The Constitution Club

Reminds of those weird things you see performed in North Korea to convince visitors and journalists that ‘all is well’ in that sad land. The original of this video has been buried by Youtube but they are now playing ‘whack a mole” as it keeps getting re-posted. I guess it backfired on the Obama folks but those fine patriots on the Right won’t let it die. I must say it is unusual to use one parties propaganda against itself, but that is what is happening here.

What did people do before the Internet? Anybody know? I played a lot of Axis and Allies, spent time with my girlfriends, hung out in pool halls and arcades… I guess nothing until that wise man Al Gore came up with this great idea that has infatuated the nation ever since.

If Obama manages to win this election with one half of the country, I guarantee he is going to be endlessly smeared as a pinko, Marxist bastard by the other half for the next four years. Maybe that is what the Internet is really for? I don’t know. You tell me.

The Green party’s candidate for president, Cynthia McKinney, ‘outs’ the prisoner industrial complex and the mass executions of thousands in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. You didn’t know about that either? Well, now you do. I blame Bush… (: Blowing up his own buildings in New York, purposefully causing the levies to break in New Orleans to flood out all the poor black people, and now this. Obviously, the worst president evah!!! Can you believe he can pull all this off on US soil but can’t manage to cook up a handful of WMD’s in Iraq or a fuzzy picture of a corpse and call it Osama? Personally, I’m a bit disappointed. I prefer consistency in my dim-witted, crypto-fascist, constitution shredding, despots.

HuffPost: On Tuesday, Obama donors were informed that Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel will join the Democratic nominee for his “last event in the Tri-State region before the election,” at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.

Best potential moment of this pairing? I say teaming up on Only The Good Die Young. What say you?

So he’s got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I’m the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he’s got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.

-Sarah Palin, explaining why America should look to new ideas this November

I’d be interested to hear about some of her new ideas! Also why she doesn’t seem to be aware of any of the old ones:

The Palin aide, after first noting how “infuriating” it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

UPDATE: Another nugget.

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

I guess Sarah doesn’t have a blogroll. If I ask you three times to name where you get your news from, would it ever occur to you not to mention any names whatsoever?

Funny Stuff – enjoy.

Hey Barack

Special Iowahawk Guest Video Commentary

By XD-235
Staff Teleprompter for the Obama Presidential Campaign

President Clinton was a governor of a very small state that had “no experience” either. I remember how easy it was gonna be for Bush I to defeat him. I still recall, whoops, that one. But the point is I’ve seen underestimation before.

-John McCain

Just to address what he actually did mean, too, not only is Arkansas over four times the population of Alaska, not only was Clinton a two term governor, but his qualifications dwarfed Palin’s in every way, and even dwarf McCain’s.

After convincing us all that a financial bailout of epic proportions was necessary post haste to save our country and indeed the world from imminent disaster congress rejects the $700 billion bailout. Apparently in a few short days congress managed to turn a 3 page document into a 101 page monstrosity http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/28/ayo08c04_xml.pdf god bless you if you have the time and patience to read through the whole thing as I honestly did not.

Consequently Wall Street suffered the largest single day point drop in history so apparently the sword of Damocles continues to hang over our heads. I try very hard to not sound like the bitter old cynic who feels that only the government could possibly be responsible for such massive inaction in time of crisis but what other conclusion could I possibly reach? Of course Barney Frank blames the Republicans http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/29/sot.frank.bailout.reax.cnn

and Boehner is blaming the Democrats namely Nancy Pelosi http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/29/sot.gop.bailout.vote.reax.cnn

However the voting resulted in a curious split with dems supporting the bill 140-95 and the GOP rejecting it 133-65.  So somehow  they managed to take an idea that had nearly universal support and twist into something which neither side seemed to support with much enthusiasm.

Help me out here guys. How the hell do you screw this one up?

A couple weeks ago my youngest daughter, Liberty Faith, was asked to be the flower girl in a medieval themed wedding. She apparently stole the show. My father officiated at the wedding, and managed to pull off a decent impersonation of a medieval friar or monk. Here are a few pics from that wedding. What a neat idea.

Last weekend I was asked to be in a Jewish themed marriage re-commitment ceremony for some friends which was also officiated by my father who was then appropriately attired in his suit and tallit (prayer shawl) which he brought back from his missions trip to Israel a couple years back. He’s a very flexible officiate. I’ll have to upload some of those pics when I get a chance as well. My job was to be one of the four males who held up the huppah (Jewish wedding canopy) during the ceremony. I was awesome.

