Tuesday at HQ

It's late and I'm tired but I haven't posted all day after a hectic one.
Bussed over to HQ ninety minutes late because I had lots of extra work to do at my day job. The activity is noticeably busier now with just two months to go before the general election. Let me put it this way; I had trouble finding an open chair and phone.
The other surprise is that HQ has changed their scripts. There has been a shift in task from voter identification to voter registration. My script and phone list connected me to those citizens who have recently moved and are known to need to register. There is also an indication that these listed individuals are thought to be Bush supporters.
Most of my calls were the usual; telephone answering machines. I left a message urging them to register and vote for W.
But some of them were people who were in need of registration and thanked me for helping them do so in order to cast their vote for Bush-Cheney this November. That's a gratifying call for a volunteer to make.
One person, upon my introduction, informed me that he is a sergeant in the Army and will be voting for John Kerry. Go figure. I don't argue with those people. They are just going to waste my time while I could be registering more Bush supporters. Besides, I think it would be rude of me to phone someone at their private home to pick a fight with them. Don't you? So I thanked him for his frank reply and bid him goodnight.

The lively volunteer crowd brought some chocolate chip cookies and some 2-layer cake with frosting in to HQ tonight. That's good, because I was so beat and I made use of the sugar and some black coffee to keep me up. That's prolly why I'm still writing at this hour..heh.

One of the pay-offs of this evening was the fact that the RNC was in session and we had a tv tuned to the proceedings. Of course. It was a joy to be able to hear the Governator and First Lady deliver their speeches in the company of the HQ staff and volunteers. Oh, and let's not forget the two Bush sisters! Most all of us agreed that their "comic" routine was rather an embarrassment. There were a number of jokes that brought up uncomfortable images. A bit brash. But then, I suppose it achieved that which it was designed to achieve; that is, to demonstrate that the Bush sisters are two normal young women who happen to have The President for their dad. These girls are not stuffy snobs.
Btw...I have a BowieNet friend who lives in the 'burbs of Austin who claims that his buddy is dating Jenna.
I can only imagine.

Superior speed

Listening to The Hugh Hewitt Show this evening, Hugh had guests John "Hindrocket" Hinderocker and John Pohhoretz on the show discussing the doom of the printed Old Media. If they do not respond to the challenges of the Internet New Media, their very survival will be in question. One of the reasons for the newspapers' crisis, these three opine, is the lightening-like speed of the Internet, comparable as the speedy hare to the slow and lumbering newspaper turtles.
That sounds right at first flush. But is it, really?

Every newspaper I know of has an online version. To my knowledge, these online copies of newsprint are available at lightening-like speeds. Need a reality check? Take a tour through the blogosphere. Check out the links they provide. Many of them are links to online newspapers. If you subtract the links involving bloggers' critiques of newspaper bias in that coverage, you'll still find quite a few citations of newspaper stories as source material to document a case.
If the newspapers are so out-of-the-loop slow, then why does the New Media utilize it so often?

Newspapers are news gatherers and news disseminators. They are not so stupid as to shakle themselves to ink & pulp at street corners. They still do that and they have plugged into the Internet.

Still, Hugh and his honorable guests are quite correct when they maintain that Old Media must face the new music of the blogosphere and the accountability it brings.

Pinkmonkeybird on the radio

As has been noted earlier, I was glomming at the Patriot booth at our beloved Minnesota State Fair this past weekend. A quick scroll through this blog will attest to that. And while there, a little bit of audience volunteerism was called for as the NARN needed someone to provide a John Kerry impression and read a prepared script. Since way last Democratic primary season, I've been practicing my John Kerry drone. So I raised my hand. Unfortunately, Chad "Peeps" passed me over for a fresh and impartial fellow in the audience. I say unfortunately because this nice guy was unimaginably bad at doing Kerry. This pic snapped by Brainstorming shows me patiently waiting for our brave fellow Patriot listener as he valiantly plowed through the task(that's Peeps holding the mic).
Fortunately, Peeps came back to me and asked for a sample of what I can do. He was immediately satisfied.
So like a real radio pro I waited for my cue and delivered the line....to wild, thunderous applause! I had arrived. Not only was I now on the NARN for more radio minutes than The Atomizer, but I was being cheered. Local radio would never be the same.
An impartial observer writes his assessment;
"You had the best Kerry impressions at the fair (even better than Hugh's)" - Brian Beardsley

Encouraged now beyond modesty, I showed off some more of my Kerry impression to Hugh Hewitt. So when I saw an opening in the conversation I canted;
"I was always the one who'd advocated John Flippin' Kerry for President. I never wavered from that."

Hugh tried to crush me, "Now that's not very good."

Being belittled by Hugh Hewitt is one of the greatest honors we bloggers can attain. I was flattered:
"See? Just give me one minute on the radio and you can't shut me up!"

People have asked me what my secret is. How do I sound so much like John Kerry? It's easy. Just imagine yourself to be a bloviating zeppelin leaking air through a foghorn and you've got it.

(tip o' the bird to Lileks for the "bloviating zeppelin" allusion)

A Canadian and an Englishman

Mark Steyn is not your cookie-cutter Canadian. He's pro-American and pro-Bush. He's also one of the most prolific columnists in the world that I know of. Just a quick glance at Steyn Online (Steyn rhymes with Online, in case you don't already know) shows all the various publications he is found in. And for good reason. He's a sharp analyzer of politics and he has a witty sense of humor. I'm led to understand that he has a homes outside of his native Canada. I guess that makes him a citizen of the Western Hemisphere.
I see no better way to kick off the Republican National Convention that linking to this opinion piece by Steyn in the U.K.s Telegraph.
And while we're in England, let's peek in on Custos Morum for an intelligent Englishman's views on George W. Bush and foreign policy in a dangerous world.

The sun never sets on the British Empire.

RNC bloggers

A new blog for the bloggers of the bloggers at the Republican National Convention is now up and running. It's none other than http://rncbloggers.com/ and I'm adding it to my blogroll. This will be our one-stop blogging spot for the convention. While you're in there be sure to click on the link to Meet The Bloggers down on the left side bar under Links. It's a great way to understand who these people are as you grow accustomed to drinking their take on events.
According to Captain Ed of Captain's Quarters, if you're interested in what goes on outside the convention, the old media outlets will be covering that ad nauseam.
Can we possibly contain our excitement upon learning that there is a Forum located in this site? Let the chatter begin! Let it begin now.
For the inside scoop I think television will best cover what is happening in a live setting. But then these blogs will help us gain perspective in comparison to what is presented by the alphabet networks. For a balanced view and for sharp analysis of what is going on, these blogs will be indispensable.
Update 8/30/04, 11 pm; It's convention night. And to my amazement, I am one of just two or three persons posted in this site's forum thus far. I thought for sure that all throughout the proceedings activity would be high here. I was wrong.

Biased FOX poll

FOX News polls have been targeted by the left as biased right wing.
Ummmmm....go figure.

A light burns out

One of the brightest stars of the blogosphere, USS Clueless's Steven Den Beste is tired. He's been taking it easy for some weeks now. A lot of us miss his essays. I often merely skimmed Den Beste's work. And just as often I dared not begin to read many of his pieces because my time was limited and the author was pouring over with detail.
But those essays (posts?) by Steven Den Beste that I have read left me in awe.

He explains what's happened to him;
"Since then, I've realized that I don't want to write any longer. I've been thinking about it, and I realized that I stopped enjoying it about a year ago, which is also about the time that I began to post less and less often. Several times in the last year I've tried to tell my readers what I was feeling, in hopes that it might change things, but it didn't help. I even made graphic one time and put it at the end of a post I knew was going to draw a particularly robust response:
No Pedantic Nitpicking."

