Playing Magic 8-Ball with an Obama victory

If Obama wins the election on Tuesday, we'll certainly be in for some interesting times. While he's reportedly prepared to start lowering the bar on his disciples' expectations, there's no doubt that Obama, with the wind of a Democrat-dominated Congress at his back, will sign off on some, er, interesting legislation, such as the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act and the revival of the Fairness Doctrine.

His economic and tax policies will certainly deepen and lengthen the recession we're entering now, but I don't think we're in for a full-on depression. The inevitable cuts in the military will take years to recover from, much like the post-Vietnam cuts did. The average European might think more highly of the US, but many of the world's political leaders won't respect us, and it'll show in their actions. By mid-2010 or so, many Obama supporters might be saying, "Holy crap...the wingnuts were right."

But we'll survive. Like Jimmy Carter - the last over-promising and under-delivering Democrat to hold the office - Obama will serve one term and be swept out of office in a voter's revolt, taking with him a good number of Congressional Democrats. Think of it as a periodic douching of Washington.

Something that could have happened in 2008.

Dire words of warning

Are Bernard Chapin's words of warning of an Obama presidency over the top, or are we in fact headed for the abyss?

By 2012 or 2016, the alteration of America’s fabric will be severe and profound as we will have socialism in our time. Even though political leftists abhor the word, socialism is entirely in keeping with their cherished preferences and initiatives. They salivate over the notion of omnipotent government and wish to regulate the citizenry in innumerable ways. This is evident in their stance on an individual’s negotiations with his or her employer, their ability to say “no” to union membership, and the absurd belief that carbon dioxide — a life-sustaining chemical compound we exhale — is a “dangerous pollutant” in need of environmental removal.

Read the whole thing and judge for yourself. I guess we'll know soon enough.

Barack Obama: Lowering the bar

Forget "hope 'n change', Obama's campaign theme should have been 'lowering the bar'. He has succeeded in lowering the bar on what we expect for the experience level of a presidential candidate, he's lowered the bar on the expectations of the character of personal and professional associates a candidate for high office should have, and he's lowered the bar for integrity in campaign financing.

So it should come as no surprise that the bar keeps getting lowered on the income levels of Americans who can expect a tax break in an Obama administration. First the upper level was $250,000, which Obama himself lowered to $200,000. Then Biden said it was $150,000. Today, Bill Richardson says it's $120,000.

What the hell is it going to be by January?

Dear Mr. Obama

The video speaks for itself. 11 million views...wow.

Final push

I pulled some time working the phones tonight at the local McCain office here in Fredericksburg, VA and was lucky enough to meet Congressman Rob Wittman, who represents Virginia's 1st district where I live, and Maryland's former Lt. Governor and current GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele. Steele gave a bit of a pep talk to rally the troops. The take away line for me, as he spoke of Obama was, "...the brother's a smooth talker, but I know plenty of smooth talkers who I don't want to be President, either."

Saturday there's a busload of McCain supporters coming down from Washington, so I've volunteered my services (and my van and GPS) to tote them around to do some door-knockin'.

This thing ain't over yet.

Would Barack Obama qualify for a security clearance?

Let's pretend for a moment that Barack Obama, instead of pursuing a career in politics, decided to pursue one in civil service, say as an attorney at one of the intelligence agencies. For all we know he did consider that career option but rejected the notion knowing that he wouldn't have survived the security screening necessary for such a position. After 27 years in the military and getting my initial clearance granted at the tender age of 18, I know a little bit about the process.

Many things are considered when deciding whether to grant an applicant a security clearance, such as financial status, criminal records, drug use and past associations. And the degree to which these things are scrutinized varies with the level of clearance. There are only two levels of clearance; Secret and Top Secret. A secret clearance is necessary for all but a few jobs in the military. A top secret clearance is necessary for more sensitive positions, such as communications, intelligence, operations, and the like. At top secret, there are special areas of access which may be required based on duty assignment. Think of this as "classified", "holy shit! classified" and "holy fucking shit! classified". The higher the classification level, the deeper the anal probing to get cleared for it.

Obama has admitted to past drug use, and even joked that unlike Bill Clinton, he did inhale because that was the whole point. He also admitted to having used cocaine. This might be enough to disqualify him from a security clearance. Contrary to popular belief, admitted past drug use doesn't automatically disqualify an applicant from getting a clearance. If, on the other hand, the applicant doesn't admit to it and it's discovered during the course of the investigation, game over. Not only will the clearance not be granted, but the applicant may end up in Club Fed for making false official statements. In any event, it's up to the adjudicator to decide whether the past drug use admitted to by the applicant disqualifies him, and the adjudicator will take into consideration things like age at the time of use, duration of the "experimentation", etc.

Of far greater concern to the adjudicator are past and present associations and affiliations. These are clear indicators of an applicant's loyalty (or lack thereof) to the United States or of possible criminal activity. Just based on what we know of Obama's associations with Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi and Tony Rezko, no adjudicator would seriously consider granting a clearance to Barack Obama. Throw in his early ties to the New Party and it's a deal-breaker. He probably wouldn't get a clearance for "classified", never mind "holy fucking shit! classified".

If Barack Obama were enlisting in the Army, he'd be assigned a job in the mess hall, yet he wants to be Commander in Chief of all the US Armed Forces.

Scared? Yeah...me too.

Billy Mays for ObamaPrez!

Hi! Billy Mays here, and I want to talk to you today about a new product I'm so excited about, it makes this OxiClean stuff look like yesterday's news! This revolutionary ObamaPrez is so amazing, so extraordinary, you'll never need another leader of the free world ever again!

