Friday, October 29. 2010
 Pic is Middle Path at Kenyon College, last weekend.
Rhymin' Simon reviews a new book by Sondheim
The new threat: plastic water bottles
Nobody taught me to regard women as sex objects. I always did.
Is that breaking news? (Good comment on the topic in our comments below)
I am quitting buying medical insurance for my employees.
How the White House Bungled the Politics of Health Care
No. They bungled the substance of it.
College for Those Who Can't Learn
It's about time. I could have used one of them.
Dogging OK in UK parks
Just do not mock the doggee: public dogging is legal, mocking is not.
Democrat Civil War Already Underway
It's called a circular firing squad
Jerk du Jour: Matthews: How Long Before We See Tea Partiers Start Showing Up in Uniform, 1930s Style?
He is nuts - and stupid. Tea Partiers would have been the first to be sent to the camps. (For those who do not recall, the camps were first set up to hold political prisoners - troublemakers.)
Related: AFL-CIO: Limited government activists hold “cultish beliefs"
The Constitution is the most dangerous threat to America. How did that happen?
Radical in the White House - Stanley Kurtz didn’t have to go to Kenya to figure out who Barack Obama really is.
Sick: Joe Sestak Smears Dog Sh*t on Toomey in Attack Ad (Video)
Those wacky, extreme, ill-informed, violent, dishonest Democrat politicians *UPDATED*
Juan Williams: Fox Bosses are 'Much More Enlightened' Than NPR or CNN, Fox Viewers Aren't Dumb
You aren't allowed to say that, Juan.
VDH: Things you are not supposed to say
Michael Bloomberg’s astroturf group
It's a group of one.
Tea Party values are hippie values.
Wish I had thought of that. There is truth to it.
Tom Paine via Sissy:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. – Common Sense, Thomas Paine 1776
Thursday, October 28. 2010
Via Hot Air.
I think everybody knew that, but the Dems refused to admit it until now. I think Obamacare needs to be destroyed, and re-thought. Reforms are needed:
1. tort reform (half of what docs and hospitals do these days is to avoid lawsuits)
2. some sort of coverage reforms for the uninsurable
3. legalizing interstate sales of medical insurance: free markets and free choice of
plans and options
4. expansion of medical savings plans
5. some sort of support for the return of Major Medical insurance instead of
insurances that cover every flu and bug bite
6. portability of insurance plans
7. adjust Medicare reimbursement by income and assets
 These misguided bozos want to control the weather: Prozac for the Planet
Fantasizing about a Global Climate Control Center
Improving men:
If women married men for who they actually were, there would be far fewer marriages.
Effusive praise for Jane Eyre
The elections:
Every Democratic president from here on out will have to reckon with the possibility that an ambitious liberal agenda in his/her first two years is apt to produce utterly crushing losses in the House.
They don't care. They got what they wanted.
Ariz. Law Requiring Voters Prove Citizenship Is Struck Down
Why not let everybody on the planet vote in our elections?
How they do elections in Illinois
How they do elections in Las Vegas
VDH: Obama is the Great Divider
Related, Post-Racial President Offering Up Racially-Charged Dog Whistles For Black, Hispanic Voters
Disgusting.
Robin tries to have a calm, rational discussion with a Lefty:
I read something a while back about the Dalai Lama, which I thought was fascinating. He was asked what he says to "his enemies," to persuade them; that is, those who disagree with him about Tibet. He said that he doesn't argue with his enemies. That surprised the interviewer, who asked why. The Dalai Lama answered that it was a waste of his time and his energy. He doesn't want to absorb their aggression. I thought this was a profound lesson, and one that I have tried my best to follow ever since.
The DL got that right.
Obamacare doomed to fail, by design
Correct. We've been saying that for over a year.
Who do Lefties hate most? Their fellow Americans.
Correct. We have also been saying that for years.
Democrats' game plan: fake tea party candidates.
There is hardball and there is sleazeball.
Voting Liberal is genetic?
Balderdash.
Coyote: Way Past Time to Open Up to Cuba
Driscoll on Nazis, via Fausta:
...we’ll linger in Hollywood just a bit for some comedy gold from Rob Reiner. Yes, the actor turned director turned anti-smoking obsessive quasi-government official gets his inner Garofalo on and has the Orwellian — and staggeringly clapped out — observation that the folks who want to shrink government and reduce its interference in our daily lives are secretly the folks who in the 1930s built one of the most massive welfare states of all — and I don’t mean FDR.
National Socialists is what they were. Why it's called "right" I do not understand. Nazi Germany was a socialist police state, and every bit as deserving of the Left's repect as Mao, Pol Pot, or Fidel.
