Sunday, May 18. 2008
 Please, dear commenters, we ask that you refrain from comments which the average person would consider "rude, crude, or socially unacceptable." Mind your manners!
Obama blames FOX and email (?) for expected loss in KY. He's baaack! Osama still wants the rest of Israel's land...and Spain...and Europe...and...Oh, here's the new report Alfred E. Neuman's artist-creator died Carnival of the Insanities today UN Human Right's Council to monitor US elections. Good grief - the guy is from Somalia. Repubs forgot who they are. VDH reminds them Willisms says: Not only would socializing the remainder of non-socialized health care be terrible policy, it would feed back into the politics. It would put serious constraints on the conservative movement, creating new Democrats vested in the system and binding our hands when it comes to major tax reform, Social Security reform, and other innovative ideas.
Who is Frank Buckles?
 Megan McArdle has a crush on Bobby Jindal
Even the NYT agrees: An Atrocious Farm Bill Why not to buy Merrill Lynch right now. The neurological roots of sexual pleasure. Dr. X Pelosi snubbed by Iraq leaders Repubs have strayed from Freedom. Dem Project Obama an appeaser? Shame on you. Steyn. Related: Obama calls for his Mommy: Surber/ Related: Will Obama respond directly to the charge? Rick Moran. "If the shoe fits, whine about it": Betsy. On the other hand, Moderate Voice is impressed by the fast and unified Dem response. They obviously have a rapid response team in place. A conspiracy so lunatic only 60 Minutes could fall for it. Hinderaker Fat people cause global warming. Moonbattery PJ O'Rourke's Cato speech. A quote: It is the avowed purpose of politics to bring the policies of our nation down to a level where they are good for everyone. No matter how foolish, irresponsible, selfish, grasping, or vile everyone may be, politics seeks fairness for them all. I do not. I am here to speak in favor of unfairness.
Harkin: McCain too military to be Pres. AIG and Elliot Spitzer, in the WSJ. A quote: ...the AIG case, like so many others that Mr. Spitzer brought, was an example of prosecutorial excess. Instead of uncovering some great fraud by a titan of industry, its main result has been to damage the company, and harm innocent managers and shareholders.
Photo: You don't need camouflage if you are transparent. (You could make the same statement about human personality.) The Glasswing Butterfly of Central America. Photo from this site.
Matthew 28: 16-20 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Friday, May 16. 2008
 Why are Obama and the Dems freaking out about Bush's Knesset speech? Because he hit a nerve, and rightly so.
Rove: The GOP must stand for something. I suggest Patriotism, Freedom, Free Markets, Opportunity and Optimism. That would offer a dramatic contrast. Related: Hillary's lessons for McCain A $1 image stabilizer for your camera. Very cool. This "deeply unpopular war." Villainous. Nobody would be complaining if it had been quicker, and nobody expected a proxy war by Iran. Brazil update. A contemporary bust of Julius Caesar found McCain opposes the Farm Bill. Me too. It's welfare and political bribery. If you like peanut butter, an invention long overdue. Excellent essay by Prof Deneen re oil and politics. He is stuck on the Peak Oil thing, though. I am stuck on the pro-nuke power thing, and we will never need to worry about energy. A positive view of No Child Left Behind You want government medical care? Who do you trust? Tigerhawk loves Starbucks Obama not a hit in the Bluegrass State Civil servants make us all tax slaves. Copyright and the 1st Amendment. Volokh Here's what the Polar Bear story was all about - preventing oil drilling and mineral exploration Kerry, Redux. Pathetic.
 Why socialized medicine is not insurance. RightWing Prof
Dating divorced people. Dr. Helen Marriage: Homosexuality, polygamy, and incest (h/t Lucianne) McCain having problems raising money One person's opinion on the 1001 movies you should see before you die. (h/t, Flares) What are the lessons of the W VA primary? Am Thinker Do African kids need laptops for school? Of course not. Sad but true: Wildlife populations plummeting (not because of "global warming") Krauthammer on Israel, a quote: Look at Gaza today. No Israeli occupation, no settlements, not a single Jew left. The Palestinian response? Unremitting rocket fire killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The declared casus belli of the Palestinian government in Gaza behind these rockets? The very existence of a Jewish state. Israel's crime is not its policies but its insistence on living.
