Wednesday, March 7. 2007
Fascinating and damning review of the climate change scam (h/t, reader). When I have time, I will quote from it or post some graphs. In the meantime, check it out: Nine Facts about Climate Change. OK, here's one quote: Environmentalism has largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the upper classes in Europe and to a lesser extent in the US. It is a form of religious belief which fosters a sense of moral superiority in the believer, but which places no importance on telling the truth. As the former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart put it: No matter if the science is all phony (sic), there are collateral environmental benefits. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.
"Justice and equality in the world" just by buying carbon credits? Far out, dude. I know a fat guy who sells them wholesale, out of his tobacco barn in Tennessee. And here's a polar temps graph for the past 5000 years: 
 NY State taxpayers 68% responsible for the first WTC bombing. Makes you wonder. Overlawyered. If a Moslem bombs my house, am I 68% responsible for it?
GM might buy Chrysler. Hmmm. A consideration of that, plus a brief history of the Big Three. Hooking up. Fun sport for boys. But is it fun for girls - or good for them? Book review. Raising diversity numbers by importing blacks. WaPo. How markets process complex information. A brief intro to the topic. Cafe Hayek Sowell on education, in RCP (h/t, Dinocrat). A quote: Not since the days of the Hitler Youth have young people been subjected to more propaganda on more politically correct issues.
Accumulated error. Man, does that concept apply to life in general. Sippican Cottage France bans reporting on violence by citizens. LGF (h/t, Driscoll). It's called facing reality, the French way. Cattle are the #1 source of CO2 production. So why do Greenies go after cars? Anyway, PETA is all fired up. Watch PETA begin killing cows in fields. New study says: Americans now view government as more of a barrier than a helping hand, and its failure to be accountable in a way that produces results is central to these doubts….Perhaps the most stunning finding in the survey is that just 13 percent believe the federal government would spend additional money well while 83 percent say it would be wasted….
Kesler discusses at Dem. Project. I just wonder whether these findings are anything new: they sound like typical, traditional American views to me.
 The VA hospital system is, except for the small Indian Health Service, our homegrown example of federal government-owned and -run medical care. How is the VA doing? Coyote. I don't understand why they don't shut down the VA system, and just insure vets for regular hospitals.
Of course the Brit NHS is in chronic crisis, with hospital lightbulbs being removed to save money. But look at what they will pay for: Moonbattery. When medical care gets politicized, it becomes as stupid as everything else govt does. The uninsured. Tell me how single-payer insurance would have saved this kid. Singleton. Bruce Kesler asks this question, about the idea of of revamping the American system, in response to a piece by Reed in the San Diego Union-Tribune: Reed is dogged in revealing the empty rhetoric driving most other newspapers, as they lament the “uninsured.” The poor already receive health care, through Medicaid and similar programs for working poor, and even illegals are guaranteed emergency care. Most of the uninsured are, actually, the young and foolish, and most others can afford at least catastrophic insurance if they didn’t prioritize lattes and other luxuries over self-responsibility. Here and here, Reed names the newspapers glibly citing that there are 47-million uninsured, when up to 12-million are actually illegal aliens. The mantra that we must upend the health care arrangements and economics of the 85% of us with insurance, polls usually showing 80% satisfaction, in order to subsidize the inflated, undeserving and irresponsible bulk of the uninsured 15% is public policy insanity, driven by the Left’s obsession with enlarging government and bureaucrats’ power over us via a government-run, nationalized health care system
 Gen. David Walker says this, as quoted by Viking:
By the year 2040, Walker says, "If nothing changes, the federal government is not going to be able to do much more than pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlement benefits. It won't have money left for anything else."
But who cares? Won't we all be under water by then anyway?
 It's not surprising that the most spied-upon nation is the USA. How is out counter-intelligence going?
From a piece at Discover the Networks: China's intelligence services are among the most aggressive at spying on the United States, followed by Cuban, Russian and Iranian spy agencies, according to the U.S. government's top counterintelligence coordinator.
