New column up next door. Property rights. I didn't get to explore the issue like I wanted to, so I'll probably write a follow-up next week.

Steve Re: Weird

The disingenuousness of many on the left of the 'separation of church and state' issue never ceases to amaze me. This political position cannot be sustained by Constitutional history. Jefferson had nothing of the present interpretation in mind when he penned that phrase in the context of his reply to the Danbury Baptists. Congress resolved that President Washington proclaim a day of thanksgiving to God and prayer on the day after they finalize the wording to the First Amendment. The Declaration of Independence refers to Nature's God and the Creator in its first two sentences. All 50 state constitutions acknowledge

God. So how is it that now that even the mention of these facts in public schools could be debatable as to their constitutionality?

I could understand someone who had the courage to say that the founders were political geniuses, while at the same time were also prescientific dopes. Then they could try to explain why all the early heavy-hitters of science thought that science itself was worthy of pursuit in that God was a logical God that created a logical universe that could be discovered by a logical methodology. Random chance and luck do not lend themselves to such a study.

The modern church and state separatists don't have the courage to challenge in this way. They distort and lie and lie and lie and lie-- often enough and big enough and loud enough to get this intellectual retreadedness into the mainstream. Now, when questioned, they must stamp their feet, fold their arms across their chests, give sneerfull looks and tut-tuts, and say, "Because I say so!" Sorry, mister, you ain't my mama.

Class... class...CLASS!! SHUDDUP!! Thank-you... I don't want to traumatize your self-esteem. Today, with our technology, we have bloggoported several of our founding fathers into our history classroom. However, we dare not let them speak to you, since they will surely say something unconstitutional. You may inspect Washington's wooden teeth, watch Burri re-enact how he shot Hamilton, and compare Franklin's visage to that which graces your laundered Benjamins. You African-American students may test Jefferson's DNA to determine if you are related. But, do not... I repeat, do not ask them about history.

Steve Re: Evil school principal in Athens, Georgia, with buttocks in the stocks!

Hang Him High

The following is a copy of a prayer that Principal Tommy Craft read over the intercom to students last week before the Thanksgiving break:

'The New School Prayer'

The following is a copy of the prayer, provided by Principal Tommy Craft, that he read over the intercom to students last week.

Now I sit me down in school

Where praying is against the rule

For this great nation under God

Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,

It violates the Bill of Rights.

And anytime my head I bow

Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,

That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.

The law is specific, the law is precise.

Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall

Might offend someone with no faith at all.

In silence alone we must meditate,

God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,

And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.

They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.

To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,

And the "unwed daddy," our Senior King.

It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,

We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,

Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.

But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,

No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,

When chaos reigns the school's a mess.

So, Lord, this silent plea I make:

Should I be shot, my soul please take!

This is a potentially important story, at least to my future career in prognostication.

CNN.com - Officials: Ridge to announce resignation

This story mentions a number of possible successors to Tom Ridge as Secretary of Homeland Security, but Tommy Thompson isn't among them. A column in the Wisconsin State Journal suggested strongly that Thompson is, in fact, in the running for that post.

I wonder what the difference is, here. Could the WSJ be guilty of a little rooting for the home-town boy? Or is it just a case of different reporters having different sources who may or may not be telling the truth?

Steve

I wanted to give y'all a couple of Blogs that I've been reading lately. http://discerningtexan.blogspot.com/ and http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/.

Posted today's column a few hours earlier than usual, since we're heading up to the Mom's for the weekend.

Reached for deep, may have come up with stupid. Go see what you think.

Also, wondering what you guys think about my Tommy speculations. Don't be so damn quiet all the time.

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;— to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Steve

Jay Leno says that the Indiana Pacers have drafted Mike Tyson.

Bumper sticker I've seen on the back of a Jeep: (written upside down) If you can read this-- flip me over.

Never invite Uncle/Brother Jim over to watch the Badgers play football. He was here for the games against Iowa, Michigan State, and the first three quarters of Purdue.

