Cocked, Locked, and Ready to Rock

My self-imposed exile from Twitter is essentially over. And I’m ready to kick the dust from this blog as well. I won’t be quite as prolific on either at least until mid-summer, as I’ve got a lot on my plate still.

And yes, there will be a blog post in the next few days about where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to. That’s not important for right now. What is important is that I’m recharged and ready to blog in a manner that would make Andrew Breitbart proud. This means that for the next several months, this blog is likely to be a bit edgier than it has usually been. I’ve had enough and I’m not going to take it any more. The focus of this blog over the next several months will be the election in November, and I don’t plan on pulling any punches.

Before I start, though, a retrospective.

Me, from January 20, 2009:

I am thrilled that my daughters (now 2 and 5) will grow up in a world where a black man has been elected President. While that is a reason for celebration, a better reason for celebration would be that it’s non-news, and that no one cares whether the President is black or white or green with purple polka-dots. I don’t see that event coming anytime soon, much to my dismay.

Hopefully this does represent a milestone in race relations and a sign that one’s race is unimportant in America. I have my doubts, but will continue to have cautious optimism on that front.

I still agree with everything I said in the first paragraph. Sadly, the events of the last three years have exceeded even my doubts. My cautious optimism has been replaced with disgust and distrust. It’s clear that the current White House occupant has no interest in improving race relations and never has. In fact, it is quite evident that his goals are clearly the opposite. He wants to destroy the American melting pot.

And me again, from January 5, 2009:

While I think that 2010 has potential to be a very good year for Republicans, at least in the House, the White House seems likely to be out of reach until 2016. At this point, a 2-term Presidency for Mr. Barack Obama (D-USA) seems a near certainty.

[…]

What’s the #1 question in voter’s minds when they go to the polls to re-elect an incumbent or vote in a new President?

“Am I better or worse off now than I was 4 years ago?”

It’s hard to see how most people will answer that as “worse”. I certainly hope that most people won’t. That would mean that we really are in a “depression” and not a “recession”. Because otherwise, because of or in spite of Mr. Obama, the economy should have recovered to some degree by then.

I already said that this blog is not going to be a cheerleader for every little negative thing that will hit the Obama administration. I’m certainly not going to root for the kind of economic downturn that would benefit a Republican Presidential candidate in 2012.

I think most people are not better off than they were four years ago. I’m not sure how many people would actually say “worse”, though, as the mood at that time regarding even the short term future of the U.S. was quite bleak. Right now, the short term definitely looks better than it did in November, 2008, while the long term looks even worse. People don’t vote on the long term, though, even if by “long term” we mean “2-4 years”. They vote on what they’re worried about right now, or the next 3-6 months. Still, the economy has not recovered to the degree anyone would have hoped, and is still only just a bit above stall speed. The economy will be one of the biggest issues of this election. I’m just not quite sure it will be the #1 issue. If it is, that makes things very hard for President Barack Obama (D-USA). If it isn’t, things get quite a bit easier for him.

We’ll see, as things progress through the summer.

And finally, me, from December 23, 2008:

However, I'm ready to get started on 2009, and I'll make a few statements on how this blog is going to function over the next few years.

First, I hope that President Barack Obama (D-USA) is an incredibly successful President. In fact, I hope he’s the most successful President ever. Unlike some of my more liberal counterparts over the last 8 years, I’m not going to wish him or the country ill just to satisfy my own desires for vengeance or conservative revivals.

Second, I’m not going to resort to ridiculous name-calling as we’ve seen elsewhere “Smirking Chimp”, “Bushitler”, etc. (Although I may occasionally call our VP “Clueless Joe”, just because that one is too easy and too good to resist—and I’m a “Shoeless Joe Jackson” fan.)

Third, I will point out when the new administration does things I agree with and when I disagree. I expect there to be far more of the latter than the former, but perhaps I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Fourth, I will continue to push for GOP 2.0, and a new Republican Revolution (with Republicans who remember what it means to be conservative).

