For God’s Sake, Don’t Backfire…..

The Daily Mail is calling it a stunt that backfired. We'd prefer it didn't, thank you.

Attack Of The Robot Guitars

Gibson Guitars is releasing a new, robotic guitar that keeps itself in tune all by itself – even after a string change. It will also retune itself into six different preset non-standard tunings at the push of a button.

Help is at hand from what is described as the world's first robot guitar — an electric guitar that not only keeps itself in tune even after string changes but also allows players to access six non-standard tunings at the push of a button.

After 15 years of research, Gibson Guitar is launching a limited edition Les Paul Robot Guitar next month that has set players abuzz with both enthusiasm and scepticism.

"It will not make you a better guitar player but it will allow the average player to access some very sophisticated tunings," Gibson Guitar Chief Executive Henry Juszkiewicz told Reuters on Tuesday.

The six non-standard preset tunings were used on hits ranging from "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones and Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" and Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game."

Gibson says the robot guitar is aimed at amateurs who have a hard time keeping their guitars in tune, as well as professionals who now use technicians during concerts to keep about 100 guitars tuned to different keys.

Next up: a guitar that simply plays itself, relieving budding artistes from having to actually learn how to play! No more of that mundane, repetitious 'practice.' No, sirree.

Seriously, I rather suspect that these will prove to be somewhat less than robust in actual use. I'm guessing that in 20 or 30 years (or less) none will still be functional, while my old, run of the mill Les Paul Standard will still be chugging along.

Spitzer Running For Cover

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer appears to be running for cover, abandoning his “Licenses for Lawbreakers™” scheme according to an Associated Press report. Apparently, he has seen the light or, as is more likely, the polls.

The governor is due to meet Wednesday morning with New York's congressional delegation, many of whom openly oppose the program. Debate over the issue also has spilled into New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.

The governor's office signaled to New York lawmakers Tuesday that Spitzer will say at the meeting that he is shelving the plan and that immigration is a federal issue to be handled by Washington, according to congressional aides who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.

Last month, Spitzer sought to salvage the license effort by striking a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to create three distinct types of state driver's licenses: one "enhanced" that will be as secure as a passport; a second-tier license good for boarding airplanes; and a third marked not valid for federal purposes that would be available to illegal immigrants and others.

Clinton has been criticized by her Democratic and Republican rivals for her noncommittal answers on the subject. She has said she sympathizes with governors like Spitzer who are forced to confront the issue of immigration because the federal government has not enacted immigration reform. She has not taken a position on the actual plan offered by Spitzer.

A Siena Research Institute poll released today shows that Spitzer is tanking in the public's opinion. Those results gave him a whopping 25% of voters willing to reelect him.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to provide illegal immigrants with driver's licenses has sunk his favorability rating to an all-time low of 41 percent, and has left only 25 percent of voters planning to re-elect him, according to a poll the Siena Research Institute released Tuesday.

Forty-six percent had an unfavorable opinion of Spitzer, and 49 percent said they would "prefer someone else" as the next governor. Last month, 54 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of the governor.

"Eliot Spitzer's standing with voters has fallen faster and further than any politician in recent New York history," Siena spokesman Steven Greenberg said in a written statement. "Everything may not have changed on day one but from the voters' perspective, everything about Governor Spitzer changed in year one."

Spitzer is in a political freefall. There may be enough time for him to recover before the next election, but it does not look good. His antics may well have damaged the Democrats as well. If Clinton manages to win the nomination and then fails to win the general election, Eliot may as well move to another country if he wants to indulge in politics; he will be persona non grata to the Democrats.

Peaceful Iranians

After this morning's announcement that Iran's internal peace plan for homosexuals involves hanging them comes another bit of news. Iran has turned over blueprints to the International Atomic Energy Commission. Not just any blueprints either. These are the plans for molding highly enriched uranium into warhead components.

VIENNA, Austria - Iran has met a key demand of the U.N. nuclear agency by delivering blueprints that show how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday, in an apparent concession meant to stave off the threat of new U.N. sanctions.

But the diplomats said Tehran has failed to meet other requests made by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its attempts to end nearly two decades of nuclear secrecy on the part of the Islamic Republic.

The diplomats spoke to The Associated Press as IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei put the finishing touches on his latest report to the agency's 35-nation board of governors, for consideration during a meeting that begins on Nov. 22, Thanksgiving Day.

The confidential report, expected to be distributed to agency members this Wednesday or Thursday, is likely to show substantial but not full compliance by Iran with its pledges to come clean on past activities — and confirm at the same time that Tehran continues to enrich uranium in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.

Those findings will likely lead to new calls by the United States, France and Britain for a third round of U.N. sanctions. But China and Russia, the other permanent Council members, may emphasize progress made,and demand more time for Iran before fresh U.N. penalties are imposed.

