This kind of article drives me crazy

Because I don't know whether to believe it ... or to throw it on the heap of conspiracy theories created by overheated minds.

What would George Bailey do?

Will you be Tom? Or Miss Davis?

But we don't have any more George Baileys, I'm afraid. Just Mr. Potters.

You MUST watch this video.

h/t Anchoress. (Note: Keep your mouse on the "pause" button because it goes pretty fast and you don't want to miss a good look at the graphs and charts. Seriously.)

This doesn't sound good at all.

Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard (h/t Instapundit) has this:

The huge European bank Fortis is apparently about to fail. The ripple effect on the American banking system could be disastrous, with bank runs, liquidity crises, and stock sell offs possible Monday. Wachovia may well fail next week. As Larry put it, this really will be 1933 soon if we don't move rapidly to stabilize the banking system.

And here's the bad news: the current bailout bill, whatever its merits and likelihood of passage, does nothing to address this.

Things I apparently missed in the debate

Reading around other blogs (sorry, no links, as I don't remember exactly where I saw these comments), it seems like many people noted that John McCain never looked at Barack Obama. Honestly, I hadn't noticed that, but now that I think about it, I can see that it's a problem. All those non-verbals are huge.

Another blog noted that Obama tended to look into the camera more than McCain did; again, I hadn't noticed it last night, but now that they mention it, yes, McCain didn't look at the camera much.

I'm reading Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan (hard to do, but hey, I've got to see what the other side is saying) and wow, they really, really hate McCain and Palin. In spite of my enthusiasm about the debate last night, there are things that still bug me about McCain, but Good Lord, he's much better than the liberal Marxist community organizer! As far as Palin... I think the vicious media attack has had an effect. I do feel like they're "hiding" her. I wish we could hear a little more from her. I'm praying that the debate with Biden goes well.

Praying for this election, in general, that we elect the right man and that our country returns to a culture of life.

But that will take much, much more than one President could ever do.

I love this guy!

[NOTE: I'm liveblogging the debate, though I'm a bit behind as I had it paused. The guy I'm referring to above is, of course, McCain.]

He had me at "Didja think I couldn't hear him?"

Great line! Self-deprecating humor gets me every time. (That's one of the many reasons I married my husband.)

Another great line: "I didn't win Miss Congeniality in the Senate."

Funny thing. I never was that crazy about McCain. He was always "too liberal" for me. But you know what? I am 100% impressed with what I'm hearing from him so far tonight. I think he's a bulldog on cost cutting. The story about cutting $6.8 billion (billion?) on a Boeing contract, and throwing some of the culprits in jail for it, was fantastic.

He also got some great stuff in there about Obama's $1 in earmarks for every day he's been in the Senate, and about his liberal voting record. That last comment wasn't really germane to the question, but who cares?

Obama sounds pompous. My daughter said he always sounds arrogant. He seems to have no sense of humor; he's trying too hard to look presidential.

I heard the first half hour while waiting for my daughter to get out of work. Now I'm going to quick take a peek around the blogosphere. I'll bet anything Vodkapundit is drunkblogging it (just checked: yep) and maybe Althouse (yep).

I'll be right back!

UPDATE: I'm back.

Ooooh, I hate when Obama says "pahk-ee-stahn". I HATE that. Talk like an American, for crying out loud! It's PACK-IH-STAN. Criminy.

UPDATE again. Obama has said, several times, "When I'm president." Arrogant. McCain seems to say "if" I'm president. Humble. And real.

I'm thinking that Obama may lose this thing on pure arrogance. "I reserve the right as President to sit down with anyone I choose at the time and place of my choosing." Oh do you now. Whatever.

McCain keeps saying that there are things Obama doesn't understand. He's "naive", "dangerous". Wow, those are some hard jabs. But not uncalled for.

UPDATE: Teen daughter (16 yo) says "McCain sounds like he means what he's saying." Obama looks really ticked off. Furious, even. This while McCain is ripping him about his stand on meeting with Ahmadinejad. McCain seems to be enjoying himself; he's loose, sharp, has a sense of humor. He also knows a heckuva lot of stuff about foreign affairs.

Stephen Green says:

This debate still has ten minutes or so to go. But it’s not too soon to give you a wrap. McCain is no debater. He wouldn’t last a second during Question Hour in the British Parliament. And yet Obama is coming off in third place in a two-man session.

