Bobby Jindal — Change you can believe in
The contrast between Barack Obama and Bobby Jindal could not be more stark. On the campaign trail this year, Obama serves up messages of hope and change. Last year, running for Governor of Louisiana, Jindal did the same. But Obama’s hope and change consists of platitudes. Jindal’s hope and change was premised on detailed plans and policy roadmaps to move people forward, get Louisiana on the road to recovery, and end the boom-bust economic cycles. Entering his fourth month in office, Jindal’s change has already proved to be change we can believe in.
Governor Jindal is a master of new media. To demonstrate the point, I was among a number of bloggers invited to dinner at the Governor’s Mansion last week for a mostly off the record chat. As we sat around the table, Jindal shared some of his ideas and his vision for Louisiana. To hear Jindal talk, you appreciate how rare a breed of politician he is — a policy wonk who can relate the policies to people’s pocketbooks.
“We did a survey of business leaders before entering office and found that the top three issues for them were ethics, taxes, and workforce. That helped us build our agenda,” the Governor said. Almost immediately after his swearing in, Jindal called a special session of the Louisiana Legislature to push through an ethics reform package. Getting almost everything he wanted from the session, Louisiana went from being one of the bottom 5 states in the nation on government ethics to the top state in the nation, according to several public interest watch dog groups. (As amazing as it sounds, before this year there was no prohibition in Louisiana against state legislators doing business with the state, nor were there significant disclosure requirements for elected officials and lobbyists.)
Jindal related the story of a plant manager from north Louisiana who approached him on the campaign trail with a list of taxes his business paid in Louisiana that were paid no where else. The man reminded the governor that his plant, the largest employer in his parish, is in annual danger of closure. “He looked at me,” Governor Jindal said, “and he says, ‘Governor, because Louisiana taxes new equipment purchases, the newest equipment in my plant is older than the oldest equipment in any of my company’s other plants.’” As soon as the legislature concluded its special session on ethics reforms, Jindal called them right back into session to deal with this issue.
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Don’t tell me, let me guess: he skipped all the Jewish-themed sermons, too
Well, the plot just keeps thickening around Barack Obama’s super delegates. We know Obama denies knowledge of Jeremiah Wrights incendiary, anti-white sermons. Some enterprising reporter might want to go back and ask if he missed all the anti-Semitic ones too. Word comes today from Gateway Pundit that it is not just the whites out to kill all the black people, but Jews too.
In fact, Reverend Wright, in a letter to Oprah Winfrey (!!!) penned in the church’s bulletin, allowed Ali Baghdadi to make some startling revelations we might need to get the State Department to look into. Condi, especially, should take interest in the Jewish State trying to eradicate her.
According to Baghdadi, the Jewish State has been developing an “ethnic bomb” to kill blacks and arabs. As Wright tells Oprah:
I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa. In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa. The Israelis were given a blank check: they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission. Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.
Possibly because Ronald Reagan was in charge and not Fritz Mondale back in the 80’s, we never heard of this. One would suspect that Reverend Wright, by allowing Mr. Baghdadi to publish this in the church bulletin (on the “Pastor’s Page” no less), agrees with Mr. Baghdadi, or at least supports his virulent anti-Semitism. Read more
Blackjack
Christy decided she needed a new phone that would check email and provide her driving directions. We went to AT&T and bought her a Blackjack made by Samsung. Several friends have them and like them. Since we don’t have push email, there really was no need for a Blackberry.
I’m amazed by the little device. It runs Windows Mobile and has everything you’d expect it to have: a difficult to learn user interface, odd requirements such as ringtones being no more than 300 KB in size, error messages without any resource to tell you how to resolve the error, and a Windows file structure that is so frustrating to navigate that you can download files to the phone, yet never find where they are saved.
A year ago I would have been totally enamored. I would have looked past all the kinks to see a truly stellar device. Now I have my iPhone and I can’t imagine using a phone less well made.
The Prosperity Gospel
My credit card number was stolen while we were in Louisiana a few weeks ago. Citibank was kind enough to overnight me a new one last Thursday. I got it Friday morning and, running out of town for the weekend, left it on the kitchen table.
Today I thought of it, went to get it, and it had disappeared. We turned the house upside down looking for it. I got sick to my stomach. I use this card for my business travels and head out of town on Wednesday morning. So I called Citibank to beg them to send me a new card ASAP.
