December 6, 2013
Quote of the Day
Burke, of course is right. The challenge for each new generation is figuring out what's worth keeping and what worth tinkering with. The progressive attitude is that everything is eligible not just for tinkering, but wholesale replacement. The people who lived yesterday were idiots, but we are geniuses! The conservative attitude is to assume that our parents and grandparents weren't fools and that they did some things for good reasons. But -- and here is the Hayekian part -- it's also possible that some things our forebears bequeathed us are good for no "reason" at all. Friedrich Hayek argued that many of our institutions and customs emerged from "spontaneous order" -- that is they weren't designed on a piece of paper, they emerged, authorless, to fulfill human needs through lived experience, just as our genetic "wisdom" is acquired through trial and error. Paths in the forest aren't necessarily carved out on purpose. Rather they emerge over years of foot traffic. -- Jonah Goldberg
December 3, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
I like to call myself "blog optimist" and I'll dub John Tamney "IBD Ed Page Optimist" for this piece.
"Republicans should be thankful for Obama precisely because his comical rollout of ObamaCare has Americans once again skeptical of politicians promising the world."
And a bonus quote that paraphrases my dear dagny:
There are no "free goods" in any society. Someone is always paying, and as ObamaCare promised something for nothing, logic dictated that it would fail even without advance knowledge of a "website malfunction."
December 2, 2013
Quote of the Day
Isn't It Awful the Way Cyber Monday Has Gotten So Commercialized? -- Jim Geraghty
November 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
Barack Obama sold ObamaCare with lies and damned lies. Now Krugman purports to back them up with statistics. -- All Hail Taranto!
November 19, 2013
Quote of the Day
Barack Obama is not scheduled to be present at Gettysburg on Tuesday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the address. Maybe he figured that the world would little note, nor long remember, what he said there. -- Bret Stephens
November 7, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
PPACA Edition - (I regret to admit that I misnamed the "Horror Story of the Day" category for Obamacare. I left out the P P.)
This difference in reactions to failure dramatically highlights the primary reason for repealing Obamacare and replacing it with market-based reform. As the Edsel flop demonstrates, businesses in the free market are quite capable of making colossal mistakes. However, when they do so and the customer rejects their products, they make the necessary adjustments. And, despite the widely believed myth that the market fails to work for health care, any private enterprise that had produced an unpopular mess like Obamacare would by now have shut it down. But the President won’t even consider delaying it. Why? Because his customers are required by law to avail themselves of his third-rate services.
From 'Obamacare and the Edsel: A Tale of Two Lemons' in American Spectator
October 29, 2013
Quote (and ACAHS) of the Day
There's also the third possibility: The administration has learned that a large meteor will destroy the world on or before November 30, and wants to live out its remaining time on the planet in relative peace, rather than dodging "are we there yet?" questions about the website every day. So basically the possibilities are:1) They know what they're doing.
2) They have fooled themselves into thinking they know what they're doing, but don't.
3) Meteor.
That's Obamaphile and Juicebox Mafioso Jonathan Chait, quoted in an (excellent) Megan McArdle piece.
October 22, 2013
Quote of the Day
The White House pitched President Obama's Rose Garden event on Monday as a new transparency, but the event amounted to an infomercial, complete with a 1-800 number. Operators are standing by and "the product is good," the President said. -- WSJ Ed Page
October 21, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
Now, that the shutdown is over, the public can focus on this unfolding disaster. And thanks to the fact that conservative GOP lawmakers fought a valiant fight to stop ObamaCare, they'll know exactly who to blame. -Investor's Ed Page: Meltdown Now in Plain Sight
Today's Ramirez cartoon is also a must-see.
Yeah, I'm in. Larry Kudlow and Kim Strassel are still 100% certain that this exercise was a complete failure for the GOP.
ThreeSourcers will recall that I advocated caution. But -- for a couple of weeks -- I heard articulate and energetic Republicans discussing liberty; that is an omelet worth breaking a few eggs over.
My new concern is that the RINO backlash is going to cause too much consternation in the upcoming midterms. We need some amazing electoral results in '14; disunity doesn't seem to be the key.
Dagny received a CNN news flash email this am that she characterized as saying, "Evidence that the Republicans are going to lose their house majority." Can you believe it? From CNN even!
Posted by: johngalt at October 21, 2013 4:29 PMYahoo's on it as well.
Democrats could win "a significant majority" in the House if the voter anger aimed at Republicans over the government shutdown carries into 2014, new surveys commissioned by a progressive group show.Posted by: jk at October 21, 2013 5:11 PM
My new concern is that the RINO backlash is going to cause too much consternation in the upcoming midterms.
I think this may be a real concern. I have a friend from high school who's fairly active in local politics in his corner of Texas, and he's been raging on facebook about what a plague the Tea Party is on the nation as a whole and on the GOP in particular. It could just be wishful thinking on his part, but he's convinced that the Tea Party is done as a force within the GOP, that Cruz is history, and that Tea Party favorites in the House are going to lose primary challenges to "reasonable" Republicans. Of course, most of the people I see agreeing with him are sympathetic Democrats who hope that the GOP can once again become a cooperative partner in government.
Posted by: AndyN at October 21, 2013 5:34 PMQuote of the Day
No, not the Atlas Shrugged Quote of the Day. Sadly pulled from the headlines:
The tentative $13 billion settlement that the Justice Department appears to be extracting from J.P. Morgan Chase needs to be understood as a watershed moment in American capitalism. Federal law enforcers are confiscating roughly half of a company's annual earnings for no other reason than because they can and because they want to appease their left-wing populist allies. -- WSJ Ed Page
"In a post Dodd-Frank world, banks are public utilities and no CEO can afford to resist the government's demands."
"The lesson is how government has used the crisis to exert political control over even the most powerful private financial companies. The real lords of American finance are Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury chief Jack Lew and their boss in the White House.
Posted by: johngalt at October 23, 2013 3:15 PMIBD's Ed page concurs: "Another Mugging on Wall Street"
Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon figured it was cheaper to settle - a grave miscalculation. Holder hasn't waived criminal prosecution. He can continue to squeeze JPMorgan for more payola. The entire banking industry will regret not fighting this unprecedented federal extortion operation. Settling hasn't protected them. It's just encouraged more muggings.
Compared to Attorney General Holder's, Reverend Jesse Jackson's corporate extortion schemes were mere child's play.
Posted by: johngalt at October 23, 2013 3:18 PMOctober 17, 2013
QOTD II
I clicked too soon. Take it away Perfesser:
SO IT LOOKS LIKE more people have applied to live on Mars than have signed up for ObamaCare so far. -- Glenn Reynolds
It begs the question: which group is likelier to get satisfaction first?
That cabin on the eastern slope of Olympus Mons is looking pretty good right now...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at October 18, 2013 1:50 PMQuote of the Day
Pollock & Hume may share the honors:
As David Hume so rightly said, "It would scarcely be more imprudent to give a prodigal son a credit in every banker's shop in London, than to empower a statesman to draw bills upon posterity." The dogma that government debt is risk-free gives the government an outsized credit in every banker's shop everywhere. -- Alex J. Pollock
October 15, 2013
Quote of the Day
Our Margaret:
The second point I'd wanted to make, I said, is that for all the Republican Party's troubles, for all the fighting and fisticuffs, there is one great thing, and it is that the party is alive with idea and argument and debate. This is good, it speaks of a liveliness and vitality appropriate to a great party. And if I were a Democrat, I said, teasingly but also seriously, I would wish my party were engaged in such spirited debate, and be anxious that it is not. -- Peggy Noonan
October 10, 2013
QOTD II
You know, I wasn't sure about this whole government shutdown thing, but so far I'm finding it mightily amusing. -- Prof. Glenn Reynolds
I haven't been reading any blogs in a long time, and with most of my online social activity being on Facebook, at first I looked for the "Like" button.
You know what's disappointed me the most about this non-shutdown shutdown? There was no market crash like we were supposed to have! It would have been a perfect time to get into some equities, even just index-tracking funds, before they bounced back.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at October 11, 2013 1:07 PMThe positive side of that is that a market dip is the most powerful example the press can spin into "proof" that the shutdown is calamitous, putting more pressure on Republicans to cave to the Democrats. Reid and Obama are bluffing on a Jack-high hand and John Boehner really, really, really needs to call them. Chief Justice Roberts said that the electoral/legislative machinery was the proper venue in which to change Obamacare. This is the prime time to do exactly that. Wait until they are "all in." Take them to the cleaners.
Posted by: johngalt at October 11, 2013 4:57 PMBoehner lacks the testicular fortitude. You have no idea how much I want to be wrong on this, but, track record.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at October 11, 2013 7:00 PMNaturally I agree, but weren't you as surprised as I that he has stood with the TEA Party Caucus in the first place? Now that he's chosen a path he really needs to stay on it.
Posted by: johngalt at October 12, 2013 9:04 AMOctober 7, 2013
Quote of the Day
Gotta steal it from Insty. Too. Damnnëd. Good:
Of course, I want people to have health care. I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally. -- Two time Obama voter and ACA supporter Cindy Vinson
Why, my dear Ms. Vinson, it is only what is neccessary for the common good. Nothing more.
Posted by: johngalt at October 7, 2013 3:15 PMAlas, she still doesn't get it.
Those explanations, however, don't completely satisfy Waschura and Vinson.Posted by: johngalt at October 7, 2013 3:18 PM"I'm not against Obamacare," Waschura said. "It's just the initial shock. I'm holding out hope that there will be a correction over a handful of years."
October 4, 2013
Quote of the Day
You know, if all these government services can be shut down whenever a President wants to score political points, why are we even thinking about getting the government into healthcare? -- Prof Glenn Reynolds
September 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
Naturally, the liberal Bill Clinton fared better on "The Simpsons" than Bush did. "[T]he show was surprisingly slow to satirize President Bill Clinton," observes Paul Cantor, a literary critic and professor at the University of Virginia. Still, Clinton was mocked over 40 times on the show, often for his wandering eye. More than once, Bart's chalkboard punishment was Clinton-related, including "Nobody cares what my definition of 'is' is..." and "'The president did it' is not an excuse." -- Tevi Troy AEI: The Simpsons: Poking Fun at U.S. Presidents for a Quarter Century
September 20, 2013
Quote of the Day
In love, as some of us learn the hard way, there's a really thin line between romantic and creepy. We all know that sometimes when a woman really likes a guy, it's adorable when he sneaks into her apartment and covers her bed in rose petals and maybe leaves a love poem on her pillow. When Arnold from accounting does it, after being repeatedly told by the love of his life that she just wants to be friends, it's grounds for a restraining order. Similarly, if you're John Cusack playing "In Your Eyes" on a boom box outside a teenager's window, it's adorable. But when Anthony Weiner does it, not so much. -- Jonah Goldberg [Subscribe]
September 19, 2013
Quote of the Day
I support defunding, but let me be blunt: I've been covering politics for over a decade, and I've never seen "and then a miracle happens" work as part of a legislative strategy. Absent use of Orbital Mind Control Lasers, this scenario almost certainly ends with the Republican leadership having to decide whether to play chicken with the US economy. In their place, I'd be damned hesitant to pull the trigger, too. -- Moe Lane (via Jim Geraghty)
In related news: All Hail Harsanyi - http://thefederalist.com/2013/09/19/americans-like-the-debt-ceiling-and-it-matters/
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 19, 2013 1:03 PMAugust 31, 2013
Tweet of the Day
The people of this country, ran like scalded dogs, from the Progressive/Wilson Admin in the 20's. Are we smart enough to do it again?
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) August 31, 2013
August 29, 2013
Quote of the Day
Attention, Democrats: our president is considering unilateral strikes against a Baathist dictator in the Middle East with a small coaltion and no U.N. authorization over WMDs, starting a war . . . that Donald Rumsfeld opposes.The Washington Post's liberal columnist, Eugene Robinson, supports it.
It's like everyone in U.S. politics from 2003 just decided to trade uniforms and play for the opposing team simultaneously. Have Cindy Sheehan, the Dixie Chicks, and Janeane Garofalo called for air strikes yet? When does Michael Moore unveil his pro-war film? When do AEI, Halliburton, and Toby Keith attend an anti-war rally? -- Jim Geraghty
And it's one, two, three what are we fightin' for! As for me I don't give a damn. I ain't goin' to ... Aleppo?
Posted by: johngalt at August 30, 2013 11:26 AMDamn-ass-cuss! ;)
Posted by: johngalt at August 30, 2013 11:30 AMAugust 28, 2013
Quote + Picture of the Day
A couple of retired Marines (Semper Fi!) discuss making the perfect cup of coffee.
Hat-tip: Insty
August 26, 2013
Quote of the Day
The Quote Maestro:
All third-party systems are crappy and inefficient. But socialized health care has at least the great clarifying simplicity of equality of crappiness: liberté, égalité, merde. It requires a perverse genius to construct a "health" "care" "reform" that destroys everything from religious liberty to full-time employment, while requiring multitudes of new tax collectors and other bureaucrats and ever fewer doctors and nurses. The parallel public/private systems of Continental Europe cost about 10 percent of GDP. The Obamacare monstrosity blends all the worst aspects of a private system (bureaucracy, restricted access, co-pays) with all the worst aspects of a government system (bureaucracy, restricted access, IRS agents) and sucks up twice as much GDP, ever less of which is spent on "health care" and ever more on the intervening layers of third, fourth, fifth, and sixth parties. -- Mark Steyn
And who is surprised, as the third, fourth, fifth and sixth parties WROTE it.
There's a great T-shirt idea:
Obamacare: Liberte Egalite MerdePosted by: johngalt at August 26, 2013 2:54 PM
I'll take a red one in LT if you have it.
Posted by: jk at August 26, 2013 3:49 PMAugust 18, 2013
Quote of the Day
"What Difference Does it Make" Version:
If I do happen to die in service to my country, I'd think that my country would not deny me the honor of having died in service in the war on terror, versus service in defense of a YouTube video. -- Rep. (and US ANG Veteran) Adam Kinzinger
Hat-tip: Insty
August 16, 2013
Quote of the Day
ADDENDUM: Egypt's pro-Morsi protesters announce today will be a 'Day of Rage' . . . raising the question of just what the heck we call Wednesday. -- Jim Geraghty
August 12, 2013
Quote of the Day
The Obama administration has embraced Cass Sunstein's theories about a supposed "libertarian paternalism" -- "libertarian," you see, because it doesn't rely on heavy handed dictates but instead uses indirect incentives and small manipulations to "nudge" people into doing what their intellectual superiors in Washington, DC, think is good for them.But as a general rule, if the government is doing something, it's not "libertarian." -- Robert Tracinski
I almost posted a link about the article he references. All my Pigou-club arguments come back as a "nudge" can quickly become a "shove."
August 9, 2013
Quote of the Day
Offhand comment from Jay Nordlinger, responding to Hannan, paraphrase: This is the Golden Age for environmentalists, at least in the United States: Carbon emissions are down, economic production is down, commuting is down, we're less materialistic because we can afford less . . . Hey, they're getting what they've been demanding all these years. - Jim Geraghty, back from the NRO Cruise
August 1, 2013
Quote of the Day
Rand Paul offers to "kiss and make up" with Chris Christie. Now that's a mental image I really didn't need. -- Robert Tracinski
July 30, 2013
Quote of the Day
Per Nancy Pelosi, we had to pass ObamaCare so we could find out what's in it. Well, they passed it, and three years later we can finally say definitively what is in it: a ban on full-time employment for low-income workers. -- Robert Tracinski
July 24, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
Detroit's failings are many and its debts staggering. Obama did not cause them. But his economic remedies and intervention have achieved little. And his unhinged enthusiasm about what was happening in Detroit in 2011, and how it fit into the larger story of American economic life, provides an inconvenient backdrop for Obama's economic address Wednesday and those that follow. -Major Garrett in Remember When Obama Said Detroit Was Coming Back?
July 22, 2013
Selfishness - Rational vs. Imperial
This reflects a deeper abuse of Ayn Rand's philosophy. The prevailing philosophy of altruism, in denouncing business and profit-making as evil, has to construct a caricature of self-interest designed to make it look bad. In this caricature, "selfishness" is crassly materialistic, viciously adversarial, and stoked by personal vanity. Above all else, self-interest is defined in a way that is superficial and short term--making it into a straw man of that is easy to knock down.Ayn Rand not only defended self-interest but sought to understand it properly, showing how genuine self-interest focuses on long-term values, on rationality and real achievement rather than preening vanity or lust for arbitrary power over others. -Robert Tracinski in 'Sears: Less "Atlas Shrugged" Than "Game of Thrones'
July 3, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"Do as I say, not as I do" edition-
"MS. PSAKI: Well, he was reiterating what the President has said publicly and what was also in the readout, which is that this is -- democracy is about more than just elections. It's about ensuring that people can have their voices heard -- peacefully, of course, is always the goal. And he -- and you saw that the President urged President Morsy to take steps to show that he is responsive to their concerns, and the Secretary agrees that that is an important step for the government to take."
From the State Department Daily Press Briefing today.
