The Science Is In, The Debate Is Over!

3000 scientists signed the IPCC saying anthropogenic global warming is occurring. So far, over 31,000 scientists have signed the "Oregon Petition" which states:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Hmmm, more than a 10 to 1 ratio... I think the consensus is in!

The End of Days?

Could anything make this buffoon look like a reasonable choice for Minnesotans to send to the U.S. Senate? I'd typically say no.

Al Franken is not funny, not even when he's trying . He's been known to physically assault people who express views that he can't comprehend. If Al thinks someone has a view he doesn't understand, but is trying to be polite by holding comment... well, Al has been known to verbally assail people like this too.

Typically, we'd think of people like this as classless boobs. However, in this modern day of You Tube, Al has a "get out of jail free" card. That's right, he's famous.

Famous people can do & say the most hideous things, even things that would land the typical citizen in jail, & get off scott-free. Up to about 100 years ago, the profession of actor was viewed as slightly higher than that of prostitute. Apparently, people were a bit more sensible back then.

Back to my original statement. Perhaps the spectacle of this guy running could make Al Franken seem like a down right reasonable choice?

Yep, Jesse "The Mind" Ventura is threatening Minnesota once again.

Wednesday the 21st, on Larry King, the former Minnesota embarrassment (er, I mean, governor) made a statement that technically stopped short of saying "I'm running" but said "I'm running." Talking about bad actors cashing in on fame.

I was trying to enjoy my dinner at the time, but now I have an idea of what acid reflux must be like.

From the transcript:

KING: What's that going to be like, assuming it's Franken -- Franken versus Coleman?

VENTURA: Well, I think the better question to ask is what will it be like if Ventura comes in in July, because that's when the filing date is.

KING: Are you saying you might still?

VENTURA: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I'm weighing it right now.

The wost part of it is, he knows if he buys enough SCSU students beer on November 3rd, they'll vote for him on November 4th! One could argue that this is how he barely squeeked into the governors seat.

Thank God, there is another choice. One that makes much more sense. He's not the most conservative, in fact, he was a Democrat up until 1996. He has however, in one six year term become a true leader of whom all Minnesotans should be proud.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, he began blowing the lid off of the UN's Oil for Food scandal. Despite sanctions that were supposedly keeping Saddam Hussein "contained", he was using this program to pay off many greedy world leaders. Norm found that this corruption had tentacles all the way to the very top of the UN leadership, Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Shortly afterwards, Annan announced his retirement.

We're on The Road...

I loaned out my copy of The Road to Serfdom several years ago, & never got it back. It's a shame, because I hadn't read the whole thing, but read bits & pieces... enough to say to a U of M economics student I worked with that he really needed to read that book. That was the last I saw of it. It's a real shame because we all need to read it today.

The one chapter I read entirely was chapter 12: The Socialist roots of Nazism. I had to read it first. I think of myself as a history buff with a pretty good memory for these things, & never had I heard such a claim. I always heard that Hitler hated the Marxists, & only tenuously tolerated the Socialist-Democrats. But Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian economist who left his mother country in 1931 to teach at The London School of Economics then became a British citizen in 1938 after Hitler annexed his homeland, was now telling me that Fascism, as well as Marxism, was merely a step in the logical progression of Socialism.

Indeed, Hitler did punish the Marxists eventually, but it was more of a getting rid of the competition sort of punishment, rather than a strong difference of ideals. More like Spacely's Space Sprockets trying to destroy Cogswell's Cogs, than Gandalf the Gray defeating Saruman the White.

But Nazism is but one variant of fascism. Benito Mussolini started as a socialist before creating fascism. His rise to power in Italy came more than 10 years before Hitler's, & unlike his Nazi counterparts Mussolini had no issue with Jews & no plans for genocide. It seems Hitler's "Final Solution" gave fascism a bad name, when fascism could have earned a bad name based on its own merits.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute has an illustrated synopsis of The Road to Serfdom that was originally published in Look Magazine, It's worth a look. It breaks "The Road" down to 18 chilling steps. The way I see it, we are at step 8: "The gullible do find agreement... Meanwhile, growing national confusion leads to protest meetings. The least educated, thrilled & convinced by fiery oratory, form a party."