I’ve done a good job on these four points. However, I’m probably going to put aside #2 for the next several months, at least to some degree. I’m not going to resort to ugliness, but the simple matter of fact is that for our country to survive, we have to get that America Hating Communist out of the White House. There is no plan B. There is no “or”. We win in November, or we lose, forever.

And, never fear, when I do call him a name, I plan on backing it up. This blog has always been high on details and facts, with my interpretation of what those facts mean. That’s not going to change.

So, feel free to read this blog and share it. Comment, tweet, pass it on to #p2 and your liberal friends. Give them my twitter address, @ChrisOfRights. I’ll take the heat. I don’t care. This election will be about making people understand the truth and exposing the lies of the left, more than anything else. We can’t just write our little diatribes and pass them around our echo chamber. The information about what this man has done to our country and what he intends to do must be made public. I’ll do my part. If we all do our part, come November, we can breathe a sigh of relief, and relax for a day or two.

I needed this time off to prepare for this battle. Make no mistake about the following. The forces trying to destroy this country currently have the upper hand, and they have their man in power. And they will never stop trying until we expose them for what they are and destroy them. For us to win, this campaign season will be the ugliest and meanest ever. Obama knows the Chicago way. He won’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And neither should we.

Bring it on, Mr. President. We know your tricks now, and we’re going to use them against you. We’re ready.

Game on.

The New iPad

Apple launched the new iPad with their usual fanfare yesterday. That’s what they’re calling it. Not iPad 3. Not iPad HD. Just “the new iPad”. I’ve almost been turning into an Apple fanboy lately, having bought an iPad 2 for myself, for my wife, and an Apple TV in the last year.

So, I tuned in yesterday for the big announcement to see what all the hubbub was about. I must say I’m underwhelmed. I guess I’m going to have to give back my fanboy card.

What’s new?

• A retina display, featuring 2048x1536 resolution. Well, I’m sure that’s nice and it’ll be pretty, but not once have I ever looked at my iPad 2 and thought to myself, “what I really need is four times the pixels”. I’m quite happy with the resolution of the model I have. I do take a lot of notes on my iPad, and that might make note taking easier. Certainly the drawing app they showed from Autodesk was impressive.
• 4G LTE. Well, that had been one of the big rumors, and I must say I’m surprised to see Apple adding mobile phone technology to the iPad that’s not yet available in the iPhone. However, it costs more, and you pay a nice hefty monthly fee for the service. Sorry, but I’m not interested in that kind of price model, and unless this is something you have an active business need for, you shouldn’t be either. Amazon charges a little more for their Kindle with 3G, but no monthly service fees. That’s reasonable. Even the other way might be reasonable, with a discounted price, but modest service fees. What Apple and the mobile phone companies are trying to push on you isn’t remotely reasonable.
• A better camera. Well, thank God for that. The camera on the iPad 2 is crap. I never use it. But I’m not sure that the reason I never use it is because it’s crap, or because a mobile phone is just a much better form factor for taking snapshots. I suspect it’s more the latter than the former.
• Faster processor, better graphics processor. Yawn. Moore’s law.
• iOS upgrades, upgrades to iWorks and iPhoto. Hmm. Looks like I can download all of these for my current iPad.

What isn’t new?

• There’s still no USB port, or SD card slot.
• Still painful to hook to a projector, or video screen unless it’s AirPlay enabled. If I’m a business traveler, I still need to take the laptop with me. Which begs the question of why I would even bother to bring the iPad.
• Like everything else from Apple, it’s exorbitantly priced.
• The two apps that I use the most on my iPad are probably Mail and Calendar. Mail is one step above crap, and the UI for it doesn’t even make that step. Probably the best thing you can say about Mail is that it doesn’t crash as often as Calendar and has most of the required functionality, unlike Calendar.
• They still have that awful virtual keyboard. Well, it’s better than the one on the iPhone, but that’s not saying much.
• The charging port is still non-standard USB and expects twice the current that the USB standard calls for. So, whenever I plug it into my computer I get “Not charging” (it is, actually, just slooooooooooooowly).
• Despite the zillions of apps available, there’s just no good blogging tool. If I had to choose between getting a root canal and writing a long blog post on my iPad, I’d take the root canal. It’d be far less painful.
• iWorks is nice, but I’m sure that I’m far from the only business user who has noticed that Pages and Numbers are not Word and Excel.

