Watchdog Hattie is in the hospital in Little Rock in serious condition and will not be posting comments for quite a while. My thoughts and prayers are there in Little Rock with my brother, hoping for a successful recovery.
BW
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Join Up?
Quote of the Century
'My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of theworld. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it.'
- Barack Obama -
'My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of theworld. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it.'
- Barack Obama -
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Squishy Part 3
This really is beginning to concern me a great deal. From Laura Ingraham:
POTENTIAL COMMANDER-"OF"-CHIEF AVOIDS MILITARY:
We'd like to know what incredibly important event Barack Obama has scheduled on August 11 that prevents him from participating in a debate at Texas' Fort Hood. The townhall event, sponsored by an array of military support groups, hopes to offer the 6,000-strong audience (predominantly veterans and military families) an opportunity to directly question their next commander-in-chief. John McCain is ready and willing, but so far the Obama just can't find an opening. We wonder what scares him most -- a face-to-face matchup with McCain, potential heckles, or simply not being in front of his customary mass gathering of zombies. Whatever the explanation, Obama looks weak in front an audience that needs to respect him as their commander. Not a good start.
POTENTIAL COMMANDER-"OF"-CHIEF AVOIDS MILITARY:
We'd like to know what incredibly important event Barack Obama has scheduled on August 11 that prevents him from participating in a debate at Texas' Fort Hood. The townhall event, sponsored by an array of military support groups, hopes to offer the 6,000-strong audience (predominantly veterans and military families) an opportunity to directly question their next commander-in-chief. John McCain is ready and willing, but so far the Obama just can't find an opening. We wonder what scares him most -- a face-to-face matchup with McCain, potential heckles, or simply not being in front of his customary mass gathering of zombies. Whatever the explanation, Obama looks weak in front an audience that needs to respect him as their commander. Not a good start.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Being "Squishy" Part 2
An interesting post on The Corner at NRO
Obama's Response to 9/11
Throughout history, attacks by implacable foes have prompted somewhat consistent reactions:
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
Winston Churchill.
We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all those who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
We're going to hold them by the nose and we're going to kick them in the ass. George S. Patton.
In war, there is no substitute for victory.
Douglas MacArthur.
Then there's Barack Obama’s response to 9/11 published a week later in the Hyde Park Herald (as noted in Ryan Lizza’s piece in The New Yorker.)
Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we, as a nation, draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must re-examine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks and we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction. We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity or suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, it may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle-Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
It's hard to visualize Obama on a horse at Stirling. But hey, Churchill, Patton MacArthur and Roosevelt couldn't lower the oceans or heal the planet
Obama's Response to 9/11
Throughout history, attacks by implacable foes have prompted somewhat consistent reactions:
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
Winston Churchill.
We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all those who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
We're going to hold them by the nose and we're going to kick them in the ass. George S. Patton.
In war, there is no substitute for victory.
Douglas MacArthur.
Then there's Barack Obama’s response to 9/11 published a week later in the Hyde Park Herald (as noted in Ryan Lizza’s piece in The New Yorker.)
Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we, as a nation, draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must re-examine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks and we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction. We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity or suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, it may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle-Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
It's hard to visualize Obama on a horse at Stirling. But hey, Churchill, Patton MacArthur and Roosevelt couldn't lower the oceans or heal the planet
Being "Squishy" Part !
Byron York reports on today's NYT op-ed by Obama.
"An Unbelievable, Brazen Effort By a Politician to Rewrite History"
Sen. Lindsey Graham, speaking on a conference call a few moments ago, on Sen. Obama's New York Times op-ed today, in which Obama writes, "In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness. But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true…
"While Obama doesn't suggest that he supported surge — he says just the opposite — he skips over the fact that the successes he now recognizes are ones that he once predicted simply would not happen. From Graham: "In January 2007, Sen. Obama said, 'I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.'"
Graham again: "It is very important to understand where he has been regarding the surge. He came out with full force against the idea of sending more troops. His solution was to pull out."
"An Unbelievable, Brazen Effort By a Politician to Rewrite History"
Sen. Lindsey Graham, speaking on a conference call a few moments ago, on Sen. Obama's New York Times op-ed today, in which Obama writes, "In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness. But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true…
"While Obama doesn't suggest that he supported surge — he says just the opposite — he skips over the fact that the successes he now recognizes are ones that he once predicted simply would not happen. From Graham: "In January 2007, Sen. Obama said, 'I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.'"
Graham again: "It is very important to understand where he has been regarding the surge. He came out with full force against the idea of sending more troops. His solution was to pull out."
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Saturday Browsing
Iowahawk continues to prove that he is the best satirist on the web. How can he make such stuff up?
iowahawk: The "Q" is for "Quality"
iowahawk: The "Q" is for "Quality"
A Timely? Report
“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot,” according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from US Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.
“Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”
This morning's New York Times? No, the U.S. Weather Bureau, 1922.
“Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”
This morning's New York Times? No, the U.S. Weather Bureau, 1922.
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Message from Senator Hatch
Frightening!!!
For all of us, there comes a time when the choices are so stark, the risks so great, we have to take a stand. We can no longer assume someone else will save us. We have to step forward and be counted.
We face such a time today. If we don't take a stand against the coming Democratic tsunami, the country we know and love today will be lost.
I believe the Democrats when they say they plan to double our taxes. I believe them when they guarantee they will rewrite federal labor law so unions can reorganize the work force without a secret ballot election. I believe them when they promise the trial bar they will strip away what few rights companies still have. I believe them when they say they are going to appoint liberal judges to the Supreme Court and swamp our federal benches all over the land. I believe them and so should you!
When the next President is sworn in, 6 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices will be over 70 years old. This could mean the next President could seat a new majority to the court.
And, I believe them when they vow to spend close to $100 million dollars to elect a super majority in the Senate, a majority so big that the Senate will no longer be our nation's legislative firewall.
Just this week, the Senator in charge of raising money to get Democratic Senators elected said they are going to pickup nine seats in the US Senate. Nine seats! Do you know what that would mean! That would mean they could pass every piece of their liberal agenda through the House and the Senate untouched! There would not be a tax they could not raise or a freedom they could not abridge.
And you know, there is nothing they won't say, nothing they won't do towin. Presidential hopeful Barak Obama has already raised millions to win the Presidency and he has now decided to raise funds for Democrats in the House.
Just last week he wrote a letter to Democrats around the country asking them to pour money into the House Democrat money machine.
All we Republicans can count on is ourselves. We either stand together, we either support our Senate candidates, or we are lost.Thank you and God bless you.
Sincerely yours,Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
For all of us, there comes a time when the choices are so stark, the risks so great, we have to take a stand. We can no longer assume someone else will save us. We have to step forward and be counted.
We face such a time today. If we don't take a stand against the coming Democratic tsunami, the country we know and love today will be lost.
I believe the Democrats when they say they plan to double our taxes. I believe them when they guarantee they will rewrite federal labor law so unions can reorganize the work force without a secret ballot election. I believe them when they promise the trial bar they will strip away what few rights companies still have. I believe them when they say they are going to appoint liberal judges to the Supreme Court and swamp our federal benches all over the land. I believe them and so should you!
When the next President is sworn in, 6 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices will be over 70 years old. This could mean the next President could seat a new majority to the court.
And, I believe them when they vow to spend close to $100 million dollars to elect a super majority in the Senate, a majority so big that the Senate will no longer be our nation's legislative firewall.
Just this week, the Senator in charge of raising money to get Democratic Senators elected said they are going to pickup nine seats in the US Senate. Nine seats! Do you know what that would mean! That would mean they could pass every piece of their liberal agenda through the House and the Senate untouched! There would not be a tax they could not raise or a freedom they could not abridge.
And you know, there is nothing they won't say, nothing they won't do towin. Presidential hopeful Barak Obama has already raised millions to win the Presidency and he has now decided to raise funds for Democrats in the House.
Just last week he wrote a letter to Democrats around the country asking them to pour money into the House Democrat money machine.
All we Republicans can count on is ourselves. We either stand together, we either support our Senate candidates, or we are lost.Thank you and God bless you.
