Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Difference Between Jack And Barry Is...

Book Review: Berlin 1961 - WSJ.com: "Somehow worse never came to worst, and surely the bottom line is that there was no war and that West Berlin remained intact to become the capital of a re-united, democratic Germany. Whether this was achieved by good luck or good management or faint-heartedness is moot and likely to remain so. Mr. Kempe's point is that Kennedy's indecisiveness in the early stages of the crisis produced the wall itself, an exponential increase in East-West tension, and, in the half-century that followed, other fateful consequences that included the Cuban missile crisis—and, though Mr. Kempe doesn't say so, the Vietnam War, along with social and strategic spores that lodged in the American psyche and darkened world opinion with results yet to be revealed. It also provided, as Mr. Kempe puts it in the final sentence of this mind-shaking work of investigative history, an example 'of what unfree systems can impose when free leaders fail to resist.'"
... that Jack wasn't actually on the other side. So he only nearly got the world blown up instead of just putting you directly in chains while you watch American Idol.

What's that? You were getting suspicious of the clinking sounds? It's probably too late bro, but thanks for all the "help". /sarc

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Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day 2011

[[I can't top last year's Memorial Day post so here it is again.]]


Do you think you know the price of freedom?

And why are you squandering what these people have bought you with their blood like a spoiled and ungrateful child?

(From QandO)

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What O Duce Pleases

In Violation Of UN Resolution, Western "Boots" Are Now On The Libyan Ground | zero hedge: "In a TV slip caught by Al Jazeera, yet another Zero Hedge prediction has been confirmed: namely that it was only a matter of time before NATO 'boots on the ground' would promptly replace the CIA's 'sandals on the ground' in a fully Western-backed land invastion of Libya. Since it is too early to predict the nationality of the armed invaders, we will assume they are British as Al Jazeera speculates, because otherwise Congress is about to find itself in an unprecedented scandal for completely ignoring its duty to impose the War Powers Act, which in turn would mean that the President now has a unilateral right to enforce the invasion of any country he so chooses. We will leave the bitter implications of what this could mean, as America celebrates, and remembers the lives of so many who died for this once great country, to others."
Good Lord. I'm betting there are zero reports of this in our Pravda media.

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Subversion

Power Line - The subversive president: "In Caroline Glick's Jerusalem Post column on Prime Minister Netanyahu's close encounter with President Obama last week, we find this condensed account of the challenge raised by Obama's leadership style:
Obama's leadership model is the model of subversive leadership. Subversive leaders in democracies do not tell their citizens where they wish to lead their societies. They hide their goals from their citizens, because they understand that their citizens do not share their goals. Then once they achieve their unspoken goals, they present their people with a fait accompli and announce that only they are competent to shepherd their societies through the radical shift they undertook behind the public's back."

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Questions

Questions for Minimum Wage Supporters, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty: "1. If the minimum wage is a good idea, shouldn't unpaid internships be illegal as well?  If not, why not? 

2. Name the main arguments in favor of the legality of unpaid internships.  Aren't all of them equally good arguments for allowing people to work for wages greater than zero and less than the minimum wage?"

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On Avoiding The Need For Memorial Day

Instapundit: "A REMINDER FOR MEMORIAL DAY, from Frederick Kempe’s Berlin, 1961. “I want Americans to understand how the decisions of their presidents — then and now — shape world history in ways we don’t always understand at the time of a specific event. I want readers to know that Kennedy could have prevented the Berlin Wall, if he had wished, and that in acquiescing to the border closure he not only created a more dangerous situation — but also contributed to mortgaging the future for tens of millions of Central and Eastern Europeans. The relatively small decisions that U.S. presidents make have huge, often global, consequences.”

Posted at 2:07 pm by Glenn Reynolds  "
Don't elect Presidents like the one you just did. And don't forget that Kennedy nearly got us blown up in the Cuban Missile Crisis, yet everyone worships him as a great President.

And then there's Lincoln just to make it an equal opportunity bashing. Translated to today's terms the Civil War would have resulted in 5 MILLION dead. I suggest you go read this book. (And its prequel.) Isn't it interesting that somehow the idea that compensated emancipation would have been a better option is never examined? After all, the North had all the South's money from Lincoln's mercantilist Hamiltonian tariffs already...

And I won't go into what a different world we would live in today if Churchill had been listened to before it was nearly too late. And, no, I'm not a pacifist. One of my historical arguments is that Hitler should have been attacked when he first re-occupied the Rhineland...

Which reminds me: Orwell should be allowed a say on Memorial Day also. I bet you've never read that one have you? I have noted many times that Orwell has been flushed down his own memory hole...

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Best Memorial Day Poster

The PJ Tatler » Best Memorial Weekend Lawn Poster: "… from an Atlanta neighborhood:"

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Amusing Ourselves To Death Watch

Writer urges Internet junkies to 'switch off' and think: "Like tens of millions of others, US technology writer Nicholas Carr found the lure of the worldwide web hard to resist -- until he noticed it was getting harder and harder to concentrate.
He set out his concerns in a celebrated essay headlined 'Is Google making us stupid?'

