The Other Club

Oh, the Meleagrisity!

2008-11-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

As Mark Steyn says,

I didn't think I could like Sarah Palin more than I do, but the nancy boys at MSNBC bleating all over the screen about the Great Turkey Carnage is hilarious. This is a great caption:

TURKEYS DIE AS GOVERNOR PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM MEDIA

Or was it: MEDIA DIE AS GOVERNOR PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM TURKEYS.

I was going to ignore this, as it's been massively covered by the Maim Scream Media™, and is a source of outrage on all the best leftwing blogs, but the clueless angst is uproariously funny and I've talked to a couple of people who hadn't seen or heard about it. Nice roundup of moonbat reaction here.

The New York Times, all atwitter about where food comes from, offers a good example of the insanity. What were they THINKING by embedding the video though?

We’ve differed with Sarah Palin a great deal on substance. We don’t agree with her hardline approach to the Iraq War, her harsh anti-government rhetoric, and her style of negative campaigning.

But we also worry a bit about, how should we put it, the persona she has brought with her to national politics. We did not care at all for the swipe she took against community organizers at the Republican National Convention.

And then there’s this. You don’t have to be a huge animal lover to question why Governor Palin chose to be interviewed — while issuing a traditional seasonal pardon of a turkey — while turkeys were being executed in the background.

Turkeys being executed?! Where's lethal injection when you need it? (Isn't that how they make Butterball™ turkeys?) Obviously cruel and unusual punishment. It's Tofurkey for you on ~~Turkey Day~~ ~~Tanksgiving~~, November 27th NYT.

Funny, I can't recall the Times expressing such sentiment about video of Daniel Pearl's beheading. Here and here the Times took a balanced and dispassionate, not to say amoral, look at others' use of images of Pearl's death.

November 22nd, VI Day

2008-11-22T07:24:00.013-05:00

DNJ photo by Aaron Thompson

Bailing out the Big 3 - A Plan

2008-11-21T21:19:00.003-05:00

Today Congress asked the Big 3 to come up with a plan for how they would use the $25 billion of taxpayers' money they are asking to be allowed to transfer to the UAW.

I do appreciate the whimsical entertainment these executives of, temporarily, billion dollar companies provided by going begging in Washington without a plan in the first place. I wonder if that's how they approve new car designs, without plans? I'm equally impressed by the fact that our elected representatives gave them dozens of hours of attention before raising the point. Still, just before they boarded their private jets to fly back to cloud-cuckoo land these captains of corporate welfare had the temerity to say, "We've all got our own strategies, you know, and there's only so much we can make public in view of the fact we're competitors."

The answer to this is, "It's obvious we don't care what your secret plans are, you dolts. If you could come up with any kind of coherent plan it would be news to all of us. The only planning we're interested in is how you will reduce the ruinous costs you incur as poorly run Health and Benefit Administration companies. Your secret plans for your sideline, building cars, are worth less than options on your stock.

Just to prevent confusion on your part, here's an example of what would constitute "A Plan" -

We will reduce our overall cost of labor and benefits to the levels of successful auto manufacturers. At minimum we will take a 30% across the board reduction in total compensation. That does not mean an average, that means every employee, executive, Board member and pensioner. We will further reduce executive perks by 75% and we're willing to let the UAW decide the specific reductions. Their leadership will similarly reduce their perks at our discretion. Money saved here will go directly to support pensioners' benefits.

Any and all contributions from the Big 3 and our Unions currently being made to political parties, PACs, "causes," or lobbyists - including the salaries of all employees engaged in lobbying - will redirected to sustaining our pensioners benefits. These payments will be maintained at current levels for 5 years, at which time we will ask Congress to review the necessity.

We propose that Congress redirect the $25 billion already approved to help us retool to meet Congress' draconian CAFE standards into annuities for our pensioners. Whatever exists in current pension accounts will be added to those annuities in addition to amounts mentioned above. Any shortfall in the required funding will be made up from perpetual options to buy our stock at 2 times the closing price on December 1st, 2008. We are sorry promises made to the people who built our companies cannot be better met, but this would be a deal superior to what they'll get if we liquidate. In any case, since they helped build this mess, they will have to help solve it.

