Kids Become Scratch and Dent Items

Could this happen in America?

According to AP, there are 88 earthquake victims in China who need to be adopted. They were orphaned by a quake that struck four months ago. So far, only one has found new parents. The reason? Prospective parents don’t want to adopt children over six, or children with handicaps. Naturally, earthquake victims are likely to have injuries and handicaps.

It’s hard to believe. There are over a billion people in China. Can’t they absorb 88 kids?

It says a lot about the attitude taken by people who want to adopt. The point of adoption should be to help a child who is lost in the world. That aim is doubly served, where the child has disabilities or other problems. To people with the right spirit, these kids should be more desirable.

It must feel awful to be one of these kids. They must feel like factory seconds.

When you decide to have kids, you should ask yourself what the goal is. If the goal is to satisfy your need for something to cuddle and show off, you’re doing it for selfish reasons, and you would be better off with a dog. When you have a kid, you’re obligating yourself to perform a series of altruistic acts, for a minimum of eighteen years. If you’re thinking mainly of yourself, you’re setting yourself up for a great disappointment.

Find Out What’s Going on in Latin America

Fausta linked me today at the hurricane edition of the Carnival of Latin America.

She is also doing podcasts every day at 10 a.m. Eastern.

First One This Week

Help me out, here.

I know someone who is in the process of making a devastating mistake. The kind of mistake that has severe negative effects that last longer than a lifetime. I can’t give any details.

Do me a favor and pray that this person will have a change of heart and stop while there is time.

Thanks.

TEN

My life is all about anger management these days. I don’t want to hit 60 and find I’ve turned into a combination of Michael Moore and Chris Matthews. I am Mr. Patience. That’s my new name. BUT I got a little annoyed, watching a weatherman on Saturday. In the morning, I had confirmed that Miami was outside the Cone of Death for Hurricane Ike. Not far outside, but definitely outside. You can still be hit when you’re outside the Cone of Death, but the whole point of the Cone is to show who is most likely to get the storm, and if you’re out, they don’t expect you to have problems.

This guy said we were “WELL WITHIN” the Cone.

How is “just outside” equivalent to “well within”?

Admit it, dude. Nobody expects Ike to hit Miami. I know it’s hard for a journalist to let go of the hope for a major catastrophe. But the lives and property of several million people are somewhat important, too.

I have enough aggravation. I don’t need it compounded by a missing roof and looters. If I’m in danger, please let me know. But don’t yank my chain just because it makes me pay attention to you.

TV journalists got really spoiled by Andrew and the 2004-2005 mess. They got to sit in canoes in knee-deep water and pretend it was major flooding. They got to film Sean Penn’s rescue dinghy, as it sank because he didn’t realize you have to put the plug in the drain hole. They got to use infrared police video of ignorant looters who didn’t realize the cops could see them in the dark. And they got to film a destroyed American city. Now they have to be content with rare storms involving cataclysmic misfortunes such as trees falling across driveways. They don’t seem too happy about it.

For journalists with the wrong attitude, the only bad news is good news. Maybe our journalism schools need to start offering seminars on how to endure and present bad news without developing clinical depression.

Speaking of bad news for journalists, McCain is up…what? What? TEN percentage points in the latest poll? TEN? I would have been thrilled with three. At this rate, by November, Sarah Palin runs the risk of becoming a false deity. Enjoy her, folks. Just remember, she’s mortal. No faux Greek temples, please.

My best wild guess is that the PUMAs helped generate this result, and that they are quite serious when they put up Internet posts and comments overwhelmingly supporting this woman. And why should we be surprised? Nervous liberal talking heads say women “won’t be fooled” into thinking Sarah is an acceptable candidate, just because she’s a woman. My response? Why not? It worked for Hillary.

Here’s a bitter pill for partisans on both sides of the aisle: most Americans do not understand the difference between socialism and capitalism. They are not committed, one way or the other. This is why life is so frustrating for the politically aware. We’re constantly yammering at unobservant people who refuse to absorb obvious knowledge. We’re like Yossarian in Catch-22, pounding on Aarfy’s chest, trying to make him understand that he needs to get out of the nose of the plane.