"These services are eating our lunch," Joel F. Brenner, the new head of the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, said in his first interview since being named to the counterspy post in August.
If you tend center-right-ish, what are you? Check here. I'm an "Old, Wise One." I'll take the wise, but hold the old.
I found a site with some good ones. I like the pheasant with the retriever in his beak the best, but my daughter says most people wouldn't "get it." She's the one who is begging to get her hunting license. This summer she will have time to take the required course. 
Tuesday, March 6. 2007
 I feel badly for Scooter. Also, surprised by the verdict.
Girl Scouts still selling sin, door to door. Where did this Iranian general go? ABC. Hope we have him. Individual choices drive most American income disparities. Villainous Filler news and real news: The owner of FARK at Instapundit More reporters take on advocacy role. Duh China and the stock market wobble: The Chinese banking system, and the problems with investing in China. Samizdata Canadian diamonds? Yes. Hirsi Ali is a "bombthrower"? So what is a real bombthrower? America's favorite sport: beating up derelicts (scroll down). If you read Der Spiegel, you might think so. Admittedly, I do it once in a while when I am bored - but not daily. New Jersey wants to ban .50 caliber guns. Reason: People don't need them. No, nor do the people "need" free speech or habeas corpus. They are just those obsolete constitutional rights...Indeed, government would be far more efficient without that Bill of Rights, wouldn't it? Left, right, or middle: anyone can come up with reasons to chip away at our Bill of Rights. Adding to blogroll: Riehl World View Image: On this bitterly cold day, I wanted to look at this garden in Fiesole.
Never do this. Use your head. Wrong. Bad idea.
17,000 scientists dispute man-made global warming theories. Piece on the new documentary at Anchoress. Interesting to see the founder of Greenpeace on the rational side of things. Plus a quote in that piece from Anchoress which deserves to be a QQQ: ...the mediating intelligences are increasingly selective about which stories get oxygen and which are strangled at birth.
Darn right. That is why political blog posts exist. Otherwise, Maggie's Farm would be a happy and serene huntin' and fishin' and cookin' and gardenin' and readin' and shoppin' and shrinkologizin' and picture-takin' and nature-lovin' and travelin' and music and Jesus-praisin' blog. Tangled Web has an amusing take-down of greenie hypocrites, especially of those who defend the sacred Green Leaders and their need to pollute to save the earth. "Everybody say 'Doom.'"
Investors don't get skittish every time the market wiggles. Market wiggles are of interest to traders and speculators, but not to investors. Investors either own a business they wish to own at a given price - or they simply invest in an entire market, and wait patiently over years, heedless of the bumps. Bogle of course agrees. And Stumbling and Mumbling explains why investors should not follow market moves closely. Me? I do whatever Bob Brinker tells me to do. Never been wrong.
Edwards channels Jesus, and concludes that Jesus would be "appalled" by American selfishness and American's ignoring the plight of those around them. I hear this as an insult - by a filthy-rich ("filthy" not because of his assets, but because of how he obtained them) ambulance-chasing lawyer who has just built an ostentatious and self-indulgent monument to himself - to the Americans, who are the most generous, most charitable people on earth by a long shot. Furthermore, one thing Christians do not do is to take eachother's inventory by making judgements about the condition of eachother's faith. Christians worry more about the beam in their own eye. If I want your opinion of me, I'll ask for it.
Monday, March 5. 2007
 "I refuse to apologize for my ability – I refuse to apologize for my success – I refuse to apologize for my money."
Atlas Shrugged at fifty. Second most influential book for Americans, after the Bible. Skousen in the CSM.
 Dirda reviews Columbia Prof David Damrosch's new book on the discovery of the earliest classic of world literature.
Among other things, Damrosch raises the question of whether the tale is about what we have always been taught (death and immortality), or whether it is a tale about the consequences of being a king. Image is an Assyrian bas-relief of Gilgamesh conquering lions.
Major French scientist changes tune on global warming, and decries politicization of research. Canada Post As more scientists dare to come forward, the "consensus" will be shown to be a fraud. Meanwhile, Al Gore and Soros plan the New World Order. And we learn how hybrids pollute.
