Saturday, December 26, 2009

Bravo!

The Hugh Hewitt Show:
"We are 45 weeks from the chance to begin to repair the damage that has flowed from marrying high school rhetoric and plans with power. We had another close call yesterday. Pray we keep being lucky for a while longer until we can start to be smart again."

No Shit...

Charlie Foxtrot:
"OK, so we the press doesn't have the Bush administration to kick around anymore, but I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that someone with connections to the Obama Administration will appear on CNN or MSNBC and present the spin that this was somehow the fault of Bush Administration policies.

Mark my words...."

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Quote of the Day

Instapundit:
"The trouble with socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people’s money."

Monday, December 21, 2009

Oh, Yes! You are being lied to....

The Clarity of False Choices:
"What about those who do not like the status quo but have a different vision of reform, not because they want to go farther than Obama does but because they want to go in a different direction, toward more choice, more competition, and less government involvement? In Obama’s world, they do not exist; instead we have his bold yet achievable plan, pitted against socialist utopianism and blind partisan intransigence. Let me be clear: This is a false choice."

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Quote of the Day....

The New Editor:
"The Democratic Party is not so much a political party anymore as much as it is a public relations firm whose primary target audience is that of a remedial civics class."

Monday, December 14, 2009

Quote of the Day....

Megan McArdle:
"I try not to watch the Sunday political shows. If God had wanted me to engage in such an activity, he would have provided me with a small hammer with which I could repeatedly smack myself in the head once a week for three hours."

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Swingin' Copenhagen

Dennis Miller:
"By the way, how much CO2 does a whiny bleat put out into the atmosphere?"

Channeling Mel Brooks...

Let’s have an inquisition:
"Pope Urban VIII — the Al Gore of his day, whose truths were infallible and irrefutable, and who should also be admired by progressives of today for his ban on smoking — ordered Galileo in front of the Inquisition, where he admitted that the earth can’t move (notwithstanding the rumor that he muttered “And yet it moves” under his breath as he did.)

The same mechanism that shut up the heliocentrics can also shut up their modern-day equivalents."

Saturday, December 5, 2009

A new definition of "leadership" ?

Mark Steyn:
".... Obama’s speech is only about Afghanistan if you’re in Afghanistan. If you’re in Moscow or Tehran, Pyongyang or Caracas, it’s about America. And what it told them is that, if you’re a local strongman with regional ambitions, or a rogue state going nuclear, or a mischief-making kleptocracy dusting off old tsarist dreams, this president is not going to be pressing your reset button. Strange how an allegedly compelling speaker is unable to fake even perfunctory determination and resilience. Strange, too, how all the sophisticated nuances of post-Bush foreign-policy “realism” seem so unreal when you’re up there trying to sell them as a coherent strategy. Go back half a decade to when the administration was threatening to shove democracy down the throats of every two-bit basket case whether they want it or not. Democratizing the planet is, in a Council of Foreign Relations sense, “unrealistic,” but talking it up is a very realistic way of messing with the dictators’ heads. A pipsqueak like Boy Assad sleeps far more soundly today than he did back when he thought Bush meant it, and so did the demonstrators threatening his local enforcers in Lebanon."

The Liberal One Way Street.....

WSJ.com:
"For our money, one of the better parts of President Obama's speech at West Point this week was his connection between a healthy economy and U.S. national security. To quote: 'Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy.' We only wish Mr. Obama understood the link between the larger welfare state he is trying to build at home and the economic weakness that will undermine our military power."

Just watch it.....

Friday, December 4, 2009

No wonder ABC didn't want him anymore....

John Stossel:
"When government sets simple rules that everyone understands and then gets out of the way, free people create jobs."

Monday, November 30, 2009

Don't you just hate the laws of physics?

The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama:
"The laws of gravity, the weight of history and of precedent, have caught up with the Obama presidency. We are beyond stirring speeches. The novelty of the Obama approach, and the Obama persona, has worn off. There is a whole American diplomatic tradition to draw upon—engagements made, wisdom acquired in the course of decades, and, yes, accounts to be settled with rogues and tyrannies. They might yet help this administration find its way out of a labyrinth of its own making."

Sunday, November 29, 2009

It shouldn't have been hard....

Mark Steyn:
"Major Hasan couldn’t have been more straightforward about who and what he was. An army psychiatrist, he put “SoA”—i.e., “Soldier of Allah”—on his business card. At the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, he was reprimanded for trying to persuade patients to convert to Islam and fellow pupils objected to his constant “anti-American propaganda,” but, as the Associated Press reported, “a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.”

This is your brain on political correctness.

As the writer Barry Rubin pointed out, Major Hasan was the first mass murderer in U.S. history to give a PowerPoint presentation outlining the rationale for the crime he was about to commit. And he gave the presentation to a roomful of fellow army psychiatrists and doctors. Some of whom glanced queasily at their colleagues, but none of whom actually spoke up. And, when the question of whether then-Captain Hasan was, in fact, “psychotic,” the policy committee at Walter Reed Army Medical Center worried “how would it look if we kick out one of the few Muslim residents.”"

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Do they kiss you before "they do sex to you"?

Mark Steyn:
"And that’s what Andrew Revkin did, week in, week out: He took the words out of Michael Mann’s mouth and served them up to impressionable readers of the New York Times and opportunist politicians around the world champing at the bit to inaugurate a vast global regulatory body to confiscate trillions of dollars of your hard-earned wealth in the cause of “saving the planet” from an imaginary crisis concocted by a few dozen thuggish ideologues. If you fall for this after the revelations of the last week, you’re as big a dupe as Begley or Revkin."

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Sometimes it IS the fault of the schmuck with his finger on the trigger....

Christopher Hitchens:
"It is he, who I am taking as representative of a larger mentality here, who uses equally inert lingo to suggest that Maj. Hasan was 'pushed over the edge by his perception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.' That's a nice and shady use of the word 'perception.' Might it not be equally true to say that Hasan was all-too-easily pulled over the edge, having already signaled his devout eagerness for the dive, by a cleric who makes a living by justifying murder of Muslims and non-Muslims alike?"

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Quote of the Day....

George F. Will:
"Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism."

Now you've got it!

WSJ.com:
"This is about putting government in charge of health care, whether Americans like it or not."

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

You don't have to like what he says, but he's been right before...

Michael Yon:
"If Afghanistan is to succeed, we must adopt it. We must adopt an entire country, a troubled child, for many decades to come. We must show the Afghans that together we can severely damage the enemies, or bring them around, and together build a brighter future. The alternative is perpetual war and terrorism radiating from the biggest, possibly richest and most war-prone drug dealers the world has ever seen, and what could eventually reverse and become the swamp that harbors the disease that eventually kills Pakistan, leaving its nuclear weapons on the table."

Monday, October 19, 2009

The Abu Ghraib Of The Great Society :

Ed Driscoll
Of course, these days, the legacy media are very much their own religion; not for nothing did Hugh Hewitt once dub Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism “the highest temple of a religion in decline.”

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Luddites always lose....

Why the International Kindle Will Change the Book As We Know It:
"Kindle 2 isn't really about what we may or may not want as readers and writers. It's about what the book wants to be. And the book wants to be itself and everything. It wants to be a vast abridgment of the universe that you can hold in your hand. It wants to be the transbook."

Rabbits burned to heat Sweden...

Animal rights outrage at plan to incinerate thousands of bunnies

Pretty bad day for the cwazy wabbits.....

Friday, October 16, 2009

Couldn't have said it better....

Henninger::
"So Donald Rumsfeld was right about Old Europe.

