Sunday, November 30, 2008

Severe Withdrawl Symptoms

The Iraqi parliament approved the three(3) year withdraw plan for American forces last week. It is incumbent upon Obama to make it clear that the US will not pull out under fire or with her tail between her legs. The examples of Israel's evacuation from Lebanon and later from Gaza illustrate what not to do. The South Lebanon pull back was done literally in the middle of the night. This allowed Hizbollah to proclaim victory over Israel and rallied countless fanatics to the Jihadi cause. The Gaza situation was mishandled with no dark of night pullout possible due to the presence and resistance of the Gush Katif block of Israeli citizens, Israel had a protracted effort sometimes under rocket or mortar fire and the occasional try at direct assault by members of the PRC, Hamas, or members of the al Qaeda sympathizing Dogmush klan. Once again, terrorists heralded a victory over the West and Israel. The British exit from Basra is also instructive. Much of Iraq remains a cauldron of simmering ethnic tension, but even in almost exclusively Shia Basra, after the British, Basra has become a tinderbox of gangs and warlords contesting the oil revenues. An American retreat seen as capitulation will engender renewed sectarian violence in mixed areas with the grave possibility of Saudi assistance to the Sunnis and Iranian aid or actual combat participation by Iranians on the side of the Sadrist block. Incidentally, Muqtada al Sadr's supporters in parliament opposed the Three(3) Year Plan and pushed for immediate American removal where the Iranians and their Shia surrogates could claim they had chased the Yankees from the country. No matter what else, America must conduct an orderly pull back that can only be seen as leaving in victory.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

The ISI Delivers

Pakistan has been implicated in past terror attacks on India. In the Mumbai Massacre, even if Pakistan as a nation did not direct the rampage, at the least rogue elements or former members of the ISI had to have had foreknowledge of the assault, acquaintance with the perpetrators or their backers, or a deeper involvement to the level of prior intelligence gathering and material support. Pakistan must select her side in the war on terror. To prove they are on the side of the West and civilization, they must open their books, as it were. Withdraw any agents abroad whose security would be compromised, investigate the activities of their operatives, and account for their spending. If any are found to have been involved, but national pride is deemed at stake, Pakistan can try and punish the guilty themselves. I have no doubt the leader of Pakistan whose own wife Benazir Bhutto was murdered by these same forces did not orchestrate or in any way condone the Mumbai terror. But the ISI has long been an international troublemaker. Their involvement in nuclear proliferation with the A. Q. Khan network providing the technical expertise to arm North Korea is well-documented. The Khan network also assisted Iran in her effort to acquire atomic capabilities.If she does not come clean, Pakistan will face the righteous wrath of an aroused India with support from Great Britain and the US. Pakistan must cast off the corrupt or fanatic elements she harbors now or face crushing defeat later.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Freedom and Submission

The BBC just reported that an Iranian man is to be blinded in accordance with Sharia law. In Minnesota, a disabled student at a community college who required a service dog had to withdraw in fear of his safety and that of his dog after threats from a Muslim student who said according to Islam, canines are unclean. Also in the Land of a Thousand Lakes, foot baths have been constructed for Muslim cabbies at the airport. These cabbies are refusing passengers with alcohol (precisely the type of person who should be riding in a cab rather than risking driving drunk). A Muslim charter school paid for with public funds has religious study which is supposedly not compulsory at the end of the school day but the buses do not load and leave until after the "voluntary" prayer meeting. Harvard has sequestered one of its athletic complexes reserving it at times for Muslim women who say they must be fully veiled and therefore less mobile and able to exercise if men are present. All these accommodations seem to show great tolerance but in fact are victories of a pseudo-religiosity that serves for many of its practitioners as a political and legal system. This theocracy of fatwa and sharia is the least compromising faith entity and I hesitate to use "faith" here, that exists in the modern world. Ahmadinejad is not the highest power in Iran; the Ayatollahs are. Islam as it is practised by both Sunni and Shia adherents is incompatible with the ideals of individual liberty and representative democracy with their Judeo-Christian basis as has prevailed in the West. Certainly, there are individual Muslims who wish to reform their own religion, but they are a threatened minority. Salman Rushdie dared to question some aspects of the rule of his own faith-actually focusing on Pakistan but this so outraged the Iranians that they called for his death. Theo Van Gogh was butchered for questioning the cruelty of Islam. Recent history is replete with examples of Islamic extremism destroying its critics or those of other faiths. The Christian publishing house in Turkey where three were murdered, the Philippines, Thailand, the current barbarism in India. I say no more to the West giving in to Sharia, our liberty, indeed our very lives, depend on stopping the spread of this political philosophy cum religion, this set of laws that proscribe stoning, amputation, blinding, that in practice in Iran hangs homosexuals in the street. Only by saying no now, can we preserve our freedom from Islam whose actual translation means submission. Give them another inch, another Hamtramck with its call to prayer in the heart of Michigan, and you will soon see Madrids and Beslans in many states. We seek to co-exist-they seek to conquer.

The God Particle

PBS aired an Independent Lens program about the Fermi lab super collider. The physics interested me so I watched the program in its entirety. There was the typical liberal bellyaching about funding cuts, but what disturbed me the most, was the gratuitous shot the producers took at religious believers. The narrator mocked the state of Kansas for allowing the "supernatural" to be considered in the science curricula. The program focused largely on the search for the so-called Higgs Boson, the theorized foundational particle on which all matter exists. This God particle as the physicists called it has not been discovered despite efforts of several decades and hundreds of millions of dollars spent. The researchers, undoubtedly both sincere in their quest and diligent, are barking up the wrong tree. To find the Uncaused First Cause, they should open a Bible.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

The Race Case

Obama said during the campaign that the Republicans would tell the public "he has a funny name-and did you notice, he's black." I never heard Republican candidates or indeed anyone in legitimate discourse mention race in this campaign. Race seems to be taboo in politics, policing, and most media. In a tony area of Nashville, there was a home invasion several days back. The local newscasts mentioned five(5) male assailants, their weapon, their vehicle, the vehicle they stole right down to color and license plate number, their style of dress, the two ATMs they made their three(3) victims withdraw money from-indeed almost every relevant detail, but they left out the most distinctive feature. The television reports did not state that the attackers were black. Only a giveaway newspaper declared this glaring omission. This failure by much of the press endangers the public. The same attitude prevailed with the media and more importantly with the authorities during the Washington, D.C. sniper case where witnesses had spoken of seeing two suspicious African-Americans at the scene of several shootings, but this information was suppressed from the public. After Ann Presley was brutally attacked in Little Rock, there was speculation in some national media quarters that the assault was committed by a right winger in retaliation for Presley's participation in Oliver Stone's latest film. An arrest was just made-allegedly Ann's murderer is a black guy.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Gallant and Glorious

Nick Schifrin reported the latest terrorist outrage at the start of World News Tonight. He described the simultaneous attacks as "bold". Audie Murphy who faced two Italian tanks with a Tommy gun was bold. Ernie Pyle who went to war with a typewriter was bold. Assailing unarmed civilians in cafes, hotels, and wounded people in a hospital is not bold. Even the suicide bombers are not bold-they are just deluded. The practices of asymmetric warfare are not brave. I saw a drunk cold cock an eighty year old female tavern keeper once after she cut him off. Was he a hero? These people who capture a theater in Moscow or a school in Beslan are the lowest form of yellow this author knows of, and there is a deterrent no matter how distasteful. Let it be known that every member of their family or tribe will be hunted down when they are identified. They will be wiped from the face of the earth. Cherie Blair said she understood Palestinian suicide bombers some years back. I wonder if her empathy extended to the 7/7 bombers. It is sadly all too easy to find fanatics willing to slaughter others and sacrifice their own lives, but are they willing to put their entire family at risk?

