Zombie connects the dots with the weather underground

ZombieTime is one of my favorite blogs. Along with genuinely funny articles, he occasionally does some in depth research.

This one on the Weather Underground and Obama is absolutely incredible. He helps connect the dots. Its for people who don't understand why its important to know who Obama's friends are.

This isn't just about one degree of separation. Its about who you hang out with and who you identify with.

McCain keeps asking LA Times for the video

In case you missed it, there was a radical named Rashid Khalidi who worked in academic land. He is a Palestinian who frequently spoke in favor of the PLO, and was honored in a banquet. Obama attended the event and had praised him. The LA Times covered the story, but won't release the 2003 video.
I repeat... this happened in 2003.
The LA Times won't release the video, citing concerns about their source.
Interesting...

One of the best arguments against Obama

Here is a YouTube video entitled "Dear Mr. Obama":
Its done really well, and has garnered just a little bit of attention. It runs less then 2 minutes, so its worth it to watch.
I found it via this BBC piece on the YouTube phenonimon during this election. Certainly, YouTube has changed the way that we view our candidates... making it easier to see the latest arguments, and allowing everyday people to show their points of view.

Huffington Post writer kills lover

Carol Ann Burger is suspected to have killed Jessica Kalish by stabbing her 222 times with a screwdriver.

From the Palm Beach Post:

Burger, who on Oct. 7 was tapped to cover the election for the Web site, The Huffington Post, still sometimes felt sad and isolated. Kalish, whom Burger had married in Massachusetts in 2005, had met another woman.

Here's the politically incorrect piece of trivia to note:
This may be the first gay couple that was legally married to be involved in the murder/suicide thing.

Producers, Writers, and Directors make fun of MSNBC

I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't read it in this source.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote recently on an event where everyone pretty much made fun of MSNBC.

Olbermann was criticized by many who attended Monday's luncheon sponsored by the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was dubbed "Hollywood, America and Election '08."

Bloodworth-Thomason and others seemed especially critical of the way MSNBC -- and other media -- has attacked Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while demeaning her supporters.

Man... you have to be doing something wrong when Mrs. Bloodworth-Thompson thinks that you are stumping too hard for liberals. That's like Rush telling you that your radio station leans too far to the right.
Here's my favorite clip from the story:

Pollster Frank Luntz, a regular guest on the Fox News, joked that MSNBC is "the only network with more letters in its name than viewers."

Nice.

Who are the members of Slate voting for?

The magazine Slate decided to poll its writers and editors, and find out who they wanted to vote for. The results of that poll?

Barack Obama: 55
John McCain: 1
Bob Barr: 1
Not McCain: 1
Noncitizen, can't vote: 4

The link includes their justification of their reasons for voting (or not voting) that way. Its hilarious, from a Republican point of view. Its worthy of Newsweek, Vanity Fair, or Mother Jones.

What Barack really thinks about redistribution of wealth

In an article called "Shame, Cubed", Bill Whittle found a radio interview that Obama held with WBEZ, our local radio outlet.
In it, Obama was talking about the effect that the Supreme Court decisions had on civil rights. That most sacred civil right that we all hold dear... the redistribution of wealth:

You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

Read the entire thing.

Or even better, go here where the people from WBEZ have conveniently left MP3s, so that you could hear it all in its context. This should be a direct link to the MP3. A little more, just to give you an idea what Obama was talking about...

You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.

So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.

There are a lot of things that I think that the average, everyday person doesn't understand about Obama. I hope this, along with his membership in the New Party, might give them a clue. Like Obama regretting that he couldn't bring along redistribution of wealth through the courts.

Mike Malone on bias in this election season

Mike writes a great column about being appalled by his own profession. He confesses:

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

Its a great editorial in its honesty. Please check it out.

Obama skips most press conferences, but makes one extra one

According to the Political Punch:

On Oct. 24, 2007, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said that as president he would hold regular press conferences and "not just call on my four favorite reporters."

But the Democratic presidential nominee hasn't held a full press conference -- submitting himself to more than a handful of questions from his whole press corps -- in more than a month, since Sept. 24, 2008, in Clearwater, Fla.