Yeah...I didn't even watch the Obamamercial last night, but I just know it would have been better if Billy Mays had narrated.

On the other hand...

...the national online media outlets didn't neglect the Sarah Palin wardrobe non-scandal. MSNBC, of course, was all over it.

More news blackouts favoring Obama

In keeping with the national media's goal of burying anything negative on Barack Obama and the Democrats, here's what I turned up when searching four different online news sources for articles about the Obama campaign's breach of fundraising rules. Both CNN and MSNBC turn up nothing, while Yahoo turns up an item posted to PR Newswire by the RNC. In other words, the Republican National Committee had to pay to get the word out. Washington Post does a little bit better with some independent reporting...printed on page A2.

Does anyone seriously think that if the McCain campaign had intentionally disabled credit card security verifications that it would be anything but front page news and in non-stop rotation on CNN and MSNBC?

'Danes used crappy spying tactics on Krushschev'

No, really...they were crappy tactics.

In 'Spionerne Krig' (The Spies' War'), Hans Davidsen-Nielsen describes the bizarre surveillance operation that FE undertook during Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Copenhagen in 1964. Intelligence operatives gathered the waste and urine from Khrushchev's hotel toilet to investigate claims that he was seriously ill.

You've gotta love Jyllands-Posten just for that headline.

Joseph Palermo is fucking nuts

I don't make a habit of visiting left-wing hate site Huffington Post, but Hot Air linked this in their headlines, and like slowing down for a car wreck, I couldn't help myself.

...dozens of strange unmarked planes fly into small regional airports and into private landing fields inside swing districts. Highly trained professionals from an ultra-secret personnel detail tucked deep inside the Department of Homeland Security and answerable only to Dick Cheney swing into action. These federal agents, who comprise a special unit called the "Rapid Domestic Response Team" (RDRT) and comprised of many members from privatized outfits like Blackwater and Dyncorps, wearing business suits and dark glasses, with transmitters in their ears, fan out to the targeted districts and precincts with military efficiency. The agents are armed with duplicate ballot boxes stuffed with the exact number of "ballots" to win each district by a credibly narrow margin. These ballot boxes are also tailored to correspond perfectly with each county's distinct vote counting system complete with the appropriate forged signatures and documentation.

It gets worse. To be fair, Palermo labels his column a "purely fictional scenario", but one can't help but think it's more a fantasy he typed out with one hand as he masturbated feverishly with the other. I think loons like him secretly want this to happen, or at least have reason to believe it happened. Otherwise, what the hell will they do for the next four years? Seriously, think about it. Once Obama is elected and the Democrats have a super majority in Congress and the world is nothing but flowers and cuddly puppies and unicorns, what will they do? Who's going to bother with HuffPo, DailyKos, Democratic Underground and the rest of the left-wing fever swamp?

If these guys had a shred of mental stability, they'd be embarrassed.

Obama speechwriter, HuffPo blogger voting McCain

Caught this item over at Ace of Spades. Like Ace says, this won't get as much play in the press as the Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell defections, but I think this one actually carries even more weight. Wendy Button, an Obama speechwriter and (almost certainly former) Huffington Post blogger, has grown disgusted with the Obama machine and the Democratic party ... and will be voting for John McCain.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked.

[ ... ]

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

[ ... ]

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe?

Welcome to the club, Wendy. I registered as a Democrat when I turned 18 in 1977. The last Democrat I voted for was Bill Clinton in 1992.

Spreading Obama's wealth around

Another good one from slacking co-blogger Mark, who can't seem to get off his lazy ass to post anything, but is forgiven due to the quality of the crap he sends over.

Senator Obama, where are you?

Via Ace of Spades. Let's hope a President Obama has his head a bit more in the game than Senator Obama.

New Obama yard sign

Via my brother and slacking co-blogger Mark. Can I get one of these sized 6' x 9'?

Muslim cleric may face charges for marrying 12-year-old

Because Islamic whackiness doesn't take a holiday just because we've got an election coming up.

A wealthy Indonesian Muslim cleric faces accusations of having illegal sex with a minor after marrying a 12-year-old girl selected for him through a contest.

Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, a 43-year-old owner of an Islamic boarding school, wed and likely slept with Lutfiana Ulfa in August after she won a contest to become Pujiono’s second wife judged by his first wife, 26, and followers, the Jakarta Post reported.

[ ... ]

Additionally, the commission intends to request an edict forbidding marriages to minors as Pujiono has declared plans to also marry a 7-year-old girl and 9-year-old girl, the Post reported.

More here from Jakarta Post.

Obama thugocracy watch: Ohio Democratic political machine grinds on

Ace has the full scoop. The Cliff's Notes version:

• Helen Jones-Kelley, the Ohio Democrat in charge of Ohio's Job and Family Services authorized the computer search on Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher
• Ohio's Democrat governor Ted Strickland is "satisfied" there was no political motivation behind the search
• Jones-Kelley donated the max $2,300 to the Obama campaign
• Jones-Kelley claims that this is a common practice when someone is "thrust quickly into the public spotlight"

Not. Buying. It. This is another great thing we have to look forward to during an Obama administration. Democrats will leverage the instruments of state power to stifle dissenting voices with impunity.

Columbus Dispatch article here.

Spreading the wealth around = reparations for slavery?

Proving that his rope line response to Joe the Plumber wasn't merely a throw-away comment, this interview from 2001 reveals Barack Obama discussing not whether it's right to redistribute wealth as a means of reparation for past wrongs, but the best way to go about it. He also describes the Supreme Court as "restrained" by the founding fathers and the constitution. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will. At least now we know what a "community organizer" does.

