Boudica (Sarah) Returns

I have always been intrigued by history. In studying history, we can learn an awful lot about who we are and what we can be. I was recently reminded of Boudica, the Celtic Warrier Queen who lived during the period of the Roman occupation of the Isle of Britain.

Boudica's husband controlled a wide swath of the county of Norfolk, then populated by people known as the Iceni. When Boudica's husband died, as a Roman sympathizer, he bequeathed his holdings to both the Roman empire and his family. The Romans ignored the king's wishes regarding his family and seized his entire estate. They raped his daughters and flogged his wife, Boudica.

In time, Boudica re-grouped and led a large uprising against the Roman occupiers, destroying and pillaging London in the process. Though ultimately defeated by a superior Roman military, Boudica is still revered in England, with prominent statues erected in her honor. My family, in fact, traces their lineage back to her, for her offspring lived on.

So, you say, what could this possibly have to do with Sarah Palin?

Sarah was selected as the heir imprimatur of the Republican ticket in 2008. Taking up this position as the second-in-command, she was the primary benefactor of McCain's run for President, the Boudica of her king's fortune. After having died (politically) in his run for President, Sarah was flogged (metaphorically) in the mainstream media and her daughters were raped in the left-wing blogoshere and nationally on the David Letterman show.

Sarah has now regained her strength and begun to reassert herself. She now has the opportunity to build an army to respond to her detractors and diminish those who seek to defeat her principles and ours.

One thing is different, however, that suggests an alternative fate than that suffered by Boudica. Sarah has access to the very best army imaginable: the army of conservative America. As opposed to Boudica's following, this army has NEVER faced an opponent it has not defeated. It is just waiting to be awakened and led.

We Won't Get Fooled Again!

This is a kick-ass video. Enjoy!



Hat tip: A Time for Choosing blog

Let's Can the Delta Smelt!

The Delta Smelt is a fish the size of a grown-up minnow.



It has been shoved front and center in the war between environmentalists and the human population. Water that was previously diverted to the San Joaquin valley in California has been curtailed to "protect" the Delta Smelt.

For some excellent history on the controversy, go here.

Sean Hannity previewed the issue on his show two nights ago:



He continued his coverage last night:



I think it's time to start canning the Delta Smelt. There could be a welcome market for it. I have no doubt that there are plenty of farmers in California that would love to feast on it!

The Fall of Little Green Footballs

I used to make a regular stop at LGF up until a few months ago. I no longer saw the kind of support for conservative thinking that I used to.

My, how the mighty have fallen. Hot Air has just moved the link for LGF from their "War on Terror" blogs to "Left Channels".

Ouch!

WAPO Spins the Sting

Just about when I thought that the Washington Post had given up as the last bastion of subjective reporting, I find this.

Who in their right mind would ever brag about killing their spouse as a response to anything that a client/customer brought up? I don't care how outrageous the request! If, if fact, Tresa Kaelke was just playing around, why would a 61 year-old woman entertain a couple of "well-spoken youngsters" in a bid to play into their "game"?

This organization (ACORN) is supposed to be helping the poor, the indigent, the people that can't make ends meet. Instead, they are playing footsie with hookers, pimps and malcontents at taxpayer's expense, because, well, they can!

This organization is a travesty. It needs to be investigated under RICO laws! If this doesn't happen, there will be hell to pay. And I hope that the White House is not a party to a "parlay" in defense of its existence!

Sarah, Interrupted

Update:
Wow, what a difference a few weeks make! Obama takes the stage for his health care fiasco and all of a sudden, BAMMM! Sarah states her case. I guess I shouldn't have worried about her being out of touch....

Original posted on September 6, 2009:
For the last two weeks, I've been stymied in my attempts to find something original to blog about. Nothing has really captured my attention in a way that inspired me. I've been in a funk and I didn't know why. I think I finally have an answer.

I've been following Sarah Palin's Facebook feed and, despite some very brief comments to express condolences to the Kennedy family or to encourage people to watch Glenn Beck's expose of Obama's czars, I haven't seen any red meat. Not since her call for tort reform [before health care reform] has she put out anything substantive.