And his latest book 'The Shallows' explores in depth what he fears the Internet is doing to our brains.

'The seductions of technology are hard to resist,' Carr acknowledges in that book, which has sold an estimated 50,000 hardback copies in the United States alone. But he thinks it's time to start trying.

In a speech at last week's Seoul Digital Forum and an interview with AFP, Carr restated his concerns that IT is affecting the way people think and feel and even the physical make-up of their brains.

Every new technology in history -- like the map and the clock -- changed the way people think but Carr sees special dangers in the Internet."
This has already been covered with a TV focus by Neil Postman. That's where the title comes from. And it remains true for both media.

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Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Worm

Pajamas Media » The Marxian Worm: "In ancient Norse myth the universe was a tree at whose roots a worm gnawed. When the worm brought the tree down, the ultimate battle between good and evil would happen.

Lately I’ve been wondering if they were mostly right.

Our own civilization is a sort of tree, with its roots in property rights and the rule of law, and its branches lifting the rarefied heights of science, technology, arts, and literature.

For the last forty years in the U.S. — longer in other places –  a worm has been gnawing at the roots and sickening the tree. That worm is the philosophy of Karl Marx."

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D*mn, What A Sky

Your universe as seen from your home planet: "What makes this time lapse particularly amazing–because we’ve all seen plenty of time lapse videos of the night sky–is the four telescopes in the foreground. Watching these instruments work against a black background would be endlessly fascinating on its own. Unfortunately you won’t be able to pay them too much attention. Because damn, what a sky.

Watch it on full screen if you can."

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The Experts Agree


Moonbattery: "On a tip from TED."

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A Tale O Certain Dangers

Belmont Club » They Walk Among Us: "Is Harry Reid correct in saying that the government needs these tools? How would we know? What government can do — and what they the interpret the act as allowing — is classified. Wyden wants to uncover the “secret interpretation of the law” while protecting “sources and methods”. Part of the problem Wyden may encounter is that any non-trivial disclosure of legal interpretation will allow the public to deduce a great deal about the sources and methods. In other words, if the government told us what it thought it could legally do the public could figure out how they were doing it. Wired suggests that “geolocation information” from cellphones might be an area that Patriot Act thinks ought to be accessible to government and points out that Wyden has sponsored a bill that would provide legal protections for such information. (Readers of “No Way In” may find this a familiar theme.)

But that is speculation.

While some members of the public may have been comforted by President Obama’s announced intention to fight the War on Terror as if it were a law enforcement problem, some probably realized from the beginning that bringing operations traditionally associated with war under the law-enforcement roof might hold certain dangers."
I could have sworn that Barack O'bama thought the Patriot Act was a crock of sh*t. My memory must be going...

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Net Present (Bought Off) Value

Instapundit » Blog Archive » THOSE REVELATIONS ABOUT CONGRESSIONAL INSIDER TRADING lead Jeff Carter to observe: “I now understan…: "THOSE REVELATIONS ABOUT CONGRESSIONAL INSIDER TRADING lead Jeff Carter to observe: “I now understand why campaigns have become so expensive. The net present value of beating the market by 6% annually, along with the net present value of a guaranteed government pension, cushy health benefits, and the opportunity to leverage your elected position into a lucrative full time lobbying job after ’serving’ your country makes the spending seem minimal.” Even better, the campaign cash comes out of other people’s pockets. Win-win!

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 4:14 pm"

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And A Teddy Bear

#Weinergate:The “Would Your Spouse Buy It?” Test: "Hey, honey – I know that my Twitter account sent a photo of what may look like my hairless legs and possibly my junk to one of the woman who I follow on Twitter. And right, I follow less than 100 people. And yes, this woman who referred to me online as ‘her boyfriend’ and her friend said she has ‘a crush’ on me – and okay, she lives in Seattle and retweeted me saying what time in Seattle I’d be on the Rachael Maddow show. And yes, within 3 hours of me supposedly sending her the photo of my alleged junk I erased all my pictures from my YFrog account and sure, she deleted her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

But I have a simple explanation—I was hacked.

And no, I haven’t given any indication of having filed a police report of any kind about being hacked.

But I was hacked. Here’s some flowers. And a teddy bear.”
Would YOUR spouse buy that one?"

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The Bankrupt And Petarded McGovern

For tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar (Shakespeare):

Ed Driscoll » There’s a Reason Why it’s called the Forgotten Man: "George McGovern laments that after his experience in the bed-and-breakfast business he realizes that laws and regulations pertaining to small business are actually hurting the lower-wage workers whom he had tried to help during his entire political career. With his Stratford Inn in bankruptcy, McGovern now says:
In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business…. I wish that during the years I was in public office I had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better Senator and a more understanding presidential contender… To create job opportunities, we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities.
But don’t expect Washington — particular the administration that’s currently in the White House — to listen anytime soon."

