Choices

What struck me most about Europe when I found myself with a sick toddler halfway through a trip?  The inability to choose for myself.  One brand of toothpaste–Aquafresh, in case you wondered–prevailed at grocery stores and pharmacies.  I can live with that for a few weeks.  But one type of wood-chip facial tissue?  Seriously?  My poor kid runs with fear when she spies the kleenex now.  With good reason.  I can’t say that I buy into every facet of consumerism, but when the nose faucet starts, I want the ability to find soft tissue for my kid.  Enough said.

Posting will commence when the laundry’s done and the sugar rush is over.  I came home to 10 Mitt Romney robo-calls and a flood of election mail.

Counting down the hours until I can walk to my local polling station Tuesday.  You?

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Paging Rosa Parks

He. Did. Not. Say. That. (yes, he did)

From Yahoo

[The President] said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, “we can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

Where to begin? I can’t identify what angers me the most… The suggestion that “progress” has been made? [Insert derisive snort here].  Or could it be the President using such charged symbolism in verbally segregating a group of people based on political beliefs, rather than color.  

Pardon me as I channel Mr. Caprio…President Obama, you can take your ride…..”and shove it”

I probably couldn’t get on “the ride” anyway – where would I sit – being a middle class gal and Republican….

Have you stopped beating your wife?

Okay, so that’s not exactly the question I heard over the phone, but it was akin to that….  I’ve lived in nine of these great United States and apparently we’ve now moved into the pollsters’ goldmine.  Almost every night the phone rings and the caller ID shows ### Research. 

At first I was pretty excited.  When I was younger, I was envious of the families who were selected for the little box by the Nielsen people.  To be able to influence which television shows were on? Wow.  But now a pollster is calling ME? Someone wants to know what I think about POLITICS? Really? Might my poll response actually influence what happens on the HILL? I was giddy with excitement.  “Yes, yes!” I breathed, “I can take a moment to answer a few short questions!”

You can tell I’m new at this.

While they didn’t ask the wife beating question, I found myself in that same fix.  I didn’t see it coming because they start off easy.

Male/Female?

Age – they give a nice 15 year range, thankfully.  So nice to still be included with the younger set.

Then suddenly you get to the meaty questions…

Would you say that in the next election that you would support…?

A. Continuation of the policies as enacted by the current administration to stimulate jobs and the economy and continue on the road to recovery…

Or…

B. Resort to grasping at failed policies that created this disaster and embrace the fanatical extremism that is embodied by the radical Tea Party candidates….

((Silence))

I was waiting for option C or at least a wry chuckle followed by, “Just kidding…”  And in full disclosure, those weren’t exactly the wording of the questions, but you get the point – there was no way I could answer.  Easier to win the conversation on wife beating.  I did not know that polls were designed to, ahem; nudge you into a certain answer.  (I told you I was new at this.)

Sadly, it’s not just polls. 

From our POTUS, courtesy Fox News:

“People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared. And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared,” Obama said at a Democratic fundraiser Saturday in Boston. “And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.”

President Obama evidently has a future in writing questions for polls.  Either you (A) think clearly and vote for Democrats, or you (B) are scared and vote Republican.   Back to beating your wife again. 

Actually, these days it feels more like beating my head against the wall. 

I am new at this.  Thanks to PJ Mom for entrusting her site to my greenhorn self.  Hope I don’t run her aground while at the helm.

If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium…

Or on Friday, I need some news. (Reading a three-day old WSJ Europe editino from cover to cover has gotten a little stale.)

Glory be to wifi at a trusty Golden Arches.  The hamburgers might not rot, but this is the fanciest cappucino I’ve ever seen–Micky D’s or no. 

Will have better ‘net access in a few days. In the meantime, my guest blogger had a wordpress glitch that’s now fixed.  I hope.

Cheers!

The pains of (news) withdrawl: we interrupt this election coverage …

With a 10 day break from regular internet service. I will attempt to check in.

In the meantime, enjoy my guest blogger, Teachingmytwo and make her feel welcome!

AP photographers spilled the kool-aid.

Hope.

And change.

 

Hey Maureen: Pot calling the kettle black? (and no, ma’am, I’m not racist).

