The International House of Bacon

* Not surprisingly, Obama’s “bitter” statement isn’t dying out. It’s quickly becoming a larger problem for him, and mostly due to his own statements on the matter, now attacking Clinton and McCain rather than admitting he was completely off base. Lance touched on the initial issues with the statement better than I could (short answer: focusing on the “bitter” aspect isn’t the problem), but it really continues to feed into a wider meme that Obama (and perhaps Democrats as a general group) are, at best, out of touch with who they’re trying to help, and at worst unable to comprehend anything that isn’t within their worldview. Obama didn’t see the problem with Wright, and he doesn’t see why people are upset when he says people value their rights or beliefs not due to thought or community, but rather due to a reaction to their lot in life. It’s a really negative view of people.

The worst part is that Obama’s not hurting in the polls with Democrats on this. He’s unlikely to hurt himself any worse in Pennsylvania against Clinton (a state he was unlikely to win anyway), and that says a lot about the Democratic electorate and about Obama in general - is it that these sorts of statements aren’t controversial to them because it’s the only reason they can comprehend some of these positions?

I’m generalizing here, I know, but as wrong as I believe many liberal positions to be, I know I don’t see it as some sort of position borne out of bitterness or resentment, and most mainstream conservatives don’t buy into that sort of rhetoric either (although it does exist on the more radical areas). Imagine if John McCain came out today and said that Democrats were in favor of national health care and abortion rights because they were bitter, clinging to these issues in response to their own life events? He’d be absolutely savaged by everyone involved. But, for whatever reason, it’s apparently okay and “in touch” to say that about religion and guns. Okay then.

I’ve not been more bullish on the ability of McCain to win the Presidency as I am this week. If McCain actually goes on the attack, Obama’s going to have to find a way to talk himself out of this, and he’s already whiffed big time once.

* Along the same notes, a piece at Politico notches a couple more instances of Obama being “in touch.” My favorite parts? That Obama feels he “understand[s] the world better…than John McCain” and that he feels that he’s “still almost normal.” If his appeal is that he’s like you or I, and he’s this completely out of touch right now, where is he going to be in a year?

* QandO on the progressive backlash on Obama.

* More great energy news, this time out of Japan.

* I’m not going to lie - it’s either McCain or Bob Barr for me.

* Most fascinating story of the day - Stalin’s body double.

* Radley Balko at Reason on the Jefferson Memorial arrests. The memorial is open 24 hours a day, so about 20 people decided to have a 10 minute dance party. Cops showed up, arrested one person, and dispersed the crowd. Why? Who knows.

* Judicial Watch is trying to get Hillary Clinton in trouble for the Elton John concert, which may be an FEC violation. Our campaign laws are insane.

* Finally, a great blog post compendium on the rich getting richer, poor getting poorer canard. Someday this information will become the common knowledge as opposed to what is currently out there.

Still battling a head cold, still wondering why the Red Sox are so high on Jon Lester…

* High school seniors dumb on basic financial information. On one hand, I probably wouldn’t have known the answers to a lot of those questions ten years ago. On the other, why couldn’t I?

* McCain on pre-emptive war: “I don’t think you can make a blanket statement about preemptive war because obviously it depends on the threat that the United States of America faces.” On the face of it, it’s an obvious, “duh” statement. But then you think about how the “100 years in Iraq” comment has been completely twisted out of context, and I fear for how this comment will play, even though it’s the most realistic foriegn policy statement any current Presidential candidate has made. McCain doesn’t consistently deserve the straight talk moniker, but it’s statements like this that keep that concept alive - brutally honest, an answer even he probably doesn’t like, and one that’s certain to get twisted by his opponents, who are really only interested in straight talk when it fits the percieved narrative.

* Time on the shifting gender gap in colleges in favor of women.

* More corruption via red light cameras. It appears that one locality has seven of its ten red light cameras at intersections where the yellow light is quicker than mandated by law.

* Obama, “Constitutional scholar,” supports the Washington, DC gun ban.

* The Volokh Conspiracy had an interesting post about genocide and international law.

* Thomas Sowell nails it: “Nothing is more fraudulent than calls for a ‘dialogue on race.’ Those who issue such calls are usually quick to cry ‘racism’ at any frank criticism. They are almost invariably seeking a monologue on race, to which others are supposed to listen.”

* Also via Volokh, religious accomodations and business collide. A company is reprimanded by the government of New Mexico for refusing to photograph a same-sex union.

* Power Line reports on Pelosi having the rules changed to allow Congress to table the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. So many snarky comments I could make, but perhaps this playing of politics merely speaks for itself.

* Boy, does Michelle Obama sound familiar or what?

* Finally, a good move in a follow up from yesterday: The woman dismissed from Obama’s delegate camp for referring to children in trees as “monkeys” has been reinstated.

* Radly Balko has started a series on the effect of Zero Tolerance regulations in our schools, and the one that got me today was the 8 year old who was suspended for sniffing a Sharpie. Why was he sniffing the Sharpie? “It smelled good.” Sigh.

* A new study suggests a link between drunk driving and smoking bans. Who knows how this will pan out under scrutiny remains to be seen, but it’s still pretty interesting. I have a feeling we won’t see MADD dive on this one.

