Thursday, June 10. 2010
From the Pope Center (h/t, Doug Ross):
Our study of the University of Michigan, for example, found that in 2005 an in-state male with no parent ties to the school, a 1240 cumulative SAT, and 3.2 high-school grade-point average had a 92 percent chance of admission if black and an 88 percent chance if Latino – but only a 14 percent chance if white and a mere 10 percent chance if Asian. Our study of six North Carolina schools – North Carolina State and the University of North Carolina campuses at Asheville, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Wilmington – found the same pattern.
Good place to stop when passing through Reading, PA: The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum.
Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love?), from Empire Burlesque, 1985
Sample of the lyrics:
Well, they're not showing any lights tonight
And there's no moon
There's just a hot-blooded singer
Singing 'Memphis in June'
And they're beating the devil out of a guy
Who's wearing a powder-blue wig
Later he'll be shot
For resisting arrest
I can still hear his voice crying
In the wilderness
What looks large from a distance
Close up ain't never that big.
I never could learn to drink that blood
And call it wine
I never could learn to hold you, love
And call you mine.
The music video here.
“[Though I greatly appreciate hi-tech], hi-tech innovation and education are not enough… because we've seen in parts of the world where we had highly educated populations who were frustrated, or unemployed, or left the country to go to places that had the other necessary prerequisites for high growth [and] the proliferation of technology. [These pre-requisites are:] Free markets, or freer markets. Without a market economy, you cannot really have the soil on which innovation can take root, in which initiative and entrepreneurship can produce the necessary growth and benefits to our people.
“[We must have] freer economies, mobile economies that reward effort, that reward innovation, that reward the excellence in human thought - because people don't create just for the sake of creation.
-Prime Minister Netanyahu at the High-Tech Industry Association Annual Conference June 9, 2010
More on Israel’s economic policies here.
The Palestinian Authority, which contributes half of its budget to Gaza Arabs, has become more dependent on the massive foreign aid it has received since the beginning of the 2000 Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War….
It [the Palestinian Authority] has received nearly $10 billion in foreign aid since 1994 when the PA was formally established. The European Union is the largest donor, followed by the United States, which contributes nearly twice as much as Saudi Arabia.
The aid has enabled the PA, which seeks to become an independent country though located within Israel's borders, to inflate its public payroll to more than 160,000 workers while its education system continues to incite violence against Israel. Donors currently contribute more than $1 billion a year.
- Gaza “A Tale of Two Worlds”
No US economic aid goes to Israel, nor does Israel ask for any. President Obama just promised another $400 million of economic aid to the Palestinian Authority.
P.S.: Also, "Pence to Obama: Whose side are you on, anyway?"
Mitch Daniels: Ride Along with Mitch
Kuhn on the O's tipping point:
At some point, the bad show also goes on too long. Negative perceptions of the character are formed. That's the tipping point. And it's possible, but not necessarily probable, that Obama's point has already come to pass.
Jobs report a nightmare for Obama progressivism
Senate showdown over EPA power grab
This could get to be fun: CARLY FIORINA on Her Impressive Record, Sean Hannity & Barbara Boxer’s Hair
Shaidle: Toronto’s Love of Diversity Is Tested by Islamists
Genetics of Jews. Still Semitic.
Days after being caught cropping photos for political effect, Reuters releases a photo bank of Hamas propaganda images from Gaza.
From Coyote:
...here is a sure fire test for a progressive. If given a choice between two worlds:
- A capitalist society where the overall levels of wealth and technology continue to increase, though in a pattern that is dynamic, chaotic, generally unpredictable, and whose rewards are unevenly distributed, or…
- A “progressive” society where everyone is poorer, but income is generally more evenly distributed. In this society, jobs and pay and industries change only very slowly, and people have good assurances that they will continue to have what they have today, with little downside but also with very little upside.
