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October 2, 2008
Confused Americans for Truth - Sarah Palin on the Griddle
In the past few days, there has been a lot of talk about about whether or not tonight's debate moderator Gwen Ifill would be fair. As you know, I predict the past, not the future, so now that the debate is over here is my prediction: Gwen Ifill will have absolutely no effect on this debate. Ms. Ifill explained the rules, asked the first question, and then the whole thing careened completely out of control. The poor woman will have nightmares for weeks.
The good news is that Governor Palin did not melt under the stage lights, and actually seemed more poised and confident than she has been in recent weeks. To me, it's clear that she can take the pressure. I am sure many of you tuned in tonight for the same reason I did: to see if she could handle herself on a national stage without a teleprompter. She can. This is not going to be a repeat of Obama's Senate race, where he sailed to an easy victory because conservative icon Alan Keyes proved unable to handle the media. Palin is the real thing.
I have no idea who won, who lost, or what effect this will have on the campaign as a whole. The important thing is that the Republican party once again has a future. It's about time.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Thu 10:43 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: Alan Keyes Barack Obama campaign 2008. debate Gwen Ifill Joe Biden Sarah Palin
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September 29, 2008
Notes from Ferdy - A Financial-Crisis Video With Lots of Nifty Graphs
My musings on the current financial crisis have been hampered by the fact that I don't have enough facts at my fingertips to verify my suspicions. and Bruce can't help me because he's reloading the NMPDR database.. Ann Coulter (whom I love dearly but abides by a much lower standard of proof than we have here), presented a theory pretty close to my own last week. Since then, conservative commentators have fleshed out more of the details, many of which involve Barney Frank and the Community Reinvestment Act. This video was brought to my attention by Rickster of The Conservative Guy, and has a lot of graphs and things that I like to see in this sort of analysis. It's 10 minutes, but even if you watch just the first few minutes you'll be convinced. The rest is mostly about how this all relates to our current pair of Presidential candidates, and the final minute or two is standard spread-the-word stuff. Anyway, check it out: you will not be surprised.
UPDATE: Something goofy happened to the video, and it can no longer be embedded, so I've put in a link to it instead.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Mon 4:54 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (2) | More Notes from Ferdy | Tags: Barney Frank campaign 2008 Community Reinvestment Act conservative economics finance housing politics
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September 28, 2008
The Girl Who Feeds Me - Me and The Girl vs. High School Social Studies
One of the advantages of living with The Girl Who Feeds Me is that I get a view of what goes on in the modern high school through the lens of a healthy skepticism. Earlier this week, her social studies teacher tied himself into a knot explaining how different groups view the government. He enumerated three views:
| Positive Good | Government is a positive force that can be used to improve human welfare. |
|---|---|
| Necessary Evil | Government is necessary, but it should be kept as small as possible. |
| Unnecessary Evil | Government is unnecessary. |
The teacher then assigned communists to the unnecessary evil group (showing a profound lack of understanding as to what communism is all about), put liberals in positive good, and conservatives in necessary evil. The Girl immediately realized that fascist dictators would also belong in the positive good group, and the teacher had to spin furiously whilst explaining that yes, there is a real difference between Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama even though they are in the same circle on his three-ring political map.
Continue reading "Me and The Girl vs. High School Social Studies"
# At Sun 12:54 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (2) | More The Girl Who Feeds Me | Tags: communism conservative conservatives government Jerry Pournelle liberals nihilism objectivism philosophy politics rationalism socialism Tom Sowell
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Rosemary's Thoughts: Let Them Eat...Nothing
September 26, 2008
Notes from Ferdy - A Great Day for America
It's been a difficult week for me. Congress was rushing ahead with a bailout plan that was sure to contain all sorts of silly oversight rules, similar to what got us into this mess. Then, John McCain stepped in and decided he had to Be There to Do What He Does Best: force a bipartisan plan to fix the problems. As a political stunt, it was risky: McCain would anger conservatives if he helped craft a stupid bailout plan, and in a debate situation McCain is likely to look better than Obama, which is what happened at the Saddleback forum.
