Picture this. You are one of thousands of Democrats at your Convention in Denver waving Obama signs, Biden signs, Change signs, Hope signs and little American flags. The three or four day spectacle comes to an end, you file out with the crowd, full of memories and Hope. Some among you have been here before, for others it was their first presidential convention and the thrill if a lifetime.

As you leave you see those ubiquitous rollable open containers above which there are signs that read “Leave this place as clean as you found it”. You are lugging three signs and a flag. You want one souvenir. Which do you discard?

Apparently many Democrats chose to discard the American flag.

It seems someone at the company hired to clean up the trash thought these discarded flags should be rescued and so turned 84 bags of refuse over to the Republicans, who in turn engaged the Boy Scouts of America to sort thru the rubble and retrieve the flags for return to service.

As a proud American I cannot imagine ever being so cavalier as to throw the Stars and Stripes in a trash bin under any circumstances. I have never aspired to attend a political convention, but if I did, and was given a flag to wave for my candidate, that little flag would become a precious possession.

What in the world has happened to the Democratic Party?

WBAI Host gets Arrested

John Hinderaker of Power Line writes

A busload of [Boy] Scouts were en route to the convention, where they were to present the colors to open the convention. A group of protesters--liberals, Obama supporters, or whatever--blocked the road, surrounded the bus, and attacked it, rocking the bus back and forth, denting and scratching the sides, and generally terrifying the children trapped inside. The left-wing protesters attacked a number of buses in the same way, but there is something especially despicable about attacking a group of Scouts.

For more atrocities read Jim Hoft, who was on a bus attacked from above when a group of protesters dropped sand bags on to the top of the bus

Now watch this pro Amy Goodman video then come back to the post. Note the producers’ title of the report and try to tell me these are not vile people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBMSNkI5lPA&NR=1

Amy Goodman was arrested for good reason. Given the destruction and violence that was taking place the police would have been derelict in their duty had they not set a containment line not to be crossed. Ms. Goodman forced her way thru that line, thus interfering with the maintenance of civil order in the midst of a riotous event.

As the video shows she presented no apparent justification for breaking a riot control line. Amy Goodman is not universally recognized as a journalist with special privileges to break thru an anti riot police line. The midst of mayhem is not time for checking credentials.

Some have inferred that this Goodman incident reflects badly on Republicans because there were no such conflicts at the DNC convention. To them may I suggest the reason is that there is less difference between the rioters and the Democratic Party than between the rioters and the Republican Party. It’s the Democrats who should be ashamed of this element among their constituency. It’s the Democrats who should pause to think what is there about Democratic Party policies that these anarchists see as common ground.

And as far as Amy is concerned the lady is a journalist in the same sense that Rev Al Sharpton is a Christian minister. Amy and Al are activists, pure and simple.

Webster says “conventional” means conforming to accepted standards and taste. I doubt the Conventions will be conventional. But they will be fun.

I presume the Democratic Convention, about to start in minutes, will begin with the National Anthem. Will Barack hold his hand over his heart? Will Michelle stand?

As they said in China, Let the Games Begin !!

My blog is entitled RANDOM THOTS so it occurred to me I should include an occasional random thought. There follows two. It’s my version of read one, get one free.

This is some of my heavier stuff. I hope you will visit RANDOM THOTS again and often enough to enjoy the frivolity also on the menu.

Sharpton and Jackson

Racial harmony is their worst nightmare. They would become irrelevant. They must create issues which are naturally divisive, stir up unrest, and pit black against white.

They continue to fight the war that Martin Luther King has already won. Rather than further his progress they intrude on it,

Liberal vs conservative

Liberals emote, demagoguery is effective, their leaders know that.

Conservatives reason, are less fearful, more optimistic, realistic and less exciting.

Liberals feel guilty for their prosperity and advocate reducing their status or more often the status of others, toward the level of those with less.

