Andrew Breitbart is interviewed at Gateway Pundit.

“By aiming everything at the media I’ve pretty much done the one thing they ask you not to do. ‘Please accept the premise that we’re fair, and let’s move on.’ No. I’m not going to accept that premise.

“For these people to tell me with a straight face that they don’t come to the media and their jobs from a political perspective, from a left-of-center perspective, is just a bald-faced lie.”
:
“I want to break down this politically correct paradigm. These are rules that tell conservatives: you’re not allowed to say this, you’re not allowed to think that. This type of Orwellian thought crime crap is what I’m fighting against.” [emphasis in original]

Hat tip to Irish Cicero.

Via Gerard. You can figure out the logic for yourself just fine, right? Americans eat way too much processed junk, so their/our behavior has to be brought back into line by means of a special tax that will effectively force us to eat tofu, hummus, carrots and arugula.

Enter Prof. Boudreaux with some save-people-from-themselves powers of his own.

Dear Prof. Popkin:

A segment on WJLA-TV’s 11:00pm newscast yesterday featured you endorsing a tax on pizza. You justified such a tax on grounds that Americans today eat too much “junk food.”

Believing Americans to be too dimwitted or lacking in self-control to choose for themselves what to eat, you obviously also believe that college professors possess the moral authority to propose that government dictate the contents of other people’s diets.

So the rules of civil society, as you see them, are apparently these: If Professor divines that Person isn’t acting in Person’s own best interests, government should obstruct Person’s efforts to live as he or she wishes and prod Person to live instead according to how Professor wants Person to live.

I, too, can play by these rules.

I propose that all articles and books advocating that government intrude into people’s private choices be taxed at very high rates. Socially irresponsible producers of such “junk” scholarship churn out far too much of it. As a result, unsuspecting Americans consume harmfully large quantities of this scholarship – scholarship made appealing only because its producers cram it with sweet and superficially gratifying expressions of noble goals. These empty intellectual ‘calories’ trick our brains – which evolved in an environment that lacked today’s superabundant access to junk scholarship – into craving larger and larger, even super-sized, portions of such junk.

The tax I propose would reduce Americans’ consumption of this mentally debilitating, university-processed junk that serves only to inflate its producers’ egos and consulting fees while it makes the rest of us intellectually flabby and clogs our neural pathways with notions that are toxic to each individual who reads it and to the entire body-politic.

As a nation, we have a duty to prevent our fellow citizens from mindlessly ruining their minds – for when any one mind is damaged by the consumption of junk scholarship, the rest of us are harmed by the resulting obesity of the state.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

I shall have to update the House of Eratosthenes Glossary with a new term, “Pizza Tax Thinking.” You cannot effectively attack something without giving it a name, and this thing has needed a name for awhile.

But I like Prof. Boudreaux’s approach as well. Let’s tax liberalism. Tax it progressively, so that moderate liberals are only mildly penalized, and wild-eyed “Bush Caused 9/11” zealots take it up the chute. They can afford it. They need to pay their fair share.

Fellow Right Wing News contributor Melissa Clouthier on the new Supreme Court nominee:

Like most politically interested Americans, I’m gobbling up all I can find about Elena Kagan. And the portrait that’s emerging looks very familiar. In fact, Elena Kagan looks a lot like the man nominating her for the Supreme Court: She is young, smart, brash, inexperienced, possibly socialist, calculating, and affable.

The choice says more about President Obama than it does Elena Kagan. He likes himself and wants the qualities he possesses on the Supreme Court. [emphasis mine]

Update: Noticing the trend remains unbroken — that left-wing politicians consistently nominate homely white women to positions of vast power, not average women by any means…pulchritude-challenged women I wouldn’t be able to go out and find, on any day, on a bet. I think it only appropriate that we offer a nod to Arthurstone and immortalize in (virtual) granite his attempt to show us what a decent human being he really is, in a way that means the most to him:

The “fact” in question being that liberal women are ugly.

That just defines modern liberalism. It’s all about showing what a wonderful human being you are, over and over again, by ignoring facts. Ignoring…hmmm…ignoring…what’s the adjective form of “ignore”? What’s the intangible noun form?

Are liberals really ignoring the substandard aesthetics of their female nominees to positions of power? Number of acceptable-looking liberal women is constantly one-or-zero, depending on whether Alyssa Milano has allowed her hair to grow back or not. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Someone is trying to send a message. “Ignoring” it just seems like bad manners. But whatever turns your crank, Arthur.

Update: Guess who can’t look away from the gaydarscope.

Rick brought up a good column last week that didn’t quite make the cut although it came very close. It would’ve been a done-deal if we hadn’t already harped heavily on the “What in the world is wrong with liberals??” theme before we saw it. Which was something of a shame because it did a better job than most, of explaining the smart-as-a-dickens guy we all know who becomes a left-winger anyway:

To become a conservative, I’ve had to learn a whole new language, one based on reason. If conservatives want to understand the liberal mind, they should consider becoming bilingual, too.

Liberals live in a stratosphere centered on emotions and magical thinking. If you’ve tried to reason with your daughter and she looks at you blankly; if your neighbor changes the subject during your compelling arguments; if your cousin says this about Obama: “I don’t know why. I just like the guy”…that’s why.

After I ‘fessed up last week to once being besotted with socialism, a reader had an epiphany. He wrote that maybe liberals are just plain stupid.

I’m not going to disagree with this. There are innumerable examples from both the famous and the anonymous:

— The most illustrious of all leftists, Noam Chomsky, still maintains that the Khmer Rouge did not slaughter millions of Cambodians.

