House of Eratosthenes

Keynesian Bumper Sticker
Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Bumper sticker slogans are really tough, especially for a windbag like me.

But Paul Krugman’s educated-man-delusions of grandeur put the big reveal on the situation: It’s dire. It is heart-attack serious. We truly are witnessing the greatest country the world has ever beheld, thrashing around in agony, suffering a disease that is about to turn terminal. And the docs around the deathbed are quacks. We’re talking leeches, bloodletting, pigeons pecking at the feet stuff.

Time for a bumper sticker slogan. I make no claim to authoring the best one possible, or possessing the talents necessary for such a thing. I’m just offering something to the public domain. Something must be done. The public must be exposed to what is truly going on, and it has to be done in a language the public can understand. And the word that applies, that has seldom found the benefit of ink or voice, must be put in the slogan. It must, like all effective bumper sticker slogans, mix what is familiar with what is not yet familiar, and must be researched, with gusto, diligently, and in a great big hurry.

So here’s my humble offering:

You Keynesians are all the same, with your beady little eyes and flapping heads!

With heartfelt and profound apologies to Trey and Matt. Had to do it, guys. Word needs to get out, and we can’t depend on bad results to teach the lesson. The student has to have some humility in order for that to work, and it obviously isn’t there. The time has come to borrow some points from the Alinsky playbook (this one would be making use of Rule Twelve). We have to use what works.

The stakes are far too high to dick around with anything else, and too much damage has already been done.

Update: And here we go.

These people need to be ridiculed, to be lampooned. Their position is today — and it was exactly this position in the thirties! — “the reason our plan didn’t work is because you didn’t do it big enough.” The bucket of gasoline didn’t put the fire out, so go get a bigger bucket.

The concept of “Out of Control” has no more vivid an incarnation on this plane of reality; nor can it. Seriously.

Make fun of the Keynesians. Make fun of them as hard as you can. We know in that direction lies victory, for they themselves know they cannot afford to call themselves what they are. They cannot articulate their argument for what it is, and they cannot mention the name of their founder; either one would enable the common man of average intelligence to see through the smokescreen and the lies.

That Canadian-Ambassador dude looks kind of like Mr. Krugman, viewed in the right light, doesn’t he?

Update: For those who have greater belief in How the World Works than in me, you should be aware he’s on my side on this thing. In fact, he states the case much stronger than I ever did.

He’s right. Krugman’s record of being on the wrong side of things, is about as impressive as it can possibly be. Him and his Keynesian flying monkeys too.

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– James Lewis, writing in The American Thinker

Memo For File LXXXVIII
Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Krugman “O.K., Thursday’s jobs report settles it. We’re going to need a bigger stimulus.”

– Economist Paul Krugman of the New York Times (hat tip: Conservative Grapevine)

“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists of establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.”

– Ayn Rand, “Word Around the Net” Quote of the Day for 7/2/2009 (hat tip: Gerard)

“As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas.”

“Simple men are often forced to admit and reverse their mistakes. Men of letters tend to compound theirs with more mistakes.”

– Morgan K. Freeberg

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

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Thing I Know #130. The noble savage gives us life. Then we outlaw his very existence. We call this process “civilization.” I don’t know why.

What a Real Man Looks Like
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

What looks bad when your life is goin’ good, but looks better than anything you’ve ever seen when you’re completely fucked?

A man, built by the Good Lord from stem to stern to stop bad situations from getting worse, endowed by Him with the muscle and brains to make that happen.

The link behind the picture goes to Gerard, who editorializes:

In a land where neuters, unicorn riders, and moonwalking molesters are deified and canonized, we can forget that there are real men still walking the American earth. Here’s one. Do you think she was glad to see him?

“A construction worker, suspended from a crane, rescued a woman who fell into the Des Moines River in downtown Des Moines Tuesday. A man who also fell into the water died.” — Photo Journal

And then, for the man reaching out his hand, Jason Oglesbee, and the others involved in the rescue, it was back to work on Wednesday, “We have a bridge to build here,” the supervisor said as his men went about their business. — Des Moines Register

Step back in the “real” world, of Gerard’s moonwalking perverts, airhead girls with their dogs-in-purses, banks that are too big to fail, overpriced iced mocha drinks, iPods, iPhones, iPresidents, “climate change,” Appalachian hiking…and smelly Jason is just in the way. He is the priceless coin that is artificially devalued when life goes on just a little bit too long being a little bit too sanitized. We forget how much men like him mean to us. We forget there is no other human denomination with quite the same value.

If we make a real commitment to that ignorant mindset, we are completely screwed. We deal a sustained assault on our own abilities to cope. With life itself. If we don’t, then maybe we’re not screwed.

Time will tell.

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On Marriage: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Cheating Whore Says the flibbertigibbet, I screwed around on my husband, so I guess marriage can’t work out for anyone…plus, I get to write a column!

On marriage: Let’s call the whole thing off
Author Sandra Tsing Loh is ending her marriage. Is it time you did, too?
By Sandra Tsing Loh
updated 6:27 a.m. PT, Mon., June 22, 2009

Sadly, and to my horror, I am divorcing. This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man, though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise. I don’t generally even enjoy men; I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book. Cataclysmically changed, I disclosed everything. We cried, we bewailed the fate of our children.

And yet at the end of the day — literally during a five o’clock counseling appointment, as the golden late-afternoon sunlight spilled over the wall of Balinese masks — when given the final choice by our longtime family therapist, who stands in as our shaman, mother, or priest, I realized…no. Heart-shattering as this moment was — a gravestone sunk down on two decades of history — I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together. In women’s-magazine parlance, I did not have the strength to “work on” falling in love again in my marriage. And as Laura Kipnis railed in “Against Love,” and as everyone knows, good relationships take work.

Which is not to say I’m against work. Indeed, what also came out that afternoon were the many tasks I — like so many other working/co-parenting/married mothers — have been doing for so many years and tearfully declared I would continue doing. I can pick up our girls from school every day; I can feed them dinner and kiss their noses and tell them stories; I can take them to their doctor and dentist appointments; I can earn my half — sometimes more — of the money…I can administer hugs as needed to children, adults, dogs, cats; I can empty the litter box; I can stir wet food into dry.

Which is to say I can work at a career and child care and joint homeownership and even platonic male-female friendship. However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance. Sobered by this failure as a mother — which is to say, my failure as a wife — I’ve since begun a journey of reading, thinking, and listening to what’s going on in other 21st-century American families. And along the way, I’ve begun to wonder, what with all the abject and swallowed misery: Why do we still insist on marriage? Sure, it made sense to agrarian families before 1900, when to farm the land, one needed two spouses, grandparents, and a raft of children. But now that we have white-collar work and washing machines, and our life expectancy has shot from 47 to 77, isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?
:
Imagine driving with me now to Rachel’s house for our new 40-something social hobby — the Girls’ Night dinner. Leap not from my car, even though I realize — given my confessed extramarital affair, avowed childhood desire to see my father explode into flames, and carpet of tattered Happy Meal wrappers — I may not strike you as the most reliable explicator of modern marriage. Still, we forge on, and what I’d like to do now is recant for a moment and not be quite so hard on marriage, which I think is a very good fit for some people.
:
[Helen] Fisher, a women’s cult figure and an anthropologist, has long argued that falling in love — and falling out of love — is part of our evolutionary biology and that humans are programmed not for lifelong monogamy, but for serial monogamy.

“Why Him? Why Her?” explains the hormonal forces that trigger humans to be romantically attracted to some people and not to others (a phenomenon also documented in the animal world). Fisher posits that each of us gets dosed in the womb with different levels of hormones that impel us toward one of four basic personality types:

The Explorer — the libidinous, creative adventurer who acts “on the spur of the moment.” Operative neurochemical: dopamine.

The Builder — the much calmer person who has “traditional values.” The Builder also “would rather have loyal friends than interesting friends,” enjoys routines, and places a high priority on taking care of his or her possessions. Operative neurotransmitter: serotonin.

The Director — the “analytical and logical” thinker who enjoys a good argument. The Director wants to discover all the features of his or her new camera or computer. Operative hormone: testosterone.

The Negotiator — the touchy-feely communicator who imagines “both wonderful and horrible things happening” to him- or herself. Operative hormone: estrogen, then oxytocin.

Fisher reviewed personality data from 39,913 members of Chemistry.com. Explorers made up 26 percent of the sample, Builders 28.6 percent, Directors 16.3 percent, Negotiators 29.1 percent. While Explorers tend to be attracted to Explorers, and Builders tend to be attracted to Builders, Directors are attracted to Negotiators, and vice versa.

