Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Around the World Wide Web 78

1. When McCain beats Obama in a landslide in November, you can think of it as job security for Tina Fey.

2. What's the Matter With Canada? subtitled, "How the world's nicest country turned mean," is actually a story about what is right with Canada. The liberal writer of this piece does not understand freedom and equates socialism with morality, and is therefore baffled by the conservatives in Canada.

Canada was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the fight against climate change, and as recently as 2005 it was the Canadian environment minister who helped broker an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Then last December, at a U.N. conference in Bali to negotiate a successor to Kyoto, Canada executed a neat 180-degree turn, trying to block an agreement that set a target for future cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions. Of the 190 countries at the conference, only Russia supported Canada's position.

Thank you, Canada and Russia! (And what does it say when Russia is saving us from environmentalist regulations?)

...Canada is now the only Western country that still has one of its citizens held in Guantanamo, but Ottawa has refused to press for his release.

Imagine that -- Canada is letting a terrorist rot in Guantanamo. Oh, the humanity.

The Conservative Party, formed five years ago in a merger of the country's two right-wing parties, is Canada's first experience with an anti-government, socially conservative party in the mold of Reagan-Bush Republicans. Its leader, Stephen Harper, who is now the prime minister, once called Canada "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term."

Man, that really is mean. If they keep this up, where will America's Democrats threaten to move if Republicans win an election?

3. How can conservatives listen to Sarah Palin and think she is on the side of freedom? She is every bit as ignorant of economics and every bit the statist nightmare that John McCain is. Watch her speak in Colorado as she promises to continues the trend of expanding regulations and persecuting CEO's. Because management has not run companies "responsibly," this fascist wants to stop "multi-million dollar payouts and golden parachutes to CEO's who break the public trust." She is promising non-objective law and greater intervention in the economy. Her ideas will not solve the problem, which is too much government regulations in the first place.

The coming McCain/Palin administration will be bad for America. Four years from now we will all be a little more enslaved than we are now.

4. Obama meddled in Iraq.

The Obama campaign spent more than five hours on Monday attempting to figure out the best refutation of the explosive New York Post report that quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that Barack Obama during his July visit to Baghdad demanded that Iraq not negotiate with the Bush Administration on the withdrawal of American troops. Instead, he asked that they delay such negotiations until after the presidential handover at the end of January.

The three problems, according to campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation, and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny the comments would create a bigger problem.

Maybe if Obama ignores it long enough the MSM will move on.

As to the original meddling, I think so little Obama's intelligence and his grip on reality that I doubt he understood he was doing anything wrong.

5. Some of Obama's coworkers from the '80s dispute Obama's version of what he did while working at a newsletter publisher. For instance, he says he had a secretary when in reality he did not.

We're not holding our breath until Andrew Sullivan and the Kossacks jump up and down and shriek that Obama is a "LIAR!"

6. McCain would rather attack businessmen and undermine capitalism than attack Democrats:

John McCain was interviewed this morning on CNBC's Sqawk Box program about the Wall Street crisis by the lone conservative anchor, Joe Kernan. Kernan, doing everything he could to point McCain in the right direction, fought an uphill battle as McCain was blaming most of the problem on CEO's who had "broken the public trust" and on "unfettered capitalism" in the spirit of "Teddy Roosevelt."

McCain managed to blame both parties equally in the mess, refusing to acknowledge that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers are all much more aligned with Democrats in congress than with Republicans. The Arizona Senator mentioned that he was willing to "reach across the aisle" to help solve these problems and "restore Americans' faith in government."

You know what this is recipe for? BUSINESS AS USUAL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Both Obama's promise of change and McCain's promise of reform are two steaming piles of horseshit. All we will get is more and more government intervention in the economy until someday it all collapses. America will then be ready for a dictator who promises order amid the chaos.

6 comments:

Chuck said...

I saw the McCain interview on CNBC, and the description you quoted is right on. It was disgusting.

Joe Kernan has mentioned Ayn Rand many times on CNBC, but he's a big compromiser like the rest of the the supposed pro-business anchors on that network. Their is one good pro-freedom reporter on the network, however --- Rick Santelli, who covers the bond market. He's the only one I enjoy listening too, the only one who really defends free markets there.

Galileo Blogs said...

Chuck,
Rick Santelli has also mentioned Ayn Rand on the show. I heard him mention Atlas Shrugged and state that he is an admirer of Ayn Rand. I like him, too, although his commentary is usually too narrowly focused on near-term bond price movements to interest me. But not always. He throws in favorable references to sound money and capitalism periodically. Interestingly, he also seems to enjoy his work the most of anyone on the show. He's always smiling, as if every day he's at work is the best day of his life.

Myrhaf,
I share your disgust at McCain's comments. He does display the type of mentality who could be a dictator. His attitude is that there is not enough order and control from government to suppress the evil, greedy nature of capitalists. I am not saying he will be one. America is not ready for that yet, and McCain is not the man to do it. However, he does display the beliefs and the personality that will be evident in much stronger form in a future dictator.

I think of him as the "little dictator" who softens America further for more statism down the road. Of course, America has endured other little dictators before. Several notable ones are Wilson and the two Roosevelts. But look at how much worse off America was after each one of these Presidents.

