Zee Links and Minifeatures: September 2008 Archives

Quote for the day:

"I knew water runs downhill. I didn't dream how terribly soon it would reach bottom."
-Professor Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein.

Carnival of Personal Finance

Instapundit

Eight minutes of video record on who did and did not want to repair this in 2004:

more history here

who was involved

More on Obama's scorched earth policy

For all George W. Bush has been maligned as the constitution's worst enemy in 200 years, he has done precisely zero to censor his critics. If George W. Bush is the constitution's worst enemy ever, what does that make Barack Obama?

more here

Question: How do Barack Obama's tactics compare to those of totalitarian dictators who supplanted more democratic forms of government.

The assignment is to investigate it yourself.

I am not the only one who thinks we're going to miss President Bush after he's gone: George Bush: The Comeback Kid

Amazing how often the President you have is always the worst one ever. Particularly if he's of the opposite party.

(btw, there really isn't much competition for James Buchanan as the worst president ever, and Jimmy Carter has the bar set pretty high for presidents within my lifetime).

Canaries in a Coal Mine

HT: Wizbang

Michael Totten: The War Won't End in Afghanistan

Al Qaedism is the most radical wing of an extreme movement which was born in the Middle East and exists now in many parts of the world. Afghanistan is not the root or the source.

Read the whole thing. From a man who's been all over the region talking to everyone from common folk to heads of state, it would be would be wise to pay attention. I don't think your average CIA chief of station knows his territory as well as Michael Totten.

I just did a final update to House Kills Best Likely Bill to Save the Markets

It's not a pretty picture. But most voters aren't paying enough attention to keep the rascals from getting away with it.

Neighborhoods of La Mesa: Eastridge

I have seen several articles today claiming that McCain's suspension of his campaign is behind his gain in the polls. I disagree. I think that Obama's bounce last week happened because when a crisis happens, people tend to blame the party in the White House. Once enough information got out about the fact that John McCain and President Bush both tried to fix this problem (or at least radically reduce the size) several years ago before it got so bad, and that the Democrats (including Barack Obama) blocked those efforts, voters came back to McCain.

Whatever the attribution, McCain is now showing ahead in the polls again. I think the only poll that counts is on November 4th, but this is guardedly a good sign.

Malfeasance Smackdown: Jim Johnson versus Rick Davis

Via Jawa Report, this three minute video

Pay close attention to the Barney Frank quotes. They're all golden for Republicans, but his "The Sky is falling" quote in particular, reflects upon today. The Democrats have been so intent upon painting President Bush's stewardship of the economy as failing, that they have persuaded a lot of suckers that the overall economy is in rotten shape by sheer repetition of the allegation. Ladies and gentlemen, this made the whole thing much worse than it otherwise would have been. We originally had a liquidity crisis in the financial markets. Due to the Democrats and their minions in the media perpetuating the idea of the sky falling, things have become much worse due to the lack of consumer confidence exacerbating the real problems. If Barack Obama is elected President, it will be poetic justice that he will have to deal with the crisis that was at least fifty or sixty percent a purely political and media creation in order to get him elected President.

Friday morning: Now Barney Frank is whining that some Republicans don't want to save the country from the consequences of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd: Frank blames House GOP for breakdown of deal

Rep. Barney Frank said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at a White House meeting Thursday, not long after key congressional players of both parties declared they'd achieved the broad outlines of an agreement on a bill implementing the administration's proposed $700 billion bailout plan.

No wonder they were shocked. It has to do with fiscal discipline, and being responsible for the consequences of your actions, two things that are anathema to him and Chris Dodd. Spending public money to rescue firms that didn't want to stop poor lending programs because they were making so much money (at least on paper at the time). Spending public money to firms who didn't do due diligence because they were "too big to fail." For some of them, tt may also have a component of being unwilling to rescue some of the Democratic Party's most reliable political donors.

I understand their reluctance. There's a part of me that wants to flush these criminally irresponsible firms down the toilet of history, where they can join RCA, Enron, and other disasters. Not so long ago they were singing a different tune to regulators in arguing for a lack of intervention, so there is also a good amount of evidence on the side of, "You made this bed. Now lie in it." But the price to the rest of us would be significantly higher even than the $700 Billion price tag (roughly 5% of one year's GDP). So I am, however reluctantly, willing to pass a bailout program. But I want to see the bailout cost those firms something significant, to the benefit of the public purse that's bailing them out. Which is only fair, because those are the terms they loan money on. Something like Convertible Preferred Stock, with a good payout rate (maybe a bit below corporate bond rates today, but not much) and a strike price for conversion something like the value of those firms at their low point before talk of a bailout commenced. They are, after all, asking the taxpayer to bail them out of a mess they should have known better than to get into in the first place. I also want to look for efficient, leveraged ways to perform said rescue, that might benefit the smaller folks like their mortgage clients who, unlike the corporate executives in the company, are not going to be fine personally. These executives may be in danger of having to get a different job, a middle class lifestyle, and being second-homeless. The people they sold these instruments to are in danger of losing everything, as in completely homeless.

