Sarah Palin is Not Stupid

The thing I've found most grating during the course of this campaign is the meme that Sarah Palin is stupid, which the likes of Saturday Night Live have been more than happy to make a mainstream notion.

The editing hactchet job and unanswerable questions of the Gibson interview didn't help, of course. And Palin's poor performance in the Couric interviews really didn't help her case.

But what's embarrassing for our country is how many voters haven't looked past two bad interviews and a handful of insulting SNL skits to reach their conclusions about if Palin has what it takes.

Palin's biggest accomplishment so far in office has been her work on the Natural Gas Pipeline. She freely admits there is much more to do to complete it, but the work she has finished so far is impressive. Alaska has been working for 30 years to implement such a pipeline, and she's finally been able to bring people together to make it happen. IBD has a great write up about the pipeline here, which actually pre-dates her being added to the ticket.

The pipeline will actually go through Canada to reach the continental United States. I don't know why the campaign doesn't raise this point to demonstrate the actual foreign policy experience she has had as a governor.

Without a doubt, her experience on the pipeline project demonstrates her clear capability to serve as a vice president.

What shows she would be a great vice president is her dedication to integrity. Between her many years a mayor her time as governor, she served on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She grew tired of the corruption she saw there - much of which was within her own Republican party - and ultimately resigned from the position in protest.

As governor she continued showing integrity by running on a platform of reform (which is not uncommon) and actually carrying through with reforms (which is uncommon). Under her leadership, she took the oil companies to task and worked with the legislature to pass a sweeping ethics reform bill.

Despite this, the left continues to smear her as unintelligent and "dangerously unprepared." This reminds me of the obnoxious slams against Bush's intelligence for the past 8 years.

Christopher Hitchens probably addressed the Bush Derangement Syndrom best when he confronted Bill Maher with:

I've seen you make about five George-Bush-IQ jokes per night. There's no one I know who can't do it. You know what I think? - this is now the joke that stupid people laugh at. It's the joke that any dumb person can laugh at because they think that they ... can prove they're smarter than the president (like the people that make booing and mooing noises in your audience ... none of whom are smarter than the president).

Let's move past calling people names. Bush isn't stupid. Neither is Sarah Palin. I can respect that each hold views that the left disagree with - but let's have a substantive debate on those issues. Deriding people as "stupid" should be left to those still in 3rd grade who haven't grown up yet.

Look who's "politicizing" 9/11 now?

If McCain had made the title of his campaign website "9/11/01 - We will always remember," the left would have gone nuts and I'm sure Keith Olbermann would have named McCain "the worst person in the world."

Re: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst terror attacks in history"

I tried to post the following as a comment to an article on the Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal web site authored by Norm Dixon and titled Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst terror attacks in history. (It's worth noting that August 6th and 9th are the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bombings I find to be tragic but necessary.)

I take issue with Dixon's description of these bombings as "terror attacks".

Although I tried twice to post my comment on their website, it appears they must moderate their comments, and while other comments have appeared since I tried to post mine, mine has not shown up ... so I'm posting it here on my blog.

Your definition of "terrorist attack" is confused

The use of atomic weapons by the United States was done to end a World War and thwart the Japanese from continuing to try to expand their empire by use of military force. The United States only entered that war following being attacked by that came country. Furthermore, the Japanese were given numerous opportunities to surrender prior to the bombs being dropped.

To confuse the above use of atomic bombs with acts of terrorism is terribly confused. There are similarities in that both are violent actions resulting in tragic numbers of dead, but differences between the two actions are also stark: defensive versus offensive, provoked versus unprovoked, done to end a deadly, deadly conflict versus to provoke a new conflict, ... and. the. list. goes. on.

Two Lies That Need To Die

I'm listening to this week's Bill Moyer's Journal (the show that the PBS Ombudsman calls "the gift that keeps on giving").

This week's episode is titled "John Grisham," and Grisham is one of the few fiction authors I enjoy, so I thought I might actually be able to stomach this week's episode. Well -- I'm 9 minutes into the episode, and no Grisham yet. But Moyers has been going (and on, and on) about how Bush lied us into war and how the economy is tanking because our jobs are going offshore.