In short, there’s absolutely nothing about the new iPad that makes me want to rush out and upgrade. Worse for Apple, there’s nothing about the new iPad that would make me want to rush out and buy one if I hadn’t bought an iPad before now. If I was buying a new iPad today, I’d save $100 and just get a discounted iPad 2.

This is an incremental upgrade, nothing more. Worse, given their current release cycle, we’re looking at Q4 2013 before Apple releases anything better. The tablet space is too volatile for that pace of growth to be acceptable. Apple just opened the door for Google and Microsoft. It remains to be seen whether they’re capable of going through it.

Oh. One more thing.

Apple TV upgraded to 1080p? That’s it? Yes, there’s a new UI, but I downloaded that for my current Apple TV last night. I have both a Roku and an Apple TV, and other than AirPlay, the Roku is head and shoulders above Apple TV. And has a better UI. Apple closed the gap some with the new UI and 1080p, but they’re still behind here, not setting the pace.

Can We Start Thinking About November Now?

Yesterday, former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) picked up five more states in the battle for the Republican Presidential nomination, including the all-important bellwether state of Ohio. He now moves from frontrunner status to likely nominee status.

So, yes, it looks like the Republicans once again picked the next man in line. Our nominee is going to be the man that less than two years ago, I swore I’d never vote for. I’ve reluctantly changed my mind on that score, but what hasn’t changed, is that for the sixth consecutive Presidential election, I’ll be forced to vote for a candidate that’s to the left of me. Just once I’d love to vote for a candidate that represents my views.

And yet, on the whole, it could have been worse. A lot worse.

Don’t get me wrong. I admire former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). The more I get to know him, the more impressed I am with him as a human being. I admire his beliefs, and I admire his willingness to stand up for them, even when he knows that he will face strong criticism for some of them. He seems to be a man who says what he believes and believes what he says. That’s a rarity for a politician these days, and it’s to be lauded.

I admire former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s (R-GA-06) intellect. I admire not only his knowledge of history and world affairs, but his understanding of them. I said two years ago that he’d be a formidable debater and he has been. He’s a great idea man. I’d love to see him as Chief of Staff, or maybe even Secretary of Energy, State, or Commerce. He’d give any of those departments the top to bottom shakeup that they sorely need.

I admire Congressman Ron Paul’s (R-TX-14) fighting spirit. I admire the way he’s grabbed this issue of the power and secrecy of the Federal Reserve and he’s not letting go. He’s absolutely right on this issue. I also admire they fact that despite the R after his name, he’s probably the only true Libertarian in either chamber of the U.S. Congress.

But…

I have more than my fair share of concerns with all three of these gentlemen. As I’ve said numerous times on this blog, I’ve never been a fan of legislators as chief executives. Certainly the last 3+ years have done nothing to change my mind on that score. Ron Paul’s ideas on foreign policy are frankly, terrifying. Newt is a great idea man, but like all idea guys, sometimes he nails it, and sometimes he misses wildly. He’s not fit to be the top guy. Someone needs to be there and say “whoah, Newt, slow down”. He also has far too much baggage to make a good Presidential candidate. As for Santorum, his social conservative ideas will be sure to scare away independents and libertarians. He doesn’t appear to have a chance in his home state of Pennsylvania, or the neighboring state of Ohio. While both of those are uphill climbs for any Republican candidate, it’s hard to draw an electoral college map that gets a Republican to 270 without coloring at least one of these states red. In short, I’ve never felt that any of the three of these men are electable.

