I found out you could get the entire series for ninety bucks or something, and sprung for it sometime in early summer. I recalled vividly from my childhood that by the fourth or fifth season things got painfully repetitive.

I did not realize the pattern was chiseled in granite from the very first minute of the pilot episode. Doe-eyed buxom woman who needs to be taught how to kiss, her kindly grandfather/professor/uncle/stepfather with the heart condition, the rich guy who’s hassling everybody, his two hired goons in leisure suits…fifteen minutes from the end Bill Bixby gets locked in a freezer or vault and the old guy has a heart attack. Grrr!

Good ol’ seventies. You feel this gratitude to the people who put it all together for us, hope Lou Ferrigno is doing well and Bixby’s last days were happy ones; but at the same time you have to wonder how we ever survived.

Jessica Biel.

Kelly Brook.

Oh me, oh my. I’m supposed to pick one, is that it?

Well, this is going to seem downright petty. Jessica, vision of loveliness that she is…has narrower hips. It would seem she has a slightly more anorexic bustline. And she’s always had this crease on her upper lip that I’ve found a little bit odd.

None of those are disqualifiers, but there’s a little bit of a problem here: Kelly doesn’t have any such things. She’s just pure beauty.

So it’s Kelly…by just a whisker. Yeah, aren’t I a stinker?

National Review Online…

Democrats and Job Creation…or Not

The Wall Street Journal reports about the sense of panic that Democrats are feeling right now faced with the fact that stimulus and increase in unemployment rates seem to go hand in hand. As a result:

This explains why political panic is beginning to set in, and various panicky ideas to create more jobs are suddenly in play. The New York Times reports that one plan would grant a $3,000 tax credit to employers for each new hire in 2010. Under another, two-year plan, employers would receive a credit in the first year equal to 15.3% of the cost of adding a new worker, an amount that would be reduced to 10.2% in the second year and then phased out entirely. Why 15.3%? Presumably because that’s roughly the cost of the payroll tax burden to hire a new worker.

The irony of this is remarkable, considering the costs that Democrats are busy imposing on job creation. Congress raised the minimum wage again in July, a direct slam at low-skilled and young workers. The black teen jobless rate has since climbed to 50.4% from 39.2% in two months. Congress is also moving ahead with a mountain of new mandates, from mandatory paid leave to the House’s health-care payroll surtax of 5.4%. All of these policy changes give pause to employers as they contemplate the cost of new hires—a reality that Democrats are tacitly admitting as they now plot to find ways to offset those higher costs.

I wonder what level of unemployment Democrats need before they start considering actual rate cuts. A cut in the payroll tax would stimulate the economy instantly by cutting the cost of employing people. Is that really too hard to understand?

The article is here. For more on the inability of the government to create jobs, go here and here.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Of all the democrat policies that are well-defined, the ones that have something to do with business are the most antithetical to common sense. These are the policies that a dull-witted mind, somehow becoming gradually more sharp and lucid week by week, would figure out are full of baloney at the earliest date.

They boil down to essentially this: We’re going to make it more expensive, awkward and uncomfortable to engage in business-activity-X, and equal or greater numbers of people are somehow going to be motivated to keep right on doing it.

That doesn’t work; therefore, anything connected to it, closely or distantly, also doesn’t work.

…that speak perfect English.

The 20 worst science and technology errors in films

Being a science-geek film fan can be exhausting. It’s hard to watch some films without wanting to shout at the screen “but that’s not how evolution works” or “computers can’t do that”.

It’s pedantic, annoying for your fellow moviegoers, and utterly nerdy, but some of us can’t help it.

So in an attempt to scratch that geeky itch once and for all, here is a list of 20 of the most infuriating science and technology errors in movies.

1. Aliens are basically humans with silly foreheads

The Enterprise, thousands of light-years from Earth, encounters an alien spacecraft. The matter transporter beams one of their number aboard… and lo and behold, it’s Famke Janssen with some makeup on her forehead.

It’s a similar story with Vulcans (pointy eared humans – see also Romulans), Ferengi (grotesquely deformed humans) and Klingons (humans with Cornish pasties attached). Humanity looks like it does through a very specific set of evolutionary circumstances. Why should aliens look anything like us?

Hat tip: Dyspepsia Generation.

Atlasphere…

Dear Atlasphere Advisor:

I am struggling with an observation that I have made at my workplace, which seems to be a recurrent theme in large companies. When I look around at my peers, I’ve come to realize that the quality of one’s work, while recognized, is not always the key to success. There is an aspect of “networking” which seems to predominate when rewards are doled out, especially in the form of promotions or special projects.

This is not to say that my company doesn’t recognize effort and merit. However, it does seem that the more likable, social, “schmoozy” individuals can either be top performers or mediocre and will yield the same recognition and rewards. It does seem that the more friends one has in the right places, the less actual effort is required in performing one’s job duties.

This is supposed to be an automatic situation, and yet there are all these overtures for people to enter into it. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know…you gotta “network”…ya gotta “schmooze”…

I have a great comeback for it. “I know where I saw that before; high school. I graduated quite some time ago and don’t care to go back.”

What people need to remember about this is that it is a request, not a statement of things the way they are. You can say yes or no. Just say no.

Hehehehehehe………I was thinking exactly the same thing, although only #2 and #8 come close to what I had in mind. Which is something like “((name)) pointed something out and, by golly, I hadn’t thought of that.”