Sincerely yours,Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Silly Little People
Even the Washington Post has to laugh at these clowns on occasion:
The Red, White and Eat Your Greens Party - washingtonpost.com
The Red, White and Eat Your Greens Party - washingtonpost.com
True Leadership
We are heading into a period of history when these people will be called upon to "solve" the nation's problems. There is a mean streak in this old dog who wants to watch the younger generations come to grips with what it means to give the Democratic Party complete control of all three branches of our government.
A report from Powerline:
Democrats Sucking Wind on Energy Policy
The Democrats had vowed to take up energy policy after the 4th of July recess, but now they have scrubbed all plans to bring energy legislation to the floor of the House. Why? In the words of The Hill, they are "in a bind" because they fear that any effort on their part to offer energy legislation would be met by Republican amendments to permit domestic drilling for oil and gas.
This would force Democratic Congressmen to take a position on whether they want to do something serious to bring down the cost of gasoline, as an overwhelming majority of Americans want. The Democrats, amazing as it may seem, are locked into a blind, ideologically-driven opposition to doing what is necessary to meet America's energy needs. The Hill quotes one Democratic aide:
“Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind,’"
The Democrats know that they risk the wrath of the voters if they continue to force gasoline prices higher and higher:
Further complicating matters for Democrats is the growing number of pro-drilling Democrats who are becoming increasingly worried that voters might throw them in with their anti-drilling leadership.
One pro-drilling Democrat predicted that the backlash against Congress for gas prices could rival the outrage voters felt about the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
I've got news for the Dems: the voters care about gas prices a whole lot more than they ever cared about Jack Abramoff.
A report from Powerline:
Democrats Sucking Wind on Energy Policy
The Democrats had vowed to take up energy policy after the 4th of July recess, but now they have scrubbed all plans to bring energy legislation to the floor of the House. Why? In the words of The Hill, they are "in a bind" because they fear that any effort on their part to offer energy legislation would be met by Republican amendments to permit domestic drilling for oil and gas.
This would force Democratic Congressmen to take a position on whether they want to do something serious to bring down the cost of gasoline, as an overwhelming majority of Americans want. The Democrats, amazing as it may seem, are locked into a blind, ideologically-driven opposition to doing what is necessary to meet America's energy needs. The Hill quotes one Democratic aide:
“Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind,’"
The Democrats know that they risk the wrath of the voters if they continue to force gasoline prices higher and higher:
Further complicating matters for Democrats is the growing number of pro-drilling Democrats who are becoming increasingly worried that voters might throw them in with their anti-drilling leadership.
One pro-drilling Democrat predicted that the backlash against Congress for gas prices could rival the outrage voters felt about the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
I've got news for the Dems: the voters care about gas prices a whole lot more than they ever cared about Jack Abramoff.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Reliving the Bad Old Days
John Hinderaker at Powerline offers the following theory. This old dog concurs.
I do think there is an opening here for a charismatic leader to drive the country to the left. The jury is still out on whether Barack Obama is such a leader. Why this opening should exist now is an interesting question. I think the answer is that we now have a generation of Americans who haven't learned about liberalism the hard way.
There was never a time when Americans decided that liberalism didn't sound good. Nor was there a time when a majority of Americans read Friedman, Hayek and Buckley and became intellectual conservatives. What did happen was that Americans voted for liberal policies that sounded good, and had to live with the bitter consequences: the pathologies that were spawned by the Great Society, declining cities, spiraling crime rates, high unemployment, inflation, economic decline, confiscatory tax rates, weakness abroad, and all the rest. For around 25 years, that bitter experience inoculated most voters against a return to liberalism.
But we now have a generation of voters who didn't undergo that experience, and to whom liberalism once again sounds pretty good. There are no doubt some older voters whose memories have faded, too. So, consistent with the maxim that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it, we may have to suffer through another bout of liberalism to re-learn the lessons of the past.
I do think there is an opening here for a charismatic leader to drive the country to the left. The jury is still out on whether Barack Obama is such a leader. Why this opening should exist now is an interesting question. I think the answer is that we now have a generation of Americans who haven't learned about liberalism the hard way.
There was never a time when Americans decided that liberalism didn't sound good. Nor was there a time when a majority of Americans read Friedman, Hayek and Buckley and became intellectual conservatives. What did happen was that Americans voted for liberal policies that sounded good, and had to live with the bitter consequences: the pathologies that were spawned by the Great Society, declining cities, spiraling crime rates, high unemployment, inflation, economic decline, confiscatory tax rates, weakness abroad, and all the rest. For around 25 years, that bitter experience inoculated most voters against a return to liberalism.
But we now have a generation of voters who didn't undergo that experience, and to whom liberalism once again sounds pretty good. There are no doubt some older voters whose memories have faded, too. So, consistent with the maxim that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it, we may have to suffer through another bout of liberalism to re-learn the lessons of the past.
Our Clueless Messiah
From Laura Ingraham:
OBAMA DAZZLES WITH FOREIGN POLICY EXPERTISE:
Uh oh. Someone let Obama out of the house without his teleprompter! The man just can't help but get frazzled if he's asked about anything weightier than his favorite pie. Appearing this morning on Good Morning America and the Today Show, inquiring minds wanted to know his thoughts about Iran test-firing its Shahab-3 missile, which is capable of hitting Israel. You won't believe his answer - that is, unless you've been following his campaign. Obama ... blamed America! He claimed the missile tests were the fault of President Bush's failure to deal diplomatically with Iran (lie #1), for not pushing tough sanctions (lie #2), and for using "overheated rhetoric" (Mahmoud "Kill the Jews!" Ahmadinejad apparently being the paragon of proper rhetoric?). If Diane Sawyer knew the difference between a Shahab-3 and Shakira, she might have actually asked a follow-up question rather than let him get away with this nonsense. Alas, no such luck.
OBAMA DAZZLES WITH FOREIGN POLICY EXPERTISE:
Uh oh. Someone let Obama out of the house without his teleprompter! The man just can't help but get frazzled if he's asked about anything weightier than his favorite pie. Appearing this morning on Good Morning America and the Today Show, inquiring minds wanted to know his thoughts about Iran test-firing its Shahab-3 missile, which is capable of hitting Israel. You won't believe his answer - that is, unless you've been following his campaign. Obama ... blamed America! He claimed the missile tests were the fault of President Bush's failure to deal diplomatically with Iran (lie #1), for not pushing tough sanctions (lie #2), and for using "overheated rhetoric" (Mahmoud "Kill the Jews!" Ahmadinejad apparently being the paragon of proper rhetoric?). If Diane Sawyer knew the difference between a Shahab-3 and Shakira, she might have actually asked a follow-up question rather than let him get away with this nonsense. Alas, no such luck.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
From Australia
PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.
Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon".
"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."
To read the whole article go here:
Doomed to a fatal delusion over climate change Herald Sun
Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon".
"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."
To read the whole article go here:
Doomed to a fatal delusion over climate change Herald Sun
"Sieg Heil"
From Victor Davis Hanson on NRO.
Megalomania 101
At first I thought the standard Obama warnings about crowd fainting when he started speaking were just peculiar, as was the bit about oceans receding and the planet healing. Then I noticed he has plans to move his speechmaking at the convention to a large outdoor arena, to allow the 'people' the right to hear him en masse. Now he negotiates to address Berliners in Kennedy/Reagan style (but weren't they already presidents?) in front of the Brandenburg Gate? Next? No doubt the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Megalomania 101
At first I thought the standard Obama warnings about crowd fainting when he started speaking were just peculiar, as was the bit about oceans receding and the planet healing. Then I noticed he has plans to move his speechmaking at the convention to a large outdoor arena, to allow the 'people' the right to hear him en masse. Now he negotiates to address Berliners in Kennedy/Reagan style (but weren't they already presidents?) in front of the Brandenburg Gate? Next? No doubt the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
For My Grown Up Readers
The following is the first question and answer from an interview that has been posted at National Review:
‘Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, childhood was a phase, adolescence did not exist and adulthood was the fulfillment of youth’s promise. No more,” Diana West writes in her book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. West is worried that “eternal youth” is “fatal” and recently took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: You note that more adults watch the Cartoon Network than CNN. Surely, you’ve seen Jack Cafferty. Is this really a problem?