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Good Grief

Pay Attention to Egypt - NYTimes.com: "To their credit, the Egyptian generals moved swiftly to put in place a pathway to democracy: elections for a new Parliament were set for September; this Parliament will then oversee the writing of a new Constitution, and then a new civilian president will be elected.

Sounds great on paper, and it was endorsed by a referendum, but there’s one big problem: The Tahrir Square revolution was a largely spontaneous, bottom-up affair. It was not led by any particular party or leader. Parties are just now being formed. If elections for the Parliament are held in September, the only group in Egypt with a real party network ready to roll is the one that has been living underground and is now suddenly legal: the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

“Liberal people are feeling some concerns that they made the revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood can now take it. This is not true,” Esam el-Erian, one of the party’s leaders, insisted to me.

But that is exactly what the urban, secular moderates, who actually did spearhead the Tahrir revolt, fear. They are only now forming parties and trying to build networks that can reach the millions of traditional Egyptians living in the countryside and persuade them to vote for a reform agenda and not just: “Islam is the answer.”"
That's funny. I could have sworn it was only us "knuckle-draggers" who thought this would be a problem.

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Just A Reminder

Palin kick-starts bus tour on back of motorcycle - Yahoo! News: "''In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed.''
—Barack Obama, on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people"

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Saturday, May 28, 2011

Dead Grannies?



Beware of broad conclusions about NY 26 by pundits: "How awful, no?  Patient centered (bureaucracy removed), means tested, and competition.  In fact, as he says, the program would be “just like the one Congress has”.

Well, wait, wasn’t that a promise of ObamaCare?  Wasn’t that something we were supposed to want?  Wasn’t cutting costs supposed to be the “big promise” in ObamaCare?

So here’s the plan to deliver that (oh, by the way, nothing changes for those 55 and older, so they’re grandfathered in) and the Democrats are savaging it as only Democrats can (dead grannies and the live one’s eating cat food)."

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Tooth-level Surveillance

Mark Steyn: Cowed by udderly insane regulations | regulatory, milk, sunstein - Opinion - The Orange County Register: "And, for every little victory, there are a zillion crankings of the government vise elsewhere. Plucked at random from the ObamaCare bill:
'The Secretary shall develop oral healthcare components that shall include tooth-level surveillance.'
'Tooth-level surveillance'? Has that phrase ever been used before in the entirety of human history? Say what you like about George III but the redcoats never attempted surveillance of Gen. Washington's dentures. Why not just call it 'gum control'?
The hyper-regulatory state is unrepublican. It strikes at one of the most basic pillars of free society: equality before the law. When you replace 'law' with 'regulation,' equality before it is one of the first casualties. In such a world, there is no law, only a hierarchy of privilege more suited to a sultan's court than a self-governing republic. If you don't want to be subject to 'tooth-level surveillance,' you better know who to call in Washington. Teamsters Local 522 did, and the United Federation of Teachers, and the Chicago Plastering Institute. And as a result they've all been 'granted' ObamaCare 'waivers.' Rule, Obama! Obama, waive the rules! If only for his cronies."
If you've never read Mark Steyn before, stop absolutely everything and read this one. And the same advice if you have read him before...

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Bitter Clingers

Guest Post: Bankrupt Nations Try To Stop The Future From Happening, Fail | zero hedge: "Over the years, the IMF became the roving economic police force of the ruling class, coercing developing nations to take enormous loan packages they had no hope of paying off.

As a result, the local IMF (or World Bank) representative in developing countries became extremely powerful figures. Leaders in poor countries were so terrified of loan default, the IMF was able to shape policy and allocate national resources as the west saw fit.

Clearly the tables have turned.

By 2011, the IMF’s biggest customers have become ‘developed’ (i.e. contracting) countries like Greece which are relying more and more on the generosity of China. Now with the IMF’s former chief locked up in disgrace for the foreseeable future, the race is on to see who will replace him.

The new order of things is very clear. The western hierarchy of the past is insolvent, and its capital has migrated south and east. Western leaders refuse to acknowledge this reality and are clinging desperately to antiquated institutions like the IMF in order to retain control of a now defunct financial system."

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Wait For It...

The fake Chrysler loan “payoff”: "The Obama administration’s bailout agreement with Fiat gave the Italian car company a “Incremental Call Option” that allows it to buy up to 16% of Chrysler stock at a reduced price. But in order to exercise the option, Fiat had to first pay back at least $3.5 billion of its loan to the Treasury Department. But Fiat was having trouble getting private banks to lend it the money. Enter Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu who has signaled that he will approve a fuel-efficient vehicle loan to Chrysler for … wait for it … $3.5 billion."
O Duce's "administration" isn't better described as "Crime Inc" without good reason.

