Air Force One

Last year (2010) Obama flew in Air Force One 172 times, almost every other day.

And with only 673 days remaining in Obama's never ending presidential campaign, the incumbent's travel pace will not likely slacken. At an Air Force-estimated cost of $181,757 per flight HOUR (not to mention the additional travel costs of Marine One, Secret Service, logistics and local police overtime), that's a lot of frequent flier dollars going into Obama's carbon footprint.

We are privy to some of these numbers thanks to CBS' Mark Knoller, a bearded national treasure trove of presidential stats. According to Knoller's notes, during the last year, Obama made 65 domestic trips over 104 days, and six trips to eight countries over 22 days. Not counting six vacation trips over 32 days. He took 196 helicopter trips, signed 203 pieces of legislation and squeezed in 29 rounds of left-handed golf.

Obama last year gave 491 speeches, remarks or statements. That's more talking than goes on in some entire families. In fact, even including the 24 days of 2010 that we never saw Obama in public, his speaking works out to about one official utterance every 11 waking hours.

Maybe Chavez is OK Afterall?

Hugo Chávez blasted President Barack Obama as a “clown” and an “embarrassment” who has turned the United States into a “disaster”.

A skinny socialist community organizing clown.

My Dark Fantasy

There are some liberals that I could, with pleasure, torture. There is wilderness in Idaho that is replete with mosquitos. I would air drop them, naked, into the forest. It’s over 50 miles to nearest paved road, so I think once in, they would not escape. If they did escape, I could keep their eyelids open with toothpicks and show them pictures of Sarah Palin 16 hours a day.

That’s my dark fantasy. They are my enemies, they are stealing the future of my grandkids. But, I know we must treat our enemies with love and respect, dignity and grace. That’s hard for me.

Au Revoir Mr. Cain

We were Herman Cain supporters, but never really expected him to become the nominee.  He had some decent ideas and we thought that some of them would be might be adopted by the nominee whoever that might be.  We went to a rally for him which was the first and only political rally we have attended.  The crowd was a mixture of young, middle aged and old, white, black and oriental.  I kept thinking that 40 years ago there would have been no white support for him in a town where MLK and his father both preached.  We have come a long way.  I am so sorry it ended the way it did.

Which brings up another matter.  Where were these women when he had 5% of the vote?  They all came forward at once.  Was this planned?  What about the woman that was with Gloria Allred.  What does she get out of all of this?  I don't understand the woman that said she had a 13 year affair with him.  As a woman, I would think that you had to have some positive feeling for the man you are having an affair with.  If there was an affair, did he dump her and she is bitter?  If I were having an affair with someone and he decided to run for president, then those positive feelings I had for him would have kept me silent. 

I spent my career working with a large financial corporation and there were lawsuits.  Most of the time, the client was angry because he lost money.  The client always knew there was no guarantee that he would make money every time.  So the client sues the large corporation and the corporation settles the case just to make it go away because it would cost more money and time to prove our innocence.  Apparently that happened with Herman Cain - it does not prove guilt.  He is a smart man.  If he were having an affair, surely he knew that it would come out.

And the loser in this case is all of us.  His family is hurt.  The country has lost a positive spokesman.  What have these women won?  The liberals have won because it eliminates a conservative candidate.

Dorothy

Emendation to Archilochus

I post this for my own benefit. Perhaps you will find something in it for yourself?

You know how much I enjoy Victor Davis Hanson, VDH. I always learn something from reading his articles. Having reference materials at hand is most useful when reading his articles.

I had ordered an old William F. Buckley book, The Lexicon. Which is described as a cornucopia of wonderful words for the inquisitive work lover. Starting as a teen ager, I did the Reader’s Digest Word Power. So Buckley’s book is a natural for me.

Recently VDH wrote:

What is this strange attraction for these new reality shows about burly, raucous, and often obnoxious truckers, loggers, fishermen, miners, and bail bondsmen, if not their ability to pit physical strength and courage against the wild bunches? We don’t watch real TV about classicists finding a new emendation to Archilochus or a tort lawyer finding a new twist to a case.

Emendation? Archilochus? This could only be written by someone who can conjugate a Greek verb in all its 300-plus forms. I admire anyone who can read Greek and knows  Archilochus and can use the two words in a sentence.

I picked up the newly arrived The Lexicon, somehow knowing that Buckley could hold his own with VDH.

(noun) The word or the matter substituted for incorrect or unsuitable matter.

??? Thankfully, he uses it in a sentence. The new conservatives, many of whom go by the name of Modern Republicans, have not been very helpful. Their sin consists in permitting so many accretions, modifications, emendations, maculations and qualifications that the original things quite recedes from view.

This concludes today’s word games.

The Meathead Vote

I am going to figure this out for myself. I hope.

In 2008, 53% of the voters were meatheads. It said that about 23% of voters are liberals. That also means that they are idiots. For the liberal baby boomer, it's always 1972.

So the other 30% are what most call independents or moderates. I call them idiots too.

It was not difficult for a true independent to ascertain that Obablah would not be a good president. He had the most liberal voting record of any senator. That was enough to make anyone with common sense vote for whoever was on the other ticket considering that nothing, not one damn thing, advanced by liberals ever made our country one whit better.