Gee thanks, Dad

Pauli commented earlier on his cringing of Mick's persona singing "I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag."   Those are sweet words indeed compared to what Rod Dreher said about his father in a piece today, in which he reprises an interview of himself (which is, of course, about himself).  To those who are fathers, may you never read such a thing written about you by one of your children:

I see the error that my dad made. . . . And he confesses this, not in those terms, but it comes out in Little Way.  He deified family and place and sacrificed his life to false gods....

Lovely.  At least it isn't Fathers' Day today.

And not to disappoint anyone, the piece includes yet another gratuitous swipe at his dead sister.

It's always a "gas"

I always loved this song, although I cringe at the line "I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag". Didn't Mick Jagger's mother listen to the Stones? Well, yeah, I realize it's not Jagger but his character's persona pronouncing this uncomplimentary verdict on his mother's visage.

Scratching my head about Mark Shea

Reading Mark Shea's post supporting universal handgun registration in Washington (which, by the way, passed) sort of left me scratching my head about his stance on firearms and the imposition of gun control on the populace. I guess this incident immediately came to mind with the famous Facebook banner we immortalized in this post several years ago.

I wouldn't even bring it up; even if he just stated, "Hey, I'm for gun control," I'd probably shrug it off. But vitriolic accusations like "threadbare lies and sophistries of the gun cult" and prayers like "May God break the power of the NRA and the gun cult" clash with the factual claims and measured arguments which the NRA presented against the ballot issue.

I was told two years ago that the picture is a still-frame from an independent film which Mr. Shea was in back in 2012. It appears that he, like many other Hollywood types who point guns at the camera, remains reality-challenged about their proper use.

NBC gives us the bad news: We are angry haters for voting Republican

Really NBC? These are your 5 big questions after the Democrats were obliterated? What would the proverbial "Man from Mars" think if he read the following Big Question number 5? Would he really get a clear picture of why the GOP swept the floor with the Democrats?

5. Will voter angst last?

The defining characteristic of politics in 2014 is an electorate that is angry with members of both parties and dissatisfied with its leaders. Obama’s approval rating is declining, but it still remains far ahead of Congress.

There are no signs Washington will become less polarized. In fact, with two houses of Congress opposing Obama, the partisan battles there may intensify. Polls suggest Republicans are growing in their hatred of Hillary Clinton as she becomes less identified with her role as secretary of state and more a Democratic candidate. The Republican presidential candidates, particularly Cruz and Christie, are hardly conciliatory figures.

Here we go again with the anger accusation. That's from the 1994 Jennings playbook which we all remember. Because being angry with members of both parties causes people to do what? Vote for members of the angriest party they can find, the Republicans.

I'm mad at both parties, so I guess I'll vote Republican. That ought to show everybody! Yeah!

Next item of stupidity: I have to say I'm getting tired of the invalid comparison between the Presidential approval rating and the so-called congressional approval rating. "Obama’s approval rating is declining, but it still remains far ahead of Congress." This is an apples and oranges comparison that doesn't translate into any type of real action. Nobody votes for "congress", you get to vote for one member of congress. If your member of congress wins and can't get anything done you blame "congress" and give them a low rating. Then you send the same person back 2 years later.

And then we get to the topic of Hillary Clinton—the unannounced Democratic front-runner for President—who we learn isn't merely disapproved of by Republican voters but hated. In fact, we are told that we are "growing in [our] hatred of Hillary Clinton as she becomes less identified with her role as secretary of state and more a Democratic candidate." Yeah, we really liked her as Secretary of State, uh-huh. This is what passes as election analysis at NBC.

This is me without coffee

At least she is a peaceful sleep-deprived kid. As you know, some won't go gentle into that good night. They'd rather rage, rage....

Post by Habertürk.

Cute stuff.

How bad was Ed FitzGerald's Historically Bad Loss to John Kasich?

Who voted for Ed FitzGerald? I did see some yard signs in his hometown of Lakewood, Ohio, but it turns out that these people were in the minority. Here's a map from that article.

