Democrats And Secret Ballots

Ah the irony of the Democratic Party. As the Wall Street Journal has on it's editorial page today, and earlier reported on Politico.Com, the Obama team was seriously considering a secret ballot and abbreviated roll call vote at the convention last week. The reason? Clinton supporters were complaining of intimidation on the floor by Obama supporters looking for a unanimous proclamation of Barack.

Then it struck them. One of the key items in the party platform, and legislative agenda, is to eliminate secret ballots in the workplace when it comes to forming unions. The party, and unions, deny that any intimidation goes on with "card checking" for membership, and want the rules changed to take a way the ability for management to ask for a secret vote.

Evidently someone in the party realized that having such a vote on the convention floor, then running on a platform of denying it in the workplace would make a pretty easy target for the GOP.

The whole incident shows once again that the Democratic Party isn't working for whats best for the people, but what's in the interest of their own special interest bankrollers.

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McCain's Pick

I'm sure that John McCain's VP pick, Sarah Palin, isn't the most qualified person he could get on the ballot this year. What I am sure about is that she scares the hell out of liberals. All you have to do is start reading their editorials about her pick, and you can see by the speed at which they degenerate into name calling they are bothered.

Gail Collin's of the NY Times thinks that Joe Biden now has the throw away line of the year "I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine, and governor, you’re no Hillary Clinton". The problem for Biden is that Palen may well respond to that line, with something like "You're right, Senator. I've held real jobs, didn't carpetbag my way to a Senate seat, and never made $100,000 in one day of trading."

Liberals are afraid because, as they know, Joe Biden is a gaffe machine. He might have been able to get away with a cheap shot at Mitt Romney's religion, or hair, or whatever. But if he produces another 'Indian's at 7-11' shot towards Palin he may find himself on the bitter end of 150 million scorned female tongues.

Liberals are bothered because McCain could already run on a platform of being bipartisan, and reform minded, and has legislative accomplishments to back it up. Obama can talk about change, but has no legislative record to show that's what he is about. Palin brings that reform spirit, a record to prove it, and an outside the beltway presence that Joe Biden can't fake, or plagiarise.

The Democrats are making a big deal of her lack of foreign policy experience, which is valid, and claim it negates any claim that Obama is too inexperienced. The problem with that is Obama is the guy in the decision making seat on their side of the fence, Palin isn't. Biden's "experience" consists of chairing a committee that doesn't make policy, it second guesses it for the most part.

The other side of that coin is Palin holds executive experience that none of the other 3 have. No, it's not a great deal of it, but it's more executive decision making experience than her counterpart, who's been holed up in the Senate for 35 years.

Palin's also done something that neither Obama or Biden has, she's stood up to the party big wigs. Senator Frank Murkowski put her on the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and she promptly started an ethics investigation into the state's GOP chair. She also took on the GOP's Attorney General in the state, who ended up resigning.

Say "Ethic investigation" around Obama and he suddenly knows nothing about anything and never met anyone. If you say ethics around Biden he says the plagarism wasn't his fault.

Palin may not be the person most of us were thinking of as a running mate, but she may well prove to be a good one.

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Associated Press Reality Check

The AP, in a flagrent act of journalism, put out an article called "Democrat's Vision Will Collide With Reality". Five AP writers put together a laundry list of Obama and Democratic promises this year, and then check them against both the fiscal reality of a $482 billion dollar deficit, and the reality of the world.

I will say that I have one issue with the article. They took the easy way out on the tax plans of both Obama and McCain and used static numbers to determine what their plans would mean. That method of calculation has been completely discredited over the last 28 years, since income went up, not down, when Reagan cut taxes.

It's not pretty. Even with his tax increase ideas, Obama's plans come out costing hundreds of billions per year, and as they point out, many of the promises are either too vague to know the exact cost, or unlikely to get past congress.

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Hey, Ray, Don't Let It Happen Again

Hey, Ray Nagin, down in New Orleans, in case you didn't get the memo, Hurricane Gustav is on it's way to kick your ass.

If you've forgotten, your city didn't hold up so well in '05. So, here's a thought this time, don't let this happen:

Move the buses to higher ground. Preferably full of people!

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The Neophyte and the Plagarist?

So, the neophyte candidate, the man who is all about "change", and making Washington different picks a 35 year DC insider, who aborted one of his own White House runs due to charges of plagiarism to be his running mate?

Exactly what gets "different" with Joe Biden as VP over Dick Cheney. Dick is connected to big oil, Joe to big credit, specifically credit card companies. Cheney supposedly thinks of himself as the smartest guy in the room. Biden will tell you he's the smartest guy in the room.

Joe's big kick to the Obama campaign is foreign policy. But what experience doe he have running foreign policy? None, he's run a committee that deals with it. But it's not like he's spent any time actually making decisions concerning it. If that's the qualification Obama was looking for there are probably a dozen folks left over from the Clinton State Department who have actual foreign policy credentials to help his campaign.

There are already tons of MSM outlets parading around Joe's greatest gaffes, just from 2006 to this year when he was running for President. The 529's will be hauling out the tape of the 1988 campaign to help him out here shortly.

Sorry Barack, but the choice you made wasn't the best one out there. It'll further alienate the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) crowd who thinks Hillary should be VP, unless you forgot, Biden was Pro-War when it came to Iraq, which will get you questioned by the nut-roots. You complain about big banks and credit card companies screwing the little guy, and pick someone who's been horribly friendly to them his entire time in DC.

I'm not sure where the logic came from in this choice, other than Biden is older and has more "experience" the problem is, it may not be the right experience.

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His Friends Are Haunting Him

Barack Obama's friends are coming back to haunt him. Two new ads out this week, one with him and Tony Rezko, the other with him and Bill Ayers.