Conservatives are thankful for their prosperity and advocate policies that enable the less fortunate to raise their status

Liberal philosophy, produces ideological thinking, the distinguishing quality of which is to regard those who oppose it as malicious. For a liberal, if doctrine and reality clash, reality must give way. Hence rational dialogue with a liberal is difficult: Neither logic nor evidence have any influence on their viewpoint.

Liberals see support for most any government program as compassion, and lack of support as lack of compassion.

Conservatives see compassion as individual support for the individual needy, direct, without going through government.

Liberals tend to be totally non judgmental, not holding people responsible for their own actions.

Will the mantra never end? Two Americas, the wealthy and those sleeping under bridges, a military staffed by losers incapable of getting a better job, coal miners so depressed they must seek solace in church and guns, destroyers of the planet willing to let the oceans rise and drown us all in the name of capitalism, a nation so depraved that the paper of record prints an Editorial declaring we hire doctors to ensure the tortured do not die before the torture is complete.

And now we learn the DNC plans to do its own Realty Show parading selected unfortunates for all the world to see as typical of what this miserable country offers. You have to wonder if Ronald Reagan is turning in his grave or just laughing at the lunacy.

Do you know who Pvt Lyndie England is? Her story was given front page exposure 41 times by the New York Times. She is the creep jailed for humiliating some Abu Graib prisoners.

Do you know who Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor is? He is a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, given for saving the lives of some of his fellow Navy SEALs in Iraq.  41 days on the front page for a creep and just 1 for a hero?

Then there’s Schumer. His letter of gloom and doom brought a run on a bank that put them in insolvency.

And of course we have our Candidate who does not want his daughters to grow up in such a gloomy country as America.

C’mon McCain, you show us some real people, perhaps some immigrants who are doing just fine, or Joe and Jane from Kentucky with four kids who just bought a new car. On second thought don’t bother. It’s a silly stupid game.

The Short answer is the ‘likely voters’ are getting to know Barack Obama. They are discovering his associations with Rezko, Wright and Ayers are not mistakes he made along the way. Rather they are what defines the man. It is becoming apparent that this candidate who never crossed the party line on a controversial issue has no grounds to call himself more of a unifier than a maverick from the other side. Likely voters are turning from a candidate with a Messianic image to one who is an earthly straight shooter.

From Saddleback Mountain to Georgia, McCain shines while Obama demurs with responses like “That’s above my pay grade”. The Rev Warren’s debate was as fair as it gets and the American people know that. Obama came out number 3 in that 2 man contest. And on Georgia, McCain condemned Russia immediately for their invasion of a free and democratic sovereign nation. It took Obama 3 tries and 3 days to do the same. This did not go unnoticed.

To some Barack may be the Messiah they have been waiting for, but others are coming to see him as just another garden variety Democrat and one who is something less than presidential at that.

Have you wondered what is Liberation Theology anyway? I had never heard of it before Barack Obama introduced America to Rev Jeremiah Wright. In my naiveté I even wondered if it had been a development of the Rev JW. Not so.

I turned to Wikipedia for help. I love Wikipedia but one has to read it with a grain of skepticism, more than a grain on ideological subjects. Here we discover the key is the concept that poverty is the source of sin thus theologians must be politically active, to eliminate poverty, hence sin. Sounds a bit Marxist and leaves unexplained how this accounts for preaching the likes of “white mans greed leaves a world in need” and other racially divisive screeds.

I was recently reading some papers by A.F. Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom, when to my amazement I see Hayek defined it many years ago. Hayek can be tortuous to read so let me first interpret then give the full quote.

Interpretation

The ‘liberation’ is liberation from personal restraint. The restraint includes restraint from harboring and expressing hostility toward others who are not like yourself, as well as

liberation from various personal responsibilities.

The rational for calling it ‘theology’ is not explained by Hayek. An inference could be taken that it is because the idea was popularized at one time by a faction of the Catholic Church. It seems to me not to be theology at all.

