Citizens in Defense of Defense

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Of course, listening to that music would sap one's will to live, which might well countervail the benefit of more perfectly timed CPR.

Tigerhawk on disco's ability to save lives!

Cassandra Biden?

Now, if you're Obama, and you've just got through digesting the wonderfulness of the Powell endorsement, then you hear that your highly esteemed, really, really brilliant vice presidential nominee is out there guaranteeing a world crisis in six months, and guaranteeing that Obama's poll numbers are going to be in the sewer, and begging people for support when all this happens, what is your reaction? You probably say, "Could I get Sarah Palin on my ticket?"

Tags: Obama Biden Palin Rush Limbaugh

Biden himself expects what will appear to be a weak response from Obama to testing by a dictator.

"Mark my words," Biden warned Sunday... "It will not be six months [after the inauguration] before the world tests Barack Obama...

Thursday, October 09, 2008

A German perspective on the financial crisis and the USA.

From Der Spiegel:

The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US military might is ebbing. Still, this is no time to gloat.

There are days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker's tone of voice, the speech itself or the audience's reaction. Kings and queens have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but this time it was merely a United States president.

Or what is left of him.

Tags: financial crisis

This is going to be one hell of an election.

From The Anchoress:

If you criticize Obama you’re a racist. If you look into his associations, you’re “being dangerous.” If Obama loses, we’re told by Democrat James Carville that Obama supporters “will riot” (the most racist thing I’ve yet heard in this election, btw) and of course, if you look into voter fraud and ACORN and its mad history of voter intimidation, fraud and suppression, well…that’s probably racist, too. Meanwhile he’s got Camp Obama going on, training folks for agitation on election day, and he’s telling his supporters to “get in their faces.”

What a leader. Seems like “the One” shouldn’t have to do all this manipulating and training, doesn’t it?

Tags: Obama

Connecting with the investor class, a huge voting block.

Larry Kudlow:

While the presidential candidates were debating in Nashville on Tuesday night the Asian stock markets were selling off by 10 percent. Earlier in the day the U.S. market plunged by 500 points. These were big-time drops, yet presidential debaters never talk about the stock market. Nashville was no exception.

Roughly $2 trillion in U.S. shareholder capital has been lost in the past 15 months. Stocks are down 20 percent over the last month alone. Those are nasty hits. Stock market people are very unhappy campers right now. And the bad-news financial statements for September are now either in the mail or on the kitchen table. But there were no references to investors either by McCain or Obama on Tuesday night. This is nuts.

Tags: investor class Kudlow

How odd that all those boring lessons from our grandparents turn out to be true in the globalized, hip 21st century: Save your money. Don't borrow what you can't pay back. Look first at a man's character, not his degrees. And if a promised return on an investment seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Tags: Wall Street financial crisis Victor Davis Hansonb

Monday, September 29, 2008

Cheap politicians are actually very expensive and the same principle applies to CEOs.

Thomas Sowell's perspicacity:

The money that can be saved by limiting CEO pay is chump change compared to the money that can be lost because you cannot attract top-notch talent.

Congress itself is a classic example of what can happen when penny-wise policies restrict the caliber of people who can be attracted.

No top-level doctor, lawyer, economist, engineer or CEO can become a member of Congress without taking a big pay cut, perhaps costing that person's family millions of dollars over a lifetime.

On the other hand, if you paid every member of Congress a million dollars a year, it would cost less than the cost of even a small government boondoggle, much less a whole agency.

It is not that the turkeys in Congress today deserve a raise. They don't even deserve their current pay. But that is the very reason for attracting different people. Cheap politicians are actually very expensive and the same principle applies to CEOs.

Read the whole article.

Tags: Thomas Sowell CEO pay bailout

Friday, September 19, 2008

Are we fighting a Holy War?

As Instapundit says: devastating.

