September 12th, 2014
Reporting on the Wendy Davis campaign at this point is like reporting on the Titanic 80% of the way into the sinking (“And there goes the second smokestack under the waves!”). But someone has to write a first draft of those epic failures for the historical record, so let’s press on…
Right now polls show Greg Abbott up a comfortable 18 points over Davis, 54% to 36%.
It’s gotten so bad that the Davis campaign “leaked” one of those ridiculous, can’t remotely trust them “internal polls” that shows her a mere 8 points behind Abbott, 38% to his 46%. You know it’s bad when you can’t even pretend to be winning in your own fantasy land poll.
Also, the Abbott campaign filed an ethics complaint against the Davis campaign for using her campaign funds to attend a book signing in New York City. (I wonder if her New York City signing had the same strict conditions as her Austin signing.) Since Davis did have one fundraising event on the trip, I doubt the complaint will succeed legally, but it does further the Abbott campaign’s picture of Davis as a woman who has more supporters in New York and California than in Texas.
The big question at this point is: What’s the floor for how poorly Wendy Davis can do in the general election? I think she can drop below the 39.96% Tony Sanchez garnered in 2002. I don’t see her eclipsing the pitiful low-mark of Garry Mauro’s 31.18% in 1998, much less Chris Bell’s 29.79% in the 4-way Perry-Bell-Strayhorn-Friedman race in 2006. Davis has garnered a lot more fawning media attention than Sanchez ever got, and didn’t have the bruising primary fight Sanchez had against Dan Morales, much less one where her opponent ended up endorsing the Republican nominee, as Morales did. On the other hand, Davis doesn’t have $60 million of her own money to spend on her campaign the way Sanchez did.
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Chris Bell, Elections, Greg Abbott, Tony Sanchez, Wendy Davis
Posted in Elections, Texas | No Comments »
September 11th, 2014
Rapid City just got an inch of global warming.
An early September winter storm in the Black Hills has dumped more than 6 inches of snow in the area, while Rapid City received its earliest snowfall in more than 120 years.
Jon Chamberlain, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Rapid City, said almost 1 inch of snow had fallen in downtown Rapid City by 8:30 a.m. while 2 inches was measured in higher elevations in town.
The snowfall in Rapid City is the earliest in the city since 1888, the NWS said.
At what point do all those cold weather anecdotes add up to climate?
Tags: Global Warming, weather
Posted in Global Warming | No Comments »
September 10th, 2014
We’ll save substantive analysis of Obama’s ISIS speech for another time. (Maybe.)
What I want to focus on: Vox.com and/or the White House set decorator making it look like Obama should have “666” on his forehead (click to embiggen for the full evil effect):
Now, I’m not one of those “Obama is the AntiChrist” nuts. And I realize that what looks like horns are merely folds in the ceremonial drapes (possibly window drapes) behind him. And his eyes probably look black because someone applied a standard photo filter to the picture (some iPhoto pics come out that way after applying the anti-redeye filter).
But combine all that with the oddness of the bags under his eyes, the overall weird shadows on his face, and it really gives Obama a sinister, malevolent look.
That’s why I saved a local copy to my HD, since I figure Vox will realize how bad it makes Obama look and replace it with one containing 95% less Satan by weight…
Edited to add: This one seems equally horn-arific:
Man, I can hardly wait for the lulz when Above Top Secret and InfoWars sink their teeth into this one…
Tags: Media Watch, Obama, Vox.com
Posted in Media Watch | 1 Comment »
September 10th, 2014
Wendy Davis is signing at Austin book store Bookpeople tomorrow (September 11, 2014) at 12:30 PM. (Bookpeople, if you haven’t been there, is a nice independent bookstore that has all kinds of authors in for signings, not just liberal politicians, and Rick Perry signed there in 2008.)
The signing itself is not odd, it’s the conditions for the signing that are odd:
EVENT GUIDELINES
This event is a SIGNING only. Senator Davis will not give a public talk.
Tickets are required to join the signing line.
Tickets are available to purchase in-store and via bookpeople.com
Tickets cost as much as the price of one copy of Forgetting to Be Afraid plus tax.
Each ticket grants access to the signing line for ONE person and will be exchanged for ONE signed copy of Forgetting to Be Afraid at the signing table the day of the event.
There is a limit of one ticket/book per person.
The line for the signing will form first come, first served the day of the event.
Books will not be personalized.
Photos will not be allowed at the signing table.
No memorabilia will be signed at this event.
No talk, no photos, no personalization. It’s like it’s a privilege to be in the same room as her. And if I know Bookpeople, plenty of autographed copies will be available the next day for purchase, sans ticket.
I know for a fact that such rules were not in place for signings there by Neil Gaiman or Neal Stephenson (both of whom, I’d estimate, are considerably more famous that Wendy Davis). Indeed, the “no personalization/no photo” rules were not even in place for Hillary Clinton’s signing there.
Why does a failing gubernatorial candidate merit more high-and-mighty treatment than a former Secretary of State, First Lady and losing Presidential candidate?