McCain is scary and so is Obama. However, I accept your "blank screen" analysis of Obama. I am less afraid of what he might do. Nevertheless, when considering the totality of what each President and what he might do, it remains a miserable choice.

Anonymous said...

" Four years from now we will all be a little more enslaved than we are now."

I completely agree. But how many presidents over the last 75 years has it been otherwise with? During Truman's administration at least SOME (but not all) of the wartime controls that the Left had been pushing to make permanent were lifted. Despite the problems with Reagan, we did have a bit more freedom after his administration - repeal of regulations and most importantly, elimination of the Fairness Doctrine which was certainly crucial in defeating HillaryHealthCare in the 1990s and at least slowing the march of the Left down. Those are the only two examples I can really think of.

I think the only question is: which choice will buy us more time to spread the ideas necessary to save the country before it is too late?

I have no idea what the answer is this year - both choices are extremely unpalatable. With Obama, we at least know what he wants to do if he can get away with it - to implement the New Left Stalinism of his puppet masters. The only question is: will he get away with it and will it backfire in the face of him and his puppet masters?

What is so scary about McCain is I don't think anybody knows what the man will do. He has always been all over the board on things. Sometimes he has been right on the money - and yet he is so often beyond wrong in very frightening ways. And while I am NOT a fan of the notion of "party loyalty" over conviction, there is a right way and a wrong way to be a "maverick" within one's party. This guy seems to take a delight in undercutting his party and selling it out. For the longest time, I actually wondered if he was some sort of "Trojan horse" for the Democrats - perhaps out of hidden conviction/hostility or perhaps as the result of someone having serious dirt on him and blackmailing him. Now I am not so sure. But I don't think anyone knows what makes him "tick" - and that, more than just his awful positions on things, is what I find so scary about him. At least we have a pretty good idea of what would get if Obama were elected. With McCain - there's just no predicting. He could be better than what we expect or far, far, worse.

"How can conservatives listen to Sarah Palin and think she is on the side of freedom? She is every bit as ignorant of economics and every bit the statist nightmare that John McCain is"

I don't think that through the end of the election - or for the next four years if she and McCain are elected - we will have much new information about what Palin does and does not think. If we do, it will come from leaks and not from Palin herself. When she agreed to become the Vice Presidential nominee, she basically agreed to become a public spokesperson and mouthpiece for McCain and to keep any disagreements behind closed doors. That is certainly what I would demand from a Vice President if I were running for President. And that's what Dick Cheney has done. Based on leaks that have made their way to blogs and such, I tend to think that Cheney is FAR better intellectually and would have made a VASTLY better president than Bush. But he has "known his place" and kept his disagreements behind the scenes. Is being that way a mark against someone who agrees to be Vice President? Perhaps. But I suppose one might accept the job on the premise of influencing things for the better behind the scenes. Certainly for a Vice President to undercut his own President would be a VERY serious thing and I think appropriate only in the most extreme and urgent circumstances. Otherwise it is a major breach of what one has promised to do when one accepts the position.

Anonymous said...

"She is every bit as ignorant of economics and every bit the statist nightmare that John McCain is."

I should have noted in my previous comment the fact that there is plenty of evidence of this from BEFORE she agreed to become McCain's Vice President.

I think the best thing that can be said about her is she seems to have a very refreshing and decent sense-of-life. But her ideology - well she simply has a common sense middle America mish mash of good and bad that substitutes for an ideology. Obama, by contrast, has a thoroughly blighted sense-of-life and an evil ideology to back it up. McCain's sense-of-life might be admirable in a novelist or movie producer but is downright scary for a president. And O'Biden is just a sort of zero - a fellow who has been in over his head and gotten away with it for decades. Unlike the rest, I am inclined to believe that Palin will always fight to "do the right thing" in a good sort of way. The problem is she will sometimes be utterly clueless as to what the right thing actually is. If she ever becomes president, the best I can think we can hope for is that she MIGHT get some advisers who are better than her intellectually and that she MIGHT perhaps be open to what they say. I am not sure that such advisers would ever stand a chance with McCain, Obama or O'Biden.

Rick "Doc" MacDonald said...

I agree pretty much with Dismuke's view above regarding Palin. She is more in touch with mainstream middle class America and reflects its viewpoints fairly well. Her "philosophic wisdom" reminds me of Will Rogers. She's a populist and the opinion of the public she associates with matters to her.

I expect her level of sophistication to grow somewhat as her level of contact with the more sophisticated levels of society increase. However, she has solid core convictions that are predictable and that will not change. She walks the talk, she's straight ahead and when convinced that she's right, to use a submariner's term - she's "balls to the walls" on the hunt for a kill and victory.

She, like McCain, has Statist tendancies that are harmful and will work their way into governance to the degree she becomes influential. However, with her middle class ties, I think she's likely to do a lot less harm than the elitists like Obama and the elitist wannabe Biden, or the off-the-wall megalomanic McCain.

As an aside - Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs stocks are dropping as we speak - hold on to your wallets as money becomes harder and harder to get and government gets even more involved in the economy with bailouts and guarantees.

Anonymous said...

I've been wondering whether things here have gotten bad enough that I might consider returning to Canada. After reading that article, I would consider it -- if I had any reason to believe that those changes would stick.