Lance, I'm still waiting for Jack to run for president. I think I can easily top the antics of Billy Carter and Clinton's brother in notoriety. Billy Beer will be far surpassed by Stevie Suds. (Tastes Right-- More Swilling) (Jack will have to moderate his leftishness abit and pretend to be religious, but he could give Tommy a run!)

Alert Instapundit. I've mapped out the road to the White House in 2008. Click here.

FINALLY someone has come out with A 100% Bi-Partisan Political Bumper sticker:

"2008 - RUN HILLARY RUN"

Democrats put it on the rear bumper. Republicans put it on the front bumper.

So, the whole world tuned in to see what crazy thing ABC would do for their intro to Monday Night Football last night, and all we got was a few players saying "It's 9 pm eastern on a Monday Night, and you know what that means."

Big whoop. And they didn't even take their shirts off. That's the last time I make sure I'm on time for a game.

Nerd Alert!

What? A new Battlestar Galactica?

Lileks says so:

"I watched the first episode of Battlestar Galactica's new season. Not something I ever thought I would look forward to, given how much I loathed the original. I mean, if you were eight years old and watched it in your Underoos and have great love for it because it was part of your childhood, that's fine. Sad, but fine. At the time we quasi-adults thought it was stupid, and an obvious ripoff of the Genius of George Lucas. (In retrospect, they just showed us what Lucas probably would have done if he'd had to produce a weekly series.)

Anyway. The new series has not yet broadcast here in the states, but it's coming. Bottom line: Yes. Yes, indeed. It's very good. Even the Courtney-Love-as-Starbuck thing works. The slogan for the show: 'The World is Over.' And that's exactly how it feels. The show has a pervasive ache to its tone and timbre, and I applaud all involved. I can only hope that the people behind the 80s version of 'Buck Rogers' watch it and soil themselves in shame. If Twiki ever went up against Jar-Jar I'd root for the Binks. Which says a lot. To be exact, it says 'bidi bidi bidi.' Meesa hate that."

Holy crap, it's true!

An interesting point on the exit polls from Mullings:

Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen:

"Throughout the afternoon and well into election night, the Kerry people thought they were winning. If they were winning they could not complain about how the election was being conducted. The thousands of lawyers the Kerry campaign had deployed to the battleground states could not file challenges because they didn't want their own people to call into question the legitimacy of the process.

By the time it became clear that President Bush was likely to win, it was too late for the Kerry campaign to go back to the news media and complain that there were problems with the election. "

So, the inflated exit polls showing Kerry with more momentum than he actually had was good for Bush. Boy, that Karl Rove is a genius.

David Carr's haircut makes him look like a girl.

Found this through IMAO:

CNN.com - AFI top 100 to show the money quotes - Nov 17, 2004

Here's the link to a pdf file of all 400 nominees. I haven't looked through the whole thing, of course, but it's fun to read. Particularly because of all the quotes I recognize from movies I've never seen. I also think it's amusing to see how often I don't know a character's name, even though I've seen the movie more than once.

UPDATE - Black Bart made the list: "'Scuse me while I whip this out!"

The Capital Times - Gender pay gap in state 'appalling'

And indeed, it is appalling, if it accounts for variables like job experience and job type. This study doesn't do that. Here's the link. All they did was average everybody's salaries, then average men's and women's separately (then they separated out some minority groups to look at those).

I remember reading that far more men than women major in things like engineering, computer science, and finance, while women are far more likely to major in liberal arts. If true, it illustrates a major flaw in this "study."

A 26-year-old woman who majored in english and took a year off to have a baby doesn't make the same money as a 45-year-old man with 22 years experience as a civil engineer. This study does not appear to take that difference into account.

Anybody got any links to more info? I'm too busy to look it up myself.

Personally, I thought the fifth Harry Potter book was godawful - nowhere near as good as the couldn't-put-em-down first four were.

Turns out I was just looking at them the wrong way.

Harry Potter: The new Atlas Shrugged?

