"A VOTE FOR OBAMA ..."

(Camp Victory, Iraq) Roger L. Simon had a post at pajamasmedia.com titled “Obama and the media: it’s not the bias; it’s the dishonesty.” Commentor cfbleachers (comment #59) had this to say:

What does all this mean? I simply can’t piece together an answer that doesn’t give rise to more questions.

I don’t know what to believe, other than to say…I’m not convinced of anything I’m being told and am growing ever more suspicious of what I am not being told, what is being hidden and what is being done with the Left-handed Monkey Wrench that the Grass Curtain Plumbers are using on the truth.

Massive voter registration fraud, massive campaign financing…with serious and dangerous circumvention of safeguards?

Repeated, consistent and haunting connections with some of the most virulent haters of America; these haters attack on the salt of the earth small town folks and “flyover country” residents; an even more frontal assault on the Constitution; a “spread the wealth” economic distribution plan; an open suggestion that a “fairness doctrine” be imposed to shut down talk radio and possibly other dissenters; an outline to drastically curtail the military budget and reduce our ability to defend militarily against foreign enemies; replacing that role instead with a “private civilian army” not constrained by oversight of the military…instead reporting directly to the civilian Commander?

Drown out opposing or dissenting voices? Kick them off the plane and shut them down on the airwaves? Take the property of the dissenters and give it to the loyal party
workers? Indoctrinate schoolchildren and have them chant slogans and sing songs to the leader? Paramilitary exercises and “calls to action”, orders to “get in their faces” and browbeat your own parents and grandparents?

The media suddenly and almost completely consumed by a lack of curiousity, it ceases to defend “the little guy”…but instead attacks them with a ferocity heretofore
reserved for national politicians. They goosestep their way to salute the private seal, the absence of the flag, the Che Guevara poster.

Let me summarize:

1) Strip the military of funding and reduce its manpower and ability to defend;

2) Strip the access of dissenters by kicking them off the plane, refusing access via the airwaves if they ask tough questions, institute a “fairness doctrine” to eliminate their voice on radio, possibly more on the way with the Internet.

3) Strip the capital and property and begin to redistribute those funds and property to party loyalists;

4) Attack the constitution, insert judges not elected by the people as operatives in redrafting it to suit the policies and procedures which the people never voted to approve.

5) Build a civilian army of loyal party members, in a new revolutionary guard against enemies…whomever they may be.

6) Take away the 2nd amendment rights of the people, by force, if necessary…because they “cling to guns and religion”. Not sure if religion is going to be allowed to “cling” to at this point, or if religious theater and theopolitics will be advanced.

7) Replace traditional symbols with new ones…the flag is the “wrong” kind of patriotism…but personal seals, wall sized portraits, a personal flag for the Leader are the “right” kind. Posters of fellow revolutionaries appears to be ok as well.

8) Nationalized healthcare, nationalized banking and finance, nationalized insurance, nationalized 401k’s, nationalized homeownership, nationalized energy, nationalized education, nationalized agriculture and food production.

9) Elections rife with voter registration fraud and political operatives blocking investigation into the massive, overt and clear attempts to rig an election for one candidate with ties to the offending organizations. Jimmy Carter will be called in to announce that the elections are “fair”.

10) Massive evidence of campaign finance irregularities, foreign influence and laundered money, in order to buy more votes. Control from an outside agency or country is hidden and denied.

11) Louder and more vicious attacks on Jewish people popping up as a “gutter religion”, the “cause of massive suffering”, the “reason there is no peace”. A team is assembled to “reduce the Zionist influence”.

If I was going to start a revolution…I certainly couldn’t pick a better groundwork or foundation than this

I can’t think of any better reasons for voting for McCain-Palin.

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM

Shadow’s World will be on hiatus for at least two months as I have accepted a temporary assignment in the Iraq theater of operations. Posting will be intermittent at best.

SPREAD THE WEALTH

It seems to me that the people who want to “spread the wealth” are exactly those who are unable – or unwilling – to create it.

AUTUMN LEAVES

Metz Middle School, Manassas, VA, about 3 pm.



The trees are just beginning to turn in Manassas. For the most part, green is still the color of the day.

FREE SPEECH FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE

Bravo, Instapundit! Very well said. Read it all, then click on all the links.

MARKET UPDATE

Note the change in scale.














So far it's only paper money - but sometime in the near future I'm going to need to convert it to real money.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DOLLAR (LOST)

The stock market - and my aavings - January 1 through October 7.
The Dow Jones is down another 200 points today. I don't even want to think about it.

WV ROCKS!

Don Surber has my vote for President.

OBAMA'S TELEPROMPTER RUNS FOR PRESIDENT

Iowahawk reported that XD-235, the staff teleprompter for the Obama Presidential Campaign has issues with the Obama campaign.

Now we learn that XD235 has left the Obama Presidental Campaign and is itself running for President. Pajamas Media's Roger L. Simon has an exclusive interview.

THANKS, CONGRESS

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for the month of September through today:
My retirement savings are down nearly 30% since the first of the year; 15% of that in the last week.

Please, don't help me any more.

PALIN PROTEST

Little Green Footballs reports on an anti-Palin protest in southern California:
















Perhaps she should vote with her vagina - the brain certainly isn't working.

PALIN ENDORSEMENT

Don Surber takes note of Dolly Parton’s endorsement of Sarah Palin:

“Question: What pair of stars came out for Republican Sarah Palin?
Answer: Dolly Parton.”

Commenter John responds:

“Dude, [t]hat’s the third keyboard you owe me this week.“

And commenter no, not THAT Glenn adds:

“The link to Michael Silence’s newspaperblog yields reader comment: ‘What do you have if Dolly Parton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden walk out on stage together? A Country Western star and two of the biggest boobs you’ve ever seen.’”

PORK WATCH

Neal Boortz helpfully supplied a list of just some of the breaks essential enough to be included in the Wall Street "rescue" bill.

