Just a Voice In The Night...

So, there I am in the locker room @ the gym, when I happen to overhear Larry King on the Communist News Network - "Checking In" with CNN-correspondents in different cities...

This one creampuff "reporting" from Denver says "Well, Larry, it looks like Barack Obama is poised to take Colorado!"

But wait....

In the very next breath he says that "About 50% of the registered voters in Colorado have already cast their ballots"

WTF?!?!

So let me get this straight.... 50% - also known as HALF THE STATE - hasn't even VOTED YET but Obama is somehow "poised" to win?!?!

Oh, this is just going to be that much sweeter when, like Jennings calling FL for Gore in '00 before the polls closed, this doesn't work out for them and we kick their asses.

- MuscleDaddy

Requiescat in Pace

Colonel John Walter Ripley



Ripley at the Bridge.

"I'll never forget that order, 'hold and die'," Ripley said. The only way to stop the enormous force with their tiny force was to destroy the bridge, he said.

"The idea that I would be able to even finish the job before the enemy got me was ludicrous," Ripley said. "When you know you're not going to make it, a wonderful thing happens: You stop being cluttered by the feeling that you're going to save your butt."

Anchorage Daily News: Troopergate Report Clears Palin

This will probably be omitted by the MSM, having come in the after math of Hollis French's promised "October Surprise", but the Alaska probe sanctioned by the Personnel Board found no violation of any state law in "Troopergate".

- There is no cause to believe Palin violated the state ethics law in deciding to dismiss Monegan as public safety commissioner.

- There is no cause to believe Palin violated the state ethics law in connection with Wooten.

- There is no cause to believe any other state official violated the ethics act.

- There's no basis to conduct a hearing to "address reputational harm," as requested by Monegan.

Innocent.

Checklist - stuff to do today

No matter how the election goes tomorrow, in the short term bad things are going to happen. If you're near an urban center, there will probably be "civil disturbances." Here are a couple of things you should do today.


If Obama loses, the cities burn. Think of the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles. If you're older, think about the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King.

If Obama WINS, the cities burn. Ever been in an urban city that wins a sports championship? Think that times 100. Fewer banks burning, more cars burning. The celebratory fires will be smaller and shorter, but that doesn't help much if it's YOUR car that burns.

So TODAY, you should do some of the things you may not be able to do tomorrow.

1) Fill your tank with gas. More than one car? Fill them all. Gas is cheaper than it has been in a year. During the Rodney King riots I worked in Hollywood. A friend of mine, a pretty 20 something girl, drove a Triumph Spitfire with a non working gas gauge. She ran out of gas on her way home and coasted into a gas station. All she had were credit cards - and the cc machines were down. A homeless guy gave her $5 for gas to get home. He was killed the next day.

2) Hit the ATM. Withdraw the maximum. Don't spend it. See above.

3) Buy enough food to stay in for 3 or 4 days.

4) Have a gun? Make sure you have a box of ammunition, preferably hollowpoints and buckshot. Don't have a gun? If you live somewhere where you can buy one, buy one. And a box of ammunition.

5) Get a long garden hose, 50' or longer. Get the biggest diameter you can (usually 3/4"). Get an adjustable fireman's nozzle - something like this

6) Check or get batteries for your emergency radio and flashlight.

7) Check or get smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. Get an extra extinguisher for your car.

Am I being paranoid? Of course. I pray that I'm not right.
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The Passion of the Plumber II: Escalation

Joe The Plumber has committed the grievous crime of lèse majesté. KGO Radio 810 San Francisco talker and HuffPo contributor Charles Karel Bouley is unsatisfied with the mere bureucratic flogging that's already been meted out. Karel (who coincidentally uses his middle name on air, not unlike Joe himself) wants a Final Solution to the pesky Plumber Problem. Will no one rid him of this meddlesome plumber?
[EXTREME LANGUAGE ALERT]

[HT Radio Equalizer] His expletive-laced tirade starts 53 seconds into the clip, in response to the mere mention of the words "Joe the Plumber" during the ABC Radio news break.

Manuel Alvarez, Jr.: Deja NO!

I've written before about the difference between those who chose to leave their home countries to become Americans, and those who were born here, descended from either involuntary immigrants or those who found the soveriegnty of this country extended to their homes. Like Tito the Builder, Arnold the Governor, or Ayn the Author, Manuel Alvarez, Jr., the Cuban-born letter-to-the-editor writer understands what has happened in other countries that don't follow the ideals of our Founders. His letter has been made into a video:

Steyn: Fugitives, Leaks, and ... Plumbers?

