Two words for Bob Rae and Stephane Dion over the Harper "Speechgate" issue...

"Green Shift" inc...

Domestic espionage? The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

by James Simpson: "...One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:

"Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)

Newsmax rounds out the picture:

Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth."

[...]

FauxBama

In Friday night's US presidential debate, advantage McCain, the defining moment, perhaps, may be Barack Obama's having to think and look down to read the name of the dead soldier inscribed on the memorial bracelet he wears, given to him by a grieving mother (mimicking the bracelet McCain got from Matthew Stanley's mom a year ago). Watch the video... Me too, me too!

Flashback 1993: Assault on the mortgage lenders: in the name of racial justice...

FindArticles > National Review > Dec 27, 1993 > Article

Assault on the mortgage lenders: in the name of racial justice, the Clintonites want the power to decide who gets a home of his own - efforts to impose regulations on banks to make loans even if applicants are not creditworthy

Robert Stowe England

QUIETLY, behind the scenes, the Clinton Administration is preparing for the biggest regulatory crackdown of recent years. Attorney General Janet Reno is linking up with banking regulators and with HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros to end the supposed epidemic of discrimination against minorities in making home loans. The implications for society at large are ominous.

Here, as in affirmative-action efforts in hiring, college admissions, and the drawing of voting districts, the Washington establishment is obsessed with "disparate impact," which it equates with racism. In the mortgage-lending area, there is ample evidence of disparate impact to feed this obsession. Data collected by the Federal Government reveal that in 1992, while 16 per cent of white applicants for mortgage loans were rejected, 36 per cent of black applicants were rejected.

But does disparate impact indicate racism? According to Lawrence Lindsey, the Federal Reserve governor who oversees the collection of mortgage-lending data, even the celebrated Boston Fed study that inspired this crusade found that factors other than race--such as one's credit record and whether one has sufficient income to meet the payments--are enough to account for nearly all the difference in rejection rates. Furthermore, a different analysis of the data in the Boston Fed study by David Horne, an economist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, finds no evidence of a pattern of discrimination. In any case, Census data show whites and blacks, taken as groups, have similar default rates. If discrimination were in fact occurring--that is, if banks were applying a higher standard to blacks than to whites--you would expect blacks to have a lower default rate.

The essentially irrational assumption underlying the notion that there is widespread discrimination in mortgage lending seems to be that lenders are willing to give up good profits in order to feed their subtle but thorough-going racism. Says Senator Don Riegle (D., Mich.), "They talk about how the free-enterprise system is supposed to work, but it's sophistry, as we all know." Senator Riegle (one of the Keating Five who plans to retire rather than run for re-election next year) has made a holy crusade of mortgage-lending discrimination since he took over the Senate Banking Committee in 1989.

Senator Riegle has found enthusiastic allies in the Clinton Administration, particularly Attorney General Reno, Secretary Cisneros, and Comptroller of the Currency Eugene Ludwig. As Ludwig told the Senate Banking Committee, "We have to use every means at our disposal to end discrimination and to end it as quickly as possible."

One Size Fits All

MR. LUDWIG'S idea of ending discrimination is for blacks and whites to have the same rejection rates, regardless of the legitimate reasons for differences. The crackdown is already well under way, as the Administration turns many of its bank examiners into discrimination police by re-interpreting the Fair Lending Act of 1968 and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.

The primary responsibility of banking regulators--the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision--has always been the safety and soundness of banks and thrift institutions. In the last few decades a separate cadre of bank examiners for fairness and consumer protection has been established. These so-called "compliance examiners" represent the shock troops of the Clinton assault. Ludwig is increasing the number of OCC compliance examiners from 330 to 530 by next year. Already they've been busy examining loan files; their work has resulted in four referrals to the Department of Justice for further investigation. Miss Reno, meanwhile, has chastised the other bank regulatory agencies, including the Federal Reserve, before the Senate Banking Committee for failing to get with the program.

While Justice has not yet identified any of the four referrals, two of them have publicly identified themselves: Shawmut National Bank of Hartford, Conn., the largest mortgage lender in New England, and Barnett Bank of Jacksonville, Fla. Only two weeks after Miss Reno's slap at the banking regulators in Senate testimony, the Federal Reserve Board, usually not prone to politicizing its bank examinations, prevented Shawmut from acquiring New Dartmouth Bank of Manchester, N.H., under a rarely used provision of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977, claiming Shawmut had discriminated against minorities. While it is impossible to judge the case against Shawmut without more information, the timing of the denial is suspicious. Henry Cisneros quoted Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan as saying in Senate testimony that an end to discrimination would boost economic activity. Mr. Greenspan has made no secret of his campaign to win over the President on the issue of the Fed's independence, endangered by battles with congressional leaders like House Banking Committee Chairman Henry Gonzalez. Thus, the Fed's Shawmut action might be seen as the regulatory equivalent of sitting next to Hillary Clinton at the President's inauguration.

Tightening the Screws

THE SHAPE of the future may be seen in a case that actually pre-dated the Clinton Administration-the case against the Decatur Federal Savings & Loan of Atlanta. That case was referred to Justice during the Bush Administration, and, under the threat of litigation, Decatur Federal agreed to a draconian settlement last year that permeates almost every activity the bank conducts. The settlement includes Maoist-sounding sensitivity training for Decatur's loan officers and recommends bonuses for those who bring in minority loans.

Justice's case against Decatur was not based on individual complaints and contained no proof that any single minority loan was rejected without just cause. It relied entirely on a computer model that attempts to duplicate the factors that banks consider when making loans--a process that is an art, not a science. As Congress's leading mortgage expert, Represehtative Bruce Vento (D., Minn.), explains: "We can't take away the judgment of individual financial institutions about what is a good credit risk. You can't put that into a computer because there are too many uncertainties. You have to have a market test at some point." Nevertheless, Justice's computer concluded that Decatur Federal had discriminated.

The Federal Reserve now has its own computer program too, according to Lawrence Lindsey, who revealed its existence in Senate testimony. The Fed apparently used it to make its case against Shawmut Bank and is using it to ferret out more cases to refer to the Justice Department. Furthermore, under the new examination process at both OCC and the Federal Reserve, compliance examiners can look through an entire mound of applications until they find a single case of an approved white loan applicant whose qualifications are close to those of any rejected minority applicant, which includes blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans. This one close match would establish that the bank had discriminated. Stephen Cross, OCC's deputy comptroller for compliance management, says that perhaps as few as four examples a year would lead to a finding of a pattern of discrimination. Since no two applications are ever identical, this approach allows the discrimination police considerable latitude.

Mr. Ludwig is in the process of rewriting regulations for the Community Reinvestment Act so as to offer further inducements for banks to allocate credit by race. In the past, banks and thrifts were rated on the efforts they made to reach out to minorities. Under a directive from President Clinton, however, Ludwig plans to introduce new CRA regulations that will require lenders to meet certain numerical guidelines in total minority loans. Ludwig calls these "performance-based standards"--that is, they will judge institutions not on their efforts but on the results. Congressional supporters of the performance-based CRA standards, such as Senators Paul Sarbanes (D., Md.) and Carol Moseley Braun (D., Ill.), and Representatives Joseph Kennedy (D., Mass.) and Maxine Waters (D. Calif.), deny they are quotas--but some CRA consultants and Wall Street banking analysts say that banks having trouble finding qualified minority candidates will simply approve the minimum number of bad loans and consider them, as one put it, "blood money for the politicians."

The Clintonites go out of their way to gloss over the real agenda at work in the mortgage crackdown; they insist they would prefer the voluntary cooperation of mortgage lenders and that enforcement is only a last resort. Inside the velvet glove, however, is an iron fist. Miss Reno testified that many banks and thrifts have told her they want to lend more to minorities but have been unable to do so. These benighted institutions must be "educated," she says, in how to recognize discrimination in their own lending practices. It's so subtle and insidious, she explains, that the lenders do not see it themselves.