Despite countless speeches and news conferences, did you ever hear President Obama express the following ideas?

1. Not everything is a federal issue; some things are for the states to decide.

2. I hear what you’re saying and you have a good point.

3. One of the beautiful things about our constitution is the liberty given to individuals to pursue their dreams. There is great opportunity in our country to succeed.

4. In an effort to stimulate job growth and despite the objections from my party, I am working with Congress to reduce taxes for small businesses.

5. I am saddened by the cycle of poverty that exists in our major cities, and here is a way we can empower the next generation to break the cycle and fulfill their God-given potential….

This parent says, if you’re responsible for putting together a headline like that, you need to quit and go work for President Obama. Make lots of money so you can retire to a life of nothing-ness after we get rid of Him.

Technically, it’s completely accurate. But it is a lie, produced from an agenda of lying.

Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?”

Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?”

Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered…This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can’t be scared. Of course we’re scared. I’m scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can’t fall asleep. It never stops. We’re grown-ups; we know better, but we’re afraid.”

Reporter: “Why is that important in art?”

Sendak: “Because it’s truth. You don’t want to do something that’s all terrifying. I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child’s eyes. So what? I managed to survive.”

Not having seen the movie, I’m willing to speculate that the content probably resembles the advertising pretty well…I’d bet some money on it…and if that’s not the case, so what?

In my day, we had Jaws. Now that looks just about as cheesy as anything else from 1975, especially if you’re watching it in your living room on a winter afternoon over a bowl of hot buttery popcorn.

But in the middle of the summer when you turned nine? When there’s nothing to do but go swimming? Yeah, you just chuckle all you want at this skinny kid furiously scanning Lake Whatcom for dorsal fins…laugh it up. You be nine years old, go see that movie on a Friday night and go swimming on the following Saturday morning. You do that stuff and then get back to me.

I’m in Maurice Sendak’s corner on this one. A moment of “boo,” and the piping hot tears streaming down the chubby cheeks is testament to the idea that it should never have happened. On what planet? Where is this otherworldly place in which kids have to be bubbly and content 86,400 seconds per day? They don’t even get that in the womb for chrissakes.

Wall Street Journal…

Yesterday AHIP released an important PricewaterhouseCoopers study showing that the Finance bill would on average add some $1,700 a year to the cost of family coverage in 2013. A decade from now, family premiums would cost $4,000 more than if Congress did nothing, and singles would pay about $1,500 more. Hardest hit would be the individual market, with rates rising by 49%, but even the largest employers would see increases between 9% and 11%.

The study’s findings won’t shock anyone who’s read the bill’s details, but its provenance might: In a deal cut earlier this year, the insurance industry acquiesced to rules requiring them to take all comers, regardless of health status or history, and also charge them more or less the same premiums. In return, Congress would subsidize individuals to buy their products and provide new customers by requiring everyone to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty.

A spokesman for Finance Chairman Max Baucus dismissed the AHIP report as a “hatchet job . . . bought and paid for by the same health insurance companies that have been gouging too many consumers for too long as they stand in the way of reform yet again.” Talk about ungrateful. If insurers really had been standing in the way, —or even willing to educate the public about an agenda that will raise consumer prices—ObamaCare might not now be rushing to passage.

The irony is that AHIP is now arguing for a more left-wing bill, claiming the Baucus plan isn’t “universal” enough. The Congressional Budget Office thinks it will cover only 91% of the population, in part because Democrats reduced the “individual mandate” tax on people who don’t buy insurance.

Huh…we pay 166% more in premiums so that the 47 million uninsured, or 30 million uninsured, or whatever number it is today…gets reduced to…er…what’s nine percent of 300 million?

As to why the costs are going up, PowerLine summarizes things neatly:

Now, think about it: if you know that you don’t have to buy health insurance when you are young and healthy, but if you should get sick, or just get older, you can apply for health insurance at any time and it will be illegal for the insurance company to turn you down, what would you do? Obviously, you would defer buying insurance unless and until you get sick. This means that the pool of those who are insured will be lower quality, and the cost therefore higher for everyone who buys insurance. It is as though you could wait until you die, and then your heirs can buy life insurance on you.

This isn’t reform, it is stupidity.

First, my definition of peace. I don’t think it’s the definition they have in Oslo:

Peace is a situation in which all malevolent entities who would bring harm to the defenseless, lacking any moral code that would restrain them from doing so, are placed in situations that make them unable to do so.
:
“Unable”…does not mean unwilling or unready, for those are temporary characteristics. It means vanquished. It means defeated. Like the Soviet Union after the arms race. Like the Japanese Empire after the surrender. Like Saddam Hussein after he was fished out of his little hole.

Liz Cheney (Wizbang, via Rick) gets it, she knows exactly who gets the credit, and her idea is brilliant:

I’m having a disagreement with CaptainDMO, but I’m not entirely sure about what, or even if there is one. It’s got something to do with the psychological projection of liberals; as I read through the theories gathered, it seems to me his recognition is that projection is the point of the exercise, whereas in my opinion the projection is a by-product of something else.

My words…

Liberals, promoting their ideas over conservative ideas, behave exactly the way they claim conservatives behave. And it’s probably because they start thinking in exactly the way they claim conservatives think.

