Useful Idiots

Roger L. Simon looks at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert having Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) perform at their rally. Because nothing says restoring sanity than inviting "a misogynist who won’t talk to women" and wishes that he could kill Salman Rushdie.

But I think there’s another explanation for Islam’s appearance and it’s much simpler: Stewart and Colbert are dumb and uniniformed. Although they pretend to be more, they are just mildly talented entertainers with the depth of a petri dish who rely on their writers to stoke them with material and ideas. And no one told them Cat Stevens supported killing a fellow artist merely for exercising free expression. And unlike many of you, they simply didn’t know themselves. They thought he was, you know, just a peaceful ex-hippie dude who went Islamic spiritual instead of zen. (Okay, that irritated some people, but so what? It would be nice to see them squirm.)

But Palin, the Tea Partiers, and you flyover country folks are the real rubes. Rubes in need of correcting. Simon continues

Of course these are the supposedly “cool” leaders of the liberal or progressive, call-it-what- you-want, movement right now. They are above the fray, smarter than the rest of us, and anxious to return us all to sanity.

Sanity is ignorance I guess.

Speaking of that... Charlie Martin uses his tricky evil math to figure out how many people showed up, and counter some laughable, feel-good, estimates on the part of the Mass Media. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/so-how-much-sanity-was-there-in-d-c-yesterday/

The Beck rally covered roughly 2.4 million square feet and by AirPhotosLive’s own photographs large parts of that area were packed as densely as any overhead picture of Stewart/Colbert. The Stewart/Colbert rally had, at most, about 6/10th the space — 1.62 million square feet vs. 2.4 million. For it to have had that many people [215,000 by their estimate versus the 87,000 they said for Beck], they would have had to be packed about 6.7 times more densely than the densest parts of the Beck crowd.

Mean old math.

And from the comments... this bit of PJM policy is brilliant. Some sock-puppeteer (same comments as Chris, John, ect) complains about censorship. Martin's response?

No, you’re just an idiot who didn’t read the line “your comment is awaiting moderation” when you posted the first time. Luckily, PJM has a policy of allowing repetitious comments that complain about being censors, so when you make a fool of yourself it’s visible to everyone.

Niiiiice

Futility

Well this is just silly.

When [PJTV’s Washington Bureau ]Pollock said that he’d be fine with filming not on the press riser, [Comedy Central’s senior vice president of corporate communications] Albani said that filming would be “strictly prohibited” between 3rd and 7th streets on the National Mall (ground zero for the event).

There's a few problems with this: legally, optically, and logistically.

It this were a private venue then sure Comedy Central could ban almost anything they wanted (like who can get into their press risers), but since this is on the National Mall I am quite sure they don't have the authority to do that.

Even if they did the optics of it are hilarious. Beck didn't care who was recording his rally. How come the hipper more liberal rally is more squeamish with press and recording than that paranoid reactionary? Is blocking out public recording part of restoring sanity?

And finally how is Comedy Central going to enforce this? Hire guards, fence in the area and inspect everyone coming in? Portable cameras are ubiquitous, cheap, and can freely broadcast. Trying to stem them is quite difficult. Why even try?

PJTV's response is the right one, be polite, then when the other side gets nutty, shrug and assert your rights. PJTV will be there and they will record the event.

Read the whole article. It's a strange, counterproductive move on Comedy Central's part. At the end there's a reproduction of the Albani/Pollock exchange so if it is all a joke it's a strange one.

"Hatchet-faced nutmeg dealer"

Maybe we should go back to the old politics. The attacks leveled were far more fun.

Via DrewM

Men In Black.

Goldberg wonders where the super-spooks are. Since Assange of Wikileaks is still alive and all.

Or as Goldberg puts it: "Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago? It’s a serious question."

He then goes into the entertainment and popular visions of the inteligence community. Given the myths surrounding the governmental and corporate "shops" he asserts that if those myths were even remotely true, "Assange, super-whistle-blower of the international Left, would be a greasy stain on the autobahn already."

It's true, Assange is exactly the kind of person that would end up being dead in the opening scene thus providing the motivation for the protagonist to go down the rabbit hole and uncover the conspiracy.

And no he doesn't want Assange killed, me neither he's just illustrating the point that if this were like the movies or books he'd already be dead.

Of course, life isn't fiction, and as Goldberg points out the web being what it is, Assange could be killed and wikileaks could have the plug pulled and it wouldn't make much different.

