Maggie's Farm

At a news conference late last night following a special meeting of Democrat Party leaders, the Dems announced "We are sort-of Communists."

The eagerly-awaited announcement came as a relief to the nation's Democrats, who have longed for the day when they could come out of the closet and begin to explain their goals and ideals clearly, instead of pussy-footing around and hemming and hawing.

"The time of bourgeois "Progressive" incrementalism is past," they asserted in a prepared statement, which highlighted proposals for free housing, an end to taxation, free medical care, free food, 100% employment, an environmentally-advanced outlook, free TV, unlimited sex for all without committment, World Peace, and no homework, among other items certain to please all voters, and not just those attracted to modern, advanced, scientist- and social-scientist- approved ideas.

"We hereby generously vow to sacrifice our time and effort to secure Happiness and Freedom from Worry for the little people." they stated, "whether they want it or not," adding "We are willing to bear the burden for them - nay, we are determined to bear the burden and the burden of thinking for them - and nothing will get in our way. That shows how much WE CARE."

"We're tired of pretending. After 70 years of careful preparation, we believe the country is finally ready to deal with the truth. There is no need for us to play games anymore. If we can send a man to the moon, we can meet our peoples' needs here at home. It is time for us to stand up for Happiness Now - Equal Happiness for All the Workers and Little People in 1898 1914 1937  1956  1965  1973 2006."

When asked what had brought the Party to this point, a spokesman stated:

 "Our leaders were frankly exhausted by answering questions about how much taxes they really wanted, and about how much government control over life and business they really wanted, and how much they deeply care for and want to help people, and especially the children. They decided that it was time to play it straight, and I am confident that the voters will welcome our proposals. If not, we will have to consider all and any necessary means to ensure true and equal happiness for all. It is time to make Comrade Jefferson's dream a reality."

"We aren't "totalitarian," he said, "That is an ugly and vicious slur on our intentions. We are TotaliCAREian. Give us a chance to show the people how much we Totally Care." He added "We caringly and compassionately totally care about every tiny detail of your life, so we want to know about it."

Their 2006 Campaign press release, which has been over two generations in preparation, is titled "A Manifesto for the Future" and subtitled "A New Brave New World Deal for America." It appears to offer something for everyone. Major sections excerpted below:

NO TAXES!!! No more complicated tax forms, and no more scary IRS!!! How can we do this? Trying to regulate businesses is too slow and too difficult. We'll just take them all over, and they will work for The Good of All instead of the wealthy few!!! We are tired of trying raise tax rates. We'll take all of the money!!! It is simpler for government - and for you - for your government to own everything, instead of collecting taxes. Plus you won't need money anymore!!!

FREE MEDICAL CARE!!! Free medical attention will be available in our special government Happy Health Control Centers, with euthanasia cheerfully and painlessly prescribed for those who feel "really sick as shit," by our buxom People's Paradise Express Hostesses. And for you gals: Free required abortion for all!!! (but depending on genetic analysis and Government Health Dept. scientifically-determined population and genetic needs.) Free treatment of disease based on modern, advanced and Scientific Cost-Benefit Analysis!!!

DEEPLY SATISFYING WORK FOR ALL!!! No more money worries or job worries. We'll take care of it. We will find work for you to do!!! All will work and will have deeply personally satisfying work for the good of all!!!- 100% employment, when and where we decide best. This will give the people the Human Dignity they want, and all will feel like part of the beautiful village. No-one will be too disabled for the Human Dignity of Deeply Satisfying Work, and even old age will no longer deprive you of that Deep Satisfaction (until you are no longer useful).

NO MORE MONEY WORRIES!!! Since the government will run the businesses, you won't need any money!!! All of your needs will be met by a loving, caring government whose experts know what is best for your happiness in life, based on Modern Scientific Psychological Studies. No more envy, no more antiquated and fatiguing ambition, no more disappointment and depression - and no more bills!!!

FREE HOUSING FOR ALL, NO HOUSEWORK - AND FREE TV!!! Everyone will have their own personal, comfortable, temperature-regulated "Happy Cube" with a Free Wide Screen Government TV with FREE Government Stations just for you, to keep you entertained and happy in your Free Government cube - including 24/hr/day Psychologist-designed scientific PORN!!! And with expert psychologist-sexologist performers!!! And there will be co-ed Happy-Hygiene Units on every floor!!! Plus no more housework!!! You won't own a house to bother with!!!

NO HOMEWORK!!!! You don't need no education. (Our Expert Trainers will prepare you efficiently for the work for which are are best suited, as scientifically-determined.) We have already eliminated most of the "hard stuff," from education, but why bother with any confusing ideas and math and history dates and all of that difficult nonsense that gets in the way of happiness and TV and much-needed relaxation (unless the government determines that you have a needed aptitude).  There will be no need to continue to strain your brain!!! We will worry about things for you!!! No complicated information to make people unhappy. We will let you know what you need to know to make a good adjustment and to be happy. No books - who needs those boring old things and their old-fashioned ideas? Everyone would rather just relax!!! Government TV is more fun and more relaxing, and less confusing. No news - we will worry about that for you! Why worry your brain? You work hard - take it EASY!

NO DIRTY DIAPERS AND SCREAMING BRATS!!!  Children will have all of their needs met in special cheerful and psychologist-designed government Child Full-Service Development Centers, so all Bio-Moms will be free for the deeply satisfying Work Satisfaction they have sought for so long. No more dirty diapers and no more screaming brats. Government Growth Adjustment Expert Specialists will handle all of the problems, and take care of them for you from the day they are born, including orthodontia (if cost-effective) and including Science Diet Kiddie-Kibbles. You did your part, Bio-Moms. Now we'll do the rest!!!

NO ANNOYING SUNDAY MORNING CHURCH!!! You can sleep in every Sunday Morning, but you might be lucky enough to have an important deeply satisfying job for the good of all on Sunday morning. You won't need a confusing, inscrutable god - we'll be your god, but unlike the old god, we will give you everything you really need and want - for free. We care about you more than that obsolete, demanding, no-fun god did. And all religious disagreements will be solved!!! For fun on Sunday, try our Government Scientific 6-hole Happy People Miniature Golf Courses, or our Happy Bowler 10-foot bowling alleys, where everyone is a winner!!! Or just stay in your Happy Cube and watch TV in peace!!! We can give you Heaven - today!!!

FREE SEX FOR ALL WITHOUT COMMITTMENT!!! You may think you have that already, but we will take it to another level for you. Marriage is obsolete. Who really wants to put up with that boring, aging spouse and those predictable, dull bedroom habits? No more marriage, which means no more marital problems!!! Bring anyone you want to your personal and private sleeping cubicle in your Free Government Housing Home Sweet Home Happy Cube!! Sex for the little people and workers should be no more of a big deal than going to the bathroom: we've suffered enough bourgeois sentimentality. We will stand up firmly for Scientific Sexual Health and Hygiene.

WE'LL BE GREEN!!! No more cars!!! No-one will need cars except for Government Authorities and the Happy Thought Police forces. Everyone's Free Government Housing Home Sweet Home Happy Cube will be within healthy walking or biking distance - based on scientific calculations -  of their assigned deeply satisfying job. That is what we are willing to do for The Environment!!! And your Free Government Bio-degradable Clothing will be specially designed for your outdoor needs, produced by happy workers with environmental values in their manufacture. And, because we will be Green, there will be No More Bad Weather!!!

