Conservative Wanderer

“A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.” — Ronald Wilson Reagan

Daily Archives: 13 June 2011

Palin Fan Says She Can’t Beat Obama

It would be hard to find a stronger Palin supporter than John Ziegler:

However you’d describe our dealings with each other, though, one thing is undeniable: the most controversial figure in American politics ended up dominating my life in ways I could have never imagined, until I finally reached my breaking point, days before she made her way up the east coast on a bus, stopping along the way to have public pizza with Donald Trump. The whole strange spectacle made pretty much the entire planet conclude that she’s probably running for president.

Now, with Sarah’s bus tour of historic sites seemingly completed, and the biggest decision of her life directly in front of her, I wish her the best—I genuinely do. Without a doubt, she’s been subjected to the most biased media coverage in modern political history; enough to leave even the most thick-skinned of candidates shivering in the fetal position on the side of the road. Instead, she’s survived and, in many ways, prospered. For that, I will always respect and admire her. Everyone should.

Mr. Ziegler even directed Media Malpractice about the 2008 campaign and the way the press mistreated Palin. This man is not a RINO, nor a squish, he’s known and supported Sarah Palin for at least 3 years.

However, he has news for her: She can’t beat Obama, and her entry into the race might make it harder for any conservative to do so:

But in spite of being approached by Sarah’s husband Todd only a month ago and specifically discussing the possibility, I won’t be working on any Palin presidential campaign. Why? Well, first of all, contrary to what geniuses like Andrew Sullivan and Howard Dean may want you to believe, there is absolutely no way that she can be elected. I’ve told this to her directly; more than once. While many pundits mistakenly think what she is doing is some Trump-like PR stunt, I’m pretty convinced she is running and in doing so will damage the prospects of any conservative defeating Barack Obama in 2012.

These aren’t my only concerns.

There’s also the fact that Sarah’s entire operation is increasingly managed like a CIA field office; that she’s adopted a bunker mentality; that she’s trusting the wrong people, some of whom I know are simply exploiting her. As a result, even those most loyal to her get tossed under the bus, with little or no effort to avoid the collateral damage. Which raises the question: if people like me who would once have taken a bullet for Sarah (and at least figuratively I did many times) can’t get behind her any more, what the hell happened?

I don’t want to quote too much… really, read the whole thing at the Daily Caller.

I will, however, add one more thing, aimed specifically at those who think Sarah is the Second Coming of Christ:

Her supporters will tell you that such heresy is just what the media wants you to believe. That I am naively falling into their trap. That an energized base is all we need to win. In this case, no matter what the great Rush Limbaugh says, that is all absolute hogwash.

First of all, almost everyone has already made up their mind about Palin and she has well over a 50 percent disapproval rating with no office/position where she can do/achieve anything to significantly change the narrative about her. About the only opportunity she would have to get a second look is to do high-profile interviews with liberal media types and, against my counsel, she has indicated she has no intention of doing that.

Secondly, it is a myth that “Palin 2.0” energizes the base in any extraordinary way. I know this from sales and traffic figures, and because while screening my film around the country I was essentially doing Sarah Palin focus groups. I can assure you that the number of ardent Palin supporters, while very significant, is largely overstated and that the number of normally Republican voters who have been duped by the media into strongly believing they would not vote for Palin under any circumstances is significantly underestimated.

I fully expect the Palinistas to attack me now… all I can say is, bring it on!

When A Gay Girl In Damascus Is Actually A Mennonite Male In Georgia

Can the left do anything without deception involved?

For nearly a week, the world followed the saga of Amina Arraf, the blogger who was celebrated for her passionate, often intimate writings about the Syrian government’s crackdown on Arab Spring protesters. Those writings stopped abruptly last Monday, and in a posting on her blog, “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” a cousin said Amina had been hauled away by government security agents.

News of her disappearance became an Internet and media sensation. The U.S. State Department started an investigation. But almost immediately skeptics began asking: Had anyone ever actually met Amina? On Wednesday, pictures of her on the blog were revealed to have been taken from a London woman’s Facebook page.

And Sunday, the truth spilled out: The gay girl in Damascus confessed to being a 40-year-old American man from Georgia.

The persona Tom MacMaster built and cultivated for years — a lesbian who was half Syrian and half American — was a tantalizing Internet-era fiction, one that he used to bring attention to the human rights record of a country where media restrictions make traditional reporting almost impossible.

On Sunday, MacMaster apologized on the blog. “While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground,” he wrote. “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.”

MacMaster, a Middle East peace activist who is working on his master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, wrote that he fictionalized the account of a gay woman in Syria to illuminate the situation for a Western audience.

“Fake but accurate” raises its ugly head again! Dan Rather must be so proud.

H/T PJ Tatler

Electric Cars “Greener” Than Gasoline Cars? Not So Fast…

And yet another lefty canard bites the dust, ironically due to a report commissioned by a group with a vested interest in finding the opposite:

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

[...]

The study was commissioned by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which is jointly funded by the British government and the car industry. It found that a mid-size electric car would produce 23.1 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 tonnes for a similar petrol car. Emissions from manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 per cent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.

Many electric cars are expected to need a replacement battery after a few years. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 tonnes, compared with 5.6 tonnes for a petrol car. Disposal also produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery. The study also took into account carbon emitted to generate the grid electricity consumed.

Any smart person knows that the battery production, not to mention the generation of the electricity to charge those batteries, would make these “green” cars significantly less “green,” but the lefties with their utopian blinders on aren’t able to see what’s obvious to the rest of us.

H/T Yid with Lid

US Is In Worse Financial Shape Than Greece

As a nice follow-up to Jimmy using math, let’s look at what all that so-called “stimulus” spending has really bought us:

When adding in all of the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries, Pimco’s Bill Gross told CNBC Monday.

Much of the public focus is on the nation’s public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn’t include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which comes to close to $50 trillion, according to government figures.

The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show.

Taken together, Gross puts the total at “nearly $100 trillion,” that while perhaps a bit on the high side, places the country in a highly unenviable fiscal position that he said won’t find a solution overnight.

“To think that we can reduce that within the space of a year or two is not a realistic assumption,” Gross said in a live interview. “That’s much more than Greece, that’s much more than almost any other developed country. We’ve got a problem and we have to get after it quickly.”

I’m not sure if we’ll ever find a solution, especially as long as one entire party and at least a sizable minority of the other–yes, I’m talking about you, “moderate” Republicans–want to just stick their heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn’t really exist.

H/T: Hot Air

Stand Back! He’s Going To Try Math!

Jimmy at Sundries Shack has done the unthinkable–well, unthinkable to Obamacrats, at least–he’s applied math to some of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s pronouncements:

Let me say that again. This administration has spent over one and one-quarter million dollars per job created in the past 2 1/2 years. And they proud of that? They want to hang their hat on that?

Read the whole thing for the actual math… the bottom line, however, is quite devastating enough.