This isn't to say that there aren't spooks out there and that they don't bump off "troublesome" people. Georgi Markov's a prime counterexample to that.

But it does show that fantasy isn't reality and that there's probably not a secret FDA shop that's running the government.

A correction, and why criticism is good.

Previously I said some words alluding restricting gun rights to restriction of religion.

Here is a counter point. If I'm not presuming too much here.

After thinking about it I came to the conclusion: I was wrong, simplistic and wrong.

Yes, one can make the slippery slope argument that restricting 2nd amendment is like restricting 1st amendment, but that ignores that there is a slope. It ignores that there are degrees.

It would be like confusing Jim Crow with Slavery. Just because both are bad does not mean both are the same.

There is a difference between the government oppressing a person because of who they are versus oppressing them for what they do.

Just because both are bad does not make them both the same, and it is dishonest and insulting to presume and pretend that they are.

That's like saying income taxes are like rounding up the cattle cars.

So for this I apologize. I know I don't have many readers, but it is nice to know that I will get warnings when I go off the deepend.

Thanks.

Fines and Fees and Poll Taxes

So a NYC councilmen outright admits that their gun permit fees are fines.

These people just don’t get it. What if you had to pay a fine to be a practicing Jew, Muslim, or Christian? What if the neighbors wanted zoning to keep Jewish Delis and the residences of homosexuals more than one mile from all schools? Feelings are only loosely correlated with reality.

This doesn't even touch the idea of the government capriciously and near randomly denying people to practice despite having filled out the forms and paid their jizya.

Edit: Yeah... this crossed the line. It's not the same, there's a similarity but it's not the same level of state control. /Edit

Bluntly put, May-Issue is giving the state the power to deny a fundamental numerated right on a default. You have to prove to them that you deserve it. And a May-Issue CCW permit is the only way to legally own a handgun in New York State.

Unless you happen to work for the state. And if you're connected -well- that's why the May in May-Issue allows for broad discretion on the part of the state.

But the rest of you serfs better buck up and stay in line.

Note this is a major reason why it will be a long time before I consider moving back to New York (taxes, incompetent government, and dearth of jobs aside). I have some very good friends in the Buffalo area, but I have a hard time abiding by living in such an environment.

It's a good place to visit, which was a pleasure over the weekend, but I feel somewhat naked whenever I go, now.

Two From Ed Morrissey

So Obama whines, that's nothing new. This time, on the Daily Show, it's against the filibuster, which he used to love, and before Scott Brown should not have even been an issue for Obama. Since there were under 40 Republican Senators.

Obama may be the only President in American history who claimed not to have been able to pass major agenda items because he only has a 77-seat majority in the House and an 18-seat majority in the Senate. That strongly suggests that either the agenda itself was the problem, or the President involved was an incompetent. I’d say — both.

Also feeding the incompetence and bad agenda idea, how doe Obama try to sell Obamacare? Well... by saying it's like Social Security. Sure it will start out one way, but its just a framework and will grow in scale and scope.

Huh. Morrissey again:

If you want to sell ObamaCare to a deeply skeptical public, is Social Security the best example Obama has? It may have started out as a “widows and orphans” fund, but it rapidly turned into a Ponzi scheme that is now running monthly cash deficits, thanks to a historic lack of workers per beneficiary. It’s part of a gigantic entitlement catastrophe that is rapidly approaching, and which will require serious change and downscaling in one way or another if the US is to avoid getting swamped by its own debt and unfunded liabilities.

Actually, the better analogy is Medicare, not Social Security. Originally targeted at a small group of beneficiaries, the program grew into a massive insurance program for all Americans that has an even worse financial foundation than Social Security.

Smooooth.

From America

Zombie talks about Cargo Cults.

What fascinates us about the John Frum movement and cargo cults in general is that the cultists had no idea where “cargo” comes from, and assumed it must be created magically and sent by spirits or deities. They had no conception what the world was like outside their island, or that there even was a world outside their island.

So, instead of figuring out how to generate cargo — or wealth in our terminology — themselves, the Tannans wait for a messianic figure to arrive and rain riches down upon them as a reward for their piety.

Guess just guess what Zombie is talking about?

Here's another hint:

John Frum is the son of God, but he’s not Jesus. He’s a black Melanesian, but sometimes a white man – or, according to others, a black American GI. He’s a kastom messiah, come to turn the people of Tanna back to their old ways before the missionaries – but he’s also a universal avatar of change, a successor to Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed.

Ahhh, now it gets obvious.