'Subtle Discrimination'

MISS RENO, like other mortgage militants, believes banks discriminate by such means as telling white applicants how to correct their applications so as to get loan approval, but not telling black applicants. The authors of the controversial Boston Fed study concur. The truth is, however, that most banks now routinely review all rejected minority applications, sometimes passing the loan file to the president's office. The Consumer Bankers Association has found that 88 per cent of banks responding to its annual "affordable housing" survey now automatically review all mortgage rejections.

HUD is also enrolled in the battle to ferret out "subtle discrimination." For now it is concentrating on a group of lenders known as "mortgage bankers," who are not covered by the Community Reinvestment Act. Mortgage bankers do not take deposits and do not hold mortgages in their own portfolios, as banks and thrifts sometimes do. Instead, they sell all their mortgages to investors in the secondary market. These firms are not closely regulated like banks and thrifts; they are therefore not hampered in reaching less profitable markets by the high cost of regulation, and so can be far more aggressive in filling in the gaps in the mortgage market. Ironically, therefore---in view of HUD's targeting them--mortgage bankers originate 80 per cent of government-guaranteed Federal Housing Authority (FHA) loans, which disproportionately benefit minorities.

The HUD crackdown on mortgage bankers is being administered by Assistant Housing Secretary Roberta Achtenberg, who before being tapped for the Clinton Administration gained fame in San Francisco for pressuring big corporations to stop funding the Boy Scouts. She has hired an independent testing firm that has been for several months sending out phony black, white, Hispanic, and Asian-American mortgage applicants to see if minorities are treated differently from whites. If a single loan officer or other employee in any way treats a single black applicant less favorably than a white applicant, then it can be considered a case of discrimination. Discrimination can be something as simple as not smiling at the black tester, having smiled at the white
one.

Miss Achtenberg has considerable leverage against mortgage bankers, since HUD oversees the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the Federal National Home Association (Fannie Mae), two government-sponsored private enterprises which buy mortgages from mortgage lenders and sell them to investors in the secondary market. If HUD denied a mortgage banker the right to sell its mortgages to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, that would force the banker out of business.

Pre-emptive Action

MEANWHILE, mortgage lenders are feverishly trying to improve their lending to minorities without sacrificing good underwriting principles. For several years now, mortgage lenders have been discovering that education and counseling can increase the pool of potentially credit-worthy minority homebuyers. Many minority applicants are rejected because they apply for a larger mortgage than they can afford or because they have failed to clear up past delinquent loans. Under "affordable housing" programs devised without Washington's help, lenders are finding that many rejected applicants can pass muster as early as a year after initial counseling and remedial action. The education reduces the credit risk of the borrower by making him or her a more responsible mortgage holder. The cost of the education is generally absorbed by non-profit organizations which provide it free to all would-be homeowners.

Mortgage lenders have been working vigorously on other fronts too. Increasingly, minorities can qualify for loans without conventional credit criteria, by counting regular rent and utility payments as proof of creditworthiness. Also, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, private mortgage insurers, and mortgage lenders have worked together to develop programs that combine counseling with lower down-payments (as low as 3 per cent of the applicant's own money), since the lack of a down-payment is the leading obstacle to greater minority home ownership. Happily, these affordable housing loans have so far produced delinquency and default rates similar to those for loans with more conventional criteria.

To be sure, many potential applicants do not know of these affordable housing programs, which have been around only since 1989. Mortgage lenders have found that advertising does not do the trick. It seems to require one-on-one contact to drive the message home, and so they have started trying to track down more of these potentially credit-worthy homebuyers by working with community housing groups, holding seminars, and sending out mailings.

Color-Blind Markets?

INDEED, some mortgage lenders now believe that low- and moderate-income borrowers are one of the growth markets of the 1990s. If left alone to devise methods of reaching this market, they will do so in a color-blind manner without sacrificing credit standards and without redistributing costs by charging other borrowers more for their mortgages. The alternative can already be seen at work at banks and thrifts struggling to improve their lending to minorities. The Consumer Bankers Association reports that 69 per cent of banks in its affordable-housing survey subsidize their minority-outreach programs, usually by offering lower interest rates, but also by incurring higher operating costs to administer the loans. Among banks that subsidize, 76 per cent of the subsidies come from bank profits, while the remaining subsidies come from government programs and non-profit organizations. The Clinton Administration's heavy-handed, raceconscious approach threatens to forcibly expand this small subsidy foothold.

The crackdown is, therefore, not a boon but a roadblock to racial progress. If it succeeds in driving banks to make bad loans in order to improve their minority-approval rates, this will eventually lead to more foreclosures in troubled inner-city communities. It will also reduce the available capital to credit-worthy borrowers, forcing more Americans to settle for a less attractive home than they had expected. Some whites who formerly would have qualified at the margins for a mortgage will be denied their chance at the American dream. And mortgage rates will rise for everyone to cover the losses from bad loans.

The Clinton method will achieve faster, but short-lived, results for minority rejection rates. And in the process it will heighten racial divisions in our society. As in every other field in which quotas have been tried, they will hurt the people they are trying to help--and everyone else, too.

Mr. Congdon is economic advisor to Gerard & National in London and managing director of the economic consulting firm Lombard Street
Research.

COPYRIGHT 1993 National Review, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group


[Editor's note: this article has been reproduced in its entirety due to its renewed currency. If the copyright holders object, we will reduce it to a fair-use reference.]

Heather Mallick, troll extrordinaire, the fallout continues...continues...

Bumped -> Update: Greta VanSusteren and David Warren go at Heather again and have a good discussion about political correctness off the rails in the Canadian and US media. Oh, yes, and Heather, you're still a pig, according to Greta.

Mallick might have got what she wanted after the CBC ran her disgusting trash piece about Sarah Palin, if what she wanted, was notoriety. Certainly, her name is on the lips and keyboards of American media in almost every corner of the republic.

Outside of a couple of articles, though, very little media comment has been made here in Canada. Well, that's not much of a surprise, given the extent to which the CBC and other Canadian media outlets have fallen into the tank with the Liberals. With every excess, the cry to overhaul the CBC just gets louder and louder. You can be sure, majority or minority, when the Conservatives are returned, there will be an orchestrated hue and cry to rip the CBC apart and rebuild it (or not).

But back to Mallick. Her anger and hatred as published by the CBC has had collateral damage far beyond the twitterings of the media darlings. There has been considerable outrage addressed at Canadians in general by Americans, who, also offended as I and many Canadians are, haven't been shy about expressing themselves.

Equally, Canadians who are closer to the truth about Sarah Palin are outraged as well. Mallick's puerile outburst is especially cause for concern amongst Sarah Palin's neighbours:

Sane citizens, who love this country, must ask the begging question: 'what is in it for them'? What is the media involvement in egregious, criminal activities like Adscam, if any? If the msm are not intertwined with the Puffins/Dippers on a very personal/economic level; why do they care so much about the outcome of elections?

I have never understood the freaky hatred the media has for President Bush and I recoiled, in horror, when I read that spewing of hatred and vitriol that Heather 'whats her name' put to paper in a mini mind attempt to attack Governor Palin. Heather Mallick works for the CBC, she is a pubic servant, by the virtue of being paid by taxpayers: she writes for all the people of Canada. Do Canadians think that it is O.K. to attack a Governor of a foreign country, though condescending, mean, sanctimonious smearing of the Governor's family? Governor Palin is very popular here in the North, we value the long standing friendship we Yukoners have with the Great state of Alaska. How are we to react when a freaky public servant takes it upon herself to attempt to slander our good friends, their families and our families via the Governors family from our side of the border?

The brain challenged Mallick has compromised Yukoners. She has not apologized to us or the people of Alaska.

The msm has yet to learn that the door swings both ways. They have been sitting on nice, comfy Liberano furs for so many years that they have no integrity - and neither do many of the civil servants.