* For all the crap I take from some of the blogs I read, Matthew Yglesias is one of the few liberal bloggers I can handle, but he’s being a bit of a dick here. The boiling down of Confederate pride to racism is a bit disingenuous to say the least, regardless of your positions on the Civil War. For all the discussion in this election about race and divisiveness, it’s interesting to see this sort of antiquated ignorance coming from the left.

* Is Obama being honest about the Iraq plans? If his own advisors don’t support a rapid withdrawal, and he still goes through with it, will the left criticize him for “ignoring experts?”

* The 9th Circuit Court does it again. How ridiculous is this?

* Here’s something interesting I didn’t know - John McCain has kids in the military, a 19 year old son who just got back from Iraq and a 21 year old son who could very well see service there following his graduation from the Naval Academy.

* Barack Obama is “not in favor of concealed weapons.” 39 states have laws allowing for it in various degrees. Will this disconnect hurt him if it gets publicized? I currently live in an open-carry state, I know I don’t feel less safe.

* Barack Obama is a smoker, but so what? I’m actually surprised more people haven’t pounded on that one. I’m more concerned about bills like this.

* A neat story about a Make-A-Wish child’s dream to join the military, and the Army helping make that happen. Really great story.

Today is slipping away from me…

* Interesting possibilities out of the Dakotas, where a possibly massive oil field has been discovered. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out - the high end estimation is at 500 billion barrels, and even if we place it at 200 billion (a little higher than the low end), if we were able to pump out our daily usage as of 2004 and keep it domestically, it would cover us for over 20 years.

This is ultimately why I get annoyed by the whole alternative energy/ANWR drilling issue - do we need to develop alternative fuels at some point? Absolutely. Not even the oil companies would doubt that, as they will invariably pioneer any fuel advances we see that make logical financial sense (the most major hold up in alternative fuels as is). Instead, the peak oil myth is allowed to take hold, we haven’t built a new refinery in my lifetime, and the drivel we get from Congress and the Democratic candidates for President is that we need to tax the oil companies that hold very little of the world’s oil more to, I dunno, teach them a lesson?

The truth of the matter is that the government - both on state and local levels - doesn’t really care one bit about the energy situation in the United States. They’re screwing the poor and middle class by artificially keeping prices high with a gas tax that, minimum, eats up $2.00 per tank of gas you fill right off the bat, they’re screwing us by not pushing for more refineries, for blocking drilling in places we can get oil easily, by blocking alternative energies that do work like nuclear power. Instead, we see charades like this. A complete waste of time, and ultimately deals with nothing.

Biofuels aren’t the answer, people - smart drilling, smart use of the resources available to us, and realistic policy rooted in what’s actually happening in the world rather than pessimistic predictions lacking strong evidence is is more helpful.

* I liked this TownHall column by Mary Katherine Ham profiling Bobby Jindal, the young governor of Louisiana. Hey, Bridget, any LA-based insight you can offer?

* Jane Fonda endorses Barack Obama. This is interesting more because of, again, the Wright issue. For one, Obama’s supporters have largely had to play the “but…” card - with Hagee, with Parsley, and other people who have endorsed McCain and have somewhat unsavory views. If these people are, in reality, worth talking about, the fact that Obama has a number of high-profile endorsements of people with various hatred for America - whether it be rhetorical like Wright or actual like Fonda - is not going to help Obama, whether the issue is fair or not. How exactly can Obama respond to the fact that he attracts people who aided in propaganda to an enemy that was holding his Presidential opponent hostage, exactly? God, this is gonna get messy.

* On the other hand, elections + the internet = awesome. Hillary Clinton decided to revisit the 3am phone call, this time going after McCain and the economy. Never mind the rhetorical…oddity that the President would be recieving phone calls at 3am about economic issues, but we’ll run with it. Apparently, only six hours later, McCain’s team had a response out. Absolutely incredible. Whether it will work is another thing - I much prefer McCain’s approach to the economic situation right now than Clinton or Obama’s, as I’ve read too many histories of the Great Depression over the years and fear any wide-scale tinkering during a downturn at this point - but you have to give the McCain people credit for a job well done on this one. If McCain loses this election, it won’t be due to lack of trying.

* Columbia isn’t pleased with Obama’s trade rhetoric. What was that about other countries under Bush again? At least he waited until he was in office to allegedly alienate them.

* A little late, but hey - top 100 April Fools Day hoaxes of all time.

* Will Obama’s position on abortion hurt him in November? An interesting read from Michael Gerson at the Washington Post.

* Posing as a professional football player for fun and profit. The odd story of Ed McCabe, who was not a member of the 1980 Raiders.

* Of all the legacies of the Clinton Presidency, it’s sad that free trade is the one the Democrats are most willing to abandon. Furthermore, of all the legacies of the JFK Presidency, it’s equally sad that the Democrats can’t seem to grasp his basics, either.

* Ilya Somin on what the Presidential candidates can do to protect property rights. In a post-Kelo government, this is a really important issue that’s not getting enough play.

* I’m still new enough to New Hampshire that I cannot be held responsible for the rank stupidity of this specific legislator. The sooner we can oust Shea-Porter, the better.

* The big story in some circles earlier this week was the breathless story from the UK about the amount of people in the United States on food stamps. Apparently, that’s supposed to mean something. Even if it did, there’s a good reason why that number is up - the 2002 Farm Bill greatly expanded those who can be covered by food stamps. That Farm Bill looks worse and worse every time I look at it.

