Monday, January 18. 2010
From Steyn, to whom we linked yesterday in our post on the MA Senate race:
As Michael Barone observed, "the educated class" was dazzled by style, the knuckledragging morons are talking about substance. They grasp that another year of 2,000-page, trillion-dollar government-growing bills offers America only the certainty of decline. Just before the Senate's health care vote, Obama, the silver-tongued orator, declared that we were "on the precipice" of historic reform. Indeed. On Tuesday, we'll find out whether even Massachusetts is willing to follow him off the cliff.
Sunday, January 17. 2010
Our employees in DC indeed seem disconnected from the majority of the folks they represent. From Noonan's Slug the Obama Story 'Disconnect':
In a time when the people of Massachusetts have real concerns about their ability to make a living, stuff like the Schumer letter is just more evidence of a party's disconnect.
Politics is about policy. It's not about who's emotional and who cries or makes you cry. It's not about big political parties and the victories they need in order to rule. It's not about going on some ideological toot, which is what the health-care bill is, hoping the people will someday see and appreciate your higher wisdom.
In a way, Mr. Obama's disconnection is a sign of the times... If the president wants to lead toward something better, he should try listening. If you can't connect through the words you speak, at least you can do it through your ability to hear.
Why the liberal Cape Cod Times endorses Scott Brown, at Powerline, and why a small newspaper's opinion matters. (Nothing to do with Coakley's inconceivable flub that Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan.)
I think the O's frantic last-minute visit to MA today will help Brown, but we understand that the purpose is not to persuade, but to get out the unenthusiastic Dem vote.
Related: America needs one brave Dem
Related: Coakley counting on union muscle to win. No doubt. Did you ever hear of "union brains" applied to an election?
Related: Hundreds turn out to greet Brown in Kennedy territory - Hyannis.
Related from Auster, who refuses to get his hopes up (me neither, but I lie to myself all the time):
The special Massachusetts election will be over on the night of January 19. Meaning that, if Brown wins, the signature measure of Obama's stunningly radical presidency will have been effectively killed exactly one year after Obama's inauguration. But, nope, I'm not investing any hopes in the prospect of Brown's winning. No sirree Bob.
Related from Steyn (the whole thing is hilarious):
America's preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of Good King Barack the Hopeychanger's reign by electing a Republican?
In Massachusetts?
In what the tin-eared plonkers of the Democrat machine still insist on calling "Ted Kennedy's seat"?
Saturday, January 16. 2010
 Scott Brown for Senator! Wasn't the O in CT a month ago to raise money for Dodd? Worked out well. Obama to Massachusetts to deliver the coup the grace?
Related: Martha Coakley says Devout Catholics 'Probably shouldn't work in the emergency room'. What a moron. How about Moslems?
Eureka! I am a Conservative (and I never realized it). Don't feel badly - it happened to many of us over the years.
Climate change! More China provinces plan power rationing -report
Heather: Chicago’s Real Crime Story - Why decades of community organizing haven’t stemmed the city’s youth violence
Friday, January 15. 2010
The people of Haiti are difficult to help now, but they have always been difficult to help.
If you want to do something now, we recommend World Vision.
Toon above via Theo
Anchoress: “Haiti is the broken bloody body of Christ”
Related, from Why is Haiti So Poor? (h/t, Marginal Rev):
Haiti, once called The Jewel of the Antilles, was the richest colony in the entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. The French imported sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, the dye indigo and other exotic products. In France they were refined, packaged and sold all over Europe. Incredible fortunes were made from this tiny colony on the island of Hispaniola.
How could Haiti have once been the source of such wealth and today be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? How could this land that was once so productive today be semi-barren? How did "The Jewel of the Antilles" become the Caribbean's hell-hole?
A Massachusetts Miracle looks possible. Not likely, but plenty possible. Related: Coakley does not have a good record as prosecutor.
Related: Dems Sucker Punch Mass Union Members
Fear Factor - The ideologues in Washington are scaring Americans.