Most people, who have ever actually done anything in their lives or have made any decisions under stress understand the gallows humour of Mr. Ritz. Most of the media don't understand that most Canadians do not have nice comfy furs to sit on; we live in a real world where bad things happen. The media are smearing all of us via Gerry Ritz - they have earned our contempt and they have it - most of my friends don't believe anything that the media says anymore.

The question is 'why are we paying these fools who risk our nation's relations with the Governor of Alaska who is running for Vice President?' Why are we paying, TWICE, for the Puffin propaganda in this election?

Indeed, why are we paying for Heather Mallick? The Palin piece was only the latest and sleaziest of several drivebys she's written in recent times, and indeed throughout her career at CBC. If public funds are going to be used to underwrite this troll, let it be for some public institution other than the CBC. An Ontario Hospital, say, where she can explain her anger management issues to a shrink, or to any one of four padded walls.

All of this reminds me of some comments I've heard recently, something about lipstick on a pig...

ABC's McCain-Palin Media Avoidance Watch, tanking...

LOL! Funniest trashing of a reporter I've seen in a long time. Jake Tapper of ABC tries to do a driveby on Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign for keeping Sarah away from the mainstream media. Please do take the time to wander down the comments while they're still up. Here's a few samples:

You haven't earned access and she's speaking directly to the American people. The only thing we need from you guys at this point is to turn on the camera and shut up. Now go back to your Tasergate, Trig-gate, Bookgate, AIP-gate. trip to Iraq-gate nonsense. You know, the issues that matter to embittered, hostile, hypocritical liberals everywhere.

The MSM's treatment of Sarah and McCain has been horrendous. Absolutely obscene.
And you think they should go out of their way to meet with you? Why? So you can edit their quotes, like ABC? So you can pose "gotcha" questions?
Why don't you go cover some of the Obama scandals? There are plenty for you to take a look at. But NO, you won't do that.
If you did to my daughter what you have done to Sarah Palin you wouldn't get out of the hospital for six months. And if you did, you would be right back in.

Why should she talk to you?? You've done nothing but ridicule and denegrate the poor woman. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't talk to you either.
You idiots in the mainstream media are fast becoming a non-entity to people like me (Thank God). You're so far in the tank for Obama you practically drool in his presence. It's a disgrace.

Well, maybe if you buggers in the fourth estate weren't campaigning for Obama maybe other candidates would talk to you. But why should McCain or Palin talk to you guys? So you can try to embarass them while ignoring every question about Obama? What's the point of spending time talking to you, your minds are made up and you've decided the election is over.
Palin drew 60,000 at a rally in Florida but try to find a press report that speaks in anything even remotely the same terms as "Obama went to the bathroom this morning, it was a world class event."

There's plenty more! Giggle your way through the rest of the day...!

Astroturf and "cyber ambuscade"

No one doubts for a moment politics is a messy business. The left has especially made efforts in unfounded smear ads like the Paul Martin's "soldier's in our cities" TV ads that caused so much outrage during the campaign the Liberals last lost, and more recently, the attack ad running on CTV attempting to smear agriculture minister Ritz over his bit of black humour privately expressed over the listeriosis outbreak.

In the US, this appears to have reached a high art in the use of Youtube to make smear ads masqueraded as "grassroots" sentiment go viral. Rusty Schackleford of the JAWA Report, has assembled a compelling case for corporate "astroturfing" on behalf of the Democrats that may trace back directly to Obama's chief media strategist.

"Astroturfing" is what PR industry insiders call the practice of "manufacturing grassroots support." It tries to disguise itself as a "grassroots" phenomenon -- but it's artificial and inorganic. Hence, "Astroturf." At the corporate level, the practice has been dubbed "a cyber ambuscade" - a campaign designed to upset competitors by deliberately spreading rumours and false information through the use of the internet.

Shackleford painstakingly details a campaign through Youtube, aimed at discrediting Sarah Palin through the use of audio and visual material that perpetuates stories known to be false about the candidate, all the while trying to make them appear as if they originated from the netroots (cyber equivalent to "grassroots", for those trying to keep up. Pejoratively known as "nutroots" when applied to lefty supporters).

Shackleford's exquisite tracking leads circumstantially, but with an apparently compelling clarity, back to the executive owners of a major leagues PR firm with strong Democratic ties, ultimately leading speculatively right back to Obama's chief media honcho.

What makes the connections plausible, is the action of the youtube users as the light was being shone on them - deletions of videos and accounts abound, not something you would expect to see if the users were true nutroots.

There is a difference, for the moment, between grassroots supporters making up stuff to support their favorite candidate all on their own, and a corporate program to purposely spread false innuendo. The US federal election commission has rules of engagement in this regard. Shackleford contends that if the audit trail of users and accounts holds up, FEC regs have been broken, and specific individuals could be (and should be) on the hook for violations.

The read on JAWA is illuminating. If substantiated, and the cursory evidence is certainly compelling, then one has to question the integrity of a political ideology that believes lies, deceit and deception are acceptable means to acquire power.

Shackleford's tale is a rare insight into the politics of hate, where principles have long since withered in the name of winning.

Hillary Clinton in Sarah Palin's government?

The New York Post has reprinted Gov. Palin's speech that she intended to deliver at the anti-Iran rally she was "dis-invited" to, apparently from some strong arm tactics of the Democrats.

McCain is an advocate of collaborative government, and Palin has frequently offered a strong positive olive branch to the senator from New York, and does so again in her speech. Palin originally had expected to share a stage with Clinton at the rally, but Hillary pulled out - apparently feelings weren't mutual.

Hillary needs to play off Sarah Palin carefully. If the McCain/Palin ticket does take the White House, Senator Clinton's career could in fact get a personal boost from Palin's ascendency.

Sarah Palin:

I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country — leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage.

Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York — to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan — and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.

Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him.

He must be stopped.

The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a "Final Solution" — the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a "stinking corpse" that is "on its way to annihilation." Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman — not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.

The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.

The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the "Iranian nation would not retreat one iota" from its nuclear program.

So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.

If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons — they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.

But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world's most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran's desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.

Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government's threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments.

It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens.

If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed.

If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested.

But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the "One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws." The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women's rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of "propaganda against the system." After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to "only" 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment.

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that "Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that" effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more.

Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran!

Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime's dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran's behavior.

Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech — a right he denies his own people. He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him.

We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran's allies continue to block action in the U.N. We must start with restrictions on Iran's refined petroleum imports.

We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran's economic influence.

We must target the regime's assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners.

President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.

We must sanction Iran's Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps — which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization.

Together, we can stop Iran's nuclear program.

Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust. And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel's enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us. It is John McCain's promise and it is my promise.

Thank you.

"Palin's never met a head of state..."

...issue is about to be put to bed. MSNBC is reporting a series of meetings scheduled for Gov. Palin in New York, that will remedy that problem:

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Palin will meet with the presidents of Iraq, Pakistan, Georgia and the Ukraine, as well as singer and activist Bono during her three-day trip to New York, the McCain campaign announced Sunday.

Palin will meet Wednesday with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko together, according to campaign officials. She will then meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari before hosting Bono, the lead singer of U2. Later in the day, she will meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The campaign had previously announced meetings set for Tuesday in New York, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Columbian President Alvaro Uribe.

.
Yeah, well, the Bono gig is for comic relief, I guess. Now that the Liberals are dissolving in the mud, he's got some spare time. This meeting marathon will pretty much even up the criticism against her "foreign policy experience" (forgetting, of course, her trade delegate experience as governor) putting her on equal footing with that of Obama. Oh yeah, he's running for president.

I never understood the "foreign policy" issue, outside of gotcha politics. Meetings between heads of state are largely symbolic. The real meetings occur between the legions of state officials surrounding both heads. Sometimes directions change as a result of meetings, but more often as not, all they do is set a tone for the meetings of the bureaucrats who ultimately work out the real deals.

Further, the fuss about Palin's experience would be appropriate for a presidential candidate, but she's only the vp nod. I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to bury John McCain just yet. As VP, Palin will have substantial on-the-job training leading into a presidential spot, should McCain buy the farm.

