Friday, December 24. 2010
I know everybody is doing their Christmas shopping today, but I have some links anyway if you have time. I am heading up to MA to see the family, with my sack of goodies for them.
Cal Thomas: What if the Christmas story is true?
Kimball: ’Tis the Season to Be Politically Correct.
If we cannot defend our culture, we are doomed to lose it.
Gerald goes to WalMart
Wind power? It's a scam. The rent-seekers are all over it.
Counterfeit diplomas
How Democrats gave up on religious voters
It’s official: Polar bear not an endangered species
He knows what is best for you. All about Cass Sunstein: A Czar is Born
45 people lynched amid Haiti cholera fears. Haiti's real problem is cultural.
Iran Just Shipped Missiles to Venezuela. Hello? Is This Thing On?
Buying up the entire Western world at discount prices: Fresh humiliation for eurozone as China says it will bail out debt-ridden nations
I can't wait to have some kids to teach to hunt and fish, but by then fishing poles will probably be banned. GUN CONTROL AS CHILD ABUSE
Malpractice costs and defensive medicine costs, in NY
Pajamas: American Leftists Refuse to See the Handwriting on the Wall in Europe -Our domestic lefties have been pushing for decades to turn us into the type of society that is now crumbling before our eyes in Europe.
Not All Global Warming Skeptics Are Crackpots?!?
Slate: Whose Internet Is It, Anyway?
Let's drive 'em all out of business: UAW’s King Announces 2011 Goals: Target Foreign-Owned Auto Plants. No, they'll just move their factories to Mexico.
After predicting a mild winter, the British weather service is profoundly embarrassed by the current deep freeze
Uncle Sam Will Help Buy You an Alpaca - How the government produces negative unintended consequences
News Flash: Christmas is "Evil", "Depraved" and "the Path to Hellfire", According to Ultra-Tolerant British Muslim Group
Q&O: Is access to the internet a “civil right”?
Driscoll: Global Warming Died; Women, Children, AlGore Hardest Hit
Other McCain: Class Warfare vs. Economic Facts
Neptunus on ROTC:
As for the Ivies, it appears the rest of us have decided that, when it comes to building and defending our nation, we might just have to do it without them.
Obama Administration Admits Polar Bears Are Not ‘Endangered’ But Sets Aside 187,000 Miles For Them Anyway. Very scientific.
Pilot exposes TSA baloney, gets in trouble:
"As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It's only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here," the pilot narrates.
Video shot in the cockpit shows a medieval-looking rescue ax available on the flight deck after the pilots have gone through the metal detectors. "I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter," the pilot remarked.
We misunderestimated him: Bush's memoir sells 2m copies in a month - nearly as many as Bill Clinton's sold in six years
The Krautman says something people don't want to hear: Obama's new start
Matthew 18:1
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them
3 and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Joseph and Jesus, Guido Reni, 1635
Thursday, December 23. 2010
Slow-Growing Population? Great!
I agree! There's no shortage of people in this world, and far too many control freaks, nuts, slimeballs, and idiots.
 Looks like it. Love it. Santa loves it, too, and we love Santa - so we give thanks for Globalistical Cooling.
We hate hot weather (well, some of us do, but our authorship has expanded well beyond chilly Yankeeland over the years). Warmth makes me feel lazy and unproductive, and that is not the Yankee Way Of Life.
Yesterday I spoke with my mother-in-law in Dusseldorf, where she’s snowed in and may not reach her mother for Christmas eve. She saw on CNN that San Diego was suffering from torrential rains, as TV news searches for exaggerations to fill airtime.
Actually, San Diego got from several inches to over ten-inches of rain, varying by spot. That’s very unusual in our semi-arid location, where sunny days are usual and average temps range along the coast from winter 60s to upper-70s in summer (today’s newspaper editorial calls our usual weather “bland”). Still, as most of our soil is sand and roads get flooded, there are commute difficulties and some small landslides (the Coaster rail is blocked for several more days). We have tickets to the Poinsettia Bowl tonight. We’ll have to go hours earlier and stall in heavy traffic; bummer. At Qualcomm, next to the overflowed San Diego River (usually a trickle), pumps are removing over 2,200 gallons of water a minute from the flooded stadium (I guess that favors Navy, versus San Diego State University).