Every group effort or organization has its obvious jerk. But maybe it's not so simple.
Climategate: How they hid the effect of the sun. Hid the sun? Related from Driscoll: It Was Only A Matter Of Time
Hey, Mr. Taliban: We aren't looking for a fair fight.
Thursday, January 14. 2010
I haven’t been enthusiastic about prior conservative free-market approaches as a solution to healthcare spending's pressure on the economy or individuals. Conservative proposals are, rather, a mitigator of overuse leading to overspending. Through “more skin in the game,” conservative proposals cause users to think twice about how much is really necessary.
The liberal approaches, by contrast, after the application of their best minds, are now proven to go in the opposite direction from cost reduction or improved healthcare. They lead to higher costs and just benefit a fraction of the uninsured, while vastly increasing the power of the government to impose its rationing generalizations upon individual needs – which vary -- while further insulating users from sensible involvement.
With HT to Instapundit, “The High Cost of No Price” from the American Enterprise Institute.
Economists have shown that if a good’s price is zero or decreasing, then the demand for this good will likely increase. In 2008, consumers were only directly responsible for 11.9 percent of total national healthcare expenditures, down from 43 percent in 1965, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This means that someone other than consumers pays roughly 88 percent of all healthcare costs, giving consumers little incentive to mind costs and much incentive to over-consume.
Like that word. Re the Met, at Classical:
I suppose if Christians want parity in respect, we should be recruiting our own brigades of ax-swingers and splodeydopes, but I did a little reading and apparently our founder's view on disrespecting our creed was some p***y-a** nonsense about "turning the other cheek" (like that's going to strike fear into the hearts of infidels). And as far as I can tell, none of our sects have any proviso for a bevy of pliant virgins on higher planes in the event of pious detonation. So Jihad For Jesus is going to be an uphill climb, to say the least. Meanwhile, I guess we'll have to settle for the smug moral superiority of suffering figurative slings and arrows in both cheeks.
Our friend Roger gets it. Related: Red has already won in Massachusettes Massachsittes MA. Related: Seating Mass. Senate winner could be delayed. Of course.
You want some Moslem cartoons? Here's one.
Full Body Scans to Double as Annual Checkups
Pethokoukis: 9 reasons why the Dec. jobs report is bad news for Dems. Their policies are job-killers.
Google is getting fed up with China. China does not trust its people.
Who predicted this? Obama Wants $33 Billion More for War. Guy is a cowboy warmonger.
Game-Changer: Why Did Reporters Keep Silent About Edwards? And Bill Clinton too. They're in the tank. Duh.
Wednesday, January 13. 2010
Old Haiti has needed our prayers for many years, but they sure need them now. Their doctors are praying too, and sometimes that's all one can do. Or the most one can do.
Is the MSM beginning to get it? From Jack Cafferty via Watts:
As the debate continues about global warming, the month of December was the 14th coldest in 115 years in the United States… and some scientists insist the earth is entering a cooling trend.
- Wind chills brought temperatures in the Dakotas to 50 degrees below zero, while record cold in parts of Florida is damaging some of the orange crops, and South Carolina called an early end to shrimping season.
- Parts of Canada have seen actual temperatures of 30 below zero… And freezing temperatures and record snowfalls are pounding parts of Asia and Europe too.
- Britain has experienced the worst snowfalls in half a century.
- In India – it’s estimated at least 100 people have died due to the cold temperatures… with dozens more killed in Bangladesh.
- In China and South Korea, heavy snow and unusually cold weather have brought chaos to travelers – blocking roads and trains, canceling flights. After one recent blizzard in Beijing – officials had more than 300-thousand people clearing the streets.
Meanwhile some of the world’s top climate scientists suggest this winter is only the start of a worldwide trend toward cooler weather, which could last for 20 to 30 years. They base their predictions on changes in water temperatures in the oceans
How often have we heard complaints about the inappropriate cheesecake on Maggie's Farm? Countless times.
