We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Bow is the way to do it, the hard way. That's a lot of meat. A reader sent us a link to his pics. Here's one of them (I still think it's best game management to harvest the cows instead of the alpha males, but whatever).
I always wonder how one walks around the woods with a rack like that. I could not do it.
We here at the (insert name of paper here) are a fair, open-minded, tolerant bunch, as you would expect given our elevated social status. So, when an unknown, inexperienced politician named Willard Mitt Romney had the audacity to run for president, we decided to give him a chance and hear what he had to say about his "qualifications."
Here's one heck of an ad. Real, heartbreaking, and far better than LBJ's daisy girl ad. Mom is beautiful, worried. She wants to say something, decides not to. He's depressed, she feels sorry for him and wants to reassure him. He doesn't want pity, wants to be a proud male, can't handle her compassion and concern. And the kids...
If I were on Mitt's team, I'd ask to have this 30-second drama run nationwide.
This is happening out there, all over. Best political ad I've ever seen.
One intriguing thing that happened while I was out of touch with humanity for a week was that three mainstream news sites completely changed their format. Much for the worse, I might add. They essentially stopped being 'news sites' by conventional definition.
First is CBS News, which has gone to what might be called a 'news blog' format. That is, the format small blog sites like Power Line switch to when they want to appear more relevant and 'newsy'.
And check out the 'social media' influence in the right sidebar. Most Popular. Most Shared. Most Discussed. Follow us. Screw the news — we just want to hear what you have to say!
And then ABC News gets into the act, also going with the 'lotsa big pictures' format, but at least they still carry some of that pesky 'news' stuff down at the bottom.
But — speaking of 'social media' having an influence — check out the jaw-dropper that USA Today has become. If you have a tablet, notebook or smartphone, USA Today is the site for you! What do you mean, "web browser"? What's that?
And notice what's missing from the bottom half of the page. Yep, that pesky news stuff. Why bother!
It strikes me that there's a flaw in the logic of dumbing-down news sites to appeal to the "Ooh, lotsa pictures!" crowd. They're thinking they'll tap into this market, but my contention would be that the social media crowd doesn't read standard news sites to begin with, and, when it does, it reads the news off Google or Yahoo or MSN or AOL.
The good news is, while half of those abandoning these three digital train wrecks will end up on the left-leaning CNN or NBC sites, the other half will end up on Fox News. So I'd call it a net plus for our side.
And one thing I personally found interesting with these three particular sites going the social media route is their placement on my page of links. I have the links listed in the order I stop by every morning, first reading Fox to get the right-wing side of things, then CNN for the left side, then (formerly MSNBC) NBC News for the ultra-left. Then I look over the right- and left-wing Washington papers, then skim through the three lesser news sites:
Fox CNN NBC WashTimes WashPost ABC CBS USA
I find it interesting that the three news sites I find least consequential are the three that decided not to be news sites anymore.
... it was the first time in his career that he shared a debate stage with a serious opponent.
Think about it: John McCain was feeble. Alan Keyes, whom Obama beat in his 2004 Senate campaign, was crazy. All the Democrats who ran in 2008 were preposterous except Hillary Clinton, and she, as a beneficiary of nepotism, was highly overrated as a politician. He used Chicago-style dirty tricks to dispatch his original opponent in 2004, as well as the state senator he replaced back in the 1990s. The test he failed last night is one to which he had never been put.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
(I do not want to ruin this magical piece by getting pedantic, but check those rhymes.)
Two more of the Obama administration’s crony corruption cheats are crumbling. These are but two of the lower profile Obama crony enrichment schemes that will need to be eliminated should we get a Republican administration after next November, and indicative of schemes we must be sure to expose should any Republicans try their version of crony capitalism.
I’ve often written about the scheme to tax tourists to the US to subsidize the highly profitable US tourism industry, companies like Disney. My exposes led to a 7,000 word expose in the Washington Post that scuttled the legislation, that is until President Obama and his heavily Democrat Congress took power after the 2008 elections. Then, the legislation was passed and signed. The leaders of this tourism travesty were heavy contributors to the Obama campaign. I last wrote about this boondoggle here (with links to earlier reporting.) The Washington Free Beacon has been keeping up with the story. Here’s its latest (with links to its earlier reporting).
The federal government’s latest taxpayer-funded effort to promote U.S. tourism is dogged by lavish spending, cronyism, and questionable accounting, according to a report released Thursday by two U.S. Senators.
