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The Undead Clintons In Denver

Posted by Bill Crawford on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 10:26:59 PM
Obama should bring a pair of wooden stakes with him to "his" convention this month, and neither Clinton should leave town without some lumber protruding from their left ventricle.
 
While Barrack was mulling over his VP choice and taking in the Hawaiian surf, Bill and Hillary were using whatever juice they had with the DNC and the credentials committee to cement their presence at the great Democrat soiree. They will essentially own the first two days, and being that the first ballot is going to be more a last hurrah for Hillary than a call to unity, they will do their level best to own the floor.
 
Their stated purpose will be to use the convention to more formally hand the baton to Barrack, and that they will eventually do. The Clinton's are not the retiring type though, and they will want to make as big a statement to the DNC and the delegates that they can so if Obama tanks in November, they can start mailing out the 'I told you so' postcards and start gathering ammunition for 2012.
 
Barrack has all but surrendered to this, and has planned to accept the nomination away from the voting floor in as large a venue as possible. This will not be enough. Burying the Clintons involves stopping by the grave sites every other day to shovel fresh dirt on, along with a few gallons of weed killer. It's the only way to be sure.
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The Coming Obama Landslide

Posted by Bill Crawford on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 10:08:28 PM
Time Magazine had an interesting article this week regarding how the McCain people were bereft by an unpopular war, home foreclosures, high energy prices and a terrible economy and were left to develop a national survival strategy to get them over the 270 Electoral vote hump and win, while Obama was exploring traditional Republican territory in search of a 370+ Electoral landslide.
 
The election is over, folks. Obama is getting the crowds, the enthusiasm and all the money. Conservatives should read all this and pack it in now and stick to their conspiritoral barbeques.
 
Here's the problem, though: when conservatives read Time magazine, they often show it the same respect that they give "The Daily Show".
 
The Rasmussen and Zogby polls (the most consistently accurate ones) have shown the candidates to be closer than the margin of error. There was no bounce to be had from Obama's Magical European Tour, because the voters here are smart enough to know that 50,000 screaming beer-addled Germans do not do anything to help him here with the people who are still trying to figure out who he is.
 
There WAS a bounce to be had from the Rick Warren forum, because it was a series of questions that had directly to do with figuring out who we were going to vote for, and the single most important thing that happened there was that McCain's snappy, unadorned and direct answers did wonders in shoring up conservative support that was hitherto wavering.
 
If John is smart enough to learn from that, it will affect his choice for Vice President. We shall see.
 
I see no plausible reason why this election whould not be similar to 2004: a close call between two warring camps, with both candidates chasing after an ever dwindling group of undecideds. The only real difference is the fact that John will not garner 40%+ of the Hispanic vote.
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Air Pressure and Tune Ups

Posted by Bill Crawford on Saturday, August 09, 2008 2:26:25 PM
Obama is so full of sage advice. Just filling up our tires and getting a tune up will "save us 3 or 4%" in oil usuage. Really? You mean, including all the cars built in the last 15 years with electronic ignition, obviating the classic necessity of tuning up? That's a lot of fuel to be saved. Nobody can question this?
 
But if we scoff at this, he says we are showing our "ignorance". And what is the dictionary definition of one who believes they are so onto the truth that disagreement is "ignorance"? I'll leave it to the reader to fill that one in, but you may want to start with an eight letter word that begins with "A".
 
Besides, one should be careful with throwing around grenades like "ignorant". After the debate episode on cap gains taxes with Charlie Gibson, one should not be surprised that the man matured in Chicago and missed out on all the pearls of the best school of economics in the country- Milton Friedman's old stomping ground.
 
Milton would have some very simple things to say about Barrack's ornate plans for the upcoming windfall taxes on the oil companies: there is no such thing as a corporate tax. He always said that corporate taxes got passed directly to the consumer, in one way or another. in this case, either raise prices at the pump (not going to happen) or (more likely), less money for exploration.
 
It would also raise the additional issue of Hugo Chavez' owned Citgo, and how Venezuela would do when faced with Obama "nationalizing" him right back. But that would be between the two homeboys.
 
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The Price Of Gas Should Stay Where?

Posted by Bill Crawford on Saturday, August 09, 2008 2:03:05 PM
Despite the fervor from quite a few Republicans, along with the whispered concerns of enough Democats to be an intractable issue, the House Speaker has decided to go into recess without allowing the offshore drilling issue to not only not get a vote, but not even appear on the floor in debate.
 
This is compounded as a political problem by the fact that the leadership cannot hide their contempt for Americans who disagree with them in the least on environmental issues. Pelosi gets questioned on the price of gasoline and what they are going to do about it, and instead of playing it safe and doing the Capitol two step aversion dance, she flatly states, "I want to save the planet". She then repeats it for emphasis, in case anybody missed it.
 
Now I understand that these people are more than happy to tell the driving class of America to stick it where there is no sunlight. The further problem is that the impending Congressional vacation also leaves in limbo the residents of many parts of the Northeast and Midwest, who are already wondering how they are going to pay for the bills this winter for their natural gas and oil heat.
 
THAT one is something they will focus on later this year, with all the rest of us ponying up for the ensuing subsidies (natch).
 
So, you truckers out there, when you get done with the diesel pump at $4.80 a gallon, when the last $50 worth goes in and empties your wallet for the day, why don't you face west and flip San Fransisco a pair of birdies, along with a heartfelt, "Thank you, Nancy Pelosi!"
 
Did I say "thank"? That must have been a typo. That's all right. You guys will know what to do.
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The Average Joe

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, August 08, 2008 1:16:23 PM
Sometimes past is prologue. In 1998, when the Drudge Report went from ten hits a day to needing a server cooled by liquid helium, Matt Drudge was invited to the National Press Club to speak. He did a historical montage of the press that had some odd twists and turns, causing the moderater to announce afterwards that politeness kept him from going into how "historically inaccurate that speech was". There was one lodestone that Matt hit, and lives by today: he said that his headlines were provided by a series of "average Joe's". "And you would be surprised what the average Joe knows."
 
There is the underlying surprise of this political season. Obama goes to Europe and has a campaign trip that even a seasoned politico only dreams about. The PR, the meetings with heads of state, the rock star crowds cheering his name.
 
Then he comes back and a week later, the polls haven't changed. What's up with that? Here's my guess: the "average joe" here, whether he leans right or left, chooses his media not because they are enraptured by them, but because they think it is a good source for information. The "average joe" actually gleans their own bank of info and make informed decisions. The rift between right and left here is because they sometimes make decisions based on wildly varying premises, not because one side has a monopoly on intelligence.
 
I wrote a blog in January called "Bright, Shiny Objects", which addressed the myopia that comes from being part of the press corp losing their objectivity in the face of the excitement of a successful political campaign. Add to that that much of the established press leans left and hates Bush, and you have a world where, as with the Obama people, they think this election will end up in a Democrat landslide.
 
And yet the polls swing stubbornly into the same dead heat they were in in 2000 and 2004. The tail has yet to learn that it can't wag the dog. The body electorate is a hell of a big dog to wag- and not because of the numbers. It's because the consistent voters make pretty well informed decisions.
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Asylum In San Francisco

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, July 25, 2008 12:20:53 PM
San Francisco is a "sanctuary city". How do we know? They have a commercial out there that states it to be so, in multiple languages (in case the Danes were worried). They won't cooperate with the Feds, the state of California or the INS. They are special.
 
The campaign is working. The city is attracting all sorts of foriegn matter, most of it Mexican. People who are hard up to establish a career and a life on their own elsewhere have come to call the Golden Gate city a new home.
 
Why does this concern me? San Fran is run by financial wizards who are in the hole for about $338 million this year. California isn't in much better shape. How long will it be before we all are being asked to help bail out these babbling idiots?
 
Segue to New York. The MTA, strapped for funds to a point where it has scheduled TWO upcoming fare increases, has accepted money for a huge pro-Muslim ad campaign to appear in it's subways. This is a city where the last Mayor told Yassir Arafat to take his keister and his money and go somewhere else.
 
And the left wonders anew why we all can't give up our trucks and SUV's and move back to the cities to be more socially responsible citizens. To go back to New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Detroit or Washington D.C.? I'll pass. I choose to live in a part of the country where if the Mayor gets caught smoking crack, he doesn't get re-elected.
 
 
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The New York Times Is A Rag

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, July 25, 2008 11:32:45 AM
As is usual in twentieth century history, a Presidential candidate from one of the two major parties submitted an op-ed piece to a major newspaper and had it printed the next day.
 
The other party's candidate submitted a response to the same paper and the editor, David Shipley, returned it for correction, like a deficient high school English composition. Please make it so "it mirrors Obama's"? What could have been wrong? No policy statements? It contained overt criticism of the opponent? Both pieces were littered with policy AND criticism.
 
Welcome to the new world. For those of you who are curious about the history of all this, feel free to reference my blog here from a few months ago, "Media Bias...Normal" (Feb. 1st). It doesn't change anything. The NY Times does not simply take sides with it's editorial page. It takes sides with it's news policy. It takes sides with it's page one, top-of-the-fold articles, news placement and pictures.
 
The Times is a liberal rag. It used to be a great paper that had a liberal bend in the editorial section. This is not a new thing. The gritted teeth that Republicans talk through when referring to the Times could be found in the New Dealers talking about the Chicago Tribune in 1940.
 
The new part of it all is the shakeout in televison and radio we are going through now, going from a handful of stations in both spectrums to hundreds on satellite radio and the internet. A handful means everybody is watching you maintain your objective responsibility. Hundreds means you can say whatever the hell you want and if people don't like it, there are plenty of places to go.
 
McCain shouldn't take this personally. He is just a victim of the new paradigm.
 
 
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Yes, We CAN Drill Our Way Out Of This

Posted by Bill Crawford on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 12:32:28 PM
It seems that the Hatfields and the McCoys of this country will never see eye to eye on our energy problem.
 
The Left is crystal clear on their limits to growth, anti-sprawl agenda. Let's keep the prices where they are, it will force us to invest in cleaner energy sooner. If it isn't there yet, deal with it. Get smaller cars, get out of the exurbs and into the cities, where you can take mass transit.
 
They aren't done there. Despite the fact that the future of alternative energy sources and a cleaner environment has almost universal support politcally, they paint the right (and the "oil man" President) as opposed to all this, and simply focused on more oil and more drilling.
 
That follows the old Hillary methodology. She used to say, "If you want to sell a policy, you have to tell a story. And every story has a villian".
 
Obama is on board with this. His stated concern about our gas prices is that they went up "too quickly", and didn't give us "time to adjust". We are supposed to sit there like frogs on a hot plate, getting used to the hotter water gradually, until we all live in apartments and drive Hondas.
 
The reality is out there, folks: over three quarters of our energy at present is from nuclear or fossil fuel. The best solar panels are only marginally more efficient than they were in 1980. The latest generation of batteries, lithium ion, are a similar story. And the Kennedy's don't want windmills mucking up their Hyannisport scenery.
 
We subsidized ethanol production to the point where it sucked enough grain off the food market to start the UN bleating about starving Africans. We will soon reach a tipping point where the drive to start drilling here will be too great to block.
 
Al Gore has his great plans, which, like all the Left, calls for keeping the prices where they are, in order to drive conservation and alternatives. And if they don't become feasible for ten years, suck it up, America.
 
That's the plan? That's your best shot, Al? You were VP for eight years. You never carped when gas was $1 a gallon in 1998. You were in a position to do something then, but, like now, all you do is talk. And then hop on your Lear jet to talk somewhere else.
 
There are ceramic-metal alloy engine blocks coming that will allow cars to run without cooling syatems, saving at least a quarter ton from driving weight. When they show up, when the first solar panel with 40% energy conversion shows up, don't hold your breath waiting for this conservative to protest their apparance. Even if gas is down to $1.80 a gallon at the time.
 
Nuts.
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Obama's Off Limits List

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, July 14, 2008 9:48:14 PM
What is it they say? Journalism is literature in a hurry. I often get ideas for things at times when development is not an option, so it ends up on my non-time stamped index cards. I've been told there is a Limbaugh monologue out there on this subject. And two or three people invented the telephone, but Bell got his to the Patent Office first.
 
So call me a plagiarist, but this must be said. I'm getting pretty damned tired of the parameters of conversation that Obama is trying to muzzle us all with.
 
The July 4th speech was pretty clever. After taking a few moments to honor McCain's service to the country, he declared BOTH of the candidate's patriotism off limits. So we can't talk about his flag pin or his patriotism.
 
We can't talk about his wife. We can't talk about his ancestors. We can't talk about his Preacher. We can't talk about his religion, because that's code for us labeling him as some sort of closet Muslim.
 
We can't talk about his friends, no matter how wacky and reprehensible they are. We can't talk about the guy facing prison time who sold him his house and property at such an amazing price.
 
We can't talk about his middle name. And we certainly can't talk about race, which he bounces back and forth between being past and obsessing about how others are using it against him.
 
Which leads this former New Yorker to one question: Obama, who the hell died and left you in charge?
 
This is where the rubber meets the road for John McCain. Lee Atwater would not put up with this crap. Neither would Karl Rove. Or James Carville. I certainly won't. If McCain loses this election because he allows this arrogant s**t to walk over him, there will be hell to pay later- for both of them.
 
 
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The All Star Game

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, July 14, 2008 9:19:29 PM
The All Star Game, like just about everything else in baseball, manages to be some sort of mush despite the marvelous sport it is at it's center.
 
The unbridled competition it once was turned into some sort of little league show in the last decade, with the managers striving to get every last player in before the lights went out. This is why a few years ago, they had to call it a tie and go home- Joe Torre ran out of players and the game wasn't over.
 
So now they decide the  World Series home advantage with the All Star game. Jeez, do they ever need a real Commisioner, to slap the owners and players in the head when they leave their common sense home.
 
But, I digress. The star of this game is the stadium that you all need to get one last look at. Soak in the history. Revel in the excellence this team brought to the game for so many years.
 
Mind you, history abounds in baseball. There is plenty to take in within the ivy walls of Wrigley in Chicago. But there is also a century of heartbreaking failure, the longest run in organized sports.
 
There is a flush of recent dynasty in Fenway in Boston, but while the Yankees of Gerigh and Dimaggio were setting the professional standard, Ted Williams was in charge of a country club. If Ted weren't coming up in the bottom of the inning, he wouldn't even come back to the dugout. He would drop his glove and amble to the ice cream shop across the street, coming back to left field after his minions recorded three outs.
 
I know Yankee Stadium was rebuilt and changed in the 1970's. But it still has grass in right field where the greatest player who ever was patrolled. Take it in while you can. Before they jack the prices to the point where only bond traders can get season tickets. I guess they are doing that because you don't have to walk past the prison anymore to get from the subway to the gates.
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Tony Snow, Class Act

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, July 14, 2008 8:49:36 PM
Tony Snow was an inveterate husband and father who happened to be a pretty damned good broadcaster. He was a man who never lost track of his priorities.
 
He was, by all accounts, devoid of ego. Many anecdotes passed on this weekend involved him treating the storyteller equally when they were nobody as well as when they were what the reporters call a "get".
 
He was a breath of fresh air as White House spokesman, because he challenged the premises of many questions before answering, often offering a chance for the questioner to rephrase. This was something that was long overdue.
 
During one press session, he said, "Can we all step back for a minute to realize how fortunate we are? Look at where we come to work every day." That says it all. Rest in peace, Tony. Our prayers are with your young family.
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Stop Global Warming?

Posted by Bill Crawford on Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:30:13 PM
There is a fun website out there called StopGlobalWarming.com. This is the one that advertises themself with the choice of "Stop Global Warming" or "Put your head in the sand" on billboards. As if disagreement with them were possible!
 