Ed FitzGerald with a capital G didn't win CuyaHoga and he didn't win LakeWood. Furthermore, the article points out something amazing to me: Ed FitzGerald didn't even win his own neighborhood in LakeWood!

FitzGerald's neighbors in Lakewood Precinct 1H favored Gov. John Kasich, 249-140 on Tuesday.

It's not that the western Lakewood precinct is Democrat territory; voters there favored the Republican Kasich, 259-205, over Ted Strickland in 2010.

But FitzGerald's failure to pick up even 35 percent of the vote in his own neighborhood illustrates the depth of his loss.

So check this out: Kasich won FitzGerald's neighborhood in Lakewood with 64% which is the same percentage as he received in the state! He only got 55% when he was running against Strickland in 2010.

Later in the article there is a chart of the cities in the Greater Cleveland Area where Fitz won highlighted in blue. As one would expect, they are the places where you don't want to live or can't afford to. IOW, Democrat strongholds. Here is another illustration of the depth of FitzGerald's loss (from the AP):

It's nice to see Ohio red again. Man, are the Democrats mad. Go over to Fitz's Facebook page to check out some hilarious meltdowns.

Insightful Truth from a Pollster

The New Republic explains that the reason the Democrats had such lousy election results is because they "forgot" the message they won with in 2012. I forget what that message was as well, what was it? It was "we're on your side". Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me. I guess that why I voted for Romney/Ryan; I've heard that whopper too many times before.

The anecdotal guy waiting for the bus at the beginning of the article is obviously not representative of the wave of people voting in the 2014 mid-terms. Mr. Anecdote credits the U. S. Dept. of Labor for getting him trained for a job. Did Obama establish the Department of Labor? No. Were Romney and Ryan promising to close it down? No. So here is the quintessence of the low-information voter who we usually only see during Presidential elections. (Thank God for mid-terms.)

In the following paragraph, the article quotes award-winning pollster named Mark Mellman explaining why the message doesn't always connect.

But all of the other aforementioned Democrats lost, not least because of their startlingly paltry support among non-college-educated white voters, precisely those who stand to benefit most from policies like raising the minimum wage and expanded health coverage. This is causing great consternation for Democratic strategists and pollsters, who, as Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent noted on Wednesday, blame a “failure to connect with these voters’ economic concerns.” Democrats may have campaigned on issues like the minimum wage and pre-K education, "but these didn’t cut through people’s economic anxieties, because they didn’t believe government can successfully address them." Pollster Mark Mellman told him, “People are deeply suspicious that government can deliver on these problems. And they are not wrong. We’ve been promising that government can be a tool to improve people’s economic situation for decades, and by and large, it hasn’t happened.”

Emphasis is mine. People are deeply suspicious that government can deliver on these problems. And they are not wrong. We’ve been promising that government can be a tool to improve people’s economic situation for decades, and by and large, it hasn’t happened. This is the money quote. What I take away from this article as a whole is that if Democrats can deceive enough people by making them think that they are "on the people's side" then they can win. Otherwise they can't. If all comes down to salesmanship; a slickster like Barack Obama succeeds whereas buffoons like Davis and Udall fail. The second part of Lincoln's famous quote about when you can fool people was operative for the 2014 mid-terms. Fortunately.

I know, I post this at least once a year

I just love this song. Today seems like a great day to rock it.

I actually agree with this

Every once in awhile, I agree with something posted over at the Caelum et Terra blog. Here's an example; well, mostly this little excerpt at the end (I have to admit that I skipped the part about farming in the middle.):

I can think of no stupider tool than the leaf blower.

It is loud. It is stinky. It consumes finite resources. It is not one whit faster than using a rake. The person wielding the blower does not get much in the way of exercise at all, and this in an age of concern over obesity.

And what is lost: the graceful sweep of the rake, the lovely sound of the leaves, like the sound of waves, the health benefits of the dance of raking, the conversation and camaraderie.

Sometimes technology makes sense, at least in terms of time and effort saved.

I posted awhile back the only really good use for leaf blowers.

A Tale of Two Speeches: Wendy Davis Clowned and Wendy Davis Clowns

You've come a long way baby, a long way down, that is. And that is saying something considering how low you started, Ms. Davis. From inflated abortion shill, to making fun of crippled people, to Lonestar Laughingstock.

