From On High

A Phenomenon in the Making

2009-11-22T07:22:00.002-05:00

Even the Beatles, in their heyday, wouldn't have garnered such enthusiasm:

Hundreds waiting for Palin's book signing in Roanoke; video of overnight campers
By Katelyn Polantz, The Roanoke Times

7:10 a.m.: More than 300 people camped overnight Saturday outside Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Valley View Mall to await former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's signing of her new memoir, "Going Rogue," today. (See video of the campers, who said Palin made a surprise visit Saturday night.)

Bundled in sleeping bags, blankets and hunting jackets, the crowd huddled together, listening to Christmas music piped over the mall's outdoor speakers, in a line that wrapped around the mall's corner.

Lynn Pixley, 61, of Roanoke County, was one of the first 50 people. She and her sister had been there since 6:30 p.m.

For the hundreds that braved near-freezing temperatures overnight to share about 10 seconds with Palin, the Barnes & Noble and Valley View Mall staff attempted to aid the book enthusiasts' comfort.

Store employees pushed a cart of coffee before the sun came up at 7 a.m., selling cups for $2.75. Overnight, Valley View security had let Palin campers into the mall in groups to use the restrooms.

One couple brought their dog for company. Dixie, a Jack Russell-rat terrier mix, played on the sidewalk next to her owners, Patty and Dan Kaufman of Lithia. "We want her to meet Sarah" if the store will allow it, Patty said. "I think she'll like her."

Kaufman, 53, had a copy of "Going Rogue" tucked in a bag that hung on her fold-up chair. Dixie will read it with her overnight, she said Saturday at 11 p.m. [link]

You realize, of course, that even Obama doesn't draw this kind of exuberance.

A sixty-one year-old woman (along with three hundred other freezing enthusiasts) camped out overnight in front of Barnes & Noble, for God's sake, just to have ten seconds with a former governor. And a fifty-three year-old wants her dog to meet Ms. Palin. What?!

There is something going on here. Sarah Palin has struck a cord. A kinship like I haven't seen before.

Where does it take her? Who knows.

Strap yourself in. This is going to be one wild ride.

I'm Not Sure What To Make Of This

2009-11-22T07:09:00.001-05:00

As anyone who lives in rural Virginia can tell you, skilled craftsmen and contractors are hard to come by. Electricians, plumbers, builders, carpenters - ya need a good one? Get in line. And prepare to wait.

So what happens when ...

(a) the government pours a pile of money into the area in the way of "stimulus" intended to grow jobs, jobs that require a level of skill, and ...

(b) ... there is a finite number of skilled craftsmen in the region?

Answer: ~~Jobs are created!~~ Prices go up!

From the Dickenson Star:

Unintended consequences: Thanks to stimulus, contractors not hungry enough to offer low sewer project bids
By Jodi Deal

Bids are coming in high on water and sewer projects planned in Wise County.

Those who oversee the projects think a flood of construction that resulted from federal stimulus spending is at least partly to blame.

The market for that kind of work seems to be over-saturated, according to Maxim Engineer Bill Skeen, whose firm is kept on retainer by the county Public Service Authority.

“We had our normal load of projects out there that were not stimulus-funded, and everyone was doing their normal stuff, but that all got thrown in with stimulus projects, and we just overloaded the market,” said Skeen. “The contractors are saying, ‘We’ve got plenty to do’.”

Projects that once would have drawn about 10 different bids from different firms are now getting, at best, two to three offers for the work, and at worst, none at all. That’s causing price overruns on some projects. [link requires paid subscription]

Here's where it gets complicated, requiring the input of some of those really smart economists:

If Obama's "stimulus plan" didn't create jobs (as can be assumed from the above) but did pump lots of money into the economy in Southwest Virginia, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Before you answer, remember: The economy gets a boost because a handful of skilled contractors and laborers have wads of disposable income to dole out (Great!), but everything you want to buy suddenly costs you more (UGH!).

America in microcosm.

A good thing? Guess we'll find out.

For You Car Buffs

2009-11-22T06:49:00.000-05:00

What is it?

Hmmm. The front kinda looks like a '57 Chevy. But the back looks more like a '59.