The stupidity overwhelms me, but here goes anyway.  Maureen Dowd  spewing venomous vitriol in today’s NYT:

As I sat above the Hoover Dam under the broiling sun, I was getting jittery.

There was Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, speaking at the dedication of a bridge linking Arizona and Nevada 890 feet above the Colorado River.

As the politicians droned on and my Irish skin turned toasty brown, I worried that Governor Brewer might make a citizen’s arrest and I would have to run for my life across the desert. She has, after all, declared open season on anyone with a suspicious skin tone in her state.

Seriously?  Wait, wait, there’s more:

We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.

These women — Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine — have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama. Whether they’re mistreating the help or belittling the president’s manhood, making snide comments about a rival’s hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men’s fashion show, the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold. They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate.

The Republican Mean Girls? Oh, Maureen, how quickly we forget.  Bushworld ring a bell?  How about this this this this this this this or this?  Lest I forget this?  If anyone knows how to “spread rumors,” sweetheart, it’s you, with a side of snide, snark, and belittling. 

Just saying.

What is it about women?  Women can be opinionated–if and only if said opinions remain in line with the sole tenet of lockstep liberal womanhood: abortion, abortion, abortion. 

I only wish I could vote for every single one of them–Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Sarah, Christine (and how could MoDo forget Nikki Haley?!)

If I were a Democrat, I could.  Sigh.  Such is life, no?

UPDATE: Allahpundit used MoDo’s screed as part of the Quotes of the Day.  Scroll through for some choice rebuttal from Dana Perino.

The danger of elitism

I missed the first one, but caught the second via Ed Morrissey this afternoon and found the first.  Both are worthy watching for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Bill Whittle’s explanation of elitism fits Murkowski, Crist, and Specter like a kid glove.  It recalls Codevilla‘s first tenet of elitism:

Its first tenet is that “we” are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained. How did this replace the Founding generation’s paradigm that “all men are created equal”?

The “dysfunctional” primary voters in Alaska, Florida, and Pennsylvania who voted to replace their incumbents received a cold lesson from the elite ruling class: you do not decide our fates with a simple vote.  Obviously, more constraint becomes necessary as the minions revolt, no?  Ed Morrissey agrees:

It makes no difference if the elites attended Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Cal State Fullerton.  It is fundamentally anti-democratic, as it negates the entire idea that an individual can govern himself, and should govern himself.  If the prevailing assumption is that individuals cannot govern themselves individually, it’s a very short hop to the notion that a group of individuals cannot be relied upon to choose their own political leadership, either.

Therein lies the danger of a Murky, Orangina, or Benedict Arlen: when elites see their own political destinies as a greater cause than the will of the people, we’re in trouble.

(But I can see November from my house.)

Thursday Laundry: Democrats lead “Detroit on the move” to destruction

See it to believe it, folks: this is what a half-century of Democrat control brings a once-thriving city.  Via Hot Air, the latest boondoggle in Detroit:

Democrats, the black hole of politics: they make your tax dollars disappear, never to be recovered! 

Related: Backyard Conservative has a map for Midwesterners.  Maybe Michiganders can save themselves yet.

More blue-to-red common sense spreading across the country from Ed Morrissey.  Bring it on.

Obama whines that Republicans “will have to get along with me” if they win in November.  Narcissistic jackassery goes a long way to insulate one from the truth, but then again, Barack wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked him in the rear.  Let’s get the paddle out.  Head to Pundette for more inside-the-White-House whining about how the “best days” are behind them (true ’nuff).

Bennies of a GOP takeover besides defunding Obamacare: de-czaring Obama.  Heh.

How desparate are Democrats?  Pretty.  I thought enticing folks with cigarettes and free rides was bad, but our new Obama economy spurs new (D) GOTV action: meals for votes.

Heh: Poll shows voters more likely to see Liberals as dominated by extremists.  Thank you, Barack Hussein Obama.  And don’t worry, Michelle: I pray you two show more people the light of conservativism and self-reliance.  I want to clean the White House of your spirits!

Straight from the horse’s mouth: “There’s no such thing as shovel-ready”

Oh, the introspection:

In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.

So he sold us a crock of shovel-ready bull$&*#, eh?  If Obama truly realizes too late that the only way the economy can move beyond the “recovery” depression is tax cuts, then why the lazer-beam focus on preventing that from happening?