…pesky, pesky data.

Hat tip to William Teach.

Credibility problems.

Hat tip to blogger friend Rick.

Liberated.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Hate mail.

What a putz.

In full retreat, a humiliated and somber Ed Schultz opened his MSNBC show on Wednesday night by apologizing to Laura Ingraham for using, on his radio show, “vile and inappropriate language” to describe her, language he did not repeat. On Tuesday, the left-wing host had slimed the conservative talk radio host as a “right-wing slut” and a “radio slut.” (After Schultz’s statement, Thomas Roberts hosted the rest of the hour.)

Schultz pleaded: “I am deeply sorry, and I apologize. It was wrong, uncalled for and I recognize the severity of what I said. I apologize to you, Laura, and ask for your forgiveness.” He added that “I also met with management here at MSNBC, and understanding the severity of the situation and what I said on the radio and how it reflected terribly on this company, I have offered to take myself off the air for an indefinite period of time with no pay.” The official NBC management statement, however, said he had agreed to “one week of unpaid leave.”

But let’s be honest, this wasn’t Tourette syndrome or any involuntary spasm. There are a whole lot of people running around thinking something like — sexism is bad, racism is bad, we should enforce etiquette, we should end careers of people caught saying the wrong things, indeed we need to look for reasons to do so…but if you successfully advance a conservative agenda and you belong to a minority group, or you are a female, then all bets are off.

That’s what this is really about. That’s what it has always been about. Second-class citizens who aren’t entitled to the same things, namely the same expectations of respect, to which “normal” people are entitled. There is this sentiment out there, embraced by large numbers of people — they aren’t all on teevee — that women and minorities carry some special obligation to be liberals. A white male taking up a position somewhere to the political right of Hillary Clinton is a jackass and a jerk and a “teabagger” or something; but a homosexual or a woman or Hispanic or African-American doing the same thing, is to be subjected to the prerational curse of ostracism. You shall be shunned, whoever does not shun you shall be shunned, whoever does not shun he who did not shun you shall likewise be shunned.

In keeping with that, Schultz shunned Ingraham so he wouldn’t be shunned. He had to do it, and with the same events playing out again he’d do it again. We’ll see a whole lot more of this, because that is how it works.

Seems very contrite, very sincere. Just like Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking…but let’s take a look at the original crime.

See, I’m wondering: When Ed Schultz apologizes for using that word and promises never to do it again, does that mean — the Ed Schultz show is going to discuss the issues, the ramifications of doing A versus B? Or at least the ramifications involved of doing A versus not doing A? As opposed to the ritual garbage of attacking “the Republicans” for daring to support something other than ritual leftist dogma? I doubt it. There is symbolism involved in that word “slut,” and what is represented has absolutely nothing to do with being an indiscrete slovenly woman of ill repute. Laura Ingraham was sent down a chute into a refuse pile because she deviated from the expected thought process: Think about your “next-door neighbor,” spend the money, screw the taxpayers, and everything Obama does is wonderful. Anyone who wanders out of that rigid outline is sub-human and that’s all we need to discuss. If a woman or minority wanders out of that rigid outline then it counts double, in fact there’s a virtual perceived bounty to be awarded if you trash-talk them. Just make sure the right people are paying attention when you do it.

I’m glad there’s nothing but a smoking crater where he was standing a short time earlier, but that’s the leafy part of the weed. The root is fully intact, and it is this: Liberals believe in derailing any discussion that becomes thoughtful enough that their own ideas are treated with anything but instant acceptance. They believe in marginalizing the opposition as a primary means of exchanging ideas. They believe in prerationalism. “So, we’re all on board, right?” is the only sentiment they see as valid in any meeting-of-the-minds about anything…they don’t know what to do with dissent and they don’t even know what to do with questions. If they encounter any skepticism at all — even the talk-show dickheads, like Schultz — they pretty much wing it from that point, with far more concern about climbing their own little social ladders than bringing the situation to a beneficial resolution.

And sometimes…a lot of the time…the results are very ugly.

Hmmm. Well, glad to see this is still making the rounds. Nicely captures the Obama-narcissistic-personality “You Should Be Thanking Me” aspect of the modern leftist movement.

I recently went through my day being mindful of what taxes do for me. I took a shower in clean water. I drove to work over safe, well-maintained streets. I was free to practice a profession of my choosing. I am able to do this work because I got my degree at a California state school and passed the California Board exam to earn my license.

On the way home, I stopped at an FDIC bank to take out some money that I had earned and am allowed to keep to support myself and my family. I stopped at a grocery store and bought safe food to eat due to various government regulations. I took my dog for a walk at a beautiful regional park. I picked up a takeout dinner at a restaurant inspected by state inspectors. And I went to sleep in peace.

Government exists to provide us with tangible things that an individual cannot provide for himself. I am so tired of people complaining about taxes as if they get nothing in return. It takes money to run a government that allows us to live our lives as we do.

So, let’s be grown-up about it and raise taxes to keep California from becoming a third-world country.

Got that? History always began yesterday…and California teeters on the brink of becoming “a third-world country”…because of, oh, nuthin’ in particular, but it needs to raise taxes to pay for more regulation to keep from becoming one.

California does.

Yup.

The “I am able to do this work because I got my degree at a California state school and passed the California Board exam” is particularly snort-worthy. Evidently the author, grown-up Susan Wong who I’m sure is paying extra taxes to reflect the level to which she thinks they should be raised, didn’t think it necessary to write such a letter while she was sitting on an unemployment line waiting for someone to make the key decision: That hiring Ms. Wong was worth the extra time, effort and money involved with meeting regulatory requirements. That part of it just wasn’t worth talking about?

This is precisely the point where it becomes a legitimate discipline of scientific research in the mental health field. Wouldn’t it be more productive to stretch leftist statism over a psychiatrist’s couch, and pepper it with questions about what its parents were like and what its phobias are, than to argue with it interminably over the innernets? The patient seems to have made up its mind to charge on ahead…Taxes! Regulation! …ignorant, or apathetic, or both, of its own goals, whether said goals have something to do with solving a problem, what the nature of the problem might be, how exactly it got here…

…whether the other 49 states are having any better luck dealing with the same problem, or what they might be doing differently. And meanwhile — government, for some reason, simply doesn’t have the capacity to do anything wrong. Corporations, on the other hand, simply don’t have it in their character to ever do anything right.

And by & large, these are exactly the same people who think it’s a good thing that the movie & teevee culture has turned its back on the “classic western” genre or anything anywhere built around straight-up good-versus-evil contests. Better to have these shades-of-gray people to reflect the nuances present in real life. Hooker with the heart of gold. “I have to steal it in order to save it.” He’s got to assassinate the ambassador or the super-duper bad guy will kill his daughter. Sure Anakin turned to the Dark Side, but he did it for love. It’s not the black hats & white hats the offend our liberals, it’s what is represented; they like having a little good in the evil, and a little evil in the good. It makes for a whole bunch of interesting debates. So it’s always too soon for a remake of Gunsmoke, but we can remake everything else…

But when it comes to their own plans, government can be Shane and anything in the private sector can be Jack Wilson. Simplicity is perfectly fine then. When…uh…when we’re talking about real life? The real life that was supposed to be emulated by these movie characters with all these shades of gray they needed to have, to better reflect real life?

An explanation is required. If one is not forthcoming, we need a sound theory. Three possibilities emerge:

1. It’s pure cognitive dissonance, and should be treated as a mental disorder.
2. I’m mistaken. This Susan Wong person who “wrote” the e-mail, or the author who originally wrote it, along with the many leftists who say it speaks for them…they’re different from the people who cringe at the classic western with the white hats and the black hats. There’s no overlap, it’s a figment of my imagination.
3. It’s not so much a conspiracy, more like a primal impulse or a gut instinct — things are generally more satisfying when people are “debating” what goes on in a movie and what it says about the characters, than when they skeptically inspect government policies that actually might have a measurable impact on large numbers of people.

