President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President "Bobby": In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President "Bobby": Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.
'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession.
I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.'
Ronald Reagan
If there is an upside, it is the fact that in such a long protracted campaign, the candidates will expose themselves even if a fawning media does not. Hillary has proved beyond any doubt that she will say and do anything to get elected. One good thing about a two year long interview process is that you get to see the real person and not just the packaged persona. She's real alright. She's the real deal...in all her corrupt human glory, she seems to know no shame.
Obama on the other hand is seen as just about the most brilliant man to run for the Presidency in the history of the republic. How else to explain a phenomenon not seem in the last 50 years of American politics. Not since Chance the Gardener has the country been so receptive to a blank canvas on which to paint their own hopes and aspirations. Every enthralling uttered word is believed to be Solomaic in its extraordinary wisdom and insight. People who should know better, have been charmed by the soaring rhetoric. To them, Obama is Martin Luther King, Jr. , John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and everyman all rolled up in one. He is wise and handsome and a god-fearing family man; loyal even to his undeserving friends. He's the total package. Young, good looking, Harvard educated. Ubermensch. Those of us less enthralled with the phenom see him as a first-class grifter.
The Democrat primary has become torturous but in life, occasionally you have to take a bitter medicine in order to get better. Our suffering is nearly done.
Thank God, it's Pennsylvania Tuesday.
Our suffering is nearly done.
ReplyDeleteWhen, in fact
It's only just begun
Really
The Democrat primary has become torturous but in life, occasionally you have to take a bitter medicine in order to get better. Our suffering is nearly done.
ReplyDeleteRemember when Wisconsin and Texas, by turns, were supposed to be definitive? If Clinton doesn't clean up in Pennsylvania she will retroactively judge the state to be irrelevant to the contest and turn to the next one. "Indiana! It's always been about Indiana!"
Most of the commentary about Pennsylvania is way off the mark. Pennsylvania is a microcosm of the US as a whole, big city, farms, rural small towns, liberal universities, a bible belt, high tech and rusted and broken industries.
ReplyDeleteIt has a huge veteran base along with Quakers, Amish and Mennonites, pacifists all. The campaign in Pennsylvania has been singular for almost eight weeks. Obama has spent $10 million in PA. If Obama cannot win PA, he will have lost every large state but Illinois. A win is a win.
The last time I checked there is no affirmative action program that handicaps the candidates. Why is MSM trying to qualify a 6-7% win by Hillary as a loss? We know the answer. Hillary would have torn PA up except for the duck and cover Bosnia story, but by now that is mostly forgotten.
I thought Obama would have been the tougher candidate for McCain. I was wrong. The MSM better watch what they wish for. A loss for Obama in PA by any margin is a loss and trouble for the Democrats in November.
Since, amongst the three current candidates for President, there are no conservatives, it makes little difference.
ReplyDeleteThe policies that the US will engage in, in a macro sense, will be about the same, regardless.
From global warming to Pakistan, since Mr McCain does not know Maulana Sufi Muhammad. His experience i with the "old school", not the new.
Time will have passed his knowledge base by.
And no, duece, in proportional representation, a small win is a loss, when you are behind.
As occurred in Texas, where Obama lost the popular vote, but gained more delegates than Billary.
As is occurring, now, to the US, in Iraq. Where the Iranian backed government is beating the Iranian backed militias. While the US continues to lose, by winning.
Strategy vs tactics
Rat, I mostly agree except that as you know, there is no proportional split of votes in the federal election. Obama won mostly in the caucus states and with perhaps 7% participation by zealots. A caucus is more like a kangaroo court than the privacy of a voting booth.
ReplyDeleteThe Republicans will never get the black vote or the far left. The outcome will be determined by the group that seems to be supporting Hillary over Obama.
Regardless, the outcome with the exception of picking of Supremes will be similar.
"If there is an upside, it is the fact that in such a long protracted campaign, the candidates will expose themselves even if a fawning media does not."
ReplyDeleteThis was the panel consensus during Anderson Cooper's 360 last night. Did you know that Anderson Cooper is the younger of Gloria Vanderbilt's sons? Now you do.
Rat's right, though, tonight really is about delegate count, and it looks like Hillary will net four over Obama in Penn. The debate/divide is over a popular vote candidate v. a big state candidate. They may have to share a ticket after all. Awkward, that.
A goodly portion of those religious pacifists went for GWB in the last general, dear host. (Whiskey_199 wouldn't be surprised to learn this, would he?) I think this was supposed to have been the special handiwork of Rove (and maybe that goes without saying). He offered to buy all the pickles, relishes, and fudge they had in store.
Sneer at "hope" now, whit, but in 2000, that was a BIG seller. And it wasn't Gore who was hawking it. GWB was all about hope, hope, hope. Oh, and then there was "unity." The other favorite. Go back and read the speeches. I had never been so jazzed about a candidacy in my life and lost a month of sleep during Florida.