I was watching a video that was posted on Conservatives4Palin that highlighted Larry Kudlow's conversation with Jerry Bowyer, syndicated columnist, and Mark Walsh, former CEO of the failed Air America network. In the video, Larry Kudlow made an off-hand remark that Sarah Palin's book would be out soon. Mark Walsh blathered on about the lack of policy statements issued by Sarah Palin in a "snarky" attempt to discredit Sarah's credentials as a national leader.

After watching the video, I was struck by two things. First and foremost, it is pretty much accepted that Sarah Palin is hard at work on her forthcoming book. Being out of the national spotlight for the time being, she has been given the opportunity to devote her time to writing it. Second, she has begun to accept speaking engagements, the first of which will be on September 23rd in Hong Kong. What could that mean?

I suspect that Sarah is near to completing her book. Having been committed to doing that, and never having done something like that before, I believe it precluded her from accepting any future speaking engagements. Now that she has accepted that first speaking invitation, I think it signals that the main text of her book is finished. Having that task behind her, it will be much easier for her to schedule her future calendar. Any editing changes to the book can be done on the fly. It's the original content that requires focus.

Now that the book is [presumably] finished, what do you do? You promote your book! You promote it in your speeches, you promote it on your Facebook page, you promote it EVERYWHERE!

Your "policy" statements are in your book. During Q&A after a speech, if someone asks you about your policy on "X", you respond: "Read my book. I discuss that in Chapter [X]."

If someone asks you to comment on all the rumors about your [supposedly] pending divorce, you say: "I've already de-bunked that rumor. Read Chapter [XX] of my book."

I truly believe that Sarah Palin is on the cusp of her next major adventure.

She has only been momentarily interrupted.

BTW, if you think I'm blowing smoke, watch this video:



Hat Tip: Conservatives4Palin & Alex Vogel

The Next Tea Party Target?

ACORN!

If this video doesn't make your skin crawl in disgust, you've been watching too much network news.



Ah yes, the network news. You know, the noble ones that have no problem playing gotcha with Sarah Palin for their news digests, but can't come close to doing any lifting at all to help expose the biggest criminal enterprise in the history of the United States: ACORN. And it's taxpayer-funded, no less!

I don't watch network news anymore. I haven't for years and years. I recognized their bias a long time ago and chose NOT to patronize their broadcasts.

This debacle with ACORN is amazing in the fact that it took a 25 year-old independent film-maker and his 21 year-old accomplice to expose what the vaunted "60 Minutes", the New York Times and every other journalistic charlatan couldn't do. And, judging from the ease that our celebrated "journalists" accomplished their task, I say that the mainstream media is not worth the paper it's printed on or the airways it's broadcast on.

I will never again pay one red cent to support printed media. I will not spend one second of my life watching the broadcast network news. I will watch Fox News on cable and I will listen to talk-radio. They are the only sources of news that I can trust anymore.

Oh, by the way, if the Tea Party movement is needing a new target to march on, let it be every ACORN office in the country. They both deserve the exposure!

I'm thinking: National ACORN Day. And I'm not alone in my assessment.

Update: Now that I think about it, why waste the Tea Party's energy when it only takes the efforts of two twenty-something conservatives to focus attention on this travesty? It seems two people CAN make a difference. More so than the so-called mainstream (fringe) media.

Little Black Sambo & Licorice Candy

I grew up in the North. Fort Wayne, Indiana, if you're interested. My childhood involved running free: out the door in the morning, home by the time the street-lights came on. Wherever we were at noon-time, that Mom made us lunch. We were busy, we were active, we didn't stop until the "cows came home". We also shared a certain history.

I remember "Little Black Sambo". A simple story about a little boy from India. He tamed some lions while making pancakes. I never thought a thing about it. It was a story.

When I was a teenager, I remember a restaurant chain called "Sambo's" that was based on that story. It was a kind of "Denny's" that specialized in pancakes. The menu talked about the story from my youth. It had changed the name from "Little Black Sambo" to "Sambo's". I never thought a thing about it.

