LIVE AT FIVE – 12.06.11

Smitty has introduced me to this concept he calls “planning,” and so a few weeks ago, as soon as the 2012 campaign calendar was finally set, I sat down and figured out my itinerary. Dec. 26, I fly to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to begin a 35-day trip that will take me all the way through the Florida primary on Jan. 31. So it’s time once more to ask you to contribute to the Shoe Leather Fund.

Of course, when I land in Iowa three weeks from today, the Republican field won’t be exactly what it was when I first started plan this trip. Four polls taken between Oct. 7 and Oct. 19 — Rasmussen Reports, University of Iowa, Insider Advantage and Public Policy Polling — showed Herman Cain leading in Iowa by an average of 8 points.

“Dreams Die Hard.”

Plans change, and polls can’t predict the future.

“People have asked me what I have to do to get my spark . . . and I’ve believed it from the very beginning, that my spark will be the people of Iowa . . . (who) come out to these town hall meetings . . . Having been to every county and having done about 250 town hall meetings…people are coming our way.”
— Rick Santorum, interviewed on Iowa Public Radio

One more long-shot underdog, 29 days until the Iowa caucuses, and three weeks until I’m there. Hit the freaking tip jar.

Category: Election 2012, Fear and Loathing in Iowa, Iowa, Shoe Leather Fund

Totally Random Headline Updates

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 5 Comments

Jimmie Bise Jr. of Sundries Shack fame calls this “clearing the browser tabs.” Mainly it’s just a bunch of stuff I wanted to blog about, but got too busy. Keep in mind, however, that this is totally random. If you think you discern a pattern here, you’re a paranoid kook conspiracy theorist.

Eying Gingrich in Iowa,
Santorum signs up for Trump debate
Le Mars, Ia. — The day after The Des Moines Register published its latest Iowa Poll, Rick Santorum seemed to have his focus on the state’s newly-minted front-runner: Newt Gingrich.
At 6 percent, Santorum sits about where Gingrich sat a month ago. The former House Speaker polled at 7 percent in the Oct. 30 Iowa Poll. Now he sits at 25 percent. . . .
“You’re not going to see a big bubble rise for us. It will be slow and steady,” said the former Pennsylvania senator, banking that his slow-growth method of earning Iowa county by county, precinct captain by precinct captain will show big on caucus night.
And while Santorum is patient with the polls, he won’t pass on a chance to go head-on with a top-tier candidate. Santorum confirmed Monday on Twitter that he’ll join Gingrich and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and in a candidate debate moderated by Donald Trump.
The debate, sponsored by the conservative site Newsmax, will be held in Des Moines on Dec. 27 … READ MORE

“The election is over, we are told, and all that matters is which party’s heir apparent gets anointed.
“AND NOT ONE DAMNED VOTE HAS BEEN CAST. No caucus held, no primary voted, no convention assembled, no campaign run. It’s as though the World Series was awarded on the basis of spring training, or the Super Bowl decided by exhibition games.”
— Richard McEnroe, “A Raucus Ostentation of Peacocks”

Rick Santorum’s daughter’s illness stirs up
controversy about whether he should campaign
— Washington Post

Cain Iowa supporters:
Media ‘took a good man down’
— CNN

Vanuatu appoints ambassador to Russia
— Radio New Zealand

“Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, appearing on [Fox News] last week, declined to get on the Gingrich bandwagon, choosing instead to laud Rick Santorum for his consistency. Glenn Beck … did the same thing recently on his radio show.”
— Sam Stein, Huffington Post

Santorum talks economy to packed room
— KTIV, Sioux City, Iowa

Rick Santorum Speaks to Supporters in Sioux City
— KCAU-TV, Sioux City, Iowa

“People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz.”
— Newt Gingrich (yes, he really said that)

Romney and Gingrich, from bad to worse
— George F. Will

Vanuatu: where only the menu has changed
Until independence in 1980, Vanuatu was an Anglo-French colony known as the New Hebrides — the name coined by Captain Cook, who explored the archipelago in HMS Resolution . . . in August 1774. . . .
The islanders developed a reputation as fearsome cannibals. In 1839 the first two British missionaries to be dispatched from the London Missionary Society were promptly killed and eaten . . .
Two hundred years on, cannibalism is gone and the locals are anything but hostile. Even so, the tide of modernity has barely lapped at Vanuatu’s shores. . . . READ MORE

I’m just clearing the browser tabs and aggregating headlines here, in a neutral and objective way. Because I’m not doing what we call “investigative journalism,” I honestly have no idea what will happen if you click that image below.

Category: Neutral Objective Journalism

How Do You Not Post ‘Bacon Lube’?

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

I guess this is not a real-world product. However, the enterprising baconophiliac might do something clever with bacon lip balm and some glycerin. However, I’m not a chemist or a doctor: any side effects should be blamed on Stacy McCain.

Category: Bacon

God Bless You, Mary Zenecki!

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 55 Comments

News from Virginia via Quinton Report:

A skeleton, dressed as Santa Claus, nailed to a cross, was torn down by an enraged woman outside of the Loudoun County Courthouse.
The display was legally there, with the consent of the county, officials said.
Mary Zenecki, a county resident, wasn’t having it. She, piece by piece and bone by bone took “Skele-Claus” off the cross and laid him on the courthouse’s lawn. . . .
The display was put there by Jeff Heflin. He applied for approval with the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors to put up his anti-Christmas Season display.
“It depicts how society’s materialistic obsessions and addictions are killing the season’s peace, love, joy and kindness,” Heflin said. . . .
The leader of the Northern Virginia Atheists, Rick Wingrove, says tearing down the display was illegal, and people should keep an open mind.
“Offense is in the eye of the beholder. We’re offended by the religious displays on government property. We think it’s constitutionally improper,” Wingrove said. . . .

