You go Canuck! etc.

Who knew? Tuesday’s elections showed that Canadian citizens have a clue after all, surprising pretty much everybody.

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Turns out that the allegations that somebody at a Palin rally in Scranton, PA yelled “Kill him” when Obama’s name was mentioned are false. But you can bet it will be reported as fact a few thousand more times anyway. It’s all about the narrative, you know.

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Don’t piss off your family, or you could end up with an obituary like this:

Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.

Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again.

There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

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The disgusting John Murtha, who never apologized for his slander of Marines at Haditha who proved to be innocent, also turns out to believe that "There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area." At least he’s an equal opportunity bigot.

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Funniest note of the week is that McCain appearing on David Letterman’s show gave the far left comedian his highest rating since Oprah guested in December 2005.

Both guys are happy Oprah’s not running, that’s for sure!

In a similar vein, Palin’s appearance on SNL gave them their most viewers since 1994.

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This Olympic athlete has a rather unfortunate name.

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The fear of an Obama presidency has brought some urgency to efforts to sell the Miami Dolphins:

Huizenga wants to sell Ross another 45 percent of the team by Dec. 30, the source told The Palm Beach Post. Huizenga is believed to be motivated by his belief that Barack Obama will win the presidency and help implement tax policies that would take a bigger chunk of Huizenga's revenues from a sale.

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In case you missed it, here’s a list of pork from the bailout bill.

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An interesting electoral map based on 60 day political book sales.

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So you want to date an artistic type, huh?

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It’s fascinating to see the success Obama camp has had (primarily due to the media cheerleading and providing cover for him) in creating a set of rules whereby any criticism, be it:

- about his age or experience;
- about his celebutant status;
- about his association with terrorists, racists, criminals and assorted other bigots and crackpots, indeed his association with any black or white individual;
- about his record;
- about his stands on issues;
- about his gaffes;

is automatically defined as racist. Will the press keep fawning if, having succeeded in electing their candidate, they suddenly realize that they have tacitly agreed to themselves be smeared as racist should they ever decide to level any criticism of a President Obama?

Complicating the matter is a clear indication that an Obama administration will attempt to bully and even criminalize dissent, a process that’s already in motion.

How man bites dog will it be when a potential Obama starts using his Justice Department to stifle the press?

The new PMS, etc.

I’m starting to see the use of Palin Derangement Syndrome and PDS, in honor of the condition of irrational Bush hatred. But in the spirit of the attacks, shouldn’t the term be changed to Palin Madness Syndrome?

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A rather shocking quote by Dr. Andre Lalonde, who is the executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Ottawa:

"[S]uch a prominent public role model as the governor of Alaska and potential vice president of the United States completing a Down syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality. And thereby reduce the number of abortions."

It’s a notable quote in that you do not often hear abortion proponents openly speak of their support for eugenics. My own life is much richer today than it would be if zealots like Dr. Lalonde, who would prefer to see all imperfect babies killed, had their way.

At least he can’t claim to be “pro-choice,” given his contempt for the choice that the Palin family made.

UPDATE 9/23/09: The LA Times is backing off its earlier description of Dr. Lalonde's comments.

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The Bridge to Nowhere controversy is an odd one. It is true that Palin approved of the idea before turning against it and ultimately killing it. But here’s the thing about the issue:

McCain always got it right
Palin at first got it wrong, then got it right
Obama always got it wrong
Biden always got it wrong

I’m not getting how Democrats and their supporters pointing to an issue where their candidates were wrong, and doggone it they stayed wrong until the bitter end is supposed to be a winner. I understand that they are flailing like a fish out of water right now, but somewhere between brain and mouth/keyboard there needs to a filtering process, no?

“We were wrong and you weren’t!” probably won’t go down as one of history’s greatest election taunts.

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There have been a lot of crazy sports injuries over the years, but I think the T-wolves’ Jason Collins found a new one in rupturing a triceps tendon in a golf cart accident.

Being ahead of the curve, etc.

First, some housecleaning:

Yesterday’s free play (taken down for contractual reasons) was a loser, in a game with almost no offense from either team – half of what we expected.

Overall, it was a good but not great day, in the limited manner that we normally adhere to in a week 1.

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McCain was famously visionary on the Iraq surge, but don’t overlook his prescience on Russia, either. This passage is from a speech he gave at Arizona State University in 1999:

"The mindless slaughter [in Chechnya] is being conducted by a Russian military that seeks to reassert itself not only in the former Soviet Union but also to extend its reach throughout what used to be the former Soviet Union in an attempt to fold back into the Russian empire those countries that have broken away from it, most notably Georgia."

