Brain Droppings

I think we are going to end up with another President Clinton in 12 1/2 months and we are going to wonder how the hell did it happen. I'll tell you now. Because Republicans did not stick to their principles and vote for the best conservative candidate. Electability = Conservatism. It works every time it is tried.

Labels: Fred Thompson

Rick Moran had a great idea to boost Fred's campaign which happened to coincide with an effort to contribute to Fred Thompson's effort to get an ad aired just before the Iowa caucus.

Please consider donating a small amount to this effort if you believe, like me, that Fred Thompson is the clear conservative choice. I don't know if I would go as far as Mr. Moran but his view does reflect my sentiments.

For me, it comes down to this. If Fred isn’t nominated, I doubt very much that I will show up at the polls next November. Not to punish the party but simply because there is no one in the race who would be representing my views or who I could in good conscience, support for president.

I don't play politics like Bill O plays risk. /inside joke

Labels: Fred Thompson

Completely stolen from IMAO:

...you blame America last.r

...you kinda like it when terrorists are made uncomfortable.

...you think that today's serious foreign policy issues will take more than hillbilly charm and naiveté to handle.

...you suspect the Iran might actually be up to something.

...you prefer movies where American troops are the good guys.

...you think a Senate majority leader who constantly tells us how things are doomed while a war is still ongoing needs a good bitch-slapping.

...you think it's great if a murderer finds God, but that doesn't mean he should be let out of prison.

...you think America's sovereignty is kinda important.

...you think anyone who talks about how the rich aren't "paying their fair share" is a whiny little Communist.

..."great hair" is low on your list of presidential requirements.

...you think someone didn't draw those border lines on a map just for fun.

...call you crazy, but you'd prefer a presidential candidate who actually shares your conservative views.

...you think it's time someone did something about the hippies.

...you'd like Osama bin Laden's next video to be him pleading, "Someone please help me!" before he's pummeled on screen by the U.S. president.

Well, that's what I came up with so far. If you have some other ways people could tell they might be a Fredhead, put them in the comments.

Do it now!

Labels: Fred Thompson

Diego hit the nail on the head when he said:

The liberal media seem to be running the show and shaping the race for the Republican nomination. This is a big mistake.

This is very apparent over the past month with various hit pieces out against Republican candidates.

Rudy's security fiasco was not really true.

Then Roger "without an L" Simon posted a scathing report on Fred Thompson which was proven false via video courtesy of CBS news.

Then Mitt Romney claimed his father walked with MLK, which he said was a figure of speech in a not so artful explanation, but might have been true. The point being, however badly Mitt handle it, George Romney was a champion of civil rights.

There are more.

What has been the worst aspect is that conservatives are falling hook, line, and sinker for the MSM's narrative about our candidates. We are picking the worst critiques of our non-preferred candidates foibles as presented by the liberal media and trying to use it to bash fellow conservatives.

This must stop.

If the Republican parties coalition is to survive then we have to inoculate ourselves from the anti-conservative media and the narrative they are trying to create.

Labels: Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani

I know that this is horrible quality audio so just skip to half way through to avoid the usual stump speech and listen to Fred answer questions. That is worth your time because Fred is in good form. You might notice that the majority of questions concern immigration. I had no idea that this would be such an important issue in Iowa but it is on the mind of a lot of voters.

Labels: Fred Thompson

The future of energy in the United States world is nuclear. And the only way this is going to happen, especially in the U.S., is if we go over the heads of the bureaucrats and put nuclear power generation in the hands of the people.


The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

Labels: nuclear

I haven't watched much of the actual debates but I have watched some 'highlights' and followed some of the coverage. I might might be missing something but my opinion does not seem to match the polling results and talking points on TV and on some blogs.

I don't think Romney will win the nomination and I never thought Huckabee even had a real chance. In my mind it is between Rudy and Fred and I think Fred will win.

One thing that bothers me though is that the Republicans seem to be as soft on the liberal media as they claim the liberals are on the war on terror. At least Fred refused to raise his hand the other night as if the candidates were all in the classroom. The liberal media seem to be running the show and shaping the race for the Republican nomination. This is a big mistake. Religion seems to be a much bigger factor in the media coverage and polling than I think is should be. That is largely due to who is asking the questions.