Now, unlike post WWI Germany or Italy, the US already has a major party, the Democrat Party, filled with progressives, and holy cow, is Barack Obama one hell of an orator! What does he offer? Plans...

The "Issues" category on Obama's web site tells us:

Senator Obama has been able to develop innovative approaches to challenge the status quo and get results. Americans are tired of divisive ideological politics, which is why Senator Obama has reached out to Republicans to find areas of common ground. He has tried to break partisan logjams and take on seemingly intractable problems. During his tenure in Washington and in the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama has accumulated a record of bipartisan success.

This quote alone takes us through steps 3, & 5-7! Step 4 has been superceeded, a topic for my next post. So how many plans? Here is a list of his plans. I did my best to avoid duplication, how many versions of utopia can you find?

Strengthen Civil Rights Enforcement, Combat Employment Discrimination, Expand Hate Crimes Statutes, End Deceptive Voting Practices, End Racial Profiling, Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support, Eliminate Sentencing Disparities, Expand Use of Drug Courts, provide Americans with disabilities with the educational opportunities they need to succeed, end discrimination and promote equal opportunity, increase the employment rate of workers with disabilities, support independent, community-based living for Americans with disabilities, Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families, Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans, Fight for Fair Trade, Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement, Improve Transition Assistance, Support Job Creation, Invest in U.S. Manufacturing, Create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies, Boost the Renewable Energy Sector and Create New Jobs, Deploy Next-Generation Broadband, Protect the Openness of the Internet, Invest in Rural Areas, Ensure Freedom to Unionize, Fight Attacks on Workers' Right to Organize, Protect Striking Workers, Raise the Minimum Wage, Create a Universal Mortgage Credit, Ensure More Accountability in the Subprime Mortgage Industry, Mandate Accurate Loan Disclosure, Create Fund to Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosures, Close Bankruptcy Loophole for Mortgage Companies, Create a Credit Card Rating System to Improve Disclosure, Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to Protect Consumers, Cap Outlandish Interest Rates on Payday Loans and Improve Disclosure, Encourage Responsible Lending Institutions to Make Small Consumer Loans, Reform Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Families Facing a Medical Crisis, Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave, Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities, Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination, Expand Flexible Work Arrangements, create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school, Expand Early Head Start and Head Start, Affordable, High-Quality Child Care, Reform No Child Left Behind, Make Math and Science Education a National Priority, Address the Dropout Crisis, Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities, Expand Summer Learning Opportunities, Support College Outreach Programs, Support English Language Learners, Recruit Teachers, Prepare Teachers, Retain Teachers, Reward Teachers, Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit, Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid, Cap and Trade, Confront Deforestation and Promote Carbon Sequestration, Invest $150 Billion over 10 Years in Clean Energy, Double Energy Research and Development Funding, Invest in a Skilled Clean Technologies Workforce, Convert our Manufacturing Centers into Clean Technology Leaders, Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund, Require 25 Percent of Renewable Electricity by 2025, Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology, Deploy Cellulosic Ethanol, Expand Locally-Owned Biofuel Refineries, Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard, Increase Renewable Fuel Standard, Increase Fuel Economy Standards, Set National Building Efficiency Goals, Establish a Grant Program for Early Adopters, Invest in a Digital Smart Grid, Create New Forum of Largest Greenhouse Gas Emitters, Re-Engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Centralize Ethics and Lobbying Information for Voters, Require Independent Monitoring of Lobbying Laws and Ethics Rules, Support Campaign Finance Reform, Create a Public “Contracts and Influence” Database, Expose Special Interest Tax Breaks to Public Scrutiny, End Abuse of No-Bid Contracts, Sunlight Before Signing, Shine Light on Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending, Hold 21st Century Fireside Chats, Make White House Communications Public, Conduct Regulatory Agency Business in Public, Release Presidential Records, Close the Revolving Door on Former and Future Employers, Free Career Officials from the Influence of Politics, Reform the Political Appointee Process, Reconciling Faith and Politics, Provide a "Making Work Pay Tax Cut" for America's Working Families, Provide a Living Wage, Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, Expand Paid Sick Days, Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave, Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities, Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination, Expand Flexible Work Arrangements, Provide Universal Health Care and Lower Health Costs, Create a Universal Mortgage Credit, Mandate Accurate Loan Disclosure, Strengthen