And that leads me to: two lies that need to die:

1. Bush lied; people died.
   
   I'd like to be able to roll my eyes when I see this on a bumper sticker. I can't though because it seems that the entire far left honestly, and passionately, believes this (as does, apparently, Bill Moyers).
   
   Moyer's latest rant on this was inspired by the fact that someone has apparently compiled a list of every "lie" Bush and his administration told leading up to the war. I'm sure this will only add to the "Bush lied, people died" hysteria.
   
   Let's get a couple things straight. One, it's not unreasonable to objectively look at how we got into Iraq. But I would invite people still suck ruminating on this to move out of 2003 into 2008.
   
   Two, there is an implication in the statement that Bush intended to see people die. I think most people, if they consider that notion objectively, will conclude Bush didn't actually set out with the goal of killing thousands of Iraqis and US military service members. The problem is that I don't think most people actually think this through rationally.
   
   And three, Bush didn't lie. To have lied, he must have made statements he knew to be false with the intention of misleading. Bush's statements were based on national intelligence. That intelligence, tragically, wound up being faulty. But Bush did not go out and say things he believed to be un-true with the intention to deceive. Now, granted, Bush did cherry pick what he shared with the American people, but unless you want to call criminal prosecutors "liars" as well, you can't twist that into lying.



2. Job outsourcing is destroying the economy.
   
   It's unfortunate when someone gets laid off. I'll grant that. An individual who gets laid off has to find a new job, perhaps learn a new set of skills, has to figure out how to stay afloat financially while searching for the new job, etc., etc. But, lay-offs are not a.) unfair, nor are the b.) bad for the economy.
   
   Lay offs done rationally, and I assume almost all are done rationally, with a solid business case behind them, are done because the cost of keeping the person employed is either greater than the value they produce for the company or the value they can produce for the company can be done by someone else for a much lower cost. What would be unfair would be to tell companies "you can't have this job done by someone for $5,000/year; you must keep paying this person $50,000/year to do it!".
   
   Furthermore, the economics behind layoffs and outsourcing jobs overseas is precisely what keeps the economy moving forward. It's the law of comparative advantage at work. It's why the overwhelming majority of Americans don't have to worry about starving to death. It's why the overwhelming majority of Americans can afford to have free time watch television in the evenings. It's why I can afford to spend time ranting on a blog.
   
   I'll conclude by quoting a recent Steve Landsburg New York Times editorial (which happens to slam both Romney and McCain, but rightly so):
   

   
   In the days before Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in Michigan, Mitt Romney and John McCain battled over what the government owes to workers who lose their jobs because of the foreign competition unleashed by free trade. Their rhetoric differed — Mr. Romney said he would “fight for every single job,” while Mr. McCain said some jobs “are not coming back” — but their proposed policies were remarkably similar: educate and retrain the workers for new jobs.
   
   All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners. What we lose through lower wages is more than offset by what we gain through lower prices. In other words, the winners can more than afford to compensate the losers. Does that mean they ought to? Does it create a moral mandate for the taxpayer-subsidized retraining programs proposed by Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney?
   
   Um, no. Even if you’ve just lost your job, there’s something fundamentally churlish about blaming the very phenomenon that’s elevated you above the subsistence level since the day you were born. If the world owes you compensation for enduring the downside of trade, what do you owe the world for enjoying the upside?
   
   I doubt there’s a human being on earth who hasn’t benefited from the opportunity to trade freely with his neighbors. Imagine what your life would be like if you had to grow your own food, make your own clothes and rely on your grandmother’s home remedies for health care. Access to a trained physician might reduce the demand for grandma’s home remedies, but — especially at her age — she’s still got plenty of reason to be thankful for having a doctor.
   
   Some people suggest, however, that it makes sense to isolate the moral effects of a single new trading opportunity or free trade agreement. Surely we have fellow citizens who are hurt by those agreements, at least in the limited sense that they’d be better off in a world where trade flourishes, except in this one instance. What do we owe those fellow citizens?
   
   One way to think about that is to ask what your moral instincts tell you in analogous situations. Suppose, after years of buying shampoo at your local pharmacy, you discover you can order the same shampoo for less money on the Web. Do you have an obligation to compensate your pharmacist? If you move to a cheaper apartment, should you compensate your landlord? When you eat at McDonald’s, should you compensate the owners of the diner next door? Public policy should not be designed to advance moral instincts that we all reject every day of our lives.
   
