Wednesday, October 5. 2011
The Wall Street protesters want to be biggees benefiting from being above the law of the US and the laws of economics.
The Wall Street protesters and the Tea Party protesters have something in common, a revolt against the biggees each see as taking unfair advantages. The primary difference is that the Tea Party is opposed to the extra-constitutionality of liberal politicians in league with crony capitalists profiting each other at the expense of taxpayers, while the Wall Street protesters base is for more extra-constitutionality to expropriate for themselves the advantages garnered by all those profiting from free enterprise.
Tea Partiers want to keep the products of their labor and earnings, while the Wall Street protesters want government to redirect the products of others’ labor and earnings to themselves and causes of their allies.
Demographically, the Tea Partiers come from the middle-class who have more practical experience of the world, while the Wall Street protesters come almost entirely from the privileged white young people with relatively little real world experience.
Musically, the Tea Partiers have popular anthems of patriotism to enliven the reach of their cultural message, while the Wall Street protesters lack popular music with political themes. (This is a distinct and telling difference from the 1960s.)
Politically, the Tea Partiers have protested peacefully and within the law, while the Wall Street protests break laws and inconvenience the public. This alienates rather than enlists support.
PRwise, the Tea Partiers had to overcome major media’s reluctance to provide them coverage and its trumpeting of false charges from the left, while the mostly liberal major media have almost instantly favorably or neutrally headlined the Wall Street protesters.
The question is whether the tilt of the major media facing the alternative media will succeed in hiding these differences from most Americans. I doubt it. The liberal-tilting major media is itself seen as an out-of-touch and fading biggee. The support from public-employee unions with privileges above those in private business, the usual few extreme-leftist members of Congress, and from the usual rich far-left Hollywood celebrities just reinforces the perception of the usual leftist biggees wanting to lord it over taxpaying Americans. The Wall Street protesters and their leftist allies in media like to call themselves the 99%, kiddee columnist Ezra Klein sophistically asserting they want to see “the fundamental bargain of our economy – work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- … restored.” Instead, they are the small minority who are or who want to be the 1%, exhibit little respect for the “rules” or virtues and rewards of free enterprise, demanding to “get ahead” with government-provided privileges.
P.S.: Donald Douglas adds some personal reality.
We are blessed with all of our thoughtful, brainy, and often amusing commenters, but new commenter "Ten" (near the bottom of the comments) took the time to give our Maggie's Farmer fishing pro Capt. Tom a good whuppin' on the topic of space exploration.
Happily, Capt. Tom took it with good humor. Like most us here, he is a just plain happy fellow.
 "Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow"
But can you give some to your cat? And can you drink your goat's milk? Or do you need government permission for that too? And what about home-made cheese from your cow's milk? Is this what our founding father farmers risked their lives for?
Obama: You don’t have some inherent right just to– you know, get a certain amount of profit.
Says who?
Hansen rakes it in
At-a-glance: Remembering Babi Yar
Man-Cave Masculinity - A man’s quest for his soul starts with a walk downstairs.
Why Are Women More Promiscuous Than Ever? And why are men taking advantage of it by withholding commitment? Is it time to take the power back? (h/t Insty)
The ladies are becoming as horny and predatory as the men. From what I hear, they are like animals, dragging innocent lads off the street for their selfish sensual pleasure.
Brooklyn earns distinction as dining destination
"Wolf of Wall Street" says his story offers lesson
Brooks: The Limits of Empathy
Getting It Right on free speech: Dean of George Mason Law Sets Excellent Example
The UK's proposed fat tax
Government: no syrup on pancakes
Shocking Photos: Barack Obama Appeared and Marched with New Black Panthers in 2007
Plunder: Michelle Obama Listed Daughters Malia and Sasha as “Senior Staffers” for $432,142 African Trip
Q&O:
We don’t work for the government, it is supposed to work for us. And I damn sure am not going to agree to giving that up for temporary convenience.
Paul Ryan’s Strong Antidote to Obama Health Care: Ramesh Ponnuru
Lord SCOAMF and Screaming Friends
Overrated - Rumors of Barack Obama’s political skill have been greatly exaggerated.
Obama bets on 50-state strategy to eke out '12 win
Aiming to spend a billion dollars - not counting the billions in government give-aways
Sad news: 43% of blacks believe Obama critics are racist
Liar: Obama Campaign Says GOP Blocking Jobs Bill--After Reid Blocks Jobs Bill
Wiz: “The only beneficiaries are the teachers unions” from Fran Tarkenton!