He did, however, fit in Extra's Mario Lopez.
:)

Ayers wants the GOP to forget about him

William Ayers, 60s radical and all around scumbag, stepped out of his cave long enough to tell a panel discussion that he didn't want to be the center of attention anymore:

"[Fox host] Bill O'Reilly comes on his show and first thing he says is, 'Why won't this Ayers story die?'" Ayers told well-wishers. "And then he spends 10 minutes talking about it."

Mr. Ayers: you've been an attention whore all of your life. Why are you shunning the attention now?

Michael Reagan explains why Ayers is still important:

If the truth becomes better known -- and it will if the Ayers issue is doggedly pursued -- it will be clear that Obama was not only deeply immersed the fetid swamp of Chicago’s far-left political scene, but was from the very beginning of his career carefully groomed by the city’s socialist left to follow the path he’s on now in his quest for the presidency of the United States.

Fun Editorial Cartoon on socialism

I don't want to violate their copyright, but you can find Gary McCoy's cartoon here, on the Cagle Cartoon website. McCoy is quickly becoming one of my favorite editorial cartoonists.

Barbara West, and Biden

If you missed Barbara West interviewing Biden, check this video out.
The most telling thing to me is when Biden is asked about ACORN, and he says that 'not one cent' of campaign money went to ACORN.

Apparently, he missed this little nugget, as reported by Right Michigan:

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

If Biden wasn't the VP of Obama, this would be news for a week.
But... well... I'm getting bored of saying it.

"Academics" have come to Ayers support

More than 3,200 supporters -- most of them educators -- have signed a petition protesting what they say is the "demonization of Professor William Ayers," asserting that his violent actions as the co-founder of the Weather Underground were just "history."

This story, on Fox News web page, should tell everyone how politics are clouding the intellect of our academic institutions.
I think that everyone should have a great education. I can't believe how bad our advanced education system has become.
If you're going to argue that a guy who advocated - as recently as 2001 - the violent overthrow of the US government as just being a little part of history; you are not only dishonest, but a horrible teacher.

You can view the complete petition, and the signers, here. If you are considering taking a course at a current university... it might be to your benefit to see if one of your professors signed this list.

Orson Scott Card on media bias on the economy

Card writes about Freddie and Fannie, and who was ultimately responsible.

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

He further writes about how the media has missed the real story, and how Republicans have been unfairly portrayed as responsible.

Kurtz on The New Party & Obama

Stanley Kurtz has reported on ACORN, the New Party, and the connections to Obama.

During his first campaign for the Illinois state senate in 1995-96, Barack Obama was a member of, and was endorsed by, the far-left New Party.

Its a great read, and he's put it in a very succinct manner. Check it out.

Obama changed his tax plan

After McCain criticized it, I guess it was time to make a slight change:

They started saying this was welfare," said Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee. "So, just so they would absolutely not be able to say that, we decided that for the last two percent we'll simply add a work requirement.

You can read more of the details here.

What a vice president does

There's a lot of things that annoy me about the demonization of Sarah Palin. The one that bothers me the most is the assertion that she has no idea what she's talking about.

Take the latest issue: whether or not Sarah knows what a president does.

As 'proof' that Palin doesn't know, someone recently quoted this sentence to me:
As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?

I googled the quote to find the original. Try it. You'll get something like a gazillion lefty websites.
Most of them only give the quote above.

The Huffington Post recently quoted Politico. When I first saw the quote on HuffPo, they only quoted the phrase above. Now they give a longer quote.

Neither HuffPo nor Politico gave a link to the original statement. HuffPo now has the video linking to it.

Kudlow: All right. You have a legion of fans who want you to become Senator McCain’s vice-presidential candidate. In fact, on the world’s largest pay-to-play prediction market, betting parlor, called InTrade, you are in third place with a 20 percent support probability behind former Governor Romney and present Governor of Minnesota Pawlenty. Is this police flap, state investigation, going to disqualify you from becoming Senator McCain’s vice-presidential candidate?

Palin: Well it shouldn’t disqualify me from anything, including progressing the state’s agenda here towards more energy production so we can contribute more to the U.S. Nor should it dissuade any kind of agenda progress in any arena because again, I haven’t done anything wrong. And through an investigation of our lawmakers who are kind of looking at me as a target, we invite those questions so that we can truthfully answer the questions.

But as for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does everyday? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.

Along those lines, I'd love for anyone who thinks that Palin doesn't understand the position of VP to think the accusation through.

