The-Asterisk

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...

McCain - Palin A change we can live with