Nightly Ramble: Dominos, What They’ll Do to Win, That’s Too Corny, Silly Sting,Balancing the Ledger, The Least Harm, And More

• Yikes! How long did THIS take to set up? Clearly some engineering genius has far too much time on their hands. Rube had nothing on these folks.
• The WSJ is saying that Obama is just now figuring out that the Clintons will do ANYTHING, and I do mean ANYTHING to win. Somehow, I have my doubts it approaches the sheer balls required to pull some of what Obama did while running for the State Senate. And how competant can Obama be if he’s just now figuring this stuff out?  We are talking about two Chicago pols, after all.
• Glenn notes more proof that Bio-Fuel, particularly that made from Corn is a bad idea.
• So much for ‘Global Warming”. I note I5 is closed north of LA… a place called Tejon Pass. Snow,and lots of it. Starting about 2 this morning, and it’s not stopped to this writing.  At the moment there’s a foot of snow on the ground at Las Padres National Forest. Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve made mention of this kind of story. In fact, what attracted my attention to it was that Google Traffic on this post from BitsBlog three years ago, suddenly went through the roof.
• We’re going to be spending a long time in our foreign relations, dealwing with ostensibly Muslim nations. How do you figure someone who spent his entire campaign chanting “I’m not a Muslim” is going to go over with them? Just sayin…..  I mean look, I understand he’s in a ‘damned if you do damned if you don’t” situation. But I cannot imagine for a moment that’s not going to at least under the surface, affect our relationships that he claims he’s going to try to build.
• There are a number of Euro-Weenies who figure that your IP address should be private information. Let’s just say that’s a stretch. I mean, I understand why some would want to keep that private, but… I mean come on… ever hear of a firewall? And anyway, most ISP’s use DHCP, so such information changes on a fairly regular basis, right? And really; under what conditions would you feel encroached upon, when someone knows what city you’re hitting their site from? (Full disclosure; If you’re reading this I likely already have that information on file here at Casa deBit. Then again, so does about every other site you’ll hit today.)
• Over in Huntngton, NY, they’re thinking about banning “Silly String” at parades. Reason? It plays hell with the paint on Firetrucks, or any other vehicle, I guess. I don’t know about the validity of the law, but I can speak to the damage that stuff does to the paint. I don’t know the chemical reason for it, but I can tell you my van caught some of that stuff a few years ago. Took me a week of fooling with it to get it right, again. I can imagine that gold leaf lettering would be expensive to replace.
• Right on, McQ. But you know, it occurs to me that between fantasy and reality, fantasy is the harder to say goodbye to.
• I agree, Sis, but at some point the price has to be paid for moving so far away from Republican principles. That time may or may not be now. We used the same ideas about ‘any Republican in the WH is better than any Democrat” when we elected GWB. And while he’s been OK on the WOT, (An eventuality we couldn’t have foreseen) his actions on the domestic side have been more problematic.Mexican Immigration for example.  I have to say that in the end, Iraq is a shorter term concern than are these United States. If anything, McCain comes down to the left on many domestic issues, in comparison to GWB. And GWB’s been a problem there.  An election is always a question, even in the most ideal of situations, whom will do the republic the least damage. The in that light question becomes, how much damage will a McCain presidency do to those principles, and to the country as a whole, thereby?
• OK, I have to admit, I don’t understand. Ace points up a link at the Campaign Spot which suggests Thompson would have picked up 47 Delegates in the Louisiana primary had he stayed in for a couple more days.  (I’ll admit that I didn’t know they had that many; I’ll have to check the story. That said…) Did his org not understand this point? Let’s just say I’m a little annoyed.
• Ed notes that aside form the Hunter endorsement of Huckabee, there’s been a number of other less than intuitive endorsements this time around… Pat Robertson endorsing Giulianni, and Borwnback endorsing McCain. There only one logical reason for it; there’s no real standout in the list of hopefuls. Thereby, endorsement at this point has much more to do with building political alliances within the beltway, and being on the side that’s winning,. than it does noting the best choice for the country. As Ed notes, perhaps they’d be better off not endorsing anyone at all. Then again, such endorsements are always a gamble on being in the winner’s circle. That such endorsements are all over the board are an indication to me that none of the party stalwarts really know who’s going to win, either. Thereby, implicitly damning the hopefuls, all of them, with faint praise.
• I gather that Gordon Lightfoot is touring, again.. quite an extensive list of tour dates. You know, I wonder when he’s going to stop touring. Not soon, I hope. The man was almost dead a year back or so. You know, I hate to be insensitive on this one, but I must say, I kept holding out for Don Williams to show up at a distance that was drivable,and when I had the money, and as a result I missed out. He just retired this last year.  I doubt I’ll ever get the chance there again So, I’m going to see about catching Lightfoot this time around. Hamilton isn’t all that far of a drive, nor is Toronto for that matter. Hey, I gather he’s playing in Des Moines, too. Most promising is Glenside PA, though, for me. Just outta Philly.  That’s a trip I’ve made often enough. We’ll see.