Dumbeldore, the most powerful wizardalive, actively avoids a position in government. Independent action is celebrated.Notably absent is any mention of a system of taxation.

With the exceptionof the time when the Minister of Magic knowingly put an innocent man in prison,the authorities have mostly been comic relief.

You can stop rolling your eyes now, Al. I'm done.

First the story, then the questions.

DOYLE OUTLINES MAJOR BIOTECH, HEALTH SCIENCES, STEM CELL RESEARCH INITIATIVE

Gov. Doyle today outlined a major initiative on biotechnology, health sciences and stem cell research he said will keep Wisconsin's leadership in all three fields. The program calls for a new $375 million research institute (Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the UW-Madison); a new $134 million HealthStar Interdisciplinary Research Complex (near the UW Hospital and Clinics in Madison); a new $132 million research facility at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital "to focus on infectious disease control, cardiovascular illnesses and bioengineering.

In addition, Doyle said there would propose $1.5 million annually to support a new Alzheimer's research initiative; and, $105 million in funding over the next five years in research, education and public health efforts at the UW Medical School and Medical College of Wisconsin "to make progress in areas such as regenerative medicine, stem cell research, molecular medicine, neuroscience and cancer research."

Doyle also said he would propose legislation to allow UW faculty and staff "to more easily engage in commercial activities that utilize university research," and, would make millions of dollars in venture capital available to new biotech and health science businesses. The venture capital is available as the result of legislation signed earlier this year "to fuel the process of turning ideas into jobs by leveraging over $250 million of venture capital to help start-up companies grow."

The text of Doyle's announcement is available at The Wheeler Report website.

Okay, I understand that nobody's going to see this as a corporate giveaway: never mind that there's a whole lot of money in biotech and research, it's helping humanity so we don't see it the same as building a road to serve a new industrial park.

The libertarian in me is vomiting over this. The Star Trek fan in me is screaming "Invest! Invest! Invest! And while you're at it, send a manned ship to Mars!"

I find it interesting that none of the press releases touting this announcement - the Governor's, the UW System, the Alzheimer's Association, the Wisconsin Biotechnology & Medical Device Association - say anything about what kind of stem cell research they want to do. Two pro-life groups, Wisconsin Right to Life and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, have publicly said they're all for this idea, as long as we don't include public funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Politically, I think this is a good move for Doyle. Any resistance from his Republican adversaries runs the risk of looking like obstructionism against both scientific research and economic development. The Legislature and Joint Committee on Finance will, likely, insert something into the budget bill that disallows public funding of embryonic stem cell research. The governor can just line it out, if he wants.

It's being speculated that this is a response (of sorts) to the California initiative to spend $3 billion on similar research.

If so, question: are these projects competing with one another, or do they actively cooperate along the way? I kinda hope it's more the former than the latter.

Here's something I found through Instapundit - one of those electoral maps that shows how each county voted, but except for strict red and blue, it uses shades to show the strength of victory for each candidate.

TCS: Tech Central Station - A Tale of Two Maps

I like that a lot better than the other, either-or maps. Makes my own home county look a little less blue.

Now, all we need is for somebody to add up the square mileage and population of counties that really went for Bush, sorta went for Bush, almost went for Kerry but not quite, etc.

Okay, my new column is up. The question at hand: are efforts to reduce the size of government being pursued on the backs of union employees? And do we care?

This CNN Money story lists the top ten degree programs that the private sector will want next year.

No, political science isn't among them. Neither is journalism. Or philosophy.

Number one - accounting! Boy, those accountants, they get all the breaks. I found this odd, though I shouldn't have. Look at the want ads. Everybody's looking for an accountant.

I think that's one of the great unreported angles of the "tax reform" idea. One of the arguments in favor of tax simplification is that Americans won't have to spend billions on accounting anymore. Let's just say for a moment that Bush succeeds in abolishing the tax code in favor of a flat income tax or a national sales tax. Whaddayawanna bet accounting won't be in the top ten anymore?

