Somebody’s not clear on the concept…

here:

DALLAS — Anyone turning in their U.S. citizenship application on Wednesday or after will have to learn “What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?”‘ and “What does the Constitution do?”

This country wasn’t set up as a democracy per se; in fact, the word “democracy” appears nowhere in that document. And there were reasons for that, not the least of which was that it’s all too easy for individual rights — such as, to cite a pertinent example, the Right to Keep And Bear Arms — to be sacrificed to the whim of the majority under the democratic form of government, whereas in a republic, there are certain safeguards to reduce the likelihood of that happening. I have to wonder, are there any questions about which form of government the Founding Fathers actually set up in the Constitution? And are there any questions about the differences between that form of government and a pure “democracy”? I’m betting there isn’t. And that’s just downright pathetic.

Another random observation…

I’d heard about the Microsoft “I’m a PC” ads but up until now I’d never seen one. Well, that just changed. I saw this one, and the only thing I really know to say is, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?”
“I’m a PC, and I wear a suit!”
And…? This is the best Bill Gates’ whiz kids could come up with? All righty then.

Not surprised, just disappointed…

I thought it was more than a little disingenuous for Kathleen Parker to point to the Charles Gibson interview with Sarah Palin as evidence that she’s “out of her league” when that was clearly — when compared to Gibson’s interview with Barack Obama — one of the biggest mainstream media hit jobs on a Republican candidate that’s ever been done. (And of course it was by no means the only one.) And I didn’t really think the Palin soundbites Parker cited in her own hit piece were really so bad compared to the word vomit Obama and Biden have been belting out that the mainstream media have been slobbering over since day one. I daresay it’s a good bit more substantive, even, than Obama’s HopenChange(tm) gimmick. But it should be remembered that Parker in effect referred to the sins of Dan Rather and Eason Jordan as “tripping.” I’ll admit that Kathleen Parker does hit the X-ring many times, but when she’s off the mark, she’s WAY off the mark.

"..because of teh RACISM!"

…according to a rather unexpected politician, apparently…

What is Barack Obama’s biggest remaining obstacle on his road to the White House? A nationally prominent Republican sums it up in a word: “Bubba.”
“The Bubba vote is there, and it’s very real, and it is everywhere,” former House Majority Leader Dick Armey recently said. “There’s an awful lot of people in America, bless their heart, who simply are not emotionally prepared to vote for a black man.”

It’s bad enough to see the Democrats copping this shit…it’s beyond disheartening to see a Republican doing it too, and one of the heroes of the 1994 revolution to boot. What about Obama’s associations with people like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright? Or his proposal of the civilian national security force? Or the mandatory community service? Oh his blatant disrespect for tens of millions of people in this country, as evidenced by the bitter-clinger remark to the San Francisco donors? Or his further alienation of those same voters with his extremely anti-firearm record? (Speaking of that, is anyone REALLY surprised that his brownshirts would threaten to yank the broadcast licenses of stations that ran ads exposing that record? Obama has no respect for the Second Amendment, what makes anyone think he or his minions respect any of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights?) How about his choice for vice-president, a man who thinks gun owners are mentally ill? No, it’s none of that, it’s because of teh RACISM! Really, you’d think that would have manifested itself more during the primaries, if it was really that big of an issue…and why is it that voting against Obama because of his race is cast as a bad thing, yet nothing is said of those who will be voting for Obama for the same reason? I guess this is how the left applies the “any chair in a bar fight” philosophy, but it’s still quite disgusting.

Ooooh, good taste…

Bill Cody’s Classic Country Weekend is playing here. Lee Ann Womack’s his in-studio guest this week. She just said that if she had one record to listen to for the rest of her life, it’d be Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman.” I always thought Womack had great taste…while I don’t know if that one would be at the top of my list, it’d be damn close.
“And I need you more than want you…and I want you for all time…”

do we really want to legitimize this?

Wow, what do you say to this?

Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”

I have to wonder what hunting moose and carrying guns has to do with the fate of Jews and black people. It’s quite a rich irony that it’s always whites who get accused of racism and bigotry, yet other races seem to get a pass on that even though theirs is often much more potent, as we see here. Perhaps this example doesn’t mean that much, considering that such rhetoric comes from an impeached federal judge, but taken in tandem with the support of people like Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers — not to mention those asshats who warn of things like race and class wars if Obama loses, or even the fact of Obama’s being a product of the thoroughly corrupt Chicago political machine — it more or less demolishes the “post-racial candidate of change” shibboleth Obama and his worshippers like to peddle. Do we really want to legitimize the statements like the one Alcee Hastings made — and the mindset embodied in such statements — by electing Barack Obama president? I sure as hell hope not.

you’re a…what?