Exclaims Ellen, slapping the book: “This is why my marriage has been dead for 15 years. I’m an Explorer married to a Builder!”

The nitwit. Guess Fisher forgot about that fifth one there. Poor schmucks that are married to these nitwits; they’re about to lose half their stuff because they made the awful mistake of allowing their nitwit wives to read books.

Yup, it’s really as bad as people think it is. Middle-aged married women with a Cinderella complex, angry that life isn’t perfect and stress free, get all sauced up and talk each other into divorces. Then they bury their gross wrinkly noses in hateful chick-books carefully designed to expunge any doubts about it that might remain, download some hunky stud off the innerwebs, and the poor schlub who was stupid enough to marry them loses half his stuff.

And then they become authorities on marriage, graciously counseling women who are more mature and mentally balanced than they are. Making craploads of money, if they get lucky…and still pulling in that alimony check. So that girls’-night-out wine-buying slush fund stays all slushy.

This is the kind of thing that makes me think our whole society needs a reboot. In a number of our most treasured institutions, the rules are made by whoever among us have proven themselves to be, without any doubt, the most dysfunctional.

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“Controlled” Town Hall Meeting
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Think I got Robert Gibbs figured out. At work a few weeks ago, in another context we were discussing people who went to school to figure out how to answer the question you want to answer, rather than the question you were just asked, and make it look like you’re kinda sorta answering the question you were just asked.

Yup, that’s the dude.

Why’s everyone so shocked? Even Obama’s most ardent fans wouldn’t be able to go along with the idea that the candidate was actually inspected, vis a vis policies to be implemented…why start now? (Update: If they do want to insist on such a thing, boy has Boortz got a great mini-essay for them.) The rule of the campaign was that slick packaging is an adequate substitute for worthy contents inside. Why should that change now? Why would anyone be surprised that the presentation of every little thing is controlled? That’s how the President won the campaign…because He is so incredibly good at campaigning.

When ya got a shiny new golden hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so the President continues to campaign because that’s what He is good at. The only thing that needs explaining as far as I’m concerned, is how & why this arrives as news, to anyone.

Legendary reporter Helen Thomas, the source of that grating nails-on-chalkboard voice in the video above, who has been personally present to grill every single President since…uh…Rutherford B. Hayes or something…had some choice remarks about the testy exchange above.

Following a testy exchange during today’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

Not hard to see the culture gap here. The Obama administration thinks that continuing to polish the image, is the job. They’re perfectly justified in thinking this. You might say they have a “mandate” to look good. In fact, given the way the elections went last year, they’d be nuts to think otherwise.

Helen Thomas has just figured out what’s happening, now that it’s begun to impact her job. This is rather disgraceful in a sense. Thomas and crew figured out there was a conflict with what they said they were supposed to be doing for The American People, which is to clock in every day and turn rocks over so we could all see the dark wet slimy things…they figured out there was a conflict between that, and the Obama administration’s ultimate goal of looking good all the time. They figured this out in July of 2009.

Where they been snoozin’?

“I grow weary and fatigued of dealing with these perpetually-cheery, perky, talky, precocious, bubbly talkative people, and their penchant for destroying far more things than they build.” — Morgan K. Freeberg

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Drill Baby Drill
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

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Best Sentence LXVII
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Ann Coulter, once again, snags the Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award. She could make a clean sweep of these things in her sleep. Writing on the now-famous Ricci v. De Stefano case, which was decided in favor of the plaintiffs by a 5-4 vote on Monday, she concludes…

[Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted [nominee Sonia] Sotomayor’s position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.

This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.

There are other such gems in there, including one ongoing theme that has long been one of my favorites: How hyper-liberal legal professionals, such as ham-and-egger lawyers, ambulance chasers, county superior court judges, appellate judges, legal pundits, et al…out of some supposed sense of inner decency…continue to saddle other professions with bizarre rules, regulations, codes and taboos that dare not come within a hundred and fifty yards of their own mahogany doorways.

They’re vultures. Which means you can’t really blame them. It’s contrary to a vulture’s nature to scrape a bone only halfway clean. Them getting away with it — that’s our fault.

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Republicans Should Stop Being Bigots
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Interesting argument put out by this San Diego Union Tribune editor-guy.

Republicans have a good case to make to African American voters about how the GOP is the real party of empowerment and opportunity, and how the Democratic Party is only interested in empowering itself at the expense of minorities. So much so that it will attack those uppity enough to think for themselves.

On education, for instance, Democrats side with mostly white teachers’ unions against black parents who want their children’s schools to be held accountable for student performance — finally purged of what a Republican president called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” The educational reform law, No Child Left Behind, has the support of the NAACP, but is fiercely opposed by the teachers’ unions.

Many African Americans also find appealing the GOP’s adherence to personal responsibility, lower taxes, smaller government, and traditional moral values.

But Republicans never get around to making that case to the black community, because too many of them are busy making jackasses out of themselves and coming across as thickheaded, insensitive, and mean-spirited racists. The election of the first black president only made matters worse, as some conservatives, particularly at the local level, responded to this historic event by taking political discourse into the gutter with jokes and sophomoric stunts that don’t amuse but offend…

After the bullet list, he tosses out the meaningless bromide that “Republicans don’t have a monopoly on racism.” That’s Rule Number Four, you’ll recall, from How To Motivate Large Numbers of People To Do a Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating the Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On: “Make a Big Show out of Conceding Points That Don’t Really Mean Anything.” Makes you look all even-handed and what-not.

Trouble here is, the bromide is not meaningless. The dust-up between Hillary and Obama last summer was heated, sustained, and showcased in a most unflattering light the condescending attitude the central liberal-democrat power structure has toward minority groups, both female and of-color. The comparison being made, therefore, is between Republicans — who can name as their fellow party members, some isolated individual head-cases possessing some appallingly poor judgment — and democrats, who seem to be philosophically determined to use anyone non-white and non-male as sort of a political fuel. Their message seems to be “Ask not what your political party can do about the injuries you’ve suffered as a minority, ask instead what the injuries you’ve suffered can do for our party.” We know from last year’s melee that that there’s some kind of a complex “Superdelegate” hierarchy involved with these minority classes, almost like something out of Dungeons and Dragons; blacks have more “hit points” than women, but just barely.

This Navarette fellow seems to have lost track of his own argument. He’s trying to make the case that there is some asymmetry between how Republicans and democrats treat minorities. But according to the evidence he himself brings to the table, the demeaning remarks exist on both sides. The beneficial legislation that offsets the political damage done by such demeaning remarks — also — exists on both sides.

The difference? It seems to me the democrats who are in charge now, when they talk about becoming a color-blind society they can’t possibly mean it. Witness the 5-4 Ricci decision by the Supreme Court earlier this week. Barack Obama’s nominee replaces the retiring Justice Souter, who was one of the dissenting four; in fact, Judge Sotomayer contributed to the prior ruling on this case, which was overturned. The case was all about stopping a promotion exam in the middle and changing the rules if & when it looks like the wrong people are winning. It was all about setting up a routine promotion process as a heated contest between whites and non-whites — artificially injecting into the process a sense that what’s good for this race over here, must be bad for that one over there. And, also, a sense that if your skin is the wrong color, and you play by the rules and “win,” it becomes necessary to have a do-over.

That the Supreme Court lowered the kibosh on this, has ticked off the folks who won the elections eight months ago…and it’s ticked ‘em off mighty well. The democrat party approach to this seems to be that this was not a good decision by the Supremes, and it illustrates why we need more liberals nominated to the High Court. So we can keep playing favorites. We’re not, in spite of all the platitudes so ritually tossed out, ready to get “past it once and for all.” These are not sins “of the past.” We have to keep a thumb on the scale.

I think that’s the real divide. What are these wild-eyed crazy bigoted conservatives saying about it? That you shouldn’t change the rules in the middle of the game; if the test scores came out a certain way, you should just let them stand. That if your skin lacks pigment, you still have the same right to petition your government for your grievances as anybody else. Gosh, y’know…I think to a lot of people, that just makes sense. It’s not that extreme of a position.

So I agree with the Navarette editor guy. Except I would amend the advice, slightly, to say Republicans should get rid of their bigots. Their judgment seems so questionable that their assets as political decision-makers, must be doubted. Maybe once they are kicked out for good, they can join the democrat party…which seems, from where I stand, ready willing & able to consume all the poorly-thought-out racial and gender stereotypes, that any twisted and diseased individual cares to put to paper or voice.

