Jim Geraghty has an interesting piece on the possible threat to the conservative coalition.

Stop the ACLU doubts it. But it is a possibility.

Posted by: Ace at 06:51 PM | Comments (24)
Post contains 34 words, total size 1 kb.

He knows what it's like to be a country boy.

Iowa, he feels yore pain.

Well, he feels your rural caucuses. Your naughty, naughty caucuses.

He is the "candidate who promises to confront the "power elite" directly to improve the fortunes of the poor and middle class".

John, Lurlene don't know what a "power elite" is. But she loves your hair.

He knows what it's like to leave a restaurant with vittles and fixins cause you cain't afford to pay the bill. It'll be fun to listen to him tell us why bell peppers make a Philly cheesey the best damn sammich eveh.

Thanks for the p-shop to Slublog, who lied to me and said in the email response "who's Jed Clampett"?

fucker.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 05:49 PM | Comments (9)
Post contains 135 words, total size 1 kb.

...which may not sound like a lot, but Europe would love to at least not be losing a substantial percentage off its population every year.

Experts explain this difference by noting "European men are pussies."

Posted by: Ace at 04:42 PM | Comments (37)
Post contains 53 words, total size 1 kb.

Neat. And scary. But mostly scary.

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6 blah blah blah blahbety blah. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.

Instapundit 2009:

IN THE MAIL: a nuclear fucking reactor. Oh, and The Dangerous Book For Dogs.

Thanks to Roland, who may or may not be headless and may or may not be a machine-gunner.

Posted by: Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (76)
Post contains 245 words, total size 2 kb.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (31)
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Last week I linked a Jay Cost piece comparing the public appearances by candidates, and attempting to tease out their electoral strategies based on their travel plans. Though he didn't particularly emphasize it, I did: Fred Thompson had by his count a woefully low number of public appearances, 14, I think, from November to early December.

Shenanigans, cried Qwinn, linking a Tennessean story that stated that Fred Thompson had 18 (or so) public appearances in a two-week window alone.

Cost just emailed to note that he had footnoted that original piece to consider this conflicting information.

The upshot seems to be that different papers are counting different sorts of appearances as "public appearances," and furthermore, in at least two cases it seems the Washington Post seems to have completely missed Thompson's appearances.

He says it doesn't affect his article much, because he was making a point about campaign strategy and where candidates were going. On the other hand, I used that datum to make a point about Fred just not being very aggressive out on the trail. Since the data seems at least incomplete if not totally muddled, I retract all that.

Is Thompson making as many appearances as his rival? I don't know.

Posted by: Ace at 02:12 PM | Comments (10)
Post contains 218 words, total size 1 kb.

Since we're apparently doing science by polling now, I guess we're still behind since the global warming alarmists have "over a thousand" scientists and we only have over 400; so what's that, like 65%-35% at best? Hopefully, though, with some push-polling and direct mailing, and maybe a few celebrity endorsements, we can get those numbers up a bit and thereby settle the "science" in our favor.

As Arthur C. Clarke once said, a sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from public relations and political campaigning.

This doesn't seem to be some signed statement, which is regrettable. Such a statement would carry some weight. It seems instead to just be a collection by Senator Inhofe of scientists disputing the IPCC and global warming alarmism generally.

Still, it's something:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

...

Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.” In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement.

...

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote. [Note: See also July 2007 Senate report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - LINK ]

...

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a “consensus” of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. “I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority.”

Since "science" is now being settled by political means, it's time for these actual scientists to get with the new paradigm and unite to write, sign, and endorse a paper refuting the claim of "consensus" over global warming.

Of course, if we get more scientists signing such a letter, Al Gore will demand a recount.

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (28)
Post contains 514 words, total size 4 kb.

St. John (R-Media) denies ever having spoken to the New York Times about spiking the impending "lobbyist scandal" that Drudge pimped this morning.

The Politico, on the other hand, says they called the New York Times and McCain's story isn't exactly "straight talk." According to The Politico he's lying. That's what I'm getting at, here.

