A British take on the election

Those who are voting for John Kerry because they have some grievance with Bush take notice! As observed by Paul Johnson...

"All the elements of anarchy and unrest in the Middle East and Muslim Asia and Africa are clamoring and praying for a Kerry victory. The mullahs and the imams, the gunmen and their arms suppliers and paymasters, all those who stand to profit—politically, financially, and emotionally—from the total breakdown of order, the eclipse of democracy, and the defeat of the rule of law, want to see Bush replaced. His defeat on November 2 will be greeted, in Arab capitals, by shouts of triumph from fundamentalist mobs of exactly the kind that greeted the news that the Twin Towers had collapsed and their occupants been exterminated.

I cannot recall any election when the enemies of America all over the world have been so unanimous in hoping for the victory of one candidate. That is the overwhelming reason that John Kerry must be defeated, heavily and comprehensively."

Carpetbaggers go home!

I guess Michael Moore doesn't want to just rest on his laurels now that Osama bin Laden has all but endorsed his anti-Bush propaganda film.

That said, however, the last thing we need to have in Florida is ham-handed Moore or his surrogates sticking cameras in people's faces. This is likely to be even more offensive than the recent Algore visit.

One does wonder, however, what he will do if his cameras inadvertently catch folks collecting their share of the "walk around" money that is typically used by the democratic party to "encourage" the minority vote.

Osama speaks

The transacript of Osama bil Laden's recently released tape http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137129,00.html is out and everyone has been trying to determine what it means. It is clear from his comment about the goat story that he must have the ability to watch Michael Moore's films in his cave. Since there are very few folks quoting Michael Moore propaganda who are supporting Bush, I'm going to go out on a short limb and conclude that Osama is a Kerry supporter.

One thing is certain and that is that Osama is not living the same kind of lifestyle that he was enjoyed under the last Democratic administration. In those days, with Bill Clinton more interested in his intern program, bin Laden was hob-nobbing and living large with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now his Taliban buddies are gone as well as most of his leadership.

Democratic sheriff candidate needs geography lesson

The local TV stations here in Orlando are running ads for the Democratic candidate for sheriff. Not being from the area, I don't know much about the race but it appears that the democrat is criticizing the republican incumbent of being out of the county too often. In the ad, he attacks the incumbent for being in "Pittsburg" [PA] at some point in time. I guess they don't do much review of these ads since the omitted the final "h" from "Pittsburgh".

These folks should be turned in to their own "problem solvers" team

Want to win some tickets to see Dr. Phil here in central Florida. Here is what the local cBS affilate is offering.

"To get your tickets, sign-up below. The first 1500 people to register will win two tickets to see Dr. Phil LIVE!"

Sounds pretty striaightforward, right? But what the station is actually offering is not tickets to see Dr. Phil but tickets that are only chances to get in to the show. Here is the fine print...

"The number of tickets distributed will be slightly in excess of Arena capacity. Possessing a ticket does not guarantee you a seat. WKMG, Dr. Phil and the UCF Arena cannot be responsible if you are unable to get a seat at this event."

What does "slightly in excess" mean. You can be sure if some private company pulled a stunt like this, they would be treated to some ambush journalism courtesty of the local6 "problem solvers" team. Something tells me this is not one of the "problems" that are going to be looked into.

Kerry garners support from a Vietnam POW

I saw a Kerry ad on TV yesterday evening that featured a man claiming to be a former Vietnam War POW who supports Kerry. In addition to not blaming any lengthening of his captivity on Kerry (and disparaging the much larger number of former POWs who do), the man (whose name I don't recall) also was supportive of Kerry's own service in Vietnam.

Since none of the men who served with Kerry (the vast majority of whom are members of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth) were held as POWs, how could someone who was a POW have any personal knowledge whatsoever about Kerry's service?

The Kerry campaign apparently agrees with Michael Moore that the American people are just plain stupid and will believe anything the Kerry campaign or its liberal media allies throws at them.

