Wednesday, October 29. 2008
It's not hopeless by any means. Tough, but not impossible.
It's like doing the Limbo Rock:  The Dem definition of "rich" drops daily The world is drowning in oil again. Bloomberg Oregon: Got cancer? Try a death pill. Central bankers and recent history. Kling. More on the subject from McCardle The Sarah Party Embarassed to call himself a reporter. These confessions accumulate daily. Obama and rural voters in Ohio. Obama wants to turn this country into a nation of beggers. Also, why Virginia is in play this year. More on the Khalidi tape. Gateway. Believe me, the LAT does not want to piss off Obama. Bad consequences. Amazing: the CSM quits its print edition. h/t, Insty Dick Morris: The election is a referendum on Obama Thomas Sowell explains how higher taxes damage everyone Looking back on Obama's first year as Pres. Wizbang Will Dems let Charlie Rangel skate? Nobody wants to piss off Rangel. Bad consequences. How "critical race theory" molded Obama It's the courts, stupid. I agree Dr. Sanity's Quote of the Year, from Mark Levin A tough Megyn Kelly takes on Obama's Bill Burton:
Tuesday, October 28. 2008
From Mark Steyn's The Dog is about to Catch the Car: Peggy Noonan thinks a President Obama will be like the dog who chases the car and finally catches it: Now what? I think Obama will be content to be King Barack the Benign, Spreader of Wealth and Healer of Planets. His rise is, in many ways, testament to the persistence of the monarchical urge even in a two-century old republic. So the "Now what?" questions will be answered by others, beginning with the liberal supermajority in Congress. And as he has done all his life he will take the path of least resistance. An Obama administration will pitch America toward EU domestic policy and U.N. foreign policy. Thomas Sowell is right: It would be a "point of no return," the most explicit repudiation of the animating principles of America. For a vigilant republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens, it would be a Declaration of Dependence. If a majority of Americans want that, we holdouts must respect their choice. But, if you don't want it, vote accordingly.
Yes, it's an appeal to our weakest, most cowardly and pitiful instincts.
 Despite all the other headwinds he is fighting against (recession, the MSM, his age, his skin color), one major problem McCain faces is well-described in the Villainous piece we linked yesterday. McCain is not a visionary type, and he is not an ideologue. He is a solid, practical, trustworthy and remarkably strong fellow. He is running against a youthful (Socialist) visionary who promises to make your life easy and beautiful, but McCain is characterologically unable to present a competing vision. Like Bush 41, he probably thinks "the vision thing" is BS and unmanly, and cannot or will not fake it.
My problem with that is that McCain does have a vision, but he takes his vision of America so much for granted that he doesn't see it. It's the vision of freedom through strength, economic opportunity for all, holding the line with Federal power, and fiscal prudence. It's not Pie in the Sky, but it's an important and fundamentally American vision which deserved better "marketing" in this election, and people would rather vote for somebody than against somebody. My vote will be a bit of both. Selling visions requires sales and marketing skills, just like selling cars: you have to make them feel that the new car will make them happier. Reagan knew how to sell freedom, and he knew what Obama knows: mass market politics is sales and marketing (including packaging). I think that notion is beneath a man like McCain's dignity. To his credit, he is not "a natural politician." (Sarah Palin is, which is why they want to destroy her.) Now to my morning links: Can you imagine if this were an Obama effigy? (I thought the current theory is that nooses were racist.) What the Weather Underground had in mind. Insane sociopaths. Dean Barnett: A real writer whose outlet was blogging. What's wrong with the idea of energy independence? 2008 Economics: The two middle classes Why Obama's health plan would make businesses sick New book by James Kalb: The Tyranny of Liberalism: Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, Inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command (h/t, Vanderleun) The interbank markets are recovering. That is good news.
Monday, October 27. 2008
 Biggest danger for hunters is heart attack. Maybe, but when it's your time to go, why not go while hunting or fishing? You really don't want to crap out while atop a wife or girlfriend and leave them unfulfilled, and with an unpleasant memory of your face turning grey-blue.
How the McCain health care plan would help everybody. Obama's advisors preferred McCain's plan. LAT refuses to release Obama video. The Khalidi video might damage him. "Might"? Watch the TED spread, not the Dow. The TED matters.(h/t, Viking) Indices matter. Why we suck. Jules on autism and other topics Palin's treatment by the press. Driscoll. I heard a 15 year-old girl this weekend say "Palin makes me barf." I prudently said nothing. Tired of "the Vietnam effect." Me too. Working for a non-profit. AVI Obama's inauguration speech is already in its first draft. Message: Don't bother voting, Repubs. Related: Why there is hope for a McCain victory. Another reason the press is going easy on Obama-Biden. Access. Obama: A celebrity the world will adore. Maybe, but who cares? World adoration is not the job description. That's for Elvis. A turn in the housing market. It will be slow, but it will happen eventually. David Thompson takes a look at redistribution in practice. Barone: Beware of the early exit polls Meteorological image from Theo
One quote from Obama on the Constitution: (It )"says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.”