Obama, on the other hand, hits the ground running as POTUS with no foreign policy experience, which means he will be relying on Joe Biden's experience? (just kidding!)

Carbon tariffs seen as risk for trade wars: OECD

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is advising condemning attempts by countries to impose carbon tariffs on certain imported goods, a program the Liberal Green Shift Plan would promote, says the National Post in an article today. The view is based on a draft copy of a briefing released Sept. 10 and obtained by the National Post.

"The Liberal environmental platform adds there should be no risk to Canada's trading relationship with the United States because it is expected that the next U. S. president, whether Republican or Democratic, will pursue a policy that prices carbon.

However, the business advisory group warns the OECD that trade policy should not be used to "coerce" countries to adopt more stringent environmental policy. It adds an unintended consequence for countries that pursue carbon tariffs is that their business communities will become complacent and less productive -- leading to drops in their respective standards of living.

"The initial advantage of protection for domestic companies will over time likely turn into a competitive disadvantage as companies that are partially shielded from competition tend to be less innovative, less active in seeking new business opportunities and less eager to reduce excessive costs than companies that are exposed to effective international competition," the OECD warned."

US Coast Guard helo rescues during Ike, raw video

First, pulling a couple of people from a pickup in Galveston that is nearly submerged in surf:

And a couple clinging to an set of storage tanks in Galveston adjacent to a seawall:

Nine, Eleven... 2,996 ...24, ... numbers of the 21st century (Reprise)

(Reprised from my September 11, 2006 post, the 5th anniversary of 9/11, and updated, some.)

Michael Arczynski * Garnet Bailey * David Barkway * Ken Basnicki * Jane Beatty * Cindy Connolly * Arron Dack * Christine Egan * Michael Egan * Albert Elmarry * Meredith Ewart * Peter Feidelberg * Alexander Filipov * Ralph Gerhardt * Stuart Lee * Mark Ludvigsen * Bernard Mascarenhas * Colin McArthur * Michel Pelletier * Donald Robson * Roy Santos * Vladimir Tomasevic * Chantal Vincelli * Debbie Williams.
H/T to JYC for the list (You know who you are. Thank you.)


Reuters: Jeff Christensen

24 Canadians lost in the twin towers, 9/11, lest we forget. Our world has changed, and those who do not understand why we are sending son and daughters to Afghanistan to assist in nation rebuilding can take a moment to look at that picture. Taken 15 minutes after the first tower came down.

15 minutes later, they were gone too.

The terror and the horror of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, can never be allowed to fade. There is no negotiation, no appeasement of ideologies that can erase or legitimize the actions of terrorists that day. The 24 Canadians lost, and the 2,972 others representing 90 nations of the world, bear silent witness to the fight that must be fought.


Take the time to browse the links below and reflect on 9/11. Do take the time.

For everyone else who understands why we fight for democracy and freedom, who dares to be reminded of the reason for the iconic phrase "9/11", the sites below offer an especially poignant journey back...

THE BLACK DAY

Dedicated to the Men and Women...

FDNY -Blood of Heroes
The first, a photographic memorial, the others, video tributes worthy of viewing... Lengthy. Bring a hanky.


The Victims...

World Trade Center, Pentagon, Flight 11, Flight 175, Flight 93,
The 2996 Project
... was a web effort to recognize and honour each of the victims of 9/11. 3,013 people had signed up to prepare a tribute to each one of the 9/11 souls lost to the tragedy. Browse the list to know the real loss. I am pleased to say that I had confirmed all of the links to the Canadian tributes then (most have now moved on...). A very heartfelt thank you for all of those in the 2996 Project who took the time to care, and participate. The tributes were to remain on their hosts site until Midnight September 11, 2006. I hoped then that perhaps those that can, will leave them a bit longer so that family and friends may have an opportunity to find them. I still do. God bless you all.

Update for 2008: I haven't had an opportunity to go through all of the names above on the Canadian list this year to see if tributes remain. As with all things in time, many of the hosts from the 2996 project have moved on. Yet still, Canada remembers that 9/11 devastated Canadians too. Take the time if you can, and if you find a tribute still online, take the time to reflect on a life lost, perhaps even send a note if a link is available. The family might appreciate that.

Sarah Palin, the legend and the myths, plus Feb 2008 interview

What a difference a week makes. John McCain's VP ascendant, 44 year old Sarah Palin, has had practically everything but a Movie of the Week done to her, for her, on her by nearly every conceivable (yeah, I know, ironic word choice considering they don't) lefty slur-pee in North America, Britain and probably half of the rest of the world. Big deal. Not even close to shaking this girl's resolve.

But if gossip's your thing, and the basis for your life decisions, Charlie Martin, at Pajamas Media has assembled what could be the Compleat Abridged Compendium of Palin Mythology, in one link- filled article. All the truthiness you wanted to know, but couldn't be bothered to search for yourself:

...So this is the complete list of Palin Rumors, at least as it stands about midnight Mountain Time on September 7, 2008. (The link will take you back to the complete and current list on my blog Explorations.) I make a point of the time because the list has been growing by around seven rumors a day; there’s at least one in my queue that I haven’t been able to completely track down yet.

[...]

1. Yes, she is governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the lieutenant governor. No, she’s not currently mayor of Wasilla. Yes, she was mayor of Wasilla, some years ago.
2. Yes, as governor of Alaska, she’s the commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. And yes, her professional military subordinate is quite impressed with her in that role.

[...]

No, the Downs baby (Trig) isn’t Bristol’s kid, and no, the kid wasn’t born with Downs because (a) Palin flew on an airplane (b) went home to have the baby after an amniotic leak (c) because he was the result of incest between Todd Palin and Bristol.

[...]

No, she wasn’t named as a co-respondent in a divorce; there’s no evidence she had an affair with her husband’s business partner. The partner tried to have his divorce records sealed because he was being harrassed by journalists who used them to get his phone number.

Yes, barring immaculate conception virgin birth (whatever), Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed. [The biggest item of controversy in this whole process has been, of all things, details of Christian doctrine and sectarian differences.]

Dig in, there's more meat here then in a full hour of Access Hollywood. Don't be the dummy at your office watercooler, again, today!

Added: C-Span interview with Sarah Palin in February 2008, three parts (about 24 minutes total):

Part I (10 min):



Part II (7 min):



Part III (6 min):



About 4 minutes into part III, the interviewer asks if there is any special little fact about herself she'd like to talk about...LOL! Her eyebrows go up - as she is 6 months pregnant with Trig at this point, and the pregnancy is still a huge secret.

On the bias of the media...IV

Mainstream Media Diverting Terrorism Reporters Into Political Investigations

By Andrew Cochran, Counterterrorismblog.org, September 7, 2008

I see one after another of the mainstream media outlets which have made important contributions to the factual underpinnings of the counter-terrorism effort dropping off that beat. Editors in the print media are shifting terrorism experts on their staffs towards investigations of political candidates. At least three such reporters at three major papers are now chasing Sarah Palin stories (I haven't had time to chase down everybody in "the business"). The move away from terrorism investigations started over a year ago as the print media entered into a long-term decline in ad revenues, but the trend has been accelerated in this election year. It is an unfortunate coincidence that true experts, with some of the best contacts and intel in the private CT community, are being moved out of their chosen fields just as we approach the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. It's especially disconcerting to see this trend at the very moment when President Bush is committing more counterinsurgency resources to capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and/or Ayman al-Zawahiri before he leaves office, a strategic decision with serious ramifications for relations between the U.S. and Pakistan and other nations in South Asia.

A number of veteran reporters in the mainstream media have broken important stories using sources and methods that the intelligence community could not or chose not to exploit. The broad CT community would suffer a serious loss if these bona fide experts leave the field for any length of time. In the meantime, nonprofit organizations and dedicated blogs have the opportunity and capability to inform the public.

[rolling eyes icon]!

GREEN SHIFT.CA

is

Jennifer Wright's company,

You Morons!

