Maggie's Farm

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)

We recently noted here that, if you gave 5 people each $100,000 to do something with, after 5 years one guy would be broke, one guy would have a million bucks, and the others somewhere in between.

It's like Jesus' parable of the talents (which of course had nothing to do with money, but with the use of gifts of the spirit.)

Readers know that I don't give a darn what other people make. I care about what I make, how I make it, and what I do with it.

Just One Minute looks at Robert Reich on income inequality. One commenter says:

The uproar about income inequality continues to baffle me. Why does relative socioeconomic status matter more than absolute socioeconomic status? If the US has the richest poor people in the world, why is the distance between them and the people at the top such a big deal?

FWIW, Gregg Easterbrook, a liberal, argued in The Progress Paradox that if you factor out immigration, the rise in income inequality disappears. He got severely criticized by the left for this analysis IIRC.

Also I don't trust government definitions of "poor." My friends whose two kids qualify for S-CHIP have a 4 (smallish) bedroom house in an expensive part of town, a car, two cell phones, high-speed internet, a nice desktop & two nice laptops, buy mostly organic groceries, spend disposable income on ebay, gardening hobbies, etc. etc. They live on one-and-a-half salaries (he works full-time, she works part-time out of the house). But they're considered to be in need of government services, apparently. So if they're counted in the numbers of "needy" Texans, no wonder the numbers are skewed.

Need one of these steps? On sale now.

To me, Global Warming was the Swine Flu of the Decade. Gullible America

"Cash for clunkers" screws the poor. Not just the poor: lots of folks out there who would never spend money on something that depreciates as fast as a new car.

Quoted at Neo's Where's the Outrage?

The fate of Chrysler and its workers pale in comparison to the wrecking ball that would be taken to economic order if bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez approves the administration’s plan to give Chrysler’s secured creditors the shaft. And what prize will we-the-people get in return? A doomed third-rate car company majority owned by its militant union run by Italian management building congressionally designed “green” cars no one wants to buy financed by taxpayers into perpetuity because no private investor in their right mind will touch the company with a ten foot pole. Is this supposed to be economic policy or comic opera?

Related: More allegations of WH threats

Chavez update. Front Page

David Brooks is often out to lunch. Occasionally not. Sort-of related: How Conservatives damaged the Repubs

Feds make it difficult for banks to pay back their TARP cash

The "Green Jobs" joke

Jim Cramer is a bull. Kudlow says recession is over. So does Bernanke. All  provided that the govt doesn't screw it up...

Whenever you are photographed, make sure there isn't a phone pole coming out the top of your head - or worse - in the background (h/t, Samiz):

Powerline asks "Why?" re DC school vouchers. Answer is obvious. Below, from Reason:

The Nazis wanted to bring back wild Aurochs to Europe

As Pete Seeger would sing, "Which side are you on, boys?" Hmmm. NYT vs. the unions.

Colleges discriminate against Asians. Not a PC minority, I guess. As a friend said to me, "People assume that because I'm Chinese I'm smarter than everybody else. But I'm not."

Wise, careful and prudent financial planning - and now broke.

Favorite things at the Smithsonian - like Lewis and Clark's compass. One would hope they brought more than one.

Solipcism and the Apocalypse. Pick your favorite apocalypse. I want it to be a life-erasing storm of juicy red raspberries from the Berry Galaxy. I will die happy.

A President who hates his country?

We always knew it was a joke. Amusing from Roger S re Swine Flu:

SF remains a “Media Flu” fanned by CNN, Drudge, etc. and seems even to have infected otherwise brilliant members of the media with whom I normally agree. [So maybe it's you.-ed. Shut up. I told you I came from a medical family. Read my book. It's on my night table.]

Worth noting is what enhances this media flu: political bile.

What the heck does idealism have to do with working for the government? Claremont: ...and we're here to help you.

Bad news for the US: China decides to back off on buying our debt. I guess that means that they do not want to own us.

Two fat black lesbians?

New charges against ACORN

Not socially appropriate to criticize the O. Since when? In my (small) circles, half the folks think he's a royal jerk and half think he's going to bring us to the Promised Land of money and goodies and no work.

Related: The things you don't read about the O's first 100 days

VDH, via Blue Crab:

...it is adherence to the idea of equality of result rather than an equality of opportunity, the age-old debate that goes back to the Greeks. From Aristotle’s Politics and Plato Laws, we learn of the original dilemma: a stable city-state of roughly similar property owners, who vote as equals, and fight as comrades in the phalanx, tragically, but inevitably, soon becomes tragically unequal.

Divide the land up equally to found the polis; give everyone an similarly-size plot (klêros); and then health, luck, brains, accident, strength, ambition, character, and a myriad of other factors, some understandable, some capricious, conspire to create inequality. I agree with Aristotle; I have seen it with families and communities in which equal inheritances soon led to radically different outcomes, as one sibling on rocky ground thrives, while another in deep loam starves; one town with abundant resources goes broke, while another without natural advantages thrives.

As Aristotle saw, some lose, some expand their original homesteads, and suddenly we have Hoi beltistoi and Hoi polloi-and the rallying cry that someone’s liberty to do as he pleases means that egalitarianism of the lowest common denominator becomes impossible.

So, then, how often is a new deal needed?

"Questions from Oceania." A quote from VDH, re the Dems:

...we are in a race—a race to get the dependent constituents permanently in place and institutionalized before the proverbial (fill in the blanks) hits the fans. If he succeeds, we will end up like a Greece, France, or Belgium— weekly strikes by government workers and unions, rampant cynicism as everyone seeks to land the federal job for base salary and taxes and benefits, and then moonlights to get untaxed cash and barter for necessary goods and services, all coupled with a culture of blame at various foreign and domestic “thems” who make us so unhappy.

Final thought: without the Old US who will be blamed? Who will keep the global sea-lanes open?Who will buy the world’s exports? Who will deal with Milosevic, Saddam, the Taliban, and the other global nuts and psychopaths? Who will attract the world’s more daring and desperate?

So we end with a whimper, after all?

I want to be a toll-collector. Minimal responsibility or hassle. No heavy lifting or heavy thinking or risk, like working for a non-profit. Retire on full salary after 25 years (plus final year overtime factor) and full gummint benefits. Meanwhile, get rich and have fun writing for Maggie's on the side. Maybe a book deal, too: My Sexy Life in a Toll Booth.