Diana West: Not if that were the only statistic out there indicating a seismic cultural shift in sensibility has taken place that has made us more adolescent and less adult. Other such factoids include: the average video gamester was 18 in 1990; now he’s 33; the National Academy of Sciences has redefined adolescence as the period extending from the onset of puberty, around twelve, to age 30. And, leaving CNN aside, here’s another cartoon statistic: One third of the 56 million Americans who sat down in 2002 to watch SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon each month were between 18 and 49 years old. (Nickelodeon, incidentally, thought its core demographic group was the six- to eleven-year old set.)
These older fans may be chronological grown-ups, but their taste reveals an affinity for kidstuff their forebears didn’t share and almost certainly wouldn’t understand. The point is, aspects of the maturation cycle have stalled, leading to significant changes not only in pop culture, but in ourselves as a people.
“There isn’t any clear demarcation of what’s for parents and what’s for kids,” a former Hollywood studio executive told the Wall Street Journal. “We like the same music, we dress similarly.” The Death of the Grown-Up explores how, when and why this phenomenon came about, and, on a deeper level, what it is doing to us as a society and nation.
To read the entire interview, ( it's good stuff) please go here:
Interview on The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is
‘Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, childhood was a phase, adolescence did not exist and adulthood was the fulfillment of youth’s promise. No more,” Diana West writes in her book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. West is worried that “eternal youth” is “fatal” and recently took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: You note that more adults watch the Cartoon Network than CNN. Surely, you’ve seen Jack Cafferty. Is this really a problem?
Diana West: Not if that were the only statistic out there indicating a seismic cultural shift in sensibility has taken place that has made us more adolescent and less adult. Other such factoids include: the average video gamester was 18 in 1990; now he’s 33; the National Academy of Sciences has redefined adolescence as the period extending from the onset of puberty, around twelve, to age 30. And, leaving CNN aside, here’s another cartoon statistic: One third of the 56 million Americans who sat down in 2002 to watch SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon each month were between 18 and 49 years old. (Nickelodeon, incidentally, thought its core demographic group was the six- to eleven-year old set.)
These older fans may be chronological grown-ups, but their taste reveals an affinity for kidstuff their forebears didn’t share and almost certainly wouldn’t understand. The point is, aspects of the maturation cycle have stalled, leading to significant changes not only in pop culture, but in ourselves as a people.
“There isn’t any clear demarcation of what’s for parents and what’s for kids,” a former Hollywood studio executive told the Wall Street Journal. “We like the same music, we dress similarly.” The Death of the Grown-Up explores how, when and why this phenomenon came about, and, on a deeper level, what it is doing to us as a society and nation.
To read the entire interview, ( it's good stuff) please go here:
Interview on The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is
Monday, July 7, 2008
This is Pretty Icky
Now, after all of these years, I find out the truth!!!
This just in from another British newspaper:
Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'
The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.
This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.
The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.
This kind of crap just keeps coming and coming.
This just in from another British newspaper:
Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'
The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.
This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.
The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.
This kind of crap just keeps coming and coming.
News We are Not Allowed to Know
Decided to post this only because we Americans are unlikely to read or hear anything like this from our own media. This comes from that stately old British newspaper, The Times of London.
Al Qaeda's crushing defeat in Iraq appears to be virtually complete, now that it has been routed in its last remaining urban outpost -- Mosul.
After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects. . . .Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: “I think we’re at the irreversible point.”
Al Qaeda's crushing defeat in Iraq appears to be virtually complete, now that it has been routed in its last remaining urban outpost -- Mosul.
After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects. . . .Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: “I think we’re at the irreversible point.”
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Communism Defeated by Jokes?
A man goes to buy a car in Moscow, pays for it, and is told by the salesman that he can collect it on a particular date in 10 years' time. The buyer thinks for a moment and then asks: 'Morning or afternoon?' The salesman, astonished by the question, asks: 'What difference does it make?' And the buyer answers: 'Well, the plumber is coming in the morning.'
Had to laugh at this excerpt from a book reviewed by a British newspaper. To read the whole article, click below:
Was it jokes that defeated Communism? - Telegraph Was it jokes that defeated C
Had to laugh at this excerpt from a book reviewed by a British newspaper. To read the whole article, click below:
Was it jokes that defeated Communism? - Telegraph Was it jokes that defeated C
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Something to Think About
Here is a quote from Mark Twain that I had never had the pleasure of reading before. Written over 100 years ago, it appears to be a thought that we never get a chance to think about while confronted with the every day censorship of political correctness:
"All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth--including America, of course--consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, however insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty, occupies a foot of land that was not stolen. When the English, the French, and the Spaniards reached America, the Indian tribes had been raiding each other's territorial clothes-lines for ages, and every acre of ground in the continent had been stolen and restolen 500 times."
"All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth--including America, of course--consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, however insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty, occupies a foot of land that was not stolen. When the English, the French, and the Spaniards reached America, the Indian tribes had been raiding each other's territorial clothes-lines for ages, and every acre of ground in the continent had been stolen and restolen 500 times."
Our Children are Next
From Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit!
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, we'd see schoolboys punished for refusing to kneel and pray in class. And they were right!!!
Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel down and pray to Alla
Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.
Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.
You can't make this stuff up. And, sadly, you don't have to.
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, we'd see schoolboys punished for refusing to kneel and pray in class. And they were right!!!
Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel down and pray to Alla
Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.
Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.
You can't make this stuff up. And, sadly, you don't have to.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Independence Day
The following is an excerpt from a speech given by President Calvin Coolidge on July 4, 1926. Even back 82 years ago, many Americans saw the vicious "progressive" ideology of socialism and collectivist government. This is, of course, what Coolidge is commenting on:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter.
If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.
If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.
Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter.
If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.
If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.
Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Bite Sized Morsels
Notes from Laura Ingraham:
VOTE POODLE! Finnicky, elitist, entitled...a poodle would be the perfect addition to the Obama family. Put the veep vetting on the back burner for a few weeks, because Barack Obama is in search of a new pooch--and he's taking recommendations. The American Kennel Club is conducting a highly scientific poll on its website where you can weigh in on the best choice for the Obama family pet. Next up: choosing a name. Jeremiah, anyone?
THURSDAY WITH BYRON: In a bid to corroborate, further understand, and clarify Barack Obama's incessant references to his youthful days as a Chicago "community organizer," Byron York traveled to the South Side to speak with former colleagues and witness firsthand the fruits of Obama's labor. Except...there wasn't much fruit to see. In great contrast to Obama's proud reflections, Byron instead heard tales about a youthful political opportunist...and a little less asbestos on the South Side of Chicago
VOTE POODLE! Finnicky, elitist, entitled...a poodle would be the perfect addition to the Obama family. Put the veep vetting on the back burner for a few weeks, because Barack Obama is in search of a new pooch--and he's taking recommendations. The American Kennel Club is conducting a highly scientific poll on its website where you can weigh in on the best choice for the Obama family pet. Next up: choosing a name. Jeremiah, anyone?
THURSDAY WITH BYRON: In a bid to corroborate, further understand, and clarify Barack Obama's incessant references to his youthful days as a Chicago "community organizer," Byron York traveled to the South Side to speak with former colleagues and witness firsthand the fruits of Obama's labor. Except...there wasn't much fruit to see. In great contrast to Obama's proud reflections, Byron instead heard tales about a youthful political opportunist...and a little less asbestos on the South Side of Chicago
Thursday, July 3, 2008
On the Make
Change, my ass! From a Powerline post:
This morning the Washington Post broke the news that Barack Obama got a sub-market interest rate when he took out a mortgage to buy his Chicago mansion in 2005:
The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.
Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.
Obama's loan came from Northern Trust, whose employees have also donated $71,000 to Obama's campaign. This is, of course, the same home purchase in which Obama was assisted by his fundraiser, convicted felon Tony Rezko, who bought the adjacent lot for the seller's full asking price, while Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price to the same seller for the house.
It has come to light that several Democratic Senators availed themselves of sub-market mortgages under circumstances that are more or less suspicious. Obama is in that rather tawdry category.
What is most striking to me, though, is not that Obama shaved a fraction of a point off his mortgage by being a politically powerful customer. It is, rather, the rapidity with which Obama was able to turn his ascension to the Senate into material wealth. The Post describes the Obamas' mansion, purchased just a few months after Obama became a Senator:
The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.