FREE HEALTH!!! There will be no smoking, no alcohol, and no meat! These things will be reserved to console your over-stressed and sacrificial Leaders. Thus everyone will have free health, along with our expert-designed tofu-based diets and the daily exercise programs which will be required, for your convenience and health, at your deeply satisfying workplace. Those with genetic disorders will, as is rational, spare the people from the burden of their children. In this way, we will achieve a healthy, happy nation. One day's use of Soma or marijuana will be issued to workers at the end of each workday, to ensure happiness, a positive attitude, self-esteem, and a peaceful spirit. And, if you get sick, you just go to one of our Happy Health Control Centers, where you can peacefully unburden Society of your problem!!! No more guilt!!! And free sanitary crematorial services!

FREE FOOD!!! Since you won't need money, our Government Free Food Happy Pantries will offer free food for all, with special expert nutritionist-designed, organic-like balanced diets designed for your particular needs and work!!! No more worries about what to fix for supper. We'll worry about it for you, with your health and happiness in mind!!! It will be meat-free, poison-free, fat-free healthy nutritional substances, which will please our wonderful progressive vegans!!! Just add water to your scientifically freeze-dried and dehydrated tofu Lovely Health Treat!!!

WORLD PEACE!!! Not to worry. We'll figure it all out, because We Love World Peace. World Peace is just Great!!! You can just be happy and we can do the thinking for you. If war is needed to create peace, our Swedish and Swiss mercenaries will take care of it for you. And you won't even need to know!!!

Sales: "You want answers?"
 
Finance: "I think we are entitled to them!"
 
Sales: "You want answers?!"
 
Finance: "I want the truth!"
 
Sales: "You can't handle the truth!!! Son, we live in a world that requires net license revenue. And that revenue must be brought in by people with elite skills. Who's going to find it? You? You, Mr. Operations? We have a  greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.
 
You scoff at the sales division and you curse our lucrative incentives.
 
You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know:
 
That while the cost of business results are excessive, it drives revenue. And my very existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, drives REVENUE! You don't want to know the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at staff meetings ... you want me on that call. You NEED me on that call!
 
We use words like upgrades, another round, top-shelf, medium-rare, on-the-rocks, cabernet, Cohiba and foursome. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent negotiating something. You use them as a punch line!
 
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to people  who rise and sleep under the very blanket of revenue I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise I suggest you pick up a phone and make some sales calls. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!"
 
Finance: "Did you expense the lap dancers?"
 
Sales: "I did the job I was hired to do."
 
Finance: "Did you expense the lap dancers?!"
 
Sales: "You're goddamn right I did!"

Jim Harrison: Hunter, chef, author, and all-around cool dude. Interviewed in New York Times Books. Got to love this guy. And how about his eager pup?

 Photo credit: Jeff Topping for the New York Times

In full bloom, with plenty of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds buzzing around. Weeds? I don't see any weeds. Monarda itself is almost a weed.

What's a "weed," anyway?

A repost from May, 2005

A reader sent this 1954 personal letter from Dwight Eisenhower to a relative, in which he discusses governance and the Supreme Court. It is a pleasure to read, and it gave me a better sense of who he was.  A sample:

Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution.

In Ike, an abundance of common sense and practicality became uncommon sense. Read entire letter.

Image: "I Like Ike" was the slogan of 1952's Draft Eisenhower movement. The Left always viewed Ike as stupid. Some things never change.

A re-post from the distant past

You think your dog is smart? Or do you think you are smart? Jim was famous in the 1930s, and not just for finding coveys of quail:

"Such were Jim's powers that he could even look into the future and foretell coming events.  For seven years in a row he was shown a list of entries in the Kentucky Derby, and picked the winner each time in advance of the race.  With equal ease he could correctly predict the sex of babies yet unborn.  In 1936, just before the World Series games were played, Van Arsdale, in the presence of friends, placed before Jim two pieces of paper upon which the names of the teams had been written.  He explained, "Jim, I have here the names of the two teams that will be playing in the World Series.  Will you show us the one that will win?"  Jim placed a paw on the slip bearing the word "Yankees."  Later events proved him correct."

Read the whole thing, by Henry Ferguson in Rural Missouri 

Bruce Kesler wonders how important medical insurance reform will be in the next election. He sees no "crisis," and takes a closer look at the stats.One quote:

...for 10% the Democrats would upend the other 90%, who by various surveys express 80% satisfaction with their health care, if anxiety about its personal costs.

Tyler Cowen takes a look at the French system, which is often held up as an ideal, and it isn't so rosy.

The moral of the story is that there is no free lunch, and there is no perfect system.

Is Bush too Christian to be an effective president?

I know this is a slightly provocative question. I have never met the man, but I do respect his seriousness about his job and I do believe that he is greatly misunderestimated.

But I'd like raise the issue. In at least two critical areas - illegal immigration and defence against Jihad, Bush has been unwilling to be tough and ruthless in the American interest - in the interest of the folks who pay his salary. FDR would have flattened Sadr City years ago, and Truman would have too. And certainly FDR would have closed our borders tight. He did.

Is Bush "too compassionate" and too Christian to be a strong President?

FDR was an impressive politician, a true noblesse oblige aristocrat (who never knew a working man, and never had the chance to find out how wise they/we are), with a fine temperament (no doubt those 10 martinis/day helped with that).

He latched onto a fad pressed upon him by his advisors - the communalism fad of the world intelligentsia of the 30s - and almost broke the back of American freedom in the process.

Not being particularly scholarly - or wise - himself, he bought into the notion that The Depression was due to Capitalism, requiring repair if not replacement by the geniuses in government. Good wartime leader? Yes.

Moral: beware of fads, and stay away from cranks.

A quote from a piece in View from 1776 on the subject:

Mr. Chase said regarding the Depression, …the cycle is a direct product of that specialization which appeared with the industrial revolution.  It is a product of laissez-faire, and the neglect to inquire what an economic system is for…There never has been control from the top, and that is the only point from which the cycle may be steadied.…I suspect it is the end of the economic system as we have known it – and suffered with it – in the past…a new deal is in order.

What remedies did Mr. Stuart Chase propose?  The drive of collectivism leads toward control from the top. … At bottom the conception of economic planning is science supervising a people’s housekeeping. … And so the final idea of a National Planning Board emerges; …a group which knows the past, can give capable advice as to the present, and sees into the future, especially the technological future. …The real work, the real thought, the real action must come from the technicians: that class most able, most clear-headed of all in American life, hitherto only half utilized in technical detail and in college class rooms. …This is a long-swing project we are starting, longer than the secular trend; longer than the industrial revolution itself.  Errors will be made; methods will be tried out and discarded; but the principle of control from the top must go on.

Ah, control from the top. Of course. Isn't that always the solution for us foolish citizens?  Hmmm, but isn't it "the top" that provides our basic education, too? Aw heck, never mind: Everybody knows that most of the smart people in America are too busy with life to get involved in politics. But that old FDR arrogant impulse, that views folks in government as being smarter than citizens, as knowing "what is best for us," persists. I know enough of them, and I can tell you that they are, on the whole, narcissistic idiots and sociopaths with a slick talk....with rare exceptions, who sooner or later get disgusted and quit. Have you ever known a politician who you would want in charge of your personal life?

But the Stalinist impulse is still alive, still dangerous, and still wrong.

