Monday, November 13. 2006
 Kaminer on the academic disease of intolerance and the new authoritarianism. One quote:
Kaminer’s description of a free university, where challenging and even confrontational ideas are batted between and among teachers and students, sounds very appealing – but all too often today, the reality is quite different. She says: ‘There are still a lot of very good schools and very good teachers, who try to stimulate their students and expose them to different ideas.’ No doubt that is true. But in some universities there is also a creeping culture of conformism, a sense that certain ideas are beyond the pale and thus must be crushed by the long arm of the censor (often, these days, a university-appointed ethics committee or a self-righteous students’ union).
From Rick Moran: The Iranians don’t only want us defeated. They want the US humiliated. Any negotiations with the mullahs will be long, drawn out, and designed to show the world how powerless we are to affect events in the region. In the meantime, our soldiers will continue to die, the Iraqi government will continue to dither, and the body count of civilians will spiral upwards. Phased withdrawal my ass. If we have decided to bug out, let’s leave as quickly as possible. If victory is not to be had at any price then it is immoral to keep our men and women in harms way simply to appease domestic sensibilities. Yes Iraq will devolve into madness and chaos. We can deal with that situation in the context of the War on Terror. Asking someone to put their life on the line for no reason save assuaging the consciences of politicians is stupid. If we’re not going to stay until the situation is stabilized leave now. Leave as quickly as we went in. The Saudis, the Iranians and the Syrians all helped sow the wind. Now let them reap the whirlwind.
Intellectuals love defeat. Hey, aren't we intellectuals?...Maybe not.
Benjamin Franklin Unmasked, at Moderate Voice Libraries in the sand: 13th century texts in Timbuktu Barbados invaded by giant ,man-eating snails The F-35 Lightning and pilotless jets Hezbollah has re-armed. 30,000 rockets, says Belmont Club, ready to go. Why don't the Brits love Americans? RWN ponders it.
Saturday, November 11. 2006
WW1 Vets. There are a few still around. Driscoll The Jihadists do follow American politics. Heck, they try to cocntrol it. Sister Toldjah. How naive can you be? People who want to kill you, watch you. Dobson says Repubs abandoned "values voters." I wish this good guy would learn to shut his big political mouth, and just keep doing what he is good at. h/t, News for Christians The UK: rules for cats, while country slides into Bedlam. Melanie Phillips. Creating alcoholic moms, one mom at a time? NYT 57 million blogs? Roger Simon. Glad to have you reading us! Another thing wierd about the election. Anchoress Gay Patriot says the election is Reagan's vindication. Could be. Bush can now get his illegal amnesty plan through congress. Nice. Habla espanol? Jack Murtha is getting deep into his own quagmire. Is this guy OK?
Friday, November 10. 2006
 Howler of the day: George McGovern is back. He blames the "insurgency" on Amerika. Natch. First time I read it, I thought it was a satire. But, come to think of it, I guess he is an expert on quitting and losing.
Cross Ball State U off the list. Michelle. Just another school that does not tolerate diversity. Frito-Lay's new healthy snax: One quote from the release: PLANO, TX—With the recent trend of wholesome snack foods reaching "truly ridiculous proportions," Frito-Lay announced Monday that it would, against its better judgment, roll out a new line of healthy fruit-and-vegetable-based chips next February. "Here," said Frito-Lay CEO Al Carey as he disgustedly tossed a bag of the company's new Flat Earth-brand snack crisps onto the lectern during a meeting with shareholders and members of the press. "Here's some shit that's made from beets. I hope you're all happy now that you have your precious beet chips with the recommended daily serving of fruit, or vegetables, or whatever the hell a 'beet' is."
From state icon to pest: the gator resurgence in FL. Don't they call them swimming handbags? New Hampshire needs a border fence. On the southern end. Wizbang Classical Values reflects on the election: Whether the Republicans are viewed from a libertarian perspective, an economic conservative perspective, or a social conservative perspective, they failed. I mean, the best I could come up with was "Hold your nose and vote Republican!" While that can hardly be called a winning slogan, as it turned out, I had such a terrible cold that I didn't need to hold my nose.
