Saturday, August 14. 2010
 Regular News
Well, I promised you some good old-fashioned Maggie's Farm-style California bashing, so let's get right to it.
Californians' income falls for first time since WWII
Ah, the ol' schadenfreude feels pretty good, doesn't it? After we're through here we'll go pull the wings off flies.
Blogger calls popular California resort lake "terrible"
Famed California actor claims "Wherever I go, terrible things happen"
California women now have triple the nation's fat rate
In unrelated news, New York state, in an effort to maintain its plush welfare lifestyle, has decided to sell off its universities and roads.
The dead-wood Las Vegas Review-Journal, in a desperate bid to save itself, has hired a professional hit man to track down bloggers linking to online Review-Journal articles and sue them for copyright infringement.
No, that's not one great big typo.
In applied business news, here's how one enterprising fellow traded up on Craiglist from an old cellphone to a Porche.
Do you remember one of the great victories of the Obama Administration, the FAA limiting the time a plane can stand idle on the tarmac? Well, so much for victories.
Interesting article here on the primal ancestor of the eagle:
In a blink of geologic time an eagle the weight of a squirrel evolved into a giant predator that fed on animals twice as big as humans. It grew so large it approached the physical limits of flight, a new study suggests.
"There is a body mass above which normal flapping flight becomes physically impossible," said Holdaway, "Various studies have suggested that that occurs at a body mass of about 15 kilograms," which is the estimated weight of the Haast's eagle.
The good professor, however, is extremely puzzled how these fine and noble birds could have died out.
Why this happened is a question that continues to perplex Holdaway.
"The Haast's Eagle lived in a world that is now gone and it is very much a challenge to put together as much of the structure and process of that lost community, and to see how and why it unraveled so rapidly when people reached New Zealand," Holdaway said.
Yep, it's certainly a mystery. People arrive on an island to find these great big fat, barely-able-to-fly, ready-for-roasting turkey-sized birds... and they all disappear?
And say, by the way, what did this bad boy feed on, anyway?
The eagle fed largely on the moa, an extinct flightless bird somewhat like an ostrich.
But as the professor clearly states about the Haast's extinction...
"That has deep lessons for us today with much of the natural world under threat from human activities."
In other words, if the Haast eats the moa into extinction, that's good and natural, but if we eat the Haast into extinction, that's bad and unnatural. According to the good professor and his ivory tower ilk, we're a threat wherever we turn; the war of the humans against the natural world.
Well, speaking of threats, I suppose it's time to turn to the top political news stories of the day.
Political News
Vegetable garden to be planted on White House grounds
Friday, August 13. 2010
 It takes all kinds. Man lives as TV dog. Good for him. A world without eccentrics would be a dull as Singapore.
How advertising genius Albert Lasker transformed America
San Francisco proposal would limit toys in kids' meals. Will these cranks ban the toy in Crackerjacks too? Which is worse: Bloomberg or San Francisco?
Photos of opera houses. h/t, Thompson
Understanding your husband's sexual needs
More evidence that 'Recovery Summer' is a cruel hoax
Model corruption - The truth about the GM 'rescue'
The Dem strategy for November is in place. It's dishonest, but it's everyday politics.
Via NYM:
A thought experiment: I am grieved by Saudi policies — for example, Saudi religious discrimination, oppression of women, and persecution of homosexuals. If I were to express these grievances by blowing up a Saudi kindergarten, do you think Imam Feisal would say (1) the Saudi Royal family must share responsibility for the carnage, and (2) whether or not I had committed an act of terrorism is a “very complex question”?
Your daily dose of good wholesome sarcasm: Why Can’t You Selfish Ingrates Feel the First Couple’s Pain?
Says it all: Buchanan's Putting Government First. Quote:
...we have a situation where private sector workers in Middle America are being taxed, their children being driven ever deeper into debt to China, so government employees who have greater job security than they do, and earn more in pay and benefits than they will ever earn, can stay in Fat City.
