blogical conclusions

Senator John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate on the Republican ticket for President and Vice President of the United States.

Republican? Check. Pro-Life? Check. Experienced leadership as Governor of Alaska? Check. Big surprise? Check!

My take? I'm sure as hell glad it's not Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman, but I'm concerned. How will she fare in a debate with Joe "Windbag" Biden? I guess we'll have to see, but I'm a lot more likely to vote for McCain with this selection for Vice President. If he'd picked any of the other 3 I mentioned, there wasn't going to be any way in hell I'd vote for him.

*** Update on 8/30/2008 @ 11:32am: *** I found out over the weekend that Palin was known as "Sarah Barracuda" or "Sarahcuda" on her high school basketball team. Biden won't know what hit him. Heh!

*** Update II on 9/3/2008 @ 10:00am: *** A commenter former commenter here brings up the "Sarah Palin has no experience, (while at the same time blatantly ignoring Obama's zero executive experience)" meme. HAR!! Let's have a look at how Newt Gingrich dispatched this empty-headed argument in less than 30 seconds on MSNBC, via Wizbang.

ROTFLMAO!! And Olberman thinks Gingrich left "openings" in the argument. Please.

*** Update III on 9/3/2008 @ 10:30am: *** Lorie Byrd added an update to Kim Priestap's Gingich video link from Wizbang in Update II above, saying that the McCain campaign will be releasing a TV ad comparing Palin's experience to Obama's. Here's the link she provided in the update to the Wizbang post.

Forget the pro-choice trial balloon.

I heard from a reliable source who works for the Republican party today that McCain will announce that he's selected a Catholic, pro-life candidate for Vice President on Friday. Hello, Tim Pawlenty?

My source has personally met President Bush and Senator McCain while each visited Ohio on separate occasions.

You heard it here "first". I guess.

You know what they say about rumors...Pawlenty was raised a Roman Catholic, but has since converted to an Evangelical Christian.

*** UPDATE on 8/27/2008 @ 10:18pm: *** Just for giggles, I performed a Google search to see who's been mentioned as being on McCain's list of VP candidates. I found a tidy Wikipedia entry that covered this very topic. Here are a list of candidates who are currently Catholic and pro-life and have been listed as potential candidates (not on the rumored "short list"):

John Boehner
Michael Steele
Tommy Thompson
Sam Brownback
Paul Ryan (who? no name recognition)
Bobby Jindal (says he's not interested)
Don Carcieri (who? no name recognition)
Bill Owens (who? no name recognition)
Jeb Bush (not gonna happen)
Frank Keating (yeah, right)

Here's the rumored "short list" (none of whom are both currently Catholic and pro-life--and I added Lieberman due to recent news cycle speculation):

Mitt Romney
Tom Ridge
Tim Pawlenty
Sarah Palin
Charlie Crist
Joe Lieberman

Very interesting, to say the least. Tim Pawlenty seems to be the best fit considering that he's on the short list, is pro-life, and used to be Catholic. Plus, he's a McCain "buddy" as mentioned in this link earlier, and the RNC convention is going to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota. Coincidence? I think NOT...OK, maybe the location thing is going a bit too far.

Well, we'll see on Friday just how accurate this rumor is, won't we?

*** UPDATE II on 8/27/2008 @ 11:15pm: *** McCain will announce his new VP on Friday in Dayton, Ohio. The shortlist speculation, according to the article, is "...increasingly centered on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, although Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman remains an option and is in the final mix."

Guess who's stumping for McCain in Ohio this week? Yup. And yes, my source met him also.

*** UPDATE III on 8/28/2008 @ 10:00am: *** This article talks about the final 3 (and a 4th who was quickly discounted) and how they stack up against each other.

Also: And: Finally: Considering what I heard, I never gave Hutchison a shot, as she's not Catholic, she's pro-abortion, and she's never been seriously talked about...until now, I guess.

*** UPDATE IV on 8/28/2008 @ 12:00pm: *** Romney thinks it'll be Pawlenty: Drudge is saying we may find out at 6:00pm ET tonight followed by a possible confirmation at 8:00pm ET.

*** UPDATE V on 8/28/2008 @ 5:00pm: *** Via Drudge , Pawlenty suddenly canceled quite a few scheduled appearances for today. And, he's scheduled to be on Meet the Press this Sunday. Hat tip - Hot Air.

