The-Asterisk

John Stossel wrote an insightful piece recently called The Road to Serfdom , a borrowing of the title of the book by F. A. Hayek . He talks about how everyone is waiting for Obama to come out with some action . He needs to be BOLD . Just do something . I guess that is the change that we are looking for. Here is The-Asterisk's take on it: The reason that we all look to Washington for solutions is that Washington is the place that owns the game and writes the rules. As long as they do that, we have to grovel at their feet. If we have a free market and we let things go laissez faire, we end up with very smart and very well connected crooks creating the mess that we are just now trying to fix. What is the difference between Las Vegas and Wall Street? Vegas has pit bosses and cameras. They know when they are being gamed. There is no way that our government can be swift enough to keep regulations up with the latest scheme by money people. So we cry (like Bill O'Reilly) that no one wa...

I think that the far left wing of the Democrat party is going to throw something extremely radical at Obama as soon as he is inaugurated and Congress is in session. It may be card-check, it may be some crazy gay marriage thing. It is really irrelevant what it is. I think he will bitch-slap the Dems with a veto and make a huge deal about him being the President of the whole country, not just the Democrats. This will give him huge street cred. The liberals will go on a rant and call him all sorts of names, especially in the blogosphere. The 'asterisk' here is: will it be a ruse? Is Pelosi/Reid going to take one for the team to set him up as a centrist President for 'all Americans'? Will Obama allow his base to slap him around a bit to gain sympathy and support from the rest of us, setting up a huge sucker punch over the next three years? My take on this is: Either Obama has been 'opportuning' himself for 20 years, being the ultimate shape-shifter... saying, doing ...

I wonder if the Bush people will pull all of the "O" keys off of the keyboards like the Clintonistas did with the "W" keys?

Obama said that if you harm the world, we will defeat you. How? With what? Who gets to choose which war to fight? Or will we sit down and chat? Would he treat harm to the world differently than harm to our country? I hope that I am totally wrong about this man. That is the hope that I have.

Gushers of love. Mandate. Youth and no retreads to run the government. Bi-partisan. Orgasmic platitudes. * Remember Jimmy Carter.

I think that now, more than at any time in the last 100 years, we are ready for a new third party. Not a spin off of disgruntled Republicans, but a coalition of moderate to right leaning, thinking people that are just sick of old school Democrats. The biggest problem with our existing political system is that if you have a (D) or a (R) behind your name, you automatically elevate whomever is the oldest, crustiest, partisan pol into a leadership position. You could be the most moderate Democrat in the the Congress, but you will... you must caucus with your party and make Nancy Pelosi powerful. You will also cause the committees to be all Democrat controlled. It is actually kind of like the infamous card-check balloting for union elections. Woe be unto the Congressman or Senator who does not caucus with his or her party. Secret ballot? No way! When you vote for your representative, you are really voting for the party, regardless of what people say. We really need some of the heavy hitte...

According to Howard Dean... "Now is when the healing begins." Excuse me while I throw up...

After almost two long, excrutiating years, the election is here. Long lines, disenfranchisement, promises, lies, smears, counter-lies, hope, change, hope, change, hope and change. I am sick of it. McCain has run such a terrible campaign that the whole thing is an embarassment. If he were to win, I could understand how the other side would think that it was rigged. However, if he does win, there is going to be massive rioting by those that claim that they aren't racist. In my book (and most dictionaries), racism is defined as making a decision based solely on race. If you are a black person and you are going to vote for Obama because he is black, then that is a blatently racist decision. There can be no argument. They may justify it for any number of reasons, but it is still a racist decision. If a white guy votes for McCain because he isn't black and that is racist, then voting (many for the first time) for a guy because he is black is just as racist, no matter what color you...

I just watched the Sean Hannity - McCain/Palin interview. Seems that every time Sarah said something that went to the heart of the matter in her plain-spoken, folksy manner that simply answered the questions, John said "Can I say something else?" and then commenced to tell how Obama voted 94 times for this or said That when he really did something else. Totally wonked out. I am a self-admitted political crack head and I am sick of this $h!+. I can't stand it anymore. One cannot believe any statistics, anytime , let alone in a political campaign... especially the same statistics or figures repeated AD NAUSEUM until I have to hold my hand over my mouth to stave off the retching reflex every time I hear them. Say what you want about Gov. Palin, she gets to the heart of the matter. Especially when she isn't speaking in that kindergarten teacher, sing-songy voice that she (and Tina Fey) do so well. Totally refreshing. But does she know how DC works? Does she have foreign...

I have listened over the past three months about all of the different solutions, fixes, schemes or inaction that have been proposed to solve the housing crisis. I think that I may have come up with something that can fix it. First, let's be clear what the problem is. For the past several years we have had inflating housing prices, caused by a number of things previously discussed, and these houses have mortgages on them that the owners took out in order to purchase them. Some, if not most, of the mortgagees got mortgages based on their actual ability to repay the original loan amount. In other words, a conventional mortgage. However, as the prices were skyrocketing, lots of speculators and average citizens saw the ever expanding bubble as a way to make either a quick profit by flipping the house, or as a way to buy way more house than they could normally afford by entering into a risky mortgage with the hope of refinancing it in a few years, leveraging the increased equity create...

Thoughts about last night's second Presidential Debate: Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Boring. Opportunities squandered. Town hall format? What town hall format? Uncomfortable. Massively uncomfortable. Blah, blah, blah. Same old, same old. Joe Lieberman? Can I turn the channel to a rerun of Dancing with the Stars? Oh my God! President Obama. Sigh...........