— Liberal luminaries Annette Bening and Naomi Wolf defend radical Islam, including the dreaded burqa.

— After journeying to Cuba, members of the Congressional Black Caucus bragged about the stellar conditions there.

— Michael Moore thinks that the Cuban health system is to die for.

— Anita Dunn, a former special assistant to Obama, stated that Mao is one of the people she admired the most.

If these are the more informed liberals, what about Jane and Joe in the street?
:
Liberals are certainly capable of intelligence. They may be adept at their careers and hobbies. But the problem is that their naïveté and a delusional way of looking at the world impedes common sense and street smarts.

Further, when liberals take the time to tune in, they get their “information” from progressive propaganda. And they don’t question the Left’s authority.

That’s the biggest problem — not questioning the party line even though there are obvious gaps and gaffes. A big reason for this is fear.

I had a telling e-mail exchange with a liberal friend. When I wrote that I thought Obama was a Marxist, she responded, “Don’t say that! You’re scaring me!”

Robin of Berkeley is discovering Architects and Medicators, I think. Medicators arrive at solutions to problems as the fulfullment of a quest for emotional stability, satisfaction and high. That’s why, when people on this other “side” inspect the methods involved with containing Iran, curing global warming or “reviving” our nation’s economy, we find the stated plan to be so much at odds with the stated goal: The connection simply isn’t there. The people who are most enamored of the stated plan, haven’t even taken the time or trouble to look into it. It’s all about the emotional outcome.

As Robin has learned, when you think like a builder — like an Architect — you’re not walking on their soil because you’re not walking on their planet.

Well. Apparently, your President and mine was reading Robin of Berkeley’s article — voracious reader, He is, as you know — and He said to Himself “Hey! What that Robin of Berkeley said doesn’t make any sense. I’d better do something to make what she wrote make some sense!”

Prophecy fulfilled.

Renaissance of January 2009…officially over. Delivering a commencement address over the weekend, Holy One sonorously intoned:

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t rank all that high on the truth meter…With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations; information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment. All of this is not only putting new pressures on you; it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.

Fox News captured a slightly different transcript:

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”
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Obama also lamented the spread of social media and blogs, through which “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction.”

“All of this is not only putting new pressures on you,” Obama said. “It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.”

“We can’t stop these changes,” he said, “but we can adapt to them. And education is what can allow us to do so. It can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time.” [italicized emphasis mine]

It wasn’t so long ago we were “all” so “hopeful” of this new age in which we’d have a President who knew how to pronounce the word “nuclear,” believed in evolution over Creation, and — what’s that other thing? Had an iPod and Blackberry and knew how to use them?? Hey, whatever happened to that?

For years — decades even — I have stewed and steamed and ground my teeth together, steam coming out of my ears, when introduced to people who would smile broadly at me and boast “I don’t know annnneeeeeeeething about computers!!” The intent has always been to make me feel important, I’m sure. But it’s an insult because it points out that there must be something good about being technologically ignorant, even if it’s only a social kind of good. Well, now I have a new reason to look forward to the end of the Obama era, and I know their kind are in charge now. This is a transgression against one of My 42 Definitions of a Strong Society:

41. Weaknesses are not coveted. Nobody ever brags about, or connects an identity to, an inability to do something other people can do. People do not greet new acquaintances with that most odious of self-introductions, “I don’t know anything about computers.” People don’t form relationships around weakness. People don’t say “That’s my friend Carol, she doesn’t know how to cook.” They say “That’s my friend Carol, she’s the best interior designer around.”

Old Iron notes that He Who Argues With The Dictionaries has apparently found a new constituency to toss under the bus. I would expect the next dumpster to be hauled away from 1600 Pennsylvania is going to be chock full of iPods and Blackberry devices, now that the lowly staff workers have discovered this new decision up at the top that technology isn’t cool.

Anyone who can do hexadecimal math in their heads, please report for interrogation in the nearest dungeon. Recant your testimony about the Earth revolving around the Sun, and that’ll be the end of it. Don’t know what all the fuss is about with color teevee, I can’t see the difference — and get off my damn lawn.

Reading between the lines, I’m a little bit…no, not just a little bit…taken aback by these remarks about “the craziest claims can quickly claim traction…new pressures on our democracy…can’t stop these changes but we can adapt to them.” He’s talking about passive censorship, a sort of censorship-by-neglect. He wants to dismiss ideas that have already, inconveniently for Him, found a voice. He has lost sight of the lesson of Thing I Know #183:

When an education has given you the ability to dismiss ideas more quickly, it’s not really an education.

To those of us who have argued with our left-wing colleagues in person, and left-wing strangers over the innertubes (I’d like to think I’m more diplomatic with the former than with the latter), this is nothing new. We will recognize straight-away what He is really talking about:

Knowledge is a state to be reached by means of purification, not by accumulation; and learning is a subtractive process, not an additive one. You say “such-and-such happened,” liberal says “Let me see your sources!!! GRRRRR!!!!” and you go “fine, here’s a link.” Liberal reacts with a “That came from (fill in the blank)!!! GRRRR!!!!” And out it goes.

So in the world of the left-wing neanderthal, which is a subset of liberalism, it’s really all about becoming a more perfect being; and sometimes the imperfection has something to do with knowing things that shouldn’t be known. Learning is, therefore, a process of un-seeing things, a process of forgetting. People who can’t work iPods and iPads are more worthy, closer to some deity, than people who know how to work those things.

