Monday, November 16. 2009
 Global warming: World leaders agree to hold off agreement. Related: Al Gore begins attracting protesters:
In addition to his nonprofit advocacy, Gore is a partner in a venture capital firm that finances "sustainable" and alternative energy businesses, prompting some critics to accuse Gore of promoting environmental policies that will fatten his bank account.
"Cap & Tax — Don't Be Fooled: Al Gore Will Make billions," read a sign carried by Alan Tudor, who drove from Tampa to attend Saturday's protest.
"Gore's Favorite Green Product? Your money in his pocket," said another sign.
Related: Rasmussen polls on climate hysteria and energy policy. The rationalists are winning the debate.
Is Deval Patrick an Obama leading indicator?
The bow: Japanese call it an embarrassment. I figure if "Japanese always bow," then why didn't the Emperor bow to Obama?
State Finance Directors Warn of More Trouble Ahead
New Study Says Costs Rise Under Health Bill
Althouse: Palin is dumb
On the other hand, it has often been pointed out lately that you catch the most flak when you are over the target. Via Riehl:
Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the
book before it was released. They're now erroneously reporting on the
book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed
during the campaign and afterwards. We've heard 11 writers are engaged
in this opposition research, er, "fact checking" research! Imagine that
– 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book,
instead of using the time and resources to "fact check" what's going on
with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing.
KSM: A staggering ego, at the center of difficult issues
Res ipsa loquitur: Repubs are just complete a-holes
Again already? The decline of the Left
Wilkinson discusses income inequality: it's all due to the top .5% and not part of a large trend. Thus can stats be abused by politicans.
Soros' closed society. Insty
Columnists Who Blamed Conservative Media for 'Right-Wing' Killings Ignoring Fort Hood. It doesn't fit the narrative of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
Our 'Constitutional Moment' The New York newspaperman says our founding document is especially vital today, in an age of expanding state power.
Sunday, November 15. 2009
Two prominent blogs raise the question of whether President Obama is an “idiot.”
John Hinderaker at PowerLine wonders, “One seriously hesitates to draw the conclusion that Barack Obama is an idiot, no matter how strongly the evidence may point in that direction. But what are we to make of a man who is ignorant of history; who is ignorant of economics; who despises his own country; and who appears to believe that awareness of his own wonderfulness is enough to guide him? Has such a fool ever played a leading role on the world stage? I think it is fair to say, no: not until now.”
At HotAir, Allahpundit’s headline is, “Japan expert to ABC: Yes, Obama’s bow made him look like an idiot.” The post continues: “So much of an idiot, in fact, that according to Tapper’s source, at least one Japanese paper isn’t running the photo out of embarrassment. This tool actually groveled himself into a minor international incident.” Then, adds: “And yet, having said that, I’m not convinced that the “groveling” explanation for the bow is necessarily the correct one. For one thing, his protocol office is famously run by imbeciles. They may very well have simply given him bum advice: 'Be sure to hunch way the hell over and stare at the ground. They all do it that way.' ” Though, they don’t all do it that way. Jim Hoft, at GatewayPundit, brings us the video, “47 World Leaders – 46 Handshakes – 1 Bow.”
One could make a verrrry long list of President Obama’s ignorant statements and actions, and outright lies, apparently believing the MSM will continue to cover for and excuse him and the American people will continue to believe him. But, does that make him an “idiot”?
In strict definition, “idiot” is an outmoded term for someone so mentally retarded that their mental development is less than a 3-year old’s, with an IQ of 25 or less, but connotes an “uneducated, ignorant, ill-informed person.” In more common usage, Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “idiot” as “a foolish or stupid person.”
So, this jury holds that, yes, President Obama is an idiot, “a foolish or stupid person” who believes the American people are “uneducated, ignorant, ill-informed” idiots who can be gulled to believe in dangerous foolishness by he and his excusers.
The education provided by President Obama, along with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, in their versions of liberal fixes to our health care, economy, and foreign policies has been a boon to Americans, as polls demonstrate, who are now well-informed about the idiocy of Obama-Reid-Pelosi and their apologists. More and more of the Americans who voted for Obama may have been "foolish and stupid", but are no longer. President Obama is, still, an idiot. A very dangerous one.
