All those in favor say aye.

Hat tip to Smitty.

Extreme right-wing white angriness, or angry whiteness, or something.

Hat tip to blogger friend Phil.

Update: Oopsie, this is not terribly helpful to the evolving meme.

Woke up from my nap hearing some amplified voice coming from the living room that was strangely filled with an inextricably intertwined smugness. It took a few seconds for me to realize it was a little bit too nasal to be George Clooney, and then when I heard some syllables about The Illuminati I realized it was Tom Hanks.

After he and the rest of the crew finished their ritual task of bashing the Catholic Church while pretending they weren’t bashing it, the next thing on the boob tube was a Nora Ephron vehicle about cooking and blogging, of all things. Yes, that’s two liberal puke-fests in a row, but Amy Adams has a pleasing looking face and a finely chiseled little bod. Although I must say: If cooking is your way of unwinding from a shitty day, and every single day is like that…and your idea of cooking is not yogurt and rabbit food stuffed in pita bread…and your daily exercise consists of hoofing it from the subway station…I do not think you’re going to look like Amy Adams.

Anyway, it’s entertaining enough. And the food+blogging theme made me think of Kini Aloha Guy. Who is on a tear lately about socialized medicine and with good reason. I’m surprised to see him taking all sorts of pictures of a building in Hawaii, one whose hallways I’ve walked myself…albeit for an entirely different purpose, thank God.

I’m not sure why he isn’t in the sidebar. He might have fallen off during that disaster from this January. Of course with all those names of his I’m going to have to do some more checking to make sure he’s really missing. Could’ve sworn I put him in, I remember doing it. Oh well. The “What’s For Dinner” photos are hugely entertaining, and enlightening as well. You should make a point of picking them up every day whether I’m referring you there or not.

So says Warner Todd Huston. Don’t object to it too quickly, he’s got some heady evidence on his side.

Osama bin Laden to chime in any day now.

Hat tip to blogger friend Buck.

Gerard linked to our friends at Rhymes with Girls and Cars — who abso-freakin’-lutely put their finger right on it:

We have reached the point where in our current political system the only things the left is remotely ‘liberal’ about have to do with sex, i.e. situations involving peoples’ genitals coming into contact. Oh yes, I’ll agree, the left is very liberal on matters involving peoples’ genitals coming into contact…

It’s just every single other sort of liberty imaginable that the left doesn’t care for.

In the English language, ‘liberal’ is not the right term for such people at all. It is an antonym for what they are, which is: authoritarian.

As if on cue, our other blogger friend North-of-the-Border, she of the dark pixie curls, KC — leaped forth with her screed against Ann Coulter who, because she said (actually, KC was altogether missing any specific examples) should not be allowed to speak at Ottawa U.

As if prodded by a cosmic Kismet.

As if put on notice that this point needed some proving.

Liberals. Authoritarians. Once antonymous, now ominously synonymous.

So, I won’t go anywhere near my personal opinions of the skanky-assed shock-jock white-supremacist that is called Ann Coulter… oh wait.
I just did.
I despise everything that she represents and says. And I will probably get my Canadian Libertarian ass chewed off for saying the above… be told about how stupid I am or how wrong I am for thinking she is a waste of space and energy on this planet.
Whatever: bring it on. If you agree with her then your racist views will speak for yourself.
:
There are limitations.
In everything.
Including democracy.
That’s life.
Simply because a VERY large majority of Canadians disagree with Ms. Coulter and are exercising their right to protest does not make Canadians fascist. And receiving fair warning to educate yourself on the laws of the land… does not equate to human rights violations – especially comparing Canada to those of Iran, Nazi Germany and Cuba.

So I entered a reply, which I thought was perfectly in keeping with the spirit of classical liberalism. But, perhaps because of the mood KC is in, comments to her system will have to go through moderation before being made visible. Hehe. The irony…

And you know what this means. Yeah, I wasn’t feeling too trusting of the universe in general when I hit the “Post” button. Had the wonderful prose loaded into the clipboard, I did…

Okay, so noted; Coulter shouldn’t be allowed to speak because she’s a bitch. Who else?

Maybe it’s the straight white right-handed six-foot-tall male still in possession of all 21 digits in me talking…but I have a litmus test for laws like this. Let’s call them “Only As Much Free Speech As We Want You To Have” laws — for that is what they are. They are not liberal or progressive, they are quite the opposite…authoritarian.