Great line!

UPDATE: Obama has a plan for energy! A secret plan!

More Stephen Green:

OK, I’ll give you a real close now. Obama strikes me as a modern Chamberlain, praising his (oh-so-transient) “peace with honor.” McCain, however, comes across as “peace when we’re done kicking you ass and not one moment sooner.” And since this was ostensibly a foreign policy debate, I give the win to McCain. Oh, and one other thing — Obama is still talking as I write this. But he’s spending his last answer angling for the European vote, which does nothing but reinforce my point.

I have to agree. I give this one to McCain. He cleaned Obama's clock.

Most important, on a personal level: He made the sale to me. The title of this post was obviously a little over-enthusiastic, but it really just means that now, when I pull the lever for McCain/Palin, it won't be half-heartedly.

Sneezing.

All day. Hard, violent sneezes. Can't post. Can't think. This cold has been coming on all week but I fought it. Today the score is Cold, 1, M.E., 0.

Maybe McCain was right, I don't know. Maybe Obama will look like a doofus if he goes to the debate all by himself.

Maybe Congress will figure out what to do about the bailout but I'm not very confident about that.

Maybe I won't sneeze so much tomorrow.

A really good explanation

This is a great explanation of what happened -- with no political spin at all, truly -- and of what the "bailout" means. (h/t Ace)

If it's true, and it seems to make sense with everything else I've read, then I think the bailout is a good thing.

Looks like we might be able to avoid the doomsday scenario, just possibly.

On detachment, and what comes next

One thing about this financial crisis for sure: it's creating a deep spirit of detachment in me.

So what happens if the economy completely tanks? What if the stock market loses 90% of its value, or more, as it did eventually after the crash of '29? (From which it took over 20 years to recover to the same level, by the way.) What if all our responsible saving-for-a-rainy-day is for nought?

Well, then we start over. We learn to get along with almost nothing. We combine our skills in the family and figure out what is valuable in a barter economy. (See what I mean? I'm really feeling apocalyptic about all this.)

And we learn to completely trust in God for everything.

The Anchoress is imploring people to pray for wisdom for our leaders. Absolutely do that (I know most everyone who reads this little blog already does), and pray for detachment for all of us.

Another thought, about what we do going forward should the worst happen, from Grand Rants (via the Anchoress).

We will feel this impact, potentially, for years to come. And that’s only if we do this the right way… the HARD way. But this is not necessarily a bad thing completely. In point of fact, it’s actually an opportunity for us to “right” this ship we’re on.

Read the whole thing; it's good, and it sums up what I've been feeling. We'll do what must be done.

Lots of people in the blogosphere have written, "jokingly", about the coming Revolution. Others have written, with a wry between-the-lines smile, about being in the Resistance.

Read me right: I'm not wishing for a financial and governmental meltdown, not by a long shot. No sane person would ever hope for such a thing with all the misery it will bring.

But if it must come, then maybe it will be an opportunity, as Grand Rants says.

If only we didn't have to learn the hard way... but it doesn't look like there's going to be an easy way out of this.

Bad move on McCain's part

McCain wants to "suspend his campaign" and postpone the debate.

Oh, this is bad. First of all, it gives the impression that he's flying back to D.C. like Superman to fix the financial mess. Ridiculous.

Secondly, why can't he discuss the issues with his colleagues while he's campaigning?

Thirdly, it gives Obama an opening to say "I can do two things at once".

So my reaction is that this isn't good at all.

Ann Althouse thinks it's good. That surprises me.

Ah, but a quick look around the blogosphere finds a few others who have the same take I do: The Anchoress says "this may be the day we look back on as the day McCain lost the election"; I'm sad to say I agree. This just gives me a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The Other McCain says, in his inimitable way, "Holy Crap! This is insane!" Yep.

Dang.

UPDATE: Thank you, kind Anchoress, for the link. Welcome, visitors! For your perusal, here's another post, short and to the point but with lots of good linkage, and here's one for a more introspective look at things. And for a laugh, which is hard to come by today, this one.

