Maggie's Farm

Another good GOP Pres candidate: John Thune (pic, with Sen. Thune on the right, via Gateway).

Glass recycling

Google Earth finds recent crater

Asperger's: The Boy Who Couldn't Make Friends

Sen Kerry: Voters are clueless/ But not when they vote for you, Senator?

The Tea Party Movement Is a Women's Movement

The gold bubble

Obama Stimulus Made Economic Crisis Worse, `Black Swan' Author Taleb Says

You Can't Say That: Against its wishes, Europe’s political class is hip-deep in immigration debates.

How California ran out of toilet paper

Via Betsy, The beliefs behind the tea party movement

Bob Shrum: Americans aren't listening to Obama. No. We have heard enough.

The O cannot fill a ballroom in NYC. That is bad news for him.

Bill Clinton offers advice to the O. Good, sleazy, sneaky, political advice from a guy who never seems to have had a sense of right and wrong or truth and falsehood. Bill Clinton is clever as heck and does think: it's been too bad that he thinks like a criminal.

At Reason, Cuba and the Death of Communism: Fidel Castro finally admits the obvious. One quote:

This week, the regime said it will dismiss 500,000 people from government jobs, which account for 84 percent of the work force. Reflecting ruefully on the perils of sheltered bureaucracy, Raul Castro declared recently, "We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working."

As a blanket indictment, that statement is grossly unfair. Many Cuban government employees put in long hours—working in the black market.

Even with guns and secret police and informers on every block and state terror in general, it's tough to keep a population oppressed. The only way to do it is to kill them, in which case those who imagine that they can control people and their economic activities become kings of giant cemeteries.

The Globe's Jeff Jacoby gets it.

When it becomes profitable to mine landfills, they will be mined. Possibly in 1000 years.

Add: The comments on Jacoby's piece are entertaining.

BD's tab dump this morning addressed poverty in America. Who are the poor? What is in their lives, he wondered. Tiger provides this:

...by simple, homey measures of comfort and convenience, the lowest rung on the income ladder lives better lives today than the average middle-class Americans of the last generation.

Poverty is not materially poor in the US. Sometimes I think it is just spiritually poor. What's a "good life"? Is it having a microwave? Not to me - nothing to do with a good life. I lack one, and do not want one. Not trying to be Marcus Aurelius or Thoreau here. I was under the poverty line for seven years - "working poor" -  and I had a great simple life in poverty-stricken, jobless, but scenic western MA. Now I am making money in New York, and my life sucks more in many ways. I do meet more delightful females but, for one thing, I have less time for the fall hunting season. I do love the City, however, and feel invigorated every time my feel hit the sidewalk in the morning and I see the hustle and bustle and all the beautiful, slinky HOPAs and MILFs headed to work in their cool New Yorky outfits.

Plus I love the endless demands and rigors of my job, which test and stretch my brains and character every day and often all night too. I am trying to figure out what I really want in life besides beer, money, pals, dogs, guns, and fun sex. I realize now that I do not know, but that as a Yankee I know I do not want it to be easy. I want to work at least as hard and long as my old man did and does, and I know I need more God in my life.

I will not burden our readers with my inner confusions (but it is why I have been semi-AWOL here since my August boating adventures. I explained that to our Editor a while ago, and he was kind, understanding, encouraging, and teasing as he always is).

White House wants to change the alarm to "climate disruption."

When people keep changing the name of something, you have to wonder What's up? Like, maybe there is no global warming now. But there is still weather of all sorts to get all excited about - especially in New England where the climate is "disrupted" constantly: See this charming 1876 speech by Mr. Samuel Clemems.

As for me, I hate boring weather. I enjoy disruptive weather.

BTW, I think Holdren is insane.

MARXISM A BUST… Cuba Lays Off Half a Million – Allows Private Enterprise.

If the government would just leave the people alone, they could be like the Dominican Republic in 10-20 years. Maybe they will even begin to make cigars as good as today's Dominicans, too.

The fatal flaw of the Left is the assumption - or wish - that some power-hungry elite could be possessed of more virtue or wisdom or omniscience than ordinary people. All of history shows that not to be true. There are no "betters" to rule or to run us.

We regular folks just have to grow up and run our own lives. If they let us.

I am taking a mental health break from Maggie's for August. I love Maggie's, but I am sick of having to see all of the outrages du jour. As that guy Drinking with Bob says on the radio, "What next? What next!"

We lease one of these babies:

Good site, discovered by Vanderleun: I Want a New Left

NEA Removes Post Encouraging Teachers To Celebrate Chinese Communist Revolution

Poll shows opposition to health care overhaul declining. Of course. It hasn't gone into effect yet.