Progressives will choose #2. Even if it means everyone is poorer. Even if it cuts off any future improvements we might gain in technology or wealth or lifespan or whatever. They want to take what we have today, divide it up more equally, and then live to eternity with just that.
We posted our morning links last night. Just this for now, from Henninger:
Coming as it did on the heels of various other government fiascoes and embarrassments—the subsidized-mortgage crisis, ethanol, California issuing IOUs, Bernie Madoff, ultra-deep public debt, infrastructure turning to dust everywhere—the Gulf mess is the moment for the American people to reconsider just what they think government can do, or should do.
When not gripped by hysteria, many have a more rational view of government's limits, even on the left. Some in the Gulf do-something chorus are the same people who doubted that the U.S. military could succeed in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the U.S. military is surely the most competent instrument of government.
Wednesday, June 9. 2010
The New GM (Government Motors)
Proudly Introduces
The 2011 Obummer
This car runs on hot air, b*#l-sh&* and broken promises.
It has three wheels that speed the vehicle through tight left turns.
It comes complete with Tele Prompters to help the occupants talk their way out of any violations.
The transparent canopy reveals the plastic smiles still on the faces of all the happy owners.
Comes in S, M, L, XL and 2XL
It won't get you to work, but hey, there aren't any jobs anyway!
 Consider, if you have not done so, adding a comment to today's Grandpa post. We'll make it an annual repost, a website Keepsake.
How we think our forager ancestors lived. Like hippies, shared women and shared food.
Ask a (science) Nobel Laureate. Cool. My question: Are numbers a real reflection of reality, or just a handy human invention?
Meg Whitman will be the next gov of California. But is the job do-able with a Dem legislature?
Hating Christianity Is Nothing New for Progressives. Always wondered how the Left managed to portray Hitler as a "right-winger" when he was a socialist.
Emery on Messiah Fatigue:
How did he turn health care into a wedge issue against his own party? Why are we awash in a sea of dead pelicans? Why has he so much time on his hands for fundraisers and galas? Why are our relations so much worse with all of our allies, while our -- and their -- enemies go on building bombs?
Based on these facts, Obama seems nobody's highway to heaven. He's the sleek, splashy sports car that sits in the driveway, that looked so cool in the showroom, and handled so well on the test drive, but has a bad habit of stalling in traffic, and just doesn't take to the road.
WSJ: The Alien in the White House - The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.
Red Rosie O’Donnell Calls For ‘Communism’ In America; Confiscate BP’s Assets. Confiscate her assets first, please.
O Admin policies destroying jobs for youth
Sissy: What really goes on beneath the burka?
Still crazy after all these years: Daniel Ellsberg
Iran mocks US sanctions. (where did that link go?) Oh, here it is.
How many real jobs has Jerry Brown created in his life? Jerry Brown comes out swinging
at Meg Whitman
The Limits of Liberalism: The dangers of ideological confusion
The stupidification of America
Reb on Russell Kirk:
Saying "limited government is good" is not very much different from saying "I wish I had a full head of hair." The more adamant a person is in these simplicities, the more likely it is that he or she has an allergy to thinking.) If you want to save America, you need to get yourself schooled in Kirk.
President Kick Ass cannot even handle a pet dog. Pathetic. Even when my kids were little, they would not put up with that from our dogs. That is now a worthless dog, and it is the owners' fault. How your dog behaves is a reflection of you and your training - or lack thereof, so analyze this:
Ed Driscoll covers 1969. Sorry, I cannot figure out how to embed this entertaining video.
There is every reason to believe that the Obama administration pressured the Netanyahu government and that it complied to go lightly, too lightly as it turned out, in boarding the blockade running Marvi Marmara. It is consistent with the known attitudes and behavior of the Obama administration vis a vis Israel and toward being firm in foreign policy.
So far, the only hard evidence is the admission by the US State Department’s spokesman that “through multiple channels many times” the Obama administration before the boarding urged Israel to “restrain” itself. (See this earlier post.)