What I was getting at the other day

Rush sums it up:

Victor Davis Hanson today has a nice post at National Review Online, and I've been trying to say this for the past couple of days in an attempt to explain what really irritates people, and it's irritated me for a long time, too. Let me set it up by asking how many times in your lifetime have you heard politicians and pundits complain that the US personal savings rate is horrible? You know, you need to save more, you're not saving enough, even though you're putting money away in a Keogh plan or a SEP Keogh or a 401(k) or whatever, most Americans are investors now, even their pension plans where they work. And yet we still hear this lament that people aren't saving enough. We had Senator Hollins, "Too much consuming going on out there. Not enough saving going on out there." All right, okay, so people save money. Now, here is Victor Davis Hanson's take on this: "The common theme is the hard-working American who tried to save is being punished by those who used his set-asides to unduly enrich themselves, aided by revolving-door politicians who now wanted cash donations from, and later good jobs on, Wall Street." [Emphasis mine]

However, I think another Victor David Hanson post sums up what Dad29 was getting at in his comment here the other day:

In the sudden rush to blame the crooks in DC and on Wall Street, we should first take a long look in the mirror. For two decades, we — as in we Americans — expected to buy homes, flip them, and walk away with thousands — without much thought about what might happen to the johnny-come-lately at the bottom of the pyramid when the game was finally up and housing prices cooled or crashed. Walking away from a mortgage on a house with negative equity was "smart;" putting someone in one who had no ability to come up with a down payment, monthly payments, taxes, and maintenance was "fair"; borrowing unduly against equity for cash expenditures was "understandable."

I personally didn't do any of these things, and I'm betting neither did Dad29. Actually I can't think of a single person I know among all our friends and family who did these things (except for my hairdresser who was pretty good at flipping condos).

But I get the point. We've all benefited (until now) from an economy that apparently was based partly on fraud, greed, and deception. And now we're all going to pay the piper.

You think it's bad now?

Just imagine if Obama gets elected. Sadly, this poll indicates that most Americans actually think Obama would be better equipped than McCain to deal with the economy.

Sure, if by "better equipped" you mean "Marxist leaning radical who wants to destroy the American way of life and whose campaign advisors and whose party have contributed greatly to the current financial disaster."

Was I correct in thinking that a Depression is likely without the bailout?

This article says that yes, without the bailout, we're talking major Depression, worse than anything they had in the 30's. I've heard the stories and certainly wouldn't want to see that again.

However, there are quite a few saying the bailout is a terrible idea.

Apparently a movement has started to "Kill the Bill".

I'm starting to understand why McCain looked so subdued today in a stump speech, and why Obama is looking just plain scared to death. This is huge and I'm not sure anyone really knows what to do, or what the unintended consequences will be.

More about the financial melt-down

This is good. H/T the Anchoress.

But if you're sick of the financial mess, how about this, courtesy of my good friend Beth:

Some people will do anything to win an election:

Trying to figure out the financial crisis and what will happen next

What I'm understanding, from Dad29, Megan McArdle, and lots of other reading, is that we need immediate action from the government because the short term credit market was/is *this close* to being frozen. If that happens, businesses across the country will collapse, as they won't be able to get the short term loans they need to keep the doors open every day.

If that happens, we'll be plunged into an instant Depression. As Dad29 says, forget about getting a paycheck. Am I right in my understanding so far? [Asks question of blogosphere hoping one or two people will happen to stop by to reply...]

I'm trying to get a crash course in economics here. Gallows humor intended.

What I'd really like to know is: Should we grab our 401K's, take the tax penalty, and buy precious metals? Or canned goods? Or just stick the money in a shoe box?

Just kidding. Sort of.

No, we weren't really chumps

Of course I don't think we were really chumps for playing by the rules of the game, saving money, paying our debts, taking out reasonable loans, etc.

My point was that I don't think it's fair to blame all Americans for the financial crisis; I don't think we can say we've all been greedy. There are a lot of hard-working people, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, who are going to be hurt because of the greed and corruption of a small number of people who were gaming the system. And that's the way it always goes.

Now it looks like the Democrats are going to risk letting our entire economy crash and burn ... (h/t The Other McCain) just so they can score some points for Obama.

Democrats in the Senate and House believe that if they can string out negotiations on the federal financial markets bailout through Tuesday, "we can get everything we want and more, including solidifying the Obama campaign," says a Senate Banking Committee staffer working for the majority.

"Let's see what the White House has to say when the market is cratering again."

Unbelievable.

Up from the comments: "The Enemy is Us"

Dad29 (one of my few regular commenters, so automatically one of my favorite bloggers) comments on this post saying, in the words of Pogo, "The enemy is us".

