GetLiberty.org, via blogger friend Rick.
Archive for December, 2009
Al Gore’s Fact Meltdown
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Loud Lovemaking Protected by Article 8
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Where did Cassy find this anyway?
Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s love making was described as ”murder” and ”unnatural” and drowned out their neighbours’ televisions.
Even the local postman and a woman, who walked past the house taking her child to school, complained and she was given a noise abatement order.
Now Mrs Cartwright is appealing a conviction by magistrates for breaching a noise abatement notice that banned the couple from ”shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance”.
She is using Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to argue that she has a right to ”respect for her private and family life”.
Mrs Cartwright, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, is also arguing that she cannot help making the noise and has instructed a sexual psychologist to give evidence on her behalf.
:
Marion Dixon, an environmental health manager with the council, told the hearing what happened when the Cartwrights were confronted by the council with the neighbours’ complaints.”Mr Cartwright held his head in his hands but Mrs Cartwright seemed to find it quite amusing,” she said.
”I told them at the time that the council found this extremely serious and was considering serving them with a noise abatement notice.
”She was adamant she could not stop the noise and had always done it.”
Cassy adds…
I know that sex can be amazing, but seriously? I have to wonder if this woman really can’t control herself, or if she gets off on knowing that her neighbors can hear her. Her husband apparently seemed embarassed by it, while she herself found it “amusing”. I find it extremely hard to believe that she’s completely unable to do anything to keep her neighbors from being bothered by the noise. And when it’s so loud that it can be heard outside, I think we’re getting into the over-the-top area. Two people both complained about hearing it from outside of her home. She’s got neighbors saying it keeps them awake at night. Seriously, she can’t even put her face into a pillow or something?
Yep, standard passive-aggressive bullshit.
Okay, here’s the clip, the video clip you just thought of, you know you’ve got it right at the front of your mind…
Girls Don’t Do Computer Science and It’s Star Trek’s Fault
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Wired found a study:
The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image.
New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds may be partially responsible for the dearth of women in the field, as shown by National Science Foundation statistics.
“What this research shows is that the image of computer science — this geeky, masculine image — can make women feel like they don’t belong,” says lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington.
“I think this is an important contribution to the literature,” says Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton of the University of California, Berkeley. He says it raises questions about how much conscious control people have over their choices.
Previous research has found that a person can get a good sense of what another individual is like just from spending a few minutes perusing that person’s bedroom. Cheryan wondered if the same was true of classrooms.
“You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with,” Cheryan says. “You walk in, see these objects and think, ‘This is not me.’”
Cheryan and colleagues tested this idea by alternately decorating a computer science classroom with objects that earlier surveys pegged as stereotypically geeky—Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books — or with objects that the surveys found to be neutral— coffee mugs, plants and art posters. Thirty-nine college students spent a few minutes in the room, then filled out a questionnaire on their attitudes toward computer science.
Women who spent time in the geeky room reported less interest in computer science than women who saw the neutral room. For male students, however, the room’s décor made no difference.
This would explain why on all of the shows on WB Network — let me repeat that, all of the shows — you find a male character from there, and the dude doesn’t act like a “real” dude, knowwhatimean? The wounded-puppy look; immaculately tweezed eyebrows that could hold up book collections. A twenty-something face that has never known stubble (unless it’s in the script), or for that matter pressure under a deadline. He’s only concerned about one thing, ever, and that is whatever concerns her. He is only masculine in the ways a girl would find non-threatening — if she’s about twelve — and therefore, he isn’t very masculine at all.
It all makes sense. Everything has to fit someone’s image of “female-friendly,” and if it doesn’t then whoever created it is widening a gender gap. Better knock it off now.
This is such a colossal mistake; females are more resilient than this. Aren’t they? Or do I have it wrong? All of them, young and old, need to see plaid and paisley everywhere they look?
Wouldn’t it be funny if these asshats set out to make an “experiment” that would prove the opposite — that men are influenced by a room’s decor just as much as, or more than, their female counterparts. The data got in the way, so they found a different spin to put on it so they could still get their grant money.
Suppose we turn the world upside-down and make the technical fields bright purple and pink so they are pleasing to women who demand this. Make it all appealing…just barely long enough for them to pass a point of commitment. And then they find out, it’s greasy nerds, it’s some other more humble line of work to which they did not dedicate themselves to the necessary training, or it’s waiting for a sugar-daddy. Who’s that help? Really, I wanna know.
And I haven’t even mentioned the other people like me, who consider it a colossal headache when they have to work with someone, man or woman, who never should have entered the field in the first place. That is no picnic. Someday I must jot down all the reasons why that sucks so much. For now, I’ll just comment that it sucks for them just as much as it sucks for everybody else.
I know they’re just trying to be politically correct, but this really isn’t very helpful to anyone.
“Cheapened the Presidency with Needless Attacks on His Predecessor”
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Rove takes ’em off and goes in bare-knuckled.
Barack Obama has won a place in history with the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year: 49% approve and 46% disapprove of his job performance in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.
:
Mr. Obama has not governed as the centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder he promised to be. And his promise to embody a new kind of politics—free of finger-pointing, pettiness and spin—was a mirage. He has cheapened his office with needless attacks on his predecessor.
George Will expounds.
Consider his busy December — so far.
His Dec. 1 Afghanistan speech to the nation was followed on Dec. 3 by his televised “jobs summit.” His Dec. 8 televised economics speech at the Brookings Institution was followed on Dec. 10 by his televised Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which was remarkable for 38 uses of the pronoun “I.”
And for disavowing a competence no one suspected him of. (“I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.” Note the superfluous adjective.) And for an unnecessary notification. (“Evil does exist in the world.”) And for delayed utopianism. (“We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” But in someone’s.) And for solemnly announcing something undisputed. (There can be a just war.) And for intellectual applesauce that should get speechwriters fired and editors hired. (“We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.” If the human “condition” can attain perfection anyway, human nature cannot be significantly imperfect.)
Then on Dec. 13, he was on “60 Minutes” praising himself with another denigration of his predecessor, aka “the last eight years.” (Blighted by “a triumphant sense about war.”) When Attorney General Eric Holder announced that five accused terrorists would be tried in federal courts, he said: “After eight years of delay. …” When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made the controversial recommendation that women should get fewer mammograms, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said: “This panel was appointed by the prior administration, by former President George Bush.” In congressional testimony, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner almost deviated from the script. He said the Obama administration began after “almost a decade” — slight pause — “certainly eight years of basic neglect.”
Will finishes strong…
A CNN poll shows 36 percent of the public in favor of what the Democratic Senate is trying to do to health care, 61 percent opposed. It is clear what the public wants Congress to do: Take a mulligan and start over.
So Republicans can win in 2009 by stopping the bill, or in 2010 by saying: Unpopular health legislation passed because of a 60-40 party-line decision to bring it to a Senate vote. Therefore each incumbent Democrat is responsible for everything in the law.
The folks from whom I’d really like to hear, are the ones who one year ago were looking forward to the inauguration ceremonies and a new era of (heh) unity, an end (snicker) to partisan bickering, and a (guffaw) new age of mutual cooperation in Washington so things could (groan) finally get done!
They’re probably skipping the expected apology because they figure nobody’s really waiting to hear it.
Well, I’d certainly like to hear it. I think they owe it to the rest of us.
democrats Can’t Blame Bush For Their Troubles
Thursday, December 17th, 2009E.J. Dionne…
[George W. Bush’]s presidency was a tonic for Democrats and led to a blossoming of political creativity on the center-left not seen since the 1930s. No tactic, no program, no leader ever did more to catalyze the party than the rage Bush inspired.
The whole effort was summarized nicely by the party’s slogan in 2006, “A New Direction for America.” There was no need to specify north or south, east or west, up or down. Compared with Bush, any alternative destination seemed appealing. And by becoming the apotheosis of the fresh and the new, Barack Obama emerged as the most attractive guide to this unknown promised land.
:
But politically, the Democrats are in trouble. They are at one another’s throats over health-care legislation that should be seen as one of the party’s greatest triumphs. They are being held hostage by political narcissists and narrow slivers of their coalition.
ad_iconWhen Democrats make deals, they are accused of selling out. When they fail to make deals, they are accused of not reaching out. Moderates complain that their party has gone too far left. Progressives chortle bitterly at this, asking: What’s left-wing about policies that shore up banks and protect drug companies?
…has absolutely no sense of irony.