Dalmia: The Death Of The Global Warming Movement

Galston: How Americans’ Shifting Political Ideologies Threaten the Democrats

Ann McElhinney:

“So when my husband and I came to America, we heard a story about conservatives. We heard that these conservatives are a really really weird lot. Nutjobs, basically. And these conservatives, they’re obsessed with sex. They’re obsessed with sex and they’re obsessed with what you’re doing in your bedroom. It’s all they think about. They’re just constantly worrying about what you’re up to in your bedroom.

But you know something? Since we’ve moved here, we haven’t found that. But what we have found is that liberals, are in every other room in your house. They’re in the fridge. They’re in your car. They’re in your air miles. They’re in your clothes. They’re in your hair. They’re in your cleaning products, and your washing machine and the refrigerator. They’re all over the place! And they’re in your light bulb! And I want to say them .. This is America! Get out of my light bulb"

Once again: Schwarzenegger Declares Fiscal Emergency in California. They needed a real man like Chris Christie.

Lopez: Ohio Wants Something Different

Kafka-trapping:

"The longer the playing of the race card continues, the probability that someone will deny the accusation, and thereby provide proof of the accusation, approaches one."

Sissy reminded us of this excellent Am Thinker post: Cultural Marxism

How science led the Third Reich. Totally related via Q&O: Why "science" has a problem:

Anatomy of a Microburst. Often mistaken for tornados.

Is being a slut liberating?

Pre-Cambrian life forms

The Boy Scout parade

SEC Says New Financial Regulation Law Exempts it From Public Disclosure. Huh?

New Calculator Shows How Much More Taxes Will You Pay Next Year

NYT Reporter Surprised at Lack of Gratitude in Texas for Obama-Care Handout

Heather MacDonald: What Judge Bolton’s Injunction Doesn’t Say 

Reading the scholarly work of Woodrow Wilson is an educational experience. It is shocking to read the expressions of his disaffection for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. As R.J. Pestritto has demonstrated, the intellectual roots of modern liberalism lie in an assault on the ideas of natural rights and limited government. They eventuate in an administrative state and rule by supposed experts. Obamacare represents something like the full flowering of modern liberalism.

City and County Government Associations: Obama Economy Will Create or Save, Eh, I Mean Destroy or Eliminate 500,000 Public Sector Jobs. Toon borrowed from that piece at Ross. 

The “does it make me look fat?” question

Caddell: Our Divisive President - "Barack Obama promised a new era of post-partisanship. In office, he's played racial politics and further split the country along class and party lines."

Hawkins: Seven Deceptive Mainstream Media Techniques

Reason.tv: Arthur C. Brooks on the Battle Between Free Enterprise and Big Government

"Temporary marriage" in Iran: "We call on all our sisters who are virgins" to put out for the lonely pilgrims - for cash.

At Thompson:

Greg Lukianoff on knowing why you think what you think.

One of the great harms of speech codes and campus censorship is that it leaves students with the false impression that censorship is what good, compassionate people do.

Reynolds: Taking Photos In Public Places Is Not A Crime: Analysis. "Too many officials think taking photos is a crime. Here’s why they’re wrong." h/t Ace

"Set up a motion-activated camera at a stock water tank in South Texas and you'll catch all manner of critters."

Good advice: Surviving the Low-Level Job. People will need to get used to this.

Oliver Stone Rails Against Jews

Krugman blames McCain for cooking the planet. Cut it out, John. It's July, and it's too hot.

NYT: Armageddon Wars: Overpopulation Vs. Global Warming

Boot: Wikileaks, Insignificant

AVI on a kids' mission to paint houses of the poor. These kids should just buy the paint for the poor, and spend the summer painting their own barns and sheds and houses for their parents. Power wash, power sander, coat of primer, coat of lead-based paint.

Somin on that James Webb op-ed

Giving Lousy Teachers the Boot - Michelle Rhee does the once unthinkable in Washington.

Fred Thompson: 'Catastrophic' If Bush Tax Cuts Not Renewed

Good stuff:  Paul Ryan Schools Chris Matthews on Tax Hikes, Budgets and Economics 101

Warning: Now is not a good time to talk about privatization of Social Security

Boston Latin goes moonbat

Women Dominate Men in 7 of 10 Graduate Fields, and Women Are Gaining on Men in All 10 Fields

Glassman: Notes on Europe’s Economic Decadence. "Prosperity creates sloth."

Axe falls on NHS services

Examiner: The calamitous effects of Obama's tax hikes. Related at Powerline: Coming Soon: The Biggest Tax Increase Ever. There's nothing like a big tax increase to work wonders on a struggling economy.