The Turtle Sinks

Note: This article does not concern the Revolutionary War submarine the Turtle although that does make quite a story. The media has reported that thirty(30) Kemp's Ridley sea turtles have washed ashore and eighteen(18) have sadly perished. This carnage has been brought about by a cold snap unprecedented since temperature figures have been collected. On the morning news, a much ballyhooed program for Broadway to go green at the prompting of Mayor Bloomberg was announced to combat global "warming". Once again, not man made climate change which may not be occurring but warming which is certainly not happening. How many times must we hear the sky is falling nonsense before we say enough and stop forfeiting our freedoms? Why are we allowing so dubious a premise as man-made global warming to dominate our national policy? Rev your engines, use your incandescent bulbs, and save the turtles.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Splinters of Sorrow

Who has not faced lust and loss/ Who has not borne the awful cost/ Who can deconstruct the anatomy of desire/ Who can extinguish the primal fire/ Only a fool would try/ Lonely ever lonely/ Saddened, never knowing why/ Ennui bleakly spoken/ No love there for me/ For I am not Joyce Kilmer/ I can not love a tree

Facing the Music

The atavistic Wahhabi former rulers of Afghanistan banned among other things music. They forced men to grow beards, but their most fierce animosity was reserved for women. I read on ABC's morning crawl that Taliban had been detained for an acid attack on women and girls who they had caught in the cardinal offense of education. The punishment for the Jihadi perpetrators of this crime against humanity should be swift and certain justice perhaps the same as the Nazi war criminals at Biskupia Gorka. But then a more sardonic and long lasting consequence came to mind. The acid throwers should be subjected to hearing the collected works of Andrea Dworkin read to them by Pashtoon speaking females who resemble the arch-feminist and are unveiled and clad in Western dress twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for the rest of their lives. Maybe an Irving Berlin score could accompany the readings.

Monday, November 24, 2008

His Supreme Arrogance

Obama just trotted out his economic team. President-elect Certitude says he has confidence in their "ingenuity" and in the "hard work and sacrifice" of the American people. Not the ingenuity of the American people but our hard work and sacrifice. We are his worker bees, his drones, his great unwashed proletariat. It is the ingenuity of the American people not his James Watt joke of an economic team that have made America the unstoppable engine of prosperity that feeds the world. My earlier post talked of justice which Obama characterized in today's press briefing as equalizing outcomes, whether he would allow Bush's tax cuts to lapse or repeal them. I benefited from the Bush tax cuts, but my net worth is about one-seventh of what it was just last year. Yet, the class warfare artist Obama wants to punish generations of my family for living within our means and actually accumulating something. If O-I'm so sorry so many were gulled into voting for him wants justice, how about ending the slaughter of innocents called abortion that has stolen the lives of forty-five million plus before they took their first breath. God forgive America.

Justice Just Miscarried

The jihadi proclaims a quest for justice. The justice delayed is justice denied crowd never met a murderer they did not have sympathy for, and real justice is about as rare as a unicorn. Over the weekend, Iran was reported to have hanged an Israeli spy. They even had a so-called confession video where he admonishes others not to follow his path. His name was Ali Ashtari and he was a Jewish husband and father. Isn't it amazing what torture can cause a person to confess? This happens while Israel continues to pay a real spy-Asmi Bishara, a former Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset from the Balad party who gave state secrets to Hizbullah, his pension. The American left has questioned whether Bush will pardon Cheney. Bush should have his pardon pen in hand alright. He should pardon Agents Ramos and Compean forthwith. He should open the gates for David Olofson-the overused sear pin victim incarcerated for his accidental automatic. Bush freed Scooter Libby which was appropriate as Libby was caught in a process crime trap by an overburdened memory. Bill Clinton on the other hand deliberately lied about a dalliance, but let's move on about that. WCBS reported that the homeless in New York City could not use twenty-two(22) churches for shelter because they were only open to them five days a week. This is murder (vagrants will die of exposure), a violation of the separation of church and state, and the ancient concept of sanctuary. The indispensable man Bloomberg-enemy of trans fat, salt, and tobacco, grants himself a third term against existing term limits and oh so wise New Yorkers say "Save us-Oh mighty Bloomberg." Only a rube or wet behind the ears innocent seeks perfect equity and only God finds it.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Dead Cat Bounce

The markets on Friday experienced a bit of a rebound perhaps in part because Obama did not appoint a flaming radical to Treasury. But it is not Obama's cabinet that will make his decisions. His own radical ideas will shape national policy, and the markets will not be heartened by his massive government expansion plan broadcast over the weekend which does nothing but promise higher taxes on the private sector to pay for the Obama public works agenda.

Full Mexican Employment

Obama web cast his grand plan for economic revival promising 2,500,000 jobs by 2011. These make-work positions are destined to be filled almost entirely by Hispanics as Obama is offering school construction, roads, and bridges. With his open borders amnesty, even if it is called comprehensive immigration reform, the number of Latin Americans, who already dominate the construction trades, will only go up. Obama promises to green America with solar and wind power while using carbon trading credits to drive the coal industry out of business. On the destroying business front, I have no doubt Obama will make great strides. The old New Deal efforts will only prolong economic misery.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

The Lawless Lauded

Leftist venerate cold-blooded murderers. Obama had a campaign headquarters that reportedly featured a poster of Che Guevara. Students at universities the world over wear t-shirts emblazoned with Che's visage. Mao jackets were all the rage in the early 70s. College radio station disc jockeys have been known to spout "Free Mumia" on the airwaves for the unrepentant murderer Abu-Jamal, but I never hear them mention Officer Danny Faulkner, who laid down his life protecting their ordered society. Obama mentor Bill Ayers dedicated one of his books to Sirhan Sirhan while Saul Alinsky who shaped the thinking of both Obama and Hillary Clinton dedicated his book to the ultimate evil-Satan. I have never seen a rightist professor with a poster up of Adolf Hitler not that there are many conservative instructors in the first place. Maybe mock scholar David Irving has one up.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Straw Man Topples

World markets have plummeted; even oil, which was supposed to be past peak production with supplies on the way to drying up, has dropped under $50 per barrel. Demand has evaporated, not just for oil but for almost every consumer good. A cycle of deflation may prevail which the Obama tax plan would only worsen. When a luxury tax was passed on yachts and cars over $35,000, their sales contracted and the American boat industry collapsed. To stimulate demand and robust spending, taxes must be lowered. Unfortunately, Obama who does not recognize the dynamic nature of the economy does not have "tax cut" for the people who do the real spending in his vocabulary.

The Dole Dwellers

Obama swept to power on a tide of parasites. Many of his voters think he is Santa. One was interviewed and said now that Obama has risen, she will no longer have to worry about paying for gas or her mortgage. Come again? Obama captured the votes of 69% of unmarried women. They can not find a husband, so they voted for a grand government sugar daddy. No hope exists for sustained recovery if Obama institutes his campaign promises. Some commentators are saying Obama will curb his socialist impulse to save the nation. This is a pipe dream. A leopard can not change its spots.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Dwarf Slays Giant

A rare good news story aired on ABC tonight. It was a little report from the tiny country of Ecuador about people with Laron Syndrome seeming to be immune from cancer. There seems to be a potential clinical benefit to be derived from the participation of these midgets who are glad to collaborate in the effort to end the scourge of metastasis. That's the long and short of it.