Under the leadership of the New York Times, as quoted at Dem Project: "During the last 50 years, New York State’s share of U.S. income has declined 37%, while Minnesota’s remained constant, and New Hampshire’s increased 67%. New York State now ranks 45th among the 50 states in population and income growth, and percent of the adult population employed. Although NYS spends the most per pupil for education, our state has the 44th lowest graduation rate. Four out of ten students do not graduate from high school in New York State. "Our state has the highest per-capita tax burden of the 50 states, a burden that is 53% over the national average. Per-capita state and local government debt is 76% above the national average. Per-capita state and local government spending is 46% over the national average. State spending increased 13% this year, far faster than revenue growth, and four times the inflation rate. From 2000-2004, New York lost over one million residents to other states, 300,000 more than any other state."
More agenda-driven fear-mongering from The Lancet. This time it's evil chemicals. We are getting well past the point of taking that once-venerable mag seriously. Worstall A good word for Oprah, at Slower Pace Why do we use the word "just," especially in prayer? Middlebrow Live for today? From Viking: A quarter of Americans plan to eat cat food in retirement – From Dayton Business Journal: “While most people know that Social Security and company-provided pensions might not be available when they hit retirement, many still plan to rely on them. In the survey, a phone poll of 1,000 nonretired people throughout the United States, 23 percent say they intend to use Social Security as their primary income source in retirement.” The primary source of income! Good luck with that.
An opinion, from Shape of Days. I tend to think he just wants the world to stop turning, but I'm sure others share his feeling, which I suspect comes from too much negatively-slanted news. A quote: But ours is not a happy or healthy nation. Confidence in the American way is as low as I’ve ever known it to be. Optimism, long endangered, seems to have become extinct. I’d use the word “malaise” here, but the irony would be too much to bear. I think the first step toward restoring confidence in America — at least in my own heart, if not in the minds of the American people as a group — is for government to just slow down for a while. September 11, two wars overseas, a natural disaster at home, the Patriot Act (which has done more good than harm), the Military Commissions Act (which merely by existing does far more harm than it could ever do good) … there’s just been too much change in the past six years.
Thursday, November 9. 2006
The real winners and losers of the election. Funny. Neal Boortz  What would Jesus tax? (h/t, Asst Village Idiot)
Kim du Toit knows what the Repubs need to stand for. Yes, I did miss this grim story. Protein Unemployment: We have only seen these numbers five times in the past 50 years. It's the Bush Economic Miracle. And more self-employed people than ever: that has to be a good trend. New Dem senators support border defense and de-fence. PoliPundit Abandoning Iraq. Everyone would love to. But would it be wise? Quote from a David Warren piece: But in trying to build a secular democracy over the ruin of Saddam’s regime, the Americans tried something they had not the stomach for. From the outset, they imposed upon themselves restrictions that would make that fight unwinnable. As in Vietnam, they adopted a purely defensive posture. So far as President Bush can be blamed, it should be for showing insufficient ruthlessness in a task that could not be accomplished by half-measures. Alternatively, for failing to grasp that America was psychologically unprepared for real war, not only by the memory of Vietnam, but by the grim advance of "liberal" decadence in domestic life over the generation since.
Agreed, You cannot fight a long, slow "nice" war for "hearts and minds." You can only fight hard, and do the hearts and minds thing afterwards. Same lesson as Vietnam.
Wednesday, November 8. 2006
 I see Repubs just lost Montana. Montana? And I see Rummy is stepping down. I enjoyed the man's brain, but six years is enough for anyone.
The skelaton to the right is what's left of the Gingrich Revolution. Sad, but recently deserved. However, the country is no less conservative now. Things come and go. The six worst cars ever. Did you hear that Frank Sinatra parody of Strangers on my Flight that was going around last year? If not, here 'tis. Bird's brains have more power than we thought. Live Science Superb war post, at Eject Eject. No, it's really a meandering, thoughtful essay. One quote: People like Michael Moore and Bill Maher and Keith Olberman would not be able to figure out how to close the canopy on an F-102. These people would be weeping with fear when those afterburners light up and you barrel down that runway hoping that engine doesn’t flame out and roll you inverted into the asphalt, or when you’re rocketing through the soup at 300mph watching two little needles chase each other, praying the next thing you see out the window is a runway and not a mountain goat. George W. Bush is not stupid. It’s not possible to be a moron and fly a supersonic jet fighter, and everyone knows it. What George W. Bush is, however, is inarticulate. English is his second language. From what I can see he does not have a first language. Abraham Lincoln spoke in simple frontier language in an age of rhetorical flourish. Like Bush, he was considered a bumpkin and an idiot, and like Bush, he realized that there were times when having people misunderestimate you repeatedly was a real advantage. That’s goal-oriented. That’s playing the deep game. That’s cunning. I personally have gotten to the point where Bush’s malapropisms cause me to look at the floor and shake my head with an affectionate smile, in much the same way supporters of his predecessor used to do with every new revelation of coerced sex from former employees. He is what he is. But he is a damn sight more intelligent than the graphic designer in the Mini Cooper with the Village Idiot sticker. Me, personally, I look at the man’s entire catalog of flaws in the same way Lincoln looked at Grant and his drinking: I can’t spare this man. He fights. So to me, anyway, given the above information I feel that anyone calling President Bush a moron and an idiot comes off sounding like…well…a moron and an idiot.