Quote of the Day
Anyway, the primary argument from optimistic Democrats is that even though they haven't won a U.S. Senate race in Kentucky since 1992, and even though Obama is phenomenally unpopular there, and even though Mitch McConnell is going to have roughly a bazillion dollars in his campaign account, and even though McConnell's campaign team has elbows so sharp, they use them to remove staples, and even though turnout will likely be lower and more GOP-friendly in a midterm year, even though a better Democratic candidate couldn't beat newcomer Rand Paul in an open seat Senate race four years ago, and… er, wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, Democrats think they have a solid shot because McConnell's poll numbers are pretty mediocre. -- Jim Geraghty
July 1, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
Rapists don’t disarm women, lawmakers disarm women. I work out five days a week. I studied krav maga. I can out-lift the majority of male hipsters. I can try to be as much like Lara Croft as I want to be but the bottom line is that nature has given me a different muscular structure, bone density, and stature. I will never be able to outfight the majority of men. Most women can’t take a solid punch from a man. This isn’t admitting a weakness, it’s admitting science. Weakness is when we try to deny science and refuse to give ourselves a fighting chance like the chance we have with firearms. A firearm is an equalizer for a woman. Your state legislator, Joe Salazar, told women that we were too stupid to carry firearms because we might “pop off at somebody.” His view was shared by his Democrat colleagues, as we later learned from remarks by the likes of Hudak, Rosenthal, and others. We believe in female empowerment in every aspect of life, apparently, but the power to buy our own birth control and carry a gun. These lawmakers are making sitting ducks out of the female sex and I’ve had enough. --Dana Loesch at the "Farewell to Arms" Freedom Rally near Denver yesterday
Quote of the Day
According to Der Spiegel, the NSA has been going through the phones, computers, and who knows what else of European Union officials. If European politicians were any angrier, they would be commenting on Daily Kos. They're so mad, Islamic Rage Boy is telling them to calm down. Alec Baldwin is imploring them to not lose their temper. -- Jim Geraghty
June 27, 2013
Quote of the Day
Mr. Obama fancies himself a constitutional lawyer, yet as President he has exhibited an odd view of his powers. He's invited Congress to limit his authority on national security where it is constitutionally the strongest, yet he has sought to steal power from Congress via regulation when his legal right is dubious. The Justices have an opportunity to give Mr. Obama a refresher course. -- WSJ Ed Page
June 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
June 24, 2013
Quote of the Day
Of course, since Ben Bernanke is almost certainly a short-timer, such radical action is hardly worth the bother. And in truth, the suggestion isn't a serious one. If Washington or any other rich economy dumped central bankers for every mess-up, their longevity would be roughly that of a Spinal Tap drummer. -- James Pethokoukis
So Bernanke acted to "turn a modest recession into the Great Recession, and sparked the Financial Crisis" in October of an election year with a Republican presidential incumbent, and acted to "offset U.S. fiscal austerity" in the same period with a Democrat presidential incumbent. Damned fortunate for Democrats, wouldn't you say?
Posted by: johngalt at June 24, 2013 3:15 PMJune 20, 2013
Quote of the Day
President Obama's words may well have pleased his German government hosts, content to see a United States whose ambitions as a military power have been significantly clipped since George W. Bush left office in 2009. But Barack Obama underscored again why he is no JFK or Ronald Reagan. In front of the Brandenburg Gate, Obama sounded more like the president of the European Commission than the leader of the free world. It is never a good sign when a US president parrots the language of a Brussels bureaucrat when he is supposed to be a champion of freedom. Obama’s distinctly unimpressive speech in Berlin was another dud from a floundering president whose leadership abroad is just as weak as it is at home. -- Nile GardinerTough Room.
Dare I say, "weaker?"
In 2008 we suffered through the improbably meteoric rise of the dope smokin' affirmative action hero with impeccable personal hygeine and above-average diction, and watched his rent seeking benefactors prop him up for a "fool me twice" scenario in '12. Now, as this duck grows ever the more lame, watching his incompetence chickens come home to roost is Schadenfreude with a capital S.
Posted by: johngalt at June 20, 2013 2:29 PMUmm, our NSA filter subscription is paid up for the rest of the year, right? Just checking.
Posted by: johngalt at June 20, 2013 3:58 PMJune 19, 2013
Quote of the Day
Tocqueville would not recognize America today. Indeed, so completely has associational life collapsed, and so enormously has the state grown, that he would be forced to conclude that, at some point between 1833 and 2013, France must have conquered the United States. -- Niall Ferguson
... or, at very least, had conquered her large cities.
WOLVERINES!
Posted by: johngalt at June 19, 2013 2:15 PMBingo. Indeed, I would suggest that the collapse of the first led to the second.
Posted by: T. Greer at June 20, 2013 12:10 AMJune 14, 2013
Quote of the Day
In a much-discussed essay for Salon, Michael Lind asks: "If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?"Such is the philosophical poverty of liberalism today that this stands as a profound question. -- Jonah Goldberg
June 11, 2013
Quote of the Day
This may be a story with no heroes. A government system designed to protect the citizens starts collecting all kinds of information on people who have done nothing wrong; it gets exposed, in violation of oaths and laws, by a young man who doesn't recognize the full ramifications of his actions. The same government that will insist he's the villain will glide right past the question of how they came to trust a guy like him with our most sensitive secrets. Who within our national-security apparatus made the epic mistake of looking him over -- completing his background check and/or psychological evaluation -- and concluding, "Yup, looks like a nice kid?" -- Jim GeraghtyThe sound you hear is my falling off the Edward Snowden bandwagon. I thought Larry Kudlow was harsh last night.
This Jeffrey Toobin piece in the New Yorker (h/t Robert Tracinski) got me.
Honorable mention: the pole-dancing girlfriend -- this is just gonna get better, isn't it?
"Surely there will be villainous pirates, distracting mermaids, and tides of change in this new open water chapter of my journey," [28 year old Lindsay] Mills--who refers to Snowden as "E" and herself as a "world-traveling, pole-dancing super hero"--added. "But at the moment all I can feel is alone."
"Sabotage?" Is that what it means when one discloses the existence of something that "any marginally attentive citizen" already knew was going on? It's not the Pentagon Papers, after all.
I'll consent that violating national secrecy laws may set a bad precedent but "sabotage" is an exaggeration. But even Toobin agrees that some leaking "is normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press." For this he wants the young man imprisoned? Overreact much?
Posted by: johngalt at June 11, 2013 4:09 PMA more pertinent quote from the pole dancing mermaid superhero article:
"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," he added.Posted by: johngalt at June 11, 2013 4:23 PM
It is clearly sabotage. Publicizing the existence and details of an ongoing covert operation compromises the operations as surely as cutting the landing gear hydraulics of an aircraft.
And of course he deserves imprisonment. That's what makes it "brave" is it not? You don't think there should be any consequences?
There is a valid question of whether this sabotage was worth it because it made Americans aware. I started sympathetic but my sympathy is leaking quickly.
The damning things from the Toobin piece are that WaPo truncated what they received "Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowden's." And, his running off to Hong Kong and let me quote: "because 'they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.'"
Dude should have finished high school. He is now under the protection of Communist China, with an assload of privileged intelligence information. He will see the fail Lindsay and escape decades in prison only at their benevolence. What could possibly go wrong?
The great thing about this particular story is the strange bedfellows it creates. But I have to ask, what's the name of this blog? Who are you and what have you done with jk?
Posted by: johngalt at June 11, 2013 5:40 PMWe have the laws that allowed this in the first place and he agreed to keep what he was doing secret. Any number of congress people (Hello Rand or Ron Paul) would have helped him through the whistleblower rules to expose this program to the light of day (and it needed exposure) The fact that he is in China now, hooo boy. Yes, he needs to be jailed. (not hung)
"But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. .... they can bring their complaints to Congress; .............. he threw the secrets he knew up in the air—and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. "
Posted by: Terri at June 11, 2013 6:47 PMKeeping in mind that I'm the guy who said, "I'm willing to let my government watch me" how can we be so sure that Snowden chose the wrong path to publicize this? Why didn't the Condor (Robert Redford) just go the most libertarian Senator and ask for protection? Doesn't anyone else want to know what's in those other 37 slides that the Post decided not to publish? They could go a long way toward explaining why he thought the situation so dire, and his safety so suspect.
While I consent to being watched, I don't consent to being secretly spied upon. That crosses a public-private barrier analogous to kicking in the door of my home. Go ahead and watch me in public places, but private places are, what is the word, private! I have precious little confidence that a national government will recognize, much less respect, this distinction.
Posted by: johngalt at June 12, 2013 3:49 PMJune 10, 2013
Quote of the Last Friday
How did I miss this?
Here's another theory: Maybe the Times softened the editorial on the advice of its tax accountants. -- James Taranto
May 31, 2013
Quote of the Day
Those who know how I feel about Albert Jay Nock, the author of Our Enemy the State, should recognize that this is no small compliment.But I can also imagine partisans of, say, Hayek or von Mises reading this and becoming riled up (for some reason, and with no disrespect intended, the moment I wrote that line that scene when the old school orcs and the new-fangled orcs get into a brawl in The Return of the King came to mind).
First, I should say that Hayek did not consider the State to be his -- or our -- enemy. He just considered planning folly, socialism immoral, and, oddly, Dick Sargent to be the superior Darrin on Bewitched. Second, both his and von Mises's work was vastly more influential than Nock's. -- Jonah Goldberg
May 24, 2013
Quote of the Day
And since I'm already in rant mode, let me add that it really pisses me off. I resent utterly and totally the politicization of everything. I hate it to my core. It is arguably the single most right-wing thing about me. The idea that people can refer to a left-wing clothing line or a right-wing pizza company strikes me as grotesquely ludicrous and ludicrously grotesque. It's like referring to a "Presbyterian fastball" or a "Fabian cloud."The Catholic Church in America is becoming more "right wing" not because it has changed its dogma, but because under Obamacare the imperium of domestic liberalism is expanding once again. An army of Lois Lerners are spilling over the defensive walls of the Church and demanding yet more compliance.
And, yet, when the Church or a craft store or a fast-food chicken joint resists, they are labeled the aggressors in the culture war. It's like when the Roman legions would invade Germania. The barbarians would fight back and the Romans would respond "we cannot let this assault on Rome stand!" -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
____ing Romans.
Posted by: johngalt at May 24, 2013 5:49 PMHahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Posted by: jk at May 24, 2013 6:11 PMMay 21, 2013
Quote of the Day
In notable contrast, liberal and "progressive" organizations got approvals with remarkable speed. The most conspicuous example involves the Barack H. Obama Foundation, which was approved as tax exempt within a month by the then-head of the IRS tax-exempt branch, Lois Lerner. -- David Rivkin and Lee Casey
UPDATE: Thanks to blog friend AndyN for due diligence about the Barack H. Obama Foundation. Contrast that with the Kafkaesque treatment of King Street Patriots and True the Vote.
But wait! There's more! Apparently the addresses the foundation gave the IRS are a drug rehab center where nobody has ever heard of them and a UPS store.
Posted by: AndyN at May 21, 2013 10:21 AMHahahahahahahaha! That is funny! Tea Party groups have to submit a blood sample and every Facebook post and dry cleaning receipt.
You really cannot make this stuff up...
Posted by: jk at May 21, 2013 11:13 AMMay 15, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"But it doesn't make any sense for us to use the coercive powers of the state to avoid the creation of future Teen Mom Porn Stars -- what are we going to do, imprison every knocked up moron teenager? What does make sense is to use the coercive powers of society. And society has few tools more powerful than shame. Pretending that an action is value-neutral to spare the feelings of a miscreant will only create more miscreants. I, for one, would prefer a society with fewer miscreants." -- Free Beacon Blogger Sonny Bunch, on model Christine Teigen's Tweet: I believe in shame and having shame and being shamed.
UPDATE: I rushed this to press and relied on readers to click through for the rest of the tweets. The one I cited was her conclusion, but she began by telling a young woman known as "Teen Mom Porn Star" that "you're a whore and everyone hates you..."
And if that's not tittilating enough to elicit commentary... Christine Christie Chrissy Teigen Pics Pictures Photos. (Check the traffic stats!)
May 9, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
The common denominator of most of these examples is that they are failures of diplomacy, which is precisely what this administration had promised to be better at.Barack Obama came into office partly on the basis of criticism of George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the claims he and his supporters made was that diplomacy and "smart power" would be more effective than military force. But having championed diplomacy over war, Obama doesn't really seem to be all that interested in diplomacy, either.
That is the big picture that the Benghazi scandal reveals. -- Robert Tracinski in The Daily Debate
May 7, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"[United States Attorney General Eric] Holder's understanding of the United States Constitution is incorrect."
-- Kansas Secretary of state Kris W. Kobach
If you don't mind it in an intemperate wrapper, ChicksOnTheRight.com has both letters in their post: Kansas To Eric Holder: "Jump Up And Bite Us, And Then Try Reading The Constitution, Whydontcha?"
Posted by: jk at May 7, 2013 3:36 PM....and, um, that would be the same link my blog brother provided... carry on, itchy typing fingers...
Posted by: jk at May 7, 2013 3:51 PMApril 26, 2013
QOTD II
Jonah Goldberg Edition:
Last night's speech went pretty well. It was billed as being on the "future of conservatism," even though my speaker's bureau had told me it would be on Liberal Fascism. So I had to call a bit of an audible and go with my old standby of erotic interpretive dance. I shouldn't have to say it, but I left no one disappointed. -- Jonah
April 17, 2013
Quote of the Day
If the Yankees and Red Sox can stand together as one, perhaps someday there will be peace in the Middle East. Yankee Stadium Tuesday: -- Jim Geraghty
April 11, 2013
Quote of the Day
And the award for best Physics reference in a political editorial goes to.........
President Obama is said to be trying to lure Republicans into another grand bargain by including a proposal in his 2014 budget that would slightly slow the growth of Social Security and other federal benefits. But he's also telling the Democrats going bonkers about slashing Social Security not to worry, the cuts aren't drastic and barely noticeable.It's the Schrödinger's cat of entitlement reform. Both his political postures can't be true at once, and no points awarded for guessing what the details reveal. -- WSJ Ed Page
How do they know? Nothing is certain!
According to one account of the details, $110,000,000,000 in cuts over ten years. Seem like a lot? Total budget: $54,000,000,000,000.
54 000 000 000 000
00 110 000 000 000
0.2%.
Posted by: johngalt at April 11, 2013 12:26 PMDang! We'll never be able to afford White House tours...
Posted by: jk at April 11, 2013 1:05 PMOne of my favorite analogies that I have seen in various places is to compare this to a household budget by removing 9 zeros.
In that case the new numbers save $110.00 on a 54k annual budget.
Posted by: dagny at April 11, 2013 1:22 PMAn even better perspective. Well said dear.
"And to show the American people I am serious about getting our national goverment's spending problem under control, my budget will reduce spending by $110 per household."
Wow, I'm trembling in the shadow of his Greatness.
Posted by: johngalt at April 12, 2013 11:37 AMApril 10, 2013
Quote of the Day
In June of 2012, Calpers lowered the expected rate of return on its portfolio to 7.5% from 7.75%. Mr. Milligan suggested 7.25%. Calpers had last dropped the rate in 2004, from 8.25%. But even the 7.5% return is fiction. Wall Street would laugh if the matter weren't so serious. -- Andy KesslerNonsense, I bet Cypriot bonds are paying 7.5. There would be a certain poetry in California's choosing them as an investment vehicle.
UPDATE: Persuant to the comment thread, Helicopter Ben got the job done today!
Nonsense. The Bernanke bubble will make 8% returns the norm, at least until the music stops.
Posted by: johngalt at April 10, 2013 11:21 AMHarrumph. Is that before or after the black UN helicopters invade and impose Communism, or we all die for fluoridated water or mandatory vaccinations?
I'll happily critique the absence of competing currencies, the Fed's dual mandate, and imperfections of monetary policy -- well into the night if there is enough beer.
Yet I cannot join the "New Ron Paul Monetary Malthusians" who are the only ones bright enough to see what is going on.
Could a lot of things end badly? Yes. Is the entire worldwide economy a Potemkin village with no realistic endemic underlying value? No. Are bond traders unable to comprehend risk? No. As I suggested to our dour Monday speaker, there remain many opportunities for soft landings.
A sax player friend lived with me in the early '90s. Three times in the year he rented my basement, he got up early to remove all of his money from the bank. Each time he was in wonder that there was no line. You may call me a Pollyanna. So did he.
I can't tell which part of my comment got your hackles up... 8% returns? Bubble? That it might pop? All three?
Let me simplify and just say, I see 7.5% returns as child's play for as long as the Fed continues its current policies. Anything controversial about just this?
Posted by: johngalt at April 10, 2013 2:38 PMHeh. Some hackle inducement is residual from Monday's Liberty on the Rocks. Rampant belief that assets valued today will not be after the <your favorite apocalyptic term here>. Predicting gloom & doom is a long & noble enterprise which probably existed prior to prostitution. But the real Mad-Max, no possible soft landing scenarios infer no fundamental underlying value underpinning financial assets. I cannot join the bomb shelter crowd there.
