Big Sky Cairn

Erik Iverson and the Montana GOP took a lot of flack for their February 5 presidential caucus. Most of that came from Montana Democrats expressing their outrage at the “elitist” approach of the caucus. But the chickens are coming home to roost - although the Media is sort of missing the boat on this one.

Roy Brown credits the caucus with increasing interest and participation in the Republican Party at all levels.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown said the state party’s Feb. 5 presidential caucus helped spur more interest early in politics, which he said will help statewide GOP candidates like him.

We’ve personally heard similar stories of interest among Republicans here in Missoula. Republicans who didn’t vote in the caucus, but who felt that they had a role to play - and continue to play in the process. Participation in a democracy is about more than the simple act of voting and oversimplifying civic duty to casting a ballot is patronizing.

Remember, participation in the caucus didn’t require any money or official title. That’s an important distinction because the Montana Democrats have been touting their party’s primary plebiscite as less elitist than the Montana Republican caucus. Let’s look at the Democrat’s version of inclusion:

Meet the Presidential Candidates in Butte (if you were lucky enough to be one of the few that could afford to buy tickets and have a computer and have an internet connection and not have a job that prevented you from logging on at 9 am exactly or a well connected friend to give you tickets).

Meet the Hillary in Missoula (if you can afford the $250 minimum donation).

Every vote counts the same to decide how Montana’s 16 delegates vote (unless you’re one of 8 Superdelagate from Montana whose votes will count for roughly 100,000 times more than the average Montana vote).

It’s 3 am. I’m not sure “elitism” is a grenade the Montana Democrats want to be throwing…

The left hates Wal-Mart. I could never figure out why. I don’t shop there a lot, but I certainly don’t have anything against ‘em. Especially after reading how they are breaking balls in the music industry about the cost of a CD.

Tensions are not as high now as they were last winter, but making sure Wal-Mart is happy remains one of the music industry’s major priorities. That’s because if Wal-Mart cut back on music, industry sales would suffer severely — though Wal-Mart’s shareholders would barely bat an eye. While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart’s total sales. “If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them,” says another label executive. “This keeps me awake at night.”

I’m glad that keeping Wal-Mart happy keeps them up at night after almost a decade of suing their customers, handicapping every convenient music technology that came along and using mobster tactics to bite the hand that feeds them. I wish consumers like me carried this much influence.

Wondering where the $15.99 for a CD goes?

This breakdown of the cost of a typical major-label release by the independent market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail shows where the money goes for a new album with a list price of $15.99.

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

You really can’t make this up.

I’d say that it’s a bit like picking green as a compromise between black and white, but I’m afraid to make any allusions to color.

I haven’t watched American Idol this year mostly because the show stopped being about the artists and started being about the editing. But I caught a few minutes of tonight’s show including David Cook’s version of Micheal Jackson’s Billy Jean.

Wow.

It took a few seconds to figure out what song he was singing because he did so much of his own reworking (slowed it down, changed the cadence, altered some of the melody), but if Eddie Vedder did Billy Jean I’m not sure it would have been this good. Lay that track down David Cook - and I’ll buy my first CD in 5 years.

Update: Turns out his composition was close to Chris Cornell’s acoustic version. I think Cook did it better though and it was different enough for me to give him some credit.

Kate may disagree with me here, but I have always felt that every since 1996 something was missing in my life. I could not put my finger on it until I saw this.

Zubaz are back! Happy days and high fashion have returned.

As mentioned, due to the efforts of Attorney General McGrath, Montana will be exempted from REAL ID. Governor Schweitzer seeing an opportunity to get his name in the paper, shot a letter off to DHS today saying, yeah I agree with what he said.

Initially I thought that maybe this was a conciliatory effort on behalf of the Governor, sort of a way to clear the air and let bygones be bygones. That was quickly clarified;

The governor’s staff said the letter was not a conciliatory gesture

Now that we have that out of the way, what exactly did the Governor have to say? Well on Friday, Homeland Security asked for clarification that the Governor supports the increased security protocols laid out in Attorney General McGrath’s letter that, while not being undertaken in the name of REAL ID, meet the requirements of REAL ID. Today the Governor responded with;

I recognize the question that some recent press coverage might have raised, but I can assure you I stand behind the Attorney General’s letter in its entirety.

Included in the Attorney General’s letter was the outlining of a plan to enhance security of the Montana drivers license including a new data management system. Of course, none of this information will be shared with the Feds, it is for state use only. Because as the Guv so eloquently stated last year;

“Montanans don’t want the federal agents listening to their phone conversations, rifling through their papers, checking on what books they read and monitoring where they go and when. We think they ought to mind their own business,” Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in a written statement.

