Tuesday, May 11. 2010
 No time to think or write, but I want to clean my tabs up, and get these links out to our corner of the universe:
Is John Le Carre a great novelist? Norm
Kagan is wishy-washy on free speech. What the heck does "balanced with the good of society" mean? Only an arrogant, latent-totalitarian elitist jerk would ever say anything like that, in my humble opinion. Americans don't talk like that: we want everybody to say whatever they want, and let us separate the wheat from the chaff.
AVI: What is love?
Welfare system could cause Israel to collapse, economist warns. Related, Dave Swindle on My Candy Jar. Related, EU Pres says Euro-socialism on verge of collapse.
In praise of shale gas: Carpe Diem
The Union of Concerned Scientists tackles gardening to save the planet. Good grief. What a bunch of sanctimonious putzes those folks are. They have been like that for years. "Ban the Bomb" and "Better Red than Dead" and the whole Global Cooling scare of the 1970s. A bunch of Viagra-deficient kooks and cranks.
Speaking of santimonious cranks, White House: Stop Marketing Unhealthy Foods to Kids. Hey, Washington: Shut the heck up and leave us alone. You can eat what you want, and we will eat what we like: Philly Cheese Steaks, and barbecued short ribs with corn bread, and stuff like that. Bread Pudding for dessert, with a Port or a single malt on the side. Then a cigar.
At Columbia, light on science, heavy on ideology: Sustainability---More Cash and a Softer Side. It's all about Sustain My Grants.
Steyn via Vanderleun:
"We are building a world in which the wealthiest nations on the planet, from Norway to New Zealand, are all but defenseless, while bankrupt dysfunctional squats go nuclear. Even with inevitable and generous submissions to nuclear blackmail, how long do you think that arrangement will last?"
An electoral "reform" deal in the UK?
...Brown's statement appeared to give Clegg's party a viable alternative, and real temptation: join a possibly short-lived alliance, remove the unpopular Brown, and pass electoral reform that could transform their fortunes and even banish the Conservatives to the political wilderness for many years.
Sounds like ACORN. Update: Never mind. Cameron's in, for what it's worth.
NYT: Florida Suit Poses a Challenge to Health Care Law
“Every decision you can make as a human being has an economic footprint — whether to procreate, whether to marry,” he said. “To say that is enough for your behavior to be regulated transforms the Commerce Clause into an infinitely capacious font of power, whose exercise is only restricted by the Bill of Rights.”
I know nothing, but my impression has been that the intent of the commerce clause was to eliminate and prevent obstacles to inter-state trade, not to create obstacles and controls of commerce - much less our daily lives or our deaths.
Your Supreme Court, via The Diversity Scam and the Supreme Court :
Kinda makes ya wonder how Ginsberg snuck on there with her sketchy educational resume. My Diversity Meter detects some problems here: Where are the folks from George Mason and Hillsdale, and the folks who say "y'all," and the folks from Montana? It's not as if you have to go to Harvard or to be from New York City to be able to understand the Constitution. It was deliberately written in plain, simple English - instead of legalese - so every citizen of every state could understand what they might decide to sign up for. It's short, and it's not rocket science. The Federalist Papers, however, are more interesting.
 The Pill turns fifty: are we having fun yet?
Obamacare discourages employers from hiring the young, and part-timers.
64% Still Rate Being A Mother As A Woman’s Most Important Role
Government ‘Cancer Scare’ Report So Bogus Even the New York Times Notices
Somin at Volokh: A Creative Proposal for Reducing Prison Rape
Am Thinker:
If it sometimes seems that the nation is governed by an elite liberal clique of college fraternity and sorority pals who are out of touch with average Americans, that's because it's largely true. Every president, and almost every presidential candidate for the last two decades, has been a graduate of Harvard or Yale. If the Senate confirms Kagan, every member of the Supreme Court will have been a Yale or Harvard attendee, too.