With his assertion that the legislative process is the right way to get it done, does anyone doubt that a President Obama with a supermajority Democratic Congress won't do it?

We also know now what "hope and change" mean. If this guy gets elected, you hope you'll have enough change to ride the bus.

Hat Tip: Ace of Spades

A non-endorsement

Our local paper, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, took the weasel's way out and declined to endorse a candidate for president. Instead, they urged readers to ask themselves a few questions and then vote for the candidate they believe best fits. Among the questions:

Which candidate is apt to both appreciate the economic freedom that boosts living standards and protect workers, investors, and pensioners from the ruinous avarice of boardrooms where decency's chair sits empty?

Which candidate is less promiscuous in his appetite for new federal programs? Which is more credible in his promises to streamline government--and to see that Washington's truly legitimate functions are competently performed?

Which candidate more greatly respects federalism--the doctrine that states matter and that most public problems should be solved at the state or local level?

In foreign affairs, which candidate will withdraw U.S. troops more responsibly from Iraq? Which will conduct the war in Afghanistan more effectively? With which will you feel safer when sabers, perhaps bearing nuclear symbols, rattle in Iran, North Korea, China, or even Russia? Which candidate is better suited to repair America's tattered alliances and restore America's standing in the eyes of the world's leaders and peoples? Which can better distinguish American exceptionalism from American arrogance?

Which can be better trusted to ensure the integrity of America's borders while extending a welcoming hand to law-abiding newcomers? Which is likely to speak more effectively to a an increasingly heterogeneous nation, and to communities and individuals of mixed race?

Which candidate is more likely to confront ominous global climate trends soberly? To protect America's wilderness and other public resources from spoil?

Which is more likely to appoint judges who judge rather than legislate?

Clearly, Obama is more likely to "confront ominous global climate trends" and to "speak more effectively to an increasingly heterogeneous nation, and to communities and individuals of mixed race". But the very presence of those questions is an indicator that the paper's editors don't have a grasp on what's really important. The rest of the questions around the economy and foreign policy make John McCain a self-selecting choice, and the candidate who's most effective in those areas will have spoken far more effectively to the "increasingly heterogeneous nation" than the candidate whose lofty rhetoric says much yet does nothing.

The editorial also suggests that readers amend the list of questions when weighing their vote. OK, so how about "Which candidate has fewer ties to domestic terrorists?" or "Which candidate has more than 143 days of national legislative experience?"

C'mon, FLS editors...grow a pair and take a stand.

A 'caveat-laden' endorsement

ABC News' Jake Tapper points out an odd endorsement by Leon Wieseltier, literary editor at The New Republic, which immediately brought to mind those focus group members I posted about a little over a week ago. Sure, they know he'll be crappy president, but they're voting for Obama anyway.

For all his articulateness, I still do not know what most moves Obama--what are the two or three grand proposals that he would put before the Congress and the country in the early months of his administration...

I must say that the Ayers affair rankles me, because I would not shake the man's dirty hand...

Obama's passionlessness spooks me...

...the grudging way Obama treats the reversal in Iraq, when he treats it at all, is disgraceful. Tyrants and génocidaires would sleep less soundly during a McCain presidency.

What a time for a novice! I dread the prospect of Obama's West Wing education in foreign policy...

So why is he voting for Barack Obama? Because he's Barack Obama, bitch!

Obama-Biden: Worst foreign policy ticket EVER

Lost in all the hysteria over the economy is the question of national security and foreign policy, things which are still, you know, kind of important. While Obama's disciples rant about Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy chops, they blissfully ignore the shortcomings of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in that area.

First, let's review Obama's foreign policy record because it's easy: None. Now consider Biden's. Sure, it's more extensive in the sense that he's been involved in foreign policy as a member of the senate since 1972, but he's been pathetically wrong on very important foreign policy issues during his tenure. For example, he favored a nuclear weapons freeze at the very moment in history when our weapons build-up was driving the Soviets bankrupt and he voted against the 1991 Gulf War. More recently, he opposed the surge which by every measure has turned Iraq around and shown us light at the end of the tunnel there.

An Obama-Biden administration will be absolutely disastrous to America's standing in the world, no matter how many Europeans suddenly decide they like us again.

The joy of spreading the wealth around

Spotted over at Theo Spark's place. Here's the net effect of Mugabe's efforts to spread the wealth around in Zimbabwe.

Red Sox watch - Postscript

Had the Red Sox not come from behind to win game 5 and then won game 6 with relative ease, the loss to Tampa Bay would have been much harder to take. As it is, they lost with honor and clearly the better team won.

It would have been easy to root for Philly for the championship just out of spite, but I've got to go with Tampa Bay. They worked their asses off all season and I think they've earned it.

Obama thugocracy watch: The institutionalized trashing of Joe the Plumber

Ohio state government computers were apparently used to dig up "dirt" on Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher in a clear violation of law and state policy.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question," he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

The point, you little shitweasel, isn't whether your campaign did it, it's whether the Democrat party establishment in Ohio is using employees and other state resources to do your dirty work. That sure seems to be the case.

Will this story get any traction in the national media? Well, no. I repeat, no.

'Obama Is Beautiful World'

This was linked at AoS last night, who found it here. If you needed just one reason NOT to vote for Barack Obama, this is it.

23 October, 1983

The Reagans pay final respect to US Marines from Beirut

I am a day late in observing the 25th anniversary of the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut.

The global war on terror started, in my opinion, when the Iranians occupied our embassy in Tehran. The Iranians continued their war against us - including this attack in 1983. We cut and run. Reagan should have gone after the Hezbos then and there. Instead we reinforced the lessons the terrorists learned when they took our diplomats hostage: Terrorism works, or at least is low risk. The list of subsequent terror attacks in Lebanon and around the world culminated with 9-11.