And folks wonder why so many Americans detest government.
Related: Why people aren't hiring-
 Lucy’s Kin Carved Up a Meaty Meal, Scientists Say. h/t, Dr X. I think they were cannibals. They look like cannibals.
Energy crisis and peak wood
Obama: Slaves on the Government Plantation. All persons of skin tone must return to their barracks immediately.
Weather liars. Flat, outright lies, and fully-deliberate.
I heard last night that an estimated 1 in 8 babies born in America last year were born to illegals.
How Pres. Hoover damaged the economy: raised spending and raised taxes
Home Ownership: American Dream or American Headache? It's natural for people to want to own stuff. Not always sensible, though.
Related: Feds rethink policies that encourage home ownership. I want to see federal policy to encourage boat ownership. Boatie Mac, or something. No money down.
Stimulus Pushers -The latest bailout for public unions and spendthrift states. The irresponsible and the unions get the dough.
Q&O: Is the US bankrupt? Well, we are just pwned by China.
Harry Reid is sane? Harry Reid ad: Sharron Angle 'dangerous,' 'crazy'. She seems just like an ordinary citizen to me.
Public favors Tea Party over top Dems
Juan Williams: White Votes Are Irrelevant
The threat of the 'fake fishermen': How BP may be paying out millions in oil spill compensation to fraudsters. Hey, I go fishing every chance I get.
Wow. A Dem won a Dem primary
Some thoughts about how liberals are made
American Conservatives have "new ideas"? No, they don't. They have 1776 ideas. Liberals have 1912 ideas.
Sports feminists want space on the sports pages. h/t, Insty. Are they talking about newspapers? They should quit bitching and just create some good women's sports websites, and make some money. Or not.
Fla. AG McCollum Pushes New Immigration Law Tougher Than Arizona's. We are looking at the unfolding of a rebellion.
Thursday, August 12. 2010
From Megan's retirement post:
...there is no conceivable system that is going to allow the vast majority of the population to spend a full third of their adult life in retirement, at anything like the same standard of living they had when they were working.
Toon above via Powerline. See new surge of layoffs.
Never a bad idea: a summer visit to the USS Constitution, still commissioned in the US Navy. Old Ironsides (that was southern Live Oak) never lost a fight.
Bill Gates: watch for the disappearance of the physical university. Right now, you can eddicate yourself pretty good with The Teaching Company. We love their courses, but no term papers (bad) and no exams (good).
Legal Ins, to the Left:
Obama has accomplished as much as he could for you. He has put in place laws which will enable him to accomplish through regulation that which he could not accomplish through legislation. Obama is playing the long game, and you are short-sighted.
The savvy Leftists always keep their eye on the long game.
Majority of voters consider Democratic agenda “extreme”
Dalrymple on conservation and aesthetics
More violent rage from the Left: N.H. Dem Airs Palin Death Wish on Facebook. Where's the tolerance and sensitivity to differences?
Prof B: Coerced "caring" is not compassion
McArdle: The End of Retirement as We Know It. People used to expect to work until they keeled over. What's wrong with that?
Wednesday, August 11. 2010
Laura Ingraham speaking to Howard Fineman, via Driscoll's The MSM Sure Grades on a Curve:
How is it though with all these smart people at Newsweek – I went around the block with Evan Thomas about this as well. How did you all think that a guy who basically went from the Harvard Law Review, to some community leafleting, organizing, whatever you want to call it, to a short stint, a few lectures about constitutional law at [the University of] Chicago, very short stopover in the state Senate, and a very short stopover in the U.S. Senate. How does that add up to experience to run the biggest economy and the biggest military in the world? And why wasn’t Newsweek, instead of doing these celebrified covers of Michelle and Barack as historic, and celebrity culture, and all this love-love-love-love-love, why wasn’t – Why weren’t those questions asked before this election took place? Because to me, those were the questions to ask. . It wasn’t about personality. It was about experience and outlook.
and note this bit:
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt gathered the NBC reporters together in early 2009 and scolded them for reporting negatively on Barack Obama. GE owns 80% of NBC Universal.