Finally, should this plan fail, we ask that a further $25 billion be allocated to provide unemployment benefits and/or retraining on an equal dollar basis to all employees who would lose their jobs as a result of liquidation. That is to say, a lump sum payment to each employee to be used however the employee wishes. It's not that we expect the Federal government to do a good job administering this, but it would obviously, and sadly, be better than anything we could come up with.

Meanwhile, as the useful bits of our physical assets would then necessarily be parceled out to Honda and Toyota at even less than they'd bring now, and the replacement parts manufacture industry would explode, we urge those companies that benefit to learn from our example. Also, we beg forgiveness in advance from our stockholders and from the American people for destroying hundreds of billions of dollars of our societies' wealth.

In return we ask that Congress and all regulatory authorities allow us to build cars as we decide to build them. All regulation enacted since 2006 is frozen. We desire no turnback of safety, emission or mileage standards, simply that they will not be changed by government until at least 2018. If we are still capable of innovating, let us do so. If we are not, let us fail."

That would get my vote, and my assistance in a "structured bankruptcy" to bring it about. Otherwise they can have an unstructured bankruptcy.

VI Day

2008-11-21T06:11:00.001-05:00

November 22nd is Victory in Iraq Day.

By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.

What more indication do you need? An announcement from the outgoing Bush administration? It's not gonna happen. An announcement from the incoming Obama administration? That's really not gonna happen. A declaration of victory by the media? Please. Don't make me laugh. A concession of surrender by what few remaining insurgents remain in hiding? Forget about it.

Much more here.

National Public Re-education

2008-11-20T19:26:00.001-05:00

I listened to the whole "Tell me more" NPR interview with Bill Ayers and I extracted bits for direct rebuttal up until about 8:30. That's as much as I could listen to more than once (in order to transcribe) out of 21 minutes. I only listened to it at all because a friend asked me to. The comments following are based on that specific time-slice and then more general objections to Bill Ayers worldview.

NPR starts by calling the Weather Underground Organization a "radical anti-war group" while acknowledging that the WUO conducted "bombings and protests." That's as weaselly a conflation as you'll find in any revisionist history textbook. "Oh, they held some demonstrations and they bombed a dozen places. You know, radical."

And, I'd say calling the WUO a "radical anti-war group" is praising by faint damns.

Ayers denies that the Weather Underground was a terrorist organization, instead saying it was a militant one. He says, therefore, that bombing the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, the NYC Police Headquarters, a San Francisco Police Station and a judge’s home is not terrorism. A person, then a child, living at that home begs to differ.

This is not to mention that Ayers' friends died when the nail filled bomb they planned to set off at a dance at Fort Dix exploded while they were assembling it. In a normal criminal case Ayers would be charged with murder because his co-conspirators died in the course of attempted murder.

Ayers' wife was almost certainly directly responsible for the death of at least one policeman, blinding another and causing severe injury to more. Here and here.

Never mind that, says NPR, let's get to the question of Ayers keeping a low profile during the election. Everybody knows Ayers gave no interviews, for reasons as good as Jeremiah Wright's. Ayers, however, misconstrues the question to his advantage. NPR has no objection. Ayers: "I wasn't silent, I spoke to my students, I spoke to my classes, I spoke at Universities..." More's the pity that he stayed underground, merely polluting young minds, instead of making clandestine radio broadcasts about the need to destroy the government as did the WUO.

Ayers: "I have a capacity to dissociate myself from the kind of cartoon character that gets periodically, uh, created around me." This is true, depending on who you think is a cartoon character. That's exactly how he regarded those he was willing to slaughter in his WUO days; as cartoon characters. He can dissociate himself quite easily from normal human morality if you happen to disagree with his ideas. Ayers is an avowed Marxist who calmly plotted to place 25 million Americans in extermination camps after the US had been overthrown by his efforts and occupied by the Chinese and Soviets. The fact that he was delusional about the means doesn't change his motive - he just never got the opportunity.

"I've had decades of public life...it's dishonest to turn me into this monster...as if I were some kind of a toxic agent..." Well, the 2001 picture of you wiping your feet on the flag, when added to your past words and actions, makes me willing to go there, sir.

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn advocated the violent overthrow of the government of the United States, and they have blood on their hands from the attempt. NPR is participating in their national rehabilitation and attempting our re-education. I hate that I'm paying for NPR or any part of Ayers' salary or grant dispensations.