P.S.: A professor friend at a leading university, who is learned in exegesis, just emailed me: "It's the kind of idiocy that only great arrogance and hubris can produce." So, maybe the strict definition, above, does apply to President Obama, acting like "less than a 3-year old"!
That's a question She Who Must Be Obeyed asked me. Well, here's one.
I do not think it's an issue that lots of people are fired up about. The chanting part is amusing. "Communism" - "Now!" Also, "What do we want?" - "Free stuff." "When do we want it?" - "Now!"
Best books on etiquette
Nyquist: Thucydides in the Underworld
How ed schools have destroyed American math skills
The teacher glut
Moon ice and spin ice
Spiro Agnew was right (h/t somebody)
Related: Time and Newsweek
The liberal Church of Medical Insurance
Krugman:
Washington is caught up in deficit phobia, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance of getting a big enough push.
That’s why, at this point, I’m turning to what I understand perfectly well to be a third-best solution: subsidizing jobs and promoting work-sharing.
Amazing: Times snarks Palin with statements that better apply to the O.
Peter Schiff:
"We're not going to solve the economic problems until we get rid of people like Chris Dodd. As long as Dodd is in there writing regulation, the economy is never going to recover, and more and more people are going to lose their jobs"
From Rick Moran's Why America needs a shrink:
Whither government in America, ask the people? How much should we allow it to do for us without losing something essential that makes us who we are? Are we really all that different of a people from everyone else on the planet? Is there an identifiable “American character” that sets us apart?
Our ancestors certainly thought so. Alexis de Tocqueville agreed. Indeed, it may be out of fashion to talk about the basis of our Constitution, but if we ever forget the idea that all power flows from the consent of the governed and not the other way around, we are doomed to suffer a significant loss of personal freedom simply because government can do pretty much whatever it chooses to do unless the people withhold their consent. There hasn’t been a lot of that these last 40 years and government’s ravenous appetite to do what all governments, once created, and regardless of who is in charge, seek to do - control - has gotten out of hand.
This despite the best of intentions of government’s major cheerleaders, and their belief that society can be perfected with the application of the principles of social science; seek out root causes of society’s problems and address them.
History began in 2009
Obamacare is looking iffy in the Senate
Saturday, November 14. 2009
From Coyote:
Over the last year the Congress and Administration have:
- Printed trillions of dollars of new money, raising the risk of future inflation
- Borrowed trillions of dollars, sucking capital out of private lending markets
- Run up deficits that pretty much guarantee future tax increases
- Toyed with health care bills that will substantially increase the cost of labor
- Toyed with climate bills that will substantially increase the cost of fuel and electricity
- Demagogued industries with average to below-average profitability
for making obscene profits that must be reduced (e.g. health insurance
companies who make 3-4% of sales)
- Taken over whole industries (autos, banks) and run them to the
benefit of favored political constituencies, even when it violates the
law (e.g. trashing for secured creditors of auto companies in favor of
the UAW).
- Demonstrated a disdain for money-making by imposing populist
compensation limits on executives of out-of-favor companies and
industries.
- Spent money in the stimulus mainly to add government jobs, every
one of which is generally focused on making my life running a business
harder. If you do not understand or believe this, you have not run a
business that employs people.
- Shown a general philosophic hostility towards markets and capitalism
If you were dismayed by those photos of the O not responding to the flag on Veteran's Day, (but had no problem with bowing - which is neither proper protocol nor American, to the Saudi Prince or, yesterday, to the Emperor of Japan - see Why is this man bowing?), then figure out these photos of the O in a Mao jacket from today or yesterday.
Good grief. Never thought I'd see the day that an American Pres would put on a Mao jacket. It sends a peculiar message. I would wear a tutu before I'd put on one of those - except maybe for Halloween.
(Re the bows, there was a time when gentlemen's bowing to eachother in America was a sign of respect, but it was replaced more than 100 years ago by the more dignified handshake. A bow is basically a symbol of submission.)
If somebody wants to run against the O, it would not be hard to put together a disturbing photo montage of a person who seems to respect any nation more highly than his own.
Neither Russia nor China, nor Iran, nor other hostile countries are comfortable with the dominance of world power held by the United States. They are independently and together working assiduously to neuter the US’ sway in the world. President Obama is helping them.
