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Barack Obama and the Office Malcontent (Or, a Rant with No Conclusion) Posted: 29 Dec 2012 02:11 PM PST It won’t surprise you to lean that I don’t think much of our President, but it may surprise you to learn that my dislike is not limited to what he does but who he is. Now, I don’t dislike many people personally; you can count on the fingers of both hands the people I dislike as human beings but our President is one of them. It’s taken me a little while to develop that dislike for him, and to figure out exactly what put him in that rare company, but I figured it out shortly after the election. First, though, a little aside. Back in the misty days of yore, when I was a teenager and knights on horseback hunted dinosaurs with catapults, my Dad gave me a very useful piece of advice to help me get along in the working world. Essentially, he told me that you never talk smack about the man good enough to give you work. My Dad believed that if someone felt you were worth hiring to do a job, you owed that person a certain amount of respect. After all, they could have hired someone else, but they didn’t. They saw something in you that gave them reason to trust you and no self-respecting man would repay that trust with spite and backbiting. We all knew someone in our past who never got that advice, though, didn’t we? We had that one guy who spent most of the day griping about how the boss was too stingy to pay him more, or how the boss didn’t recognize his awesome skills to his liking, or how if he had just a little more pull why he’d teach that boss a little something about being one of the “common men”. He could make things better for everyone if he was the boss. It’s not fair that one man has the power! Despite all the griping tough that guy was the first in line to get his paycheck, wasn’t he? And his job performance never really lit the workplace on fire, did it? No, not that guy. He managed to do just enough work not to get in any real trouble, but the trouble he did get into always justified his various grievances. The boss is out to get him. The boss lives like a King while he, a smarter and better man, toils away unappreciated. I hated that guy. I’ve never been a violent man, but I wanted to punch that guy in the face just about every day I worked with him. Every day the same whining complaint. Every day the same soul-sucking negativity. Every day the same gripes about the same problems that weren’t really problems at all, but hard realities of live that he could have changed in his life if he had converted half the energy he spent on complaining into useful work. I was always grateful he wasn’t the boss because he really wasn’t half as smart as he thought and his badly re-treaded “workers of the warehouse/restaurant/gas station unite” rants weren’t answers at. He wasn’t the boss because he wasn’t fit to be a boss. He didn’t know what it took to be a boss and, worst of all, he was ungrateful for the opportunity he had to earn a living and build skills so he could one day become the boss. It occurred to me not very long ago that Barack Obama is that guy. Look back at his campaign and imagine, instead of a guy running for President, a guy working next to you on the shipping dock or in the next cubicle. Listen to how he talks about “millionaires and billionaires” then put those words in the mouth of your garden-variety office malcontent. That’s him. That is President Barack Obama. His entire shpiel, the whole reason he is President is the very same reason that guy at work we all hate wants the corner office. He is smarter. He will make everything better. He knows. Over the years, that shpiel has gotten the President promoted from corner office to better office to upstairs to the Senate to the White House. Now he is the boss and, don’t you know, all he has is the same old complaint he had when he was just Barry in the mailroom (yeah, I know he’s never been in the mailroom or held a real job before. Stick with me here). So what now? Honestly, I don’t know. I tried very hard to make sure I worked harder than that guy I always hated so when promotion time came, I’d be ahead of him and not because I really wanted the promotion either. I wanted to make sure that guy never got his hands on any real power, even a little bit of real power. I knew, even as an inexperienced teenager, if he could boss people around, he’d be a miserable tyrannical failure. That plan didn’t quite work with the President, so now we’re stuck with the office gripe at the top and everyone who has achieved even a hint of success is going to feel the years of his failure and hurt. They guy we all hated at work is now the boss. God help us all.