Its not a logical conclusion. -And I can prove it.
Palin was the governor of the state of Alaska. A lieutenant governor is the 'VP' of a state. The leiutenant governor's duties are described under the Alaska Constitution:

7. Lieutenant Governor Duties

There shall be a lieutenant governor. He shall have the same qualifications as the governor and serve for the same term. He shall perform such duties as may be prescribed by law and as may be delegated to him by the governor. [Amended 1970]

There is a huge parallel in what the VP does and what the leiutenant governor of Alaska does.

If you believe that the governor of Alaska didn't understand for 2 years what her leiutenant did, or that she didn't understand the parallel between the VP and her leiutenant governor, I'd argue that you are being very illogical.

Just say'in.

And now, charging for access to the king

On election night, there are going to be some reporters who get an 'unobstructed view' of Obama. Those are the press members who have paid. The rest will join the rest of the pool with an obstructed view.

No, this isn't the rantings of a right wing loon. This is according to Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet:

The Obama campaign is putting a hefty price tag on the best camera and reporting positions for news organizations covering Barack Obama's outdoor election night activities in downtown Chicago. If a reporter wants access to the file center--which will be the best place to find Obama officials and spokesmen--be prepared to write a check for $935. The cheapest place a reporter could stand on a riser with a view is $880.

Every day, the Obama camp creeps me out a little bit more. If Obama fans are reading this, can you please take a moment and think: What would happen if a Republican suggested such a thing?

Yes, I disagree with Barack on a ton of things... but that's not what worries me about the possibility that he might get elected. I have genuine concerns about a candidate who charges money for the best access, who already put the word "president" on the seat of his plane, and who has a giant 8 ft. tall image of his face in his headquarters.

Socialist = black???

According to a deranged columnist for the Kansas City Star:

McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.

Wow.
That's from Lewis Diuguid, who apparently can't get his head out of his ass.

McCain calls Obama out on being socialist

Well... almost.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax cuts and tax credits McCain says would merely shuffle wealth rather than creating it.

Which is true... but I doubt the media will agree.

Can we start committing "Code Pink" members?

At what point does someone cross the line into Krazy? According to Yahoo, a Code Pink member went up to Karl Rove and tried to arrest him:

A statement by the group Code Pink identified the woman as 58-year-old Janine Boneparth, who tried to handcuff Rove in what she called a citizen's arrest for "treason."

Rove, who was speaking Tuesday at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention, elbowed Boneparth away as she was escorted off the stage.

I remember a time when people who suffered under delusions that they were police officers and wore pink, were put on medication and removed from society so that the rest of us could be safe.

The left is becoming facist about Barack

This girl was called racist for wearing a McCain/Palin shirt to her school.
I guess if you're a kid, you have to sing songs about Obama in order not to be called a racist.

In another school, there is a whole chapter of a book dedicated to Barack. The Lenin-ism of our country has begun, and he's not even president.

You could be a McCain supporter, but the Barack fans don't take kindly to them. In fact, they beat them up with their own signs.

The left is in high gear with their Republican hate speech. This smiling couple, as featured in Iowahawk, proudly wears T-shirts calling Palin a cunt. I still haven't figured out what Palin has done which earns her that title. But I guess all you have to do is be a Republican woman with a chance of getting into the White House, and you're a cunt.

I know that the left thinks that Republicans are equally evil towards Obama. After all, Olbermann told them so. He reported (as many other have) that McCain supporters were yelling "Kill him!" (Obama) at a recent McCain rally. The only problem with this? The secret service was there, and heard no such thing. I've taken photos as a journalist around Secret Service guys. Trust me... you don't want to yell "Kill [presidential candidate]" around them. Not unless you want your fingerprints on file within the next couple of hours.

Which lead me to ACORN.
I wrote about ACORN previously on this blog... for good reason. Its one of the most corrupt 'vote getting' not-for-profits out there. They protest at every anti-war rally, and consider the Iraq war "racist." If you hunt for it on the web, you can find videos of their people attacking others merely for asking questions about their organization.
Its a ridiculously facist organization.
When I read that the FBI is investigating them, I was happy. But apparently, doggone it, someone stole their computers right when the FBI tried to sieze them. Who else suspects a rat?

People are getting beat up because of their party affiliation. If you don't support their candidate, you are a racist. They consider your candidate a cunt. They include a chapter about their candidate in a book for 8th graders.
They support and defend ACORN, a group that has fraudulently registered tens of thousands of non-existent people, with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the campaign of Barack Obama.

