Surreal Display at White House

Surreal is the only adjective that I can think of upon seeing the news videos of yesterday's White House meeting.

From The Politico:

Analysts of race relations said the benefits of the White House encounter were murky, at best.

Mary Frances Berry, a former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said the lack of any substantive message from the meeting was a missed opportunity. “The President has been forced to apologize and drink beer with the combatants in an almost comical photo-op,” Berry said. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25637.html#ixzz0MqgHjyPL

I believe the following to be true:

1. This is as much (or more) about the advantages of class status as opposed to race. There is no evidence of racial profiling in this case as the police just showed up as a result of a call. Professor Gates was not beaten, shot or abused. The charges were dropped and the professor was released at the station. President Obama, without all the facts, appeared to side with Professor Gates during a press conference that was supposed to be a platform for healthcare proposals. Professor Gates and later President Obama appear by their comments to be snobbish cronies who just happen to belong to a minority group in this drama.
2. The 'stupid' officer comes off as pretty even-keeled. Since this happened in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Sgt Crowley appears to be the least objectionable candidate for racism ever observed on national TV, the professionalism on the part of the officer as well as his overall department only improves my perception of them. With this bright of a spotlight, I am pretty sure anything negative would have showed up by now.
3. Largely, this is a referendum on presidential judgement. This became a big deal because of a petty comment made during an unguarded moment by a president. Unfortunately, this moment occurred at a prime-time, televised news conference and it was observed by all.

Again, as the official scribe for the great unwashed, it is very important for us to note that we in the great unwashed were not the only ones who noticed this.

Capitalism Bites Administration On Ass, Unaware That Incentives Actually Work

From The Politico: Cash for clunkers' going broke:

One Michigan Republican, Congresswoman Candice Miller, has already come out in favor of extending the program, saying in a statement: “There can be no doubt that the Cash for Clunkers program is a complete success given the fact that the entire $1 billion allocated to the program was expended in less than a week."
She called the program "simply the most stimulative $1 billion the federal government has spent during the entire economic downturn." Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25638.html#ixzz0MqRuCGS3

We know three things from this:

1. Incentives work when actually applied to the private sector.
2. This administration is so inept at private sector stimulation that they underfund and badly administer the only stimulus that appears to stimulate.
3. An actual stimulus was damn near a total accident. The main intent for this program was to get to lower auto emissions.

As the official scribe to the great unwashed, I can now state that we are truly in the best of hands.

Do Not Worship Thy Favorite Politician

I read this at the Huffington Post: Mark Joseph: The Only Thing Weirder Than the Birthers...

This article reflects much of my thinking on the Obama Birth Certificate. I have never given the subject much prior thought because, on the whole, it just seems too far-fetched that a candidate, nominee and later elected president would not meet the requirements of the elected office. But I wonder if it is that far of a stretch when considered today. Too much cheerleading, not enough vetting, and the same bunch now defending what appears to be the indefensible. At some point there is a put-up or shut-up factor that either festers or gets put aside.

An affidavit is not the same as an original. See this at WikiAnswers: Is a certification of live birth the same as a birth certificate in Hawaii?

From even the liberal Talking Points Memo: Sorry to State the Obvious... Read the last update.

Now, folks, I may truly be a nutjob, but forgive me that I don't accept an affidavit from a bureaucrat instead of evidence of the real thing. Especially when most all the wrong people seem to be insisting that I do so.

Funniest Thing I've Heard All Week

From Dan Riehl by way of Sondra K: 911 Call .

Listen to this at home. NSFW.

Whats Up With Our Betters?

Just read this about Harvard posted at Instapundit: HARD TIMES AT HARVARD .

Just how does Harvard run through 36.9 Billion? Read the article.

Two random thought on this:

1. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
2. This is solid proof that there is a JESUS.

Heh.

What a Difference Three Days Make

Here I go, deadbeating on posting for three days, and the world changes in unexpected ways.

Read Peggy Noonan's Commentary: Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare.