My litmus test is, I want to see someone from the “wrong” demographic prosecuted according to these laws. I want to see feminists thrown in jail for publishing books that say all men are potential rapists. I want to see black people prosecuted for beating up on white kids just because they’re white. I want to see liberal radio networks forced to put in 30 and 60 minute blocks of conservative programming for “equal time.”

And if I do not see such reverse polarity, I view these laws as what they all, in likelihood, really are: One-sided attempts by specialized advocacy grievance groups, to seize power, and maintain it. Maybe you resent my litmus test but at least concede that it’s fair (it is…for such a law to be brandished as a one-bladed sword, is disingenuous and autocratic)…or maybe you aren’t even willing to concede that it’s fair.

But either way, isn’t it quite out of harmony with a “university”‘s purpose to blockade a scheduled speaker, before she’s said anything? To effectively plug its fingers in its ears and go “la la la I can’t hear you”? At this point I’m much closer in age to parent-of-college-kid than college-kid…and this kind of thing makes me want to cinch up the purse strings REAL tight. This is higher learning? Listening to the other side receives such low priority, and protesting receives such high priority?

What a wonderful experience it would have been, for the university to select ten or twenty of their brightest from the debate team — have those finalists pepper Ms. Coulter with their questions — and then, in the aftermath, hold an open forum about whether they did a good job, what better questions they could have selected, what points should have been made, and horror of horrors, what utterances may have been indulged by Ms. Coulter that made one or two people think about some things not previously thought-about.

Seriously. If that’s so unthinkable, just disband the university and send everyone home. Because, then, frankly I don’t see the point. Everyone’s got their minds made up, why bother to get dressed and go to class every morning.

I don’t care what you call the country, or what the ideological flavoring is of the speaker who is being sent packing. Or what your precious laws are supposed to be accomplishing.

Once you start saying “Waitaminnit…we have to make sure if your speech affects people, it doesn’t have a bad effect on them, so we’ll put some sensible precautions in place” — you have crossed a Rubicon.

I don’t see liberals as liberals anymore. I don’t necessarily see them as authoritarians either. I see them as people who simply cannot imagine — ever! — that power will ever be wielded by persons who fundamentally disagree with them about things. Management is given the authority to say “You May Speak…You, Over There, May Not” — and liberalism seems to be the proclivity to say “Hey, yeah that’s cool.” It invests the trust in total strangers first, and asks questions later.

Oh but yeah, on that other matter. Genitals coming into contact with genitals. Men sticking their penises up the assholes of other men. On those issues, yes, they remain “classic” liberals.

I got a mass e-mail from the chairman of the democrat party earlier this morning, and it was a little spooky because I’d just been hearing the guys on the radio talking about it. To summarize it, it says: Our opponents are heaping abuse on our “heroes,” threatening them, using racial epithets, smashing up their offices. Will you chip in five bucks to help us defend these “heroes”?

The years roll in, the years roll out, the lies stay the same. We over here are goooooood people, those people over there are rotten stinkers. Anything — anything — to keep from actually discussing the benefits and drawbacks involved in the actual policy. I was noticing this just as Holy Man was being sworn in some fourteen months ago. The campaign slogan might as well be “Now that it’s settled Republicans are a bunch of dirty rotten stinkers, let’s turn our attention to what dirty rotten stinkers those Republicans are.”

I see a weakness with this. The weakness is, when you deliver this kind of sales pitch you have to hand down the decision on what has been decided. Yes! Those Republicans are such awful people! You aren’t letting the “mark” make up his own mind about things because you cannot afford to. It’s always a more powerful sales pitch when the mark is allowed to make up his own mind.

This is how democrats see people: as marks. If they could sell it that way, they would. But they can’t. So the mark has to be forced into turning his own decision, into a personality popularity contest between democrats and Republicans. Well, this is fragile. Among the actual voters, the politicians from either party aren’t too terribly popular right now.

So I saw this video at Daphne’s place. And I had me an idea.

The problem, as I see it, is that passing judgment on whether another human being is wonderful or godlike or sneaky or dirty or rotten or a scoundrel or a scruffy-looking nerf herder…it’s tempting. It’s fun to play god. On the other hand, pondering the destiny of the country, toward independence or toward bondage or toward oblivion…well, that’s kinda dull and boring.