And I think he’s having an Inigo Montoya moment with that phrase “political creativity”; I do not think it means what he thinks it means. Just because you’re doing all your thinking with the right half of your brain, and the left half of it is long since dead, doesn’t make you “creative.”
The lesson to be learned, is that when you are the opposition party the whole issue of “making the tent bigger” or “reaching out” is off-topic. It doesn’t mater. And that’s not a good thing, for anybody.
The fault goes to the power-brokers who were building up the democrat party as an opposition party against Bush’s policies…any Bush policies…anything that might possibly be connected to his name. It was not a substantive or honest way to debate the direction in which our country should be heading. But don’t be too hard on them; they were just running the campaign in such a way that it could enjoy the greatest potential for achieving its goals, and most efficiently.
Just like running a business.
Mmmmmm…the ironies…yes, I does have a sense of them.
D’JEver Notice? XLIX
Thursday, December 17th, 2009So we had a water-cooler conversation at work about the health care bill. These are good to have, occasionally. I can’t practice my skills at pretending I’m a “middle of the road” guy if I don’t know where the middle of the road is. And as of right now…your local water-cooler may vary…it seems to me the middle-of-the-road is here:
People are confusing “hope” with “faith.” The centrist position to be taken-up is that Obama’s health care bill will lower costs, because, well, it’s just gotta. To say confidence is shaky would be charitable toward that confidence. It’s like what Gagdad Bob said; science is using the facts to arrive at a conclusion, religion is tailoring the facts to fit the conclusion. So don’t go asking why they think it’ll work. It’s just gotta.
Obama says they’re all right about this, though. Or at least, if we don’t pass the bill, disaster shall ensue.
“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee,” Obama said. “Your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you … Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year.”
Uh oh. I’m not the first to point out this is exactly what He said about swindle-us.
Here is what I notice about this. To hear the President tell it, we are about to pass a rule that will bring costs down. In my lifetime, I’ve only seen two kinds of rules that bring costs down:
1. Rules that force one targeted demographic to provide a commodity to another targeted demographic, free of charge or at a reduced cost — an artificially redusted cost;
2. Rules that suspend or revoke other rules that existed before.
There is no third category.
So if you do have some of this faith, I guess you’re thinking we’re about to discover a third way to do it.
It doesn’t seem terribly likely I must say. Go through the decades in back of us, and go through the list of regulated commodities. Rental living space; gas; oil; labor; land; legal servics; health care; public education; water; precious metals.
Rules…especially rules signed into law by democrats…make prices go up. It can’t work any other way. It gets harder to provide something, that thing’s cost goes up. That’s how it works, folks.
Schumer Uses the B-Word
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009…as have I, on many occasions. But I don’t use it like this, when someone’s trying to stop me from being a jerk.
According to a House Republican aide who happened to be seated nearby, the notoriously chatty New York Democrat [Sen. Charles Schumer] referred to a flight attendant as a “bitch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.
Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones.
Both senators kept talking.
According to the GOP aide, a flight attendant then approached Schumer and told him the entire plane was waiting on him to shut down his phone.
Schumer asked if he could finish his conversation. When the flight attendant said “no,” Schumer ended his call but continued to argue his case.
He said he was entitled to keep his phone on until the cabin door was closed. The flight attendant said he was obliged to turn it off whenever a flight attendant asked.
“He argued with her about the rule,” the source said. “She said she doesn’t make the rules, she just follows them.”
When the flight attendant walked away, the witness says Schumer turned to Gillibrand and uttered the B-word.
We’re supposed to look past their crappy laws, and keep re-electing them because they’re so much more decent and wonderful people than those awful Republicans.
Who do you know who continues to argue this point about the cell phones in a similar situation? Can you name five personal acquaintances who would?
Who might?
Can you even name one?
If I Was Catholic, I’d Convert Now
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009Sorry, but that’s just how I see it. This is crap. No other way to put it.
Nobody owes anybody an apology just for being. That point’s non-negotiable. If this really is the Successor to Saint Peter talking, you can no longer be a member of that church and call yourself an American.
Memo For File CVI
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009I am so glad I begin every day by clicking open American Digest, as opposed to plucking the paper “digest” off my front porch. Thomas Jefferson said “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers” and I wish I knew how exactly our third President arrived at this — only because it must be a great story. I have no choice but to agree; so I’m going to do what I wish he did. I’m going to put down in writing exactly why I think what he came to think. Which means: I’m going to write down today, why I agree with Jefferson today.
Gerard has a couple of good ones this morning: Jennifer Rubin’s inventory of what exactly is in the health care bill as it’s being debated right now; and Zombie’s twenty-two reasons why the very concept should be repugnant and deeply offensive to all of us, and rejected in any form whatsoever.
Really, what’s left after they take out the public option and the Medicare buy-in? A GOP leadership aide put it this way: “$500 billion in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in tax increases, raises premiums, raises costs, onerous regulations, individual mandates, employer mandate, and expensive subsidies.” So what’s not to like? Well, just about everything. Perhaps, in a moment of clarity, everyone will go home, think this through clearly, and come back with a list of a few discrete reforms that will have bipartisan support. Then they can declare victory. Makes too much sense. Instead the Democratic leadership seems hell-bent on coming up with the umpteenth version of ObamaCare no matter how unpopular it may be with the public and making vulnerable members walk the plank. Seems crazy, huh? It is.
What I don’t like about the very concept of universal health care is that it compels me to become my brother’s keeper and insert myself into the moral decisions of his life. I’d rather grant each person maximum freedom. I’d prefer to let people make whatever choices they want, however stupid or dangerous I may deem those choices to be. Just so long as you take responsibility for your actions, and you reap the consequences and pay for them yourself — hey, be as foolish or hedonistic or selfish or thoughtless as you like. Not my business.
But if the bill for your foolishness shows up in the form of higher taxes on me, then I unwillingly start to care what you do. And, trust me on this, you don’t want me turning my heartless judgmental eye on your foolish lifestyle. Because I’d have no qualms criticizing half the stuff you do.
Do you want that? No. Do I want that? No. And that’s the point. Instituting a single-payer universal health-care system, or even a watered-down version as the government is now proposing, compels me to become a meddlesome busybody in your personal choices. [emphasis in original]
But the definitive, must-go-to piece on this turdpie of a bill, as of yesterday, is Byron York’s tattle-tale job that was on the innerwebs, and featured on the radios all day long — rightfully so. Maybe you got that out of your newspaper, but I didn’t get it out of mine…and you’ll see in some of the paragraphs below later on, I shouldn’t go looking for it there. You m-u-s-t read this, all the way through, and right now…
[T]he margin of opposition [to this turkey] seems to be growing, not diminishing. And yet Democrats seem determined to defy public opinion. Why?
I put the question to a Democratic strategist who asked to remain anonymous…
You have to look at the issue from three different Democratic perspectives: the House of Representatives, the White House and the Senate.
“In the House, the view of [California Rep. Henry] Waxman and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi is that we’ve waited two generations to get health care passed, and the 20 or 40 members of Congress who are going to lose their seats as a result are transitional players at best,” he said. “This is something the party has wanted since Franklin Roosevelt.” In this view, losses are just the price of doing something great and historic.
“At the White House, the picture is slightly different,” he continued. “Their view is, ‘We’re all in on this, totally committed, and we don’t have to run for re-election next year. There will never be a better time to do it than now.'”
“And in the Senate, they look at the most vulnerable Democrats — like [Christopher] Dodd and [Majority Leader Harry] Reid — and say those vulnerabilities will probably not change whether health care reform passes or fails. So in that view, if they pass reform, Democrats will lose the same number of seats they were going to lose before.”
:
[H]e compared congressional Democrats with robbers who have passed the point of no return in deciding to hold up a bank. Whatever they do, they’re guilty of something. “They’re in the bank, they’ve got their guns out. They can run outside with no money, or they can stick it out, go through the gunfight, and get away with the money.”
Sacramento Bee, my local paper, has done some things right and some things wrong. Yesterday, they chose to revert to their common form as a hard-left hippy-dippy Pravda snotrag. Do it just like they taught ya in journalism school, class — lead with the tearjerker human interest story, and then round the bend from there into a festering stewpot of statistical bullshit just like we always do…
Insurance cost for small businesses could ride on Congress’ action
L.D. Schmidt is a working man who arrives, in sickness and in health, at his small midtown Sacramento electronics shop to repair audio equipment.
Schmidt lacks health insurance, and hopes that the health care overhaul being debated in Congress will get him affordable coverage without driving up his costs of doing business.
