Friday, April 27. 2007
This just isn't fair. I have skin color, but it's sort-of a blotchy pale unhealthy-looking thing with freckles and pimples and stuff. Not my fault. Too bad the photo-shopper couldn't spell "defusing." This is not by our Roger, but it is Roger-quality: 
 Re gun control, read this at Confederate Yankee.
What makes it especially amusing is that it sounds like Gen. Petraeus' plan in Baghdad. I would be all in favor of rounding up every illegal gun in Boston (where I had an attempted mugging but ran faster than they did) and NYC (where I've been mugged, and also robbed twice). Both times by evil young crims with handguns of certainly doubtful legality. Of course, knives would have worked almost as well, since my Kung Fu is a little rusty, and drug-crazed sociopathic teens make me deeply uneasy. Sometime, when I feel like exposing the true depths of my stupidity, I'll post the story of how I gave the guy a subway token, two crumpled one dollar bills, and a pocketful of change, when I had a $1300 wad in my back pocket. As I reflect back, maybe I need a whole post on my victimhood!!!
Borrowed without permission from a piece on our excellent economy, by Dr. Sanity: 
 I found Dr. Helen's discussion of the psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Friedman, who stated in the New York Times that he made politically-correct referrals, a good one, but I was confused by Dr. Friedman's premises.
Psychiatry is not all about empathy. In fact, empathy is just one of many tools in ye olde toolbox. When patients ask for a certain gender, age, color, etc. for a referral, I like to explore why. Usually it is a "resistance," ie based on the idea that someone might go easy on them and not challenge what needs to be challenged. All shrinks have seen people who search until they find someone who will "support" them rather than shake up their world and challenge their inner problems. Kindly, one would hope, but also aggressively, because life is short. For example, a black patient might chose a black psychiatrist because "he would better understand my life." Nonsense. He just maybe might understand your surface outer life, but we deal with inner life. That is our special expertise. I have been known to say "What you are saying sounds full of shit," and it has been quite helpful - and truly "empathic" - because it was true. Empathy is just a tool for speaking the truth. Depth psychotherapy for character flaws is about the doctor doing battle with a series of resistances. When one is cut down, the next resistance in line pops up. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a high-falutin' game of Whack-A-Mole. I will never forget one consultation I did with a fancy, somewhat condescending middle-aged WASP lady, to assess her appropriateness for psychoanalysis. She mentioned that, if possible, she would prefer a Jewish analyst. Why? "I guess maybe because I wouldn't worry about what I said to a Jew." There was Resistance #1 handed to me on a platter: shame about what she might say or reveal. Thus she told me that shame was one of her surface resistances - part of the easy work before the subtler transference resistances kick in. Neo-neo commented on Dr. Helen's piece, and said that she knew therapists who would not treat a Republican. In my opinion, such a "therapist" is a fraud and not prepared to help anyone, because they are clearly so caught up in their own self that they do not welcome the adventure of trying to enter another person's mental world. Can you imagine a surgeon caring more about your politics than about your appendix? There is a little thing called the Hippocratic Oath.
 Canada's FLICK OFF campaign, to tell people to turn their lights off. Nobody noticed how those letters appear when written in that curvy neon-style.
Anyway, it's an absurd idea which should leave Canadians feeling like telling their idiot bureaucrats to FLICK OFF. Story is at Dust My Broom. I believe that a far more effective approach to the alarming crisis of global warmening would be federal regulation, or banning, of beans. If Canada really cares, they will do it. They could call it FART OFF.
Thursday, April 26. 2007
 "Benign" Authoritarian Populism. Many in America would like to take the same path as Britain's, but not us at Maggie's Farm: we do not believe in the virtue of government. In fact, we believe that governments tend to serve their own purposes, like any other organizations filled with ambitious people who want steady work without heavy lifting.