Of course Obama didn't start this cargo cult, he's just the most visible headman. Much of goverment depends on giving people the "cargo" they've been waiting for. Speaking of waiting...

One of Obama’s most potent campaign slogans was “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” While many have since noted the not-so-hidden narcissistic megalomania encoded in the slogan — Obama was asking us to vote for him, after all, not for ourselves, so by “We are the ones” he really meant “I am the one” — but it was the second half of the sentence which disturbed me even more. “Waiting for”? The implication is that Americans have been pining for a messiah to rescue them, as if that was our default position. Waiting. Waiting.

I saw this as vaguely insulting, because plenty of Americans haven’t been waiting for anyone to do anything — we’ve gotten on with our lives, under our own steam. But then it hit me: a certain percentage of Americans — 52.9%, as it turned out — were indeed passively waiting for someone to come along and make things better, and by “make things better” they meant give me more stuff (“stuff” being the American translation for “cargo”). And that someone wasn’t John Frum — it was Barack Obama.

Read it all, there's some good news at the end.

Progress

Not all of it is bad.

Joe Huffman looks back and notices where things have gone.

It’s pretty amazing to think how much has changed in the last 10 years. And don’t forget it could have changed that much or more in the other direction. Think of the change in recreational drug use/tolerance from the early 70’s to the 80s’. Think of naked pictures of airplane passengers now versus 10 years ago. Think of Jews in Germany in 1930 versus 1940.

And speaking of things going south...

Harry Emerson Fosdick: Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

[I don’t think most people understand this. They see the little hazards of liberty and freedom like accidental gun shoot wounds and the occasional mass shootings and overlook the genocide enabled by prohibitions against the private ownership of firearms.

Utopists want the world to be perfect and see any imperfection as an affront. Toss in a myopia that focus on smaller events while ignoring the larger ones and that's what you get. Think of all the people that scream about evil corporations while ignoring the butcher's bill various governments have rung up.

What's worse is when you have someone who is enthralled with the coercive power of the state and dreams of all the wonderful things that could be done if the right people were in charge.

"Hypocrisy is a force multiplier to ideological prejudice."

I'm really enjoying this new theme of Victor Davis Hanson's

Here's where he talks about Juan Willians being fired by NPR.

Standard stuff, don't say things the libs won't like, don't go to places they don't like, and don't question them, unless you want to get fired or worse.

So Williams wakes up in the morning a respected journalist and goes to sleep a few hours later with the burden of proving that he is not a bigot, and not unhinged and not under medical care in the eyes of his employer, and not guilty of a litany of additional but unspecified crimes. All this comes from soft-spoken contemplative NPR, which prides itself in being the antithesis of intolerant shock-jock right-wing talk radio. Hypocrisy is again a force multiplier to ideological prejudice.

...

Isn’t the network that takes public money supposed to be the more tolerant? Is this a reflection of audience taste and assumptions: Fox knows its viewers don’t care whether liberal Williams works at a liberal network; NPR fears mightily that its intolerant audience can’t stand anyone who is associated with Fox?

Tolerance. As long as you don't rock the boat.

Notice that ideologue and partisan George Soros just offered NPR nearly $2 million to hire 100 reporters — and NPR accepted the gift. Would it have accepted money from, say, a more soft-spoken but conservative philanthropist such as Charles Koch who might target where NPR needed “help”? And, if it is a publicly funded agency, why do zillionaires have the right to donate and determine hiring for their pet causes? Maybe Bill Gates can offer to hire some IRS auditors, or Warren Buffet can fund a new branch of the SEC?

Good question. It's like NPR wants to have it both ways, screw the rules. Which is fitting, after all the greater good is more important and rules, like taxes are for little people.


Meanwhile, prominent Dems in entertainment and politics, even the Whitehouse are going after the idea that it's crazy to question the President's great plans and wonderful acomplishments.

Hmm... questioning Dear Leader being a symptom of insanity. That sounds... familiar.

Reality brings... cheer

Margaret Thatcher's old line really strikes home: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

Monty at Ace of Spaces has some sobering thoughts.

Half of the US population, in short, lives not by the fruits of their own toil but by the (coerced) charity of others, as filtered and distilled through the hand of the government. This can not -- it can not, by the laws of economics and simple physics -- continue. The mathematics of the problem trump even philosophical issues of fairness, of governance, of ethics or law. The mathematics simply will not allow it.