When Barack Obama tells them they can have piles of socialist trinkets and mirrors, it never occurs to them that these things will erode the capitalist system and destroy wealth. When John McCain tells them he wants to cut pork and keep the tax rates low, it never occurs to them that he is endangering their Great-Society-style handouts. TV pundits say it’s insulting to suggest that the PUMAs would vote for Sarah just because she’s a woman; they say her conservative politics will turn them off. But not all of the PUMAs are true liberals. A lot of them are politically flexible ladies who just want to see a woman on the ticket, even if it’s Phyllis Schlafly. And they’re absolutely correct to believe that a Republican woman will have the same glass-ceiling-shattering effect as a Democrat. If a woman is what they want, Sarah Palin will do. The acronym “Party Unity, My Ass” ought to tip the pundits off.

So maybe the convention bounce comes largely from the PUMAs. If it does, Obama’s free-range goose is cooked. They always say there are 18 million PUMAs. If half of them vote for McCain or stay home, Obama will have a real problem. Last time around, each candidate got around 50 million votes. When 18 million voters desert you, it’s a serious void in your constituency. You can’t just patch it with a composite of nebulous “change” and Bond-O.

Then there’s the other problem: the Bradley Effect. No one likes to talk about it. Non-black voters usually exaggerate their willingness to vote for black candidates. Dinkins was supposed to beat Giuliani, remember? Hypocrisy is most rampant when there is no price to pay. When you’re on the phone with a pollster, you can say anything you want. If it makes you look good to the stranger on the other end of the line, you won’t hesitate to say it. In the voting booth, it’s another story. If you have a problem with black leaders, you’re going to express it with your private vote. Sad, but true. History proves it. From observing the behavior and speech of non-blacks all my life, I’ve come up with an estimate that about fifteen percent of Americans have significant racism issues, and they generally manifest them only in private. If that’s even close to correct, the Bradley Effect is inevitable.

A lot of people in Appalachia will never vote for a black man. The same is true in Boston. Nationwide, Hispanics generally resist voting for blacks. I’ve even heard anti-black sentiment from a surprising number of upper-middle-class suburban Jews. These are shameful facts, but that doesn’t mean they can be wished away. And don’t forget; the last time Obama won an election, his opponent was black.

It would be wonderful to see Americans base their votes on sound reasoning, but things like prejudice and intuition and the candidates’ personalities play huge roles. There is no point in fighting it. If John McCain wins, I’ll be happy, even if I will have questions about the motivation of a lot of the people who helped put him in the White House.

Hey, at least he can count on overwhelming support from blacks and Muslims. I’m sure they’re basing their votes purely on his policies. Whatever those may turn out to be, when he chooses to nail them down and inform us.

Did you notice how he’s saying he might keep the Bush tax cuts? Oh, yeah, that’s a sign of confidence. You can tell he’s not scared or anything. Geez, B. Hussein, if we wanted four more years of Bush, shouldn’t we just vote for George W. McCain? That’s what one of your community organizers told me.

The weird thing about this election is that regardless of who wins, a woman or a black man will be at the inauguration. If you wanted change, get ready. You’re going to get it.

I hope the poll trend continues. I hate having to consider the possibility that a former ward heeler with a history of refusing to rock the boat could ever be elected as a reform candidate, especially without being required to tell us what his policies are.

Your Sloppy Thinking Makes Comrade Lenin Spin in His Glass Box

Even though Hurricane Ike is still a Category 4 storm, I have to say that things are going better than expected. It whacked Grand Turk, damaging 80% of the homes. That’s terrible, BUT the population of Grand Turk is under 4,000. We’re not talking about Nassau here. Things could have been a lot worse.

Right now, Ike is going over Great Inagua, in the Bahamas. I haven’t been there; the Bahamas are full of remote islands and industrial islands no one visits, and this is one of them. It’s the site of a huge Morton Salt plant, and the island’s population is under a thousand.

Cuba comes next. Ike is going to miss Haiti, thank God. Maybe the mountains of eastern Cuba will help break it up.

I’m hoping the storm heads for relatively empty forest in the Yucatan Peninsula. Louisiana doesn’t need another hit.

