ConservativeINC

9:00 - 9:30 EST:

McCain is the “Sheriff,” Rudy is great on the economy, Romney’s looking good, and Thompson eviscerated Huckabee to receive the first raucous round of applause. Rudy is talking about how the Republican party has a big tent in order to give him some cover for his liberal social viewpoints.

Rudy’s commercial is better than anything he said during the debate. It was about how he is going to propose a tax cut his first day in office.

Ron Paul is at the debate; I thought he wasn’t going to be allowed. He talked about how the country is heading towards economic doom because our interest rates are too low, we’re mortgaging our future with China as the banker, blah, blah, blah. The same things we’ve heard for a long time now.

9:35 - 9:40 EST:

Huckabee fumbles the Iran Navy incident while Thompson got a laugh out of it. Thompson: “If they [the Iranians] went one step further they would have been introduced to the power of America’s military might.” Good line. Rudy is talking a good line on Iran going more for the serious answer; talking about sanctions, making sure it doesn’t become a nuclear power, and talking up the economic difficulties inside Iran. McCain, if in the situation as Captain of one of our Navy’s ships, well, he said it’s not his place to second guess those captains.

Rudy made, and McCain concurred, that this situation was probably about Iran probing to find out how serious we are after the NIE that came out saying Iran isn’t close to getting nukes. Ron Paul said that he’s hearing a lot of overreacting regarding this incident. He doesn’t want to start WWIII over a couple of speedboats - does he remember the Cole? And then Brit Hume gets a laugh by calling out Paul over mischaracterizing the response the other candidates were calling for - they all said they put their faith in the decision-making powers of our ships Captains.

Romney gets a dig in on Paul by saying Paul has been reading Ahmadinejad’s press releases a little too closely.

9:40 - 9:50 EST:

McCain did a good job at taking credit for the surge. He is right about how Petraeus should have been Time’s Man of the Year. By the way, did you see any stories about the surge today? It is the surge’s one year anniversary.

Rudy did a fine job talking about the Middle East Peace Process. He also made the point that others supported the surge and McCain, like a stubborn child, stuck to his point that he was the only one.

Ron Paul talked his moronic talk about how the United States is the problem in the world. McCain made a joke about how we shouldn’t trade with al Qaeda because they only have one-way tickets (i.e. homicide bombers).

9:50 - 10:00 EST:

Thompson on Pakistan: first a couple of jokes about how polls suck and how since the NY Times isn’t reporting on Iraq it must be going well. He thinks that everyone is being premature in hoping for a different leader than Musharraf. “Who else are we going to get” is his basic rationale. And I think he’s right; we’re going to get someone worse if Musharraf left. We have to worry about their nukes and we have to lean on them to fight terror.

Romney brought up a very interesting name: Pakistani General Kiyani. Here’s a brief on him from a blog called IntelliBriefs and here’s a couple from Stratfor (ONE and TWO). Interesting stuff.

Ron Paul wants to treat Israel as “grown up.” He is naive. Israel is hardly a stepchild of the United States. Giuliani backs up Israel saying it is one of our most important allies and we need to protect our allies. Plus, we need to lean on Musharraf.

I guess while I was searching for the Pakistani General I missed something from Huckabee. Thompson said, in reference to Huckabee, our aide goes to training Pakistan’s military and not to the government in general.

10:00 - 10:20 EST

Romney is talking about change now. He says that people are fed up with Washington politics as usual. He will “take Washington apart… make it smaller.” *CLAPS*

McCain’s claim to being for change is - hold your breathe - the SURGE. Oh and spending practices and some other stuff. He had an Abramoff mention pointing out he doesn’t know the man. His last sentence contained the word change a half dozen times. Not nearly as bad as a speech I heard in an MBA class last semester when some guy said “like” over one hundred times, but still bad.

Huckabee is concerned not about his future but the children’s future. I thought he was about ready to cry (crying only works for girls - like Bill Clinton - HA!). He’s good with roads (ask Trucker Magazine, seriously). And he made highways accessible to every child in his state - seriously.

Thompson talked about his tenure as a Senator - about Welfare Reform and everything else. He also made his impassioned speech about personal freedom.

A Rudy joke bombed. He said that the change the Democrats were talking about was - wait - the change in your pockets. Side splitting. He also said “change” a lot; it is this campaign’s buzzword, if you didn’t already know that. Oh, and he has been an executive before, I think he was mayor or something.