They can afford to so consume. They aren’t called out on it.

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Daphne’s Disgusted
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Unlike the rest of that unending parade of snarky females slapping us bumbling men upside the head claiming to want us to smarten up and do better, this one means it. She’s Blogsister Daphne, a woman of wit, class and substance, who claims to like men because she really does; and she’s upset with our obsession with Flo.

If obsession is the offense, I would point out we didn’t bring up the subject in the first place. But something tells me this is one of those things where “discussion” only exists as an idea…train has left the station…woman-talk-man-listen territory from here on out. We’ve all been there.

Lara Croft And we know the protocol. Wait for her to get done…try like the dickens to avoid doing anything to piss her off any further…stay quiet and out of sight…do something harmless. Like playing Tomb Raider.

For those who can’t bear to stay quiet — Buck represented us reasonably well, I thought. But hey, maybe you think he left something unsaid. I’m staying out of this one. Things reach a fevered pitch, and then they crescendo further to a point where even I start to have some common sense. Best to just stay out of (further) trouble.

Besides, have you noticed what they’ve done with Lara’s rack in the last two games? Great googly moogly.

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Palin in Vanity Fair
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

So pundits on both sides of the ideological divide are talking about the length of Todd Purdum’s 9,823-word essay on Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair.

Palin in Vanity Fair I certainly do think this is newsworthy. And it’s not because I’ve been lying awake at night, wondering what Vanity Fair thinks of Palin. It’s because the Vanity Fair piece changes the dynamics of what’s going on.

Huffington Post provides a helpful and quick summary –

Purdum explains the anonymity of the negative quotes about Palin to the staffers finding it painful, even privately, to reflect on the selection of Palin because:

There is ultimately no way to read [it] as reflecting anything but an appalling egotism, heedlessness and lack of judgment… They all know that if their candidate - a 72-year-old cancer survivor - had won the presidency, the vice presidency would be in the hands of a woman who lacked the knowledge, the preparation, the aptitude, and the temperament for the job.

Chuck Todd, filling in for Chris Matthews, pressed Purdum on these extremely harsh words, asking if Purdum actually had McCain staffers telling him this or if it was more of a read-between-the-lines of the staffers’ statements. Purdum demurred, saying he didn’t want to get into a discussion about sources, but he stated it’s safe to say that he had people from the McCain campaign saying words extremely close to those words that he wrote.

It’s not a flattering piece. Probably not a very informative piece either; “anonymous staffers” with such a swell excuse for staying anonymous…with the campaign now eight months in the rear view mirror? At times it swerves into sheer bigotry. Not quite so much the woman-bashing, which we’ve come to expect when the Manhattan crowd carps away about Palin — but — Alaska-bashing.

The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked ‘U.S. Mail.’” That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.

So, of all the puzzling things that Sarah Palin told the American public last fall, perhaps the most puzzling was this: “Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.”

It sounds like some central character in a made-for-TV movie taking place in the Renaissance era, something about Britain pushing into the Americas, or into Africa, or some other kind of colonialism. Some bigoted snotty Englishman dripping with venom describing those naked savages he’s been reading about off in that New World. Just stereotype after stereotype after stereotype…can’t you just see it? Makes you want to crack it open to see what else he has to say about Alaskans. Their kids can’t read; they eat their boogers; they poop in buckets…

So why is this news? You’ll find out when you examine the motive for allocating so many glossy pages on such an unlikely subject matter. Up until now, you could claim to be a devotee to cold, rational logic — and still arrive at any one of a number of different conclusions about the Palin effect on the 2012 elections, and the 2010 midterms. Palin is an incompetent that will snuff out the Republican candle for good. Palin is a pure placebo put there to patronize stupid conservative women. Palin is the equivalent of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Palin is a Manchurian Candidate. Palin is a Trojan Horse…

Many of those options were eliminated just now, if you claim to be following logic. At least, they have been, if you presume 1) Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair is not a conservative Republican (and I’m just going to toss that in the stewpot, it seems safe) and 2) he knows what he’s doing. Purdum’s piece waxes lyrically about what strengths our youngest governor seems to possess politically, but always in the context of intermingling a carefully compiled dossier of her shortcomings. And the strengths, the obligatorily-mentioned strengths, all seem to have to do with her ability to campaign, not to govern. Something in my gut tells me this fellow is not a Palin fan.

In sum: This is the enemy, begging Republicans to put a weapon away.

Purdum doesn’t want us to know any more about Sarah Palin than we already do. He wants her heckled and ridiculed into non-existence, because if she remains on the game-board it sets up a potential outcome he doesn’t find appealing. Before this latest issue of Vanity Fair, that was just an idea, one kind of fun to think about. Now it’s a near-certainty with some solid strategic evidence behind it.

For those yet still unconvinced, here’s a thought: How much sense does it make for anyone, outside of Republican campaign officials and maybe a blogger or two, to be talking about Sarah Palin right now — at all? Think on that one for awhile. The drama with her grandson is over, the kid’s born, Trig is over a year old, she’s running Alaska, Joe Biden is doing such a swell job in that position for which he competed with her. We’re about to celebrate our country’s 233rd birthday; it’s very ill, perhaps terminally. The Nork Nerd is getting ready to lob a cruise missile in the air to help us celebrate, kind of a “Nice Car, We’ll Come Get It When We Want It” note to leave under the windshield wiper. The print media industry is on the ropes. Reporters are getting furloughed, laid off, outright-fired. Our new hopey-changey Obama economy is a turd circling the toilet bowl, getting ready to take the big plunge. Why is the glossy-mag industry looking up North?

The only answer I can think of for that one, is they’re concerned she might run and they’re afraid of what would result from that.

Can anyone think of another one?

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The Glasses
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Glasses So one of the bloggresses we follow, a particularly enchanting and intelligent one, got hold of a phony egghead study that says something completely ridiculous and decided to believe every word in it. Said phony egghead study concerns something men and women are simply not going to see the same way — ever — and it was obviously written up by a chick for other chicks. So don’t be too hard on Dr. Mel, she’s a chick too.

Besides of which it goes without saying her judgment is not perfect. Far from it. She put together a list of hot and sexy conservative blogger guys, and left us off of it. Just like that. So, you know, she’s got her on-days and her off-days. So do we all.

Here’s what the study says. Hope you’re sitting down for this one, guys. Here it is. Ready? — We, on our side of the gender aisle, have a much narrower and uniform definition of the ideal woman, than women have of the ideal man. They like variety more than we do.

Isn’t that a riot?

Quoting myself, at Dr. Melissa’s place, trying to inject some reason and common sense into it –

Try this: In an urban setting, pick out the women who are, or successfully project the appearance of being, the creme de la creme of genetic perfection. Top tenth of a percent. Women who can have whichever guy they want. Now let your eyes drift off two feet to the left or right…to the dude. Oh no, you don’t really need to, you already know what he looks like don’t you? Cookie cutter. Mass produced. No variety whatsoever.

He’s 6′2″ but he wears a sleeveless shirt built for someone who’s 8′2″. He’s got goofy shorts on that come down well past the knee. Gold chain or two about the neck, which is thicker than his head. Sort of a flesh Michelin-man. Or a chubby round little boy decked out in his dad’s summer clothes, and then you triple the size of the whole thing. Plus an obligatory tattoo. Right now the hair on the head is half an inch long, or gone entirely, so it doesn’t much matter what color it is. Skin is not white, not black, something in between. Mixed ethnicity, or Caucasian with a really good tan. Cash-register jaw. Think Jay Leno, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Howie Long.

These guys could’ve been built on a conveyor belt.

I went on to cite the example of girls-in-glasses; and now that I give it another think, I’m ready to pin my entire argument on that one thing. Guys, I can tell you, are split even-Steven on this, right down the middle. Of course I’m not split at all. Guys-in-general are split. Half the dudes recoil in horror at the genetic inferiority (or lifetime curiosity about the written word) that imprisons a fair maiden behind the corrective lenses…the other half of us are intrigued, and not mildly.

With Glasses After glasses, there is the height thing. Do you have to stop seeing her if she’s taller? And then the big-nose thing. A lot of guys don’t notice, a lot of other guys can’t stand a big nose on a girl. And then there are the breasts. The arm muscles. Her thighs aren’t curvy enough, or they’re too thin…huge issue for some guys, not worth mentioning to other guys.

We aren’t all scrambling for the same model of girl. Just take my word for it.