I know there's other links out there, but you're all smart people, and if you're interested, you'll find them yourself. Here is a link to FairTax.org, a group dedicated to the national sales tax. And here is an Andrew Sullivan column (yes, I've resumed reading him - I just skip the posts about the war) that focuses more on the flat tax.

A brief excerpt:

The politician who allows every citizen to fill out her tax form on a postcard with a simple calculator will become one of the most popular in history.

Here's another column along the same lines as the Leonard Pitt column I posted yesterday:

Bill Wineke: Political divide isn't as deep as we think:

"A column like this one elicits a fair amount of mail each week and the mail I get suggests that people aren't as polarized or as stubborn as you might think reading the pundits who analyze elections."

I wonder if we'll get a respite from all the "polarized nation" rhetoric we've been hearing since 2000. Here's that map of the county-by-county results:



That sure looks impressive, but we all know those counties aren't completely red or blue. I actually like the Onion's version, better:



That about sums it up for me, at least as far as the gray states go. I think I can do without being a battleground state in 2008.

Nooooo!

Yahoo! News - Derailment Spills 20,000 Gallons of Beer:

"CHILHOWIE, Va. - Fourteen cars of an 83-car Norfolk Southern train derailed near an industrial park, leaving the area smelling like a brewery Thursday.

About 20,000 gallons of beer leaked from three cars of the Roanoke-bound train, said railway spokesman Robin Chapman."

New blog:

My View of the World

He's from Milwaukee. I only mention him because he already mentioned us. He linked to Steve's post with the cartoon of Kerry asking how he could have lost after the Packers beat the Redskins. Everybody go say hi. I'll link to him next door.

Oh, and Lakeshore Laments is accepting comments on his posts now. We should try to make him regret it.

I like Leonard Pitts:

"The other day, I went looking for statistics to illustrate our division, numbers to prove that we are further apart on more issues than we've ever been before. So I turned to the Gallup organization and looked up some data. And what I found surprised me.

Let's take abortion, for instance. Surely, there is no more divisive issue in American life, no question with more potential to put us at each other's throats.
Well, here's what I found: 29 years ago, 75% of us thought it should be legal, either in certain circumstances or upon demand. In 2004, 80% of us feel the same way. In other words, the vast majority of us favors abortion in some form, and that number has barely changed in 30 years, except to edge up slightly.

Try another issue. Capital punishment. In the '70s, 66% of us favored it. Thirty years later, 71% do.

Same-sex relationships between consenting adults? Forty-five percent of us thought they should be legal in 1982. Fifty-two percent think so now.

Guns: Forty-four percent of us owned them in 1975. Forty-three percent do now.

Drugs: Sixty-six percent of us opposed the legalization of marijuana in 1977. Sixty-four percent do now.

Again, I'm not going to tell you that we haven't changed in three decades, or that there are not areas of sharp disagreement. Of course we have and of course there are.

But what struck me over and over as I kept looking at the polls was how remarkably united we were on so many questions and how absolutely consistent our opinions have been over the years."

There's a lot more to the column, on whether or not politics really is nastier than ever before (something on which I've opined several times in the past), and on whether or not we're really a hyper-polarized nation. Good stuff.

Emailed to (and edited by) me:

French Terrorism Alert:

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "run" to "hide," according to the AP and UPI. The only two higher levels in France are "surrender" and "collaborate." The move was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed one of their White Flag factories, disabling their military.

Well, I thought it was funny.

For Veterans' Day:

"It Has Always Been the Soldier"

It's the soldier, not the reporter who has given us Freedom of the Press.

It's the soldier, not the poet, who has given us Freedom of Speech.

It's the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the Freedom to Demonstrate.

It's the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the Right to a Fair Trial.

It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves under the flag and whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who gives the protestor the right to burn the flag.

~Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

You mean this isn't legal?

Channel3000.com - News - Boss Spanked Employees For Mistakes, Police Say

RED BANK, Tenn. -- You can fire your workers, but you can't spank 'em.

