With Rick Perry in . . .

. . . let me go on record now, saying I don't think Sarah Palin will get into the race.

It's my understanding that she likes and respects Perry and I think she'll campaign for him, as opposed to Michele Bachmann, only because Sarah is of the mind that governors make better presidents. Which I happen to agree with. As does history, for what that's worth.

Should Perry tab Bachmann as his running mate if he becomes the eventual nominee? There's a real deja vu aspect to a ticket like that, though Perry would be a much stronger candidate than McCain was. The relentless personal attacks on Bachmann have grown thin, and I don't think with the economy in the toilet, that voters are going to accept a nasty, personal attack campaign by the President when both Perry and Bachmann have pretty solid legislative credentials to throw back at detractors.

But leaks from the President's campaign staffers have confirmed what political pundits on both sides of the aisle have said -- that is exactly the type of campaign the Dems are planning to run. Bachmann is an easy target, but even groups like NOW are getting tired of the sexist stereotypes and bashing of women in politics. So to continue to go after her might be counterproductive.

But geographically, the combo makes sense -- Perry from the south and Bachmann from the north. That's basic politics 101. And a woman VP? It would be a good ground breaker and as opposed to Obama in the last presidential election, Bachmann actually has some legislative and executive experience. This time, voting to break a stereotype might not be a bad thing.

And if Palin throws her considerable political might behind them, you'll have a pretty potent force running for president: Perry's charismatic and a good campaigner and Bachmann won't have any problem in the traditional VP role -- that of attack dog. And again, unlike last election, the presidential candidate's staff won't be sabotaging the VP candidate or holding her back to dull her shine. That would make a huge difference in the campaign.

Or not. What do I know?

Well, for the record, I accurately predicted McCain's selection of Palin as his running mate long before any of the professional pundits. So I've got that going for me.

Which is nice :-)

Update:
For what it's worth, Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll today. And in my humble opinion, it means nothing. The poll is a cutesy gimmick where candidates bus in supporters, stuff them full of free food and hope they'll vote for them. That's why nutcase Ron Paul always does well there, then flames out in the general voting -- he's got a fervent but tiny fan base. They stuff inconsequential ballot boxes, hack online polls and such, but when it's one person - one vote, they come up woefully short.
Kudos to Michele, but the race doesn't start until the votes count for real.

Update 2:
T-Paw dropped out Sunday morning. Personally, I think this is a bit too early to throw in the towel. As mentioned above, you have to discount Ron Paul's finish as an outlier, so realistically Pawlenty finished 2nd in the poll. But I suppose appearance is everything and folks are saying after working hard for a year to win the poll, to not win or garner more votes, would make it hard for him to continue fund raising. Pity, he's a nice guy, but let's face it -- nice guys rarely finish first. I can can testify to that first hand.

Incompetent postal management wants to administer my health care, what could go wrong?

Unless you've never turned on an evening news show, you probably know that the U.S. Postal Service is struggling with crushing losses. If you're a conservative, then what you probably don't know is that the P.O. is tasked with pre-funding its disability retirement pay 75 years into the future to the tune of $5.5 billion per year.

According to the Federal Government, the P.O. has lost $20 billion over the last four years and has needed federal assistance to make payroll and cover operating costs. But let me get math-y for a moment. Put that $5.5b back into our pockets each year for the last four years and suddenly we have a $2 billion profit.

oopsy

There go all those complaints from conservative bloggers about the inefficient Post Office down the drain. And had the P.O. been turning a profit, it would have put itself in a position to borrow money to cover additional streamlining efforts and equipment upgrades to make itself even more profitable.

But the Postmaster General is now suggesting that they move all employees and retirees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits plan and administer one on their own, along with abrogating our contracts, and laying off 20% of the work-force. As few managers as possible, of course.

Anthony J. Vegliante, USPS chief human resources officer and executive vice president said recently "FEHB may exceed what the private sector does in certain areas . . . It may not meet what the private sector does in other areas. So cost may be above the private sector, while value may be below the private sector . . ." So in other words, Tony doesn't have any idea if this is the way to go, he just wants us to jump into it.

This is classic P.O. management, they operate on knee-jerk reactions to everything. Nothing is thoughtfully considered, they just jump from one ill-conceived plan to the next. If there's a plan at all. Usually it's see a problem ==> swing at a fix. Don't think about it, don't solicit opinions from knowledgable employees, just close your eyes and jump.

Of course there's a reason for this. There is not one single manager in the U.S. Postal Service that is in management because he/she was promoted from craft based on merit. Not one. Every single supervisor, postmaster, district manager, etc., is in management because he/she was unable or unwilling to do craft work. Let that sink in for a minute. Every one of our bosses simply filled out the form that said they wanted to be a boss, and became a boss. And they stay in management by being petty tyrants or relentless ass-kissers. So we're not getting our best and brightest matriculating to the top levels of management.