And his response —

It’s a matter of Liberals behaving as badly as they ALWAYS do, and “suddenly” finding emboldenment in projecting their own worst recognizable faults onto ANY critics, in a desperate Hail Mary preemptive attempt to quietly put at LEAST a borrowed petticoat on their Emperor, and TRY to shuffle the first and second heirs apparent into a closet.

The root of our disagreement, I think, lies in whether these “recognizable faults” are really bad.

It shall come as no surprise whatsoever, to anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention to what’s been going on, that the leash by which liberals stake their opponents to the ground is so short as to defy logical explanation. It long ago became far less work to create a profile of those who do not arouse liberal indignation, than one of those who do. Working in private industry outside of Hollywood; being one of those hated “executives” in health care, home lending or tobacco; working in government, but for the wrong side; working for no paycheck at all, but rather to raise your children into responsible adults and keep the house clean while your husband works; oh, and let us not forget you’re “basically a war criminal” if you had anything to do with starting the War on Terror. Of course those folks started no war. The war was underway already, and their crime was really just to point at something evil and call it what it really was. But why sweat the details?

You don’t need to criticize liberals to end up on their “Hate You Forever And Ever” list. You really don’t need to do much of anything at all, because the anger is already churning acridly away before the liberal ever starts to know you, let alone see what you say and do. They are like walking clothes washing machines, always at the high point of the cycle, sloshing pure acid around in their innards instead of water.

The anger has nothing to do with critics or any other outside party. It is caused by the inherent contradiction of liberalism. To understand the anger, you have to understand the contradiction; in order to understand the contradiction, you have to understand Star Trek.

You remember Star Trek, right. It started in the 1960’s during the Cold War era and enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980’s that continued until…well, form your own opinion on that. In the years leading up to Y2K, it suffered from a decline caused by a creeping and increasingly central theme of soft-socialism. No individual exceptionalism allowed…save for that of the Starship Captain. In 1991, Captain Picard insisted on communicating with a crystaline terrorist rather than on destroying it, at one point loftily intoning that it had more right to be in space than his crew did. In 1993, the Federation imposed an intra-galactic speed limit of Warp 5 after finding out their engines were tearing the space-time continuum apart. In 1996, in a feature film, he let slip another tempting morsel about 24th century society: Complete communism. No money. Workers work for the state. People labor for the betterment of themselves, rather than to accumulate material possessions.

It is not a perfect ambrotype of liberalism, but it certainly is a better-than-adequate one. Let’s add up the vital elements…

Agreement Over Clarity: You’ll notice nobody ever says…”What we need to do is sit down with our enemies, talk out our differences with them and specifically tell them or learn from them this one item…” This is not an endeavor to end war; it is a crusade against specifics.

Denial of Right to Own Property: Everyone’s on equal footing because there is no money. Of course this is inherently hypocritical, since Captain Picard’s sense of judgment (at least in the episodes where he hasn’t been possessed by an alien) is absolutely superior to everyone else’s. Now you’re seeing the beginnings of the contradiction that makes liberals so angry before they’ve had a chance to be angered by anyone. There is a vertical organizational structure, and yet, at the same time, the society that has been built is rigidly egalitarian. This is irreconcilable.

Freedom From Want: People are somehow driven to better themselves, and yet they enjoy absolute security in their access not only to the staples of life, but to a not so insignificant elevation of the standard of living above the bare minimum. If they are hungry or thirsty, they simply describe what’s missing to a “food replicator” and the stuff magically appears.

De-Valuation of Labor: This one goes all the way back to the beginning. After some hasty and somewhat heated exchange of words between a couple of egotists on the bridge, some last-ditch decision is made and the “order” is given for the vessel to proceed with all due haste to this destination rather than that one…a one-way trip of several days…often with no better justification than somebody’s “hunch.” That’s four hundred souls on board in the old series and over a thousand in the new one. In the days that follow, these perfect people who never have to worry about eating or paying rent, are somehow roused out of bed by their sense of “duty.” The duties do not have to do with making decisions about what needs to be done…unless you’re the Doctor, the First Mate or the Captain. They have nothing to do with handling emergencies, unless you’re the robot. There is no inspection that needs doing in order to figure out how something works, or why it does this thing instead of that thing…unless you’re the Chief Engineer. All other hands on board receive “orders” about what to do, and they do it. Security to the bridge. Warp Factor 8 dead-ahead. Report to Transporter Room 3. Get that man to sick bay, on the double. No wonder these people can’t make any money. In a world full of smart robots, who needs ’em?

Raw, Naked Egotism: If the Captain gives an order to the crewman and the crewman doesn’t carry it out, that means the crewman has been possessed by a deadly space virus or an evil incorporeal alien. If Starfleet gives an order to the Captain and the Captain doesn’t carry it out, that means Starfleet has been possessed by a deadly space virus or an evil incorporeal alien. The message is crystal-clear: Since you as the audience are supposed to identify with the Captain, that means when someone tells you to do something you don’t want to do, that authority is being evil, but if you want someone else to do something they should snap-to and get it done right away. In this respect, Star Trek…and the liberalism that later consumed it…is perfect programming for the young weaker mind to become an extraordinary butthole.