The community organizing? Are you joking? More at Surber. I do not think that he understands the concept of freedom at all. That concerns me. I think the Constitution is quite clear about the role, and mainly the limits of the Federal government. They knew all about power-seeking. It's one of the things that makes us unique.
Arthur Laffer: The Age of Properity is over. One quote: ...unfortunately in this world there is no tooth fairy. And the government doesn't create anything; it just redistributes. Whenever the government bails someone out of trouble, they always put someone into trouble, plus of course a toll for the troll. Every $100 billion in bailout requires at least $130 billion in taxes, where the $30 billion extra is the cost of getting government involved. If you don't believe me, just watch how Congress and Barney Frank run the banks. If you thought they did a bad job running the post office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the military, just wait till you see what they'll do with Wall Street.
He concludes: Twenty-five years down the line, what this administration and Congress have done will be viewed in much the same light as what Herbert Hoover did in the years 1929 through 1932. Whenever people make decisions when they are panicked, the consequences are rarely pretty. We are now witnessing the end of prosperity.
Sunday, October 26. 2008
 Photo: A silver salesman, Lincoln, VT, 1940 (h/t, Dr X). I imagine that she's 54, with two kids in the army and one home helping with the farm, and that she wants this shiny junk because her life doesn't have much that shines except for Yankee persistence and love, and the effort that goes with it, but she knows she cannot afford this pretty stuff. She is going to look at it but plants her hands on her hips so she doesn't touch it, because touching is a step towards owning.
The San Diego Union-Trib takes on media bias. But that is just one MSM. Heck, even the Russian papers are reporting it. The Term Paper Artist. S,C&A David Warren on Messianic politics Ten years of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon. Now Washington State has the same thing on the ballot. Really, everybody should off themselves - for Gaia. Speaking of which, letters from Jonestown. The Paranoid State: The UK. It creates a State vs. Citizen model. Are they nuts? Europe to force airlines to buy emission permits. Are they nuts? Sherry with food? What vote fraud? LGF Biden loses it with tough questions. Related: Biden is a dumb-ass, but we're covering for him anyway. Yep. Nothing to see here. Look at moron Palin instead. Barney Frank vows Dems will cut Defense, raise taxes, and spend lots of money. Voters can't say they weren't warned. The Washington Times looks at VA, WVA and NC turning into blue. Related: How Wisconsin moved Left fast Ponnuru: Ideological Conservatism and operational Liberalism?
Saturday, October 25. 2008
We mistakenly posted the short version. Here's the full version. Dynamite. It's why Fred is an honorary Maggie's Farmer.
This brief talk by Fred is wonderful. I still think he would have been a great candidate in this election. He always speaks from basic American principles, which keeps his talks well-oriented, centered, thematic, and logically coherent. Unlike most pols.
 The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp lost 4.8 billion in the stock market last year. Why are they in the stock market anyway?
Did you know that Obama said this in a church: "I am confident we can create a Kingdom right here on earth"? That's the sign of a false prophet. Preventing a nuclear Chavez. WSJ Video If McCain loses, I will agree with this explanation. Where will Obama get the trillions he wants to spend? (h/t, View from 1776) Campaign fund-raising fraud. Journalism Rule #1: Obama gets a pass on everything. (Rule #2: Destroy Palin.) Stupidonomics at the NYT, with an ice cream shop "We have to do this for Ted." Ted Kennedy's socialized medicine will be bad for your health. Teaching tort law via John Edwards. Sheesh. The change the Dems have already brought to DC Is the race over? Not quite yet. Related: Dick Morris: Don't count McCain out yet Hedge fund manager: "Goodbye and f- you." Kurtz: ...get ready, any conservative or Republican who gains some notice for criticizing Democrats. They won't just debate you. They'll do their best to destroy you.
It's called "by all means necessary..."