Schmidt’s shop is among the tens of thousands of mom-and-pop firms scattered across America, enterprises whose proprietors often can’t even afford health insurance for themselves, let alone their workers.
“I just have to keep coming back to work, unless I get so sick and just can’t get out of bed,” said Schmidt…His only employee, a 20-year-old who was kicked off his parents’ health plan last year, is paid minimum wage and can’t afford to buy his own health coverage.
About three in 10 of the state’s self-employed don’t have health insurance, and nearly 43 percent of those working in the state’s smallest firms – those that employ fewer than 10 people – are uninsured, according to the annual Health Care Almanac produced by the California HealthCare Foundation.
Nearly two in five of the state’s 7 million uninsured are either self-employed or work for some of California’s smallest companies, the foundation reported.
I don’t like bashing The Bee, and I don’t relish doing it this time. But this is so sad. Can’t get any sadder. Bee Editor Melanie Sill, predictable as a sunrise, is going to bitch some more about the financial problems of the print journalism industry as a whole and SacBee in particular…every…single…weekend. If only the funny-papers were kept in my Sunday edition with all the reliability of the Sill dirges.
And yet all these journalists have dedicated their entire lives to the mind-expanding task of keeping abreast with what’s going on, for a living. Which is supposed to mean all day every day, right? Well what the hell are they doing. Should I even ask what they’re doing. No, I should not. The pattern has been set, and long ago. It is the constant wailing of the left-wing caffeine-infused human-yip-dog stress-puppy. Obviously, for them it comes down to just the latest tome of “Oh dear, we’re waiting for Congress to ACT!! and we are so SCREWED!! if they don’t!!” Can’t you just see the little rat-tail lashing about, neurotically. Every edition that rolls off the press, further blurs the line between reporting and barking.
Go back to Rubin’s piece to see what exactly it is they’re writing about. Do they know? Do they care? I see the lights are on but is anybody home?
Congress’ clear and obvious failing as servants of this republic over which they seek to rule…it doesn’t even merit a mention. And L.D. Schmidt? In the print edition (downstairs, in the passenger seat of my car, as I write this) the story is emblazoned with a 32-point-type quote from the business owner, that thing about “I just have to keep coming back to work, unless I get so sick and just can’t get out of bed,” See, if you look at it through the glass of a news stand, you think he’s got Lymphoma, or Narcolepsy, or Dr. House’s leg cyst that might shoot up into his brain at any second…at least chronic depression? Something. But if you actually read the story you see the guy’s just a worry-wart. Wants absolute, complete security, in the form of free health insurance from the federal government. God only knows what the guy is doing running his own business. Maybe he doesn’t have any choice because Obama’s made hiring so impractical and expensive, he can’t get hold of an income any other way. One thing you can take to the bank: If I ever make it a project to do some profiles on local entrepreneurial spirit and what I admire about these folks, I probably will not spend much time interviewing L. D. Schmidt. I got my start with small businesses. I grew up in a small-business town. I know something about how they live their lives, how they see the world, what they want to do in it, and what they want to get out of the doing.
Complete security, all risk eliminated, safe & secure as if you’re bobbing in amniotic fluid in your momma’s tummy — that doesn’t really have much to do with it.
But the real story here is not Schmidt…who comes off as being much more concerned, moment to moment, with risk than with opportunities, and has a perfect right to go through life this way if that’s his choice…but rather, The Bee. They are a tragedy. They are almost a villain. What the public really needs to know about what is going on, is so spectacularly distant from what they chose to report. If you understand the big picture, you realize you need to be hoping for this disaster to be derailed. By something. By anything. And this has an effect on what kind of news you need to consume. What question is first and foremost on your mind as you begin every day. How are our supposed “representatives” doing in their latest effort to screw us over. Conversely, of course, if you’re ignorant and think it’s all about “how will they take care of us,” that has an effect on what kind of questions you’re asking, as well…
And that, Ms. Sill, is why people are flocking to the innerwebs rather than reading your paper. You can’t blame it all on technology. It’s got to do with mindsets and world views. Your reporters are just plain lazy and incurious, and this has a deleterious effect on the product you’re selling every day. The fact of the matter is, if you read only the newspapers you’re missing quite a lot. Jefferson was — and is — correct. Your job, ultimately, is to prevent that from being the case. Maybe your goal should be to improve on this, do better at it from here-on-out, than you have up until now. That would be my suggestion.
On this horrible legislation itself, and what Congress should do about it? Anchoress nailed it. “GO HOME. Drop what you are doing, right now, and go home. Put the 2000 page healthcare bill that you haven’t read into the trash can as you turn out the lights and head for the airport…give America a break from your freakish certainties, your falsities, frailties and your folly. Turn off your blackberries and stay off the television and try to find whatever scraps of humanity still remain buried beneath the crust of stinking, corrupt ambition you’ve allowed to grow on you.”
These are no longer our servants. They are usurpers. That’s the real story.
Pedantic
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Some of my readers are amateur editors, and show rather impressive skill at it. Even more impressive sometimes is their zeal.
But they’re not quite like this guy…
Still and all, this oughta come in handy someday.
Greedy Fatcat Bankers
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Melissa Clouthier is making sense.
So let me get this straight.
Stupid regulations by Democrats cause the banking crisis. Banks tank on bad debt that was required by stupid regulations by Democrats. Banks “saved” by being owned by the government with tax payer dollars. Banks pay back money, because, surprise!, government is a harsh task-master. Government blames the bankers for….fulfilling their obligation. Then, President Obama tells bankers to make more loans….probably to the very people who couldn’t afford loans to begin with.
How about the government minds their own damn business? How about banks giving money to good risks? How about people and businesses taking on responsible, minimal debt?
The democrat party seems to have gotten ahold of some polling data — or maybe they just pulled it out of their asses, right after the fudged-up climate change “data” — that say the public has forgotten all about the Community Reinvestment Act, or never knew about it in the first place.
Ever week it seems I hear out of a democrat cakehole this tired old trope about “greedy fatcat bankers that caused this recession in the first place.” Funny thing is, as Melissa points out it is true. The regulations put in place by Jimmy and Bubba required them to cause a recession by lending to non-credit-worthy individuals, and forget all about the consequential risk, and they dutifully followed those steps to cause our current recession…
So maybe He should be calling them “greedy compliant fatcat bankers.”
“Entitled to Rule, Demanding Deference”
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009We were following a trackback and we stumbled across this bit of finery from a fellow Palin admirer:
Back in September, Sam Tanenhaus published a slender book titled, in a note of hopeful optimism, The Death of Conservatism.
:
What Tanenhaus really delivers is an in-print liberal temper tantrum, trashing Palin up, down, and sideways, sinking frequently to the level of the high school “in crowd” savaging the non-cool kid from the not-rich family who got above herself. Carried away by his indignation at the nerd Palin, from the wrong side of the nation’s geography and class structure, daring to sit down at the lunch table reserved for the cultural equivalent of cheer leaders and football players, Tanenhaus openly reveals what liberals really think (in their most secret little hearts): Sarah Palin represents the erasure of any distinction between the governing and the governed. [emphasis in original, but I’d add it in if it wasn’t there.]
:
Today’s liberals are a strange combination of the Secret Six, the Narodnaya Volya, and every high school’s ruling clique. Like the 19th century radical Abolitionists with whom they explicitly identify, Liberals believe they are morally and intellectually more enlightened than Americans generally, and perceive grave and fundamental sins blemishing America, which they feel entitled to correct regardless of what any or all of the rest of us happen to think about it…On a more mundane level, like any high school clique, they feel entitled to rule, and they demand deference, on the basis of status. Tanenhaus refers to “distinction,” which he summarizes as consisting of skill, experience, intellect but, as we saw in the 2008 campaign, in which the record of the most popular and successful governor in the nation was compared disfavorably by every liberal evaluator of “distinction” to a candidate whose only meaningful accomplishments were a (possibly ghost-written) post-Law School memoir and the campaign then still underway, that skill, experience, and intellect tend to be qualities varying greatly in the eye of the beholder. A captious critic could easily observe that the election of Barack Obama proves just how easily the top lunch-table clique can be seduced by such superficialities as glibness and a good announcer’s voice.
Here is one of the most formidable and insurmountable contradictions of the liberal worldview. It is egalitarian in nature…but at the same time, not.
It is dedicated to the proposition that all men are not created equal. The title “death of conservatism” itself is just another example of this. It doesn’t mean Death of Conservatives, does it? Perhaps not. But perhaps the lack of a stated answer to that is more ominous than any stated answer possible. Convert; die; just stop voting. One way or the other, the opposition is to be deprived of a voice. Not to be bested in debate, but deprived of a place at the debating table.
