House of Eratosthenes

So much of what has been said by various Republican candidates, as well as by the media, has been in the nature of unsubstantiated, peripheral or irrelevant talking points for or against particular candidates, rather than serious statements about serious issues confronting the nation.

So common has this approach become that even some conservative writers have come to the defense of John King, the CNN reporter who opened the South Carolina debate with a question about Newt Gingrich’s former wife. These writers have declared that question “legitimate,” in some undefined sense.

If all that “legitimate” means is that John King was not doing anything that many other reporters would have done in the same circumstances, that is making common practice a substitute for our own judgments about what is and is not relevant in a given context. Neither the audience in that room nor the millions watching on television were there to find out about Newt Gingrich’s marital problems. If it is a common practice for the media to focus on such things, so much the worse for the media — and for the country.

“The politics of personal destruction” — as Bill Clinton called it, and as he himself practiced it — is not the way to solve the nation’s problems. It has already poisoned the well of political discourse this season and claimed Herman Cain as its first victim, on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations by women with checkered pasts of their own.

You know what’s really upsetting about it all: The policies being advanced by the candidates, have nothing whatsoever to do with the cases that are being built against them, right before they go falling. And yet, each candidate that is selected for the roasting of the week or month, is the most ideologically sane out of all the contenders still in the running. Right up until he or she flames out, and then the crosshairs move on down the line to the next one. So ideological positions have nothing to do with it — but they do. Only the interested spectator who pays attention to long-term trends, can see it, but it’s unmistakable.

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Alex Morgan and an Elephant
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Alex Morgan…

An elephant…

Check out that trick at 0:31. That impresses me. But the girl is cuter.

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“Find Out if You Qualify”
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

I believe if you could scan the cable television channels and the AM radio band for the statement that is the title of this post, and plot on a graph the number of times per week that it is “hit” within those streams of chatter, you would find a sharp slope toward the right end of the graph that represents The Now. I have the impression the beginning of this upward slope would be sometime over the last decade, or maybe less, or maybe a bit more. And I have the impression, further, that there is an acceleration to it now, a sharp curving upward, and it is rapid.

Futhermore, I speculate, not recklessly I don’t think, that this is a harbinger of cultural doom. We should be much more worried about this metric, than any silly ol’ “mean earth temperature” or some such.

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“No One Thought About Themselves”
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Fascinating discussion going on at Professor Mondo’s place, if not a lengthy or lively one. In fact, it’s fizzled out into convivial chatter about car trouble after four posts. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I do hope there is more open discussion about the weightier subject.

As many know by now, toward the end of President Obama’s State of the Union speech, He got down to business and answered the question that is most pressing upon the minds of His fellow Americans as they tune in to watch His State of the Union speeches, which is: Now that we’ve elected a President and thus selected one man’s opinions to enjoy privilege over all others, what are those exactly? This is perhaps not what the Founding Fathers had in mind as they drafted the language requiring a SOTU. But it has become one of the key purposes involved in having it.

Obama channeled the spirit of that goofy Elizabeth Warren quote about nobody-did-it-on-their-own, cleverly blending it with a military theme, specifically, using the mission to neutralize Osama bin Laden as a metaphor for what He wanted to discuss:

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job – the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we’re joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Now for the critique. Conor Friedersdorf, at The Atlantic:

This is deeply wrongheaded.

Yes, we’re bound together as Americans in certain tasks, like defending the homeland and seeing that those who cannot care for themselves are provided with what they need. And there is agreement on certain broad goals: better educated children, safer infrastructure, etc. But a nation of 300 million free people doesn’t share a common purpose, nor should it; government’s role is to facilitate our ability to live as we see fit, not to bind us together like Navy SEALs on a military raid ordered up by our commander-in-chief. This nation is great because it affords such a diverse polity the opportunity to pursue happiness, not because “we built it together.”

(We didn’t in fact build it together.)

How can Obama say that the Bin Laden mission “only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other — because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back,” and add, “so it is with America”? It just isn’t that way with America. Lots of people within our polity mistrust one another, as is inevitable; in the post-WWII period of prosperity that Obama earlier invoked, there was segregation and the Red Scare and all manner of Americans short on mutual trust, and while there isn’t anything wrong with calling for less unfounded paranoia, positing that only a trusting nation can succeed fundamentally misunderstands our past and our future.

The strength of our system — the free markets, the best of our regulations, our very culture — is that it brings about progress even if the leader doesn’t himself know what energy investments will pay off; if we maintain the system, we’ll prosper even if the federal government doesn’t adeptly line up the economically efficient community college training program with the right applicant and employer; folks will find jobs even if we never develop the single perfect web site for job searches; we’ll thrive even if our diverse passions and values create mistrust and infighting.

Obama’s critics have long asserted that he doesn’t understand these core strengths of the American system. His State of the Union speech suggests they’re more right than I once imagined.

Here we get into a question about the Architect/Medicator divide, which I have a lot of trouble resolving, since I’m very far off on one side of the dividing barrier and this question has to do with people on the other side. The question doesn’t have to do with some of our achievements coming about because, and only because, we put aside our differences and labor together toward a common purpose; the President is right, in that that does happen, and it happens a lot. Nor is the question about the people who can understand this, and place priority on getting the message out to their peers and their fellows, that this is an important thing in life, that there are too many things that must be left undone if it doesn’t happen. That’s true too.

The question has to do with drive, zeal and enthusiasm. Our current President is under the impression that this is what America is all about — at least, He has said so. And this is plainly wrong. It’s wrong in the sense that, if this is all America represents, the entire experiment is a nullity and a futility. Mother England, after all, was driving us toward a common purpose just fine, and ideas of Independence were about as popular in the colonies as, oh, the invasion of Iraq…or even less so. Why revolt? Why separate? To even begin to answer the question, one must confess that Barack Hussein Caesar might’ve missed something. Perhaps He’d have a rationalization — in fact, I’m sure He does — but said rationalization cannot achieve its purpose unless it seeks to confuse, distort and obfuscate. Whether it does this to history, or to the current President’s remarks, I don’t care…it doesn’t much matter…what matters here is that we have an irreconcilable wrinkle in the layering between His comments and our nation’s true legacy.