I don't know which Wendy Davis concession speech is more enjoyable. The fake one posted by Red State yesterday, or the real one from last night. But it all depends on what you want to laugh at. If you want to laugh at what she would say if she were given some type of truth drug, read the Red State Parody. Excerpt:

Thank you, thank you to all of you for coming out here to show your support for our campaign. I know many of you have spent many long hours block walking, standing for hours in the rain at campaign events, running errands to make sure the campaign ran smoothly, standing up for Texas values and doing all the other things that (may I remind you) my opponent is physically unable to do. Although the people of Texas have sadly and emphatically rejected my candidacy, I believe strongly that all of you standing here can help me continue the important work we started.

I am proud of the fact that we ran a positive, issues-oriented campaign, and avoided the very obvious temptation to repeatedly make fun of the fact that my opponent literally can’t walk. I reject the contention raised by literally everyone in the media of all political stripes that many of my ads, speeches, and tweets indicated at least a subconscious bias against handicapped people. I am glad we were able to put that to rest when I dragged those crippled people out on stage with me to prove that some of my best friends are gimps. I am also disappointed that the people of Texas saw fit to elect a man who is opposed to interracial marriage, presumably even his own.

I believe that our campaign, though impressively unsuccessful, has demonstrated that even here in Texas, we are making great strides for women’s equality. I am proud that I was able to show both with my personal life and my campaign, that women are perfectly capable of convincing gullible men to give them large amounts of money for no discernible reason whatsoever.

I strongly believe that we have shown that by doing this, there is nothing we can’t accomplish. Except of course being elected to statewide office. That one is still a head scratcher.

And if you want to watch her pathetically fall apart in the midst of making a clown of herself (once more) then watch this:

"...Maria... ...I loved her... ...she sold her truck buy a shaved ice machine..." Gawwwwwwwd... Wendy Davis was born to filibuster. God have mercy on the men in her life....

Thanks for reading my blog. For current commentary and what-not, visit the Est Quod Est homepage

Sandra Fluke goes down on Election Night

Birth-control pill-popper Sandra Fluke lost her California State Senate bid to ostensibly less bad Democrat Ben Allen. Breitbart reports that Fluke got over $26,000 from Planned Parenthood and that her campaign was negative and mainly based on the fact that Rush Limbaugh called her names. From the Daily Caller article:

The face of the Obamacare contraception mandate has lost her bid for state Senate in California’s 26th Congressional District.

Sandra Fluke was facing off against another Democrat, Ben Allen, who is a board member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

The women’s rights activist received 39 percent of the vote while Allen won with 61 percent.

. . . . .

Fluke is currently a legal intern at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. She is scheduled to graduate from Georgetown this year.

Fluke did not respond to The Daily Caller’s requests for comment.

So it turns out that having conservatives call you names isn't enough to base a winning campaign on. But I'm afraid she'll be back. She obviously loves attention, and doesn't seem to mind being known as a female who is typical of the loosest state in America.

Gillespie keeps fighting

Good for Ed Gillespie. It looks like he may have fallen short, but I'm glad he's not throwing in the towel early. He is so close — 12,150 votes! — and I think the hair-breadth margin should be kept in the news cycle for as long as possible.

“We’ve closed a big gap,” Gillespie said. “You know, when I got in, we were down 29 points to Mark Warner.”

On the campaign trail, Gillespie often pointed out that Warner has voted with President Barack Obama 97 percent of the time; meanwhile, Warner, argued that he had been an independent senator willing to work with both parties.

Gillespie ran an ad during Monday night football taking the side of the Redskins, the football team under attack by liberal politicians. “I’ll oppose the anti-Redskins bill,” Gillespie said in the ad. “Let’s focus on creating jobs, raising take-home pay, and making our nation safer, and let the Redskins handle what to call their team.”

Recently, Gillespie ran an ad accusing Warner of playing “politics with a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.” Gillespie also criticized Warner for using taxpayer-funded private planes.

