September 2008 Archives
Memorable Debate Moments - TIME
Clips from past presidential debates, including Gerald Ford's "no Soviet domination" gaffe, Reagan's refusal to exploit Mondale's "youth and inexperience," Dukakis's disastrously detached death penalty response, "You're no Jack Kennedy," Gore's sighing.
Of Course, Preferred Parking « Irritated Tulsan
Will the Fair Board make more money from "preferred parking" than they did from Bell's Amusement Park, formerly occupying the site?
Ace of Spades HQ: Where's That Credit Crunch?
Gabriel Malor looks at the most recent Federal Reserve data on commercial bank loans and leases and finds that credit growth is slowing but credit isn't contracting.
Instapundit.com - A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS
"Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working." Anchoress has more.
Final Vote Results for Roll Call 674
Oklahoma's Sullivan, Lucas, and Fallin refused to eat the "crap sandwich" aka the bailout bill. Good on 'em. (More here from House conservatives about what was wrong with the proposed bailout.)
Bad News For The Bailout - Forbes.com
Where did that $700 billion bailout number come from? "'It's not based on any particular data point,' a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. 'We just wanted to choose a really large number.'" Via Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times, who comments:
"They made it up to be sufficiently ginormous to frighten everyone into rapid action.
"And it worked."
(Via Michelle Malkin.)
BIG, HAPPY news! Go read it and congratulate Karol!
Work & Family - WSJ.com: When Tough Times Weigh on the Kids
How to reassure your children in a time economic uncertainty, how to explain a layoff, a tight family budget, Dad working extra jobs. (Hat tip to John Eagleton.)
Deloitte LLP: A Familiar Call for Change
"The Tax Policy Group of Deloitte Tax LLP describes what a McCain or an Obama presidency would mean for corporate and individual tax rates, estate taxes, energy tax policy and international tax, and a host of other issues...." (Via WSJ, via John Eagleton.)
A brief moment of candor and decency, disavowed after further instructions from campaign HQ.
Bounded Rationality: What I Overheard on the Bus # 4
Downtown street redesign and narrowing is eliminating streets from bus routes and eliminating bus stops that are convenient to major employment nodes downtown.
The Letter People - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The popular phonics teaching tool from the '70s and '80s featured Mr. M with the munching mouth, Mr. T with the tall teeth, Mr. H with the horrible hair.... Each letter had its own song and a kid-sized inflatable figure. The vowels were Misses and the consonants were Misters until a politically correct makeover in the 1990s. (Mrs. Sandy Bates, Catoosa Elementary kindergarten teacher from 1970 to 1998, used the Letter People to teach phonics.)
MORE: Find original Letter People songs, videos, and activity sheets here. And here's Mister M singing about his munching mouth. (Hat tip to Irritated Tulsan.)
Detailed descriptions of the characters [The ISO Latin 1 character repertoire]
What do all these #@»¶µ±¥§ symbols mean, who uses them and why, and how do you make them in HTML?
imagiNATIVEamerica » The Boston Public Library Courtyard
Blair Humphreys captures sunlight, shadow, and classic architecture in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library on a sunny late summer day. (This is his homework (the lucky dog) for the MIT course 11.309J: Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry: "This course explores photography as a disciplined way of seeing and of investigating urban landscapes and expressing ideas.")
Independent Women's Forum - The Q Word from Charlie Gibson to Sarah Palin: Are You Qualified?
Former Democratic Oklahoma state representative Cleta Deatherage Mitchell writes: "It is not that we don't want to assure qualified people are the ones who get the jobs. It is only offensive for Charlie Gibson to ask that question of Sarah Palin because neither he nor his colleagues of the 'mainstream media' talking heads have ever posed that question to Barack Obama." (Via NRO Web Briefing.)
ObamaSoundoff.com: Obama Soundboard
Amusing: Click the words to hear Barack Obama saying some common, some odd, and some vulgar phrases. Many of the sound bites seem to be from his audiobook narration of his first memoir, Dreams from My Father, and I suspect he is quoting other people's words in the worst of them. Some of them would make for fun talk radio sounders.
On Sex-Ed Ad, McCain Is Right by Byron York on National Review Online
Barack Obama really did vote for a bill in the Illinois State Senate that includes this requirement: "Each class or course in comprehensive sex education in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV."
BaylyBlog: Covenant College faculty members take courageous stand...
Tim Bayly analyzes a poll of the faculty of the PCA-affiliated college: "Also, note that whereas fourteen faculty members are sure of Senator McCain's faith, sixteen are sure of the Christian faith of Senator Obama. Not to put too fine a point on it, but more Covenant faculty members are certain that a promoter of baby-slaughter and sodomite marriage is a Christian than a man who opposes baby-slaughter and sodomite marriage.... After the above, no one will be shocked to find out thirty-five percent of Covenant's faculty members say they're likely to vote for Senator Obama. That's one third of the faculty supporting the presidential candidacy of the most radically pro-baby slaughter politician in Washington D.C."
Meet Sarah Palin - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
A profile written in July 2007: "Sarah Palin can teach Republicans how to be Republicans. It's a simple lesson. But it won't be easy for anyone who believes being pragmatic and principled are mutually exclusive.... Gov. Palin vetoed about a third or more of the capital budget, she says. 'It's not an open, transparent process at all. The way (the Legislature) works, the administration doesn't even know what's in it until the gavel falls. It's handed to the governor without public process and public debate. It's a nonsensical way of budgeting.'
"Many of the vetoed items were earmarks by her fellow Republicans. Little wonder she and her party are estranged political bedfellows."
