Call me crazy

...but it sounds like Jack Bogdanski is pondering the possibility of riots in America.

He essentially says that the country is in such rough shape, that people are so frightened and downtrodden, that the country is heading in the wrong direction on so many fronts, that there is no way the new president can act quickly enough to satisfy those hurting souls. The result, like the built-up anger over racial discrimination, will be that "many Americans won't be willing to wait quite as long as I am to see some results."

He never comes out and says that riots are inevitable, but by invoking the Civil Rights era rioting and comparing that situation to today, it's not a difficult leap to think that Jack sees the parallels extending to the 1960s destruction of America's inner cities. It's also not difficult to imagine that others in a position to implement such violence also see the parallels, and are already working toward those ends.

The country is, in some ways, in rough shape, and many people are worried. But perhaps this is but one of many examples of the hazards involved in praying for The Obamessiah to wave his magic wand and bring the world together at the communal campfire of humanity. Now that The One has been elected, people are starting to realize (admit?) that Obama is only a man, and that miraculous change is not quite the reality they claimed two months ago.

Of course, I'd make this observation on his blog, but he seems to have decided to delete any comment I make.

Tough love

Coyote at Northwest Republican gives it to the American automobile industry. And I couldn't agree more.

And now, something completely random

As Jonah Goldberg described it, Nerdtastic. Between my soft spot for a cappella and my nostalgia for the movies referred to in this video, I call it good, clean fun. OK, a little nerdy, too.

I know that babies are sometimes born in cars...

...but I didn't know they'd put it on the birth certificate.


















Read about it here.

The Oregonian: official PR agency of radical environmentalists

That's not an unreasonable interpretation of this news story on the O's website, which leads with the assumption that a Bush administration logging plan is a bad idea and finishes with instructions on how to protest against it:

Salem is bracing for an afternoon rally to halt harmful logging in Western Oregon.

The Stop the Western Oregon Plan Revision & Save Our Forests rally, set for noon on the Capitol Building steps, is aimed at encouraging Governor Kulongoski to protest a Bush administration plan to increase logging on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management.

On Tuesday, a University of Oregon student clambered 50 feet up a pine tree at the Capitol and settled into a tent with a banner that read, "Don't Clear Cut Our Future."

Free buses were leaving at 10 a.m. from Portland's Daily Grind coffeehouse at Southeast 42nd Avenue & Belmont Street, according to organizers.

Got it? That logging plan is "harmful." It says so right in the lead. And Salem is "bracing," so it must be such a terrible plan that the Capitol will be overrun with protestors, right?

No value judgment about the loony-toon hanging out in a tent five stories above the Capitol mall. No value judgment about the rally's legitimacy. It's harmful. End of story.

And if you agree, we'll link to one of the area's most left-wing media sources (a self-described "tool for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth") to let you learn how to join the rally. After all, you probably don't have a job and might be looking for something to do on a beautiful Autumn afternoon.

Ironically, if this story had first appeared in the Oregonian, it might not have made the pages of Portland indymedia. Their website says they reserve the right to hide posts that "are reposted from corporate media outlets."

Red Herring of the Day

From an AP article about how gun sales have skyrocketed since the election of Barack Obama (emphasis mine):

Faster than a speeding bullet, rifles and handguns have been flying off the shelves here and across the country since Barack Obama won the presidential election.

"Gun sales doubled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, and we've sold out of a lot of the guns we normally have in stock," said Jim King, sporting goods manager at Thatcher's Ace Hardware in Baker City, which still retains a tinge of its Wild West boomtown origins.

People are afraid of losing their Second Amendment gun rights, King said, although that would involve a lengthy and improbable attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution.

The issue for Second Amendment supporters is not that they think the amendment will be amended or repealed. But there are plenty of limits that can be placed on gun ownership short of erasing the Second Amendment. Obama tacitly admitted in September that his willingness to change gun laws was limited only by sufficient Congressional support; now that he has it, gun owners worry that he will use his Congressional majorities to impose much more stringent limits on them.

Why this election matters

Because five Supreme Court justices are at least 70 years old, and the two oldest are the two most liberal: John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Obama's surprising admissions

In an interview earlier this year with the San Francisco Chronicle, Barack Obama made two surprising admissions. First, he acknowledged that consumers should expect enormous rate increases due to his plan to reduce greenhouse gases. In the same breath, he admitted that when government actions negatively impact business, that cost will be passed on to consumers:

You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

They will pass that money on to consumers. It makes one suspect that Obama knows his tax policies against, say, the oil industry will result in higher costs for consumers, but that he either doesn't intend to follow through on his threats, or doesn't care about the impact on you and me.