How were the Obamas able to afford this on a Senator's $162,000 salary? They weren't, of course. But in January 2005, the same month in which Obama assumed his Senate seat, Random House "agreed to reissue an Obama memoir, for which it originally paid $40,000, as part of a $2.27 million deal that included two future nonfiction books and a children's book." How does an author who has never sold many books get a multi-million dollar book deal? By being an up-and-coming Democratic Senator.
Then there is Michelle Obama, whose salary doubled to over $300,000 when her husband was elected to the Senate. It was the Random House book deal, together with Michelle's newly-discovered value to her employer, that paid for the Obamas' Chicago mansion.
You can draw your own conclusions from all of this. It strikes me that Barack Obama is a very old-fashioned politician. He is a powerful man, and he expects the world to kiss his ring and shower him with money and other good things. This is a Chicago tradition, I guess, and it's not hard to understand.
What's a bit harder to make sense of is Michelle Obama's attitude. She says that America is a "downright mean country." Is this an insight that she had while sitting in her double steam shower? Or perhaps while fetching a prime vintage from her wine cellar, or musing in her solarium, or applying makeup in her marble powder room, or treading the granite floor in her kitchen? It's hard to say. Maybe it's just another instance of liberal guilt.
But since Barack is as nakedly on the make as any politician in modern American history, the Obamas should perhaps drop the pose
This morning the Washington Post broke the news that Barack Obama got a sub-market interest rate when he took out a mortgage to buy his Chicago mansion in 2005:
The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.
Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.
Obama's loan came from Northern Trust, whose employees have also donated $71,000 to Obama's campaign. This is, of course, the same home purchase in which Obama was assisted by his fundraiser, convicted felon Tony Rezko, who bought the adjacent lot for the seller's full asking price, while Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price to the same seller for the house.
It has come to light that several Democratic Senators availed themselves of sub-market mortgages under circumstances that are more or less suspicious. Obama is in that rather tawdry category.
What is most striking to me, though, is not that Obama shaved a fraction of a point off his mortgage by being a politically powerful customer. It is, rather, the rapidity with which Obama was able to turn his ascension to the Senate into material wealth. The Post describes the Obamas' mansion, purchased just a few months after Obama became a Senator:
The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.
How were the Obamas able to afford this on a Senator's $162,000 salary? They weren't, of course. But in January 2005, the same month in which Obama assumed his Senate seat, Random House "agreed to reissue an Obama memoir, for which it originally paid $40,000, as part of a $2.27 million deal that included two future nonfiction books and a children's book." How does an author who has never sold many books get a multi-million dollar book deal? By being an up-and-coming Democratic Senator.
Then there is Michelle Obama, whose salary doubled to over $300,000 when her husband was elected to the Senate. It was the Random House book deal, together with Michelle's newly-discovered value to her employer, that paid for the Obamas' Chicago mansion.
You can draw your own conclusions from all of this. It strikes me that Barack Obama is a very old-fashioned politician. He is a powerful man, and he expects the world to kiss his ring and shower him with money and other good things. This is a Chicago tradition, I guess, and it's not hard to understand.
What's a bit harder to make sense of is Michelle Obama's attitude. She says that America is a "downright mean country." Is this an insight that she had while sitting in her double steam shower? Or perhaps while fetching a prime vintage from her wine cellar, or musing in her solarium, or applying makeup in her marble powder room, or treading the granite floor in her kitchen? It's hard to say. Maybe it's just another instance of liberal guilt.
But since Barack is as nakedly on the make as any politician in modern American history, the Obamas should perhaps drop the pose
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
A Tale of Corruption
Chicago is the home of a dying breed of huge political machines. The Daley machine still operates. The following article comes from the Boston Globe ( hardly a conservative newspaper.)
Note how all of this comes down and how public money is squandered and stolen by "inside" players and politicians. Practices such as these have been going on in America for at least 150 years! And, yes, occasionally people like Rezko have to go to jail.
Change, my ass!
Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy - The Boston Globe
Note how all of this comes down and how public money is squandered and stolen by "inside" players and politicians. Practices such as these have been going on in America for at least 150 years! And, yes, occasionally people like Rezko have to go to jail.
Change, my ass!
Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy - The Boston Globe
Listen Up! I don't like Obama!
This old dog wonders what he has to do to be shut down by Google as an anti-Obama web site. Since, at this point in my life, I can't really be intimidated by anything or anybody, I think I should give it a try!!
The following is a kind of scary:
Bloggasm » Who’s responsible for shutting down a number of anti-Obama Blogspot
The following is a kind of scary:
Bloggasm » Who’s responsible for shutting down a number of anti-Obama Blogspot
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Spreading Lies
From Laura Ingraham:
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL:
Feeling happy? Satisfied? Sounds like a job for Amnesty International! In an attempt to convince Americans of their own depravity, Amnesty is bringing a life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay cell on a national tour.
One problem. As reported by Cybercast News Service, the cell has far more in common with the paranoid delusions of the blame-America-first crowd than anything you'll find at Gitmo. The replica measures 7 by 10 feet, while actual cells are 10 by 20.
The cell on the Mall is also missing the sink Gitmo cells include. Amenities like bedding, toiletries, copies of the Koran and three-square meals a day also go unmentioned. As do prayer rugs, "culturally appropriate meals," and a recorded call to prayer broadcast five times daily. AIUSA aims for Americans to know the feeling of being "almost totally isolated, where you're put in stress positions that are extremely painful."
In truth, prisoners with good behavior at Gitmo are also allowed to socially interact and even play a little soccer.
Amnesty even screwed up the colors; detainees wear tan, not orange. But other than that, this "replica" is dead on.
It's no surprise that to paint America in a bad light, Amnesty's resorting to spreading lies and enemy propaganda.
Not that I can really blame them. It's hard to imagine too many Americans getting worked up over terrorists being denied turndown service.
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL:
Feeling happy? Satisfied? Sounds like a job for Amnesty International! In an attempt to convince Americans of their own depravity, Amnesty is bringing a life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay cell on a national tour.
One problem. As reported by Cybercast News Service, the cell has far more in common with the paranoid delusions of the blame-America-first crowd than anything you'll find at Gitmo. The replica measures 7 by 10 feet, while actual cells are 10 by 20.
The cell on the Mall is also missing the sink Gitmo cells include. Amenities like bedding, toiletries, copies of the Koran and three-square meals a day also go unmentioned. As do prayer rugs, "culturally appropriate meals," and a recorded call to prayer broadcast five times daily. AIUSA aims for Americans to know the feeling of being "almost totally isolated, where you're put in stress positions that are extremely painful."
In truth, prisoners with good behavior at Gitmo are also allowed to socially interact and even play a little soccer.
Amnesty even screwed up the colors; detainees wear tan, not orange. But other than that, this "replica" is dead on.
It's no surprise that to paint America in a bad light, Amnesty's resorting to spreading lies and enemy propaganda.
Not that I can really blame them. It's hard to imagine too many Americans getting worked up over terrorists being denied turndown service.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tired of Being Compared to Hitler?
The following is a cute article from the satirical blog, " Stuff White People Like."
Comparing People to Hitler
By: Isaac “Absent” Amirian
Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation- especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.
Comparing people to Hitler is an easy way for white people to get a strong point across to the less enlightened, or the insufficiently white. Everyone knows who Adolf Hitler was. And everyone knows that Hitler was very, very bad. Therefore, if a white person really, REALLY, doesn’t like something or someone, he or she may angrily say something to the effect of, “This is exactly the same kind of thing that Hitler used to do!” accompanied by varying levels of profanity based on blood-alcohol content. No matter what your gut reaction may be at that point, do not disagree with that white person. Otherwise, well, you love Hitler.
This time-tested white-person maneuver may seem so awesomely useful to you that you are tempted to go out and try it right now. Not so fast. White people have spent the last 30 years perfecting this technique. There are cultural guidelines.
It’s also critical that you avoid the fatal mistake of getting creative and comparing people you don’t like to other evil dictators, such as Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro. With few exceptions, white people are actually fond of almost any dictator not named Hitler, and your remark that “this is just like something Mao Zedong would do” will be met with blank stares and possible social alienation. This is because, with the exception of Hitler,oppressive dictators share a passion for many of the things white people love- such as universal health care, conspiracy theories, caring about poor people while being filthy rich, and cool hats. Stick to the script and
compare things you don’t like to Hitler, and Hitler alone.