I got a lot of comments on yesterday’s post, in which I pointed out the absurdity of the claim that Jesus was a community organizer. As I noted, one of the main reasons the Jews rejected Him was that He was not a political leader. Based on their understanding of prophecy, they expected a king who would deliver them from Roman rule. Instead, they got a man who was eager to associate with, and preach to, hated Jews who collected taxes for the Romans. No sincere radical agitator (if such a bird exists) would do a thing like that. And while He cared for the poor, He associated with prosperous business owners who had servants. James, John, Andrew, and Peter, for example. They didn’t fish while standing barefoot in ponds. They owned fishing businesses, with hired help. He also healed the servant of a Roman centurion, who probably was not Jewish, as he was a member of the Roman’s household. Jews were not supposed to live with Gentiles. He allowed Martha’s sister Mary to rub expensive perfume on his feet, instead of selling it to help the poor.

I noted that Jesus opposed civil disobedience, and like any Christian who knows anything about the Bible, Virgil understood instantly:

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s…” Not much political activism in those words.

The opponents of Jesus tried to trick Him into endorsing civil disobedience, with a question about paying taxes. And He told them to pay up.

It’s distressing that leftists now claim Jesus as a community organizer, because that’s exactly what His enemies told the Romans. They said He was setting Himself up as king. And that was untrue; even Pilate saw through it. It made no sense at all, in view of dissatisfaction over His unwillingness to be a political figure.

After 2000 years, you would think the enemies of the church could come up with a better, or at least more original, slander.

And leftists, including America’s relatively watery variety, are enemies of the church; a century and a half of history makes that clear.

I read a horrendous story about East Germany. The East German government, like all leftist governments of the time, tried to eradicate religion. The story is in Brother Andrew’s book, God’s Smuggler. The East Germans obtained machinery to harvest wheat, and they were proud of this advance (usually leftists oppose automation, but we’ll let that pass). Harvest time came, and rain came with it. The machines could not be used on wet fields. They required a couple of days of dry weather.

The government put up posters, and in German, they said, “Without God and without sun, we will get the harvest done.”

And it kept raining, and the harvest was lost, and it became impossible to find bread in East Germany.

The government put out reports criticizing the “lies” about the harvest, saying bread was everywhere. At least the Germans got to read about bread while their bellies rumbled.

Imagine the anti-Christian hostility you would have to have, to put up a poster like that.

And let’s not discuss the Cuban government, which forced clergymen to cut sugar cane–slave labor–because they were considered unproductive members of society.

Anyway, Jesus organized communities about as vigorously as Obama tried to reform the corrupt Chicago machine. Which is where HIS bread came from.

Mr. Obama’s Shabby Profession

Someone suggested I explain the term “ward heeler,” which I used to describe Barack Obama, who used to perform this function in Chicago.

A ward heeler is a flunky for a political boss. They are close kin to bagmen; some do both jobs. In the past, bosses hired scary goons to do this stuff; I suppose they still do. Ward heelers roam around town, convincing people to “vote the right way.” They keep people in line. They find out the concerns of the citizens, and they try to turn them to advantage. They may exchange money and alcohol for votes. They sometimes stand as near to polling places as they can, staring down voters who disagree with them, and making it clear that they will be remembered. They “help” us make the right political and social decisions. Bosses are too busy counting their money to attend to these matters.

Ward heelers are now called “community organizers,” for a very important reason: it sounds better. They’re more sophisticated and less violent than they used to be, but it’s still a fairly slimy gig. They have community organizers in Cuba. They exhort others to support the regime, and they spy on the people in their neighborhoods, and they have them sent to prison for things like buying meat. The Nazis had community organizers. Some were called Hitler Youth; others were called capos. The concept is associated with contrived political philosophies imposed from the top down; the very opposite of grass-roots movements, which arise spontaneously from below. Obviously, Barack Obama is not a Nazi collaborator or a corrupt communist stooge, but he belongs to a broad class which includes such people. He was a professional busybody, paid to keep the citizenry under control. This doesn’t have to be done by coercion or intimidation; you can do it by building “food banks” and organizing marches, but the aim is fundamentally the same. Reward the faithful. Punish those who disagree.