Percentage of GDP? That’s the most boring thing of all. Tax policy? Ugh.

What resolves all of these difficulties? One key phrase:

“They are worried that we are not dependent enough on our government.”

Or…

“They are worried that we have too much control over our own lives.”

This shifts the discussion over to where it belongs, in such a way that the entire conversation remains alluring and appealing to our primal instincts. The observer is left to ask “They are worried about…what was that again?”

The opponent that is trying like the dickens to sell this nanny-state health care scheme, can pull all sorts of tricks to try to dismiss this. The opponent can say “oh, you’re just a shill for big pharmaceutical products, trying to make people pay more.”

The problem there is with the facts. There really isn’t much in the legislation that saves money. The legislation, from all I’ve been reading about it — to say nothing of the process that hammered it in — is mostly concerned with power. The difficulty has been getting people to pay attention to this.

Not everybody wants power over their own lives. But just about all of us are rankled with resentment and distress at the thought of some stranger telling us what to do. And the issue of the busybodies actually having an agenda to push things off in that direction — well, that is really what needs to be discussed.

And here’s a way to do it. Not by making these people look like strange, weird aliens through a colored lens; show them to be strange, weird aliens, by showing what is real. Just come out and say what this whole thing is really all about: Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer want more people to be dependent.

It wont win over everybody. But it will turn the conversation toward where it needs to go.

You might have been seeing some headlines here and there about how democrats are all for erectile dysfunction medication for child molesters; here’s what that’s about.

The idea is that by securing even a slight adjustment in the language, the Senate will have to send the bill back to the House of Representatives for reconsideration. Drawing out the process makes it more likely for it to be tripped up.

On Tuesday, the GOP put its strategy into action, with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okl.) introducing an amendment beyond agreeable. Titled “No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders” it would literally prohibit convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders from getting erectile dysfunction medication from their health care providers.

While it will undoubtedly be difficult for Democrats to vote against the measure (one can conjure up the campaign ads already), the party plans to do just that.

Allahpundit adds:

Everyone get the joke here? If the Dems amend the reconciliation bill for any reason, they have to send it back to the House for yet another vote. So anything the GOP proposes — anything — they’re basically bound to vote no on. And Coburn knows it. One tasty shinola sandwich, coming up! Although I’m confused: If, as the left has convinced itself, ObamaCare is pure win for them politically (see, e.g., today’s ridiculously overhyped Gallup poll), what’s the aversion to another House vote? In fact, why not ping-pong the bill back and forth between the chambers for another month, loading it up with ever more crowd-pleasing amendments? It’s time to own the glorious political victory that looms in November, liberals.

Hat tip to Cassy Fiano.

Fox News, and others, are reporting that the bill is headed back to the House anyway.

The follow-up health care bill being considered by the Senate will have to return to the House for final congressional approval, after the Senate parliamentarian determined that two Republican challenges will succeed in stripping out language in the package.

Altering the bill in any way means it has to return to the House side, which first approved the package of changes Sunday, since both chambers must pass identical versions.

Democrats don’t appear worried. Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the House could easily approve the expected changes. The Senate is expected to complete work on the bill Thursday afternoon, and the House could take it up again the same day — or push it off until Friday.

The package of changes, which is being considered under “reconciliation” rules allowing the Senate to approve it with just 51 votes, is the final piece of the legislative puzzle to the health care reform package signed into law Tuesday. Health care reform is officially enacted, but House Democrats wanted the package of fixes to change the way it’s financed and address other concerns.

The glitches have to do with Pell grants for low-income students.

A senior Senate Republican leadership aide told Fox News that Democrats had tried to improve the cost of the bill while simultaneously piling on Pell grants “without mandating the spending.” The aide said Democrats claimed the grants would increase, but were relying on a “future Congress” to find the funding.

“They can’t do that,” the aide said. “This was one of 100 gimmicks used to keep the score down.”

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Hat tip to Rick.

Real tolerance:

When I heard Coulter was coming to Canada I figured attending the event would be worth the entertainment value, if for nothing other than to witness the unhinged reaction that was sure to follow. Ottawa U didn’t disappoint.

When I arrived there was a line of a few hundred, maybe a thousand people outside the Marion building. A few of them were chanting in front of the cameras but the line was otherwise better behaved than for a typical rock concert. The size of the line was no doubt a bit of a problem because the room held no more than 400 (my estimate).