Michelle Malkin uses the Senate floor debate over FISA to sum up the difference between democrats and republicans:

The frenzy over FISA is a stark reminder of basic party differences on the War on Terror. The Republicans put security first. The Democrats put trial lawyers, terrorists’ rights, and election campaigns first

While senators, like Mrs. Clinton, do not believe in spying on our foreign enemies, they do believe in spying on their domestic political opponents.

I see that Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.

Let’s break out the spreadsheet.

NOLA has 484,674 residents. Broken down by person, that means each one gets paid $516,528.00 from the federal government.

NOLA supposedly has 188,251 homes. Each will get $1,329,787.00.

Or, we might say that if you have the family of four, your family gets a total of $2,066,012.00, from the pockets of the rest of the nation.

At what point do we say ‘enough’?

And you know, I wonder where the enviro-whackjobs are with this. Isn’t draining that swamp interfering with the natural processes at work there?

Addendum:  (David L)

And the horse she rode in on.   I never told New Orleans to build their stupid city  under sea level.  Be darned if I’ll consent to pouring good money after bad.  Move the damn place and be done with it.

I have previously commented that Mrs. Clinton campaigns ugly.  The true nature of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is getting harder to simply sweep under the carpet.  Alec MacGillis and Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post, only officially hide their disgust:

DILLON, S.C., Jan. 23 — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s presidential campaign aired a new radio ad here Wednesday that repeated a discredited charge against Sen. Barack Obama, in what some Democrats said is part of an increasing pattern of hardball politics by her and former president Bill Clinton.

You know darn well that when a reporter uses the term “some” he is referring to, but not acknowledging, his personal feelings.  Note that the WaPo didn’t see any need to put the term discredited in quotes, or to soften it, by calling the charge alleged, or disputed.

And so why would Soros be trying to move us toward Democrats here in the US?

Jawa has the answer:

During an interview with the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, billionaire leftist George Soros weighed in on the power and influence of the U.S.

“I’m not looking for a worldwide recession. I’m looking for a significant shift of power and influence away from the US in particular and a shift in favour of the developing world, particularly China.”

So, there you have it — straight from Soros’ anti-American lips.Therefore, whenever you see the multitude of Soros-funded leftist groups creating havoc in the U.S. economy, culture and political system, there should be no doubt as to the intent. Soros wants to beat down the United States while championing the ChiComs.

And so why does the press take what he says, so seriously? Why is he pushing every left wing cause he can find? Simple; He’s working for a diminished America. He sees the left wing Democrats as the best way to accomplish that sordid goal.

Work it out, gang… this ain’t rocket science.

The Clintons play dirty when they feel threatened. But we knew that, didn’t we?
..
The problem is not Hillary Clinton per se or the sharp exchanges and personal accusations that squeamish political reporters deplore. That’s what politics is always about. Tough, even nasty conflict is educational, also entertaining. Politics ain’t beanbag, as Mark Shields likes to say.The one-two style of Clintons, however, is as informative as low-life street fighters. Mr. Bill punches Obama in the kidney and from the rear. When Obama whirls around to strike back, there stands Mrs. Clinton, looking like a prim Sunday School teacher and citing goody-goody lessons she learned from her 135 years in government.
..
She is using her egocentric husband to do the low-road hits for her campaign. He is good at it–a real charmer if you’ve never seen his act before. Or is Mrs. Clinton’s husband using her? People can ask that question without disturbing the principles of feminism.