Consider the French. They are rioting over a proposal to raise the national age of retirement from 60 to 62. Germany's is 65 (going to 67) -- how happy will German workers be to subsidize the early retirements of their French neighbors? The French labor unions are on a rampage, denouncing the move as a violation of a "promise" the country made to the workers. (If this reminds you of California, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan -- well, the situations are closely analogous.) The word "promise" is illuminating: people have stopped thinking of social welfare as a "benefit" or a "perquisite", and have begun instead to think of it as a "right" or a "promise"... Reality will assert itself, one way or another.

Mean old reality and facts. It also gets into the falling birthrates and the question of immigration. Hmmm... familiar.

If the governments of the West have an excuse -- however weak and puling -- it is this: they meant well. It is not wrong to wish that every citizen have free health care, free food, free housing, and some money to spend even if they have no job. It's not wrong; it's just impossible. Health care is a service that has huge costs associated with it. These costs cannot be "magicked" away just because we find them inconvenient. Food must be grown, transported, packaged, and prepared -- all costs that must be accounted for. Shelter does not precipitate out of thin air.

But if we mean well then it has to work! Otherwise, well, it'd all be unfair!

I'm remined of this bit I saw on Robb Allen's blog where he gives up on a gun-banner due to her... specialness.

She doesn’t bring up any valid points, and is as lost as they get.
She believes it’s legal to sell guns to a felon because felons can get guns. Logic like that is impossible to argue against since you can only bring facts and logic is wasted on the illogical.

This also shows a naive and deluded trust in the power of the state and the compliance of the populace. It's very magical thinking, all that needs to be done to stop something is to pass a law and everyone will fall in line.


Just like how "free things are nice", people should get free things, therefore the goverment should and can give free things to people.

A party like itself.

So if someone was cautioning the Tea Party to not "party like it's
1773" would you screech about them being historically ignorant, given the declaration of independence was signed in 1776.


Or would you realize that maybe telling the Tea Party to not party refers to some other event in US history. Maybe something tea and party related. Maybe something that did happen in 1773. Nah... better to just assume Palin's a moron and try to revel in your own elite status.

Ed Driscoll asks: "Why don’t elites know their history — or at least how to use Google?"

Because they're so super-duper smart they knew Palin was being stupid and meant to talk about 1776 (again when the Declaration of Independence was signed, not when the rev war was won, or when the constitution was written or enacted).

And these are the goons that think they're so superior to you that they and their allies can and should run your life because you'll just screw it up.

As Rand often says: "I wouldn’t mind quite so much if they were really, you know, elite, instead of someone who managed to get a piece of paper from Harvard or Yale."

Though to be fair to brain trust behind this latest attack, Kos: Northern Illinois University (B.S.), Boston University School of Law (J.D.). But at least Kos hates the right people, and has "good" intentions so that's what counts.

Now shut up you mouth-breathing, American history-citing, gun-clinging, Hayek- reading ignorant hayseeds.

Mean old reality, Part XIX

Well, looks like someone tried to sell a bag of rocks and call 'em diamonds.

Sold to the American public as “sort of God,” marketed as a political
savior of such extraordinary intelligence and giftedness that there
had simply never been anyone like him, Barack Obama so misrepresented himself that hundreds of pundits are still trying to make sense of what went wrong.

When reality met branding-myth, the whole thing fell apart.

Truth happened, you nitwits.

See previous Left views on how it's always failure to brand and label.

Tsk. Tsk. That would be one mighty big class action suit if
politicians had to follow the same credibility rules they set for
business.

Hah! Imagine. Holding a monopolistic organization with legalized violence to the standard one holds a hotdog vendor.



Know what's racist now? Noting which border most of the people illegally entering the US use.

This is a typical leftist tactic, when faced with a reality they don’t want to acknowledge or be forced to defend the simply go on the offensive and charge ‘racism’. What racism exactly is never mentioned because it doesn’t exist and even if it did, the charge and change of subject is all they are ever really after in the first place.

Remember in the aftermath of 9/11 the image of the three firefighters raising an American flag over the rubble of the towers? When it came time to create a statue of that iconic image, the PC crew wanted to change the three white men into something more diverse, more inclusive, more untrue.

That same type of thinking is at work here. Reality doesn’t meet Serwer needs so he simply demands that it be changed. Are there Europeans and Asians and Africans who stay here illegally? Sure. Do some cross over a border? Probably, though most in those groups are people who come here legally and overstay their visas. But that’s inconvenient, so Serwer simply wants the world portrayed in a way that isn’t true but fits his narrative better. Failure to accommodate him is simply “RACISM!”.