QEn liquidity is certainly inflating stock prices, and it will be unimaginably difficult to unwind the expanded Fed balance sheet. Yet my Deutch-ian optimism suggests that human reason will find a way out.
Each clause of your comment is defensible. I take some exception to the 8% bit. I do not believe Chairman Bernanke is targeting, ever expected, or has achieved eight percent nominal investment growth. And I read "music stops" as the hard landing which so many of my fellow liberty lovers and Austrians are too certain will transpire.
Could not say it better than blog friend Terri:
Jk over at Three Sources sees humanity as capable of finding better ways out of bad situations. Especially Americans. I prefer to agree with him rather than with Mr. Wright who is “optimistic†that in the end after the fires and ravages of the BIG ONE, conservatism will win.Posted by: jk at April 10, 2013 5:35 PM
1) Didn't intend to imply that 8% was Big Ben's target, but did mean to imply that since his "inflation targeting" does such a piss-poor job of measuring real inflation, said real inflation will be all or more of that 8% "growth."
2) I agree that "human reason" can solve this problem, now or in the future, but human reason has heretofore not been at the helm. Government has.
3) I heard only the Brushfire Radio interview and not the LOTR talk, but what I took from Mr. Wright was not that America will collapse, or even our financial system, but the Federal government is almost sure to do so, and may or may not take its dollar with it. Now that's a dystopia I can wish for!
So yes, I do see a hard landing of a sort. I think Jeff called it the mother of all bubbles or something like that. The "Grand Correction." Yeah, that was it. But things with real, intrinsic value will not become valuless. And even the dollar is fairly safe, for in this age of Global Currency War it is still the particular flavor of Monopoly (TM) money that more people believe in than any other.
Posted by: johngalt at April 10, 2013 6:19 PMApril 8, 2013
Quote of the Day
Thatcher died in London Monday, at age 87, having earned her place among the greats. This is not simply because she revived Britain's economy, though that was no mean achievement. Nor is it because she held office longer than any of her predecessors, though this also testifies to her political skill. She achieved greatness because she articulated a set of vital ideas about economic freedom, national self-respect and personal virtue, sold them to a skeptical public and then demonstrated their efficacy. -- WSJ Ed Page
April 5, 2013
Friday Otequay of the Ayday
"There is nothing [Stockman says] that others haven't," says Peter Schiff, chief executive of the broker Euro Pacific Capital, with a similar outlook. "But when someone from the establishment criticises the establishment then everyone has to jump on him and discredit him."
From Stockman Feels Force of Washington Fury, by Robin Harding, Financial Times
April 4, 2013
Quote of the Day
ADDENDUM: I'm guessing the same groundhogs that predicted spring back in February spent their previous years calculating the rate of job creation under the 2009 stimulus. -- Jim Geraghty [subscribe]
April 2, 2013
Quote of the Day
For me, the most helpful policy lens to judge America’s future economic prospects is that created by economist Deirdre McCloskey, what she calls the "Bourgeois Deal": "You let me engage in innovation and creative destruction, and I will make you rich." As long as that bargain remains intact, as it has for more two centuries, then America’s prospects are far from bleak. -- James Pethokoukis, rebutting David Stockman's gloom-and-doom editorial.
Ah, a pre-emptive rebuttal to my posting of the Stockman piece as more evidence of stealthflation. It has been so ubiquitous I didn't even need to blockquote it here myself.
The key criticism seems to be whether America's sun has set or is merely on its way down. Either way, JimiP advocates for, what, keeping it at 7 pm? That's his happy vision for America's future? I engage in innovation and creation while someone else gets rich? Whatever happened to the American dream?
He's probably done a poor job articulating McCloskey's "deal" but that's on him. I can only critique what he says, not what he wanted to say.
Posted by: johngalt at April 2, 2013 3:37 PMI'm suggesting (and think I could get Pethokoukis and Kudlow to back me up) "Don't fight the tape!"
JimiP has an illustrious history of championing free market principles, and works tirelessly to preserve the dream of free markets. As he and I share an appreciation for Ms. McCloskey, let me attempt to paraphrase (taking on Harvard Professors, besting a Jeopardy! champ will be easy).
McCloskey answers the economists' question of why France is not in worse shape than it is. Not to say it leads the world, but from a policy-based, economic standpoint, it should be waaaaay worse. McCloskey's point is that as long as the bourgeois have a chance, they will create and the rest will enjoy the benefits.
That does not make it right. And I am very comfortable suggesting that more-free nations have done better. But Canada and Sweden lumped through their überprogressive periods, and France hangs on because the markets are far more resilient than folks like you and I will admit.
More Dagny Taggarts than John Galts.
We could have certainly done better without eighty years of progressivism. We could have done a lot goddam better without Mister Stockman's tax hikes (not that I hold a grudge!!!!!) But while saying that today is the day it all ends sells books and pleases conservative bloggers, I accept Pethokousis's larger premise that if we survived FDR and LBJ and Fed Chair Arthur Burns, we'll likely get past Misters Obama and Bernanke.
Fair defense, but let me attempt an alternate view of the big picture:
The drag of statism on the world economy has, over the past eighty to a hundred years, been carefully balanced by market forces in both economics and politics such that productivity and prosperity generally trended upwards.
Over the same period, most nations tended to be more statist and less free than did the good ol' USA, but since the USA was so big and so prosperous (and so #@$(*ing generous) the world managed to avoid slipping into a modern dark age of "equality."
Propelled by the "success" of statism in Europe a surging Progressive movement has gained traction in the world headquarters of capitalism - America. Defended only by the idea that "I'll make you rich too if you let me make myself rich" capitalism is under existential threat by the idea "nobody needs to be rich."
I submit that JimiP and Ms. McCloskey have no answer for the day when the statists decide that two centuries of prosperity are enough - time for us all to be "equal" wherever that may lead."
Stockman's answer, despite his many past sins and even some in his prescription, is "getting the Fed out of the financial markets" because it "is the only way to put free markets and genuine wealth creation back into capitalism."
He doesn't want to END the Fed, but to restore its original mission: "To provide liquidity in times of crisis."
With what part of this would Uncle Milton disagree?
Posted by: johngalt at April 3, 2013 2:59 PMMarch 28, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"..America, America, God shed clear sight on thee. And crown thy past, with, at long last, a future that is free." -- Facebook friend and former Colorado state senator Shawn Mitchell (Tuesday "via mobile")
March 22, 2013
Quote of the Day
Besides, I'm in California with the wife and kid. They're upstairs asleep in our hotel room. I'm in the lobby drinking the 4:00 a.m. coffee writing the G-File with sweaty feet. I don't mean I'm typing it with sweaty feet. My prehensile toes are fine for strangling a man, but the detail work is still hard. What I do mean is that I couldn't find my socks in the dark without waking up the ladies. So I'm wearing sneakers without socks, which has the unpleasant consequence of making my feet smell like Harry Reid, albeit with less of that "urine and failure" bouquet. -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]Jonah's serious side: a link to Albert Jay Nock's Isaiah's Job essay.
March 20, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
Colorado Republicans have developed a reputation -- largely earned -- for being the anti-gay, anti-immigration, anti-women party, and then Republicans stand around after getting their asses kicked, election after election, scratching their heads and wondering what happened.
Ari Armstrong, on why Republicans Bear Responsibility for Colorado's Anti-Gun Laws
March 9, 2013
Quote of the Day
If I had planned to speak for 13 hours when I took the Senate floor Wednesday, I would've worn more comfortable shoes. -- Sen Rand Paul (HOSS - KY)
March 1, 2013
Quote of the Day
Among the myriad problems with this sort of thinking [President Obama's SOTU call to band together, just like Seal Team Six] is that it confuses the fundamental reason we have a military in the first place. We have a military so Americans don't have to live militaristically -- i.e., take orders, march in step, etc. We rely on the collective endeavor known as the military so that the rest of us can enjoy our individual endeavors. That is what the pursuit of happiness is about. We do not have a military so it can provide a good example of how we can more productively abandon our freedoms. -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
February 28, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"There are many fine people who are concerned with the environment. Indeed, we all should be. But the movement known as environmentalism is not only a false religion, it is one that allows human sacrifice."
I would be more impressed had this passed the lips of an A-list Hollywood celeb - Darryl Hannah is clearly more than one could hope for, being too far gone into the mist - but it is still a good quote from a good article by fellow traveler Dennis Prager.
Methinks my blog brother might enjoy Walter Russell Mead today.
The epidemic of power outages and "rolling blackouts" which nearly shut down California in the early 2000s may be returning. Back then, the culprits were unscrupulous energy providers like Enron and a poorly-thought out process of deregulation. This time, renewable energy would be to blame, as the state has pushed to increase the use of solar and wind energy without ensuring that there is enough traditional power generation to keep the grid stable on cloudy, windless days.Posted by: jk at February 28, 2013 2:37 PM
Yep. See related post above.
This Central Planning business is just so complicated! How can anybody know everything about every industry? Why can't we just find a way to have experts in every field make every decision based on all of the factors, taken into account at once and evaluated to arrive at the best course of action? And to make sure they do their jobs well and act wisely we could even make their paychecks depend on getting it right!
But I digress. Clearly there is no such utopian system on earth.
Posted by: johngalt at February 28, 2013 3:25 PMSequestergeddon Quote of the Day
But if Obama can't even convince his cheerleaders in the press that modest spending restraint will doom the country, why should anyone believe he's having more success with the public at large?
Today's IBD Editorial: Is Obama Losing His Media Allies Over The Sequester?
Let us hope. Trusting our Fourth Estate to choose the side of less government seems too much to ask. L'affaire Woodward is interesting -- might they discover some of the integrity that drove them into J-School? Loved this:
The AP, for example, found no evidence to back up administration claims about teacher layoffs. It also pointed out that the airline industry thinks the sequester will have "no major impact on air travel," and that various numbers bandied about by Obama were "thrown out into thin air with no anchor."
Posted by: jk at February 28, 2013 12:13 PM
I have long believed that the shame threshold of most journalists is lower than that of the President. Jake Tapper is the first big name I remember having shown skepticism. Watergate Woodward is by far a more significant crack in the media's inverse-reality force field.
Posted by: johngalt at February 28, 2013 2:08 PMFebruary 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
Here it is: Food companies work very, very hard to find out what will give you, the consumer, the most pleasure for your money -- and then the diabolical fiends actually give it to you!Seriously, you are supposed to be absolutely horrified by this. You can tell by the ominous language the author, Michael Moss, employs to describe how "food engineers alter a litany of variables with the sole intent of" -- brace yourself -- "finding the most perfect version" of a product. The most perfect version, of course, is the one that will "be most attractive to consumers." (The horror.) The piece even quotes one food-company executive who describes the strategy: "Discover what consumers want to buy and give it to them with both barrels." -- A Barton Hinkle, exposing the NYTimes Magazine exposé of Big Food.
February 19, 2013
Quote of the Day
Of course they do: They sell ammo for deer rifles, and deer rifles can pierce police body armor. I know this because I have personally shot through police body armor with a deer rifle -- my father was a police officer for many years, and we used to test his old vests when he got new ones. Police vests protect against basic handgun rounds, up to .40-caliber or so. Anything bigger will go through, whether it's been called "armor-piercing" in the New York Times or not. -- Robert VerBruggen, schooling David Frum on guns
I once, naively, shot at three eighths inch thick steel targets with a deer rifle from about a hundred yards. When I heard no characteristic "clang" I thought I missed. Upon inspection, the round passed through the steel cleanly, without so much as a burr on the exit side of the target. Kevlar doesn't stand a chance.
Posted by: johngalt at February 19, 2013 3:59 PMThat explains why you never see deer wearing them.
Posted by: jk at February 19, 2013 4:42 PMEX-actly right. Until this article I thought EVERYBODY knew that!
Posted by: johngalt at February 19, 2013 5:04 PMFebruary 13, 2013
Quote of the Day
Mr. Obama's second inaugural was a clarion call to "collective action," as he put it, and Tuesday's speech showed what he thinks that should mean in practice. "The American people don't expect government to solve every problem," he said, while proceeding to offer a new government program to solve every problem. -- WSJ Ed Page
February 12, 2013
SOTU QOTD
My friends, the president's State of the Union Address is our national pro bowl -- a simulation of the art of persuasion and politics featuring all the big stars, played at about half-speed, with no real consequence. -- Jim Geraghty
So STFU...........
Posted by: jk at February 12, 2013 12:46 PM"... a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
Dunsinane Castle, or D.C.? Would that the SCOAMF were "heard no more" but otherwise, I think the Bard pretty much gets the idea.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at February 12, 2013 4:26 PMLike.
Posted by: jk at February 12, 2013 5:43 PMFebruary 11, 2013
Quote of the Day
True, but we have to say, that "second-rate people" quote offends us. We know some lovely second-rate people, and it's unfair [of VP Dick Cheney] to compare them to Chuck Hagel and John Kerry. -- James Taranto
February 8, 2013
Quote of the Day
Those were good times, friends, and they stopped pretty much the minute that liberals and Democrats took control of the federal government. The antiwar movement disappeared once it became clear that Barack Obama wasn't going to shut down Gitmo or stop bombing places or give a rat's ass about that constitutional stuff he used to teach in law school.Hat-tip: Insty
But cheer up, because things can always get worse, as the last few days have demonstrated. -- Nick Gillespie
February 7, 2013
Otequay of the Ayday
"I'm very very compassionate and I'm not out to offend anyone but PC is dangerous, because this country, you see, one of the founding principles was freedom of thought and freedom of expression. And it muffles people. It puts a muzzle on them. And at the same time, keeps people from discussing important issues while the fabric of their society is being changed. And we cannot fall for that trick. And what we need to do is start talking about things. Talking about things that are important. Things that were important in the development of our nation."-Dr. Ben Carson in his keynote address to the 2012 National Prayer Breakfast
Carson also said, "Forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought and concentrate on being respectful of those people with whom we disagree. That's when I think we start to make real progress."
Be polite, although you have a right not to be. The question becomes: what if they forbid what you don't want to do, anyway? Then what do you do?
Posted by: Steve D at February 8, 2013 5:00 PMWell, when they banned smoking in public I cheered. Now that I see the insatiability of the personal behavior police I have an urge to take up smoking so that I can do it in public. Politely, of course. ;)
Posted by: johngalt at February 8, 2013 5:33 PMJanuary 29, 2013
Quote of the Day
Gitmo Closes! Wait, No, It's Just the Office for Closing Gitmo That's ClosingIt's the end of an era of ending the preceding era: -- Jim Geraghty
January 25, 2013
Quote of the Day
So, should one man control the fate of the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises? Is it too much geek power in one director? -- Jim Geraghty [subscribe]
January 23, 2013
Quote of the Day
Too bad Lefty [California golfer Phil "Lefty" Mickelson ] will no longer help educate the lefties on the incentive effects of marginal tax rates. But he can still vote with his Gulfstream and take his tour winnings and his endorsement income to a more friendly locale, such as Florida, Nevada or Texas. All three still have no state income tax, which may be one reason Tiger Woods and so many other golfers (including many Europeans) also live in Florida. Expect a continued migration. -- WSJ Ed Page
I just gotta ask, was California's prior tax burden not already disincentive enough for him to live there?
Posted by: johngalt at January 23, 2013 5:34 PMThe new increase - passed as a ballot measure by the voters, no less - was apparently the camel that broke his straw back.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at January 23, 2013 6:24 PMRAHQOTD
How long has it been? Too long. Today's 'I Am Not Making This Up' entry prompts another quote from Heinlein's excellent 'Life-Line' short story, excerpted three times already on these pages.
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.--RAH 'Life-Line' (1939)
January 22, 2013
Quote of the Day
Then, as you point out, there's the horrible strawman argument about "no single person." This is a rhetorical constant of Obama's presidency. The choice is always between the atomized individual or the loving embrace of federal government in Washington. Either Julia's all alone, or the government has got her back. Any acknowledgment that civil society, families, the free market, etc. are collective enterprises is always omitted from the equation. Either you're the sort of reactionary fool who champions individual freedoms -- indistinguishable from the sort of idiot who'd fight the Wehrmacht with muskets -- or you understand that now is the time for collective action. The problem is that devotion to our individual freedoms isn't merely a "constant of our character" (and would that that were still as true as it once was) it's also a bedrock principle of our constitutional order. That principle is not like a musket or a whale oil lantern or an 8-track tape. And comparing it to one is a horrible category error. -- Jonah Goldberg
Hat-tip: Terri
The difference between Jonah's "collective enterprises" and the President's promise of a pervasive protection from risk is that the former is voluntary and reversible, while Barack Obama's "commitments we make to each other" are mandatory and irrevocable.
If I make a commitment to help my neighbor through tough times I can break that commitment if I discover some fecklessness on his part. When such help comes from government it is, so as to be "fair" and "non-discriminatory" entirely based on some metric of need and regardless of any judgement about the virtue of the recipient. A natural result of this is to promote greater "need" among the virtueless.