Only in Washington would it be so hard to repeal an obvious fraud
Write a check for more than $1 trillion today, taxpayers, to pay for state and local government pension shortages.
INTERVIEW: J. Christian Adams, author of “Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department”
"...the liberals in Washington will not back off, even when they see that they are crippling the economy. FDR’s policies were similarly destructive, but the more economic havoc he created, the more he was able to expand his power."
It's not a bug...
Sipp:
All those people who thought they were going to walk away from those houses and give them back to the banks? The banks are going to figure out the difference between the mortgage and what the house is sold for, which will be huge, sell those debts to lawyers --who'll make the mafia or a first wife look reasonable -- and they'll use the court system as their own private strong-arm collectors, and hound those people to kingdom come.
Even death is not an escape from a debt because they go after your estate. Bankruptcy is an escape, but it isn't pretty.
Is Maggie's Farm a "Conservative Website"? I guess not, because, if we were, we'd be ranked 122 on that Alexa list, going by Alexa stats. Anyway, we're a Centrist, eclectic website, with only an interest in politics insofar as the gummint gets in our way. We only want a very few things from gummint. Does that make us Conservative, or Libertarian, or just cranky Yankee-minded people who want to be left alone to construct our own lives as we think best? We all came here (well, our ancestors did) to get away from gummit oppression.
Tuesday, October 4. 2011
Or with David Brooks, anyway, when he says The strongest case for Romney is that he’s nobody’s idea of a savior.
There is no political messiah, and never will be. America doesn't work like that, and I do not need, or want, a tingle from a politician. From a cute girl, yes.
I am for Romney-Rubio. For now, anyway. Have at me - tell me why I am wrong.
Obama's 'solution' for what ails us is to utilize two common political treatments for recessions. First, the standard Monetarist 'Easy Money' solution by lowering interest rates. Second, the Keynesian 'Stimulus'. The unfortunate situation we face is really only getting worse because he cannot do the second without the first — there simply isn't enough money interested in supporting more debt. The solution? Print more money, a concept I discussed in an earlier post.
The printing of money allows banks to purchase Treasury Debt, which funds the deficit, which they then sell back to the Fed in order to keep their reserves intact.
Europe has taken a remarkably different approach. The Eurozone wants to emerge from its difficulties in economically healthy fashion, rather than saddled with massive debt. Some European nations have such huge debt that the only sensible track to follow for other Euro nations that are growing modestly is to manage with restraint. They've been backed into a corner, but it's a good corner to be backed into.
Some are not shy about telling Obama why he's wrong.
If Obama was the head of a sports league having economic struggles, BALCO would still be in business. His steroid policy would put individual players at risk in order to keep interest in the league high based on new records. Like Barry Bonds' records, people will soon wonder how things got to this point. Will Congress review Obama's steroid policy and chart a new course?
Earliest Christian engraving shows pagan elements
Rin Tin Tin and the making of Warner Brothers
This Week’s Applied Hayek: Socialism vs. “Socialism”
Schumer and Durbin Admit Democrats Won't Vote for Obama's Tax Increases
ERIC HOLDER LIED UNDER OATH!… Documents Confirm the Obama AG Knew of Fast & Furious in 2010
Majority Expects Obama to Lose Re-Election
No Kidding… Obama Admits “The Nation Is Not Better Off”
'Durbin fee' will cost bank customers billions
Canadian gun registry and homicide
Is There Really an Environmental Benefit to Going Paperless?
Neo: The MSM’s battle plan
Consumers are spending, but nobody is investing
Tricare Folly - Control U.S. Military's Health-Care Costs
Representing the Holocaust
Michelle Obama's trip to Target
Are You Ready For The Next Solyndra?
Fun with "art": “If money is so ‘inconsequential,’ why do these parasites always expect to be given loads of someone else’s?”:
...the notion that artists might actually consider earning a living doesn’t register at all. There’s not even the briefest flickering of that possibility. The idea that artists might endeavour to produce work that their customers would pay for voluntarily, without Arts Council coercion and political vetting, appears to be unworthy, and perhaps unthinkable. Artists are much too important to waste their time making beautiful things that people want to buy. According to Laurie, their role is political and much, much grander - to “imagine a culture beyond the control of capital and the nation state.”