 Excellent brief reminder of the history of limited government
A fresh look at the Shakers. Today, I think we'd term them a cult. As a furniture cult, they had good taste.
She quits job, emails office with her erase board messages. Fantastic. I have heard of a MILF but not of a HOPA. Now that I know the term, I have to say I have seen lots of HOPAs. (Note: this is a dubious story, but good even if fictional.)
THAT WAS NO TEACHER… Unhinged Leftist Who Confronted Palin Is a Singer in a Drag Queen Band. Seriously. . (Note: this is also probably a half-true story)
Enraged over McNuggets. Speaking of McDonalds, Moonbats Continue Jihad Against Happy Meals
The Increasingly Self-Pitying Obama White House
The elites don't get it: 'We Socialists' vs. 'We the People':
It is insufferable (and will not long be suffered) to be lectured to and imposed upon by a ruling class that loathes our nation's history, values and accomplishments; by those who are not, in fact, our genuine betters. They are neither better educated nor more profoundly morally versed.
In fact, they are our intellectual and moral inferiors -- not superiors.
Let's start building some freaking small nuke plants. As I have mentioned, we have a small home-made reactor in the farm basement. Runs great except when mice get into the rods. When it runs a bit hot, we just spray it with a hose.
Tuesday, August 10. 2010
I read that America's saving rate is rising, and that people are paying off their personal debt - and that retail business is terrible.
Are you buying stuff and spending money, or restraining yourself these days?
Let us know, in the comments.
Good  travel advice image h/t Theo
The world's great structures built with Legos
Rules for blues musicians (h/t, Synth)
Virtual democracy comes to the EU...as an alternative to real citizen participation in their "important work."
How many failed empires has history seen in Europe? Ths thing is just the latest, and I doubt that it will last my lifetime. It is too far from the people, and too condescending towards the people.
Help wanted, but no takers
Gutfield: A gay bar next to mosque for reconciliation and peace purposes. It's all about tolerance of differences!
My take on the mosque? It's obnoxious and incredibly insensitive, to the point of hostile provocation. Where's the sensitivity and respect? There is much more to civil behavior than determining what is legal. "Legal" is about the hard rules. "Civil" is about the soft rules. Except for criminals, most of life is about the soft rules.
Neo: Ezra Klein: cub journalist
The end of responsibilityFrom homeowners to government, the buck stops nowhere
More on the myths of preventive care. Villainous
...all this puts a terrible burden on a sycophantic media with a long tradition of trashing the slightest hint of aristocratic enjoyment on the part of first ladies (e.g., Nancy Reagan’s china). So, just as golf, around winter 2009, ceased to be an aristocratic distraction from the nation’s pressing problems, so too luxury on the Mediterranean must be a sort of federal employee’s deserved state vacation.
Monday, August 9. 2010
Here's Dem pollster Pat Caddell on the mood of the electorate. Holy mackerel, this is powerful:
Sunday, August 8. 2010
Do you like him any better now?
No?
Then you're not a racist.
Driscoll: The ‘Diversity Economy’ and its DC Discontents. One quote:
...you can’t successfully govern when you’re trying to regulate the bejesus out of such a diverse 21st century economy. If you’re not already in a recession, the odds are very high you will be soon. Particularly when you’re also attempting to go Barack to the Future with a 1930s through 1960s-style command and control governing style that attempts a return to corporatism, and has enough hubris to imagine that it’s possible to run a wildly decentralized, demassified economy out of Washington DC.
I agree that our ruling classes are living in the 1930s.
Well, it was another busy week in American politics.
