Wednesday, December 23. 2009
I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club. Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He is nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.
PJ O'Rourke. Parliament of Whores. h/t, Samiz
Toon via Theo -
Like we said yesterday, the Dem bill is just the launching pad. Yes, that's the whole point.
Trial Lawyers Win Added Clout From Democrats In Health Bill. Wonderful!
How China sabotaged the climate talks
Va. Republicans aim to take 4 Democrats' congressional seats
The happiest states in the USA
ObamaCare designed to be un-repealable
Similar message from Betsy
Nelson Says More Senators Seeking Special Treatment in Light of Nebraska Deal
It's getting hot out there. Better DRIVE TO THE HIGHER LATITUDES
Not your grandfather's England:
A millionaire businessman has been jailed for two and a half years for taking on a knife-wielding burglar who held him and his family hostage in their home. Munir Hussain, 52, was told he was wrong to take the law into his hands and attack Walid Salem, 56, after the masked intruder threatened to kill him.
That's why we refer to Europe as EuroDisney. Not a serious place. It was, for a short while in history. Now it's just a cool vacation destination.
Even the Huffpo is disenchanted with the O (h/t, Winds):Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator
Related: Would You Buy a Used Car from This Man?
Fun with Hugo! First - Was it Santa? Second: Hugo renames Angel Falls
Tuesday, December 22. 2009
 The Dem long-term goal is complete government control of medical care, as in Canada. They make no bones about that.
Their House and Senate bills take a big step in that direction. They do it by mandating the purchase of medical insurance - and then regulating what your insurance must pay for. From what I can tell, they are not really mandating insurance at all - they are mandating that most or all of your medical bills get paid by the general population, depending on what government panels deem worthy of coverage for you (watch that process become immediately politicized).
Thus the need for the hefty tax increases and for an inevitable leap in insurance prices. That leap in prices, down the road, will, the Dems hope, lead to people crying for the government to jump in completely. That's always the plan: break something, then arrive on the scene to "fix it."
A wiser path - but one which would never lead to Canadian medicine - would have been to disconnect medical insurance from the workplace, to ensure portability, to create high-risk subsidized pools (as is done for high risk drivers in auto insurance) for those who cannot purchase insurance, to take down interstate barriers to insurance competition so that people have the choice to buy whatever sort they want, and to do some tort reform so that docs do not need to spend $40-200,000/yr on their insurance. Plus no mandate - it isn't American to force everybody to buy something if they do not want the product.
(As I have mentioned in the past, I like my family medical insurance. It is portable, cheap catastrophic insurance which cannot be canceled - and which would become illegal under the Dem plan. The Dem plan requires me to buy all sorts of junk I neither want nor need.)
Related: The healthcare backlash is coming. Or maybe it already has. People know that this thing is a dog...not to insult our canine friends.
Also, via Insty:
PETER WEHNER: The Health-Care Backlash. “This health-care bill may well be historic, but not in the way the president thinks. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite like it: passage of a mammoth piece of legislation, hugely expensive and unpopular, on a strict party-line vote taken in a rush of panic because Democrats know that the more people see of ObamaCare, the less they like it.”
They should never be killed for food. Another challenge for ethical eating.
I say "Let the broccoli suffer."
Climate touches every white liberal's erogenous zone. Krauthammer.
The UN's Pachauri, like Gore, is getting rich off climate.
Pajamas: The Socialist Revolution Has Come to America
Ted Dalrymple revisits Calcutta
Cool rocks. Slide show of some rochers extraordinaire
Kim Peek died.
A book: From Poverty to Prosperity
C of E vicar advises parishioners to steal
Debating national identity turns dangerous?
Point of Law: Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional
Samuelson in the WaPo: A Parody of Leadership. One quote:
Even if Congress passes legislation -- a good bet -- the finished product will fall far short of Obama's extravagant promises. It will not cover everyone. It will not control costs. It will worsen the budget outlook. It will lead to higher taxes. It will disrupt how, or whether, companies provide insurance for their workers. As the real-life (as opposed to rhetorical) consequences unfold, they will rebut Obama's claim that he has "solved" the health care problem. His reputation will suffer.
You would think that a farm barn is a farm barn is a farm barn, but it's not true. There are significant differences between regions and even countries.
In colonial New England, farmers naturally adopted the "English" style barn - basically a square framed box with a moderate pitched roof. It was not easily adaptable and eventually the "New England" barn evolved which was adaptable and expandable. Sadly, a lot of these barns no longer exist.
