Politics

Tue - September 8, 2009

It ain't over 'til it's over, or until the streetlights come on

The Hoosiers for Central Time Coalition has been formed to petition members of the Indiana General Assembly, as well as school superintendents around the state, to work to change Indiana to the Central time zone. Which is where it belongs.

I wrote about Indiana's adoption of Daylight Saving Time (DST) back in 2005, when that happened. The downside of the switch to DST is that the 80 counties that are in the Eastern time zone are now totally out of whack in the summer months, with the sun not coming up until mid-morning, and the sun not going down until almost midnight. I exaggerate, but not by much. And the Coalition is worried because kids go to school in the dark the whole year now.

(The other 12 counties of Indiana are in the Central time zone and are uniformly happy, productive, and non-groggy.)

At the time of Indiana's adoption of DST, the US Department of Transportation, which controls the nation's time zones, required each county to petition if they wanted to switch time zones, and a few counties in the Eastern zone did ask to moved to Central, and fewer still were actually allowed to switch, but most counties in Indiana want to align with Indianapolis, and until Marion County switches, the state will stay mostly in Eastern.

If the time zones were in the right place, the boundary between Eastern and Central would cut through the middle of Ohio. And it used to. But there has been a westward creep over the years, and it wasn't such a problem for Indiana when most of the state stayed on Standard Time year 'round, but now the flaw of being in the Eastern time zone is apparent.

I hope these folks succeed.

Posted at 05:20 PM

Sun - August 16, 2009

Descent

I read somewhere, probably in someone's now-lost Twitter update, the suggestion that they stop calling the President's town hall meetings "town hall meetings," and instead call them "greenhouse meetings." Because they are full of plants.

In her most recent column in The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan documents some of the difficult questions the President has been facing:

"The first question was from a Democratic state representative from Dover named Peter Schmidt. He began, 'One of the things you've been doing in your campaign to change the situation is you've been striving for bipartisanship.'

"'Right,' the president purred. They were really holding his feet to the fire.

"'My question is,' Mr. Schmidt continued, 'if the Republicans actively refuse to participate in a reasonable way with reasonable proposals, isn't it time to just say ,"We're going to pass what the American people need and what they want without the Republicans"?'

"Stop, Torquemada, stop!

"The president said it would be nice to pass a bill in a 'bipartisan fashion' but 'the most important thing is getting it done for the American people.'

"Then came a grade-school girl. 'I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care' she said. Here one expected a gentle and avuncular riff on the wonderful and vivid expressions of agreement and disagreement to be seen in a vibrant democracy. But no. The president made a small grimace. 'I've seen some of those signs,' he said. There's been a 'rumor' the House voted for 'death panels' that will 'pull the plug on grandma,' but it's all a lie.

"I'm glad he'd like psychiatric care included in future coverage, because after that answer, that child may need therapy."

As she says, "When George W. Bush did town halls like that—full of people who'd applaud if he said tomorrow we bring democracy to Saturn—it was considered a mark of manipulation and insecurity. And it was. So was Mr. Obama's."

Two other points Ms Noonan makes about this health care "reform" business that ring true:

"The president seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politics—the swift rise, the astute reading of a varied electorate—who is finding out day by day that he isn't actually all that good at it. In this sense he does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president but not being president."

"[The people] don't even know what the president wants, what his true agenda is. He never seems to be leveling, only talking."

Later, Mr Obama will look back on these as The Golden Days.

Posted at 02:09 PM

The Canadian dog that did not bark

The New Democratic Party of Canada just held its annual convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and failed to drop the "New" from its name. Which some party members wanted to do.

If they dropped the "New," they would just be the "Democratic Party." It sounds like they are wanting to glom onto Obamamania (just as it is fetching up on the rocks).

But, in defense of the name change, they have been the "New Democrats" since the party's founding in 1961. How old does the party have to get before it is no longer "new?"

Posted at 12:41 PM

Thu - August 13, 2009

Two Peas in a Pod

Here is a little article that discusses the strong relationship between the Chicago Democratic Party machine and the Chicago Mob; the latter was an outgrowth of the former.

It is not exhaustive, but it gives you a taste of what Chicago Democratic politics is like, dating back to Hinky Dink McKenna and Bathhouse John Coughlin.

Here's something I learned from this article: I knew that Fred Roti was the Mafia's main man on the Chicago City Council -- everybody knew that -- but I did not know he was a "made man," i.e., an actual member.

