Ashland and Keweenaw Snowmobile Trip

The Movie Version:



My wife and I returned a bit after 11PM last night after a 3-day whirlwind end of the season snowmobile trip with another couple that was overall great fun and just a "tish" on the "doing a whole lot in a short time" side.

We took off at 9:30 Thursday AM in two vehicles with two sleds in each unit and rolled to Ashland WI, arriving at a bit after 2 even though we were slowed by some difficulty getting trail permits. It was 55 degrees and there was some group question of how good the trails would be, so we had a nice leisurely lunch at the Best Western Holiday House in Ashland that we were staying at. Take a look this Google Map with points of interest included.

View Larger Map

See more pictures from the trip here.

We finally got up to the Pub and Grub West of Washburn and on the trail just before 4. There were a lot of slushy areas, some plain old nasty mud and water in some areas, but there were also some really nice areas with long stretches of perfectly smooth and fun to ride stuff. We made it up to Herbster for some sodas, then drove down to "Old Baldy" to get a nice overlook in without having to brave the cold winds that are often the case up there. Made it back to the Pub and Grub shortly after 7, just barely dark for around 70mi for the short day. Had an excellent meal there and reached the conclusion that since were this far, we just had to go up to the Keweenaw and sample the conditions there.

Spent a short night at the hotel and hit the road at 7AM. By 10:30 we were unloaded at Krupps in Twin Lakes and out on the trails. The conditions up there were FANTASTIC ... generally perfect trails on the 13 loop down to Greenland. We cut off on the "newer tail" just N or Mass City off the Nichols (20?) and had some very high speed running over to N of Sidnaw. I discovered that in order to keep up with my wife on the '97 500cc Classic with something like 60 HP with my 120HP '06 Fusion HO I had to put some more throttle in it. She claimed 85, but I looked down and was floating over 90 catching her.

We had a bit of trouble stopping for gas enough-we ought to have gassed up in Greenland, but we came to the conclusion that we had to go down to Sidnaw and fill up. We came back N and ran "the whoops" heading toward Baraga-a series of quick rises and drops on a very straight run in which it one tends to get a little high-speed air or at least very significant track unloading. We OUGHT to have just reversed our course back out of there on the newer trail back over to the Nichols, but fell to the siren song of "maybe the trail to Alston will be improved, everything else has been so good"--well, it was in as good a shape as it probably could be, but narrow and super-twisty still gets long.

Stopped in at Krupps for tasty Pasties, took a spin N to S Range and stopped in front of the John Dee trail cam and found out there is no gas in S Range anymore, so rather than taking a shot at the Freda Loop we drove back down to Krupps, loaded up and headed in to the Ramada at Hancock. Had a decent (but not special) meal at the hotel a couple of beverages, and turned in fairly early.

Saturday we hit the road at 7:30 (central time, never changed to the UPs Eastern) up to Phoenix where we parked and unloaded. The trails were SUPER ... we were the first sleds out on a groom that had set up better than it usually does up there, they must have gotten the groomer out early. The temp was around 20 and the amount of snow is incredible -- no signs of spring up there. We ran up to LacLabelle and found that they no longer do any coffee / rolls stuff there, but have the bar/grill only that opens at noon.

Shot over the mount Bohemia and then N for Copper Harbor. Discovered that the trail out to the tip of the peninsula was fresh groomed for the ONLY time in 10 years of going up there that I have seen it any better than a kidney liquefying mass of moguls. It was perfectly groomed with no tracks so we went in and met the groomer coming out. I ought to have backed up, but thought I could get by him parked and banged up my knee and foot a bit, but nothing that seemed serious at the time ... little stiff and black and blue today, but able to walk and work out, so hopefully nothing.

The end of the peninsula is pretty cool with wind and waves coming in and a lot of hunks of ice grinding together. Standing there it hit me that if things work out well I'll be standing on the Santa Monica Pier in two weeks watching the Pacific waves crash in. Full scale winter in the center of the continent on sleds to "summer" on the W coast--naturally, it would be possible to just run the sled down to the Keweenaw airport, hop on a plane and be there in something like 5 hours, but two weeks is enough contrast for me.

We continued on to the top of Brockaway Mtn to look at the steep drops, feel the high winds and see the view out over the very cold Lake Superior with lake effect snows swirling around. Then down to Copper Harbor to the Mariner N restaurant for some good sandwiches and soup for lunch. Back on the sleds, over to Eagle Harbor to stand on the observation deck next to the lighthouse for another view of the "ice water mansions". I've been up there in early March when one could lay back on the already melted bench and catch a nap-not this year, it would be a chilly and windy nap.

Drove the sleds down to Phoenix, loaded up, fired up, and headed south at 2:30 central. Not a lot of moss grew on us as we motored toward home and walked in at a bit after 11PM, tired but happy to have had a fun little adventure with the sleds to end the season.