Vernon Smith says "no more government spending,...avoid new taxes."

Ariz. law comes after years of mounting anger

Malanga: The Muni-Bond Debt Bomb

Am Thinker: We The Serfs...:

Your tax dollars at work in Rhode Island. How long before those sidewalks are cracked with weeds growing through the cracks?

VIDEO GOLD: Howard Dean Gets A$$ Handed to Him On FOX After Misplaying His Race Cards

From Cato's Investors: Fear the Process That Gave Us ObamaCare, Not Efforts to Repeal It (my bolds):

... the problem is not that the political system is breaking down.  That system is working pretty much the same way it always has and always will: it promotes irresponsibility.  Republicans and Democrats are merely responding to the incentives created by the system in which they operate.  (If they didn’t respond to those incentives, the political system would throw them out and replace them with people who do.)  If investors don’t already understand that, the sooner the better.

This is why responsible people want to take responsibility for our health care, etc., out of the hands of politicians.

Via Surber:

“The real problem with JournoList is that much of it consisted of exchanges among people who worked for institutions about how to best hijack their employers for the cause of Progressivism.

Breitbart on Breitbart

Examiner: Failure is success for Obama fans

Onward Toward an Entitlement Society

Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Would Lose to 'Unnamed Republican'

Powerline: Get your hand out of my shower

Liberal Tax Revolt - Some Democrats decide they prefer lower rates. Obama isn't one of them. Jerrold Nadler?!?!?

Why do some (supposedly) smart liberals have so much trouble with the mere expression of conservative ideas?*

How Diversity Punishes Asians, Poor Whites and Lots of Others

Am Thinker: Of Course Obama's a Socialist

Democrats pull plug on climate bill

Tiger:

Once again, the Obama administration proposes to increase the risks to businesses that might, some day, want to hire somebody. Because no pay is better than theoretically unequal pay. Perhaps related: A slide deck of economic ugliness.

Ever hear of Bikini Ideology? Sounds like envy to me.

What's next in space?

Chesterton on the Three Stages of Conversion (h/t Anchoress)

Oakland allows industrial-scale marijuana farms. Groovy, dude. As if CA didn't have enough stoners.

Poll: Faith in Social Security system tanking

Jobless Giving Up on Obama Economy

Rasmussen: Paul up 8 in Kentucky

Limbaugh responds to JournoList death wish report

AL GORE SEX SCANDAL SHOCKER, POLICE INVESTIGATE TWO MORE! Me so horney.

It’s come to this: Some California civil servants making close to $1 million per year. Also, Oakland’s well-paid police. It's simple plunder of the hapless taxpayers.

Harsanyi: Obama's Faith in Government Force:

...progressives regard government as a moral enterprise. And in church, you gotta have faith.

From Classical:

I saw a study once that in the US in the 1700s about 1/3 of the brides were already knocked up...

You want to do something about Western morality? Forget gays. The bigger hole is adultery and divorce. If we could bring back stoning for adultery and 40 lashes for fornication we might get somewhere. It all started going bad long before women got the vote. But it didn't help.

Grim has a good site but he appears to lack permalinks. Scroll down for Let's Make Sex a Lot More Heartless

Breitbart's dirty trick? Maybe dirtier than he realized. Says Lowry:

... her full speech is heartfelt and moving. It's the tale of someone overcoming hatred and rancor when she had every reason not to.

Sowell: Race Card Fraud

ADHD and marriage

What is being sold here?

Tenure is dying

Afghanistan 113 years ago

Pethokoukis: Just how high would taxes need to go?

Rabbi Shmuley: No Holds Barred: What's up with Tom Friedman?

Tiger: Health care "reform": What if the individual mandate is unconstitutional?

Are unemployment checks turning into welfare? Next step, permanent unemployment checks.

Political snobbery

Hungary's IMF revolt augurs ill for Greece (h/t EU Ref)

JournoList Members Discussed Whether the Government Should Shut Down Fox News. It's an ugly story. At Powerline, The Vast Left-Wing Journalists' Conspiracy

MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

Mad Men vs. Breaking Bad

Bad news: Racist USDA Hack Speaks With NAACP

Going after the rich again. Jules

Unions hire nonunion pickets to protest nonunion jobs

Insty: HOW WE GOT A FINANCIAL CRISIS

Kaus interviewed at Reason on unions and immigration

Gateway: Racist Latino Group Harasses Tea Party: “You’re Too White. Go Back to Europe.”

Applebaum: Americans want big government

Laser used to shoot down planes

WSJ: Lost in Taxation - The IRS's vast new ObamaCare powers.