It can be interesting to have a family full of ministers. Both my brother and I were married to our wives by my father. My father and my mother were married by my mother’s father. My maternal grandfather married his mother and his step-father when she remarried (you guessed it a minister) after her (minister) husband died. My great uncle officiated at my aunts wedding and both my father and my great uncle conducted one of my grandfathers funerals (my father did both). My father also officiated at both (she also had two) of my grandmother’s funerals. Though for my own funeral I’ve decided to break tradition and spare my relation. I’ve asked our own occasional commentator and my spiritual adivisor and personal chaplain Mbucky to conduct mine.

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History and Christianity are forever mixed, and this hymn brings both together in a dramatic way. Personally penned by Martin Luther himself, this is regarded as the ‘Battle Hymn of the Reformation’. The former monk Luther strove to expose the corruptness and doctrinal fallacies of the Catholic church and went on to become the father of the Protestant movement. A Mighty Fortress is our God is considered one of the most powerful and famous of Christian hymns and is still sang with some gusto in many churches around the world. I beg the tolerance and understanding of our own ‘Papist’ bloggers and visitors with this selection. Sit back, relax, and enjoy. I won’t tell. The video is a bit more Luther centered than I would normally be comfortable with, but it is the best traditional version of the song I could find.

Funny stuff from SNL this week, but I wish Fred Armisen could get a better handle on an Obama impression. I think he actually needs to play it as smooth and dorky as he possibly can.

Fair warning… NSFW.

Here’s a bit of ’speaking the truth to power’.

My wife and I are going to be spending a rare day out today. Even dinner at a decent restaurant. It usually hard to do things like this. My health interferes quite a bit. Today is special though. We have been married twenty three years.

So I am going to spend the day with somebody who I have kept pissed off for over twenty three years.

I seemed to have pulled on every body’s chain recently except the Beast, and he has been gone. So do not feel alone, just pray for my wife.

Sorry E, Dave and Wes.

“I’ve got a bracelet, too,”

-Senator Barack Obama during the debate rather pathetically trying to prove his own support for the troops as he looked down at his notes to read the name of the soldier.

Uhhh…..

Seriously?

President Palin?  Are you kidding me, or am I just being sexist?

because we could use the hits.

There was a time when ads were specifically put onto a medium. A person had to take the ad and specifically place it into a paper or magazine. Or had to specifically place it into a television program.

Internet advertising is a bit more complicated. It doesn’t get placed manually, but automatically. Ads get put into the rotation by the advertisers, and it’s typically up to them to name the date and time when they start appearing. Why am I saying all this? Because at McCain’s advertising firm, the scheduling got a little premature:

There is an increasing backlash against the biggest government meddling in private enterprise, and its takeover of whole sectors of the economy, since FDR. (Though wait until Obama tries to ram his ‘universal health care’ down your throat). The ‘whisper’ campaign against socialist notions and bailing out Wall Street ”big men” is beginning to be heard. Idiocy and massive greed got “them” to this point. Why is it my responsibility to help them get “out of it”? Actions have consequences and chickens come home to roost.

 At least a few GOP’ers had the unmitigated gall to at least question why the US taxpayer should be doubly screwed; first by the banks and mortgage companies charging outrageous interest rates on “adjustable” rate mortgages once the initial “tease” rate is expired and the “homeowner” is unable to finance, and then as a taxpayer paying for the pathetically poor decision making of banks and mortgage companies.

I have customers coming in who lost their homes when their interest rates jumped to 13% and even higher on very modest priced middle class homes. Most people can’t afford a jump from $1100 a month to $2500 a month and the casualty rate among the middle class due to the insatiable greed, fraud and get rich manipulations of large numbers of unscrupulous people is staggering. Those holding the billions in potentially bad mortgage debt should be forced to negotiate with homeowners instead of bailed out by those same people now wearing the label of US taxpayer. With the government stepping in we will only be back to business as usual instead of changing the way business has been practiced in the past.