I can't help but think that Den Beste might prove to be a more well-nourished writer if the damned Internet weren't so open to free-flowing communication. It's the feedback that is hurting, not the writing. So maybe he should just withdraw his avenues of contact.
I also think it is Den Beste's style of writing that contributed to his burnout. He is exhaustive beyond exhaustion. If that isn't a recipe for burning your dish then I don't know what is.

In any case, it's a real shame that I can't turn to USS Clueless for fresh pieces for the time being. I hope Den Beste makes the most of his sabbatical, because I have a feeling he'll be back. Writers like him have a voice inside that can't be quelled.

Hugh Hewitt brings his heavy guns upon old media StarTribune writer Jim Boyd. And the howitzer pummeling of Instapundit added to the fray means that two of the biggest dreadnaughts of the blogosphere are bearing down on this sitting duck. While Instapundit does little else than merely link to the story, the high traffic afforded will bring at least a thousand eyes upon the issue. The editors of the StarTribune made a big mistake in allowing Boyd to fire off like a loose cannon. Now the StarTrib is a high target. Davy Jones' locker lies below.

Minnesota GOP booth. It was quite busy. All the buttons sold out. At one point, an irate Democrat invaded and scolded visitors for the evils of the Republican Party. She was quietly ushered away. They're losing their grip, folks.

Mitch Berg of Shot In The Dark dispels some bull and Jim Boyd has to clean up the mess.

pinkmonkeybird as rebus at a kiddy ride.

Late breaking news

We've been informed many times by Hugh Hewitt that James Lileks is a Hummel collector. Lileks has denied it repeatedly. And to tell the truth, I'd always believed Lileks. After all, Hugh may be the Commissioner and the Ambassador of Hockey and...well, I guess he's a lot of things, but sometimes I get the hint of a suspicion that Hugh likes to make up stuff.
Not so regarding the Lileks Hummel obsessions.
And here is the documentation. These are the actual photos of Lileks' beloved collection.
I'd say I'm speechless, but that would be a gosh durned lie.
(tip o' the bird to Brian Beardsley)

Bwhahhahahaha

Little Green Footballs posts;
"and they’re snarling and snapping at each other like starving ferrets in a Scotsman’s jodhpurs..."

State Fair Space Tower
Pinkmonkeybirdcam isn't the sharpest image in digital technology. But this picture still reveals the ethereal quality of the moment yesterday when the sun broke through the clouds as it was setting. The Space Tower gleams against the sky. The Patriot booth is situated very near this landmark.

Reality creeps in

With the polls showing Kerry and Bush virtually tied for the past several months, a nagging illusion seemed to force itself upon the nation as reality; Bush and Kerry are almost equally plausible as victors in the coming November election.
But few candidates could possibly be more different.
Kerry is the most liberal Senator in the country.
Bush satisfies his conservative base as a respectable heir to the legacy of Ronald Reagan.
Kerry's reputation as a flip-flopper is well known.
Bush has earned a reputation as a man who can be expected to do as he says he will do.

Now with new polls released in the wake of the Swiftboat Vets for Truth exposure, Kerry is taking on water through a huge gaping hole in his boat hull. This, in the run-up to the Republican National Convention. The comprehensive authority on poll results, Real Clear Politics, has analysis.
(btw, I can't take credit for the boat allegory. But it's just too juicy to lay off, don't you think?)

Update: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was tonight interviewed by Hugh Hewitt on The Patriot. He pointed out something very important. John Kerry can be underestimated, and when he is he bounces back. Kerry has a reputation for being a good closer. So we have to bang on him and we have to keep banging on him even after he stops moving.
I intend to increase my volunteer hours per week.

And giants walked the earth

No, I'm not talking about Paul Bunyan.
Last night I met Hugh Hewitt, Generalisimo, Michael Medved and James Lileks. (I don't think Lileks is accustomed to being called a giant.) But they're all good people and don't act like they're giants. No other way to describe the effect their personalities have on people through magnifiers like national radio, ink-on-pulp print and the blogosphere. Giants.
I guess that makes the NARN people fair-to-middlin'-sized folk.

Okay, so my efforts to define relative size is proving faulty and I'll just abandon the effort.

I committed at least a couple of not so big faux pas last night. I had met Chumley Wonderbar before and know what he looks like, but I made the hasty error of mistaking him for Generalisimo. There is a slight resemblance. I walked up and addressed him as Duane and blah, blah, blah.
Chumley pointed out to me that he is NOT Duane, and that, furthermore, he was insulted to be mistaken for him.
Well, that's just nonsense of course because Duane is a fine fellow and does not cause people to flee the area in a mad panic. Later we even joked about it over our beers.
In any case, I'll never make that mistake again.

And speaking of Generalisimo (aka Duane), I owe him an apology. He showed me just how low and deceitful the Keegan's Trivia creators are with this trick question;

"What was The President's name in the year 1952?"

Yes, I'd thought the phrasing to be odd. Why not more forthrightly put it;

"Who was our nation's president in the year 1952?"

Generalisimo smelled a rat and he was right. The winning answer was George W. Bush. Not, as I had calculated, Harry S. Truman.

But my shame was magnified 10-fold because before the answer was revealed, Generalisimo & I discussed this question and I actually admonished him for being capable of such an imagining of this criminal act being perpetrated by Minnesotans.
After all, such a trick is nothing less than Trivia Terrorism. And there is no place in Minnesota "Nice" for Trivia Terrorism.

Generalismo was right. I was wrong. I had nightmares about it last night and will never be able to relax in confidence again that my Trivia questions are understood safely ever again. From now on, I'm hauling duct tape and sheets of plastic to Keegan's in order to protect myself.

The Commissar cometh

Today is the launch of The Great Minnesota Get-Together (aka the State Fair). I'll be going several times this year and that begins in about 50 minutes as of this writing. The reason I'm going so often this time is because the GOP has booths, Taxpayers League of Minnesota has a booth, I'll be doing volunteer work this Saturday for voter's registration and besides all that, The Patriot radio 1280 am will be bringing in several right-wing shock jocks to broadcast live from their booth near the space needle.
Add cheese curds and wombat-on-a-stick to the mix and you'd have to be crazy to wonder why I'd not wanna go and go often.

Hugh Hewitt is the Commissar. He's the Johnny Appleseed of center-right political and evangelical Christian weblogs. He is credited with spawning The Northern Alliance of Blogs and they, in turn, for begetting yet more. Including pinkmonkeybird.

Tonight Hugh, Fraters Libertas and many other star-power bloggers and radio personalities will be participating in a Hollywood Squares-caliber trivia contest at Keegan's Pub.

Actually, the schedule is so frantically busy, I'll be very much challanged to enter it all into my new Palm Pilot task program.

I'm especially looking forward to Bloggers Bash II at the Beer Garden. The last one was great. So holding gathering number 2 at the Beer Garden should be almost surreal. Perhaps I'll wear my lederhosen.

Prost!

Those wacky phone surveys

It's a little after the fact that I'm posting about this from last Tuesday evening, but I just recalled this inadvertently.

We're surveying Minnesota's swing voters, identifying their concerns and their intentions this November at the polling place. There is always at least one fun or interesting call in the batch. I will try to be more reliable in this blog in relating them as they occur.

A woman answered. I asked for Harold, as per my phone listing. I went through my introduction and explained that I was actually looking for Harold, but perhaps she might be interested in helping me complete a very brief survey, taking just two minutes.
"I don't share my political views with surveyors on the phone," she said with a hint of a twinkle in her voice.

"Oh, okay," I said, "Well then, if you would be so kind as to tell Harold when he comes home that I called, we'll try to call him back."

