Friday, September 25. 2009
Thursday, September 24. 2009
From Vanderleun:
It has become fashionable for governments to treat people -- even adults -- like children: children who consume too much, obey too little and remain too fond their imaginary friends. And their betters take it upon themselves to guard their speech, take away their dangerous toys and curtail their choices because they are prone to make unwise ones. And most of all they see to it that we should expect no better our lives but a little welfare gruel and some end of life counseling. Once upon a time mankind saw it as their birthright to wander the fields, swim in the streams and see what was over the next hill. Today we live penned up in dark houses warded by sour matrons and bloodless didacts who are forever seeking to administer their "teaching moments."
 We have linked to a couple of pieces lately - Rich Lowry on A Masterstroke of Weakness, and Hinderaker on What They Really Think.
I fear that we have an administration that thinks the US should be social workers to the world, instead of good cops. But if we aren't the cop, who will be? Surely not the UN: they have yet to stop a war or a genocide - and it is packed wiith lunatics.
The NY Post today opines on The Naif in Chief, but I do not think it is naive: I think it is a plan. A very bad plan which does not serve our interests.
Lewis at Am Thinker begins:
Yesterday at the United Nations, Barack Obama renounced Pax Americana, signaling an end to the United States' role as global cop.
 It's Beerfest time in Germany. Theo keeps us up to date.
Nuclear energy is the only solution. Or is coal the new clean fuel?
Dem health bills and their kickbacks to AARP. Lots of folks are quitting AARP
Pelosi tries to veer health bills to the Left again
Religious Left targets Conservatives with venom and hate
Our first "post-American" President? (I thought Carter was)
Telegraph: Was this Obama's most naive speech ever?
Start running. The O says the water is rising!
School children taught to sing praise to Obama. Yes, very sick indeed.
ACORN's lawsuit: A thin theory
Insty: "All these Chavez admirers who want to control media are making me nervous."
Related: How can the government tell Humana what to say?
I do not care for ad hominens, but often with the O you do get the feeling that he manages to make himself the main topic when he talks.
Wednesday, September 23. 2009
Quote from Hewett re Obama on Afghanistan, etc:
The idea of rejecting the proposals of the new commander on the ground less than six months after his appointment is bad enough, but to do so because Slow Joe Biden has a bright idea is truly terrible.
The president's domestic agenda is in a shambles and his ratings are plummeting to near record levels for a modern president in his first year in office. His global warming hysteria of yesterday adds to the idea of a rookie being handed unvetted speeches --like the one in Congress with the man who died from denial of treatment, except he didn't-- and rushing off to his next media event.
Thousands of Americans died because of the Taliban's partnership with al Qaeda, a partnership that endures. Hundreds more have died pushing the Taliban-al Qaeda alliance deep into the remote mountains of the region. General McChrystal's report asserts that with the right forces, stability can be achieved, and within an acceptable number of years.
The choice facing President Obama is a defeat and vulnerability to more terror plots and a second mission back when one occurs, or the acceptance of the commanding general's recommendations. This isn't hard. The fact that Joe Biden is on the other side makes it even easier to tell Secretary Gates to proceed with the McChyrstal plan.
Those youth were all about image. Political fashion. The youths do not know reality yet. They only know entitled dependency.
Related re immaturity: do we need the nanny government to save us from ourselves? I happen to believe that the government is far more immature than I am.
 My life is good but I'm worried yours is better. h/t, Tiger
I agree with Kate that you can't make this up: Career Fair needs to include left out liberal arts majors. How many times does it need to be said that a liberal arts education is not job training? American Liberal Arts education was designed to be life-enrichment for the ruling class gentry, and job training for the clergy.
Dems on path to repeat housing disaster
Do we now have the worst foreign policy ever?
Desperate law grads: Law firms just aren't hiring right now.
More legal fun: Prof B on corporations as persons
Roughing up the middle class. Insty
Most recent polls: terrible news for the admin
Axelrod nixes medical insurance across state lines. Cannot give a reason, but we all know why.
The NYT aims low - really low. Am Thinker. A quote:
...so columnist Bob Herbert tells us that a black man in the White House has "so unsettled much of white America that the lid is coming off the racism" that is this nation. This "garbage" is a "scourge" spread by the "hate-mongers on talk radio" and the Internet.