Yesterday, I made one such suggestion that would highly leverage the taxpayer's dollars.

I wrote this: The Last Time I'm Going to Write About Blame for the Housing Market Mess over a year ago when bankers were trying to scapegoat brokers politically, and using said scapegoating to push through legislation disadvantaging brokers (which passed). Other than the fact that it has since become apparent exactly how closely tied Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank, and other powerful Democrats (including notably, Barack Obama) were to the causes of the problems, my opinion is unchanged. If these people were Republicans, the mass media would be crying for impeachment.

The exclusionary rule: You cannot do both this and that.

You cannot both have your cake and eat it too.

You cannot both spend a dollar and still have it.

You cannot both be an admirer of the first amendment and like Barack Obama's campaigning

David Bernstein of Volokh Conspiracy thinks it's our patriotic duty to publicize the commercial. Barack Obama is threatening the licenses of television stations that accept this advertisement:

More here on the first amendment issue.

Another exclusionary rule:

You can try to prevent a financial meltdown or you can teach Wall Street a lesson, but you can't do both at the same time.

Unfortunately, he's right.

But I want to know why the proposed deal is giving more money to ACORN

It doesn't get any more surreal than this

"This is a plea to President Bush ... please get your party in line (and ask) Sen. McCain to leave town and not throw fire on these flames, and maybe we can get something done," said Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

Said the man who killed IndyMac Bank by publishing a sensationalist letter and started this whole thing snowballing, about a man who tried to fix the problem before it got to anything like this magnitude.

Seriously, he just broke my irony meter.

I think the real translation is, "We Democrats have decided how we are going to rescue our campaign contributors on Wall Street, and we don't want anybody with different motivations proposing any different plans."

The fact that McCain and the Republicans want a different plan may be the reason behind this little item of news: The debate is on; McCain agrees to participate

Republican John McCain agreed to attend the first presidential debate Friday night even though Congress doesn't have a bailout deal, reversing an earlier decision to delay the event until Washington had taken action to address the crisis.

And down towards the bottom, we read:

McCain's campaign said the meeting "devolved into a contentious shouting match" and implied Obama was at fault - on a day when McCain said he was putting politics aside to focus on the nation's financial problems.

Democrats differed, saying the refusal of McCain and other Republicans to support the plan worked out by congressional negotiators was creating a road block.

Question: If McCain has what he sees as a better plan, what's the best platform to get the most exposure for it as quickly as possible, and pitch it to as many voters as possible?

You have until 8:00 Central Time tonight to come up with something better than this

Michael Barone further illuminates the political scene and one alternate plan

Hot Air notes that "Friends of Angelo" who got special loans from Countrywide at well below market rates have been subpoena'd by a grand jury.

Biden gets four Pinocchios for lie

This ten minute video may change your vote

It does let the Republicans off too easy, but it clearly shows the roots of the problem and where the political blockades that prevented fixing it came from.

The Secret of How the Titanic Sank

Note: solid ice is much harder and more dangerous than steel in the form of other ships.

You'd think I'd learn - but every time Movable Type upgrades itself, I have to restore the comments settings. I've just done that yet again and confirmed it. Sorry to anyone who has tried to comment recently via anything other than TypeKey.

As an experiment, I have enabled anonymous comments, providing 1) You leave an email and 2) You can pass the CAPTCHA test. If we have the same issues as we did last time, it won't last long, but I will try it again.

Professor Bainbridge: A Basic Problem with the Bailout

My thoughts on the matter parallel the Professor's. The system will be gamed, if indeed, it has not already been.

The professor also covers the history and current incentives of the actors

It's not like we weren't warned

Cold Hard Numbers was from my first week writing here, in June 2005. I had already been sending out that marketing piece for several months. The response was just about nil, but I'll bet that at least a quarter of the folks are wishing they had listened to me then.

If you're the sort that needs to see it in media, The Anchoress has a couple of good factual ones here.