* This story literally made me sick to my stomach. Wow.

* More evidence that this economic situation may be regional in nature.

* Congressional Quarterly’s Ground Game blog lays out a) a great example why the Richardson endorsement irked me, and b) why Clinton is just foolish at this point about it.

Whew.

I’m so behind. Or something.

* Budget situation in New Hampshire worse than feared. The worst part is that there’s no way in hell we’ll be able to vote Lynch out this year. Absolutely pathetic stuff here.

* Some crazy video from North Korea. Rarely do you get to see such first-hand images from there, really crazy stuff.

* Peter Bagge’s cartoons in Reason are always fun, but his illustrated log of his time during the New Hampshire primary is fun. Mostly non-political, it’s worth a read.

* Will Obama get in trouble for misstating charitable contributions on his tax returns? He apparently filed an amended return, but what does that one say? It’ll be interesting to see if there’s much follow up on this.

* Also via Reason, a question posed by the Christian Science Monitor regarding the Constitutionality of mandated health insurance. I think it’s a little cowardly that they consider single-payer capable of passing muster, but as for the topic at hand, it’s a neat argument I hadn’t thought of.

* Speaking of single-payer, more horror stories. At what point do these stop becoming the exception?

* The United States’s corporate tax rate just got more uncompetitive, as New Zealand drops its rate a bit. John McCain’s the only person even considering a corporate tax rate cut, one of the few things we really need from the government currently. Barack Obama wants to essentially charge corporations more. Does this make sense to you?

* Hillary Clinton - willing to force you to buy health insurance while ignoring the bills for the health insurance her campaign is responsible for. Class act.

* GraniteGrok offers a great statement on why conservatives should vote for McCain. It’s similar to other statements on the matter, but this one really resonated with me a bit.

* The top ten most unreasonable parking tickets.

* And the final tally on “Earth Hour?” No significant fall in power use.

* I’m interested in seeing how Obama rectifies the differences between his Illinois Senate position survey and today. Not that changing one’s mind is a bad thing, but an explanation of how one gets there would be nice.

* Speaking of, here’s more detail on a dishonest Obama ad. Populism kills.

* I’ve said it before that Rev. Wright is different than Rev. Hagee because Wright was involved by invitation with Obama’s political career and Hagee was not. Well, Barack Obama has his Hagee now, and it’ll be interesting to see how Obama’s supporters spin this one.

* Civil disobedience at its finest. Hell, it’s hardly disobedience as much as a protest of ridiculousness from a local high school who punished some students for having pictures with plastic cups on their Facebook pages, implying underage drinking. So some students get together, rent a root beer keg, and have a party. Cops show up, everyone blows 0.0s, and it gets on YouTube. Lovin’ it.

* FactCheck appears to side with me regarding Obama and lobbyist money. FactCheck is hardly a extreme right-wing source, for the record. The FactCheck.org piece is here.

* Christopher Hitchens savages Hillary Clinton. It’s sometimes hard to remember that Clinton is only marginally better than Obama in the grand scheme of things.

* Best hockey fight of recent memory. I grew up hating Patrick Roy, I’m glad his son is a tough guy.

* What every American should know about the Middle East. I didn’t know two of these things.

* Finally, a note about how corporations helped in the Katrina aftermath. An interesting thing to recall in a year of populist claptrap about corporate America during an election year.

* Chrono Trigger a better investment than Apple. I was amused. And rightfully so, actually - Chrono Trigger is much better than anything Apple put out.

* I thought you couldn’t disown a crazy uncle?:

White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama’s campaign, not stepped down. “Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church.”

So after two weeks, the story doesn’t fade (and why should it when more comments such as the “bombs were built to kill blacks” and “garlic noses” come out), and Obama has to change his tune again. His numbers have gone to hell against McCain, the only polls he’s showing no harm on the Democratic side is a barely-reliable Gallup and a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that has, for some points, a +/-7% margin of error in the oversampled groups that favor him the most. This is getting craaaazy.

* New Hampshire has its cake and eats it, too. Congrats to being one of the few states that refused to comply with Real ID and still got an “extension” from the Department of Homeland Security.

* What is with the Los Angeles Times? For those not aware, the Times published a story about Sean Combs (Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, etc) being linked to the Tupac Shakur murder. The problem? It was based entirely on fabricated documents. You’d think the media would learn after the Rather debacle in 2004.

* Obviously, they’re an advocacy group, but a study published at NORML notes that 70% of people who are getting treated for marijuana addiction do so through court-mandated programs. This means that we’re seeing people take treatment as opposed to prison time, and seeing the anti-legalization forces point to the treatment number as if it means something. Sigh. I made a prediction in 2000 that marijuana would be legal by 2010 - that ain’t happening.

* Also, The New York Times sorta gets RickRolled. Hoaxes are fun. Radly Balko linked both of these earlier, always worth a look.

* An interesting situation might be cropping up in Pennsylvania, where gun control may become an issue in the upcoming primary. Especially with the Supreme Court opinion on the Washington, DC gun ban coming up, this could cause some further pain to the eventual Democratic candidate against McCain if it comes up.