Jeff Quinton comments: “[W]hat would the reaction be in both the media and in public opinion if this was a display mocking the religion of Jews, Muslims, or any other non-Christian faith?”

Category: Christmas, Quinton Report, Religion, Virginia

UPDATE: This Post Was A Mis-Read
@VodkaPundit Insults Virginia

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

UPDATE: Upon a closer reading, I see that Green really only pointed to VA going to Obama in the update, in a wild contingency meant to show what BHO would have to do to have a glimmer of a chance. Accusation retracted, switching to decaf.

In Wargaming the Electoral College, Stephen Green has the temerity to assert that Virginia will go to #OccupyResoluteDesk next November. Lay off the absinthe, man! I realize you’re trying to make something of an interestion post out of the 2012 election, but come on: we brought in Bob McDonnell by a 17 point margin in 2009, and further increased GOP control this year.

I predict that by the time next November finally arrives, BHO will be in such bad shape that Virginia would vote for Snooki over him.
Oh, and by the way: what is the over-under on Hillary replacing Biden on the Democrat ticket?

Category: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, VodkaPundit

SANTORUM VOWS: ‘NO SURRENDER!’

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 25 Comments

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has published a full-page ad in Iowa newspapers in which the former Pennsylvania senator vows to “protect America’s moral foundation.”

The new ad, clearly aimed at social conservatives who are a key GOP constituency in the Hawkeye State, is timed to coincide with Santorum’s three-day “Faith, Family and Freedom” tour of Iowa, which began Sunday in Sioux City.

“I believe what makes America exceptional is not just our economic potential or our remarkable innovation, but the fact that we are a moral enterprise,” Santorum says in the ad (click here to view in PDF format). “As President, I will protect America’s moral foundation, empower American families and build America’s economic freedom. And I won’t compromise on my values to do so.”

In a press release, the Santorum campaign said the new ad will appear “in several major Iowa papers” including the Des Moines Register.

RECENTLY:

Category: Election 2012, Iowa, Republicans, Rick Santorum, Rick Santorum

Henry Grady Weeps

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 10 Comments

Henry Grady monument, Marietta Street, Atlanta, Georgia

Among the many wonders of modern technology is its ability to transcend space, enabling communication between people who share some connection, but who might never cross paths in the real world.

My column today at The American Spectator somehow drew the attention of an academic at an institution of higher learning in California. He sent an e-mail praising my column, explaining that he’d followed the link to my blog, where he’d read the “about” page and learned that I am an alumnus of Jacksonville (Ala.) State University. The professor informed me that he is an alumnus of Troy (Ala.) State University, hated arch-rival of my alma mater, and he further explained that his brother is employed as a staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Of course, I was obliged to send him this cordial reply:

Dear Professor –:
My pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir, and my condolences on the misfortune of your education.
Like we always said at JSU: If you can’t go to hell, go to Troy.
Also, please extend my sympathies to your brother for his heroin addiction or whatever other source of financial desperation compels him to work for the decadent descendants of the Cox family. I’d go back to driving a forklift before I’d ever allow my byline to appear in one of their wretched papers.
As an Atlanta native, born down on Boulevard at what used to be Georgia Baptist Hospital, I grew up reading the Journal every afternoon. When I later stumbled into a journalism career, my ambition naturally was some day to work for my hometown paper. Like every aspiring newspaperman in those days, my dream was that when I grew up, I’d be Lewis Grizzard.
It took me years to work my way up from a $4.50-an-hour job as a staff writer at a 6,000-circulation weekly to become an assistant editor and columnist at the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune.
And then came that sad day when Grizzard died. My editor in Rome actually suggested I should apply for the vacancy left by this much-mourned passing, but I didn’t dare. Surely, I told my boss, that spot was coveted by every man on the AJC staff, and if I were to apply and somehow be lucky enough to be chosen, all those people would hate me for it.
Besides, I wasn’t half good enough to replace Saint Lewis.
Imagine my shock, then, when it was announced that Grizzard would be replaced by the execrable Rheta Grimsley Johnson, an unfunny feminist from out of town.
This was like a heavenly omen to me, a fiery comet blazoning a message across the sky: GET OUT OF GEORGIA!
Two years later, I won a national award for some columns I’d written and a year after that (1997) I got hired by The Washington Times. Shortly after I started my new job in D.C. as an assistant national editor, the Lewinsky scandal broke, and my first thought was, “What a shame that Lewis didn’t live long enough to write about this.”
By the time he died, Grizzard’s column was the only thing worth reading in that damned Atlanta paper, which has been run into the ground by the degenerate offspring of the Cox family. There are some folks down home who swear they’ve seen the statue of Henry Grady on Marietta Street weeping actual tears.
I understand there are many decent and well-meaning journalists who, due to circumstances beyond their control (including heroin addiction, bless your brother’s heart), have no other choice than to work for those vicious Cox people and such of their carpetbagging kin as that worthless Kennedy fellow.
But as for me, like I say, I’d rather go back to driving a forklift.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Stacy McCain

If you’ll look at the top of the page, you’ll see a motto about ruthlessly writing the truth. The decline of the Atlanta papers is a lamentable truth. Perhaps one day the Cox family will sell the paper whose once-proud reputation they’ve ruined. And if the buyer were to be somebody an honest man could respect, then maybe I could go back home.

Category: Journalism

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The Other McCain

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

LIVE AT FIVE – 12.06.11

Three Weeks From Today

Totally Random Headline Updates

How Do You Not Post ‘Bacon Lube’?

God Bless You, Mary Zenecki!

UPDATE: This Post Was A Mis-Read
@VodkaPundit Insults Virginia

SANTORUM VOWS: ‘NO SURRENDER!’

Henry Grady Weeps

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

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