What the Democrats Know: Universal Voter Registration
Goldman is making money
WSJ: Islam's Nowhere Men - Millions like Faisal Shahzad are unsettled by a modern world they can neither master nor reject.
Jammie: Those Racist Republicans In Georgia
The death spiral of the Welfare STate
Moonbattery: The Unemployment Hammock
Monday, May 10. 2010
Jay Cost on how the people will speak truth to power in November. A quote:
The entire political class needs to understand that the coming events transcend ideology and partisanship. The electoral wave of 2010 will have been preceded by the waves of 2006 and 2008. That will make three electoral waves in a row, affecting both parties and conservative and liberal politicians alike. The American people are sending the establishment a message: we're angry at the way you are running our government; fix it or you'll be next to go.
 Good video of the Nashville flood. Related: Nashville flood: The South's self-help disaster
Casino Jack: Documentary goes after Abramoff -- and capitalism
The real cost of Cape Wind
Jules: Living green in California
Driscoll: Life imitates Orwell in academia
Taranto: Everything causes cancer
Venezuela economy update
Coyote: Let’s Make Sure the Internet Remains Just as Innovative as General Motors
Insty:
ARE CARBS WORSE FOR US THAN FAT? If so, can we sue the nannies who have been trying to force us to eat less fat? If nannyists and “public health” crusaders were held to the same standards as, say, drug companies, they’d all be in jail now.
Am Thinker: The Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism
Also at Am Thinker: Feds to solve problem of children not fishing and hunting enough
Carney: Just because companies are profiting from it doesn’t make it a ‘free-market’ policy
Via Marginal Rev:
Economic enlightenment is not correlated with going to college, at least among the 4835 Americans who completed a Zogby International online survey. Economic enlightenment is highest among those self-identifying “conservative” and “libertarian,” and descends through “moderate,” “liberal,” and “progressive.” Other variables include party affiliation, religious participation, union membership, NASCAR fandom, and Wal-Mart patronage. Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and Daniel Klein report.
Congressman Says Climate Science Should Be Simplified to ‘Sixth Grade Level’ Because Americans ‘Don’t Get’ It
Saturday, May 8. 2010
Birds and bees avoid organic farms
Shocker: Major corporations may dump health insurance, pay penalties instead. Of course. All is going according to plan. Everyone will be funneled into the government plan.
Costs of use of all-electric vehicles vs. gasoline
What do Progressives really know about Economics?
Steyn: The smart guys in limos vs the bigots
Vermont:
Douglas told a news conference today that Vermont's student population declined by about 1,600 last year, while schools around the state added 218 new staff.
Reformer
Fiscal discipline, Vermont-style.
Three reactions in the Arab press to the Times Square bombing attempt
The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence
Climategate: Sensenbrenner Report Challenges EPA Greenhouse Finding (PJM Exclusive)
5 Taliban shot at a mile, in 28 seconds
A snarky pol and bustickettoboston
Workshops Needed to Enhance Gender Equity and Overcome Bias in Higher Education Against Men?
Mead: It’s A Crisis of Faith Not A Crisis of Stocks
Experts: Global Warming Alarm Based on Faulty Forecasting Procedures
With the Dem tax plan:
...the U.S. would have close to the most punitive taxes on small business income anywhere on the globe.
Energy's New 'Great Game': Countries around the globe are racing to lock down energy supplies to ensure economic security. The geopolitical implications are huge
Grim update on female circumcision/clitorectomy in America. Well, if Jewish boys have it done, why not Moslem girls?
Big tits tips for bigger boobs. It's not fair, and I think the government should do something about it. If we really care about equality, that is. My opinion? Vive la difference.
Friday, May 7. 2010
David Brooks on how the US Army has changed over the past five years, with a link to an influential paper, Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, British Army.
Not kidding. This gal is an Associate Prof at the University of Illinois.