....This Nobel is about political decadence."

After we get finished being "saved", I wonder what else he has in store for us....

WSJ.com:
"This $250 gambit also underscores the dishonesty behind the budget math propping up ObamaCare. Democrats are claiming that half of the new entitlement's outlays will be 'paid for' with Medicare cuts in future years. But if Democrats can't tolerate a zero COLA for one year in Social Security, how in the world are they going to bless $500 billion in cuts to doctors, hospitals and other Medicare reimbursements? Mr. Obama is the youthful St. Augustine of entitlement reformers: Lord, make me chaste, but not yet."

Quote of the Day...

Barack Obama: ‘Oh, did I mention I won the Nobel prize?:
"All in all, it’s a hilarious display of vanity and self-absorption masquerading ineptly as humility and selflessness."

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Polanski Lawyer and Eric Holder BFF Lobbies DOJ to Drop Extradition

Patterico:
"A backlash? Oh, you want a backlash?

Then picture the backlash if Roman Polanski manages to avoid being sentenced for drugging and raping a 13-year-old — because his lawyer managed to use his friendship with Eric Holder to put an end to the extradition."

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The New Ledger:

The World as Farce:
"...And there is a strong possibility that the real hilarity is yet to come. It now seems likely that once the Obama era is over and the decadent, half-senile establishment that created and sustained him has finally collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity, we may well look back on the whole thing and, like the Chinese diplomat, laugh about how stupid it all was. Unfortunately, as any good comedian will tell you, comedy is always funniest because its true. The sight of a committee of diplomats reducing themselves to a blubbering gaggle of loons in the hopes of propping up a ludicrous mediocrity is momentarily hilarious, and the upcoming uninhibited goonery from Obama’s admirers threatens to outdo even this, but it is also somewhat sobering. When powerful people make fools of themselves, it behooves us to remember that when the fools are powerful, there is a strong chance that we are all in serious trouble. Obama and Obamamania are a joke that, in the end, is also on us."

Big Government:

2010 Census Still a Boondoggle for the Left

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Life imitates....

The Aspirational Nobel:
"I woke up, read the New York Times website and thought I had come to the Onion instead. I hit refresh. Still there: 'Obama Wins Nobel for Diplomacy.' Maybe this is one of my weird work-related dreams, I thought. Maybe I am still drunk from last night's party. Better close my eyes and wake up again in the real world. Five minutes later...and still no dice."

The Michael Moore of Oslo...

John Podhoretz:

The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization's highest ideals.
He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than "the indispensable nation," as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.

Who Really Won?

Mark Steyn:
"Barack Obama will have history’s most crowded trophy room, but his presidency is shaping up as a tragedy — for America, and the world."

Quote of the Day...

The New Ledger:
"Today, we saw the real fruition of Barack Obama’s international ambitions. He delivered the one thing he’s really good at: accolades and money for Barack Obama."

Obama’s Nobel Prize:

The New Ledger:
"You know, in a very real sense, the Committee missed out on some real worthies. Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have done more to bring an awareness of the danger of nuclear arms to the world than anyone since Truman. Hugo Chavez has worked diligently to bring Latin America into a single, unified, stable political order and helped focus the international spotlight on the danger of a country half a world away with a population roughly a quarter of Venezuela’s. The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan have helped the world understand the oppressive and divisive nature of the post-Westphalian state, and the calamitous conditions the imposition of national boundaries can produce. Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have between them done more to help liberate an oppressed people in the last year and change than anyone else outside of America, which obviously doesn’t count, because Americans only liberate people for oil."

Friday, October 9, 2009

Jimmy Carter - redux...

Belmont Club:
"Letting the Taliban gain capability on the basis of a promise not to attack the United States is like giving your enemy back his gun in exchange for an undertaking not to shoot you. It’s great if it works, but why would anyone think so? Well maybe someone does. More importantly, the remark attributed to the White House raises the question of how the President regards Iranian support for attacks on Iraq, Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel which actually resulted in a recent war, and whether Iranian proxies will in the future be off-limits once Teheran has acquired nuclear weapons. For a variety of reasons, resigning one’s self to watching the Taliban grow in strength and wistfully longing for them to be like the Hezbollah may be a bad metaphor. It certainly may be bad policy."

Let's give 'em a "Piece Prize".....

Young Hamlet’s Agony:
"So what does their commander in chief do now with the war he once declared had to be won but had been almost criminally under-resourced by Bush?

Perhaps provide the resources to win it?

You would think so. And that’s exactly what Obama’s handpicked commander requested on August 30 — a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops to stabilize a downward spiral and save Afghanistan the way a similar surge saved Iraq.

That was more than five weeks ago. Still no response. Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches. Why? Because, explains national-security adviser James Jones, you don’t commit troops before you decide on a strategy.

No strategy? On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: “Today I’m announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And to emphasize his seriousness, the president made clear that he had not arrived casually at this decision. The new strategy, he declared, “marks the conclusion of a careful policy review.”"

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

No, sorry, this is:

Thomas Sowell:
"Upon learning that the Constitution requires a president to be a natural-born citizen, a college student asked: “What makes a natural-born citizen any more qualified than one born by C-section?”"

Quote of the Day...

Jonah Goldberg:
"Watching the House of Representatives on late-night C-SPAN, you might have any number of reactions, including seppuku-inducing boredom. Depending on who’s talking, you might also feel disgust, rage, contempt, or, in rare cases, inspiration. But one reaction you probably won’t have is: “Gosh, if only there were more of these jokers.”"

And who could blame them?

Egyptian lawmakers want to ban fake hymen

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Agitator:

Why Skydivers Would Be Better Off Without Parachutes :
"The one explanation the researchers don't mention is the one that will occur first to defenders of the right to armed self-defense: Maybe people who anticipate violent confrontations—such as drug dealers, frequently robbed bodega owners, and women with angry ex-boyfriends—are especially likely to possess guns, just as people who jump out of airplanes are especially likely to possess parachutes."

Nanny gets a lesson in real life...

Calorie Postings Don’t Change Habits, Study Finds:

But, obviously, wasting all that time and money makes sense anyways because, uh, we get to waste your time and money while making some work for us.....

Monday, October 5, 2009

LOL...

Public vs. Private Canadian Healthcare Waitlists

The Prophecy becomes reality Obiwan....

New Ledger:
"In Israel, however, conclusions have already been drawn, and the results are not particularly pretty for Obama. Put simply, he is the least popular American president in recent memory. The percentage of Israelis who consider him friendly to Israel has never been high, but it has dropped at various times into the single digits. Considering that the Israeli left polled 16% of the vote in the last elections, and the centrist Kadima party another 22% - higher, in fact, than Netanyahu’s Likud - Obama’s dismal numbers cannot be put down to simple partisanship. Israelis across the political spectrum are clearly convinced that Obama is indifferent and/or hostile to Israeli interests, sensibilities, and concerns."

Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Ego has Landed...

Belmont Club:
"But it was to no avail. President Obama spoke fine words, but he didn’t bring enough goodies.

Yes, goodies. In the great wide world the fine portals open into courtyards that are not all they seem. Amid the fine words, gleaming crystal, white-coated waiters, the green baize tables, the Ivy League accents — the entire august setting — two basic modes of doing business remain: cash on the barrel or a gun to the head. That is how the players deal among themselves. The fine music and lofty words – is all for the consumption of audiences who think His Excellencies are really excellent or that David Letterman is funny when he tells a fifteen minute story about how he had sex with his employees and got blackmailed for it. At least Letterman knew enough to press charges. That wasn’t funny. But the fact that people were laughing was.