You're right!

It's a custom (seriously custom) 1957, 1958, and 1959 Chevy!

I think it looks awful. But it is ingenious.

Too bad three really beautiful cars had to die to make it.

Lies. Damn Lies. And Global Warming Studies.

2009-11-22T06:17:00.001-05:00

If, for all these years, you've maintained your faith in the "evidence" provided you by those global warming "scientists" as being supportive of your belief that the planet is, in fact, warming, you don't want to read "The Alarmists Do 'Science': A Case Study," an exhaustive analysis of the cynical gutter politics that have ~~tainted~~ destroyed the global warming movement forever and brought shame on the scientific community as a whole .

John Hinderaker concludes from his reading:

[T]he conclusion an observer is likely to draw from the CRU archive is that the climate alarmists are making up the science as they go along and are fitting facts to reach a predetermined conclusion rather than objectively seeking after truth. What they are doing is politics, not science. When I was in law school, this story was told about accountants: A CEO is going to hire a new accountant and summons a series of candidates. He asks each applicant, "What is two plus two?" The first two candidates answer, "Four." They don't get the job. The third responds, "What do you want it to be?" He gets hired. The climate alarmists' attitude toward data appears to me much the same as that fictional accountant's attitude toward arithmetic.

The CRU he refers to is the until-recently prestigious Climate Research Unit, a cabal of like-minded politicians masquerading as researchers operating out of the University of East Anglia.

Never again will these slimeballs be trusted. Anything they write or say will be viewed with the skepticism (and scorn) that they as purveyors of falsehood after falsehood deserve.

And speaking of "skepticism," where has the rest of the scientific community been as this group of global warming degenerates began their highly charged political jihad? I'll tell you where they were: They stood there and nodded in agreement. Don't want to be risking any grant funding, right, fellas?

You're all pathetic. And every one of you deserves to be fired.

The Church Must Stand For Something

2009-11-22T06:11:00.001-05:00

Or it might as well not exist.*

Well, let it be known that the Roman Catholic diocese of Providence, Rhode Island stands for something. And thank God for it:

Report: Kennedy barred from communion by bishop
By Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer

Providence, R.I. (AP) — Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family.

"The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday. [link]

Here's to Bishop Tobin.

Patrick Kennedy - and liberals of his ilk - have always wanted it both ways. They wanted - expected - to be able to attend the church of their choosing, but they didn't want to have to accept that church's tenets. (So why attend?)

Call it "faith lite." Or faithless lite.

Anyway, the church has lowered the boom on Patrick Kennedy, a man who's going to have a lot to answer for when he reaches the pearly gates.

The church is stronger for it.

* Ask those who used to attend an Episcopal church.

He Never Liked Them Anyway

2009-11-22T05:31:00.000-05:00

" Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing [by] the Zionists is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don't want Barack talking like that because that's anti-Israel.

"The Jewish vote, the A-I-P-A-C vote, that’s controlling him, that would not let him send representation to the Darfur Review Conference, that’s talking this craziness on this trip, cause they’re Zionists, they would not let him talk to someone who calls a spade what it is."

-- Barack Obama's mentor and former pastor

Jews May Get Frosty Feelings as Obama White House Cuts Hanukkah Party Guest List in Half

How Cool Is This

2009-11-22T05:20:00.002-05:00

In the "How did they think that up" department:

The lengths to which they'll go to sell a car ...

Obama's Plan To Bankrupt the Coal Industry ...

2009-11-21T08:38:00.000-05:00

... kicks into high gear:

Interior increases oversight of mountaintop mining

Here's the short-hand version of the article:

Obama's Interior Department will soon be rolling out regulations that will make it impossible for any proposed surface mine to ever receive the necessary permit again.

Think run-off.

He vowed to do it.

He's doing it.

You coal miners over in Dickenson County who voted for Obama ought to be mighty proud of yourselves about now.

Oh, you don't care about those surface mines up the road?

Well, don't get too complacent. He's coming after you next.

'I Am Stupid'

2009-11-21T07:51:00.002-05:00

"So Philip Morris owes me $300 million."