Posted by: johngalt at January 22, 2013 3:00 PMIt is well understood that the straw man version of the red herring fallacy is a staple of President Obama's speeches. Another less recognized but more destructive techniques is "package dealing."
One of the examples given at the link is the one the President used below to justify redistributive taxation, saying that social programs "free us." This is an attempt to equate economic power with political power.
Most people accept these equivocations--and yet they know that the poorest laborer in America is freer and more secure than the richest commissar in Soviet Russia. What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.Posted by: johngalt at January 22, 2013 3:13 PMThe difference between political power and any other kind of social "power" between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force.
January 16, 2013
Quote of the Day
[Instapundit] READER DENNIS MULCARE WRITES: "Perhaps, if you can encourage your readers to have their young children write Obama about their angst regarding the national debt, he will publish 23 ways to address federal spending." -- his Glennness
January 15, 2013
Quote of the Day
So let's get this straight. Mr. Powell holds it "disgraceful" to allege anti-Semitism of politicians who invidiously use the phrase "the Jewish lobby." But he has no qualms about accusing Mr. Sununu--along whose side he worked during the George H.W. Bush administration--of all-but whispering the infamous N-word when he called Mr. Obama's first debate performance "lazy." -- Bret Stephens
January 11, 2013
QOTD II
I only have one peeve about this story and it has to do with the following question: Since when is it outrageous to suspect that a Clinton is being less than wholly forthcoming or honest? If doubting the veracity of a Clinton is outrageous, is it also outrageous to question why dogs attend to their nethers? Is it beyond the pale to ask why men slow down when walking by the Victoria's Secret display at the mall? Is it irresponsible to shout "Allahu Akbar! That's good coffee!" on a plane? Okay, maybe so on the last one, but you get my point. -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]Honorable mention from same G-File:
You have to admit it would have been cool if Boehner had shouted that at Obama during the negotiations with Eric Cantor -- saying in that monotone voice of his: "Who run Bartertown? Master Boehner run Bartertown."
January 9, 2013
QOTD II
When I was reporting on Wall Street, I used to be told with some regularity that government was needed to counteract the short-term thinking of the business sector, who never thought much beyond the next quarterly earnings report. This now seems as quaintly adorable as picture hats and daily milk deliveries. An ADHD day trader with a cocaine habit and six months to live has considerably more long-term planning skills than our current congress. -- Megan McArdle
January 7, 2013
Quote of the Day
Take, for instance, Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, who flatly titles a post on the subject "No, a $1 Trillion Platinum Coin Is Not Legal." Drum, doubting there is enough of the requisite straitjacket brand of strict constructionism in the U.S. court system to uphold such a tortured reading of the statute, dismisses the ploy as "the kind of thing that Herman Cain would come up with" (the dread reductio ad Hermanum, a conversation-stopper in progressive circles). -- Daniel Foster NRO
December 31, 2012
Quote of the Day
In other words, a household with two people earning a little under €1 million would not be subject to the tax, while an individual making even a dollar more than €1 million would have to pay. So while it is fair to take 75% of what someone earns, it isn't fair unless the law confiscates 75% from all rich households equally. Come to think of it, that sort of social and economic leveling was the point of the French Revolution. -- WSJ Ed Page
December 28, 2012
Quote of the Day
Mr. President, your entire campaign platform was redistribution. Take from the rich and give to the . . . Well, actually, you didn't mention the poor. What you talked and talked about was the middle class, something most well-off Americans consider themselves to be members of. So your plan is to take from the more rich and the more or less rich and give to the less rich, more or less. It is as if Robin Hood stole treasure from the Sheriff of Nottingham and bestowed it on the Deputy Sheriff. -- The One, the Only, P.J. O'Rourke
December 27, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
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Final Jeopardy:
Category: American Economics.
The answer is:
"Three American sectors of business in which left-wing economic policy has resulted in a working stimulus, as an unintended consequence." Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question.
Dum-de-dum, dah-dah dum-de-dum; dum-dee-dum-dee DAH! Da-da-da-da-da..."
Alex, what are:
(1) Chick-Fil-A.
(2) Papa John's.
(3) Gun and ammo manufacturers.
I hope you wagered it all...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 27, 2012 5:19 PMWould bet the farm on you every time, KA. Every time.
We'll miss you tonight. And BR and Bryan and ...
Posted by: johngalt at December 28, 2012 5:00 PMDecember 20, 2012
QOTD II
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took a more threatening tack: "Major corporations, including the video game industry, make billions on marketing and selling violent content to children. They have a responsibility to protect our children. If they do not, you can count on the Congress to take a more aggressive role." Seriously? If violence in media causes violence in the real world, how do they explain that homicides are less than half as common today as they were in 1980, before video games took off?Does anyone think the new film of "Anna Karenina" will cause a rash of train suicides? Has Rockefeller heard of the First Amendment? -- Steve Chapman
December 19, 2012
Quote of the Day
"There is no, 'Trust us, changes are coming' clause in the Constitution," Judge Brian Cogan wrote in his ruling in favor of the Archdiocese of New York two weeks ago. "To the contrary, the Bill of Rights itself, and the First Amendment in particular, reflect a degree of skepticism towards governmental self-restraint and self-correction." -- Joel Gehrke
December 18, 2012
Quote of the Day
The Patriots play football the way I imagine the ancient Romans would have. Rationally. Cruelly. Without mistakes and with the maximum amount of preparation. The Patriots play with pagan wisdom: "We'll take the material world. You take the miracles." Even the manner in which they lose speaks volumes about who they are. The two defeats to the Giants in the Super Bowl required two of the most miraculous plays of the decade -- "The Catch" by David Tyree and the spectacular 38-yard completion to Mario Manningham that was in bounds by the most ridiculously small of margins. The Patriots versus the Broncos seemed like a contest between the visible world and the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.-- Stephen Marche: Let My Tebow Go.A very good article. HT: Blog friend sc via email.
"The Raiders play football the was I imagine the ancient French would have. Clumsily. Comically. Without victory and with the maximum amount of irony. The Raiders play with Gallic insouciance..."
C'mon, it was your first thought, too. You know it. Well, okay, it was my second thought, rather than my first; I did, after all, see the end of the Jets' destruction last night. I'd nominate the announcer's words after the Jet's final offensive play for a second football Quote of the Day:
"And that's how the game should end for the Jets. That's how the season should end for the Jets. Ugly."
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 18, 2012 3:21 PMNo sir, thou art cleverer than me -- I did not get that far.
I did have this nightmare last night that I was reincarnated as a gifted athlete, but because of an ancient gypsy curse that I was drafted to play QB for the Jets. Gotta cut those late night cappuccinos...
Posted by: jk at December 18, 2012 3:35 PMDon't get me wrong I hate the Patriots but please tell me why doing something rationally is automatically also doing it cruelly? Why are the 2 words inseparable?
Posted by: dagny at December 18, 2012 4:12 PMI cannot say this within earshot of some ThreeSourcers, but I actually like the Pats. You can't read Tedy Bruschi's book and not have some respect for the organization. It was torture for me to cheer on the loathsome 49ers -- but Bronco seed advantage comes first.
Marche is a gifted writer and subject to strict NYTimes editing (don't laugh, if it is not about guns or Republicans, the Grey Lady is quite factual). That he chose to specify "Rationally. Cruelly. Without mistakes and with the maximum amount of preparation" clearly indicates that they are not synonymous.
If ancient Roman military might had never managed more than the battlefield equivalent of 3 Super Bowl wins by a total of 9 points against mostly mediocre opponents, Rome would never have progressed beyond a collection of mud huts clustered beside the Tiber River. Oh, and that's assuming that in the run up to those 3 victories the Roman legions had been able to deploy AWACs and knew what their opponents were planning.
Posted by: AndyN at December 18, 2012 5:45 PMSnap!
Posted by: johngalt at December 18, 2012 6:39 PMDecember 17, 2012
Quote of the Day
There is also a matter of principle. Distributional fairness is in the eyes of the beholder. The line between a fair distribution of the tax burden and spiteful egalitarianism is unclear. But many of us believe that placing the full burden of deficit reduction on the top two percent of taxpayers goes too far. After all, if 98 percent of the voters can exempt themselves while raising taxes on just the top two percent -- who already pay 45 percent of all personal income taxes -- where will the process stop? -- Martin Feldstein in a great article about the fiscal cliff.
December 11, 2012
Quote of the Day
While chatting over coffee, a friend of The Refugee observed:
You can choose your course or action, but you can't choose the consequence of that action.The Refugee will not provide attribution, as he's not sure the friend would want it nor if it is truly original to that friend. However, it seemed a rather profound observation that certainly applies to economics and many (perhaps all) aspects of life.
Two thoughts.
1. Mmmm coffee.
2. I dunno, bro. I think a grown up assigns a certain probability to potential consequences and assesses risk accordingly. "How did I know that lighted match was gonna start a fire?"
I have heard and frequently quote (and need someday to learn details) that Judaism requires a donor to be responsible for efficacy and consequences of charity. I like that -- I was raised on "well, you tried" if you give $500 to a junkie to pay his rent.
My problem with the quote is its seeming absolution for such an assessment -- me miss something?
Missed jg's in the aether -- I think he and I may be closer on this one.
Posted by: jk at December 11, 2012 2:50 PMThe Refugee is always up for coffee. We're kinda overdue.
The Refugee considers this thought in these practical contexts: you can't take out a student loan and then be angry at the bank for expecting it to be paid back; you can't tax producers and fail to recognize what causes unemployment; you can't decide to work a strict 40 hour week and then complain that you neighbor, who works 80 hours, has a larger house; you can't live on other people's money for decades and then riot when they stop giving it to you.
Just to name a few.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at December 11, 2012 3:51 PMEnglish is a tricky language. I (and, I am guessing, jg) read the exact opposite: that I am not liable for the consequences because "how are you ever going to know? You can't choose consequences..."
I assumed one of my Facebook frineds had stolen your password.
Posted by: jk at December 11, 2012 4:05 PMAnd, I'm sorry jg, if you really miss the twenty that much, I'll give it back. I had no idea...
Posted by: Jk at December 12, 2012 4:16 AMHow about this then, as being more in line with BR's examples: "You can choose your course or action, but the consequences are beyond your control. If a consequence is predictable, and avoidance of it desirable, then choose accordingly."
Posted by: johngalt at December 12, 2012 2:26 PMDecember 5, 2012
Quote of the Day
But I don't blame Bob Costas. I blame the microphone. I blame the microphone. If that microphone hadn't been on, nobody would know what Costas said. If you stop and think about it, it's the microphone's fault. Costas, he's up there, he's in the broadcast booth at halftime. -- Rush Limbaugh via Ed Driscoll
December 4, 2012
RAHQOTD
Been far too long since the last Heinlein quote of the day and I was handed the perfect segue for one of my favorites. In fact, I can't believe I've not quoted this one here yet but a site search for "sonnet" produced no hits.
Repeat commenter Steve D (more please!) sez [fifth comment]: "No one human being can do everything, nor should he." I've read the one about nobody knowing how to do everything to make a simple wooden pencil, and I'm not advocating that someone quit his day job and go into business competing with Eberhard Faber or Blackfoot Indian Writing Company (they still around?) But I will say that an industrious enough person could make a pencil all by himself, if necessary. It would take days and cost much more but it could be done if, say, the free market were ever effectively outlawed by one too many mandate or tax.
The comment was in a thread discussing comparative advantage, but that contributor to efficiency and prosperity is a luxury that requires a basic framework of free trade before it can be brought to bear. Sometimes this doesn't exist, either in a revolution or on a frontier. It is in that environment where one does well to heed the advice of the Sci-Fi master:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - RAH, 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
David Ricardo is having a rough week 'round these parts...
Posted by: jk at December 4, 2012 7:45 PMNot sayin' he's wrong, just that he'd have a hard time surviving in the jungle.
Posted by: johngalt at December 6, 2012 6:07 PMYet, curiously, the best way to learn is to be marooned on a desert island
Posted by: jk at December 6, 2012 6:50 PMNovember 19, 2012
Quote of the Day
Our contemporary hunger for equality can border on the comical. When my six-year-old son came home from first grade with a fancy winner's ribbon, I was filled with pride to discover that he had won a footrace. While I was heaping praise on him, he interrupted to correct me. "No, it wasn't just me," he explained. "We all won the race!" He impatiently educated me. He wasn't first or second or third--he couldn't even remember what place he took. Everyone who ran the race was told that they had won, and they were all given the same ribbon. "Well, you can't all win a race," I explained to him, ever-supportive father that I am. That doesn't even make sense. He simply held up his purple ribbon and raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say, "You are thus refuted." . . . -- Prof. Stephen T. Asma in his new book "Against Fairness" (University of Chicago Press)
Twinkies? You guys don't hate Twinkies.
Posted by: Sugarchuck at November 19, 2012 12:10 PMI wrote derisively of Twinkies. H8r!
Posted by: jk at November 19, 2012 12:16 PMAnd I thought MLK had been defended.
As for fair or fairness, the objective version is a virtue; the subjective or redistributive version a vice. For it necessarily contradicts objective fairness in the way it treats the redistribution victim, i.e. redistributant (as opposed to redistributee at the hands of a redistributor.) Too much? Okay. Redistribution Victim.
Posted by: johngalt at November 19, 2012 2:47 PMUmm, brother jg, on other sites, you'll find that MLK does not need defending.
Posted by: jk at November 19, 2012 3:48 PMFair enough but in defense of any partial or temporary criticisms appearing here I'll suggest that celebrity or popularity doesn't confer exemption from critical inquiry. On other sites, Che Guevera does not need defending.
Posted by: johngalt at November 19, 2012 6:13 PMNo, I'm proud to be among the iconoclasts. Just reminded of the uphill battles we face.
Posted by: jk at November 19, 2012 7:29 PMNovember 13, 2012
Quote of the Day
Blog Brother AlexC on Facebook:
Holy crap, this is an actual love pentagon.
Look at the bright side, ThreeSourcers. By all early indications, we have a sex scandal where there may have been actual sex. Very rare these days...
Posted by: jk at November 13, 2012 12:52 PMI hadn't thought of it that way, but let's see--Clinton, well, depends on the definition but he wasn't enough of a MAN to have my definition, Craig (no), Chris Lee (no), The Weiner (no), Eric Massa (no), Herman Cain (no), Mark Souder (yes). So that's something.
In the good old days they actually had real sex. Way too many email and picture scandals now. How utterly weak.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at November 14, 2012 8:13 PMNovember 12, 2012
RAHQOTD
In honor of General David Petraeus and his "shameful" behavior.
Geniuses and supergeniuses always make their own rules on sex as on everything else; they do not accept the monkey customs of their lessers. -RAH 'Friday' (1983)
Forcing my hand on Wednesday's:
she never wondered whether he was true to her or not; she knew he was. She knew, even though she was too young to know the reason, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence were possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil.
Rand, Ayn (2005-04-21). Atlas Shrugged: (Centennial Edition) (p. 109). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition. Posted by: jk at November 12, 2012 7:28 PM
Left to the reader: are the Heinlein and Rand quotes contradictory?
Posted by: jk at November 12, 2012 8:17 PMIn short: No.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at November 14, 2012 1:32 PMAgreed. Thanks for playing.
Posted by: jk at November 14, 2012 2:42 PMNovember 11, 2012
Quote of the Day
I'm beginning to think, though, that in real life Joss Whedon would have been on the side of the Alliance. -- Glenn ReynoldsAmen, Professor R.
I hope the Firefly fans around here watch "Castle" with Nathan Fillion; it's quite good. They drop little easter-egg Firefly references frequently, which is fun, but last Monday's -- hidden behind all the election nonsense -- was an outright homage. If you don't watch it, you should try and catch this episode, "The Final Frontier," on Hulu or something.
You're right on both counts. The Alliance and Castle.
Last week's episode was very fun.
Captain Max and Chloe... Castle saying "that Joss Whedon show..." Great stuff!
Posted by: Jk at November 11, 2012 8:21 PMNovember 10, 2012
Make the nation's top earners "pay their fair share."
In light of last week's election, and the President's promise to do the above, I'm compelled to reprint the October 19, 2010 ASQOTD.
And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any person who's ever preached the slogan: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'"This was the whole secret of it. At first, I kept wondering how it could be possible that the educated, the cultured, the famous men of the world could make a mistake of this size and preach, as righteousness, this sort of abomination - when five minutes of that should have told them what would happen if somebody tried to practice what they preached. Now I know that they didn't do it by any kind of mistake. Mistakes of this size are never made innocently. If men fall for some vicious piece of insanity, when they have no way to make it work and no possible reason to explain their choice - it's because they have a reason that they do not wish to tell. And we weren't so innocent either, when we voted for the plan at the first meeting. We didn't do it just because we believed that the drippy old guff they spewed was good. We had another reason, but the guff helped us to hide it from our neighbors and from ourselves. The guff gave us a chance to pass off as virtue something that we'd be ashamed to admit otherwise. There wasn't a man voting for it who didn't think that under a setup of this kind he'd muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn't a man rich and smart enough but that he didn't think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would give him a share of his better's wealth and brain. But while he was thinking that he'd get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men below who'd get unearned benefits, too. He forgot about all his inferiors who'd rush to drain him just as he hoped to drain his superiors. The worker who liked the idea that his need entitled him to a limousine like his boss's, forgot that every bum and beggar on earth would come howling that their need entitled them to an icebox like his own. That was our real motive when we voted - that was the truth of it - but we didn't like to think it, so the less we liked it, the louder we yelled about our love for the common good.