Saturday, August 7. 2010
 From Belmont, civilian casualties in the Pacific (h/t Tiger):
Hiroshima 70,000–80,000
Battle of Manila 100,000
Nanjing 300,000
Comparing the O with Lyndon Johnson. Daily Beast
Why they are calling her Michelle Antoinette
Global Warming, R.I.P
Observing increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures, scientists assumed that the former must have caused the latter. How did the warmers know that it wasn't the other way around, and that higher temperatures caused higher CO2 concentrations? Or how did the warmers know that there wasn't another process, a naturally occurring one, that caused the temperature rise, with increasing CO2 just along for the ride? Answer: They didn't, because they never bothered to look.
Via Reb
Something is going very wrong in Mexico to prompt more than half a million of its citizens to cross the border illegally each year. Impoverished Mexican nationals variously cite poor economic conditions back home, government corruption, a lack of social services, and racism. In other words, it is not just the desirability of America but also the perceived undesirability of Mexico that explains one of largest mass exoduses in modern history.
But why, then, would Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose country's conditions are forcing out its own citizens, criticize the United States, which is receiving so many of them? And why, for that matter, would many of those illegal immigrants identify, if only symbolically, with the country that made them leave, whether by waving its flag or criticizing the attitudes of the Americans who took them in?
Dino:
With 20% of prime age men without jobs, you’d think that the chief executive of the United States and his team would be all over the problem.
The list of things to do is rather obvious...
At Wizbang:
"It's not illegal" isn't a defense, it's a confession."
What Do Judge Walker and Justice Kennedy Have in Common?
A Fine Argument for Gay Marriage, but a Flawed Legal Opinion
Economy Stalls as Obama's Economic 'Dream Team' Hits the Skids
Intolerance of diversity: Attacks on black Conservatives
Governments seem to have forgotten that picking industrial winners nearly always fails
Dean: Individual Mandate Will Be Gone by 2014
Why the same-sex marriage ruling will stand.
Harsanyi:
...isn't it about time we freed marriage from the state?
Friday, August 6. 2010
The big cheerful news of today is 131,000 jobs lost, and slowing economic expansion. Says the WSJ:
"It still feels like a recession," Jay Feldman, economist at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note. He pointed out that private jobs are still down 0.3% compared with 13 months ago, when the economy started to grow again. By contrast, private jobs were up by 3.5% on average in the job market recoveries of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
I visited my dentist this afternoon, and he admitted to me that business was terrible. People are putting everything off.
 I wasn't surprised by that, but he told me something interesting: the dentists are offering Botox, lip plumping, and wrinkle injections now (Juvaderm, collagen, etc). He said they take a several-day course on weekends, take an exam, get a certificate, then have their receptionist ask "Would you like to consider some of our new services?"
"You can get a brand new smile."
He told me they do it for half of what the dermatologists charge around here for the same thing (the latter of which is around $1000 for a basic Botox routine).
Yes, "It still feels like a recession."
The only thing about this lengthy recession ( an ongoing recession for which, at this point, I blame federal government policies and plans) which brings a smile is the significant deflation in the price of good hand-made cigars.
Climategate review: Jaworski from December: Climate Gate – Global Warming The Myth: CO2 The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time. Scathing.
How Chavez does it: Welcome to Censorship in the 21st Century
Morris: THE COMING CATASTROPHE: STATE GOVERNMENTS
Is this hyperbole? Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It
Q&O: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise
It's back: The Return of the $1,000 Down Mortgage
70% of the births at Dallas' Parkland Hospital are to illegals. Parkland makes a profit on that, via Medicaid. We are paying those bills. h/t NRO
Chicago Boyz asks:
Why does the Ruling Class, using Codevilla’s term, have such strong cultural confidence? And what can we do to undermine it?
Prof Bainbridge's post on Conservative style attracted much commentary. From Tom Smith's post:
...take Sarah Palin, who graduated from the University of Idaho, whose alma mater was sung at my father's funeral, so don't neg the U of I around me. She's not as well educated as Michelle Obama. She's not as well educated as a President or Vice President should be. But had she gone to Harvard Law her ideas about the constitution would be a lot less sound than they happen to be. That is what we have come to.
More on that from Insty.