After waxing eloquent about Rousseau, Foucault and Habermas ‘ Hayek says, quote:

“On a less sophisticated level the argument against alienation are the demands for liberation from the burdens of civilization including the burdens of disciplined work, responsibility, risk taking, saving, honesty, the honoring of promises, as well as the difficulties of curbing by general rules one’s natural reactions of hostility to strangers and solidarity with those who are not like oneself, an ever more severe threat to political liberty. Thus the notion of liberation, although allegedly new is actually archaic in its demand for release from traditional morals.

Those who champion such liberty would destroy the basis of freedom, and permit men to do what would irreparably break down those conditions that make civilization possible. One example appears in so called ‘Liberation Theology’, especially within the Roman Catholic Church in South America.”

A. F. Hayek, in The Fatal Conceit

So there you have it, freedom from personal responsibilities and sanction to be racist, according to Hayek. All that’s left is to consider how Wright’s specifically Black Liberation Theology fits into the picture. And then consider implications of Barack Obama’s devotion to it.

McCain ran his now famous Brittany Spears ad. I was amused. I was also pleased the old man’s campaign got off its duff and finally did something spirited and effective. Sure, I expected accusations of attack ad, beneath McCain’s claim to decency in campaigning, etc. But I never expected the ‘it’s a racist ad’ allegation. It never ever occurred to me. And I Have heard enough comments from Conservatives to know they are mystified by the claim also.

I also know enough Obama supporters to believe some did honestly see this as racist. When I get befuddled by something like this I shake my head to rattle my brain. How can it be that some people genuinely see blatant racism where others see not a trace. The easy answers might be prejudice or blindness. But too many people on either side are neither, for these to be the answer.

Here’s what I came up with.

Those on the Right see people as individuals. They see one flighty celebrity, then another flighty celebrity and a third individual being portrayed as similarly all flash and no pan. The point here is not to debate the accuracy or inaccuracy of that portrayal. That’s for another time.

Those on the Left see people as member of a group first and individuals last. To this mindset the ad involves four groups, male, female, black and white. So this becomes at first blush an ad about two white females and a black man. See the difference?

It is still a big leap to sexism but that’s a leap the Left is comfortable with. It also is a leap some do not even see as necessary. Just to juxtapose two white women with one black man is enough in itself, especially when done by a white male.

I need a rest. It is very tiring trying to think like a liberal.

A recent Drudge headline told of a group that wants to ban WiFi in public buildings because it is dangerous.

Oh my! Not again. First it was microwave ovens, then it was television screens, then it was EMF, then came cell phones held close to your head, now the latest absurdity is WiFi can kill you.

Did you notice a common denominator? If you said Science, Electricity or new technology, any one of the three, congratulations! If you said “what’s EMF?” you may be forgiven as the common man is not expected to know EMF is acronomic speak for Electro Motive Force. The common man rightly knows EMF by its common name, electricity. The MSM and the not so MS M is not to be forgiven. They should be held responsible for whereof they speak and about what they cry DANGER!!

WiFi is nothing more nor less than a radio signal and a weak one at that. The term ‘radio signal’ is in deference to age. Radio is the miracle that started it all so it gets to name the signal. TV, satellite, GPS and WiFi signals are all the same fundamental thing. They are all the same thing.

If this group considers a weak radio signal (WiFi) to be dangerous I presume they would consider stronger signals to be more dangerous. This would call for shutting down all radio stations, all TV transmitters, all air traffic control transmissions, all cell phone towers, all…well, you get the idea.

I have long thought completion of basic courses in Science, Statistics and Economics should be a pre requisite for voting or running for elected office. Perhaps they should also be requirements for launching a lawsuit, sitting on a jury or being a journalist.

That’s my rant. What’s yours?

VP Gore and his BS 1

It seems the big green man now has a big white house boat that he says is very Green. The monster is 100 feet long and many Gore widths wide it must have great carbon spewing engines to push such an aquatically inefficient hull to its recreational destination.

VP G says it saves 40% in carbon emissions by virtue of the greenness of its design. Reminds me of the guy who bought a bag of obsolete doorknobs because they were advertised at a 40% saving because he needed the money.

The internet inventor has named this planet saver “Bio Solar 1”. See it here.