Maybe there should be a fourth option that combines #1 and #3…a certifiable mental illness that calls for endless discourse about issues that bear little actual impact on things, and an “elephant-in-the-room” silent treatment directed toward other issues that bear much greater impact.

I’d lean toward that one.

But whatever the cause, it’s worth inspecting the thought process: Government can’t do anything wrong, or if it ever does, it’s wrong so little of the time that the lack of frequency of the wrong-ness brings the occasion down to the depths of statistical insignificance. Government is the clock in a roomful of clocks, the one that was synchronized down to the second to the official atomic clock a few weeks ago, or that enjoys the reputation of keeping the most accurate time, or is perceived to deserve such a rep because it is the most expensive (!) of all the clocks. There are no unintended consequences of government policies. There’s something about being on the government’s payroll, that makes a person instantly pure, ethical and wise. Government actions always work, or if ever they don’t, the thing to do is to double-down and try it again because you didn’t do enough.

But of course, more than half of the time the United States President happens to be a Republican…at which time, this same government turns wretchedly, abysmally evil. And then, government can’t do anything right. But we are not to think of this when we ponder the implications of having government manage the most intimate aspects of our lives. It’s like a complete non-starter or something.

Why do we allow these people to vote in politicians? And the ones who are politicians, why do we let them write legislation that, once voted in, cannot ever be repealed and just hang around like a fart in an elevator? Why do we give them such power? These people, crazy or not, shouldn’t be allowed to own potted plants or pets.

Victor Davis Hanson sums up life in the Golden State. It isn’t pretty by a damn sight.

Tens of thousands of prisoners are scheduled by a U.S. Supreme Court order to be released. But why this inability to house our criminals when we pay among the highest sales, income, and gas taxes in the nation? Too many criminals? Too few new prisons? Too high costs per prisoner? Too many non-violent crimes that warrant incarceration?
:
Our schools rate just below Mississippi in math and science. Tell me why, given our high taxes and highest paid teachers in the nation? Can the governor or legislature explain? Is the culprit the notoriously therapeutic California curriculum? The inability to fire incompetent teachers? The vast number of non-English speaking students? Derelict parents? How odd that not a single state official can offer any explanation other than: “We need more money.” What is the possible cure for the near worst math and science students in the nation? Yes, I see it now: the California Senate just passed a bill mandating the teaching of homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered history, just the sort of strategy to raise those English composition and vocabulary scores among the linguistic and arithmetic illiterate.

Try driving a California “freeway” lately, say the 101 between Gilroy and San Luis Obispo or the 99 between Modesto and Stockton, or an east-west lateral like the 152 between Casa de Fruita and Gilroy, or the 12 between Napa and Stockton. In other words, just try driving across the state. These stretches are all nightmarish death traps (the concrete divider on the two-lane 12 is a sick joke, a sort of kill-contraption), no improvements from 40 years ago when there were 15 million fewer people and far better drivers. But how did this happen when we pay the highest gasoline taxes in the nation; where did the revenue go? Is there some cruel joke I’m missing — a stash of billions in gas tax money buried somewhere and never used?

That just sums up life in California right there: Is there a big stash somewhere? A big palette of hundred dollar bills being used to level out a table with a shorter leg, or maybe for extra insulation the attic? Otherwise, it doesn’t add up. It’s like handing over your paycheck to your lovely wife, month after month, year after year — but the the bank account is still empty, the bills still show up past-due, every single one of ’em…and dinner is always liver & onions or ham hock soup. Or that ever-popular modern-American single-income-household cuisine, I-didn’t-feel-like-cooking-let’s-order-out.

VDH is on to us. Our state treasury is a black hole; the astronomical metaphor applies every single way it possibly can. The escape velocity has long ago exceeded c, the speed of light, and nothing in our known universe can escape it. The gravity well only increases with every bit of detritus and flotsam that becomes so ensnared.

It isn’t very happy reading, but it is necessary reading. Especially if you are sharing this state with me. Or rather what’s left of the state.

Hat tip again to Gerard Van der Leun.

Quoth me, this weekend, after the supposed end of all Creation:

See, there are two reasons why people might care that you were here once: You got up off your ass and did something, or you were here when it all come to a screeching halt.

Getting up off your ass is hard.

Therefore, we have this perpetual fantasy, going on and on since 1000 AD give or take, that the world is ending. It’s just people who wish to be significant, people who want to matter, but don’t want to be bothered with getting up off their asses.

I don’t know if James Taranto reads my blog. I have always taken it as a given that hardly anybody does. But how else do you explain this gem from Best of the Web yesterday?

Doomsday superstitions seem to fulfill a basic psychological need. On the surface, the thought that God or global warming will destroy the world within our lifetimes is horrifying. But all of us are doomed; within a matter of decades, every person alive will experience the end of his own world. A belief in the hereafter makes the thought of death less terrifying. But so does a disbelief in the here, after. If the world is to end with us–if there is no life for anyone after our death–we are not so insignificant after all.

I’ve been robbed, but I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered.

However — it should be pointed out these ruminations on the feeling of comfort, or placation, to be found from embracing the latest world-is-ending merry-go-round…whether borrowed from these unread pages or not…represent just an afterthought after Taranto has made a larger point, which we did not make here:

Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that “[Harold] Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994.” Ha ha, you can’t believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.’s false prediction that there would be 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010? We did, but not Reuters.

This is an interesting question. At first, it seems the answer is obvious: The U.N. was snookered by peer pressure. I remember all the bullying like it was yesterday, all the “thousands of scientists agree with this and who in the world are you to say otherwise?” Caving in to peer pressure might be a sign of weak intellect, but it certainly isn’t a sign of insanity. If it were, that would mean eighty percent of the people with whom we attended high school, and perhaps more, were nuts. So that’s out. That’s the allure of peer pressure isn’t it? If everyone agrees with you, it doesn’t matter if what you did makes any sense, or not. You must not be nuts. Camping, on the other hand, might very well be clinically insane.

But here we come to another interesting point, a fortunate point into which we have blundered, and we owe this to Taranto. The results are pretty much the same. Coming to the wrong conclusion because you were taken for a ride on the bandwagon; coming to the wrong conclusion because you’re a nutbar. The results are exactly the same. Now, why are we concerned about people being insane, again? Why do we bother to make this differentiation? If it has something to do with the decisions being made, then why do we act like it is of absolutely no consequence, when obviously phony things become ostensibly real — just because lots of people have bought into them?

Come to think of it, are there any stories out there of Harold Camping reacting with sneering condescension to any skeptics out there against his flawed Judgment Day prediction of 5/21/11? Any stories about him working “behind the scenes” to get such skeptics shut down, or rather, shut up? I have yet to read any such thing about him. The global-warming hysterics, on the other hand…

Over thirty years ago, maybe thirty-five, my late mother got me turned on to James Michener books.

From Centennial, Chapter 12 — the book, not the teevee miniseries:

She was a soft-spoken, gray-haired woman of fifty, carrying a jar of honey. It seemed unlikely that she was lying, for men whispered, “Her husband and sons were hanged. She is thirsty for revenge.”