25 years ago today I was in Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB. I was near the end of basic, and allowed the minor freedom of going to a recreation center for Coke and junk food. Several Marines where there. And a television. And idiot talking heads. I was mad. As I commented elsewhere:

...and for the first time in my life I saw barely contained Righteous Fury. It wouldn't be too long before I really understood the combination of anger (at the attacker and "higher ups") and the twinge of 'survivor guilt' (an unreasonable emotion if you've done your duty, but if you do your duty you're more likely to feel it, in my opinion).

We continue to honor their memory, even as many have forgotten, and would treat with their murderers "without pre-condition".

We cut and run then, and it brought us 18 years of grief. Soon our nation will elect Barack Obama president. You do the math.

-
A post by Mark

OPEC screws itself

OPEC voted to cut production by 1.5 million barrels of oil per day in an effort to boost prices and all they got for their effort was another drop in the market-driven price of oil.

Oil fell sharply and traded below $65 a barrel Friday amid weakening global demand for crude -- despite a decision by the OPEC cartel to cut production quotas by 1.5 million barrels a day from next month.

Bwahahaha!! They'll produce less and get less for it. Forget light sweet crude...how about a bit of light sweet Schadenfreude?

It's worth adding that this sets up a possible death spiral for the market price of oil. OPEC nations are well-known to be greedy fuckers. Most member states have been known to cheat on production quotas in order to boost their own oil revenues. Which, of course, puts more oil on the market. Which, of course, drives the market price down further.

Jihadi hijacks Russian airliner to ... Vienna?

Muslim armies failed to take Vienna a few hundred years ago, so what...this guy's gonna try to do it himself?

"At 5.20 p.m. one of the passengers on a flight from Adler to Moscow cried 'Allah Akbar' [In case you're wondering why I assumed Muslim jihadi. --ed.] and announced that the flight had been hijacked and demanded to change the course from Vnukovo (airport outside Moscow) to Vienna," Reuters quotes Russian news sources as reporting.

A very early report, so the article at the link is bound to change frequently over the coming hour or two.

Sarah Palin coming to town

Our local paper is reporting that Sarah Palin will be visiting our fair city of Fredericksburg, VA on Monday at noon. This must have been a recent addition to her schedule because I usually get e-mails from the campaign well in advance of area visits.

Since Mrs. Poolbar is recovering from surgery, I may not be able to get out of the house for the 3-4 hours it would require to stand around and wait and then attend the actual event, but maybe I can swing by and get some pictures of the inevitable moonbat protesters that are sure to be in the area.

I'm NEVER going to Australia

I've always wanted to visit Australia. I've had friends and colleagues visit there and return telling me how awesome it was. It sure sounds like a great place but given my irrational loathing of spiders verging on arachnophobia, I think I'll have to pass.

THIS amazing image of a mammoth spider devouring a bird was taken in the backyard of a property near Cairns.

The image, which is being cirulated via email worldwide, is real, according to wildlife experts, The Cairns Post reported.

Nope. No. Fucking. Way.

Confirmed: LIberals are nuts

This Huffington Post column by Larry David confirms what sane people have known all along: Liberals are a bunch of neurotic, hand-wringing, bed-wetting head cases.

I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable.

[ ... ]

I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about you either, Larry. Have you considered therapy?

How NOT to sway voters

Some jerk by the name of Harry Chipman of Stafford, Virginia has a unique way of encouraging McCain voters to switch to Obama's side. Instead of persuading us with the greatness of The Enlightened One, he describes McCain voters as follows in an editorial letter in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star:

Here's a profile of your typical McCain voter

Who would vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin?

Answers: (1) Those who can't grasp complex realities and problems or effectively solve them; (2) those whose emotional stability depends on traditions, tight rules, and myths; (3) those who don't know or understand what science is and fear evidence-based, logical discussions; (4) those who lack a substantial moral or ethical structure in their lives; (5) those who worship their lawns [WTF? --ed.] and themselves rather than relieve suffering; (6) those who accept as true their personal prejudices and tradition-colored personal experiences; and (7) those who believe anything is OK if it helps them achieves their goals.

Smooth move, Ex-lax. You just slandered tens of millions of people instead of telling them why they should vote for your candidate.

This tells us more about the typical Obama voter than the typical McCain voter, asshat.

Code Pink loon tries to "arrest" Karl Rove

A Code Pink moron tried to handcuff Karl Rove during a speech he was giving in San Francisco (where else?).

An anti-war protester confronted former Bush administration aide Karl Rove while he spoke at a San Francisco mortgage bankers' meeting.

A statement by the group Code Pink identified the woman as 58-year-old Janine Boneparth, who tried to handcuff Rove in what she called a citizen's arrest for "treason."

Nobody was actually arrested during the incident, despite the obvious attempt at unlawful detention.

OPEC cries poverty

OPEC member states have watched the market price for oil drop like panties from a 2-dollar whore, and they're not happy.

"The era of cheap oil is finished," Iran's Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari boasted on Tuesday.

When asked what price Iran would want for its oil, Nozari declared, "The more the better."

"A few member nations have voiced their intentions of pushing for a cut in production, including Qatar, Iran, as well as OPEC's president Chekib Khelil, who said that output could be slashed by as much as 2 million barrels a day," analysts for Raymond James & Associates told MarketWatch.com.

Drill here, drill now. Fuck these greedy America-hatin', nuke-buildin' bastards.

Hmmm...

