Thursday, September 30, 2010

Losing Empathy

I was stuck in a doctor's office the other day and all they had to read was woman's magazines. You know the kind. Full of pictures of waifs in bikinis plus lots of beauty and relationship angst. Except for the breast reduction surgery before and after pictures. Well any way other than the bright spots (you know - the semi naked women) - not a lot of fun. So I was interested when I came across a bit about botox injections reducing the empathy of the injected.

...after Botox treatment, the subjects took more time to read the angry and sad sentences. Although the time difference was small, it was significant, he adds.
Could this explain why Nancy Pelosi seems so out of touch with the American people? Why their anger does not register well with her? Maybe.

What ever the case about her emotions the botox sure hasn't done a lot for her looks.

How Embarassing

The Present really has to do a better job of picking his audience. They are beginning to tell him things he doesn't want to hear.

Trying to sell his economic record in Iowa yesterday, President Obama got an earful from a successful businessman who pleaded with him not to raise taxes.

"One of the things that concerns me is the repeal of the Bush tax cuts," said David Greenspon, referring to Democratic plans to raise taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and on families and certain businesses earning more than $250,000.

"The repeal -- I don't care if it is 5 percent -- that's 5 percent that would create a job," he told Obama during a meeting with about 70 people in a couple's back yard in Des Moines.

"Five percent on millions of dollars of profit creates many jobs . . . As the government gets more and more involved in business and more and more involved in taxes, what you're finding is you're strangling those job-creation vehicles."

Before Greenspon could complete his question, his microphone was cut off and taken out of his hand.
There is an old saying in the corporate world and the military world. Not to mention dealings with your mate:

Never ask a question you don't want the answer to.

Evidently the Present is sticking with a policy that is wildly unpopular. Good for him. Jimmy Carter needs to be retired from his #1 spot. And in 2012 we need to retire the small .

Let The Bidding Begin

There is quite a spirited discussion going on at Classical Values about the relationship between social conservatives and libertarians. And of course the question is, "can it last?" I don't know. What I do know is that the social conservatives can't win nationally without the "Leave Us Alone Party". Of course the social conservatives say, "our way or the highway, after all, where else can you go?" Good question.

So what is the other side offering? Social liberty (more or less). Not unattractive to us Leave Us Alone Party types. Now of course neither side offers a pure product. So we won't start in on that.

So my social conservative friends. Time to start the bidding. How bad do you want me? As a sign of good faith I intend to vote and work against the current crew in DC. With the usual grumbling of course. I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't indicate my concerns.

So tell me. What social issues will you give up to attract me once the current crisis abates? And to my friends on the other side. I like your social credentials (mostly - watch out for that food and tobacco police bit though). What can you offer me in the way of fiscal conservatism? Any departments you would like to cut? I'm sure the DEA would be easy for both of us to agree on. To start. How do you propose to get the golden goose laying again? How will you keep the budget in line (some trust building would be required here)?

So ladies and gentlemen. What am I bid?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Two Wild Women

It's Not Your Seat Lisa



It's Not Your Seat Lisa

It is more than evident that some of these folks have forgotten who they work for.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Martha Coakley Puts Innocent Man In Prison For Life - The Movie



In case you have forgotten Coakley is the person Scott Brown wiped the floor with in Massachusetts. I think her opponent in the Attorney General race, Jim McKenna, needs to wipe the latrine with her. Click on the link if you want to help.

H/T Hill Buzz which has more of the story.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Overheard On The 'Net - 3

Let me be perfectly clear, I, um, uh, have, uh, um, inherited um, these poll numbers from the previous administration.

Barack H. Obama, Super Genius

There Are No Atheists

It used to be said that, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

I believe we will be finding out that, "There are no atheists in depressions."

They Could Never Lose

I was talking to a rational liberal friend last night (he is an engineer) and as per usual we got to talking politics. He said something I totally agree with. To wit: "If Republicans stopped trying to get their way on social issues through force of law they would never lose an election." Think about it my R friends. Long and hard.

Me? As long as we have two parties interested in using big government to get their way by force I will continue to play balance of power politics. Which explains my vote for Obama in 2004.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Celery, DDT, and Gun Control

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Drug Culture Takes A Hit



A perfect illustration of my previous post Cultural Socialism

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Cultural Socialism

I wrote a very short post on Cultural Socialism that got some very interesting comments given the length of the post (Two lines - a total of 16 words). So I thought I'd Google "cultural socialism" to see how popular the term was.

Not very. A total of 2,580 hits. Pathetic. And the post linked above? Number two on the list. So that is something. My mission in life will not be complete until that phrase gets millions of hits. So may I ask a favor of those so inclined? Use the term early and often in speech and comments and blog posts.

And for my more "conservative" friends I think the term deserves some further elucidation. What is cultural socialism? It is state management of the culture. What you can smoke. What you can drink, what your relationship to favored and unfavored groups or individuals should be. It is epitomized in Orwell's novel "1984" by the daily two minutes of hate against Emmanuel Goldstein. And don't forget that love for Big Brother is mandatory.

So who can you currently hate in America? Well wreckers of the state and destroyers of children. And who would those be? Well #1 on the list are users of heroin. You can hate them all you want. And how effective has the hate been? Before the hate was sanctioned and users were punished by law about 2% of the population were users. Since that time the number of heroin users is still about 2%. Which is to say heroin is not very popular. But what has gained popularity? Cultural socialism. If you ask the question: should heroin users be subject to state sanction the numbers in favor would run about 60 to 80%. Maybe more. So we find that cultural socialism is way more popular than heroin. And in my opinion a bigger threat to our liberties than heroin could ever possibly be.

I read a book once that made that very point. Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State. I think the title itself makes my point as well or better than I can. Of course you have to buy the book to get the details. Or you can read my review of it How To Put An End To Drug Users for only a little investment of your time.

So who else can be hated? Well hating gays is very popular on the right and is not uncommon on the left. But that is dying out. We can see that in the Massachusetts Governors race where an openly gay guy is on the ticket in the Lt. Governor spot.

Richard Tisei, a member of the Gay Republican group Log Cabin Clubs and minority Senate leader, is Baker's running mate.
And this next bit of information will make some conservatives really mad. The top of the ticket is a gentleman named Baker. Who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
Baker owns the respect of political insiders on both sides of the aisle. He can also inspire confidence among business leaders. Conservative Republicans may not be thrilled at Baker's libertarian tendencies, but at least he is one who can be influenced by reason.
Yeah. Us libertines/libertarians don't get no respect. Which just goes to show you how popular cultural socialism is. But if you judge by St. Augustine being a libertine is a path to sainthood. Should you believe in saints. Which a fair number of Americans do. And more power to them. As long as they don't try to enlist government to enhance their power.

