Tuesday, April 27. 2010
Col. Frederick Gustavus Burnaby. What a guy.
A newspaper war: Wall Street Journal revs up New York Times rivalry
Why GM is paying money back
What should be done for these poor souls? There are lots of people out there who want to help them, but they are difficult to help.
Scapegoating Goldman: Best short version at Legal Ins. The bubble was obvious to everybody. If you were long mortgages, it was only rational and responsible to hedge that bet.
Americans seem to prefer legal immigation: 60% of Americans Agree With Arizona Bill… Only 31% Agree With Radicals & Obama
The Dodd Bill is a bailout bill
The real Tea Party agenda isn't particularly radical. Sounds like what ordinary Americans want: Leave us alone and quit doing us "favors." We aren't as dumb as you think.
Monday, April 26. 2010
 Prothero in The Globe: Separate truths. It is misleading — and dangerous — to think that religions are different paths to the same wisdom
American Self-immolation. Pravda
Steyn: Don’t worry about Iran’s nuclear program, but if you meet a tea partier waving some placard about the national debt, try not to catch his eye.
Kling: What I think about financial reform
Climate scientist sues newspaper for 'poisoning' global warming debate. So he admits that there is a debate?
The Five myths about green energy
The White House wants churches to advance its climate change agenda.
Just when you thought puff peces couldn't get more ridiculous: Obama loves pie
Q and O: Immigration and the welfare state
Jonah: What Kind of Socialist Is Barack Obama? h/t, Never Yet Melted
Republicans Threatening Congressional Seats Long Held by Democrats
John at Powerline: The Paranoid Style of American Liberalism
Just One Minute on The NYT:
For heaven's sake - is it asking too much of Times editors to reflect for two seconds before they reflexively blurt out their current PC response? OK, we all understand that when the next case comes the Times will insist that it is completely different and that the living, breathing Constitution can solve the next problem on the exhale.
Most Risks Hide in Plain Sight - WSJ.com
Benjamin Graham, perhaps the most astute analyst Wall Street has ever produced, was once asked whether he thought disclosure was adequate. Graham replied that the quantity of disclosure "makes me ill." He added, "I don't know if there is any solution … I suppose [a prospectus] would have to say in big red-letter words, THIS [SECURITY] IS NOT WORTH WHAT IT IS SELLING FOR. I don't know if that would make any difference either … somebody [would just say], 'What the hell, it is going up anyway.'"
You can lead an investor to disclosure, but you can't make him think.
Friday, April 23. 2010
Hunters sue guide over bad trip. h/t, Overlawyered
No Surprise: Times Readership Easily Most Liberal of Any 'Objective' News Outlet
Update: Last Atlantic Yards Property Owner Agrees to Sell His Land Under Threat of Condemnation
VDH: Obama and the New Civility
Derbyshire:
The dirty little secret of Wall Street is that investing isn’t a whole lot different from speculating. In the end, it’s all a casino. If you can’t handle that, get a savings account.
About that GM debt repayment
"Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes!"
England the least patriotic country
Who drinks the most booze, England or Ireland? Hey, who's the designated drunk tonite?
Pajamas: Bigots to the Left of Me, Dingbats on the Right
Britbart quoted at Class Val:
the greatest thing that the left does, and it uses the the media to do it, is that it accuses you of what they're doing to you.
Thursday, April 22. 2010
Cut the ‘medical’ marijuana BS
Afghanistan's "Dancing Boys"
The False Religion of Mideast Peace
Why teachers are losing respect
Michelle: All the president’s Goldman Sachs men
Obamacare: Impact on the Uninsured
Related, at Marginal:
Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs.
Thus begins the intentional and planned destruction of private medicine in America. But don't worry - there will always be small private clinics and hospitals for the wealthy and for the politicians. Same as they have in Cuba.
Reason: Down the Health Care Wormhole - How ObamaPelosiCare will saddle future generations with a public policy disaster
Steyn: Tomorrow belongs to Mo
Too scared to listen to Rush
Millions face tax increases under Dems budget plan
Wednesday, April 21. 2010
Our Urbanist friend shares another good Urbanism site: Discovering Urbanism.
He has a good post on the American lawn. Who knew that turf grass is America's #1 crop? Photo below is from a Pennsylvania turf farm:
 Toon via Powerline's The Pen Is Mightier Than the Teleprompter
1/3rd of IPCC claims were not peer-reviewed
Obesity as a social inequity? Uncle Sam, stop me before I eat again.
Does the Supposedly Superior Expertise of Regulators Justify Libertarian Paternalism? Um, no.
Where do your Oxfam dollars go?