Indeed, the Iranians have progressed from professing peaceful intentions for their nuclear program to proving they know exactly how to forge the components for a nuclear weapon! The progress just is not the sort of progress that should make anyone in the west happy.

Goin’ To The Candidate’s Debate

Apropos this post.

Just Not Getting It

Earlier today, I posted about a new Rasmussen poll that indicated that American voters were most definitely refusing to buy the “Hillary Clinton as victim” game that her campaign has been trying.  Hillary’s campaign, however, appears unable to change course and are trying to play the victim card yet again, this time preemptively.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday's Dem debate on Hillary. 'This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,' top Clinton insider explains. 'Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull 'a Russert.'' Blitzer is set to moderate debate from Vegas, with questions also being posed by Suzanne Malveaux… Developing… 

Again, can someone please explain to me, how asking the junior Senator from New York state whether she agrees with the governor of the state (and a close political ally) on the question of drivers licenses for illegals is even remotely wrong, never mind some sort of vicious, Nazi-like, personal assault on truth, decency, and Hillary Clinton's integrity? I really, really, don't get it. 

It is not apparent that Hillary or her campaign staff understands just how weak trying to head off uncomfortable questions makes her seem. Then again, the campaign staff did not consider how foolish planting friendly questions in already friendly crowds would look, either.

Bird Flu In Britain

British authorities have begun slaughtering turkeys, geese and ducks at a farm in Suffolk after identifying the HN51 strain of bird flu in the flocks. Although officials are keeping all avenues of investigation open, migratory wild waterfowl appear to be the prime suspects in the outbreak.

The disease was discovered when 60 birds died in one of the farm's five turkey sheds overnight on Sunday. The incubation period for the disease is three to five days. The bird sheds are less than 200 yards from a large ornamental lake which is home to scores of wild swans and Canadian geese.

Protection and surveillance zones were set at 3km and 10km around the farm, restricting the movement of birds and requiring them to be housed and isolated from wild birds.

About 90 poultry keepers with three million birds are inside the surveillance zone. A further restriction zone was imposed on the whole of Suffolk and most of Norfolk with no movement of birds outside that area permitted…….

……After the outbreak a dozen black-feathered turkeys were spotted dead in a field beside their sheds. A witness said: "They were dropping like flies. Several were lying around with their legs in the air."

The H5N1 strain was found in domestic hens in the Czech Republic in July. It was found in domestic poultry and wild birds in Germany between July and September.

Foot and mouth disease, an outbreak of bluetongue disease and now bird flu has made 2007 a less than banner year for British agriculture.

Another Veto

President Bush today vetoed a domestic spending bill that contained more than 2,000 earmarks. The glistening gobbets of porky wastefulness added nearly $10 billion to the bill.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said the measure exceeded the president’s budget request by nearly $10 billion and included some 2,000 items designating money for lawmakers’ pet projects.

“He will ask Congress to take out the pork and reduce the overall spending level and return it to him quickly,” Ms. Perino said as the president flew here from Washington, for speeches to business and community leaders.

At the same time, just before leaving the White House, Mr. Bush signed the Defense Department appropriations bill, which provides $459 billion for military programs in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

The Democrats are trying to portray the veto as Bush denying critical funding. Unfortunately, the presence of all the earmarks stuffed into every nook and cranny makes that criticism ring false.

Pounding On Pork

Senate Republicans are starting to get serious about stomping on pork barrel spending, according to The Politico. It is still very much a bi-partisan problem, but more and more often these days, fights are breaking out over some of the more egregious examples of Washington waste. They are getting allies outside Washington as well.

A multilevel operation aimed at harnessing the power of the Internet represents the most coordinated attack yet on earmarks, considered a cornerstone of legislative dealmaking for the way they have been used to induce votes and curry favor with supporters.

Once the domain of a few ostracized junior senators, earmark targeting is now in vogue, with Senate Republican leaders eager to gain traction in the minority.

They are embracing veteran critics of earmarking, such as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who are, in turn, pressing their case on six social networking sites and with an online petition and a newly formed caucus.

Nonpartisan groups aid the cause by dumping databases onto the Web, nudging anybody with a computer to play detective and call in tips on egregious-looking earmarks.

“We got a tag team going: people on the outside, people running blogs, producers in talk radio trying to find some of these earmarks,” said DeMint, who also has two to five members of his staff scouring bills at all times.

Given the entrenched nature of earmarks, the victories on amendments targeting specific projects have been few. But that’s not really the point, say Republican senators and aides.

“The goal is not to win these votes as much as it is to educate the public about the real problem, which is Congress’ refusal to prioritize spending in a responsible manner,” said Coburn’s spokesman, John Hart.  