Univision Set to Become Top U.S. Broadcast Network
The Globe goes to bat for Barney Frank
Of course.
WSJ: The EPA wants to take away 7% of U.S. power generation.
Climate Craziness of the Week: Save the planet, combine your emails into longer messages
Or why not just have the government charge 37 cents per email? That would be good for Gaia.
Roughly one-quarter of Americans say they receive some form of cash benefits from the government, and most are not willing to sacrifice any of that money to help cut the size of the federal budget.
Wednesday, October 27. 2010
Pic is a Dunkin in LaGuardia Airport
Jacoby begins:
THE HILLS are alive with the sound of liberal Democratic contempt for the electorate.
ObamaCare: What’s Ailing Democrats
Jay Cost looks at the impending damage to the Dems
Dr. Helen is Where the boys are
How to go to college without losing your mind
The New Road to Serfdom, by one of our heroes, the Brit Daniel Hannan
Krauthammer on Obama: "...his self-regard is quite infinite here."
Insty on the O:
"This kind of inflammatory rhetoric is dangerous. I don’t think we’ve ever seen its like from a sitting President."
Prager: This Is a Referendum, Not an Election
Fighting the Tea Party is like fighting the Taliban - asymmetrical warfare
Good analogy
Black guy looks for racism, cannot find any. He's angry anyway,
Maybe he's angry because he couldn't find any...
Biden:
"Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive...”
OK, Joe. Name three.
Tuesday, October 26. 2010
 More links later. Server problems...
Pajamas: Time for Heads to Roll Over New Black Panther Dismissal
Falling in Love Only Takes About a Fifth of a Second, Research Reveals
That ain't love. That's called desire.
UNMANNED: Boys, Neuters, Thugs and Other Faux Men
Repressed aggression. Very sad.
Powerline: Independents poised to deal hard blow to Democrats
Cons need to keep an eye on those indies. Don't overreach, Cons.
The Shibboleth of "Fixing" Income Inequality
Russia fixed it. It worked out very well indeed. Everybody pretended to work.
Yes, yet another "deep swimmer" of the Left. They tend towards non-profits, where their productivity cannot be measured.
A quote via Thompson on public spending:
See, whilst many… are psychologically able to ignore, or excuse, or basically discount altogether the taking money from people bit of public spending, there are some of us that just can’t. One day it occurs to ask the question, “What exactly gives them the right to help themselves to whatever they want?” and the answer turns out to be because they can. Then you get a bit angry and frustrated, feel almost entirely helpless, then, just to make things that little bit worse, everyone else in the world comes and slaps you in the face for even daring to consider such heretical notions. The taking from me bit doesn’t count. I don’t matter. It’s the no longer giving bit that counts. Think about how people feel! Think about all the things they could do with that money, or that job, or learn from those people or achieve with the support of those others! Don’t you understand? Have you no feelings? Apparently not. I just keep thinking, “But it’s not your money. How can you live with yourselves taking it?”
Monday, October 25. 2010
That, with other deep wisdom including an irrefutable proof that Tea Partiers are racists, here.
That dramatic � even inflammatory -- title, �Is �Palestinian-killer� the new �Christ-killer�?�, is the first question that occurred to me as I read news reports that a meeting of Catholic Bishops from the Middle East condemned Israel, called for withdrawal to 1967 borders, and that Jews have no Biblical right to Israel.
I just read the actual statement of the gathering. The initial impression I had was wrong, largely due to the poor news reporting and due to the press conference by the archbishop president of the gathering that went beyond the meeting�s report and beyond Catholic Church doctrine. Further, the report itself is not the official position of the Catholic Church. The Pope will consider it before issuing his final statement.
That impression given the world, that the Jews of Israel are, in effect, �Palestinian-killers�, consonant with the catechism of the Left in trying to delegitimize Israel�s very existence, was conveyed by the president of the gathering at a Vatican press conference:
�The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands,� Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts, and president of the �Commission for the Message,� said at Saturday�s Vatican press conference.
�We Christians cannot speak of the �promised land� as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people. This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people � all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.
�Even if the head of the Israeli state is Jewish, the future is based on democracy.
The Palestinian refugees will eventually come back and this problem will have to be solved,� the Lebanese-born Bustros said.
The Israeli reply was sharp:
Continue reading "Is Palestinian-killer the new Christ-killer?"
Saturday, October 23. 2010
That's an overstatement.
On other topics,
If Reagan couldn't do it, who could?
...imagine if your car insurance covered every scratch or dent. Wouldn't you expect your premiums to rise to meet the expanded coverage? And wouldn't you expect your auto repair shops to become clogged with cars that didn't really need to be repaired, competing for time and space with other cars with broken transmissions or burnt-out motors?