The Perjury Scam

As part of the concealed carry class I was exposed to how important it is to not talk to the police, especially when you have just been in a stressful situation like involved in using your gun in self-defense. The Police are NOT your "friends" in that situation--they are "gathering evidence", and part of their job is "convictions". They are drilled to "gather evidence" and let the courts sort it out. That is why a good attorney is so important-they are the ones that select from the evidence what it is that is going to "make the case" that shows that you are innocent (your attorney) or guilty (the prosecution). Most people are confused that what we have is a "justice system" ... we don't, we have a LEGAL system. Good and bad lawyers, jury bias, and how you behave in the "creation of evidence" makes a BIG difference if you have brush with the law.

If it comes to trial, the state is ONLY concerned about a conviction, they could care less about "justice". In order to get you convicted, one of the big dangers is perjury. You may remember shooting once but have shot twice or even more -- under great stress, people don't count very well (sometimes they don't even NOT under great stress). You may "remember distinctly", but be wrong. Your time-sense will certainly be in "slow motion" -- a few seconds may see like a minute, and you could easily show up as having stated a different time span than multiple witnesses, which could expose you to a perjury charge that is enough to put you in jail all on its own, but maybe even worse (depending on the charge), it certainly makes you look to not be credible. There is NO BENEFIT to talking to anyone other than your attorney.

We get the false idea that perjury isn't a big deal, because Clinton was obviously guilty of it and got off -- BUT, we fail (and the medial helps us to fail) to understand recent high profile cases where perjury was the only case that counted.

For Martha Stewart,there was no proof of insider trading, BUT, they "proved" (compared her word to two others) that she stated something wrong, so they "got her anyway"-and then of course proceed to call it "insider trading", even though it was perjury, not insider trading. When the left wants you, they have figured out how to use perjury to get you, and then claim "you are guilty" (they just switch the "of what"). "Martha Stewart was guilty"-- people don't even really care "of what". Being rich, trying to make everything too perfect, not being "common enough", whatever. The point is "they got her", in a certain world, that is all that counts.

Same deal with Scooter Libby - they "got a conviction", so it allowed them to talk about the Plame affair as if it had some legitimacy, even though the charge that stuck was the perjury charge that they completely ignored with Clinton. By putting inconsistency in their corner and having virtually total control of the legal system, they can pretty much prosecute anyone at will as long as two of them will agree on a story. (has to go all the way to the Supreme Court to have a chance of circumventing them, and no doubt they will remedy that in short order once they get the White House).

The scam is pretty simple - make some accusation that fits their biases, use a Grand Jury, which with proper management anyone knows, can "indict a ham sandwich", then have two folks involved in the Grand Jury indicate that the "target" differed with "the facts" (or at least what two other people will swear are "the facts") on some point. Case closed on a perjury charge. Given the control of the mass media, they simply state "guilty", reiterate the original charges of the case, and let the sheep make the connection, no need to mention perjury is what they actually got a conviction on.

It is really a pretty sweet deal, and in this Easter season one can maybe better understand why they see Clinton as such a great man. He is sort of the "lefty christ". He showed that the wages of perjury don't apply to a Democrat of sufficient stature and adherence to the Democrat sacraments ( abortion, environmentalism, lying). He used his position to get the sex he wanted, lied about it, and even though perjury continues to be used constantly to get people on the right, he lives on in public life. Sort of a "risen lefty".

You know, now that I think of it, maybe he IS the Anti-Christ? I wonder if there is anything in Revelation that could be construed to be a man married to the first woman ruler of the earthly superpower?

Uncomfortable Liberty

Saw the following in the CNN article on Spitzer's resignation today:

"Sources said a federal money-laundering investigation led agents to Spitzer. According to two sources, Spitzer hit the federal radar when a bank reported to the Internal Revenue Service that a significant amount of money had been suspiciously transferred from one account to another."

I know I'm the only odd duck in the world that finds our national lack of concern about constant warrantless surveillance of financial transactions to be more of a concern than warrantless surveillance of international phone calls to the numbers of suspected terrorists. I understand the truth of my odd position, and of course I have some ideas as to why that might be, but I'd STRONGLY suggest that the vast majority of us are more "at risk" of some sort of Government intervention in our lives due to dollar transfers than we are due to having the Feds listen in on our call to Osama Inc..

My suspicion is that the largest reason for the outcry on the phone surveillance is that "Bush did it" and the lack of interest in the financial surveillance is that "we need that to help soak the rich on taxes". Since the left and MSM has no principles or need of consistency, this seems to work fine to them. One would think that unfettered access to hookers is one of those "rights" that Democrats would hold dear, but apparently Spitzer was too prudish for the left to want to defend.