Marriage proposals and social status
Franklin Graham gets a bit political
Wilkinson on Paternalism: Look Who’s Crying for Big Government!
Perfect timing: Comedy Central developing Jesus Christ cartoon. I really could not care less. Bad taste is part of pop culture, but it no longer serves to epater le bourgeois. It just seems stupid and adolescent.
Playing games with student testing
The euro Ponzi scheme. They all lend to each other, and they are all in debt to each other.
I thought having a black President changed everything. School outing proves divisive - Trip for black kids to boost test scores riles peers, parents
Why not give Puerto Rico independence? Isn't the US being imperialistic with PR? Why not force it on them? h/t, Riehl
What's the matter with Kansas? They are all Dems
Do you want more ethanol in your gas? You're gonna get it anyway.
Do you know what Cinco de Mayo celebrates?
Venezuela has no coffee
The O has been hiding from the press since July 09
Thursday, May 6. 2010
Congressman Joseph Cao, elected to replace "Ice Box" Jefferson in Louisiana, faces an uphill battle to keep the seat. Cao is unafraid of speaking up for what he believes.
Recently, the Vietnamese government asked him to arrange meeting with the US Vietnamese community for Hanoi to present its case. As Cao replies, Hanoi has no case.
In his reply letter, Congressman Cao says the premise for the request is misguided. The Vietnamese left their homeland because they rejected tyranny. Until the government of Vietnam demonstrates real changes, respecting human rights and freedom, it will not be taken seriously by the Vietnamese-American community: release political prisoners, stop oppressing democracy activists and religious freedom, respect the rule of law.
That's just a quick summary. Read Cao's entire letter for much more. It is eloquent, heartfelt, and quite an education for those not familiar with the conditions in Vietnam.
Continue reading "Congressman Cao Shoots Down Vietnamese Government"
Shahzad's life story. Maybe human nature is a little more complex than Marxist doctrine.
The MSM views Shazad's motive as a "mystery" (h/t, Am Digest).
The answer seems self-evident to me: His Pathfinder was a piece of crap, and he wanted to let the world know. And where else but Times Square?
 I surely do not blame Obama for Islamic terrorism and jihad, but I also suspect that he and his admin imagine that love and appeasement are effective strategies for dealing with hateful killers. Shiver agrees.
Yes, Shahzad was Taliban-trained
Jammie:
The Democrats and their lapdog media love having it both ways. In the span of 24 hours they went from hinting it was evil right-wingers that left the bomb in Times Square to warning about the right being racist toward Muslims.
I wish they'd get their narrative straight.
Why such special solicitude towards Moslems? As compared, say, to Christians or Jews?
Medved: No Political Future for an All-White G.O.P
Similarly, from Hawkins: What the GOP has done for decades to reach minorities has not worked, and will never work.
Conservatives say they want constitutionally limited government - not no government.
A commercial website: How to Profit from Global Warming. Or you can just ask Al Gore.
Related: Is there global cooling?
Graduating from Yale is like leaving Paradise? Well, graduating from any college (or high school) is like leaving the womb - unless you are somebody who is eager to take on the world and to test yourself against tough reality.
Volvo town bans plastic water bottles. Talk about meaningless gestures. If they really cared, they would ban all use of plastics, heating oil and auto fuel.
Statistically, do Liberal men tend to be girly men? Perhaps in San Francisco and in academia, but, in general, I am not convinced.
Blaming Wall St for selling "sh-t" reveals a deep misunderstanding of what Wall St. does. I even hear Conservatives bitching about the "crooks." One quote:
There is no such thing as a financial package or instrument that is inherently "good" or "bad," "better" or "worse" than any other. These packages simply offer different profiles of risk and return. They can be "better" or "worse" only for a particular client, based on what the rest of the client's portfolio looks like and thus what kind of additional exposure to risk and return is optimal for that portfolio. The exact same financial instrument could be a very good investment for one party and a very bad investment for another. It all depends on the desired risk exposure.