Fatherhood and Families, Support Parents with Young Children, Create Automatic Workplace Pensions, Expand Retirement Savings Incentives for Working Families, Reinstate PAYGO Rules, Reverse Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy, Cut Pork Barrel Spending, Make Government Spending More Accountable and Efficient, End Wasteful Government Spending, End Tax Haven Abuse, Close Special Interest Corporate Loopholes, Bring Our Troops Home, Press Iraq's leaders to reconcile, Regional Diplomacy, Humanitarian Initiative, Diplomacy [with Iran], Renewing American Diplomacy, Talk to our Foes and Friends, Make Israeli-Palestinian Conflict a priority, Expand our Diplomatic Presence, Fight Global Poverty, Strengthen NATO, Seek New Partnerships in Asia, Secure Loose Nuclear Materials from Terrorists, Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Toward a Nuclear Free World, Rebuild Trust [with military], Expand the Military, New [military] Capabilities, Strengthen Guard and Reserve, Bringing People Together, convene a bipartisan Consultative Group of leading members of Congress to foster better executive-legislative relations and bipartisan unity on foreign policy, Getting Politics out of Intelligence, Change the Culture of Secrecy, Engaging the American People on Foreign Policy, Ensure a Strong U.S.-Israel Partnership, Support Israel's Right to Self Defense, Support Foreign Assistance to Israel, Cover Uninsured Americans, National Health Insurance Exchange, Employer Contribution [to national health plan], Mandatory Coverage of Children, Expansion Of Medicaid and SCHIP, Flexibility for State Plans, Reducing Costs of Catastrophic Illnesses for Employers and Their Employees, Support disease management programs, Coordinate and integrate care, Require full transparency about quality and costs, Promote patient safety, Align incentives for excellence, establish an independent institute to guide reviews and research on comparative effectiveness, Tackle disparities in health care, Insurance reform, Lowering Costs Through Investment in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems, Lowering Costs by Increasing Competition in the Insurance and Drug Markets, Advance the Biomedical Research Field, Fight AIDS Worldwide, Improve Mental Health Care, Protect Our Children from Lead Poisoning, Reduce Risks of Mercury Pollution, Support Americans with Autism, Protecting Our Chemical Plants, Keeping Track of Spent Nuclear Fuel, Evacuating Special Needs Population in Emergencies, Reuniting Families After Emergencies, Keeping Our Drinking Water Safe, Protecting the Public from Radioactive Releases, Create Secure Borders, Improve Our Immigration System, Remove Incentives to Enter Illegally, Bring People Out of the Shadows, Work with Mexico, Help Americans Grab a Hold of and Climb the Job Ladder, Create a Green Jobs Corps, Improve Transportation Access to Jobs, Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Supports, Create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Fully Fund the Community Development Block Grant, Establish 20 Promise Neighborhoods, Ensure Community-Based Investment Resources in Every Urban Community, Invest in Rural Areas, Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers, Prevent Anticompetitive Behavior Against Family Farms, Regulate CAFOs, Establish Country of Origin Labeling, Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture, Encourage Young People to Become Farmers, Partner with Landowners to Conserve Private Lands, Support Small Business Development, Connect Rural America, Combat Methamphetamine, Improve [rural] Health Care, Improve Rural Education, Upgrade Rural Infrastructure, Expand Corporation for National and Community Service, Engage Retiring Americans in Service on a Large Scale, Expand the Peace Corps, set up an America's Voice Initiative, Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation's Schools, Expand YouthBuild Program, Require 100 Hours of Service in College, Promote College Serve-Study, create a Social Investment Fund Network to use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas and expand successful programs to scale, Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits, Protect Social Security (as it is), Reform Corporate Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Workers and Retirees, Require Full Disclosure of Company Pension Investments, Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less Than $50,000, Create Automatic Workplace Pensions, Expand Retirement Savings Incentives for Working Families, Prevent Age Discrimination, Provide Cheaper Prescription Drugs, Protect and Strengthen Medicare, Provide Transparency to Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, Strengthen Long-Term Care Options, Ensure Heating Assistance, Support Senior Volunteer Efforts, Protect the Openness of the Internet, Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership, Protect Our Children While Preserving the First Amendment, Safeguard our Right to Privacy, Bring Government into the 21st Century, Modernize Public Safety Networks, Invest in the Sciences, Make the R&D Tax Credit Permanent, Promote American Businesses Abroad, Ensure Competitive Markets, Protect American Intellectual Property Abroad, Protect Intellectual Property at Home, Reform the Patent System, Allow All Veterans Back into the VA, Strengthen VA Care, Combat Homelessness among Our Nation's Veterans, Fight Veterans Employment Discrimination, provide a seamless transition from active duty to civilian life, Fully Fund VA Medical Care, Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy, Improve Care for Traumatic Brain Injury, Expand Vet Centers

