Thursday, April 30. 2009
"Talented" pols never let the facts get in their way. On the current path, everybody is headed for some hefty tax increases which will begin to ramp up in 2011 and no doubt for years thereafter unless the tide changes.
 A new, better invisibility cloak
Conservatives live in different moral universes. It's true.
The ballerina and the Narwhals
Krauthammer begins:
I think it hasn't been the most important 100 days. I think it has been the most revealing 100 days in our lifetime. After all, this man when he was elected was one of the great mysteries of American politics. He was the most unknown, untested, untried, and really un-figured-out man ever to ascend to the office.
Via Ace:
Dennis Miller: We're Living In Odd Times When Miss California Gets Tougher Questions Than the President
BBC: Basra progress "staggering"
Precautionary principle gone wild: The flu. Related from Lewis in Am Thinker, who begins:
The Mexican swine flu pandemic? Oh, that's soooo yesterday. Global Warming? All those confident "scientific" predictions are falling apart around the world, even as greedy politicians still try to squeeze the last little drops of power and money out of them. Human flesh-eating bacteria? SARS? Ozone holes? Mad Cow? The Curse of the Killer Tomatoes? Water torture? CO2? Bee Colony Collapse? It never ends. As long as scare stories sell, as long as millions of indoctrinated suckers fall for them they will never end. They've got you on a rat-running wheel, running scared every day, like rats scrambling to get away from electrical shocks that never actually come.
Is the bipolar child a purely American phenomenon?
Solzhenitsyn on free medical care
From Insty:
DOES G.M. NOW STAND FOR Gettelfinger Motors? Actually, I like the idea of the unions owning the car companies — or I would, if they then had to stand on their own instead of getting still more bailout cash. I’m afraid we’re in for a decade of politically propped-up zombie carmakers, a sort of American Leyland.
UPDATE: Mickey Kaus is taking a positive view: “Let the UAW, as new owner of GM, pay the price for the overgrown work rules of its locals. Let the UAW demand above-market raises from itself. Let the UAW try to raise money from new lenders after the previous round of lenders has been royally screwed (thanks, in part, to the UAW). And then let the UAW try to sell the cars that result.” So long as friendly politicians don’t protect them from the consequences of their actions with other people’s money.
 My first thought about our Theo photo this morning is that it looked like the Adirondacks. Wasn't that your first thought too?
No race bake sale at Bucknell. We support freedom of baking.
Was this a real Hobbitt?
Update me: Am I not allowed to say "pig" any more?
Advice for ladies in the workplace
Can gummint and a union run a car company?
Dick Morris says Obama will damage himself
"It is devolutional." Surber
"You're a Professor, really?"
The vast Obama-media conspiracy. A masterful job of seducing the press. Still, O is the second most reviled Pres in 40 years
Sir Michael:
"The Government has taken tax up to 50 per cent, and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America," he said at the weekend. "We've got 3.5 million layabouts on benefits, and I'm 76, getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them. Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it up."
What does the future hold for First Things?
Free Enterprise's 100 day death march. Key quote:
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told NPR’s Michelle Norris yesterday: “The President has said, and I couldn’t agree more, that what this country needs is a one single national road map that tells automakers who are trying to become solvent again what kind of car it is they need to be designing and building for the American people.” Norris then asked: “Is that the role of Government though? That doesn’t sound like free enterprise.” Jackson responded: “Well it is free enterprise in a way.”
Blakeman at Politico:
The Dems were able to get by defection something they may have never have gotten at the Ballot Box, a closure needed, debated ending 60 votes. The Dems will come to regret taking Arlen in. He knows how important his votes are to them. If you think dealing with Somalia Pirates is bad, try working with Blackbeard Spector. There is not much the GOP can do if the Dems have 60 votes. They need to stay united in opposition and work like hell for mid-term gains. Obama will put the pedal to the metal and steam roll as much legislation through as is possible while he enjoys his "dictatorship".
Related, the O says he is remaking America. Good grief.
Related, at Reason:
...he will reveal himself to be that least inspiring of all political characters: a leader beholden first and foremost to special interests and ultra-conventional voting blocs. This at a time when the electorate is becoming increasingly unaffiliated with either the Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals.