Bill Ayers is lying about his WUO past. When he prattles about his association with Barack Obama, "if you share a meeting or a take a bus downtown together, or have a cup of coffee together, somehow, then they are responsible for each other's behavior and politics," he's lying by answering a different question than has been asked.

Hell, he once thought the ChiComs would help him occupy America, why wouldn't he press his views on a wet-behind-the-ears community organizer? Obama knew Ayers' thoughts well. How could Professor Ayers have avoided the lectures? "It's a degraded part of political culture that you have to agree in order to talk." That reminds me greatly of someone else who glossed over murderous international disagreements as if they were just talk. The good news is that that was probably just talk.

NPR throws a puffball to Ayers, "The McCain campaign suggested that you are not only a terrorist, but an unrepentant one." Well, that's what I take as the plain meaning of Ayers claim that he wishes he had "done more" when asked about the bombings. Ayers claims he meant "didn't do enough to end the war," but he must count the disaster of the failed Fort Dix bombing and the unrealized extermination camps in there somewhere, too.

Ayers calls his activities "extreme vandalism against property." He says, "never did the Weather Underground target people, never did it hurt or harm or kill anyone" Bullshit. And bullshit. Extreme vandalism against property is flying airliners into the World Trade Center, it's just tough cookies there were some infidels in there at the time. Not at all like an NCO club dance at Fort Dix where the soldiers and their dates were the targets, not the building.

Ayers is also wrong about the United States being a state sponsor of terrorism now or in 1968. If the US was practicing terror in 1968, it was doing so on our own soldiers. I recommend "Dereliction of Duty" by H. R. McMaster as an illustration of how evil the government was. But not in the way Ayers thought.

Many people did oppose the Vietnam War. I was eventually among them. My reasons for opposing it; that we showed no will, intent or plan to WIN it, would never have occurred to Bill Ayers. I was not alone in this view or in condemning the draft as involuntary servitude, but Ayers counts all opposition to the War as agreement with his policies and practices. That was never even vaguely true.

I'll admit Ayers is good, especially if you accept his premises. Maybe he should be Press Secretary.

The character of anyone who would shake Bill Ayers' hand must come into serious doubt either in the case of judgment or, to put it politely, unbridled opportunism. I'm now tending to think it's the latter for our President-elect. That's an improvement over what I expected was the case. We will see.

In any case, one can hope Bill Ayers never sees the inside of the Lincoln bedroom.

Well, it's got the word "bank" in it, doesn't it? -H. Paulson

2008-11-18T18:56:00.009-05:00

From the Detroit News, Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work

Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.

"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."

Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.

As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program.

With Wall Street wondering how automakers can afford to pay thousands of workers to do nothing as their market share withers, the union is likely to hear a similar message from the Big Three when their contracts with the UAW expire in 2007 -- if not sooner.

"It's an albatross around their necks," said Steven Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "It's a huge number of workers doing nothing. That has a very large effect on their future earnings outlook."

General Motors Corp. has roughly 5,000 workers in its jobs bank. Delphi has about 4,000 in its version of the same program. Some 2,100 workers are in DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group's job security program. Ford had 1,275 in its jobs bank as of Sept. 25. The pending closure of Ford's assembly plant in Loraine, Ohio, could add significantly to that total. Those numbers could swell in coming years as GM and Ford prepare to close more plants.

Detroit automakers declined to discuss the programs in detail or say exactly how much they are spending, but the four-year labor contracts they signed with the UAW in 2003 established contribution caps that give a good idea of the size of the expense.

According to those documents, GM agreed to contribute up to $2.1 billion over four years. DaimlerChrysler set aside $451 million for its program, along with another $50 million for salaried employees covered under the contract. Ford, which also maintained responsibility for Visteon Corp.'s UAW employees, agreed to contribute $944 million.

Delphi pledged to contribute $630 million. In August, however, Delphi Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert S. "Steve" Miller said the company spent more than $100 million on its jobs bank program in the second quarter alone.

..."The union probably realizes the money to pay for these programs probably doesn't exist," Szakaly said. "There's going to have to be some give on the jobs bank."