Monday, October 3. 2011
The Washington Post is usually a little more careful than the New York Times about blatant bias, but its racism hit-job on Governor Perry sinks to a low, at least so far for this election cycle. Perry is supposed to be responsible for the old slur on a rock at a hunting camp rented by his father, which Perry says his father painted over as soon as they rented the camp.
Porky Pig at his worst would call it “wacism.” That’s the words war crossed with racism, as the last refuge of scoundrels out to wage media war to save President Obama’s re-election.
It takes the Texas Tribune to set matters in perspective, doing the job the big city boys wouldn't:
Wallace Jefferson, the first black chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, said the hunting ranch name controversy is "much ado about nothing" and argued the implication that Rick Perry is insensitive to matters of race is flatly wrong…."To imply that the governor condoned either the use of that word or that sentiment, I find false," Jefferson said….
Even some of Perry's fiercest Texas critics say they do not believe he is racist. They point to his record of appointments as evidence: He appointed the state’s first African-American state supreme court justice, Wallace Jefferson, and later made him chief justice. (Jefferson’s great grandfather was a slave, “sold like a horse,” Perry once said with disgust.) Perry’s former general counsel and former chief of staff, Brian Newby, is black; so is Albert Hawkins, the former Health and Human Services commissioner who Perry handpicked to lead the massive agency in 2002.
“He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,” said former Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, who is black and served with Perry in his early years in the Legislature. “He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.”
Added Dallas Democratic Sen. Royce West, who is also black: “I don’t agree with him on policy issues, but you can point to many things he has done that were sensitive to ethnic minorities.”
Those on the Left, as expected, trumpeted the WaPo’s Wacism hit-piece. Those on the Right who went along, to bolster their alternative candidate or out of laziness or to kiss a** in their NYC-DC cocoon, have not only hurt their own credibility but also Republican chances of recovering Washington. Way to go, weasily wascals.
California's elected Insurance commissioner is one of the most anti-insurer in the country. He was part of the Democrat slate chosen by state voters in 2010, from Governor on down, despite the Republican tide elsewhere throughout the country.
His latest, lauding the new law signed by the Governor, making it unlawful for health and disability insurers to be the determiner of whether the claimant on a policy is disabled. Now, according to the Insurance Commissioner's press release: "SB 621 protects consumers of life, health, and disability insurance from 'discretionary clauses' in their insurance policies which give the insurer the sole discretion to decide is a beneficiary has become disabled, even if the consumer has a doctor certify that they are disabled," said Commissioner Jones."
How's doctor certifications worked out in California?
According to the Los Angeles Times, 11% of California drivers used a doctor's note to get a disabled parking tag, so they can park for free in any spot and use those reserved for handicapped drivers. Some truly are handicapped. Most of us have witnessed most parking in those spots getting around fine. According to the deputy chief of investigations of the California DMV, "With the emphasis on fraudulent use ... when we go out, typically on average it's in the area of a 30 to 40 percent violation rate." This is just those using someone else's handicap parking tag. There is no verification of those who obtained a tag with a doctor's note.
Yeah, doctor's notes to obtain health insurance or disability insurance payouts. That's the ticket..........to further destroy insurers and leave us all to government-run, taxpayer-paid coverage.
Just got my power restored.
A Huge Housing Bargain -- but Not for You
Extracting Lessons Learned From Having Killed a Killer
Kurtz: Inside Obama's Populist Makeover
What the Frack is Going on Here?
How Much Does the Federal Government Really Spend?
Bank ad brags about 'never taking a bailout'
Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings'
Re Krugman: There He Goes Again
Krugman believes in market failures, but not in the far more frequent government failures. Who pays for governmental errors and externalities?
Sunday, October 2. 2011
Several nights ago, I watched Catching Hell on ESPN. I enjoy documentaries and was pleased my wife and boys joined me. My boys have little interest in baseball, and I'm certain my wife got sucked in by the Bill Buckner opening, since she is a longtime Mets fan. Each of them found aspects of the documentary to be interesting and meaningful.
The story centers on Steve Bartman, a young fellow who may have cost the Chicago Cubs a shot at the World Series. It was an unlikely error on his part, one in which fault is questionable. As the documentary points out, many other fans were also reaching for that foul ball. He was unlucky enough to touch it. More importantly, an easy double play ball was booted by the shortstop just a few moments later. Certainly, the lost double play did more to cost the Cubs than a fan preventing a single out.