Authorities in Red Bank, Tenn., have arrested and charged 57-year-old Paul Levengood with two counts of sexual battery.

Police say two 19-year-old women complained that Levengood would spank them when they made mistakes on the job at Tasty Flavors Sno Biz.

One of the women told police that on her first day at the Tasty Flavors Sno Biz, before any spanking, Levengood made her sign a statement giving him permission to "bust my behind any way he sees fit."

Police Sgt. Jay LaMance said the two women likely accepted the spankings instead of leaving immediately because they were brought up to respect anybody who is an authority figure.

Levengood is now free on $2,000 bond.

This is from Sykes Writes, regarding the recent leadership elections in the State Senate:

"Something doesn't add up here. Citizens for Responsible Government is conducting a 'RINO Watch,' and has surveyed members of the Republican caucus, asking them how they voted in the race between conservative Scott Fitzgerald and RINO Dale Schultz. So far, the following senators have said publicly - on the record - that they voted for Fitzgerald in Monday's secret ballot:

Fitzgerald
Stepp
Harsdorf
Grothman
Kanavas
Darling
Kedzie
Lazich
Reynolds
Leibham

Do the math. That's 10. There are 19 members of the GOP caucus. If they were all telling the truth, Fitzgerald would have been re-elected. He wasn't."

Sykes thinks somebody (or somebodies) must be lying, but I think the real explanation is probably much less sinister. They were probably using leftover butterfly ballots! They think they voted for Fitzgerald, but didn't follow the ballot correctly!

Where is Jesse Jackson when you need him?

Yes!

Yahoo! News - Bush Moves to Privatize Social Security

Lance,
Now what in the Sam Hill is going on up there in your neck of the woods? I watch an episode of Forensic Files about a teenager in Baraboo that tortures and kills at least one kid and was caught well on his way to another. Now a Baraboo resident is involved in a double murder and abduction.

Here we are debating on whether or not we must inaugurate a Department of Rock County Security to keep our friendly neighborhood safe from the hoodlums out of Sauk County. We are petitioning Washington to send in the Special Forces to wrest control of Baraboo away from that apparent nest of insurgents. Many of us suspect that there are WMD’s hidden away up there.

Lance, if I wanted this type of excitement, I’d move to Detroit. Geez, we’d better pass ‘right to carry handguns’ legislation soon, ‘cause it seems that Sauk County already has it! (The latest buzz-phrase around here is: When guns are outlawed only Sauk County will have guns!) Get a grip up there in anarchyland, will ya? (There must be an awful lot of people affected by OldWhig's Brain Dump up there!)

Perhaps the definitive reason why George W. Bush won the election of 2004.

Steve: Re: Some things never change.

Some ancient manuscripts have recently been discovered in southeastern Greece. Their translation shows that there really is 'nothing new under the sun'. (I couldn't get the original Greek text to work in posting here.)

Here's the translation of an account of an inter-cultural meeting along Caesar's highway:

"Hark, gentle stranger. Who art thou and from whence have you and your lusty horde come?"

"Hi-ho, honorable fan. We are the Bears and we hail from Chicago. And we sing this song."

"We are the mighty, mighty Bears of Ipecac,
Watch us for awhile, and chuck your cookies back.
We sing this song accompanied by the emetic flute,
The more football we play, the more you will puke."

"We are the mighty Bears from the Windy City,
Root for our victory, and you will feel sh***,
We can blame the refs, injuries, and bad luck,
But all football fans know that we just plain suck!"

"We are the mighty Bears of epic historic fame,
You may not know that, ‘cause our play is so lame.
There was a time when we beat the Land of Dairy,
But no more this year, ‘cause we voted for Kerry!"

"We are the mighty Bears of Soldier Field,
Our defense, like a sieve doth always yield.
Bet on us and your family will starve,
At least until the retirement of Favre."

"We are the mighty Bears always taking the drubs,
But at least we’ve won a championship more recently than the Cubs.
And we still have our faithful fans, How ‘bout you?
We could always use another of such low I.Q.!"