While the job banks may exemplify the sort of excesses that give unions a bad name, experts say it is wrong to cast all the blame in the direction of Solidarity House. He said the leaders of GM, Ford and Chrysler also bear some responsibility for the current problems.

"If these guys built cars people wanted, this wouldn't even be an issue," Szakaly said.

Really? If the Big 3 didn't forgo hundreds or thousands of dollars on every single car they built, this "wouldn't be an issue?" GM just has to build cars so much better than Honda and Toyota that consumers will pay a hefty premium for them? Good luck with that. RTWunbelievableT

The combined market cap of the Big 3 is now around $8 billion (GM 1.9, Ford 4.0, Chrysler is private, but let's guess 2.0). Who, in their right mind would "lend" 300%+ of market value to companies that pay people $31 an hour, plus Cadillac benefits, to do crossword puzzles?

Global Warmongering

2008-11-17T18:35:00.001-05:00

Sea Ice Growing at Fastest Pace on Record

The world has never seen such freezing heat

Earth would be heading to a freeze without CO2 emissions

Job applications

2008-11-13T20:10:00.005-05:00

One question (of 63) Barack Obama is asking of all applicants for federal appointment under his administration:

"Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun?" (page 7, question 59).

I would have to answer, "Yes, several, and I'm thinking about buying a high capacity semi-automatic "assault" rifle before January 20th. Just, you know, 'cause I don't want to be told later I can't."

It is hard to be certain what this question portends for spoils seekers, since it was apparently OK for Obama's new Veep, Joe "I'm the guy that originally wrote the "assault weapons" ban" Biden, to own 2 guns himself.

Given Obama's history, however, one suspects a "yes" answer to this question from lesser lights than Shotgunner Joe is unlikely to be positive for their prospects.

...[When] Obama was a state senator in Illinois, ... he supported increasing federal excise taxes on guns and ammunition by 500 percent, banning compact handguns, limiting the frequency of gun purchases, banning the sale of guns (except antiques) at gun shows, charging a person with a felony offense if his gun were stolen and used in a crime, prohibiting people under age 21 from possessing guns, increasing the gun dealer licensing fee, prohibiting dealers from conducting business at gun shows or within five miles of a school or park, and banning police agencies from selling old service firearms to generate funds to buy new firearms for their officers.

No comment II

2008-11-11T19:32:00.000-05:00

The following is Google's cache of http://www.change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy/ , Barack Obama's policy Website.

Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

Obama's entire Urban Policy Agenda page has been disappeared as of the moment. The NRA has a view.

Start bailing

2008-11-11T18:15:00.000-05:00

If you were say, Prime Minister of the UK, Italy or Iraq: How would this leak strike you? For myself, I'd be thinking about preconditions before I spoke with Obama in confidence. Emphasis mine.

The 43rd president and the man who will be the 44th - and first black - commander in chief met alone in the Oval Office, with no handlers or staff. It was Obama's first time in the storied workspace, even though he had been to the White House previously for events.

...Neither the Bushes nor the Obamas spoke to reporters. Aides who described the discussion about the auto industry did so on grounds of anonymity, citing the private nature of the meeting.

The "private nature of the meeting?"

If I was Obama I'd either be wondering about my staff or smug in the knowledge I'd gotten away with this. I can't see an alternative.

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month - A Pittance of Time reprise

2008-11-11T06:09:00.002-05:00

If we do not remember those who gave their lives to preserve our way of life, we are likely to lose that way of life by the worst possible means - the habit of thinking things had to be the way they are and not some other way. This lesson is not buried in some dusty tome; our grandparents know better. How could we forget?

Some of us understand that things are the way they are because some soldiers were - and are - so committed to liberty as to give their own lives in its defense. Sadly, the vast majority of us do not seem committed to remember this debt.

There is encouragement for this amnesia. We have many enemies, and putative friends, who desire that we forget past courage and honor. They desire that the remembrance of the justice of the causes of the past should slip away. They view even their own immediate ancestors - who rose to meet challenges of personal and cultural annihilation - as quaint throwbacks to an unenlightened age.

These enemies and self-declared friends are wrong. We must reject their idea that our enemies are simply people we haven't yet had the intelligence to recognize as our moral equivalents.

Remember Ypres, Belleau Wood and Dieppe. Do not forget Iwo Jima or The Bulge or the Chosen Reservoir or Khe Sanh.

