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)