A quote from Kathleen Parker: Dems offer thrills 'n chills (speculating that Edwards will be VP candidate): To succeed, they must first create a divide of resentment the size of Montana among the have-not-enoughs toward those perceived to have too much. No one has tried this more brazenly than Edwards with his "two Americas" presidential campaign, which failed twice, by the way. The question -- should this duo have their way -- isn't when will the poor be wealthy enough? But, when will the wealthy be poor enough? While we're waiting to find out, Edwards' tortured Southern shtick is supposed to help Obama with the demographic of white, rural, working-class (non-college) Americans he's been having trouble with. Green room translation: poor, ignorant racists.
Thursday, May 15. 2008
A review of McCain's first major speech, at Pajamas. One comment about it: McCain to social conservatives: No soup for you! "Rules have to be obeyed." Tangled. The Brits have gone insane. National Greatness Conservatism. TCS Mostly Hot Air: Global Warming Article is titled "5 Mistakes Women make at the Dr's office," but it equally applies to men, I think. Women sometimes tend to think that they are the only humans who experience what they do. Our Army marksmen plan a trip to Beijing How NYC politics works. Is class-based Affirmative Action a worse idea than Race-based?
Liberals want the US to invade Burma? Darn imperialist liberals. I say to them: No blood for Betel Nuts. The Farm Bill is a Harvest of Shame. Indeed, it consists of political pay-offs, and offers nothing to the country. Hey, GW! How about a speech like that in the US? More on the inconvenient truth that there is no recession. Not yet, anyway. That $33 million Lucien Freud. Propaganda for the 21st Century. Vanderleun ...more later
Wednesday, May 14. 2008
 Polar Bears and junk science
Over the top. Barack Obama, Fairy Tale King. Are we a nation of toddlers? Botswana and Zimbabwe: A tale of two countries Exercise may help prevent breast cancer. Exercise is good for mind, body, and spirit. But we are all going to die. Karma, Grace, and Bono. Dr. Bob Jailed witches in the UK get magic twigs. I guess they don't burn them anymore? The new translations of the Aeneid Assuming you do not live on arugula from Whole Foods like Obama does, US food spending as % of disposable income over the years Mr. Sammler's City: City Journal Repubs suffering from dry heaves. Commenter Buddy expounds on why losing the White House could be very bad news: Give 'em three house and 60 senators, and we'll never be able to vote 'em out again. We'll slog thru gun control, "industrial policy" (semi-nationalizations), wealth taxation (a new form -- search the term), "fairness doctrine" attacks on conservative media, further destruction of students in favor of teacher's union control, politicization of government agencies (use of IRS, FBI against political enemies, an element of the Clinton's governance which the Dems approved via silence), criminalization of political differences (think Libby, think Waxman), and worst of all, union-directed attack on the global trade system (toward a captive domestic market), causing a 70's style financial collapse, and leading inexorably toward depression and world war. Oh, and say farewll to Israel utterly, and Europe as we know it, and hello to radical Islam, radical anti-west takeover of OPEC, the mideast, Africa, central Asia, Latin America, a takeover of Chinese foreign policy by the chi-com military faction ("hey, here's our big chance!") and an irreversable transfer of capital from west to east. Hyperbole? I fricken wish.
OK, Buddy - but you left out the worst consequence in this bit - the Supreme Court.
 Race is obviously a factor in voting, since most blacks in the US vote Dem, and over 90% of Dem primary voters are voting for Obama (which demonstrates something you could call racism but which, I think, is better described as "tribalism").