I suspect this fissure has split liberalism deeply; that fissure between the liberals who think learning involves learning, and the liberals who think learning involves forgetting. Dear Leader has just switched sides. You’re smarter now if you’re stupid.

And you can only learn through a stenciled process of filtration. You become smarter by not being exposed to things. You need to stop watching Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. You have to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. And you have to stop reading The Blog That Nobody Reads. Stop. Right now!

So my brother has put up a photo in memory of our mother in the Hello-Kitty-of-Bloggin’. I suppose I should recognize this as a worthy example; now that I think on it, it isn’t right to let Mother’s Day go, year after year, just because I’m the only one in the household who doesn’t have one. It’s not just a day to engage in wild commercialism over teddy bears in mugs, cards, portraits and breakfasts.

Mom was called away from us seventeen years ago. A year and a half before that, she worked her way through all sorts of prescribed remedies for cancerous brain tumors, rapidly arriving at the oldest one medicine has for anything: Take her home and make sure she’s comfortable. She outlived the diagnosis a whole bunch of times, and then fell into a deep coma. As the pieces of what made her what she was, passed on into history stage by stage, her body gave up on trying to sustain what was left. This was sometime between 6 and 7 o’clock in the evening on Saturday, February 27, 1993.

The other end of her lifespan I’ll leave to my late Uncle Wally:

Danny, who was now driving the old Stevens and displaying an active interest in girls, needed a regular income to sustain his racy life style. I had achieved varsity status on the Prospect High basketball team and was looking for new and larger worlds to conquer. Bobby, two years my junior, had not yet exhibited the same restlessness, but soon his strong commercial inclinations would involve him in the general revolt. For the moment, however, our fathers’ firm opposition thwarted all of these noble aspirations.

Then one day Mom stunned us with an altogether unexpected announcement. As we finished our supper and prepared to troop upstairs she informed us, a trifle awkwardly, that there would soon be another place at the table.

“Who’s coming” Bobby asked. “Relatives?”

Mom and Dad exchanged a conspiratorial smile. For a change, Dad’s mood seemed less somber than it had been of late.

“Well, yes,” said mom; “but not the kind you are thinking about.”

Our mouths fell open and for once we were at a loss for words. Danny was approaching sixteen, I was fourteen, and Bobby was twelve.

“You mean a baby?” Danny finally blurted out.

“That’s right,” Mom said, obviously pleased with herself at taking us so completely by surprise. Mom was then forty-two and, by our unenlightened reckoning, light-years beyond the proper — or biologically possible — age for childbearing. Up to that moment the possibility of any further increase in our family had no more entered our minds than had the prospect of entertaining a visitor from outer space.

From that moment this great coming event dominated our every waking thought and overshadowed all other considerations. The spare room was cleared and converted into a nursery. Dad set to work making a crib. We boys were at pains, for once, to spare our mother any undue effort.
:
For the time being the dolor of the Depression was relieved at our house by the prevailing mood of expectancy. Not a little of the excitement hinged on the question of the newcomer’s sex. Another boy? Our parents looked at each other and paled. Surely, not another boy!

Ten days into the new year of 1934 a healthy, squalling baby girl arrived and settled all the speculation. She was christened Mary Ann and immediately became the center of all our attention.

Perhaps someday, someone will rise to the task of capturing in the written word what took place in the 59 years between these two moments. Some buried treasure lies undisturbed because it isn’t thought to be worth the trouble; other rewards sit there neglected because the effort is too daunting. This would fall under the latter of those. You knew Mary Ann Freeberg, or else you didn’t, and if you didn’t then the English language provides a poor arsenal of tools for describing her to you. I’ll only say her memorial service was filled to capacity for a number of reasons that can be explained only through the heart, the soul, and the human spirit.

Perhaps with thoughts and words too. But you’re a better writer than I am if you can figure out how.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Update: Okay I will say this much: I think she would’ve gotten along like a house-afire with Classic Liberal’s grandmother (hat tip to Chris Wysocki, by way of Smitty at The Other McCain).

Blogger friend Phil:

Stossel’s excellent rant

This was John Stossel’s closing monologue at the end of last night’s program on government bullying.

There are only two ways to do things in life: voluntary, or forced.

Voluntary’s best, and it’s most of life. It’s how we pick our friends, our religion, career, hobbies, and so on. It gives individuals freedom and flexibility. It leads to constant improvement because when your choices are voluntary, if you want people to attend your school, or baseball game or fly your airline you have to please your customers.

But government doesn’t have to please anybody. Government gets to use force. OK, they have to please us because we can make some changes every four or eight years when we vote, but they’re usually minor changes. The permanent bureaucracy doesn’t change. It. Just. Grows, and exerts more force.

Now – we need some force, we need government to keep the peace; keep people from killing us. Or stealing from us. But why do they get to decide what the rules of baseball should be?

It’s telling that Senator McCain had trouble making [the point that it’s part of the business of Congress to regulate baseball rules concerning steroid use] … there’s no good reason Congress should be involved. They’re just sanctimonious and they want to get their faces on TV. And the public and media encouraged them. America’s constant refrain that “there oughta be a law” invites politicians to bully their way into parts of life where they have no business.

Government shouldn’t dictate to airlines what they can charge, and why should government tell students [..] that you MAY NOT work as an intern for me? You’re not slaves. If you don’t like working for free, quit. Do something else. Why do the politicians arrogantly assume they have the right to interfere with our right to make a contract?

And it’s not like the government’s bullying has such a great track record. The Interstate Commerce Commission used to control all of the airline prices. And the system was awful. Thank goodness Jimmy Carter got rid of it.