Posted at 10:07 AM

Wed - August 12, 2009

She didn't drown, she asphyxiated while he ran away

When President Obama awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Senator Edward Kennedy today, he did not elevate Kennedy, he diminished himself.

In a just world, Kennedy would have gone to prison in 1969, and would not have bothered us since.

Posted at 01:42 PM

Mon - August 3, 2009

The grasshopper and the ant

Here is an interesting column by Ross Douthat in The New York Times that discusses how the so-called "blue states," with their free-spending ways, are doing significantly worse in the current economic downturn than the "red states." And California, the state that most matches President Obama's vision for America, is bankrupt.

You should read it.

Here are a couple of excerpts that sum it up:

"Consider Texas and California. In the Bush years, liberal polemicists turned the president’s home state — pious, lightly regulated, stingy with public services and mad for sprawl — into a symbol of everything that was barbaric about Republican America. Meanwhile, California, always liberalism’s favorite laboratory, was passing global-warming legislation, pouring billions into stem-cell research, and seemed to be negotiating its way toward universal health care.

"But flash forward to the current recession, and suddenly Texas looks like a model citizen. The Lone Star kept growing well after the country had dipped into recession. Its unemployment rate and foreclosure rate are both well below the national average. It’s one of only six states that didn’t run budget deficits in 2009.

"Meanwhile, California, long a paradise for regulators and public-sector unions, has become a fiscal disaster area. And it isn’t the only dark blue basket case. Eight states had unemployment over 11 percent in June; seven went for Barack Obama last November. Fourteen states are facing 2010 budget gaps that exceed 20 percent of their G.D.P.; only two went for John McCain."

...

"But in state capital after state capital, the downturn has highlighted the weaknesses of liberal governance — the zeal for unsustainable social spending, the preference for regulation over job creation, the heavy reliance for tax revenue on the volatile incomes of the upper upper class."

You know, stem cell research is a wonderful thing, but funding stem cell research is not why we gave our governments the right and the police power to collect taxes from us. I want everyone to have good health care, but we never gave any of our governments the right to wrest the fruits of our labor from us to provide it to them. And such activities by government, besides being wrong, are economically unsustainable.

Posted at 10:40 AM

Wed - July 15, 2009

Thu - July 2, 2009

Your tax dollars at work

It appears our loon Congressman-for-life-because-the-"progressives"-think-he's-peachy Jim McDermott employs loons on his staff, too.

In the real world, that woman would be removed from her job.

Posted at 03:51 PM

Tue - June 16, 2009

Iran

See, the thing about election fraud is, (a) It can be hard to detect while it is happening, and (b) Once it's been done, it is very, very hard to reverse it.

Our Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed always says, "We have no history of election fraud in this state," or something like that. NO -- we have no history of FINDING election fraud in this state. Because we have no history of LOOKING FOR IT in this state -- and it is almost totally unguarded against in this state.

You have to put mechanisms in place, many mechanisms, to block every possible avenue of fraud. You have to. The people who think our new all-vote-by-mail system is wonderful are gigantic naifs, and are too simple-minded to be entrusted with the running of our elections.

Posted at 09:46 AM

Tue - June 2, 2009

Political trickery in Seattle

I just got push-polled.

A push poll is when they call you up and ask you to take part in a survey about the upcoming election, and eventually it gets around to, "I'm going to say a few statements about some of the candidates and I want you to tell me if that makes you more likely to vote for the candidate, or less." And then the statements are all positive for one candidate, and negative for the others. Or what they think you would think were positive statements, and negative statements.

It's not really a poll at all; it's a trick.

This evening, I figured it out almost immediately. I even said to the guy, "Ohhhh, a PUSH poll! Keep going." And he did.

The candidate on whose behalf the push poll was done is our incumbent bloated-sack Mayor, Greg Nickels. It was obvious from the negative statements included in this "poll" that the candidates he fears most are Jan Drago and Joe Mallahan.

I wasn't planning on voting for Nickels anyway. Now, I am going to invite you to not vote for him, either.

Posted at 08:06 PM

Wed - April 22, 2009

Occam's Razor cuts again

What do you know? It says here (with documentation) I F Stone WAS a Soviet agent.

Okay, all you hate-America fiends from the 50s and 60s and 70s, who ate the [stuff] Stone was feeding you, 'fess up.