He says we've all been greedy:

I mean, really! A house worth $150K in 1980 merely lasts until 2008 and is worth $380K?

Now, you know I like you, Dad29 (though we've never met), but I'm not sure I understand what's so outrageous about that. It's an increase of about 3.3% per year. Considering that inflation has averaged at least that much over the past couple of decades, that was just barely staying even.

To tell you the truth, I really don't think the enemy is us, if by "us" you mean the average responsible American.

Take our family as an example: We worked hard (my husband in the job force, me at home raising and educating the kids), built up a modest 401K account, took out a reasonable mortgage and paid it faithfully every month.

We pay our taxes and all our bills and donate to charity. We have no other debt beyond the mortgage.

We never looked for the latest greatest investment scheme; we tried to be reasonable and moderate in our earnings goals.

We hang on to our cars for years and years, and we've had hand-me-down furniture until just recently (after 21 years of marriage).

We were chumps.

Obviously there were plenty of other Americans who didn't follow that game plan. They spent like crazy, piled up credit card debt, bought houses far too expensive for their incomes, took on mortgages they couldn't pay. Is the enemy "them"? Yes, partly.

It's also the managers of financial institutions who didn't have a clue what they were buying or what the risks were.

Listen to Mayor Bloomberg from this morning's Today Show:

In fact, the managements of a lot of these companies, I'm convinced, never knew what their traders were buying and what the risks were. And they, every day, wake up not having any idea what's going to happen to them. When things were going up, it was great, nobody paid attention. We were all comfortable with letting that situation continue. Now, all of a sudden, things are going down for a variety of reasons. It started with maybe the increase in oil. It started with overbuilding in the real estate residential part of the market. It started with just the end of a cycle. Nothing goes up for ever. And then all of a sudden we've said, you know, "What's happening here?"

(Of course, Bloomberg also said we have worse health care here than they do in Western Europe, which is just plain wrong. We have the best health care in the world and I'm tired of politicians promoting the baloney that countries with socialized medicine are doing better than we are.)

Then add in the political mess I mentioned in that earlier post, where Democrats were busy blocking proposals by President Bush in 2003 that might have prevented this economic melt-down, were shaking down banks to give loans to people who had no business taking on mortgages, and had their hands in the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac cookie jar.

Did we worry about what we were seeing over the past few decades? You bet. We saw the huge McMansions going up in the exurbs and wondered who on earth could afford them. (Clearly, not as many people as thought they could.) We were concerned about the increasing level of debt of many Americans and the negative savings rate. We also talked about the insane amount of Federal money going to debt service, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It's just not sustainable, not by a long shot.

But what should we have done, exactly? Other than put our money in shoe boxes so as not to feed the stock-market / investment monster?

So is the enemy us? Depends on what the meaning of "us" is, I guess.

Obama's Grandmother and Hillary

Heard an Obama radio ad yesterday. He says he remembers his grandmother slaving away at work and being passed over for promotions. A man would get the higher level job instead.

Hmmm.

I bet Hillary could identify with his grandmother.

Don't just blame greedy capitalists

As I said in a previous post, I don't fully understand what's going on economically right now.

However, I'm starting to get an education on it. Turns out it's not all the fault of the market, or greedy Wall Streeters. Some of the blame has to be laid at the feet of one of the worst presidents we ever had: Bill Clinton.

Just go read this post by "The Other McCain". A few quotes, this one from Investors Business Daily:

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.
Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

Raines, of course, happens to be an advisor to Obama.

Some of the blame also goes to those infamous "community organizers", who apparently not only go around signing up fake voters, but (thanks to Clinton) turned into financial thugs who helped bring down banks and the mortgage industry.

More from the same post, this time a quote from the City Journal:

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act . . . into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities -- and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government. (Emphasis added [by "The Other McCain"].)

Right now, I'm listening to McCain's speech in Green Bay; he's mostly blaming greed on Wall Street.

But wait... no, not just greed: He's addressing corruption in the home mortgage system. Yes, I think he's indirectly talking about the Community Reinvestment Act, talking about "forcing" mortgages on those unable to pay them. That's a good way to put it.

And yes, now he's talking about Obama's connections to this mess. He's saying that Obama profited from it; he's talking about the money Obama got from Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac, talking about Raines and Jim Johnson (another Obama advisor, former Fannie Mae chief).

