Because this needs to be read by as many people as possible, left, right, and everywhere in between.

A highly successful Wall Streeter who has been counted on as a large donor by the DNC in the past two elections has said thanks, but no thanks.

Because Barack Obama is a hustler, an arrogant self-promoter who cares for his own success far more than for his country.

This from a DEMOCRAT, a faithful supporter, a woman who makes it big in a man's world.  Yes, a Hillary fan, but not blindly. 

More like an American who sees the danger that few on the left can see.  Too much glare from the spotlights and flashbulbs, too much celebrity glow, too much coolness.

HT to Atlas and of course to the blog hosting this linked letter.  Read 'em both.

The Iraqi government sent people to Switzerland to try to rescue these Olympics for the sake of a handful of athletes and the hopes of a nation.  The story is here, and it's getting goofier by the minute.  The IOC is demanding the reinstatement of the old corrupt Iraqi olympic committee-- even though FOUR of its members were kidnapped years ago and their whereabouts are currently unknown!

The IOC still stinks in this.  Their chief reason for offense appears to be that they were not consulted by Iraq when it rejected its old corruptocrats on the national committee.  A secondary reason could be, and probably is, that they are trying to make Iraq a sad failure story so that it can reflect badly on Bush.

Iraq says it's not retreating on its selection of new committee members.  They ask the IOC, 'if you never rejected any of Saddam's personally appointed committee members, how can you claim that we, a democratic government, were choosing friends or installing favorites?' 

Good question.  Reminds of of all the corruption Mitt Romney had to work past for the winter games in Utah a few years back.  I think it's also similar to Wolfowitz' forced retirement from the World Bank.  Old time kleptocrats protecting their positions and their cash flows.  This time, though, they've encountered plenty of vocal and public opposition to their scam, and it looks like they'll reverse and claim they didn't.

The news is sad today, from the archives of "Extreme Makeover Home Edition", the popular ABC TV show in which the happy crew shows up at the doorstep of American misery and donates, in the form of hard work and expensive materials, a 'new start', a remodeling and problem-solving session which is filmed for television. 

The biggest job they'd ever done was three years ago, when they demolished an entire home and built a new one from the ground up.  The happy family was the beneficiary of $450,000 worth of new home and a $250,000 fund to help them maintain it and 'get a new start'.

Now read how well they did with their new start.  Read especially the comments of the volunteers and staff of the show, the bitter disappointment at having expended great effort and ceremony to give this gift, only to have it wind up in the proverbial dumpster.

I have long understood these facts of human nature--

People tend to be in the place their effort level and attitude puts them.  People who are happy, energetic, self-believing and humble will prosper, generally speaking.  People who insist on being unhappy, blaming others for misfortune, feeling as if the world isn't treating them right, those people generally do not prosper.

And people tend to place a lower value on things given to them than on things earned through work and effort. 

This family tried to leverage their gift into fast wealth, rather than accepting it humbly and striving to be worthy of it.  The mayor of the town is one of the people who worked hard as a volunteer in the construction, one of the 'team members'.  His opinion reliably reflects those of others.  They are verging on angry; the people threw this away, wasted it, made a mockery of a serious and intense effort by many many people.

One of the reasons I am a conservative is that I understand this aspect of human nature.  I do not feel as if it's my DUTY to financially support people who make bad decisions and do not respect or appreciate the help they get.  Their lives are THEIR problem, not mine.  They should try harder, learn better from their mistakes, take RESPONSIBILITY for their own futures.  Whatever 'social injustice' or other cultural issue is quoted at me does not fill my heart with sympathy; I simply did not do those things, did not cause those problems, have not been unjust.  I've never treated anyone different, never looked down my nose at anyone, and I spent much of my own life in unpleasantly tight financial condition.  I understand being in debt and working to pay my way out of it.  I have personally reached out to several individuals, helped with money and time, and in all but ONE case was rewarded by the wasting of my money and the end of my friendship.  It appears, judging by anecdotal evidence, that helping family is the worst of these ideas.  But friends are next on the list.  :-)

