No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January, 2008

January 29, 2008

Testing something, please ignore

by @ 6:34. Filed under Miscellaneous.

This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated to test pagination in posts.

January 28, 2008

I am not in a good mood right about now

by @ 21:10. Filed under Miscellaneous.

My January from Hell continued unabated tonight. Not only did I miss the SOTU, but my sister and I went 1-7 in cribbage tonight while giving up a pair of skunks.

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK-A-DA-FUCK!!!!! (guess that cash is going to a new TV)

State of the Blog – 2008

by @ 17:04. Filed under The Blog.

Good afternoon. I know, I’m a bit early, but I’m playing cribbage tonight and I won’t be here or anywhere else on-line for the real thing. The state of the blog is pretty good. I’m holding rather steady at about 80 people subscribing to the feed, and, spikes notwithstanding, about 125 of you showing up here on a daily basis. True, some of them show up for the polar bear/Gorebal Warming pic and don’t stick around, but that counts as traffic according to advertisers. Of course, I don’t run ads here, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is I’ve somehow managed to create a nice, not-too-small cadre of readers, some of whom actually comment. For that, I’m grateful.

I’m also grateful for my guest-bloggers, Fred, Aaron, Leslie and Patrick. They all bring fresh perspectives to this place, especially when I’m not around. They know the door is always open here.

I’m blessed by all of the people I’ve met because I blog. There are simply too many to name, and that would be true even if I am horrible about remembering names. First of all, there is the Drinking Right crew; Fred, Aaron, Nick, Dave before he retired from drinking, Asian Badger, Sean Hackbarth before he went to DC, the Unreal one, Dean, James, Dickie, and more that don’t show up on a regular basis. There’s also the gang at the Center-Right Coalition meetings; Mark Block, Brenda Baas, Brian Schimming, the guys in Rich Zipperer’s office, Chris Schneider, everybody in Madison. There are also those I ran into on various road trips; silent E, Chris from OTB, Uncle Jimbo, Owen, Patrick, Dad29, Chris the head barkeep at WSB, Mary Katharine Ham, Katie Favazza, John from Argghhh, Jo Egelhoff, Dean Barnett, Fausta Wertz, Eric from Tygrrrr Express, Jim Geraghty, Swint, Bruce, Scott Feldstein, Tom McMahon and I’m sure I’ve forgotten more than a few. If somehow I did, hit me with a frying pan so I remember.

On a semi-related note, the blogroll has bloated quite nicely. Yes, there are some dead links I’ll have to eventually whack, but that will be for another day.

Over the last year, I’ve implemented a captcha system and a trackback-checking system that has greatly reduced the spam I have had to deal with. Shortly after the creater of that captcha system, Peter Keung, implemented a method for the sight-impared to leave comments, I enabled that with less-than-spectacular results. Fortunately, he’s gone back to the drawing board and implemented a more-robust version, one that will once again allow me to open up registration once I install it right after I finish with the SOTB.

I’ve also cobbled together a widget-friendly form of the template I’ve been using. Except for the tags, which I don’t use anyway, it sure seems to work with the latest versions of WordPress, including WordPress MU, what the WordPress.com blogs run on. I have made it available to a couple of people I know, though I do not particularily want to release it publicly as mine. After all, most of the work was done by Mike Little.

I’ve also implemented “pretty” permalinks. They work rather well, allowing links to the old “?p=xxx” as well as the new “pretty” ones to go through. However, I discovered a problem when I changed the date of one of my posts to a different month. It seems that breaks the incoming links to it that pointed to the “older” version. Fortunately, a bit of messing around with htaccess allowed me to redirect that incoming to the right post.

Late last year, I was invited to start using Cover It Live for my liveblogs. That is a nice little piece of software, one that a lot of others have picked up on. So many people picked up on it that we’ve crashed its servers twice in a weekend. Oh well; that happens. One of my early suggestions, that the creators of said liveblogs get to edit the liveblog, has now been implemented. Graci, Keith.

I’ve been mostly happy with my webhost, BlueHost. The price is right ($6.95/month if you lock in for 2 years in advance), they offer Apache hosts which allows the redirection noted above, and for the most part they’ve managed to stay up. The biggest problem, which still vexes me, is a CPU Load Exceeded error I occassionally get. I can’t quite get that squashed, though I hope the new version of the captcha that is set to be installed will help in squashing it.