Ammo Be Gone

Obama and his minions may not even try to take our guns. If he can ban ammunition, as has happened before with the Black Talon being withdrawn from the market, he need not physically remove the firearm from our cold, dead hands. He can simply cease civilian sale of bullets, shotgun shells, make re-loading supplies illegal to deprive hand-loaders, or place such high taxes on these items as to make them cost prohibitive (just look at the cigarette tax and see what can happen). We may have a Second Amendment in writing but no effective right to use it.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Men's Rights Movement

I can first recall seeing a blond fellow in a skirt talking men's rights circa 1980. I thought seeing his hippie haircut and beard and unusual style of dress that he was merely an attention seeker or avant-garde bohemian. But in the intervening years, I have come to see the wisdom of the men's rights arguments. A particular case is illustrative. I have a friend who I will call Pal. Pal left work early one day to find a strange car in his driveway and the door dead bolted and chained from the inside. He knew his wife was home, her car was under the carport; so he proceeded to look in the windows. When he arrived at the master suite of the one level ranch, he peered through the slats of the Venetian blinds and caught his wife in flagrante delicto. He ran to his front door and kicked it in. This was his only act of violence. He knocked down the door to his own house. For this, Pal who is responsible and self-supporting was labelled a domestic abuser. He had received two collections in the inheritance from his father. One was a belt buckle collection that he had to part with in his subsequent divorce. The other was a five-figure value gun collection that the police seized that day. In Nashville, where this incident occurred, the police are possessed by an anti-gun mania. They melted down these guns including some dating back to the US Civil War. The Second Amendment is made meaningless if the allegations of a vindictive partner or an incident where no violence was committed against a person or even a threat made lead to authorities grabbing guns and forever denying the right of someone who is hardly a menace to society their natural right to keep and bear arms.

Calling All Consultants

This column is engendered by some local Nashville news. A consultant retained by the Metro Fair Board spoke for forty-five(45) minutes about the need to modernize our fair, perhaps relocate it, and the viability or rather lack there of, of the motor speedway that is located within the fair complex. All this is way inside baseball with no national implications except that the consultant said whatever course Metro takes, it will be expensive. And there is the rub. Anytime a public entity wants something that will cost the taxpayers dearly, they cherry pick a consultant, who does not come cheap, to justify another exorbitant expenditure of the peoples' hard earned but all too easily taken by government money. The same ploy was used with consultants being retained to give cover to a raise in executive compensation at our electric company-a public utility. Have you ever heard of a consultant giving thumbs down on any project? I haven't; that must be as rare as a June bug on the North Pole. Why do government professionals need consultants in the first place? If their purview is not within their field of expertise, why are they there in the first place? We can save a ton of money by firing the bureaucrats and letting the consultants make all the decisions. That way we cut out the middle man.

Coming Gun Confiscation

Putative AG Eric Holder is a gun control fanatic. I don't care whether he advanced the pardon of Mark Rich without giving it due deliberation, any more than I care if the former Mrs. Rich ever visited the underside of President Clinton's desk. Democrats are corrupt. But I care very deeply when they steal my ability to protect myself and my family. By their criminal nature, felons are not concerned with a law on paper. They readily break those, but when my window is shattered at midnight, the housebreaker better be concerned when he hears me chamber a round-the last sound he will ever hear.

Corporate Jet Crash

ABC's gadfly imp Brian Ross pilloried auto executives for flying to Washington on corporate jets. He tried to question GM's Rick Wagoner as he departed the hearing chamber. GM employs hundreds of thousands in Michigan, Tennessee(Saturn), Kentucky(the Corvette plant), many other US states in fact, and many foreign countries. He could be summoned anywhere on earth at any time and can not be tied to airline schedules. He may use his powers of suasion in person to lobby Angela Merkel and other German leaders as GM, which has sold millions of cars under the Opal label, to extend GM a line of credit (as of now, GM is seeking $1 billion from Germany). A local talk show host joined the bashing bandwagon. This usually reliable conservative does not recognize the mainstream media is on a anti-corporate jihad trying to facilitate Obama's socialism. This is not Steve Gill's first departure from reason. I well remember his defense of Sam Howard who helped bankrupt Tennessee's attempt at universal health care. He knew Howard, a colleague in Republican administrations, was an honorable man despite drawing $50 million while failing to pay providers. I guess it is alright to drain the public trough as long as you are a close personal friend, and it's fine to play the class envy card when it advances your argument. AIG was also criticized by Ross as it has multiple jets still in use but is trying to sell two of them. Part of AIG's business model and a profit center is jet leasing. Just a short-time ago, reporters were doing stories on the good corporate jets have done, transporting needed transplant organs, sick patients, or relatives of injured troops such as a flight of a family to the military burn center in Texas to be with a critically wounded soldier. The free market is our only hope for positive change.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

A Fool's Counsel

Greg Craig has joined the Obama coven. He will be the White House lawyer, no Harriet Miers he. Craig does not want to protect the rights of the yet born. In fact, he cares not the least for life or liberty. Craig was chiefly responsible for whisking Alian Gonzales back into tyranny. The shyster of the Marxist left-a William Kunstler with a better haircut will now be roaming the corridors of highest power. Yesterday, Obama stooped to meet with the vanquished McCain. At the conclusion, a reporter asked the President-elect what had transpired at the talks. He said he and his former rival had spoken of new ways to "f...(expletive expurgated) up the country". Perhaps this coarseness was meant to demonstrate Obama's masculinity, channel the oft profane LBJ, start a George Carlin seven words lounge act, or mimic Richard Pryor or today's rappers, but to borrow from Dana Carvey's Church Lady-we don't need a potty mouth President.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Car Crash V

Mike Boltiere was down after his sister's demise. She had been his only sibling, the product of his mom's marriage to a half-Italian, half-Jewish ne'er-do-well from New York City. He hated his dad and harbored some antisemitism as a result. Mike would be at the house with his Mom who had a parrot and two mean black Chow dogs. His maternal grandparents had flown in from Las Vegas and were complaining about the ticket cost even though they had been given a compassionate discount. Mike's grandfather regaled us with tales of guarding Nazi prisoners with a Tommy gun during World War II. Things brightened up a bit for Mike and his mom-Joyce if I recall, with their insurance settlement checks. They bought cars-Mike a '57 Chevy like Stephen King's Christine with a bad generator that kept stalling out. Mike got a new job at a place called Cube Graphics which sounds high-tech but was actually assembling sticky notes. On April 1, incidentally my grandfather's birthday, I heard on the local ABC affiliate's early news that two young men had been killed in a car accident. They named one as Mike Boltiere. I looked in the phone directory and there were two Mike Boltieres listed. I prayed it wasn't my Mike. I called our mutual friend Paul when I was not able to raise anyone at Mike's house. Paul and no one else I knew had heard the news report or anything of the accident. Even Mike's mother had not been informed but some irresponsible emergency service worker had released the name to the media. Paul confirmed the death through local cops he knew, and he and I drove to Mike's house and told his mother who had just arrived home from work that she needed to come with us to the hospital. We entered through the ER and spoke to a nurse who immediately understood the gravity and nature of what Paul and I whispered. A clergyman-I always presumed from the staff told Joyce the news. She wailed. Mike had been in a little yellow Mustang-I had thought Christine and his bad driving had finally caught up to him. But he was a passenger. He and his co-worker were rushing with a batch of Ex lax pudding to play a joke on their mates before their shift ended. What an ignominious way to go on April Fool's Day. The last time I saw Joyce was when we visited her home several days after the open casket funeral. She was distraught, almost catatonic. Her home was on the market; her folks were there and they were going to move her to Vegas. Everything she had created with her life and cherished was dead.