 I’m not taking a hundred percent stand one way or the other on this bailout (not that it matters) and I could still be persuaded to support it, but I am suspicious of it and am glad to see some voices of caution being raised about what is now happening in D.C. As far as I can see, this does very little for the little guy, and that concerns me greatly as one of the little guys who will be desperately attempting to refinance at the end of the month to avoid possibly becoming just another statistic in two short years. The key has got to be to stop the massive cycle of foreclosures and help keep people in their houses. Anything else seems to be just putting more “lipstick on the pig”.

Kill The Bailout

Quotable: “‘Just because God created the world in seven days doesn’t mean we have to pass this bill in seven days,’ said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.”

Or at all.

“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient
to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths
arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.”

—William F. Buckley

I wonder if he still thinks Obama is not qualified to be POTUS?

 We are blessed, not bitter.

Videos: NRA Releases “Bitter, Gun-Clinging” Anti-Obama Ads

Declared Biden: “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

What’s wrong with that, some might ask?

Well, for starters Republican Herbert Hoover was president when the stock market crashed in October 1929. Second, Roosevelt didn’t take office until four years later. And, not to be picky, but there were also no televisions in use at the time. Radio was Roosevelt’s favored medium.

LA Times, Top of the Ticket.

OK this one is a bit antagonistic but I figure it should spark some decent conversation. Here are a couple of opposing viewpoints/proposals regarding the current and present Wall Street bailout plans. First from Ron Paul http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/paul.bailout/index.html Read the rest of this entry »

Here is the latest e-mail making the rounds about McCain and Obama. Accurate? You make the call.

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I hate to post these guys again, but this was so ”bad” it’s hilarious. You’ve got to love America, where two guys and a computer can become famous by sitting around and being smart mouths and acting kind of stupid. I need me a mannequin doll now.

Palin and the Media

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

From a NYT article entitled New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, dated 9/11/2003. Oh by the way the new agency was proposed by the Bush administration and opposed by the Democrats. Barney and Mel are some of the guys involved in ‘fixing’ things. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Technically, this was yesterday, but my TiVo just showed it to me now. From Rachel Maddow explaining the bailout in layman’s terms:

Money is Halloween candy. And those Wall Street bankers are, metaphorically speaking, our six-year-old child who went out and got more candy than we’d ever seen or imagined. Trick or treat. And with all that candy sitting there, we parents — the taxpayers — hired a babysitter to supervise our child. Only instead of hiring a grownup who wisely fears what happens when six-year-olds do what they like to do best — eat all the candy, all at once — we instead hired a seven-year-old babysitter: the federal government. So what happened? The six-year-old ate more candy than it should have, on the seven-year-old’s watch, and got sick… all over the carpet.

And as we’re paying and sending home the babysitter, we get her take on the disgusting, huge mess of a crisis we’re now in: our seven-year-old babysitter turn to us and says, “Well, the problem here is that now you’re out of candy. You’re gonna need more candy.”

Done simply because I just learned how to use VodPod. Woo!

A lot of commentators are trying to predict what will happen in the debates. One thing we know for certain. These debates will be of tremendous importance. The polls keep moving back and forth, and the number of undecided voters has been consistently high. A lot of reporters have been trying to analyze this thing by asking the campaigns what they’re doing to prepare.

Obama advisers, for example, are considering how to provoke Sen. McCain into anger or showing what they say is how out of touch, or old, he is. Advisers have told Sen. McCain to watch out when Sen. Obama uses the phrase, “As I’ve said before…” One McCain adviser said it is used “when Obama actually changes his position, to pretend it’s what he’s always said.”

That Wall Street Journal is full of interesting nuggets like that. For instance, McCain’s people are telling him to make sure his lucky tokens are close at hand so he doesn’t freak out. Obama’s people are telling him to not be quite so “Zen-like”. Biden’s people are telling him to just shut up a little more often.

But most interesting is this bit here:

Mr. O’Donnell told the campaign that Sen. McCain had his worst debates when he was seated. “Proximity can be a problem for McCain,” one adviser said. “He’ll take the bait and get sucked into fights.”

Why is this interesting? Let’s take a look at the tape.

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This Sunday’s hymn is once again provided by Johnny Cash.

Get well soon Travis edition.

“Stay Together for the Kids” (My favorite Blink 182 song)

Obviously it’s not Friday, but give your thoughts and prayers to my favorite drummer, and to the families of the others involved in the crash.

