Chicago, Illinois USA Wednesday PM, September 10, 2008
Editors, UK Financial Times
Gentlepeople:
In his Wednesday, September 10 FT OpEd James Carville says Sarah Palin's "experience includes a mixed mayoral record in Wasilla, a town with a population of 7,000, and a half-term gubernatorial record in a state with the population of Memphis."
The 2008 World Almanac says Wasilla had 9,236 people in 2006. The same reference does indeed show Memphis, at the 2006 estimated population of 670,902 leading Alaska, 670,053, by a whopping 849 people.
Could Carville have deliberately chosen Memphis as the landmark because it is the smallest of the nation's 100 largest cities to still be larger than Alaska? If so, had he studied these two entities a little more, he would have found:
Using 1990 and 2000 census figures, Alaska population increased 21 people per day, Memphis increased for the same period 11 people per day. Using the same 2000 figure, and 2006 estimates in the 2008 almanac, they both increased at slightly lower rates: Alaska, 20 people per day, and Memphis, 9 people per day, showing Alaska has been increasing its population about twice as fast Memphis since 1990.
Extrapolating from the 2000/2006 Almanac figures, Alaska would have caught up with Memphis on August 27, 2006, and by the time Palin was nominated on August 29, 2008, would have led Memphis by 7200 people. With that half hour of additional study, Carville would not appear quite as foolish.
Carville mentions 5 actual or theoretical Democrat candidates ("Insert name of Democrat", "Democratic candidates", "a reform-oriented state senator from a Midwestern state" and "Tim Kaine, Virginia governor",) but strangely, not a single mention of either of the Democrat candidates. Not a mention of The Dem VP candidate’s 30 years of Senate presence on the forign relations committee, the high point of which was his plagiarizing of a British left wing politician.
And how about The Dem presidential candidate's experience "outisde of North America": Four crucial pre-teen years of slogging thru the mud of Indonesia. Beyond that the high point is eight years in the Illinois State Senate, equal in experience to that of a third string Chicago Bears jock strap attendant, but none of the responsibility.
This guy is the most inexperienced, unprepared, candidate for either President or Vice president in history. He cannot say a coherant complete sentence not presented to him on a teleprompter. Since her nomination 10 days ago, Sarah Palin has been speaking publicly non-stop. Has anyone heard her say "um" or "unh" - she didn't even stutter when the teleprompter operator goofed.
After ten days of being accused of everything short of running a male prostitution ring out of her governor's office or molesting a House page (with nothing proved), she keeps getting stronger. On the other hand, Biden is a disaster waiting to happen. The way things are going they will replace him before the election, as a drowning man would grasp at a razor blade.
Carville closes: "If the Republicans wanted a vice-president who favours teaching creationism in public schools, who denies the science of global warming...."
James, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, the theremometer was invented 500 years ago. A little simple arithmetic shows that the last 500 years of 4.5 billion years is equivalent to the last 100 seconds of a 40-year-old human's lifetime. Yet the 'science' of global warming is making all sorts of predictions based on the earth 'warming'? Global warming has no more business being taught in schools than crationism.
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago, IL USA
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
John McCain and partisan rancor
[Besides the Detroit News, within an hour this letter was also sent to the Boston Globe, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
Sunday, September 7, 2008 11:35 PM
Detroit News Letters
A Thursday, September 4, 2008 Detroit News article "McCain tells cheering GOP he'll change Washington" says John McCain "vowed Thursday night to vanquish the 'constant partisan rancor' that grips Washington...."
Partisan rancor, constant or not, will only be 'vanquished' when Republicans and Democrats are both equally up to their armpits in the federal trough.
As long as one party tends to reflect the ideals of the Declaration of Independence a little more than the other, believes in following the the Constitution a little more than the other, believes we should proudly take our rightful place as the greatest country in world history a little more than the other, there will be partisan rancor.