Now the government orders you to send your child to this or that school. But then they do a lousy job teaching them.

In fact, I can’t think of anything government does better than the private sector. Can you? Can you name one thing that Government does more efficiently than private companies?

I’ll give you $100 if you can.

The military and things that Government, only government does, don’t count. I’m talking about anything where there’s competition. Are government bullies ever better? I don’t think so. I’ve never had to pay this bet. I’ve offered it for many years.

Who do these politicians think they are? They fail and fail, make life worse and run up horrible debt and then they say they want more power? What hubris!

[..]

Remember, only two ways to do things. Voluntary, or forced. Voluntary’s better. The Founders understood that, and that’s why here in the Declaration and the Constitution they write so much about limiting government’s power. They understood the danger of big government and the bullies it breeds.

It’s time to say “politicians, you’ve gone too far. Let us lead our own lives. That’s the freedom we deserve.”

– John Stossel

Some random web application off the innerwebs just notified me that my mini notebook was in dire danger of being infected with malware. You know, I agree with that. It gave me this nice pop-up window graciously offering to do a hard drive scan for free.

Folks, I’m thinking back to the events of earlier this week, when the DoD finally stopped hounding those three brave men. The time has come for the law we need. And we do really, really need this law. I don’t think we’re going to get anything like it until we reform something in a major kind of way:

For every year the DoD, or the DoJ merely threatens to impose on a peace officer or a military officer for doing bad things to a bad guy — “roughed up a detainee,” “gave a fat lip to a suspect,” et cetera. I want to see seven years of hard time handed down in a sentence to a convicted author of computer malware. I want that codified as a hard quota. To be reconciled at the end of every government fiscal year. With penalties for falling short of it.

Until this happens, I am going to assume the people who wield the power in our country, are the people who don’t do any real work. I’m going to assume these people, right down to the last man/woman, barely know how to turn the fucking thing on. I’m going to assume their priorities are cockeyed because they think a computer is something you use to watch the Hamster Dance, to watch porn, and to look at your own “wall” on the Hello-Kitty-of-Bloggin’. And this is why they don’t know “computer malware” from their own assholes. And so long as they continue to harass the brave men and women who are in the hot spot only because they did what was necessary to protect the country — much more often than not, having been put there under orders, not having specifically volunteered for the mission itself, only for the initial enlistment — I am going to assume the people in power are filthy communists and we need a Joe McCarthy like we’ve never needed one before.

That’s what I’m going to assume until things are done the way I want them done. I’m going to lose respect for ’em every day between this one and that one. Case closed.

Computer malware authors — making license plates, doing prison laundry, turning big rocks into little rocks, being roommate-Bubba’s bitch. Also, the Guantanamo “detainee” should have the same “recourse” that I have against the IRS; which is to say, the system is innocent-’til-proven-guilty, with them it’s the other way around.

Point me to the candidate who will make these into realities, and I will donate some hard money. Show me his or her war chest. I will make it jingle with something shiny. But if we must have wink-wink nod-nod slap-on-wrist justice, let us deliver it to those most deserving of it.

Oppugn.us: Where The Rants Go.

Now, for years I’ve kind of felt sorry for Microsoft. They’re perceived as being bumbling idiots in the tech world but honestly compared to many of their competitors they probably produce more interesting and better tech. For example, what OS has Google created? From scratch? Multiple times? What programming languages has Google created? What virtual machine did they create? How many hardware platforms runs that OS they actually didn’t make? How many applications run on that OS they didn’t make?

Exactly. When it comes down to it, Microsoft kicks the shit out of Google in the “hardcore tech shit” department, but they never get credit for it. Google is the classic post-modern tech company, borrowing and stealing anything that ain’t nailed down barely making anything new on their own. Microsoft at least makes a large amount of its own tech, and don’t give me that shit about a few things they bought or that one video company they screwed.

Via blogger friend Gerard‘s Tumblr account KA-CHING!.

Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained by the people.

The Tenth Amendment is the most widely violated provision of the bill of rights. If it had been respected and enforced America would be an amazingly different country than it is today. This amendment provides:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Twenty-eight principles that changed the world.

Newsbusters, via Sister Toldjah.

Update: A Tennessee classic. It’s much closer than the Beatles hit in the video above, about 180 miles off the bulls-eye. And more appropriate to the theme, I think. Sorrow, hope, regrets maybe, some grief, and a yearning for life to return to normal.

I have the opinion that I look really, really bad in a white tee shirt and I will still look really bad if I ever get a torso like Mr. Universe. Something about it is just awful. Otherwise, I’d snap this puppy up in a great big hurry.

Well, FrankJ has come up with yet more slogans for the democrat party and if you missed them, you missed a lot:

Iran can have nukes, but you can’t have salt.
:
You still have your freedoms; we just get to tell you how to use them.
:
We’ll take the power and the money, you do the work.
:
Aggressively useless.
:
Government like the Founders envisioned: Dimwitted, entitled lawyers spending all your money.

I like my idea best though, the one in the headline of this post.

Not good. I personally think it’s a mistake. Not only that, but I have money tied up in Sarah Palin and I have money tied up in Chuck DeVore, too.

I see fellow Blogs-For-Palin blog Conservatives4Palin put up a post telling us this was the right choice to make. Could be, but I gotta tell ya Mr. Lazaran: I read that Palin Facebook entry from top to bottom. I didn’t see one single thing about Carly Fiorina that wasn’t also true of Chuck DeVore. And that remains true of your entry as well. Yes, I’m including the “Carly can beat Barbara Boxer” thing in that.

