Wednesday, January 6. 2010
"The United States does not have a security system; it has a system for bothering people."
Shlomo Dror, an Israeli air security expert (h/t, Vanderleun)
 Dodd out? That's a problem for the Repubs. Dodd would have been easy to run against. We think Linda McMahon might be the best deep-pocket bet against Blumenthal. She is not a social conservative so she won't frighten the CT voters - and her past co-ownership of the WWF (now WWE) gives her some street cred.
Oh, great. Democrats Considering Health Care-Immigration Deal To Overcome Key Sticking Point. Gotta pander to that illegal immigrant vote.
Didn't Adam Smith cover this already? What makes a nation rich? One economist’s big answer
Your climate scientists at work:
If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct...
Pondering and pondering David Brooks' "educated classes."
The cowboy spirit. Dr. Sanity. What gal would want a guy without some cowboy in him?
9 points. Republican Heir To The Liberal Lion?
Now they are using the redskins to block Cape Wind. What next? Of course, the whole project is a dumb scam anyway, but uncovering the elite hypocrisy is the fun part. They don't want oil, they don't want wind, they don't want nuclear - but they do want their overland SUV permits and their 10,000 square foot houses overlooking Nantucket Sound.
Another org co-opted by the long march through the culture: AALS: A Learned Society or a Bunch of Left-Liberal Busybodies? Gramsci tactics, Prof.
We should have a category for New England sites. This good one is new to us: As Maine Goes.
We posted on Sol Stern and ED Hirsch yesterday. This is about the opposite: Thoughts on the Rotenberg Letter. Isn't the notion of "institutional racism" a bit dated these days?
Tuesday, January 5. 2010
France to introduce new law banning 'psychological violence' in marriages. "French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said electronic tagging would be used on repeat offenders."
Brilliant. Make marital discord illegal (and thus make-up sex too). How come it took government to think up that simple solution?
Cool graphic, showing how it grew and spread across the US.
The wonderful states of Nebraska and Kansas seem immune. That's the Heartland.
 Getting on the Scott Brown bandwagon: Michelle, Riehl, Sissy, Fowler at NRO. It's a long shot in wacky MA. Photo is Brown. He has three weeks to make his case against the Dem machine candidate who is avoiding the press, off on vacation, and assumed to be a shoe-in as a Dem. Easy gig, big staff, dinner out every night, do as you are told.
Barone: GOP Should Push Education and Pro-Family Tax Reform. Douthat also has advice for Repubs.
Yes, they are saying that this frigid winter is due to global warming. As Legal Insurrection rightly asks, What would they say if it were a warm winter? Heads I win, tails you lose.
At Samiz on the C of E:
I have zero tolerance for a state privileged organization who claims to speak from a position of moral superiority advocating force backed restrictions on secular life. The sooner the Church of England is disestablished the better.
Call it what it is: Iran's revolution
MacDonald:
The recession of 2008-09 has undercut one of the most destructive social theories that came out of the 1960s: the idea that the root cause of crime lies in income inequality and social injustice.
Brooks:
The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.
The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.
The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.
A year ago, the Obama supporters were the passionate ones. Now the tea party brigades have all the intensity.
VDH:
...over one-third of all the efforts to repeat 9/11 have occurred in 2009—just as the United States has made unprecedented efforts to renounce the prior war on terror, to demonize a prior President, to use euphemism, to bow and apologize abroad, to turn war into jurisprudence, and to reach out to the Muslim world.
Via Driscoll:
...Tim Blair writes, “New York City banned smoking in bars and nightclubs four years ago, and imposes the highest cigarette taxes in the US. But if you’re a junkie, the city will spend $32,000 teaching you how to shoot up.”
Via Wizbang:
When George W. Bush returned, bloodied and bruised, to his Texas home after eight years in the White House, 43 percent of Americans surveyed by Scott Rasmussen "strongly disapproved" of the job he had done. Today, after less than a year in office, 46 percent express the same intense level of opposition to Obama.