Car Crash IV

My friend Mike Boltiere had a pretty sister, slightly older named Robyn. I had only met her a couple of times, but she was twentyish, vivacious, with dark features of Mediterranean beauty that I like. I enjoyed her company and thought I might have the chance to date her. I never did. She went to a ladies night at a club near our National Guard Armory. Witnesses later reported she had more than five drinks. There is a shipping hub for eighteen wheelers near the military depot and the nightclub. She pulled in front of a big rig on her departure presumably for home, and she and her car were knocked down a hill. I went to her funeral-the first open casket service I ever attended. She looked intact, but Mike who had seen her before the cosmetic morticians worked her over, told us the side of her face had been torn away.

Car Crash III

The first fatal crash I happened upon was at a busy Nashville intersection. I was once again a passenger with a couple of buddies. John is now a professor at a community college in Georgia. Mike who I will describe later is no longer amongst us. We heard a thunderous report as we drove up and saw a crumpled Nissan Sentra and a more or less intact Ford F-100. The couple in the pickup and we merry three rushed to the remains of the import. Shortly thereafter, the first gendarme arrived. He would not assist the injured driver of the Nissan. I suppose it was at that time an early fear of AIDS. I had taken basic and advance lifesaving at Red Cross and knew CPR. I removed my white undershirt- the cleanest garment at hand and held direct pressure on the young man's chest where he was bleeding still behind the steering wheel. An ambulance arrived, and the professionals took over the life support efforts. The officer took our statements and details, but from the back of John's Maverick I had not seen much. I heard the driver I had tried to save later expired.

Car Crash II

Illuminate (this blog's author) has a bit of experience with car crashes. Illuminate was the passenger in a hell of a motor vehicle accident. About twenty years back, Illuminate had a grandmother on her deathbed in Nashville's Catholic hospital. Illuminate had a friend in graduate school (he is now an instructor of mathematics at the college level). This fellow thought Illuminate was becoming morose and needed to leave the infirmary for a while. He picked Illuminate up in a Volkswagen Jetta that was probably four years old at that time. We dined at a nearby roadhouse-style steakhouse (the kind with peanut shells on the floor). Both of us were flirting with the waitress who said she was an undergrad at a nearby Baptist school that recently gained some notoriety hosting an Obama-McCain debate. She was an animal lover, and I mentioned I had a flat-coated Retriever during our meal. Well, little miss coed followed us out with a bag of meat scraps for my dog. My friend and I were mortified as I was having trouble buckling the unfamiliar seat belt and Mike was helping me buckle in. To someone approaching the car from behind, it must have looked with Mike's head down intently and his hands busily at work that we were committing an overt obscenity. That is certainly what the waitress must have thought when she dropped the meat and sprinted back toward the restaurant. I caught up to her with an explanation as she reached the door. I don't think she bought it-though it was the truth. Well, Mike buckled me back in to the harness that was so different than my Jeep's. This was fortuitous as Mike thought I needed more morale boost and was driving us to a late night movie. On the journey to what no doubt would have been an uplifting feature, Mike on green pulled in front of a conversion van-the kind that had been a church-type carrier of 12-15 passengers. For me, time stood still. I shouted, "Look out!" I remember the Bangles cover of Hazy Shade of Winter was playing-I heard "in the Salvation Army band" as metal began to rend metal, glass shattered and I was partially ejected with my head and right shoulder exiting the windshield despite Mike making an almost maternal, preternatural effort to catch me and hold me in the car with his right hand. I bounced head first on the dashboard above the glove box as the car spun 180 degrees torquing me back through the wind screen. The car settled facing the opposite direction we had been going. The radio continued to play although the car had fractured into several separate pieces of German steel. Mike asked me if I was OK. It seemed to be a question from a great distance away even though we were still seated side by side. Momentarily, I could not respond as my ears were ringing and I saw stars. Mike asked again-"Are you OK?" My senses normalized as I tried to move various and sundry parts. They all seemed to work although slowly and with pain. "Yes", I respond, "I think I am", as I managed to unhook myself with Mike's assistance and exit the mangled Volkswagen. We checked the occupants of the van that hit us-three older black people who also said they were alright as the Metro ambulance arrived. The meatwagon carried a crew that looked us over and wanted to know if we needed to be transported to a hospital. Mike and I declined as the second ambulance took the other motorists. I filled out a report to the traffic cop along with Mike and we requested as the hulks of ruin were hauled away that the remaining officer or departing ambulance crew drive us somewhere safe. We were informed by the public servants that they were not a taxi service and were abandoned in a rough neighborhood to our own devices. We walked injured a quarter of a mile to a Denny's- the only nearby open business at that time of night. I had not seen myself and proceeded to a bathroom while Mike requested a phone to call for a ride back to the safety and comfort of home. I look a fright with blood and glass all over me. I wipe and wash the gore and shards away as best I can. No wonder the staff and patrons looked at me like I was an alien as I entered. I stop all but a trickle of blood near my eye. I exit and Mike is being told by the untermenschen that work there that he can not use a phone as there is a pay phone, but we have no change. They will not break a bill unless we order something and there is a $5 minimum. I am angry but order coffee, Mike orders a breakfast and I pay with a hundred. I try to call my parents to pick us up, but they can't as they are on death watch. Mike's father who I have never met drives into Nashville from an outlying community to collect us. He has interesting stories. He is six feet, six inches and was a Vietnam era SP(navy cop). He says he managed Madison Square Garden for Gulf and Western and came to Tennessee to be Comptroller of the largest industrial project in Tennessee to that time-a Japanese auto plant. He had a shocked look when he saw me as Mike had said no one was hurt in the wreck. Day is breaking as I bid Mike adieu. MRI and CAT scan. Cerebral concussion and ruined right shoulder. 30% disability rating-dumb doctor says he won't give me a higher rating thinking I am trying to game the system. I am actually gratified that I was not injured worse or killed. My family would never seek nor accept charity or government assistance and all I wanted was to work my way back to 100%. I am distressed that my insurance company makes me sue Mike to cover my injuries. Nine months of rehab follow. I graduate from physical therapy only to destroy my right ankle on ice the next day. Folks at the clinic are surprised to see me. I was, as is typical in my life, injured trying to do a good deed. The next door neighbor's female yellow lab was left in a cage in an ice storm. I snuck over and brought her to my grandmother's home where I was after her passing and waited for the winter blast to die down. In the early daylight, I slipped Precious back into her cage and rolled my ankle on a slick spot on the way back in. As granny used to say:"Ain't life grand."

Car Crash I

Obama has not the slightest interest in advancing the interests of US auto companies. He and the Democrats are only concerned with the automotive workers union. The bailout they craft will be a sop to the UAW. If they wanted to help the companies, they would have advocated relaxing CAFE standards and eased other regulation. Democrats have in the event done the exact opposite. The legacy costs and capitulation to UAW demands have created a situation where the bailout will only forestall the reckoning, and either the Big Three will be absorbed by foreign auto makers with union contracts ended, socialized outright, or owned by the workers.

Obama and Lincoln

Obama was the highlight of Sixty Minutes last night. He declared his admiration for Honest Abe (one wonders if Obama realizes Lincoln was the proto-Republican). How long will it take for Obama to suspend the right of habeas corpus as Lincoln did? Will he use an act of terror as his excuse or fabricate another provocation? Obama also revers FDR and is sure to implement a new New Deal which only prolonged the Great Depression.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Stir the Pot

My previous post mentions Good Morning America. This Sunday's program had a news story about the G-20 Summit. The reporterette had the gaul to say that the menu at the Summit raised eyebrows as the leaders dined on lamb and wine that cost upward of $400. Is she kidding? These are the leaders of the twenty largest economies on earth. Did she expect them to wait in line at a soup kitchen or go thru the takeout window at McDonald's. Does she believe the Obamas will subsist on bread and water? This is promulgating class envy and populist bull. There is little sense and even less integrity in the old line media. I heard today on Fox News Sunday that Dick Parsons, the head of Time Warner, is a senior Obama advisor. That relationship should have been mentioned early and often by every magazine and news program generated by his company, then those voters who were not cognizant of it could have taken everything reported with a grain of salt. News should be objective, not an editorial in disguise, tainted with concealed bias.

