Under the Fedora Eastwood, Atheists and a tale of Two Platforms

Last week the GOP convention took place in Tampa, it was shorted by a day due to the Hurricane but as far as the media is concerned the only person who spoke during that week was Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood’s speech was totally unexpected.  Not only was nobody expecting a comedy routine, but the style of the comedy was something out of the early sixties.  A time Eastwood would remember well but the audience familiar with Eastwood would have forgotten.

The media has been unanimous in it’s condemnation of the quality of the Eastwood business, it’s been a foolish, it’s been bizarre it’s been the joke of the RNC and Eastwood is a old man who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

The only problem with this argument is the reaction has been exactly the opposite, Eastwood’s empty chair has produced “Empty Chair Day”, the empty chair (with apologies to Amsterdam & Newheart) is now known as “Eastwooding” and we’ve even reached the point where people are urging the DNC to bring in it’s own elderly advocate in the form of Betty White to help boost the cause, and as late as Tuesday, Eastwood related items topped Memeorandum and if you go to the front page of CNN’s web page today.

Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound like a joke, an oddity or a failure.  I mean you actually had a union president beating up on a chair in response to Eastwood:

“Mitt Romney doesn’t have anything to say, Paul Ryan doesn’t have anything to say.”

 

Things took a dark turn when he then kicked and threw the chair, yelling “Dirty Harry, make my day! We’re gonna kick ass in November!” The crowd nevertheless, cheered him on.

Fear makes people do very weird things.  These people are scared.

But that’s not odd, it’s not the first time Eastwoods foes have been afraid of him.

Meanwhile there were a lot of other speakers at the RNC that the left found less interesting, the ignored Mia Love, the passed on Artur Davis on MSNBC but his speech while not producing a reaction from MSNBC certainly managed to drive Roland Martin up a wall.

What did Davis say that was so damaging to the left?  This:

“There are Americans watching right now who voted for the President but they’re searching right now, because they know their votes didn’t build the country they wanted. To those democrats and Independents whose minds are open to argument, listen closely to the Democratic party that will gather in Charlotte, ask yourself if you hear your voice in the clamor, ask if these Democrats still speak for you?

This was the re-occurring theme of the GOP convention and of speaker after speaker, not so much a reaffirmation for true believers but a message reaching out to those who voted the other way saying:   It’s OK to switch.

Oddly enough Mitt Romney, who gave a pretty good speech, has become almost an afterthought.  That was both good, (the media and the left was too busy hitting Eastwood to lay a glove on Mitt), and bad  (lot of people didn’t get much exposure to what he had to say).

Still a good week for him.

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There also were a lot of questions about the RNC platform on Abortion, no specific exception for rape and incest. Never mind that this is the same platform line that they’ve had for years, in the Age of Akin this is breaking news to the MSM.

Strangely enough this week we there were some major changes to the DNC platform that came out.  The document came out for taxpayer funded abortion, the media yawned.

Language favoring Israel was removed.

Below is the section missing from the 2012 document. Pay special attention to the areas in bold (H/T @RJCHQ) :

 

The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient efforts and the personal commitment of the President of the United States. The creation of a Palestinian state through final status negotiations, together with an international compensation mechanism, should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel. All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949. Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.

 

Each of these items are crucial to Israel and each have been key areas of contention for those who believe this President has not been friendly to the Jewish State.

And the MSM didn’t blink an eye, never mind there was a time when risking a split with American Jews would be big news, that would be front page headlines, in every paper and every newscast there is.

But there was a bigger change that came up.

For years religious types have been moving away from the Democrat party.  In their last platform the word “God” only had a single appearance.  This time around they don’t even have that, which produced an incredible piece of video when Brett Baier dared to ask Dick Durbin about it.

Outside of Fox this got very little press, Piers Morgan asked Debbie Wasserman Schultz about it and her answer was classic

“What I can tell you is our policies and our values are is reflected in many faith traditions and that what our platform is all about.”

What a generic piece of pabulum this is.  I can’t believe a party chairman would be willing to say it aloud.

While a platform Sans God might play poorly with the general public, it is playing well with the atheist movement, they might be celebrating if they weren’t so busy feuding among themselves.

Atheism ought to be a progressive social movement in addition to being a philosophical and scientific position, because living in a godless universe means something to humanity.

That’ PZ Myers last seen putting nails through Eucharist hosts.  And according to Myers what happens if you don’t buy into this new Athiest club (known as Athiest+) well:

And if you don’t agree with any of that — and this is the only ‘divisive’ part — then you’re an asshole. I suggest you form your own label, “Asshole Atheists” and own it, proudly.

Yeah this is really going to play well in Peoria

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Doctor who came back finally this week, we had a good but tragic story that was a real tear jerker but I was really annoyed to see what they did with the new companion.

I think Stephen Moffat  is a brilliant writer, Silence in the Library and Blink were classic episodes as was Time Crash featuring the 5^th doctor meeting the 10^th.

But since he became the head of the series it’s as if every story was a temporal paradox.

Finally the Brett Kimberlin crowd continues to issue threats to all concerned of Lawsuits and worse but his record in court doesn’t seem to be doing too well:

And then Kimberlin foolishly rested without asking me to authenticate the documents that were allegedly by me.  (I didn’t highlight this mistake when discussing the case because I hoped he would continue to make that mistake.)  At that point, my able attorney, Reginald Bours III stood up and said:

 

I’m going to ask that you [the court] make a finding now that the petitioner [Kimberlin] has not met, even initially, the burden of proof required under the statute.

 

In other words, Bours felt that Kimberlin’s presentation was so feeble that a defense was not necessary.  Every person is presumed not to have violated the peace order statute until they have been proven by the petitioner to have done so.  And further, an appeal to the circuit court it is a trial de novo, which means it is an entirely new trial, with the presumption I am “innocent” until proven “guilty” just like in the first trial.  (Or more precisely they presume I did nothing justifying a peace order until Kimberlin proves I had.)  The court agreed and dismissed the petition.

There is still a long way to go in this case but if I was a betting man I’d be betting against the bad guys here, oh and if you want to help the fight there is a rather cool auction going on with some great items from artist Chris Muir of Day by Day

Each 11″ x 19″ print has been signed by the following giants of the Blogosphere: Michelle Malkin, Glenn and Helen Reynolds (Instapundit and Dr.Helen), Bill Whittle (Afterburner), Jeff Goldstein (Protein Wisdom), Ed Morrissey (Hot Air), Robert Stacy McCain (The Other McCain), and Mandy Nagy (Liberty Chick).

And now you can get a copy of the print in one of two ways.  Two of them will be raffled off.  The third will be auctioned off.

And all proceeds will go to the Blogger’s Defense Team.

Sounds like a worthy investment to me

Under the Fedora: Demoralized as Hell, 2016 & Hookups

Neal Armstrong is dead.

For all of our celebrity culture there are in reality very few people who will be remembered for generations after they are gone.

Neil Armstrong was one of those people.

How did Barack Obama remember Armstrong?  With a photo of himself, not a photo of him with Armstrong, but with a photo of Obama looking in space.

I’ve been saying for a year that Barack Obama is in trouble, it’s finally reached the point where some other conservatives are seeing the same thing and saying it publicly

the hardest people to convince has not been the left who is doing their best to pretend it isn’t happening but the right who can’t bring themselves to admit they are winning for fear that something anything might happen to blow it.

But now look. You have John Nolte from Breitbart openly saying on one of the most significant sites on the right Obama is losing. You have Erick Erickson from CNN bluntly saying these are signs of panic in his campaign and you have Nice Deb a blogger highly respected throughout the net daring to believe and say what’s been apparent for a while.

And it’s getting harder and harder for the left to pretend this isn’t happening as the Lonely Conservative notes:

Despite a laughable D +9 sample in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, Mitt Romney is still ahead of President Obama by one point. Imagine what it would look like with a realistic sample?

It’s things like this that cause Chris Matthews to go spastic,

Oh and that poll…it’s a post Todd Akin poll.