This has happened rather quickly, hasn’t it? The primary thrust of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000 wasn’t that he was a better sort of person than George W. Bush; sure he and his followers thought so, and occasionally said so. But Gore and Bush debated on matters of policy. Four years later, John Kerry said “I have a plan!” He didn’t say what the plan was. And on other issues, the selling point wasn’t quite so much that Kerry’s idea was better than Bush’s idea, or that it was more compassionate. It was, rather, that Kerry had thought of it, which is a decidedly different thing. Our “allies” would respect this plan because Kerry had the “moral authority” to command their deference whereas Bush had “squandered” whatever remained of that authority he ever once had.
Fast forward to 2008 and the transformation was complete. Very little was discussed about policy. We were told whatever policy there was in the McCain camp had to be a Xerox of whatever would be done by President Bush, and this was double-plus ungood.
No, we sunk deeply into the swampland of personality politics. Barack Obama was just one of the cool kids. Captain of the football team, ASB President, the kid all the girls wanted to date…versus the Principal who should’ve retired long ago, and smelled funny.
It’s worse. When the elections are over, the problem continues. What will our leaders do tomorrow, next week, next year? What’s in that health care bill everyone’s arguing about, anyway? Will anything get decided in Copenhagen, and if so, what?
Nevermind. We have our brightest people in those talks, that’s what matters. They are the cool kids. Football champs and cheerleaders.
They’re entitled to rule. Who cares about what they’re deciding? “Rule” means never having to explain it to anyone.
His Blank Slate IX
Monday, December 14th, 2009Obama gave Himself a B+ on Oprah Winfrey’s show. To which I asked, along with all sane people, “Hey waitaminnit…it’s a little late for Him to still have time to pop up on the boob tube all weekend long isn’t it?” I mean, what happened to all those messes that had to be mopped up? That health care bill that has to be passed by the end of the year no matter what (for some reason)? He got tired of people telling Him He was holding the mop wrong, and went back on the teevee circuit?
Did He ever get off of it?
FrankJ has a report card of his own to hand to PrezBO. And it doesn’t have B+ on it anywhere, from what I can make out…
Being Able to Spend America’s Money in a Somewhat Rational Manner: F
Understand Basic Principle that Spending More Money Increases Debt: F
Not Bowing to Everyone: F
Hiring People for His Administration Who Aren’t Radical Freaks that No Sane Man Would Have Any Dealings With: F
Not Getting Head Stuck in a Bucket: F
Presenting Image of a President Who Knows What He’s Doing and Isn’t Just Randomly Flailing Around: F
Having Normal Looking Ears: F
Kinda goes downhill from there…
You know what I’d like to see. There are some people out there who voted for Mister Wonderful last year, and aren’t sorry. That percentage figure is somewhere in the forties right about now…what I want to know is, how many of them are not only not sorry — but don’t see any reason to be. The ones who are just as happy with Him as they were fourteen months ago, or even happier.
The ones who think the rest of us should only have been cheering more and more wildly and loudly as this year has progressed.
Because man, that has got to be some bedrock right there. Get the straightjackets out for that crowd. They’re-coming-to-take-me-away, haha, ho ho, hee hee, those nice young men in their clean white coats…
It’s likely to be frightening how high that is. One in five. Maybe higher.
Conservatives Less Likely Than Liberals to See Ghosts
Monday, December 14th, 2009Ethel C. Fenig, writing in American Thinker:
Democrats more likely to believe in ghosts
Writing in the Washington Examiner about the results of a poll by the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life, Byron York may have stumbled upon why more Democrats than Republicans agree to programs that will leave our great-great grandchildren a massive public debt, believe in voodoo economics, predict a rosy future for programs that have no solid basis in facts, and other bizarre behavior.
New study: More Democrats than Republicans believe in ghosts, talking with the dead, fortunetellers
(snip)
. . .Democrats are far more likely to believe in supernatural phenomenon than Republicans.
“Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics,” the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.
There’s more. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in reincarnation, while 30 percent of Democrats do. Fourteen percent of Republicans say they believe in astrology, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in spiritual energy, while 30 percent of Democrats do.
I think it might have something to do with worldview.
For awhile I’ve been noticing that conservatives and liberals both see themselves as insignificant in relationship to the universe overall, but in different ways. The conservative mindset sees life as a gift, and the span of that life as a fleeting opportunity to show oneself worthy of it. The liberal viewpoint is similar; one is saddled with an obligation to demonstrate himself to be worthy. But the conservative is readying for adjudication by some unseen Higher Power, whereas the liberal, being more secular, is continually laboring to impress peers. I’m a good person; I have pure thoughts; I’m an “intellectual.”
The conservative sees his deeds and works as potentially significant. His feelings about things are not. With the liberal, it is the reverse — feelings reign supreme, but we’re not really put here by anything or anybody, therefore we don’t carry a burden to get much of anything done unless we happen to be “serving” in politics.
So if you’re a conservative, if you have some friends or relatives who’ve passed on and you’d dearly like to see them again, you’re probably inclined to figure it isn’t going to happen. Not that your love is unrequited; it’s just that the deceased have better things to do.
The liberal view of the universe is inextricably intertwined with me, me, me. All who doubt, look no further than the next Barack Obama press conference or teevee appearance for the next piece of evidence you need to explain-away — and you never have too long to wait for that! So it stands to reason that in the liberal mind it is “inevitable” you’ll see Aunt Sally again someday…it must be. When am I going to see my parents. When am I going to see that friend of mine. When are they going to be visible to me.
Naturally, whoever thinks it is just a matter of time before he sees a ghost…that guy is probably gonna see one.
“Whole Foods Republicans”
Monday, December 14th, 2009Michael Petrilli, writing in the Wall Street Journal, offers a helpful prescription for Republicans. Or pretends to:
What’s needed is a full-fledged effort to cultivate “Whole Foods Republicans”—independent-minded voters who embrace a progressive lifestyle but not progressive politics. These highly-educated indiividuals appreciate diversity and would never tell racist or homophobic jokes; they like living in walkable urban environments; they believe in environmental stewardship, community service and a spirit of inclusion. And yes, many shop at Whole Foods, which has become a symbol of progressive affluence but is also a good example of the free enterprise system at work. (Not to mention that its founder is a well-known libertarian who took to these pages to excoriate ObamaCare as inimical to market principles.)
What makes these voters potential Republicans is that, lifestyle choices aside, they view big government with great suspicion. There’s no law that someone who enjoys organic food, rides his bike to work, or wants a diverse school for his kids must also believe that the federal government should take over the health-care system or waste money on thousands of social programs with no evidence of effectiveness. Nor do highly educated people have to agree that a strong national defense is harmful to the cause of peace and international cooperation.
So how to woo these voters to the Republican column? The first step is to stop denigrating intelligence and education. President George W. Bush’s bantering about being a “C” student may have enamored “the man in the street,” but it surely discouraged more than a few “A” students from feeling like part of the team.
The same is true for Mrs. Palin’s inability to name a single newspaper she reads. If the GOP doesn’t want to be branded the “Party of Stupid,” it could stand to nominate more people who can speak eloquently on complicated policy matters.
Even more important is the party’s message on divisive social issues. When some Republicans use homophobic language, express thinly disguised contempt toward immigrants, or ridicule heartfelt concerns for the environment, they affront the values of the educated class. And they lose votes they otherwise ought to win.
Petrilli’s mistake is pretty obvious: The GOP’s reputation as the “Party of Stupid,” he seems to think, is the party’s own fault and nobody else’s. There has been no concerted effort on the part of Team Obama, MoveOnDotOrg, the cable teevee “comedians,” the alphabet-soup network news anchors, Team Kerry back in ’04, Hollywood celebrities, et al — to make democrat candidates look like mental giants and Republican candidates look like knuckle-dragging rubes. No, that was all empirical evidence we saw with our own eyes, and mistaken Republican campaign tactics that need to be turned around. The segregation-party took everything over last year because they’re the only natural home for the eggheads; the Party of Lincoln is getting pounded because it’s all about tearing out indoor plumbing, electricity, the wheel…that’s why the conservative pundits are people like George Will and Thomas Sowell, and the other side has Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and Jerry Brown.
Conservatives just have to start liking smart people, and everyone will stop making fun of them.
