Maggie's Farm

Invasion of the Lionfish (photo). Sheesh. But they are highly edible.

The Alinsky explanation for the O and the Dem agenda. Dino

The humiliations of the modern Dad. Dr. Helen. Lucky Glenn.

Moslems call for Jihad in NYC. No wonder they have a lousy reputation. Did these jerks ever hear of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington?

Europe's recession much worse than ours has been.

Pelosi. For the good of the Party, the MSM ignores another giant story.

Dems splintering on national security.

Repub cage match: Crist vs. Rubio

An end to the War on Drugs. I say End it. It's a quagmire. All the War on Drugs has done over 30 years is to make them more expensive, requiring more expensive crime.

The Marsh Arabs are back home, and they are taking over. Good to see those marshes restored, too. A major world ecological spot, like the Everglades. I read that Ducks Unlimited consulted or assisted in the restoration.

How the wamingists are dealing with "slight" global cooling.

Nice butt. Looks like a bottom to me, too. Man, that stimulus package worked great.

Bush's gutsiness on Social Security. He had nothing to gain.

Jerks in Santa Monica

There's a plan for Pakistan. Cool.

Travesty. Obama at Notre Dame

More on the NYT-ACORN-Obama story

Washington cannot meet the Cheerios standard. Michelle

VDH: President Palin's first 100 days

AP buys into another staged Pali photo

From 2008: The campus rape myth

From TARP to Command and Control. Kudlow

The odd spiritualism of Arthur Conan Doyle

Liberal fantasyland: Hoven at Am Thinker

Newt on Pelosi. Harsh. CIA bites back.

Related: Reality arrives to the Dems. They are supposed to be running the country. They are supposed to grow up now.

Tortured logic re waterboarding. Waterboarding is just fine with me, but I can swim 1 1/2 laps underwater no problem. Not sure how many Jihadists are strong swimmers, but I do not care.

Saving the planet one private jet at a time.

Gun control as "reproductive justice"? I'm confused.

Do you want to know the cost of free government medical care? Related: Obama's health care fraud.

Tort law update: Bite-mark experts. Good grief.

AVI: Same Sex Marriage 2

Tom Hanks: We fudged the facts in Angels and Demons. Of course they did.

Via Insty:

HALF SIGMA: It’s cheaper to own a car than to use mass transit. Conclusion: “A walkable neighborhood, or an entirely walkable city like Manhattan, is a luxury good for rich people (a luxury good that I personally have been willing to pay for) and not an affordable alternative for regular middle class people, and especially not for regular middle class people with children.”

Five reasons political correctness must die. Moonbattery. We're doing our best to defeat it here at Maggie's.

Secular-Socialist Societies Suck out Your Soul. Indeed they do. Who would want to be a European - except for the cool welfare you get just for hanging out?

I noticed it too. Where's Hillary?

From LGF:

California’s going out of business! Everything must go! Unbelievable deals available on San Quentin State Prison, the L.A. Coliseum, and the Orange County Fairgrounds! Don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity!

Interesting phenomenon that the USA is becoming more pro-life.

Chrysler and the rule of law.

Any excuse will do: Recession drives women to drink and gambling. Why not wild random sex too? I'm game.

In his debt: Maj. Hutchinson

Yuan set to "usurp" US dollar

Cutting off our nose to spite our face. Trade wars in recession. Stupid as can be.

The O is blowing $100 billion. Like it's his money to blow.

On health care fallacies, quoted at Outside the Beltway:

I’m seeing nascent signs of a new (but actually old) fallacy, namely that since health care costs can (will?) crush the budget, we don’t have to worry so much about other expenditures. The mental story runs something like this: “if we don’t cure health care cost inflation, it doesn’t matter; if we do cure health care cost inflation, we can afford it.” That’s exactly the kind of false mental framing that behavioral economics identifies as irrational in other settings.

Photo: The girl next door, via Theo.

Cool submarine above via Theo

Most ridiculous story of the year, thus far: Obama warns about federal spending

Shows her true colors: Pelosi now claims CIA lied to her. She is a pol sleaze just like her dad was. Rove: Pelosi an accomplice to torture. Powerline: Can Pelosi survive?

Edward Steichen and Vogue magazine. A darn good photog.

The cocaine in Spain...

Gun-loving, private-jet emitting Oprah now destroying the rain forest dwellers. Let them eat cake.