That's a good thing. Voters - regardless of any party affiliation - should be against this misuse of our money. All too many of the earmarks are tainted by questionable campaign contributions. That is bad for all of us.

Paris Hilton, Activist

We really cannot make this stuff up. We try, but we just can't. Paris Hilton on the pressing need to cut off alcohol and stop wild parties.

Cut off alcohol to elephants, to be precise.

"The elephants get drunk all the time. It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them," the 26-year-old socialite said in a report posted on World Entertainment News Network's Web site. Her comments were picked up by other Web sites and newspapers around the globe.

Darn it. Dumbo's New Year's Eve bash is going to be a real drag this year…..

UPDATE: Dan Riehl caught this one. The AP has killed the story. After they published it, they checked with Paris Hilton's publicist who told them that Hilton had never made any comments about plastered pachyderms. Party on, Dumbo!

Upwardly Mobile America

The Opinion Journal looks at a new study by the Treasury Department out today. That study reveals the incredible upward mobility of Americans from 1996 to 2005. (The study itself is here.) The fact is that American incomes, particularly among the lowest income groups, have been trending upward at an amazing rate.

The Treasury study examined a huge sample of 96,700 income tax returns from 1996 and 2005 for Americans over the age of 25. The study tracks what happened to these tax filers over this 10-year period. One of the notable, and reassuring, findings is that nearly 58% of filers who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had moved into a higher income category by 2005. Nearly 25% jumped into the middle or upper-middle income groups, and 5.3% made it all the way to the highest quintile.

Of those in the second lowest income quintile, nearly 50% moved into the middle quintile or higher, and only 17% moved down. This is a stunning show of upward mobility, meaning that more than half of all lower-income Americans in 1996 had moved up the income scale in only 10 years.

Also encouraging is the fact that the after-inflation median income of all tax filers increased by an impressive 24% over the same period. Two of every three workers had a real income gain–which contradicts the Huckabee-Edwards-Lou Dobbs spin about stagnant incomes. This is even more impressive when you consider that "median" income and wage numbers are often skewed downward because the U.S. has had a huge influx of young workers and immigrants in the last 20 years. They start their work years with low wages, dragging down the averages.

Those who start at the bottom but hold full-time jobs nonetheless enjoyed steady income gains. The Treasury study found that those tax filers who were in the poorest income quintile in 1996 saw a near doubling of their incomes (90.5%) over the subsequent decade. Those in the highest quintile, on the other hand, saw only modest income gains (10%). The nearby table tells the story, which is that the poorer an individual or household was in 1996 the greater the percentage income gain after 10 years.

Only one income group experienced an absolute decline in real income–the richest 1% in 1996. Those households lost 25.8% of their income. Moreover, more than half (57.4%) of the richest 1% in 1996 had dropped to a lower income group by 2005. Some of these people might have been "rich" merely for one year, or perhaps for several, as they hit their peak earning years or had some capital gains windfall. Others may simply have not been able to keep up with new entrepreneurs and wealth creators. (Emphasis added)

The Opinion Journal says this study explodes the "populist hokum" that is being pushed in this country by some politicians. I'd say it exposes the mendacious fraud that they are perpetrating.

Worries, Worries

Bloomberg reports that Democrats are becoming worried - about certain elements of their own party.

Democrats now worry that their inability to make good on campaign promises to end or slow the war in Iraq will have consequences. The disaffection has already fueled at least four anti-war primary challenges to party incumbents, raising fears among some lawmakers of an intra-party fight that could drain momentum before next year's elections.

And the most vocal representatives of the cannibal wing of the Democratic party are in full hue and cry:

In Washington state, the anti-war group MoveOn.org has produced ads condemning Democratic Representative Brian Baird for his refusal to support legislative timetables for a withdrawal from Iraq. The group is also polling members on whether to mount primary challenges against the lawmakers they consider ineffective in trying to end the war.

With friends like this…….

Trying A Bad Play

Hillary Clinton appears to have made yet another mistake in her campaign. A new poll indicates that her attempt at playing the victim card has failed - very badly - with voters. Recall that her campaign issued a rapid response video whining that all those big, nasty male candidates were piling on poor, defenseless Hillary after her debate performance. That video didn't work as intended.

Most Americans reject the charge that other presidential candidates are "piling on" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a new Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll.

Only 25 percent of voters said recent criticism of Mrs. Clinton constitutes piling on, the survey found, and of those, less than half said she was the target because she is a woman.

"The vast majority of Americans are treating Senator Clinton as a front-running presidential candidate, not as a women who happens to be running for president," said pollster Scott Rasmussen, adding that the poll's questions, taken together, show less than 15 percent of Democrats think she's being picked on as a woman.