Good. Now, will Obama's connections to all this be in the Chicago Tribune? No, of course not. But just imagine the media frenzy if it had been McCain all tangled up in this.

Fact-checking Palin: Oh please.

UPDATE: I wrote this last night and thought I posted it, but this morning found it in the drafts. Weird. Anyway, here it is.

This is bad. I'm already steamed about the hacking into Palin's email account. And then I make the mistake of tuning into NBC news.

Right now, there's a big story about how "reporters are still fact-checking" everything Palin has said so far.

Please!

Could anybody fact check anything that Obama says? Could somebody bother to look into his connections with convicted criminals and domestic terrorists? Can anybody please take every offhand statement that Biden makes and blow it up into a big old segment on the Nightly News?

Let me just say this, Ms. Reporter, Savannah Guthrie, whose snide voice is at this very moment coming over my TV set:

I don't believe one single thing you say. I'd like someone to fact-check you, because my trust in you and your network is zero. I know from personal experience that the media lies, twists, and distorts things, that mainstream media are in the tank for Obama and have been for several years now, that you hate the right and will do everything in your power to destroy McCain and Palin.

So you can take your petty, one-sided fact-checking and your stupid little report and your smug little smile at the end and go put it in a vault somewhere filed under"Bias", or "Mean-Spirited Attacks", or maybe "How the Press Destroyed Itself".

I'll go find the truth somewhere else, thank you very much.

UPDATE: This article at NewsBusters notes that their "fact checking" isn't too convincing.

Criminal lefties hacked into Sarah Palin's private email account

Idiots on the left have hacked into Sarah Palin's private email account and posted her daughter's cell phone number, her husband's private email address, private family photos, and screen shots of personal emails.

I can barely write about this; I just start sputtering with indignation at the lowlife behavior of certain elements of the left. Or, as the Anchoress puts it, "the Obamaphiles - the angry, crazed, hate-filled part of the left who cannot understand the right and will not play fair".

And the hypocrisy! Again, the Anchoress:

And excuse me, but aren’t the people on the left the ones who have been telling us - without basis - for the last 8 years that “evil nazi Bush” has been “intruding into people’s private correspondences” and that this (if it were happening) would be a bad thing? Can the hypocrisy get any thicker?

[snip]

Nice people, eh? These privacy-invading-picture-stealing-rumor-smearing-death advocates are the people Jeannine Garofalo says are “fundamentally decent” and good…unlike the narrow, racist, sexist, homophobe, knuckledragging, illiterate rest of us.

Gosh, I'm so glad the Anchoress can say all the things I would love to say, if I could stop sputtering long enough to form coherent sentences.

Anyway, go read The Anchoress for the full story. Michele Malkin has it covered, too, as well as background on the truly evil stuff from the left that she's been subjected to.

Gee, wonder if I'll see this in the Chicago Tribune tomorrow? What, you don't think so? Neither do I.

But just imagine if someone on the right had hacked into Obama's or Biden's personal email account.

UPDATE: Michele Malkin has more; it appears to be an individual hacker who was trying to find something bad about Sarah Palin (but couldn't find anything). His email address is now public and I'm pretty sure he'll be talking to the Feds soon.

About the financial crisis

All I know for sure about the latest financial crisis is that both sides will try to make some political hay out of it.

That said, this is pretty interesting:

"You look at Obama's economic advisers, the guys he has counted on from day one and who have raised him a ton -- and I mean a ton -- of money: Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of them are waist to neck deep in the mortgage debacle."

Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae, with Raines taking over from Johnson. Both are key political and economic advisers to Obama.

"How can Obama go out with a straight face and saw it was Republicans who made this mess, when it is his key advisers who ran the agencies that made the big mess what it is?" says a Democrat House member who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. "It's his people who are responsible for what may well be the single largest government bailout in history. And every single one of them made millions off the collapse that are lining Obama's campaign coffers. If the McCain campaign lets this one go, they deserve to lose."

h/t Over-the-Hill Oracles, via The Right to Bear Arms. I must have found it on Right to Bear Arms via some other blogger but honestly can't remember who. If I figure it out, I'll post it here.

And now, let's just wait to see how the drive-by media, as Rush puts it, covers this little-known-fact about Obama. Which of course will be not at all.

9/11: I remember

I hadn't turned the TV on yet when my brother called.

"A plane hit the World Trade Center." "What?!?" "Terrorism."

I remember Tom Brokaw calling it "an act of war".

I remember the fear I felt all that day as the news came: another plane, another, and another. The towers falling.

Then there was the trepidation I felt every morning after that, for I don't know how long -- months? a year? longer? Wondering if there would be another attack, wondering what I'd see when I turned on the news.

So here we are, seven years later, with no additional attacks. No one expected that; everyone -- everyone! -- thought we'd surely be attacked again.

And if President Bush had done nothing, they probably would have been right.

Sarah Palin mania!

Sarah Palin is making the left FREAK OUT!

Sarah Palin is proof that John McCain, fighter pilot, is inside Obama's OODA loop!

Oh, I just don't know if I can stand all this happiness. But there's more:

Sarah Palin is ending global warming and causing the Arctic to grow more ice! (h/t Dad29.)

And finally, Sarah Palin is messing with Obama's head and making him have a gpd (gaffes per day) quotient that's higher than any previous politician, including Dan ("Potatoe") Quayle and George W. ("Misunderestimated") Bush.



Well, technically I suppose Sarah Palin isn't responsible for those last two things. But it's still all happiness here.

Another media falsehood about Cedarburg?

I came across this Washington Times article yesterday and was highly skeptical.

CEDARBURG, Wisc. -- Hundreds of angry people in this small town outside Milwaukee taunted reporters and TV crews traveling with Sen. John McCain on Friday, chanting "Be fair!" and pointing fingers at a pack of journalists as they booed loudly.

This just didn't ring true. I was in a crowd of people on the sidewalk as the motorcade went by, and last of all came the press bus. Far as I could tell, there was no reaction in the people around me: no booing, no shouting, nothing. As I said in a previous post, the crowd was happy and pumped up but peaceful.

Still, I thought, maybe things were different on the other side of the rally. And who wouldn't understand the anti-press sentiment, given how completely they're in the tank for Obama and how badly they've treated Sarah Palin? Could happen, right?

However, I'm now convinced that once again the press is trying to make Republicans look bad: boorish at best, dangerous mobs at worst. As evidence, here's a comment I ran across on Just One Minute:

---I happened to be in this crowd and heard the interview. The reporter exagerates [sic] a little. The number of chanters in the crowd was in the tens, not hundreds (I did give a couple of shouts). Our crowd was very large perhaps three-four hundred of a couple thousand that couldn't get into the main venue of 8 thousand. [My comment: The main venue crowd was officially reported as 12,500, though they were expecting 8000.]

We weren't really booing either. It wasn't all anger either, it was mostly more of a taunt. They were mainly women in their fifties making schoolmarmish admonishm ents 'Be Fair (children)' to the press.

What the WaTimes reporter didn't catch was one of the reporters mocking us by prissily (hope that's a word) half bowing to us and mouthing 'I Promise'. The rest of our honored information bearers ignored us.

I am sure that his is one of the DriveByMedia outlets that is not in financial free fall, so he can continue to condescend to us.

Posted by: red | September 06, 2008 at 02:02 PM

Read the full article by Joe Curl and check off the insults. He refers to the group as a "pack" (of wild dogs, maybe?) and uses the rather provincial term "townspeople" (though a minute's checking would have found people from cities such as Madison and New Berlin, as well as people who drove up from Illinois).

In describing a moment at the RNC he calls the delegates "red-meat Republicans" (fits with the wild dog imagery) and says, "the crowd turned ugly" (What did they do? Riot? Rush the stage, as some Code Pink protesters tried to do? No, they chanted and pointed. Oh, horrors.)

Just more of the same from legacy media trying to hurt Republicans. I suppose we should be used to it by now.

About that new header pic

Don't you just love it? I do.

When I have time -- and when I can tear myself away from politico-blogging -- I'll write about our wonderful trip to Glacier Park, Montana, where that photo was taken.

I absolutely love the mountains. If I didn't love Wisconsin so much, and if I wasn't rooted so deeply here with family and friends, I would move to Montana in a heartbeat.

Or maybe South Dakota. Love that state, too.

Or North Dakota.

Or Wyoming.

I love the west.