The common wisdom the past week has been that whatever challenges health care faces, the president will at least get something because he has a Democratic House and Senate and they’re not going to let their guy die. He’ll get this or that, maybe not a new nationalized system but some things, and he’ll be able to declare some degree of victory.
And this makes sense. But after the news conference, I found myself wondering if he’d get anything.

And this from Byron York: Obamacare Haunted By Big Promises of Stimulus.

"People are less trusting now."

That diminished trust can be traced directly to the stimulus. When Obama and his Democratic allies pushed it through Congress, they spoke constantly of "crisis" and warned of "catastrophe" if their bill was not passed. So the public, ready to give the new president a chance, supported him, even though the stimulus spent billions on the pet projects of Democratic lawmakers.

Again, I think that the failure to recognize the severity of the economic downturn is having an effect that our betters are just not picking up.

Update from Instapundit: A “TERRIBLE TIME” to raise the minimum wage.

What can I say? Not a clue as to how real growth is created.

Get Out The Nomex - Torches Are Being Ignited As We Speak

From the Politico: Barack Obama feels the heat, changes the play.

From the Washington Post: The Squandered Stimulus.

Buy long on torches and pitchforks.

This is not real surprising. Since the nation's wealth is created in the private sector, it didn't make sense to stimulate the public sector beyond the safety net. My real fear is that a window of opportunity for quick relief for private sector stimulus has been lost and the overall economic situation is so depressed that any relief to business will be met with extreme scepticism. I think it is going to get a lot worse.

Jail-order Brides - This is Just Wrong

This is pretty bad. Per The Jerusalem Post via Mark Steyn :

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."

Read Jail-order brides . This is an article that I noticed at The Corner at National Review Online. The writer, Mark Steyn, subs for Rush Limbaugh and writes the way that I wish I could.

Explain to me one more time how this is representative of a religion of peace how we should have a dialogue with their leaders. Or that our standards are so poor that we must be tolerant so as not to judge other cultures and religions by our standards. I guess that it's shame that they weren't handling snakes. Boy, we could really look down on them then!

Do we really want to talk to these folks? This is just one more example that demeans the credibility of our betters in government. Do I believe what I see or read or do I conveniently overlook this to get along. Just the same kind of nonsense like Homeland Security without locking down the borders. I don't know how we could ever justify tolerance of this kind of religious belief, but I doubt that the networks will mention this.

Shared via AddThis

Conkrite Passes Away

Posted at The Anchoress. Read the whole post. I read this lady every day.

We were all watching the same things back then. I can't imagine that we would have had This Monstrosity (h/t Little Green Footballs) if Walter Conkrite had been on board in an active role. I certainly believe that he would not have condoned any of the actions that CBS News took immediately after the incident when the supporting documents were shown to be bogus.

Godspeed, Mr. Conkrite. You led an admirable life.

Chappaquidick - The Lion of the Senate and The End of Camelot

Posted at Powerline .

I am getting to the age where I sometimes am astonished when I read of history that I remember watching on TV as a child. Astonished in that it occurred right at the time that we had such intense coverage on all TV channels about the Moon Landing. I do not associate one with the other.

Now, it may amaze some of you who live in the age of Tivo, but in northeast Indiana in 1969 there were only three broadcast channnels available. And if you had a directional antennae in a rural area, there was actually only one that was clear. To give you an idea of the nightly adventures, Dad was squarely in front of the TV judging the clarity of the picture (fine tuning was by sound), Mom was stationed at the open kitchen window shouting and your blogger here, as an only child, was up on a ladder going up the roof of the garage to turn the pipe on which the antennae was mounted with a pair of rusted-on vice grips. Using Mom's shouted directions, I would turn the pipe until I heard her shout, "Your Daddy says you went too far." Being a refrain heard my entire life, nonetheless, I would back it up a tad with hopes that I had not went too far that in that direction. Luckily, this little task became a multiple nightly occurrence only during good weather. In the winter, if John-Boy was the first program of the evening, well guess what, you are watching CBS that night.