November 9, 2012
Quote of the Day
Imagine if this set an example for everyone, and every adulterer resigned from his/her job. Civilization would collapse, no? It would be worse than "going Galt" if everyone goes Petraeus. -- Ann Althouse
I dunno. This is not a garden variety affair. Anyone in our intelligence services committing such an act is open to blackmail.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at November 10, 2012 12:08 AMI think I have to disagree with both you and Ann.
On the one hand, if every adulterer felt too much shame to remain in high-profile positions of authority, I think civilization would be stronger. Accepting personal responsibilities for your shortcomings and thereby setting a higher moral standard for others is never a bad thing.
On the other hand, you only leave yourself open to blackmail if you try to keep it a secret. We all make mistakes, some much bigger than others, the key is to acknowledge them and try to overcome them. It might have ended his marriage, but if he'd told his wife what he'd done he would have eliminated any leverage his mistress had on him.
Posted by: AndyN at November 10, 2012 7:48 AMNovember 8, 2012
Quote of the Day II
From a comment to Kyle Smith's Finita La Commedia (RTWT). I pretty much agree with Kyle; as I noted in the comments below I am doing what I hereby acronym as GLG (Going Limited Galt). I will concentrate on family, local and state. As far as FedGov, haters gonna hate.
Anyway, to the witty and doubleplus good QOTD II:
What could be more important to two people who love each other and want to spend their lives together than to have America’s federal government, through official bureaucratic processes and hence in some vague, attenuated, abstract, disembodied, impersonal and unintentional sense verify or certify their love, governmentally? What’s $16 trillion dollars of debt when compared to that?
Quote of the Day
First a little paperwork: blog friend Sugarchuck requests and is hereby granted QOTD honors for his pithy and poignant election summary of eight letters and an ellipsis.
Today's comes from Dan Henninger:
There's that famous saying: Is this a great country or what? With the way Barack Obama achieved his re-election, that's a good question: Or what?
Mine was going to be just four letters, and an ellipsis. But well said!
Posted by: johngalt at November 8, 2012 1:25 PMNovember 6, 2012
Quote of the Day
A two-fer from Kurt Schuler @ freebanking.org
"The people have spoken, the bastards." -- Dick Tuck, in his concession speech in a race for the California State Senate in 1966"Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And -- since women are a majority of the population -- we'd all be married to Mel Gibson." -- P. J. O'Rourke, 1991
November 5, 2012
Quote of the Day
At times, it seems almost as if President Obama wants to impose the failed Illinois model on the whole country. Each year of his presidency has produced unsustainable deficits, and he takes no responsibility for his spending. Worse still, unemployment has become chronic, and many Americans have given up on looking for work. -- Sheldon AdelsonA stunning piece ("I Didn't Leave the Democrats. They Left Me"), holler if you want it emailed.
November 2, 2012
Quote of the Day
Responding to a tweet from Sec. Robert Reich "Will we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable under President Obama, or do the exact opposite under President Romney?"
But let's get back to the economic part. Is there a clearer example of how envy lurks just under the surface of liberalism? According to this axiom comfort is a kind of sin that must be punished. Those who posses must be afflicted. This is the logic of Jacobinism, Bolshevism, and the forces of Bane in the last Batman movie. Our progressives may not carry it out to the same extreme, and that's an important distinction. But the very idea that these people think they are the arbiters of who is comfortable and that the job falls to them to afflict those who possess it is disgusting. H. L. Mencken defined puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Well, is there any more perfect distillation of the puritanical spirit than in the secular divinization of envy we call leftism? -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
I hope you do subscribe; the whole piece is a superb, philosophical, ThreeSources-friendly exegesis on the politics of envy. And, as it is Jonah, it has Star Wars references and a urinal joke.
October 26, 2012
QOTD II
If you've spent much time in hospitals, you know that they are battlegrounds for the war between the medicinal scents and various human odors. My [Hotel] room smells a bit like David Axelrod these days, by which I mean it has the vague scent of urine, desperation, and failure to it, damped down by too little Lysol. -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
Bonus Jonah link: Six college pranks we wish we'd thought of
October 19, 2012
Quote of the Day
But the single biggest metaphorical crotch-kick of the night came from great-grandson Al Smith IV, who told President Obama, "We recognize that you have some challenges this year. It's never good when your opponent has produced more sons than you have jobs." -- via Jim Geraghty [video]
I hope this doesn't get out, the President is absolutely charming here.
Posted by: jk at October 19, 2012 10:48 AMYou are so right, brother jk. It's really the most I've ever liked the guy. If I didn't think he was ruining the country with his policies I'd vote for him...
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at October 19, 2012 5:26 PMWow, not my reaction at all. I thought he was likeable to an average degree but no more. His jokes were bare minimum grade funny. His demeanor was depressed. I viewed him as a pathetic character worthy of pity. I actually felt sorry for him - trying to campaign on his record is its own form of Sissyphean undertaking.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, was confident, hilariously funny and - absolutely charming. His wit was mercilessly biting. "In the spririt of Sesame Street, the Obama Administration is brought to you by the letter "O" and the number "16 trillion." OUCH!
It was reported that after the speeches everyone wanted to meet Mitt, even the liberals.
Posted by: johngalt at October 19, 2012 6:54 PMLet me try an olive branch... each showed an unexpected side. Romney was surprisingly biting. I, too, dug several of the lines but was pretty surprised at their ferocity. Plus, Gov. Romney's close was solid gold. I'd buy all the TV time in Ohio and run that as an ad.
Where one expected nice Romney and got fierce Romney, I was expecting fierce-bordering-on-petty Obama. A little self-effacing humor, however, really serves the President well. Had he mastered that as well as he does it here, he would be up 20 points in the polls.
Now I have watched Romney and I agree he was very strong indeed.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at October 19, 2012 9:22 PMI told him so in person Saturday night but I want to note for the record that I agree with jk's assessment of the nuances of the two men's presentations. And the president was self-effacing, to a point. But I think I've seen that from him before, at least in deference to Michele if none else. I just don't think whatever charm he might have displayed outweighed the other characteristics I listed above.
Posted by: johngalt at October 22, 2012 2:35 PMOctober 10, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
The re-election campaign of the President who allowed America's Ambassador to Libya to be murdered on the anniversary of 9/11, and claimed for a week that the deaths were a consequence of a completely unrelated event, is now focusing its attention on Mitt Romney's promise to cut funding for PBS and "Big Bird." My dagny answered swiftly and succinctly this morning:
"I'd rather spend the $445 million annual federal subsidy to Big Bird on more security for our ambassador to Libya."
(If you click through, don't miss the last paragraph of each article.)
October 8, 2012
Quote of the Day
The Obama campaign has gone through its own version of seven stages of grief since Wednesday night. First it was Juan Williams denying Obama did a poor job, then they blamed everything from the altitude to Jim Lehrer to John Kerrey, and now they've settled on calling Mitt Romney a liar. -- Amelia Chasse
September 27, 2012
Quote of the Day
Elizabeth Warren is the Madame Defarge of our shining city on the Potomac; the preeminent tricoteuse of our regulatory state. If Senator Brown isn't making an issue of it, that's because Professor Warren's ideological knitting isn't an electoral vulnerability. It is her principal asset--certainly in Massachusetts, and (I'd wager) in virtually every other state in the nation. The demand for her politics of resentment and regulation is broad and authentic. The case against it is obvious. Alas, it can no longer be explained. -- Michael S. GreveI've picked an amusing conclusion to a serious piece on the proper role of government. Greve asks, as we all do, why we fight over the minutiae of gotcha quotes and petty personal behavior when there are obvious and massive philosophical questions.
Oh, and hat-tip: Instapundit
Favorite line (other than your excerpt, of course):
"The folks who tell me to buy a paintbrush are the same people who tell our children to buy their own contraceptives. This is a crisis. Where is the government?"Posted by: johngalt at September 27, 2012 11:24 AM
Yup.
Posted by: jk at September 27, 2012 11:28 AMCould it be that more Americans live in older houses because our government values spotted owl habitat or "old growth forests" more than jobs and prosperity?
Or perhaps it has something to do with that 2008 collapse of the housing price bubble, which has since made much of the existing housing stock half as costly while material costs to build new homes continue to march onward and upward with the inflationary tsunamis called QE, QE2 and QE-threeeeeee!
But I don't know, I'm just a simple American trying to get by in flyover country. Who can understand all of the complex interrelations? Who can explain why anything is the way it is? Who can ever make things work again? Who is John Galt?
Posted by: johngalt at September 27, 2012 11:31 AMSeptember 26, 2012
QOTD II
PAUL RYAN HAS A COOL SENSE OF HUMOR, riffing on somebody else's remark that his future political career will require that he "wash the stench of Romney off of him." He's saying things on the campaign bus like "If Stench calls, take a message" and "Tell Stench I'm having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later." But he has political antagonists, and if they get humor they'll pretend not to. It's a shame. I like quirky humor! -- Ann AlthouseUPDATE: Fake? UPDATE II: Worse: satire!
UPDATE III: David Burge (@iowahawkblog) 9/26/12 2:48 PM @politico if you promise to stay out of the satire biz, I'll promise to stay out of the Obama stenography biz.
September 21, 2012
Quote of the Day
A Muslim world that can take to the streets, as far away as Jakarta, in protest against a vulgar film depiction of the Prophet Muhammad--yet barely call up a crowd on behalf of a Syrian population that has endured unspeakable hell at the hands of the dictator Bashar al-Assad--is in need of self-criticism and repair. We do these societies no favor if we leave them to the illusion that they can pass through the gates of the modern world carrying those ruinous ideas. -- Fouad Ajami
My sense from this side of the planet is that the muslim street is being whipped into these frenzys on demand by a small group of "community organizer" types, in the model of Sharpton and Jackson, et. al. We don't really need to have it out with all the muslims, just the self-interested rabble rousers.
Posted by: johngalt at September 22, 2012 1:24 AMSeptember 18, 2012
Quote of the Day
Perhaps my favorite of all time -- and I am not going to mention drugs:
That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right. -- JS Mill
This comes from a smart Richard Epstein piece on religious fundamentalism versus Mill and Locke.
Nothing that would interest anybody around here...
Hat-tip: Insty
September 17, 2012
RAHQOTD
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.-RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
Any questions?
September 14, 2012
Quote of the Day
It's too late to get into all of it. But the whole thing [DNC2012] was sort of like an informercial homage to my oeuvre. In Liberal Fascism, I argue that liberalism is a political religion of the sort discussed by Eric Voegelin and championed by the progressive intellectuals like Richard Ely and Woodrow Wilson. They want to replace the Founders' vision of the government being (and here I am harkening back to my prison analogy) the Peoples' bitch and replace it with the Hegelian notion of the God-State where everyone is organically bound together and our collective will is expressed through the State. As (the Hegelian) Mussolini proclaimed in his definition of fascism, "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state." Or as the producers of the Democratic National Convention's introductory video put it, "Government is the one thing we all belong to." -- Jonah Golberg [subscribe]UPDATE: Jonah is on Devil's Advocate tonight: "host Jon Caldara is joined by National Review Online Editor-at-Large Jonah Golberg to discuss Jonahs new book, 'The Tyranny of Cliches.' That's 8:30 PM tonight on Colorado Public Television 12."
September 13, 2012
RAHQOTD
In a comment to last week's Hope-a-Dope post, brother Ellis made a reference to 'Have Spacesuit - Will Travel.' It pained me that I couldn't come up with a clever acknowledgement of his obscure reference. But this morning, the events of September 11, 2012 led to my recollection of another passage from that title. It speaks to the practice of exposing oneself to a visibly unprotected life amongst others who have proven by their past behavior to be hostile to your very existence - for the misguided purpose of showing that you "trust" and "respect" those others, and seek to live happily ever after in coexistence with them. That was, it now appears, the intention of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton's foreign policy in Libya.
We lived like that “Happy Family“ you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.--RAH 'Have Spacesuit - Will Travel' (1958)
Spot. On!
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at September 13, 2012 4:56 PMSeptember 7, 2012
Quote of the Day
One from "Our Margaret." You can accuse me of offering it only because she is whacking the Democrats and the President. Fair cop, gov! But she can still put the words one after another and make beautiful art out of punditry:
There was the relentless emphasis on Government as Community, as the thing that gives us spirit and makes us whole. But government isn't what you love if you're American, America is what you love. Government is what you have, need and hire. Its most essential duties--especially when it is bankrupt--involve defending rights and safety, not imposing views and values. We already have values. Democrats and Republicans don't see all this the same way, and that's fine--that's what national politics is, the working out of this dispute in one direction or another every few years. But the Democrats convened in Charlotte seemed more extreme on the point, more accepting of the idea of government as the center of national life, than ever, at least to me. -- Peggy Noonan
September 4, 2012
Idiot Quote of the Day
"The reason the economics fail in the US is not a failure of Wind, its a failure of greedy corporations to allocate costs in a manner that is for the common good. Energy is like air - it comes from God and should not be for-profit. COOPs are the most cost efficient way to deliver electricity. Remove the corporate overhead with multi-million dollar salaries for CEO's and the economics of wind are obvious."
Posted 3 hours ago as a comment on a blog post at one of my engineering trade magazines. The post itself is noteworthy, for it represents the first I can remember where the realities of alternative energy sources are given as much weight as the pollyanna political correctness.
And then there is the cost of wind per MW hr with the subsidy included. Without the subsidy - fuggedaboutit. And it looks like the forgetting will be happening soon. The tax credits for "alternative" (read unreliable) energy have not been renewed. What was that again? Renewables have not been renewed? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? There is a simple explanation.Wind power does not succeed by capturing wind. It succeeds by capturing government.
"... the economics of wind are obvious..."
I've got your "obvious" right here...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at September 4, 2012 3:43 PMSeptember 3, 2012
Quote of the Day
It's a delicate proposition, warning voters that they might be too stupid and/or venal to understand a politician's brilliance. We don't know yet how that strategy will pay off in the voting booth, but if the president and his party get the kid-gloves treatment from the media this week after the RNC festival of overheated fact-checking, then the institution of political journalism may creep into still more unchartered territory: taking sides in the very polarization it usually claims to abhor. -- Matt Welch: Obama, Democrats, and the Media: You Can't Handle the 'Truth'
August 31, 2012
Quote of the Day
[Convention organizers] have turned friendly little Tampa into something very unpleasantly resembling a prison camp, complete with rooftop patrols, combat gear, gunboats with weapons mounted on monopods, Green Zone-style barriers -- the whole works. It is all very un-republican, though it has been conducted with a great deal more professionalism and courtesy than one experiences at the hands of the TSA. Still, it is kind of gross: Either this sort of thing is necessary or it is unnecessary, and neither possibility says anything good about the state of our republic. -- Kevin Williamson (via Jim Geraghty)They're doing the TSA impersonations at NFL games now. I think we need a little more Penn Jilette and less Old Aunt Sally.
August 29, 2012
Quote of the Day
As a matter of logic, of course, an endorsement from the candidate's spouse ought to be heavily discounted. And while a lovely wife and family is one measure of a man's success, it doesn't ensure that he will be an effective leader. Obama is a case in point. But if the Democrats are going to take the tack of making Romney out to be some kind of beast, it doesn't hurt to have a beauty make the case for him. -- James Taranto
It recently occurred to me that this election features the hottest foursome of P/VP wives since heck, I don't know, evah? Jill Biden is strikingly good-looking and I have no idea how Slowjoe won her over. Mrs. Obama is very attractive when she smiles. Not so much when she contemplates the awfulness of the country that elected her husband First Citizen. Maybe after the election and her return to Chicago she'll be more relaxed and have that lovely look more often.
Ann Romney is meeoowww! Janna R., ditto! I am enjoying this part of the election very much.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at August 29, 2012 8:26 PMAgree with all your points. But I cannot locate a picture of Mrs. Kefauver...
Posted by: jk at August 30, 2012 9:58 AMAugust 27, 2012
RAHQOTD
I've been waiting for a good opportunity to use another great quote from Life-Line. My star rating on the D'Souza film today is good enough to let it fly:
"If what he has to say is false, it can not harm us. If what he has to say is true, we should know it."--RAH 'Life-Line' (1939)
August 24, 2012
RAHQOTD
As an attempt to conclude the free-banking discussion that became a high-level abortion rights debate:
"The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy -- a pregnant woman."--RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
August 22, 2012
RAHQOTD
As promised yesterday.
"Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid dolts! Your kind have blocked the recognition of every great discovery since time began. Such ignorant canaille are enough to start Galileo spinning in his grave. That fat fool down there twiddling his elk's tooth calls himself a medical man. Witch doctor would be a better term! That little bald-headed runt over there -- You! You style yourself a philosopher, and prate about life and time in your neat categories. What do you know of either one? How can you ever learn when you won't examine the truth when you have a chance? Bah!"--RAH 'Life-Line' (1939)
I've read "Life-Line" many times but never really thought about the wonderful word "canaille": an ignorant rabble, a mob; literally, a pack of dogs.
There are just so many people this could be applied to! The MSM, TSA, hell, whole bunches of federal bureaucrats, etc.
Might we even say that Todd Akin is a "one-man canaille"?
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at August 22, 2012 4:04 PMDuring our recent re-reading I realized I had read it previously but had dissociated the name from the story in my memory. We also spent quite a time discussing "canaille" and trying to solidify the word in our vocabularies.
Posted by: johngalt at August 22, 2012 8:40 PMAugust 18, 2012
RAHQOTD
Well, maybe he believed and maybe he didn't, but apparently he didn't spend much time fretting about it.
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?--RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
August 16, 2012
RAHQOTD
I had best post this one today, before Ellis Wyatt does.
"The Almighty-God idea came under attack because it explained nothing; it simply pushed all explanations one stage farther away. In the nineteenth century atheistic positivism started displacing the Almighty-God notion in that minority of the population that bathed regularly. Atheism had a limited run, as it, too, explains nothing, being merely Godism turned upside down."--RAH 'The Cat Who Walked Through Walls' (1985)
A very good point. One of the (many) things that is so satisfying to me about Bill Patterson's RAH biography is that it clarifies that he was not a strict materialist; he believed in some form of mind/spirit surviving after death, and spoke favorably of his wife's Wiccan-type efforts to quiet a ghost in their Hollywood Hills home.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at August 16, 2012 7:53 PMOtequay of the Ayday
"We're going around the country, talking about, ‘How do we put people back to work? How do we improve our schools? How do we make sure that we're producing American energy? How do we lower our debt in a responsible way?' And I don't think you or anybody who's been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country. We've always tried to bring the country together," President Obama said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Well, perhaps just 99 percent of the country.
August 15, 2012
RAHQOTD
Today's entry is a two-fer on the subject of human overcrowding and political philosophy.
"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.""Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow room is pleasanter -- and much safer."
--RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
UPDATE: It's a THREE-fer!
"Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself."(Also from 'Time Enough for Love')
Yes I have read more than this one Heinlein work. However, if you only read one, this must be that one.
I'm going to come out squarely against Heinlein! It is Johnny Mercer week and "Fools Rush In" cannot be far behind...
But I reject this quote as neo-Malthusian in tone if not in content. Exciting, innovative, creative, wonderful Ricardian, Deepak Lal-ian things transpire when intellects join. It may be peaceful to have a farm in Weld County or your own spaceship, but I reject those who claim we cannot live together orderly just as I would harangue the radical environmentalist who wants us to live like indigenous Americans.
There you go. Y'all gonna take that?
I'm going to take a safe middle ground squarely between the two of you.
Elbow room? The last time I heard someone speechify about the need for Lebensraum, it led to some pretty disastrous results, though I doubt either JG or Heinlein are talking about a desire to annex the Sudetenland. But "crowded enough to require IDs" is a reference not just to crowds, but crowds of strangers. I can have lots of neighbors - if I know them and can trust them. It's not a problem in JK's context of "when intellects join." JK's milieu of a bunch of people who are willing to live and interact cooperatively ("live together orderly") is different from JG's milieu of the hoi polloi who live anonymously in what are unneighborly neighborhoods.
Witness the guy in today's news who got beaten senseless by six yoots - because they were bored.
If I were given the option to live amongst a population of JGs and JKs, sure, no problem. Like-minded (mostly), congenial; but drop me down in your average Detroit or Chicago neighborhood? I'd be longing for some elbow room.
So I'd offer that you're both right, but that the issue is not merely the number, but the nature, of the neighbors. The wrong ones would make me positively "unmutual" (bonus points to whoever gets that reference first).
Posted by: Keith Arnold at August 15, 2012 8:28 PMWhen I read this quote I think about Rand's 'Anthem' wherein the frustrated "citizen" and his correspondingly unmutual paramour found refuge on a mountain peak, completely removed from "civilization." The attribute being avoided is not overcrowding per se, but the authority that invariably comes along with it, as represented by identification documents. In my rural neighborhood no ID's are required. I know all of my neighbors in a 1-mile radius and anyone else who happens by generally has good intentions and is thus welcome to visit for a time. If they don't have good intentions, well, that is what dogs are for. (One thing, anyway.) Don't believe I've ever asked to see anyone's ID though. By the same token I still revel in my trips "into town" whether corporeally or telepresently.
"Unmutual." I learned the reference but won't claim the prize as discovering it required Binging. My unaided guess was that it came from the aforementioned 'Anthem.' I remember, from my youth, the name of the work which contained it but for whatever reason, never experienced it.
Posted by: johngalt at August 16, 2012 2:12 AMI don't know that annexing the Sudetenland into Weld County is a terrible idea...
Perhaps even Senator Goldwater would agree with moderation here. I was born in Denver and now get viscerally ill when I visit family, relaxing only as I cross 136th or so. This makes me a strange emissary for city life. I think I may have coined the term urbaphobe in the 1980s but there was no Google to verify.
Yet Libertarianism runs hand in hand with millenarianism and the utopian dreams of my leftist friends are not dissimilar to Rand's Atlantis except in economics.
Sam Colt in Connecticut, Silicon Valley, &c. launched humanity hundreds of years into the future -- perhaps the intertubes have obviated that but I am not certain. Don't everybody all wander off.
August 14, 2012
RAHQOTD
The "global fairness" ideology discussed today includes among it's tenets, "Cutting military expenditures; negotiating to eliminate all nuclear weapons; sharing R&D priorities towards pressing domestic needs; stopping NATO expansion; banning landmines; ending subsidies for arms exporters and arms transfers for dictators; banning covert operations; shifting from unilateral military aid and US-controlled peacekeeping missions abroad to multilateral responses; and promoting real human rights abroad." In short, the pacifist, peacenik "no-nukes" platform of the sixties - as though elimination of the tools of war will end war. Yet Robert A. Heinlein correctly explained pacifism to the world in 1973:
A "pacifist male" is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger.--RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
August 13, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
Such explosive growth in debt can't go on forever, and it won't. Yet our current leaders and their apologists insist that the problem will magically solve itself. Last year's deficit came in slightly below forecasts, and we've had one quarter of good economic growth -- see, we'll grow out of the deficit!(...)
Let's hope that works -- but hope is not a plan.
Just as the federal government is in no immediate danger of running out of money, our forces in Iraq are in no danger of outright defeat. But in both cases, current policies appear to be unsustainable: we can't go on like this indefinitely. And things that can't go on forever, don't.
Paul Krugman (2003)
Would that be "Nobel Laureate, Dr. Paul Krugman?"
Posted by: jk at August 13, 2012 5:17 PMHeh, not in 2003! :) And the "Dr." wasn't on his byline.
Posted by: johngalt at August 13, 2012 5:32 PMThe Times Style Guide eschews honorifics.
Posted by: jk at August 13, 2012 6:13 PMHe may not have been "Nobel Laureate, Dr. Paul Krugman" at that point, but I'm pretty sure he was already "former paid Enron economic adviser Paul Krugman" by then. A point that everyone who ever has to face off against him in public needs to remind their audience early and often.
Posted by: AndyN at August 13, 2012 9:46 PMAugust 12, 2012
Quote of the Day
When Ryan said in Norfolk, "We won’t replace our Founding principles, we will reapply them," he effectively challenged Obama to say what Obama believes, which is: Madison was an extremist in enunciating the principles of limited government -- the enumeration and separation of powers. And Jefferson was an extremist in asserting that government exists not to grant rights but to "secure" natural rights that pre-exist government. -- George Will
Obama is starting to take the bait. In an appearance on Saturday he said that Ryan's vision is one with which he "fundamentally disagrees."
Posted by: johngalt at August 13, 2012 11:53 AMOops ... PRESIDENT Obama.
Posted by: johngalt at August 13, 2012 11:56 AMAugust 11, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
Democrats will no doubt try to make Paul Ryan into a younger version of the devil they’ve tried to paint Mitt Romney as. But they should worry about fighting a campaign on fundamental issues in a weak economy. That’s precisely how Jimmy Carter, the last Democratic president to run for reelection during hard times, wound up losing so badly that it not only cost Democrats control of the U.S. Senate but damaging the liberal brand for years afterwards.- John Fund in 'Smart Democrats Should be Worried' at The Corner
August 9, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
NY Times - What Cornfields Show, Data Now Confirm: July Set Mark as U.S.’s Hottest Month
In the United States, the only hope for substantial relief from higher-than-average temperatures in the coming weeks and months would be a striking atmospheric change, like the development this autumn of the weather pattern known as El Niño or a tropical cyclone that moves into the central part of the country from the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said on Wednesday.
But, wasn't electing Barack Obama in 2008 supposed to accomplish this?
To deny the connection would be to thumb one's nose at science.
Posted by: jk at August 9, 2012 4:48 PMAugust 2, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
Ahmadinejad added that "liberating Palestine" would solve all the world's problems, although he did not elaborate on exactly how that might work.
--From a Jerusalem Post article, reporting a speech published on the Iranian president's website today renewing his call for "the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom."
July 31, 2012
RAHQOTD
On the occasion of presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's brief foreign tour coming to a close:
I believe in-- I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings, from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.-- RAH 'This I Believe' written for the Edward R. Murrow radio show (1952)
July 30, 2012
RAHQOTD
Cold comfort for Jordyn Wieber:
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.--RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
Yes, Jim
I have indeed had the same thought -- even before Nanny Bloomberg locked up the baby formula.
Is anyone else dumbfounded that the most draconian of food and health laws are being enacted in "hey, fuggedaboudit" New York City? This is the city of pugnacious tabloids, the mafia, Archie Bunker, Taxi Driver, Joe Namath -- this city used to define its identity through toughness, and defiance, and independence, and disregarding authority. And now some pint-size billionaire has decided he's the city's healthy-living messiah, sent to save us from ourselves, to use the power of government to force us to make what are considered the healthy choices . . . today. -- Jim Geraghty [subscribe]
THE GOOD NEWS: It's being done to promote breast-feeding.
THE BAD NEWS: New York City regulations now prohibit breasts larger than sixteen ounces.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 30, 2012 1:57 PMProps for the 16 oz. breasts joke but "promote" breast-feeding? What promotion does it need other than government minding its own business?
Posted by: johngalt at July 30, 2012 3:12 PMI used "promote" only because "impose" seems so heavy-handed.
That being said, the article I read mentioned that, because breast-feeding purportedly (and I use that would because I'm not a parent and have no knowledge myself) gives newborns a healthier start in life, Nanny Bloomberg has decided to go this route. Formula will be provided when requested, subject to the proviso that (a) momma must ask for it, and (b) she will get a sound scolding for asking.
I've read elsewhere that Nanny Bloomberg shall henceforth be known as Wet-Nurse Bloomberg as a result of this.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 30, 2012 3:31 PMIs that fair to wet-nurses? Seems an honorable profession?
Posted by: Jk at July 30, 2012 3:47 PMGet ready for the class-action lawsuit against baby formula "corporations" and the tobacco tax-like settlement with governments far and wide.
Posted by: johngalt at July 30, 2012 4:01 PMFrom the Wikipedia entry on "baby formula:"
"Meanwhile breastfeeding rates are substantially lower for WIC recipients;[75] this is partly attributed to formula being free of charge to mothers in the WIC program, who are of lower socio-economic status."
Dear Mayor Bloomberg- It would be simpler to just stop giving the crap away for free.
Posted by: johngalt at July 30, 2012 6:30 PMJuly 28, 2012
RAHQOTD - Post Facto Edition
I missed an important anniversary last week. It was overshadowed, temporarily, by the horrific acts of a sociopathic young man. In my adulthood I have generally categorized those younger than me as either pre- or post-moonwalk babies. Today's 'post facto' Heinlein quote celebrates the significance of that event, forty-three years ago.
This is the great day. This is the greatest event in all the history of the human race, up to this time. That is -- today is New Year's Day of the Year One. If we don't change the calendar, historians will do so. The human race -- this is our change, our puberty rite, bar mitzvah, confirmation, from the change of our infancy into adulthood for the human race. And we're going to go on out, not only to the Moon, to the stars; we're going to spread. I don't know that the United States is going to do it; I hope so. I have -- I'm an American myself; I want it to be done by us. But in any case, the human race is going to do it, it's utterly inevitable: we're going to spread through the entire universe.-- RAH in a live interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS News on the day of the first moonwalk (July 20, 1969)
Awesome. As we roll into an enhanced private role, I am starting to get excited again. Pity we squandered [not fair, went slowly for] 40 years, but the Deutsch Book, Planetary Resources, and Sir Richard Branson's forays provide hope.
Posted by: jk at July 28, 2012 10:59 AMJuly 24, 2012
RAHQOTD
Thanks to blog procreator JK for the subject of today's Heinlein quote:
Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist -- a master -- and that is what Auguste Rodin was -- can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be.... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart.... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired -- but it does to them. Look at her!-- RAH 'Stranger in a Strange Land' (1961)
July 20, 2012
QOTD II
A modest and civilized society would give room to the families and friends of the dead to begin to process their shattering losses. It would give room to the police to do their work and gather evidence. It would leave room for citizens of this nation to reflect with soberness and seriousness on what has happened; to participate, if only for a brief time, in a national mourning of sorts. And it might even resist the impulse to leverage a massacre into a political culture war. It would be helpful if members of the press and politicians understood this, and acted in a way that showed some measure of decency and compassion. -- Peter Wehner
Interesting. My first apartment was a block away from the suspect's; my first house about a mile from the crime scene.
Posted by: jk at July 20, 2012 8:25 PMDidn't L. Neil Smith's Probability Broach series center around Aurora? Also, have any of you ladies and gentlebeings met Mr. Smith? I have enjoyed his works for over 25 years.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at July 20, 2012 8:46 PMQuote of the Day
Chris Christie is not a wimp, a hippie, or a countercultural icon. He's not known for taking time out from budget negotiations to smoke dope, or for his sympathy for drug dealers.Yet he is a soft-liner on the war on drugs. That the combative New Jersey governor and Republican rock star -- just tapped to keynote the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla. -- vocally dissents from drug-war orthodoxy is another sign that the tectonic plates of the drug debate are shifting. Perhaps our appetite for spending billions and incarcerating millions, in the service of pieties immune to rational analysis, is not limitless after all. -- Rich Lowry
Today the world, tomorrow ThreeSources!
I'd like to show evidence of hypocrisy on Cristie's part, or at least a flip-flop, but I can't lay my hands on the article I remember reading last week saying Cristie wasn't likely to sign NJ bills to legalize pot and gay marriage. At least that is my recollection. It would seem that this mandatory drug treatment bill is a compromise he thought he could not be seen refusing.
For my part I'm glad to see this. The GOP must make a hard sell for the kiddie vote and Cristie is influential enough in the party to drag other opinion makers along with him, at least to a degree. Grizzled old TEA Partiers like me can approve on the basis of reduced goverment spending for fighting the so-called drug war.
Huzzah!
Posted by: johngalt at July 21, 2012 12:31 PMRAHQOTD
Bad people do bad things.
I've heard all the usual Sweetness and Light that kids get pushed at them -- how they should always forgive, how there's some good in the worst of us, etc. But when I see a black widow, I step on it; I don't plead with it to be a good little spider and please stop poisoning people. A black widow spider can't help it -- but that's the point.--RAH 'Have Space Suit - Will Travel' (1958)
A great quote from a great book. There is much more critique in it of "modern" education--published in 1958, many years before most people came to believe public ed had gone to hell.
I am happy to be back in touch--a week of vacation with very intermittent web connections has interrupted my "5 Best Songs Ever", amongst other things. Will be catching up in the next couple of days.
Posted by: Ellis Wyatt at July 20, 2012 6:39 PMJuly 19, 2012
RAHQOTD
Inspired by a Joss Whedon quote: "And nobody has the perfect answer."
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can -- and must -- be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly-- and no doubt will keep on trying.-- RAH 'Time Enough for Love (1973)
"Women and children first" also seems to be the search-and-grope guideline for the TSA Frottage Squad, if recent news articles about their perverted and humiliating incidents is any indication. I'm not sure they had Heinlein in mind, though.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 19, 2012 5:06 PMQuote of the Day
The popularization of Derridaian post-modernism since the 1990s has generally been a lot of fun, turning mainstream Americans into sharp observers of signs and meaning who are sure that either there's nothing outside the text or everything is outside the text or both. But at some point it helps to look at that thing above the subtext, which is generally known as "the text." Up to this point the presidential election has been Obama vs. Obama Junior. With "You didn't build that," which his campaign has made no effort to clarify or redirect, the president has drawn a line in the sand.
