Sarah Palin Beauty Pageant Pics - Yes, Swimsuit

Well, dare I actually post a link to these pics? Yes.

More Islamic "Extremists" At Work

"The Jewel of Medina", a fictional book on the account of Muhammed's marriage to his child-bride, Kadijah, has resulted in violence. The book was originally halted by an American publisher on fears of violence from "radical" Muslims, but a second publisher picked up the book and has begun publishing it.

Unfortunately for the publisher, there are more "extremists" than most people like to admit. It's offices were burned this weekend when an incendiary device was pushed through a mail slot.

I put the words "radical" and "extremist" in quotations, because they are words use by politically correct media types to affirm their non-discriminatory intentions. The words are use to mean that "extremists" and "radicals" are a minority of Muslims. I agree with the premise, but I would take issue with what "minority" means. Some seem to think that there about one radical for every 100,000. Some are closer when they say one in 10,000. But I would assert that the latter is closer to the truth. But the most troubling issue for me is the number of sympathizers the radicals have. For every one who would actually commit an act of violence, there are 1,000 who support the move, even if they wouldn't have done it themselves.

Let me define who a radical is - he is an individual who would uses violence in support of his religious views. This could be everything from suicide bombings to street beatings, but it is the exercise of violence that distinguishes it.

For several years I worked just north of Detroit, Michigan. As you may know, there is a very large Arab population in that area. In fact, it is the largest outside of the middle east. After 9/11, you wouldn't believe how many were pleased by the attacks. That somehow the US deserved what it got. Then, to add insult to injury, many others asserted that it wasn't Muslims who committed the attacks, but rather it is was the work of the Jews, masquerading as Muslims in order to give Muslims a bad name. I'm not making this stuff up.

Best Obama Quotes

"Lemme, Leh, lemme..."

"Uh...uh..uh..."

"Wha...he..uh..uh.."

"But...but..but..."


"Ha...ha...ha...have we..."

I wonder if those who think Obama is a great speaker finally saw that he's only as good as the writing on the teleprompter.

Sarah Palin's Witch Protection

The AP has a story out this morning about how Sarah Palin once received a blessing from a Kenyan minister for financial assistance and that she could be used to "turn the nation the other way around." The minister also asked for protection against all kinds of witchcraft.

The story, of course, is meant to portray her as somewhat crazy. After all, who gets blessings from priests, and especially for protection against witchcraft? Obviously only crazy people. Nah. I know plenty of people...maybe that makes me crazy. Or maybe it just means that I don't just say I have faith, but I act out my faith. So maybe Sarah Palin isn't someone who just says, "I'm a Christian", but then does nothing that would set her apart. No, instead she is someone who actually practices what she says she believes. GASP!

My church is not a Pentacostal church, but we regularly pray for peoples' healing from physical and mental afflictions; we regularly ask Jesus to bless us, our nation, and our brothers and sisters. Is this really so outrageous? Or is it faith itself that the AP has a problem with? Maybe they agree with Barack Obama - that we're just a bunch of backwards fools clinging to religion.

Palin's Church and the Judgment on Israel

A couple weeks ago, the Politico reported that the executive director of Jews for Jesus, David Brickner, spoke at Palin's church in Wasilla, Alaska. The Politico said that Brickner blamed terror bombings in Israel on the failure of Jews to believe in Jesus. The story was picked up by know-nothing commentator Rachel Maddow and spewed across the air waves. Of course the Politico was completely wrong.

In their regular e-bulletin, David Brickner sets the record straight. He says, "that is not what I said and it is certainly not my belief."

I did a search of the Politico, CNBC, and MSNBC websites and found no retractions or apologies. That, I suppose, is to be expected.

Bail-Out: Good or Bad?

Heck if I know. When I first learned of the scope of the problem (AIG, Merrill Lynch, etc), I thought "something has to be done." But the more I think about it, the closer I come to the conclusion that it would be better to let the companies tank. And if any sort of "bail-out" is to happen, the money should be sent to taxpayers in the form of a stimulus check. For the amount of money they intend to spend, $700 billion, that would be roughly $3500 for each taxpayer...probably more if you exclude those making over $250,000 a year.

