BigT’s Roundup - (10-5-07)

by BigT | October 5, 2007 at 01:56 pm

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Everything that is happening in the land written here; from my blog at ConservativeINC.

I
would first like to take some time out and explain to Senator Obama
that when you stop doing something sometimes it’s important to tell the
world and sometimes it’s just plain stupid. For example, when you stop
smoking (which made me mad because I wanted to be the one to take a
picture of him smoking so I could sell it for a lot of money!) tell
everyone. That is a good thing that should make you healthier and will
prevent you from showing up on one of those commercials breathing out
of an oxygen machine while sitting on wheelchair in a hospital.

However, when you stop wearing a flag pin don’t tell the world.
It’s a dumb, rookie move that screams for opponents on both the right
on the left (Hillary) to castigate you. Look, not wearing a flag pin
does not make you “unpatriotic” but purposefully taking it off to make
a statement gets pretty close, at least close enough to warrant
criticism. Still, what he has said has no comparison to what Katie Couric said a couple weeks ago.

There is a lot of things going on in the money world these days
(when isn’t there a lot going on?). First I would like to touch on the
improved job numbers. I have to tell you I was a little worried because
earlier in the summer there was a report that came out that showed a
softening in the temporary jobs market. This usually leads to a general
softening of the overall jobs market. But I also thought it might not
be that bad because there was an anomaly in the time when school
started, it started late this year in some regions, which lead to an
unusually weak job report. Well, hopefully, it seems that the job market has improve,d based on the latest numbers.

Fears that the country could slide into a recession
eased in September as employers created the most jobs in four months
and workers’ wages grew solidly. The unemployment rate crept up to 4.7
percent, the highest in over a year but still low by historical
standards.

Wall Street breathed a sign of relief and pushed the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 125 points in afternoon trading.

The tally of 110,000 net new jobs generated in September clearly
heartened investors and analysts. Yet what they really took comfort in
was the revelation that the job market — a main pillar for the economy_
didn’t crack under the pressure of a painful credit crunch and housing
slump in August after all.

The Labor Department’s fresh snapshot of employment conditions
around the country released Friday showed that the economy actually
created 89,000 jobs in August.

The story also goes on to say that wages grew by more then four
percent from the same period a year ago. This is great news and is
probably the reason why democrat are not harping on the state of the
economy but rather focusing on socialist programs for the poor and
middle class. I think that if republicans want to stand a chance of
winning next year they need to frame the debate around a strong economy
which has been abetted by low taxes and free trade. Some are doing
that, Fred Thompson for example, but they are also focusing on big
government programs that deal with health care and I don’t know about
other conservatives but that isn’t something that is going to make want
to throw a fundraiser or go door to door for the candidate. The only
way a republican is going to be elected this time around is if they
become the first conservative republican candidate since 1984. Don’t
believe me? Take a look at what is going on in England:

How did Cameron and his team achieve this? First, the
Conservative right has shown a commendable loyalty that was not
displayed by the left when they unseated the tastefully-named Iain
Duncan Smith. Secondly, Team Cameron has realized the visceral appeal
of conservative economic policy. The announcement of an intention to
abolish the British version of the death tax was extremely important,
appealing to conservative values of inheritance and keeping the state
out of people’s pockets. The excessive greenery has been tempered, if
not abandoned. In that debate, it is quite clear that the leadership
has now realized that the economy is politically more important than
the environment and that moral worth can be measured by a commitment to
progress and growth as much as by concern for the planet.

One of the most important characteristics of present-day
conservatism is that it favors a small government at least partially
because any gigantic entity becomes bogged down by bureaucracy and
suffers major inefficiencies. That is why I love it when companies
break up. There is no reason why Kraft should have been part of Phillip
Morris (I financially benefited from that breakup) and there is no reason why Bungie should be a part of the Microsoft empire. Bungie is all about making creative games their own way (and making a bundle doing it).
Microsoft is about making software for computers. Sure, they can work
together but the business models are not nearly the same and they
produce drastically different products.

And I was also heartened to hear that Yahoo may be breaking up. From BloggingStocks we get this analysis:

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares are trading higher today after a new Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. report suggested this morning that Yahoo would be worth more if it broke up its Internet businesses.
The analyst said Yahoo’s operations could be valued as high as $39 per
share, compared with a current share price closer to $27. If you think
that the company won’t fall by too much in the coming months, then now
could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on YHOO.

The economy moves too fast nowadays to entrust your company’s
livelihood to a massive, slow-moving, organization. Maybe the Yahoo
breakup won’t happen but it is worth thinking about. Does anyone
remember AOL/Time Warner?