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Speaking of things that make the left panic, the Documentary 2016 is doing something documentaries are not supposed to do, well at the box office

The Hollywood Reporter says that 2016: Obama’s America grossed “a stellar $6.3 million” as it ran in theaters nationwide, beating three new studio films.

Having opened in just a few theaters earlier this month, Obama’s America has now raked in a total of $9.2 million.

It is now the most financially successful conservative documentary of all time, and could wind up one of the must lucrative documentaries.

I saw the movie Monday night, a manager at the theatre told me it was doing well enough that they may hold it over at least for another weekend.  My thoughts on the picture are here

I’m thinking this movie would have a lot lesser effect if the media had not left a void in the background of Barack Obama the candidate for Dinesh D’Sousa to fill in with Obama’s own words.

Then again they likely suspect that if they didn’t leave that void there would be no President Barack Obama period.  I disagree, they could have spun it enough to manage.

Of course some people like Trevor Loudon are more blunt on the subject of the left:

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In all the political news that is dominating the airwaves there is one story that has received scant attention:  Egyptian tanks and troops in the Sinai Peninsula.

In an apparent response to comments Tuesday by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who said Israel must ensure that every letter of the peace treaty is enforced, Yadlin said there is no need to latch on to every letter of the agreement.

“What the Egyptians are doing in Sinai today is a more significant effort than in the past to deal with terrorism,” Yadlin said. “So long as the operation is widespread and focused against terrorism, I think we need to look at this realistically.”

Yeah after all we know the Muslim Brotherhood is reliable and trustworthy.

My biggest fear frankly isn’t an Israeli strike on Iran.  It’s Egypt deciding that they will use this as a pretense to beef up Tanks etc in Sinai contravening the treaty and pushing it to the limit with Israel and the Jewish state reaching the point where they find it necessary to react a-la 1967.

If you aren’t thinking of this, you ought to be

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It’s rare that I visit Little Green Footballs these days and even rarer that I link them but when I saw the following story at the guardian

The death of pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie was a “regrettable accident” for which the state of Israel was not responsible, a judge has ruled, dismissing a civil lawsuit brought by the family.

The young American had “put herself in a dangerous situation” and her death was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army, said Judge Oded Gershon at Haifa district court.

I had to look.

You see if you were a reader of LGF back in the day LGF had very little respect for the foolish Miss Corrie referring to her as “St. Pancake” as she placed herself in front of a bulldozer for the Palestinians.

I was curious to see how they would play this ruling at the “New” LGF so I actually went to the site.  They had a barebones with an excerpt from the Jerusalem post story by a fellow named Randall Gross and a mixed message in comments as of this writing.

No reaction from Charles Johnson himself but It’s interesting to see there is still a Pro-Israel block on the site.

As for the meat of the ruling:

  The judge rules the driver couldn’t see her and was not responsible.

Corrie is the epitome of the “Useful Idiot” and her death made the “Useful” status permanent.

Instapundit linked to this story by the Anchoress about the new “hookup culture” among young women:

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that these younger women rely on hook-ups for impersonal sexual gratification so they can set their sights on career, money and power without personal encumbrances; no clinging vines requiring their company or their humanity; no kids to distract them from the office and their pursuit of the brass ring — or the brass idol.

How utterly depressing. The sexual revolution and its illusory notion of “having it all” has folded in upon itself to forge a chain-link of perfect irony: 21st Century women have become precisely the shallow, insincere, career-fixated, corporate people-users that early feminists decried.

Women were going to teach men how to be human, remember? Instead, they’ve become everything they claimed to hate.

Now, all they need is a wife to raise the kids

It linked to a second piece from July that was just… amazing

When “Girls” hit this spring, I was shocked by how true the show rang to my life—not my old life as a post-collegiate single girl but my new one, as a married, monogamous, home-owning mother. My generation of moms isn’t getting shocking HPV news (we’re so old we’ve cleared it), or having anal sex with near-strangers, or smoking crack in Bushwick. But we’re masturbating excessively, cheating on good people, doing coke in newly price-inflated townhouses, and sexting compulsively—though rarely with our partners. Our children now school-aged, our marriages entering their second decade, we are avoiding the big questions—Should I quit my job? Have another child? Divorce?—by behaving like a bunch of crazy twentysomething hipsters. Call us the Regressives.

* * *

Why do moms in my generation regress, whether by drugging, cheating, or going out too late and too often? Because everything our children thrive on—stability, routine, lack of flux, love, well-paired parents—feels like death to those entrusted with their care.

I have plenty of problems in my life but I don’t know a single person like this.

You know people wonder why the Catholic Church and it’s doctrines have survived for so many centuries, it’s because the promises of nonsense like feminism have and always will be empty while the promises of God are eternal.

Speaking of the church did you see Cardinal Dolan is now invited to give the closing prayer at the DNC as well? Can’t wait to see the crowd shots.

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On a lighter note Dr. Who will be back this Saturday and the BBC is putting out a daily 60 second bits as a prelude to the episode, here is Tuesday’s

I take a lot of teasing for my Dr. Who fandom, I still maintain it is the best science fiction series of all time.

Finally last week in my Examiner piece I introduced Sarah the Obama voter who had decided to switch, the RNC has a new video out along the same lines called “Switchers”.

To counter these switchers the DNC will be featuring Charlie Crist endorsing Obama at his convention next week, the same Charlie Crist who said four years ago that Sarah Palin was more qualified than Barack Obama.

I’ll take Sarah and those folks in the GOP ad to Charlie Crist any day.

Under the Fedora St. Anselm Akin and Pinball

I’m writing today’s Under the Fedora at Funspot the Largest Arcade in the world.  I came up here with my youngest to relax and celebrate his new job.  The most relaxing thing I know is pinball but 4 hours of it can be murder on the hands.

The only news that seems to be on the table today is Todd Akin and his gaffe concerning pregnancy.  Akin’s story has dominated the news for several days during which the right was in dead panic and the left is positively drooling.

As I’ve already written the Akin situation contains traps for both the right and the left.  The difference?  The traps for the right are generally short term and the traps for the left are more of a long term nature.

I can’t see either side avoiding them since both sets of traps are so well suited to their natures.

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This single most amazing thing of the entire Akin business, at the same time the left is getting ready to go all out, all Akin all the time, their national convention features Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker.

I wonder if anyone has asked “Juanita Broaddrick” for comment?

Electorally it would have been better if Akin left the race but as the Lonely Conservative said:

There’s no fixing stupid

I’m not all that comfortable removing a candidate who won a primary based on a gaffe but it will be  neat trick to see Akin try to pull this off without national support, but people seem to forget that none of the conditions that put both Barack Obama and Claire McCaskill on the endangered list have changed.  It remains to be seen if the people in Missouri will decide that a gaffe already apologized for is as bad as Claire McCaskill’s record.

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BTW have you ever noticed that apologies are never accepted if they come from Republicans.  If you are  a democrat you can Sexually Harass interns in the White House and remain president, You can have your boyfriend run a call service from your apartment and remain in congress and you can avoid paying the taxes you owe become treasury secretary.

The letter D after your name apparently is stronger that the most expensive indulgence that the Catholic church ever sold.

Mitt Romney held his 100^th Town meeting at St. Anselm College on Monday.  I was credentialed for the event and got some interesting interviews both before

And after.

As a rule events of this type are stage managed to a large degree but there was one moment that really bodes well for Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan:

Cheryl was an Obama voter, a former teacher who had never gone to a Romney event before. She left as a Romney voter. I asked her per, Gov Romney’s challenge, what she would say to a fellow 2008 Obama voter to persuade them to change their vote her answer was telling:

“All they have to do is listen carefully, there is so much negativity and there is no message in negativity“

Her dissatisfaction, more than any successfully staged event is the greatest danger to the election prospects of this administration.

I suspect this is being repeated a lot more often than people think.

This doesn’t bode well for the President, but the comic reaction when word passed through the press area that the president spontaneously showed up for the daily press briefing was much more telling.  One gentleman joked about the people called on:  First question Inside Edition etc. etc etc.