What the power mad do gooders (cultural socialists) seem to forget is that the road to hell is paved by good intentions. Or as C.S. Lewis put it:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Get it my cultural socialist friends? Cultural socialism is a form of tyranny.

It is not just Economic Socialism we have to worry about.

So does that mean I'm against changing the culture? Of course not. I just think it is more effective and longer lasting if done without the benefit of government guns. Not a very popular position at this point. But as I said at the beginning. I'm out to change that.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Validation



Cultural Socialism validates government power.


For me that is the heart and soul of the matter.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

On The Heads Of The Children



H/T Libertarian Republican

Monday, September 27, 2010

Who Comes First?

In the war between social and fiscal conservatives the question on everyone's mind is: who (or what) comes first? Lawrence Reed may have an answer.

“If you politically win on all the economic issues, you could lose on all the social ones and still have an avenue as a social conservative to advance what’s important to you,” Reed said. “When there’s a smaller government, families, individuals, private, voluntary organizations and churches have a bigger role. It’s on the strength of those institutions, not mandates from the government, that allow for a healthy culture to blossom."
Ah. But the social conservatives have an issue with that.
Social conservative Bob Patterson of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society thinks Americans must focus on social issues first, and that’s the main difference between social and fiscal conservatives. He said economic conservatives have traditionally been a lot better than social conservatives at furthering their interests, though.
I think Mr. Patterson has given us a clue. Unwittingly. Fiscal conservatism without the social conservative trappings is the bigger tent. i.e. more likely to win elections.

But I'm willing to run the experiment again. Let the social conservatives start passing laws or continuing government caused disasters (putting the distribution of some drugs solely in the hands of criminals) and we shall see if they can keep winning elections.

I mean what the heck? Two, or four, or six, or eight years of communists in power would be worth it to find the outcome of the experiment. How bad could it hurt?

We did run the experiment in Illinois a while back. The year was 2004. Given the choice between a flaming socon who disowned his lesbian daughter and a communist in 2004 I voted for the communist.

And the name of the communist? You might have heard of him.

Obama.

Other than that race I voted straight R.

BTW I wasn't the only one:

Obama/Keyes vs Kerry/Bush.

But if socons want to try that on a national level I say go for it. Maybe they will learn something. The hard way.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Plant Breakdown

Over the last few days I have been piecing together a number of reports on the Iranian nuclear efforts. The reports lead me to some interesting conclusions/speculations. More on the conclusions/speculations later. First let me start with the breakdown of Iran's enrichment centrifuges from July of this year.

Iran has suffered a series of technical setbacks to its nuclear programme in the past 12 months, triggering suggestions that western intelligence agencies are sabotaging its likely ambition to build an atomic weapon.

As Iran continues to defy international sanctions, western security analysts say the country is making progress towards the ability to test a nuclear bomb in the next few years.

But a series of recent reverses, notably affecting Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, is prompting debate over whether the programme is being undermined by sabotage, sanctions, or the incompetence of the regime’s scientists.

In the past year, a dramatic reduction has taken place in the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at the regime’s nuclear plant in Natanz.

In May 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency said there were 4,920 operational centrifuges. Twelve months later the IAEA stated that Iran was running only 3,936, a reduction of 20 per cent.

Iran also appears to be having difficulties on other fronts. Ivan Oelrich, of the Federation of American Scientists, said the centrifuges were only working at 20 per cent efficiency. The latest IAEA report says that 4,592 centrifuges are installed at Natanz – but are sitting idle and doing nothing at all.
Well isn't that interesting?

And that is not the only interesting thing. We have some recent reports about the Stuxnet computer virus. More accurately described as a worm. But virus will do for generic discussions.
Iran's nuclear agency is trying to combat a complex computer worm that has affected industrial sites throughout the country and is capable of taking over power plants, Iranian media reports said.

Experts from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran met this week to discuss how to remove the malicious computer code, or worm, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Friday.

The computer worm, dubbed Stuxnet, can take over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants. Experts in Germany discovered the worm in July, and it has since shown up in a number of attacks — primarily in Iran, Indonesia, India and the U.S.

The ISNA report said the malware had spread throughout Iran, but did not name specific sites affected. Foreign media reports have speculated the worm was aimed at disrupting Iran's first nuclear power plant, which is to go online in October in the southern port city of Bushehr.

Iranian newspapers have reported on the computer worm hitting industries around the country in recent weeks, without giving details.
Some folks think it was targeted at Iran's nuclear power plant which is due to come on line in the next few months.
By August, researchers had found something more disturbing: Stuxnet appeared to be able to take control of the automated factory control systems it had infected – and do whatever it was programmed to do with them. That was mischievous and dangerous.

But it gets worse. Since reverse engineering chunks of Stuxnet's massive code, senior US cyber security experts confirm what Mr. Langner, the German researcher, told the Monitor: Stuxnet is essentially a precision, military-grade cyber missile deployed early last year to seek out and destroy one real-world target of high importance – a target still unknown.
Note the bolded text. I'm going to develop that theme further.


But first some old news (July 2009) from Israel.
In the late 1990s, a computer specialist from Israel's Shin Bet internal security service hacked into the mainframe of the Pi Glilot fuel depot north of Tel Aviv.

It was meant to be a routine test of safeguards at the strategic site. But it also tipped off the Israelis to the potential such hi-tech infiltrations offered for real sabotage.

"Once inside the Pi Glilot system, we suddenly realized that, aside from accessing secret data, we could also set off deliberate explosions, just by programming a re-route of the pipelines," said a veteran of the Shin Bet drill.

So began a cyberwarfare project which, a decade on, is seen by independent experts as the likely new vanguard of Israel's efforts to foil the nuclear ambitions of its arch-foe Iran.
And there are more clues.
German IACS security researcher Ralph Langner has successfully analyzed the Stuxnet malware that appeared to be a miracle. Stuxnet is a directed attack against a specific control system installation. Langner will disclose details, including forensic evidence, next week at Joe Weiss' conference in Rockville.


Stuxnet logbook, Sep 16 2010, 1200 hours MESZ

With the forensics we now have it is evident and provable that Stuxnet is a directed sabotage attack involving heavy insider knowledge. Here is what everybody needs to know right now.