More on that crazy Intel case. Maybe businesses are supposed to fail to get any understanding.

Take a few photos and knock the damn thing down.

Your kid is fat. Good grief. What the heck is the matter with being fat (altho that kid isn't)?

Prof B on the O's dismantling of capitalism

Those who do not worry about climate change are equivalent to slave traders. I want climate change, so what does that make me equivalent to? Stalin?

A quote from Mediocracy:

...turning to Hollywood for insights into the nature of reality is surely a sign that an academic discipline has declined. It may indeed be a symbol of capitulation: “we now admit** that we have metamorphosed into such a bunch of nonsense generators that we can offer less insight than a popular movie”.
One more reason to argue that Oxford Forum is the only genuine university in Britain today. We may not be able to do much, starved of support as we are, but one thing is certain: we would not stoop to doing media studies and passing it off as academic philosophy.

 Is there a health care, ie sickness-care, consensus? Doubtful.

Beowulf, and when poetry mattered

Of course it does. Global warming causes swine flu. Yes, the earth has a fever - and it's contagious. 

Admission: We do want to re-program your kids. Related, from 2008: Obama and Ayers pushed radicalism on schools.

Norway's socialist/totalitarian system The peasants like it.

Megan: Medicare is going to bankrupt us...which is why we need universal health care?

Insty:

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama offers security at the expense of liberty. Hey, isn’t that what they said about George W. Bush? Though at least Bush delivered on the security part. Obama, so far, not so much.

Judicial empathy and a recipe for lawlessness. Paul at Powerline

Quoted at Dr. Sanity on denial of evil:

At the heart of the denial that afflicts people like Ignatius is fear. They are afraid to believe that there are people in the world who embrace evil over good and death over life. Like many people in denial, Ignatius finds it far more comforting to believe that everyone is just like him -- basically well intentioned and occasionally misguided. However, Ignatius is wrong -- just as wrong as wrong can be -- and the whole of human history stands as witness to his error.

The Arctic is going to melt - any day now. Well, pretty soon. Related: Dems fully aware of economic havoc global warming legislation would cause. They want the havoc.

Everything about entitlement costs. Fun with charts at Q&O

Health care Trojan Horse. Coyote:

I have warned for years about government health care being a Trojan horse for government micro-management of personal behaviors.  If government is paying the health care bills, then anything individual action or choice that can conceivably be linked to health are open to regulation. 

VDH begins:

Today’s Americans inherited the wealthiest nation in history — but only because earlier generations learned how to feed, fuel, finance and defend themselves in ways unrivaled elsewhere.

Lately we have forgotten that and instead seem to expect others to do for us what we used to do ourselves.

Bill Ayers basking in his new notoriety. It begins:

There he was, Bill Ayers himself, sitting in a Marriott conference room waiting to partake in a session of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The former Weatherman, "unapologetic" (his own word) fugitive from justice, and hot potato of the far left whose acquaintance with Barack Obama in Chicago during the 1990s and unrepentant boasting about Weatherman bombings at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol in the 1970s, prompted the Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists"--and the University of Nebraska to cancel a planned speech by Ayers last October.

No matter: Plenty of other colleges have been happy to have Ayers at their podia in light of his Obama connection and the attention-getting frisson of notoriety that he brings with him wherever he goes. Ayers is now a "distinguished" professor in the education school at the University of Illinois-Chicago and the author of numerous manifestoes and memoirs (his most recent, coauthored with his equally radical wife, Bernardine Dohrn, a law professor at Northwestern University, is Race Course: Against White Supremacy)...

Our p-rn-loving ancestors (h/t, Jungleman). It cracks me up that the anthropologists always talk about "fertility icons" and "fertility rites." Didn't it ever occur to them that our ancestors were enjoying p-orn and sexual fantasies and fun activities as much as we do? How different is it from the Theo Bedtime Totty anthropologically pictured on the right (as part of our Maggie's Fertility Rites Studies Project)?

Cranky when hungry. Beware of armed bulemics.

Moderate President wants to set industry salaries. How about setting lawyers' salaries?

Related: Sleaziest tort case I've ever seen. Import Tort

Related: Auto biz expert O cuts auto biz ad budget. The less a person knows, the more they think they know.