If the man hadn't have screwed the country royally, would a candidate Obama have gotten this far? Maybe. Maybe not.
(That's right, T, bobal is gonna save your sorry, thoughtless, feminist ass from being draped with a burka, as near a frightening prospect as any for the good women of Seattle. Common sense may be dead, but chivalry is not.)
ReplyDelete(Don't be tag-teamed, T.)
ReplyDelete2164th: If Obama cannot win PA, he will have lost every large state but Illinois. A win is a win.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats don't have winner-take-all, they divvy up the delegates. It's more Democratic that way and tends to negate the impact of winning in big states. Obama won Texas 99-94 (delegates) after the caucus results came in. In "small" states like Colorado Obama picked up a net gain of 17 delegates. Here in "tiny" Washington Obama picked up 28 over Clinton.
Trish: (That's right, T, bobal is gonna save your sorry, thoughtless, feminist ass from being draped with a burka, as near a frightening prospect as any for the good women of Seattle. Common sense may be dead, but chivalry is not.)
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to get crap from people I don't like (Habu, Doug), that doesn't bother me too much, but when someone I considered to be, within the limited context of online relationships, a friend, turns on me for no reason (bobal, whit) I go to a scorched-earth policy, and even if things are patched up later I don't forget it and things are never the same again. I don't know, I'm just funny that way.
216th wrote:
ReplyDelete"Why is MSM trying to qualify a 6-7% win by Hillary as a loss?"
I really don't believe the MSM is "trying" to "do" anything. It just "does". I think most view the Penn primary as just one more primary in a long series of them with a win being defined as someone getting the nomination. Simply winning in Penn will not advance Hillary far in the quest to get the nomination. Delegates do that and she needs quite a few more then Obama in order to win.
With respect to my directorship I respectfully decline the honor if for no other reason your mast head looks kinda funny with my name at the top. On a more rational note the power accrued to me through membership is minimal and is out weighed by the negative guilt through association.
I enjoy this blog. I came to it through Iraq The Model/Belmont Club while actively seeking out opinions contrary to my own. I have found the blinkered radicalism of ITM and Belmont too painful to deal with of late while the Bar has proved to house a relatively eclectic group of people who usually present reasonable arguments and consider differing points of view. I like the place and will continue to post my opinions (till kicked) but a management role (mostly symbolic) does not sit well. Mats is relieved I'm sure.
bobal is defending his sense of manhood. If he's gotta hook up again with the biggest piece of jackassery on the internet to do it, well...a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. If he needs to play Slim Pickens in Strangelove for awhile, let 'im. You don't have to be no part of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's always good to remember, T: Our foreign policy may be dumb. It's nowhere near THAT dumb.
Ash, your wishes have been granted. Thanks for the compliment and the continued eclecticism.
ReplyDeleteI repeat, T: Do not encourage through your own engagement. What habu, and bob, advocate is actually in stark contrast to Wretchard. Let THAT contrast emphasize itself.
ReplyDeletebobal is defending his sense of manhood
ReplyDeletenah, after all the bills I've paid in life, and all the trouble I've seen, I just want a calm peaceful retirement, and after all I've read it strikes me that islam is the craziest thing going on earth, and really dangerous, and it strikes me as odd that the ladies seem less upset by it than me.
I think Hillary is going to thump Obama today, we shall see...
Please Teresita, if you are going to keep referring to me as having turned on you for no reason, please provide the reader with a link to the offense in question.
ReplyDeleteWhit: Please Teresita, if you are going to keep referring to me as having turned on you for no reason, please provide the reader with a link to the offense in question.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when I was on the Board of Directors of your blog, and there was a time when I was not on the Board of Directors of your blog. The post was in a thread just before I asked to be removed from the Board of Directors of your blog. Instead of searching for it, I will just not refer to it anymore, per your request, since an apology has never been and probably never will be forthcoming. I'd rather go looking for the hotties in the archives so I can link to them.
Hillary says she might just wipe Iran off the face of the earth...defending her manhood...
ReplyDeleteDisagreeing with a person isn't turning on them... it is just disagreeing with them....I like everyone here
I can't understand...it seems so logical to me, that islam is a threat to our way of life, not an immediate threat here in the USA tomorrow morning, but that it wants to impose sharia where ever it goes, and that the idea of removing it from being protected under freedom of religion...is not a bad idea...
It's just a big farce, and wants to put a few men on top...and bully everybody else around...I'd think the ladies would be very sensitive to this...
Peter Sellers had a near death experience. It kind of changed his way of looking at the world, made him quieter, a little more sensitive, I have read.
ReplyDeleteDrudge has a post up about 'mystery' lights over Florida--anything spooky down your way, Whit?
ReplyDeleteAll is calm here in Ideehooo.