Now, like most reasonable people, you might find this strategy distasteful, and even a bit disrespectful, since after all, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, and probably doesn’t have that much in common with Pat Robertson, in perspective. If you prefer to avoid hearing or using the Hitler technique, we recommend you speak in soothing, affirming tones around angry white people to prevent the phenomenon from manifesting, and change the subject tactfully. To something that doesn’t involve GeorgeW. Bush.
Comparing People to Hitler
By: Isaac “Absent” Amirian
Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation- especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.
Comparing people to Hitler is an easy way for white people to get a strong point across to the less enlightened, or the insufficiently white. Everyone knows who Adolf Hitler was. And everyone knows that Hitler was very, very bad. Therefore, if a white person really, REALLY, doesn’t like something or someone, he or she may angrily say something to the effect of, “This is exactly the same kind of thing that Hitler used to do!” accompanied by varying levels of profanity based on blood-alcohol content. No matter what your gut reaction may be at that point, do not disagree with that white person. Otherwise, well, you love Hitler.
This time-tested white-person maneuver may seem so awesomely useful to you that you are tempted to go out and try it right now. Not so fast. White people have spent the last 30 years perfecting this technique. There are cultural guidelines.
It’s also critical that you avoid the fatal mistake of getting creative and comparing people you don’t like to other evil dictators, such as Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro. With few exceptions, white people are actually fond of almost any dictator not named Hitler, and your remark that “this is just like something Mao Zedong would do” will be met with blank stares and possible social alienation. This is because, with the exception of Hitler,oppressive dictators share a passion for many of the things white people love- such as universal health care, conspiracy theories, caring about poor people while being filthy rich, and cool hats. Stick to the script and
compare things you don’t like to Hitler, and Hitler alone.
Now, like most reasonable people, you might find this strategy distasteful, and even a bit disrespectful, since after all, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, and probably doesn’t have that much in common with Pat Robertson, in perspective. If you prefer to avoid hearing or using the Hitler technique, we recommend you speak in soothing, affirming tones around angry white people to prevent the phenomenon from manifesting, and change the subject tactfully. To something that doesn’t involve GeorgeW. Bush.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Crazy People Are Out There
Unbelievable stuff.
And to think these people's votes count just as much as ours! I will never understand the mindset of humans who can think this way! Please click on the link:
lgf: Obama Blog Troofer Roundup
And to think these people's votes count just as much as ours! I will never understand the mindset of humans who can think this way! Please click on the link:
lgf: Obama Blog Troofer Roundup
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Uh-Oh. No News Conference After All
Dems In Disarray
Yesterday, the Democrats' House leadership announced with considerable fanfare that Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn, Rahm Emanuel and John Larson would hold a news conference at 11:30 this morning "to discuss the New Direction Congress' efforts to lower gas prices."
Here is the press release; click to enlarge:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/PressConference61.php
This morning, the news conference was canceled. The Democrats don't have an energy policy, and they can't think of one. The truth is that the "New Direction Congress" has done nothing whatsoever to lower gas prices, and, on the contrary, the Democrats have blocked all efforts by Republican members to enact policies that would have that result. At the moment, the Dems aren't even able to come up with a plausible cover story, let alone a constructive energy policy
Yesterday, the Democrats' House leadership announced with considerable fanfare that Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn, Rahm Emanuel and John Larson would hold a news conference at 11:30 this morning "to discuss the New Direction Congress' efforts to lower gas prices."
Here is the press release; click to enlarge:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/PressConference61.php
This morning, the news conference was canceled. The Democrats don't have an energy policy, and they can't think of one. The truth is that the "New Direction Congress" has done nothing whatsoever to lower gas prices, and, on the contrary, the Democrats have blocked all efforts by Republican members to enact policies that would have that result. At the moment, the Dems aren't even able to come up with a plausible cover story, let alone a constructive energy policy
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Palin Doing the Responsible Thing
From a statement issued by the State of Alaska
Governor Palin Urges Congress to Open ANWR
June 23, 2008, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today urged members of Congress to enact legislation that would allow oil and gas development in a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and key members of Congress, Governor Palin stressed the need to enact an energy policy that includes oil and gas production from domestic sources, since failure to enact a sound energy policy is having real-life consequences.
The Governor reminded members of Congress that the footprint of development would be less than 2,000 acres. She also assured members that any development would be conducted in a responsible and environmentally safe manner
Governor Palin Urges Congress to Open ANWR
June 23, 2008, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today urged members of Congress to enact legislation that would allow oil and gas development in a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and key members of Congress, Governor Palin stressed the need to enact an energy policy that includes oil and gas production from domestic sources, since failure to enact a sound energy policy is having real-life consequences.
The Governor reminded members of Congress that the footprint of development would be less than 2,000 acres. She also assured members that any development would be conducted in a responsible and environmentally safe manner
This Dog is Happy for Ole Will
A comment from the ever wonderful Laura Ingraham:
'THE PURSUIT OF DAFFYNESS': Will Smith appeared on the Today show this morning and after some prodding by co-host Matt Lauer, went all Michelle Obama on us: "You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris and it's the first, I've been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasn't been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing."
Ah yes, the trials of visiting Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris in the Bush era. The things celebrities are forced to do.
'THE PURSUIT OF DAFFYNESS': Will Smith appeared on the Today show this morning and after some prodding by co-host Matt Lauer, went all Michelle Obama on us: "You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris and it's the first, I've been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasn't been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing."
Ah yes, the trials of visiting Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris in the Bush era. The things celebrities are forced to do.
Monday, June 23, 2008
No Wonder Newspapers are Dying
Media to America: Disaster Seen as Catastrophe Looms
June 23, 2008 10:52 AM ET James Pethokoukis
"I know you're just a reporter, but you used to be a person, right?" is a quote from the film Deep Impact and immediately came to mind after I read this article from the Associated Press. (It actually took two people to write it.) The "article" made me weep for my chosen profession. The absolutely disgraceful lead:
Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism. Horatio Alger, twist in your grave. The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.
I dunno, maybe contributing to our low national morale are media that 1) compare a weak economy—although one that has yet to suffer even a single negative quarter—to the disastrous economies of the 1930s and 1970s; 2) forget to mention that the average person buying a home in, say, January 2000, is still sitting on a 66 percent gain; 3) ignore the economy's sky-high productivity, which helps make it the most competitive in the world; 4) ignore a global economic boom that is pushing up gas prices but also raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; and 5) for the heck of it, perpetuate the myth that college is unaffordable.
(Oh, and since the authors of the article brought it up, it sure looks to this Soviet politics major that Iraq is turning into a situation for al Qaeda that is exactly the reverse of Afghanistan in the 1980s: Militants take on superpower. Get annihilated along with their global brand.)
America's "can-do" attitude? We are coming off a record year for initial public offerings. I mean, I could go on and on here. I don't know anyone who is giving up, other than the AP.
June 23, 2008 10:52 AM ET James Pethokoukis
"I know you're just a reporter, but you used to be a person, right?" is a quote from the film Deep Impact and immediately came to mind after I read this article from the Associated Press. (It actually took two people to write it.) The "article" made me weep for my chosen profession. The absolutely disgraceful lead:
Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism. Horatio Alger, twist in your grave. The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.
I dunno, maybe contributing to our low national morale are media that 1) compare a weak economy—although one that has yet to suffer even a single negative quarter—to the disastrous economies of the 1930s and 1970s; 2) forget to mention that the average person buying a home in, say, January 2000, is still sitting on a 66 percent gain; 3) ignore the economy's sky-high productivity, which helps make it the most competitive in the world; 4) ignore a global economic boom that is pushing up gas prices but also raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; and 5) for the heck of it, perpetuate the myth that college is unaffordable.
(Oh, and since the authors of the article brought it up, it sure looks to this Soviet politics major that Iraq is turning into a situation for al Qaeda that is exactly the reverse of Afghanistan in the 1980s: Militants take on superpower. Get annihilated along with their global brand.)
America's "can-do" attitude? We are coming off a record year for initial public offerings. I mean, I could go on and on here. I don't know anyone who is giving up, other than the AP.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Time to be a Man
In response to Obama's claim that Republicans will use race to stoke fear, Lt. Col Allen West, candidate for Congress in Florida's 22 District issued this release:
My advice to Senator Obama is to run as a Man and Leader, and the American people will evaluate you as such, not as a victim. This is a Presidential race, based solely on a capacity to lead the United States of America.