The reaction among the Olympic officials was telling. This machine translated page from a Danish newspaper says it all: “You can not just come with the train one day and try to affect everything, says Kai Holm and continues: – People have felt that it was a lack of respect for the Olympics and sport in general.” It’s amazing how much that sounds like Rod Blagojevich’s complaint that he was being dissed by the One when it came to who he would appoint to the US Senate."

Bend over, America....

Success No Matter What:
"In January, the administration's economic models warned that unemployment would hit 9 percent next year if its $787 billion 'stimulus' wasn't passed. Passing it would keep the jobless rate under 8 percent before it begins to fall.

Well, the packaged passed -- and unemployment in August rose to 9.7 percent.

Oops."

Roman Polanski, Hollywood and Justice ...

Not much else to say, is there?:
"If I were Roman Polanski, I wouldn't care to see Woody Allen's name at the head of a petition calling for my release from jail on statutory-rape charges."

Friday, October 2, 2009

Ellsworth Toohey strikes again....

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

Ouch...

Charles Krauthammer:
"When France chides you for appeasement, you know you’re scraping bottom. Just how low we’ve sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration’s satisfaction when Russia’s president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the U.N., that “sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable.”"

Jonah Goldberg

Polanski Controversy Shouldn’t Be Controversial:
"And that’s the main reason I am grateful for this controversy. It is a dye marker, “lighting up” a whole archipelago of morally wretched people. With their time, their money, and their craft, these very people routinely lecture America about what is right and wrong. It’s good to know that at the most fundamental level, they have no idea what they’re talking about."

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Thomas L. Friedman: The Worst Writer in the World:

The New Ledger:
"For the rest of us, Friedman provides a valuable lesson in what not to do. If you want to write serious political or social commentary, Friedman’s work is an excellent barometer: Do the opposite of everything he does and you may not get hired by the New York Times, but you will probably become a vaguely competent writer: Think clearly about things, make your sentences comprehensible, refrain from redundant anecdotes and stupid jokes, don’t treat your readers as though they are mentally deficient, remember that emotion is not a substitute for thought, don’t play to cliches and popular prejudices, attempt to retain some sense of objectivity, hold on to a measure of generosity toward other people, and write with a modicum of respect for the English language. This may not make for good writing, but it seriously impedes the possibility of bad writing. Everyone violates these rules quite often, and I have broken a few of them in this piece myself, but even the attempt to follow them will likely result in something which, if not necessarily popular, will be at least readable. It will not make you the best writer in the world, but you will be far from the worst. That position, in any case, has already been filled."

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Thank you, Emily Latella....

Ah, Never Mind About That Guantanamo Thing:
"And in the meantime, Obama should cut the Guantanamo spiel from his speeches. It might only serve to remind everyone just how inexperienced, inept, and arrogant this administration has been."

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Notes From The Cuckoo's Nest...

The New Republic:
"The U.N. is a joke. If it weren't in New York no one would come. As an instrument of peace it fails every time. At its best, it is mostly charade, like Ban Ki-moon designating Bill Clinton as the organization's special envoy to Haiti. 'Special envoy,' my foot.

But Susan Rice seems to feel at home at the United Nations. 'Google' her and read any of her nonsense about the organization. Any of it. If you don't laugh you'll cry. Either way your response will be appropriate."

Thursday, September 24, 2009

One can only hope he is right...

LocalNet Start Page:
"'There are a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position,' he said.

Hosny's candidacy raised an outcry because of a threat he made in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. While he later apologized and Israel said it had withdrawn its opposition to his candidacy, several prominent Jewish activists spoke out against him in the runup to the vote"

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Quote of the Day...

Patterico:
"President Obama spoke today at the United Nations — because why should diplomats and world leaders miss out on what Americans get to hear every week?"

Surrendering soverignty everywhere...

The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak:
"It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism."

En (very) Loco Parentis....

Barack Obama, College Administrator:
"If you are confused by the first nine months of the Obama administration, take solace that there is at least a pattern. The president, you see, thinks America is a university and that he is our campus president. Keep that in mind, and almost everything else makes sense."

But it's OK as long as he's our guy....

The Art of Corruption:
"As an artist, I feel it incumbent upon myself to pause here to become violently ill. Never mind that the phone call may have broken several lobbying laws. Forget that the NEA’s Yosi Sergant is now proven to have lied when he denied the NEA’s role in initiating the call. Let’s not even concern ourselves with the fact that White House official Buffy Wicks directed the artists to channel their efforts through Serve.gov, a White House website with ties to the corrupt Acorn."

Monday, September 21, 2009

Perfectly obvious from the moment Oprah opened her big mouth....

President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth:
"The man who has run nothing more demanding than the Harvard Law Review is beginning to look out of his depth in the world's top job. His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it."

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Saturday, September 19, 2009

To the manner born...

Belmont Club:
"...despite Nancy Pelosi’s fears, the real cause of increasing animosity isn’t heightened rhetoric: on the contrary, the heightened rhetoric may itself be the result an intensified competition for power. It’s a symptom and not the cause. My guess is that the effect of concentrating wealth and power in government hands has created a prize which is distorting civil relations, like some singularity which is warping the space around it and pulling everything into its maw. When the pot of gold is indivisibly concentrated in one place, a winner-take-all game ensues, or as Collier and Hoeffler put it, “a simple rational choice model of greed-rebellion” is enforced. The trash-talk follows."

The logical conclusion....

Mark Steyn:
"In a sense, the health-care debate and the foreign-policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions."

When the Pot and the Kettle....

Christopher Hitchens:
"I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. 'Mr. Carter,' he said, 'quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had.'"

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Quote of the Day...

The Agitator:
"Me, I think America would be a better place if more people were more rude to more politicians more often."

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Not if I say so...

Don Surber:
"The excuses from James for ACORN’s criminal activities are pathetically liberal and predictable: “So the flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America.”

I see. Criminality is just “flaws” when it is a liberal group’s crimes."

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Hopey/Changey....

Townhall:
"After all, why should we be surprised that a Chicago machine politician, many of whose former opponents suffered unlikely and devastating semi-legal setbacks, a man willing to play fast and loose with campaign finance laws, a man who will promise a room almost anything it wants to hear and then move along like some Elmer Gantry character - why should we be surprised that he embraces the anti-terror methods civil rights advocates have been decrying for years? No reason at all, is the answer. I won't be surprised to learn, decades from now, that things went much further under his watch than under Bush's, somewhere in whatever prison he sends really bad guys to after he gets around to closing Guantanemo. I'm not saying he'll enjoy it, I just think he plays much harder ball than people want to believe."

Monday, September 14, 2009

Quote of the Day:

Russ. Just Russ.:
"I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism."

Friday, September 11, 2009

Huzzah! Huzzah!!

BeldarBlog:
"The King announced that henceforth, because he and his Magic Pony are very smart and will show us how, everyone can get more of everything, and everything will be better than it is now, but it will all cost less money than even just some of us are spending now. Brave, clever King Canute! No King will ever again have to worry about the sea moving, or about health care. Why didn't we make him the King way back when Good King Ronny was getting old? Oh yeah, now I 'member: It's 'cause King Canute was still doing cocaine back then, when he was just Prince Barry. It's good that he stopped that, and that he learned to think and speak so clearly now, especially about how to save money! Yay! Nobody is more believable than King Canute when he promises to save money and cut government spending!

