Can't Hide The Pressure

Perhaps forcing bad medicine down the throats of the American people is a bit wearing?

She doesn’t have the votes.  The pressure must be unbearable. Pelosi even admitted to Charlie Rose that she doesn’t KNOW if she has the votes to pass healthcare.  Her colleagues ducking her in Capitol hallways, eating alone in their offices, and declining CNN interviews, should be a tip off.

We should take a poll.  Why do YOU think the democratic leadership won’t accept defeat on this most unpopular idea since Hilary Clinton’s declaration for the presidency?

I think it is because President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi all see their faces on statues.  In Washington.  In a public park.  Otherwise, why would these democratic leaders put targets on the backs of every Democrat running for re-election in 2010?  An even more obvious reason is that if Pelosi, Reid and  President Obama don’t have healthcare, the only thing in their column will be utter defeat.  They’ve got too much skin in the game to give up.  Their donors, their far-left, ultra-liberal supporters, will consider them failures.

And then 2012 really will be a lonely election year.

This is why Nancy Pelosi shut down ALL other committee meetings and assignments today on Capitol Hill.  She was hunting down her colleagues, locking them in a room together, trying to scare some courage back into them.

The smell of defeat is all over the Hill.

Believe it or not, this spells victory for taxpayers.  Instead of  over 16 trillion dollars in debt by the end of the year, we will only be 12 .5 trillion dollars in debt!

Third Time's The Charm

Last evening on CNN’s Larry King, Brown seemed old, out of touch, and ineffective in explaining why California would benefit by having TWELVE years of his leadership.  Jerry Brown followed in his father’s footsteps by winning the governship of California in 1975 and serving two terms.  Edmund G. (Pat) Brown served from 1959-1967.  While his father is credited with creating a statewide water plan and developing a system of higher education in California, voters almost stomped their feet to retire Jerry Brown after eight years of his liberal agenda.

Jerry Brown spent virtually his entire professional career either working in government or campaigning.  He made three failed attempts to run for President of the United States in 1976, 1980 and 1992.  He ran for the Senate and lost in 1982.  Settling for wins in statewide offices, Brown has been elected California Secretary of State, Governor, Attorney General, and even Mayor of Oakland.

More conservative Americans should see a pattern developing. The Democratic agenda is to expand and insure what is its most liberal agenda in 40 years.   In a year when the groundswell in the country is uncertainty, The White House along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are committed to continuing to spend blindly.      According to today’s National Debt Clock, America is now $12.5 trillion in debt and Obamacare would increase that figure to nearly $14 trillion.

The Golden State For Electoral Votes

The DNC’s backing of California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown should be a big, fat billboard to taxpayers that the Democratic National Committee has no intention of letting the state house of California slip away just before the 2012 presidential election.  Barack Obama will need California.   The unspoken fact is that in November,  Jerry Brown will likely face Mitt Romney protégé Meg Whitman, former Ebay CEO.   Not only has Whitman given every American a tiny piece of the economy through Ebay, but as Governor of California, she would be infinitely valuable to Mitt Romney in a run to unseat Barack Obama.

Another layer to this political battle is the fight over gay marriage.  Jerry Brown abandoned California voters and the outcome of the 2008 election supporting traditional marriage in California.  As Attorney General, Brown refused to represent the People of California in defending the election in the California Supreme Court.  Voters were outraged.  Brown was typically, putting his philosophies before his commitment to his office.   Voters on both sides of this issue will be marching to California polls to help decide Brown’s future in public office.

In politics, every 8×10 is usually really an 11×14.

Americans are advised to have multiple and varied passwords to protect any and all online accounts.

Might Want To Pay Cash

Even closer to home, be careful using your gas cards and other credit cards at the gas pump!   Professional identity thieves have been discovered REPLACING card readers in gas pumps with their own readers, stealing credit card numbers and identities, and sharing the information.

Read and beware.

www.darkreading.com/database_security/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=223100233

BBC News

How computers took over our cars

Toyota’s recall of its Prius model this week wasn’t down to a mechanical fault but a software glitch. Increasingly, computers are in control of our cars, says Paul Horrell, and that is changing our relationship with the open road.

In this week’s recall of the Toyota Prius, there is no faulty mechanical component. All that’s necessary is a quick software update to recalibrate the electrically generated pedal “feel” in its braking system. Which just goes to show how deeply computer control is embedded in today’s cars.

The Prius is such a famously economical car partly because of its regenerative braking system. When the driver touches the brake pedal, there is no mechanical link to the normal brake discs. In gentle braking, all that happens is the electric generator in the powertrain takes up the load, slowing the car by collecting its kinetic energy and re-charging its battery.