Sec. 101. Extension of alternative minimum tax relief for nonrefundable personal credits.
Sec. 102. Extension of increased alternative minimum tax exemption amount.
Sec. 103. Increase of AMT refundable credit amount for individuals with longterm unused credits for prior year minimum tax liability, etc.
Sec. 201. Deduction for State and local sales taxes.
Sec. 202. Deduction of qualified tuition and related expenses.
Sec. 203. Deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers.
Sec. 204. Additional standard deduction for real property taxes for nonitemizers.
Sec. 205. Tax-free distributions from individual retirement plans for charitable purposes.
Sec. 206. Treatment of certain dividends of regulated investment companies.
Sec. 207. Stock in RIC for purposes of determining estates of nonresidents not citizens.
Sec. 208. Qualified investment entities.
Sec. 301. Extension and modification of research credit.
Sec. 302. New markets tax credit.
Sec. 303. Subpart F exception for active financing income.
Sec. 304. Extension of look-thru rule for related controlled foreign corporations.
Sec. 305. Extension of 15-year straight-line cost recovery for qualified leasehold improvements and qualified restaurant improvements; 15-year straight-line cost recovery for certain improvements to retail space.
Sec. 306. Modification of tax treatment of certain payments to controlling exempt organizations.
Sec. 307. Basis adjustment to stock of S corporations making charitable contributions of property.
Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.
Sec. 312. Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico.
Sec. 313. Qualified zone academy bonds.
Sec. 314. Indian employment credit.
Sec. 315. Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations.
Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance.
Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
Sec. 318. Expensing of environmental remediation costs.
Sec. 319. Extension of work opportunity tax credit for Hurricane Katrina employees.
Sec. 320. Extension of increased rehabilitation credit for structures in the Gulf Opportunity Zone.
Sec. 321. Enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions.
Sec. 322. Tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia.
Sec. 323. Enhanced charitable deductions for contributions of food inventory.
Sec. 324. Extension of enhanced charitable deduction for contributions of book inventory.
Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds.
Sec. 401. Permanent authority for undercover operations.
Sec. 402. Permanent authority for disclosure of information relating to terrorist activities.
Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child tax credit.
Sec. 502. Provisions related to film and television productions.
Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.
Sec. 504. Income averaging for amounts received in connection with the Exxon Valdez litigation.
Sec. 505. Certain farming business machinery and equipment treated as 5-year property.
Sec. 506. Modification of penalty on understatement of taxpayer's liability by tax return preparer.
Sec. 512. Mental health parity.
Sec. 601. Secure rural schools and community self-determination program.
Sec. 602. Transfer to abandoned mine reclamation fund.
Sec. 702. Temporary tax relief for areas damaged by 2008 Midwestern severe storms, tornados, and flooding.
Sec. 703. Reporting requirements relating to disaster relief contributions.
Sec. 704. Temporary tax-exempt bond financing and low-income housing tax relief for areas damaged by Hurricane Ike.
Sec. 706. Losses attributable to federally declared disasters.
Sec. 707. Expensing of Qualified Disaster Expenses.
Sec. 708. Net operating losses attributable to federally declared disasters.
Sec. 709. Waiver of certain mortgage revenue bond requirements following federally declared disasters.
Sec. 710. Special depreciation allowance for qualified disaster property.
Sec. 711. Increased expensing for qualified disaster assistance property.
Sec. 712. Coordination with Heartland disaster relief.
Sec. 801. Nonqualified deferred compensation from certain tax indifferent parties.

Congress should be fired en masse and replaced with 535 residents drawn at random from the population of the town of Wasilla.

MY TAKE ON THE WALL STREET "RESCUE"

"If prostitution is illegal, why is congress still operating?"

PHOTOBLOGGING

Historic church, now abandoned. Old Town, Manassas, VA.




















City Tavern Grille, Old Town, Manassas, VA

NO! NO! NO!

Dear Congresscritter:

I am writing to express my view of the latest version of the “rescue” bill. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that some Government intervention is needed to restore liquidity to the financial system. But the operative word is “some,” meaning a limited intervention doing just the minimum to restore liquidity.

My reading of the news today suggests that the current version before the Senate does not meet that criteria. It will extend a number of renewable energy tax breaks for individuals and businesses; it will continue other expiring tax breaks, including the research and development credit for businesses and the credit that allows individuals to deduct state and local sales taxes on their federal returns. It will include relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax; and it will include a "Mental Health Parity" provision, requiring health insurance companies to cover mental illness as it would physical illness.

These elements are mere social engineering, irrelevant to the liquidity crisis. So I urge you to vote “No! Absolutely not!” Repeat that vote, again and again, until a clean bill addressing just the liquidity crisis is presented.

No bailouts. No. Never.

Respectfully,

HOGWASH

This morning Fox News and other outlets are reporting that the financial markets lost over a trillion dollars overnight.

Utter nonsense. To borrow a phrase from Mike Baker, "What a load of crap!"

The market didn't lose a damn dime. I did. You did. Anyone who has a pension, retirement savings account, mutual fund, or a few stocks and bonds did.

Memo to the media: report the facts.

ANSWER: DAMIFINO

QUESTION: WHAT DO I MAKE OF TODAY’S VOTE ON THE BAILOUT?

What I do know is that the Democrats voted for it 141-94; Republicans opposed it 66-132.

What I do know is that the Democrats have a majority in the House; they could have passed the bill 235-198 if they were willing to accept ownership of the result.

What I do know is that the majority party is insisting that the minority party is responsible for the bill not passing.

What I do know is that the American people strongly opposed the bailout. And anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the NO votes came from congresscritters from contested districts.

Given that, it seems to me that the bailout was wisely rejected.

Next question: which Presidential candidate will step up to the plate?

UH, HUH

From INSTAPUNDIT:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: "Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working."

Tell me something I don’t know ....

THOUGHTS ON THE BAILOUT

It appears that the outline, at least, of the bailout legislation has been mostly agreed to. Powerline has a side-by-side comparison of the final outline with both the Paulson and Democratic proposals here. I’ve looked at the comparison, and I tend to agree with Powerline: “House Republicans negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers; without their resistance to the original deal that the White House and Congressional Democrats signed off on, the bailout unquestionably would have been worse.”

The question is, did the Republicans succeed in improving the legislation? I don’t know. I think the conventional wisdom is correct – something needs to be done, and quickly – but it should be the minimum necessary to free up the credit markets. I’m not sure this is the minimum necessary.

McCAIN – 1; NYT – 0

The New York Times attempts to link the McCain campaign with Freddie Mac:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than to speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of his close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

The McCain campaign fires back:

The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations (emphasis mine) that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

The NYT is not an “actual news organization?” Imagine that.

RUSSIA FROM ALASKA?

Russia from Alaska: taken at 10:05 pm EDT, 27 September 2008.