So a raiding party was organized, with this woman, still holding her jar of honey, serving as cout and Frijoles himself in command. They forayed eastward and the woman led them to a small valley where Colonel Salcedo had been forced to hole up, awaiting reinforcements, and when Frijoles saw that Salcedo was indeed among the troops, he became frenzied and led three suicidal charges into the mouths of the guns, and the federal soldiers were overwhelmed and slain one after another, but Salcedo was kept alive and taken prisoner.

He was a brave man. His thin mustache did not quiver when he faced his mortal adversay, and he stood firm in his polished German boots. Apparently Colonel Frejoles had long anticipated tis moment, for he knew precisely what he wanted to do. With his own hands he stripped Salcedo of all his clothes save the gleaming boots. Then he staked him out on a level piece of ground, where the sun would strike him evenly and roast him to death. Each hand was lashed to its own stake; each ankle tied to its stake, with all ropes pulled taut. He would be dead by nightfall.

But for the woman that was not enough. Into each orifice of the naked man’s body she trickled a thin stream of honey: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, anus — all were smeared so the savage ants of the desert would find them. And then the woman and Frijoles withdrew to watch the sun and the insects go to work, and when the screams were most agonized, Tranquilino asked, “Can I shoot him?” and Frijoles said, “No.”

End of chapter. Like…whoa.

Books is more savage than anything on the teevee, including Quentin Tarantino products. And chicks bring the beatdown with less mercy than dudes, anytime…when the occasion calls for it. Even in real life, where things don’t necessarily have to make sense — has any bereaved husband or father avenged his family in such a way? Makes Charles Bronson’s Death Wish franchise look like a Sunday picnic.

Blogsister Cassy linked over at the Hello Kitty of Bloggin’ to a story at HotAir about some ultra-urban everlastingly-angry male athlete, or rap artist, or whatever…going on record, babbling some kind of foolish nonsense about “the streets”:

Same old story: Order cannot prevail over chaos, until & unless order first surrenders to chaos.

Well, I don’t perform for a living with some hackneyed angry-tough-male act; I build stuff for a living, and if my stuff doesn’t work then I’m out of a job and that’s when I hit “the streets.” So I think this gives me cause to look at things differently. One of the first things I noticed…

It’s interesting nobody ever seems to say something like “lower taxes or there will be a crime wave” or “less regulation or there will be a crime wave.”

Hours later, I was notified of a change in the arrangements coming up picking up my son. Nothing big, an extra 160 miles, two ways, another tank of gas, and — really, this is the only thing I don’t see as an insignificant irritant — an extra five hours. You know, no biggie. “Kidzmom” knew I’d make her squirm over it, and I did just for ritual’s sake. But I’m not really put out anything…so it was a ritual. And I went on with it, pretty much as a favor to her, so she could go back to the local wife who over-promised her, so she could go back and club her husband over the head, who got some kind of itchy thought between his ears that started the whole shitball rolling downhill…on to me. And my fiance. Where it is sure to roll. Since we deliver on things. See, it’s the same principle as “watch how crime picks up if you take away our game.” The people who deliver on things, must yield; the people who don’t deliver on things and live life just minute-to-minute, get to decide things for everybody else…when, since they live life minute-to-minute and don’t plan anything, they don’t even care. They’re put in the driver’s seat anyway.

Like I said: Order cannot prevail over chaos until such time as order surrenders to chaos.

Where exactly goes that get you?

I’ll answer that: It gets you here…

It’s designed to protect the President from terror attacks but Barack Obama was left red-faced after one of his armour-plated Cadillacs was brought to a halt as it left the U.S. Embassy in Dublin.

The gigantic bomb-proof General Motors vehicle, with eight-inch thick steel on its door, didn’t even make it as far as the road outside the consulate.

The car had to be abandoned after the collision in front of waving crowds while Mr Obama and his wife were en route to his ancestral home in County Offaly.

Luckily, the vehicle that broke down was the spare limo used by the President’s Secret Service protection team.

Mechanics rushed in to rescue the vehicle which was lodged helplessly on the ramp, while onlookers stood and watched – some of whom took video footage and photos.

The cars, worth over $1million, is 18ft in length, weighs 8 tons and 8in thick armour plating on its doors.

When the President is riding in one, the vehicle is officially known as Cadillac One. However, it’s more apt nickname is ‘The Beast’.

Specially built for Mr Obama, the General Motors GM.N vehiclse boasts its own oxygen supply in case of chemical attack and puncture resistant, run-flat tyres reinforced with kevlar.

However none of this, it appears, could overcome the might of a lowly speed hump.

Hang on, I’m going to pick this up in just a second…be right back…hang on…++snkckxx++

BWAAAAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAA!!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!! BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! ++giggle++ ++snort++ (wipe tears from my eyes)

What’s so funny about this? I had more wisdom to dispense at the Hello Kitty of Bloggin’…

The really delicious irony here is: What is a speed bump? It’s a device used for traffic management, by means of interfering with the efforts of motorists who get too big for their britches…you know, the riff-raff. Obama’s immobilization comes from His coming into contact with the onerous regulatory device…much like one of His close pals who might have forgotten or neglected to pick up the ObamaCare waiver. The result? The whole parade comes to a screeching halt. Whereas, if He was tootling around in my 4-cylinder 2006 Honda…or in His predecessor’s chariot of choice…it would have been nothing but a bump in the road, literally.

See, our country…our disaffected, and bored, country…laboring under the delusion that life at the time sucked somehow, like we were getting our teeth kicked in by our (chuckle) tarnished reputation around the world…when, in reality, things were actually going pretty well for us, apart from the fact that our economy was imploding because liberal politicians were making all kinds of bullshit mortgage guarantees and, in fact, manufacturing the so-called “toxic assets” we came to need their special magic brand-new programs to clean up…which didn’t work. Apart from that, we actually had life pretty good. The House of Eratosthenes “real motto for America” applied well, in those days, as well as now: “Our Poor People Are Fat.”

But we felt oppressed, so we voted in an Alpha Male to run the country. The kind of guy who never has to change plans to accommodate somebody else…quite the other way around. A super special boy-god-king kinda guy. It’s His World The Rest Of Us Just Live In It!

And then He got Himself a super car. Because hey, when you’re riding around telling your lowly subjects to stop emitting carbon, eight miles a gallon is only the most reasonable rate to gulp down that diesel fuel. Five miles a gallon might be better…or gallons per mile…whatever.

But my point is, isn’t this a constant in chaos-before-order land? We’ve got these so-called “alpha males” — who, really, are just buffoons when you get down to it. Just clowns. They don’t build anything, they don’t make anything work, they just show off. They enjoy the finer things in life just because of their super-awesomeness, and we know they have this super-awesomeness because they’re enjoying the finer things in life. So their very existences become circular arguments. Their admirers sit on the sidelines and moan and wail away something to the effect of…”Well, the cycle must have gotten started somehow right? There must be something special about that guy, right?”

Uh, yeah. He expects it because His mom…small-m mom…was low class and didn’t teach Him any better. He’s a jackwagon. He’s a dick. A lot of the time…nearly all of the time…it’s no more complicated than that. Beginning to get the picture? What we have been taught, since middle school, to think of as “alpha males” are really phony alpha males. The clowns. No-talent guy-smileys.

See, the problem isn’t with these kinds of people. They’re always going to be like that. The immediate problem is, America has become temporarily infatuated with returning to the womb…we didn’t stick to our knitting, we began constructing a new royal family, someone Chosen By God to rule. Two universes were brought into conflict, because His Royal Majesty Barack The First was awarded an awesome wonderful set of wheels befitting His high station…but alas, had to contend with a roadway built for ordinary mortals. With a speed bump. His Deity-ness was compelled to bring one saintly foot into contact with the place where civil engineers work overtime to hurt the drivers, to make driving a painful experience “For The Greater Good.” Were the vehicle to remain massive and awesome, but the speed bump left out of the equation, all would be well. Were the speed bump to remain, but the vessel to be more humble, His Royal Schedule would continue throughout the day unmolested. It is where the two came into contact, the temporal and the divine, where trouble unfurled.

