McCain Isn’t an Idiot

Recently, McCain committed a so-called gaffe when he said that our troops in Iraq were down to their pre-war levels.  Obama called him out on the misstep and McCain still refused to budge.  My question is “what’s the big deal?”   McCain is no idiot.  What he is is old.

So what if he goofs up on economics or foreign policy details from time to time, hasn’t the man earned that right with his tireless service to this country?  Yeah he said Putin was the head of Germany and that Iran was training al-Qaeda, but this isn’t that uncommon.  As people get older age can very easily affect their brain in a variety of ways.  You should see my grandfather look for the remote control.  That doesn’t make him any less of a man nor does it make McCain somehow less of a candidate.

Catholic League – Obama Must Speak Out On Church Ills

Following a day in which Barack Obama was both praised and attacked from the pulpit by Catholic Priests The Catholic League is now attacking Obama for which priests he associates with.  In the invocation at the New YorkState Republican Party Dinner, Monsignor Jim Lisante mocked Obama.  On the same day video surfaced of Father Michael Phleger preaching at Obama’s church mocking Hillary Clinton. Obama immediately condemmed the remarks and Phleger apologized, however the Catholic League sees things differently.

The Catholic League who is sort of the Catholic equivalent of the Justice League, but without superpowers.  “Why is it that of all the wonderful Catholic priests in the Chicago Archdiocese, Obama long ago chose Pfleger to hang with?” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement. “Truth be known, Pfleger has a very troubling history.”

With such a troubling history it almost seems like there should be some kind of authority that could discipline and remove bad priests.  Unfortunately, if you’re looking for discipline or a hierarchical structure the Catholic Church is the wrong place.

Members of the Catholic League also found it troubling that in his public life Obama has done nothing to tackle issues of Canon Law such as the ordination of women or married priests.  Obama likewise has a lackluster record on doing anything to prevent the church sexual abuse scandal of recent years.  Nor has Obama distanced himself from controversial church practices of the past such as indulgences, the inquisition, and perceived anti-semitism.

With Obama clearly unwilling to take on issues such as these which are important to Catholics there can be no doubt he will be stung hard by their votes in the Fall.  I have never been a big fan of Papists myself, but I find myself totally agreeing with them in this case.

Clinton’s Surprising Michigan Collapse

In the Michigan primary, Hillary Clinton devestated Barrack Obama by taking 55% of the votes on January 15th.  Obama did so poorly that his name wasn’t even included on the ballot.  Today the Democrat Rules Committee will be meeting to decide how many of Michigan’s delegates should be seated and how many should go to each candidate.

What is astoninishing is Clinton’s recent Michigan collapse.  It is possible that as her name was the only one on the ballot she took Michigan’s support for granted, but the newest numbers show that Obama’s support has grown by over 40%.  According to the latest Rasmussen Poll shows McCain beating Obama in the state 43-42 and with a 45-42 lead over Clinton.   Obama is viewed favorably by 50% of the state’s voters compared to 47% for Clinton.  48% of Michigan votes believe Obama is the stronger candidate while 41% believe Clinton in.

So the big question remains what happenned?  Senator Clinton’s collapse from the primary where she so thoroughly demolished undeclared led myself and many others to believe she was untouchable in Michigan.

White House Releases Environmental Report

It was under court order and it was 4 year too late,  but the White House released its climate report.  The report is required to be compiled every 4 years, but this was the first report since 2000.  The report was characterized by Andrew Weaver, a gloom and doom Canadian climate scientist who was not involved in the effort called it “a litany of bad news in store for the U.S.” 

_ Increased heat deaths and deaths from climate-worsened smog. In Los Angeles alone yearly heat fatalities could increase by more than 1,000 by 2080, and the Midwest and Northeast are most vulnerable to increased heat deaths.

_ Worsening water shortages for agriculture and urban users. From California to New York, lack of water will be an issue.