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R.I.P. General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. Posted: 27 Dec 2012 09:27 PM PST This is sad news indeed. 2012 has, apparently, decided to take as many good people with it on its way out as it can. WASHINGTON — A U.S. official says retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died. He was 78. The official tells The Associated Press that Mr. Schwarzkopf died Thursday in Tampa, Fla. The official wasn’t authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. General Schwarzkopf was a decorated veteran, a genuine hero, and by every account I’ve ever heard, a good man. According to Lt. General Hal Moore, Schwarzkopf earned his nickname “Stormin’ Norman” in Vietnam for his fits of temper when arguing with nearby helicopters to land for his wounded men. He also earned a few other things in Vietnam — the respect of his men and more than a couple medals. When Colonel Schwarzkopf received word that men under his command had encountered a minefield, he rushed to the scene in his helicopter. He found several soldiers still trapped in the minefield. Schwarzkopf urged them to retrace their steps slowly. Still, one man tripped a mine and was severely injured but remained conscious. As the wounded man flailed in agony, the soldiers around him feared that he would set off another mine. Schwarzkopf, also injured by the explosion, crawled across the minefield to the wounded man and held him down so another could splint his shattered leg. One soldier stepped away to break a branch from a nearby tree to make the splint. In doing so, he too hit a mine, killing himself and the two men closest to him, and blowing the leg off of Schwarzkopf’s liaison officer. Eventually, Colonel Schwarzkopf led his surviving men to safety. He was awarded the Silver Star for his bravery but, more importantly to Norman Schwarzkopf, he cemented his reputation as an officer who would risk anything for the soldiers under his command. Before the tour was up, Colonel Schwarzkopf would earn three Silver Stars and be wounded again. He not only earned those Silver Stars, but also three Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart, and three Distinguished Service Medals. We know Schwarzkopf best as Commander of U.S. Central Command and the man who commanded our troops in the first Gulf War. His confidence and command of a dizzying number of facts was never better displayed than during this now-famous briefing in which the General told the world how thoroughly we defeated Saddam Hussein’s army. The video takes roughly an hour, but it’s time well-spent as a history lesson and a clinic in how to give a public briefing. Take a few minutes as well to watch his 1991 speech to the Corps of Cadets at West Point. Gen. Schwarzkopf was a formidable man and his speech is a good reminder of what we lost.

Clearing the Browser Tabs — In Which I Get My Podcast Guest-On Posted: 27 Dec 2012 03:31 PM PST So I did a couple of very cool podcasts over the past couple of weeks and I want you to listen to them. I’ve been told I ought to “be out there” more than I am and this, I believe, qualifies as being out there. But only if you listen and share the links and tell the great podcasters involved how much you enjoyed listening. Here is my appearance with Bryan Goodwin on The Hayseed Report. We talked about conservative politics, social media, and telling good stories then swung around to some fun stuff about reality television. Here is my appearance with Andrew Langer and Mark Newgent on The Broadside. We chatted about my piece on the fiscal cliff and why going over it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, why Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of the greatest bits of cinema ever made, and why I’m not eager to see the new Star Trek movie. By the by, I’m working up a post on that last topic, now that I’ve had more time to think about it. It should drop this evening or tomorrow afternoon. Finally, here is the first episode of a new podcast on which I should make regular appearances, The PopCast. I hosted the inaugural episode, but I won’t host them all as I’m part of a pretty strong cast. We talked about The Hobbit, Christmas music, and who we think the most fascinating people of 2012 are. And now, links! Christmas does funny things to a man. We might just have won this round for the Second Amendment says Kurt Schlichter and he has some polling evidence on his side, some real numbers, and other evidence, too. Of course, we shouldn’t consider the battle over. Our rights, unfortunately, require constant protection, most often from those who don’t care to understand why we should have rights at all. Or laws that apply to everyone. Larry Correia, who is also a wickedly-skilled author, does understand how guns work and why we need them and wrote the essential piece on the new gun controversy. If you read nothing else, please set aside a half-hour to read his piece. You may have heard about the White House petition to deport CNN’s chair-warmer Piers Morgan. The plan would have worked if it had been conducted a bit more quietly. The Brits heard what we were up to and won’t let us send him back. My those global warming cultists are touchy, aren’t they? My friend Old Line Elephant has a touching and worthwhile piece on adoption and the current panic-wrought legislation in Russia to prevent children from finding loving adoptive parents. I have no idea what’s going on at FreedomWorks, but I am distressed by two points: 1) Dick Armey prefers to leak his news to ultra-left-wing David Corn and Mother Jones, and 2) I really don’t have a second point. Isn’t the first point bad enough? Seriously. Is there no one in conservative new media to whom Armey can talk, or does he distrust us that much? Ten Diabolical Fiscal Facts from Doug Ross. Oddly enough, I don’t think his headline is in any way hyperbolic. Decide for yourself.