New York Times Continues Crying

Yesterday they start crying as I noted here. I just googled the phrase exit poll and found out that they have continued crying in this piece which should be headlined "PLEASE, DEMOCRATS, GO OUT AND VOTE AND DON'T GET DISCOURAGED BY THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR PATHETIC CANDIDATES!!" The articles is replete with various boring examples, excerpt:

Take Missouri. According to the 2012 American Community Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau, there were 491,000 black adult citizens in Missouri. If 16 percent of 2.7 million Missouri voters were black, as the exit polls said, then there were 442,000 black voters in 2012. That would require 90 percent turnout among eligible black voters, which obviously didn’t happen.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Hey, Democrats, if you haven't voted yet don't bother going out and wasting your time tonight. Pour a stiff one and watch Marley and Me.

2014 Election Results Website & Coverage

I'm going to be trying out Townhall's election results website tonight. Probably I'll also be checking out Fox's page from time to time.

Hugh Hewitt will be doing election coverage tonight until 1am, and the show should be available on WHK radio by clicking here. I'm planning on blogging at least 3 or 4 times, so stay tuned.

Newsflash: Abortion isn't that popular

OK... obligatory language alert in the following post. Please mind that it is all warranted.

Perhaps this is the best illustration yet of what has been the characteristic failure to connect on the part of the Democrats this season. Mark Udall — who has been dubbed "Mark Uterus" due to his obsession with the female reproductive system — was heckled by his own millionaire donor:

Then, finally, came the only reference to policy in Udall’s speech. “And by the way, I’m proud to stand with Colorado’s women,” he said, almost as an aside. “I’m proud to stand for reproductive freedom.”

An angry voice from the crowd jeered: “That’s not the only thing you stand for! Jesus Christ!”

Udall turned to a short, dark man on his left. The senator look genuinely stunned. “I’m sorry?”

“That’s not the only thing you stand for!” The heckler was Leo Beserra, a 73-year-old who made millions on Wall Street and, since the early 1990s, has shared a generous slice of that wealth with Colorado Democrats.

Beserra’s grievance – that the senator’s narrow focus on abortion has backfired – is shared by others in the party, but rarely voiced in public and never in the middle of the candidate’s campaign speech.

Well good for Leo Baserra. He has been a big rich dupe for supporting Democrats; maybe he is beginning to realize that now. Later he vented again to the press:

Minutes after interrupting the senator’s speech, he vented, once again, to the Guardian. “I’m trying to figure out who in the hell decided this was how the campaign was supposed to go.”

He said he had just watched a Sunday morning talkshow in which Udall was ridiculed.

“Who is running the worst campaign? Him. Because fucking abortion is all he talks about. He should not talk about it any more whatsoever. There are so many other issues.”

Referring to the 2012 election strategy, Beserra added: “Two years ago it might have made sense. But didn’t they get an inkling that it wasn’t working [this year]?”

Yeah, Leo, well we've hated fucking abortion for a long time, and we're disgusted with people promoting it like Udall and literally taking advantage of the women who feel like they are forced into it by sick people selling the culture of death and reaping the benefits of the abortion cash machine. It's time to send this guy packing so he can go hang in the Nighthawks painting with Abortion Barbie and Abortion Ken.

This video is NSFW, but it is the perfect response to Udall.



What do you want? Abortion fucks up everything and everybody it touches.

What should churches do?

Care of Drudge, a two page article in Politico about some church pastors daring the IRS to revoke their tax-privileged status for their campaigning directly for candidates from the pulpit. I haven't excerpted any of it, mainly so that you can find those parts you feel are most important to you.

So how should churches deal with this sort of thing?

I'll tell you how I feel. On the one hand, I'm tickled pink at extra voices working to defeat some of these idiot Democrats. On the other hand, I'm not too sure how I feel about these guys double-dipping, not only with respect to me but also with respect to their own congregants and their sister churches. By double-dipping, I mean they're getting some envious financial and tax benefits (like Rod Dreher's church not having to report much on any of his personal money which may or may not slosh through it) for agreeing to certain terms, then deciding to forsake those terms while keeping the benefits. Me, I'd like that deal, too.