Volokh Conspiracy notes that many right and left economists have signed a petition against ratification of the bailout.

I have seen many articles likening the bailout to a new generation Nigerian 419 scam.

FactCheck.org: misleading the voters

While the NRA expressly based their ad upon Barack Obama's record rather than his campaign rhetoric, FactCheck applied it to his campaign rhetoric. As if campaign rhetoric was not basically infinitely malleable, and Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric has been a particularly illustrative case of this. John McCain has maintained and defended the same campaign positions before non-sympathetic audiences upon at least a dozen occasions in the last year. I'm not going to say that Senator McCain hasn't changed his positions for an audience, because that would be untrue, but he holds to unsympathetic positions for a particular audience remarkably well for a national politician. Since it's likely to cost him votes, that is speaking truth to power and a sign that he will hold to his position in adversity. Barack Obama has managed one such speaking of truth to power in the last year, versus so many flip-flops I've lost count.

If you're looking for an agent of change, you choose the man who holds his positions despite adversity and personal cost. Which of the above candidates does that principle apply more strongly to? You look for the man who is willing to speak out for his principles, even when those he speaks to are unsympathetic to it, not someone who changes the subject, or worse, his position, based upon his own advantage. Which of the two candidates does that more strongly describe? More importantly, you look for the man whose deeds show political courage in the face of popular adversity. Which candidate does that more strongly describe? Most importantly, you look for the man who takes action and gets others to agree with that action, before it is popular, or despite opposition. Which of the two candidates does that more strongly describe?

Hint: run each candidate's name and the phrases "Campaign reform" "Iraq surge" "immigration enforcement" "economic policy" and "oil drilling" through the search engine of your choice. Pick as many other topics as you like, so long as you run both names and compare the results, but go through at least fifty results for each. Evaluate the data in accordance with the previous paragraph. The answers you'll get won't be an a complete and unconditional endorsement of either candidate. But they will be lopsided towards one candidate as the more likely agent of change, and that result will probably surprise some of the younger people who try it.

Citizens Against Government Waste Scorecard:

John McCain 100 (lifetime 88)
Sarah Palin (not rated - she's not in Congress.)

Barack Obama 10 (lifetime 18)
Joe Biden 0 (lifetime 22)

That tells an unambiguous story right there of the differences between the two tickets.

Shades of Publius Quinctilius Varus critiquing the fine points of Arminius' Battle Plan: Biden says McCain often wrong on national security

Biden himself gets it wrong when he says Iraq was not the central front in the war on terror. It was, but is no longer. That the front has now shifted north and east to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan is a measure of the victory that was won.

For a parallel example, Hitler tried to use Rommel in North Africa to break out of Europe on the offensive. Once Rommel was defeated in North Africa, it was no longer a major front in World War II. Same situation. Once the Navy won the battle of Midway, the Hawaiian Islands were no longer even remotely threatened. Once one site annihilates the forces of the other side in theater, that theater is no longer a front in the war.

I was originally against the Iraq invasion (I didn't think we had the fortitude and endurance of character as a nation to win, a belief I have now changed, but still could be proven to have been originally correct), now I'm for finishing the job and sealing the victory that has been essentially won, instead of deciding to forfeit the game while ahead 27-0 at the end of the eighth inning. Just the opposite of John Kerry.

Yeah, Biden has a point. After 1991, the Iraqi people didn't trust us one Angstrom. If we had deposed Saddam then, it would have been easy. Thanks to President Bush Sr. and his unwillingness to confront allies in order to finish the necessary job, we had a very unfertile field when we decided to go back, and anybody who thought they we greet us with cheers and roses was deluding themselves. Why then, did Biden decline to make that statement back in 2002, when it might have kept us from Invading Iraq? National Security requires making the right call at the right time, not six years later, and cheers and roses is a fine detail compared to "Will We Win? What are the best tactics? What is it going to take?". McCain made his call, and has been proven correct in the main both on the invasion and on the Surge. Furthermore, he's admitted his mistakes. After six years and on the brink of final success, Biden still can't admit he was wrong on the main point.

We've spent all the bribe money you gave us last time: N.Korea ousts U.N. monitors, to restart atom bomb plant

The reclusive Stalinist state said on Friday it was working to restart the Yongbyon atomic complex it had been dismantling since last November under a disarmament-for-aid agreement with five powers that has derailed in disputes over implementation.

MCCAIN SUSPENDS CAMPAIGN TO FOCUS ON ECONOMY; WANTS DEBATE DELAY

America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen.