Another bit I’ve managed to finally implement is the splitting of a post with the use of WordPress’ “more” tag in the feed. That means the feed is a bit safer for work now that most of the expletives are contained below the fold. It also means I probably will drop more expletives into posts.

The inveterate gambler in me had an almost-successful NFL season, even though I completely missed on the Packer prediction. Unfortunately, that degenerated into a complete collapse in the playoffs. Oh well; easy come, easy go, and I’m not stupid enough to put actual money or other things of value on this.

So, what’s incoming for 2008? Pretty much what you have seen is what you’re going to get. I’m not going to bullshit you into thinking I’m going to do some massive change. I’m going to keep pressing for shifts toward federalist, small-government conservatism even though it is an uphill battle; I see that as the only way for this country to continue to survive. I’ll probably keep on swearing. I’ll probably do a NCAA pool or two, and the inveterate gambler will be back in September for the NFL season. Beyond the Drinking Rights, the Center-Right Coalition meetings and Defending the American Dream – Wisconsin summit, I don’t know my blog-related travel plans yet, though I do hope to meet more of my fellow bloggers. As for the navel-gazing, don’t expect another one this year, suckers.

The folks formerly from MadTown still fragging have it

by @ 13:08. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Allahpundit/HotAir Headlines)

If you don’t bust a gut after reading The Onion‘s candidate profiles, please contact your favorite undertaker. It’s nice to see that some of the humor survived the years away from the looniest city on the planet, and that all of it got used on this.

Since they missed Tommy “The Other” Thompson, let me see if I can channel their energy….

Reason for Presidential bid:
Wanted to find new ways to “stick it to them.”

Reason for dropping Presidential bid:
Found out Secret Service wouldn’t let him ride their Harleys.

Stance on pig races:
Strongly for

Campaign accomplishments:
Beat Fred Thompson to both the entrance and the exit.

Key Issues:
Health Care:
Listen to my wife, Sue Ann.

Iraq War:
Was heard to say to Sam Brownback, “I’ll see your 3 Iraqs and raise you sextuple.”

That isn’t a stimulus package; THIS is a stimulus package

by @ 12:34. Filed under Business, Politics - National, Taxes.

(H/T – MKH)

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) reminds us that the last one-time “rebate” scheme didn’t work out so well. Instead, he’s pushing a “get government out of the way” package of tax and spending cuts, pointing out that the tax-cut half of that adopted in 2003 lasted for close to 5 years.

Sen. DeMint didn’t explain very well why the 2001 “rebate” package didn’t work, and why the 2008 “rebate” package will also fail spectacularily, so I’ll have to stick my finger in the dike. Not only is it temporary (one-time, actually), and not only does it represent a return to the welfare state (RepubicRAT version), but that money will not find its way to American manufacturers. Those Americans in debt and caring about it will send that cash to finance companies to reduce (in most cases, not eliminate) their debt. Those not in debt or not caring how much debt they’re carrying will spend it on goods mostly made overseas. Neither item will do jack shit to the American economy; specifically, virtually no new jobs will be created in America.

Revisions/extensions (12:38 pm 1/28/2008) – This will learn me to read the feeds in reverse order. Tom McMahon has the perfect Venn diagram in today’s 4-Block World

taxrebates.gif

I won’t be here tonight

by @ 12:05. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Well, you bastiches have spoken; I won’t be live-blogging the SOTU. Instead, American Princess will be throwing a drinking game party over at her place, and unless I’ve been thrown out, I plan on being there.

Revisions/extensions (3:26 pm 1/28/2008) – I won’t be there either. No, I didn’t get thrown out, but I will be filling in for my dad at cribbage tonight, and I won’t be back until all the speechifying is done. I still recommend you folks head over there; E.M. hosts a wicked-good party.

January 27, 2008

Mitt(Hill)Care set to rival The Big Dig

by @ 20:32. Filed under Health, Politics - National, Taxes.

(H/T – Dad29)

CNS is running with a report that the cost of Mitt(Hill)Care will go up 85%, or $400 million, in 2009, as a lot more people than expected take the government subsidies for the mandated health insurance. Taxes, both Massachusetts’ and federal, are expected to go up to pay for this.

I’m shocked, SHOCKED that CubaCare Lite is a boondoggle that is being treated as a gateway to CubaCare Heavy. It’s yet another reason why I haven’t joined the FredHeads for Mitt exodus. I still don’t know what I’ll do, either on February 19 or November 4, but I’m beginning to prepare my short list of write-ins.

January 26, 2008

Should I live-blog the SOTU?

by @ 21:08. Filed under NRE Polls.