Again. Reality == Meanie.


And speaking of lazy, incompetent, charges of racism...

On one level, as Douthat points out, this is a lesson about desperate liberals making up comforting myths. (”The Democrats are weeks away from a midterm thumping that wasn’t supposed to happen, and the liberal mind is desperate for a narrative, a storyline, something to ease the pain of losing to a ragtag band of right-wing populists.”) But it is also a cautionary tale about the willful ineptitude and outright laziness of the mainstream media.

A single intern did what not a single mainstream outlet, with collectively thousands of cameramen and reporters, refused to do: get the facts. The mainstream media eagerly recited false accounts of racial epithets but could not be bothered to do a systematic report on the Tea Partiers’ actual message.

But it's the rightwing that is anti-science and hung up on fantastical
delusions taken as faith.

"The only problem with that: facts."

Quote from Goldberg article where he looks at Obama's admission that the whole "shovel-ready" idea wouldn't work in the real world.

It seems to me that, if I were president, and I not only staked vast swaths of my credibility but gambled the prosperity of the country generally on this concept of “shovel-ready jobs,” I might be a bit miffed with the staffers who swore that shovel-ready jobs were, like, you know, a real thing.

And yet, if you read Peter Baker’s Obama profile, it’s clear that Obama isn’t mad about that. In fact, he still thinks he got all the policies right. Baker writes that Obama is “supremely sure that he is right,” it’s just that the president feels he didn’t market himself
well.

It's not about facts or results with Obama et al. as always it's about marketing and narrative.

As Goldberg says: "This is an old progressive lament: Our product is
perfect, we just didn’t sell it convincingly to the rubes."

And here's some more.

But wait a second. If they spent “much more time trying to get the
policy right,” how come nobody said, “Uh, Mr. President, these ‘shovel-ready jobs’ you keep talking about? They’re sort of like good flan — they don’t exist.”

Mean old logic. Why do facts have to get in the way of the earnest desire to do "good" and be glorified for it.

Repeated from an earlier comment: lacking experience in the real world is a source of pride for these "elites". As is the incomprehension of empirical arguments (Y has been tried in the past and has failed every time) or functional logic (if you make X more of a hassle you will get less of X). Most beam with never having to meet a budget, show a profit, or be measured by the real world.

It's akin to a dandy showing off his baby-soft hands to prove he's untainted by manual labor.

Speaking of a new aristrocracy, here's Bill Whittle:



Watch it all.

And these people want to control your healthcare...

and your finances and your thermostate and your car and...

Organizing for America decided to put a big old list of names and phone numbers avaliable to -well- anyone.

This is a massive security problem for anyone whose name is on that list, which appears to include identified Democrats and Independents. And it’s caused by the Democrats and Organizing for America. With full names and phone numbers easily available, there’s probably enough there for identity thieves to go to work.

This is more boneheaded than anything else. And these clowns want more power? And think they can run your life better than you.

You don’t just let any person wander in off the street, rifle through your voter files and make calls on your behalf. But that’s just what the DNC and OfA are doing here. And these are people who want us to trust them with our health care?

Exactly.

Of course we've seen what such hubris brings.


Victor Davis Hanson notes:

Add all that to new health care and financial regulations, and the message is clear the American private sector is suspect rather than industrious and critical to our nation’s economic life. “At some point”, after Obama’s slurs against Fox, the Republican leadership, insurers, Wall Street, doctors, police, the people of Arizona, or opponents of the Ground Zero mosque, fairly or not, a lot of people
conclude that he does not like them or what they do or what they represent. So trillions of dollars in capital are waiting on the sidelines until November and proof that the Obama agenda is stalled. Even the SEIU or Nancy Pelosi cannot change that fact."

As Goldberg said in today's GoldBerg File (sorry email only)

Just for the record, a bunch of readers and a few commenters seem to think I am now an anti-elitist; I'm not. Never have been, never will be.

I'm anti-snobbery, anti-government meddling, anti-government condescension, anti-all number of things. But I'm not anti-elitist per se. I just don't like much of what passes for the current elite.

Yup. That these goobers are so inept makes their grubby power grabs all the more insufferable.

I'll end with this gem from VDH: "Hypocrisy is a force multiplier to paranoia."

Greeeeaaat

From Maetenloch's Overnight Thread.