Last Friday, I laid out my proposal and I have since discussed my priorities and concerns with the bill the Administration has put forward. Senator Obama has expressed his priorities and concerns.This morning, I met with a group of economic advisers to talk about the proposal on the table and the steps that we should take going forward.I have also spoken with members of Congress to hear their perspective.

It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration' proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.

Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me.

I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved.I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.

I am confident that before the markets open on Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people. All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.

Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis. We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.

I suspect what he's doing is stopping personal campaigning. The campaign machinery goes on.

It's true that he is a Senator, and his vote and leadership may make a difference to the outcome, and good for him.

However, there isn't a prayer Senator Obama will follow his lead. If nothing else, Senator Obama didn't accept public fundraising, and so needs to keep raising money to feed the campaign beast. Nor can I find it within me to condemn Senator Obama any further than I already have for absenteeism, a fault Senators McCain and Clinton have also committed. But Senator McCain is saying there are limits to how far he's willing to go to win the presidency.

However: This is the time to demonstrate bipartisanship, not merely talk about it. Let's see who delivers in the next couple weeks.

UPDATE: With all due respect to Senator Obama, a request for a joint statement is a pretty anemic response for someone who wants to be president. I'd respect you more if you went back to work in the Senate to try and help solve this.

In a sign that there may be hope yet, Armies of Liberation is reporting that the Saleh regime has ordered the release of opposition jounalist Al Khaiwani!

Protein Wisdom: Media tries to will the US into the age of Obamalot

This is not hyperbole: a free society relies on a free press to inform. That the mainstream press leans demonstrably left is not the problem in and of itself; the problem arises when that demonstrable bias is given cover as "objective," and when those who believe they are basing their support for a candidate or platform on objective reporting are in effect doing no such thing, but are rather being coaxed, prodded, directed, and manipulated -- in everything from what comes to count as newsworthy to, in cases like these, shoddy reporting (which may or may not be intentional), the effect of which is to leave those who rely on the media literally less informed than had the media reported nothing at all.

Read the whole thing

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of Real Estate

Trillion Dollar Bailout Will Lead to Future Bubbles

HT: Michelle Malkin

Barack Obama: hypocrite and liar

I've called anti-Obama folks on their smears of Obama. But this is Obama himself doing the deeds.

If you're a "new breed" of politician, looking for "bipartisanship" and such, you should be giving your opponent credit where credit is due and not telling lies about them. Not to mention that you shouldn't be mobilizing your virtual thugs to intimidate third parties into censoring opponents and not allowing them to speak.

New breed of politician? No. A very old breed indeed, combining the features of despot and demagogue. Neither is someone that, for instance, Julius Caesar would have any difficulty recognizing.

Last of the Neanderthals

Jawa Report builds an impressive case against Obama contributors (and Obama's campaign chief) with regards to a video smearing Sarah Palin.

House approves offshore drilling

Once Ms. Pelosi agreed to schedule the vote, the result was a foregone conclusion. I'm amazed the vote was as close as it was (236-189). However, what was in the bill they agreed to vote on was basically election year posturing so they can say they voted for drilling without actually having any new drilling enabled.

The Democrats' bill would allow drilling in waters 50 miles from shore almost everywhere from New England to Washington state as long as a state agrees to go along with energy development off its coast line. Beyond 100 miles, no state approval would be required. The drilling ban would remain in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

A difference that makes no difference is no difference.

This was a political trick by the house leadership. I'm sure it'll make a little bit of difference, but if fifty miles offshore the water is three miles deep, how much drilling are they likely to be able to do? The only spot where it is, in general, shallower than that is the Gulf of Mexico, which was specifically omitted from the bill.

The Democratic bill also would:

- Roll back $18 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies and requires energy companies to pay billions of dollars in royalties avoided because of an Interior Department contracting error.

-Require the release of oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to push down gasoline prices.

This is a stupid election year trick. That is not what the strategic reserve is for. The strategic reserve is for when we lose the ability to access oil we need, not when it simply gets a little expensive. Let another embargo like 1973 hit, and we'd all immediately know how stupid and short-sighted this is.

16 dead in attack at US Embassy in Yemen

Militants linked to al-Qaida launched a brazen attack against the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital Wednesday, firing automatic weapons and setting off grenades and a car bomb in a furious fusillade that failed to breach the walls but killed 16 people, including a newly wed New York woman.

