All posts by Ross

2008 Election, Politics

Not Exactly Hitting The Ground Running

For post-election democrats, it’s more like just hitting the ground.  The great issues of today are not being addressed by the new democrats’ ‘new direction.’  And increasing the minimum wage and spending more on education are neither of them.  The obvious ones are winning the war-on-terror, economic policies like making the tax cut permanent, fixing Social Security, educational policies like allowing school choice via the school voucher program (No child left behind), real tort reform, earmark removal just to name a few.   The party has nothing to say about the issues they just ran on.  Oh that’s right, it was Bush sucks.  What is happening now is the party has nothing to say.  The minimum wage issue is a standard election issue for every election.  The fact that there never was a plan beyond ‘Bush is a liar’ is becoming evident as democrats are being seen as in some state of disarray. 

I don’t know how this ever got passed the editorial board, but this New York Times headline is an example.  After Win, Democrats Revert to Finger-Pointing

Politics

Speaker-elect Pelosi, 0 for 1

Here’s a picture that’s worth 1000 words.  House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s strained smile beside her new number two Steny Hoyer (D-Md).  House democrats handed the San Francisco liberal her first defeat in her first assertion of power.  John Murtha was Pelosi’s choice for the position.  He’s the one with the frown on his face.

House Democrats today picked Steny H. Hoyer, right, over John P. Murtha, far right, for majority leader and Nancy Pelosi for Speaker.

In defending her choice for John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi said, among other things, that she chose Murtha because she thought that would lead to an expedient end of the war.

I was proud to support him for majority leader, because I thought that would be the best way to bring an end to the war in Iraq.

That admission was omitted from the NYT’s article. Mmmm

Disclaimer: This is a New York Times link. It’s truthfulness and completeness should be judged against what you already know about the NYT and Nancy Pelosi.

Politics, Uncategorized

Socialist Candidate and French Values

France is having what we would call their primary season, picking a candidate from their party to run for president next year.  The ‘liar’ accusation is alive and well in French politics.  Not sure if it has always been that way or if they are mimicking the US model.  I guess we can take small pride in what family values means to US politicians though, compared to candidate Miss Ségolène Royal, the favorite to win France’s Socialist Party’s nomination. 

Miss Royal reportedly has four children, all possibly with the same father, the article does not go into that much detail, but it does say this. . .

Miss Royal, 53, has four children with her partner, Francois Hollande, who is leader of the party.

She has a partner, not a husband, and they are raising four children.  At 53 and four children later, is ‘marriage’ and ‘family’ a thing of the past in France or is shacking-up embraced by the Socialist Party?  

War On Terror

Mass Kidnappings Need A ‘Let’s Roll’ Moment

In trying to comprehend the mass kidnapping in Iraq a few days ago, where educators were rounded up by terrorists wearing police uniforms, the apparent helplessness of the victims struck me.  Haven’t the Iraqi people seen enough of this kind of stuff to know when they’re in danger of becoming a victim?  When will they, or will they, have their Todd Beamer moment and say, no, you’re not doing that to us and fight back?

related link

Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

Citizenship Test, The Missing Questions

Debbie Schlussel has found the lost questions from the US citizenship test.  These are the questions that should be asked.  Here’s number one for example.

1. If a woman doesn’t want to cover her hair with a headscarf, she should be:

a) allowed to do as she pleases.
b) stoned to death, after being buried up to the neck in dirt. The woman exposed her sexy hair to men who are not her husband, so she is clearly a whore unworthy of life.
c) forced to watch PBS specials and the “ladies” of “The View.” Wearing a do-rag on my head is like way totally cool. Means I don’t have to wash or do my hair.

Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

Iran Will Help In Iraq, Help Take It Over

1 Comment

Coming direct from Fantasyland comes a Christian Science Monitor story entitled ‘Can Iran help stabilize Iraq?‘  Only if Tinkerbell will wave her magic wand.  Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has his own mission, which he has made crystal clear many times. 

