Archive for 2006

A PRO-GOP momentum shift? How much you believe in this depends on how much you trust the polls.

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mickey Kaus sees some good news for John Kerry — the Democratic wave had already peaked when Kerry made his dumb remarks.

VARIFRANK:

How do I know the “Get Out The Vote” machine in full swing?

Well, my phone has received a phone call every hour for the past two days. I enjoyed the Ben Stein call, but the rest just go right to the delete button. It’s not that they are bad, its just that theres nothing more annoying the someone still trying to sell you when you’ve already bought the car.

There is one other thing I’ve noticed. All the calls are for Republicans and Republican issues. I havent received a single call or pamphlet from the Democrats for their candidates or issues in over a week. Its as if the Democrats ran out of ammo a week early.

Hmm.

IT’S A NEWLY REVAMPED POWER LINE NEWS, with lots of new features. Check it out.

A BIG ANTI-CHAVEZ MARCH IN VENEZUELA:

Hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday marched in Caracas to support opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, whose populist campaign has focused on reducing crime and redistributing oil wealth.

Rosales, governor of the oil-rich Zulia state, trails leftist President Hugo Chavez by around 20 percentage points in most private polls ahead of the December 3 election.

Chavez is a close ally of Cuba and fiercely opposes the Bush administration even though Venezuela provides around 12 percent of U.S. oil imports.

Opposition sympathizers donning Venezuela’s signature red, yellow and blue patriotic colors joined the march, which spanned some 12 miles across most of the capital city.

Photos, video, and more at VCrisis.com. Just keep scrolling.

tvdiningroom.jpg

YES, BLOGGING HAS BEEN LIGHT: Among other things, I was interviewed by some guys from Irish TV, who set up in our dining room, as you can see. We interviewed them right back — this media thing is a two-way street — and that podcast will be up later.

HEH: “Oh, no! It’s the dreaded Sunni reaction to the death sentence for Saddam Hussein. I’d heard it was going to be horribly chaotic and violent, but this, this is terrible. I mean, I’m assuming it’s a pretty violent PlayStation game, probably. Don’t you think?”

MICKEY KAUS: “In 2002, remember, it was a generic ballot shift at the last minute–downplayed by the NYT’s Adam Nagourney–that signaled a disappointing day for Democrats. I don’t expect that to happen this time, but … “

HAROLD FORD at the Tennessee / LSU football game. Les Jones posts a report, with photos.

ANN ALTHOUSE LOOKS AT JAMES WEBB’S VIEWS and asks: “So why is Webb running as a Democrat? Can you imagine how the Democrats would rake him over the coals for saying these things if he’d happened to run as a Republican?” Maybe that’s why. It’s interesting, though, that he’s gotten so much support from the Netroots crowd. Back when the race was new I was surprised to discover that they were backing him, precisely because his views seemed so different from theirs.

UPDATE: Related thoughts on mental flexibility here.

MICHAEL RUBIN TO VANITY FAIR: “If they have nothing to hide — for example taking quotes out of context — then they should have no worries. Vanity Fair: Publish the full transcripts. Now. Before the elections. Stop playing games.”

Ed Morrissey has more on the subject, leading reader C.J. Burch to email: “If reporters won’t tell their sources the truth why should the rest of us assume they are telling their readers the truth?”

“SHE’S A LOT HOTTER THAN YOU, BUCKO:” My brother’s take on the Amanda Congdon interview. Well, yeah.

OBSCURELY FAMOUS: A look at the guy who scored the first-ever perfect game of Pac-Man.

IF THE SITE’S BEEN ACTING FUNNY, it’s because I’ve finally gotten around to a Movable Type upgrade. Things should settle down soon.

NEWS FROM EUROPE: “Lutheran vicar Roland Weisselberg, aged 73, set himself alight in Erfurt where Martin Luther took monastic vows in 1505. Bystanders rushed to extinguish the flames. The man later died of his injuries. In a farewell letter to his wife the vicar wrote that he was setting himself on fire to warn against the danger of the Islamization of Europe. . . . The UK Times reports, ‘The Protestant Bishop of Saxony, Axel Noack, said the suicide had shocked the community and that he hoped it would not hurt relations between Christians and Muslims.'”

CANADA’S INDIGO BOOKSTORE CHAIN SAYS that it’s not boycotting Mark Steyn’s new book — it just wildly underestimated the demand.

Steyn’s book is still doing well on the Amazon Canada charts. How well? It’s just behind a hugely popular diet book!

ORSON SCOTT CARD has thoughts on the 2006 and 2008 elections:

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America’s role as a light among nations.

But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it — and in the most damaging possible way — I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan — the party I joined back in the 1970s — is dead. Of suicide.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Further comments from Eric Scheie.

A NEW ROUND OF MASON-DIXON POLLS shows Republicans likely to keep the Senate. Do I trust ’em? Polls have been pretty iffy the last several elections, so . . . no, not really. And I really doubt that Harold Ford is 12 points behind Corker. I think Corker’s ahead, but not by nearly that much.

A SADDAM VERDICT:

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and two other defendants were sentenced to death in Baghdad Sunday for crimes against humanity. . . .

Despite a curfew, Iraqis celebrated in the streets of Baghdad while protests were held in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit.

I hope they don’t take as long with the execution as they took with the trial.

Here’s a reaction from Mohammed and Omar of Iraq the Model. And here’s a big Saddam sentencing roundup from Pajamas Media.

UPDATE: Hmm. Turned on the TV. Fox was covering Saddam, but CNN was running an election-themed piece on stem cell research, and MSNBC was reporting on the hot prospects for the Harold Ford campaign. You’d think this would deserve more attention than that . . . .

Oh, wait, they just teased a coming story with “Will Saddam Hussein’s sentencing spark more violence in Iraq?” I should’ve figured on that spin, shouldn’t I?

And here’s another big roundup from Gateway Pundit.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Austin Bay:

I know, the NY Times and John Kerry have told us Iraq is a disaster. No. The US has already gotten about 90 percent of what it needed on September 12, 2001. There’s a democratically elected government in the potentially most powerful (predominantly) Arab Muslim nation, a government trying to learn to crawl under the most trying conditions. It’s a government that is learning by doing — and learning often by failure. However, as long as the US and coalition remain around to coach, train, and respond to crisis, Iraqi failures will be controlled failures.

Yup. Fostering the development of choice in the Middle East — a choice other than tyranny or terror– is a tough process.

But will we get that story? I doubt it.

Still, congratulations to the people of Iraq.

Read the whole thing.