This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

C.S. Lewis

As a one-time Episcopalian-Anglican before I was found, all of this both tickles me and saddens me. Is it what Dr. Bliss could term "the narcisissism of small differences", or is it about following Christ first and foremost?

Are the primates right? Don't ask me. I try to keep it simple, and I do not think about gays very much. Got many more important things to concern me in this brief life and I, in general, find other people's sexual predilections to be an unpleasant and inappropriate subject, which is best left alone. None of my business, and I do not care to hear about it.

This came in over the transom:

.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a Republican, a feeling she openly expressed.  Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.  He responded by asking how she was doing in school.  Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew.  She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"   She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by.  All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0.  That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."   The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair!  I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work!  Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree.  She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to Conservatism."

Read this mention at Derbyshire about Nick Cohen's new book (discussed in the past here). Derbyshire noted that Dillow at Stumbling and Mumbling believes that the Left has plenty left to offer. Dillow accuses the Left of squandering opportunities and ideas, and of confusing statism with socialism.

Well, I enjoy reading Dillow regularly, but there is little he says with which I could agree. He is openly utopian which, for me (although I like Dillow from what I can tell) indicates a great misunderstanding of human nature, especially its "dark side," which afflicts poor, middle, and wealthy equally. Dillow's notions, like those of Labour, lead to situations such as this: 1/3 Britons now derive over 50% of their income from welfare and the dole (at Tangled Web).  Extend that further? To 100%? So who is "greedy"?  Indeed, who is truly greedy? Those who want to achieve, or those who want support from others?

For me, that would be the utopia of a serf on an estate, or of a cow in a barn. Dillow has no faith in people, it would seem to me, to find their own paths through life, and so I feel his utopianism is basically elitist and condescending. (My view tends towards the notion that Socialism, in practice, is Feudalism in new clothes and with new excuses.)

And I will answer one question posed by Mr. Dillow, who asked, "why, if a centrally planned economy is a stinking idea, should a centrally planned company be a good one?"

Because:

1. Government enforces its wishes with guns and jails, and corporations do not.
2. Government planning has failed catastrophically everywhere it has been tried, and has diminished human freedom at the same time. Examples of successful business planning abound in the world: it's a lot easier to try to understand one market that to try to understand every world market in product and labor.
3. Government does not need to compete to survive, but business has to. Monopolies do not work very well: they of necessity stifle growth and innovation and rapid adaptation.
4. Government has a near-endless supply of revenue collected at the end of a gun. Businesses' revenue only comes when they make things or do things people voluntarily want.
5. Government is a sponge for power over people, and that sort of power is a zero-sum game. Corporations only want to make money, so they are relatively harmless. Wealth is not a zero-sum game.
6. Bureaucrats who plan things in government have the 180 degree wrong incentive structure, and are of famously lower quality that those in the private sector. Furthermore, no planner can be as wise as markets - and we know what happens when governments think they are smarter than markets. You drive subsidized Yugos. How many theoreticians have run a successful enterprise?
7. Government's rationality and effectiveness is distorted by political contingencies. Government planners would be instructed to keep a buggy-whip factory open to save a few jobs in somebody's district. A business would adapt, and the workers would go find something else.
8. Government planners would be risk-averse. Business is risk-savvy.
9. There are no meaningful incentives in government businesses. As they said in Poland after they threw out the socialists: "We pretended to work, and they pretended to pay us."  They also said, "Now we have rich, middle, and poor. Before, we were all poor, except the government."

And, lastly and most importantly, 10: Freedom. Economic freedom, risk-taking, failure, choice, etc. is so fundamental to the freely-chosen life of a free man that no bowl of lentils, no matter how tasty, should have the power to buy off part of his soul and his dignity so he can stand in a warm barn. Voluntary serfdom: Not a credit to the human spirit. Today, government builds and maintains the roads on which capitalism can drive. Give the government the steering wheel too, and they can control everything in your life. That would be a morally very bad thing even if it could be done successfully - and they would want to lock me up for having a social-psychiatric ailment like "Independence Disorder" or "Ambition Disorder.".

Mr. Dillow, the need for socialist measures is done. We have enough of them: No-one freezes, no-one starves, people get the education they need, the medical treatment the government planners want them to have, and they can spend their life on the dole for a sore back if they want to. Many, many votes have thus been bought already. And this is all thanks to the transfer of money from capitalism's miracle of wealth-creation, the miracle of markets and market incentives, to the non-producing but ever-arrogant parasitic government.

Yes, socialism is alive in all Western nations in hundreds of government redistribution programs, but we have had enough of it. No more required. Material needs have been met. Leave the rest - the pursuit of happiness and dignity and self-respect - to the people. No-one can confer these things of the spirit on anyone else: find out what people are capable of if not treated like imbeciles and cripples by a condescending, vote-buying government.

Re-posted from June, 2005

This is a lengthy (14 p), scholarly, reflective essay on the history and evolution of modern conservative thinking from the 1930s to the present.

A quote from a section on marriage:

The contract tradition’s reduction of human beings to autonomous individuals fosters a self-conception that destabilizes the marriage bond; the welfare state then “lubricates” exit from marriage with various substituting benefits. Love, it has been said, is the willingness to belong to another. There is really no place for such love in a world of autonomous individuals bristling with rights — the world which liberalism understands as “natural.” The popularity of a therapeutic language of “fulfillment” in contemporary America only exacerbates the weak institutional support that liberal jurisprudence provides for marriage. Traditional religious marriage ceremonies often included a prominent discussion of sacrifice, not a concept with ready appeal to autonomous individuals.

Traditional conservatives tend to see marriage as entering into a status, rather than concluding a contract, and they would like to see this reflected in culture, law, and public policy. Thus, they look with approbation on movements such as Promise Keepers which work to shape popular culture in a family-friendly way. They would repeal the no-fault divorce revolution if they could — and indeed, some Catholic traditionalists would prefer the laws of marriage which prevailed until recently in several Latin American countries where divorce was effectively impossible. The experiment with “covenant marriages” is viewed as a step forward, but a very small one. Traditionalists also favor significantly shifting tax burdens from families to the single and childless. Again, Bush’s increased child tax credits are a small step forward.

A concluding quote:

In the end, it is perhaps that most eccentric of American thinkers, the nineteenth-century Catholic convert Orestes Brownson, who provides us with the intellectual tools for grappling with the American experience. As Peter Augustine Lawler observes in his exceptionally valuable introduction to a new edition of The American Republic, Brownson’s teaching is that the American regime is the greatest political achievement since Rome. But it is not the city laid up in heaven. Like every achievement within the saeculum, its justice is limited and it is mortal. The sun will set too on the era of American exceptionalism. When it does, those who have placed their fondest hopes in the promises of ideological politics may feel themselves dispossessed and demoralized; but those who have hearkened to the teachings of the traditionalists may find themselves, at last, at home.

Read entire in New Pantagruel

Did Hillary actually say that? Yes, I heard it. And I think she means it.

Not only is it creepy - it is even creepier that the MSN is not reporting it. This is Chavez-type stuff. If she truly believes that she can "take" those profits, whose profits can she not "take"?

And, by the way - is she forgetting who gets those profits? Regular Americans, in their IRAs. And is she forgetting who earns them? Lots of people who work far harder than she does, and are far smarter too. Exxon is one of the best-run businesses in the world, dealing with the most volatile of markets, and contending with endless governmental constrictions of what they want to do (eg, building refineries, or obtaining product). Those restrictions, of course, drive the price of oil upwards.