..

That’s William Greider of The Nation

A few comments:

First, since he knows how vindictive the Clintons tend to be, (And writes about it, in a liberloon publication like few others!) …and since he knows thereby that such comments will undoubtedly cause him to be denied access to a Clinton White House, Greider and his magazine are fairly well convinced that Clinton won’t be the nominee.  If it were any other way, it’s a lead pipe cinch he’d never have made the comments at all, and/or the magazine would never have allowed them through the editing process.

Second, I might judge that Greider, a long time Clinton apologist finally understands how destructive a Clinton presidency would be, and is willing to put his butt on the line in an effort to prevent that.  But where was this judgment before, during the eight years of Clinton previously? Perhaps logic actually caught up with him?

Finally, he is obviously struggling to find a way to make the obvious facts he mentions mesh with the PC fantasy of gender feminism, and not doing it very convincingly.  He actually deigns to give us permission to question Hillary, saying we can do so without questioning the farce Gender Feminism upon which her rise to power was based? Please. I’ll question both, thank you and not ask for Greider’s permission to do so.

By way of OTB, I see that the Louisiana primary went down about as expected; Ron Paul beat Romney, but both of them lost to Fred Thompson. That a couple of comparatively liberal northeastern pols wouldn’t do well down there among Republicans, doesn’t shock me. Anyone promising to lower the size of government will do well among Republicans there, even crazy ones, as opposed to Romney who has been pitching it’s growth…. What does amaze me is that Fred did so well. And as I said last night, I wonder if he didn’t quit too soon.

And interestingly, Huckabee, showed up not at all. Known quantity?

Another point; The state has it’s political quirks, and should not be a basis for judgement on how a given canidate will do in the general election.  Still, this raises the point that all the states in the union are similarly cursed with their own bizzare politics, thus perhaps making a larger argument for state’s rights and local control than anything else that might be contrived.

Addendum: (David L)

Fred’s problem was lack of organization.  Lousiana apparently organized itself without any assistance from Fred.  Sad to say, Fred simply never wanted to be president.  He is with his family and that’s where his heart is.  (H/T: National Review?)

You can tell that John McCain didn’t win by the media reaction, or lack thereof same.  Every McCain victory is heralded, and every loss ignored.  I am going to take a flier and say that McCain had invested heavilly on winning Michigan, open primary, and lost everything by losing.  McCain is now going into the closed primary season with little momentum and little cash.

Two facts, one McCain is doing a rash or fund raisers.  It is campaign season not fund raising seaon.  Two, McCain is trying to find a message to appeal to the conservative base.  He doesn’t have one and appears to have been banking on not needing one.  Again, he bet the bank on winning Michigan.  (H/T: Hugh Hewitt).

If, very big if, Rudy Guiliani can win Florida, he will have both the cash and the momentum.

As to Mitt Romney, I’d rather have an honest moderate, too much in the George W. Bush vein, than a dishonest socialist.

I’d go longer, but I don’t know what to make of it.   On Memeorandum, you have stories of the open race war between the Clintons and Barack Obama.  Meanwhile, a few leftsided bloggers are upset because a republican operative formed a 527, headed by a bartender, to sell over priced tee shirted called Citizens United Not Timid,  with the supposed purpose of revealing Mrs. Clinton’s true nature.   As if that were a secret.

I suppose that if the the aforementioned organization gets Mrs. Clinton upset, she’ll break into tears and have B.J. throw yet another temper tantrum.  Yawn.