Tags: Sarah Palin Gibson Holy War

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Patriot Day, 2008

September 11, 2001, was etched into America's memory when 19 terrorists attacked us with barbarity unequaled in our history. On Patriot Day, we cherish the memory of the thousands of innocent victims lost, extend our thoughts and prayers to their families, and honor the heroic men and women who risked and sacrificed their lives so others might survive.

Since 9/11, we have recognized the threat posed by terrorists to the safety of the American people and worked to protect our homeland by fighting terrorists abroad. We are confronting terrorism by advancing freedom, liberty, and prosperity as an alternative to the ideologies of hatred and repression.

Our Nation pays tribute to our courageous men and women in uniform serving around the world and the devoted members of our law enforcement, public safety, and intelligence communities at home who work night and day to protect us from harm and preserve the freedom of this great Nation.

Seven years ago, ordinary citizens rose to the challenge, united in prayer, and responded with extraordinary acts of courage, with some giving their lives for the country they loved. On Patriot Day, we remember all those who were taken from us in an instant and seek their lasting memorial in a safer and more hopeful world. We must not allow our resolve to be weakened by the passage of time. We will meet the test that history has given us and continue to fight to rid the world of terrorism and promote liberty around the globe.

By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001 (Public Law 107-89), the Congress has designated September 11 of each year as "Patriot Day."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 11, 2008, as Patriot Day. I call upon the Governors of the United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as well as appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on Patriot Day.

I also call upon the people of the United States to observe Patriot Day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and remembrance services, to display the flag at half-staff from their homes on that day, and to observe a moment of silence beginning at 8:46 a.m. eastern daylight time to honor the innocent Americans and people from around the world who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Tags: Patriot Day September 11 9/11

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Should one hug or kiss a running mate?

Ed Driscoll on the no-nos of political etiquette.

Tags: political etiquette

Election '08 ads.

Here's a great link from the Wall Street Journal that has all the political campaign ads by the Democrats, the Republicans and various interest groups.

Tags: elections campaign ads

Democrat and Republican political ads, continued.

Of pitbulls and pigs...

Tags: pig lipstick Sarah Palin

Monday, September 08, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson asks us to play a game:

So I invite readers to play a small game with me, and recall in various fields as many liberal feminist icons as they can, especially in politics or the media. Ponder their pedigrees and then speculate just how they reached their present celebrity and influence. And, lastly, ask whether it has anything to do with the much reviled old-boy patrimonial lineage or the much caricatured old-boy matrimonial connections. Here I mean again politicians like Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, Diane Feinstein, Mary Landrieu, Nancy Pelosi, or a media person like Campbell Brown, Gail Collins, Andrea Mitchell, or Sally Quinn.

Let’s briefly collate some, and then see just how many powerhouse-feminists were either (a) themselves the daughters of powerful politicians; (b) married insider politicians or government officials, or influential media figures, or (c) inherited substantial money or found plenty of income by marrying wealthy men who energized their careers.
***
I predict we will be astonished that in comparison to their normal cursus honorum, Sarah Palin’s up-by-the-bootstraps background is itself nothing short of astonishing. Here, I don’t wish to suggest that one finds enormous success without talent, or is to be criticized de factis for being lucky by birth or in marriage, only to suggest that all these women who themselves tsk, tsk Palin should take a deep breath and ask themselves whether they would have made it as Vice Presidential candidate should they have shared the Palin background.

Tags: feminists Sarah Palin

"A feminist's argument for McCain's VP."

Tammy Bruce's take on Sarah Palin's candidacy:

Make no mistake - the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party's increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That's why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.
***
Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in.
***
On the day McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Palin thanked Clinton and Ferraro for blazing her trail. A day later, Ferraro noted her shock at Palin's comment. You see, none of her peers, no one, had ever publicly thanked her in the 24 years since her historic run for the White House. Ferraro has since refused to divulge for whom she's voting. Many more now are realizing that it does indeed take a woman - who happens to be a Republican named Sarah Palin.

Read the whole thing.

Via Instapundit.

Tags: Sarah Palin feminists women voters