Armies of Liberation has ongoing updates including Flakey details. Good knowledgeable observers of the situation there are hard to find. Jane Novak is one.

The Anchoress on the hacking of Sarah Palin's email

Now the Obamaphiles - the angry, crazed, hate-filled part of the left who cannot understand the right and will not play fair - has hacked into Sarah Palin's email account. They've invaded her privacy and that of her family in a way so intrusive it can ONLY be perceived as threatening. People will not like that. WOMEN will not like that. Idiots.

You cannot be held accountable for everything your supporters do. But there is a line that has definitely been crossed. Once you get a certain number of incidents, there is a strong supposition of guilt induced by association. Obama needs to move on this, and move on it now, if he doesn't want to turn everybody off him.

Michelle Malkin has much more.

Question: What would happen if John McCain supporters had done this to Barack Obama?

Setting The Record Straight Department:

Investor's Business Daily

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

President Bush proposed an oversight agency five years ago but

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Much more on Hot Air

A general primer on the phenomenon here

Powerline explains the Knik Arm Bridge (as opposed to the bridge to nowhere, which would have been hundreds of miles away).

John McCain lays out the facts of who has been walking the walk on the economy.

Facts on who tried to fix Fannie and Freddie, and who took massive amount of money from them.

Hot Air has more.

The only way to describe this is with a Monty Python Reference: Bravely ran Sir Harry, Ran Sir Nancy, Ran Away

Carnival of Personal Finance

Timing the Entitlements Crash

Investor's Business Daily ran a story recently, Tax To The Max, on a Congressional Budget Office study of the U.S. finances.What it says is that spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs is unsustainably high. The study projects tax increases of 150%, with the lowest income-tax bracket going from 10% to 25% and top rates going from 35% to 88%.

The IBD correctly notes: "Allowed to grind on without real reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will do what no invading army or cabal of terrorists has done or will ever do: bring this mighty republic to its knees. Increasing federal taxes by 150% will strangle economic growth."

also

recent broaching of the subject of certain [U.S. Treasury] bond issues being dropped from AAA to AA was one. To paraphrase Alec Guinness, 'I sensed the clenching of a hundred thousand sphincters on K-street, all in unison.'"

K Street in Washington is where the lobbyists - corporate and interest group both - hang out.

Read the whole thing

How bad has media bias gotten? LGF has details

60% of Washington Post's Biden Tax Story Devoted to Palin

Here's what was left out of the Sarah Palin Interview. HTHugh Hewitt

Debunking a New York Times Hit Piece

I don't think the Yemeni regime is going to stop digging: Yemen Refuses Visa to IFJ President

A senior Yemeni official said on Sunday Yemen's government had apologized officially to grant an entry visa to President of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Jim Boumelha to visit Yemen.

The IFJ President was planning to hand over Yemeni journalist Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani an award of Amnesty International.

The Yemeni regime has dug so deep that they've already put Project Mohole to shame.

For all the times the left accuses the right of wanting to disenfranchise people, for some reason every time there is a specific documentable incident it seems to be the left trying to disenfranchise the right. Volokh Conspiracy has another specific citation where Republican registrations have been rejected where a group of Democratic ones with the same flaw were accepted.

Obama doesn't want anyone questioning his patriotism. But he must believe it's okay for him to question McCain's

Sauce. Goose. Gander.

FactCheck.org takes on the Palin slime.

Hot Air covers some obstruction of an investigation in Alaska.

Spy Agencies Are Learning to Love Google

The officer calls it "the seduction of the 'top-secret' stamp."

That's a common refrain in the intelligence community when the subject of so-called open-source information comes up.

The information itself is not classified, but their interest in it is.

Faster please.

I look forward to the day anybody can use facial matching software to tip the police off to the whereabouts of wanted criminals, and the day when anybody can look and see if they got the right crook or not.

Feminism, then and now

Did Obama try to scotch an Iraqi-US agreement on military forces?

If so, it's not only of questionable intelligence but actually illegal.

Wizbang has more

This isn't good: Pakistan orders troops to open fire if US raids

Pakistan acknowledges the presence of al-Qaida fugitives and its difficulties in preventing militants from seeping through the mountainous border into Afghanistan.

Like the Saudis, Pakistan claims to be an ally, but in practice they're only masquerading as one.

We're all going to have to learn some new jokes:

Porn passed over as Web users become social

Social networking sites are the hottest attraction on the Internet, dethroning pornography and highlighting a major change in how people communicate, according to a web guru.