UPDATE: I wrote this post last week. I considered not running it as some might not appreciate the criticism. Well no comments so far. LOL. This London Times writer stole my stuff! BUT HEY, we are always ahead of the curve here.  

McCain’s attack on Wall Street “greed and corruption” and call for greater regulation in response to last week’s financial crisis has added to concerns about the tenor of his campaign. A Wall Street Journal editorial warned that he would “never beat Obama by running as an angry populist like Al Gore, circa 2000”.

John McCain is of course no conservative. He has a decent record on life and he had the best geopolitical approach among the Republican candidates. I chose him because of his stance on Iraq and the political courage that showed. I am not a rabid sufferer of nativism and was not troubled by his stance on immigration. He had quite a bit of baggage in other areas, but on balance he was worth the gamble I thought.

The brand of statism he has been promoting lately has my gorge rising. He willingness to promote some kind of amorphous ’service’ money hole with no clear direction at the forum last week was pathetic. He at times seems to be willing to out ‘collectivist’ his socialist opponent. One could, if sufficiently Kool-aid enabled, chalk this up to giving a sympathetic face to his campaign. He is the ‘reform’ candidate. OK if you say so.

His new populist rhetoric is extremely troubling. His blaming the evil oil, banking, insurance, investment industries is a bit too rich. He proposes non-specific regulatory reforms on an over taxed and over regulated economy. Obama demonizing business and industry is usual collectivist’s stock-in-trade. When McCain scapegoats business, and the people that run them, he is participating in the same class warfare that the Democrats participate in. He is selling out.

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My friend Andre asked me a simple question. Of course I am not capable of a simple answer.

“The reason for this crisis is due to the government altering how the mortgage markets worked.”

I’m curious, PG, how the government is responsible for this. Is it somehow the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which for a long time have been private enterpises)? I tend to think that deregulation and the overabundance of loans that should never have been made through other private companies played for more of a role in this than Uncle Sam (other than his looking the other way for the last twelve or so years).

Andre, I was not specifically addressing the MACs in the quote of mine you pulled. The MACs are privately owned, but could issue securities backed by the government. They also were exempt from quite a few regulations. They are not private in any real sense of the world.

The foundation of my point in the statement you quoted was that the politicians, for their own reasons, decided it should be extremely easy to borrow money to own a home. Everyone should have the American dream. (Just like Obama will try to make higher education, and health care, free for everyone.)

They relaxed the lending requirements. They outlawed ‘redlining’, and other types of what they considered ‘discriminatory’ lending practices. In the end government, and privately, backed securities were covering loans with virtually no underwriting.

That is not the free market at work. No bank in their right mind would loan money with a contract consisting of: Stated Income, 100% To Value, and negative 1%, unless they government would back it. The government created that market through policy decisions. Hell, would you make those loans? (If one did not make enough of what once were considered questionable loans, then one risked losing Auto VA Approval and FHA and…)

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“For I have learned the truth: There are greater pursuits than self-seeking. Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valor. It is not a prize for being the most clever, the strongest, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself. No misfortune, no injury, no humiliation can destroy it. This is the faith that my commanders affirmed, that my brothers-in-arms encouraged my allegiance to. It was the faith I had unknowingly embraced at the Naval Academy. It was my father’s and grandfather’s faith. A filthy, crippled, broken man, all I had left of my dignity was the faith of my fathers. It was enough.”

—John McCain in Faith of my Fathers, his 1999 book on military tradition, his
family, and his faith.

Hear me out on this one. I know that’s a lot to ask, but just humor me for a second.

Here’s my points, and I’ll elaborate on each of them.

1. John McCain decided upon Sarah Palin AFTER his phone conversation with her the weekend prior.
2. Sarah Palin had no idea she was still under consideration.
3. The Republican party had no idea she was under consideration.
4. Because of this, John McCain is responsible for the lion’s share of her trouble in the media.

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I had to post on this subject to check into PG’s take on the current financial situation.

Some economists think that we are “privatizing the profits and socializing the debt” in the current trend to bail out failing institutions. Bailing out seems totally contrary to free market principles and seems we are edging toward socialism with the government buying up (controlling) large swaths of the financial landscape. What is not owned by our government will be owned by foreign interests after the smoke clears. Is this assumption valid?

I know the pain of letting a large entity like AIG fail is beyond anything most of us have ever experienced, but isn’t that what is going to be needed to correct the problem, as painful as it may be?