"We are the mighty Bears and ‘In Halas We Trust’,
Just can’t figure out why we’re always a bust.
Some say we can’t get it through our head,
That George is long ago dead."

"You may pass, Bar-Bear-ians, you pose no threat to us here."

Hey, Mr. Pterodactyl, did you see Jonah Goldberg's description of your two favorite columnists?

Jonah Goldberg's Goldberg File on National Review Online:

"Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas"

Steve Re: Why Bush Won– Words of Election Day (WED’s, Al!) From Merriam-Webster

From Lance's post of 10/28/04 :

'And for Grandpa John:
Ecclesiastes 10:2 The wise man's understanding turns him to his right; the fool's understanding turns him to his left.'

Here is some Merriam-Webster commentary on this verse:

Main Entry: dexterous
Variant: also dextrous \‚dek-st(„-)r„sFunction: adjective
Etymology: Latin dextr-, dexter on the right side, skillful
Date: 1622
1 : mentally adroit and skillful : clever
2 : done with dexterity : artful
3 : skillful and competent with the hands
-dexterously adverb
-dexterousness noun
synonyms dexterous, adroit, deft mean ready and skilled in physical movement. dexterous implies expertness with consequent facility and quickness in manipulation ²unrolled the sleeping bag with a dexterous toss³. adroit implies dexterity but usually also stresses resourcefulness or artfulness or inventiveness ²the magician's adroit response to the failure of her prop won applause³. deft emphasizes lightness, neatness, and sureness of touch or handling ²a surgeon's deft manipulation of the scalpel³.

Main Entry: sinister
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English sinistre, from Latin sinistr-, sinister on the left side, unlucky, inauspicious
Date: 15th century
1 archaic : unfavorable, unlucky
2 archaic : fraudulent
3 : singularly evil or productive of evil
4 a : of, relating to, or situated to the left or on the left side of something; especially :being or relating to the side of a heraldic shield at the left of the person bearing it b :of ill omen by reason of being on the left
5 : presaging ill fortune or trouble
6 : accompanied by or leading to disaster
-sinisterly adverb
-sinisterness noun
synonyms sinister, baleful, malign mean seriously threatening evil or disaster. sinister suggests a general or vague feeling of fear or apprehension on the part of the observer ²a sinister aura haunts the place³. baleful imputes perniciousness or destructiveness to something whether working openly or covertly ²exerting a corrupt and baleful influence³. malign applies to what is inherently evil or harmful ²the malign effects of racism³.

I've heard mixed reviews of this guy, Patrick McIlheran, the Journal Sentinel's token conservative columnist. I post his column today simply because he got listed in RealClearPolitics today.

Oh, and he quotes Horton the Elephant. That's usually a good sign.

Steve

I saw a funny Toyota Tacoma commercial today that panned some nonprofit organizations' tearful pleas for donations.

It began by showing some ways that truckbeds take abuse, such as an ATV spinning its tires on the bed. Then the female spokeswoman came on to say, 'For the cost of two or three soy mocha lattes per day you can help stop truckbed abuse forever. ' Then with a closeup of her teary eyes she dolefully pled , 'Won't you please help?'

It was quite subtle but very clever. It took a moment to catch on. Sally Strothers satire.

Mandate Madness.

JS Online: Mandate or split decision?:

In a post-election breakfast with reporters Friday, the first words out of Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman were: 'The president won a mandate and a historic victory.'"

Speaking the same morning, Kerry pollster Stan Greenberg rejected the notion of a ringing public endorsement of the Bush agenda, saying, "The country was not looking for a conservative president and a conservative regime."

After every election, the winners and losers have to decide how much to read into it.

President Bush is claiming a mandate.

Democrats disagree.

All this blabber about whether Bush won a "mandate" or not is beginning to annoy me. Has anyone considered, before we determine whether or not there's a mandate, that we should define exactly what makes a mandate?

Just how much of the vote does a candidate have to get, to have a mandate? More than half isn't enough, obviously, so what is it? 55%? More? How many electoral votes? 300? 400?