Malawi. I'd love to visit. Also h/t Jungleman

Divorce, Iranian-style

The Luxury City vs. The Middle Class. It begins:

Ellen Moncure and Joe Wong first met in school and then fell in love while living in the same dorm at the College of William and Mary. After graduation, they got married and, in 1999, moved to Washington, D.C., where they worked amid a large community of single and childless people.

Like many in their late 20s, the couple began to seek something other than exciting careers and late-night outings with friends. “D.C. was terrific,” Moncure recalled over lunch near her office in lower Manhattan. It was an extension of college. But after a while, you want to get to a different ‘place.’”

The ‘place’ Ellen and Joe looked for was not just a physical location but something less tangible: a sense of community and a neighborhood to raise their hoped-for children. Although they considered suburban locations, as most families do, ultimately they chose the Ditmas Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, where Joe had grown up.

There is no room in this country for differences of opinion

Via Insty:

MARTIN FELDSTEIN: “The barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.”

Plus, this: “You cannot spread wealth that has not been created in the first place.

How ya gonna fill that $90 billion hole to buy medical insurance for people who won't get it themselves?

Taliban now targeting Pakistan, removing heads like we eat ice cream cones. It's fun for them. A different culture.

Are all "quiet" people creeps? "They kept to themselves." I like quiet people.

We live in an ugly world, and would like a little more beauty. Hear, hear.

Intel: the punishment for success

The most Liberal states are the least free

Shades of Herod. Sweden's new abortion rules. This is very advanced and progressive.

Sipp:

It's the seventies again, baby. You wished it on yourself, but now we're all going to get it, good and hard. Been there, done that, got the straightjacket. Trust me, you're not going to like it.

People are scared to run against Harry Reid

Prof Deneen: How campuses became dysfunctional

Hot news: Pols always lie about the costs.

The empty symbolism of hate crime legislation

Tiger:

...your health, and therefore virtually every choice you make in life regardless of its triviality, becomes a problem that justifies government intervention. For example.

Maybe some good news for the fish. h/t Insty

People don't know what a trillion is

Barney Frank wants to rescue muni bonds. Good grief.

WA offers biz tax cuts for newspapers. Which means the taxpayer subsidizes the paper they do not want to buy but which the gummint wishes to exist. But hey, why not a tax cut for me, too?

Bad all over:

Toon above from SC&A

Is Conservatism over? I doubt it.

How Obama's Socialism works. Dick Morris

The problems with an aggressive anti-trust policy. Mankiw

Oprah loves her jet and her guns. But she hates guns and oil. Go figure. I never watched her, even once. I have a day job.

GM plans to leave Detroit

How is the Porkulus working out? Michelle. Related, at Powerline: How is Obamanomics doing?

Why does the US subsidize the defence of Europe? And Canada? Wilkinson

A tax on soda pop for health care? Brilliant!

Via Lucianne:

Republican strategists have a problem. The scale of what President Barack Obama proposes to do to the American economy is so enormous, so far-reaching and so potentially disastrous that the opposition party is having a hard time describing it.

Did you read Tiger's bit on the coming taxes on all of us? Good piece. A commenter notes:

Did we ever think we would see the day where China has lower taxes than the US? Where China and VietNam are better practitioners of free-market capitalism than the US?  

Related: Healthcare numbers don't add up. Of course they don't. Related: Government is broke but keeps on spending.

Related: Medical insurance and autism

Catlin Arctic Project teaches us that the Arctic is cold and icy

Comments from this morning's links:

Re GOP woman problem: Women are genetically programmed to trade freedom for security. That is why government safety nets appeal to them. Interesting how the beginning of Big Government meshes so closely with giving women the right to vote.

#7 feeblemind on 2009-05-12 09:27 (Reply)

 

It just dawned on me --the country is in the middle of a gigantic divorce proceeding. The Dems are the women, the Pubs are the men. It plays that way in every example you can think of --behavior, property, aggression, defensiveness, and it's a custody case, too --the nation is the only child --

#7.1 buddy larsen on 2009-05-12 11:14 (Reply)

Health-conscious Brits ban library steps. Not satire. What's the point of being healthy if you can't read the book?

Now it's 1.85 trillion

Awaiting the California Rebellion

Bring back ROTC

Something awful is being done to you. Tiger

Letter of Amends from a Recovering Liberal

Chris Dodd's sinking ship. It's about time.

The quietly rusting Dem advantage. h/t, Insty

Obama laughs at notion of Limbaugh's death. Why? Isn't debate healthy for America?