Underestimate you? Not possible.

You can't get any lower!

Idiots!

Quote of the Day

About Sarah Palin:

"The organics should love her; she eats free-range moose."

On the bias of the media...III

AJ Strata, The Strata-Sphere.com

[...]

Today on CNN’s Situation Room [sic - author has updated this to Late Edition -ed] Blitzer (who cuts off all good points favoring the GOP) had Donna Brazile and James Carville demonstrate the SNAFU status in the DC/NY Media and liberal talking heads. At one point in the show Donna Brazile tried to cement the image of The Messiah, and actually compared Barack Obama to Jesus Christ (the community organizer) and Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate (the Governor)....

[...]

Added: from Carney at the WSJ:

"...Rasmussen has a new poll out that suggests that piling on Mrs. Palin may do more to harm the media's own image than hers.

According to Rasmussen, fully 68% of voters believe that "most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win." And -- no surprise -- 49% of those surveyed believe reporters are backing Barack Obama, while just 14% think the media is in the tank for Sen. McCain.

Meanwhile, 51% of those surveyed thought the press was "trying to hurt" Mrs. Palin with its coverage.

Perhaps most troubling for the press corps, though, was this finding: "55% said media bias is a bigger problem for the electoral process than large campaign donations."

David Warren: Canadian consensus

[...]

Regardless of his political persuasions, I doubt any reader is himself in doubt about the views of McCain and Palin on, say, abortion, or same-sex marriage, or the ramifications of the U.S. First Amendment. Messrs Obama and Biden have more “nuanced” views -- i.e. more likely to say one thing and do another -- and yet their own positions are clear enough, when the lights are trained on them.

[...]

The idea that, for instance, a man could own a gun for any other purpose than to commit violent crimes, is not easily communicated to a person who has no ability whatever to visualize life outside the confines of an urban neighbourhood.

More subtly, the dweller in an urban apartment complex cannot imagine a life in which everything he does is not bound by fussy rules and regulations, and in which any act of non-conformity (lighting a cigarette, for instance) must be greeted with hysterical alarm. In this sense, our vast modern cities, not only in Canada but everywhere, breed Pavlovian conformity to their own physical requirements, and systematically replace moral imperatives with bureaucratic ones.

The reason Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention in Minneapolis this last week was so very explosive -- not only to Americans with the chance to vote for or against her party, but to Canadians, with no chance at all -- had only indirectly to do with the fact that she is a remarkable woman. It was the sudden raw exposure to a well-articulated worldview completely opposed to our “Canadian consensus” that we found so horrifying -- or exhilarating.

Millions of Canadians long to hear something like that from a politician up here. But millions more remain convinced that they must never, ever, be given the chance.

On the bias of the media...II

Howie Carr, of the Boston Herald, weighs in:

Media loves to hate Sarah Palin
By Howie Carr, Sunday, September 7, 2008

[...]

She’s only 44 years old. She’s just not seasoned enough - and if you don’t believe me, just ask Gloria Steinem, age 74, or Barbara Walters, age 78, or Sally Quinn, age 67, or Eleanor Clift, age 68, or Andrea Mitchell, age 61, or Gail Collins, age 62.

Why, up on the stage, it has been noted that you can distinguish Sarah’s ankles from her calves. She’s never had a Botox injection. The hags of the Hamptons speak as one on this issue. Snow White Palin must be stopped. Anybody got a poisoned apple?

[...]

She admits smoking pot as a teenager, which sets a terrible example for the youth of America, unlike Barack Obama, who admits smoking pot as a teenager, and whose “refreshing candor” is a breath of fresh air after eight years of Cheney-Bush.

[...]

She’s a member of the Alaska Independence Party - correction, she isn’t, it was The New York Times [NYT] that printed the flat-out lie that she was, in a story that, so said the Times, “called into question how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background.”

You must understand printing lies about Republican candidates is OK. It’s called “vetting.” Printing the truth about liberals - that’s called “swift-boating.” From career MSNBC jock sniffer Keith Olbermann to Barney Frank’s favorite publisher Jann Wenner, the verdict on Palin is unanimous.

[...]

Twelve years ago, she considered banning books at the Wasilla Public Library, which is a chilling assault on the First Amendment, unlike Barack Obama, whose campaign 12 days ago tried to shout down an appearance on Chicago radio of an investigative reporter looking into ties between Barack and rabid terrorist Bill Ayers. But that mob of Barack brownshirts besieging WGN can in no way be compared to what Palin did because well, uh, um, it just can’t be, if you know what’s good for you.

[...]

[This last item has not been validated in any of the currently circulating versions that I'm aware of. From what I've seen from local sources close to her, she did ask if any books were banned and she did fire the librarian as part of her change-out of appointees in the local public service (the librarian was a supporter of her opponent), but later re-instated her (It appears to be little understood that the American public service structure is different than in Canada and other places, or, at least the Americans use the change-outs more aggressively, a lesson Stephen Harper should have learned when he took office, but didn't. Its important to remember the context that Sarah Palin ran on a reform platform all along, and of course change-outs would be part of that platform, indeed, even the point of it in some cases)]

There's more in the article.

The GOP reclaims its soul...

September 5, 2008 1:00 PM

Proud of the GOP by Bill Whittle, for National Review Online.

"For the first time, I feel like we deserve to win more than they deserve to lose.

Two masterstrokes were accomplished in the last two days of this year’s Republican National Convention. In her first appearance on the national stage — which can only be called a tectonic event — Sarah Palin secured the conservative base for maverick John McCain, while also reaching out to Democratic women. Then on Thursday night, John McCain struck again, making a play for the rest of the Democratic party.

[...]

Power corrupts, and I believe there is no power more intoxicating and corrosive than the ability to spend other people’s money at will. If Newt’s Army could go so far astray, you can bet the country was disillusioned, disappointed, and furious — not just ready for change, but eager for it, even change as ethereal and diffuse as what Senator Obama has been peddling. We lost the Senate and the House in 2006 because of this. We were going to lose the presidency in 2008 for it. And we deserved to lose it.

And so — prior to this week — all we had was a grim determination to vote against a dangerous, socialized vision of the future. We were portrayed — largely accurately — as old, tired, out-of-touch, out of ideas, out of candidates . . . too white, too male, too square. It doesn’t matter how true or false that caricature was. That was the narrative, and there was enough of it that fit.

And then the earthquake came.

Sarah Palin is the anti-Obama: not a victim, not a poser, not riding a wave but rather swimming upstream — and most of all, not having run for president her entire life. She is the first politician I have ever seen — and I include Ronnie in this, God bless him — who strikes everyone who sees her as an actual, real, ordinary person. Immediately came T-shirts saying I AM SARAH PALIN. HER STORY IS MY STORY. There is a lot of Obama swag out there, too, but none of it says HIS STORY IS MY STORY. Hold that thought till November 5.

She is so absolutely, remarkably, spectacularly ordinary. I think the magic of Sarah Palin speaks to a belief that so many of us share: the sense that we personally know five people in our immediate circle who would make a better president than the menagerie of candidates the major parties routinely offer. Sarah Palin has erupted from this collective American Dream — the idea that, given nothing but classic American values like hard work, integrity, and tough-minded optimism you can actually do what happens in the movies: become Leader of the Free World, the President of the United States of America. (Or, well, you know, vice president}.

When John McCain was sewing up the nomination in the early spring, I spent a lot of time in many comment sections defending him in as many ways as I knew how. He wasn’t my first choice (Fred) or my second (Rudy), but he was the GOP nominee, fairly elected, and looking at the table I thought he was the only man who had a chance to win in November — because frankly, we Republicans don’t deserve to be this lucky.

Sarah Palin has done more than unify and electrify the base. She’s done something I would not have thought possible, were it not happening in front of my nose: Sarah Palin has stolen Barack Obama’s glamour. She’s stolen his excitement, robbed his electricity, burgled his charisma, purloined his star power, and taken his Hope and Change mantra, woven it into a cold-weather fashion accessory, and wrapped it around her neck.