Russia is reasserting its influence over Eastern Europe, and over Western Europe via controlling its gas supplies. China is vigorously exercising mercantilist capitalism to rapidly build its economy and impoverish the West’s, locking up supplies of vital raw materials resources around the world, while racing ahead to build an ocean navy that includes aircraft carrier extensions of power throughout the globe. Iran is steadfast on attaining nuclear power and weaponry, which can reach Europe and will reach farther. Nuclear knowhow and development aid is shared with and by North Korea and Pakistan, purveyors to other countries. Venezuela, launch pad for subversion in Latin America, is to obtain nuclear assistance from Iran that will increase its sway and threat. Russia and China have used their veto seats on the UN Security Council to hamstring strong measures to slow or stop Iran’s imminent step into the nuclear power ring.
Arab states never really worried about Israel’s nuclear deterrence because Israel may be a convenient whipping boy but is not an aggressive power, so there was no need to build Arab nuclear counters. But, now, Arab states are seeing a need to build their own nuclear deterrence to Iran’s aggressive policies toward them. Nuclear proliferation within unstable nations that themselves may proliferate or where their technologies may fall into the hands of murderous extremists is spreading dangerously and rapidly. The ones to benefit are Russia, China and Iran, as the US’ deterrence is weakened and the US’ political and economic strength directly and relatively reduced.
Investors Daily lays out one scenario, a nuclear attack within the US: “For a superpower to be found so exposed to risk from a small group of fanatics might be too much to bear. And who would fill the vacuum? Which would become the new superpowers? Regimes that have proved unafraid to be ruthless to their own people, never mind their enemies?”
It need not even go that far. The Bush administration was not as stalwart as it could have been in facing these emerging new world orderers, but it tried. The Obama administration, by dangerous contrast, in its dithering, its weakened resolve to confront, its self-abandonment of deterrence and direct counters, is actually encouraging, in result aiding, the hastening of the new hostile, dangerous to the US, world order that will favor international thugs in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, Caracas, and a lengthening list of other capitals. Obama’s actions harming allies, while favoring or bowing before enemies, are part of this self-isolation, self-neuterization by the US within the world.
It is an interesting subject for debate whether this Obama self-defeat march comes from ideology or from incompetence or from ignorance, or their relative proportions. The consequences are the same: the neutering of the US, and possibly the day when one or more of our cities, and thus our economy, lays in ruins, topped by our bankruptcy from Obama economic policies and legislation.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Be aware, and more determined than ever to slow and halt this self-destruction in the elections of 2010 and 2012. Start by demanding that potential Republican challengers are informed and resolute, and don’t ignore the saner Democrats. We’re all in this together.
Editor's comment: As Kudlow says, this is just one part of the administration's larger defeatist, declinist approach to everything: economics, trade, business, the military, international affairs, American values, American world leadership, etc. A deliberate attempt to downsize, if not damage, America. I think the O believes in himself - but not in us.
President Oba Mao heads to China. Do they still like Mao over there? If so, why? I thought they had evolved past authoritarian hero-worship.
Photo below via Flopping, who provides the quote:
Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General
Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his
right,”
- Venezuelan “president” Hugo
Chavez
 CUNY students can't do math. You would think the SAT would have made that clear.
Newt Gingrich: The job-killing president and Congress
Climate change bill to back burner. I think it's dead. Or frozen.
Jesus the Capitalist? I do not think that He spent a lot of time on politics. His agenda had to do with higher matters. I did learn the word eisegesis from the article.
I Really Need To Stop Watching The Main Stream Media Because My Face Will Freeze Like This h/t, Riehl
England gone mad: Jail time for turning in gun to cops
Thompson: Careful, dear readers. That’s the white heat of insight.
Why Compel Young Adults to Buy Health Insurance They Don't Need and Don't Want?
The Audacity of Extremism:
The Audacity of Obama is a
front, and it's starting to crumble. America's endurance is in our
people, the tens of millions who remember our history -- not the phony
history that the vulgar Marxists are now peddling all over the schools.
The conservative media are beginning to seize the national narrative
again. All we need to do is to tell the truth over and over, every
single chance we get.