And these are the folks that want to administer my health care? This is only a bisquit better than ObamaCare. And it's a tiny bisquit.

These are the same incompetent clowns that threw away the parcel business because they couldn't see the profit in it and are now struggling to regain that income. These are the same clowns that watched the digital age come and folded their arms across their chests arrogantly and said no one could do without us. Now first class mail volume is down 20% and still dropping. They mouth business cliches about "thinking outside the box" in our work processes, but instead simply make the same box smaller and get a bigger hammer to pound workers into that box.

I was a supervisor for six years in the manufacturing industry before coming to the Post Office. I would never arbitrarily dismiss the input of an experienced 30 year employee if it would save money and improve efficiency simply because it ran contrary to prevaling dogma. But at the P.O., that's s.o.p. We've got our little fiefdoms and entrenched misconceptions and antagonistic relationships, and no one in management is going to do anything to improve that.

And with the current fiscal crisis, management has leverage to do what they want. There's a House Resolution, H.R. 1351, that would allow the P.O. to use the massive overfunding of our pension funds to pre-fund this disability pension. It has the support of 181 bi-partisan members of the House. But the C.B.O. scores any change in the pre-funding of the disability pension as in increase in the deficit, even though technically no additional funds are being taken out of the system. So all the Postmaster General has to do is go "Look, this is going to add to the deficit if we don't do what I want." And everyone will boo and hiss and let him have his way. Even if its a load of b.s.

I'm sure this is going to end badly. I'm part of the fiscal conservative uprising that's screaming about trimming waste and fraud in government. And while this is an apples an oranges situation, I think I'm setting myself up to be colateral damage in the budget wars.

Man it sucks to have principles sometimes.

Kristen Stewart in W Magazine

One word -- WOW

I'm a sucker for the retro style as a rule anyway, but this is a really good look for Kristen.

Plus she's not doing the emo-lip-biting thing, which is nice too. So it's all good.

My thoughts on the Republican debate

Okay, first off . . . I'm an idiot because I forgot it was on tonight! duhrr

But beside that, I was actually most impressed with Rick Santorum. Don't really know much about the guy, but he came off well. I liked his positions on most things, though his zero sum approach on abortion troubles me. He had a fabulous sequence on the 10th amendment. I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hades of getting the nomination, but he made the most impression on me.

Ron Paul is still a major nut bag. I cannot fathom how this lunatic keeps getting elected out of Texas. I thought they were smarter out there. I know he's intelligent, I know he has a great command of constitutional knowledge and I like some of his positions vis a vis libertarianism. But his world view is severely cracked and he looks like he's a broken hip away from the nursing home.

Newt Gingrich is still the great seducer. He's intelligent, has a history teacher's knowledge of this country and its political workings, but everyone forgets his tenure as Speaker of the House. He's the definition of a Washington insider -- go along to get along. I don't care how much he is claiming to be all about getting away from business as usual, if he was President, he'd be just as poll driven and maleable as Bill Clinton was.

Michele Bachmann held her own amidst some heavy fire, showing she can take the heat. But she didn't move my needle any.

T-Paw seems like a nice guy, but I just don't get the presidential vibe from him.

Mitt is still Mitt. He says all the right things, he looks so darn presidential, but I don't trust him to still be saying the same things tomorrow. I liked that he explained his reasoning behind RomneyCare, but I still disagree with the program.

Herman Cain is a lot of fun, and I'm sure he's a good businessman, but President . . . nah, not happening. The press ate Sarah Palin up for supposedly being uninformed and Herman admitted he wasn't up to speed on a lot of things. That admission would bury him in a general election.

Huntsman didn't do a lot for me. I don't think he's the right guy for this time in history. The compassionate conservative thing isn't going to sell now.

As to the program itself -- Newt and the others grumbled about gotcha questions, but if they were using their heads, they would have realized the reason the questions were being asked is because the liberal media was going to be asking them of the eventual nominee. They were being given a chance to get out in front now with their answers. Pity no one was savvy enough to pick up on that.

Except me, of course. But I'm with it like that.

The after show, spin room thingy with Hannity wasn't bad. He gave the candidates that showed up a nice chance to talk. I'm totally unimpressed with Frank Luntz. His gimmicky dial focus groups has made him a big draw on FOX for their political shows, but I don't think he has any real insight into anything out of the obvious.

But he really needs to go on a diet, though. He was a stout guy when he broke in on television, but it looks like he's spending his days at an all you can eat buffet taking full advantage of his new found wealth. He's getting that bloated, pasty, jiggly fatness you see in the morbidly obese. Maybe it's a glandular thing, but either way I hope he gets a handle on this for his health's sake.