Central Florida hurricane damage

I've been in the Orlando area the past couple days and there are a lot of places that are still showing damages from the hurricanes that came through in August and September. There are a lot of houses with blue tarps that signify roof damage. The areas seem to be concentrated with some subdivisions showing damage on maybe 1/3 of the properties yet neighboring areas showing no damage. There are also some areas that experienced some pretty significant tree blowdown. The hurricane damage here is much greater than was experienced in the Ocala area. West of here is Polk county which took heavy damage from three of the four storms that hit the state. I suspect that the damage there is much more than where I have been.

Springsteen, Bon Jovi tone deaf in politics

"Springsteen plans to play a song or two at campaign rallies Thursday in Madison, Wis., and Columbus, Ohio, both in battleground states likely to determine the winner of the election. He'll join Kerry in Cleveland the night before Election Day."

These guys may be okay musicians but they are certainly tone-deaf when it comes to politics.

Giving millions a reason to live

"Philadelphia has a bit of an inferiority complex, being only 90 miles away from New York City and all. But Bill Clinton kicked off a week of stumping for John Kerry in Philadelphia, giving the city a rare bit of good news. Clinton's appearance was the story of the night by far ..."

From the minds of the liberal left, a visit from Bill Clinton is a reason for the millions in the Philadelphia region to continue their boring and inferior lives. But would we have seen mass suicides in Philadelphia if Clinton had died during his recent heart surgery?

The Kerry base

Who are some of the folks that Kerry can absolutlely positively count on no mater how many how many times he is caught making up stories like meeting with the UN Security Council or being in Cambodia at Richard Nixon's behest (before Nixon was even in office)?

Acording to polls, over 30% of the people believed that Bill Clinton "did not have sex with that woman" Monica Lewinsky. I suspect the number would be a bit lower now since Clinton has admitted the sex but it is still not 0. All of these are going to be Kerry supporters. And there is also about 35% of the population who believe that Dan Rather is unbiased reporter and just made a mistake in using forged documents to attack the President. In fact, some of those folks probably still believe the documents are real! All of these folks are behind Kerry. In the black community, something like 90% of the voters support the democratic party line no mater who is running. Here in Florida, we have the likes of Al Gore and Bill Clinton in addition to Kerry and Edwards trying to get out the black vote. They can be sure that most of those folks aren't going to consider any facts before making their selection.

There is some overlap in those figures but it amounts to a lot of folks that Kerry can count on no matter what.

Kerry lies again

"U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. "

One would hope that the discovery of a major fabrication by John Kerry would sway some voters but the folks who have not been swayed while Kerry backed away from his "searing memory" of being in Cambodia or have not been offended by Kerry pretending to be a hunter are not likely to be much affected by this.

Helping to sell newspaper in Tampa Bay

Margaret Hassan

Here is a picture of the woman featured on the from page of the St. Petersburg Times on Saturday. The actual picture in the Times shows the woman in much more distress. The kind of excessive publicity as evidenced by the coverage and placement in the Times is exactly what these barbaric kidnappers are hoping for. They are also encouraged by the statements of John Kerry.

Desperate to sell newspapers?

The St. Petersburg Times, self-styled "Florida's best newspaper," has chosen to devote a front page story, complete with picture, to the British woman kidnapped and under torture in Iraq. The story, subheaded "A Desperate Appeal" includes a photo taking up about a third of the space above the fold. The photo shows the woman in obvious distress and captioned "AP/AL-Jazeera" which suggests an interesting team-up between a traditional news service and one with a known radical-Islamist (and anti-Bush) agenda. (I couldn't find the picture online to post a link.)

Is it that newsworthly that a group of crazy people can capture someone and torture that person until they say whatever the captors want to hear? -- in this case, that the woman wants British troops withdrawn from Iraq. Did nothing newsworthy occur in the entire Tampa Bay area (the Times publication zone)? If not, perhaps the Times could save a forest and publish a smaller paper (or not at all). Actually, it seems like the local television outlets did find a few local newsworthy stories that apparently were beneath the interest of the Times.

