Snowed In's Theory: New Dishonoree

About a month ago, I wrote about my theory about people who can't refer to their political opponents in a civil way:

Snowed In's Theory:  Anyone who uses the term "teabagger", or any form of that word, to refer to Tea Party or other protesters who are concerned about the direction taken by government is not interested in having a meaningful discussion about issues.

Its corollary was along those lines, as corollaries usually are:

Corollary:  Statements, articles, and/or interviews in which this theory comes into play may be ignored as a whole.

Recently Jim Hightower wrote some tripe at his website, jimhightower.com, entitled "Goofing Up Health Care Reform".  If you know anything about Jim Hightower, you know he is no fan of conservatives.  However, in his first paragraph, you can almost imagine the spit flecking from his mouth as he decries those evil tea partiers:

America's shouting match over health care reform has turned completely goofy ­ and I'm not talking about confused seniors at teabag rallies getting red-faced with anger after being told by the right-wing scare machine that "government is trying to take over Medicare."

The rest of the column decries the Democrat senators who don't lean far enough left to suit Mr. Hightower, but since, as far as I can tell, the use of the phrase "teabag rallies" is done by people who want to imply the more offensive "teabaggers" but can't bring themselves to use the actual term, the theory still applies, and thus the whole column is not worth my time, and possibly yours, as stated by the corollary to my theory.

And so, Jim Hightower, you are officially the second dishonoree who has run afoul of Snowed In's Theory.  However, given what I know about your extreme political leanings, you might be proud of this.

(Still no dishonoree graphic.  If anyone wants to make one, I'd be happy to consider it.)

Austin Radio Changes Coming

RadioInsight.com reports that massive changes are coming to the Austin radio landscape on Monday, November 2.  Many, but not all of the changes involve Spanish radio stations flipping to English formats, courtesy the financially troubled BMP Radio.  Here's a quick summary of the changes:

• 1490 KFON:  switching to an undisclosed format from Tejano.
• 1530 KZNX:  moving its local programming to 104.9 (see below).
• 92.5 KXXS:  switching to an undisclosed format.
• 98.9 KXBT (formerly KHHL):  apparently switching to news/talk.  A possible website, 989BigTalker.com, has been registered this week.
  
• 99.7 K259AJ:  the former Hot 93.3 translator is now simulcasting 590 KLBJ.
• 104.9 KHHL (formerly KXBT):  flipping to sports, possibly as "104.9 the Horn".
  

I'll be listening Monday and intend to update as I learn anything, but if you know something, feel free to comment.

Check out RadioInsight.com's entire report for more information.

Update 10/31:  It appears from a RadioInsight.com update (same link as before) and an Austin American-Statesman article that 1490 KFON will keep its current format, which is listed as Spanish oldies by the Statesman and Tejano by RadioInsight.com.  92.5 KXXS will remain a simulcast of 104.9 with the new format.  Meanwhile, former KVET morning host Sammy Allred will have a daily show on news/talk 98.9 KXBT.

Why I'm Missing Stuff in the First Place

Blogging will return to normal shortly...I've been out of town for my grandfather's funeral.  Godspeed, Grandpa.

Stuff I Missed

Well, this is what happens when one's day job eats into time that could be spent blogging.  (Given that the day job pays better*, that is probably the better choice with regard to my time management.  But that's a discussion for sometime around never.)  In any case, here are the stories I would have mentioned earlier if I had had time, but since I didn't, I'll just link to people to did it for me, and you can read it from them.

Rachelle Friberg adds yet another voice to the growing chorus stating that the Republican Party of 2009 does not represent true conservative values, as evidenced in NY-23, where the powers that be chose liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava as their candidate over Doug Hoffman, who is now the Conservative Party candidate.  As she states very well, this same divide is shown in that some of the Republican establishment (who, I suppose, think they know what is best for the party) have seen fit to try to throw Sarah Palin under the bus as well, despite the fact that what she says resonates with many.  And so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised to see her endorsing Doug Hoffman.  Ms. Friberg includes Governor Palin's entire Facebook note, but you can also see it here.

Since then, several other people have weighed in to state their opinion on the happenings in NY-23, given the Palin endorsement.  Conservatives 4 Palin compiles some of these opinions here.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration apparently went right off the deep end with regard to its hatred of Fox News, as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air states.  My favorite quote:

Meanwhile, how bad is this for the White House?  They now have all of the broadcast networks on record defending their competitor as a news organization.  That reinforces reporting Fox News will do in the future, to the detriment of White House efforts to marginalize them.  Plus, obviously, they look completely foolish in having to back down from their threat.

Finally, Adrienne Ross has an update on her crusade against the defamation of Sarah Palin with regard to a display linking her to the banning of books (which, as I said earlier this week, she never did, or even tried to do).  I suppose it's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.  Check out Ms. Ross's update for details.