_ A need for billions of dollars in more power plants (one major cause of global warming gases) to cool a hotter country. The report says summer cooling will mean Seattle’s energy consumption would increase by 146 percent with the warming that could come by the end of the century.

_ More death and damage from wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters and extreme weather. In the last three decades, wildfire season in the West has increased by 78 days.

_ Increased insect infestations and food- and waterborne microbes and diseases. Insect and pathogen outbreaks to the forests are causing $1.5 billion in annual losses.

_ The heat would help the Boston Red Sox overcome a 3 game deficit against the Yankees and advance to the World Series

_ Family Guy will return to Fox after a 3 year hiatus

_The Backstreet Boys will break up

“Finally, climate change is very likely to accentuate the disparities already evident in the American health care system,” the report said. “Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured.”

You know its 4 years later and most of that stuff never happenned.  I have a feeling we’re going to be alright afterall.

US Will not Get in Cluster F#@$

I am happy to see that the United States is not one of the 111 nations that signed onto the cluster bomb treaty today.  While many of our allies in NATO gave into pressure, forward thinking countries including the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, and Israel did not.

“This is a treaty drafted largely by countries which do not fight wars,” said John Pike, a defense analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org. “Treaties like this make me want to barf. It’s so irrelevant. Completely feel-good,” he said. 

What these vomit inducing peacenicks don’t get is that cluster bombs blow stuff up good.  They complain about the large dispersal area of unexploded bombs that later go off and kill civilians.  Well boo hoo.  Maybe Junior shouldn’t be playing on a battlefield.  What’s the point of fighting a war without explosions

Pike said if other countries insist on shells, rockets and bombs that contain no more than nine submunitions each, the military logic would be inescapable.  “It would just mean I’m going to have to shoot more of them!” he said with a laugh.

Obama’s Links to Palestinian Terrorists

It seems we have another smoking gun for the Obama campaign to try and deal with.  Dunkin Donuts has finally pulled their commercials in which spokeswoman Rachel Ray wore a Kaffiyeh–a black and white checkered cloth worn over the head traditionally by Palestinian men.

Michelle Malkin took on Ray and the doughnut company and they agreed to pull the commercial just this past week.

The question remains how would such an anti-American pro-terrorist celebrity as Rachel Ray be in that position in the first place?  Like Dr. Phil her career was made by Oprah Winfrey who signed her to a major deal and produces he television show.

This is the same Oprah Winfrey who has been one of Obama’s biggest supporters.  The question remains what did Obama know about Ray’s deal?  I’m willing to bet it wasn’t much, but it does call into question the types of people he surrounds himself with.  The Obama camp has yet to comment.

McCain’s Economic Secret Weapon

One reason that John McCain is the candidate who is most capable of lifting us from our current economic woes is because of his economic adviser Phil Gramm.  Gramm’s belief in McCain is so strong that he gave up his position as a registered lobbyist with UBS for him.  UBS is the Swiss bank where Gramm is a highly sought after executive and where he was registered as a lobbyist until June 18th.

In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he showed shrewd fiscal management routinely turning down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt’s requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec‘s workload shot up 80 percent, but Gramm kept an eye on the bottom line and the staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt’s memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut. And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that helped ease outdated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—helping to usher in the prosperity of some large bank mergers.

Perhaps Gramm’s finest moment was in December of 2000 when Gramm with the help of Richard Luger and several friends in the industry wrote the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.  This act was so technical that Gramm was one of the few people who could even understand it. “Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it,” says a congressional aide familiar with the bill’s history.

The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus “protect financial institutions from overregulation” and “position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century.”

Part of the act helped protect American companies like Enron from over-regulation of energy trading and of course a lot of people will tell you that the act was at the heart of the subprime mortage meltdown.  Who can say? 