He certainly gets some things wrong, but foreign policy issues are seldom among them.

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Plano High School kids pull off a great prank.

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Can it just be a coincidence that the stadium (Invesco in Denver) in which Obama gave his acceptance speech opened on September 10, 2001?

How appropriate.

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Was Obama’s declaration that he doesn’t want his daughters “punished with a baby” if they “make a mistake” a slip of the tongue or his true feelings?

It is odd to hear any Democrat call underage and/or premarital sex a mistake, that much is certain. Characterizing a baby as punishment may be par for the course on the hard left, but to hear it from a presidential candidate is disturbing, to say the least. Given that he has voted not to allow babies that survive attempted abortions to live, that may very well be from the heart, although it still seems to us like a pretty serious gaffe.

That the Palin family sees their daughter’s pregnancy as a blessing and not punishment stands as a stark contrast between the two young politicians and the movements they represent.

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Also from the Dem convention, Rev. Albert Gore gave a speech which included “We are facing a planetary emergency which, if not solved, will really hurt my portfolio.”

Okay, I made up the last part, the quote was really “We are facing a planetary emergency which, if not solved, would exceed anything we’ve ever experienced in the history of humankind.” And it was followed not long after by “Americans are tired of appeals based on fear.”

I know he’s not man enough to acknowledge it publicly, what I wonder is if he even realized the self-immolation.

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As debate season approaches, you have to wonder if questions will come directly from Democrat campaigns, as they famously did in a Republican You Tube debate last fall.

You would think that the spectacular failure of the media’s anti-Palin offensive would serve as a lesson, but you would also have thought that CBS getting caught openly campaigning for John Kerry in 2004 by using fake documents to drum up fake anti-Bush allegations would have taught the elite media a lesson as well.

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Does week 1 matter? In the last 30 years, nearly 53% of teams that won their first game reached the playoffs. Only 23% of teams that lost made the postseason.

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A Jay Nordlinger correspondent (fifth item) has a simple but brilliant idea on increasing the availability of fuel-efficient vehicles while, at the same time, saving the US auto industry.

What’s killing GM and Ford right now is the inability to provide highly fuel-efficient vehicles. Both Ford and GM make a lot of very fuel-efficient vehicles in Europe — but, thanks to differences in regulations, it takes a lot of cost and time to modify European designs to bring them to the U.S. This makes no sense at all. Europe is a sophisticated region and their vehicle regulations are roughly equivalent to our own as far as safety and other things go.

I see no reason that we can’t simply have a waiver that says U.S. companies can import any model that meets European standards and sell it in the U.S. We should just recognize their regulations. […]

[This is] a no-cost solution that involves no corporate welfare, enhances trade and consumer choices, reduces fuel consumption, and makes Ford and GM fully competitive in fuel-efficient cars almost immediately. There’s no downside to this except some bureaucrat somewhere would have to accept the regulations promulgated by some other bureaucrat somewhere else.

I can think of another downside: it pits the interests of the American people against the interests of the UAW (I am assuming that the European cars are built in European factories, which is suggested by the use of the word “import” above). And in the current congressional climate, which seems extremely likely to remain after this fall’s elections, the interests of a major labor union will always trump the interests of the people. 100% of the time.

But it is still an interesting argument, and one with which politicians and organizations who are serious about cutting energy usage and reviving the US auto industry should be fully on board.

All the propaganda that's fit to print, etc.

You can always count on the New York Times to take exactly the opposite position when discussing Republicans or their actions as they do when discussing Democrats r their actions. Contrast their virulent attacks on Sarah Palin, equal parts People Magazine and Mother Jones, with their lead editorial on July 3, 1984 after the VP nomination of Geraldine Ferraro.

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? . . . Or where is it written that mere representatives aren't qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? . . . Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? . . . Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. . . . What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. . . . Why shouldn't a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?

Yes, for the Times, a woman having been a governor and mayor is a splendid qualification…if she’s a Democrat. And a little-known woman should have the opportunity to grow as VP…unless she’s a Republican.

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The thing that stands out about the camera shots of convention protesters this week is how many of them wear some form of mask. Are they ashamed of what they are doing, a la the old hooded KKK, or are they just good old-fashioned cowards? I suspect that it’s both, but we’ll never know since they all will be deathly afraid of addressing the question.