With luck, I can get back on top of my workload eventually, so that I can give these types of situations the attention they deserve, not just from me, but from you, the loyal, well-informed reader. 

*Tips might change that.  Tip jar's to the right, with many thanks.

Now the Palin-haters have a book for their Christmas lists, too!

Since I know that some of my long-time readers do not share my admiration of all things Palin (such as, for example, my own parents), I present the following in an attempt at equal time.

As reported by the Guardian:

Coming out the same day at Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue:  An American Life" (which still sits at #2 in the Amazon.com bestseller list and is currently available for $9...order your copy--or mine--today!) is a not-nearly-as-rosy look at the life of Sarah Palin, entitled "Going Rouge:  An American Nightmare".  (I'd link to Amazon for that as well, but not surprisingly, they aren't listing it yet.)  As can be seen, everything is made up to look similar to Governor Palin's cover:

Going Rouge is a compilation of contributions from people who think, as the title implies, that the advent of Governor Palin's policies (or their perceptions thereof) in American would be a nightmare.

Hey, you know what?  More power to the publisher.  We Palin-supporters can see the power of capitalism at its best (particularly since Going Rogue will blast Going Rouge out of the water in sales), and you Palin-haters, or non-supporters, or whatever, can believe what you want about her, despite the fact that you're all completely wrong.  (Hey, I said this was an attempt at equal time; take what you can get.)

On a completely unrelated note, I am accepting essays for an upcoming compilation book entitled "Nightmares From His Head:  A Story of the Race Card and Government Takeovers".*

*I might be kidding.

How NOT to make people sympathetic to bicyclists' causes

Want to make people unsympathetic to the cause of bicyclists on the streets?  Only follow the rules when it suits you.

Anyone who drives on never-to-be-widened-ever-ever-ever Manchaca Road (see page 142 here for details) knows that it has the tendency to get backed up going southbound during afternoon rush.  So, it was no surprise the other day when I noticed a long line for the Stassney light.  However, in this case, there was an extra backup in the right lane.  (Thankfully, I was not in the right lane.)  As it turned out, there was a bicycle in the right lane, and cars were waiting to get a chance to move to the left lane to get around it.  That's all well and good.

However, as I sat at the Stassney light (the backup was enough that I did not make the light), I was rather surprised to see the same bicyclist riding up the sidewalk, but only until the light turned green.  At this point, he jumped right back into the right lane of traffic, cutting off several vehicles that, I assume, had just gone through the trouble of trying to pass him earlier.  I can only guess that at that point several of the drivers affected were not too happy about this situation, and about the bicyclist in general.

But Snowed, I hear you cry, it's legal to bike on the sidewalk!  Yes it is, per Austin City Code Section 12-2-13:  "Except as provided in Subsection (B) [a section that lists specific exceptions, not including any portion of Manchaca Road], a person may ride a bicycle on a sidewalk." Again, that's fine.  However, the bicyclist in question ignored Section 12-2-14:  "A bicyclist exiting from an alley, driveway, or building shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian on a sidewalk or sidewalk area, or to a vehicle on a roadway."  The drivers I mentioned earlier were cut off by the bicyclist, in total violation of this section.  I myself have almost hit a bicyclist who jumped onto Manchaca Road without even looking, about two feet in front of my car.

So, Snowed, isn't it legal for him to simply ride between the cars at a light anyway?  No, it isn't, per Section 12-2-16 (B):  "A bicyclist may not ride a bicycle between vehicles traveling or standing in the same direction within marked lanes of a roadway."  The proper thing to do would have been for the bicyclist to wait in line at the red light with the rest of us.

Again, I have nothing about bicycles on Austin streets; I simply think more people would be inclined to treat bikes nicely if their occupants know and follow the law.

A Teacher's Crusade Against a Palin-Slandering School Library

Adrienne Ross, who runs the blog Motivation: Truth, is a public-school teacher who happens, as I do, to support Sarah Palin.  To her surprise, she saw a display during "Banned Books Week" which read "Sarah Palin + Banned Books = Censorship."  This referred back to the long-dispelled myth that Sarah Palin sought to ban books.  As might be expected, Ms. Ross was surprised, and not in a good way, by this display, and she wrote about it; you can see her original thoughts here.

Well, as can be seen in the previous link, Ms. Ross had more than enough information to refute this display's assertion, and she attempted to speak to the librarian.  As days went by, she worked her way up the chain to the superintendent in an effort not only to have the display removed (because eventually it was anyway--Banned Books Week, as you might imagine, only lasts a week) but also retracted.  As of her last writing on this subject, this effort has been futile; you can read about it here.

Perhaps it's just me, but I can't imagine a similar stonewalling occurring in a situation in which the maligned person was, say, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  Maybe I'm wrong, but this is a country in which a supposed news organization is taking time out of its day to fact-check comedy shows.

