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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

View From the Cheap Seats: The Second Tier--How Paul, Kucinich, Richardson, Hunter, Dodd, et al. Are Doing

Elections are colorful, whether in Turkey or the USA
The view from the cheap seats: or how the lower echelon in both parties are doing these days. The new Rasmussen Poll offers little change among the second-tier candidates of both parties.

According to the Democratic poll, the second ranks look like this.

Bill Richardson attracts 4% while Dennis Kucinich is at 2% along with Joe Biden. Chris Dodd earns 1% and Mike Gravel is below that level while 12% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters are undecided.

Meanwhile, the backbench of the Republican side look like this:

Ron Paul is at 2%, Tom Tancredo at 2% and Duncan Hunter’s support rounds up to 1%. Seventeen percent (17%) are undecided.

The front-runners ebb and flow with the times. No matter how much each candidates' spinners spin, little is likely to change, barring some unforeseen events, until the primaries. For Republicans:

For the seven days ending October 28, 2007 show that Rudy Giuliani earns 21% of the vote while Fred Thompson attracts 18%. John McCain is the favorite for 14% while Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are tied at 12%.

The Big Three threatens to turn into the Big Two. Or maybe just the Big One.

For the seven days ending October 28, 2007, Hillary Clinton earns 44% of the vote. Barack Obama is second at 20% followed by John Edwards at 14%.

For the second tier, hope rests in someone else dropping out, raising more money than expected or picking up a powerhouse endorsement. Anything that can help build a little momentum and keep supporters flush with hope.

If Richardson, Kucinich, Biden, Dodd and Gravel pooled their poll supporters at this point, they'd ring up less than 10%--not as much as Undecided.

If Paul, Hunter and Tancredo joined forces they'd command about 6%. Of course, Mike Huckabee's recent jump to 12% would have helped. And it did: it gives them hope that they can make the jump also.

Sam Brownback dropped out and no one in the second-tier seemed to be the beneficiary.

There's a long way to go yet. The elections are still more than a year in the future. That there's that much time left is reason for the second stringers to hope all by itself.

by Mondoreb
[image:hsingy]

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Lion Loose in West Virginia? Better Feel Sorry for the Beast

West Virginia is known for it's scenic mountain roads, its moonshine and it's lions.
Lions?
News of a new king of the wild frontier from the Houston Chronicle:

Using a video camera and raw chicken, state officials hope to learn whether the king of the jungle is prowling the woods of West Virginia.

Bow hunter Jim Shortridge believes he saw a full-grown, male African lion weighing between 250 and 300 pounds at the foot of Cold Knob Mountain earlier this month. The state Division of Natural Resources confirmed that at least one other person has reported seeing the lion.

Using a camera normally employed to catch people dumping trash illegally, the state Department of Environmental Protection has joined with Greenbrier County Animal Control Officer Robert McClung and exotic animal expert Jim Forga to see if they can substantiate the sightings.

Twenty pounds of raw chicken left on the site last week were devoured, but McClung said that doesn't prove the lion's existence.

"Anything could have eaten that," he said.

If officials do spot the lion on videotape, they may set a bear trap for the animal. If caught, it would be turned over to Forga, who runs Tiger Mountain Refuge in Rainelle, a shelter for exotic animals.

Having went to 1st Grade in Dallas, TX and lived in WV most of my life, it's easy to draw comparisons between the two locales. One of the similarities is that in either place, it's the lion that had better be afraid here.

Lots of people in both places both own guns and know how to use them. Lots of people in both places are also looking for that next can't-miss Barbeque Recipe to try on the grill.

by Mondoreb
& Little Baby Ginn

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"Zero Tolerance" Still Means Zero Sense

The American Thinker has a post with which we are in complete agreement: the argument against "zero tolerance" policies. Zero Tolerance scores a zero, whether it's guns, drugs or whatever the subject may be.

The increasing enactment of these zero-thinking policies for 7-year-olds and other students are another sign that those in charge of education are in need of one that includes thinking skills. Examples are provided by the Thinker:

Just ask the 7-year-old in New Jersey who was suspended for drawing a smiling stick figure shooting another smiling stick figure with a gun. He reportedly also drew pictures of a skateboarder, a ghost, King Tut, a tree, and a Cyclops. These are still apparently not yet illegal acts of art.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, high school student Amber Dauge faced expulsion for accidentally taking a butter knife to school. She says that she ran out of the house to meet the bus while making a sandwich and when she realized she had the knife, she put it in her bookbag, and later left it in her locker at. A few weeks later, the butter knife fell out, fellow students saw it, a teacher intervened, and the over-reaction commenced. The knife was seized, Amber was suspended, and the process of expelling her from high school began.