The camera is here.


Another view taken at 10:29 pm EDT

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Angry Bear has a suggestion for funding the bailout.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction.

After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson

Via the Volokh Conspiracy.

MORE ON THE BAILOUT

From Jim Lindgren at the Volokh Conspiracy:

I was mildly in favor of the bailout until I read Dodd's proposed statute. The way that the statute is drafted is so tricky and its definition of profit is so unsophisticated and nonsensical that the statute smells more of graft than of an honest attempt to solve the financial crisis. We are moving from failed "crony capitalism" to failed "crony community organizing."

Emphasis is mine. The text of the proposed statute is here.

WHO'S AT FAULT?

If this video is even roughly correct, and it passes my personal smell test, then Sen. McCain did the American taxpayer a great favor if he indeed did cause the bailout proposal to blow up in Congress's face.

MORON COLLIDER

The Brewster Rockit cartoon has been having a great deal of fun mocking the Large Hadron Collider, and today Tim Rickard (accidentally?) nailed Congress (I changed only three words).

Enjoy.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE NOTES

Obama did better than I expected, but I wasn’t initially impressed with either candidate. It seemed like they were trading sound bites.

During the early discussion of taxes, why didn’t McCain point out to Obama that corporations don’t pay taxes; that they’re simply a cost of doing business that is reflected in the prices we pay?

Obama kept harping on how much the war in Iraq cost, but never pressed the obvious point: that when he ended the war, the money could be refunded to the American taxpayers. He couldn’t; he needs the money to pay for his programs.

JOURNALISTIC HYSTERIA

In watching the pre-debate journalistic hysteria, I’m reminded of a comment by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal in his “Best of the Web” column of 15 September: “What's the difference between a journalist and a watchdog? Rabies.”

TWO SPACE SHUTTLES

This will be the last time we will ever see two space shuttles on launch pads simultaneously.


Atlantis is on Pad-39A (in the foreground) and is planned for launch no earlier than October 10 to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Endeavour is on Pad-39B (in the background) and will only be launch from Pad-39B if there is an emergency with Atlantis.

AfterAtlantis safely lands, Endeavour will move to Pad-39A to prepare for the next mission to the International Space Station no earlier than November 10.

Pad-39B will then be turned over to the new Constellation program to begin construction for the new Ares I crew launch vehicle.



And finally, we now know what is to be found at the end of the rainbow.

CAMPUS FOLLIES

Ann Althouse reports that the University of Illinois is telling all its employees they can't wear political buttons or attend political rallies on campus.

Faculty, at least, should be required to wear political buttons while on campus – makes it easier to find your targets. (Universities aren’t target-rich environments? – Daisy. Down, girl.)

Instapundit comments.

CARIBOU SARAH

Some posts back, I mentioned Jonah Goldberg's comment that Sarah Palin was born to kill caribou and kick butt. Well, here it is in picture form.

ELECTION MUDSLINGING

I just heard John Fund on Fox News say that "Americans are looking for less negative mudslinging."

Does that mean that we want more positive mudslinging?

How does one distinguish between positive mudslinging and negative mudslinging?

SUNDAY CATBLOGGING

Kiljoy, er, Kilroy (aka Shadow) is here.

FIRST TIME EVER

This is the first time we have ever put a state or national campaign sign in our front yard.

Returning from breakfast in Culpeper this morning, we counted campaign signs in peoples' yards: McCain - 10; Obama - 1.

No idea what - if anything - it means.

[UPDATE] Maybe this is the reason.

TRILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

In “The trillion-dollar question" Austin Bay has a good discussion of the “old” and “new” media. While I agree with almost all of his commentary, he missed the target on his final question:

“But the trillion-dollar question has not quite been answered: How do you make enough money to support the investigative reporter who is just looking for the facts, ma'am?”

With all due respect, the question really is “How do you find an investigative reporter who is just looking for the facts?”

TODD PALIN INTERVIEW

For however long the link holds, you can watch the Todd Palin interviews with Greta Van Susteren here.

OH, HORRORS!

TPM Muckraker has found that Gov. Sarah has had a tanning bed - bought used, and paid for with her own money - installed in the Governor's mansion. How ... tacky.

Uh, TPM. Alaska cold. Long winter nights. Vitamin D deficiency is real.

ANOTHER ELECTORAL MAP

Amazon has an electoral map which colors the states red or blue according to the popularity of books sold by state. What is most interesting is that the map is updated bimonthly, so that one can track reading trends.

To the extent that reading choices correlate with electoral trends, the map is a good omen for the Republicans.

HMM ...

I wonder just how seriously to take this electoral map. The map is updated daily, and the effort put into data collection and analysis is impressive.














My take: in a word, the frontier spirit has been revitalized.

CAMPAIGN RHETORIC

In his Townhall column Art for the Artist's Sake? describing a misbegotten piece of “public art” Paul Greenberg said:

"Some of what she said was technical, and you would have had to be a welder to appreciate it; the rest was aesthetic or generally philosophical, and to appreciate it you would have had to be an imbecile."

Change only two words – “she” to “Obama” and “welder” to “politician” – and you’ve completely described the Democrat’s campaign platform.

BEST LIBERAL ARGUMENT EVER FOR GLOBAL WARMING

“If global cooling does increase, the hockey mom population is going to explode.”

from commenter JKB at Don Surber’s place.

VOTING RACIST?

In The Big 'What If' Randall Kennedy subscribes to racist motives if white voters don’t vote for Barack Obama. According to him, black voters

[D]eep in their bones, ... will believe -- and probably rightly -- that race was a key element, that had the racial shoe been on the other foot -- had John McCain been black and Obama white -- the result would have been different.

If Obama loses, ... I'll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake. And I'll think that an important ingredient of their error is racial prejudice -- not the hateful, snarling, open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.

So white voters must vote for Obama to prove they’re not racist. But that logic cuts both ways, for the converse is that black voters must vote for McCain to prove they’re not racist.

It appears that the progressives are so invested in race and victim politics that they cannot possibly conceive any possibility that voters, of any race, gender, religion, or economic status might believe that McCain is the better choice.

How sad.

POST WATCH, PART III

In Stopping At Nothing To Win, David Ignatius continues to beat the discredited “Palin is too inexperienced” drum by blaming John McCain:

In the military culture that shaped John McCain, there is no more important responsibility than the promotion boards that select the right officers for top positions of command. It's a sacred trust in McCain's world, because people's lives are at stake.