I'm glad that my fellow Republicans in Congress aren't jumping on the doomsday hysteria.

For more on what I think about the economic situation, see my earlier post titled "Economics Bizarro World", but I didn't really give any specifics thoughts in that post, other than that regulation is the problem, not the answer.

Good Article on Financial Crisis

My good buddy Joel over at Blogstitution has a great post on the current financial mess. He quotes a 2005 NY Times article that touts Bush's attempt to overhaul the regulatory agencies in charge of the financial sector and reveals that the biggest stumbling blocks were lobbyists and congressional democrats. No surprise here.

It buttresses my article HERE.

Economics Bizarro World - Update

Have you ever seen that episode of "Seinfeld" where everything is backwards? "Up is down, down is up." That's how I describe the current political and economic situation. It seems to me that those who should know the most about how the market works are acting like they know nothing. Democrats are saying Republican things, Republicans are saying Democrat things. I'm confused.

On Economics:

There are fundamental principles in the market, and one of them is that panic and lack of knowledge is BAD. For instance, when the mortgage "crisis" first started, Countrywide was a very solid company, despite its nay-sayers. It had substantial cash flow, strong reserves, and one of the largest portfolios in the country. Yet, it suffered a 90% drop in value because of its position in the sector. This dramatic drop was caused by panic and lack of knowledge, and it lead to Countrywide's eventual sale to Bank of America. Now this worked to my advantage because I bought Countrywide stock at its low and sold the converted BoA stock after it jumped about 60% in value. I made a good deal of money on that set of trades because I knew that Countrywide was heavily undervalued and that BoA would become a force as a result of the acquisition. But the fact remains that Countrywide never would have been in that position but for the ignorance of investors and the rampant fear mongering laid out everyday in the media. "Mortgage Crisis", "meltdown", "debacle", etc. Those are some of the terms the media used to describe the situation.

What's worse is that the panic lead to further deterioration in that market sector. If investors had said, "these companies are sound enough to weather this storm, I'm not going to sell" then we wouldn't have seen the fall of Lehman Brothers, AIG or Morgan Stanley. (Of course there are other factors that played into all of this, but I stand by my basic premise.)

Why are investment commentators so quick to jump on the "sky is falling" hysteria when they should know it isn't true? If I was an SEC investigator, I would look to see how many of those media commentators were short-selling various financial related stocks. If they entered short-sale orders immediately before or after their media appearance, I would scream "fraud" and market manipulation. (For those who don't know, short-selling is the practice of selling a stock you don't own on the bet that its price will drop. Basically, you tell a broker to place a sell order on stocks and then when the price drops, buy it at the lower price, making a hefty profit.)

On Politics:

Why are McCain and Palin calling for more regulation? I know its the popular thing to say that regulation would have saved the economy from this catastrophe, but its simply not true. In fact, regulation is contributing factor to the problem. For instance, the various government agencies responsible for oversight and rule-making for mortgage financing were pressing mortgage companies to make riskier and riskier loans. For instance, many companies would not make sales of adjustable rate mortgages in Cleveland, Ohio. This was due to the already high foreclosure rate in fixed mortgages in that city. However, this practice, which was based solely on risk analysis, was called a potential "race problem" because Cleveland has a heavy minority population. Well guess what happened in Cleveland, (Detroit is another good example of the same principle) the foreclosure rate jumped even higher because Mortgages were being sold to people who couldn't afford them. But the agencies asked lenders to "expand" their guidelines to facilitate more minority home ownership. Well, if it happens to be true that more minorities make less money than other groups, then lending money to those lower income folks is an act that begs for foreclosures. You can't just fudge the numbers and hope it works out.

Regulation is not the answer per se - smart regulations, even there are fewer of them, is a better answer. But trusting the making of these regulations to either McCain or Obama is a fool's errand because neither of them seems to know much about economics. I mean, I'm just a simple guy with no degree in economics or finance, but I seem to know more than both of them. That doesn't make me feel good about the political-economic future of this country.

Anyway, that's my rant. It's been building for months.

Palin Didn't Impress Me...

I watched Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson lastnight. I was not overly impressed. In fact, I was not that impressed at all.