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The Music of Christmas — The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s “Worthy is the Lamb / Amen” Posted: 24 Dec 2012 06:52 PM PST One of my Christmas traditions is to listen to my favorite parts of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” as close to Christmas Eve night as possible. I have a terrific rendition, by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis, that brings majesty and reverence to the piece in ways the traditional chamber orchestra recordings do not (though if you want the best traditional recording of the piece, go with Sir Neville Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields). My favorite part of “Messiah” is the very end: “Worthy is the Lamb” and “Amen”. I honestly don’t have enough room in a blog post to share with you all the best musical bits, nor can I share with you just how impressive Handel’s work really is (though hit the link at the top of the post for a very interesting read). I’ll just leave you with this video done by Mack Wilberg, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Orchestra at Temple Square. Their performance is a taste of what John the Revelator heard when he wrote this: And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever. How would a man live his life after he’s heard the entirety of the Heavenly Host sing praise to Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Most High God? How could his mind contain the sheer power of the song? I can not imagine it, though I think Handel got awfully close when he wrote the finale to his masterpiece. Merry Christmas. Amen.

The Music of Christmas — Celtic Woman’s “Ding Dong Merrily on High” Posted: 24 Dec 2012 03:29 PM PST Ever hear a song on the radio and say to yourself, “Oh, hey! I haven’t heard that song in ages. I really liked it!”. Well, “Ding Dong Merrily on High” is that Christmas song for me. The tune is delightful (but a bear to sing well because the chorus is two long phrases and you need great breath control to do it right) and rarely performed at the sprightly pace it deserves. It could be the difficult of the chorus is the reason it’s not sung very often, or it could be the lyrics (penned in the mid 1920s) aren’t all that easy to understand. Here, for example, is the second verse. E’en so here below, below, Let steeple bells be swungen, And “Io, io, io!” By priest and people sungen. Right. Swungen and sungen aren’t words you see every day, though you used to, and we replaced “io, io, io” with “huzzah!” and “Hip, hip, hooray” a long time ago. Maybe “Ding Dong Merrily on High” is a tough song, unwelcome on radio stations that put John Lennon’s execrable Xmas whinge in heavy rotation. I don’t know. I think it’s worth bringing back because when it’s done right — at the right tempo with a huge dollop of exuberance — it’s magical. Even better when it’s done right by a quintet of beautiful and extremely talented Irish women. Enjoy.

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Wise Words about Freedom from a Cartoon Character Posted: 23 Dec 2012 07:19 PM PST Thank you, Gabe and Tycho. Thank you for this. As Moe Lane said, the amendments in the Bill of Rights are interlocking and, combined, they seek to achieve two particular goals that aren’t always compatible with each other: maximum freedom for individuals and a cohesive and strong civil society. You can not have an effective First Amendment without the Second, but neither can the Second exist without the First. Together, they provide the means by which an assortment of rugged individualists can form safe communities and govern themselves competently, if not always wisely. Oddly, few who make specious and self-righteous arguments to hack away at gun rights are willing to apply those same arguments to free speech. Okay, perhaps not so odd, really. But that cuts the other way, too. Nothing good happens when we all whip out our scalpels and commence to carving on the Constitution, even if we think our cuts are needed to protect other parts of the document.

The Music of Christmas — Nat King Cole’s “A Cradle in Bethlehem” Posted: 23 Dec 2012 06:34 PM PST If you know me even a little bit, you know I love Christmas music, especially the classics done by old-school musicians who know the value of a simple melody sung well. Nat King Cole, who for my money is one of the three finest male pop singers ever (along with Sam Cooke and Frank Sinatra), recorded a song called “A Cradle in Bethlehem” for his 1960 Christmas album The Magic of Christmas. It was outshone by his renditions of “The Christmas Song” and “Adeste Fidelis” but it shouldn’t have been. The song is heart-breakingly lovely. Listen for yourself and tell me what you think. Merry Christmas.