A candidate who is young, funny, well-spoken, intelligent, charming, drop-dead gorgeous — and one of ours? Is this actually happening?

[...]

I’ve seen post after post on Hillary forums about how much they love Sarah, how they are energized and lifted out of depression by her (and the sight of an actual Roll Call made some of them weep). They gush about how she reminds them of their hero, how tough and savvy and unafraid she is. And I have seen these women, hard-core, feminist Democrats for 30 years and more, sit in slack-jawed amazement at Palin and at how fiercely Republicans — Republicans! — are defending her, backing her, and cheering her to the rafters. These Clinton supporters say they don’t know what to think any more: The Republicans are behaving like Democrats and the Democrats are behaving like Republicans!

[...]

And, finally . . . what of John McCain? I’ve read many comments about his speech being a disappointment. I don’t know how it looked or played from the floor. But I know how it played from my Los Angeles living room. I believe — and we’ll know soon enough if I’m right — that John McCain did something Thursday night more powerful and astonishing than Sarah Palin did the previous evening. Sarah stole Obama’s glamour. McCain stole his message. (Granted, that may not be a lot, apart from the glamour, but it was all Obama had left.)

Sarah played to the base, who loved her. McCain played to the middle that we will need to win. Put his rhetorical ticks, the green background, the protestor interruptions — put all that away. No one really cares about that.

[...]

I knew McCain’s father and grandfather were admirals. I did not know his grandfather was on the USS Missouri, came home, and died the next day after giving everything he had for his country. That’s powerful. And the image of his father standing on the North Vietnamese border, looking out toward his missing son as he orders the bombing of the city where he is being held? McCain reminded us that there are things far more important than politics.

[...]

And a final thing: I had heard before that John McCain had been beaten in prison, and I admired him for it. But when he said he had been broken . . . I gasped. When this sometimes cocky, arrogant old man told me he had once been a cocky, arrogant young man until he was “blessed by hardship,” until he had been broken and remade — and in that remaking discovered a love of country so fierce and pure that even as a patriot myself I will never approach it — well, in that moment John McCain won my heart, to add to the respect and admiration he had already had.

When John McCain told me what I and untold millions of Americans have always believed, what others tell me to be ashamed of and mock me for — that I live in the greatest country in the world, a force of goodness and justice in dark places, a land of heroism and sacrifice and opportunity and joy — to me that went right to the mystic chords of memory that ultimately binds this country together. Some people don’t know what it is, but there is such a thing as patriotism — pure, unrefined, unapologetic, unconditional, non-nuanced, non-cosmopolitan, white-hot-burning patriotism. John McCain loves this country. I love it too. Not what it might be made into someday — not its promise, always and only its promise — but what it was and what it is, a nation and an idea worth fighting and dying for.

I was lukewarm on McCain Thursday night, but after that close I will follow that man to the ends of the earth with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

[...]"


Much left out here as this is a long article and the above is only a tease - well worth the read. Check it out.

On the difference between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden

By Stephen D'Allotte, Editorial Times.ca

A commentor to a recent blog post said about the McCain/Palin ticket: "Just think of the decisions they will have to make and they are illiterate in these areas." [referring to a short list of technical / semi-intellectual areas]

I don't think that statement is valid, for several reasons. A higher education does not guarantee an understanding or provide a handbook for real world application of those subjects, or in fact, of most subjects. All it does is provide a context in which to place the experience one gains over the next few years. Once 10 years out, real world experience begins to level out the advantage gained by the head start in higher learning.

Additionally, unless you stay tight to your chosen field, you begin to become stale in it anyway. What's important from your higher learning experience for most is the skill set you picked up in critical thinking. This is topic independent. Life experience will thereafter refine and develop these skills, or not.

No one, not the magic O, nor McCain, nor Palin, can carry the entire knowledge base with them that they will need. That's what the rest of government is for. Regardless of who gets in, they will have to rely on the assembled expertise around them to point out the land mines.

There is a lot of confusion both in Canada and the US as to what the President's job is about, and its why the left can't seem to understand that Obama is the wrong man for the position. Obama's skill set is the base kit for the legislative branch of government - Congress - the lawmakers, not the executive branch, the managers.

Presidents don't make laws. They cause laws to be made, but the function of the executive branch is managerial. Day to day oversight of the operation of government, not legislature. This is one of the reasons why senators frequently make lousy presidents, and why most lawyers can't manage either. Its just not their skill set.

This is where many get Gov. Palin wrong on experience. While the scale is different, being a working governor is exactly the skill set needed for the vice-presidential (and presidential) office. Obama's choice of Biden is telling - its a clear indicator that the old guard democratic cabal is in firm control of the democratic campaign. Obama is just a sockpuppet - his skill set is legislative, not executive. He won't be running the oval office, the DNC will.

Contrast this with the McCain/Palin ticket. While McCain will rely on a subset of the GOP to be the GOTOs, McCain and Palin will be the executives. That's the significance, and the importance of the choice of Sarah Palin to be the VP. For Sarah, the job as VP won't be much different than the job of governor - its the skill set she's already acquired, and she brings the "basic training" to the office with her already. The only difference is scale. Her resume for less than 2 years as a governor in Alaska, in terms of what she accomplished in housecleaning the state's legislature, is stunning. As newcomers go, she's a perfect fit, and just what the doctor ordered if the Americans want real change.

And that's why Hillary isn't there - Hillary could not be a sockpuppet for the DNC. The Democratic party is fractured presently, like our Liberals, and until its sorts its house out is not fit to lead; is in fact dangerous if it gets to.

There is a parallel between the Liberal/Democrat situation and the Islamic one. Radical elements in both cases have hijacked the agenda of their respective mainstreams, and in both cases, letting them have the reins of power would be disastrous, because the fringe cannot provide a workable program.

While its fashionable for the frantic left to go on and on about "neo-cons", the reality is they are only a small part of the GOP and have never held power, despite what one thinks of George W. Bush. Neither McCain nor Palin are neo-cons; rather, they are grass-roots conservatives, so the US is not getting a "neo-con" government if they get in. Oddly enough, the Democrats are the true so-cons, steeped still in the old-fashioned aristocracy of the DNC, and that's what the US will get if they elect Obama.

The only thing old about John McCain is his age and body, and really, his platform reflects the wisdom that age brings - of learning how to recognize, embrace and channel the true strength of youth (Palin), which he needs to do because of his age, and the recognition that progress requires many hands lifting, another "benefit" one acknowledges as one get older :).

McCain has chosen his protege, and he will guide her and teach her along the way, eventually handing off the reins. And in the tradition of the ages, the student will teach the teacher, too. Its a succession plan, like all good governance structures must have.

Obama and the Democrats have it exactly backwards. The student is trying to lead and teach the teacher. Its not a succession plan, its a coup, and like most coups, because they are coerced, is doomed to sputter and fail.

On the bias of the media...

Commentor to a Washington Times online article about citizens heckling media in Wisconsin:

Listen. Hear that sound? That's the sound of America stirring and waking. We've had it with the MSM being slanted, biased, and treating us like sheep.

Watch us refuse to buy rags who lie. US anyone? Watch us turn OFF MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, et al.

Watch us.

CEDARBURG, Wisc. -- Hundreds of angry people in this small town outside Milwaukee taunted reporters and TV crews traveling with Sen. John McCain on Friday, chanting "Be fair!" and pointing fingers at a pack of journalists as they booed loudly.

On the first leg of the "McCain Street USA" tour -- which will take the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, to small towns across the heartland -- the 30 or so reporters and crew were walking back to their buses to join the McCain motorcade when hundreds of townspeople started yelling.

"Stop lying! You are all liars! Tell the truth!" one woman yelled from the front of the pack.

[...]

Of course, the Washington Times doesn't get the message, titling the article "Small-town residents boo media with McCain." [Emphasis mine. -ed]

More on Gov Palin's "lack of experience" as seen from the homebodies...