A new luxury mall in Gaza

Government-funded jobs training does no good

Haiti's real problem

Samuelson: As Massachusetts health 'reform' goes, so could go Obamacare

Via Scott at Powerline:

It is extraordinary, and I think unprecedented, that a free press has voluntarily transformed itself into something not very different from the controlled press in an undemocratic country. But that is what has happened. There are, to be sure, alternative sources of information and commentary in the US for anyone who seeks them out. (There are often such sources in undemocratic countries as well: foreign broadcasts, "underground" or samizdat circulation, and so on.) But the mainline, and still collectively very powerful, media are overwhelmingly a One-Party media. It needs to be said plainly.

Video: Eagle throws goat off cliff (h/t, Linkiest)

The horror of the DC earthquake

'Socially Judicious’ Art Ed?

Shopping centre bosses approve 'Asian squat toilets' following cultural awareness course

It's the same old Russia: In ruling on artistic expression, some Russians see signs of broader crackdown

VDH and Pralph Peters on immigration: America's Fight

VDH on the wealthy Lib elite. It's noblesse oblige.

Times Glad 'Wide-Eyed Admiration' for Wall Street Is Over

WSJ: Angling for Harry Reid - Why the tea party favorite thinks voters will reject the attacks on her views and help her topple the Senate majority leader.

Carpe: Increased Worker Productivity Has Destroyed Millions of Jobs, and We Should Be Grateful

NYT finally admits trickle-down works

Double Dip Discussion

Rights and responsibilities: England has forgotten the latter

Administration concedes that HCR insurance mandate is a tax

Powerline:

Scott Rasmussen finds that only 23 percent of voters believe that "the federal government today has the consent of the governed." A remarkable 62 percent of voters say that our government does not enjoy that consent.

How can this be...?

Fernadez on the Codavilla essay

Bollinger is crazy. And at Pajamas:

Wrong, Mr. Bollinger: academic freedom has in fact been drastically compromised by government funding. The same would, of course, happen with media.

More Millennials Need to Work at McDonalds

Death of the European Dream:

In Spain, almost everyone is ‘not in education or employment.’ It’s the end of the job for life.

VAT Attack! Will business go for it?

Coyote at Forbes:

ObamaCare creates a powerful incentive for the government to interfere in key decisions about our bodies and health.

Nap time and public employee unions

Boxing gloves increased morbidity and mortality in boxing

Stossel: Parasitic Tort Lawyers

New Massachusetts law extends censorship to IM, e-mail, Web

Via Newsreal:

Attorneys for the leftist American Civil Liberties Union are busying themselves with a campaign that would make Saul Alinsky proud.  Their target?  Catholic hospitals exercising their religious freedom to refuse to perform abortions.

A different kind of Gated Community in China

Subsidize journalism with public funds? The bad idea that won’t go away

Driscoll: NAACP Brilliantly Alerts MSM of Tea Party’s Post-Racial Platform. But the race-mongers are on the job: Al Sharpton on Tea Party: “There Clearly Are Some Racial Leaves In Their Tea Bag”. That is a total malevolent lie. He tries to link States' Rights with racism. Well, Federalism is good. You might just as well try to link Individual Rights with racism too, in which case their logic comes around and bites them in the behind.

(Ed. comment: So what? It's about politics, not a logical exercise.)

Related: How do I prove I am not a racist?

Semi-related: Slavery, Democrat-style

Willie Brown On "Out of Control" Civil Servants

Thanks to ACORN, Felons Put Franken Over the Top

Jonah: Dems' Lament: It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This

Analysis: Dems show signs of battle fatigue

Carpe: Double-Dippers Are All Wet: Towel Off Already

"Choose Death!" billboard advertises assisted suicide service

Even The Atlantic, Lefty as they are, gets on climategate

Speaking Up for American Capitalism  - Business has taken a pounding on Capitol Hill and at the White House and for the most part has remained silent. It's time to make our case.

I am certain that the O will carefully study VDH's  Ten-Step Reset Regimen for the President

Praying for Hitchins. He doesn't mind if you do, but it sounds like he's a goner anyway. That is a nasty cancer.

No Link Between Computers At Home And Academic Achievement. Duh.

Goldman: Fiscal and Monetary stimulus needed

Obama Administration Approves First Taxpayer-Funded Abortions Under Obamacare

Is this what goes on in jail? Lohan Vs Lesbians

Credit scores should be fairly redistributed. Villainous Related: Yes, Apparently Chris Dodd Really Did Say This 

Althouse: If you really believe in AGW...