Cape Wind update. I think these giant fans are insane. Plus they rarely mention that we pay for these dumb bird-slicing eyesores.
Wrong narrative: The New Orleans Beating: Real Violence, Real Evidence, No Media
"That was Bill Clinton, blaming me for the Oklahoma City bombing..."
Am Thinker: A 'perfect storm' for socialism
Taranto: 'Populism of the Privileged' - The latest laughable attempt to discredit the tea-party movement.
Goldman is a heck of a good bank. Smart, hard-working people with good social skills. One example of their genius: Regulate Us--Please! One quote:
Goldman Sachs executives and employees contributed more money to Obama's 2008 campaign than a single company has raised for any politician since the dawn of campaign finance reform.
I don't know if it means much, but Obama's fifth-quarter Gallup approval slips, among worst 3 of modern presidents
I generally disapprove of armchair psychologizing because it usually consists of veiled ad hominems, but here's The President Who Won't Grow Up
Pew: Shocker: Public Fed Up With Government, Banks, Corporations, Unions, Hollywood, the Media
Another Obamacare tax nobody mentioned: Tax the sick. Great idea. They are probably too sick to complain.
Monday, April 19. 2010
A book by Randy Barnett: Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty
Dubious Grousing over the Percentage of African-American Players in Major League Baseball
Dalrymple: In Britain, compulsory virtue stifles individual liberty. "Compulsory virtue" is an oxymoron.
Goldberg:
So, how many more Priuses will the world have to buy to offset this Icelandic volcano?
The UK: Up to 75% of births to be outside marriage
John at Powerline:
Government medicine is bad medicine. Why anyone would want to dismantle our health care system and replace it with the disaster that is socialized medicine is beyond me.
Was Jesus a Marxist? Am Thinker
Is the party over for China's Communist Party?
53% of Americans are now an "aggrieved elite"
More leftist hatred and violence. Related, via Driscoll:
On the West Coast, it’s the Clash of the Poseur Totalitarians! On the East Coast, more leftwing totalitarians seek to inflict violence. Glenn Reynolds suggests alerting the Southern Poverty Law Center, but their myopia causes a distinct blindness in their left eye.
Who is this mystery man Obama?
History and Ideology in Textbooks. h/t, Weasel Watchers. A quote:
...fully 60% believe that "most school textbooks are more focused on being politically correct than ensuring accuracy."
Prof Liu:
Speaking of the nomination of now Chief Justice John Roberts, Mr. Liu opined that words like "'free enterprise,' 'private ownership of property,' and 'limited government'" are "code words for an ideological agenda hostile to environmental, workplace, and consumer protections."
"Code words" for freedom, in my view.
Friday, April 16. 2010
There is a dearth of good links out there today. This one is interesting, though: Contract With America.
I tend to agree with Spruiell's take on it.
Thursday, April 15. 2010
Globalistical warmening is at it again: Icelandic volcanoes. And Fireballs from outer space!
What's next? The full apocalypse? Or maybe not?
 Image of a Japanese breakfast (that is canned coffee, BTW) from Flares
Truly the I'm Not Dead Yet post of the day.
Iowahawk wants a pic of your worst wheels.
Regarding your gross old toenails
Why do colleges care about extracurricular activities?
The Puritan Left and life's little pleasures. Related: Banning corn syrup in NY?
Gotta laugh at Gordon Brown:
“A lot of things that the BBC does are incredibly creative and quite risky. But this is a necessary means of us being a creative society. I want to safeguard the independence of the BBC and I think the licence fee is the means by which you do it."
Sarah Palin kills moose miners. Eats them too, no doubt.
John Stossel has a blog.
More people have been killed by Oregon's windmills than died at Three Mile Island
Two subsidies: Ethanol and unconventional natural gas
Rasmussen:
Twenty-four percent (24%) of U.S. voters now say they consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s an eight-point increase from 16% a month ago.
Europe's VAT Lessons: Rates start low and increase, while income tax rates stay high.
Ed Koch begins:
I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that they are being orchestrated by President Obama.
Wednesday, April 14. 2010
 A shout-out to our Prez: Quit embarrassing me, you big pussy. And I even do like Burger King. But how come foreign leaders don't bow to Obama? And who is Chief of Protocol? Mrs. Earthworm?
AVI is re-reading Screwtape. He feels convicted in every chapter. But I feel convicted on every page - so I win!
The best teachers aren't trained to teach. All the fancy private schools know that.
How TV-watching can alter your view of reality: Cultivation Theory
The Roosevelt Mythtique
Some violence is OK - if it's from the Religion of Peace...