But I’ll let all that other stuff go. I’m willing to rest the entire thing, like I said, just on the reading glasses. Because it’s personal…they’re my Achilles’ Heel, my Kryptonite. Probably because of the very first girlfriend that started all that trouble. Thirty-five years now — I don’t quite have the balls to jot down on the front page of a blog sitting right there on the innerwebs, exactly what a nice-lookin’ gal in glasses does to the thoughts in my head. But she certainly does something, I’ll say that much. And all guys on the planet do not agree with me about it.

We got variety in what tickles our fancy, trust me on this. Dustin Wood and Claudia Brumbaugh might have missed it, but it’s there, I’m in a position to guarantee it.

I think this is one of those many, many examples where the way women see things, seems to be a whole lot more real than the way the fellas see things — because women do a lot more talking.

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Destroying and Building
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Just keeping track. First half of ‘09 is all over, so it’s important to pin down exactly where we are.

The Worst Place to Do Business
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Carol Platt Liebau, writing in RealClearPolitics (hat tip to Conservative Grapevine):

As the end of California’s fiscal year approaches, the Governor and state legislators confront a $24 billion deficit. While Republicans and Democrats wrangle over how to address the gaping shortfall, some members of the press have started to look for a scapegoat for the fiscal train wreck. Many have blamed the California taxpayer’s only protection: Prop. 13, the 1978 measure capping state property taxes at 1% of a home’s assessed value.

Perhaps the most egregious example of the finger-pointing is a recent piece from TIME’s Kevin O’Leary, moaning that “Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and ’60s, California was a liberal showcase.” He insists that “at the root of California’s misery lies Proposition 13,” and concludes that “in California, the conservative legacy lives on.”

How ridiculous. Of all the problems contributing to the fiscal mess, state under-taxation is the least of them. California’s sales and gas taxes are the highest in the country - and it has the highest vehicle license fees and the second-highest top-bracket income tax, too. Its corporate tax rates are the highest of all Western states, and for the fourth year in a row, a survey of 543 CEO’s found that California’s toxic combination of high taxes and intrusive regulations made it the worst place in the nation to do business.

Said TIME article is here.

The financial crisis in California grew worse this week as state controller John Chiang warned that if legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to come up with a budget-balancing package, he would begin paying California’s bills with IOUs on July 2. The last time the state did this was during the Great Depression.

What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional? One obvious cause is the deep recession, which has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California’s woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution have all contributed to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California’s misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era. In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on.

As a red voter living in this blue state, I find those last two sentences to be…interesting. More than interesting. Coffee hurts when it comes out your nose, did you know that?

Still, the Time columnist might have a point. Why don’t you look into things and decide for yourself, whether California’s problems are on the taxing end or on the spending end. But I would suggest including in that research a reading through California’s list of state agencies…out loud…maybe after you’ve put on Henry Mancini’s March of the Cue Balls. Start at A and work forward.

After you’ve finished, does this look like a state that just might be suffering from some bloat — maybe? Or does it look to you like “the conservative legacy lives on”?

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Dead Celebrity Thread?
Monday, June 29th, 2009

Neal Boortz has good ideas. Now and then, anyway. And I’m given cause to think this might be one of his better ones: An open thread for comments about dead celebrities. As a lightning rod to discourage thread-jacking elsewhere.

Hasn’t been a problem here at all. This is The Blog That Nobody Reads, after all. Of course, there was that one incident over on Right Wing News…not sure at all whether threadkiller arthur_branch is a well-intentioned bumpkin or a threadjacking prick. One thing I do know for sure, is this:

I do NOT, repeat NOT, associate the name of Billy Mays with dumb ideas. Nope. Sorry. You’re not going to “sell” me on that idea. We’ve got cupboards and pantries stuffed full of OxyClean, a salad dressing bottle of it under the kitchen sink for those morning five-minute coffee-pot cleaning sessions. And a gravy jar full of the stuff at work, for the same purpose. OxyClean, there’s nothing like it. And I owe it all to Mr. Mays.

Billy Mays has had so much more of a genuinely positive impact on our lives, than some plastic-nosed, little-boy-raping pansy monkey-weirdo jackass.

Anyway, can The Blog That Nobody Reads have a useful open thread? Opine away. Charlie’s Angels, Kung Fu, your favorite infomercials, The Tonight Show…have at it. And don’t forget the lovely Natasha, who might very well have been the classiest of the bunch. She’s gone too, and went well before her time. One of those people about whom nobody can be found to say a single unkind word.

Thoughts?

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Movie Montages That Make No Damn Sense
Monday, June 29th, 2009

Cracked, from, I dunno, awhile ago. Still good.

Every decade has its cinematic crutch; the overused device meant to distract us from the fact that the movie has stopped making any sort of sense. For the past 20 years, it has been CGI and in the 80s it was the montage. It’s helpful to think of the evolution of montage-use as the cinematic equivalent of cocaine. While it hasn’t completely gone away, in the 80s it was everywhere, and filmmakers apparently believed it gave them license to completely abandon all reason and logic. Here are the most simultaneously awesome and baffling …

Rocky I started it, I think. That one made sense, and as such it didn’t make the cut. But having all six Rocky movies, I can state for the record that they really are all the same movie, and some of those montages are just plain silly. The list maker chose to include III and IV. Eye of the Tiger and all that.

I don’t know why he stopped at six. I’m sure with some work you could get it up to 50, easily. But that’s for someone who has the time, and that isn’t me. Got my own “montage” I gotta go run.

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How To Motivate Large Numbers of People To Do a Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating the Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On.

Karen Bass
Monday, June 29th, 2009

We’re funny. Eight years ago Republicans had a bare majority in the House of Representatives, a threadbare majority in the Senate, and they barely won the White House. You could argue they possessed a five-out-of-nine majority in the Supreme Court.

What did we hear from the mountains, to the valley, all across the fruited plane?

ONE PARTY RULE!!! ZOMG WTF!!! BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!!

And now the democrats run everything, everywhere. Federal, state, municipal. Where are all the screeds against one-party rule?

Wouldn’t they be more appropriate right about now? Wouldn’t they be more in service of the public interest? Can someone show me where — anywhere — the democrat party has a lock on power, and the result isn’t chaos, disaster, bedlam…hopelessness?

I’m typing this from California. So if you have something to offer, you’ll understand why I have to come asking for it. Things aren’t so good here. We’ve yet to see that democrat-run hopey changey wonderfulness sink in…after…what are they up to, eleven years now? Or twenty? Depending on how important the Governor’s office is, and how effective you think the Republicans have been in there.

I’m just seeing on the teevee my lady likes to leave on when she gets ready for work, that Karen Bass, the CEO of the lower chamber of our wonderful state legislature, is pulling shenanigans. Our state-level counterpart to Nancy Pelosi is trying to do an end-run around Prop 13, which requires a 2/3 majority in our legislature for any tax increase. It’s a two-prong approach: Use the “In Times Like These” argument, that says because the situation is oh so dire we can’t follow rules anymore; and, call the taxes “fees.” She’s been trying this for awhile now, and with June coming to a close, it’s time for a showdown.

The beginning of July is the constitutionally-required deadline for passing the state budget. It is almost never met. It’s an annual summertime circus. If you think things are under control, here, you don’t want to be watching this.

Looks like Arnie will veto it. But there’s a problem with the Governator: He’s kind of a Republican Obama. He’s “really trying hard” and he “inherited this mess.” You can’t really depend on him to stop talking to you, go off into a room with someone else, and do what he told you he was going to do. Not when it comes to stopping the democrats from doing something. A terrible emergency will be declared, and then…off he goes to achieve some compromise.

He compromises a little too quickly. I guess that looks good to you if you’re worried about the budget being late by a week…or a month…or two months.

BOHICA It’s a little irritating if you possess the brainpower to understand the BOHICA Cycle, and can comprehend what’s taking place here. The folks who have a monopoly on power here, are dedicated to making goods and services needlessly expensive for those who depend on themselves to earn the goods and services, and don’t depend on government. They’re using “market forces” to force all commerce to go through the government…and it’s working out just great.

So the independent-minded folks leave.

We have a shrinking tax base to pay for a growing sumptuous buffet of “social” services…and more and more and more union jobs, with more and more and more union-contracted locked-in benefits. We’re the General Motors of states.

You realize, by saying what I just said in the paragraphs above, I have just committed a terrorist act? Oh dear, I’m afraid this time it’s really true…I’ve really stepped in it now. At least, in the mind of Speaker Bass. She had this to say about opportunities to present the ~~conservative~~ Let’s Not Tax The Bejeezus Out Of People viewpoint on the talk radio medium. Notice the adorable euphemism she uses as a substitute for “tax increase.”