*** UPDATE VI on 8/28/2008 @ 9:15pm: *** Red State believes the same thing, as they have 3 posts dedicated to Tim Pawlenty, including a pronouncement that he's the guy. A day later than me, though. :-)

*** UPDATE VII on 8/28/2008 @ 9:30pm: *** Power Line just joined the Pawlenty speculation party.

*** UPDATE VIII on 8/29/2008 @ 8:20am: *** Looks like Pawlenty himself is saying he is NOT the choice. Well, it was a fun ride while it lasted.

*** Update on 8/4/2008 @ 10:55pm: Comments are now "closed" on this thread. All comments are now pending moderation, but if there are any more entering moderation, I'm going to delete them without responding. There's no way to completely shut the thread down in Haloscan, so the moderation should do the trick for now. ***

Convicted child rapists should live. Meanwhile, innocent, unborn children (whether conceived during rape or not) should die, according to the loony left.

It gets even better. This ruling will be a model for how terrorists will be defended in the future.

Simply appalling.

Update on 6/25/2008 @ 3:26pm:

Here's a comment I left on another blog that better summarizes how I feel about this issue:

...you just did it.

Project much, Obama? The sad thing is, all the mindless morons who'll vote for him will agree with him, and the irony will be lost on them.

As many of you know, my ultimate dream is to teach the golf swing, once I've figured it out for myself. Well, my friends, I believe the day I've "figured it out for myself" is here. In the last couple of weeks, including today, I've made a series discoveries which are all clicking into place. There was one key understanding about the golf swing I made which got the ball rolling for the rest of these realizations. This one simple item made all the difference in the world. Therefore, I'm going to take advantage of this and chase my dream...hard.

Now, these discoveries aren't going to guarantee that I'm automatically going to break par or to be even par for every round. But--they have guaranteed that with practice, I can be on my way. All I've done for now is understand how the fundamentals of the golf swing--the full swing, the chipping swing, and the putting swing--are all supposed to work consistently to produce consistent results.

What's left to do? A lot. There is much more to golf than the golf swing. There is the matter of learning the proper club and shot selection based on wind, yardage, how the ball is lying, what type of grass the ball is lying in, etc. There is also the matter of properly reading the break on putts, and which way the grain of the grass is going and how it will affect the putt.

The best way to score is to practice the short game--chipping, pitching, and putting. So that's what I intend to do now that the weather is nice. Plus all the other things I have going on, such as school (I still have 2 classes at the moment) family items, yardwork, and other projects. I'll still get here and rant once in a while, but you probably won't see me as much.

I'm still hoping to finish the essay I have going on Gary Taubes, but it may be a while.

*** Updated and bumped. ***

Some idiot commenting at another blog attempted to summarize this post by saying I thought 4000 deaths was "no big deal". To think that after reading this post that someone came away with that conclusion goes beyond any level of stupidity than I could possibly imagine. So, this update is for all the brain dead morons out there who have no reading comprehension skills. Obviously, as I said in the original post, I would prefer that there would never be any wars, and therefore, no casualties. This war was taken to us, and these brave men and women--all volunteers mind you--are fighting for our freedoms, and I obviously would never describe their deaths as "no big deal". On the contrary, they are fighting and dying for what they believe in, and for me, my family and friends and my country, and I cannot possibly thank them or their families enough. So, I will continue my unwavering support of them.

********************************

The media is falling all over itself about 4000 military deaths in 5 years. What they're conveniently forgetting or intentionally leaving out, is that's an average of 800 per year, both of which are incredibly low numbers in comparison to prior wars in U.S. History.

Let's compare 4000 military deaths to 2,973 innocent civilian deaths on one day, September 11, 2001.

That's 27 deaths short of 3/4 of 4000, folks. 2,973 innocent civilian deaths in 1 day, vs. 4000 military deaths in 5 years.

The sad thing is, a lot of Americans didn't pay attention in junior high and high school to realize how low this number is, and they won't take the few minutes of effort to think about it critically or do 10 minutes of research.

I would prefer we wouldn't have any wars--but that's an impossibility. When we have a war taken to us, I'd prefer the casualties stay in the military population. Folks who volunteer for the military know the deal going in and are prepared to die. And I know they'd rather die for their country in battle than have an innocent civilian life lost any day.

*** Originally posted at 3/24/08 @ 1:24pm ***

...so it's time to see how PGA golfers and their caddies really travel. The golfer is Luke Donald. His caddie is his brother, Christian. No tension between them, I'm sure.