McCain wrote in his memoir of the officer's responsibility for those who serve under him: "He does not risk their lives and welfare for his sake, but only to answer the shared duty they are called to answer."

McCain made the most important command decision of his life when he chose Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee. Two weeks later, it is still puzzling that he selected a person who, for all her admirable qualities, is not prepared by experience or interest to be commander in chief. No promotion board in history would have made such a decision.

Uh, David, military promotion boards, like the American public, are perfectly capable of recognizing talent when they see it.

GEN David Petreaus was promoted from a Brigadier General (1-star) in 1999 to General (4-star) in 2007 – a mere 8 years. That was talent, not experience.

Before he retired to become Director of National Intelligence. Mike McConnell was a Vice Admiral (3-star) in the U.S. Navy. In a speech delivered at his alma mater (Furman University), McConnell stated, “He [Colin Powell] caused me to go from Mike McConnell, brand-new one-star, to Mike McConnell, three-star...and it happened nine months after I pinned on one star.” Talent, not experience.

The American people promoted Bill Clinton from Governor of a small state to President of the United States. Talent, not experience.

The American people promoted George W. Bush from Governor of a larger state to President of the United States. Talent, not experience.

Mr. McCain recognizes talent, and the American people rightly approve his judgment.

POST WATCH, PART II

The Post’s third Obama apologist, Marc Fisher, has a wonderful snark-filled entry (For Working Moms, ‘Flawed’ Palin Is the Perfect Choice) for the “Palin is Average” contest.

Eight working mothers from the Virginia Run development in Centreville went together to the Palin-McCain rally yesterday because Sarah Palin is "just like us." This is something new. Nobody ever accused Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan of being just like us.

Perhaps it's because they weren't snobs disdainful of the little people clinging to their Bibles and guns.

In this time of "American Idol," bedroom bloggers and the belief that experience, knowledge and education don't necessarily mean a whole lot, Palin is a symbol, a statement that anyone can make it if he or she really tries.

Isn’t that the American dream?

The crowd, which I counted at 8,000 but which police estimated at 23,000, gathered at Van Dyck Park in Fairfax City represented votes for John McCain but passion for Palin... [D]id the man who might be the next president know that hundreds would start streaming out of the park as soon as Palin finished speaking, leaving a noticeably sparser audience to hear from the top of the ticket?

Heh. Thanks, Marc, for reminding of us of the “The One.”

Think of whomever you consider the greatest presidents, and odds are, they were about as far as you can get from being like the rest of us. They tend to have come from wealth, power, fame, the pinnacle of our education system or all of the above.

Abraham Lincoln. Harry Truman. Lyndon Johnson.

In this hyperdemocratized society, the national conviction that anyone can succeed is morphing into a belief that experience and knowledge may almost be disqualifying credentials.

No, Marc. What is happening is that the nation has finally come to recognize that the elite – “those from wealth, power, fame, the pinnacle of our education system” - don’t have a lock on intelligence, courage, conviction, common sense, knowledge, or experience, for that matter.

Reader Rebecca F. Benner swallows the average meme whole. Lauding Fisher in the (9/13) Letters section she writes: “It astounds me that [just like me] is one of the qualities that most people desire most. After all, we do not want our doctors, lawyers, airline pilots or electricians to be just like us.” and “I want a president who is smarter, better educated, more even-tempered and far wiser than I am.”

Rebecca, there are differences between being trained, being smart, and being wise.

[UPDATE 9/13] Power Line links to a post by Steven F. Hayward:

Give 'em Hell, Sarah
Like Truman, a natural-born executive

Lurking just below the surface of the second-guessing about Sarah Palin's fitness to be president is the serious question of whether we still believe in the American people's capacity for self-government, what we mean when we affirm that all American citizens are equal, and whether we tacitly believe there are distinct classes of citizens and that American government at the highest levels is an elite occupation.

Exactly right.

POST WATCH

Part One of a continuing series (well, continuing until I can no longer stomach reading the Washington Post editorial page).

The Obama apology twins are back, whining through their lipstick.

Here’s EJ Dionne, Tiptoeing through the mud:

The campaign is a blur of flying pieces of junk, lipstick and gutter-style attacks.

The media bear a heavy responsibility because "balance" does not require giving equal time to truth and lies. So does McCain, who is running a disgraceful, dishonorable campaign of distraction and diversion.

and Eugene Robinson, Listening to the scream machine:

I hear McCain's amen chorus screaming, "Lipstick on a pig! Lipstick on a pig!" But they're well aware that Barack Obama was unambiguously talking about McCain's economic ideas, not his running mate. It seems incomprehensible that the McCain campaign would make so much noise about an allegation that clearly doesn't hold a drop of water -- until you realize that the noise is the whole point.

As long as people are talking about barnyard beauty tips, they're not talking about substance. Any day spent arguing about meaningless ephemera is a small but significant victory for a campaign that has nothing to say.

Uh, huh. Just who made the “lipstick on a pig” comment, anyway? Let’s be generous and assume that the lipstick comment was “unambiguously about McCain’s economic ideas” (a stretch) and Obama is half as smart as the Democrats think he is. Just how smart do you have to be to realize the implication of that comment when one-half your opponent’s team is female?

Back to E.J.:

Yes, Democrats are a gloomy lot, inclined to see ... the other side as tougher, meaner and more manipulative.

Tough? Well, yes, Republicans are tough. Progressives might be able to figure that out if they’d abandon their stereotype of red America as filled with gap-toothed hillbillies too stupid to look out for their own interests and look anew at the people who are actually building this great nation.

Mean? Well, if by “mean” Dionne infers that Republicans fight back with all the tools* at their command, then yes, I guess Republicans are “mean.”

But manipulative? Oh, come now, E.J. Hunters don’t manipulate their prey into a trap; they shoot straight for the heart.

So, yes, Democrats have a right to be gloomy.**

------------------------------------------------
*Sarcasm is a tool. So is humor. Both are more effective than obscenity and whining.

**Gotcha!

THERE IS A GOD

Idiot newscaster gets swamped by hurricane ...



Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

OBLIVIOUS

The Washington Post Style section today has a 4-column, above the fold picture of Sarah Palin with the headline “Who Do We Think She Is?”

Um, the next Vice President of the United States?