At NRO:
A Post poll shows that 61 percent of opponents of the tea-party movement believe “racism has a lot to do with the movement.”
Now, where in the world could that perception have come from?
Wednesday, May 5. 2010
Some of those opposed to Arizona’s new illegal immigrant enforcement law, which by the way is consistent with federal law that those not citizens must carry proof of legal entry, want the MLB All-Star Game to be moved from Phoenix.
Commissioner of major league baseball, Bud Selig, is in a difficult position. As is Arizona’s population, about 30% of MLB players are Hispanic.
If any player wants to express an opinion, that’s their right. If Selig wants to express an opinion, however, that is his right but not his job.
Any player from another country who wants to play in another country should try that, but otherwise is bound to play where they are told. Bud Selig, as well, should find another job if he is not up to avoiding the politicization of baseball.
Even this sports analyst, opposed to Arizona’s law, says:
Selig’s job, as the commissioner of baseball, is to help protect his players. When a player signs with an organization, he has a legitimate reason to be in this country. That doesn’t take away the reality that he may be forced to carry proof in his pocket.
I’m afraid Selig’s only potential response to that is, “Sorry, fellas, it’s the world we live in.”
And, this is the United States of America, with legitimate borders and laws. If Selig wants to open the gates at all baseball games to unrestricted free entry, that would do more for the sport.
Bud Selig’s phone number is (212) 931-7800.
From his piece at RCP:
Currently, the U.S. has the highest legal immigration in the world. Every year, we allow 750,000 immigrants to enter the country legally and make them eligible for citizenship within five years. Two hundred and fifty thousand aslyees are also permitted to enter annually. Those legal immigrants have the right to work and earn a living; the asylees are eligible to work six months after applying to work. If we need more immigrants, as many think we do to expand the workforce of our graying population, then we can easily increase the number of legal immigrants.
If we give the current illegals amnesty, you can be sure that 20 or so years from now, there will be a clamor for another amnesty bill as the illegals will continue to pour in.
 I was watching TV clips of the Greek riots. The bottom line rationale of the Greek rescue effort is the transfer of known and predictable near-total losses on Greek debt from the investors, banks and governments holding that debt to the taxpayers of the EU and the taxpayers funding the IMF in order to try to protect the euro until the next crisis.
Kondratiev's predictions are:
1. There is no way Greece will ever repay the $146 billion; either (a) the austerity measures if accepted and complied with will plunge the country into deep recession, or (b) the general strikes that the austerity measures inspire will cause depression.
2. In either case, the Greek government will fall for agreeing to the austerity conditions, and the government that gets elected will repudiate both the austerity measures and the euro. Because the European Central Bank is not the issuer of euro notes and because that function has been left to individual countries, all Greece needs to do to "unpick" from the euro is to declare that each Greek-issued euro note (one with a serial number starting with "Y") is now a drachma note and will be exchanged 1-for-1 by the Bank of Greece.
3. Then Greece will go back to devaluing and inflating and devaluing and inflating just as it used to do.
The euro has been fabulous for European trade, but with a majority of Germans polled saying they opposed the Greek bailout, something will have to give. I hazard a couple of guesses, first that the euro might split into a soft euro for the PIIGS and a hard euro for the other countries, or that the rest of the PIIGS would follow Greece and return to local currencies.
Bottom line: if you are holding any "Y" euro notes, deposit them in your bank as soon as you can for their full face value.
 High water in Nashville
More Tea Bagger Presbyterian violence
"Say it with roses, say it with mink, but never never say it in ink." Be careful about what you put in emails.
Office jerks: How Dad's Yelling Can Spawn an Office Tyrant
"A standup comedian who was sued for making mother-in-law jokes has had the last laugh after a federal judge threw the case out of court."
Gov Christie fires a NJ Judge. Good quote from him:
"Many of these decisions have been results in search of a rationale."