I am indebted to the indispensible Tangled Web for alerting me to Cohen's new book What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way.  

A quote from Derbyshire's piece on the book:

In Ian McEwan’s novel ‘Saturday’, the protagonist Henry Perowne watches as demonstrators gather for the massive anti-war march of February 2003. He is struck, and slightly disturbed, by the levity of the crowd. ‘Everyone is thrilled to be out together on the streets – people are hugging themselves, it seems, as well as each other.’ The protestors may be right, Perowne muses: leaving Saddam’s sanguinary dictatorship in place might, just, be preferable to aerial bombing and invasion. But they ought to be ‘sombre’ in this view – it’s a dreadful moral calculus, after all, that weighs summary execution and ‘occasional genocide’ against the hazards of regime change.

The marchers’ placards and slogans catch Perowne’s eye too. Some belong to the Islamist group that helped to organise the march, an outfit, Perowne remembers, which believes that ‘apostasy from Islam was an offence punishable by death.’ Others bear the legend ‘Not in My Name’, a phrase whose ‘cloying self-regard suggests a bright new world of protest, with the fussy consumers of shampoos and soft drinks demanding to feel good, or nice.’

There is an extract from the book at The Observer, from which I quote:

It is not novel to say that socialism is dead. My argument is that its failure has brought a dark liberation to people who consider themselves to be on the liberal left. It has freed them to go along with any movement however far to the right it may be, as long as it is against the status quo in general and, specifically, America. I hate to repeat the overused quote that 'when a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything', but there is no escaping it. Because it is very hard to imagine a radical leftwing alternative, or even mildly radical alternative, intellectuals in particular are ready to excuse the movements of the far right as long as they are anti-Western.

Let's pray that this book from this well-known recovering Left-Liberal, pink-diaper baby will have an impact on the UK.

Hadn't realized that Bill of INCD Journal is in Fallujah. From all I have heard, a truly God-forsaken place.

In his way to Iraq, he had the kind of conversation with someone who equates the US with terrorists - the sort of conversation we all can fall into, and then regret. Try explaining the Jacksonian view of the world to a young Icelandic pacifist woman.

Bill links to a fine essay by Walter Russell Mead on The Jacksonian Tradition, which I highly recommend, and will re-read. One quote:

If Jeffersonianism is the book-ideology of the United States, Jacksonian populism is its folk-ideology. Historically, American populism has been based less on the ideas of the Enlightenment than on the community values and sense of identity among the British colonizers who first settled this country. In particular, as David Hackett Fischer has shown, Jacksonian populism can be originally identified with a subgroup among these settlers, the so-called "Scots-Irish", who settled the back country regions of the Carolinas and Virginia, and who went on to settle much of the Old West—West Virginia, Kentucky, parts of Indiana and Illinois—and the southern and south central states of Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. Jacksonian populism today has moved beyond its original ethnic and geographical limits. Like country music, another product of Jacksonian culture, Jacksonian politics and folk feeling has become a basic element in American consciousness that can be found from one end of the country to the other.

I am a Jacksonian. I feel like the guy in Bourgeois Gentilhomme who learns for the first time that he is speaking prose. Whole essay here.

Nick Saban's deal at Alabama sounds generous. James Joyner spells out the rationale, at TCS: Crimson With Envy. Some folks just refuse to understand that market forces apply to labor. Alabama football is a big business.

Anyone would envy Saban's deal. So do whatever you need to do to compete with the Sabans of the world, if you want the same deal. But you cannot compare them with English Profs. Any moron can blather about phallocentric hegemonic narratives, but running a world class football team is something entirely different.

Best summary I've seen on the challenges China faces and will face as wealth and economic freedom confront the totalitarian Communist Party. One quote from Huttonon in The Observer:

All societies are linked to their past by umbilical cords - some apparent, some hidden. China is no different. Imperial Confucian China and communist China alike depended - and depend - upon the notion of a vastly powerful, infallible centre: either because it was interpreting the will of heaven or, now, of the proletariat. In neither system have human rights, constitutional checks and balances or even forms of democracy figured very much. As a result, China has poor foundations on which to build the subtle network of institutions of accountability necessary to manage the complexities of a modern economy and society. Sooner or later, it is a failing that will have to be addressed.

Some Warren Buffet aphorisms, from Businesspundit:

• You can't make a good deal with a bad person.
• It's easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble.
• The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.
• My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror.
• The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting.
• You can always juice sales by going down-market, but it's hard to go back upmarket.
• You have to think for yourself. It always amazes me how high-IQ people mindlessly imitate. I never get good ideas talking to other people.
• In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity because if they don't have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.
• Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
• A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
• If you let yourself be undisciplined on the small things, you will probably be undisciplined on the large things as well.
• The fact that people are full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.
• We also believe candor benefits us as managers. The CEO who misleads others in public may eventually mislead himself in private.
• What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.

From a Samuelson piece - Farewell to Pax Americana - in WaPo, quoted at American Future:

The trouble is that strength—measurable and impressive—does not translate directly into power. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. Here, America is weaker.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Matthew 6

My church
My prep school
The Salvation Army
The Ruffed Grouse Society
The Nature Conservancy
World Vision
FOCUS
Ducks Unlimited
Doctors Without Borders

and I am adding the Prison Fellowship to the list this year - what a great organization. Please consider them in your giving this year - it means a lot more than a new cashmere sweater.

Well, it's time again for my Christmas Wish List.

And now that we finally have a Dem congress, maybe I will get everything I want. Here it is:

 1. Free money. Lots of it. Why can't the government just print some extra and mail it to us? Why? What would it cost them? Those stingy Repubs just won't do it. Grinches. I'd bet it costs less than 1/10th of a penny to print a ten thousand dollar bill. And at a 50% federal tax rate, they would get $5000 back for a $.001 investment in one year. How bad is that?

2. Free "Legal Care."  You have no idea how much my companies spend  waste spend on Law Departments and New York legal fees. Millions. Not fair in a country where rule of law is the essence of the nation. How can a person protect their rights and freedom without free legal care? I mean real lawyers, not those Legal Aid pony-tail types with holes in their socks, beer and pastrami on their breath, and a plea bargain attitude.

3. Free Dental Care. Do you know what my periodontist wants to fix a bad tooth? More than I pay my tax accountant. You age, and the teeth just don't hold up. It's not fair. Gimme money.

4. Free college and grad school. Got kids? Grandkids? Someone has to pay the bill. Why me? These are after-tax dollars, and it hurts. Let Uncle Sam pay the bill, if he wants everyone to be overeducated cube dwellers, squinting at screens like I am doing right now.

5.  Free Chateau Margaux '89. Hey - that could be a slogan, like "Free Mumia" or The Chicago 7 or whoever. Why should I have to work my butt off for a basic happiness? Not fair at all, because some can afford it without even thinking. Happiness is in the Constitution, isn't it? Or is it in the Declaration of Happiness? You just know that somebody, somewhere, is making a profit on this stuff.

6. Free cars. All of our salesmen get them. Why can't I? I'll take two of these. One red, one yellow.

7. Free vacations. Why should I pay for them? I need them, to maintain my productivity and health and my cheerful approach to life and work. It's a Right, isn't it? And when I am unhappy, everyone else gets unhappy. Not good.

