Posts Tagged ‘reality’

Obama vs Cheney it’s on!

Posted: May 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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It has been suggested that the president is very wise scheduling a speech suddenly today against the former Vice president:

1) The Obama White House runs the savviest information ops of any White House in modern history. This is all about rebutting an increasingly effective exponent of aggressive counter-terrorism policies. 2) Why do it? The simple answer is that the public is listening to Cheney on the issues, and if the Democratic Congress’s decision this week to deny funding to close Gitmo is any indication, finger-in-the-wind politicians are listening, too.

Already today on Morning Joe Vice president Cheney’s speech is being called the “Republican response” even though it was scheduled long before the president making it seem a “me too” speech in perception. That’s smart right?

My opinion is different. These guys are falling into the Rush CPAC trap.

Consider a few months ago, the White House and Limbaugh traded barbs (the White House STILL hasn’t taken Rush offer of radio time cluck, cluck ) because of this the CPAC speech which would have normally been ignored by the networks was carried by both FOX and CNN live exposing his ACTUAL opinions and positions directly thousands of people who would have never heard a word he ever said unfiltered by the media. It’s hard to demonize someone when you have actually heard him someone yourself. The increased audience for Rush and the success of the Tea party movement show this.

Now if the president had not given his speech today, the vice president speech would have been given and individual sound bites would have been picked up by the MSM and spun according to their whims to favor the White House.

Instead because of the president’s speech Vice President’s speech will be covered live and unfiltered. The public will not only be able to hear his position articulated but also articulated in a speech that he has had time to write and develop. At best it could be a game changer for the debate, at worst people who have only seen a filtered or caricature of the vice president will see the real thing.Minds will be changed.

Meanwhile the president, a fine speaker, will be reading a speech developed quickly in response to political issues. He has a good staff and I’m sure the speech will not be bad, but it’s very nature is reactive and it is not credible to assert that a speech written over the course of a day will be superior to one developed over time.

Add to that the Vice president convictions and experience on the issues of government and the difference will be noticed!

The end result will be pressure to pressure a policy that keeps America safer. That makes us all winners.

Update: Michelle nails it:

I, for one, and gratified to see this White House forced to put national security on the front burner. If not for the forceful public defenses by Vice President Cheney of the aggressive, proactive measures the last administration took to keep us safe, the current commander-in-chief would be happily gabbling about solar panels and weatherization subsidies or somesuch.

Credit Card Winners and losers

Posted: May 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Well Michael Graham is going on about the changes and charges concerning credit cards.

Since I’m not one to pay fees it means that I’ll be using my card much less if I don’t cancel them. Lucky for me there is this wonderful invention called Cash and another innovation called checks I will be using these new things more often. The end result will be as follows:

The first loser is of course the credit card company. They lose the 3% on every purchase that they were making from the people who accepted cards. Every new purchase and every bill I don’t pay with those credit cards is 3% they don’t make.

Since I will need the cash etc that means less discretionary spending that means retailers and resturants that I would normally have spent money at won’t get it. They Lose.

Since I won’t be earning Amazon coupons I’ll be going there less, I invariablly spend more than the coupon so those purchases go.

And of course the Amazon coupons that I would give as gifts are gone too, that much less those guys get.

There are some winners. Providers of necessary items and utilities win since they aren’t paying the 3% to the companies.

However the gas station loses since it’s cash on hand I won’t be getting the car wash I would get with my fill-up.

And since I’m waiting on the paychecks rather than a time of the month no extra stuff to buy at the supermarket.

This also means that I’ll be paying bills with checks instead of credit cards too so the

Since there is this wonderful invention called Cash and another inovation called checks I will be using these new things more often.

Hey if they don’t want my money I have no problem keeping it.

Two State solution, two Arab states that is

Posted: May 20, 2009 by datechguy in war
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Jeff Jacoby gets it:

International consensus or no, the two-state solution is a chimera. Peace will not be achieved by granting sovereignty to the Palestinians, because Palestinian sovereignty has never been the Arabs’ goal. Time and time again, a two-state solution has been proposed. Time and time again, the Arabs have turned it down.

He also points out some pre-Israel history.

In 1936, when Palestine was still under British rule, a royal commission headed by Lord Peel was sent to investigate the steadily worsening Arab violence. After a detailed inquiry, the Peel Commission concluded that “an irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country.” It recommended a two-state solution – a partition of the land into separate Arab and Jewish states. “Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace,” the commission reported. “No other plan does.”

But the Arab leaders, more intent on preventing Jewish sovereignty in Palestine than in achieving a state for themselves, rejected the Peel plan out of hand. The foremost Palestinian leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, actively supported the Nazi regime in Germany. In return, Husseini wrote in his memoirs, Hitler promised him “a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world.”

I thought it was the west bank and gaza that was the cause of the trouble? That’s what we’ve been told. He cuts to the chase:

To this day, the charters of Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, call for Israel’s liquidation. “The whole world” may want peace and a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want something very different.

The only thing the Palestinians want from the Jews are their lives.

Update: Nordlinger hits it out of the park in his entire Impromptus today but these two paragraphs complement this post perfectly:

There are major Arab excuse-makers here by the Dead Sea — and the leading one, I would say, is Amr Moussa, the longtime secretary-general of the Arab League. He is the epitome, the purest representative, of the Old Guard. But you know who most of the excuse-makers are? Americans and Europeans. Middle Easterners themselves are far more likely to be candid and clear-eyed.

They’re the ones who have to live with these problems. They’re the ones who have to live with a lack of progress. Americans and Europeans can sit in their free societies, fat and happy, and say, “Damn those Israelis, and damn us meddling, injurious Westerners.”

Read it all.

5 years vs two generations

Posted: May 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

I mentioned last week that it would take two generations before the damage from changes such as “Gay Marriage” shows up. (The two generations rule often works with positive things too btw) but Maggie Gallagher finds some effects that show up after only 5 years:

A further 36 percent of voters who oppose gay marriage agreed with the statement, “If you speak out against gay marriage in Massachusetts you really have to watch your back because some people may try to hurt you.” (Twenty-six percent agreed strongly.) Fifteen percent of voters who oppose gay marriage say they personally know someone who experienced harassment or intimidation because of their belief that marriage involves a man and a woman. (emphasis mine)

This can’t be, supporters of Gay Marriage are supporters of tolerance right?

The NOM/MFI Massachusetts Marriage Poll thus documents a fairly significant level of apprehension among voters who oppose gay marriage about the consequences of speaking openly or acting on their belief that marriage means a husband and wife.

Nothing like a little fear, particularly in a bad economy. Believing Catholics need not apply I guess.

What difference has gay marriage made five years later? Support for the idea that children need a mom and dad has dropped, and a substantial minority of people believe it is risky to oppose gay marriage openly.

Yet another reason for my boys to go.

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