But I see it as a matter of interpretation. My interpretation of whatever movement Palin is trying to get going here, is a long-overdue one — what will ultimately be a successful one — in which the nation pulls its head out of its butt. It’s gonna happen; it’s happened many times before. It’s clockwork. Every sixteen years we put the kiddies in charge, then when the damage is done we pull our head out of our butt. It becomes an inevitability when we cannot afford the consequences of childlike thinking being invested with real power.

Why did Palin do this? Maybe her rationale is that the movement is more likely to succeed, if it creates a good-ol’-boy network of its own. That’s the trouble with rebellions. Sooner or later they have to be organized, somewhat; and in order to organize they have to germinate an inconsistency with their basic philosophical purpose which is to rebel. If they aren’t purely anarchist movements and they really have something to say, they have to eventually confront this dichotomy (sometimes it happens even if they have nothing to say).

Given that reality, the time might be right to rally behind an “establishment rebel” and maybe that’s Fiorina. But if this decision was supposed to have been about retaining pull-the-nation’s-head-outta-its-butt principles, then this one was a dud. DeVore’s credentials are superior, and if the choice was mine it would just come down to just that.

There is another possibility behind what Palin did here, a really ugly one: Perhaps she sees her history-making wave of support as a revolution of females, and her mandate as one of “Put the girls in charge of everything no matter what.” In other words, maybe she sees her support from brutish males like me as a gesture of resignation. Screw it, let’s let the chicks handle everything. Sonia Sotomayor said it best: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.” Let me be blunt: If our newest associate justice isn’t smart enough to see what’s wrong with that, I think Palin is. But after yesterday’s letdown I’d like to see some evidence.

Palin supporters deserve no less. A large number among us have donated our time and money specifically for the purpose of defeating the scourge of identity politics. Or at least trying to.

Leon de Winter writes in Pajamas Media:

It is fascinating to see how the authorities and the major media outlets avoid the words “Islam” and “Muslim” in connection to the failed Times Square bombing. In both this piece in Time and in this piece in the New York Times the word “Islam” is only used in the name of the city of Islamabad in Pakistan.

The Times uses the word “Muslim” once: “At his news conference, Mr. Bloomberg warned against any backlash against Pakistanis or Muslims in New York, saying, ‘We will not tolerate any bias.’”

The authorities — Holder, Napolitano, New York Police Commissioner Kelly — also avoided the words Islam and Muslim at their press conference. They spoke about “terrorism” but didn’t define the term.

So what kind of terrorist is Faisal Shahzad if he cannot be called a Muslim or an Islamic terrorist?

A CNN anchor said about the Pakistani-American suspect: “It can be confirmed that his house has been foreclosed in recent years. I mean, one would have to imagine that brought a lot of pressure and a lot of heartache on that family.”

Could this suspect be described as the “foreclosure terrorist”? As a true believer in the American dream and owning his own home, Faisal Shahzad had to act against the banks which foreclosed his property. If that is the case, why didn’t he park his SUV closer to Wall Street? If he was angry about losing his house, why didn’t he try to blow up his bank? Times Square doesn’t make sense for a foreclosure terrorist.

NewsBusters has more on that loopy news anchor guy, Jim Acosta:

Acosta remarked on Shahzad’s familial difficulty at the end of an interview of Brenda Thurman, one of the suspect’s former neighbors, which began 47 minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour. During the interview, the CNN personality, who was filling in for anchor John Roberts, asked Thurman about her foreclosure claim: “What sense did you get from the family? I mean, you just said a few minutes ago, I think- that it’s pretty significant that this house that he apparently owned was foreclosed on in Shelton, Connecticut….Did you get a sense from the family as to- I mean, that must have been extremely difficult on them.”

Yeah Jim. Well, that doesn’t quite seem to square with this other compilation of Norman-Rockwell tearjerker events from ABC. See, they were going after the “he seemed so normal just a little bit quiet” angle…and they went and found some facts that are at odds with your narrative.

According to a next-door neighbor who asked not to be named, Shahzad’s behavior began to change and he became frightening.

“He was always in black, creeping around the house in all black,” she said to ABC News.

She said Shahzad’s wife gave her bracelets from Pakistan and their girls played together, but then suddenly in May 2009 they were gone.

Shahzad gave different reasons for why they were leaving, neighbors said: a baby was on the way, he had to take care of family, and even that they were moving to Missouri.

One thing seems for certain, according to authorities, just two months after gaining his citizenship he vanished into Pakistan.

With his departure, the house in Shelton fell into foreclosure and when Shahzad returned to America two months ago, authorities say the life of promise was gone.

Shazhad allegedly moved alone to Bridgeport, Conn., on a mission of destruction.

That facts still trickling in, so far as I’ve been able to learn about them, consistently support a conclusion that Faisal Shahzad abandoned the American Dream rather than the other way around. And that his family was already long-gone.

Real people who have to get real work done, have to think about things a certain way. Our media has thought about this thing the exact opposite way, and our so-called “leaders” have followed suit…or perhaps it’s the other way around. It’s like they come from a whole different planet.

This is just sick.

So is this.

And this.

And there’s more to follow, you can be sure of that. But of the bigotry that has already taken place, we should all feel deeply ashamed for having tolerated it. There’s no excuse for it, and it reflects poorly on all of us.

These are our most authoritative leaders and our loudest voices. They speak for our society. And what they have to say is: We don’t tolerate bigotry, but we define bigotry according to certain skin colors, and in so doing exercise it even as we claim to oppose it. Our minds are made up about things before we learn anything about anything, and we’re too good for facts.