8. Free tickets home for Christmas for illegals. One way. Fix your own countries, people. This one is ours. We, and our ancestors, have had to fix it a few times, and we are still trying. No reason you cannot do the same.

9. Free Digital Cameras. Why should a wealthy nation like ours require folks to buy their own, when they become obsolete in a year? We, as a nation, can afford to take care of everyone's camera needs, if we only cared enough. Photos are a basic right, enshrined in the Constitution - right? It's like free speech, or free self-expression, or something like that.

10. Free ammo. Do you have any idea what the new, lead-free ammo costs? Any nation with gun freedoms can surely afford free ammo for all of its citizens. If we can send a man to the moon, ...etc. Plus it's also in the Constitution. Let's begin with shotgun ammo. The 9 mm stuff can come later: it's called "incrementalism."

11. Free Veterinary (and Medical) Care.  Do you have any idea what the wife's vet bills add up to? Worse than our Barrister's, I'd bet. His wife has more horses that mine does, but mine has more doggone dogs. Not to mention my hunting dogs. Vet bills are far worse than medical bills, or otherwise I would go to my Vet when I get sick like Skink does. Free Vet Care, NOW! Including dog Stress Management! When I miss a bird, my dog gets very stressed out... and I miss a lot. If you really cared, you would pay my dog's shrink bills.

That's it for this year. Back to ya next time, Santa,

With deep appreciation for all that you do - we love ya, dude.

The Chairman

Color-coding in schools? I am agin' it. Nowadays, who cares?

Plus it's getting harder to tell what color anyone is, anyway: everybody is getting mixed skin DNA. For example, what color is Derek Jeter? And do you really care?

In our offices, they are all sorts of Indians, Asians, who knows what? You don't even think about it - they are all humans.

Heck, our own Editor Bird Dog is part Iroquois. Do you care? He is part dog, also (which has helped him get into the best dog schools).

Let's arrange folks by character, energy, brains, talent, discipline, interest, etc. This skin thing has got to go. It is just too stupid.

But I see some libs are still trying to count their Crayolas. Eliott Spitzer, for one. NY Sun. Supreme Court. Good case.

Discouraging but not surprising stats about US education at Willisms. Take a look.

It's the same old story: spending does not correlate with results.

What does school spending correlate with? Teacher's union votes. 

EDUCATION RESULTS ARE CULTURAL.

Math is too hard - can't the kids do something creative? To develop and express their special selves? And to have fun?

Abe Lincoln learned more in a one-room schoolhouse with a wood fire and a only a Bible to read and a teacher with a paddle than kids do today.

Not even air conditioning!

Most American kids want everything to be easy, and they want work to be nothing more than a short path to a second childhood, called "retirement."

I suppose the new way is just not the old Yankee view of life. Our material comfort and success is biting us in the behind: it is both a blessing and a curse. Perhaps, in time, this lazy approach to life will lead us back, against our will, to our true gritty selves.

Image: a Kansas one-room schoolhouse

As one of those employers who supposedly wants illegals for cheap labor, forget it.

I like legal immigration, but I believe that it is up to the people of the country to decide who comes in, and how they enter, and why.

A nation without a boundary is not a nation. That does not make me a "racist," although I do tend to believe that folks with northern European backgrounds seem to understand American ways, traditions, social habits and values most readily and adapt most easily. But everyone knows that.

But let me ask our readers a simple question: Would you enter a country illegally? And if not, why not?

Illegals are simply taking advantage of us (which probably means they are that sort of people), and of our our soft-heartedness. It's as simple as that. But no good deed goes unpunished.

Here's what happens when you decide to base your new life on breaking the law (data from PoliPundit):

CRIME STATISTICS
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.

86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.

75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.

24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally

40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally

48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally

29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually

53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens.

50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border.

71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or “transport coyotes".

47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens.

63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens

66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens.

BIRTH STATISTICS
380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to illegal alien parents, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S.citizens.

97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayers.

66% plus of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

Marine Corps gun fighting rules, from Evangelical Outpost, on the Marine Corp's 231st  Birthday:

1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a "4."

Image: That's a Marine with an M16A2 5.56 mm rifle

Long-time readers of Maggie's know that I am an evil Dem, but not an ideological Dem. My advice to my Repub friends after this lousy day at the polls: 1. Dump your baggage of sleazebags. 2. Find some decent leadership who can communicate: Frist was worthless, as was Hastert. 3. Make a stand on illegal immigration, or Hillary will do it for you 4. Show some interest in regular people - how they live and what they worry about. Don't offer them freebies - offer them cheer, interest and inspiration. 5. Iraq may or may not be a good thing - but it's not the only thing going on. 6. Listen to Mike Pence, below (h/t, NRO):

Election day 2006 will be remembered as a turning point in American political history. Twenty-five years after the Reagan Administration came to Washington with a conservative agenda of limited government, the American people chose a different course.
 
It is the duty of the losing party in a free election to humbly accept defeat and to acknowledge that the people are sovereign in the People's House.
 
As we examine the results of this election, it is imperative that we listen to the American people and learn the right lessons.
 
Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.
 
While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.
 
After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government.  In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.
 
This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, "enough is enough." Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn't quit on the Contract with America, we did.  And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.
 
As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.

Thespis Journal says:

Like many professional training programs, the Columbia faculty concentrate more on furthering their political agenda than on the essential skills needed to be a master teacher.

A quote from a piece in The New York Sun, echoing our views:

What a juxtaposition — the same week that Columbia University is celebrating merit in the form of the Nobel prize in economics awarded to Professor Edmund "Ned" Phelps, Columbia's Teachers College is coming under justified criticism for deriding merit, favoring instead a kind of left-wing indoctrination. If that sounds like an overstatement, we invite you to check out the "conceptual framework" for Teachers College that is available for download at the Teachers College Web site. It states, "Social inequalities are often produced and perpetuated through systematic discrimination and justified by societal ideology of merit, social mobility, and individual responsibility (Strum & Guinier,[*] 1996). Traditionally organized schools help to reproduce social inequalities while giving the illusion that such inequalities are natural and fair."

The "conceptual framework" goes on to assert that "educators must recognize ways in which taken-for-granted notions regarding the legitimacy of the social order are flawed, see change agency as a moral imperative, and have skills to act as agents of change."

Good grief. The "legitimacy of the social order"? Deep waters, there, Teacher's College! I believe we live in a democratic republic already - the most free and most prosperous one ever on the planet, with the greatest opportunities for all.

If those profs think they have a better idea than that, let's hear it - before they inject those ideas into our kids' teachers.

Teaching is a high calling, an art and a skill. And much of teaching requires trying to engage young brains which would naturally prefer to be doing other things. That is often a thankless task, but the emotional rewards are when a kid finally "gets it," and the material rewards are a good pension, long summers, tenure, and better net hourly pay and benefits than most jobs.

Propagandizing with worn-out Marxist notions - left-overs from the 1960s - is a much easier thing to do than to teach kids important and useful information. It's easier on the kids too. They learn quickly to parrot this stuff back, if that's what the teacher wants: kids can be quite cynical and practical about such things.

I know, because I have heard it: "Daaaad, but I know Miss Jones wants us to say this!"

One of these days I will sit down and write what I, as an American citizen (and as an employer of thousands), expect a middle school, a high school, and a college graduate to know. 