And from AVI
Thursday, August 5. 2010
Without my normal, being long-winded, I say ditto to this on "gay marriage."
(HT: HotAir)
Related at Legal Ins: Deconstructing marriage
You can get almost anything at Costco
Hard Drinkers, Meet Soft Science
Home Alone
Lessons from Ma Bell
Michelle: Mad Maxine’s minority fat-cat bankers
Insty: Is higher ed a waste of money?
Driscoll: Paranoia, Short-Term Thinking, and the Ongoing Media Death Spiral
Sowell: Democrats Bite Democrats: Part II
WSJ: Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11
What was that movie where they handicapped everybody? Universities That Use Kindles vs. the ADA
Missouri's Prop C will be ignored. McCaskill: Message received (that the voters don't get it). Says Brewton:
If the practical effects of this conflict between state and federal law are likely to be limited, more importantly, Missouri’s vote revealed once again that the country is still aghast over President Obama’s health-care presumption. Earlier this week, the Congressional Research Service reported that the new bureaucracy the bill created is so complex and indiscriminate that its size is “currently unknowable.” Capitol Hill’s independent policy arm added that among “the dozens of new governmental organizations or advisory bodies,” it is “impossible to know how much influence they will ultimately have.”
No wonder Missourians rebelled, as with voters in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia last year. There will be more such what-have-they-done ObamaCare moments. Wait until the public discovers the government is now literally determining what qualifies as “health care” in America.
Fighting the union for school innovaton
Am Thinker: The Revolt of the States. It's about time.
GOP aims for House seats in New England
Wednesday, August 4. 2010
Why is this? Why is desiring Constitutional government anti-black and anti-brown people? (toon is h/t Lucianne)
My view is that the assumption that people with more skin pigmentation cannot make a decent life in America without government hand-outs and special favors is insulting, condescending, racist - and simply untrue.
Am I a racist for saying this? America has tons more white folks on the various government doles than folks of color. I'd like to see them all get their act together, regardless of pigmentation. America is the least color-conscious nation on the planet. Nobody here cares about that, anymore (except for the race-mongers who still try to make careers out of it).
Several Republican US Senators are now supporting hearings into whether there should be a Constitutional amendment restricting birthright citizenship, anyone born on US soil is a US citizen.
There’s some electoral opportunism there as well as recognition that most Americans want more restrictions on illegal immigration.
About a fourth to a third of illegal immigrants in the US are parents of children born here. In some localities, the majority of births are to illegal immigrants, many of them coming into the US specifically for that purpose. Although by laws these parents are denied most governmental benefits, they are permitted to stay to care for their children, and many do work illegally. The children may petition for legal entry of other family members.
There is no legal doubt that the US has the complete right to govern entry and citizenship. There is doubt as to whether the post-Civil War 14th Amendment, aimed at the citizenship of former slaves, intended to allow the birthright citizenship that we see today. Advocates of restriction cite the statement of a co-sponsor of the 14th. However, the language of the 14th has been interpreted in various ways by scholars and politicians over the next years and century-and-a-half. There are some peripheral court cases but the US Supreme Court has not specifically weighed in.
At this point, it seems that only a well-drafted Constitutional amendment would be able to restrict birthright citizenship. Surely there would be majority consensus to do so, requiring at least one parent to already be a citizen.
However, there are implications that must be considered. Should such children already here be allowed to retain citizenship? I’d guess yes. Should their parents be allowed to stay? I’d guess yes, with a path to citizenship. Should the children of legal entrants who have not yet become citizens be automatically granted citizenship? I’d guess not, at least until the parents have qualified and the children too. Some may consider that rewarding past behavior, and it is, but in a grand bargain and out of compassion, I’d guess there’d be the overwhelming support required for a Constitutional amendment.
I’d suggest the language can be as simple as “Only a child born of at least one US citizen will be a US citizen. All others are subject to US laws of entry, residence and citizenship.”