Yesterday, an article in the World Tribune provides corroboration and further details. HOWEVER, the article relies on “diplomatic sources” without further identification or other indicators of reliability. So, it must be taken with journalistic caution.
The article, “White House rejected Israeli intel, blocked use of anti-riot gear against flotilla” possibly adds details, as follows:
Diplomatic sources said the White House rejected Israeli intelligence assessments that the six-ship flotilla contained weapons and Islamist fighters trained to resist any boarding operation. The sources, privy to Israeli-U.S. government communications, said Obama and his leading aides pressed Israel against any act that would be deemed excessive force.
"The White House demanded that Israel exercise extreme caution and restraint in any scenario," a diplomatic source said.
The Obama administration demands were relayed through Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor, the sources said. They said Barak, who has sought advanced weapons from Washington, persuaded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree that the Israel Navy would not use anti-riot equipment, including tear gas, to stop the flotilla….
The sources said Barak and Netanyahu decided on the details of the interception without consulting a seven-member security Cabinet committee. Later, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, a former chief of staff, asserted that the naval operation had endangered the commandos.
"The prime minister decided to settle everything with the defense minister," Ya'alon was quoted as saying. "Netanyahu shouldn't have left such fateful decisions to an irresponsible defense minister drunk with power."
The implications of exactly whether, what, who, when, how will reveal to a wide international, US and Israeli audience the extent, or not, of the Obama administration’s culpability in the snafu at sea and of the why and extent of Israeli compliance.
The importance goes well beyond this particular snafu to shed vital illumination upon how (again if as to specifics in this case) US foreign policy is on course to “restrain” or – purposefully or coincident with a fantasy world view – harm allies. It also sheds light how a small country can be pressured by the US to endanger its own national interests and comply.
Israeli politics can be a labyrinth of multiple competing parties and politicians, the paths winding and morphing, making it extremely difficult to navigate without reliable knowledge, even dangerous without knowing who the Minotaur is at a particular time and where.
Israel’s current government is a national coalition of Likud and Labor. Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, a former Foreign Minister, is outside the government. She may join the coalition.
Or, the coalition could fall apart if and as any particular leading member of the coalition is reliably tied to poor decisions in the snafu at sea.
In the US, President Obama is already on the rocks for many reasons, not least his lack of constructive leadership at home and abroad.
Full, or at least adequate, revelation of the exact role of specific individuals in the Obama administration – and at whose direction – could be the conclusive straw affecting the 2010 and 2012 elections, and US standing in the world among allies and waverers. Further, foes may be encouraged to be bolder, possibly leading to graver consequences and armed conflicts.
Both in Jerusalem and in Washington, there may be a common interest in keeping the lid on the details.
Neither in Jerusalem nor Washington can those who want a more secure peace be acquiescent in keeping the lid on. This isn’t and shouldn’t be a matter of politics but of national security, for the US, for Israel, and for other affected countries.
Back in April I did a little bit of reminiscing about one of my Grandpas. At that time, I promised an open session for Grandpa reminiscing.
It is understood that Grandpas are or were not perfect, but each one is a story. A better story than those of parents, because the grandparent stories reach further into the past.
Sometimes I feel like I am an unsettled, unhomogenized mix of both of my Grandpas.
For example, my other Grandpa was the opposite of the warm, fun-loving one I posted about. This guy was a stern, dignified, laconic, unsociable, never smiling, morally-rigid GP and cardiologist who made house calls into his 80s. He totalled his car making a house call on one Christmas night in a blizzard. Cops took him to his house call with his big black leather bag, then back home, where he arrived bloodied but unbowed.
He worked 7 days/wk. Had zero tolerance for foolishness of any sort, and the only times I ever saw a smile was when he was holding a baby. He was not about "fun," and was a serious man who took life seriously. He had a dry Milton or Shakespeare quote for any occasion, and he liked a Scotch or two in the evening, neat. Smoked corn-cob pipes at work and at home. (It is only recently that one could not smoke in hospitals.) Osler was his hero, and he had nothing but contempt for FDR and Lyndon Johnson.