Foreclosure terrorist? Eh, sorry; still doesn’t seem very likely. The more we learn, the more it seems this “citizen” “homeowner” “MBA” guy decided to declare war on America, moved out, and then…well, why would you continue to make payments to one of the Great Satan’s banks?

And so he and his family were placed in a deep funk because of the foreclosure? Mmmm…not so much, Mr. Acosta. But nice try.

As for the rest of you — don’t quit watching CNN or MSNBC just yet! Keep getting your news from there. Wouldn’t want your “moderate” left-wing friends, family and neighbors to think poorly of you after you’ve gone & gotten ahold of some real facts and made up your own mind about things. Your social status might suffer. Who cares if it’s all feelings & made-up nonsense, right? It sounds a lot like what our officials are saying all day every day…so there must be some legitimacy in it somewhere, even if there isn’t a grain of truth to it.

Steve Hayward in National Review Online:

Judging from the triumphant tone of the e-mails I’m getting from indignant environmentalists about the oil spill in the Gulf, I’d have to say they are having the most fun since the ExxonValdez. After all, the greens were slowly losing ground to expanded domestic oil and gas production, and now they have a catastrophe to reinvigorate their philosophy of No. As many have observed, this spill is the Three Mile Island/Chernobyl of offshore drilling, and will likely set back further offshore drilling for decades, unless we find out there was some truly extraordinary human error, negligence, or unprecedented equipment failure. Even sabotage wouldn’t get Big Offshore Oil off the hook; after the 1984 chemical catastrophe in Bhopal, India, was determined to have been an act of sabotage, the political hysteria over chemical plants was unabated.

What is clear is that the overall risk of environmental harm will likely increase from the reaction to this. Why? In the first place, it means we’ll import more oil — by tanker.

There’s something wrong about environmentalists becoming emboldened, gleeful, feelin’ their oats — when an environmental disaster takes place.

Why was an Asian-American student beaten up by black students?

Thomas Sowell would like to know.

Those who explain racial antagonisms on some rationalistic basis will have a hard time demonstrating how Asian Americans have made blacks worse off. Certainly none of the historic wrongs done to blacks was done by the small Asian American population who, for most of their history in this country, have not had enough clout to prevent themselves from being discriminated against.

While ugly racial or ethnic conflicts can seldom be explained by rational economic or other self-interest, they have been too common to be just inexplicable oddities– whether in America or in other countries around the world, and whether today or in centuries past.

Resentments and hostility toward people with higher achievements are one of the most widespread of human failings. Resentments of achievements are more deadly than envy of wealth.

The hatred of people who started at the bottom and worked their way up has far exceeded any hostility toward those who were simply born into wealth. None of the sultans who inherited extraordinary fortunes in Malaysia has been hated like the Chinese, who arrived there destitute and rose by their own efforts.

That’s a heavy thought: That the animosity doesn’t come from people being different, it might come from people being similar. As in, sharing similar circumstances on an outta-the-gate basis…and caught trying to make themselves better through hard work. Thereby turning up the pressure on the others. Crabs in a bucket.

More and more, it seems the “R” word is being used as a mask of sorts; a disguise for crabs-in-a-bucket syndrome. And Sowell makes a great point about this particular attack, you can’t argue that it’s any kind of retaliation against historical wrongs. Not unless you know something I don’t know.

A dastardly idea of The Other McCain.

Hat tip to Bob Belvedere.

I like the look of this. It’s freedom. And I got a gut feel that the folks who are going to contribute the best ideas for this noble effort, around here, are going to be the females.

I would hope the best ideas are going to be the ones that have to do with fun. Wait until a feminist is anti-fun…which isn’t much waiting at all…and then be pro-fun.

Ideas? You can get them at my favorite spot for collecting samples of rancid feminist bile.

I’m not completely clueless about all these things. But being able to explain something is a different thing from knowing about it. I just hope, in the decades to come, nobody comes askin’…I do not consider these things easily explained…