* Barack Obama’s doing some more detailing of his economic plan, and you know it’s rough when a guy who says he needs to learn more about economics has a much more sustainable plan than a guy who’s at least acting as if he has a clue. A capital gains tax hike (which would negatively impact investment, which is already hurting in the current climate), more regulation in banking (not that, you know, regulation isn’t part of what’s causing the credit crunch right now), and handouts for those who signed bad mortgages they can’t pay are all things that won’t address a single issue we’re facing, and could very well make things worse long term. This isn’t to say that Clinton or McCain are adequately addressing the problems in the economy right now (our uncompetitive corporate tax rates, the straight costs of doing business, etc), but Obama’s looking at sending us down a potentially hazardous path.

The speech in full is here, and the almost immediate praise of Alexander Hamilton should set off huge, huge warning flags to anyone with knowledge of Hamilton’s role in the formation of this country pre-Federalist papers. Economic populism like Obama’s spouting ends up benefiting no one except the person spouting it, and the worst economic situations that we’ve ended up in have, in part, stemmed from policies that grow from those areas. Obama should know better, but he, of course, does not. Example? “If we can extend a hand to banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to Americans who are struggling through no fault of their own,” was a line Obama put out there. Is he really taking the position that those who signed and initialed the 40-odd pages on their mortgages that they now can’t pay aren’t at fault? Really? Besides that, he’s on the opposite side of public opinion when it comes to the Dodd-style bailout program that Obama’s endorses, and that’s not even covering the fact that the rough draft we’re seeing probably won’t work. Mistake after mistake after mistake.

As a humorous aside, Obama went to a fundraising event, $1000 a plate, following the speech. Where was it held? Credit Suisse’s building, one of the top ten subprime lenders in the United States. Disconnect much?

* Children of Men as a television show? On one hand, the movie (which I thought was phenomenal) worked because it was a crazy ride through a bizarre setting, and didn’t let up. I’m not sure a serial television show will work quite the same way. On the other hand, one of the co-creators of the Battlestar Galactica reboot is behind it, so it’s likely worth a shot.

* More stupidity from Obama. The National Review notes the problems inherent in the IRS doing your taxes for you. I’ve probably had a more visceral negative reaction to this proposal than much else on Obama’s platform.

* Linked everywhere, a horrible b-movie waiting to happen comes to life in Mexico, as vigilantes storm cities and towns looking for emo kids to kill.

* The US media doesn’t have a huge presence in Iraq. Then we wonder why the negative stories are the ones that gain traction.

* What’s the proper response when people are leaving your state in part because of taxes and regulations? If the answer is “spend more money, and then propose to fill the gap via tax hikes and regulation,” your name must be Massachusetts. And Hillary Clinton wants to expand MassCare-style health planning nationwide?

* Finally, my new favorite blog? Photoshop Disasters, which is exactly what the name implies. My personal favorite examples? Lady Guenivere’s mutant hand and Imagine Watermarks.

Have a good weekend.

OMG SO BUSY ALL TEH TIME.

* A new show on HBO with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross? Yes, please.

* I have no idea why Governor Lynch’s approval rating is so high in New Hampshire. He’s killed the budget (and plans to bury it completely after he gets re-elected), he’s actively working to restrict the rights of New Hampshire citizens, and yet 55% of people polled support him. Plus, with his likely challenger not running, it’s impossible to be able to tell at this point if we could oust him in November. If anything, my little time in New Hampshire has shown me that, even in areas where the government is better, you still get morons involved, whether they’re the governor or just a representative from your home city who never intended to serve in the first place and, thus, never showed up. Sigh.

* Thomas Sowell on Barack Obama. I’d call this a must read, but every Thomas Sowell piece is must read.

* Also, a telling story on Obama’s actions when it counts. Barack Obama is often very fraudulent, this is just another story to add to the list. Is this what we can expect?

* Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek parses the recent story about benefit costs and how they’re allegedly hurting workers. I agree with his analysis, to be frank.

* Fox deserves a massive amount of respect for refusing to pay an FCC fine for indecency. The sooner the FCC gets knocked down a peg, the better off we all are.

* The other big news I’m two days behind on is the Supreme Court ruling in Medellin v. Texas. A pretty complicated case, I think I’m happy with the outcome, but the most interesting wrinkle that will probably be looked over? Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas all ruled against President Bush, and Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer with the President. Go figure. More here, if this is as confusing as you think.

* Hugo Chavez says anyone but McCain. Sounds like a reason to vote for McCain to me…

More later…

Gah!

* Michael Barone breaks down the superdelegate issue. I think it’s going to be impossible for the Democrats to finish up things before the convention - either they’re going to go with a known commodity in Clinton or an unknown in Obama, and if they’re leaning toward the unknown, they’re going to wait until he’s as fully vetted as possible - the Democrats can’t afford for Obama to have another Wright skeleton in his closet, and I’d imagine that fear is palpable, if not unspoken. That’s what the superdelegates are for, right? Don’t buy the Politico hype - the superdelegates have a role, and never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to shoot itself in the foot.

* QandO on why Glen Greenwald is a hack.

* Patterico had two excellent posts this weekend: First, a little straight talk on McCain and the whole Saddam/Al Queda thing that the Los Angeles Times decided to hammer home. Even I didn’t know of many of the quotes coming directly from the 9/11 Commission. Secondly, a great takedown of an Obama endorsement from a so-called Republican. Makes me wish I didn’t have such a visceral reaction to John McCain.