They might vote for him, but I suspect it will not be out of respect.

Three other St. Anselm notes:   I met Ambassador Joe Patrone for the first time.  I had no idea who he was and only approached him because he had one of the most stylish fedora’s I ever saw.

One really gets the seriousness of a “presidential” event when you see members of the Secret service on the roof of a building keeping watch.

The last Romney event I showed up for a reporter’s power supply blew up, the secret service was there faster than you can say, “South American Call Girl”.

One of the volunteers at the event was a fellow named Peter who sat with me, Stacy McCain and Mike Rogers of Granite Grok at the bar earlier this year after the National Review debate event in Manchester.  He gave his take on things along with some of the background work that volunteers had to go through

It’s the volunteers who do the heavy lifting simply to help their candidate win.  They never seem to get the proper credit so if you were a worker at St. Anselm’s let me say.  Thanks, great job!

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The Hollywood reports tells us that the anti-Obama documentary 2016 is raising eyebrows due to its popularity:

It’s already the No. 12 political documentary of all time — a market that Michael Moore has cornered — as well as the No. 2 conservative documentary after Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed ($7.7 million).

Hmmm large crowds at an anti-Obama documentary, Large crowds at Mitt Romney events, large crowds at Chick-Fil-A.

Ya think the American people might be trying to tell us something?

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Oh and was there anything more lame that the Obama team trying to say to the NYT that they are drawing small crowds on purpose.  Talk about channeling Pee-Wee Herman:

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A lot of people are snarking at Melky Cabrera for making a fake web page for a fake topical cream in order to avoid being caught using performance enhancing drugs.

They are surprised he tried it, I’m not.  His salary for 2012 is $6,000,000 based on a 162 game schedule.  A fifty game suspension costs him $1.848  Million dollars.

Would you fake a web page to avoid losing that kind of money?

“But DaTechGuy” you might say,  “Why not just not use the drugs and keep the whole six mil?”  Well perhaps if it wasn’t for the drugs the Giants wouldn’t’ think he was worth six million.

People forget the kind of money that was, and is at stake in sports.  These men are unlikely to make anything near this kind of dough in their lives again and a single injury means it’s all over.  If someone told you, take this pill and you will make millions it would take a man of great character to refuse it.

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One of the things you notice about Funspot is just how many different things there are to do from the old arcade games, to pinball, to Bowling (tenpin & candlepin) to mini golf to slots (all for tickets).  It’s a very family orientated place as you might expect from a business that has been around since 1964.

One thing that’s slightly older than Funspot is Dr. Who.  The latest season is starting in a week on BBC and BBC America.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Dr. Who fan, but I think the decision to split the season in the way they did has really dropped my interest in the new series.  If that’s happening to me I’ll bet happening to a lot of other Dr. Who fans.

Of course the Big Finish series still excites me and I can’t wait for the 2^nd Tom Baker season featuring Mary Tamm as the first Romana.  They finished recording the season before she died last month.

It’s amazing how Tom Baker seems to outlast just about everyone.

USA today reports yet another fake hate crime

A former University of Nebraska women’s basketball star faked an attack in which she allegedly carved anti-gay slurs into her skin because she felt it would spark change, police said Tuesday.

I have nothing but contempt for this woman, for her cause she was willing to tar people as violent, even worse what if the police had picked up a person, that man’s live would have been over and she would have been the toast of the town.

Something sweet to close, after my appearance on WROL’s Out With Joe this Sunday we stopped for supper.  The desert tray had something amazing.

Believe it or not I actually managed to resist Chocolate Cannoli cake.

Under the Fedora Ryan Pesky and Fischer

The big news this week was Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan for the GOP ticket

I had predicted Tim Pawlenty would be the pick and was generally surprised that Ryan got the call.  It was a pick that at first glance was Atypical.  Ryan is not what could be considered a “safe” pick and Mitt Romney is the quintessential safe poll.

But the more you think about it the Paul Ryan pick makes a lot of sense if you think of Mitt Romney as a CEO who is looking to solve a problem and hiring staff to do so.

Paul Ryan brings all the tools Mitt Needs most, familiarity with both the budget process and with the house.  If you are out to fix the country’s budget and deficit issues there was no VP candidate that can come close to Ryan in terms of qualifications.

It’s been suggested that Paul Ryan is going to make Mitt Romney a better campaigner.  I really didn’t think it would be the case until I saw this story from Stacy McCain out of Ohio.

The speech itself was awesome. I’d already heard Mitt speak twice earlier today — first at a coal mine in Beallsville and then in downtown Zanesville — and parts of the speech were already familiar. But I noticed Mitt was reading from a teleprompter at the Chillicothe event, so this particular speech was prepared in advance. But given the content, including references to the “wild and reckless accusations . . . a few hours ago in Virginia,” it was obvious that it had been updated quite recently.

At several points, Mitt was interrupted by cheers and applause, and at times the crowd broke into chants of “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!” or “USA! USA! USA!” The candidate was fired up and the crowd was fired up, and it was very exciting to be there with my 13-year-old son Jefferson. Afterwards, as we left, I talked briefly to a National Correspondent Whose Name You Would Recognize and said, “Great speech, huh?”

The correspondent replied: “He wrote it himself, you know.”

So I guess the Ryan pick is reallying paying off if it makes Mr. Mitt a good campaigner

Oh Stacy McCain in on  yet another shoe leather reporting trip, nobody does it better.

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On the other side of the coin Joe Biden has become a gaffe machine.  His latest is getting the century wrong.

Now you and I know this is a little thing but can you imagine the media reaction if  this had been Sarah Palin?  It would be proof of incompetence and the MSM would never let the narrative go, EVAH.

Actually we don’t have to imagine we saw the media in 2008 and to this day I still meet the uninformed who thinks Palin is some kind of dunce.

A much more serious gaffe was Biden’s was the “back in chains” business that prompted this exchange on Morning Joe: (via the MRC)

WILLIE GEIST: It has to be said that if Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate, said that to an African-American audience —

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Oh my Lord.

GEIST: — there would be calls this morning for him to get out of the race; for Mitt Romney to withdraw from the race. There’s a double-standard [inaudible].

JOE SCARBOROUGH: The New York Times would have it on the front page; they’d be writing huge editorials. Everybody–everybody!–watching this show would be calling him a racist and say that this is the most obscene thing ever, but it’s the double-standard we live by.

Just a reminder, Morning Joe is on MSNBC and this is being said aloud.

If you wonder why I watch Morning Joe religiously it’s because every now and then, they speak basic truths that would normally not be said to the MSNBC audience.  It is for that reason one of the single most important shows on Television.

And they’re right, it Ryan had done this there would be denunciation from the NAACP, Al Shaprton would be marching, Jessie Jackson would be holding vigils and there would be no other story in the MSM until Ryan was gone.

But it doesn’t fit the template so no Sharpton march for Biden.

Come to think of it there has been a spate of shooting and killings in the Black Community in Boston and Al Sharpton hasn’t shown his face to march or call for justice but then again there is no way to exploit these shootings politically so they don’t matter to Al or the MSM.

So what if innocent black women are shot in Boston, it’s not as if someone was trying to open a Chick-Fil-A in the city.

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Speaking of shootings and Chick Fil-A A volunteer for LGBT groups tried to pass himself off as an intern at the Family Research Council’s DC location (complete with Chick-Fil-A bag) and get into the building.  A security guard didn’t fall for it and took a bullet for his trouble.  The Gunman justified his actions over the FRC’s position on Gay Marriage and in the hours before the attack (and even after) the left was going after FRC as a “hate” group.

Somehow our friends on the left don’t see a connection, certainly not the same connection they saw on Sarah Palin’s Target Map.

You see it’s what you believe that matters not what you do, I suspect the primary reason so many on the left  are angry is because it makes their side look bad.  But there are a fair amount who haven’t slowed down one bit.

As for the media that was so quick to look for a right wing connection to other shootings, they didn’t find this story very newsworthy.  MSNBC gave it all of 17 seconds according to Newsbusters and  CNN took two hours to report it.  I guess it took that long for the e-mail from Talking Points Memo to arrive.