So, what do I admire about Mitt Romney? His electability. The GOP needs to make the economy and America’s fiscal situation the #1 and #2 issues going into November. No candidate is more suited to make these arguments to the American people than Mitt Romney. Do I have concerns about his “true conservative” credentials? As a former governor of Massachusetts of all states, you bet I do. I think he is much more likely to be a Republican Bill Clinton than a new Ronald Reagan. And that disappoints me more than I can say. I also think that ObamaCare should be one of the biggest issues of the campaign season (and how it directly impacts issues #1 and #2 above), and I have said numerous times that his candidacy and his own RomneyCare takes that weapon and forces the GOP to put it back up on the shelf. It’s hard to win elections when you can’t use your best weapons against the other candidate.

I got an email from Rick Santorum’s campaign this morning (using an e-mail address I provided only to Michele Bachmann’s campaign, btw) saying that the fight has just begun. I hope they rethink. Mitt is going to be the nominee, and it’s time to start planning for November, not fighting for the convention.

Remember what we’re fighting for here. We’ve got to get that clown out of the White House before he completely destroys this country.

Yes, it’s that important. And it may already be too late.

Andrew Breitbart (1969–2012)

I haven’t been blogging at all in months, and I’ve been meaning to pick things up again for the last several weeks. Now seems like as good a time as any.

Like most conservatives, I find myself saddened at the passing of Andrew Breitbart. He was a couple years younger than me, and that has me thinking of my own mortality again. I wish I could say that I have accomplished half as much as he had, but I still have time to catch up. I can’t say that I ever sat down with the man, or really knew him. I did have a couple brief Twitter exchanges with him. And I think my happiest moment in the Twittersphere was when he retweeted something I had said.

I think we need to be careful of how we remember this giant of a man, and how we react to his death. We have a problem in the conservative blogosphere/twittersphere. It’s not unique to conservatives, but to many groups. We’ve formed this clique requiring that you show you conservative credentials for admittance. Among us, there’s this smaller percentage, maybe 1%, that actually spend time engaging, leading the conservative agenda. We tweet, we blog, and we talk about what we see wrong with this country and how to correct it. Some of us do original research and break news. Others are more like me, and analytical in nature, and can break down a CBO report into something that real humans can understand. We lambast some politicos, and cheer for others. Occasionally the same politico might receive cheers and jeers in the same week. Those of us that are particularly witty or pithy or engaging get repeated and reposted by conservatives all over. We’re happy about this, and feel like we’ve accomplished something and we pat ourselves on the back for it and move on to the next thing.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a bad thing by itself. It does help articulate our message, and if we can use our blogging to simplify complicated messages, that makes it easier to motivate people to spread the word, GOTV, etc.

But…

There’s a word for this type of closed system, self-congratulatory thought process.

Groupthink.

And now that I’ve written a page of what was supposed to be a memoriam to Andrew Breitbart, it’s time I actually mentioned the man’s name.

This is where he was different. Yes, he and his Big sites broke news. Yes, he and his Big sites often did some deeper analysis as well (and we hope that continues without him). But Breitbart was never content to just shout his words to his own little fan club and get the pats on the back for being particularly well spoken.

Breitbart understood that we need to grow the conservative movement, not just reinforce it. He understood that to do that, we need to take out message outside of our clique and face the enemy head on. He understood that when the left lies, we need to call them out on it, not just in our little conservative blogosphere, but right to their faces. The way we grow the movement is to get more people to stop blindly accepting the lies of the left, and begin to question their words, actions, and the motives behind them. This, not breaking news, not stories about ACORN or Anthony Weiner, was his strength.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people with anything like his influence that understand these simple facts, and are willing to go out and battle every day to expand the conservative movement and shut down the lying left.

This is the problem.

If you’re wondering who is going to step up and be the next Breitbart, you never understood him.

Who should be the next Breitbart? Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, John Nolte, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio are all good lieutenants. Maybe one of them could even replace him. But to remember him properly, we should think about accomplishing his goals, not replacing him. Breitbart didn’t want to be irreplaceable or even unique. He was a great champion for our cause, but we don’t need another champion like him. As Glenn Reynolds says, we need “An Army of Davids”.

Who should be the next Breitbart? You. Me. All of us.