Wednesday, April 29. 2009
 100 days at Jules begins thus:
Joyous event of the 100 days of the Obama Idea happily celebrated by cheering workers of the liberated United States Peoples Democratic Republic with inspiring song and deep reflection of gratitude!
 Quoted in a piece at Villainous:
In the 1970s, it took $46,870 to add a year to the life expectancy of 65-year-olds. By the 1990s, it cost $145,000.
Does gummint support for R&D do any good?
Quoted at Ace:
Isn't it fabulous how Obama has reconciled with our enemies and put fear into the hearts of Americans? Does any image illustrate so neatly the wrongheadedness of the Obama administration than Americans scrambling in terror from Air Force One?
Protein begins:
Obama is running the banking, housing and automobile industry out of the White House (along with letting Rahm play with the US Census) so why not be in charge of Science, too?
The politicization of GM. Quite discouraging and distressing, but that's what happens when you mix politics with real life. Everything becomes politicized and part of the spoils system.
Fair and balanced rules cable
Carville: Dems will rule for 40 years
The end of Capitalism? McArdle.
But not the end of Capitalism for Al Gore. He got rich quick.
Tuesday, April 28. 2009
Can You Get What You Pay For? Pay-For-Performance and the Quality of Healthcare Providers
Misconceptions about the interrogation memos. WSJ
Truman's decision to recognize Israel
Hatikva 2009. A Guiness world record.
Another Big Rug: A floral carpet in Brussels. Thanks, reader.
Fisheries: "it is at least something that, after 25 years, the EU is recognising that one of its longest established policies has failed. It has yet to understand, however, the reason for that failure."
Woopsy. A mistake, viewed in retropect. The consequences of letting Lehman fail. This was new territory for everyone, but the fallout of this error were ginormous. Related: The amazing story of Paulson, The B of A, and Merrill.
Ben Stein on the honorable business of selling. h/t, Tiger
Masochist play makes $ for Pakistan. What's ouroboros? All sex play is good, in our view. At Maggie's, leather and whips are my fave, but sometimes we're in the mood for French maid outfits on the chicks, and maybe a little light bondage.
Deification of the planet. I thought culture had evolved past that. Why worship a rock spinning in space? There are millions of 'em. But OK, it's our rock. Our Pet Rock?
Krugman now admits that Laffer was right
Record declines in the newspaper biz. Except the WSJ. Seems odd to me. Everybody enjoys the papers, even if they also enjoy getting mad at them. How else would you know who starred in the high school basketball game against Pittsfield High?
The O talks to his teleprompter. Imagine if Bush...
From Lucianne:
100 days: Obama dumps Bush's
world view, but now what?
Monday, April 27. 2009
Anchoress emails:
This actually made me kind of sick. I threw up a little in my mouth. Please excuse the mass mailing...I think everyone should see it. To me it's sick and sycophantic, but it is also so cowardly. Insult the Christians, because you can, and never mind that we're still in Easter.
This makes me think less of Obama, who should have gotten out in front of this messianic talk, instead of silently encouraging it. It speaks volumes about the artist, but Obama's silent consent also speaks volumes about him.
CAPTION: "The Truth" by Painter Michael D'Antuono which will be unveiled on President Obama's 100th Day in Office at NYC's Union Square. (PRNewsFoto/NOAH G POP FAM)
Update: The artist changed his mind about doing that (see Dr X's comment below)
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Thanks, reader:
From the Center for Media & public Affairs at George Mason University
MEDIA BOOST OBAMA... HE ATTRACTS MORE EARLY COVERAGE THAN G.W. BUSH AND BILL CLINTON COMBINED
A quote: During his first 50 days in office, the three broadcast network evening news shows devoted 1021 stories lasting 27 hours 44 minutes to Barack Obama’s presidency. The daily average of seven stories and over 11 minutes of airtime represents about half of the entire newscasts. By contrast, at this point in their presidencies George W. Bush had received 7 hours 42 minutes and Bill Clinton garnered 15 hours 2 minutes of coverage, for a combined total airtime five hours less than Mr. Obama’s.