Andy McCarthy via Michelle on the notion of giving Khalid Sheik Mohammed a civilian trial:
We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for
defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for
their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put
the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media)
spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what
is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for
al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,”
the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about
interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations
targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge
catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The
administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the
administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets.
And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the
war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press
its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of
international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the
intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.
Related, as Dino says, "As the man said, it really is impossible to caricature this administration." (That's from a cool site which is new to us: Baseball Crank)
Friday, November 13. 2009
Government planning, via Marginal:
China's empty city
(of the day). YouTube. At about 1:20 you will see that a city built
for one million residents remains empty, a' la Austro-Chinese business
cycle theory. "Ordos was a government idea, an infrastructure project
taken to its limits, the motivation was likely gdp..." -- can you
get better than that? After the first minute or so the video
is stunning.
From The American, seven interesting, inexpensive market-based sorts of medical services that are in operation today. Some good tips in there, including the $4 prescriptions.
How you can tell when a guy doesn't feel all that good about his country. This is becoming a pattern. (h/t Gateway)
At Pajamas. People don't want this.
 Photos from Cassini (as is this photo)
For history buffs, two books via Theo:
Greek And Roman Artillery, Technical Treaties
E. W. Marsden
And
Greek and Roman Artillery. Historical Development
E. W. Marsden
FBI seizes mosques in NYC
Prayer is ruining me for blogging. Anchoress. Prayer, as I have come to understand it, is a conversation with God. That is indeed more precious than writing.
A harmless moonbat, for once.
Would government medical care cover "perfect vaginas"?
More on SEIU: A civil war
Sullivan is always an easy target. Dithering is good. Not in a battle, Andrew.
Speaking of dithering, here's a Mom who did not dither.
How politically divided is America? Very. Not a bad thing.
Putting the brakes on hysteria. Lowry:
Supporters of Obamacare have their next
target for obloquy and shame. It’s the United States Senate, an
institution whose villainy will almost match that of the insurers and
Fox News if the health-care bill sinks there.
The
anti-senatorial campaign is already revving up. Liberal columnist
Harold Meyerson stamped his feet in frustration yesterday in the Washington Post at the cussed balkiness of the Senate: “Dithering Heights.” “Proceeds glacially and produces next to nothing.”
This amounts to raging at the Senate for its very nature and purpose. It’s supposed
to be slow-paced and unproductive. Everyone has their moments of
frustration at the Senate (I’ve had plenty) because it is designed to
be frustrating, especially when a majority in the House is electric
with ideological excitement. Conservatives spent most of 1995 hurling
epithets at the Senate.
So it’s not surprising that the Left
is upset at it at a time when “Iron Nancy” is using her solid majority
to muscle massive pieces of legislation through the House by a handful
of votes. Why can’t the Senate do the same, goes the
cry, entirely missing the point. It’s not just that the Senate is built
differently from the House: It won’t truly be fulfilling its role in
our constitutional scheme if doesn’t deep-six Obamacare.
Thursday, November 12. 2009
From a pointed Graham post at NRO, we learn that
UMass (also) has a speech code, by the way (it bans, among other things, "staring or leering"), so figure that one out.
Leer at will, my Yankee friends, below the fold, and indulge in a little healthy Thoreauvian civil disobedience -
Continue reading "Leer at will - only for UMass students (and faculty)"
This morning I told a friend I often watch idiotic escapist movies. Those who make the better ones need to be creative wonders. A look behind the scenes at one of the more successful reveals that he needs also to be an idiot.
My local newspaper carries a wire service profile of the director of the upcoming $200-million special effects movie “2012.” This director, Roland Emmerich, from Germany, “has earned the unofficial title of ‘Master of Disaster’” for his prior hits, “Independence Day” (1996), “Godzilla” (1998), and “The Day After Tomorrow.” (2004) They were, indeed, fairly good idiotic escapist movies, to me.
His soon to be released topper will have “a collapse of the Earth’s crust, giant floods and hellish rains of fire (yet not enough to kill the main character, played by John Cusak).”
Wow! Can hardly wait. New York destroyed again. Been there, done that, you say.
Emmerich does more, but notice what he doesn’t do: "In fact, the man who rose to fame as a cinematic escapist is an activist in real life. In Germany, he’s a strong supporter of the environmentalist Green Party. He campaigns for gay rights, and he doesn’t hide his contempt for organized religion.” OK, he does fit in with Hollywood.