How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?

The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.

Hat tip to Boortz for that.

I suppose you could look at this like — it’s so nice for Assembly Speaker Bass to continue to allow us to listen to talk radio, when it gives her such a case of indigestion. But I think it should be clear to anyone that she has yet to make her peace with it. And I think when you have an elected official referring to something as “terrorism,” especially in the context of wondering why we allow it to exist, it’s a safe bet it’s in her things-to-do list to get rid of it somehow. Maybe circumventing Prop 13 has a higher priority at the moment. But something tells me she’ll get around to the other stuff.

One party rule, folks. It was supposed to freak us out, once upon a time. Where’s the outrage? We have one state deep into the BOHICA spiral showing no signs whatsoever of pulling out of it…probably well past the event horizon. A whole bunch of other democrat-run states close behind in the process.

The same folks who want to ratchet up taxes, are the ones who want to make things needlessly expensive before you pay those taxes on what you bought…from labor, to energy used to manufacture, package, transport and sell goods. That is their one aspect of consistency, on all the issues, from minimum wage, to global warming, to grab-bag giveaways to tort lawyers and union goons, to taxes: Things should cost more. Except for the things they want to make “free,” by forcing taxpayers to pay for them, and those “free” things end up costing more too.

Dozens of states and hundreds of municipalities have been trying this…some of them for generations. The outcome is pretty consistent. Crime, costs, budgets, unemployment — all out of control. And those wonderful freedoms that are supposed to be recognized in the Bill of Rights…they end up being attacked fairly regularly by the freedom-loving democrats. It turns out when you and your friends are in power, and start worrying about staying in power tomorrow, you tend to lose that “love” of freedom kinda toot-sweet. Maybe that’s why the Bill of Rights was jotted down in the first place.

But back to this hideous experiment we’ve been repeating on so many levels so many thousands of times. Where is the Utopia that has resulted from it? If no one can point one out to me, then how many more times do we have to keep trying it?

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Selling Dumb Ideas
Sunday, June 28th, 2009

Inspired by the post immediately previous, and the realization that our President has revived a campaign slogan for unthinking dolts to sell a dumb idea that He knows He cannot sell by appealing to reason and common sense — I decided to retitle the page called How To Make Large Numbers Of Some Reasonable People Do Dumb Things, Without Taking Any Responsibility For Telling Them To Do Any Of It.

The title, in spite of its length, wasn’t quite an accurate description of the contents inside. So I came up with something longer for a title, and completely re-wrote the contents. This page ranks pretty high on my list of pages that just might, possibly, with time, perhaps, morph into a real live book…maybe…but I’m not completely serious about that so I’m not afraid to expose the material to a public viewing. It’s not like it hasn’t been exposed already anyway. I’m not coming up with something new, I’m just describing something we see every month, every week, every day…

Whether we like it or not, it would appear this “skill” is to become the lifeblood of our future generations. I see a tomorrow in which, if you can pull this off, you get to live under a roof, reproduce, and eat; if you can’t then you don’t, don’t and don’t. I see a future in which we systematically ostracize, throughout a process that involves many stages, anyone lacking the ability to do this.

So anyone who can’t do it, better learn how.

This is not to say I think all hope is lost — although anyone following the link could be forgiven for concluding I do possess such a pessimistic outlook. I really don’t. People, in my mind, are capable of some wonderful things when they put their minds to it…but their default state is not to put their minds to it. You could say I have a very “Christian” view of mankind’s default state. Our default mindset is nonsensical, dysfunctional, blighted. Once we get into groups to share our ignorance, the stupidity exponentially grows…like, for instance, twenty people are four times as likely to fall for obvious nonsense as ten people would be.

Once reminded of our failings, to the point where we snap out of this stupor-of-stupid, that’s when we can do things that are good.

Lately, it isn’t happening. But with time and a healthy sense of fatigue, it will. Keep your chin up.

In the meantime, gaze upon the stupidity rolling forth with as healthy an outlook as you can. Keep the eyeball-roll…we are all mortal, we are all flawed, we are all descended from she who took the apple from the snake, and he who chomped away at it. Find humor where you can. Record what you see for posterity.

If you are like me, you were taught in public school that Franklin Roosevelt heroically ended the Great Depression with his bold policy reforms. Now we’re living through exactly the same events all over again. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been flabbergasted at how less flattering these things when you’re seeing them up close, as a contemporary, without the rose-tinting effect of “history” and her biased, dirty “progressive” lens. It’s really amazing to me the substandard quality of the fertilizer being sold, and ordered up in huge quantities, right now.

You know what sums it up better than anything? That protest sign I saw from a tea party protest…somewhere…damn my laziness, I didn’t record a link to it…

How Can Debt Be The Problem AND The Solution??

Says it all.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

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“We Are Under the Thumb of Idiots”
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

James Lewis writing in the American Thinker: When Did The Lowbrows Take Over?

I’ve been trying to grasp for a truth that is so obvious that all of us know it. But it’s not a polite truth, so we don’t talk about it. Yet I think it’s important to say it out loud, because it is a truth that haunts our national discourse.

As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas.
:
The Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. That’s not just false and unscientific; it’s not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing. It’s not merely wrong. It’s idiotic.
:
Or look at Obama’s unbelievable spending spree. No sane and sensible taxpayer could possibly believe that spending trillions and trillions of dollars on blue-sky fantasies makes any sense at all; the only reason Americans aren’t in open rebellion yet is that half of them can’t believe it’s happening, and the other half are idiots.
:
Obama’s 22 White House czars. That’s really stupid. As well as a violation of the Constitution. But it’s a Chinese laugh line. It’s so obviously wrong and power-mad that it’s not worth debating.

Legalizing drugs. That’s really stupid.

Obama’s power-grab over the medical sector of the economy? It’s profoundly stupid. We can insure all the uninsured people in the country for a tiny fraction of all that money.
:
The rise to power and fame of the real lowbrows explains a lot. It even points to an answer of sorts. Because we’ve all been intimidated by the Cult of Nice not to contradict anybody who comes out with a really stupid, destructive idea. We can no longer call a really stupid idea what it is. I know that I censor myself all the time. We have been taught to keep our mouths shut when a word in time might make a real difference. We have allowed the national conversation to be dumbed down. [Italicized emphasis Lewis'; bold emphasis mine]

As excellent as the writing is, and the thinking behind it, and the fact-gathering that supports the thinking, Lewis has missed something. There’s a certain McCarthy logic going on here. I’m not saying by “McCarthy logic” that we should be interrogating people in front of the Senate and demanding to know are they now, or have they ever been, a member of something. I’m referring to McCarthy’s scathing insult against General George C. Marshall — something about if the General was merely stupid, the laws of probability dictate that his ideas would work out half the time.

Pass on the question of whether that applied to Gen. Marshall or if it was legitimate to accuse him of treason. McCarthy logic applies here: If the problem was that we were nationally stupid, or under the nation-wide thumb of a ruling class of idiots, the laws of probability dictate that we would become enamored of sensible ideas half the time. The stopped clock must be right twice a day.

It isn’t happening.

What is happening is that we are profoundly bored — and therefore there is a certain allure to the words of anyone who proposes for our review, that maybe two plus two equals five. This is why I apply the McCarthy logic. If we were simply stupid, we’d land on four every now and then by random chance.

The problem taking place here, is that the name of the game isn’t to be right; nothing depends on that anymore. All our trappings in life, our fancy iced coffee drinks, our stale reality teevee shows, our football games, we get ‘em whether we’re right about everything or wrong about everything. In generations past, being wrong could getcha killed. But not here and not now, so we don’t care. No, the point to an idea, now, is to get attention from others. End result? An idea that gets you attention, and is wrong, is worth something — an idea that is right, but gets you no attention, is a waste of breath.

Presto. Two and two are five. And two-and-two cannot be four. THAT, there, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem. That’s why we are wrong so often; we are trying to be.

Hat tip to Rick.

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Irked by Flo
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Neo-Neocon is annoyed by Flo, the Progressive Insurance lady on the teevee. Others find her strangely appealing but they can’t explain why.

I can explain why. Flo comes off as if she’s about to be “sassy,” in a negative, nasty-goth-girl sort of way. And then everything that comes out of her mouth is positive. It’s like if you introduced Rose McGowan to your mother, fearing the worst, and then ended the evening utterly befuddled as you realize the actress did a perfect job of minding her P’s and Q’s.