I just see Hillary Clinton sinking deeper and deeper. We read about her a couple of days ago at the Gay, Transgender and Lesbian group, pleading a partnership. A Partnership? And did she wear leather or try out the fem thing? But her fake black southern accent in Selma, and doing God-talk like she was MLK Jr, is just too much. I could hardly listen. But you can hear it here. If you can stand it, you can SEE IT here. Is this how she thinks people should talk to black folks? Or is she mocking them? Who expected the campaigns to become so amusing, so soon? Such questions already! Is Edwards gay? Is Hillary black? Does Romney have 6 wives and three heads? Is Giuliani a transvestite? Wizbang has a good idea: ally yourself to the person who most pisses off the right people. I am voting German Shorthair.
With thanks to our friend Bruce Kesler:A guy goes to the Dr. for a chest cold. The Dr. listens through his stethescope and prescribes something. The bill: $100. The guy says: $100 for five minutes!?! The Dr. replies: No - for twenty years of education and experience to know what's wrong in five minutes. Or, the plumber visits the Dr.'s house for a repair, and hands over a $100 bill for a 10-minute fix. The Dr. says: I only make that for 1/2 hour. The plumber replies: That's why I stopped being a Doctor.
I have never been sure how much I do want to know myself. Dr. Dalrymple went to a neurosciences conference, and wrote a nifty report. One quote: It will not have escaped the notice of the observant that Marxism and Freudianism have become a little frayed around the edges of late, and that their adherents are reduced to recalcitrant membership of increasingly beleaguered sects. But the attraction of all-embracing worldviews that explain not only who we are but prescribe how we ought to live remains as strong as ever. Some of the neuroscientists to whom I listened at the conference implied that we were on the verge of such a breakthrough in our self-understanding, thanks to neuroimaging, neurochemistry and neurogenetics and so forth, that Man, proud Man, will no longer be a mystery to himself. The heart of all our mysteries will be plucked out wholesale, as it were; and to understand all will then be not so much to forgive all as to control all, especially our bad habits.
We mentioned one of our favorite little hide-aways in NYC in our piece on cool NYC websites a long time ago. One thing we like about the Campbell Apartment is that it is in Grand Central Station, and thus very convenient when waiting on a train. Plus I do like it. They know how to make a Martini. The story of their overnight conversion to posh is amusing. NYT
A book from our new pal, Hog on Ice (h/t, Comrade Right Wing Nation): 
The Great Global Warming Swindle - a documentary coming to the UK this week. And another documentary coming on Michael Moore's lies. Agriculture is bad for the environment. Synthstuff Gen. Wesley Clark on Iraq, etc. Democracy Now. Is he a Jihad-denier? If so, maybe he needs this little reminder of how long this has been going on. Roger Simon: Get over it, with the Gay Rights controversies. A quote: Anyone who's been living in real life America the past twenty-five years has been surrounded by gay couples living together. Oh, you say, but what about somewhere-in-North Dakota? Okay, what about New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Denver, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Washington, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans (of course)... I could on. Am I getting boring yet? You add it up. I don't want to be bothered. Meanwhile, in most of these places, probably all, thousands of gay couples are living together, sharing households, raising children, etc., etc. If this bothers you, it's already happened. Get used to it. It's not going to go backwards, not a chance. Oh, yes, there is one way it could change - Sharia law. If you don't like gay America, root for the Islamists.
Solomonia located and posted this photo, and I hope he does not mind our borrowing it. 
U.S. Navy Capts. Craig Williams, front, and Richard Butler fly in F/A-18C Hornet aircraft over USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) Mar. 1, 2007, during an aerial change of command ceremony while under way in the Pacific Ocean. Williams was relieved by Butler as commander of Carrier Air Wing Fourteen during the ceremony. DoD photo by Lt. Cmdr. Tam Pham, U.S. Navy. (Released)
Photo by: LT. CMDR. TAM PHAM, USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76)
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