As the profile continues: “In 2012, the pope is buried under debris when St. Peter’s dome comes tumbling down, and peace-loving Tibetan monks are not spared by the great floods. No Islamic site is seen perishing, though. ‘We didn’t destroy Mecca because we didn’t want to have to deal with a fatwa,’ Emmerich says.” OK, he does fit in with the PCers who made the Ft. Hood massacre possible and the media community apologists for poor, misunderstood, stressed Hasan. Can’t wait for that Hollywood film version, huh? What courage it takes to trash Western civilization, and make the world safe for its destroyers!
Emmerich puts the idiot cherry on his half-baked cake of a mind with this one, why he “couldn’t make a patriotic feel-good movie like ‘Independence Day’ anymore: ‘These days I have a much more pessimistic outlook for our civilization, despite the good America can do for the world under Barack Obama.” OK, we’re waiting for his film about how Obama’s abandonment of oppressed peoples in Tibet, in Iran, in Honduras, in the growing list to include Afghanistan and maybe Iraq, will cheer shmuck Emmerich up. (Couldn’t resist the alliteration.)
BTW, I’d love to give you, dear reader, the url to see this profile in idiocy for yourself. But, due to the past triumphs of idiocy in media my local newspaper’s falling circulation cannot afford to pay extra anymore for the wire service reports in its dead-tree edition to also appear at its website, and the MCT wire service website – unlike AP's, even – doesn’t even steer the reader to a newspaper that does.
What's the SEIU up to, with Stern's 22 visits so far this year to the WH?
Oh no - not another government jobs bill
What the heck is wrong with From Dixie With Love?
The Decider, or The Ditherer?
Hasan's self-serving narrative of victimhood. Related: ABC News: Nidal Hasan & Followers of Islam Are the Real Victims (Video). Unbelievable. I guess those nuts who used to shoot up abortion clinics were the real victims too.
Related, from Dr. Sanity:
The key aspects of this psychobabble include an overemphasis on "self-esteem" at the expense of self-control and personal responsibility; an attitude that practically worships "feelings" at the expense of reason and truth; a fundamental misunderstanding about stress and the role of stress in life (i.e., that "all stress is bad", for example; and failing to appreciate that stress, when it is acknowledged and dealt with in healthy ways can enhance maturity and psychological health); and finally the glorification of victimhood and the celebration of unhealthy narcissism and the narcissists who exhibit it.
How is the idea of other people not paying for your abortions an assault on women's rights?
Employer-Provided Medicine Is Completely Illogical. Yes it is. It was a fluke of history.
Reid wants to muscle health care through ASAP. Will threats and bribes do the job? Related, via Vanderleun:
Yesterday 4 Deputy US Marshals were detailed to serve an arrest warrant
on Philip Gordon 63 of Carroll County in west Georgia. Mr Gordon
refused to allow the Marshals entrance to his gated property whereupon
the gate was breached using necessary force. During the process Mr
Gordon’s 2 Labrador retrievers charged the federal agents and were
dispatched. Mr Gordon refused to submit to arrest and brandished an
assault rifle accusing the Marshals of trespassing before retreating
into his home. The Marshals summoned backup from the local Carroll
County Sheriff’s office and two of the 6 responding deputies refused to
cooperate in serving the lawful warrant. They were immediately relieved
of duty. Additional backup of federal agents in the Atlanta field
offices of the FBI and BATFE surrounded the Gordon residence. Repeated
demands for Gordon to surrender went unheeded and chemical agents were
introduced into the structure. An hour later an unconscious Gordon was
taken into custody and booked into the Fulton county jail on the
warrant charging refusal to pay the $15,000.00 penalty for failure to
maintain a government approved medical insurance policy. -- Francis W. Porretto Leonidas - Eternity Road
Malaise Polls:
AP called it a "funk." The Pew Research Center describes the mood of the nation as "glum" in its new survey (2,000 Americans, 10/28-11/8, +/- 3%), which offers a significant warning for incumbents in both parties in the 2010 midterms.
Well, it's no wonder, with promises of higher taxes, bigger government, and record-making unemployment in our future.
