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Belated Happy Birthday

To the best President of the 20th Century, Ronald Reagan, who turned 93.

Edwards

Democrat donors in Mississippi have given more money to John Edwards campaign than to the other Dem. candidates. Reasons given: 1. He's from the South, 2. He's personable, 3. He's from the South, 4. He's personable...

Heh

"It’s bad when Kid Rock is the appropriate one."

Link

Thanks to "Elinor" of Mommentary for the kind link to my blog.

Sorry...

...for the lack of posting. I've been busy with family stuff and interviewing for a job. I'm anxiously awaiting for the company to call back on their decision. I had an initial interview last week and a follow up one last Monday; I think I have a good shot at getting the position, but I'll have to wait and see.

Delegates

I was curious about the two major parties apportion delegates by state to the national conventions. I found out at this website, The Green Papers, which has a plethora of political wonkery. The Democrats have a long, complicated formula that requires you to have several advanced math degrees from the nation's leading universities just to understand it. The Republicans, on the other hand, have a much simpler method.

Random Thoughts

I caught a part of Dennis Miller's new show on CNBC tonight. I highly recommend it.

Disgusting, but fascinating.

New Hampshire had its precious li'l primary; Kerry won, Dean came in second and thinks he won, Clark came in third and thinks he won, ....

Heh heh heh...

Mr. Boughton demonstrates the craftiness inate to Mississippi conservatives.

link via SA pal Michael via BotW.

Ole Miss

A reader pointed out this opinion piece (I guess that's what you would call it) on MSNBC's website by Ole Miss student and editor of the DM, Laura Houston. It's a part of Newsweek's series of collegiate journalists covering the 2004 election. She just laments that there are a lot of conservatives and Republicans among the student body.

Some Observations

One could infer from this post by Andrew Stuttaford at NRO's The Corner that the British youth are pot-heads.

Random Fun Fact: Dennis Murphree served twice as governor of Mississippi without ever having been elected.

Dean is calling for changes in how discussion is handled in cauceses in Iowa; if those changes don't happen he wants Iowa's place in the presidential nominating process removed. I'm sure that this is completed unrelated to his third place finish.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez call it quits. If Bennifer can't stay together, what hope is there for the rest of us? I'm truly devastated.

Sullivan

Chris Lawrence somewhat takes issue in the comments of my post on USM's University Forum with my characterization of Andrew Sullivan of being less than conservative. I could write an extended essay on my problems with Sullivan's "conservatism," but since blogger Owen Courreges wrote one a while back, I don't have to.

Plug

Here's a great website that systematically demolishes Al Franken's new book.

A Tough Old Bird

Winston Churchill's parrot, known for its obscenities directed toward Hitler, has been found to be alive and well at the age of 104.

"The Hawkeye Cauci"

The citizens of Iowa can now watch TV without seeing campaign ads for the Democrat candidates at every commercial break for the last few months.

The cauci (or caucuses, if you prefer) results were rather interesting to say the least. I was somewhat surprised that John "Effing" Kerry and John "Breck Girl" Edwards came in first and second, respectively. Kerry had been the front runner back this time last year, but recently it seemed that his campaign had all but collapsed due to the Dean Machine (back the former VT gov. in a sec.)

I also thought that Edwards didn't have a chance in Iowa; he was hyped up as the Second Coming of Bill Clinton Without the Sex Scandals several months ago, but he hadn't had any real media attention since. I guess I shouldn't have been blindsided, he got to be a multi-millionaire trial lawyer by convincing jurors to see things his way. That's a talent that transfers very easily in convincing voters to support you.

Then there's Mr. Dean who finished a disappointing, to his supporters at any rate, third place. Those little linguistic snafus add up after a time, I reckon. His "victory" speech on Monday night was truly a sight to behold. I wouldn't want him any where near the nuclear "Button."

Poor, poor Mr. Gephardt. He pinned all his hopes and money on Iowa and won only a distant fourth. He announced today his departure from the race. Labor union support just ain't like it used to be.