But the polls show he can beat Clinton...

That is the reason I keep hearing from people, whom I've considered sensible in the past, for supporting John McCain. They don't necessarily like him any better than I do, but they just want to win the game.

I have a couple points of why this is absolutely the wrong reason to be supporting a candidate. Quite honestly if we end up nominating a guy, who will not make a good Republican president, based on polling data taken in January for a November election, we will not win in November.

As of today, the composite polling at Real Clear Politics shows that McCain can beat Clinton by a whopping 0.1%! If you look at the graph on that page, you can see the polling trends between McCain & Clinton for approximately the last year. It is in this graph where my first point lays.

Around January 1st, McCain picked up support, largely from the media, & began polling ahead of Clinton by about 5%. That was when, all the sudden we stopped hearing "Giullianni is the only candidate who can beat Clinton" & started hearing "McCain is the only candidate who can beat Clinton." That was a month ago. Notice on the McCain v. Clinton trend graph that, with the exception of January, Clinton has been polling ahead of McCain, by quite a decent margin, since July. What will happen to polling data over the next 9 months?

Let's look at the trend graph for the Florida primary. From May 2007, up until about January 15th, Giulianni had Florida locked up. Then McCain gained ground for about a week and a half, now he is neck and neck with Romney, & Giullianni is expected to get less than 15%.

My, how things change in just a few days! There are 279 days between today & November 4th. Do we as Republicans really want to sell out our philosophy, based on January polling data that says that McCain has been more popular than Clinton for the last 29 days? Now that his popularity against Clinton is almost gone... What now?

My opinion, McCain will not beat Clinton in the general election. Hopefully, he won't have the chance to try, but if he does end up with the nomination, the race is over. Clinton will eat him up. Slips like the gaffs on his knowledge of economics, & the ridiculous attempt to cover himself with poorly executed "truth-stretching" and "subject changing," will not pass the Clinton Machine.

Some are saying that only he can garner support from independents & even some Democrats. Well, what if we gain these constituents, but at the expense of losing conservatives who will likely stay home? I will really have problems voting for him , & likely will not.

Anyone suppose that this is why so many liberal media outlets have been playing up McCain? Hillary has high negatives, that is people will come out to vote against her. No one has won an the presidency with negatives as high as she has. The only way to overcome this is to get people who want to vote for a republican to stay home.

Nominating John McCain will indeed have that effect.

Sorry to say it....

But John McCain outright disgusts me.

Here is a post from Mark Levin on National Review Online that outlines the reasons that any American, let alone a conservative American should say "NO THANK YOU!" These were all good reasons prior to Thursday night, when John decided to pee on our shoes, & tell us it's raining.

Thursday started with yet another liberal media endorsement for John, this time from the New York Times. Read it! It's a wonderful outline of how liberals think John is liberal enough for them. I'd also suggest you look here to see why the same people like Hill/Bill/ary. When we start looking to the likes of Alan Colms to tell us who is the best Republican candidate, we are in trouble.

Then came the Thursday night debate, Tim Russet asks:

"Senator McCain, you have said Repeatedly, 'I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.' is it a problem for your campaign...?"