CBS led the coverage with 365 stories and 10 hours 46 minutes of airtime, followed by NBC with 327 stories and 9 hours 38 minutes, and ABC with 329 stories and 7 hours 20 minutes. Thus, CBS has given more coverage to the Obama administration than all three networks combined gave to the first 50 days of George W. Bush’s presidency.
 Quantity vs. Quality
Pelosi plays defence on "torture"
Newspaper circulation crumbles (h/t, Insty)
Should you look out for "people who keep to themselves"?
Stereotyping: It's natural. I stereotype everybody: a-holes until proven otherwise.
From the mouths of babes
$ rules too onerous for unions. It's payoff time. Related, The strategery of the unions: Kaus
Latin leaders declare war on Capitalism. And freedom, too.
Anarchy at UNC. Mike Adams
The social challenge of speaking honestly about race
Apparently some people do not want to know what an assault rifle is. But our readers know an assault rifle is one with a full-auto setting.
Cannot do it without the teleprompter. Man, that is lame.
 Save the Humans! Reason
In cold blood. The Talibanz are taking over Pakiland.
The O tries to steal their prime time - for the 4th time. They have a biz to run.
Upper photo: My nooner date today, thanks to friend Theo who shares his girlfriends. Lower photo via Never Yet Melted
 It looks like our Dylanologist will be moving back north to Yankeeland - to New Haven, of all places. One of his great-grandfathers grew up in Woodbridge, and one of his gramps is a retired Yale prof.
With a new bride, too. Hope he will be able to find time to write more for us.
(Between law school, building stone walls and rebuilding kitchens, he has been truant here at Maggie's. If he doesn't get back on the job, that large monthly check, which is his share of the overly generous RTC donation we receive for mindlessly echoing Repub talking points, will stop coming to him.)
Ya gotta go South to find them high-quality brides. But everybody knows that.
Photo: Got dimples? The Dyl on a water taxi on Lago Maggiore last summer.
Andrew Lloyd Webber on the UK's new taxes. Related: Envy and social behavior
Dear Greens: Why not start here?
Quel horreur. Swine Flu hysteria. Must be a slow news week. Not worth linking.
Support your local Islamophobe
This is what I call an exciting cruise
How to solve MA's deficit: Jules
Why the Law is foreign to Justice Ginsberg. Am Thinker
A shortage of primary care docs?
MADD is mad, but they have some power now. At Maggie's, we say "Don't drink and drive: you might hit a bump and spill your drink."
More on the Ricci case. Ricci may be the rock upon which America's racial spoils system finally founders.
Al Gore: Raging Capitalist
Prince Charles gets it: It's about conspicuous virtue, not reality
Judd Gregg: Elections have consequences. A quote:
...while the aspiration for universal coverage may be noble, the practical realities of getting there may prove harder for the American public to swallow. "There's no question," the senator says, "that this is a debate about rationing to a large degree. All your single-payer systems are rationing systems. It's also a debate about technology and innovation. Because you will not have capital pursuing technology, innovation and science if it's health-care related, because the return on capital won't be there. And these things are so expensive, especially on the pharmaceutical side and the biologic side, that you'll dramatically slow improvements in the quality of health care through science with a single-payer plan." Mr. Gregg thinks that critique will resonate with the public.
Even so, given the balance of power in Washington, Mr. Gregg gives the Democrats good chances of success in nationalizing our health-insurance market. "I think the odds are pretty good that it's going to happen -- that you'll have a major health-care reform bill pass." As he says, "Elections have consequences."
Via Driscoll:
Judith Klinghoffer’s article, “Obama’s Polls Trail Those of W.; Gallup Covers it Up,” notes that Bush’s approval rating taken by Gallup stood at 62 percent after his first 100 days, while Obama’s currently stands at 56 percent.
A few minutes later, moderator John Scott returned to the subject:
JON SCOTT: And in the first term, George Bush had a 60 percent approval rating after his first 100 days-
PINKERTON: And Bush 41 as well, who I worked for way back when. And Laura Bush has a higher rating than Michelle Obama.