Nor do I see anyone jettisoning their personal priorities and value systems for the sake of working with others. That part is a pure mythology, only it’s less forgivable than other mythologies because it is not artful, nor does it romanticize anything ancient. It is about the here and now, and there is something terribly distasteful about that. Show me the people who stop being Republicans and democrats, not only when they charge up stairs to shoot a terrorist, but other much more mundane things that involve working together. How about the ultimate one — voting? If the President’s comments mean anything at all, they would have to apply to that, since that’s the one time out of every two-to-four years where we must reconcile with the ideas of our fellows. Have we shown we have what it takes to do this? No. Are we spending any effort on it? I suppose some are, or at least are saying they are…would I bet money on it…no. It it important to us because we’re Americans? Em, no.

“I’d rather have clarity than agreement,” says Dennis Prager. And the rest of America says — well, some people like that, some don’t, but it really doesn’t matter what people say. The whole point to this observation is that when you ignore what people say and watch what they do, the whole damn country agrees with what he said. Not that we all like clarity all the time; some folks in fact prefer opacity, obfuscation and confusion. But everybody likes clarity at some time or another, because you need it in order to beat up the other guy.

I’m hearing the pre-election chatter, you really can’t get away from it, and it’s clear to me that the most opinionated folk are ready to cast their ballots to say just one thing above all other things. And that one thing they’re not ready to subordinate to any other thing for the sake of getting along with others, thank you very much; it must remain out in front. That’s just fine, in and of itself — although it makes President Obama clearly wrong in what He said — my one thing, just by way of offering an example, is we need to do a better job of rejecting socialism.

The loudest among us, and because they’re loud I have no idea if they’re more numerous or not, I suspect not…theirs is: The rich need to pay more. I mentioned up above the Elizabeth Warren quote, and sentiment that goes with it, that nobody built anything on their own. The intense and widespread enthusiasm that rises up around this makes me much more suspicious than the quote itself. How do you get happy and excited about the realizatoin that nobody is capable of doing anything on their own? That, I think, is a mask over the rich-pay-more idea. I have noticed that is where the talks go, inevitably, when allowed to continue for any length of time.

Other loud people say: I’m not a racist.

And then: We’ve got to stop being the world’s policeman.

We’ve got some daffy dames walking around saying: I just want to see more women in power.

Tea Party says: Would you quit spending so much money?

And then there are others. You can take it when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

A woman’s reproductive decisions are none of any man’s business.

Abortion is murder.

We have to do a better job of locking up the bad guys.

The death penalty is wrong.

We are to be judged, as a nation, by how we treat the least among us.

Family is important.

Kids require discipline.

Kids should be allowed to express themselves.

We have crime because we have poverty.

Or no, we have crime because of a persistent decay in our cultural values.

When we try to figure out how an election is going to go, or if we aren’t happy with how an election went so we write letters to the politicians to try to change their minds, or prevail upon them to at least see some other issue through our eyes, what we’re dealing with is salesmanship. We’re engaging in it, and trying to form alliances with other people who are engaging in it. The same goes for the politicians trying to win those elections, they’re engaging in salesmanship. Well, a large part of that has to do with figuring out the desires of the other person, and doing something to get those desires engaged. You can see it in some of the less competent and obviously unscrupulous salesmen; they put together a pitch of, if you do X, Y is the likely result, where Y is what they’ve figured out about your needs, wants and hopes. And if they’re really clumsy about it, you’re immediately thinking “waitaminnit, what does X have to do with Y?” And the answer is, nothing. Y is what you want, X is what the salesman wants. Making your friends listen to sales pitches about soap doesn’t have much to do with turning you a business mogul, working from home, too good for the rat race.

Some of these desires are layered on top of other desires. For example, I maintain nobody really gives a fig about allowing full-fledged same-sex marriage, as opposed to civil unions with full and equivalent state-recognized privileges and rights. In that direction lies a clear and workable compromise — which very often is not reached, because the same-sex-marriage people are so eager to realize their core message which is: “I am not bigoted against homosexuals.” By crusading for the more ambitious objective and thus generating conflict and rancor where it’s entirely unnecessary, they reveal that they’re not that interested in everybody getting along, after all. They certainly aren’t interested in Barack Obama’s vision, that everyone put aside their personal animosities and come together to charge up some stairs. They want to maintain differences. The message they want to broadcast isn’t merely about them being good people; it’s about them being better people than some other people. They require a control for their experiment.

That goes double for the tax-the-rich types. They do not want to get along with others. Do I even need to be pointing that out? They want to cast a vote to raise someone else’s tax bill, and furthermore, not a whole lot of anything else matters much to them. At this point I’ve entirely abandoned the notion that they lose so much as a wink of sleep about the public debt. They aren’t still pretending to, are they?

So in sum, President Obama is wrong. That is not to say He is entirely wrong about how we could be doing better; I would partially agree with Him in this much, that perhaps we could do ourselves less damage if we looked for opportunities to blend, find out what the other fellow is trying to do, and see what can be done about bringing that guy what he needs.

(Side point: An impressive portion of His speech dealt with cracking down on those among us who do this successfully, in a way for which the only suitable adjective would be “punitive,” as in, to punish. Quite bizarre.)

But that is not what America is all about. It isn’t one of our core values, or any other kind of value. It doesn’t exist that way in our past, or in our future, or in our present. Once people figure out what needs to be done, by whatever means, they seem to be triggering a locking mechanism of sorts. Something of a “why should I think this out again, I’ve already done it” instinct. And that’s not an entirely unhealthy thing.

What I think is unhealthy, is constantly demanding the other person reject his own individual conclusions and insights and values and priorities, in favor of the group-think dictates — if and only if the group happens to be aligned with the person doing the demanding. This fair-weather-friendship to the majority opinion. Our sense of justice and fair play ought to be prevailing upon us to realize, and support, the notion that if the group consensus overrules individual sensibilities, even when the individual sensibilities are better thought-out, then that needs to be happening either all the time or not at all. And frankly, I’m not seeing any Americans anywhere, really stepping up to the plate and saying it should happen all of the time. Instead, from what I see, it looks like everyone is placing their own cherished beliefs on the highest pedestal they possibly can, and that includes President Obama…and then trying to sell this narrative that it’s the other guy doing this, and it’s the other guy who has the problem.