I believe that there are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Obama in the general election, but skin color is not one of them. But is it a factor for white Dem primary voters, and for white voters in general? - Judis in TNR: The Big Race - a serious political science look at race and voting patterns - Racist Incidents. WaPo More related stuff: - If you won't join the Obamaborg, you're racist. Moonbattery - White Racist - or Right Reason? View from the Right - via Insty: TONY BLANKLEY: "Race, the yet unclosed scab that has run deep through our history, is about to be discussed as it never has been in a presidential election. . . . I would argue that the more honest the public conversation is the less virulent the private one will be, and therein lies the path to maximum civic hygiene."
Monday, May 12. 2008
Does money buy happiness? No, but success helps - however defined. The You Cannot Make This Stuff Up Department. Tornados caused by global warming! Also, try this - Earthquakes! And that cyclone thing was over the top. This weather BS is agenda-driven, and nothing more. If you ask me, warming causes my migraines and, given what's been reported thus far, it probably does. (Nobody ever mentions the inconvenient truth that there has been cooling for 10 years, and cooling predicted for the next ten.) On the other hand, let's begin the list of everything global cooling causes, starting with jet crashes Microsoft wants to go after Google's ad revenue. Good luck, guys. It ain't gonna happen. Smarter folks than me are pricing MSFT. Book: The Post-American World. Yes, with Capitalism and freedom, the whole world is waking up. Campus rape update. Villainous. The real Presidential campaign has begun. And Riehl on Obama: Whether it's politically correct to say it, or not, additional facts are worth acknowledging. This isn't someone named Colin Powell. The candidate's full name is Barack Hussein Obama. Tell me, how many Americans do you know by the first name of Barack, let alone his middle-name? Have you ever known one? Yes, there may be some white voters who will shun Obama simply because he is black. But that strikes me as a bit simplistic in this case. Frankly, I'm not sure a white individual by the name of Barack Hussein Obama could win the presidency. Ultimately, Obama may be one too politically correct bridge too far to go given current demographics. Like it or not, along with whatever number of whites harbor concerns over Obama's color, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that an equal number have more concerns over his ancestry and given name. Frankly put, even in 2008, the name Barack Obama just doesn't sound American. He is. I am not questioning that. But appearances mean a great deal. And Obama appears to be some configuration that probably strikes a good percentage of the population as something other than mainstream American. And that, more than just his color, will likely spell his doom when it comes to a general election.
A new theory about Stonehenge. Empathy is not justice. Dr. Helen. No, it is not. We are designed to be a nation of laws, not men. The New Journalism: How to downplay an inconvenient story. Wizbang Burma and China: Perfect together
 How the Mississippi economy came to life.
The historical revisionism at Duke It's cold and stormy up here in Yankeeland today. No surprise that climate models fail in Antarctica too. And everywhere else...see ice fishing in May. Also, Brits think the warming scare is a tax-raising trick A scene from Bitter America Think you didn't get enough attention from your Mom? Here's attention-dilution Sharpton's little tax problem "The normal are not in control." Airports Is the criminal justice system racist? Heather MacDonald says no. Gloomy Repubs? Barnes. Candidates mapping their fall strategies. McCain needs "moderates" and independents to win this year. He needs to be an independent Teddy Roosevelt-style Repub - to run as "an American." I think he has a decent chance to win an election against Obama. Late, late, late-term abortions The animal research wars. Am. Scientist I suggest baiting a trap with a toddler. Policies aren't rational because they are also about values. By the way, that piece posted in yesterday's links about Confessions of a Car Salesman is lengthy but well-written and very useful.
Saturday, May 10. 2008
 George Schultz on Putting our Entitlements in Order
Did we misunderstand Toni Morrison re Bill Clinton? "State-sponsored kleptocracy:" MA wants to tax universities Wonderful short snip of the Tom Wolfe interview The re-Jihading of Gitmo Alumni. Jules Gastronomic totalitarianism proposed in the UK News flash: Europeans get drunk for sex My racial harassment nightmare "Let them eat arugula." Dems try populism by Chait at TNR Should teachers be responsible for their students' achievement? WSJ Vanderleun on illegal immigration. One quote: We need to stop propping up Mexican fascists by importing their excess angst. We need to initiate a policy for illegal alien deportation that involves the importation of first rate American assault weapons. Once that happens the future for the ruling families of Mexico starts to look a little more sketchy than it has been up to now.