FYI: I am now also writing at Mortgages Unzipped, a Zillow blog. It launched yesterday.

I specifically decided that I wasn't going to write anything specifically September 11th related. I've said what I have to say. Nothing has changed for me. I believe we should be in this thing to win, and I will decline all invitations to forfeit, "Because like, it's so hard, and there are other things I want to spend money on."

Now that Iraq is standing more and more on its own, we need to get the job finished in Afghanistan.

The best reaction I've seen to Obama's "Lipstick on a Pig" quote

In short: unintentional, no harm meant. By the standards of gotcha politics, a clarifying non-apology apology is required. He should do that.

Now let's get back to things that might be more important, like who voted for the Bridge to Nowhere, and what your plan is to keep another domestic attack from happening.

Humor that Bugs Bunny fans will recognize: One Day on an Alaskan Cliffside

Before you take Obama's latest attack on John McCain too seriously, maybe you should read this: Wondering No More

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country.

Let me state in advance that I'll accept Barack Obama's word that he was ignorant of this, rather than intentionally mocking a veteran's injuries. Providing he doesn't dig himself in deeper

HT: Instapundit, who has several other links dealing dispositively with the issue.

Dems sue to shut down talk radio

In the suit, David Birke and attorney Johnny Birke argue that KRLA uses public airwaves to push Republican Party causes, an old lefty chestnut. Named in the suit are Salem, CEO Ed Atsinger and seven talk show hosts, according to the Glendale News-Press:

Haven't they heard of Air America? It's not like there isn't a polar opposite available. Not to mention Oprah, MSNBC, CBS, etcetera. IMHO, even if they win the case the Democrats lose this argument based upon the precedent shutting down their own propaganda factories, which are far more numerous and pervasive..

Still, it's morally abhorrent. You always know who's morally bankrupt and incapable of winning an argument on its own merits when they try to shut down the opposition.

HT: Michelle Malkin

New Palin scandal: She billed the state for stuff she was allowed to bill

I seem to recall several instances of desperation like this in the last couple of decades - blowing up perfectly normal stuff into scandal, claiming hyperbolic consequences, etcetera. Thing is, every measure and candidate I can remember that resorted to this sort of thing lost badly. Keep it up, and this could be a 49 state landslide where the Republicans regain control of Congress. Keep it real, and you've got a chance.

It sure looks like the Obama campaign is running scared.

DISASTER!... Obama Gets Chewed Up & Spit Out On O'Reilly (Video)

How dare Bill O'Reilly not throw softballs underhanded.

A message from an Iraqi veteran:

Stick with it until the end. The end is worth the time.

HT neo-neocon

Don Surber points out a certain contradiction.

I am going to speak in favor of Obama for a moment

Could Clinton have Palin-proofed Dems?

It really depends upon whether Obama wants to be president badly enough to die for it.

The Clintons have a long history of doing whatever it takes for advance their own interests. Not that Bill is in any way shy about self-aggrandizement, but Hillary is even more ruthless. To people who have been watching for the last sixteen years, she has made it clear she will do anything.

Now, imagine that the only thing standing between Vice President Hillary, who has very little official power, and the Presidency of the United States, the most powerful single person in the world, is the life of Barack Obama.

I wouldn't give you odds of one in a hundred thousand he'd last four years. Lloyds of London wouldn't insure his life. He'd check into Bethesda for a routine check up and suffer a fatal freak accident with a blood pressure meter. He'd fall down the stairs. He'd get crushed by a falling object. Air Force One would suck a pigeon through a jet intake and explode. You get the idea.

If I were in Barack Obama's shoes, there is no way in hell I would have chosen Hillary for the bottom half of the ticket. Quite frankly, a sane person would rather lose than take Hillary for Vice President. Nor is Obama going to drop Biden for Hillary. Pelosi, maybe, or any of half a dozen other Democratic women (and he'd lose, assuming an honest election. With Biden he's got a chance). Hillary: No way. There's risk taking, and then there's suicide. Choosing Hillary for Vice President would (at best) be a bet that he could off her and make it look like a Republican dirty trick before she could do it to him (He's a Chicago machine candidate, so his odds are probably better than many people might think - maybe 3:1 against)

So Barack Obama was quite sane and intelligent in my opinion for not choosing Hillary, who is well aware that her own chances of winning the presidency are a lot better in 2012 if Barack Obama loses. Therefore, look for her to do whatever she can to keep Barack Obama from getting 270 electoral votes.

