Since a blog is supposed to be a "web log," I thought I'd keep readers abreast of what I'm doing.
I'm skiing at Lake Placid, New York.
I wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to drive up here so early in the season, but I had some vacation I had to use up. So I jumped in the car.
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This involved a trip up the Garden State Parkway. As it happened, I was making that trip on the first day of the new, higher tolls, Dec. 1, 2008.
Coincidentally enough, that toll hike took effect at almost exactly the same time the Democrats had promised to remove Parkway tolls. Back in 2001, when Jim McGreevey ran for governor, he promised to end tolls in seven years. By 2008, in other words, or early 2009 if you give him the benefit of the doubt.
I just got the skis down from the attic. I think it's going to be a cold winter. I can feel it in my bones.
But what the heck do I know? I can't predict the weather. Neither can anyone else. Not Al Gore. Not even Phil Chapman.
| Ledger Live - 11-25-08 |
In a recent column I described in some detail how the rigging of the market by the Big Three automakers led them to the over-reliance on pickups and SUVs that in turn led them to their current economic woes.
Since you're not a moron, I imagine you understand that a rigged market is not a free market. Yet whenever I pen such a piece, I invariably get an e-mail from some bozo who tries to tell me that the SUV is a product of the free market.
Sure enough. Here's one I got in response to that column. Note the sentence in capital letters, the signature tactic of the dimwit:
In the recent election, the candidates campaigned like crazy in some small and medium-sized states. Meanwhile both parties ignored entirely three states with almost 100 million people and more than 100 electoral votes.
Those three states are California, New York and of course New Jersey.
Both parties conceded all three to the Democratic ticket even before the conventions were over. As a result, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain bothered to mount a meaningful campaign here - though they did stop by for some fund-raising trips.
From everything I've heard, Argentina is a wonderful place to visit. But I wouldn't want to live there.
It's tough enough in Trenton.
I was in the Statehouse yesterday attending a hearing on the state pension fund. The fund started the year with a staggering deficit, one that had Gov. Jon Corzine looking around for assets to sell or pawn. Since then, the fund has lost more than a quarter of its value. Public employees' prospects of a secure retirement have gone south, though not as far south as Argentina.
This video of Peter Schiff debating Arthur Laffer back in 2006 has been making the rounds on the web.
Schiff was Ron Paul's economic advisor during Paul's run for the Republican presidential nomination this year. Paul lost that race, but just about everything he predicted has come true in the interim.
Jon Corzine must be feeling a bit like Stephen Garcia.
Garcia is the University of South Carolina quarterback who was tackled near the goal line in a game last month against Louisiana State. The incident has since been replayed endlessly on YouTube.
Quarterbacks get tackled all the time, you might think. What's the big deal? The big deal is that Garcia was tackled by the referee. Field umpire Wilbur Hackett Jr., who had been a star linebacker in college, apparently had a flashback when he saw Garcia running toward him. He leveled a shoulder into Garcia and ended what might have been a touchdown run.
The Gamecocks scored a couple of plays later, so no harm was done. But our governor may never get back up from the hit the justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court laid on him the other day.
The Republican Party has been kind to Alaska. But Alaska has not been kind to the Republican Party.
For years people have made the distinction between the Stupid Party - the Republicans - and the Crooked Party - the Democrats.
But Alaska Republicans offer the worst of both worlds. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was convicted on corruption charges before the election yet refused to step down, thus losing the GOP a crucial seat in the Senate.
That's the bad news. The good news is that at least Gov. Sarah Palin won't be able to take that seat. While Stevens is corrupt, Palin is stupid. The McCain campaign had to hide her from the media to keep her from saying dumb things. But they couldn't hide her during the debates. That was when Palin made what may be the single dumbest statement ever to exit the mouth of a politician who purports to be a conservative.
"I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that, and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving. Teachers need to be paid more."
I challenge anyone to find a dumber Palin quote. It may be tough, given that overspending on the public education bureaucracy is perhaps the single biggest crisis facing Americans on the local level. But our girl's been chatting up a storm lately, so perhaps she's said something even dumber.
I had a lot of fun with my prior post comparing Sarah Palin to the TV Gidget, Sally Field.
Now here's a little challenge. Here is a website that offers assorted quotes from assorted Gidgets over the years. Many of these quotes are funny, but I challenge anyone to find a single quote that rivals in pure dumbness Palin's quotation on school funding.
I also challenge you to find a Palin quote that is even dumber. I suspect that's possible, since almost everything she says is nonsensical - at least when seen from the perspective of traditional, small-government conservatism.
Moron Perspective Warning:
Quotations only will be accepted, either from Gidget or Palin. As always, I am not interested in comments from people who somehow fail to understand that there is ample room to the right of the Republican Party on the political spectrum. Also, I don't want to hear your opinion on whether I should continue critiquing the Alaska airhead. If you don't like what I posted, get your own damn blog.
"Teachers need to be paid more, Moondoggie!"
"I've never been to Rome before."
In retrospect, the bursting of the housing bubble may seem to have been inevitable. But few experts predicted it.
That's not the case with the bursting of the Big Three bubble. Lots of people predicted that when gas prices went up, American automakers' prospect were going to go down. That was obvious to anyone who was paying attention.
The legendary Joe Sixpack of Philadelphia fame has a book out about Christmas beers.
Joe's real name is Don Russell, and I used to work with him on the overnight copy desk at the Philadelphia Daily News, where I got an education in cynicism and crankiness that will last me the rest of my life.
If you're interested in figuring out where the Republicans went wrong and why they no longer have any connection to anything that could properly be called conservatism, I recommend this fine essay by Paul Gottfried in the latest issue of The American Conservative.
I'm not a gambling man, but I make exceptions for politics. I mull things over for a while and at a certain point I come to a conclusion on which I am willing to bet a six-pack of beer.
And I am now willing to bet a six-pack that Jon Corzine will not run for re-election as governor of New Jersey. Unlike me, our governor is a gambling man, a damn good one. He made a fortune in the gaming houses of Lower Manhattan. And he knows enough to quit when he's ahead.
As I noted in a post during the Republican convention in September, there was something fishy about the Republicans' use of the slogan "Country First" in the recent campaign.
Why not "America First?" We got the answer the other day when the Bush administration continued its attack on the two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were sentenced to long jail terms for shooting and wounding a drug smuggler.