The Spitzer case shows us again that the Government is watching all our financial activity-even account transfers down to a fairly low level. I certainly have no love for the EX-Democratic Governor of NY, nor for high priced hookers -- BUT, if this "bust" had been the result of a Bush administration wiretap, might not we hear some outcry? Spitzer had made a lot of enemies on the right AND the left, so nobody is standing up to defend him, and of course it is VERY hard to do so -- a family man that is Governor of a state hiring very expensive hookers is just pretty hard to defend.

That is the hard part about real liberty-it allows citizens to use it to do right and WRONG. The principles that the country were built on are intended to CERTAINLY protect against INDISCRIMINATE warrantless surveillance of the sort that seems to have caught Eliot Spitzer. Since I believe that "consistency IS an issue", I'm forced to conclude that he ought not be prosecuted at all. There is NO REASON for the government to have the power to violate his right of privacy here! This is exactly the kind of abuse of government power that the left likes to allege has been made by the Bush Administration in listening in on calls to suspected terrorist international numbers. I'd argue there is a clear difference, and the lack of concern over what has been done to Sptizer shows that the outcry against Bush on this front is due only to partisanship, not to real concern over the infringement of individual liberties.

Putting the principle of individual liberty at a higher level than personalities and politics means that a guy like me has to defend the rights of an Eliot Spitzer, since the cost of loss of liberty to us all is MUCH greater than the cost of not being able to catch Spitzer. I agree that the question needs to be ASKED relative to listening on international terrorist numbers, but were our country to return to an era of rational discourse vs uninformed generally left-leaning bickering, we would see that our rights have already been trampled in the financial realm, and no matter how much the lefties might be willing to give up some of their financial liberty to see it used against "the evil rich", we fail to recognize the loss of liberty that snares our "enemy" at our own peril.

Today they get someone using questionable methods that we happen to be OK with them getting -- when those methods are used against us, we have already surrendered the high ground.

Brings a Tear to My Eye

This is a great little article that covers the kinds of hardships the Obama's have to live with and maybe gives some insight to the horror of American as seen through their eyes. The whole thing is well worth a read, but some little insights may be enough for you to want to send them some cash:

"We spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we're spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements. And summer programs...Do you know what summer camp costs?"

Golly, I wonder why those aren't government funded? I mean talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel! I can't see any way a cash strapped family could get by on less.

"The salaries don't keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you're in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids," Michelle Obama said.

Actually, Michelle's salary has kept up pretty well. The University of Chicago Hospital, where she is vice president for community affairs, bumped her pay from $121,910 in 2004 to $316,962 after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate that year.

This is the point at which one realizes the kind of unique insight these folks have. Their income is a mere $485K a year at a time when corporate CEOs, athletes and drunken barely dressed teenage girl singers make millions. It is obvious that Mrs Obama is right when she states that "We are a country that is just downright mean". Now mind you, I'm not including her income from 6 corporate boards or the millions that Obama has received for his books, which might help them a tiny bit as well., but you can see her firm grasp of the deplorable "meanness" and want that your "average $500K plus a year family that lives in a $1.6 million + house that was partially paid for by a good friend that is under racketeering investigation.

The Clinton's may be ruthless corrupt narcissists, but at least that part is clear to everyone now that they have been mean to the poor Prince of Promises. Funny how the MSMs and lefts attitudes change once their own Unicorn gets gored a bit. Oh well, always good for the left to get at least a minimal handle on reality. It sure would be nice if they caught on the to the lack of anything in the BO show.

D or R?

Time again for a game of "D or R". Under my rules, if the party designation doesn't appear prominently in the early part of the article and it is a D, I win. If it does appear and it is a D, or it is an R and fairly hard to find, then the MSM wins and gets a point for being "surprisingly unbiased". Looks like today is a losing day for the MSM. One has to dig pretty hard to find the D.

I'll go out on a limb here and guess that based on the look from Mrs Spitzer's face, last weekend wasn't all that hot a weekend for Eliot. Probably not a lot of favorite foods, drink delivery or "cuddles". She really needs to give Hillary a call. When one talks about "experienced", dealing with husbands that follow the liberal view of "fidelity" is an area that Hillary truely knows of what she speaks.

I don't see the issue here; it certainly doesn't make him a "bad Democrat" does it? Barney Frank was LIVING with the male prostitute. Did Eliot fail to pay minimum wage or smoke during his "business arrangement"? Now those MIGHT almost qualify him has a "bad Democrat". Maybe that is what they are investigating.

My take on this would be that it must be the evil Bush administration "peering into bedroom windows" yet again on an issue that is clearly "only about sex" (and hopefully appropriate union based hooker living wage of course). We have just got to get this evil administration out of there so Democrats can start having their way with the hookers and the taxpayers -- er, I mean "focusing on the nations business".