Yeah, I got a huge kick out of this:

Microsoft’s new ad features contrasts a “stereotyped PC user” dressed up like John Hodgman in Apple’s Get a Mac ads with a number of people who say, “I’m a PC” apparently to affirm that they run Windows.

However, not even Microsoft itself can wean itself off the Mac, as the metadata discovered by Flickr user LuisDS points out. Microsoft was not only using Macs but also Adobe’s software in place of its own Expressions Studio, which the company bills as software that “takes your creative possibilities to a new level.”

Sort of makes those folks who claim Apple’s success is all about marketing and those who go on and on about the “serious design and operational shortcomings” look like they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. I don’t claim that Apple’s perfect, but when you have the manufacturer of the Mac operating system’s main competitor using the Mac operating system to make the advertisements for that competing system, well, that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
(h/t Cold Fury)

Random Musings: Sniper Rifles? And what about those OTHER guns?

Sean Braistead says, “I’d say an important difference between a 12 gauge shotgun and a .50 caliber sniper rifle is the ability to blow a head off from a half mile away.” Leaving aside the disgusting leftist hyperbole inherent to all their gun-related discussion, what about the lethality of less-powerful cartridge such as the 7.62mm NATO at an even greater distance? Are we next going to start hearing all about the threat to national security posed by those eeeeevil 7.62mm NATO sniper rifles? It just goes to show that demonizing something like a deer rifle as a “long-range sniper gun” isn’t that far from the more common gun-ban talking points.
As far as Greasy Joe Biden (thanks, Michael Bane) saying Barack Merle Haggard Obama isn’t going to take his shotgun…well, what about my 1911s, or, say, Mike’s AR-15? Would that the press had asked him about that, but I suppose that’d be too much to ask. Of course, as Robert says, the NRA actually encourages this sort of thing with, for example, the photos of Charlton Heston waving the flintlock instead of a more politically-incorrect weapon…

Some irony for your Monday morning

The headline on this story reads, “Bailout strikes many on Main Street as unfair.” The prevailing sentiment among the regular folks interviewed is that it’s wrong for the feds to effectively force taxpayers (and it should be noted we’ll ultimately be forced at gunpoint, natch) to pay for the bad decisions of Wall Street, i.e., to make loans to people who didn’t have sufficient income or assets to pay those loans back. Yet in that story, there’s a picture of a man holding a sign that says, “Bail out Main Street Not WALL STREET.” What this sign holder is apparently advocating is for the taxpayers to be forced to pay for the bad decisions of just a different set of people. Now, how is THAT any more fair to those who actually lived within their means?

Random Sunday Media Musings

I am not really sure what to say to this, from Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe…

Sarah Palin may yet be the fulfillment of an old feminist prophecy that Texan Sissy Farenthold once described with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. We will have achieved equality the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men. Check that one off the to-do list.

Oh wait, I know exactly what to say to that. Palin should consider it a badge of honor to be called mediocre by a bitter old harridan like Ellen Goodman. Ole Sarah Barracuda must really be doing something right.
And then there’s this, from Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune…

As we enter the season of highest political advice, here’s my advice to the Democrats: Dumb it down.
I don’t need to give that advice to the Republicans. They’ve been dumbing it down for years. That’s why they keep winning.
Do I sound condescending? Do I sound like I am talking down to Joe and Josephine SixPack out there in working class America? No way. I come from working class America. I know. It takes smarts to dumb the issues down well enough to help people to make an intelligent choice.

Hey, um, Clarence? Just a tip…when you’re basically asking for someone else’s opinion, you’re really not supposed to give your own. Makes you look like more than a bit of an arrogant ass..Methinks you’re not nearly as smart as your station in life has led you to think you are.

…(McCain’s) party’s ticket is well positioned to pull off a possible victory. Why? A big reason is how McCain-Palin has outmatched Obama’s elegant charisma in winning the support of working-class white voters.
…(Obama’s) college professor side tends to show….

Ok then. I’d argue that another (arguably as big) reason McCain has pulled into a dead heat with Obama is that as more and more Americans get wind of Obama’s plans for the country — i.e., an economy-crushing tax burden to finance yet more Nanny-state reindeer games and potentially an all-out ban on civilian ownership of firearms — they come to see that while flawed, the McCain-Palin ticket is much preferable to that. As for Obama and his college professor side…it’s not the “eloquence” that’s the problem there. It’s the idealism and utter lack of knowledge of how the world outside academia works that’s the problem. But I really didn’t expect Page to know that.