When reached for comment today, Governor Schweitzer said he believes Montanans will be proud to be spied upon by state agents.

They say rights fall like Dominoes - which is a really weak metaphor but I had to use it to justify that catchy headline!

The government is sending men with guns to your (Washington, DC) neighborhood. But don’t worry - it’s for your own good. They’re there (with their guns) to help eradicate (your) guns. I feel safer already.

Hat tip to Rabid Sanity for breaking this, and Missoulapolis for the additional commentary on a new program being implemented in Washington, DC among other places.

A tip for aspiring robbers, rapists and criminals: follow those “Safe Homes Initiative” squads around (discreetly of course). Keep a list of the addresses where the squads are welcomed and invited in. That night, you’ve got a perfect list of defenseless scores.

A tip for the veteran robbers, rapists and criminals: if you’ve got a dirty gun that you used in a crime sitting around the house, have the Squad come in and grant you immunity from arrest to find it and impound it. That way you won’t have to serve any time for crimes already committed. Better yet, find a house where the coppers are already searching and quickly hide the gun under the Welcome mat.

Would someone tell me why Max Baucus prefers living in Washington, DC to Montana, ’cause I don’t get it…

The popular adage goes: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The Bene Gesserit have a slightly different perspective - and one that I’ve shared for some time.

“Power attracts the corruptible”

It’s not that good people are ruined by power; it’s that good people don’t want power leaving only the bad people to crave it. There are always exceptions, but this seems to be the rule.

We need Jack Ryan. We need an American Cincinnatus.

Sometimes Jay Stevens over at LITW is so honest that you have to read what he writes a few times to see if you’re getting it right. Take, for example his latest post on what it means to be a Democrat when it comes to a Democrat being charged with perjury.

Here’s the thing, party affiliation is largely irrelevant in this case. Why? A couple of reasons.

If, say, Kilpatrick’s party was well known for touting “character” as a prerequisite for office, claiming that it was the party of personal responsibility and morality, well, that’d be a story! Or if the politician involved touted, say, “family values” and voted against gay rights at every step, then was caught trolling for blow jobs in a public bathroom, well, party affiliation would matter!

Or, say, the corruption in the case were part of a larger pattern that connected to the poltician’s party affiliation, well, then affiliation is relevant. Say, oh, I don’t know, the party spun off a lobbyist who put relatives of politicians in key positions at industries across the country, demanded that those industries give money only to his party, bribed politicians and their staffers (luxury trips, say?), to enact legislation on behalf of “loyal” clients, well, that would be a story!

In other words, it doesn’t matter that he is a Democrat because Democrats don’t claim the high ground on the rule-of-law and not committing perjury. (I can sort of understand Jay’s mistaking perjury for a non-crime since that was the position his Party took in 1999).

In other words, when a politicians is charged with a crime, the actual crime isn’t as important as the potential for hypocrisy in values or rhetoric. As long as you don’t run on your belief that telling the truth when under oath is important, why does it matter if you perjure yourself?

In other words, the justification for discussion the criminal activity of a politician is in the political capital that it is worth to attack the entire Party. Remember, this is the party that opposes stereotypes unless they are judging entire groups of people who disagree with them by the antics of just a few.

In other words, when a Democrat messes up, its not news because the last time a Democrat messed up it wasn’t news because the last time a Democrat messed up it wasn’t news because… well you get the picture.

In other words, Jay Stevens is writing a blank check to Democrats to commit any manner of crimes against state and virtue because they aren’t stupid enough to campaign against crimes against state and virtue like the stupid Republicans…

I love it when Democrats are honest, don’t you?

Expect to hear the number 4,000 a lot in the next few days.  Liberal groups love to issue press releases whenever the number of American casualties reaches a round number based on the arbitrary base-ten numerical system (as if the 4,000th death is more significant than the 3,983rd).

To the 4,000 and their families: Thank you.

To the liberal groups using this milestone for personal political gain, a little history lesson to give you some perspective:

U.S. AIRBORNE 2,499 KIA
U.S. / UTAH 197 KIA
U.S. / OMAHA 2,000  KIA
U.S. TOTAL 4,696 KIA

Total Number of American Casualties in a single day (D-Day) of World War II: 4,696.

Total Number of Code Pink, MoveOn liberal hippies issuing press releases and/or kicking Marines out of their cities: 0.

Maybe that’s why they were the Greatest Generation.