While I'm at it, a word of caution to the Republicans. Don't build Sarah Palin up too much. She's human, and she's going to fail at something in a human way. The consequences of such a failure are a lot less dire for a respected or even beloved but human figure than they are for a cult's object of admiration. Witness Barack Obama's current implosion.

Don't deceive yourselves about how ruthless Sarah Palin can be, either. She also didn't take on the entrenched Republican establishment of Alaska and win by being Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King. I don't understand the mechanics of how it worked, but the evidence is pretty solid she's capable of playing some vicious politics of her own. Don't get me wrong about this. I like Sarah Palin a lot, and thus far, she's been on the right side of all but a small minority of issues, and she's done a lot that is right and good while causing very little damage. But just because "Sarahcuda" is on the right side of most issues doesn't mean she's not dangerous. So was Teddy Roosevelt.

If Arnold as the Terminator came knocking on doors looking for Sarah Palin, I'd bet on Sarah Palin, even without what's his name to help. That's a compliment, but it's also a warning. Enough said.

We just had my younger daughter's birthday party. She's four years old today!

Carnival of Real Estate

I am not happy that the federal government is taking over Fannie and Freddie, thereby assuming liability for their debts.

It would have been far more effective and less expensive to create a new GSE without further access to taxpayer wallets.

Bill Whittle on the McCain/Palin ticket.

Is Oprah Biased? Host Won't Interview Palin

So what?

Yes, she's biased. She's openly supporting Barack Obama. That's her right, and I'd rather have a forthright endorsement and support of Obama from her (or anyone else) than the thin pretense of fairness from all the other media talking heads who, to quote Bill Maher, himself definitely on the left of the political spectrum: "Act like they're ready to have sex with (Obama)". For Oprah, there is something admirable in standing up and forthrightly letting us know who she supports and not pretending otherwise.

There is no law that says she has to invite Sarah Palin or John McCain or anyone she doesn't want to onto her show. If the Fairness Doctrine is wrong (and it is), then it is wrong when it's absence works against the candidate I favor in one particular. Oprah's supporting Obama. Last I heard, she had the same first amendment rights (i.e. free speech and free association) as everybody else. It'll cost her some audience, I'm sure, as those people exercise their rights of free association. If she's willing to take that hit, and she appears to be, I don't have any complaints coming. I might wish she was capable of seeing things my way, but that's all. If we bumped into one another on the street, I might try to convince her of my viewpoint, just like she would be free to convince me of hers. But if she wants to believe Obama will help this country more than John McCain, she's entitled to that belief.

Wizbang on waffling about the success of the surge.

John McCain didn't support the surge because he thought it wouldn't work. He pushed for over a year before George Bush signed on because he had every reason to expect that it would work. If Obama were the kind of leader he's claiming to be, he'd acknowledge that John McCain was right and move on, instead of digging himself in deeper with every pronouncement on the subject.

Fact checking ABC

"You should never use your public office to settle a private score."

Better investigation than ABC at Flopping Aces

Even the Washington Post is giving her credit for a job well done on the new pipeline.

More Palin rumors answered here

Neighborhoods of La Mesa: Normal Avenue

For that matter, Neighborhoods of La Mesa: Summit Hill

Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama

via Q and O, this article is humorous, but also pretty much a fair comparison between the two: Palin in Comparison

Just when I had lost all hope for the left side of the political spectrum, an article like this one comes along and restores it. There are honest, patriotic people on the left. It's just that sometimes they become totally eclipsed by other, louder, more common voices.

I have never seen such a smear campaign in my life as the last few days, based upon "Make stuff up. Don't fact check, just rush it to print. Even after it's debunked, there will be suckers who think it's still true" Here is a partial list three pages long, and it's limited to the stuff that made it into major media.

To be fair, there are also those on the right (Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter, to name to) who need to have their microphones permanently disconnected and be banished to the Political Wilderness of Shame, where they are free to say what they want, but nobody pays attention to them. Kind of like the way Quakers treat those who have gone beyond the range of acceptable conduct.

The problem is that while the Republican party has these people who should be social pariahs on the fringes, on the Democratic side of the aisle they have taken over the party. I'd really like to see that change. The Democratic party used to be rational and respectable, and will be again if they can find enough like wizardfkap. They might start by inviting Joe Lieberman, a man I disagree with about everything except the war on terror but I have to admit that he's a class act that I respect and admire, back into the party.