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Friday, May 27, 2011

Stupid Fringe Tea-Partiers

Instapundit » Blog Archive » POLL: LARGE MAJORITY SUPPORT A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT. “A full 65 percent of the public support…: "POLL: LARGE MAJORITY SUPPORT A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT. “A full 65 percent of the public supports an amendment to the Constitution to require Congress to pass a balanced budget every year, The Daily Caller reports today. Just 27 percent oppose such an amendment, with 8 percent undecided.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 1:44 pm"

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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Slaves Don't


Moonbattery: Obama Boasts He Is Destroying Second Amendment "Under the Radar": "The statist agenda has never been achieved until the public has been disarmed, because in the end, anyone worthy of being called human will rebel against socialism. Like other aspects of Obamunism so radical as to provoke open revolt, the campaign to repeal the crucial Second Amendment is going 'under the radar' — to quote the Manchurian Moonbat himself"

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Below Angola

Power Line - The Key to Keystone, and Other Mysteries: "One of the big differences that remains between Bush and Obama is Obama's hostility to domestic energy production, as John also pointed out here. I'll only add that yesterday over on RealClearMarkets I offered a column with two bits of original reporting that exposes the charade of Obama's recent announcement that he wants more domestic drilling. Among other things, I recently got to see a proprietary research report by a leading economic consultancy on the investment of political risk for oil and gas in the United States. Here's the key paragraph"
It is almost as if the United States deliberately wanted to be more dependent on foreign oil. Consider that while the World Economic Forum rates the U.S. 4th in its ranking of the world's most competitive economies, it would rank far down the list if the WEF were to look at the competitiveness of the oil and gas industry in isolation. A proprietary ranking of political and investment risk for oil and gas by IHS's Petroleum Economics and Policy Solutions unit places the U.S. 44th, below several African nations such as Angola, which is ranked 18th. As an IHS analyst observes, in the U.S. "there is the constant threat of adverse contract or fiscal regime changes at both the state and federal levels of government. None of these threats or business risks is present in Angola."

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Monday, May 23, 2011

Dreams From My Father Indeed



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Sunday, May 22, 2011

The Deep Thinkers

Faster, Please! » Cruising Through the Middle East: "So when I read of Obama yelling at the Israelis to come to terms with their neighbors, I just laugh. The Arab states have failed–one reason for the surge in radical Islam–and if there were any logic in the realm of Western diplomacy our leaders would note that it is the Arabs and Iranians who need to learn from the Israelis how to make a country work well.

But the deep thinkers are well and truly overwhelmed by their antipathy to Israel, and they cannot and will not take an honest look at the most elementary facts on the ground. Instead of lecturing Netanyahu about the importance of forty-year old borders, we should be lecturing what Obama calls “the Muslim world” about what a mess their world is, and pointing out that the Jews have it right.

And, as always, the big question–Iran–is finesssed. You can’t talk seriously about the Arab-Israeli thing until you’ve dealt with Iran, because the Iranian regime runs the terrorists’ networks. The Arabs couldn’t deliver peace to the Israelis even if they wanted to, because the Iranians hold all the trump cards."

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Look Israel! No Teleprompter!

And spoken by someone who actually is qualified to be the leader of the free world.

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Saturday, May 21, 2011

Caption Of The Day


Caption Contest: Barack & Bibi Edition - Ricochet.com: "The leader of the free world greets the President of the United States."

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A Galaxy Far, Far Oway

The remarkable clarifying powers of Obama « Hot Air: "Obama isn’t the first American president to give short shrift to the fundamentals of negotiation; most of our presidents know little about it.  As a superpower, we are essentially a continent-size island with only two land borders, and our chief executive is his own separate branch of government, intended to counterbalance the legislature rather than emerging from it after years of parliamentary sausage-making.  It is rare for our presidents to enter the office with any meaningful experience in negotiation, and even rarer for them to appreciate it as a political discipline and be good at it.

But I don’t know that we’ve ever had a president who seemed, as much as Obama does, to live in a galaxy far, far away from “negotiation,” the human concept. It’s not that he appears to dismiss the ramifications of his actions for ongoing negotiations; it’s that they don’t even seem to occur to him. In one of the most counterintuitive episodes in a long time, it took an attitude this blunderingly dysfunctional to corner the consummate statesman Benjamin Netanyahu and induce him to say, bluntly and unequivocally, what had to be said about Israel’s irreducible requirements for survival."
You wince, but how could I resist?

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Same

LOL! WTWT.

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Friday, May 20, 2011

Collapse-O-rama

This is definitely a RTWT. It's not terribly long so just go do it:

Rubin Reports » Obama’s Middle East Speech: The Opposite of Strategy Is Catastrophe: "Finally. what does Obama propose as his great policy for implementing his ideas?

Answer: He’s going to send money. But in foreign policy as on domestic issues this is not a solution. Consider all the aid the United States gave to Egypt or the Palestinians. What political advances did that bring?

And all the money won’t be enough. Food prices are rising. Egypt will continue to be anarchic. A democratic state will suffer a bigger crisis than a dictatorship under such conditions.