It seems that these bail outs are just temporary fixes, but the real problem of the debt will still have to be dealt with down the road. It could lead to collapse of the dollar. Am I correct?

Presented without comment:

Sarah Palin likes to tell voters around the country about how she “put the government checkbook online” in Alaska. On Thursday, Palin suggested she would take that same proposal to Washington.

“We’re going to do a few new things also,” she said at a rally in Cedar Rapids. “For instance, as Alaska’s governor, I put the government’s checkbook online so that people can see where their money’s going. We’ll bring that kind of transparency, that responsibility, and accountability back. We’re going to bring that back to D.C.”

There’s just one problem with proposing to put the federal checkbook online - somebody’s already done it. His name is Barack Obama.

So much for civility. I’d like to see my Obamanite neighbor come over and try to get in my face…

“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,” – Barack Obama (source)

I think it’s a pretty gutsy move to put a two minute ad on the air, and then end it with “Read my plan”.  Doesn’t he realize this election is not about issues?

Very well done and an instant “classic”…   The SNL Palin skit

Palin and Those “Scary” Christians

ABC News Ties Sarah Palin to Pentecostalism

As America gets a crash course in Sarah Palin, the question has been raised of how her two decades as a member of the Assemblies of God church in Wasilla has shaped her personality. If elected, Sarah Palin would become the most powerful Pentecostal in U.S. history. So how has this church shaped her as a leader? 

What is interesting about this is that my father (a minister now for forty years) was an Assemblies of God pastor for seven years and was also a pastor for many years with Church on the Rock International. That is the ‘non-denominational’ church referred to in the article that Sarah Palin now attends. (My father is now pastoring a Four Square church). Church on the Rock is an association of churches, not a denomination, so they can technically get away with calling themselves ‘non-denominational’.

My maternal grandfather (a minister, pastor, and preacher for some sixty years) was also an Assemblies of God pastor for many of those years and then later was an ordained minister with the Independent Assemblies of God for about the last twenty five years of his life. My great-grandfather and step great-grandfather were also Assembly of God pastors. My great uncle is also a ‘Pentecostal’ (we prefer the term ‘full gospel’, ‘bible believing’, or ’spirit filled’) minister and has been since the age of sixteen.

I guess all of that makes Sarah Palin one of “my people”. I can safely say that I have far more insight into the personal theology, belief system and Christian world view of Governor Sarah Palin than the entire staff of ABC News could ever hope to have.

The Assemblies are actually considered pretty mild for “Pentecostals” and I wouldn’t have the slightest trepidation of putting someone with that belief system in a position of authority. If anything, a few more people who strive to be honest, moral, and forthright and who have humbled themselves before God might be just the thing our increasingly corrupt system of government needs.

What ABC is trying to say is that because Palin is a Bible believing Christian that somehow makes her scary, or dangerous or ‘other’ and therefore she should be rejected in favor of the secularist who attended a radical, black liberation theology church for twenty plus years and whose pastor and spiritual mentor is well known for his anti-white, anti-American and anti-Israel stances, rants and raves. This also means she is probably not a baby whacker or willing to personally officiate at lesbian weddings, obviously making her ‘not a feminist’ and worthy only of slander and rumor.

Sounds fair, doesn’t it? I absolutely detest the media. It is sad to see a nation that has now apparently declared secularism to be its national religion while rejecting, ridiculing and mocking the Faith that this nation and its concepts and laws was founded upon. The road is not always easy for those who have chosen to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

For those seeking some perspective on numbers, “Pentecostals” number about 10-30 million in the United States depending on how you define the term and make up one quarter of all Christians worldwide. They are a subset of the larger evangelical movement that numbers about 102 million people in the United States. There are significant overlaps between the two and they are often virtually indistinguishable from one another depending on the church and/or denomination. For example, both E and DFV attend or have attended evangelical churches and so do I, but they don’t attend a ‘Pentecostal’ church, but I do…

My theme song…

The  junior senator from Illinois playing with American foreign policy and negotiating with foreign governments behind the back of the US government. Shame, shame, Anointed One. This isn’t the slimy back rooms of the Chicago political machine anymore, but the big time. Can someone please explain to me how Barack Obama is even the slightest bit qualified to be the next Commander in Chief and President of the United States? I’d love to hear it. Kind of reminds you of Obama’s “I’m against NAFTA” episode where he was secretly reassuring the Canadians that such words were really just campaign rhetoric and not to worry, NAFTA would be safe under an Obama presidency. I can assure you who is not on the ’straight talk express’ and his initials are BHO.