Bill C adds: Fred brings together all three legs of the Republican coalition: National Security, Economic, and Social. Right now there are so many candidates who are potentially viable that each leg has gravitated to its own candidate. The result are candidates which are poison to one or more parts of the coalition. Social conservatives don't like Rudy and Huckabee is picking up their support even while Huckabee has a terrible record on immigration and taxes. The worst case scenario is that we get a polarizing figure like Huckabee and the Economic conservatives don't vote. The best case is a conservative who appeals to all branches (mixing my metaphors again) and that is Fred. Mitt Romney tried to be that person but his recent conversion to conservatism makes him suspect. On that note I will add this video.

Labels: Fred Thompson

I know there has been a great hue and cry about recent calls for a housing bailout and I am certainly against the idea of giving a free pass to those who speculated and lost in their speculation. But not all who are hurting due to falling housing prices are guilty of speculation or stupid financial decisions. Some just have bad timing and the truth is that as this crisis continues there will be more people who are the victims of circumstance.

How far the gov't should go in mitigating the effects of the bursting of the housing bubble is a matter for debate but we should be realistic about what our country is facing. The housing bubble is just one part of a credit crunch which threatens to spread, as it does there will be increasing calls for more intervention. Maybe it is better to try something small now in order to avoid the public pressure for much more drastic gov't intervention in the future.

Here are two stories which put a more human face on the process of foreclosure. One is a heartbreaking story of a family who really did nothing to deserve their fate.

Their eldest child, 11-year-old Kiki, suffers from a rare bone disease that has required three operations so far. Medical bills have topped $100,000 and, even with insurance, the Smiths owe more than $10,000. Those bills mounted as monthly payments on their adjustable rate mortgage shot up — from $1,000 to $1,400 — on the home they bought for $159,000 in 2004.

"You have to pick between a house and your child," Smith says. "That's an easy choice."

...

f only they'd opted for a fixed-rate loan, Smith said. Her husband, a handyman, just got a nice promotion. Perhaps they could have made it through this rough patch.

"You work so hard to get good credit and live in a good school system," Smith said. Then, watching her girls wrestle in the yard, she caught herself. "I know there are a lot of folks worse off than we are."

A lot of folks are worse off but the question is who do you help and how do you help them. There is no doubt that some of the afore mentioned undeserving will be helped. IMHO, that is not excuse to not help people like the Smith's. People like these:

Inferring motivation for intentional damage is not an exact science. Neglect, mental and/or drug impairment, and financial desperation -- appliances are almost always missing -- are difficult to rule out. However, some situations seem to point only to vengeance.

"When you think about the mind-set of people when they came to town in '04, we were the get-rich-quick city," says Loreen Stuhr, owner of appraisersoflasvegas.com. "You move to town, invest in a property and make a hundred thousand on your house.

"But it didn't work out that way," she says. "And the frustration of losing everything can be overwhelming -- especially for the ones who relocated here."

Those who would damage their homes in acts of revenge are just jerks who probably never had any attachment to their homes. It is a shame that these people will probably get away with vandalism but the system is clogged with so many cases that I doubt the banks will bother to hold them accountable.

The cult of home ownership at any price is dying off hard. I imagine that we will have many years before the public or lenders will feel comfortable speculating in residential real estate. That's a good thing. Speculation fueled by easy credit is very destructive. We have learned that lesson but in the meantime let's not let our righteous anger at the stupid and greedy get in the way to even the banal attempts to soften a crisis that threatens to cripple the economy.

Labels: Credit Crunch, housing bubble

Fred Thompson is collecting funds for his big putsch into Iowa. Fred is emerging as the stop Huckabee (The Republican version of Jimmy Carter) candidate. Huckabee is copying Obama's line on the war on terror, how much worse can it get? Fred is also looking for volunteers to get the vote out in Iowa.

To Join Thompson's Troops, email or call Kristen Fuzer at kfuzer@fred08.com /
515.664.4717 or click on the link below. Please give us the time you are willing to commit to Iowa and we will help make arrangements for your arrival and the duration of your stay in the state.

Unfortunately, we are going to be in Nevada during this time otherwise I would be there. This is our last chance to get a conservative on the ballot in 2008.

Labels: Fred Thompson

You think it is going to end badly and... You'll just have to watch. (Mwahahaha.)

The Instapundit links to this story about a couple who are being hounded by the IRS for taxes owed by an illegal alien who used their social security number to get a job.

I find the very idea that someone can steal your identity to be ridiculous. People steal things from businesses (and other people, or in this case the IRS) and the party who has been robbed tries to pass the burden on to someone else.