One other thought: That list of one-liners up there that arouse all this passion, such that people vote on their own selected one-liner and only that one, ignoring everything else for all practical purposes…I have the perception that the length of this list, rather than its content, exerts the greatest influence on our ability to come together as a nation and make decisions at the ballot box. That is to say, when there are too many of these things, we lose our ability to competently express thoughts to be carried out by our representatives. This is an ability that we never have leveraged to impressive effect in our history since, well, ever; our national pride has had to be invested in simply having the elections. Well, that’s something all by itself. But for us to become even weaker still at this ability to elect effectively, is not a good thing, and more issues on the list certainly do hamper that ability.

I further have the impression that the list shrinks and grows, very slowly, in a cyclical way as older generations die off and newer ones take their place. Right now, I think, the list is about as long as it’s ever been. The obvious solution to the problem is that some compromise is in order. People need to do a competent and honest job of declaring what is important to them, versus what is just a nice-to-have; they need to learn the true art of compromise. I said “true,” and this is the source of my biggest complaint against the President’s speech. It represents the sort of false compromise for which Obama has become notorious. Stem to stern, it says “we all need to come together and make sacrifices, stop worrying about what we want, and put our focus on the things I want and My campaign contributors want.” It is an object lesson in the difference between true leadership and simple selfishness.

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Who’s On First?
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

A little on the silly side, but I thought it was kinda well done. Worth a grin.

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Memo For File CLIV
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Let’s start with the first problem: The guy’s a freakin’ broken record…

Another problem, which I posted to my Hello Kitty of Blogging account:

What I’m learning from SOTU #8: We’ve got a lot of harebrained politicians out there who think financial solvency can be gauged *solely* by annual income. All throughout the fifty states. This is quite bizarre…we really let these people make decisions about things??

No distinction made between personal income and household income. No distinction made between gross and AGI. And forget all about whether you’re living in an urban mecca, or whether you’re out in the middle of ugly brown hills with dead grass all around with your nearest neighbor a third of a mile away. Barack Obama thinks, if He knows you’re making $200k a year, He knows what your standard of living is…and if He knows you’re making a million, He knows something else about how you live.

Dare I say it — He just isn’t very sophisticated. It’s like He never has had to live in the real world.

Then I noted,

What I’m learning from SOTU #15: Liberals think the most wonderful lesson to be learned from the American experiment, is about working together and laboring toward a common purpose. How sickeningly insulting…

Really, that’s all it was ever about? Patrick Henry said “Give me togetherness or give me death,” is that how that speech went?

After His Holiness relinquished the podium and The House adjourned, with another couple bottles of brew percolating in my system I had another thought…

Sometimes, when you’re exposed to something repeatedly, you notice new things about it even if the repeated-exposure has been going on awhile and the thing you’re being exposed to is very simple.

I noticed something about President Obama’s (>=400 times a year) speeches tonight, and it’s disturbing. This leitmotif of “should” and “should not.” From way early on, we’ve been doing something abysmally stupid, bumbling around like Keystone Cops, until the blessed day that Barack The Magnificent walked into line-of-sight and said “this should not be that way” and now we’re all supposed to look at each other and go duh, hey, He’s right, why are we doing this.

Like it’s really that simple, Pres. Obama? ALL of the time?? There couldn’t possibly have been some rational reason why well-intentioned people have been doing it this way, regardless of how little sense it makes to You? Isn’t this how You got in trouble with that promise to shut down Guantanamo? Isn’t this exactly how You got in trouble with that dumbass remark about the Cambridge police and how they “acted stupidly”?

I’ve personally met people like this, carrying around all the arrogance to think everyone else was being completely nonsensical until they came on the scene, channelling the long-awaited voice of reason. Just very few people like this I’ve met…very, very few. Thank God.

Actually, I had some other thoughts. They mostly dealt with some things noticed by many other people…not a new thing by any means…since this calendar year is divisible by 4, which means it’s an election year, Barack Obama is sliding a lot of sentences past His lips which might as well have found their way into the speeches of a shrill, strident, uncompromising conservative Republican president. Not just the words, but the thoughts as well. What a wonderful place America is, how worthy the country is of an unremitting and terrible defense.

One of my Facebook friends, former work colleague, actually said “…this is a rehash of his campaign promises and he didn’t deliver. I agree there is no money for most of it. I like what he said about offshored jobs though.” This, I think, captures the essence of President Obama’s speeches, as well as the thought process within the audience He is trying to reach: “I know He has no credibility and He doesn’t mean any of it, but I liked His words when He said…”

So there are your three problems.

1. I know everything, so if I see people doing something I don’t understand, it can’t possibly be that they’ve been working in their specialty for awhile and know something I don’t know — they are starved from the benefit of my common sense and I shall distribute it to them…
2. I can promise you someone living on $201k a year in Beverly Hills is livin’ large, swimming in cash, whereas someone living in Eastern Montana on $199k a year doesn’t have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of…
3. I know Barack Obama is writing me rubber checks, but His signature is SOOOOO pretty!

Now solve those three problems, and have the government spend less money every year than it’s taking in — we’ll be on much better footing, and all of our significant problems will become temporary.

Leave them as they are, and we will continue on the course that we’re on. The embedded video up top is testament to that.

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What Happened to Rand Paul
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

“Privatization would’ve been a better route to go…”

There’s a debate we need to have. Tom Daschle said “you can’t professionalize unless you federalize” a decade ago and it would seem, based on all I’ve been able to learn about it, that’s the extent of the serious debate we’ve had here.

We’re supposed to be so concerned about finding that enviable balance between reasonable security and full preservation of our civil liberties. Well, out of ten years, that’s not much serious discussion is it?

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This Is Good XCII
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

From Kini the Aloha Guy.

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Talent & Class
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

…and much more patience than I’d be able to show. Good to see.

Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm.

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Nathaniel Grigsby’s Tombstone
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

From here.

Hat tip to Linkiest.

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Replacement
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Fading…fading…fading…

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Memo For File CLIII
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Newt’s doing very well. I’m pleased that there’s sand in the gears of the Romney machine and there’s a real chance someone else is going to get the nomination. I’m unhappy that it’s Newt.

But it’s bittersweet all the way. This is poetic justice all around.