Why is it that politicians can't answer straight questions? Why is it that I believe I had better answers to Charlie's questions than those given by Palin? I'm not saying she has to give a 'yes' or 'no' to every question that could have been answered that way. But when asked about your foreign policy credentials, she should have answered the question, not changed the topic to energy independence. I wish that she had known what the 'Bush Doctrine' was without Charlie Gibson having to explain it to her. But the worst exchange, to me, was when Charlie asked about her knowledge of Russia. She said that Russia was their neighbor and "you can actually see Russia from Alaska." When I heard her say that, I thought to myself, "What are you doing?! People are going to say that you think you know something about Russia because you can see it!"

I wish she told Charlie something substantive, but she didn't. I was not impressed.

Barack on the Meaning of Change

I heard something from Barack Obama this morning that I haven't heard from him. He was on with George Stephanopolous. George was talking about his attacks on McCain - that McCain has voted with Bush over 90% of the time. George then said something like, "In 2006 you voted with the Democrats 95% of the time, 97% in 2007 and 97% in 2008 so far." George then asked something like, "How can you claim to bring change when you've voted with the democrats almost every time?"

Then Obama said something that I had never heard him say to date. He basically said that the "change" he was bringing was NOT a change to the political system, or to the type of politics in Washington, but a change away from the ways of George Bush.

I thought this was a remarkable statement. Because heretofore, I had always thought Barack was showing himself to be an agent of change from "politics as usual", a change from the "partisan politics" that has always poisoned Washington, and that he was bringing something new. But alas, all of us who saw Barack for what he is - a liar - are not surprised.

Oprah Biased?

"Is Oprah Biased?" That's the headline on an ABC News internet article. I have to say that it is probably one of the most obviously stupid headlines. Of course Oprah is biased you goons! She supports Barack Obama! She has had Obama on twice, Michelle on once, and has gone to events to lend her support and introduce Obama to the people.

Now, I'm not saying that Oprah should have Sarah Palin on her show. Oprah's show is Oprah's show and its not my place to tell her who she should or should not have on. From a marketing view, however, I think it would be wise to have Palin on for two reasons. First, not all of Oprah's audience is liberal. There are probably a large number who will vote for McCain-Palin. So having Palin on the show would probably reduce the potential loss of viewers who might tune-out because of her bias. Second, the Republican National Convention got about 4 million more viewers than the Democrat convention; and Sarah Palin was a large reason for that. I think it would be a good idea to feature a person who has the potential to increase viewership.

Nevertheless, Oprah can do what she wants, but let's not ask plain old stupid questions.

Obama Tax Cut Fraud - Update

So now a legal gossip blog called "Above the Law" is shilling for Barack Hussein Obama. They talk about Obama's alleged plan to cut taxes, but fail to give all the facts. They, and the tax blog they link to, count only Obama's plan on payroll taxes and child tax credit. What they fail to mention is that tax rates will bump up after the Bush tax cuts expire, resulting in a higher starting rate; they fail to mention that Obama will raise the capital gains rate, taxes on investments, and has already voted three different times to raise the marginal tax rates. McCain, on the other hand, will keep the Bush tax cuts and lower taxes even further.

**UPDATE** So I got a comment from "Zach" who claims to be the author of the tax calculator that is referenced on Above the Law's website. He claims that his calculations are based on numbers from the Tax Policy Center website. He further claims that the numbers DO include the capital gains changes, but remarks that only individuals making over $250,000 a year pay that tax. I will challenge that last statement. The Tax Policy Center, the website he says he bases his numbers on, reports that, "Over half of taxpayers with gains had incomes below $75,000, but most capital gains were reported by very high income taxpayers." Now, I'm no tax law expert, but if Zach wants to provide me the IRS code section that says only people with incomes over $250,000 a year pay capital gains, then I will be happy to retract my statements. ***END OF UPDATE***

Other Obama comments:

Today he admits that the surge has worked beyond our "wildest dreams." Really? Just weeks ago you stubbornly refused to admit that it had worked at all. You claimed that any gains made were the result of other factors, not the surge. So what's changed in the last few weeks? Oh, I don't know. Maybe its the fact that Barack Hussein Obama isn't 20 points ahead in the polls like he think should be. Maybe its because he saw only a three-point bump after his monumental speech, rather than the typical 4-6 points. Maybe its because the Republican VP candidate has more executive experience than he does. I think I'm on to something here.