Dems will do health care in secret meetings. Image below from Moonbattery -
Monday, January 4. 2010
 I am back from my skiing and family vacation, and trying to catch up with the past week or so of Maggie's. I'd suggest that you do so too, if you have been away. Good stuff, as always.
Like our link that reminded me that our sexagesimal system (base 60, used for angles and time) derives from the Sumerians.
By the way, if you haven't given up hoping for global warming yet, you would have if you had spent the last couple of weeks in New England.
I believe in open government, but this is nuts: Obama Imperils Intel Briefings
Volokh: Why is it More Wrong to Attack a Person’s Religion than their Secular Moral or Political Views?
Copenhagen success (brr) continues. Related: Once in a generation cold snap forecast for NC. Related: Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years.
Related: Peru's mountain folk face extinction due to cold. We're all gonna die by freezing! We need more free Government Oil!
Not enough rapes to keep the academic Feminazis happy: The radical feminist empire strikes back at Duke. They were obviously heartbroken that the lacrosse players never raped anybody.
Cocky Dem Coakley Goes On Vacation 20 Days Before Senate Election in Massachusetts
This Henninger piece is worth re-linking: A Rodney Dangerfield America? America isn't dead. It's just dead in the water.
Also, more on science is too white. Racists used to say science was too Jewish. Now I think they mean that it is too Asian.
Sunday, January 3. 2010
I hope our News Junkie will be able to get back from the north country tomorrow, because we are tiring of covering the links for him. Will stagger on just one more day.
Vanderleun:  What I learned from Avatar
Getting old and sick? 2010 is the right year to die in. Mankiw thinks we should keep it this way. So do I: Every prosperous family means one less poor family.
Solar Farm Held Up for Two Dozen Tortoises. I'm with the Desert Tortoises. Solar is a subsidized joke. Give me my nuke plants, and leave the ancient reptiles alone.
For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk. Their unemployment rate is at least half what ours has been this fall.
A new carry revolver: The Rhino
A Democrat right wing racist? Nobody can take a joke these days.
What every young man needs to know about fighting and violence. The ladies count on us guys to protect them and to apply force when needed.
What did Palin do as gov of Alaska? Lots of things.
There's no cure for stupid. Mortgages and the people who cannot pay them.
Coyote: Congress and Obama Enticing States Further into Bankruptcy
Is Environmentalism a Religion? h/t, Driscoll
Or is Obama a religion? Joan Walsh of Salon Finds Criticism of Obama "Traitorous"
Fineman: Obama’s Health-Care Gamble, And why he may come to regret it.
Re Napolitano: her potential is almost unlimited. Really?
Reason: Upholding the Right Not To Be Offended - The First Amendment protects even the ugliest forms of speech.
At Yale, they are having to turn students away from the Great Books course. Smart kids still want to know the good hard stuff.
Goldberg: Capitalism Fingered as Fiend of the Past Decade - Reducing “capitalism” to its alleged sins. One quote:
Every good thing capitalism helps produce — from singing careers to cures for diseases to staggering charity — is credited to some other sphere of our lives. Every problem with capitalism, meanwhile, is laid at her feet. Except the problems with capitalism — greed, theft, etc. — aren’t capitalism’s fault, they’re humanity’s. Socialist countries have greedy thieves, too.
Free markets are in disrepute these days, particularly by the people running Washington. For them, government is the solution and capitalism is the problem. If they have their way over the next decade, they won’t cure what allegedly ails capitalism — people will still steal and lie — but they will impede everything that makes capitalism great. And that will be bad for everyone, even NPR.
Doormat image is from this site. You may be needing one.
Saturday, January 2. 2010
Friday, January 1. 2010
 Good fun: A summary of mathematical astronomy
A man and his plan: You have probably never heard of Francis Everett Townsend, but his enormous and controversial legacy is with us today.
Barone: It's a wonderful life working for the government
Mayo Clinic begins dropping Medicare patients
Henninger: America isn't dead. It's just dead in the water.