I’m delighted to see the anguish and frustration on the part of the faux-intellectual faux-conservatives. You know, the ones like David Frum, for example, endlessly crying in their Pinot Noir about the perceived streak of “anti-intellectualism” in the Republican party. I cannot help but wonder what would happen if Romney bowed out right about now, making a Newt nomination a certainty…and then if Sarah Palin offered to step (back) in, what would they say? I imagine they’d still go for Newt because “we need someone with the intellectual horsepower to defeat The Great Barack Obama” or words to that effect. But more than a few would admit to seeing a certain positive appeal in Alaska’s former Governor that was not evident to them six months ago. Actually, I know this for fact; a few have personally told me so, which could not have been easy for them.

They won’t ‘fess up to learning the life lesson: Be very careful about wishing for a field of options to be narrowed down.

It also pleases me enormously to see the liberal disgust. The feeling of fear is palpable. Anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention, understands that the lefties wanted an Obama/Romney contest, it would have been the next best thing to skipping the elections altogether and swearing in OBumbles as Dictator For Life. Liberals are disgusted with Newt because they know the conservatives are disgusted with Newt — and are willing to rally behind the former House Speaker anyway. They understand this means something. See, like I’ve been saying for awhile, when liberals try to get other liberals elected or re-elected, they act just like conservatives. They understand human incentive and how it connects with free trade…all of a sudden. They’re wondering something like: If the GOP is willing to do that, then what else is it willing to do?

In fundraising, Emperor Barack is 13% of the way toward His original goal, which it seems He’s going to have to abandon right about now. It’s still an impressive amount of money and He’s likely to be out in front this year money-wise, but it must be worrisome that He’s miscalculated the level of His own support so badly.

How to make it a sure thing that we’ll have a different President a year from now? Distill the next three paragraphs down to a bumper sticker slogan, and I think you’ll have this thing nailed shut:

YES Newt Gingrich, with all of his faults, is looking like an okay deal right now to Republicans as well as to the nation as a whole. It is not because the faults are hard to spot. It is a case of beggars-can’t-be-choosers. America is negotiating its own election from a position of weakness.

Across the ideological divide and all our more trivial disagreements, we are still Americans first. We are all unhappy with one thing or another because we do not like to see our country negotiate things from a position of weakness. But to half of us, three years ago it seemed like an okay idea for our country to — call it what you will. Bow a little. Go on an “apology tour.” Listen as its leader droned on endlessly about “for far too long we have [blank]” and “we [the country, not His administration] have not always done what’s right.” In short, look at herself the way any shrewd military commander wants his enemy to look at itself; questioning its own right & privilege to exist and thrive.

It is hypocritical and unworkable to cheer on the journey to the position of weakness, and indulge in shock and dismay as we reach the ultimate destination. In ‘08, we planted. Now we’re harvesting.

One fellow Republican I know put it better than anybody else, I think: Obama out now, later on we’ll take out the trash.

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“Stuff Liberals Say”
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

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Imitation is the Sincerest Form XXXVI
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

The first time I came up with the idea of building a fence to divide the country, at least on these pages, was in February of ‘06. It isn’t that I relish the idea, the point is that I think it is unavoidable for many reasons. There are those of us who value opportunity over security and there are those of us who value security over opportunity; nothing wrong with an intermixed people sustaining different systems of personal priority, but it’s a problem because this affects how individuals see their life’s journeys. The opportunity people see the whole point of the exercise as one of learning and becoming more capable, so you can incrementally exchange the security you brought forward from childhood, sacrificing it for greater potential and personal growth. The security people just want to make sure everything is guaranteed, both the needs and the wants, and from what I’ve seen, aren’t too interested in doing more for themselves. In fact, they think that’s a bad thing. They’re frequently heard to say rich people should give back to the community, and so forth…

I have also noticed the opportunity-over-security people tend to think their way through problems logically — how else could it be done? — whereaas, the security-over-opportunity people would rather feel their way through problems, or around them, emotionally. I notice the security/feeler people regularly get me into trouble, because they feel like talking out these differences and they feel I’m receptive and open-minded about the issues, so they feel like a discussion would be a good idea. But then when I ask thinking, logical questions about their priorities, they feel like they’re being attacked…since they aren’t accustomed to it…and then they feel like I’m the one who cornered them, and therefore they feel like I must have started the discussion, and they feel like I’m badgering them and won’t give it up. Since I didn’t end up agreeing with them.

I also notice these thinker/opportunity-over-security types, whom I’ve called the Architects, don’t really give a rip how many other people are also Architects, or how many other people are the other kind, the Medicators….whereas, the Medicators crave much more control. They want everyone else to be a Medicator. We have become increasingly polarized since 9/11, and the Florida election debacle, in the wake of which we’ve seen nobody from either side is willing to compromise. And this is a great pity. For years, I have been re-telling a wonderful analogy somebody made, and I’ve never successfully been able to recover this column, about what would happen if we had a national radio station and, rather than twiddling with a tuning knob in our cars to select our own personal choices, we were to debate whether our monolith national station were to play soft rock, punk, rap, country, blues, classical or jazz. Can you imagine? It would be heated and rancorous, and it would be unnecessary. I have the perception we are becoming torn apart over a matter of personal taste, whose elevation to a national declaration is silly and unnecessary. Naturally, it’s just gettting more and more heated because nobody wants to let go of their personal priority system, and why the heck should they?

The logic to the “Architect” and “Medicator” names is explained here.

We need a wall. Hate to say it, but we need one, all across the country, and it has to be a high one, impassable, with checkpoints. Architects, the opportunity-seekers, do not want to share their toys — because they see life logically, and they know they’ve grown up, these are not toys anymore, they are tools and property they have acquired through wise decision-making, effort and sacrifice. Medicators don’t think anyone really grows up, therefore they want the toys to be shared. They say it’s because that’s what momma always said. But the truth is they want everything shared because they know, contributing as little as they do, they’d come out on top that way.

Now, I do not know if Burt Prelutsky reads my blog. I’ve always taken it as a given that hardly anybody does. But how else do you explain this gem, which appeared on his website sometime late last night…

It only makes sense to divide the United States along political lines. I’m not saying it would be easy, but it’s pretty obvious that the nation is growing increasingly polarized with roughly half the population favoring a huge federal government that oversees everything from smoking to nutrition, while the other half believes that the federal government has gone from being a necessary evil with the emphasis on necessary to one that is increasingly evil.