Fact: As we have published earlier, Stuxnet is fingerprinting its target by checking data block 890. This occurs periodically every five seconds out of the WinCC environment. Based on the conditional check in code that you can see above, information in DB 890 is manipulated by Stuxnet.

Interpretation: We assume that DB 890 is part of the original attacked application. We assume that the second DWORD of 890 points to a process variable. We assume that this process variable belongs to a slow running process because it is checked by Stuxnet only every five seconds.

Fact: Another fingerprint is DB 8062. Check for the presence of DB 8062 in your project.

Fact: Stuxnet intercepts code from Simatic Manager that is loaded to the PLC. Based on a conditional check, original code for OB 35 is manipulated during the transmission. If the condition matches, Stuxnet injects Step7 code into OB 35 that is executed on the PLC every time that OB 35 is called. OB 35 is the 100 ms timer in the S7 operating environment. The Step7 code that Stuxnet injects calls FC 1874. Depending on the return code of FC 1874, original code is either called or skipped. The return code for this condition is DEADF007 (see code snipplet).
Well that is clear as mud to anyone but a code geek (me, me, me). So how about a layman's explanation?
Interpretation: Stuxnet manipulates a fast running process. Based on process conditions, the original code that controls this fast running process will no longer be executed. (Some people will now want to have their process engineers explain what the DEADF could mean.) After the original code is no longer executed, we can expect that something will blow up soon. Something big.

Now that everybody is getting the picture let's try to make sense out of the findings. What do they tell us about the attack, the attackers, and the target?

1. This is sabotage. What we see is the manipulation of one specific process. The manipulations are hidden from the operators and maintenance engineers (we have the intercepts identified).

2. The attack involves heavy insider knowledge.

3. The attack combines an awful lot of skills -- just think about the multiple 0day vulnerabilities, the stolen certificates etc. This was assembled by a highly qualified team of experts, involving some with specific control system expertise. This is not some hacker sitting in the basement of his parents house. To me, it seems that the resources needed to stage this attack point to a nation state.

4. The target must be of extremely high value to the attacker.

5. The forensics that we are getting will ultimately point clearly to the attacked process -- and to the attackers. The attackers must know this. My conclusion is, they don't care. They don't fear going to jail.

6. Getting the forensics done is only a matter of time. Stuxnet is going to be the best studied piece of malware in history. We will even be able to do process forensics in the lab. Again, the attacker must know this. Therefore, the whole attack only makes sense within a very limited timeframe. After Stuxnet is analzyed, the attack won't work any more. It's a one-shot weapon. So we can conclude that the planned time of attack isn't somewhen next year. I must assume that the attack did already take place. I am also assuming that it was successful. So let's check where something blew up recently.
But what if it is not something big breaking down? Suppose it is a lot of not so big somethings? Like centrifuges. And suppose the code was designed to misregulate the speed of centrifuges so that they break down from overspeed. You want your code to only go into operation only when the centrifuges were at operational speed. It is not very destructive if the code starts working when the centrifuges were at a relatively slow speed. You can hit the master power switch manually if erratic operation is observed at slow speed.

One thing this points to is that who ever designed the virus/worm had to know exactly what parts of the control computer were used to control a vulnerable processes. The kinds of controllers used to control machinery have lots of options in terms of how their internal computers are configured to control a given device. Is it Timer 1 or Timer 6? Port 0 or Port 7? And other such details. So inside information is definitely required. Speculation is that the Russians designed the control system. So did the Russians design the virus? Or did they hand off the details of the design to some one else to design the virus?

Which reminds me of something that happened during the 2007 Israeli attack on a purported Syrian nuclear installation where a defense system provided by Russia didn't work as advertised. Curious. Perhaps the Israelis had inside information on the vulnerabilities of the Russian defense system. Or the Russians told the Israelis of a backdoor that they could access in real time by sending the right sequence of pulses (say via a radar jamming device) to the Russian system.

Now for the speculation I promised at the beginning. Such a software attack depends on a few things. First off Iran had to do research and development to design the uranium enrichment equipment. This takes time. Once such a system is developed and the hardware and software are working the production of the systems had to be ramped up. Any attack on the systems before a significant number are deployed would blunt the attack. Such an attack could only have maximum effectiveness when the systems were in production and significant quantities were deployed. Any attack would have to be timed with some precision. Too soon and the attack is ineffective. Too late and well... it would be too late. So there is a window of opportunity maybe a few months. A year at most. So who ever did the attack had to have inside information, not only about the equipment used but also the deployment rate. That kind of attack is best done when as much system integration as possible was completed in order to maximize the damage.

So where do the Iranians go from here? Basically they have to start from scratch because they do not know if there are any unknown vulnerabilities still hiding in their systems. Which means they may still have a good design for centrifuges but all the supporting control equipment must be redesigned from the ground up. This could take several more years (or more) depending on the level of testing being done. And the testing will be much more severe than it was the first time around to prevent (as much as possible) a repeat. In this case the advantage lies with the offense. This is because they must fill all the security holes while the attackers only need to find one or a very few vulnerabilities.

The question for the regime in Iran is: can they keep a lid on their population until they are successful? Only time will tell.

So what would I do? Accelerate the collapse of the Chinese real estate bubble so that petroleum demand falls below a price level that can sustain Iran. Bleed them economically.

I covered the economic war against Iran at:

Iran to Enter Cash Flow Jihad Zone

and Iran's economic vulnerability (actually written by A. Jacksonian) at:

Oil Outlook

A lot of food for thought.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

RTFM





RTFM






H/T Diogenes via e-mail


Cross Posted at Classical Values

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Marijuana Prohibition - A Waste Of Time



Don't mind the commercial. It is the price of "free" video.

Howard has a www site: Citizens Opposing Prohibition. He could use a few bucks to keep going. And I love the photo:

Children Must Have Access

There is a discussion going on over at Hot Air about libertarianism vs conservatism. The movie It's a Wonderful Life came up in the discussion.

One commenter said:

The sad thing is, Liberals, Socialists, Anarchists, and the like (including most Atheists) see Pottersville as their version of “heaven”.
No doubt conservatives have a better vision. They believe criminals should be in charge of vice so even children have access.

Conservatism as espoused in the Hot Air comments is just another version of: with government guns we can turn this country into utopia. Cultural socialism.