Carl Cameron slams Huckabee over an ad he attached his name to about how a woman should act (subservient to her husband). Low blow by Campaign Carl. Huckabee got a couple laughs out of it. He’s a Baptist and he believes that wives should submit themselves to their husbands as should husbands submit themselves to their wives. Home run for Huckabee.

Ron Paul says he’s the only Constitutionalist and Republicans should love him. Talk about how we shouldn’t be in NATO and how we borrowed ten billion from China to give to a military dictatorship in Pakistan that overthrew a democratically elected government in order to bring democracy to Iraq. If you accept his argument there is no room to argue. But, if you have a brain, you will not accept his arguments.

Commercial break - cholesterol drugs and other goodies.

10:20 - 10:30 EST

IMMIGRATION!!!! Finally.

McCain up first. Blamed his failed immigration plan on the people’s mistrust of the federal government. Then he talked about how we should be compassionate because an illegal immigrant who is married to a serviceman is being deported and that is wrong. Yeah, it is wrong, but it is also the exception. One clapper.

Mitt says illegals should get in the back of the line if you want to live in this country. Claps.

“We need to be a nation of high gates and wide gates,” says Thompson. We also need to crack down on employers and end sanctuary cities. We would end those sanctuary cities by cutting off federal funding to those cities. Disagrees with in-state tuition for illegals. Claps.

Paul was asked whether going after illegal immigration is important enough to write off the Hispanic vote. Paul answered this question well talking about how if you subsidize something it is going to increase. Basically, if you make it financially beneficial to break the law people will break the law. And we shouldn’t automatically assume that if we support protecting the boarders the Hispanics will leave the party. Applause.

Huckabee says we should assume people are legal and not illegal. No sound.

Giuliani says it would be “absurd” to ask people about their immigration status if they are reporting a crime. He probably has a good point here; haven’t thought about it much. Illegal kids were put in schools to keep them off the streets. I think he makes a good point by saying we should focus on those illegals who continue to break the law once they broke into our country. And he kept on talking and talking. Britt cut him off and that was it.

DEBATE OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

After Party

WINNER: Fox News had a room filled with about thirty South Carolina voters. When asked how many supported Thompson before the debate only three raised their hands. When asked who they thought won the debate nearly everyone voiced support for Thompson.

LOSER: Ron Paul. BigT

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Guess what the second most popular name in England is? Nope, it’s not Jeeves, it’s Mohammed. And yes, this does signal the end of civilization as we know it. Europe is being invaded by a people whose culture is antithetical to everything they stand for. But as long as the news stories coming out of Europe are about cute and cuddly things like baby boy’s names and not about radical mosques warping the minds of Europe’s immigrant youth there will be no response from Europe’s politicians. Eventually those boys named Mohammed will become politicians named Mohammed and they will be the ones setting policy. Maybe now that Tom Tancredo has abandoned his presidential run in America he could turn his ire towards Europe’s immigration problem for a while.

Oops, another Spears girl did it again. Britney’s younger sister, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn, got impregnated by her 18-year-old boyfriend. The media wants to make this out as some sort of rallying cry to legalize teenage intercourse. But what I find the most sad about this story and every other story about a Disney kid’s fall from grace is the feeding frenzy it creates in the media. Once you decide, as a parent, to make your kid a “star” the kid’s life is basically null and void. They are controlled by everyone around them and manipulated by the media. When they screw up they become the poster child for whatever their screw up was. Focusing on this type of story, though, distracts everyone from important things… like the efficacy of sex ed classes and black holes.

In order to not disappoint you, I happen to have stories for both. First, sex ed. A story out today by ABC tells us how sex ed programs help delay sexual activity and leads to safer sex practices (at least on their first sexual encounter). But, as is expected from the MSM, they devote a good portion of the story to making sure the reader understands that abstinence only sex ed is really dangerous and the best option is “comprehensive” sex ed. Even though they did a poor job in hiding their biases here, ABC did point out that this study contradicts previous studies and may not be all that useful.

Earlier studies conducted in the 1970s through 1990s, however, seemed to suggest that sex education had little or no effect on the likelihood of young people engaging in sexual intercourse.

Until this report, there had been no recent national studies conducted to assess the effect of sex education on the sexual behaviors of youth — a situation that health experts say begs for further research to evaluate the most effective content and implementation of sex education.