No black can succeed in this racist nation, he says, especially the one in the White House. And the racists themselves are tools of a Republican Party that has historically engaged in "race-baiting" and "hatred" for political gain. Herbert: These people killed John F. Kennedy and they will do the same to Obama.
Who killed JFK again? And is he referring to internet hatemongers like us who had once wanted Colin Powell to run for Pres? The NYT is publishing trash. It is deplorable.
Photo: Tractor time from Theo
Tuesday, September 22. 2009
Art that we masses can comprehend: the above stolen from a Protein Wisdom post on the O admin and the NEA
The earth is cooling off (especially here right now). They say it's just going to be a 20-50 year blip - but they did not predict this. So what good are their computer models at prediction? I would submit that they are not half as good as economic models at prediction - and theirs stink too. Only difference is that economists do not claim that their computer models are accurate at prediction.
At the end of the day, liberals want the government to be generous so they can avoid being generous on a personal level.
The hot dog across America
A re-post: Krauthammer on the preventive care myth
WalMart has good medicine for routine problems
Spot the dishonest slimeball. The WaPo and VA politics
My government just called me an irresponsible teenager. I'm rubber and you're glue...
Tom Sowell: Nobody ever told me that I couldn't be successful.
Michelle on the SEIU
Neoneo is wondering who the O is. A quote:
We may never know much about Obama the Man, but I believe we now know enough about Obama the President, despite his efforts to hide: he is a statist of the far Left, who wants to implement a statist Leftist agenda for America both domestically and in foreign affairs, and he will do everything he can to achieve these goals.
I never try to analyze people I don't know. I just go by their actions.
Even attorneys like this site: Sick of Lawsuits. I view an important part of my job as to avoid lawsuits.
I like to make money, but I do not like to make dirty money.
From G. Kim Blank at the New English Review. Blank compares search engines to Gutenberg. Good or bad? People want it, and that's what matters.
Naturally, the government wants to control it now.
No, it is not. From his analysis of the Dem push for government medicine:
For most of the previous presidency, the Left accused George W. Bush of using 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq. Since January, his successor has used the economic slump as a pretext to “reform” health care. Most voters don’t buy it: They see it as Obama’s “war of choice,” and the more frantically he talks about it as a matter of urgency the weirder it seems. If he’s having difficulty selling it, that’s because it’s not about “health.” As I’ve written before, the appeal of this issue to him and to Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, et al., is that governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture — one in which elections are always fought on the Left’s issues and on the Left’s terms, and in which “conservative” parties no longer talk about small government and individual liberty but find themselves retreating to one last pitiful rationale: that they can run the left-wing state more effectively than the Left can. Listen to your average British Tory or French Gaullist on the campaign trail pledging to “deliver” government services more “efficiently.”
The Dems are desperate to make us dependent slaves on their plantation before their chance disappears.
Monday, September 21. 2009
 Book du jour on right, with thanks to Theo.
Using artists for political purposes. Powerline. Darn greedy artists will do anything for a check. They are all filthy Capitalists.
I did not get enough out of Bertrand Russell's effort. Maybe this one is better, I will give it the old college try.
Send your kids to ACORN High School! They will learn how to exploit the money made by the producers of society! Who they hold in contempt! Perfect for arrogant, supercilious weenies!
Phi Beta Cons:
Derb's piece nicely supports my contention that only a very wealthy country could afford an educational system that costs as much and delivers as little as ours.
Insty on how to gain respect in the UK:
...should Christians start sawing off heads to gain some respect? Perverse incentives . . . .
Quoted at Q&O:
“Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.”
Duh.
Is Federal mandatory medical insurance Constitutional? It depends on the politics.
Glen Beck embarasses me but
But he also very often seems to be right (small r). Beck has been the first and, for quite a while, the only one to be assiduously connecting the dots between Obama, Ayers, the two Joneses and the rest of the post-sixties crew that seems to have never gotten over the Port Huron Statement, with the Chicago School of neo-Boss Tweed politics. These are dots that should have been connected by the mainstream media long ago, but, as we all know, they didn’t want to look at them. New Media hasn’t done a great job of connecting these dots either because, frankly, we don’t yet have the skills or manpower. But Beck is doing it. More power to him.
