McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.

Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.

Yup.

To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard

Big Brown injured in pre-Breeders Cup workout, will retire to stud.

Good work if you can get it. :-)

Even easier than the ACORN lie. Here.

To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard

Obama surely has some astonishing political skills. But he is also one lucky mother.

He loses the primary against Bobby Rush. If he had won, he probably would have gotten lost in the House of Reps. A Senate run in '04 would seem a little impatient and overly ambitious.

Carol Mosely Braun chooses not to run for Senate. That would have nixed his chances, and he wouldn't have even run. He wins the primary.

His Republican opponent, Jack Ryan implodes with divorce revelations. He is replaced by perennial court jester, Alan Keyes. He trounces him.

He is chosen to give the keynote at the 2004 convention. He would not have risen to prominence without that opportunity.

He has a tight race with Hillary Clinton. This allows him to grow his organization, to become better as a candidate, and to receive lots of free media time. All the unpleasant vetting happens in the spring instead of the fall. In retrospect, that tight race was the best thing that could have happened to him. And it could have gone the other way if he had just scored a couple of extra points in New Hampshire.

And now, in the general he faces someone who's age puts in relief his youthfulness and 'change' message. Moreover, he faces the most desultory Republican campaign in memory.

Obama isn't just good. He's also lucky. It's like a Michael Jordan when he's getting the rolls.

More Wagster!

Debunked. By a guy wh0 was there at the start.

To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard

Even despite all those NYT Op-Ed columns, someone has been impressed:

Paul Krugman awarded Nobel Prize in Economics

As Jimmy Walker would say : " Dy-no-MITE!!!"

Night football.... http://thezoneblitz.blogspot.com/2008/09/nfls-week-9-will-decide-americas-future.html

NFL's Week 9 will decide America's future: Obama or McCain
Circle it on the calendar: Week 9's Monday Night Football matchup of the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Washington Redskins. The date is Nov. 3, 2008. That's one day before the presidential election. Late that night is when the election will be determined. Not 24 hours later when NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and CNN project Barack Obama or John McCain the winner. Nov. 3, 2008, is the presidential election version of Groundhog Day, only it comes every four years and we are somewhat confident that there is no evidence to show that a groundhog is used in any manner to determine the results.

Since 1940, the Washington Redskins have determined who won the presidency. Well, except one time, and that was 2004 when George W. Bush beat John Kerry. Of course, maybe there should be a recount in Ohio afterall. Anyway, the Redskins' final home game before the election is the one that determines the White House. If the Redskins win, the incumbent party wins the election. If the Redskins lose, the party out of power wins the White House. Fairly simple. And this leads us to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Washington, Nov 3, 2008.
Now remember, Redskins win, party in power wins; Redskins lose, party in power loses.

2004: Redskins lose to Green Bay Packers 24-10.
President George W. Bush beats Mass. Senator John Kerry. STREAK ENDS.

2000: Redskins lose to Tennessee Titans 27-21.
VP Al Gore (incumbent party) loses to George W. Bush.

1996: Redskins beat Indianapolis Colts 31-16.
President Bill Clinton (incumbent party) beats Kansas Senator Bob Dole.

1992: Redskins lose to New York Giants 24-7.
President George H.W. Bush (incumbent party) loses to Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton

1988: Redskins beat New Orleans Saints 27-24.
VP George H.W. Bush (incumbent party) beat Mass. Governor Michael Dukakis.

1984: Redskins beat Atlanta Falcons 27-14.
President Ronald Reagan (incumbent party) beats former VP Walter Mondale.

1980: Redskins lose to Minnesota Vikings 39-14.
President Jimmy Carter (incumbent party) loses to California Governor Ronald Reagan.

1976: Redskins lose to Dallas Cowboys 20-7.
President Gerald Ford (incumbent party) loses to Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.

1972: Redskins beat Dallas Cowboys 24-20.
President Richard Nixon (incumbent party) beats South Dakota Senator George McGovern.