Friday, October 24. 2008
Quoted from a Megan McArdle piece: This brings me to a pet peeve that has been increasingly irritating me as the crisis wears on: people with little or no understanding of markets confidently opining on the causes of the crisis. Funnily enough, the cause of the crisis is always exactly what they happened to be against before the crisis happened, and the solution is for the people they disagree with to be banned from polite society and exiled from the political process. What is most infuriating is that the people who know the least are the most confident about their appraisals. Anyone with any sort of expertise in the field knows that no one understands this crisis very well. Economists all over the ideological spectrum are rethinking the lessons we thought we had learned from the Great Depression and the Japanese experience. As it unfolds, we will no doubt be seriously rethinking our model of the relationship between the financial markets and the real economy. The problem is, ignorant people who have somehow gotten hold of one or two precious facts, and brandish those facts like a mighty Sword of Truth, are superficially convincing. They are convincing because they misunderstand the situation in, well, the way that ignorant people misunderstand it. The stories they concoct are therefore very convincing to the ignorant, except those who have an ideological predisposition to doubt their story. Those ignorant people are busy listening to some other huckster peddling financial snake oil. No one who did not know what a CDO was before the crisis should be opining as to the causes or the possible solutions. And anyone who tells you that they understand exactly why this happened, why we got this crisis instead of the dollar crisis we were expecting, and what kind of regulations will unquestionably fix it, is definitionally too ignorant to be opening their mouth.
This ad is not from the McCain campaign (h/t, Gateway, who thinks it needs to be sent around.) I pretty much agree with it. Yes, it is Christian - and so am I:
The Krautmeister explains why. I cannot remember when I've ever disagreed with him (meaning Krauthammer - not McCain).
From the WSJ, another bubble bursts. A good thing for all, but only in the long run. Nasty in the short run. If you want stocks to only go up and up and up, you should not buy them. (link fixed) The upside is that good things are relatively cheap, now. But the "Are you better off..." thing doesn't work right now politically, when bubbles are finally popping.
 John H at Powerline. To be fully accurate, I should say that Maggie's is not in the red, since we neither have nor want income from our enjoyable efforts here.
All we want are visitors to our humble yet elite boutique site. Please promote us with your friends and email lists, because we are not going out of business and I believe we do add a bit of unpredictable pleasure and unreported info to daily humdrum life. And the price is right.
 What's driving down stock prices? The Hedge Fund Contagion. They are puking everything to cover redemptions - and to shut down. High gain - high risk. That's the game.
Economist: Obama's socialism will wreck the economy. But that's the whole idea, isn't it? To bring down free markets and put politicians in control? Greenspan's testimony yesterday. With luck, the abominable Murtha may go down this year. NYT debt drops to junk. They blame the economy. Do you feel an attack of "non-filer syndrome" coming on? As I recall, NYC Mayor David Dinkins had a bad case of that affliction. William Ayers: A media effort to hide the truth fails, thanks to blogger Patterico. But don't expect to read about it in the LAT. Related: Ayers was back at his bomb throwing as recently as 2006. Can anybody name one decent friend of Obama? The quaint Dutch Death Boat. Holland: famous for tulips and death for young and old. McCain outlines his presidential goals. It's about time. The myth that laissez-faire is responsible for our problems: Reisman. It's a good essay, but provides no populist boob bait. More on Dems wanting to eliminate 401-Ks. Would they dare? What's up with this Obama fundraising? I see that both John Galt and Adolph Hitler have given money. When I gave money to McCain, I had to fill out a form. Much more from Ace. I feel like the whole country is in the middle of a giant con game. The always-grandiose Obama claims a "righteous wind." Good grief. I cannot believe how self-referential this guy is. I guess he refers to God's banking and credit crisis that, thus far, pulled him up out of a hole. More on intelligence and pattern-detection. AVI Academic termites set the stage for Obama. Memo to self: never take political opinions from people who have never worked in the real world. Speaking of the naive and innocent, why young folks should shun Obama, from Viking: In a letter to young voters, Robert Samuelson writes that everybody's taxes will be heading skyward soon enough: "You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50 percent over the next 25 years. Pension and health costs for state and local workers have doubtlessly been underestimated. There's the expense of decaying infrastructure -- roads, bridges, water pipes. All this will squeeze other crucial government services: education, defense, police." But those taxes will only be paid by the rich...until they won't.
Re Palin, via Surber: It’s Lord of the Flies time for the media. She made the mistake of being different. I have not seen such a mass blind rage by the media since Clarence Thomas was “electronically lynched” by the press. Liberal racism was apparent then. Now it is liberal chauvinism. All women must be dowdy, angry libs who are fierce defenders of abortion rites — or else they aren’t real women.
"Rites"? That's clever. I prefer ladies who like to look good. I try to look good, too, on the off-chance that some gal will like me.
Thursday, October 23. 2008
Today's IBD/TIPP tracking polls: Contrary to other polls, some of which show Obama ahead by double digits, the IBD/TIPP Poll shows a sudden tightening of Obama's lead to 3.7 from 6.0. McCain has picked up 3 points in the West and with independents, married women and those with some college. He's also gaining momentum in the suburbs, where he's gone from dead even a week ago to a 20-point lead. Obama padded gains in urban areas and with lower-class households, but he slipped 4 points with parents.