Take a couple of minutes and read the whole thing. Yes, it has pictures too.
As we await the results of the Virginia and Montana senatorial races, we note with pleasure that the only candidate in the elections who was supported by Maggie's Farm - Joe Lieberman - won. We are also impressed by the levels of voting across the country. We feel bad about Michael Steele, though. He does have a political future, doing something. He has good vibes. No pontificating about the elections here - this was a normal and predictable swing of sentiment and energy at this point in a Presidential administration but, still, each individual election has to be understood in its own local context. Gandelman at A Moderate Voice has a nice selection of opinions.
Monday, November 6. 2006
Election. By the sixth year of an administration, one must expect some attrition, and plain voter fatigue. Whatever the country wants, it will get. I always vote for the least bad person: I vote for freedom, not for my (empty) pocketbook. If the Dems do take the House, however, watch the voters say, next year, "WFT? Did I vote for these jokers?" No, you did not. Seniority goes to those with the safest, most uncompetitive seats; to those who are in there for life. US out of Vietnam, says our buddy Bruce at Dem. Project. Bruce: it's called realpolitik. Saving the world is out of fashion this year. Dem leaders refuse to comment on terrorists' endorsement. 91% of Australians want renewable energy. My guess is 91% of Australians want pie in the sky, too. Try nuclear, Aussies. Canadian identity: At Dust my Broom, "Canada is a place to hang out until something better comes along." A newspaper endorsement that has to make you laugh: Blue Crab And more newspaper idiocy: Cheney is hunting quail in South Dakota tomorrow? I doubt it. There are no quail within 1000 miles of South Dakota. But I'd love to join him for some pheasant hunting - call me, Dick, and send Air Force 2 over here to pick me up after work. Brit docs want euthanasia. I'd be inclined towards euthanasia for those Brit docs, because their consciences are defective. Lebanon: A fun place for guys. Wow. Even I could get a girl there, I think. Don't we already have baloney degrees in the US? Inside Higher Ed
Sunday, November 5. 2006
 Is there an election coming up? What's the deal? Nobody told me. I've been away hunting all weekend, enjoying guns, dogs, friends, beer, and wild America. What a great country. We encountered more woodcock than grouse this weekend, but it will all be dinner tonight. Woodcock liver-brandy sauce for the woodcock breasts, on toast, is the first course. Second course is rare Ruffed Grouse breast on lentils with a gibier sauce. Dessert? Home-made apple pie with ice cream. Guys cook: the gals are our guests, but appropriate gratitude is expected.
Who to blame for the difficulties in Iraq? Anybody, and everybody? Balloon Juice. They aren't even fighting the Americans now as much as they are fighting eachother. I suspect many of them just enjoy fighting. It's a multicultural thing, ya know? Some cultures are just naturally imperialistic. You read this all already: Ramsey Clark is a mockery. Michelle. Of course, the moonbats are upset about Saddam's conviction. Including those at the LA Times. Now, why is that? How soon before we see Free Saddam bumperstickers? Charlie Rangel's friends. Moonbattery. Steve Harrigan gets the gold star for reporting. A simple statement of faith. LaShawn Giuliani's stump speech, if you are interested. Dino. Giuliani is OK, but a New York City Italian guy will not be the presidential candidate in 2008. Is Massachusetts the canary in the coal mine? Lots of folks are quoting this, but I saw it at Powerline first.
 How to get rich in public education. Edn Wonks. Key issue: know nothing about it.