Concealed Carry

Over the weekend my wife and I completed the MN Concealed Carry and Utah Supplement Classes from MN Pistol Class their schedule fit ours and I think the material was covered well and relatively efficiently. The shooting portion of the class was taken at the Circle Pines location of Bill's Gunshop and Range which was a nice indoor range and included the ability to rent and shoot a fairly broad range of pistols to see if those were the gun for you.

The classes consist of basic pistol safety, minimal tactics for self defense and a lot of information on the laws and questions of if you really want to carry a pistol at all. The "chain of requirements" for use of deadly force in self defense is drilled extensively:

1. You are a reluctant participant - you in NO WAY instigated the situation, and as soon as it is possible to disengage, you do. No "chasing an assailant".
2. Imminent threat of Death or "great bodily harm" - and it better pretty much be death, rape doesn't count as "great bodily harm".
3. No lesser force will do - Don't carry pepper spray and a gun. If you shoot somebody and didn't try the pepper spray first, you will fail this one.
   
4. Escape is not possible - If you can get away, you HAVE to, at least in MN. In some other states you are allowed to stand your ground.
   

In your home, the restrictions are relaxed A LITTLE, but not much. You are NOT allowed to "protect your property". The use of deadly force is to protect your life, and you had better consider that you will have to defend that choice in front of a jury of cud-chewers that probably don't like you having the ability to defend yourself at all and would likely have more sympathy with the dead criminal than you--no doubt he would vote Democrat if he were not a dead felon with 9mm slugs in place of a heart, but might be able to vote in the future in either Chicago (under "rights of the dead") or be raised from the dead if Obama is elected.

We passed, so the permit applications will be going to to both MN and Utah for one of us and Utah for the other. The reason for getting the MN permit is that it also acts as a permit to buy a pistol for 5 years. The reason for getting a Utah permit is that there is no re-take on the class required in 5 years, it renews for $10 where MN requires you to re-take the course PLUS yet another $100 fee

My major impressions from the class:

• Other than my wife and I, the other 4 people in class were current or ex military, and the instructor was ex-military and ex-police. Apparently military folks feel comfortable being able to carry.
  
• The instructor made the comment that there are 3 kinds of people; sheep, wolves, and sheep dogs. He clearly left out Mooses, but I'd say the comparison is similar with the sheep dogs. The sheep are as expected. Their odds of being a victim are low so they choose to believe they are zero. They assume that someone else (police) will protect them. They decide to believe that they are incapable or that it is unwise to try to protect themselves. The wolves are as expected. They understand sheep well, and look for opportunity for a tasty lunch. Sheep dogs would just as soon there were no problems, but they are the kind of folks that have to look at reality as it is and tend to be responsible for themselves, and even others if required.
  
• Police are there to SERVE the state, and "protect" if they have time, there are enough officers, they are an especially good cop, or other considerations. They are a "Law Enforcement Officer", and often forget that the law abiding public is made up of citizens that are their employer, not "civilians". At least in a CC state, there is an alternative to being a sheep. In MN there are around 100K permit holders, but only 2K police. The criminals odds of being confronted with an armed adversary are something like 50x higher in a CC MN rather than in a mostly sheep MN.
  
• The whole "movie gun use", plus lack of exposure to hunting and even war leads most of the sheep to have a poor understanding of what guns can and can't do. They don't repeal the laws of physics-if they had the power to stop, turn around and throw through the air a 200lb man, they would break your arm when you fired them. Every action still has an equal reaction. I blew half the heart away on the deer that I shot last fall and it jumped and ran 30 yards or so. An assailant that is shooting at you is very likely to keep shooting as you put rounds in him, it is a good idea to have a reasonable caliber (.38 or better) and a decent number of rounds.

The horrible news here is that the .32 Tomcat was likely not the best CC gun purchase, so now we have to trek to Cabelas, Gander and other gun locations in search of a small light .38 Special +p or better revolver. Darn. I really hate looking for guns, and I suppose I'll have to shoot it some too! Life is hard.

Democrats Hire Republicans

After listening to the Democrats hard work on the subject of who their nominee ought to be and the problems with Michigan and Florida, I was heartened to see the following in the news:

In a surprise move today DNC Chairman Howard Dean announced that the DNC had hired a group of Republicans to arrive at a solution to the Michigan and Florida primary debacle.

"While we in the DNC completely disagree with the solution to the 2000 election, we have come to realize that using our approaches we would still be litigating that election. 20% of Democrats are Lawyers and 80% are folks that are unwilling or unable to understand what that means; there is always another point of view that needs to be fully considered, and all points of view are valid and worthy of consideration (when they are held by Democrats). After a lot of very careful consideration we came to suspect that while it is nice to have all points of view, feelings , and precedent back to the Big Bang considered, there could be a problem lurking that we are unable to grasp.