According to this story out of Greece the the Benefits Division of the state insurance provider has decided not to provide special footwear to diabetic patients anymore since amputation is cheaper. But don't worry - under Obamacare if you like your foot, you'll be able to keep it. For now.

You gotta love State Healthcare. The goal of removing heartless capitalism from healthcare leads to even more impersonal, dehumanizing penny-pinching.

It's like trusting the State to be compassionate with monopolistic power over your body is a bad idea.

Here have something happy.

Corgi Flop.



Via Cracked's ... 6 Things That Are Secretly Turning You Into A Bad Person

Oh.

Meme ho!

Yesterday one of the Left's new lines of attack started to really form up.

Dirty foreign-money threatening our lily-pure democratic process. And it's all being orchestrated by the sinister Chamber of Commerce and the (yes the) Gillespie.

That's right people, we have the CoC and their foreign hoard under the dark influence of Gillespie. A class 1 Gillespie threat.

Back to reality... Why yes, this was a charge being leveled by the same folks that consider that Arizona law as akin to a new apartheid.

Anyway, CNN was on this morning and Mien Gott, the sycophantic faux (maybe I hope too much) paranoia was in full display. They were gleefully pounding the meme of shadowy billionaires, foreigners, and fringe kooks spending millions to "influence elections". The perky blonde teleprompter-reader was breathless about how these organizations dared to claim the legal limit of privacy for their donors.

Towards the end they decided that their subtext was too subtle and spelled out their idea: "These scary Republican groups can spend millions in secret because the law allows them too." Gee...

And at the very end the fig leaf of impartiality. "We'll note that all the organizations we talked about today were republican ones, and that there are Democratic ones trying to fight their influence, but they don't have the millions the republicans do." Really.


I guess the Soros constipation or Organizing for America or the Obama Administration itself couldn't be reached. Then again Soros has taken his ball home for this round at least.

Gerghty looks at the mind-blowing hypocrisy of it all.

By one count, $63 million came to Obama from foreign sources. Even if that figure is exaggerated tenfold, this is still a big deal. It’s not only hypocritical for President Obama, of all figures, to suddenly thunder about the menace of sinister foreign money helping the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; in 2008, we had actual evidence of foreign money ending up in Obama campaign coffers.

He sums with: "This is like Al Capone accusing Eliot Ness of being a
bootlegger."

But as John Pitney points out, the Left has been searching for a new enemy to fill Bush's shoes all year.

It's been an amusing and increasingly inane list: Limbaugh, Roberts, Boehner, Fox, Rove, Gillespie, Koch, Hayek, Kosh, Ryan, Bonaparte, Hotchkiss, and the Chamber of Commerce. I may have embellished a bit towards the end.

Pitney nails is: "If the person next to you in the subway or
supermarket line is muttering about “the Gillespie threat,” avoid eye contact and step away quickly."

The phrase is so ludicrous I'm thinking of making "Gillespie threat" a term in this year's NaNoWM project.

At Ace of Spades there's a full list of scapegoats and bogymen. It's... impressive.

What can you expect from an administration that considers Doctors part of an organ harvesting cartel and the Chamber of Commerce a grave threat. Keep punching down chief.

Hugh Hewitt is gobsmacked that this, this is their October surprise (or at least one of them).

And today Gibbs doubles down calling the Chamber of Commerce a "“threat to the democracy we have in this country."

But it's the right wing that's the fear-mongers.

And Dana Perino questions the timing:

With all of the mudslinging at American corporations in the last several days (conveniently timed to be a bright shiny object to draw attention away from last Friday’s dismal jobs report), it’ll be fun to watch how the Democrats contort themselves to convince us that no, they really, really do support the businesses in America. Now this I gotta see.

Remember Friday?

Anyway... speaking of presidential enemies... A reader writes to Jay Nordlinger:

I didn’t vote for George W. Bush either time . . . But one thing seems to draw little comment: He was subjected to the most intense and odious opprobrium in my lifetime, substantially worse than that flung at Nixon. There were the most vicious and vile accusations. And I cannot recall one instance where Bush lashed back or replied in kind.

Nordlinger replies: "Well, that’s the belligerent, crude cowboy for you."

Nordlinger has a whole piece on our graceless Dear Leader.

I'll finish with Victor Davis Hanson:

When the history of this administration is written, a key theme will be the abyss between the hope-and-change, across-the-aisle rhetoric and the almost gratuitous way Obama has caricatured his supposed opponents. The current “don’t make me look bad”/“like a dog” psychodrama follows attacks of various sorts on Arizonans, Wall Street, opponents of the Ground Zero mosque, insurers, police, doctors, and anyone above the hated $250,000 income level."