Continue reading "Baseball Confessional"
Via Insty, The Obama Presidency by the Numbers.
So far, so good, but they still have a ways to go to make everybody poor. Yes We Can! Si se puede! It is not a bug - it's a feature of the Obama economy.
Do you know what Googie Architecture is?
Here's a site: ARCHITECTURAL STYLES of AMERICA
Kimball: Worried about what’s happening to medical care?
Dino: It’s getting hard to read the paper
The Prof: Dodd-Frank is quackery
Obama's EPA: Out with democracy, in with bureaucracy
Let the altruistic geniuses handle it all, same as in your town's government. Just have faith that they know what is best for all...
Solargate Spreads
Taxpayer cash, for friends
From a teacher:
Imagine those kids ignoring you because their parents don't care what they do, the school doesn't allow any disciplinary actions other than calling the parents, the children know that they will pass no matter what and any peep from you about the kids' behavior is interpreted as prejudice. Imagine being required to make a lesson plan for every level of ability, learning style and disability, every day all the while knowing that the kids will probably not even attempt the work because they know they don't have to.
Another Stimulus Fail: Small Business Lending Fiasco
One of the chief tics of Obama's speaking style is a technique I call lying.
"Social Contract". You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means. A quote:
The social contract is "We maintain civilization because we all benefit from it. And we all have a responsibility to pay for it." Ms. Warren’s version of the social contract boils down to, "You have to pay more for maintaining our society because you can, and we outnumber you, and can force you to do so." That’s not a contract. That’s just extortion by majority. The millionaire’s responsibility is not to "pay forward" any more than any of the rest of us, because he doesn’t benefit any more than the rest of us.
Conflating "society" or "civilization" with "government" is sneaky and dishonest - a rhetorical trick. Representative governments are meant to be servants of society.
No Rise in Home Prices Until 2020: Bankers
Declaration of the Occupation of Perpetual Grievance
Envy and hate for the financially successful: Rich people are being ‘demonized’ for flaunting their wealth. Poor dears!
She is evil. As I recall, my beautiful, peaceful, spiritual, eco-sensitive and carbon-sensitive ancestral American Indians wore their wampum for show, as there were no iPhones to purchase:
I envy the rich too, even though it is a sin to do so (see below). Especially those with access to private air travel or with over $17 million under their mattress. However, I do not hate them at all, or want to take their money. Everybody has different aspirations in life, and plans and constructs his or her life according to their religious, moral, emotional, intellectual, etc. desires and aspirations. As a major source of choice, wampum is often in high demand and thus strenuous to obtain and even harder to keep given all of life's tempting choices.
Saturday, October 1. 2011
Higher Education Fire Sale: Enroll Now and Save 66 Percent on Tuition!
Why Islam is in Desperate Need of a Reformation
Our Many Layers of Entitlement - The entitlement mindset includes much more than government benefits programs.
Via Driscoll:
“Do you believe in sin?” Cathleen Falsani, the religion correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times, asked then Senator Obama. “Yes,” he replied. “What is sin?” “Being out of alignment with my values.” That’s one convenient religion: Obama worships at his own personal altar at the First Church of Himself.
Via Michelle:
After examining decades’ worth of failed subsidized solar efforts at home and around the world, the Institute for Energy Research concludes: “Although stand-alone solar power has a certain free-market niche and does not need government favor, using solar power for grid electricity has been and will be an economic loser for ratepayers and a burden to taxpayers.”
Top Obama Advisor Explains the Purpose of Government:
Here she tells an ethnically homogeneous audience that the purpose of government is to “give people a livelihood.”
Let them eat cake?
Chris Christie seriously considering run for president in 2012
Don't do it, big guy
Man, I Like That Guy: Chris Christie's Dude Factor
A tingle, Mr. Breitbart?
How the US is importing poverty
Jonah: Centrists’ Are Abandoning Ship - The establishment solution to unpopular liberal policies is still more liberalism:
The establishment can’t bring itself to blame liberalism (or themselves). So instead they blame the system. Obama’s own reelection theme of running against “Washington” — a town he had near total control over for two years and in which he is still the most powerful figure — is a variant of the same argument. Obama can’t blame the party he leads, so he blames the “system.”