Unified Central Source of All Greatness: In a futureworld in which all human needs have been met and supra-lightspeed travel is an everyday occurrence, somehow innovation has become rare. People spend their entire lives content to perform their “duties,” the vast majority of whose hours must be spent on welding. Welding cross-beam number 34 of 100, into section 127 of 360, on the floor panel assembly of deck 27 of 43, on the skeleton of what is one day to become the USS Yamamoto or some damn thing. That’s some poor schmuck’s entire career, welding that one beam in place. A task made entirely meaningless until & unless there is perfect coordination with some central authority, who is giving similar orders to all the other welders who are welding all the other beams. Very little ingenuity taking place. Here and there, things do get invented…always by a “Doctor” so-and-so, who seems to have become some “fellow” in the Federation, which recognized his or her greatness many years before and elevated that person to a position where the magic could be worked. So everything that makes life worth living was invented by a “Federation Scientist.” The Federation is never, ever blindsided by a Jobs or Wozniak building a computer in a garage. There are no Edison-versus-Tesla rivalries.

Universe Without Borders: After we eliminated hunger and disease from the human equation, we explored the universe and built this Federation with humans and Vulcans. The Klingons declared war on our new union, but we made nice-nice with them at the Khittomer Conference. But the Romulans were still mad at us. So we made a peace treaty with them. Then the Ferengi were being all “We’re going to charge you money for stuff and be nasty people” but we made friends with them. And then the Borg tried to blow up Earth, but eventually we became their friends too, and now we’re all a big happy family. All you have to do is understand each other, and click those red glass slippers together three times. In reality, I would think the reconciliation with the Borg would have happened first. The Federation doesn’t seem too terribly different from them. Which one would swallow-up which other one — would it really matter?

So we have the seven vital items — of both Star Trek and of liberalism. They are loaded with contradictions. So the lazy mind doesn’t have to go scrambling too far to give credit, all that is good radiates from some central point…these great ships half a mile in length are designed by some mastermind, which in turn performs the actual construction by coordinating everything and giving the right orders. But we value agreement over clarity. It is far more important to adjourn the meetings with this vibe, this feeling of “we’re all singing from the same hymnal,” than to have any meaningful information exchanged there (this is the one part of Star Trek I personally find most realistic). People are supposed to spend their lives bettering themselves in such a way that property is entirely meaningless, and yet this stellar level of “bettering” is accomplished by pushing a button or pulling a lever when the Captain tells you to. You’re somehow motivated to do this bettering when nothing is at stake. When you receive a bad order, you’re morally obliged to disobey it. Oh no wait, no you aren’t. Oh no wait, yes you are. Whoever’s way up at the tippy-top of this organized authority structure, must really have everything on the ball and give good orders all the time. Oh no wait, no he doesn’t. Oh no wait, yes he does.

Star Trek seems to have a number of different ranks though; to the best I can make out, they are very close to pay grades O-1 through O-11 in the United States Navy, plus “crewman” for all enlisted personnel and “President” for the Federation President. Liberalism really has only four…

There is the icon at the center of all wonderfulness, which would be whatever liberal has demonstrated the greatest ability to peddle bullshit…to present things as the opposite of what they really are and get away with it. He is awarded the superior rank needed to get this bullshit sold, with astonishing speed. I’ll leave unmentioned who exactly that would be at this time, it’s just too obvious.

There are those who are close to the icon, who help to form the policy. “Policy” is a loosely-used word here. The most important policy by far is what talking points to use against the next conservative you want to browbeat. It can mean other things too, like putting up a billboard that says “Americans didn’t vote for a Rush to failure.”

There are the “good” people who follow the policy. They donate their five dollars to whatever they’re told to donate it to, they read the AARP newsletter and repeat what they read there as if it is their own opinion. They dutifully start their fights on Democratic Underground and Daily KOS. In short, they push the levers the Captain tells them to push…to better themselves.

And then there are the pariahs. People like me, and perhaps you, who don’t buy into the crap. We are not part of the Universe Without Borders. We are not Klingons, Ferengi or Borg. Those creatures, as noted above, were brought into the fold. We will not be. We are despised. We are loathed. The loathing against us is a badge of social stature for those who exude it. We’re like Star Wars fans.

There’s yet another contradiction, and this one might be the most imposing one. That is my point. The critical vision to form is one of the Universe Without Borders…negotiate with the Silicon Avatar, and all the pain will stop everywhere as we learn to understand each other. Not so with conservatives though — they are to be ground to dust beneath the heel of the regulation Federation dress uniform clunky-boot. Set phasers to kill.

Shortly before CaptainDMO disagreed with me, I got a “Please Forgive Fredo” speech from an old friend who worked with me at an old job where I saw some shenanigans going down. Destructive shenanigans. Done by someone who was and is decidedly unrepentant…and making a habit out of damaging things. No discussion at all about what was done, or what will be done, just a quote from Corinthians. See, not all liberals hate the Bible. They aren’t trying to be liberal, and they’re not mean. A lot of it comes from just not wanting to face truth. Clinging to this notion that nothing and nobody can ever be declared harmful. Except for those who oppose what they’re trying to do…which was my original point.

We haven’t invented supra-light travel just yet. So without a universe waiting to be explored, the process that slowly creeps toward center-stage is one not of exploration, but one of — destruction. That’s all that is left. There is nothing to create, nothing to preserve, nothing to explore, so all that is left is to destroy. Surely you’ve noticed this? Does a “Obama/Biden 2008” bumper sticker represent a desire to create something? Not nearly quite so much, as a desire to overthrow George W. Bush and anyone aligned with him. Every single liberal platitude, cloaks a desire to attack and destroy…something. Yet they pretend to be in the process of building something.