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Vikings safety Darren Sharper loves him some him: “I’m like a fine wine, a Cabernet-Merlot-Shiraz blend. It can do a lot of things. It gets better as you open it up and let it get out there and air out, filtrate, do all those things. I don’t even need a decanter. Just let me go out there and run. Pour me in your mouth, suck it up and let it run.”

No thanks D, I’d rather have a shot of AnnaLynne McCord.

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I’m stunned to hear that Palin’s teleprompter broke about halfway through her acceptance speech. She certainly did not miss a beat, pretty impressive when doing a lengthy portion of a speech mostly from memory (the occasional peek down to a paper copy could help as an outline, but that’s about it).

Since the major topic among serious observers this week has been the comparison of Palin’s experience and fitness for office to Omaba’s, this is significant (to the point people will hear about it, obviously the elite media will try to suppress it). Her ability to adjust to adversity on the fly is impressive, if not exactly enough to qualify her to be president.

And it contrasts with the top of the opposing ticket, which also features somebody not qualified to be president but who doesn’t do quite as well on his feet. Obama is one of the more brilliant speakers I have ever seen in front of a teleprompter, one might even call him Brokawian. His problem comes when he steps away from the teleprompter, at which point he makes Dan Quayle look like Socrates.

McCain is, of course, the opposite – he is uncomfortable delivering prepared text, and superb speaking off the cuff. Palin looks to be brilliant at both, and Biden is entertaining for his sheer unpredictability, kind of a political version of Kristin Chenoweth.

This election could end up being decided by how successful Obama is in trying to avoid any town-hall meeting style debate where he will have to think and speak spontaneously, as opposed to McCain’s success in avoiding an string of debates where the answers can be entirely scripted.

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I knew Isaac Bruce had been around a while, but was still shocked to read that as a rookie he played in Anaheim with teammate Jackie Slater and under coach Chuck Knox.

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Detroit’s criminal mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has resigned. The Detroit Free Press account is a classic of the genre of political scandal stories in that it does not, at any point, mention Kilpatrick’s party affiliation. The practice of trying to hide party affiliation in stories on Democrat scandals while putting it in the headline or opening sentence in Republican scandals is so common in the elite media that it’s a blogosphere game: Name That Party.

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Children, do not try this at home.

My opponent is a psychic, etc.

Obama’s camp is running an attack ad in Indiana that shows McCain saying, "I don't believe we're headed into a recession." It’s from a debate in January, and it proved to be absolutely correct as we did not end up having a recession.

As far as attack ads go, pointing out your opponent’s dead-on predictions is not the greatest strategy.

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This is from a commercial that’s been ubiquitous on the Ticket lately, but it still cracks me up. I can’t even remember what it’s selling, so I guess they’ve failed on me, indeed I don’t even notice it’s that ad until I hear the relevant line start.

Brian Billick on commitment: “In a bacon and egg breakfast, the chicken’s involved, but the pig’s committed.”

The thing is, I can easily hear a football coach saying such a thing.

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Check out this video: “A World Without the American Soldier”
Especially notable in that it was created by Brits.

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From the Virginian, via Instapundit:

[R]obber barons like Pickens, allied with the MSM and the Democrats are on the way to making billions on “alternative energy.” The formula is simple: keep oil prices high, prevent the use of coal, stop nuclear power production, scare people with doomsday scenarios of global warming via “greenhouse gasses,” pass laws mandating the use of power sources that Pickens and the Greens own and rake in the billions as consumers get financially raped.

And of course Al Gore, who is on his way to becoming a billionaire via what amounts to pump and dump tactics for his green investments.

I like the suggestion of Walter Williams: if you want to drill in ANWR, turn over ownership of it to green groups and watch the regulatory and litigative hurdles disappear like magic.

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Massachusetts has been considering adopting 20-year mandatory sentencing for pedophiles convicted of raping a child under the age of 12. Democrat State Rep. James Fagan isn’t fond of the idea, which is fair enough as reasonable people can disagree on the issue.

But his description of how he would handle the law in his other job as a defense attorney is one of the most shocking and appalling things I have ever read. He says he would “rip apart” 6-year old victims and “make sure the rest of their life is ruined,” and ultimately grill them so hard that “when they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.”

I hope this miserable cretin does not have children, and is not an influence on the life of anybody else’s children. It’s a cliché, but some people really should not reproduce.

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Did you know that the first minimum wage law, 1931’s Davis-Bacon Act, was designed for the specific purpose of keeping blacks from taking jobs from whites? Now you do.

In a related note, the last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was…1930.