The obnoxious nanny state in New York.
Sweden is on fire, and the firemen can't help. They are afraid of the Moslem immigrants.
The Libs hate disagreement. They want me to shut up. Barone
Why this flu has taken up as much hysterical bandwidth as the hysterical global warming hysteria is beyond me. I guess media needs exciting "content" - just as we do here.
But this seems ridiculous. It's just a flu, for heaven's sake. It's not airborn AIDS or plague.
For my excitement, a good new Bolognese recipe works very well.
A quote from Mankiw's excellent op-ed in the NYT:
Imagine that someone invented a pill even better than the one I take. Let’s call it the Dorian Gray pill, after the Oscar Wilde character. Every day that you take the Dorian Gray, you will not die, get sick, or even age. Absolutely guaranteed. The catch? A year’s supply costs $150,000.
Anyone who is able to afford this new treatment can live forever. Certainly, Bill Gates can afford it. Most likely, thousands of upper-income Americans would gladly shell out $150,000 a year for immortality.
Most Americans, however, would not be so lucky.
Saturday, September 19. 2009
How did I get stuck with this link job this weekend? Oh well, there's no heavy-lifting, and I spent all day doing garden and yard work.
The O goes for the Full Ginsberg. It has never worked before. It makes you look desperate.
Right-wingers killed the Kennedys? That's news to me. This is nuts. JFK was killed by a Cuba-linked Commie, and RFK by some sort of Moslem fanatic. No, it was not "you and me" despite the doubtless deep wisdom of Mick Jagger.
50 things that are getting killed by the internet
The Dark side of cooperation
Update on the global fisheries. h/t, Jungleman
Unbelievable: Albright to Russians: The US wants to be weaker. What's up with that? Is weakness a way to try to get love?
Insty:
SO IF, AS MICHELLE OBAMA SAYS, women are “crushed” under our health care system, then how come they live longer than men?
A Canadian doc: I quit when they put doctors under state control.
Related: 56% now oppose Obamacare, whatever it is.
Race-bait as we say, not as we do. Jules
ACORN and the Catholic church: A legacy of big hearts and small brains
Did you see Chris Wallace's comment on his treatment by the WH? He is not amused.
Taxing the heck out of the poor and the middle class. And everybody else, too. We are supposed to want to slave for our wise masters in Washington. I am happy to work at any job at all - I can dig a ditch, cut down trees, carry rocks, push a wheelbarrow, or drive a tractor all day - but I do not like to work for those jokers. They are the Maggie's Farm we have trouble with.
Related: Medved on the two attitudes towards America. I think it's correct.
What Socialism will do for you: California's 12.2% unemployment. Why work?
Re Russia, Lowry with A Masterstroke of Weakness. Most nations only respect power, whether you like it or not.
 Footsteps of Angels
When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!
They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only
Such as these have lived and died!
Friday, September 18. 2009
 Travel tips: "Come to Denmark. Our women are easy." (Photo of an easy Danish Pastry from Theo.)
Driscoll:
The far left Common Dreams Website drops the mask and exclaims, “Climate change is not an environmental issue. It’s about resources and global justice, about the future direction of capitalism, about where the next wars will be.”
Is anybody listening to the doctors?
75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can't Name the First President of the U.S.
Kling: Not What They Had in Mind: A History of Policies that Produced the Financial Crisis of 2008
The O:
So I just want everybody to know, Congress will have time to read the bill. They will have time to debate the bill. They will have all of August to review the various legislative proposals. When we come back in September, I will be available to answer any question that members of Congress have. If they want to come over to the White House and go over line by line what’s going on, I will be happy to do that.
But it just ain't true.
How green energy can be an environmental disaster
Jules on the O:
...as long as this opposition = racism story line is allowed to continue unchallenged, it ultimately reflects badly on him. Because it is an insult and a condescension for his prominent supporters to refuse to let him govern as anything but a black man.
Related, from Anchoress:
In her most recent rambling discourse Maureen Dowd writes that President Obama is “at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension.”