So when I read this today, I keep in mind that a lot of people today believe that Ted Kennedy represents the best of his generation at his brand of politics. The Lion of the Senate as he stands today, unfortunately, is direct contrast to JFK. Now, if you are like most people my age (and many of our elite conservative pundits), we were at one time classical liberals who remember the politics of John Kennedy. My Dad held me on his shoulder at a political rally in Spartanburg, SC when I was a squirt. My babysitter had a husband, Heyward "Slim" Powers, who was the biggest fan of JFK and could opine on the greatness of JFK for hours. Camelot suggested of a royal family blessing a worthy country. But throughout the sixties, we lost so much as a nation as we watched three major assassinations, social unrest, and a war that we could lose only by talking it down. By the time that the events at Chappaquiddick unfolded, we were pretty numb and Camelot had quietly died without much fanfare. Only the moon landing stands out in a positive way for me.

JFK's politics on national security and the economy today would be considered very conservative because they were the politics held by people different than the people of today. People who had lived through a great world war and a depression (and had won hard-fought battles) had politics that were optimistic and 'can do.' Compare that to the politics of today where not putting a wind farm on Cape Cod is seen as enlightenment. Hell, the very idea of shooting monkeys into space would drive some quarters into apoplexy if we suggested it today. Liberal politics during the sixties changed from the politics of optimism to the politics of limitation, entitlement and envy. Ted Kennedy epitomizes this modern-day liberal politics and overlooks Chappaquiddick.

As I have said before, it is important to remember that our elected leaders are chosen from the human race and are elected by the folks that want them to represent their interests. Very few are heroes and none are worthy of deification. Unfortunately, the events at Chappaquiddick serve to remind us of a sense of family entitlement that is best left out of politics.

If This Is True, This Probably Is Torture

Aram Roston: CIA Supervisor Claimed He Used Fire Ants On Detainee

Fire Ants! Now that would be torture. And well deserved in a Mitch Rapp kind of way.

Remember, I'm mostly a Jacksonian .

Today Is Global Warming Scepticism Day

Are we needing to look at a demand-side global-warming solution?

Read Could We Be Wrong About Global Warming? From the article:

Maybe so, says a new study published online today in the journal Nature Geoscience. The report found that only about half of the warming that occurred during a natural climate change 55 million years ago can be explained by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What caused the remainder of the warming is a mystery.....The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of this ancient warming. "Some feedback loop or other processes that aren't accounted for in these models -- the same ones used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for current best estimates of 21st century warming -- caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM."

From all that I have read on global warming and this article, I wonder if we are not looking at a chicken and egg problem here. The popular assumption is that excess carbon dioxide gases are causing global warming. Maybe the excess gases are the result of something else or a lagging indicator of global warming. Personally, I think that there are too many variables involved with climate change and I don't see any single variable as holding precedence.

Even so, my betters only see an economic solution to a scientific problem and using that, they lay all blame at the suppliers of carbon dioxide. For a change, why don't we instead look at the demand side and the consumers of carbon dioxide? Maybe we need to plant a bunch of these?

You Know a Scam When You See It

Professor Glenn Reynolds posted this on his site about the environmentalists not supporting a nuclear power alternative. He makes the following statement that I have often see him repeat:

Hey, I thought we were in a global-warming crisis where we needed drastic measures. This looks more like business as usual to me. Perhaps if they acted like there was a crisis, more people would believe there was a crisis.

Makes you kind of believe that the subject is not settled.

What Is It About Sarah Palin?

Sarah Palin yesterday penned an article on 'Cap and Trade" that appeared in the Washington Post.

Now this appears to be a surprise to some of her critics, but I don't see it as a surprise to me. What confounds me is that she brings out the most vociferous responses from both detractors and defenders with each word or action that she takes. To give you an idea, I usually check out the Memorandum website about twice each day. This site is a good site for political junkies in that you get an idea what the most looked at news stories are out there each day. The first time that I looked yesterday, there may have been about a half-dozen or so sites linking the piece. Take a gander now and you'll find close to fifty sites that are linking to the story. It is by far the most popular post of the day. All of those folks are writing for and against her.