Rocks In My Dryer: Every Single Stinkin' Thing I Ever Learned About Potty Training
Shannon is free at last and has a few tips to share.
Political Punch: Why Doesn't McCain Use a Computer?
It's not because John McCain isn't tech-savvy, as Obama's recent ad suggests, but McCain prefers to downplay the real reason: "Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send email is because of his war wounds.
"I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again 'playing the POW card,' but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.
"He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair -- mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise."
Barack Obama the speechmaker is being rumbled | Gerard Baker - Times Online
Europeans are puzzled at the thought that their preferred presidential candidates could lose: "The essential problem coming to light is a profound disconnect between the Barack Obama of the candidate's speeches, and the Barack Obama who has actually been in politics for the past decade or so.... There are just too many contradictions between the eloquent poetry of the man's stirring rhetoric and the dull, familiar prose of his political record."
BRING YOUR OWN CAMERA - New York Post
If you're afraid an interview might be edited to put you in a bad light, record it yourself and post it on the web, says Glenn Reynolds: "TV journalists won't be happy with this, of course, but it's hard to see a principled basis for objecting. In the past, the tools for broadcast newsgathering were expensive and specialized, and much of the media's power came from the fact that no one else had them. Those times are long gone, and candidates, and journalists, are going to have to adapt. "
Gallup: Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks Competitive
GOP leads generic House ballot among likely voters. Voter party identification is shifting to the Republicans, and GOP voters are more motivated than before the convention to show up on election day.
Brannock Device Measures Feet For Shoes: American Ingenuity Marches On... - Retro Thing
The shoe-store foot-measuring thing has a name, an inventor, and a noble history: "Charles Brannock invented the foot measuring device around 1925 (he built the prototype with an erector set) as an answer to the other unreliable gadgets of the day. His shoe store became known for offering the best fitting shoes, and demand for his device grew." Brannock Devices need replacing about every 15 years (when the numbers wear off). The device led to the standardization of shoe sizes. (Via Ephemeral Isle.)
The American Conservative -- Value Voters
The gap between "red" and "blue" states may be explained by the gap in the affordability of starting a family and owning a home.
Hot Air: Comedy gold: Lefty radio hosts crestfallen as Palin defended by ... Mike Gravel
Former Senator and Democratic presidential candidate blasts stupid media attacks against Sarah Palin.
Scientist explains conservatism's success - Crunchy Con
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt:
"I would say that the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.
"When Republicans say that Democrats 'just don't get it,' this is the 'it' to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label 'elitist.'...
"But now imagine society not as an agreement among individuals but as something that emerged organically over time as people found ways of living together, binding themselves to each other, suppressing each other's selfishness, and punishing the deviants and free-riders who eternally threaten to undermine cooperative groups. The basic social unit is not the individual, it is the hierarchically structured family, which serves as a model for other institutions. Individuals in such societies are born into strong and constraining relationships that profoundly limit their autonomy."
An End to the Old Boys by Rudy Takala
"Anyone who has been very involved in politics knows immediately what 'good old boys' describes; it refers to men who, by virtue of gray hair and accumulated wealth, appear respectable and are therefore granted power. Unfortunately, it is exactly their lack of virtue that defines them as good old 'boys.'
"To anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with such people, it should be obvious that Palin would not fit in with them. There would be some immediate aspersion cast upon her because she is a woman, yes, but that would be one of her smaller problems.
"Larger problems would arise because of her attitude. She too readily speaks her mind without first understanding the 'structure' of things. She doesn't know who has been around or for how long. Worse yet, she probably doesn't even know how much money they have.
"Unbelievably, she probably doesn't care about those things as much as she cares about ideas. While she's talking about abortion or corruption in government, the 'good old boys' would be staring blankly at her and wondering who invited this moron to their club. (The 'club,' of course, is a local city council meeting or some similar body of government.) They'll scoff at her as being someone who doesn't understand that politics is all about money and connections, and that any so-called 'corruption' is simply the creative use of those things.
"Imagine their surprise and anger when this naïve, idealistic blowhard actually runs against them and wins."
Thad Beyle: Gubernatorial Power
Oklahoma has one of the constitutionally weakest chief executives -- tied for third weakest with Alabama, behind Vermont and Rhode Island. (Via Greg Ransom.)
Sarah Palin is not such a small-town girl after all - Telegraph
"Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.
"The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska's energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes - the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having 'no international experience' particularly absurd."
Irritated Tulsan: How I Plan to Own Goodwill Industries, City of Tulsa Style
The economic magic of a public trust.
FlowingData: Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America
An interactive time-lapse map shows the spread of Wal-Mart stores from its first store in Rogers, Ark., in 1962, to 3176 stores nationwide in 2007. (Via imagiNATIVEamerica.)
RealClearPolitics - HorseRaceBlog - Thoughts on McCain's Speech
"I couldn't get a few of the lines out of my head, which made me wonder if I had misjudged it.
"I have to say that it grew on me by leaps and bounds. Over two weeks of speechifying and politicking, it was my favorite.
"Obviously, McCain is not an eloquent speaker. He's a plain speaker with a blunt, flat delivery. The speech was written for a man with that kind of style, which made it extremely direct. So, everybody got the gist of the McCain candidacy last night. That's a very good thing for any candidate: his message got across."
St. Paul Downtown Conversations
A summary, from earlier this year, of what St. Paul, Minn., businesspeople like and dislike about their downtown.
Dutch, Reformed: Is It Just Me ...
"... or does anyone else see the similarities between these two insufferable blowhards from Scranton, PA?"
