One more...

...anti-McCain column, but this is the best one I've read. It's from Mark Levin at National Review Online. He hammers him for lots of things I have already written about, but here is the key paragraph for conservatives who like him for national security (hint: he's not as good as you think):

But what about his national security record? It’s a mixed bag. McCain is rightly credited with being an early voice for changing tactics in Iraq. He was a vocal supporter of the surge, even when many were not. But he does not have a record of being a vocal advocate for defense spending when Bill Clinton was slashing it. And he has been on the wrong side of the debate on homeland security. He supports closing Guantanamo Bay, which would result in granting an array of constitutional protections to al-Qaeda detainees, and limiting legitimate interrogation techniques that have, in fact, saved American lives. Combined with his (past) de-emphasis on border-security, I think it’s fair to say that McCain’s positions are more in line with the ACLU than most conservatives.

John McCain is a liar

Just flipped over to watch the debate tonight after an unremarkable movie (so unremarkable that I won't comment further). Seeing Ron Paul rant on about useless crap annoys me and adds NOTHING here.

We've also got Huckabee trying to help McCain. It's those two guys trying to gang up on and then run out the clock on Romney. Ugh.

Anyway, back to the title of this post. Romney said some perfectly reasonable stuff about the surge in Iraq in April 2007 (see under 9:01 in this link). McCain is completely lying about what Romney said then, saying Romney was for time tables for withdrawal. I'm not sure how anyone with any honesty can say that after reading it. McCain dropped this garbage in a commercial in Florida this weekend. Since nobody but dorks follows politics closely enough to know the truth, it no doubt had some effect.

So what does McCain say tonight? Let me paraphrase:

Back in April, Harry Reid was saying that we needed time tables for withdrawal, and that was the big buzzword back then. Romney was talking about time tables, while I was for the surge.

OK, I'm back. Now, this is extremely duplicitous. The time tables Romney was talking about were NOT AT ALL like those the Democrats were talking about. And while McCain was talking about this tonight, he had some shit-eating grin on his face the whole time, knowing he was lying.

Now he's spouting his usual talking points. It's nauseating. I spent a big chunk of my day today wondering what I would do if (or, more likely, when) he's the nominee. I was leaning toward sitting home. Now, I want to vote Democratic against him.

He's a patriot and a war hero, but he conducts politics like a lying, weasely piece of crap. I'd rather eat a bowl of broken glass than vote for him. Romney is a good, decent man who is debased having to get into the mud to defend himself from the Huckabee-McCain handicap match.

McCain gets worse and worse in these debates, and yet he continues to pile up cheap wins with under 40% of the vote. I have stopped being surprised by the way Republicans keep voting for him, but I hope voters are paying attention to this debate to see just how disgusting he is. Romney's fundamental decency that is coming through in this debate may be his saving grace on Tuesday.

UPDATE: A much stronger analysis by Paul Mirengoff at Powerline. Straight talk, my arse.

Stimulus welfare and illegal immigrants

I can't add much more to Mark Krikorian's commentary on the issue. I recommend reading it. The details aren't important; what is important is the general theme of how our federal government is completely unprepared to deal with the issue so they just want to throw amnesty at them:

To sum up — hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are going to get checks from this ridiculous stimulus package. But it's hard to argue that trying to plug that specific hole will fix anything — the problem is that the IRS issues tax ID numbers to illegal aliens (numbers now widely accepted by banks, mortgage companies, etc.) and that the IRS, Social Security, and Homeland Security aren't authorized to cooperate in rooting out and apprehending illegal aliens. Not to mention that the Social Security Administration is actually barred by court order from informing employers that they have people on their payroll with fake or mismatched SSNs.

Birthday or something

I guess yesterday was someone's birthday. One of the benefits to being a single guy who people think is self-absorbed is that no one excoriates you for forgetting (or, more accurately, not knowing) people's birthdays. Kind of like Christmas cards.

Of course, the downside is that eventually fewer and fewer people care enough to wish you a happy birthday. It's kind of a double-edged sword, but it's the life I've chosen. Sort of like a ninja...

Patrick Ruffini on McCain vs. Romney

I have to excerpt a lot of this because I think it's so good. I will try to put other links regarding the race at the end as I find them:

While the answers will be different than those of a generation ago, the attitude needs to be the same: that we are reclaiming the Party for long-lost principles with strength and assertiveness, not retreating and simply becoming more like the left. McCain represents the later kind of change.

Mitt Romney gets that you don’t win by retreating. You win by winning. There will be no pale pastels on the Democratic ticket this fall — and I would not want to go up against them with the sense that we somehow had to trim our sails, to elevate our party’s most ardent internal critic, in order to remain in office but not in power. At best, this is a reprise of how Clinton hollowed out the Democratic Party (see how their hearts are with Obama), and what Bush and the Republican Congress did with respect to spending. McCain would reclaim the spending mantle, but would surrender on all other aspects of domestic policy.

Mitt Romney is a better candidate than he lets on. His business acumen has hardly been explored in this campaign, at least not early enough. He is, as they say in Boston, wicked smart. Of all the candidates running, it is hardest to see the colossal managerial failures of Katrina happening under his watch. His plan wasn’t perfect, but I like the fact that he’s a Republican who’s tackled the health care issue. He can communicate about matters of war and peace, and his instincts are sound. He could position himself as a clean break on the economy. Attributes he had to soft sell in the primary campaign would provide attractive contrasts to Hillary Clinton in a general election. And in Presidential elections, Governors beat Senators. Romney is our last chance of getting that historically winning combination.

UPDATE: More from Michael Graham over in The Corner. Many pundits are saying McCain should make some assurances to conservatives that he is one of them to try to get them in his camp come November. Graham is confident (and I agree) that he will do no such thing:

So it is over. Finished. In November, we'll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate vs. to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.

And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.

You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.

Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party.

McCain wins Florida - Pass the Hemlock

Ugh. I feel physically ill. The man who has made a career out of championing amnesty for illegals looks like he will be the Republican nominee. I don't see any way how I can vote for him in November. If he wins then, he will destroy the Republican party brand. I might even have to vote Democratic. If I didn't have to work tomorrow I'd start pounding whiskey.

I'm guess I just vote Mitt next week and hope for the best.

Oh no, now Florida Senator Mel Martinez (his amnesty buddy #1 in the Senate) is on Hannity and Colmes on FNC. I want to put a boot through my TV.

Einhorn and Finkel

Finkel and Einhorn:

Sean Young has entered rehabilitation for alcohol abuse following a weekend outburst in which she was heckling from the audience at the Directors Guild of America awards.

Electric roadster

I'm no environmentalist hippie, but this car is pretty cool. It has the potential to change the way automakers think about cars that use less (or no) gas.

Upon reflection, it's not surprising that a car like this would come from a small start-up as opposed to a large company. Think of the beauracracy a GM or Toyota would throw up in the way of the development of a car like this. This line especially stuck out to me as how quickly these guys could a move to make improvements:

At the time of the ride I took in Southern California, the car had a Blaupunkt radio with an extra screen hanging below for the navigation system. Customers weren't fond of that look so it has been replaced with a JVC unit with an integrated (although considerably smaller) screen. The Tesla interior crew is currently working on a revised dashboard that will support a double-din head unit with a larger screen.

Gaza, Egypt, and Israel

I don't normally post anything involving foreign affairs. The reason is that in my formative years of following current events, I found them to be dreadfully boring. My interests have since expanded, but I assume that people who don't get a kick out of our domestic political news would really hate anything about the rest of the world. So if you don't care, don't waste your time reading any more.

