Quick hits 12/14

John Stossel on Harry Reid: “Accusing someone of being a racist is typically a last desperate measure when someone has lost an argument.” Undeniably true.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier demonstrates that Reid had it exactly backward: “Those who fight the health care legislation fear being owned. They fear that every personal decision from cradle to grave will be manipulated by a nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington D.C. They fear easily accessible files, not unlike the IRS, where a government employee can know every private piece of information about the citizen’s life. They fear health care decisions made for financial expedience. In short, those who fight against this health care bill, don’t want to be owned by the government...Harry Reid is all about ownership… the government owns and the taxpayer is enslaved.”

I have used the taxation as slavery comparison before myself, and will again.

Why do people fall under the spell of hyped-up scare mongering like global warmism? Don Surber hits the nail on the head: “a lot of it is a need for religion among irreligious people. The idea of man's sins causing punishment by nature is nearly universal in history...From the ancient Greeks - not exactly a primitive people - to the modern Australian aborigines, the tribes of men share in common a desire to connect their behavior to natural phenomenon.”

Epic win indeed!

Jonathan Abrams on the challenge that is the triangle.

Lest you think that it was only Washington driving the (largely government created) housing crisis.

John Hinderaker busts Obama pretending that “the world recognized” driving Saddam out of Kuwait was a just cause. In fact, the American and international left were bitterly opposed to Bush the Elder on this and Senate Democrats voted 45-10 (including the current VP) to block it.

That said, he may not be lying here, as he has proven to be ignorant of (even recent) history on so many occasions. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and call it ignorance.

Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say that they've seen a ghost and more than twice as likely to believe in astrology. Democrats are also more than twice as likely to have consulted a fortune teller.

Kim Strassel points out that the EPA’s attempt to blackmail Congress into passing some form of Cap and Tax is a boon for the legislators; they can call the bluff and avoid the wrath of the voters and leave the administration to own it.

The AP assigns 11 “fact checkers” to Palin’s book, 5 to Climategate. Remember when it was a straight news organization?

Is the 3D TV screen at the Death Star the dumbest idea ever? Because, you know, you’re there, if you want a 3D image WATCH THE GAME.

The Senate health care bill amendment to limit attorney contingency fees on medical malpractice failed by a 66-32 vote. That is conclusive proof that the pro “reform” side has no interest whatsoever in controlling medical costs. A primary goal of these various bills is to transfer wealth from doctors and patients to trial lawyers, as a political favor.

Classic dumb criminal story

Ed Morrissey: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

Least surprising news ever: “New research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.”

East Anglia CRU is stepping up their hiding of climate data. These people are as crooked as an old catcher’s fingers.

This is what astroturf looks like

The problem with Michael Vick

Long time Lakers newsgroup poster Fred puts into words better than anybody (with the exception of a gratuitous political non sequitur which I omit here) I have yet seen why we should shun Michael Vick:

The thing about Vick, for many of us, is not the dogs. It's the extended period of planned cruelty. It wasn't an impulsive decision, or a decision that was made under the haze of addiction. Those can be regretted, and the influences that brought the people to those tragic impulses could be addressed, corrected and kept from repeating.

Vick did this over a period of years, for ghastly sport and money. He tortured dogs that did not fight. He went to the pound and got dogs that weren't ever intended to fight, but were intended to be slaughtered by the bigger, meaner fighting dogs that he kept, and for his entertainment. Watching a little dog that was, at one time, someone's family pet, get torn apart by another dog trained to kill was this man's entertainment. [...]

It's the extended period of depravity and cruelty that should disqualify him from being a figure in the public eye, not the fact that the victims were dogs.

Not Even Ray Guy...

I had never seen a punter completely dominate a football game in my 40 years of watching the game. Until tonight.

Green hypocrisy, etc.

Gee, here’s a shocker:

People who believe they have the greenest lifestyles can be seen as some of the main culprits behind global warming, says a team of researchers, who claim that many ideas about sustainable living are a myth.
According to the researchers, people who regularly recycle rubbish and save energy at home are also the most likely to take frequent long-haul flights abroad. The carbon emissions from such flights can swamp the green savings made at home, the researchers claim. ... Some people even said they deserved such flights as a reward for their green efforts, he added.

Inconvenient truths just keep bubbling to the surface.

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The Rams have been outgained by 763 yards over their first three games. That has them on a pace to be outgained by 2.31 miles this season.