Now, here is where I go from a penny to pound in opining about Sarah Palin. I like her. As a Project Manager and Operations Manager, I have had to make judgements on the performance of personnel and learned a long time ago to look for the performers. And Sarah Palin is a performer. I, along with several million other conservatives, watched with baited breath to see her acceptance speech and debate appearances and was truly impressed. She nailed them both. I did not know much about her prior to McCain picking her, but what little I had seen of her was positive. On the other hand, I believe that we have witnessed a travesty of pundits trying to assassinate her character like no other seen in the modern age. And everyone seems to have an opinion. Relatives that I trust hate her. That is the true paradox.

Now, since I don't worship any politician, I believe that I have an objective view of her and can admit that she has some flaws. I don't, however, think that her resigning her governorship was a flaw. If you believe in fighting (and I believe she does), then leaving your office to give your successor a leg-up in his upcoming election is understandable. But she has a trait that will eventually elevate her or destroy her; she does what she thinks is right. That does not fit the status quo opinion of clinging tenaciously to power and flies in the face of the political class -- How could anyone give up their seat without talking to the experts?

Which leads me to believe that her foxiness is not all in her looks. She has done this at a time when I believe that we have the most incompetent political class (politicians and pundits) that we have ever had. There is a disconnect between the rulers and the ruled where the rulers are making a determined effort not to notice. Border security, illogical economic policies, limitations on individual liberty and just old-time corrupt cronyism are just a few of the problems that the great unwashed are witnessing right now. It is hard to keep a straight face when watching the Sunday Shows because Sarah Palin ticks off the right people. And she scares them.

Still Does Not Look Over To Me

At The Atlantic, we see a take-down of a Newsweek article that contends the recession is over. Over?

In both my professional and my personal life, I have always believed in the experts. You know, the folks that, by way of education and/or experience, knew the right thing and then ethically did the right thing. In fact, I had no problem in accepting them as my betters. With an ever-increasing sense of impending doom, I have come to the realization that my betters are a bunch of dumbasses.

Its Not Worse Than What I Thought

The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think .

Yeah, right. I think stimulus means the economy as a whole, not a stimulus for government.

Now, do you want to think real stimulus? The data at Employment Table A-10 show that the number for the unemployed in June stands at 15,095,000. We had a stimulus that totaled $787,000,000,000. Since the federal government is only truly efficient at the process of cutting checks, it appears to me that we could have mailed each unemployed worker a $40,000 check for a total of $603,800,000,000 and saved the cost of the bureaucracy. Lot of consumin' could go on with 40 grand and the uptick in the economy would at least be discernible to the great unwashed.

Now that's a ridiculous scenario that took about two minutes of thought. It was, however, no more ridiculous than the plan that passed through Congress to what we now see as a botched effort. A plan to be noted, by the way, that no one read before the vote. Maybe they should keep it simple like I do.

Will We Lose About Fifty Years of American History?

Funny, I don't remember sleeping during those Civil Defense classes in grammar school or junior high. My first presidential vote that I ever cast was for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and I can remember the introduction of the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). I can also remember the period of time when the Berlin Wall fell and the influence of America and Pope John Paul II on the ending of communism in Eastern Europe. And I also remember that the Soviet Union was impressed with the prowess of our weaponry. Or at least I thought I remembered.

Liz Cheney wrote the following in the Wall Street Journal:

There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week.

Read Obama Rewrites the Cold War and decide for yourself if we are not seeing more of the concept of Historical Revisionism (negationism) and situational ethics playing itself out in the public square right before our very eyes.