Thank you, Andrew Breitbart, for showing us how it’s done. You’ve earned your rest in the next life and you’ve now passed on the baton to all of us. Wherever you are, sit back, relax, and watch us as we accept your challenge and try to follow the example you set for us.

February 29, 3600

There is some likelihood that this day may need to be removed from the calendar.

As you all know, we commonly claim that an Earth year is 365.25 days long. Hence the reason we have a leap year every 4 years, and add an extra day.

Less well known is the fact that the Earth year is actually slightly less than 365.25 days long. Adding a leap year every 4 years means that we add an extra 3/4 of a day, every century. Thus, the further calendar correction that years divisible by 100, but not 400 are not leap years.

However, that correction doesn’t quite get us there either. It over corrects by 80 minutes every 400 years. Thus, in 7200 years, we’ll be off by a day again. At the half way point, year 3600, we should remove a leap day to get us back on track. And then repeat the process in years 10,800, 18,000, 25,200, etc.

I’m sure you’re all worried.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that in fact, we’ll need to do just the opposite and add in some more leap days by that time as the length of the year is increasing very slightly over time.

Stay tuned, this may be as big of a deal as Y2K. Stock up on your foodstuffs now. February 29, 3600 is a mere 1500 years from today!

Yes, I’ve Been Busy

Between work, family, and my new website, I’ve not had a chance to take a spare breath. The new website has consumed much more of my time than I expected, but it’s finally in a state where I can start showing it to the public.

You’ll recall that it’s a Sports Ratings site. I rank the teams and project winners of the games. And quite a bit more. You’ll have to go to the site to see. It’s at www.cjbratings.com.

Haven’t piqued your curiosity yet? Hmm, well, I do know that many of my more avid readers are NFL football fans, so let’s toss this out to stir the pot.

Sorry fans of San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, Dallas, NY Giants, Denver, Arizona, NY Jets, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Philadelphia, St. Louis,  Atlanta, Indianapolis, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle, Minnesota and San Diego. Unless something unforeseen happens, your team isn’t winning the Super Bowl this year.

Also, heartfelt sympathies to fans of St. Louis, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle, Minnesota and San Diego. Unless something unforeseen happens, your team isn’t even making the playoffs this year.

Packers fans, your team has a better than 1 in 4 chance of going 19-0.

See the details at http://www.cjbratings.com/NFL/Playoffs.

Nope?

Only 2 college football teams at this point in the season have better than a 2.5% chance of finishing the season undefeated. No, I’m not going to tell you who they are. You’ll have to go look for yourself at http://www.cjbratings.com/NCAAF/Undefeated.

For regular updates, follow @CJBRatings on Twitter!

Primarying Obama

It ain’t gonna happen.

On the off chance it does, it has zero chance of success. And the people who might consider it, know this, which is why…it ain’t gonna happen.

The reason for primarying President Barack Obama (D-USA) is because you fear that he’s lost the independents and he’s certain to lose next November. But, to have a significantly better chance of winning, the Democrats will have to produce a candidate that can appeal to these same moderates and independents. That means, s/he will have to move to the right of Obama.

But no candidate to the right of Obama is going to win a Democratic national primary. How would s/he campaign? I don’t think the slogan of “ignore my political stances, I’m still a Democrat and I can win!” will likely be a successful one. But that’s the only possible approach.

A Democrat can’t hit Obama on his policies, because he’s done exactly what they’ve wanted. And where he hasn’t, it’s because he’s adopted the policies of the right. Policy speaking, the only place a Democrat can hit Obama is from the left, and a candidate to the left of Obama has no prayer in November, 2012.

Finally, there’s the race factor.

The Congressional Black Caucus will go absolutely bonkers if he’s primaried. And will go even more bonkers if it looks like Obama could lose the primary. This will be carried down to the CBC’s constituents as well, who will be extremely upset with this candidate no matter who s/he may be. No Democrat can win the White House without overwhelming black support, and beating Obama in a primary is not the way to achieve that.

All of these items are obvious to anyone who might consider taking on the President, and they’re obvious to their backers.

It ain’t gonna happen.