According to Wikipedia, Saul Alinsky is a seminal thinker in the area of “community organizing.” You may not remember Mr. Alinsky. He was the subject of Hillary Clinton’s thesis at Wellesley. He wrote a book on the concept. It was called Rules for Radicals, and he dedicated it to Lucifer, “the first radical.” If you want to learn about Mr. Alinksy, buy Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism. I don’t recall all the facts, but the general impression I got was that this man had a Khmer-Rouge-style philosophy, in which morality was defined solely by the leftist results one’s actions produced.

Oddly, a lot of people who know nothing about the Bible call Jesus a community organizer. The truth is that Jesus was a great disappointment to the Jews, precisely because he was not a community organizer or any other type of political operative. First-century Jews were sick of Roman rule, and they hoped for a Messiah who would be a political ruler, more like Saul or David than Moses. The rejection of Jesus was partly based on this distinction. He came and went, and the Romans were still there. Jesus was not a community organizer. He organizes individuals, one at a time. From within.

Jesus was an evangelist. He did not organize protests. He did not tell people how to vote. He spoke up against civil disobedience. He never made any effort to expel the Romans. In fact, he left them pretty much alone, reserving most of his criticism and exhortation for his fellow religious Jews. He preached a form of religion based on each individual’s personal relationship with God, not a community-centered movement fueled by the power of organized groups.

It’s pointless to explain this to people who are unfamiliar with the Bible, i.e. leftists. They think Jesus and Buddha and Gandhi were basically fungible, and that they agreed on all the essentials. In reality, the similarities are few, and the differences are obvious and irreconcilable.

It’s odd that a man with a Harvard law degree would become a professional lackey for a notorious political machine, but that’s what Barack Obama did. Yet somehow he is considered exceptionally pure, and Sarah Palin is considered a hack, because she thinks we should drill for bad old oil, which may make money for old white guys. The world is a funny place, and that goes double for Cook County.

Now you know what a ward heeler is. Wouldn’t it be great to have one in the Oval Office?

More

The point is illustrated nicely, over at Sondra’s place.

Correction

A commenter points out that Obama got his law degree after his stint as a Chicago machine flunky, not before.

Nobody Likes Ike

It is Saturday, September 6, and I am still inside THE CONE OF DEATH.

I don’t know why they call it “the cone of uncertainty” on TV. It’s THE CONE OF DEATH. We all know that. We know that because everyone inside the cone is certain to die. If not during the storm, eventually. You can’t dismiss the connection just because it takes ninety years to come to fruition. A lot of people were in Miami during the 1926 hurricane, and they lived through it. But now most of them are dead, so their gloating was ill-advised.

I hate to say there has been “good” news at a moment like this, but I feel safe in saying there has been news that suggests my life is going to be easier than previously thought. Ike’s cone keeps sliding down the monitor screen, and today, the center of the cone is several hundred miles from me. Two days ago it was right over my house, and now it’s over Cuba. I am afraid the Lord will smack me if I call that good news, because Cuba is in trouble. But I would not be human if I did not feel some relief. Some people can sleep in Miami without air conditioning. It is a trick I have never mastered. I guess I’m spoiled, but I cannot drift off while stuck to warm, wet, mildewy sheets and pillows, especially when my windows are open and I can hear every generator in the neighborhood, sputtering.

When you close your windows and turn on the air conditioning, which hums, you get a certain amount of relief from noise. In Miami, this is helpful partly because it shuts out barking dogs and neighbors who play salsa at three a.m., but also because it makes it harder to hear the sound of giant roaches skittering around on the hardwood floor near your bed. Try to sleep with that going on. Every time it makes a sound, you wonder if it’s about to climb up the side of the bed and under your sheets. Which actually happens. Much better to sleep soundly and discover the mashed roach in bed with you the next day.

Loyal reader Pam, who lives in South Carolina, sent a couple of pictures documenting extensive damage from Tropical Storm Hanna. The photos feature four patio chairs which are no longer upright, as well as a couple of twigs that fell off an oak tree. Later on, I’ll post a Paypal link so you can send Pam money. She sent another interesting email. I only skimmed it. Something about illegal aliens trying on her underwear. I don’t have to tell you how disconcerting that can be.