Only in America, 2009:

Ex-Smoker Wins Against Philip Morris
By Duff Wilson, New York Times

Legal experts predict that thousands of tobacco lawsuits could gain momentum in Florida after a Fort Lauderdale jury ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million to a former smoker who says she needs a lung transplant.

Lucinda Naugle, the 61-year-old sister of a former Fort Lauderdale mayor, was awarded $56 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages Thursday after a three-week trial and three hours of jury deliberation in Broward County Circuit Court.

Ms. Naugle, an office manager, had started smoking when she was 20 and quit when she was 45 years old, her lawyer, Robert W. Kelley of Fort Lauderdale, said in a telephone interview Friday. She now has severe emphysema and needs a lung transplant she cannot afford, he said. [link]

Lucinda Naugle smoked her first cigarette in 1968 (assuming she was born in1948). On that first pack of cigarettes she purchased she would have been confronted with this warning:

Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health

She chose to ignore the warning and proceeded to smoke for twenty-five years.

At three packs a day, she would have been warned 27,325 times (each time she made another purchase) that what she was doing might kill her (or, beginning in 1975, that it would kill her).

27,325 warnings to stop her risky behavior.

She persisted.

And now she blames someone else because her decision - make that 27,325 decisions - to live at risk caught up with her.

She sued Philip Morris.

And won.

For the love of God.

Spin 101

2009-11-21T07:23:00.002-05:00

The New York Times this morning:

"A variety of economists say that stimulus legislation is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would."

Like Obama's "jobs saved or created" chimera, this cynical "fewer shed" jobs ploy is unquantifiable. Unverifiable. Ungrounded. Unfounded.

Intentionally so.

What can be quantified is this:

So what is quantifiable?

This: Four states last month reported record unemployment.

Fewer jobs were lost? Where's that data to be found?

This Is News?

2009-11-21T07:17:00.000-05:00

About an hour ago, a pack of coyotes was howling and yipping like crazy in the pitch darkness that enshrouded the forest just beyond my barn. Like they do every morning.

It's an every-night/morning occurrence.

That's why this doesn't startle me:

Coyotes roam Botetourt area

Stop the presses.

Say What?

2009-11-21T07:10:00.001-05:00

So I'm perusing a list of endangered sites in the Roanoke region as provided to the Roanoke Times by the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation, and, mixed in with the not-surprising homesteads and abandoned factory buildings, I came across this on the list:

Several mountainsides that are undergoing logging operations, including 12 O'Clock Knob, the Dixie Caverns area, Fort Lewis Mountain, Stewart's Knob and Buck Mountain near Clearbrook.

Mountainsides being groomed by loggers are "endangered" mountainsides?

If that's the case, shouldn't the area's hay fields be included on the endangered list?

Titan In Running Shorts

2009-11-21T07:04:00.000-05:00

They've tried their best to destroy her.

They have failed.

She shoulders on.

Still they hate her.

Palin-Hating 101
By S.E. Cupp, Town Hall

Her influence and allure are practically unprecedented among failed vice presidential candidates. (Can anyone imagine Lloyd Bentsen, Jack Kemp or Joe Lieberman selling People magazine covers or sitting down for an hour with Oprah?) Even though she was skewered by the liberal media, lambasted by the self-loathing feminists, and slaughtered by the oh-so-cool "30 Rock" and "SNL" glitterati, Palin remains incredibly popular among conservatives.

Not only that, she's got real power. President Obama's been trying to sell the country on health care reform for months, but she managed to change policy overnight with a pointed note...on Facebook.

And, she's still someone people want to know about. Her book "Going Rogue: An American Life," was a best seller before it even hit the shelves.

And for these very reasons, her detractors are absolutely apoplectic right now.

Anyone witnessing the spin job being furiously whipped up against Palin in a desperate effort to stanch her book sales and cauterize her acclaim is in for a real treat. It is a truly acrobatic and dizzying display of agility -- but unlike the Flying Wallendas, these stunt men and women of the liberal media aren't fooling or wowing anyone. Their cheap sideshow parlor tricks are so transparent we should all demand our money back.