   In what morally relevant way, then, might displaced workers differ from displaced pharmacists or displaced landlords? You might argue that pharmacists and landlords have always faced cutthroat competition and therefore knew what they were getting into, while decades of tariffs and quotas have led manufacturing workers to expect a modicum of protection. That expectation led them to develop certain skills, and now it’s unfair to pull the rug out from under them.
   
   Once again, that argument does not mesh with our everyday instincts. For many decades, schoolyard bullying has been a profitable occupation. All across America, bullies have built up skills so they can take advantage of that opportunity. If we toughen the rules to make bullying unprofitable, must we compensate the bullies?
   
   Bullying and protectionism have a lot in common. They both use force (either directly or through the power of the law) to enrich someone else at your involuntary expense. If you’re forced to pay $20 an hour to an American for goods you could have bought from a Mexican for $5 an hour, you’re being extorted. When a free trade agreement allows you to buy from the Mexican after all, rejoice in your liberation — even if Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and the rest of the presidential candidates don’t want you to.
   

Bush didn't lie.
Outsourcing jobs overseas helps us.
Let's move on.

Jimmy Carters Spouts Off Again

Looking over Digg's top stories today, I noticed Jimmy Carter opened his big mouth again and, in typical fashion, some (most?) on Digg can't praise him enough (or insult the current Administration enough):

President Carter is one of the smartest and noblest men in our day. He dedicated his life to serving men, women and children in every capacity he could. With the heart of a tender-loving parent and decades of service at the highest levels of government comes incredible insight, outstanding judgment and sound wisdom.

I respect him, agree with him and believe these statement represent the feelings of the American people.

- "readthis", 5/19

Give. me. a. break.

Some on Digg know enough history to criticize Carter, but their comments are getting "dugg down."

Meanwhile, over at QandO, some excellent commentary from McQ that I can (heartily) agree with:

The paucity of credibility Jimmy Carter brings to such criticism should be evident to anyone who lived through his presidency. If there is anyone more responsible for feeding the "paper tiger" meme which has so enabled our enemies, I'd like to know who it is. The 444 days in which Iran kidnapped and exploited our embassy employees while he sat morose and powerless stands right up there as the worst, as far as I'm concerned.

...

Having lived through the Carter presidency and now Bush's, I'll take the latter any day of the week, mistakes, blunders, ineptness and all.

Unfortunately Carter has to be the exception to the unwritten rule that former presidents remain silent about the administrations of serving presidents. Like so much in his miserable life, he can't even get that right. Following that tradition would require grace, restraint and class, virtues Carter has never had.

Instead we're again exposed to the pathetic mewling of a washed up former president who so screwed up his watch that he's reduced to trying to criticize other presidents in hope of having them awarded the "world's worst" crown he's worn since he was run out of DC on a landslide.

Allow me to reiterate that - the unwritten rule that former presidents remain silent about the administrations of serving presidents. Amen.

There's plenty the Bush Administration has screwed up on. Those things deserve criticism and debate. But former presidents should have the perspective, civility, humility, and honor to, at least publicly, keep out of it.

Elizabeth Edwards: Bush Is A Racist

Note to the Edwards Campaign: Stop letting Elizabeth Edwards say offensive things.

First it was the "Rabid Rabid Republican" thing. Now it's effectively calling Bush a racist.

Are Democrats really not offended by this stuff? I really hope no one is actually buying what she's putting out there... Sheesh.

via digg ...

Rosie O'Donnell ♥'s Iran & 9-11 Conspiracies

This story has been eating at me all weekend and I'm still in utter shock that any American would believe the Iranian government over the British government and accuse the British and American governments of trying to start a war with Iran. Give me a break.

Of course, claiming there is some conspiracy about how World Trade Center Tower 7 was destroyed on 9/11 is equally outrageous and offensive...