Posted at 02:25 PM

"Knowledge is the wing whereby we fly to Heaven"

Chicago Mayor Richard M Daley has announced that tomorrow, Thursday the 23rd, will be "Talk Like Shakespeare Day" in Chicago. He is doing it in honor of William Shakespeare's 445th birthday.

Normally I oppose frivolous civic proclamations, but this one is much more benign, and even positive, than most. I would wager most kids get out of school these days without ever being exposed to Shakespeare.

But I have a better idea for Mayor Daley, and all the mayors of the United States: You should proclaim an "Everybody Speak English Day." Better yet, declare 2009 "Everybody Speak English Year." And then renew that proclamation every year. That would be non-frivolous, and a positive good for the country.

Posted at 11:47 AM

Thu - April 2, 2009

Special relationship not so special to him

I was reading this write-up about President Obama's first press conference in the UK, said write-up appearing in The Guardian, a left-wing British paper, and I learned something about Mr Obama I did not know.

Apparently, had I read one the books published in his name, I would have known it:

"Whatever family hostility we suspect the half-Kenyan president harbours towards the British Empire – his autobiography contains several sharp passages – he buried it. War and peace, thick and thin, a kinship of ideals as well as interests ... he laid it on with a trowel, though not with discernible warmth."

I didn't know he had expressed hostility towards Britain in print.

That's not good. They are our friends, maybe our second-best friends after the Australians. Maybe lingering hostility towards Britain explains the classless gifts Mr Obama has given Prime Minister Gordon Brown (25 DVDs that only play in North America, and besides, Mr Brown is three-quarters blind) and Queen Elizabeth (an iPod full of show tunes and Obama speeches).

Posted at 12:52 PM

Tue - March 24, 2009

They welcome their same old labor boss overlords

I see here that the Democratic National Committee has formed a "Commission on Change" to rework the process by which that party nominates its presidential candidate.

The membership of the 37-member commission includes the president of the Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa Jr, as well as the president of the American Federation of Teachers and the political director of the United Auto Workers. Got to give seats at the table to the labor unions, which are the main force behind the scenes, and sometimes not behind the scenes, of Democratic Party ground operations.

Labor unions are much more central to the Democratic Party, both in terms of its electoral success and what it attempts to accomplish when in power, than the "Christian Conservatives" are to the Republican Party. A lot of what the unions do for the Democrats is hidden from view of the casual observer. For example, if you are in one of the trade unions, where you sit at the union hall waiting for an employer to come in looking for workers for a job of fixed duration -- electricians, painters, carpenters, e.g. -- and where the boss of the union hall decides who that employer gets, you WILL work as an unpaid Democratic volunteer, or you will not work at your trade. They will not send you out.

Speaking of the Democrats bowing to their labor union boss masters, let's talk about the proposed "Employee Free Choice Act" ("Paging Mr Orwell") which would take away the workers' right to a secret ballot when a labor union tries to organize a workplace, replacing it with a card thrust in the workers' face by a union organizer. Many workers are afraid of labor union organizers, did you know that? Many people would be afraid to mark "no" on such a card while the labor union organizer watched. The labor unions are pushing hard for this, and the Democrats are working hard to get it passed in Congress. And President Obama has promised he will sign it -- he knows which side his bread is buttered on. Making it easier for the union goons to gain power by intimidating workers -- that's Change We Can Believe In, isn't it?

Bruce Ramsey had a fine column about the EFCA in the Seattle Times the other day. He expands beyond the subject, and talks about how hard it is to decertify a union once it's in -- once again, workers are afraid to challenge the union goons -- and how he worked at the Post-Intelligencer for 16 years where the union representation election for his job had been held in 1936.

As a last thought on this topic, I will point out that only two organizations are exempt from the federal anti-trust laws: Major League Baseball and labor unions. Why is that?

Posted at 04:21 PM

Tue - February 24, 2009

Our President is an ignoramus

So, President Obama said in his speech tonight that the United States invented the automobile.

Is he really that ignorant? That's like saying the Japanese invented the airplane. That's much worse than misspelling potato.

If George Bush said something that dumb you would hear about it for a year. Let's see how much play that idiot remark gets in the press.

Posted at 07:54 PM

That swirling sound

The abominable Seventeenth

"I yield the remainder of my 140 characters."

Clooney has him enraptured

Not a comparison you want to make

Hope. Hope the caviar is fresh.

A change I would be willing to believe in

The Leader has arrived, bringing hope for a better tomorrow

You WISH Boris Johnson was Mayor of your city

Best political line of the day

Cheat me, please, say one-third