James Bond's guns up for auction. Alphecca. It was more fun when eBay allowed guns. French union threatens strike to protect Islamist airport workers. What a country. A look back at Izzy Stone. New Criterion. He was not a "useful idiot:" he knew exactly what he was doing in defending Stalin. Stone was just another Lefto-fascist benefiting from American freedom while celebrating its absence elsewhere. Like the folks today who love Fidel...but do not move to Cuba. CA library bans church from using their space, on separation grounds. Ninth Circuit (duh) upholds. Cramer begs to differ. More Michigan: Even you are better off than the French! The Kyoto scam, free speech, and global socialism warming: TCS The Economist has a blog (h/t, Marginal Rev.) This blog competition is getting intense. How can the little guy survive, with day jobs? We demand government support now for our blogging lifestyle, or an entire way of life may disappear. Hollywood hubris. A quote from Horsefeathers on Clint Eastwood and Flags of our Fathers (the book was fine - not great): Some men (and women) whom the gods would destroy, they first raise high for all to see. These men (and women) have been so successful, have amassed such wealth, and have acquired so many playthings—the grand houses on Lily Pond Lane, Chateaux en Provence, estates in Scotland surrounded by rushing streams rich with trout, or vast glass and steel condos looking out over Central Park, that they yearn for things that wealth cannot buy. These are men (and women) like George Soros, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg. Besotted with their wealth they forget that they are ordinary men (and women) with small gifts for entertaining or trading in markets. The gods first enchant them with dreams of changing the world and then cast them into the outer space of narcissistic illusion, where they are doomed to watch their own inner movies forever. One fears that Clint Eastwood is heading in that direction. He has become so successful as an actor, director and producer of movies that he may have forgotten that the gift he was given was to be used simply to entertain us, like a juggler, or a trapeze artist who makes us breathless with fear and then takes a smiling, confident bow. Now he wants to teach us something important, to tell us what is right and what is wrong about the world.
Saturday, November 4. 2006
 We need a name for the environmentalist-religious-socialists. They creep me out, too. Gaiatologists?
This guy is a heck of a good shot, with a bow. Invite him to your next deer hunt. The election aftermath, anticipated. Wise post at YARGB Nacho Libre. From the guys who brought you the great Napoleon Dynamite. Here, h/t The Shelf The stem cell BS: wow - what an advt. Slightly dishonest? Has no-one heard that embryonic stem cells cause cancer? And that there is a slight moral issue here? Prayers for Cuba, NYC style. Sheesh. Sometimes there is just nothing to say. Sees it like we do. Mr. Free Market on the global warming scam. Scott at Powerline takes a look at racial preferences.Go, Scott: The depth of the racial discrimination practiced in the university setting became evident in the two University of Michigan cases decided by the Supreme Court a few years back. In the undergraduate school, applicants for admission were simply sorted into different pools with lower admission standards if they identified themselves as African-American, Hispanic, or Native American, and higher standards if they identified themselves as white or members of non-preferred minority groups. In the law school, the university rigged its standards year after year to achieve a minimum 10 percent quota of students from designated "underrepresented" minority groups (African American, Mexican American and Native American). For years the university covered up the existence of the racial discrimination that it was practicing. Now it defends what it cannot conceal, and it does so in the name of "affirmative action" and "diversity." The defense of racial preferences in the name of "affirmative action" and "diversity" has become part of contemporary civil rights orthodoxy and many purportedly sophisticated arguments have been advanced to justify them. Hillary Clinton has stated, in express disagreement with Martin Luther King's great 1963 speech on the Washington Mall, "If we don't take race as part of our character, then we are kidding ourselves."
Friday, November 3. 2006
 Funny how the Dems are hiding their most powerful folks this week: Pelosi, Kennedy, Reid, Murtha, Kerry, Gore etc. are all on vacation, or in hiding.
The benefits of napping. Betsy What the Dems want to do, maybe...because they won't say. View from 1776 The NYT thought that they were damaging the Repubs with their WMD piece, but all they did was to prove that Saddam had nukes on the way. And today's other NYT story - they lied about Kerry's screw-up. LGF The closely-held secret: we have a booming economy. There is no-one in America who will work, who is not working and not contributing. Black Dems growing tired of being taken for granted? In MD, yes. Michelle Christian self-immolation? Lifson at Am Thinker LaShawn talked about the Haggard story. I prefer the post at Instapundit, in which he quoted a passage from a Neal Stephenson book: "That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code," Major Napier said, working it through, "does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code."
