Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers is (was) a success.

CNN.com reports that:

"The most popular car being purchased under the program, according to the White House? The Ford Focus, which boasts up to 35 mpg."

While our clunker-upgraded ride doesn't get quite that high combined MPG, I'm glad that people are choosing to take fuel efficiency more seriously, despite the guy in the article who got a "crew-cab Silverado, four-door" under the program.

It's interesting that the reporter chose to lead off with a counter-example (fuel-guzzling truck) to the government presented data. Seems like a sign of conservative bias rather than left-wing bias.

Gun Education

NYT columnist Bob Herbert lets off a rant about gun violence in an op-ed and concludes:

We don't really think about it. If the crime is horrible enough, we'll go through the motions of public anguish but we never really do anything about it. Americans are as blasé as can be about this relentless slaughter that keeps the culture soaked in blood.

The education and reflection needs to be on the benefits and power of having a firearm. The statistics may seem skewed to irrational uses of guns because sometimes the edges of rational society are the people taking advantage of the Second Amendment.

Let everyone who ever thought about having a firearm have one. And ensure proper education of their property, like driver's ed. Then it becomes a culture of discipline.

Reminder

Freedom Democrats has a thank-you note up to Democrats and the media.

First, on the topic of the "Wall Street meltdown" I am completely and totally heartless and callous. I don't blame this on George W. Bush and the Republicans. I don't blame this on Bill Clinton and the 1990s. It's the entire system at fault and to lay the blame at any one individual is absurd and just political opportunism.

I am in complete agreement.

Audiences

This ability to have the presence to schedule time with these two audiences and use ideas/products of each to form progressive, intelligent policies differentiates Obama from McCain and/or the GOP.

The Naders and Kucinichs that criticize the second meeting clearly have their heads up their asses.

Confidence in the Iraqi economy

A Jim Michaels-bylined headline at USA Today notes:

Foreign firms investing in Iraq

This, I believe, is the next best thing to the international involvement of other governments helping to secure Iraq. As happened in the United States, "it's corporations, not government, that drive many big social changes."

Michaels notes this new involvement couldn't have happened if the violence level hadn't decreased. Things are, quote-unquote, changing in Iraq.

I do disagree with "the Pentagon official who is leading U.S. efforts to help Iraq rebuild its economy" who says that companies from the U.S.:

"may also be reluctant to invest in Iraq because the war has generated so much controversy at home."

Dollars are dollars. If so, other countries' populaces would be objecting to their companies helping in the effort.

Can you smell what The Rock is cookin'?

"I am only a professor who is also a university president, and today I feel the weight of all the civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad.

Boo-ya!

Bad Except When They're Good

Victor Davis Hanson posting at The Corner on National Review Online makes an interesting remark while commenting on Iran and its nuclear implications.

He writes about the "moral equivalence" of Prof. John Mearsheimer at the YearlyKos convention, who surmised that Iran had the right

"to have a bomb since Israel has one too-as if an anti-American theocracy run according to Sharia Law is no more a nuclear threat than a pro-American liberal democracy."

So anti-American theocracy is the bad and pro-American liberal democracy is good. Catch that? Liberal is good, says the conservative.

Okay, just checking.

Gingrich loses mind, speaks sense

Newt Gingrich has an epiphany:

"We have got to get beyond this political bologna. I'm not allowed to say anything positive about Hillary Clinton because then I'm not a loyal Republican, and she's not allowed to say anything positive about me because then she's not a loyal Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country."

If you got the time

While randomly browsing the Wikipedia entry for Christopher Hitchens, I came across a link to a rebuttal posting by Wes Walls to Hitchens' stance on the war in Iraq and the circumstances leading up to it.

Very worth reading.

An excerpt:

Let [Hitchens] tell [the Iraqis] how, consequences be damned, he was right, because by his math a world minus a bad man is a better world, notwithstanding the subtraction of a few hundred thousand lives. Let him tell them that this is exactly what he means, as if one writer sticking to his imaginary guns were itself such an act of fortitude that it redeems any amount of actual destruction.

True believers

The Rev. Al Sharpton has gotten himself into some hot water for saying:

"And as for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway. So don't worry about that. That's a temporary, that's a temporary situation."

His statement came during a debate with Christopher Hitchens, the author of the recent book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

NewsBusters notes that:

"...Sharpton and [Paula] Zahn discussed the fact that until 1965 [according to CNN], or 1978, according to Sharpton, the Mormon church did not accord blacks full status. That engendered the following exchange:

SHARPTON: ...prior to '65, '78, whenever it was, they did not see blacks as equal, I do not believe that as real worshippers of God, because I do not believe that God distinguishes between people."

Considering that the founders of this country and several generations of its people afterwards put into place and accepted laws that "did not see blacks as equal" this is a curious statement. Sharpton is supposed to be clergy, hence the "Reverend" (licensed and ordained a minister at age 9, says Wikipedia).

Sharpton was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who was white. And that person's religion (Christianity) had members who did not view blacks as equal.

I am so thrown, I cannot elucidate my point.

Definitions

A commenter on RedState notes that:

"The right defines the left by quoting Cindy Sheehan. The left defines the right by quoting Pat Robertson."

Indeed.

Dilemmas

Dilemma paradigms and the liberal/conservative spectra. The observations are knee-jerk and obviously not fully thought out weighing all possible examples or strains of idealogy.

Individual vs. Community

I would say liberals place a higher value on the community over individuals.

Truth vs. Loyalty

I think in general that liberals value the truth over partisan or idealogical lines.

Responsibility in the Short-term vs. the Long-term

I think in general that liberals seek out goals for long-term benefit than the short-term.

Justice vs. Mercy

In this case, I think that liberals are almost mixed. Equal parts justice and mercy. I couldn't come up with an inkblot response.