Lack of Experience

Part of the brilliance of picking Palin as VP was that it caused the McCain campaign to sucker the left into bringing up "experience" as a issue again. This is an issue where Obama is very week.

Obama was a nothing state legislator who got into the U.S. Senate when his opponent (Jack Ryan) was involved with a "sex scandal" with his own wife, Jeri Ryan. As a U.S. Senator, Obama has not really championed any legislation to speak of or otherwise set himself apart as a Senate leader. He just really has not be a senator long enough for that.

OTOH, Palin, as the Governor of Alaska, has made sweeping changes, and has some executive experience. Is she ready to be President? No, but then she is not running for President. Is she more ready than Obama? Here I would say "Yes". This is where the Republicans need to hit the Democrats, and it looks like they are starting to do so.

Much Ado Abount Nothing

There has been a lot of talk about McCain's pick of Gov. Palin as his running mate. Most of it has been positive, some has not. Of the negative talk, however, a lot has been focused on Palin's pregnant daughter. This is a total non-issue.

Her daughter got pregnant at 17. These things happen. It isn't right, but once it happens the important thing is how you deal with it. There are several wrong ways to deal with it: abortion, the family abandoning the pregnant child, the father of the baby abandoning the pregnant child, etc. None of that is happening here. The family is very supportive of Bristol, Bristol is set to marry the father of the child, and Bristol is having the child.

If Bristol had an abortion, then there would be a serious issue, but her just being pregnant is completely irrelevant. I guess it is just easier for people to pay attention to than actual issues.

More On Ethanol Policies

It is no secret that I think the ethanol push is moronic. It is not an efficient fuel and it results in higher food causing great pain to the poor (and everyone else). Furthermore, the free market will dictate the proper solution, not government mandates, which will do nothing more than tie us to what is clearly the wrong solution.

It is nice to see others putting pressure on the G8 nations to cut back on these ridiculous mandates (though I would like to see an all out abandonment, myself). It is also nice to see that Great Briton is starting to make moves in the proper direction. Hopefully we will too.

Taking a Page Out of the Clinton Playbook

It appears that Obama is taking a page directly out of the Bill Clinton play book and is moving to the right to appease conservatives who are not all that happy with McCain being the Republican nominee.

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said he would expand George W Bush's programme of involving religious groups in government initiatives.
...
He said challenges from saving the planet to ending poverty were too big for the government to solve on its own.

A council involving religious groups would help to set the national agenda, Senator Obama said in his speech.

"We know that faith and values can be a source of strength in our own lives," said Mr Obama.

Obviously, this sounds all well and good. Just don't trust him to actually follow through on any of it.

Why Does My Food Cost So Much?

Blame ethanol.  Actually, blame the idiots who are pushing idiotic ethanol mandates on us.  In this country, ethanol is made from corn.  However, corn is also a staple grain in our food supply.  So, the mandates result in a higher demand for corn.  The higher demand results in higher prices.  Higher corn prices mean that more land is being used for corn production as farmers react to the market.  More land being put into corn production results in less land being used for wheat, soy, and other staple crops.  As a result, the cost of those crops also goes up.  Since corn and soy are used for feed, this means that the cost of raising cattle, chickens, ducks, etc. goes way up.  It has gotten so bad that Maple Leaf Farms has been forced to close a local processing plant because the increased cost of feed makes raising the ducks cost more than they can get back selling the ducks.  It is not stated in the linked article, but in another article (which I could not find on-line), a spokesman for the company directly blames our government's idiotic ethanol policies.

So, our stupid obsession with trying to use our food for fuel is obviously causing pain for food producers and their employees.  It is also resulting in a disproportionate amount of pain for this countries poorer people, for whom food is already a huge part of their budget.  To make matters worse, ethanol does nothing to make our fuel cheaper or cleaner.  Furthermore,  when the fuel consumption, and related pollution, associated with full production cycle of ethanol is factored in, using ethanol for fuel may even have a negative environmental impact when compared to petroleum.