Since I had registered for the event ahead of time I had no trouble elbowing my way to the front, verifying my name was on the list, getting inside and chatting briefly with Ezra Levant.

After a while the fire alarm went off, the obvious false alarm having been dealt with we sat down expecting the event to start.

Instead Ezra announced that police told him it would be “physically unsafe” to bring Ann in due to the “unruly mob” outside. There was certainly no issue, or even noise, inside the auditorium.

The cops ended up shutting it down.

So if there’s a space alien living in your spare bedroom and he’s counting on you to fill him in on all your Earth customs, would you be able to explain this?

The left is concerned that we put policies in place that work for everyone…and that everyone have a voice.

But only the cool parts of “everyone.”

Cracked.

Keep your eyes closed, Marion.

Hat tip to Nation of Cowards.

Ah, this is good. Hope David Mamet is crying in his beer about this. The always-excellent Iowahawk:

Rahm
Put. That iPhone. Down. The Coffee Party’s for closers. You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. I’m here from fucking downtown. I’m here from Barack and Andy Stern. And I’m here on a fucking mission of mercy. Your fucking name’s fucking Hoyer? You fucking call yourself a fucking salesman you fucking son of a fuck?

Pete
Nice fucking vocabulary, you fucking fuck. We don’t gotta sit here and listen to this shit.

Rahm
You certainly don’t pal, ’cause the good news is – you’re fired. You’re all fucking fired if you miss that vote quota. The bad news is – you’ve got, all of you’ve got just seven months to get re-elected starting tonight. Oh? Have I got your attention now? Good. “Cause we’re adding a little something to this bill’s vote contest. As you all know first prize is a genuine leather upholstered committee chair. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is ambassadorship to Belgium. Fourth prize is YOU’RE FIRED. Get the picture? You laughing now? You got seats. Andy paid good money for those seats, get their names and sell them. If you can’t close this you can’t close shit. You ARE shit. Hit the bricks pal, and beat it ’cause you are going OUT. And there won’t be a lobbying operation in this town that will hire you.

Steny
The polls are weak.

Rahm
The polls are weak? Fucking polls are weak. You’re weak. I’ve been in this business 25 years…

Barney Frank
Who the hell are you?

Rahm
Fuck you. That’s who I am. You know why, mister? You drove a fucking Buick to get here. I drove a half million dollar bulletproof Secret Service Escalade. THAT’S my name. And your name is you are wanting. You can’t play in this game, you can’t close them – go home and tell your pollster your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this congress: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. You hear me you fucking faggots? A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing. ALWAYS BE CLOSING. C-B-S. Create. Bullshit. Sob stories. C-N-N. Cocksuckers. Need. News footage. M-S-N-B-C. Might. Soon. Need. Bailout. Cash.

This hits the spot. HDB stands for High-Drama Bitch…and I like seeing HDBs treated the way HDBs should. Especially mildly annoying Star Wars characters. “Why are you in freak mode?”

“I see you have gotten barbeque sauce on my bathrobe.” “You have done that yourself!” Hehe.

The General would like bin Laden alive.

“The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden,’’ Mr. Holder said, responding to hypothetical questions from Republicans about whether the Obama administration would try Mr. bin Laden in a civilian or military court.
:
General McChrystal was subsequently asked during a Pentagon briefing by telephone from Afghanistan on Wednesday if the military had given up on catching an alive Mr. bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. The general expressed surprise at the question.

“Wow, no,’’ General McChrystal responded. “If Osama bin Laden comes inside Afghanistan, we would certainly go after trying to capture him alive and bring him to justice.’’

Holder is just whacked out on this thing. He must be smoking something.

Times get good and times get bad, people become more concerned with freedom and then they become more concerned with security. They trust conservatives more in one year and then they trust the liberals more in another year.

But this is something about liberals that I think always makes people queasy. Most people, anyway.

It is this notion that you have what I would call “swollen” rights. Rights brought to you by the evil sticky black slimy stuff. Any dispute that arises from you having these rights, shall be adjudicated in your favor. Every single doubt shall be resolved to your benefit. And if anyone utters a peep of protest their career shall be ended, to make an example out of them for others.