Cabrini Greening America

Obama has promised change. On this I have no doubt he will deliver. A rising tide raises all boats and Obama's socialist machinations will sink the economy. How much prosperity does punishing achievers create? Global warming-not man-made global climate change but still warming in a period when the earth is cooling, will be the rationale to restrict our behavior, curb our travel and energy use, modify our consumption and ultimately bring the third world to our living rooms. ABC's Good Morning for morons promoted Boulder, Colorado's "Smart Grid" energy plan this morning where a conglomeration of utilities has signed up 50,ooo customers to voluntarily participate in a system that analyzes their carbon footprint- telling the optimal times to run their washers, charge their cell phones, use their dryers and whether their power is coming at any particular moment from clean solar, wind, or "dirty coal". The president of the University of Colorado and his wife were the guinea pigs shown on the program, and they are blissfully unaware evidently that what is voluntary for them today may soon be imposed on the rest of us. They have invited big brother to monitor aspects of their life and comport to the caprice of others. With my last breath, I would resist this encroachment. They are stealing our freedoms. A volcanic eruption such as Mount Pinatubo or Mount Saint Helens produces more environmental destruction in moments than man collectively can cause in years. Solar activity, precipitation, natural cycles man does not have the ability to alter change global climate. Czech Republic leader Vaclav Klaus, a man who has suffered under the boot of repression, issued the signal warning that those backing the global warming agenda are fakers interested only in their ability to advance their own power and diminish our liberty. Don't let them.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Mind the China

Great Britain cynically and cravenly recognized China's control of Tibet yesterday to gain China's acquiescence on financial matters at the G-20 summit. This is dangerous as it endorses might is right and opens the doors wider to a potential attack by China on Taiwan. Ethnic Tibetans are not Chinese and even when the Dalai Lama abandoned the quest to regain Tibetan independence, China's bloody occupation did not become right. Israel should now annex all its former territory on this theory as at least it has a plausible a priori claim on the land (the Bible). While Prime Minister Brown seems to be charting a decent course calling for lower taxes, his kowtowing to China may come back to haunt him.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Arrogance and Ignorance

Obama and the Democrats made much of American unilateralism-Bush the go it alone cowboy, during the campaign. Yet, when invited to the G-20 Summit with the world's most powerful economies gathered to work their way out of recession, Obama deigns not show up. Reportedly. he has sent two representatives including former Secretary of State Madeline Halfwit. Is Obama so almighty and infallible that he need not listen to the constructive ideas of other world leaders? Or could it be the case that Obama does not want to betray his ignorance on matters economic to so many luminaries? In either case, Obama and the US could benefit from solutions like the one offered by Gordon Brown-certainly no rightist Prime Minister, for global tax cuts to stimulate economic growth. Obama has no intention of listening to anyone who doesn't promote his brand of socialism.

Time Space Continuum

A friend of mine had a twenty year old Siamese cat. She always talked about how spry Yul was. He would chase his little fuzzy ball on a string, tear his yarn to pieces, make the bell in the tiny plastic orb ring. My friend's circle of acquaintance would marvel at her old cat. One evening at the cocktail hour, her professor colleagues were being entertained and astonished by super kitty. I noticed one doctor of philosophy so engrossed in feline antics that he had eschewed the brie and was devouring cat kibble left casually at the table for when Yul did a leaping daredevil display of hunger. He voted Obama. Finally, I could no longer be silent. I said, "The cat does not know he's twenty(20),the cat does not know what day it is, what week it is, what year it is. I'm not even sure the cat knows he's a cat-the way he is feted he probably thinks he's the King of Thailand." I haven't been invited back, and I feel bad. I heard Yul didn't wake up Monday.

Department of State

Obama is purportedly pondering Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. She certainly exudes the warmth of a diplomatic personality. Why she is just like a wicker basket of newborn pu...copperheads. Let us never forget how she hugged and kissed Suha Arafat just after Mrs. Arch-terrorist had claimed the Jews (Israel) had used poison gas on Palestinians in attempted genocide. Of course, Democratic Secretaries of State do not face the same internal resistance as Republican administrations. Bush's Department could not find state department careerists to serve in Iraq and had to initiate an effort to draft them. Many openly protested and some even resigned. At least whoever Obama picks and those serving in the diplomatic corps will not try to undermine him. Just look how the last Democratic Secretary of State elevated the prestige of the nation by Madeline Albright mortifying the US by taking of her shoes and running in her skirt to try to prevent Yasser Arafat from leaving a peace conference. And don't get me started about her predecessor, facus vomitus partisan hack Warren Christopher. Bill Richardson would be a better choice than Her Rotten Clintoness, at least he has some experience being duped by the North Koreans, but the best choice would be George Mitchell who actually has helped bring peace someplace (Ireland).

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Turmoil, Trauma, Treachery

Economic dislocation is already escalating. Unemployment numbers are rising. Obama has promised a $3000 tax credit for each job a business creates. Even at minimum wage, a full-time employee will make many times that and that does not include the expense of training and benefits. Once hired, Obama's infatuation with trial lawyers will make it problematic to fire anyone. Under Obama, unemployment in the private sector is destined to skyrocket. Government will try to offset this with massive make-work programs in the spirit of FDR's New Deal or Johnson's Great Society, both dismal and demonstrable failures. The taxes to pay for Obama's government leviathan will only cripple entrepreneurs that much more. Herbert Hoover raised taxes in a recession and did a brilliant job of pushing the economy over a cliff. If Obama follows the path of John Maynard Keynes or Lester Thurow, he will injure the nation irrevocably. He must embrace the supply-siders, follow the path of Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer and allow private enterprise to grow us out of our current travail. But Obama's animus to capitalism and love of power will prevent this. He will not honor his pledge to lower taxes on 95% of the people. In all likelihood, he will betray many of his own high earning voters and raise taxes on everyone already paying them. This was the victory of populism, progressive prevarication, and power madness over patriotism and productive people.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Who is Paulson

Our prospective bailout was passed precipitously, without due deliberation by Congress, and was ill-conceived. The plan has not been implemented with Secretary Paulson today changing direction. Just who is this man given unprecedented budgetary authority and the reins over $700 billion in new spending? This is a figure that would make Midas blush, Croesus cry, and even get Bill Gates' and Warren Buffet's attention. Never in history has such power been left in the hands of one man, no matter how carefully vetted. And as today's events illustrated Paulson has an evolving position which only militates towards a greater erosion of confidence in the markets. But for far too long, it appears our economy has been in the hands of confidence men.