Do I really need to say how CNN/MSNBC et/al would have covered this if the attacker was a tea party member and the target advocates for Gay Marriage?  I guess the whole “If it bleeds it leads” doesn’t apply if the blood is on the right and shed by the left.

Some baseball;  Johnny Pesky has died at the age of 92.  He was one of the most beloved Red Sox players of all time, he played with and against some of the greatest players who have ever played the game and has been a fixture with the Red Sox for decades as player manager, coach and more. When he had the chance to hold up the World Series Trophy it was one of the great moments for the franchise.

Many people forget that Pesky “held the ball” a tad long allowing Enos Slaughter to score from first to win the 1946 World Series for St. Louis, as you might guess that was not one of his finest moments with the club but time and his winning was cured this.

Pesky had a monster first year in the majors but like most players of his era lost several years due to military service.  Today the idea of any athlete choosing the military when he could be making millions is almost unheard of but to Johnny Pesky and his ilk that was no big deal

Another big baseball story Felix Hernandez pitched a perfect game 27 up, 27 down, the first ever for Seattle on Wednesday blanking Tampa Bay 1-0 .  It was the one bright spot in an otherwise lousy season for the team.

What makes this 23^rd ever perfect game special to me is it took place in August, before the rosters expand.  It is much more common to see no hitters etc in April when the players are cold or Sept when the rosters are dotted with Minor Leagues being tested.

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Some film.  The Expendables 2 comes out on Friday and Already the talk of the new additions for Expendables 3 is out there

And you thought The Expendables 2 had every big-name action film star… Just wait for The Expendables 3. Without a firm agreement from Lionsgate that a third installment will even go forward—although a successful opening on Aug. 17 of the sequel could solidify that move quickly—producer Avi Lerner is already lining up new names. Big new names.

The first signed on to join the ever-growing list of stars in The Expendables franchise is Nicolas Cage. And Lerner has other offers on the table, as reported by Total Film, to Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Mickey Rourke and even the jailed Wesley Snipes (he is scheduled for a July 2013 release from prison, which could work out just swell for filming of the new movie).

Cripes, do they plan on cloning John Wayne and giving him a cameo too?  Actually his son Patrick is still around and he’s done some of this kind of thing.

Finally a story on my blog about a fellow named Matt Fischer got a ton of attention.  He had a problem with Progressive Insurance over the death claim for his sister and his story went viral.   On my own site it is easily one of my top 6 posts of all time.

Progressive is a company with billions in assets Mr. Fischer is one guy with a blog, but it will take more than clever commercials staring Flo to undo the damage their bungling of his sister’s claim has done.

Sam Colt may have made men equal in the 1800’s but the internet has made them even more so today.

See you next week.

Under the Fedora: Harry Reid, Chick-Fil-A and the Oldest Trick in the Oldest Book

While left & right could, even before one shot up a Sikh Temple, both agree that Nazis are bad, at least we can tell the difference between Sikh’s and Muslims and the Onion & real news.

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On Thursday at the National Press club a group of Black Ministers announced the formation of an organization against President Obama over his stance on “gay marriage”.  One minister referred to the president as “Judas” suggesting the president did this for the sake of “30 pieces of silver”  Another compared the statements of the Mayor of Chicago, Boston and others to the exclusion of Blacks from restaurant counters.

In a tight election year when president Obama an event like this that portends an unprecedented split in the black community might normally be considered news, most normal people would consider it news, but it got little or no coverage on air by  the MSM and just passing coverage online from their sites.

This is not a shock.  There is no plus side for the MSM.  Not only would this hurt the perception of Black Americans united for Obama but it would put them in an impossible position, after all it’s one thing to call the white southern owner of the Chick-Fil-A franchise a “bigot” over opposing gay marriage, it’s quite another to do this to a black clergyman, and trust me, the same people whose money forced sorry persuaded President Obama to complete his “evolution” before the election would insist on it.

While the MSM has nothing to say, I’d be shocked if this isn’t a big topic on Black Radio nationwide.

Oh and Allen West (more on him later) purchased Chick-Fil-A for all the Congressional Black Caucus.  Alcee Hastings said all were insulted.

I can’t wait to hear them express their feelings of insult when they visit churches in their districts in campaign 2012

Meanwhile Harry Reid is in full “I’ve got a secret” mode where he is accusing Mitt Romney of not paying taxes based on “people who have told him” without naming those people and insisting that is it for Mitt Romney to prove his charges are false.

That the media was willing to give this story legs even before he repeated these charges on the floor of the US senate says something about the MSM, none of it good.  At first the MSM seemed perfectly willing to go with this.  As Stacy McCain put it:

Grant that Reid’s wild accusation — “financial McCarthyism,” you might call it — is newsworthy even if it is absolutely false. And it almost certainly is false, Dan Primack of Fortune says. But is it now an accepted practice at the Washington Post just to repeat whatever politicians say (in interviews with reporters for other publications) without bothering to do any independent reporting at all?

Of course sometimes things don’t work out like this meme didn’t so you now have the spectacle of Mother Jones hitting Harry Reid and the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen turning on him.

Roll Call reports Reid will not run again in 2016, It shows you want kind of power a person has when he know he won’t be facing the voters again for 4 years.

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Wednesday a veritable multitude of people showed up at the 1600+ Chick-Fil-A locations to have a meal and to socialize.  It became a giant conservative event and Chick-Fil-A while not doing anything official to promote this day, they managed to have a record breaking day in terms of sales.

Friday Gay Marriage supporters scheduled a “kiss in” with considerably less success in terms of numbers, but much greater success in positive media promotion.

A lot of conservative were snarking about going to Chick Fil-A to see a bunch of lesbians kiss with lines like:  Delicious chicken and hot lesbian action?  I’m in!  Unfortunately for them the images they have in their head are from TV & porn, didn’t match the reality, nor did the numbers of either Friday’s Protest or the follow up “Starbucks Appreciation Day”

It could be they don’t have the numbers, or it could be a case of Fedoraphobia.

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Some Olympics?  There was a lot of fuss over badminton.  It appears the Top Chinese team tried to throw a match in order to increase the chances of delaying the #2 Chinese team until the gold medal round.  Their opponents decided to counter also trying to throw the same match.

The fans for treated to the odd spectacle of two of the best badminton pairs in the world both doing their best to lose without trying to do so.  It was apparently the oddest match you ever saw in your life.

These pairs and several others involved have all been ejected and the fans have furiously demanded their money back.

North Korea has a lot of problems, a repressive and backward state, a starving population but one thing absolute state control does is produce athletes.  When one of their weightlifter took home gold he publicly stated it was all due to the Great Leader of North Korea.

Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama should use him in their next ads.

A quick plug for a new advertiser of mine, the American Products store.  They own a small shop in Cherry Valley (Leicester MA) and sell products made in or manufactured in America.

I mentioned Allen West, he appeared in Lexington this week

It was quite a contrast to the Chick-Fil-A stuff as I noted in my Examiner Column this week:

The 30 or so protesters, dwarfed by even the lines at Chick-Fil-A that day, to say nothing of the Wednesdays informal appreciation event chanted loudly and were escorted from the mall where across the street at the local Barnes & Noble, Media trucks awaited their comment.

Yet two days later an event featuring one of the most prominent members of congress. A member who has been specifically targeted for defeat by the left draws 5-6 times the crowd in a public place in one of the bluest states of the union and Major media decided that this was not worth covering.

If Allen West feels comfortable enough about his situation to schedule events 1000 miles from his district when targeted AND can draw a large crowd than a nationally promoted protest in the home of Gay Marriage in the US by a factor of 6, it says something about election 2012 in Congressmen West s district and in Massachusetts should be afraid.

This election is going to be a disaster for the left, it’s no wonder they are hiding crosstabs in polls.