Kucinich won a heaping pot of jack squat, shocking no one.

Clark, Lieberman, and Sharpton didn't waste their time with Iowa and are instead focusing on the New Hampshire primary.

Also of note, David Hogberg peeks in on a Democrat caucus.

Abortion

Sarah Weddington, one of the lawyers on the pro-abortion side of the Roe v. Wade case, will be speaking at one of the University of Southern Mississippi's University Forum events. So head on down to Hattiesburg and thank her for contributing to the death of ~40 million unborn children. And be thankful that you weren't one of them if you're under 31 years old.

And there's some more interesting information about the University Forum. Andrew Wiest, history professor and director of University Forum, says, "The goal of University Forum is to provoke thought and broaden our world view through presentations by experts on the leading issues of our time." Other speakers scheduled to speak at following events are: "Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy on "The Race Line in American Life" on Feb. 17, former American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen speaking April 6 on civil liberties post 9-11, and Time magazine essayist Andrew Sullivan on April 13." So, we have a law professor who sits on the editorial boards of three Leftist magazines: The Nation, The American Prospect, and Dissent; the former head of an organization that feels that pedophiles are an oppressed minority; and a pro-gay marriage and pro-"gay rights" "conservative" that doesn't really like social conservatives. Apparently having liberal speakers only is what Prof. Wiest means by broadening "our world view through presentations by experts on the leading issues of our time." I don't mind him inviting them, but I do mind him not inviting more conservative or libertarian speakers as well.

29th Senate District Update

The state Senate committee overseeing the dispute involving the 29th Senate District has recommended that a re-election take place on Feb. 10.

Some Observations

Barbour's picks for state department head don't meet Bill Minor's racial quotas.

The saga of the 29th state senate district's disputed returns continues as the 5-member senate committee hears arguments.

Former Gov. Musgrove is set to teach a few political science courses at my (and his) alma mater. Mr. Ramsey shows what the ex-gov. will teach (Sunday's cartoon).

Goodness gracious, the editorial board of the Daily Mississippian (Ole Miss's student newspaper) rip into Bush for visiting Martin Luther King's tomb last week. Expect a severe fisking by me shortly (I hope).

If you have been looking for a website the will transcribe English to Tengwar, the script invented by JRR Tolkien that he used for Elvish langauages, look no more. If you want to learn more about Tengwar, check out this site and it's links

DC Voting Rights

Dr. Chris writes at some length on the issue of Washington, DC, voting rights and details the problems on a proposed solution that would basically give DC back to Maryland, as far as voting was concerned.

Voting rights advocates in DC ulitize the Revolutionary War slogan "No Taxation Without Representation" to show that they don't have real representation in Congress, i.e. no Senators and just one not-voting delegate, but they still have to pay federal taxes like citizens in other states. Here's my solution (though I'm by no means the first to come up with it): Make DC a federal tax haven. Residents of the district wouldn't have to pay federal income taxes and the like. That'll be a significant boon to a city that doesn't perform well economically. Individuals and businesses would be attracted to such a haven and as a result of increased emigration, local tax revenue would go up without raising local tax rates. Of course, I strongly suspect that the leftists that make up a bulk of the DC voting rights movement would balk at the suggestion.

Linkage

Did you know that there's a blog devoted to people who's last name is Carver? It's basically a neat genealogical site who's proprietor, Nancy, was kind enough to link my blog.

Here's a brand spanking new site called "Tin Foil Hat" that aims to generally mock and tease fringe websites. Another reason why TFH rocks is that it links to moi.

I received a couple of e-mails from two interesting people. First, there's Mr. Jim McCarthy, a South Carolinan exiled in the People's Republic of California, who writes a wonderful regular column, called Letter from California, for SC newspapers. Hopefully, his good sense will rub off on the Golden Staters (they could seriously use some). Secondly, for those that are politicial junkies like me (I can quit any time! I swear!), "The Blogger Caesar" has a site that analyzes polling data from around the country in order to predict how the Electoral College will go. Currently, according to the his numbers, Bush is sitting pretty.