Just as the warmists want warming to be true to justify their existence, their view of the world, and their political agenda, I always think these Sharpton sorts want to find racism and oppression for the same reason. What ever happened to the "Duke 88"?
Liberal conspicuous agonizing. Thompson:
“Watch me agonise over meat. Look at how concerned I am. See how I fret.”
Allahu Akbar: It's The New "Cry For Help". Poor babies. No wonder they want to be mass murderers: they're lonely ronery.
What's up with this? No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years
Thursday, December 31. 2009
 A more interesting mission than global cooling: asteroid prevention
Let's debate the Crusades again
Why do we delay gratification even when there is no downside?
Cheney wee-wee’d up the left. Related: Planet Janet
Econ 101: water
Rent or buy? Megan.
Now we own GMAC too. Why?
Reisman: The central problem is the central bank
Are Harvard guys sissies? Some of them are, for sure. Plus, insults are fun. What's the big deal? Anybody who cannot handle an insult or two is a sissy.
Via Lucianne:
When we look back at the decade 2000-2009, we may well define it by three crises: the crisis that didn't happen, the crisis that wasn't supposed to happen, and the crisis that we don't realize is happening. We haven't learned the lessons of the first two, and our ignorance of the third may doom us to be slaves to our government, rather than the other way around.
Related: In Intel as in healthcare (as in everything else): Bigger Government Is Worse Government
Related: Is the Dem healthcare bill consitutional? Inquiring minds wonder. I say No, and I have read the thing (the Constitution) many times. Always seemed to be about individual freedom to me, and restricting the reach of government.
Volokh: $150,000 Settlement for Black Public School Students Harassed by Other Black Students for “Acting White”
Wednesday, December 30. 2009
A powerful piece by Steele in the WSJ (h/t, reader). The emperor has no clothes, says Steele. One quote:
...Mr. Obama always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol. He always wore the bargainer's mask—winning the loyalty and gratitude of whites by flattering them with his racial trust: I will presume that you are not a racist if you will not hold my race against me. Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and yes, Tiger Woods have all been superb bargainers, eliciting almost reverential support among whites for all that they were not—not angry or militant, not political, not using their moral authority as blacks to exact a wage from white guilt.
But this mask comes at a high price. When blacks become humanly visible, when their true beliefs are known, their mask shatters and their symbiotic bond with whites is broken. Think of Tiger Woods, now so humanly visible. Or think of Bill Cosby, who in recent years has challenged the politically correct view and let the world know what he truly thinks about the responsibility of blacks in their own uplift.
Capt. Tom posted a snow photo of an old Ford truck enhanced by HDR. I had no idea what HDR is, and I mainly/only take family snaps.
Apparently it is High Dynamic Range imaging. I wouldn't term it a surrealistic effect: more like a hyper-realism effect. Like an oil painting. Or like what the eye sees, when gazing at a certain spot.
This guy discusses how to use HDR. It's over my head. Maybe a reader can make it simple for me.
This fine night photo of NYC is in large scale here.
If you need "Business Formal" for your work, but are of the thrifty sort who does not like to spend $2-3000 on a suit, the Brooks Brothers winter sale only has a few more days to go.
I make sure I always have a bit of this stuff on hand, if only for weddings, funerals, and special parties. However, my 20 year-old Brooks tux probably gets more use than my suits: I am not in a Business Formal line of work and I have been fortunate lately in not having many funerals to attend.
Why the Dems will lose the House in 2010
At NRO:
It would be nice if, after eight years, the ACLU could explain how exactly a Nigerian national boarding an aircraft in Nigeria, or Amsterdam, has an American "constitutional right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and to due process of law." Even when the Constitution does apply, moreover, the Fourth Amendment bars only unreasonable searches, and due process is merely the process that is due under the circumstances — so: How are anybody's rights violated by stepped up security measures during wartime when we know, after several incidents, the enemy's strategy includes both attacking aircraft and using planes as weapons?