But that the rights are situational. Yeah, I’m making a reference here to abortion…you have the right to have your vote “counted” even though you are too stupid to know what’s going on or to get to the polling place by yourself…womb-to-tomb healthcare…to work at Hooter’s even if you’re a man. To send the cop packing even though it’s known you have a stash, because you happen to have gotten it all flushed before he broke the door down. To an electric scooter if you’re fat and lazy. To join a union and get the same six weeks of paid vacation someone else has. But only if you cross that finish line. If you’re still in your momma’s belly, then that means you don’t even exist yet. Then, you can forget about even the most fundamental human rights…nevermind your six weeks of vacation. Forget about all of it. It’s situational.

This is where Holder’s going with UBL. The terrorist mastermind, according to Holder doctrine as I understand it, would have a great big ol’ smorgasbord of rights. If he made it back here. But it ain’t gonna happen.

Holder sees our primary enemy, it seems to me, as an unborn fetus. Osama has all these “rights” that are all to be arbitrated in his favor…that are swollen. But situational. He is entitled to the creme de la creme, but can be deprived of just the basics. If certain events do not happen. It all depends on that. Complete extremism on one side if the events do not happen, complete extremism on the other side if they do. It changes the class of the person we are talking about.

I don’t see this as an American ideal, and I think most people agree with me about that. At least, more people agree with me than with our Attorney General; rights, along with privileges, are determined at any given time by what a person has done as well as by what a person is.

According to that, then, his trial and sentencing would be about as quick as that scene in TimeCop. You know…Jean-Claude saves that guy from falling in 1929 by taking him back to the present, they find him guilty, he’s sent back into mid-fall to go crashy crashy and be just another fallen despondent investor. About that quick.

There’s something in the Eighth Amendment that makes that unconstitutional? Point out the passage, please. Word for word, letter for letter.

Morgan cannot retire, goes the conventional wisdom, for there is no place. He wants to wake up to the salty smell of the ocean and the roar of the pounding surf. But he also wants to haul his beer bottles out to his backyard, and turn them into glass confetti by means of some personal sidearm whose caliber begins with the number 3. On a whim.

The liberal hippies have taken over the coastlines. So with just two requirements poor Morgan has ruled out everything.

It would appear, from this list, that perhaps this is not the case. When the time comes I’m too gray and wrinkly and big-eared to be seen in an office, this could be handy information to have.

Bang bang.

The excitement takes place from 0:35 to 0:37, and if you step along frame by frame you’ll see the girl doesn’t even flinch. I think that’s so great. Hoodlum.

Via Boortz.

The title is taken from the post previous.

Blogger friend Buck was admiring a cartoon about the democrat party being ready to commit suicide to get their cowpie of a health care bill through. I consider the situation to be a tad bit more complicated; to bottom-line it into a single sentence, I ask the reader to think on an America with a “public” health care plan installed — what kind of conservative movement thrives therein? Is it something we’d recognize today? Something closer to colonial times, right before the Revolution? Or something rather like “Conservatives” and “Labour” over in the UK?

Rules affect the mindset of a people who live under them. Dependency-based rules foster a dependency-based mindset. We are currently witnessing the slow death of independent spirit — within the world, for this is its last stand — and it is a homicide. Architects do not care how many other Architects there are, but a Medicator wants everyone else to be a Medicator.

And then the lefty-leaning George-Bush-hating anti-war Canuck with the dark curly bangs, KC, makes my point for me. On purpose. From Mark Steyn, via here:

So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that “now is the hour when we must seize the moment,” the same moment he’s been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let “health” “care” “reform” stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it’s worth it. Big time. I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture.

It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.

I could be wrong, but I have the impression this point went sailing over the head of our friend in New Mexico. Yes, come next year the democrat party might very well be whittled down to a representation of a hundred seats, or fewer still, in the lower chamber of our Congress. Could very well be.

But the party labels are but a means to an end. The representation in Congress is but a means to an end.

They want to transform this society. They have not hidden this intent, ever, not one single time. They have been out-and-proud about this.

When they talk about how much they love this country, they’re saying not a single word about what the country is today or what she has been in the past. They are speaking of the love a sculptor has for a blob of clay, or a painter has for a blank canvas. They want to turn the country into something the country presently is not…and then they will love that. That is what they mean when they say that.

They are controlling people. And yet, paradoxically, the kindest thing you can do for them is to deprive them of this control. With control comes responsibility, and they do not have any affinity for that at all. They just don’t look down the road very far. It is their nature; they are impulsive, addictive types.