Democrats insist that everyone in need is equally innocent and deserving, and my lack of desire to give is due to my innate cruelty and greed.  Now, politicians know human nature very well; they would not be where they are without that knowledge.  But they take this position which they know is untrue, that poor people are angelic and innocent and rich people are evil and greedy.  They do this in order to win over the poor as voters, knowing there are simply more of them than of anyone else.  It is totally cynical; NOBODY is actually helped by this system.  The poor are kept poor and told it's someone else's fault.  They get just enough to make it, just enough food, just enough of a roof over their heads, just enough to keep them from starving to death.  And they are constantly told that the evil rich conservatives are working to take even THAT away from them, so they'd best vote Democrat if they don't want to be hungry. 

The rich (which is a lot of people, and the more Dems raise taxes the richer you get) are essentially victims of government theft of their hard earned money, to be used for the purpose of purchasing votes for the party they OPPOSE.  

Conservatives say (or at least I say it, and Rush Limbaugh, but not enough politicians say it) that the best way to help everyone is to have such a vital economy that everyone has the opportunity to make it.  Everything should be tailored to help business, big and small.  Personal productivity is the key, whether in your own family or as a citizen of a nation.  And people do work harder when they have a better chance of prospering as a result of their efforts.  The best 'government assistance' we could give ourselves is a zero percent unemployment rate, a perfection that is unachievable but serves as the top end of a 'better, worse' scale.  The lower the figure goes, the more people are able to care for themselves and the fewer need 'charity'.

I cry at TV news stories about real suffering, hungry and miserable victims.  I am a sponsor of a child in Honduras.  I cry about suffering dogs and cats, for heaven's sake.  I find myself constantly shoving bills into this and that charity canister, using paypal to make donations to whatever need has caught my attention online, etc.  Half my junk mail is from charities who share donor lists.  It doesn't bother me.  I know they all need money, and I do what I can. 

I am first in line to give to those in need, but most in this country who receive taxpayer largesse are NOT those people. 

They are, instead, people with bad attitudes who do not try and cannot be bothered.   I feel about them the way the show's staff feels about this family; bitter, disappointed, stung.   How can they take the fruits of my labor and then BLAME me for their problems?  But they do, and it hurts.

The show's staff won't get suckered like this again.  I only wish, as a taxpayer, I had that option.

Lefties love to point out anecdotal weather activities to 'prove' that manmade global warming is going to kill us all.  Al Gore said, even while thousands were dying in Asia, that their cyclone was caused by global warming.

Nobody ever mentions the snow that fell in Baghdad this spring, and I predict nobody will mention the snow that fell in Sidney, Australia, this week.  Granted, it IS winter down under, but this is the first snow they've seen since 1836.

Surely it counts for SOMETHING.

I know the rules of both chambers are accretions; they've been built over a long time period, with approval from many people in many different situations.  The House and the Senate have their essentials laid out in our founding documents, but almost all the actual working rules have come since then, and most without any sort of public approval.

I frankly do not believe America wants David Obey, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to have the power in their hands to stifle the firmly expressed will of the vast majority of American citizens to pursue our own resources in order to lower energy prices.

But Obey is successfully staving off Republican attempts to amend a bill to include directives to increase American drilling.  He just bangs the gavel and declares the committee no longer in session. 

Remember the summer of 2006?  Wasn't it just amazing how hard both parties tried to get their immigration 'reform' bill through, against the firmly expressed will of the vast majority of Americans, even a majority of Democrats?  And they still haven't given up; parts of their 'reform' bill continue to be introduced in both chambers.  Against the will of the people.

The people want American oil added to the markets, so that supply keeps up with demand and so that we don't have to buy oil from those who are trying to engineer our weakening and eventual destruction.  The people DEMAND it.

But David Obey, for some reason, has the power to prevent it.....?

It's just wrong. 