This sweet-and-sour combination achieves a formula that always works: Serve up a contradiction, in the space of a heartbeat. It sends an electrical bolt deep into our subconsciousness that there’s something complex here, something worth investigating.

Why am I irked by Flo? I’m not, not really anyway…she just reminds me of some older acquaintances that are not, and will never be, my type. As a formerly-available straight male I’ve put up some barriers so as not to waste my time or the time of others, and there’s no doubt Flo trips ‘em.

The commercial gets the job done. Without a doubt.

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Talking BS’er Doll
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Now that is what I call souvenir value. It’ll be necessary to remember, so we don’t repeat the mistake…like we just did. Welcome back, Carter.

Hat tip: Van Helsing at Moonbattery.

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“When Men Were Free”
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

The Gipper spends ten minutes talking about socialized medicine.

How come when it comes time to make their failed economic model look like it might be a good way to go, the socialists always go after medicine? If you’ve been wondering that, wonder no more. And I hope the answer nauseates you as much as it nauseated me.

Sick bastards.

Hat tip: Harvey at IMAO.

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VDH Reams Us Good
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

And the Golden State has done everything in the world to deserve it. Go, Victor.

I watched the UC and CSU systems create untold numbers of new administration jobs, staff them with incompetents that had no market value in private enterprise, and lavish $100,000 salaries with generous benefits as they contributed nothing to the teaching of students.

I would see four or five in the parking lot get into their state cars (I remember the local scandal of the mammoth administrator SUVs replete with boat hitches and tow packages) and wonder-how can a state afford a million dollars for that bunch who bring us nothing in return? (California Rule One: Most California executives would gladly work for two-thirds of what they receive, given the absence of commensurate offers from the private sector).

Worse, when the inevitable budget cuts came, these same four would send us memos, advise us to warn the public, and terrify the electorate with stories of social collapse if taxes were not raised to “save the kids.” In response, they would lay off the Russian professor, cut the part-time history teachers (all gifted, teaching for us for ten cents on the dollar), and then decry a “greedy voter”. (California Rule Two: To save the superfluous, the essential will always be cut.)

If you’re not ready for Rule Four, it will hit you like a punch in the gut. And California Rule Four is the reason we are here. It is the reason why it is so well-assured that, if you don’t think things can get any worse, you are about to be proven wrong. Just watch my state. It’ll show ya.

Hat tip to Gerard.

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Best Sentence LXVI
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

The sixty-sixth award for the Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) is hereby presented to John Hawkins, who is ruminating on the Mark Sanford scandal.

What is impressive is not a single sentence, but a passage that consists of three of the best.

Christians fall short of perfection on a regular basis. The Netroots alternative to that seems to be, “You should be completely and utterly without morals and then you’ll never be a hypocrite.” Of course, if you come back and say, “So, you’re admitting that you’re not as good a person as a Christian,” they’ll get offended.

This is an important point. It’s one of the most potent ways that people who don’t care about politics, become liberals, often without realizing what is taking place. Many a soul apathetic to both ideology and religion has muttered those fateful words, “I do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because I believe fairy tales about a Flying Spaghetti Monster looking over my shoulder.” Using this Spaghetti logic they come to believe what they have long wanted to believe: That a denominational identity injures your character.

But it’s really all about not trying. Just plain laziness. And whether they wish to believe it or not, living life just for yourself inclines one, once one has caught oneself performing below par, to make a habit out of it. Rather than striving to do better next time.

That is it in a single word, right there — strive. That is all imperfect beings can do. And that’s not to say Mark Sanford was striving, or that should his marriage somehow work out the kinks he will strive from that point forward. I don’t know the man. All any of the rest of us can do is mind our own garden, and strive.

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A Nothing Masquerading as a Something
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Blog sister Daphne would like someone — anyone — to explain eco-feminism to her.

Ecofeminism It’s a pretty tall order. Eco-feminism is inherently incoherent because as a collection of alternative values and scruples, it is designed to oppose something else. And it isn’t willing to admit this. This is why it consists of so many things that are bound together even though they are unrelated. Rather like a homemade kitchen gadget built from oil filters, band-aids, coathangers, silver dollars and cotton swabs. The parts don’t fit together; ecology has very little to do with upholding equal rights and privileges for women.

To think on what brings these unrelated elements to a common juncture, you have to first acknowledge that someone values them for their oppositional power to something else. Which in turn means you have to acknowledge that it is an assault on something.

As I said,

Sometime soon after JFK’s assassination, it became very fashionable within the hard left to deploy a strategy of pretending to build things while laboring in actuality to destroy things…Turns out it feels real good to destroy things while pretending to build things, when there are a lot of people of like mind participating in the same effort with you.

Ecofeminism, therefore, is simply the latest chapter of this, a nonsensical and sloppy modern hodge-podge of values antithetical to something else, disliked, that existed before. It is a nothing masquerading as a something. It is defined, not through what it is, but what it seeks to eradicate — cultural items, spiritual items, work and play items. Specifically: Private industry, strong gender definitions & relationships, private enterprise & industry, whiskey, beer, meat, guns, Christianity, clinical medicine, the list goes on and on. If it was invented by someone masculine, and it helps people, eco-feminists don’t like it. They prefer the nothings pretending to be somethings that stand in opposition: The occult, holistic therapy, aromatherapy, smoking grass, men dressing and acting like women, women dressing and acting like men, socialism, veganism, tofu and henna.

That’s my explanation for how all these unrelated parts end up scooped into the same “lint trap” of sorts. Those hated men eat their meat and then invent disposable diapers and baby formula; the awful truth that must not be realized, is that the men who can’t get pregnant, nevertheless have a lot to do with building and sustaining life. And so the eco-feminists who feel they aren’t worth anything unless they can nullify the existence of any & all men, must champion veganism…cloth diapers…and breastfeeding. As they engage in that slick fantasy of pretending to build something when they’re really destroying something, they erase the common bond. People like Daphne are forced to stand around going “WTF?” because browbeating your relatives on Thanksgiving that they should buy a “Tofurkey” has very little, and arguably nothing, to do with whipping out a tit in the middle of a crowded restaurant for your brat’s feeding-time, and taking the restaurant manager to court when he asks you to stop.

To understand what ties it all together, you have to understand that the effort engaged here is to bring an assault down on something else. That’s the only way it makes sense. Yogurt and astrology don’t have a lot to do with each other.

I should add that earlier this week, as I presume she was struggling to figure this out, Daphne e-mailed me a link to the home page of the always-delightful Dennis the Peasant; and he, in turn, had a fisking up that was pure blogger comedy gold. It’s still there, but we opted not to link it right away because Dennis didn’t provide a link (that we could find) to the original work…and the Google Godz did not answer our prayers for it. Not that we doubt Dennis’ word. But when you examine the material he’s slicing apart so mercilessly, you’ll understand. Priceless stuff like this has to be viewed first-hand — where it can be. Having failed in that mission, we’ll have to bring it to you in whatever form we can…

I write this entry because it is my passion to begin a deeper conversation with feminists [and others] about women’s rights, animal rights and the interrelationship between the two. I am vegan and believe that my passion for “rights” in general encompasses all individuals, including those that are non-human or nature for that matter.

Nature is an individual? Who knew?

So is there a difference between us (women) and them (nonhuman animals)? This leading question is a profound cornerstone in many philosophical and social conversations. As a very proud feminist and vegan, it was always clear to me that there was a distinct connection between both feminism and vegetarianism. Throughout my career as a social activist, it has become increasingly fascinating that there are many feminists who are not vegetarian and vegetarians who are not feminists. In addition, there are many women who are part of the feminist movement, but not part of the animal rights movement and vice versa. Although, some individuals are not simultaneously part of both movements, the objective for both feminism and vegetarianism works to create a society that is equal for all living beings [and the environment], that is not oppressive and exploitative.

You know, I read the above paragraph and wonder just how much difference there is between a femnist and a cherrystone clam… At least in terms of higher brain functions.

Vegetarianism is deeply connected to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. This connection illustrates a long desire for social equality for all (Leneman 1997). Many leaders in the Women’s Suffragist Movement were vegetarian and advocates for other progressive movements (Leneman 1997) (George 1994). Vegetarianism is deeply connected to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. This connection illustrates a long desire for social equality for all (Leneman 1997). Many leaders in the Women’s Suffragist Movement were vegetarian and advocates for other progressive movements (Leneman 1997) (George 1994). Many women during this era made the connection between the killing of animals for food and the killing for fur. One woman, Maude Arncliffe- Sennett (1913) remarked on an advertisement of a model wearing a fur coat: “these women all seem to me hateful - they represent so much killing!”