Since no one is left, here we go. There were some fascinating events in the Middle East last week. In the last few years, Israel has gotten tired of continual attacks on them by Palestinians living within their borders. In response, Israel basically gave them their own land to live in and rule as they choose (Gaza, from what I understand, though it's still technically part of Israel). Gaza is between Egypt and the rest of Israel, and it's sealed in between walls on both sides. The Egypt-Gaza wall was originally created by Israel for their own defense before they gave up the land. The Gaza-Greater Israel wall exists for obvious reasons.

Anyway, last week, after months of working on it, the Palestinians knocked down the wall to Egypt. The Egyptian government was completely surprised by this, and they have been unable to handle the effects of it. (Like most other Muslim Middle Eastern governments, they are completely incompetent in anything other than throwing oil money at fomenting terrorism around the world, except Egypt has no oil. Thus, they suck at pretty much everything.)

At first, I thought this was bad news for Israel, since the Palestinians could freely go back and forth into Egypt to get food, supplies, and weapons to strengthen their attacks on Israel. However, this column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal goes into much more depth than I've explained here. What I took from it is that Egypt and the rest of the Middle Eastern countries have much more to fear from it. If you have any interest in this stuff, I would recommend reading it.

Why don't I want McCain to win?

My thoughts summarized perfectly by a reader of The Corner:

I agree with what some of the conservative talk show hosts have been saying that McCain would destroy the Republican party. As president, he would make backroom deals with Democrats while the Republican minority in Congress would be obligated to back him for the most part. He may do almost as much damage to our nation as a Democratic president and he wouldn't have a vocal and active opposition. It could be a disaster to our nation and our party.

Will on the Clintons and McCain

George Will's column today starts off with a look at the Democratic presidential race. He then talks about Romney-McCain, and ends up with a very unfavorable comparison for McCain, at least in the minds of Republicans. It's an interesting read for all.

Post-mortem of the Thompson campaign

Andrew Fergusin has an excellent article in The Weekly Standard about the failure of Fred's campaign and what it means about the electorate and the political process:

If Thompson could plausibly avoid an overnight campaign trip, he did, preferring to return home to his wife and children in suburban Virginia. He spent an inordinate amount of time with his briefing books. And his response to the chore of raising money--the chief occupation of every office-seeker in this era of campaign finance reform, which was intended to reduce the role of money in politics--seemed nearly pathological. Fundraising events scheduled to last two or three hours often guttered out when the candidate departed after twenty minutes. High-end donors complained of being uncourted, unpampered, unloved--even unphoned. At one party in a private home last year, Thompson made the rounds of money-shakers, delivered brief remarks, and then slipped into a bedroom to watch a basketball game on TV by himself.

That seems like the kind of guy I'd like to be president. There's also an interesting history of presidential campaigning:

Political campaigns have always been boisterous affairs, but candidates themselves rarely took center stage till well into the 20th century. The first presidential candidate even to make an appearance on his own behalf was William Henry Harrison in 1840. When he showed up in Columbus, Ohio, to give a speech extolling his (exceedingly thin) record, the political world was scandalized. An opposition paper, the Democratic Globe, counted his uses of the pronoun "I"--there were 81 of them in his text--and pronounced the speech "a prodigy of garrulous egotism." The Cleveland Adviser, a nonpartisan paper, asked: "When was there ever before such a spectacle as a candidate for the Presidency, traversing the country advocating his own claims for that high and responsible station? Never!"

Meanwhile, I'll be spending my day hoping Romney can slay the McCain beast in Florida.

Victory Auto Wreckers

So everyone who grew up with Chicago TV knows this commercial. It was probably state-of-the-art when it came out in 1983 when I was watching Sanford And Son or whatever after school, but now it's just odd. Even the transplants (you know who you are) have seen it, I bet.

The best part is that it seems to have been narrated by Dean Richards, who has been at WGN for seemingly ever. Now he does movie reviews for their morning show. Perhaps my connection over at Tribune can verify.

Obama for the Democratic nomination

I know it's not my fight (as a conservative, and therefore a Republican), but I agree with this post on RedState. If you don't know, RedState is probably the biggest independent Republican website (as opposed to conservative website).

Anyway, here is the money quote:

The other reason I favor Obama is that I find Hillary Clinton and her political machine to be a detestable and diseased entity that has no business being near the White House. She is an unlikeable politician who uses slimeball tactics to get her way. If she is so willing to take the low road on the campaign trail against a fellow Democrat, there is plenty of reason to believe she would do the same against Republican opponents by orders of magnitude, and there is plenty of reason to believe she would do the same as president. I would rather not have another four or eight years of white-hot, gloves-off hyperpartisanship. We are a nation at war and we don't need that.

Movie Review - Death Proof

I'm staying in tonight and drinking beers since I am heading to Valpo tomorrow morning for the VU-Loyola game. In the meantime, I am watching the NBA League Pass free preview of the Hawks and Sonics. Boring, I know, but I just finished Grindhouse: Death Proof. It was pretty much awesome.

It was sort of like two movies jammed into one. With Kurt Russell as the antagonist, he's one of my favorite actors ever and that alone would make this movie good.

However, there were a few other things going for it. First, there is an extended scene of people hanging out at a bar and getting drunk. It looked pretty fun. Second, there were some great action scenes. Third, there was a tremendous collection of talent.

For example, there is the always effervescent Rose McGowan:

Then there is this girl, who I have seen before somewhere but can't place it. I don't remember where I saw her. She sort of looks like the Chino girlfriend that Ryan knocked up in The OC. Yep, she's giving the best lap dance ever in this scene:

Here is Cheryl Ladd's daughter:

Lucy McClane from Live Free or Die Hard is here, too, and wearing a cheerleader outfit the whole time. Of course, if Minnie Driver was in LFoDH I would probably think she was good-looking, too:

I always wax back and forth on how attractive Rosario Dawson is. She's not Hollywood hot, but she is regular life hot, so I'll give her a thumbs up:

This girl is basically just a stunt woman who was cast as herself (a stunt woman filming a movie) and also did her own stunts in this movie. And when you see it, you'll see that these stunts are freaking crazy. Anyway, she's a Kiwi:

Last and certainly not least is Sidney Poitier's daughter. I'm not going to write any more than she is the most attractive gal in the movie to me. She's also 5'11", so maybe that's part of why I like her. Her character's name is Jungle Julia, but I'm quite sure what that's supposed to mean:

Since this already the longest blog post of all time, here are some other cool pictures I found on Google Images:

Chamber of Commerce and illegal immigration

I always figured the US Chamber of Commerce's push for illegals was due to money. By that I mean that they wanted to both hire people more cheaply and also have more people to buy their goods.

Mark Krikorian, National Review's resident immigration expert, has a different take that I found interesting:

Obviously, the supporters of amnesty and loose borders and high immigration levels think (mistakenly, in my opinion) that it's good for the economy. But very few of the most vocal actors are driven mainly by those concerns. Even Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is driven by a quasi-religious fervor for open immigration, in my experience with him, something that actually harms the strictly economic interests of those who pay his salary. For instance, after a presentation he and I, and a few others, took part in, I had lunch with the chairman of one of the nation's largest corporations, who asked rhetorically something to the effect of "Does amnesty and the rest really matter to us? [meaning the other Fortune 100 CEOs and chairmen at the event] We pay way above minimum wage and don't have many illegal aliens working for us." He's right of course, but they like Donohue, he's done a good job for them generally, so they defer to his crusade for amnesty and open borders, including hiring MALDEF's former national policy analyst as the Chamber's director of immigration policy.

