The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

World’s Youngest Blogger: What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Posted on | September 1, 2012 | 11 Comments

Everybody has to have a first plane trip.

At thirteen months, my teen-age self headed over to Germany to on the occasion of grandmother’s birthday. Parents being the embarrassment that they are, mom and dad neglected to tell grandma and grandpa that we were coming!
When the video starts, mom was seen out the dining room window. Grandpa looked out and noted that a woman walked by that looked like his daughter, down to the hair style. Of course, grandpa knew that mom, dad and I were in Virginia, having left us there Thursday. Old people are so easily confused like that!

Of course, grandma freaking out at seeing me made me freak out, too. But I quickly recovered and got back to work, making some phone calls.

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

Hide Your Kids! Hide Your Wife!

Posted on | September 1, 2012 | 15 Comments

As Antoine Dodson might say, “They be snatchin’ people up out here and raping ’em” — Democrat congressional staffers, that is:

A former senior congressional aide was indicted this week in D.C. Superior Court on charges that he sexually assaulted two women after drugging them with a sedative that he allegedly put in their drinks.
Donny Ray Williams Jr., 36, who served as staff director for a Senate subcommittee and worked in the offices of several members of Congress, gave at least one woman Ambien and assaulted her while she was unconscious, according to court papers.
Williams was charged with 10 counts of first- and second-degree sexual abuse and related charges in connection with attacks that authorities said occurred between July and December 2010. During that time, according to his profile on the LinkedIn Web site, Williams was staff director of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard reports that Williams worked for multiple Democrats, including Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, and also worked a year and a half (April 2009-October 2010) in the Obama administration.

(Hat-tip: Donald Douglas at American Power.)

Category: Crime, Democrats, Scandal, Sex

Clockwork Angels

Posted on | September 1, 2012 | 6 Comments

— by Wombat-socho


Back in February, Smitty mentioned that Kevin J. Anderson would be writing a novel to accompany the new Rush* album Clockwork Angels. Well, thanks to a librarian friend, I got hold of an advance reader copy. It’s not bad.


It’s an odd little book, much less Randian than I would have thought it would be, given that Neil Peart was quite the Objectivist back in the day. Anderson does a very good job of spinning a bildungsroman out of Rush’s album without making it seem like a disconnected string of songfics, and while some of the characters may be not much more than thick cardboard, at least there is something more to them than a bare description and a few lines of dialogue. This may sound odd, but I think this wouldn’t be a bad YA novel; there’s a good philosophical argument in there about avoiding extremes and going off to tend to your own affairs, but you’re not being beaten over the head with it. I liked it and would recommend it, especially for the younger folks.


As for the album, well, it’s no 2112; I haven’t been following Rush closely for the past dozen years or so, but they seem to be not wearing their Objectivism on their sleeves so much as they used to. They’ve lost nothing on the technical side, and artistically – well, it’s a nice little rock opera about finding one’s pace in the world. You could do worse, and others have.


(A shorter version of this was originally published here.)

Category: Books, Culture, Music

FMJRA 2.0: Over The Mountain

Posted on | September 1, 2012 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Health Care Expert: ObamaCare Will Kill Estimated 40,000 Seniors Every Year

First Arrest of RNC Protesters Reported

When It Comes to ‘Brazen Lies,’
Nobody Excels Joan Walsh

COMPLETE TEXT: PAUL RYAN’S SPEECH TO THE GOP CONVENTION

RNC Hangover: You Gotta Believe

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Fear, Loathing and Deficient Hygiene

Racism Industrial Complex Training Film: “Bob Is A Racist”

Nugent Sticking To His Guns

Salute To Neil Armstrong

Monday GOP Convention Schedule Postponed Due to Anticipated BlogBash Hangovers and Approaching Hurricane …

New Romney Ad Quotes Obama

Unpopular Former Republican Governor Endorses Unpopular Democrat President

 

FMJRA 2.0: Stone Cold Crazy

Ybor City Scenes

Rule 5 Sunday: Only God Knows Why

Cecilia Jimenez Unleashes BHO Metaphor

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.27.12

‘Exponential Damage’