All of this pain, and who actually gains from this?  Some farmers.  Farmers who are growing grains for cash obviously like the higher prices.  However, farmers who have to buy those grains to feed livestock are not exactly enjoying this.  Mostly, the only people who gain here are companies like ADM and BP.  The rest of us just suffer.

What Comes Around Goes Around...

Given that Eliot Spitzer has built his whole career by ruining other peoples lives for his own political gain, mostly through the over-prosecution of generally minor regulatory violations, it sure is nice to see his career finally being destroyed.

The Party of Indecision

The presidential primaries this time around have just been weird. Here are just couple of random short thoughts that I have on the Democratic race.

1. The race has come down to essentially the two least qualified people in the field.
2. Neither candidate can get a solid lead built up. It seems that as soon as one candidate starts to emerge, the other candidate starts to get more votes.

Item #1 supports my theory that the bulk of voters, especially the bulk of liberal voters, are vapid idiots who are more impressed with style than they are with substance. This is especially true of Obama supporters, who is all style, but has not put forth the least bit of substance yet.

It is also wort noting that this vapid idiocy is not limited to just liberals. It also explains how Republicans ended up with McCain instead of Thompson or Romney. It also explains why Ron Paul has actual live followers.

I have no idea what is going on with item #2. The way this is supposed to work is that some candidate gains momentum, that momentum builds and snowballs, and by now, everyone is standing behind a single candidate. Perhaps it is just a combination of the candidates being light on substance and some weird tendency to not back a front-runner.

Abuse of Uniform...

I am not sure what is more pathetic, a handful of degenerates who feel the need to abuse the fine men and women in the military, or the reaction of the commander at RAF Wittering who told personnel not to wear their uniforms in public.

Personally, I agree with Mr. Gordon's reaction to all of this:

He said armed forces members should be "encouraged to wear their uniform in public and have the respect and gratitude of the British people".

The fact of the matter is, that no matter how people feel about the war in Iraq and the military involvement in Afganistan and elsewhere, people should have nothing but respect for the men and women who are in the military. Further, the military personnel should be proud to wear their uniforms in public, and should not hide them just because of some miscreant idiots out there.

Free Speech, Afghanistan Style...

It is great to live in a country where we have so many freedoms that we pretty much take them for granted. Despite the paranoid delusions of certain groups, we pretty much have more rights and freedoms than people from most other countries in the world.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for people in most Muslim countries, where someone being sentenced to death for being critical of Muhammad is not unheard of.

The student, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, 23, who also works for a local newspaper, was charged with insulting Muhammad by calling the prophet “a killer and adulterer,” the judge, Shamsurahman Muhmand, said in a telephone interview.

Ironically, Mr. Kambakhsh's death sentence pretty much proves his point (at least on the "killer" part). This is very sad. The severe problems currently afflicting the Muslim world have no chance of getting any better until the powers that be in that world allow their people to be critical of the culture and religion that they see around them.

Drunk on Ethanol

The state ethanol whores (as Mark Belling calls them) are trying yet again to force us to use ethanol (pdf). This is bad public policy for several reasons.

• Ethanol is not a good replacement for petroleum based fuels.
• It is not as efficient of a fuel as petroleum.
• It takes almost as much energy to produce a gallon of ethanol as you get out if it. In some studies, which also take into account the cost of distribution, it actually takes more energy to produce and distribute a gallon of ethanol than you get out of it, making its production a net lose.
• Ethanol is produced primarily from corn, causing the price of corn to skyrocket. Since corn is also a stable food, this causes the price of almost all other foods to go up.
• As more land goes into production producing corn for ethanol, less land is used producing other crops, causing the prices of those crops to go up, also resulting in higher overall food costs.
• The key is to reduce fuel consumption. Ethanol does not result in reduced fuel consumption. Private enterprise is working on real solutions for this, however, such as improved hybrid engine technologies.
• Other, cleaner fuels, such as hydrogen, exist. Private enterprise is also working on making these types of fuels practical.
  

