If you still get the flu?
Bummer.
The Perfect Metaphor
January 20, 2012 at 10:00 am (Obama Bad, Village Idiots)
President Obama visits Disney World; shuts down Main Street USA for a speech.
C’mon Mr. Prez, don’t make it so easy for us dumb critics to criticize you.
All those disappointed children. Next thing you know, you’ll be visiting animal shelters, explaining to us why it’s so important for our nation’s survival to kill all those kittens.
Perry Quits, and More
January 19, 2012 at 2:10 pm (Election2012)
After much fuss and bother, Rick Perry drops out of the race.
More to come later…
And endorses Gingrich.
I guess this picture will just go in the album with all the other pictures of whozies/whatzies of folks I’ve rubbed shoulders with over the years. Big sigh. I was there when he announced and the sheer electricity in the room was something I will never forget. I wasn’t quite ready to endorse or support anyone yet, but he was on the short list.
As I write, Smitty is live-blogging the debate.
Two people whose opinions I eminently respect, see DOOM.
Elizabeth, The Anchoress, believes that Obama is licking his chops right now, believing he can beat any of the guys left.
The media assist to Obama is real, and needs to be taken into account. Recall Evan Thomas’ unapologetic projection that media assists can give a Democrat candidate an extra 10-15% they might not otherwise have (they certainly did, with John Kerry — a dreadful candidate who should never done as well as he did in the 2004 election) and yes, I think the White House has to feel good, right now.
As things stand today, you won’t hear any more about Hillary Clinton replacing Joe Biden on the ticket. She’s not needed. You won’t hear any more about her running independently specifically to rid the Democrats of Obama, which many of them would quietly love to see.
Absent a brokered convention, and barring something at-this-moment completely unforeseen, Obama will win re-election in ’12. In a cakewalk.
Just how stupid are the Republicans? That stupid. This election was theirs to lose. And they’re losing it.
Erick thinks that the GOP is being played by underground Paul supporters.
prominent friend told me some weeks ago that he noticed an odd thing. In his state, several people who have been successful in getting themselves known as very probably Mitt Romney delegates for the Republican National Convention are also his supporters. And they are not just my friends’ supporters, they are also long time staunch Ron Paul supporters.
Why then would they, long time staunch Ron Paul supporters, align this year with Mitt Romney? He made calls and talked to friends in other states. All of them saw the same thing happening — long time Dr. Paul supporters working to become delegates to the convention pledging to support Mitt Romney and others.
If the field stays fractured at this level, with only a few people, but each getting delegates enough to prevent the front runner from an outright majority, there will be a second vote at the Republican National Convention.
Delegates are only locked in for their candidate during the first vote. After the first vote, they can vote for whoever they want. So if Mitt Romney is unable to clear an outright majority on the first ballot, suddenly he could see some of his delegates turn on him — turn and go back to Ron Paul.
It is an ingenious strategy premised on a convention where no one gets majority support early. It plays well to a primary calendar where the delegates are first awarded proportionally. Who knows if it is a campaign strategy or just his volunteers, but the Paul campaign has been active now for four years trying to take over local parties.
It may pay off if the GOP doesn’t unite around a candidate soon.
Scary, isn’t it? And the whole time, Obama just sits there, waiting like a spider…
But back to today.
The campaign as a whole has declined to such a point that folks are making fun of candidate’s yearbook pictures. Really? You’ve stooped to this?
Right on cue, ABC tries to sink Newt’s ship with the “bitter ex-wife blast furnace” strategy. Drudge squealed, and stole the thunder. Hahaha! However, PeachPundit got the real scoop on Marianne’s bombshell. Read the whole thing, I’ll wait. It’s worth it.
I think the whole thing will boomerang on ABC and end up helping Newt. So does Sarah Palin. People are sick and tired of the media trying to torpedo anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their script of scorched-earth, progressive-infused, far-left journalism.
And just in case your mind wandered for just a second, don’t forget that The Won himself torpedoed the Keystone pipeline. Blaming Republicans, blah blah blah.