Dem notion: "Reasonable Profits Boards" Let's try that out on politicians' investments first. Remind me. How many states in the USA? The guy is losing his bearings. Imagine if McCain said that. Free Wi-Fi, but not for all. NYT A reader nudged us towards a review of Sunstein and Thayer's "Nudge" about "libertarian paternalism, which book we discussed here. A quote from the Chronicle review: With evident glee, he (Sunstein) notes that Chicago is effectively exploiting — to society's benefit — one of the many ways in which human perception is flawed. Or, as Thaler puts it, drivers are being "nudged" toward safety. What does a peculiar pattern on the road have to do with fixing the nation's health-care woes, protecting the environment, resolving the thorny issue of gay marriage, and increasing donations to charity? Everything, according to Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of law and political science at the University of Chicago. They are authors of a new book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Yale University Press), in which they articulate an approach to designing social and economic policies that incorporates an understanding of people's cognitive limitations.
Bird Dog comments: "Except their own?" More quote: They call this governing philosophy "libertarian paternalism." That is not an oxymoron, they insist in their book. Rather it is a corrective to the longstanding assumption of policy makers that the average person is capable of thinking like Albert Einstein, storing as much memory as IBM's Big Blue, and exercising the willpower of Mahatma Gandhi. That is simply not how people are, they say. In reality human beings are lazy, busy, impulsive, inert, and irrational creatures highly susceptible to predictable biases and errors. That's why they can be nudged in socially desirable directions.
Raw arrogance and condescension oozing our of their pores. My question: Who the heck do Sunstein and Thayer think they are? I think they hugely underestimate regular people - ie non-professors, and hugely overestimate the wisdom and benevolence of government. How can we ordinary folks "nudge" academics into reality? Image: Old Davis racquets. Our outdoor tennis season begins today.
Friday, May 9. 2008
 Why do men die first? Mr. Free Market
One reason many on the Left do not believe in Jihad Basic questions about farm subsidies The Maoist insurgency in India "Come over here and fertilize me." Flowers wave at passing bugs. Loving violent criminals The 5 mistakes Clinton made. Time. Related: The Clinton Divorce in the WSJ, which begins: No, we don't mean Bill and Hillary. We mean the separation now under way between the Clintons and the Democratic Party. Like all divorces after lengthy unions, this one is painful and has had its moments of reconciliation, but after Tuesday a split looks inevitable. The long co-dependency is over.
Green hypocrites A fight strategy for McCain Ethnicity and nationalism Tax 'em and regulate 'em until they begin to fail. Then claim that it's a market failure and time for the govt to do it. Pharma, at EU Referendum Should I mention depression on my college application? Image borrowed from Vanderleun's comic book collection
Thursday, May 8. 2008
Mobile broadband options What do Codfish have to do with red tides? Remarkable anti-Obama video How McCain can win the base. WSJ Tons of art critics in the Maggie's Farm comments Viking trading center discovered in Ireland How did "fake but accurate" become acceptable? "...social sciences in general, and racial/gender studies departments in particular, have the lowest academic standards of any group on modern campuses." Indeed. From Salt of the Earth Democrats at Contentions: ...salt-of-the-earth Democratic politicians are increasingly hard to come by, as cultural liberalism is the core of the party’s self-identity today. But maybe Clinton’s failed effort will get some conservative Democrats thinking. It would be good for the Democrats, and good for the country, if their leaders came to see that their cultural elitism, bordering on cultural separatism, is not only obnoxious but counterproductive. Maybe next time.
Wednesday, May 7. 2008
Actually, it's been over for quite a while. Via Drudge now: Superdelegates refusing to meet with Mrs. Clinton. Truth be told, she'd be tougher against McCain. But it's up to the Dems, and they don't like her. As some wag noted somewhere re the Kentucky Derby, "The filly comes in second and is euthanized; Big Brown wins."