If a man holding a gun walks into a bank with a ski mask on and demands money in the name of John Doe does that make John Doe liable? The real Mr. Doe may have some questions to answer but the burden of proof does not lie with him. The bank was robbed, not John Doe. Unfortunately the system does not seem to work that way.

Labels: funny

...and he was all out of bubblegum. (Via Hot Air.)

Labels: Fred Thompson

Why? Because they are scared. This is the real bailout. Not that amorphous plan from President Bush.

Only an estimated 250,000 borrowers, at best, are likely to benefit from the plan’s main relief measure — a five-year freeze on certain adjustable loans’ introductory rates. Yet, from mid-2007 to now, some 800,000 homeowners have entered foreclosure. From 2008 through mid-2010, when the last of the potentially eligible loans would otherwise reset to sharply higher payments, there will be an estimated 3.5 million loan defaults.

The plan is too little, too late and too voluntary. Mr. Paulson and his boss, President Bush, have left it to the private sector — the mortgage industry — to protect the public interest, without any negative consequences if it does not. That is not the way the private sector works. And it is not how government is supposed to work at a time when Americans are facing mass foreclosures that threaten entire communities, financial markets and the wider economy.

No, the real bailout is the deal banks will get from the Federal Reserve. Quick, anonymous money in the hands of the schlubs who brought us to the precipice.

The move by the central banks should get more money to banks at interest rates lower than what they would have to pay if they borrowed at the Fed's discount window. The Fed will auction up to $40 billion in loans to banks at two auctions next week and undetermined additional amounts at two auctions in January.

The Fed also said it was making funds available to allow the European Central Bank to lend $20 billion and the Swiss National Bank to lend $4 billion to European banks that needed to borrow dollars.

...

The auctions held by the Fed will set interest rates on borrowings by banks from the Fed. The banks will be able to post any collateral they wish, including illiquid securities such as collateralized debt obligations, as they now can do at the discount window. But while it often becomes known which banks borrow at the discount window, the auction procedures are designed to keep the identities of the borrowers secret.

"There is no reason to believe there would be stigma associated with the use of this facility," the senior Fed official said.

No reason to think that borrowing for below market interest rates will stigmatize the banks who want to remain anonymous says the anonymous Fed official. No reason to believe that releasing their names would cause a run on those banks but why take the chance?

The credit crunch is getting worse and the stock market is playing the role of Nero as the credit markets burn. It is getting ugly behind the scenes. In the murky recesses of the financial markets lack of liquidity is making banks more wary of lending to other banks and that has driven up the interest rate that banks chose to lend to one another, LIBOR. The solution? The Fed thinks it is more lending at cheaper rates.

What could go wrong with such an approach? Surely, it makes sense for banks to be lending to each other at lower rates, since that can spark more lending across the whole financial system. But Libor is a market rate, ultimately reflecting banks' views on each other's creditworthiness. Indeed, at 5.06% before news of the TAF was released by the Fed, Libor was considerably higher than the Fed funds rate, reflecting banks' caution about each other. But maybe the widened spread between Libor and the Fed funds rate is an inescapable product of the times. Given the credit problems U.S. banks are facing, they are naturally wary of each other. Maybe the Fed thinks banks are being overcautious, so the TAF is its way of bypassing what it sees as unwarranted skittishness.

The problem is that all the money in the world is not going to make the strange brew of Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) any more of an attractive investment, at least at current market prices. What they are really trying to accomplish is impossible, clearing all of this bad debt from the market without any of the pain of falling prices. This should get your attention because this is proof of how frightened the Fed and the big banks are of a bear market. Our financial system is a house of cards with a recession on the horizon. How's that for a mixed metaphor non sequitor? W00t!

Update:

I love it when I lead in the creation of a meme.

Lower interest rates won't add much to home sales because prices are still falling, the supply of housing is still climbing and mortgage money is tight. Lower interest rates won't jump-start the refinancing boom that had kept consumers spending because the drop in home prices pretty much wipes out the chance for most homeowners to refinance and take money out of the equity to spend on other items. Lower interest rates won't lower soaring gasoline and home-heating-oil prices and won't stop food costs from climbing. And lower interest rates won't make loan write-offs at big banks any smaller.

The best that can be said for Tuesday's interest-rate cut is that it won't make anything worse. And even that's not exactly true, since a cut in U.S. interest rates, while rates stay the same in Europe and Japan, is likely to send the U.S. dollar even lower against the euro and the yen.

Oh yeah, Easy Al thinks the chance of a recession is a coin flip.