“Many women during this era made the connection between the killing of animals for food and the killing for fur…” So did the neanderthals, sweetie, so I’m not sure it constitutes a bragging point.

Bring out the Che Guevara posters…and the incense and henna.

The other piece of comedy gold — Comment #1 in Daph’s thread. Doctorate Upholder wins, hands down:

Ecofeminism (n) – The study of the global warming of the feminism movement due to menopause.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

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I Need Forgiveness From God, Not From You
Friday, June 26th, 2009

It all comes down to apologies for being. Not apologies for doing, but apologies for being.

Surely you’ve noticed, haven’t you. Anytime an issue comes up that has something to do with belief in a Capital-C Creator — it happens just as simultaneously and just as suddenly as if someone yelled “Go.” We line up left versus right. Crisply. There’s absolutely no question about who should go on which side, and it is purely a piety-versus-secularism schism. It absolutely, positively, has to do with whether you believe or whether you don’t. The disagreement is absolutely irreconcilable. And nobody, anywhere, no matter how weak and vacillating they may be, is wondering where they belong.

Do you know why that is? It’s because we’re debating something without really debating it. Do members of our modern aristocracy…our Hollywood celebs, our Obama-class demigods, our Household Names, our Congressmen, our Senators, our talk show hosts, our published authors, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera — possess the power, prestige, authority and privilege to demand apologies out of the hoi polloi simply for being? Not for barging into the elevator car before the passengers have had a chance to get off. Not for changing lanes without signaling. Not for taking a cell phone call in the middle of a movie. But simply for…existing? Taking up space on the globe? Breathing oxygen and turning it into that awful…dirty…toxic…polluting…carbon?

That is what today’s vote in the House of Representatives was really all about.

Just imagine. A tax on anything that consumes energy…which means…a tax on anything that requires energy in order for it to be manufactured, transported, used or discarded. Which means everything. A tax — read that as, apology — for being, carefully disguised as a tax on/apology for doing.

People on the “left” side of American politics, by the way, are to be congratulated for their laudable consistency. Everything that has to do with apologizing for being, they have been utterly consistent for the last two generations in saying — yes, we can! Yes, we should…apologize. Apologize for being, as if we should be apologizing for doing. The record is stunning and spellbinding. Abortion…minimum wage…gun control…carbon tax…cigarette tax…liquor tax…death tax. Any time we can express our profound regret for taking up space in this godless cosmos, through our taxes, yes we should absolutely express it. Not that we’ll recoup any salvation for doing so. Nothing can be done anymore according to the classical definition of “liberty.” Nothing except — getting married if you’re gay; joining the Boy Scouts when you’re an atheist; getting an abortion without your parents finding out when you’re fourteen. Freedom, it seems, is only championed on the left side of the aisle when it has to do with eroding a previously-existing definition of something. Our leftists are regular Bravehearts on the freedom issue, when it comes time to play Pretend — when children want to pretend to be grownups, when men want to pretend to be women, when Barack Obama wants to pretend to be humble, when women who despise their husbands pretend to “love” them so they can head on in to divorce court when the timing is most beneficial.

Meanwhile, Republicans are supposed to be scrambling around in vain, looking high and low for an identity? It’s simple. Nobody owes an apology to anybody else — not for simply existing, anyway — save for those substandard scoundrels who demand apologies from others for simply being. They, and they alone, reveal by their actions exactly what they are.

They are walking, living, breathing offenses to God. For it is only God’s place to demand apologies out of us…just for being. Mortal man has to wait for us to do something offensive or deplorable, to enjoy the slightest bit of justification in demanding apologies out of us. It’s a narrow distinction, but an all-important one.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

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A GOP Comeback Possible?
Friday, June 26th, 2009

It is oh so fashionable to remain pessimistic, and show optimism only in muted tones. But to show a surplus of optimism in favor of the iPresident, would be foolish I think.

For the first time since their 2006 election drubbing, top Republicans see signs — however faint — of a political resurgence over the next year.

At first blush, this sounds absurd. After all, polls show the GOP more unpopular than ever, and the John Ensign sex scandal serves as a vivid, real-time reminder of why many see the party as a collection of hypocrites.

But several trends suggest this optimism might not be as far-fetched as it seems.
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How the Republicans Could Come Back

A red state

Polls show that Obama’s chief vulnerability is public concern over the soaring deficit. And as the sticker shock of a trillion-dollar-plus health care plan takes hold, these concerns are only likely to grow.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) — long used to hearing complaints about Bush — says his moderate constituents have finally found something else to gripe about. “Now the dominant thing I hear from them is: ‘What is all this government spending?’” said Kirk, who is mulling a Senate run next year.
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Promises, promises

Obama promised his stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 10 percent, and some of his advisers said it would remain below 8 percent. But now the president himself says it will hit 10 percent this year.

The administration’s technique of incorporating “jobs saved” into its accounting is being met with increased skepticism — and is unlikely to resonate if unemployment lines run long.

“I think his biggest vulnerability right now is that unemployment is going to exceed 10 percent and be there for some time,” said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “The stimulus bill was meant to sustain and create new jobs. And it hasn’t done it.”

What’s coming up next is a “midterm” congressional election in 2010. Therefore, in my mind, it is meaningful to inspect what exactly is meant by the term “coming back.” You can’t honestly produce an answer to the question “Do Republicans have a chance?” without first performing this inspection.

First of all, there is the objective of roaring back into power with the full mandate Republicans had in 1994 after the electorate had what our news anchors told us was a “temper tantrum.”

Secondly, there is the decidedly different objective of stepping up to the podium of the loyal opposition, performing a simple day-to-day sanity check on The Holy Man’s expen$ive policies.

It is faulty thinking to conflate these two objectives into one, pronounce a lukewarm milquetoast verdict of “Eh, they got a shot but I wouldn’t count on it,” and walk away. You have to keep these separate. You HAVE to, because the first of those two options is a restoration of trust following a betrayal and those are never quick. It’s like the man-of-the-house moving back in after his wife has made the decision to take him back for the sake of the children. Even if it does happen, nobody’s going to be feeling entirely good about it. Especially if daddy was “taken back” after having sexual escapades with his secretary, moving in with her, doing some lines of coke, taking a European vacation with her and her parents, knocking her up, wallpapering her new nursery room, and sending the credit card bill for it all back home. Trust is violated in a heartbeat, and never fully restored even years later. Not really.

The second of those two — well good heavens. How on earth is it going to seem like a great idea to pass this up by the autumn of ‘10? We’re still going to want to be a kinda-sorta-dictatorship in fifteen months because Obama is still so wonderful? Folks, it isn’t shaping up that way now. Of course all eyes are on President Obama; back when He was about to be inaugurated, all eyes were on Him back then too. But it’s different. Back then people were watching Him the way disciples want to watch the religious figure who leads them. Oh look at me, I actually touched His robe! I’ll never wash this hand again as long as I live!

Nowadays, people watch Him the way sailors watch a canon ball rolling around on the deck of their sloop. What the hell is He going to do next??

See, that’s a trust issue too. People are watching Him because He’s dangerous and they don’t know what He’s going to do. They don’t trust him. They’re starting to yearn for the checks-and-balances that are supposed to be in place right now, but aren’t really working.

It’s a funny thing about opposition congresses. People are never willing to admit, on a large scale, that they like this idea. But it is clearly what the Founding Fathers intended, and American history, even recent history, is chock full of occasions on which the electorate figured out this idea was necessary, and acted to put such a congress in place. Government marching in lockstep just oh-so-sure about what to do next — it seems like a great thing to the weak-minded. It isn’t so great when you’re living out your own real life under it. That’s when people wake up; that’s when they start to get it.

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Your New Obamacare World: Humans Optional
Friday, June 26th, 2009

Obamacare: Slowly but surely making American citizens, God and George Washington’s special sovereign two-legged creatures, into disposable chunks of meat.

Reporting from Washington — President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don’t stand to gain from the extra care.

In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don’t unthinkingly approve “additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care.”

He added: “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

Not quite your “Soylent Green is People!” society…but it’s a big step in that direction.

Obama said he has personal familiarity with such a dilemma. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than nine months to live, he said.

She fell and broke her hip, “and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?”

Obama’s grandmother died two days before he was elected president in November. It was unclear whether she underwent the hip-replacement surgery.

The event, hosted by ABC News’ Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, gave Obama a prime-time forum to promote his healthcare overhaul. A total of 164 guests were invited. ABC pre-screened questions, though the White House was not made aware of what they would be.