Addendum:

Story bears watching,  The Clintons and the leftosphere do not exactly hold the high ground when it comes to misogynic remarks.   It has been the Clintons’ standard practice to trash all of B.J.’s former female “partners” as bimbos.   It might be amusing to compare reactionsl

• I note by way of LGF that Hubble’s getting an overhaul.
• Jawa Report trying the Podcast thing? It appears so.
• Michelle points up where Duncan Hunter has endorsed Huckabee.  I dunno as that’s really much of a shock, that Hunter endorses a less than appealing candidate. It’s not like he had a whole bunch of choice in the matter.
• I’m still dealing with the result of an intestinal ailment. Hell of a way to lose weight, but it seems to work.
• Got the new tape drive working… a 40/80 DLT. More than enough to back the machines I have here, though it’s going to be a week before I get the schedules worked out so I can get everything onto tape. I suppose I’ll have to look for some tape.
• Joel, this is why I never… and I mean NEVER allow ‘autonegotiate’ on my networks. 100 full or 1gb full…and maybe 10 full for the test networks. One hiccup can spoil your whole week. All it takes is one flaky patch cable. Trust me, I know. And as for really high (6 nines) reliability, I tend to agree… unless you’re running a second site, with full echo, (Meaning servers running a full echo of what you’re running on the other site, running high reliability format) forget it. Nothing short of a fully equipped duplicate data center, with full echo, is going to help matters, if some yahoo with a backhoe takes out your fiber. If it’s that important to the client, fine. They’re going to have to pay for that kind of reliability, on the understanding that they have about a 50% chance of actually getting that level of uptime year over year. And none of that considers upgrades and whatnot. 30 seconds a year downtime? Not. Realistic.
• Remember the name Ezra Levant.
• Good Job, Jawa.
• Captain Ed pretty much agrees with my take on McCain, yesterday.
• Ben Smith reports Al Gore has come out with a forceful vid calling for Homosexual Marriage.  Smith says he’s not sure why.  The answer is simple, Ben… he’s lost all his support from elsewhere, since losing in 2000, and being exposed as a fraud (Global warming/cooling) since. That Gore jumps onto this bandwagon is no particular credit for either him or his chosen message.

Good move, or bad move, Barack Obama knows where to attack the Clinton’s in the massive, and over inflated, egos.   B.J. Clinton is riled over Obama’s Reagan comments, Ezra Klein, American Prospect:

Bill Clinton’s take on this was that Obama “said President Reagan was the engine of innovation and did more, had a more lasting impact on America than I did. And then the next day he said, ‘In the 90s the good ideas came out from the Republicans. Which it’ll be costly maybe down the road for him because it’s factually not accurate.” Check out the “I” in there. As the argument is presented, this is about him, not her. Obama’s implication was that Clinton was a managerial, rather than transformative, president. Clinton, stung, is slightly shifting the language, asserting that he had “a more lasting impact” on America than Reagan did. But what’s the evidence for that? Reagan’s changes to the tax code, his massive amnesty, and his struggles and negotiations with the Soviet Union, were pretty meaningful, and we hear their echoes today. He’s also commonly credited with pushing the country far to the right, though whether he instigated that change or simply profited from an existent shift in our politics is, I think, an open question

Well look who else thought the republicans were the party of ideas, Greg Sargent, TPM:

In 1981 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan uttered a startling pronouncement: “The Republicans,” he declared, “are now the party of ideas.” Moynihan was and is a moderate Democrat. He once served in the Nixon administration, and he earned the ire of many 1960s liberals both by his willingness to talk about the disintegration of black families and by his authorship of a leaked memo suggesting that the race issue be treated with “benign neglect.” By 1980, however, the rightward shift of American politics had put Moynihan’s positions well to the left of center, so this was a self-punishing admission

So how long before the Clintons feel obliigated to attack Moynihan?    For what it is worth, Moynihan was my senator and I considered him to have a great mind.   Sadly for Moynhian, he belonged on a university campus and not in Congress.

Hat Tip:  Memorandum.

The AP reports, and the New York Times expands, on a new study by a supposedly “independent” organization that claims to have assembled hundred of “false statements” by the Bush administration in the course of the Iraq war. However, the Center for Public Integrity hardly qualifies as “independent”. It gets much of its funding from George Soros, who has thrown millions of dollars behind Democratic political candidates, and explicitly campaigned to defeat George Bush in 2004:

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

Nowhere in these articles do either news organization bother to inform their reader of the partisan nature of the CPI. Besides Soros, it gets financing from the Streisand Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Los Angeles Times Foundation. The FIJ shares most of its board members with the CPI, which hardly makes it a separate entity in terms of its political direction.