I don’t know if I’m feeling it this year. You, the gentler-than-me readers, will help me decide. Go, vote in the current NRE poll; it will be open until high noon Monday.

Should I live-blog the State of the Union Monday night?

Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed

  • No (50%, 4 Vote(s))
  • Yes (38%, 3 Vote(s))
  • Glom onto somebody else's live-blog (13%, 1 Vote(s))

Total Voters: 8

Loading ... Loading ...

January 25, 2008

Roll bloat – I need more “I”s, dammit!

by @ 23:42. Filed under Miscellaneous.

You probably could call this one the Moron Commenters’ Blog, and you wouldn’t be too far off. Oh well, since I’m a Moron and a frequent commenter (hell, that’s how I got my start, just not on AoSHQ), I may as well jump into the Innocent Bystanders breach.

Uncle Jimbo and Blackfive TV strike again

by @ 23:01. Filed under War on Terror.

…and again, my friends. First up on the Global Domination and World Peace video tour is a look at what Al Qaeda in Iraq does with those that can’t fight back, and what happens to them when they encounter those with superior firepower. Since UJ has asked the video to be broadcast far and wide, far be it from me to defy him….

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dco8waoe9-4[/youtube]

Do note that no US troops were harmed in the making of this video, though the Jihadi quotient got decreased by a couple, which is just the way it should be. Bravo Zulu.

Next, the gang at Blackfive ask Ayman Zawahiri just what is up with the 72 goats they get when on the receiving end of various American arms like the two dead tangos ventilated above. Since there is a content warning on that, you can go to Blackfive to watch that one.

The DemonRATs’ favorite RepubicRAT (video of the day)

by @ 20:51. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Emperor Misha I)

I’m not about to endorse Mitt Romney (partly because he re-endorsed gun control just like the current Administration did last night in such a way as to, if accepted by SCOTUS, render the 2nd Amendment completely moot), but his campaign has a devastating video about John McShame (Amnesty-Media) on the same day the New Sedition Slimes (dammit, there I go again), er, New York Times gives him their unqualified “We’re endorsing him because he’s basically a ‘Rat, but we wish he’d adopt the Paul-Nut surrender line of Bravo Sierra” endorsement

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGrWt-XICHc[/youtube]

The Emperor has it exactly right regarding holding my nose and voting for him (below the fold only because I don’t have enough separation between this and the latest roll bloat, which is also why I used the phonetic alphabet rather than the actual words I wanted to use)….
(more…)

Roll bloat – continuing to beautify the roll

by @ 20:26. Filed under The Blog.

I keep on forgetting to add people that make sense when I first notice them, but I usually do eventually. That time has come for Anwyn’s Notes in the Margin. Now that I brought her to your attention, don’t wait as long as I did.

From McCain to $oro$ in 6 steps or less

by @ 19:32. Filed under Politics - National.

Michelle Malkin has the bouncing ball. Tell me again how the f*ck (since this is going to generate a trackback to Michelle’s site, I won’t add the vowel, but rest assured it isn’t ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘o’) John S. McShame (Amnesty-Media) is the presumptive front-runner in the “Republican” Presidential primary.

That brings me to a Photoshop from Slublog, unleased onto the world by Ace….

mccainsoros1.jpg

I think Slu nailed this one.

Revisions/extensions (7:37 pm 1/25/2008) – I knew I should’ve refreshed the feed reader; Slu has his own post up on this. I think the Devil is a smoother operator than $oro$.

If some fool wanted to give me $800,000 for this place…

by @ 18:26. Filed under Miscellaneous.

…I’d buy the fastest car on the planet, the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero, which has set a new Guiness Book of World Records speed record for a street-legal vehicle at a two-way average of 256.18 mph. (H/Ts – Ace and Allahpundit/HotAir Headlines).

No, that will not be the vehicle I’d use to see if you guys can drive a stick like a race car.

The decline and fall of “Old Media”

by @ 18:05. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

I guess I could say that this is a Ham family affair, because the hat tips for both halves come from them. First, let’s take the Newsbusters way-back machine back 20 years (H/T – Mary Katharine Ham), back before blogs, back to the dawn of conservative media, and back to the time when “alternative” media meant “Communist”. CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather was spoiling for a fight with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, and, along with politics producer Richard Cohen, decided to ambush Bush on live TV over Iran-Contra with the 12th and last in a series of candidate profiles. Needless to say, that sort of backfired (transcript courtesy RatherBiased.com). The actions of Rather were so egregious that the Media Research Center quoted Sam Donaldson (a hack in his own right) as saying, “Rather went too far….I don’t think we can get to a situation where we make — on our own authority — accusations.”