Looks like the 'international community', represented this time by the International Olympic Committee, has decided to stick a finger in the President's eye.

The Iraqi government, in good faith so far as I can tell, acted three months ago to dissolve its own national Olympic Committee because, in their own words, it was 'corrupt and nonfunctioning'.  But the IOC refuses to accept their new committee, and they blame Iraq for failing to resolve this. 

As if the Iraqi government has nothing better to do than travel to Europe and meet with the IOC.

So, in return for the attempt by Maliki's government to root out corruption and bring a fresh start to its national Olympic committee, for the good of the young Iraqis training and hoping to be a part of it all, the IOC says "stay home".

Take that, you evil Bush.  This failure you spawned with your evil unilateralism and wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time is not going to be part of our international show, no sir.  And it's all your fault.

If I was a manager of a business which lost 82% of its year-on-year quarterly revenue in an economy which continued to grow as ours has, I would be fired so quickly that I'd get whiplash and two cracked ribs from my impact with the far wall of the elevator.

And if I OWNED a business which had done that, I would fire the manager, the sales staff, and everyone else but the janitor.  Or I'd hold a fire sale and take whatever I could get for the whole business, so it would be someone else's problem.

Apparently there is NOTHING that will cause the New York Times to change their management or their way of doing business.

82% down, year on year, quarterly revenues.  Staggering.  And still they refuse to publish McCain's op-ed response to the Obama column they already published.

This is a business which essentially sells itself to an audience.  But this business is determined, from ownership on down, to ignore what the audience is telling them about what it wants to read.

Ideology is so much more important than revenues or even survival, the Times is going to financially self-destruct, like the Predator pressing the nuclear bomb button on his wrist and laughing as Arnold tries to escape.  I'm goin' down, but I'm takin' Bush with me, by thunder!  

Well, as often as we're told that there's something SPECIAL about the media--  "Tom Brokaw, NOW more than EVER"-- the truth is they are perfectly ordinary people.  Flawed people.  In some cases, twisted, obsessive and borderline EVIL people.

Try to remember, when the media attempts to lecture us or condescend to us or explain how we need only look up to them and listen to them and everything will be fine, sometimes there are dark secrets.

I'm reminded of the email I got from Charles Jaco, famed CNN Gulf War I correspondent and currently at Fox TV in St. Louis, in which he expressed sardonically his 'pleasure' that I was able to get on the web from my mom's basement -- "or do they have basements in Texas?", he sneered.

Jaco demonstrates the idea most mainstream media people have about most Americans who aren't elite east coasters or Californians who host Obama fundraisers at their mansions.  We're all losers, sitting in pajamas at Mom's basement computer, unable to hold a job or speak properly or deal with that persistent acne or underbite or cleft palate.

And every local anchor in a large American city is just a network anchor waiting to be discovered.

I often worry about future generations in this country, given that so much is 'learned', that is, absorbed into the mind on some level, from watching movies and listening to music. 

After all, whenever Hollywood wants to make MONEY, they make family films, cartoons about dancing pandas and zoo animals, Aladdin and his genie, and so forth.  They KNOW these are consistently good sellers and they're easy to make.  And yet, they also continue to make films like "No Country for Old Men' so they can laud it for its envelope-pushing and give it oscars, even though nobody saw it.  Oh, and speaking of "saw", have you seen "Saw"?

And this is not to mention all the total busts they've made out of their compulsive anti-war movies in the past few years.

One of my 'go-to' junk movies is 'Natural Born Killers', in which a psychotic pair of lovers crosses the country murdering people.  For no good reason.  Oscars galore, lots of compliments from the greats of Hollywood, but what is the 'take away' for a young mind?  That it can be somehow heroic to just kill someone for no reason.

Here's an 18 year old boy who saw the movie and then strangled his 18 year old girlfriend.  For no reason.  Even he doesn't know why he did it. 

I remember back in 1977, when the movie "The Warriors" hit theatres.  It was about gang violence, a gang fighting its way across New York City with other gangs fighting to stop and kill them. 