Thereupon King Canute did a happy dance to make everyone feel happy, and then he acknowledged the many cheers, and he remounted his Magic Pony and rode back up the aisle. Most of those on the right side of the aisle, and even a few of them on the left, noticed that the Magic Pony had left behind a steaming, fragrant gift on the pretty blue carpet. Most of them on the left thought the gift was dessert, so they gobbled it up while insisting that it was really, really yummy. But they saved a piece for you. Do you want it?

Title of the Year!!! And then the quote of the day - all in one....

Charlatan-in-Chief
Mandates by politicians are what have driven up the cost of insurance already. Politicians love to play Santa Claus and leave it to others to raise prices to cover the inevitable costs.

Yes, let's....

Obama’s Trouble with Numbers:
"Let’s stipulate that it was wrong of Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) to shout “You lie” during President Obama’s health-care speech. It was a violation of courtesy and etiquette. Wilson apologized — which is more than the Democrats who booed President Bush’s State of the Union address in 2005 ever did.

But I confess that watching at home, similar exclamations were heard. Some seemed to have burst, irrepressible, from my own lips."

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Let's give 'em a country to run!!!

Rangel, Sign of the Times:
"Actually, they may wonder how it happened that the more successful and powerful you become in America, the more proof there is that the country is racist. Rangel would have us believe that an African-American’s election to the presidency, made possible in large part by millions of white supporters, translates into racist opposition to health-care legislation — or into Charles Rangel being unfairly charged with tax dodging."

Political Malpractice: As it has always been...

CEI:
"Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken and must be fixed. But it is increasingly clear that what ails health care is not too little, but too much government intervention. Federal and state tax preferences for employer-sponsored health insurance distort the market in a way that limits choices for individuals, reduces competition among insurers, and artificially inflates costs for health care services. For most working Americans, switching jobs often entails switching health plans and doctors or losing coverage altogether, while many others find non-employer-sponsored insurance unaffordable or difficult to obtain."

Goose, meet Gander...

Video Flashback: Dems Shout And Boo At Bush During 2005 SOTU

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

No...

Popehat:
"So here’s a question — can anyone identify a constitutional right that could fairly be compared to an affirmative right to health care for all? Is there any constitutional right that obligates the government to spend money on me, non-conditionally?"

How about a boatload of Bullshit?

The President's Health Care Speech: What To Listen For

And they're coming for YOU.....

The New Ledger:
"Van Jones got his job through mainstream elements in the Democratic party, despite an affiliation that should have had him laughed out of polite society. The press sought to avoid coverage of the Jones story for as long as possible, and many on the Left continue to try to cover for Jones. Want a takeaway lesson from all of this? Here it is: It’s reassuring to see that Jones lost his job. But the amount of ambivalence that has gone into finding what should be plenty obvious to all–that Jones was and is hardly a model public figure–shows that we still have a lot of maturing to do as a political society. Casting Van Jones out should have been an easy-as-pie call, but for some reason, his defenders decided to make the process harder than it should have been by trying to ignore his story, and then, trying to defend the indefensible."

But that IS the goal, you Idiot!

ObamaCare’s Crippling Deficits:
"Such enormous deficits would crowd out productivity-enhancing investments in new equipment and software as the government borrows funds otherwise available to private investors. The result would be slower economic growth and a lower standard of living."

Nobody seems to get the fact that this is EXACTLY what Obama and his Merry Band want. This way, you MUST keep electing Democrats who spoon-feed constituents, and tuck them in at night so that we all know who MUST be in charge. This is, by no means, an overstatement - just look across the ponds at Europe and Japan.....

So why do so many seem to love getting bilked?

Listening to a Liar:
"If we do not believe that the president is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it.

Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be."

Yes, it was called the Soviet Union....

Stephen Spruiell:
"The thinking implicit in rants like these is that the government ought to order consumer preferences based on what smart academics, altruistic activists, and serious environmentalists think people need. Consumers, of all people, can’t be trusted to decide for themselves. Ironically, this is the philosophy that brought us the Cash for Clunkers program, which induced consumers to buy something they really didn’t need: new cars, when their old ones were running just fine."

Don’t Like Obama’s Speech? You Shouldn’t Be Raising Children

Patterico:
"Poor President Obama. His only chance to be heard is his weekly townhall meetings and radio addresses, daily press conferences by his press secretary, a nationwide speech to America’s schools and an exclusive primetime address to Congress."

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Informed Consent.....

WSJ.com:
"Life Imitates Monty Python

* Man: 'What's this, then?' Mr. Brown: 'A liver donor's card.' Man: 'Need we say more?' . . . Mr. Brown: 'Listen! I can't give it to you now. It says, 'In the event of death.' Uh. Oh! Ah. Ah. Eh.' Man: 'No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived.'--dialogue from 'The Meaning of Life,' 1983
* 'Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would 'presume' someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken. Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done.'--CNSNews.com, Sept. 4"

Monday, September 7, 2009

Monday, August 31, 2009

Because in spite of what they espoused, they all wanted a piece of him...

KENNEDY'S FREE PASS WITH WOMEN:
"Most feminists don't think Ted Kennedy was a misogynist. Upon news of his death, NOW, Emily's List and Planned Parenthood all released emotional, laudatory statements. It's true that Kennedy's legislative record deserves such a response. And he was quiet enough in the last 15 years of his life that it's not hard to minimize his past behavior if you want to."

Quote of the Day...

A SOBER LOOK AT TED KENNEDY:
"“Ted Kennedy never was born to be president or wanted it terribly,” says Milton Gwirtzman. “I think the reason he ran has to do with something his father once said to him: ‘If there’s a piece of cake on the plate, take it. Eat it.’ ”"

The fate of freedom loving leftists...

Shea-Porter has constituent arrested at town-hall forum

“The irony is, of course, that Shea-Porter used to be a ‘tea-bagger’ on the left,” writes Nashua Telegraph columnist Kevin Landrigan. “She stalked then-congressman Jeb Bradley at town hall-style meetings the 1st District Republican incumbent held throughout his district.”

Four years ago Carol Shea-Porter protested at the State House alongside people dressed as Nazis while accusing the federal government of trying “to brand us like sheep.” On Saturday, she disparagingly referred to people who do not trust the same federal government to run our health care system as “these people.”

End to two grim fairy tales...

BREITBART:
"With the deaths of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Michael Jackson, the summer of '09 marked the merciful ends to Camelot and Neverland, iconic American fairy tales whose story lines should have come to merciful ends long ago when their charismatic protagonists took dark and irredeemable turns.

Our country was not built to support blood dynasties or to elevate the rich and famous to a higher ethical or constitutional plain. But through the power of celebrity, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jackson worked the media to twist truths. They manipulated their constituencies and fans to obscure their misdeeds. They played the faithful to confer this manufactured innocence on the rest of us. And, in the end, they placed themselves above the law."

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Throw the prick out...

SHERMAN FREDERICK:
"So, let me assure you, if we weathered all of that, we can damn sure outlast the bully threats of Sen. Harry Reid."

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Just imagine if W had tried this...

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet:
"Autos, banks, energy, medicine, the airwaves, the census, the internet, the paycheck of anyone trying to work for an honest living...
There is nothing the Chicago thugocracy won't seize control of.

Omnipotent government is the common thread here, and instead of fearing it like the Founders, people are sprinting toward it hoping for handouts."

At least someone is keeping it real...

Mark Steyn:
"You can’t make an omelette without breaking chicks, right? I don’t know how many lives the senator changed — he certainly changed Mary Jo’s — but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo “would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history . . . Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.” What true-believing liberal lass wouldn’t be honored to be dispatched by that death panel?"