Hopefully I will be able to follow up with good news; in the meantime, I'd recommend checking out Ms. Ross's blog to all my readers.

Edited to add:  Thanks a lot, Blogspot, for the way you shortened the title in the URL.

Sarah Palin: Drill

As usual, Sarah Palin, in this National Review column, speaks directly to the heart of the matter with regard to our energy policy, or the current lack thereof, starting with her very first sentence:

Given that we’re spending billions of stimulus dollars to rebuild our highways, it makes sense to think about what we’ll be driving on them.

And, again as you might expect, Sarah Palin believes, as I do as well, that we need to have more domestic oil as a way of reducing the amount we import.  And we need to do this not just to power our vehicles but also for many other uses:

We rely on petroleum for much more than just powering our vehicles: It is essential in everything from jet fuel to petrochemicals, plastics to fertilizers, pesticides to pharmaceuticals. Ac­cord­ing to the Energy Information Ad­min­is­tra­tion, our total domestic petroleum consumption last year was 19.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Motor gasoline and diesel fuel accounted for less than 13 million bpd of that. Meanwhile, we produced only 4.95 million bpd of domestic crude. In other words, even if we ran all our vehicles on something else (which won’t happen anytime soon), we would still have to depend on imported oil. And we’ll continue that dependence until we develop our own oil resources to their fullest extent.

Really, I could reproduce the whole thing here, but really, you should go check it out yourself.  (Again:  click here for the column.)

I do, though, want to draw attention to a point she made that most people do not accept as true:

My home state of Alaska shows how it’s possible to be both pro-environment and pro-resource-development.

Too often the debate on environmental issues has been framed as business vs. environment, as if those of us who want to see our businesses success have an innate desire to destroy the earth.  Let's not draw those distinctions; instead, let's have an energy policy that is geared toward helping both businesses and the environment, and, in doing so, help our people prosper.

(Just to be clear:  the proposed "cap-and-tax" plan is not such a plan.  You think you'll prosper more when you're paying four times as much each month in your electric bill?)

Seriously, read Mrs. Palin's column, even if (or especially if) you don't believe she has the ability to write coherently.  There's a lot of common sense to be found there, and we desperately need that right now.

Reminder:  put "#beatcancer" on all your tweets, blog posts, and Facebook status updates today (Friday, 16 October) to help raise money to beat cancer.

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Stay classy, Chrissy

As you may or may not recall, Chris "Snugglebuggle Kissyface" Matthews said just after the 2008 election that his job was to "make sure this presidency works", rather than, you know, doing any actual journalism, thus earning him the nickname cited above, at least from me.  (See here for details, and hey, it's better than a lot of other things Mr. Matthews has been called recently by others.)

As of this week, now we have a better idea of what making the Obama presidency works means.  Why, part of that job includes musing, almost wistfully so, about someone killing Rush Limbaugh.  Don't believe me?  See for yourself.



Can someone please tell me why NBC News continues to employ this guy?

(Hat tip:  Hot Air)

Dreams from Bill Ayers?

Anne Leary at BackyardConservative writes of an interesting encounter with one Bill Ayers yesterday.  According to the discussion she relates, he was speaking to a consortium called the Renaissance Group.

It's well worth a read.  I especially like this part:

Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties.

The entire writeup may be found here.  Check it out.

Obama went to Copenhagen and all he got was this lousy T-shirt

Look, I don't necessarily care if Chicago had gotten the 2016 Olympics or not. What annoyed me about the whole process was that President Obama took time away from dealing with a messed-up economy (or a jobless recovery, depending on how you look at it), an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan that really needs some attention from him, a national debt that is skyrocketing, and, if you lean the other way politically (hi, Dad), taking over the health-care system and punishing energy consumers.

As Tommy Christopher pointed out to me earlier today, President Bush certainly did not get a free pass when he was seen to be taking long ranch vacations or playing golf a lot.  (Remember "now watch this drive"?)  So why was it okay for President Obama to drop everything to lobby for this?  (Granted, Mr. Christopher was looking at his statement from a different angle than I was, but my point stands.)

It was a lose-lose situation for President Obama to go on this trip anyway.  Why?  Well, if he were to get the Olympics for Chicago, and the conventional wisdom in the MSM was that he would, then charges would be made (and were already being made) that he went just to get his own personal glory about having accomplished this.  (This drive for personal glory does seem to color some of his policy decisions.  Yes, that's my opinion.  It's also my blog.)  And now that he hasn't succeeded (or, as some ecstatic people on my side have put it today, "EPIC FAIL"), that is seen as a personal slap in the face for President Obama and his credibility (further discussion here).  It is my opinion that he would have been much better off had he simply stayed in Washington.