As I see it, the entire Pacific coast, along with the Northeast, favors Obama and the Democrats. Unfortunately, those two areas are separated by about 2,500 miles. Therefore, I would suggest connecting those two parts of the country with, say, a 30 mile corridor south of the Canadian border that would run through parts of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. That America would include California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey. We conservatives would give up Hawaii in exchange for Alaska. You can see where that would make for an odd-looking country, but no odder than the congressional districts that have been gerrymandered by the Democrats here in California.

I’m not being capricious about dividing a nation that has already cost 600,000 American lives lost during the war that was waged to preserve the Union. I simply see no other way to resolve the differences when half the population regards abortion as murder and the other half feels that young girls are entitled to state-funded abortions without parental consent. The same separation exists between those who favor same-sex marriages and those who don’t; those in favor of capital punishment and those who oppose it; those who respect the Second Amendment and those who’d like to abolish it; those who favor class and race warfare and those who believe their America is above such things; those who regard compulsory union membership as a good thing and those who don’t; those who defend public schools but send their own kids to private schools and those who believe in vouchers and home-schooling; those who oppose drilling for oil and digging for coal, and those who realize that alternative sources of energy might be sufficient for a house, but not for an industrial nation; and those who think that the rights of insects trump the rights of human beings and those of us who are sane.

Prelutsky, who writes much better than I do, kicks off the story with an incident about Martha’s Vineyard — you’ve heard of it, right? — being held hostage by a mean turkey. The turkey eventually makes the mistake of attacking the police, at which time the crisis is ended with some gunfire, and the cops end up being the bad guys because hey, it’s Martha’s Vineyard.

The self-defense aspect alone demonstrates that our house united cannot stand. We think of our liberals as being opposed to war, but while the conflict endures, we see what they’re really opposed to is one side enjoying advantages of which the other side is deprived; even across a battlefield, they want things equal-equal-equal. And what better way is there to ensure a war drags on indefinitely?

Can you recall so much as a single incident in which evil was defeated by good, by way of overwhelming, decisive and disproportionate force, and subsequently you could behold that the liberal conscience was soothed? Me neither. To our lefties, that is merely the beginning of the real conflict. And here’s the dirty little secret: Their extremists “wag the dog” of the moderates; the most intractable and militant run the show. Moderate-libs do not agree with extremist-libs that (as I’ve said many a time) when the schoolyard fight is started by one kid and finished by another, the punishment should be rained down upon the stronger boy who acted in self defense and threw the last punch. Moderates side with conservatives in saying the punishment should be for the kid who threw the first one.

But the most rapid and strident libs, who hate any kind of conflict, are never too fond of whoever ends one. And so everyone on their side of the fence, a fence which exists only in thought, becomes duty-bound to jettison common-sense and side with the whack-job lefties and say: No punishment for the kid who threw the first punch, the punishment is for whoever threw the last one. Because there is something nefarious and untrustworthy about possessing strength, even if it is used to end conflict and begin a new period of peace.

No, these two sides cannot be emulsified. Not in their current form.

But I do have a feeling that if the fence were to exist in practice, and the Medicators could go live on the other side and see how well their military-free police-free gun-free share-the-toys opportunity-free society works for a year or two, they might end up looking at life differently. Without the fence, their ideas look appealing because, although few will deign to acknowledge it, their ideas create conflict where conflict did not exist before. It is the conflict that makes it appear promising. The tragedy of these wise liberals being intermixed with these dullard conservatives who are stockpiling money and destroying the environment…that is what makes the liberals look wise. With the separation in place and the conflict removed, there would be a new perspective in place. I think it would be a highly educational one. For everybody.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News and Washington Rebel.

2 Comments »

Thing I Know #408
Friday, January 20th, 2012

It’s important…

Thing I Know #408. You can’t aspire toward success if you won’t spot the fails.

Yeah, it has something to do with President OBumbles; it is now a regular occurrence for me to hear Him defended with the tired ol’ “doing the best that He can” and “it will take Him awhile to clean up the mess of you-know-who.”

The issue is not that, if this is the best defense available, that as good a guarantee as you’re gonna get that we’re looking at a flop. Although that’s true. The issue is calling out the flop. So no, this is not entirely concerned with our incumbent President; it’s a much, much bigger issue than Him.

It takes balls to call out flops. But the first step toward success is to know what it looks like. To know what a success looks like, you have to call out a fail when it’s staring you right in the face.

Too many among my so-called-countrymen will read that, and reply with something like “That’s right! and…” then they’ll go on to mention some guy who stopped being President three years ago today. Thereby continuing to illustrate exactly what I’m pointing out…as well as the plain and simple fact that they just can’t stop.

That other guy was in for eight years. He ran things for eight years. The average retail gas price (USD/gallon, all brands) for those eight years, assuming I ran my calculator right, was $2.174; that is not the price of a gallon of gas today. The average unemployment rate during those eight years was 5.2625%; that is not the unemployment rate today.

Can’t aspire toward success if you won’t spot the fails.

2 Comments »

Newsbusted 1-17-12
Friday, January 20th, 2012

1 Comment »

Newt’s Answer
Friday, January 20th, 2012

That’s two in a row. Here’s the one from earlier this week:

Rick Perry, dropping out, endorses Gingrich.

“I believe Newt is a conservative visionary who can transform our country. We’ve had our differences, which campaigns will inevitably have, and Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?” Perry said at a press conference in Charleston, South Carolina.

Mittens is about to snag this thing. It’s a very critical time. And once again, Sarah Palin is right:

We need this thing to drag on longer. That may not change how things shake out in terms of who the nominee will be, but it has a big effect on what kind of pressures are brought to bear, and what sort of message that nominee carries into the general election.

And say what you want about Newt, but it’s a good message. There is a consistent theme here of talking back to certain people and forces that haven’t been resisted in any meaningful way up until now, and have long had it coming.

Look who’s been making it into the highest offices. Do we really need a tell-all interview from a previous wife to become part of the process? Last I checked, people on both sides of the partisan divide were still ticked off and annoyed that Bill Clinton’s affair became a matter for an impeachment trial…well…looks to me like people are ticked off and annoyed by that, in the same way that people refuse to read the National Enquirer. As in, if it were true, things wouldn’t be happening that are, in fact, happening.

Thus ends the kingmaker career of Marianne Gingrich. Bet she’s pleased. Well done, Newt.

1 Comment »

Ayn Rand is a Time Traveler
Friday, January 20th, 2012

Over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging, I put up this story about the proposed “Reasonable Profits Board…

Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a “Reasonable Profits Board” to control gas profits.