Labels: Credit Crunch, easy credit

The non-problem

From UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the United Nations Development Program:

We have gathered in Bali to act on the defining issue of our time. The latest Human Development Report puts it simply, yet forcefully: climate change is visible, it is global and its first victims are the poor and the defenseless.

The world’s scientists have spoken. With one voice, they have told us that the situation is grim. Urgent action is needed -- not only to ensure coverage of climate measures beyond 2012, but because the situation is so desperately serious. Any delay could push us past the tipping point beyond which the ecological, financial and human costs increase dramatically.

Yet there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. Scientists tell us that that the measures required to prevent a catastrophe are both doable and affordable. All we need is the resolve to act.

Much centres on the negotiations here in Bali. Today, we are at a crossroads, one path leading to towards a comprehensive new climate agreement and the other towards oblivion. The choice is clear.

In other words, submit now or die.

That it produces frighteningly successful propaganda campaigns like this one is yet another reason the UN should be disbanded. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is either ignorant or deceitful in claiming the world's scientists speak with one voice regarding global warming. They don't:

"We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years," Evans said in an interview with the Inhofe EPW Press Blog. Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming." (LINK)

Evans touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found "Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." (LINK)

"Most of the people here have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction," Evans explained.

That last paragraph articulates my sentiments very well.

Senator James Inhofe's 'Skeptics Guide To Debunking Global Warming' can be downloaded here.

At least one world leader is willing to challenge UN propaganda:

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

Good for the Pope, though I don't quite agree with his views on what should be done. His remarks will be made in his annual message for World Peace Day on January 1.

I agree with British climate researcher Lord Christopher Monckton:

"Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing."

Exactly.

UPDATE: AJ Strata notes that climate change models don’t work:

The point is the models cannot produce what we see today. Put in measured parameters and we should see results close to what happened. Pick and day, week, month or year - the models should come close to replicating what has already occurred. If they can’t - and they cannot - then they are an expensive error generator. If NASA could not predict the trajectory of planets and moons and asteroids with incredible precision we would not be able to sling small robots around these enormous bodies to fly around our solar system. That is the difference between scientific fact and wild theories. The Church Of Global Warming is no different than the Church Of Scientology - no wonder so many people pledge allegiance to both of them. Voodoo science - what will the left think of next??

Diego is not intimidated.

The Exile a alternative newspaper from Moscow. Alternative means increasingly shrill leftist tripe. It used to be a funny take on life in Moscow from a western point of view. It was started by a guy named Mark Ames who is of the left but never really went overboard covering politics. His biggest target had been feminism and had often spotlighted the trouble that western woman had in Russia's patriarchal society. Ames seems to have been diminished at the magazine and there is a more anti-American content. Don't get me wrong, Ames was anti-American, he just knew that this wasn't entertaining and he always sought to entertain.

Which leads to this garbage. A liberal racist rant against Michelle Malkin. If you want to be disgusted follow the link. It is nothing that hasn't been said before to MM. Just more unhinged behavior from our enlightened friends on the left.

Labels: liberal racism, Michelle Malkin

His show, his show. Damn I've got to be more careful with the wording of my posts. (Via Hot Air.)



Rush continues his non-endorsement endorsement of Fred.

Labels: Fred Thompson

Gizmodo takes us into the future of flat screens with a look at the infant technology organic light emitting diode (OLED).

OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) differ from LCDs in that they don't need a backlight of any kind, because each pixel is made of a phosphorescent particle that lights up on its own when excited. The trick is getting the particles onto the glass, plastic or metallic screen—the substrate, they call it—in an orderly fashion.

OLED's promise the contrast ratio of cathode ray tubes, old fashioned TV, and the size of plasma and LCD. The biggest technical problem is the life span of the blue phosphorescent particles which fade over time. Both LCD and Plasma fade so this is not much of a problem. OLED has a life of about 50k thousand hours and, if memory serves, my Westy has a life of 50K hours.

The first OLED are coming out this season but we will have to wait until 2010 before the prices on these things come down to something reasonable. Then I will once again have a TV bigger than Bill O.

Labels: OLED

Ok, here is the magic. The triangle I thought was a possibility and is looking likely as long as wave C, 12,796 on November 26th, holds. We can take that level out and still be in a triangle or a larger flat correction. What is unlikely at this point is that the high of October 11th, labeled wave B, is the big top and we are about to crash. The triangle I outlined is not a prediction of exactly how it will turn out but a simple drawing to give you an idea of what to expect. (Of course, if it does work out I will delete the last sentence.)