Michael Lewis: California and Bust
It is a major essay by Lewis. The corruption in the attitude towards public service, from service to mindless greed. A quote:
Over the past decade the city of San Jose had repeatedly caved to the demands of its public-safety unions. In practice this meant that when the police or fire department of any neighboring city struck a better deal for itself, it became a fresh argument for improving the pay of San Jose police and fire. The effect was to make the sweetest deal cut by public-safety workers with any city in Northern California the starting point for the next round of negotiations for every other city. The departments also used each other to score debating points. For instance, back in 2002, the San Jose police union cut a three-year deal that raised police officers’ pay by 18 percent over the contract. Soon afterward, the San Jose firefighters cut a better deal for themselves, including a pay raise of more than 23 percent. The police felt robbed and complained mightily until the city council crafted a deal that handed them 5 percent more premium pay in exchange for training to fight terrorists. “We got famous for our anti-terrorist-training pay,” explains one city official. Eventually the anti-terrorist-training premium pay stopped; the police just kept the extra pay, with benefits. “Our police and firefighters will earn more in retirement than they did when they were working,” says Reed. “There used to be an argument that you have to give us money or we can’t afford to live in the city. Now the more you pay them the less likely they are to live in the city, because they can afford to leave. It’s staggering. When did we go from giving people sick leave to letting them accumulate it and cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are done working? There’s a corruption here. It’s not just a financial corruption. It’s a corruption of the attitude of public service.”
another:
I notice on his shelf a copy of Fortune magazine, with Meredith Whitney on the cover. And as he talked about the bankrupting of Vallejo, I realized that I had heard this story before, or a private-sector version of it. The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society to death. The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences. It’s not just a coincidence that the debts of cities and states spun out of control at the same time as the debts of individual Americans. Alone in a dark room with a pile of money, Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom. They’d been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people on Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans.
Plunder!
Gingrich on Obama’s healthcare law: ‘About 300 pages are pretty good’
He is possibly right about that.
Obama Charts a New Route to Re-election
Writing off Ohio - and maybe Florida
Woops: Obama now underwater in CT!
$737 Million Green Loan to Pelosi Kin Fuels Outrage
More plunder.
And more plunder: Benefit tourism in the UK
Buffet(t) Rules we all can agree upon
Friday, September 30. 2011
 (Or "Ol' Slobber Jaws", as he's known around the farm)
We're pleased to announce that we're adding a new guest blogger to the assorted collection of drunken reprobates and societal misfits already inhabiting this place. I've grilled him extensively on the finer art of hog sloppin' and how to read the future from chicken scratchings and I think he'll fit right in.
His name is Bulldog. And, when it comes to 'bulldog grip', I can't imagine a better handle. He and I are still arguing about my Magellan post from last April. The guy just won't let go! His condition is so pronounced that we're actually offering up three Official Maggie's Farm Bonus Points if you can win an argument with him in the comments.
Also, like myself, he comes with a dire warning, given the hard turn to the political right this site has taken over the past few years. When I started talkin' politics again a while back, I quickly noted that I was a confirmed Centrist, which I define as hating both sides equally. Thus, when the next thing you know I'm desecrating your favorite candidate with nasty euphemisms that even a hard-core lefty site would have qualms about using, it's understandable. But Bulldog is even worse.
He's a Libertarian.
Which is, of course, why I invited him aboard. The banner does say 'politically centrist', right? So, with only poor little me to fend off the unmitigated horror of the constant outpouring from the right-wing propaganda machine that infuses this place (our president is a "idiot", Greenpeace is "indoctrinating" people, Planned Parenthood is an "abortion mill", the Boomers and/or Hippies are to blame for all your problems, screw poor people and their food stamps, etc, etc, etc), I thought throwing a for-real Libertarian into the mix would help keep that 'politically centrist' part of the banner from becoming the biggest joke in the blogosphere.
Ever the helpful one, I.
Using the strange, archaic moniker 'Rick', Bird Dog and I have already posted two of his pieces. He should have his own account set up by next week. His next post follows this one, but he quickly notes that it's just a throwaway piece; just something he wanted to toss out there. He's going to save the really cruel, biting, acerbic pieces about those gun totin', dawg-lovin', Bible-thumpin', war mongerin' Conservatives until he can get his own byline and take full credit. Libertarians are like that.