On the way back from the movies yesterday to see Narnia #3 (good, especially with 3D, but #2 was best), Jason and I stopped at Sports Authority for a quick purchase. Instead, we spent over an hour in the baseball glove aisle helping confused parents choose gloves for their sons (we sold over 20; should have been on commission). Almost all the buyers departed wishing us Happy Holidays; not one Merry Christmas. This is not a Jewish neighborhood (nor Muslim), so I thought that unusual, even bland.
For those to whom Christmas is something special, two items in today’s emails tell of their deep loss.
A fellow Vietnam veteran sent me this artist rendering of a photo taken at the Wall in D.C. These and other veterans never got to celebrate another Christmas.
Another friend sent me this AP clip that Iraqi Churches cancel Christmas festivities because of Al Qaeda threats, following increased but hardly new brutalities and murder against them by Islamists, a million Christians having left Iraq since 2003. Christians in most all Muslim countries suffer violence and death at the hands of Islamists.
Wherever you are, whatever your weather, whichever and however your faith, whenever you pause, give thanks for the freedom to celebrate Christmas in America, compared to the alternatives, and remember when it wasn’t Blandmas or an invitation to be slaughtered.
 It's never a good idea to go through an Advent without watching this version of A Christmas Carol.
To state the obvious, the story is a metaphor, using Christmas as the setting, in which a man is reborn in Christ by the mystical power of the Holy Spirit (as represented by the "spirits,") transforming his soul from a grouchy, self-centered drudge into a loving, generous, and joyful creature.
Many Christians, as I do, pray for some bit of that transformation and rebirth in our souls each Advent, as we remember and celebrate the birth of Christ.
 The experts were wrong: Carbs are the problem - not fat
You can now eat all the fat you want. Eating fat doesn't make you fat.
Where germs breed on airplanes
Bishop Tutu Is No Saint When it Comes To Jews
Driscoll: Mega-Consumers against Consumerism
John Fund: The Net Neutrality Coup - The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who's who of left-liberal foundations. A quote:
The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney’s agenda? “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. “But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”
A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that “any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.” Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been “taken out of context.” He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was “hesitant to say I’m not a Marxist.”
Armies always used to take control of the radio stations first
Obamacare is a government takeover
Happy Kwanzaa, Commies, Racists, and Psychopaths
Obama Supported Ousted Honduran Thug Zelaya to Appease Chavez
School Requires Permission Slips for Pledge
Wednesday, December 22. 2010
Stolen in full (because it is so well-said) from Never Yet Melted's Van Jones Urges Young Supporters “To Pretend” EPA Regulations Are Needed:
Leftism originally created political movements by agitating the masses through a combination of flattering their desires and exaggerating their grievances, but Capitalism baffled the Left by transforming the needy Proletariat into a prosperous Middle Class, while Socialism in the countries where it fully achieved power impoverished everyone outside the Nomenklatura. Socialism consequently collapsed while Capitalism thrived, so the Left went back to the drawing board.
Absent economic grievances, the Left with remarkable ingenuity decided to hitch its wagon to the rising Environmental Movement, and to replace obsolescent economic themes intended to inspire animosity and class division with new, entirely imaginary problems requiring the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the State.
Van Jones, the Communist run out of his White House advisor position via the exposure of his political background by Glenn Beck, refers indiscreetly to trying “to pretend” that EPA interventions are required by market failure.
Rush has been making accusations about this for years, and so have we. It's good to hear somebody confess the scam in public. The innocent, ignorant, and sanctimonious Greenies are the useful idiots in this game.
 Stopped by my local jewelers at lunchtime today (to pick up a repaired watch - not shopping). The place was packed, and I had to wait a while despite there being 8 salespeople.