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Finally lets close with Religion  At the Annual convention of the Episcopal church the presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori gave the following advice to the “faithful” in attendance:

“Jefferts Schori then proclaims that she has the answer for this. We all need the ‘act of crossing boundaries’ to become God after which our hands become a ‘sacrament of mission.’ (emphasis mine)

I thought it sounded familiar and sure enough I looked in Genesis Chapter 3

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

The pitch the Bishop gives the attendees is identical to the one Satan gives Eve in the garden.

We’ve all heard the expression “falling for the oldest trick in the book” but this is the first time I’ve seen an example where this is true literally.

See you next week.

Under the Fedora Olympics, Rumors and Dying churches

The Olympics have begun, some thoughts:

Am I the only one who thought the James Bond queen skydiving business was tacky?

If you are going to do pop culture of England over decades, can you do it without a single clip from Dr. Who a series that has been around nearly 50 years?

Michael Phelps broke the record as the greatest Olympic medal winner in history, yet earlier this week people are shocked SHOCKED that Michael Phelps failed to qualify in one of the Olympic races.

Guys he won a ton of medals last time, if he had never won another one he would still be one of the greatest Olympic athletes ever.

I swear the Vatican must be the just about only state that doesn’t field an Olympic team.  Then again what event would a priest have time to train for?

I’d actually like to see them in at least once Olympics, I’m sure they would be treated with less deference that certain other states are.

The IOC caved to Arab states by not permitting a moment of silence for the murdered Israeli athletes at the London Olympics.

Jacques Rogge capitulated to the 46-member bloc of Arab and Muslim countries because of the threat of Arab countries to boycott participation in the Games.

Spitzer, who jumpstarted an international campaign to garner a minute of silence at the London games, reported that Rogge told her that “his hands were tied” by the influence of the 46-member group.

Her rejoinder to Rogge: “No, my husband’s hands were tied, not yours.”

If the arabs wanted to leave the game, he should have said:  Fine, go, you can return when you learn the difference between barbarism and civilization.

Unfortunately not only was such an impossible thought not forthcoming but at the insistence of the Lebanese team a barrier was erected between them and the Israeli athletes.

Speaking of cowardice the whole Chick–Fil-A business reeks of cowardice and opportunism.  Michael Graham noted it best when he pointed out the contradiction of welcoming a mosque that preached death to gays while denouncing a restaurant that supports the actual definition of marriage.

Apparently it’s OK to kill gays as long as you let them marry first.

What was that line from the African queen:

By the authority granted to me by his Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm the Second I pronounce you man and wife – proceed with the execution.

I was on a radio show this weekend where a caller bluntly said anyone who doesn’t support gay marriage is a racist.

Apparently every US president who ever lived was a racist until recently, so was Barack Obama.  So was every member of the media who didn’t back the idea just 20 years ago or less.

There is nothing so intolerant than a tolerant leftist.

On Twitter Dana Loesch noted a comment by the Mayor of Philly

Alternate headline: Philly mayor sez banning biz based on owner’s beliefs is an “American value.”

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 29, 2012

I don’t see why anyone is surprised.  I seem to remember the democrats being big on telling people they weren’t welcome if they advanced idea they didn’t like, you know people like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner,

The real big shock that Amanda Marcotte and Robert Stacy McCain are on the same page concerning restricting chick-Fil-A,  I suppose both are thinking in terms of broken clocks.

There is a lot of fuss being made about Dick Cheney saying Sarah Palin was a bad pick in 2008.  I think the anger is misguided for a couple of reasons, first of all to a traditional pol like Cheney that’s not an unreasonable statement, she was certainly less qualified in terms of experience that Joe Biden, but not less qualified that Barack Obama. (However talentwise she outstripped them both)

Additionally Cheney has served well, but like everyone makes the occasional mistake, I’m going to go spastic because he happens to get one wrong.

Me I think Palin was an incredible pick, think of all of the races that were won by Palin’s endorsement in 2010 and think of Tuesday.  She endorsed Ted Cruz back in May.  Monday the MSM was reporting the race was “tight”

Cruz won by 13 points.

That’s Sarah Palin, Political venture capitalist

During the 2008 Race Sarah Palin earned political capital with the voters. She spoke plainly and honestly and won her base over. After the campaign she wrote her best selling book and she and her family found themselves comfortable.

She could have sat back, after all her books and TV series were popular and profitable, she could have held court and been courted by pols all over the country and been a standard visit on the “Pay homage to get elected” tours.

Instead she took her political capital and invested it.

Tip O’Neil used to tell the story of Tom Harkin back when he was in the House, he was in an iffy district for Dems and was getting a lot of pressure on a vote for labor they were threatening to primary him when Tip called in Labor and quipped that he had only voted against them three times in his time in congress saying how amazing it was that in all those year there were only three times Labor got it wrong.

The Huff post ran an interview with Harry Reid yesterday, in it Reid claims a person at Bain told him Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years.

Amazingly 3^rd party rumor made the Washington Post

Harry Reid: Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years

I’m fairly new to the world of writing but even I know basic standards:

Mind you the Washington post isn’t citing an unnamed source that has talked to them, they are reporting that someone else (Harry Reid) claims that an unnamed source said something.

I don’t claim to have been in this business all that many years, but I know enough that I can’t report hearsay.

Stacy McCain IS a real reporters and says this:

This is one of those “too-good-to-check” situations, and there are obvious problems with Reid’s claim. Isn’t the provenance of the claim intrinsically suspicious? How the hell would an investor in Bain Capital know how much taxes Mitt Romney paid? (Phil Klein made this point.) And why would a Bain investor call Harry Reid to make this claim? Who is this mysterious investor who’s got Harry Reid on speed-dial? Do they talk regularly? What else has he told Harry?

These questions — who, what, when, where, why, how? — are obvious, as I say, and reporters are supposed to ask them. However, if it is now the practice of the WaPo to repeat anything said by anybody on the Internet, why isn’t Ed O’Keefe quoting Allahpundit?

By the way, some random guy on the Internet told me Obama was born in Kenya. Now, do I know that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But let me just toss it out there.

I’ve written about China’s ghost cities and my opinion that  before Rob Eno of Red Mass Group noting Elizabeth Warren’s China quip put together this video

We have serious problems here but China is one big bubble waiting to burst and that is what Elizabeth Warren

Finally the left is in shock over the Pope appointing “The Father of Prop 8” as the Arch Bishop of San Francisco

This is juxtaposed against the Episcopal Church’s endorsement of cross dressing clergy & same sex marriage.

The media keeps pushing the Catholic Church to go in the direction of the Episcopalians but where has this direction gotten them?

This is no longer George Washington’s Episcopal Church – in 1776 the largest denomination in the rebellious British colonies. Membership has dropped so dramatically that today there are 20 times more Baptists than Episcopalians.

U.S. Catholics out-number the Episcopal Church 33-to-1. There are more Jews than Episcopalians. Twice as many Mormons as Episcopalians. Even the little African Methodist Episcopal denomination — founded in in 1787 — has passed the Episcopalians.

Seeing these results, is it any wonder that when our liberal friends advise us to follow the path of the  Episcopal church we have the same suspicion that Snow White should have had when the old women offered her the apple.

See you next week

Under the Fedora Angry liberals, Bow NH, and Ichrio

You know I often wonder if the president would be less uptight if he didn’t have his mother in law living with him.

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At a protest against Obamacare a group of young men from the Tradition Family and Property Student Action got more than they bargained for when a man knocked over their flag bearer and prepared to start swinging while they were praying the Rosary.

Boy! Protesting Obamacare, Praying and not just praying , praying the Rosary talk about the trifecta to get the a person of the left’s knickers in a twist.

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The left has set it sights on Chick-fil-A for daring DARING to support groups that favor marriage, you know marriage as it’s been defined forever until a few years ago.

The Muppet people have pulled away from them and a boycott is to be expected, but I suspect it will be more painful for them than for Chick-fil-a. The left already had it in for them for daring to close on Sunday’s in obedience to the commandment so it is unlikely to cost them any customers they didn’t already lose, meanwhile faithful Christians tend to have a lot of children and they will remember the Henson company’s move long after this has gone off the front page.

