Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Campaign Time-Out
The blogs are full of comments about who called who first. Who organized with who. Who's leading and who's waffling. If not this Friday, when?
From the Conservative Corner, Duane R. Patterson at the Hugh Hewitt blog has the best comments:
Whatever bailout plan gets implemented, if there is one, either Senator McCain or Senator Obama is going to have to deal with the results of it. Both are sitting U.S. Senators, and have the ability to help craft and negotiate the language of the bill. Obama would have you believe that it's important , but not enough so of a crisis for him to have to go to Washington and actually serve in his current role as Senator. John McCain recognizes the magnitude of the crisis, and wants to actually do what he can to improve the language.
The freaks at DailyKos produced the image below, along with these comments:
Clearly McCain is afraid to appear at the debate without Palin.
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All McCain's got are these cheap stunts. See "Sarah Palin."
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He wants to cancel the debate now that issues have become, well... issues!
He preferred it when it was all about swine and cosmetics.
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I think that Obama and the Dem's best move is to immediately attack McCain for trying to inject Presidential politics into the economic crisis and into the proceedings trying to work out a solution.
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I think it's essential that Dems follow the lead set by Reid in his statement and aggresively work to grab the initiaive on this issue, shape public opinion on it right away, and point out that this is a shameless political stunt by McCain.
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The McCain campaign must have seen something really, really bad in their debate prep to pull this stunt.
It's time to move in for the political 'kill'.
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All McCain's got are these cheap stunts. See "Sarah Palin."
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He wants to cancel the debate now that issues have become, well... issues!
He preferred it when it was all about swine and cosmetics.
---
I think that Obama and the Dem's best move is to immediately attack McCain for trying to inject Presidential politics into the economic crisis and into the proceedings trying to work out a solution.
---
I think it's essential that Dems follow the lead set by Reid in his statement and aggresively work to grab the initiaive on this issue, shape public opinion on it right away, and point out that this is a shameless political stunt by McCain.
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The McCain campaign must have seen something really, really bad in their debate prep to pull this stunt.
It's time to move in for the political 'kill'.
Our $0.02: A debate is a couple hours long. It is the debate prep that is the burden on both candidates. But why prep? Shouldn't they have their positions firmly expressed by now, after all these speeches, ads and commercials? We have two suggestions: 1) Have the debate moved to Washington where they will both be. They can break away for a couple hours. 2) Second, change the debate topic from foreign policy to the bailout topic, and demand specific answers as to what each of them will do to solve it. Without the benefit of hindsight. One of these guys will be our leader. This debate scenario will expose the best leader.
I didn't make anybody happy with this post, did I?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Drilling? Here?
The breaking news: The Democrats will allow the ban on offshore drilling to expire at the end of this month. AP Story:
Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.
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"If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.
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"If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Even Congressman Boehner doesn't believe it!
Let's see where this goes next. Without some limits on litigation from the wanna-be-relevant-hippies, this could lead nowhere. In other words, the leadership on this issue will continue to come from the Democrats.
Ushanka Tip: Rusty Shackleford!
Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report set a new standard this week with his "Hope, Change * Lies" post. Link.
Rusty connected the dots in a Palin smear campaign, and those dots appear to point to the Obama campaign.
Here is the smear video that is the subject of Rusty's report. Rusty was suspicious at how quickly the video had gone viral. He also recognized the voice as a professional used by Axelrod in the past. The quality of the supposed amateur video was another flag.
Rusty has added to his initial post with updates, such as the DailyKos link above, and the disappearance of the original YouTube account, a Facebook account, etc.
Great job, Rusty! Stay on your toes - we suspect to see more of this in the coming weeks!
UPDATE - 3:30pm: The Weekly Standard has picked up the story.
Sometimes rumors and lies get spread organically with no need from direction. But sometimes what may seem to be an organic bottom up grassroots movement, may actually be led from the top and may be professionally organized.
Rusty connected the dots in a Palin smear campaign, and those dots appear to point to the Obama campaign.
Using techniques that we've used in the past to find the identity of online terrorist supporters, the Jawa team went to work trying to figure out who was behind what appeared, in our opinion, to be a professionally orchestrated smear campaign aimed at Sarah Palin with the ultimate goal of electing Barack Obama.
Here is the smear video that is the subject of Rusty's report. Rusty was suspicious at how quickly the video had gone viral. He also recognized the voice as a professional used by Axelrod in the past. The quality of the supposed amateur video was another flag.
Daily Kos is the blog that really launched Obama's successful campaign. DailyKos diarist "geekesque" tells his audience of a plan to get this and other smear videos to go viral. And I mean just that: he admits that the video and others like it make false claims, but that the ends justify the means.
Rusty has added to his initial post with updates, such as the DailyKos link above, and the disappearance of the original YouTube account, a Facebook account, etc.
Great job, Rusty! Stay on your toes - we suspect to see more of this in the coming weeks!
UPDATE - 3:30pm: The Weekly Standard has picked up the story.