The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a “windfall profit tax” as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.

The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding “a reasonable profit.” It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.

…to which, one of my friends over there had this to say: “Jesus Christ. Ayn Rand is a time traveler.”

Ineptocracy I want the bumper sticker. It would have to be separated from the reference to my Lord, since aside from being cutely blasphemous, it seems to be making an ironic statement about religion itself by juxtaposing faith itself with a prominent member of the faithless.

But yes, at this point just crediting Alyssa Rosenbaum with the mere gift of prophesy leaves some things unexplained. Time travel seems more like it. The weird name of this board, seems like something straight out of the book, around page 550 or so. It’s Directive 10-289, the Moratorium on Brains! Run for your lives!

No, not quite there yet, though I’m apprehensive about seeing what comes next. We’re still at the early stages, where the unproductive tell the productive how to do their producing, and then when the predictable results are unveiled before us, we lie to ourselves about what it all means.

Terri asks:

How about a “reasonable taxes board? The federal government taxes gas at 18.4 cents a gallon. Is it unreasonable? Theoretically no because it’s going to pay for interstate highways but seriously, if you want to lower the price of gasoline isn’t the one place you actually control the better place to look than setting up an unconstitutional board to force one type of business into a profit model that is designed by people who have no interest in the business other than because they “care” about the poor?

Update: Boortz defines “windfall profit”:

Now as I’ve mentioned, the Democrats have come up with this idea before .. though the idea of this presidential panel is new. But a windfall profit … what is that? I’ve come up with a definition I’d like to share with you, since I’m sure that government schools don’t teach things like this. A windfall profit is money earned by a company that can be readily demagogued by a politician. It is money earned by a company on a commodity that consumers absolutely need but don’t like paying for.

Bulls-eye. They’re supposed to care so much about the middle class and the poor people, but if you hate a certain layer of our economic strata, by which I mean absolutely loathe it and want to see it go away, what better way to make it happen: You identify a product or a service upon which that class relies, the deprivation of which would do the people within the class the greatest damage, and then you make the production of that product or service as miserable, as onerous, and as unprofitable an experience as you possibly can.

Thus has been the case with democrat politicians and: Oil, gasoline, higher education for the next generation, rents, mortgages, health care services, legal assistance and food. In the municipalities which have most consistently elected democrats throughout the decades, those commodities have all been priced into outer space.

As far as domestic issues are concerned, a democrat is a Republican who cares about “the plight of the middle class” and lacks a functional long-term memory.

3 Comments »

The “It’s My Turn” Candidate
Thursday, January 19th, 2012

This year’s example of one, after today, will be such an example no more.

This is why there is this perception that the Republican party is one of white straight males. Because when you filter the search down to “it’s my turn” candidates, you see the democrat party does indeed start to look much more diverse, and the Republican party is full of white males. And among “it’s my turn” candidates, the white male always loses, yet the GOP continues to do this.

A lot of voters are out there ready to vote for “it’s my turn” candidates; that is a plain and simple fact. But white male democrat Ted Kennedy famously flamed out. If you’re going to support someone whose “turn” it is, like you’re little kids playing Yahtzee or Monopoly, why would you support a white male? You wouldn’t. They don’t. Maybe they would if they were given a reason, but by the very definition of the term, the it’s-my-turn candidate is not capable of giving them one.

The results, when the question is actually asked, can be cringe-inducing:

Blah, blah, blah.

If you have a gender or racial or gender-preference claim, there’s no need to get into any of this. It is realistic to predict the question won’t ever be asked. Hillary Clinton, should she decide to run again, will make a spectacular it’s-my-turn candidate. For reasons I don’t entirely understand, to be sure…but you’d better believe there are a lot of people out there who think it’s her turn, and not just because she’s a woman.

As near as I can figure out, the logic works something like this: Her husband cheated on her. She should be President. But don’t ask me to explain it any better than that…

Now that Perry is out, there is still another it’s-my-turn candidate in the running, and I’m afraid this one has a real lock on becoming the Republican nominee: Mittens. It’s his turn. Now, he’s already had to point out what makes him a better candidate, especially compared to the incumbent, and he’s done a satisfactory job of it. I don’t have much confidence in his ability to settle on wise decisions, any more than I’d put on a Magic-8 ball. His visage fairly screams at you “suit-wearing bureaucrat” and his convictions are not reliable.

But if he clinches this, I will support him, because Obama has to go home.

And then he will lose. Because a contest between OBumbles and Mittens is a contest between the devil you know and the devil you don’t.

4 Comments »

WAT
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Got it from one of the guys at work. WAT.

Update 1-19-12: This slide in the lecture being used to illustrate awesomeness, is so awesome in the way it uses awesomeness to metaphorically connect with awesomeness, that I had to capture an awesome .gif of it in such a way that I could give appropriately awesome credit.

WAT.

2 Comments »

Lucky Catch!
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Plan this stuff ahead…

Hat tip to Miss Cellania, via Gerard.

No Comments »

“Can’t You See How Insulting This Is?”
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

No. Say what you want about the three marriages and the rest of the baggage, but that is the correct answer.

This blog, which nobody reads anyway, has frequently made the point about GoodPerson Fever; we’ve got all these ninnies just like Juan Williams, running around everywhere, and even worse still they are disproportionately represented in the hallways of power. Every decision made has to be absolutely non-offensive, and that includes the decisions of others, about matters well outside of their purview, and so they end up excoriating strangers for violating the Could Be Construed As standard. In other words, they get offended on behalf of other people, people who exist only in theory and might very well not exist at all in reality.

After the process of elimination is complete, they’ve done much worse than eliminate the most beneficial option that could have been chosen — they’ve settled on a single avenue of approach which, on average, stands a much lesser likelihood of servicing the stated objective than an avenue of approach that would’ve been selected by random chance. So you’d be better off asking a Magic 8 ball. Oops, was that racist of me? If you’re pointing it out, you’re an example of exactly what I’m describing.

I know, I know. The fact that the audience is obviously overwhelmingly in favor of the point the former House Speaker is making, means nothing; the minority opinion is very often the right one, and all that. Trouble with that is — as Williams tries to mount another attack and save some face in his follow-up question, he relies on a brand of logic that forgets this. “I’m still right because my Twitter account is overflowing” or something. So, as usual, the politically-correct crowd has to assert their “right-ness” by choosing when majority opinion matters and when it doesn’t. At break-neck speed.

