America lost.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 12:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"The fact that we’re here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means ‘The buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit." -Senator Barack Obama, 2006

Nah, he's probably some kind of right-wing ideologue teabagger.  Y'know, one of those fringe types.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 08:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Are created by every new welfare law. Obamacare is no exception.  This is what happens when legislators hurry in their efforts to thwart the will of the people: the laws they write are even worse than usual.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 08:24 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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No waiting this morning at Scarlett Middle School.  There were about 12 total voters in the gymnasium while I was present.  Given that this is Ann Arbor (i.e. 25 square miles surrounded by reality), I choose to interpret it as a good sign.  Rick Snyder is a local, but I'm guessing his local constituency isn't my generally my neighborhood.  If AA turnout is low, that might be good news for Rob Steele, but there's no telling on that one, since the dead voters of Detroit are sure to turn out for zombie-master Dingell.

I'm headed back with my wife for her vote this evening, I'll update then with what I see.

Update (7:30PM):  Still not crushing turnout when I was there the second time, but it was about 30min from the close.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 11:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I very much like the thesis in this article from April, but I'm not optimistic. A fracturing of the modern special interest state seems very likely to lead to balkanization, and whatever emerged from that would be much less than America is today for decades to come.  That's a bad thing.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 10:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thank a vet today.  If you are a veteran, thank you for your service.

Also if you are a veteran, free lunch at Applebee's!  The house sirloin is pretty good, at least at the one on Washtenaw in AA.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm interested conceptually, and for the same reason that I'm interested in Martian colonization: lacking a frontier means that established nations need only compete with each other. There are, of course, exceptions to that as various nations fail and new quasi-states arise, but by and large the majority of the habitable land on the planet (and effectively in the entire universe, since there's nowhere else to go yet) is claimed and spoken for by some political reality. There are certainly small islands and even continental regions that are uninhabited, however, so I remain unconvinced that the same ideas could not be tried out on existing land somewhere, but I concede the point that claiming any land on earth under a new flag is bound to constitute an act of war to someone. Defense is -- to my mind at least -- still the primary risk in any such venture.

Article is here.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 11:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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H/T Hot Air

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 05:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Posted by: leoncaruthers at 07:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you didn't learn this in school, it wasn't by accident that it was omitted. We used to have a republic. I'm not sure what we have today, but if we have finally devolved to a democracy, we don't have much longer as a nation. Not one worth living in, anyhow.

h/t to Theo Spark (NSFW).

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 07:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thank a vet today.

We owe them more than can be repaid.  Honor that.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Obama won.  He will be my president as much as he will be every other American's president.  That's how the system works.  I'll disagree with him when he's doing wrong (just like I did with Bush over amnesty, the various bailouts, Harriet Miers, etc.) and I'll agree with him when he does right.  I fully expect to do more of the former than the latter, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised.

Case in point: John Dingell has been my congressman since I moved to Washtenaw county.  I've voted against him every time I've been able, because he's not all of what I want, but he's right as rain on the 2nd ammendment, and I appreciate that.

Also, no matter what my disagreements with BHO, I shall never stand on foreign soil and slur him.  Politics stops at the border, dammit.  Yeah, his supporters and his campaign did loads of unsavory and potentially criminal things in the leadup to the election, but it's over.  This is what the system has delivered us.  If you don't like it, we accept the results and then FIX THE DAMN SYSTEM.

Open primaries?  Get rid of 'em.  Voting without ID?  No, outlaw this, period.  Donation fraud?  We need total accountability for every dollar donated to campaigns and every dollar spent by them.  If corporations can put up with Sarbanes-Oxley, campaigns can do this.  These should not be controversial positions or goals.  Point to Operation Chaos if you have to, point out how much it cost donors to continue the primary fights.  Point, legitimately, to the problems with Obama's online donation site and the potential for abuse or foreign donation.  Fair, open, and trustworthy elections are in the interest of all americans.  If I can look at IN and see the obvious fraud in Marin and Lake counties, something's wrong with the system.  Ballot box stuffing in big cities is a punchline, and it shouldn't be.

Yeah, the media was in the tank.  They always will be, get over it.  Support media when it tells the truth, boycott it when it's biased.  Support alternative media, write letters, whatever it takes.  Encourage your friends to do the same, be they left or right.  We need an honest media, and cannot function without it.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 11:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you missed those rascally bad guys from the 70's and 80's, you'll have them again soon enough.  Putin's gonna get his USSR.

Also: If the American Experiment has well and truly ended, at least we have oodles of new data for when we run the next one.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Michael S. Malone, writing for PajamasMedia:

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side - or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for Senators Obama and Biden. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as President of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: his job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Mr. Malone is ashamed to be a journalist (RTWT). The media is covering for Obama, ignoring anything negative, and pursuing nothing. It is deliberate and systematic, and you're a damn fool if you don't see it. The old media has become Pravda for the Obama campaign.

Hell, even Dan Rather has noticed.

H/T Instapundit.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 10:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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H/T The Jawa Report

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 09:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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... puts you some motherf*ckin' knowledge.

It's simple, read DPUD, get knowledge. And shoes. And sometimes fashion models working as ball girls for tennis matches.

I'm not sure who said it, but it bears repeating: wealth cannot be spread, only money.  Money ceases to be wealth the moment it's taken by force, since it could just as easily be taken again.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 07:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We are the brown shirts we have been waiting for. If you see this on CNN, let me know, I could use a paradigm-shattering surprise like that.

Violence to advance a political agenda is extremely dangerous to the thin fabric of civility that holds our nation together. Don't encourage it, don't endorse it, no matter how tacitly. Doesn't matter who's hitting who, you have to stand up and say "no" or we all lose.

H/T ++undead

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 02:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I didn't write it, but I like the list.

* Speeches in stadiums filled with mesmerized, adoring audiences - Check
* An uninspiring background before meteoric rise - Check
* Creates his own new symbols of power - Check
* Associates with racists, hatemongers and violent radicals - Check
* A propaganda machine willing to show him only in the best possible light - Check
* Uses, "glorious leader" style Agitprop posters common in totalitarian nations - Check (see German campaign poster for example)
* Wants Secret Police force - Check
* Somebody powerful people think they can control - Check
* Often dismissed as a light-weight by his opponents - Check
* Seeks to replace God with the State - Check
* People adopting his name as their own - Check
* Inspires adoration art - Check
* Appropriates symbols of past German glory - Check
* Never plans on giving up power - Check
* A narcissistic megalomaniac - Check
* Brazenly Takes credit for other people's accomplishments - Check
* Wants to build "youth" movement through Universal  National State service - Check
* Acts as if in power before he is - Check
* Some followers believe him to be divine - Check
* Worshiped and aided greatly by the media - Check
* Has his own salute - Check
* Has thuggish supporters intimdating political opponents – Check
* Using the power of the State to silence critics - Check
* Songs written to glorify him performed by children - Check
more...

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 08:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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From Ace's thread, saved here just for fun.

1. Joe the Plumber doesn't use a blowtorch to sweat pipe, he just asks it good questions until it starts sweating on its own.

2. He asked Obama a question, and Obama got the answer wrong.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 03:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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McCain was on the right side of this all along. So were Bush AND Clinton, for all the good it did.

H/T to Nice Deb

Posted by: leoncaruthers at 10:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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