* Massachusetts schools aren’t failing, they’re simply “Commonwealth priorities.” I hate self-esteem sugarcoating.

* Many of you were right: Albany’s screwed. Spitzer’s replacement may have to step down for his own corruption issues, and the next guy in line is close to being indicted as well? Yikes.

* The Washington Post on a possible reality of an Obama presidency. I must say - calling your allies “so-called” won’t help matters, he’s right.

* My favorite story in ages: red light cameras are being shut down in some places because they’re too effective and end up being a drain on revenues as a result. Again: why do people wonder why I don’t trust law enforcement?

* Heavy but cool if you can parse it: a look at a possible fall in oil prices. Lots of stuff on petrodollars and investment and peak oil and on and on.

* Hugo Chavez moves to shut down the last remaining critical news outlet. That’s what you get when you try to stand up to a coked-up dictator.

* Bill Richardson endorsed Obama last week. I’m disappointed, but not shocked.

* A great story from inside the organ donation market. An interesting note from the piece - if every cadaver had its organs harvested and handed out, we still wouldn’t have enough. As creepy as it sounds, selling organs still seems like a better idea all around.

* GraniteGrok on how John Sununu’s challenger is completely stupid when it comes to oil prices. Shaheen is typical of the current Democratic/liberal mindset on economic issues right now - no forward thinking, and no clear progress on ideas that can solve the problems we’re facing.

* A pretty great story about how one of my favorite films, His Girl Friday, only found an audience after it slipped into the public domain. It’s somewhat presented as anti-copyright extension limits, and while I appreciate the public domain and the benefits it gives people on a whole, I’m also very pro-getting-people-compensated for what they do. It’s a very hard line to draw, especially in a situation that is inherently arbitrary, but I’m not convinced Disney should have to worry about losing Mickey Mouse while it’s still around, nor am I necessarily convinced that, say, Mark Twain’s great-great-grandkids are entitled to money for copies sold of Huckleberry Finn (note: I know Twain’s work is in the public domain).

* Are burglaries declining because of cheap imports?

Whew. That should do it for now.

* The Wright story doesn’t want to seem to go away, even though I’d kind of wish it would at this point. The downside of the rapid-fire news cycle we’re in is that if a story persists for a week, it feels like an eternity. First, Jonah Goldberg had some good words that I liked regarding a comparison between Obama’s speech Tuesday and Romney’s speech. Michael Goodwin at thr New York Daily News had a great piece on the issues of doubt the Wright flap creates around Obama. Finally, I’ve been trying to cut back on my cursing on this blog, but there’s really no better way to put it: Andrew Sullivan is an asshole.

* Greatest. Case. Name. Ever.

* I’m hearing nothing but good news regarding the Supreme Court case about the Washington, DC gun ban. Some good coverage: Reason on some highlights, and, for those inclined, the oral arguments. I feel like the only non-lawyer utterly fascinated by these, but hey.

* A pretty bad gaffe by Obama: his grandmother as a “typical white person.” You’ll recall that his white grandmother was portrayed in his speech on Tuesday as someone who had some racially insensitive thoughts. Yeah, I’ll give Obama the benefit of the doubt here, but if he’s trying to convince people that he doesn’t agree with Wright, this isn’t going to help.

* I voted for Frank Guinta for mayor, and enthusiastically at that, but this is a bit ridiculous. The anti-drug sentiment in this country has got to end, and this is the type of ridiculousness that causes problems.

* On the bright side, I live in the safest state in the United States (no thanks to our current leadership), and I’m proud of our northern neighbors for fighting the good fight.

* Price-gouging laws are stupid. This is stupid - if you don’t want to spend the extra cash on gas, drive down the street.

* Apparently, your state is safer if your government does the majority of parenting for you. I love surveys like this.

* Hidden costs in our ethanol push. My father-in-law sent along a message in the theme of “we’re the only nation that burns its food away.” I’m not sure how significantly true that is, but the fact that we do it at all is kind of pathetic.

* Another roadblock in the establishment of an .xxx domain. This seems like such a no-brainer to me…

* Finally, I’m not one for “omg that band sold out” stuff, but the redoing of the Black Kids song “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You” is kind of crappy. The original version had a lot of messy charm to it, but this sounds almost overly polished. The song is, thankfully, still awesome, but there’s something to be said about a little less polish.

* A pretty decent overview of the Obama speech from Michael Medved (thanks Melvin). After not thinking about it for a while, I still think the Obama speech was better than the general consensus on the right appears to believe, but that general consensus might be that turning point to uniting behind McCain the way they would against Clinton. Still, there is room for discussion as to what the speech said and accomplished, and Medved does raise a few interesting questions. Other interesting things I read in response to the piece: Caroline Glick’s powerful personal story which speaks to how many of us would have liked to see Obama respond, John Derbyshire at National Review picking apart some of Obama’s statements.

* Ron Paul is angry that the GOP hasn’t looked to his base of supporters. Well, duh, what did you expect?

* Today’s the 5 year anniversary of the Iraq invasion. I’ve read more than my share of opinions on it at this point that I won’t bother rehashing them all here - although my position as to what “good” foriegn policy is has changed since the war began in 2003, I still think Iraq was a good move to make, and still think we’re in a better position to finish it properly now than we were back in May and June of 2003. I still wonder how things would have worked out differently had we partitioned the country off, but at this point I’m more concerned with finishing right and getting out than bailing and having to fix it again later.