"I think it might be safe to say that Harold might support President Bush." (chuckle, chuckle)

"Oh. I see. Well, without sharing any information of your political views, of course. I'll accept that and I thank you," I said.

"Haha hah..(restraining self) You're welcome."

"I thank you for your time. This call was paid for by Bush-Cheney '04. Have a nice evening."

"Hahahahahaha. Thank you."

Apparently she was amused at herself for breaking her own little rule regarding not cooperating with phone surveys. I guess she'd thought it was more important to feel that her views were being counted this time.
We both got a good laugh out of that.

Confusion added to presumption

Months ago I'd heard a claim made with much confidence that John Kerry had received one of his purple hearts due to a mishap that did not involve enemy fire. If I recall accurately, I'd read somewhere that soldier Kerry had been sporting by tossing hand grenades to the shore. One of the grenades exploded a little closer to the boat than he'd thought it would and Kerry was slightly wounded from the blast of his own games.
I hadn't heard anything of that claim all this time until this credible story in the Washington Times, containing facts describing a slightly different scenario than what I'd heard.

They charge that in the confusion involving unarmed, fleeing Viet Cong, Mr. Kerry fired a grenade, which detonated nearby and splattered his arm with hot metal. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he faced his "first intense combat" that day, returned fire, and received his "first combat related injury." A journal entry Mr. Kerry wrote Dec. 11, however, raises questions about what really happened nine days earlier. "A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky," wrote Mr. Kerry, according the book "Tour of Duty" by friendly biographer Douglas Brinkley.

So for me, this latest revelation is no revelation at all. Rather, I'm left a little confused as to why the general public and the watchdog media (don't laugh. There is too a watchdog media.) seem to have been asleep all these many weeks.

At least the yawn of doubt has been further scattered to my own assessment. John Flippin' Kerry's diary cited as evidence. I keep a diary (a journal, if you will) and I don't lie when I enter into it.

A new kind of technology

US Frigate Fraters Libertas fires one across the bow of the USS StarTribune and hauls a bowline on the destroyer Powerline.
And to think that this blazing battle of seafoam and cannonballs might happen at the Great Minnesota Get-together is shiverin' me timbers.
Arrrrrrrrgggg.

Party for the President

You'll notice a new banner over in my sidebar for Party for the President. I'm participating with a party of my own at a local, very hip bar...as in my book it ain't a party unless there are libations on hand.
I don't think it would be prudent to post the details of the party here. But rather, I'll just say that it will be in the Uptown Minneapolis neighborhood from 7 - 10 pm and one of my guests will be Daniel Mathias, GOP candidate for the 5th District of MN for Congress. You may recall I met Daniel when he gave me a ride to the Patriot Picnic.
One of the interesting aspects of my party is that it will be taking place in territory that is not only heavily DFL ground, but Green Party ground as well. In fact, Green HQ is less than a mile to the east. So once again, I act in complete defiance of the powers that be, being the true rebel that I am. After all, if one were to be conventional in Uptown, one would be a rabid, Bush-hating liberal. Instead I am a Republican vol for W. Rock and roll. In your face. Giving it to The Man.
So if you want to express your rebellious spirit, email me at address provided in my Profile button and ask for an invitation. We'll say hello to one another, meet the candidate for Congress, watch W's speech for the conclusion of the Republican National Convention and you're welcome to order a martini and dinner if you wish. The focus and reason for the party is to support President George W. Bush and to celebrate his acceptance of his nomination to run on the ticket for president.
That's Thursday September 2nd.

Be there or be L7.

Yeah, unhinged

As has been noted earlier by myself as well as many others, they hate W.

Hitch on Flipper

Our favorite Leftist, Christopher Hitchens makes some rather obvious observations of the obviations of John Flippin' Kerry.
But he does so with such fresh directness and clarity as to make this reader shake his pinkmonkeybirdhead in wonder at the audacity of our current debates in politics:
The Democrats have made a rod for their own backs in uncritically applauding their candidate's ramrod-and-salute posture. They have also implicitly subverted one of the most important principles of the republic, which is civilian control over military decisions. And more than that, they have done something eye-rubbingly unprincipled, doing what Reagan and Kissinger could not do: rehabilitating the notion of the Vietnam horror as "a noble cause."

The reason the Kerry campaign is so strategically off in its posture is because the Democrats have such a terrible candidate. And that is because the party was hijacked by the hard Left, who are so passionately angry and unhinged as to believe that "Anyone but Bush" is good enough for America.

9/11 blame

Something I have long suspected turns out to be true. A majority of Democrats feel that the United States might be to blame for the attacks on September 11, 2001.
I think this goes a long way toward understanding why the Democrats and the Michael Moores of the hard Left are capable of directing so much of their hatred at George W. Bush instead of bin Laden and threats from rogue states.
In other words, Americans had fundementally two differing gut reactions to the dive bombing of the twin towers and the Pentagon;

1. Oh my God, How could anybody hate America so much as to kill innocent people and attack my country like this?
2. Oh my God, Today is the day we get bitten in our own behinds for all the nasty thievery and racism we've been guilty of all these years!

Before 9/11 individual Americans had alligned themselves into these two differing camps. It doesn't really take much to push one into either of these schools; An influential constituent, a respected book, a relationship with another person of conviction.

I recall a girlfriend who'd had great respect for Noam Chomsky. I recall another friend who spoke highly of The Nation. But through all these personal challanges, I had a deep-seated belief in the promise of America. And yet the politics of the personal never trumped my held mythic image of America.

Anyone who believed the words of President Ronald Reagan knew what it meant to see the shining city upon the hill.

That's why the gulf is so wide. When we encounter those who are opposed to the war in Iraq, we are not confronted by someone who is insane. We are faced with someone who has read history in a profoundly different way.

To them, they may be seeing the America of Kurt Vonnegut. A land where the people are well meaning, but the sins of her inception are a stain that cannot be washed clean.

The glass is either half empty or it is half full. Both are true, depending on the eye of the beholder. A titan battle ensues.

Btw...I'm a half full guy.

Language watch 2

Another overused word that I'd like to see banished for at least a few years is "basically".
It's an easy word to fall into a pattern of abuse. Basically every sentence can begin with this ubiquitous word. It is a word that is overused like "you know" and "ummmm". I would like to encourage the evil disseminators of "basically" to give this word a vacation and substitute it with a perfectly fresh word like "essentially".
Once you come to know someone who overuses "basically", it reaches a point where every time they say it is like a stobe light flashing in your face, giving you a nervous tic.
And that's just not healthy for anyone.

WROCKS

Yesterday was the final day of a three-consecutive Saturdays drive to get out voter identification phone surveys.
I've been a volunteer for all three. But this time the day was on the buddy system. A local Republican with a car offered to make a social event out of the occurrence; breakfast and a carpool. Great idea.
So after a humungous platter of eggs benedict at the Uptown Cafe and countless cups of coffee, it was off to WROCKS for three hours.

I can't say this with any scientific veracity, but it seemed.....seemed to me, that more of the folks I called today were in support of President Bush than in my phone work of the past weeks. One key call was to a woman who was rather guarded about stating that she was in support of W. But Kerry was such a bad candidate that she had to go with this current president.

I had to wonder if the recent exposure of the Swiftboat Vets story and the damage said story might do measurable harm to Kerry's credibility. And reports show that "Unfit for Command", the SBV's book sales are exceeding the stocks of booksellers.

When you combine the fact that W's approval ratings are quite healthy, clocking in very close to 50%, and the nation is in serious times with threats of terrorism and a continuing situation in Iraq involving the lives of US troops, I should think that a significant number of Americans would be conservative in casting their vote for president this November.
President Bush is a known quantity. We've come to know how he handles such volatile issues.
John Kerry is not only unknown insofar as how he would conduct his presidency, his words and his record are downright confusing and confused.