If we want lower insurance premiums, we will need to return to a system that favors high deductible, high co-pay catastrophic-type insurance with a built-in disincentive for overuse, such as the kind that some employers have provided as an option up until now. Patients could pay for office visits from health savings accounts or other flexible spending tax shelters. More than 10 million Americans already have such accounts.
A Lukewarmer speaks at Watts. Good comments on the post.
Prof B: How much is too much when it comes to taxes?
Climate regulations coming for trucks, buses
Let's bring on a new Ice Age
No normal human does not enjoy the smell of bacon
Moslems need to lighten up and learn more tolerance.
FOX is the most tolerant network
Greg Sullivan: Buy, Mortimer, Buy! - The Saga of Maine Family Robinson Continues
Anchoress on The Brutality of Grace and Cormac McCarthy
Did you ever see the film El Topo? McCarthy is like that.
Three Charts that Will Infuriate Taxpayers
Public Employees Union Spends Huge to Save Dems
This is corrupt.
The homelessness industry has re-branded San Francisco's street bums (h/t Lucianne).
It's quite a story. The homeless advocates are begging and manipulating for money in a way which is similar to that of the seemingly-sociopathic panhandlers.
Friday, October 22. 2010
Via Theo
A Viking mystery in Oxford (h/t, Never Yet melted)
Reason: The Eternal Return of Overpopulation. Well, I believe that there are too many people on the planet. Too many for what? That's a long answer, but let's just say for now that they are putting mini-mansions on some of the grouse coverts I grew up hunting.
Driscoll on elitism: Puritanical Poseurs in Paradise
Think Progress Discovers Conservative Philanthropy Is a Lot Like Progressive Philanthropy
NPR: Here’s a quick billion dollars or so that taxpayers can save
Culture of entitlement: French strike to save 'birthright' of privileges. How are hand-outs "privileges"? These people have no work ethic, and are still acting like disgruntled peasants instead of free people.
Is "sustainable" taking over from "diversity" in academic fashion?
NAACP: Tea Party needs to become racist so we can call them racists. Or something.
Solar farms in England? What a joke. Your tax dollars at work, suckers. Makes as much sense as solar in Seattle.
The Krautman: Obama Underappreciation Syndrome:
Here Obama has spent two years bestowing upon the peasantry the "New Foundation" of a more regulated, socially engineered and therefore more humane society, and they repay him with recalcitrance and outright opposition. Here he gave them Obamacare, the stimulus, financial regulation and a shot at cap-and-trade -- and the electorate remains not just unmoved but ungrateful.
Faced with this truly puzzling conundrum, Dr. Obama diagnoses a heretofore undiscovered psychological derangement: anxiety-induced Obama Underappreciation Syndrome, wherein an entire population is so addled by its economic anxieties as to be neurologically incapable of appreciating the "facts and science" undergirding Obamacare and the other blessings their president has bestowed upon them from on high.
OK, Obama thinks that I am mentally disturbed. Of course I am. At least he didn't call me racist.
Thursday, October 21. 2010
h/t, Theo
More on the embarassment at Widener Law School
With open gays now free to join the army, Ivy League to bring back ROTC any second now, right?
VDH: How our first postracial, postnational, bipartisan president has revealed himself to be a condescending doctrinaire ideologue.
Who is giving a million to fight MSNBC?
This is cruel: Maureen Dowd and Revenge of the Homely Redhead
Carpe: The Antidote to Obamacare? Dr. Wal-Mart, Retail Clinics and Strip Mall Medicine Are Booming in U.S.
Does the government have a grudge against salt?
Classical: News Weak says the TEA Party folks have made a fetish out of the Constitution but worse - they get it wrong.
I like the idea of wilderness preservation anywhere -but with allowance for careful oil drilling - and cops, for Pete's sake
The UK: Osborne wields axe
Tyrrell: It is over. He begins:
The Democrats are about to be beaten by something that they do not in their heart of hearts think exists, a huge national majority. At this late hour, with the storm clouds gathering and the livestock getting restless, they see only sunshine. Yes, there is "foreign money" out there. Yes, the media have bungled broadcasting the purity of the Democratic message. And naturally, angry voices can be heard. Yet surely there is no majority gathering to unseat the party of decency and good deeds. Well, there is, and it is nothing like how the Democrats describe it.
That majority is amiable and sensible and believes in limited government. It is convinced that we face a catastrophic budget crisis and that measures must be taken against the spending and on behalf of growth. Furthermore, many of these friendly Americans would be delighted to give our president a ride home if they found him on a street corner, though they would be a lot happier if he did not live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. They doubt he would ask them in for a drink. After all, to him they do not exist.