Considering his drop in the polls, anywhere from now a dead heat to 5% behind, having folks start pointing out his radical, and convicted friends isn't going to help his numbers jump.

Here's the Ayers Ad.



And the Rezko Ad...



I'm sure his team will start claiming it's negative attacks as usual, just junk, whatever, but as much as some of us have laughed about the lameness of McCain's ads (though the Ayers ad is from a 529) they seem to be tarnishing Mr. Obama

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1980's All Over Again

So, let's see Russia has invaded Georgia, told the world to pack sand and forget about any restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity. Then yesterday told Poland if they accept a US anti-missile base, they are eligible for the special Russian "Nuke You For Free offer".

This of course, leads us to the statements by Barack Obama, who'll probably rue this YouTube video of him in the coming months. He wants to basically disarm America, and quit updating the military. No doubt there is a social program that needs a few hundred billion dollars a year.




This all reminds me of 1985, with superpower sabre rattling, sphere's of influence, and misguided threats. Speaking of 1985, here's the Bowling for Soup video.



Have a great Saturday

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Waste of Research Money

Okay, we hear all the time about wasted research dollars, but this one has to take the cake.

The headline from Yahoo! News.....

'Beer goggles' effect during drinking is real, scientists say

Now, I'm not a rocket scientist (but I am related to one), but with nothing but a sailor's paycheck for 21 years I was able to prove that on 5 continents. I consider what I did to be a blind (drunk) study, so I think that who ever paid for that study should just give the money to me.

Hundreds of guys I went out with woke up with women who at the beginning of the night they'd said "I wouldn't do her with a rented johnson". Beer was the reason for these things happening, plain and simple.

The study was conducted in England, which brings up at least one theory for why they did it. They may have needed to prove the effect because so many men are married to ugly women that beer goggles are the only rational explaination. Well, that or a lack of attractive women.

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Democrats on McCain

Who do Democrats seem to have a lot of respect for? If you watch his lastest ad, it's John McCain. Hillary's jab at the end is great.

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Defacto Law

The FCC ruled this week that Comcast broke it's "policy" on Internet usage, by limiting bandwidth to users of peer to peer services like BitTorrent. There are a few problems with the ruling, the first of which is the FCC hasn't been given control over Internet traffic by Congress.
They used Comcast's standing as a cable provider, and the fact that the company uses that cable to deliver the Internet as their reasoning for being able to intervene.

Secondly, by creating a defacto net neutrality law, they've gotten into the regulation of business, which is again, outside their scope of work.

While Comcast is likely to take the case to court to get the FCC's ruling overturned, they and other net providers are already working on a way around the problem. Pay per gigabyte is being tested by a number of Internet providers in various locations.

Comcast, Time Warner, and AT&T are all looking at using a per gigabyte charge to dissuade bandwidth hogs. Considering a lot of those hogs are fairly young, and may not be paying the internet bill, it's probably a good way to go about this. Much like the parents of kids who run up huge cell phone bills take away the phone, I can see a lot of parents suddenly being interested in what the kids are doing on their computers.

Most cable providers have always had one speed for residential customers, while DSL has usually had tiered speed levels, with corresponding higher cost for higher speed. Comcast, Cox and Time Warner are all looking at that as an option, also. One way to keep the kids from downloading movies is to slow the connection enough that the movie never finishes downloading.

Other media companies, of course, don't like the idea of a metered internet; it definitely cuts into their delivery options. Netflix for example allows you to rent and watch movies online. But if 1 movie takes up 25% of your montly bandwidth allotment, they fear folks will back off renting from them.

Of course, those media companies aren't the one's paying for the infrastructure to carry all of those movies, XBox live games, and streaming audio and video. They just want it unlimited so they can expand their businesses, and don't like the idea of their customers paying for it.

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Obama Disturbed by McCain Ads

Barack Obama's campaign is getting a little rattled by the latest round of John McCain ads, including the one I posted here a few days ago, and the "Celebrity" ad that came out shortly before.

Over the next few months you'll see more ads that attack the substance of Obama from the McCain camp, and that's what Obama fears, and why they scream so hard everytime a new ad comes out. He's got a voting record that's ripe for ads attacking his no votes, and his present votes when he wanted to skirt a tough issue.

The other part that the Obama folks don't like is that the substance of the ads can be backed up. They can call them negative, but the fact is they are all based on the his stated positions. Obama's called for higher taxes, and until he flip-flopped on offshore drilling this week, wanted that kept off limits.

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Funny Poll Numbers

To show the state of mind of Packer's fans over the Brett Favre saga, Sportsbubbler.com, a Wisconsin sports site, put up this poll:

Which one of the following would you rather see?

Come home and find your wife in bed with the snowblower repairman
51.82 %

See Brett Favre in a Vikings uniform on Sept. 8 beat the Packers
48.18 %

Either there are a lot of kinky Packer fan's out there, or too many fans have serious man crushes on Brett Favre. Either way, that's a disturbing set of poll numbers.

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Site Meter Issues

If you are running a blogger blog, and are using the javascript sitemeter from sitemeter.com, you may be running into issues with IE 6 & 7 not being able to load your page. It's been driving me nuts since last night.

I'm not sure what's going on, but Opera 9.x and Firefox 3.0 can both load the page, so I deleted my sitemeter script for now, until someone figures out what's going on.

If anyone has a clue, let me know.

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Pointing Out His Arrogance

John McCain has a new ad out that does a great job of pointing out the arrogance of Barack Obama. If any of us were to speak of ourselves as Obama does in these clips, we'd be laughed off the planet. Why is he still a serious candidate?



H/T to Charlie for this one.

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