And Khe Sanh is a good example of how an agenda of defeat twists logic: At Khe Sanh 205 Americans were killed, while the North Vietnamese lost between ten and fifteen thousand. The Western press portrayed Khe San as a defeat. Like Tet. Do not forget Tet, where Walter Cronkite surrendered, on our behalf, following our resounding victory.

Our enemies had these "victories" because, while our soldiers were annihilating them, we lost heart. We should certainly remember that.

What we remember will affect what we think. The ritual denigration of the US military continues to affect Associated Press headlines 40 years after Tet, as observed by TOC.

If Veterans day is not an event that counters this defeatism, where will we find the will to win the war against Islamofascism? Respect for those who gave their lives on our behalf LAST WEEK is as necessary as respect for those who died in the Civil War and WWI and WWII and Korea and Viet Nam.

Without our continuing consciousness of their effort, those who have died and those who die tomorrow on behalf of our present freedom, are literally dust. You must not let that happen. They died for their homes and families and friends, and for a rule of law and traditions they cherished and a future they believed in; they died for you.

This truth was not a question until latter half of the 20th Century.

In 1918 Moina Belle Michael read a Canadian Army doctor's poem, In Flanders Fields, written about the horrors he saw in the Ypres salient.

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

This inspired Michael to write her own poem,We Shall Keep the Faith

We Shall Keep the Faith
by Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

Moina Michael went on to campaign for the poppy as a national symbol of gratitude to those who had died in the war. She started the tradition of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

I have never had the opportunity to make a donation for a poppy in the United States, but I have kept one I contributed a few dollars for in Canada, where the Royal Canadian Legion offers them near Remembrance Day - November 11th.

The Royal Canadian Legion has some links to music appropriate to remembrance. here's one worth a listen on Memorial Day or Veterans Day: Terry Kelly comments on some anonymous individual who apparently couldn't observe 2 minutes of silence on the 11th Hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - A Pittance of Time. LISTEN TO IT.

It seems appropriate on a day of gratitude to fallen warriors and failing memories.

No comment

2008-11-10T19:54:00.001-05:00

The New York Times tells us Jamie Gorelick is being considered as Obama's Attorney General. According to the Times she was:

Vice chairwoman at Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage lender, where she was paid a reported $25.6 million in salary and other compensation from 1998 to 2003.

...She has also drawn criticism for her role at the Justice Department, in which she allegedly created an intelligence “wall” that hindered counterterrorism agents in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks.

General Motors, Corporatist Giant

2008-11-10T17:46:00.003-05:00

OK, what's better for GM in the long run, a bailout leaving the creditors and Union contracts in place or a Chapter 11 chance to reset?

Just asking. Seems like this is more a bailout of the UAW.

Update. 7:50PM From Carpe Diem:
RTWT

Also read

Update. 8:10PM Professor Bainbridge - No Bailout for the Auto Industry

Semper Fi

2008-11-10T07:18:00.004-05:00

Happy 233rd birthday, Marines.

And don't forget who invented it!

2008-11-08T17:09:00.001-05:00

Pompous windbag notes oceans ceasing to rise.

Former US vice president Al Gore said an Internet revolution carrying Barack Obama to the White House should now focus its power on stopping Earth's climate crisis.

The one-time presidential contender turned environmental champion told Web 2.0 Summit goers in San Francisco Friday that technology has provided tools to save the planet while creating jobs and stimulating the crippled economy.

What, illegal use of credit cards will save the planet? Maybe they're "carbon credit" cards.

Involuntary servitude

2008-11-08T09:46:00.002-05:00

Well, they've done for the 1st Amendment, they're continually attacking the 2nd and they ignore the 10th. Next, they want to suspend the 13th Amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Obama's "community service" requirement, as originally stated, would impose involuntary servitude. Here's the original:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

After the "requirement" was noticed, Obama's staff Changed it to:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.

This bribe, with money looted from taxpayers, just doesn't seem "fair" to those who decline the offer. I suggest that we spread the community service, by creating an "hour bank" where deposits are made by those who do serve and given to those who don't based on need. Call it a community service cut.

Or, we could just split the money. That has the advantage of simpler accounting.

I wonder if you'll get extra credit as an unpaid ACORN volunteer?