Every teenage kid that came out of those theatres, including me, was on some significant level ready for a fight.  Lots of fights broke out during the showing of that movie.

It is a dark, some would say almost demonic influence, this power that movies have over us.  Who knows what terrible things have happened in this country as a direct result of the watching of a movie.  There are plenty of anecdotes over the years to choose from.  Cops shot for no reason, women raped, cars stolen, all this is glorified behavior by attractive and heroic people in movies.

Now, for sure, a teenage girl is dead because her boyfriend saw a movie and felt like killing, for no reason.

I bought a car in October 2007, a Chevy HHR. 

I bought it because it would get reasonable gas mileage and could also haul a bunch of stuff, a fairly roomy vehicle once known as a 'station wagon'.  Chevrolet even names it on their list of cars which can get more than 30 mpg. 

The car comes with a computerized MPG indicator, that keeps average and instant economical stats.  It is a combination of an inertial sensor (a weight swinging inside a space), a throttle setting sensor (to read amount of fuel used), a clock and a reading of the speedometer. 

There are those who say it's one or two mpg on the optimistic side, but even so, it's a pretty good way to get a mental grip on your driving habits.

And I'm thrilled with my new car's capabilities.  If I employ the 'miler's caution in the city, trying to always keep the car in motion, coasting up to red lights and hoping they turn green while I'm still moving, using cruise control as often as possible with the goal of maintaining a steady speed as much as possible, I can get 25 or more mpg while driving around IN TOWN.  On the highway, cruise control on at 62 mph, I can average 33 mpg.  This from a fairly large car with a reasonably powerful (172 hp) four cylinder engine.

Now let's get to the negatives. 

Sometimes I reset the 'average mpg' meter and then forget about it.  If, during that time, I get a case of 'lead foot' or I get into squeezes and have to stomp on gas and brake, or if I hit a lot of red lights while I'm in a hurry to get across town, I can switch back over to that meter and discover I've been averaging 12 or 13 mpg, or worse.

And if I speed up on the highway and set my cruise at 74 instead of 62, my highway mileage goes from 33 to 24, or less.  That's right, a bit more than 10 mph higher speed costs me 25% or more extra gas to make the same trip.  In terms of a full tank, that's a good $15 at present prices.

So under best circumstances I can get over 25 in the city and well over 30 in the highway.  Under sloppy, lazy, selfish and disinterested driving conditions, it's more like 15 and 25.  And since most of my driving these days is city, that difference is nearly 40%.

NEARLY 40%.

Conclusion:  in order to get really good gas mileage, one must not only buy an economical automobile, but one must be diligent in applying driving techniques that maximize mileage.  If I don't do that, I don't get any better mileage than a well driven V8 SUV.  Seriously.

Now comes the famous recent research that shows over and over again that liberals are more unhappy than conservatives.  I don't have a link here, but it's well known.  And I wonder--

is an unhappy person more likely to have a lead foot, to race around and change lanes and generally express his impatience with his fellow motorist in the form of rougher driving?  I think so.  I've been out there on the roads for 32 years now, and in my own experience the lead-footed are usually unhappy.  You can see it in their faces.  The more serene are far more likely to be doing something like the speed limit, smiling all the way.  They'll back off and let you in rather than stomping on the gas to cut you off.... etc..... 

It is my not-unreasonable theory that conservatives get better mileage than liberals, even though liberals are nominally driving more 'green' cars.  Because liberals do things in order to be SEEN to be 'good', and the actual business of being good, especially when nobody notices or knows about it, is far less important to them.

A car is a highly visible sign of your acknowledgement or rejection of liberal beliefs and standards and needs.  Even if you NEED a pickup with a V8 to make a LIVING, the liberal will see it and presume you are his cultural enemy.  And this, even though you might be gently and responsibly driving it while he stomps the pedals on his little Hyundai and crushes it down to 12 mpg, angry at having SEEN you in your V8 pickup.