Just this past weekend, Gov. Palin deployed the Alaska National Guard to Louisiana to aid in Gustav, and didn't need presidential approval. Between preparing speeches and shepherding her kids...

What Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Stassel had to say about Palin's experience as Governor of Alaska:

"...By February 2007 she'd released her requirements for pipeline bidding. They were stricter, and included only a $500 million state incentive. By May a cowed state house—reeling from scandal—passed her legislation.

The producers warned they would not bid, nor would anyone else. Five groups submitted proposals. A few months before the legislature awarded its license to TransCanada this July, Conoco and BP suddenly announced they'd be building their own pipeline with no state inducements whatsoever. They'd suddenly found the money.

Mrs. Palin has meanwhile passed an ethics law. She's tightened up oil oversight. She forced the legislature to rewrite the oil tax law. That new law raised taxes on the industry, for which Mrs. Palin is now taking some knocks, but the political background here is crucial.

The GOP machine has crumbled. Attorney General Renkes resigned. Mr. Ruedrich was fined $12,000. Jim Clark—Mr. Murkowski's lead pipeline negotiator—pleaded guilty to conspiring with an oil firm. At least three legislators have been convicted. Sen. Ted Stevens is under indictment for oil entanglements, while Rep. Don Young is under investigation.

Throughout it all, Mrs. Palin has stood for reform, though not populism. She thanks oil companies and says executives who "seek maximum revenue" are "simply doing their job." She says her own job is to be a "savvy" negotiator on behalf of Alaska's citizens and to provide credible oversight. It is this combination that lets her aggressively promote new energy while retaining public trust.

Today's congressional Republicans could learn from this. The party has been plagued by earmarks, scandal and corruption. Most members have embraced the machine. That has diminished voters' trust, and in the process diminished good, conservative ideas. It is no wonder 37 million people tuned in to Mrs. Palin's convention speech. They are looking for something fresh."

"How Obama lost the election"

by Spengler, Asia Times Online, September 3, 2008

"Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city's Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.

The speech itself dragged on for three-quarters of an hour. As David S Broder wrote in the Washington Post: "[Obama's] recital of a long list of domestic promises could have been delivered by any Democratic nominee from Walter Mondale to John Kerry. There was no theme music to the speech and really no phrase or sentence that is likely to linger in the memory of any listener. The thing I never expected did in fact occur: Al Gore, the famously wooden former vice president, gave a more lively and convincing speech than Obama did."

On television, Obama's spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead. The longer the candidate spoke, and the more money he promised to spend on alternative energy, preschool education, universal health care, and other components of the Democratic pinata, the lower the party professionals slouched into their seats. The professionals I sat with were Hillary Clinton people, to be sure, and had reason to sulk, for an Obama victory might do them little good in any event.

The Democrats were watching the brightest and most articulate presidential candidate they have fielded since John F Kennedy snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And this was before John McCain, in a maneuver worthy of Admiral Chester Nimitz at the Battle of Midway, turned tables on the Democrats' strategy with the choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

[...]

I sat in on a session with three leaders of Veterans for Obama, a group of retired young officers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the New Republic's writer on the scene, David Samuels. With passion and enthusiasm, these young people spoke of their hopes for nation-building in Iraq. The George W Bush administration should have put twice the resources into the beleaguered country, they harangued me - not just soldiers, but agronomists, traffic cops, lawyers, judges, and physicians. The Department of Agriculture should have mobilized, along with the Department of Justice.

Nation-building? Doubling down on the US commitment to Iraq? Isn't that trying to out-Bush the Bush administration, while Obama campaigned on getting out of Iraq and spending the money on programs at home? Unblinking, one of the soldiers said, "That's what we think Barack will do." They believed in a more expensive version of the administration's program, and faulted Bush for half measures - and somehow they believed that Obama really agreed with them, all the public evidence to the contrary. And they believed in Barack with perfect faith.

[...]

Obama will spend the rest of his life wondering why he rejected the obvious road to victory, that is, choosing Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential nominee. However reluctantly, Clinton would have had to accept. McCain's choice of vice presidential candidate made obvious after the fact what the party professionals felt in their fingertips at the stadium extravaganza yesterday: rejecting Clinton in favor of the colorless, unpopular, tangle-tongued Washington perennial Joe Biden was a statement of weakness. McCain's selection was a statement of strength. America's voters will forgive many things in a politician, including sexual misconduct, but they will not forgive weakness.

That is why McCain will win in November, and by a landslide, barring some unforeseen event. Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it. Obama's prospective defeat is entirely of its own making. No one is more surprised than Republican strategists, who were convinced just weeks ago that a weakening economy ensured a Democratic victory.

Biden, who won 3% of the popular vote in the Democratic presidential primary in his home state of Delaware, and 1% or less in every other contest he entered, is ballot-box poison. Obama evidently chose him to assuage critics who point to his lack of foreign policy credentials. That was a deadly error, for by appearing to concede the critics' claim that he knows little about foreign policy, Obama raised questions about whether he is qualified to be president in the first place. He had a winning alternative, which was to pick Clinton. That would have sent a double message: first, that Obama is tough enough to make the slippery Clintons into his subordinates, and second, that he is generous enough to extend a hand to his toughest adversary in the cause of unity.

Why didn't Obama choose Hillary? The most credible explanation came from veteran columnist Robert Novak May 10, who reports that Michelle Obama vetoed Hillary's candidacy. "The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility," Novak wrote. If that is true, then Obama succumbed to the character weakness I described in a February 26 profile of (Obama's women reveal his secret). His peculiar dependency on an assertive and often rancorous spouse, I argued, made him vulnerable, and predicted that Obama "will destroy himself before he destroys the country".

[...]

Curiously, Obama ignored the rising stars of his own party, offering the prime time speaking slots to familiar faces, including Senator Edward Kennedy and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as his own wife, the first prospective First Lady to take the keynote spot in the history of American party conventions.

McCain doesn't have a tenth of Obama's synaptic fire-power, but he is a nasty old sailor who knows when to come about for a broadside. Given Obama's defensive, even wimpy selection of a running-mate, McCain's choice was obvious. He picked the available candidate most like himself: a maverick with impeccable reform credentials, a risk-seeking commercial fisherwoman and huntress married to a marathon snowmobile racer who carries a steelworkers union card. The Democratic order of battle was to tie McCain to the Bush administration and attack McCain by attacking Bush. With Palin on the ticket, McCain has re-emerged as the maverick he really is.

The young Alaskan governor, to be sure, hasn't any business running for vice president of the United States with her thin resume. McCain and his people know this perfectly well, and that is precisely why they put her on the ticket. If Palin is unqualified to be vice president, all the less so is Obama qualified to be president.

[...]

Obama, in short, is long on brains and short on guts. A Shibboleth of American politics holds that different tactics are required to win the party primaries as opposed to the general election, that is, by pandering to fringe groups with disproportionate influence in the primaries. But Obama did not compromise himself with extreme positions. He did not have to, for younger voters who greeted him with near-religious fervor did not require that he take any position other than his promise to change everything. Obama could have allied with the old guard, through an Obama-Clinton ticket, or he could have rejected the old guard by choosing the closest thing the Democrats had to a Sarah Palin. But fear paralyzed him, and he did neither.

In my February 26 profile, I called Obama "the political equivalent of a sociopath", without any derogatory intent. A sociopath seeks the empathy of all around him while empathizing with no one. Obama has an almost magical ability to gain the confidence of those around him. Perhaps it was the adaptation of a bright and sensitive young boy who was abandoned by three parents - his Kenyan father Barack Obama Sr, who left his pregnant young bride; his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetero; and by his mother, Ann Dunham, who sent 10-year-old Obama to live with her parents while she pursued her career as an anthropologist.

Combine a child's response to serial abandonment with the perspective of an outsider, and Obama became an alien species against which American politics had no natural defenses. He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. No country's politics depends more openly on friendships than America's, yet Obama has not a single real friend, for he rose so fast that all his acquaintances become rungs on the ladder of his ascent. One human relationship crowds the others out of his life, his marriage to Michelle, a strong, assertive and very angry woman.