From American Spectator:
...it REALLY REALLY REALLY grates to hear, again, especially on such an occasion, the following rhetorical trope:
"In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans."
What era does Obama live in? The America I know, that we all know, in 2009, is not an America that is suffering from an age of selfishness, an era of division, a time of cynicism. Mr. Obama can speak for himself. This is not a land nor an epoch of selfishness and cynicism, and the divisiveness is not extraordinary or even terribly bad -- and it often comes from Obama himself. But somebody should look the president in the eye and say "WHo are you calling selfish and cynical, Kemosabe?" I look around me and see idealism, love of country, generosity. I see the incredible outpouring of church groups and other citizens in aiding the victims of Katrina. I see people volunteering hither and yon for all sorts of good causes. And yes, I even see TEA partiers who are out there of their own free will, at their own expense, trying to defend the freedoms they love for the sake of their children, for the sake of posterity.
Dem Camille Paglia on the Dem bill:
As for the actual content of the House healthcare bill, horrors! Where to begin? That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can't my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we're hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors' offices. They'll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.
Wednesday, November 11. 2009
Mad or bad? An excerpt from a good piece at Luskin:
When a group of 19 terrorists flew two planes
into the World Trade Center...The New York Times reported that they
were all psychologically unstable and had difficult times in forming
stable relationships with women. “The fact that they were Arabs and
Muslims or their political views had nothing to do with the motives for
this tragic act,” it explained. The newspaper urged that the main
lesson coming out of the attack was the need to fight against
Islamophobia and Arabophobia as well as for the United States to make
more concessions in the Middle East and to impeach President George W.
Bush.
Will government health care provide free therapy for all radical Muslims? Perhaps they all have a "self-esteem" problem? Or PTSD from Western oppression? Perhaps they might like an appointment with Dr. Bliss.
And who has "stable relationships with women," anyway? "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em."
Related from Driscoll:
Still though, never forget, as ABC breathlessly claims, “Plight of Muslim Soldiers Toughest Since Japanese-Americans in WWII.”
They might use the Commerce Clause (nowadays it seems to cover almost anything the government wants to do), but I think the idea of forcing everybody to buy something is not a government power.
The topic is discussed here: Sen. Reed:
Forcing People to Buy Health Insurance is Constitutionally Justified
Because It’s Like Making People ‘Sign Up for the Draft’, Huh?
and here:It's not the same as car insurance.
Are women pickier about men than men about women?
Kelo update: It's a vacant lot
How Muslim piracy changed the world
SISU, a few weeks ago: "It compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies"
Jim Carrey: Self-hating capitalist
Political arrogance:
...at the end of the day, we're the ones who reward them. Unless and until we seek out candidates who share Coolidge's modesty, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.
Trusting The Government To Take Care Of You: H1N1 Debacle
Why the O doesn't focus on the economy, at Pajamas. One quote:
Obama persuaded many small business people to pull in their horns and make plans to keep a low profile (including laying people off) in order to avoid the wealth confiscation of the populist, socialist, economic storm they saw coming with his election.
Senate Healthcare Bill: Not Until 2011?
Bolton: Foreign policy is "feeble." Feeble on purpose, Ambassador Bolton.
92% of docs want tort reform. People have no idea what it costs for docs to protect themselves from their few litigious patients and the legal piranhas.
Is government health care Constitutional in the US? We posted a bit on the Constitution yesterday.
Via the WSJ:
Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."
Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats' "political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.
This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state.
Speaking of breaking eggs, the Left has historically approved of doing that.
Kaus considers the real "id" politics of health care.
Since the game is now in the Senate, Hewitt offers a list of The Potentially Reasonable Democratic Senators, with addresses, phone numbers, etc
Viking:
I'll just borrow this thought from Mark Steyn on the passage of the health care bill:
If "health care" were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it's not about health or costs or coverage; it's about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn't matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be "reformed", endlessly, but it will never be undone.
The history of Social Security and Medicare and damn near every government program follows the same pattern: start small and expand later. When Social Security was started in the mid-1930's, the program collected 1% from your income along with 1% from your employer; these contributions went to fund a program to prevent poverty in old age. Now Social Security collects 6.2% of your income (12.4% for the self-employed) to fund a much healthier and wealthier senior population compared to their Depression-era counterparts.
|