If I had to guess, it would be that her handlers are scared to death she’ll make a gaffe…
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Austin, Books, Democrats, Elections, Wendy Davis
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
September 10th, 2014
Tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks on World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Thanks to the Obama Administration’s feckless and spineless responses to terrorism both here and abroad, Americans feel less safe than ever:
The exclusive poll reveals that 47% of Americans believe the country is less safe now than before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That’s a significant increase from even a year after the twin towers fell when in September 2002 just 20% of the country said the nation was less safe. The level of fear across America also is up substantially from last year when 28% felt the same way. In fact, just 26% of Americans now feel the nation is safer than before 9/11.
Americans are worried about America’s safety because Obama seems manifestly disinterested in national security concerns. Americans are being killed by jihadists abroad and Obama can barely trouble himself to break away from his golf game to address the issue.
Tonight Obama is going to give a speech (in Obama’s Big Pop-Up Book of Governing America, “Give A Speech” provides the same universal panacea as “Shoot” does in the Far Side’s book on equine medicine) on ISIS.
Here’s one thing I don’t expect to hear addressed: What is the Obama Administration doing to protect America tomorrow on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. America’s jihadist enemies have frequently observed this anniversary by launching attacks, such as the 2012 embassy attacks on Benghazi and elsewhere.
This is especially worrisome given reports of missing Libyan airliners possibly in the hands of jihadists.
When it comes to foreign policy (or, really, anything beyond electoral politics and advancing a left-wing agenda), Obama shows a distinct inability to learn from his own mistakes. Will there be heightened security at American embassies tomorrow? While their be fighter planes in the air flying CAP, or at least fueled and ready for takeoff on the ground, in case of another 9/11 attack? This piece suggests that government officials are “bracing” for possible attacks, but fails to give any details. If there is another attack, are we going to see another roundup of all the security lapses like we did after the Benghazi attack?
The most essential job of government is protecting the lives, liberty and property of its citizens from enemies both here and abroad. What I want to known is: What is the Obama Administration actually doing on Job 1?
Tags: 9/11 Attacks, Benghazi, Foreign Policy, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Military, Obama, terrorism
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military | No Comments »
September 10th, 2014
Last week a story made the rounds claiming that a new archeological examination of graves showed almost as many female Viking warriors as male Viking warriors.
There’s just one tiny problem with these claims: they’re bunk..
This paper absolutely does not conclude that these women were warriors, or that the army had an even split of male and female fighters:
These results, six female Norse migrants and seven male, should caution against assuming that the great majority of Norse migrants were male, despite the other forms of evidence suggesting the contrary.
Note the use of the word “migrants,” not “warriors” or “fighters.”
So this is a case of feminists taking good science and turning it into bad reporting by distorting what the original paper actually said.
An academic reading the actual paper comes to the same conclusion: “Whenever we read second hand information, it is essential that rather than instantly spreading what may be misleading information, that we try to discover if it’s accurate first.”
Eric S. Raymond expands on the theme:
Reality is, at least where pre-gunpowder weapons are involved, viciously sexist….
There is only very scant archeological evidence for female warriors (burials with weapons). There is almost no such evidence from Viking cultures, and what little we have is disputed; the Scythians and earlier Germanics from the Migration period have substantially more burials that might have been warrior women. Tellingly, they are almost always archers….
If a pre-industrial culture has chosen to train more than a tiny fraction of its women as shieldmaidens, it would have lost out to a culture that protected and used their reproductive capacity to birth more male warriors. Brynhilde may be a sexy idea, but she’s a bioenergetic gamble that is near certain to be a net waste.
Firearms changes all this, of course – some of the physiological differences that make them inferior with contact weapons are actual advantages at shooting (again I speak from experience, as I teach women to shoot). So much so that anyone who wants to suppress personal firearams is objectively anti-female and automatically oppressive of women.
(Hat tip Instapundit.)
Tags: Democrats, Eric S. Raymond, feminism, Guns, science, sex, Vikings
Posted in Democrats, Guns, Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 9th, 2014
That’s the headline on this Dallas Observer story by Jim Schutze (who you may remember from my piece on Tom Leppert’s term as Dallas Mayor).
The Hall piece details what members of the conservative Texas blogsphere (myself included) have been saying for over a year: Hall was right, his critics were wrong:
When Hall began to criticize the way UT-Austin was run on strictly administrative grounds, he was roundly denounced as a sort of fifth-columnist for Perry’s assault on tenure. Later when he accused the university of corruption, he was hunted like a witch.
A campaign launched against Hall included impeachment proceedings in the Legislature and a criminal complaint brought to the Travis County district attorney. Even the establishment press turned on Hall, whose greatest sin was doing what the press is supposed to do — ask questions that make powerful people uncomfortable. An unbroken chorus of editorial page shrieking from Texas’ biggest newspapers denounced Hall and called for his resignation.
The dramatic denouement is threefold: Hall has been vindicated of charges he abused his role as a regent. The charges of mismanagement and corruption he brought against UT are all being re-investigated because now people are admitting he was on to something. And finally, Hall’s biggest accusers are starting to look like the biggest rats, the ones who had the most to hide.