Groping the women that Americans won't

I guess the men from this country are the ones who are just hardworking folks who we should legalize. No culture problems here:

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Groping and verbal harassment is an exasperating reality for women using public transportation in this sprawling capital, where 22 million passengers cram onto subways and buses each day.

Mrs. McCain speaks

Whenever someone questions John McCain's age as he runs for president (he's 71), he mentions his 95-year-old mother as evidence that he's not too old. The point is that his mom is still pretty sharp and spry.

(I'll add that despite all of the grief I give him, McCain's age doesn't bother me a bit. Reagan was 69, I think, when he was first elected and he did fine. In addition, McCain's mind is OK to me.)

Anyway, she does the occasional interview. Here's an excerpt of a recent one:

Q: How much support do you think he has among the base of the Republican Party?

Roberta McCain: “I don’t think he has any. I don’t know what the base of the Repub–maybe I don’t know enough about it, but I’ve not seen any help whatsoever.”

Yep, she still knows what she's talking about!

Check out the blog redesign

The L-Train has redesigned her blog, and I must say it looks very snappy. Kudos!

More welfare

So, it looks like the President and Congress have come up with some dopey plan to stimlate the economy. I'll play along that it actually do so (even though it won't do anything) and focus on the plan itself.

Here are the details:

Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed to drop increases in food stamp and unemployment benefits during a Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining rebates of at least $300 for almost everyone earning a paycheck, including low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes.

Families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an overall cap of perhaps $1,200, according to a senior House aide who outlined the deal on condition of anonymity in advance of formal adoption of the whole package. Rebates would go to people earning below a certain income cap, likely individuals earning $75,000 or less and couples with incomes of $150,000 or less.

First of all, I don't want to tell people how much I make, but let's just say I'm outside of the "almost everyone" group this unnamed reporter mentions. I don't make so much money that I couldn't use a few hundred dollars to blow at a bar or something.

Second, if it goes to people who don't pay income taxes, it's not a rebate. It's welfare. Let's stop calling it a rebate.

Third, if it increases linearly with every kid you have, it's not a rebate. It's welfare. There I go again!

Fourth (relating to my first point), if it's means-tested, it's not a rebate. It's welfare. See what these people are doing to me?

So it's all about showering poor people and their kids kids with money so they can blow it on lottery tickets or the craps table or whatnot. Great use of our tax money. Oops, I wasn't going to get into the issue of this actually helping the economy...

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has made this one of her pet issues, and she has much more.

Illegal Immigration - still elites vs. commoners

As described in this article about how black people are getting increasingly cranky about it:

But as immigration reignited as a national issue in 2006, ambivalence has increasingly given way to opposition to current policies—and even to anger. When Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a columnist for BlackNews.com, wrote a series of pieces sympathizing with illegal aliens, the volume of hostile mail that poured in from other blacks shocked him. Illegal immigration has sizzled as a topic on African-American stations like satellite radio XM’s “The Power,” with most callers demanding more immigration restrictions. African-American bloggers have excoriated black politicians who favor liberal immigration policies. “In the realm of pandering black elites, there is no more notorious public figure than [Texas] Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee,” wrote Elizabeth Wright in the online newsletter Issues & Views. “According to Jackson-Lee, those blacks who forcefully oppose mass immigration are simply naive and are being ‘baited’ [by white opponents of immigration] into taking such negative positions.”

Heath Ledger's legacy?

I could have told him it would be a bad career move...

Watching The Biggest Loser, the commercial break had a teaser for the 10 PM news. What did the announcer say? "Brokeback Mountain star found dead. Details at 10."

So is that what people are going to remember him for?

Biggest Loser in Phoenix

So to start the show they said they will be in Phoenix this weekend. In addition, Hollie is going to be there.

I'd consider going except it could end up like Borat meeting Pam Anderson.

Resignation

In South Carolina on Saturday, John McCain blew away my expectations to actually win in their primary. I don't really understand how. I am left with the positive that he only got 33% of the vote, but it's not helping things.

Fred's toast. He put a huge effort into the state and finished a very distant third. If he can't win there, he's not going to win anywhere. My faint hope for him is that he stays in the race and we have a brokered convention. In that case, since he's a solid number 2 for many of the delegates he may sneak through with the nomination. That's not exactly realistic, though.

I now must deal with the very real possibility that McCain may end up the nominee. Yes, he's the same guy who flirted with the idea of changing parties after W pounded him in the 2000 primaries. He's a jerk and a sore loser, and I still can't believe Republicans are going to nominate him.

Anyway, the question is what to do. In the short term, it's to get behind Romney for the Feb 5 primary here in Illinois. In the long term, assuming McCain ends up the nominee, it's tough. I either vote for him or sit home. I am leaning towards sitting at home on the idea that I'd rather the effects of liberal policies get pinned on Democrats than Republicans. Plus, I don't want to see his perpetual poking of conservatives rewarded. On the other hand, court nominees are important (although I'm almost certain McCain would screw conservatives by putting Souter types on the court who would start off moderate and move to the left).

At this point, even Huckabee is preferable to me. I can't believe I just wrote that. Please, somebody stop McCain.

Can't Buy Me Love trivia

I was poking around IMBD and I found out that the little brother in Can't Buy Me Love was played by Seth Green! I never knew that, but maybe it's common knowledge. Anyway, there you go.

I love Japanese whalers

They offered some dopey anti-whaling protesters who boarded their ship whale meat. Ha!

You've got to love the London papers

News and photos from Liverpool's Christmas party.

You can tell it's in England because the OBL costume wouldn't fly here. I like the picture of Fernando Torres, though.

Immigration post of the day

Also from Michelle Malkin, this is possibly her top issue. It's nothing earth shattering, but here's a line she quotes that really sums up why I care so much about this issue (and why elites who don't just don't understand):

Moreover, people who live with the influx of poorly-educated, low-skilled illegal immigrants see the strains that this demographic wave puts on their communities.

Bingo. If I lived in a nicer (meaning, of course, white) neighborhood, I would never see the terrible effects of open borders. Since I live in what is practically Little Tijuana, though, I know EXACTLY their effect on the country.

That's something the elites (like the president, John McCain, and any other conservative who is for open borders, along with just about every liberal) just don't get. They live in great neigborhoods and their only interaction with the wave of illegals is when they are mowing their lawns or watching their kids. To them, illegals are just a bunch of hard-working folks who help our country.

They don't see the Balkanization of neighborhoods where half the signs are in Spanish. They don't see the ranchers who live on the border who have to worry for their safety and continually fix or replace their property (including livestock that gets killed). They don't see communities in border states that need to close hospitals because they can no longer afford to give illegals free care. They don't see the gigantic strain that waves of illegals puts on school in those same communities. They also don't see the crime associated with a huge underclass of uneducated, poor, non-English-speaking people.

I love this blog post

Michelle Malkin is mostly known as a fairly attractive, fairly young (about age 36) rhetorical right-wing bombthrower (though not at Coulter-esque levels). She loves to take on things that not many others do. One of the issues she's been on lately is a proposed housing bailout for people who can't afford their new mortgages.