Exit Question: Should a sitting President HATE his country soooo much, that he tries to destroy it with every action he takes?
Our Government At Work
January 18, 2012 at 4:20 pm (Faith, Stupid Government Tricks)
…busily scrubbing any mention of God from the public square. This is a very interesting bit of information about the MLK Memorial in DC:
The words “God,” “Jesus” and “Lord” — ever-present in King’s speeches and sermons — are carved nowhere in the stones of the memorial dedicated in his name.
Read the whole thing. I am at a loss for words.
Tweet of the Week – UPDATED
January 15, 2012 at 7:54 pm (Fourth Estate, Village Idiots)
I can’t stop laughing. Stop it, really. I can’t breathe!
UPDATE: Fausta (and Patrerico) shred our favorite self-educated OB-GYN.
Stinking Up the Room With “Electability”
January 11, 2012 at 3:59 pm (Election2012, Politics)
(via Ace) Baseball Crank gives words to this nagging unease in my gut:
The other point I would make about integrity is that it goes close to the core of why a Romney nomination worries me so much: because we would all have to make so many compromises to defend him that at the end of the day we may not even recognize ourselves. Romney has, in a career in public office of just four years (plus about 8 years’ worth of campaigning), changed his position on just about every major issue you can think of, and his signature accomplishment in office was to be wrong on the largest policy issue of this campaign.
Yes, Obama is bad, and Romney can be defended on the grounds that he can’t possibly be worse. Yes, Romney is personally a good man, a success in business, faith and family. But aside from his business biography, his primary campaign has been built entirely on arguments and strategies – about touting his own electability and dividing, coopting or delegitimizing other Republicans – none of which will be of any use in the general election. What, then, will we as politically active Republicans say about him?
…Mitt Romney’s record is just one endless sheet of thin ice as far as the eye can see – there’s no way to have any kind of confidence that we can tell people he stands for something today without being made fools of tomorrow. We who have laughed along with Jim Geraghty’s prescient point that every Obama promise comes with an expiration date will be the ones laughed at, and worse yet we will know the critics are right. Every time I try to talk myself into thinking we can live with him, I run into this problem. It’s one that particularly bedeviled Republicans during the Nixon years – many partisan Republicans loved Nixon because he made the right enemies and fought them without cease or mercy, but the man’s actual policies compromised so many of our principles that the party was crippled in the process even before Watergate. We can stand for Romney, but we’ll find soon enough that that’s all we stand for.
Read the whole thing… I’ll wait.
Now, last night I got exceptionally peeved with the NH primary coverage, mostly around 8:00 when the talking head gushed that Romney was the clear winner, with 11% percent of the precincts reporting. I turned to the Hubster and said wouldn’t 36% for first and 25% for second be a run-off in a normal election. He just rolled his eyes and returned to his new addiction iPad.
In the spirit of Monday’s tirade, let’s look at some numbers again. 25 votes were fought over in Iowa. New Hampshire has 12 delegates, awarded by vote percentage, but we’re not going to get into that right now. Add 12 to 25 and you’ve got 37. Wow – a whopping 1.62% of the total delegates. And the media would have you believe it’s all over but the shoutin’.
Which gets me back to this ‘electability’ moniker being thrown around by media monkeys and whoever else. The whole thing just stinks. We all Most of us want someone/anyone who can kick The Won out of office. That’s a basic premise most ordinary Americans can agree on. But is Romney truly the best the GOP has to offer? Is Romney what the GOP thinks will turn this country around? Or is he just the latest narcissist to fit the mold?
I beg to differ, kind sirs, I beg to differ. If it does boil down to Romney as the nominee, I will vote for him as the only thing to stop Obama from regulating us back to Third World Nation status, but only while wearing a clothespin on my nose in the voting booth.
UPDATE: Seeeeee – smarter people that me are saying the same thing!
Knitting in Publick
January 10, 2012 at 5:40 pm (It's all about me Me ME)
That’s my mitten cuff with my breakfast for lunch plate at Thumb’s Up Diner. Yes, I’m a brave soul, knitting in pub-lick while the Legislature is in session and New Hamshirites are voting their primary!
