DISQUS

Sometimes You Have to Roll the Hard Six.

Abdul,
I believe that you will find upon further investigation that Mr. Williams announced his retirement last year, and that Mr. Frankel's exit was about a month ago, so it doesn't appear at first glance that the exits of these two people were an attempt by the ISTA Insurance Trust to "solve the problems", but instead are for the most part, coincidental.

That is, unless the ISTA and the Trust have known about the problems for some time.

I disliked Fitzgerald not because of partisanship but because he was overzealous. I suspect he will again be overzealous with respect to Blago.

All your links seem to want to go through your Outlook Web Access account.

My problem with Buchanan's articles lately is this.

Here's a typical article:

Paragraph 1: Introduction
Paragraph 2: Democrats are Stupid
Paragraph 3-10: Here's what's wrong with Republicans
Paragraph 11: Summary: Democrats and Republicans are Stupid

It's like he seems to feel that it's so obvious that Democrats are stupid that he doesn't need to spend any time backing that up. Either that, or he just really enjoys beating up on Republicans.

2557.

That's the number of days since the last successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defense rests.

Vetting Sarah Palin.

In the end, this can only help McCain-Palin.

Why? Expect the Republican talking point of the week to be that the Palin family considers the child a "blessed event" and not a "punishment" unlike Obama. You'll hear his quote "I don't want them punished with a baby." over and over and over and over. Also, it will allow Republicans to once more mention Obama's stance on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

Finally, the whole Palin family is showing themselves to be strong with the pro-life right. They talk the talk and walk the walk. Down's Syndrome Child. Aborted? No. Teenage pregnancy. Aborted? No.

Abdul,
Sorry, but you're mistaken.

This is a brilliant move by McCain.

See my post here for details on why:
http://chrisofrights.blogspot.com/2008/08/palin...

And a piece of cake would not have energized the base. Pawlenty or Romney would've been greeted with a collective yawn.

The only way she's anything other than a net positive is if she gets caught by an obviously antagonistic press corps. They're going to be working extra hard to trap her in a "gaffe" by asking her questions about the leadership of Uzbekistan, for example. Nevermind that not one candidate has been asked about Uzbekistan once in the last 18 months. That won't be important. What will be important it finding something that Palin doesn't know as well as she "should".

BTW, it's not that I'm against changing the Electoral College. I don't like the way it works either. But a national popular vote would be worse.

I've always thought we should vote by Congressional District. Whoever wins that District gets 1 EV. Whoever wins the state gets the two "Senate" EV's. That weights every congressional district fairly evenly and gives the candidates reason to go to Des Moines, Iowa. It will be easier to pick up the "extra" 2 EV's for Iowa than for California, for example.

Such a structure seems to fit our "bicameral system" the best as well.

susan,
I'm sorry, but your logic is backwards. You say that we shouldn't have battleground states and spectator states, but then you say that we need a nationwide popular vote for President.

Such a vote would make most of the nation "spectator states". Candidates would campaign in the biggest cities, and forget about the rest of us. Why go to Des Moines, Iowa where you can talk to 5,000 people when you can to go Atlanta and talk to 5,000,000?

Not only that, but forget about issues that might be important to farmers or anyone in the rural area. The only issues that candidates would talk about and form positions on are the issues that would be important to those same city-dwellers.

No thanks.

Abdul is completely correct re: Indiana, however, if McCain doesn't do something soon here, he could actually lose it. I don't think it's likely unless it's a landslide for Obama, but certainly his recent ads here have been effective. McCain? Has anyone seen a McCain ad on local television or heard one on local radio here? I haven't.

Two sites that do an excellent job of monitoring the polls are www.electoral-vote.com, and www.fivethirtyeight.com. Both run by left-wingers, but the data is the important thing, not their commentary.

I found electoral-vote.com to be a great resource in 2004. I believe fivethirtyeight is new to the scene for this election cycle.

My own analysis of the data at electoral-vote.com can be found at
http://chrisofrights.blogspot.com/2008/08/battl...

The problem isn't that early adopters pay more. The problem is that the iPhone was overpriced (by a significant margin) to begin with. At $600, I laugh at anyone I see carrying one. At $400, I may still laugh, but at least that gets almost into the realm of being reasonable.

I have a PPC-6700 (HTC Apache) that I got over a year ago. I paid about $150 for it. It's a far superior product to the iPhone in almost very way. The iPhone only has two things going for it that my Apache lacks, the iPhone UI, and an 8 GB card for multimedia. My Apache does have a miniSD slot, but the max it can handle is 2 GB.

Other than those two things, there's really no comparison between the two devices. The Apache wins in every single case (internet speed, add-on software, e-mail sync, e-mail in general). So, why would anyone pay 4X (or even 3X) for the iPhone?

Only because they think having one makes them look cool. In fact, having one makes them look dumb.

Of course we hope it's untrue. Why would we want an American company or citizen to help the American government protect us from terrorists?

