In what is often called political stupidity VP nominee Joe Biden had a fit of honesty at a recent fund raising rally:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy… I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities…”

Why test Obama? I dismiss the “young” theories, but he is extremely inexperienced and all over the map on his foreign policy (half the time we’re unsure he’s aware which nations are currently our allies).  Now the trend amidst his wide array of FP comments seem to be more talking with our current enemies, distancing ourselves from our allies, and pulling back our military as much as possible.  Which could be why the Military support McCain over Obama 68 to 23.  Sen. Biden went on to say:

And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

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“In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound,” said U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia. “On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying, located at about 1,500 feet elevation, did not become snow free until early August.

“In general, the weather this summer was the worst [coldest/snowiest] I have seen in at least 20 years.”

Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.

Whew. Crisis averted.  And none too soon since “carbon taxes” would only drive the economy lower.  Thanks to China and India global CO2 emissions are way up in spite of guilt-ridden Americans’ trying new light bulbs and other token fixes.

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Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher has shot onto the national scene and captured (threatened?) an election with a simple question.  Before you believe all the hype in the chopped up videos from both sides you should check out the full video for yourself (it should be around 5 minutes).

Two significant issues have emerged from the now famous meeting with Joe.  First -most importantly- is how it highlights Obama’s tax plan.  Second, is the aftermath reaction to the now famous socialist slip.

OBAMA: …If your revenue is above 250…

The majority of people are missing the fact that Obama is talking about small business REVENUE not profit. Total sales before you pay your employees, rent, materials cost, etc… NOT the cash going into your pocket as the owner after you’ve paid all your bills.  I keep hearing people talk about $250k paychecks of these owners when that’s not what he’s talking about at all.  Just looking at the payroll expenses of a mom and pop whatever with more than 5-8 employees and you quickly exceed 250k. Read more

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched. Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program.

Universal Health Care expensive? Who could have forseen that? I mean, insurance costs were vastly different way back in -uhm- January when this program was setup… Officials were also shocked to learn that people were chosing free insurance over paying for it themselves:

A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan. “People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,” said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. “I don’t believe that was the intent of the program.”

Now the best part is this: Even with the “cheating” going on by the people supporting the program with their tax dollars, only 2000 children were actually being covered by the state - and more half of the cost was actually being covered by the insurance company.  Meanwhile “experts” still estimate that 3-16,000 kids lacked health care amist a FREE universal program.  (i want a job where i get to just make up unverifiable numbers too!).  Now if the experts are wrong, we don’t actually have a problem - however - if they’re right, apparently U.H.C. did little to solve the problem while maxing out the budget.

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Somehow updating my google analytics module has broken all sorts of stuff.  LOTS of stuff that has nothing to do with that module?!?!?!

Most of my themes aren’t working but this one is mostly functional until i can figure out where to shove the magic smoke back in….

So the latest and greatest Macs are fresh out of the oven, and I am impressed AND amused.  The new laptops added the “Centrino 2″ processors that have been gracing Win/Linux lappies for the past several months, but that’s not the real story.

The Good:

• A new process allows Apple to create cases out of solid blocks of aluminum.  This means a light weight and very sturdy design.  MacBooks lost a half pound!  (tho Pros are actually heavier somehow)
• A glass track pad - no buttons (well physical buttons at least) and multi-gesture support (think iPhone).
• Real graphics power.  MacBooks get nvidia 9400M a huge leap from crappy “integrated” graphics. Pros get a switchable 9400M / 9600M.  (Having the 9600M in my notebook I can tell you it will play any game at full settings and it can almost play Crysis at Medium)
• The Air got a processor and storage boost making it slightly easier to justify it’s price

The Bad: Read more

In an attempt to solve a problem created by government interference with the free market, the government has promised $700 Billion of additional “help” (minus a considerable amount of pork to get this “absolutely necessary” measure passed).   The market’s reaction? Sell, Sell, Sell! Apparently the greedy wall street bastards have less confidence in the government powers and promises then -well- the government’s own view.

The DJIA is not a perfect measure of the market but it’s an easy reference point.  Here are the closing of the Dow for the last few weeks:

Note that in the week and a half before this “crisis” was declared such, the Dow dropped 92 points.  In the week and a half that the government displayed its competence at promising help without mentioning how we got here, the Dow dropped another 500 points.  And in the sole week since the ill-conceived  solution became law the Dow has plummeted another 1874 points.

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A thought provoking Op-Ed by David Brooks:

Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context. William F. Buckley famously said he’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. But he didn’t believe those were the only two options. His entire life was a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect.

Driven by a need to engage elite opinion, conservatives tried to build an intellectual counterestablishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the idea of a cultivated mind…

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads…

I think Brooks is quite mistaken to use “republicans” and “conservatives” interchangeably. While is commentary on the GOP is pretty spot on, conservatives by and large have been left behind by both parties - at least on the national level. Read more

SNL had a funny and truthful sketch. satirizing the bailout mess. If your Tivo missed it youc an watch it below. Apparently it hit too close to home because it’s been yanked from the NBC web site… funny how that never seems to happen when the Republicans are at the brunt of the joke. A few quick facts before the sketch:

• The couple Herbert and Marion Sandler is actually true to life. They created a sub-prime mortgage company that they sold to Wachovia for $24.2 billion
• Our readers should already be aware that Bush (and to a lesser extent McCain) warned about Freddy & Fannie only to be defeated by the Democrats led by Barnie Frank
• I’m sure Soros is making bank on this crisis (tho not all $700B), but lets not forget Warren Buffet who grabbed a $5B piece of the pie at a guaranteed 10% return forever at a time when most stock holders are feeling ill. Which is great (i love capitalism as much as anyone), but  remember that the next time he gets preachy on “fairness” and “equality” amongst the classes.

I also found it funny that SNL sooo often makes fun of Bush’s intelligence that they had to have another (Democratic) character confirm that he was right so you didn’t miss the joke. Now enjoy the 8 minute show:

• NBC pulls video of SNL skit embarrassing Dems 

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Victor Davis Hanson had an interesting piece last week that I came across today.  He throws the blame for the sub prime mortgage disaster -well part of it at least- right at your feet.  If you agree with him, a chance to redeem yourself is waiting a short month away.

When the mortgage bubble burst, Americans were “shocked” at how many Wall Street buccaneers had been gambling in a vast pyramid scheme with someone else’s money. Paper fortunes were made buying and selling questionable sub-prime mortgages on the silly assumption that such gargantuan inside profiting would always expand — even as the number of homebuyers able to buy overpriced properties was shrinking.

Now after the recent crash in sub-prime mortgages and the stock of several investment firms, a trillion dollars in “assets” could be nearly worthless…

All that remains of this Ponzi scheme is the election-year blame game. Republicans charge that important financial firewalls were dismantled by the Clinton administration while insider liberal senators got shady campaign donations in exchange for aiding Wall Street. Democrats counter that the laissez-faire capitalism espoused by Republicans for two decades encouraged financial piracy while tax policy favored the rich speculator over the middle-class wage earner.

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