Slarty's World

I feel a little bit obsessed with this topic as of late, but I find it fascinating that “Comrades of the Left” can be so amazingly harsh and tasteless about their hatred of Palin. In fact, I think that anyone that expresses such hate and vitrol about any candidate probably should have their opinions discounted. I listen to both left wing and right wing “politic” talk radio and it happens on both sides. People hated Reagan, Bush, Clinton, etc… Check out this article in the Chicago Tribune:

Sarah Palin gets painted in full, and nothing’s conservative about it
North Side tavern hangs nude portrait

The have a picture accompanying the article, and the caption reads:

Bruce Elliott, whose wife owns the Old Town Ale House, painted this nude portrait of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. He said his daughter, who does a good impression of the Alaska governor, served as model.

1. A naked portrait of Palin? Come on now! You, sir, are no gentleman!
2. You have your daughter pose? (Or tell the reporter this info.)

Strange days these are.

There is a new ad airing in a few battleground states that makes it seem like Sarah Palin is personally slaughtering wolves in Alaska. Apparently, there is a policy in Alaska to protect their game/meat animals from over harvesting by predators. In the case of wolves and bears, a few select people are allowed to harvest part of the population via the air. If you want to read up on the controversy here is the link to the YouTube Ad and an analysis at FactCheck.org.

Personally, I think this attack is hooey. It sounds like there is a very heated debate in Alaska about how the wolf population should be managed. In addition, a large portion of the state agrees with the current practice and voted for Palin because she campaigned on it. So it might seem cruel to someone sitting on a veranda in Michigan, but as a society we kill a ton more other animals than a few hundred wolves in Alaska. Maybe we should only vote for candidates that are vegans. Moreover, this is in Alaska. If Sarah Palin was traveling around the country saying that if she is elected she is going to authorize this practice nationwide, then we might have something to discuss. I think Alaskans know how to manage Alaska better than non-Alaskans (and a lot better than the Fe’ral Government)

I like animals, though, they are cute and have a right to live here.

So this is interesting in two respect to me. One – holy crap is that a lot of contributions. Two – what a neat use of a time chart. Apparently this is a graphing function that is available in Google Apps – I wonder if it is in Excel?

Contributions to federal politicians from different sectors,

I am discovering all sorts of RSS feeds these days that cover politics using Google Reader’s recommendations. It uses what you are subscribed to and suggests other sources that others with similar interests are reading.

I discovered the Minnesota Independent a few weeks ago and get irritated every time I read it. I kind of like getting pissed off so that is probably why I still read it. What irritates me is that my original interest in it was that it was “Independent,” and upon further review, it is really a very liberal publication that sort of specializes in publishing slim-shady(Slarty for Slanderous) articles about McCain and other Pachyderms. Wikipedia has an article about the blog and I guess there is some controversy about its funding being more politically oriented. (I guess George Soros’ Open Society has given some dough).

So no real news here, people can say and publish what they want, but I wanted to express my irritation in a more constructive way than simply swearing at my computer screen. If it was really independent, I would think that it would cover all major politicians as one large group of characters that say whatever they think will preserve their power and when they get their power they wield it in a way to preserve it.

On a side note, I just found Ron Paul’s web site’s RSS feed – there should be some good stuff about the government takeover of everything in that beauty.

I have driven past The Muddy Pig on Dale in St. Paul, probably a dozen times. I have read about it on a few other beer blogs around town, but I actually visited it this weekend before a wedding.

I was blown away. This bar is a Slarty sort of place (I should get a Slarty seal of approval). I was only there for an hour and intend to visit again soon (although I have a baby joining my family in a week or so, so it might not be too soon). Here are a few things that impressed me:

• A very nice list of beers on tap – including lots of Belgians. My current favorite is Tilburg’s Dutch Brown Ale – which they have, complete with a matching coaster.
• On a Saturday afternoon there were people drinking that appeared to be regulars.
• The bartender was pleasantly disrespectful – which means he gave a decent amount of shit in a light-hearted way.
• The Whiskey list differentiated between Whisky and Whiskey
• The bar had peeling/worn paint
• The appetizer I had was over the top good – and was delivered with a racially insensitive remark
• They had backgammon

I did not check to see if they had hooks under the bar – but I was impressed none-the-less. The folks that own/run this place really must have a passion for the product that they put out. Quality food, beer, whisky, whiskey, and entertaining servers, made for a delightful time. I prefer the atmosphere to the other beer palace in St. Paul, The Happy Gnome. ( I like the Gnome, but feel like I need to dress up and bring my platinum card).

Large Hadron Rap

Thanks to Uncle Volvo for sending this fly vid my way.

Jesus is a Friend of Mine

Thanks to Thor for sending this catchy tune my way.

I have added the U.S. National Debt counter to my side bar. This is to remind me that we are going in the wrong direction.

It appears that neither candidate for President (between Barack and McCain(hard place?)) will do anything to change the direction that counter is going. I recently downloaded a couple of white papers from the Tax Policy Center that did analysis of the various tax policies proposed by both candidates. (I have no idea what the Tax Policy Center’s political leanings are). The ones I read were updated in August — it appears that there are some new revisions to the analysis which I have yet to read.

The bottom line is that both Tax plans don’t balance.

According to the executive summary, Obama will cut taxes by $2.9 Trillion between 2009 and 2018 and McCain would cut $4.2 Trillion. Neither candidate has provided specific details about where this money would come from. The paper did an analysis and projected that Obama’s plan would add $3.5 Trillion in debt and McCain’s plan would add $5 Trillion in debt.

I am all for reducing the size of government by squeezing them with reduced revenues, but it seems to me that squeezing revenues and then printing/borrowing money is not sound economic policy.