Update 1: I also wanted to add here that Liz Cheney should be looked on as a person who has a real future in the conservative movement. She appears to not be cowed by criticism of her beliefs and on her TV appearances she holds her own when confronted with debate. In fact, I believe that she has bested everyone that I have seen her appear with by fighting with facts. Further, even when they make stuff up, she sticks to her guns and doesn't let popular and dishonest narratives fly unchallenged. We need a lot more of that.

Update 2: I just came across this: EXCLUSIVE: Liz Cheney open to a political run. Cool!

Last Saturday at the Ball Park

What ballpark, you ask? The Texas Rangers and the Ballpark in Arlington? No way, I'm talking about the Airhogs ballpark in Grand Prairie. The Airhogs played the Fort Worth Cats last Saturday, so it turned out to be a cross-town affair. Lotta walks, hits, and runs. The Airhogs lost 12 to 11.

We are blessed to have an abundance of Major and Minor League ballparks in the Dallas area. The Texas Red-Headed Gal, our grown youngsters, Grandma and I attended last Saturday and enjoyed a fireworks show afterward.

As were driving into the parking lot at the ball park, the Red-Headed Gal noted the drive-through gambling windows located next door at Lone Star Park. Lone Star Park is our local horseracing park. Is this a great country or what?

What This Is All About and What You Can Expect

I now believe that the time for me to get after it with this blog is at hand and I really need to explain why I am doing this.

My son, JD, earlier left on the plane to head back to Indiana for home and work today and he has been encouraging me to start this blog for several years. He and the other members of my family have had to listen to my yapper for years and I believe that JD just wants to share with the world this little bit of what he has had a lot of.

For my part, I have reached the age where I have regrets. As far as my life is concerned, my die has already been cast. I have always had a desire to keep a journal and I regret that I never did so. This may act as a correction. We'll see.

Now following here are my some of my guidelines that I will be applying to myself and to my writing:

• I will blog on what interests me and I suspect nothing further. It takes time to do this and I can't imagine writing about things that I would consider mundane or trivial. So expect high-minded or at least as high-minded as a redneck hillbilly can conceive of or think about.
• Since I believe that the news that we get is highly filtered, I will search for what I think is interesting and I will opine on that subject. I may even have opinions about the filtering itself.
• I may be wrong. Could happen. Doesn't happen much, but be rest assured that I do not in any way believe in defending the indefensible. But also be rest assured that if I believe I am right then expect that I will be a majority of one. Society and the popular culture has an ever expanding population of dumbasses and I don't intend to join that club. You can if you want, but count me out.
• If you noticed the last point, you saw that I said something that someone may consider dirty language. I am an adult. I am assuming that you are, too. I consider myself a South Park Conservative which means that I am mostly a libertarian with a few exceptions and several Jacksonian tendencies. In other words, I like my country including its historic flaws and language is nothing to be scared of.
• I believe in American Exceptionalism and do not think it is jingoistic to believe so. We are all lucky to have been born here. Our form of government is only considered not the greatest except when compared to everything else.
• Freedom in a Constitutional Republic is not pretty. But it works when we accept the part about all pigs being equal at Animal Farm, not when some pigs are more equal than others. Also remember that our constitution affords us the means to overcome tyranny in government.
• I am a redneck. I am a product of the south. I love Texas. I am a veteran. Scotch-Irish is a term that I am familiar with and you will be, too, as I write about about what I believe to be true independence.

I need now to say the following about comments and commenting:

• I have considered this for several days and I am allowing comments because I truly want to hear from the people who read this blog.
• They will be moderated. There are lines that I have seen crossed at other sites and I just don't want them crossed. It is kind of like that saying, "I know pornography when I see it." Stay on this side of the pale; don't go beyond because I hope to have family and friends here.
• I don't like total anonymity. I don't like anonymous sources in news articles and I want to avoid it here if possible. Just sign in.
• Finally, do not ever say anything that can't be taken back or walked back from. Just free advice. As my kids say, "Another nugget of wisdom." I don't believe that I have ever meant to intentionally hurt anyone with my words, but on reflection I know that I have hurt others. Another regret that I personally have learned the hard way and I have suffered for it. And you will too. Do you think that John Kerry would not take back that statement about the "Army of Ghengis Khan" if he could?