Wednesday, October 20. 2010
Stupid Christine O'Donnell. She claimed there was no rule in the Constitution requiring "separation of church and state."
Her opponent and the law students mocked her and laughed at her.
Of course, she was right (but all of our readers know what is said in the Constitution because it is our nation's secular bible).
The meaning of Prof. Lewis' resignation from the APS, at Pajamas:
Professor Lewis’s action — resignation from a scientific organization that had counted him among its most respected members, based on the perception that they no longer support “good science” over political expediency — is earth-shaking, even if so far in only a small way. But earthquakes are funny — a few small earthquakes can weaken an edifice, through repeated cracks, as thoroughly as one big earthquake.
Professor Lewis’s resignation is another sign that the foundation of certainty about anthropogenic, carbon-dioxide forced, global warming is showing cracks that suggest the weakness of the whole structure.
Re Code Pink:
The evidence clearly indicates that Code Pink's mission gave aid and comfort to America's wartime enemies in Fallujah, a clear-cut act of sedition made possible by the group's allies in Congress -- Democrats Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Raul Grijalva, and Dennis Kucinich.
Politico: 99 Democrat seats on the wall, 99 Democrat seats …
Surber: Generic polls are worse than Democrats think
Dems have become the government union choice
Amusing: Historic Illiteracy: Idiot Sarah Palin "Party Like It's 1773" After The Election!
America needs more rich, not fewer
Can Tancredo win in Colorado?
It's a screwy election there.
Hey, why not ask them whether it's OK for women to think for themselves?
Many of my more enlightened friends like to ask me: How could someone as intellectually gifted, delightfully urbane, profoundly moral and breathlessly handsome not want to spit at these stupid tea party candidates, with their stupid positions and their stupid stupidity? (That's slightly embellished; obviously, I'm not that handsome.)
I blame Bush.
The need for Democrat cross-burning in order to keep blacks in the underclass is over. Democrats have succeeded in creating black intellectual serfs who are so swayed by the blandishments of Big Government and the empty anti-capitalist rhetoric of the left that they don't even realize they've been hoodwinked by some of the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism!
Unless black liberals realize they've been the victims of a decades-long election-buying rip-off perpetrated by the Democrats -- and advanced using the cat's-paws of the black faces in the leftist elite -- the black community will remain in the quagmire of despair it has been in since the Democrats started handing black people their scraps to live off.
The black community's allegiance to Democrats is among the most shameful political facts in American history -- and it can be ended only by the articulation of a true conservative message from passionate, intrepid, and ethnically diverse messengers.
Tuesday, October 19. 2010
Murchison: How Big Should Government Be? A quote:
No genius can figure out what government could do "for us" if it really tried. Easier to figure is what it might instead do "to us" once it really decided to save us: narrowing choices, curtailing the varied freedoms of action Americans still enjoy. That's why there's this lawsuit in Florida (as in other venues), where the wait-a-cotton-picking-minute spirit has Our Protectors at least momentarily on the defensive.
If the Feds can tax a non-activity (ie not buying the insurance plan they want us to buy), they can tax anything we don't do, "for our own good."
I am annoyed with Obamacare for at least three additional reasons:
1) I am very happy with my catastrophic ("major medical") insurance plan. It covers nothing elective or "preventive," no obstetrics, no vision, no dental, and has a $5000 deductible. I can see any physician I choose. Even including the deductible, it's relatively cheap. Under Obamacare, I cannot own this insurance.
2) The politicization of medical care promises to be an unholy mess.
3) There will be perverse incentives for your doctors to under-treat you.
Bill Clinton on the campaign trail in the South (I thought ex-Presidents traditionally stayed out of active partisan politics. How come nobody talks about that?):
He warned voters, “You are being played,” and urged people to cast ballots with their economic self interest in mind.
What? Not America's best interests? He's telling us to vote our personal self-interest. Good grief.
New Poll: Van Tran Pulls Even with Loretta Sanchez in CA-47
Democrat Dirty Tricks: The Next Round
Related: Did you hear about Axelrod's bestiality problem?
AVI on Kent State:
We were so sure we were the ones who wanted peace, and some of us were willing to get violent to prove it.
How Diversity Punishes Asians and Poor Whites
A reader pointed out that schools use two categories: "Minorities" and "Underrepresented Minorities." Asians are overrepresented minorities. Poor whites are, well, white - and whites who cannot pay full freight, so nobody wants them.
How Krugman became Krugman
Governor Moonbeam Offers Free College for Illegal Aliens
Dick Morris: Dems have no message.