It is not about skin tone...however, perhaps we should come to expect these immature statements. It also seems rather humorous that the Presidential candidate who was supposed to be such a "uniter" and transcend race is the one talking about it the most.
If Senator Obama was confident in his abilities and character, he would not need to create a crutch for failure. Senator Obama has just tipped his hand, any criticism of him and his policies will be directly attributed to racism. I congratulate Senator Obama for taking race relations in America back some 30 years
My advice to Senator Obama is to run as a Man and Leader, and the American people will evaluate you as such, not as a victim. This is a Presidential race, based solely on a capacity to lead the United States of America.
It is not about skin tone...however, perhaps we should come to expect these immature statements. It also seems rather humorous that the Presidential candidate who was supposed to be such a "uniter" and transcend race is the one talking about it the most.
If Senator Obama was confident in his abilities and character, he would not need to create a crutch for failure. Senator Obama has just tipped his hand, any criticism of him and his policies will be directly attributed to racism. I congratulate Senator Obama for taking race relations in America back some 30 years
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Crocodile Tears
Laura Ingraham reports on this LA Times story:
POOR LITTLE GANG BANGER!
Cue the world's smallest violin, 'cause we've got ourselves a sob story of epic proportions. In saner eras, yesterday's front-page L.A. Times story about a 23-year-old Anaheim gang member would be confused for parody. Sadly, today it's just another example of the length many will go to excuse criminal behavior.
Jose Luis Muñoz, we are told, was raised by a single mother. And as if that weren't heartbreaking enough, we're also told Muñoz's childhood was not one of affluence. In 2005, Muñoz found himself running from cops for reasons the Times opts not to report. The pursuit ended with Muñoz being hit by a police cruiser. Naturally, he sued and won $2.5 million. After serving a jail sentence, the idealistic minds behind the settlement were excited, certain the cash would help Muñoz turn his life around. Not so much. Instead, he was arrested only months later for violating his parole for associating with other gang members. But don't blame Muñoz! As The Times reports:
Richard Ramos, a gang expert and author who grew up in Highland Park, agreed that identity and fitting in have a lot to do with Muñoz's recidivism.
"People who don't have money transform their lives all the time," Ramos said. "In this case, $2.5 million wasn't enough. To kids like him, identity and belonging are powerful forces that keep them in gangs. There has to be an inside-out transformation or a life-changing event to bring change. Gangs compete with your family for loyalty
.And rough upbringings are hardly a new excuse. Recall that in 2006, Zacarias Moussaoui -- aka the "20th hijacker" -- pleaded guilty to charges ranging from conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism to conspiracy to destroy aircraft and use WMDs. Before his sentencing, his attorneys offered a real tearjerker: his father was abusive, his girlfriend's parents never approved of him, his native France was intolerant of his Muslim beliefs ... of course he turned out to be a terrorist.
The only thing such excuse making serves to accomplish is to re-enforce in defendants' minds that whatever he's done -- it's not his fault. That's bad for society, and the convicted.
POOR LITTLE GANG BANGER!
Cue the world's smallest violin, 'cause we've got ourselves a sob story of epic proportions. In saner eras, yesterday's front-page L.A. Times story about a 23-year-old Anaheim gang member would be confused for parody. Sadly, today it's just another example of the length many will go to excuse criminal behavior.
Jose Luis Muñoz, we are told, was raised by a single mother. And as if that weren't heartbreaking enough, we're also told Muñoz's childhood was not one of affluence. In 2005, Muñoz found himself running from cops for reasons the Times opts not to report. The pursuit ended with Muñoz being hit by a police cruiser. Naturally, he sued and won $2.5 million. After serving a jail sentence, the idealistic minds behind the settlement were excited, certain the cash would help Muñoz turn his life around. Not so much. Instead, he was arrested only months later for violating his parole for associating with other gang members. But don't blame Muñoz! As The Times reports:
Richard Ramos, a gang expert and author who grew up in Highland Park, agreed that identity and fitting in have a lot to do with Muñoz's recidivism.
"People who don't have money transform their lives all the time," Ramos said. "In this case, $2.5 million wasn't enough. To kids like him, identity and belonging are powerful forces that keep them in gangs. There has to be an inside-out transformation or a life-changing event to bring change. Gangs compete with your family for loyalty
.And rough upbringings are hardly a new excuse. Recall that in 2006, Zacarias Moussaoui -- aka the "20th hijacker" -- pleaded guilty to charges ranging from conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism to conspiracy to destroy aircraft and use WMDs. Before his sentencing, his attorneys offered a real tearjerker: his father was abusive, his girlfriend's parents never approved of him, his native France was intolerant of his Muslim beliefs ... of course he turned out to be a terrorist.
The only thing such excuse making serves to accomplish is to re-enforce in defendants' minds that whatever he's done -- it's not his fault. That's bad for society, and the convicted.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
From Laura Ingraham
PRESIDENT POOH?
Sen. Barack Obama's top foreign-policy adviser, former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, says the U.S. should follow Winnie the Pooh's lead when it comes to fighting al Qaeda. No joke. Here's what he said: "Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security."
The possible National Security Adviser to President Obama added that Pooh's war philosophy can be summed up thusly: if something is causing you too much pain, give it up and try something else.Tell that to the veterans of Belleau Wood, Sicily, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Mr. Danzig. Tell it to the Special Forces troops who may be tracking al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia, the Philippines, Afghanistan or Iraq right now.
Things worth doing, things that are vital to keeping this country safe, are often difficult and, yes, even painful. Danzig's hedonistic approach to foreign affairs is a signal that America is a paper tiger (Tigger?) because the leaders we elect are weak (Eeyores, all). And if America elects Barack Obama, our enemies just may prove that theory right.
Sen. Barack Obama's top foreign-policy adviser, former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, says the U.S. should follow Winnie the Pooh's lead when it comes to fighting al Qaeda. No joke. Here's what he said: "Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security."
The possible National Security Adviser to President Obama added that Pooh's war philosophy can be summed up thusly: if something is causing you too much pain, give it up and try something else.Tell that to the veterans of Belleau Wood, Sicily, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Mr. Danzig. Tell it to the Special Forces troops who may be tracking al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia, the Philippines, Afghanistan or Iraq right now.
Things worth doing, things that are vital to keeping this country safe, are often difficult and, yes, even painful. Danzig's hedonistic approach to foreign affairs is a signal that America is a paper tiger (Tigger?) because the leaders we elect are weak (Eeyores, all). And if America elects Barack Obama, our enemies just may prove that theory right.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Education Matters
If you don't think that what a child learns in school can be manipulated by the teachers and the society, this should give you pause.
Elian Gonzalez Joins Cuba's Communist Youth Union
Gonzalez Says He Would Never Let Down Fidel CastroHAVANA (CBS4)
― Eight years after a headline making international custody fight which ended with his return to his father in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union.
In an article in Cuba's communist youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, the 14-year old Gonzalez said he would never let ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro down. He joined more than 18-thousand others who joined the group on Saturday.
In 2000, Gonzalez' mother was killed when a boat carrying them to the U.S. capsized in the Florida Straits. Elian, who was 6 years old at the time, and two other refugees were found clinging to an inner tube for survival. After his rescue the boy stayed with relatives in South Florida until a long tug of war over custody ended with armed federal agents seizing him from his great uncle's Miami home. Elian then returned to Cuba to be with his father.
Elian Gonzalez Joins Cuba's Communist Youth Union
Gonzalez Says He Would Never Let Down Fidel CastroHAVANA (CBS4)
― Eight years after a headline making international custody fight which ended with his return to his father in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union.
In an article in Cuba's communist youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, the 14-year old Gonzalez said he would never let ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro down. He joined more than 18-thousand others who joined the group on Saturday.