Edit: One more bit. Ed Morrissey talks about David Zurawik's comments on the latest DNC ad which claims the Gillespie threat is "stealing democracy".

Zurawik is unimpressed and claims it's McCarthist, lacking in any evidence, and the "politics of fear".


Morrissey has more:

Zurawik, though, comes closer to the point.  It’s not just “Democrats” who are demanding that the Chamber of Commerce prove itself innocent.  It’s the executive branch of the American government demanding it, including its two top officers, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.  They have publicly accused the Chamber of illegal operations without a shred of evidence, basing their official actions on an unsubstantiated allegation from John Podesta at the Center for American Progress.  That is nothing short of an attempt by this administration to intimidate its political opponents into silence.

That is an unconscionable affront to the rule of law, and it reeks of the McCarthyism that the Left supposedly reviles. Without a public price paid for this attack on dissent from the highest offices in the government, this will become the norm and we will be less free as a result.

Bannnnnannaaaa Republic! Emphasis in original. Really do you expect any respect for the rule of law or limits to govermental power from this crowd?


Nice to see that the Left will throw all their values out the window when there's an election to save. Way to make the Stupid party look like they've got integrity .

"Free prize inside."

Roberta X has a great post on religion and the contents of people's hearts.

This isn't meant as a utilitarian argument; the best possible defense of freedom of conscience in matters of religion is that it's not only repugnant to attempt to police the contents of people's minds, it is ultimately impossible. It is a nice side-effect that, if you leave people's beliefs be, there's often a free prize inside.

The counter argument is utilitarian (for varying definitions of "utility"): a person's conscious and actions have to be controlled, guided, or nudged. Otherwise results that are aesthetically unpleasing, unfair, or sub-optimal will come up.


Though for a religion to really mess things up they need to be hitched with a State. Hmm... maybe that's why it's part of the First. Though I suppose that's an axiom right there. "For X to really mess things up, they need the power of the State."


I'm reminded of this Glen Reynolds quip: "Those dangerous libertarians — they want to take over the government, and then leave you alone!"


For many, the idea of government leaving people alone is dangerous. Me, I'd prefer the robber barons, at least they just want money.

And a quote fresh today from Prof. Reynolds:

I don’t like this fatalistic attitude: “This is something that we’re going to have to live with for a while.” I miss the days when scientists told us we didn’t have to live with things like bloodsucking parasites.

Big Gov

Via Hot air.


I love the bit at the end when the guy gets his candybar slapped away.

Though goverment would never be so petty and controling? Right?

Heh, we all know the answer to that one, if they can regulate any economic decision you make then they gan regulate anything you do.

Yeah, that’s the greater worry, I think — that if we’re all necessarily “active” in health-care commerce at all times, theoretically there’s no limit to what sort of further activity can be mandated in the interest of spreading costs. Can the overweight man or woman be forced to diet because he/she is more likely to need medical services? Presumably that would be dealt with via higher insurance premiums, but we all know only too well already that federal pressure on insurers to keep premiums down will create all sorts of inefficiencies, which is where we get into ye olde rationing problem. Simple question: What’s the limiting principle on this decision? Would the feds be barred from penalizing people for failing to maintain, say, a certain BMI target because of the right of privacy or bodily autonomy, etc? Or would they not be barred at all? Where does this end?

And it's starting with Nanny Bloomberg's idea for some fun new food stamp restrictions.

But don't worry soon we'll all be on the gov dole for our food. If not directly then indirectly because they'll be paying for our health.

Newsradio back on the air.

That was a pun... it's not on the air, unless you have wireless.

But you can watch most of the series on Hulu.


It's been years since I watched the show, but recalled enjoying it a lot when it came out in the mid 90's. It's still enjoyable, but the laugh track really grates now.

What really struck out was how different of a world the series was set in.

The tech changes are some of the biggest stuff: cell phones were rare, the internet was known but just for geeks, payphones were common. It's an interesting situation because it's on the threshold of a lot of the long tail tech that's around today.

More sticking is how news has changed. Newsradio was centered around the fictional WNYX, New York City's #2 News station. So, the show was set in the news world and had fun lampooning it.

Which makes the changes so stark: CNN respected, Dan Rather frequently mentioned and as a laudable impressive giant, no Fox News, no blogs, no Drudge, and the financial death spiral of the news was limited to a few companies that had botched their budgets.