1. Timothy Geithner getting his job.
2. Timothy Geithner keeping his job.
3. Liberals putting up with people who say we need more abortions to take place. They seem to think the Watergate burglary is the ultimate evil. Do they realize it’s much more evil to want more abortions to take place? Don’t they understand that’s more evil than a billion Watergates?
4. The whole global warming thing was exposed and disgraced in the third quarter of 2009. By 2010 we still have some people talking seriously about it.
5. President Obama keeps saying all these socialist things. Nobody’s been able to supply a good logical explanation for what socialists are supposed to do and say, that He hasn’t done or said. Why is there any disagreement, anywhere, that He is one?
6. The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement of 1998: If tobacco is that bad for people, why not just ban it?
7. Avatar. James Cameron started writing this in 1994? He spent fifteen years writing it? Writing what, exactly?
8. Health Care. Barack Obama didn’t write it. Everyone knows He didn’t write it. He told Congress to come up with something with “health” and “care” in the title, and He’d sell whatever it is. Everyone saw Him do this. It was an act of salesmanship and nothing else.
9. Apple. Are people seriously pretending they have some idea what these products do, before they buy ’em?
10. Traffic lights that aren’t synchronized. Why do we still have those? How come some of them make me sit there, idling, for two or three minutes, maybe more? Global warming? I thought we were supposed to be really concerned about it?
11. The View. Fox and Friends. All that stuff; what is the appeal of watching people pretending to drink coffee around a table?
12. Men wearing clothes that are too big for them. Why do you want to look like a little boy wearing his dad’s clothes?
13. Californians and weather. Why can’t they drive in it?
14. Pants that sag. Who wants to see someone’s butt crack? How come people who expect to run away from cops, wear pants that are wholly unsuitable for this purpose?
15. Bill Maher. He’s the best that cable teevee could find huh?
16. Bond, James Bond? Everybody loves him, men and woman, across the generations? Most profitable movie franchise ever? And a typical special-effect is a car crashing or a guy getting shot…nothing really expensive like a spaceship blowing up or a vampire turning into a bat…how come it’s so much trouble to get ’em made?
17. What Gerard calls Vaginism and Fai Mao calls Womynism: Feminism sees a gender disparity that has to do with stature or privilege, feminism works overtime to eradicate it; feminism sees one that has to do with assuming responsibility for things, feminism leaves it alone.
18. Opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Four years earlier there was universal agreement this guy was a bastard and the sooner we were rid of him, the better. And then, taking him out was an ultimate act of pure evil? People want to pretend they were thinking about this independently, really?
19. Hollywood continuing to pump out America-bashing anti-military movies that everybody hates, and that don’t make any moolah.
20. The First Lady is still considered “off limits” even when she attacks people.
21. Schools cannot spank kids anymore. Schools cannot yell at kids anymore. Schools cannot put kids on the spot, or pressure them in any way. In short, schools cannot give kids any incentive whatsoever to pay attention to anything. A new disorder is invented called “Attention Deficit Disorder”; diagnoses freakin’ skyrocket. Nobody makes a connection?
22. Hope and Change? That was enough to get Him elected? Seriously? Heartbeat of Stupid? We may have to become mature enough to learn some things, but for heaven’s sake, we can still write things down.
23. We had a budget deficit, and these new entitlements were supposed to close it up? Really? From where, pray tell, did people think the money was supposed to come?
24. No long form birth certificate? Not before the inauguration, not after? Nobody insisted on it?
25. Ted Kennedy was “The Conscience of the Senate”??
26. Rahm Emmanuel gets caught saying “never let a crisis go to waste.” And then…for months afterward, years even…his boss continues to stuff His speeches chock-full of the word “crisis.” Nobody says anything about it? And He still wants to do this? For all that time?
27. Sandra Bullock. She makes this movie guys love called “Demolition Man.” She makes another movie guys love called “Speed.” She becomes a superstar…then makes a zillion and one movies chicks love that bore the guys to tears. Then she makes a zillion more.
28. Affirmative Action. We make a national holiday out of the birthday of one single man who said we should judge each other by the content of our character not by the color of our skin. Clue?
29. Paul Krugman. Joe Biden. If you were to make a list of gentlemen who’ve been wrong about things, you’d have those two pegged at the top…with a big, big gap before you get to third place. People still listen to ’em?
30. Horatio Caine. My God, what a joke. Does anybody think this guy looks cool just because he talks like he has strep throat and keeps whipping his sunglasses off?
31. Tomagucci toys. Wouldn’t this be a big red flag to the parents, that the kid needs more chores?
32. Couples walking around on the weekends, with the guy showing off his legs and the woman covering hers up. Sick.
33. Little tiny dogs being carried around in purses. What’s the dog going to do to the purse? Shit and piss in it, of course. How expensive is the purse? Gawdawfully. Cheap purses are never used for this purpose. Who’s paying for all this?
34. Joe McCarthy was on a hunt for communists? That made him a bad guy? Because of something called “guilt by association”? This was a bad idea? How?
35. Speaking of McCarthy: The Venona papers came out, and then we still made fun of people who said so-and-so was a communist spy…after it was proven so-and-so was, in fact, a communist spy. You’re entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts.
36. Iran going nuclear. We let this happen?
37. We were opposed to racial bigotry, and we kept Franklin Roosevelt’s face on the dime for all that time?
38. Before the United Nations, wars ended in decisive victories; after them, they ended in periods of peace so tenuous, so fragile, they might as well not have ended at all. Somehow, we still let the U.N. negotiate things? Why?
39. Politicians telling whistle-stop lies in the age of YouTube. Why do they think they won’t get caught? How did they get as far as they did, telling lies that are so many decades behind the technology?
40. Gay couples told us we had to recognize gay marriage, and if we didn’t we were somehow prohibiting them from loving each other? We bought into that, really? Why?
41. Labor unions. How come after all those years, we still let them make decisions about things?
42. You people thought you’d be so inspirational to future generations, and yet you let Obama shut down the manned space exploration? Without rioting? Seriously?
43. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009…plus George W. Bush’s Act of 2008. They were tried, they failed. Why did anybody ever utter a syllable in support of such plans from that moment forward?
44. All the rage directed at Richard Nixon. He ran for President on a platform of: The hippies are taking over the country and I’m going to stop it. Then, the hippies got mad at him for not representing them. He got caught lying, breaking the law, obstructing justice. Thought himself entitled to special privileges. But what made him more contemptuous than a typical congressman?
45. The wire-work fad in action movies. If you want to be dazzled by a physical feat that is so awesome that it isn’t even possible, that’s what cartoons are for isn’t it?
46. Obama is thought to be a healer of divisions, an agent of hope and a reminder of responsibility; He is thought to be engaged in a process of getting other countries to like us. If you read over His transcripts, you see He does not say healing, hopeful or responsible things. He does things that inspire other countries to giggle at us, and find out how much they can get out of us, but not to like us.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

We were watching this again and realized it’s even more funny and poignant than it was two years ago.

Laugh or cry?