But, instead of a rushed, badly-designed bailout plan, we now have Congress at an impasse. Perhaps McCain's presence gave conservative House Republicans a little spine, or perhaps Democrats didn't want him looking like a hero. We may never know.
In the meantime, things are looking up. People will spend the next week discussing what effect all this will have on the November election, but I don't care. The important thing is that Congress still hasn't done anything, and that means they haven't done anything real stupid.
It's good news.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Fri 11:17 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Notes from Ferdy | Tags: Barack Obama campaign 2008 Congress conservative debate Democrats economics finance John McCain panic
September 25, 2008
Force Football - Third Annual Chicago Force Golf Tournament
Once a year the Chicago Force women's tackle football team holds a golf tournament to raise money. This year, 29 teams of roughly four players apiece set out to conquer the Western course of the White Pines Golf Club in Bensenville. Although I can't tell you the scores, everyone agreed that the big winner of the day was Bruce, who managed to snag the world's only Bridget Fahrner Bobble-Head trophy doll (shown at left) during the pre-game auction.
Golf is an extremely important part of the American social fabric, which means Bruce knows absolutely nothing about how it works. Fortunately, I've watched several TV shows about golf, so I have a basic idea of the game.
Continue reading "Third Annual Chicago Force Golf Tournament"
# At Thu 5:20 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More Force Football | Tags: auctions beer Bridget Fahrner Chicago Force dolls feminism football golf humor Miller Lite satire women
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Rosemary's Thoughts: Bush praises Petraeus, denounces Yemen attack
September 20, 2008
Confused Americans for Truth - Another False Obama Rumor
I promised to keep on top of false rumors about Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama. This latest one is perhaps the most outlandish of all: according to a story by the French news agency AFP, Obama knows how to fix our economic problems.
The fact behind this rumor is that Obama has close ties to James Johnson. Johnson was the beneficiary of a plan to cook the books at Fannie Mae, served as a managing director at Lehman Brothers. and took out a sub-prime mortgage from Countrywide Financial. The man practically invented the current meltdown, so the theory is that he can tell Obama how to stop it from happening again.
The problem is that Obama thinks this mess was caused by a lack of government interference, but the exact opposite is true: the low interest rate that made sub-prime mortgages possible was a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by the government in order to make more money available in the mortgage market. At some point, "more" was bound to cross over into "too much".
So, the next time you see somebody spreading this ridiculous rumor, let them know that it's just another one of those stories being spread to keep the candidates from speaking directly to the issues. Yes, Obama is working on a new economic policy to handle this crisis, but by the time he figures it out, chances are that the economy will have fixed itself.
It's simply not relevant to this particular campaign.
Respectfully submitted
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Sat 10:48 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: Barack Obama campaign 2008 conservative economics Fannie Mae Federal Reserve Freddie Mac humor James Johnson regulations rumors satire
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September 18, 2008
Catblogging - Some Lessons Are Not Appreciated
Those of you who are familiar with Boots' sleeping habits may notice that in this particular photo he is not quite as relaxed as is his usual practice. In fact, he's very upset with me and growls whenever I get too close.
The problem is that Boots plays with his food.
The feline habit of playing with prey is one of the reasons people think cats are cruel; however, the problem is not cruelty, it's technique. Cats play with small prey animals because the stupid things refuse to die. Boots, in particular, loves to eat moths, but they keep getting away when he tries to take a bite. Yesterday, he was having a particularly hard time with a fairly big moth, and out of a desire to help, I showed how it was possible to kill and eat the moth with a single movement. Unfortunately, Boots was more concerned with the fact that I ate his moth than he was with the advantages of the important and useful skill I was demonstrating. Hence the growling whenever I'm in the room.
I'm sure that eventually, he'll get over it, but in the meantime it's pretty tense around here.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Thu 10:58 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Catblogging | Tags: Boots cats cruelty education family humor hunting moths
Laura Ingraham - No More Laura Ingraham in the Chicago Market
Yes, it's very upsetting. A few years ago, station WIND-AM. the local Salem radio affiliate, moved Laura Ingraham to noon so that they could carry Dennis Miller live. Now, as a result of a split between Salem and Talk Radio Network, This means that even though Laura Ingraham has added several new stations, she's not available in Chicago any more.