NO MORE MR. NICE GUY

The very next time a telephone solicitor calls me and reminds me to fasten my seat belt, eat my Wheaties, or take my vitamins, I'm going to reach through the telephone, grab him by the throat, and shove those words so far down that they stick out the other end.

I am sick and tired of nanny-state elitists who feel compelled to treat me as a wayward child before demanding that I give them my money so they can further protect me.

Be warned.

NEVER FORGET

I'm also linking to this 9/11 rememberance with thanks to Instapundit for reminding me of the link.

Never Forget.

ELECTION PREDICTION

Given what I’ve read – and heard – since the nominating conventions, I’m going to go way out on a limb with these predictions. Someone can hand me a saw later.

1. It will be McCain/Palin by a landslide, possibly rivaling the 1972 Presidential election.

2. The Democratic party as currently constituted will collapse in flames.

3. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, a new center-left Democratic party will arise from the ashes, consigning the progressive “reality-based” wing to the “dustbin of history.”

4. Moderates and independent voters will have a choice again.

Republicans, if they’re smart, will take prediction #3 very seriously. [Prediction #5: they won’t.]

BUMPER SNICKERS

McCAIN/PALIN - strong, decisive

OBAMA/BIDEN - wrong, divisive

LOOK FAMILIAR?

BIKE RACE

This one is too good to pass up.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON STRIKES AGAIN

Via Instapundit: Victor Davis Hanson notes that "On matters like abortion, capital punishment, gun control and FISA, Obama again moves closer to McCain rather than vice versa."

Given that Obama still has a chance at becoming the next President, I’m grateful for the movement. Nevertheless, I have more confidence that the McCain/Palin ticket will remain true to its committments.

Here’s Hanson again:

I have been far more comfortable with, and have far more confidence in, the pragmatic judgment and worldview of rural America than I have found among the blinkered and intolerant sophisticated and educated elite.... Columbia, Harvard, Chicago wards, and Trinity Church do not offer any stimulus for pragmatism, self-reliance, or American exceptionalism, but are landscapes in which government is the answer, a particular elite know best, politics is the art of dispersing someone else’s money, and America is to blamed first not last in matters of controversy.

Yes. The “reality-based community” has proven time and time again to be completely ungrounded.

AVERAGE ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece, Sam Harris, a founder of the Reason Project takes issue with the selection of Sarah Palin as the Vice President nominee of the Republican Party.

In his opening shot, Harris claims that according to Social Security actuarial tables Mr. McCain has a 10% likelihood of not surviving his first term in office. a 27% percent chance of not surviving his second term, and that therefore an “average” (meaning unqualified) Sarah Palin could become president. Here’s Harris at his worst:

Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages -- and loses -- both necessary and unnecessary wars.

Well.

Lets apply some “reason” to Mr. Harris’ statements.

First, the actuarial tables. Yes, in any given year a person has a certain percentage risk of dying. And that factor does increase year to year. But the relevant statistic is not percentage of risk; it is life expectancy. According to the standard mortality tables, a 72-year old man has a life expectancy of 14 years. Last I checked, two terms in office is only 8 years, and so when he retires after two full terms in office, Mr. McCain will still have a life expectancy of 9 years. Imagine that.

Second, Sarah Palin is average? AVERAGE? Oh, come now, Mr. Harris. Mrs. Palin is far, far from average. Average people don’t become mayors of towns, even small towns. Average people don’t become Governors of states, even small states.

According to its web site, the Reason Project (I’m quoting here) is … "devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world."

It's failing. Perhaps because it isn’t “average.”

BIRDS OF A FEATHER?

Remember "Rage Boy," the Islamist protestor who was always appearing in the news?
Keep that face in mind and go here to see "Rage Girl."

Right. Just your average "Woman for Peace."

FOR THE FIRST TIME, I FEEL LIKE WE DESERVE TO WIN MORE THAN THEY DESERVE TO LOSE

Bill Whittle writes that he's proud of the GOP. Read it.

IN THE WORDS OF MY SPEECHWRITER

David McGrath appears to think that Governor Palin scored a home run with her acceptance speech because it was written by a (horrors!) speechwriter.

Here’s McGrath:

Today, selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains a legitimate enterprise.
How can that be?

Uh, Mr. McGrath, are you certain it is? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m rather certain that Gov. Palin didn’t just ask for an acceptance speech. Nor would I believe that of any politician, on any speech. I’m pretty sure that Gov. Palin (and the McCain staff, of course) had thoughts, ideas, phrases, and organization that they wanted incorporated. And I’m pretty sure that Gov. Palin did the final editing. Back to Mr. McGrath:

[P]olitical audiences are already aware that politicians employ speechwriters. Granted, it can be easy to determine when President Bush is reciting from someone else's script and when he is ad libbing in his own fractured English. But how can we know whether a line, or an entire speech, comes from the brains of McCain or Obama, or from hired staffers?

Uh, maybe because the speaker is telling the speechwriter what he wants to say? McGrath again:

Can voters this year be sure they learned something about the real Sarah Palin from her GOP vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last night, considering news that it was originally written by speechwriter Matthew Scully over a week ago for an unknown male nominee?

Um, because it sounded like her? Campaign Spot reader Jay in Texas, said it this way:

The problem with the whole teleprompter argument is that the entire speech was about her life.

When she said that, as a mother of one of those troops, she wanted McCain as Commander in Chief, it doesn't matter who typed in the words. She wasn't just the reader; she was the mother of one of those troops.

When she talked about attacking corruption in the Republican party, she wasn't merely the speaker; she was the one who attacked corruption in her own party.

And when she spoke of the special love required for a special needs baby, she didn't just deliver the speech.

She also delivered the baby.

McGrath ends with this:

If contemporary political candidates cannot find time to write all their speeches, the way Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln did, they should at least craft the major ones.

Does McGrath really believe that any speaker, President, Vice-President, or even lowly old me, would not have major input into his/her speech’s content, look, and feel?

Sure, the shoe was polished. But it fit.

A MESSAGE FOR OBAMA

An Iraq Air Force veteran has a little message for the junior senator from Illinois.

The video.

He’s not a professional speaker — but this is worth watching all the way through.

Via Don Surber

IF THE KITCHEN SINK DOESN'T WORK

Here are some more suggestions for the Democrats ....

Sarah Palin shops at Wal Mart!