Yes, they do. They just won't say what it is.
Obamacare will kill the private practice of medicine (on purpose)
More on that $250 bribe the over-65 set got in the mail.
As we said, timed perfectly to send it off to your favorite Tea Party candidate
Coyote: Government: The Solution to Failed Programs is to Double Their Size (h/t Shrinkwrapped's Connecting the Dots)
That means there can be no such thing as a failed policy experiment.
ObamaCare’s Unseen Costs - Taxes will go up under the new health care law—and the costs will be more than you think.
What's the Matter With America? President Obama's false consciousness theory of economic worries
Related, the post below, Fault Lines, is a good overview of what is going on politically these days. A quote from that essay:
“He’s trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other way. The entire American spirit is being broken,” said an Obama voter and donor in South Bend, Indiana. In Elkhart, Indiana, Time found a Republican candidate who said she was “often approached by Obama voters who want[ed] to vent.” “Betrayed by the health care vote,” “What are they thinking when it comes to spending?” and “He’s not what I voted for,” were among the many complaints. These are not Republicans, and Republicans did not make them say this.
Monday, October 18. 2010
Via Coyote, spoken by a WVa congressman:
“Climate change — to deny it exists, to just put your head in the sand and, ‘oh no, it doesn’t exist, what are you talking about,’ is about like standing on the floor of Macy’s during the month of December and claiming Santa Claus doesn’t exist."
Exactly.
A good line: Fiorina Says Boxer 'Too Extreme' for California
Too bad it isn't true.
Why sex in space is a bad idea
Why don't Asians count as racial or ethnic minorities?
I always wonder whether people from Spain count as Hispanics. Also, do Moslems count as minorities? Also, as 1/16th American Indian, am I a minority? (If so, gimme the $ and the freebies.)
The people are scared, explains Obama: Our psycho-babbler-in-chief
The only thing we have to fear is loss of our job itself. And more Dem job-destroying and economy-stifling insanity.
Top 400 Charities See Billions Less in Donations
Debicella now a dead heat in CT-4.
It's time for New England to elect at least one Repub congresscritter.
Rasmussen: McMahon Closes Gap on Blumenthal
Linda Chavez: Obama has no clue about entrepreneurship
Well, he has done a heck of a job getting government to grow
Surber: No, we are not afraid
The Trouble with Manchin
Screaming "Allah Akbar" before you open fire is the confusing part
Washington Reb: Growing Up Conservative
How Long Will MSM Ignore Assault By NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey On Reporter? / Update: Poughkeepsie Journal Scoops NY Times
Leftoid violence does not exist.
NRO: Some Context on the Wilders Case
Related: Wilders Is Right: Europe Needs a First Amendment
Perino asks Why is Maureen Dowd so angry?
Everybody knows the real reason in her case. However, Leftoids to tend to be angry people in general.
Sunday, October 17. 2010
We are a fickle nation, are we not?
Buyer's remorse. We bought a pig in a poke, and now people are wising up. Well, every generation needs to get conned by a few pols before they understand the game. That's why nobody under 40 should be allowed to vote unless they are in the Armed Services.
Poll: Many Obama 2008 supporters defecting to GOP
Vodkaman: Handicapping the House — Weekend Brief
Obama didn't sell me - or reassure me.
Merkel says German multicultural society has failed
Desmond Tutu: Obama’s Other Anti-Semitic Guru
Murdoch: The goal is to make Israel a pariah
David Warren: End our 'multiuniversities'
Gelinas wonders whether TARP was good or bad, effective or ineffective
Tides Foundation CEO To Fox News Advertisers: Drop Glenn Beck Or Have Blood On Your Hands
Ilya Somin on The Florida District Court Decision Rejecting the Federal Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Case Against the Individual Mandate
A great example of an elitist viewpoint, with takedown by Dino
Betsy: Teachers putting themselves ahead of their students
Ahmadinejad’s Deadly Triumph in Lebanon
Driscoll: All the Way with LBJ!
Union Bosses Are Funneling Millions to Democrats to Keep Money Flowing To Them
Rasmussen:
Voter nervousness about the economy, Rasmussen noted, is clear in the declining number of people he finds who feel their own finances are “in good order.” Two years ago, he recalled, 43% of Americans felt their finances were in good order, 38% felt this way the day Barack Obama was elected, and 35% felt that way on the day he took office as President.
“At the beginning of the year, that figure dropped to 32%,” he added, “and today, it is down to 30%.” Rasmussen also said that more than half of homeowners are “unsure if their home is worth more than their mortgage.
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Your tax dollars at work: