I’m Not Really a President, I Just Play One on TV
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Obama Circling the Drain?
The Las Angeles Times Blog wonders, Where Did Barack Obama’s Mojo Go?
A new CNN/Opinion Research poll out Wednesday shows that despite nine solid days of blanket media coverage from overseas with Barack Obama cheered by adoring throngs of Germans and parlez-vousing with the French, making a three-point shot in the Middle East and standing outside No. 10 Downing Street, the freshman Illinois Democratic presidential nominee to be Senator Barack Obama of Illinois stayed static in the polls despite his well-covered long foreign tripsenator is stuck right where he was in the polls before he left.
No bounce. Not even a roll.
“Obama has not picked up any ground against McCain on foreign issues,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “And some 52% think McCain would do a better job than Obama on the war in Iraq — virtually the same number who felt that way in April.”
Other polls show the same stubborn one-digit lead holding for the Democratic nominee-to-be with only 96 days left until the general election. Some crucial state polls even show McCain gaining.
Obama seems to have everything going for him. A fresh face. A smooth, cadenced speaking style suited for TV. A message of change at a time when Americans historically favor change, after one party holds the White House for two terms. And after several convictions of GOP legislators.
Obama’s got tons of money. An attractive family. Energized followers. A media that’s curious about the new guy and tired of …
… the dogged old POW one. High gas prices, a poor housing market, a two-front war ongoing and a slightly sagging economy, all of which should help political challengers. Not to mention an unpopular incumbent president.
A lead’s a lead, but political strategists are puzzled.
The problem is that Obama is changing before our eyes.
Drill, Johnnie, Drill!
John McCain wants to drill for oil. Barack Obama wants to drill for taxes and leave the oil where it is.
In McCain Rows The Boat Offshore, Hallelujah!, Investors Business Daily lays it all out.
John McCain visits California to make the case for offshore drilling. The oil spill off Santa Barbara was 40 years ago. It’s time to stop crying over spilled oil.
Just as he courageously opposed subsidies for energy-inefficient ethanol before the Iowa caucus, whose mandated use has driven up food prices, the presumptive GOP nominee ventured to electoral-vote-rich California on Monday to repeat his support for offshore drilling. His call comes despite lingering California angst over the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that prompted current restrictions off the California coast.
Critics of offshore drilling, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, use the spill of 80,000 barrels of crude some six miles off Santa Barbara nearly four decades ago to block efforts to recover the 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off the California coast. Schwarzenegger has suggested he wouldn’t mind being “energy czar” in an Obama administration. Obama opposes offshore drilling.
I’m not a giant fan of McCain, but when your choice is between something bad and something even worse, you can’t sit this one out or waste your vote with Bob Barr.
If you combine Barack and Nancy and Harry, you’ve got a bullet in the head of the economy that we’ll pay for over the next ten years.
Remember when Jimmy Carter persuaded a Democrat congress to set the speed limit at 55? (Hint: 1974) Remember how long it took to get rid of the most hated federal law in the nation? (Hint: 1995) Apply that legislative timeline to taxes designed to redistribute income and you’ll get an idea of how much damage little Barry can do.
Barack Obama - Community Organizer
So what’s a community organizer? Obama is very proud of his former job and a lot of people undoubtedly think of someone helping people to fill out welfare forms or handing out soup.
The Windy Citizen, who has worked as a community organizer, has the real story:
Since 2002, I have worked with several Chicago-based community organizers and even done some organizing myself. My experience has taught me to view Barack Obama, Chicago’s most famous community organizer, in a different light than you will likely encounter from most political commentators.
Community organizing is old-fashioned, bare-knuckle politics for the little guy.
I’m from the Government and You’re Going to Lose Weight!
If you think government healthcare might be a good idea, read on:
When the government pays for health care, it has a vested interest in making sure its citizens are healthy–whether they like it or not. That’s why the Japanese government recently passed legislation requiring everyone between the ages of 40 and 74–56 million people–to have their waistlines measured regularly. The maximum waistline for men is 33.5 inches. That’s the maximum. For women it’s 35.4 inches. Those whose waistlines are larger will have three months to shape up, or undergo what’s being called “reeducation.” Those who persist in ignoring the will of the government will face fines and other penalties. There’s an old saying that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” The Japanese will soon learn that a waist is a terrible thing to mind.
–Merrill Matthews, Institute for Policy Innovation via Forbes
Nancy and Harry Get Into Your Wallet
When you watch the gas pump roll past $50, then $60, thank the Democrats.
From Investors Business Daily,
When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, and oil was $50 a barrel and corn $2 a bushel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised an energy plan. We’re still waiting for it. Today, crude oil is $134 and corn is $6.50.
It’s pretty clear who’s to blame: Congress. In fact, House and Senate Democrats have obstructed any progress in America’s fight to regain some semblance of energy independence.
4 Cheers for Rush
Human Events has a great article - Rush: The Engine of Conservatism
Excerpts:
Rush didn’t have to buy a newspaper or television network to be heard. By the force of his brilliance and talent, he took the dying AM radio band and turned it into the most consequential and thriving media forum in the nation. Everyday at noon eastern time, millions and millions of Americans tune into the Rush Limbaugh Show to listen to Rush deconstruct the day’s events, skewer the liberal mind-set, and educate about America’s greatness. There’s really nobody like him — on or off the radio. He is a uniquely American icon. His influence on American culture is of a kind with Mark Twain and Will Rogers.
