A Primary-Season Poem

With all that Barack & the Democrats have done,
A Republican campaign should be smooth sailin';
But if Rom-i-ney is the nominee,
I'm writing in Sarah Palin.

Do nothing.

I would much rather have a “do nothing” Congress than a repeat of the Pelosi-Obama-Reid Congress of 2008–2010.

What a demagogue.

Ooh, this just pisses me off.

You are not “a warrior for the middle class.” You are a warrior for the low-class, entitlement-class losers who see themselves only as victims. Seriously. Surely everyone knows that the tax rate goes up as one’s income goes up.

The only way “a billionaire [would] pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher” (rather than a higher rate) would be if Congress were to pass the flat tax.

Doesn’t anybody edit Obama’s speeches?

Doesn’t anybody edit Obama’s speeches? Where are all the teachers’ union employees?

“ ‘Either we gut education and medical research or we’ve got to reform the tax code so that the most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don’t get. We can’t afford to do both.’ ”

Assuming for the moment that either gutting education and medical research or reforming the tax code to eliminate tax loopholes would reduce the budget deficit, doesn’t he mean that we can’t afford to do neither?

If either of these would reduce the budget deficit, wouldn’t it be better (from a budget deficit perspective) to do both? What does he mean when he says, “We can’t afford to do both.”? By his own logic, doesn’t Obama have this exactly backwards? Who edits this stuff?

The Obama Tax

The fact that Obama seems to like toxic programs that don't take effect until 2013 or beyond, such as Obamacare and the Buffett tax, has given me an idea.

The Republicans in the House should propose and push an explicit Obama tax—a 50% tax rate, across the board (payroll, capital gains, whatever the source)—on anyone making more than $20K that takes effect in 2013 only if Obama is reelected.

Cult of Personality

“ ‘If You Love Me, Ask Congress to Pass My Jobs Bill’ ”?

Who but a freaking narcissist would say something like that? And who but a bunch of sycophantic zombies would go along with him?

What I Want

What I want is for Sarah Palin to announce that she’s running—and to make the race a clear and distinct choice between her vision for America and the vision espoused by Barack Hussein Obama (PBUH).

Just Another Leftist Meme

I have to link to this article just because it’s so stupid. How hard is it to understand? The deficit and the debt are not due to a lack of revenue. They’re due to an excess of spending. Sheesh. Just stop spending so much already, OK? “And he never explained to the American people in plain language the reason for Republicans’ intransigence — that they would rather the United States default on its debt than oblige the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of the tax burden.” Oh, and the lack of revenue is not due to low tax rates. The lack of revenue is due to oppressive government policies that are stifling economic growth.

The Marketing of Evil

I recently finished reading David Kupelian’s 2005 book, The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom.

I found it generally interesting, although I thought his characterization of Catholicism did not make a lot of sense in that he dismissed it for being hierarchical and yet blamed its perceived problems on the seminaries rather than on the hierarchy.

I liked his characterization of the dangers of a leftist, subversive press, though:

[A] subversive press…generates a subtle but powerful pressure on [a Republican] president and other [Republican] leaders. Put yourself in the president’s place. You’re basically always surrounded by the press corps—professional on the surface but secretly hostile to you and, in fact, hostile to the foundational values underlying Western civilization. They’re watching every move you make, recording every word that comes out of your [mouth], looking for ways to undermine you. Remember—they wanted someone else to win the office you hold.

The leftist, subversive press has been anything but subtle and secretly hostile, though, where Sarah Palin is concerned, and she knows it—and so does everyone else, for that matter; fortunately for her, they’ve overplayed their hand, in my opinion, marginalizing themselves instead of her.

The Republican party needs to hold an un-convention…

…with Sarah Palin as the unconventional nominee.

More on The Little Toy Dog

While most of The Little Toy Dog deals with the flyers’ imprisonment in Lubyanka, the part that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end occurred near the end of the book, during their transit back to the United States:

Meanwhile at nine-thirty that morning, the big Constellation from Amsterdam was letting down her landing gear on the approach to snow-covered Goose Bay Field. Bruce Olmstead had slept soundly across the Atlantic since, just before take-off, he had been given a sedative. John McKone had dozed fitfully. When they opened the plane’s door, there by the runway was a cluster of staff cars—in the lead, one flying the flag of a four-star general. For whom could this be? They had no brass like this aboard. At the foot of the ramp the two captains were greeted by the Wing Commander, a smiling bird colonel who told them to pile in, that car was theirs; the Air Force at Goose was giving four-star honors today to its two recovered goslings.