If Novak's report is accurate, then Michelle's anger will have lost the election for Obama, as Achilles' anger nearly killed the Greek cause in the Trojan War. But the responsibility rests not with Michelle, but with Obama. Obama's failure of nerve at the cusp of his success is consistent with my profile of the candidate, in which I predicted that he would self-destruct. It's happening faster than I expected. As I wrote last February:

It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama ... Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals.

By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate."

"more Sarah White House than Amy Winehouse"

Palin strikes back at critics

From FERGUS SHANAHAN in Minnesota, The Sun (UK), September 4, 2008

A WEEK ago nobody had ever heard of her.
Today she is the most talked-about woman in the world. And with good reason.
Sarah Palin's sensational performance at the Republican Party Convention may turn out to be the tipping point of this rollercoaster American election.

Obama fans hoping she would fluff her big night were in for a nasty shock.
This speech has turned the election upside down. It was simply stunning.

Democrats and their Lefty media backers had been sneering that she was a small town nobody, a hick from the Alaskan sticks put into a job way beyond an inexperienced woman.
Believe me, you will not be hearing that again.

Palin turned out to be an electrifying mix of intelligence, passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking.
Full of self-assurance and aggression, she popped Barack's balloon big-time.

From the moment she walked on stage in this cavernous bear pit, bandbox smart in cream jacket, trim black skirt and black heels, she proved that John McCain knew exactly what he was doing when he picked her as running mate.

Hair piled into a slight beehive – more Sarah White House than Amy Winehouse – she blinked and smiled behind her geeky spectacles as the vast crowd went ballistic.

For an unpopular party divided over Iraq and struggling to compete with Obama's Messianic glamour, the choice of Palin looks absolutely inspired.

Main Street America will have loved her performance.
And it was seen by 30 million voters – the greatest number ever to watch a candidate for the much-derided VP post.

She is popular with voters for the very reason America's snooty political establishment despises her: She isn't one of the Washington gang.

She's a moose-hunting mum of five with a sledge-load of problems behind her own front door that workaday Americans can relate to.

A child with special needs. A daughter of 17 pregnant. A constant juggle between family and career.
As she said, her family has had its ups and downs like any other.

Last night her first task was to introduce herself and her family to an American public incredulous that the unknown Alaska governor could within weeks be a heartbeat away from being their commander in chief.

Compared to the journeyman career politicians dominating both parties here she seemed fresh, natural, one of us and not one of them.
She spoke to America as one mum to another. She cracked good jokes.

What's the difference between a hockey mum and a pit bull?, she asked.

Answer: One wears lipstick.

What will have scared the enemy camp most is the devastating series of prime-time punches she landed on the jutting Obama jaw.
Showing steel beneath her magnolia jacket, she slaughtered his lack of experience, his vanity, his emptiness beneath the windy waffle.

It was the most powerful demolition of the Democrat hero I have heard in two weeks on the US election trail.

The St Paul audience adored her.

When she duffed up the Lefty media commentators for their sexist sneers, the vast crowd roared approval and pointed in anger at the titans of the American press aloof in their special enclosure.
And quite right too: who ever asked whether Obama could still be a good dad if he became president?
The irony, as Palin pointed out, is that liberal media sniping has only succeeded in uniting Republicans behind her.

The wagons have been drawn up and the Republicans are ready for battle.
The McCain-Palin ticket now looks in exciting shape.

A war hero and a heroic mum. Experience and optimism. A man and a woman.

And when McCain joined the Palin gang – babies and boyfriends and all – on stage after her speech there was a sense of cheeky fun absent from last week's solemn Obama coronation.

How the Democrats must be regretting Hillary isn't running with Obama. Barack's sidekick Joe Biden looks a dull old dog compared with the ball of fire that is Palin.
But most fascinating of all, consider this: If Obama loses, Hillary Clinton will run in 2012. Opposing her is sure to be Sarah Palin.

That would guarantee America its first woman president.

And my fistful of dollars, having seen both in action here, would be on Palin.

Zing!

Transcript
Governor Sarah Heath Palin delivered. The extent to which she delivered is writ large all over the cretinist MSM this morning. The lefty blogs overflowing with bile, the tired old brand names of the left and the femibots, like Gloria Steinem, sneering and snivelling like they've soiled their underwear and the help is gone for the weekend.

What none of them get, is that Sarah Palin is Middle America taking the stage. Taking back the night from the elitism of the last three decades. While Obama wallows in the narcissism of the Establishment, the Sarah Palins of America are gittin' 'er done, and they're coming to fix the rest. Her speech last night will resonate in a way that most in the left and the MSM won't understand..

Like the impact of the internet in giving the "little guy" a voice, Alaska, America's largest state and still a place where independence matters, provided an incubator for the "little girl" to refine the nascent skills that Middle America has always had, but which has had to heel under the thumb of the post war establishment for so long. That ended last night.

Whether McCain/Palin will grab the brass ring on November 4th remains to be seen, but make no mistake, notice was served last night that the future in the US of A belongs to the Sarah Palins of Middle America.

A review of her speech from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

"Perhaps the media and Democrats would have been better advised to set expectations high for Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech tonight at the Republican convention. After ridiculing her as a small-town yokel for the better part of three days, Palin would have looked good if she managed to avoid drooling during her speech. In the event, though, they could have set expectations as high as a Barack Obama acceptance speech, and Palin would still have exceeded them in a tremendous debut on the national stage.

Palin made it clear to the condescending media and her Democratic critics that she is no pushover, no cream puff. Her nickname, “Sarah Barracuda”, seems a lot more fitting after tonight. Not only did she defend her small-town upbringing, she attacked Barack Obama on almost every possible front, and for good measure went after Joe Biden and the mainstream media as well.

For instance, she sought to underscore Obama’s hypocrisy in talking about his love for working-class families while belittling them behind their backs, and included Biden in that criticism:

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.

And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

And on Obama’s lack of any real reform in his entire career:

We’ve all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers.

And there is much to like and admire about our opponent.

But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.

Palin also took a shot at Obama’s rather grandiose view of himself:

But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet?

She didn’t forget the media, either:

I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.

But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people.

In the moments after the speech, I told our on-air listeners that this was the kind of speech Zell Miller could have delivered. Palin didn’t deliver it in a shrill manner or sound like she had a chip on her shoulder, though. She sounded like she relished the opportunity to engage. Palin has no intention of allowing herself to get steamrolled by Barack “Sweetie” Obama, Democrats in general, or a mainstream media that suddenly found itself becoming the echo chamber for anonymous Kos diarists.

She didn’t just play the role of attack dog, although her description of hockey moms as pit bulls with lipstick played very well with the crowd. Palin delivered a stirring defense of small-town values and middle America, and told Americans that she’s one of them — just a mother who started off wanting a better education for her kids, then wanted to improve her community, and just kept succeeding all the way up the ladder.

Palin also delivered for John McCain as well. She gave this quote which will certainly resonate for weeks:

In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers.

And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.

They’re the ones whose names appear on laws and landmark reforms, not just on buttons and banners, or on self-designed presidential seals.

She extolled the virtues of McCain, calling him the real agent of change in Washington. Palin talked about the remarkable story of an American hero who may just finish the final steps of a journey from from a cell at the Hanoi Hilton to the White House, and what that says about his honor and our country. She evoked a stir of emotions when Palin noted that small towns across America have memorials to men just like John McCain, only he made it home — and that middle America understands McCain because of that.

Palin showed her mettle tonight. Alaskans tell us that she is “tough as nails” and doesn’t run from a fight. Tonight, she challenged Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the media elite to a fight to the finish. And she has bad news for them: she has no plans to quit.

Republicans should feel cheered and elated by this event tonight. No matter what happens in this race, we have seen the future of the party, and it looks bright indeed."