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To Quote the Great Sam Cooke (More or Less) Some Changes Are Gonna Come Posted: 21 Dec 2012 11:58 AM PST You’ve probably noticed the posts here at The Shack haven’t exactly been plentiful lately. I have a couple good reasons and ask your indulgence for a short while to explain. First, I’ve spent a couple or three weeks re-evaluating what I want to write about after the election. Sure, I could go back to what I did for my first 8 years as a blogger, cranking out the same old political posts just like pretty much every conservative blogger on the planet. I could hustle my posts, e-mail bomb a bunch of other bloggers, pimp every little thing I write on Twitter, and build The Shack into a Mighty Bastion of… …meh. Seriously. Meh. Look, the daily rough and tumble of conservative politics is pretty much handled. Bookmark memeorandum, Hot Air, Instapundit, and Town Hall then hit them every day. Sprinkle in The Other McCain, The Lonely Conservative, Yid with Lid, The Camp of the Saints, Ace of Spades, Michelle Malkin, Doug Ross, NRO’s The Corner, Reason’s Hit and Run, All-American Blogger and a couple other of your favorite other bloggers and you’re set. You don’t need me or The Shack to get your daily news and commentary fix. Honestly, I’m not going to give you anything terribly different from what they will every day and I’m not all that interested in trying. On the other hand, I am doing the daily blogging thing over at Liberty News — a relatively new site that’s getting bigger and bolder by the day. I have a couple or four posts there each day on which I can focus on being short and pithy and trenchant and all the things I like to be as a writer. Liberty News is a good place and the little bites of linkage and commentary you’ll get from me, Duane, Eric, and Warner are well worth your time. One day (soon, perhaps), we’ll be on the same plane as Hot Air or Town Hall. Time will tell. But here at The Shack, my online home, things have to be different. I am more than politics. Always have been, even if I foolishly decided years ago to buttonhole myself mostly in that realm. So here comes change. Big change. After the first of the year, the political stuff is going to drop precipitously. I’m going to write a lot more about social media — tips and tricks I’ve learned, new platforms and tools I’ve discovered, and links to some really smart people doing good work. You’ll see more posts about sports and gaming and books (I’ve even thought about a regular series where I write a short story each month). The content is going to be a lot different. Oh, it’ll still be me and whatever other guest posters I think will bring you really good, smart stuff. That won’t change. The Sundries Shack is mine and I’ve no inclination to give it up. Starting around the first of the year, you’ll notice a few different things. The look of the site is going to change a little bit. There’s going to be a cool new page where you can find everything interesting I’m doing all over the web — Twitter, Liberty News, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, and Tumblr — in one place. The Delivery will play a more prominent role at The Shack. I’m going to experiment — launch more little projects on which I’ve sat for far too long. You’ll get to decide which ones stay and which go based on how much you like them. Maybe you’ll see a weekly e-mail newsletter, an Obscure Music Video of the Week, some original doodle art, or a video series like Five by Five (hey, remember that?) but better. I’ve had some really crazy-cool ideas lately and I’m itching to try them out. So that’s what’s been and what is to come. I’m going to play and I want you to come along with me. Sound good? Good.