When you go to their site, they have an intriguing link called "The Science". Being a doubter of exactly that, it led me right to the heart of the issue.
 
It was an exposition on the effects of ice melt, a treatise on the effects of colder water in the Atlantic stream leading to the Carribean and the like.
 
Nothing about the establishment of human causation vs. natural elements in the creating of hydrocarbons. Nothing about the cause and effect and error analysis involving the hydrocarbons being directly responsible (and how much) for temperature increases.
 
I e-mailed them, asking for some numbers from their troposhperic computer modelling. No response yet.
 
Pardon me if I don't hold my breath waiting.
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Rush's New Contract

Posted by Bill Crawford on Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:29:38 PM
Rush Limbaugh maintained his posture in the top tax bracket with his new Alex Rodriguez style, ten year contract. Even the Yankee's Third Baseman didn't get eight figures up front.
 
If the Fairness Doctrine gets reinstated, Rush will be locked into the new limitations on terrestrial radio, and he will suffer through each and every one of the stations that carry him finding six hours of Al Franken and his pals to counter him and the equal number that carry Sean Hannity. There will be enough station managers who tire of it and go to a music format to create some pain in Limbaugh's world.
 
Rush is not ignorant of this. I think he is taking the easy gamble that, like the fates of the vaunted Democrat "Six in 2006" agenda, nothing will come of the effort to resurrect. He knows that Reid and Pelosi couldn't find their butts with both hands on a sunny day, hence their 9% approval rating in the Rasmussen poll.
 
All hail the hard working Congress! Even Gingrich didn't have the cajones to call an empty Senate chamber to order and close it five minutes later every day, in order to prevent a President from making recess appointments.
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Iran Does It Again

Posted by Bill Crawford on Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:28:27 PM
Just when one party here is busy getting out the message that our presence in the Middle East is as expensive as it is unnecessary, Iran defies all the UN sanctions and starts test firing medium range missiles all around.
 
Like an old friend of mine likes to say, these people never miss an opportunity....to miss an opportunity.
 
These people are at war with us. They know it. Too many people here are just not getting that yet.
 
They want to elect Obama and give us all a fresh start on a "surge of diplomacy". The leadership in Teheran show all the signs of somebody who is happy to stay the course even if it means no refined fuel, food or jobs for the citizens that "elect" them.
 
For the early part of the 1930's Winston Churchill's Parliament rantings about the Nazis were regarded as overblown posturing. When he turned out to be right, they lined up behind him in a snappy way all at once.
 
Of course, they dumped him as soon as it looked like the war was won. I think we are at the same "hinge of history" that he talked about. It's too bad that things will have to get worse before we finally act. I guess the safeguards of democracy are always going to be a limitation on war, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. It just means that people like me are going to have to push everybody else to act, so when the tipping point is reached, we will be that much better prepared for it.
 
Meanwhile, you will have to excuse my crocodile tears when Obama bristles at the comparisons of him to Neville Chamberlain.
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G-8 Protester Madness

Posted by Bill Crawford on Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:27:09 PM
There is a limits to growth, anti-sprawl crowd that follow these summits around, and think they will advance their cause by dressing like it is laundry day at the trailer park and creating all sorts of havoc.
 
A few years ago, they got so bad on a Presidential visit to Portland that the city has the Secret Service nickname of "Little Beirut".
 
They rail against all form of global business and trade, lacing it over with some sort of environmental hubris. They don't even try to layer it over with some sort of 'bring the jobs back to us' populism.
 
Odd thing, though: forget ancient history. Just compare it to 1975. More people live above the poverty line now than ever. Less people live under authoritarian rule than ever. Is this happening because their annual salaries are rising, or because they are getting better drugs?
 
Even stranger is that all the predictions circa 1975 of this crowd regarding arable land, fossil fuels and population growth have turned out to be palpable bulls**t. How long will this record be out there before somebody in the mainstream press notices that most of these people are living their lives with their heads up their butt?
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