The Brunn Barn was one of the early progenitors of the "New England Barn" and has an interesting history in that it - well, no other way to put it - was "lost" for a while. Originally, the barn sat on the Brunn property which changed hands. The barn was moved to a different location on Butts Road near what was then Annhurst College (now the Woodstock Middle School and Hyde School complex) where it sat for most of the better part of hundred and fifty years. It was used as a general purpose storage building and even then, it didn't get much use. So it effectively was lost as everybody just thought it was an old building left hanging on eventually deemed a "hazard" and subject to razing - the building had fallen into some disrepair and externally was covered with tar paper shingles.
As it happened, Dr. George Looby, a large animal vet was looking for a barn for use as an agricultural exhibit for the antique tractor and farm equipment section of the Fair. This building was mentioned as a possible candidate and when Dr. Looby investigated, he discovered its history. It is built using the "scribe rule framing" post and beam construction technique - every mortise and tenon joint is unique to that joint only - they are not interchangeable as they would be in square rule framing. Scribe rule was the hallmark of New England Barns of the time period.
The Brunn Barn was moved to the Fair grounds and restored to its original condition. It now houses the mechanical and operations agricultural exhibition of the Woodstock Fair presenting the equipment and tools of the time period in which it was built.
Monday, December 21. 2009
 Milbank: An ugly finale for health-care reform
Hot Air: Don’t despair about ObamaCare
Classy: RI Dem Senator Calls ObamaCare Opponents Part of 'Aryan Support Groups'
Cash for Cloture: Harry Reid’s Vote Buying Cost Taxpayers $1.2 Billion
Trial lawyers get payoff in Dem medical bill
Gordon Brown calls for new group to police global environment issues.
Related: There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government
From Driscoll:
“Sen. Whitehouse: foes of health care bill are birthers, right-wing militias, aryan groups.” Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin adds, “it will be crystal clear who, when the chips are down, tried to stop the largest big-government power grab and tax-a-thon in decades and who rolled over. The opponents of those Democrats who rolled over will have a plethora of material for their campaign ads.”
Birthers and Aryan groups? Sounds like us. Along with over 60% of Americans, I guess, who oppose this fascistic, ie government-controlled - monstrosity.
Betsy: Ben Nelson's selling price
Powerline: Who's Meaner, Insurance Bureaucrats or Government Bureaucrats?
Healthcare Pork: Senate Bill Laden with Favors, Pet Projects for Democrats
Related, they did not omit the slacker kids, I mean, the adult children
Riehl remains an optimist.
This morning -
The Senate vote for cloture on the Reid-negotiated and bought version of ObamaCare will shape the coming decades’ politics as surely as the Congressional votes to virtually abandon South Vietnam shaped its’ following decades.
For the past three and a half decades, the clearest dividing line and predictor of how we and our leaders would approach issues, ranging from the social to the geopolitical, is the position – contemporaneous or in retrospect -- held about the US Congress’ votes to not meet US pledges to supply and aid South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnam’s heavily Soviet and Chinese supplied continued armed and logistical build-up and massive invasion.
In the reaction to President Nixon’s deserved fall, an overwhelmingly Democrat and anti-Vietnam war Congress was elected in 1974, determined to overturn US foreign policy. Polls were equivocal, at least providing some cover or excuse. In the wake of President Obama’s undeserved credence to govern from the center, an overwhelmingly Democrat and liberal Congress was elected in 2008, determined to instead legislate from the left and overturn US domestic policy. This time, polls are decisively opposed, but ignored, and there’s no cover or excuse.
Basically, in both cases, we went from a nation following a course – as befuddled as it may be – of determination to pursue freedoms to a nation that waffles freedoms away. Basically, our “conservative”, “liberal” and “moderate” postures toward most issues over the past decades have been in line with how we view the causes and outcomes of our Vietnam involvement. So, too, will our future divides and postures be determined by how we now or come to view the causes and outcomes of reshaping almost a fifth of the US economy and almost 100% of our personal and fiscal health.
The divides over Vietnam were partisan but, also, crossed political party lines. The results, however, increased later realignments and partisanship. The straight party-line vote in the Senate on ObamaCare is a consequence, and will lead to an even sharper divide in how the political parties are and will be viewed.
There are no Profiles In Courage to be found in the tactical refusal to propose a fleshed-out free market Republican alternative to the statist approach by the Democrats. There are no Profiles In Courage to be found in the refusal by the controlling Democrats to allow anything but capitulation or purchased whoredom from critics.
At this point, there’s been so much damage to our faith in Washington, regardless of our dispositions on health care or political affiliation, that there’s cause for all who would be honest about it – or will come to be -- to be in despair.