Angela Merkel - More American than the O
The shift of unions towards big government
MRC Special Report: How the Media Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement
How propaganda works today: Volokh. Kopel responds earnestly, as if truth mattered in that game.
Speaking of propaganda, Krugman does it again
How much money do Profs make these days?
Tea Party founders were small government radicals
Palin Derangement Syndrome in Boston. It's not about Palin: same thing would and will happen to any Conservative who rises to prominence.
Why taxing the rich won't work in New Jersey anymore. Related video: Christie is Reagan with a Jersey edge. A few quotes from the big guy via the Hot Air link:
The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. “The real question is, who’s for the kids, and who’s for their raises? This isn’t about the kids. Let’s dispense with that portion of the argument. Don’t let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets.”…
Budget cuts are unfair. “The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son’s favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—’unfair.’ . . . One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life, and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?”…
Isn’t your talk of ’stopping the tax madness’ just another ‘Read My Lips’ promise? “[Mine is] much better than ‘Read my lips.’ I’m sorry, it’s just much better. Much stronger. . . . It’s gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I’m not signing a tax increase.”
Fred Singer: Climategate Whitewash
Robin of Berkeley's apology letter to America
Neptunus on his taxes:
Having recently completed my taxes for 2009 – and receiving rather a nasty shock at the bottom line – I can only hope to be less productive in 2019 than I am now.
Very soon now – if I am not there already - I simply won’t be able to afford to succeed.
NYT says it now: It's about rationing care
Money from wind: It's the subsidy that will make you rich. I believe that is termed rent-seeking.
Cheerful graph from Willisms:
Tuesday, April 13. 2010
 More bowing to dictators. I think it's more than a twitch and I think it's more than a submissive character trait. What do our readers think?
Says Ledeen:
It’s worse than you thought, Victor. It’s not confusion at all. It’s a campaign to cut America down to size.
Insane: Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
More insanity: Unlearning whiteness. He includes this quote:
To ignore race is to be more racist than to acknowledge race. I call it neo-racism.
Then call me a neo-racist. Call me anything you want. I don't care. Sticks and stones...
Wilkinson: Do Libertarians Have Anything Interesting to Say to Liberals?
Phil Jones is unraveling
Surber: "Here’s an idea: Let FedEx and UPS take over the post office."
The cynical politics of immigration
More cynical politics: Incentives Not to Work - Larry Summers v. Senate Democrats on jobless benefits.
VDH: The Ongoing Melodrama of Victims and Oppressors. A quote:
...the president seems to fail to acknowledge that there are plenty of actions an individual can take to avoid becoming part of that growing crowd of "less fortunate." Instead, in Obama's world, there exists a simple zero-sum melodrama of victims and oppressors.
Bad times in South Africa. Do they want to be Zimbabwe?
The hatred never ends: Hateful East Coast Leftists Attack Sarah Palin Before Her Boston Rally… Media Silent
WaPo: We Haven't Seen Any Evidence of Tea Party Racism Yet, But Hang Tight While We Investigate
Cookbook medical care coming to the US?
Prof B: Swapping their Birthright of Freedom for an iPad
Monday, April 12. 2010
 Anchoress: The Celibacy Lecture. I say, if you want perfection, look to God for it, not to clergy or any other mortal souls.
So generous: Washington will spend $31,406 per household this year. Where's my check?
Tom Smith:
I like women. I wouldn't want to do without them. But if I were making the case for men without women, I would find Maureen Dowd very useful. Glib, self-satisfied, and neither as smart nor as good looking as she thinks, she makes a long fishing trip with nothing but the guys and a case of scotch a pretty inviting prospect.
Bob Geldof: Buffoon. He thought Africans were so pathetic that they needed mediocre Western rock musicians to "help" them.
A reporter attended a workshop for community organizers. Apparently there are a lot of people with way too much time on their hands and very little contact with the real world...
The sexism in Vet schools is approaching the crisis point. Or do girls just "love animals" more than guys? Why do you want to be a Vet? "I love animals." Sheesh. So be a farmer. Or get a rescue dog. What the world needs now is more hot babe dentists..."Why do you want to be a dentist?" "I love teeth."
All Criticism of Obama Is Racist ... Again. I love that placard.
PC Pinheads Want to Ban the Word 'Obese' So As Not to Offend Fat Kids. Did Michele O get the memo? Is Pinch a poofter? Love that word.
Sana'a, or Sana. Population 1.7 million, but certainly off the beaten path.
Yemen, known by the Romans as Arabia Felix, was once famous for their Frankincense trade.