There is no nebulousness here. Beyond the paragraph quoted above, Obama calls government spending "the investments that grow our economy." He ridicules the tendency of Americans to brag about being hard workers with a variant of "So's your old man." ("Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.") He instinctively names "a great teacher" when looking for somebody to credit for causing success in the working world. The president has boldly presented his view on how an economy works. His supporters should give him the respect of taking his words seriously. -- Tim Cavenaugh
July 18, 2012
RAHQOTD
Can President Obama possibly believe all of his demagoguery, recent and otherwise?
A confidence man knows he's lying; that limits his scope. But a successful shaman believes what he says -- and belief is contagious; there is no limit to his scope.-- RAH 'Stranger in a Strange Land' (1961)
July 16, 2012
Quote of the Day
All Hail Taranto! On the President's "If you've got a business--you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen:"
Finally, Obama didn't even come up with this noxious idea himself. He ripped it off from Elizabeth Warren. First the white man steals her ancestors' land--well, 31/32nds of her ancestors steal the other 1/32nd's land, anyway--and now this.
RAHQOTD
As California cities declare bankruptcy like dominoes, a pair of them are now holding public hearings on a proposal to sieze underwater private homes from lenders via eminent domain, paying the lender a "fair value" for the property, then assisting the borrower in refinancing at a lower principal and with favorable interest rates. The scheme was apparently concocted by a private corporation:
Steven Gluckstern, chairman of the newly formed San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners, says his main concern is to help the economy, which is being held back by the mortgage crisis."This is not a bunch of Wall Street guys sitting around saying, 'How do we make money?'" he said. "This was a bunch of Wall Street guys sitting around saying, 'How do you solve this problem?'"
Thus preparing us for today's Heinlein quote:
Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.-- RAH 'Red Planet' (1949)
Otequay of the Ayday
"Every small business is not indebted to the government or some other benefactor. If anything, small businesses are historically an economic and job-creating powerhouse in spite of the government."-- NFIB Spokesman in response to President Obama's claim that "If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Speaking as a small business owner myself - http://www.masterescrow.com/ - I have a reaction to the SCOAMF's comment. My wife and I built this. With no assistance and a full complement of interference from government. Reading someone who's never held a responsible private sector job in his life and who wouldn't be able to run a dog-walking business at a profit say that makes steam whistle from my ears.
The remainder of my reaction is not printable, or at least, would sully the reputation this blog has for civility.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 16, 2012 4:38 PMA universal reaction amongst job creators, no doubt. (And among those sympathetic to job creation.) Which makes me wonder how it is in his interest to say it with an election looming - it certainly can't energize the non-job creators in his favor as much as ye against him.
Posted by: johngalt at July 16, 2012 4:48 PMNot sure the small business, job creatin' segment of the population is solidly behind the President. And no doubt Mister Axelrod will be stunned to hear that Brother Keith is wavering.
Seriously, when Elizabeth Warren said the same thing, my Facebook lit up with people who thought it brilliant. I think the President is happy to both fire up the base and paint Gov. Romney's support of free enterprise as (sorry Randians) selfish and overly individualistic.
President Clinton differentiated himself from Leader Dole with wanting to "build a bridge to the 21st Century together."
Those who are incensed were not in Obama's camp before he said it. And this -- sadly -- plays very well among the moderates.
July 12, 2012
Quote of the Day
The usual way to mourn someone's passing is with a moment of silence. I think everyone who knew Anna even a little realizes that that would be absolutely the wrong way to remember her. So instead, let's remember her this week by being loud, forceful, and argumentative, and by interrupting one another when we feel really strongly about something. To honor her, we also need to keep our discussions and debates focused on the substantive questions at hand and firmly grounded in the evidence. -- David Romer in tribute to Anna SchwartzHat-tip: Prof. Mankiw
July 11, 2012
Quote of the Day
Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours? -- GK ChestertonTo be paired with Insty's (and my) favorite RAH Quote: "On Bad Luck."
July 9, 2012
Quote of the Day
Densie Rich leaving the good old USA? Sure hope we get that Canadian model to balance things out.
4) And this leads me to the biggest problem with Rich. As far as I understand it, Denise Rich raised millions for Democrats who supported policies to raise taxes on wealthy people (and many others). Now, she's packing up and leaving after supporting politicians who created the very conditions that prompts her to leave. That’s not merely pathetic, it's disgusting. Admittedly she raised at least some of that money to buy a pardon for her ex-husband, but that's hardly a great excuse. -- Jonah Glodberg
RAHQOTD
In praise of the potted plant:
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for, but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.-- RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
July 6, 2012
RAHQOTD
In shameless self-promotion of my own DAWG whistle Tweet today:
"Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get."-- RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
July 5, 2012
RAHQOTD
Recommended by dagny, inspired by her comment on the Culture War post.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.This is known as "bad luck."
-- RAH "Time Enough for Love" (1973)
July 4, 2012
RAHQOTD
Special Fourth-of-July Edition:
"It may not be possible to do away with government — sometimes I think that government is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive — and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby?"
-- RAH 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' (1968)
June 29, 2012
RAHQOTD
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?-- RAH 'Life-line' (1939)
His first published story. Before I read it I never realized we are four-dimensional pink worms.
Posted by: Robert at June 30, 2012 2:08 AMI'll see if a copy of this is in dagny's collection.
Posted by: johngalt at July 1, 2012 11:07 AMFor those that are interested: this short story can be found in the compendium, "Expanded Universe." Per a quick scan on Amazon, it appears there is a relatively new re-release of this book.
@jg, there is old battered copy with the original cover on the headboard or on my bookshelf. :-)
Posted by: dagny at July 2, 2012 3:10 PMAristotle QOTD
“Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.”
The Nicomachean Ethics
The essence of successful coaching, and parenting.
June 28, 2012
RAHQOTD
On occasion of today's historic Supreme Court "Obamacare" ruling...
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss.-- RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
June 27, 2012
RAHQOTD
Had some ideas for news related quotes today but was instead captivated by this one. It relates, in my mind at least, to the brief Yukon/Alaskan frontier banter in this comment thread, for in many ways, at least in the 19th century, there was much in common between Alaska and Luna City.
Women are scarce; aren't enough to go around – that makes them most valuable thing in Luna, more precious than ice or air, as men without women don't care whether they stay alive or not.-- RAH, 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' (1966)
June 20, 2012
RAHQOTD
Today's RAHQOTD is in honor of, guess who.
A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased — he hates all creative people equally.-- RAH 'Time Enough for Love' (1973)
June 19, 2012
RAHQOTD
Tip of the hat to dagny for today's entry as answer to jk's post about how, and I paraphrase, "Everything is so unfairly rigged in favor of the conservative morality against the progressive morality:"
A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame ... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else.-- RAH 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' (1966)
Dagny concludes, "The Public" as a term falls into the same category noted above as state, society, and government. This is the mistaken premise that makes that huff po article b******t as jk so eloquently states.
Frank Chodorov, "Society Are People." An eloquent way to put it. Not quite as eloquent as "b******t" perhaps, but suitable for polite company.
Posted by: Robert at June 19, 2012 6:32 PMI have to say that "society are people" is too ambiguous for my liking. This is the sort of line that can easily be co-opted by collectivists. I went looking for some background on it and found what I find to be a better Chodorov attribution:
"All values are personal."
A much clearer individualist sentiment.
Posted by: johngalt at June 21, 2012 1:15 PMAlso, I appreciate the Chodorov reference. I had not read him or read of him.
Posted by: johngalt at June 21, 2012 1:17 PMJune 18, 2012
RAHQOTD
One might be tempted to suspect a sinister motive in the Air Tanker Deficit story posted below. But first one should read today's Robert A. Heinlein quote of the day:
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity. -- RAH 'Logic of Empire' (1941); [this is one of the earliest known variants of an idea which has become known as Hanlon's razor.]
June 15, 2012
RAHQOTD
Dagny thought this one should naturally follow yesterday's.
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.-- RAH 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'
And the winning illustratory news story is (no surprise) Obamacare, as speculated on by Robert Reich
Most high-court observers think it will strike down the individual mandate in the Act that requires almost everyone to buy health insurance, as violating the Commerce Clause of the Constitution -- but will leave the rest of the new health care law intact.(...)
So in striking down the least popular part of Obamacare -- the individual mandate -- the Court will inevitably bring into question one of its most popular parts -- coverage of preexisting conditions. And in so doing, open alternative ways to maintain that coverage -- including ideas, like the public option, that were rejected in favor of the mandate.
June 14, 2012
RAHQOTD
Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop. Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them for their own good.-- RAH, 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' (1966)
FNC's Chris Wallace Pulled Over for Using Cell Phone While Driving
Allman explained that Wallace had been pulled over. He also called the D.C. cell phone ban “ridiculous,” saying D.C. likes to take your guns away so why not your cell phone? “I hope he flees then winds up on a cell phone tower saying he won’t be taken alive,” Allman said, joking that maybe Wallace just robbed a bank or held up a 7Eleven, which is of course hilarious.
June 13, 2012
RAHQOTD
An armed society is a polite society.-- RAH, 'Beyond This Horizon (1942)
Teenage Mob Attacks Couple on Chicago Subway Over iPhone
The teens had just stolen the man’s 27-year-old female friend’s iPhone 4S. She had dropped the phone, and a teen had picked it up and taken it for himself.The man told the teen to give his wife her iPhone back. But they instead began punching him in the face.
Beyond This Horizon is one of my favorite Heinlein works. It also explores the morals and consequences of human genetic engineering, which is something we are poised to experience for ourselves in the next few years.
Posted by: Robert at June 14, 2012 12:46 PMHere's one possible example of human genetic engineering in our future. Did you have a different one in mind?
Posted by: johngalt at June 14, 2012 2:29 PMHeinlein (and I) had in mind bigger, stronger, smarter and healthier...sorta a polaropposite of THAT. :)
Posted by: Robert at June 14, 2012 3:26 PMMiranda!
Posted by: dagny at June 14, 2012 6:40 PMJune 12, 2012
RAHQOTD
In honor of our new commenter Robert I'm going to attempt a daily quote by Robert A. Heinlein that relates to an issue of the day. This will surely test the limits of my Heinlein reading but I've no doubt dagny will have my back. We'll see how long I can keep it up.
Today, in homage to the WSJs pugilism of one Billy Tauzin (PULL PEDDLER - LA)
Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.-- RAH 'Assignment in Eternity' (1953)
I'll admit right up front: I haven't read it, merely pulled it from Wikiquote.
Like.
Posted by: jk at June 12, 2012 4:22 PMThat's great, thanks! RAH has a lot of quotables. Glenn Reynolds repeated the "bad luck" one about 10 times recently.
Posted by: Robert at June 13, 2012 2:59 PMSad but true: I had never even heard of Robert Heinlein until, aged 38 years, I met my wife and soul mate dagny. Been trying to make up lost time ever since...
Posted by: johngalt at June 13, 2012 3:36 PMJune 8, 2012
It's a Woman
Heh.
"I'm a big believer in stuff. It can be very comforting. You can't have too much stuff. You have too little storage space. (...) As you get older, you hang on to pieces of detritus that keeps you connected with the past. It breaks my heart when I see people selling comics collections they've spent a lifetime collecting.Q: Why are they selling their collections? For money?
A: Sometimes it's money. More often, it's a woman. They're the de-clutterers most often."
-- Chuck Rozanski, owner of Denver's Mile High Comics in a fun Denver Post interview.
June 4, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
The Keynesian government-spending model has proved to be a complete failure. It's the Obama model. And it has produced such an anemic recovery that frankly, at 2% growth, we're back on the front end of a potential recession.--Lawrence Kudlow, in a blow-by-blow explanation why you don't choose an anti-capitalist to set policy for the economic engine of the world.
May 22, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
While Boulder County and the city of Boulder are developing a Climate Change Preparedness Plan, "we would never waste our money on something like that.""We respect property rights in Weld County. I wouldn't say the same for the Boulder County commissioners." - Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer
Excellent. If things get too warm here, I can drive right over the line.
Posted by: jk at May 22, 2012 4:40 PMHardly worth commenting on but I couldn't resist! ;-)
Denial of the facts (burying your head in the ground) does not justify inaction or mockery. How the human race reacts and responds to change is the crucial element here. We may not agree with any of the actions or responses of Boulder or Weld county in this matter. However, we better get our collective butts in gear and start thinking outside the box if we intend to add another millennium to the clock of human history on planet earth.
Posted by: jc at May 25, 2012 9:51 AMYour comments are always welcome around here.
But it is neither denial nor dismissal. To live long and prosper on this planet will require ingenuity and innovation. Weld sees a future of discovery, Boulder fearfully seeks to preserve an idea of a lost past.
Posted by: jk at May 25, 2012 11:38 AM"We?" What do you mean, we, Kemosabe?
Posted by: johngalt at May 27, 2012 12:08 PMMay 11, 2012
All Hail Harsanyi!
JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion due to some reckless trading of synthetic credit securities. Chief executive Jamie Dimon blamed "errors, sloppiness and bad judgment." JPMorgan Chase earned $19 billion last year so this won't sink them. And, as one might expect, many folks immediately blamed the lack of regulation for the loss -- because, apparently, some people believe the market should be risk free. And actual, isn't this a great argument not to layer the industry with more regulatory burden? (Unless, of course, there was something illegal going on.) Sloppiness and bad judgment should cost you money.Rhetorical question: Wouldn't it be nice if everyone got similarly worked up when government wastes billions on sloppiness and bad judgment? -- David Harsanyi
When government spends billions of you and your neighbors' dollars through sloppiness and bad judgement it isn't called waste, it's called "stimulus."
Posted by: johngalt at May 11, 2012 1:49 PMExcept when it is a measly two billion. Then it is called "a rounding error."
Posted by: jk at May 11, 2012 1:58 PMApril 23, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
"Three, four, five, six, seven years from now, if I do a good job as vice president -- I'm sorry, as senator -- I'll have the chance to do all sorts of things." -- Senator Marco Rubio at an appearance last week.
April 9, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
These are the ancient arguments that once pitted the liberty of the American Revolution against the egalitarianism of the French, the statist visions of John Maynard Keynes against the individualism of Friedrich Hayek, and the tragic admission that we cannot be truly free if we are all forced to end up roughly equal versus the idealism that if we are all roughly equal then we are at last truly free.In blunter terms, Romney's message is that, if you have the money to drive a nice Kia, what do you care if a sleek Mercedes whizzes by? Obama's answer, in contrast, is that you should care, because the guy in the Mercedes probably took something from you.
-- Victor Davis Hanson in IBD: 'The 2012 Election Is A Contest Between Freedom And Fairness'
April 6, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
American exceptionalism is a highly charged term, and sometimes means different things to different people, and is a particularly potent concept in conservative politics.Generally, the term is said to be the notion that America has a unique historic mission, values and ideals, that are either endowed by God or enshrined in the Constitution that make it exceptional in the world. -- Agence France-Presse on "American exceptionalism."
Mon Dieu!
Posted by: jk at April 6, 2012 12:56 PMBehold the second coming of Alexis de Tocqueville.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at April 6, 2012 2:53 PM"It's worth noting that I first arrived on the national stage with a speech at the Democratic Convention that was entirely about American exceptionalism and that my entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism." -- President HumblePosted by: jk at April 6, 2012 4:20 PM
March 29, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
There are lies, damned lies, and then there are Obama's charts. -- Investors Business Daily editorial
Like squared.
Posted by: jk at March 29, 2012 3:04 PMMarch 20, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
"The vision matters, more than the polls and even more than incumbency in the White House."--Thomas Sowell, in an IBD editorial that has me, once again, seeking distance from Mitt Romney.
March 8, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
"And since 1979, an entire climate industry has grown up that has spent millions of human-hours applying that constantly increasing computer horsepower to studying the climate.And after the millions of hours of human effort, after the millions and millions of dollars gone into research, after all of those million-fold increases in computer speed and size, and after the phenomenal increase in model sophistication and detail ... the guesstimated range of climate sensitivity hasn't narrowed in any significant fashion. It's still right around 3 ± 1.5°C per double of CO2, just like it was in 1979." --Willis Eschenbach
In the linked article Eschenbach, a self-described amateur scientist and generalist, gives an overview of climate science since its beginnings circa 1979. Click continue reading for the discussion of computing power that preceeds this quote, and click on the first link to find in his conclusion the real reason for lack of progress. Hint: Check your premises.
So there you have it, folks. The climate sensitivity is 3°C per doubling of CO2, with an error of about ± 1.5°C. Net feedback is positive, although we don’t understand the clouds. The models are not yet able to simulate regional climates. No surprises in any of that. It’s just what you’d expect a NAS panel to say.Now, before going forwards, since the NAS report is based on computer models, let me take a slight diversion to list a few facts about computers, which are a long-time fascination of mine. As long as I can remember, I wanted a computer of my own. When I was a little kid I dreamed about having one. I speak a half dozen computer languages reasonably well, and there are more that I’ve forgotten. I wrote my first computer program in 1963.