That should about cover it.

Let's see, did I forget anything? Oh yeah, Hilary Duff in a bikini:

sheesh

How could I forget something like that?

Update:
And enjoy that pic of Hilary btw, because news came out she's pregnant now, so it'll be a couple of years, if ever again, she's rockin' a bikini like that.
*sigh*

Vacation? Really?!

Now I'm not one to begrudge the President or member of Congress some time off. I like vacations. You like vacations. We all like vacations.

And in the case of Congress, the members use this time to get in touch with their constituants, do town hall meetings, and be face to face with the people that sent them to Washington in the first place.

But five weeks? When we're in the financial mess we're in? Yeah, maybe a bit too long. You know? But I'll get back to that.

It was a comment by spokes-tool Jay Carney that got my dander up when I read it this morning. Now setting aside the gobsmacking hypocrisy of this dude -- he lambasted then President Bush while Carney was a writer for Time (I think), when Bush did his Heartland America tour, calling it an excuse for an undeserved vacation, or some such. But Carney remarked yesterday that no one should be against President Obama spending time with his family.

!?!

The White House is an actual house you know. They don't just call it the White House 'cause it sounds cool. The Prez and his wife and kids all live there. 24/7. In the lap of luxury, surrounded by servants and gofers and secret service people that do every thing but wipe their asses for them.

And they're partying with Jay-Z and Beyonce and Russel Simmons and just about every one else every weekend there. Plus the Prez is out golfing about 4 times a week and hopping on Air Force One a couple of times a month to take his wife out to dinner and a show in New York or Chicago or whatever.

So "spend a little time with his family"?! Yeah, I'm not getting it.

And as to Congress -- with real unemployment at nearly 18%, the economy facing another recession, the stock market tanking . . . maybe a five week homestand isn't such a good idea. To their credit, Republicans in the House have passed a series of spending bills and sent them to the Senate, where they'll sit collecting dust under Harry Reid's compilation of Cowboy Poetry sonnets. Talk about obstructionism. Pity it's only us on the right doing so.

---

And on a more pleasant note, here's the Duffster getting her fitness on for a Danskin commercial or video or something:

woof

Late night hotness . . .

So . . . get a pool table you say?

Al Gore needs a time out

Speaking at a gathering of brainwashed climate alarmists last weekend, Al Gore responded to opposing views on anthropogenic global warming by calling the ideas and anyone who espoused them "bullsh*t!"

If you haven't heard the audio, the Goreacle sounds a bit unhinged, like a guy who's finding out that his bolt of lightning lucky plan to make himself obscenely wealthy was falling apart.

Well, that's what happens when you base your powerpoint joke-umentary on an IPCC report that wouldn't stand scrutiny at a sixth grade science fair. Every single point in Gore's movie has been thoroughly rebutted. And even now, the guy who put forth the nonsense about the polar bears drowning that horrified school children is being investigated for fraud and scientific malfeasance.

Global warming? Even the guys at the East Anglia Climate center admit we've been in a period of global cooling for ten years! And even if the overall trend is warming, we haven't even reached the temperature of the planet back when Jesus walked the earth.

No increase in the number of storms or their intensity, despite the hysterical untruths thrown around after the tornado tragedy earlier this year.

Gore barks that climate change deniers are putting forth pseudo-scientists to refute his claims, which is pretty high dudgeon coming from a man who lined up muscians, actors, and businessmen who had bought into his carbon offset ponzi scheme to sign off on his climate manifesto.

In truth, many of those refuting the Goreacle are actual scientists who originally bought into the frenzy and are now realizing the science was faulty and more politically motivated than a search for scientific fact.

I said in a post long ago, that the theory of global warming flies in the face of the Second Law of Thermodynamics -- you simply cannot have a system increase energy all by itself. If that was true, you could seal up a box of air and it would heat up on it's own. Ever see that happen? And within the last day or two, scientists examining NASA's own atmospheric data have found that the upper atmosphere is sheading heat to space much more efficiently and quickly than warming hysterics have claimed with their computer models.

You have to wonder, when people like Gore and Ed Begley and James Cameron are shrieking the "science is settled" why they cannot produce a computer model that accurately predicts anything, even past climate! The E. Anglia e-mail dump showed that the researchers there were baffled by this very situation and wondered if they were heading in the wrong direction with their conclusions. Pity they didn't follow their honest instincts, we wouldn't have this stupid situation now.

As for the Goreacle -- if he wasn't single-handedly wreaking havoc on the world with his unsupportable claims of climate apocolypse, I might feel sorry for him. Dude lost an election that was handed to him on a silver platter. And now his dream of being a climate czar are crashing down under the weight of actual science.
Well, at least he has his paperweight, I mean Nobel Prize.