Just something to think about.

Gateway Pundit links to this NPR story, meant to arouse sympathy amongst those of us who, in the view of the left, are insufficiently endowed with it.  Poor people, bad luck, hard times, not enough food.

Note the two women, mother and daughter, weigh as much as most families of SIX.

Does this make me bigoted?  For pointing out that the subjects of a sob story about the price of food appear to have eaten the reporter who wrote it?

And his desk and cubicle?

It must be difficult to maintain a steady flow of sob stories about the victims of the evil right wing.  I guess even the most diligent will occasionally go off the rails.

Or fall through them, as the case may be.

Barack Obama is truly stuck in the '60s.  Remember the old "military-industrial complex" bugaboo, the evil enriching of evil companies building evil weapons to plague the world with evil? 

Obama seems to be a committed believer in the evil scheming of the evil military industrial complex.  Powerline has posted a video of Himself explaining what he plans to do in the military spending area, and it implies a set of beliefs that are rooted in gas, vagueness, unreality.

Between the weapons cuts, the research cuts and the nuclear disarmament, Obama is earnestly proposing an America which quite literally poses no threat to anyone.  He does not understand or believe that this kind of America wouldn't last long in this present world. 

Obama believes that the world has nukes because WE have them, and he would destroy ours FIRST and expect the world to follow suit.

Me, I believe with every brain cell that if America were free of nuclear weapons, that would be the green light for several nations and a couple of terrorist networks to start setting off THEIR nukes in OUR cities.

Obama does not believe there is evil in the world, excepting of course the inherent evil in the oppressor America.

You can almost see the thought bubble over his head; "Imagine, if we stop all this evil military spending, how much money I'll have to buy votes-- er, to spread amongst the poor and earn their gratitude/votes.  Why, I'll be in power FOREVER..."

Not even the almighty Algore can claim that the scientific 'consensus' is on his side now.

Media bias?  Lack of professionalism?  Mean spiritedness from a mainstream media professional of repute?  C'est impossible!  Jamais, mon vieux, jamais!

Read on.  :-)))

There's a video on Breitbart today, and it's being hosted on the Fox local channel in St. Louis-- scene of the crime 'contre gentilesse'.  :-)

An interview was scheduled at Fox 2 St. Louis between Charles Jaco and John McCain.  Jaco is a self described (and Wikipedia described) liberal journalist, a CNN veteran and a household name during Gulf War I, alongside the Scud Stud Arthur Kent and the guy with the Brit/Aussie accent and the terrible combover whose name escapes me (the reporter's name, not the combover's, although it was famous enough to have a name of its own).

To continue... 

Before the interview started, before McCain arrived, his staffers (a couple of nice young ladies) apparently requested to 'see the shot'; that is to say they wanted a look through the monitor in order to be satisfied with the 'look' of their candidate.

That is, of course, their job.  To make him look good.

Well, Jaco and colleagues took Zeppelin-sized offense at this encroachment on their journalistic judgment.  They were puffing and blowing like a group of Orcas encircling a surfacing school of mullet.

At one point Jaco's colleague says "I have never, ever, in any organisation, ever had anyone need to look at the shot".  She said "I did this in the White House for seven years and we've looked at every shot".

Colleague: "not OUR shots!"

Jaco: "which White House?"

She became defensive and said "it doesn't matter".

Jaco said "Oh YES IT DOES-- never mind."  

How I wish he had seen fit to finish that thought.  But it was obvious just from her youth that she had not worked for Clinton for seven years.

Jaco continued, "I've done this for thirty years, this is my tenth campaign, we've done this before, we're not about making him look bad, it'll be okay", and so forth. 

Well, there you have it.  An experienced media liberal says he's not about making a Republican candidate look bad.  Case closed.  Trust is automatic, faith is complete.

NOT.

She said to Jaco as he rubbed his face in his hands and sighed long and deep, "you just seemed really agitated, I wanted to address that".