The NBA Must Crown Spurs Western Champs

I am going to take a break from my usual political conversation to talk about the 5th game of the NBA’s Western Conference finals which are happenning tonight.  The Lakers lead the Spurs 3 games to 1, but regardless of who wins tonight in LA the Spurs should be the Western Conference Champions because they have the best chance of beating the Eastern Conference Champs.  Furthermore, if David Stern and the NBA do not let the Spurs represent the West I will not watch the finals.

1.  The Spurs have more experience in the finals – The Spurs have been in the finals in 3 of the last 5 years.  They know what it takes to win.  The Lakers will have to learn how to win.

2. The Lakers rely on a running game – The running game is a fickle style which is usually not successful in the playoffs.  The Spurs have a better half court game.  ESPN acknowledged this in picking the Spurs to beat the Lakers 4 games to 2 http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?page=ScoutingSpursLakers

2.  All fouls should count – At the end of Game 4, Brett Barry of the Spurs was bumped by the Lakers Derrek Fisher and no foul was called.  After the game the NBA apologized for the non-foul.  The Spurs lost the game 93-91, but if the foul had been called Barry is an 82% free throw shooter.  He would have made the shots and the Spurs would have won.  This game must be awarded to the Spurs.

3. Spur fans will not support the Lakers – Los Angeles is a team with fans all over the country.  These fans love basketball and will watch the finals no matter who is in it.  The Spurs are from a smaller city in Texas, if the Spurs are eliminated their fans will not watch the finals.

In the interest of fairness, the Spurs must be crowned Western Champs.  I hope David Stern will act before things get ugly. Anyway, that’s my sport rant.  Now I can get back to discussing politics.

You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker

A great new website has openned up and unfortuntely I only have one post now because I’ve been spending all morning using it to write mails to Catholics I know, liberal politicians, and people who have questioned my religion in the past.  www.youvebeenleftbehind.com is the world’s first (for all I know) post rapture emailing system.  When us believers are called up to Heaven, we’re still able to send one last taunt to the non-believers from Heaven.

According to the website, “We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.”  I wonder who the 2 team members that they are pretty sure aren’t going to be saved are.

The only problem is it only saves us to 62 email addresses and I’m on 59 and I’m just at Pelosi in the alphabet.   Looks like good news for Gloria Steinem and Barbara Streisand.  I’m basically using the service to taunt people, but if you have a friend who won’t be saved (why?) the site explains “You will also be able to give them some help in living out their remaining time. In the encrypted portion of your account you can give them access to your banking, brokerage, hidden valuables, and powers of attorneys’ (you won’t be needing them any more, and the gift will drive home the message of love). There won’t be any bodies, so probate court will take 7 years to clear your assets to your next of Kin. 7 years of course is all the time that will be left. So, basically the Government of the AntiChrist gets your stuff, unless you make it available in another way. You can also send information based on scripture as to what will happen next. Each fulfilled prophecy will cause your letter and plea to be remembered and a decision to be made.”

The site also offers a wonderful selection of letters from people using their service (None of these letters have bank account information) at http://youvebeenleftbehind.blogspot.com/

Scott McLellan Didn’t Write That Book

I was shocked and awed by quotes I heard coming out of Scott McClellan’s new book.  Now I don’t read books so I have no intention of ever buying it, but it still hurt to hear what McClellan said about the Bush years…Then I got smart.

According to a statement in November Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan’s book, McClellan  “Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him.” Osnos said the president told McClellan what “he thought to be the case.” But, he says, McClellan believes, “the president didn’t know it was not true.”  This is much different than what is in the book today.

Karl Rove who has been close to McClellan since their days in Texas together said, “This doesn’t sound like Scott.  This doesn’t sound like the Scott McClellan I know.  This sounds like someone else.  This sounds like a left wing blogger.” 

He is puzzled, and he doesn’t recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years,” said Dana Perino, the sitting White House press secretary.

I don’t believe there is any doubt that a left wing blogger ghost wrote this book.  I know there will be a lot of pressure on McClellan, who probably had no idea this stuff was in the book, to keep quiet and let the money roll in.  I hope he does the courageous thing and admits that these weren’t his words.