We all know what happened in the succeeding 20 years; the “Old Media” turned even farther to the left and the remainder all-but-abandoned the pretense of impartiality, the New Media (talk radio, blogs, and conservative forums) rose up to fill that void, and as a result, the readership, profitability and ultimately the stock prices of “Old Media” companies collapsed.

That brings us to the World Economic Forum in Davros, Switzerland. Yesterday, Columbia University (yes, that Columbia University, home of the Columbia School of Journalism) President Lee Bollinger announced his support for government subsidies for “Old Media” (H/T – Jon Ham).

If you were wondering about the position of the Columbia School of Journalism’s dean, Nick Lemann, Forbes’ Carl Lavin has that disappointment. The upshot: “Right now the mismatch between the social mission of journalism and the market support for that mission seems to be growing, so I think we should explore other means of support for serious journalism. Per the above, these can be, and generally have been in the US, policy interventions that amount to indirect rather than direct government subsidies. But I’m not against subsidies per se, if we can establish BBC-like safeguards of editorial independence.”

I guess they learned nothing over the last 20 years.

Cross-posted at the TownHall version of this place.

Today’s example of no difference in the two halves of the P-I-G

by @ 15:56. Filed under Politics - National, Taxes.

(H/T – Conservative Belle)

The “economic stimulus package” (otherwise known as the RepubicRAT version of the welfare state) just keeps on getting worse. First, it was a one-time “refund”, with no permanent reduction in the 20%+ of GDP take by the federal government. Now, after the “grand compromise” not only is it a targeted transfer of funds from those that pay most of those taxes to those that pay only a small bit of those taxes (the “refund” cuts out for those earning more than $75,000/$150,000 for couples), but $300 checks are going to go to 35 million families who don’t even pay income taxes. What was that line about the Republic lasting only up to the point where a majority figure out how to get the minority to pay for their lifestyles? It sure feels like we’ve hit that point.

But wait, it’s going to get even worse. The ‘Rats are still agitating for a return to their version of the welfare state, with more unemployment benefits (never mind that, until about 8 years ago, 5% unemployment was considered “full employment”) and more food stamps.

January 24, 2008

Post-Thompson debate – live thread

by @ 19:56. Filed under Politics - National.

Sorry about the lack of notice, but I may as well step once more into the breach…

As usual, I paraphrase a lot (I don’t type that quickly, and even slower on the laptop), questions are in italics, answers are in normal type, and my comments in-line with either a question or answer are in parentheses.

Pork; it’s not just in Washington anymore (UPDATED)

by @ 15:11. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Revisions/extensions (3:11 pm 1/24/2008) – This has been bumped to the top (originally posted 8:23 pm 1/23/2008) as Rep. Zipperer has a newer version of the guest column originally released on January 10.

Representative Rich Zipperer said it a lot better than I did in announcing that he, Leah Vukmir and Roger Roth wrote the Earmark Transparency Act being circulated for cosponsors. Therefore, I’ll simply transcribe his guest opinion column released on January 10 and handed to me yesterday by one of Zipperer’s aides (my lateness to this makes me as culpable in ignoring it as everybody else except Dad29, who caught this when it was announced on the 8th). A note; I’ve made a couple of corrections in the copy I have; those are italicized repost his guest column that appeared in the Waukesha Freeman today (a copy of which I received yesterday from his office):

Earmarks. Pork barrel spending. The bridge to nowhere. When you hear those terms, you think of Congress wasting taxpayers’ money on pet projects, often hidden as part of a budget thousands of pages long. In fact, the most recent federal budget contained over 9,000 earmarks inserted by individual members of Congress with no accountability to taxpayers. But if you thought that earmarks and pork spending were only problems for the federal government, you would be woefully mistaken. After being in the state Assembly for one year now, it is painfully clear to me that the problem has permeated the culture of state government as well. Just consider some of the provisions in the recent state budget, some inserted by the Governor, some by individual Legislators, and all tucked into a budget document that was 1,633 pages long.