There was a point in my childhood where I accompanied my Chicago buddy to a candy store while visting him in Kenilworth, IL. You know the place. Do you remember when candy stores had all sorts of things in bins? I bought something and my buddy bought something else. He bought "Nigger Babies". They were black licorice candies shaped like a baby. I had never heard of them before. Being that my buddy was from the big city, he knew the best candy to buy. I was used to buying "Good 'n Plenty" at the movies, so I was on board for licorice. I never thought a thing about it. It was candy.

My Lord, tell me I wasn't a racist! I didn't even know what that word meant when I was a kid. We dealt in reality back then. We didn't look at candy and think about the evils of racism, we thought about our sweet tooth. We didn't look at a menu and think about the evils of racism, we thought about pancakes. The racist phrases meant nothing to us, we were kids. We didn't realize that we'd be tainted for life by virtue of our childhood. Am I no longer entitled to criticize a politician?

I remember when "Sambo's" went out of business. It's name was not appropriate. I understood why, but liked the menu. After all, I had never thought a thing about it. It was just pancakes.

I never saw another "Nigger Baby" after my trip to Chicago. I was horrified years later when I thought about it. I never thought of being racist, but felt guilty for eating candy with a "racist" name.

I've learned about the misadventures of my youth. I've dismissed those episodes and learned accordingly. I am not a racist. I wasn't back then. I was just growing up in a culture that was insensitive to certain things. Things that became much more important as I grew older...and wiser.

40-some odd years later, I'm confronted with my youth. I'm called a racist for disagreeing with a man in the White House...just because he's black. I've already learned that prejudice is wrong and I've labored to dismiss the events of my youth. I am not ready to dismiss my beliefs in God and country, although those were there in my youth as well. Things like the Boy Scouts, being an Altar Boy and praying at Church.

I am not a racist, so don't try to label me as such. My overriding concern is whether or not you are. Have you not learned anything in the past 40 years? Instead of empowering the idea of racism, you should be defusing it! I think I speak for the majority of Tea Party protesters when I say our protest is NOT about race, it's about POLICY!

Ethicsgate vs. Leadership

This video says an awful lot about the nature of the ethics complaints against Sarah Palin over the last several months. As you might have suspected, it was a coordinated attempt to smear Gov. Palin and marginalize her voice.



When you're done watching this video, please read this post on Conservatives4Palin. It is what we are fighting for!

Where Were You On 9-11?

I remember taking my 8 year-old son to school. After dropping him off, I heard on the radio that a plane had "run into" the World Trade Center. At first, I thought it a very small plane and an extremely unfortunate accident. After dropping off my son and proceeding to work, the radio announced that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. My thoughts turned to terrorism.

I arrived at work, unpacked my laptop, and proceeded to the cafeteria, where I could watch TV. It was packed. We all watched in solemn silence as the two World Trade Center buildings collapsed. There was weeping and crying in the background.

Four hours later I received a phone call from my boss in Philadelphia. Their building was evacuated for fear of being a target. The building was 50 stories tall. Many were in panic, but the building was not a target.

I remember sitting outside the office building and watching the jets land at DFW. The US airspace was closed and all planes were ordered to land. After 4pm, very few planes came in. I didn't see another plane in the sky for over a week.

Please tell me your story of where you were and how you felt. We must never forget!

BTW, I had a niece and nephew born on 9-11. Twins. Life does go on.

Subliminal Heresy

One of the things that seems to get missed in all the analysis of Obama's speeches are the subliminal aspects of them. By that, I'm referring to body language, inflections in tone and overall temperament.

I can take a discussion at work and cut through all the BS to grasp the content of the subject being discussed. That same thing cannot be said for everyone, however. I've had countless conversations with subordinates who "read" something into what was was said and then reacted in a very emotional and personal way.

On certain occasions, I can also react very strongly to body language and inflections in tone. I have also been known to read things into someone's communication with me, especially when the subject is personal. Despite my record at work, I have not had the same experience at home. The question is, what makes the difference?

