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November 2, 2008

RAFAEL RESENDES: Which Clinton Economy Does Obama Admire?

STRATEGYPAGE: “Yet another sign that peace has come to Iraq. The U.S. is beginning to replace foreign workers with Iraqis.”

VW TALKS ABOUT ITS new midsize sedan to be built in Chattanooga.

IN THE MAIL: John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor’s Claws That Catch. How many titles can they get out of one Lewis Carroll poem?

Asheville, North Carolina. Electric cars are very popular here. Detail below.

WILL OBAMA bankrupt the coal industry with carbon taxes? Obama audio at the link.

JOHN HINDERAKER: “We are now about to take a second vacation from history (assuming, of course, that Barack Obama prevails on Tuesday). Barney Frank has vowed to cut the defense budget by 25%. Apart from the budget, it is apparent that Obama and his fellow Democrats have little interest in the conflict with Islamic extremism and no intention of pursuing it aggressively. Like the interlude of the 1990s, the de-emphasis on national security promised by the Democrats is the fruit of success.” As I’ve said before, this is why I don’t worry as much about spending on war as on social and regulatory programs. Spending on war always gets cut back.

I’M A TRUE MAVERICK: “A Republican Without Money.”

A STEP TOWARD GLOBAL GUN CONTROL? UN panel backs call for standards in arms trade. Its supporters say not.

A NICE STORY: “The Daughters of the American Revolution and a group of Harley-riding bikers may not seem like they have anything in common. But they do share at least one interest. Sending Christmas care packages to US troops overseas.”

NEIL MUNRO, NATIONAL JOURNAL: “Amid criticism for failing to identify the hundreds of thousands of low-dollar donors who have boosted his $600 million presidential campaign, Barack Obama has responded that it ‘would be a pretty hard thing for us to be able to process.’ But there is much widely used and inexpensive technology that allows Republican and Democratic campaigns to sort and identify millions of donors and to highlight or exclude overseas contributors. . . . The lack of a computerized address-verification system would allow the Obama campaign’s computers to accept online donations from U.S. citizens above legal limits, and to accept donations from foreigners who are barred by law from contributing at all.”

Meanwhile, reader Joseph Edwards emails:

All these stories about Obama’s campaign contributions (lack of credit card verification, Aunti Zaitun, etc.) prompted me to check Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) to see from which countries people are searching for “Donate McCain” versus “Donate Obama.” Check it out yourself. Nothing other than the USA registers for McCain, but a statistically significant number of Canadian and British residents apparently have enough interest in donating to Obama’s campaign they show up as numbers two and three. Somehow I don’t believe these are all US service men and women stationed in Montreal or London who are googling this topic.

He’s right. Here’s “Donate Obama,” and here’s “Donate McCain” on Google Trends. Of course, that just tells you who’s searching, not who’s donating.

UPDATE: Reader Benjamin Sharma writes:

Sure, they’re not US servicemen — but they could be garden-variety expats.

There are over 200,000 Americans in Toronto alone, and 250,000 in London.

And expats are (for whatever reason) something like 80% Democrat.

But when I’ve donated to McCain from up here, they’ve had to jump through hoops — they ended up putting my money through using my last American address. When I thought about donating to Hillary late in the primary season, I saw that they required that it be done by mail, and that I include a photocopy of my passport. (So I didn’t.)

Yeah, the Obama campaign seems much, much laxer.

ANTI-MURTHA FOLKS, TAKE NOTE: “A final campaign rally for Republican 12th District candidate William Russell has been scheduled for this weekend. Russell Campaign Manager Peg Luksik announced the final rally will be held Sunday November 2, 2008, at the DAYS INN in New Stanton, PA at 2:00PM. . . . Luksik also announced that several national conservative organizations including; Gun Owners of America, Move America Forward, Veterans for Freedom and the Minutemen have all asked to participate.”

MICHAEL YON: Advertisement and the Virtue of Audacity.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT civilian national security force.

November 1, 2008

JERRY POURNELLE:

Despair is a sin, and often a mistake. The polls do not record the “refused to respond” which in my judgment is a much larger category than any admit — it includes me, five times so far this year since I’m home to answer the phone more than many people are — and I suspect that more McCain people refuse to respond than the trendier Obama enthusiasts.

Few Republicans are enthusiastic. I wish there were a safe recipient for the Turn The Rascals Out! vote. There isn’t. Electing a junior senator whose political positions are indistinguishable from McGovern except on the checkoff unionization which even McGovern opposes cannot be a good thing for the future of the nation. If the Democratic candidate were Colin Powell, who has fairly traditional liberal views but is primarily a centrist with some military (including political military, but who has led troops in combat) experience, I’d very likely vote for him on the grounds that he would be a good restraining influence on Rangel, Franks, Dodd, Pelosi, and the weak Reid. Alas, Obama isn’t likely to stand up to much of anything; his political experience has been Chicago machine go along to get along.

But the election is not over. There are more decline to answer voters than it takes to change the election.

One vote per precinct in California delivered the nation to Woodrow Wilson.

The way to win elections is to get those who intend to vote for your candidate to go vote. Few readers here are not capable of getting two or three voters to the polls. That’s well over a million votes. Think on it.

Yes, do.

JAPAN: Slacker Nation? Young Japanese Shun Promotions. In a modern industrial society, it’s possible to live quite well without climbing the ladder much. That may be a problem, in time.

UPDATE: Michael Greenspan notes that this is what happens when you don’t have enough income inequality.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And Greenspan seems to be right. Another reader emails:

It’s not just Japan. I work for one of the big 3 aerospace/defense companies at a Los Angeles area location, and though I wouldn’t say it’s nearly as evident as in Japan, young workers in our industry are asking the same questions. We have no hope of achieving the same standard of living as the droves of retiring Boomers and Silents, and the 2% raise differential afforded by a promotion simply isn’t enough of an incentive to work 20-30% more hours a week.

If the industry paid overtime, or offered significant bonuses to rank and file employees (bonuses are only available to upper management), a lot of young engineers would respond enthusiastically. In fact, we’ve asked the company to do these things in recent employee forums. We’d all like to buy homes in the area and raise families here, but the older workers own all the real estate, and most of us assume that we’ll give things a few years, but get out of the area once we need to settle down. It’s simply too expensive to live in a metro area like L.A. Since the incentive structure doesn’t offer us hope of achieving the same lifestyle as the older employees, we don’t see much reason to devote our lives to these companies. As I said, the 2% differential doesn’t make a whole lot of difference, so why bother with the extra stress?

There you have it.

MEN WITHOUT PETS.

MICHAEL PETRELIS: SF Mayor Denounces Yes on 8/Obama Mailer.

BILL AYERS’ PRAIRIE FIRE is online in PDF form. A bunch of people have been emailing me that it was dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, and in fact it is, though he’s one of many.