If this is what you like, vote for a Dem on November 6th: (from And Rightly So)

The following is just a sampling of Nancy Pelosi’s voting record on issues that are critical to mainstream Americans. Pelosi voted:

NO on the Border Security Bill
NO on making the Republican tax cuts permanent
NO on eliminating the marriage penalty
NO on eliminating the death tax
NO on creating Health Savings Accounts
NO on the Defense of Marriage Act
NO on the 1996 Welfare Reform Law (and NO on its reauthorization)
NO on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance
NO on banning partial-birth abortion
NO on requiring a photo I.D. to ensure only legal voters vote
NO on the Patriot Act
NO on authorizing domestic tracking of terrorists
* NO on military tribunals and new interrogation rules for terrorist detainees

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising against Soviet Communist oppression.

Gateway has a good remembrance, with a letter.

There are two phrases which drive me nuts. One is "root causes," and the other is "The common good."

Expensive consultants have advised the Dems that "the common good" might be a good theme for them. They even imagine that wrapping themselves in a virtuous, John Stuart Mill-sounding cloak could help bring Christians on board.

After all, who is against "the common good"? But there are many ways of looking at the common good. I know what the Dems mean by it: they want to increase dependency on the Federal govt, and therefore on them.

In fact, our Bird Dog wrote on this subject one week ago: Is a nation a family? We can expect more of this "It takes a village" stuff over the next two years, I believe.

As Hillary Clinton now-famously said in 2004: "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that (tax relief) short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

From a piece by Zoll in The Christian Post (h/t, News for Christians):

Ned Lamont uses it in his Connecticut Senate race. President Clinton is scheduled to speak on the idea in Washington this week. Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania candidate for Senate, put it in the title of his talk at The Catholic University of America — then repeated the phrase 29 times.
Ned Lamont uses it in his Connecticut Senate race. President Clinton is scheduled to speak on the idea in Washington this week. Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania candidate for Senate, put it in the title of his talk at The Catholic University of America — then repeated the phrase 29 times.

The whole thing here.

Harvard embarassed
itself last year,  with
Larry Summers - to their eternal shame for caving in to the manipulative hysterics of a bunch of cranks.

Now it's our turn, as more Ivy administrations prove their cultural dhimmitude and abandon the wisdom and experience of their supporters, who live in the real world.

Mind you, I love these two schools, and have degrees from each of them. But you know how most donors feel: "I just dare you to give me an excuse not to give you my time and money."

Let's do Dartmouth first. Joe's Dartblog provides a fine, detailed run-down of the sleazy actions of the antedeluvian administration, and their cohorts, as they seek to castrate their uppity, free-thinking, reality-oriented alumni organizations. The money involved is like a political campaign - which it is. Very disappinting to see an administration declare war against their own alumni. But the tactics will backfire, as they deserve to do.

Next, let's do Columbia - the only College in the US besides the great University of Chicago which can guarantee that a graduate knows certain important things.

At Columbia, the administration seems to happily cave in to the disruptors and the chronically aggrieved. It is pathetic to toss open, civil debate overboard because of noisy juvenile delinquents intimidating people with their  politically-correct babble. Brownshirts. Remember courage? 

Come on, Pres. Bollinger. Stand for something! If Columbia stands for caving in to the most barbaric and aggressive - then at least admit it.

Plenty of Columbia updates at Michelle, and more details at Allah Pundit. My opinion? Anyone who prevents the open exchange of ideas in civil debate does not belong in college.

A new feature of campus Stalinism is discussed - and later mocked - on Althouse. They want UW kids to snitch about a long list of things, including "disrespect." Huh? Manners are fine, but respect is earned: I do not hand out respect like Halloween candy, either. I wonder whether they paid Kim Sung Il to write this code for them.

Says Auster:

This demonstrates my definition of the three types of politics. Reactionaries and traditionalists recognize a threat to their society the moment it appears. Conservatives recognize a threat to their society only after the society is half ruined. And liberals and leftists recognize a threat to their society only after the society is completely ruined, or they never recognize it at all.

                                                                I am, in principle, in favor of a universal draft with service required for every young American boy and girl. I know the Armed Forces would not want all of those short-termers these days, as service has grown more technical and requires training well beyond Basic.

Getting rid of the draft was an insidious, politically-motivated move by Nixon, and, as he cynically predicted, it did largely end the anti-war movement.

So, although I do not have a Plan, I think it's an important concept. Service to the country used to be what all Americans (well, American guys) had in common. Now, there is nothing, other than paying taxes.

This comes up because The News Junkie asked me to comment on a piece by Kim du Toit. A couple of quotes:

At its most basic foundation, conscription addresses an unpleasant little fact: most people are cowards. They might be cowards on their own behalf, or because they want to protect their children from dying, but they are cowards nevertheless.

and 

We can dress this up with all the fine rhetoric, slogans and philosophy we choose: conscription is slavery; conscription is discriminatory; conscription is un-Constitutional, whatever.

It’s all camouflage to hide the uncomfortable fact that many people consider their own lives to be more valuable than any ideal, or the needs of the community. (I don’t have a problem with people feeling that way: I just want people to be honest about it.)

The most pernicious statement against conscription, however, is the famous one uttered by Robert Heinlein: “Any country that has to defend itself with forced conscripts is not worth defending.” It is depressing to think that a man who got so much right could utter such complete nonsense.

The reason it’s nonsense, of course, is that (like many similar arguments) it ignores this basic facet of human nature: that many people value their own lives more than the existence of their country.

A coward? Me? Hell, yes. Read the whole thing. How can we be, as a country, comfortable and guilt-free leaving service to "others"? Freedom is not a free lunch.

What is the big deal? Clinton did way worse with his young charges (with the sex IMs too), plus the BJs and all the rest.

Why is this any different?

Can't a good ol' Southern boy have his fun? How is flirting "predation?" Boys will be boys, right? Plus it's his personal life, ya know. And no BJs, as far as we know. Like a friendly uncle. 

Oh, it's different because Foley is gay! Gay flirting is predation. As the New New Dems wish to say, the guy is a pervert.

Yes, yet another typical youth-stalking gay pervert. "And you gay Dems in the back row - Shut the hell up. We have an election to win." 

This would be a business-as-usual non-story if Foley were a Dem, and he wouldn't have quit, either. I am eagerly awaiting Barney Frank's and the Clinton's view of this story, but they are having too much fun watching the Repubs trip all over themselves - plus there's nothing they can say.

Truly, election time is Silly Season.  Wake me up when it's over.

Ya gotta love that argument. It's our fault!

They should be upset. We fight back. That is a surprise? Maybe it is, after Clinton/Albright. Let them die angry. Why not? Allah loves that. Let's make Allah happy!

Hey, Ned Lamont! Let's please Allah! Change your ideas, and let them die. They want it, and need it, badly. Be multicultural, and consider their feelings! Let's give them the deaths they long for. It's a form of "caring," plus it meets their emotional needs.

Rush played a clip today of Nancy Pelosi suggesting applying the Golden Rule to our terrorist enemies.

Thus far, she has not suggested applying the Golden Rule to fellow Americans, like Republicans, however.

Thanks to Assistant Village Idiot for pointing out what those lies were that the Hungarians are getting steamed about. Because they are ordinary, everyday political lies, and not specific deceptions.

