What’s Changed Since 2004?

Let’s let the candidate speak for himself, shall we? (h.t. STACLU)

So, enlighten us, O Great Obamassiah; what’s changed since 2004 to make you qualified to be the president of the United States of America?

Let’s see…

Barack Obama missed 301 of 1282 roll call votes (23%) since Jan 6, 2005. The graph below shows the percent of roll call votes Barack Obama was absent for during the member’s time in Congress.

The absentee rate is in red. The two black dotted lines provide a context for understanding the significance of the absentee rate. The lower dotted line shows the median value for all Members of Congress in that time period. The upper dotted line shows the 90th percentile. A Member who approaches the upper dotted line is in the worst 10 percent of Congress.

OK, he’s managed to reach the top 10% of absentee senators. WTG. Can’t even vote “present” when he’s absent.

Let’s see, what else has The Obamassiah achieved since he admitted he was not qualified to be President?

Has he actually introduced any bills?

Well, no. OK, two dingus bills. *yawn*

OK, how about his “work” on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs? Yep, “his” committee got a bill out “to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon” (according to The Obamassiah)… except that he’s not even a member of the committee, so, mmm, it could scarcely be called “his committee” now mcould it?(as he called it July 23, 2008)

So, what exactly are the “accomplishments” that now qualify him for the job?

Barack Obama contends that he is more experienced in executive matters than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin because he has managed his presidential campaign for the past 18 months.

Say again?

“Well, my understanding is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the last couple of years.”

What. A. Maroon.

So, using The Obamassiah’s own criteria (which seem to equate Wasilla Alaska to the entire state–again with the geographically challenged candidate: Wasilla, AK ain’t the 57th state, Mr. Obamassiah), let’s run the numbers, comparing The Obamassiah’s crab apples to apples, shall we?

From his figures for his campaign budget, maybe as much as $432,000,000 per year, being exceptionally generous with his “about three times” $12,000,000/month. (If he can back up his claims to be spending $36,000,000/month to get elected President, then we need to get some questions answered about where that money’s coming from! If not, then we need to seriously doubt his ability to do simple sums.)

Alaska State budget? A little over $6,600,000,000.

Advantage: Palin, by about 16 times as big a budget. Ooo, Ooo, Mr Obamassiah! *mmm* Does that make Palin 16X more qualified than you? (By his own stated criterion, yes, so far.)

OK, The Obamassiah says he supervises/administers an employee base of 2,500 in his campaign.

Surprisingly, this works in The Obamassiah’s favor. Apparently, the State of Alaska has only about 24,000 employees. Still, advantage: Palin, by a margin of only 9.6 times as many employees. So, by this Obamassiah criterion, Palin, who’s been on this executive job longer than The Obamassiah’s been “supervising” his putative 2,500 employees, is only a little less than ten times as qualified as The Obamassiah.

Please, Mr Obamassiah, explain some more why that old saying I coined this week is so wise:

“Never stop a man who’s attempting to commit suicide with the jawbone of an ass.”


Is That a Fine/Imprisonment Per Flag?

I wonder, who should pay the fines/serve the time? The DNC Convention organizers, the candidate? Who? (I’m for the candidate paying the fines, serving the time. *heh* Hey! It was his party!)

UNITED STATES CODE
TITLE 18
Part I. CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
CHAPTER 33 – EMBLEMS, INSIGNIA, AND NAMES
THIS TITLE WAS ENACTED BY ACT JUNE 25, 1948, CH. 645, SEC. 1, 62 STAT. 683

§ 700. Desecration of the flag of the United States; penalties
(a)(1) Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

Perspiring minds just wanna know…

Update: Someone asked me (not in comments) how I could lay the responsibility for this behavior at The Obamassiah’s feet. Let me allow Thomas Lifson to respond:

One thing to be alert for here is how Barack Obama will respond to this colossal blunder. If history is any guide, Obama will try to divert responsibility to his staff, but then wasn’t it Barry who just this week has been reminding the world that he is the executive responsible for running his giant campaign organization?

“Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.”–Jesus (But, of course, given The Obamassiah’s religious experiences, one could not justifiably expect him to relate to that… so how about something more on his level… )

“With great power comes great responsibility.”–Spiderman

“Who? Me?”–The Obamassiah

“The Stupid Party” Strikes Again

Longtime Republicans have called their own party “The Stupid Party” because of phone calls like I just recieved from the McCain Campaign. Seems I’m invited (only God knows why) to a McCain-Palin “Victory Rally” 75 miles away from twc central. The doors open at 8:30 a.m. and the rally begins at 10:30 a.m.

Monday morning.

Cluebat to The Stupid Party: Your base isn’t manufactured “victim” welfare Democrats. Your base actually works for a living.

Dumbasses.


Trackposted to Pet’s Garden Blog, No Apology, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Pink Flamingo, Woman Honor Thyself, and Democrat=Socialist, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Bill Whittle on Sarah Palin: Go. Read.

One excerpt then you’d better click through to read the whole thing or I’ll disown you.

🙂

Sarah Palin is the anti-Obama: not a victim, not a poser, not riding a wave but rather swimming upstream — and most of all, not having run for president her entire life. She is the first politician I have ever seen — and I include Ronnie in this, God bless him — who strikes everyone who sees her as an actual, real, ordinary person. Immediately came T-shirts saying I AM SARAH PALIN. HER STORY IS MY STORY. There is a lot of Obama swag out there, too, but none of it says HIS STORY IS MY STORY. Hold that thought till November 5.