And he was.  So was his colleague. 

This was nothing more or less than "how dare you lowly PR flacks, REPUBLICAN flacks, try to oversee our work and demand approval of our almighty judgment!!!"  Those two were deeply offended, although Jaco did give a little effort toward smoothing it over.  But his heart wasn't in it.  The old "I've been in this thirty years" thing told the whole story.  And if he had any politeness and good nature, he spent it all on them and had none left for ME.  More on that in a moment.

Later in the video, the women were explaining themselves to the colleague (a manager?), saying in essence that it was their job to look at the shot, they didn't want the Senator to go on camera without clearing the look.  Again, it's their job. 

They are trying to do their job.  What's to be upset about, unless of course you have a massive ego and a low opinion of Republicans and their staff?

Having watched said video, I went to Jaco's employer's website to see how they represented it, and lo and behold, they had posted it with a story that implied this--

The staffers were difficult.  The interview almost didn't happen, and if it had been canceled, it would have been THEIR fault.  Oh, and did we mention McCain charges an awful lot of money at fundraisers where he will speak?

I was amused by their almost photo-negative rendering of events, especially as you could watch the video right there and see the truth.  It showed a little blindness on their part, an inability to understand how people see them.

So I wrote Jaco a note on the website's contact page.  I told him (you can read my note at bottom), with a little salt, that this video makes them look like jerks and they should reconsider posting it.

Here is Jaco's response to me:
____________________

Thanks for the note. I'm glad you're able to have a computer in your Mom's basement. Or do they have basements in Texas?

-----Original Message-----
From: daveperk@daveperk.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 5:51pm
To: charlesjaco@fox2ktvi.com
Subject: McCain Interview

Name : Dave Perkins
Topic: Jaco Report
Comments:

YOu guys can present this as if your people were put upon by difficult McCain people, but if you ask me, a regular Joe out here watching that video, I'd say YOUR people were the intimidating, haughty, testy and incorrible ones.  The staffers were trying to do their jobs and your people, Jaco and others, got your egos in a knot and looked like real a55h01ez (spelled this way to clear the auto-text filters and maintain the purity of meaning.  ed :-)

This makes the media look like they really think a lot of themselves, and McCain's staffers seem like nice, normal professionals.

You might want to think twice about presenting yourselves as the victims in this conflict.  It makes you look like jerks.

Dave in Texas

Back in April, Charlie Gibson asked Barack Obama a question in the debates.  He framed it with the assertion that, when cap gains rates are cut, revenues increase, and when they are increased, revenues go down.  Gibson asked Obama why he'd want to increase the rate given those facts, and Obama's answer is infamous; because he's concerned with 'fairness', because he'd rather see rich people penalized than see government revenue increase (showing more concern for punishing the rich than for funding programs for the poor).

Well, the Democrat PR machine known as Media Matters has tried to debunk this notion here.

Their claim is that people hold assets when tax rates are high, and when they are lowered, they sell them, generating a SHORT TERM increase in revenues for that tax which they claim will not hold in the long term.

The short term effect is, I agree, predictable.  But what is it that would prevent people from continuing to participate in asset markets, including the stock market, when the lower tax rate means more profit for them?  It isn't as though they could only buy assets ONCE and were therefore waiting for the propitious moment to sell.  Buying and selling takes place constantly, and if the tax rate is lower, there will be more buying and selling.  PERIOD.  IF you carefully read the article I've linked, you'll find a lot of questions and a lot of bureaucratic initials, but no real discrediting of what is obviously historical fact, that tax revenues go up when tax rates go down.

And what is most interesting is, during the exchange with Gibson, Obama did NOT challenge this.  Obama went straight to his most pressing concern; fairness. 

Nice try, Mr. Soros.  But if Obama didn't bring it up, what's your point?  Clearly, it's to UNDO the damage that Obama did to himself, namely his assertion that punishing the wealthy by increasing their taxes is his PRIMARY concern.