See, the problem is not the people. The problem isn’t the speed bumps, and the problem isn’t the thugs who get face time on some teevee interview where they get to threaten people. The problem is the social contract. The reliable people, the producers, the people who make things that didn’t exist before, the service-people, the people who actually deliver on things…are positioned, systematically, down at the end of the whip. There, they deal with all the chaos and the uncertainty — manufactured by others — only because they have demonstrated that they can. At that far end of the whip which gets cracked, they deal with the things of their own making as well as with the things made by others who are not as reliable as they are. The other people near the handle, who are agents of chaos, then do not have to deal with the things of their own making…because they have demonstrated, repeatedly, that they would not be ready, willing or able to. And so the disorder that they create every hour of every day, by failing to deliver on what they said they would do…is systematically drawn off of them, along with the associated consequences. The things they would not know how to build, like Kevlar-armored limousines with 6.5L diesel engines, are given to them. The lower hoi polloi are left to deal with the speed bumps…except when the exalted saintly alpha males drive over them by mistake.

Eventually, the whole system is shown not to work…but those consequences, too, are drained away. Mechanics rush in to take care of the disabled “Beast,” while His Holiness makes use of a spare Beast.

And for those criminals who make crime happen in “the streets” just because some football game is not being played — we have this screwball lawyered-up defense industry, to offer the “accused” their supposedly “constitutional” rights.

The real tragedy here is that Ray Lewis is right, just not in a way he expects to be right. There’s an “eighty-twenty” rule at work here: Twenty percent of us are dealing with eighty percent of the consequences of human failure, human unreliability, human fickleness. Another twenty percent of us are responsible for manufacturing that eighty percent of human unreliability, where it did not exist before. Those two twenty-percents, are not the same. They’re at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The twenty percent that does the dealing with the eighty percent of human unreliability, are also responsible for producing eighty percent of the wealth. And then everybody makes a big deal out of the fact that fifty percent of the wealth is enjoyed by ten percent of the people, well you know what? No duh.

But there’s a “tip-over” aspect to this. If twenty percent of us are creating eighty percent of the missed deadlines, or gaps in the social contract, which are then absorbed by the twenty percent at the other end of the spectrum…people see this happening, and it provides a powerful incentive for the next generation to become the chaotic twenty percent, rather than the orderly productive twenty percent. And in a few years, you know what? It’s not an eighty-twenty rule anymore. It’s more of a ninety-ten rule. And then a ninety-seven-three rule. And then a ninety-nine-one rule.

At some point, things do tip over, I think. It would have to be that way, would it not? At some point, the productive/orderly individual would become so scarce, that he’d stop losing control and start to gain it back again…write his own meal ticket, as it were. He doesn’t bust blood vessels or work himself into an early grave producing more. He just produces whatever he produces…and everybody else can fight like wild feral creatures over who gets to consume.

Whereupon, we run smack headlong into the original definition of “alpha male” in the first place. The top dog who gets the first pick. But you know what? The top-dog among a bunch of wild feral creatures, is still a pitiful, pathetic, wild feral creature.

And so Ray Lewis gave our country some pretty good cause, I think, to be embarrassed. He showed that our civilization, in some parts at least, is a dysfunctional civilization that cannot continue in its present form. He spoke on behalf of that other world, the world in which the chaotic, destructive, non-producers get what they want. By offering to the orderly, productive producers — not value to be traded for products and services received — but threats.

And our current President embarrassed the country too. The abortive journey of The Beast, as I noted, was metaphorical. It shows that this working relationship in our civilized nation, in which a non-producing, chaos-oriented “alpha male” of a scavenging beast, is freely given the spoils of the work of all the lower-ranking, but productive, producers. And comes to rely on it; can’t do without it. And is given a steady flow of it.

But becomes stalled, incapacitated, and helpless anyway. The argument does not ensue, only because there is no point having it, no rebuttal is possible: Our way of life is not sustainable. The people we have invested with the power to make rules, do not know enough to make anything else — they can only jab their fists or fingers in the air and pronounce that this, that, or some other damn silly thing, “should” be a certain way. Israel’s borders should be over here, that wealth should be spread around it’s good for everybody…et cetera. They can’t do anything else. The people who know how to make things people can actually use, have bored us, and so we have made sure all the important decisions are made by lesser, non-productive people. The supposed “alpha males.” Who know how to opine, and speechify, and not a damn single other thing.

Who end up being laughing-stocks when their limousines get stalled. Who end up waiting around for a real alpha male, to bail their unproductive non-producing super-pontificating phony-alpha-male asses out of trouble yet another time. While they stand their in their failed glory, before the snapping digital cameras.

So the question that naturally arises: What’s the point of having an alpha male at all? If the people who get to decide who the alpha male is, can’t put any quality thought into what makes one?

Cross-posted at Washington Rebel.

…in order to give rich people tax cuts.

Thanks to Newsbusters.

This kind of thing interests me because it cuts right to the heart of what is “right wing” and what is “left wing.” Supposedly, the terms came into use during & right before the French Revolution; you were right-wing if you were a royalist and backing Louis XVI, and you were a lefty if you backed Napoleon.

Today, it seems to me both sides are for some kind of freedom, at least if you believe in a literal way the words used by each side to describe itself…”right wing” is defense of our economic freedom, “left wing” is defense of some other kind of freedom. Someone, somewhere, must be lying since if it were that simple, an amalgamation of some kind would be inevitable wouldn’t it? We’d try to find some way to enjoy all kinds of freedoms. That’s not happening — nobody seems to be breaking a sweat trying to make it happen — so one side, or the other, must be not quite so chummy with the concept of freedom as they’re presenting themselves.

And then it occurs to me: What policy advanced by the left — anywhere! — is there to make some product or service easier to acquire in a free market? Or merely to preserve the status quo, for that matter…I can’t think of a single one, across all these issues. If there can be organized labor, they want it. If there can be a minimum wage, they want it raised. If there can be some bit of onerous regulation, they want that, and you’d better believe if there can be a tax they want that too.

It seems the only way they ever want it easier for anybody to be able to get hold of something they need, is if there’s a plan for that thing to be given away for “free,” compliments of the taxpayer. Oh, sorry…the “rich people.” Right.

That would be the former Congresswoman from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney…

A former U.S. congresswoman slammed U.S. policy on Libyan state TV late Saturday and stressed the “last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war.”

The station is fiercely loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and her interview was spliced with what appeared to be rallies in support of the embattled Libyan leader.

“I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here. And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth,” former Rep. Cynthia McKinney said during a live interview.

Much that is objectionable here. The overall tone is the same ol’ hippie nonsense, that all war is a product of misunderstanding and we can make it go away if everybody understands each other. I’m becoming cumulatively impatient with this, since I started reading it all as a confession of ignorance with regard to world history — which is chock full of brand new wars flaring up among people who understood each other just fine.

But what really frosted me was when she started picking on Holy Man:

The former Georgia representative also slammed the economic policies of U.S. President Barack Obama and said the government of the United States no longer represents the interests of the American people.

“Under the economic policies of the Obama administration, those who have the least are losing the most. And those who have the most are getting even more,” she said. “The situation in the United States is becoming more dire for average ordinary Americans and the last thing we need to do is to spend money on death, destruction and war.”

Somewhere in a closet is a placard marked up with “Under the economic policies of the [insert name here] administration, those who have the least are losing the most.”