In other New Jersey news: A brave new documentary reveals the corruption, waste, and stupidity of education spending in New Jersey.
Pisciotta: Top 10 Reasons to Rely on Private Sector Markets
Legal Ins: NY Will Actively Subvert Immigration Laws
Mankiw: Much to Love, and Hate, in a VAT
Lowry: The Greek Unions -- And Ours
Leaving Arizona
Kudlow: Keynesian Spending has Zilch Effect on Recovery
Protein: “The Left loses its way by abandoning ‘third way’”
Criminality and illegal immigration: NYM has the other side of the story
Where are the pretty pink unicorns? Peters: We can't appease Islamists
Mead:
Ten years ago, the European Union with great fanfare unveiled the “Lisbon Agenda”, a ten-year action plan to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”.
It flopped. Europe is less of a factor today than it was ten years ago in the high-tech world. Even before the crash the EU lagged behind China, India and the United States when it came to economic growth. It is emerging from the recession more slowly than the others and there are no signs that Europe has overcome the problems that have slowed its growth. As for ‘greater social cohesion’, look at the trade union riots in Greece. Look at the tensions with immigrants; look at the rise of extreme right-wing parties.
Tuesday, May 4. 2010
The June issue of Chief Executive magazine confirms that while my residence in California has wonderful climate and well-educated people, otherwise I live in a state ranked by 651 chief executives across the country as the worst state to do business.
How is it that the nation’s most populous state at 37 million, one that is the world’s eighth-largest economy and the country’s richest and most diverse agricultural producer, a state that had the fastest growth rate in the 1950s and 1960s during the tenures of Democratic Governor Pat Brown and Republican Governors Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan, should become the Venezuela of North America?
Californians pay among the highest income and sales taxes in the nation, the former exceeding 10 percent in the top brackets. Unemployment statewide is over 12.2 percent, higher than the national average. State politics seems consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it. Against national trend, union density is climbing from 16.1 percent of workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002. Organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states. In addition, unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. When state employees reach critical mass, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government.
No surprise, the other states at the bottom of the barrel for governments deemed unfriendly to business: New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts. The states whose business friendliness has declined most in the past five years: Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey. The states most friendly toward business: Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Nevada.
With 2010 census reassignment of Congressional seats coming up, there are consequences:
Little wonder then that while Texas gained over 848,000 net new residents in the last 10 years, according to the Census Bureau, California lost 1.5 million. New York State’s net loss exceeded 1.6 million - the highest of any state. High-tax, big- government New Jersey ranked fourth, with a net loss of almost 460,000, enough to drop it from 10th to 11th place in population.
Good.
But not so good for taxpayers in the states unfriendly to business.
The political elites in the states that dismiss out-migration trends overlook the radical demographic adjustment underway. As higher-income earners leave, they are more often replaced by those with lower incomes and lower skills, many needing public assistance. Gone too are the entrepreneurs and risk-takers, off seeking regions where their job creating abilities are rewarded.
Another more daunting reality is in store. The so-called de-leveraging of America hasn’t reached government. U.S. cities and states have issued over $2 trillion in new debt since 2008, with another $1 trillion scheduled this year. The problem is that state revenues in real terms may not reach 2008 levels until late in 2012, according to John Thomasian of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. As he emphasizes in his paper, “The Big Reset: State Government after the Great Recession,” states will have to rethink and redesign government in terms of what is essential and what can be made more efficient if their citizens are to have much of a future.
Investors Business Daily adds:
The Chief Executive magazine report follows last year's alarming "Manufacturing 2.0" study by California's Milken Institute. It showed California suffering a collapse of its manufacturing sector on a magnitude of the one that killed Michigan's economy.
California's long-term job losses are downright ugly. Since 2001, while politicians dither and spend, 634,000 factory jobs have disappeared along with 34% of the industrial base. From 2003 to 2007 alone, according to the Milken report, 79,000 jobs were lost due to excessive regulation and too-high taxes.