Today she has a post on her blog reprinting some e-mails she's received from people who are cranky as heck about the government giving breaks to people who bought more house than they could afford because of their own stupidity/greed (which is everyone who did so). It's a thing of beauty for anyone who has tried to buy a home the right way. Here's a sample:

I’ve been following your coverage on the “housing crisis” and thought I’d add a quick thought. I was very tempted a couple years ago to use an ARM to buy a house for myself, especially after hearing the majority of my friends advocating how cheap it was. After doing some research, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to afford the potential rate increases. So, I am still in an apartment, waiting to save up some more for my future house. I’m trying to figure out why people that make just as much as I do will be able to keep houses they can’t afford, while I will get to stay in an apartment, for the simple reason that I did my due diligence. And I’m not even going to bring up the fact that it looks like my tax money will go to helping them out even more. Once again, responsible people are punished by the government.

The whole thing is worth reading. Will anyone in government or in the presidential race stand up to this tide? Besides that nut-job Ron Paul, I mean. How about you, Fred?

Gangrel is a director of "adult movies"

If you know who that is, your name is Andy or Bryan.

Hyperbole at the RTA

In this article about the new public transit deal (you know, where the state pours a bunch of money into the CTA, Metra, and Pace and old people ride for free), RTA Executive Director Steve Schlickman had this to say:

"We can’t afford to have fare increases and service cuts this Sunday. It would be the worst thing to happen to transit in this region, in this state and possibly this country if we allow that to happen,” Schlickman said, pounding his fist on the table at one point.

Did everyone else in the room start laughing at him? The service cuts are 81 circuitous bus routes that have low ridership. The fare increases would be an extra $1 during rush hour. And this would be the worst thing to happen to transit in this country?

I'm not the only one that likes Anna Faris

So does some guy at the Boston Globe:

Maybe you know who Anna Faris is. Maybe you don't. It probably depends on how old you are. The actress's recognizability - her pop-culture Q score, if you will - splits neatly along age lines because, frankly, she appears in movies that people who like to think of themselves as grown-ups tend to avoid. Youth comedies, splattery horror farces, things like that.

And she steals them.

Arizona's crackdown on illegals is working too well

So well, in fact, that Mexican officials have gone there to lobby to have it repealed. It's interesting that rather than try to solve their own problems they want to just export them here:

At a news conference Tuesday, they said Sonora cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers in Arizona return to their hometowns without jobs or money.

Unlike how they arrived here...

Yeah, TS guys. Maybe if you had a functional country rather than a lawless narco-state you wouldn't actually like shipping your population off to other countries.

Coach Dungy not good enough for some fans

As the title says, be careful what you wish for, Colts fans.

Huckabee no longer for a nationwide indoor smoking ban?

That's the headline, but I don't read it that way. He doesn't come out and say he'd veto a bill that Congress passed:

In its statement to The Hill, the campaign stated, “At a Lance Armstrong cancer forum last August, Governor Huckabee said that if Congress presented him with legislation banning smoking in public places, he would sign it, because he would not oppose the overwhelming public support that such a congressional vote would reflect. However, since such sentiment for federal legislation doesn’t exist at this time, and since he has said that the responsibility for regulating smoking initially lies with the states, the governor believes that this issue is best addressed at the local and state levels.”

That's pretty weak stuff. Why is he backtracking anyway? Because his stance is not popular among conservatives and he's getting pounded on it:

Huckabee’s initial position on a smoking ban provided his opponents with fodder to pad their argument that the ex-governor lacks the conservative credentials to represent the GOP in the 2008 general election.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) chose tobacco-rich South Carolina as a staging ground to attack Huckabee on a smoking ban last week.

“He said he would sign a bill that would ban smoking nationwide. So much for federalism. So much for states’ rights. So much for individual rights,” Thompson said during a debate in Myrtle Beach.

Thompson is not the only conservative who has attacked Huckabee’s embrace of a smoking ban.

Conservative columnist George Will and American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene, a columnist for The Hill, each raised the smoking issue to criticize Huckabee, as have countless conservative and libertarian bloggers.

As much as I dislike smoking bans, a federal one would be worst of all. Why should that be the federal government's concern? It's a different argument than the one I would use against state and local bans. (I do like how I am included in that last part! Hey, it's technically true.)

I'll take that bet!

John McCain: "We will win in South Carolina."

I don't think so. After losing in Michigan, he's just about done and he knows it. I am pleased. Patrick Ruffini has much more, including a look at the numbers and some analysis going forward.

Michigan presidential primary today

Due to the way the DNC is running their system, the Democratic primary is basically pointless, as Hillary is running unopposed.

On the Republican side, however, it's very competitive. Last I saw, Romney was at 33%, McCain was at 28%, and Huckabee was at 17% (Rudy and Fred made no effort there).

Assuming this holds up, Romney will have a nice win. He was expected to do well, but so was McCain. This may be the end of McCain, though, since this was an open primary (meaning that anyone can vote in either race). He has lots of appeal to independents and Democrats who would be bored by the lack of a race on that side. In future races closed to Republican voters, he won't do so well since Republicans dislike him.

Anyway, it's nice to see Romney do well and McCain and Huckabee not. If I think of anything else to add later I'll post it.

Are Arabs portrayed badly by Hollywood?

According to one group, yes.

But of course, it's a load of crap. Seven years ago we were attacked by 19 Muslim Arabs. Hollywood has made loads of movies making Arabs the bad guys, right? Actually no, since they are far too left-wing to use actual enemies of us in their movies, instead going for white supremacist groups or such.

It's funny in that video montage of Arabs being shown in a negative light that United 93 wasn't part of it. I guess showing them taking over planes and ruthlessly killing thousands of people hits a little close to home when it's a true story.

Zubaz are back!

Yes, that's right. I know a certain weightlifting nerd who would probably love to have some to wear to the gym:

Their popularity had waned by the 1990s, but Stock and Truax decided last fall they would introduce Zubaz via the Internet, where you can now get the the unisex, zebra-striped pants, in six colors, exclusively at www.zubaz.com. They're priced at $29.99.

Megan from Age of Love

We all remember Megan from Age Of Love starring The Poo. She's the girl who goes to Loyola and freaks out on plane flights:



Anyway, a co-worker of mine briefly went into a club called Cabaret this weekend. While there, who was working as a waitress (and wearing only underwear, I guess, as is the theme of the place)? Megan.

My co-worker talked to her about the show. Megan seemed a bit perturbed at first, but then my co-worker complimented her and ripped on the other chicks. Megan seemed pleased to hear that.

I'd rather eat a bowl of broken glass than go to Cabaret, but any of you Age Of Love fans who want to meet her can now do so. Just be sure to kiss her butt or else feel her annoyance.

New Get Smart movie

So I guess there is a movie for Get Smart coming out this year. It stars Steve Carell, which is nice enough. However, it co-stars both Anne Hathaway (very nice) and The Rock. It's the first movie this year that has me mildly interested.



Anne Hathaway has really turned into something special. From those idiotic Princess Diaries movies:



To this:

TO cried

Say it ain't so, TO, say it ain't so!

Life and wrestling sometimes mix

I was watching the Xavier-Fordham game today on CSTV, and who was doing play-by-play? None other than Jonathan Coachman.

If you know who he is, your name is Bryan or Andy.

Oh no you didn't!

Apparently Hillary has been causing some racial turmoil in the Democratic presidential race.

All I can say is that I couldn't be more pleased. It's quite funny for liberals to accuse one of their own of racism since they are always so eager to label conservatives as such. Not so much fun, is it Hillary?