My son and I rode the light rail downtown, back in ’09, and ran into a real live communist. He was all excited about attending his commie demonstration in downtown San Francisco, all about how we can’t take any more oppression from The Man & all, with a special keynote speaker Michael Moore! Yay! The election had only just happened, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing…the election had gone just the way Moore wanted, had it not? The hope, the change, whatever happened to that?

It was like speaking Latin to a dog. When you’re a revolutionary, history always began yesterday morning. So, yeah. There are people out there who think of Barack Obama as a symbol of all the ugliest right-wing shibboleths — blood for oil, corporate greed, keeping grass illegal, blah blah blah. And we need to get rid of Obama so we can bring the government back to The People…but they’re not Tea Party people, they’re high-drama lefties who don’t really care who’s running the show at any given time, that guy needs to go so we can Take Our Country Back. Perfect bliss is constantly one revolution away. The entire life being lived out on a turning point; the inevitable straight-away is something that simply doesn’t fit into their comprehension.

I dunno who they think they’re fooling. Themselves, maybe? But you don’t need to pay attention for too long before it becomes clear these people are never, ever going to be happy.

Warning, contains naughty language like “son of a bitch” for example…

From Trevor Loudon, once again arriving via e-mail from GBIL.

Hmmmm…not sure about this. Wonder Woman is looking sluttish, sloshing around & getting ready to pop out. Still, you have to appreciate it when someone rolls Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, DC and Marvel into a great big burrito and works some “give-a-damn” into it…even if the end-product remains a sloppy mess.

Leia and WW are both easy on the eyes, that doesn’t hurt.

Click for enlarged version. Not-mixed-audience-appropriate subject matter, not to be read before sharing the public roads with your fellow motorists…

Thanks to GBIL (Girlfriend’s Brother-In-Law) for forwarding these in the e-mails again.

Now that I’m engaged, should I be calling him FBIL? Just wonderin’…

I got schooled over on WizBangBlog by this insightful commenter…he presumes I’m recommending the Republican campaign be confined to economic issues, when what I’m really recommending is more like these issues should take the lead. But I figure that’s my fault, since as the writer I never really made this distinction.

Regardless, these are good, well-thought-out comments:

It’s about far more than the economy -freedom, the constituion [sic], the right to keep and practice your faith, innocent life, no more Kelo, no laws created by handfuls of robed masters in courts, no more lifetime leaders, no more abuse of the public treasury by the ruling class to entrench themselves and their friends, no more support for mind altering educational games, no more eco-worship -just eco-sense, no more coddling and encouraging radical enemies -preparation for our own reverse jihad makes perfect sense etc.

It’s in regard to this post over here, which was picked up by blogger friend Rick.

So to summarize, we have — economic autonomy. And then we have sovereignty of the individual. The first has to do with business transactions; if I value your money more than some possession I have, and you value my possession more than that quantity of money, is it a done deal? Can we just conduct the transaction without a pastiche of government regulations and special taxes? And coupled in with that, are the consequences of thinking otherwise. Simply put, the job market sucks right now. The whole economy sucks. “Could be better” just completely fails to capture the depth and magnitude of misery that shrouds us…needlessly, might I add.

Here’s a better explanation, than most, of how this cause-and-effect is coupled up:

And then the second one, captured by the WizBang commenter, has to do with human dignity. The relationship we people have with our government. Up until the Heller decision, I would have said gun control was the most brilliant beacon of an example-issue representing this broader concern. Now that that’s more-or-less a dead issue, and the right side won, I’d say it’s health care. Across the board, the thing being argued about is an Archimedean lever-that-moves-Earth.

Can we position such levers properly, and then entrust them to these super-smart people whom we elect, and more super-smart people whom those elected people then appoint — to manage our private affairs just so, more beneficially than we would? That’s another debate that has been dragging on for a good long time, and likely won’t be permanently resolved one way or another. I have the impression we are arguing about how people have chosen to manage their personal lives: Through individual responsibility, or through surrender to some other party who will then decide all the hard stuff. People aren’t going to change the fabric that makes them up, so we’re going to just keep arguing about this.

This second issue is summarized by Ronald Reagan, when he said something like “if none of us can adequately manage our own affairs, then who among us has what it takes to manage everybody else’s?”

But these two issues — let go of the economy so it can thrive, and let go of the people so that they can decide things personally and responsibly — in my mind, are linked. And yes, that includes the right to be born. The whole argument of “until you cross this finish line, you legally don’t exist” is frightening, because if that applies to this class of person over here, then where else can such a rule be applied? And is such an argument really based on respect for the rule of law? I see many who insist on this vaginal-finish-line litmus test, completely flip-flop on their outlook on the complex issues when the subject turns to illegal immigration; suddenly they become “world without borders” people, and if the law says you’re in the country illegally, well then gol’ darn it, that law must be wrong. Hello? Now, how is the unborn baby not a person, again?

What underlies all this is the notion of “rights” and what they are. If you have a right and everybody agrees you have it, but they only agree because they happen to be pleased with it, then it could be said you don’t have the right at all. Rights don’t really count for much unless you can hang on to them even when it irritates the ever luvin’ fecal matter out of the many…or the powerful. And here is the problem with the centralized authority, with the so-called “rights” being adjudicated over-broadly by the “robed masters in courts.” Because then, the rights become conditional; something about non-interference with “The Common Good” or some such. Which means, in the final analysis, the rights no longer exist in any way at all. You only get to keep them when someone powerful decides it’s relatively costless to “let” you have them.

So yes, that’s what the election of 2012 should be about.

But I don’t necessarily see all these things as separate issues. In my mind, they are all inextricably intertwined.

Sonic Charmer notices something I’ve been noticing:

Sometimes you don’t have to know the right answer to be able to recognize a wrong answer. And sometimes just the method for getting an answer is enough to tell you that it’s wrong.

There are many subjects which I may not have time to fully investigate and become fully knowledgeable (if at all) on them, yet when seeing people who do write about them, I can nevertheless still tell that their arguments are full of crap.

Let’s take the argument that the government was not to blame for inflating the housing bubble. Here is an example (which I don’t mean to pick on as it’s far from the worst offender, but I came across it today):

the claims that Fannie and Freddie were the primary culprits behind the inflation of the housing bubble and the flood of fraudulent mortgages is nonsense. … the worse junk mortgages were not bought and securitised by Fannie and Freddie. These were packaged and sold by the investment banks, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Citigroup and the rest. Fannie and Freddie got into junk mortgages late in the game, and even then, their primary motive was to regain lost market share.

This belongs to a species of argument, cherished also by the likes of Paul Krugman, that involves bringing statistical measures to bear so as to show that Fannie and Freddie didn’t buy ‘most of’, or a ‘majority of’, subprime loans, or didn’t issue subprime bonds, or whatever. The intent is to demonstrate that their ‘presence’ in the portion of the market deemed problematic (‘subprime’, or something) was small, and/or that other actors (investment banks, e.g.) bought the loans which were deemed problematic. The conclusion is that the government (Fannie/Freddie) can’t have been to blame.

It is clear that this argument is incorrect merely based on the methodology. The logic used is just plain incorrect, and in fact, economically ignorant. It cannot be correct.

This doesn’t mean I have a proof that the government was to blame. It just means that all the people I’ve ever seen saying it wasn’t, have crappy arguments that don’t hold water. They are using the wrong kind of argument, a kind that cannot possibly be correct.