Another piece of irony is that in this culture they’ve constructed wherein negotiation is oh so important and yet specifics and details are to be expunged from such negotiations so everything is kept fuzzy, happy and abstract — there is always this obsessive-compulsive desire to define what has already been defined, again and again and again. Liberals are better than their counterparts…we have to keep telling ourselves that. We all have a right to free healthcare. Equal pay for equal work. Barack Obama is SO awesome.

That’s why the peace prize went the way it did. Yes, some of it was purely pragmatic diplomacy, as well…this is an international community hoping to get stuff. But it was mostly emotional. Another day, the sun comes up yet again, and Barack Obama is still awesome!

It backfired big-time, because a big piece of the liberal constituency holds this hyper-egalitarianness as a belief to be cherished above all others. A central point source of all good things is alright with them…just as long as it’s kept veiled behind something opaque. Just as some Christians aren’t too wild about the face of God being revealed in paintings, or Muslims don’t like Muhammad the Prophet to be illustrated in drawings or cartoons. This half of liberalism is wondering something like — enough of that already? We donated our five dollars to your cause, so you could build OUR world. A world in which nobody is wonderful, and where there are no ranks.

In fact, it did worse than backfire. I think it caused a schism in the liberal/Star-Trek universe.

So I don’t think liberals always behave badly. I certainly don’t think they try to. They’re just deeply conflicted people. They want great things to be built, but with no single individual taking excessive credit for the construction of those things or even for the design of those things. But they also want to stifle the exchange of any details technically meaningful. Details offend them, terribly, for reasons I don’t think anybody can ever understand. Least of all them. Of course you can’t build things without exchanging details. The realization of that, I think, offends them more than anything…

They want conversations to be dulled, muted and fuzzy so it becomes impossible to coordinate on the construction of so much as a pencil, let alone a starship, or a beam that is a part of the starship.

What they really want to do is get rid of religion, and replace it all with yet another religion. All things good radiate from some nexus somewhere, but it is not for you to ponder the identity or characteristics of that nexus. Just know that the closer you are to it, the more wonderful you are…and yet we are all equally wonderful…but find a way to better yourself…without money or property…but showing you’ve really got what it takes to be great, by pushing a button when you’re told to.

Scratch that. Comparing that to religion is a disservice to religions. This is more like a cult.

Speaking of Doolittle: I was scrolling back over his archives to see if he should be added to the blogroll. His talking points, even if he doesn’t agree with their substance, are good ones and this suggests a capable mind. We have lefty blogs in our blogroll…quite a few…whoever I find that can put out stuff with regularity that makes you stop and go “hmmm.”

So while I was trying to figure out if Doolittle made the cut, I came across a note of celebration about that goofy survey that says America’s “stature” in the world has been on the rise.

Here’s what Neal Boortz had to say about it:

This one is not too hard to figure out. We go back to the Pew Research poll conducted in Europe in 2008. That poll showed that nearly 60% of Europeans wanted the United States to be weaker. They didn’t like the US being as strong in economic and worldwide political affairs as we were. Soooooo … along comes Barack Obama, and at every turn he projects American weakness. He trashes the European missile defense system. He kowtows to Russia’s Putin. He absolutely fails to take a strong stance on Iran and their nuclear ambitions. He disengages from Iraq and continues to show indecisiveness in Afghanistan. The shrinks at the sight of Hugo Chavez. He won’t meet with the Dalai Lama because it might make the Chinese mad. Weakness at every turn … just exactly what the respondents to the poll said they wanted! A weaker United States!

So now our popularity in Europe is on the way up! Really tough to figure out why, isn’t it?

Given that context, Doolittle’s foam rubber finger looks a little bit…how shall we say it…out of place.

It’s also a betrayal of the ultimate left-wing dichotomy. When liberals promote liberal ideas, they behave in a way that directly contradicts what they’re trying to make other people do. Liberals, promoting their ideas over conservative ideas, behave exactly the way they claim conservatives behave. And it’s probably because they start thinking in exactly the way they claim conservatives think. Something to do with “we are so so so very right and those other guys are so so so very wrong.” And “hooray for our side.” And “us forever.” Foam-rubber-finger stuff.

I let the post sit there without bothering to comment on it, figuring it would get along just fine without the benefit of my wisdom.

Um….

Ha ha. You know better than that. But I did spread a thick layer of subtlety over my point, laced with a strong dose of verbal irony.

Love that foam rubber finger. It’s somewhat at odds, though, with the ideals that have raised our country’s status so much in these post-Bush months. You know, the ideals that made the country great in the first place…written into the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Humility. Diversity. Classic femininity. Submission. Willingness to admit our mistakes, and talking endlessly about them as if no other country has made any, even when it’s grossly off-topic. Cutting our carbon emissions. Making deals with people who want to kill us. Arugula. Yes, these are exactly what America has always been about, and it’s high time we got back to it. No wonder the world loves us again.

And yes, as a matter of fact I did have fun writing that.

