Republicans Winning Women?

Here's an interesting bit of news:

Last week's election results show that women voters, who have traditionally been primarily Democrats, are shifting to the Republican camp. (Like my color-coding?) The Los Angeles Times called it, "a jolting drop in female support this year for House Democrats".

The article went on to say that the drop is mostly because more married women voted Republican this year, but that single women, "historically one of the party's most loyal demographic groups" also voted for Republicans more than previously.

Pollsters blame it on Obama and Democratic leaders for failing to ease their financial stresses.

Thank you, Mr. President. We knew you'd have our backs.

We appreciate your support.

The Latest Obamaism

"AP - President Barack Obama plans to propose the first-ever national emission limits for cars and trucks as well as average mileage requirements of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 — all costing consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle."

Genius. Let's charge people more money for cars. That'll save the auto industry. 

Quote Time

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

-Ronald Reagan

There's so much that I feel like saying about the Obama administration right now. About all the ridiculous moves they've been making, including flying an airplane through Manhattan's restricted airspace, scaring the wits out of people whose last memory of such an event was on 9/11, but I'm not going to waste my energy on whining.

This quote from Reagan, however, seems to sum my feelings up very nicely. I'd like to say that the Obama administration is just plain stupid, because sometimes when I read or hear the news these days that's exactly what I think, but doing so would show my own ignorance. Obama is not stupid, and neither are the people in his administration. But what they do know and the conclusions that they come to based on that knowledge are looking like supremely bad moves to me.

Stop crying about water boarding terrorists. Think before you send a plane that looks just like (and is used as a secondary) Air Force One into Manhattan airspace. Stop giving money away like it grows on trees.

Anyone have any other "dumb moves" that they'd like to add to the list?

Slavery Today

A bunch of celebrities got together recently to tell Obama that he's not alone. They wanted to reassure him after he got, "the loneliest job in the world." Poor guy. 

They all pledged to take steps to help Obama in his lonely job. Some of the pledges were pretty good. I especially liked the one where some celebrity, who I didn't recognize, pledged,  "to consider myself an American, not an African-American." What a great goal for a nation that really needs to let itself get past its history of slavery. Come on - do we really need affirmative action when a black man just managed to get the most powerful job in the country? 

It was slavery, more than any other issue, that was emphasized in this video. I quote:

Some lady with an accent and a smoker's voice: "I pledge"

Some woman in a white jacket: "To work to make good the 200 year old promise to end slavery"

Ashton Kutcher: "To the abolition of 21st century slavery"

Demi Moore: "To free one million people from slavery in the next five years" 

Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to. Because I'm not completely ignorant, I'm going to venture a guess that this "slavery" that they're talking about is taking place in Sudan or Rwanda, (Uganda? Western Sahara? Kenya?) or something, an inference I make from,

1. A video I came across a year or so ago that told the story of children in Africa kidnapped and forced to fight for their captor's army, (which kind of sounds like the stories of Jews in Russia being kidnapped and forced to join the Czar's army,) and,

2. From the fact that modern-day slavery stemmed from Africa when warring African tribes sold their prisoners-of-war to European slave traders. 

If someone knows what the real story is, please do tell, but in the meantime I really have to wonder how these celebrities expect their audience to know what they're talking about when most Americans (and I don't say this in a boastful manner - it's just a fact,) are not nearly as aware of world issues as I am, and even I'm not sure what they're talking about. 

Freeing slaves -- that I know a lot about. In the daily prayers that Jews (are supposed to) say every day we are reminded about the fact that G-d freed us from slavery in Egypt a while back. As I was saying them today I was thinking about the fact that, like the Passover prayer says, if G-d had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, we - and our children, and our grandchildren - would still be slaves to some guy with the title, "Pharaoh," in Egypt. Pretty spooky. 

From my knowledge of slaves being freed, it's gonna take a heck of a lot more than just a mention in a celebrity video to free these 21st century slaves. Try 12 plagues. 

Oh wait, no - that won't work. Destroying enemy land (Locust) and property (Pestilence, Hail), torturing the enemy (No water! Bugs everywhere! Boils! Turning out the lights!), and killing the enemy (Death of the Firstborn) would all be deemed unusable as tactics for freeing a suffering people. 

Okay, so we don't free them the way G-d did - we free them the way Lincoln did. Nope - that won't work either. It took a war with more American casualties than any other war fought by America to free those slaves. Besides, Lincoln was a Republican and we can't do anything the way that he did it. 

How about in the way that we freed Afghanis from the Taliban's cruel reign and Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's oppression? 

Right...

How, exactly, are these celebrities expecting us to end slavery, then?

Can we please get a third-party candidate?

Election, election, election. It's all anyone's talking about and it seems like it's all we're hearing about these days. Even the regular TV shows are sneaking in election plotlines.

What I find interesting is that of the three shows that I'm aware of who've recently featured election plotlines, (and there are probably more than just the ones I'm aware of,) two of them had a third candidate win by write-in. Ther original two candidates in these plots were just too radical and too involved in the politics of the election to consider what the population voting for them really needed and wanted. 

This third-party feature is no coincidence, I'm sure. I've heard so many people say that they don't like either candidate, and while a third candidate in this election wouldn't work because there's no room for a third party in National American politics*, there are probably a lot of people who wish that they had someone other than Obama or McCain to vote for. 

In the American History course that I'm currently taking, in which I'm the only Conservative in the room**, I've had both the professor and classmates challenge my vote for McCain and all I can say to them is, "I don't like McCain either; I'm just voting for him because he's not Obama." 

It bothers me terribly that I'm going to be voting this coming Tuesday for a candidate I neither like nor trust, but I dislike and distrust Obama so much more that I just don't feel like I have a choice. 

Maybe I'll write-in my own third-party candidate; it's not like a vote for McCain really count in California anyways. 

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*Third-party candidates in previous elections have only ever made a difference by taking votes from one of the major candidates, such as when Ross Perot took votes that George Bush Sr. would have gotten, possibly ruining the election for him, or when Ralph Nader takes away votes that the Democratic candidate would be getting otherwise. 

**There might be other Conservatives in the classroom, but if they are, they're keeping quiet. When the course just began I was sure, based on his facial reactions to some of the professor's liberal rants, that one guy was Conservative, but he stopped coming to class after the first two weeks or so. Maybe because he couldn't take it anymore. 

Me? I've become pals with the professor, who think that he's going to crush all of my Conservative beliefs with his liberal logic. Apparently, though, (according to one of my classmates,) the two weeks of class that I missed due to the Jewish holiday season were really boring. All liberalism and no logic can get a bit stale, I suppose.