Told You So

An AP poll headlined this morning heralds that the public seems ready to wait on tax cuts. Obama was never going to cut taxes. His redistributionist nature is opposite of that. Now, Obama has the cover of this poll and similar manipulations to come that will indicate that the public is not clamoring for tax relief and recognizes the deep hole Bush left us in. This will be Obama's built-in rationale and excuse for massive tax increases and for the deep and prolonged recession that Obama will exacerbate and might turn into a depression. There is blame to go around-the bets on bets of the derivative markets that mocked fiduciary responsibility and duped buy and hold investors, executive compensation packages and golden parachutes that bore no relation to performance, and the aggressive hunt for redlining that forced banks to make loans that could never be paid back. Borrowers who overbought, developers who overbuilt, unions who made company breaking demands all fed the fire. There is no facile solution to where greed has brought us, indeed there may be no solution at all. Hang on C.W., it's going to be a rough ride.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Worst Case Scenario

Perhaps, Senator McCain will be happier in defeat than facing an unprecedented economic crisis that he or Obama or anyone else will find unmanageable. Pat Robertson reported that $300 trillion are at risk in the derivative markets-a figure of such an astounding magnitude as to dwarf the US, indeed the world economy. No actions by a single government or the world's governments acting collectively may stave off the collapse of currency. Stories abound of people with wheelbarrows of money going to buy bread in late Wiemar Germany. The same situation exists today in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Don't be confident that a similar calamity could not happen here. Middle class families who have never known privation or hunger could face it soon. If someone does not grow there own crops, have a barterable skill, or have a tangible asset(gold, diamonds, something illiquid not fungible but with real inherent worth), they may not eat. Concerted action now to save banks or automobile producers may be necessary but who could be certain of the value of paper printed by governments that have overseen the avalanche of negative financial news and not been able to staunch it. Ultimately, we must follow the advice printed on our currency "In God we trust".Those who seek temporal satisfaction are too often blind to eternal truths. Those who cleave to God are never hopeless, for their faith is salvation.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Fade to Black

If the Republican party wishes to follow the path of the dodo, they should embrace and follow the Chris Shay's model. Ronald Wilson Reagan had no cult of personality like our recently elected leader. He had a better idea and was able to articulate it. Reagan Democrats did not follow Reagan to the middle but saw the common sense manifested in the smaller, less intrusive government and lower taxes of the right. Abandoning core conservative values (opening borders, raising taxes after "read my lips" pledges) has served the GOP well. If they don't see the error in their ways, they will force the rise of a third, conservative party.

Commemeration and Remembrance

Light a candle and say a prayer/ For those you lost who you hold dear/ Some were drafted, some volunteered/ Their service and the youth they lost were liberty's worthy cost/ For they bought freedom's share/ The forlorn hope with vanguard brave ended up in a common grave/ At Iwo Jima and Vera Cruz, they took the path that few would chose/ They found the unknown barricade, and we all owe a debt to the sacrifice they made. God bless America on this and every Veteran's Day

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Building the Wall

From the Gingrich Contract with America in 1994 to the Democratic takeover in 2006, the pundits ruminated on what it would take for Dems to retake Congress. For Republicans, this task may be insurmountable. Incumbency carries its own cache with better name recognition in most cases, ease at raising funds, better access to local media in Congressional districts, and more support from the national party. The Democrats are sure to erect more structural and institutional barriers and those that already exist such as McCain-Feingold favor incumbents because of the aforementioned reasons. Also the firewall of rampant cheating by organizations such as ACORN will entrench Democratic power. Much inside baseball is going on, such as whether Boehner should remain in power. If Republicans continue to be doormats to Democrats, grow an ever more encroaching bureaucracy, and concern themselves more with the opinion of mainstream media than middle America, they will be condemned to minority status forever.

The Waning Hours

As the Bush administration slips into the loaming, the sword of Damocles hangs over 43's head. He has never gone out of his way to defend himself or his team from the rants of the left. Now, every challenge Obama faces will be blamed on Bush and Republicans. If Bush now speaks up which is admittedly unlikely as he has clung to the "new tone", he will only create momentum from vindictive Democrats for endless Congressional investigations (a certainty), special prosecutors(a likelihood), or even war crimes charges (let's hope not). The Daily Cosers, Huffington harlots, and even Senator Boxer have called for this. A night of long knives could descend on any Republican who doesn't rubber stamp Obama's leftist lunacy.

Victory's Broken Wing

The fortune of soldiers/ The failure of war/ Coming home with less parts than one had before/ The glory of blindness/ Elan d'morte/ Whether in Iraq or at Donelson's Fort/ The cries for mother/The blood and fear/ That dead young heroes and cowards share/ The bomb blast, the bayonet, the rpg/Is this for freedom when no one is free?

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Weakness Invites Aggression

A parallel may be drawn between the nascent Obama foreign policy vis-a-vis disarmament in time of war, talking to our enemies and Senator McCain's campaign. Senator McCain refused to bring up Reverend Wright, never spoke of Obama's drug use as admitted in his autobiography, and would not even mention his opponent's middle name. All this as Cindy McCain was called a drug addict and John Lewis called McCain supporters Nazis. Taking options off the table in a campaign or as regards our national defense is a losing proposition. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Sea of Fools

The multitude of minions chants and cheers/ The One has come to banish all their fears/ Whether Allah Akbar or yes we can/ They don't follow God but follow a man/ They place reason upon their shelves/ No longer impetus to think for themselves/ The flock of followers with one arm raised/ Ready to follow Dear Leader to the grave

Friday, November 7, 2008

Banal Bipartisanship Beckons

After the election, both parties had their kumbaya moment issuing calls to work together, reach across the aisle, and get things done for America. The working definition of bipartisanship has been Republicans being co opted by Democrats, adopting their ideas and policy positions, while giving up their own principles. This is a one way street. Democrats whose platform if adopted will do great harm to this country, have neither the desire nor intention to adopt any Republican proposals. My own re-elected Senator Alexander has pledged to work with Obama to fight global warming which is a working non sequitur as there is no man-made global climate change, and these efforts will only impair our freedom, lifestyle, and inhibit our economic recovery. Just look how successful Republican outreach has been: McCain's bipartisan campaign finance reform has demonstrably helped the GOP(ha), the Bush-Kennedy education effort has turned out little geniuses(ha, ha), and the Democrats and media have certainly shown gratitude for Republican flexibility and compromise(ha, ha, ha). The parties working together to get things done for us and we're done for.

Flee in Droves

Investors are headed for the exits with the largest ever post-election drop and the biggest two day plummet since 1987. They know socialism-a doubling of the capital gains tax, increase in marginal tax rates for those earning as little according to Joe Biden as $150,000, and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire prevent any chance of recovery and might precipitate a depression. Obama will have a cursory meeting today with Warren Buffet and his other economic gurus. These people are window dressing-dupes to cover the vicious redistributionist nature of the cabal that has taken over. Obama's team said they would pressure China on the artificial valuation of the Yuan. What a joke. Red China was just insulted by freedom-lovers protesting as their representative talked trade matters in Taipei. China in short order will cross the Straits of Taiwan and seize Formosa and the weak Communist sympathizing Obama will not do a thing about it beyond calling a U.N. meeting and a strongly worded protest. Russia just deployed short-range missiles in Eastern Europe and will move by fiat against her former republics and the weakling in the Whitehouse won't do a thing about it. He will however send American forces to the Democratic Republic of Congo where we have absolutely no strategic interests. U.S. forces will after all be pretty busy at home seizing our guns.