I take it back; Ron Paul IS a crank

And a racist and anti-Semite, too.

I was feeling pretty blase about the news that Ron Paul had for about ten years published some newsletters under his name that had some pretty nasty, conspiracy-minded stuff in it. I mean, who has the energy any more for him? Did he write them or didn't he, and so on.

Anyway, after the debate last night where the Ronulans were bombarding the dopey Fox News text message poll about who won the debate, I started to get cranky about him. I mean, Paul showed himself to be basically a clown, comic relief, and a punching bag for the other normal and sane candidates. And 35% of the viewers who bothered to respond to the poll thought he won? What planet was I on?

Then I read something today by Ace with his take on those newsletters and Reason magazine's response. (Apparently Reason is a big supporter of his libertarian ways; I generally avoid the libertarian Right out of laziness so I'm not sure.) Ace basically takes him apart, and I can't argue. It's long and good, so I won't excerpt any of it here.

Anyway, poking around his site more, I see Ace has been one of the main guys criticizing Paul. Again, I have converted to be with him 100%.

Ron Paul showed in last night's debate that he's a buffoon, and that performance and his newsletters show that he should be excluded from the debates.

Twins get married

They were separated at birth.

SC Republican debate wrap from 1/10/08

I think somebody slipped Fred Thompson some speed last night, as he was totally on fire. Fine performance.

McCain was giving his usual dopey half liberal/half conservative answers. Please, people, wake up and stop voting for this man!

Huckabee was lame again, but he held on well enough. Romney and Giuliani were their usual competent selves.

We'll see how much this helps Fred in SC.

Here comes the CTA bailout!

Not a surprise when you have Democrats in charge of everything on the state level of government. I mean, of course they were going to throw money at a failing mass transit system. It's in their DNA or something.

Anyway, as a daily rider, I will actually benefit from paying a little more in sales taxes (especially since I'll just make more big purchases in Indiana or online) to keep fares down. Since I'm not a selfish a-hole, however, I realize that's not a good reason to support it.

However, I'd like to make a point about part of the plan, and why government management of anything is so stupid:

Key Illinois lawmakers appeared ready Thursday to back Gov. Blagojevich's surprise offering of free bus and train fare for senior citizens in order to avert a Jan. 20 meltdown of the CTA.

Sounds nice, right? Let old people ride for free.

Well, I'm going to analyze this in economic terms (keeping in mind I don't know much about economics). Who is most likely to ride the CTA? People who can't or don't want to drive, for whatever reason. That would be mostly people who are poor and/or old. So old people, who are more likely to ride anyway, now will ride for free. That means people who are less likely to ride (younger and more affluent) now are paying an even greater share of fares.

In addition, more old people clogging up the busses and trains (which is what will happen with free rides) will only drive younger people away since they are so slow and take up so much room.

How many private businesses would do this? Businesses understand incentives. They give senior discounts, sure, but it's to entice old people to do things they might not otherwise do. This plan is like Wal-Mart giving a 20% discount on Ensure or Metamucil for seniors.

Rain jerks

Not a sequel to Rain Man. I mean how everyone turns into a huge, inconsiderate a-hole walking around when it rains. It's quite amazing, as though it's not water coming down from the clouds but hydrochloric acid and they need to escape it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE:

Out of my way, puny serf. I am king of the sidewalk, and since my hair is getting covered in this cool, harmless substance I will rampage about like Godzilla until I get home, at which point I will cry to my lame girlfriend about how horrible it was. Then I will sip on some merlot and have a sliver of brie while I breathlessly complain about the big ogre in the Bears jacket who dared defy my will.

Yes, I am hating everyone right now. It's why I started this blog, really. (And here you thought it was so I could annoy you all with my right-wing rants about this and that.)

History of the iPhone

It's long, but good.

Presidential primaries update

I haven't written much about the New Hampshire results from last night. That's because I don't have any original thoughts anyone couldn't find somewhere else. I'm kind of surprised that Hillary won on the Dem side, but then so is everyone else. Mickey Kaus has some theories. I'm not sure I believe in the Bradley Effect, though. It's always easy to accuse other people of racism and conservatives get more than their fair share of it from liberals. As a result, I don't want to get into it.

Anyway, there is lots of bloviating on all sides as to what the results so far mean. I really have no idea at this point other than that Romney is far from done (he leads the Republican side in delegates, for goodness sake!). There is still too much that is going to happen. Quin Hillyer has a fairly anti-McCain blog post with some historical perspective on the race at this point. It's a very good reminder that pundits and the press (and pro-McCain conservatives) need to calm down:

Last night's results should prove once and for all that "polls" and "facts" are almost mutually exclusive things. Especially during presidential primary season, polls about the fall horse race are virtually meaningless. At about this time in 1980, for instance, Jimmy Carter held a nearly two-to-one (!!!!) lead over Ronald Reagan, even as Reagan led the national horse race polls within the GOP. Another thing that is overrated is money. In 1976, Reagan was dead broke and had lost five straight contests and was in terrible shape in the polls. Then Jesse Helms helped him beat Ford in North Carolina, and everything changed. Therefore, what is more important in analyzing who can beat whom in the fall isn't current polls, it is logic combined with past performance and with more generic, NON-PERSONALITY based surveys.

He then goes on to analyze what may happen to McCain in the general election if he wins the nomination.

Baseball Hall of Fame voting results

Whoever voted for Shawon Dunston needs to have his voting rights revoked permanently. I'm am not joking.

Details on that amnesty bill John McCain championed last year

Here you go. Remember, this is what he really believes, not what is coming out of his mouth now:

In other words, illegals wouldn't have to pay fines and wait to become citizens to get Social Security. They'd qualify for Social Security almost immediately, as soon has they got their quickie "probationary" Z-visas. But most might not get credit for earlier work done here illegally, at least immediately. That depends on whether you're talking about the 2006 McCain or the 2007 McCain.

The Top 25 Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

From Cracked.

Effects of a Huckabee nomination

There is a post on Powerline about what would happen if Mike Huckabee gets the Republican nomination. It goes into lots of detail about what I ranted about after his Iowa win:

If Huckabee goes on to win more primaries he will have a reasonable claim to the nomination. He may, of course, lose New Hampshire, New York, California and Michigan. But let’s suppose that he manages to win enough primaries in the southern and border states to make the results in those three states irrelevant. It’s all a question of numbers. In spite of itself, the party might end up with him as its nominee, and with it, heading down the shortest road to disaster since the Goldwater debacle of 1964.

Make no mistake about it: an electoral defeat of these dimensions would represent a major watershed in the history of the Republican party. It would be faced with only two possible roads forward. One is to become the party of the religious right, a sectarian agglomeration somewhat like the small ethnic parties in inter-war Europe, perhaps capable of holding some governorships and seats in Congress but never again competitive in a presidential election. The other would be to cut itself free from the religious right and seek to appeal to the wide and growing tranche of independent voters who are socially liberal but economically conservative. In that case the Republican party would gradually resemble some of the “liberal” (that is, conservative) parties who periodically win national elections in Western Europe or Canada. These parties are friendly to market-based solutions to economic problems—that is, they are broadly libertarian.

Sunday Republican debate recap

We had ANOTHER debate tonight. Here's a quick recap (once again, beware of my biases):

Romney was outstanding. It was just a 180 degree turnaround from last night. He was great at not letting criticism bother him, and his answers were almost perfect. I really can't emphasize enough how good he was. In addition, pollster Frank Luntz said people were going crazy over some of his answers, and he turned a who crapload of undecideds towards him. After tonight, the gap between him and Fred has shrunk a lot for me (no slight to Fred).