As I was talking to the lady, explaining my situation — pleading my case — I paced the living room. At the bookshelf I noticed something sticking out from under Christy’s Bible.
There was my card. I guess she or I had sat her huge, leather Bible on top of the paperwork the card was attached to. The paper had stuck to the Bible. I fell out laughing, as did Christy and the lady on the phone.
Barbara Ehrenreich Smells Hebrews and Freemasons Collaborating. Aims at Hillary. Shoots Obama.
CBS News is running a hit job on Hillary Clinton this morning that tells us more about Barack Obama than it does Hillary Clinton. The article is an opinion piece by Barbara Ehrenreich, which you can find here. Maybe it is because the Nation is such a far left rag that Ms. Ehrenreich does not even realize she is attacking mainstream America, but we should note that Ms. Ehrenreich is, in fact, attacking very mainstream America in an attempt to take out Hillary and build up Obama.
Her attack is that, while Barack Obama won’t throw Jeremiah Wright under the bus to join Obama’s grandmother, Hillary Clinton has her own preacher problems. Hillary is gasp involved in the National Prayer Breakfast and the Senate Weekly Prayer Breakfast on Capitol Hill. That does not sound like a big deal, and it is not, except those who see the words “prayer” and “Bible” together and instantly are reminded of the day Michael, Gabriel, and Jesus got together and threw Lucifer out of heaven — almost as bad a day for the Left as the day Reagan got elected.
Ehrenreich’s work reads like the mind of a mentally unstable lefty at war in her head with America — the crypto-Christofascist nation where closet Hebrews and Jesus Freaks get together to plot world domination, all, of course, live on C-SPAN [Ed. -- she leave out the "live on C-SPAN" bit, I guess to make it sound even more sinister]. We average Joe’s, however, don’t understand the secret freemason hand signals and code words to really know what is going on.
Unfortunately for Ehrenreich, the question anyone should have after reading the lunatic raving that passes for legitimate commentary in America’s leading communist rag is not the one Ehrenreich wants us to have. Rather, it is why, if Hillary Clinton can participate in such a mainstream gathering of bi-partisan, non-political prayer and meditation complete with the occasional speech from Bono on world hunger relief [Ed. -- seriously], why does Barack Obama shun the group?
Obama Rising!
As we all know, Easter is the day where we all gather in our finery to celebrate the day Barack Obama, the perfect man, the “Adonis-who-changes-winter-into-spring”, wrought of heaven and sunshine, surrounded by flowers and puppies, emerged from the empty tomb to take away the guilt of the honkeys. And so we Americans celebrate by eating chocolate bunny rabbits, dying eggs with a sheen of colorful ink, hiding others filled with candy in the grass, finding and enjoying them before wallowing in our own crapulence. Don’t worry if you ate too much: Barack Obama will help us all lose that Easter weight.
On the Third Day: The son rises in the east.
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
Matthew 28:1-9
Happy Easter to each and every one of you.
Good Friday
And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there; And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
. . . .
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
The Gospel of Matthew 27:35-37, 45-53
Welcome to my city
This morning, in Macon’s Telegraph, we learn that Reverend Wright is headed here to preach — again.
Not only that, our new mayor, a white man elected in this majority black city, has drawn on Reverend Wright’s more innocuous sermons in the past. More shocking, however, the mayor here is willing to give Reverend Wright a pass. Oh, naturally the mayor is an Obama supporter.
Reichert compared Wright’s preaching to the Socratic method, which involves extensive questioning of the facts of an issue. “But do you remember what happened to Socrates?” Reichert asked. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Socrates was condemned to death by an Athenian court for charges of “corruption of the young” and “neglect of the gods whom the city worships.” “Because he kept asking questions,” Reichert said. “So when people say, ‘the United States is the greatest country in the world’ – why do you think that the United States is so great? Sometimes the fiercest patriot can be misconstrued as un-American by raising some of these issues.”
We should point out on this Good Friday morning that Wright believes in the Marxist tinged theology of liberation that has Christ as both redeemer and liberator. The problem is, of course, this misconstrues Christ’s liberation. He did not come to help the lower classes overcome the upper classes, but rather to liberate us from our sins.
And while it may be Socratic, it is still crap. And while it may be Socratic, it is still anti-American rhetoric.
Again though, Rev. Wright is entitled to his views. These statements say more about people who listen to and follow him that they do about Reverend Wright.