Once we made the breakthrough of contacting these Republicans, they were immediately aware that there was something that they referred to as "the bottom line". We have no understanding of what this is, but we think it has something to do with us being able to somehow select one candidate out of a field of two. While we have a vast array of perfect solutions to all problems of Iraq, Poverty, Health Care, Social Security, hemorrhoids and all other human or planetary ills, this selection of one from a field of two is beyond our capacities.

We have stipulated to the Republicans that while we are going to abide by their decision on the matter, we reserve the full right to criticize all aspects of it and in fact file suit in the future against them for making their choice. By agreeing to employ the incorrect methods and thought processes that Republicans engage in, we want it fully understood that this is in no way an endorsement of those methods! In fact, we are beginning investigations of the Republicans that we hired as we speak to insure that we bear no responsibility for either the candidate that they select, nor for the methodologies that they use in their selection. (this should not be taken to mean that we do not have complete confidence that either candidate is the best possible candidate)

Our confidence that we will be able to lead this nation to a much brighter future is completely undimmed by this small difficulty. Once we have complete control of the government, speech, guns, your money, religion, smoking, diet, the amount of water in your toilet, and any other aspects of your life we are currently forgetting, we are completely certain that we will be able to efficiently solve all problems of man and nature within a very short period of time and are willing to point out the moral error or anyone who would question us on that point.

Thank you, and we look forward to your vote in November."

Too Liberal for Standard Rules

Interesting Powerline Post on Al Franken being "wanted in NY" for a $25K fine for not providing unemployment insurance to his employees. I was surprised to see that Paul Wellstone also had not insured his employees and after his death the state had to kick in to help on a settlement.

I don't expect either Franken or Wellstone to be perfect, only that the MSM would make some attempt to treat them as the less than perfect humans that they are. The fact that they tend to agree more with the political views of those in the media ought to not exempt them from criticism from the media, least of all when their failures are in areas specifically related to the "State as Church" faith they and the media espouse.

How can one claim to be "the champion of the little guy" yet not provide the basic benefits to your employees that you DEMAND are provided by "the evil corporations"? The only answer that makes sense to me is to fall back on "consistency isn't an issue". Once you take that step into liberalism, all bets are off-you do what feels right at the moment, and do whatever feels right at the next moment. You have slipped the surly bonds of consistency.

Audacity of Hope 2, The Scent of BO

One of the hardest things about BO is going to be to pin him down (kinda like "where is that coming from?"). He makes Slick Willie look positively "direct" by comparison. He tries to come off as a sort of "Rational Liberal" as kind of a book-end to W's "Compassionate Conservative". If voting Democrat when you were young proved you had a heart, and voting Republican as you matured proved you had a brain, W and now BO say "We are BOTH a floor wax AND a desert topping, have your heart, have your head, vote for us".

I believe that W actually was a "uniter" with his attempts to improve education for all Americans and "leave no child behind", very expensive drug benefits for Seniors and spending for lots of favorite lefty programs, the Democrats decided early on that they were going to fight him tooth and nail, and in the end, all of his "olive branches" amounted to nothing but alienation of his far right base while not gaining a vote in the middle-thus a 30% President.

The media will go all the way to make BO seem as moderate as they can, but the book is relatively clear that he is looking to find SOME way to get rid of any last vestiges of Republicans and gives a few hints as to how:

• Make sure to play the race card for all it is worth while not seeming to play it. On page 27 he gives the famous Johnson statement that as transmitted to that bastion of reliability Bill Moyers, that with the stroke of a pen he had just delivered the South to the GOP for the forseeable future. On the next page though, he admits that "most Southern Democratic Congressmen who chose to stay in party would retain their seats on the strength of incumbency". The nice thing about being a liberal is that an obviously incorrect statement (the Democrats held the House of Representatives until 1994) can be used over to make the even grander point that "Republican's are racist". It is a nice game if you have the MSM on your side and not a lot of critical thinkers in your constituency.
• So why were so many people "misled" to vote Republican? "The violence in the streets and the excuses for such violence in intellectual circles, blacks moving in next door and white kids bused across town, the burning of flags and spitting on vets, all of it seemed to insult and diminish, if not assault, those things-family, faith, flag, neighborhood, and for some at least, white privilege-that they held most dear. NOTE, it only "seemed to insult and diminish" and he mentions race twice here. I imagine that disagreement with the "Pope of Hope" here is tantamount to racism in itself. The evil right as been warned.
• "...as disturbed as I might have been by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, as unconvinced as I might have been by his John Wayne, Father Knows Best pose, his policy by anecdote, and his gratuitous assaults on the poor, I understood his appeal." Naturally, BO has no "pose"-unless all knowing, all seeing, perfectly correct on all issues isn't in fact true, but I don't see how that could be. He IS the messiah isn't he? Very much of a "uniter" to try to claim that Reagan made "gratuitous assaults on the poor"-Slick Willie must have REALLY been guilty on that front, he signed welfare reform. "Reagan spoke to America's longing for order, our need to believe that we are not simply subject to blind, impersonal forces but that we can shape our individual and collective destinies..." So I assume that BOs view is that we ARE simply subject to these forces and we CAN'T shape our destinies? We need BO to do that for us I imagine-apparently omnipotence comes with his omniscience.
• "It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off politics. This is not a problem for the right; a polarized electorate-one that easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate-works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government. After all, a cynical electorate is a self-centered electorate." Hmm, Both Reagan and Bush presided over HUGE increases in government spending. The turnout in at least 2004 was a long term record and Bush won something that Clinton NEVER did, over 50% of the popular vote with much larger turnouts than Clinton. By making claims about the right that are clearly false, isn't BO trying a little "polarization" on his own? Since he is omniscient, he can't be just "mistaken", so isn't he being "nasty, dishonest and cynical" as he makes these claims that he must know to be false?

