Loud Music is a $40 Fine

I realize that voting is a right. But as with all rights, there are responsibilities. If you choose to stay uninformed about the candidates before an election and then still exercise your right to vote, then you’re a very irresponsible person.

It turns out that Obama’s voters were some of the most irresponsible voters.

Zogby released the results of a poll that tested the knowledge of voters who voted for Obama. A one word description of those voters? Pathetic.

They new more negative stuff about McCain and Palin than they did about Obama. More than half of these, well, morons, didn’t even know which party controlled the House and Senate.

This poll was commissioned by the producers of a documentary called “How Obama Got Elected“. While it’s an indictment on Obama’s voters for their lack of knowledge about their candidate, it’s also an indictment against the mainstream news media.

In a previous post,  I said that just because you have a right to vote doesn’t mean you should exercise it. This survey proves that in spades.

Watch this if you need a reminder of what it means to be a conservative.

This is just about as timely today as it was 40 odd years ago. It’s amazing that liberals have used the same playbook all these years.

My favorite quote: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

H/T: Paul Ibraham

One of my morning routines is to sit in my truck in the parking lot at work and listen to Paul Harvey News & Comment.  But over the last several months, Paul Harvey, Jr. has been doing the broadcast.

Back a few years ago, it was announced that Fred Thompson would take over for Harvey while Harvey was out and ultimately would replace him. Then Fred! decided to run for president and had to give up the gig.

In May, Harvey’s wife Angel passed away, and he took some time off. During that time, he was replaced by several people, and ultimately by his son Harvey, Jr.

Harvey, Jr. has written The Rest of the Story for a long time. When Thompson was announced as the new host, I’d wondered why Harvey, Jr. hadn’t been named in that job.

After listening to Harvey, Jr. for a few months, I think I know why. When Thompson was doing the show, it was actually still a news show. With Harvey, Jr., it’s more like Rest of the Story lite. There’s absolutely no political news or comment.

I kind of figured that once Thompson’s run for president died down, they’d ask him back. But that hasn’t happened. Harvey, Jr. has done the morning news and comment for several months now. Harvey, Sr. is apparently doing the noon show, but at some point he’s going to retire. I just don’t think his son is up to the challenge.

About nine o’clock on Sunday night, I realized I’d completely missed the Phoenix Cup race. As it turns out, I didn’t miss much. Jimmie Johnson won again and virtually clinched the title. Here are a few random thoughts I’ve had about the race and the season.

• Top Dog: You’ve got to wonder what Jeff Gordon’s thinking. It’s been 40 races since he won. Have we seen a changing of the guard at Hendrick Motorsports? Remind me of when Roush started pushing Mark Martin out for his younger drivers like Kenseth and Busch.
• Retire already: What is it about motorsports that makes drivers who are past their prime think they can still win races? Kyle Petty, Mark Martin, Bill Elliot, Kenny Schrader, and much as I hate to say it, Sterling Marlin all really need to rethink their involvement in the sport’s highest level. Yeah, I know Martin’s going to “run for the championship” next year in a Hendrick car. While I’d actually like to see him win it, I don’t think it’ll happen. I don’t see Hendrick giving him the same equipment he’s giving Johnson.
• Is this the US? The race Sunday was a 500k race. I guess that sounds more impressive than the “CHECKER O’REILLY AUTO PARTS 311 PRESENTED BY PENNZOIL”. But still, this is the US. Make the race 300 miles like those at that gawdawful New Hamshire track.
• What’s Yer Point: Kyle Busch has to be cussing NASCAR for that new gimmicky points system. It’s gonna cost him a bunch of money. Under the old system, he’d probably end up finishing third. Under this new scheme, he could end up anywhere from 7th to 12th. NASCAR needs to fix what wasn’t broken to begin with.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: There’s a lot of talk about different teams merging and otherwise getting new ownership money. Before they do that, they ought to ask Ray Evernham and Richard Petty how that’s working out.
• No Testing For You: NASCAR has indicated that they’re going to possibly ban testing next year, at least for the first part of the year. This is in order to help cut costs for the teams. Here’s an idea: if you want to cut costs, limit the number of teams per owner (whether real or on paper) to two. Right now there are three or four owners who pretty much stink up the show. If your favorite driver isn’t driving for one of those teams, he doesn’t have a realistic chance of winning.

Next week is the last race of the season. I remember when I counted the days from the last race of the year to the Daytona 500. NASCAR has changed so much in the last few years that it’s just not much fun to watch anymore. And based on this year’s TV ratings (which are mostly flat or lower than last year’s), I’m not the only one NASCAR is losing. They’ve got to know that some of the stuff they’re doing is turning fans off. I don’t have the answer, but I know the product they’re putting out now can’t compare to even the mid-90’s. We’ve already seen some of the lower tier sanctioning bodies go out of business (ASA comes to mind). If I were a NASCAR stockholder I’d be concerned.

Driving into work this morning, it hit me: the whole election/voting process is broken.

Fortunately for mankind and the future of America, I have a solution.

First a little background. Hidden amongst all the pre-election stories proclaiming an Obama landslide were a few that indicated otherwise. The most telling one was produced by, of all people, Howard Stern. Stern sent out one of his folks to interview Obama supporters, but what he did was attribute McCain’s views to Obama. They still supported Obama.

Also, take a look at California’s Proposition 8 regarding gay “marriage.” All the exit polls show that the majority of blacks voted to disallow gay “marriage” while voting for Obama (who, I believe is ambivalent about the issue).