Welcome aboard, Bulldog!
Our poll yesterday about workplace romance generated interesting comments. Thanks, readers.
Not from The Onion: NYC Mayor Bloomberg: 'Government’s Highest Duty' Is to Push 'Healthy' Foods
What a putz
The only exercise that’s ever shut me up
This comes recommended: Fr. Barron's Catholicism DVD Box Set
Your morning physics: Faster Than Light Neutrinos Do Not Time Travel To Spoil Your Date
Keep up with the Meteor for your morning giggle
College admissions testing in Britain and France
Turns out, the South is a pretty nice place to live
That is news?
College Students Skipping Law School Amid Stagnant Economy
McCaughey: Surge in Costs Start Of Obamacare Disaster
Red Jahncke: Ignoring cost of ObamaCare’s benefits
At Am Thinker's Justice Kennedy and the Fate of ObamaCare:
Because of its near-limitless reach, if fully implemented, ObamaCare will quickly become a political force surpassing even Social Security and Medicare. Once that happens, the only way to win elections will be to promise not to touch government health care. Every politician will have to accept and even endorse issues that are now championed only by the far left.
Europe must now grasp its chance to turn off the doomsday device
"The Entitlement Mentality" by John Agresto:
In so many places citizens are hardly citizens but subjects -- wards of the government, dependent on the state for their housing, their health care, their monthly salaries, their education, even their weekly food baskets. When troubles come, their first thought is not “How can I help myself and my community” but “Hurry up, government, and help me.” In this regard the contrast, say, between the decidedly independent citizens of the American Heartland on one hand and supinely dependent New Orleans could not be greater.
Best Elizabeth Warren parody yet
How to Make Obama Like Us
What's that quote about "If politicians don't like the voters, they should elect a new citizenry"? Of course, that's what illegal immigration amounts to.
Agreed. Joe Biden Blames Obama for Terrible Economy
NY Transit Workers Union & Teamsters Agree to Support Commie Wall Street Protesters
Garofalo: Cain’s rise in support proves Republican racism, or something
Heather: Half Baked - UC Berkeley’s diversity machine loses its mind over cupcakes.
Students in the ever-expanding roster of official campus victim groups flatter themselves that by attending what is in fact the most caring, protective, and opportunity-rich institution in the history of the world, they are braving unspeakable threats to their ego and even to their physical safety. (Indeed, so desirable is this alleged threatened status that a gender and women’s studies major held a sign during Tuesday’s protest of the bake sale decrying the exclusion of “queer people” from the Republicans’ pricing structure.)
Morning Bell: Time for Action on Pakistan
Taiwan, canary in the coal mine
Krauthammer: The Palis do not want peace
Surber:
Yes, that would work out to more than $1.6 million per job (or 100,000 muffins).
Why not simply scatter cash - $50s and $100s - from airplanes? That would be the way to get re-elected.
Thursday, September 29. 2011
Wednesday, September 28. 2011
Yale Paper Shows That Climate Science Skeptics Are More Scientifically Educated.
Less gullible. Makes sense to me. The people who preach to me about it know nothing. People who have studied the sciences at higher levels know that most scientific knowledge is never settled. Science is about theories, mostly, tested by observation, and eventually replaced by new theories and new information.
Climate science, in my view, is in its infancy, is overfunded compared with more compelling areas, and will ultimately turn out to be largely irrelevant except to those who study it - and to paleontologists.
As regular readers know, we are skeptical but have some hope that some global warming is happening. Gaia would like it. The next ice age would be quite unpleasant.
The Who's 'Quadrophenia' Is Love, Joy & Suffering
Moneyball
Are these people still saying that minorities cannot understand White Math?
Controversial Bake Sale Highlights Debate on Bill Allowing California Colleges to Consider Race, Gender
The Jewish Vote Poll Isn’t, And Is, As Bad As It Looks
Obama’s Jobs Bill: Read It and Weep - An infernal mish-mash of taxes, subsidies, and regulations.
Fracking: If they are against it that seems a pretty good reason to be for it.
From a commenter at a Cafe Hayek post:
Who would provide public education were it not for gov?
This argument is couched improperly. It can be rephrased as Who will force others to provide for my children’s education that I’m not willing to pay for myself? And for this, you are correct – you need government to do that.