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Sunday, September 7, 2008 11:35 PM
Detroit News Letters
A Thursday, September 4, 2008 Detroit News article "McCain tells cheering GOP he'll change Washington" says John McCain "vowed Thursday night to vanquish the 'constant partisan rancor' that grips Washington...."
Partisan rancor, constant or not, will only be 'vanquished' when Republicans and Democrats are both equally up to their armpits in the federal trough.
As long as one party tends to reflect the ideals of the Declaration of Independence a little more than the other, believes in following the the Constitution a little more than the other, believes we should proudly take our rightful place as the greatest country in world history a little more than the other, there will be partisan rancor.
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Truman, LBJ, and arah Palin
Chicago, Wednesday PM, September 3, 2008
Editors, Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
A letter in the Wednesday, September 3, WSJ about the Palin nomination says: "Is she like a Harry Truman or even a Lyndon Johnson? I don't think so." Let me see, what city/town was Harry Truman Mayor of, what state did he govern? Same for LBJ... but they were senators.
Arnold H. Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Editors, Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
A letter in the Wednesday, September 3, WSJ about the Palin nomination says: "Is she like a Harry Truman or even a Lyndon Johnson? I don't think so." Let me see, what city/town was Harry Truman Mayor of, what state did he govern? Same for LBJ... but they were senators.
Arnold H. Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago IL 60640
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Letter to Chicago Subn-Times on Sarah Palin
Chicago Saturday, August 30, 2008 3:43 PM
Editors, Chicago Sun-Times
Gntlepeople:
Your Saturday, August 30 front-page headline "Maverick Rolls the Dice" referring to John McCain's VP choice of a "first term" governor with "limited experience" contrasts revealingly with the second paragraph reference to "the youthful and charismatic Barack Obama."
Governor Sarah Palin is further described as "chief of one of the least-populated states." Are things so tight at the Sun-Times you don't have a $10 almanac that clearly shows Alaska is the 4th least populated state?
You say further that Palin's "elder son is fighting in Iraq" and quote a description of her as "a working mother with a child in Iraq...," and have a picture of her with "fifth child, son Trig...." A subsequent article clears up this fog by pointing out it's 18-year-old son Trig, due to be deployed to Iraq in September." [Note, I was wrong here: Track is in Iraq, baby trig is home]
Then you quote Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "John McCain put the former mayor of a town 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency." Well now, how big is the town Obama was mayor of? And altho being governor of a state separated from Russia by a strait about half that of Mackinac is not the nation's number 1 foreign relations subject (right now, at least,) it has significantly more responsibility than slogging thru the mud of Indonesia between ages 6 and 10 (which is itself probably more significant than chairing the Senate Foreign Relations committee for 20 years,).
It is fun watching the pathetic attempts of Obama backers trying to inflate his top government experience, 8 years as an Illinois state senator, as any more than that of a Chicago Cubs' ball girl. To the Sun-Times credit, you do quote McCain backers saying the undeniable facts that Palin has "two years of executive experience that no one else has on either ticket" and "She made more decisions in two years as chief executive of a state than Barack Obama did in his entire career in the Illinois Legislature...."
School board, city council, mayor, governor... that's lots more significant political slogging than 'community organizer' (AKA in Chicago as junior precinct captain,) State Senator and really inspiring teleprompter reader.
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago 60640
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Editors, Chicago Sun-Times
Gntlepeople:
Your Saturday, August 30 front-page headline "Maverick Rolls the Dice" referring to John McCain's VP choice of a "first term" governor with "limited experience" contrasts revealingly with the second paragraph reference to "the youthful and charismatic Barack Obama."
Governor Sarah Palin is further described as "chief of one of the least-populated states." Are things so tight at the Sun-Times you don't have a $10 almanac that clearly shows Alaska is the 4th least populated state?