It seems to have never occurred to Petrilli to wonder just what kind of life a typical liberal leads, in order to become so desperate to advertise these qualities of “smarts.” If ya got a brain, and you really know for sure that you have one, shouldn’t you just be…using it? Quietly? As a tool to be going about your day-to-day existence, rather than as a flashy gimmick for starting conversations at cocktail parties? To vote for candidates who will govern — and not “rule”?
And if you misuse it…like, for example, so you can “BE A PART OF THIS THING!!!” as of November of last year…isn’t it something of a natural consequence to regret it now, as so many clearly do?
Seems to me that’s a much more potent campaign slogan. Votes that will make things better, rather than votes you can brag about to your other highbrow friends.
Ideas that work…not ideas that dazzle your friends who likely don’t make very good friends anyway.
Policies that are good for everybody…not policies designed to pick out this-or-that segment of the population of your fellow citizens — small business owners, “hedge fund managers,” capitalists, executives, entrepreneurs, and take ’em down a peg or two because it feels so darn good.
Of course, the elephant (Hah! Sorry) in the room around which Mr. Petrilli is dancing, and which I’ve left unmentioned up until now as well, is…Copenhagen. Following his advice to the letter, and only pretending to show some of this intellectual curiosity and not actually using any of it — the enthused Republican candidate will be confronted early on with the issue of climate change. That which used to be called “global warming.” It says…
1. The world is still heating up;
2. Trends left unchecked, it will become unlivable very soon;
3. It’s all or mostly our fault — enough that we can “make a difference” by stopping some things and starting other things;
4. The only way to check, slow or stop the crisis is to raise our taxes.
Now if you want to deck yourself out in glib, glittery, meanlingless finery that showcases your intellect…nevermind whether or not you really have some…the verdict is quite clear. You must support those four pillars above. You must. And it’s already been proven to us, if you are in possession of, or have access to, data that disturb the four bullets, you have to get rid of it, or “hide the decline.”
On the other hand, if you think intellectualism is something more than a fashion statement; if you think it has something to do with honesty — you have no choice but to fight back, because this stuff called “climate change” is nothing other more or less than an assault on responsible thinking.
Mr. Petrilli is the one defining this term “Whole Foods Republicans,” so it’s left to him to make the determination: Are these people who won’t give a candidate their vote, unless the candidate supports the most audacious and ambitious scam in all of human history?
Could he be talking about people like me, who recognize it has the sham that it is, but still drive around in four-cylinder, two-door sedans, walk to wherever it is we’re going if it’s within two miles and we have the time…yell at our kids to get the hell out of the house and get some fresh air…teach them that littering is an abomination in the eyes of God? Is he talking about us? It doesn’t seem likely. I know of others who do this, and not a one of ’em was fooled by Barack Obama for a single Chicago minute.
No, the ones I know are tired of the bull feces. They recognize — Mr. Perilli seems ignorant of this — that “intellectualism” has gone through a redefinition of sorts since that whole Iraq thing. That one really smart guy worth quoting, said it all:
Intellectualism has become the readiness, willingness and ability to call dangerous things safe, and safe things dangerous.
You want to scratch the itch that plagues the Republican-smarty-pants set? Take that one down. Attack that. Stop that in its tracks. That’s my suggestion…and it’ll net you all the Republican votes you ever had a shot at chasing. The rest were never going to be yours, no matter what.
That Jackhole Harlan Ellison
Sunday, December 13th, 2009Might as well link to this tempest-in-a-teapot we had last week over at Daphne’s place about Harlan Ellison, brilliant science fiction writer, creator of such fine classics as Demon With a Glass Hand, which I consider to be among the finest Outer Limits episodes ever made.
Commenter Gordon nails it:
Harlan Ellison is an asshole. Just ask him.
Could be. I certainly think those who are defending Mr. Ellison, trying to take issue with the fact that he’s an asshole, therefore asserting he is somehow not an asshole, are short-changing the curmudgeon and handicapping his effort. Yes, effort. This is what is so right about what Gordon’s saying. Ellson is not an accidental asshole. He’s on a mission to be one.
He finds the faith others place in God, to be “ridiculous and annoying.”
As President Obama might say — Let me be clear. I don’t think this makes him an asshole because I happen to believe in God. What I think makes him an asshole, is finding such private matters to be ridiculous and annoying. Yes, you could say the football player is making it a public matter by saying it out loud. But it’s still the relationship the football player has to the Almighty, which remains a private thing. It certainly isn’t being offered up for discussion or debate.
I’m not Jewish. But if someone else finds Jewish people to be ridiculous or annoying, this is not alright with me. I don’t want to be around this guy, I look on him contemptuously, I don’t want him making decisions about anything. Ditto for the Catholic who finds Protestants to be ridiculous/annoying…or vice-versa. We, as a civilized society, to our credit, do not put up with this. It doesn’t matter what religion you have, or what the other guy has.
Well, atheism is a religion. Maybe it isn’t as long as it remains pure agnosticism. But ask an atheist to explain how everything got here, he’ll have an explanation ready to go — and by the time he’s laid it out on the table, what you’ve got there is a religion, no two ways about it.
How come they get a pass on this? They got a nose-flattening coming just as surely as any Jew-hating gentile, Muslim-hating Jew, atheist-hating Christian, Shi’ite-hating Sunni…et cetera.
I’m sorry, there’s “eccentricity,” as in “oh, you lovable whackadoodle, you just keep cranking out those wonderful stories and I don’t care about the other stuff!” And then there is pure bile. This is the latter. Harlan Ellison is an asshole.
Update: Once again, from the quill pen of Gerard Van der Leun as he comments at Daphne’s spot…to my scrapbook…
Another author of mine who was a sciencefiction writer once told me about a convention of SF writers and fans.
At a reception, a group of old SF hands were standing about and watching a younger writer regal[e] a chunk of enthralled fans with this or that bit of boasting and self-aggrandizement. One writer said, “You know, that guy reminds me of a young Harlan.”
Another looked for a moment and said, “You’re right. Let’s kill him now.”
Tony Blair States the Obvious, Critics Cannot Handle It
Sunday, December 13th, 2009Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction.
“I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat,” Blair told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast this morning.
It was a startling admission from the onetime British leader, who was President Bush’s staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Blair’s comments were immediately denounced by critics who accused him of using false pretenses to drag Britain into an unpopular war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of allied troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
What you’re seeing — on the other side of this little dust-up — is nothing less than the most successful propaganda drive since Roman times. “An unpopular war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of allied troops and thousands of blah blah blah blah blah.” The logic is absurd. You’d never in a million years say “Oh dear if only Saddam was still in charge things would be so much better and so many dead people would now still be alive.” Why is it so absurd, when “we all” have bought it and gobbled it up so fast? Because it was sold to us. Taking Saddam down, equals war and death. Leaving Saddam standing, equals peace, love and life. This is stupid. Lunatic and mind-blisteringly stupid.
Saul Alinsky tactics all the way. To merely acknowledge the brutality of Saddam and his two psychotic sons, has been frozen-and-personalized. It is extremist and partisan…even though it is nothing more than a simple observation.
I’ve actually spoken to leftists — not extreme leftists, at least they didn’t think of themselves that way, although they were certainly dedicated — who acknowledge Saddam was trying to build a nuclear weapon but the right thing to do would’ve been to leave him alone.
We let these people vote why? I’m quite serious. If you can’t see what’s dangerous about this, maybe you shouldn’t be voting either.
Call it a pre-crime if you want. That asshole needed to go.
And what’s up with this word “discredit”? Why is it being so selectively applied. I seem to recall Ted Danson said in 1988 that if we didn’t all go hardcore environmentalist right then & there, the oceans would disappear in ten years. So is all the global-warming alarmist rhetoric “discredited” as of 1998? What about To Big To Fail, is that discredited too? How about stimulus spending? Shouldn’t that be discredited?
Whatever, Los Angeles Times. You call it “discredited,” I call it a success. Mission Accomplished. Saddam Hussein was there, and now he isn’t. This is where all members of the human race with a working brain say “thank you.”
But I guess people who write for newspapers aren’t part of that.
“The Last Guys on the Planet in Love With the Sound of His Voice”
Sunday, December 13th, 2009More awesomeness linked by Gerard at American Digest.
The squealing Obammyboppers of the media seem to have gotten more muted since those inaugural specials hit the newsstands back in late January. His numbers have fallen further faster than those of any other president — because of where he fell from: As Evan Thomas of Newsweek drooled a mere six months ago, Obama was “standing above the country . . . above the world. He’s sort of God.” That’s a long drop.