That’s Captain Ed, today.

Ed goes on from there:

Dafydd at Big Lizards does a good job of pulling apart the supposed quotes that CPI used to blow some hot air into the limp “Bush lied” meme, but even the New York Times wasn’t impressed:

There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call “wallowing in Watergate.”

In fact, there is nothing new in this site that hasn’t already been picked apart by the blogosphere, and some of it discredited.

Actually, most if nnot all of it has been discredited. Flopping Aces, (Who has a great new layout…) goes ahead and rehashes at some lengths, the idea that there were no lies involved, no conspiracy, and provides much in the way of vid on the point. An example:

No, my favorite part of the “report” is this:

“Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government’s pre-war intelligence – not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. “…”Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.”

I like this part the best for three reasons.

1) it completely ignores that the Sen Intel Com has investigated this for years now. In fact, back in Nov06, on the eve of the midterm elections, Senator Harry Reid pulled a political stunt by invoking a rarely used procedure rule to order the doors of the Senate closed so that he and other Democrats could DEMAND that the report be released. They claimed the White House was blocking the so-called Phase II report to cover up their pre-war statements about Iraq intelligence. Low and behold a few days later, Democrats take control of the Senate, and almost a year and a half later…the Democrats still haven’t released their report; a report which is exactly what this allegedly independent investigation says has never been investigated

2) the allegedly independent investigation we have here is claiming that no investigation has been done into Administration statements before the war re Iraq intel, but on the very same PAGE that they make this false statement, they cite numerous other investigations which did in fact compare pre-war statements with post-war intelligence assessments

3) the “report” assumes guilt and assumes deception on the part of the Bush Administration while assuming innocents and naivety on the part of members of Congress (of particular importance as many of these people seek to be President themselves). This opposing assumption is based on party or political orientation and not on fact or the presumption of innocence, and that dichotomy extinguishes and vestigial premise of unbiased investigation.

But why on earth would Soros and his following ever bother with mere facts when the accusations, even discredited as they are, whip up said followers? And of course let’s consider that AP quite willingly posted this ‘study’ as some kind of documented fact.

As Michelle says:

You would think by now that the MSM would try to spare itself some embarrassment and at least do a cursory Google search before casting the researchers as neutral, reliable, disinterested parties. But noooo. They dutifully published these transparent moonbat briefs for impeachment without disclosing the “nonprofit journalism organizations'” ties to BDS sugar daddy George Soros.

That’s what laughingly passes for ‘fairness’ at the leftist press, these days.

Aces has a lot in the way of reax around the sphere, too.

Addendum: (David L)

Look at the bright side, if George Bush lied, he is not alone.  lawhawk, A Blog for All, lists some of George’s company:

After all, how many of these so-called lies were repeated ad nauseum by the likes of President Bill Clinton, First Lady/Senator Hillary Clinton, Sec. State Albright, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John EdwardsBusiness-Should-Not-Fear-Edwards Jan-08 , and all the rest of the Democrats during the 1990s? It only came after 2003 that people realized that the CIA intel about the Iraqi WMD programs was found to be incorrect.

Video:

[wp_youtube]ePb6H-j51xE[/wp_youtube]

Hat Tip: Byran: Hot Air.

I noted this story last niht but couldn’t get out of bed to comment on it. Never fear; Michelle did it.

Better late than never, Michigan has put an end to driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. It’s a violation of federal law, say state officials.

It is not a federal civil right.

Look for open-borders whining in 3…2…1…:

Starting Tuesday, the Michigan Secretary of State will no longer grant a driver’s license or state identification to first time applicants unless they can prove that they are in the U.S. legally and permanently.

The move by the state is the direct result of a recent ruling by Michigan Attorney General Michael Cox which banned issuing licenses to illegal aliens.