McCain wasn't nearly as nasty tonight, so that was a big improvement for him. However, he still had the same lame answers. That's about the best grade he's going to get from me, so take that for what it's worth.

Rudy was his usual self. He really has a solid grasp of the issues (other than immigration).

Fred was very good, as usual. However, on Fox News they just had Luntz ask a group of undecided Republican voters who the worst one was tonight, and about 80% said Fred. Yikes. As much as I like him, I'm starting to think it's just not going to happen for him. However, he's a Southerner and HW voters hate Southerners. (I know, I'm grasping for straws here; I have to go on his website and buy some Fred stuff before he drops out.) He's still got a good shot at winning SC, though, so we'll see.

Huckabee was lame again, but even worse than last night. He dodged questions and just talked in Obama-ish platitudes. That works in the Democratic side because Hillary and Edwards are such terrible candidates, but these other 4 guys here are just too strong for that junk to work. In the post-game show on Hannity and Colmes, hebrought his wife out with him. Hmmm, is she a human shield so they take it easy on him? Given his history, I'd say the answer is yes. And yes, I really don't like him.

Tom Cruise is insane

Or so basically says a new book about him. It appears to be huge expose on Scientology and his role in it. I never thought I would want to read a book like this, but I want to read this one. Please, read this article.

I was horrified to read this about my gal Sofia Vergara:

Cruise's shorter-lived relationship with Vergara included a visit to the Scientologists' Celebrity Centre in California.

Morton claims: "It was on this trip that Sofia realised Tom was never alone. Everywhere he went, he was surrounded by Scientologists. They were at his home, they were in his car, they were at the restaurant. They were never short of smiles, but she found them 'powerful and authoritarian'.

"One friend told me, 'She met his children, there is no doubt he was auditioning her for the part of his wife.' Sofia told friends she had been deliberately targeted not only as a possible bride for Tom, but as a high-profile Scientology recruit who would be an alluring figurehead for a future recruitment drive in Latin America."

Because some of you may not know her, I've spent a few grueling minutes finding some pictures to help. Remeber, I'm a humanist, above all:

Yes, Tom Cruise tried to ruin her life. Thank goodness she's too normal to let it happen. I might have had to go to LA to kick his ass personally. I guess we can be happy he only did it to a much lesser creature in Katie Holmes:

Why Ron Paul doesn't belong in debates any more

The people want me to expand on why I think Ron Paul is a crank. That may have been going a little too far, so I'll take that back. Still, here is my reasoning for why I wrote it at first.

First, some background. I understand that he's really a libertarian, and he thinks the Republican party should shift in that direction as the more conservative party. I can respect that on a certain level, as I have a lot of sympathy for going back to the original intent of the constitution.

I very much disagree with him on his foreign policy views, as he thinks our meddling in Middle Eastern countries is causing Islamic terrists to want to strike against us. He's wrong, but I can see in a very limited way how he can think that. Also, I'm by no means an expert on our monetary system, but his views on the Federal Reserve seem kind of silly. I mean, it's not going away, so what's the point in railing against it? It just makes him seem nutty.

Despite all that, until last night I merely respectfully disagreed with him on these issues. However, last night he had the time to expand on his answers, and it wasn't pretty. Even on questions not having anything to to do with monetary policy or foreign policy, he was steering his answers toward those issues near the end of them. The result was a bunch of rambling, meandering statements that kind of hit on all these views. He was completely unfocused, and he was more like a crazy bum on the street talking about how the Trilateral Commission was after him. That's why I called him a crank, but I'll retract it, as it was mainly due to a horrible debate performance.

Fred at one point did a great job of calling Paul out on his views on the Fed and marginalizing him, and after that the other five guys basically ignored him. Thankfully, so did the moderator.

Paul has a very intense support, which translates into mildly respectable poll numbers and surprisingly good fundraising. However, he just isn't going to break beyond his current level of support. He's just not going to get the support of the majority of the Republican party who are concerned about Islamic terrorism. It's a reasonable proposition that any of the other five could, though, which is why I'm glad he's being excluded from the Fox News debate tonight. He just doesn't add anything at this point for people who are trying to determine who they want to support.

UPDATE: Vodkapundit drunkblogged (as he puts it) the debate last night. It's a good recap. One thing to note is that he was sympathetic to Paul, but he didn't like him last night, either.

Democratic debate wrap

Not much to write about. However, if you played a drinking game where you took a drink every time one of them said "change," you'd be dead.

Over on The Corner, there are a couple of pretty funny posts, first from Mark Steyn:

I love it every time Hillary says "I've been an agent of change" - it makes CHANGE sound like some deeply sinister SMERSH-type acronym. Was she like Valerie Plame? A covert agent of CHANGE?

Then Stephen Spruiell:

Apropos Mark Steyn's earlier post on Hillary's covert work as an agent of C*H*A*N*G*E, Mark and Jonah just figured out what the acronym stands for: Corporate Hatred And New Government Expenditures.

Republican debate wrap

Keep in mind my tremendous biases...

Fred did pretty well. The format was good for him in that he had time to expound on topics. On the other hand, he wasn't aggressive enough in answering questions. I'm not sure that's bad, though, since he looked different from some of the other guys on stage. His common sense conservatism worked well here.

Ron Paul had time to show the world that he may as well wear a tinfoil hat. He's a crank, and he should not have been invited.

Rudy was decent. He was bad on immigration (as usual) but solid on everything else.

Romney was a pinata for the other guys, as they really went after him. He tried to stay above it, but he could only do so much. I don't know how much the cheap shots by McCain and Huckabee will affect him. He could be sunk, or he could get a lot of sympathy. Also, he seemed kind of rattled all night. I think he's not thrilled with having to come from behind and it showed. He's very good on policy details, though.

McCain was an ass. His constant pokes at Romney made his seem like a jerk. Thankfully, he was horrible on immigration as usual. Hopefully lots of people watched it and grew to hate him again, much like I have for a long time.

Huckabee looked horrible in this format. He's the king of one-liners, and substantive policy debates make him look like an amateur. In addition, he looked kind of petty with the McCain-like shots on on Romney. His answers were generally bad, but even worse were his constant lies about his beliefs. Small government? Right! Amazing how your positions changed in TWO DAYS. And you have the gall to go after Romney for changing his positions on some things? The gall of this guy...

By the way, the Democratic debate just started. I don't know how long I can watch this. It's not the answers or Hillary. It's Edwards. The guy is so phony, he makes Huckabee seem like Ronald Reagan. I can't handle watching him. (In fairness, Gibson is REALLY challenging their silly answers; I may have to stay around for this after all.)

Tonight's debates

I'm through about 25 minutes of the Republican debate (with the NFL on picture in picture). I plan watching both this one and the Democratic one immediately following it.

All I'd like to point out now is that this format is the best I've seen this election. The candidates are sitting around a semi-circular table and there are no time limits. The moderator (Charles Gibson) brings up big themes, and calls on these guys to discuss their ideas. Best of all is that they have plenty of time to go after each other. Gibson is keeping it civil, generally though. He's done a nice job.