A Few Thoughts on the “Plan B” Battle, From a Moron Posted: 21 Dec 2012 09:22 AM PST So John Boehner’s big plan to cut the fiscal cliff Gordian Knot failed, then shattered like Narsil on the slopes of Mount Doom. Now we are in the Day of Recrimination, when the professional Republican set and their loyalists sneer down at the Tea Party rabble and the Tea Partiers are measuring Republican leaders for a suit made from hot tar and feathers. Meanwhile, the Democrats are so giddy with glee they’re dancing around like a group of four-year old kids in dire need of a potty break. I’m not in a position to solve any of the fiscal cliff problems. Heck, I couldn’t be farther away from the loci of Republican or conservative power. As I learned last night on Twitter, I am in the distinct minority and, quite possibly, mentally defective. Take my observations here with a grain of salt. It’s entirely possible you might catch a bad case of dumb from me and do something crazy like run head-first into a brick wall or something. 1) It’s never a good idea to stick your thumb in the eyes of teammates whose help you will desperately need later. Boehner had to have some idea he’d need Amash, Gohmert, Huelskamp and the others to back his play. He also had to know his plan would put them in a very tough position with their supporters and they’d need to burn a considerable amount of political capital to keep those supporters off the backs of the entire Republican caucus. A responsible leader would have found a couple ways to give them a little extra cred so they wouldn’t have to burn quite so much of theirs when Plan B launched. Boehner, on the other hand, publicly embarrassed them then almost literally demanded their fealty. I wouldn’t have backed his play under those circumstances and, let’s face it, you wouldn’t have either. 2) I get the idea that if the House passed Plan B, it might put  Harry Reid and President Obama in a tough spot, considering they already promised to ignore or veto anything the House sent them. That, of course, assumes Reid and Obama were telling the truth and would suffer dire political consequences if they weren’t. Does that seem like a smart assumption to you? What if they took Boehner’s bill, thanked him profusely and publicly, and passed it through? Well then you get a Republican party that not only signed on to a useless and punitive tax hike but actually originated it. Likelihood those taxes will come down any time soon? Nil. Chance America will trust Republicans in a couple years to quickly fix the problems those tax hikes will cause our already struggling economy? Zero. 3) We should consider, again, the likelihood that John Boehner and Barack Obama are playing two different games. I don’t doubt the Speaker wants to find a tidy political solution that involves compromise and bipartisanship. That’s his business. That’s what he’s done his entire career and while I intensely dislike what his brand of Republicanism has done to the country, I get what he’s doing. The President, on the other hand…well, what sort of track record as a politician, a negotiator, or a problem-solver does he have? It’s a lot more likely Barack Obama is playing the role he’s played his entire political life — partisan bomb-thrower — and his goal isn’t to deal with the fiscal cliff but to use it to do as much damage as possible to the Republican Party. I don’t think Boehner fully gets that yet. I sincerely hope he figures it out soon. 4) For those Republicans who ask, “Hey, Boehner-haters! Where’s your plan?”, it’s right here and it’s six weeks old. Stephen Green had a very similar idea at about the same time. I wanted to talk about it then, but the Republican faithful seemed a bit busy. Still, it was there. (Photo Credit: snowlepard on Flickr) UPDATE: Another thought occurs. The Republican leadership helped to build the Fiscal Cliff. How in the world did they not have at least two game plans to get us past it in reasonable shape? As I recall, the entire reason the thing exists was to make Barack Obama weaker so Mitt Romney could eat him up in November. Well, that didn’t happen, but was that the only option for which the GOP leadership prepared? It sure looks like it, and if that’s so, then everyone currently in charge of the Republican party ought to quit in disgrace. You never, ever, ever prepare for only one contingency. You always have a ready backup plan, a Plan B if you will, should your first weasel-clever plan go sideways. John Boehner and his leadership compatriots got caught flat-footed. Again. They shouldn’t have.