H/T Instapundit

Justice Is Racist



The above video is pretty much all you need to understand the gist of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panthers. The politics is somewhat (an understatement) more convoluted.

So what has happened to bring all this into the news? The Washington Post reports.
A veteran Justice Department lawyer accused his agency Friday of being unwilling to pursue racial discrimination cases on behalf of white voters, turning what had been a lower-level controversy into an escalating political headache for the Obama administration.

Christopher Coates's testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was the latest fallout from the department's handling of a 2008 voter-intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party. Conservatives and some congressional Republicans accuse Justice officials of improperly narrowing the charges, allegations that they strongly dispute.

Filed weeks before the Obama administration took office, the case focused on two party members who stood in front of a polling place in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008, one carrying a nightstick. The men were captured on video and were accused of trying to discourage some people from voting.

Coates, former head of the voting section that brought the case, testified in defiance of his supervisor's instructions and has been granted whistleblower protection. Coates criticized what he called the "gutting" of the New Black Panthers case for "irrational reasons," saying the decision was part of "deep-seated" opposition among the department's leaders to filing voting-rights cases against minorities and cases that protect whites.
It seems that black folks are incapable of racism or voter intimidation according to our current executive branch. You know. The post racial one. As exemplified by this bit:
"I had people who told me point-blank that [they] didn't come to the voting rights section to sue African American people," said Coates, who transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina in January. "When you are paid by the taxpayer, that is totally indefensible."
Equal justice? I guess they take the Animal Farm approach to justice. "All are equal. It is just that some are more equal than others." And how is "equality" determined? Easy. Just check out the citizen's pigment.

I could go on at length about this but there are so many who have joined in that I'm just going to do a link fests.

Instapundit has a roundup on Coates' testimony.

Justice Dept. Voting Rights Lawyer has some words.

Transcript of Coates Testimony

Video Interview Of Justice Dept. Civil Rights Lawyers. The watchword? This is only the beginning.

“Can you believe that we are going to Mississippi to protect white voters?”

USA Today chimes in.

Ed Morrissey has some words.

Eric at Classical Values looks at how the Democrat Congress runs distractions in the hopes that any controversy can be avoided before elections.

And my point with all this? Well my point is blatantly political. This situation is only going to get serious investigation if we have a Republican Congress in January. Which means: Vote this November. Throw the enablers out.

I didn't march for equal rights in the 60s for this kind of crap. And I have just a little voice - but I'm going to shout as loud as I can. Equal justice for ALL.

Ya Gotta Read The Comments

E. J. Dionne is blathering like an idiot. In fact he is a well paid blathering idiot. His take on the current political climate? The Tea Party is a scam.

Just recently, tea party victories in Alaska and Delaware Senate primaries shook the nation. In Delaware, Christine O'Donnell received 30,563 votes in the Republican primary, 3,542 votes more than moderate Rep. Mike Castle. In Alaska, Joe Miller won 55,878 votes for a margin of 2,006 over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is now running as a write-in candidate.

Do the math. For weeks now, our national political conversation has been driven by 86,441 voters and a margin of 5,548 votes. A bit of perspective: When John McCain lost in 2008, he received 59.9 million votes.

Earlier this year, much was made of the defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett, a Utah conservative insufficiently conservative for the tea party. Bennett lost not in a primary but at a Republican convention attended by all of 3,500 delegates.

Even in larger states, the tea party's triumphs were built on small shares of the electorate. Rand Paul received 206,986 votes in Kentucky, where there are more than 1 million registered Republicans and nearly 2.9 million registered voters. Sharron Angle won with 70,452 votes in Nevada, a state with more than 1 million registered voters.
You know E.J. in military parlance what has happened so far is called preparing the battlefield. i.e. setting up conditions favorable to the desired outcome. Smaller government. Lower taxes. The two sides of the income = outgo equation.

But then come the commenters. I'm not going to spoil your fun by quoting any of them. Just go read for a page or two. Then we will let Mr. Dionne get back to us on 3 Nov. to explain what it all means. Probably something on the order of, "America has been hijacked by a small fringe group of crazy radicals who conned the voters." The truth of that proposition will be tested on a November day in 2012. We shall see then won't we?

I Can See The Future

Democrats in November:



Up Tick Or Buyout?

Stocks are up for the fourth week in a row.

Stocks closed higher for a fourth straight week Friday, extending a September rally with huge daily gains fueled by optimism over the future direction of the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 8.4 percent so far this month, putting the blue-chip index on track for the best September performance since 1939.

On Friday, the Dow rose 197.84 points, or 1.9 percent, to close at 10,860.26. For the week, the Dow was up 2.38 percent.
Good news? Or something else? Michael Pento has some thoughts. In fact he had these thoughts in late August.
...in this interview with Eric King, Michael Pento makes the case that as opposed to the occasional market intervention via the President's Working Group, Bernanke will soon make stock purchases an outright policy of the Federal Reserve as its last ditch attempt to engender inflation before the hundreds of billions of Commercial Real Estate and other bank debt start maturing in 2011/2012. Bernanke is running out of time and he knows it. And once the Fed becomes the bidder of last resort in stocks, all bets are off, as the Central Bank will become the defacto only market in virtually every risky category. And the only safe vehicle, once the market then begins to price in Fed driven asset-price hyperinflation, will be gold.
And what do you know? Gold has reached a record high and that was on Wednesday. As of Friday there was no significant pull back from the record.
The metal is benefiting from concerns over the stability of the financial system and the outlook for fiat currencies. While dollar weakness, a typical driver of gold, is lifting prices, the metal's appeal as a safe store of value has broadened.

"This is not just about the dollar any more," said Pau Morilla-Giner, senior portfolio manager and head of alternative investments, equities and commodities at London & Capital.

"This is about any currency that is used and generated in a country with massive dislocations, an excess of sovereign debt and a weak banking system. And now, for the first time in history, all major Western currencies have that problem."

The dollar hit its lowest since late April versus the euro on Wednesday after the Fed signaled it may introduce fresh measures to bolster a sluggish U.S. recovery, opening the door to pumping hundreds of billions of new dollars into the economy.
Uh. Oh. We are starting to enter Jimmy Carter territory. Wouldn't it be ironic if the Resident made Jimmy Carter look like a moderate? Well other than the honor of being right I'd just as soon forgo the pleasure. Because it will hurt. A lot.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Don't Be Angry - Put Up, Pay Up, Shut Up

The Sage of Omaha has some advice for the American people.