And where would the conservative movement be without Rush? Is there anyone who can fill his shoes? Is there anyone who better explains and promotes conservatism? Is there anyone who better challenges those who claim conservatism’s death and would “reinvent” it to accommodate its critics? Conservatism flourishes because a few pivotal individuals stepped forward and used their unique vision and gifts to champion the cause: William Buckley, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh.
In the talk radio business, there is Rush Limbaugh and then there’s everyone else. When Rush says, “If I don’t say it, it hasn’t been said,” he may be kidding, but for the rest of us it’s true. Not only does Rush have the most consequential talk show in America (remember Operation Chaos?), he has fostered a cadre of hosts who emulate his message and style, whether they admit it or not.
Read the rest.
Record Cold Summer in Anchorage - Locals Hope for Global Warming
From the Anchorage Daily News, July 24, 2008:
The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say.
Right now the so-called summer of ‘08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.
That unhappy record was set in 1970, when we only made it to the 65-degree mark, which many Alaskans consider a nice temperature, 16 days out of 365.
This year, however — with the summer more than half over — there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. And that’s with just a month of potential “balmy” days remaining and the forecast looking gloomy.
National Weather Service meteorologist Sam Albanese, a storm warning coordinator for Alaska, says the outlook is for Anchorage to remain cool and cloudy through the rest of July.
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My Ice Breaker is Stuck - Where’s the Global Warming?
One of the world’s most spectacular animals, the estimated 20,000-25,000 polar bears are in danger of losing their habitat and becoming extinct over the next 50 years.
Indeed, scientists around the world are greatly concerned about the polar bear’s future, due to global warming and melting sea ice, which polar bears depend on to hunt and den.
Senator Barbara Boxer - Boxer Statement: Oversight Hearing on Polar Bear Listing
From the Barents Observer, July 24, 2008:
New data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute shows that there is more ice than normal in the Arctic waters north of the Svalbard archipelago.
In most years, there are open waters in the area north of the archipelago in July month. Studies from this year however show that the area is covered by ice, the Meteorological Institute writes in a press release.
In mid-July, the research vessel Lance and the Swedish shp MV Stockholm got stuck in ice in the area and needed help from the Norwegian Coast Guard to get loose.
The ice findings from the area spurred surprise among the researchers, many of whom expect the very North Pole to be ice-free by September this year.
and from Watts Up:
I am on the bridge of the massive Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, and the tension is palpable. We have hit ice - thick ice.
The ice master studies the mountains of white packed around the ship while the 24,000-horsepower diesel engines work at full throttle to open a path. The ship rises slowly onto the barrier of ice, crushes it and tosses aside blocks the size of small cars as if they were ice cubes in a glass. It creeps ahead a few metres, then comes to a halt, its bow firmly wedged in the ice. After doing this for two days, the ship can go no farther.
The ice master confers with the captain, who makes a call to the engine room. The engines are shut down. He turns to those of us watching the drama unfold, and we are shocked by his words: “Now, only nature can help this ship.” We are doomed to drift.
What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world, travelling through the Northwest Passage - which is supposed to become almost ice-free in a time of global warming, the next shipping route across the top of the world - and here we are, stuck in the ice, engines shut down, bridge deserted. Only time and tide can free us.
Hayak and Communal Enterprise
Good post at The Volokh Conspiracy on Hayak and another liberal, oops, excuse me, collectivist attempt to discredit his theories.
Larner also criticizes Hayek for ignoring the possibility that “collectivism” could be voluntary rather than imposed by the state. He suggests that Hayek was wrong to ignore the thought of socialist anarchists such as Proudhon and Kropotkin, who favored communal enterprise without state control.
Since when does the collective view seriously eliminate state control? What is “communal enterprise without state control?” should or will properly fit into the collectivist value system. In typical fashion, they will have a special definition, so a small acre garden plot in the city that is jointly owned by 10 people who all cultivate organic produce will qualify, but an oil company won’t.
- Let’s form a corporation to go discover new sources of oil. Sounds like it would fit the definitition.
- Let’s get together and start a new church. Ditto.
- Why don’t we buy some land outside of the city, divide it into 5 acre lots, keep a couple for ourselves and sell the rest to whoever wants to buy? Ditto.
The problem (for collectivists) with all these is that they believe that “communal enterprises” should operate under their standards. Somewhere, there is always a secret definition that will approve of an urban garden plot jointly owned by 10 people where everyone grows organic produce and disapprove of an oil company owned by 10 people wanting to get rich.
The problem is that there is always coercion in a collectivist world. It may take the form of political correctness in a typical sociology department or legislation forcing private foundations to donate to certain favored ethnic groups, but it’s always there. See another Wall Street Journal op-ed about how many collectivist organizations use coercive tactics to prevent initiatives of which they disapprove from getting on the ballot so the public can vote on them - The Far Left’s War on Direct Democracy.
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