“If you are not here legally or permanently, then we will not issue a driver’s license,” said Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, at a press conference Monday at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center in Detroit.

“From now on we will not accept foreign birth certificates, just passports. No matter who comes in, they will have to go through the proper process and our anti-fraud department will go over documents, which is something we always have done.”

I am encouraged, but not overly so. After all, all it takes is one activist judge… something they have no shortage of there.

MIAMI (AP) – Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.
…
Cooke also imposed prison terms on two other men of Middle Eastern origin who were convicted of conspiracy and material support charges along with Padilla in August. The three were part of a North American support cell for al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists around the world, prosecutors said.
…
Jurors in the criminal case never heard Padilla’s full history, which according to U.S. officials included a graduation from the al-Qaida terror camp, a plot to detonate the “dirty bomb” and a plot to fill apartments with natural gas and blow them up. Much of what Padilla supposedly told interrogators during his long detention as an enemy combatant could not be used in court because he had no access to a lawyer and was not read his constitutional rights.

That’s not even close to what was needed. This kind of miscarriage of justice is what happens when we give Terrorists constitutional rights, as John McCain advises.  Justice would have involved a rope, several well placed gunshots, and a cattle prod.

That question is going to be a little strange to answer.

Hawkins says :

My instinct is that poll is probably a little more representative of how things would work in the real world. Fred Thompson’s supporters would probably break down like so,

* A significant group of them go for the most conservative remaining candidate in the race, Mitt Romney.

* Another group of them would probably go for Rudy Giuliani, the moderate candidate who has been beaten up the least over the last month.

* Then, a smaller group would probably gravitate towards Mike Huckabee, as much as anything because he’s the only remaining Southerner.

* Last but not least, another small group would probably move towards the front runner, John McCain.

I dunno. Romney I could almost see, absent the left-wing pandering he was doing in Michigan, a couple weeks ago. With it, I’m not convinced. Giulliani, is somewhat more doubtful. The pandering to the Hispanic vote, the “Sanctuary Cities” and so on, is a complete turnoff. Huckabee, similarly. We’ve discussed him here previously. There’s not much at this point which will convince me to vote for him.  And certainly not McCain. The only value McCain and I share is his reading on the importance of fighting this war on terror, and even there, he’s still got a major strike against him, trying to give terrorists constitutional rights.  In my view that gross misunderstanding of whom the constitution applies to disqualifies him from the office he now holds, much less the one he aspires to.

The answer I guess is Romney, though I don’t have to like it. Perhaps more correctly, I’m less than fully comfortable with it. We’ll see how this works out, but I have to tell you point blank I am non-plussed by the whole of the Republican field. Indeed, the only thing they have going for them is they’re not Democrats…. just damned close.

John has a great follow-on post, you’ll want to see, here.

Rusty Shakleford makes the argument, meanwhile, that Ronmey’s the logical choice. 

It’s time to support Mitt Romney. Can Mitt win in a general election? I don’t know. Certainly he has always had a better chance than Fred. And if the opposition is Hillary Clinton, then maybe.

McCain can beat Hillary. But McCain is, well, McCain.

To be honest, I’m not as down on McCain as most of my fellow Jawas and you, the readers. But that’s just because I’ve been a one-issue guy since right around, oh, let me see, I think the date was 9/11/2001.

But still, McCain doesn’t get that the border is tied in with our national security.

Mitt does. And he seems to get the war on political Islam.

Sure, Rudy also seems to get both, but it’s probably too little too late for him.

Hmmm. As regards McCain, yeah, and he still doesn’t get it right; there’s still a star next to the one positive point he has, because he still insists on turning this stuff over to the courts on a misplaced notion of ‘fairness’.

It’s in my mind that the best we conservatives are going to end up with is someone with a Bush view of what conservatism is. That is to say, a centrist calling themselves a conservative.  It’s not what we need, but it’s still better than a full-goose-bozo liberloon, like Hillary Clinton, or Barrack Obama.

Yeah, I was out of action for a while. Came up with some kind of stomach bug, which basically kept me on a path between the bed and the bathroom. I’m still not 100%, but at least I can make it to the office once in a while.