So that’s it. Obama’s policy is to cheer the revolutionaries, boo the dictators, and send money.

That is not a strategy, it’s a formula for catastrophe and the destruction of U.S. allies and interests in the region. Moreover, when anti-American radicals — the Brotherhood, other revolutionary Islamists, radical nationalists, and far-left parties — dominate Egypt’s parliamentary elections in September (an outcome that is 100 percent predictable) this Obama policy will collapse overnight."
And he's just getting warmed up for his comments on O Duce's casually running over Israel with a bus...

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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Joooooos Under The Bus

Israel Expects Obama to Take Back ‘1967 Lines’ Demand - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News: "Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quick on the draw Thursday in voicing clear displeasure with President Barack Obama’s mideast policy speech. 

“Israel appreciates President Obama’s commitment to peace,” the response began, curtly. “Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israelis and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.”
 
“That is why Prime Minister Netanyahu expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, which were overwhelmingly supported by both Houses of Congress.”  
 
“Among other things,” Netanyahu reminded Obama, “those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines which are both indefensible and which would leave major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria beyond those lines.”"
And who with a pulse didn't see the Obamabus coming?

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A General Leap Into Insanity

Moonbattery: General Motors Sponsors Propaganda Film Promoting Genocidal Chinese Communist Regime: "Having allowed itself to be absorbed by our leftist federal government, the once proud General Motors is now reduced to building overpriced eco-mobiles that no one will buy and sponsoring propaganda films for the communist Chinese. The Washington Times reports:
In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP made film titled (translated to English) 'The Birth of a Party' or 'The Great Achievement of Founding the Party' is set to premiere all over the Communist nation on June 15 reported China AutoWeb last September."
Rope, noose, all that...

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Did I Forget To Say Du'O?

Elena Kagan | ObamaCare | The Daily Caller: "Newly released documents reveal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was more involved with President Obama’s health-care law than she disclosed previously. The documents likely will lead to a revival of questions about whether the Kagan should recuse herself from future cases.

Specifically, the documents show that Kagan was involved with crafting the legal defense of the Affordable Care Act in her role as solicitor general, before her appointment to the bench. The Media Research Center and Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that was filed in February 2011."

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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

100 Pages

Instapundit » Blog Archive » “NEW CIVILITY” BULLSHIT, CONT’D: WI Attorney General Releases 100 PAGES of Documented Threats Again…: "“NEW CIVILITY” BULLSHIT, CONT’D: WI Attorney General Releases 100 PAGES of Documented Threats Against Lawmakers During the Budget Negotiations. “A surprising number of even the most vile messages came from readily-identifiable senders.”

As Prof. Jacobson has asked in the past, “Why do these people, many of whom are professionals, feel no fear in expressing such death wishes in the open?” Because they don’t expect to face any consequences. And so far, most of them haven’t.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 8:07 am"
In case you wonder where this no consequences bullsh*t comes from, did you know that teachers in a local school district are now prohibited by the administration from using kid's bad behavior as a criteria for whether they will be allowed to go on the big field trip of the year? Yup. Doesn't matter what you do, you're in like Flynn...

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Monday, May 16, 2011

Have We Been Wrong About Socialism?

The New Socialism - Ricochet.com: "I'm more than a little embarrassed to find I've been wrong about my feelings toward Socialists. I had no idea they stayed in $3,000-per-night suites, could have cute nicknames like The Great Seducer even if they're post-60 and paunchy, and could have an arrangement with Air France to board any flight at any time and get a first class seat. It kind of makes the chicken dinners at most political gatherings seem pretty paltry by comparison. I'm not saying I'm moving toward Socialism, but I'm keeping an open mind."
Heh.

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Unclear On The Concept

Instapundit » Blog Archive » PEOPLE UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: “So these ‘anarchists’ object that the state might cut back on its i…: "PEOPLE UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: “So these ‘anarchists’ object that the state might cut back on its income transfers and payrolls. That is, they object to the state reducing its size, scope, and power. Odd anarchists.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 6:34 pm"

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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Follow The Money

Former “alarmist” scientist says Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) based in false science « Hot Air: "We are now at an extraordinary juncture. Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only ways to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class!"

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1865 Never Ends

Here's a snippet from one of the reviews:

Amazon.com: The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (9780761526469): Thomas DiLorenzo: Books: "William Manchester used the phrase 'American Caesar' to describe General Douglas MacArthur, but it applies much more fittingly to Abraham Lincoln, America's first (and God willing only) full-fledged military dictator. The gravedigger of the U.S. Constitution, Lincoln buried the founders' Union as completely as Lenin buried the Romanovs. And like Lenin, Lincoln built an empire on bayonets, brutality, and centralized power. As historian Richard Bensel (quoted by Thomas DiLorenzo in the introduction to this book) wrote, any student of the American state should begin his reading with 1865. Whatever happened before then no longer has any relevance.