This thing Newt is bringing up, is something that has to be given better respect if we’re going to keep what strength we have as a nation, let alone make an attempt to recover what’s been lost in recent years. We congratulated Newt when he made those original comments; he was right then, he was right now, and it speaks volumes that it’s so rare for anyone to make the obvious point that a work ethic is something learned in early childhood. Nor can I recall anyone saying so, without some ninny jumping in to try to make a racial issue out of it. Well, it isn’t a racial issue when we have kids of all color, sitting around, their brains rotting, making it all the way to adulthood without being challenged on anything. In a way, they’re starving. They can’t enjoy the kind of self-respect one enjoys from working an honest day and receiving an honest paycheck.

I don’t think Newt’s gonna win this thing. But that particular exchange, I hope, lives on in history well beyond this rather underwhelming election cycle.

No Comments »

Seven Signs You’re Dating a Psycho Girlfriend
Monday, January 16th, 2012

From here. Hat tip to Linkiest.

“Hates Brooklyn Decker” seems to have something to do with a swimsuit model who was born in 1987, so I’m thinking this is for the younger guys. Which makes sense. We hear much about how our society oppresses women, in fact we’ve been hearing about it for a very long time. But nobody discusses too much what the younger dudes could & should be doing to avoid psycho women.

No Comments »

“There Are Very Few People Around Who Want to Give the Government More Power”
Monday, January 16th, 2012

This guy is making the point I’ve been trying to make: That it’s a mistake to observe so-many people voting as democrats, even registering as democrats, and presuming they all uphold democrat values with every fiber of their being. True, the democrats ask for the abuse themselves; they’re constantly holding themselves aloft as standard bearers of some vague and undetermined brand of morality, and when we see the morality in action, we see it is not morality at all. It’s like they don’t understand how that looks.

But if you apply tests in terms of what liberals are actually expected to believe, you see there really aren’t very many “liberals” around at all.

Here’s a test I invite you to take. Watch C-Span’s morning call-in show and listen to what people who phone in on the “Democrat” or “liberal” line have to say. When is the last time you heard a caller say, “We should all pay higher taxes so that the government can provide us with universal day care”? Or how about, “We should all pay higher taxes so the government can provide us with universal long term care”? I bet you can’t remember ever hearing that.

Here is what I suspect you will hear: Teachers complaining that teachers aren’t paid enough. Union members complaining about competition from workers overseas. Senior citizens whining about the meagerness of Social Security or Medicare benefits. Minority callers advocating more affirmative action. And what is the common denominator of these comments? Self-interest.

Yes, I know. Special interests are in both parties. Why wouldn’t they be? Yet as I wrote in my analysis of “progressivism,” the left in America has elevated special interest privilege to an art form.

Here’s the point: people wanting more, more, more are nothing more than people pursuing their own self interest in politics. They are not in principle different from any other special interest group. Importantly, they have nothing in common with what we normally have in mind by the term “liberalism.”

There is a reason for that. There are very few people around who want to give government more power over their money, their property or their lives.
:
Here is a second test. Keep watching C-Span. After the outside callers are gone, most days you get to watch Congress in action. Have you ever watched a series of speeches on the House floor? Have you ever watched a real Congressional debate? Try it some time. Then ask yourself this question: Do you trust the people you are watching on TV to manage your retirement pension? Or do you have more confidence in your employer or Fidelity or even Merrill Lynch? Do you trust the people on the House floor to manage your health care? Or do you have more confidence in your employer or even UnitedHealthcare or Aetna?

Congress in action most days reminds us of school children insulting and taunting each other. It’s like a group of adolescents desperately in need of adult supervision. It’s the opposite of the civil, rational deliberation that the Founding Fathers must have hoped for.

It takes a very special kind of person to watch lunacy in action and then decide to give the lunatics more control over your life. There are such special people, of course. They are disproportionately congregated in Hollywood, on the campuses of the nation’s colleges and universities and in the elite news media. What are the common characteristics all too many of them share? Arrested development (they never bothered to grow up), aversion to the rest of humanity (they really are elitists), a lack of common sense (they’ve never really managed anything) and a failure to master the syllogism (they approach the world emotionally, not logically).

Here is something you need to understand: liberalism is not an ideology. It’s a sociology. It’s not a way of thinking. It’s a way of responding to the world emotionally.

It all comes down to this: We have these “moderates” running around voting for democrats. They don’t believe in the liberal/democrat outlook on life. Many of them might respond to the world emotionally, because it takes less effort, but they don’t really believe the solution to our problems is to send more money to Washington.

I’ve become fond of an analogy to describe these people: Two kids get in a fight on the schoolyard, and the kid who threw the first punch ended up losing the fight. So you have the kid who started it and the one that finished it. Who gets punished? Part of the liberal ethos is to punish the stronger kid who won the fight. They’re never too excited about correcting the behavior of the person who actually created the problem, they’d much rather punish strength than errant behavior. No sane people agree with this. The moderates side with the conservatives in saying the troublemaker should be sent to detention, or something, and the person who exercised self-defense should walk scott-free, because that just makes sense. If he didn’t start anything, and ends up in trouble, that’s not justice. In fact that could invite a whole different and new kind of bullying.

But such common sense is not to be tolerated in uber-tolerant liberal-loonie land. Real life sides against the troublemaker, and the system will side against him, too? That’s just not how it’s supposed to work! Fight for the underdog! What a great opportunity to show some compassion.

It’s all got to do with incentives. Normal people believe in ‘em, and liberals don’t. Well, in order to side with the liberals on that, you somehow need to exclude from the thought process the plain and simple fact that you respond to incentives; either because you haven’t been exposed to enough situations that you’re forced to reckon with this truth, or because you want to argue dishonestly. And both of those last two options describe the true-blue liberal to a tee.

You’ll notice liberal politicians tend to lack “real” experience on their resumes. They’re lawyers, or bureaucrats, or lawyer/bureaucrats. They come from some background in which their job is to ignore incentives, and the statements that would define all the efforts in which they’ve been engaged would all begin with “The rules say.” That’s the world in which they live; there’s some rulebook, and then there is the universe of real life, and then when the two diverge and start moving in different directions, that universe is just gonna have to shape up and get with it.