* Marijuana decriminalization of an ounce or less was passed in the New Hampshire house this week. Another reason to love this state. Unfortunately, Gov. Lynch plans to veto it - another great reason to vote him out in November.

* Jonah Goldberg notes the hypocrisy between Obama’s position on Wright and on Don Imus. Don Imus makes an insensitive comment with humorous intent and Obama things he should be fired. Wright makes years and years of comments that are as ugly - if not uglier - and we’re supposed to let that slide. Yeah, I think there’s a bit of a problem there. Obama did say that ” there’s nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group.” I suppose simply being an advisor absolves all that.

* Scientology doesn’t get a restraining order against Anonymous. I’m more amused by the Anonymous/Scientology feud than anything else (I’m not virulently against Scientology, and 4chan runs a good TF2 server, so…), but seeing this back and forth is great.

* Drew Carey at Reason.TV on the human organ market. The fact that we’re so backwards in regards to organ transplants as a society is something that depresses me a lot.

* Finally, mp3 audiobooks at libraries are coming sooner than I would have anticipated. I hope this trend continues.

* The arrogance of Barack Obama. I’m not as bothered by this as Fournier is, or as many bloggers appear to be. What does throw me is that Obama is arrogant and it doesn’t bother his supporters - wasn’t the arrogance of George W. Bush a big problem? Is it just that you like what Obama’s arrogant about that it’s okay?

* Barack Obama is a politician. Congressional Quarterly’s election blog, Ground Game, covers what is obvious, but misses the fact that Obama presents himself as not-a-politician. That’s where the problem sits.

* I expect this to be the political meme of the summer: “What’s wrong with the beer we got?!” Must be heard to be believed, skip ahead to a little after 5:30 to get the juicy stuff. Short story? Alabama debates allowing an increase in the alcohol content of beer, which would expand the beer market and provide some more options, and one politician takes some offense to it.

* Have i mentioned lately how glad I am to not live in Massachusetts anymore? The Mass legislature is going to consider a bill to make it illegal to sell M/AO rated games to minors. Glad you got that budget situation worked out there.

* McCain is not only against Universal Health Care, but makes a fairly reasoned approach about the issue:

“Well, I think that’s one of the big differences we have about the role of government. If you think that the government should mandate anything to the American people than besides a safety net, and I don’t view it as a safety net. I view Medicare and Medicaid as a safety net,” McCain said. “But to mandate that all Americans are required to do something then that’s just not within the fundamental philosophy that I have about the role of government in America.”

While I’m not generally a fan of the “safety net,” that’s probably the best argument anyone could put out there in the current climate. Cheers to you, Sen. McCain.

* A lot of the spin on this one has been about how ridiculous Comcast is, but I happen to think they have a point in their lawsuit against the FCC challenging the “30% rule” which disallows the cable carrier from having more than 30% of the market. Not only does such a rule not appear to apply to groups like AT&T, but all it’s going to do is screw the current Comcast customers - without allowing Comcast to grow, it means that 100% of any future improvements to the system or cost increases are stuck on current customers rather than Comcast being able to grow their way out of it. While the FCC could care less about exclusive cable carrier contracts with municipalities, this is a very bizarre position to take.

* I have a severe problem with the use of minors in any politicking, especially very young ones. So as if this video wasn’t creepy enough, the addition of a bunch of kids parroting talking points their parents fed to them is really disturbing and disgusting to me. Can we make an agreement to, you know, NOT do this?

* Zogby noting that Nader’s making some progress. Good thing Zogby’s typically pretty far off these days, eh?

* A question from National Review: if it was so important for Senate Democrats to push a resolution condemning Presidential candidates speaking at Bob Jones University, why the reluctance on Obama/Wright now?

* China’s been especially brutal with Tibet over the last week. It’s a damn good thing that the US State Department removed them from the Human Rights Violators list days earlier, eh?. Moronic.

* Walter Williams had a scathing op-ed regarding ethanol over the weekend. The money shot: “If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil?”

* A few reactions to the Obama speech I found interesting. I don’t endorse them, but they’re a different reaction from my own: National Review, Reason.

* One word for Jim Cramer: Ouch. I have no real input on the Bear Sterns issue - whatever is going to happen is going to happen, we’re much better set up and diversified as a nation to handle it, though.

* Today, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the Washington, DC gun ban. I’m using the newly adopted Elmore Rule on this one - if you want something good to come of something that might work out very well, pretend it’s not happening. So instead, let’s get excited about The Supremes taking on an FCC case!

* Michael Stipe is gay. I highlight this not because it’s news, but more to laugh at the fact that it’s being treated as news even though we’ve all known it since the early 1990s.

* Thomas Sowell on Obama. This was posted pre-speech, but it’s still resonant.

* Fred Thompson to debate John Edwards. I so hope this gets televised or ends up on the web. Thompson would have made a great candidate for President, IMO.

* An interesting set of musings on why the “peace movement” has failed.

* Finally, humorous link of the day: Ludacris’s Rap Map, showing where his women at according to his song “Area Codes.”

I think that’s enough.

TGIF indeed.