Here is a close-up of my Dragonfly shirt. Unfortunately, though the Dragonfly apparel company has a wide array of shirts, I can't find mine in there. I guess they discontinued it. 

Babes...can't get enough

The Patriette has been shakin' it in the local blogosphere of late.
I've got a sheik shirt with images looking very much like this bon mot blogger.
And now she & I are co-joined at the blogroll.
I only hope that this affirmation does not cause her to change her beautiful mind.
Oh, did I mention that she has a head on her shoulders? She does.
Pinkmonkeybird notices that The Patriette is very young and has a beau.
Don't deprive an old man of his dreams.

Daddy like.

Their rally.

As my #94 Express bus rolled past the MN State Capital building, I noticed some activity going on. So after hopping off to check it out, I discovered that the Democrats had organized counter rallys. This pictured one was at the Veteran's Building and featured former Senator Max Cleland. I must say they were reasonably polite to me in my Bush-Cheney cap. They cautioned me, however, that I should behave myself and not do any heckling. Who, me?
Meanwhile behind the pinkmonkeybirdcam of this this shot, up on the Capital steps, the Environmental Protection Agency was conducting a media op. As one of the EPA guys was overheard saying to a Kerry vol, "We're the good guys." If you're not familiar with the EPA, they think the Republican Party is ravaging the earth.

And our rally.

W pressing the flesh at the Excel Center.
MN Democrats Exposed reports that the same can't be said of good behavior on the part of their folks visiting the W rally.
But I must say that this rally pulled off very, very smoothly. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that 15.000 people were attended.
I was on the sidewalks all day doing crowd control. I didn't see any troublemakers on the Kellogg Blvd. side. But the Kerry counter-rallies were on the W. 7th Street side just around the corner. There was a circus atmosphere with honking horns and crowd chants and banners. As I remarked to one attendee, "Is this a great country, or what?" Agreed.
Later, inside, after an engaging series of warm-up speeches by other Republicans and a mini-concert by Ricky Skaggs, the President's tour bus convoy actually rolled, horns honking, directly into the Excel Center! The place went ape. W bounded out of the huge vehicle and shook hands all the way up to the podium where he was joined by St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly.
It was amazing. That's what I call a rally.

In case you don't already know, if you live in the USA the firestorm on the blogosphere and talk radio is very much about John Kerry's credibility. And two of the prime blogs covering the fury are of the Northern Alliance of Blogs. They're in my blogroll; Powerline and Captain's Quarters. If you click on them now, much of the current traffic in posts regard this hot button.
Of course, most of us would rather be discussing the war we are currently in, rather than the one John Kerry has based so much of his credibility upon. And now that credibility is in a meltdown.
Meanwhile, watching how our media pretends to be objective whilst ignoring this issue in ways never exhibited when the questions were pointed at President Bush, is quite instructive.

If I had this beautiful morning free, that's what I'd be doing. But I'm off to a huge rally for W immediately after I post this. The President is speaking at the Excel Center on the riverfront of Saint Paul. I'll be working as a volunteer in the outdoor teams.
Of course, you can expect a post from me of my reactions to this big event.

WW IV and thoughts beyond

Of course, I couldn't resist downloading to my printer when Instapundit queued me to this incredible digest of our current situation. Norman Podhoretz agrees with Eliot A. Cohen, who calls it World War Four.
I follow the logic of this assessment. But I have a bit of a problem with it insofar as our conception of world war history is pretty well embedded in our brains. I mean, there are those scientists who maintain that the planet Pluto is not really a planet. Yet we already think of it as a planet. We are now to think of Pluto as an aberrant asteroid of planetary size?

Excuse me, but I still think of the Cold War as a cold war...

making this current one we're in WWIII.

That name breaks the mold, too, as everyone I know thought WWIII would be the nuclear apocalypse. Let's hope that's just completely wrong. And maybe that's why I prefer to think of this current war we're waging to be called World War III.

I haven't completely finished reading Podhoretz. It tracks in at 43 pages and I've been a bit busy lately.

Anyways, despite my ramblings Wretchard weighs in on the Podhoretz piece. As usual, he brings heft. And it is he that thinks beyond.
These, imho, are must reads.

MN Democrats Exposed

My intrepid friend at Minnesota Democrats Exposed is focused like a laserbeam especially on one subject. That is, exposing Democrats in the State of Minnesota, in case you needed clarification. I only know him or her via the Internet, so I don't know him well. But I do know he's smart.
Why?
Well, because he's put pinkmonkeybird in his blogroll for one thing.
And for another, because he's posted a pic I shot last week when I was in Mankato.

But that's not enough for MN Democrats Exposed. He points out in detail why this Democrat (or at least, if he's not a Democrat, then he is at least a Democrat sympathizer) is so stupid.

MN Democrats Exposed put out the call in his blog to send in any pics showing stupid Democrat protesters and so I fired one off to him via email.

That's why the blogosphere is so great. Information is rapidly shared and disseminated.. Just ask Al Gore, the guy who'd invented the Internet and the guy who coined the descriptor for myself and MN Democrats Exposed; Rapid Responder Digital Brownshirts.

Good job, MNDE.

Polls are stubborn things

John Adams would most certainly object to my taking liberties with his words.

The professionals may remain cool & calm over the polls, but the rest of us are chomping at the bit. Some pros will claim they never watch the polls and take no stock in them. Others have made a cottage industry of interpreting them for the barefoot people who would follow a false religion. I can't think of any bad puns just now, so be patient.

Are polls facts?

It depends on who you're asking.

In the Bush camp there is a way to read them. This conflicts with the way the Kerry camp reads them. For weeks Kerry has led. Now, chinks are showing up. Can you say Gallup?

The authority on poll results, no matter which side you're on, is RealClearPolitics.

While it looks like a squeaker, I have been predicting a landslide victory for W for months.
For one thing, W can win in Minnesota. And as you dear reader, know, this is my waking dream.
The Republican National Convention is about to launch. The anniversary of 9/11 will shortly follow.
America will choose order and the continued offensive on radical Islamic extremism.

More on that in days to come.

One of the great things about living in Minneapolis is the park system. I live near Lake of the Isles. On weekends I like to take a walk around it; about 3 miles. This makes for a nice variety in my daily exercise.

Communication flow

Here in Minnesota we have an efficient and energetic office for reelecting the Bush-Cheney ticket this November. That's one of many reasons I've been cranking up the volume for my own part lately. We've got a drive called WROCKS. So I've been upping my volunteerism from Tuesdays to include three consecutive Saturdays as well.
And that's where I was today.
Had a good time down there. Made 43 calls. That's not record-breaking effort, but that's why I try to volunteer often. Accumulative effect, you know.

And I was impressed to discover something today.
Communication flows upward in this organization and action is taken.
Last week in the course of my work at the phones I discovered something. I'm not divulging anything that is a secret in our efforts when I say that our phone work has been working to discover the identities of voters who are undecided in the coming election. The first question of the survey is;
Can the President definitely count on your vote in the coming election this November?
While the provided scripts list A, B and C as response (A=Yes, B=No, C=Undecided), I found that not only I but a lot of other phone bank vols were simply asking the question.
And, consequentially, there were a lot of Yeses and Nos provided as answers.
Not many Undecideds.
So I tried something out. I tried asking the question and then offering the three alternate answers. I found that when I offered "Undecided" as an option, that option tended to creep into the responses a bit more.
Or so it seemed to me, at least. I'm not an expert on statistical data gathering, but it makes perfect sense to me that when a Bush-Cheney volunteer calls and wants to know if I'm going to vote for his ticket....well, I might feel a bit pressured. I might just say No even though I'm a bit confused and might actually be undecided.
A lot of money and a lot of manpower and a lot of passion is being spent on this effort to identify the fence-sitters. What good is all this effort if we're not making efficient usage of our precious time on the phone with these targeted voters? We might be getting enough measurable results to be effective. But what if we're not quite squeaking it through?