As for Chick-fil-A none of this likely bothers them, as people who wear their Christianity on their sleeve they know what scripture says:

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.  Matthew 5:10-12

Nobody likes to be leaned on, but both the Chick-Fil-A crowd and the Student Group above understand the rewards that come of it.

Meanwhile back in the race for president the White House is still reeling from the fallout from the President’s Virginia Speech. Only the horrible events in Colorado has given the President’s campaign a breather to figure out what to do.

The most interesting thing about the issue was how long it took the MSM and the left to figure out this was going to be an actual problem. That lack of recognition says as much about their belief system than what the president did.

I was in Bow NH the day of the Shooting to Cover Mitt Romney, what had been planned as a Red Meat event turned into a memorial for the dead. After a short speech Gov Romney, Senator Ayotte and Fr. Christian Tutor who gave the opening prayer lined up at the exit and personally thanked each attendee for coming.

I spoke to Congressman Charlie Bass (R-NH) as the “receiving line” proceeded

I also spoke to Fr. Tutor when the line was completed

And to one of he attendees

The most important take away from the event was Romney carried himself very presidentially.

Barack Obama has actually done a pretty good job on the Colorado killings. Likely the best job he’s done on any issue in a whlle.

That’s a good thing, I’d rather have the president do the right thing.

Speaking of the right thing apparently several men died protecting their women in Aurora. They are being hailed as heroes.

I want to know why feminists and people who cry about the equality of women are not screaming in anger? Why shouldn’t the women be jumping in front of the men. Will Mika complain on Morning Joe that there was a bullet gap?

A lot of people complain about old fashioned chivalry right up until the moment when strong manly men are needed.

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Scott Brown has decided to jump all over the Obama “you didn’t build it” bandwagon with an ad so powerful that Media Matters favorite lackey Greg Sergeant called him a liar.

This is going to have a devastating effect in Massachusetts.

Val Prieto of Babalu blog tweeted on the silence of Conservative media concerning the suspicious death of Oswaldo Payá. Unfortunately he is right, tweeted I didn’t write about it until he tweeted that out but Romney did. That says something about Mitt. Something good.

Covered the GOP debate in Ma-3 between Jon Golnik and Tom Weaver Tuesday.

I like both candidates Weaver is likely closer to me on everything except foreign policy but I will have no problem supporting either candidate against Nikki Tsongas. Here is one take on the debate

Brown won this district by 15 points but everyone is ignoring this race due to the money difference. I think this is a real sleeper race and the GOP is foolish to ignore it.
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I’m not a big college football fan so I’ve not really felt the need to write about the Joe Paterno business, but as everyone else has I’ll say four things:

• Bob Shrum was right, you should never build statues of people while they are still alive.
• I’m not a big fan of vacating wins, that’s changing the past, why not simply acknowledge that Paterno by his silence did something horrible while also acknowledging in terms of coaching football he was one of the best. I see nothing no reason for these statements to be mutually exclusive.
• Forgetting for a moment the morality of the issue considering that the Church’s scandal was with Penn State’s knowledge of this issue I simply can’t see how the college figured covering for Sandusky was the smart thing.
• Now that the sanctions have been levied I’m waiting for our liberal friends to demand Penn state ban celibacy and allow coaches and faculty to marry, after all we were told for years that was the root cause of this problem.

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Some baseball, all is not right in the world, Ichrio, one of my favorite players has been traded to the NY Yankees. His career reminds me of Lefty Grove Ichrio spent years in Japan ruling the roost before he played a game in the majors. Grove didn’t reach the majors for years because the minor league Baltimore Orioles didn’t want to lose the pitcher that led them to championship after championship.

Grove retired with “Only” 300 wins led the A’s to but can arguably be called the greatest pitcher who ever lived.
Ichrio has yet to lead his team to a World Series (although he led Japan to two victories in the World Baseball Classic) and is as of Tuesday at 3:30 is 466 hits away from 3000. (not counting his 1278 hits in Japan). He should be one of the easiest all of fame candidates the voters have ever seen.

He reminds me of Pete Rose in terms of hitting and is only 444 hits behind Rose if you count his hits in Japan.

I never saw Pete Rose play, or Ichrio play in person but if I was building my an all-time team both of them would be on it.

Oh since I brought him up, In my opinion Pete Rose is one of the greatest players ever to play the game and one of the first men you would pick on any team as nobody ever played harder than he did. I also think he should NOT go in the Hall of Fame. Every single day he passed by the sign saying “Bet on Baseball and you are banned” and still did it. Baseball can’t put him in the HOF given that fact.

I see absolutely no contradiction in those two statements.

Oh, one last thing. The list of the top 150 conservative blogs came out this week and for the first time DaTechGuy’s blog made the list at #139. My thanks to all of you who helped make that happen.

Under the Fedora: Riding through, Discount Porn & Captain Kirk

If you have read my blog for any length of time you know that I’ve been predicting disaster for the left in general and Obama in particular since last year. I’ve written dozens of posts tagged “ride right through them” detailing the evidence of my contention and containing the battle cry:

“Ride right through them, they’re demoralized as hell”!

The general reception to these repeated declarations of the weakness of the Obama message, the sight of democrat after democrat running from Obama and repeated electoral defeats for the left have been a level of disbelief and skepticism from my fellow conservatives tinged with a degree of fatalism so large that I thought I was talking with Red Sox Fans circa 2003.

Imagine then my delight when I saw this post at The Other McCain that included this bit in his argument:

Obama has already “shot his wad,” as Jennifer Rubin puts it, and the incessant rants about Bain Capital and outsourcing don’t seem to have moved the polls significantly in Obama’s direction. Democrats appear to be apporaching that point at which Pete Da Tech Guy likes to invoke the famous words of General Sheridan yelled to his cavalry: “Ride right through them — they’re demoralized as hell!”

The title of his post? They’re Demoralized as hell

Between his piece, the Rubin piece he referenced and Glenn’s remark in his Instalanche quoting me…

“They aren’t spending their money in the middle of summer in the hopes of defining Romney to an audience that isn’t paying attention, they are spending the money NOW to keep their poll numbers from collapsing prior to the fall campaign season. This isn’t about getting ahead, it’s about treading water long enough for something ANYTHING to come along and save them.” Perhaps the horse will learn to sing.

…I think people might finally be figuring out that the emperor has no clothes.

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Jim Geraghty asks why so many pollsters Oversample Democrats? That’s because the purpose of the poll is not to inform, it’s to create a narrative of victory and frankly it because they have so little confidence in their actual beliefs.

Oh and Hotair Headlines calls this the “Latest pollster fad”? Fad? This has been going on for years

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Some blogger is referring to Kate Upton as “fat Piggie”.

Kate_Upton_SI2012-5 (Photo credit: discutivo)

Hey you don’t know from fat, take it from a Fat guy with two fat sons, I know Fat, Kate Upton isn’t fat. I’d still throw her out of bed, if I didn’t the wife would kill me if she didn’t die of shock her last words being: “You’ve GOT to be kidding.”

Speaking of beds and throwing out, Saw two rather amazing tangentely connected things. Comcast has created a whole new “bargain” porn section with a single short scene for less than half the price of a “regular” movie. Meanwhile according to the sign at Fitchburg’s Porn shop on Lunenburg Street they have expanded to include a “Smoke shop” in the place.

That’s how bad the Obama economy is, Porn shops have to diversify and On Demand Porno is discounting.

I remember when Comic Con was just a convention for geeks like me. These days it’s become big and and apparently Carrie Fisher and William Shatner are using the occasion to start feuding again over Star Trek vs Star Wars. My thought, they are different animals, I prefer Trek to Star Wars, but neither can hold a candle to Doctor Who and I tweeted that out

.@CarrieFFisher & .@WilliamShatner may feud on #starwars vs #startrek but #doctorwho came first & is better PERIOD!

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) July 14, 2012

Imagine my surprise when I got this reply from William Shatner himself

@DaTechGuyblog @carrieffisher In 1966, no one in the US had heard of the good Doctor so I beg to differ on the opinion that WHO came first.