More photos of the mud-brick city here.
Spittlegate. A MSM scandal
What really drives climate changes? The Milankovitch Cycle
For Mad Men fans, a post on their props, via a piece at Driscoll
The people who do not want medical insurance
Dalrymple: Very Few Innocents in Housing Market Collapse
Parks on Leftist racism. A quote:
...I also knew that I believe in the uncelebrated work fellow black conservatives do to this day (and endure) as racism is only allowed in our society when it’s aimed at us, and instead of turning tail and running, we keep on. I think we’ve shown more guts than any ratings-driven media pundits anyday.
Comments on the Ferguson essay about behavioral economics, which we posted yesterday, at Volokh
What entitlement crisis?
The Islamist Ghost Haunting Europe
Hennessey: Should taxpayers subsidize underwater homeowners?
Amil Imani: Jews as scapegoats
The KKK in Rhode Island. It's a crisis.
Crash course: Your illustrated guide to the Tea Party saboteurs
Saturday, April 10. 2010
 Shrinkwrapped: How the poor are different
Video: Jimmy Doolittle talks about the raid on Tokyo
Rates of casual sex swelling. We are just monkeys, aren't we? Or are we not?
The Great Books are the answer. The Bible is one of them.
Malanga: The bloat in NJ's schools (h/t, Tiger)
Great news for Billings, MT - and for your grandkids who will pay for this crap.
40,000 Cuban advisors now in Venez
All the proles need to know about government medical care:
“It’s like the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest. All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on.”
That Pelosi sure is a deep one.
Good fun with supply and demand curves re health care
The death panels medical rationing that is to come
Britain "bringing climate change to the heart of the national curriculum." Nothing else to learn, is there?
Front Page: The power of the drones
How did people ever survive for 20,000 years in Europe without massive EU regulation?
HuffPo: The battle for the soul of the Dem Party
A hungry Leviathan. The VAT, at Q&O:
Revenue, folks, revenue – the beast is hungry and insatiable. And it has a very serious problem looming the future. It wants no part of lean and mean. Instead, it wants to be fat, happy and expanding – and VAT would do that. And you, dear wage earner, are the means to its dreams.
Keynes vs. Hayek. Of course, we know the only reason that Keynesian stimuli remain popular is pure politics - a justification to reward those one wishes to reward with $.
If the US Europeanizes, Europe is in trouble
Lenin the politician:
An ideological hardliner, he was ready to fudge even the issue of nationalization when his Bolshevik colleagues objected. Call it the people’s ownership, he suggested.
Friday, April 9. 2010
 Do not eat your vegetables:
HIGH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CONSUMPTION doesn’t do much to prevent cancer. “People who hate vegetables will be happy about this report.”
Henninger: Youth joblessness in the US, and the Eurozone's jobs dystopia
Why should we need a Bill of Rights for Cyberspace? We already have free speech
In Bid To Reform Fannie and Freddie, Obama Can’t Shake Crony Clintonistas Who Caused the Mess
Steyn: Strange that the more Canada congratulates itself on its ‘tolerance’ the less it’s prepared to tolerate. He quotes some uncloseted totalitarian:
“We don’t have a First Amendment, we don’t have a religion of free speech,” she explained patiently. “Students sign off on all kinds of agreements as to how they’ll behave on campus, in order to respect diversity, equity, all of the values that Canadians really care about. Those are the things that drive our political culture. Not freedoms, not rugged individualism, not free speech. It’s different, and for us, it works.”
That is, we don't need no steenkin freedom.
Roseanne Barr: Parents Who Take Children to Catholic Church Should Lose Custody
Dick Morris: DEM STRATEGISTS HAVE IT WRONG
Big Journalism: The Mainstream Media: Fourth Estate Or Fifth Column?
RedState: Democrats plot two-pronged attack on Internet freedom
Our friend Skook with a Moose story - and nuclear weapons
Give me niceness or give me death
GM: More Troubles Coming Down the Road
Driscoll: Twilight Of The Gods: CNN’s Current, Pitiful State
Time for a fresh look at the Commerce Clause? Will the Individual Mandate Hold up in Court?
Unemployed slackers:
Is it the president's fault that Americans are better off than they were 30 years ago, and are thus not desperate to take whatever job that comes along?
I have heard this plenty of times: "With the extension, I have nine more months of unemployment, so I'll start looking seriously in a few months"?
CT Post: That's Greece in the mirror
Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd wants to impose some changes on the way that financing for new ventures works in America
VAT attack. Beware: 'Value-added tax' is an economy-killer
Powerline: 10 reasons not to walk away from your mortgage
Thursday, April 8. 2010
 The Moonbat Left can never decide whether they are for free love, or whether all sex is rape.
