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