"She's being accepted as a serious candidate, rather than anything else," he said.

It's not clear that's not the way her campaign would have it. She has said she is challenging "the all-boys club of presidential politics," and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, yesterday said "those boys have been getting tough on her lately."

It is actually worse than it appears at first:

Many of the 25 percent who do agree with the charge don't agree that it's because she's a woman. The poll found 45 percent say it's because she's the front-runner, while 44 percent say she's a target because she's a woman.

Poor Hillary. She's a victim of her own attempted victimhood. It would be interesting to see how many view her attempt itself as a negative. The actual Rasmussen poll is here and offers this breakdown:

Combining these answers shows that just 11% of American believe that Clinton is being picked on unfairly because of her gender. That suggests voters are viewing her primarily as a Presidential frontrunner rather than as a woman who happens to be running for President.

Iranian Peace Plan

Homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both, an Iranian leader told British MPs during a private meeting at a peace conference, The Times has learnt.

This is not a really surprise, at least to people who have been paying attention. But it is probably the most public admission of the facts that Iran has made yet. Usually, they mislead or deny, as Ahmadinejad did:

Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths were being hanged.

President Ahmadinejad, questioned by students in New York two months ago about the executions, dodged the issue by suggesting that there were no gays in his country.

Britain regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings, stonings and executions of adulterers and perceived moral criminals, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) papers show.

The latest row involves a woman hanged this June in the town of Gorgan after becoming pregnant by her brother. He was absolved after expressing his remorse. Britain said that this demonstrated the unequal treatment of men and women in law and breached Iran’s pledge to restrict the death penalty to the most serious crimes.

A series of reported executions of gays, including two underage boys whose public hanging was posted on the internet, has alarmed human rights campaigners.

So the left denounces the Bush administration at every turn and is actively trying to protect Iran. There is a strange disconnect, isn't there?

The Dismal Record

A couple of interesting analyses to look at today. First EJ Dionne explains that the Democrats are really feeling the heat, having failed, repeatedly, to accomplish much.

WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are discovering what it's like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush, and for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.

Democrats complain that this is unfair and, in some sense, it is. But who said that politics was fair?

Over the short run, Democratic congressional leaders can count on little support from their party's presidential candidates, particularly Barack Obama and John Edwards. Both have decided their best way of going after front-runner Hillary Clinton — who has been in Washington since her husband's election as president in 1992 — is to criticize politics-as-usual.

At this weekend's Democratic fundraising dinner in Des Moines, Obama and Edwards not only attacked Bush fiercely but issued broadsides against the larger status quo.

When Obama assailed "the same old Washington textbook campaigns" and declared that he was "sick and tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking and acting and voting like George Bush Republicans," he was aiming at Clinton. But Obama was echoing what many in his party have been saying about their congressional leadership.

And when Edwards said that "Washington is awash with corporate money, with lobbyists who pass it out, with politicians who ask for it," he was criticizing a system in which his own party is implicated.

It makes sense for Democratic presidential candidates to distance themselves from the party's Washington wing. A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the performance of Democratic congressional leaders, an increase in dissatisfaction of 18 points since February. Among Democrats, disapproval of their own leaders rose from 16 percent in February to 35 percent now; in the same period, disapproval among independents rose from 41 percent to 56 percent.

Democrats, who relentlessly played obstructionist games when they were in the minority are now complaining that Republicans are using the same tactics. Well, it isn't good for either party to fail to compromise on some things, but the Democrat's ham handed "leadership" is not exactly conducive to getting things done. And how bad is it going right now? How about zero for forty?

As the congressional session lurches toward a close, Democrats are confronting some demoralizing arithmetic on Iraq.

The numbers tell a story of political and substantive paralysis more starkly than most members are willing to acknowledge publicly, or perhaps even to themselves.

Since taking the majority, they have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush’s war policy.

Not a single one has passed both chambers, even though both are run by Democrats.

Indeed, the only war legislation passed during this Congress has been to give the president exactly what he wants, and exactly what he has had for the past five years: more money, with no limitations.

Disapproval of the Democratic majority in Congress has risen steadily, albeit with no corresponding increase in enthusiasm for Republicans.

Even more notably, public opinion about the war — while still dominated by opposition to a military adventure most people think was a mistake — has risen modestly in recent weeks, according to several nonpartisan polls.

The Democrats backed a losing strategy in two different senses. They invested heavily in an American defeat, insisting the war was lost and insisting troops had to come home, then were unable to change direction. Then a funny thing happened. American troops did begin turning things around in Iraq with General Petraeus' new strategies. Add to that an inability to really make the changes they promised in the last elections and a simple fact emerges:

Democrats are looking increasingly like losers to the voters.