Friday, February 15, 2008
Aloha
C and I got back early this morning. Just a taste of the islands for you. More in a day or so.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Obama's Economic Policies
I started to post today based upon Larry Kudlow's analysis without having actually read Obama's policy statement. Kudlow included this:
The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore has done the math on Obama’s tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.
Before I posted, I went to Obama's website to read it. Heavens! It's much worse than I'd thought. I hope I have the stamina to post after having thoroughly read Obama's positions.
The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore has done the math on Obama’s tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.
Before I posted, I went to Obama's website to read it. Heavens! It's much worse than I'd thought. I hope I have the stamina to post after having thoroughly read Obama's positions.
My longstanding political theory about to be sunk
I've believed since I started to think about these things (almost 30 years) that the first African-American and first woman POTUS would be from the right.
While I still think Powell would have won had he run as a Republican in 2000, he didn't.
I don't see any women on the right, or even just Republican women if not that much to the right, of a presidential mettle anything as strong as Clinton's. Likewise, although there are a lot more African-Americans moving right both politically--Steele, Swann, Blackwell and Watts (and to a much lesser extent Ford) and philosophically--Williams, Murdock, Connerly and Sowell (always dismissed as Toms), I don't yet see anybody with the experience needed.
My "only Nixon could go to China" theory may be shot down by half this November.
While I still think Powell would have won had he run as a Republican in 2000, he didn't.
I don't see any women on the right, or even just Republican women if not that much to the right, of a presidential mettle anything as strong as Clinton's. Likewise, although there are a lot more African-Americans moving right both politically--Steele, Swann, Blackwell and Watts (and to a much lesser extent Ford) and philosophically--Williams, Murdock, Connerly and Sowell (always dismissed as Toms), I don't yet see anybody with the experience needed.
My "only Nixon could go to China" theory may be shot down by half this November.
On Valentine's Day in 1928...
My mom was born. Wow. First birthday/Valentine's Day without dad since 1951.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
A pretty big endorsement in Central Texas for Obama
From Sen. Kirk Watson's website:
I am proud to support Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.
Senator Obama offers this nation a new beginning. His leadership will tap our potential and give us hope.
Watson is Austin's former mayor and current state senator. Watson carries a lot of weight here.
I am proud to support Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.
Senator Obama offers this nation a new beginning. His leadership will tap our potential and give us hope.
Watson is Austin's former mayor and current state senator. Watson carries a lot of weight here.
Posted hesitantly
As I left the office tonight many of the folks who clean the office (the folks who come in at night and mop the bathroom floors, the guy with the vacuum cleaner backpack, trash taker-outers, etc...) were coming into the garage. I counted a Suburban (maybe two years old), a smallish SUV (like a CRV, looked brand new) and a brand new mid-sized Toyota sedan. Each auto carried only one person. Two of them were talking on cell phones.
Last year, we had to complain to management because one of our attorneys logged onto his computer from home to find that someone at the office was already on his computer. Turned out it was one of the office cleaners who was updating her MySpace or Facebook site.
I was reminded that in Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great about America, there is a quote about why another person of Indian origin wanted to immigrate to the USA....ok, I can't find the quote in the book but I did find this from a column of his that makes the same point with whom I assume is the same person:
... "They arrived at the same perception that I witnessed in an acquaintance of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States. I asked him, "Why are you so eager to come to America?" He replied, "I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."
What a country! I know, I know, the poorer among us are overweight because of their terrible nutrition options. My point is that the guy from Bombay is amazed that they weren't starving like they do in his homeland. When those on the presumably "lower economic rungs" have these "necessities," we must be doing something right...economically. The cell phones, computers and these quality autos were not available to even the richest within my lifetime.
Last year, we had to complain to management because one of our attorneys logged onto his computer from home to find that someone at the office was already on his computer. Turned out it was one of the office cleaners who was updating her MySpace or Facebook site.
I was reminded that in Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great about America, there is a quote about why another person of Indian origin wanted to immigrate to the USA....ok, I can't find the quote in the book but I did find this from a column of his that makes the same point with whom I assume is the same person:
... "They arrived at the same perception that I witnessed in an acquaintance of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States. I asked him, "Why are you so eager to come to America?" He replied, "I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."
What a country! I know, I know, the poorer among us are overweight because of their terrible nutrition options. My point is that the guy from Bombay is amazed that they weren't starving like they do in his homeland. When those on the presumably "lower economic rungs" have these "necessities," we must be doing something right...economically. The cell phones, computers and these quality autos were not available to even the richest within my lifetime.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The European Spine
Victor Davis Hanson really depressing me today at NRO as he sounds some of the themes from Bruce Thornton’s Decline and Fall and Mark Steyn’s America Alone :
Abroad, the European public is more schizophrenic. It wants to make no sacrifices to stop the jihadists, but fears them terribly. It damns the U.S. as responsible for the tense, unpleasant global environment, but then — apparently in private — votes to ensure it has leaders favorable to us. Europeans offer moral lectures to Americans who are paying a great price in blood and treasure for constitutional alternatives in Iraq, even as their own elites in shameful timidity mortgage the Western Enlightenment to two-bit thuggish Islamists.
Afghanistan is not seen as a line in the sand to stop the spread of jihadism, but an embarrassing entanglement that can be blamed on George Bush’s inordinate anger following 9/11. The European attitude toward America seems to be “you must intervene in the Balkans to lead us in the fight against the twilight, but we won’t follow you into Afghanistan to battle against abject darkness.”
Abroad, the European public is more schizophrenic. It wants to make no sacrifices to stop the jihadists, but fears them terribly. It damns the U.S. as responsible for the tense, unpleasant global environment, but then — apparently in private — votes to ensure it has leaders favorable to us. Europeans offer moral lectures to Americans who are paying a great price in blood and treasure for constitutional alternatives in Iraq, even as their own elites in shameful timidity mortgage the Western Enlightenment to two-bit thuggish Islamists.
Afghanistan is not seen as a line in the sand to stop the spread of jihadism, but an embarrassing entanglement that can be blamed on George Bush’s inordinate anger following 9/11. The European attitude toward America seems to be “you must intervene in the Balkans to lead us in the fight against the twilight, but we won’t follow you into Afghanistan to battle against abject darkness.”
Ferrigno's Sins
First chapter of Robert Ferrigno’s Sins of the Assassin available at his website (not that I’m reading it at the office). Enjoyed the first one, Prayers for the Assassin, but readily admit it was not aspiring to be anything beyond a thriller.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Elizabeth the Golden Age
I wasn't all that crazy about the first one...probably too salty for my taste but I did like the one I watched today. Cate Blanchette in armor, well, speaks for itself. She's no Miranda Otto.
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