COMPUTERS IN A MODERN CAR Climate control unit – allows driver to control temperature with thermostat. Also detects pollutants and shuts off air intake accordingly Alarm and immobiliser – controls security. Engine starts when two codes sent wirelessly via aerial in steering wheel Engine management – controls fuel injection, engine temperature, ignition Wiper control – turns on wipers when it rains; adjusts headlights to counteract heavy loads Automatic transmission – monitors weather, load, incline and position of accelerator to select best gear ABS - controls brakes in emergency and can brake any of four wheels to correct a potential skid Airbag – triggers front and side airbags in event of crash or impact Parking aid – operates warning signal to let driver know how close they are to object behind them Q&A: Toyota recalls Connected cars ‘promise safer roads’

Only when the driver brakes moderately hard, or when the battery is charged, do the electronics hand over the braking effort to the wheel discs. For this to occur smoothly, instantly and predictably is an extraordinarily complex piece of control technology.

But then, while they don’t have this type of “brake by wire”, all modern cars do have some electronics in the brakes. The anti-lock braking system (ABS) detects if a wheel has locked up, which causes a skid. ABS corrects this by over-riding the mechanical command from the pedal, easing the braking pressure on the affected wheel.

Back in the 1980s, ABS, along with electronically regulated fuel injection, was one of the first pieces of electronics in cars. They used to be a selling point – now they’re standard by law. You can’t have modern exhaust emission control without fuel injection, and electronic control is nowadays cheaper and more effective than mechanical.

As cars have become more economical over the years, the degree of electronic optimisation of the engine and transmission has grown. And on hybrid cars such as the Prius and Honda Insight, it’s orders of magnitude more complex again. All the driver does is press the throttle, but the powertrain electronics module independently controls both the petrol engine and the electric motor, and the transmission that blends them, to give the most economical drive at any given moment.

Many of today’s computerised systems take the load off the driver, for the sake of safety or convenience. High-end cars have radar-based cruise control to vary their speed, keeping them a safe distance from the car in front. “Crash mitigation” uses the radar to sense that the car in front has stopped or there’s an obstacle, and can apply the brakes if the driver fails to.

Trickle down effect

Camera-based “lane-keeping assist” reads the road markings and nudges the steering to keep the car in its motorway lane. And infra-red-based night-vision systems can recognise pedestrians and warn the driver if they’re stepping into the car’s path.

David ‘Knight Rider’ Hasselhoff, prophet of the computer-car synthesis

These systems are beginning (as with the new Audi A8) to link up with the satellite navigation, the better to predict the road ahead and work more smoothly.

And history has shown that these gadgets trickle down. In five years or so they’ll be available, at least as options, on mid-market hatchbacks.

With this level of electronic driver support, won’t cars soon be able to drive themselves? In fact car makers have built prototypes that can do just that. But for years into the future they will stop short of selling them. It’s too onerous to take legal responsibility away from the driver.

Even so, cars will continue to harvest more and more information about the world around them. Rival manufacturers are co-operating to lay down an automotive wifi standard. The aim is that in a few years from now vehicles will be able to set up ad-hoc car-to-car networks. Cars would send and receive their position, direction and speed to neighbouring vehicles. Your car would warn you if a vehicle was around a corner, coming towards you but hidden. If you don’t apply the brakes, it could.

Soulless automation

This type of networking opens more possibilities. Imagine a localised traffic jam in a city – a truck breaks down, say. Cars that get stuck will report their position to neighbouring cars, which will pass it on to a wider pool of vehicles. The navigation systems in vehicles a few streets away will be able to use this info to re-route and avoid the jam.

The golden days – some drivers dislike the feel of modern cars

So there’s no doubt computerisation is making every car more effective as a transport appliance. But that’s a pretty dreary fate for the most expensive piece of technology we ever buy. People don’t always want that level of soulless automation. They want an individual relationship with their cars.

Electronics come to our aid here too. And it goes beyond just having personal preferences for the entertainment and navigation interfaces.

Any system that’s governed or modulated by electronics can be re-programmed. For most cars today that means the engine response, steering weight, suspension firmness, climate control, even engine sound. It’s becoming common for cars to have a ’sport’ button on the dashboard. This lets them feel more relaxed in town, but when the driver presses the button, their responses get more urgent on a faster country road.

The engineers for different car brands can go further with this, taking the same basic components (because commonality reduces cost) but baking in a particular character of driving feel by calibrating the firmware to suit their brand.

In an age where brands are a means of self-expression, that’s become a critical part of car marketing.

Lonely But Wealthy At The Top

highest paid anchor in news history, at a reported $14 million a year.  That’s $300,000 a week.  Drudge reports that CBS news staffers have been grumbling over layoffs when Katie’s salary could easily keep many $75,000 reporters employed.   It is interesting to note that Anchormen in even smaller news markets, top 50 cities in the country, 30 years ago, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece.  Today, there isn’t an on-air talent in the country who feels secure day-to-day on-air.  Everyone is vulnerable.  Drudge just makes it public.