New Friends, Hysterics and Everybody Loves a Pretty Girl
January 9, 2012 at 9:46 am (Peach Pundit, Peach State, Politics)
Hide your daughters and and your silverware, the Georgia General Assembly is back in town.
Last night was the first PeachPundit Road Show of 2012, annually falling on the eve of the first legislative gavel.
I made several new acquaintances. It helps to bring a pretty girl along.
One, Mr. BJ Van Gundy, gave me the idea for a great post today about the typical media hysterics that will saturate every particle of existence until November. According to The Green Papers, the Republican Convention will have 2,286 delegate votes. A majority vote (1,144) is required to nominate “the winner” as the Republican candidate for President. Since Iowa is now past, the following votes are pledged, but not committed:
- 6 – Romney, Willard “Mitt”
- 6 – Santorum, Richard J. “Rick”
- 6 – Paul, Ronald E. “Ron”
- 4 – Gingrich, Newton Leroy “Newt”
- 3 – Perry, James Richard “Rick”
That’s a whopping 25 votes out of 2,286! 1.09%! And the state run media is already ramming their narrative that Romeny is the clear victor when at least 75% of the ordinary folks like me and you don’t want him as the Republican candidate. And there are 11 more months to go. Woohoo! Good Lord help us all.
Also, we were the recipients of one of the famous Morsberger Elephant Ties. After admiring his tie and noting my College Boy, the history major, would really like one, where might I order one, etc., Emory promptly pulled it off his neck and handed it to my daughter and said to send this to your brother. His card has a great quote on the back that my boy will just love:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly… who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt
Everyone had a great time, including my usually apolitical daughter. She was regaled with facts, opinions, stories and even met the notorious Charlie Harper.
A great night, indeed.
Quote of the Day
January 4, 2012 at 12:47 pm (Politics)
Monitor alert. That Mr. G Guy:
Newt Gingrich?…Really?…That $OB has more baggage than a whole platoon of skycaps could handle. And the skeletons in his closet – well, lets just say that when those skeletons start rattling their bones, it sounds like the drum solo from Wipe Out.
Iowa and Some Pretty Pictures
January 4, 2012 at 10:44 am (Election2012)
Lots of yackety-yak on the tubes today about Whhaaaat Ioooowwwaaa Meeeaaannns.
What I see is a lot of smoke and bother. The state-run media talking heads telling us what to think and how to vote. SSDD. And despite what the media yaps spew, the turnout in Iowa was less than stellar and does not in anyway reflect any kind of trend or surge or mandate or anything.
What really interests me are these little nuggets, complete with some pretty pictures.
Mitt Romney won, but only by 8 votes, which is the smallest margin of victory in the history of the Iowa Caucuses. But compared to the previous caucus in 2008, Romney got less votes.
But when you look at the county-by-county numbers, the picture changes.
Santorum won more rural counties, which tend to be more conservative. Romney won more urban counties, which tend to be (you guessed it!) more liberal. Romney = ObamaLite. To see the county-by-county breakdown, visit iowacacus.com and use their cool interactive map.
Money-wise, Santorum wins outright. Compared to Mitt’s hundreds of campaign dollars spent per vote, Santorum spent about a dollar per vote. “A penny saved is a penny earned” (Benjamin Franklin). The grassroots approach worked. Sweater vests overcame cool hair.
Basically, what this tells me is that even now, voters are still hoping for a ‘None of the Above’ option. Erick is right in that after George W. Bush left office, there was a vacumm in the GOP, top to bottom.
The Republican field was unable to reboot because we had no logical successor coming out of the White House to either win or lose. We went back to McCain and have had to work our way back through unresolved issues from 2000. And now, when the field should be rebooted, we’re having to deal with Mitt Romney who should have been displaced by an heir in 2008 and instead, because the 2008 season did not reboot the crop of candidates, is now the guy three quarters of the GOP does not want who is about to be the nominee.
Our process is chaotic because Bush left us no heir to win or to be rejected through a cathartic process of locking in gains or moving on from Bush. Yes, this one is Bush’s fault. On the bright side, the Democrats will have the same problem in 2016 unless Obama ditches Biden now for Hillary.