1968: Redskins lose to New York Giants 13-10.
Senator Hubert Humphrey (incumbent party) loses to California Governor Richard Nixon.

1964: Redskins beat Chicago Bears 27-20.
President Lyndon Johnson (incumbent party) beats Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

1960: Redskins lose to Cleveland Browns 31-10.
VP Richard Nixon (incumbent party) loses to Mass. Senator John F. Kennedy.

1956: Redskins beat Cleveland Browns 20-9.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower (incumbent party) beats former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.

1952: Redskins lose to Pittsburgh Steelers 24-23.
Illinois Governor Adlai (incumbent party) loses to General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1948: Redskins beat Boston Yanks 59-21.
President Harry S. Truman (incumbent party) beats New York Governor Thomas Dewey.

1944: Redskins beat Cleveland Rams 14-10.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (incumbent party) beats New York Governor Thomas Dewey.

1940: Redskins beat Pittsburgh Pirates 37-10.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (incumbent party) beats Wendell Willkie.
What does all this mean? If Redskins win, McCain wins. If Steelers win, Obama wins. Who will you be rooting for? Redskins? Steelers?

Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers. Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny. Be aware of human fallibility. Cherish your species and your

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.
The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets reported Friday.

Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers. Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny. Be aware of human fallibility. Cherish your species and your

The fall of America, Inc. By Francis Fukuyama
Along with some of Wall Street's most storied firms, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. How we restore faith in our brand.

He takes a look at to long held ideas that seem to have failed......

"Ideas are one of our most important exports, and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was elected president. The first was a certain vision of capitalism—one that argued low taxes, light regulation and a pared-back government would be the engine for economic growth. Reaganism reversed a century-long trend toward ever-larger government. Deregulation became the order of the day not just in the United States but around the world.

The second big idea was America as a promoter of liberal democracy around the world, which was seen as the best path to a more prosperous and open international order. America's power and influence rested not just on our tanks and dollars, but on the fact that most people found the American form of self-government attractive and wanted to reshape their societies along the same lines—what political scientist Joseph Nye has labeled our "soft power."

Now his contention is that this should have stopped a while ago.... The link to the full article http://www.newsweek.com/id/162401/page/1

All this suggests that the Reagan era should have ended some time ago. It didn't partly because the Democratic Party failed to come up with convincing candidates and arguments, but also because of a particular aspect of America that makes our country very different from Europe. There, less-educated, working-class citizens vote reliably for socialist, communist and other left-learning parties, based on their economic interests. In the United States, they can swing either left or right. They were part of Roosevelt's grand Democratic coalition during the New Deal, a coalition that held through Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s. But they started voting Republican during the Nixon and Reagan years, swung to Clinton in the 1990s, and returned to the Republican fold under George W. Bush. When they vote Republican, it's because cultural issues like religion, patriotism, family values and gun ownership trump economic ones."

This group of voters will decide November's election, not least because of their concentration in a handful of swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Will they tilt toward the more distant, Harvard-educated Obama, who more accurately reflects their economic interests? Or will they stick with people they can better identify with, like McCain and Sarah Palin? It took an economic crisis of massive proportions from 1929 to 1931 to bring a Democratic administration to power. Polls indicate we may have arrived again at that point in October 2008.

Then we come to what he calls solutions....

"Still, another comeback rests on our ability to make some fundamental changes. First, we must break out of the Reagan-era straitjacket concerning taxes and regulation. Tax cuts feel good but do not necessarily stimulate growth or pay for themselves; given our long-term fiscal situation Americans are going to have to be told honestly that they will have to pay their own way in the future. Deregulation, or the failure of regulators to keep up with fast-moving markets, can become unbelievably costly, as we have seen. The entire American public sector—underfunded, deprofessionalized and demoralized—needs to be rebuilt and be given a new sense of pride. There are certain jobs that only the government can fulfill.