Taxpayer anger against President Barack Obama and Congress is counterproductive because policy makers took measures including deficit spending to stimulate the economy, billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC.

“Sentiment has turned very sour in the last three or four or five months,” the chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in an interview broadcast Thursday.

“I hope we get over it pretty soon, because it’s not productive,’’ Buffett said. “We will come back regardless of how people feel about Washington, but it is not helpful to have people as unhappy as they are about what’s going on in Washington.”

More than three-quarters of U.S. investors view Obama as anti-business and are pessimistic about his policies, a Bloomberg survey this month indicated.

The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, even after an $814 billion stimulus measure enacted last year and other government actions.
I have a friend in Omaha who knows Warren personally. My friend doesn't think much of him.

Neither do I. Eventually the bill for all this government spending will come due. And guess who is on the hook for most of it? It is not Warren. Who is in bed with the Obama administration.

Wars And Rumors Of War

Will there be a reopening of the war between North and South Korea soon? Some people think so.

In Moscow's bleakest assessment of the situation on the Korean peninsula yet, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexei Borodavkin said tensions between the two countries were running at their highest and most dangerous level in a decade.

"Tensions on the Korean Peninsula could not be any higher. The only next step is a conflict," he told foreign policy experts at a round table on the subject in Moscow.

His prediction came two months after North Korea vowed to wage "a sacred war" against South Korea and its biggest backer, the United States.
And that is not the only hot spot that could erupt. Japan and China are not exactly on the friendliest of terms these days.
The USS Hawaii, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, arrived earlier this month at Yokosuka, home port of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, one more asset in America’s naval buildup in Northeast Asia, which can be viewed as a direct result of Chinese assertions of hegemony over the East China and South China Seas.

In July three Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines surfaced more or less simultaneously at Pusan, South Korea, Subic Bay in the Philippines and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The three are converted Trident missile submarines, having been stripped of their intercontinental ballistic missiles and stuffed with Tomahawk cruise missiles - 140 per sub – armed with conventional warheads.

The Hawaii is part of new class of attack submarines that are configured to operate in shallow, near-shore waters. As the submarine’s captain was happy to tell the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper on arrival, the sub has the ability to maintain a “persistent presence off shallow waters.”
It is nice to have a strong American President in office during these troubled times. Ah. Oh? Well never mind. Which reminds me: Miss Me Yet?




Don't forget to put up your down payment for the next gang of rascals come this November. And do not forget. If you choose unwisely in November you will have another chance to correct your error in 2012. Because, we are Americans and we can vote them out.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Had Enough?



H/T Hill Buzz. Some gay guys I can really get behind. Heh.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Blogging The New Ukraine

The Ukrainian Institute of New Virology blogs about world politics. Russian politics, American politics and Ukrainian politics. It is Not Entirely Safe For Work. But it is a good read. Here is their masthead:

Ukrainian Institute of New Virology (UIONV) is a newly founded institution. The Institute is engaged in the study of pathogenic viruses, struck in recent years Ukraine and the rest of the world, the development methods of prevention and treatment of diseases caused by respective viruses. The research based on a bold hypothesis proposed by Professor Kovbasyanya (on the left you see a photo of this brilliant scientist), who is the founder and scientific head of our Institute, that different viruses are seeing now are simply different modifications of the same virus. In essence, this means that, for example, such diseases as pig flu, Pedophilia, "Left Diplomas", etc. caused by the same virus that we have yet to be fully explored and identified. So far, according to our hypothesis, we know only one of its modifications - A (H1N1). Research is being conducted intensively and in the practical field, perhaps we will soon gather in the manufacture of vaccines, it will depend on the funding of our research.
I enjoyed my visit there (yeah that NESFW thing) and plan to visit more often. It would be hard to visit less often as I have only been there once. So far.

Defectors

A really interesting thing has happened on the way to the election.

PJTV's Tea Party TV today unveiled the results of a special Tea Party poll, which revealed that about one-in-three (32%) African Americans who are likely voters would vote for a candidate supported by the Tea Party movement.

"Questions of racism within the Tea Party have been raised for months now," said Vik Rubenfeld, PJTV's Polling Director. "Our survey found that more than one-in-three African Americans support the movement. Moreover, the data revealed that 32 percent are also likely to vote for a congressional candidate whom the Tea Party supports."

"PJTV's Tea Party poll shows that, for many black voters, race no longer serves as a rationale for supporting policies that undermine their economic interests," said Joe Hicks, PJTV's host of the Minority Report and a former Executive Director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "Democrats and leftists have attempted to define the Tea Party movement as a collection of angry white bigots. However, the PJTV poll of black voters shows the wheels on the race card bus are beginning to fall off."
Or perhaps another liberal meme has been thrown under the reality bus. (Note: if you are interested in more links the above linked Yahoo article has them.)

You can see Vik discuss the results on Pajamas TV.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Hippies Punch Back

It has come to my attention that there is a contingent in the nation interested in hippie punching [in the comments]. It has become so pervasive that Instapundit has noticed the trend.

Well some of us hippies are from the Peace, Love, Watch Out MOFOs contingent of hippiedom. i.e. firm believers in armed non-violence. Unless things turn ugly. And evidently I was well ahead of the trend. I have evidence.

Hippies for McCain -1

We have not yet begun to fight. But if this sh*t keeps going down look for things to get ugly. Very ugly.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Woman Of A Certain Age With An Ageless Message



I'm not sure of the cause but I must say Republicans have much better script writers this year.

H/T Hill Buzz

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Nice Campaign Commercial



Note that Christine O'Donnell and Rand Paul get face time in the video. And this is an official Republican spot? I like it.

H/T McCain - you know - the other one

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Outlaw Biker Contingent In Politics

Overheard at Hot Air:

How about we don’t get cocky…

Abby Adams on September 23, 2010 at 2:16 PM

How about we be more like Babe Ruth. He didn’t point to second base.

Americans have lost thier cockiness. Screw that. We will destroy the marxists. we will drive them before us and rejoice by doing so. We are going to war not a picnic.

unseen on September 23, 2010 at 2:24 PM
And in war the moral is to the material as three is to one.

Something To Look Forward To


You know. I would really hate to see it happen but this may be a case where God needs to sort these folks out.

I think I have a slogan appropriate for the age. "Give me liberty or I'll give you death."