But that’s not the only issue the media has failed to pay attention to. There was some serious bull crap coming out of reporters’ mouths last night that is flat out false.
Read the rest. I’ll wait.
Today will be filled with media hysterics on who stays in and who gets out. (I need a clip of Charlie Brown’s teacher here.)
As for me, the big question is who else can get in?
The biggest news of the night, however, was that Stacy made up with David Brooks. Stacy is heading to NH next, so hit his tip jar!
Happy New Year! And a Letter…
January 1, 2012 at 7:32 am (America 101)
In honor of this new year, what better way to start things off than with Doug Ross’ pick of Post of the Year in his Fabulous 50 Blog Awards for 2011!
The post, by our fav Paco Enterprises, is in the form of a letter from George Washington to Barack Obama. Long time readers know of my fondness for the words of George. While I included the entire post here, go hang out at Paco’s a bit and show some love for a great blogger.
Dear Mr. President:
Although it is two hundred years, and more, since I laid down the cares of an eventful temporal existence and took up residence in my long home, Our Gracious Lord has seen fit to bestow upon my spirit the gift of perpetual cognition, and He has granted the further boon of permitting me, for a few moments, to assume sufficient corporeality to pen this letter, which I place before Your Excellency as the cri de coeur of a patriot whose efforts on behalf of his country have been deemed by its citizens to possess no little significance.
I have watched, frequently with pride and joy, occasionally with grave misgivings and sadness, the arc of our country’s history over two centuries, since those of my generation first established that Orchard of Liberty on the North American continent that would become the envy of the world. Over many seasons that Orchard has borne good fruit, and has flourished in the golden light of our Sacred Constitution. In evil times, this Arboreal Garden has been watered with the blood of heroes, which sustenance has served to make it even hardier and more prolific.
Imagine my consternation then, Sir, when I look upon our Orchard today, and see the fruit withering on the branch, the crowns blighted, and the whole cloaked in the gauzy shrouds of assiduously destructive bagworms. How slothful and inattentive have become the arborists who constitute what my friend Thomas Jefferson referred to as our natural aristoi! What bovine complacency has afflicted a once alert and industrious citizenry! And – Your Excellency will pardon the boldness of one who was present at the creation – what pernicious and invidious husbandry doth your own administration display!
Under the sanction of what right, divine or human, do you and those of your faction undertake to transform a free people into a herd of lowing cattle? By what law, constitutional or legislative, do you and your like-minded philosophes propose to turn a great nation into a vast ward for the feeble-witted, or a prison for three hundred millions of debtors? You join with hordes of warlike Musselmen to beset our Hebrew brethren with chimerical demands, your Department of Justice – Justice, sirrah! – has taken pride of place amongst the criminal caste, and everywhere your rapacious clerks and petit judges harass honest citizens with encroachments on their liberties from which even His Late Majesty, George the Third, would have recoiled in disgust.
Our Garden is become a tangled bed of weeds and thorns as those of your school have beggared the working man, and stood as highwayman to the banker and merchant. Our system of public education is like unto an academy for the teaching of treason, and a university for the manufacture of a large class of impertinent mendicants for whom the taxpayers must serve as unwilling almoners in perpetuity. And you strive, through cunning and secret stratagems, to disarm the people, thereby subjecting them to the caprice of an all-powerful central government, in one stroke imposing tyranny and depriving the citizenry of the capacity for resisting it.
In spite of this accumulation of political felonies, you have had the temerity, the astonishing rind, to posit an intellectual and spiritual kinship with several of your distinguished predecessors. I note, with considerable relief, that you have not as yet presumed to impute to me the same act of bastardy with which you have sought to malign the honor of these illustrious gentlemen. I caution you never to do so, for, in the event, I would bargain with Almighty God that I should pass an hundred years in purgatory in exchange for the grace of an hour in which to call upon you, to offer the choice of sword or pistol.
