Saturday, March 7. 2009
A book: What he must be if he wants to marry my daughter
Hopeful about Afghanistan
Imagine what they'd be saying if Bush did this
How did California commit suicide? VDH
Via Animals as Weapons at Ace:
”A couple drove 170 kilometres (100 miles) from South Africa's famous Kruger National Park with a highly venomous spitting cobra in their car, the Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday.”
“Gordon Parratt, 69, felt the 85-centimetre (33-inch) long snake wind itself around his leg while he was driving.”
Always check your car for snakes.
From Krauthammer's The Big Bang Agenda:
...with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.
What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."
Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.
Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.
From Examiner:
Has this late winter storm left you scratching your head about global warming? This winter itself has proven to be cold and snowy for most of the US, including many southern locations (Las Vegas, New Orleans, Houston, and Hawaii). The snow finally arrived in the Mid Atlantic, albeit late in the season. The irony of five inches of snow still did not stop the Global Warming protest in DC on Monday, but the onslaught of new research may hinder others.
Michael Reilly posted an article in Discovery News that is getting a lot of internet traffic, as well it should. It brings up the possibility that warming of the planet will not resume.
"A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism."
Powerline:
Most people ... have figured out that the Obama administration is making war on the private sector. No wonder the stock market is in the tank and employers continue to lay off workers.
The Obama stock market:
Friday, March 6. 2009
How about that grin on Cupid's face? And Psyche looks happy too.
Psyche and Cupid (1817)
Thursday, March 5. 2009
 When the Deal Goes Down, from Modern Times (2006). I think we posted this one in the past, but it's been on my mind -
"Well, I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed the winding stream
I heard the deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you, and that's saying it's true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down."
It's not embeddable, but it's worth listening to. The video isn't bad either.
 Chart on right via Am. Digest
Via Lucianne:
President Obama's newly named Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the real-world Americans being asked to help solve the nation's financial crisis, includes a union executive who took the Fifth in a federal probe, a billionaire whose failed bank pioneered the subprime mortgage market, and deep-pocket donors who gave or gathered nearly $1.2 million for the president's campaign. In all, 11 of the 16 board members donated or raised money for Democrats in the last election.
8 harsh truths that will improve your life
Boys are "an enormous genetic experiment." AVI
Dr. Bob picks up his guitar again
The Left's romance with terror and tyranny. Radosh at Front Page
Which states are open for business? Not many in New England
Chavez update: Sell food at a loss, or else... And to media: Shut up, or else...
Chris Dodd update: A Kudlow run? Why not? And also via Insty, Bernie Loves Dodd
Geithner is a Warmist.
Cramer's response to the White House attack
Why did the WH snub Brown?
h/t, S,C&A
Wednesday, March 4. 2009
Politico reports that these tricks have been in the works for months. We need to get used to this new ball game. Can anybody imagine the Bush admin. doing stuff like this?
I do not believe that Conservatives, or Repubs, are up for these kinds of games and tactics. We have often observed here that the Left prefers to reserve their live ammo for their fellow Americans rather than for foreign threats or dangerous criminals.
“Deepen, exacerbate existing problems, crises, differences, and if they don’t exist, create them or convincingly claim that they exist, and then deepen, exacerbate them...and profit the most from them in any way you can, and, in the resulting chaos, blame our enemies for the whole thing.” -
Vladimir Ilich Ulianov (Lenin) - Thanks, reader.
One considered opinion, from Moderate Voice:
Let's put all of this in proper perspective: Rush Limbaugh and George Stephanopoulos are private citizens who are media celebrities. They do not run the RNC of the DNC, write any bills or pass any laws. Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama are part of the White House. The President can veto bills and apply political pressure but the Presidency does not appropriate any money or is authorized to spend one dime without the legislative branch. Michael Steele hasn’t figured out his responsibilities at the RNC, and if he did, his role is to win elections not shape fiscal policy.
Barack Obama has got less than a year before the 2010 primary season begins. He has only got that window of opportunity to turn around the economic mess that he has inherited from Republican Administration and a Democratic Congress. If Republicans want to recover their political mojo, it is the Congress that has got to be the focus of any message. Stop playing their game - Obama is not important and you are not going to beat him… plus he not running for re-election for three years - last time I checked, you can’t beat someone who is not even running.
 Nice icicles out my window today. 14 degrees F.
Awesome underwater photography of dolphins and Gannets feeding on sardines. Those Gannets move like fish underwater.
Tuesday, March 3. 2009
 The Obama stock market. Is the Left rejoicing in this loss of wealth?
Obama's war on the middle class
Not gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more. Staying under O's tax limit. Dr. Helen has more. Our Barrister already promised his wife that he would.
Today's economy is a response to Obama policies
4.9 billion for ACORN?
Family farms are the big losers in Obama's budget
Riehl explains why he thinks TigerHawk's video (posted here earlier today) is off base. He says O doesn't give a damn about TigerHawk. O is an orator, but you have to watch what he does, not what he says. He will say almost anything, being a politician.
Obama lied; the economy died
The filibuster, then and now. Powerline
O's plans for medical care rationing. NY Post
From Dick Morris' Obama's War on Prosperity:
President Lyndon Johnson’s administration was known for his War on Poverty. President Obama’s will become notable for his War on Prosperity.