UPDATE: My daughter thought I should mention that yes, I really did take this photo (you can tell by the person in the lower left corner; a professional would have either not let the woman stand there, or would have Photoshopped her out), and no, I didn't do any retouching at all. That gorgeous blue lake? Natural. The sky? Ditto. Just so ya' know.

Finally, some pics from the rally

Got the camera unloaded, did the soccer carpool (but why am I wishing I was a hockey mom??) and now am loading up the pics. Photography by my youngest daughter, age 9.

Picture One: The Line. This view stretches back into the distance -- you can see people standing all the way in the background at the top left. We couldn't see the end of the line, at all, ever. This is the point at which we gave up and walked back to an intersection closer to the rally site. It doesn't look like a huge crowd, but keep in mind, this line of people went on for literally almost a mile (a commenter here at Boots and Sabers says the line was 1.5 to 2 miles) and there were already thousands in the stands at the rally site itself.


Picture Two: The Same Line looking the other direction. We'd already walked about six blocks away from the rally to get to this point.


Picture Three: Protesters. Wendy says some of them admitted to getting paid to do this, but I'm not sure if they were the same ones as in this photo. We only saw about a dozen protestors and they really didn't interact with the crowd, at least as far as I saw, anyway.

Picture Four: One of the better homemade signs.

Other signs:

• "Maverick & Lipstick: What the White House Needs"
• "Democrat for McCain"
• "Women for McCain"
• "Homeschoolers for McCain"
• "Arugula vs. Caribou" (my personal favorite)
  

So how big was the crowd at the McCain/Palin rally?

[UPDATE: Welcome to all from the Anchoress & Althouse! You may also be interested in today's post about another media untruth about Cedarburg.)

In my previous post, I estimated at least 12,000.

This news report says that the crowd was 20,000 - 30,000. Definitely possible.

But just now on Fox News, under a video clip of the rally, the crawl said "1K". One thousand?!? That's ridiculous! There were about 600 cars in the lot where I parked, and let's say, very conservatively, that each of those cars averaged 1.5 people. (There were lots of couples, families, and groups of friends in attendance, so that's probably too low.)

Anyway, at 1.5 people per car, that lot alone would yield at least 900 people. And that was just one lot, about 4 blocks away from the event, and there were cars parked everywhere, all in and around Cedarburg. There could easily have been 10 times that number of cars parked around the town.

That would mean the crowd was at least 9000, but if you count the townspeople who walked or biked to the event (lots of those), now you're talking closer to 12,000, my original estimate, and as I said I think that's very conservative.

So where on earth did Fox get their estimate of just one thousand?

We went to the McCain / Palin rally today

[LOTS OF UPDATES! Read on, and then see the next post for a discussion of crowd size, and this one for some pics, as well as today's post about another media falsehood about Cedarburg.]

We tried, anyway, and even though we didn't make it into the rally itself, it was worth every minute to be part of something so big and so exciting!

The two youngest and I drove almost an hour to get to Cedarburg. We parked ($10, if you please) and started walking toward the downtown area.

As we neared, we saw the edges of a huge crowd and then realized we had to find the end of the line to walk through the metal detectors.

We walked for blocks and blocks trying to try to find the end of the line, yet as far as we walked, we could only see blocks of people stretching before us. The line curved all the way around the downtown Cedarburg area; it was easily over half a mile long but I couldn't see the end, so who knows? Could have been a mile.

I heard someone say that they were expecting up to 8,000 people, but there had to be at least 12,000. [UPDATE: This local news report says the crowd was estimated to be 20,000 - 30,000!]

So, realizing that it was futile to stand in line, we decided to walk back toward the center of town and just hang around to see what we could. Turns out we were right on the street where the motorcade was going to pass. The kids had front-row standing spots and we got to see the motorcycles and squads and finally the two big campaign busses.

The crowd was happy, pumped up, and very orderly (of course, we're Republicans!) There was a handful of protestors, the usual college-age, purple- and red-dyed hair variety, with signs saying "Funds for education, not occupation" (occupation?!? that's so-five-years-ago), some anti-Bush signs (uh, hello, he's not actually, like, running?!), and so on. But they were peaceful, and well-behaved; I explained to my kids that this, too, is part of our form of government and it's all good.