You say further that Palin's "elder son is fighting in Iraq" and quote a description of her as "a working mother with a child in Iraq...," and have a picture of her with "fifth child, son Trig...." A subsequent article clears up this fog by pointing out it's 18-year-old son Trig, due to be deployed to Iraq in September." [Note, I was wrong here: Track is in Iraq, baby trig is home]
Then you quote Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "John McCain put the former mayor of a town 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency." Well now, how big is the town Obama was mayor of? And altho being governor of a state separated from Russia by a strait about half that of Mackinac is not the nation's number 1 foreign relations subject (right now, at least,) it has significantly more responsibility than slogging thru the mud of Indonesia between ages 6 and 10 (which is itself probably more significant than chairing the Senate Foreign Relations committee for 20 years,).
It is fun watching the pathetic attempts of Obama backers trying to inflate his top government experience, 8 years as an Illinois state senator, as any more than that of a Chicago Cubs' ball girl. To the Sun-Times credit, you do quote McCain backers saying the undeniable facts that Palin has "two years of executive experience that no one else has on either ticket" and "She made more decisions in two years as chief executive of a state than Barack Obama did in his entire career in the Illinois Legislature...."
School board, city council, mayor, governor... that's lots more significant political slogging than 'community organizer' (AKA in Chicago as junior precinct captain,) State Senator and really inspiring teleprompter reader.
Arnold H Nelson
5056 North Marine Drive
Chicago 60640
ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Thursday, August 28, 2008
NYTimes called on global warming crap
Chicago IL Thursday, August 28, 2008 11PMcdt
Editors, New York Times
Gentlepeople:
Your Thursday, August 28 article "As Arctic Sea Ice Melts...."brought back amusing memories of a similar Times article of Saturday, August 19, 2000, John Noble Wilford's "The North Pole is melting" that breathlessly declared: "[A]n ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, ... more evidence that global warming may be real...."
That was followed only four days later by an equally bedazzled climate change enthusiast's Op-Ed "In the (Un)Frozen North" that started right out: "The 19th century's dream of an open polar sea has become the 21st century's nightmare."
But then five days later, Mr. Wilford wrote another article (Tuesday, August 29, 2000) quoting another expert: "[T]here's nothing to be necessarily alarmed about. There's been open water at the pole before."
Finally, the Times made honest journalists out of themselves with this Correction:
"A front-page article in the August 19, 2000 edition ... about the sighting of open water at the North Pole misstated the normal conditions of the sea ice there...."
But there still seems to be a problem with the most recent article, that starts out "[Officials have] reported that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles" pointing out that this could be on the way to a new "record" since "the lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles, last September."
Folks, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and you are concerned with the possibility of a record... for the last 29 years? A little simple arithmetic shows that the last 29 years of 4.5 billion years is equivalent to the last 8 seconds of a 40-year-old human's lifetime. If a doctor detected a pulse rate change in that subject over such a period, would he declare “We’re moving ... beyond a point of no return” as the head of a "multinational scientific assessment of Arctic conditions" is quoted in the article?
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640
Editors, New York Times
Gentlepeople:
Your Thursday, August 28 article "As Arctic Sea Ice Melts...."brought back amusing memories of a similar Times article of Saturday, August 19, 2000, John Noble Wilford's "The North Pole is melting" that breathlessly declared: "[A]n ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, ... more evidence that global warming may be real...."
That was followed only four days later by an equally bedazzled climate change enthusiast's Op-Ed "In the (Un)Frozen North" that started right out: "The 19th century's dream of an open polar sea has become the 21st century's nightmare."
But then five days later, Mr. Wilford wrote another article (Tuesday, August 29, 2000) quoting another expert: "[T]here's nothing to be necessarily alarmed about. There's been open water at the pole before."
Finally, the Times made honest journalists out of themselves with this Correction:
"A front-page article in the August 19, 2000 edition ... about the sighting of open water at the North Pole misstated the normal conditions of the sea ice there...."
But there still seems to be a problem with the most recent article, that starts out "[Officials have] reported that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles" pointing out that this could be on the way to a new "record" since "the lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles, last September."