Does the Times realize that excessive promotion of this kind of incident will encourage more of the same? How many more papers did the Times sell this morning? Or was this run as a way of helping John Kerry who desperately wants the United States to fail in Iraq and elsewhere.

Sinclair disappoints but...

The Sinclair report "A POW Story" was a bit of a disappointment. I'm not sure why they saw any need to discuss what Bush did or didn't do in the Texas Air Natiional Guard as he has never claimed that service as a linchpin of his qualifications to be President. Also, while the report discussed various "missing records" related to the Bush service, it didn't mention Kerry's failure to even release all of his service record or even address recent issues regarding Kerry's discharge from service.

That said, this was certainly a step forward from the kind of blantant Dan Rather-style attack against Bush that we have come to expect from the major networks.

Bedsores and Christopher Reeves

If you live in central Florida and watch any television, you see a large number of ads for trial lawyers. There are so many about bedsores for residents of nursing homes that one is led to consider a bedsore as something akin to an uncashed winning lottery ticket; just call the right lawyer to cash in.

I suspect that most people don't know very much about bedsores other than that folks who cannot move around a lot tend to get them. The lawyers here in Florida would have you believe that any bedsore should lead to a lawsuit against a nursing home and/or a generous settlement. I've wondered how many folks have started visiting elderly relatives in nursing homes primarily if not solely to see if they have hit the tort jackpot.

But what does any of this have to do with Christopher Reeves. Well, it turns out that Reeves died due to complications of a bedsore (also called a pressure wound). Here is someone who, although susceptible to bedsores due to his medical condition, had enough money to get the best and most complete care possible. So, even with probably 3 or 4 full time assistants, Reeves managed to pick up a bedsore and it got bad enough that it killed him. Certainly, no normal nursing home can provide the equivalent of a few hundred thousand dollars in staff time for each resident. So, once again, the greed of the tort lawyers becomes evident.

So what happens when any bedsore leads to a financial windfall for the relatives of the nursing home resident? The costs of that windfall (much of which goes to the lawyers) have to be paid by the users of the services of the nursing home. In the short run, these results in higher prices. If the lawsuit abuses continue, that fact will ultimately be reflected in a reduction in availability of nursing care services at any price. I wonder if the family of Christopher Reeves is planning to file a lawsuit against his caregivers?

Little dog

OneVote Results

OneVote Results: "American teens have spoken, and they want George W. Bush for president. Nearly 1.4 million teens voted in the nation's largest mock election, and the Republican incumbent wound up with 393 electoral votes and 55 percent of the total votes cast."

I don't think we'll be seeing Dan Rather cover this story. It is impressive, however, as it suggests that teenagers are not convinced by the Kerry scare topics like the draft and the deficit. Let's hope that the age groups actually voting next month are also not influenced by Kerry's other scare topics.

Clinton Ambitions

Clinton Ambitions: "Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006."

This makes sense to me. The United Nations is already a thoroughly corrupt organization so Clinton would fit right in in that regard. I don't know about their intern program but I'm sure Clinton would either start a new one or add to their existing program. And one can only imagine the lovefest with the liberal mainstream media.

A POW Story

Email message sent this evening.
"Sinclair Broadcast Group is to be commended for the planned broadcast of 'A POW Story'. Given Senator Kerry's focus on his Vietman experience as the primary justification for his election as Commander-in-Chief, this is an important subject that should be addressed. It is unfortunate that the major broadcast networks have chosen not to cover this important news story. I look forward to watching the program tomorrow night on your Tampa station."

on final approach for landing (but not in Florida)

Something we don't need

I think the last thing we need here in Florida is to have Al Gore come calling. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2004/story?id=186251
He is a man who has become so much a creature of the Washington establishment that he lost complete touch with the world beyond the Washington Beltway and couldn't even win his home state (Tennessee) in the 2000 election.
It would be better to have Howard Dean come here; at least he seems to be a "real" person with a real personality; Al Gore has the personality of a slab of wood.

Welcome

Welcome to Florida pilot. I will post comments periodically on topics of interest.