SCOTT: Is that going to get mentioned in the press?
PINKERTON: You just wouldn’t know it from reading the mainstream media.
Sunday, April 26. 2009
To prosecute or not. I was going to write this, but somebody else got to it first.
 100th Daygasm: Michelle
What's going on with Mr. Sun?
What happened to the H-word?
Good brief summary of Frederic Bastiat and the negative railroad
From the UK: Obama is confused about who the enemies are. I know other people who think that way.
From the 1984 Is Not A Handbook Department: In the UK Every Phone Call, Email, and Website Visit will be Monitored. Who are these people?
The political and economic consequences of dangerous CO2
What is truth? A quote from Dr. Bob:
Ideas have consequences, philosophies have predicates, and the rejection of absolutes absolutely dehumanizes us, for we devolve from a species of high principles and moral light to denizens of a depravity far lower than the animals. For animals have rational restraints on behavior, brutish though it may be, while there is no end to evil for the human mind unleashed from absolutes.
Saturday, April 25. 2009
Starting to write about the US debate over torture, I first turned to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. The word derives from the Latin, to twist. Three current definitions are offered: 1. to cause anguish of body or mind; or more drastically, 2. to inflict intense pain to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure; and 3. “straining” as in distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument.
That definition allows greater clarity about the positions being argued about torture.
The Geneva Conventions apply to restricting the first definition unduly against enemy state soldiers and civilians. The applicability to nonstate terrorists is not addressed. Thus, the Bush administration labeled them “enemy combatants” and tried mightily – in the midst of great uncertainty, confusion, danger, and rapidly changing events -- to blend civilized restraints with practical considerations of gaining intelligence.
The Associated Press report of the speech by the very liberal President of the Israeli Supreme Court at Princeton a few days ago highlighted the problem facing Western governments, “that one of the main challenges the court faces is that international law has yet to fully adapt to modern terrorist threats.” This learned lesson is important from someone widely hailed by the Left for her other positions. Israel, like other parliamentary governments, does not have a Constitution like does the US, so its supreme court ranges more widely – and liberally -- in deciding right and wrong, legal and illegal. Israel, uniquely, sits on the frontline, within and without, facing existential terrorist attacks.
Israel has taken extensive measures to restrict its armed forces from breaching this elusive line between proper actions and excessively avoidable harm to civilians and to enemy combatants. In the US, the bipartisan Congressional remedy, led by John McCain, was to restrict our military. The argument is that our military does not have the necessary professional experience to apply extensive interrogation techniques, undue use undermines the order necessary to our military, and that leads to undermining both discipline and self-respect in energetically fighting for what is right.
The Bush administration went further in, pardon the pun, agonizing or torturing itself in defining restrictive conditions for the use of extensive interrogation techniques by CIA professionals upon leading captured terrorists.
None of this has satisfied those who take a more restrictive posture. There’s the camp, including some with dedication to fighting terrorists, who believe that a purist conception of Americans requires that we don’t use extensive interrogation techniques regardless of the possible benefits or risks. Then, there’s the camp that outright opposes US battles against terrorists, sometimes trying to mask their position with support conditional on impossible and impractical crippling hamstringing, borrowing from the self-righteousness of the first camp to distract from their own true priority. This camp is allied with a third camp, politicians whose primary motivation is to exploit the arguments for their own benefit. Democrats who, in the wake of 9/11’s awakening, supported or argued for extensive use of interrogation techniques in recognition of Americans’ expectations of firm resolve then denied and flip-flopped in their pursuit of power in unseating the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress. These Democrat politicians “strain”, the third definition of torture, in distortion or overrefinement of their argument, relying upon the idealistic or contorted arguments from the first two camps.
So, now, the Obama administration is hoisted by its own petard of its own most ardent supporters in confronting the practical needs to govern and to be held responsible for America’s security.