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Who’s The Likely Nominee in 2016? No One, that’s Who. Now Stop. Posted: 09 Dec 2012 07:26 PM PST No. We are not going to do this now. Hillary Clinton is among the most popular politicians nationwide and is the clear choice for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, according to recent polling data. A new poll released by Public Policy Polling found 51 percent of respondents have a favorable view of Hillary Clinton, while 29 percent view her unfavorably.  On the Republican side, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie received a 48 percent favorability rating, with 26 percent of respondents viewing him unfavorably. These polls, which are worthy only of our ridicule, exist for two reasons: 1) A bunch of consultants have tossed considerable coin to the pollsters to conduct them, and 2) because media knuckleheads eat them up like a bunch of kids on Free Jellybean Day at the candy store. I can understand the first reason. Consultants have candidates to prop up and foundations to build for an election four years’ hence. They also have millions of dollars to throw around like they’re trying to set a record for most boobs flashed during Mardi Gras. They’re not spending their own money, so why not toss a few grand at pollsters desperate to make up for the debacles of the last election? That second reason, though? I don’t quite get that. Sure, journalists have to cover something, but aren’t there other stories they into which they could dig? The more than 300 people killed by President Obama’s Fast and Furious guns are still dead. Our Ambassador to the United Nation still lied through her teeth about who killed our countrymen in Benghazi. The debt is headed toward $20 trillion dollars faster than a BB shot from an orbital rail gun. There are other things to talk about. But reporters love this sort of stuff. It makes them feel smart, like they’re actual thought leaders instead of easily-replaced thought repeaters. They love it more when none of us hold them accountable for their empty journalism. Here is a story from December 5, 2008 featured on CNN’s website. Barack Obama is more than six weeks away from assuming the presidency, and the next Iowa caucuses are more than three years away, but a national poll out Friday suggests that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin top the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls. Huckabee leads in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday. The survey is an early measure of possible support for the next GOP presidential nomination. So, how did Big Huck work out in 2012? How far did the Palin avalanche roll? More importantly, what price did CNN pay for commissioning this poll and running this story? Here is another article, from the WaPo blog The Fix, dated November 21, 2008. You’re going to love the headline. The Friday Line: Ten Republicans To Watch This “I gazed deeply into my crystal ball of awesomeness and this is what I saw” piece chose ten Republicans who “will emerge to rebuild the Republican party following its decimation at the ballot box in 2006 and 2008″? First, though, a caveat. To be clear, this is not — and should not be taken as — a list of potential contenders to take on Barack Obama in 2012. Some of the people on this list will certainly be in the Republican field in four years time but others almost certainly won’t. Fair enough. I consider “some”, by the way, as four or five. How many on the list ended up as major players in the Republican nomination? Let’s see, shall we? Here’s the list. 10. Steve Poizner 9. Haley Barbour 8. Jon Huntsman Jr. 7. Eric Cantor 6. Mark Sanford 5. Bob McDonnell 4. Mitch Daniels 3. Mitt Romney 2. John Thune 1. Bobby Jindal Two. Chris Cilizza, who is accorded quite a bit of authority as an astute political observer got two out of ten, and I am being charitable considering that Jon Huntsman dropped out of the race almost 11 months before the election. Twelve people actually ran for the nomination and Cilizza accurately picked two of them. Why is he an expert again? How does he have credibility as a political commentator, especially of the Republican Party? He would have been much better off had he written this: Look, my editors really want me to write a piece about what the Republican field will look like in three years or so. I can’t. I don’t have the prescience to predict the future. Quite literally anything could happen between today and the Republican National Convention in 2012. A potential candidate might suddenly announce he was having an affair with a fashion model, for instance. Or perhaps a Governor might decide he’s just fine where he is for now and not leap headlong into what is likely to be a bruising primary battle. I could throw up a list of a dozen randomly-picked Republican politicians and make up some cock-and-bull story about why they’d make a super-awesome nominee, but it would carry as much weight as a gnat with a wicked case of consumption. I don’t know who the real players will be. I know who they could be, but that list would be a couple of dozen names long. Four years is an awfully long time and my Magic 8-Ball isn’t the Oracle at Delphi. If it were, I’d have won the lottery years ago and this column would be datelined from somewhere on a lovely tropical beach. Here is my advice. Ignore the “who will run in 2012″ articles. They’re all guesswork, and bad guesswork at that. No one knows, including the people who will eventually run for the nomination themselves. Relax. Prepare for the inauguration and President Obama’s historic term. Watch him carefully and hold him accountable for his campaign promises. See what we can do to pull ourselves out of a dreadful recession. Seek out those doing good work in Congress and look to replace the ones who aren’t doing what you want. Enjoy Christmas and New Year’s Day. Get into a snowball fight with your kids when the flakes hit the ground. Live your life. The 2012 race will still be here when you are finally ready to pay real attention to it in 2011. For my part, I will keep my eyes on the big list of potentials I have, cross some off and add others. When the time is right, and I can make a reasonably intelligent prediction about who the true movers and shakers will be, I’ll put it right here so you can read it and judge me accordingly. Today, though, is not that day. I would respect a column like that. I would consider the journalist who wrote that honest and worth my continued readership. Cilizza didn’t do that, though. Neither did CNN. And that, among many other reasons, is why I pay attention to neither one when election time rolls around. And I won’t pay attention to any media outlet that handicaps the 2016 race today. Neither should you.