She is so absolutely, remarkably, spectacularly ordinary. I think the magic of Sarah Palin speaks to a belief that so many of us share: the sense that we personally know five people in our immediate circle who would make a better president than the menagerie of candidates the major parties routinely offer. Sarah Palin has erupted from this collective American Dream — the idea that, given nothing but classic American values like hard work, integrity, and tough-minded optimism you can actually do what happens in the movies: become Leader of the Free World, the President of the United States of America. (Or, well, you know, vice president.)

(Yes, I am serious about reading the whole thing; that’s why I made the whole of the blockquoted material clickable. Go!)

h.t. BeldarBlog


Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, Democrat=Socialist, The World According to Carl, and Shadowscope, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Pet Ubuntu Peeve

There are an awful lot of things I like about Ubuntu 8.01 “Hardy Heron”. Overall ease of use; a HUGE repository of easily installable softwares to complement the extensive and useful collection of software installed by default; general stability (almost NEVER need to reboot, for example); an impressive level of security right out of the box, as it were: all these things and more are Very Good Things.

Oh, and although it’s free, support in the various free forums is at least as good as my experience with Microsoft has been over the years–actually much better.

But. System/software updates. A Good Thing, overall. But.

This weird thing where–magically! (bad magic, but magic nonetheless)–things that are imprtant to me just stop working or start working badly immediately after system updates, or conversely begin working properly again w/o any reasonable excuse… this can drive me nutso.

Get screen resolution like I want it. System update. Screen goes to 600X400 or lower, and REFUSES (w/o a very big hammer) to go back to preferred resolution. *feh*

Sound working nicely; new speakers sound wonderful. System update. Sound barely squeaks along and WILL NOT use my preferred sound chipset. Nothing helps. System update. Sound now loverly again. System update. Crfappy sound. System update, system update, system update: sound now loverly again. Heck, more than that. Now have to turn darned near everything DOWN (with software controls) to listen at appropriate levels

Flash vids (YouTube et al) work fine in browser. System update. Flash no longer works. Redownload and install appropriate plugins. Everything hunky-dory. System update. Flash down in browsers. Lather, rinse, repeat. Do note: while all this is happening in browsers, standalone flash players continue to work fine. Finally, another system update and… flash works in browsers again. For now.

Crazy. Insane. Me, that is. Can’t. Stand. It.

But. All’s well. For now.

Still, even with these warts (and the “Update WINE and Encore no longer works worth a darn” issue), Ub untu’s been a Good Thing. Now, if I could just get Windows Home Server working under Ubuntu using VMWare Server… *heh*


Bill Maher Picks a Fight Out of His Weight Class

“And the trump card, why Americans will fall in love with her, she’s got five kids. How can you not vote for someone who has five children, including an infant. Some touching details about the infant: it has Down Syndrome, she had it when she was 43 years old, and it looks a lot like John Edwards.” –Bill Maher

Yeh, it’s true. I watched it, and Bill Maher does use Trig Palin to mock his mother… and make a slimy joke about how he “looks a lot like John Edwards.”

What? “[L]ooks a lot like John Edwards”? Implying what? Better be careful, Bill. Alaskans like the Palins (80% in a poll taken just last week) and a lot of Alaskans are better shots with their 30-30s than you are with your mouth… Just sayin’. Back in the good old days when men were men and things like Bill Maher were gopher food, comments like that wouldn’t stand.

[Aside: I once actually heard a judge in a Southwestern court say in jury instructions concerning a cattle rustling case–yes, a cattle rustling case, not 20 years ago–that “I’ve never known a cow that deserved to be stolen, but I have known some men who deserved to be shot.” The rustler got the fullest punishment allowed under the law, and the case was never appealed.]

Trig Palin’s dirty diapers are full of stuff with more class than Bill Maher.


Trackposted to Pet’s Garden Blog, The World According to Carl, Dollar Traveler, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, The Amboy Times, Democrat=Socialist, NN&V, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Travel Through Time in the Middle East

For a cool, not entirely inaccurate OK, OK, moderately accurate, within the constraints of the medium (just quibbles for the most part) 90-second overview of the past few thousand years’ history of the Middle East, check this flash animated map out.


CLICK HERE for the animation

While it won’t illuminate much for folks who don’t already have some grounding in the area’s history, it’s a pretty cool review for folks who do.

0.01%

That’s one-hundredth of one percent. For the innumerate among our increasingly illterate and innumerate society, that’s one part in ten thousand. A tiny, itsy-bitsy, teen-einsty speck, for those who can’t understand that.

That’s how much of ANWR is any part at all of what’s even being considered for drilling in.

And it’s an environmental zero of a mud flat. The equivalent of a couple of shopping malls… after prime real estate has already been turned into the wasteland that is a shopping mall.

Not even polar bears want to live there. *heh*

Drill, baby, drill.


Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Allie is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, , The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, Leaning Straight Up, and Democrat=Socialist, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Can’t Pass the Physical

Too bad. This t-shirt

1. Doesn’t come in my size
2. Is not my cut, and besides,
3. I can’t pass the physical

Oh well.


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