So I passed this idea on to my leaders at MN Bush-Cheney '04.

And they responded positively. Down at WROCKS today, the scripts had added to them in big, bold El Marko evidence, "A=Yes, B=No, C=Undecided"

Wow!

But why am I surprized? I'm not. I'm not surprized because this Minnesota Bush-Cheney '04 organization is very, very sharp.
Why am I impressed, then? I'm impressed because all too many times in my life I have seen arrogance and human vanity supercede efficency and brass tacks effectiveness.

Hey, I'm just a grunt. I'm a vol. I'm no powerbroker in MN politics. I just pile my chips on the number I believe in. I believe in Bush-Cheney '04.

Lots of other folks are on that same square. I am grateful that I can be part of the effort.

And something else I am happy to report;
I got a ticket to see my boss this Wednesday. W is coming to St. Paul this Wednesday afternoon. I've got my ticket. Hopefully my employer will be able to give me the afternoon off so I can attend the rally.

I'm pumped.

Louisiana Conservative

One thing you gotta respect about Jeff Blanco of Louisiana Conservative; He doesn't hold back. Here is a Colorado transplant who tells it from his heart.

One of the many things I appreciate about his blog is his leftside sidebar of poll results state to state. Pinkmonkeybird is the honorary representative of the great State of Minnesota. That's kewl.

Jeff is inyourface if you're a Leftist. But he'll tell you a thing or two of what a conservative is; Self-reliant. I get a huge kick out of Jeff. He's always talking at the liberals....


....as if they're listening.

Keep up the good work, Jeff. The Mighty Mississippi flows through my town and on down past you into the Gulf of Mexico.

We're connected.

As noted recently in this blog, The Ramones were great. Joey lives on in the music. And he is remembered.
Dee Dee is gone, too. But I don't know anything of a dedication to him. The street truly is the place to remember the Ramones. That's what their songs were about. Perhaps a back alley's naming would be most appropriate for Dee Dee. After all, it was he who wrote the line,

"Then I took out my razorblade. Then I did what God forbade. Now the cops are after me. But I proved that I'm no sissy."

Brilliant.

I'm squawking like a pinkmonkeybird...

about the fabulous news that Blogs for Bush has grown its blogroll beyond 800 blogs!

Matt Margolis crows about it at BFB.

I am happy to be on board (as I'd said when I was joined up). One of the facts Matt mentions that I find interesting is that "The new Official Kerry-Edwards Campaign Blog does not have a blogroll anymore, but the last time I checked the pre-Edwards Kerry blog, it has 55 blogs on its blogroll."

This blog thing seems to be catching on.

Good luck day

This being Friday the 13th it is all the more welcomed news that a British journalist hostage has been freed at Basra.

I wonder if this release was negotiated in exchange for the pause in military action on the part of US forces in Najaf.
(tip o' the bird to Command Post.)

Twilight of faith

No surfing of the blogosphere would be rounded without a visit to Belmont Club. It's usually very difficult to avoid Wretchard's writings in that sphere because someone is always linking him. And for good reason. He brings quite a bit of fresh perspective.
Remembering Fallujah and the frustration many of us felt over the "missed opportunity to defeat insurgents", we can at least take solace in the fact that this newest incarnation in Najaf is ultimately the responsibility of a new Iraqi sovereignty to weigh. Helping this medicine to go down, Wretchard reports; "Although every death is tragedy, US Marine casualties have been astonishingly low so far; almost as if they had invented an entirely new way of fighting."

But the most astonishing piece to the puzzle is a hint at an Iranian connection. If this is valid then Najaf points directly into the future of the region. A must read.

One of my sisters emailed this pic to me. And she's no W fan. Hmmmmm....Don't you hate it when they don't keep the tp stocked?

Kerry's one-point plan

The Onion notices candidate Kerry's monotone voice and focuses upon it. The first half of this piece is the funniest, imho. But then the monotony sets in and I begin to grow weary of listening to anything Kerry has to say. Fortunately, John Edwards pipes up and lends his two cents.
(tip o' the bird to Jay Reding)

Monkeys close to home

Winona, Minnesota is, for me, local news. And MonkeyWatch is diligently covering the waterfront for us in regard to our primate cousins.
Check out this post entitled Monkeys not covered by HIPAA!

You recognized a pressing need and you acted. The blogosphere shall be all the richer for it. Thanks MonkeyWatch.

Language watch

I am a big fan of www.realclearpolitics.com
But I couldn't help but notice one of my pet peeves in their Commentary today;

"THE BANDWAGON & 2008: Here's some good news for President Bush: the LA Times reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger has changed his mind and "may" campaign for Bush outside of California. If he does, the local and national publicity Arnold will generate for Bush will literally blot out the sun - and that includes anything Kerry and Edwards do in the days leading up to the RNC."

The word "literally" has been so blatantly misused for the past decade that half our literate population has forgotten what it means. I have no doubt the writers at RCP understand fully well what the definition of the word is. It's come to be accepted as a means of magnification. But the tragedy is that such exaggeration sullies this previously useful word.

I won't expect the English-speaking world to come to their senses any time soon in its usage. But in the meantime, I will be stocking up on extra lightbulbs in anticipation of Arnold's campaigning.

Media bias pt. II

And Instapundit points out how the New York Times is avoiding the Kerry in Cambodia on Christmas story.

I agree with Lileks that the media bias angle is of greater interest than the fact that Kerry systematically lied . After all, what's so fascinating about the fact that Kerry lied? Hadn't he already been doing that with his story of the phantom foreign leaders who told him he's really gotta beat "this guy" W? And the medals vs. ribbons flap? And the intimation that the Bush Administration lied about reasons for going to war?

None of that in new.

What is new is that they've got Kerry cold-cocked this time and yet the media continues to run from it.

I'm not seeing the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign addressing itself to this issue aggressively. Nor do I think they ought to. There are plenty of attack dogs out there who will do that work.
Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia lie is of interest to these party attack dogs because it's the sort of issue that matters to a wide swatch of voters. Voters don't like being lied to.

Hugh Hewitt writes in If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat;

Huge numbers of people who simply cannot read a sentence vote in elections.
Close elections inevitably turn on the votes of illiterate people....Which explains why politics requires simple messages...Politics often comes down to slogans and pictures and music because candidates need to communicate with broad ranges of people, some of whom don't have the mental equipment to deal with policy papers.

This is why Kerry's systematic lie on such a small detail amounts to substantial punch in an election. Still, when you add up this lie to yet another one brewing about Kerry's magic hat, his frequently noted flip-flops regarding his involvement in Vietnam and the $87 billion for Iraq, a connect-the-dots picture emerges of a candidate for the highest office in the land who will say anything to gain political favor.

That's an issue that illiterates can understand just as well as the sophisticated. It's a matter of the man's character. I can only say it will be interesting to see how this story comes to be regarded or avoided in the liberal biased media.

Media bias is lived with daily

It grows tiresome to constantly be checking your wristwatch to see if it's still running. But you have to be aware of the machinations of your chronometer's health or you just may very well get caught believing a lie.
That's the way our media are. We've got to always be doing reality checks on them so that misperceptions don't creep into our brains.
Powerline reminds us why we scrutinize.

Jasper is a male

Ooops.
Rethinking my whole theory from last night of the true identities of "Bones", James T. and Yeoman Rand, I realized one crucial weakness of the whole bizarre masquerade....Jasper is male.