“Cannot possibly be correct” is a little on the strong side, I’d say. This neglects the “stopped clock right twice a day” thing, which is key to the persuasive power of these wrong, flawed arguments. Every now and then, the wrong methodology is used to reach a thoroughly bolluxed conclusion, random in all respects save for the frenzied agenda that drives it. But then the ball happens to land on the right roulette slot and the scatterbrain looks like a wizened sage. Is this not exactly what happened with the “no WMDs in Iraq” situation? Twenty-twenty hindsight reigns supreme.

But the observation is a valid one, and perhaps we need a new word to describe it. Neal Boortz has been maintaining for a long time that the dreadful state of public school education in this country is not only directly responsible for the flawed, ramshackle arguments finding currency & natural vibe; but may in fact be complicit in this. This, too, I find to be mostly meritorious, although again I see some gaps: I know lots of people who paid good free-market money for their education (or whose parents did on their behalf) and think very highly of this particular piece of their learnin’s. But they wouldn’t know truth if it ran up and kicked ’em square in the nuts, because they dismiss decent arguments before they’ve fairly evaluated them. In fact, in many cases they seem to equate the quality of their education with the speed with which they dismiss arguments that might, in fact, actually mean something and be worth considering. In effect, they have paid good money out of their parents’ second-mortgages, for lifelong habits that will keep them ignorant.

It’s a bigger issue than formalized education, whether the education is provided in a public or private setting. This drives to the very heart of how, in Anno Domini Twenty Eleven, we here the the western hemisphere define things like “smart,” “erudite,” “reasoned,” “well-reasoned,” “logical,” “rational,” “truthful”…our tragic recent tendency is to equate all these things with a single, smooth, quick deft motion to shunt bits of information aside without absorbing them. Because, supposedly, those bits of information are contraband…because, supposedly, they have a toxic effect. It’s as if, by merely coming in contact with them, the thinker contaminates the rest of his knowledge-base.

Although deep down we all know: If there’s any verity at all in that worn-out college cliche, “I’m not here to tell you what to think I’m here to tell you how to think,” there should be nothing to worry about there. You should be able to pick up a piece of information, even if it is delusive, deceptive, sneaky, and reeks of propaganda; come into contact with it; evaluate it, rigorously, playing “what-if” games with it, accepting-for-sake-of-argument. None of this means you have to believe it with no reservations or attaching your name or reputation to it. If you have been educated in any way that means anything at all, anywhere, you should have been able to build up that “no-man’s-land” because you should have been able to foster an ability to detect bullshit & react accordingly. Without becoming an intellectual pussy, summarily rejecting things that might be bullshit.

Why is this important? Because when you treat knowledge as a potential contagion, you run into the problem discussed at the beginning of the post…you start spewing nonsense, using Krugman-arguments people can tell are flawed by their very methodology. You end up consuming precisely what you were trying to avoid consuming. Worse still, you end up regurgitating it.

It’s like our modern culture has started to value anti-spyware and anti-virus software packages in the neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of dollars per license, and then when you order up such a package you just get a postcard in the mail that says “don’t log on to the Internet.”

Boortz:

I’ve told you a few times how much I enjoy the letters-to-the editor section of The Naples Daily News. Here’s a gem from yesterday’s paper. Sit down before you read this:

Editor, Daily News:

Until I read Jack Tymann’s guest essay, I thought the $4.94 gasoline price had absorbed every available erg of popular anger.

Tymann’s defense of the oil companies should warrant an explosion of outrage.

Unfortunately, here in Naples we appear to have an acquiescent and oblivious public. In Florida and across the nation it is inevitable that there will be a public revolt. Nationalizing the oil industry abolishes the economic power of the oil companies. It will enable the government to provide for the common welfare. Presently the oil companies are exploiting the people and their profits seem like thievery.

The oil companies constitute a clear and present danger to democracy and must be put under state control. Nationalizing the oil companies means hiring managers at fair salaries, not the average

$10 million annually for each CEO. Take the profits and revenues from their private pockets and use them for the public good. Use their profits to pay teachers and provide for state budget health-care needs.

Make the oil companies non-polluting energy resources to deal with global warming. Now they are responsible for the destruction of the environment and the reason for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the militarism of this country.

Some will rage socialism or worse. But nationalization is in the tradition of democratic and capitalistic countries everywhere.

— H.H. Hermann

How in the hell do you grow to adulthood in this country and still be intellectually dense enough to write a letter like this to a newspaper? Oh … forgot. Government education.

Notice the line in the letter about profits that seem like thievery. Do you think the writer would have a clue as to what the profit margins of these oil companies would be?

First … let’s take ExxonMobile. First quarter 2011 profits for Exxon Mobile were $10.7 billion dollars. Maybe it’s just the sheer size of this profit figure that causes the Naples letter writer to talk about thievery. Remember, though, that ExxonMobile is a HUGE company operating in 100 or so countries. Do you think Mr. Herman could tell you how much ExxonMobile paid in taxes to the federal government? Not only no, but HELL no. So here’s a little education for you.

First Quarter 2011:

ExxonMobile earnings on operations in the United States. $2.6 billion.
ExxonMobile taxes paid to the U.S. Government. $3.1 billion.

Now just hold on a minute here, Mr. Hermann. Paying more in taxes to the U.S. government than you actually earn on your operations in this country is “thievery?”

See, there’s a hazard involved in deciding such issues emotionally…and then shooting your mouth off.

Get the word out.

Stuart Schneiderman, “Had Enough Therapy?”:

It’s too soon to say for sure, but it looks like the lost generation has not abandoned all hope, yet.

It has, however, abandoned Barack Obama. At least, it retains some primal optimism.

Yesterday I was posting about the horrifically high levels of joblessness and underemployment among recent college graduates.

Today, a new poll revealed that 83% of this group voted for Obama in 2008. Social justice, anyone? If there was ever a testimony to the effectiveness of academic brainwashing, this is it.

Yes, the eighteen-year-olds get the vote, and Barack Obama gets control of the government’s Executive Branch. Both are examples of too large a moving vessel being commanded by a weak, sluggish pilot possessing experience inadequate to the task at hand.

Schneiderman links to the survey results, which say:

A very large proportion of recent university graduates have soured on President Barack Obama, and many will vote GOP or stay at home in the 2012 election, according to two new surveys of younger voters.

“These rock-solid Obama constituents are free-agents,” said Kellyanne Conway, president of The Polling Company, based in Washington, D.C. She recently completed a large survey of college grads, and “they’re shopping around, considering their options, [and] a fair number will stay at home and sit it out,” she said.

The scope of this disengagement from Obama is suggested by an informal survey of 500 post-grads by Joe Maddalone, founder of Maddalone Global Strategies. Of his sample, 93 percent are aged between 22 and 28, 67 percent are male and 83 percent voted for Obama in 2008. But only 27 percent are committed to voting for Obama again, and 80 percent said they would consider voting for a Republican, said New York-based Maddalone.

But then he provides a reality check, and I happen to agree with this:

…[T]his is not unalloyed good news for Republicans. The GOP should not take these voters for granted. Many of them may easily stay home on election day.

Wise old sensible souls will tell you that Republicans should now go out and connect with these voters by addressing the issues that matter to them.

They fail to tell you that Republican candidates must take the fight to Obama, directly and vigorously. If Obama and the Democrats are in full campaign mode, the Republicans cannot fall back into conciliatory and compliant.

What’s it all add up to?

Capitalism. The message needs to be: You will never hear us say “When you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.” Because we want you to find work. We want you working for a boss who finds the decision to employ you, to be a profitable one, one he’d make all over again. And we want you to save massive amounts of dough, we want you paying a buck forty a gallon or less for gas, we want you laughing all the way to the bank.