September 16, 1620

The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, England. It carries 102 passenger intent on establishing a colony in America.  Many of these passengers, were seeking religious freedom, having been oppressed by the English Church and government.

You can find a list of the passengers here.

Constitution Day (Observed)

Tomorrow, September 17th, is the anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution. Since it falls on a weekend, the official observance of the day is today, Friday, September 16th.

It’s a good day to read it, or at least the Bill of Rights. Surprisingly for such a long lasting document, it’s fairly short. It won’t take you that long.

There’s a website for celebrating Constitution Day here. There are plenty of free and cheap apps for reading the Constitution on iPad, iPhone, & Android (and I assume Windows Phone 7 or whatever it’s called).

Read it. Learn it. Know the facts. So few actually do.

And yes, I’ll probably post something similar to this tomorrow, in commemoration of the actual day of the signing.

Teetering

That’s my word of the day on Twitter.

You’ve heard me use it before, as in, “the U.S. is teetering on the brink of another recession”.

Three more indicators today that show that is where we are.

Number one: today’s job report. Have a look at what Ed Morrissey at HotAir has to say about it.

Initial jobless claims jumped last week to 428,000, one of the highest levels since the beginning of the third quarter.  The Department of Labor also revised last week’s figure upward to 417,000 as the four-week average jumped 4,000 to almost 420K[.]

[…]

Last week’s initial figure was 414K, up two thousand from the previous week’s 412K, which was initially 409K before it got upwardly revised as well.  Are you seeing a pattern?  Six weeks ago, the level was at 400K even, and a week prior to that it had been below 400K.

The first part of Q3 had looked like the economy might have stabilized a little bit, and Q3 was looking like it might be a bit better than Q2.  We were seeing less inventory and slightly better jobs numbers. Whatever momentum there was appears to have disappeared, however. Based on the latest reports, Q3 is looking very much like a mirror image of Q2. No better. Maybe a bit worse, depending on how the next few reports look.

And now let’s talk about number two.

Jim Pethokoukis tweeted today that the IMF said that the EU financial crisis would knock at least another 0.7% off of U.S. GDP. I can’t find that in anything on their site, but that’s no doubt due to my search capability. I trust JP to get it right.

So, where does that put us? Well, if you recall, the latest estimate from the BLS on Q2 GDP was 1.0. If we take that number for Q3/Q4 as a starting point and subtract 0.7, we’re left with 0.3.

In other words, teetering.

And I still think that Q2 is going to be revised downwards yet again. So, even if the EU salvages this situation somehow, the U.S. will still be…yes…teetering on the brink of a recession.

But I’m not finished yet.

Today we also learned that Goldman Sachs has changed their forecast for crude oil. They now predict $130 a barrel within a year.

Crude oil is currently around $90 a barrel. In September, 2010, it was about $75 a barrel.

If it hits $130 by this time next year, that will be an increase of roughly 70% over 24 months. We discovered before that there’s a weak correlation between energy prices and recessions. Energy prices (of which crude oil is only one factor) tend to rise by between 60-100% sometime before the recession starts, and then start to fall off. This tends to be an indicator about half the time.

Now, I admit that the correlation here is not as strong as a numbers junkie like me would like. If it was the only indicator, I might point it out to you and say that it bears watching, but don’t be nervous…yet. However, it’s not the only indicator, and as such bears mentioning, with the appropriate caveat.

Anyway, 70% would be squarely in the 60-100% range. But we’re not there yet. We just appear to be headed there.

In other words: teetering.

Make me give a number, and I say ~60% chance we’re in a recession by next November. Maybe slightly higher, but let’s see this month’s revision to Q2 GDP before we start getting worried.

But that’s if nothing significant and bad happens. We’re so close to the edge, that really, anything at this point would push us over, such as an implosion in Europe, oil disruptions in the Middle East, another big hurricane, maybe even a sufficiently large political scandal. It’s not going to take much to get consumers to put their wallets away, and for investors to lock up their safes. When that happens, things will go from moderately bad to downright awful, and fast.

Teetering.