what’s your score?

Recent polling data helps us to refine the picture of a “not-Obama” voter quite a bit. How do you score? (follow the link for the entire 25 points)

If you’re an independent, moderate or conservative on the fence about whether to vote for McCain or Obama, here’s a helpful guide:

It’s unlikely you’ll vote for Obama if you….
1. aren’t a news anchor.
2. read the New York Times for pretty much the same reason the NSA monitors radio transmissions.
3. automatically conclude that the person laughing in the car next to you must be listening to Rush. Or maybe Obama off teleprompter.
4. dislocated your shoulder trying to explain Obama’s position on Iraq to co-workers.
5. find autobiographies generally more interesting when the author has, you know, done something.
6. remember the Carter Administration.

(The Corner on NRO)

Life After Graduation, Day 2

I have my master’s degree in history. Woot! The Duchess and I are going to trade places soon — I’m going back into the working world, and she’s going to do grad school. Tonight is resume night. Good times.

Also, now that my summer class, my final paper, summer vacation, language test and comprehensive exams are out of the way, I can get back to the important things in life, like blogging.

I’ll post some vacation pictures from Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon tomorrow, and we’ll jump back into politics with some stuff on Russia and Georgia. Speaking of Russia, if any of you are looking to hire a historian / Russian linguist, let me know. College loans come due in six months!

The Unknown Citizen

This poem simply cannot be republished too frequently:

The Unknown Citizen
To JS/07/M/378
This Marble Monument is Erected by the State

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, (more…)

wait for it… wait for it…

Some folks aren’t sure this is the best line of attack, and no doubt it could be overdone, but–this is very effective stuff, I think, at least where I’m concerned. And let’s not forget that for McCain, motivating folks like me (right-libertarians only mildly enthusiastic about Republicans on our best days) is a big deal, too. I laughed out loud, with relief that someone was able to make this point, as much as anything.

See if you can help guffawing when the zinger hits:

(thanks to Power Line: “The One”)

Obama returns to failed policies of the past.

Do you think the recent economic stimulus package was good for America?

To any random Tom, Dick, or Harry on the street finding themselves $600 richer, they couldn’t be happier! But in reality, all the government did was mint more currency that further devalues the dollar and increase the rate of inflation. Not to mention that pesky half trillion dollar budget deficit that looms over our Federal Government next year…

Obama has found a way to solve that problem though. Instead of the government paying for the stimulus checks by deficit spending and an injection of what amounts to fake money into the economy, he’s going to try something brand new steal from the rich and give to the poor!

The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall.

…Obama “is proposing to offset the cost of his emergency energy rebates over the next five years by enacting a windfall profits tax on big oil companies.”

Instead of allowing these oil companies to spend those profits on oil and natural gas exploration, drilling, collection, and distribution, we’re going to force the company to relinquish its profits. Assuming for a moment that another $500 check in my pocket is a good thing, where is the long term solution in this proposal? Where is the new politics that Obama has promised? Where is the change? A $500 check in my pocket now does NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING to alleviate the continuing problem of increasing global demand, shrinking supplies, and an oil industry beholden to government bureaucrats, red tape, regulation, and a do-nothing congress.

Expanded oil exploration and drilling is a financially sound, logical long term solution to the energy crisis that will still be here in one year, two years, five years, or ten years.

Where is the change, Mr. Obama? How will we be better off in four years than we are now? With your plan, gas will still be over $4.00 a gallon by the time you leave office, and our energy producing infrastructure will still be aging and stagnant because you wouldn’t let the industry respond to the demand.

How’s this, Torchbearer?

I just don’t know what to say

This is just–I mean, if this were Richard Pryor playing a part, he couldn’t be much more self-parodying than some of this stuff:

(via Power Line: Get This Man A Teleprompter!)

Barack Obama: Gaffe Machine Pt. 2

In this installment of Gaffe Machine, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite gaffes from the Messiah himself, Barack Nobama.

If you thought there were only 50 US states, you would be wrong. Why? Because Nobama has been to 57 states.

Everybody knows that when, if you, if you just, when you gave them treatment, we’d save the children!

Ok, let’s cut through the BS and get some honest foreign policy statements from Barack.

How much money is the Iraq war costing us? Well… I’m not too sure, and niether is Barack.

Even Letterman, a dyed in the wool liberal, notices something wrong when Obama speaks.

Does anyone even know what is going on here?

About halfway through this video, we watch Obama dance around the surge issue.