Supposedly, the reason education administrators get the big bucks is because they have to exercise judgment. Zero-tolerance policies are like a color-by-numbers for those running the schools; i.e., there's not a lot of thinking involved. The losers? The usual ones, the kids.

Zero-tolerance policies haven't prevented one outbreak of violence in American schools. The policies have kept schoolchildren amazingly safe from butter knives, stick figures, plastic army men, and other kids who might make "bang" sounds while waving their fingers about on the playground. What they have also prevented is any outbreak of common sense among education honchos in charge of our schools' safety.

Zero tolerance continues to equal zero sense. It's something that administrators will talk about while deciding what traditional subjects to next chop from the curriculum. What's the chance zero tolerance policies will see a downturn in popularity among the educational elite without strong parental outrage?

About zero.

by Mondoreb
[image:imageandconcept]

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Canadian Justice? Police Shoot Family's Dogs in Front of Them

Police break in the door and shoot a family's dogs as they watch. A story of Canadian justice north of the border, from the Ottawa Citizen:

Joanne Charlebois said she was spending the evening packing for a move with the help of friends, and her daughters, aged 16 and 19, were studying with a pal, when men in helmets broke down the door of her McArthur Ave apartment.

Charlebois claims officers gave no warning before shooting the dogs, whom she says were gentle mutts who were running away in fear. They left bullet holes in the floor and a casing under the sofa.

"I heard bangs at the front door, they knocked the door in," a weeping Charlebois said. "I thought it was a joke for Halloween.

What happened next is the fear of every person who ponies up money on the American side of the border for the ACLU.

"Then click, boom, boom. My dog (Daisy) was in the air, her legs shaking. Then my dog Maxine came running to me and they blew her head off right next to me.

"They came in and terrorized my household. They killed our dogs ... I'm traumatized, my daughters are traumatized."

The officers kept asking where the cocaine and guns were hidden and tore the place apart.

Maybe it's the libertarian streak, but sometimes, you agree that maybe the ACLU is needed--even if this story did take place in Canada. Even if the ACLU's actions sometimes make you flinch.

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Count Rangula: Scary Halloween Tax Thoughts

Yesterday, we commented on the back-breaking taxing ways of Charles Rangel. And today an article by Cal Thomas confirms what RidesAPaleHorse already knew: Rangel is a scary tax bloodsucker.

Cal Thomas at Town Hall on Rangula.

Just in time for Halloween comes House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel - henceforth known as Count Rangula - with a bill that would suck more blood from the American taxpayers.

It's worth another look at RAPH's take.

As RAPH put it: We're in pretty good company.

Our original story:
10 More Reasons To Grasp Your Pocketbook More Tightly

by Mondoreb
[image:RidesAPaleHorse]

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Sugar Daddy Murtha Never Met Johnstown Pork He Didn't Like

A not-so-surprising article by the Wall Street Journal might alter vacation plans next year. Instead of Disney World, families might want to head to Johnstown--America's Pork Palace. John Murtha dishes it out and the Wall Street Journal scoops it up.

If John Murtha were a businessman, he'd be the biggest employer in this town.

The powerful U.S. congressman has used his clout on Capitol Hill to create thousands of jobs and steer billions of dollars in federal spending to help his hometown in western Pennsylvania recover from devastating floods and the flight of its steelmakers.

Johnstown's a friend in need and John Murtha's surely a friend indeed. Murtha might think about moonlighting as a spokesman for the "Other White Meat".

More is on the way. In the massive 2008 military-spending bill now before Congress -- which could go to a House-Senate conference as soon as Thursday -- Mr. Murtha has steered more taxpayer funds to his congressional district than any other member. The Democratic lawmaker is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which will oversee more than $459 billion in military spending this year.

John Murtha might switch sides in his campaign against the War in Iraq--if the conflict could be moved to central Pennsylvania. Outspoken war critic Murtha has railed against expenditures in Iraq. Apparently, he'd much rather that more of America's interests be fought and funded in Johnstown.

A review by The Wall Street Journal of dozens of such contracts funded by Mr. Murtha's committee shows that many weren't sought by the military or federal agencies they were intended to benefit. Some were inefficient or mismanaged, according to interviews, public records and previously unpublished Pentagon audits. One Murtha-backed firm, ProLogic Inc., is under federal investigation for allegedly diverting public funds to develop commercial software, people close to the case say. The company denies wrongdoing and is in line to get millions of dollars more in the pending defense bill.

So Murtha is delivering the bacon. While he slanders Marines in Iraq, he ladles out federal slop to military projects that don't benefit anyone but those working in his 12th District.

The Marines Murtha leaped to attack at Haditha might have gotten a fairer hearing if they'd strapped pork chops onto their backs.

by Mondoreb

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