Friday, August 28, 2009

And Proud of It...

P.J. O'Rourke:
"If, last Sunday, you spent a profitless hour reading the Washington Post (itself not too profitable), you noticed the loud yapping and desperate nipping at those who disagree with liberal orthodoxy. It was as if top management were a toy schnauzer accidentally mistaken for a duster and traumatized by being run back and forth through the venetian blinds. The wise and prestigious broadsheet institution was so barking mad that it sent three (Three! In these times of hardship for the print media! When reporters are being laid off right and left--well, mostly right--and stories are going uncovered from rapidly warming pole to pole! Three!) journalists to do battle with 'The Return of Right-Wing Rage.'"

Thursday, August 27, 2009

An "Idiot Alarm" so to speak...

Code Red:
"You know what Americans could really use these days? A high-quality, five-tiered, color-coded warning system to caution us about the threat level coming out of Washington. As one of those clueless, frothing-at-the-mouth, slack-jawed yokel extremists, I know I certainly could use a color scheme to help me get a handle on such a complex issue."

Quote of the Day...

'Cruel and neglectful' care of one million NHS patients exposed:
"It is quite simple really. There two kinds of health Care: one for the political elite, and one for the masses.
Isn't government grand?"

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Quote of the Day...

Jay Nordlinger:
"If only people were as alarmed about Iran’s nuclear program as they are about global warming . . . Come to think of it, there’s probably not a lot of global-warming hysteria in Israel."

Damn Republicans...

Andrew C. McCarthy:
"When Al Gore clearly violated the law, Eric Holder found no controlling legal authority and shut down the case. Now, when the controlling legal authority clearly shows no violation of law, Holder has unleashed the prosecutors to go after the nation’s most crucial line of defense against terror. That is shameful."

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Thank you, Andrew...

BREITBART::
"The strategy is clear: Intimidate people from speaking up or from attending public protests by telegraphing that anyone can be made a demon for standing up and exercising basic, constitutional rights.

To call these people hypocrites would be a grave insult to those who fail to live up to their own standards. Liberalism has never been about establishing a universal standard. Liberalism is simply intellectual cover for those wanting to gain political power and increase the size of the state.

For free-speech principles to be reinforced and free-market ideas to win the day, more people are going to have to stand up and be heard."

Liberal Facism at its most insidious...

Fouad Ajami:
"So we are to have a French health-care system without a French tradition of political protest. It is odd that American liberalism, in a veritable state of insurrection during the Bush presidency, now seeks political quiescence. These 'townhallers' who have come forth to challenge ObamaCare have been labeled 'evil-mongers' (Harry Reid), 'un-American' (Nancy Pelosi), agitators and rowdies and worse.

A political class, and a media elite, that glamorized the protest against the Iraq war, that branded the Bush presidency as a reign of usurpation, now wishes to be done with the tumult of political debate. President Barack Obama himself, the community organizer par excellence, is full of lament that the 'loudest voices' are running away with the national debate. Liberalism in righteous opposition, liberalism in power: The rules have changed."

LOL...

The thrill is gone for Obama and the media:
"When the leader of the free world is complaining about a posting on the former governor of Alaska’s Facebook page, he’s got problems."

Quote of the Day...

NYTimes.com:
"One caution to Mets fans: don’t ask what else can go wrong."

Monday, August 24, 2009

Yeah! How you be splainin' that?

The Health Care Cost Saving Myth:
"How’s that gonna work?"

Well worth the lengthy read just in case you are wondering how the math works.... Apparently, The One and His Congress are more interested in actually changing the laws of physics by squeezing the health care gorilla into a quart container of whole milk. By casting Congressional ballots you actually CAN make 2+2=3: a simple declaration of "This is how it is going to be from now on!" (whether you like it or not, whether it really is possible or not). It used to be called The Soviet Union... now it's just Government policy.

Not possible!!!

Politicization of the Obama Justice Department

Pretty much sums it up...

Sex, Drugs, Music, Mud:
"No social phenomenon can be completely analyzed, thoroughly critiqued, and given its full philosophical due in just one word. Except Woodstock. Altamont."

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Because "liberal" now means exactly the opposite from what it used to....

Scenes From the Shut-up-and-Sing-Sell-Arugula Protest:
More on the pathetic boycott against the only supermarket CEO I'm aware of who advocates ending the Drug War, here and here. I'll just make one observation: The liberal commentariat keeps telling us that we need to have a "serious debate" about reforming our dysfunctional health care system. Well, love 'em or hate 'em, Mackey came up with eight tangible ideas to do just that, and this is the reaction he gets. From people who no doubt treasure their DVDs of Shut Up and Sing.

Quote of the Day:

Mark Steyn:
"“Losing faith”? Oh, no! Fall on your knees and beseech the One: “Give me a sign, O Lord!”

But he has. They’re all along empty highways across rural New Hampshire: “This Massive Expansion of Wasteful Statism Brought to You by Obama Marketing, Inc.”"

The perfect defense for the chronically incompetent...

Critics Driven by Racial Bias, Paterson Says:
"Gov. David A. Paterson lashed out on Friday at critics who say he should not run for election, and he suggested that he was being undermined by an orchestrated, racially biased effort by the media to force him to step aside."

Well, I'm sold...

7 Reasons to Avoid Windows 7:
"Computerworld’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols stands firm that Windows 7 won’t change anything from a security perspective: “Windows 7 still has all the security of a drunken teenager in a sports car,” he wrote. “Millions of lazy Windows users are the reason why the internet is a mess. If you already do all the right things to keep XP running safely, you’re not going to get any safer by buying Windows 7.”"

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Can't figure it out - can they?

Daniel Henninger:
"Instead of whining about conspiracies, the average congressman getting yelled at this summer by his own constituents might ask: How come these people don't trust me?"

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Must be a Racist!

Terrorists Get Appeals, Obamacare Patients Don’t:
"Tucked into several pages of this epic monstrosity are various “limitation on review” provisions. They are designed to vest President Obama with unilateral, non-appealable control over available treatments and their costs. That is, Americans will have no recourse to challenge errant or capricious executive-branch decisions in the courts.

For example, let’s say you’re hospitalized for some condition or procedure and are discharged, but you relapse and need to go back to the hospital. Not so fast. Under Democratic health-care reform, the government will be rationing hospital treatment. You will not be readmitted unless Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (or one of her anonymous minions) has decided enough people suffering the same ailment have been discharged — freeing up whatever HHS, in its infinite wisdom, sees as adequate resources to allow you a second bite at the apple."

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Too easy....

The Agitator:
Thorough review of research shows nothing but positive results for America’s 10-year experiment with consumer-driven health plans. I had a positive (and eye-opening) experience with the HSA plan I had at Cato. Too bad the Democrats aren’t particularly interested in what works.

Via Taranto:

Two Papers in One!

• "There's a problem: conservative politicians, clinging to an out-of-date ideology--and, perhaps, betting (wrongly) that their constituents are relatively well positioned to ride out the storm--are standing in the way of action. No, I'm not talking about Bob Corker, the Senator from Nissan--I mean Tennessee--and his fellow Republicans. . . . I am, instead, talking about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and her economic officials, who have become the biggest obstacles to a much-needed European rescue plan."--former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 15, 2008

• "Why is Europe falling short? Poor leadership is part of the story. European banking officials, who completely missed the depth of the crisis, still seem weirdly complacent. And to hear anything in America comparable to the know-nothing diatribes of Germany's finance minister you have to listen to, well, Republicans."--Krugman, New York Times, March 16, 2009

• "The European economy bounced back with unexpected strength in the second quarter, buoying hopes that a worldwide recession was drawing to a close. The sharp improvement from the first quarter underscored just how far Europe and indeed the global economy had come since a harrowing free fall in late 2008. Underlying the strong reading were solid performances in France and Germany, each of whose economies grew slightly in the second quarter, according to government data released Thursday."--news story, New York Times, Aug. 14, 2009

Via Taranto:

Two Papers in One!