Update: 24 Sept. 1010, 0119z

Instapundit links to a piece by Austin Bay that touts a book by a follower of Islam, Militant Islamist Ideology.

Bay's article makes this point:
Aboul-Enein says faithful Muslims play a central role in defeating Militant Islamism, arguably the key role.

"Unlike communism," he writes, "against which free enterprise and democracy were used as ideological counterweights, Militant Islamist ideology can be opposed among the Muslim masses only by Islamic counter-argumentation. We cannot contain Militant Islamist ideology but only work to marginalize, de-popularize, and erode its influence and mass appeal by identifying it as different from Islam or even from Islamist political groups."
They had better get a move on before Wretchard's Three Conjectures comes to pass.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Obama's Mother-In-Law Practices Santeria

Well there are reports. But does it matter? Not a bit. Unless this is some kind of counter spin to the Christine O'Donnell/Witchcraft craziness.

And Santeria? I belonged to one of those groups once. Not exactly traditional Santeria though. It was designed to attract American Wiccans and fans of Aleister Crowley. In Chicago. On Halsted Street. Around 1975. The group had a book/herbal store and the services featured naked dancing girls. On the appropriate holidays.

You know if more Republicans switched to that religion they would have no trouble attracting hormone addled teens to services. Or voters to political rallies. Well among the men and appropriately disposed women anyway.

And if you dig deep, Santeria is sort of a paganism based very loosely on Catholicism. Which is a sort of Christianity loosely based on paganism rather than being a Christianity true to its Jewish roots. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Well I knew some Christians once who celebrated all the major Jewish holidays and especially Passover. Those people had the right idea. Time to get back to the old time religion. These days? I’m mostly Jewish with a little Aleister Crowley thrown in for spice. It suits me. Any way the Hebrew comes in real handy when studying Crowley. Who might be considered something of a Kabbalist. The give away is the copious Hebrew in his book 777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley: Including Gematria & Sepher Sephiroth.Not for beginners. But very interesting. It is kind of a pagan Connections. Without all the explanatory text.

And my politics? I'm a libertarian Republican. Unless the Republicans piss me off. In such circumstances I might go so far as to vote for a Communist like Obama. In fact in 2004 I did vote for Obama.

Amazon has a few pages of books on Santeria.Should you need some more bedtime reading.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Question Is Asked

Over at the New York Times some one asks some questions of the Tea Parties.

I have every confidence that the GOP will take Congress this fall. Do you think the conservative movement, the Tea Party, and the GOP have a mandate to go after the New Deal (i.e. privatize Social Security & Medicare, enact Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, etc.)?
A mandate? No. But we do have precedent when it comes to Social Security. Chile. Where privatization is working well.

Granny will not be tossed to the street. The transition will be gradual.But her grand kids are going to have to make it on their own. And the youngsters will be better for it. Their money will get invested. Risky? To be sure. But if you compare that to 100% theft by Congress it doesn't look so bad.

As to the rest? Anything that is unsustainable will not be sustained. So now is the time to start thinking of how to transition out of the unsustainable.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

It Will Be Worse

JD Hayworth says: "Vote Democrat, It Could Always Be Worse". I think what he means is: "Vote Democrat and It Will Be Worse".

Blame

Monday, September 20, 2010

Clean Sweep

Click on image to see it full size

christine2010.com


H/T for the photoshop: Hill Buzz

Cross Posted at Classical Values

By Any Means Necessary

There is a ground up hostile takeover of the R party going on. I have seen Wiccans join with socons to oust the incumbents at the grass roots level.

The new flavor that allows all of them to work together? They are united behind "Government can't". They are taking a States Rights position on a number of issues: abortion, the drug war, etc.

There is a new model Republican coming up and it is going to run the table. It is center right (not hard right) and will thus be right in the center of American politics.

We are sick and tired of being told what light bulbs to buy (mine are all CFLs. I started changing over in 2000) what kind of toilets we can buy. (I live in an old house and only have to flush once.) And all the other 1,000,000 petty rules and regulations.

We want our country back and intend to get it "by any means necessary" (yeah, I was a Communist once upon a time) . Starting with the ballot box.

How Dogs Got Domesticated



A friend of mine saw this on the tube and found it interesting. Which got me looking around for more.

Here is the wiki for Dmitry Konstantinovich Belyaev.

Fox Farm Experiment [pdf]

Adrenaline to Melanin

Melanin Metabolism

The full video: NOVA: Dogs and More Dogs

That should get you started.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Threat Of Sharia


Sharia - The threat

H/T Hill Buzz where you can read much more.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

I Feel Like A F**king Dupe

One of my e-mail correspondents sent me an e-mail bemoaning the turn to hard social conservatism of the Republican Party. He was also regretting that he supported so many Republicans who have now turned on the Tea Party (he also worries that the Tea Party may be turning into a socon movement rather than sticking strictly to fiscal conservatism) . So I decided to do what I could to buck him up.

Here is my reply. With a few added notes in brackets [ ].And amended for the sake of the privacy of my correspondent:

========================

I feel like a fucking dupe.

Aren't we all? It is like any revolution. The old order gets shaken up and no one knows what will replace it. A new birth of liberty or just a different kind of totalitarianism.

Maybe it is time to form some groups of our own - may I suggest: LiberTea? Kinda catchy don't you think?

BTW O'Donnell was a member of the Delaware Republican establishment until she had a chance of winning. [note: O'Donnell may be a socon with libertarian political beliefs. Kinda like Palin.]

For the most part I run on hope (well I do have my bad weeks) and I do believe I can change some minds at the margins. So I keep hammering away at the same old themes. You never know who may have missed my last polemic. In advertising most advertisers give up on a winning idea when the advertiser gets bored of it. Well before the audience gets tired. I try to avoid that mistake.

We are at war with the statists of the right and left. So what do we have? I'd say at this point maybe 10% to 20%. Not enough to move things yet. But more than enough to work with.

Just remember Captain Jones. His ship is sinking. When he fires his guns more of his crew die than he kills of his enemies. So what is his reply when the opposing Captain asks, "Have you struck?" And of course his reply has gone down in history (maybe not exact), "I have not yet begun to fight". He maneuvers his ship into close quarters, grappling the opposing ship, and the Marines in the foretops clear the decks of the opposing Captain's ship and they board. After a bloody hand to hand fight he takes the Serapis and watches his ship sink. Victorious.

In battles things often look darkest when you are close to victory. Both sides are exhausted. The side that can at that point surge wins.