Republicans described the event as an “infomercial,” faulting ABC for giving the president such valuable TV time in the midst of a high-stakes partisan policy discussion.

The audience — which included doctors, patients, health insurers, students and people with ailing relatives — clearly was unhappy with the current healthcare system. Gibson asked for a show of hands to see how many wanted to leave the system unchanged. No one raised a hand.

Ah, the “status quo is unacceptable” argument. Best way to garnish up a bad idea!

I didn’t always think so. Just last winter we were starting to argue hot and heavy about the savings and loan bailout and I wrote to my aging-liberal-hippy-female-ditz senators to tell them how I wanted them to vote, just like I’m supposed to. They wrote back and told me how the vote should go. I think it was Boxer; not entirely sure, it gets hard to tell them apart. Anyway, I was just impressed with how the letter was covered top to bottom, repeating over and over again that the status quo was unworkable and something had to be done.

That worked out just swell, didn’t it?

Maybe…just maybe…that is not exactly the cream-of-the-crop of decision-making methods. “Status quo is unacceptable! I’m going to put sugar in my gas tank!”

In fact — maybe this line of thinking is so conducive to bad decision making, that it’s about to saddle us with a universal healthcare system that our Replacement Jesus isn’t even going to use.

Without question, the most damaging moment for Obama came when he acknowledged that in spite of the rationing implicit in his public health care plan, he would still pay out-of-pocket to obtain the best health care for his family. As reported by ABC’s Jake Tapper, “President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people – like the president himself – wouldn’t face.”

Though it is not in the standard Republican playbook, the opponents of Obamacare should argue that his program is fundamentally unfair and at odds with America’s egalitarian commitments. Assuming that Republicans are correct, and the creation of a public-plan will lead to the collapse, rather than invigoration, of private health insurance, the end result of Obamacare will be a massive shift from an employer-based system of private health insurance toward government-provided care.

Whether you’re pro-single-payer-healthcare, or anti-, or sitting on the fence wondering what to do…which I suspect most folks are…this is an important point to be pondered. Government health plans always, always, always ration care. Always.

Only by expanding government control of health care can we bring down its cost. That’s the faulty premise of the various proposals for health reform now being batted around Washington. The claimed cost control depends on politically safe ideas such as preventive care or the adoption of electronic health records. And neither — even according to the Congressional Budget Office — will do much to reduce spending.
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President Obama objects when people use the word “rationing” in regards to government-run health care. But rationing is inevitable if we simply expand government control without fixing the way health care is reimbursed so that doctors and patients become sensitive to issues of price and quality.

Like Medicare’s recent decisions to curtail the use of virtual colonoscopies, certain wound-healing devices, and even a branded asthma drug, the board’s decisions will be one-size-fits-all restrictions. Such restrictions don’t respect variation in preferences and disease, which make costly products suitable for some even if they are wasteful when prescribed to everyone.

Moreover, these health boards prove that policy makers know they’ll need to ration care but want to absolve themselves of responsibility. Some in Congress and the Obama administration recently tipped their hand on this goal by proposing to make recommendations of the current Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC) legally binding rather than mere advice to Congress. Any new health board’s mission will also expand over time, just as MedPAC’s mandate grew to encompass medical practice issues not envisioned when it was created.

The idea of an omnipotent board that makes unpopular decisions on access and price isn’t a new construct. It’s a European import. In countries such as France and Germany, layers of bureaucracy like health boards have been specifically engineered to delay the adoption of new medical products and services, thus lowering spending.

In France, assessment of medical products is done by the Committee for the Evaluation of Medicines. Reimbursement rates are set by the National Union of Sickness Insurance Funds, a group that also negotiates pay to doctors.

In Germany, the Federal Joint Committee regulates reimbursement and restrictions on prescribing, while the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare does formal cost-effectiveness analysis. The Social Insurance Organization, technically a part of the Federal Joint Committee, is in charge of setting prices through a defined formula that monitors doctors’ prescribing behavior and sets their practice budgets. In the past 12 months, the 15 medical products and services that cleared this process spent an average 35 months under review. (The shortest review was 19 months, the longest 51.)

In short, other countries where government plays a large role in health care aren’t shy about rationing. Mr. Obama’s budget director has acknowledged that rationing reduces costs. Peter Orszag told Congress last year when he headed the Congressional Budget Office that spending can be “moderated” if “diffusion of existing costly services were slowed.”

Medicare can already be painstakingly slow. Appealing to it takes patients an average 21 months according to a 2003 Government Accountability Office report (17 months involve administrative processing). Layers of commissions and health boards would delay access still further.

Obama’s doctor doesn’t agree with Obama on Obamacare:

David Scheiner, an internist based in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, has a diverse practice of lower-income adults from the nearby housing projects mixed with famous patients like U.S. Sen. Carol Mosely Braun, the late writer Studs Terkel and, most notably, President Barack Obama.

Scheiner, 71, was Obama’s doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate’s “excellent health” in a letter last year. He’s still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. “I’m not sure he really understands what we face in primary care,” Scheiner says.
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Scheiner takes a few other shots too. Looking at Obama’s team of health advisors, Scheiner doesn’t see anyone who’s actually in the trenches. “I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven’t been struggling in it,” he says.

Scheiner is critical of Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary–Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who used to work as the chief lobbyist for her state’s trial lawyers association.

“He doesn’t see all the pain, it’s so tragic out here,” he says. “Obama’s wonderful, but on this one I’m not sure if he’s getting the right input.”

Another recovering Obamabot going through the first stages of remorse.

I had two reactions to the ABC Healthcare Infomercial. First, Gibson’s question about “who likes the status quo” or whatever, was a loaded one, a leading one, and a deceptive one. He could just as well have asked “who has some stories to share about government meddling in things, when it actually worked out well?” With a younger crowd of folks that hadn’t yet put in their decades waiting in line at the DMV, maybe he would’ve gotten some public-school indoctrinated talking points about Franklin Roosevelt ending the Great Depression. But that would be it. Even with a cherry-picked audience full of hardcore liberals, it would be a possibility worth entertaining that all the hands would stay down. How come he asked the question he asked, instead of that one? I’m starting to see Charles Gibson as a walking incarnation of what Thomas Jefferson said about bad information: “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

Jefferson knew his subject matter well. I see a talking point has emerged, again, about millions and millions of Americans who lack healthcare [insurance]. Perhaps the time has come to inspect this.

Dr. Eric Novack testified before the House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health about the Obama administration’s proposed health care legislation. Afterward, he told CNSNews.com that the Obama administration’s claim that there are 46 million uninsured people in America includes people with different health care scenarios and that combining them togehter in one number is misleading.

“If we start breaking down those numbers a bit–and again these will be round numbers–but about 9 to 10 million of those people are in the country illegally,” Novack said.

Another 15 million are what he called “chronically uninsured,” because of pre-existing health problems or other mitigating factors.

Novack, a self-described “patient advocate” who has written about health reform for the Goldwater Institute and supports legislation in Arizona to protect patients’ right to use and pay for the health care plan of their choice, said another 10 million or so “uninsured” Americans have chosen that status.

“We have young people between 18 and 30, probably about another 10 million or so, they’d rather buy applications for their iPhone than buy health insurance,” Novack said.

He said some of the approximately 46 million Americans referred to by Obama and members of the subcommittee include others who may be eligible for existing government health care programs, such as S-Chip and Medicaid, but don’t sign up.

Hillary and crew were taking the same liberties with the truth fifteen years ago back when the number that was being trotted out was 15 million. They called it “without access to health care,” which could have been called technically correct because if any one of them busted a foot and was hauled into the emergecy room, they’d have to talk to that matronly schoolmarm with the big thick coke-bottle-bottom glasses who would ask to see their health insurance, they’d have none to show, and an awkward situation would develop without this “access to care.” But the foot would have been treated. This, I think, is what Jefferson was talking about.

This is another piece of bad thinking that needs some attention — it’s settled in thick and fast, like fog, since the 1960’s, this notion that if some subclass among us is found to be deprived of something, then on a virtual basis, we all have been so deprived. This is key to Gibson asking who’s happy with the status quo? and seeing not one single hand go up. It is deficient thinking because you could use exactly the performance and exactly the same technique to show the status quo is always unacceptable, with anything. And with the same performance techniques & phony logic, you could then go on to demonstrate that any & all plans carrying that wonderful magic glittering unicorn-phrase of “REFORM,” must be worth trying.

But that isn’t necessarily so.

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