Keep in mind that being the beneficiary of a tax expenditure (the formal term for these church exemptions) is no less a case of being on the government teat than receiving a welfare check; you just pocket the money other people including your congregants and parishioners don't get in a different way.

So what should churches do?

Should they play by the rules they originally agreed to?

Should they even be making deals with the government at all?

"Gruntly started it."

I found this funny. I read all the stuff out there about millennial behavior so I can better anticipate bad behavior on the part of my kids. (For example.)

But this is my favorite part. We've all known a Gruntly:

My old pal Gruntly, who never did like to talk on the phone, always used his answering machine to screen calls. When I used to call, saying, "Hello! Helloooo!," I knew Gruntly was sitting in a chair, eating Doritos and watching CNN. The only time his phone was ever picked up was when his wife was home.

And though Gruntly never answered the phone at his house, he hung up on my answering machine every time he called. I know this because I was one of the first to purchase Caller ID when it became available in the '90s.

Truth be told, I was shocked to learn how many people had been calling and hanging up on my machine when I wasn't home - and I was finally able to prove that Gruntly was one of the callers. I called him at work one day - he has to answer his work phone - and confronted him.

Purcell: You called last night?

Gruntly: No.

Purcell: And the night before?

Gruntly: No.

Purcell: Aha!

I gleefully presented my high-tech evidence, while he surely squirmed in his office chair. I admit it is a little creepy to have this sort of power over your friends, but Gruntly started it.

I remember back in 1993 there was a guy at a corporate office for one of my clients who never picked up his phone. Rumor was that he was never in his cubicle. So I sent him an email with a read receipt and when he opened his email, I got the receipt message and called his office phone. He picked up the phone and I was able to set up a meeting with him. This was before the age of rampant cell-phone use and before people (like me) started just calendaring people with Outlook. Of course now people can get an email anywhere on their smart phone so you have to actively ignore calls.

But the most surprising thing to me was the reaction of a co-worker when I explained how I'd caught the guy at his desk. He was aghast and suggested that what I did was a complete invasion of privacy. I explained that the guy who I called didn't react that way at all. "It's just like I looked through his window, saw him there, and called him." That was another thing. He was in one of these offices which was almost entirely made of glass. Maybe that's why he didn't spend much time in it to begin with? Everyone could see him in there?

But the main takeaway for me is this: I will be sure to leave many voice mail messages for all millennial people in my life. They can think of it as high-tech broccoli; it's good for them.

The CDC finally admits what we suspected

Hat tip Liberty News. Yes, we have suspected that Ebola is easier to contract than, for example, the AIDS virus.

Ebola is a lot easier to catch than health officials have admitted — and can be contracted by contact with a doorknob contaminated by a sneeze from an infected person an hour or more before, experts told The Post Tuesday.

“If you are sniffling and sneezing, you produce microorganisms that can get on stuff in a room. If people touch them, they could be” infected, said Dr. Meryl Nass, of the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington, DC.

Nass pointed to a poster the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly released on its Web site saying the deadly virus can be spread through “droplets.”

“Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose or mouth of another person,” the poster states.

No, we shouldn't panic, but we like information when information reflects the Truth. Knowledge is power, and should lead to preparedness.

New York Times starts crying

Oh, the agony! Such a deep, deep sadness has come over Jay Sullivan and David Schanzer that they are compelled to write this article: CANCEL THE MIDTERMS. Here's the key paragraph, in my opinion:

The realities of the modern election cycle are that we spend almost two years selecting a president with a well-developed agenda, but then, less than two years after the inauguration, the midterm election cripples that same president’s ability to advance that agenda.

How absurd. Could it be that the crippling of the agenda is possibly the fault of selected president? If the star receiver is selected to catch the ball on the final play and he drops it, should we cancel the football game? I'm pretty sure there was no similar article written for the Times in 2006.

Republican wonks like to talk about political capital, but I think the concept of the Divine Right is operative among liberals and democrats. The way most of us see it is that Obama has burnt all his capital, squandered his good will and used most of his trump cards. If you are one of the leftists at the New York Times you shout "Not fair! He gets a do over!" If you're a conservative you simply say "Well, time to punt, big guy."