Democrats are fond of calling conservatives facist. But I don't recall a single time in my life when Republicans behaved like this. I hope I never do.

How I repaired a Phillips 30PW9100D

I am not an electrician. I do not repair things professionally. I do electronics as a hobby, and I can't stress this enough: if you don't understand electronics intimately... do not try to repair your television. Pay someone who knows what they are doing, and you won't receive an electric shock.

If you go inside of a television without knowing what you are doing, you not only have a good chance of receiving an electric shock, but you could kill yourself. That's not hyperbole. A traditional CRT screen needs high voltage, and the circuits inside store those voltages for more then a month after the television is unplugged.
Get it?
No?
Okay; let me put it one more way: this is not meant as an instruction manual on how to repair a TV. This is what I learned from repairing this TV. Its not comprehensive, and its not supposed to be.
If you read this and then open up your television to repair it, you are liable for your own health and well-being from messing around with something that you don't understand. I'm writing this because I know something about televisions but didn't know what to look for to repair mine. Its meant for the people who have a good working knowledge of electronics and know how to safely repair something that stores hundreds of volts.
Please don't open up your Phillips 30PW9100D if you don't know what you're doing. Cool?
On the other hand, if you just wanted to understand what the problem is on this television, go read ahead... and just read.
If you want to add something to my understanding, please leave a comment.

And now my explanation.

I own a nice television. I bought it about two years ago. Its one of the last HD- widescreen televisions that uses a traditional CRT.
For those of you who are interested, until recently, LCD televisions couldn't compare with the color of CRTs. The downside is that CRTs use a lot more power and are really, really heavy. I bought mine as an open-box television, and I got a great deal on it. It has an amazing HD picture. When I first bought it, my cat tried to paw at the birds on the screen.

Unfortunately, the chassis (inside) for my beautiful television was a lemon. Mine is a LO5-1U AA. If you want to know what kind of a chassis your television has, look on the back of the set, near the serial number.

This particular chassis seems to have the same problem that occurs on a lot of sets that were made by this manufacturer at around the same time. The vertical deflection circuit dies after a while, and the screen looks like this:


You might also see a thin white horizontal line. Sorry that these images are fuzzy. (I'm kinda embarrassed about it, since I'm a photographer. I accidentally let the autofocus focus on my reflection in the glass.)
So let me start by answering your first question: why is there a horizontal line if the vertical deflection circuit is the problem?

Picture two things that control the beam of light on your screen: a circuit that makes the beam cross the screen horizontally (left to right), and another circuit that deflects the beam vertically (up and down). If the vertical circuit fails, the beam just travels across the screen in a single line... rather then drawing multiple lines.

I found the service manual for the Phillips 30PW9100D and found many references to this problem online. Several people suggested that it was a capacitor. With that in mind, I went hunting for the faulty circuit.

One more time: don't open your television unless you know what you are doing. Don't, don't, don't.

Reminders for those people who do know what they are doing.

• Unplug your television. I actually left mine unplugged for a month before I even went inside.
• Don't touch the anode, or even get near it. If you need to disconnect it, then discharge it. This is the most dangerous thing you could do inside of anything electronic that I know of. Don't play with high electricity unless you know what's going on.
  
• Don't touch anything on the PCB without knowing that its discharged first. There are some sizable capacitors on the PCB. Don't be fooled into believing that its safe to touch the foil on the backside just because its unplugged.
• Take digital photos of everything before you do it, and make yourself a detailed list of what you did. I put my television back together months after I took it apart. (I had to find the right parts, and wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing.) My photos and detailed list made it easier when I got lost. I even marked off the areas where I unscrewed things, and put red marks on one side of each connector before I unplugged them. It made it easier to orient them.
  

My television had Torx screws. There were four of them on the outside case, and two that screwed the connection panels to the back of the case. If I hadn't unscrewed these, I would have ripped the connection panels out when I took the case off.

On my television, I had to pull the case straight back. There is a ribbon cable inside of the case that connects to a PCB inside.


Note the empty connector, and the green mark on the one side. Like I said, I marked every connector, and then made a note. I wrapped a piece of electrical tape around each ribbon cable, and wrote stuff on the tape, to make sure I knew where it was meant to go. In this case, the jack has a number that I wrote on the tape.

I took photos through most of the process. When I took off the case, this is what I found:


On the top of my set was the Anode. This contains a lot of voltage. Did I mention not to touch it? Yeah. Don't.
There's a thick wrapped wire that goes around the set. I'm pretty sure this is the degaussing coil, but I don't want to misinform anyone.
On the back of the tube is a small PCB that I've dubbed the CRT board.
From the back, the thing on the left is the Tuner. This is normally the thing that takes the antenna signal and converts it into something that the television can use.
The main board is my target here. Its mounted on a piece of plastic that clicks into the lower case. More on that in a second. I need to point out a few more things:
Here's a different angle, again with the case removed. Note the section that says "a lot of stored up electricity". Anytime that you see really thick wires and a bunch of metal as a heat sink, there is a circuit that contains a lot of electricity.

I was super careful anytime I worked around that section.

There are two deflection circuits. One is on a small board that stands vertically on the mainboard. I had to remove it in order to pull the mainboard out. In the photo above, I've already detached the deflection board that I needed to remove. More on that in a minute.
The black box I drew surrounds 3 capacitors. Those are the ones I replaced. I wanted to show you where I found the circuits now, before you see a close up.

Before I could get to any of this, I needed to detach the deflection board that stands up. Its plugged into a blue connector onto the mainboard.
There are tiny clips on the blue connector that hold it to the mainboard.
From there, I started to disconnect all of the wires on the deflection board.
Here you can see the five connectors on the deflection board. I labeled each one, and where it plugged in.

On the right of this photo you'll see something that says "clip for TDA8177F". That copper- looking piece of metal is a clip. Directly below that is the other half of the same clip that holds the TDA8177F to a heatsink.
Its impossible to explain to you how the clip works, but the vertical deflection IC (TDA8177F) is directly below that clip. I had to push on the top of the clip to get it to let go of the IC.

I had no idea if that IC was the problem... but I decided to replace that too. It only cost me about $3 from the Audio Lab of Georgia. There are a lot of parts to this circuit... but I presumed that the most likely ones causing the problem were the capacitors that I replaced, or this chip.
It was worth it to change all of them.

Finally, here is a photo of the capacitors that I replaced. Note that this whole section is surrounded by heat sinks, and shielding. I know that this section contains high voltages during operation, so I was pretty careful about what I touched even though I had discharged everything.
I had to take the PC board off of the plastic tray to get to the back of the board.

Those 3 blue capacitors were all 470uf, 16v. I replaced them with new ones that had a high tolerance for temperature. I didn't know what the failure was (the vertical deflection IC that I also replaced, or one of these chips) but I wanted to make sure that whatever caused it had less of a chance of happening a second time.

So I de-soldered all 3, pulled them, replaced them (making sure I got the polarity right) and put everything back together.
I check my wiring a few times to make sure I hadn't missed anything, then put the case on loosely. I had a fire extinguisher nearby just in case, and kept my distance from the set as I turned it on.

My first try? I had a good picture, but was missing the sound. I turned it off, unplugged it, and found that I hadn't plugged a cable back in all the way.

I turned it back on and it worked perfectly.
Its uncanny.
I had to change the "format" (from 4:3 back to 16:9), but otherwise, it had kept all of my channels in memory.

I know that these kind of things are generally a result of one bad part. That's what everyone told me. But there's something neat about spending less then $10 on parts (I bought back ups of everything) and having the thing work perfectly. The most expensive thing was the shipping for the parts, which was more then the parts themselves.

Taking the thing apart took me several days. Not because it was hard, or difficult. Just because I wanted to label everything and take my time, and make sure I could put it all back together. I also didn't want to touch the wrong things.
Putting it back together took me less then 30 minutes. I checked off each cable as I reattached it, and still somehow missed pushing one all the way in. Go figure.

I came away from this feeling several things:

• That weird sense of accomplishment that you feel when you do it yourself.
• A vague amazement that I could find the problem on the internet
• A renewed love affair with my TV. Dear God, do I love broadcast HD!

Anyway, I celebrated by watching Almost Famous, the Bootleg edition, at 5 in the morning.
If you have similar problems with this model of television, I'd love to hear your story.

Going to the library for Barack

I did something today I haven't done in a long time:
I went to the library and pulled up microfiche.

