Two Scoop Tuesday

Politics, you say? Certainly! One scoop, or two? Two it is! No, no! My thoughts are still just a penny.

Georgia is on our minds. I believe it is important to stand with our ally and help them defend themselves from invasion. This from a Hugh Hewitt post a few days ago:

“The U.S. needs to rush relief to Georgia and to continue the blunt condemnation
of the Russians. It has taken the weekend for the MSM to figure out that Russia
is attempting to turn an ill-advised effort by Georgia to reassert control over
its land into a strategic thrust against the West, but the butchery and the
bombing has clarified the picture. Russia is killing many innocent
civilians far from the area where Georgia attempted --rightfully if not
prudently-- to move its forces. That's the bottom line.”

And then there was this. I tried to find a quote to pull from this article which posted at Powerline, but the whole thing needs to be read. These are dangerous times we live in, probably more dangerous than 9/11. Look at the list of ‘hot spots’ : Iraq, Iran, Georgia, Israel, Afghanistan, North Korea, China come to my mind and undoubtedly there are more. How about Venezuela and Cuba? All of these trouble spots are skirmishes in a wider world war and it is the same war we have been fighting for ages and why wars will never cease until Christ returns. It is the war wherein free peoples defend their right to be free against the powers that would enslave, dominate, even obliterate them. Even more scary is the possibility that I may have understated the case and that far too many of the free people are asleep at the wheel.

And, as late as today, there is no clear indication that Russia is pulling out of Georgia.

There is much more to post, but I am out of time.

Until next time, so long.

A Chill In The Air

Today was one of those interesting weather days that you get from time to time. A nice warm start early and then the bottom drops out. Here's how it played out:

(temp) (wind) (humidity)
8:00 am 59 F SSW 19-26 75%
11:00 64 WSW26-45 30%
11:25 57 W 25-44 32%
12:25 32 NW 29-36 71%
I looked at the temp map right now (12:30) and the front is bisecting Missouri from the northeast to the southwest and has, obviously, past us here in Springfield - it’s 18 in Kansas City and 70 in St. Louis. The temps continued to fall throughout the afternoon, though less rapidly, until:
3:00 21 WNW23-44 56%

As Col. Henry Blake once said, "Better bring the brass monkey in tonight!"

Also chilling, McCain wins Florida.

Here's what I wrote this afternoon before we knew tonight's results:
Paul Mirengoff of Powerline in his post “Simplified But Not Simple” expresses what many who call themselves conservative have been going through for many weeks now. I won’t recap it here, but please read it, you vast numbers of Central Standard readers, ahem.

I do have this, though. I don’t understand the assumption that only McCain can ward off the liberals come the fall. It has been in vogue, since about 1992, for party nominees to tack to the middle in an effort to win the presidency. This has resulted in Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush. Clinton had the blowout and Bush barely survived using this model. I’m not convinced that trying to be moderate is a winner for Republicans. I know the media like McCain in the primary, but I don’t think that’ll carry over to the general. The things that agitate us about McCain now will be on display for all to see come the fall. I actually think McCain would wind up looking frail, bitter, old and out of touch in the general election, especially against Obama. McCain-Obama would be the rout that Mirengoff, and the rest of us, fear. Is this why the NY Times endorses McCain?

I liked Fred best and Rudy’s a fighter, but it’s going to boil down to Romney, I believe. I think Romney is the engine that could. There has been quite a lot written about why he’s not the guy and he can’t win and the media doesn’t like him, etc, etc. All he does is win and pick up delegates. Oh, by the way, he leads in delegates on the Republican side. (And he’s supposed to drop out?)

Watch his speech about faith if you haven’t seen it. It’s simply one of the better speeches I’ve heard in a long time. Romney looks inevitable to me and I don’t just mean for the Republican nomination. I think he’ll be underestimated all the way to the White House.

Just like a recent governor of Texas.

I still believe what I wrote earlier. Obviously the delegate math has changed but still, I think Romney will pull it out and I think McCain is brittle. When you think McCain '08, you should think Dole '96.

Now here's some opinion from a couple of guys who actually know a thing or two - Ruffini - Hewitt.

Gobsmacked!

That's what I am - gobsmacked and wrong.

Apparently James Lileks, one of America's funniest and most entertaining columnists, will no longer be writing entertaining mirth for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. No, he'll be covering city hall or the mayor or the garbage strike or something. Something that most of us who've got, not a journalism degree, but about 8 hours of communications courses could do. A waste of resources.

Apparently a bunch of folks were let go, or bought out. More cuts are on the way and, as Lileks points out, he still has a job. He's very graceful about it.

I wrote yesterday that I couldn't believe it, that there had to be more to the story, but I was wrong. It's hard to imagine misusing talent this way. I understand things are hard for papers these days, but I don't think the answer is to eliminate your most unique and marketable property. It's a competitive media market and to make the decision to be no better than anyone else is not how to win.

A small number of writers do not care for Lileks and some of them expressed themselves in their typical poisionous and bitter way, once again belying the fact that they really don't understand the issue or the outpouring of support for Lileks. Hopefully this will be clear. Nobody believes Lileks is 'owed' a job or that the Trib has committed some sort of violation against him or other bloggers or Mom or apple pie or anything. No, what has us all gobsmacked is what I wrote in the previous 'graph. It's simply stupid to kill your best product if you want to stay around. Hugh Hewitt called it suicidal. It'd be the same as if Ford decided to stop production of the Mustang or if the Yankees decided that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter shouldn't be in the lineup anymore, but should just file scouting reports on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. (Thanks, Dave Barry)

No, the Trib can do as they please. The poisionous, bitter, crabby ones can do as they please. Lileks can do as he pleases.

And so can other competitive media searching for a great talent to add to their stable.