Is that true? Have we had 9 months of “racial turbulence” or have we had about six weeks of it, spurred on in great measure by a press/punditry corps has been wondering “is this opposition actually racism?” since the springtime Tea Parties, but really starting panting the question once the August townhall meetings got hot and it became clear that the Democrats were not effectively selling their bill.
Related, from Kimball:
In our culture, the charge of racism is not only a conversation-stopper it is a thought-stopper. We cannot publicly tell the truth about race, so the charge of racism always carries with it not only an element of intimidation, but also an element of exposure. Everyone knows that Al Sharpton, say, is a mountebank, but we must be chary of saying so because of his race.
Stanley Kaplan died. From Minding the Campus:
As a Jew with a degree from a public university (City College), Kaplan felt that he had been discriminated against in his attempt to gain admission to medical school. So he turned standardized tests into a weapon to be used by students who might otherwise have no chance of getting into a quality university. With high scores, he reasoned, they could not be ignored.
In doing so, Kaplan called the test makers' bluff. The College Board, which sponsors the SAT, and Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the test, had long maintained that the test was not coachable. Kaplan exposed this as the blatant and self-serving falsehood that it was.
Thursday, September 17. 2009
 Honduras: For the first time in this country's history, our leaders in government are siding with Marxists Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales against a democratic foreign leader.
W.H. collects Web users' data without notice
More details of Baucus' bill. Who would like this? More grim details at WaPo.
Why Dems are balking at health care reform
From Doug Ross, on What do Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd and Mike Lupica have in common?
ObamaCare -- Unlike previous Democrat efforts to implement socialized medicine, if you oppose Barack Obama's form of National Socialized Democrat health care, you're a Nazi racist bastard. That is, according to:
• Jimmy Carter
• Maureen Dowd
• Mike Lupica
• and numerous other liberal crackpots.
Even though Republicans, Libertarians and those who support the United States Constitution have been fighting socialized medicine for 75 years, your opposition represents: RACISM. You're all f***ing racists, get it?
Screw the Constitution! Screw the Bill of Rights! Screw the Declaration of Independence! You've got a President with a slightly different skin color: you're not allowed to express dissent! You're all racists! So shut the hell up, you wingnuts!
Simpson at Am Thinker:
As I reported last September, and as Glenn Beck and others have reported since then, ACORN was created specifically to execute the Cloward Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis across our country. This series of videos demonstrates in microcosm how ACORN workers promote the strategy.
We linked to Cloward-Piven last year thus: "Here's an excellent explanation of it. Yes, it's Alinsky/Gramsci-type strategy."
From Why are liberals still angry?
See things from their point of view. The most fundamental principle liberals have is that they are all very, very smart, and everyone should listen to them. Nothing angers them more than something that challenges them to reexamine that core tenet. And that’s why they were so delighted by the election of President Obama and further wins in the House and Senate. For a moment they thought the American people had recognized liberals as their superiors and said to them: “Please! Smart people! Lead us and tell us what to do!”
Of course, it is quite obvious right now that that’s not at all what the election was about.
How Waxman-Markey would be a gigantic middle-class tax. As the guy says:
... it is - make no mistake - a tax on the middle class of huge proportions. This is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme and a bureaucracy-building program for the Federal government.
More than that, it will lead to additional costs for everything that uses energy. Food will cost more, the things you buy will cost more, eating out in a restaurant will cost more - everything will cost more. A lot more. So the hit will be amplified. It will cost jobs, steal wealth and ruin us as a great nation.
That is it will cost whatever jobs, wealth and greatness is left after the ObamaCare health care “reform” robs us and our children of the future.
And it will not do one darn thing about dropping carbon in the atmosphere - something its crafters realize full well. It is a lie, top to bottom.
Wednesday, September 16. 2009
Just Google "Chris Dodd and ACORN." I don't have time to write a post right now except to note one link.
You are, of course, quite right, BL: Sen. Dodd was The Man From ACORN, (well, and so was Obama).
Ed. addendum:
John Fund today on why ACORN should get no more federal funds. Scathing review of the issues, including their links with SEIU. I still find it difficult to believe that there are nuts like this around.
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