Stuff like . . . ‘Death to the Great Satan’ comes to mind, and, oh yeah, Israel ought to be wiped off the map, and we’re a nuclear nation so get over it, I need a nuclear bomb to protect myself from the Great Satan, and I’ll train, fund, and supply al Qaeda so they can do their deeds in Iraq, and, Hezbollah, my shadow army, is showing those Jews what bombs and missiles and explosive vests can do with some help from my buds in Syria and Lebanon, and make way for the twelfth Imam, the end is near.

Yeah, Ahmadinejad, that’s the guy who will voluntarily stop all those things from happening.  He’ll just give up everything he has been ranting about for years if we’ll only offer him a cup of coffee and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan.  Maybe a one on one with Oprah would tilt the balance in our favor?  All that speculation is not only fantasy, it is ignoring all that Mahmoud has done and is currently doing.  The tip-off is this ridiculous goal. . .

Bringing Iran – and Syria – into a regional process to stabilize Iraq is being touted both by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Iraq Study Group, the US commission studying options that both Republicans and Democrats hope will provide a framework for facesaving change in Iraq.  (emphasis added)

Iran and Syria are part of the problem in Iraq and in the region.  This apparent goal for a face-saving anything is a haunt from the Vietnam war.  It’s political-speak for surrender.  It means we will ‘leave’ if you ‘say’ you will help.  They have it bass ackwards.  It’s the Iranian terrorist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that needs a face job rather than face saving.  Scott (Peterson), take your head out of the sand man.

Uncategorized

Class-Action Lawyers See Rubles in Russia

Big opportunities for bottom feeders in Russia, that could make the gold rush of the 19th century look like peanuts.  Qualifying for the most ridiculous item of the day. . .

Russian lawyers heralded the dawn of a western-style compensation culture yesterday after a woman who drank copious quantities of Coca Cola every day for five years successfully sued the company for giving her insomnia and heartburn.

Politics, Uncategorized

Air America Off The Air, It’s Rich Democrats’ Fault

Seems the only people who don’t understand business dynamics are the Air America investors.  The ‘start broadcasting and they will come’ business plan is the ultimate business risk.  They ignored or misread the amount of ‘public demand’ for their kind of program message.  But what is worse than that is that they expected rich democrats to help finance them.  That was their first clue that not enough people would want to hear them to make it successful.

In November 2005, founder Sheldon Drobny writes . . .

As I wrote in my book, Road to Air America, Anita and I were initially encouraged about raising the necessary funds for the network. Bill Clinton and Al Gore gave us amazing contacts in Hollywood, Washington, and New York and we visited with almost all of the important rich liberals either directly or through their gate keepers. To our surprise, we did not get a single dollar from any of these people. So we had only our own money and some of our traditional investors to start up Air America Radio. We ultimately had to sell the company reluctantly in November, 2003 because we could not raise the 40-50 million dollars necessary to complete the funding.

The next twelve months included radio stations dropping them.  Not enough advertising revenue for stations to carry them.  Some stations were paid to carry their program.  How’s that for a business model? That was their second clue of impending disaster.

Then came bankruptcy last month with 97 affiliates.  Today they have 92, after losing Madison, Wisconsin, New Orleans, Huntington, WV, and Binghamton, NY and apparently one other somewhere.

Of course there is a conspiracy theory to AAR’s troubles.  Investor Terry Kelly suggests . . .

“I find it puzzling as to the timing given the election results,” said Terry Kelly, one of the founding members of the Air America network and a longtime Madison businessman. “There is no business reason that is apparent to me (for the change), therefore, one wonders what the real reasons may be.”

I’m not in the broadcasting business, but I do play a radio.  Seems to me that being 11th in your market would suffice for a business decision to drop them.  Back in January 2004 I figured that Air America Radio would be nothing more than a mouth organ for the left, instead of a viable business.  Last year Sheldon Drobney and this year Terry Kelly bares that out.

On Saturday, Nov. 11, 2006, Kelly said . . .

“It’s shocking to me, as a good progressive Democrat, the lack of support from wealthy Democrats. That’s the main reason why the company is in financial difficulty,” Kelly said. “I do not know if our efforts will be successful to re- capitalize the company, but I certainly hope so.”

No Terry, the main reason is that not enough people want to hear you.  And here is why.

Economics 101 would suggest a correlation between no credibility and no money.  Business 101 would suggest having a product doesn’t mean anyone will buy it.