 McCain goes after Reagan Democrats. Smart move. Sort-of related: Bobby Jindal for VP? Sort-of related: What is wrong with being a roofer? It's good honest hard work. Is everybody supposed to want to work in cubicles and offices?
Give Rick Moran some Prozac How Sarkozy blew his chance to make a difference Boris hires NYC's Bill Bratton. Good move. (h/t, Theo) Global warming dissenters are censored. How to stay married and love it The pussification of the English male 40 years ago. Neoneo The Kiwi disease. There are fewer people in NZ than in Massachusetts. More sheep, however. Via Insty: DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION (CONT'D): Heck, this time it's Where's My Depression? "Whatever happened to the Great Depression? Not the real one from 70 years ago, the lost decade of unimagined misery and Steinbeckian angst, the worst period in the history of modern capitalism. I mean the replay we were promised this year. . . . Well, it’s early days, to be fair, but so far the Great Depression 2008 is shaping up to be a Great Disappointment. Not so much The Grapes of Wrath as Raisins of Mild Inconvenience."
Lewis at Am Thinker, a quote: White Guilt is the locomotive propelling the Obama campaign. Without it the Junior Senator from Illinois would be just a skinnier Bill Clinton. American kids are being guilt-tripped in all the public schools today, from grade school to graduate school. By the time they get to voting age, they feel so bad about the slave trade and Jim Crow that they are ready to pay up for forgiveness. That's Senator Obama's Youth Vote.
Photo: I was just given this good CD from the somewhat unusual Buzzola label
See the charts and graphs at Fox News.
Tuesday, May 6. 2008
No Endgame, in the New Yorker: "As long as Clinton is willing to fight on simply for the sake of fighting, there really is no reason that this endless campaign has to end." Is red wine really good for you? From Charles Murray's 2006 Atlas Freedom Dinner speech: Every change in information technology gives the individual more power over his own life and more independence from centralized institutions, whether those institutions be libraries, the downtown office building, CBS, or the post office. Every change in information technology also undermines the authority of the state. Yes, in one sense the new technology gives the government more potential for keeping us all under closer surveillance than ever before. But in practice, the race between the power of the state and the power of the individual is determined by the computer geeks and nerds, and all the talent works for one side, the individual. Brilliant chip designers and programmers and hackers don’t want to work for the government. So I have no doubt that the government will try to regulate the internet, for example, and am utterly confident that spontaneous revolt in the private sector will foil those attempts in all important respects. When it comes to the action in tools, the government is on the outside looking in.
Monday, May 5. 2008
Exercising her right to choose, feminists get mad. Meanwhile, a woman's right to sex, in Ecuador Steyn: "The mainline Protestant churches have long been beyond parody." See his example. Violence as a contagious disease? NYT. Vermont doesn't seem to want any power. As predicted, warmingologists change their models to accommodate the past decade without any warming, and the coming decade with cooling. Make-up for men? Sheesh. That is nauseating. Global warming models cause shark attacks. It must be the models causing this, since there's been no warming for over a decade. Like we have been saying: The Dem primaries are over. So why the charade? Iraq: NYT spinning (lying?) like crazy. However, Feith's book gets at the truth about the decisions. A "post-American world," in Newsweek. Some truth to it. One quote: At the military and political level, we still live in a unipolar world. But along every other dimension—industrial, financial, social, cultural—the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance. In terms of war and peace, economics and business, ideas and art, this will produce a landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now—one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples. The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be. This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else. It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years, trends that have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
Sunday, May 4. 2008
 NHS mess drives immigrants away in the UK. Talk about unintended consequences.