We have evidence of this phenomenon in the halls of Congress. We saw it in Joe Wilson's outburst during Barack Obama's speech on Wednesday night. His simple exclamation of "You lie" spoke volumes about his state of emotion during that speech. He reacted to more than the spoken word. He reacted to the subliminal message of Obama's speech. In his defense, he is a junior Congressman. He has not been hardened against the obfuscations and subliminal messaging that goes on in politics.

Joe Wilson reacted in about the same way that I have reacted to my teenage daughter's verbal jabs in front of her friends. I don't just listen to the words, which, truth be told, are relatively benign. I also "see" the subliminal messaging going on and, subject to my interpretation, respond in kind. It's a no-win situation. My interpretations are always met with the same derision as that of Joe Wilson's. Even worse, there is NEVER any acknowledgment that my interpretation had merit. In essence, I've always been left to twist in the wind.

There is much to be said about Barack Obama's speaking skills. There is very little said about the subliminal aspects of his speaking. Maybe its just me, but it seems that most in the mainstream media are hesitant to go there. That is not to say, however, that those subliminal messages don't exist. They are often couched in phrases like "nuanced" or "thoughtful".

How do you respond to his speeches? Do you get agitated? If so, do you consider yourself an emotional misfit? If not, why are you denied an emotional reaction toward something that is an affront to your being? Are you not one of the "enlightened" ones? Are you (shudder) a Tea Party participant?

For myself, I worry not. I'm just reacting to a subliminal heresy that is ripping at my sensibilities. What about you?

Never Forget!

Obama's Obfuscation

Per Wikipedia:

Obfuscation is the concealment of intended meaning in communication, making communication confusing, intentionally ambiguous, and more difficult to interpret.

I didn't watch Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last night. I was in Las Vegas attending a best friend's wedding, which had to be on 9-9-09. As it turned out, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't have a chance to watch Obama's speech!

One of the things that drives me nuts about Obama's speeches are his selection and parsing of words. He has developed a mastery of using the English language to deflect, re-direct and mask his intent by very careful phrasing and word selection. He is a politician's dream. He is also a liar, which should come as no surprise to anyone that has listened to a career politician speak.

The office of the President of the United States, however, is a high honor. Traditionally, this high office has caused "politicians" to transcend their rhetorical embellishments and speak to a higher calling on behalf of their constituents. This has not been the case with Obama.

Obama is in constant campaign-mode. His speeches are designed to influence voters' opinion and not to lead. Although he won the election and was entrusted with the most powerful office in the world, we are continuously being subjected to a revised stump speech.

As of today, Rasmussen had this, one day after his Congressional speech:



One day earlier, the polling had the same result. Watch Rasmussen's polling tomorrow. It's bound to show a bounce from Obama's speech. After that wears off, he should return to double-digit negative numbers.

Unfortunately, Obama has transmorphed his campaign rhetoric into obfuscation. He is now paying the price in the polls. I pray that we, his constituents, don't have to pay a price as well. We expected much, much more from him than what he is delivering.

Obama: Forget "Never Forget"

In one of the most cynical moves yet of the Obama administration, we must brace ourselves for their overt attempt to re-brand 9/11 as National Day of Service.

Per The American Spectator:

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it's not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing.

The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.

"They think it needs to be taken back from the right," said the source. "They're taking that day and they're breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day."

This is another attempt of the Obama administration to re-write our history and diminish the events that have defined our society. This is truly outrageous!

[Originally posted on August 25, 2009]

Obama's Choice of Literature

Obama's choice of literature pretty much explains his interests.



National Review Online has a review of "The Post-American World", posted to their blog "The Corner" on May 7, 2008. Written by Jim Manzi, the review counters the "blame America first" reviews that predominated the mainstream media upon the book's original release:

"[Fareed] Zakaria claims that the last twenty years has seen the rise of the rest of the world relative to the United States. He says:

We are living through the third great power shift in modern history. The first was the rise of the Western world, around the 15th century. It produced the world as we know it now—science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the industrial and agricultural revolutions. It also led to the prolonged political dominance of the nations of the Western world. The second shift, which took place in the closing years of the 19th century, was the rise of the United States. Once it industrialized, it soon became the most powerful nation in the world, stronger than any likely combination of other nations. For the last 20 years, America's superpower status in every realm has been largely unchallenged—something that's never happened before in history, at least since the Roman Empire dominated the known world 2,000 years ago. During this Pax Americana, the global economy has accelerated dramatically. And that expansion is the driver behind the third great power shift of the modern age—the rise of the rest.

