Rupert Murdoch is one of the world's savviest businessmen - but his prediction today (5/29) that Obambi will defeat McCain next November in a landslide is straightforward idiocy.

Someone could make an intelligible argument that he could come out on top in a close contest - but a landslide?  That's nuts.  For the odds are far, far greater that it will be the other way around.  McCain is going to wipe the electoral floor with Obambi.

Obambi is going to be torched by white women, Reagan Democrats, Hillary supporters, and most everybody else except blacks, academics, college kids being taught by the academics, and urban-elitist liberals whose brains have been similarly damaged by the academics.  He'll carry Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and maybe New York - maybe.  Not a lot more.  Not even California.

Murdoch would have been on much firmer ground predicting a Dem landslide in the House and Senate - but that wouldn't be news, for that's the universally accepted wisdom.  Predictions are ubiquitous that the Pubs are going to lose 10 to 20 House seats and 4 to 6 Senate seats at a minimum.  It could be much worse, a lot worse.

So much worse that the Dems will gain a filibuster-proof majority of 60+ seats in the Senate, preventing the passage of any decent McCain legislation or the confirmation of any decent McCain judicial appointment.

How ironic, then, that the hero who can save the day and rescue the helpless Pubbies from certain disaster is... the Dems' very own champion, Hussein Obambi.

The Jade Steps
Chapter Eighteen: The Tale of Taclaelel

They arose the next morning at dawn. Cortez ordered a small altar be put up in the plaza, where the padres performed a Mass for the Spaniards. He returned to his quarters to find King Xicotencatl and a very dignified elderly man, at least as old as the king.

“Malinche,” the king said through Malinali, “this is Chief Maxixcatzin (max-eeks-cot-zin, Ring of Cotton), lord of our region of Ocotelolco, and the military leader of all Tlaxcala who has protected us from the Mesheeka for many years.”

Malinali’s eyes widened at the introduction, and took it upon herself to expand Cortez’s brief greeting of welcome.

I'd like to give all TTPers - both those who will be attending the Vegas Rendezvous this weekend and those unable to do so - an intro to what I'll be talking about.

First, though, I need to get something off of my chest. I have become very, very tired of reading standard conservative media. Frankly, the gelded whining gets to me. Detailed arguments aplenty, explaining why the latest Leftist power-grab or exploitation is wrong. Or why their latest hate speech is unfair.

So. What.

Newsflash: the other side doesn't care. They've made it crystal clear that power is the only goal, that they enjoy using power to enrich themselves and hurt others, and that there are no limits of law or decency that restrain them. If you're looking to standard conservative media for hope or change, I recommend Prozac as a mandatory Plan B.  

Economics? Once, this was their spearhead. Now? They'd need a high-power telescope to see even Zero Hedge ahead of them; meanwhile, the global economic order makes ticking sounds.

Popular culture? Never a strength - and now it's the main front of the Left. External enemies? This, they still get. But not the internal ones, who are statistically much more likely to murder you (yes, Virginia, liberals are more lethal than terrorists).

Like so much of the conservative movement, they keep trying to approach the 21st century with the worldview and infrastructure of 1980. Not. Working. The cold hard truth is that liberty's future is arising without them - and may not need them.

What's needed are the bright spots of the new conservative counter-culture.  Here they are...

What do you think was the primary cause of the Great Recession -- too little government regulation ,or dictates by the government to banks and other mortgage lenders, requiring them to lend to the unqualified?

Peter J. Wallison, former general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department and White House counsel to President Reagan, who was also a member of the congressionally authorized Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, has just published a book, "Hidden in Plain Sight," in which he clearly documents what caused the financial crisis and why it is likely to happen again.

For this act of detailed scholarship and truth-telling, he has come under fierce attack by many of those who were, in part, responsible for the crisis.  Mr. Wallison is a problem for the political class, much like the boy who said the emperor had no clothes. He cannot be dismissed as a know-nothing lightweight.

So his character must be impugned since the facts are on his side.  The Great Recession was a crime, and its perps do not like being exposed.

Is a happy marriage about compromise?

On the surface, I’d say yes, compromise is certainly part of two different people sharing a life together. You can’t do everything you want whenever you want it, etc.

But looking at this question a little more closely, I’d have to say an emphatic, “no.” Compromise is not really the key. Compromise is when one person wants a room painted yellow, the other wants it painted blue, and so you compromise and get green. Compromise is sometimes win/win, sometimes not. There are certainly times when you have to compromise, but that isn’t the driving force of a great relationship.

What is the driving force of a great relationship? A winning premise; a conception of what your relationship is all about that includes a shared vision of the two of you together.

A great relationship is founded on the premise that you and your mate are allies; that you are a team together.

That was the title of a very funny book P. J. O'Rourke wrote a few years ago about Saddam Hussein's Iraq.  And it's very apt advice right now for Colombia's Alvaro Uribe.

You knew that Venezuela's coke-head clown dictator was going to find a pretext for war with Colombia a month ago in Wars On The Way.  The Colombian Army's take-out of Chavez's FARC buddy Raul Reyes, a murderous Marxist midget (he was barely over five feet tall) last Saturday (3/01) provided it.

Now let's hope Uribe accepts Chavez's offer of war.  For if he does, it's bye-bye, Hugo.