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The smart money always bets on the likely winners:

Financiers have also been oiling Obama’s campaign. In Chicago, his home town, John Canning, a “Bush pioneer” and investment banker who pledged to raise $100,000 for the president in 2004, has given up on the Republicans. “I know lots of my friends in this business are disenchanted and are definitely looking for something different,” he said.

Not to be outdone, Hillary Clinton has many Republican defectors of her own, including John Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, who helped raise $200,000 for the president’s reelection, qualifying him as a “Bush ranger”. He said last week that he was impressed by Clinton’s expertise. “I know we’re associated mainly with the Republicans but we’ve always gone for the individual,” Mack said.

According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, Obama and Clinton have vacuumed up more than $750,000 (£375,000) in individual contributions from former Bush donors.

These people don’t actually support Clinton and Obama, this is just the smart money investing in probable power. The fact that they’re doing so indicates how little hope they have in holding on to a Republican White House, though. I’m guessing George Bush’s popularity ratings falling as low as Jimmy Carter’s – 28 percent – just might have something to do with that.

Legaleagle obviously thinks highly of working class women:

[N]o man in his right mind would pay to have sex with such beasts. They would, indeed, make lousy hookers. Just as they’d make lousy actresses, lousy writers, lousy artists, lousy doctors, and lousy professors. On the other, there’s no one better when it comes to scrubbing the toilets and feeding the pigs.

Since it was impossible for him to demonstrate that the East Coast, college-educated professional women Ms Palfrey preferred to employ as prostitutes are not likely to be inclined towards political liberalism and feminism, Legaleagle elects to demonstrate that deep liberal concern for lower-income, less-educated women.

It’s really a mark of the moral superiority of the liberal, don’t you think?

As for lousy writers, well, let’s just say that I’m on this year’s Nebula novel jury and I think it’s high time that someone gave the toilet scrubbers and pig feeders a shot at a book contract or two. They certainly couldn’t do much worse than most of the utter tripe I’ve been forced to endure lately.

I don’t know if I can take another vampire-werewolf-strong independent woman love triangle or book dedicated to the theme of remaining true to yourself.

And by all means, don’t you dare cite inconvenient Department of Justice statistics:

Lawrence you’re a big pain in the ass. One article from you takes more time and energy than 50 articles from 50 writers and gets me attacked and now is getting me the third degree from you…. I have a million enemies out there and I don’t need attacks waiting to happen by publishing your stuff….

I want you to go away Lawrence. You have caused me more trouble than I care to think about and the fact that you’re piling on me while I’m getting letters from my children asking me why I published a racist, and while I’m waiting to see this spread across the Internet, is more than I can handle right now.

While it’s entirely understandable that David Horowitz, who is no shrinking violent and doesn’t exactly lack for enemies, might not be interested in acquiring any more, the time for thinking about that sort of thing is really before the piece is published. And the fact of the matter is that Auster’s piece is no more racist than the Wall Street Journal reporting on the quarter’s economic numbers… the fact that the Department of Justice reports that no white men are sexually assaulting black women and many black men are sexually assaulting black and white women alike is both significant and even newsworthy in light of the black woman falsely crying rape against the Duke lacrosse team.

If Mr. Horowitz doesn’t have the stomach for more controversy, that’s absolutely fine and he’s certainly got a right to decline it, but it doesn’t justify the unfortunate way he has elected to handle the situation.

I very much hope Auster will continue to write provocative and iconoclastic articles, and that the next time a similar situation arises – and it will – that Mr. Horowitz will take his editorial responsibilities to the writers who contribute to his magazine a little more seriously. Dangerous ideas and those who think them are always a pain in the ass to everyone they touch… but I find it rather amusing how so many people enjoy the image of being controversial while doing their best to avoid the reality.

In any event, it is a pity that so many people would rather pretend that there is no difference between the various races instead of electing to deal with those obvious and undeniable differences in a constructive manner.

Kevin Drum appears to be one of the only individuals talking sense about Fred Thompson:

“Thompson is a guy whose political record in the Senate was a big zero; whose only real claim to fame is being a character actor on TV and in films; who has done nothing to distinguish himself this year except deliver a few vaguely Reaganesque pastiches in a nice baritone; who is apparently not Christian enough for James Dobson’s taste; who has no known issues that he really cares deeply about; and whose most famous quality is his laziness.

“That sure doesn’t sound like the resume of a guy who’s going to rescue the Republican Party to me. The fact that so many people are talking him up seems like it says more about the suicidally desperate state of the GOP than it does about the actual presidential prospects of Fred Thompson.”

That being said, this classic rant from Rudy Giuliani did make me like him better, not for president or anything, but merely as an individual who is definitely sound on ferrets:

There is something really, really, very sad about you. You need help. You need somebody to help you. I know you feel insulted by that, but I’m being honest with you. This excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness. I’m sorry. That’s my opinion. You don’t have to accept it. There are probably very few people who would be as honest with you about that. But you should go consult a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and have him help you with this excessive concern, how you are devoting your life to weasels…. I’m giving you advice for your own good. You have a sickness. I know it’s hard for you to accept that because you hang onto the sickness and it’s your shield, it’s your whatever, I don’t know.