However, there’s real reason to not be in despair, indeed to be quite hopeful.
Whatever version of ObamaCare emerges from conference between the Senate and the House, the core deceptive tactic by the Democrats to hide true costs creates the means of their ultimate defeat. With added reflection on what the Democrats have steamrolled, and various new taxes that kick in before most of the statist “benefits”, the reaction of voters in 2010 will likely be an increased Republican membership in the Congress. At that time, Republicans in Congress will be – and should be – held fully accountable to stop ObamaCare cold in its tracks, and to really fight for free-market reforms that actually increase choice while reducing costs. If not, look for the emergence of a new political party actually representing the majority of Americans. Either way, Americans who believe in personal freedom will win.
 We have posted in the past about one of my favorite birds, the Peregrine Falcon. They are "peregrine" because they breed in the north, summer in South America.
They are partial to cliffs and mountains, which is why they are comfortable living in cities with their abundant source of pigeons and sparrows, and nesting on tall buildings and urban bridges.
The recovery of their populations east of the Mississippi is a wonder to conservationists and a tribute to what man can do to renew wildlife populations.
Photo is from an update on New York City's Peregrine Falcons at Smithsonian.
Walker Percy fans, of whom I am one, recall the protagonist in The Last Gentleman setting up his fancy telescope in Central Park to watch the falcons. (I am also a Dickens fan, a Wallace Stegner fan, a Mark Helprin fan... ok, I am not going to keep going down this track.)
An email from our Aliyah doctor friend in Israel:
I am still not used to things like this: as I am leaving one of my classes, a young woman - perhaps 22 - bends over to hoist her backpack; her sweater pulls up in back, revealing a holstered Beretta in the back of her belt.
Beats a tramp stamp, in my book.
 Photo on loan from Moonbattery -
Pethokoukis: The political blowback from healthcare reform
Kimball via Insty:
Since it was Ben Nelson of Nebraska that finally got Harry Reid his desperately needed 60th vote for socialized medicine, I hope 1) that the next two year are unpleasant for Sen. Nelson and 2) that he loses in 2012 by a landslide.
WSJ: Change Nobody Believes In - A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
Prepare for a new term: "climate instability"
What is "settled science"? From Global warming and the 'settled science' baloney at Am Thinker:
While not faulting journalists and politicians for their stupendous ignorance when discussing most scientific subjects, I do condemn their utter lack of coherence concerning basic scientific definitions, processes, and principles.
Specifically, the chattering classes have no appreciation of the following truisms: settled science comes only in the form of physical laws while the causes behind specific phenomena are sometimes never definitively settled. And the more complex the system being observed, the longer it takes to reach a consensus about the causal mechanisms.
Sunday, December 20. 2009
The bulk of the snow fell south of New England, but I think we have enough here to last through Christmas.
Lots more Christmas weekend random photos below the fold -
A tree late last night -
More below -
Continue reading "First half-decent snowfall, plus random New England snow photos"
Author David Foster Wallace (whose books I have never read) talked about Life and Work to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. Mr. Wallace, 46, committed suicide in the fall, 2008.
One quote from his speech:
The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.
The speech, it seems to me, is more the cry of a haunted midlife soul than something that eager and freshly-scrubbed college grads could use or even hear. In addition to a shrink, it sounds like the guy lacked God in his life. That quote reminded me of Zevon's Detox Mansion:
...it's tough to be somebody
And it's hard not to fall apart
Up here on Rehab Mountain
We gonna learn these things by heart.
"Norman Maclean, the great Montana writer, had a worse experience. He complained that an editor turned down his masterpiece, “A River Runs Through It,” because it had too many trees in it."
Quoted from the NYT on the 16th
Photo yesterday morning, before the snow.
Saturday, December 19. 2009
 A piece via Memorandum launched my brief rant about the noisy, Leftist segment of the women's movement.
Regardless of the moral issues around abortion, I have no interest in paying for your abortion. None. Nor for your IVF, your tummy tuck, your massages, aromatherapy, chiropractic adjustments, your birth control pills, or your nose jobs. If an insurance plan doesn't cover such things, too bad. The claim that insurance which does not pay for non-therapeutic abortions "harms women" is insane.
Grow up and pay for your own damn abortions, ladies - and for anything else medically-related that you elect to do which is therefore "elective."
Equating "liberation from oppression" with "wanting free stuff" is pathetic and retrogressive, replacing the good husband ideal of the past with a new sort of husband in government. Next thing you know, these women will be demanding that we buy them cars so they can drive to work.