In fact it’s hard to recall a case in Texas history where a person so roundly denounced has been so completely vindicated.
More:
Williamson, the reporter at The National Review, said in an email: “The Texas dailies have fallen down on the job covering this story, mainly because reporters perceive this as a confrontation between Rick Perry and the University of Texas, and they are reflexively hostile to Rick Perry.
“I’ve spent most of my life in the newspaper business, and I know bias when I see it: If there were a suggestion that Rick Perry were twisting arms to get family members into A&M, it would be on the front page of The Austin American-Statesman. But when the malefactors are UT administrators and the whistle-blowers are Perry appointees, reporters in Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio become strangely incurious.”
While there isn’t a whole lot new to Schutze’s piece if you’ve been following the story on this and other blogs, the fact that even lefty alternative weeklies now have the same take on the scandal as Michael Quinn Sullivan is a big step forward for justice and transparency, and I commend the entirety of the piece to your attention.
(Hat tip: Push Junction.)
Tags: Austin, Crime, Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze, media bias, Media Watch, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Texas, University of Texas, Wallace Hall
Posted in Austin, Crime, Media Watch, Texas | 1 Comment »
September 8th, 2014
A Monday LinKSwarm to kick off your week with:
Surprise, surprise, surprise: Obamacare discourages work.
Media: ObamaCare is fading as an issue. GOP strategists: LOL.
“Obama has overseen a shocking decline in America’s standing in the world. Everyone is mad at, or disappointed in, the United States.” As far as I can tell, Obama’s foreign policy is to do nothing until Americans are killed, and then to do nothing some more…
More on the theme:
“Obama says what he has to say to make reporters stop asking about it.”
Rotherham: “The local government tolerated sexual violence on a vast scale. Why? In part, because the criminals who committed these sickening acts were Muslims from the local Pakistani community, and noticing their depravity was considered insensitive at best, racist at worst.”
Illegal alien “children” with gray hair enrolling in public schools since the Obama Administration won’t let school districts check their ages.
After more than five years of Obama, the Los Angeles Times asks “Is economic stagnation the new normal?”
Obama starts the latest poker round by showing Putin his hole cards.
Iran bans women from many university courses. Now remind me what this whole “war on women” is about again…
Interview with the woman who runs the only Arabic language magazine of sex and erotica. Good luck with that…
Thanks to The Magic Power of Socialism, Venezuela is now importing oil.
Hey, remember when Bush attended three fundraisers and a wedding during the middle of the invasion of Iraq? Me neither.
“However stupid the creation of the euro was, undoing it will not be easy.”
UC Berkley wants to make sure “we can only exercise our right to free speech insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so.” “And by ‘contentious’ speech, we mean ‘non-liberal’ speech. Or, as we like to refer to them, ‘hate crimes.'”
Military rifles, armor, and ammo sent to numerous Texas school districts. If anyone knows why Texarkana ISD needs a SWAT team, I’m all ears…
In a shocking and unexpected development, I actually agree with Keith Olbermann about something. Namely the idea that it was amazingly stupid for the Huffington Post to hire Donte “9/11 Truther” Stallworth to be a “National Security Fellow.”
This weekend there were numerous protests to wage fast food wages. What’s behind them? $3 million in union money.
Huffingotn Post fooled by scam story. Clip this headline out and save it and I’m sure you’ll be able to make use of it in the years to come…
Mandy Nagy, AKA “Liberty Chick,” is recovering from surgery following a stroke.
A little fun via the #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly tag:
Tags: Border Controls, Elections, Foreign Policy, Iran, Islam, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Jonah Goldberg, Keith Olbermann, Media Watch, ObamaCare, rape, Rotherham, Russia, Ukraine, unions, Venezuela, video
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Uncategorized, unions, video | No Comments »
September 5th, 2014
British police name the beheader as “Nicholas Salvadore, a 25-year-old would-be cage fighter who is believed to be a Muslim convert, who had been living a few doors from 82-year-old [Victim] Palmira Silva.”
Seeing some reports that Salvadore is a Nigerian immigrant, but I don’t think that’s been confirmed.
Weasel Zippers comments on possible Islamist influences. “You can be mentally ill and still be influenced by extremism.”
Tags: beheading, Crime, Jihad, Media Watch, Nicholas Salvadore, UK
Posted in Crime, Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »
September 4th, 2014
Another beheading in the UK, this time in Edmonton, north London, by what his neighbors claim is a convert to Islam, but “detectives said they had ruled out terrorism as a motive for the killing.”
Well, isn’t that special. Funny how you can rule something out without apparently doing any investigation. It seems the spirit of multicultural political correctness is still alive and well in the UK.
Racking my brain, I can’t seem to recall a single instance in my lifetime of beheading by a convert to Catholicism or Judaism…
Tags: beheading, Crime, Islam, Jihad, UK
Posted in Crime, Jihad | No Comments »