McCain, the guy who supposedly has a monopoly on integrity, replies:

“I don’t know where you got that quote from, I’m very well versed in economics. I was there at the Reagan Revolution.”

Unfortunately for McCain, more people have access to the internet today than in 2000. Here is the link to the Wall Street Journal article where he said in November 2005:

"I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

By the way, in the same article, we can read his feelings on the Bush tax cuts which he now says he supports:

But Mr. McCain is no antitax supply-sider himself. He grandstanded against the Bush capital-gains and dividend tax cuts and even co-sponsored an amendment with Tom Daschle to scuttle the reduction in the highest income-tax rates. Why? "I just thought it was too tilted to the wealthy and I still do. I want to cut the taxes on the middle class." Even when I confront him with emphatic evidence that those tax cuts have been an economic triumph and have increased revenues, he is unrepentant and defends his 'no' vote by falling back on class-warfare type thinking: "We have a wealth gap in this country, and that worries me."

You may be asking 'Oh, but Mr. Shirt, that was 14 months ago, perhaps he's educated himself?' Well, on December 18, 2007, a bit more than one month ago, McCain told The Boston Globe:

'The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should,' McCain said. 'I've got Greenspan's book.'

Wow! In 13 months time, he decided to educate himself by procuring a book! Note, he did not say "I'm Reading Greenspan's book." Pure silliness! Besides, I don't think that Greenspan meant for his book to be an economics primer. McCain could have started with actually reading Economics in One Lesson, or The Wealth of Nations... or for that matter On the Wealth of Nations! Ronald Reagan read these & many more, he understood them, & he based his philosophy on them. Sure McCain was in the Republican Party during The Reagan Revolution, but apparently he didn't understand what was happening around him.

The media, who want us to nominate McCain, have let this slide. The Clinton Machine will not let this slide. Unfortunately, this is typical McCain. He does his thing, then he changes his story to match the image he is trying to pass off that day. Then when we question him, we're told that we are wrong... we don't understand... we are deliberately trying to malign him & distort his record. No John, we are pointing to the truth.

I know I'm a little late to the punch on this. I could have wrote this on Friday night, but I had to wait. My first reaction was, this "man of integrity" is a liar. Seems harsh, so I decided to temper my position with time.

But then Saturday came. After John decided that maybe leaving that economics gaff out there in the ether wasn't a good idea, he decided to change the conversation back to the War. He did this by claiming Mitt Romney advocated a timetable for pullout of Iraq. Here is a link to McCain's Statement, in which he also claims that Romney has since changed his mind, due to the success of The Surge, for which McCain has tried to claim sole credit.

The problem is, this is just not true! Here is what was said on Good Morning America on April 3, 2007:

QUESTION: Iraq. John McCain is there in Baghdad right now. You have also been very vocal in supporting the president and the troop surge. Yet, the American public has lost faith in this war. Do you believe that there should be a timetable in withdrawing the troops?

MR. ROMNEY: Well, there's no question but that -- the president and Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, and the leadership of the Iraqi government.

QUESTION: So, private. You wouldn't do it publicly? Because the president has said flat out that he will veto anything the Congress passes about a timetable for troop withdrawals. As president, would you do the same?

MR. ROMNEY: Well, of course. Can you imagine a setting where during the Second World War we said to the Germans, gee, if we haven't reached the Rhine by this date, why, we'll go home, or if we haven't gotten this accomplished we'll pull up and leave? You don't publish that to your enemy, or they just simply lie in wait until that time. So, of course, you have to work together to create timetables and milestones, but you don't do that with the opposition.

Remember grammar class? When they gave you a sentence, & asked you to identify which words were the subject, the object & the verb? How about those reading comprehension tests where you had to read a brief snippet, then Identify the topic & what was said about it?

The topic is: timetable for pull out; the question is: would you veto a timetable for pull out; the answer is: Well, of course. What's all that stuff about setting milestones & timetables in private? Um, because victory requires a plan, a plan requires goals.

What's wrong with telling PM al-Maliki, "Look, we want to be done with this by 2010, so you need to have your guys up to speed by 2009?" That's not a timetable for pull out, that is a goal for success.