What that tells me is that our elections for President aren’t about the issues or who is most qualified, but which candidate is more popular.

Obviously, if we continue to elect presidents based on their outward appearances or popularity, our country is eventually going to be in a world of hurt (literally). So here’s the solution:

ePresident

Here’s how it would work. You’d still have primary and general “elections” and you’d still have candidates (those folks who’ve professed an interest in the job). On election day for the primary (and it’d have to be the same day for every state), you go to the polls if you don’t have a home computer with an internet connection, or from your home internet connection you go to the ePresident web site.

There you’re asked a series of questions about issues. Those who’ve professed an interest in the job would be asked the same questions. Then it’s a simple matter of matching the answers of the public to the answers of the candidates. In the primary, whoever gets more matches to their “profile” wins. Then in the general election, the same process would take place.

We could get rid of all those Diebold machines and just let eHarmony run the election. Simple.

One of Barack Obama’s central campaign themes was “hope.” At the time, it made little sense to me. What were people supposed to hope for? Better times? Better living conditions? More money from the government? That the government would stick it to those rich folk?

But just three days after this historic election, I now know what it means to have hope.

• I hope my retirement account stops losing money as a result of the election
• I hope that if it still does have money, the Democrats don’t take it away from me
• I hope Obama runs face first into the realities of the political world and can’t further move this country to the left
• I hope he doesn’t do much damage to the energy industry
• I hope he doesn’t do much damage to the health care industry
• I hope he doesn’t do much damage to the economy
• As a matter of fact, I hope he doesn’t do much damage to business in general
• I hope I still have a job when his term as president ends
• I hope the news media treats Obama like they have George W. Bush (slim chance, I know)
• I hope Obama isn’t able to fulfill his promise to spread the wealth
• I hope that we can get back to MLK’s principle of “judging a man based on the content of his character”
• I hope we can get back to JFK’s principle of asking not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

Yes, thanks to Obama, I now have hope.

As another Glenn might say: “Heh“

It’s hard to say how I really feel right now. There’s a lot of different things I’ve thought since last night’s victory by Obama.

I guess my gut reaction is disappointment. I’m disappointed that people bought into this “hope and change” nonsense. I’m disappointed that people voted for a candidate not because of the content of his character, but because of the color of his skin. I’m disappointed that we’ve elected the least qualified person in memory to be president.

Another reaction is concern. I figured that the DOW would lose around 500 points today, and I was pretty close. I’m even more concerned about my retirement money now, especially since the Democrats have promised to go after 401k’s. I’m concerned that the last 7 years of not having any terrorist attacks on American soil will be over. I’m concerned that state capitals will be terrorist targets. I’m concerned that our economy will go into recession, and that Obama’s lack of knowledge about capitalism will send us into a depression. I’m concerned that my company, a large private university, will start downsizing when the economy goes further south, and that I’ll be one of the victims of that.

And a final reaction is disbelief. It’s hard to figure out why people would vote against their own best interest in the long term, just to get a short term gain. I don’t understand why Jews would vote for Obama when his party has pretty much said they’d throw Israel to the dogs.

As far as “hope” goes, I hope that Obama will be a one-term president. I hope the Republicans can come up with someone in four years that can energize the party (much like Palin did, but more so). I hope that anything Congress and their rubber stamp in the White House does won’t damage this country too badly.

Ah well.

No matter the outcome, today’s election will make history. Either we’ll have the first (mostly) black president, or the first (all) woman vice president.

I’m actually writing this Monday night, but thanks to the magic of Wordpress’s scheduled publishing feature, I’m going to publish it on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night, I’ve got better things to do than watch election returns (like watch the World Series of Poker recap on ESPN).

I voted early a few days ago (one of these days I’m going to do some research on my theory that early voting, at least in Tennessee, is unconstitutional). I don’t see any reason to waste my time pouring over election returns; either McCain or Obama will win. I just hope that neither party tries to contest the election. The damage Al Gore did to the election process is still with us today.

However, I do think that citizens in areas with major voter fraud should sue the election officials for letting it happen. We’ve already seen where one organization has registered countless non-existent people, the same people more than once, and others that are ineligible to vote. The leaders of this organization must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

In the past few elections, I’ve been an election official, but this time I opted not to do that. I’m just not physically able to do the job (imagine standing on your feet for 12+ hours and constantly explaining to people how to use the machine). I do think it’s something more people need to do in order to safeguard the election process. I know I feel a little better about Davidson County’s elections after working as an official (this in spite of the fact that someone brought a bus load of illegal aliens to vote in Davidson County).

One thing I learned is that any voter has the right to challenge the eligibility of anyone else voting. In the case of the bus load if illegals, all someone would have had to do was challenge those votes on the grounds that since they can’t speak English, there’s no way they can be citizens.

Anyway, by the time anyone reads this, it’ll probably be obvious who the next president will be. Obama’s already lowering expectations, so hopefully if he’s elected, he’ll back off on some of the pie in the sky promises he’s made. if McCain pulls it out somehow, he’ll have a tough row to hoe with a Democrat congress blocking everything he presents (despite his record of “reaching across the aisle’).

No matter who wins, I hope their term in office is better than I expect. As far as the history-making component, I really hope this helps us get past those skin-deep labels.

From Mary Katherine Ham, this tells you all you need to know about Obama.