As Jay Leno put it, “You either get the ratings, or you don’t.”   Right now no one in television is pulling in the five, ten, fifteen or twenty million viewers a night that network news anchors and managing editors used to draw.  CNN’s Anderson Cooper is fortunate if one million people are watching him.  This is true about all the networks, except FOX News which draws more like 3-6 million.

drudgereport.com/flashkcc.htm

"CBSNEWS anchorwoman and 60 MINUTES contributor Katie Couric faces a dramatic pay cut at the network, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

CBS boss Les Moonves is determined to save money and trim expenses -- from top to bottom -- at the former crown jewel of broadcasting.

Couric, the highest paid TV news personality in history, commands over $14 million a year, plus bumps for non-EVENING NEWS appearances.

But her salary is now in the direct line of fire, network insiders explain, and a populist backlash against Couric's cash is said to be forming inside the newsroom.

"She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!" demands a veteran producer. "It's complete insanity."

The angry source continues: "We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it is out of step with reality during a recession. Well, look at Katie!"

Couric's current CBS contract expires next year.

Developing...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press. Tears welled in the lifelong reporter�s eyes as he discussed the dwindling number of war correspondents.

The Truth?

have preferred not to take that journey.  Blair shared insights and information and most of all reminders, of the psychotic and mass-murdering history of this dictator.  The Wall Street Journal Online recounts his testimony here before an inquiry in Great Britain and offers perspectives that are valuable to revisit.

President George Bush became a lightening rod because of his swift, focused commitment to the ouster of Hussein.  His strengths were always in personal conviction, not communication.  History though, I believe, will judge his response to the threats to America’s security, and to the security and stabilization of the world as responsible.   Were there other paths?  Should we have simply invaded Afghanistan instead?  Should we have stayed home and protected our own borders?

Bush did what every president must do.  He led with the information he had. His choices were unique to virtually any other President of the United States since Roosevelt.  Only the threats facing Americans were not on distant shores, they were on the streets of our own cities.  Voters on both sides of the aisle can make solid cases for staying out of Iraq, but no one can deny the obvious.  Sadam Hussein would have likely opened the borders of Iraq to many enemies of the United States and created a nationwide terrorist motel.

Map of Headaches

To view a map of the region is to feel the imminent dangers to the United States.  No imagination required.  Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan to the East.  Syria to the Northwest.  Kuwait vulnerable as ever.  The world’s oil supply ( of course) wrapped up in Iraq and Saudia Arabia and other neighboring producing countries.  Finally, Israel, always the ultimate defense issue on the table, a sitting duck.

Blair and the Wall Street Journal take a worthwhile look back.

Americans In Iraq

You can see Justice Samuel Alito shaking his head and mouthing the words, “Not true,” in response to the president.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, we have this from Georgetown law professor Professor Randy Barnett:

In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds [of] Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.

Instapundit has a collection of additional comments on this latest episode.

One of the criticisms we hear about President Obama is that he is arrogant. This episode certainly seems to support that claim. And that attitude of arrogance may pervade his administration. In the video, you can see Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, at the Court members’ right. He is sitting right next to them. At least, he was, until he leapt to his feet and, with a grin, began applauding the president’s statement. If nothing else, this whole episode is appallingly impolite.

And to think the president is a lawyer.

Carly Fiorina Surging

Carly Fiorina is a conservative and principled woman who has the know-how and the support to win in a head-to-head battle with the legendary and rough campaign tactics of Boxer.

Early polling numbers reveal that Boxer is already having trouble getting out of the gates with her own constituents.  This week Instapundit reports:

“ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Beau Biden won’t run for Senate after all. What’s next? Bye, bye Bayh? Or a Boxer past her prime? “The fact that Boxer’s support is frozen at 46 percent against all GOP challengers suggests that the race, for now, is about her rather than those running against her. Boxer is viewed very favorably by 25 percent of California voters but very unfavorably by 34 percent.”

Barbara Boxer is not alone in her vulnerability this year, but she is a favorite conservatives would like to retire.  Long-entrenched Democrats like Chris Dodd also see the writing on the wall and are looking to run from defeat and await a likely payback position in the Obama Administration.   Harry Reid too.  His re-election bid in Nevada seems doomed. The Senate Majority Leader doesn’t seem too concerned though, because assurances by the White House have probably already been given about his future.   But Barbara Boxer has no such cover.  She has always somehow been shielded by the shadow of the more relevant, real, and reasonable Diane Feinstein.

In The Background

In this junkyard dog political season, when so many Democrats are going to be clawing to hang onto their seats, the DNC may see Boxer’s expensive re-election race as a loser.