The Obama speechwriting team don’t seem to realize that. They seem to be the last guys on the planet in love with the sound of his voice and their one interminable tinny tune with its catchpenny hooks. The usual trick is to position their man as the uniquely insightful leader pitching his tent between two extremes no sane person has ever believed: “There are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization. Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic, if somewhat hollow, uplift. Pause for applause.”
It didn’t come but once at Oslo last week, where Obama got a bad press for blowing off the King of Norway’s luncheon. In Obama’s honor. Can you believe this line made it into the speech?
The Great Barack Obama…our last, best hope for redemption in the eyes of the international community, and in the eyes of Gaea…or at least, His speechwriters. Tin-eared and tone-deaf.
Kinda like Letterman not being funny anymore. Only one thing was being brought to the party in the first place, and now they’re fresh out of it.
There’s more. At the close, Steyn makes some brilliant points that handily demonstrate this stuttering, teleprompter-driven shimmering narcissism has real consequences for us…that is, for those to whom it is still somehow news:
The news this week that the well-connected Democrat pollster, Mark Penn, received $6 million of “stimulus” money to “preserve” three jobs in his public-relations firm to work on a promotional campaign for the switch from analog to digital TV is a perfect snapshot of Big Government. In the great sucking maw of the federal treasury, $6 million isn’t even a rounding error. But it comes from real people — from you and anybody you know who still makes the mistake of working for a living; and, if it had been left in your pockets, you’d have spent it in the real world, at a local business or in expanding your own, and maybe some way down the road it would have created some genuine jobs. Instead, it got funneled to a Democrat pitchman to preserve three non-jobs on a phony quasi-governmental PR campaign. Big Government does that every minute of the day. When Mom’n’Pop Cola of Dead Skunk Junction gets gobbled up by Coke, there are economies of scale. When real economic activity gets annexed by state and then federal government, there are no economies of scale. In fact, the very concept of “scale” disappears, so that tossing 6 million bucks away to “preserve” three already-existing positions isn’t even worth complaining about.
At his jobs summit, Obama seemed, rhetorically, to show some understanding of this. But that’s where his speechifying has outlived its welcome. When it’s tough and realistic (we need to be fiscally responsible; there are times when you have to go to war in your national interest; etc.), it bears no relation to any of the legislation. And, when it’s vapid and utopian, it looks absurd next to Harry Reid, Barney Frank & Co’s sleazy opportunism. For those of us who oppose the shriveling of liberty in both Washington and Copenhagen, a windy drone who won’t sit down keeps the spotlight on the racket. Once more from the top, Barack!
Who Killed Christmas?
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Crowder and Zo make fun of CSI. It’s a little bit dragged out, but I am so glad someone is finally making fun of that horse’s ass David Caruso.
I seriously cannot watch this show. It’s like my intellect is being insulted every five to ten seconds, throughout the entire hour.
Know what I’m talking about, right? I expect to see that kid from Fright Night come running out shouting “Oh my God, you’re so cool David Caruso!” What, they’re trying to get idiot schoolgirls to tear down their Leonardo DiCaprio Titanic posters, and put up one of Caruso in their place?
Blegh. Enough with the super-duper-hottie male-n-female forensics investigators. It’s stupid. The super-hottie lady investigators, with their oh-so-slow hot showers, look sufficiently stupid to me…and I happen to like hottie ladies…gravel-voice is a few notches further stupid than that. Yeah, I hear you shouting “so don’t watch it!” Precisely. You got it.
Back to the subject at hand, people who find “Christmas” offensive. Yes. They suck too. And with very few exceptions, they all seem to be “proxies” — you know? Concerned that someone else might get offended, who may or may not exist?
Laws I’d Like to See
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Flopping Aces reader post, from Donald Bly. 
Brought to our attention by Washington Rebel. Mr. Bly has cooked up some interesting stuff, like for example this…
3. The number of representative shall be one for every 30,000 citizens.
This is actually the representation ratio as set forth in the Constitution Article 1, Section 2. In todays world of technology it is not necessary that our representatives gather in a single place in order to cast a vote or debate a bill. They could all have a subscription for gotomeeting.com…. More importantly any qualified candidate could quite literally mount a viable campaign without spending a dime. A little shoe leather and some time and a candidate could literally shake the hand of every voter in his/her district. The current ratio is somewhere in the vicinity of 600,000 to one and facilitates the ability of special interests groups to unduly influence policy. This is campaign finance reform at its simplest[.]
Has a few things in common with When I Start Running This Place items — the objective of getting Congress a little bit more representative of the rest of us, is a prominent and well-defined theme permeating both pieces. That’s a bipartisan thing, I suspect.
What’s that got to do with a picture of a cute girl? I dunno. The Rebel had it up, so I swiped it.
The Two That Really Matter
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Cartoons that give you practical advice on living your life, that is.
Know when you’re licked…accept it with poise, grace, dignity and maybe just one last bitch-slap out of you, if that’s called-fer…
And — more importantly than that — know when you’re not.
Never let the bastards get you down. Non illegitimi carborundum.
(A frog with opposable thumbs?)
Who is Scaring the American People?
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Boortz does such a good job with this one, I can’t see any need, any point, or any way to trim things down. He doesn’t even have his customary stress-puppy mad-as-hell misspellings in this one. All he’s missing is a link to what he’s talking about. Having supplied that, I’ll just read the whole thing in:
JUST WHO IS SCARING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
This really is rich. The Community Organizer told House Republican leaders that they needed to “stop trying to frighten the American people.”
First of all, the American people need to be frightened .. very frightened. The only people in this country who should NOT be frightened are those who work or aspire to work for government. Right now people totally and completely infatuated with government are in control in Washington .. and if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, or if you would rather work for a dynamic business in the private sector rather than buried in the bowels of some government office somewhere, then you should be shaking in your boots.
Scare the American people? Well … let’s look at America’s jobs machine; the small business. If you’re an American dreaming of a strong economic recovery, this is where it must occur. You need to know that the owners of these small businesses, the people you want to step up and start hiring and expanding, are looking at the following:
* Democrat threats to raise their taxes by 5.4 percentage points to pay for health care “reform.”
* Democrat threats to make them pay a “war tax” to pay for the war in Afghanistan
* Democrat threats to make them provide health insurance to employees, or to pay a penalty if they fail to do so
* Democrat threats to create onerous regulations relating to carbon emissions if the Senate doesn’t pass Cap-and-trade.
* New costs if the Democrats DO pass Cap-and-Trade.
* Democrat threats to remove the earnings cap for Social SecurityAll of these things have lead to a virtual hiring freeze with America’s small businesses. Why aren’t they hiring? They’re not hiring because they don’t know what in the hell is going to happen to them over the next year.
And it’s the REPUBLICANS who are frightening the American people?
You know what’s worse? If you sat Obama down and explained all of this to him he wouldn’t understand.
Cartoon brought to my attention by Buck.
S and T
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Scarlett Johanssen, starlet of Lost in Translation, The Black Dahlia, and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Loser of last week’s duel going head-to-head against Raquel Welch, in which hardly anyone could’ve fared any better.
Torrey DeVitto, of I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. It’s a red-dress face-off.
Scarlett, here decked out in the “Get Milked By Isaac” number…brings it and clears it. We have a winner.
But Torrey is no slouch. We’ll just see how she does next week.
Islamic Terrorist Dry Runs
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Fellow Right Wing News contributor Dr. Melissa Clouthier reports, offering a hat tip to Nobody Asked Me, by way of Pierre Legrand:
One week ago, I went to Ohio on business and to see my father. On Tuesday, November the 17th, I returned home. If you read the papers the 18th you may have seen a blurb where a AirTran flight was cancelled from Atlanta to Houston due to a man who refused to get off of his cell phone before takeoff. It was on Fox.
This was NOT what happened.
I was in 1st class coming home. 11 Muslim men got on the plane in full attire. 2 sat in 1st class and the rest peppered themselves throughout the plane all the way to the back. As the plane taxied to the runway the stewardesses gave the safety spiel we are all so familiar with. At that time, one of the men got on his cell and called one of his companions in the back and proceeded to talk on the phone in Arabic very loudly and very aggressively. This took the 1st stewardess out of the picture for she repeatedly told the man that cell phones were not permitted at the time. He ignored her as if she was not there.