When he opened his medical practice, the scourges in CT were malaria, syphilis, puerperal fever, and TB and other infectious diseases - plus all the diseases we still have. Few people were "healthy," as we view it, in the 1920s and 30s: just imagine everybody today with a new hip or knee hobbling around painfully on canes, or stuck in chairs, or everybody today with a bypass or stent or heart meds, bedridden and slowly dying of heart failure. Not to mention untreatable Depression.
He grew up on a farm in northern CT in a hamlet named after his (and my) family name. Worked his way through college and medical school (in Baltimore), mostly as a cook during the summers at lumber camps in Maine and NH. (I never saw him even boil an egg - he always had a cook in the house. My Dad tells me that he did know how to cook pancakes.)
His first wife died of leukemia before she could have kids. He had been her doctor. He did not remarry until his 40s. Both of my grandpas lost young wives to illness. It wasn't rare at all, two generations ago.
Like most docs of the past, he was not much of a vacation-taker until his later 60s, but was known to enjoy fly fishing at his favorite getaway spot, Mohonk. He also liked the old resort hotels in Watch Hill, where he met his second wife. She was a summer hotel waitress there, but her main job was as a Brooklyn grammar school teacher, teaching new Jewish and Italian immigrant kids. Her parents were a farm family in Norwalk, CT., and I have no idea why or how she ended up in Brooklyn. She once told me she had to check the kids for lice daily.
Her Mom lived with them until she died aged 107. She had been a nurse while being a farm wife too. She did jigsaw puzzles, and looked like an Indian (she had plenty of Indian blood, I am told, but was not happy about that, I suspect).
Grandpa's garage shelves were piled with hearts and brains and kidneys in jars with formaldehyde or alcohol or whatever. Cool for a kid. As I recall, my Dad burned them - along with all of his old wooden file cabinets of medical records, when the old guy died at 86 or 87.
This is him at my aunt's wedding. My Dad's sister was a beauty and a Physical Therapist for the Army until she had kids, but she is now gone too:
His patients loved him but eventually he outlived most of them. Many paid him with farm produce, and the poor paid him with labor at his house - chopping wood, painting, cleaning up the grounds, etc. I remember stopping by and seeing a bushel basket of fresh-dug potatoes left on the back porch, and a basket of sweet corn another time. He had a good-sized vegetable garden down in the back, which he tended himself. Lots of wax beans, as I recall. I do like them too.
He had the first EKG machine in CT. We still have that German machine in its splendid mahogany case. It still works. I need to take a photo of it when I remember. I think my Dad intends to donate it to the Yale Medical School museum.
I'll welcome more Grandpa thumbnail sketches in the comments.
We, and others, have often felt that one of the best uses of the internet is to disseminate local - very local - news. Local newsletters/online newspapers will never win millions of daily viewers, but if they can pick up some local ads (and if the area has broadband), it's a better biz model nowadays than the dying dead tree format.
Our pal Greg Sullivan has just begun publishing The Rumford Meteor. Pretty slick for a small town rag, and a good model for what can be done.
Among other things, he posted this video of Maine clam diggers:
 Tiger on risk-aversion:
Risk is the price for most great and fun things. Sadly, few people today accept that exchange or even acknowledge that one comes with the other, and now we are fixing to expunge risk from our economic lives just as we have from the playground.
One Cosmos on single women:
...But if we accept the premise that the greatest threat to our liberty is the vast, intrusive, coercive, greedy, and corrupt State, then it is a simple matter of fact that single women are responsible for electing politicians such as Obama who promise to grow government -- just as married women and men can be statistically relied upon to oppose the leviathan state.
Obama Threatens to Beat Up Gulf Coast. Related, re President Blame Bush: Obama to high school grads: 'Don't make excuses'
Rabbi with cell phone camera beats MSM
Barone on Michigan:
...rich liberals may be able to afford Obamastimulus and Obamacare, but voters with modest incomes don’t think they can.