The lady who retrieved my watch showed me a $285,000 watch. Used. It doesn't look fancy or flashy at all. She told me they would sell it this week, already sold one just like it earlier in the week. I admired it, but I prefer my old Accutron that my wife gave me the first year we were married (and my Timex Explorer for banging around). She also showed me a pretty bracelet, $60,000. She said they had had five of them three weeks ago, now down to this last one.
They have an armed rent-a-cop on duty full time.
When I finally got my watch delivered from the repair and jewelry construction area upstairs, she handed it to me and said "No charge. It was a simple repair, just a cleaning and oiling. Merry Christmas."
Rasmussen: Majority of Voters Say Protecting Individual Rights Is Government’s Chief Role.
That's a good sign. Lots of folks, it would appear, have taken Bastiat to heart. Unsurprisingly, Liberals do not see it the same way.
It's money. At The American. One quote:
In the eminent domain context, the problem is that landowners are not being paid enough. The standard of “just compensation” is usually interpreted as the market value of the property as determined by dueling appraisers. This standard can be unfair, as Loyola Law School Professor Gideon Kanner has long argued. It skimps on costs of relocation and upset, and excludes consideration of damage to businesses, which can considerably outweigh the value of the real estate. Tenants, especially businesses, are often seriously short-changed.
Pay them the real value. Makes sense to me.
Impressive:
This is an iPhone app, soon to be available for other smart phones. Home site is here. The app is free, languages cost five bucks apiece. They only have Spanish-English at the moment, but converting other languages should be a snap at this point.
What's particularly impressive about this is that it's the quintessential case of the entrepreneur's axiom, find a need and fill it. Check out the second video on the site for the background story.
A truly marvelous invention, and sure beats the hell out of having to look up "ADVERTENCIA! GRAVES DE DERRAMES DE RADIACIÓN! DOS PASOS MÁS Y SE MUERE!" ("WARNING! SEVERE RADIATION LEAK! TWO MORE STEPS AND YOU'RE DEAD!") in the translation book.
"Ad-ver-ten-see-a? Why would there be an advertisement way out here? Should we look it up in the translation book?"
"Look up an advertisement? Why bother? Let's go!"
At Pajamas, ‘Compliance’: The Word That Sunk a Million U.S. Jobs
Costs not related to the quality of the end product — costs created entirely by overbearing government — have destroyed our manufacturing sector.
It's not just cheaper labor - it's the hassle factor.
 Have Feminists Gotten It All Wrong? Can a woman deviate from the fixed feminist-approved life path and still be a woman in full?
Obama's mystery proposal to regulate the Internet
Also, at WaPo: Hands off tomorrow's Internet:
Discouragingly, the FCC is intervening to regulate the Internet because it wants to, not because it needs to. Preserving the openness and freedom of the Internet is non-negotiable; it is a bedrock principle shared by all in the Internet economy. No government action is necessary to preserve it. Acting only on speculative concerns about network operators and contrary to a decade of industry practice, the FCC is moving forward aggressively without real evidence of systemic competitive harms to cure, markets to fix or consumers to help.
Price controls: U.S. Proposes Rules on Raising Insurance Premiums
We all know that the long game is to put them out of business
In New Maps, 'An Embarrassment of Riches' for GOP
SANDERS: Afghanistan and worldwide jihadism
Obama administration readies indefinite detention order for Guantanamo detainees
E-15 gasoline?
Do the farmers feed us, or do we feed the farmers? And another issue: Do they care what that E-10 already does to our 2-cycle engines? What will E-15 do to a chain saw?
Re farmers, you got money for "attempting to farm"
Making the case that California is doing fine
Tuesday, December 21. 2010
Some of our readers appreciate views of old wooden speedboats. From this site:
My good friend Dan Blatt, of GayPatriot blog, has a worth reading column today at AOL, What's Next for Gays After the DADT Repeal?
Though we disagree on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), Blatt neutrally links to and quotes from my previous post, DADT Repeal: What Comes Next? Pentagon Asked, Tells Combat Troops Not To Tell, and I reviewed his draft for accuracy.
Respected defense and foreign policy guru Max Boot writes, as does a combat Marine’s wife, with confidence the able military will adapt, though they opposed the repeal.
