning and it was absolutely brutal to Obama. The Obama Administration estimate was claimed to have come from a staffer or consultant who had absolutely no expertise in this type of problem. And they not only tramped down the more accurate BP estimates**, but even went on TV and contradicted other, independent experts who found fault with their findings. And the lying did not end there - according to NPR the Obama administration continued to make up numbers up to and including the 2/3 of the oil that allegedly "disappeared" once the well was capped.

The amazing thing is not that Obama lied, but the absolutely brutal treatment that State Radio*** gave the Administration and Obama personally. If Obama has lost NPR, he's lost middle America.

* Unless of course this is just a dodge, a sop to 'integrity' which then enables the panel to shield the White House from the blame for more important things. I don't think so, but then again I don't blame the White House for anything other than acting stupidly and inappropriately - and mostly for talking when they should have shut up. The spill is not Obama's fault any more than the flooding of New Orleans was el Presidente' Pasado's.

** BP came out looking like a paragon of integrity.

*** NPR has been rightly criticized for being liberal, even socialist, and in the tank for Democrats. Of course it is: what else would "public" - by which is meant "government-funded" - radio be?

Too clever by half

John Stewart calls the nation to respectful discussion:

Think of our event as Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement; the Million Man March, only a lot smaller, and a bit less of a sausage fest; or the Gathering of the Juggalos, but instead of throwing our feces at Tila Tequila, we’ll be actively *not* throwing our feces at Tila Tequila. Join us in the shadow of the Washington Monument. And bring your indoor voice.

Which rally will of course be offset* by Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive. The Democrats - and make no mistake, both Colbert and Stewart are Democrats - are going to wish neither of these took place.

There's a pretty simple reason for that. Let me 'splain it this way: who is it that is most likely going to attend the rally? Is it the people whom Stewart has ostensibly designed this for - the "people who've been too busy to go to rallies"? Of course not, they are too busy to go to rallies. Here's another hint: Woodstock. Not a lot of members of the Federalist Society at that one. No, there are three types of people who are going to be spending the last weekend before the election traveling to and from the capital and marching in circles rather than pounding yard signs, manning phone banks, or ferrying Somalis to the polls: young Democrats who think they are reasonable**, young Democrats who think it's clever to pretend to be conservative, and moonbats.

I wonder how much it's going to help the Democratic party to have three of the groups that provide most of their grassroots labor*** effectively sitting out the last weekend of what already looks to be a very losing campaign.  No, I don't really wonder; I laugh heartily. Keep Fear Alive!

* It's rather fitting, since Colbert is as unfunny as Stewart is funny.
** Or wish to be seen as reasonable by people just like them.
*** the others being organized labor and minority organizations.

If the socialists hate it, you know it's a good idea

And the Party for Socialism and Liberation hates raising the retirement age:

The U.S. government is now considering raising the age of retirement from the 65-67 year range to 70...

The capitalist U.S. government, which operates only in the interests of the rich, would like nothing more than to smash yet another gain won by workers, forcing us to work for the profits of the wealthy until we die. Workers need to struggle diligently against this attack and all others until the capitalist system itself is overthrown and socialism is put in its place.

Not that I have any argument with the idea that government is run for the rich (of course it is), but I do have an argument that Social Security is "a gain won by workers," especially in light of the fact that the taxes come directly from workers (and only workers) and are paid to people who are not working. "Yeah, but they did work," you say. Yes, they did.  But everyone who collects Social Security for 10 years or more is no longer living on what they paid when they worked*, they are living off money directly taken from workers' paychecks, right off the top, without any regard for the needs or desires of those workers.  This is only a 'benefit for workers' in the same way that giving you a license to steal from your children because your parents stole from you is a benefit to children.

That said, there two major reasons that raising the retirement age is the single best way to solve the Social Security problem**. First, every person who collects it collects at the 'lower end.' I mean, duh, right? That means that the massive cuts in total 'benefits' that are necessary can be spread among more people and in smaller doses. But second, an age change is permanent. Unlike cutting benefits, which can easily be restored via campaign promises or by fudging inflation numbers, raising the retirement age is permanent. It could theoretically be lowered, but it cannot practically be lowered. Raising the age in small chunks is a way to quickly reduce the massive overpromising of prior years.

The only other way to save SocSec is to initiate a massive PR campaign to get Boomers to take up smoking. Not only could their taxes fill the government coffers with revenue, the coughers would more quickly cease to draw that money out.