Bad news for Al Gore (and good news for the human race–funny how often it works out that way): the tropics are settling down. We are not expecting the parade of hurricanes to continue unabated. Let’s hope this is the end of the season, so I can relax and grow my bananas in peace.

The roaches aren’t doing too good. Those Combat baits really work. And I’m making great headway against the ghost ants. God bless the nuts in New Zealand who published the sugar-and-boric-acid syrup recipe. You have to wonder why a person would bother putting a thing like that on the Internet, but it seems to have worked. I’m getting so cocky, sometimes I leave food on the kitchen counter just so I can have the pleasure of coming back later and seeing it not buried in a mass of squirming ants.

This is a lot better than my previous solution, which was to learn to eat ants without complaining. If you have eaten anything I’ve cooked here over the last three or four years, you probably ate a good number of ants. I used to discard anty food, but now as long as the food part outweighs the ant part, I just eat it. Over the years, I’ve probably eaten a thousand ants, which, if they were combined in one gob, would be about the size of a BB. They are said to be highly nutritious. All I know is, they have no perceptible flavor, and their droppings are not big enough to be visible against the white surface inside a sugar canister.

This is where ants and Miami roaches differ.

Incidentally, I’ve heard that putting boric acid in your underwear will discourage illegal aliens from trying it on. Your mileage may vary. Another option: cayenne. Here’s something you can put in your underwear that will definitely discourage Mexicans from trying it on: a Rottweiler.

Things are generally looking up, although McDonald’s managed to ruin my breakfast again. I felt like living dangerously, so I ordered a Sausage McMuffin instead of an Egg McMuffin today, and they took me very literally, giving me a McMuffin with sausage and cheese, but no egg. What’s that all about? My arteries cry out for their daily dose of cholesterol, and they’re not getting it. When you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your arteries open up, resistance to blood flow drops, and your heart gets lazy and weak. I dont want that happening to me. That’s why I challenge my heart every day. Some days, I get up and inject cream cheese directly into my neck.

I suppose Cuba would have been threatened by Hurricane Ike, even if it had hit Miami. When Miami gets hit, it cuts off the gigantic flow of refrigerators, ovens, TVs, and other items Cubans in Miami ship to Cuba every day. Viva el embargo. People say Miami Cubans are not in favor of sending American wealth to Cuba. That’s not exactly right. Every Cuban in Miami is highly, highly in favor of sending wealth to Cuban Cubans…IN HIS OR HER FAMILY. What they’re firmly against is anything getting to any Cuban in Cuba who doesn’t have relatives in Hialeah. The embargo: it’s for OTHER Cubans. It’s a highly nuanced position. Study it well. If you get to the point where you understand it, maybe you can explain it to me. Start with the premise that there is no blatant inconsistency here; that will keep you from drawing any conclusions that get you mentioned on Spanish-language AM radio.

The only thing I’m sure of is that it’s okay to ship a cargo container full of DVD players to Cuba in the morning, and then lecture me later in the day for smoking a Cohiba. Sending ten thousand dollars’ worth of appliances doesn’t prop up the revolution in the slightest, but one double corona may well save Castro from humiliation, in addition to increasing my already-impressive carbon footprint.

Cuba was going to take a beating, regardless of which way Ike turned. So maybe it IS okay to be happy it’s not headed for Florida. Why should it harm Cuba AND me?

Man, I like the way I think. I like the cut of my jib.

I wonder, if I went back to McDonald’s and showed them my receipt, whether they would hand over the egg they shorted me.

Blasphemy Buttons

Want to express your opinion of the paltry qualifications of former ward heeler Barack Obama?

Here’s one way.

Suspense is Pain

In ten minutes, the Hurricane Ike Cone of Death updates. I always hate these intervals before the forecasters decide who lives or dies. I have suffered through hundreds or thousands of them. And even though Ike is a major threat, while Hanna is a fairly puny storm, Hanna updates every three hours, and Ike takes twice as long.

Right now, they’re talking about Category 4, with me in the north eyewall. Not unlike Andrew. I would really appreciate some good news right now.

Last night, they seemed to be suggesting this thing was headed for Palm Beach. I have nothing against the fine folks in Palm Beach. I never pray a hurricane will hit someone else. But I have to admit, I felt better before the Cone of Death slid south.

A Category 4 in Miami would be a hideous spectacle. Not as bad as Andrew, because we’ve improved our preparations, and because a lot of the stuff that can be blown over by hurricanes has already been blown over and carted to the dump. But it would probably mean weeks without power. Days without water. A total cessation of productivity. And a return to those sweaty sheets I remember with such fondness. I am not eager to repeat these experiences.

I am tempted to get a generator, finally. For little storms, a generator is pointless, because the power only goes out for two or three days. A week is unusual. For big storms, it makes more sense. I think Andrew knocked power out in this neighborhood for about six weeks. I’m actually looking at the Lowes site.

Whoops, here comes the update.

YES! YES! THE PATH SHIFTED A HUNDRED MILES SOUTH!

Oops. I mean, “Darn, it looks like the Keys and the Gulf states are in trouble.”

Ward Brewer must be in Havana.

This could actually be a good thing. It might squeeze between Cuba and the Keys and hit a sparsely populated area in the Yucatan Peninsula. And the winds have dropped to 120, which suddenly seems like a nice number. If the eye is a hundred miles south of me, as currently projected, the damage to Florida will be limited to areas where there aren’t many people. We’ll get blown around, and I’m sure Florida Power and Light will find an excuse to leave us in the dark for half a day, but it won’t be Son of Andrew.

Generators seem to be much better than they used to be. For under a grand, I can get a 4250-watt generator that runs 21 hours on one tank, and it has 240 for hot water. Are hot water heaters 240-volt? Whatever. I can run my welder and compressor, at least. I can take sheets of scrap steel and build a turret from which I can shoot looters.

Sorry to say it, but the generators with Japanese engines are much more tempting. I don’t know where Briggs & Stratton makes its engines, but if it’s not Japan, they can keep them. I support the USA and all that, but my support ends when it comes to products I truly have to trust.

I know the storm is too far away for me to make predictions. The odds that it will hit me are slim. There is no reason to go out and spaz on the front lawn. I might do it anyway, just for the comforting sensation.

I hope everyone in Hanna’s path is taking precautions. Trust me, a big cooler and fifty pounds of ice will cover a multitude of sins. If you don’t have LED flashlights, get some. They burn forever on one set of batteries. And don’t underestimate the value of storm candles. You don’t always need bright light. A candle in your living room can keep you from running your toe into furniture, and a big one will burn for days.

Val Prieto has a preparation list up. Funny, I don’t see Beanee Weenee™ on there.

Let’s all pray this thing breaks up and heads for uninhabited land.

Incidentally, a reader has a charity recommendation. The charity is called Mercy and Sharing, and their site says 100% of donations reach Haitian children, because the charity’s founders cover the administrative costs. I can’t vouch for them, because I can’t find them at Charity Watch or Charity Navigator, but you may be able to find better information.

Here’s a link.

Drive-by Media Drove Right By

If you have been paying any attention to the news at all, you must have noticed that Haiti has been hit by one storm after another. The death toll is high. Over 200 people have died. No matter what kind of disaster hits, it seems like Haitians are especially vulnerable. Right now, the disaster-prone town of Gonaives is under 12 feet of water, and they can’t get food to the area.

Here’s an AP quote:

Hungry children at three orphanages were waiting for the canvas-topped trucks, loaded with warm pots of rice and beans and towing giant tanks of drinking water.

But the food never arrived Thursday.

The odd thing is, you see little about this story on the news. Even charities seem to be paying little attention.

Luckily, World Relief has a fund you can donate to. Here is a link.

Lemme Blow Your House Down, Anna Mae

There is no reason for Miami to exist in August and early September. Either we get hit by hurricanes, or we get near-misses, and we spend the whole period wondering if we’re going to have to lie on sweaty sheets and live on warm sandwiches and hand-wash our underwear again. It’s too bad the whole town can’t just disappear on August 1 and reappear in October. In fact, that’s almost what happens. This place is empty in August. Everyone who can afford it is in North Carolina or Europe. We’ve ruined North Carolina. There are so many of us up there, it’s not worth going.

