Three Years Ago: ACORN is sooooo busted!

If you’re in Missouri, you know that the Democrats have a nice political machine going on over there in St. Louis. One of the big cogs in that machine is a group called ACORN. This group represents on its donation page as being a “charitable organization” but is in actuality a partisan political action organization. (OK, the national ACORN is a partisan outfit, but state ACORN chapters are technically non-partisan–and if you believe that’s how it really works, you’ll believe almost anything as long as it has “Bush Lied” attached to it. Which, sadly, seems to describe a large, vocal, and influential segment of Americans today.)

St. Louis’ Gateway Pundit links to a Democratic-leaning St. Louis blog, Pub Def[*1] , which is tearing the cover back on ACORN’s shady dealings. The deal: hire lower-income people to go out and shake the trees for Claire McCaskill votes.

Note to Democrats: This works a lot better if you actually pay those folks you hire to do your dubious Get-Out-The-Vote effort.

One big question: What are the links between ACORN, the Missouri Democratic Party, and the Claire McCaskill U.S. Senate campaign? Click on this link to see the Pub Def video[*2] , showing the unpaid ACORN workers saying that their get-out-the-vote campaign was called Project Victory 2006. As both Pub Def and Gateway Pundit note, this is (oddly enough) the same name under which the Missouri Democratic Party[*3] is running it’s “coordinated campaign effort:”

We are pleased to introduce Project Victory 2006, the MissouriDemocratic Party’s coordinated campaign effort for this election year!We are excited about this year’s campaign and expect that our fieldeffort will be incredibly strong and well-received. We are proud thatmore than 75 percent of the Project Victory’s staff members either arefrom Missouri or attended college in Missouri, and we expect this to bea tremendous asset.

There’s coordination, and then there’s Democratic coordination, which apparently includes not paying poor people that you’ve hired (by a “non-partisan” front group for a radically partisan national organization) to pound on doors campaigning for your candidates.

You can pick what part of this scandal offends you more–non-partisan groups engaged in blatant partisan political behavior, or the spectacle of Democrats telling poor people to get out the Democrat vote for money, and then stiffing them.

Oh, right, Mark Foley was a gay pedophile-wanna-be. Never mind. Meanwhile, how are those sweetheart real estate deals going, Senator Reid?[*4]

If you’re bound and determined to vote against the Republicans, you really should open your eyes to who you’ll be voting FOR.

Thought for the day

Social strength can be diminished by a constant centralization and enlargement of governmental functions, the great majority of which are unproductive and…weaken the economic basis by the cumulative effects of regulation and taxation.

37.2 pounds

A respectable 6.9 (UPDATE: 2.3, not 6.9–I can’t subtract today) pounds lost in the past week, after two weeks of mild setbacks, weight-wise. 241.8 pounds, and 17 days to go before Halloween. (Actually, the official weigh-in will be on Wednesday, Oct. 28, so that’s just thirteen short days from last Thurday’s clinic weigh-in.

The best guess for the two-week stall is a combination of a bit more water retention after stopping the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide, plus perhaps adding a bit of muscle mass from working out and walking a bit more. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Speaking of walking a bit more, here are some pictures of what I’ve started to call the Deer Walk . . . it’s about a 55-minute course around the next subdivision over from ours, the growth of which has been pretty much stalled by the current economy. And, since my particular neighborhood is right next to a county park anywhere, it’s crawling with white-tailed deer–or “jumbo squirrels” as I’ve occasionally referred to them.

See after the “read more” for pictures of the Deer Walk . . .

Headed north out of our subdivision
The creek path in the next subdivision over
The first two deer of the walk
Deciding if I’m scary or not
This is what fall looks like, just east of Kansas City
Another fall view
A cottonwood–I think
Out of nowhere, two deer ran right in front of me. It’s blurry. They surprised me. A lot.
One of the two stopped to look at me . . .
. . . and then was off, showing why they’re called “white-tailed deer”
Deer on the horizon. I call these guys the “home herd” because they live right next to our subdivision.
The last deer of the day-peeking from behind a fence, back in my subdivision

Somebody’s gotta say it

Stargate Universe sucks.
The combination of the “stupid people doing stupid things” and the “we’re all gonna die oh woe is me” plot lines is NOT compelling television.  If I want to see stupid people doing stupid things, I’ll watch C-SPAN. Or MSNBC.  If I want to see “we’re all gonna die” handwringing, I’ll watch any of the interminable, never-ending global warming propaganda pieces all over the dial.

Thought for the day

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute[*1] :

Social legislation is a sign of retrogression, not progress. It should be obvious that there has been widespread individual failure if humanitarianism has to be enforced by disciplinary governmental action.

Thought for the day

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute[*1] :

One should not require personal experience with ration cards and queues and bureaucratic bungling to appreciate the practical superiority of the free enterprise system over any form of State-directed economic planning.

Thought for the day

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute[*1] :

Enlargement of the area of State authority therefore does not enlarge, but definitely contracts, the condition of economic freedom…this false god over every form of social organism is enormous and devastating.

Thought for the day

The tendency of the American people to turn to political authority for the solution of their economic problems was tragic…because there is no solution…in this fancied remedy…once a people are lost in the recesses of this blind alley, they will learn that it is almost impossible to find a way out.