I could go on, but basically the only thing new about BOs leftism is that it is re-branded as being less ruthless and "all about BO" than the Clinton's brand--being less ruthless and narcissistic than the Clinton's isn't really all that much of a trick, and they had 8 years in the WH to really hone their sorry act. BO is just getting going, I expect a definite unmistakable stench increase. Just this week we find that he is using "campaign talk" to claim that he would get out of NAFTA, while telling Canada he would do no such thing. When reporters focused on this and the buddy that helped him buy his house, sold him some land for a good price and gave him $150K for campaigns (on the books), he walked out of the press conference.

Beneath the thin veneer of obfuscation beats the heart of a really shifty SOB that certainly is at least just as much concerned about the "vast right wing conspiracy" as old Hillie. Naturally, the NYT, NPR, ABC, CBS, etc are "unbiased" and there is no such thing as "the left". Same old worldview, new smile and more explicit press worshipfulness. We have the seeds of fascism, let us hope we don't smell the flower.

It's 3AM

I doubt he really bothers to call, but hey, it is funny.

Problems in Messiah Land?

One wouldn't expect a Democrat messiah to be sinless, so this should come as no surprise.

Seems like one of St Obama's best buds is under investigation for extortion and money laundering in good old 100% Democratic "bring out the dead vote" Chicago. I suppose we will hear that this too is somehow "politically motivated"-maybe some of the Democrat dead vote are mad about Obama not bringing them back to life yet? Not only that, one of his campaign cronies apparently told a Canadian Government official that the talk about bailing out of NAFTA was just "campaign rhetoric" (for those Democrat readers, were a Republican to do the same thing, that would be called a "lie"-the term is just different since Obama has a D after his name)

Seems like the national media remains uninterested. I haven't heard if he has healed any sick or raised any dead yet, but based on the media view I'm sure that can't be far away.

Nasty Chemical

If you happen to run into this stuff, throwing sand on it won't "put it out"
Clorine Triflorine

Audacity of Hope 1

The future will likely re-title this tome "The Audacity of Despair,  if there is enough freedom left in America to allow it after this demagogue gets through. He finally defines what he says he means by the title of his book on p 356

"The audacity of hope. That was the best of the American spirit, I thought-having the audacity to believe in spite of all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, we had some control-and therefore responsibility-over our own fate.

It was that audacity, I thought that joined us as one people."

Whew, after all that talk of "shared values" in the book, there it was, although there was little in the book about personal responsibility and incentives. The book was about government and unions being able to solve just about any ill in the universe. One would think that we could just pass a law that everyone be wealthy, fulfilled, well educated, loved, happy, and have a meaningful life.

For me, the central message of the book was on page 57:

Unfortunately, too often in our national debates we don't even get to the point where we weigh these difficult choices. Instead, we either exaggerate the degree to which policies we don't like impinge on our most sacred values, or play dumb when our own preferred policies conflict with important countervailing values. Conservatives, for instance, tend to bristle when it comes to government interference in the marketplace or their right to bear arms. Yet many of those same conservatives show little or no concern when it comes to government wiretapping without a warrant or government attempts to control people's sexual practices. Conversely, it's easy to get most liberals riled up about government encroachment in freedom of the press or a woman's reproductive freedoms. But if you had a conversation with thise same liberals about the potential costs of regulation to small business owner, you will often draw a blank stare.

In a country as diverse as ours, there will always be passionate arguments about how we draw the line when it comes to government action. This is how democracy works. But our democracy might work a bit better if we recognized that all of us possess values that are worthy of respect: if liberals at least acknowledged that the recreational hunter feels the same way about his gun as they feel about their library books, and if conservatives recognized that most women feel as protective of their right to reproductive freedom as evangelicals do of their right to worship."