And my entire alternate universe came crashing down like...um, like a failed episode from the third season of Star Trek O/S.

Son of a b.

Hugh Hewitt is Doctor "Bones" McCoy

It just hit me tonight as I listened to Hugh read Lileks' Bleat from this morning's entry.

What day was it that Hugh's true identity was revealed? I think I was mowing my lawn at the time, Sony walkman radio clamped over my ears. Why yes. That would have to have been this past Monday, as that is when Lileks makes his call-in appearance on Hugh's program.
During the conversation Hugh inadvertently called Lileks "Jim". Oh yes, he corrected himself.
Here's how the exchange went over my communicator;

Doctor McHewitt: He's dead, Jim....James.

James Lileks: What does it mean, Bones?

Doctor McHewitt: Darn it! I'm a blogger, not a right-wing radio shock jock!

James Lileks: Captain's blog 2004.09.08...Warp factor 1280. Let's get the farg outta here.

Okay. So we now know that the Commissar is actually "Bones". And if that isn't disturbing enough, that makes Lileks Captain James T. Lileks.

But the most disturbing sum total of this equation is the fact that this means that Jasper would have to be Yeoman Rand.

Manning the phone banks

If yesterday was Tuesday, then I was working at Bush-Cheney '04 HQ in the evening.

I'm happy to say that the place was all abuzz. Volunteers of all ages were on the phones calling Twin Cities residents asking if the President can count on their support this November and making sure they will vote on Election Day. Part of the activity was no doubt due to the fact that First Lady Laura Bush had made an appearance earlier that day in nearby Waite Park. These rallies tend to bump up volunteerism on the day of the event. And they energize the local campaign in general.

Recently Mayor Randy Kelly of the City of Saint Paul announced that he is crossing the aisle in support of President Bush in the coming election.
Even some Democrats are giving Republican volunteers a reason to feel bolstered.

Vice President Dick Cheney visited East Grand Forks just last Friday.

As someone else noted recently, there is never a dull day of politics for those living in battleground states.
Oh, that reminds me...Did I mention that W was here last Wednesday?

One of the vols sitting near me was a boy named James who must have been about 12 years old or so. His activist mother supervised him whilst working the phones herself in the neighboring chair.
For my own experience, my very first party called last night told me that he hopes President Bush goes to hell. Fine. Hang up the phone and make the next call.
Others were very firmly happy to let me know they support the President and pledge their vote for him. I'm making a lot of friends in the office. People know me by my first name, and I am getting to know many of theirs.
Some generous soul brought a batch of fantastic chocolate-caramel brownies with walnuts. A hot cuppa coffee and one of those brownies helped me to spike my number of calls to 49.

When I got out of HQ at 9 pm I briefly thought of jogging on down to Midway Stadium to see the final few innings of the baseball game in progress. But rain was threatening and it was unusually cold out. If the weather were any gauge of the season, one would think there were only 30 days left until November 2nd. Fortunately there are over twice that.

We've got some more work to do.

Krugman's omission

I've posted this piece over at BowieNet's Politics & Religion forum.

Paul Krugman writes in the agenda-driven NYTimes. Neither he nor his newspaper are willing to report news or editorial that is fair and balanced.

It will be noticed in Krugman's piece, Spin The Payrolls that nowhere does he mention the factors that hampered job growth; the Enron Scandal or the terrorist attacks of 9/11. At least he addressed the Clinton Recession. These are the three factors that the Bush Administration blames for a lackluster economy of the past four years. Krugman and the NYTimes have their own spin. If Krugman wants to be taken seriously he should take care to include facts that round out the true picture.

Fighting fire with fire

I listen to a lot of rightwing talk radio. Like any medium, talk radio is required to sell advertising in order to perform its service and deliver its product. That product is political talk.
On my local station is an ad that asks;
"Are you worried about losing your hair?"

Well, no. Frankly, I'm not. I'm beyond that fear. I was a bit concerned about it in my early 30s.

But I would counter this ad with a question of my own;
"Are you worried about an electronic device that mutes radio ads?"

What a long, strange trip it's been.
pinkmonkeybirdcam shot from the inside of a Kerry volunteer car. In the background can be seen anti-Bush protesters on the roadside.

Making friends

I've never seen politics so polarized in the United States as it is today. There is a deep-seated mistrust of the other side. All too often this mistrust leads to a deep-seated hatred of the other side. And that's not helpful.
The usual analogy of politics is to sports. We speak of a political football or winning the game. Someone once said "win one for the Gipper." And while playing politics like a game is not in itself harmful, most of us realize the stakes in politics make it much more serious than games.
"I hate the Brewers" or "I hate the Packers" are rants closely linked in passion to "I hate Repugs" or "I loathe Dummycrats". Expressing these rants is not really so harmful. Usually I've notice they are said deep within one's own camp. So such a pronouncement can be a bonding. Thankfully, we're not seeing this kind of rhetoric escalating into violence. At least, not that I am aware of. Not yet. Not since it was much more widespread in the turbulent 1960s.

But where is this polarization headed? Yesterday on his radio program Hugh Hewitt asked Lileks what he thought would become of SBHFS (Sudden Bush Hatred Fatigue Syndrome) in the aftermath of a Bush victory this November.
"I don't know", Lileks replied in an unusually empty moment of candor.
At least that's an improvement over what Lileks feared last winter when he expressed the possibility of an escalation to physical violence;
" But the next election is just the beginning of the next phase of American politics. It gets ugly after next November. If some people think Bush is Hitler now, who will he be in 05 if he wins? Rabid Super Extra-Plus UltraHitler? ...I said last year that 04 was going to be ugly. I think 05 will be uglier.", said the Bleating One.

When I was working the GOP voter registration drive at Midway Stadium last week. I unhappily witnessed an incident of bigotry that I tried to correct. A Republican made a disparaging remark to me about the identity of a pair of women wearing Kerry stickers. He called into question their validity as women. Now, let me say, I work elbow to elbow with Republicans all the time and I have rarely, nay, never heard this sort of thing from them before. I calmly explained to this gentleman that they most certainly are women and that there is room for them in the Republican Party. If they would only join us I am certain they would be glad to be re-electing President Bush.
He tried to explain himself by saying that they had shot him dirty looks. Couldn't that come from mistrust? They are just as good as we are. We're all people.
I seemed to get through to him. He nodded that I was right.
I don't think I permanently changed his biases or belief system. But these sorts of things are impacted over time and experience.

The GOP that I know is compassionate and has a big tent. The nature of American politics being what it is, not everyone is going to walk into that tent. In order to have a two-party system you've gotta have the Democrats too, in their own tent. But it's not helpful to make enemies of them. We should have respect. We should make friends with one another. We're all Americans. Politics is the art of persuasion. How can you persuade an enemy if they mistrust or hate you? You can't.

This January when W begins his second term in the White House we need a Republican Congress to cooperate with him on very important matters of state, such as waging a war on radical extremist Islamism and preventing Iran from going nuclear. But we're going to need cooperation from Democrats, too. Especially if Democrats hold a majority in either house.

Any lefties who want to come into pinkmonkeybird blog and participate are welcome. I'm left on many social issues, such as gay marriage and drug decriminalization. We need to be friends; Republicans and Democrats. At least, we need to behave in a civil, respectful manner. The other night on Tim Russert's program on CNBC I thought Paul Krugman and Bill O'Reilly might come to blows. It started with charges of lying. (Krugman started it; "That's a lie. That is just a lie.")