* From Southern Appeal, McCain has his own preacher problem - John Hagee is a bigoted, offensive mess of a human being, but since his ire is toward the Catholic Church, no one seems to care much - surprise surprise. Still, McCain shows the right way to distance yourself from an offensive minister you’re close to: “I categorically reject it, and I repudiate it. And we can’t have that in this campaign. We’re trying to unite the country. We’re uniting the country, not dividing it.” Compare that statement with Obama’s campaign statements on Rev. Wright - “Sen. Obama has said before that he profoundly disagrees with some of the statements and positions of Rev. Wright… Sen. Obama deplores divisive statements, whether they come from his supporters, the supporters of his opponent, talk radio or anywhere else.’’ This isn’t even Obama coming out and saying it, but having one of his campaign people make the statement for him. When Obama has the opportunity to repudiate the statements, he passes it off as a guy “on the brink of retirement” and can’t write him off completely. This is not good for Obama, and not good in a general election race the longer this simmers. Melvin Udall said it best in the comments earlier today:

Obama is an inhumanly charismatic man who is preaching a message of hope and change. Yet the two people closest to him in the world by his own admission, his wife and pastor, are angry, bitter, divisive, resentful, America hating, and certainly the latter, racist. If the two people closest to this man, who preaches hope and change, spread the message they’re spreading, this man shouldn’t be made leader of anything. He either can’t influence those closest to him with his message of optimism, or his message is entirely a fabrication.

* The Volohk Conspiracy on whether Article V makes it too hard to amend the Constitution. Uh, wasn’t that the point?

* An interesting story on the BBC’s blasphemy guidelines.

* An ahead-of-its-time astronomical calendar. Built between 150-100 B.C., the technology was better than anything that would be developed for more than a thousand years, including some parts that weren’t developed in the Western world until the 1700s. Absolutely incredible stuff.

* From Reason, random drug testing for high school athletes shot down due to a stronger-than-the-federal-government privacy law. Nice.

* The top 10 most edible Pokemon.

* More problematic earmarks for Obama. Remember, the problem isn’t the earmarking, it’s that Obama claims to be above all of this, not be influenced by lobbyists, and be different from the Same Old Washington Politics. The more we learn, the more it becomes evident that Obama is one of the firmest examples we have of being more of the same.

* This also ties into comments from this morning: Tom Coburn (writing in National Review) on the Founding Fathers and earmarks:

* The Democrats: for strengthening the middle class except when it’s time to act. Also, thanks for that tax increase, guys. There’s still time to reverse it, thankfully.

* This is kind of cool - a series of images from Enchanted alongside the Disney animated films that inspired the scenes.

* Shame on you, Sen. Gregg.

* Radley Balko reports on the ups and downs of RateMyCop.com. And then people wonder why I don’t trust the police. Also from Balko, MADDness.

* I love this - during the marathon voting session yesterday, Sen. Wayne Allard, Republican from Colorado, essentially put Barack Obama’s campaign platform up for vote. The result? Soundly defeated, including a nay vote from Obama himself. Pretty hilarious.

Have a lovely weekend.

* What do we call Barack Obama’s $1 million earmark request for the hospital that his wife works for? All together now - Same Old Washington Politics as Usual. I’ll give Obama some credit where it’s due - he appears to be swearing off earmarks, at least temporarily, and earmarks, while annoying and wasteful, are currently completely legal. With that said, again, you cannot run as a “different” candidate who’s above all the Washington politics and is somehow better than everyone else when you’re not only requesting ridiculous earmarks, but doing so for groups you have an obvious conflict of interest with. It just doesn’t fly.

* By now, you’ve probably seen the ABC News clip of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who heads up Obama’s church and made enough of an impact on Obama where he took the name of one of his books, The Audacity of Hope, from one of his sermons. The fact of the matter is that, while Wright is especially extreme to most ears, anyone who’s a churchgoing person is probably going to be aware of somewhat uncomfortable things that their preacher says. It’s just a matter of reality when it comes to religion clashing with a diverse country. That the media is examining this is a good thing, if only to atone for the ridiculous “A Mormon!?!?” stories we had to suffer through while Romney was still in the race. With that said, let’s not take too much stock in what Wright has to say, either - unless Obama’s showing signs of wanting to hire him for his staff, I think we’ll be okay on that front. Roger Simon sees it as a bigger problem, to provide an alternative view from the right side of the aisle.

EDIT: I wrote this last night. It’s now the morning, and it turns out that, yes, Rev. Wright has a formal, albeit semi-ceremonial role in the Obama campaign, and is often consulted by Obama “before making any bold political moves.” So yes, this is problematic. Much more so than the Ferraro flap from earlier this week, and makes you wonder who else is on the committee that Wright serves on.

* Happy 100th birthday, Chuck Taylor All-Stars. You’ve kept my feet happy for years.

* I lolled.

* I love when statistics and facts back up my gut feelings. It turns out that John McCain has a great rhetorical record, but when it comes to action, he’s completely unpredictable. Need to pinpoint my discomfort with John McCain? There you have it - if I can’t trust him to be consistent on the issues that matter to me, what benefit will it give me to vote for him?

* Let’s be clear - I’m not anti-Federal Reserve. I don’t know if the current situation is optimal, but I don’t think abolishing the Fed is the right answer either. Regardless, EconLog covers a lot of the problems the Fed causes, and I think could use some adjusting.