Rather than spending a lot of time getting all worked up and ranting about this, I decided (this being the interweb and all...) to just link to other's who already have:

• Rosie O'Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments: Popular Mechanics Responds - Popular Mechanics
  
• Rosie O'Donnell Is A Loon - Dr. Melissa Clouthier
  
• Video: Rosie blows the lid off the British sailor hostage crisis - Hot Air
  
• Rosie Sees Only Evil in US, Not Iran, Speaks on 9/11 Conspiracy Theories - Newsbusters
  
• Rosie Implies Captured Brits Are A Contrived 'Gulf of Tonkin' For War With Iran - Newsbusters
  
• Rosie O' Donnell is Bad News - Townhall
  
• “The (Liberal) View”: Rosie O’Donnell Campaigns For Our Enemies - California Conservative
  
• Rosie: Captured Brits a hoax to provoke war - WorldNetDaily
  
• The Worst of Rosie O'Donnell, and that's saying something - Doug Ross @ Journal
  
• Does Rosie O'Donnell Hate America? - The Stump
  

Thank you Popular Mechanics, WorldNetDaily, and the Blogosphere.

I also can't believe how many blogs are defending Rosie... For serious?!?

The only valid point I found in blogs defending her is that she didn't explicitly say the Bush Administration was behind the destruction of Tower 7. What she did say was plenty offensive without crossing that additional line though.

The biggest distortion the "pro-Rosie" blogs are making though is their claim that Bill O'Reilly is calling for ABC to fire Rosie O'Donnell. O'Reilly did talk about ABC firing her but didn't actually go as far as calling for them to so. Even TMZ is portraying what O'Reilly said as him calling for her to be fired though...

If ABC does fire her, it's overdue. I'm still wishing they had done so when she equated my religious beliefs with those of the men who attacked us on 9/11.

Fact Checking the Fake News

The blog onegoodmove.org (which, frankly, seems to be a smorgasboard of Comedy Central clips and crazy left wing ranting) brings us a clip from the Daily Show in which "Jon [Stewart] exposes John [Bolton] for the ignorant f**k he is." (Gotta love the ad hominem. Classic moonbat-ery.)

In the clip, Stewart (admittedly comically) attempts to take Bolton to task for supposedly getting his history wrong on President Lincoln's cabinet appointments.

The clip begins with a review of an interview between Stewart and Bolton:

Stewart: Let's go with Lincoln. He chose people with varying points of view. People that truly disagreed with him. And empowered them.

Bolton: I think you are historically wrong on Lincoln.

Then the clip progresses to another previous interview, this time between Stewart and historian/author (and plagiarist?) Doris Kearns Goodwin:

Stewart:[Lincoln's] approach is perhaps the antithesis of politics today which was to place people in his cabinet from different political parties. People that were even enemies of his.

Kearns Goodwin:Absolutely. I mean, he put into his cabinet all the people who thought they should have been president.

Kearns Goodwin's latest book is even titled "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." It would certainly seem Lincoln's cabinet surely did consist of "people with varying points of view;" "people that truly disagreed with him;" perhaps even people "from different political parties."

Well, I decided to stop by Wikipedia to see what all this "true disagreement" would have been about. After all, Lincoln wasn't too crazy about divided houses.

Looking through Lincoln's initial cabinet, I couldn't find a whole lot of disagreement. There were people who were political rivals, although they were rivals like John Kerry and John Edwards are political rivals, and just like Edwards jumped onto the Kerry boat, these cabinet members ended up jumping on the Lincoln boat.

Taking a look:

• William H. Seward - Secretary of State
  Anti-slavery. Republican.
  "When Abraham Lincoln won the nomination Seward loyally supported him and made a long speaking tour of the West in the autumn of 1860."
  


• Salmon P. Chase - Secretary of the Treasury
  Anti-slavery. Republican.
  "Chase sought the Republican nomination for president in 1860; at the Party convention, he got 49 votes on the first ballot and afterwards threw his support to Abraham Lincoln."
  


• Simon Cameron - Secretary of War
  Republican. (Position on slavery not given on Wikipedia.)
  "[He] was nominated for President, but gave his support to Abraham Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention"
  


• Edward Bates - Attorney General
  Anti-slavery [but wanted freed blacks to go back to Africa]. Republican.
  "[Bates] was one of the three main candidates for the [Republican] party's 1860 presidential nomination, which was won by Abraham Lincoln. The next year, after winning the election, Lincoln appointed Bates as his Attorney General."
  