Here is what Prime Minister Gyurcsany said, as quoted in Brussels Journal:

“I was speaking about the whole elite. We repeated and repeated that you can be richer, fulfil your dreams, and we can give you happiness and fortune as a gift. This is a real lie. For the last 15 years, none of us were brave enough to initiate deep reform. We wanted to avoid painful measures and always found excuses not to act. That’s the real lie.” He added that he is the first politician who is brave enough to admit his mistake, i.e. Gyurcsány is the first politician in Europe who is honest enough to admit his dishonesty.

First in Europe? How about first in history? A vigorous wag of the dog's tail to this guy. Whole piece in Brussels Journal.

Re-posted from August 11, 2005

Interviewing Morons and Slackers - Hot Tips for Senior College Students, Plus the Glory of Maine

Pardon my rant, but I am fed up. I am heading to Northeast Harbor through Labor Day tomorrow, thank God, to play with my little Hinckley Picnic Boat which I paid (!)  someone to drive up there from CT, do a little bluefishing and striper fishing, get my three lobster pots out, play a little or hopefully a lot of tennis, read twenty books, go to a bunch of nice cocktail parties, and bang around the woods with the kids and the grandkids, and do some minor bird-watching, but I have been forced to run through what seems like a hundred educated fools over the past few months, so let me blow off a little steam.

We hire lots of folks every year. All we care about is what you bring to the table. We do not care what sex, color, sexual preference, or anything else that you are (as long as you speak grammatical English including correct use of the subjunctive, which I am a stickler about, and can pass our own patented quick-essay-writing test which I instituted. We give you the topic, and you get 30 minutes to write the most penetrating and knowledgable essay you can. Your one chance to show us what you have under the hood - if we're impressed by it, you will have a great opportunity to prove yourself. If you cannot write adequately under pressure, you cannot think adequately under pressure). We'll also give you an IQ test, but none of those psychological tests. We don't even care where you went to school (provided you had meaningful competition to deal with. Third tier - sorry - we just don't have the time for you no matter how good you might be - you probably paid a lot of money for a second high-school-level education. Time is money, sorry to say, and we are beholden to unforgiving shareholders). We really just care about what you can offer us. We expect a lot, but if we get a lot, we'll compensate you well, and if we are disappointed, you'll be gone in a flash. Period. Everyone is on parole, guilty until proven innocent, useless until proven valuable. That's reality. Assume, at least for your first year or so, that your file will contain abundant negatives. You will deserve them, even if we like you a lot. We do it so we can dismiss you if we decide to, and to educate you, and to motivate you, and because you won't understand what you are doing for a while anyway.

Among the other "delights" of my job is the pleasure of interviewing - I decided this year to personally make final approval for employees for two of our our companies, for new hires mainly over $90,000, bonus not included. These are companies that we are trying to aggressively move forward, and need good people. For my own education, and to assess the cut of their jibs, I took on this chore. (I tend to be partial to quirky, brainy, awkward people who love detail but can readily cut to the core of things. I am repelled by smoothies and I like people who will stand up to me, respectfully, of course  - I do not find ass-kissers or flatterers useful, but be warned, because many dumb employers love it. At least this is my feedback from my pal in HR, who speaks to me fearlessly since I depend on his judgement so much, and is my tennis partner at home.) This group included plenty of 2005 graduates, BAs, MBAs, and assorted other degrees. A word to the wise in HR: I hereby do not want to waste my time interviewing anyone who has not taken calculus, statistics, macro- and micro-economics, or pre-med biology, and probably chemistry and preferably a few physics courses.

Why? Because these are the only things left that are certain to demand intellectual rigor, and separate the men from the boys, as it were. I don't care about your grades, and I don't care what your major is - just show me you will tackle difficult things and that you have a problem-solving attitude. We can train you to do anything, if you arrive with the goods: IQ, discipline, strong sense of duty, enjoyment in taking on tough assignments, ability to use harsh criticism, and the right amount of ambition - not so much as to corrupt you, and not so little as to not be motivated. I could be missing some great hires, but I refuse to spend another five minutes of my life with a BS artist, basket-weaving major, "really nice guy" from Brown who can play squash. Nothing against squash. But got better things to do, like striper fishing. Well, I might seriously consider a Fly Fishing Major from Brown...do they have that major yet?

Later, Bird Dog. I am on vacation as of right now.

Churchill and Global Warming?

Steve Hayward of The Commons did a speech at the American Political Science Association recently, The Use and Abuse of Churchill in History. (Found it before Powerline linked it, but those guys are SCARY FAST.) Link to the whole speech here, but here is a quote:

 It is worth remembering how long we waited before finally facing the challenge posed by Nazi totalitarianism and Hitler. Many were reluctant to acknowledge that an effort on the scale of what became World War II was actually necessary, and most wanted to believe that the threat could be wished away with trivial sacrifices. For several years before the awful truth was accepted, one Western leader spoke out forcefully and eloquently about the gathering storm. Winston Churchill was uncompromising in his insistence that every effort be immediately bent to the task of ensuring Hitler’s defeat. After Neville Chamberlain concluded the Munich Pact of 1938, which gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in return for his pledge not to take over still more territory, most Britons were happy and supported the policy that later was condemned as appeasement. Churchill, however, grasped the essence of what had occurred and of the unavoidable conflict that lay ahead.

From here Gore goes to quote at length the ultimate paragraph of Churchill’s Munich speech in the House, though, like the BBC’s Wilderness Years adaptation of the speech done in the late 1970s, he omits the final phrase, "as in the olden time."

From here Gore continues his main theme: "Thus do we meekly acquiesce in the loss of the world’s rain forests and their living species, the loss of the Everglades, the Aral Sea, the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, the topsoil of the Midwest. . ." etc. "Bitter cups all--but only ‘the beginning of the reckoning,’ only the first of a steady stream of progressively more serious ecological catastrophes that will be repeatedly proffered to us . . ."

In An Inconvenient Truth Gore ratchets up the comparison, making out skeptics of his eco-apocalypticism, or doubters of the proposed remedies such as the Kyoto Protocol, to be the moral equivalent of Nazi appeasers. Gore cites the conclusion of Churchill’s 1936 speech attacking appeasement: "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

We are re-posting this item for three reasons: 1. We can't stand Soros, 2. We added this cute photo from Moonbattery, 3. We have this new youTube video link about Soros calling Bush a Nazi. ...complaining about suppression of speech -  on national TV! What a jerk.

May I apply the old expression "If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart"? Well, I think he is smart, but not wise.

Who is this hero of capitalism?

George Soros, born Gyorgy Schwartz in Hungary in 1930, fled the Nazis in youth with his family, and ended up educated at the London School of Economics.

Since his arrival, almost penniless, in the US in 1956, he has become a legend of the hedge fund business. His specialty has been laying siege to currencies. His conviction for insider trading, and other financial wrong-doings, never garnered much negative attention and, indeed, it was peanuts - just the cost of doing aggressive business. His Quantum Fund is, predictably, registered in Curacao, an off-shore tax haven.

Soros' extracurricular activities over recent years have been rightly attracting much attention, as he has become more outspoken in his political views, which tend to be anti-American, pro-world-government, and quasi-socialistic. His preoccupation with drug-legalization is well-known, but his efforts to spread abortion among traditional catholic nations is not.

Besides being outspoken, Soros puts his vast amounts of money where his mouth is. Changing the world into his vision seems to be his life mission. His grandiosity, and his lack of respect for American traditions and principles, seem to be his flaws. There is no question that the man who broke the Bank of England understands markets, but that doesn't make him wise about other subjects.