Did you remember to set your clock back before you went to bed?

If I were Joe the Plumber, I'd ask Aunt Zeituni if I could move in. It's his best chance of a quiet life.

It isn't Daylight Saving Time anymore, but it's always Double Standard Time.

"Faux News"?

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has compiled a study of network news coverage of the Presidential candidates, and the results are illuminating.

On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1.

The wording is interesting, and fits the leftist idea that Fox News is "right wing", in that compared to the other networks it is more negative/less positive of Obama, and more positive/less negative of McCain. But don't compare Fox to the other networks; just look at the numbers:

Candidate	Positive	Neutral	Negative
McCain	22%	38%	40%
Obama	25%	35%	40%

The way I read this, Fox News treated Obama slightly more positively than McCain. It's only because they didn't bow down and worship at his feet, along with the other networks, that they are "right wing". What is undeniable, however, is that MSNBC is "left wing":

MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall).

Both Fox and MSNBC are "out of the mainstream", but that only tells us how skewed the "mainstream" has become.
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We have the best commenters Pt.2

When We are Queen

... In a world where a smart, capable, nice-looking and not-underprivileged man can choose his own identity, why does he persist in identifying himself as down-trodden, sneered at and marginalized? Why, in other words, did a young Obama (and now one suspects, a grown Obama) drink in all these imagined slights and condescensions...”

God Bless Vanessa Niekamp

Throughout America's history, there have been all kinds of patriots who have drawn a thin line in the sand and stood their ground against the on-rush of tyranny -- from the farmers and blacksmiths of the American Revolution to the flight attendants and businessmen of Flight 93. Yes, from time to time, they even come in the form of TV news anchors. I think it's time to christen a new category of patriot: the mid-level government bureaucrat.

Huh?

Yep, you read that right. Meet Vanessa Niekamp.

See, Ms. Niekamp is the person who actually ran the nefarious records check on "Joe the Plumber" on orders from her boss (Asst. Deputy Director of Child Support) at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Then, a week later, her boss' boss (Deputy Director of Child Support) "'literally demanded' that she write an e-mail to the agency's chief privacy officer stating she checked the case for child-support purposes." In ordering this after-the-fact CYA email, this 'crat told Patriot Niekamp that his boss -- ODJFS Director Helen Jones-Kelley -- said the snooping of "Joe the Plumber" was warranted because "Wurzelbacher might buy a plumbing business and could owe support."

So what makes Vanessa Niekamp a new breed of patriot, you ask?

She's speaking out. Not only is she naming the names of her bosses who tasked HER with the actual snooping, unwittingly done. She's even contradicting the party line given by the Director Jones-Kelley herself:

Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are "thrust into the public spotlight," amid suggestions they may have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.

Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. "I've never done that before, I don't know of anybody in my office who does that and I don't remember anyone ever doing that," she said today.

That's no small thing given the white-hot national spotlight now shining on this woman's previously anonymous workplace. Imagine the group pressure being exerted on all of the ODJFS employees to stick together. Imagine the fear of losing her nice-but-hardly-lucrative $69,000/year job and health care. Imagine the fear of getting "vetted" (Wurzelbach'ed?) herself, given that she's a Republican pulling the curtain back on her Democratic superior.

Am I guilty of a bit of hyperbole putting Niekamp in the class of Revere, Washington, Glick and Beamer?

Maybe, but I don't think so. Given the purely political motivation for this brazen violation of public trust and personal privacy, and the deafening silence from the privacy watchdogs who claim to be the last line of defense between the citizenry and Big Brother Tyranny, Inc., I find this whole episode frightening. It seems to me that the groupthink of Orwell's 1984 doesn't happen unless all the mid-level bureaucrats agree to play along.

Vanessa Niekamp isn't playing along. That makes her a patriot of the first order in my book.[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]

[Ed. Note] Don't worry, Lance. Your "below the fold" has been fixed.

[Update] In the comments.

Anonymous said...
My family members found your post and forwarded it to me. Thank you very much for your inspirational words. - Vanessa Niekamp

There's no way to know if this is true but we ARE #5 on Google for Vanessa Niekamp.