Mort Zuckerman: Obama Is Barely Treading Water

Coyote: Told ya... (that the Toyota acceleration thing was a scam)

Via neo:

Barack Obama has decided that fiery self defense and withering mockery of Republicans are the best modes of attack as he tries to save Democrats from a drubbing in November’s mid-term elections.

Race-baiting lies at the NAACP. That's the way to keep Americans divided and angry.

All Four Texas Cities Have The Lowest Unemployment Rates Among Major Metro Areas, Nationally.

Is Dem Joe Manchin the Dems' worst nightmare?

Re the EU via No Pasaran:

Union fails most vital test of a democracy

There is no overlap between the space in which people believe they have something to say (which, like it or not, is and will remain the space of nation-states) and the space in which more and more decisions are being made, decisions that are increasingly unpopular.

At Dino:

It would seem that things have definitively changed, as Peggy Noonan noted the other day in her piece on the Tea Parties. The new media have matured to the point where Congressmen who rely only on the MSM for their information are going to find themselves embarrassed in front of their constituents, and scorned for their lack of knowledge of significant issues of the day.

Raccoons in Europe?

Who's coming for dinner? Moose gut pile

Are pick-up artists girly men?

What did Prohibition have to do with the Income Tax?

Never mind: Greenland isn't melting

A new glossy mag for jihadists

Obamacare: Other Than These Small Problems It's Great! Also, at Cato:

...the more we learn about what is in this new law, the more it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, businesses, health-care providers, and patients.

A top computing firm in China, Bleum, was revealed to demand IQs of 140 and over as the first selection hurdle for job applicants -- but it lowered its bar to 125 for Americans to be sure of keeping good working relations with the USA (ComputerWorld, 7 vii).

The progress that progressives are in favor of is directly down the path Friedrich Hayek referred to as “the Road to Serfdom,” toward ever more statism, ever more regulation, ever more redistribution, socialism, and coercion, supposedly resulting in the ultimate triumph of the rule of experts and a world in which the calculative power of human reason will have abolished tragedy, poverty, inequality, all of the ills to which flesh is heir and all the consequences of human vice and folly.

Sea Turtle Egg Evacuations Begin Along Oiled Gulf

How to fool people into thinking that you are attractive. Amusing.

Killed for bad hijab in Iran

Fred Barnes: A chance to fix Social Security

Politico: Liberals analyze their Obama 'despair'

Reason: Legislation oozing its way up the Hill threatens open markets in beer, wine, and liquor.

IPCC shifts its focus from science to PR

Gingrich: Obama doesn’t understand America

Popular Mechanics: Debunking the Top 10 Energy Myths

Neo: US v. Arizona: where’s the conflict?

Struggling states seeking more aid from Washington

BP Assailed by Naked Code Pinkos. Good grief.

Guy freaks out on learning that Arlo Guthrie is a Repub

Public-sector pensions in New Jersey and other states completely ignore the risk and cost to taxpayers of investing in increasingly risky assets.

Virginia Lawmaker Challenges Feds to Sue His State Over Immigration Enforcement

Via SDA:

Having just moved to BC from Saskatoon, I expected to find Lotus land to be just that. But upon receiving my daughter's Grade 2 report card, the top category that was graded was "Social Responsibility"

I assumed they'd mastered the instruction of Mathematics, Science, English, and other subjects completely, as moving on to designing society would remove valuable time from the classroom.

Aw, math is too hard. Designing Society is easy, and, the less you know, the easier it is.

Telegraph: Copying the NHS is the last thing the US should do

Barbour:

“The issues are jobs, spending, the deficit, debt, taxes and the economy,” he adds. “Republicans should not do anything to take away attention from that.

Am Thinker: Alinsky, Stalinsky, It's Still the Same Old Agitprop

The Climategate Whitewash Continues

Vanderleun on the death of awe

Name changes to fool people

Hollywood liberals who wanted America to be like Europe are mortified that Obama is making America like Europe

Mailer: Overrated, and a big-time ahole. Powerline

The return of the Blacklist

How can a court tell a business where to put their factory? P&W in CT

Is the O stupid? I don't think so. He sure is slicker than I am. Discussion of intelligence: The Dumbest President...EVER!  I think the O is bright, but not wise.

Speaking of intelligent, this is: "Dow Repeats Great Depression Pattern: Charts"

Israelis save kid. Mom wants him to be a suicide bomber.

First things first: Financial regulation bill dictates ethnic, gender quotas

Experts: 'Ridiculous' Lawsuit Won't Nix Arizona Law on Illegals

What is unemployment?

What do they have against fish? S.F. considers banning sale of pets except fish
Free the Fish! Or do I mean Fry The Fish?

Presbyterian terrorists in Norway? Sheesh

Sarah, feminist hero (h/t, Gateway):