Speaking of CNN here's a brief bit on how bad that network has been.
Even in the 90's .



Also what's interesting is that there's sense of worship or water carrying for leftist politicians, no desire to go out and "get" ones on the right.

Again I'll stress there's no desire to build a narrative to correct "social justice". On the whole the show is remarkably free of lefist hectoring and needling. They mock of ideas like smoke free offices.

Mist importantly there's an overall sense of fun. The show had fun with the characters
and itself. Unlike a lot of shows these days, even comedies alas, it was not weighted down with self-importance. And this was set in a station that was #2 in the NYC and was awash in industry awards, so it was hardly portrayed as some fringe operation.

Could a show like this be made in these days?

Well, in the mid-90's a show about a news station in Manhattan was pretty much a-political. It also showed newscasters as paranoid, ignorant, ego-driven talking heads with little actual ability to generate their own stories, and were only good at sounding "legitimate". Their reporters were either neurotic wonks, incompetent spastics, insane blowhards, or immature empty-suits. And yet, as previously mentioned they were quite legitimate.

Today would a TV show so openly mock the world of news?


Or how about a show that portrays a ruthless, unapologetic, billionaire
businessman constantly acquiring new companies as one of the saner, and
sensible characters, who is beloved by his staff.

Would that exist these days? Jimmy James doesn't even have the fig-leaf of supporting "correct" causes. His only entry into politics was part of a scam to find a wife.

I'm having fun watching it, and taking interest in it as a time capsule.

More thoughts on 10:10

Thinking on this the deaths were deliberately bloody. 10:10 made a choice to go with gory and bloody. It wasn’t enough to have those that refused to conform be carted away, put to sleep, or simply vanish. No their blood, their guts had to splatter onto their classmates, coworkers, and friends. Note the constant reaction shots of people covered in gore screaming.

But everyone that that refused to comply was killed. So the people that got bloody and were horrified by it were those that had already agreed to go along with the program.
The secondary message is clear: “You are alive, but only because you toe the line. The second you fail to comply, it’ll be your blood splattered on everyone.”

The Greens: Agree with us or we'll kill you.

Man are things weird in the UK. First their government is so
weapon-phobic they ban their own knights from owning swords.

Now their green movement has released a star-studded advert proposing killing those that don't tote the green line.

Edit: I'll add a graphic tag. The explosion itself isn't that graphic but the messy, chunky aftermath is.



I love how the hippy-dippy teacher tries to sound nice and reasonable and "come on let's all save the world it'll be fun", and then remorselessly murders the all the children that don't comply.

Edit: also the blatant lies of "No problem, no pressure, your choice."

That's the message: comply or die.

Via Hotair

What makes this fascinating is that the people who produce this dreck have no clue as to just how far removed they have become from normal human sensibilities, or at least they didn’t until the video began provoking the fully-predictable reaction. They have become so wrapped up in Gaia that they seem to have little connection to humanity.

At least here the mask is off. "With No Pressure, the environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness."

And not very far beneath either.

There's a certian honesty to their murderous and totalitarian aims. Kind of like the Audi Green Police ad. Where the titular Green Police could condut warentless searches, do mass checkpoint, detain people without arresting them, and eliminated all privacy in order to make sure you were complying with "green law". At least Audi wasn't directly endorsing such a police state, they merely stated that their car would make collaboration easy.


Ace looks on the bright side.

I don't think they should apologize at all. I think they should be
applauded for an honest and forthright statement of their beliefs... people are the problem and those who stand in the way of 'progress' will be removed.

This isn't anything new, progressive and totalitarian regimes have been doing killing their enemies (in propaganda and in fact) for years. Once you've identified those who are responsible for all the ills befalling everyone else, it's only logical that the state be empowered to remove them.

Better to have it on the table than not.

Once again, this demonstrates that the best way to find out what a leftist is really thinking is to pay attention to what they accuse the right of doing. People on the left never tire of accusing the right of fear mongering and creating enemies. Yet here we have a clear picture of who environuts think are the true enemy...kids who won't get with the program.

Just for fun, do you think they could have gotten a guy like Curtis or all those celebrities to participate in a video warning of the dangers of expansionist Islam? Imagine if it featured suicide bombers chanting "Allahu Akbar"? Of course not. And if they did somehow pull it off, the UK police would have arrested them on a hate crime charge.

Emphasis added.

But it's for your own good!

Hmm sounds familiar.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” –C.S. Lewis