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The Delivery Presents – My First Remote Broadcast, from a Hurricane in Pennsylvania Posted: 08 Dec 2012 04:04 PM PST Everyone needs a little vacation time and mine happened over the weekend before Halloween. There wasn’t a lot to it — a few days at a quiet B&B, a minor-league hockey game, a couple or three nice dinners out, and a visit to the incomparable SuperMegaProducer Mike and the Take That Media Studios. SMP Mike has an impressive set-up and I’m glad he let me come in and play for an evening, even if the pre-show involved a lot of “Hey, Mike. What does this button do?” moments. Thankfully, I didn’t break anything and I left the studio with a huge case of tecnho-envy and a far greater appreciation for the work SMP Mike does to make The Delivery sound as good as it does. What did we talk about? Well, good things, sure. The hurricane gave me a chance to remind you all that global warming isn’t exactly science and, of course, my vacation gave me the opportunity to wax giddy over how neat the town of Hershey, PA is. And it is neat, though I’m told it’s a bit more expensive than I might like. Still, any place with roller coasters, chocolate, and hockey is as close to Heaven as I’m likely to find on this earth. And if I didn’t say so in the show, the global warming crowd is a cult whose members want you to live in mud huts while your liege lords, who are members of the cult of course, live fat in carbon-spewing mansions. Keep that in mind the next time one of them deign to get out of their private jets or cozy university offices to scold you for the light bulb that brightens your night. The Delivery - Episode 171

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The Delivery Presents – What Happens When I Run Out of Pre-Show Prep? Posted: 05 Dec 2012 06:19 PM PST The first half of Episode 190 is all about coal and why the Obama administration seems intent on destroying rural Appalachia to appease the crazed environmental left. Debra McCown, a reporter from southerwestern Virginia, joined me to talk about the town of Grundy, VA and its fight to use its own resources to revive its economy. In another time, Grundy would be a success story, an exemplar of how a town can pull itself up without vast government welfare programs. Instead, it’s had to battle to build success. As you can see, I ran out of show in the second half, so I threw caution fully to the winds and just winged it like the Devil was at my heels. So, expect a mishmash of good things, mashed into a pleasant mish (what else do you make when you mishmash?) and the faintest whiff of “Oh, I surely hope I don’t run out of stuff in my own head before SMPMike calls time”! It’s podcasting! The Delivery - Episode 170

The Delivery Presents – Will Our Children Forgive Us? Posted: 05 Dec 2012 05:52 PM PST Episode 169 was one of those shouty affairs that happen once in a while. I had come across this article about how a doctor dopes children with anti-psychotics and ADHD drugs so their lazy parents and half-baked teachers won’t have to expend more than the minimal amount of effort to raise them and, well, it didn’t take me long to get fired up. Kids are kids, not tiny adults, and any adult who thinks otherwise needs to get their own head right. I stayed on the theme of children ill-served by their adult guardians with this story from Florida about how the state school authorities think bringing back a form of academic Jim Crow law would be a fine idea indeed. I honestly don’t think what children these days will think of their parents, teachers, and elected officials but I can’t imagine they’ll be eager to forgive the horrible, selfish things done to them. I closed up with some good baseball stories and affirmed my admiration for a guy I didn’t like all that much when he first came to my town. The Delivery - Episode 169

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The Delivery Presents – Storytelling is Life, and So is Bacon Posted: 04 Dec 2012 12:37 PM PST It’s not every week I can have two people on the show who are quite as accomplished and forthcoming with great advice as I did in Episode 168. Kristina Ribali, the social media Queen of FreedomWorks, and Jim Lakely, the communications director of the Heartland Institute spent the hour talking about the importance of stories. We humans have always used stories to carry important information, everything from “don’t wander into the dangerous woods” to “don’t screw over your neighbor because it’s bad for all of us”. Somehow, though, conservatives have come to regard good storytelling as a frivolous pursuit, a thing only the artsy-fartsy left does. It’s cost us and the country dearly. We have to do better and that is the point from which we launch the conversation. Then we move into the importance of bacon, which can never be overstated. So there’s that. This is one of the best shows I’ve done in a while. if I had a highlight reel, most of this show would be on it. [audio:http://www.takethatproductionsusa.com/podcasting/td/TD168.mp3|titles=The Delivery - Episode 168]