Does anyone remember the non-stop assault on Rush Limbaugh? What, it’s still going on? No way! Yep, and today comes another pot shot from the people at the Huffington Post.
Rush, if you forgot, is forced by court order to get monthly drug
testing done because he was illegally using a controlled substance. He
got hooked on the drug because he had agonizing neck pain and had to
use OxyContin so he would not have to have potentially career-ending
neck surgery (the problem is close to the vocal chords and, well, you
can connect the dots). Unfortunately, the OxyContin made him go deaf
leading him to get a cochlear implant so he could hear (if you can’t
hear it’s hard to talk). During all of this the cops got his maid to
allegedly turn on her boss saying that she was his drug dealer. Rush
then had to deal with a possible prosecution for a few months while
going to a rehab facility. And now you’re caught up.

Maybe someone should have caught the guy from the Huffington Post up
as well because in his little smear he repeatedly made fun of Rush for
being a drug addict and misleading implied that Rush has only passed
his most recent drug test. I don’t care that the left hates Rush, it
just shows that he’s effective, but to slander a guy for having a drug
problem, especially when that drug problem starts due to an injury, is
just wrong. Heck, many supporters on the left are drug users without
having had a bad neck.

But this is all a diversion from the most preventative military
intervention ever in Iraq. The smart money was on an escalation of
attacks in Iraq as Petraeus’ report approached. A big thing happened,
nothing. After killing al Qaeda Iraq big wig al Tunisi recently we get news that al Qaeda is in disarray in the region. Piggybacking this good news is a report from National Review Editor Rich Lowry from Northwest Baghdad:

There were two keys to this turnaround. First, the U.S.
pushed back against JAM, whose depredations had driven Sunnis into the
arms of al Qaeda. Two, it instituted population-control measures that
squeezed al Qaeda. This created the opening for what American troops
call “the honorable resistance” — Sunni insurgents who weren’t Islamist
terrorists — to reject al Qaeda and basically switch sides in the war.

Politicians in the U.S. often argue that we should “stop policing
the civil war” and “go back to our bases” to focus on
“counterterrorism.” The experience of Ghazaliya says otherwise —
tamping down the civil war and getting out in the streets created the
predicate for prying Sunnis from al Qaeda in an enormous blow to the
terror group.

A similar turn has happened throughout Iraq, with tens of thousands
of Sunnis allying with Americans and volunteering for local police
forces. But American officers worry that the Shia government won’t
welcome them into formal government-security forces, which would be a
crucial step toward Sunni-Shia reconciliation.

Sure, things can turn in an instance. When can’t they in war? We
almost lost WWII with the Battle of the Bulge and we most certainly can
lose it now that we are getting Sunnis to turn on their terrorist
brethren. With all things considered, however, I like the position
we’re in now then the position we were in at the start of the year.

“But what about the real threat to the world you neo-con b@$^$^!?”
Obviously this person is talking about global warming; the biggest
issue of our time. Well, that’s the general consensus anyways among a
bunch of people who’ve only watched, read, or listened to evidence that
global warming is caused by man. The odd thing about this is that the
deity of this movement, the Al Gore, has so far refused to debate
anyone on this issue. Weird, isn’t it, that someone who says that the
debate is over because the evidence is just so obvious will refuse such
an easy contest. Even
though he has refused to debate a group is having a “debate” by
interspersing things Al Gore has said and having someone refute his
arguments. Maybe he doesn’t want to argue because the ice is melting because of the wind and not because of your Hummer.

What, you don’t believe me? NASA is advancing that theory right now. Yup, that same NASA you have known for fifty years. According to Hot Air NASA is saying they now have a working theory that winds are causing the ice to our North to melt.
Look, no one knows how the weather works. We know a little bit about
the broad strokes but we don’t really know much. How could we? It is
such a complex system that probably has thousands of variables. The
best thing I can compare it to is the stock market. But even then, I
think the weather is a lot more complicated and yet we still can’t
figure out which stocks are going to go up and down with certainty and
we are continually surprised when a market falters or booms. So why are
we so cock-sure about the weather a century from now? Answer: it’s
politically advantageous for leftists.

Finally, what about the children? SCHIP is something that the
liberals have clung on to in hopes of it bringing them electoral
victory. They falsely claim that Bush does not want to fund health care
for poor children (he just doesn’t want to fund health care for
children who aren’t sufficiently poor enough) and they are using this
perceived Scrooginess (it’s a word now, I told spell check) to try and
push the importance of universal health care for everyone. SCHIP is
nothing more then a gigantic power grab by the government and,
unfortunately, health care providers are going to go along with its necessity
because it would save them a lot of money because they will now have to
insure less snotty noses. Democracy doesn’t end with applause, Star
Wars’ Queen Amidala, it ends silently with the government’s sharp knife
of statism.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:

A picture of Padme in action:

Padme Amidala

Rush for VP!

Al Gore for President!

Blind seals get better treatment then the average American.

NASA chief predicts 6 degree Celsius increase in temperatures!

Kim Jong Il has mastered Al Gore’s creation.

The paparazzi tried to kill Diana’s son like they killed her.

Credit cards still work in America.

BigT

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