Yes, there will be resistance from those who want virtually open borders and those who benefit from hiring illegals, and from politicians whose constituency is such, but they are a minority and have little or no legal basis. There are valid emotional appeals to our past and to compassionate values but they, if not a purposeful distraction, are a recipe for enlarging the problems. Our past did not have the current practical burdens upon citizens or entrants.
As strong border controls are essential to reducing illegal entry, so are removing incentives to illegal entry or staying. Uneducated illegal entrants are the main problem in net costs to our economy and government budgets. The US has need of some, and some are or will become or their offspring become net contributors. But, not as many as once or now or in the future. A Constitutional amendment to restrict birthright citizenship directly deals with a substantial part of the problem in a reasonable, cost-effective and widely-supported way.
UPDATE: According to the respected PEW Research Center's Hispanic Center, there are over 4-million children in the US of illegal immigrants, and they make up 8% of the US birthrate.
 Everything about dating blunders. h/t, Linkiest
More on The Higher Education Bubble
Related: Colleges Serve the People Who Work There, Not the Students
Update on Open Water At The North Pole
Brilliant: Police: Officer Baited In Altercation That Injured Him. Cop goes to black church to discuss public safety, is ambushed. Doubt he will volunteer to help those folks in future.
The folly of banning online gambling. Gambling is legal: see "stock market" and "Las Vegas" and "race tracks" and "football pools" and "Indian casinos."
With Dems in Hot Seat, the Times Undergoes a Sudden, Cynical Softening on Ethics Charges
Lowry: "If you want to find a grown-up in government, don’t look in the Oval Office or the Capitol. Look in the statehouses of New Jersey and Indiana."
Breitbart: I Got My Correction Thanks to the The New York Times — Now Who’s Next?
Princess Robin of Berkeley: My mate is sleeping with the enemy
Voegli:
(The) tactile aspect of liberalism is the one that causes so many conservatives to pound their heads on the table in frustration. I refer to the moist-eyed, quivering-voiced, morally preening affirmation of the tautology that when the government gives people stuff, the people it gives stuff to wind up with more stuff than they had before the government started giving them stuff. After they calm down, conservatives say, “Fine. Stipulated: Benefits are (or at least can be) beneficial. Now, can we please talk about how we’re going to pay for all these programs? And how we’re going to make sure that the Santa Clausification of American government does not transform us from a republic of free and equal citizens into a nursery of wardens and wards?
The 100 worst stimulus projects
Instead of arresting the guy, I'd hire him to work in the ER
Is it greedy to want to make money? Were the 80s the Decade of Envy instead?
Last I heard, envy was a deadly sin. Last I heard, wanting to make an honest living and to be productive was a basic adult responsibility. Greed, also one of the 7 deadlies, is "an insatiable desire for wealth." It's a sin because it makes an idol of wealth, replacing God.
Government cannot run something this big and important and complex: Rethinking Socialized Medicine In Canada
Related: America's first vote on Obamacare
Related: Folks with Medicare are already beginning to feel the changes. Soon, the rest of us: Wave of Health Reform Provisions Coming Next Month.
By forcing insurance to cover things we do not want and do not need, in ways that are not sensible for us, they will drive up prices with the goal of putting all of us on a one-size-fits-all government plan. And what's this about covering your kids until they are 26? That's insane. Why not until they're 40, when real adulthood begins nowadays (if it ever does)?
From Betsy:
When civil-rights groups such as the NAACP and National Urban League come out condemning charter schools, you know that they have decided to fall down on the side of the teachers rather than the students. As Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West of Harvard point out, many charter schools serve minority populations and are increasingly popular among minorities. These organizations are ignoring the needs of the families who are crying out to get their children in the charter schools and out of the regular public schools.
The Other McCain:
“Everyone must come to grips with and make sense of their own failures. Excuse-making, blame-shifting, scapegoating — ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ — prevents us from learning the lessons of our failures. . . . Persistently attempting to externalize blame for our own failures is a recipe for moral disaster.”
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