That's an odd picture that Drudge has there. I saw about the same thing, out at the farm, but it was just three stars, not four, but in a perfect triangle. Turned out it was three Navy satellites, in formation.
ReplyDeletebobal wrote:
ReplyDelete"I can't understand...it seems so logical to me, that islam is a threat to our way of life, not an immediate threat here in the USA tomorrow morning, but that it wants to impose sharia where ever it goes, and that the idea of removing it from being protected under freedom of religion...is not a bad idea..."
This paragraph of yours strikes me as a good summary of your thought on Islam and illuminates some of the problems I have with your thinking on it.
You state that Islam is a threat to our way of life yet you concede that threat isn't imminent i.e. not today or tomorrow but sometime. If it isn't a threat today what makes it a threat in the future?
You then write that Islam wants to impose Sharia wherever it goes. On the one hand this is quite natural for the religious - that they want their moral values to be reflected in law. We see this in the USA all the time, the Christians who want the law to reflect Christs teachings. This strikes me as being part of freedom to worship how one choses and there isn't anything intrinsic to Islam that prevents it from being afforded the same protections we give other followers of religions. If those followers violate the law of the land, well, they got problems as evidenced by the Christian polygamist sects current problems.
You also treat Islam and Sharia as a monolithic whole that is very threatening. In fact Islam and Sharia law have many variants. Here is a good article on it:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/8034/
"Sharia, or Islamic law, influences the legal code in most Islamic countries, but the extent of its impact varies widely. Avowedly secular Turkey is at one extreme. It doesn't base its laws on the Quran, and some government-imposed rules--such as a ban on women's veils--are contrary to practices often understood as Islamic. At the devout end of the spectrum are the Islamic Republic of Iran, where mullahs are the ultimate authority, and Saudi Arabia, a monarchy where the Quran is considered the constitution. In 1959, Iraq modified its sharia-based family law system and became one of the Middle East's least religious states. Whether sharia should be more strictly applied in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is one of the most divisive issues facing the transitional government.
What is sharia?
Literally, it means "path," or "path to water," says Clark Lombardi, an expert on Islamic law at the University of Washington's School of Law. In its religious sense, it means God's law'the body of commands that, if followed, will provide the path to salvation. According to Islamic teaching, sharia is revealed in divine signs that must be interpreted by humans. The law is derived from four main sources:
* the Quran, Islam's holy book, considered the literal word of God;
* the hadith, or record of the actions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, whose life is to be emulated;
* ijma, the consensus of Islamic scholars; and
* qiyas, a kind of reasoning that uses analogies to apply precedents established by the holy texts to problems not covered by them, for example, a ban on narcotics based on the Quranic injunction against wine-drinking."
To finish if off Bobal, you wish to deny Muslims their right to worship as they choose in the USA because of your fear of them, a vague fear at that. This is a very flimsy reason to deny such a basic right in the USA. Now, you aren't as bad as some of those Belmonters who advocate sterilization of Muslims, mass expulsions or mass killings but you seem to be leaning in that direction and I think that is disturbing. There is little evidence that the USA is threatened by a fifth column of Muslim threatening your everyday life.
...the New York Democrat apparently is positioning herself to the right of some Republicans, vowing that if Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, she would respond in kind against Tehran, with the ability to "totally obliterate them."
ReplyDeleteWhich, I hardly need point out, is NOT your position, bob. Dr. Krauthammer's position, but not yours.
"...and really dangerous, and it strikes me as odd that the ladies seem less upset by it than me."
ReplyDeleteMaybe the ladies aren't chronic bed wetters, bob.
Well, I may be a bed wetter :), if you say so, but I recall that the Nez Perce made a big mistake, more or less inviting us in here as they did, but, that was nearly 200 years ago.
ReplyDeleteLook where they are now, Lapwai...
but we are good guys, and allowing them to get back at us, via the Casino.
I don't think the muzzies would be so gracious, once on top....
But, then, it's just the ravings of another 'wetter'...
And by the way, if I called you or T., a 'bed wetter', you'd hold it against me practically forever:)
ReplyDeletePeckerwood.
Bobal,
ReplyDeleteAre you really worried that the Muzzies have more sophisticated technology (i.e. can wage war better and more effectively) and carry microbes that'll wipe us out? You know, like our ancestors did to the native North Americans?
Ah, Ash, they say the koran is the literal word of God, not to be changed, not monkeyed with, and that a sane Congress, or Parliament, or Idaho Legislature, elected by sane(hopefully) stable men and women, to do the public business, is tinkering with the word God, but you know all this already...
ReplyDeleteAsh, I think technology spreads all too fast, and that a nuclear mohammed is a real worry. And I think you are not seeing things as they are, to not be worried.
ReplyDeleteOnly until you brought flowers, bob.