Well, that is it for now. Please feel free to comment as I enjoy the give and take. I will try to update and post as often as possible. And, yes, I do like wikipedia.

Falling Down on the Job-- Fourth at the Lake

Well, here I am, falling down on the job. I told my Sister-In-Law, Janis, that I was going to try to post every day and I am running five days behind. So, I am getting around to writing about the Fourth of July at Grapevine Lake.



As usual, We started out late. We have an unwritten rule that we can't actually prepare for anything until two-minutes prior to when we are actually supposed to be there. We loaded up chairs, a coke-filled cooler, an electric fan and a mattress. We brought the fan because we had been told that there would be a generator. We brought the mattress because we are redneck hillbillies and we want to do our part to keeping the highways clean. Although the mattress did not actually fly out and land in the road, I want you to know that our heart was in the right place. We stopped and picked up food and ice and we were on the road.



It was a beautiful afternoon and evening for having a cookout and watching fireworks. My two Brother-In-Laws, Mike and Chris, did the cooking and had one of those canopy tents put up by the time that my bunch got there. Anyway, they found an excellent open spot by the water only two miles from the parking lot. My son, JD and I, hauled the chair, fan and cooler while my wife and daughter carried the food bags. I left the mattress in the bed of the truck and made a mental note to carry it higher in the wind on the way back. Hey folks, just living up to my label.



The Brother-In-Laws did a good job with the food. Most of the folks got into the water and took turns watching the little ones. The weather was hot with a good breeze and the breeze lasted well into the evening. That was good because I had not got the word on there not being a generator for the fan. Save for setting your chair in the wrong spot and getting bit by ants, there were no bugs to speak of.



Both of my kids, JD and Amanda, were with us and that obviously pleased both the Red-Headed Gal and me a great deal. JD took the fireworks picture with the camera on his I-Phone. From our spot, we could actually see the fireworks displays from three neighboring towns in addition to the one that we had at the lake. All in all, an excellent night in a fantastic country.

Happy Independence Day!

I sit here on a bright and sunny Fourth of July and ponder the state of the world. And I might add that I do this in comfort of a safe home with my family in the next room. My son, JD, is here from Indiana. We are thinking later this afternoon of meeting my in laws at Grapevine Lake to cook out and watch the fireworks. This will hopefully be a good day for good people.


But on a more serious note, I think that this is a perfect time to consider what happened two-hundred and thirty-three years ago. Very simply, the world changed. The Independence of the second world began after a land that had been colonized by Europeans decided to throw off what the colonists believed to be the "yoke of oppression." This group of colonists met in Philadelphia and drafted a Declaration of Independence that boldly declared that they were free men granted those rights by their creator. I have been reading about the founding fathers and have received the same e-mails that you have been receiving about the fates of the founding fathers. Many of these men and their families suffered in the the years that followed their fateful choice. Years where it was no cinch that the Independence gained could be held.

Which should remind us that freedom isn't free and never was. Think about what those fellows said and did. I have heard it said often that they were prepared to give their lives for their liberty and country. What often goes unstated is that they also were prepared to take the lives of others in the defense of their liberty and country. Now that is what is known as "commitment."

The whole basis of our country is about freedom. And nothing else but freedom. Our country strives for many things, but freedom is the cornerstone. Freedom is more important than security, equality, health-care, multi-culturalism, or any other idea that have popped up in the last few years. So, from the red-neck prairie today, enjoy your freedoms with your family.

Everyone and Every Thing Starts Somewhere

This is just the beginning. I have thought about doing this for quite some time and this just seems like the right time.

All those opinions that my family has been forced to listen to for the last few years will now be inflicted on you. That's right, my new friends. You will hear all my infinite wisdom and inner thoughts; some of which I haven't even thought of yet. This will be an adventure for me. I hope it can be informative and entertaining for you.