Sweden's missed opportunity. I doubt that they care very much. Their energetic and ambitious citizens leave the country, and their slacker quotient rises. Soon they will all be either Moslems or on the dole, or both. Then what? Call the UN for help? Call the USA for money and food? Taking another look at the UCC, in light of Rev. Wright who has become the UCC's poster child. A photo. Good grief Paging all men! It's time to MAN UP. h/t, Wizbang The Ice Age cometh Another note to self: Read OTB daily Car breathalizers? Give me a break. Is this creeping Prohibition? If I cannot have two or three beers at Rudy's and drive home, then this whole thing has gone too far. The Art of Folly at Yale. WaPo
Don't forget - We'll have the first episode of James Burke's history series up tonite 6 pm EDT (that is, Zulu -4 hrs). I'm sure it deserves the hype we have given it. Photo: The steeple of the church on Cuttyhunk Island
Saturday, May 3. 2008
 Krauthammer revisits Obama's race speech. Related: Obama's character at Am Thinker
Mea culpa! Everyone orders off the menu. AVI, friend, Who has original thoughts? "If there's an original thought out there, I could use one right now." The fraud of electric cars. Where do people imagine the power comes from? Hybrids, of course, are another matter: they recyle power. The horror of Boris. Thompson. We offer a heart-felt adios to old Red Ken. Bye-bye. Where's the Left when they're needed on Vietnam? Shout out to our Canadian readers: Help out News Flash! People do dumb things when intoxicated. Also, when they are sober. The Opportunity Cities in the US Note to self: Read Belmont Club daily. All views are worthy of respect and protection from defamation? Good grief. In my view, 99% of thoughts and views are worthy of disrespect and forceful defamation. Except for mine, natch. Photo: Theo thinks this is a good day to get your car cleaned. Not here, though. We are experiencing seriously alarming global cooling, and she would need a down parka today.
Friday, May 2. 2008
 We pointed out here and here that people are trying to talk down the economy and to fill people with fear for political reasons. They have done it throughout Bush's long "Goldilocks economy" (which has been stronger and healthier than Clinton's, a fact which our dishonest MSM press has tried to keep a secret), and they are doing it now. But if the credit crunch is going to cause a recession - which one might expect that it would and will - it sure isn't happening yet: Jobless rates fall.
The only jobs disappearing in numbers are those on Wall St., and populist Middle America never weeps for those good, savvy, hard-working folks. (It's as American as Apple Pie to hate the bankers - until we need one to help us start, grow, or sell a business. Then, we pretend to love 'em.)
Northwestern changes their mind on Rev. Wright's honorary degree. School choice works. Pajamas Congress will reconsider their Ethanol plans. We need to start drilling for oil - now. Related: The incoherence of Nancy Pelosi The Repubs and the press are enjoying the phony Dem horse race, but the Dem bosses are fed up with it. (Do they already know that McCain won't run hard and tough, because he doesn't need to prove he's tough?) This 8th Grader can teach the adults a thing or two Now Venezuela thinks they can run the steel industry. That govt. couldn't run a candy shop. Starbucks is in trouble. I confess that I do like their House Blend, but I just don't get the rest of that stuff they sell. What is Rachel's Law? A good idea. Compare and contrast: guns in in Nashville Rush said: The Democrat superdelegates have a problem. Obama cannot win, but they are afraid to take the nomination from him because they think the black vote won't show up in November and vote Democrat. I tell them not to worry. There's a 50-year history showing that they have done far worse — destroying the black family, for example — and blacks still vote Democrat.
Thursday, May 1. 2008
I thought we were all going to drown in 10 years. "Never mind," say scientists. The article doesn't even bother to mention that we've had over ten years with no warming, in complete contradiction of all warming models. That's "climate change" for you. Now, any "warming" is real, but any cooling is an accident. But what if the warming was an accident, and long-term cooling is real? No doubt Al Gore's hedge fund is now going long the goose-down futures market. This reminds me of Paul Krugman predicting 15 of the last two recessions. Now watch the ideological warmingists "adjust" their models to keep the cash coming in. Up here in Yankeeland, there's the old saying "If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes." From what I have been able to learn, some warming would be good for the human race for food and wine production, as it has been in history. Nevertheless, I am not throwing away my ski parkas. We are having a dang cold Spring up here.
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