OK, I don't want to get into anything these guys have said yet, but Huckabee is lying AGAIN. I'd read earlier today that as soon as he hit New Hampshire yesterday he completely changed his stump speech to being for freedom and small government. That's a 180 from what he talking about in Iowa. Well, he now just said that one of his principles is that people should be able to live their lives without the government bothering them. This is the same guy who wants a nationwide indoor smoking ban! It's appalling. Does he believe in anything?

One more thing...I understand that Ron Paul is here because he polls around 7 or 8 percent in New Hampshire. Fine, but he has no chance of winning the nomination. His main role here is to poison the atmosphere for everyone else on stage with his nutjob foreign policy views. He really shouldn't be here, and I'm glad Fox News is excluding him from their debate tomorrow. He's really nuts, but Fred just mocked him! Excellent.

New face of Bally Total Fitness

I've been seeing these new commercials for Bally's and was thinking that the girl talking in them was Marisol Nichols. Lo and behold, I was right. She was in both Vegas Vacation and 24. Here's a picture of her on the red carpet or whatnot:



Here is what is likely a promotional shot for 24:



Unfortunately, I can't find a link to the ad right now. After poking around the Bally website, however, I would like to point out that George Costanza's dream has come true, in that there actually is someone named Seven. The answer to the last question is unsatisfying:

Seven is an unusual name. What’s the origin?

SEVEN: My mom. I blame her…no, I'm just kidding. The number seven has many different meanings in many different cultures. It is considered a mystical number. To me, it has been truly a lucky number.

Interesting look into a Democratic caucus in Iowa

And how it works. It's definitely odd.

Movie Review - Deck The Halls

This is a decent enough family movie (it's rated PG). Matthew Broderick is willing to spend the movie looking like a fool for laughs, so good for him. Danny Devito is pretty good, too, as is that girl from Arrested Development (she's very funny, and she needs to weasel her way into some Jud Apatow movies). Kal Penn has an uncredited cameo.

In addition, there is some older talent. Don't worry, the twins that play Devito's daughters were born in 1984:

Also, they were in that Acuvue commercial for contact lenses that correct astigmatism.

In summary, this movie kind of cliche at times but still moderately entertaining.

Mitt Romney's problem

I think Fred Barnes nails it in The Weekly Standard.

Iowa Republican caucuses recap

Now that THAT'S out of the way, here are my thoughts on the vote last night.

Huckabee obviously got the boost he needed to stay alive. However, Iowa has a strange electorate that isn't easily extrapolated to other states. It can't really be called liberal or conservative (it voted for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004). There is a large share of Evangelical conservatives, which is obviously where he got his support. However, the Republican party's strongholds are (basically) southern and western states. Southern Evangelicals don't fall for Huck's goofy populism on economic issues or his pansified foreign policy stances. They are much more rounded conservatives. I have a hard time believing that he can win in the south (and with South Carolina coming shortly, I imagine he'll falter there). In addition, voters in western states are small-government types, so he would fall flat there. Thankfully, he doesn't have much chance of winning the nomination. Let's not forget that Pat Robertson, of all people, finished second in Iowa in 1988. That's right: PAT ROBERTSON. That's why I don't put too much stock in Iowa's results.

Mitt Romney finished second. It's disappointing to him since he put so much effort into Iowa, but it's still a nice finish. He should do well in New Hampshire on Tuesday, and he's still got the strongest national operation. He'll be around and still have a good shot at winning the nomination.

Fred finished third, just ahead of McCain. Fred got in late and didn't exactly blitz the state with advertising. In addition, the media has pooped all over him from the start of his campaign, so this is a pretty good finish. He should win South Carolina, as the more people see of him, the more they like him. Plus, South Carolina will absolutely appreciate his type of well-rounded conservatism.

McCain's finish is pretty nice given that he didn't spend much time there, and he will do well in New Hampshire. Luckily, New Hampshire's almost (and maybe more so) as goofy as Iowa. They love "mavericks" or whatever, and they went for McCain big in 2000 against Bush. Let's also not forget that the mainstream media wets themselves over him, so that's a nice advantage. However, I just can't believe that Republicans are big enough masochists to nominate a man who has made a career out of beating them up. At least that's my hope.

Rudy finished 6th, but he spent almost no time or effort there. He's been running a national campaign on big, serious issues. The more I hear from him on issues like national security and the size of government, the more I like him. His immigration views are still pretty bad, though. His gambit of blowing off everything until February 5 (when there are a bunch of big states he could do very well in) may pay off. We'll see.

Oh yeah, Ron Paul finished 5th. No chance, though.

Huckabee's win last night

I am pretty tired, so I was going to save this until tomorrow morning. However, reading Quin Hillyer's post on the American Spectator Blog got me fired up again. The topic? Mike Huckabee.

Hillyer was a reporter in Arkansas during Huck's years as governor, so he has followed him for a long time (you can tell he's worked up by the lack of self-editing):

The steady drip-drip-drip of small untruths and ethical shenanigans and the like during my time covering Huck in Arkansas turned me from a Huck admirer to (obviously) a critic. THe man lies the way Bill CLinton does, with great facility and no conscience about it. That's why I say the man is NOT authentic, that he fakes sincerity and authenticity quite well. It's all an act. As is his"nice guy" schtick. Why do you think he hired Ed Rollins? So he can play good cop to Rollins' bad cop, and blame Rollins for all the shivs his campaign sticks into his opponents. And as Mitt Romney found out when Huck did the Mormons/Jesus/Satan routine for the New York Times, Huck knows how to use a shiv. As badly as the big media (rightly) criticized Huck for those comments, they worked remarkably well to drive up Evangelical fears about Mormonism -- just as Huck intended.

Here's the thing that really gets me about Huckabee: his supporters in Iowa (Evangelical Christians) love him because they see him as honestly giving voice to their concerns. Hillyer has shown in a previous article that he's actually pretty dishonest and unethical, and he doesn't have much of a political center. Yes, he was a Baptist preacher, and apparently he knows how to play Evangelicals like a fiddle.

I have heard and read that his support comes from Evangelicals who feel like they have been taken advantage of by the Republican party. While they reliably vote Republican, those in power then ignore their concerns, or so the narative goes. Now comes Huckabee, and he promises to take care of their concerns on social issues.

(This is actually a gigantic load of crap, though. What issues important to social conservatives have Congress and our born-again Evangelical president not helped them on? Can they name one? If anything, us fiscal conservatives have gotten continually kicked in the teeth on spending.)

Fine. They can vote for whoever they want. However, they need to consider the broader implications of nominating him. The Republican coalition has been held together by 3 types of conservatives: social, fiscal, and national security. Huckabee is ONLY a social conservative, and he's liberal on the other two main parts.

Let's take a step back to 2007, though, and remember what many social conservatives and pundits were saying. If Rudy Giuliani, who is personally pro-choice and pro-gay rights, among other things, was nominated, Republicans would risk the social conservative base staying home and thus losing the election. They needed to at least nominate a consensus candidate, such as Mitt Romney (no matter what you think of him, his platform was of broad-based conservatism) for the sake of the party. This despite Rudy's pledge to nominate originalist judges to the federal courts, which is easily the most important thing he could do for social conservatives' cause.

So Evangelicals are a bunch of babies that will stay home unless one of their guys gets nominated, but us fiscal and national security conservatives have to sit back and vote for a pro-life Jimmy Carter-type in the general election in Huckabee? This is a direct assault by social conservatives on fiscal and national security ones, as they clearly don't give a crap about what we think. Go ahead, idiots, nominate Huckabee. Then watch him suffer a Goldwater-style loss as we sit home because you didn't care about us.