To the McCain Campaign (and handlers) I know that your campaign is going on the attack and I like McCain's response that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. Bill Clinton proved that fact. In fact it is the modus operandi of the Democrat Party. However, I emplore the campaign to start telling Americans what you as President are going to do. Pretend Obama doesn't exist. Tell us how you will push for energy independence, how we will get off of foreign oil in 10 years, how you will nominate non-activist jurists, how you will get legislation past the Do-Nothings in Congress, etc. We need to hear positive examples of how these things are going to get done. Obama speaks in generalities and platitudes. Show us all that you have a plan (I assume you do.) I follow politics like some people follow baseball stats, and I don't really know what your plan is for any of these things. When false accusations are made, respond swiftly and don't be nice about it. Hit ...

During the debate, "Fact Check" Biden stated "And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit." If anyone cares, here is a direct quote from the US Constitution " The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States ." The only other mention of duties of the Vice President is to succeed the President in a variety of circumstances. I know that the Constitution is supposed to be a "living, breathing document", but u...

Well, it was a good night for Sarah Palin. She held her own, and though at times she seemed scripted (what politician doesn't), I thought that her composure was confident and she didn't make a lot of obvious mistakes. Right after the debate started, Joe Biden stated that Barack Obama "warned us two years ago on the Senate floor about the subprime mortgage mess". I was curious about this and I wondered why a junior senator would go before Congress to warn about something that he and his party had made a centerpiece of their housing policy. I pulled up Google and typed in "barack obama warned about subprime mortgages". The first hit was factcheck.barackobama.com . I swear that within 30 seconds of the words leaving Biden's mouth, these guys had literally 5 paragraphs written on this site about how Palin was wrong. I watched this during the debate and with every question, there was an instant (almost prescient) rebuttal of how Palin was wrong and Obama/Bid...

I follow a blog from a guy who is into technology, but also lets his political views be known. Vlad pulls no punches. He recently posted about the bailout mess on Wall Street and I commented. I have posted my comments here (slightly abridged), since a blog is where you should pronounce your own views and wait for comments from others. If you and I sat down to discuss politics, I would venture to say that you swing (or veer) to the left and that I hang to the right, but on this point I totally agree with you. What is really sad with our political discourse these days is that in order to be a successful politician in a party apparatus, one must take a view opposing the other party on EVERY subject (or at least blame the other side for each and every ill that blows our way.) Having spent the last four days at the Summit, I see all of the hard work and brain thrashing it takes to keep our tiny, tiny slices of the business world moving in a positive direction. One speaker made the point t...

Former Alaska Governor Knowles and current Lt. Governor Parnell were on Fox News Sunday this morning. Now I see why Sarah Palin has an 80% approval rating in Alaska. Gov. Knowles seems like a major tool and it almost looked like he was reading his talking points off of the TelePrompTer. Chris Wallace had to keep interrupting him as he non-answered all of his questions by going alphabetically off of his point list. And they say that Palin looked bad on ABC????

I just watched Saturday Night Live. I made a point of watching it to see Tina Fey play Sarah Palin. I thought she did a great job and her vocals were spot-on. The opening skit with "Hillary" was well written (most likely by Fey, who was once the head writer for the show), and was actually funny, which is quite a departure for most SNL fare. But, that is not why I am posting this one. No, I just watched the musical guest, Lil Wayne , perform two songs. I was totally... what is the word??? totally... flabbergasted... yeah, flabbergasted that this music was played. Even more so when I found that the 'hit' Lollypop sold over a million copies in the first week of its release. And the album went double platinum in just 9 weeks! Actually the band wasn't so bad. It had the standard hip-hop beat... that same back-beat funky thing that would be right at home backing up just about any rapper. The problem was with Mr. Carter himself. We, as Americans, are just brutal toward...

I have always been perplexed about how wealthy Democrats can be so condescending toward wealthy Republicans for having money. It finally occurred to me what the deal is with being rich in America in the context of Left vs. Right. It is actually a very simple thing to figure out, but honestly I have never (to my knowledge) read this anywhere. So here is The-Asterisk truthism: Liberal rich is different from Conservative rich because most liberal wealth has been accumulated through voluntary transfer of money from some entity to the Liberal. Now, I am not counting inherited wealth, which could swing both ways on the ideological spectrum, but wealth that has been given to, not taken by, the Liberal. Let me explain. I have always been puzzled why so many actors, athletes, creative types, artists, musicians, etc. seem to swing liberal, even if they have accumulated massive amounts of wealth (Dave Matthews???, Barbra Streisand???, Michael Moore???) and even if they do not feel compelled to ...

Sarah Palin , Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Stand by for the blowback. The MSM is locked and loaded, but I think that Gov. Palin is ready for it. I hope so. I am impressed by what I saw tonight.

As an unpaid (and unheard) advisor to the McCain campaign, I think I have the two issues that will be key to a McCain victory this November. Energy and Security. I am not going to belabor the security issue in this posting. I think that he has spoken, and he will continue to speak well about the security we need to face an uncertain world infested with radical extremism (religious, environmental and others.) I would like to amend the record with my suggestion to him about how to use the energy issue to electrify (pardon the pun) the American public to support him at the ballot box. Let me make it clear that if he campaigns on these proposals, the MUST follow through with them in a manner by which the public can see that he is serious about energy and its lagging indicator, security. After immediate consultations with the affected parties and countries, I would have him come out and announce that immediately after inauguration he will commence a Manhattan Project-style initiative to rel...