“I know what’s best, you haven’t a clue…”

Caulfield uploaded this comment to Cassy’s blog and I thought it was pure gold.

I don’t know why Arizonans would want to protect their citizens from Mexican drug cartel violence, safeguard the public treasury, or prevent the strain on their already choked social services. I mean, not doing that has done wonders for LA! That movie, American Me, I want to recreate that in my city. Yes!

I have no idea why they’d want to enforce the laws that have been on the books since the USA formed or why they’d be mad at the Feds for not doing their jobs of securing our borders. Arizonans are racists, red-neck, bigoted, right-wing conspiracists for wanting to protect the quality of life of LEGAL immigrants already living here. What’s up with that? They should enjoy picking up the 2 million tons of trash the illegals leave strewn across our lands as they make their way north because they always have beautiful, sunny skies.

Did you know that asking for someone’s citzenship papers is the equivalent of slaughtering 7 million Jews in Nazi Germany. If you didn’t, then you’re not reading the main-stream, unbiased, good-intentioned media. Get with the program, Comrades! Read the NY Times, the LA Times or the Washington Post, or any newspaper that feeds off of them. It will really educate you and keep you from losing your public education indoctrination.

Why not let the entire world into this country, starting with Haiti, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Yemen — oh, and don’t forget a few “mainstream” Castro-loving Cubans. I’m sure the freedom-loving Cubans already living in Miami who hate Castro won’t mind. Let’s blow taxpayers’ money overseas by sending travel vouchers to the Middle East so they can fly to Mexico and come across the border. Can’t we all just get along? If we just sat down and negotiated with them, all war, poverty and disease would end and Obama could save us all.

After their amnesty, they’ll vote Democrat in order to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing freely and keep Democrats in power. What’s so wrong about that? That stuff going on in Greece — riots, protest. Yeah, I like that. Let’s get some of that. After all, we’re no longer a Republic. We’re a dictatorship. Just ask the folks who passed healthcare with the Slaughter House Rules, instead of abiding by the will of the people. If you can’t afford health insurance, you should be jailed or fined by IRS agents, so there will be no room for locking up illegal aliens. Obama is going to help this country like Chairman Mao helped China take the Great Leap Forward, or how Stalin helped unite the Russians. CHANGE, TRANSFORM. I really love it.

All I ask is that you don’t complain as your paychecks get smaller and smaller. After all, someone has to pay for all those bells and whistles, and bells and whistles, and bells and whistles, etc. Well, you get the idea. It might as well be you. We know from history that the rich ALWAYS get soaked, so none of it will effect your pocketbook. Right? I mean, look how many millionaires are now living in boxes by the river. Plus, the more money you rob from rich people and give to poor people, the more jobs that are created. Right, Nancy Pelosi? It looks like rain today — maybe too much. I hope the government is doing something about that. Maybe a rain tax is needed.

Neal Boortz’s take on it:

This isn’t about immigration reform. To these marchers immigration reform is just another way of saying amnesty. Any immigration proposals that move through either Washington DC or the states that does not include amnesty for criminal aliens is not immigration reform to these folks at all, and will not satisfy the invaders. It’s as if they’re saying:

“Ok, we’re here. We broke the law coming here. We broke the law staying here, and we’re breaking the law working here … and frankly, amigos, we don’t give a damn whether you like it or not. The problem is yours, not ours. We’re here, we’re not going anywhere, and there isn’t really anything you can do about it. If you arrest us — if you so much as look at us cross-eyed — we’re going to start screaming racial profiling and human rights abuses so fast and so loudly that there won’t be a news agency in the world that will not come running to demonize your country. “

At the risk of being a bit repetitive, just know this. Whenever you hear a Democrat, an illegal alien, an advocacy group for illegal aliens, or any member of the ObamaMedia use the words “comprehensive immigration reform,” they’re just using a bit more air and some extra words to say “amnesty for illegals.”

And just what is this load of bull about profiling. Glad you asked. It’s nothing less than a tactic used to make the job of law enforcement much more difficult than it needs to be. The true goal of those who scream “profiling” is to make it virtually impossible to enforce immigration laws. Virtually all of the illegals in Arizona are Hispanic, most Mexican, and to find the illegals you really do, of necessity, have to look for Latinos and if you look for Latinos you’re profiling. How asinine is this? Mexicans are invading Arizona, but you when you go looking for the invaders … for the law breakers … you can’t go looking for Mexicans. Doesn’t that sound just a bit ridiculous?

Real orderly and peaceable protest ya got there. Have you seen any footage of a Tea Party that looks & sounds like this?

Fellow Right Wing News contributor Duane Lester brings us this gem of a response to RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s dud of a statement…and that law of physics about “equal and opposite reaction” is completely undone.

It’s a rather peculiar thing about the folks in charge right now. Individual interests go up against the common interests of “everybody,” and the common interests win every time. And then the common interests of everybody, go up against the specific interests of a demographic group. In that second match-up the common interests of everybody aren’t worth jack.

I guess it’s just the way we’re wired in our most primitive, savage programming. We want to see something that’s “good for everybody” but we don’t get really excited about it until, while it’s good for this “everybody” over here, it’s simultaneously bad for that “everybody” over there. What Pastor Broden is talking about is something that is good for a real everybody regardless of skin color, circumstance of birth, whether they’re incarcerated or not, whatever their faith or income level. And before you can see the value in that you have to have some maturity. It really doesn’t take much; just enough to rise above that savage, primitive programming. Seeing the eventual consequences of the other side’s policies will do just fine.

I’m looking forward to finding out how many people have progressed to that level of maturity. Six months to go.