Satire in the US - but it could be reality in England
The cadence is indeed odd. In fact, he seems pissed to have to be talking instead of golfing. Somebody told him to do this.
Iran: Khamenei has his escape planned
Top 10 Most Ridiculous Uses of Stimulus Funds
Touting Scott Brown. Why not? The guy may as well swing for the fences. The GOP has written him off, however. It's up to the people now.
Dems love taxes, but do their damnest not to pay them. All the rich Dems I know are like that. Now another four more caught. Wizbang
sorry for the link problems below - the links do work -
Are you sure we want a world without nukes? at Marginal Rev http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/12/a-world-without-nuclear-weapons.html
Bob Herbert: There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Orszag discusses how to redistribute while wounding but not quite killing the golden goose
Betsy: Don't you find Janet Napolitano so reassuring?
Smart science student? It's not fair, but We can fix that.
Tuesday, December 29. 2009
 Sign via Theo
How Manhattan is out to lunch. Olasky
Expel Students Who Might Kill Themselves? Minding the Campus
Last exit to utopia. City Journal
Iran: The stolen election. Am Scholar
Contemporary Art and Reviving Civilisation. New English Review
Bomb suspects were released from Gitmo
The Dem war against the not-so-rich and the aspiring
Via Riehl re the O and Duncan:
Continuing to follow up on what can be learned of Barack Obama's tenure as the Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), evaluations of the program during his tenure available on line demonstrate that in his only real executive test, Barack Obama was a dismal failure squandering millions of dollars on education programs which had basically no real effect.
Monday, December 28. 2009
Almost everyone agrees that 2009 is ending on a troubled or fearsome note. That leaves little space for my tendency toward optimism. Yet I still remain optimistic.
Why? I believe that the activism of free individuals, alone and in concert, is an increasing force in the US and elsewhere in the world. This activism is near the tipping point of capability to overturn the heretofore entrenched oligarchies of the self-serving. In 2010, this revolt of the masses will begin toppling power structures that restrict instead of serving to enlarge opportunities.
Although some shifts may be radical, it won’t be a revolt led by radicals nor will radicals take over in its wake. The revolt toward individual freedoms will be by the majorities of common-sense pragmatists, empowered by modern means to communicate and organize despite statist efforts to stifle these abilities. Extremists and false populists will be more quickly exposed and rejected.
Whatever their political label, the entrenched oligarchies throughout the world are as one in their primacy upon feathering and protecting their own nests. In most countries their selfish actions are recognized as already or becoming over-reaching, with reckless abandon endangering existing or nascent basic freedoms and economic security. Rapidly expanding numbers of citizens are moving to activism, in the voting booths and the streets, as excuses, rationalizations, and lies are less and less tolerated.
Realities are unavoidable. Those on the left admit that their year of “hope” has instead been politically hackneyed, essentially hollow, and played out. Those on the right tend to get mired in the undeniable fears that across the board the acts of those in control of Washington have set us up for disasters, from economy-stifling taxes and spending to restricted and intrusive health care to weakened national security to fickled alliances. Those less overtly partisan struggle to even find a middle-ground between troubled and afraid.
In 2010, those who wish to lead and succeed will be innovative, constructive optimists who unite us to go beyond just complaining. The US is still the leader of the world’s aspirations because we are more selflessly optimistic, and act that way. As we, the people, again show the way, those elsewhere in the world will be encouraged to move in a similar direction toward demanding and getting increased freedom from failed oligarchies of greed.
The coming year will not be the end of statist profiteers, but the optimistic beginning of their end, at least for this generation.
Watch out for (yield) curves
Why is this clown in charge of our security?
WSJ: The New Climate Litigation How about if we sue you for breathing?
A Lib discovers that other nations pursue their own interests
Related, 25 Brits in jet bomb plots
Related, Human Rights according to the O Admin
From Dino:
Once upon a time we worried about the quality of China’s financial reporting and its banking policies, but no longer. Their policies look pretty reasonable, at least in comparison to a United States that is rushing headlong to being utterly dependent on the rest of the world — for handouts in amounts so large it does not appear possible that they can be financed.