It is interesting that one of those things inexorably morphs into the other of those things. The prize is supposed to be about bringing and sustaining peace. In a perfect world, wouldn’t that be a different thing from speechmaking? In a world without glaring problems with how people think out weighty, taxing problems, wouldn’t these at least be somewhat different things?

Well, analyzing speeches can be a useful exercise…if for no other reason, than that speeches are designed to pack an influence on evolving events. And so it piqued my curiosity when James Fallows analyzed each of the four paragraphs President Obama delivered — yes, once again, about Himself and His thoughts — and evaluated each one. Fallows awards the President something equivalent to an A-plus, and I agree. Every Obama speech brings on a rush to anoint said speech as the “Best One Evar!” but Obama speeches really rise above other Obama speeches when there is a vexing public relations problem to be taken on, one that would defeat the efforts of a lesser speechmaker. This is when President Obama’s talents are really put on display for all to see.

Which of course, leaves the question of how & why there is a vexing public relations problem arising from what is supposed to be an enormous personal and political win. The question is certainly there…but for the time being I’ll leave it to others.

Fallows linked to Jerome Doolittle, who has ten points handy for a Republican response. Doolittle is a lefty blogger so I’m not sure what the intent is here. It seems to be a prediction of what the opposition is going to be doing; the old “if I can predict what it is going to do, that says something against it” argument. But ninety percent of these, accidentally or otherwise, are good points. Especially #7.

1. What do you expect from a bunch of socialists?

2. Not that I’m a racist, but I know affirmative action when I see it.

3. Carter, Gore, Obama? Do we see a pattern here?

4. A clumsy attempt by Europe to save a failing presidency.

5. The Norwegians are just using Obama to slap George W. Bush in the face.

6. Besides, who cares what a bunch of geeks in Oslo think? The International Olympic Committee speaks for the whole world.

7. No thinking person has taken the Nobel Peace Prize seriously since Reagan didn’t win one for ending the Cold War.

8. We elect a president to keep America safe, not to win prizes.

9. True leadership is not an international popularity contest.

10. Peace is no big deal anyway. No, wait a minute. Strike that last one.

I would modify #10 to say something like this: As is the case with all of the rest of us, the Nobel Prize committee fails at its mission when it fails to define what it is. The failure to acknowledge Reagan’s victory in bringing about exactly the kind of world that was desired by liberals for generations, proves that for the benefit of anyone who would seriously question it. To achieve victory at anything, you have to define things.

We call on the Nobel Prize Committee to renew their commitment to their mission, by defining what it is. What is peace? Does hope have something to do with peace? Did hope ever have anything to do with peace? Does peace have something to do with people feeling positive about recent events…or public figures…like Barack Obama. Does it have a close kinship with feelings of excitement and inspiration? I’ll leave it to the readers of my words to invoke the Godwin rule, for Hitler doesn’t have much to do with what I’m talking about — but let’s face it, he made a lot of people hopeful, excited and inspired. So the peace-and-positive-feelings connection is at the very least disturbed, if not rent asunder.

How about feelings of security? Are they peace? Do all wars erupt from people feeling insecure, like they’re facing an uncertain future, and can achieve lasting prosperity by no means other than to hurt others? Or would it be more accurate to say our smaller skirmishes, great wars, and conflicts of any magnitude between result from people who simply lack moral restraint occupying positions of great power…and then when looking for ways to make their power even greater, realizing a benefit is theirs for the taking.

These are deep thoughts. There is, perhaps, no panel on the face of the earth better suited to noodle ’em out. I/We call on the Nobel Prize Committee to do so. They need to. As noted before, we all fail in our more challenging pursuits if we don’t take the time to define what exactly they are. The Committee has failed to define what exactly it is trying to do…or to adhere to it, anyway…and this is to its detriment.

Here’s my suggestion.

Peace is a situation in which all malevolent entities who would bring harm to the defenseless, lacking any moral code that would restrain them from doing so, are placed in situations that make them unable to do so.

“Unable” has nothing to do with a treaty. Treaties are enforced by means of carrots and sticks; carrots can be only so juicy and tasty, and sticks can sting only so much. Treaties, therefore, are antithetical to genuine peace. A smaller prize to be won by the making of war, may be trumped by the promise of the carrot or the sting of the stick, but in that situation all it takes for a more coveted prize to come along and make the “impossible” war a certainty. You won’t be receptive to the point made if you’re the kind of person who demands I make a list of historical examples…I shouldn’t have to…

“Unable” means unable. It does not mean unwilling or unready, for those are temporary characteristics. It means vanquished. It means defeated. Like the Soviet Union after the arms race. Like the Japanese Empire after the surrender. Like Saddam Hussein after he was fished out of his little hole.

“Prizes” for this situation would logically, therefore, be awarded to those who put it someplace where it did not exist before. If that were to be the case, the Prize Committee would look much, much better than they did yesterday.

You guys need to go somewhere and work at defining peace. It’s just your job.

And don’t worry, I won’t be insisting you retroactively award a peace prize to George Bush for ripping out the old Iraq and putting in a new one. But on that subject — if, in the unlikely event you were to do such a thing, it would make a great deal of sense.

Andy and Daphne are in my inner circle of closest blogger friends, so it kind of bugs me that I got too technical for them in the previous post about my Western Digital Passport. Just looking back over the title, I gotta admit…if you’re not a techie geek it might look a little cryptic. Western digital passport? What’s that? You’re heading toward Alaska and some Canadian border guard starts giving you too much guff, so you give him the finger and he lets you through? External hard drive does get the job done better. Leaves some stuff unsaid, maybe, but we can dispense with that.

Daphne sez…

No, just add some girly/non-electronic porn to the front page. Ripped, tan abs would be good.

Andy sez…

So what’s wrong with saying “external hard drive?” I would have been clued right in. Here’s your whole post, revised for, well, for me:

“Hey kids, I got a new external hard drive, and I really like it.”

See how easy that was?

I haven’t tried it. Let’s give it a go, shall we. Your wish is my command, after all, folks.

(Clears throat.)

(Morgan using his new external hard drive)

“Hey kids, I got a new external hard drive, and I really like it.”

Say, that was easy. Hope that washboard stomach of mine doesn’t sour you on all the lesser specimens, Daphne.

Typical review, for those who might not have read up quite yet.

Mine showed up Tuesday night. Huge win. I got the tracking notice at work, and stopped off by the hardware store on the way home to pick up velcro before I even saw the thing. Now it sticks on to either one of the two laptops, and I’ve installed a Subversion repository on the Passport. M-U-C-H better arrangement for the important files than just sitting in a “My Documents” folder somewhere.

This is actually working out better than a “real” home network. Fits what I’m doing better. Some of these files are “hot”…as in…getting hammered with updates, weekly or more than once a week, for years. But it’s just not practical to presume all the hammering takes place in the same little cubbyhole all the time. Think I might have put together the ideal setup here; we’ll see how it works out over the long term.

Time to quote myself again. Daphne’s news item is fast-becoming the big 72-point font headline of the day.

For those not in the know, Mister Wondeful in the White House has just won the Nobel peace prize.

He should be enjoying this kind of life. It’s to be expected. He’s offering people exactly what they’ve always wanted: A way to pretend they’re solving all the problems, while engaging in exactly the mindset that caused them in the first place.

History will record it that He won the Nobel first, and that is what inspired us to elect Him as our new President. And then he did all kinds of wonderful things to fix our economy, but something got in the way and kept it from working as well as it should have…although His Nobel-Prizey ideas did stop things from getting much, much worse. Just like LBJ’s Great Society, FDR’s New Deal and Wilson’s Fourteen-Point Peace Plan.

That is the litany. You read it here first.

Stephen Colbert once said “truth” has a well-known liberal bias. Yes, of course, he’s right…how can he not be. Liberal ideas never, ever, ever fail. They don’t succeed either, but they don’t fail. There’s always something else that jumped into the situation and messed everything up. Kind of like the “bubbins” of the family…every family has one…his repeated failures always expressed in passive voice. He didn’t lose his house, the man from the bank came and took it away. He didn’t fail at his marriage, his wife left him. He didn’t lose his job, the boss came in one day and fired him.

I think people can smell that kind of a “no-blame bubble” and react to it subconsciously…with “I wanna get in on this thing.” Nothing is ever Barry’s fault, so if you cast your lot in with Him, nothing will ever be your fault either.

Viewing it in that way, you realize — why, He really is a kind of a Messiah, in a sick sort of way. And He really does deserve to live a charmed life, and win every award that can be won.

So I’ll be saving all my outrage for other things.

And buying gold.

Update: Round-up by Byron York of the mainstream press’ reaction. They’ve been in the tank for His Holiness for years now, but even they are having a bit of a “Whaddya Thinkin’??” reaction to this.

Small-tee tim the godless heathen comments at Rick’s blog,

Somebody wake (or take me AA) me when this crap is over. Mmmm, mm, mm.

And I had to respond to that:

Respectfully disagree with small-tee tim. I want to catch every single instant of this. I want to TIVO it. We are learning things about human nature that are not often revealed…at least, not often revealed this starkly.

I babbled on for a little bit longer than I intended in Bullet Number One about How to Motivate Large Numbers of People to Do a Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating the Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On. The gist of #1 is this: Once people sit down together in a group to decide on something (especially when they’re voting on something, as a committee) the mission is no longer one of laboring to produce the best results. Instead it becomes the mission you remember from K-12: Try to get everyone to watch you when you feel like you know what you’re doing, and look somewhere else when you’re feeling like maybe you don’t.

It isn’t that “everybody” has all this hope in Barack Obama’s efforts, it’s more like everybody wants everybody else to know they have the hope…

The award decision itself is fantastic. In fact, it’s not enough. I think they should make this a special year and put out three awards. Just to make sure the message really gets out about how awesome they all think Barack Obama is. Make sure we really know what the Nobel committee is all about. Wear it on their sleeve. Don’t be shy.

That way, when history records all the situations that result — good or ill — from Obama stewardship and tutelage, future generations will know the Nobel committee was a zillion and one percent behind it all. Which if anyone has a brain in their heads by then, will benefit them immensely.

Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that man behind the tree.

Steven Malanga writing in RealClearMarkets. Go check and see if your state is one of the ones that has captured his attention. Mine is barely mentioned. Yeah, that’s right…California is barely worth a mention. Our state laboratories are giving us that many lessons on how to govern stupidly.

