Friday, September 7. 2007
Is France rejecting arrogance? Lifson at Am. Thinker
Thursday, September 6. 2007
Here's his official announcement (a video, but not the one on Leno), if you haven't seen it.
 Some Swedes now insist that the Swedish flag is racist. Gates. And, via that link, Muslim Ambassadors say "Sweden must change its laws." The money quote from the Algerian Ambassador after meeting with Swedish diplomats:
the meeting "was an excellent initiative taken in a spirit of appeasement."
Indeed. These European struggles are not about racism. They are about nations desiring to preserve their cultural identities and traditions and values, codes of behavior, and ways of life - to preserve their societies - and about those in those nations who are happy to see those things disappear. The charge of racism is a phony, designed to put people on the defensive and to shut them up. It usually is. Yes, as we have said and as Buddy said today in a comment, the long-time strategy of the Left is to undermine the foundations of a society, with the fantasy that a utopia - run by them - will ensue. It is nihilistic; it is heartless, and it is a form of grandiose insanity.
Wednesday, September 5. 2007
On loan from Theo: 
NYT claims Bush went to Iraq to divert attention... from Iraq. So why didn't he go to Pango-Pango instead? Or Pago-Pago, for that matter?
If the real problem with Mother Earth is people, and if global warming will kill us all off, then why aren't the Greenies in favor of some global warming for a while to effect that worthy goal?
 From the review of the above-titled book at WSJ Online:
Veteran Boston political reporter Jon Keller also invites us to behold his native state . . . and shudder in dismay. In "The Bluest State," he argues that, although Massachusetts does not suffer alone from its notorious affection for liberalism, it is the incubator for "Massachusetts viruses" that infect the national Democratic Party. The viruses come in many forms: "addiction to tax revenues and a raging edifice complex couched in disrespect to wage earners; phony identity politics without real results for women and minorities; reflexive anti-Americanism in foreign affairs; vain indulgence in obnoxious political correctness; self-serving featherbedding; NIMBYism; authoritarian distortion of the balance of governmental power, all simmered in a broth of hypocritical paternalism."
Monday, September 3. 2007
To new visitors: Thanks for stopping by, and check us out if you have a minute. You might enjoy our uniquely eclectic (or so we claim) and generally friendly site - even when there is disagreement. In fact, we welcome disagreement and lively but civil debate. Re the topic of multicultural understanding, this commentary which we erroneously attributed to William Haynes, but which is actually from Rants and Raves in 2006 (thanks for the correction, readers). Please read it, friends, and discuss politely: Observations on Arabs Since the beginning of the Iraq phase of this conflict of civilizations, I've experienced the teeth-grinding frustration of watching both pro- and anti- Iraq sides make the exact same mistake - that of supposing that these people are basically Americans in funny costumes. In this respect, George Bush and Michael Moore are equally clueless. I went to live and work in Saudi Arabia in 1998, and I "made my year" as expats there put it. That phrase means that I actually stuck out the whole year, instead of "running" from my contract, an occurrence so common that you only have to say "he did a runner" to explain why someone isn't showing up for work anymore. In Eastern Europe and the South Balkans, whenever I have gone to live in a place about which I had formed opinions, the actual experience of living there always radically changed those opinions, sometimes into completely contradictory ones. Most often, my academic research led me to form a beautifully coherent model, which experience turned into a semi-coherent collection of observations and tentative conclusions. In the case of the Kingdom, I went there with a certain sympathy for Arab grievances, a belief that America had earned a lot of hostility from "blowback" from our ham-handed interventionist foreign policy and support for Israel etc. I came back with the gloomy opinion that over the long run we are going to have to hammer these people hard to get them to quit messing with Western Civilization. And by the way, among "rational, fair-minded" non-interventionist libertarians, not a damn one of them has asked me, "What in your experience caused you to change your mind?" Instead what I get are gratuitous insults followed by insufferably condescending lectures about how wrong I am. So, with the caveat that one of the first things I learned was that the term "Arab" covers a lot of territory, here are some observations and some tentative conclusions about Arabs, more specifically about Arabs from the oil states and why we have misunderstood each other to the point that we are fighting a war with some of them and are pissing off the rest of them. I suspect that many of these observations also apply to Iranian Islamists, but I have never been there and note that Iranians are not Arabs and have a different cultural history.
Continue reading "Multiculturalism: "Arabs don't think like us""
 Michelle. It's a damn shame that labor became so corrupt, but politics is about power and money, isn't it? Is there a union left in America that isn't connected to some racket?
I will now celebrate our American labor movement by going for a long, easy ride with She Who Must Be Obeyed, over the usual hills and dales and through the usual streams, on one of the finest days of this summer. A quick sherry or two first, for courage with the dang horse she wants me to "exercise": it is me who ends up getting exercised in both senses of the word. But first, and finally for the day for me, let me link Sippican on Labor. He's been there, and I have not. I don't do bosses, either union ones or the other kind, And now, Pip Pip, Old Bean, and Tally Ho.
Sunday, September 2. 2007
One of the new ads, h/t, Burkean. I wasn't sure about Iraq in the beginning, but running away is no longer an option, now that the bad guys have committed. Still, not thrilled with having American success in the hands of Middle Eastern politicians. I'd prefer putting my hopes in the US Air Force - and the guys in the desert. I have been taught that Arabs don't think like us. They don't.