Sarah Palin buys her eyeglasses at Lenscrafters.

They won't work, but what the hell. Nothing else has either.

[UPDATE] Heh. "Palin is also helping among men, conservatives, notably with suburban and rural voters, and with frequent Wal-Mart shoppers, who tend to be 'values' voters who like a good value for their money."

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAIR TAX

As a long-standing practicioner, I’ve long asserted that the fundamental obligation of systems engineering is to search for unintended consequences of product design decisions. I’ve even gone so far as to propose the Three Laws of Unintended Consequences, following in the footsteps of Isaac Asimov in his I, Robot collection of short stories.

They are:

First Law: There are always unintended consequences.
Second Law: At least one will be bad.
Third Law: It will appear at the most inopportune time.

But not all unintended consequences are bad. Most are just, well, unintended; and some may well be good.

And that brings me to the Fair Tax. It strikes me that the Fair Tax has unintended consequences that may prove to be very good indeed. Since the Fair Tax is not imposed on resales, it seems reasonable to think that it may cause (a) an uptick in recycling, and (b) a move away from “throw away” to “repair and reuse.”

For me personally, the latter is an important issue. I’m constantly frustrated by having to toss some useful item because of a minor defect which is more costly to repair than it is to replace.

HANNA HITS VIRGINIA

Well, let's see. According to the Storm Tracker on Fox News, hurricane Hanna is roughly overhead.

It's still raining and windy -- what we from the Mojave desert would describe as a light breeze. No trees are down, but the yard is littered with broken branches. The back yard is washing down into the creek (again) and the drainage ditch in front is eroding (again). There's some water in the basement, a result of a clogged gutter.

Driving around the neighborhood, our house is about the norm -- lots of litter in the roads and yard; some garbage cans blown over; water, water everywhere; not much else. According to the radio, we've had some 4-6 inches of rain so far.

Tomorrow the clean-up begins.

[UPDATE 9 Sep 08] The clean-up turned out to be a little more than I bargained for. The tree pictured above started leaning the next day and the power company had to bring out an emergency crew to take enough of it down to avoid taking out the power line, cable, three poles, and a transformer if it falls.

It's "safe" for now; a crew will return in the next few days to take it completely down and turn it into firewood.
[UPDATE II 11 Sep 2008] The white oak is now firewood and lumber - well, almost. Our neighbor still has to cart it away and we need to fill the dents that occurred when it came down, but the major work is done.

It's good we brought it down, because it was evident when they made the final cuts that the base was pretty rotted out.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON THE NOMINATION OF SARAH PALIN

Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughts about Sarah Palin's nomination to be the Republican candidate for Vice President:

A beautiful, confident, articulate, independent, accomplished—and conservative—woman apparently has enraged Team Obama, the mainstream media, and the entire American intelligentsia, as if they were collectively hit by a cruise missile aimed from Middle America.

Hanson also comments on two nations:

The Geraldine Ferraro Democratic Vice Presidential nominee appointment was an inspired stroke of genius that advanced the cause of feminism; Palin’s was tawdry tokenism.

And the poverty of the legal culture:

Every Democratic Presidential and VP nominee of the last thirty years, with the exception of Al Gore (law school drop out), has been a lawyer .... The Republicans, at least, understood that legal training is not a prerequisite for the Presidency (one in law doesn’t build things, grow, defend, or create anything).

And race:

Bottom line: expect more of the race card, especially if Palin gives the Republicans a bounce after the convention—and anyone who objects to it will be preemptively charged—of course—with racism.

Read it all.

A CONVERSATION I’D LOVE TO HEAR

Reporter: “Governor Palin, do you know who is the Prime Minister of ….”

Gov. Palin (interrupting): “Let’s hold it for a moment. Do you know who the General Counsel for the Department of Transportation is?”

Reporter: “Uh, no … but I can Google it.”

Gov. Palin: “So can I. If you want to ask ‘have you quit beating your husband questions,’ I have answers to match. Next question, please.”

It not a stretch to believe the next media attack will include some kind of “gotcha” question. Governor Palin (and Senator McCain) need to be prepared with “gotcha” responses.

[UPDATE 9/8/2008] I posted first, but Jim Treacher did it better.

ENGLISH LESSON

On my 60th birthday, I got a gift certificate from my wife. The certificate paid for a visit to a shaman living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, I drove to the reservation, handed my ticket to the shaman, and wondered what I was in for. The old man slowly, methodically produced a potion, handed it to me, and with a grip on my shoulder, warned, "This is powerful medicine and it must be respected. You take only a teaspoonful and then say '1-2- 3.' When you do that, you will be more potent than you have ever been in your life and you can perform as long as you want."

I was encouraged. As he walked away, I turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?"

"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,'" the shaman responded. "But when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

I was eager to see if it worked I went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited my wife to join me in the bedroom. When she came in, I took off my clothes and said, "1-2-3!"

Immediately, I was the manliest of men.

My wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes. And then she asked, "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition.

SARAH PALIN REACTION

From Jonah Goldberg:

She was put on this earth to do two things: kill caribou and kick butt. She's all out of caribou.

Via Don Surber. Thanks.

HOCKEY MOM

Governor Palin's response to a briefing on the facts of life in a national political campaign:

"Do you know what they say the difference is between a hockey mom and a Pit Bull?"

"A hockey mom wears lipstick."

Via Bill Kristol on the Weekly Standard weblog. Read the whole thing.

A HURRICANE COMES TO LOUISANA

And nothing happened – other than a few hundred idiots masquerading as “newsmen” grandstanding in front of the camera.

THE BLOGOSPHERE COMMENTS ON SARAH PALIN FOR VP

A random sampling of comments from the last few days:

"Obama complains of the price of arugula and Palin goes out and shoots her supper."

"Reporter: Mr. McCain, how do you respond to charges that Palin has no experience?
McCain: If Obama had as much experience as Ms. Palin, he'd be ready for the VP slot, too."

"Team Obama fights back with a new campaign pitch: 'Inexperience belongs at the TOP of the ticket!'"

From a commenter (PatMac) on Hot Air: “ Now this would make a great ad - McCain looking into the camera and talking about people criticizing Palin for her lack of experience. McCain could then do a quick synopsis of her experience (Mayor, governor, business owner, reformer, etc.) and then admit the only thing lacking is community organizer.”