Update: 11:36AM Check out Bizzyblog for a very good post on this.

US Economy to be guided by Jennifer Granholm

2008-11-07T21:11:00.012-05:00

Serves 53% of the rest of the country right, I suppose. Maybe McCain should have left Bill Ayers alone and talked about Obama's association with Jennifer Granholm.

From the Detroit Free Press:
Granholm, Bonior join Obama's economic transition team

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former U.S. Rep. David Bonior will serve on a panel of financial luminaries and corporate experts advising President-elect Barack Obama on the nation’s hard-bitten economy, ensuring Michigan, its troubled auto industry and labor has [sic] a seat at the table.

Transition to WHAT, a Third World economy? The elimination of secret ballots? Even less ability to balance a budget? An approval rating in the 30s? Doubling down on recession? $50 billion in automotive industry corporate welfare? Government seizure of 401(k)s?

The burning question, though, is which does Obama consider Granholm to be, a "financial luminary" or a "corporate expert?" Inquiring minds want to know. After all, Obama claims it is his superior judgment that qualifies him for the Presidency - it obviously can't be learning from example. He should check out Robert Owen for that.

Maybe the theory is that if Granholm disagrees with you, you are on the right track. Maybe it's a Chicom plot to reduce US consumption (counter intuitive that they would say this, I know, but talking about it encourages the Green Party and damages America). Maybe Obama is considering offering Jennifer a cabinet post and this is a trial buffoon, though like her husband, I worry about her children should that come to pass. They should not be left alone with him for periods exceeding 30 minutes.

I hope, like card check, there are no secret ballots for ~~the Politburo~~ this committee.

Transformational reading II

2008-11-06T18:57:00.004-05:00

FDR prolonged -- not ended -- great depression
Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian - UCLA economists

Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand
Start with The Fountainhead

The Vision of the Anointed
Race and Culture
Thomas Sowell

Economics in One Lesson
Henry Hazlitt

The TEMPTING OF AMERICA
Robert Bork

These, and the readings mentioned here, will help you understand the next 4 years.

Update: Darcey makes a great suggestion:
Liberal Fascism
Jonah Goldberg

Update: Some more good reads from mitch (more info in the comments):

Amity Shlaes, "The Forgotten Man"

Mark Steyn, "America Alone"

Benjamin Graham "The Intelligent Investor"

Charles MacKay "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

Eric Hoffer "The True Believer"

The good news

2008-11-05T18:02:00.004-05:00

1-This country demonstrated the ability to ignore the color of a person's skin, even while we are abysmally misjudging the content of his character.

2-There is an opportunity for the right not to act like MoveOn, Democrat Underground or The Daily Kos.

3-We're finally rid of the Clintons.

4-Campaign Finance is dead as we have known it.

5-Even Jesus could not satisfy all the expectations Obama has created.

6-The Democrats have to put up or shut up - but they are not smart enough to do either.

7-The Maim Scream Media™ lost all credibility, even with the uninformed.

8-To try and regain that credibility, the MSM will turn on Obama. (See 5 & 6).

9-The GOP got the thumping it so richly deserved, but the Dems didn't get to 60 Senate seats.

10-For the first time in over 100 years, Michigan voters elected a black Republican to the House of Representatives. Michigan, in fact, elected two black Republicans - Larry DeShazor and Paul Scott.

11-Affirmative action race-based preferences ought to be dead.

12-Sarah Palin will be back.

Transformational reading

2008-11-05T06:08:00.002-05:00

The Constitution of the United States

The Road to Serfdom
- F. A. Hayek

Heaven on Earth
- Joshua Muravchik

Eat the Rich
- P. J. O'Rourke

Capitalism and Freedom
- Milton Friedman

Rules for Radicals
- Saul Alinsky

Lessons from Canada nth in a series

2008-11-04T12:10:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama = Pierre Elliott Trudeau

America, you've been forewarned.

Yes, but we're likely to ignore the lesson.

The Vice of Selflessness

2008-11-03T17:35:00.001-05:00

I have no brief for John McCain. My praise to criticism ratio is probably similar to MSNBC's - around 1 to 1000. I expounded on McCain's "selflessness" here in 2006. You may find it of interest after reading the following.