W will win this November, I predict. When he does we need to find soft ways of accepting this victory. We need to keep it possible for the other side to imagine being persuaded by a Republican. When the Democratic Party reels in defeat, fires Terry McAuliffe * as director of the DNC because of his shrill style, and goes back to the drawing board to try and come up with a reasonable solution, the nation would do well if former Democrats did not think of us as Repugnant.

*Apparently, this is not really McAuliffe's desk. Okay. So it's a cruel joke. However, it is McAuliffe who must take credit for allowing his party to be hijacked by Michael Moore. That's prolly why this joke is at least a little humorous. Lighten up.

Turning the corner

Even the casual observer will have noticed that there is some activity making headlines in the War On Terror. While Volokh Conspiracy is far too alert to be called casual, they post that something is going on.
And then there is this from LGF.
Meanwhile, another senior al-Qaeda operative has been apprehended and is being questioned.

John Flippin' Kerry claims that W's assertion that the nation has turned a corner is false; that we've actually made a U-turn. That tussle was due to the less-than-expected jobs creation report that just came out for July.

But the fact remains that the jobs report, though a disappointment, still showed jobs creation. That's not a U-turn. It's merely a speed bump. I don't do a lot of driving, but I know that when I turn a corner it's a good idea to ease off the gas pedal just a bit. Don't wanna go careening into a tree. I'd be willing to think U-turn if these kinds of diminishing returns happen persistently in the coming months.

Add up these successes in the Bush Doctrine's War On Terror along with the jobs and economic recovery and W is right. We have turned a corner. When the American electorate hears that music and smells the bacon frying in the kitchen, it could very well add up to a landslide victory for W in November. (If we're sticking with our driving metaphor then I guess we just turned the corner around drive-in cafe with a juke box.)
I might be optimistic, yes, but I think there is good reason to be so. Let's summarize. The terrorists have not been able to knock off another attack on the American homeland since 9/11, we're gathering more information about al-Qaeda whilst arresting their operatives, the economy is improving, consumer confidence is up.
America is turning the corner because we either couldn't say any of those things last year, or as is the case with attacks on the homeland, we have further extended our success.

Those Seven Minutes

Making the rounds in the Blogosphere are reactions to John Flipper Kerry's remark last week to some journalists that if he were president on September 11th, 2001 when the terrorists flew jumbo jets into the twin towers and the Pentagon, he would have attended to it.
I think New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is right when he cites Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11. As has been stated elsewhere, the comments coming from Kerry have the whiff of desperation about them.
That the barking moonbat Left actually feels/thinks that there is any credibility to the assertion that W's remaining in his seat in the school reading room is somehow a damnably revealing lack of leadership, is telling. Apparently they think W should have ripped off his shirt, grabbed his AK-47 and dashed off into the jungle like Rambo.
Moore's film actually pretends to have a good idea what was going through the President's mind as he sat in the room with the children. Voicing over the footage, Moore narrates the President's thoughts;
"As Bush sat in that Florida classroom, was he wondering if maybe he should have shown up to work more often?...Was he thinking, 'I've been hanging out with the wrong crowd. Which one of them screwed me? (cut to video of Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1983) Was it the man my daddy's friends delivered a lot of weapons to? (cut to picture of "Taliban Leaders") Was it that group of religious fundamentalists who visited my state when I was governor? (cut to picture of the President and Saudi Royal Prince) Or was it the Saudis? Damn, it was them. I think I'd better blame it on this guy (video of Saddam Hussein smoking a cigar, dancing)."

When I originally saw the raw footage of W sitting in that classroom for these supposed seven minutes, I thought I was seeing a man who was coming to understand very suddenly that the world had profoundly changed. I thought I was looking at a man who had been, just a moment before, focused on promoting reading in our nation's children, so that they would be encouraged to grow and lead productive and happy lives in a free country. I thought I was looking at a man who was plunged into the realization that people hate us and want to kill us, that if they could, they would have killed more.

I didn't have to wait to see Moore's movie to be introduced to this notion that the barking moonbats think they know what W was thinking. Or that he is too dumb and simple to have any thoughts of his own without his puppetmasters there to make him dance. And when I'd first heard these notions expressed, I immediately got more of a feeling about those who put forth such postulates. And it's a feeling that does not reflect well upon them.

In the first place, why spend any energy scrutinizing those seven minutes and what the President did? He showed great restraint for remaining calm, by all outward appearances, in the aftermath of America's most deadly attack upon her home soil. Why not turn one's attention toward those attacks, rather than to the President when he'd learned of it? After all, I don't see that W has called any attention to himself to merit it.
Could it be that such scrutiny is turned there because....they hate him?
Is there any doubt that if the President had leaped to some animated action, it would then be charged that he was pouncing upon his preconceived adventure in Iraq?
"Bully! I've got my excuse to avenge my father!"

So gasoline was thrown on this moonbat fire when Moore made his crockumentary film.

And now we have John Flipper Kerry beaconing to its call. This man will apparently say anything to his constituents to gain their favor.

Inobservant Kerry Supporters

I felt like some street food today so I rambled on down to the fair.
Although, exactly what kind of food I felt like, I'm not sure. What ever it was, was prolly on a stick. Yeah. That's it. I felt like meat on a stick.
I wore my Bush-Cheney '04 cap and W '04 tee.
Wouldn't you know it, but the Kerry-Edwards people (vols, we call ourselves) were stationed, clipboards and stickers in hand, at the accessways.
I approached.
A Kerry vol noticed me, "Excuse me, ma'am, would you like a Kerry sticker?", he asked.
Then he noticed I was a man.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Sir, would you like a Kerry sticker?"

But hadn't I already been impugned?

Didn't he see my W cap and W tee? I don't think a reply was called for. I walked on.
After all, this wasn't Halloween. Today is August 8th. The last time I looked, I appeared to be a man today. A Republican, Bush man. They don't get much manlier than that, in most cases.

I'm trying to be objective here, folks. From where I sit, it looks to me like these Kerry supporters aren't very observant. If they can't notice Kerry is a flip-flopper, how can they notice anything else? Such as the fact that sarin and mustard gases have been found in Iraq and Saddam actually had sent agents to Niger in search of yellowcake.

Besides, some of my favorite writers are cross-dressers. (Photoshop courtesy of Fark)

This girdle is fargin' killing me!

Bringing new meaning to the word "yellowcake."

Leaders of a free world. 

NARN Call-in

I phoned in to the Northern Alliance Radio Network today regarding the Rock For Change Tour.

Just wanted to contribute my first-hand knowledge that Bob Geldolf, known as a political activist and accomplished musician, when appearing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 2003, had little to say of the evils of Geo. W. Bush and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Instead, to the chagrin of the Leftist audience, Geldolf used his time to slam that other Evil Empire; The USSR. (Which, thanks at least in part to President Ronald Reagan, had long-before been relegated to the ashbin of history.)

The NARN boys had much to say that is relevant about this tour with a political agenda. For instance, what makes these artists or their audience think they have any authority to speak to the issue? Of course, no one doubts their right to speak out as citizens. And I never got the sense that the NARN condemns the RFCT.

The music industry is an emotional and pandemic medium. A great part of the music industry's audience might be gauged to be less informed of the facts regarding political issues (although, certainly Sir Bob Geldolf, as Mitch Berg so respectfully and deservedly refers to him, would be an artist of highly informed and intelligent genesis) (Sorry if I confuse Geldolf's background. He never played in Genesis.) So the reality, despite the right to express one's self, remains; The RFCT may impact a realpolitik influence upon the coming election when their message reaches these emotatrons.
And that's fair game.

What I am interested in is the artists who are on the other side of the fence. By my measure, artists who would be advocates for this sitting president would be Gene Simmons, Johnny Ramone, www.conservativepunk.com, Toby Keith, Britney Spears...there are many more. There was a marvelous interview with a metal band artist in Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog. I recall it as being posted last Winter. Unfortunately, I cannot remember who that was. Anybody who does is urged to tell me in Comments.