I got to see most of Sarah Palin's speech Wednesday night. My wife, who is rarely interested in politics, was so rapt that she accepted my offer to do the bath and bed for the kids. My impression is that, like most politicians, she needs to work on delivery, but the content was first rate. Yeah, it was written for her. But she lived what it talked about, and it wouldn't have been nearly so effective without being the truth. And if we're going to disallow politicians who employ speechwriters, that leaves us with nobody above the local level. They've still got to communicate what they want the speech to say, most of them write modifications, and they've got to agree with the content.

However, I do not agree that the election is won. In fact, it's too close to call. There are two months left before the only poll that counts, and anything can happen.

Thursday: Missed the beginning of John McCain's speech, but what I saw was very good. The ending was magnificent. I'm a cynical old fart in my late forties, and it brought a few tears to my eyes, because John McCain has actually lived the life he talks about. He convinced me that he believes every word of that wonderful ending in his speech, and that's something nobody else has done since Ronald Reagan. (I've been a cynical old fart since my mid twenties...) He doesn't have Reagan's beautiful delivery. But for those familiar with his story, he has something Reagan never did: The sense that he has walked some of the darkest paths there are in service to this country himself, and come out still believing in the ideals by which this nation was founded.

Cynical old fart that I am, that is something I will believe in until the day I die.

Armies of Liberation has a translated article from the Yemen Times, editorializing about Al-Khaiwani spending Ramadan in jail for criticizing the regime and exposing its lies.

This is a good editorial, and not just because it shows that others are willing to stand up for him. It also has what we'd call a "sympathy at Christmas" note to emphasize the humanity of the Yemeni people, something that it's easy to lose track of in a war.

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of Real Estate

Sing it, sister: Barack Obama: please end our dependence on cheap platitudes about foreign oil

She quite fairly hammers John McCain in anticipation for the same sin, because I'll bet you a nickel he'll commit it. I don't have rose-colored glasses for either major party candidate. I favor John McCain because one of these two men is going to be the next president, and Barack Obama will do far more damage than McCain, by at least an order of magnitude, and John McCain might, if we're lucky, do us some actual net good.

The last time I was this certain of the relative merits of and problems with the two major candidates was 1980, when I voted for Ronald Reagan. I'm almost thirty years older now, and I'm rarely that certain about anything in my late forties. But this is an exception.

"tape 'em all, let YouTube sort it out"

Works for me. For politicians of all philosophies and parties. Anytime they're out in public, a camera can catch them - just like Joe Citizen.

Privacy laws and laws against taping work against the so-called common man, and for the powerful.

In the referenced clip, the two powerful politicians were joking around in public. They may have thought that the citizens around them who could hear were inconsequential. Thanks to webcams and the internet, not so. I would say the exact same thing if it were George W. Bush and Karl Rove and John McCain, and it would force me to re-evaluate my opinion of their character.

And it's more than a little hypocritical of those on the left to condemn this recording when for the past election cycle or two, they've been doing precisely this to the Republicans (Senator Allen's "macaca moment" was the fruit of one such, without which the Republicans would control the senate. Note that I didn't complain then and I'm not complaining now - it was a fair cop, and if I think it got overblown, others don't) Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Indeed, the left's reaction reminds me once again of what Peter Lorre's character said in "The Raven,": "You coward! You're fighting back!"

There are limits - you shouldn't be recorded without your consent in the privacy of your own home. But rooting out this kind of behavior in any kind of a public setting is a wonderful benefit of modern technology. Kind of a Darwinian "Improve the breed" for politicians - among others.

Obama's answer on experience: But I'm such a great campaigner!

A disastrous development that's been coming for a while: Bell Labs Kills Fundamental Physics Research

I do have one question for the national media "doing their job" by bringing Sarah Palin's family challenges (Which thus far I find to be mostly show her in a good light) of this to our attention: When are you going to "Do your job" and give Barack Obama and Joe Biden the same treatment?

Just off the top of my head, these should be fertile grounds for investigation, most of them criminal investigations, which would disqualify them from office altogether if they should be convicted.

Obama
-Political cronies with William Ayers
-twenty year relationship with Jeremiah Wright
-Ten year realtionship with Tony Rezko
-played along with Chicago's political machine
-secured millions of dollars in earmarks for hospital that hired Michelle Obama

Biden:
-Lobbyist son works for MNBA
-voted yes on bankruptcy reform in accordance with banking industry wishes, rather than recusing himself as would be proper

Is there anyone who does not believe that the national media is openly supporting Obama and the Democratic ticket, while doing everything in their power to undercut McCain, Palin, and the Republicans?