Friday, August 31. 2007
I tend to agree with Jay at Wizbang. No rules, and all transparent. Meanwhile the Hsu story gets worse. Major story there, but don't expect the NYT to highlight it. Somebody with free time needs to find out where all of that money has been coming from. The MSM cannot squelch a story these days, and the dumb Larry Craig story will pass quickly.
NASCAR, at Tigerhawk. Remember Kerry's ungrammatical quote during the campaign: "Whom among us does not enjoy NASCAR?" What a putz.
Wednesday, August 29. 2007
Without changes, there will be one person paying in for every one person taking out of Social Security. How is that any different from everybody just helping out their own parents and relatives, like in the old days when people assumed responsibility for their families? Our Yankee neighbor Viking Pundit is always attentive to the subject of Social Security's survival, but I am not sure he is right in the fundamentals. After all, there is no "trust fund." It all goes into, and comes out of, federal taxes. If Social Security really did consist of an actual fund of money, run by a government authority, you know darn well that they would invest it. Our payments to SS are, in reality, nothing more than another tax on income. Viking wants the candidates to speak up on the subject. They would never dare do so. "Third rail," etc. My opinion on "greedy geezer" entitlements like Medicare and Social Security? They should be means-tested. But that will never happen, because politics is nothing if not irrational - and the older folks vote. In some precincts, they even vote from their graves.
Is there anything in life that can or cannot be improved by government intrusion or take-over? Are those the key questions which are answered differently by Conservatives vs. Leftist/Statists, depending on how highly they value autonomy, enterprise, and individual freedom and the hefty burdens that go with it? I have often asked here what argument you can make for socialized medicine that you could not make for socialized food, or car insurance, or gas, or "legal care." I am pleased that Luskin sees it the same way. It reassures me that I am possibly not crazy.
Tuesday, August 28. 2007
 Do dog-fighting laws raise the interesting issue of libertarian vs. conservative views of the law? How about laws regarding public indecency? I think they do, and Prof B. agrees.
I am going to lie in the sun by the pool this weekend with a gin and tonic or two and give the subject a deep think, with the working biases that the Constitution's intent is to limit the power of government over localities and over the people, and that "that government which governs least, governs best." I will, no doubt, fall happily asleep before finding the magic resolution of the issue which would be quoted in all the journals had I only remained awake. In the meantime, the Prof quotes another commentator: Update from Alex Tabarrok: "After attending dogfights it's rumored that on some nights Michael Vick would continue his bloody activities by dining on cow's flesh. No word yet on whether prosecutors will be seeking additional prison time."
Living with ambiguity is part of maturity, I am told. I'm working on that.
A visit to the US Naval Academy, in the NY Sun. Don't give up on America yet, friends.
 John O'Sullivan returns to the UK and sees little hope for its rotting social condition:
It didn't happen overnight. Breaking down a strong culture of civic self-control takes time and several social acids.
Indeed it does, but I am not sure which "culture of civic self-control" is referred to. Seems to me that the "privileged" in Britain were always free to do as they pleased - and did. Anyway, No Pasaran comments on O'Sullivan's piece, re the impact of the 60s on Britain: For all the “revolution’s” intent of fostering freedom, all they have made for themselves is precisely the opposite: a nanny state with neither the social ease of a safe street, or the confidence that one can freely air your views.
Thus asks Firedoglake. Definitely - twisted as a pretzel, every last one of 'em. You can just tell by how often they talk about values and Jesus and families and guns and war and all that: it's a cover-up, of course, so their lace undergarments don't show. To prove my point, use the "Sen. Larry Craig Test": When next in the presence of a suspected Republican, stamp your foot twice on the ground. If the suspect turns and looks, it's proof that you have a twisted perv in your vicinity. (Apparently that is the highway and airport men's room signal that you are looking for fun. Barney Frank can fill you in.) To be serious for a moment, though, I feel sorry for folks like Larry Craig. Leading a divided, furtive life as he appears to have been doing must be a terrible way to live, and it should not be necessary in 2007. The moral of the story remains this: if you want to be in public life, decide how you want to deal with your personal stuff first... unless you happen to be a Dem, in which case you are immunized.
Monday, August 27. 2007
Over the past several months, we have posted quite a bit on poverty in America, noting that government has little further power over it because it is usually the product of bad choices (eg drugs, no fathers, and the like), bad luck (catastrophe, mental illness), laziness, or immigration (1/4 of our poor are recent legal or illegal immigrants), and it has been more than adequately demonstrated that the average caring government program only damages people in the end. Now we have new data on American "poverty". If you leave out the illegals (who are included), it looks like the American poor are doing pretty well. Better than I would have thought, and good news for America. Furthermore, our census data on income do not include government benefits such as housing subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare and the like. We are doing well by our people, and we should recognize that.
Sunday, August 26. 2007
I have no doubt that we are fortunate to live in the best of times. Tigerhawk considers Goklany's book on the subject.
Friday, August 24. 2007
Why should we, if they don't? Driscoll
Dean Barnett says it better. Indeed, it was a war the Left would not permit us to win - although we were winning. Why? Because evil Amerika must never prevail.
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