I guess one probably would have to have been in the military to realize the significance of this. Officers above the rank of Colonel are called flag officers because they get their own flags—one-star flags for Brigadier Generals up through four-star flags for Generals. When a flag officer is in his car, the car gets a flag mounted on it; when a car with a flag on it goes past everyone salutes that flag.

The Little Toy Dog

I read The Little Toy Dog this past weekend. It’s the true story of the two surviving crewmembers of a reconnaissance plane that was shot down in the Barents Sea who were imprisoned by the Soviets from July 1960 to January 1961.

I liked the book very much. My favorite part, strangely enough, is from the Preface, where the author talks about the publisher “graciously accepting [the book’s] title against his seasoned judgment,” going on to say:

Anyone in the book trade will realize why he warned us, for our colorless, understated title utterly ignores both the excitement of the shoot-down and the high drama in the interrogations, refers to an utterly unimportant episode in the book, and is meaningless to anyone who has not finished it.

I wonder, though, if the book might not have gotten more notice if the author could have at least settled on a concise subtitle. Instead, there is one subtitle (or no subtitle, but a longer description instead) on the dust jacket, a different subtitle on the half title (which is not supposed to have a subtitle at all), and yet another subtitle on the title page.

And, besides, I wouldn’t call the figurine a little toy dog, anyway. I’d call it a little plastic (or rubber?) dog—or I’d call it a little Snoopy dog. Maybe the publisher couldn’t get permission from Charles Schultz to call it a little Snoopy dog—or maybe Michelle Marie Palm never called it that.

Where is the President on this?

Why isn’t our President speaking out against this lawlessness?
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=81873

Life is Weird

My recently-graduated-from-college 2nd daughter just officially got engaged. She and her betrothed met at school on the other side of the state (4‐5 hours away) but he and his family live only 1½ hours away from us; we’ve been to his parents’ house and his parents have been to our house. His parents already seem like my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, which feels odd since my mother and my mother-in-law first met on my wedding day and hardly ever saw each other.

When I left home at seventeen, I did not even consider staying close to home—or returning close to home or even living near any of my siblings; it wasn’t until 8‐10 years later, after I’d become a father, that I realized the, um, shall we say, babysitting benefits of living close to family members; I’d be willing to bet that my daughter and her future family will live at least somewhat close to one set of in-laws. What’s more, in this age of e-mail and Facebook, it’s comforting to know that my daughter should also be able to stay in touch with friends from school—something else that at her age I hadn’t really considered important.

Aw, well; at least I can take some comfort from the fact that my daughter does not seem to be repeating all my mistakes.

Best wishes to her.

Will She or Won’t She?

So, will Sarah Palin run or won’t she?

I think she will run. I think it’s stupid to think she could have a stronger role as a “Kingmaker”; I think she would lose all the media attention the moment she announced that she was not going to run.

I think she has to run; the media would have a field day, otherwise, laughing at her and calling her a coward and then ignoring anything else she has to say.

I don’t think she’s a coward. I think she will run and I think she will win.

1984

I just finished reading (re-reading?) 1984. I thought I’d read it before, but what I remembered as my favorite part of the book ... was not even in the book. My new theory is that what I remembered as my favorite part of 1984 is actually a scene from Fahrenheit 451.

George Orwell was a Socialist, in any case. His ideas on Capitalism were seriously flawed.

That is all.

Fascist Is as Fascist Does

Compare President Obama's statement exhorting “businesses to ‘step up’ and hire workers” with the approach taken by the Nazis to end the depression in Germany—from The Nazi Seizure of Power, p. 270:

After the initial discussion [Local Group Leader] Girmann spoke in summary. He promised to attack legal [?] competition. He affirmed that Nazism was committed to the idea of decent profits. But he also swore he would crack down on anyone cutting wages, hoarding money instead of investing it, or working employees overtime.

Talk about ominous parallels...

Hope Springs Eternal

Gee, if this guy had been running in 2008 I would have voted for him, too. Must be some other Obama, though, because the One we got is a flaming leftist from way back.

But seriously, folks, this is how the guy got elected. Gee, don't he sound great? [And, of course, the lamestream media didn’t challenge these characterizations since they were, and are still, in bed with him. — Ed.]

I weep for our country.

Ah, well, hope springs eternal. Palin 2012.

Osama bin Laden is Dead

Finally.

Disingenuous

A picture dictionary would have BHO’s portrait beside the word “Disingenuous”.

From his campaign speech yesterday, courtesy of Commentary Magazine:

‘I don’t need another tax cut. ... And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that’s done so much for them. Washington just hasn’t asked them to.’