Newsweek, in advance of Palin's book release, obviously went for subtlety. Their headline read, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah? She's bad news for the GOP -- and everybody else, too." Accompanying it was a photo of her in running shorts used in a June 2009 Runner's World spread. Newsweek's message was clear: You are not to take this woman seriously. Never mind that Runner's Week told me that the photos from that shoot are still under a one-year embargo, and that Newsweek ran the photo without Runner's World's knowledge or permission. No biggie.

On "Hardball," Chris Matthews, who's still recovering from that bizarre bout of restless leg syndrome that suddenly befell him last year, actually had the audacity to say of the attention Palin is getting for her book release, "I've never seen hype like this." Apparently, the overwrought sensationalism of the Denver Democratic National Convention, where Obama stood amidst faux White House columns, under fireworks, next to Sheryl Crow and Will.i.am -- or "Hype and Change 2008" -- is but a distant memory to Matthews. [link]

Someday this phenomenon - this unexplainable, incomprehensible loathing - will be the stuff of some psychology class at Stanford.

In the meantime, she continues her tour. She continues to smile. She continues to attract crowds wherever she goes.

Maybe it's time the mainstream press and the other elitists in this country reconciled themselves with mainstream America.

Obama Is Known To Say Just About Anything

2009-11-21T06:06:00.000-05:00

As he stood atop the Great Wall, amiring its "majesty":

Obama says Asia trip about jobs

Whatever you say, Barry.

Lest We Forget

2009-11-21T05:13:00.000-05:00

There are those we become accustomed to ignoring.

Those who never ignored us.

I think I'll call my mother this afternoon.

Solutions To All Our Problems

2009-11-21T05:04:00.000-05:00

From the desk of former Delegate Barnie Day:

Solving The Budget Crisis

Forget the $3-per-ton tax credit we give Virginia’s billion-dollar-profit utilities for burning Virginia coal. Forget the billion-dollar rebate we send to localities for taxes they impose. Forget the hundred million dollar fee we pay retailers just for collecting the sales tax. There is a better way.

--Unleash market forces into the legislative process—let the lobbyists simply bid on what they want. When a bill comes up, the high bidder will determine whether it becomes law, is amended, or killed—buyer’s choice. The current sneak-around-and-flash-the-cash system is inefficient in the extreme. And there is an added benefit: this will shut up all those “open government” sob sisters.

--Encourage absenteeism off-session. Bill Bolling caught all that hell for missing meetings. He should have been applauded. Pay the legislators to stay at home. The more meetings they miss, the better off we are—and in the long run it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.

--Don’t close the liquor stores—mandate patronage. Make consumption compulsory, especially on Election Day. Replace photo-ID with a breathalyzer—you’ve got to be legally intoxicated to vote. You see what happened during the last election? We’ve tried sober government. Let’s try it drunk.

--Remove all the chairs from the Capitol and the General Assembly Building. Make everybody stand up. This move alone would cut the ‘long’ sessions from 60 days to 10, and the ‘short’ ones from 45 to 4—basically, a long weekend. Plus, we could sell all those chairs.

--Institute a bonus system for the introduction of bad bills. Folks will pay good money to see them passed. Double the bonus for good bills. Lobbyists will ante up real cash getting them killed.

--Don’t cut legislator’s pay—triple it. It’ll be cheaper in the long run if we incent them to eschew part time gigs. Where do you think William and Mary gets $160,000 to pay Tommy Norment to teach two classes? You got it. Phil Hamilton? Pfft! Hamilton succumbed to chicken feed.

--Exhume the ‘T’ word. No, not taxes, for God’s sake, tithes! Impose a 50% ‘tithe’ on all campaign contributions—half to the candidate, half to the state. The state would have picked up a cool $20 million just on the governor’s race. Calling it a ‘tithe’ should help with the religious…ahh…contingent. They’d freak out on ‘tax.’ They’re freaky enough as it is.

--And K-12? What a waste! Why not eliminate the even-numbered grades? Let kids start drawing unemployment when they’re 12. There are no jobs in Virginia. Why make a kid wait until he or she is 22, and facing all that college debt, before breaking the news to them? Get’em early—teach them responsible unemployment while they’re still malleable.