It’s the source of all the arguing we ever do, especially now, because all thinking adults fall into one camp or another. And each individual further ensconces himself into his chosen role every time he does more thinking.

Defined originally here.

What follows are supplements to that.

1. Architects are not concerned about whether someone else possesses more wealth than they do. Their concern over whether someone else possesses more skill, begins and ends on the question of whether or not that other person can help them in some way, and whether there may be low-hanging fruit for them in the self-improvement department.

Medicators don’t want anybody else to have something they don’t have, be it skill or money. Jealousy is a common failing for the Medicator. They easily fall prey to “Tall Poppy” syndrome.

2. Architects see the entire universe as an assembly of parts, each of which in turn can be further dissembled into smaller parts. Eventually you get down to atomic parts that cannot be divided any further. As these parts interact with each other, you have an explanation for every single other thing that happens. Events have a cause-and-effect relationship with one another. Objects have a my-state-affects-your-state relationship with one another. Objects and events are not synonymous, it’s more like: Object, plus object, plus time, equals event.

Medicators see the entire universe as a situation. Objects within the situation are not separable from other objects, unless you’re casting an object as a catalyst for something that is good or bad. And when that happens, “object” and “event” are functionally synonymous. Neither is terribly complex, they’re just beneficial, damaging, or some other synonyms of those. George W. Bush makes bad things happen, Barack Obama causes “hope.”

3. Because Architects see all things as an assembly of other things, when a complex device is not working properly they want to break it down, find out which component is faulty, and fix or replace it. Then they want to put it all back together again and watch it begin a second functional life.

Medicators evaluate complex mechanisms in bulk. If the entire assembly does not work as it should, they infer that each piece of it must be contaminated by whatever flaw is inside, and their tendency is to counsel toward replacing all of it. If this does not happen, they get frustrated.

4. Observing a system set up by someone else, an Architect is rather unconcerned about how it works inside unless it shows signs of holding a solution to some vexing problem the Architect has been trying to solve. If he perceives that much to be the case, he’ll want to take it apart and study it.

A Medicator is distressed by signs that the system works internally in a way different from the way he would have designed it; interestingly, if the system achieves objectives outside the Medicator’s design potential, he is unconcerned with this. He wants things to be built the way he would have built them, even if this means they could do fewer things.

5. Consensus holds very little meaning for the Architect, who sees it as simply a component within the human social condition, which in turn is just another component within the universe. He does not see group agreement as any kind of a lodestar. To him, group decisions may be right or they may be wrong. If they’re wrong, he wants to use what’s right and he doesn’t care who wanted to do it the other way.

Medicators assign far greater meaning to group consensus. They are distressed by proposals that would challenge it or deviate from it. Mistakes made by Medicators are often traced to excessive weight being attached to the consensus.

6. Architects are deficient in perceiving the group consensus as it is being formed. These people are often the last in the room to figure out where it is headed as it is evolves. They are generally sluggish in figuring out what is going on around them. Architects are far more likely to miss a social engagement because they have been working on a project.

Medicators, on the other hand, are especially adept at perceiving the group consensus. This is often, but by no means always, because they are taking on a role in driving it as it evolves. They “grok,” which means to observe something and then bond with it, until the distinction is lost between whether the observer is manipulating the observed or vice-versa. When you watch a Medicator interact with his environment, the governing principle is Heisenberg.

7. Architects tend to have tin ears. They are often caught in situations in which what they say might be welcome on some other occasion with a different emotional overtone, but is not appealing in the moment because their timing is off. Wherever an Architect has ultimately distinguished himself as being somewhat competent in this area, it is the culmination of many years of puzzle-solving, with the peers around him being the puzzle; it isn’t the genuine emotional empathy it appears to be.

Medicators are more in tune with the emotional tenor of the setting. If they err in the timing of some remark or another, they demonstrate gifts as they self-correct from this, diminishing their social losses and enhancing their social gains.

8. Architects, being more in tune with the cause-and-effect nature of the phenomena around them, are more at ease with assuming responsibility for the correctness of a certain course of action. They view any research into the political ramifications of such decisions as an unwelcome hassle.

Medicators place much greater weight on the decisions of others. They regard decisions in a much better light if someone has already done the same thing. They are not good at blazing new trails and are highly uncomfortable trying.

9. Architects tend to see property and wealth as compensation for time, services or goods. Consequently, they see an unusually high personal accumulation of wealth as a sign of productivity, efficiency, or possibly theft.