How the Liberal mantra changed over the past 30 years. h/t, No Pasaran
Ace:
...here's a point where I agree with Frum...the idea of restraining the government based on a limited powers argument is an anachronism. Most Americans have no real understanding of the Constitution or the concepts upon which this country was founded. An overwhelming number of Americans are far too willing to accept any government action as legitimate even if it involves trading a little freedom for the promise of some government goodies.
I wish it weren’t so but it demonstrably is.
Sunday, December 27. 2009
Gifts that abide. Vandeleun
We've been in a lost decade for stocks
A concise summary of Climate Change. Powerline
Jobless Decade May Loom
Animal Welfare Victories Prompt Farmers' PR Moves
A "frightening new view of the O"?
From a Norquist post:
When ruling elites feel threatened they oppose partisan bickering. They oppose the idea of a legitimate opposition. If the polls showed support for stimulus spending and taxes on energy and government run health care there would be no partisanship in Washington. Only peace and unity and niceness. The elite views opposition to the imposition of their will as annoying and illegitimate.
What's Marion Barry up to these days? Weekly Standard. Sounds like he has a good church.
A journalist converted to a skeptic. One quote:
A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.
Boy, was I naive.
Gaza suffers. Not because of Israel, though.
Health care. Steyn notes:
What the bill delivers – as Mark Steyn puts it – is lots and lots of government and not very much health care.
Powerline: "Don't Say We're Violent, Or We'll Kill You"
Feckless re Iran. Krauthammer
Morris -THE DEATH OF MODERATE DEMOCRATS
Rick Moran begins:
I must confess that the more I read of the health care reform bill that just passed the senate this morning, the more it grows on me.
Unfortunately, that growth is a cancerous tumor, one that will be impossible to excise once this God-awful monstrosity becomes law.
If the Democrats had stuck to their original intent - covering more people, covering those who are chronically ill and denied insurance, and trying to bend the cost curve on Medicare - I would probably have supported it. These things are necessary goals for America and legislation was desperately needed to address these problems.
But the overreach in this bill is incredible.
Saturday, December 26. 2009
Dodd Heckled Back Home In Connecticut After Obamacare Vote (Video)
Via Rasmussen's tracking poll report:
A commentary by Michael Barone
notes that it been more than 150 years since such significant but
unpopular legislation was passed through Congress on a partisan basis.
The political ramifications in 1854 were so significant that it led to
the creation of a new political party, the Republican Party.
Related: The O rips the American Way as he leaves for vacation
How long does it take before we surrender our common sense to experts? Dr. Bob
More on Christ and Socialism. Moonbattery
The Dem bill, among other things, will do this:
Primary-care doctors who refer patients to specialists will face
financial penalties under the plan. Doctors will see 5% of their
Medicare pay cut when their "aggregated" use of resources is "at or
above the 90th percentile of national utilization," according to the
chairman's mark of Section 3003 of the bill. Doctors will feel
financial pressure to limit referrals to costly specialists like
surgeons, since these penalties will put the referring physician on the
hook for the cost of the referral and perhaps any resulting procedures.
Coyote on Tiger Woods:
Paying lots of money to stop having sex with hot women seems an odd
thing to do. From my experience he could take up playing Dungeons and
Dragons and have the same result for a lot less money.
Harry Reid on government control of medical care:
"We're going to hear an earful, but it's going to be an earful of
wonderment and happiness that people waited for for a long time."
VDH on Where do these guys come from? He begins:
I do not think it will be easy to delay Obamism. It is not just that both houses of Congress are under liberal leadership with ample majorities, with a White House and captive media egging them on. The problem is that now the entire engine of the federal government is harnessed in the most unapologetic way to pushing through a far left agenda. There is no shame, no hesitancy in using the full powers of the state.
Thursday, December 24. 2009
Cockburn at RCP: AGW is a Farce
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