Journalism as Masochism

Ryan Zinke Speaks For, Oh, At Least A Few Million Americans

Chris Matthews: Pecksniff

RNC DAY 1.5: Baseless Speculation
UPDATE: Romney Officially Nominated as Republican Presidential Candidate

The Daily Gator Says: ‘A Bitch Slapping’

Matt Kibbe Of FreedomWorks Sounds Dismayed With The RNC

COMPLETE TEXT: ANN ROMNEY SPEECH TO GOP CONVENTION

COMPLETE TEXT: CHRIS CHRISTIE SPEECH TO GOP CONVENTION

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.29.12

@DavidChalian Got Breitbarted
UPDATE: Video Interview With ‘Hating Breitbart’ Director Andrew Marcus

COMPLETE TEXT: ROB PORTMAN’S SPEECH TO THE GOP CONVENTION

DNC Executive Director Begs for $3 Donations to Fight GOP ‘False Attack’

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 08.30.12

Pecksniff Matthews: “I don’t think Ryan spoke to the whole country tonight”

Gee, Chris Matthews Hates Paul Ryan

How Awesome Was Clint Eastwood?

Fear and Loathing in a 2004 KIA Optima

 

Top linkers this week:

  1. Hogewash (11)
  2. Lonely Conservative (7)
  3. Daily Pundit (6)
  4. Jackie Wellfonder (5)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for next week’s FMJRA is Friday, September 7.

Category: FMJRA Award

Thank You, Everybody! (And Thank God)

Posted on | September 1, 2012 | 10 Comments

STARKE, Florida
This town is infamously the location of Florida State Prison, but don’t worry, I’m not on a chain gang. Spent the night at a Best Western motel here beside Highway 301 and — wow! — I’m impressed with the reader response to my post about the problems with the 2004 KIA Optima. The car’s got 194,000 miles on it, and if it will just get us home . . .

Well, best not to get into contingencies. What happens, happens, and everything happens for a reason, so I won’t worry about “if.”

“If” is the biggest two-letter word in the English language.

A lot of people talk about “stepping out on faith,” but few of them ever actually do it. There is an ad on TV which humorously plays on the role of the mom as having to say “no” to all her children’s requests. Toward the end of the commercial, the woman’s husband asks, “Can I quit my job and start a blog?”

My wife always laughs at that. Yeah.

Anyway . . .

News — I’m supposed to be reporting it, or at least aggregating it. Did you know that Michelle Fields got 86’d at the Daily Caller?

You may remember Michelle as the reporter who got trapped amid the frothing mob of Occupiers when the hippie scum tried to storm the AFP Summit last November.

Why would Tucker Carlson fire her? I dunno. What happens, happens. Jammie Wearing Fools has a great headline today:

Seven Dead From Isaac; Also
Known as a Slow Night in Chicago

Speaking of Chicago — which is, of course, now classified as a racist dog-whistle word, according to Chris Matthews — here’s a story by Elizabeth Harrington of CNS News:

As part of her anti-obesity Let’s Move campaign, First Lady Michelle Obama is now presenting a brief online course: “Supermarket Shopping 101.”The course, which now appears on the letsmove.gov website, provides novice shoppers with tips such as “steer clear of the cookie, snack and soda aisle.”
“Supermarket Shopping 101: Read This Before You Hit the Grocery Store,” written by Lisa Cericola, was first published among the materials the first lady presented online last week when she was a “guest editor” at iVillage.com. Now, it has been republished on the Let’s Move blog.
As CNSNews.com previously reported, iVillage.com, which featured Mrs. Obama as a guest editor, also features graphic sex tips, including from prostitutes.

Otherwise known as “a slow night in Chicago.” And speaking of “graphic sex tips . . . from prostitutes” . . .

Forgive me for not knowing the source of that artwork. Somebody “shared” it on Facebook with Ali Akbar, and it was funny: The contrast between GOP congressional candidate Mia Love and Sandra Fluke is rather illuminating, yes?

Well, checkout time at the Best Western is 11 a.m., and we’re already running late, so there is no time to thank everyone individually, but know that you have my gratitude for your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund. And if you can’t afford to give, your prayers are equally appreciated. This grand experiment in reader-supported journalism requires both money and prayer, and we ought not doubt the power of the latter, because what happens, happens.