Medicators do not see material property as a metric. Their tendency is to envision wealth as a desirable commodity that is distributed randomly. They see a distribution that should have taken place, and another distribution that really did take place — these two are always different.

10. An Architect decides what to do, from one minute to the next, as the culmination of some logical thought process involving tasks yet incomplete, the block of uninterrupted time anticipated to be available, and a schedule of priorities. Unexpected interruptions upset them. If the non-discretionary expense of time (job or chore) has already been completed, the Architect may indulge in a recreation. The recreation always involves building something.

Medicators decide what to do according to a more emotional process. There is “work” and there is “play”; play is preferred, but overruled if the work is urgent or has been neglected for too long. If nothing is overdue, the Medicator is far more likely to play. Play does not involve building anything.

11. An Architect is unlikely to suffer from an addiction because he doesn’t possess the requisite sensitivity to his own emotional profile to feel the temporary benefits of abusing something.

Medicators are highly likely to form addictions, usually of all likes and kinds: Substance, alcohol, co-dependent relationships, sex, an engaging video game, etc. That’s what they do. They medicate.

12. An Architect’s free time will all be channeled into one project, which will live onward until it achieves the point of evolution he had in mind for it at the beginning, or until he tires of it. If he does not have the resources to attend to this, he will spend the free time on something that might expand his understanding of the task at hand.

A Medicator’s free time will be channeled into something entertaining or emotionally uplifting. It is a hallmark of the Medicator to feel withdrawal symptoms if some singular favorite activity — which remains a consistent attachment, across decades — is not partaken within some amount of time. This activity is an activity of ritual, sometimes involving score-keeping. It is non-edifying. This is the “medicating.”

13. Architects rarely “Tweet.” Many of them have yet to figure out Twitter.

Medicators pretty much live there.

14. An Architect expects an arbitration or judgment to be decided by the applicable laws and the circumstances of the case.

A Medicator is more likely to root for the underdog. He will defend, and even champion, a case with an illogical outcome so long as the outcome is favorable to the party for which he feels the greater empathy.

15. To an Architect, building something that does not work is the same as starting to build something and giving up; which is the same as never even bothering to start. Intentions don’t mean very much to an Architect.

Medicators care about intentions over outcome. Perception is as important as reality, and in some cases more important than reality. They are often caught “remembering” some grand effort to have been a raging success when history recalls it to have been a dismal failure.

16. Architects believe there is some connection between what happens to a person, and what the person did or didn’t do to make it happen or keep it from happening. If the connection is not immediately evident, they believe with some diligent research it will soon become obvious. Architects see people as products of individual actions.

Medicators do not recognize such a connection between deeds and events — they even remain skeptical when hard evidence is presented to this effect. They see events as more-or-less random and disconnected from a person’s actions, and people as fortunate-or-unfortunate beings of randomness that coincide with these events.

17. Because Architects are more inextricably connected to reality, they do not see too many options available when a lecture is given to a student and the student cannot pay attention. You can lower your assessment of the child’s maturity, discipline, and grasp of the subject matter; you can kick his ass. You can wait for him to get older and try it later.

Medicators medicate. Even your relationship to your own brain is a collision of randomness, which if an unfortunate one, can and should be remedied. Prescribe some goop for the child and try again.

18. Evaluating a job candidate, an Architect would like to present a difficult problem and observe him trying to solve it. He considers everything else a waste of time.

The Medicator would like to know that a third party has assessed the candidate to be capable of completing some class of tasks. He does not care who this third party is, exactly, nor is he too concerned about whether the tasks at which the candidate is deemed competent, coincide much with the work that has to be done. Certifications, degrees, and the like, will absolutely dazzle him. He is not evaluating ability to perform, he is evaluating ability to bond on an emotional level with virtual strangers.

19. An Architect who votes for a candidate wants someone with values like his, and a good sense of judgment. Ideally, he would like a clone of himself, who has time to serve in the stated position that he does not have.

A Medicator does not want someone like himself in the position; he wants someone much, much better.

20. An Architect doesn’t particularly care how many other Architects there are.

A Medicator wants everyone else to be a Medicator. Convert or die.

Hat tip to Daphne, who has some of the wittiest commenters.

But it must be alright, because white folk are losing faith faster than anyone. Yay!