The pain might not be so intense if residents of these states were getting something for all of this extra taxation. But in fact the state motto in some of these places could be “High taxes, lousy government.” Jersey, with the highest state and local taxes, has one of the worst performing governments in the country, according to Governing Magazine, and it invests so little in its infrastructure its roads have been rated the worst in the nation. New York, which spends much of its state budget on a Medicaid program that is twice as large as any other, doesn’t have a healthier, better-cared for low-income population. California, which spent billions of dollars to lower public school class-sizes, has seen no payoff in higher test scores or graduation results.

The really bad news, however, is that there is no easy way out of this for many of these states. Their budget problems are structural and long-term and can’t be fixed merely by trimming a little waste and pork here and there. Most of these states have wracked up huge debts, for instance, so that bond payments are now weighing down their balance sheets. Their bondholders must be fed or chaos will ensue.

These states also suffer from huge public employee pension and benefits obligations that are often guaranteed by law. In fact, the pension funds of these states are so underfunded they make the Social Security Trust Fund look solvent by comparison.

These long-term structure problems are one reason why prospects for local tax revolts of the type we saw in the late 1970s and early 1990s have been slow to materialize. Any reformer who looks closely at these budgets understands that the only way out are service cuts that will be felt by virtually everyone in the state.

Faced with unpalatable choices, these states sit and hope that the answer comes in the former of even more stimulus money from the Obama administration given directly to states to spend on government operations. But rising anger from politicians and citizens in states that have been fiscally responsible will make that harder.

In the next few years, it seems, we will truly test the notion of whether people will get up and move simply because of high taxes. Oh, and bad government.

Hat tip to Sister Toldjah.

I’m afraid when my grandchildren are in college they’ll be asking me “but back in 2009, before that awful thing that happened right afterward, you said the Laffer Curve was controversial and some people called it all-but-discredited; how’s that??” And I’ll have to tell them, “I don’t know.”

The idea isn’t a terribly complicated one. Taxes may be compulsory, but they aren’t so compulsory that you can just raise them and raise them and sit back and wait for the money to roll in. People always have the option to cease & desist. That is, unless you want to pass a Directive 10-289…

…well anyway. Here’s one for the “tax the rich” states. Perhaps the only glimmer of hope they’ll be getting for a long, long time:

Sowell…

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.

Recognize any professional acquaintances from present or past in those two paragraphs? I certainly do.

David Harsanyi writing in Reason probably did as well (hat tip to Maggie’s Farm)…

[I] have two imaginary friends named Mr. Hoover and Jim.

Mr. Hoover knows everything. He attended a highbrow graduate school and worked as a Senate aide before becoming a policy expert. He is a man who craves acceptance from the other smart people who surround him.

Jim is pretty smart, too, but hasn’t squandered his talent working in Washington. Rather than theorize about economics, Jim takes an authentic risk by starting a business.
:
If you told [Mr. Hoover] to solve an intricate problem, such as global warming, he’d assemble a group of similarly dazzling thinkers to centralize the entire energy economy for the next 40 years through taxation, subsidies, mandates, and corporate giveaways. He does this because he knows precisely what the weather will be like in 2050. That’s how smart he is.

Now, Jim, I’m afraid, would be far less impressive. If you asked him to “solve” global warming, he’d question the costs and benefits of federally controlled energy production. He understands, from his own life experiences, that you can’t decree an economic outcome.

The Bastidge doesn’t like the way I bastardize the classic ancient Asian notions of “yin and yang,” claiming I am confusing and muddling the terms. He’s right. And he’s welcome to suggest other names I could use. Until he does, though, Yin and Yang are the best words available.

Some of us do stuff…which necessarily means drawing a perimeter around the things we do, then focusing our energy inward on that contained work area. As we do work.

Others among us radiate outward, spending the bulk of their energy trying to impress others. They are not concerned with results…for they cannot be. They live in the here and now, creating the best possible impression on the community. Today. Just for today. Planning ahead would depend on acknowledging that events lead to other events — and you can’t bother yourself with such mundane things when you’re laboring so hard to be fun for other people to watch.

It’s strictly a one-or-the-other proposition.

National Geographic.

Thanks to blogger friend Buck for the find.

Boortz says he didn’t write it, but I’m not so sure I believe him because it’s loaded with his customary typographicals and missing verbs.

But does it really matter.

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.

If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t` eat meat.

If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
:
If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.
:
If a conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.

A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended”.

Reflecting over the sound bites I’ve heard from the pro-socialized-medicine crowd, I entertain two thoughts. Both thoughts have visited me and revisited me again in recent years…very, very often.

One, it must be a terribly bleak thing to go through life thinking about every decision you need to make in terms of bumper sticker slogans.

Two, some of these talking points conflict with other talking points. If I’m seeing evidence of how well people can coordinate with each other when they put their minds to it — I’ve just thought of a new reason I don’t want pencil-pushers managing my health care, because I see no coordination here at all. Looks more like desperation.

The slogans I recall from the past two years — and they are close to an exhaustive listing of all the pro-reform arguments that have come my way — are these:

1. 43 million uninsured
2. 30 million uninsured
3. We’ve waited plenty long enough
4. It won’t change anything
5. Let’s do it for Ted
6. Everybody wants it
7. People wearing white coats (the ones we gave them) like it
7. People with swastikas don’t want it so it must be good
8. If we don’t do it right now we may never get this chance again
9. Putting the government in charge will bring the costs down (for the first time ever)
10. Nothing else will revive the economy

Did I miss anything?