A quote from "The Virtue of Freedom" by our hero, Dr. Ted Dalrymple, in New English Journal:
I don’t mean that Britain is just like Mussolini’s Italy, of course; history does not repeat itself in this simple way. But the surveillance of the British population is now among the most complete of any population that has ever existed. The average Briton, for example, is photographed 300 times per day as he goes about his normal, humdrum existence. Britain has an astonishing percentage of the world’s CCTV cameras in operation - something like a third of them. We now live in a security state. The wards of public hospitals are locked, and in the hospital in which I worked it was impossible even to get into the lavatories without knowing a secret code. The government has spent tens of billions on mad schemes to collate information electronically about us all, allegedly for our own good, whether we like it or not. None of these schemes has worked, thank goodness, or was ever going to, and the expenditure looks more and more like a giant malversation of funds in favour of the government’s favourite IT companies; but the very proposals, irrespective of whether they were ever workable or not, told us a lot about the government’s attitude to liberty. The latest mad - and extremely bad, vicious, totalitarian - proposal by Mr Blair is that every British child should be screened for criminal tendencies before they have developed. Once the statistical stigmata have been discovered, the child will be handed over to the experts who will carry out their ‘interventions’ to prevent further criminalisation. The state, in short, will repair the damage that the social structure that it has so assiduously fostered and encouraged over the last few decades has done. This would all be beyond satire if it were not for the fact that Mr Blair and his government takes it seriously. Mr Blair is always on the lookout, not for new worlds to conquer, but for new worlds to poke his nose into and to ruin, or ruin further. How are we to explain the obvious assault on liberty in Britain? I don’t think any overall plan has been formed; there is no conspiracy of evil men around a table in the dead of night. It is far worse than that, and more sinister because more difficult to oppose.
Read the whole thing.
Image: Tony Blair at the beach.
Wednesday, April 25. 2007
 From a piece at Atlas, quoting the excellent Paul Belien in the Washington Times:
"One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows from it," he (de Toqueville) wrote. It is exactly the loss of individual strength that has been the disease of France ever since it inflicted upon itself the totalitarian revolution of 1789. The latter turned this once great nation -- which produced warriors such as Charles Martel, Saint Louis and Joan of Arc -- into what Tocqueville called "a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." In France the Marxist left and the Bonapartist/Gaullist Right alike favor strong centralist, patronizing authority.
Image: Alexis de Toqueville
Everyone who wanted to has posted this already. Can you stand it? Kentucky Fried Hillary, #2, on YouTube. I can't believe that I feel embarassed for her, but I do.
 The murder capital of the US. A quote from a piece by Gelinas in City Journal:
When New Orleans began slowly to come back to life after Katrina, it enjoyed a respite from violent crime, one that residents and their elected leaders thought would continue indefinitely. New Orleanians had a “sense of euphoria about the city being a new city, that the violent crimes just weren’t there,” says U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, who handles federal cases for Louisiana’s eastern district. But after roughly ten weeks of peace, murders—many drug-related and acquaintance-based—started to appear in the headlines again. Then, as the city’s population began returning in greater numbers last spring, violent crime roared back “with a vengeance,” as Letten puts it. The highly publicized shooting death in March 2006 of 28-year-old Michael Frey at the hands of a street robber in the Faubourg Marigny, a funky neighborhood on the outskirts of the French Quarter, seemed to trigger in many New Orleans residents the realization that things were now back to “normal.”
Read the whole thing.
Tuesday, April 24. 2007
We forgot to link the Peggy Noonan piece on VT, at Opinion Journal. Better late than never. A quote: The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean "not obviously and vividly offensive." The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was "troubled"; he clearly had "issues"; it would have been good if someone had "reached out"; it's too bad America doesn't have better "support services." They don't use direct, clear words, because if they're blunt, they're implicated. The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge. The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost--almost--comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion. One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups?
Read the whole thing.
Michael Scheuer, Former Chief, Bin Laden Unit, CIA, reported to Congress on April 17. His statement is an interesting read. One quote: The Rendition Program was initiated because President Clinton, and Messrs. Lake, Berger, and Clarke requested that the CIA begin to attack and dismantle AQ. These men made it clear that they did not want to bring those captured to the U.S. and hold them in U.S. custody. President Clinton and his national security team directed the CIA to take each captured al-Qaeda leader to the country which had an outstanding legal process for him. This was a hard-and-fast rule which greatly restricted CIA’s ability to confront al-Qaeda because we could only focus on al-Qaeda leaders who were wanted somewhere. As a result many al-Qaeda fighters we knew were dangerous to America could not be captured.
Read the whole thing. I guess they never considered using Gitmo.
 I can't believe Chuckie Cheese said this (piece at Cramer):
Hell is about to freeze over. Watch out for those flying pigs! I just saw Senator Schumer (D-NY) on The O'Reilly Factor admit that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. He went on to argue that the right isn't unlimited, just like the First Amendment "doesn't protect pornography." He even acknowledged that there is a right to defend yourself, and that can even include using a gun to do so.
This tells me that gun control is off the table. But where did he read that our Bill of Rights are not unlimited? Since when doesn't the First protect porn? Who gave govt the right to limit rights? Freedom is not a gift of government. Freedom came first, and our government was designed and employed to protect it, right? Or am I confused?