The Delivery Presents – The Same Old Bias Posted: 04 Dec 2012 09:24 AM PST I have quite a bit of catching up to do on these show posts. Time and tight schedules get us all from time to time and, well, I got gotten good. Episode 167 has a few nifty little riffs, if I do say so myself, on the subject of media bias and how it played out in the early reporting about the Benghazi murders. I think it’s interesting to look back at what happened then and compare it to where the story is now. Hasn’t moved much, has it? That’s by design. I dropped a few recommendations for books you might like and Netflix fare you might find interesting in the second half. I think I’ll revisit Netflix in the near future, as I’m discouraged by the paucity of content compared to what I expect from a streaming platform these days. I lay much blame on Hollywood, which can’t seem to figure out that pennies per view on 60+ years of content is worth a whole lot more than, well, nothing. Also, there’s still no hockey. [audio:http://www.takethatproductionsusa.com/podcasting/td/TD167.mp3|titles=The Delivery - Episode 167]

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A Machine Gun Jetpack? Yes, Please! Posted: 04 Dec 2012 09:09 AM PST Randall Munro, who draws the geeky and very funny xkcd comic strip has recently taken up the mantle of Internet Science Answer Man. As suits his strip, though, he doesn’t’ take on the usual questions like “Why is the sky blue?” or “Will I die if I eat 200 marshamllows? Asking for a friend *burp*”. No, he takes on the truly important questions like “Can I do that thing Yosemite Sam does where he shoots his guns into the floor and flies up into the air, but bigger?” The answer, you’ll be pleased to know, is “yes”. The hitch is — and since this is science, there’s always a hitch because you can’t get anything cool out of science without one, like flying monkeys who by dint of their blasphemous mutations also have a taste for human flesh — you need a really big gun, or one that fires ridiculously fast, to get off the ground for very long. Fortunately for us, such guns do exist. The GAU-8 Avenger fires up to sixty one-pound bullets a second. It produces almost five tons of recoil force, which is crazy considering that it's mounted in a type of plane (the A-10 "Warthog") whose two engines produce only four tons of thrust each. If you put two of them in one aircraft, and fired both guns forward while opening up the throttle, the guns would win and you'd accelerate backward. To put it another way: If I mounted a GAU-8 on my car, put the car in neutral, and started firing backward from a standstill, I would be breaking the interstate speed limit in less than three seconds.   As good as this gun would be as a rocket pack engine, the Russians built one that would work even better. The Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 weighs half as much as the GAU-8 and has an even higher fire rate. Its thrust-to-weight ratio approaches 40, which means if you pointed one at the ground and fired, not only would it take off in a rapidly expanding spray of deadly metal fragments, but you would experience 40 gees of acceleration. In your face, Bob Costas, you sanctimonious little garden gnome! Guns do have a real benefit!

A Few Words on Failure from Chuck Wendig’s Time Capsule Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:32 PM PST Last week on The Delivery (link to come, once I get caught up on the show posts!), I talked about failure and how you can make it work for you by failing well, learning something useful from every failure and adding that tidbit of knowledge to your next venture so you don’t fail the same way again. Chuck Wendig had something wickedly smart to say about that very subject in a post stuffed full of valuable (and curse word-intensive, so click with that in mind) advice on failure, fear, and a bunch of other things. Here's the thing: we are the culmination of our successes but our successes are the culmination of our mistakes. Mistakes and failures beget success because we learn from them. Success is a slim margin — a narrow door — and everything outside that door is considered error. And that's okay. My toddler knows how to walk now — oh, right, you have a kid but we'll get to him — and the act of getting up and noodling around on those two pudgy cake-pillars he calls legs only happened through lots and lots of experimentation. Translation: he fell a lot. Still does. Into everything. You'd think he was drunk. He looks like Baby Fight Club most days. Point is: you need to fall. Falling is how we learn to walk. It's painful, but the pain is instructive. And one more clip worth remembering. This ought to end up on one of those cute little inspirational graphics you see on Pinterest or Instagram. Growing up means taking responsibility for who you are, what you want, and what you've done and will do. But growing up is also about knowing when to power down the adult side and let the crazy T-Rex that is your childish side loose on those poor goats in the goat paddock. Someone make that happen, please? (Why yes, I would like that link to corner the Google market on the phrase “Chuck Wendig had something wickedly smart to say”. That’s called blog-fu, yo, and I do know how that game is played! Also, because I think Chuck rocks harder than a hangar full of Led Zeppelins and you should buy as many of his books as you can.)

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