The artists who support our troops and support the liberation effort tend to express that support by playing shows for the troops, not to the homeland electorate. I know that's what Toby Keith has done. There was a story on 60 Minutes about it.

I wish I could boycott the products of the artists of the RFCT. But I don't buy their records in the first place, so there's nothing to boycott. Maybe I'll express myself by going out and buying some more Ramones albums. (Although there is a sad rumor going 'round that Johnny is dying of cancer.)

These artists who play the RFCT are good people and talented musicians. They are expressing themselves and doing what they think is the right thing. I don't hold anything against them. I hope they have a great time on their tour and same for their fans.

So where are their opposites? Let's hear from them, too.

Let's Rock!

This blog is a member of Blogs For Bush

It has come to my attention that through the magic of reciprocity, this blog is now located in the blogroll of Blogs For Bush. What is the significance of that, you ask? Matt Margolis, BFBs founder, explains in his welcome page;

"Many doubted that Blogs For Bush could succeed. Howard Dean had amassed a blogroll of roughly ninety bloggers at the peak of his candidacy - and that was considered huge. John Kerry only accumulated fifty-five. Well, when John Kerry accepted his party's nomination, our Blogroll For Bush had over seven hundred and fifty blogs and it is still growing today! The overwhelming success of Blogs For Bush, and the power of the community that forms the Blogroll For Bush, lays to rest forever the media stereotype that liberals dominate the blogosphere.
I am pleased to say that Blogs For Bush is the single largest blog community dedicated to a political candidate anywhere! We have discovered support for George W. Bush we never knew was there. This is a testament to the powerful edge President Bush holds on the Internet in the 2004 election.
This is no accident. President George W. Bush's leadership inspired the creation of this site and brought this community together. We are united in our efforts to ensure George W. Bush's reelection."

The Internet and by extension, the Blogosphere inhabited within the Internet bring new power and meaning to the word "grassroots". I'm proud to be included. Four more years!

This is not a porn site!

It is with regret that I report that there is another site with the name PinkMonkeyBird that is nothing more than a pornography website.
If you are looking for porn, I suggest you go elsewhere.
I refuse to provide the link to the PinkMonkeyBird porn site, as it is vile and obscene and well, they make more money than I do. So don't even bother to hunt that site down unless you are willing to find your credit card.

If you are reading this and wish to find this site again, why not save it to your Favorites folder right now? It might save you some embarrassment in having to explain why your History files point to the nasty porn site.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Exit Strategy Found

As luck would have it, I ran into another volunteer I knew at the rally. This fellow was at HQ last Tuesday when I was on the phone bank. He'd told me then that he couldn't come to my rescue in providing a ride because he was leaving at 6 am and was going to be making calls to a few customers he has in his personal business. Wouldn't you know it, I ran into him at the rally almost immediately upon reaching the stage. And yes, he could give me a lift home.
I love it when a plan comes together.

I've written about the trip and the site, but I haven't much described the President's speech. The crowd was very enthusiastic about seeing him, of course. And many local Republican officials were there to get things warmed up. They included Congressmen Gil Gutknecht and John Kline, Minnesota State Governor Tim Pawlenty and State Senator Norm Coleman. Representing support for the President coming from the armed forces on the stage was Col. Joe Repya.

Also speaking was Cheri Pierson Yecke, Minnesota's ex-education chief.
Yecke's presence at the rally and her message served to remind voters that the Republican Party is active in serious education reform, but is blocked from this reform by the opposing party.

There was a familiar ring to the President's speech. Anyone who has been exposed to the two minute news flashes on television has heard pieces of this stump speech at least a few times. But listening to the entire speech (which was 40 minutes long) brought underlying themes to mind.

Buzzwords parsed in the President's delivery were "values", "accountability", "responsibility", "results", "reform", "compassion" and "ownership". I don't intend to demean these words by calling them buzzwords. An effective campaign will recognize the need to define the candidate and carefully choose words that serve to shape that definition.

Here's a key sentence from W's speech;"Listen, our culture is changing from one that said, if it feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else, to a culture in which each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life."

That sentence frames the difference between W's vision of a government that is a reflection of the values of the people in contrast to an idiot machine that dumbly plugs in, leaving its subjects unaccountable.

No one who heard the President's address could walk away and complain that he'd not said something of substance. No one could claim that it was a negative message. It was challanging and it was hopeful and it was inspiring. I was reminded of what one of the men I'd called in my phone bank work told me over the telephone; "I like Bush. He gets shit done."

The message I got from this speech was that a vote for President Bush would be a vote for a government and a leader who understand that it is the people of the United States who hold primacy. Government's role is to serve the values of the people, a people who are hard-working and hold strong values of freedom and humanity and responsibility. President George W. Bush is a known quantity. He gets results. He'll work for us at least as hard as we work for ourselves.
I like that message. It feels very American.

No Exit Strategy

W in Mankato
In answer to custos morum, there was no plan. And we found ourselves in a quagmire with no exit strategy. But there was the president. The event took place at The Quarry. Kasota stone is mined here. One of the most notable buildings in Minneapolis made from this quarry's stone is the Wells Fargo Center.
It's a natural for the president's security teams. Much easier to protect the president in a quarry, where there is mile after mile of nothing but stone and wildlife, than an urban setting teeming with dangerous possibilities and security problems.

I took the Greyhound Bus down, as indicated yesterday. Smooth ride. Slept most of the way. Got a haircut in downtown Mankato. Mr. Bill's Barber. Nice fellow, that Mr. Bill. He helped me get my facts down. Told me where the Quarry is. Heh. I hadn't done my homework before I came to town. So the trip was really full of surprises.

Mr. Bill directed me to City Hall. It was there that I got a local bus schedule for the route that would take me somewhat close to the Quarry. A little lunch and by 1:35 I was riding a #3 bus. The driver was good enough to call out my stop out there, in the northeast end of town.

So now I had two options left; walk or hitchhike. I figured my odds of hitching a ride were quite good, since I was wearing W gear and I was going to a W rally. Isn't that enough to get everyone in the mood to say, "Hop in"? Well, funny you should ask. Because who do you suppose picked me up? A carload of Kerry activists. They hadn't bothered to notice my W gear. Huh? I guess they'd simply assumed that a hitchhiker must be a Democrat. Anyway, I'd made it clear when I piled in that I was a Bushman. We all had a good laugh about that for a few. But it wasn't long before my politics were questioned. There were some words exchanged. We kept it civil, but the woman in the back seat with me saw horns growing out of my forehead, it seemed to me. They were appalled that I am a social liberal lending my support to W. "You seem quite intelligent....Why?"
"Leadership" was my response. They wouldn't buy my details. Such as how Kerry changes his position and does not possess leadership capabilities on a par with W.
They eventually got sick of looking at me and asked me to get out of the car.
"Thank you. We're all Americans," I reminded them.
Hey, I've gotta hand it to 'em. No Republican picked me up on that road.

The rally itself was fun and energized.

More tomorrow...


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Going In With No Plan

Well, at least I have half a plan.
Greyhound Bus will get me to Mankato. But I'll have to use my resourcefulness to get back to the Twin Cities, as none of the returning buses work for my schedule.
At the very least, I imagine I can rent a car down there for a one-way trip home.

If you see me among the throng, say hello. And for gosh sakes, gimme a ride to Minneapolis.

pinkmonkeybird and Saints team mascot, Mudonna....who'd whispered in my ear she is a W supporter. But don't tell. 

In case there was any doubt who was gonna win this ballgame. 

"I WANT YOU" to buy me a hotdog with onions and mustard.