Thermal windows can often add quiet or temperature moderation. But, exaggerated claims for the economic payback of energy efficiency are getting increased Federal Trade Commission attention. What a surprise! Several of the leading offenders are significant Obama contributors who received significant subsidies from the Obama administration’s so-called stimulus and at least one is now a failing business. McClatchy news service:
The FTC actions shine a spotlight on an industry that benefited from millions of dollars in “green” tax credits offered as part of the 2009 economic stimulus, and they reveal some of the pitfalls of zealous marketing, in business and in politics.
For all the caterwauling by Democrats about Bain, there’s no indication of corruption. That finger, actually, points at the Obama administration. But, it is a fair question to candidate Romney what he will do to end crony capitalism within his administration. And, then, let's hold his administration to transparency.
Obama has never been the nation’s most forceful debater, and he makes no secret of his disdain for the theatrical side of politics. If his conduct on the debate stage with Romney seemed oddly passive, it was in some ways just another manifestation of the president’s restrained approach to communicating with the electorate, whom he seems to believe — in the face of all existing evidence — are not swayed by electoral artifice.
First box arrived from Bluestone Perennials. Perfect timing to complete the installation of the new beds. Small plants now, but by June they will crowd out the weeds.
In case you're interested, here's what I am putting in them (much already done in the past 2 weeks):
Pink Knock-Out Roses Little Bunny Fountain Grass Dwarf Red Sedum Nepeta, tall blue and low white Creeping Phlox Boxwood Perennial Geranium Narcissus Scilla (Bluebell) Salvia Stella D'oro Daylily Giant Allium Asian Lily Aster Phlox Daisy Agastache Heliocanthus Red Salvia (Wild Thing) in defiance of Mrs. BD who believes that red is tacky in a garden.
Most of these good for Hummingbirds and butterflies. Many of them are transplants from places where they aren't thriving. If any annuals are needed, obviously I will add them in the Spring. Doubt I will need any, though. Well, for the first year I might need some.
Planning, preparing, and installing a new border is great fun but, like all gardening, it lacks immediate gratification unless you live south of the freezing line.
It takes 2 years for a perennial bed to begin to mature, 1 1/2 years if first planting is in the fall. If you plant in the fall, don't fertilize until Spring.
What people saw last night was a president that revealed his incompetence, how lazy and detached he is, and how he has absolutely no idea how serious the economic problems of the country are, and how he has failed to even begin to address them. And I think even the liberal press reacted with shock at this revelation, and I find it fascinating, now this morning, after they’ve slept, to watch them all scrambling around to clean up the mess the president left on the floor last night.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney came in with a lot of specifics, a lot of very sharp knowledge of issues, not only with the Obama-version of bumper-sticker numbers, but the governor showed that he understand policies and he understand how to make policy into law talking about what he did in Massachusetts.
Heck, in my area, I just paid $4.239, and that's for regular.
How're prices in your neck of the woods?
Update: YIPES! I just refilled the gas tank for a camping trip tomorrow, a day after than the above post, and the regular gas price jumped to $4.689 !!!!!!! And, reports say that the California price is expected to jump again. Looks like prices are high everywhere, with California now even topping Hawaii. But, Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with high transport costs. What's California's excuse? Ordinary maintenance of local refineries removes some capacity, which can't be filled in with gas from neighboring states due to California having its own different higher cost fuel composition standards. So, on top of California and some other states not allowing new refineries to be built, on top of gas prices driven up by mandating corn in it, and world food markets driven up by our diversion of corn into the gas tank, and the dollar being devalued by debt so it costs more to buy oil, California wants to be Hawaii! I know, many of you say, set California adrift. Thanks to envirocrazies, California is adrift, in high costs, high debt, shortages, middle class bailing out, companies leaving. -- Steven Hayward, another California resident, at Hot Air, hopes without real expectation that California voters will wisen up.
This map, found by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, neatly sums it up:
The parasite called bureaucracy is the big winner in the Obama scheme. Before the ACA, the regulatory bureaucracy consumed 40% of all Healthcare dollars. With six whole new agencies, thousands of new regulators, and 2,700+ pages of incomprehensible, often contradictory rules, tapeworm "B" will likely consume half of all the money the U.S. spends on patient Healthcare, leaving fewer dollars for health care (the service).
After five years of being coddled and protected by intoxicated fans, the MSM, and the slobbering hosts of the TV talk show carnivals, Obama has no clue what to do when his facts and positions are challenged: Barone: Thoughts on the first presidential debate.
Apparently Obama is a good shmoozer, but he has no idea about what his job is.
