It's only bad when Republicans do it...

By now everyone has heard of some sort of uproar from the left every time someone in the GOP refers to Barack Hussein Obama's middle name.

They said it's fear mongering, racists and below the belt.

Why is this any different than Virginia's own left wing blogs referring to George Allen as George Felix Allen anytime his name was mentioned?

The rise of the LearJet liberal

Forget Limousine Liberals. It appears as though we have entered the brave new world of the LearJet Liberal. And the spokesman for this motley crue just might be John Travolta. Recently, Travolta stood somberly at a British airport and admonished all of his fans to "do their bit" to counter the scourge of global warming. Carbon emissions, the actor said, were such a threat that if every member of society did not do as much as possible to trim his or her polution footprint, human beings might have to look to dome cities on other planets as a way to escape climate change. Then, without a dash of irony, Scientologist-turned-scientist disappeared into the cockpit of his customized Boeing 707 jet and fired up all four Pratt & Whitney jet engines and took to the sky. I don't know if Pratt & Whitney has come up with a hybrid jet engine yet, but I'm pretty sure that the engines on any 707, which was produced between 1958 and 1978, are not models of fuel efficiency. Travolta admits that is obsession with flying a jet designed for commercial use as his personal conveyance is not the most 'green' way to travel. That may be underestimating it a bit. London's Daily Mail newspaper estimates that Travolta's carbon footprint for last year was almost 800 tons, or equal to about one hundred times the average person's output. Needless to say, Travolta was not ferrying a planeload of passengers back and forth on his jet, which, in commercial service is designed to accomodate up to 200 travelers. Fans who witnessed the incident say he was the only passenger on the plane.

Travolta, however, is far from alone in his hypocricy within his celebrity circle. Brad Pitt, another eco-warrior, has repeatedly grabbed headlines for his castigating admonitions that the self-centered Americans driving their SUVs to big box stores in the suburbs were destroying the planet. So dedicated is he to the green cause that he drives a Toyota Prius. And, word is, Pitt drives it everywhere, even to the hanger housing his LearJet, assumedly Pitt's prefered mode of conveyance for destinations not within Prius range. Leonardo diCaprio, not to be outdone, also drives a Prius but, unlike Pitt, does not place a wholesale ban on commercial air travel. In fact, diCaprio says he sacrifices for the environment by flying commercial "when he can." Otherwise, he flies his private jet. Apparently, it's acceptable to believe in environmentalism when convenient.

If the celebrities' chicken-little prognostications of impending ecological doom are to be believed, even diCaprio would have to admit that driving a Prius while flying a LearJet must be the carbon-emissions equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

While celebrities are expected to be hypocritical and divorced from reality, we often hope that our local governments do not act with the same reckless abandon. And often, we are proved wrong. Witness Austin, Texas, a formerly sleepy town in the middle of South Texas that is trying hard to become the Cambridge of the South. Or the Berkeley of the West. A spate of 'green' regulations introduced by the aptly-named mayor Will Wynn prove that the Texas Capital is embracing LearJet Liberalism. Shortly after denouncing the dearth of affordable housing in the city, the mayor introduced a regulation that no home could be bought or sold in the city limits without receiving a "Certificate of Compliance" from city government. The inspection required to receive this certificate is far from the standard safety inspection, however. Austin's new regulation will require that homeowners upgrade their mechanical systems, insulation, and windows to meet stringent environmental standards before they can sell their house. So drastic is this new ordinance that local realtors estimate the upgrades will cost the average Austin homeowner as much as $10,000. And the rules are not limited merely to older homes. With proposed requirements such as tankless water heaters, even homes built as recently as 2004 are expected to require extensive upgrades.

Local opposition to this ordinance has been described as fierce, but the city shows no sign of backing down. Austin's property values have skyrocketed in recent years, thanks largely due an influx of West Coast LearJet liberals, and the mayor presumedly believes that homes are now so expensive within the city limits that a few extra upgrades can't hurt. Besides, it's what the California expats no doubt expect. And the LearJet Liberals' incluence in Austin is extensive. In fact, the town even has its own enclave of A-list celebrities who no doubt appreciate the town's green attitude. I bet the Austin airport even has hanger space for Travolta's 707.

Head on Over To Conservativa...

For some great coverage of the YR Convention this past weekend.

http://www.conservativa.com/wp/

Howard Dean without the scream

If I hear one more of my reasonably well-educated, allegedly intelligent, intellectually curious, supposedly moderate-to-conservative friends tell me they're leaning towards supporting Barack Obama, I'm going to be sick.