Obama Ties to Saudi Financier

I am simply reposting the link to a Newsmax article that Connectthedots has on his site. I thought it needed to be on the list a little longer through the day. The article certainly is interesting and deserves more time.

Mark Shields Is An Idiot

Mark Shields, commentator for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, is a complete fool. He is a shill for the democrat party. I know that David Brooks is sitting next to him, but David at least sounds thoughtful and gives credit where its due, even if its due to a democrat.

Shields, on the other hand, makes stuff up. He claims to talk to "republican insiders" or top "republican strategists", but he never gives a name. Then he uses this insider information to claim that Republicans are in disarray or flustered.

This evening he says that a top Republican strategist, who has run numerous successful Republican campaigns, told him that John McCain undercut the last three months of gains by picking Sarah Palin. He claimed that this insider was bamboozled by the notion that McCain was hammering Obama for a lack of experience, but then picks this inexperienced woman as VP. This shows his complete ignorance.

First, Palin will be the VP, not the President. Which is better, to have a Vice President who lacks experience, or a President? That's of course assumes that you buy the argument that she is inexperienced, which I do not.

Second, Palin has more on the job experience than Barack Hussein Obama. She has been a mayor, managing employees, departments, and a budget. She was on an ethics committee where she outed a fellow Republican for corruption. She then challenged the sitting Republican governor who had appointed her in the first place. She beats him in the primary and then beats a democrat candidate who had been governor before. Then, as governor, she managed tens of thousands of employees, billions of dollars, cut taxes, and took on special interests. What has Barack Obama done?

He was a city organizer, though no one has ever defined what that actually means. He was a state legislator - employing no one and managing nothing. Moreover, when the tough votes came along, a chance for him to prove his toughness, he votes "present" more than 130 times. Then he gets elected Senator. He has authored no legislation of any substance and still manages nothing. He was in the Senate fewer days than Palin was governor and he decides he can be president.

He now claims that running for President has given him executive experience because he has thousands of volunteers and tens of millions to manage. But what he fails to tell anyone (lie by omission) that he actually has a CEO for the campaign who hires, fires, and manages the budget. Barack doesn't do any of it. He goes where he's told to go; reads what he's told to read; and wears what he's told to wear. He's an empty suit of a candidate and he knows it - Mark Shields knows it. And that is why they are both so afraid.

Morons.

My Take On Experience

A lot is being made of "experience" in this election. But I think it's prudent to ask, "What does 'experience' mean anyway?" It might seem obvious to some, but my take is probably not the norm.

When we're talking about experience to be president, candidates tout all sorts of things. They tout their military experience, their legislative experience, their city council experience, etc, etc. In short, they tout, almost exclusively, their political experience, as though being a superior politician qualifies one to be president. I don't think it does.

Personally, I look for someone with executive style experience. Someone who has led others, managed a budget, hired and fired employees, developed ideas and put them into actual practice, and has done all of this with positive results. Now I admit that these things alone are not enough for me. George Soros would probably meet the above criteria, but he's as liberal as they come. No, I also require the social principles I support in conjunction with the executive experience.

Applying my criteria, I'm not sure if John McCain beats Barack Obama. He certainly prevails over Barack on the social issues, but executive experience? Neither of them really has any. What executive experience McCain has is nearly 40 years old.

Personally, I think a great business man with socially conservative principles would be a better president than a life-long politician...and no, I'm not talking about the liberal phony Mitt Romney.

What do you think? Let me know - leave a comment.

Anti-War Protesters Turn Violent

I think it is ironic that anti-war protesters turned violent at the Republican Convention last night. Evidently they were smashing car windows, puncturing tires, lighting trash bins on fire and throwing bottles at police.

I don't remember any conservatives doing anything like this at the Democrat Convention.

Sarah Palin's Daughter Pregnant

Sarah Palin announced today that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant and will be marrying the baby's daddy.

Maybe this will detract from some of the rumor-milling that inaccurately and without basis, accused Palin of faking a pregnancy in order to cover for her daughter's pregnancy. Of course, it may say something else about Palin's involvement in her daughter's life.