My message to any Evangelicals who read this (and I have no illusions that any will) is that you need to think twice before you continue voting for this guy. It's the quickest path to having activist judges on the Supreme Court put there by a Democrat.

Iowa Democratic caucuses recap

For what it's worth, here's what I think about the Democratic caucuses from last night.

I don't have a lot of original ideas about what happened, but basically Obama was able to break through Hillary's sense of inevitability. A few months ago, Hillary was planning on running a national campaign and barely doing anything in Iowa, as her lead everywhere was huge. Then she realized that she could put Obama away by campaigning hard in Iowa and beating him soundly.

Well THAT didn't work out. The main problem, I think, is that people don't like Hillary. By that, I mean she is an unpleasant person. The more people see of her, the less they like her. That's kind of amazing, since she's been very well-known since 1992, but her retail campaigning skills are so bad that it turns people off.

What's more, Iowa (as I'll explain more in my Republican summary) is a quirky state. Obama and his message fits in very well there. Will it continue? I don't know. Hillary still has the best organization nationally, along with tons of money. However, with her sense of inevitability broken, it just may cascade for Obama, carrying him to the nomination.

I haven't written about Edwards because if he can't win Iowa, he won't win anywhere else, either. He's done.

Another anti-Iowa rant

This from Vodkapundit. Lots of good comments, too.

Excellent e-mail posted on The Corner

By Kathryn Jean Lopez:

I know, this is how politics in America works, it's all Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, all the time. But look at the ideological variety on the GOP side, and tell me that if we listen only to the winners coming out of those three states, how can they POSSIBLY produce a consensus candidate for 2008?

The simple fact is, they can't, and I increasingly fear, they won't. I for one know that, as conservative as I am, I couldn't possibly vote for Huckabee in November, and John RINO McCain would require seriously gritted teeth to vote for after all the insults he's hurled our way.

Just because bat-crazy Iowa loves its Huck and looney-tunes New Hampshire loves to vote for mavericks, this means I'm going to lose any chance at all to support Fred, Mitt, or Rudy in a mere month's time? And this is accepted as normal and sane why??

I agree, and I hope these other three hang in there in time for other states to come. I'm not terribly worried about Thompson, though, since I think he'll do very well in South Carolina. They have a very different type of evangelical Republican than is in Iowa, and Fred fits right in with them. I'll have MUCH more later today, though, in my analysis of Iowa and the state of the race for both parties.

I'll be taking a break from 11 to 2 to listen to Rush Limbaugh's take on it, too.

Fox News is killing me

First, Mike Huckabee was on Fox and Friends getting his ass kissed. Rush Limbaugh has been hammering him lately for not being a conservative (and Rush is right), and Huckabee says he'd love to talk to Rush but can't get a hold of him. Yeah right! Rush would put him on his show for an hour if he wanted to be on, but he doesn't want to take the beating.

Now John McCain is getting the same treatment and flat-out lying about his record on taxes.

The worst part is the way the entire network craps all over Fred Thompson on a consistent basis. Right-wing network, indeed.

My theory is that anyone anyone who wants to crack down on illegal immigration gets hammered, and they kiss ass of any Republican who's for amnesty. It's been that way ever since they showed themselves to be for the Senate amnesty bill last summer. So if anyone out there thinks Fox is some bastion of conservatism, think again. It's just not as liberal as CNN or, God forbid, MSNBC. I anticipate more on this as the morning goes on.

UPDATE: Oh jeepers, now Jesse Jackson (ugh) is on. He just said that MLK was qualified to be Secretary of State. That's beyond silly.

UPDATE 2: Reporter Carl Cameron was just on to give some analysis from Iowa, and everything he said was basically wrong. I'll cut him some slack since he pulled an all-nighter, but he's still part of Fox's unrelenting negativity toward Romney and Thompson and ass-kissing of Huckabee and McCain.

UPDATE 3: As much as I complain, I still love the network because of all the hot chicks who work there. That says nothing about the new Fox Business Network.

Home sick and important presidential endorsement

I am home sick today, so there should be a crap-load of blogging today. Let's start off with an endorsement that may help swing some votes in the Democratic primary:

Scarlett Johansson Stumps for Obama in Iowa

If she trashed it up a bit with her outfit I could be persuaded. Ok, maybe still not.

A look into Iowa and the caucuses

From an Iowa-based humorist. Since I've never been to Iowa, I assume it's all true, even this part:

Luckily, Iowa is an almost perfect miniaturized 1/100th scale model of the United States. For example, Northeastern iowa is filled with gritty and glitzy urban financial centers like Dubuque, "Iowa's New York." Iowa's Missouri River West Coast teems with hi-tech Gay entertainment centers like Sioux City ("The San Francisco of Iowa") and Council Bluffs ("The Malibu of Iowa"). With its fashionable supermodel nightclubs and machine gun-wielding drug lords, far southeastern Keokuk is our Miami Beach. And, in the center of it all, there is Des Moines, which is famous as "the Des Moines of Iowa."

Best commerical ever

Featuring George Costanza, but young, skinny, with a full head of hair, singing, and slinging McDLT's.

Special message from "Fred Thompson"

From October, here's "Fred's" vow to our country:

If you elect me as your next president, you will see this woman on TV nearly every day, jogging around the Rose Garden in tight Lycra shorts, bouncing all over the place with a figure that Americans of every stripe—from surgeons to truckers—will want to nail. Yours will be a first lady who is not only hot enough to appear in Playboy, but who might actually be willing to appear in Playboy. And if you choose me to be your next president, that is exactly what she'll do, in the November 2012 issue, guaranteeing me a second term once the public gets a good look at those truly incredible bazongas.

This one's for A-How

A blog that tracks the wrong use of the word "literally"; i. e., Dan Diedorf saying, "Peyton Manning is literally carving up the Chiefs' defense."

Religion of peace

Indeed.

Romney out?

A former Huckabee team member is saying that there are a couple of big scandals regarding Romney:

Joe writes: “Mitt Romney will never be President — I won’t be surprised if Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Caucus. I will be surprised, however, if he’s still in the race when the South Carolina primary comes around. Even if the impending scandal that has been rumored for weeks doesn’t derail his campaign (I can’t say what it is but you should hear about it before Jan. 8), his inherent dishonesty will eventually do him in.”

We'll see. Romney has been very clean his whole life, but that may be why something could sink him. It would have to be pretty big, though, given how much effort and money he's put into his campaign so far. I am skeptical.

It would be too bad, though, because it would knock out my second-favorite guy in the race. Ugh.

Yet more on McCain

This from John Hawkins regarding immigration. Here's the finale:

So, you want amnesty?

Vote for John McCain.

You want the fence, or as John McCain has publicly referred to it "the godd*mned fence" to be quietly mothballed and never be finished?

Vote for John McCain.

You want 12-20 million uneducated, non-English speaking manual workers who came into this country illegally and laughed in contempt at Americans and our laws to become citizens so that they can start collecting welfare, Social Security, and Medicare?

Vote for John McCain.

You want to be told in another 20 years that there are 20-30 more illegal aliens and that we have to make them citizens, too, because the last batch of 12-20 million illegal aliens can vote now and they're demanding that we do so?

Then vote for John McCain because what I've written above is ultimately, exactly what you will get.

These people are idiots

Had they never seen an episode of a reality TV show before? It's not like a documentary, you fools!

We were ruined by reality TV: The humiliated families who dreamed they would be stars