Hanna is taking a nice pounding from wind shear, and because it developed where it did, it’s facing steering currents which should curve it out to sea until it either vanishes or hits another state as a weak storm. It looks like the Bahamas got a break, which is nice, because Bahamians never shift out of first gear. Getting things done in the Bahamas is not easy. Imagine living on a Bahamian island where half of the houses need hurricane repairs.

I want to be fair. It’s true; some Bahamians are businesslike and efficient. They’re called “Americans.” They all moved here, years ago. Okay, not all. But a lot.

I remember spending time in Nassau in about 1991. Aaron was there. We were on my dad’s boat. Somehow, we had managed to dig the props into some coral, and my dad and I had to roam around the city looking for someone to true a shaft. Think about this. The town depends on the sea. It’s jam-packed with yachts and cruise ships. In Miami, which is also a bad place to be when your boat needs work, I can drive to Miami Propeller, drop the stuff off on Monday, and pick it up on Friday. Big props, little props, big shafts, little shafts; doesn’t matter. But Nassau had one guy, with a name like “Winkie.” He worked in an open shed. All he could do was heat the shaft with a torch and bang on it and then turn it in a jig to see if it was true.

I don’t know what the deal is. Maybe it’s hard to open a business over there, but I somehow doubt it, because Bahamian life does not seem highly regulated. Of course, I suppose that if I were an enterprising Bahamian with a business idea, my first move would be to buy a ticket to Florida.

Fun place, the Bahamas. Too bad it’s not a state. The economy would go insane.

Ike is looking pretty scary right now. It’s expected to be a Category 3 on the way across the Bahamas, and the current Cone of Death is suddenly centered directly over my head! Not again! How many hurricanes have hit me since 2000? Four? I can’t even remember. Katrina, Wilma, Rita…three? I am now officially competing with Ward Brewer for the title of Hurricane Magnet of the Decade.

Josephine is the only storm that really makes me happy at this point. It’s weak, it’s far away, it’s expected to go to the middle of the Atlantic, and it’s named after the world’s most famous exotic dancer.

The bizarre fact that keeps me afloat these days is this: the appearance of several simultaneous storms does not mean the rest of the season will be bad. This has happened before, and it happened during perfectly ordinary seasons. So we shouldn’t count on one storm a week for the rest of the year. I don’t think we’ll be dipping into the Greek letters again. Nonetheless, I grudgingly admit that Al Gore and the Global Warming fans are getting some nice breaks here. And I may be in for a lousy week.

When you have storms out there, it messes up your life. The weather here gets drippy and nasty, so you don’t feel like doing anything outdoors. Fishing is out of the question. Going to the range is not easy. You just feel like slumping on the couch and waiting for things to clear up. You can’t go anywhere, because while you’re gone, a storm could go crazy and make a beeline for your house. Now that I think about it, it’s odd that people feel brave enough to go on vacation in August.

Pray that Ike breaks up and heads out to sea. I would not wish an August hurricane on Michael Vick.

Go Rent 9 to 5

Is it just me, or are the PUMAs even more in love with Sarah Palin than the Republicans?

You tell me.

One of them voices a sentiment Republicans are very familiar with: McCain isn’t that bad. We would have preferred a Thompson or a Brownback or a Hunter, but we got McCain, and the alternatives are far-left-fringe Supreme Court justices and federal judges, plus the dismantling of the national security apparatus that has kept us safe since 2001. So, wow, do I suddenly love John McCain.

As for attacking Sarah Palin as a mother, and attacking her daughter for making a mistake many, many of Hillary’s supporters have made, all I can say to Obagman’s campaign staff is “thanks.” And please keep it up.

If there is one thing women love, it’s seeing a young, flashy, inexperienced man sweep in and take a job away from an older woman who has been in the trenches for decades. And the supercilious attitude of the Obagman campaign is just icing on the cake.

In practice, McCain and Sarah Palin may turn out to be a fairly moderate duo most Americans can swallow without choking. Hey, it could be worse.

Extemporizing not Above Her Pay Grade

Sources now tell us that during last night’s speeches by Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, the teleprompters didn’t work. So they had to do much of their speaking extemporaneously.