Our Liberal [Public] Schools
Three examples of what is wrong with our schools. Our solution is always the same: vouchers.
1) "It's the public school system. Let's be honest, it's full of liberal loons" says Dann Dalton in Aurora Colorado after his son was suspended for wearing a t-shirt to school that said "Obama - A Terrorists Best Friend". Story at My Fox Colorado. U/T JammieWearingFool
2) As part of the Dos Palos high school hippie dress-up day, Jake Shelly wore a red, white and blue tie-dyed shirt last Tuesday. The shirt was confiscated by the assistant principle, and Jake was forced to wear a yellow "Dress Code Violator" t-shirt the rest o the day. Two days later Jake wore his shirt after the publicity shamed the liberal administrators. He was joined by numerous classmates dress in red, white and blue. Story at Merced Sun Star. U/T DougM at SondraK, who says "Fire. Them. Now."
3) Our own Zhukov conducted an experiment at his high school a week ago. He wore a McCain-Palin button. No response from the school staff, but he was called "racist" five times by classmates, and received two thumbs up. U/T: Zhukov!
1) "It's the public school system. Let's be honest, it's full of liberal loons" says Dann Dalton in Aurora Colorado after his son was suspended for wearing a t-shirt to school that said "Obama - A Terrorists Best Friend". Story at My Fox Colorado. U/T JammieWearingFool
2) As part of the Dos Palos high school hippie dress-up day, Jake Shelly wore a red, white and blue tie-dyed shirt last Tuesday. The shirt was confiscated by the assistant principle, and Jake was forced to wear a yellow "Dress Code Violator" t-shirt the rest o the day. Two days later Jake wore his shirt after the publicity shamed the liberal administrators. He was joined by numerous classmates dress in red, white and blue. Story at Merced Sun Star. U/T DougM at SondraK, who says "Fire. Them. Now."
3) Our own Zhukov conducted an experiment at his high school a week ago. He wore a McCain-Palin button. No response from the school staff, but he was called "racist" five times by classmates, and received two thumbs up. U/T: Zhukov!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Mac vs. PC: The Roe Effect
Mac and PC discuss the mysterious drop in Democratic voter turnout.
Our video is based on James Taranto's opinion pieces, The Roe Effect, and later, Quantifying The Roe Effect.
Here are the calculations we used for this video (click for larger view):
Supporting articles, sources and video:
Our video is based on James Taranto's opinion pieces, The Roe Effect, and later, Quantifying The Roe Effect.
His Roe Effect is based on two assumptions:
1) Liberal/Democratic women are more likely to have abortions, and
2) Children's political views are often in line with their parents'.
These assumptions lead to the conclusion we present in our video - Democrats are aborting themselves out of the majority.
Taranto's analysis goes deeper than what we present in our video. Of his many sound conclusions, these stand out: Roe v. Wade gives Republicans an artificial advantage both in the abortion debate and in election turnout.
Here are the calculations we used for this video (click for larger view):
Our calculations do not include estimates for the number of offspring of the would-be aborted, some of who would be in their mid-thirties now.
Supporting articles, sources and video:
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Investing in Antiques - A Case Study
Andrew Osborn of the WSJ reports in today's paper, Moscow Will Boost Defense Spending to $50 Billion. His research includes analysis of performance of Russia's military in the recent Georgia invasion and the obvious: "...the boost highlights a gap between President Dmitry Medvedev's sometimes-conciliatory rhetoric and actual Kremlin policies". The graph below is from his article.
Last month's war against Georgia highlighted the weaknesses of Russian procurement policies, according to reports from Russian military officials that have since trickled out in the local media.
Though victorious, the Russian army discovered it had almost no spy drones, substandard satellite navigation and an aging arsenal of imprecise conventional weapons. When Russian commanders wanted to communicate with each other, they had to use cellphones because their own battlefield communications equipment was so poor. When the army wanted to observe Georgian troop movements, it sent a Tu-22 strategic bomber to do the job of a drone. It was shot down. Russian officers discovered that captured Georgian hardware -- of the same Soviet-era vintage as their own -- was actually better, since it had been modernized. Georgian tanks, unlike their Russian counterparts, had night-vision and fire-correction mechanisms.
Though victorious, the Russian army discovered it had almost no spy drones, substandard satellite navigation and an aging arsenal of imprecise conventional weapons. When Russian commanders wanted to communicate with each other, they had to use cellphones because their own battlefield communications equipment was so poor. When the army wanted to observe Georgian troop movements, it sent a Tu-22 strategic bomber to do the job of a drone. It was shot down. Russian officers discovered that captured Georgian hardware -- of the same Soviet-era vintage as their own -- was actually better, since it had been modernized. Georgian tanks, unlike their Russian counterparts, had night-vision and fire-correction mechanisms.
Sunday Evening Cigar
We smoked another Camacho SLR Maduro as we admired the new Front Placard for our Commie Obama Rally Cap. One side says "Obama Biden", the other "DNC 2010" in preparation for the next Capitalism vs. Communism debate.