Whew! First of all, it is important to recognize that for all of that text he said precisely NOTHING. He started talking about "facing hard problems", touched on a number of points ... gun rights, wiretapping, abortion, maybe gay marriage (although hard to tell), but took NO POSITION AT ALL! This is "core Obama".

However, my take is he is trying to make subtle points to all. He is telling HUNTERS that they will still have guns, but unfortunately our founding fathers always thought THAT was a GIVEN! The purpose of the right to bear arms is to convince the government that there are points to which they better not push an armed populace. Since he mentions "hunters", the gun control lobby can choose to believe that he is signaling that he may support removal of all guns except those explicitly required to hunt (maybe we can check them out at the local hunting preserve).

On the surface he seems "reasonable" and "moderate" ... he points out faults in both sides, however like most of his writing, the best guess is that is purely a ruse. Are conservatives really in favor of "wiretapping without a warrant"? Nope, in general they are fine with listening in on cell phone calls to known terrorists, which seems pretty different from "wiretapping". Wiretapping is more like warrantless collection of financial data on income, interest and stock sales (which the government does all the time!). Exactly what might he mean by "controlling sexual practices"? gay marriage? Is marriage a "sexual practice"? It used to be a legal arrangement designed to create families, but I'm not exactly sure what that has to do with gay marriage or sexual practices.

Notice his claim that "liberals" get riled up about "freedom of the press". Conservatives don't? In fact, I wonder who would get most riled up about putting the "Fairness Doctrine" back in place? I'm betting it won't be those defenders of press freedom the liberals. I love "reproductive freedoms" ... he of course means abortion on demand at any point in the pregnancy. Wow, liberals don't adequately care about the cost of government regulation.

Most chilling of all, a recreational hunter FEELS about his guns as a liberal feels about library books? Uh, this guy is a genius? So the founding fathers found it important to protect the "feelings of recreational hunters" in the CONSTITUTION? I wonder if any conservatives are smart enough to "care about library books"? Apparently not. I guess we are only smart enough to hunt in his mind.

Women feel about abortion as evangelicals feel about worship? I guess that one is more apt from a liberal point of view, as they consider abortion a sacrament - although he misses the point that most evangelicals don't have any sacraments. I suspect he let a little bit of whatever he has that is somewhat like a soul slip through on that one. You can pretty much directly see that he finds an equation with the importance of worship and the importance of abortion to be reasonable in his universe.

His aim is for all the sheep to find him "reasonable". He constantly "covers" both sides (in his own biased way), but in the end you can tell that his real answer is that the farthest left is the "truth". He "sees all views", it is just that the right, business, the founding fathers, and anybody that doesn't agree with Obama is wrong. The only issue is to buy or fool enough votes to make his "truth" the policy of the nation. Sadly, it looks like he is well on his way.

Discover Your Inner Economist

I can't recommend this book by Tyler Cowan. I'm sure the guy is hugely intelligent and would be a lot of fun to chat with, but the book has such a complete lack of focus that it was hard to make it through.

He makes some points that I was relatively familiar with, but they are worth repeating:

"I believe we must learn what can be obtained by exchange-monetary or otherwise and what we cannot trade for. The central concept of economics is not money but rather incentives. Quite simply, an incentive is anything that motivates human behavior, or encourages an individual to make one decision rather than another."

"One of the most important lessons of economics is how to cope with scarcity. Economics developed out of a recognition of that fact that many things worth having don't just fall into our laps in the course of our everyday lives. The real purpose of economics is to get more of the good stuff in life."

"It is a profoundly important fact that you can't understand how incentives work if you don't understand the importance of a respect for human liberty"

I'd argue that the last point is the point at which liberals really part company with economics. To them, "human liberty" would actually mean "freedom from incentives" - all the "good stuff" would be a "right" and incentive could be better described as "a whim". What they believe they want is a "right to happiness", not a "right to PURSUE happiness". They mistake liberty for entitlement and fail to realize that the result of their pursuit is TYRANNY. Equality of opportunity is heaven, equality of result is hell.

They also tend to lament "how important money is", which means that they understand neither money or life in the US today, since we still have a good deal of personal liberty. Nobody is forced to drive, use electricity, modern medicine or much of anything in our society. Availability of something is neither encouragement or license. The success of our system creates huge OPPORTUNITY, and if one wants to take advantage of those opportunities, THEN money is very useful. It is however YOU that makes that money "important" by what parts the overflowing cornucopia of goods and services you feel "incented" to want.

To live in a culture with liberty means that some will find that money is "too important"
and others will find that leisure or religion or education or books or computing or technology or environmentalism or politics or ?? is "too important" or not important enough. That is essentially what liberty means-"the freedom to think or be different", and as long as liberty exists, there will be disagreement-on priorities, limits on liberty, etc.