That's not pride and confidence. That is infantile, and consistent with the worst stereotype of the weak, ditzy, incompetent female.
I believe that a man needs his good woman just as a woman needs her good man.
The moral of the story is that "movements," like non-profits - having acomplished their major goals, need to keep finding new things to do to maintain and justify their existence - and their paychecks. It is not grown-up for women - or anyone of any of the 5 or 10 or whatever "genders" - to want things on my nickel.
My apologies for bothering our readers with this on a cheery and snowy Christmas weekend. Now that I have that off my chest, we are getting ready to dress up fancy to head off to make the rounds of some Christmas parties and open houses.
Bring on the mountains of snow and the gallons of eggnog and the groaning boards! Modern women enjoy trying to meet life's challenges of all sorts, including those of excess snow and excess eggnog and excess calorie-filled goodies, as did the women of my Mom's generation. Strong women, never victimized, oppressed, or asking for pity.
And God bless our lonely military wives and Moms during Christmas. A tough job, but they can do it and need no pity and ask for none. Same thing goes for the guys whose wives are in the service.
The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created - created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.
John Schaar, author of Legitimacy in the Modern State
Begin your Christmas shopping yet? I thought I'd begin today or tomorrow.
Did everybody know that Wikipedia is a non-profit? FAQs about Wikipedia
What would they do to me today if they saw the pictures I drew in Kindergarten? (h/t, Tiger)
California as a failed state
Is health care reform a gift or lump of coal?
Above the law? SEIU and the MA Senate race
From Michael Feinstein in the NYT:
If you look at a list of the most popular Christmas songs, you’ll find that the writers are disproportionately Jewish: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” (yes, Mel Tormé was Jewish), “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” “Santa Baby,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Winter Wonderland” — perennial, beloved and, mostly, written for the sheet music publishers of Tin Pan Alley, not for a show or film. (Two notable exceptions: “White Christmas,” introduced in “Holiday Inn,” and “Silver Bells,” written for “The Lemon Drop Kid.”)
Libertarians and Conservatives, at Ace. One quote:
Barney Frank is a crusader against any efforts to impose or even encourage any sort of traditional morality by the government. He is -- as regards only traditional morality -- a libertarian.
Meanwhile, he's supporting the government's efforts to throw you in jail if you don't purchase a government-qualified health insurance plan.
Liberals -- leftists, really -- continue to "bravely" (is it brave anymore?) tweak and thwart traditional mores and taboos while simultaneously replacing them with new taboos and new Temperance Crusades even more onerous and obnoxious and freedom-destroying than the ones they're so "courageously" freeing us from.
IN: Government-permitted gambling
OUT: Government-permitted Ho-Ho's and Mountain Dew
IN: Gay "bathhouses"
OUT: Actual baths -- too much water and too much energy used!
IN: Transgenderism
OUT: Transfats
IN: Anal bulbs
OUT: Light bulbs
h/t Gateway - An interview with one of our favorites, Thaddeus McCotter, plus the Republican Policy Committee Principles (listed below on cont. page)
Continue reading "Saturday links"
Friday, December 18. 2009
Since "the time for talking is over," we will try not to post further about the joke that is Copenhagen for the rest of this pre-Christmas weekend - except to note these observations:
Obama sez 'Time for talk is over.' China and India Say, "O Shut the F Up Bozo!"
Obama braves blizzard to preach at the Church of Climate Scientology
and, of course, big early blizzard predicted from DC to New England. Great! Somebody needs to remind me again: "Weather isn't climate."
From Warner in The Telegraph:
When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do?
and
This week has been truly historic. It has marked the beginning of the landslide that is collapsing the whole AGW imposture. The pseudo-science of global warming is a global laughing stock and Copenhagen is a farce. In the warmist camp the Main Man is a railway engineer with huge investments in the carbon industry. That says it all. The world’s boiler being heroically damped down by the Fat Controller. Al Gore, occupant of the only private house that can be seen from space, so huge is its energy consumption, wanted to charge punters $1,200 to be photographed with him at Copenhagen. There is a man who is really worried about the planet’s future.
From Hoven in Who Needs Data?, which begins:
The scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU), and the people who funded them, did not know how utterly useless CRU was. All the research done at CRU made no difference whatsoever to the "science" of global warming . Just ask other scientists and global warming alarmists. Heck, ask CRU.
What do the EVIL WARMISTS want? Global domination! It's called the Belgrade Process. Ya can't make this stuff up.
Update: Is this for real? Give China and India a pass, and give away more of our $. Just to get a piece of paper signed. What a joke.
Photo is Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, during the summer. Nice place to drink some beer.
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