In 2000, Gonzalez' mother was killed when a boat carrying them to the U.S. capsized in the Florida Straits. Elian, who was 6 years old at the time, and two other refugees were found clinging to an inner tube for survival. After his rescue the boy stayed with relatives in South Florida until a long tug of war over custody ended with armed federal agents seizing him from his great uncle's Miami home. Elian then returned to Cuba to be with his father.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Weekend Reading
Two very interesting columns in the Wall Street Journal were published in the past few days. If you wish to, please check out these columns from Peggy Noonan and Thomas Sowell, two of the best conservative thinkers in America today:
The Tragedy of America's Disappearing Fathers - WSJ.com
Declarations - WSJ.com
The Tragedy of America's Disappearing Fathers - WSJ.com
Declarations - WSJ.com
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Senator Mc Cain, Wake Up!
Excerpt of an editorial in the Wall Street Journal:
Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" – everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.
Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.
At present, it is charitable to call Mr. McCain's energy ideas incoherent, and it may cost him the election.
Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" – everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.
Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.
At present, it is charitable to call Mr. McCain's energy ideas incoherent, and it may cost him the election.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Gas Prices
The Republican Whip, Roy Blunt, introduced this chart yesterday to the House of Representatives. Let us remember that he is the MINORITY WHIP and likely to remain so.
So, forget about it!!!
http://www.powerlineblog.com/GasChart51.php
So, forget about it!!!
http://www.powerlineblog.com/GasChart51.php
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Pelosi Premium
William Katz at Urgent Agenda reports on this:
Investor's Business Daily gets to the heart of the gasoline-price issue in exposing the "Pelosi premium." We can solve this problem, but we're being stopped by environmentalism's fundamentalist fanatics:
The price of gasoline when the Democrats took control of Congress was around $2.25 per gallon.
The average price of regular gas crept over the $4-per-gallon barrier over the weekend, as measured by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
That represents a more than 75% increase in the retail price of a gallon of gasoline on Pelosi's watch. Call it the "Pelosi premium" we're all now paying.
It's a problem driven by domestic supply restrictions imposed by the Democratic Congress in the face of growing worldwide demand. The Democrats preach energy independence while they do everything in their power to prevent it. If the American people truly want change, this would be it.
And...
The U.S. Congress has voted consistently to keep 85% of America's offshore oil and gas off-limits, while China and Cuba drill 60 miles from Key West, Fla. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that the restricted areas contain 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
There are 3,200 oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. During Katrina, not a single drop was spilled. More than 7 billion barrels have been pumped from these wells over the past quarter-century, yet only one thousandth of one percent has been spilled.
Katz: What is sickening here is that the very people who scream of their love for the poor are themselves gouging the poor, making them pay absurd prices for fuel in order to live their pure, aren't-I-wonderful, environmentally pure lives. Ask the independent cabbie in Harlem what he thinks of five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. But, of course, these superior creatures in the environmental movement would never talk to a cabbie in Harlem unless he was hauling them to a fundraiser at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Investor's Business Daily gets to the heart of the gasoline-price issue in exposing the "Pelosi premium." We can solve this problem, but we're being stopped by environmentalism's fundamentalist fanatics:
The price of gasoline when the Democrats took control of Congress was around $2.25 per gallon.
The average price of regular gas crept over the $4-per-gallon barrier over the weekend, as measured by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
That represents a more than 75% increase in the retail price of a gallon of gasoline on Pelosi's watch. Call it the "Pelosi premium" we're all now paying.
It's a problem driven by domestic supply restrictions imposed by the Democratic Congress in the face of growing worldwide demand. The Democrats preach energy independence while they do everything in their power to prevent it. If the American people truly want change, this would be it.
And...
The U.S. Congress has voted consistently to keep 85% of America's offshore oil and gas off-limits, while China and Cuba drill 60 miles from Key West, Fla. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that the restricted areas contain 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
There are 3,200 oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. During Katrina, not a single drop was spilled. More than 7 billion barrels have been pumped from these wells over the past quarter-century, yet only one thousandth of one percent has been spilled.
Katz: What is sickening here is that the very people who scream of their love for the poor are themselves gouging the poor, making them pay absurd prices for fuel in order to live their pure, aren't-I-wonderful, environmentally pure lives. Ask the independent cabbie in Harlem what he thinks of five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. But, of course, these superior creatures in the environmental movement would never talk to a cabbie in Harlem unless he was hauling them to a fundraiser at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Fascinating Woman
The governor of Alaska had been mentioned on this site much earlier. I wonder if we could be looking at a possible Vice-President here.
What are your thoughts? Am I goofy?
BeldarBlog: Would Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin be a grand slam as McCain's Veep?
What are your thoughts? Am I goofy?
BeldarBlog: Would Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin be a grand slam as McCain's Veep?
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Iowahawk for President
Funny, funny stuff. This guy is absolutely the best satirist on the web!! Take some time to read through three of his recent posts and add him to your "favorites" list.
iowahawk: And Then There Were Three
iowahawk: Canadian Radio Classics: Warman of the Mounted
iowahawk: Dear Barry
iowahawk: And Then There Were Three
iowahawk: Canadian Radio Classics: Warman of the Mounted
iowahawk: Dear Barry
We Hope
The following is a sliver of an op-ed that former UN Ambassador, John Bolton, penned in the Los Angeles Times. However, I'm cautious. Much has changed since 1984.
It is an article of faith for Obama, and many others on the left in the U.S. and abroad, that it is the United States that is mostly responsible for the world’s ills. In 1984, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick labeled people with these views the “San Francisco Democrats,” after the city where Walter Mondale was nominated for president.
Most famously, Kirkpatrick forever seared the San Francisco Democrats by saying that “they always blame America first” for the world’s problems. In so doing, she turned the name of the pre-World War II isolationist America First movement into a stigma the Democratic Party has never shaken.
This is yet another piece of history that Obama has ignored or never learned. There may be one more piece of history worthy of attention: In 1984, Mondale went down to one of the worst electoral defeats in American political history. We will now see whether Obama follows that path as well.
It is an article of faith for Obama, and many others on the left in the U.S. and abroad, that it is the United States that is mostly responsible for the world’s ills. In 1984, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick labeled people with these views the “San Francisco Democrats,” after the city where Walter Mondale was nominated for president.
Most famously, Kirkpatrick forever seared the San Francisco Democrats by saying that “they always blame America first” for the world’s problems. In so doing, she turned the name of the pre-World War II isolationist America First movement into a stigma the Democratic Party has never shaken.
This is yet another piece of history that Obama has ignored or never learned. There may be one more piece of history worthy of attention: In 1984, Mondale went down to one of the worst electoral defeats in American political history. We will now see whether Obama follows that path as well.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
An Important Distinction
Taken from an article by David Warren, a Canadian columnist:
I have myself observed this distinction between the Right and Left sides of mainstream electorates in most other Western countries: the Right tends to believe in facts, the Left to believe in “theories”; and as we advance through post-modern irrationalism, those theories become battier and battier.
The trend towards “global crazing” was not always there, however. If we go back half a century, differences between Liberals and Conservatives up here, as between Democrats and Republicans down there, did not hinge on “ability to discern reality.” On the facts of life; on moral, legal, and religious principles; on the need to keep government out of our lives and resist tyranny in any other form, there was broad agreement. A “very liberal” voter from the 1950s would pass for a “rightwing dinosaur” today.
This has become a signal threat to democracy. For where we once had broad agreement on facts, and relatively mild disagreements on what should be done about them, we now have one-half of the electorate drifting off into Cloud Cuckooland.
I have attributed this to many things, but chiefly to the effects of mass urbanization. People living in vast conurbations become disconnected from nature, and thus increasingly suggestible. The press of crowds enforces conformity, so that we get “school of fish” movements in public opinion. The individual fish believes that the direction of the school has been determined by “experts,” and anyway fears being eaten if he deviates from the consensus in any way.
I have myself observed this distinction between the Right and Left sides of mainstream electorates in most other Western countries: the Right tends to believe in facts, the Left to believe in “theories”; and as we advance through post-modern irrationalism, those theories become battier and battier.
The trend towards “global crazing” was not always there, however. If we go back half a century, differences between Liberals and Conservatives up here, as between Democrats and Republicans down there, did not hinge on “ability to discern reality.” On the facts of life; on moral, legal, and religious principles; on the need to keep government out of our lives and resist tyranny in any other form, there was broad agreement. A “very liberal” voter from the 1950s would pass for a “rightwing dinosaur” today.