How about that? They were winging it. But their speeches were so excellent, they infuriated liberal commentators.

We all know what happens when Obama has no teleprompter. They don’t call him “Uh-bama” for nothing. He rambles. He can’t collect his thoughts. He makes errors. He’s deadly dull. This shows you the difference between Giuliani the seasoned trial lawyer and Obama the ward heeler with a law degree.

I look forward to the debates.

Am I the only one who has a hard time believing “malfunction” is the right word? The teleprompters were supposed to stop during applause, and they didn’t, so the text got so far ahead of the speakers, they weren’t able to use it. I very much doubt TV production people let the machine decide when to pause. How would you program it to do that? I’m sure there’s a person making the decisions.

Is it possible this was sabotage? You can’t help but wonder. Maybe the “pause” button broke.

The wonderful thing about this week is that the landmines the Republicans have hit have turned out to be blessings for the McCain campaign. Hurricane Gustav brushed New Orleans, and it only served to showcase Bobby Jindal’s competence and the party’s willingness to put the needs of the citizens first. A filthy piece of libel forced Sarah Palin to tell the press her daughter was pregnant, and the vicious response made American hearts warm toward both of them. Now the teleprompter problem proves Sarah Palin is smart and tough, and that she has an amazing capacity to work under pressure. This was the most important moment of her political career, and the rug was yanked out from under her, and she didn’t merely survive; she conquered. She is turning out to be what Obama was supposed to be, but is not.

So often, adversity is like that. The things you fear the most turn out to be gifts from God.

More

Politico’s Jonathan Martin says the teleprompter was fine, but Fox and MSNBC confirm that it was screwed up. McCain’s people say only Sarah Palin’s speech was affected. Since Fox and MSNBC are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and they appear to agree, I believe them and not Martin.

Dirt

I got a very long, rambling comment about Sarah Palin’s negatives. Rather than publish anonymous, unauthenticated rants from anonymous web denizens, I will post a link to a more-or-less genuine news source, Salon Magazine, where you can see the dirt for yourself.

You can balance it against the clear terror of the left, and her 80% approval rating in her home state.

“Maybe That’s the First Problem With His Resume”

I don’t know what Giuliani plans to do with the rest of his life, but if he becomes a standup comic, I will be in the front row at every show.

“He was a ‘community organizer’…WHAT?”

I went back and played that a second time.

The wonderful thing about Giuliani’s speech was that he didn’t have to stray from the truth at all. Obama really was a community organizer, which means he was a ward heeler. It means he was paid to bring people into line so they would vote for his bosses. He was a professional agitator. It’s a fairly sordid profession. Those “skills” won’t work too good in the Oval Office.

It’s amazing that a Harvard-trained lawyer would do a job they used to hire legbreakers to do.

As for Sarah Palin, if the Enquirer’s story about her supposed affair turns out to be bogus, she ought to be invincible from here on out. As Fred Barnes said, she’s a natural. The one thing that beats a phenom is another, better phenom. And she’s it.

Make it Stop

Here’s a scary story about my efforts to be a better Christian.

I was tired of criticizing people all the time. I did it even in my mind. I did it automatically. I was so used to being rewarded for insulting people, it had become a habit. This is one of the things that drove me to be more religious. For example, maybe I would see some stranger taking a long time to cross the street, and a little voice inside me would start saying, “No wonder you’re so slow. Look at the size of your rear end.” Things like that. I horrified myself. I criticized people who didn’t begin to deserve it. I was impatient with old people! It’s a wonder I wasn’t struck by lightning.

I came up with what I thought was a good strategy. I’d say a little prayer for anyone I insulted in my head. Great, right? People would get the benefit of prayer, and I would be reminded of what I was doing wrong.

What a mistake. Can you imagine watching MSNBC with a rule like that? Chris Matthews? Keith Olbermann? Why did I do this during a convention week? I am so tired of praying for people, now when I look at a person, it almost scares me. That same little voice yells, “WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T THINK ANYTHING NASTY. I AM WORN OUT.”

Usually when I make a little rule for myself, I disregard it as soon as it becomes inconvenient. But how can I do that, when I know I deserve the inconvenience and aggravation it causes me?

Please don’t do anything I might find fault with.