Multiple census forms to some neighborhoods?
Moran: DON’T SLANDER STATES’ RIGHTS
Harsanyi on Michelle Obama's misguided war on childhood obesity
Michelle: True Confessions from America's Census Workers
Dr. Clouthier's slick new site: Liberty Pundits
Villianous asks how do you marginalize a majority?
Black conservative tea party backers take heat
The people who do not need to pay taxes. Related: Welcome To Vermont Where We Subsidize (Almost) Everyone. Related at No Pasaran: The Land of the Free Freeloader
Insty:
THE KEY BIT ON A VALUE ADDED TAX: “But politicians love the hidden aspect of a VAT as way of duping voters. To them opaqueness is a feature, not a bug.” And my chief objection.
Plus it's an easy way to tax the middle class and the poor.
Wiz: Massachusetts health care system killing insurance companies?
Wednesday, April 7. 2010
Excessive Arctic sea ice endangers cute baby seals, Polar Bears, this year.
Hey! Where's my free medical care?
How has the American diet changed over the past 100 years?
Goldberg: How much taxation is enough?
They sent Volcker out to say it first
The Power to Regulate Commerce Across State Lines Is Also the Power to Regulate Non-Commerce Within a State
The guy who is going up against Barney Frank
The world's tallest building opens
Too late to short carbon stocks?
Current Senate race rankings
Gaming medical insurance in Massachusetts
Catch 22: Higher CAFE standards and more ethanol - but ethanol lowers MPG. And why ethanol anyway?
Electric cars: The Coal-Powered Car And Its Discontents
A (Teddy) Rooseveltian concept: limit the size of banks. My question of the day, though, is this: Is KKR "too big to fail"?
The chutzpah here is something to behold. Having passed the largest entitlement expansion in half a century, in the most partisan manner imaginable, the president now wants Republicans to provide political cover to Democrats as they search for ways to finance the welfare state of their dreams.
The Case for Common Educational Standards. In 1950, 60% of the jobs required no particular skills. The world has changed.
UPDATE: Related, from Clarence Page: “President Barack Obama’s election has inspired a record number of African-American candidates to run for Congress this year. What’s surprising is that they’re running as Republicans.”
Liberals have a narrative: Tea Parties are fringe, violent racists.
There is not a mirror big enough to capture the liberal hatred at their rallies.
Tuesday, April 6. 2010
 White & guilty: ‘Whiteness’ workshop helps expose your inner racist
Will you still need her, will you still feed her, when she's 64?
Next Bailout - Hospitals Hurt By Obamacare
From Tiger: Thor Heyerdahl meets recycling: Follow the voyage of the Plastiki.
Surber on academic idiocy:
...let me get this straight: A 15-year-old can have an abortion, no problem.
But a 22-year-old cannot have sex with another adult.
Many grow happier with the years, experts say. And then you die.
Chris Currey: How the GOP Purged Me
Update: A Complete List Of Bad Things Attributed To Global Warming
Monday, April 5. 2010
The new boom in cocktails. Yum. Cocktails are good.
Web 2.0: "Among the 300 million internet users in China, for example, there are reportedly 50 million bloggers and over 100 million blogs."
300 million Chinese on the intertubes, and only about 3 of them read Maggie's Farm. Why is that? Do we need to publish an edition in Mandarin? We could show them how to Question Authority.
Did you notice that there is no census category for "mixed race"? Why not? Most "racial" people in the US are mixed, aren't they? Like our Prez. Furthermore, why do they care what race or mixed races we are anyway?
Being for states rights means you want slavery back. OK, I know that "argument" has no logical consistency, and is just meant to be a smear.
Krauthammer: Slapping our friends
Ralph Peters on voting for illegals
Why not wind down the post office?
From Steyn yesterday:
With our near-permanent welfare class and a generation of kids who’ve been told that they are children into their late 20’s, I cannot imagine a prolonged revolt against Obamacare... When the outrage wanes, a lot of people are going to tell themselves that, well, if the government is giving things away, they might as well get in on it.
The whole transcript of the O's Baffle Them With Bullshit response.
Greenpeace posts threats
Why can't we find a Climategate summary like this in US Media?
Al Gore goes into defensive mode
Why we cannot believe the NY Times: They print stories like this, while data like this comes out.
The usually calm Steve Forbes loses his temper
More praise for Rep. Paul Ryan
MSM still in the tank for the O, bigtime
Taxes crushing small businesses
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Iran, Islam & Cyrus the Great 