The 2nd man who answered the phone did the same and this took out the 2nd stewardess. In the back of the plane at this time, 2 younger Muslims, one in the back, isle, and one in front of him, window, began to show footage of a porno they had taped the night before, and were very loud about it. Now….they are only permitted to do this prior to Jihad. If a Muslim man goes into a strip club, he has to view the woman via mirror with his back to her. (don’t ask me….I don’t make the rules, but I’ve studied). The 3rd stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time. To which one of the men said “shut up infidel dog!” She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic. At that exact moment, all 11 of them got up and started to walk the cabin. This is where I had had enough! I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say “I got your back.” I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said “you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!” As I “led” him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him. I then grabbed the 2nd man and said, “You WILL do the same!” He protested but adrenaline was flowing now and he was going to go. As I escorted him forward the plane doors open and 3 TSA agents and 4 police officers entered. Me and my new Texan friend were told to cease and desist for they had this under control. I was happy to oblige actually. There was some commotion in the back, but within moments, all 11 were escorted off the plane. They then unloaded their luggage.
We talked about the occurrence and were in disbelief that it had happen, when suddenly, the door open again and on walked all 11!! Stone faced, eyes front and robotic (the only way I can describe it). The stewardess from the back had been in tears and when she saw this, she was having NONE of it! Being that I was up front, I heard and saw the whole ordeal. She told the TSA agent there was NO WAY she was staying on the plane with these men. The agent told her they had searched them and were going to go through their luggage with a fine tooth comb and that they were allowed to proceed to Houston. The captain and co-captain came out and told the agent “we and our crew will not fly this plane!” After a word or two, the entire crew, luggage in tow, left the plane. 5 minutes later, the cabin door opened again and a whole new crew walked on.
Again…..this is where I had had enough!!! I got up and asked “What the hell is going on!?!?” I was told to take my seat. They were sorry for the delay and I would be home shortly. I said “I’m getting off this plane”. The stewardess sternly told me that she could not allow me to get off. (now I’m mad!) I said “I am a grown man who bought this ticket, who’s time is mine with a family at home and I am going through that door, or I’m going through that door with you under my arm!! But I am going through that door!!” And I heard a voice behind me say “so am I”. Then everyone behind us started to get up and say the same. Within 2 minutes, I was walking off that plane where I was met with more agents who asked me to write a statement. I had 5 hours to kill at this point so why the hell not. Due to the amount of people who got off that flight, it was cancelled. I was supposed to be in Houston at 6pm. I got here at 12:30am.
She has a follow-up posted earlier this week, from Rusty Shackleford:
If after 9/11 native Arabic speakers don’t get why the rest of us get nervous around them on an airplane then they are living in a fantasy world.
Yes, you make us nervous. Especially when you behave in ways normally considered rude. We tend to overlook rudeness to varying degrees depending on the context of the situation.
And the language you speak does add an extra layer of context.
I certainly don’t approve of racism. But I’m also quite aware that hijackers are thousands of times more likely to be Muslims than of any other religious identity. And that a great number of Muslim hijackers are also Arabs. Like, all 19 on Sept. 11th.
So, note to readers: Arabs speaking loudly and ignoring the requests of stewardesses are probably not hijackers, just assholes.
But note to native Arabic speakers: show a little self control and sensitivity. You make a lot of people very nervous when you behave rudely. Some might call this fear irrational and they may have a point. But no more irrational than, say, instructing passengers how to use the airplane cushions as a flotation device. The odds of being hijacked and surviving a crash long enough to need them probably being similar.
Yes this sucks. We don’t live in an ideal world. It could be much worse. Embrace the suck.
Well put.
What I Notice About Palin-Bashers
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Had these thoughts in my head for awhile, and as long as we’re on the subject of Palin I thought I should jot ’em down.
These people are in a “most lunatic” photo-finish neck-and-neck with the hardcore Obama-zealots. I seriously think we’ve discovered a new mental sickness epidemic. Palin isn’t it, but she’s a useful black light for detecting it. For how many years, before the nation learned to pronounce her married name, has this been going on, churning away in our midst, unseen?
1. They’ve achieved a great deal less in life than she has, even though some are quite a bit older than she is.
2. They don’t want to be called “haters,” although their reaction to her is purely negative and purely emotional; I’m left groping for another word and “bashers,” far from being a perfect fit, ends up being the least-unsuitable.
3. They persist in the mistaken belief that Charles Gibson tripped her up.
4. Whatever they have to say about Palin’s lack of competence or intellectual acumen, is felt, not thought. It invariably relies, not on observations, but on perceptions of what others are going to do. Nobody truly owns this.
5. A lot of them are ready to vouch for other women in power who are relatively homely and frumpy, like Hillary Clinton. This, also, fails the thought-over-feeling test; it isn’t based on much of anything. It’s just a reverberation of feelings felt by others, nothing more.
6. They breathe hard and their pulse quickens. I haven’t run into too many people who are ready to calmly explain Sarah Palin’s lack of qualifications.
7. Their laughter, in response to Palin jokes, is forced.
8. Their lofty opinions of the minimal requirements for the offices Palin has sought, or might seek, is selective. When the topic of conversation shifts to Joe Biden, suddenly it seems the Vice Presidency doesn’t demand a whole lot out of anyone.
9. They don’t seem to think it takes a whole lot to govern Alaska, or to even live there. They don’t appear to think very highly of Alaskans. One wonders if they’d back a Constitutional amendment establishing a “geographical litmus test” for future candidates, and if so, how many other states would go in the “No Can Do” column.
10. A lot of people claim to like her personally, just don’t “feel” (see Item #4 above) that she’s “right”; when the topic of conversation shifts to Barack Obama, this principle turns out to be selective (see Item #8) and they have a whole new and different way of seeing people.
11. They seem to have an awful lot of ego invested in these discussions, like if they cannot convince ALL reading or listening that Palin is a dimbulb, right here & right now, that this failing will somehow diminish them as a person.
12. They aren’t at all willing to say women should be staying home raising their kids; but they’re perfectly willing to say Palin should be staying home raising her kids.
13. They are loud, eager to get their opinion on the record, to the point of being obnoxious. Nobody seems to be sitting in a corner anywhere quietly thinking to himself “Wow I wish Palin would go away she’s so unqualified.”
14. Some of them think it’s way too early to talk about 2012. They seem to realize if the nomination process was conducted today, the results would be pretty clear. They seem to understand, but not to be willing to confess, that Palin is less likely to embarrass herself compared to her rivals, between now and 2012.
15. The standard they apply to Sarah Palin is not just higher than the standard they apply to others; it is surreal. Speculation on false pregnancies, burning books, forcing rape victims to pay for their own examinations, months and years after being thoroughly debunked, is somehow considered residually damning against her.
16. The people who get angriest about her, make me really happy she’s around to make them so angry because these are people who’ve had it comin’. As OldT6Flyer said at Neptunus Lex’s place (hat tip to blogger friend Buck), “If she didn’t exist somebody would need to invent her for the cause.”
17. Other than the secular types supposedly living in fear of some tighty-righty coming along to transform American into a “theocracy,” there doesn’t seem to be a single soul among them willing to say what a President Palin would do that they wouldn’t like. As a community, if you can call it that, they seem to be nearly brain-dead on matters of policy.
18. They’re ready to say what they think about things, in general, a whole lot more quickly than they’re ready to comment on their qualifications or lack thereof for thinking these things. This figures: They’re dissing the intellect of someone they’ve never met and never will meet.
19. If they’re Republicans, they long for a return to the halcyon days when the Republican party was known for its intellectual depth, and won elections that way. I, too, think that would be kinda cool. They aren’t ready to clue me in on when in the last hundred years that ever happened, or how likely such a thing ever is to happen again. Haven’t they noticed in columnist-world, the conservatives have a monopoly on intellectual wherewithal? Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Sowell, George Will…their counterparts are Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington? And that there’s a filtration process in place to keep that from ever translating into our elections, so that when it’s time to vote suddenly it’s the liberals who are the eggheads. What do they think is going to happen to upset that? What should be done to overturn that canoe? They aren’t ready to discuss this, not in the slightest. One would reasonably expect they’d be chomping at the bit.
20. A lot of them fall into Item #22 on my list of Fifty Fucking Sick Things. They want me to think something just because they think it — they’re so undeniably smart that if I don’t agree straight-away, that’s evidence of my own thick-headedness and cluelessness. But they can’t tell “their” from “they’re” or “your” apart from “you’re.” Innocent, excusable mistakes until you stop to realize: The whole point of their garbled writing is to raise doubts about someone else being qualified to graduate from high school!