The legislation that is currently being put in front of the state legislature would allow for other renewable fuels. However, as it stands right now, it is nothing more than pork for farmers and the ethanol producers. Worse yet, it is pork that benefits few, and hurts many while needlessly tying us to a harmful fuel source for no good reason.

Stop the whoring out of our state to farmers and ethanol companies, and let the market place determine the most reasonable solution to this problem.

Yes, I am Still Alive

In case anyone is still reading this, yes, I am still alive.  I have just been really busy lately, and haven't really had much to say.

I found the following candidate quiz over at Stacy's blog.

87% Mike Huckabee
84% John McCain
81% Fred Thompson
79% Mitt Romney
72% Ron Paul
69% Tom Tancredo
60% Rudy Giuliani
36% Bill Richardson
27% Hillary Clinton
26% Chris Dodd
26% John Edwards
24% Barack Obama
22% Joe Biden
20% Mike Gravel
17% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Hmmm, the Huckster?  I don't see myself pulling for him any time soon.  McCain either.  I may agree with some (or many) of the things they say, but what they have been saying does not really jive with what they have actually done in their political careers.

Thompson and Romney I could back.

Why is Ron Paul so high on the list?  It was probably the questions on pot and on free trade.  He is a libertarian, after all.  Problem is, he is also a nut...  It sure is good to see that the true nuts are all at the bottom of the list, and by a big gap.

You Go, Fred...

All I can say is that it sure is nice to see a potential Republican candidate who will actually sling it back at pathetic idiots like Micheal Moore. I wish more Republicans (including our current president) would stand up for themselves like this...

No, Your Daughter is Actually a Bad Person...

And the delusional mother of the year award goes to (drum roll), Joy Miller. Joy Miller is the mother of Ashley Miller, one of the so called "Barbie Bandits." Here is what Joy has to say about her precious little angel:

The mother of an 18-year-old arrested in a bank theft scheme said Monday that her daughter isn't a bandit, she just fell in with the wrong crowd and made a bad choice.

Yeah, the bad choice to be a bank robber. Face it, Joy, your daughter is a bad person, period. The first step to making any sort of reformation of your daughter's behavior possible is to admit that. Hiding from, or ignoring, her sin does no one any good. It is why the first part of the Christian confession is to admit that we are all wretched sinners who fall short of the glory of God rather than something like "Gee, God, we really aren't all that bad, we just made some bad choices and really ought to be forgiven."

This attitude that some parents have of "oh my little angel is basically a good kid" just makes me sick. 99.9% of the time, the kid is actually a rotten brat, and a big reason for this is the parent's inability to confront the child's failures when they screw up. For the sake of your daughter, Joy, stop apologizing for her and start being a parent. Step one is to make sure she suffers proper consequences for her actions rather than having you try to white-wash them...

Terrorist Squirrels

I would say something witty about this mirroring certain left leaning people's approach to terrorism, but...

1. I am lazy today.
2. Anything I came up with wouldn't be accurate anyhow, since:
1. They wouldn't be hucking the peanuts at the squirrels, they would be out there hand feeding them.
2. While almost as stupid as the cat, they wouldn't be smart enough to realize that their plan was not optimal.

The Impending Death of a Chicken-Shit Despot

Well, it looks like the day is finally here when the world will be rid of one of the most notorious despots we have seen in a long time. At least some of the other despots in the same league have had the common decency to off themselves, thus saving us the pain of having to do it. And yes, I do mean pain. Whilst I find capitol punishment to be just and not at all inconsistent with the Christian ideal of forgiveness, I do still find it painful, even when it is some like Hussein who is receiving justice. It is hard to describe. It is not really that I feel sorry for him. He had more than enough chances to repent and save his own skin. It is more of a pain related to the fact that life is a precious gift from God, and here is a guy who wasted his to the point that he no longer deserves to have it, and the gift must be revoked. Painful, yes, but it must be done in order for justice to truly be served.

Update: As everyone knows, it is finally done.