Wow, this is shocking. A study that contradicts a bunch of previous studies. In America we let studies do our thinking for us. Instead of being logical about sex ed, for example, we put all of our trust into a bunch of studies we haven’t read and in all likelihood are faulty and/or misleading. It makes complete sense to me that sex ed just doesn’t work. It can’t. What do you think happens when you get a bunch of hormonal teenagers in a room together learning about the thing they aren’t suppose to be doing? If you didn’t know what happens, I’ll tell you. They go and get their abstinence wristbands and then head straight for the football bleachers and get it on with that cutie from math class.

Parents need to raise their children. If parents continue to hand over their children’s upbringing to largely unaccountable parties that is when you get pregnant teens. Look at Spears. Her mom probably hasn’t been around her for more than a few hours at a time for a bunch of years now. Is it really all that surprising when a starlet goes down the wrong path? Why should it be surprising when your teen, who you only see a couple hours a day because you work and because you believe they should be having “fun”, why is it surprising when they come home with a hangover, a drug habit, or with baby? If limiting the number of teen pregnancies is important to you why don’t you make sure your kid does the right thing.

Now onto black holes. How does this make you feel?

If a jet were to hit Earth, Evans said, it would destroy the ozone layer and collapse the magnetosphere that blankets the planet and protects it from harmful solar particles. Without the ozone layer and magnetosphere, he said, much of life on Earth would end.

Scary stuff. Luckily, however, that’s billions of years off and by then the world will be a shriveled mass thanks to global warming. Basically, what is going on is an intergalactic mugging. One black hole has sent out a burst of cosmic radiation and it is crashing into another galaxy. Unfortunately for the little green men who inhabit that galaxy, they are now probably all dead. Here’s the picture of this horrible event.

In other black hole news, the black hole known as liberalism has scored a big win today. The Federal Reserve has decided to enact lending regulations in an abrupt about face to its previous stance. I guess the relentless onslaught from the moron branch of economics, the branch that says whenever something goes wrong it can be fixed by legislation, won out in the end.

A while ago I wrote a piece called Capitalism’s Sledgehammer that dealt specifically with this branch of economics. Failure, like the failure of the subprime mortgage market, is one of the things capitalism is really good with. If you’ve been doing something wrong then capitalism will tell you with a loss in profits. But if you bring the government in to “protect” you and make things “better” you will get a bastardized form of capitalism that has a hard time telling you something is wrong. Furthermore, government regulations prevent people from taking risks, which puts a restrictor plate on our economy’s engine. In the end we give away our economy’s upside for a false sense of protection.

And what about our economy, is it dying? Well, Morgan Stanley posts a loss for the first time in its 72-year history. But Oracle’s profit soared and NetSuite’s IPO did better than expected. Personally, my portfolio has been hit quite hard but during the third quarter our GDP went up over 4%, so it would seem that there is still some steam left in our economy’s engine. Let me put it this way, I would never bet against American ingenuity.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
TO wants to KO Jessica Simpson.

[Had to include the picture]

Al Qaeda still a threat in Iraq, duh.
“Don’t Tase Me, Bro” is most memorable.
Magna Carta worth a lot of money.
Hillary has a lot to hide.
BigT

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Less people are dying in Iraq. This is good news and hopefully is proof that security is improving in Iraq. This being the case means that it isn’t being reported all that much. In fact, most of the story from which this information is made available is dedicated to a guy who thinks the Iraq War was a bad idea and is a failure. The really interesting piece of information from this story is about the total number of civilian deaths since the start of the war.

Iraq Body Count, an independent organization that tracks media reports as well as official figures, estimates that 77,573 to 84,502 civilians have been killed.

Regularly people from the left will peg that number somewhere north of one million people dead in Iraq due to the war. The story points out that the numbers the coalition provides are less then the actual number (the coalition admits this) but it is obvious to me that the leftist death counters over-report Iraqi deaths. I guess saying there have been “one million deaths” in Iraq is a better talking point then “approximately 80,000 deaths.”

Even though deaths are down and security is up there is still news out to make everyone hate the Iraq War. The new storyline is about how there is rampant theft and bribery going on in Iraq. I don’t want to make light of this but bribes happen all the time in most countries, even advanced ones. Here’s a picture showing who is corrupt, the darker the color the more corrupt the nation.

If you’re more of a chart person then here’s the table of corruption link. Iraq is the third most corrupt nation on Earth. But I have a feeling that once the leftists look at this table and see Venezuela not that far in front of Iraq they’ll be saying the methodology is flawed and Iraq is much worse anyways and anyone who doesn’t say so is a mind-numbed robot who is an ignoramus. Well, that is what they’re going to say, you know it.

