Friday, January 29. 2010
Haha. That is cruel. Steyn on the O.
'Liar' is just as ugly a word as 'thief,' because it implies the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is guilty under the statute law.
Under the higher law, under the great law of morality and righteousness, he is precisely as guilty if, instead of lying in a court, he lies in a newspaper or on the stump; and in all probability, the evil effects of his conduct are infinitely more widespread and more pernicious.
Teddy Roosevelt.
It reminds me that Dr. Bliss says "Lying is worse than theft of property, because it is the theft of somebody's reality."
Howard Zinn. America the Awful---Howard Zinn's History.
Old Stalinists never die, they just fade away.
 Crude and diabolical but hilarious: Ace on Chris Buckley's take on the SOTU. I would live in terror were Ace my editor.
Climate science chief calls for honesty. Good grief. h/t, Englishman
"Best practices" in medicine often turn out not to be.
The arrogance of power. Noonan with Washington is sick and broken—and it can solve all our problems. The very notion that Washington politicians can solve our life problems is insidious, manipulative, infantile, and destructive to the country.
Speech for me but not for thee. Constitutional lawyer proposes amendment to limit free speech. h/t Insty
How could anybody not love a guy who can write like this:
"The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets. Farther along and stronger, bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, green and vivid on their lily pads. From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets." From James Thurber, The 13 Clocks (New York, 1957)
Now for some Thurber dogs -
Thursday, January 28. 2010
VDH at NRO (this is his entire post):
When Obama gives the usual review of all the programs, stimulus efforts, and new entitlements he's overseeing, almost no one seems to conclude that he is simply detailing how he is going to redistribute nearly $2 trillion a year in annual borrowing. When we cut through all the soaring Great Society rhetoric, we are left with a "Gorge the Beast" strategy in which money is borrowed and given to favored constituencies before being paid back by less popular groups through higher taxes.
Given the aggregate $7-10 trillion in additional debt envisioned over the next four years, Obama may well become the greatest redistributor in U.S. history, at last addressing his 2001 lamentation about the absence of meaningful "redistributive change" in America. The only question at this point is whether Obama's gargantuan deficits are aimed primarily at lavishing constituencies with cash, or rather at making it necessary to raise taxes in a way that serves to reduce income inequality.
In addition to growing government, I think VDH gets right to the core of the underlying Dem agenda. When you think about it that way, they are being fairly successful.
 For people who love food and cooking: CHOW.
One heck of a rant from Lewis in Am Thinker about affirmative action: The Lesson of an Affirmative Action President
"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money."
Joseph Sobran
We have it pretty good these days. From Gene Expression:
Geneticists have long known that the ancestors of modern humans numbered as few as 10,000 at some time in the last 100,000 years. The critically low number suggested that some catastrophe, like disease or climate change induced by a volcano, had brought humans close to the brink of extinction.
If the new estimate is correct, however, human population size has been small and fairly constant throughout most of the last million years, ruling out the need to look for a catastrophe.
Assuming an average census size on the order of 50,000, it seems as if our species stumbled onto a rather "risky" strategy of avoiding extinction. From what I recall conservation biologists start to worry about random stochastic events (e.g., a virulent disease) driving a species to extinction once its census size reaches 1,000. I suppose the fact that we were spread out over multiple continents would have mitigated the risk, but still.... It also brings me back to my post from yesterday, it seems that for most of human history we are a miserable species on the margins of extinction. For the past 10,000 years we were a miserable species. And now a substantial proportion of us are no long miserable (it seems life is actually much improved from pre-modern Malthusianism outside of Africa and South Asia). If only Leibniz could have seen it!
From Peter Wehner on the SOTU:
What we are seeing play out on a very large stage, it seems, is a man of extraordinary self-regard having to deal with punishing political set-backs, with the fact that his high hopes have come crashing down around him. The nation has turned against his agenda. They are turning against his party. And they are tiring of him as well. This is something he cannot seem to process. So the president marches ahead, pretending up is down and east is west, embracing an agenda the country has rejected and that is doing terrible damage to his own party.
It was quite a thing to witness.
Re the SOTU, Powerline's Not a double-down but at least a down and a half. Also, Fernandez has some thoughts. I did not watch it.
More of the usual links later -
Wednesday, January 27. 2010
After all I’ve counseled, my 9-year old son insists on doing it his way in tomorrow’s 4th grade elections to the student council.
His speech is about how he will tell the students what the council decides, rather than tell the council what the students want. Liberal.
And, he’s carrying in a bag of candy for the students, to get the students to elect him. Corrupt.
If he wins the election, will he bring home congrats letters from Pelosi and Obama?
Grrr!
I'll post the election results in the comments.