Obama’s real problem is that the era of hope and change is over, and he hasn’t adjusted to it. He’s confronted by a debt crisis, the oil spill, and high unemployment. These are front-burner issues a president is expected to address seriously and on which he’ll be held accountable. Yet Obama is still stuck on his old agenda. And he dwells on sentiments like bipartisanship that no longer resonate.
Obama is hoist on his own petard. The man who blames Bush for everything now finds there are some things presidents cannot do. More deeply, the opposition party that persuades the public government can solve all their problems, discovers once in power there are problems their government cannot solve.
Alas, it will take more time than they have to learn the next lesson: that governments which try to solve the insoluble, more or less invariably, make each problem worse.
Tuesday, June 8. 2010
Andrew Hoffman is a congregant at my synagogue. Andrew Hoffman is a finalist in Major League Baseball and People magazine’s 2010 “All-Stars Among Us” national campaign, in conjunction with the MLB All-Star Game. The campaign is to recognize individuals who are serving their communities in extraordinary ways.
Andrew Hoffman works at the San Diego JFS Hand Up Youth Food Pantry, which distributes food to families in need. Two Sundays each month Hoffman leads teens to distribute food and hygiene items to hundreds of needy military families in San Diego.
Andrew Hoffman is an everyday hero, helping to create a family-friendly environment for our courageous military heroes and their families. As one military mom said, "This distribution is a blessing. Last week I had to choose between diapers and groceries. Now I don't have to."
Andrew Hoffman deserves your support.
Please go to this link, click on the San Diego Padres, and vote for Andrew Hoffman. The site says you can return and vote as many times as you want between now and June 20.
So, please vote and often.
A total of 30 “All-Stars,” one representing each MLB team, will attend and be honored at the All-Star Week and at the pre-game ceremony on July 13 in Anaheim, CA. One of the “All-Star Among Us” winners will also be featured in People magazine during the week of the All-Star game.
BTW, today is Andrew Hoffman's birthday, now 25. Let's give him a BIG deserved birthday honor.
Fat union guy bussed in to Arkansas to make phone calls, from Powerline's Hey, union man: Another look:
From Am Thinker, How to Fight Back against Public Unions: A Primer. He begins:
We have reached a potential turning point in the relationship of public employee unions and the electorate they ostensibly serve. Over the past year, there has been a steady drumbeat of criticism focused on public unions and the havoc they have wrought on our public finances. Governments -- city, country, state, and federal -- are drowning in red ink Our taxes are flowing to ever-voracious government workers (whose own ranks are growing steadily while the private payrolls shrink); they are better compensated than private workers in comparable positions.
What is to be done?
In my view, public unions should be illegal due to conflict of interest.
I do not know how material poverty can be defined. I have an easier time defining poverty of spirit. Man can not live on bread alone, and material appurtenances are no measure of quality of life.
(I have mentioned before two "poor" people I have come to know well: a Maine Guide who lives with his family in an unelectrified log cabin built by his own hands and who home-schools, and a New Hampshire farmer who attends my church whose life is as spartan and spare as that of the Guide, but whose life is full of joy, accomplishment, friends, pride, and serenity - except when his equipment breaks.)
Few people get this as well as my fellow shrink Dr. Ted Dalrymple, a man who has seen it all both in the jails and government housing of England and around the world. Sympathy Deformed: Misguided compassion hurts the poor.
The examples from Africa are heartbreaking.
Given all that, I am grateful to be what I am, an American professional woman married to a Boston finance guy with money to spare. He still plays Rugby and hockey, and I never lacked for life spirit either. We lack neither the Holy sort nor the secular sort of spirit, I think, and Shame On You if you do not jump into the thick of life and grab it by the balls the ball. Our family motto is a Nike ad. I do not need much in material comforts, but I do like and desire other things, including a closer walk with Christ. There is something about having spare money that causes one to want less material stuff, at least for me.