And if you can be the boss five years after graduation instead of ten, nobody will be more tickled-pink than us. We won’t demand an eighty percent marginal income tax rate on your flabby fat rich ass. Because we’ll want it to make good business sense for you to add on hundreds or thousands of the next generation of college grads to your payroll, at which time America’s flirtation with watered-down socialism will be nothing more than a distant memory. That’s our vision.

Yes, we want to get rid of all the poor people…by making them not poor anymore.

Republican campaign ad writers? Drop me a line. I’ve got more ideas about what you should and should not do. Make the time, you’ll be glad you did and so will the country.

Hat tip for the awesome link to blogger friend Gerard.

Wisdom from my Hello Kitty of Bloggin’ account…

See, there are two reasons why people might care that you were here once: You got up off your ass and did something, or you were here when it all come to a screeching halt.

Getting up off your ass is hard.

Therefore, we have this perpetual fantasy, going on and on since 1000 AD give or take, that the world is ending. It’s just people who wish to be significant, people who want to matter, but don’t want to be bothered with getting up off their asses.

Now, since I wrote that — to be precise, somewhere around a quarter to eleven this morning — I was on cell phone to the house phone, talking to my girlfriend, and she reported back that the Mormons know where we live now and she had to put me on hold while she fought them off so she could go take her shower. And that was my first reminder today that The Rapture is supposed to happen today…also…there are people who believe in it, who get up off their asses. To go door to door & try to save some souls. So it wouldn’t be fair to say these people can’t get up off their asses when here they are getting up off their asses.

But I would argue the observation still holds. These people are literally making a religion out of “I was here when it all went down!” That means they have a need to be thinking this; and that cannot be healthy or good, no matter how you slice it.

Now, are there people who work hard to actually produce things, who believe in The Rapture? Maybe. But I’m now at the point where I don’t believe in them until I see them.

Part of what has brought me here is the Anthropogenic Global Warming crusade, which I think of as merely an extension of this gut-instinct of “My life’s not complete unless I know I’ll be here to sing Amen.” I look at them and I see non-producers…non-producers who know they are non-producers, and are bothered by the fact that they aren’t producing anything but don’t want to admit it. So yes, here comes the relentless drum-beat with all the staples of the argument meticulously constructed: We’re in the end times, it’s all our fault, we must mend our ways, join our movement and you’ll do your part to save humanity, or at least achieve redemption.

It’s those last two that really cheese me off though. Between saving yourself, and doing your bit to save all of humanity, there is an important distinction. And all these zealots seem, to me, to discard that distinction rather casually.

Fek•toid (n.)

A factual statement presented during a discussion that involves disagreement; its veracity would survive a diligent and skeptical inspection, but its relevance would not.

“Saddam Hussein did not attack us.” “Jimmy Carter is America’s greatest ex-President.” “Palin quit.” “Dick Cheney ran Halliburton.” “Carbon dioxide’s effectiveness as a greenhouse gas is proven in a number of experiments.”

The fektoid is meaningfully distinguished from the factoid:

A factoid is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement presented as a fact, but with no veracity. The word can also be used to describe a particularly insignificant or novel fact, in the absence of much relevant context. The word is defined by the Compact Oxford English Dictionary as “an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact”.

Factoid was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper”, and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean “similar but not the same”. The Washington Times described Mailer’s new word as referring to “something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact”.

In contrast with the factoid, the fektoid is not only true, but easily proven so. It succeeds indisputably as it stands on its own; but as the foundation for an argument to be constructed on top of it, it fails glamorously.

The weaker minds may accept the argument, which they would in turn reject in the absence of the accompanying fektoid. But nobody is willing to string together in sequence the magic words that would be built around “[fektoid]…therefore…we know [what is posited] to be valid or true.”

Nevertheless, if they have failed to attain the necessary skills and talents involved in thinking like a grown-up, or have invested an abundance of emotion or passion in the discourse so that they cannot use these skills, they may behave subsequently as if that is the case. Its use may be thought of, with apologies to George Lucas, as a Jedi trick that only works on the weak-minded.

Byron York, National Examiner:

President Obama told a crowd at a Democratic fundraiser in Boston Wednesday night that he was able to pass a national health care bill “with a little assist from the former governor of Massachusetts.” The reference to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and to the health system Romney enacted in Massachusetts, drew laughter from the crowd of about 900 at the Boston Center for the Arts.

“With a little assist from the former governor of Massachusetts, we said that health care should no longer be a privilege in this country,” Obama said. “It should be affordable and available for every American.”

A short time later, at a smaller fundraiser in a private home in Brookline, Obama said, “Our work isn’t done. Yes, we passed health care, with an assist from a former Massachusetts governor.” The crowd, which had paid $35,800 per couple to attend, broke into laughter and applause. “Great idea,” Obama added. “But we still have to implement it.”

Obama’s quick jabs at Romney are a brief preview of what will come in the general election campaign if Romney wins the Republican presidential nomination. Under pressure from some conservative leaders to repudiate his Massachusetts system, Romney has instead defended it, although he says he does not support its enactment nationwide. Of course, no matter what Romney says on the issue of health care, Obama will attack him for it. Obama’s re-election team is said to be eager for a match-up with Romney. If they get their wish, we’ll hear a lot more about Romneycare from the author of Obamacare.

Mittens has consistently been a front-runner, enjoying a potent lift from a large campaign war chest, and vague-to-non-existent definition of his positions on the issues. But lately, there’s been a reshuffling in the crowd of contenders coming just after him. The number two spot is taken by — oh, my, it’s that awful, horrible woman who isn’t actually running and is supposed to be stupid or something:

With Mike Huckabee’s exit from the race, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin are now on top of the Republican field, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

Twenty percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters say they’d support the former Massachusetts governor, while 18 percent say they’d support the former Alaska governor.

Newt Gingrich comes in third place with 11 percent.

Quick recovery there, Governor. Seem just last week the wise chattering sages were measuring a coffin for your campaign. Interesting, since you don’t actually have one yet…and you running statistically neck-and-neck with the lead dog, just a short time later, still without having announced any decision to actually run, is also interesting.

I wonder if Birther Zero can make a quick “jab” at the hot granny over some Alaska socialized-medicine plan. I’m thinkin’ that’s a negative. Not that she doesn’t have vulnerabilities in other areas…she’s hated by important people somewhere, who don’t want us to know who they are, how many of them there are, why exactly it is that they hate her or why we should care. They don’t seem to be the brightest bulbs on the tree. But she certainly is hated, along with everyone in recorded human history who ever posed a threat to something.

Mitt isn’t hated. He isn’t defined with enough detail to be hated, and it looks like he isn’t posing enough of a threat. President Obama, obviously, feels like He can deal with the Mittster with a tap. Or a “jab.”

If it’s down to these two former governors, the Republicans need to figure out if they will rally behind someone who says nothing, or someone who says something. They have always lost when they cast their lot in with someone who says nothing. They have always won when they fall in behind someone who says something.

What should we call the era that just ended here? “Say something evil about a fellow Republican and I’ll automatically win because everyone will think I’m cute and cuddly”?

Maybe call it “The Nineties”? The “I’m more adult than either of these two extremist jackasses” decade? Clinton-triangulation-strategy?

I’m pleased and proud to watch the Former Speaker’s rapid immolation here. It’s not schadenfreude; I’m hoping something got learned here. Perhaps it isn’t learning, but rather the evolutionary force involved in our fickle, revolving fatigue has nudged us in a more productive, albeit random, direction. I’ll take it.

