Tue, Aug 30th - 10:10AM

The Age of Napoleon, p. 712
114.5 miles
hot

167 recordings of 47 types. 21% left.

Rasmussen: -20: 45/54.

I'm 1.3 pounds up. But it was a lot worse earlier in the week. At least I have low blood pressure.

The only thing we did today was go to Church this evening, so as to go to a party tomorrow. We saw a number of our friends, and Rich gave some figs to an old lady friend who was totally delighted.  He's not feeling well today. He doesn't want to recieve Communion wine any more.

How 0bama Spent His Summer Vacation.

This is one of the strangest P.R. debacles in Presidential history. With this middle finger to an America in recession, it’s almost as though he’s trying to be hated.
...White House spokesman John Earnest tried to wave off criticism of the Obama vacation as “cable chatter,” saying the President knows “this is a job that he’s responsible for doing wherever he is, whether he’s sitting in the Oval office, or whether he’s caught on the golf course when an emerging action takes place.”

One of the problems with this defense is that Americans see the current economic crisis as unique, a view the Obama Administration has strongly encouraged.  I would imagine the increasingly disenchanted public remembers all those loud promises that the President “will not rest” until “everyone looking for a job can find one,” especially since they were made as recently as two weeks ago.
...As the vacation wraps up with tales of First Lady Michelle Obama?’s “disgusting” spending sprees - said total over $10 million of taxpayer money over the past year - and reports that some residents of Martha’s Vineyard will be glad to see the Obamas go, you have to wonder how the White House political team failed to realize how awful all of this would look.  Who thought it would be a good idea to cram the huge presidential entourage onto a small island, at massive taxpayer expense, in the middle of a seemingly endless recession?  Is Obama basically daring his last few dead-end supporters to abandon him? 

I know someone who thinks a third-party candidate is a great idea.  He says any Republican would be just as bad as 0bama.

Negative. Even if it’s Romney, all hands on deck for the GOP nominee. Of course, if it’s somehow Huntsman, then I’ll skip the race.
The 2012 race is too important. Do you want the replacement for Kennedy and Scalia to be in Obama’s hands? Obama will get one more shot when Ginsburg retires shortly, fearing Obama might lose. But that’s a trade of an older lib for a younger lib.
If Obama gets to appoint Kennedy’s successor or Scalias’s successor, God help us.
BuckeyeSam on August 27, 2011 at 8:17 AM

Yes, a 3rd party may be a viable endeavor….but not for the next election. We should all focus on getting rid of as much of the progressive infiltration, at all levels , that we can in the coming election. Then we can think about the need for a Conservative Party.
VBMax on August 27, 2011 at 8:36 AM

The malicious candidate will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Obama reelection campaign. His singular goal will be to garner enough votes away from the Republican candidate to throw the election to Obama.
I am absolutely certain that this will come to pass as that was exactly how Deval Patrick succeeded in winning reelection as Governor of Massachusetts. Patrick is a dreadful politician, every bit as much the affirmative action, guilt assuaging limousine liberal choice as Obama.
Why?
Because Deval Patrick is the Beta version of Barack Obama.

Oh my.

Boehner Blasts 0bama over Increase in Regulations.

The Head of the College Board is Paid More than Harvard's President.

MORE ON THE GIBSON RAID: “Why would the government use armed agents to attack one of the few major manufacturers of anything remaining in the United States?” It’s like they don’t want to see the economy recover or something.

UPDATE: What a coincidence! CEO of Gibson Guitar a Republican Donor. And their Democratic-donating competitor, Martin, uses the same wood but wasn’t raided. Well, when you’ve got a President who jokes about tax audits as revenge for a personal slight, it’s hard not to be suspicious, isn’t it?

HOWIE CARR ON OBAMA’S VINEYARD DEPARTURE: Prez exits on wave of ineptitude. “The first family came in separate planes, and they’re leaving, ditto. Hey, it’s only money, our money. Even before Irene, this wasn’t much of a presidential vacation compared to the earlier ones. An Obama vacation on the Vineyard has been downgraded from Cat 3 to tropical storm. It’s hard to get excited about the arrival, yet again, of the second coming of Herbert Hoover.” Ouch.

Unions.  Very bad losers.

Becky92118: The line between these protesters and Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church gets smaller every day.

@krauthammer Charles Krauthammer
Earthquake, hurricane, Obamacare. When does it stop? Seven more and I vote we let the Israelites go.

Hypocrite. (No surprise here.)

Americans for Limited Government researcher Richard McCarty, who was alerted to the controversy by a federal government lawyer, said, “The company has been short-changing the tax collection agency for much of the past decade.   Mr. Buffett’s company has not fully settled its tax bills from 2002-2009.  Yet he says he’d happily pay more.  Except the IRS has apparently been asking him to pay more going on nine years.”

Instapundit: Nebraska reader Gerald Hanner emails about the anti-pipeline crowd:

    Yeah. We have a household of them right across the street.

    The parents are teachers, and their oldest daughter is a college student. What a surprise.

Fund teacher raises with an energy tax and watch their positions moderate . . . .

Vince Yarnot:
It was an iconic moment. The father reading his son a bedtime story. The young son grabs his father's favorite hat from his head and places it on his own. The oversized hat on the young boy's head hinting at the man he is going grow into. It was touching moment ...that is until two days later when the son was found to have lice.

Reading: The Age of Napoleon, Will and Ariel Durant, The Bible (1 Machabees), The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis Marie de Montfort, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and White Fang, by Jack London.