She.Said.What ???

"... But that's not the point. I'm, I'm, I'm investing in something I believe in. I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels." -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Meet the Press, Aug. 24, 2008

News flash for Ms. Pelosi: Natural gas is a fossil fuel associated with oil, and only obtained by drilling for it. But you oppose drilling, Madame Speaker, don't you? Maybe not:

House Democratic leaders and protesters waving McCain signs had a war of words Tuesday at a press event outside an old train station. The demonstrators interrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with chants of “Drill here! Drill now!” Pelosi paused and asked the group, “Right here?” Seeming to enjoy the back and forth, she followed with another question: “Can we drill your brains?” -- Politico, The Crypt

It is difficult to believe the Speaker of the House stooped to such a juvenile, ignorant, insulting response. She apparently believes that drilling someone else's brain would improve her intelligence [or else she believes in torture for her opponents], but denies that drilling for oil would have any effect on price or availability. [Such thin-skinned pique on this issue might indicate the earful the Dhimicrats are getting from constituents in their districts during their recess -- the internal polling must be frightening.]

Communist Workers Community Organizers of the World, Unite !

We are being treated to the portrayal of Barack Obama as a low paid, selfless "community organizer" in South Chicago*, aiding the poor, minorities, and unrepresented people. This raises the question of what a "community organizer" actually is? For those unaware of the history of the radical left in the U.S., I offer the following definition:

Community Organizer: is innocuously defined as "a person who facilitates a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest" but is actually Saul Alinsky Orwellian doublespeak for "Socialist Agitator"

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* I have only been to Chicago once, about 10 years ago, and accidentally ended up driving through South Chicago. I could not believe what I saw there. There were burned out cars on the streets, most of the businesses I saw were boarded up, and the entrance and exit ramps to the freeways were intentionally blocked off. It was as if I had suddenly been transported to a war zone in some foreign country.

What.Kind.of.Change???

"Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the tradional responses which they propose to replace. ... It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race." - Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History

We find ourselves in another Presidential "silly season", where we are being asked to vote for "Change" and new ways of doing things. The goals are lofty, the promises grandiose, and any discussion of the means vague or missing entirely -- but at least we would be trying to do something about the problems, right? Perhaps, except for the stubborn fact that most of the current problems, i.e., Social Security, Medicare, failing schools, rampant illegal immigration, terrorism, high health care costs, energy problems, runaway government spending, &tc. are the result of past efforts by the "progressives" in our midst -- but we are now being asked to believe that the same attitudes and efforts which created them will now miraculously solve them. As the Durants point out, such "change for change's sake" is usually doomed to make the problems worse -- there are good reasons things are the way they are, because as imperfect as the world may seem, at least it works reasonalby well, and changes usually upset the social equilibrium of the past.

Quote of the Day

Little Rhetoric Riding Hood, George Will, Aug. 24, 2008.

He [Obama] also says — and might say so even if Nevada were not a swing state — that he distrusts the safety of Nevada's Yucca Mountain for storage of radioactive waste. Evidently he prefers today's situation — nuclear waste stored at 126 inherently insecure above-ground sites in 39 states, within 75 miles of where more than 161 million Americans live.

Finally, someone points out the unsanity of blocking Yucca Mountain and what a national security risk this poses. We are very worried that terrorists might smuggle in nuclear material to create a dirty bomb, when it would be much easier to detonate a truck bomb at one of the currently insecure sites. Our national security requires that this waste be centralized, and safely stored underground with adequate security.