As our Editor says, a new car is a used car after 24 hours. Thoreau would have said the same thing, but it was all hypothetical for him. He had a family business (always a good thing to have).
The so-called Cadillac excise tax in ObamaCare will force tens of millions of Americans into Yugos.
The 40% excise tax imposed by ObamaCare upon “Cadillac” medical insurance and related plans could actually increase costs to employers by up to 60%.
The Democrat Congress voted for it to penalize the supposedly well-to-do and to raise revenues. Some conservatives support it as well, to force more cost-consciousness in the choice of medical benefits and potentially restrain medical care usage and cost-inflation.
The effects will be drastic, well beyond what many are aware.
The Cadillac excise tax is paid by the administrator of the medical plan, whether the insurer or claims administrator, and will be passed on to the employer sponsoring the plan for its employees. The excise tax is not deductible from taxes. So, if in, say, a 35% federal tax bracket the 40% becomes an actual 54%. Most states conform to federal tax regs, so add in the state tax impact and the true cost of the Cadillac excise tax can be as much as 60% or more.
The excise tax will take effect in 2018. It impacts the excess of annual premium above $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family (including as of 2013 a restricted to a max of $2500 annual employee contribution to pre-tax flexible spending accounts to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses), those thresholds then adjusted by CPI inflation which is far below medical cost inflation. (Some “dangerous” trades and some elders have slightly higher thresholds.)
Add that 40% to 60% on top of current and future premiums and the result will be a sharp increase in employers and employees’ costs, resulting in sharp decreases in benefits for medical care.
Now, let’s segue to a medical insurance client of mine in Southern California. Medical insurance premiums in Southern California are well-below those in many other states, NY, NJ or Mass. as prime examples of states that have much higher premiums due to community rating and guarantee-issue which are also parts of ObamaCare to be imposed on all states.
It’s a small firm. Neither the owners nor their employees are rich. Their earnings are middle-class. The owners are both married with two child dependents. An employee is married, his wife having had expensive life-saving treatments for cancer, an ongoing expense. Their medical insurance is with a major reputable carrier. The plan is a PPO, with in-network and out-of-network benefits. They have excellent in-network access to top doctors and hospitals, but to save his wife’s life the employee had to use the out-of-network benefits to go to another state at Mayo. The employer pays most of the employees’ premium.
The current monthly premium for a family is $3031 ($36,372 annually). (The benefits are below.)
At their last renewal, they could have cut a family’s monthly premium to $2597 ($31,164 annually), for an increase in out-of-network coinsurance (member responsibility to pay) from the present out-of-network 40% of negotiated (discounted) charges and 100% of the excess above that to 50%, an increase of $500 per member in-network and $4000 out-of-network in maximum annual out-of-pocket expense($1000 in-network and $8000 family), and a $5 brand Rx co-pay increase.
The business owners do not drive fancy cars, live in fancy houses, go to fancy restaurants or on fancy vacations. Their priority is on protecting their families and that of their employees, especially with an employee’s wife having a life-threatening disease needing special out-of-network care.
They chose to not cut benefits, now anyway.
In the future, they will have to cut benefits to far below even the currently available alternative.
Multiply that cut in benefits by millions of employers, and tens of millions of employees.
As Al Jolson famously said, “Ya ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Americans with medical insurance will be forced by ObamaCare to switch to Yugos.
(Current plan benefits: In-network, doctor visits are $20, hospital inpatient is 20% of the carrier’s negotiated discounted charges, and prescriptions are $10 for generic/$25 for brand on the formulary and $40 non-formulary brand. The annual out-of-pocket maximum is $3000 per member, with a two-member maximum of $6000 for a family. The lifetime covered charges is $5-million. Is that “Cadillac”? Oh, by the way, as Politico reports, the ObamaCare "Health law could ban low-cost plans" as well. American workers are screwed either way by ObamaCare.)