From Speak No Truth, at LaShawn: As this country has become more racially and culturally diverse, telling the truth about racial and cultural differences has become off-limits. At the same time, liberals want to apply separate standards to these diverse groups based on those differences. For example, you can’t talk about personal responsibility in the context of underachievement among black students, or you’re a racist. Yet, so-called affirmative action — a government-mandated racial classification system — exists to compensate for those differences (and not to combat racism, as some people believe). But to be PC is to pretend racial disparities like underachievement or high crime rates are caused by white racism instead of by individuals and something lacking within the subculture itself, and to say otherwise is taboo.
Confederate Yank on the psychology of courage. How do people behave when they feel trapped? I think a "Let's roll" reaction could have taken the guy down. We only know of one guy who even confronted Cho - Liviu. Not to blame the victims, but just wondering. For example, if Cho had decided to take on the Rugby team in their locker room or an ROTC class, instead of a German language class, would it have ended differently?
Monday, April 23. 2007
Many Asians, as I understand it, like to use their fingers. The French like bidets. Boy Scouts use Poison Ivy leaves, and Grandpa grew up using pages from the Sears Roebuck catalog. But the civilized world, despite Cheryl Crowe's suggestions, prefers nice, soft toilet paper made from friendly trees. What did people use in the past? Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has the fascinating facts for you.
Sunday, April 22. 2007
It's getting funny. You can hear a bit on the video here. (h/t, Powerline's piece on the wierd subject.) I have known plenty of Wellesley girls, and they do not talk like that, unless in mockery. Somebody already took down the YouTube of the entire embarassment. Do you think she believes that if she doesn't talk black, they won't understand her? And an even bigger issue: What sort of people would be courting the revolting race pimp Al Sharpton? Nobody. So maybe the deal is that you don't want him against you, because he has no morals and no limits. Hillary and Al - perfect together. Lives built of pure lies.
Saturday, April 21. 2007
From Iraq the Model: Instead of telling us to stop fighting back, I'd like to see some people stand up and protest the crimes of the terrorists and tell them to stop the killing and destruction…turn the stop-the-war campaign against the terrorists, is that too much to ask for?
Tell the criminals to stop killing us and stop attacking the people who are risking their lives fighting for liberty and equality.
We're not asking the media and the stop-the-war crowd to carry arms and shoot the terrorists; we just want them to stop shooting at us.
Great story. Uplifting and heart-warming, and as American as apple pie. Too bad she didn't wing the guy.
I doubt it. Dino on the AP "picked on" story. "Picking on" is what many kids do, in the hope that it will protect them from being "picked on" themselves.
Friday, April 20. 2007
 I don't bother checking to see what the Leftist blogosphere is talking about anymore, because it has become so hatefully emotional and juvenile that you cannot learn anything from it.
To find out what the grown-ups of the Left are thinking, you have to go to dreary places like The Nation, which is a magazine, not a blog. In The Nation, Lawrence Goodwyn has The Coming Party Realignment. Life is terrible, he feels. He is certain that we are in the 1930s again. He hates globalization of markets, he hates Bush, and I think he wants to tax financially successful people down to the mean. Well, it was the best example of Lefty thinking I could find today, but I found little fact or truth in it. Very disappointing. (BTW, he uses the word "democracy" for "socialism.") Where is the Leftist Powerline and the Leftist American Thinker? And the Leftist Maggie's Farm? Leftist blogs that are interesting, rational, informative, and fun? I'd read 'em.
There is more violent crime in Europe than in the US. Piece by James Q. Wilson, via Instapundit. Distorted data from the Brady Campaign. Reason
Does Margaret Drabble need an exorcist, medication, or a hormone adjustment? Something seems not quite rational about this. (h/t, No Pasaran)
Thursday, April 19. 2007
Everyone's heard about John Edwards' $400 haircuts. Edwards is a walking argument for sticking with the $15 haircuts, unless you want to look like a pretty-boy pedophile TV huckster-preacher. But what does Hillary pay for her's? I am waiting to hear.
Wednesday, April 18. 2007
 A Soros organization, Media Matters, had him targeted.
Why, I wonder? Imus is a moderate Lefty, and always talked like a Dem when he talked politics. Too moderate? Or just a chance to show what sort of power Soros can wield? I think George Soros owns the Dem Party, but he has countless projects which he supports. As a general rule, if Soros is for it, we're agin' it.
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