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Mark Cuban has a pointed question for Obama:

“How is it Senator Obama, that with Wall Street burning, you thought it was a better use of your time to campaign ?. You make it clear that one of your greatest skillsets is promoting consensus. Has there ever been a time when promoting consensus was more important to the financial health of the American people than today ?”

I think the answer is obvious: getting himself elected is the most important thing to him right now. The needs of the people can wait until a possible Obama presidency, and even then probably until after the needs of all of the special interests to which he is beholden have been met. Priorities, you know. And also that Obama's claims to be a consensus-builder, a guy who reaches across the aisle, are a steaming pile of bull doo-doo.

McCain has said in the past that he would rather lose than sell out the people. It sounded like trite campaign rhetoric at the time, but you have to give him credit, he has put his proverbial money where his mouth is.

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There have been two fundamental aspects of every leftist ideology in the last century. The first, of course, is a desire for government to have a much control over people’s lives as is possible, for government to make as many of people’s decisions for them as it can. The second is a desire to silence dissenting political voices.

The campaign to elect the leftmost presidential candidate since McGovern is already practicing the latter. They are threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of television stations that run NRA ads. They are threatening libel prosecutions against Obama critics in the Missouri. They are encouraging callers to jam phone lines to any radio show that interviews an Obama critic.

This is basic thuggery. I fear that this kind of thing would only increase in an Obama presidency. There will clearly be an attempt to shut down political talk radio by reinstituting the ironically named Fairness Doctrine. One can certainly imagine an attempt to harass or even shut down blogs critical of the new president, an effort which would surely find an ally in the agenda-driven folks at Google.

The sad irony is that this is a campaign which encouraged the spreading of fake book banning charges against the opposing VP candidate. Even as they try to suppress free speech themselves. Truly chilling.

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Thomas Jefferson once wrote, in a fit of pessimism, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

He would be horrified at the government of the 21st century.

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A spot-on definition of patriotism, from Jonah Goldberg: “[P]atriotism must involve not only devotion to American texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from European nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the American nation. We might need to change this or that policy or law, fix this or that problem, but at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is."

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Biofuels have driven up the worldwide food prices 75%, according to a World Bank report. To be a supporter of this nonsense, you really have to have contempt for the poor.

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Fascism in action: a woman was arrested for DWI with a 0.0 blood alcohol content.

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It’s hard to find a Democrat these days who will admit that he was not an anti-communist (or much less, was an anti-anti-communist) during the Cold War. Which raises the question: a decade or two from now, will there be anybody left who admits that they were against the (2003) Iraq war?

No Old Deal please, etc.

First, a clarification: The LA Times has backed off its earlier description of comments by Canadian doctor Andre Lalonde, on which I previously blogged (second item, now modified). I’m not sure whom to believe here, but note the discrepancy for the record.

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You hear a lot of talk of the need for a modern New Deal in some quarters these days, but what you must remember (or learn, as the case may be) is that the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, it extended it. World War II, and the resulting need for massive military production, is what ended it.

Indeed, what made the Great Depression “Great” was precisely its length. There had been other depressions prior to the 1930’s, but none had lasted nearly so long, which is why that one earned the moniker. And that was precisely because of Hoover’s tariff/tax/regulate strategy at the beginning and Roosevelt’s New Deal policies throughout his first two terms. Indeed, there was a depression within the depression in 1937-38, well into his second term.

Had FDR been defeated in 1940, he would be remembered as a poor president, in competition with Jimmy Carter for the worst of the 20th century. Instead, due to his moral clarity and leadership during wartime, he is in a competition with Ronald Reagan for the best president of the last century. Despite the disaster that was the New Deal, not because of it.

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Just when you think you’ve seen it all comes…Subtle Butt.
http://www.garmentguard.com/browseproducts/Subtle-Butt.HTML

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Fun with PMS: Naomi Wolf says (in a post that only gets more bizarre later) that Plain is “the designated muse of the coming American police state.”

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I’m still formulating my thoughts on the financial situation, but one thing seems immediately clear: Sarbanes-Oxley was a colossal failure.

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On the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia game, broadcaster Jim Nantz said “Pittsburgh is lined up in a two tight end formation. Actually make that three tights end.”

No, no, no, Jimmy. Just because the plural of run batted in is runs batted in does not mean that the plural of tight end is tights end. Tight is an adjective, and only nouns can be plural.

Pretty funny when a guy attempts to be a snob and ends up sounding uneducated. Then again he did go to Cougar High.

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Shrewd observation from a Jay Nordlinger reader:

“Did you get the impression that McCain’s message was that the government needs fixing, while Obama’s message was that the country needs fixing? Quite a difference there.”

Between government and the people, which you see as the greatest problem in this country, and which you think should have more power, is a pretty good barometer of political ideology, don’t you think?

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You hear a lot of European dislike for president Bush, but not so much of his overwhelming popularity in Africa:

When President Bush traveled to sub-Sahara Africa in February he was greeted by large and tumultuous crowds of admirers — which mystified many of his critics, who believe that the animosity toward his administration abroad is universal. But polling data from the Pew Foundation shows something different: Approval ratings for the United States exceed 80 percent in many African countries, some with large Muslim populations. In Darfur, many families name their newborn sons George Bush.

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We will still hear the “change vs. more of the same” cliché, but this election is now quite clearly change vs. change. It’s just two different visions of change, from one camp that has delivered it in the past and another that just likes to talk about it.

Not that change per se is necessarily good or bad, mind you.

A long drought, etc.

No blogging for a while due to illness, which will continue to keep it light for a while.

This week’s free play was on the postponed game. I am taking it down anyway as per my obligations, but know that there was no result.

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When New England’s Matt Cassel started at QB on Sunday it was his first start in 3217 days, since a November 24, 1999 game for Chatsworth (CA) High School. He has been a backup to Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at USC and to Tom Brady with the Patriots.

No word on whether he participated in Chatsworth’s primary industry…

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I’m almost certain that Green Bay became the first team ever to take a 20+ point lead, then fall behind, then win by 20+. In this case they led 21-0 midway through the second quarter, only to see Detroit go on a 25-3 run to take a 25-24 lead midway through the fourth quarter, with the Packers recovering to score 24 points in the last 5:17 to win 48-25. Truly a remarkable game, and while I will keep a watch out and post it if I find another instance I am all but certain that this is unprecedented.

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It’s not surprising that this wack job photographer would behave unethically; what is disappointing is that a major magazine would hire such a person in the first place. They had to expect that a known hate monger would produce more hate, right?

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In a recent pre-Olympic qualifier, Slovakia’s women’s hockey team defeated Bulgaria by the ridiculous score of 82-0. Perhaps even more shocking is that the shots were 139-0. I can imagine a team being overmatched enough to get destroyed, but you would think that at some point they would have managed to throw a puck on the net.

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Yawn…more voter fraud from ACORN. How is it again that this criminal organization is allowed to keep trying to steal elections?

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The low life who hacked into Palin’s e-mail and posting contact information for her and her underage children will hopefully be caught and imprisoned for a long time, but what interests me in the story is that he was trying to help Obama but came up empty:

The hacker said that he read all of the e-mails in the Palin account and found "nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped. All I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor. And pictures of her family."

Hmmm, dirty tricks on behalf of the Obama campaign backfire…do you detect a trend here?

How many of our own e-mail accounts could survive such scrutiny from a hostile criminal? How would Obama’s, or Biden’s, or Pelosi’s, or Reid’s accounts hold up?

If Republican operatives prove to be as unethical and criminal as Democrat operatives, we shall find out. This was certainly a new low in modern political campaigning, a virtually identical action to the Watergate break-in with the added feature of targeting children.

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So Hillary pulled out of an anti-Ahmadinejad demonstration in New York by Jewish organizations because she heard Palin would be attending and she had thought it was not to be a partisan event. What a bizarre excuse; if she was attending she clearly expected it to be a partisan event. Her problem seems to be that it turned out to be a BIpartisan event.

She does seem to be subtly trying to sabotage Obama, which makes speculation that Biden will resign to be replaced by her on the ticket seem highly unlikely to me. Her political future depends on an Obama loss, and I doubt she believes that her presence on the ticket would advance that agenda.

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Taxes 101: The IRS has acknowledged that Jamey and Lora Costner of Newport are victims of identity theft and Congress has called on them to testify. Nevertheless, this young couple are being harassed yet again by the IRS for back taxes on income they never earned at a place they never worked (Koch Foods). This time, the feds have already taken $467 from Lora Costner's $401K fund to pay the debt they don't owe.

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Note to socialized medicine advocates: don’t ask any actual Canadians if they like their health care system.

Scoreboard, etc.

With the arrival of another September 11, it’s worth noting (for those of you scoring at home, or even those of you who are by yourselves) that since Islamic terrorists launched their war against America:

Bush 7, Islamic Terrorists 0.

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It’s also worth noting on this day to note the reaction of then State Senator Obama to the events of that day. In an editorial in the Hyde Park (Chicago) Herlald on 9/19/01, the future Democrat presidential candidate uttered some gems.

In addition to cleaning up airport security and intelligence, we "must also engage . . . in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness."

Funny, by about 9am Central time that day I understood perfectly the source of such madness: evil. It’s not like it took a rocket scientist to deduce.

For Obama at the time the madness "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

Given that the 9/11 perpetrators were extremely well-educated, wealthy and not only not in despair but instead in ecstasy at the opportunity to murder thousands of Americans, that’s stunning in its ignorance. Terrorists from the host of Obama’s first fundraiser (Bill Ayers) to the spiritual leader of the 9/11 attacks (Osama bin Laden) have consistently fit the exact opposite profile of the one he imagined here.

And of course, "We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad.”

As if in modern warfare this was not already the case. America has and continues to be willing to sacrifice its own soldiers in order to avoid civilian casualty.

“We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent."

File this one under even a blind squirrel finds an acorn. While the expectations of hate crimes perpetrated by Americans turned out to be (shocker, I know) massively overblown, it was still laudable for him to speak out against it. This served as the ninth inning dribbler that kept him from an otherwise all-strikeout day.

But history will show that he got the fundamental question we have faced since the end of the Cold War completely wrong, an error in judgment that is unacceptable for a potential president.

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Having noted that, I have to give equal time to a couple of things he got absolutely right in his interesting interview with Bill O’Reilly.

First, he came out unequivocally in favor of nuclear reactor construction, significant in that it has been taboo on the left and flies directly in the face of the desires of environmental special interest groups. It’s an energy position that is so sensible that it should be near unanimous, yes, but embracing it still took a lot of courage and he is to be commended for it, assuming he doesn’t back away from it.

Second, he came out strongly in favor of missile shields in Poland. Again, this should be wholly uncontroversial in this country; Putin’s silly rhetoric to the contrary, this is a purely defensive action and one that should be pursued at home as well as anywhere we have a threatened ally. And again, he deserves a ton of credit for taking on an entrenched special interest group, in this case the anti-American and antiwar left. They have always been adamant in their opposition to R&D and implementation of systems protecting the US and its allies from incoming missiles, and for him to oppose them is very courageous, again assuming he sticks to it.

As an addendum, Obama also pledged not to raise capital gains taxes to any higher than 20%, but I doubt his sincerity on that one, and even if true it’s kind of like giving praise to a thief who steals only half of your money instead of all of it – he’s still a thief.

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John Hinderaker on the ever more bizarre attacks on Palin by the media and elected Democrats:

The Democrats in Congress and the press see the election slipping away from them. Their reaction is much like that of a toddler who screams, holds his breath until he turns blue, and generally threatens to wreak havoc if he doesn't get his way.

She’s a pig, she’s Pontius Pilate, her only qualification is not having had an abortion…it is as if the party is consciously trying to alienate the sane portion of the electorate. Can the far left blogs have gained that much influence, really? You would think not, but when a presidential candidate and other high ranking party officials are starting to sound like the comment threads on the Daily Kos…it’s just incomprehensible.

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This is what it must have felt like to have drafted Tom Brady in the first round of a fantasy football draft.

Experience as qualification, etc.

Okay, let me see if I understand the whole experience argument correctly.

One should only vote for McCain if they think he will not die during his term in office.

And one should only vote for Obama if they think he will die on his first day in office.

That pretty much sums it up, right?

Certainly one cannot coherently argue against the Democrat presidential candidate as unprepared to be president without using the same argument against the Republican vice presidential candidate. And certainly one cannot coherently argue against the Republican vice presidential candidate as unprepared to be president without using the same argument against the Democrat presidential candidate.

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Megan McArdle on the Fannie/Freddie bailout:

The claim that this represents the failure of markets is more than a tad silly. Fannie and Freddie weren't truly private companies, didn't act like truly private companies, and wouldn't have been allowed to so dominate the market if they had been. This is yet another failure of a government program.

Given that the whole mortgage crisis is a consequence of the Community Reinvestment Act, and thus the product of congressional action, blaming the free market takes some serious chutzpah.