Our phone rang a little before 9PM last night and the caller, a woman with a very pleasant voice, asked to speak with either one of two of my two older (adult) children, whom she asked for by first name. I asked who was calling and she gave her name, which matched the caller ID, and said she was a teacher in the area and was calling on behalf of the Obama campaign, along with some of her colleagues.

I told her they weren't available (my daughter doesn't even live with us any more) and I was pretty sure my older boy wasn't interested in talking to her. So she asked if I planned to support Obama in the election and of course I told her that my wife and I were voting for McCain. She pleasantly thanked me for my time and the call ended.

After I hung up, I thought how odd it was that she called and specifically asked to speak to two of the "kids" in the house and not to my wife or me. Then it dawned on me...where might a group of local teachers get a list of young adults of voting age, along with their phone numbers? School records. Possibly older ones, because my youngest is also now old enough and registered to vote.

When one considers that teachers' unions throughout the country are pretty much unanimously united behind Obama, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that this is a wide-spread practice.

So, I fired off an e-mail to the GOP field operative running the local McCain campaign office and related the episode. Let's see if that stirs things up.

Update: Ace of Spades link. Thanks Ace!

Update: Possible explanations beside actual enrollment records are: (1) Student directory, (2) PTA/PTSA records, and (3) voter rolls provided by local party offices.

(1) still sounds like inappropriate use of that type of information and unlikely since my son says he opted out of inclusion in that, (2) again, inappropriate use, and (3) begs the question of why they didn't also ask for my youngest boy, who's been on the voter rolls for over a year.

In any event, I'm now in contact with a local newspaper reporter who's interested in looking into this. I'll put up another post with further developments.

Brownshirts in the media

Wow. Can the media possibly get any deeper in the tank for Barack Obama than this? Samuel J. "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is getting treatment from the media which at one time was reserved for political candidates. Well, Republican candidates, anyway. And all he did was ask Obama a question.

In this regard, the media acts as Obama's very own Sturmabteilung, silencing dissenting voices wherever they find them. It's fucking disgusting and it has to stop. Does the media dig into the lives of private citizens who ask tough questions of John McCain or Sarah Palin? Not a fucking chance. Those citizens are merely curious, concerned voters doing their due diligence in questioning a candidate's positions.

The irony here is that for eight goddamned years, the left has been frothing at the mouth with unhinged rants about the unbridled fascism of the right, yet they don't cite one example of a private citizen being smeared by the media for questioning slandering a Republican. What the media is doing is creating an atmosphere in which private citizens are reluctant to speak out in a public forum lest they risk being put under a microscope by a media looking for shit with which to smear anyone opposed to their chosen candidate.

This November will mark a watershed moment in American history where rather than being elected by the people, a president has been pre-selected by our liberal national media.

Update: Iowahawk says it far better than I.

Red Sox watch

Well, the Red Sox really brought the crazy in game 5. I was still in New Orleans Thursday night, and was out to dinner with a couple of colleagues so I missed the first six innings. But I was getting the updates on my BlackBerry and figured I wasn't missing much. A couple guys from our Boston office texted me to tell me which bar they were watching the game at, so after dinner I figured we'd join them and I could drown my sorrows with them. The score was 5-0 Tampa Bay when we got there, and Tampa quickly added two more runs in the 7th.

When Boston finally scored one to salvage a bit of pride, one of my Boston colleagues said he'd streak down Bourbon Street if Boston won. We held him to it, but we allowed him his boxer shorts to spare him the attention of New Orleans's finest.

Bourbon St. Thursday night

They tell me that pre-Katrina, Bourbon Street was packed any and every night of the week. I shot this at around 9:30 PM local time.

The income tax structure explained

A buddy e-mailed this to me yesterday, and given Barack Obama's wealth re-distribution schemes, I thought it was good timing.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

'I felt like I was taking crazy pills'

I saw this Politico item posted in Hot Air headlines yesterday. What more can you say? How do you beat a guy people are voting for even when they don't like him?

Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.

Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama.

[ ... ]

I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I sat on the other side of the glass and realized...this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy....

Indeed.

What we have to look forward to

I caught this the other day on the news, but I've just been too busy this week attending a conference to post anything of consequence. Even if this clip gets played on endless loop on every TV station, 99.9% of Obama's supporters will shrug and say "So what?". This is pretty much what Obama's supporters want.

There's little doubt in my mind that Barack Obama's going to win this election. Unfortunately, this is something we can look forward to and which will have to be constantly fought when he takes office.

Let's just hope Obama turns out to be a one-term wonder.

Truth in advertising?

Spotted this morning on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. No, I didn't go inside. Yet.

WaPo electoral contest

<p><strong>><a href='http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/'>2008 Election Contest: Pick Your President</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the 2008 presidential election and enter to win a $500 prize.</p>

Here's my prediction I entered in the Washington Post "Pick Your President" contest. I'm actually less optimistic than this, but I figured if the unexpected happens I have a better chance of winning.

The entry form lets you provide an explanation with your picks...here's what I said:

Obama picks up a couple of states over Kerry's take from 2004. Marginal states that could have gone his way don't because of blowback from the still-developing ACORN scandal.

Who knows?

The Queen's English?

I'm not sure when I started noticing this. Probably when I started regularly reading British online news. But I'm pretty sure that referring to singular nouns such as a team, band or company in the plural form is a relatively recent development.

Shouldn't the teaser for the Telegraph article shown above read "The team gives their verdict on Audi's latest SUV, the Q5. Is it as groundbreaking as Audi claims?"

I've noticed this start to creep into US media, as well. It's just one of those things that makes my eyelid twitch, like when someone says "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less". Every time I hear that I want to whack the idiot in the mouth with a 2 x 4 and scream, "Oh, so you do care, so you could care less?"