So I am expecting a sideways market into next year then a rally over 15,000. Probably more but we will have to wait and see how this unfolds. A triangle is usually the ending correction of a move and I expect this to signal the end of the bull market since 2003. But I am getting ahead of myself. I will add more on the extent and duration of the triangle as it unfolds. Just keep an eye on 12,796 and 12,500, they must hold.

All this is really interesting because the news I am getting is terribly negative as in its always darkest before the dawn. More on that later, also.

Labels: Stock, Trade

John L Perry over at Newsmax has a prescription for what is ailing Fred Thompson's campaign. (Via the DraftFredThompson board.)

The time has come, however, for him to climb off the bouncing buckboard of televised “debates” before that creaky wagon turns over and God knows who might emerge from the pile.

What a refreshing delight for the American electorate if they could see Thompson calmly denounce the pseudo debates for what they are, come to the defense of his fellow Republican and Democratic candidates by saying what they have been put through is a travesty, announce he will no longer be part of the stage scenery for this insult to the institution of the American presidency and the intelligence of the American people and then stride off the set with dignity.

I don't think the problem is entirely the debate structure. Although culling some of the lower tier candidates would help and having biased questioners is a hindrance. I think the real problem lies with Fred not getting his message across effectively. This is what I wrote on the messageboard:

In the book The Art of Political War by David Horowitz, Mr Horowitz makes the point that the winning strategy in politics is to keep your message simple. You can expound on it later but most people will tune out the explanation. Encapsulate the theme of your campaign in one short sentence and keep pounding it home.

IMHO, Fred needs to begin every answer at the debate with, "I am the one, true conservative." The problem is not the debate format or the trivial horse race coverage. The problem is that Fred's best attribute is unknown to a lot of Republican primary voters.

Having position papers is great but nobody is going to bother delving into your campaign until you have hooked them, i.e some simple message that gets their attention. I have looked over Fred's website. Looked at what he has to say and it is all great stuff. Fred concisely lays out his case and points out why he is the one, true conservative. Now it is time he start saying it. Over and over and over and over again.

Fred Thompson, apply directly to the country-type marketing.

Labels: Fred Thompson

I guess Bill O is right. The only regret they have is not getting a bigger screen.

Labels: technology

In my imagination he is. Wait, that sounded vaguely gay. How about, I really hope he is.

After Rush's all but endorsement of Fred there has been little movement in the polls. Perhaps it is too soon for that to register or perhaps the real story is Huckabee's surge which is swamping any bump that Rush might have given him. Huckabee: nanny-statism and a stringent moralizing. Sounds like a winner to me. But Fred is picking up some grassroots blogroots support.

Curt at Flopping Aces has thrown in with Fred. Curt went out and picked up some footage of Fred speaking in California. Pretty good stump speech even when he accidentally substituted the death Penalty for the death Tax Fred managed to make a come back. This is heartening because I haven't caught a full speech Fred has given, all I have heard is that Fred is an uninspired speaker. This video contradicts that.

I am a little concerned about Fred but I think that Mitt's stumbling in Iowa, due to Huckabee might be a good thing for Fred. Mitt and Fred are competing for the same voters. The truth is that a lot can happen between now and the primaries and it is now when the campaigns will be rushing out their messages. Maybe Fred's will stick.

I just recently discovered an old post from Frank J. at IMAO which gave me a few LOLs. Here are a few of my favorites:

* The masked executioner of Saddam Hussein: Fred Thompson.
* Fred Thompson once ended a filibuster by ripping out a Senator's heart and showing it to him before he died.
* Webster's Dictionary defines "conservatism" as "how closely one's views resemble those of Fred Thompson."
* Fred Thompson can know both the exact position and momentum of a particle. Furthermore, he knows Schroedinger's cat is dead because he personally strangled it.

And the funniest one to any Dune fan.

* The Fremen consider "Fred Thompson" a killing word.

Labels: Fred Thompson

Fred answers the "lazy question" by pointing out that he is a slow talking, slow walking Tennessean. Good enough for me. Honestly, Reagan was not all together with it during his second term but he was conservative and so were the people that worked for him. To me that's much more important than pressing flesh on the campaign trail. I don't think Fred is lazy. I just don't think he necessarily has the temperament to run around half the country eating rubbery chicken and glad handing people for their votes.

I hope this doesn't cost him the election but it might. It would be shame, though.

Labels: Fred Thompson