* I mostly don’t regret my vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Reason explains the problems inherent in the Paul campaign, and kind of sets a template up for more competent campaigns in the future, perhaps inadvertently. I don’t really disagree with any of this, but it is tonedeaf to the point that Paul likely didn’t resonate with more than 10% of voters in most places because he was ultimately the wrong vessel for the right message. If someone of Mitt Romney’s stature or Barack Obama’s charisma was carrying Paul’s message, it might have worked out better.

* I wasn’t concerned about the inevitable legal challenge to John McCain’s citizenship/Constitutional ability to become President until it got filed in the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit is so screwed up, you could present evidence that the earth rotates around the Sun, and they’d likely find a way to determine the opposite.

* Bill Gates details another reason why businesses are fleeing the United States.

* Finally, I think I’m going to avoid eating within Boston city limits. I’m sick of nannying ridiculousness.

* The Wall Street Journal examines Barack Obama’s tax plan to “save Social Security.” The result? A 13% tax rate increase for people making over $200m a year (more than what a reversal of the Bush tax cuts would be, and this number doesn’t factor in that probability, either) in exchange for keeping Social Security out of the red for a whopping three extra years. Removing the wage cap cannot save a program that is a failure to begin with. Barack Obama: Same Old Washington Politics as Usual.

* More on Obama and taxes from the Obamology blog: an unsigned but honest examination of proposed taxes if one of the remaining three candidates wins. Not surprisingly, Obama comes out furthest ahead, and his per-year spending increases are just as staggering. Same Old Washington Politics as Usual.

* I’ve been a big fan of David Mamet’s plays since I was first exposed to him in college. He was the first “adult” playwright I really encountered (not counting Rent, which is an absolutely “adult” production but was all the rage amongst teens in my theatre hangouts) and I always found him to be interesting. The big blogswarm today is about Mamet’s political change of heart following writing a production about “a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopian-socialist speechwriter.” Mamet knows his way around the English language anyway, and reading about his journey into what sounds like a conservative point of view on many important issues is really incredible. A few choice parts:

I found not only that I didn’t trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

I still get blank stares when I point out the resemblences between FDR and Bush.

I’d observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

This piece resonates with me a lot, as I was convinced of plenty of what are considered liberal ideas until the Clinton impeachment proceedings, where I then got more involved, more exposed, and figured out what I really believed. I didn’t have decades to turn back on, but I can absolutely relate to the realization aspects of his story. It’s long (and the Village Voice site has been up-and-down all day, allegedly due to the linking of the piece - a mirror of sorts is available here), but worth reading, especially if you want to try and understand where I come from politically.

* Libertas wonders what might be making the film Vantage Point more successful than the other war movies we’ve seen in 2007. They’ve been hammering home the concept that people don’t want to see “America is evil and corrupt” films, and I wasn’t really ever sure I could buy into the theory - none of those movies have been appealing to me regardless of politics - but this is an interesting note about it, nonetheless. The greater question remains, however - why doesn’t Hollywood go for more, for lack of a better term, “red state” movies?

That’s all I’ve got.

The end of Eliot Spitzer’s career comes to a close about 11 years too late. While many are wondering what might have been, I’m quite excited to see the end of what has been a really horrible time from a human being who should have never gotten as close to any position of authority as he did, let alone attorney general or governor. His Judge Dredd (”I AM the law!”), cavalier attitude toward those he was supposed to protect is something that should be villified, not praised.

The lives he actively harmed were in the thousands, the amount of money lost by both corporations and individuals in the tens of billions. Alan Reynolds, who writes for Cato’s blog, shared a speech regarding Spitzer’s tactics yesterday (an absolute must read if you care even a bit about government power and overreach), and it’s eye-opening - a 1921 law in the New York state books, the Martin Act, allows for the sort of cavalier attitude that Spitzer brought to the office by giving the AG of New York unprecedented, overbearing power to question companies for any reason without counsel, using the press to posit theories that companies cannot realistically defend by law, and then extort settlements from these companies as stock prices plummet and ruin the lives of many involved. You don’t have to take Reynolds’s (or my) word for it - take a look at the record in areas such as the Marsh & McClellan suit or the Dick Grasso harassment, and then tell me with a straight face that Spitzer was doing his job ethically, and doing it well.

Thomas Sowell ultimately said it best, as he’s prone to do: “What Eliot Spitzer did was not out of character. It was completely in character for someone with the hubris that comes with the ability to misuse his power to make or break innocent people.” That Spitzer got nailed by an unjust law (prostitution) via unjust means (the monitoring of financial transactions of an arbitrary amount that presumes guilt as opposed to innocence) is a shame, until you consider exactly how many times he used the same types (if not exactly the same) unjust laws to ruin the lives of countless people. That’s what ultimately makes it different than the Vitters or Craigs of the world - they, too, are hypocrites, but at least Vitter wasn’t prosecuting the same prostitutes he was meeting, nor was Craig arresting homosexuals in the next stall over.

Good riddance, and New York should take the opportunity now to right a wrong. Those companies can’t get their money back, and perhaps some of them don’t deserve it. But to step up to the plate and weaken the power of the attorney general is an absolute must - if they don’t, it won’t be a question of if another Spitzer will roll around, but when.

More good articles on Spitzenfreude: Reason on why Spitzer’s hypocrisy is worse than you think, The Wall Street Journal on the press enabling Spitzer’s reign of terror (and QandO has more on this), and the betrayal of human rights groups.