Hey, it's easier than worrying about the next Great Depression.

Naming names

It's about frackin' time. Hearing John McCain refer to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd as "co-conspirators" in the financial market meltdown gives me a ... thrill up my leg.

Obama has 99 problems (but a bitch ain't one)

There's a lively thread going over at Ace of Spades HQ in which Ace invited PUMAs deeply opposed to Barack Obama to offer up suggestions on how to fight the monster and get more Dems into the McCain camp. I had no idea how deep the PUMAs' resentment towards Obama went. I knew much of it came from the perceived sexism of Obama's campaign, but I hadn't heard about this particular bit:

As Obama and his wife, Michelle, strolled triumphantly into his victory party in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 3, Jay-Z's "99 Problems" was blaring. In it, Jay raps, "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one."

Some listeners took it as a not-so-sly reference to Hillary.

Uh, yeah...duh. Ace has the vid posted, so I'm not going to put that crap up here. Hey, this is a clean fucking blog, you know?

Anyway, can you freakin' imagine the hue and cry if McCain pulled something similar? But, no...while the Obamatons mindlessly chant the mantra that McCain is against equal pay for women (there's even an Obama TV ad saying as much), Obama's campaign pays their female employees 84 cents to every dollar a man makes, while McCain's female employees are getting $1.04 for every dollar a male campaign employee makes.

New McCain ACORN ad

This is a good start, but as Ed says, it's too long to get on TV in its current form. Another problem is that it pulls punches in describing Barack Obama's ties to ACORN's role in the financial meltdown. Obama sued CitiCorp on behalf of ACORN to force the bank to issue mortgages to unqualified borrowers. The McCain campaign needs to get this down to 30 seconds and include the lawsuit bit.

Dial-a-Fatwa

Now here's a novel idea...a call center for Muslims to, er, troubleshoot theological issues.

A team of 48 muftis man the telephones from 8am until 8pm delivering fatwas, or formal rulings based on Islamic law.

The service is used by Muslims all over the world, and organisers say it takes about 3,700 calls a day, including queries from Britain.

[ ... ]

One recent dilemma came from a married woman whose alcoholic husband had turned violent, hitting her and forcing her to have sex. She wanted to know if she should seek a divorce.

Mr Ammoura told the Times: "I said, 'No - it is better for him to find help'. A woman living alone with children could face too many problems."

His advice now counts as an official fatwa in the United Arab Emirates, under new rules issued by the General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments.

Wow. So it's now official Islamic doctrine that a woman is better off having her ass kicked and being raped by her drunken husband than kicking his shit to the curb and having his sorry ass thrown in jail.

To-do list for 5 November, 2008

So, I've been watching the polls and making a checklist of things I'll need to do after election day next month.

First will be bumper stickers for my cars:

• "Not my president!" (I think I can lift one off a car at the local college...they won't be needing them any more)
• "Caution: Driver hibernating 'til January, 2013" (I can make one at Cafe Press...maybe they'll catch on)
• "Palin in 2012!" (I think these will be popular...shouldn't be hard to find)

Next thing will be to hide any firearms (that I may or may not have) ahead of the Civilian National Security Force sweeps.

And I think I'll be needing a bicycle. Who the hell knows what gas prices will be with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress and the White House.

Let's see, what else...oh yeah, this:


I'll hide it for safe-keeping.

Rebutting the talking points

On the very day that this post appeared at Hot Air, this editorial letter appeared in our local paper. The subject of both was the Obama campaign talking point casting the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as the origin of the current credit market mess. While it was then-president Bill Clinton who signed the bill repealing the act, the Obama campaign places the blame for pushing the bill on Phil Gramm, an advisor to the McCain campaign. Here's the text of the letter:

This current financial meltdown is just a repeat of some of the causes of the crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression.

One of the main reasons for the crash was that banks were involved in trading securities (stocks) as well as keeping people's hard-earned savings. Once the market crashed, a ton of banks defaulted because they lost money on the market.

In 1933, Sen. Carter Glass and Rep. Henry Steagall got Congress and FDR to pass the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated investment institutions from commercial (savings and loan, mortgage) banks.

The Act worked great until 1998, when Travelers Insurance wanted to merge with Citibank. After Citi and its allies spent $200 million in lobbying Congress and raising $150 million in political donations along with former JPMorgan director and then-Fed chairman Alan Greenspan's push, Congress repealed the 1933 Act.

Guess who co-sponsored the repeal--Phil Gramm, John McCain's former campaign economic advisor.

And the Treasury Secretary who heavily influenced President Clinton to sign the repeal was Robert Rubin, who later got a job with Citicorp.

Because of the investment-commercial bank mergers, these newly directed institutions began, among other crazy things, aggressively pushing subprime mortgages because these high-yielding instruments became "investments" instead of old-fashioned, stable, traditional mortgages.

This, in turn, affected people's hard-earned savings in these investment banks because of all the mortgage defaults.

You'll never hear any presidential candidate say they want to re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act because of the large amount of campaign donations from such entities, even though it would be the sensible thing to do.

Until the Glass-Steagall Act is reinstated, this mess will continue to cost taxpayers billions, with no end in sight.

My own editorial letter rebutting this claim appeared in today's edition:

Gary Olsen's Oct. 1 letter about the Glass-Steagall Act requires a response to set the record straight ["Repeal of Glass-Steagall Act is what fueled the crisis"].

Glass-Steagall is the latest Barack Obama campaign talking point to misdirect the blame for the current financial crisis toward Phil Gramm, a McCain campaign adviser. This is a red herring.