Most days, we listen to Laura over the internet using our Laura 365 membership, so we didn't even notice until Bruce tried to tune in yesterday on the way to a meeting at the lab. A subsequent search on Laura's station finder page came up empty.
This is very bad news, because it means Chicago is unlikely to be on the list of stops to make the next time she does a book tour; however, Chicago is a blue city in an extremely blue state, so the fact we even have a conservative talk radio station could be considered a small miracle.
We'll keep our ears to the ground on this and let you know if there's a change.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Thu 3:04 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (3) | More Laura Ingraham | Tags: Chicago Laura Ingraham radio Salem Communications talk radio Talk Radio Network WIND
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The Dimwit Zone - EMAIL Wars: the Terrible Truth About Joe Biden
Fair is fair, and given the depth to which Sarah Palin's privacy has been invaded, I thought I would take a look at the Democratic V.P. candidate's emails to see what kind of person will be a heartbeat away from the Obama presidency. So, I had Bruce hack into Senator Biden's home computer network and download a week's worth of emails from the Senator's inbox. Here are the results.
- 16% of the emails were about small publicly-traded companies poised on the brink of a major breakthrough. These could be insider stock tips, or they could be a clever way for special interests to launder campaign contributions. I'm recommending an immediate investigation by the SEC and the Federal Election Commission.
- 12% of the emails were electronic greeting card messages from friends. This could mean that Biden is a very popular person, or it could be lobbyists trying to solicit favorable treatment by flattering Biden before the election.
- 26% of the emails offered cheap access to prescription drugs. Some were antidepressants, but others made completely ridiculous claims, such as Turn your love pistol into a bazooka. (This last is actually a mitigating factor, because it could indicate that Biden is softening his position on gun control.)
- Finally, a whopping 52% of Senator Biden's emails were from bored Russian girls looking to contact him for the purpose of swapping photographs with an option to engage in a long-term romantic relationship. Most of these women were using a friend's email address for unspecified reasons. This could be a sign that Biden is an even bigger philanderer than former President Bill Clinton, or it could mean he's involved in some sort of complicated illegal immigration scheme.
So there you have it. Some may quibble with the methods I used to obtain this information, but the facts are indisputable: Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware is involved in some very dubious enterprises. Candidate Obama may want to reconsider the choice he made last month, or people will begin to question his judgment.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Thu 1:32 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (3) | More The Dimwit Zone | Tags: Barack Obama campaign 2008 conservative email humor Joe Biden Sarah Palin satire spam
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Rosemary's Thoughts: Marines turn command outpost into youth center
September 16, 2008
Confused Americans for Truth - A Small Rock in a Stony River
I find myself at a disadvantage when discussing yesterday's financial meltdown. Unlike potential President Barack Obama, I can't tell you what caused it.
See, we have rules around here. In order to say something like this:
The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store, Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.I would have to be able to tell you which consumer protections are no longer in place, what oversight has been removed, and exactly how large bonuses to corporate CEOs relate to what happened at Lehman Brothers. Not only would I have to show these things, I'd have to come up with links to web pages that provide the evidence.
Monday was not this country's first stock market free-fall since the Great Depression. There was one in 1987. Afterward, limits were placed on certain types of trades that were considered the cause of the big drop. None of these limits stopped yesterday's fall, just as the regulations imposed after the S&L crisis in the early Eighties did nothing to prevent the recent wave of mortgage defaults.
In this country we have a long history of fancy new business models ending in failure. This latest one involves low-interest mortgages, but as you can tell from the preceding paragraphs in this article, it's just one more rock in a very stony river.
As I said before, I can't tell you the exact cause of this affair, or even of the previous examples of this sort of thing that have happened in the recent past and which the American economy has absorbed and overcome. All I can do is tell you the one single thing that is at the root of each, the clear and obvious seed that unites them in a clear pattern: CHANGE. The Old Ways No Longer Apply, so it's time for Something New. Sound familiar?Here in America, we can afford to lose one sector of the economy every now and then. We survived the economic meltdown after September 11, and we'll survive this. What we won't survive is putting the force of the entire government behind one of these crazy ideas. When that happens, the downside risk as that the whole thing gets dragged down.