DiLorenzo's little book began rocking conservative and libertarian circles even before its publication, proving what someone once said, that the way to tell the difference between the two schools of thought is to ask them what they think about Lincoln. To the outrage of the fans of centralized government, DiLorenzo is not only an excellent writer but a skilled researcher too. Votaries of Saint Abraham's iconic image have an awful lot of 'splainin' to do. In fact, as DiLorenzo notes, much of the writing on Lincoln over the decades has been exactly this: historians rationalizing Lincoln's decidedly un-godlike words and deeds. Whether a reader is willing to see through this fog depends on how open she is to challenging established 'truths.'

Lincoln's defenders often employ the slander that criticizing the Great Emancipator is the moral equivalent of defending slavery.

But history shows that slavery ended around the world during that era, and no place required the bloody war Lincoln waged. DiLorenzo proves that throughout his life, up to and including the War, Lincoln's driving force was his devotion to Henry Clay's 'American System' of internal improvement, nationalized banking, and a powerful central government. As DiLorenzo shows, a confederacy of states exercising their (previously unquestioned) right to secession would have been an intolerable obstacle to Lincoln's driving ambition."
It's time you read "The Real Lincoln".

I can't recommend this book highly enough. In one fell swoop, the independent thinkers among you will finally understand your grating discomfit at our current Tweedle-Dee/Tweedle-Dumber political regime.

And this picture will finally make perfect sense to you:

He's inwardly laughing in your face for being such a brainwashed plebe.

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Big Science At NASA

Ace of Spades HQ: "It's also an interesting story about how government-backed 'big science' gets done. The story of how a multi-billion dollar piece of hardware was nearly rendered useless by a malformed main mirror is a centerpiece of the book -- and the story is both funny and infuriating. The company that was supposed to run the test, Perkin-Elmer Corporation, was far over budget at the time and over schedule, so they failed to run a very basic and cheap test to test that the main mirror had the proper 'prescription'. The mirror was ground too flat, and no one caught the error until the telescope was already in space. If you were paying attention to the news when Hubble first went up, then you probably remember the embarrassment and chagrin experienced by NASA. But this book will tell you how dysfunctional NASA really is: Perkin-Elmer, the manufacturer of the faulty mirror, was not only not punished for the error; they were paid a bonus for outstanding performance on the contract. (PE later nearly went bankrupt and was sold to another firm.)"
The very same organization that enforces the AGW orthodoxy. What could go wrong? Ugghh.

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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Different

Why America is different: "The SEALs first saw bin Laden when he came out on the third floor landing. They fired, but missed. He retreated to his bedroom, and the first SEAL through the door grabbed bin Laden’s daughters and pulled them aside.
When the second SEAL entered, bin Laden’s wife rushed forward at him — or perhaps was pushed by bin Laden. The SEAL shoved her aside and shot bin Laden in the chest. A third seal shot him in the head.
Read that very carefully.  Very slowly.

“The first SEAL through the door” did what?

Risked his life to protect the daughters of a mass murderer we’re at war with plotting to kill even more Americans in the future.

And the second SEAL?  He didn’t spray and pray, he shoved aside a woman, saving her life, and went precisely after the target. "

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Bzzzzzt In Indiana

Stunning court decision in Indiana–Hoosiers have no right to resist illegal police entry into their home: "Or said another way, your home is no longer your castle. 

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Bzzzzzt.

Wrong – in Indiana"
Holy crap. And no doubt the next decision in this sequence will give police that are union members -- is it all of them by this point? -- the right to carry back your list of political donations to union hall to decide whether they'll respond to calls for help from your "castle" in future.

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Singletons

Say What? | rayharvey.org: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force.

Said George Washington.

The state is the coldest of all cold monsters that bites with stolen teeth.

Said Nietzsche.

...

Everything vital in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded religions and composed our masterpieces.

Said Proust.

God, if there is one, please save my soul, if I have one.

Prayed Voltaire.

Human life is an unceasing sequence of single actions.

Said Ludwig von Mises."
Except some revolvers. They can be double action.

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Antisocial Devils Indifferent To The Starvation That Would Haunt The Land

Ace of Spades HQ: "... thoughtful souls would call for 'supermarket choice' fueled by vouchers or tax credits. Those calls would be vigorously opposed by public-supermarket administrators and workers.

As for the handful of radicals who call for total separation of supermarket and state --- well, they would be criticized by almost everyone as antisocial devils indifferent to the starvation that would haunt the land if the provision of groceries were governed exclusively by private market forces."

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But To Offset The Ill-Equipped To Lead...

We have those who are:

Of course, they're not politicians are they?

Check out today's post at WUWT for more background. My last update on CLOUD was here. I can't recommend strongly enough that you watch Kirkby's lecture that it links.

UPDATE: And here's Kirkby with a recent lecture where he has to be coy also:
Well worth watching if you haven't seen the longer lecture at CERN I linked to earlier.

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Friday, May 13, 2011

By Far. Seemingly Infinitely So.