--And finally, we must recognize that we’re all in this together and work collectively to banish the real scourge of Virginia government. We must root out common sense!

Voting drunk. What could it hurt?

Thanks, Barnie. You've given us lots to ... ponder.

If anyone would like to submit a letter for publication, please send it to me in "Word" format, your name included (no anonymouses here), and I'll look to publishing it. No "F" words please.

It has to be interesting though. This is a high-standards blog site.

It Isn't Funny Any More

2009-11-21T04:56:00.003-05:00

I always got the biggest kick out of ridiculing those "scientists" who believed - despite all evidence to the contrary - that the globe is warming.

This goes beyond fun. And deserves far more than ridicule in response.

Exile is appropriate. If not the lash.

As it turns out, they weren't misguided fools. They were plotting, conniving racketeers.

Science is dealt a blow from which it won't recover for years.

- - -

For additional insight, go to "The Evidence of Climate Fraud."

- - -

It's worse than imaginable. See Andrew Bolt's analysis in the Australian Herald Sun.

It's Come To This

2009-11-20T06:18:00.001-05:00

Where once thousands were employed, this part of Virginia now looks for someone to kick in a few thousand ... dollars:

Railroading groups join to woo tourists
By Jenny Kincaid Boone

Tourism gurus have a plethora of options for marketing the Roanoke Valley and its surrounding areas as a worthwhile stop for out-of-towners to spend money.

Railroading is the newest push.

In March, the Virginia General Assembly agreed to tap the Roanoke Valley, Alleghany Highlands and parts of central Virginia as Virginia's Rail Heritage Region.

But they don't have all of the money they need. The next step is paying $1,000 to $2,500 to create signs with the region's new name and image of a train wheel, its official logo. The signs would go up on interstate highways and other roadways, said Bev Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation in downtown Roanoke.

a 7-month-old rail history museum in Clifton Forge is counting on the marketing strategy to revive interest in the faltering rail industry in the Alleghany Highlands.

In 1987, CSX Corp. closed the Clifton Forge Railway shops, which employed 4,800 people or about 80 percent of the area's work force. The closure was economically devastating, Tabb said.

Now, fewer than 200 people work for the railroad, he said.

Tabb said he hopes the appeal of the larger region's rail history will draw rail buffs to the small town of Clifton Forge, creating a new kind of "economic boom." [link]

We're down to wooing "rail buffs."

How many are there across the U.S.? Dozens?

In an area that once employed thousands making things. And repairing things.

But no more. Now we hope to be a tourist attraction. Like those Indians who sell blankets on the side of the road, hoping to make a few bucks a day.

The rail industry may be a thing of the past - there's no avoiding that.

But we could have avoided the loss of all those tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs had we not handed them to China.

Now we look for a benefactor to help pay for signs that pay homage to the area's past.

Reminds me of a cemetery.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-20T06:05:00.000-05:00

From Charles Krauthammer:

Finally, there's the moral logic. It's not as if [Attorney General Eric] Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, (accused) mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole, to a military tribunal.

By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his Nov. 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.

What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime -- an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war that the United States itself has engaged in countless times?

By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?

Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadist is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform -- everything but your own blog.

"Travesty in New York," Washington Post, November 20, 2009

Like a Ping Pong ball

2009-11-20T05:59:00.000-05:00

This was our foreign policy two weeks ago:

US vows to get tough on Karzai

This is our policy today:

A softer approach to Karzai

Two weeks from now?

If I were Karzai, I'd be finding a new "ally."

Frightening

2009-11-20T05:49:00.000-05:00

Go to "The Decline: The Geography of a Recession" to see an evolving map depicting the spread - by county - of the effects of the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress (and later of the White House) on the economy.

This should give you nightmares.

Obama Embarrasses Us All

2009-11-20T05:32:00.001-05:00

This is humiliating:

Obama in China: A wake-up call!
By David Gergen, AC360

Barack Obama has recently been reading up on the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Coming home from China, he might well focus on Kennedy’s first summit overseas with the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. Indeed, we all could learn from that episode.