"Perhaps, as John McCain pondered his vice-presidential selection, he recalled the advice of Margaret Thatcher: 'In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.'”

From Jim Treacher: "The biggest difference, as I see it, between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama is that 'one of them is little more than an elegant, attractive, dare I say sexy piece of eye candy. The other one kills her own food.'”

And from blogger Mark Swanson: “I think we can all agree that Palin's pick of an experienced statesman like John McCain to head her ticket shows that she is much better prepared to be VP than Biden who is trying to thrust an unqualified youngster who was a do-nothing state legislator before being elected to the Senate where he put in a few months of attendance before going AWOL to run for president.”

WHY NOT SARAH PALIN FOR VEEP?

All on the Left, and some few on the Right, are a-twitter about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience, being only a “single heartbeat” away from the presidency. I’m of a different mind.

I live just outside the Washington DC beltway, and work inside the beltway. Foreign policy experts are a dime a dozen here; foreign policy experts with diametrically opposed opinions are two for a quarter on any street corner.

When I go to the polls to vote, I look for three things: conviction, courage, and common sense.

Conviction – a coherent moral and ethical philosophy that captures his or her world view.

Courage – the ability to stand up and speak out for his or her convictions.

Common sense – the ability to weigh competing opinions enroute to a decision; more succintly, a finely-tuned BS detector.

From what I’ve read so far, Gov. Palin has all three.

Experience is vastly overrated. As I see it, three or four years of increasingly responsible experience is a bit more valuable that one year of experience repeated 20 times.

FAIR TAX/EMBEDDED TAX/VALUE-ADDED TAX

After reading both the Fair Tax books, I’ve never quite understood how the “embedded taxes” in the purchase price of an item would be replaced by the Fair Tax.

Now, I don’t dispute that there are embedded taxes in every purchase I make. Anyone with even a modest amount of common sense understands that all taxes - corporate income taxes, capital gains taxes, employer social security taxes, and so on - are eventually paid by the consumer.

But to suggest that these embedded taxes will magically go away with the Fair Tax is disingenuous at best. They will be reduced, to be sure, but go away? Nonsense.

A small example is in order. Consider a consultant, an occupation for which I have some small ambition post-retirement. As a consultant, I charge my customer a fee, say $100/hour, which includes the 23% Fair Tax. Thus I take home for my labor and expertise $77, right?

Not so. For I have to reduce my income by my overhead expenses, the cost of electricity, the cost of the computer, pencils, paper, internet access, etc., ad nauseum, all of which I’ve had to pay the Fair Tax on. Those costs are embedded in the fee I charge my customers.

Large businesses and other commercial entities that buy in bulk might not pay the Fair Tax on these business-related purchases, knowing that the tax will be collected on the final product offered for sale, but for a small business/independent contractor who buys in small quantities from the local office supply store, I doubt that such a distinction is possible.

So some level of embedded tax is inevitable.

[UPDATE 9/6/08] The Nightfly (comment below) notes that “since the fair tax only applies to retail commerce, you won't owe tax on the contract work you do for other businesses.” I agree: intermittent work such as I contemplated in the post would probably be considered temporary employment not subject to the Fair Tax.

He continues: “Whether or not you choose to pay sales taxes on your business supplies, if the difference has no bearing on your fee, then it will be an expense to your customers regardless of whether that part of your fee technically falls into the category of embedded tax or not.” And that was my essential point – that the sales tax I paid is ultimately passed to the consumer, irrespective of whether it’s technically considered an expense or an embedded tax.

This is a minor bump in the road to a Fair Tax. Most embedded taxes will in fact disappear, but it’s foolish to believe that all will.

OBAMA IS PRESIDENT?

I didn't know that ....

(via Michelle Malkin)

DEMOCRATS' ENERGY PLAN

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit explains the Democrats energy plan.




















(via Michelle Malkin)

FAIR TAX?

After repeated urging, I finally read both of the Boortz / Linder Fair Tax books.

My impression?

It’s an intriguing idea, and in the second book, the authors have done a credible job answering the critics of the first. A couple of minor nits:

1) Given the necessity of the “prebate” to make the Fair Tax politically acceptable, the IRS isn’t going away. It’s a lovely idea, but it ain’t gonna happen. Downsize, maybe; go away, no way.

2) Nor are lobbyists going to go the way of the dinosaur. Strategy and focus will change, but for as long as there is a Federal government, there will be a K Street.

A more substantive concern is the calculation of the “embedded tax” – the sum of all taxes levied during the production cycle. No one with a lick of common sense doubts the existence of an embedded tax; ultimately the consumer pays every tax, no matter where it’s levied.

But here’s the rub.

Boortz and Linder estimate the embedded tax as 22% of any good sold; yet they need a 23% Fair Tax embedded in the sale price of all goods and services to bring the Federal government an equivalent amount of income as the current income/FICA/Medicare tax system.

A higher tax rate on a broader range of goods and services to generate equivalent income. That doesn’t pass my “reasonable-ness” test. I won’t argue that the numbers are wrong; I will argue that strict scrutiny is needed.

Boortz and Linder significantly underestimate the complexity of implementing the Fair Tax. A January 1, 20XX transition just ain’t gonna happen. Think of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the millennium bug – and that was a trivial problem compared to Fair Tax implementation. The authors have far too much confidence in capitalism – especially America’s constrained capitalism – to regulate wages and prices during the post-transition. That part of the Fair Tax proposal still needs serious thought.

All that said, however, I’d vote for the Fair Tax – and risk the transition chaos -- for one simple reason: a 23% tax bill, presented clearly on every single sales receipt in America, might be the enabler required to control government spending

SAVING GAS AND DRIVING LESS?

It has been widely reported that Americans are driving less this year than last.

Having just completed a 5,000 mile road trip from Virginia to Florida to Texas and back to Virginia, it seems to me that Americans are driving significantly less. Interstates 95 and 75 to Tampa were dramatically less crowded compared to our previous vacation 18 months ago. Both my wife and I remarked on the lack of congestion, even near the cities. There was so little that we were able to leave the car on cruise control for most of the trip.

On the return through Texas, Arkansas, Tennesee, and Virginia along Interstates 30, 40, and 81, I did a little random sampling: big rigs outnumbered passenger vehicles about 14 to 10 on the intercity stretches. The ratio held at most of the rest stops as well, indicating that most of the long-haul traffic is business trucking. I’m not sure what ratio I was expecting, but 14:10 wasn’t it.