Instapundit » Blog Archive » WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Establishment Blues: I don’t want to make this a habit, and I suspect he …: "The American people are less prejudiced, more globally aware and more willing to meet other cultures and societies halfway than ever before. Minorities today are better protected in law and more fairly treated by the public than ever in our history. No previous generation has been as determined to give women a fair chance in life, or to attack the foul legacy of racism. The American people have never been as religiously tolerant as they are today, as concerned about the environment, or more willing to make sacrifices around the world to promote the peace and well being of humanity as a whole.

By contrast, we have never had an Establishment that was so ill-equipped to lead. It is the Establishment, not the people, that is falling down on the job.
Yes, we have the worst political class by far in American history.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 9:18 pm"
In fact we may be on the trail of the elusive holy grail of quantifying the infinite. Of course that may be short lived satisfaction as we find we have fallen through a black hole's event horizon to achieve that understanding...

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Monday, May 9, 2011

We've Pooped To This...

Moonbattery: Careful, TSA…: "…you might not like what you find in that diaper:"

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Surfaced In Steel

RealClearMarkets - Another Nail In the Keynesian Coffin: "The coffin of Keynesianism has so many nails in it now that it is practically surfaced in steel. The notion that government deficits 'stimulate' demand, has been proved wrong so many times, and in so many ways, that you would have to be Paul Krugman to still believe in it. However, in its April 28 news release on 1Q2011 GDP, the BEA drove yet another factual wooden stake into Keynesianism's vampire heart - a stake that no one seems to have noticed. What happened should also serve as a warning to Republicans that are still in the grip of the Keynesian superstition.

The BEA reported that its first estimate of 1Q2011 real GDP growth was 1.8%. This represented a dramatic fall from 4Q2010 growth of 3.1%. What no one seems to have noticed is that the slowdown occurred in the face of another large dose of Keynesian stimulus."

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Agreement Implemented

Osama bin Laden mission agreed in secret 10 years ago by US and Pakistan | World news | The Guardian: "The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.

The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.

Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion."

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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Paralysis

John Cleese is Much Funnier Than I Am - Ricochet.com: "The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France‘s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”"

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Saturday, May 7, 2011

Dead, Not Interrogated

Faster, Please! » What if the Killing of Bin Laden Is the Beginning of The Great American Retreat?: "ML:  “So maybe it’s a three-cushion shot?”

JJA:  “Maybe.  We agree to pull back, maybe even out.  Al-Qaeda — the anti-bin Laden part, anyway — makes the same deal (they relocate to Cairo or Luxor).  And all the Paks want is a guarantee from us concerning the operation.”

ML:  “Which is?”

JJA:  “Which is that Osama is NOT going to be interrogated.”

ML:  “Right, of course!  Because they don’t want him to tell us about…”

JJA:  “About THEM.  And also about others, by the way.  About Zawahiri, about the Saudi deals, about all the help AQ has gotten from Assad in Syria.  It’s quite a long list.  All of them want him dead.  None of them wants him interrogated, and least of all on a witness stand, be it military or civilian.”

ML:  “So that explains many things about the operation, doesn’t it?”"

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But There Is An End

FOFOA: Deflation or Hyperinflation?: "This whole IMF dollar system has always been based on an expanding fiat theory that swells [nominal] GDP over time. Investors that bet on deflation coming along, after each of our bouts of inflation, were badly burned as deflation was overcome. Economic function returned, essentially because price inflation could not rout the overall market for long credit.

The flaw in all of this was in the reserve structure of our Dollar IMF money system. The fact that the world had to walk, lock step, with our money policy meant that their goods production would almost always be cheaper than ours; keeping local US price inflation under control. In other words; local US-based price inflation could not get out of hand as long as the rest of the world was willing to use their economic production to control it by selling [products cheaper than we could produce them] into our expanding fiat system.

In this, the dollar [and its securities, and their derivatives] could be inflated without end while our credit markets functioned in a non-inflationary environment.

But there is an end."
This is one of the best inflation vs. deflation pieces ever written. It's a bit long but you need to RTWT anyway. You'll thank me for it.

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Life On O's Farm

The First-Person Presidency - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online: "The problem of first-personalizing national security is twofold. One, it is not consistent. Good news is reported by Obama in terms of “I”; bad news is delivered as “reset,” “the previous administration,” “in the past”: All good things abroad are due to Obama himself; all bad things are still the blowback from George W. Bush.

Two, there is the small matter of hypocrisy. The protocols for taking out Osama bin Laden were all established by President Bush and all opposed by Senator and then candidate Obama. Yet President Obama never seeks to explain that disconnect; indeed, he emphasizes it by the overuse of the first person. When the president reminds us this week of what “over the years I’ve repeatedly made clear,” does he include his opposition to what he now has institutionalized?

Guantanamo proves to have been important for gathering intelligence; Barack Obama derided it as “a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.”