When I was younger, I used to research a lot. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I knew how to follow the multiple fibers of a subject and flip through a periodical index when I was in grade school.
The internet has made a lot of that unnecessary. But occasionally - like when you need to look up something that happened 16 years ago - you need microfiche.

In 1992, The New Party was formed by a couple named Sandy Pope and Joel Rodgers. They had many goals, some of which I'll address in a subsequent post. But the point is that Obama was a member of this party which was socialist.

There are two ways that the left has tried to blunt this chunk of information, which is unflattering to a presidential candidate:

1. They've suggested that Obama was never a member of that party. This photo tends to suggest otherwise. Of course, I'm not familiar with "The New Zeal". I have no reason to disbelieve them, and there are things in the image that leads me to believe that its authentic. (There are moire patterns on the photo, which are not only indicative of a half-toned newsletter that has been scanned in, but suggests that the image was not photoshopped.) The archives of the New Party confirm that Obama was there for at least one of their meetings, and they claim him as their own.
2. They've said that The New Party was not socialist, or that we have no proof that the New Party was socialist. Their archived website would suggest otherwise. But I wanted the silver dagger to that argument, which is what led me to the library.

Tommorrow, I commence with the second half of my research and my quest to connect the dots. But today I just wanted to reflect on the following irony: the thing that might sink the Democrats are the very magazines and articles that were written about them ten years ago... and our ability to read those words today.

If my research can add to that effort, I couldn't be more pleased.

Chicago: where only the wealthy pay taxes. And those who have cars.

Just a half year ago, I jumped back into the pool of owning a car in Chicago.
My biggest reason for not owning a car in Chicago?
They tax the F out of them.

State registration fees, state licensing fees, and the city sticker are just the start.
Our toll roads are stupidly inefficient. But we live with it.

But most recently, Chicago has decided to raise taxes on parking. According to the Chicago Tribune, those taxes will be about 33%.
Welcome to the socialist state of Chicago. Can we just dip into your pocket?

More ACORN fraud

There are a lot of people suggesting that it shouldn't matter whether or not Barack Obama had connections with ACORN.
This is why:

Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.

ACORN has a criminal past of violating vote registration laws. Beyond that, they are one of the most brown-shirted activist groups I've ever run into. At protests, they have a nasty habit of tearing the signs of counter-protestors and threatening violence on people who have tried to videotape them, or question some of the protestors on tape.
So when I read that officials in Vegas had raided their headquarters to find fraud, I couldn't have been more pleased. From the Review Journal:

The secretary of state's office launched an investigation after noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members of the Dallas Cowboys appeared to be registering in Nevada to vote in November's general election.

"Some of these (forms) were facially fraudulent; we basically had the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys," Secretary of State Ross Miller said. "Tony Romo is not registered to vote in Nevada. Anyone trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot."

Agents with the secretary of state and state attorney general offices served a search warrant on the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, at 953 E. Sahara Ave. shortly after 9 a.m. They seized voter registration forms and computer databases to determine how many fake forms were submitted and identify employees who were responsible.

Good for them. And good for the Review Journal for reporting this.

About Palin's Hacker

The guy who broke into Palin's e-mail was the son of a Democratic state representative.
From "The Smoking Gun"

Kernell, pictured at right, allegedly changed its password to "popcorn" and made screenshots of the account's directory as well as certain messages, photos, and "other personal information." Those screenshots eventually were widely distributed online. If convicted of the felony charge, Kernell, an economics major at the University of Tennessee, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

But it wasn't politically motivated.
Right.
Just a thought:
Watergate was about some low level thugs who broke into a Democratic headquarters office to steal their plans for the election.
This... was lower then that.
I've run into some pretty strange excuses over the past few days for Kernell's behavior. There are people who are suggesting its not a big deal, and that Palin shouldn't have used a Yahoo account.
This completely escapes the fact that the son of a Democratic state rep. broke into her e-mail account with the goal of changing the election. It doesn't matter what you think of Palin. This is like someone breaking into your home because they want to prove that you stole paperclips from your job. It blows on every moral level.

Obama belonged to socialist "New Party"

Sometimes I have a hard time writing a headline, because the issue is so important to me that I want to make sure I sum it up accurately and correctly.

The above title is completely true. I know with the slime found on the internet, its sometimes hard to figure out what is the truth. -And there is a lot of trash out there. So let me make the case, as it was originally presented in the "Politically drunk on power" blog.