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Random statistic: in a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, 71% of blacks said that rap music was having a “bad influence” on society while 74% of whites agreed. 61% of blacks said the same of hip hop music, 64% of whites agreed.

So it turns out that not only is the “anti-rap/hip hop positions are racist” myth false, but in an ironic twist the myth itself is racist.

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The (London) Observer’s Richard Moore reports what has to be in the running for quote of the year from British speed cyclist Chris Hoy:

Next day, Hoy meets some Scottish journalists. One puts it to him that: 'In the last 24 hours everyone has been offering an opinion on Chris Hoy. But what does Chris Hoy think of Chris Hoy?'

Hoy doesn't miss a beat: 'Chris Hoy thinks that the day Chris Hoy refers to Chris Hoy in the third person is the day that Chris Hoy disappears up his own arse.'

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What a contrast between two Boston sports figures:

Paul Pierce suffers the most minor knee sprain in the history of sports, returning to the game a little over a minute later with no ill effects whatsoever in that game or any other, and is rolled off the court in a wheelchair.

Tom Brady suffers a catastrophic knee injury, a torn ACL and torn MCL combo that will require total knee reconstruction surgery, and walks off the field under his own power.

That’s about as far apart on the grown ass man/wimpy little boy spectrum as you can get.

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.

Female feticide, etc.

I wonder if the abortion movement realizes how the procedure is used in developing countries? It’s a cruel irony that what is sold as “a woman’s right to choose” is so often used to decrease the population’s percentage of women.

Everybody knows (but few advocates admit) how prevalent sex-selective abortion is in China. The “one-child” policy that is so emblematic of the collectivist mindset has now been around long enough to have produced its first generation of adults. Since the policy was enacted, China’s birthrate has been 119 boys for every 100 girls.

What is less well-known is that the practice is also standard in India. Nationwide the female birthrate has declined to 90 girls for every 100 boys, and in some Punjabi cities the rate is, remarkably as low as 30 girls to every 100 boys. Indians in Great Britain give birth to 114 boys for every 100 girls.

Sex-selective abortion is also on the rise in Africa, in tandem with an increase in the availability of abortion itself.

And it’s not as if females in the good old USA are spared, either. Among Chinese, Korean and Indians in this country the combined ratio for firstborns is 105 boys for every 100 girls, a slight but significant effect. But here’s the kicker: if the firstborn is a boy, the same 105-100 ratio continues for subsequent children in a family. But if the firstborn is a girl, the ratio rises to 117 boys for every 100 girls for the second child, and if the first two children are girls the ratio rises to an amazing 151 boys for every 100 girls for the third child.

Colleen Carroll Campbell (from whom, along with Mark Steyn, the statistics quoted in this post originate) writes that abortion was “touted as the key to liberating future generations of women” but has instead become “the preferred means of eradicating them.”

As with so much of the “social progress” promoted by the various flavors of progressive and leftist political thought in the last century, said progress comes with a steep price. The abortion movement began with the desire for keeping down the black population, and having moved past that is now widely used as a means for keeping down the female population.

How long will women in free countries put up with the feminist movement’s suicidal tendencies before revolting?

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I’ve seen a lot of concerts better than the Tom Petty show I saw on Wednesday, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one more visually stimulating. 6 large video boards ringing the top, 5 cubic video boards hanging halfway up, and one massive video board in the back, along with an impressive array of lights and superb production, it was a concert that a deaf man could enjoy.

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Wall Street Journal correspondent Bill Walsh nails it: "I can think of only one liberal that Obama ought to start talking like: John Locke."

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New England last season was the first team in NFL history to use the shotgun on more than half of their offensive plays (per Pro Football Prospectus). That sound you heard was Woody Hayes rolling over in his grave.

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Hopefully the easing down of oil (and thus gasoline) prices will end any ideas for a “windfall profits tax” expropriation on oil companies. We tried that in 1980, and it decreased domestic production from 9% to 6% and increased OPEC imports from 8% to 16%. And as with all taxes it would be passed on directly to consumers, driving up already high energy prices.

That a scheme to drive up prices, lower production and increase our dependence on foreign oil is even discussed is unfathomable. They must really think we are ignorant.

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One of the funnier talking points of this election year has been the repeated claim that NAFTA causes American jobs to be sent overseas.

I’m not sure if it’s the Great Lakes, the Rio Grande or both that the protectionists consider to be seas/oceans.

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Football prep and a busy social life have kept blogging light lately, but that should ease up some now. Whether or not that's a good thing is left as an exercise for the reader.

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.

Favridiculous etc

When I turn on the ESPNews to get scores off the crawl and see the subjects roll by, NL … AL … NFL … NBA … Olympics … Favre. Brett Favre, he has become his own category, hell maybe he’s become his own sport.

The good news is DirecTV just moved the Big Ten Network from channel 220 to 610 so there is a spot open for the Favre Channel.

The worst thing is, after a month or more of it already, there’s still a ton to go. Just wait until they play and exhibition game, and when he plays an exhibition game, and when he or Aaron Rogers do well or poorly in an exhibition game, and don’t even get me started on what happens when one of them is named the starter and then throws two picks in a real game.

You think you’re beaten down now, just wait…

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This quote from Israeli air commander Col. Ziv Levy (from a 60 Minutes segment earlier this year) is chilling: “We spend a lot of time and a lot of effort in training and being prepared for the worst. We cannot lose a single war. The first war we lose, Israel will cease to exist.”

It’s a simple point and we all know it well, but it still needs to be repeated regularly lest we forget or downplay Israel’s peril.

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Queen’s “We Will Rock You” may have been a simple song, but don’t blame guitarist
Brian May. That’s Doctor May to you, buster! He has just published his doctoral thesis, "A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud”.

When he’s not gigging he’s busy being the Chancellor of John Moores University and doing segments on an astronomy TV show.
http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/08/02/1938239.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0387777059/

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If only the default position on racial grievance was that of Walter Williams and his “Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon Granted to All Persons of European Descent,” the world would be a much better place.
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/gift.html

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Government 101: In 1972, the FDA passed a law requiring child safety caps on many medications, the driving force being publicity surrounding children poisoned by aspirin. You can guess what happened then – many people, especially older, left the caps off because they were too hard to open. And people became more likely to leave bottles in places where children can get to them, lulled into carelessness because they felt the caps were safer.

The result: an additional 3000 children have been poisoned by aspirin because of the regulation (per consumer advocate John Stossel).

More random stuff

Ugh, I had forgotten how much of an ass-whipping it is to listen to Mickey Spagnola. I think I’m tired of football season before it’s started.

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Dennis Prager's sobering take on why the existential enemy we face now might be even more dangerous than those we faced in the 20th century:

"[T]here are two unique aspects to the evil emanating from the Islamic world that render this latest threat to humanity particularly difficult to overcome. One is the number of people who believe in it. This is a new phenomenon among organized evils. Far fewer people believed in Nazism or in communism than believe in Islam generally or in authoritarian Islam specifically. There are one billion Muslims in the world. If just 10 percent believe in the Islam of Hamas, the Taliban, the Sudanese regime, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, bin Ladin, Islamic Jihad, the Finley Park Mosque in London or Hizbollah---and it is inconceivable that only one of 10 Muslims supports any of these groups' ideologies---that means a true believing enemy of at least 100 million people. Outside of Germany, how many people believed in Nazism? Outside of Japan, who believed in Japanese imperialism and militarism? And outside of universities, the arts world or Hollywood, how many people believed in Soviet-style totalitarianism? A far larger number of people believe in Islamic authoritarianism than ever believed in
Marxism. Virtually no one living in Marxist countries believed in Marxism or communism. Likewise, far fewer people believed in Nazism, an ideology confined largely to one country for less than one generation. This is one enormous difference between the radical Islamic threat to our civilization and the two previous ones."

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You often hear that Barry Bonds hit many more homers late in his career than the other home run leaders. Does it stand up to scrutiny?

1st ten years of their career:
Player A - 292 HR
Player B - 238 HR
Player C - 342 HR

Years 11 – 15 of their career:
Player A – 202 HR
Player B - 232 HR
Player C – 168 HR

Years 16 – 22
Player A – 268 Homers
Player B – 262 Homers
Player C – 235 homers

Funny how not only is it not quite obvious, indeed it’s basically impossible to tell, which is the alleged steroid user when you just look at the evidence.

A is Bonds, B is Ruth, C is Aaron

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A little more Raul Castro, from the BBC via Jay Nordlinger:

Cuba is to put more state-controlled farm land into private hands, in a move to increase the island’s lagging food production. Private farmers who do well will be able to increase their holdings by up to 99 acres (40 hectares) for a 10-year period that can be renewed. Until now, private farmers have only been able to run small areas of land...[T]his is one of President Raul Castro’s most significant reforms to date.

Imagine how much better off Cubans would be had Fidel died 50 years earlier.

Rapid punches

This time it's an homage to Junior Miller instead of Blackie Sherrod.

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There is no need for me to eulogize William F. Buckley, as there so many touching tributes from his friends and colleagues. But I would be remiss if I did not thank him for his influence on me and on this country. I was introduced to him on early editions of Firing Line, which began just as I was really becoming interested in politics and history, and he was an inspiration to me over the years. To one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century…RIP.

CORRECTION: Firing Line debuted in 1966, earlier than I had thought - I'm not quite that old.

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The perfect illustration of the politically correct mindset is captured in this headline from London’s Daily Mail:

“Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As ‘Anti-Islamic Activity’ To Woo Muslims.”

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Speaking of PC idiocy, the fascists at the NCAA have strong-armed another yet team into changing their name, Arkansas State plays their last home game as the Indians tonight. Apparently white liberals would rather them honor indigenous animals than indigenous people.

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From John Hollinger’s analysis (no free link) of the Primoz Brezec-Juan Dixon trade:

“The Euraptors were crestfallen when they acquired Dixon at the deadline last season and found out he was American. Exchanging him for Brezec fixes that nagging problem.”

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Every time I hear of the “scientific consensus” vis-a-vis global warming, I’m reminded of an Albert Einstein quote which I read in a Jay Nordlinger column.

In the 1930’s, 100 “Aryan” scientists signed a letter attacking Einstein and saying his Theory of Relativity was a Jewish hoax. Asked for a response, Einstein said “If what they were saying were true, one signature would have been enough.”

Indeed.

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John Hinderaker on the reeling New York Times: “[I]f a newspaper devotes its resources and its inherited goodwill with the public over a period of decades to advance the interests of one of our political parties, sooner or later people will notice.”

The paper has never quite caught on to the fact that, with the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in the late ‘80’s and the explosion of the internet in the late 90’s, dissenting points of view can now be heard and thus partisan spin is no longer accepted uncritically. Now it’s too late for the once great newspaper to regain its dignity.

Lest you think it’s only newspapers, recall Dan Rather and CBS running a fake story in an attempt to swing the 2004 presidential election to their preferred candidate.

The old media are so desperate to see a Democrat elected that there's no telling what kind of shenanigans we'll see in the coming months. It's only February and they're already in full campaign mode before they even have a candidate!

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Did you catch Jesse Jackson’s take on the Super Bowl?

"Look at the Super Bowl last Sunday, New England vs. the Giants. They were able to transcend race because the playing field was even. The rules were public and the goals were clear, and there was inherent justice in the competition.''

Who knew Jackson was such an opponent of “affirmative action?”

You have to be healthy

One of these NFL teams that lost the most games to injury this year is not like the others:

1. Denver (7-9) 69 games lost
2. Indianapolis (13-3) 64 games lost
3. Miami (1-15) 60 games lost
4. Atlanta (4-12) 58 games lost
5. Baltimore (5-11) 57 games lost
6. Buffalo (7-9) 55 games lost
7. Cincinnati (7-9) 54 games lost
8. St. Louis (3-13) 54 games lost
9. Detroit (7-9) 53 games lost
10t. Chicago (7-9) 52 games lost
10t. Washington (9-7) 52 games lost

Wow, how good was that Indianapolis team? At least as good as New England, and probably a repeat Super Bowl champ, had they been only able to keep their team on the field.

Hat tip: Bob Sturm.

ONEdefeated

Back in the days when I rooted for NFL teams for something other than financial considerations, my favorite teams were Miami and Oakland. So I'm thrilled for everybody from Griese, Csonka and Buonoconti to Den Herder, Swift and Seiple and all the rest. I raise a glass of 18 year old McAllen's in your honor.

As for the best team of all time talk, I was never fully convinced in the case of these Patriots. They were a transcendent offensive team, but I have a hard time buying a team with little running game and a pedestrian defense as the best ever. Of course I have never considered the undefeated 1972 Dolphins the best team ever, either.

I reserve that for one of, and I am never sure which one, of the 1973 Dolphins, 1985 Bears and 1998 Broncos. Ultimately the 2007 Patriots fall into a group with the 2005 and 1968 Colts, teams that might well belong in that inner circle had they closed the deal.

The good news for New England, in which I'm sure they will find no comfort on this difficult night, is that those 1968 Colts won it all two years later and those 2005 Colts won it all the following year.

The bad news for them is that at least one of their previous championships, and perhaps others, is at best tainted and at worst totally undeserved and that they just do not belong in the discussion of the greatest teams ever, period.

I'll leave the role of things like lack of class or karma coming due to others to hash out.

No wonder the Packers lost

Plummeting temperature means frozen balls, sleeveless jerseys

The world's least prolific blogger returns

I send out my best wishes to Greg "The Hammer" Williams. Hang in there buddy, we're thinking about you and we miss you.

Lest you think the world’s bookmakers are all-knowing, on November 14 lines were dealt and bets taken on a college hoops game (741-742 on published schedules) between Cornell and Drake. Betting was eventually suspended and refunds issued when they figured out that the Cornell in question was not the Ivy League Cornell Big Red but the Division 3 Cornell Rams from Mount Vernon, Iowa and the always powerful Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

I can’t remember why I’m posting this link.

The college football game between North Texas and Arkansas State was moved from Saturday 11/17 to Thursday 11/15 so as not to interfere with the start of deer season in Arkansas. I had always wondered how folks like the Clintons could come to power, now it’s suddenly making sense to me.

Fun fact: There are currently 32 closed-circuit TV surveillance cameras located within 200 yards of the flat where 1984 author George Orwell lived.

You would have guessed that the Patriots were the most overachieving football team of this season, but Kansas was 10-0 against the spread leading into their showdown with Missouri. And doing it with much more class, I might add.

I don’t know whether to credit or blame my friend Joe Duffy for this, but…Does Ann Arbor get a new Carr with Les Miles?
Rock me!

Anybody who's ever thrown out that idiotic "Every game's a playoff game" line in defense of college football's indefensible system of determining a mythical champion without playing games, say congratulations to Hawaii, who has already won the national championship by your criteria.

Scattershooting

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Mike Smrek:

Just when you thought that (unlike in 2004) the Democrats might run somebody who takes only one side of a binary issue, Hillary debated herself into Mexigate. Ah, well, better to have a 50-50 chance of doing the right thing than 0, I suppose.

Name that college football dynasty: Their last significant win was over Michigan. Their several year home winning streak ended last month. With two losses, their chances of winning another conference championship are all but dead. Answer later.

Seen on the cover of the October 21 issue of Parade, the Sunday newspaper insert magazine: “Is Hugo Chavez Friend or Foe?”
Note to self: If you’re looking for anything deeper than the latest Paris/Lindsay/Britney news, avoid Parade. Next week’s cover story could be “Cancer: Good or Bad?”

The Colts have a kick returner named Craphonso Thorpe. Do you think he has a brother named Shithomas? Turdonald?

Department of Redundancy Department: State report says Texas has too many reports
"The Texas State Library and Archives Commission is declaring there are too many state reports.
It says so in a 668-page report.
The project took 18 months"
And that, my friends, is the perfect example of government in action.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess I’ll never again win a bet on a team that gives up 74 points. But that was the case with my November 10 play on North Texas +16, which came in on a 74-62 loss to Navy. Navy outscored UNT 35-28 and outyarded them 400-220...IN THE SECOND QUARTER! Since each team had scored in the last minute of the first, they combined for 11 touchdowns in under 16 minutes. It was truly anti-soccer.

The Clinton machine has still got it – NY Governor Eliot Spitzer has scrapped his attempt to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. I wonder if it was the horse’s head that convinced him?

From a (ESPN NBA Insider) John Hollinger chat, this nicely sums up the quality of most online fan content:
Area Sports Fan (USA): Why can't you just accept the supremacy of my Area Sports Team? After all, their proximity to me and others like me make them a clear #1.

Name that college football dynasty answer: Appalachian State.

A milestone you won’t see in the New York Times: the 10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and militants since 9/11 occurred last week. It turns out that some of the news isn't fit to print - when it deviates from the anti-American narrative.

That’s good, I’m not a fan of McNuggets: Cows Rounded Up After Escaping Truck in McDonald's Parking Lot. And you thought all the smart cows did Chick-fil-A ads.

I know Seattle is pretty far left, but this play from the 49ers-Seahawks game on November 12 is ridiculous:
1st and 10 at SEA 16 (13:50) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck Aborted.