While his efforts to bend the Democratic Party leftwards over the past few years, through his Move On organization, have been most visible, Soros' money has been active through many other organizations which would not exist without it. Many say that Soros has bought the Democratic Party, and now he wants to buy America. Many are not aware of his role in Amnesty International, in getting support for McCain-Feingold, or of his formation of the Center for American Progress and America Coming Together. And that's just the beginning. What's his role in funding Air America?

As a celebrity investor with billions to spend, he can always get a podium, and he can always find a way to support political goals while by-passing McCain-Feingold via the advocacy organizations he supports. Does he always get a pass from the press? Of course. He is one of the "good rich guys," as opposed to the "evil greedy Republican rich guys."  They are in awe of him.

Kincaid called him "the biggest political fat cat of all time."

Horowitz and Poe, in a new book, view Soros as the banker of The Shadow Party.

Atlas is always on Soros' case, unlike the MSM who leave him alone.

Here's a good summary of his NGO activities abroad.

But it's time to make "Soros-supported" a dirty phrase. Someone needs to do an in-depth study, and get the word out, more loudly. I do not have the time, but Discover the Networks doesn't do the job on Soros.

We don't mind his being wealthy, nor do we mind his having opinions. We just want people to know what he wants, and what he is doing, and paying for, behind the scenes.

Image of Soros as Dr. Evil stolen from Moonbattery

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It is difficult not to dwell on the meaning of 9-11 this week. As a guy who works in NYC (but was in Maine on that date), it hit very close to home. Here are some of my current thoughts, in corporate, bullet-point form:

1. Islam is a dangerous religion to non-Moslems.  Unlike Christianity, which is commanded to spread the good news via example and preaching, Islam is commanded to spread their word via submission or death. Westernized Moslems reject that notion, but many no more wish to be Westernized than I wish to be, or my nation to be, Moslemized. "Tolerance of differences" is not in their lexicon.

2. America is only one of many targets of world-wide jihad. When we try to understand it in terms of America and the West, we miss the point. That view is too self-centered. They have many other targets, all around the Moslem perimeter.

3. Traditional Islamic culture is not compatible with Western, democratic, Judeo-Christian culture. Oil and water. Either one, or the other, must compromise its culture to live in the same place.

4. The world bears the US little good will. Not because of what we do, but because of what we are. There is envy, condescension, schadenfreude, and some fear. But they are wrong about us. We are decent, and we will leave you alone if you leave us alone. We can't help it if we're lucky, ambitious, free-thinking, and hard-working, and we need not apologize for that. 

5. The Moslem migrational invasion of Europe is a catastrophe for Europe, politically, demographically, and culturally. It seems that when they enter a nation in large enough numbers, they demand that their generous host adjust to them, rather than vice versa. There is no visible gratitude - only demands and threats. So why do they leave home? Why?

6. Traditional Islam feels threatened by Western ideas, ideals, behavior, and freedoms.  The less isolated and insulated they are, the more they realize that they are a cultural island, stuck in an ancient past. The world is shrinking, and the more they encounter of the West, the more they freak out, and want to strike out. No doubt they love their traditions and their ways as much as we love ours. Fine, if you don't mind living in the 13th century. But you may not impose them on us.

7. The Bush administration over-estimates the dangerousness of Jihad. However, he, or any President, must do that, politically, because the next 200 or 3000 or 100,000 Americans who are killed by Jihadists will be the responsibility of whoever is in charge. Protection is the first job of the federal government, and bringing the fight to our attackers is not a bad plan.

8. The Left wishes to minimize the danger. Not all of us Dems, but some Dems, and the Lefty fringe. Why? Because they do not love their country and its traditions. Simple.

9. The anti-war folks are not anti-war. They do not mind others waging war, only the US. They are therefore simply part of #8, above: so secure in their comforts and safety that they refuse to take danger seriously - or maybe even welcome some, to mess things up.

10. Of course the Jihadists hate the Western liberation of Iraq from a barbaric tyranny. Political freedom poses a serious threat, and the collapse of Saddam was a humiliating blow. Political freedom in the heart of the middle-east is probably something even the Saudis find discouraging. It is alien, and threatening to the old ways. Another intrusion of "modern" ideas, just like all of the satellite dishes in Iran that Ahmadinejad has been destroying. I suspect that the people of such nations as Iraq and Iran are far ahead of their "leaders."

11. Israel is a scapegoat. Islamist politicians and mullahs get some mileage out of being anti-semitic, but the problem is that tiny Israel with its tiny population is an affront to them - economically, religiously, and politically. However, if you gave Israel to the Palestinians today, in six months it would be a dump like they made of Gaza.

Jeff says it more succinctly and precisely than I can:

The boutique multiculturalism that the West has dabbled in with such self-satisfaction, then, is dangerous insofar as it appears to promote the principles of a multicultural worldview that, when push comes to shove, it cannot—and should not—actually support.  That is to say, by promoting the idea that individual cultures are the province of those who belong to them, rendering outside judgments about the beliefs and practices in those cultures at best presumptuous and at worst colonialistic (after all, in a world where “truth” is contingent upon the consensus of given interpretive communities, there are no immutable laws beyond those made by fallible man), Western culture has set the stage for its own inevitable hypocrisy when it is forced to draw the line at a point where Otherness is truly, rather than superficially, defined.

Honor killings are one such point. Female circumcisions are another.  And both, in my estimation, show up the folly of building a social organization around a principle that must, at some point, be arbitrarily subverted by those who have claimed all along to promote it—else the host culture be forced to surrender to the cultures it has claimed selflessly to accomodate.  At which point boutique multiculturalism is replaced by strong multiculturalism, which is the only multiculturalism that carries any real force to begin with.

And strong multiculturalism is, in certain respects, very much akin to the will to power I’ve talked about in terms of interpretive communities and identity politics:  for instance, once sharia law is “accepted,” that ascendency would snuff out the rights of those who don’t wish to practice it and would then set itself up as the dominant social narrative.  Which is why the Pandora’s Box of strong multiculturalism should never be opened—and why people like myself are wary whenever we see boutique multiculturalists playing around with the latch.

The Anchoress sums up all of our thoughts about the press, with an admirably restrained indignation.

One quote:

The incurious press never did want to know about John Kerry’s military records…they never did actually want to hear what the Swiftboat Vets had to say…hell, they weren’t even curious enough about Plamegate to ask Joe Wilson a question beyond “so, how is the Bush Neocon Cabal out to get you?” They never were curious enough to ask Valerie Plame nuthin’ at all. They weren’t curious about Sandy Berger’s pants, or Air America ’s use of public monies, either. They are not interested in the 45,000 boxes of documents which came out of Iraq and which are unearthing so much interesting stuff. They were not especially interested in Juanita Brodderick (imagine how interested they’d have been in her, however, had she shown up on Bush’s watch!). They’re not interested in why Bill Clinton was asked to leave Oxford University as a young man (but Bush’s TANG dentist - he got asked questions!) They have no curiousity about why Hillary Clinton - whose pet issues include education - was not taking part of the Eductation Consortium which took place in the rotunda of the Capital, on 9/11. Actually the press never seems able to ask Hillary a question that moves beyond, “how’d you get to be so great?”

Truth be told, the press is staggeringly incurious about most things, and what it is interested in - which in the past few years means “screwing Bush,” sorry, but it’s true - it obsesses on.

I cannot add anything to this piece. Read the whole thing.