Somehow, glib one-liners about post-partisan change now pass for substantive presidential material, as long as they can be packaged into neat soundbites and carpet-bombed 24/7 from the broadcast auxiliaries of the DNC (CNN, MSNBC, etc). A politician's platform, principles, and character are now not as important as his ability (or lack thereof) to spew thirty-second witticisms. We're living in the brave new world of 'macaca' politics, where YouTube lies in wait for careless politicians, then spreads their gaffes to all corners of the world. So why hasn't Obama yet been subject to the downside of the soundbite age? Why hasn't more been made of his gaffes, just one of which I post for your edification:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwog6E08CFU&feature=related

For all his post-partisan rhetoric about 'change', Obama is an out-and-out liberal. The genuinely non-partisan National Journal examined his voting record and ranked him as the MOST LIBERAL Senator in the entire United States Senate. Not one of the most liberal, not moderately liberal, but THE MOST LIBERAL. Obama stands firmly to the left of such bleeding hearts as Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, and Harry Reid. He is Howard Dean without the scream. There's not too much post-partisan about that.

To counter the truth about his liberal record, Obama tries in vain to cast off the albatross that is the liberal label. For example, he says that providing health care for everyone is not a liberal idea.

Yes, Senator, it is. Expanding the size of government by having the federal bureaucracy nationalize fully 1/7 of the nation's economy is the zenith of New Deal/Great Society liberalism. It's exactly this sort of nanny-state socialistic centralized control that principled conservatives have been fighting against for years. And let's not forget the wonderful job the federal government has done running its two biggest commitments: Social Security and Medicare. Wanting to place the government that has mismanaged these two programs in charge of our health care system makes as much sense as giving the a bottle of Maker's Mark to an alcoholic. Yet the unreasonable suspension of disbelief necessary to allow that the government unable to manage Social Security and Medicare could some how run health care is an essential tenet of liberal credibility. Just because Barack says national health care is not liberal doesn't make it so.

Thankfully, it seems as though the bloom may finally be off the rose. After a year or more of fawning press coverage, Obama and his allies are finally getting the same kind of scrutiny the media have been giving McCain for years. This Reverend Wright flap is just the tip of the iceberg. With Hillary seeming more like the Incredible Shrinking Candidate day by day, Obama better get used to the heat, because it's not getting any easier.

And maybe there is hope yet. My friends who seemed so uncritically enthralled with the Obama mystique have begun to look at the man behind the myth and they don't like what they see. The junior senator can say anything he likes about being post-partisan. The plain truth is, he is and honest-to-goodness liberal, through and through, and his rock-star act is beginning to wear thin. Sooner or later, his macaca moment will come. And he can rest assured that YouTube will be waiting.

There seems to be a pattern with Governor Kaine

Let us hearken back to the 2005 campaign when candidate Kaine (D-Liberal) was saying just about anything to get elected.

Candidate Kaine

"I cut taxes as mayor of Richmond. As governor, I'll do the same for all Virginians."

Governor Kaine only a few months later:

Gov. Tim Kaine will seek higher taxes on vehicle purchases and automobile insurance premiums

Candidate Kaine

"I will enforce the death penalty handed down by Virginia's juries"

Governor Kaine

"Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced Tuesday that he is halting all executions"

It seems democrats in Virginia have quite a history of saying one thing to get elected, only to do another once in office.

McCain/Obama Emails

AOL is reporting some intercepted email exchanges between the two senators over the course of the past couple of years, specifically since Senator Obama was elected to the Senate.

Instead, what began as a promising collaboration between two men bent on burnishing their reformist credentials collapsed after barely a week. The McCain-Obama relationship came undone amid charges and countercharges, all aired publicly two years ago in an exchange of stark and angry letters." -- Washington Post, March 31, 2008

Dear Senator Obama,
Congratulations on your election. I hope we can work together on campaign-finance reform and other pressing bipartisan issues, my friend.

Warmly,
John McCain
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Dear Senator McCain,
Thanks for your kind note. I look forward to working with you in leading the country to a new future. Also, "hope" is my word.

Your Friend,
Barack Obama
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Dear Barack,
"Leading" is a bit presumptuous, isn't it? You've been a senator for what, five minutes? I am still amicable to a brief meeting so I can tell you how things work here at the Senate, maybe after the lobbyists fly me back to Washington on a fancy corporate jet the likes of which you've never seen.

(PS -- "Friend" is my word.)

Regards,
John
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Dear John,
Perhaps your definition of "reform" is a bit different than my own. Language does have a tendency to change meaning over the centuries. I look forward to hearing about how you built the Capitol after clearing the Potomac swamps.

Tolerably,
Barack
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Dear Barry Hussein,
Thank you for confirming everything I originally thought about you -- that you are a high-minded foolish punk who should've been toughened up like I was, in the Viet Cong torture camp. Too bad you spent the Vietnam years doing marijuana at a Muslim college in Soviet Africa.

Angrily,
John
-
Dear "Juan,"
Forgetting for a minute that you haven't got a snowball's chance in Hades of winning the election, are you sure you're even eligible to run for president? Last I heard, you were born in Panama. All it takes is a quick glance at your shriveled old head to know your birthday must have been long before your pretend grandson Teddy Roosevelt started building the Canal, in 1904. No wonder you want to keep America at war in Iraq for another hundred years -- it all blurs together for you, Gramps.

I "hope" you drop dead,
B.

Obama site hacked

Apparently the Obama campaign reserved http://www.hope.net/ and developed a site for it. Someone has hacked that site, with the following image

See it while you can at http://www.hope.net/.