Nobody knows, because there's no such thing as a mandate. It's just another mirage that keeps the talking heads talking.

You know what defines a mandate? What you accomplish. We didn't know what Bush's mandate was in 2000, but today we do. We don't know what Bush's mandate for the next four years is. Four years from now, we will.

Bush won the election. He will pursue his agenda. Republicans won larger majorities in Congress. They will pursue their agenda. The minority party will oppose that agenda. This would be the case regardless of which party was in power, and by how much.

Consider: if Bush had won 1984-Reagan numbers, would the Democrats have just sit down and shut up, and let him have his way?

Did they, in 1985?

Nope. Nor should they have. Nor should they today.

Bush will accomplish everything he can, with the cards he has been dealt. That's all the mandate anyone ever gets.

Ah, sarcasm.

The Observer | Comment | Those New York blues:

"Certainly one of the most salient ironies of this election was the discovery of how selfless most Americans are. In great swathes across the country, people who would have been economically better off under Kerry have selflessly voted for Bush. With Bush in the White House, they might lose their jobs, they might die because they can't afford health insurance, but it's worth it in order to ensure the unhappiness of others: gay people who want to get married, for example, or women who need an abortion. "

Isn't Chappaqua, New York, the official home of the Clintons now? I got a hit from there over at my other not-exactly-a-blog.

Speaking of which, I think somebody must have linked to me over there, because I'm getting a lot more hits than usual. I have no idea who it was, though.

I found this headline amusing:

U.S. stocks soar as oil slumps to 5-week low

Why, oh, why, I wondered, would oil prices slump so quickly today?

Surely, they weren't being kept artificially high for any reason, right?

That was my first thought. Here's the reason given in the story:

Crude-oil futures closed under $49 a barrel in New York for the first time in five weeks, pressured by the big increase in last week's U.S. crude supplies.

Why our supplies are increasing, I have no idea. This was also strange:

The conflicting reports on Yasser Arafat's condition contributed to the decline.

Crude for December delivery ended down $2.06, or 4.1 percent, at $48.82 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Late morning stocks got a brief lift on reports suggesting Arafat had died in France, bolstering hopes among some investors that a new leader could broker a peace agreement with Israel.

"The market would probably interpret his passing as increasing the chance of peace in the Middle East," said Mark Bryan, senior vice-president at Brean Murray.

Odd, isn't it, that Arafat would die in bed in France. How much better for his cause to be riddled with Israeli bullets? Or to pull the plug on a dynamite vest near a synagogue? But, I guess, that's for the little people.

Back to my main point: since Bush's re-election, oil has fallen to under $50 a barrel, and the Nasdaq is back over 2000 (the Dow was already over 10,000). It will be interesting to see how long that lasts.

The Loony Left has it Right

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice...

As a certain segment of our political discourse have constantly reminded us for the past four years, Bush wasn't elected in 2000 - he was se-lected by the Supreme Court. Therefore, all this talk about who's going to run in 2008 are premature - Bush will be able to run for a third term.

UPDATE: Aw, crap. The 22nd Amendment continues:

...and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Well, one might argue that Bush hasn't "acted as President," but we're going to have a tough time with that "held the office" part. Never mind.

Steve Re: Voiding the Election

Well, son-of-a-bitch!! It’s time to unmask and stop playing around. We’ve messed around within this antiquated system long enough. This election of 2004 has proved it. The choice of George W. Bush as President has shown us that the Constitution has to be scrapped and all remnants of a constitutional republic must be abandoned if we are to have any hope of building a bridge to the future of humanity.

Within the ‘system’ we have brought to bear all the influential forces at our disposal to turn this government and this society toward modernity. The arts, Hollywood, the intellectual elite, and the unbiased mass media have long worked to crush all vestiges of absolute standards from popular culture. Billionaires and rock stars have pressed all their influence to the forefront. And for what? George-freeking-W. Bush?