• "There's a problem: conservative politicians, clinging to an out-of-date ideology--and, perhaps, betting (wrongly) that their constituents are relatively well positioned to ride out the storm--are standing in the way of action. No, I'm not talking about Bob Corker, the Senator from Nissan--I mean Tennessee--and his fellow Republicans. . . . I am, instead, talking about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and her economic officials, who have become the biggest obstacles to a much-needed European rescue plan."--former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 15, 2008

• "Why is Europe falling short? Poor leadership is part of the story. European banking officials, who completely missed the depth of the crisis, still seem weirdly complacent. And to hear anything in America comparable to the know-nothing diatribes of Germany's finance minister you have to listen to, well, Republicans."--Krugman, New York Times, March 16, 2009

• "The European economy bounced back with unexpected strength in the second quarter, buoying hopes that a worldwide recession was drawing to a close. The sharp improvement from the first quarter underscored just how far Europe and indeed the global economy had come since a harrowing free fall in late 2008. Underlying the strong reading were solid performances in France and Germany, each of whose economies grew slightly in the second quarter, according to government data released Thursday."--news story, New York Times, Aug. 14, 2009

Watch the damn video!!!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

You’ve Had a Good Innings..

Mark Steyn:
"But from your point of view, what counts is not whether the model’s sustainable but whether you are. I am certainly in favor of reform. I would support a Singapore-style system of personal health accounts — and Singapore, for Mayor Bloomberg’s benefit, has the third-highest life expectancy in the world. But, under any government system that interjects a bureaucracy between you and your health, the elderly and not-so-elderly get denied treatment. And there’s nothing you can do about it because, ultimately, government health represents the nationalization of your body. You’re 84, 72, 63, 58, you’ve had a good innings. It’s easy for him to say. And even easier for his army of bureaucrats."

Friday, August 14, 2009

OK. So maybe this is the Quote of the Day:

Instapundit:
"I don’t think the Obama Administration took over GM. I think GM took over the Obama Administration."

Quote of the Day...

Jillette on “Is Dissent Still Patriotic?”
"“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” is so last year. This year, snitching is the highest form of patriotism."

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A matter of style...

Camille Paglia:

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

...There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

Quote of the Day:

Via Taranto:
Whereas Obama seems to think the country owes it to him to accept ObamaCare because he was kind enough to agree to be our president, Bush actually made an effort to persuade the public--including the opposite party--that his plan for Iraq was a good idea. The effort was very successful: Congress authorized the use of military force with strong bipartisan majorities, and by early 2003, public approval of the plan was in the 70% range.

Slapping the Camel's Nose...

Megan McArdle:
"I was writing about my deeper opposition to the entire project of providing, paying for, or otherwise guaranteeing health care. Since for most people on the left, this is akin to declaring that I would like to take up killing orphans in my spare time, I outlined why I think that this is morally correct even if you take the liberal set of initial values, and don't place any moral weight on taxation or other coercive action by the state. I have voiced my various practical objections to the particular options on the table at various moments. But the main thing is that I don't want to give the government a greater role in health care markets. Nay, not even if all the other countries . . . well, all the cool countries, anyway . . . are doing it. To the liberals proclaiming that, unlike those of us in the conservative or libertarian camps, they are practical people just seeking the best way to make us all better off, I say: I think your utilitarian calculus is badly wrong."

I really do love this woman....

Who Is This Guy?

JustOneMinute:
"The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character."

He's really the guy who hangs out with the university crowd that, for the most part, looks down on the great majority of the population.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

New Poster Reveals the Ugly Face of Racism...


Real Clear Politics:
"This is ugly stuff. By superimposing Obama's face over the likeness of Tinky Winky this new poster creates a subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument. Forget socialism, this poster is another attempt to undermine the President by drawing on deep seated stereotypes against blacks, foreigners, and gays. It's disgusting."

Just can't wait....

Townhall:
"I know this post is long. But the stories are worth repeating. Because the issue is big, and it's complex, and it has unintended, and intended consequences. Our elected representatives don't want to read the bill, because they don't want to know, or hear about those consequences. Or because they do know, and they believe those consequences are perfectly acceptable, in the name of increased control of our choices, and our lives. I won't pretend that the US health care system is perfect. It's not. But it's a hell of a lot better than what exists in Canada. And anyone who tells you different is either lying, or just plain wrong."

Monday, August 10, 2009

Madam Speaker is such an idiot...

Pelosi finds dissent un-American… now.:
"In sum, Speaker Pelosi is quite tolerant of disruptive protests, so long as they are on the Left. And if Pelosi is not the person most responsible for trying to shut down democratic debate on healthcare and other vital issues, she is certainly in the front row of the team photo. Is there a word for that?"

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Is there anything WORSE for your eyes than constantly reading from a computer screen?

As Classrooms Go Digital, Textbooks May Become History

The Orwellian Universe of Mr. Obama

GayPatriot :
If an ‘astroturfing’ campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn’t it … community organizing?“ Now that conservatives are organizing communities of concerned citizens in much the same manner Barack Obama did when once a recent transplant to the Windy City, well, the Democrats (and their allies in the MSM) just can’t fathom the notion of their ideological adversaries expressing their grievances in much as they have done for the better part of the last eight years.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Hail, Caesar!

Kathryn Jean Lopez :
"For Barack Obama, democracy appears to be a distraction. He really does seem to view himself as a Caesar."

Friday, August 7, 2009

Quote of the Millenium (via Patterico)

How Little Things Have Changed:
"“If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.” –Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791"

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The "Rule of Empathy"...

Eric Holder Does Justice:
"Holder has been in office for six months now and — will wonders never cease? — it turns out that really, when not subjected to the glare of television cameras and Congressional scrutiny, Eric Holder is part of Team Obama’s effort to transform justice from the rule of law into the pursuit of “social justice,” i.e., an attack on the rule of law in the name of a left-wing political agenda."

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Couldn't we work out a swap for Michael Moore?

Doctors in Cuba Start Over in the U.S.:
"Yet for many Cuban doctors, who earn the equivalent of $25 a month, the lure of a life of freedom and opportunities in the United States is too strong to resist. And so these children of the revolution, educated by a Communist regime to reject capitalism and embrace socialism, have ended up in Miami, often tending to elderly Cubans who fled the island before the doctors were born."

Monday, August 3, 2009

The "teachable moment"?

Jay Nordlinger:
"Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Could you remind me, once more, why we have government radio, and government TV, anyway? I guess this is what Dan Rather means by “public media” (as if privately owned media weren’t public). It’s bad enough when an ordinary, commercial outlet is shoddy, misleading, or mendacious. But a taxpayer-funded outlet?

This may be mere emotion talking, but if there’s one reform I’d like to see, it is to do away altogether with government media in this liberal republic (and you know I mean liberal in an older, honorable sense)."

Read it all...

Via The Agitator:

Hugo Chavez shuts down 34 radio stations. But remember, Venezuelans get free health care and stuff, so Chavez may well be a great man.

Precisely what I have been saying...