I’m beyond sick & tired of what Newt Gingrich tried to do here. “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” everyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention knows what that means. Two decades straight, we’ve been watching this nonsense go down. Oh yes, we get it: “You have the fringe kooky moonbats over here, then you have your teabagger nutbars over there, and then there’s me.” Pause for dramatic effect, fold hands over your chest as if in prayer, gaze skyward and wait for halo to appear over head. Yes, rally behind me and I shall lay my healing hands upon the nation’s rift.

It’s a non-starter. And there’s a lesson here.

Take your time.

There’s no rush.

It’s only May.

Why set yourself up as a target any sooner than necessary?

I would hope there’s another one: You don’t look mature, sagely and wise by being the first guy in the room to open your mouth, and the last guy to define specific solutions. This is a bigger problem than just Gingrich, it’s been going on and on and on…we’ve been tolerating it and tolerating it…and now, from my vantage point — which I’m desperately hoping is accurate — the era ends. With a buffoon who went too far, and has nobody, absolutely nobody, in his corner. He even pissed off my blogger buddy in New Mexico.

The era of “call fellow Republicans extremist zealots and everyone will automatically love me” has come to an end. It ends with a gutted, tenderized, braised, char-broiled, breaded & deep fried, pan-seared newt.

Oh, and I see the democrats are thinking this is a point for their side. Good, I say. If they were too smart to overplay their hand, they wouldn’t be democrats.

“Newt,” by the way, has no letters in common with “Momma Grizzly.” Just sayin’, that’s all.

Prominently displayed by Uncle Gerard as he linked to us sometime yesterday or early this morning.

It’s particularly damaging when a message about gas prices can be distilled down to bumper sticker length. Generally, as people gaze out over where bumper stickers are displayed, they are likely to have had cause to think about gas prices sometime in the last few minutes…and are cranky and irritable, someplace they’d rather not be.

Of course you don’t have to be too plugged in to current events, to understand I deserve very little credit for this; about as much as…well…as Obama deserves for taking down Osama. Credit goes to Maha Rushie.

Why is Obama getting so little help from this boobie-prize of taking down Osama? Why such a short-lived and inconsequential bump? Why so little lift?

It’s clear to me, the problem is with this ill-advised bandying-about of this clumsy word, “gutsy.” Just noodle that over in your noggin for a little while, casually, and you’ll see how bad this sounds. Obama made a decision, and the decision, in intent and in outcome, was beneficial to the interests of the country over which Obama presides. It is the first decision He’s made in office that fulfills these criteria. I’ll state it again: The intent, and the outcome, were in harmony with what is good for the country. In the Obama universe, that is “gutsy.”

Had George Bush made the same call, they wouldn’t be using that word. That could be explained, partially, by the obvious fact that “they” are people who like to see Obama succeed and Bush fail. “Gutsy” is a positive adjective, therefore it applies to Obama and not to Bush.

But that doesn’t explain all of it.

Obama-makes-gutsy-call is something of a man-bites-dog story. “Teh Won” is not known for making gutsy calls, He is known for voting “present.” What other gutsy calls has He made? There’ve been some, you could say — but they help Obama and not the country.

Shouldn’t a “gutsy” decision involve some kind of alternative choice? It seems there should be some other-path that could have been pursued, and would have been pursued, by some ineffectual middle-management suck-up…which would have deprived the country, or the charge of the stewardship of the suck-up, of some appealing outcome over the long term, but would have left the short-term prospects of the suck-up entirely whole, unscathed and unblemished. A “gutsy” decision-maker, I think, should be selecting some avenue of execution that poses a danger to his reputation but is the better option for whatever he is managing. This seems, to me, self-evident. I think we all get it…

…and yet Obama’s “call” is considered “gutsy.”

See, I think it’s a ‘fessing-up that this is not something Obama would be expected to do. It’s a non-pussy-pacifist decision, a decision that is good for Obama and the United States of America. It’s also a decision pretty much anybody else would have made — although, as we grope for some possible exceptions to that absolute statement, we all first look back to the history of presidents from Barack Obama’s party. (Clinton? Carter?)

So I think deep down, everybody understands when the adjective “gutsy” is used in this context, the word that is really meant is “unexpected,” and maybe “surreal.” And so it is implicitly understood: You can’t say, from this event, that you can just throw some Barack Obama at any new problem & walk away worry-free. If that was the case, “gutsy” wouldn’t be the word. Now: What exactly got FDR elected four times?

Also, “gutsy” calls should be likely to make new enemies. They should pack a potential to make an enemy out of someone the maker of the call wouldn’t normally want to piss off.

Who, among Obama’s friends, is thinking about becoming His enemy because He decided to lower the boom on Osama bin Laden? It just naturally opens up a re-examination of all the questions that John McCain wasn’t…er…gutsy enough to go asking about three years ago. Through this innocuous, two-syllable descriptor, we’re left with a new curiosity about Obama’s connections, a curiosity which is in fact not new at all, just reawakening from a slumber of dormancy.

The latest award for Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) goes to Dr. Thomas Sowell; in this case, it is two sentences and not just one, but we’ll find a way to deal with that. Once again, it is an overdue complaint which has enjoyed too much silence for too long, that puts the Professor’s pen in motion, and the complaint is about intellectuals:

If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences. But intellectuals who generate ideas do not have to pay the consequences.

Hat tip goes to a certain left-wing gadfly, whose own pen has been agitated into motion, busily correcting Sowell over quibbling, inconsequential things that were not actually said.

Much is made of the anger the future generations will have with us for acting as poor stewards of the “environment.” Should future generations feel inclined to ask the necessary questions, I think they’d be much more perplexed about the environmental movement, specifically about the brittle lefties who look down with sneering condescension upon anyone who does not genuflect with unquestioning obedience and obeisance toward said movement.

How in the world did that work? …the future generations would want to know. Decades and decades of manufacturing with mass production, with iron, plastics and paint; centuries and centuries of people investing in enterprises, trying to make money; and thousands upon thousands of years of people growing crops, trying to figure out how to harvest more, struggling against the ever-attendant insect problems.

Environmentalists made up their minds that industry became toxic, in all these different ways, somewhere around 1960? And then they started selling variations on this theme…and getting away with it, getting the pitch sold. How?

If said future generations come askin’ me, I’ll be able to produce an answer but it won’t indict only the environmentalists. My answer would have to have something to do with the rest of us, and our lack of reasoning ability. The idea that, in the heyday of helpful, productive industries earning profits by giving people the things they actually needed, some new industries could be created out of nothing but fear — I’d tell them this whole idea seemed so foreign to us that we got snookered by it over and over again.

That’s about as good as I can make us look. Can’t do any better than that.

You know what they say, can’t put Osama in your gas tank.

The bump President Obama received after the killing of Osama bin Laden more than two weeks ago in Pakistan has vanished completely, according to the latest Gallup Tracking poll released Monday.

Obama’s approval rating is now at 46 percent, equal to his approval rating in the last tracking poll conducted before Obama addressed Americans late on May 1 and informed them of bin Laden’s death. Forty-four percent of Americans now disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president.

According to the Gallup poll, Obama’s approval rating crested at 52 percent after the bin Laden killing. His disapproval rating never fell lower than 40 percent.

Shouldn’t be a problem for this President, not if He’s so accustomed to making “gutsy” calls. Just make another one. Problem solved.

Right?

Yep, 256 colors of him, the real deal:

Alright, say what you will, it’s a little corny…but it made me giggle.

Hat tip to my brother, Kris.

Let’s resurrect the famous picture one more time, shall we…

Well, he didn’t…in fact, I recall him and Vice President Cheney saying exactly the opposite thing, on a number of occasions.

It’s an inconvenient truth. And another, and another and another. A whole platter full of ’em.

Hat tip again to blogger friend Rick.