This has become a signal threat to democracy. For where we once had broad agreement on facts, and relatively mild disagreements on what should be done about them, we now have one-half of the electorate drifting off into Cloud Cuckooland.
I have attributed this to many things, but chiefly to the effects of mass urbanization. People living in vast conurbations become disconnected from nature, and thus increasingly suggestible. The press of crowds enforces conformity, so that we get “school of fish” movements in public opinion. The individual fish believes that the direction of the school has been determined by “experts,” and anyway fears being eaten if he deviates from the consensus in any way.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Back to My Favorite Subject
How Are These Kids Going To Learn Such Things?"
By Ed Driscoll · June 05, 2008 12:24 PM · The Return of the Primitive
Andrew Klavan, the author of True Crime, adopted by Clint Eastwood for the big screen, albeit in a slightly bowdlerized form, visits an inner city fourth grade class, and comes away noting:
Beating poverty in America nowadays is largely a matter of personal behavior. Get a high school diploma, don’t have kids until you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, and you probably won’t be poor. It also helps if you work hard, show up on time, act courteously, and avoid anything felonious.
But where are these kids going to learn such things? It’s the stuff you just sort of absorb in a healthy, traditional, two-parent home, and that’s exactly what they’re missing. If they learn what they’ve lived, they’re done for—the girls too likely to “come out pregnant” like their mothers, the boys to be underemployed and maybe even do time.
You can’t legislate responsibility, either. Personal behavior in a free society has to be a matter of choice—choice without which there is no virtue—virtue without which a society can’t be free.
It seems to me that leaves these kids only one recourse: the culture. Where the institution of family is broken, only the surrounding culture can teach people the inner structures required for a life of liberty.
Many conservatives often seem to have given up on culture or not to care. There’s a strong strain of philistinism on the right. When we talk about “culture wars,” we usually mean preventing the courts from redefining marriage or promoting abstinence instead of birth control: culture, in other words, as the behavioral branch of politics.
Culture, in the true sense, is more than that. It’s the whole engulfing narrative of our values. It’s the stories we tell. Leftists know this. These kids get an earful from the Left every day. Their schools serve up black history in a way guaranteed to alienate them from the American enterprise. Their sanctioned reading list denies boys the natural fantasies of battling villains and protecting women from harm. Any instinct the girls might have that their bodies and their self-respect are interrelated is negated by the ubiquitous parable of celebrity lives. And I hardly need mention the movies and TV shows that endlessly undermine notions of manly self-discipline, feminine modesty, patriotism, and all the rest.
Conservatives respond to this mostly with finger-wagging. But creativity has to be answered with creativity. We need stories, histories, movies of our own. That requires a structure of support—publishing houses, movie studios, review space, awards, almost all of which we’ve ceded to the Left.
There may be more profitable businesses in the short run. The long run, as always, depends on the young. If you want to win their hearts, you have to tell them stories. I have reason to believe they’ll listen.
It's all part of the Great Relearning, especially important when the rest of culture is essentially ashamed of any history that's prior to 1968
For another fabulous article, please read the following from P J O'Rourke. Both humorous and sarcastically slamming the "silly left," you will enjoy his notes from his visit to the Field Museum in Chicago as it today, and how it was when he went there with his grandmother 50 years ago:
When Worlds Collide
By Ed Driscoll · June 05, 2008 12:24 PM · The Return of the Primitive
Andrew Klavan, the author of True Crime, adopted by Clint Eastwood for the big screen, albeit in a slightly bowdlerized form, visits an inner city fourth grade class, and comes away noting:
Beating poverty in America nowadays is largely a matter of personal behavior. Get a high school diploma, don’t have kids until you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, and you probably won’t be poor. It also helps if you work hard, show up on time, act courteously, and avoid anything felonious.
But where are these kids going to learn such things? It’s the stuff you just sort of absorb in a healthy, traditional, two-parent home, and that’s exactly what they’re missing. If they learn what they’ve lived, they’re done for—the girls too likely to “come out pregnant” like their mothers, the boys to be underemployed and maybe even do time.
You can’t legislate responsibility, either. Personal behavior in a free society has to be a matter of choice—choice without which there is no virtue—virtue without which a society can’t be free.
It seems to me that leaves these kids only one recourse: the culture. Where the institution of family is broken, only the surrounding culture can teach people the inner structures required for a life of liberty.
Many conservatives often seem to have given up on culture or not to care. There’s a strong strain of philistinism on the right. When we talk about “culture wars,” we usually mean preventing the courts from redefining marriage or promoting abstinence instead of birth control: culture, in other words, as the behavioral branch of politics.
Culture, in the true sense, is more than that. It’s the whole engulfing narrative of our values. It’s the stories we tell. Leftists know this. These kids get an earful from the Left every day. Their schools serve up black history in a way guaranteed to alienate them from the American enterprise. Their sanctioned reading list denies boys the natural fantasies of battling villains and protecting women from harm. Any instinct the girls might have that their bodies and their self-respect are interrelated is negated by the ubiquitous parable of celebrity lives. And I hardly need mention the movies and TV shows that endlessly undermine notions of manly self-discipline, feminine modesty, patriotism, and all the rest.
Conservatives respond to this mostly with finger-wagging. But creativity has to be answered with creativity. We need stories, histories, movies of our own. That requires a structure of support—publishing houses, movie studios, review space, awards, almost all of which we’ve ceded to the Left.
There may be more profitable businesses in the short run. The long run, as always, depends on the young. If you want to win their hearts, you have to tell them stories. I have reason to believe they’ll listen.
It's all part of the Great Relearning, especially important when the rest of culture is essentially ashamed of any history that's prior to 1968
For another fabulous article, please read the following from P J O'Rourke. Both humorous and sarcastically slamming the "silly left," you will enjoy his notes from his visit to the Field Museum in Chicago as it today, and how it was when he went there with his grandmother 50 years ago:
When Worlds Collide
Thursday, June 5, 2008
The Messiah Speaks
Last night Barack Obama broke all records for campaign promises, with one of the most over the top self-aggrandizing statements ever uttered by a presidential candidate.
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
He’s going to heal the sick and make the oceans part.
Ooohhkay.
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
He’s going to heal the sick and make the oceans part.
Ooohhkay.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
A Good Rant
From Kathryn Lopez of NRO this morning:
We don’t need faux pioneers like Hillary Clinton. In her 2000 book, The Hillary Trap, Laura Ingraham wrote of Hillary Clinton: “If you think Hillary Clinton is a pioneer, if you think Hillary is a political genius, if you think Hillary is an innovator, you have been drawn into one big Clinton con job.” Ingraham wrote, “She wanted to be seen as the strong, assertive, mature feminist, but she advocated policies that were guaranteed to keep women as dependent on government, unions, and even the United Nations — as she was on Bill.”
We don’t need faux pioneers like Barack Obama. Tell me he’s a pioneer when he meets with Ward Connerly and embraces his Civil Rights Initiative movement, a successful effort to undo the damage big-government patronizing has done to civil rights.
Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about the importance of the damage the welfare state has done in urban America, to the family.
Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about protecting marriage.
Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about the effects of abortion on blacks in America. Americans need to be confident in American greatness — with its exceptional promise and opportunities.
Hope is here, it’s not contingent on an Obama win in November. We need leaders who share this confidence — leaders who don’t need Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to make them believe
We don’t need faux pioneers like Hillary Clinton. In her 2000 book, The Hillary Trap, Laura Ingraham wrote of Hillary Clinton: “If you think Hillary Clinton is a pioneer, if you think Hillary is a political genius, if you think Hillary is an innovator, you have been drawn into one big Clinton con job.” Ingraham wrote, “She wanted to be seen as the strong, assertive, mature feminist, but she advocated policies that were guaranteed to keep women as dependent on government, unions, and even the United Nations — as she was on Bill.”
We don’t need faux pioneers like Barack Obama. Tell me he’s a pioneer when he meets with Ward Connerly and embraces his Civil Rights Initiative movement, a successful effort to undo the damage big-government patronizing has done to civil rights.
Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about the importance of the damage the welfare state has done in urban America, to the family.
Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about protecting marriage.
Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about the effects of abortion on blacks in America. Americans need to be confident in American greatness — with its exceptional promise and opportunities.
Hope is here, it’s not contingent on an Obama win in November. We need leaders who share this confidence — leaders who don’t need Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to make them believe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