I am always suspicious of these three-part schemes of historical epochs, the three parts of which seem to contract precipitously in length as we approach the current day. According to Zakaria, the first of these phases lasted abut 400 years, the second lasted about 100 years, and we’re now in one that has, at least in large part, happened in 20 years.

Zakaria goes on to say that this “This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else.” But the only way that sentence makes sense to me is if it means relative American decline.

Here’s the only problem with Zakaria’s thesis:



U.S. share of global economic output (on a purchasing power parity basis) has declined very slightly over the past twenty years – from about 21% to about 20%. But what has really happened over this period has been the rise of China and the rest of non-Japan Asia at the relative expense of Western Europe and Japan.

At the start of each of the last two recessions there has been a lot of hand-wringing about whether current problems are symptomatic of terminal U.S. decline. Zakaria in his article tells a story of how twenty years ago Indians were culturally fixated on the U.S., but are now more inward-looking. He goes on to cite recent economic growth rates for China and India, and makes the point that if we were to extrapolate these out for some decades the world would be a very different place. Just replace China and India with Japan and Korea, and this is an almost a word-for-word recitation of the kinds of articles you could find every week in every major American newspaper and magazine twenty or twenty-five years ago.

What Zakaria misses is that the relative decline of the U.S. is real, but that it already happened. U.S. share of world GDP in 1945 is estimated to have been about 50%; this more than halved between 1945 and 1980. The U.S. economic crisis of the 1970s was largely the result of this decline. I’ve argued at length that the Reagan economic program was a creative and successful response to that crisis that has prevented the U.S. economy from going the way of Europe. This program was focused on two things: sound money and deregulation, broadly defined. It’s ironic that, despite the rhetoric, Reagan’s program was premised on a very clear-eyed recognition of relative American decline. (It’s interesting, by the way, to see Reagan’s take on foreign policy commitments in this light.)

The ability of the U.S. economy to defy historical gravity for the past 25 years has not been automatic: it was earned in a set of pivotal political battles that were pretty much complete by 1984. The next twenty years comprised, within the American economy, a Twenty Years War to implement this less-regulated system that has now reached maturity. We live in the new economy that it has created. The danger of misdiagnosis of our current situation is that we will fail to understand the sources of our success and unwittingly throw them away."

Somehow, I don't think Obama read the book with the above thoughts in mind.

Hat tip: Bob Dornak

Two Key Speeches at the RNC

There have been two speeches given at the Republican National Convention that merit attention. Both were given by people other than the ticket's top vote-getter, but both captured the imagination of the Republican Party in ways seldom seen. These speeches served as the foundation from which two individuals were catapulted into the national spotlight and, for one, the White House.



Will history repeat itself for the other?



Hat tip: Conservatives4Palin

Republicans: Boycott Obama's Speech to Congress

Republicans should boycott Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9th. Try as I might, I can't come up with a single good reason why they need to be there. What can he possibly say that will have any bearing on their actions? History has shown us that Obama will most likely use the occasion to speak to the TV audience and push for his version of health care reform. You can be assured that he'll throw out a few "straw man" arguments to demonize the opposition.

If the Republicans don't show up, how much damage can it do to them politically? Most of the perceived push-back on Obamacare is coming from Town Hall meetings and Tea Party events. With the exception of Sarah Palin, I haven't heard one elected Republican put forth any meaningful commentary that has resonated with this country the way Sarah Palin's Facebook comments have.

Republicans should just get out of the way and let Obama and the Democrats in Congress take complete responsibility for the debacle that is Obama's agenda. Let the one lone Republican tasked with giving their token rebuttal be the ONLY one in attendance.

Oh, and one more thing. Let that lone Republican be the most junior member of the Republican caucus. I'm sure he or she won't have any problem addressing the inherent amateurism of Obama's content.