I do not blame BP for the oil. It's a SNAFU, and such things happen daily in life if not usually on this scale. Blaming and scapegoating are for nursery school and politicians. This BP gas station is good, tho:
 h/t, NE Repub:
“As good as this bar is,” said Angus, “I still prefer the pubs back home in Glasgow. There’s a fine place called the Smiling Bull of Lochanvar. The landlord goes out of his way to please… when you buy four drinks, he’ll buy the fifth drink.”
“Well, Angus,” said Brian, “at the Red Lion Pub in London, the barman will buy the third drink after you buy the first two.”
“Ahhh, dat’s nothin’,” said Patrick, “at me pub in Limerick, the moment you set foot in the place they’ll buy you a drink, then another, all the drinks you like, actually. Then, when you’ve been fully served, they’ll take you upstairs and make sure you get laid, all on the house!”
Angus and Brian were suspicious of this claim. Patrick swore every word was true. “Did this actually happen to you?”
“Not meself, personally, no,” admitted Patrick, “but it did happen to me sister quite a few times.”
Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics.
No kidding. You can't even try to discuss economic issues with them. I call it "Fairy-tale Economics." Exceptions to the rule? Plenty of them, mainly the Wall Streeter limousine Libs who dominate the upper levels of finance in America.
Space entrepreneurs.
Who created one of our favorite web sites? Denis Dutton, of Arts & Letters Daily
How bad are things in Gaza?
Also, US Asked to Look into American Backers of Gaza Flotilla
Gateway: In 2009 the Obamas spent over $10 million of taxpayer money on drunken White House parties. Hey, that was my money. That was my Beer Fund.
As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather
Global warming hoax update, h/t Vanderleun
GOP Still Sees Gains in November Despite Tightening Races
Re Krauthammer:
You may wonder whether [Krauthammer] ever applies his psychiatric knowledge to his analysis of politics. He has been known to joke, “As a professional, I diagnose Senator X with . . .” — but the real answer is no. “Psychiatry has no application to politics,” he says, “and anyone who pretends it does is a fraud.”
Helen Thomas: Blacks should go back to Africa. How about WASPs back to England?
What's "news"? Surber, from his piece on Al Gore:
(The) 10 elements of news: immediacy, proximity, consequence, prominence, suspence, oddity, sex, conflict, emotion, new.
News stories must have at least one of these elements. The more elements, the greater the story — usually.
Moonbattery asks:
Any English trolls care to step up to the plate and explain how you're not really living in Muslim-occupied territory?
Megyn Kelly: Actually, Elton John had a great time at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding. h/t, Insty
NYM responds to Kinsley's bashing of Tea Parties:
Michael Kinsley sneered at participants in the Tea Party Movement, in the Atlantic, dismissing them as people only interested in a tax cut, and challenging their patriotism. Kinsley admires instead the 1960s anti-war movement, which he describes as “selfless and idealistic.”
Bah, humbug! I was there. Whom does Kinsley think he’s kidding? The 1960s anti-war movement was pure selfishness. The student revolution gave people our age the chance to throw their weight around and they took it. Adolescent hormones, excess energy, and self-importance found expression in opportunistic rebellion against authority powered by the disproportionate weight of an unusually large age group sept. A lot of people back then went out to the demonstration motivated by nothing nobler than the desire to see themselves on the six o’clock news.
Monday, June 7. 2010
The Israel Law Center (more info here) asked US Attorney General Eric Holder to look into the illegal funding from the US of the Gaza Blockade runners.
The violations of US law include abuse of a non-profit's status in steering earmarked contributions to the Free Gaza Movement, and breaking the Neutrality Act.
Maybe Holder will get around to it, huh?
Tomorrow is the California primary. Mickey Kaus, blogger extroadinnaire, is running against Barbara Boxer in the Democrat contest. Mickey knows he has no chance of winning. Neither did William Buckley in NYC. Can't be ignored. Can be adored.
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