We are (IMO) far from that point. But we are wearing them down.

It has taken us 40 years to come even close to ending the drug war. But victory is in sight. Once that blows up in the faces of the statists they will have a lot of answering to do. "Don't give up the ship".

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Christine O'Donnell Was A Witch



Any friend (or former friend) of Aleister Crowley is a friend of mine.

You know. I'm getting more respect for The Tea Parties, The Tea Party Express, and Sarah Palin ALL THE Time.

Update: The Other McCain calls it a A Witch Hunt.

More: Christine Counters The Lies

Witch ODONNELL2010.jpg

Above from: Three Beers Later....



H/T Hill Buzz

We're Not Gonna Take It

Old Conservatives

I liked this comment I found at Hot Air.

the old conservative movement, which championed a grab-bag of social-con, economic, and foreign policy issues
I think the days of "I'm right on abortion so ignore the rest of the package" are about over in American politics. And good riddance.

Nailed



I'm not a big fan of country music, but I liked this one.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Totally Ironic



Boozer singing an anti-drug song.

Free Is Too Expensive For Government



And what was IBM giving for free? A chance to significantly lower health care costs and improve service.

Leftist Dogma

Thad McCotter, U.S. Representative and Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee is discussing leftist dogma. Thad goes into details but I'm just going to cover the bullet points. They are:

1. You are a victim of yourself and others
2. You are a danger to yourself and others
3. Nuts Who Scream “Death to America” Need Love, Too

There are statists on the right who subscribe to at least two out of the three points. The Rs need a House cleaning as well. Case in point: the large core of support among Republicans for the Drug War. I believe support for that fits #1 and #2. And you know - it ain't working. Kids can get illegal drugs easier than they can get a legal beer. Doing nothing would work better and cost less.

But let me see if I can get this right. By 1914 Americans were no longer competent to deal with opiates and cocaine. Formerly over the counter drugs. By 1920 they couldn't handle alcohol and by 1937 they lost the ability to deal with cannabis. Oh. I forgot. In 1933 their ability to deal with alcohol in the environment suddenly returned. All it required was passing a law (an Amendment to the Constitution actually - but still - law).

Pot (heh) meet kettle.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Water Is A Start



H/T Yehudit on Facebook

Friday, September 17, 2010

Politics Today

Friends

The State is not my friend. If it is yours, I am your enemy.

Why I Like Being An Engineer

My beliefs get continually smacked down by evidence. Which is to say I am forced to face reality.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I Can't Believe It - Chris Matthews Gets It



H/T Legal Insurrection

Also watch this: Biggest Trust Deficit Since 1776

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Socons Watch Out

I'm hanging over at Belmont Club and found a comment I rather liked.

121. sgi

If there is one thing and one thing only that will alienate other American voters from tea party candidates it is their social conservatism. Personal freedom must be extended to all Americans, even if their personal choices are offensive to social conservatives. Small government, freedom and responsibility are birds of a feather.
September 15, 2010 - 2:12 pm
It is the hubris that gets you. The "We Won" mentality. The Tea Party successes are not a call for Republican Socialism. What do I mean by that? The idea that you can eliminate vice by an act of Congress. What you really need is an Act of Congress AND a police state. I do not think the American people will stand for such a thing. One good example is the coming vote in California on the legalization of marijuana. Even five years ago such a vote was unthinkable. Win or lose in California - the tide is turning against pot prohibition. Eventually we will take the Swiss example to heart and legalize all drugs, for the simple reason that taking distribution out of the hands of criminals will make our streets safer and better protect our children.

So my socon friends, if you are really interested in smaller government and wish to stem the drift into an American police state you must consider the will of the people. Keep in mind:

DRUG WAR = BIG GOVERNMENT

Funny thing is that a contender for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 2012 agrees with me.
Gary Johnson, former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, supports legalization of marijuana and argues that it will lead to a more effective fight against drugs. He blames the stalemate on the federal government and on both Republicans and Democrats.

"For the most part, politics is about following the herd as opposed to providing leadership," Johnson, who is speculated to be considering a run for the White House in 2012, told ABC News. "For me, it was a cost-benefit analysis, period. It's the fact that half of what we spend in law enforcement and the courts and the prisons is drug related, to what end?"

Johnson disagrees with the idea that dabbling in the politics of drugs would be harmful -- he cites his own approval rating as governor, saying it was steady even after he made his position known.

"It's a really good political issue because it's the truth. It's the emperor wears no clothes," he said.
One thing to keep in mind about the Swiss exaple so far is that they were against the legalization of pot. Why? Well you know - it is a REALLY dangerous drug. Still. The prohibition regime is breaking down. Socons can either get with the program or get drowned when the next tide of change rolls in. That would be unfortunate because we really do need smaller government.

But I do have another arrow in my quiver. Mexico. And Mexico is a disaster area and is getting worse.
It is wrecking the government of Mexico. It is financing the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is throwing 11,000 Britons into jail. It is corrupting democracy throughout Latin America. It is devastating the ghettoes of America and propagating Aids in urban Europe. Its turnover is some £200bn a year, on which it pays not a penny of tax. Thousands round the world die of it and millions are impoverished. It is the biggest man-made blight on the face of the earth.

No, it is not drugs. They are as old as humanity. Drugs will always be a challenge to individual and communal discipline, alongside alcohol and nicotine. The curse is different: the declaration by states that some drugs are illegal and that those who supply and use them are criminals. This is the root of the evil.

By outlawing products – poppy and coca – that are in massive global demand, governments merely hand huge untaxed profits to those outside the law and propagate anarchy. Repressive regimes, such as some Muslim ones, have managed to curb domestic alcohol consumption, but no one has been able to stop the global market in heroin and cocaine. It is too big and too lucrative, rivalling arms and oil on the international monetary exchanges. Forty years of "the war on drugs" have defeated all-comers, except political hypocrites.
Ah. Yes the hypocrites. That would be my socon friends who are all for smaller government except when it comes to their pet social engineering projects. Making people more moral at the point of a government gun.
Most western governments have turned a blind eye and decided to ride with the menace, since the chief price of their failure is paid by the poor. In Britain Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown felt tackling the drugs economy was not worth antagonising rightwing newspapers. Like most rich westerners they relied on regarding drugs as a menace among the poor but a youthful indiscretion among their own offspring.
Not to mention three American Presidents. So far. How is it that the elite are never subject (effectively) to their own laws? It is a mystery. None the less when there is one law for the common man and another for the aristocrats support for the rule of law breaks down.