Meanwhile, this approach might have been better:
OK, OK, I've failed as a husband, too!
You have to drink one shot of Tequila every time the O says "I." See 132.
Have ambulance on duty.
This is about a Brit neurosis. How naive can they be? Will they fall for any con? Do they refuse to accept the fact that there are tricksy, dishonest people out in the world? Via Betsy:
Then at the weekend another howler was exposed. The IPCC 2007 report claimed that global warming was leading to an increase in extreme weather, such as hurricanes and floods. Like its claims about the glaciers, this was also based on an unpublished report which had not been subject to scientific scrutiny -- indeed several experts warned the IPCC not to rely on it.
The author, who didn't actually finish his work until a year after the IPCC had used his research, has now repudiated what he sees has its misuse of his work.
His conclusion: "There is insufficient evidence to claim a statistical link between global warming and catastrophe loss."
Yet it was because of this -- now unproved -- link that the British government signed up to a $100 billion transfer from rich to poor countries to help them cope with a supposed increase in floods and hurricanes.
Suckers.
Related: Manufactured 'Science': Another IPCC Scientist Reveals How UN Scientists talked about 'trying to make IPCC report so dramatic that US would just have to sign Kyoto Protocol'
Maggie's Farm demands Congressional hearings about the Climate Fear Scam and the UN's role in promulgating it.
 Driscoll notes that the one nation ignored by the O about their amazingly swift and generous aid to Haiti was Israel and their IDF medical and rescue teams. with their field hospitals.
Thus our photo of an IDF babe from Double Tapper, who has more. (h/t, Theo)
Off topic - We are adding to our blogroll the following good sites:
The Future of Capitalism
Fausta (who has a good post today about Venezuela)
Big Journalism
The MSM meme is that the middle class wants more care and attention from the O. More goodies, more empathy, etc.
That is BS. What the middle class wants is less taxes, fewer government jobs, less government - and to be left alone to do what they can do best with less government getting in the way of our lives and stifling the economy.
As Insty posts today:
MICHAEL LEDEEN: The Real State Of The Union: Fear. “This fear is extremely broad-based. It is not limited to social class nor to domestic or foreign policies. Banks are not lending, companies are not hiring, because they are afraid of what Obama will do next. Both are afraid of onerous taxes, including new health care burdens, and the banks fear new regulations and the consequences of the recently declared war on evil bankers by the president. Seniors are afraid they will be deprived of medical treatment. Juniors are afraid they are going to be forced to buy health insurance they don’t think they need. Across the board, Americans are afraid they’re not going to find work, and won’t be able to afford a house. And, as the Massachusetts vote showed, Americans are worried about threats from abroad, worried about Iran, afraid of terrorist attacks, and afraid the Obama Administration doesn’t take all this seriously enough.”
Related: “The drop in individual income tax revenue in fiscal 2009 was the steepest since 1939. As the chart shows revenue continues to plummet in fiscal 2010.” John Galt was unavailable for comment.
Yes, President O. If you really want to do something for the middle class, shut up with the programs and destimulate.
Also related, Arthur Laffer says we are headed for a train wreck. That is not good for the middle class.
From Bowman at New Criterion's Ain't Gonna Study War No More:
In the media’s view, everything must be over-determined by circumstance — or the mistakes of the Bush administration — so that acts of terror become like acts of God, both in their causes and in the limited and ad hoc way they demand to be dealt with. Insofar as questions of war and peace arise, it is only by way of demonstrating that war must be thought of as a struggle to understand the other side — the unspoken assumption being that there is always a way to get the enemy to stop fighting by understanding and sympathizing with him and without having to defeat him in battle — as the old, unmentionable honor culture would once have insisted. Got that?
PC makes some hatreds privileged and deserving of "understanding," and others not so.
I notice that our Editor is getting into wild animal recipes again. We must not forget this one (definitely use the bear grease if you have any left over.)
French Fried Skunk
2 Skunks, skinned and cleaned
1 tb Salt
Water to cover
2 c Bear fat or lard
2 Egg yolks, beaten
3 c Milk or cream
1 1/2 c Flour
1/2 ts Salt
2 tb Baking powder
Clean and wash the skunks, making sure that the scent glands are removed. Cut up into small serving pieces. Put a soup kettle on the stove and add the meat. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat and boil until the meat is tender, about 40 minues. Remove all the scum that rises to the surface. Make a batter by mixing together the egg yolks, milk, flour, salt and baking powder. Mix real good until the batter is about like cake batter. Heat the bear fat or lard in a deep fryer to about 360 degrees. Dip the pieces of skunk in the batter and then fry them in the deep fryer until golden brown. Drain well and serve.
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What was never mentioned in the SOTU? 