If You're Interested in Karate Kata...

...read this.

Let Me Introduce RealClearPolitics.com

If you weren't already hip to this, polls can be very funny things. There are some pollsters that manage to produce polls showing just about whatever the person commissioning the polls wants them to show. There are polls, sometimes widely reported polls, where the sampling is seriously askew--say, for example, where 2/3 of the respondents are Democrats or something. There are polls that poll "voters," and then there are polls that show "likely voters," that is, people who actually voted in the last couple of elections.

Some polls have better track records than others. My understanding is that Rasmussen has been the closest during the last couple of election cycles.

But you know, when I'm curious about the polls, I generally head straight to RealClearPolitics. They show polling results on a wide variety of subjects, and they show results from several pollsters, and they average those polls, too. It's worth checking out when you have questions. Like, this morning on Drudge, I followed a link where the writer claimed that polling now shows that Democrats are ahead in generic balloting. Turns out some of them do, but most of them don't. Same writer also claimed that President Obama's job approval numbers are heading up. And true, the average does show that. But then, you look at the polls involved in the average, and the ones showing the president with higher approval ratings are CNN, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, CBS News, and Gallup. Rasmussen--remember what I said about Rasmussen?--shows him down, as does USA Today/Gallup, and some others. Nor are the differences between the polls slight. I suspect that there is something going on in the sampling. You can make up your own mind.

At any rate, I find this a useful tool. You might find it so, too.

Star Parker Speaketh Wisdom

She says:

After voters in Massachusetts elected a Republican to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, killing the Democrats' filibuster-proof Senate majority, many pundits wrote that President Obama had to move to the political center.

I wrote then that this wouldn't happen because, unlike President Bill Clinton, who did moderate, Obama is a left-wing ideologue. He didn't run for president to be somebody. He did it to do something. He did it to change America.

[snip]

...if you want to know where it all leads, look at our inner cities that were long ago taken over by government compassion. This is our future, my fellow Americans.

Laura Hollis, Quoting Paul Krugman

Italics in the original material:

Everything you need to know about the fundamental creed of these self-appointed visionaries is contained in this pearl of Krugmanite wisdom: "A side observation: one Republican talking point has been that Democrats had no right to pass a bill facing overwhelming public disapproval. As it happens, the Constitution says nothing about opinion polls trumping the right and duty of elected officials to make decisions based on what they perceive as the merits."

Doesn't that just warm your heart? We know better that you, you bunch of drooling neanderthals. You didn't elect us to represent you; you elected us to rule over you.

And that is exactly what I was saying the other day: Democrats knew they were riding roughshod over the wishes of their constituents when they voted for Obamacare. It's galling, galling in the extreme, when they act as though their passage of that bill means that the country was behind them.

If You're Interested in Okinawan Karate...

...you gotta follow this blog. I'm pretty sure it'll be an education in itself.

Obamabot/Obama Zombie

After whipping out my last post, I realized a new term--"Obamabot"--had entered my vocabulary. Although I had a pretty good idea of what I meant by it, it occurred to me to see what the interwebs had to say, so I googled it. Googled "Obama Zombie," too, since there's a book out now.

Word. The things I saw. The definition given in one column by the author of the aforementioned book was:

...Obama Zombies—lobotomized Leftist followers...

Seems uncharitable, but unfortunately all too accurate. Hate to say it, but the farther left they are, the less likely it seems that they are willing to 'fess up to actually knowing anything--anything, that is, save that Republicans and Conservatives are wrong, and not merely wrong, but evilly wrong. Not merely wrong, but bad, bad people into the bargain. And Politifact and Media Matters and the Daily Kos and the Daily Beast are the only true arbiters of truth, justice, and the American way.

I exaggerate only a little. It's amazing how often these people don't actually express an opinion in any sort of detail, or show any real understanding of a subject, even a subject about which they feel passionately. For example, you ask them, point-blank, why anyone should believe Democratic claims that Obamacare will actually cut the deficit when Democratic programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (which, I'll remind you, was intended to provide health care for the poor; remind you of anything that's been talked about lately?) are all verging on insolvency (Social Security is in the red this year, Baby! Woohoo!), and it's clear that the question just doesn't process. It doesn't have to. They know Democrat claims that it'll reduce the deficit are right because Politifact said so. And besides, a Republican was caught in a lie last week, so any criticism of Democratic policies is clearly bogus. And didn't you hear about that kid--what's his name? Marcellus? There won't be any more Marcelluses under Obamacare.

That's the reasoning of an Obamabot, an Obama Zombie, in my book. They don't think so much as they parrot. Not that they're stupid, mind you, just that their indoctrination jumps to the forefront of their skulls before real cognitive skills can kick in.

Just in case you were wondering.

How A Bill Really Becomes a Law