• Montgomery Blair - Postmaster General
  Anti-slavery. Republican.
  "In 1860 he took an active part in the presidential campaign in behalf of Abraham Lincoln."
  


• Gideon Welles - Secretary of the Navy
  Anti-slavery. Republican.
  "Welles strong support of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 made him the logical candidate from New England for Lincoln's cabinet, and in March 1861 Lincoln named Welles his Secretary of the Navy."
  


• Caleb Blood Smith - Secretary of the Interior
  Lukewarm-but-Anti-slavery. Republican.
  "He was influential in securing the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency at the Chicago Republican National Convention in 1860."
  

That's correct: All Republicans at the time they were in Lincoln's cabinet. All in apparent agreement on the slavery issue. All supporters of Lincoln. All but Cameron (who was no longer in the Cabinet at the time) are even in that picture working together on the Emancipation Proclamation.

Kearns Goodwin is correct in saying Lincoln "put into his cabinet all the people who thought they should have been president" but she absolutely should not have given an "absolutely" response to Stewart's conjecture the cabinet was made up of different political parties and enemies of Lincoln.

Stewart zero.
Bolton +1.

via digg ...

Oversight Can Prevent Hurricanes!!

Ronald Brownstein opines on the L.A. Times opinion page:

At times, President Bush's second term has resembled a laboratory test of what happens to a large institution when all mechanisms of accountability are disabled.

The results have not been pretty.

Hurricane Katrina, the chaotic occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, the breakdown at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the FBI's abuse of Patriot Act powers, the troubling dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys — everywhere, the administration has been plagued by an epidemic of incompetence.

...

The Republican majority so completely abdicated its responsibilities to conduct oversight on the executive branch that its governing motto might have been "don't ask, don't tell."

Key House and Senate committees sometimes went months without oversight hearings on Iraq.

...

Many of the decisions now causing Bush grief could have been made only by a politician who did not believe anyone was looking over his shoulder.

I'll grant Bush has made a multitude of mistakes while in office. And I wish the Republican Congress had been more aggressive with oversight while they had power. But this is over the top moonbat-ery.

First of all, which is it, Brownstein? Incompetence, or lack of oversight?

If you are as arrogant and ignorant as I'm sure Brownstein believes Bush to be, I really don't see how all the oversight in the world would make any difference.

Second, Brownstein makes it sound like the only way the Congress could have been keeping Bush in check is with "oversight hearings". What a bunch of bunk. The intelligence comittees regularly meet with the Whitehouse for briefings. You know, those briefings Silvestre Reyes apparently slept through?

Third, even though the Republican Congress didn't do much in adversarial oversight, the press sure did. Your paper has been criticizing Bush since he took office.

In fact, your paper's whole excuse for running the terrorist banking data surveillance program story was:

But we also have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power, and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That's the role of the press in our democracy.

But Bush hasn't had any oversight, right?

Fourth and finally, oversight can't stop hurricanes. And your choice of wording — "The results have not been pretty. Hurricane Katrina, the chaotic occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, ..." — makes it sound like you either believe it can, or you're just out to get Bush as best you can.

via digg ...

Joe Scarborough = MoveOn.org

As I wrote about before, Joe Scarborough (who, granted, is no Keith Olbermann) is far from the "true conservative" he claims to be.

Last night (February 7, 2008) he shared the same views as ... MoveOn.org. I know this because he included an except of an ad from MoveOn.org as part of his program.

Scarborough:

Then there is, of course, the war at home, with Republicans shutting down the debate in the Senate over the president‘s plan to escalate that war in Iraq

MoveOn.org Ad:

Remember their faces, remember their names, the Republicans of the United States Senate. A majority of Americans oppose escalation in Iraq, yet instead of allowing a vote on escalation, the Republicans blocked the debate.

What makes it all the worse, is that both he and MoveOn.org are spinning this. The Democrats are blocking the debate because the Republicans set up (reasonable) terms that if they are going to debate the Democrat resolution about the war, they want to also introduce a resolution by Judd Gregg indicating support for the troops. The Democrats won't let the Republicans introduce the Gregg resolution which is causing the debate to be "blocked".

*Sigh*

Of note:  a good round up of the debate about debating the non-binding resolutions.

Hurray for Profits!