But things get funnier. Much funnier. And not in a good way.
In countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, drugs are so endemic that criminalising them merely fuels a colossal corruption. It is rendering futile Nato's Afghan war effort, which requires the retraining of an army and police too addicted either to cure or to sack. Poppies are the chief source of cash for farmers whose hearts and minds Nato needs to win, yet whose poppy crop (ultimately for Nato nations) finances the Taliban. It is crazy.

The worst impact of criminalisation is on Latin America. Here the slow emergence of democratic governments – from Bolivia through Peru and Columbia to Mexico – is being jeopardised by America's "counter-narcotics" diplomacy through the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Rather than try to stem its own voracious appetite for drugs, rich America shifts guilt on to poor supplier countries. Never was the law of economics – demand always evokes supply – so traduced as in Washington's drugs policy. America spends $40bn a year on narcotics policy, imprisoning a staggering 1.5m of its citizens under it.

Cocaine supplies routed through Mexico have made that country the drugs equivalent of a Gulf oil state. An estimated 500,000 people are employed in the trade, all at risk of their lives, with 45,000 soldiers deployed against them. Border provinces are largely in the hands of drug barons and their private armies. In the past four years 28,000 Mexicans have died in drug wars, a slaughter that would outrage the world if caused by any other industry (such as oil). Mexico's experience puts in the shade the gangsterism of America's last failed experiment in prohibition, the prewar alcohol ban.
Just like alcohol prohibition the effort to stamp out vice (harming one's self) has corrupted institutions and individuals.

I think we ought to put an end to this foolishness before America winds up like Mexico and socons get a semi-permanent black eye (nothing is permanent in American politics - after all socons have come back despite the failure of one of their pet projects - alcohol prohibition).

Cross Posted at Classical Values

All You Need To Know In Illinois



Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Tea Party Sticks It To Rove

Ya gotta watch this video. The good stuff starts near the end. About 13 minutes in.

The Republican Party and Rove gave us 2006 and 2008. I do believe that 2010 is not the Republican Establishment's year. And it is not the Democrat's year either. It will be the People's Year.

In Honor Of The Latest Tea Pary Victories



The lyrics are most apropos.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Democrat Tea Party Supporters

It appears that Democrats may be losing a few voters (maybe more than a few) come this November.

CA DEM to fellow DEMS: Take NO JOY with the ENEMA in DELAWARE!


….and I say this as a Democrat.

Dear Readers: My beloved husband, Horemheb, actually watches MSNBC for a “full story” perspective. He reports that the leftist, Obama-supporters are rapturously happy with the results of the Delaware election — assuming Democrat Coons is a shoo-in, and that the Republican plans for a Senate-takeover have been thwarted.

These Dems are deluded (no surprise there). The voters were choosing the “Country Class”, citizen-oriented representative instead of socialist-lite, “Ruling Class” politico. And, I guarantee you, this perspective is NOT going to change between now and November 2nd.

The establishment pundits say that the Democratic-base is NOT enthusiastic about November. I say that they are wrong — in part. A good many Democrats are chomping at the bit to vote this November. These Dems WILL be voting for the COUNTRY CLASS CANDIDATE. I know, as I met several of them at the Sacramento Tea Party.

In almost 2-years of Tea Party activism, I have never over-heard fellow Democrats “outing” themselves at an event. They did so at the recent 9-12 Tea Parties. For example, at the Sacramento rally, five other registered Democrats came up to me (after over-hearing my party affiliation) and introduced themselves. The non-Dems who overheard these conversations were supportive and excited to discuss the upcoming election. The passion among my fellow Californians was infectious.
It is more than possible that the rout this November is going to be huge. I thought an 80 to 100 seat shift is possible. With my optimism driving that number to as high as 120 seats. Since I made those guesses I have been scaling back to around 50 seats. But who knows? Maybe my WAG has some merit.

Clearing The Decks

At Hot Air there is quite a discussion going on about what the O'Donnell victory in the Republican Primary means. As a Navy man I liked this comment:

Murkowski: Hit to bridge.
Bennett: Hit to aft, rudder destroyed, propulsion damaged.
Castle: Direct hit to the magazine.

You sunk my Battleship Yacht! WHAAAAAAAA!

Tea party/Conservative base: “Can you hear us now?”

portlandon on September 15, 2010 at 8:59 AM

=======

The Tea Party is just clearing the decks of supernumeraries in preparation for action.

Which is not to say I care much for O'Donnell despite my recent favorable posts. What I like is that the PEOPLE are finding their voice and putting their thumbs in the eye of the establishment. Democrat and Republican.

This will not be a business as usual election.

In November the people of Delaware will have the choice between a nutty Republican and an avowed Marxist. It will be very interesting to see how that one turns out.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Advertising

Another commenter decries the rush to purity of the Republican Party/Tea Party Movement. The focus is on the recent Delaware Primary Where O'Donnell (the Tea Party insurgent) beat Castle - a noted Republican squish. (I have another take on this race at No Quarter)

Many conservatives feel empowered in the current environment. This empowerment hurt Castle in two ways. Many conservatives felt as though they could take a loss in Delaware and were willing to risk it on O'Donnell. They also felt as though a wave of public anger could indeed propel O'Donnell into the Senate and restore the GOP to "purity."
Fook purity. I just want the so called party of small government to live up to its advertising.

The fools could start with the Drug War.

DRUG WAR = BIG GOVERNMENT

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

No Quarter

Instapundit is taking a lot of looks at the just concluded Delaware Republican Primary. He has after action reports (O’Donnell won). I also like this before action report he linked. The question addressed is: can O’Donnell win the general election.

You couldn’t ask for a more vexing political conundrum than the Delaware Senate primary. It’s like something a poli-sci professor dreamed up to torture his students. Mike Castle is the kind of liberal seat-warmer that should be trimmed from a Republican Party getting into fighting shape for the battle of its life, against a dying super-State that will be immensely difficult to bring under control… but he’s got a far better shot at winning the general election than his more conservative primary opponent. The Democrat, Chris Coons, is loony and Marxist enough to qualify for a position as one of Obama’s czars. As bad as Castle might be, it’s not difficult to make the case that putting Coons in the seat would be far worse.
For me, the deal is – like NY23 – the Tea Party can make a fight out of it. They can put the fear of God into even a Democrat winner.

I say lets fight. No quarter.

Cross Posted at Classical Values