Mitt Romney was in control from the beginning. He was the alpha male, while Barack Obama was weak, hesitant, stuttering, often apologetic. The visuals were great for Romney and awful for Obama. Obama looked small, tired, defeated after four years of failure, out of ammo.
Romney was having fun. The O just wanted to go home and turn on the TV.
Best line from Romney: “I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Romney said in the most devastating understatement of the night.
Obama was totally uncomfortable in the debate forum. As Tom Stemberg, Co-founder and former CEO of Staples said to Neil Cavuto, following the debate, “President Obama is terrific on his feet when no one is challenging him to the facts.”
What viewers saw last night was the real Obama — slow-witted, unable to think effectively on his feet, desultory in his pre-debate preparation, and thoroughly unimpressive without his beloved teleprompter.
My email from Barack at 12:42 am:
Bird Dog --
I hope I made you proud out there explaining the vision we share for this country.
Now we need to go win this election -- the most important thing that will happen tonight is what you do (or don't do) to help in the little time we have left:
Romney slaps down Obama assertions throughout the debate. Romney: "Everything he described is inaccurate." Then adds the wham to the slam with specifics and statistics. At the end of part one, about jobs, Obama even says to the moderator:"Jim, you may want to move on to another topic," needing the bell to survive. The rest of the debate, took the same course, across the deficit (Romney: "you've been President four years" and employment is down and the economy, too); energy (Romney says that all the growth in oil and gas production is on private land while government land permits have been halved); entitlements (Romney won't rob Medicare to fund Obamacare); Obamacare (Romney says that private enterprise and individual choices, state by state, is better and more efficient than centralized dictates); regulation (Romney describes how Dodd-Frank created 5 too big to fail banks and failed to define "qualified" loans, so has stifled bank lending; Obama blames Wall Street for economic meltdown, avoiding the Democrat Congressional pressure to have loose lending standards.)
In the last round, Romney continues to pummel with specifics Obama's generalities, and tells Obama that Obama "is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts." Final Lehrer question for fast answer: how to break Congressional gridlock? Romney describes his successful experience working across the aisle and he will continue to do so, not to "compromise principle" but be "collaborative". "We need to have leadership in Washington to get the job done" among Democrats and Republicans. Obama says he has and will take ideas from anyone. (Gag alert!) But, "occasionally you have to say no." (That's all we've actually seen from Obama to Republican proposals.)
Final spin by each: Obama says he has "faith and confidence" in the American people. He'll continue to do the same as he has done. Romney says "this is about the course of America" which leads in "very different directions", Obama's a continued "middle class squeeze", joblessness, lack of growth, health premiums increase by $2500 per family due to Obamacare, and "devastating" cuts to our military versus growth and security through unleashing free enterprise and individual freedoms.
PBS's Jim Leher did an outstanding job of covering the most pressing domestic issues, without any bias at all. Instant commentators on TV give the edge to Romney. Usual apologists for Obama says Obama looked "rusty" while Romney looked confident, comfortable, was politely aggressive, came across well, and won the debate. (Examples from Memeorandum here, here, here, and more here, and that's in just the first few minutes after the end of the debate.) If the liberals on TV are giving Romney the edge, you know that it was a Romney slap down!
CNN instapoll has it 67% win for Romney, 25% for Obama. 82% say Romney did better than expected. In effect, Romney went direct to the people, past the liberal press coverup for Obama. -- Email from a reader: Obama looked like he was "seeking his internal teleprompter." -- Excellent summary of details of the debate from Jennifer Rubin.
It is a signal event when even some from the political left who has long sided with pro-Palestinian assertions wakes up and recognizes the horror that is Hamas.
In 2005, Israel unilaterally removed its military and residents from Gaza, leaving behind the infrastructure and commercial ventures Israel and Israelis had built. Muslim Brotherhood's spawn, Hamas, then took control over Gaza away from the Palestinian Authorities Fatah. Since, Gazans and Hamas have destroyed that inheritance and live off the charity of others, mostly Western. The thousands of rockets fired into Israel are excused by Western apologists.
But, the human rights abuses by Hamas against Gazans is finally being recognized by some in the anti-Israel camp.
In general, I thought of myself as someone who harbored few delusions about Hamas. Unlike an alarmingly large contingent of self-proclaimed leftists, I’ve never been willing or able to ignore the Islamic fascism that is the lifeblood of the group’s ideology, and that makes ridiculous any notion of it as a “resistance”. I confess, however, that I used to suspect there to be a degree of exaggeration and/or Zionist propaganda in the stories I would read about its moral policing.