On race, 'No, he can't!':
"While I have no desire to see Mr. Obama's birth certificate, I do want to see his college transcripts. My suspicion, one could even call it a conspiracy theory, is that Mr. Obama committed himself to a radical curriculum, aligned himself with the far-left professoriate, and sought to keep this biographical information from his political enemies, especially then-rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, for fear that they would paint the former community organizer and follower of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as something other than an advocate of racial reconciliation."

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Speals to the narrow mindedness of Guthrie

Peace, Love and Charlie Manson:
"SPEAKING about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Arlo Guthrie recently asked, “How many other events from 1969 are we still talking about?” Plenty, as it turns out, and for reasons far more compelling than inexhaustible boomer nostalgia. By any measure, the last year of the ’60s was crammed with events, Woodstock among them, that have lived on as symbolic battlegrounds in the culture wars that have dominated our country’s politics since then."

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Right on the $$$$$...

Mark Steyn:
"...health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. That’s its attraction for an ambitious president: It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists — to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular."

Friday, July 31, 2009

One leg at a time.....

Jonah Goldberg:
Obama isn’t supposed to be a typical politician. He was supposed to be The One. He was supposed to change Washington. Transcend race. Fix souls. Bake twelve-minute brownies in seven minutes.

Oprah promised Obama would help us “evolve to a higher plane.” Deepak Chopra said Obama’s presidency represented “a quantum leap in American consciousness.” Last month, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas proclaimed that Obama stood “above the country, above — above the world, he’s sort of God.”

Well, now he’s the god who bleeds, and once you’re the god who bleeds, it’s hard to get the divinity back in the tube, as it were."

No...

Can Obama lead without active assistance of MSM?

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Hope and Change!!!

JONATHAN TURLEY:
"Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli overruled career lawyers at the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division to drop a complaint against three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November’s election — including one member Samir Shabazz who brandished a nightstick."

Watch your back....

Clifford D. May:
"Historian Bernard Lewis has observed that a nation can make few mistakes worse than this: to be “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” Is that a fair characterization of American foreign policy under the Obama administration?"

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Nobody really gets it.....

Markets, Not Mandates:
"Right now consumers are locked into the health insurance and health care plans that their employers choose, thanks to previous government meddling with the health care system and the tax code. Consequently, most consumers simply don't have a clue what their health insurance costs. They have no way to reduce those costs, and no incentive to do so, even if they could."

If people really understood that the current medical care mess is actually caused by of government intervention, perhaps they wouldn't be so quick to offer their lives and futures to the fools who are in charge. No place is that more evident than (of course) in today's NY Times. David Leonhardt takes us painfully through a series of gymnastics for the sole purpose of making sure that the government is in charge of the system, rather than really solving the problems. Read it and realize just how stupid we have become....

And I expected much less....

Popehat:
"I expected more from him. Even while deriding the idea of Change as a strategy, I was hopeful that at the very least his popularity and political capital would allow for some meaningful progress. Instead, Obama seems bound and determined to fritter his capital away, and allow the Democrats in Congress to do what they do best, lose majorities. One more time Joe. “That’s not change. That’s more of the same.”"

A worthy read; but only if you're willing to see all the warts underneath the bullshit....

Let's hear it for "disproportionate force"!

Culture War Replaces Missile War:
"In early 2006, shortly before the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, an Israeli intelligence officer predicted the future. “Missile war will replace terrorist war,” he told me when I spoke with him at the Ministry of Defense."

Totten usually gets these things right....

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Good Night, and Good Luck.....

Megan McArdle:
"I know, most of you have already figured out why I oppose national health care. In a nutshell, I hate the poor and want them to die so that all my rich friends can use their bodies as mulch for their diamond ranches. But y'all keep asking, so here goes the longer explanation.

Basically, for me, it all boils down to public choice theory. Once we've got a comprehensive national health care plan, what are the government's incentives? I think they're bad, for the same reason the TSA is bad. I'm afraid that instead of Security Theater, we'll get Health Care Theater, where the government goes to elaborate lengths to convince us that we're getting the best possible health care, without actually providing it."

Sunday, July 26, 2009

In other words - Up Your's, Mr. President!

Mark Steyn:
"The president of the United States may be reluctant to condemn Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Chávez or that guy in Honduras without examining all the nuances and footnotes, but sometimes there are outrages so heinous that even the famously nuanced must step up to the plate and speak truth to power. And thank God the leader of the free world had the guts to stand up and speak truth to municipal police sergeant James Crowley."

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Yes, you've been had.....

Expert is as expert does:
"Well, obviously, being a renowned expert, Thomas Friedman, like Al Gore and the Prince of Wales, needs a supersized carbon footprint. But you don't - you can get by beating your laundry on the rocks down by the river with the native women all day long.

'Environmentalism' is a government restraint on economic advance and, therefore, social mobility. In other words, it's a way to ensure you'll never live like Tom Friedman."

Don't bother me with facts....

Billions To Stimulate Criminality:
"Don't hold your breath for justice. No doubt Attorney General Eric Holder will soon be too busy hounding former Vice President Dick Cheney — for his forceful effort in waging the global war on terror — to probe the shady outfit that helped elect his boss president."

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Quote of the Day...

Andy Borowitz:
"The president said that clinical trials showed that patients who are exposed to one of his pressers usually lose consciousness within three minutes, 'just like Helen Thomas does.'

Mr. Obama's press conference appears to have been a big success, with a new poll showing that 57% of Americans favor the President's health care plan 'if he will promise to stop talking about it.'"

The true definition of a Ponzi scheme:

Reason Magazine:
"The California Air Resources Board issued a fanciful study finding that mandates to cut greenhouse gas emissions will cost Californians essentially nothing. This is pure California dreaming. In his stinging critique of the study, Harvard economist Stavins said that putting the world on a less carbon-intensive path will require serious policy and sacrifice. 'This will not be easy, and it will not be cheap,' he wrote. 'Indeed it will be costly.' Telling the public anything else is just climate change economic denialism."

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Quote of the Day:

Sheldon Richman:
"No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains."

The Obamas, and Directive 10-289…

Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual”…
You see, what is happening is that through the “economic emergency,” Obama is trying to implement Rand’s fictitious “Directive 10-289,” which is what the the combination of “stimulus package,” unsupervised TARP bailouts, “Cap and Trade,” and “Health Care Reform” equal when they are rammed down your throats without discussion (or even the reading of the details) by your supposed “representatives” in the national government. Here is Directive 10-289 (h/t outdoorsunlimited.net)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

At Least They Have Health Care

David Kahane:
"Luckily, over the past 60 years or so, we’ve managed to convince the once sturdy and stoic American people that illness is not to be borne “manfully” or uncomplainingly, and that constantly worrying, 24/7, about your health is not a sign of hypochondria or outright insanity. Why, to hear us tell it via our stooges in the media and out here in Hollywoodland, the entire country is perpetually on the brink of a financially ruinous physical meltdown, just a pack of cigarettes, a pre-existing condition, a bag of Cheez Doodles, and a closed emergency room away from debilitation, despair, dementia, and death.

...Suffering from brain cancer and on the verge of his final ave atque vale, Senator Kennedy is owed nothing less than the nationalization of health care in return for his selfless public service since that day 40 years ago he left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown off Chappaquiddick Island while he huddled with his advisers. The trauma he suffered that day must be unimaginable, but at least he has health care, even if she doesn’t.
"

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The Gelded Age - Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Mark Steyn:
"It’s hardly worth batting an eyelid over equine welfare queens. It’s a mere drop in the mountain of federal horse manure. But, in their own poignant way, the mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we’re all headed. The old west has been succeeded by the new California, in which a bloated government bureaucracy rides herd on the ever more emaciated workhorses of the private sector. And as California goes — and it’s going, going, gone — so goes the nation."