To tell you the truth I’m not even sold on the idea that corruption is bad all the time. Take the Sudan, for example. No one can really say they’re being “corrupt” because they jailed that do-gooder teacher. They are, after all, just following the law. Sometimes corruption is necessary to make things happen, especially in areas of the world that don’t have a strong tradition of laws and institutions to enforce those laws.

Speaking about Sudanese teddy bears named Mohammad, we have a story from ABC about how Muslims are condemning those who want the teacher to die. The article points out some “prominent” Islamic scholars from the West and one from the Sudan who says that this is not what Islam is about. I desperately want to believe that they are prominent scholars who actually have some sway in the Islamic community because, to tell you the truth, it just doesn’t seem like they are talking for a lot of Muslims. Thousands marched for the death of a woman who is sacrificing a good portion of her life so that some Muslim children can have a better education. While I’m glad that some scholars are talking out against this I’m not sure it matters because they can’t control the savage masses.

Do you know what matters though? Race in America; especially if you’re a democrat. Truthfully, I can’t say I give a rat’s *&$ about a person’s skin color, but that’s not true for black democrats in Alabama.

“That doubt, that cynicism could have been written to prevent every piece of progress we’ve had in our lifetime,” said Davis, D-Ala.

Before the endorsement vote, Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner praised Obama’s qualifications, but urged the group to support Clinton.

“The question you have to put forth to yourself is that whether or not in this racist country a black man named Obama — when we are shooting at Osama — can win the presidency of the United States?” Turner said.

Turner said Clinton is the Democrat most likely to win in November “because of her husband and because of some other things, mainly because she’s white.”

I believe I’ve found one of the people who believes every conspiracy theory out there. Black “leaders” only maintain their power as long as the black community believes everyone is out to get them. Wait a second, I just had an epiphany! I just realized that I’m a republican and I’m talking about democrats. It must be that democrats are extremely racist and they would never nominate a minority to be their presidential candidate. I’m sorry black leaders, you’re right when you say you have to combat racism everyday. Maybe if you want to get out from under the thumb of your white masters you should switch your party affiliation.

What, did you think that I was just being tongue and cheek? You’re probably thinking that I’m being sarcastic about blacks coming to the republican party and that there’s no way republicans are better with race issues then the democrats are. After all, there’s a bunch more black democrat politicians then there are black republican politicians. But why is that? Is it because we’re racists? No, it’s because there aren’t that many black republicans. In fact, I would hazard a guess that blacks are overrepresented in the republican party based on the percentage of voting black republicans there are.

Why is this? Because most republicans just want to live their lives. If someone comes out saying they’re going to enact legislation that would get the government off our backs we’re going to elect them in a second. If a black person comes out saying everything Reagan said 95% of republicans wouldn’t hesitate to cast their vote for him or her. That’s just the way we are.

A further example that most people who get involved in politics care more about the issues then the candidates driver license information comes from Iowa where the hostage crisis hero, Hillary Clinton, was booed for being pro-illegal immigration. Side note: I thought she was a hero now that she stared down the hostage taker? Could it be that the people don’t care about the MSM anymore? It’s too bad that the Clintons have the MSM around their collective little finger but it doesn’t really matter that much anymore because no one gives a second thought about what the nightly news anchors say.

There’s also a chance the Iowans could have been booing because their genitals were suffering from frostbite and just wanted the phone-in candidate to get done quicker. In this age of out-of-control weather gauges the American Midwest suffered a cold snap. Blizzards have claimed three lives so far and, more importantly it seems to the MSM, it is putting a crimp in presidential campaigning. But the real issue here is what does this mean about global warming? Should we call up Al Gore and tell him something is wrong? On second thought, maybe Gore caused the cool weather himself. It is a proven fact that whenever Gore gives a speech cold weather will surely follow. It’s like he’s Mr Freeze.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Russians “vote” soon.
Another Pakistani exiled ex-leader says he’s not an extremist.
One of Hugo Chavez’s BFFs isn’t so BFF now.
Will Venezuela’s voters ruin any chance for democracy in their country?
Better ads for websites.
I’ll trade you this gift card to Red Robbin for your Colt 1911. Only in San Francisco.
Favre says he’s going to keep on keeping on.
BigT

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