ReplyDeleteThey say Ash, right there in the book, that the Canadian Parliament, the English Parliamnent, the US Congress, the good ol' Idaho Legislature, is tinkering with the word of God.
ReplyDeleteI submit, this is something to avoid, at all costs, lest we lose the things that make life worth it.
Muslim, by being Muslim, are vectors of Islam. Bob is correct in arguing that if we wish to eliminate the threat of Islam, we need to remove the vectors by which Islam travels. Personally, I would go one step further and argue that removing these vectors of Islam is not enough. We need to also go after those that promote the entry of these Islamic vectors into our being and downplay their harm. Such would include Ashley and Tes. I would have no problem in seeing these two meeting an untimely and dramatic end to their mischief.
ReplyDeleteand carry microbes that'll wipe us out? You know, like our ancestors did to the native North Americans?
ReplyDeleteThat is so you Ash. Conflating things.
One of my friends growing up had the last name Howe. Related to the Howe's that fought for George III. And I imagine they knew Mr Amherst, who really did try to spread the pox to the injuns. But on the other side of the equation, I know the Clydes from around here, and worked, and continue to do so, with the injuns, and my friend Howe, is now --has been for a long long time--a lawyer in the US Justice Department, doing his best. His wife is a minister in the Congregational Church, in Boise.
It is a stupid way to argue, as you do, makibng slogans.
And, yes, there is a chance the muzzies will spread poisons around, but how big a chance, I do not know.
Trish: Maybe the ladies aren't chronic bed wetters, bob.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they live in the Home of the Brave, served in Reagan's Navy, and ain't scared o' no so-called Jihadists who shed their uniforms and flee in the face of advancing Marines but target school kids with rockets from a safe distance.
I luv ya Mat, but I can't go that far.
ReplyDeleteIt is really irritating though, when you try to point out a rabid dog that is going to bite a person
And you say
"Rabid dog"
"Rabid dog"
And they don't listen.
metuselah: Such would include Ashley and Tes. I would have no problem in seeing these two meeting an untimely and dramatic end to their mischief.
ReplyDeleteI, on the other hand, wish you as a long and happy life Metuselah, as I pray the Creator intended for you.
Bob, you're more than worried. This isn't between a state of anxious concern and a state of blithe indifference, but between the former and complete and utter divorce from reality. The Wu Wei phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteI understand, or at least think I do, the outlook of Mat, and WiO, and the other of our Jewish friends. If I had gone through what their folk did, I'd feel just the same way.
ReplyDeleteThis is America, thank the Lord!
complete and utter divorce from reality.
ReplyDeleteWell, when someone tells me to my face I am crazy, I better go ask my wife if she thinks that is so:)
And if she says yes, I go to counciling, right now!
"luv ya Mat, but I can't go that far."
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with those two reading the blog. I do have a problem with them two posting here. I don't see them as bringing anything of substance that I cant get at the Daily Kos or some other idiot fair. Their trolling here adds very little, at least from my perspective. Maybe you can inform me otherwise.
Served in Reagan's Aaaaaaaaarmy. Under, successively, one of the finest and one of the worst BN cmdrs to ever grace, or plague, God's green earth.
ReplyDeleteIt's America, Mat, freedom of speech. They are women of America. We must be gentlemen.
ReplyDeleteBesides, they are on the board of directors now, so what can we do? And without them, it wouldn't be half the fun.
"It's America, Mat, freedom of speech."
ReplyDeleteFreedom of speech does not extend to taking a crap in someone else's living room.
It is their living room too. And I salute the ladies, who have, and are, serving our country.
ReplyDeleteAll this democratic loathing is starting to get to you folks. Deuce, whit what are yall putting in the drinks?
ReplyDeleteBut they don't seem to get it. It is the muzzies, who want to shut down freedom of speech. And make it so you can only say certain things. And kill you if you don't obey.
ReplyDeleteI say that, right here in our living room.
:):):)
ReplyDeleteThe mating of Habu and T.
hehehe
Joe Buz, I will shut up now.
"It is their living room too."
ReplyDeleteI disagree. If you haven't set boundaries, you haven't got a living room. In fact, if you haven't set boundaries, you haven't got anything.
"But they don't seem to get it. It is the muzzies, who want to shut down freedom of speech."
ReplyDeleteNo I think that was McCain-Feingold.
How could it be any other way, bob?
I see four "mystery lights" in the center of Drudge's page, but up in the left corner Hillary is making a devil's sign and she's got six mystery lights over her head.
ReplyDeleteObama says Hillary should win big. This is so when she just wins medium, he can call it a win.
ReplyDeleteYesterday Drudge posted internal polling from the Clinton camp that says she will win by 11 points. Whether that is true or not, it automatically becomes the bar she must clear.
Joe buz, that is worth a thirty day grace period on your bar bill.
ReplyDelete