But if California's private companies are suffering, its public sector sure isn't. From 2001 to 2009, California lost 235,000 net private-sector jobs, but gained 163,700 government jobs. Those cushy union jobs also pay more than comparable private jobs and provide gold-plated benefits. Now Californians find they actually have to pay for this foolishness.
Those dangerous Tea Party "Patriots" just can't catch a break. A Presbyterian, as usual. They always turn out to be Presbyterians.
 The unofficial bio of Leroy Jethro Gibbs
The ambiguous utopias of Iain M. Banks
Latest Rasmussen: Obamacare: Majority of Americans Are Skeptical
Shrinkwrapped: Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out
Franklin Graham sounds a bit pissed at Obama
Why can't men be more like women?:
It is telling that scientists are so thoroughly steeped in knee-jerk male bashing that they do not even ask whether there might be something positive about having less oxytocin.
Why the Obama-FDR comparison doesn't work
Williamson at NRO:
Americans love Big Government. But it's not a blind love — it all depends on the direction the arrow is pointing on the cashflow chart. Ask George W. Bush , who got himself cruficied for trying to reform Social Security. Ask anybody who has touched Medicare, or even idly thought aloud about doing so. Ask a farmer or anybody marching in the Small Business Administration pork parade.
The problem with big bills, at Commentary:
If the best place to hide a book is in a library, then the best way to hide a favor for a contributor or a quiet little power grab is in a bill 2,000 pages long.
Stelzer: For now, economy is looking up
Greece: tax-dodging as a way of life
Powerline:
If Obama is an enigma today, it's because of the contrast between his remarkably open disdain for his domestic rivals and opponents on the one hand and his obsequious approach to the nation's foreign adversaries on the other. As enigmas go, however, this one is more troubling than puzzling.
Am Thinker on Palin-hatred:
...the fury directed against Palin by leftists is so overwrought, and at times maniacal, precisely because her innate common sense is so powerful and effective when she dares to declare that the emperor of government economic planning has no clothes. Like Mises and Reagan, Palin understands with utter (and to leftists, frightening) clarity that leftist utopias have no practicality or viability, but are, in Mises' words, "illusory fantasies."
Like most people, self-important intellectuals don't like their cherished dreams and aspirations dismissed as fantasies.
Sporting Art via Theo
Monday, May 3. 2010
CA Dem candidate Mickey Kaus: "It's time for Democrats, even liberal Democrats, to start looking at unions and unionism with deep skepticism."
Bailout making things worse, at Reason:
...you have politicians defying the will of the voters to pour more water into a leaky bucket; transnational economic planners destroying a currency in order to save it; markets responding to those actions with predictable horror; and the few recipients of all the largesse too dumb to say "Thank you." This is apparently what EU stability looks like.
 Ridley's Turtles, caught on the big hook of Cape Cod. If their numbers were healthier, a few lost turtles would not matter.
Recommended Revolutionary War Reading List
An example of why Rubio should be a senator.
Prager: Why Left Talks About 'White' Tea Parties
Good, demanding schools: Learning from the successful charter schools
Re Goldman: Berkshire Execs Blame Turmoil On Faulty Regulation. Exactly right.
McArdle:
In answer to Andrew's question--"That auto restructuring last year was a disaster, wasn't it?"--well, yes, it was. The Congressional Budget Office believes that it will ultimately cost the taxpayers $50 billion--as much or more than the rest of TARP put together. For that, we saved less than 400,000 jobs at GM and Chrysler. We could have given each of the autoworkers $100,000 to go start over somewhere else, and still saved money on the deal.
Government spending per household, 1965-present
They took this kid's sandwich
Does "audacity" mean doing things people don't want?
Moonbattery: Item #2: Why You Can't Have an Intelligent Discussion with a Progressive Leftist
Fishing photo via Theo
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