If Obama knows what to do to prevent the mortgage crisis from happening again, why didn't he know what to do to stop it? The one time he made a clear prediction in advance of the results, he was wrong. Why should we believe he would be any better at predicting the results of new financial regulations? It sure as heck isn't because of his extensive experience.
So, yes, there's a whole lot I'm thinking but not saying, because I don't know for sure. I apologize for this, but the current Democratic candidate for President is a poster child for the importance of being cautious about your conclusions.
And that is definitely NOT a change.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Tue 12:13 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (2) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: banking bankrupt Barack Obama campaign 2008 conservative economics Lehman Brothers mortgage relief philosophy politics
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September 10, 2008
Confused Americans for Truth - After a Week of Sarah, We're Back to Doing Bad Commercials
Okay, first and foremost, Barack Obama must immediately cease and desist these painful attempts at humor. First there was the above my pay grade thing. Now it's all about lipstick. Senator Obama, you're a nice guy, but you can't be a comedian and a saviour at the same time.
That said, I think the McCain campaign is seriously over-reacting. Obama clearly had no idea what he was saying. I know everybody is always talking about how eloquent and smart Obama is, but smart is not a very big factor in Illinois politics. The truth is, he's just eloquent.
All this brings me to the other McCain ad that's completely stupid: Obama supports sex ed for kindergarten students. Yes, Obama may have voted for a bill that would provide sex education for pre-schoolers, but there's no reason to believe that Obama knew what was in the bill when he voted for it. What he did know, what everybody here in Illinois knows, is that there are so many required courses at the high school level that we have to start pushing stuff into the lower grades or it will take five years to get a diploma. Crazy situations lead to crazy laws.
The problem here is that conservatives believe Obama is a wacky fringe liberal, and that if the voters knew the truth about him they'd be appalled. The truth, however, is that liberalism is about doing things in new ways, so pinning Obama to his past is not going to work. Conservatives, who are about applying principles, are much more vulnerable to that sort of attack. Yes, it's a double standard, but it's been firmly in place for decades, and it's not a game we've ever won.
As a political movement, it's essential that we stop doing these high-production-value ads. The savvy media player who became our nominee does not even come close to the appeal of the no-nonsense small town woman who is his running mate. There's a reason for that, and it would be a good thing for McCain's ad makers to learn a lesson from it.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Wed 11:39 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (2) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: Barack Obama campaign 2008 conservative education Illinois John McCain liberals marketing philosophy
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Red_State_Blue: Put a Name on it
September 9, 2008
Confused Americans for Truth - Parenting In Defiance of Traditional Stereotypes
When Nate was born, the plan was that Bruce would stay home and take care of the baby, while Nate's Mom pursued her career as an information technology executive. After about two years, she decided it would be a Bad Thing for all her children to grow up thinking like Bruce, and maybe it would be better to send him out into the world to earn a living while she raised the little ones. It was a tragic mistake: the kids grew up thinking like Bruce anyway. Apparently, it's genetic.
But the point is, the twins happened in those first two years, and she and Bruce had the option of balancing the needs of her career against the needs of two infant children and a toddler, because Bruce was capable of caring for the children, even if he wasn't the best choice for explaining to an impressionable mind how the world works.
This is the missing piece of the puzzle for people who claim Sarah Palin can't combine being a good parent and a good vice president: she has a husband.
It's easy to see how liberals could overlook the whole husband thing. In Hillary Clinton's best-selling book It Takes a Village, she describes how during a period of relative poverty in which she and Bill only had one servant, she suffered "every mother's worst nightmare" when the nanny called in sick. The despair she felt on that dark day helped her to realize that the government is simply Not Doing Enough to help working mothers. Asking her husband to help was simply not in the list of available choices.
So let's hope we can finally put to rest this ridiculous distraction about Sarah Palin's balancing act. To wealthy journalists and politicians, I can understand how it seems impossible for working-class women to have a career and children, but out here we aren't trapped by old formulas, and if parents are willing to work together to raise the children, you can accomplish amazing things even if you don't have servants.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Tue 10:25 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: conservative family feminism Hillary Clinton humor journalism liberals parenting Sarah Palin
