BLK: “Alaska has a surplus-”>>

DAR
I just love it when you make factual claims. You usually shoot yourself in the foot.

Alaska does well when oil goes up. This has nothing to do with Palin, the ear mark queen, who nearly bankrupted the tiny town she was mayor of. She took the long term debt of Wasilla from $0, to $18.6 million (about $3,000 per person).

“…leading the nation in earmarks received per capita? Sarah Palin’s Alaska. (Alaskans got almost $210 per person in earmarks, while Californians got $16 and New Yorkers $13 in comparison.)”

And you’re wrong about Alaska’s “surplus”:

***
“Alaska lowers oil price forecast, expects deficit”

Tue Feb 3, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Alaska revenue officials said on Tuesday they have lowered their expectations for North Slope crude oil prices and are expecting a much bigger budget deficit than earlier estimated.

Prices for Alaska North Slope crude are expected to average $63.28 a barrel for the current fiscal year, according to the new forecast released by the state Department of Revenue. That is a substantial decrease from the $77.66-a-barrel average price that the department forecast in December.

[snip...]

With oil revenues accounting for nearly 90 percent of state general revenue, the new oil price forecast translates to a significant drop in money expected to flow into the treasury.

The budget deficit that was expected in December to amass to $450 million by the end of the fiscal year is now expected to be $1.2 billion more than that, Department of Revenue officials said.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Oil/idUSTRE51302H20090204

D.
———————
“Eight of the top 10 beneficiaries of federal largesse voted for John McCain for President. Unsurprisingly, all 10 states at the bottom of the list – those whose outflow of tax revenue that is funding programs elsewhere in the country – all voted for Barack Obama in 2008.”

LINK

DAR
When going after Obama you can make arguments that are cogent, well crafted, well researched and thus persuasive, or you can attack him personally (ad hominem, literal “attack the man”) and call him names.

What exactly in the following sentence from you falls in anything but the latter category?

“He is a bum, a pimp, a political street thug with no teeth. He is a puss.” –Bigd.

Blake said ad hominem attacks make a person look “pathetic.” I didn’t say your personal attacks were directed at me.

D.

DAR
This is the genetic fallacy. And a real shameless use of it considering hundreds of people publish there. Here is a deal. I will *never* quote a factual claim from Huffington Post that I cannot (easily) verify from an independent source.

Which is the way I roll with any source anyway.

Dismissing a claim because of it’s source, is a fallacy. Best to avoid logical fallacies. Truth is independent of it’s source.

D.

None of this is AH.

Nice try.

DAR
I don’t know. What is that suppose to prove? What’s your point?

Editing the Harvard Law Review does not necessarily involve writing *anything* at all for it. He was the final editor. Here is an excerpt of an article written about him and this job, in 1990:

***
As law review president, Obama is the last person to edit student articles, as well as longer pieces by accomplished legal scholars. The review publishes eight times a year and receives about 600 free-lance articles each year.

Referring to his fellow students at the review, whom he edits, he said: “These are the people who will be running the country in some form or other when they graduate. If I’m talking to a white conservative who wants to dismantle the welfare state, he has the respect to listen to me and I to him. That’s the biggest value of the Harvard Law Review. Ideas get fleshed out and there is no party line to follow.”

Obama spends 50 to 60 hours each week on law review business. The full-time volunteer job leaves little time for an additional 12 hours of class, plus homework. When it comes to choosing between the two, as it often does, Obama usually misses class.

One of Obama’s most difficult tasks as editor in chief is keeping the peace amid the clashing egos of writers and editors.

“He is very, very diplomatic,” said Radhika Rao, 24, a third-year law student from Lexington, Ind. “He is very outgoing and has a lot of experience in handling people, which stands him in good stead.”

Tina Ulrich, 24, a third-year student, wrote an article for the review that went through several editors before her final draft landed on Obama’s desk.

“When he sent it back, it had lots of tiny print all over it and I was just furious,” she said. “My heart just sank. But it was accompanied by specific examples of how parts could be made better. He wound up getting an enthusiastic response from a very tired writer.”

Also:

“Yet some of Obama’s peers question the motives of this second-year law student. They find it puzzling that despite Obama’s openly progressive views on social issues, he has also won support from staunch conservatives. Ironically, he has come under the most criticism from fellow black students for being too conciliatory toward conservatives and not choosing more blacks to other top positions on the law review.

“He’s willing to talk to them (the conservatives) and he has a grasp of where they are coming from, which is something a lot of blacks don’t have and don’t care to have,…”

LINK

He did write one article for it, in 1990. A “six-page summary, tucked into the third volume of the year’s Harvard Law Review.” You can read about this here:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12705.html

D.

DAR
Careful. Blake says ad hominem attacks make a person look pathetic.

Ironically, he got that one exactly right.

D.

What a success story.

“We can do this. Americans have done this before. Some of us had grandparents or parents who said maybe I can’t go to college but my child can; maybe I can’t have my own business but my child can. I may have to rent, but maybe my children will have a home they can call their own. I may not have a lot of money but maybe my child will run for Senate. I might live in a small village but maybe someday my son can be president of the United States of America.”
–Barack, in Colorado, in October, speaking before a crowd of 100,000.

D.