Google, without a doubt the most evil corporation of our time has to choose here between the greater evil. To give out customer information that hasn't been paid for or to protect terrorists. Since Google isn't on the side of America, and does want to make money, of course they won't turn over anything to the government. There's no monetary advantage in it, unless of course, you count the chance to live to do business another day.

Morons.

Funny. I have no desire whatsoever to erase my memories of that day. Didn't we all promise ourselves that we would "never forget"?

I guess "never" doesn't mean what it used to, does it, Robert?

I have 5 links for you:

Americans for Fair Tax
The Fair Tax Blog
The FairTax Book
Who Benefits Most From AMT Reform
Thoughts on The FairTax Book

Brian,

No, I don't agree. The Republicans were out of the White House for most of the 90's and I didn't see (as much of) the complete loss of focus that exemplifies the Democratic leadership of today. Yes, the Republicans lost their way in Monica-gate, and Starr-gate, but they didn't try to bring down the White House with every time there was a strange smell emanating from the Potomac. I don't recall any Republican leader ever saying "I hate Democrats." as Dean has said about Republicans, or "Democrats are thugs" as Kerry has said about Republicans.

That's the difference. All parties act a little weird when they're out of power, which is unfortunate, but I think the Democrats have gone beyond that. Ironically, I think you can blame the blogosphere for some of this. Democrats feel they must repond to the most vocal and most activist portions of their party, because that's where the noise and money is coming from, but that just further drives a wedge between them and middle-America.

The Republicans (so far) have managed to avoid such a schism. And the Republicans may not have many options in 2008, as you say, but then that will just make 2008 a replay of 1988, I think. All the Republicans have to do is find someone less offensive to middle America than Hillary, or at least paint their candidate that way (as they did with Bush 41 vs. Dukakis).

You want some dream tickets for middle America? I'll give you two. Both of these tickets would have problems with the extremists, but both would be wildly successful with the middle and be tough to beat. As a matter of fact, I think the first one would have no trouble picking up 350+ EV, and against Hillary would likely get over 400 EV.

#1 (R) McCain/Powell - If you're a moderate Republican, then this ticket has it all. Strength on National Defense, experience in foreign relations, little "baggage" or at least little of the kind that middle America cares about, popular with the media, etc. Yes, I know about McCain/Feingold, and I know that neither of these are as hawkish as the current residents of the White House. But, that last just strengthens their appeal to the middle. Finally, the addition of Powell to the ticket virtually guarantees a better showing than 8% among blacks, and if that number even gets to 12%, no Democrat ticket has a chance. Problems with the base are that they're both a bit weak on the a-word, and as I said, perhaps not hawkish enough for some.

#2 (D) Warner/Richardson (Gov. NM) - Once again, this Democratic ticket plays well with the middle. Warner's a popular former Governor from a red state, and Richardson is known and liked from his Clinton years. Richardson also is a governor who deals with border security issues and has shown himself to be tough on this issue (in many ways tougher than the Bush administration). They're both from south of the Mason-Dixon line which has shown itself to be hugely important in selecting a winning Presidential candidate. Neither are idealogues, and have shown themselves willing to stray from the party line in the interests of their constituents. The Republicans would have a very difficult time defeating this ticket. I'm not sure that any ticket other than the one I mentioned earlier could do it.

Of course, the state of the economy and war on terror and middle east will play a huge role in 2008 as well. If the economy tanks and the war on terror goes south, Republicans will face an uphill battle. On the other hand, if the economy continues to grow, and the war on terror has enough successes to point to, the Democrats will face an uphill battle.

I think that Joe Trippi is wise to get out of politics. He seems to see things through blue-colored glasses a bit more than is healthy for someone in his line of work. Hillary will not be the Democratic nominee, not unless the Democrats are even dumber than I think they are. She's not electable. As shown in recent polls 51% of people say they wouldn't vote for her "no matter what", and frankly, the Republicans would have to nominate Satan himself before I'd even give her a first thought, much less a second one (Ok, that's over the top, but you get what I mean).

The Republicans will probably not nominate someone to the right of GW, although that wouldn't be hard, but they will nominate someone interested in national security, lower taxes, and fiscal responsibility. Social views won't be much of a factor, as long as those three points are met. This is particularly true if Bush gets a third justice sometime in the next 3 years.

However, one thing I do agree with Trippi on is that we may be close to the end of the two party system in America. I think that if the Democrats don't take back at least one of the Senate, House, or White House by 2008 that the party will fragment between the Kossacks and what used to be known as "Southern Democrats" (strong on national defense, more socially liberal than Republicans).

Oh, and as an aside...if you can't make a decision about a political candidate or a judge/justice without thinking about the a-word, then you need to go out and buy a clue, and if you're holding a political office, you need to resign, because you're trapped in the 1980s. As much as the left-wingers fear it, and right-wingers dream of it, Roe v. Wade is never going away. There will be times when it will be expanded, and other times when it will be reigned in some, but the basic decision is not going to be overturned. Not without a dramatic realignment of American views and of the Court. There's far too much "stare decisis" for the Court to overturn it, unless it's a slam-dunk decision (at least 7-2, probably, which would require three more Scallia's on the court...not gonna happen).