Obama and Lincoln

Listening to NPR today and heard them asking three candidates their favorite former presidents.

Rather revealing. Fred Thompson mentioned George Washington for his integrity. McCain mentioned Lincoln, TR, and Truman, for their guts and energy. OK, not surprising choices given their messages on the campaign trail.

But the most revealing was Obama. He said only Lincoln. His reason? Lincoln did not attack his political opponents. Huh? Obama is simply ignorant. Lincoln sent federal agents to close opposition newspapers. He had people arrested and detained and denied Habeus Corpus simply for opposing him. The list goes on of Lincoln's oppressive activities against Northern political enemies.

If these choices reflect real opinions and not just campaign rhetoric then Obama is a dangerous man. I suppose he is just ignorant and poorly read in history. The alternative is scary.

In either case Obama is not competent or qualified to be President of the United States.

Made in Japan

I work in a large distribution center for a big retailer. We get thousands of products through every night. One interesting thing I see is the countries where things are made. China, of course is the biggest. Lots from the US too, and some occasionally from India, Thailand, Italy and a few others.

I have yet to se a product made in Japan. A lot of things from Japanese companies, but not made in Japan. China, of course.

I am old enough to remember when Japan was well on its way to conquering the world. Now they seem sadly behind the times. I lived there for some 15 years, and I am not surprised by this. For the last decade Japanese companies have been transfering production to China and other cheap-labor countries.

Lets keep this in mind when hearing pundits bewailing the rise of China. China has an interesting set of self-made problems, not the least of which is its unbalanced population. They will age fast.

Fred Thompson

Well, it is late in the game, but I have to admit to preferring Fred Thompson. None of the others are anywhere near conservative enough or libertarian enough to interest me. Click the link above to find out how to donate to Fred.

Fred faces some unique problems. He is too much like what Reagan claimed to be. We have to remember that Reagan was hated not only by the liberal left but also disliked by Republican insiders. He won in spite of the party, not because of it that first time around. Then of course they all made like vultures and began circling around hoping to tear off their own hunks of meat.

Fred is also being ignored by the party and by the press. They all hope he will just fade away.

I have never had a chance to vote for a presidential candidate I really liked. I hope to this time around.

Recent Low Posting

A death in the family.

Race Realtions, Real World

My new job brings me into contact with a lot of people. I have been interested to observe how the different races are interacting. First, there are very very few Hispanics and only two Asians in the company. I don't know why that should be, I was expecting to find lots of Hispanics.

So the two groups are mainly Whites and Blacks, ranging in age from 18 to about 60, and the full educational scale.

In school Blacks and Whites tended to segregate themselves. Separate tables at lunch, separate frats and sororities. I hung out a bit with a few blacks because I was on the track team.

But in the real world I don't see much of that segregation. My 'team' sits together at lunch, All ages and both Blacks and Whites together. And the other tables are the same.On the job we do the same work, side by side.

Now, this is small town Mid-West. Are things different in the big cities? If you read the newspapers you would think so, from all the race-war articles about provocations like racial slurs and nooses and the like.

Most of these seem to involve schools, either staff or students. Professors mouthing racist slogans in class inciting kids to stupidity.

In the real world things are not really that bad.