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 14, 2012

Interviewing congressmen, senators, governors and the next president of the US that’s great, getting tweeted by Shatner, now THAT’s Cool.

As I said that day..Jonah Goldberg eat your heart out.

Speaking of Jonah, last week I was on a Blogger Panel with him talking about his new book The Tyranny of Cliches. Here is a clip from the event

I interviewed him after the fact as well.

You can buy Jonah’s book here

My thanks to Michael Graham of 96.9 WTKK for inviting me even though I still owe him a steak dinner.

Do you like fun graphics I took this photo of a car in front of me on the way to the Jonah Goldberg blogger event

Either the driver doesn’t read any conservative outlet and is thus unaware of Warren’s indian scandal or some dems simply have no sense of irony.

Oh and I know the shot is blurry, I shot it while driving 50+ MPH on route 2 heading east. Most unhealthy of me.

A Dr. Mercola believes he knows something that is less healthy, those drug ads that we are bombarded with lately

It’s a marketing bonanza that’s turned America into a medicated mass of people who’ve been brain-washed into thinking that taking pills will make everything better―even for ailments you might not have. But it’s a brilliant move for Big Pharma, who has now turned the consumer into their very own sales rep, and a persuasive one at that.

I disagree, when I see those ads it seems that they all contain a list of side effects so horrible and unending that if I had the ailment the advertised drugs were treating I’d still with the aches and pains I’m used to.

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The online site Digg sold for $500,000 a huge drop from the amount invested in the company. I’ve noticed it has been on the receiving end of a lot of grief over this drop in revenue ,but let me give you two graphics that can put this in perspective

That graphic represents the number of Burger King franchises you can buy for the price Digg was sold for while this graphic represents the number of fries you can buy for the price Newsweek was sold for.

Success is relative.

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In Fl-9 Mark Oxner is running an ad that deals with Success:

If Florida chooses Alan Grayson over Oxner it deserves all it gets from him.

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Had an amazing guest this week. I interviewed author Eugene Walton author of African Immigrants & African Americans community or conflict which talks about the rift between Blacks who came from Africa in the last 50 years who he refers to as immigrants and black American descended from slaves who he refers to as “descendants”. There is an incredible quote from the volume:

African immigrants want no “community” with African Americans because their attitudes toward the Descendants are so negative as to make such a relationship incompatible and highly unlikely. After all, who wants “community” with “lazy losers who didn‘t take advantage of opportunities,” who are unpredictable and violent– whose association represents only downward assimilation?

Apparently this is an issue slowing boiling in the Black community that nobody is talking about.

On a related subject there was an interesting quote from a Buzzfeed piece about Obama’s non visit to the NAACP convention

Alvin Chambliss, a retired law professor at Texas Southern University and lifelong members of the NAACP, blamed Obama’s advisers — particularly Valerie Jarrett — for his decision not to show up, echoing a common complaint here about the people in the president’s inner circle. Chambliss, who called the president’s absence “a downer,” said Jarrett is too afraid of Obama becoming defined by his race, and has led him to take his African-American supporters for granted.

“I don’t think there’s anyone around the president who’s really, truly from the black community,”

Hey Obama’s father is from Kenya, just sayin…

DaTechGuy on DaRadio was the first radio show to host Dr. Walton as he promotes his book. It must be a popular destination since I can’t go 24 hours without several e-mails offering to provide me with authors, experts and assorted guests to appear on the show.

I guess that’s a sign I’m making it. Of course when I can’t go a day without a call asking me to carry ads on the show then I’ll KNOW I’ve made it…

…As if the Shatner tweet wasn’t evidence enough.

Under the Fedora: Movies Mistakes and Reviews

I’m starting the column as I watch the previews before the movie Ted. They seem to be unending. The one that jumps out at me is the new one for the Hobbit. I’ve seen it before on TV and online but it is really special when seen on the big screen.

……

There are two big developments in the Brett Kimberlin Story, first there is an utter defeat in Court but that defeat is just a start:

I’m very delighted at Aaron Walker’s victory but the fact that he had to go though he had to go through months of this stuff, and the expenses involved in this is a national disgrace.

And it’s not over. Stacy McCain doesn’t have a fixed abode yet, Patterico, Erick Erickson and Wolfe’s swatters are still at large.

There is quite a slog to go through before this is done, but there was, at least to me an even more interesting development to this story. Salon came out and Defended Kimberlin. The question to me is why?

There is, in fact, no real plus side to defending Brett Kimberlin. At best he is a small player in the big game and even if he were more, Kimberlin & co are only effective if there is no attention to their activities.

With federal suits, the attention of bloggers around the nation, nearly 90 members of congress either signing documents against Swatting or asked about the same and Robert Stacy McCain not only continuing his revelations but getting so many instalanches it’s a wonder Charles Johnson hasn’t climbed onto a ledge, And argument for Kimberlin’s potential value and effectiveness for the left would be less plausable than the success of a national letter writing campaign in behalf of The Secret Life of Desmond Pfeiffer.

So if this is the case why on earth would Salon bring up the name of Kimberlin, let along defend him? Why would the left invest an asset that has existed for so long in such a losing endeavor? Why even if the MSM is doing their best to ignore developments even bother making the argument from the left in defense of the speedway bomber a figure that a party might not want to associate with in an election year?

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There is a lot of angst on the left over the PA voter ID law. The media is speculating hundreds of thousands of Democrat voters will not be able to produce a valid ID particularly in cities. One local paper is simply breathless over it:

Second comes the GOP’s own admission — conveniently after the fact, of course — that their agenda was indeed political. The moment came last month at a GOP State Committee meeting, when House Republican Majority Leader Mike Turzai recounted Republicans’ legislative accomplishments for the year. Among them, Turzai announced to enthusiastic applause: “Voter ID — which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done.”

Pennsylvania didn’t need the voter ID law. There was no credible evidence of voters impersonating other voters at the polls. There was one reason, and one reason only, to pass the new requirement, and it wasn’t the security of the ballot. It was the outcome of the election. We knew it all along. Now the GOP House leader has put it out there for everyone to see.

Left unanswered is the question why a democrat voter would be less likely to have an ID, an item that is highly necessary these days, PARTICULAR in a city than a republican.

Why should the use of an item needed at any bank, to cash any paycheck or government check, to use a credit card, an item you are asked to produce at a hospital, at a supermarket or even to buy booze cause the results of an election to change? Do Democrats need these ID less that republicans?

What could possibility be going on that would cause the passage of a strong voter ID law backed by an Army of Davids equipped with iPhones and internet connections along with an energized Tea Party with volunteers willing and able to serve as poll watchers to strike such fear into the hearts of Democrat leaning Union Stewards and Machine Pols who in the past have managed to deliver their precincts to their party by overwhelming margins?

I suspect the people screaming the loudest know the answer and that’s why they are screaming.

Meanwhile while the left complains about a lack of official documents among voters they are now obsessing about Mitt Romney’s Tax returns and once again there is an obvious question that isn’t being asked:

Maybe it’s just me but if the IRS saw something untoward during in Mitt Romney’s tax returns, I have a feeling that they would not hesitate for one minute to pursue it and extract every penalty that would be due.

Now Warren Buffett for example has a big back tax bill that both the Huffington Post and the Blaze has reported on. Maybe it’s just me but I’m thinking if Mitt Romney had a similar problem, if he owed taxes, or had a big penalty or had to go to court to defend such issues we might just have heard about it during the Massachusetts Gov Campaign, or during his Senate Campaign vs Ted Kennedy, or the 2008 Presidential Campaign, or even in the primaries in 2012…

…but we haven’t.

Well after all everybody knows the IRS isn’t interested in digging into the finances of people they think they can get money out of?

This election isn’t going to be close.

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Ernest Brognine has died. I grew up on McHale’s Navy and by an odd coincidence was watching bits of season one last week. Borgnine has worked steady in films and even stars in a new picture that was released this year. I suspect his 10 years in the Navy and Italian upbringing had something to do with his work ethic.