Here is The Politico's take:

At a press conference in Detroit, McCain defended his record of integrity, while confirming that his staff has been in contact with the newspaper, according to The Associated Press.

But, McCain said, "I have not been in talks with The New York Times."

However, Politico has confirmed that McCain himself had one conversation with Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in which the senator urged him not to go with the story.

Remember St. John: It's not the crime so much as it is the coverup. Although, in this case, I'm hoping we have a little bit of both.

Drudge says that the NY Times story that started all this is slated to run on Friday.

I. Can't. Wait.

A little light reading for you all: The Keating 5 wikipedia entry.

History may be repeating itself.

Posted by: Jack M. at 01:46 PM | Comments (12)
Post contains 207 words, total size 1 kb.

Allah's analysis is mostly right, I think. After dallying with Giuliani on a lark -- and being quite surprised that this lark of a candidate was actually leading nationally, for some inexplicable reason -- it's time to put away childish things and admit what was pretty obvious all along, that a pro-choice candidate, no matter how otherwise attractive, cannot win the nomination for the GOP.

Apparently there can be only one Silly Candidate taken seriously at a time. For a while Giuliani was that Silly Candidate, silly because, well, he just couldn't ever win. But now there's a new Silly Candidate, and some of us are realizing it's time to stop being silly and look at someone serious.

Part of Rudy's fall can be attributed to the fact that indeed, most of the electorate seemed rather clueless on his pro-choice stance, previously. Stating up-front that he was pro-choice in a debate was forthright, but it also alerted folks to his heterodox position on the issue.

And for someone like me, for whom immigration is much more important issue than abortion, his constant blather about a "virtual fence" convinced me he was not entirely serious on that hot-button issue, either.

He also wanted a national ID card... but only for non-US citizens. Apparently it never occurred to him that non-US citizens, including especially illegal aliens, would simply claim to be US citizens and thus not be required to show his national ID card. So that the only people in America who actually had to get a national ID card were 1) illegal aliens who were 2) stupid enough to admit they were illegal aliens. Not serious, and kind of insulting in its absurdity.

Allah's taking a fresh look at McCain, something I started to do a while ago... in case of emergency. Why he's not looking at a rather more obvious candidate, like, I don't know, the rising Mitt Romney, I don't know.

Or, sure, Fred Thompson. I want to believe. Help me believe, Fred. Help me... help you. Help me, help you.

Unless Thompson shows me an awful lot by the Iowa caucuses, I'm going with Romney, personally. At some point I'll have to get behind candidate with a serious chance of both stopping Huckabee and beating the Democratic nominee (oh, and delivering competent conservative governance afterwards, in case that matters).

Someone has to catch fire if he's to stop Huckabee. And we have to stop him, because we can't have a Republican Jimmy Carter as our nominee because we hate Christmas.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (80)
Post contains 448 words, total size 3 kb.

I hope Mitt doesn't cast all 3 of these new votes in one place.

Oh well...as long as it isn't an endorsement of St. John (R-Media), I'm cool with it.

Why Now? [Ace] Because, as he says, he wanted to stop being a distraction which was helping deliver the candidacy to a pro-amnesty candidate.

And yeah, he means Huckabee.

So he looked at his options of potential Hucksters and found Romney to be the best on immigration with the best chance of winning. (Not sure how much he weighed each.)

I've gotta say Tancredo was pushing this issue when the rest of us were too scared to even mention it... and he was largely right. And I'm also impressed that he hasn't mistaken himself for his cause. Sure, he could have continued on as a candidate, but he exhibited a somewhat rare quality in politicians -- control over his ego -- and decided that his being in the race was hurting the cause, not helping it.

Good for him.

Of course, his endorsement doesn't matter because he's a Catholic and thus prays in the church of the Whore of Babylon (TM).

I heard that. I'm not saying it's true, just something interesting I heard. Have you heard about that?

I just like these comparative religion discussions.

Oh, and the Pope is Satan. But I figured that's obvious.

Posted by: Jack M. at 12:22 PM | Comments (37)
Post contains 234 words, total size 1 kb.