 Anyone who wants to give back to their country is free to do so. One can always make a voluntary donation to the U.S. Treasury; even better than that would be to make a direct donation to the charity of one’s choice—heck, one can even do that and then not bother to claim a tax credit for the charitable donation.

And what is this about the wealthy not paying more in taxes because “ ‘Washington just hasn’t asked them to’ ”? Raising the tax rate does not a request make—raising the tax rate a mandate makes. That's not asking.

Dis·in·gen·u·ous.

An attack on the middle class?

How is wanting to impose restrictions on public-sector unions an attack on the middle class? I’m middle class, and I’m not a member of a union—let alone of a public-sector union.

It’d be more accurate to say that public-sector unions are themselves an attack on the middle class, since they’re funded on the backs of the (non–public-sector) middle class.

Avoid TidySongs like the plague.

That is all.

Hitler was not a conservative.

Hitler was not right-wing. Hitler was anti-Communist not because he disagreed with the policies or the goals of the Communists but because he did not like competition. He saw the Communist party as a threat to his own goal of world dominance—but where the Communists wanted to foment internal revolution toward their goal of one world government with Moscow at the center, the Nazis just wanted to conquer other countries outright (although the Soviet Union’s “liberation” of eastern Europe from the Nazis sure looked a lot like conquest); while the Communists were internationalists, the Nazis were nationalists.

Likewise, Hitler was anti-union not because he disagreed with the policies of the goals of the labor unions but because, here too, he did not like competition. The confusion over Hitler’s treatment of labor unions results from a superficial understanding of the Nazi party—but then, what else can one expect from a public school education, where history becomes more of a survey course than something that is used as a source of experiences from which to draw conclusions.

I expect most people think that Nazi is an abbreviation for National Socialism; I expect relatively few people know that the Nazi party was not simply the National Socialist party but was actually the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated NSDAP. What need could Germans under the Nazis have for labor unions? The party was the union. Similarly, what need could Hitler have had for other labor union leaders when he himself was the leader of the Nazi party?

Hitler was not a conservative. And Tea Partiers are not Nazis.

Updated based on an offline comment from my brother: “Hitler was not right-wing by the definition used today in the U.S.”

I would buy a Kindle tomorrow if...

I would buy a Kindle tomorrow if I could get electronic copies for free of all the hardback and paperback books in my collection.

A note to all Canon PowerShot SX120 IS users out there

After removing the memory card from a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS, turn on the camera and then turn off the camera again before re-inserting the memory card; otherwise, the camera will not recognize the memory card—and since, unlike some other digital cameras, it has no internal memory it will not take pictures at all.

My choice for the 2012 Republican ticket

Based on this chart, courtesy of Le•gal In•sur•rec•tion: Palin-Bachmann.

The anti-ticket? Romney-Huntsman.

On How Media Bias Can Be So Pernicious

From Herman Cain’s book, They Think You’re Stupid: Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It, page 105:

Both political parties spend millions of dollars trying to sell their brand identity during elections, when a lot of the perception of their brand is created between elections by . . . (drum roll) the media.

My IMWNO List

I don’t have a bucket list—but I do have a “If Money Were No Object” list. Things I’d buy IMWNO:

Apple iPod nano 16 GB Graphite (6th Generation)
OK, I know it’s only $165, but I already have a 120 GB Apple iPod classic; $165 seems like a lot to pay for a tiny FM radio.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II 21.1MP Full Frame CMOS Digital SLR Camera
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Standard Zoom Lens
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro Lens
As I young man, I spent a lot of time walking around with a 35mm film camera and some lenses, eventually acquiring a Canon A-1, a Vivitar 28-80mm zoom lens, and a Vivitar 70-210mm zoom lens with a macro ring for taking close-up shots. Somehow, a point-and-shoot digital camera just isn’t the same. $6481 is a lot of money, though. (Why not just use the old lenses on a new body, you ask? They won’t fit—different mount types. Everything’s built for auto-focus nowadays.)

2011 Jaguar XKR Convertible in Spectrum Blue Metallic.
’Nuff said. $111,250.

If such a thing were available: a Red Lobster franchise so I could eat there anytime I wanted (sadly, they’re all company-owned).

Run, Sarah, Run

And I hope she wins, too—I'd love to see liberals’ heads explode (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Man, how they hate her.

Ya gotta love it: Sarah Palin accuses the media of committing a blood libel in trying to tie her to the shootings in Tuscon and, instead of responding to her criticisms, they accuse her of being an anti-semite for using the term “blood libel.”