It’s just beautiful, it really is.

I found it interesting that Peggy Noonan had the grace to admit that Ron Paul is the intellectually serious candidate following the Republican debate. But he does deserve the description, his national obscurity notwithstanding:

MR. HARRIS: Congressman Paul, you voted against the war. Why are all your fellow Republicans up here wrong?

REP. PAUL: That’s a very good question. And you might ask the question why are 70 percent of the American people now wanting us out of there and why did the Republicans do so poorly last year. So I would suggest that we should look at foreign policy.

I’m suggesting very strongly that we should have a foreign policy of non-intervention, the traditional American foreign policy and a Republican foreign policy. Throughout the 20th century, the Republican Party benefited from a non-interventionist foreign policy. Think of how Eisenhower came in to stop the Korean War. Think of how Nixon was elected to stop the mess in Vietnam. How did we win the election in the year 2000? We talked about a humble foreign policy. No nation-building. Don’t police the world. That is a conservative, it’s a Republican, it’s a pro-American, it follows the Founding Fathers. And besides, it follows the Constitution.

I tried very hard to solve this problem before we went to war, by saying declare war if you want to go to war; go to war, fight it and win it, but don’t get into it for political reasons or to enforce U.N. resolutions or pretend the Iraqis were a national threat to us.

The fact that this foreign policy position is now considered obscure, outdated and exotic by the Republican Party only demonstrates what a hole the Republican leaders have dug for themselves. Jonah Goldberg comments: “I’m no huge fan, but he did a very good job of making his quasi isolationist position seem hawkish and American. I think it was the best answer given so far.”

It’s also interesting to note that the impression of the previously pro-Giuliani National Reviewers appears to be that Giuliani did very poorly. I’m not surprised at all as I don’t regard him as a serious candidate in any way and I still believe he’ll withdraw from the race long before the convention hits St. Paul.

Also, full credit to the party elders for resisting the temptation to play games and including all the candidates.

UPDATE – And this is why America deserves the leaders it gets:

Mitt Romney won Thursday night’s debate by every objective standard of style and substance. First, the style: At six-feet-two-inches tall with perfect hair and impeccable tailoring, Romney was Ronald Reagan incarnate. Romney was George Clooney/George Hamilton cool (complete with the tan) surrounded by a dorm-room full of average dudes….

Ron Paul has the unfortunate distinction of looking and sounding wacky and impish, even when he says entirely reasonable things. He brilliantly and succinctly positioned his opposition to the current war within the context of Eisenhower getting us out of Korea, Nixon having a plan to get us out of Vietnam and Bush vowing not to start “nation-building” (in the 2000 campaign) that must have left a lot of Republican viewers thinking “this guy makes a lot of sense.”

Unfortunately for Paul, he looks like a combination of My Favorite Martian’s Ray Walston and a comedian who habitually ran for president, Pat Paulsen; not helpful.

But, you know, focusing on a guy’s underwear and not his hair or his tan, that’s just crazy shallow.

The Washington prostitution scandal offers one explanation for why career women are less likely to marry:

Palfrey recruited women by placing ads featuring her telephone number in local alternative newspapers and campus publications, including the University of Maryland school newspaper….

From career professionals to graduate students, most women who came to Palfrey to work did so because they needed money — to pay off credit card debt, cover school loans or pay tuition fees, according to Palfrey. “I had a gal, for example, who was at Georgetown Medical,” she said. At different times Palfrey employed a college professor, a medical researcher, a Navy officer, a legal secretary and a suburban realtor.

You know, if you’re spending your days working in an office and your evenings working as a prostitute, you really aren’t in much of a position to complain that you can’t meet a nice guy who wants to marry you.

Although I have never made use of their services, I have nothing against prostitutes of either the street or high class varieties. But I nevertheless find it more than a little ironic that a madam should find it profitable to look to college students, graduate students and career women – most likely East Coast, moderately feminist liberals all – in stocking her hooker store.

I was reading through a story about a new documentary dedicated to two men who were battling for the all-time high score on Donkey Kong and happened to click on a link for Twin Galaxies. I dimly recalled submitting a high score for a classic arcade game about ten years ago back when I was first enthralled with MAME and checked out the list for Pooyan.

Anyhow, it seems I’m in the record books as the holder of the 11th highest score, at 138,200. Alert Wikipedia! It’s a pity they didn’t go back a little further, because I only got that score after Spacebunny had broken my previous record, which at the time was the Internet high score. Hence her claim to arcade royalty. Respect.

Big Chilly should be in there too for 1942. He’s frighteningly good at that game; at one of the Digital Ghetto’s Christmas parties back in the day, he beat the Atari Jaguar version of it the very first time he played it without losing a plane.

It was the single most awesome video game performance I’ve seen before or since.

Feminists are all for choice, so long as women only choose to kill their unborn children for reasons of which they approve:

CAMPAIGNERS last night warned couples “not to play God” with a revolutionary home test that reveals an unborn baby’s sex at six weeks. They fear the £189 kit will create a massive leap in abortions if would-be parents are not having the gender they want.