According to Kennedy biographer Richard Reeves, Khruschev left the meeting telling associates, “He’s very young… not strong enough. Too intelligent and too weak.” Khrushchev concluded that he could push Kennedy around and started causing mischief from Berlin to Cuba.

Why bring up that story now, as President Obama comes home from Asia? Because it has considerable relevance to his meetings in China with President Hu.

Obama went into those sessions like Kennedy: with great hope that his charm and appeal to reason – qualities so admired in the United States – would work well with Hu. By numerous accounts, that is not at all what happened: reports from correspondents on the scene are replete with statements that Hu stiffed the President, that he rejected arguments about Chinese human rights and currency behavior while scolding the U.S. for its trade policies, and that he stage-managed the visit so that Obama – unlike Clinton and Bush before him – was unable to reach a large Chinese audience through television.

It would seem wise not only for President Obama but for all Americans to treat this as a wake-up call.

For the President, the challenge is whether he will start approaching international affairs with a greater measure of toughness, standing up more firmly and assertively for American interests. Yes, he must still be the man of reason and peace, but that can easily be read as a sign of weakness by others unless he balances it with the inner steel that is essential in international affairs. [link]

To go into a negotiation with the attitude of a supplicant (see photo above) only one result will be obtained - disaster.

Obama thought that by acting in a subservient manner, he'd win over the sympathies of foreign leaders. Sympathy, as he found out, wasn't to be part of the equation. They walked all over him.

So now America as a symbol of strength is diminished in the eyes of those foreigners who count most.

Say what you will about George W. Bush, but he never bowed to anyone.

I Learn a New Word

2009-11-20T05:15:00.000-05:00

Intaxicaton
Noun: intaxication in-täx-sə-ˈkā-shən

1. Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

I Learn Another Word

2009-11-20T05:07:00.000-05:00

Palinoia
Noun: palinoia pā-ly-noi'-uh
1. A psychological disorder characterized by delusions of persecution by Sarah Palin.

Palinoia
by Megan McArdle, The Atlantic

Y'all well know that I really don't like Sarah Palin. In fact, more than one of you has yelled at me about this. And I find the whole schtick about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her really grating.

That's why I really wish the media wouldn't act like, well, a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her. I've coined a new phrase to cover the situation: Palinoia. It's when you think people are out to get you, and then they do their best to justify your erroneous belief.

The Newsweek cover was a sexist embarrassment. Hell, they wouldn't have highlighted an article about Hillary Clinton with that stupid nutcracker, yet there's apparently a photo of "Sarah Palin doll as slutty schoolgirl". This is enormously disrespectful to someone who, like it or not, was a vice presidential candidate, and deserves to be treated the same way that her predecessors were. If you wouldn't put a photo of Joe Biden in his running shorts on the cover, you should damn well extend the same courtesy to Palin, however much you dislike her. [link]

Of all the people in this world they could hate - bin Ladin, Hasan, Ahmadinejad, that rotund little shrimp who dresses funny, needs a hair transplant, and runs North Korea - they choose to despise Ms. Palin, a private citizen who is doing nothing to them and couldn't if she wanted to.

And such hate it is.

Palinoia. That's the only explanation.

Symptom? Check for a shriveled wiener.

Antidote? Love.

Giving New Meaning To a Word

2009-11-20T05:05:00.000-05:00

Watchdog
Noun: watchdog wŏch'dôg'
1. What Obama's Stimulus Watchdog ain't.

Watchdog Urges Caution on Claims of 640,000 Stimulus Jobs
By Michael Cooper, New York Times

Washington — The government watchdog overseeing the federal stimulus program testified Thursday that he could not vouch for the Obama administration’s recent claims that the money had saved or created 640,000 jobs. He suggested that the administration should have treated the number with more skepticism.

The 640,000 figure, announced by the White House with some fanfare last month, came from reports filed by recipients of the stimulus money, many of which have been shown to be inaccurate or overstated since they were made public. But the watchdog, Earl E. Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said that it was also possible that the figure understated how many jobs were affected. [link]

In other words, he hasn't a clue.

What exactly is this "watchdog" watching over, one wonders.

And why are we paying him?