Repeal of Glass-Steagall wasn't a classic act of deregulation, as the Democrats like to describe it. It sailed through the Senate on a 90-8 vote, which included "yes" votes by such notable Democrats as John Kerry, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, and Joe Biden.

Bill Clinton, far from being "heavily influenced," as Mr. Olsen puts it, by then-Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, said in a recent interview on this matter: "I have really thought about this a lot. I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis."

The current mess has nothing to do with Glass-Steagall and everything to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac promoting loans to unqualified buyers and repackaging them as securities that they then sold to investment banks.

When the Clinton and Bush administrations tried on multiple occasions to reform and more closely regulate Fannie and Freddie, they were blocked at every turn by Democrats in Congress.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top five recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees and PACs are Democrats, and Barack Obama managed to rank third on that list in his brief time in national politics.

It's in Obama's best interest to direct accusing fingers elsewhere.

The Obama campaign is energetically getting supporters to write letters to the editor of their local papers to parrot their talking points, and they should be responded to at every turn. Do your part and write a letter to the editor today!

I-95 meltdown

Got on the road from Arlington early enough to beat the traffic home only to be faced with this mess 10 miles shy of my exit. So far, 2 ambulances and a medevac helicopter.

This hotel sucks

Not only can you not get a drink at the bar after midnight, but I ran into Frank Luntz on my way in and he told me his group went for Obama in the debate 19-11.

Yeah, the Key Bridge Marriott sucks.

Best Summation Ever.

Kevin at Exurban League sums up the difference between McCain and Obama:

John Sydney McCain believes America is at it's best when it is a world leader.

Barack Hussein Obama believes America is at it's best when it is following the rest of the world.

And that is called "insight".

This is as good as it gets

According to a British expert on genetics, humans are done evolving...this is as good as we get.

Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert.

Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones of University College London.

Speaking Tuesday at a UCL lecture entitled "Human Evolution Is Over," Professor Jones will argue that there were three components to evolution — natural selection, mutation and random change.

Damn...and here I was hoping my great- great- great- great- great- great- grandchildren would be able to fly and read minds.

Red Sox watch

I really hadn't put much hope in beating the Angels for the division series, but the Sox managed to pull it off, thanks to same late inning heroics by Jason Veritek killing off an attempted squeeze play, then Jed Lowrie driving in Jason Bay for the winning run in the 9th.

Now, of course, we've gotta take on the T-Bay D-Rays for the ALCS...without Mike Lowell, last year's World Series MVP. Lowell suffered a hip injury which will keep him out of that series.

File under bad omens: We went 8-10 against Tampa Bay this season...most of those wins coming in the first half of the season. Of those eight wins, only one of them was in Tampa Bay.

Call me Eeyore.

--- A kibitz from Mark

OK, you're Eeyore. The Red Sox were 1 for 8 against the Angels. Nothing is a done deal, and the Rays played excellent ball - to my disbelief and consternation. But it ain't over until Big Poppi spits on his batting gloves and says it's over.

Fourth Estate? No, Fifth Column

Imagine for a moment that John McCain "palled around" with a former member of a racist, right-wing group. Someone who today was a "mainstream" member of society, but whose group was once notorious for, let's say, abortion clinic bombings and the occasional cross-burning. By "palling around", of course, I don't mean hung out together to watch football or grilled burgers together, but maybe sat on community boards together. Ask yourself this question: What would be the media's narrative of that relationship?

Let's also imagine for a moment that Sarah Palin was a Democrat, chosen by Barack Obama to be his vice-presidential running mate. Everything else about her life story is the same, she's just a Democrat instead of a Republican and she's running with Obama instead of McCain. Ask yourself another question: What would be the media's narrative on Sarah Palin?

Finally, let's imagine that instead of Democrats, it was Republicans who'd persistently blocked all attempts at reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the past 10 years or so, and that instead of Barack Obama, it was John McCain who held second place among sitting Senators in political contributions from Fannie and Freddie employees and political action commmittees. One last question: What would the media have to say about that?

Needless to say, I could go on and on in this vein all day long, but you get the idea. The unfortunate fact is that we no longer have a national media here that's truly impartial and exists only to deliver facts to the American public. When viewing or reading coverage of world events, one gets the feeling that the mainstream media has become a de facto fifth column for every cause antithetical to US interests. It's perhaps for this reason that the media sees nothing wrong with Obama "palling around" with a domestic terrorist with no regrets over his past activities.

Peace activist: Nobel Peace Prize misused

Peace activist Fredrik Heffermehl, president of the Norwegian Peace Council and vice-president of the International Peace Bureau, says that just one prize awarded in the last seven years actually meet the criteria outlined by Alfred Nobel.

Al Gore and the Panel on Climate Change, Muhammad Yunus, Wangari Maathai, Shirin Ebadi, Mohamed El-Baradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency - IAEA are among the many awards which Heffermehl think conflict with Nobel’s wishes.

This doesn't come as a shock to those of us who've watched the Nobel Peace Prize handed out in recent years to people who've done little to actually, you know, promote peace.

Heffermehl has studied this extensively. He claims that prior to World War II, 85% of awards met the criteria, while only 45% did in the years following the war.

Saudi cleric: Full veil too revealing

A Saudi cleric suggests that the niqab, the head-to-toe covering worn by Saudi women revealing only their eyes, should be made even more concealing by reducing exposure to one eye.

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

Soooo...how are those reforms working out for the Saudis?

How deep in the Obama tank is the media?

