Posts from — January 2008

And you thought it was only comets and asteroids you had to worry about.

Ellroon at Rants from the Rookery announced it first, but BossKitty at the American Street has a plethora of graphics for the story of the out-of-control intelligence satellite that is coming out of orbit to slam into some unsuspecting corner of the planet. It’s the size of a bus.

Well, we have contingency plans, right? I mean this has happened in the past and knew it could happen in the future so there’s a plan in place to take care of this in a sane and sensible manner, right? They certainly didn’t ignore the possibility of something the size of a Greyhound crashing into a major city, right? FEMA’s not involved, right? We aren’t going to try to use the missile defense thing, right?

OK, stainless steel colander™, motorcycle helmet, duct tape, and plastic, yep, I know where they are. Hmmm, Geiger counter, gas mask, bio-hazard suit, house jack, I’m set.

Barack Obama won convincingly in South Carolina, getting twice as many votes as Hillary Clinton. I’m happy for him and his supporters.

The rest of the analysis is hogwash. The combined turnout for the South Carolina primaries was about 40%. Not bad for second worst state in the nation for voter turnout, only Hawaii has lower turn out for Presidential elections, but not that great for a state that has open primaries and no party registration.

If this meant that South Carolina’s 8 electoral votes would be cast for a Democrat I might be a bit happier, but come November, South Carolina will vote for the Republican, not in any great numbers, but sufficient to put the state squarely in the red column.

Clinton still leads in the delegate count, and “momentum” exists only in the mind of the media pundits. They are trying to push things to an early conclusion, and it isn’t going to happen.

In other news – “none of the above” is gaining on Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul for fourth place in the Florida Republican primary.

January 27, 1967

Virgil “Gus” Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

This seems to come mainly from Obama supporters, but there are others, attacking Hillary for asking that delegates from Michigan and Florida be seated at the Democratic convention.

– Hillary shouldn’t do it, it’s not according to the rules everyone agreed to, and we have to protect the primary businesses in Iowa and New Hampshire, etc. ad nauseum

First off, Florida and Michigan are not the same situation.

The governor of Michigan is a Democrat; the Michigan lower house is controlled by the Democrats, and the upper house is controlled by the Republicans. Either party in Michigan could have stopped the law that changed their primary date. Both parties agreed to the change.

In Florida, the governor is a Republican, and both houses are controlled by Republicans. The Democrats had no power to stop what the Republicans did. The Democratic National Committee is punishing, disenfranchising, Democratic voters in the state of Florida, for an action of the Florida Republican Party. The Florida Democratic Party doesn’t have the resources to schedule a separate election, and I’m not even sure such an attempt would be considered legal.

Michigan was a fair cop, they did it knowing the likely result, but Florida Democrats didn’t have a choice.

Democratic Floridians should limit their donations to individual candidates. The Democratic National Committee should come to grips with the reality: if they don’t want our votes to count, don’t count on our money.

The same day Rudy was on demonstrating for all and sundry that he has never understood the American economic system, the towheaded misogynist had Pat Buchanan on, and, as Bast is my witness, Pat said something that made a lot of sense.

Everyone was talking about Bill Clinton attacking Obama as a surrogate for Hillary, when Pat chimed in say say they were wrong. Bill was reacting to what Barack had said about his administration, and it had nothing to do with Hillary.

Think about it. Bill Clinton is not exactly a shy and retiring person when it comes to his years in the White House. What Obama was saying, from Bill’s perspective, was that everything that Bill had accomplished was the result of Republican ideas.

I don’t think that Bill is going to let up on Obama. I think he is seriously ticked off about being dissed by Obama. Ol’ Bill did a number of things that I’m not happy about, but he was in charge of country during his eight years, even during the worst of the Republican/media mudslinging. He got things done, including balancing the budget, reducing the size of government, making agencies like FEMA effective, and encouraging the economy, that make those of us who were aware of the world want to see a return to those days [but without the NAFTA crap].

Sinfonian notes says that Florida’s senators predictably endorse front-runners indicating that Bill Nelson♥Clinton and Mel Martinez♥McCain, just like the New York Times, but I was slightly surprised that Bill didn’t endorse Obama like his “twin”, Ben from Nebraska. The Nelsons are almost as reliable as Joe LIEberman when the Republicans need votes.

Sinfonian vowed to find someone to oppose our supposed Democratic Senator when he runs again simply because Bill Nelson hates the Constitution. I told Nelson to kiss my grits before his last election in 2006 and left the line for Senator blank on my ballot. I’m now free to complain about him with a clear conscience.

To be totally honest, I wouldn’t have been surprised if both my Senators endorsed John McCain.

Royal Australian Air Force Ensign

Do not go drinking with those who fly this flag.

Mike Stuckey, Senior news editor for MSNBC, reports that Feds OK Mississippi’s Katrina grant diversion

While thousands of Mississippians who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina remain in FEMA trailers, the state intends to spend $600 million in federal grants originally earmarked for housing on a major expansion of the state-owned port — a project that could eventually include casino and resort facilities.

Despite strong objections from housing activists and two powerful congressional Democrats, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson on Friday sent Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour a letter approving the diversion.

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First off, where in hell are Obama and Clinton? If you have no intention or interest in defending the rights of all Americans, why are you wasting everyone’s time running for the Democratic nomination for President? Stand up or go home, but stop pretending you care.

Everyone needs to remember that this is about amending the FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance Act. Anyone assisting the government in conducting FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance has multiple layers of protection in existing law and needs no more. I was once engaged in FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance, and there were a number of private companies that provided assistance in that effort. I don’t remember a single one of those corporations who did not find a way of mentioning their association in their share holder communications. What they were doing was totally legal, and, occasionally, actually useful in protecting the United States from FOREIGN threats.

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Update: Steve Bates and Fallenmonk aren’t impressed, and, not only is Distributorcap not impressed, he remembers having to pay taxes on the last rebate. In addition 56% of the 60K people who have clicked on the CNN quick poll think it’s too little, too late.

Kevin Drum on the stimulus package:

Bottom line: I doubt that this plan is going to provide an awful lot of stimulus. But it might do a bit of good, and certainly won’t do any harm. In today’s world, that counts as a win.

Paul Krugman on Who Gets Stimulated:

I’d guess that the top two quintiles [note: a quintile=20%] are unlikely to be liquidity-constrained, so the rebate will have little effect on their spending. But they get 58% of the money. The bottom two quintiles, which are the place you’d most expect to have an impact, get only 21% of the money. Split the difference on the middle quintile, and you’ve got a plan where around 2/3 of the outlay is likely to be ineffective.

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Dr. Cole at Informed Comment on the news: “Hiring Paul Wolfowitz to advise the State Department on arms control is like hiring Lindsay Lohan as a driving instructor.”

Given the way things are going, the Shrubbery should be able to deliver the shortest State of the Union address ever on Monday – “Everything sucks – thank you and whatever.”

I would think that any attempts to find any accomplishments is severely limited by the writers’ strike. Maybe he’ll just re-run last year’s address and hope no one notices. I guess we could hope for a State of the Union blooper reel.

Photo Tip

Arrrgggh!

[Editor: When taking a picture of a cat, like young Property, it is generally a good idea not to let the wrist strap dangle where they can see it. Well, they can’t see much after the flash goes off, and they don’t hang around.]

Friday Ark