Is it a good idea to go directly to college after high school? Probably not, unless you are a dedicated scholar.

I doubt that it is guaranteed that Obamacare will pass, but nobody tells us the details. Here are some thoughts: How Obamacare will affect your doctor. Tiger wonders whether there will be liability caps. Our Dr. Bliss offered a few modest proposals a couple of weeks ago. Also, a look at Canada's system.

Photo of confused college grad via Right Wing Prof

When statism fails, blame the private sector

The real history of Mother's Day (thanks, reader)

Dolphin Stadium becomes Landshark Stadium. It is impossible not to enjoy Jimmy Buffett.

Repub mean-spiritedness alert

The Producers comes to Berlin. Gotta love it.

Rich Obama supporters realize he is a class warrior

Slobbering over Michelle O. Get a room.

Kudlow discusses gangster government with Tom Lauria

Quoted at Driscoll:

All The President’s Men solidified this idea of journalism that “makes a difference” in the heads of a generation of journalists. It not only encouraged a lot of what is called “Pulitzer bait” — the five-part series — but it generally attracted to the business a lot of liberal do-gooders who thought of themselves as superior to their readers.

Last year, there was a certain news story that caused Ace of Spades to erupt in fury: “Stop telling me what to think!” (I wish I could find that post, because it was good.) Nobody wants to do the straight-ahead Joe Friday “just-the-facts-ma’am” news story, because there is no prestige in that kind of basic reporting.

Paddling is not abuse. It's correction. Fatherly and teacherly paddling probably kept a lot of people out of jail over the years. 

Political tactics: Chris Dodd

All Federalists will find this fact deeply depressing. That means that the Feds own them.

Via Tiger: Countries that use their banking systems this way don't get good results.

Powerline:

Isn't there something in the Constitution that says a Supreme Court justice can't be a pathetic whiner?

Weather updates - 1. Illegal weather. 2. Government as a source of "rational climate and energy policy"? Ya gotta be kidding. 3. From Watts:

Albert Einstein once said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”  Einstein’s words express a foundational principle of science intoned by the logician Karl Popper:  Falsifiability.  In order to verify a hypothesis there must be a test by which it can be proved false.  A thousand observations may appear to verify a hypothesis, but one critical failure could result in its demise.  The history of science is littered with such examples.

A hypothesis that cannot be falsified by empirical observations, is not science. 

Academic fraud in college: Your kids' grades

UK's tax rate to 61%.

The Holier Than Thou effect

The origin of life as ordinary chemistry. American Scientist

Human nature and economics. Dr. Sanity

Shareholder maximization. If a biz doesn't want that, count me out as an investor.

Penn and Teller on the neuropsychology of magic

Are the Repubs really dead in the Northeast?

Music as torture? They are actually serious.

Would it be so (via Phi Beta Cons):

University of San Diego Law School professor Gail Heriot blogs on a recent conference at CUNY entitled "Understanding and Combating Contemporary Shifts to the Right."

So what? 1 in 5 homeowners underwater. Most who bought in the last few years, no doubt. Same as people who bought stocks in the last few years - or who bought cars on time. Or a new chain saw on their Home Depot credit card, for that matter.

The O's mission to bankrupt the coal biz begins. Related: James Hansen terms cap and trade The Temple of Doom.

Miss Saudi Arabia

Extremist right-wing loonies march for school choice in DC

"Rangel, of course, knows a thing or two about offshore tax shelters: He'd been operating one for years."

Are you confused yet about the stress tests?

"Why Are Reporters Pretending They Don't Know Obama Will Raise Taxes on the Middle Class?"

 Obama groupies: "Do these people even listen to themselves?"

Brit tax dollars at work. Also, a voice from Britain:

Given our complete lack of electoral choices, a party formed of retired Gurkhas led by Ms Lumley, standing for compulsory goat curry & promising to sort out our dumded down chav-culture with judicious use of their kukris would certainly get my unsteady tick in the box. Think of it as casting a protest vote – successive administrations have allowed once Great Britain to be overrun by just about every whinging ethnic minority load of bl**dy wogs with an open hand & a grievance you care to mention. However when it comes to those who have done nothing but loyally serve Her Majesty, the Westminster pondlife treat them with nothing but utter distain.

Blacks vs. gays. That's where identity politics will get you

Fascism revisited. It was meant to be the "third way."

From France: Dont turn America into another France (video)