This deep. So fucking deep they'll get the bends if they ever try to slither out. That the Associated Press covered this at all is surprising, but I guess as one of the many official Barack Obama media outlets, they had to respond to Sarah Palin's comments about Obama's association with domestic terrorists. Rather than reporting simple facts, the article goes into the spin cycle right away:

While it is known that Obama and Ayers live in the same Chicago neighborhood, served on a charity board together and had a fleeting political connection, it's a stretch of any reading of the public record to say the pair ever palled around. And it's simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts.

That last sentence puts words into Sarah Palin's mouth, a clear sign of AP taking sides. Palin never implied Obama was associated with Ayers during the days of the Weather Underground. Obama was something like nine years old when Bill Ayers was blowing shit up. Not only that, but it trivializes the nature of the connections between Ayers and Obama, which they detail just a bit more further into the article:

Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

Obama was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school-reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.

So, Ayers founded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and Obama was its first chairman. That indicates something more than a passing acquaintance between the two. And when it came time for Obama to seek public office, Ayers hosted a campaign event for him in his home. Again, that takes more than a passing acquaintance.

If Obama just occasionally "palled around" with Ayers, I'd actually be OK with that. I sometimes "pal around" with people with whom I disagree completely on political matters.

Clearly, the nature of Obama's relationship with Ayers requires something more than a fondness for the same beer and sports teams. It requires an ideological affinity with someone who wipes his feet on the American flag, expresses no regrets over his past terrorist activites and doesn't think he did enough in those days.

Update: Via LGF. According to the AP, mentioning Obama's ties to domestic terrorists means you're a raaaaacist.

Red Sox watch

Well, fancy that. Boston has managed to win two games in a row against the Angels, arguably the best team in the AL. And they did it in LA. Or Anaheim...whatever. Now it's back to Boston for two games...but only one if Boston wins tomorrow.

Over in the NL, the Cubbies are down in their division series 2-0. Bummer.

News blackout on pretty much anything negative on Democrats

The mainstream news bias has escalated from shameful to criminal. Sarah Palin is described as "loose with the facts" in last night's debate because she talked about a new natural gas pipeline that's not actually under construction yet. Oh, it's in the works, been approved by the Alaska state legislature and all, it's just not yet under construction. Joe Biden, on the other hand, let loose one falsehood after another, and he "won" according to media reports.

Another item not in the news is the Democrats' culpability in the mortgage mess. Barney Frank (D-MA), who's openly gay, was in a relationship with Herb Moses while Moses was Assistant Director for Product Initiatives at Fannie Mae. Yeah, that's a Fox News link. They're the only ones covering it. Searches on cnn.com, Yahoo News, MSNBC and Washington Post all turned up nothing. Zip, nada, zilch:


So, Barney Frank was, quite literally, in bed with Fannie Mae and the media's not talking about it. Why?

Bailout good or bad?

Which is it, Wall Street? When the House failed to pass the bailout bill on Monday, the Dow dropped nearly 800 points. Today, as the House was preparing to vote and all signs pointed to passage, the Dow was up around 300 points. But as soon as it passed, the Dow started dropping again and ended up closing down 157 points.

WTF?

Palin-Biden debate

So Sarah's big moment to shine - or crash and burn - comes in just over half an hour. This will be an interesting one to watch.

I've no doubt that Gwen Ifill will hit Biden and Palin equally with gotcha questions, the difference being, of course, that the questions chosen for Biden will be ones such as "What's your favorite color...and why?", while Palin will get "What were the long-term implications of the Pullya-Pudoff Act of 1871?". Ace thinks the setup will be far more subtle, and he's probably right.

In any event, Palin needs to "be real" and be ready with responses like "Look, you little in-the-tank bitch...I'm a candidate for Vice President, not a fucking contestant on Jeopardy." Or maybe Palin should just open up with "Hey Gwen...how's that book coming along?"

Postscript: First, I have to give credit to Gwen Ifill for doing an excellent, impartial job. Palin did a stellar job, though I'm sure it'll be spun by the media tomorrow into a failure. Biden was gracious without being condescending and neither one made a serious gaffe that I caught. Overall, Palin was the better of the two. Yeah, I'm biased...so sue me.

Is there a code of silence or something that's keeping the McCain campaign from calling out the Democrats' culpability in the credit mess?

Update: I was apparently watching better than I was listening. My ears did perk up a bit when Biden talked about how we "threw Hizballah out of Lebanon" but I'd pretty much put that out of my mind later, and I took his military cost figures on Iraq and Afghanistan as hyperbole. But on further review, yeah, Biden frequently lied, twisted, or just plain got things wrong.

Best McCain ad yet

This ad riffing on Joe Biden's legendary capacity for jackassed gaffery rocks. Hell, even if you're an Obama/Biden supporter it's gotta be hard not to at least chuckle.

H/T: Hot Air

Red Sox watch

The Red Sox of the past four or five years aren't the team I grew up with. Unlike earlier versions, this team manages to get their stuff together for the post-season to at least be competitive. We managed last night to beat the dreaded Angels - who thoroughly owned us all season - 4-1 to take the first game of the AL East division series.

Is it too soon to ponder the imponderable - a Red Sox-Cubs World Series?

A breather

Taking a breather before the inevitable stream of posts marking the decline and crash of the global economy.

Ever wonder what a vocal track sounds like when it's laid down in the studio? Me neither. Before you hit "play", a word of warning. If you're a fan of Van Halen's Running With The Devil as I am, this might be painful. Or maybe just funnier than all hell. Apparently the rest of the band had already recorded the instruments and backing vocals. What you're hearing, I guess, is David Lee Roth listening on headphones to the stuff already recorded by Eddie and Co. and belting out the lead vocals.