  • 2.8 million for a Green Bay riverside boardwalk
  • $125,000 to the Painters and Allied Trades Council 7
  • $1.2 million for street improvements in Pleasant Prairie
  • $142,000 to the International Crane Foundation
  • $4 million for a soybean crusher in Evansville
  • numerous highway earmarks throughout the state
  • $800,000 for a bike trail in West Allis
  • $1 million for youth summer jobs program in Milwaukee
  • $950,000 for Kenosha streets
  • $100,000 for two ice arenas in Ashwaubenon & Eau Claire
  • $25,000 for a youth center in Mondovi
  • $500,000 for a civil war exhibit in Kenosha
  • $100,000 for a pedestrian path in Milwaukee

If you doubt your government’s ability to spend taxpayer money wisely, I don’t blame you. To help bring accountability to state budgets I have authored the Earmark Transparency Act along with Reps. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) and Roger Roth Jr. (R-Grand Chute). For the last week, we have been asking our colleagues to cosponsor the bill, and thus far have been pleasantly surprised by the support. We have received a majority of Republicans in both the Assembly (28 of 52) and the Senate (11 of 15) to cosponsor this common sense legislation. Unfortunately, no Democrats have signed on to the bill yet.

The Earmark Transparency Act will prohibit state agencies, the Governor, and individual legislators from hiding earmarks in an omnibus budget bill by requiring the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau to prepare an "˜Earmark Transparency Report’ to be released at least 48 hours prior to the Joint Committee on Finance, the Assembly, or the Senate voting to approve a state budget. The report will bring to light all earmarks, including the cost, location, beneficiary, and requesting representative or senator.

The bill also prohibits last-second additions by a budget conference committee, referred to as "˜airdrops,’ that were never included in a previously approved version of the budget. The most infamous airdrop during the budget debate last year was a provision to allow the sampling of liquor in grocery stores. Airdrops are especially obnoxious to taxpayers, as they are dropped into the budget only moments before the final vote, avoiding the months of public scrutiny that legislation typically must endure.

The Earmark Transparency Act will require full public disclosure of all earmarks before a budget is approved. If a specific earmark seems wasteful or unnecessary, the authoring elected official will have to publicly justify the expenditure. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, and I believe that under the pressure of public scrutiny there will be far fewer wasteful earmarks introduced. In the end, that will save taxpayer money.

When this bill becomes law, legislators will not be able to hide from their earmarks and pork requests in future budgets. That public accountability will help end the culture of pork barrel spending that has taken hold in Madison, and let you know where your tax dollars are being spent.

###

Politics imitates art

by @ 13:24. Filed under Politics - National.

As long as I’m trying to put off the inevitable, I’ll steer you toward Slublog’s analysis of how the remaining candidates resemble the characters in “The Breakfast Club”. He’s pretty much nailed it, and since he cross-posted it over at AoS, the morons are all commenting over there (at least until Minx crashes again; it’s overdue for one).

Tom McMahon – Mental Health Map of the USA

by @ 12:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I will “borrow” this from Tom McMahon; however, because I don’t want to have happen what happened the last time I “borrowed” something from him, I will be shutting off the comments.

mhmap.gif

Also a can’t miss is today’s Classic TM Post Of The Day – Republican Logic: The Annotated Version. For those of you who, like me, usually just read Tom through the feed reader, you’re missing the Classics. They’re only found on his main page, so either head to the main page after giving him some comment love, mash here for the main page, or mash the link in the roll (after all, that’s what the roll’s for).

And then there were the Big Two automakers?

by @ 11:43. Filed under Business.

(H/T – Stephen Green)

I hope you weren’t planning on getting a job at a Ford Motor Company plant in the US anytime soon; the AP is reporting Ford is going to offer “buyouts to its 54,000 U.S. hourly workers”.

There is a reason why I included that as a quote. If it’s accurate that Ford is down to 54,000 hourly workers in the US and further accurate that Ford is actually seeking 54,000 buyouts (neither a given with AP’s lack of attention to detail), that would be the effective end of Ford Motor Company as an American automaker. I believe it more-likely that Ford has a number lower than 54,000 buyouts in mind, and is simply making that offer available to every one of its hourly employees.

On a related note, the makers of the Tata Nano, the world’s most dangerous car, will soon own Jaguar and Land Rover. Feel free to pimp this Nano…

ta1_264688a.jpg

…and let me know where your Photoshops are.