We’re speaking, of course, of Obama’s plans to hike income taxes on the most wealthy 2 or 3 percent of the nation. He’s not just raising the top rate to 39.6 percent; he’s also disallowing about one-third of top earner’s deductions, whether for state and local taxes, charitable contributions or mortgage interest. This is an effective hike in their taxes by an average of about 20 percent.
And soon the next shoe will drop - he’ll announce that he’s keeping yet another of his campaign promises: to apply the full payroll tax to all income over $250,000 a year. (Right now, the 15.3 percent Social Security tax only applies to the first $106,800 of income - you neither pay the tax on income above that, nor accumulate added benefit.) For many taxpayers in this bracket, this hike will raise their total taxes by about half.
Finally, he’s declaring war on investors by raising the capital-gains-tax rate to 20 percent.
These increases are politically insignificant: The top 2 percent of the nation casts only about 4 percent of the votes, barely enough to attract the notice of even the most meticulous pollsters.
But they have enormous economic significance. Those who earn more than $200,000 pay almost 60 percent of America’s income taxes and account for a third of its total disposable income. If these spenders and investors are hunkering down, waiting for the revenuers to beat down their doors, their confidence will be anything but robust. Their spending will drop; they’ll be unlikely to invest (except in new tax shelters).
Photo: Eyeball Soup. I will spare you the recipe for that bummer of a dinner.
A personal testimony at Wizbang. Many, many people in that same category.
Related, Rush vs. Doofus. Am Digest
We are still using some 20,000 year-old words.
Some Afghani weavers are producing "War Rugs." You can find them sometimes on the eBay rug sites.
Monday, March 2. 2009
I never cover my log piles. I like my wood damp, and out in the weather. Dry firewood burns like paper, which is not good. I do maintain a small supply under eaves and porches for starter loads, though. We had a nice, very enjoyable snow today, and my log piles in the foreground are entirely buried.
 Man, did Rush's CPAC speech (which we linked here) kick up a lot of dust in all quarters. He loves that: it gets him listeners, and he loves being provocative. Truth is, I have never heard Rush say a single hateful thing to anybody, although he can be tough on seminar callers. Plenty of humorous mockery, of course. As far as I can tell, the guy loves people, and respects them and their potential enough to not want them to be serfs of the State. Anyway, a few links:
Rush to Chairman Steele: Where are your guts?
Where Rush went astray at CPAC. Hawkins at Pajamas
Rush to the Kultursmog. Driscoll
Rush has been demonized ever since he hit the airwaves. As an interesting and articulate spokesman and evangelist for the Conservative cause, the Left just had to do that. They demonize anyone Conservative who attracts a following, and have done so, with the MSM's assistance, for 40 years. Rush is Everyman's Bill Buckley (except Buckley got a pass because "he was one of us" - a "sophisticated" Yalie - plus he never had a large, populist following and thus was viewed as harmless). Whether I agree with him or not about things, I see him as a national treasure and as a stimulant for debate about important subjects and principles. That is his role.
Samuel Johnson said of poet Thomas Gray, insultingly, "As a poet, his sole virtue is his creativity."
The world is packed with poets these days, including some of a very odd breed of "professional poets" - a crazy idea in itself. Not many people read much poetry though, and even less often outloud as it is meant to be read.
Jeffrey Gray in a Chronicle piece, Poets' Puffery, notes:
In spite of the tenor of book titles like The Marginalization of Poetry and After the Death of Poetry, and in spite of the almost complete removal of the study of poetry from the higher reaches of literary theoretical studies — postcolonialism, poststructuralism, and the New Historicism — the writing of poetry has never been more feverish. There are 300,000 poetry Web sites. Six years ago, an heir to the Lilly fortune — herself an aspiring poet — gave $100-million to Poetry magazine, though her own submissions were all rejected by the editor. Poets continue to graduate in ever-larger numbers from those much-maligned M.F.A. programs.
Writing poetry, it seems to me, is an avocation and a hobby craft. I guess songwriting could be a profession, but one for a tiny few. I used to write poems, but now I specialize in doggerel for special occasions. In his article, Jeffrey Gray discusses evaluation-inflation of poetry, and makes a case for "satisfactory" poetry.
Why should everything have to be "great"?
From VDH, in The Triumph of Banality, one quote:
If we wish to get health-care costs under control, then we should at least be honest with the American people and admit that we are all paying a collective fortune largely for three reasons: (1) to keep functioning into their 60s those who drank, smoked, and ate too much and in a past era would have passed on at 60; (2) to give us all an extra three to five years of mobility and functionality after we reach 75; (3) to fit us up with IVs, feeding tubes, and respirators so that in our last six months of life we can die in a rest home or among machines and specialists in a hospital rather than in our own home with a few morphine tablets for pain and a bowl of soup with a straw on the nightstand.
He is wrong about the medicine: your longevity is in your genes more than in your behavior. However, the only solution to the costs of medical care is rationing and I, for one, do not want the government in charge of that.
Can you identify these wild ducks? Gwynnie cooked these for me and Mrs. BD for dinner last night, on the grill. (Do not say Huey, Dewey and Louie) With Cumberland Sauce. (Answer below the fold)
Continue reading "Huey, Dewey and Louie"
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