* which money was, in reality, given to other non-workers long ago.
** That problem being that SocSec is a Ponzi scheme which will never survive the Boomers' retirement.
*** Or what the government does now, inflate them away

There's a reason I kept that #84 jersey all these years*

There's a bad moon rising over Minnesota:

The New England Patriots completed a trade that sent Pro Bowl WR Randy Moss to the Minnesota Vikings on Wednesday morning, ESPN, the NFL Network and Boston Herald reported.

The Vikings sent a third-round pick to the Patriots in return for Moss, who becomes a key weapon for Minnesota QB Brett Favre.

Let's just hope a few years in Boston have given him time to grow up...

* Probably because I graduated in '84.

The war that wasn't

Via email from the AFA:

Dear Friend,

The city of Richmond, Virginia, has turned coward because the new sponsor of its annual parade wants to ban the word "Christmas."

When Dominion, an energy company, took over sponsorship of the parade, it told the city it no longer wanted to use "Christmas" as part of the parade name*. Instead, Dominion said it will be known as the "Dominion Holiday Parade." ...

Companies need to know you will stand up for the meaning of Christmas**.

Obviously, such a frontal attack on the True Meaning of Christmas(™) cannot be allowed to stand. But having never heard of this parade, and being the researchy type, I at once steeled myself to look into the very bowels of the internet to learn something about it. Why is this, of all things wise and wonderful, under attack? In what other nefarious ways is it changing? Is Christmas canceled altogether? Will Meghan McCain tweet about it?

What I discovered sent a chill down my spine.  The previous name of the "Dominion Holiday Parade" was the "Ukrop's Supervalu Christmas Parade." Yep, there's "Christmas" right in the name. I even found that it had a logo or trademark of sorts, which I dutifully pirated for this post. There it is, on the right.

And now you can see plainly why the American Family Association is concerned, and why it's so vital that Christmas remain in the parade's name.  After all, don't you realize that marching clowns, snowmen, soldiers, and teddy bears, led by Santa Clause, is what Christmas is all about?

UPDATE: Christmas is saved!

In light of the outpouring of support for retaining “Christmas” in the name, our board has voted to change the name to the “Dominion Christmas Parade.” Dominion has been informed of this decision.

Now, if only something can be done about those clowns.  I really hate clowns.

* After all, it's traditionally such a huge part of the parade's introduction.
** perhaps not coincidentally, the email provided the opportunity to purchase real Christmas buttons that you could give away and then buy more of. 

A Present for Lisa

After seeing how mean some people are to the esteemed gentlelady from Alaska, and seeing that she is determined to wage a write-in campaign after her own party kicked her to the curb, I decided that the least I could do for her is to write her in.  So I'm going to. For Kansas State Insurance Commissioner. AND for State Treasurer.

Two cheers for Lisa!

I read the news today, oh boy

Town Hall shares a secret:

I've just returned from a fascinating and wide-ranging interview with former US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. On the subject of electoral politics and personal ambition, Bolton has been playing a bit coy with the media in recent weeks, refusing to rule out a potential presidential bid in 2012.

I just want it to be known that I, as well, refuse to rule out a potential Presidential bid in 2012. Just in case you were wondering.

That's what I like to see

From the Governator's signing statement:

I am signing Senate Bill 1449.

This bill changes the crime of possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a misdemeanor punishable only by a $100 fine to an infraction punishable by a $100 fine. ...

I am signing this measure because possession of less than an ounce of marijuana is an infraction in everything but name. The only difference is that because it is a misdemeanor, a criminal defendant is entitled to a jury trial and a defense attorney.

In this time of drastic budget cuts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, and the courts cannot afford to expend limited resources prosecuting a crime that carries the same punishment as a traffic ticket.

Whoa, Dude, that was heavy.

As I noted a year ago, I will be quite happy if the Great Recession* results in plenty more states, and maybe even the Feds, deciding that they simply do not have the money to prosecute hundreds of thousands of people for symbolic crimes. The faster they get rid of symbolic laws upon which those symbolic crimes are based, the better.

It makes me wonder, though. If it's still against the law and one can still be punished for it, does that not mean that you still need judges and prosecutors?** Or is Ahnold thinking that the cops will simply ignore it?  Californians, help me out here.

* The one that ended a year ago, in case you didn't notice, which you likely didn't.
** My guess is that it's one of those "only if you fight it" sort of things, like parking tickets. In that case, it's a great money-raiser. Think of it as a voluntary tax - voluntary as in "it costs more to fight it than to just pay it, so just pay it."