I can hear the rebuttal… But what about the poor? Especially the ones who have a lot of children? Certainly you can’t expect them to shoulder any part of the responsibility for their actions! No, of course not. Government must step in to mitigate the consequences of poor planning and personal irresponsibility. Because without government, the poor would have to rely on friends, family, and charity – none of which can be forced to give as much as some might demand. What would the poor (or rich for that matter) do if they had to face the consequences of their own actions? That would just be horrible.
Obama: One Sentence, Three Falsehoods. New World’s Record?
Obamacare sent health premiums up 9%
The Proof is in. Racisim Does Not Exist in Wisconsin
Nobel-winning economist Robert Lucas on the high cost of the welfare state, why he voted for Barack Obama, and how Milton Friedman changed his life.
Saree Makdisi: Eliminating Jewish State More Important than Creating Palestinian One
LA Times Remakes Judah Ben-Hur into 'Palestinian Nobleman'
In 2007, only 11% of enlisted military recruits came from the poorest U.S. neighborhoods.
SANDERS: War on energy at home creates disasters abroad
"... staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer “black” or “brown”.
Tuesday, September 27. 2011
The article leaves out one reason: confidentiality.
If I told patients that their records would be electronically accessible, I doubt anyone would speak openly with me. For that same reason, I keep very minimal paper records. My field of medicine is a little different, however.
 Today's toon via Theo
America does run on Dunkin', as does Maggie's HQ. Mediocre coffee but good caffeine - and always a great ambience.
"Let's Take a Traditional City Break 4: Many Variations, One Theme." New World Economics likes The Old Urbanist (as do we) - and posted some dynamite urban street scenes
Families Wise Up About Paying for College
The Escalating Penalty for Asserting Your Right to a Trial
Even if you're innocent, it can make more sense to cop a plea
Via Insty, the price of sex has dropped to record lows
Are American girls hornier than they were when I was young? If so, is it an effect of global warming?
Public Schools Eat Too Much At Gov't Trough
The growing laundry list of Totalitarian Humanism
‘Every Single One’ Fallout: Justice Dept. in Turmoil From PJMedia Series
The Bake Sale:
For the record, the current student body at UC Berkeley is 31.7% white. It is 47% male. According to the 2010 US Census, whites are 72.4% of the population. Women make up 50.7% of the population.
Why can’t we have colleges that look like America?
Europe's Failure Demands Europe Choose A Different Path, And That We Stop Following Their Example In America
Billionaires, Jews and Janitors
New Low: 17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed
Mankiw:
If you can remember only one fact, make it this one: The middle class (middle quintile) pays 14.1 percent of its income in federal taxes, while the rich (top tenth of one percent of the population) pay 30.4 percent.
Tax Demagogues Are Lying Liars, in One Graph
Obama The Divider
EPA: Regulations would require 230,000 new employees, $21 billion
Eurozone crisis: there are no miracles in Greek tragedies - Lending ever greater sums to a mismanaged and corrupt economy won’t make it solvent , says Jeff Randall.
Carville: Tea Party a 'Dangerous Political Force That Threatens the Very Future of Our Country'
Which is worse, global warming or Tea Parties?
Americans Express Historic Negativity Toward U.S. Government
Rightly so
R2P is the New COIN: Slaughter on Authority and International Law Part II.
NGO report: 93,000 Copts left Egypt since March:
"Nearly 16,000 migrated to California, while 10,000 moved to New Jersey, 8000 to New York, and 8000 to other American states," according to Gabriel. "Around 14,000 left to Australia, 17,000 to Canada, and 20,000 settled in the Netherlands, Italy, England, Austria, Germany and France."
Arab Spring Countries Pay the Price for the World’s Palestinian Obsession
Obama strategy could spawn future Vietnams
Boot: Breaking Faith with our Heroes and Allies
"The average American does not appear to give government at all levels much credit for being careful in spending tax dollars," Gallup concluded.
Definitive proof of global warming:
Monday, September 26. 2011
Women Outnumber Men for Doctoral Degrees, 142 Women Enrolled in Grad School Per 100 Men, and Women Outnumber Men in 7 Out Of 11 Fields
Do Animals Have Rights? It's complicated.
Unitarian Church Finally Decides To Believe In Something, Nails Al Gore To Their Recycled Cross
IPCC error of the day
Joe Lieberman on the Sabbath
Eco-fun: Swim with the Piranhas
A California students' group has sparked a racism and sexism row over plans for a bake sale in which people are charged according to their ethnic background and gender.