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A second one may be nesessary...

Myron Magnet:
"It’s worth recalling that when the Founding Fathers led the American colonists in revolt against British oppression, they weren’t rebelling against torture on the rack or being chained in galleys or having to let aristocrats deflower their daughters. They were rebelling against taxes. To them, having to pay duties they hadn’t voted for themselves was a tyrannical taking of property—theft—and, in true Lockean fashion, they concluded that since government exists to protect life, liberty, and property, a regime that does the opposite renders itself illegitimate."

That George Bush sure tried to grab power....

Townhall:
"Back in 1993, Hillary Clinton led the secretive Health Care Task Force, which attempted to create legislation to seize the health care system and put it under government control. It was rightly defeated then. But as radical of a plan as that was, what we're facing now with Barack Obama's desire for control makes Hillary's attempt look like a simple resolution to honor the Boy Scouts."

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

1% is just fine....

Nearly all my professors are Democrats. Isn't that a problem?:
"The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included 'political affiliation' as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of journalism, law, political science, economics, and sociology, there were only two registered Republicans."

Monday, July 13, 2009

Quote of the Day...

Megan McArdle:
"How can Democrats control 60% of the Senate, and still be unable to get a goddamn cloture vote?"

Saturday, July 11, 2009

History is now over... if you are stupid enough to believe them

Mark Steyn:
"Environmentalism opposes that kind of mobility. It seeks to return us to the age of kings, when the masses are restrained by a privileged elite. Sometimes they will be hereditary monarchs, such as the Prince of Wales. Sometimes they will be merely the gilded princelings of the government apparatus — Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi. In the old days, they were endowed with absolute authority by God. Today, they’re endowed by Mother Nature, empowered by Gaia to act on her behalf. But the object remains control — to constrain you in a million ways, most of which would never have occurred to Henry VIII, who, unlike the new cap-and-trade bill, was entirely indifferent as to whether your hovel was “energy efficient.” The old rationale for absolute monarchy — Divine Right — is a tough sell in a democratic age. But the new rationale — Gaia’s Right — has proved surprisingly plausible."

Friday, July 10, 2009

Laughing Heartily (Once Again) at Andrew Sullivan

The New Editor:
"Is there a bigger Internet fool than The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who spends most of his time doing a cheap imitation of a scummy Chicago Democratic Party precinct captain with his lips firmly attached to President Barack Obama's backside?"

Don't you hate it when she makes sense?

Megan McArdle:
"Paying for a huge new entitlement which will, at best, grow steadily during downturns, should not be done with a tax that will plummet the way progressive income tax revenues seem to during a depression. See: California, State of."

The kind of thing you expect from this administration....

Political opposition is not a hate crime:
"Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: 'This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as 'extremists.''"

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Idiot...

Obama’s Moscow Retreat:
"Obama has been hopelessly weak on the missile defense shield for Eastern Europe, and he has now mumbled his way through a summit meeting.

The ball is once again in the Republicans’ court, and they should not count on having any more such opportunities. So far, nothing has been heard from key Republican figures. It is time for the Republican leadership to show us what they are made of — or to step aside in favor of some new party that may be willing to do so."

Can you imagine the reaction if the Bush White House had done this?

Top of the Ticket:
"White House misspills President Obama's name on diplomatic dokument"

He's coming for EVERYTHING you own...

TigerHawk:
"Thirty-five percent. Somebody needs to turn that into a bumper sticker."

Via Taranto:

"Aging is, unequivocally, the major cause of death in the industrialized world." A difference of 2 degrees seems trivial by comparison to the prospect of an eternity at room temperature.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

You always get what you (don't) pay for...

California Screaming:
"Rarely has the chasm between elite political discourse and grubby popular opinion been displayed in such sharp relief. The implications of this citizen revolt—and the hostile reactions to it—stretch far beyond Nevada’s western border. California is the Ghost of Federal Government Future.

The federal government is now run by a president and Congress more responsive to union concerns than any in at least two decades. The same bloat currently bogging down statehouses and city halls is being duplicated in boomtown Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama even brought Andy Stern in to help warn Schwarzenegger that federal stimulus money would not be disbursed to California unless the governor rescinded some proposed state job cuts. Though that threat was later withdrawn, Schwarzenegger at press time was pushing for a measly work force reduction of 2 percent.

But there’s another interpretation of California’s rebellion, one with far sunnier implications for those of us who prefer our governments constrained. Faced with a political class that ignored bureaucratic inefficiency, that demanded higher taxes, that filled the newspapers with scare stories about people who will literally die as a result of budget cuts, the citizens of one of the bluest states in the nation collectively said we just don’t believe you anymore. If even California’s famous fruits and nuts can call the statists’ bluff, there may be hope for the rest of the country."


Be very afraid of what you don't know...

Megan McArdle:
"Look at defense spending. Are F-22 raptors worth $138 million? It's a pretty meaningless question. Congress is willing to pay $138 million. But this bears only the haziest relationship to what the Americans who pay the bill want, or are willing to pay, for such a plane. And the procurement system pays at least as much attention to what congressional district things are built in as what makes the most effective military. That's why virtually everyone thinks defense procurement is an overpriced disaster, which gets innovation only at drastic cost. Unfortunately, there's no other way to go about it.

Right now, the US has a market--no matter how screwed up--for medical goods. It is not a good market. But no one in the market, except Medicare, has enough pricing power to totally undermine the market mechanism, so it grinds out an equilibrium that bears some resemblance to consumer demand. In turn, Europe can buy those market-produced products. But if you kill the last market, everything suddenly looks very different. What's the right price for innovation? What should we research? Those questions stop being decided on the basis of the number of consumers served, and start being decided on the basis of who has the best lobby."

A NYT "Exclusive"...

All the News That's Fit to Steal

Bend over, America....

Dept. of I Told You So, Economics Division:
"The situation is not yet catastrophic, but . . . well, give them time. If the Democrats get what they want (the Waxman-Markey energy tax, socialized medicine, and another stimulus) it may suffice to bring about a Zimbabwe-style meltdown."

The Ministry of Information... and Truth

The Cost of Controlling The Press:
"Barack Obama's White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices. Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or nearly $5 million a year-and that is for salaries alone.

Based on the coverage the President has garnered so far, it is money well spent."

Life changing...

Google Plans a PC Operating System

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Behind the Times

Mark Steyn:
"A week ago, the House of Representatives passed some gargantuan “cap-and-trade” bill designed to “save” “the environment.” Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist, accused those Neanderthals who voted against the bill of committing “treason against the planet.” By that standard, most of the planet is guilty of treason against the planet. I don’t mean just in the sense that China, already the world’s Number One CO2 emitter, and India and other rising economic powers have absolutely no intention of doing what the Democrats have done, no way, no how — because they don’t see why they should stay poor just because New York Times columnists think it’s good for them.

No, I mean that most of the developed world has already gone down the paved road of good intentions and is now frantically trying to pedal up out of it. New Zealand was one of the few western nations to sign on to Kyoto and then attempt to abide by it — until they realized they could only do so by destroying their economy. They introduced a Dem-style cap-and-trade regime — and last year they suspended it. In Australia, the Labor government postponed implementation of its emissions-reduction program until 2011, and the Aussie Senate may scuttle it entirely. The Obama administration has gotten to the climate-change hop just as the glitterball’s stopped whirling and the band’s packing up its instruments.