Driving the Stake

Last night ABC's Nightline aired a scurrilous report about Governor Palin's alleged excesses particularly in wardrobe spending on the campaign trail. These reports are made either by Democrats who fear Palin in 2012, liberal Republicans for the same reason, gossip-mongers seeking attention which is doubtful, or those trying to cover their own failures in the McCain campaign. Governor Palin is a charismatic, obviously attractive, unabashed Christain conservative stalwart who lives her values. Those making these allegations ought to come forward, sit in front of the cameras under the hot lights and make their claims. Otherwise, they should be summarily dismissed as the petty backbiters they are. There were also stories last night that proclaimed the defeat of evangelicals in this election. Nothing could be further from the truth. The perversion of marriage by homosexuals was resoundingly defeated all across the nation. The Obama campaign bent over backwards with outreach to evangelicals with efforts to lure Christain voters with stewardship of the earth arguments, frequent proclamations that Obama was a Christain, and constant effort to conceal Obama's anti-religious policy positions such as his support of the gay agenda and the massive amount of support he drew from the producers of pornography and wealthy early backers such as David Geffen. Governor Sarah Palin and faithful conservatives like her are the best hope for the Republican party and the USA.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Captives of Darkness

Through the millennium, man sought to raise the heel of the oppressor/ In '76, by blood and fire, the boot was lifted./ In 2008, the foot fell hard to trample the rights of man./ Purchased at a cost so dear/ And relinquished with many a tear./ Look back and remember how sweet the sip of liberty/ Recall the taste of freedom

The Vast Conspiracy

President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex. Paranoiacs see Jews, Freemasons, Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, or some other malign force as controlling events that shape the world. Perhaps, it is simpler. Statists, from your neighborhood pencil-pushing bureaucrat, to your first President Bush with his "New World Order" are bent on advancing government intrusion into your lives. They see their own actions as benevolent even as radio frequency identification chips are placed in every product, people are told they can not smoke in their own apartments, and members of both parties including both Presidential nominees advocate for comprehensive immigration reform which amounts to an open border amnesty. Americans are led by one worlders. The departing President Bush is no jingoist or nationalistic cowboy. He is an internationalist. So is his successor. Obama and Bush are fellow travelers.

A Manipulated Result

Ray Suarez reported before the polls closed that Senator McCain met with the press traveling with him saying, "we had a great run". A tear reputedly welled-up in his eye and his wife Cindy who was with him was crying. This was at just after 6pm central and polls had just closed in the east. Were McCain's internal polls so bad that he knew he had lost already? Was this more of the effort by the press to tamp down Republican turnout in the rest of the country where voting was still taking place? Or did McCain know the die was cast? Was he offered up by Republicans as a sacrificial lamb? Have Republicans cooperated with Democrats to author the socialist script the nation now seems destined (doomed) to follow. After all, the largest Federal entitlement since LBJ occurred with the expansion of Medicare under Bush. Public k-12 education was basically federalized with No Child Left Behind. Early childhood programs were expanded. Federal spending soared to unprecedented levels. And all this happened before the economic collapse and the accompanying leviathan bailout with government gaining ownership positions in banks and insurance companies. Republicans in Washington have been convicted of corruption-Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Senator Ted Stevens of late. Democrat Congressman William Jefferson had evidence of corruption quashed in a separation of powers dispute between the Justice Department of the executive branch and the leadership of Congress, and this was when Republicans controlled the House. Why did Republicans assert their prerogatives to protect a Democrat? Could it be Republicans and Democrats are thick as thieves?

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Know Thy Enemy

Jimmy Carter is a self-righteous fool but not a radical. Barack Obama is not a fool but is a self-righteous radical. That is what makes him dangerous. John Lewis said we had a revolution last night. The revolution is just starting. A tidal shift that will destroy property rights, religious rights, the right of armed self-protection will sweep the country. A friend told me, "C.W. just imagine if John Brown had won at Harper's Ferry. Well, C.W.-he just won last night and he threw in a dash of Lenin just to spice things up. I fear for our nation, C.W."

Into the Abyss

Obama collected the support of voters who balloted on the basis of sharing his race. Other Obama backers are union members particularly SEIU members, teachers, and other government workers increasing their own power. Many of his voters were so ill-served by their education in government schools that they simply do not know the difference between capitalism and socialism. Others were young and naive. Obama won the blame America crowd including college professors. Trial lawyers by in large backed Obama. Obama did not run a masterful campaign. He was protected by an uncritical mainstream media. McCain and Palin were pilloried by them. Convicts, non-existent folks, and motor voter illegal aliens seemed to be universal Barry backers. Wasn't Governor Crist brilliant in Florida giving felons their suffrage back? We were told denying these criminals the vote was racist as they were largely African Americans. They were disenfranchised not because they were black but because they were lawbreakers. Now, my own re-elected Republican Senator speaks of creating universal health care and replacing fossil fuels to fight global warming. If the state of Tennessee had wanted ever expansive government, burdensome regulation, and infringement of our lifestyle Senator Alexander, we would have voted for Bob Tuke. Don't cross the aisle to betray your constituents. Fight for Tennessee values.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The Broken Bough

President Bush is derided by scholars and the media now and can only expect worse in the future. Rightly or wrongly, he is regarded as a failed President who crippled his own party. Blame for the financial crisis that was not his accrued to him. His efforts led to large losses by Republicans in this election. He and his inner circle are in peril of Congressional investigation and if Senator Boxer has her way, Bush may face a war crimes trial. This jeopardy to a basically honorable leader is ridiculous. Senator McCain's campaign was pitiful. He unilaterally disarmed early on by refusing to bring up Reverend Wright, Obama's hate pastor, and by minimizing the threat that President-elect Obama poses to freedom and prosperity. Senator McCain told a supporter he had nothing to fear from Obama who was an "honorable" family man. The faded McCain, much like Bob Dole, fought the campaign with one hand tied behind his back against this Marxist of Queensbury.

Recrimination and Regret

The author is dismayed to report the ascendancy of our leftist leader. He gratuitously included homosexuals in tonight's remarks supporting my contention in this blog that he intends to overturn traditional morality by force of law. He pretends inclusion, but his victory portends at the least, the marginalization of those with religious values who would bridle at the idea of gay marriage and privileges in employment for the practitioners of this profligate lifestyle. According to ABC's Brian Ross, Obama and his national security team (a sad oxymoron) intend a hasty draw down in Iraq to focus on Bin Laden. Bin Laden is a figurehead in whose name acts of terror will only increase if he is martyred or caught. The real enemy is expansionist Islam whether in its Sunni Wahhab incarnation or Iranian Shia form. Obama offers no answers either domestically or abroad, only demagogic platitudes and chants of collective delusion and hysteria. "Yes we can" bankrupt the Treasury, destroy business, and invite attack. God save America.

Humanity's Best Hope

Obama speaks of hope. Behind the electrified fences of concentration camps, the inmates hoped and prayed for American soldiers to storm the gates. Behind Festung Europa and in the Asian Co-Prosperity, those enslaved by totalitarianism sought US liberation. Anne Frank wished for rescue by the forces of freedom. Behind the Iron Curtain, the subjugated whispered of the aspirations to loose the chains, jump the Wall, and revel in the freedoms of the West. In 1956, Hungarians briefly broke the chain and awaited the protection of NATO forces streaming in to uphold liberty. So it was in 1968 in Prague Spring, and in Tiananmen Square as the Goddess Liberty was crushed under the tread of tanks and soaked in blood. The oppressed and dispossessed the world over seek US aid or entrance to our land of hope and opportunity. The Democratic nominee does not appreciate our unique position as the cradle of liberty. He sees many Americans as "bitter, clinging to their guns and religion with an antipathy towards those that are different from them." Michelle calls us a "mean country in 2008." His twenty (20) year minister damns us, and his mentor in whose home, he started a campaign tried to blow us up. A vast multitude of immigrants, too many illegal and even at the risk of their lives, try to enter our polyglot, tolerant, prosperous polity. They don't harbor the same resentments as the Obamas. They don't abhor our way of life and as the Obamites seek to inextricably alter it. Elect a third class candidate, get a third world nation.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Depress Republican Turnout

The major networks have called the election before most of the votes are cast, and none of the votes are counted. NBC's Chuck Todd said today McCain had zero(0)% chance of winning. This and similar pronouncements are meant to dispirit Republicans to the extent that they don't even bother to go to the polls. The mainstream press has ignored and spiked news that does not flatter the junior Senator. Republicans will focus on the mission and as they do every election cycle, vote in droves.