Those within the Obama administration who argued from experience and proper caution for moderation were overruled and selective release of documents and photos launched that seek to discredit the Bush administration’s efforts, and even criminalize policy. Opponents decry this as reckless self-endangerment and self-denigration of America, and call for fuller release of the record to demonstrate both the care taken and the needed survival results. Even the New York Times recognizes the danger but, true to its Obama-lean, couches it in the politician Obama’s self-interest: “Mr. Obama and his allies need to discredit the techniques he has banned. Otherwise, in the event of a future terrorist attack, critics may blame his decision to rein in C.I.A. interrogators.”
So, there we are, tortured for the past six years by tendentious and selfish attacks from within upon our ability to withstand and overcome tenacious, brutal and serious attacks from without. Now, due to the Obama administration’s irresponsibility, we face at least three more years of torture, of undue agony, that fruitlessly weakens our unity and resolve and exposes us all to potentially greater physical threats to our well-being and very lives. Our troops on the frontline are not bemused by this Obama administration recklessness with their safety and missions, nor should be the rest of us placed closer to frontline dangers as our intelligence professionals seek cover by retreating from their duties.
Some animals are more responsible than other animals.
The 10 worst things to say on the job
The O less popular than Bush after 100 days. Whatever that means. The press and the moonbats seem to still get a tingle.
Ford runs from the gummint "We're here to help you." Smart. The F 150 is still good.
Latest spin: Polar ice increasing because of global warming.
The secret plan to turn Soc Sec into a welfare program. I think it always should have been.
Would somebody please give Henrietta Hughes a job?
Al Gore: Keep Lord Monckton away from me. As Drudge juxtaposes them:
Gore pleads for unity on climate, despite divide...
Dems Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify...
That's "unity" for ya. Related: Dingell says cap and trade is just a giant tax
An extreme Lefty moves into the Pentagon. She'll be popular, no doubt, with the old soldiers.
But the kids never heard the word "lesbian" til you taught it to them in Kindergarten. Don't you want curious kids? Lesbian pron is fun to watch, isn't it?
Dem sleazebag du jour: Rattner
What's with the President's wanderlust?
...to hear this president run down America, you would think it was a failed state until he was transformed from junior senator of Illinois to president of the United States. He has surpassed Jimmy Carter's precedent of being the first ex-president to criticize while on foreign soil a sitting president. President Obama has become the first sitting American president to criticize America while on foreign soil, and he does it with the practiced zeal of a person who has been feeding on anti-American myths for years.
Friday, April 24. 2009
Krauthammer: The Grand Strategy. A quote:
Taken as a whole, Obama's social democratic agenda is breathtaking. And the rollout has thus far been brilliant. It follows Kaus' advice to "give pandering a chance" and adheres to the Democratic tradition of being the party that gives things away, while leaving the green-eyeshade stinginess to those heartless Republicans.
It will work for a while, but there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served.
h/t, S,C&A:
How else to get truth out of them? This from Jules:
As the vengeful handwringing angels of the America-bashing left have always said about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, you can’t just go for the foot soldiers. The fish rots at the head. In this sorry business of abusive interrogations, let’s start with that body that serves as the conscience of the nation … Congress. You remember, the concerned American deliberative body that was apprised at the highest levels of the CIA’s practices and asked if there weren’t tougher methods that could be used against the enemies of our nation. Verdict in the dark days of 2002? Waterboarding OK!
Thursday, April 23. 2009
 "LOL OMG Talibanz!" Soldiers return home to fight the war on jerks. It makes me want to enlist today.
How does appeasing the Taliban work out?
How are things working out with Chrysler? Note re the possibly pending bankruptcy: union benefits will be protected by the taxpayers.
Also related, Kudlow on TARP
People who think they are good, are less good. They seem to think they get a pass, because they're good.
Review of Horowitz' new book, One Party Classroom, at City Journal
New models for higher ed
60% say govt has too much power and money. Yet many seem to love the O. What's the deal? Related: The Christian Left has tears of joy re O's budget. Tears of joy about a budget?
Does the fact that waterboarding saved LA make a difference to you? Hmm, let me think...
A Federalism Amendment? Count me in.
Dick Morris gets heated up in Obama's Leap to Socialism
...whoever controls the banks controls the credit and, therefore, the economy. That’s called socialism.