Egyptians think that the US is their enemy. Huh? Big Pharaoh "The deal so good they had to make it mandatory." Social Security and the AARP. Viking Hawkins extracts the best quotes from Mark Steyn's America Alone. One of them: All dominant powers are hated -- Britain was, and Rome -- but they're usually hated for the right reasons. America is hated for every reason. The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lap-dancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too godless, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear you will find it therein; whatever you're against, America is the prime example of it. -- P.xxiii
Blogs make it more difficult for journalists to do their job, complains the NYT. Am Thinker College students want someone else to pay their tuition for them. Part-time Pundit. And I want someone else to pay my bills, too. Ralph Peters is fed up with the lack of a plan for Iraq: My disillusionment with our Iraq endeavor began last summer, when I was invited to a high-level discussion with administration officials. I went into the meeting with one firm goal, to convince my hosts that they’d better have Plan B in case Iraq continued to disintegrate. I left the session convinced that the administration still didn’t have Plan A, only a blur of meandering policies and blind hopes. After more than three years, it was still “An Evening at the Improv.”
Peters surely knows that any war is improvised after the first 24 hours, but I think he is saying more than that. Piece at our buddy Dino.
Thursday, November 2. 2006
 Seymour Hirsch does a Seymour Hirsh satire. Jawa
Why Hillary is smiling. Kerry fragged himself! Whatever happened to all of the New Orleans FEMA trailers? Gay and Right. Meth labs? Some of the Iraqis are totally nuts. Who anticipated this kind of BS? No-one. It is no wonder so many Americans want to say "Screw 'em." It's only nach'rul, but is it wise? Don't ask me - I'm a retarded, mean-spirited, uneducated, redneck, idiot conservative. NYT covering for Kerry. Duh Moonbat Dreams. What they want: Free everything. Blair. Are they adults (in the usual sense of the term)? Chief Clarence, of the Osoyoos Band, gets it right for all of us: “If life sucks, it’s because you suck.”
“Quit your sniffling.”
“Join the real world. Go to school or get a job.”
“Get off welfare.”
“Get off your butt.”
Academic Groupthink. How it works. RWN Image: Yes, it is the lovely and charming Gwyneth: an antidote to Joe Lieberman's goofy mug below - who we support, mind you, because of national security, despite having to tolerate the rest of his whiney Lefty nonsense.
Hey gringo! Image from the Guard the Borders blogburst. Makes you almost want to say "Take New Mexico, and turn it onto a shithole like the one you came from." Better yet, fix your own country. Kerry's "apology:" just like the kind of apology a guy gives to a hysterical wife - "I'm sorry if you didn't understand what I meant." On the other hand, ABC news thinks Kerry had a good point. What? Lonely? Most people are. But watch out for dating scams like this one. Affirmative action for white males? It's about time! Everybody hates us! Inside Higher Ed Good news: Red wine and longevity. Instapundit Hunting for natural killers: The most dangerous game. Georgetown tried to copy Columbia: Michelle We posted on Michigan yesterday. A reader sent us this Detroit website, for those who miss the old Detroit. France is becoming a war zone. No Pasaran I am very upset. I missed World Vegan Day yesterday. Dang. I had a ham and swiss sandwich for lunch yesterday. Sorry, Mr. Pig - I would have had tofu and sprouts, just for one day - then splurged on dead animals today to compensate.
Wednesday, November 1. 2006
 Besides having the typical liberal contempt for the proletarian troops, Kerry isn't very green either:
According to the Boston Herald, la famille Kerry owns eight cars (six of them SUVs), a motorcycle, two powerboats and a Gulfstream II jet. Kerry nonetheless told reporters last month that he doesn't own an SUV. ("The family has it; I don't have it.")
Whole piece at SF Gate (h/t. Jim Miller) Do deadlines help procrastinators? Duh. Self-imposed deadlines don't work, either. Islamofascists emboldened in the UK: threats become more open and extreme. Just lie back and enjoy it, Europe. A GOP response ad: Why Vote Republican. (h/t, Never Yet melted) Equality and Proposition 2 in Michigan. Althouse. Is equality a code-word for inequality? What will would the Dems do in the House? Brewton
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