Borgnine’s best work was In film, and he won an Oscar for Marty but he will be most remembered for the PT 73 to one generation

http://youtu.be/IdNtfW2Tt70

and as Mermaid Man in the Spongebob Cartoons to another.

Funny about that isn’t it?

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Haven’t talked much Doctor Who, but Rich’s comic blog has a Doctor Who James Bond crossover going on, apparently in this story Bond is a Time Lord and the different actors are regenerations of him.

Don’t care for the current version of Bond myself.

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The All Star Game was yesterday and I don’t care. When they decided it was OK to end in a Tie instead of playing it out I lost interest.

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Sadly recently found out that an elderly friend’s wife has been diagnosed with Cancer when I mentioned to someone that she was going through chemotherapy at 80+ the person I talked to asked why she was bothering? It reminded me of an old joke:

Three people are in conversation when one mentions an acquaintance of the three has just died at 84. While the first express sorrow the 2^nd person declares that nonsense saying:

“He lived a full long life, had a great time and lived into his 80’s. There is nothing wrong with dying at 84.”

At this the 3^rd man replies: “Easy for you to say, you’re not 83. “

Every life has value, that’s what pro-life is all about.

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My review of TED is available at Amazon.com you can read it there but here is a quick peek concerning something I’ve seen brought up in a lot of reviews

At first glance the idea that John has a smoking hot successful girlfriend, Mika Kunis makes no sense until you realize that every single other male Character in the movie and frankly almost all the female ones are even more dysfunctional or downright sick compared to him. In the population of this movie Mark Wahlberg’s character IS the pick of the litter.

This movie wasn’t as good or as bad as people said it was.

See you all next week.

Under the Fedora: Morale, Ratings and Old Yellowstain

If a Super PAC doesn’t raise any money does it become a mediocre PAC with different Tax Rules?

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Last week’s big news is the Supreme court’s 5-4 ruling on Obamacare yet, as you might guess I’m not too fond of it but electorally I see this as a disaster for the left

The president has been giving individual organization wavers. Mitt Romney has already said he will give the entire country a waiver to Obamacare. This means that in 2016 the democrat candidate will have to revoke that waiver in order to implement it.

So every four years the question will be before the American People: “Do you want Obamacare implemented or not?”, until it is implemented or repealed.

Democrats this is the political ground you wanted, I hope you enjoy it.

It’s actually funny to watch the left go after Romney for acknowledging the reality of the situation.

Well, I said that I agreed with the dissent. And the dissent made it very clear that they felt it was unconstitutional. But the dissent lost — it’s in the minority. And so now the Supreme Court has spoken. And while I agreed with the dissent, that’s taken over by the fact that the majority of the Court said it is a tax, and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There is no way around that.

When you are reduced to hitting Romney for saying what the Supreme Court said is what it said, that’s gotta be a bad sign for the left.

Victor Davis Hanson Wrote a piece full of worry and woe concerning election 2012 that prompted a long reply from me that said in part:

Yes we have to work hard, yes we can’t slack and yes I do expect these folks to be fight so dirty as to make a mud hole look like a bidet, but perception doesn’t trump reality. Cripes the president just won the biggest victory of his presidency in the supreme court and vulnerable democrats are still running away.

Now you might see the odd democrat in comparatively safe seat such as Nikki Tsongas.

willing to own Obamacare but I’m pretty sure you won’t be seeing candidates in swing districts doing this.

I wonder if she would be so confident if she realized that the GOP was spending 2.2 million dollars on congressional races on Boston TV.

Run that through your head a second in a year when Democrats can’t even pay for their own convention, a year when the president is reduced to begging newly weds for a share of their dowry and birthday money the GOP finds their prospects good enough to put 2.2 mill into the pot in Massachusetts.

Another interesting difference, look at that Tsongas interview, I asked her about the Swattings and she wasn’t familiar with them meanwhile…

When the time for my question came I mentioned the Aaron Walker Swatting asking if they would sign onto senator Chambliss’ letter if elected and would support a new such letter assuming a president Romney won. Their answers were notable in several ways.

Firstly they all knew about the issue. That might not seem odd but in the last 48 hours I’ve talked to more than a dozen offices of house and senate members for comment and the majority of the offices I spoke to had no idea what SWATTING was, yet all three of these potential congressmen knew about the issue and spoke forcibly on the subject

That says something doesn’t it?

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If that isn’t enough for somebody to worry about this interview was interesting…

Remember when the left was marrying itself to the occupods and I said this:

I keep expecting some elder statesman of the left to play Admiral Akbar, and shout to the Democrats who are jumping on the Occupy bandwagon: “It’s a trap!” But it looks like there aren’t any adults left to do so.

The adults never came but the media has conveniently forgotten the democrat party’s love affair with the occupods.

Hopefully the GOP will be running ads all this fall to remind them..

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How bad are things at CNN? They were likely the only people in the world who thought Anderson Cooper telling people he was gay was news.

“Coming Out” has become a cheap way to get a little press from the MSM. Every few months you hear about some person who doesn’t have a show or a prospect of a show. (David Ogden Stiers being the latest). Considering the culture of the entertainment industry that has all the bravery of jumping in front of a bandwagon.

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Speaking of ratings I’ve talked about what an Instalanche is. For those unfamiliar this is what it does to your stats here is an example

I bring this up because Robert Stacy McCain is now in his 48^th day of covering the Brett Kimberlin story knocking off a total of 60 posts. Glenn Reynolds has instalanched him 42 times in that 48 days.

In my experience an Instalanche brings anywhere from 5000-10,000 hits the first day and say another 10-20% of that number the next, say 5500-12,000 hits overall, multiply that by 42 days and you get between 231,000 & 504,000 in 42 days.

Considering how much attention a single instalanche brings. Can you imagine regularly daily instalanches brings to a subject that people might wish are not discussed?

Kimberlin must be kicking himself for contacting Mrs. The Other McCain’s employer.

Politically this is going to end very badly for them.

Meanwhile Aaron Worthing/Walker has his court day the 5^th. On the 4^th he told of the hearing that led to his silencing:

I have gotten some criticism for representing myself. I won’t say I was the most stellar advocate. Not all lawyers are trial lawyers, and I know I am not one of the great ones yet. I hope to change that with experience. But at the same time, I think I did an adequate job. I don’t believe I lost because of a poor presentation. I believe I lost because the judge disregarded the law, and it is hard to see how a more experienced lawyer could have forced a judge to follow Supreme Court precedent. But maybe that is just my ego talking; I report, you decide.

 

But there was a more basic reason why I didn’t hire a lawyer. You shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer, damn it—doubly so when you are unemployed. You shouldn’t have to pay money in order to maintain your freedom. That’s not freedom! Judges in the district courts should have been sufficiently solicitous of the First Amendment that they should not have allowed a man like Kimberlin to penalize a person for protected speech.

Read the entire thing. That we are at a point where he even has to have a 2^nd hearing simply amazes me.

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I spent a good chunk of my 4^th with some friends that I hadn’t seen in a bit just sitting and talking with our spouses.

The older I get the more things like this become appealing.

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Finally , there are reports that John Roberts changed his vote on Obamacare, first preparing to overturn it and then around May changing his mind.

Now if Justice Roberts wants to change is mind based on the law, or the court arguments or some other precedent that’s fine, but if the chief justice of the supreme court changed his ruling either because of pressure from the left. That’s just cowardice.

http://youtu.be/cConRikbtwQ

If the above is true than Justice Roberts has earned the nickname “Old Yellowstain”, but lets take it one step further. Let’s say he didn’t make the change because of pressure from the left. What if he thought it would be politically advantageous to the right and rules that way accordingly.

That would not only be a national disgrace but an insult to every person who has sat on a jury sequestered from their family.

I’ve said it before the everybody deserves a Mulligan and I can give Roberts one here, but if he thought he was going to make friends on the left by doing this, he’s is pretty gullible.

Hope you enjoyed the 4th, see you next week.