If John McCain is saying he doesn't want to set goals in the war, perhaps we should begin to question his expertise in this subject too.

Is John McCain lying? He's at the very least being purposely deceptive. He is certainly not demonstrating "integrity".

Anyone at the Strib got a calculator?

This AP report seems to confirm what structural engineers have been theorizing since a week after the I-35W bridge collapse.

The likely problem was the size of gusset plates used to hold the steel beams together. Here's a photo showing an example of what gusset plates are; conveniently, this is a pier of the 35W bridge. The plates are the rectangular pieces full of rivets.

So, the probable impetus of this tragic collapse was set in place in 1967, when the bridge was built. According to Wikipedia, Carol Molnau was born in 1949. So she was about 18 when it all began. Any one at the Star Trib paying attention?

Oh, I know. The complaint isn't that she actually made the bridge fall. It's that she didn't spend enough to update the bridge, which had been declared "structurally deficient". Of course, Carol started her MN/DOT position in 2002, and the first declaration of structural deficiency came from the Feds in 1990. That's 12 years prior to Molnau taking the lead.

I was a JMC major at Iowa Sate in the 1990's, so I know that all Journalism students are told, you don't have to use math, but I always took it as tongue-in-cheek. A little math, and a bit of logic would tell us that if we had $715 million to spend on LRT through the Ventura administration, we probably could have fixed our bridge 10 years ago... well, if priorities had been straight anyway.

The Metropolitan Council proudly claims 9.4 million LRT riders for 2006, which is more than double of expectations. Let's assume that all 9.4 million paid a fare, a big assumption, since the ride between MSP's Lindburg Terminal & Humphrey Terminal is free. Let's also assume that none of these 9.4 million fare payers used a transfer ticket, meaning that part of their fare would also have gone to cover the cost of riding the bus route. At a normal fare of $1.50, this pie-in-the-sky scenario brings us $14.1 million dollars per year. At that rate, the initial building costs will be paid off in 50 years. Of course, the operating costs will be piling up over this time, as will maintainance costs, labor costs & all other costs associated with the line.

9.4 million divides out to 25,753 people per day on LRT. The 35W bridge carried 140,000 vehicles per day. Many of those carried more than one person. Each of those vehicles had gasoline onboard, bought by the vehicle's owner, who paid the gasoline taxes that fund both roads & mass transit. There is no freeloading for the occupants in the vehicles, in fact, they are paying the bulk of the true cost for 9.4 million annual LRT riders.

The Star Tribune was a major proponent of our little train. As the news paper of Minneapolis, they also knew the bridge was structurally deficient. Does anyone else think that the Stribs vendetta against Carol Molnau is little more than a serious case of projection? Maybe, if they were honest, they might see whose priorities have been misplaced.

HELLO??? WYOMING???

Only hours after Mitt Romney seals his first victory in Michigan... Oh, what's that? It's how many? Oh, His SECOND victory?!?! Why then, has everyone in the media been telling us for several hours about Romney's "first" victory? Why are the informers telling us that now Romney, McCain & Huckabee each have a victory to their name?

I'm just a newbie blogger, with 4 whole posts to my name*, and I can tell you the score is Romney 2 states/42 delegates, Huckabee 1 state/21 delegates, McCain 1 state/19 delegates. What's more is Romney only got 12 delegates from Michigan... Umm, in other words, he's been the winning candidate since January 5, when he won his real first state, Wyoming. It's not how many states a candidate wins, it's the total number of delegates of 1,191 or more that seals his nomination.

McCain's concession speech chalks up his defeat to Romney's hard work in making sure Michigan voted for her "native son". With all due respect for what sacrifices McCain has made for this country, but what a sore looser! Hey, John, even if you had won Michigan, you would have had to get ALL 12 of Romney's delegates to claim that you were the leading Republican in this race. Even then, the total delegate score would have been McCain 31, Romney 30, Huckabee 21. Your not exactly beating anyone like a drum.


*I would have more posts, but I'm getting over an ear infection. I forgot how excruciating those can be. My apologies to my reader! ;-)