John McCain's regard for his selfless image is his biggest single problem. It has damaged his campaign and distorted his responses to crises during that campaign. This narcissism, however, is of an entirely different order than Barack Obama's. I hope any undecided voter reading this may be persuaded that the difference is consequential.

McCain does not suffer from Obama's all-consuming narcissism - where the Presidency is simply a prop on the stage of Obama's ego. No, McCain is obviously humbled by the prospect of being President. He respects the office in ways Obama can't imagine: John McCain would never have presumed to design his own Presidential Seal or have faux-Greek styrofoam columns built for a convention acceptance speech. John McCain would never have delivered a speech in Berlin criticizing his own country, claiming to be a "citizen of the world," in a calculated move to bask in the reflected glory of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, especially not as a barely one-term Senator who had spent most of that term campaigning for President. John McCain would never say of securing the Presidential nomination, "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

Obama did say that. The evidence is overwhelming that he actually believes it. What is the Presidency in comparison?

Still, McCain does sometimes seems confused about core principles when he encounters a novel question: What he displays instead is situational moral outrage. Fortunately, he has been in so many situations we know what to expect. So, if "situational moral outrage" seems a scary characteristic for a Commander in Chief; remember, you KNOW infinitely more about McCain in this regard than you do about Obama (aside from Biden's guarantee of an International crisis).

You should only be frightened of McCain as CinC if you think we should have abandoned Iraq on Obama's timetable: In which case you haven't read this far. McCain is highly trustworthy as CinC, both because he is not naive about evil and because he has been intimately acquainted with the inside of War. Maybe that's redundant. Nevertheless, this is the area where Obama has clearly demonstrated the principles of a water-moccasin.

It is not personal glory with which John McCain is obsessed. His hubris is of a less malign sort. He is possessed of an internally defined moral certitude that can divert him from considering principle when the certitude is challenged. This is probably what makes you fear voting for McCain. It does me. I've simply recognized that Obama is far, far more to be feared.

The good news is that McCain has been around so long we've been exposed to 99.9% of the major mistakes of principle he will make - and he's demonstrated moral certitude that many of Obama's worst promises ARE mistakes. Insofar as we well know McCain, we can trust him to screw up in predictable ways.

Bottom line - Obama is far the more dangerous narcissist. He is a megalomaniac with insufficient respect for the office he seeks. He does have a better grip on his principles, perhaps, but since they derive from people like Saul Alinsky, I am afraid of what an Obama Presidency means for my grandson.

Updated & bumped 3-Nov 7:25 Reagan/Kennedy line added

It's not over until the polls close - Vote!

2008-11-03T17:20:00.001-05:00

IBD/TIPP: Obama +2, under 50%

McCain for President
By Charles Krauthammer

McCain for President, Part II
By Charles Krauthammer

Ego and Mouth
by Thomas Sowell

A closing argument for John McCain
By John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson

TO THE UNDECIDED VOTER
By Neal Boortz
long

The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama
By Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham
Editor and Contributor, Ed Morrissey

Fred Thompson election message

12:25

Ya think?

2008-11-03T17:15:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama lays plans to deaden expectation after election victory

I'd say he's got some serious deadening to do. Um... anyway, I hope this woman is disappointed.

"Share." He keeps using that word. I don't think it means what he thinks it means.

2008-10-30T19:52:00.005-04:00

The Kansas City Star notes that Barack Obama is joking about John McCain's charge that Obama is a socialist.

“I don’t know what’s next,” Obama said at an outdoor rally. “By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Senator Obama: First, didn't you mean your caviar and crème fraiche canapé? Second, it's not your sharing of your toys and sandwich that's at issue. It's that you want to take mine so you can give them to other people in exchange for votes.

I can appreciate why your writers think this is a good analogy - they think I'm only allowed to use my property at the whim of the State. You liked it because you really can't see any difference between my stuff and other people's stuff.

A more appropriate tyke-focused-education analogy for the Obamanation may be found in the practices of the Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle where Lego blocks were banned because:

...the teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private property ownership is evil.

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate "Legotown," but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore "the inequities of private ownership." According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."

They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social justice."

...Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes."

Aside from the irony of this being an elite private ~~re-education camp~~ school, the teachers probably practice forced lunch-sharing as a lesson in economic "fairness."