Whoever wins this election will provide plenty of material for us at Maggie's to get indignant about and worried about. That's a shame, because we'd rather write about other subjects - like real life. I guess we can do both.
 Karl Marx was black? Who knew?
Has the banking crisis affected the non-financial economy? Supply and Demand Face to face with the "insurgency" BBC Dems attempting to sell the idea of wage stagnation Kurtz with facts about the media bias Suddenly everybody wants the Joe vote "Maybe Rush should try to blow up the Capitol and the Pentagon. Then instead of being a terrorist, liberals would call him an education reformer." "If you run a business with more than a very few employees, if Barack Obama wins your life is going to get much more complicated long about March next year." More at Moonbattery. A clueless Obama caller. Can we "pluralize" this example? Related: Why I am voting for Obama The evidence for AGW continues to unravel. But will it matter? Sarah's clothing and hairdressing budget. Funny, we never hear the cost of Obama's tailored suitings, and never heard about Hillary's silk pantsuit, Botox, face-lift, make-up, and hair-do budget. Nor about Joe Biden's Botox budget (which appears to be high).
Wednesday, October 22. 2008
No, nobody at Maggie's is threatening to move to Canada, but Michael Medved takes a grim look at the Consequences of Defeat (h/t, reader). His points about immigrants are telling. Rove warned us about that consequence during the immigration debates last year. Rove, Bush, and McCain knew that hispanic voter loyalty was up for grabs, and that they were, in a number of ways, a natural Repub constituency. 
Home sales: The 10 fastest-selling zip codes Metrics looking good for Obama. It amazes me. WSJ: Get ready for the New New Deal. We are an ungrateful nation. Germaine Greer and a bit of "magnificence" from the 1960s. Good grief. They thought this was quite arty. What can be done about campus decline? Kimball Sea turtles in Cyprus. I didn't know the Med had sea turtles. The rise of "disaster socialism." Reason The Gods of the Copybook Headings America's most overrated product: The Bachelor's Degree. h/t, Viking Congress will look at Fannie and Freddie - after the election
Tuesday, October 21. 2008
 Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights? Orson Scott Card (read his bio on that page!) h/t, Synthstuff. We like Orson Card, but do not know where he blogs these days.
Shulman on how social class plays into the election - and how it affects the "opinion-makers." I am afraid that the "opinion-makers" all fantasize that they could be polo players with Locust Valley Lockjaw, hobnobbing with the Groton and Andover and Choate and Hotchkiss and Deerfield grads instead of getting stuck with the socially-marginal hacks in Washington. Some of us at Maggie's may be "elite," but Sarah represents our view of the soul of America.  From Mark Salter:
I think much of the media has a thumb on the scale for Obama. I think the thumb has been there the entire time. There are many honorable exceptions, I don’t mean to tar everybody, but I think there’s one standard for us, and one standard for Obama. He has run more negative ads than McCain has run ads. They run from the quite misleading to the blatantly untrue.
America's biggest enemy is cynicism? I am not falling for that cliched BS. One of America's best hopes has always been her cynicism towards, distrust of, and mocking of politicians and their aspirations for easy jobs, power, and personal validation. John McCain excepted. Speaking of cynicism, "transformative"? You want transformative back to the 1930s and 1970s? Where would Obama get the $ to suckle his wards? Well put. Wards of The State is what it's about. Gimme. Palin's "absence of structured thinking." Fair enough, Ann. But name me one national pol with "structured thinking." Pols don't do that: they do political thinking. It's different. If they were rocket scientists, they'd be busy designing rockets. Generally speaking, they aren't too smart and not very wise - just clever and calculating about their personal goals. Images: We are still permitted to write-in Papoon for President when we vote. He has a chance! As I recall, he stood for "One Organism, One Vote," and hoped to win the previously disenfranchised and marginalised Bacterial Community.
 Obama cannot change the lives of black Americans
Somebody told me Iceland was a hedge fund, not a country. I guess so. Two faces of Socialism: RFK and Obama The most ancient dog What kind of diapers are the greenest? And who cares? Campaign finance reform is dead, and Obama killed it. He's up to $600 million now. 18 things you need for your computer. I do not understand this stuff. Anna Schwartz: The feds are fighting the last war America the Weak. Ralph Peters Lord Monckton's letter to John McCain Obama's taxes target small businesses, which is why Joe the Plumber made people pay attention Biden: The world will test Obama. You betcha it will, to find out whether there is any testosterone in that fancy suit.  Is it paranoid to be concerned about this?
The Obama Social Security plan. Mankiw Dems want to eliminate 401-Ks Ayers: An embarassment From a long non-rant by Villainous on The Politics of Fear: "It's incredible what the media can ignore when they want to." I like what she says about "pluralize." Toon on top from Theo. Photo from No Pasaran
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