Some key intelligence was found by interrogating prisoners abroad; Barack Obama wished to end that practice: “This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of law.” “That will be my position as president. That includes renditions.” Renditions have not ended under Obama, but expanded.

...

In sum, Senator Obama opposed tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, preventive detention, Predator-drone attacks, the Iraq War, wiretaps, and intercepts — before President Obama either continued or expanded nearly all of them, in addition to embracing targeted assassinations, new body scanning and patdowns at airports, and a third preemptive war against an oil-exporting Arab Muslim nation — this one including NATO efforts to kill the Qaddafi family. The only thing more surreal than Barack Obama’s radical transformation is the sudden approval of it by the once hysterical Left. In Animal Farm and 1984 fashion, the world we knew in 2006 has simply been airbrushed away."
And the good little emotionally wrecked, soma-soaked useful idiots buy it all... RTWT.

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Gangsta Trap


Power Line - Gangster Government, Cont.: "It is simply unbelievable that the federal government would try to tell a private business where it can build a factory. When the order comes after an enormous investment has already been made, and would result in the American company's products being less competitive in the marketplace, the outrage is compounded. Boeing's investment, described as the 'largest industrial investment in South Carolina history,' would go largely or entirely to waste. That will show South Carolina for not voting for the Anointed One! ... I'm pretty sure the country can survive four years of Barack Obama. It is not at all clear that we could survive eight years of his thuggery and dishonesty."

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Friday, May 6, 2011

Just Another Gateway To The State

If you've never seen Andrew Klavan before, now you know enough to subscribe to PJTV and fix that problem...

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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

And Reason #8: It's Not Their D*mn Money

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Wheedled

Instapundit » Blog Archive » I SPOKE THE OTHER DAY ABOUT THE MISUSE OF CIVILITY and then I ran across this quote from John Adams:…: "I SPOKE THE OTHER DAY ABOUT THE MISUSE OF CIVILITY and then I ran across this quote from John Adams: “Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:07 pm"

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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

You're Not Allowed To Miss This One So Here It Is In Full

Ace of Spades HQ: "Obama Invites Bush To Ground Zero Thing on Thursday; Bush Declines, Deciding He'll Pass On The Level of Courtesy and Respect Obama Showed Paul Ryan ...

And the Supreme Court, of course.

Yes, come on down, and sit mutely as as President Obama insults you repeatedly while controlling the microphone and camera.

Jammie Wearing Fool: For some reason, despite being in New York City lots of times for fundraising, Obama never thought to visit Ground Zero.

I guess he really just wants to help people 'heal' or something."

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October Avoided

American Thinker Blog: Did Wikileaks force the attack on Osama 18 months before the election? (updated): "I confess to being such a cynic about Obama that when the death of Osama was announced Sunday night, the first question in my mind was, 'Why so long before the election?' This is exactly he sort of event (like the financial crisis of 2008) that can swing several percentage points of the vote with its halo effect.

A potential answer to my question comes from the UK Daily Mail. Neil Sears writes:

WikiLeaks may have triggered the killing of Osama Bin Laden, it was suggested last night.

For although the CIA has thought since September that he was in hiding in Abbottabad, special forces stormed his fortress only days after the website published new secret documents."
RTWT. No October Osama surprise this election...

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Sunday, May 1, 2011

COTD: Makes Sense To Me!

BREAKING: BIN LADEN DEAD; Update: Killed “deep inside Pakistan” today in a firefight; Update: Found in Abbottabad; Update: Linked to Umar Patek? Update: Details of assault; Update: Early intel came from Gitmo detainees « Hot Air: "Dunk Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds head in water and liberal heads explode.

Put a bullet through Osama Bin Ladens head and liberals start celebrating.

Makes sense to me!

gumble on May 2, 2011 at 2:17 AM"

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Money For The New Satellite

Reality Leaves A Lot To The Imagination | Watts Up With That?: "The analysis by Hansen et al. (2005), as well as other recent studies (see, e.g., the reviews by Ramaswamy et al. 2001; Kopp et al. 2()05b; Lean et al. 2005; Loeb and Manalo-Smith 2005; Lohmann and Feichter 2005; Pilewskie et al. 2005; Bates et al. 2006; Penner et al. 2006), indicates that the current uncertainties in the TSI and aerosol forcings are so large that they preclude meaningful climate model evaluation by comparison with observed global temperature change. These uncertainties must be reduced significantly for uncertainty in climate sensitivity to be adequately constrained (Schwartz 2004)."
“Preclude meaningful climate model evaluation” … hmmm. Of course, they don’t make that admission all the time. They only say things like that when they want to get money for a new satellite. The rest of the time, they claim that their models are accurate to the nearest 0.15°C …
COTD UPDATE: Time for a very fine Feynman quote from the comments:
Brian H says:
April 30, 2011 at 10:27 pm
fred;
A simpler way of saying what you iterate above is: Climate Models illustrate the opinions of the experts and programmers who wrote them.

Time for Feynman: “Science is belief in the ignorance of experts.
Heh.

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