Liberals tend to see the "best way" to get our country back to be "less divided" is to remove some liberty-by say re-establishing the "fairness doctrine" so a set of conservative views were no longer presented, removing this blog from the internet, reducing the number of kids that are home schooled or in private schools, taking some money away from those who earn it, or 1000s of other ways.

We live in a looking glass world where "liberals" as strongly put off by the availability of Fox news, talk radio or internet blogs. "Liberal" may be a nicer sounding name for that sentiment, but what it is really is TOTALITARIAN. Liberty means MORE difference, dissension, argument and disagreement, not less!

Obama Islam

I'm nearly through "Audacity of Hope" and got to have a conversation with my son on Iraq last night. I was struck how closely both he and Obama's view 100% reflect the mass media view:

1). Islam is a religion of peace, we have nothing to fear from Islam
2). Radicalization is all due to US and other Western involvement in the mideast. If we would leave them alone, there would be no issues.
3). Bush is as fault for making us far less secure, if there should be any problems in the future, they will be due to the war in Iraq

I look at those points and think of my view of current events:
1). We were attacked on 9/11 less then 8 full months since Bush took office, yet we have not been attacked since. Therefore we are LESS safe and if we are attacked in the future our best way to understand that will be just "it is Bush's fault"?
2). Obama mentions the attack on Bali in 2002 (he spent time in Indonesia in his youth). He also mentions that Indonesia is increasingly Muslim, and yes, it his thesis that us going on offense in Iraq has made us less safe. Did Bali send in troops?
3). Obama makes the claim that "in Cairo Muslims prayed for the US after 9/11" in concert with trying to both praise the immediate handling of 9/11 in the book and yet criticize it. (apparently the core of "Audacity of Hope" is to claim to be on all sides of an issue yet reflexively take the most far left position in each case and call it "moderate"). He completely fails to mention that in MANY places they danced in the streets celebrating "death to America" as well. Since 9-11 we have had Al Quaeda bombings Bali, Spain and Britan. We have waited in vain for the so-called "modertate Muslims" to rise up and decry the "hi-jacking of their religion by radical forces against the will of Allah".

We have however had some Danish cartoons that depicted Allah with a bomb in his turban and comments by the Pope that cited writings from the 14th century on the spreading of Islam by the sword. In both these cases the "Arab street" as well as Arab leadership acted quickly and loudly with violence and death threats, and in the Danish case, someone associated with the cartoonist was actually murdered.

What I personally conclude from this is:
1). There is absolutely zero evidence that at least modern Islam is a "religion of peace". There has been very close to zero outcry from the Arab street against Al Quaeda supposedly "hijacking their religion", yet loud demonstrations, statements and actual violence and threats of violence over cartoons and very non-inflamatory rhetoric in the case of the Pope. The "Arab Street" is paying attention, they "see" cartoons and comments by the Pope and react with anger and violence. They ALSO see attacks in Spain, Bali and Britain, yet even in this country their are no "moderate Muslim voices" that decry those attacks and certainly no "Arab Street" rising up to decry the "hijacking of their peaceful Religion". I can only conclude that Muslims are NOT offended by the use of violence in their name.

2). Even a cursory reading of Muslim history will lead you to a "House of Peace and a House of War". Look at WHY the Crusades started by looking at Moorish Spain and what was happening in the world at the time before you you come to the conclusion that all of the modern problems can be traced to "historical western meddling". The core of liberal foreign policy theology is "we don't really need to defend ourselves since all things that look like threats are really just "blowback", so as long as we stop using any military force globally we will be fine". I'd argue that the evidence that the evidence of "Balian Imperialism" is limited. Bali didn't even have a lot to do with the Crusades or the creation of hated Israel. Unlike Obama and the masses, I conclude that Muslims see "innocent infidel" as a complete oxymoron, and are perfectly willing to see plenty of "collateral damage" of Muslims killed in bombings and the WTC attack as well.

3). Muslims mean what I hear them saying. We are infidels and unless we bow to the will of Allah in matters as small as cartoons, speech (the Pope) and the treatment of women, we are in the "house of war".

So, I guess either Obama and the masses are wrong or I am. That is OK, I'll just keep reading, writing and observing. What I find most disconcerting from Obama about this is not the unwillingness to recognize any lessons from the bombings in Bali that affected him since he was familiar with the hotel that was bombed, but his pre-emptive view that the "Bush adventure in Iraq" increases the threat of violence against us. Bali was not in Iraq, yet they were attacked. We have NOT been attacked since 9/11, and we have been in Iraq since March of 2003. How is it observationally correct to conclude that going on offense against Al Quaeda is counterproductive? WORSE, at least my reading him, one would assume that if we ARE attacked in the future it will be written off as "Bush's fault". When we were attacked in 2001 was that Clinton's fault?