For one thing, there may be far fewer gays in uniform than claimed by the pro-repeal advocates. One indication of this comes from data that most of the approximately 14,000 discharged under DADT from the military over the past 17 years were probably not even gay, but slackers who falsely “outed” themselves for an early out.
Continue reading "Pyrrhic Victory: What’s Next For Gays After The DADT Repeal"
Here. The Judge is a handy weapon, but the .410 in it might not kill anybody for keeps.
You do not want the bad guys alive to testify at your trial, because they will lie.
Re gun safes, I just don't want my firearms stolen, but I have no idea what good a home protection firearm is when locked in a gun safe. All across this great land, people keep a loaded shotgun handy and hope they never need it for anything other than a rattlesnake.
Best home protection is a cheap pump action 12 ga. Only a semi-pro or pro could kill an intruder with a handgun in the dark, while feeling freaked-out and confused. A 12 ga might damage your possessions but at close range with the right cartouche (Buckshot) it can definitely mess up a bad guy so he will die in the hallway before the cops arrive.
These are not very Christmassy mental images, are they?
Justice. This via TigerHawk:
Hi Everyone,
I wanted to briefly thank a few people individually for all of their hard work--and I couldn't think of a better place to do so than here (my very own Facebook Page, crazy)!
Governor Christie, thank you. Seriously. I understand the risk you assume while making any decision that affects the People of New Jersey and that this was no trivial decision for you. In the days and years that will come to pass I am positive you will find yourself proud of your decision... and if you heard that quote about me running against you for President; I was just kidding. :)
Dennis Malloy, thank you. You've helped deliver an amazing gift this Christmas for a very loving and deserving family. I wouldn't be typing these words right now if it wasn't for you.
Richard Gilbert & Evan Nappen, thank you. You've been amazing counsel through this all and I'm proud to have you represent me in this case.
To the 15,000+ Facebook supporters, thank you. To each and every person who wrote the Governor, thank you. To each and every person who wrote to me and sent me hope... thank you.
To the Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines who wrote me from overseas - thank you for your kind words and your dedication to our country. The work you do amasses a debt that can never be repaid and I am humbled that you supported me from bases and War Zones around the globe. Thank you.
Lastly, thank you to my family, friends and beautiful fiancee. I'm lucky to have you all in my life.
There is a great deal of work yet to be done but, in the meantime, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas.
My very best,
Brian D. Aitken
Gov. Awesome does it again.
From the Pope Center's Studying or Partying? The Five-Year Party identifies a problem with college, but gets a barely passing grade:
The reward for students being good clients and paying ever-increasing amounts of tuition dollars and other fees is a diploma. However, because they have not received a real education, their diplomas are almost worthless, and they cannot obtain decent jobs with them. Although most schools imply that graduating from them will put the student on the path to a good career, the truth is that many have barely advanced past their high school knowledge and will find employment in jobs like theater usher and coffee barista.
Readers know that I am in favor of raising the bar for HS and college graduation. Over time, these things mean less and less. A HS degree should mean, at minimum, that you can write a personal essay, a researched essay, know what PV=nRT means, and perform Trigonometry. A college degree should mean, at minimum, that you can write a scholarly paper, do Calc, and speak intelligently about Kierkegaard and the Bible.
Good summary, looking forward:
There are, however, two possible means of repeal. There is actual legislative repeal, passed by both Houses and signed by the president, which cannot happen until 2013 at the earliest. And there is effective repeal, in which the body politic rejects the substance of the bill, seeks waivers and exemptions, supports defunding important provisions, and challenges it in court, all of which would have the effect of making the whole scheme unworkable. This could be the ultimate fate of Obama’s signature legislation.
Many Democrats are sure to keep telling themselves, as President Obama has, that “the outcome was a good one.” That conviction should comfort them as they continue to deal with the consequences arising from the intensity of the electorate’s rejection. The Pyrrhic victory Democrats secured for themselves in March 2010 may prove not to have been a victory at all but rather an ever-roiling, ongoing, and recurring act of political and ideological self-destruction.
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