It seems in the end we will have to come together in a blend of both ideologies.... Ah the chance for a bipartisan solution to the future...

The unedifying response to the Wall Street crisis shows that the biggest change we need to make is in our politics. The Reagan revolution broke the 50-year dominance of liberals and Democrats in American politics and opened up room for different approaches to the problems of the time. But as the years have passed, what were once fresh ideas have hardened into hoary dogmas. The quality of political debate has been coarsened by partisans who question not just the ideas but the motives of their opponents. All this makes it harder to adjust to the new and difficult reality we face. So the ultimate test for the American model will be its capacity to reinvent itself once again. Good branding is not, to quote a presidential candidate, a matter of putting lipstick on a pig. It's about having the right product to sell in the first place. American democracy has its work cut out for it."

The question is can the center hold and will we continue to run against each other in a way that divides us and keeps us from making sound long-term solutions? The first step for any new government be it Obama who I tend to think of still as the correct generational choice for the future or McCain who I think does have a chance to bring in a more traditional conservative approach. The big issue is can either bring the american people their ideologies and short sightedness into a long term view of restructuring and positive change. The problem being that we will have some short term pain to accomplish any goals that would bring us to a point we need to be in the future. IMHO it might take more short term debt to move us into the change that will benefit us both economically and socially moving forward. In the end quality of life for us and our citizens should be the goal. We might need to break traditional power structures to move forward never an easy task. If this election ends up being the defeat to the GOP that it might. Still 24 days out.... It would be wise to look at some of Newts ideas to bridge the divide on the issues of Energy or healthcare. If not the GOP would do well to move into the idea game with new goals that are not 30 years old and start to understand that taxes in and of themselves are not bad. The democratic party needs to quit fighting rearguard actions and see that seventy year old ideas of the new deal are not the future either... They both need to come to terms that America needs a hybrid approach. This means that destroying the New deal outright needs to hit the dust bin of history. The Reform approach with means testing for entitlements and streamlining and reinventing programs that help with goals for the future.

Fukayama was one of the first so called Neoconservatives that admitted its failings... I am not sure that he ever belonged in that group but his views do show some real grasp on the immediate past... He does have some concerns on the immediate future. He does fail to paint the challenges the we face. Energy policy needs to be attacked in many ways that means all options on the table but a tax policy that moves us forward. Healthcare policy that attacks the root issues and one that takes into account human nature and externalities besides bottom line numbers.... Environmental policy that is intertwined with both of the above and National security. Should have made this a diary but I was not sure on the effort I was willing to take.. I hope you guys find it interesting. In the end we need to try and settle on the goals and then look at solving them in the best way. We need to quit playing base politics to what if asked many of us would call the Dead-end base views that will lead us to failed systems on both the right and left.... As Ken White used to say the pendulum is moving back and the best solutions might be to try and stop it closer to the middle in the future.... The problem is as always we don't agree on the center or the goals until we do and with respect for each side we seemed doomed to repeat our failures and not pull our country out of what can only be seen as possible long term decline. We should strive for the being the best hope of the world. Not with arrogance but with temperament and leadership that takes our core values seriously. Because in my mind we are in for serious times again...

Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers. Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny. Be aware of human fallibility. Cherish your species and your

You don't get away with that in *our* house, Charlie.

Russia, China and now here? Curiously enough this is not money being made via natural resource prices (as in Saudia or Russia) or manufacturing for western markets (as in China). This is good, old fashioned maharaja-style worker exploitation.

With four seconds on the clock and Dallas facing a 52 yard field goal to tie the score at 24 - 24, the Cardinals head coach calls "time out" moments before the snap.

The players are unaware, run the play and the kick is blocked.

But wait, Arizona called time out.

So they run the play again and the kick is good.

On to overtime!

Fence post turtles -- They don't get up there by themselves, some moron had to put 'em there.

Texas jumps up four spots to #1, Penn State three spots to #3 in AP poll after yesterday's upsets.