24 October 2008 Evening

First some humor: Check out this fire extinguisher fail.

Personal blogs: I am looking for good personal blogs written by conservatives who have some embrace of reality (that is, none of this “X is true because the Bible says so”). This blog, at first glance, appears to be a winner. This blogger gives a reaction to the Kathleen Parker column that I am going to conclude this post with.

Hillary Clinton She is campaigning hard; this personal story shows how her campaigning has won over some Florida voters for Obama.

Of course, Obama leads in the polls. But there were times when Kerry lead Bush. This post compares and contrasts Obama’s position with Kerry’s. In short, McCain will have to close much faster and stronger than Bush did in 2004.

Did you know that a McCain campaign member claimed to have been attacked and robbed by an Obama supporter who commented on her bumper sticker?

I admit to being skeptical when I heard this; after all many thugs don’t read all that well and hardly any follow politics. Nevertheless, the story was carried by some news outlets and many blogs; to be fair there were some conservative pundits who were also skeptical (e. g., Michelle Malkin). hat tip to them.

It turns out that it was a hoax. Even worse, some McCain campaign staffers pushed the story and embellished the details. Some in the media bought it!

Of course, the “faux assailant” was a scary black man.

A McCain campaign volunteer who reported that a tall black man robbed her and then cut a “B” onto her cheek after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car has been given a polygraph test because of “inconsistencies” in her story, police said.

I’m sure that conservatives (at least those that still support this ticket) will claim that “race had nothing to do with it”. Right.

Of course, fear is one of the few things that McCain has left.

They are playing on fears that Obama might not be able to handle an international incident, or that his mere election might lead to one!

To be honest, this McCain ad kind of reminds me of this one:

And these are a couple of reasons that the thought of electing McCain-Palin doesn’t comfort me:

I feel safer with the country being run by someone who actually knows something about national security.

I suppose that makes me an elitist!!!!

Oh yes, it sure doesn’t hurt that most of the rest of the world would rather have Obama win. You know, being liked and respected might actually get us more cooperation when it comes to fighting the war on terror. Remember that the extremists who “hate freedom” (and yes, they do) don’t like the other liberal democracies either (“liberal democracy” is one in which individuals have rights that can’t be taken away by majority decision).

Oh yes, I forgot, Obama is going to lead us to SOCIALISM!!!!! Really!

If you don’t believe me, ask Dick Morris:

As alarm bells ring incessantly, demanding government action to prevent the conflagration of our most important companies and markets, the Federal Reserve and Treasury rush to extinguish the flames with hoses filled with money. But this massive and needed public-sector intrusion into private enterprise begs the key question: After the fires are put out, will the government firefighters leave, or will they move into the companies they saved and evict their former corporate owners?

The current crisis makes it clear that the government will be invited inside the management and ownership of our top financial and corporate institutions. But it is unclear whether it will ever withdraw after the crisis has passed.

Ok, I admit to being a bit ignorant in economic matters, and I welcome correction from those who know more (not from those who think that they know, but from those who really do).

But it is my understanding that this rescue package involves the government buying some of these bad bonds and then selling them back when they are profitable; that is, we (the tax payers) will become shareholders (with of course, regulations on how the companies are run). The companies are free to buy back this debt when they are in a position to do so, right?

Back to Mr. Morris:

If Obama wins and takes a solidly and overwhelmingly Democratic Congress with him — including a filibuster-proof Senate — we will have to entrust our system of private ownership, limited government and free enterprise to the tender mercy of the left. But the newly empowered liberals will not have to breach the walls of the private sector, justifying each new intrusion by argument and logic. Rather, they will already be inside the gates, invited there to save these institutions from their own history of greed and mismanagement. Will the left simply leave government there, effectively converting our private enterprise system, where government absorbs about a third of our GDP into a social democracy, a la Europe, where the public sector accounts for almost half of the economy?

Say what? Lowering taxes on the middle class (those earning less than 200,000 dollars a year) thereby giving people more money to spend at small businesses is socialism? Perhaps we need a refresher on how the economy has done with Democrats in the Executive Branch:

Fortunately, wishful thinking by Republican pundits aside, the public isn’t buying it.

So it is little wonder that the McCain campaign is losing it. According to news reports, there is discord. And McCain advisers are losing patience when their lies and distortions are not being swallowed by the media:

In response to this morning’s post about an anti-Palin faction developing with the McCain campaign and among Republicans, Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser, e-mails:

Just read your post. This is on the record. This is cleared by HQ. It is a fact that Barack Obama was palling around with terrorists. It was a fact before Governor Palin said it in a fully vetted speech and it is fact today. It is bullshit to claim or write anything else.

Poor Republicans; they are so used the media just swallowing their lies whole. But hey, Mr. Scheunemann is just channeling his “inner Dick Cheney“.

No wonder some Republicans are openly defecting.

It gets better (from my point of view) Sarah Palin has strong ties to wacky churches (including those who believe in witch hunting)

I admit that I agree with this remark by an embattled Republican Representative:

One comment she has never explained came during a debate she had while running for Congress the first time in November 2005. Prompted by a question on the rioting in France and Europe at the time, Bachmann said “not all cultures are equal, not all values are equal,” letting it be known that she thought that people of the Muslim faith had an inferior culture to that of the United States and the West.

I agree with part of what she said: I think that overly religious societies are vastly inferior to secular ones that encourage freethinking. (note: atheist societies that are also totalitarian don’t qualify as these societies squelch free thinking).

Finally, the Kathleen Parker Article.

My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: “I’m sexually attracted to her. I don’t care that she knows nothing.”

Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin mystery with a devastating article in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine: “The Making (and Remaking) of McCain.”

McCain didn’t know her. He didn’t vet her. His campaign team had barely an impression. In a bar one night, Draper asked one of McCain’s senior advisers: “Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?”

The adviser thought a moment and replied: “No, I don’t know.” [...]

But there can be no denying that McCain’s selection of her over others far more qualified — and his mind-boggling lack of attention to details that matter — suggests other factors at work. His judgment may have been clouded by . . . what?

Science provides clues. A study in Canada, published by a British journal in 2003, found that pretty women foil men’s ability to assess the future. “Discounting the future,” as the condition is called, means preferring immediate, lesser rewards to greater rewards in the future.

Drug dealers, car salesmen and politicians rely on this affliction and pray feverishly for its persistence.

The Canadian psychologists showed pictures of attractive and not-so-attractive men and women to students of the opposite sex. The students were offered a prize — either a small check for the next day or a larger check at some later date.

The men made perfectly rational decisions, opting for the delayed, larger amount after viewing the average-looking women. You know where this is going. (Women, by the way, were rational no matter what.)

That men are at a disadvantage when attractive women are present is a fact upon which women have banked for centuries. Ignoring it now profits only fools. McCain spokesmen have said that he was attracted to Palin’s maverickness, that she reminded him of himself.

Duh. You’ve heard this before, right here.