Worried Greeks Fear Collapse of Middle Class Welfare State
VDH: Somewhere around 1985 in California I noticed that my students were hoping for a state job first, a federal job second, a municipal job third — and a private one last. A quote from his post:
When Jimmy Hoffa threatens the non-unionists, one imagines that Detroit is building better, safer, more reliable cars at a better price and has for decades. When Barack Obama urges the Black Caucus to march for equality, and adopts the cadences and pose of a 1960 civil rights leader, one would think the right wing in Florida just picked Bull Connor, not Herman Cain, as their straw poll winner. When the third-generation, hip spokesman for La Raza talks about inequality, one would think she herself just crossed the border from Oaxaca, forced to flee a benevolent Mexico to work in the pits of an American Mordor.
Ga. Middle School: Muslim Polygamy Is Normal, Burkas Good For Women
Michael Moore: "Patriotic Americans" Will Wait Longer For Healthcare
Racist Tea Party loves Herman Cain
It doesn't fit The Narrative
The return of net neutrality
UK update: Bible Banned From Christian Café
It'll be churches next
Obama Puts on His Best Dialect & Tells Black Audience “Stop Complaining & Fight”
Fight for what?
TNR: Left Behind: How Democrats Are Losing the Political Center
Village Voice’s Michael Feingold: “Kill the Billionaires!”
And then who do you tax?
You just know what Eliz Warren is like
Historic: Failed President Craters to 36% in New Poll
Turkey's foreign policy hits a dead end
Inspector general: Bush-era Pentagon officials cleared of wrongdoing
Who said this? Not every human problem deserves a law.
WaPo: Power shift in Asia
Greek Jews and the Holocaust: Recovering the Multiple Stories of Death, Rescue, and Resistance
IMF may need billions in extra funding
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money"
Samuelson: Repeating Mistakes of the 1930s?
Netanyahu to Clinton: I’m not the one moving the goalposts
Let's face it: there will be no peace until Israel is erased. Thus permanent conflict for the forseeable future. Some problems are insoluble.
Sunday, September 25. 2011
Insty found this one: Is Your Choice Of Food A Fundamental Right? The author rightly comments "Sometimes I think I’ve woken up in a surreal alternate reality."
Indeed, our government's views increasingly resemble self-satire. Who are these a-holes? Here's another one:
Let the inhaler hoarding begin
I guess you can store them right next to your secret stash of incandescent bulbs, your stash of salt, your guns, your Bibles, your tobacco, your home-grown medical pot, and your gold coins.
View from the Wkly Std: The Reactionary in the White House - Barack Obama, throwback.
Obama is quite a throwback. In some ways, he would return us to centuries past. His administration is spending trillions to build high-speed trains, despite minimal consumer demand. Trains are a 19th-century technology. Subsidies are also doled out for wind power, a medieval technology. Meanwhile, the space program is all but jettisoned.
Rather than rely on fossil fuels, the president would make America run on renewable energy. The last renewable in widespread use was the horse.
View at the WaPo: It's time to begin the class war:
Imagine millions of Americans withholding mortgage payments to banks that refuse to adjust underwater loans. Imagine divestment campaigns to pressure public pension funds and universities to pull their money from the private sector and put it into government bonds. Imagine students staging sit-ins to protest teacher layoffs. Imagine families who have lost their homes squatting in vacant, bank-owned properties. Imagine a nationwide call to arms, as passionately nonviolent but as violently passionate as the pro-democracy movements sweeping the Arab world.
Saturday, September 24. 2011
The big man begins:
Okay, now you people know, you are well aware one of the reasons you listen is I know liberals. I know them. I know them like every square inch of my glorious naked body. Dealing with liberals is like dealing with a one-armed lunatic.
He wonders who has been producing the money to pay her salary all these years in non-profits, government, and academia. Read the whole thing - with half his brain tied behind his back, just to keep it fair.
There is a parasitic mind-set out there, and lots of people want to get on board. As I like to say, "Ask first what your country can do for you..." No heavy lifting, no accountability. In Warren's world, who does the real work? Slaves?
I have been a de facto slave to government (taxes) and academia (tuitions) most of my adult life. I give more than I can afford to non-profits and my church too, but at least that is voluntary.
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