In June sources released information that during his campaign for the State Senate in Illinois, Barack Obama was endorsed by an organization known as the Chicago "New Party". The 'New Party' was a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) to push forth the socialist principles of the DSA by focusing on winnable elections at a local level and spreading the Socialist movement upwards. The admittedly Socialist Organization experienced a moderate rise in numbers between 1995 and 1999. By 1999, however, the Socialist 'New Party' was essentially defunct after losing a supreme court challenge that ruled the organizations "fusion" reform platform as unconstitutional.

After allegations surfaced in early summer over the 'New Party's' endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and 'New Party' then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA's New Party.

On Tuesday, I discovered a web page that had been scrubbed from the New Party's website. The web page which was published in October 1996, was an internet newsletter update on that years congressional races. Although the web page was deleted from the New Party's website, the non-profit Internet Archive Organization had archived the page.

This was fairly carefully researched stuff.
I love this part of the net; the ability to recall what someone said back in 1996, despite their efforts to cover it up.
This is what they found:

New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races:

Specifically, they list off the following candidates for Illinois:

Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

So if we're to believe the documents that were uncovered on the net, from 1996, the New Party (a socialist party) was proud to support New Party candidate Barack Obama.
I know that previously, there have been accusations that Barack is a socialist. Most people blow that kind of stuff off as political fluff. Its not real to them.
But in this case, its actually real.
Right voices has a good summary of everything that has been found so far.

What's interteresting to me about this is that the vast majority of the media is ignoring this.

There is proof that Obama belonged to a socialist organization. Which media outlet will be the first one to ask Obama about it? Will any media outlet ask him?

Or is Obama so Teflon, so loved, so adored, that even belonging to a socialist organization won't be cause for alarm?

-John

The guy who represents the average conservative

He's pissed. He's genuinely pissed.
I couldn't agree with this guy more.
From Hot Air:

I know how he feels... and my next post will expound on it.

Did Obama try to delay a deal for withdrawal?

This story has been around in various ways, but this one seems a lot more concrete. Particularly by the amount of people who won't comment.

At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn't be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.

If true, it not only makes Obama the worst opportunist around, but a dangerous man to the US.

The bailout bill, and the bailout vote

I wanted to put this somewhere, so that I could keep tract of it easily. This is as good of a place as any.

The first vote on the bailout was September 29th, and the final tally is as follows:

	Ayes	Noes	PRES	NV
Democratic	140	95
Republican	65	133		1
Independent
TOTALS	205	228		1

The second vote on the bailout was October 3rd, and that tally is as follows:

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	172	63
Republican	91	108
Independent
TOTALS	263	171

My representative, Gutierrez, voted "yea" both times.

A stunningly accurate skit on the bailout

I have to give SNL complete kudos for this sketch.
Its not only really funny, but a very accurate version of what's going on.

Pain is sometimes funny.

At what point does hero worship get dangerous?

I think that I can say this with 100% honesty:

If Obama were a Republican - and if he agreed (in theory) with everything I believed in - and even if I thought he seemed humble...
...the hero worship would still creep me out.
It would creep me out to the point where I wouldn't vote for that candidate.

I don't understand this level of hero worship about anyone.
Its why I can't fathom the Jim Jones thing, or the Moonies, or anyone who hangs a big photo of their leader in their home.

With all of this in mind, I have to ask this question of any liberal and/or democrat who might run across my blog:
How far does it have to go?
How bizarre would it have to get before you would say

I can't vote for Obama. Not because I disagree with what he says, but this is too much faith to put into any one person. This is too much worship for one mortal being, especially one who is a politician.

Does that point exist?
Is there any point where you would say that the hero worship has gone too far?


Would it have to be Paris fashion show, where Obama's face is on dresses and clothes, with a model wearing some kind of wristlets that say "Yes, we can"?

Would it be a teachers union suggesting to their members that they should all wear blue on Tuesdays to show their support for Obama and as a way to influence the teens they teach?

Would it be a junior fraternity of black gentlemen marching, wearing camouflage, and stepping forward to tell you, one at a time, how Obama has changed their lives?

Or would it be a group of schoolchildren singing their praise for Obama, with their proud parents watching over them for praising their dear leader?

How far is too far for you?
I'd love it if someone would answer that for me.