Excellent commentary from Chris Edwards over at Cato @ Liberty:

Good news from the oil industry: ExxonMobil announced a record after-tax profit of $39.5 billion for 2006.

That is great news because it means the company will have more funds to reinvest in exploration, refinery expansion, drilling platforms, chemical plants, and all those other brilliant machines that American families benefit from every day.

The firm invested $20 billion in exploration, structures, and equipment in 2006 and $18 billion in 2005.

Quite the contrast from Hillary Clinton's position (also available via YouTube):

The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world.

I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence.

It boggles my mind that there are people who think that the Federal Government would actually do a better job investing in future energy alternatives than a company so amazingly competent they can turn out a record $39.5 billion profit.

Sure, I wish gas cost less at the pump, but I'm still willing to buy about the same amount of gas as I used to because frankly the benefit I receive from the gas I buy outweighs the cost. It's ludicrous to criticise ExxonMobile for making a profit while charging a fair price for a product we find extremely useful. I'm more ludicrous to think it's some how good - or even OK - for the government to rip away a company's profits.

Scarborough v. O'Reilly - who's Right

On the January 4, 2007 broadcast of Scarborough Country, Joe Scarborough took serious offense to Bill O'Reilly's recent comments that "Bush can't win, no matter what he does! NBC News, 'The New York Times,' 'The Washington Post,' they're going to say he's an idiot. There's no sense of balance or fairness in their reporting".

Scarborough, who claims to be "conservative" and share middle-America's values responded with indignation, basically laying out the argument that since he's never called Bush an idiot, O'Reilly is wrong:

Scarborough: Bush an idiot? I've never said Bush is an idiot. Chris? If I ever said—do you think Bush is an idiot?

Unidentified Male: Absolutely not.

Scarborough: Absolutely not.

Unidentified Male: We would never say that, nor have we ever said that.

Scarborough: You're a Connecticut Republican. We are conservative people.

Well, the funny thing about Google and MSNBC publishing all it's Scarborough Country transcripts on the web is that it's not hard to check Scarborough's claim. And, his claim is false — Scarborough has called Bush an idiot.

For starters, Scarborough off-handedly called Bush an idiot on July 7, 2005:

that idiot Bush starts looking a little bit better

More offensively though, an entire segment of Scarborough's show on August 16, 2006 focused on, well, let me just quote Scarborough:

You may want to stick around and watch Scarborough Country tonight, because we‘re asking: Is our president an idiot? It is not just the opinion of a has-been pop star, it‘s rally cries of liberals and some conservatives world wide. Is George Bush playing dumb or is he just plain dumb?

There's that i-word again. And nice options — plain dumb or playing dumb. Yeah, very "fair and balanced."

Granted, Scarborough is probably the most conservative commentator NBC News has. He's certainly no Keith Olbermann. But, he's not reliably conservative either. He even went so far as to state:

In fact, if you look at my transcripts you will see that I have been bashing my party more than the Democratic party.

And, he's said enough liberal-leaning things that NewsBusters has an entire category for him.

With Scarborough's less-than-consistent record of providing a non-liberal point of view, O'Reilly really can't be faulted for lumping Scarborough in as liberal-leaning alongside the rest of NBC News. And if Scarborough's going to respond to O'Reilly's claim, he's going to have to provide a much better response than (falsely) claiming he's never called Bush an idiot.

Mark Yannone - Plagiarist?

Well, despite how it looks, I'm really not trying to pick a fight, and hopefully this will be my last post having anything to do with this Yannone fellow...

But, poking around while looking into his whole linking to the Jesse Macbath video, 6 months late thing, I learned two interesting things about Mark Yannone.

First, he's a former (or perhaps perennial) Libertarian congressional candidate. I'm all for Libertarian politics; I prefer libertarians who are a little more even-keeled on the war on terror though. (Compare this with this).

Second, he has twenty-three, yes - count them - 23 blogs ranging in topic from Splenda Sickness to Correct English.

Now I barely find time to maintain one blog. So, I tried to figure it out how he manages 23. I think I figured out his secret — plagiarism! Check out this fashion article at the Telegraph. Compare it with this blog post.

At least this one links to the article it's ripping off.