Folks, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and you are concerned with the possibility of a record... for the last 29 years? A little simple arithmetic shows that the last 29 years of 4.5 billion years is equivalent to the last 8 seconds of a 40-year-old human's lifetime. If a doctor detected a pulse rate change in that subject over such a period, would he declare “We’re moving ... beyond a point of no return” as the head of a "multinational scientific assessment of Arctic conditions" is quoted in the article?
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640
Thursday, August 21, 2008
WSJ apostrophe exchange
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:22:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Arnold Nelson"
To: "WSJ Letters"
Subject: Does the Journal have trouble with apostrophes, too?
Chicago, Thursday PM, August 21, 2008
Editors, Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
A paragraph titled 'Thailand' in your fine Thursday, August 21 article "When [Olympic] Gold Turns Green" has a sentence referring to a Thai weight lifter: "The 24-year-old is the countries lone gold of these Games." "Countries"? Say it ain't so, WSJ. Since it's the possessive of "country" not a number of "countries", it should be "country's", not "countries".
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:57
From: "Martin-Sr, Paul" <Paul.Martin-Sr@wsj.com>
To: ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Does the Journal have trouble with apostrophes, too?
Mr. Nelson:
Thank you for your note about the misuse of “countries” for “country’s” in the Journal article.
We appreciate readers like you who hold us to high standards -- especially when their notes are as gracious as yours.
Sincerely, Paul Martin WSJ stylebook editor
From: "Arnold Nelson"
To: "WSJ Letters"
Subject: Does the Journal have trouble with apostrophes, too?
Chicago, Thursday PM, August 21, 2008
Editors, Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
A paragraph titled 'Thailand' in your fine Thursday, August 21 article "When [Olympic] Gold Turns Green" has a sentence referring to a Thai weight lifter: "The 24-year-old is the countries lone gold of these Games." "Countries"? Say it ain't so, WSJ. Since it's the possessive of "country" not a number of "countries", it should be "country's", not "countries".
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:57
From: "Martin-Sr, Paul" <Paul.Martin-Sr@wsj.com>
To: ah_nelson@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Does the Journal have trouble with apostrophes, too?
Mr. Nelson:
Thank you for your note about the misuse of “countries” for “country’s” in the Journal article.
We appreciate readers like you who hold us to high standards -- especially when their notes are as gracious as yours.
Sincerely, Paul Martin WSJ stylebook editor
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Another Obamaphile (in WSJ)
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:12CDT
From: "Arnold Nelson"
To: "WSJ Letters" S
Subject: Is a single example of an "unsubstantiated charge" too much to ask?
Chicago, Wednesday PM, August 20, 2008
Editors, Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
In the Wednesday, August 20 Notable and Quotable, Peter Wehner, writing about Jerome Corsi's recent Obama biography, says "it's wrong and reckless to throw out unsubstantiated charges and smears against Senator Obama."
This WSJ feature is certainly limited in length. This one is 160 words, but a recent one is 280 words. Wouldn't 120 additional words be plenty for Mr. Wehner to give just one example of an actual "unsubstantiated charge" or "smear". I haven't read Mr. Corsi's book, but I understand it is heavily sourced. It should be easy for Mr. Wehner to demonstrate such a sweeping statement, for the sake of his own credibility.
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640
;Never printed, no response]
From: "Arnold Nelson"
To: "WSJ Letters" S
Subject: Is a single example of an "unsubstantiated charge" too much to ask?
Chicago, Wednesday PM, August 20, 2008
Editors, Wall Street Journal
Gentlepeople:
In the Wednesday, August 20 Notable and Quotable, Peter Wehner, writing about Jerome Corsi's recent Obama biography, says "it's wrong and reckless to throw out unsubstantiated charges and smears against Senator Obama."
This WSJ feature is certainly limited in length. This one is 160 words, but a recent one is 280 words. Wouldn't 120 additional words be plenty for Mr. Wehner to give just one example of an actual "unsubstantiated charge" or "smear". I haven't read Mr. Corsi's book, but I understand it is heavily sourced. It should be easy for Mr. Wehner to demonstrate such a sweeping statement, for the sake of his own credibility.
Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640
;Never printed, no response]
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