Obama Tried to Stall GI’s Iraq Withdrawal

While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.

I’m beyond sad that we lost a very special visionary musician. Rick Wright, keyboard magician for Pink Floyd and original co-founder of the band, passed away yesterday from a brief battle with cancer.

Thank you Rick for the wonderful legacy of music you have left us to cherish. Shine On Brother.

Things have been all downhill for Obama, even with that Bible believing, not really a feminist, something about a bridge Governor from Alaska still being labeled ‘controversial’ by the media and trashed by every Leftist with access to a computer. McCain leads in Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado and is tied with Obama in Pennsylvania. I humbly suggest that Obama should consult the Oprah Oracle as soon as possible. Only McCain could be beating THE ANOINTED ONE WHO IS THE EMBODIEMENT OF CHANGE in this economic climate with a variety of millstones around his neck including Bush, the GOP in general, still high gas prices etc. It’s an amazing thing to watch. Obama is floundering and at this point I believe only the debates can save him and that Biden guy he’s hanging out with occasionally. I put the race now at fifty-fifty. Republicans almost always do better than what the polls suggest (for a laundry list of reasons). You can safely add about two points to the GOP column from any given poll and you’ll be about right on.

Now I am not necessarily a big polls guy, but they should at least be consulted as a means of helping to gauge general shifts in the demographics and mood of the electorate. And they are not good for Obama and that other ‘kinda like a drunk uncle’ guy. It’s still a long time until the election and I look forward to seeing what else takes place between now and election day. If McCain carries his ‘base states’ and then takes New Mexico and Colorado it is over. If he takes Pennsylvania or Minnesota it is over. The electoral possibilities and various scenarios that need to play out for him to win the white house are becoming much more likely than they were even a month ago.

If McCain manages to pull this one out, it will easily be the most impressive presidential political feat in fifty years (except for all those other ones).

I can’t believe what the Left has managed to dig up on Palin: her children aren’t always perfect little angels, she may or may not have been mean to a librarian once, and now this… shocking.

From Swim At Your Own Risk:

Looks like a fair-size shark.

Here’s a photo from a few days ago of a surfer at Ocean Beach, San Francisco… and uh, i think he’s being followed. Look closely, see it… there in the background?!

Ocean Beach is in the Red Triangle, one of the sharkiest places in the world. There’s been a slew of recent great white sightings at Ocean Beach and Stinson Beach. Stinson Beach was recently closed over Labor Day Weekend because of shark sightings.

Fall is White Shark season off the central and northern California Coast. lotta headless Sea Lions washing ashore lately, too.

From Pacific Coast Shark News:

The shark took the whole back of the board, including the tailfin into his mouth!

Surf Beach —  On September 7, 2008 a surfer, Kyle, had his board bitten at Surf Beach, which is located near Lompoc not far from Highway 1 and 240 where the road ends at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Northern Santa Barbara County. Martin Brody at The Fear Beneath web site provided the following information: “Our sources tell us that while out surfing, a friend of theirs – Kyle (last name withheld) – was on ‘the outside reform’ at Surf Beach on Monday when a large shark began to circle him. Kyle used his surfboard as a shield and pointed the fins of his board towards the shark. The shark took the board into its mouth for several seconds before releasing the board.” Additional information will be posted when available. Please report any shark sighting, encounter, or attack to the Shark Research Committee.

From Jonathan Martin describing some assorted protestors at the Sarah Palin rally:

As the press vans arrived about 1/2 hour before the start of the rally, multiple lines consisting of hundreds of people were slowly making their way into the facility.

Also present were a few dozen protestors carrying some colorful signs.

“Votes issues not gender,” read one, held up by a lady.

“Palin: A bridge to deception,” was another.

And then there was: “The anti-Christ wears lipstick – end of days.”

Mr. Horner… is that you? Not going to link to this guy or put his full name, because I REALLY hope he’s gone for good. But you can find his website in the quotes on the right.

I liked Dave’s Johnny Cash, so I am putting some more up. People on YouTube really do have a lot of time on their hands. Of course, this was probably done by a 7th grader, but still.