21. They use “beauty queen” as an insult. One cannot help but wonder if they’re prepared to explain why this is.
22. They’re ready, willing and able to quickly concede that the attacks on Palin have been “unfair”; but their opinions about Palin appear to have been decided entirely by these unfair attacks. How’s this work exactly?
23. If they’re women — and a lot of them are — they all have that same look. Like they go to New Year’s Eve parties looking exactly the same as when they’re spending a day housecleaning. No one’s ever gotten ticked for leaving late because they took too long in front of a mirror.
24. They show an astonishing, whiplash-inducing ability to go from one extreme — “yes that’s true, her family should be off-limits” — to the other — “that little skank Bristol didn’t listen to abstinence education so why should anyone else.”
25. They hiss at her for being a “quitter” but give you a blank look when you name some of the Obama nominees who had to withdraw because of tax “problems.”
In person as well as on the innerwebs, I get the feeling I really shouldn’t be arguing with these people. Not in a “ah shucks, you’ll never see things my way and I’ll never agree with you, so what’s the point? Let’s talk baseball!” But more of an I-gotta-get-outta-here kinda way. With that unsettling kind of feeling you’d get if you ever found yourself arguing with some homeless guy covered with pigeon droppings about whether he really is hearing voices in his head.
They aren’t expressing hostility inspired by Palin; they’ve been carrying the hostility around, some of them perhaps for generations, and Palin has provided the outlet. In lots of ways.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News.
Shatner Reads Palin’s Autobiography
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Go Home, Congress
Saturday, December 12th, 2009This column has long been arguing that the health-care ideas Congress is considering are so bad that inaction would be vastly preferable. Fox News.com reports that a majority of Americans in a new poll now agree with us:
While 41 percent of Americans want Congress to pass major health care reform legislation this year, a 54 percent majority says they would rather Congress “do nothing on health care for now,” up from 48 percent who felt that way in July.
The poll finds that 57% of Americans oppose “the health care reform legislation being considered right now.”
Anchoress opens a can o’ whoop (hat tip to Gerard):
Dear Congress:
After watching the absurd kabuki theater going on in Washington, where Harry Reid spends half his time crowing, “we’ve got the votes!” and the other half bullying people to get the votes, and Nancy Pelosi walks around like a smiling set of brass knuckles, offering anything, hourly, to anyone who will help her pass their healthcare plan “by Christmas,” I have a message for all of you in both houses of the US Congress:
GO HOME. Drop what you are doing, right now, and go home. Put the 2000 page healthcare bill that you haven’t read into the trash can as you turn out the lights and head for the airport.
:
(Several more paragraphs of wonderfulness you have to go read right now.)
:
Go home, Congress, and give America a break from your freakish certainties, your falsities, frailties and your folly. Turn off your blackberries and stay off the television and try to find whatever scraps of humanity still remain buried beneath the crust of stinking, corrupt ambition you’ve allowed to grow on you.Perhaps when you come back, you can be humans again, and sane, and willing to actually serve your nation, instead of yourselves.
You Have to Ignore Two Centuries of Scientific Evidence…
Saturday, December 12th, 2009…to keep on thinking there’s a “climate change” boogeyman hiding under your bed.
There is no evidence of carbon dioxide being a poison, or that it is capable of causing a warming Armageddon. What follows is a summary of the proof — straight from real science, peer-reviewed over the past 232 years by legions of physicists, thanks to Newton’s Principia.
Remember the famous picture of Miss Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blown high? Even at the age of 76, when I see this picture my temperature goes up — followed by the amount of carbon dioxide I exhale. Never the other way ’round. Now, thanks to the study of a series of ice cores, this appears to be an inconvenient truth for the global warming industry.
Al Gore used this ice core data to claim that carbon dioxide made the temperature of the world rise, threatening life on earth, because there was a correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and the world’s average temperature. Yet the data from the much-celebrated Vostok ice cores paints a very different picture: Up goes the temperature, followed by a rise in carbon dioxide.
Effectively flattening Gore’s dreams of hedging his funds.
More troubles lie ahead for the warmists. Independent researchers have pointed out that crucially important pieces of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) evidence were based on false statistical analysis. For starters, take a look at historical evidence from the last 1,000 years. There was a worldwide Medieval Warm Period — no, not just in Europe — and a few centuries prior to that period it was warm enough for the Romans to produce red wine on the borders of Scotland.
The warmists did their best to hide this inconvenient truth, too. In 2006, Dr. David Deming of the University of Oklahoma testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. He stated that soon after he had published a paper on borehole temperature based on historical data in the journal Science, he received an email from a major climate change researcher which read:
We have to get rid of the medieval warm period.
Michael Mann, one of the divas of global warming, had done just that. He published a reconstruction of past temperatures from AD 1000 to the present … in which the Medieval Warm Period conveniently vanished.Warmist believers joined in, flag-waving and sandwich-boarding, calling Mann critics “deniers” and worse.
Over the past 5,000 years? There was not just one, but three periods when it was warmer than today. And yet life on Earth survived. Climate change is natural, and warmer periods occur without human CO2 emissions being the cause. Just looking at the last decade, world temperature is falling as CO2 rises — big emitters China and India have been stocking up their coal sheds. Increases in CO2 rarely coincide with rises in the Earth’s temperature — so how can CO2 be the driver of global warming, let alone climate change?
Following the spread of this evidence, the warmists began to see the lights of the skeptic train rushing down their tunnel of hype. Those with the most to lose dropped the term “global warming,” replacing it with “climate change” — which has been happening since the first living thing was there to record the evidence. With this new term, they gave themselves a spurious license to carry on frightening law-abiding citizens with waterlogged tales of unprovable tipping points just around the corner.
Abolish the Nobel Peace Prize
Saturday, December 12th, 2009I have a suggestion for the Norwegians: Spare yourselves the embarrassment and get rid of the Peace Prize altogether. It has outworn its usefulness – if it ever had any.
Okay, I admit I have no standing in requesting this. At least Lionel Chetwynd and I were members of the Academy when we called last week for that organization to rescind Al Gore’s Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth.”
:
Medicine, chemistry, physics, etc. are much better bets. For one thing, the recipients are largely unknown to the public and therefore bound to be much less controversial. And the literature committee of late has done a good job of choosing unknown prize winners as well. It’s probably advisable to keep it that way.But the Peace Prize? Fuhgedabouddit! (Yes, I chose the Mafia locution deliberately. It seems to fit.)
Jenny Block’s Open Marriage
Saturday, December 12th, 2009Cassy takes the trollop down:
The cultural breakdown by liberals continues. This time, it’s Newsweek writer Jenny Block. For liberals, personal responsibility is an antequated concept. Personal gratification for them comes before just about anything else, particularly when it comes to sex. Their mantra is if it feels good, just do it, and deal with the consequences later. It’s outrageous to suggest that a liberal exert some willpower and actually attempt to control themselves, and so it’s no wonder that we have the following article attacking monogamy.
Monogamy just isn’t always realistic. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that. It simply doesn’t work for some. And just as people choose different religions, eating habits, and places to call home, I believe we should be able to choose different ways to live out our relationships.
:
Let me be very clear here: I have no problem with monogamy. I think conscious, honest, true monogamy can be a wonderful thing. What should not be tolerated is hypocrisy—and that’s where Tiger’s vow of marriage got him into trouble. If you want to be monogamous, great—but don’t think you can claim it while you sleep around. It’s not fair and, quite frankly, it’s exhausting.It never occurs to Block that just because something comes natural to someone, it doesn’t mean they should just indulge themselves…
:
Yes, monogamy doesn’t come natural to humans. However, that doesn’t weaken it. That strengthens it. When it comes down to it, it all boils down to making a choice. Just having an open marriage means you get to avoid that choice. Convenient, isn’t it? Open marriages may be honest, but they require no strength, no sacrifice, and no real test of love. Everyone is free to choose to do whatever they want to do with their own lives, but what Jenny Block is advocating is certainly not healthy and it’s not something that should be recommended as a good thing.Besides, if you’re going to have an open marriage, why even bother getting married at all?
The line about hypocrisy, for reasons I stated at Cassy’s place, really frosts me. I grew up in a college town and I know exactly what this means; it isn’t the same thing as what you and I mean when we say “hypocrisy.” To real people, in order to be a hypocrite you have to engage in some kind of do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do contradiction.
To the cultural backlasher, all you have to do is point out some pain-in-the-ass rules. It doesn’t matter if you honestly believe in them and practice them yourself; that doesn’t enter into it. You’re already a hypocrite just for raising the issue.
Or, if the backlasher is the one who raised the issue, for failing to agree and go along.