The study of 1,022 American adults by Xavier University found broad agreement that the American Dream – which respondents defined themselves – is harder to achieve now than it has been in the past, and will be even harder for the next generation.

The data shows that “people are losing faith” in the idea that they can achieve whatever they set their mind to, said a release put out by Xavier’s Institute for Politics and the American Dream.

But outlooks were most grim among white respondents – only 29 percent of whites surveyed said the American Dream was in good condition, compared with 48 percent who said it is in bad condition.

Among black Americans, 39 percent were optimistic about achieving the American Dream, with 35 percent pessimistic. Latinos were optimistic by a 37 percent to 36 percent margin, and non-white’s were positive by 36 percent to 35 percent.

Best explanation I’ve seen of it yet. How do you get the monstrosity of a health care bill through the two houses of Congress, when you don’t have the votes to do it?

Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.

But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates.

So at the Speaker’s command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what’s known as a “self-executing rule,” also known as a “hereby rule.” Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.

Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote.

So it isn’t about bringing health care services to people who need them, and it isn’t about responding to The Will of the People, Consent of the Governed, or any of that.

Back to the Architects and Medicators paradigm. People who bristle at the idea of being dependent on someone else, by & large really don’t care how others choose to live their lives; but people who adapt more easily to the idea of becoming human cattle, overall want everyone else to be as dependent on someone else as they are. Architects do not care how many other Architects there are but Medicators want everyone else to be a Medicator.

That really is what this is all about.

I’ve been hearing lately that the democrat party wants to commit “suicide” to pass this turkey of a bill — if the Slaughter Option, Reconciliation, whatever it takes, leads to some kind of bloodletting in November, well then the democrats say Bring It On. So they’re invoking a kamikaze attack against the American principles of freedom, liberty and independence.

That isn’t really what this is. You aren’t going to see a new wild exuberance for Republicans as a result of this. There is a reason we don’t want a health care system like this in America, and the reason is that laws like this have a deep and profound impact on the people who come under them. It changes the way they think. You cannot declare yourself independent of a government that is in charge of authorizing your next dose of blood clotting medication, or heart attack pills, or No-Doze.

It would fundamentally change the nature of the relationship between government and governed. That is why they want it. And once that relationship is so changed, it won’t be that hard to get back in again if you’re a democrat. To a nation of zombies, it would be second nature: Need my stuff. Put this guy in. He go get me my stuff.

From Allahpundit at HotAir.

Holy crap.

We obtained Justice Department accounts of some of those incidents under a Freedom of Information Act request. Examples included an incident in which a lawyer sent his detainee client the transcript of a virulently anti-American speech that compared military physicians to Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor of Auschwitz, called DOJ lawyers “desk torturers” and suggested that the “abuses carried out by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib . . . could involve the President in the commission of war crimes.”

Other incidents listed in the FOIA material included: a lawyer who was caught in the act of making a hand-drawn map of a detention camp’s layout, including guard towers; a lawyer who sent a letter to his detainee client telling him that “we cannot depend on the military to do the right thing” and conveying his message of support to other detainees who were not his clients; lawyers who posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet; lawyers who provided news outlets with “interviews” of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organization; and a lawyer who gave his client a list of all the detainees.

So let me see if I’m clear on this: If you’re a defense attorney providing a vigorous defense of scumbags — up to and including, handing out brochures recruiting more Gitmo detainees into your client list, convincing them the United States is conducting a worldwide campaign of torture against Muslims — that’s OK. Better than OK. You can go on to work for Eric Holder’s Department of Justice and We, The People don’t have the right to know what you’ve been doing.

If, on the other hand, you are specifically asked to provide a legal opinion about waterboarding, you determine there are circumstances under which it’s alright and you draft a memorandum saying as much — ooh, that’s bad bad bad.

Yeah…you know, I kind of saw both sides of this issue about what Liz Cheney was doing. Now I don’t. Our nation’s legal system is becoming a toxin, and the right to defend ourselves from it is an implicit attribute of sovereignty. Or “The Constitution is not a suicide document,” is another way of putting it.

Via Lileks.

Sacramento Bee:

IRS visits Sacramento carwash in pursuit of 4 cents

It was every businessperson’s nightmare.

Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35.

Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical.

“It’s hilarious,” he says, “that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think (the IRS) may have a problem with priorities.”

From here.

Hat tip to Kevin.