 

 

Category: Fear and Loathing at the Republican National Convention, Shoe Leather Fund

Fear and Loathing in a 2004 KIA Optima

Posted on | August 31, 2012 | 25 Comments

The National Affairs Desk, McDonald’s in Ocala, 10 p.m., Friday, Aug. 31, 2012

OCALA, Florida
Ah, the ups and downs of life. Last night I was enjoying the hospitality in a skybox suite at the Republican National Convention. Tonight I’m wondering how I’ll make it home.

Ali and I left Tampa about 6 p.m., and everything seemed fine until the car started making a horrible noise and losing power. We stopped and had a mechanic look at it, but the garage was about to close — 7 p.m. on the Friday before Labor Day — and there was no time for a repair. The mechanic diagnosed a problem either with the timing belt or the valves.

Can we drive it 900 miles with this problem? The mechanic shrugged. Sometimes, it’s OK. Sometimes, it’s not.

Ali said, “Let’s go. We can make it.”

Misery. Horror. Stress. Driving a car that’s obviously if need of expensive repairs, hundreds of miles from home, bone-tired after five days of convention coverage — and yeah, the bank balance isn’t looking too good, either.

I called my wife, cussing about this unexpected misfortune. 

Mrs. Other McCain suggested I stop cussing and start praying.

Good advice. I called Smitty. He was boarding a plane, preparing to travel to Germany with his wife and the World’s Youngest Blogger for a visit with his German in-laws. While we drove north up I-75, I called Zilla of the Resistance, and she was kind enough to put up a post asking for prayers and, of course, the Five Most Important Words in the English Language: Hit the freaking tip jar.

We’ve so far made it about 100 miles, but the psychological strain on top of the exhaustion — as I said to Ali, “Woodward and Bernstein didn’t have to deal with this kind of crap.” Neither, for that matter, do my close personal friends Brett Baier and Megyn Kelly, but never mind . . .

We’ll drive another hundred miles or so tonight and then find a motel. Your prayers are most earnestly requested. And your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund are most sincerely appreciated.

UPDATE: Ali describes his GOP convention experience.

UPDATE II: Now linked by Da Tech Guy, William Hoge, Evil Blogger Lady, Bill Quick at Daily Pundit and Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints.

Thank You, Everybody! (And Thank God)

 

 

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Category: Fear and Loathing at the Republican National Convention

How Awesome Was Clint Eastwood?

Posted on | August 31, 2012 | 60 Comments

TAMPA, Florida
Evil Blogger Lady quotes Clint’s best line:

“Of course we know Biden is the intellectual of the Democratic Party…” That alone was worth the price of admission!

Members of what Andrew Breitbart liked to call the Democrat-Media Complex are all over the ‘Net today going on about Eastwood’s “Bizarre, Rambling Speech to Empty Chair,” as Benjy Sarlin of Talking Points Memo describes it. But these are liberals: People who think a crude buffoon like Bill Maher is hilarious, and who think of Janeane Garofalo as a brilliant comedienne. Are we going to let people like that tell us what is or is not funny?

The best analysis of Eastwood’s routine was Romney adviser Eric Ferhnstrom’s quote to Byron York: “It’s improv” — and the important thing is, it worked, both as a comedic performance and in terms of its political purpose in the closing-night schedule at the Republican National Committee. It was a low-key, offbeat, humorous moment that provided a sort of relaxing breather before the emotional excitement of Marco Rubio’s speech and the big drama of Mitt’s acceptance speech. Here’s the video:

Description at the video:

Rachel Maddow was at a loss for words on Thursday after Clint Eastwood finished what was largely considered a bizarre and awkward GOP convention appearance.
“I don’t — I don’t — I don’t know what was going on there,” Maddow said, seemingly tongue-tied. “Clint Eastwood is 82 years old and I think that — I don’t know if that’s what was going on there.”

Maddow “at a loss for words”? Winning!

UPDATE: John Nolte: “Newsflash: Obama can’t take a joke. But we already knew that.”

