From Electric City Weblog

They call this a Demplosion.

Not For Sale To Old Folks

Could the Cowboys use this?

I think he should have kept walking instead of breaking into a run.

A couple of days ago I was wondering around our local Barnes and Noble book store looking for I know not what for sure. I came across this recent hardback from McCall Smith. I'm fairly sure he dictates his books to at least two amanuenses as he walks about his Georgian house in Edinburgh, perhaps even as he walks up and down Princes St. I know I haven't finished all of his #1 Ladies Detective Agency stories, and I have barely touched those in the Isabel Dalhousie series. I just can't keep up.

Every one that I have read have been enjoyable, about everyday life in Botswana—the #1 series—and then the adventures of some fairly nice upper middle class folks in modern day Edinburgh—the Dalhousie series—and another one I forget what it's called.

This Might Be A Good Idea

For unknown reasons I used to think that psychiatrists needed help. But reading this blog regularly has been very good for my mental health.

A word from the ruling class to us underlings

Peggy Noonan, former speech writer for Ronald Reagan, as she ages, seems to be getting shriller and getting on with her rant in a hurry. In a recent Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal, having to do with the recent mid-term election, and possibly a mea culpa for past sins, she tells us that those running for high office in the USA should have the following qualifications:

"Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can't just bully them, you can't just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade."

This bit of brilliance comes a little late. Where was Ms Noonan two years ago when we collectively decided that a couple years as a "community organizer" and running a couple of good political campaigns were enough qualifications to be President of all of us. Actually, Ms Noonan, our pundit-in-chief of the ruling class, was doing her usual thing in this article which was to roast Sarah Palin for having the effrontery of being selected to be John McCain's running mate in 2008, thus pointing out to the whole world the absence of qualifications at the top of the Democratic ticket, not just at the VP level.

My guess is that Ms Noonan feels the need to be fair and balanced in her articles, so that in order for her to say this about Obama after his post mid-term election speech—

"Actually I thought the worst thing you can say about a president: He won't even make a good former president."

—she has to misunderstand something that Governor Palin said about Ronald Reagan and call her a nincompoop, no doubt an affectionate term in the vocabulary of the ruling class.

A Video Worth Watching

http://www.militarytimes.com/hancock

I would love to share a beer or two with this lady.

We Hardly Knew Ye Keith O

Did you name yourself as the Worst Possible Person In The World this Week? Say it isn't so Keith O. Is this a prime example of the Peter Principle at work? Mr O seemed to be very good at his sports desk but has he now reached his level of incompetence?

They say he shouldn't have made a political contribution to some of his leftist guests but hasn't he made an in-kind contribution to the political opponents of George W Bush and John McCain and Sarah Palin and other conservatives each time he comes on the air for the past couple of years?

From our friends at Wikipedia (they seem fairly reliable if they are not talking about global warming, or is it climate change, or maybe climate disruption—it is hard to keep up sometimes):

Keith Theodore Olbermann (pronounced /ˈoʊlbərmən/; born January 27, 1959) is an American news anchor,sportscaster, writer, and political commentator.^[2] He hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann, an hour-long nightly commentary program on MSNBC.

Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He later co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. After leaving ESPN amid controversy, Olbermann became a sports anchor and producer for Fox Sports Net from 1998 to 2001, during which time he hosted Fox's studio coverage of baseball.

After leaving Fox, Olbermann re-joined MSNBC after a hiatus, hosting Countdown with Keith Olbermann in 2003. Olbermann has established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining note for his pointed criticism of major politicians and public figures, directed particularly at the political right.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} He has feuded with rival commentator Bill O'Reilly^[9][10] and strongly criticized the George W. Bush administration and John McCain'sunsuccessful 2008 Presidential candidacy.^[11] Although many have described Olbermann as a liberal,^{[12][13][14][15]} he has said on at least one occasion "I'm not a liberal; I'm an American."^[16]

^{> > >}

How do they do this? This paragraph was in the Wiki article within a few days after it

happened!

Suspension

On October 28, 2010, days before the 2010 U.S. elections, Olbermann donated $2,400 each to three Democratic candidates for Congress: Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords.^[65] In response, on November 5, MSNBC President Phil Griffin suspended him indefinitely without pay for violating a network policy regarding political contributions which required prior approval from management.^[66]

From A Friend

Let me get this straight . . . .

We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don't,

Which purportedly covers at least
ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,

written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that didn't read it but
exempted themselves from it,

and signed by a President who smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who
didn't pay his taxes,

for which we'll be taxed for four years before any
benefits take effect,

by a government which has
already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,

all to be overseen by a surgeon general
who is obese,

and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!

'What the hell could
possibly go wrong?'

The Day After

Stranger things have happened but not recently. Huge numbers of Democrats were thrown out of office, not least in the state governorships and legislatures. This may mean that state Republicans will get to push electoral boundary lines a few miles toward neutrality. Of course, our main stream media, ever watchful, will make sure that the Republicans don't overstep their natural place as second class citizens.

The rules are,  whatever the Democrats have is theirs and whatever the Republicans have is negotiable. Sort of reminds you of the diplomatic conversations between Kennedy and Krushchev back in the 60s.

Talking about being thrown out of office, maybe we should keep our eyes on those still in office for another couple of months. I know it's not traditional for lame duck sessions to produce anything really useful but you never know with lowlifes like Reid and Pelosi. Dogs-in-mangers to describe these people is being unkind to dogs.

Something strange happened right here in River City. Although the Republicans nearly ran the table in the Montana state legislature, that was not the case in Senate District 25 which failed to return long-serving Roy Brown to the State Senate, giving a very close contest to Kendall Van Dyk, a young fellow apparently not needed on the ranch and of no particular distinction. Odd result. I do remember one of his campaign ads in which he appeared with a smiling Pres. Obama. Of course we know that close contests tend to go to the Democrat in Chicago or Detroit or indeed any fairly large city but could that be true right here in River City. Do we need to worry about who counts the votes?