This is just a sampling of my favorite Obamisms. Listening to this man stutter, pause, break mid-sentence to collect his thoughts, and watching him sit there looking like an intellectual wasteland is just painful. I’m glad that more and more Conservatives are starting to hammer this in, because it’s long overdue.

Cue Orwell…

It’s been said before, but it bears repeating. Orwell wasn’t too far off.

As Governor Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday signed a new law that will put in place tougher penalties for selling guns to minors, he also announced he’s got a new idea to help combat the violence that Chicago is experience [sic].

Ole’ Bag-o-tricks has an ace up his sleeve, eh? Could it be that he is coming around to the idea of letting free citizens, free law abiding citizens in this great nation, carry weapons for self-defense? Let’s read on…

…he’s talking to the Illinois State Police and the National Guard to see if they could help.

Oh. Well, I should’ve guessed. Let’s look at the line of logic that our lovely Chicago liberals are exhibiting.

1. Pass laws against the freedom of self defense. Specifically, in Illinois there is no form of open or concealed carry of a firearm.
2. Disarm the populace ala a Washington D.C. style gun ban in Chicago.
3. Watch as homicides and violent crime in Chicago jump to record highs.
4. Blame the problem on a lack of police.
5. Hire more police.
6. Blame the problem on a lack of police and those damn dirty assault weapons.
7. Hire more police. Pass an assault weapons ban, ban high capacity magazines, continually lobby for tougher laws.
8. Blame the problem on a lack of police.
9. Send in the national guard, state police, and hire more Police, to “protect the people.”

Remember that amendment about troops not being quartered in homes? How long until Illinois, in its infinite wisdom, decides to start quartering Police in our homes?

I have an idea, why not let free people defend themselves? Free people do not need the national guard, state police, and city police to protect them in their own home town. Will Illinois ever see a concealed carry law? Let’s hope so. Do it for the children.

messianism watch

Go right now and read this article: “Obama, Shaman” by Michael Knox Beran. We’ve discussed the peculiar and perverse nature of Obama’s appeal–more than just another dishonest, pandering politician, Obama is the chief representative of a religious politics (see his Oprah-fied “spiritual” gloss on the seething Marxist rancor of his spiritual mentor Wright). Those of us who believe that the Body of Christ should keep its citizenship straight, those who believe the State and the Church should not breed their monstrous totalitarian offspring, have plenty of reasons to resist Obama.

Obama is the perfect test of our culture: we ought to reject him simply for the false spirituality essential to his politics; we ought to reject him for the politics, themselves; and we ought to reject him for using the two together, to the harm of both. And yet–as a consequence of our spiritual vacuity and our failure of political will, our disregard for both Truth and Republic–we like him.

Oh, not all of us. But enough that this botch of a man is running for President, and even beat out Hillary’s “politics of meaning” for the chance to succeed “compassionate conservatism” as the next mile marker on the road to serfdom.

Obama, Shaman by Michael Knox Beran, City Journal Summer 2008 via kwout

music to my ears

Illinoisans may have a governor with dim respect for the state constitution (but, hey, why should the states be more constitutional than the nation?) and less concern for blatant corruption, but at least it’s got some mayors who don’t think it’s worth fighting The Supremes. Sorry, that would be the Supreme Court. Ahem. Anyway, some poetic justice has Morton Grove likely to be one of the first local handgun bans dropped in the wake of Heller:

Both Morton Grove and Wilmette were among the cities sued on Friday by the NRA. Their decisions are sensible. While the issue of Second Amendment incorporation is still unresolved, Richard Daley’s government in Chicago can spend its own funds to fight the issue all the way to the Supreme Court. If Daley wins, the suburbs can re-institute their bans. If Daley loses (an outcome that seems more likely than not if the Supreme Court takes the case), then Wilmette and Morton Grove have saved themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorneys fees, since they would have to pay their own lawyers, and have to pay the plaintiffs’ lawyers for bringing a successful civil rights claim.

(Volokh Conspiracy, The First Dominos Fall: Morton Grove and Wilmette Handgun Bans)

Don’t worry, folks. After all, the cities can still take your property if someone whose taxes will be higher wants to buy it from them….you needn’t go into shock at the sight of a Constitutional liberty being upheld. There’s still plenty being trampled.

Asides

• Patronizing and stupid, in one neat package: (more...) #
• Film reviews interrupted by news of storm troopers patrolling American cities! #
• Big Brother is watching you, Newark: Preventing Crime With Tech: The Newark Experiment. (more...) #
• The wheels on the bus are comin' off, comin' off, comin' off: Power Line: Obama appeases a race hustler (more...) #
• an excellent thought from Jay Nordlinger: (more...) #