Your most obedient servant,
George Washington
All done? Now read it again, aloud, with fervor in your best cultivated accent of Colonial English. Makes you feel downright patriotic, doesn’t it?
The 2011 Fab Fifty
December 31, 2011 at 3:19 pm (Blogs and Blogging)
Doug Ross has picked his Fabulous 50 Blogs for 2011. Alas, I am not listed (there’s always next year!), but my pal Fausta was named Best Latin American Coverage. Woot!
2011: Don’t Let the Screen Door Hit You on the Way Out
December 31, 2011 at 12:49 pm (Election2012, Hope and Sadness, North Avenue Trade School, Sic Semper Tyrannis, Smitty, SOPA, Stop Obama, Stupid Government Tricks)
I don’t know about you, but 2011 was not a stellar year here at the little praxeum. So I’m not mourning the passing of this sad, disappointing year; neither am I looking at 2012 with hysterical dread like some.
(On a personal note: Dear MIL come home from hospital yesterday. Heartfelt thanks for the many prayers and words of encouragement during her illness. We spent the first few hours of her freedom celebrating the wonderful non-hospital food at OK Cafe. Also, if Piedmont would kindly forward the address of the manufacturer of the concrete hospital beds they use, I would like to, ahem, write them a letter.)
I had planned some sprucing up around the blog over the holidays, but since the black hole of hospitalling ate our Christmas whole, well, it just didn’t happen. Maybe by spring break. Charlie would not call that a SMART goal. Heh.
I have no resolutions. I have no predictions, except for maybe one. 2012 is going to be one helluva roller-coaster ride. I don’t even know where to begin.
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, H.R. 3261) will consume our entire bandwidth, if Obama doesn’t just kill the switch altogether. More here, here, and here. The OPEN Act is a more workable alternative, but here’s two bucks saying you’ll never hear about it through the state run media. In typical fashion, our overlords are trying to push this through while the general public is distracted by the holidays.
If only the GOP would stop bickering and focus on Obama’s multitude of failures, at least the presidential portion of this election would be a breeze. Across the pond, Obama is being compared to Hoover and considered a cog in the general decline of world stability. In fact, many historians are comparing the the last decade or so to the 1930′s. I did that back in 2006. I wish more than two people read this blog. Just think if I could use my Jedi prowess up in DC! Smitty thinks that technology enables us humans to see potential outcomes, and that some of us, at least, have learned our history lessons:
The big question for 2012 is whether technology can prevent a repeat of a collapse into fascism, as in 1932, and a vast war. I’ll boldly predict that technology drives the problem the other way. People communicate enough to realize that the social welfare state is the biggest clay-footed idol since Nebuchadnezzar. The tricky question is how you maneuver out from under the idol before it topples and crushes you, i.e. what is the transition plan toward liberty.
My only caveat for The Smittster is while people are able to communicate instantaneously these days, how many will be able to break free from the indoctrination from years of indentured servitude to the entitlement gods to see the true dangers that lay ahead? Liberty is never free, regardless of what that lobbyist just whispered in your ear.
To me, besides being first out of the chute, Iowa is no longer relevant. It is just another manufactured media opportunity to manipulate opinions in an election cycle. Another frenzoid moment, compliments of a decayed system.
Europe is dying, rotting from the soul outward. We can still stop this in America. Our forefathers shed both blood and treasure to fight the corruption of tyrants and reclaim the freedom bestowed by our Creator. Now we get to do it in our own backyards.
There’s much more, but it’s time for football and after this past week, we deserve some time to kick back and enjoy the final days of our favorite sport.
Go Utah. Beat the Bugs.
P.S. Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas to All!
December 25, 2011 at 9:28 pm (Hope and Sadness)
And heartfelt thanks for the many prayers lifted up on my MIL’s behalf. She was sitting up today and showing improvement.
Merry Christmas!
Call for Prayers! Urgent!
December 24, 2011 at 8:36 am (Hope and Sadness)
My dear mother-in-law was admitted to hospital last night with a multiple of problems. Please pray for her!
UPDATE: Many thanks for the prayers and kind words on FB. She is much improved today. Hopefully she can go home soon.