As we closed into the cities (or at least to the loops around the city centers), the ratio did change to something on the order of 2:1 favoring automobiles, but even that was less than I expected (my off-peak commute on I-95 to Washington DC is typically 20-30 to one).

Anecdotally then, Americans aren’t traveling for pleasure; and when they do, they stay close to home.

VACATION PHOTOS

Entrance to Pelican Alley, a small bar and grill on the intercoastal waterway at Casey Key, near Venice, Florida. It has changed only its name (from Fred and Alice's) since 1967 when I was first introduced to it.


















Venice Train Station, Venice, FL. The track will eventually be replaced by a bike path.

Parasailing at Nokomis Beach on Casey Key.

Downtown Memphis, TN.



















Douglas Lake, near Knoxville, TN.

MORE ON SOCIAL SECURITY

Last November I posted a comment on my expected Social Security income, pointing out that it will be nowhere near the income I would have had I been able to invest the payroll tax money in a 401k-type retirement account. But my earnings put me at the higher end of the wage spectrum, and Social Security payouts are strongly biased toward the low-end wage earner, so I decided to do the identical calculation for a low-end wage earner to see if my results still held.

Consider the case of John Doe. Born January 1, 1941, John started working on January 1, 1957 at age 16 at a minimum-wage job, which he kept for the next 50 years, retiring on January 1, 2007 at the age of 66. John never earned more than the minimum wage.

Using the Social Security PIA (annuity) calculator, John will take home from the Social Security Administration the princely sum of $881/month for the rest of his life. Each year that amount will be adjusted for inflation.

Now consider the case of John’s twin brother, James. James also worked from the age of 16 to 66 at the same minimum-wage job as did John. The difference is that James was allowed to take his and his employer’s FICA (payroll) tax and invest it tax-free in the stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial index, which James faithfully did. On January 1, 2007, James had accumulated $224,468, which distributed on a 30-year payout at 5% interest, will give him a monthly income of $1,158.

Assume that John and James both live their expected lifetimes, which according to the United States Life Tables, 2003 is age 82 (16 years). When he dies, John will leave his heirs nothing. James will leave his heirs $144,531.

Explain to me again why Social Security shouldn’t be privatized. Better yet, explain to John why his identical twin James is taking home 30% more income in retirement.

[A note on methodology. I used the minimum hourly wage and FICA tax rates from 1957 to 2007 to compute John and James withholding taxes. The total (employee plus employer) withholding was $36,632 for each over 50 years. Each had a final (2007) salary of $12,168. John’s social security check represents 87% of his final salary; James’ annuity income represents 114% of his final salary. To estimate James’ heirs inheritance, I used the standard mortality tables which give an average expected lifespan for a 66-year-old male of 16 years. All of the data is easily available on the internet.]

TELL ME AGAIN WHY I SHOULD BELIEVE THE MSM

In a thinly disguised editorial in the Style (!) section, Washington Post writer Matthew Mosk attempts to debunk the already discredited “Obama is a Muslim” rumor.

Mosk’s vehicle is a profile of Danielle Allen’s quest to find the origin of the Obama email. Here’s Mosk:

“Allen studies the way voters in a democracy gather their information and act on what they learn. She was familiar, of course, with the false rumors of a secret love child that helped sink McCain’s White House bid in 2000, and the Swift boat attacks that did the same to Democrat John Kerry in 2004.”

Uh, Matthew, the “Swift boat attacks” were neither false nor rumors; in fact, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens offered $1 million to anyone who could disprove any statement of fact made by the Swift boat veterans. As far as has been reported, he still has the money.

Are these “professional” journalists biased, incompetent, or just plain stupid?

HE’S BAACK ...

Via David Broder: “Sixteen years after he shook up American politics by launching an impromptu campaign for president, Ross Perot is about to dip a toe back into the public debates. And, yes, he's bringing his charts with him to make his point.”

Current polling seems to indicate that less than 1 percent of the voters believe the budget deficit one of the major problems facing the country. Perot disagrees. He’s created a website turning basic economic data into 35 well-made charts explaining how grim the long-term budget picture really is.

I’m still mulling over the data, but it’s clear that the 800-pound gorilla in the room is entitlement spending – Social Security and Medicare. Even my favorite hate, congressional pork, is a chimpanzee by comparison.

If you plan to vote in the upcoming Presidential elections, Perot’s “challenges” charts are a must-read.

OBAMA - A POST TURTLE?

Over at Don Surber’s place, commenter Harrison has an amusing observation [about Obama]:

“The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.”

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain.

“You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a dumb ass put him up there to begin with.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

THE SINGULARITY

In my web-wanderings, I’ve noticed repeated references to the “Singularity.” In a rare burst of interest, I looked it up. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

The technological singularity is a hypothesised point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.

Statistician I. J. Good first wrote of an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. Vernor Vinge later called this event "the Singularity" as an analogy between the breakdown of modern physics near a gravitational singularity and the drastic change in society he argues would occur following an intelligence explosion.

My suspicion is that machine intelligence will soon surpass human intelligence, but not because machine intelligence is improving.

OBAMA'S QUALIFICATIONS

Barack Obama's qualifications for the presidency:


And no, I don't see any either.

[Thanks to Protein Wisdom and Instapundit for the idea.]

ENGINEERS HAVE HAIRY EARS

I've heard the phrase many times since my graduation as an electrical engineer back in 1968. I'd always thought that it was from Ogden Nash, but the origin is much older - and mostly unprintable. Most recently it has been associated with the Army's engineering battalions, dating back to (at least) WW I. Here are two of the least bawdy variants:

The Engineers have hairy ears,
they live in caves and ditches,
But when the trouble starts,
they fight like sons of witches

- An Anonymous WWI Soldier

The Engineers have hairy ears
They live in caves and ditches
They wipe their ass with broken glass
They're rugged sons of bitches.

- 36h Engineer Combat Regiment (WW II)
- Motto: RUGGED

There is some evidence that the origin may be an Ozark folksong, The Mountaineers, which is quite bawdy.

MARINES OR NAVY?

From John McCain FAQs at the Washington Times.

Q: Which is better, the Navy or the Marines?

A: The Marines are a department of the Navy. The Men's Department ...

Somehow, I think Senator McCain would laugh, then respectfully disagree.

DUELING BANJOS, ER, CATS