Not so anymore. After meeting last weekend in Jordan with a group of Palestinian journalists that included three arrivals from Gaza, I was appalled to discover the reality is worse than I had dared imagine. Without me even mentioning the subject, they would almost tremble with rage as they described the party’s thuggery, palpably relieved at the opportunity to unload an intolerable weight off their chests.
…How “leftist”! How “revolutionary”!
The Middle East section of Human Rights Watch has long often carried the Palestinian meme as a major critic of Israel. Yet, Human Rights Watch’s latest report on Gaza is summed up in its release headline: “Gaza: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, Unfair Trials.”
The 43-page report, “Abusive System: Criminal Justice in Gaza,” documents extensive violations by Hamas security services, including warrantless arrests, failure to inform families promptly of detainees’ whereabouts, and subjecting detainees to torture. It also documents violations of detainees’ rights by prosecutors and courts. Military courts frequently try civilians, in violation of international law. Prosecutors often deny detainees access to a lawyer, and courts have failed to uphold detainees’ due process rights in cases of warrantless arrest and abusive interrogations, Human Rights Watch found.
“After five years of Hamas rule in Gaza, its criminal justice system reeks of injustice, routinely violates detainees’ rights, and grants impunity to abusive security services,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Hamas should stop the kinds of abuses that Egyptians, Syrians, and others in the region have risked their lives to bring to an end.”
Human Rights Watch doesn’t let the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank get off lightly either:
Hamas’s rival in the West Bank, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, arrests and detains Palestinians arbitrarily, including Hamas members or sympathizers, and similarly subjects detainees to torture and abuse. The intra-Palestinian political rivalry remains a significant factor behind many Hamas abuses against detainees in Gaza, Human Rights Watch found.
Western funding, and Western apologists, keeps these two parasites on humanity existing, with little incentive to either decently treat those under their rule, stop siphoning away aid funds into leaders' foreign bank accounts, end hate propaganda among their residents, and cease attacks upon Israelis.
I have eaten Rocky Mountain Elk steaks. Tastes like Elk, ie, similar to Moose. I have friends who hunt them. Bow, not rifle. Good stories, good adventures.
The author points out that we all know that "correlation does not indicate causation", but there is an equally important error often drawn from data: The confusion of statistical significance with real world meaning.
As science grows more powerful and government more technocratic, the stakes of correlation—of counterfeit relationships and bogus findings—grow ever larger. The false positive is now more onerous than it's ever been. And all we have to fight it is a catchphrase.
I love this pic I found while searching for "presidential debate":
It shows the aloof, condescending Obama in his most typical state — and shows an angry, frustrated Romney railing against the system in his most untypical state. Just the way we like it.
And do you know what?
I bet it was posted by a Lefty. He wanted to show Obama as calm and reasoning and Romney as totally unhinged.
Such is the eye of the beholder.
Stage 1: The Primaries
I don't think anyone reading my Republican debate posts was surprised that Romney took the nomination. It wasn't for naught that Mitt won the prestigious 'Most Presidential' award after every debate save one, where he shared it with Jon Huntsman. He speaks a solid platform, he enunciates well, and, more elusively, he acts like a president should act. That's why he kept winning the damn award.
Stage 2: The Conventions
Bottom line? We got a meme out of it ("empty chair") — and the Dems got nothing. Hah!
Stage 3: Rise of the Tea Party
Lurking in the shadows. Waiting in the wings. Step right up, pick yer metaphor.
Personally, I think it's going to be 2010 all over again. For those of you scoring at home, we had a mid-term election two years ago where the Repubs totally clobbered the Dems, taking back the House, almost taking back the Senate, and putting the fear of two words — Tea Party — into every Democrat's heart.
The good news is that you haven't heard a peep from them since then.
Good news, because the MSM didn't get the opportunity to liken them to the Wall Street Occupiers when they were having their fling, and good news because it appears the MSM has forgotten all about them at this point of the game. This false complacency is just fine with us.
The debate is set to fire off at 9 pm Eastern. More details here.
Despite what Bird Dog and many others view as the evil of pagination (spreading a web post over multiple pages), I am purposefully going to split up this post into two parts right here and now.
(And thus 'Doc Scofflaw' once again spits in the eye of convention! He's back, folks!)
One intriguing thing that happened while I was out of touch with humanity for a week was that three mainstream news sites completely changed their format. Much for the worse, I might add. They essentially stopped being 'news sites' by conventional definition.
Cover image from 
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Trash Cams May Monitor Discarded Federally Imposed Vegetables
Chris Matthews: 
Damn global warming!