Michaela Aston, spokeswoman for the charity LIFE, said: “This test is very dangerous. It could lead to babies being aborted simply for being the ‘wrong’ sex.” And Julia Millington, of the Prolife Alliance, said: “There is a real risk that some people would choose to abort babies of a certain gender.”

The earliest couples had previously known the gender of their baby was at the 20-week scan — four weeks before the legal limit for an abortion….

Prolife Alliance’s Ms Millington added: “We have already reached an alarming situation where hospitals in some parts of the UK will no longer disclose the gender of an unborn child.

As is dependably the case, the feminist position is hopelessly self-contradictory. They have absolutely no rationale for denying sex-based abortions, thus in the name of women’s equality, they are increasingly complicit in the murders of millions of little girls.

So, naturally, they’ll try to deny women information about the sex of the unborn child… just as they try to deny women information about abortion’s effects on them. Given their blatant attempts to keep women ignorant and uninformed, one really has to wonder just how dedicated to female empowerment they truly are.

Feminists are not merely disgusting, evil creatures, they’re demonstrably stupid as well.

UPDATE – Come on. Is it really plausible that hospitals are refusing to disclose the gender of the unborn child because they’re pro-life? I’m not accusing feminists of hypocrisy here… yet, only pointing out that their position is a rationally untenable one. The significance of the article to which I linked isn’t what anyone is saying right now, it’s the mere fact that this inexpensive and early test is now available. The current silence of American feminists on the issue notwithstanding, it’s already clear which way they’re going to have to jump in the near future:

At CSW 51, [Commission on the Status of Women] the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) supported a resolution banning sex-selection abortions.

One of UNIFEM’s publications on eliminating violence against women begins with an acknowledgment that the abortion of females is violence against women and girls: “The range of violence against women and girls is devastating, occurring quite literally from womb to tomb. It includes: abortion of female babies.”

Even in the more female-friendly West, it’s obvious which way the sex selection dial will usually be turned: That North Americans may not use new technologies to produce huge numbers of “extra” boys does not, however, mean that sex selection and sexism are unrelated. One study, by Roberta Steinbacher at Cleveland State University, found that 81% of women and 94% of men who say they would use sex selection would want their firstborn to be a boy.

But is that sexism or is it choice? And is there really a difference anyhow?

Otherwise, it seems it isn’t the white boys that the ladies need worry about:

In Table 42, entitled “Personal crimes of violence, 2005, percent distribution of single-offender victimizations, based on race of victims, by type of crime and perceived race of offender,” we learn that there were 111,590 white victims and 36,620 black victims of rape or sexual assault in 2005. (The number of rapes is not distinguished from those of sexual assaults; it is maddening that sexual assault, an ill-defined category that covers various types of criminal acts ranging from penetration to inappropriate touching, is conflated with the more specific crime of rape.) In the 111,590 cases in which the victim of rape or sexual assault was white, 44.5 percent of the offenders were white, and 33.6 percent of the offenders were black. In the 36,620 cases in which the victim of rape or sexual assault was black, 100 percent of the offenders were black, and 0.0 percent of the offenders were white. The table explains that 0.0 percent means that there were under 10 incidents nationally.

That’s a pretty significant difference. When one factors in that Hispanics are counted as white offenders, it’s pretty obvious that there are actually fewer Caucasian offenders than black offenders. Considering that American blacks have been a part American culture for more than half of the countries existence, the idea that there is some sort of cultural difference here doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

There seem to be two contradictory multiculti arguments here. One is that “race” doesn’t exist, in which case we can go ahead and end all affirmative action and employment laws. Since I’ve never heard anyone who claims that there is no such thing as “race” is willing to eliminate all race-based preferences and laws based on that “scientific fact”, it’s safe to conclude that even they don’t believe what they are saying.

The other argument is that everyone is equal, skin color notwithstanding. But this makes no sense, as there are a whole host of statistically observable differences between the various races. And it certainly calls into serious question the basic assumption of those who believe that a racially mixed America will have more in common with historical white America than it does with every other third world nation. It won’t.

Interestingly enough, all of those sophisticated Europeans that American liberals so admire are far more “racist” in this regard than the right-wing conservative American that they despise. European laws heavily favor immigration from other European countries; in some cases America is now considered no more desirable an origin than Ghana or Zimbabwe. Perhaps that’s because Europeans have born witness to the sharp differences between various ethnic groups for centuries while America indulged itself in the myth of the Melting Pot, which was really just an exercise in seeing how many non-Anglos could be mixed into Anglo-European culture without destroying it.

(Remember, Europe’s immigration angst which is beginning to boil over into violence and their national politics concerns Muslims making up 4-5 percent of their population. The USA has twice that many ILLEGAL Hispanic immigrants alone. In France, despite the notorious ghettos and riots, the number is only has 8-9 percent.)

In any event, the risk-reward ratio simply doesn’t make sense, it’s far too high. Why risk the existence of your entire peaceful and wealthy civilization… for theories which suggest that change will be harmless? But Americans have brought this on themselves, with their sixties-era canonization of racial egalitarianism, cultural relativism and global immigration.

So, don’t cry for me, America, when you end up like Argentina.