Our efforts have gotten the ignorant Negroes, the poor, the aged, the intellectual wannabes, Old Europe, and well-meaning utopians in our pocket. And the American electorate still votes for a simpleton cowboy. These stubborn sub-humans vote for the trivial rather than the important issues. They cannot grasp that we know what’s good for them and how we can produce it. Instead of being grateful for our superiority of knowledge and wisdom they reject our expertise for outmoded, ignorant, pre-scientific superstitions. If they needed delicate brain surgery, they would choose a chimpanzee for a surgeon.

We must now do a flip-flop on our ‘disenfranchisement techniques’. We must now further strive to disenfranchise our foolish opponents. This election must be voided because there were many who went to the polls and voted with religious principles. That is illegal due to ‘separation of church and state’ requirements. It is apparent, also, that the entire Southern U.S. needs more Post Civil War Reconstruction as they obviously have not pledged allegiance to the Union. We shall bury them in carpetbaggers...

SLAP! SLAP! KICK! "Steve, wake up... You’re dreaming about your life in 1968 again!"

"What the hel... Oh, thanks, Linda! Whew! Let’s go to church."

All in all, a great Election Day for somebody in my position: Bush wins, and will have an even bigger majority in Congress to play with. On the homefront, Republicans picked up yet another seat in the Assembly (for a 61-38 majority) and the Senate (19-12). Not veto-proof, but better.

Still, I feel like I got kicked yesterday. After all the work we did, the dozens of volunteers, the hundreds and thousands of man-hours, and what I think is the most extensive, impressive GOTV organization this part of the state has ever seen, we still lost both Wisconsin and Sauk County.

Crap.

Well, okay, the statewide margin of defeat was a lot better than in 2000. If you add up the Gore margin of victory, plus Nader's votes, it was about five times as much as this year's Kerry margin plus Nader votes. We closed the gap.

Whoa. That much spinning made even me dizzy.

I'll let you know when I've got my county numbers. Wait by the computer until I do.

UPDATE - the Assembly will have a 60-39 Republican-Democrat split, not 61-38, as I wrote before. Oops.

Found this through Instapundit:

First President Bush was misunderestimated.

Now he has been unredefeated.

Thanks to Mr. Pterry and Steve for liveblogging their voting experiences. And thanks to Old Whig for his latest words of the day. I now know that Epicureanism is a fancy way of liking the good life, and that eschatological is not the same thing as scatological.

Haven't been posting at all due to the elections. It's been wall to wall for the last few days. But nobody panic. I'm back now.

The blogosphere is obviously distraught over my lack of a column on Tuesday - the first time I've failed to post one on a Tuesday or Friday since I started, back in April. I suppose I could have planned ahead better, and had one ready ahead of time. I knew coming into this week that I'd be too busy to write. But that would have taken foresight, planning, and extra work last week. So, no column.

Also, I was too tired to write one today, so you just have to wait until Friday. Sorry. Suppressing voters really takes it out of you.

About conceding the election:

Kerry conceded, so that's that. According to the news, anyway. But wait! The law! Ohio is going ahead with counting their provisional ballots, as the law requires. There's about 150,000 of them, according to this story.

It's extremely unlikely that Kerry could pick up enough votes to turn Ohio his way, but if he did, hypothetically, then Ohio's government would ratify its slate of electors for Kerry, not Bush. Kerry would win the election.

And wouldn't that be a big kick in the pants. I bet the major parties are all keeping a close eye on the process, and never mind Kerry's concession.

Steve-- Re: Avoiding Voter Intimidation

I went down to vote today. In preparation, I put on my baseball cap with the fake pony-tail out the back, got my 'well-seasoned' clothes out of the cats' litterbox, put on my lawnmowing tennis shoes, raggety old trench coat, and smudged my unshaven face with dirt.

I staggered up to the union thugs near the polling place and kinda asked them for the crack they promised and was allowed to pass without hassle. I was given my ballot without even having to give my name and voted for 'W' and was hustled out in record time.

I love participating in democracy.