2003

How Will Blago Get Second Term

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

The Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team (ICFST) already has a plan. Nominate Patrick O’Malley.

All I have to say is Pretty Please!

O’Malley is a fire-breathing conservative of the none-too-bright category. The base loves him and a big part of his primary campaign was home schoolers. He’s dumb, has a political tin ear, and is a shameless publicity hound. The best compliment I can think of is that he is smarter than Chris Lauzen, CPA.

Did I say pretty please?

The end of the article is a bit better though, with the suggestion that Rauschenberger be a dark horse. Rauschenberger is a serious man and utterly unfit for a statewide campaign. He has the unfortunate inability to lie shamelessly about budgeting. Don’t get me wrong, Rauschenberger is far more socially conservative than anyone I would ever vote for, but he is a serious person. He could mount a real challenge if he were more telegenic and good at gladhandling. He is not.

A Wonderful Little Story on Pension Abuse

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

Pensions Galore. The problem is that most proposed reforms would limit the vast majority of individuals who don’t abuse the system. Police Officers and other who start second careers deserve those pensions. The politically connected class don’t and George Ryan’s multiple moves to pay off supporters with fat pension assignments demonstrates the way the system can be abused. However, the key to any reform is to limit the worst abuses and not cops and others who work after retirement.

What About Afghanistan?

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

Apparently there is some dissent on the Afghanistan situation moving along swimmingly. That is quite a swipe at the administration from Karzai’s brother and Jack Kemp.

Can’t Tell a Person’s Wealth By Their Teeth?

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

Megan McCardle argues this is true in the US, I argue Megan spends too much time with middle class folks.

My wife came home from Target in South City today and was commenting on a Bosnian. I tried out good ‘ole American toothism on the story and was completely wrong. The Bosnian had great teeth apparently. However, the South Side Hoosier (St. Louis speak) in front of her in line had daggers for teeth.

So I struck out there. Then I thought about growing up in a trailer court and, well, we don’t really need to discuss how only a few of us in that park had reasonable dental care. It was quite disturbing and this was, in the relative term, a rather nice park.

Then we can discuss the issue of race and class. While middle class African-Americans (and many others) wouldn’t be caught dead with bad dental care, spend some time in North St. Louis and tell me there isn’t a difference in dental care. Perhaps I haven’t spent enough time in New York City, but here in the Midwest, there are significant differences in the level of dental care and class is the key difference.

Who are the Real Civil Libertarians? II

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

Okay, the cross burning issue is important, but not as dangerous as Mike Hawash’s case. TalkLeft has the details of this and this case is chilling in the amount of power it gives the government.

Organizations Win Championships

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

And hopefully the Bulls organization can move on from this twit.

While I hope he doesn’t have a serious medical condition, my guess is that Reinsdorf got tired of Jerry Krause. Now perhaps, Bill Cartwright can be a real coach and bench some lazy butts.

I’ll Go One Farther

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

Kevin Drum is setting his standard for the war as swimming pools of anthrax. As I mentioned previously, I could care less about most chemical and biological weapons. The level of danger simply isn’t that great and other regimes were more likely to supply them to terrorists.

The exception being smallpox. If we don’t turn up evidence of a nuclear program and/or smallpox, this war was pointless. Nukes are the only real WMD and if he didn’t have an active program (and I believe he did), containment would have worked just fine, thank you.

Who are the Real Civil Libertarians?

ArchPundit April 7, 2003 No Comments

The Supreme Court just upheld a ban on cross burning .

This seems to me to be a bad precedent for symbolic speech and for freedom of religion.

Speaking The Truth

ArchPundit April 6, 2003 No Comments

My peverse attraction to underdogs surely comes from their ability to pretty much say what they think and Howard Dean doesn’t let me down in BusinessWeek when he argues that further tax cuts are really stupid.

A Moment of Silence and a Prayer

ArchPundit April 4, 2003 No Comments

for him.

?…And so let freedom ring, from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when we allow freedom to ring ? when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God?s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.?

I visited Stone Mountain for the first time about 10 years after that speech. It made the man alive.

Of course, I still have dreams of blasting his face into the face of the mountain….