January 23, 2008

More from Rep. Zipperer – State of the State and Earmark Transparency part 2

by @ 21:25. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I know, Rich Zipperer isn’t my Assemblyman (Mark Honadel is; I wish I could’ve stayed longer at the hearing yesterday so I could talk to him), but his staff passed along a press release on the State of the State (which I didn’t watch; Patrick took care of that for me), and a guest column on the Earmark Transparency Act set to appear in the Waukesha Freeman in a couple days. Since I don’t want to spoil the Freeman’s readership, for now I’ll simply point out the new bit of news between the original column posted below and the one to be published – 28 Assemblymen and 11 Senators, all Republicans, have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, which is now in the pipeline. I’ll repost the column once it’s published (or if it’s not published by Saturday, I’ll do it then).

I will, however, post Zipperer’s response to Governor Doyle’s State of the State address:

"Rather than accept responsibility and offer real leadership to help move Wisconsin’s economy forward in these difficult times, Governor Doyle tonight passed the buck by blaming others for the challenges facing our state.

With the economic concerns at the national and state level, it is clear that fixing the economy is the top issue facing this state. That is why we should be focused on helping families and businesses by lowering the tax burden, not worrying about filling the government’s coffers or growing state agencies.

After he spent last year pushing for record tax and spending increases, Governor Doyle tonight finally announced support for some economic growth initiatives that Assembly Republicans have long advocated. He should also advocate for immediate tax relief measures that will put money back in the hands of families and businesses throughout Wisconsin.

Bills that I’ve authored such as the Higher Education Tax Credit, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and reducing the state income tax through an across-the-board income tax cut, would go a long way toward getting our economy moving again by putting money back in the hands of hardworking Wisconsinites.

Our economy, our families, and our small businesses need help, but Governor Doyle fell far short tonight. While his tax increases and increased spending over the last several years have pushed Wisconsin into these tight times, his speech tonight didn’t lay out any plans on how dig us out of the financial hole."

The Asian Badger has some more on the Internet Tax Freedom Act, specifically its 10-0 bipartisan approval by the Assembly committee on Energy and Utilities yesterday. That means that the bill, which will eliminate taxation on internet access charges and thus bring Wisconsin into compliance with federal law prohibiting taxation on internet access charges, will go to the floor of the Assembly.

Comment of the Year nominee plus Condi going squishy on Iran?

by @ 19:34. Filed under International relations, War on Terror.

No, it’s not here, and it’s definitely not from me, but Wineaholic left this gem about Paul-Nuts on a Hot Air thread on a Condi-endorsed “grand compromise” in Iran:

Siren song? Come on, it’s not like people are going away anytime soon"¦ once the rEVOLution is over, they’ll just shift back from whence they came. Like white-power groups, the Democratic party, mental hospitals with liberal policies about internet usage. These people (and their message) are here to stay, bless their delusional little hearts.

Since this post is likely going to generate a trackback there, I may as well throw in my two cents on that “grand compromise. I wish I could believe the Iranians would be honest, but we’ve been burned before.

Could Fred be 2nd right now?

by @ 18:51. Filed under Politics - National.

Jim Geraghty lays out the case from a Louisiana pro. I’ll bet you didn’t know that Louisiana had a convoluted caucus last night, but they did, and “Undecided/Pro-Life” took a plurality of the caucus portion of the slate. Louisiana’s system is a bit more-complicated than that, with a combination of an Iowa/Nevada-style caucus to determine who goes to the state convention to decide who goes to the national convention (held last night) and a primary to be held on February 9. Like Iowa and Nevada, all of the delegates are supposedly “uncommitted” (at least at this point); however, not only are they expected to follow the will of the caucus-goers, but should a candidate get a majority in the primary, 20 of the 47 delegates are bound to support the primary winner, with the other 27 still officially “uncommitted”.

As an aside, both “Undecided/Pro-Life” (largely FredHeads, according to multiple sources in multiple campaigns, important because Thompson did put at least some resources in Louisiana) and John McCain (who did nothing) did better than Ron Paul (who did make a last-minute appearance).

Wacky endorsements continue unabated

by @ 16:40. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Michelle)

Here we go again with the whacked-out endorsements. Fresh from dropping out after getting 2% in a state where only he and 2 other candidates put any significant resources, Duncan Hunter has endorsed open-borders advocate Mike Huckabee. The wide speculation is that the Huckster has offered Hunter a spot in a Huck administration. Allow me to throw another thing on the wall; Huckabee is the only “Republican” left in the race that supports the “Fair”Tax, a 23% 30% sales tax designed to replace every other tax. Hunter supported the “Fair”Tax as well.

I have to echo JibThe respect I had for Hunter and his doomed campaign is pretty much in shambles right now.

Let this be a lesson to Fred Thompson; do NOT endorse any third of the Rudy McCabee axis.

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