A New Punching Bag Emerges

The tree fell in the forest. But nobody was there to hear it. Did it make noise?

Democrat Carter Turner announces decision to challenge Del. Morgan Griffith
By Pete Dybdahl, Roanoke Times

With 99 days till the November election, a new Democrat has entered the race for the 8th District seat in the House of Delegates.

He is a political newcomer named Carter Turner, a Glenvar resident and Radford University assistant professor with the kind of Salem pedigree that one local Democrat termed "instant appeal."

Turner formally announced his candidacy outside the Roanoke County Courthouse on Monday, calling for "solution-oriented politics" and bipartisanship in Richmond. And he recounted his involvement in the recent effort to block an asphalt plant that had designs on Glenvar.

For boosting the local job market, he pointed to tax incentives for business and an expansion of rural broadband services and the Governor's Opportunity Fund.

He also said he would make a "common-sense" evaluation of the Standards of Learning curriculum. As for transportation, he mentioned a long-term goal was passenger rail. [link]

Passenger rail. Yeah. That'll excite all twelve people who will ever take advantage of it.

Tax incentives for business might be a good idea though. Perhaps Turner could get a list of potential incentives from Griffith and coordinate their efforts.

Or, better yet, he might simply start planning his next summer vacation. A wiser move, indeed.

Speaker-for-Life

When a politician no longer fears election day, we get ...

... arrogance and condescension:

Pelosi The Mistrusted
Investor's Business Daily editorial

Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims she has no use for polls. For her, that's a good thing, because polls now show that voters despise her. But a politician who disdains public approval should be a little disturbing.

Not every House leader has been popular, but none have reached the nadir of Pelosi. Last week, a Public Strategies/Politico poll showed she is now trusted by fewer than one out of four voters. Asked for a reaction by Politico's Glenn Thrush on Monday, Pelosi laughed it off, declaring "I don't care."

A response like that can only come from someone so securely unaccountable in power that listening to voters is unnecessary. Its starting point is in Pelosi's disregard for the mainstream.

The speaker, who represents radical-left San Francisco, is a proponent of an agenda out of tune with what the average American wants. She has a gargantuan appetite for government spending plus intrusive legislation that curtails citizen freedoms.

Pelosi's unpopularity is bad news not only for Republicans. It's now fracturing the Democratic Party and damaging Obama's presidency. It's a sign of a political entrenchment that answers to no voters, and more at home in Caracas than Washington. Congress better end this soon because it is not consistent with democracy. [link]

She's the most polarizing figure in Congressional history. It's time to send her to a back bench where she belongs.

This From a Scientist?

You can't make this stuff up:

Hard Data on Climate Change
By Brenda Ekwurzel, woriting in the Washington Post
[The writer is a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists]

George F. Will once again ignored scientific evidence when he claimed that there has been no global warming over the past decade ["Climate Fixers' Hard Sell," op-ed, July 23].

Earth's average temperature rises and falls in large part because of multiyear ocean cycles, such as El Niño and La Niña. At the same time, human-induced global warming has been steadily pushing average temperatures higher. Because of the natural ocean cycles, 1998 was a warm year. Global warming made it even hotter. Conversely, 2008 was a cooler year, but global warming made it less cool. [link]

"2008 was a cooler year, but global warming made it less cool." This may be the most pathetic excuse-making I've ever read.

Absolutely shameful.

Breaking News

Actually it's news that has been breaking for the last twenty years:

Investors In China Fuel Fast Expansion
By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post Foreign Service

Hong Kong, July 28 -- China's first initial public offering in nearly a year rose so high, so fast on Monday that regulators were forced to halt trading twice. The Hong Kong stock exchange's Hang Seng Index this week soared to double its low point last fall. And new lending on the mainland tripled to more than $1 trillion in the first six months of 2009.

While most other countries around the world struggle to stabilize their economies, China's appears to be rocketing back.

China's leaders say that the economy may have bottomed out in the second quarter of this year. The National Bureau of Statistics in China reported that gross domestic product, or the value of goods and services it produced, was up 7.9 percent in that period -- surprising analysts who had predicted growth rates to skid to as low as 4 percent. At this pace, China is on track to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy as soon as year's end. [link]

Meanwhile Obama works diligently to wreck the U.S. economy, with the hope that the Chinese will be there to prop it up.

Good God.

To What End?

What do these people expect to find that hasn't already been found?

New Inquiry Is Sought in Virginia Tech Massacre
By Ian Urbina, New York Times

A group of relatives of Virginia Tech shooting victims asked Gov. Tim Kaine on Tuesday to reopen Virginia’s investigation of the 2007 massacre at the university.

A group of more than 30 parents and relatives of those killed or injured by the student gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, issued a statement Tuesday saying that they were making the request because of last week’s discovery of missing mental health records at the home of Robert C. Miller, the former director of the university’s counseling center.

“While we appreciate the hard work of the Virginia Tech Review Panel, the report issued by the panel contains grave errors, misinformation and glaring omissions,” the statement said.

The investigation should be reopened, the relatives said, because it was conducted hastily, did not have all available information — including the mental health records — and had not interviewed Dr. Miller. [link]

They want to reopen that ugly wound?

I don't think so. It serves no purpose.

Why NASA Exists

Why it has an annual budget of $18,686,000,000:

So that astronomers can take photos of craft in outer space and we can marvel at their awesomeness.

That's the only good reason.

$18,686,000,000.

It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like This

I thought Mr. Sunshine was supposed to bring us together as a people when he got elected.

Alas:

Dem healthcare infighting intensifies
By Alexander Bolton and Jeffrey Young, The Hill

A House fight among Democrats on overhauling the nation’s healthcare system has spread to the Senate, where centrists and liberals are clashing over the direction the legislation should take.

Trouble is brewing now that a bipartisan group of senators — led by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — has signaled it will exclude a government-run insurance option from the committee’s draft legislation that could be marked up next week.

Leaving it out would be a major step toward attracting Republican support for President Barack Obama’s signature issue. But it also would alienate liberals, who say the effort is wasted without it and ... [link]

Obama needs to work a little of that hope & change stuff on these guys. And quick.

It Was Meant To Be

With Barack Obama in charge this eventuality was only a matter of time:

Britain and US prepared to open talks with the Taliban

Expect the stoning of women in the sports stadiums of Kabul to resume in a few short months.

Meanwhile, our president has taken up the case of a rich black Harvard professor who claims he was profiled and discriminated against by the local police.

Oh, the humanity.