Obama Supporter: Obama will take care of my mortgage and gas tank

Supporter Peggy Joseph was interviewed by a reporter after the Obamapalooza:

If he wins this election, his supporters are in for some serious disappointment.

ASTEROID!

Here you can comment on the ASTEROID! entry at Eject! Eject! Eject!

The essay can be found at : http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000191.html

The PUMAs Have it...

The Message?

Don't. You. Believe. It.

(...someone needs to go tell that @%$#&*@'in Allahpundit)

Update:
They're-Not-Even-Real-Trolls...

Move Along, Folks - No Double-Standard to See Here...

Palin's Noose-Hanging Effigy is "Art"..
Obama's is a "Crime"

'Cause that guy... The One running for President?

...he's a Victim, y'see.

We have the best commenters

Free-range Oyster, The rise of a king.

I saw a disturbing thing today: a man who wished to be a slave. An anonymous poster joined the discussion over at E3 Gazette, and had the following to say (emphasis mine):

"I can't wait for eight LOOOOOOOOOOOONG years of OBAMA rule"

Now the inimitable Mark Paules already made a simple rebuttal regarding the use of that word, and how inappropriate it is in light of our system of representative government. The problem here is not just that the term "rule" is inappropriate. It is frightening. It frightens because of what it reveals of the mentality of this person, and probably many others...

I'm not suppoosed to say it... but
Go read the whole thing.

The Passion of the Plumber

The Columbus Dispatch now says that the Ohio computer database lookups of "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher were more extensive than previously disclosed:

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.
. . .
"Given our understanding that Mr. Wurzelbacher had publicly indicated that he had the means to purchase a substantial business enterprise, ODJFS, consistent with past departmental practice, checked confidential databases ," she wrote.

Sharing the results of those searches with the Tanning Bed Media was just an extra service they provided. As bad as this invasion of privacy is, Jones-Kelley's explanation betrays a fundamental misconception. She seems to think that economic classes are static; that people are born into a class and stay there their entire lives. The reality is that there is a great deal of movement up and down the economic ladder.

I knew a man who grew up in poverty during the Depression, who went on to become a multi-millionaire through his construction and real-estate business. You'd never know it looking at him; he and his wife shopped at the same low-price stores as I did, wore off-the-rack clothes, and drove an old pickup truck. They kept reinvesting their profits into building more properties. And he is hardly unique.

Joe told Barack Obama that he had conversations with his employer about buying him out at some point. The way a deal like that often works is that the owner gets to retirement age without having groomed a family member to take over the business, so he sells it to an employee on a contract/loan. For years after Joe "took over", he would have been paying off his current employer out of the profits that the business earns, reinvesting his profits to improve his equity. That's why he was worried about Obama's plans to "tax the rich"; If those profits are taxed at a higher rate, countless Joes around the country will not be able to move up from employee to employer.

Perhaps Obama and his allies are unaware of this economic reality. On the other hand, they may full well know that raising tax rates decreases upward mobility, creating the very ills they pretend to oppose. I suspect that some of them do know it, and others don't. I'm not sure whether ignorance or malice is the greater indictment, but we need not concern ourselves with their motives. Their policies are destructive.
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Wheels Fly Off Obama-Bus - No Film @ 11:00

Obama Speechwriter Defects Democratic Party, Endorses McCain...
Dang...

Button described the Democratic Party as almost like family, but says that now "it doesn't even feel like a distant cousin." The party's treatment of women, and the way that they mocked and smeared "Joe the Plumber", a working class American, has left her disgusted and disillusioned. As she says, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

Here's her own post, explaining her position in detail:A speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton on why she’s voting McCain.

"Sh' can't tayhk annemoor, Cahptan! Sh's shaki'n aparrt!"

Another Joe

Don sent us this from Common Sense:

Hello
My Name is
Joe The Plumber
and yes we - are related
we're AMERICAN
Laughing at his dream
you're laughing at mine too!

Trick or Treat!

I got this in an email so I can't credit the original source.

Goldberg Lays It Out Nicely...

..with "Obama's Not New".

Money-Quote:
"...Obama doesn't represent anything novel. Rather, he symbolizes a return to an older vision of the United States that was seen as the "wave of the future" eight decades ago."

Too many people have lost their grasp of history, for this to not be intuitively obvious.

- MuscleDaddy