Legacy and Loss

Obama's grandmother passed away. We are all diminished with the loss of any decent person. We must also concern ourselves now with the loss of freedom. Obama has spoken of creating a civilian defense force with the same resource and scope of the military. The US has this already. It is law enforcement at the local, state, and federal level. The proposed new force would be a tool of repression. With civilian leadership of the armed forces, huge forces in the national guard and reserve, and existing police agencies, the new force is neither necessary nor proper. It should be feared. It is mourning again for America.

Caveat Emptor America

Obama is nothing more than a doctrinaire hyper-leftist, not a liberal in the American tradition. Obama views capitalism as a vice. The junior Senator is strikingly arrogant, dogmatic, but not really capable of understanding the economic dislocation his policies will cause. He aptly delivers a speech from a teleprompter or script and has been prepared by his Goebbels handlers to hide the degree of his Marxist leanings, a rhetorician who conceals more than he reveals. The major media is in sympathy with him and has protected him when he does make a fool of himself. If McCain had said there were fifty-seven(57) states, the lead story for days would have been this gaffe, with questions about his age and senility or Alzheimer's. Today, some of Obama's venom against business slipped out with his promise in San Fransisco recorded in January to bankrupt coal-fired plants. America leads the world in coal reserves and clean coal technology. Thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia will be lost when Obama fulfills this pledge. Incumbency entrenches itself organically, and there is no guarantee that Obama will not bend the Constitution to his whim and stay in power ad infinitum or appoint a nominal replacement as Putin did with Medvedev and retain his hold on power. This hubris-filled peacock will alter America in ways we can't imagine now and may never be able to recover from.To paraphrase an author with whom Obama is well-versed-Americans-you have nothing to gain but Obama's chains.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Nostrum Tantum Spes

Our only hope is Senator John McCain.

Woeful Economic Ignorance

Obama says he will cure or economic woes. Generally, our Presidents are not responsible for our success or failure. They have under civil service very limited power to hire or fire, just a few patronage jobs, Cabinet level appointments, ambassadorships, and judicial appointments which all require Congressional confirmation (with the exception of the rare recess appointments to these positions). The Federal Reserve and Bernanke have vastly more influence typically than the President. Obama plans to change this. Like FDR or the Daleys, Barry envisions a voting public beholden to him for jobs. Massive patronage like in the old days of Daley Machine Chicago, huge new programs mimicking the New Deal, the WPA, the National Recovery Act, and even a national civilian force with duties that parallel the military. This is more akin to Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez than FDR, but somehow, our education system has failed so miserably that many Americans find this incredible expansion of government appealing. A full frontal assault on the investor class will take place under Obama. These risk-takers, already overburdened, may crumble under the weight of increased income and capital gains tax rates. Those who own businesses may be forced to sell with the return of the death tax. Obama will attack consumerism with tariffs and import barriers.Even investors who protected themselves with stop loss orders and hedge will not be able to save their assets from Obama's machinations. And while he ignores the needs of his aunt and hut dweller brother, the junior Senator calls us "selfish."

There is Smoke

Obama refuses to release his birth certificate, his academic records, his doctoral thesis. If there is not something amiss, why hide them? Was he born abroad, registered as a Muslim, was his education financed by Saudi coreligionists? We may never know. When George Bush I was running, he was accused of making an SR-71 flight to Paris to persuade the Iranians to retain their American hostages until Carter left office. Preposterous, of whole cloth, but reported and investigated by the media and Congress. Governor Palin has been raked over the coals for "Troopergate" while the media has deliberately underplayed allegations that Palin's ex-brother-in-law had tasered a ten(10) year old boy and had threatened the lives of Palin's parents. What should be investigated is why the Public Safety commissioner would allow such a man to retain his authority. The media has supposed public interest groups on today to tell voters how to enforce their voting rights and where to report violations. Republican voter suppression is a myth designed to inflame. Democrats in Fairfax county in this election have thrown out 98% of military absentee ballots just as they discarded military votes in Florida during Bush/Kerry, real voter suppression. This is a military that may well be asked to disarm law-abiding gun owners in this country. Obama will overturn posse comitatus and just as Red China has done, bring troops from different regions in to enforce the abolition of the Second Amendment. Will soldiers, sailors, and marines who have been denied their vote obey these repugnant orders. Under Obama, our military will be asked to disarm not defend the homeland.

Something for Nothing

Obama has promised to lower taxes on those earning less than $250,000 per year. When he takes office, he will announce that though it rends his heart, the previous administration left the economy in such a dire state that no taxes will be lowered. No nation has ever taxed its way into prosperity. The ideas of John Maynard Keynes have been tried and discredited. The junior Senator has claimed to be all things to all people except the rich-for he and Biden a moving target that is now according to Joe $150,000. Barry still contends he will lower taxes on 95% of people when almost half pay no federal income tax now except withholding putatively for their own retirement (Social Security). This is not tax relief but welfare and in any event will not happen unless the government devalues the dollar creating massive inflation. Obama is playing sugar daddy-Santa with the confiscated earnings of the productive which will only diminish their initiative, thwart growth, and cripple the recovery. Obama is already known to break his promises as in his pledge to take Federal campaign financing. He merits no trust. Fear Obama-vote McCain.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Penury and Prejudice

Obama has just been revealed to have an aunt living in the projects of Boston. She is reportedly also not legally in the country. Her nephew is a multimillionaire and an attorney who could certainly have helped her gain legal residency. The Dems and their p.r. press corps chided McCain for the number of homes he owns. At least his family members are not confined to public housing. McCain was attacked for accepting the endorsement of Reverend Hagee, but McCain was not Hagee's congregant for twenty years as Obama was with Wright. Wright is more akin to David Duke than Hagee. He spouts anti-white nonsense from the pulpit. If McCain belonged to a white identity church, his membership should disqualify him and would be a scandal with a justifiably relentless stink raised by the media. Obama has shown a miserly nature with his own family-the aforementioned aunt and a brother in Kenya residing in a mud hut on $12 a year, but Barry is more than ready to confiscate the money of others at the point of a gun (that is after all what taxation is) to achieve his political aims. Poor people of the USA-look how Obama looks after his own. Do you really think he has the slightest interest in making your lives better?

The Final Furlong

The old warhorse and the colt are nearing the finish line. The feedbag of hope and change may overwhelm experience and wisdom. Hope for what and change how? Economies are cyclic and capitalism has served America well. A cascade of redistribution and ever more intrusive regulation will not cure our ills. Rationed care will stifle research and prevent expensive treatment and transplants. A cascade of bureaucracy and hiring of multitudes of government workers to administer it will break small business. The 143 day wonder will crumble if Red China moves against Taiwan and Putin will be able to assert Russian hegemony at will. If Barney Frank's 25% drop in the military budget is adopted (a peace dividend with no peace), reenlistment will dry up and volunteers will shy away. This will necessitate conscription. Jihadism will be redoubled by our precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. Our First and Second Amendment will be compromised with national laws against hate speech, mandating of hiring of homosexuals by religious organizations, silencing of preaching against alternative lifestyles, forced acceptance of homosexual marriage by the various and several states, and enough regulation of guns and ammunition to make protecting one's family next to impossible. Obama will introduce sentencing reform that will release thousands of prisoners and unleash them on the ever more defenseless public. Obama will end free, fair trade, alter NAFTA, and open our borders to hordes of illegal immigrants and inevitably some of those crossing will be terrorists and drug dealers. Fortunately, some of the foreigners will self-deport with America's rapid decline. Companies will move abroad or close, unemployment will skyrocket, and many working Americans will be forced on the dole and the ignominy of government rationing of food which will become more scarce with the mandated production of more ethanol to fight the global warming bogeyman. Our flagging education system will slip further into the realm of leftist indoctrination with charter schools and vouchers ending. On July 4, 1776, our forefathers brought forth our perfect union. On November 4,2008, try not to ruin it.