This ever-so-slightly snarky video from Cuffy Meigs appears to sum this whole story up:

C. Edmund Wright: "Palin's Revenge"

Apparently several people over at American Thinker are fans of Sarah Palin.  I mentioned James Lewis the other day; now, let's hear from C. Edmund Wright.  He published a piece today for all the people who proudly declared that Sarah Palin's career was over in July.  Its title:  "Palin's Revenge:  Who's Laughing Now?"

In it, Mr. Wright directly addresses the conventional wisdom in most places in July, when Governor Palin surprisingly announced her retirement.  Many, after all, said that she would become irrelevant once she left office.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but didn't I hear the Jurassic media bury the career of Sarah Palin just last July?  And weren't they joined in this mockery by the so-called conservative elites like David Brooks and Karl Rove and Joe Scarborough and so on?

Wasn't Mo Dowd just delirious in fact that the wicked witch (of her world) was dead?

You betcha. 

Well, just who is looking out of touch and foolish now? Hint: It isn't the Killa from Wasilla.  And yes, I think that is her Brinks Truck in fact. One of them anyway.

Many thought her resignation was a bad idea.  I was not thrilled when I originally heard the news.  But things have worked out well for both her and Alaska, as Mr. Wright explains:

What is the real story here is that given a set of singularly difficult circumstances, Governor Palin made a counter-intuitive and gutsy decision that has already proven right for all parties involved.  We call that brilliance. We call that effective leadership.

[...]

Palin did not seem to worry a bit about how her decision would look to the pundit class as she strode to the microphones and confidently gave a shocking announcement that she knew would bring down a hell storm of self-important derision.  She did not flinch. She made her decision, announced it, and went about making it work for all involved.

And it has. It has worked for the state of Alaska, where their small government is no longer burdened by over the top media scrutiny and an endless string of nuisance legal actions.  Alaska can get back to being Alaska, and the state is governed by a man who shares Palin's vision for the state without having one of the biggest media targets in the history of the country painted on his back.

[...]

And the resignation has certainly worked for Palin's family and the former governor herself no doubt.  They no longer have the targets painted on their backs either.  They no longer are burdened by a mountain of legal debt and the mountain of legal debt is no longer growing like it was. Win. Win. Win.

If Sarah Palin is getting ready for a 2012 run, she has put herself into a very good position at this point:

It is obvious that Palin knew what she was doing all along.  Who knows what she will do in 2012.  It doesn't matter at the moment.  What matters is that her decision to resign as Governor of Alaska will put her in a far superior position for whatever she does or does not pursue. 

I think that's hilariously ironic.  Betcha she does too.  So who's laughing now?

For months, the easy positions have been that Sarah Palin had no clue; she was finished; she has no shot in 2012.  The first two positions have been repudiated; I believe the third will be as well, in due course, if that is the path she chooses.

84 Shopping Days to Go...

My wish list for Christmas 2009 came much more into focus this week. In a move that will, once again, dismay my parents, my number one want for a Christmas gift this year is this:

As a convenience to my wonderfully loyal readers, you can purchase your copy (or mine, if you like; I certainly wouldn't mind) via this handy link:

Going Rogue: An American Life

Here's the writeup on the book from HarperCollins:

One year ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage like a comet. Yet even now, few Americans know who this remarkable woman really is.

On September 2, 2008 Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention that electrified the nation and instantly made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.

As chief executive of America’s largest state, she had built a record as a reformer who cast aside politics-as-usual and pushed through changes other politicians only talked about: Energy independence. Ethics reform. And the biggest private sector infrastructure project in U.S. history. And while revitalizing public school funding and ensuring the state met its responsibilities to seniors and Alaska Native populations, Palin also beat the political "good ol' boys club" at their own game and brought Big Oil to heel.

Like her GOP running mate, John McCain, Palin wasn’t a packaged and over-produced candidate. She was a Main Street American woman: a working mom, wife of a blue-collar union man, and mother of five children, the eldest of whom is serving his country in Iraq and the youngest, an infant with special needs. Palin’s hometown story touched a populist nerve, rallying hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to the GOP ticket.

But as the campaign unfolded, Palin became a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. Supporters called her "refreshing" and "honest," a kitchen-table public servant they felt would fight for their interests. Opponents derided her as a wide-eyed Pollyanna unprepared for national leadership. But none of them knew the real Sarah Palin.

In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Palin paints an intimate portrait of growing up in the wilds of Alaska; meeting her lifelong love; her decision to enter politics; the importance of faith and family; and the unique joys and trials of life as a high-profile working mother. She also opens up for the first time about the 2008 presidential race, providing a rare, mom’s-eye view of high-stakes national politics—from patriots dedicated to "Country First" to slick politicos bent on winning at any cost.

Going Rogue traces one ordinary citizen's extraordinary journey and imparts Palin’s vision of a way forward for America and her unfailing hope in the greatest nation on earth.

Shop early; beat the crowds!