Category: Celebrities, Fear and Loathing at the Republican National Convention, humor

RNC Hangover: You Gotta Believe

Posted on | August 31, 2012 | 21 Comments

Last guy in the Press Filing Center, 1 a.m., Friday, Aug. 31, 2012

“There was never enough time. Every deadline was a crisis. All around me were experienced professional journalists meeting deadlines far more frequent than mine, but I was never able to learn from their example.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

TAMPA, Florida
Garrett Quinn of the Boston Globe walked over to the empty row where I was still working on my column and said, “I knew that was you, banging away. I’d recognize that sound anywhere.”

Ask anyone who’s ever shared a workspace with me — and this now includes hundreds of reporters who came to Tampa for the Republican National Convention — I hammer the hell out of a keyboard. That’s why I always carry an external keyboard, because otherwise I’d destroy the laptop keyboard in a matter of months, and the thing would be useless in those emergencies when I actually need it.

People ask me if I learned to type on a manual typewriter, which of course I did, but there are other old guys who’ve learned to tap lightly on the keys, while I continue my brutal keyboard-destroying methods and go through the $9.99 things at the pace of one or two a year.

Hard-hitting journalism. Literally.

So Quinn took the picture of me as the last holdout in the Press Filing Center, struggling to complete today’s column for The American Spectator, which was kind of emotional:

The polls showed a dead heat as Mitt Romney took the stage Thursday night to accept the Republican Party nomination, but the polls could not begin to capture the wild chances of improbability in what is sure to be a hard-fought campaign this fall. And the man who introduced the GOP presidential nominee Thursday night was the surest testament to how miracles happen in America.
Marco Rubio wasn’t supposed to be there. In May 2009, more than 15 months before the 2010 Republican primary in Florida, the GOP establishment endorsed Rubio’s opponent, then-Gov. Charlie Crist, believing him to be the “safe” choice as their party’s Senate nominee. Crist had statewide name recognition and a strong fundraising base, and so he was endorsed not only by the state party chairman, but also by the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. One poll showed Crist leading Rubio by 37 points.
Crist had every tangible advantage, but what he did not have was the support of the conservative grassroots, which were just then coalescing into the Tea Party. Crist had embraced President Obama’s $800 billion “stimulus” plan, and his endorsements from the GOP Establishment proved to be the kiss of death, rallying a nationwide movement behind Rubio. And so the young senator who introduced Mitt Romney on the closing night of the Republican National Convention was a living embodiment of the miraculous power of the American dream.
Rubio spoke of that dream, describing how as a nine-year-old boy in 1980 he watched the GOP convention with his grandfather, a refugee from Cuba’s communist dictatorship. “As a boy, I would sit on our porch and listen to his stories about history, politics and baseball while he puffed on one of his three daily Padron cigars,” Rubio told the thousands of Republican delegates gathered inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum. “I don’t recall everything we talked about, but the one thing I remember, is the one thing he wanted me to never forget. The dreams he had when he was young became impossible to achieve, but there was no limit to how far I could go, because I was an American.”
The crowd went positively wild with cheers and applause, and when they calmed down, Rubio continued: “For those of us who were born and raised in this country, it’s easy to forget how special America is. But my grandfather understood how different America is from the rest of the world, because he knew what life was like outside America.”
What Rubio was describing was a doctrine known to political philosophers as “American exceptionalism,” and the 41-year-old senator went on to describe its foundation in religious belief, that America is “special because we’ve been united not by a common race or ethnicity. We’re bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have.… Our national motto is ‘In God we Trust,’ reminding us that faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.”
Words can scarcely describe the enthusiasm that swept through the auditorium at that moment. In a skybox suite five floors above the stage, where I was a guest of the Republican State Leadership Committee, I found myself wiping tears from my eyes. They were neutral, objective tears, because I remembered when Marco Rubio was 37 points down in the polls, and here in Tampa I was watching an honest-to-God miracle. If it had been up to the party leadership, Charlie Crist would have been up there on stage. Instead, Crist is now disgraced and discredited, an unpopular loser who will speak at next week’s Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. . . .

Please read the whole thing. Man, I need to go back to bed.

 

 

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Category: Election 2012, Fear and Loathing at the Republican National Convention, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney
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