The winners today:

• McCain and Palin, obviously, who must have been delighted with such a huge turnout;
• The thousands of people who got a chance to be a part of something so exciting;
  
• The handful of protestors, who were treated respectfully (though mostly ignored) and who were able to peacefully exercise their freedom of speech and assembly;
  
• The t-shirt and bumper sticker vendors;
• The coffee shops in downtown Cedarburg;
• The people at Economy Glass who charged $10 per car for parking (and the lot had hundreds of cars);
• The numerous homeschool families who got a great civics field trip from the morning's events.
  

The losers? There weren't any. Not even the hundreds of us who had to walk away as we heard the crowd cheering wildly behind us. Not even those who drove from as far away as Madison and Illinois to be there, even if they couldn't get close to the stage.

We know that we're fired up, that something really great could happen here, and that an election that we are supposed to lose might just go our way.

So no losers today. Just winners.

(Note: I'll post some video and pics soon, after we finish our homeschooling for today.)

UPDATE: Welcome, Anchoress readers! And thanks, Anchoress, for the link; I'm honored to have an Anchoress-lanche.

UPDATE 2: Welcome, Althouse readers! Thank you, Ann Althouse, for the link. Another honor today.

One word I never want to hear again. Ever.

Maverick.

I get it already. McCain. Palin. Both mavericks. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Enough already.

Just sayin'.

If a guy is smart enough....

... to pick Sarah Palin as his VP, I think he's smart enough to be a fantastic president.

I just signed up at the McCain website. I encourage you to do the same.

UPDATE! Arrrgh!!!! I just noticed that I'd typed "If I guy" instead of "a guy" in the title. Cryin' out loud. I hate that. Fixed now. Please forgive.

Best line from Sarah Palin so far:

Oh my gosh, this is going to be SO much fun!

Depicting herself as "just your average hockey mom," Palin described her political career as mayor of her small town before her election as governor.

"Since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves," Palin said in excerpts of her remarks, released in advance of her appearance. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." [link]

Ha!! Love it, love it. Can't wait to hear the whole speech.

Little Known Sarah Palin Facts

These are hilarious! But they also answer the question, "Why do we love Sarah Palin?"

From Sarah Palin Facts, via Feminine Genius:

• Sarah Palin isn’t allowed to wield the gavel at the convention because they’re afraid she’ll use it to kill liberals.
• Sarah Palin once carved a perfect likeness of the Mona Lisa in a block of ice using only her teeth.
• Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.
• Sarah Palin pick retroactively makes the theme of #DNC08 “Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead”

Plus:

• It’s not raining in DC. Those are God’s tears of joy that McCain picked Sarah Palin.
  

And finally, my favorite so far:

• Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North.

Wow!

Just got back from a quick six-day trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. It was fantastic, and I'll post more on that later.

But that's not what the "Wow!" is for.

It's for Sarah Palin.

We heard about her being tapped for the Republican ticket on our trip, even though we were pretty much in a no-news zone out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains: no cell service, internet, TV's, radios, or newspapers. Well, we probably could have picked up a paper but really didn't want to, I guess. My Democrat friend was really hurting: She couldn't watch the Dem convention (who knew, months ago, when we planned this trip, that it would happen in the same week?)

Still, my friend somehow heard the news, so she said to me as we walked back to the lodge one morning, "Thought you might want to know that McCain picked, uh, "Sarah Palin??" to be his VP."

I reacted calmly, something like this:

"What?!? Really??! Oh my gosh, that's fantastic!! You're kidding!! I never thought he'd really do that!! She's great! She's a governor, she's pro-life, she's smart, she's conservative, she wants to drill in ANWR, she's attractive, she's a she... this is amazing!!!!!

"OK, sorry, no more politics now."

Because, you see, all three couples had come to an unspoken agreement before the trip that we absolutely wouldn't discuss politics. No better way to ruin a trip and possibly friendships than to discuss politics when one couple is working for Obama and the other two are uber-conservatives.

Still, I couldn't help my exuberance. Palin was a smart pick.

And the ugliness of the press right now toward her and her family is just sickening to see. The Anchoress is doing her usual fantastic job of covering it, including tons of links. So, since I'm not going to be posting much these days (homeschool started yesterday, and I'm just treading water as fast as I can to keep my head above water), go read her, every day!

I truly am enthused about the McCain/Palin ticket. Talk about Hope and Change! This is the real thing. Too bad the Dems are so blinded by rage and fear they can't see it.