From SISU on the tea parties, quoting Steyn:
That’s why these are Tea Parties — because the heart of the matter is the same question posed two-and-a-third centuries ago: Are Americans subjects or citizens? If the latter, then a benign sovereign should not be determining “your interests” and then announcing that he’s giving you a “tax credit” as your pocket money.
As we wrote a couple of years back in another context, "It's naive to believe [citizens] should be content to have physical comforts handed to them on a welfare platter. No man — no creature worth its salt — can bear the shame. Come to think of it, that's exactly what's wrong with the liberal project. Talk about intellectual bankruptcy.
Related, from The Map is not the Terrain at NE Repub:
You can’t believe in or be loyal to, low taxes and small government, but you can believe in freedom because you can imagine what it means to be a slave, and you can be loyal to the principle of personal sovereignty. And so can a lot of other people who aren’t conservatives.
Quicker than most expected, even those most critical of him, President Obama has unleashed his and his political party’s dénouement as grossly irresponsible and corrupt, to the unacceptable danger to the country’s survival.
His partial and skewed release of formerly secret documents about the interrogation of captured terrorists raises the prominence of the issue, and consequently of other major issues, in ways that very well may, and should, relegate the Democrat Party to the political hinterland for a generation.
1. The weight of informed and involved expertise on the interrogations is that they served to avoid additional terrorist attacks. The MSM’s trumpeting of the Obama partial releases makes it unavoidable for the MSM to provide the consumers of its media with the fuller story that will emerge.
2. Polls have consistently demonstrated the public is more in tune with better safe than sorry, and with little sympathy for applying Americans’ civil rights to foreign terrorists. The risks that Obama is taking with our security, and that of our allies, is not acceptable.
3. The Congressional Democrats, who have harped at every move taken by the Bush administration, own leadership were not only fully informed of those measures at the time but -- before seeking political advantage by unscrupulously reversing course – were advocates of even sterner measures. Continuing exposure of the formerly secret documents will further reveal their crass perfidy.
4. The increased exposure further highlights to the public the recidivism of many released from Guantanamo and the demurral to accept releasees by European countries critical of Guantanamo. This reinforces the conclusion that benign treatment of sworn enemies is suicidal.
5. Members of our intelligence community, and of formerly cooperating foreign intelligence agencies, will pull back from full exertion due to increased restrictions imposed and from reticence to be pilloried by leftists in power.
6. G-d forbid another significant terrorist attack occurs, particularly traceable to the denuding of vigilance among our intelligence agencies, the backlash will be harsh against those who crippled our security.
7. The cumulative impact of 1-5 above, and hopefully not even the 6th, sits on top of the unfolding and recognized debacle of the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats’ handling of the economic downturn to slip by intrusions -- into the economy, into health care, into taxation, into almost any facet of society it can -- that are destructive of our and future generations’ solvency and freedoms. The unease already claims a majority of citizens, and will become overwhelming.
8. The corruption endemic within the Washington and Chicago way of doing things, already evident to any observer, will be increasingly exposed as Democrats and their media allies lose their impunity to stifle full airings.
9. The willingness and arrogance of members of the Obama administration to invent ludicrous and extra-legal rationalizations for power grabs leads to more, as lies beget lies. The cover-ups and the overstepping of clearer legal red lines will create scandal after scandal.
10. In 2010, Republicans will increase their depleted power within Congress. The uniqueness of 2008 will be a memory, there won’t be a tail from a campaigning Obama, and centrists who regret straying into Democrat votes will be reduced. The hue against Obama and Democrat excesses and dangers will lead to more exposures.
The only reason that Obama and Congressional Democrats would avoid this dénouement is if one believes there are too few Americans with the intelligence to know up from down. The Democrats are counting on that poor bet.
This New Haven firefighter affirmative action case highlights the insanity which ensues when affirmative action hits the courts.
Justice should be blind.
Remarkable photos of China today (h/t, Tiger). It shows what happens to an energetic people when they are set free from their socialist straightjackets. Wealth suddenly and magically appears.
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