Ironically, those blog posts link to iwannagetthat.com, the bottom banner of which reads:

copyright 2004-2006 Mark and Cherie Yannone
all rights reserved... so no stealing

Do as I say, not as a do?

(Also, for the record — fouride free toothpaste — not a good idea.)

Jesse Macbeth - Still A Fraud

While writing my post on the Kelo Christmas Card, I came across this blog and it's post on the Kelo Christmas Card story.

After a brief perusal of yannone.blogspot.com I quickly realized this Mark Yannone guy and I disagree on a lot.

For instance this kind of thing:

The people of the United States are not under attack. But our federal government has become an illegal aggressor that is attacking and killing hundreds of thousands of innocents without provocation. This country is asking unwary citizens to sell their souls to the Devil in return for a lifetime of nightmares, maybe permanent physical injury, perhaps death. For what? For nothing.

Which, generally, I'd simply dismiss as "moonbat-ery" and move along.

But then I found a post he wrote — last week — praising the commentary of Jesse Macbeth. Jesse Macbath was roundly dismissed as a fraud — more than six months ago.

How disappointing that one of the top results when you google for "kelo christmas card" is a blog praising the thoughts of a deceitful anti-war protester.

Update: Well, apparently Mark Yannone moderates his comments (the one I left has not appeared on his blog), but based on my and/or others' feedback, he's now added the following introductory text to his post:

Some have claimed that this video is a pack of lies. If this fellow's story is true, I would expect to hear that Jessie Macbeth had been arrested and tried for the crimes he confesses to in this video.

Interestingly enough, Jesse Macbath apparently has been arrested and is in custody. Not for anything Iraq related (remember, he's never been to Iraq); but rather for two counts of violating a court order and two counts for assault in the 4th degree.

Senator Frist; Citizen-Legislator

Senator Bill Frist paints a wonderful ideal in his farewell address:

I believe today, as I believed when I came here, in the ideal of a citizen legislator. And bittersweet though it might seem today—it is right.

I hope that my service, that the example of someone who had never served before, spent his life pursuing another profession, coming here and rising from 100 in seniority to Majority Leader, the example of a committed doctor who has been able to find purpose and fulfillment in serving others through public service – through elected office will inspire others to seek office. And those that come to serve after me as true citizen legislators will bring fresh perspective and new ideas that will in ways small and large make this country and this institution better.

And you’ve heard me talk about—even champion—term limits.

Today, self-imposed term limits are the extreme exception—not the practice in this city. As a consequence, we are moving toward a body with a two-year vision, governing for the next election — rather than a body with a 20-year vision, governing for the future. As we consider the future of this institution, I urge that we ask ourselves what it is our forefathers envisioned. Is today’s reality what they foresaw?

I urge that we also consider what our work in this Chamber is really all about.

Is it about keeping the Majority? Is it about Red States versus Blue States? Is it about lobbing attacks across the aisle? Is it about war rooms whose purpose is not to contrast ideas but to destroy. Or is it more?

When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, delegates considered how best to structure the Legislative Branch of America’s new government. And they were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the Articles of Confederation, which had a unicameral legislature.

Speaking to the Convention, Virginia’s James Madison set forth the reasons to have a Senate:

’In order to judge the form to be given to this institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were, first, to protect the people against their rulers; secondly, to protect the people against transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.’

Let us remember this vision of the Senate—that the Framers established the Senate to protect people from their rulers, and as a check on the House and on the passions of the electorate. And let us not allow the passions of the electorate be reflected as destructive partisanship on the floor.

Taking the oath of office commits each Senator to respect and revere the Framers’ dream.

To my successor, Bob Corker, and to all the Senators who will follow me in service to this great nation: I urge you to be bold, to make the most of your time here, look at problems with fresh eyes and steely determination, and give the American people a reason to believe in you and to hope for a better tomorrow.

In fairness, Frist lobbed plenty of attacks across the aisle while he was in the Senate, but here's hoping for a brighter political future. And three cheers for Frist staying true to his commitment of a two-term limit and reinvigorating the idea of a Citizen-Legislator.

(Side note: and this is why I'm not a fan of political news that can be found via Digg; I think there are actually more "moonbat"-esque liberal comments on Digg than at ThinkProgress. * Sigh. *)