Carly Fiorina is high-contrast to the tolerated Boxer.  She is easily one of the most accomplished women in America.  She is campaigning throughout California to standing ovations.  In San Diego this month, a last minute upgrade to a giant ballroom was required to handle the growing crowds that arrived to hear her.  Fiorina is Barbara Boxer’s worst nightmare because she has actually done something.  Senator Boxer has no answer to Fiorina’s blue chip preparation and training, her two MBA’s, and work history that spans a receptionist desk all the way to the top of AT&T, Lucent Technologies and Hewlett Packard.  If that’s not enough, Fiorina has served most recently as the Chair of the C.I.A. Advisory Board.

In a debate, Barbara Boxer will have to do her homework to rival Carly Fiorina’s command of domestic and global economic strategies and policy.  Worse, in the one area where Boxer can point to a leadership role, as the Chair of the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee, Boxer’s failures have literally sucked the economic life out of her own state of California.  Unemployment is sky-high in the fertile Central Valley of California.  At least 40% of all workers in the Central Valley are unemployed because of long-term drought. Barbara Boxer is the one Senator in the country who could “prime the pump” with a simple legislative directive, but she won’t do it.  She refuses to remove the regulatory handcuffs which restrict water from flowing freely in California and which PROTECT:  the Smelt Fish.  The “The Delta Smelt” fish, which is no bigger than the tip of your finger has her allegiance because it stands to become extinct.

The 400-mile Central Valley is the world’s largest agricultural area; the “salad bowl”, where half of the country’s vegetables are grown. Between population growth in the Valley and environmental protections for the Smelt fish, farmers trying to maintain five million acres of farmland are finding themselves last in line for the world’s most precious natural resource.

Dried Out

Worsening the Central Valley economic crisis, is the fact that the crucial Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a thousand-square-mile web of channels, islands and levees which drive water to giant dams and pumps and deliver water to 25 million Californians, is old and decaying.  An earthquake, a failed levee, a weakened or aging dam, could starve almost all of California of water at any time.    Governor Schwarzenegger has plead for help to rebuild the water system, but the state is broke.

Thus, while terrorism, health care, the economy, and education are going to drive most political debates in 2010, in California, an even more fundamental question may actually determine who wins the Senate and the Governor’s seat.

In the middle of a hot, dry, summer political season, the question Californians will be asking is, “Who will turn on the water?”

To study Senator Barbara Boxer’s voting record, check out the Washington Post. 97% of the time Boxer has voted straight down party-lines.

Where To Pass The Torch?

The more one looks at Martha Coakley, the more you have to wonder where were all the Massachusetts aspirants to the Kennedy Senate seat?  Did the Democrats fall into the awful hole of delivering a favor to Coakley because it was her turn?

Obvious by their absence in the race were all of Ted Kennedy’s children, nieces and nephews.  Not one of the multitude of Kennedy children or grandchildren was either scandal-free or desirous of carrying on the family dynasty, not even in their own home state.   Patrick Kennedy stumped for Martha Coakley at the end of the campaign, but wasn’t invested in her candidacy enough to know her name!  He called her Marsha not once, but three times at the same campaign rally.  Joseph Kennedy II joined Teddy Kennedy’s wife in an endorsement, but he himself left politics because  of uncomfortable public scrutiny.  So how helpful was his support?   Even with the presence of Kennedy’s widow and the endorsement of the Kennedy clan, Coakley couldn’t pull it out.  You might want to measure for yourself the energy level the Kennedy’s brought to a Coakley endorsement in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kL2pnNNm8M

Of course…who could blame them?

The reality of 2010?

In this election, the Kennedy legacy was old news to Massachusetts taxpayers.  Even the state’s deep well of devoted union members proved that they cared more about their shrinking paychecks than tradition.  In the early 1900’s the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys could easily “manage” the outcome of a Boston or Massachusetts election.  In 1960, historians are quite confident that Joe Kennedy insured the election of his son, John.  Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy both enjoyed the boost of the Kennedy money, the Kennedy reach, and above all the Kennedy mystique.   However, the second generation of Joseph Kennedy’s offspring haven’t faired as well.  Most have steered away from the limelight of elected office.  A couple of Joseph Kennedy’s grandchildren have been sent packing because of misbehavior and scandal.  Those who have dived in like Joseph II and Kathleen, have left the tiniest of footprints.  One of the most piercing blows to the Kennedy name  was the public rejection of perhaps the most stalwart and classiest Kennedy, Caroline.  When Obama’s team leaked her name as a possible babysitter for Hilary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat, she was publicly repudiated by the media, and even by Democrats.  Caroline Kennedy was described as unprepared and inexperienced, and she was.

Now the last blow.  Ted Kennedy’s sometimes overstated senate record and iconic status in the senate is going to fade into the history books.  On election day, voters told pollsters that after four decades, “Massachusetts needed a change.”

The torch has been passed….to a Republican.