So here's some beefcake instead - Scott Brown, MA Senate candidate, as a law student (via a piece at Powerline). The photo should help with the gal vote, don't you think?
Betsy has a very good update on the MA race. Also today: Union plans major ad buy for Coakley. We also note the conspicuous absence of a major national politician to support the Dem in this campaign. The O not invited, apparently.
We support Scott Brown, even if we enviously resent his good looks:
Tuesday, January 12. 2010
From VDH on The Way Our World Works (h/t, Am Digest - with Randy Newman's Short People):
...those on the left are moralists, smarter people who pass up their own personal agendas to help the community. They think of society, not self, and so when they err, they do it under stress, in accidental fashion, and with no lasting significance — not like their selfish Neanderthal cousin conservatives, for whom transgression is a valuable window into their flawed souls. Bushisms became a media pastime, but no one suggests that a president who says Cinco de Quatro, or 57 states, or references the “Austrian” language is a Dan Quayle wrestling with potato.
If you’ve never had freedom taken from you, it’s easier to take it for granted. If you have, freedom becomes more precious and vital to survival and advancement. This is of much more than a matter of personal freedoms within Unfree countries. The despots ruling them also pose major threats to other countries.
For the 4th year in a row, according to Freedom House’s invaluable annual analyses since 1972, freedom has declined in the world. One can only hope that the Obamites are paying attention, as there is more evidence of they not giving much of a damn.
In 2009, declines for freedom were registered in 40 countries, representing 20 percent of the world’s polities…. The year also featured a drop in the number of electoral democracies from 119 to 116, the lowest figure since 1995.
Still:
By absolute historical standards, the overall state of freedom in the world has improved over the last two decades. Many more countries were in the Free category and were designated as electoral democracies in 2009 than in 1989, and the majority of countries that made major progress 20 years ago have retained those improvements….
But over the last four years, the dominant pattern has been one of growing restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of expression and association in authoritarian settings, and a failure to continue democratic progress in previously improving countries due to unchecked corruption and weaknesses in the rule of law.
Freedom House doesn’t measure promises or commentators’ perceived portents. Freedom House sticks to what actually exists. For example, 88% of the people in the MidEast and North Africa region were in Unfree countries. Check out this map: http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw10/FIW_2010_Map_MENA.pdf Note the only speck of freedom is in tiny Israel. Wonder why the rulers of Islamic countries and their Unfree allies concentrate on eliminating Israel’s threat, by comparison alone, to their satrapies lack of freedoms or economic advancement.
There’s much more detail in the Freedom House reports.
Pow! "It's not Kennedy's seat, it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the peoples' seat." Scott Brown:
WSJ:
Among the astonishing things about the ObamaCare debate—or lack thereof—is that Washington is inundated with warnings about the destructiveness of this plan, and it doesn't matter. The agency that runs Medicare rung the latest alarm bell on Friday, and good luck finding any media mention.
Whole story here.
Horowitz' 8-part series on Rules for Radicals
To walk, or not walk, away from your mortgage
Pope gets religion: Pope Denounces Failure to Forge New Climate Treaty
More on The dirty little secrets of ObamaCare
Why Peak Oil is Peak Idiocy: Endless Oil
Dr. Sanity: CALIFORNIA WASN'T SACKED IN A DAY--or, How A Golden State Became A Failed State
The Logic of Liberty: Whose Responsibility Is Your Health?
Jules:
...if you don’t support race-based preferences and assorted left-leaning social programs, you’re a racist. But if you make bizarre ”light-skinned” and “Negro dialect” remarks and support the above, you’re not only not a racist, but deserve a vigorous defense.
A doc's angry letter to Sen. Nelson
The filth of one-party politics in Massachusetts. The allegedly SEIU push-polling is disgusting. Related: The Scott Brown campaign aimed to raise $500,000 in one day on the internet. They raised over one million. The election is next Tuesday.
Monday, January 11. 2010
Just for today - Insty calls it a Scott Brown moneybomb. Every little bit helps.
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