Whereas, the rest of us say, if it’s a good rule it should reflect real life, and the human characteristic of predictable responses to incentives.

The problem is not that the moderates are in favor of liberal policies. The problem is that the moderates aren’t remembering much. They don’t have bad value systems, they’re just failing to vote for things that would reflect those value systems.

1 Comment »

Tarantino vs. Coen Brothers
Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Not sure how I missed this. Better late than never.

1 Comment »

Debt Limit
Saturday, January 14th, 2012

I’ve seen these numbers goin’ round on the nets…the same ones, over and over again. I never thought that made the cut, but you know, in video form like this it just completely works.

And I really like the ending.

…because that’s where it gets real. Tragically real.

Our kids are gonna be so pissed.

1 Comment »

I Want Those Marines Punished
Friday, January 13th, 2012

And this clip from A Bridge Too Far does an exemplary job of explaining the why, as well as the how. If your time is pressed, fast forward to 3:20:

That is exactly what I want done to them. Come on, we have to face facts; we simply can’t let this kind of conduct go. It’s like the Medical Officer said, once you let discipline go you can forget about getting it back again. So the punishment is going to have to be laid down — hard. Just like it was here.

Hey, when I’m right, I’m right.

4 Comments »

Action Figure Therapy
Friday, January 13th, 2012

Potty-mouth language warning in effect, not safe for the workplace or for any mixed audience.

Panetta is a shit-brained ass-infested dickhole.

One of the objectives that it would be nice to see a SECDEF try to achieve, is to retain some semblance of respect from the troops. That is not a vital and minimalist goal, of course…you could say it is one for the Generals but not for the suits that hold civilian command over the armed forces…but it would be good if the working relationship was a good one, or if there was at least some effort expended to make it a good one.

I saw a post up on a milblog somewhere that said something like, you just KNOW the guys at the top are pissed off when they break out the big-words book! (I think the big word under discussion was “reprehensible” or something.) See, that right there is the trouble. The big boss looks not at all like a big boss, he looks like a little puppet dancing to a tune, tossing around big fancy words that he knows, and everybody else knows — and he knows they know — that real people don’t actually use. Well okay, unless maybe if they’re bloggers. The whole exercise looks phony because it is. Imagine what that feels like to you when you’re out on your third deployment, doing the dirty work when it’s 130 degrees in the shade.

I understand this argument about recruited-terrorists, how when these pictures appear it makes it look like the United States is declaring a war on Islam, which is not a perception we can afford to have out there. But there is something about this that I’m having a tough time figuring out: One, this would obviously be a vexing puzzle for us, and a dangerous one, far more important than many of the others. How do we expect to win at it, then, without discussing it more openly? Since 2004 the only rule that’s been in place about it is “just don’t do it” — with a strong undertone of don’t talk about it. Well, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And two: Has it ever occurred to these geniuses that some may be reacting to situations like this with a quite reasonable attitude of “I’m not going to take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously”? There’s quite a lot to be said for a response, from the top, of: Look, if you don’t want your dead body defiled, don’t shoot at our guys.

9 Comments »

“Civil Disservice”
Friday, January 13th, 2012

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Some people don’t get the irony.

1 Comment »

The One Person They Fear
Friday, January 13th, 2012

3 Comments »

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

The Republican Candidates’ Circular Firing SquadThursday, January 26th, 2012

Alex Morgan and an ElephantThursday, January 26th, 2012

“Find Out if You Qualify”Thursday, January 26th, 2012

“No One Thought About Themselves”Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Who’s On First?Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Memo For File CLIVTuesday, January 24th, 2012

What Happened to Rand PaulTuesday, January 24th, 2012

This Is Good XCIITuesday, January 24th, 2012

Talent & ClassMonday, January 23rd, 2012

Nathaniel Grigsby’s TombstoneMonday, January 23rd, 2012

ReplacementMonday, January 23rd, 2012

Memo For File CLIIIMonday, January 23rd, 2012

“Stuff Liberals Say”Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Imitation is the Sincerest Form XXXVISunday, January 22nd, 2012

Thing I Know #408Friday, January 20th, 2012

Newsbusted 1-17-12Friday, January 20th, 2012

Newt’s AnswerFriday, January 20th, 2012

Ayn Rand is a Time TravelerFriday, January 20th, 2012

The “It’s My Turn” CandidateThursday, January 19th, 2012

WATWednesday, January 18th, 2012

Lucky Catch!Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

“Can’t You See How Insulting This Is?”Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Seven Signs You’re Dating a Psycho GirlfriendMonday, January 16th, 2012

“There Are Very Few People Around Who Want to Give the Government More Power”Monday, January 16th, 2012

Tarantino vs. Coen BrothersSunday, January 15th, 2012

Debt LimitSaturday, January 14th, 2012

I Want Those Marines PunishedFriday, January 13th, 2012

Action Figure TherapyFriday, January 13th, 2012

“Civil Disservice”Friday, January 13th, 2012

The One Person They FearFriday, January 13th, 2012

The Republican Candidates’ Circular Firing Squad
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Alex Morgan and an Elephant
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

“Find Out if You Qualify”
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

“No One Thought About Themselves”
Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Who’s On First?
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Memo For File CLIV
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

What Happened to Rand Paul
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

This Is Good XCII
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Talent & Class
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Nathaniel Grigsby’s Tombstone
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Replacement
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Memo For File CLIII
Monday, January 23rd, 2012

“Stuff Liberals Say”
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Imitation is the Sincerest Form XXXVI
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Thing I Know #408
Friday, January 20th, 2012

Newsbusted 1-17-12
Friday, January 20th, 2012

Newt’s Answer
Friday, January 20th, 2012

Ayn Rand is a Time Traveler
Friday, January 20th, 2012

The “It’s My Turn” Candidate
Thursday, January 19th, 2012

WAT
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Lucky Catch!
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

“Can’t You See How Insulting This Is?”
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Seven Signs You’re Dating a Psycho Girlfriend
Monday, January 16th, 2012

“There Are Very Few People Around Who Want to Give the Government More Power”
Monday, January 16th, 2012

Tarantino vs. Coen Brothers
Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Debt Limit
Saturday, January 14th, 2012

I Want Those Marines Punished
Friday, January 13th, 2012

Action Figure Therapy
Friday, January 13th, 2012

“Civil Disservice”
Friday, January 13th, 2012

The One Person They Fear
Friday, January 13th, 2012