Watching the changes in computer power has been astounding. In 1979, the fastest computer in the world was the Cray-1 supercomputer. In 1979, a Cray-1 supercomputer, a machine far beyond anything that most scientists might have dreamed of having, had 8 Mb of memory, 10 Gb of hard disk space, and ran at 100 MFLOPS (million floating point operations per second). The computer I’m writing this on has a thousand times the memory, fifty times the disk space, and two hundred times the speed of the Cray-1.
And that’s just my desktop computer. The new NASA climate supercomputer “Gaea” shown in Figure 1 runs two and a half million times as fast as a Cray-1. This means that a one-day run on “Gaea” would take a Cray-1 about seven thousand years to complete …
Now, why is the speed of a Cray-1 computer relevant to the NAS report I quoted from above?
It is relevant because as some of you may have realized, the NAS report I quoted from above is called the “Charney Report“. As far as I know, it was the first official National Academy of Science statement on the CO2 question. And when I said it was a “recent report”, I was thinking about it in historical terms. It was published in 1979.
Here’s the bizarre part, the elephant in the climate science room. The Charney Report could have been written yesterday. AGW supporters are still making exactly the same claims, as if no time had passed at all. For example, AGW supporters are still saying the same thing about the clouds now as they were back in 1979—they admit they don’t understand them, that it’s the biggest problem in the models, but all the same but they’re sure the net feedback is positive. I’m not sure clear that works, but it’s been that way since 1979.
That’s the oddity to me—when you read the Charney Report, it is obvious that almost nothing of significance has changed in the field since 1979. There have been no scientific breakthroughs, no new deep understandings. People are still making the same claims about climate sensitivity, with almost no change in the huge error limits. The range still varies by a factor of three, from about 1.5 to about 4.5°C per doubling of CO2.
Meanwhile, the computer horsepower has increased beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. The size of the climate models has done the same. The climate models of 1979 were thousands of lines of code. The modern models are more like millions of lines of code. Back then it was atmosphere only models with a few layers and large gridcells. Now we have fully coupled ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere-biosphere-lithosphere models, with much smaller gridcells and dozens of both oceanic and atmospheric layers.
Totally awesome analysis!
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at March 9, 2012 12:53 AMFebruary 28, 2012
It's Pronounced EVE-ell-en
Don't forget that [DAWG-fraudster Peter] Gleick had been chair of the [American Geophysical Union]'s task force on ethics. Evelyn Waugh couldn't make this stuff up. -- Steven Hayward
February 22, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
"What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable & tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend." --George Washington, Letter to John Jay, 15 August, 1786
February 14, 2012
Reagan says...
I made a cursory search to see if this had been posted on these pages since the first of the year. If it has never been so in the blog's history we should all consider ourselves ashamed for the oversight.
Ronald Reagan, interviewed by Manuel Klausner in Reason Magazine, July 1975:
REASON: Governor Reagan, you have been quoted in the press as saying that you’re doing a lot of speaking now on behalf of the philosophy of conservatism and libertarianism. Is there a difference between the two?REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.
So what Reagan lovers should be asking is, it seems to me, which of the GOP presidential nominees are hostile to libertarian thought and which are the very embodiment of it?" Ron Paul for President. Do it for the Gipper.
January 17, 2012
Otequay of the Ayday
If you don't want to spend the better part of the next year trying to drag this sad sack of Mitt across the finish line so he can disappoint us for the next four years, then stand up, speak out, and stop letting the mainstream media and a bunch of Beltway conservatives tell you that the race has to be over with just 1.8% of the delegates needed for a victory awarded. The Tea Party didn't rise up, fight Barack Obama, and help the GOP have its best year in half a century just to see the Republican Party ideologically slide all the way back to the pre-Reagan years as a reward. --John Hawkins
I respectfully disagree. Not that Governor Griz's endorsement will carry weight, but that the Speaker represents the Tea Party.
Gingrich champions activist, technocratic government -- not "limited" in the Tea Party, Madisonian sense. That was okay in 1994, pitching Gingrich's good ideas versus President Clinton's bad ideas. But even the 104th had to provide guardrails.
I remember his advocating that the government buy a laptop for every child in public housing. This was in the late 90s. Not only were laptops $1500, but it would have enshrined a "government standard" laptop that we'd still have today. 512KB RAM and a 3.5" floppy drive.
The attack on Bain was not a bad day but a window to his worldview. In conclusion, I'd like to say "Freddie Mac."
o. it is so on.
Posted by: jk at January 18, 2012 1:13 PMI'm thinking there's a "butt-whup" sandwich in my lunch bag today. Tune in around 12:30. :)
Posted by: johngalt at January 18, 2012 1:45 PMSpeaker Gingrich does not "represent" the TEA Party but his off-again, on-again penchant for challenging various entrenched paradigms - political correctness, Wall Street mercantilism, nanny state redistributionism - makes him TEA Party friendly. This GOP primary has been a slow slog through ideological soup where none of the candidates emerged with the precise mixture to rally all the GOP factions. [How could they?] But South Carolina's primary is a watershed and TEA Party VIP Sarah Palin knows it is time to pick the best non-Romney and start pushing. Despite ideological preferences you and I may have, Ron Paul is not that guy - Newt is.
Some, even much, of what Newt espouses is anathema to TEA Partiers. This is irrelevant. He is a loose cannon but at least he's not shooting blanks. When he gets his "work not welfare" and "we're in this together but we're not our brothers' keepers" guns ranged in on Obama he can do some real damage.
Yes he's erratic, undisciplined and sometimes undependable. But he inspires greatness from time to time and is the only candidate I've heard receive thunderous applause in debate after debate. He connects with people and his appeal spans generations and classes. He has a strong hispanic following and will do better with the black vote than Romney could ever dream.
Who we nominate will dictate what issues will be debated in the public square. Instead of defending Ron Paul's age, frailty, haphazard prose and way out-of-the-mainstream ideas, or Romney's high-powered corporate fix-and-flip or fleece-and-fold "private-sector experience" I'd prefer to have debates like this with the New York Times. We may lose, but I prefer to believe we will win - the debate and the election.
Posted by: johngalt at January 18, 2012 3:08 PMTrue points all and well said. I'll counter with foolishness while I ponder the substantive issues.
Remember in '96 how all the anti-Dole commercials paired the moderately popular Senate Leader with the supremely unpopular Speaker? All the commercials opposed the mysterious Siamese twin "Gingrich-Dole." I found it odd as the Speaker was not on the ballot. I wonder if he is the nominee, whether they might bring in Bob Dole to tarnish him. I wonder if Mitt should try it.
You may have me, brother. Thankfully a couple weeks on the Atkins diet has given me a stronger constitution and resilient digestive tract. I don't think I could have taken any of this in December.
@JG wrote:
When [Newt} gets his "work not welfare" and "we're in this together but we're not our brothers' keepers" guns ranged in on Obama he can do some real damage.
Which he can do while supporting the nominee, yes? Palin does (well, she's even shrill comp. to him). Almost anyone can deliver this message, perhaps not as pithily, but neither with the caustic that's almost as much his brand as anything.
he's erratic, undisciplined and sometimes undependable. But he inspires greatness from time to time
In whom? Think about it, did he leave the GOP positioned for increased gains and a positive direction in the 90's, or did he mainly make a name for himself and lots of flotsam?
He's got thin skin, corruption in his background and can't stay on message. Ohh, but he does have stirring rhetoric at times ... is this sounding familiar?
is the only candidate I've heard receive thunderous applause
From GOP audiences and mostly when bomb-throwing.... we need the indies and a positive message delivered by someone who's an inspiring leader. Not to mention someone unflappable, with stellar morals and good instincts for what works in the real world. Character, my brothers and sisters, character....
He connects with people
TMI, brother. :-) Now if Palin could cause a rumble that would make Mitt stand up & out even more on conservative principles, I'd say the system is working our way, for once.
If Newt were nominee, I'd probably vote Libertarian. He would be awful and never get elected, I'm nearly certain of it.
Posted by: nanobrewer at January 20, 2012 12:22 AMWhenever I've been "certain" of something in politics, something has changed and upset my calculus. Sarah Palin's Gingrich endorsement was one of those events. Today I see Michael Reagan is endorsing Newt again.
We cannot afford a candidate backed by the same Washington insiders who repeatedly tried to undermine my father and the Reagan revolution.It's time to choose.
Do we go forward with bold ideas or continue with failed policies?
So I ask my fellow Republicans and conservatives to join me in supporting Newt Gingrich for president.
Christie, Halley - eastern Republicans.
Palin, Reagan - western Republicans.
Posted by: johngalt at January 20, 2012 6:20 PMDecember 20, 2011
If not for its veracity, this would be humorous
The notoriously bankrupt MF Global's assets apparently will cover about 82 cents on the dollar of its obligations to customers. The de facto bankrupt Social Security's assets will cover about 83 cents on the dollar of its obligations to beneficiaries. Jon Corzine, meet Social Security! -- Alex J, Pollock
December 13, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
After the game, Brian Urlacher referred to you as a good running back. How do you take that comment?
"Coming from a really good player, that means a lot."
Tim Tebow in his post game press conference after the Bears game.
That is one change in the Tebow World. I never ever ever watched post game interviews before. Perhaps it is being so gobsmacked by each improbable victory, but I watch every minute now, waiting especially for Tebow. His presence is magical.
I'd add his compliment of Charles Tillman for coming up with his (Tebow's) first pick in five games. Who is this guy?
Posted by: jk at December 13, 2011 8:00 PMNovember 27, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
Happily, the left's pernicious, economy-destroying and false global warming ideology is collapsing under a growing body of evidence that the CO2 scare is a fraud.Who says we have nothing to be thankful for? -Investors Ed Page
Now if we can just get everybody to read IBD.
Posted by: jk at November 27, 2011 4:54 PMIt may not be on the weekday morning news shows or in cartoons for the kiddies, but the "dead DAWG" message is getting out to the public somehow.
Just 51 percent of Americans -- or one percentage point more than in 1998 -- said they worry a great deal or fair amount about climate change, Gallup's annual environment poll says.Posted by: johngalt at November 27, 2011 8:34 PM
Woohoo! Up to 49% are we? Break out the champagne!
I should save my swarmy sarcasm for Facebook lefties, but this is not a dead DAWG, it is more a wounded bear (polar? that would be cute -- little fuzzy white thing mauling everything in sight...)
...and drinkin' a Coke®...
Posted by: jk at November 28, 2011 1:05 PMClearly the link I shared above would have been more appropriate here. Still makes me laugh, two years later.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/15/polar-bear-phil-jones/
Posted by: Lisa M at November 28, 2011 7:31 PMOctober 4, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
Perhaps no other sector of American society so demonstrates the failure of government spending and interference. We've destroyed individual initiative, individual innovation and personal achievement, and marginalized anyone willing to point it out. As one of my coaches used to say, "You don't get vast results with half-vast efforts!"The results we're looking for are students learning, so we need to reward great teachers who show they can make that happen--and get rid of bad teachers who don't get the job done. It's what we do in every other profession: If you're good, you get rewarded, and if you're not, then you look for other work.
-Fran Tarkenton, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback and nouveau "anti-working class extremist."
Awesome! On education, I think ThreeSourcers would dig Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education
It is a collection of essays/papers on the teaching of the Constitution, rights, history and government. A diverse panel is represented: Justice O'Connor, Alan Dershowitz, Insty, Juan Williams, Charter School operators, &c. Very thought provoking.
September 8, 2011
Quote of the Day
From our own HB, when posting a comment regarding last night's Republican debate:
I stayed on MSNBC just long enough to see the panel of experts there to discuss the debate: Maddow, Schultz, Lenin, Marx, and the rest of gang.
A comment worthy of coffee-spewing if there ever was one. Now, to clean up that keyboard...
August 21, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
The past instability of the market economy is the consequence of the exclusion of the most important regulator of the market mechanism, money, from itself being regulated by the market process.
Ludwig von Mises, from the sine qua non economics post below.
August 20, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
A first draft of the history of the Obama Administration?
Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement – while America's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed.
From Nero in the White House by Mychal Massie. The remainder of the piece is far less delicate.
August 17, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," President Obama fantasized on the campaign stump in Iowa. "But over the last six months, we've had a run of bad luck."Bad luck?
No, not that... this. Robert A. Heinlein via Dr. Milton Wolf, cousin of President Obama:
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded - here and there, now and then - are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as 'bad luck.' "
It's short. Read it all.
With this President in the White House, the Heinlien quote is "Quote of the Quadrennial."
Posted by: jk at August 17, 2011 12:49 PMAugust 5, 2011
Quote of the Day
There is something plaintive in Obama's words these days. We are witnessing a man of enormous self-regard wrestle with a record of amassing and undeniable failures. This is creating a kind of cognitive dissonance -- a huge mental processing problem -- for the president. And so the difficulties we face rest not with Obama but with others, including with the impatience of others. -- Pete Wehner
July 21, 2011
Chart of the Day
From the IBD Editorial: Gang of Six Plan: A $3.1 Tril Tax Hike linked below.
July 7, 2011
A Billion Jobs Saved!
And just for good measure, Tom Hanks said: "If you would have told me a few years ago that 'don't ask, don't tell' would be repealed and about a billion jobs at General Motors and Chrysler would have been saved because the president was smart enough and strong enough and bold enough to do so, I would have said, 'Wow. That's a good president, I think I'll vote for him again'."Hat-tip: Don Surber, who asks "So how is that new movie doing?"
From Nikkie Finke on July 2, 2011: "Tom Hanks & Julia Roberts In Holiday Flop."
July 5, 2011
Quote of the Day
You mean that abrogating bankruptcy law, screwing over secured creditors and rewarding Democrats' union supporters with billions in equity, tax breaks and subsidies didn't really fix GM? -- Doug Ross
July 4, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
Fourth of July Edition.
On the Fourth of July, celebrate not the rights-violating, welfare state that America has become, but what America once was and could be again. Celebrate man's "unalienable Rights." Celebrate the principle that the proper purpose of government is "to secure these rights." Celebrate the principle that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." And, most of all, celebrate the Founders, who recognized and codified these principles, thus making possible the degree of freedom we still enjoy and the moral ideal to which we should return.
Yesterday's entry by Craig Biddle, on The Objective Standard Blog
Hat Tip: Brother Russ
JG: I read this as well, and it's one of the three items I read this weekend that I loved the most.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 5, 2011 12:10 PMJuly 2, 2011
Quote of the Day
With the exception of the date, we Americans have more or less followed Adams' wishes ever since. There was a canny prescience about the depth, the breadth, the quality of American freedom in the seeming incongruence of Adams's assertion that the anniversary should be "solemnized" with such light-hearted events as sports and bonfires and fireworks. For the very nonchalance with which most of us celebrate "Independence Day" is the most eloquent measure of the solemnity, the gravity, the importance of the event. -- Ralph Kinney Bennett
May 31, 2011
Quote of the Day
Potomac fever is contagious and incurable. I know one economist who deliberately hired an undocumented nanny as a commitment device to avoid the temptation of government. -- Robert E. HallHat-tip: Prof. Mankiw
May 27, 2011
Quote of the Day
Damn you, Joe Biden! I'm supposed to be working right now... But you have to go and say something so profoundly stupid that I'm forced. FORCED I SAY! To take time out of my busy schedule in order to blog about it! Don't you realize how much stuff I've got to do today? -- Larry CorreiaI know y'all have to work as well, but the post is worth a break. It is Friday.
May 24, 2011
Quote of the Day
I recently recommended them to a friend of mine for her son who she said was depressed over his lack of ability to get a date. At first, I started to give the same old tired advice. "Just tell him to be himself and a woman will find that attractive." "Bullshit," I thought to myself. "Give him a copy of 'The Pick Up Artist' by Mystery or 'The Game' by Neil Strauss and let me know how it goes." Two months later? My friend tells me her son is no longer depressed and is dating and learning how to interact with women.Score one for Mystery and Strauss. Zero for dumb advice on how to "be yourself." -- Dr. Helen
Heh. I was "myself" and while it worked out well in the end, it was pretty sketchy getting there.
May 23, 2011
Quote of the Day II
Ronald McDonald is merely a convenient symbol. Their true target is a capitalist economy that gives companies far too much latitude in appealing to customers and allows government far too little control over our food choices. The idea of using government power to dictate what we eat will strike many Americans as a gross intrusion on personal freedom. But McDonald's enemies? They're lovin' it. -- Steve Chapman
The lovely bride and I invoked the First Lady's name a couple of times as we drove home from Del Taco, enjoying the firm's delightful deep fried mac'n'cheese bits.
It's health food -- in Minnesota they serve it without the nutritious pasta.
My mouth is still watering over the mention of those fried mac'n'cheese bits. Didn't even know they had those! Gotta go exercise my capitalist lattitude soon, while I still can.
Posted by: johngalt at May 25, 2011 6:00 PMQuote of the Day
Observation number two: Some of the 'In' candidates have had problems lately. Rick Santorum got called out for saying that John McCain doesn't understand enhanced interrogation techniques. The best that can be said about that is that it was not a tactful way of making what might have been a legitimate argument. Herman Cain, whose performance at the first Republican debate impressed Frank Luntz's focus group, showed today that he doesn't have the faintest idea what the right of return means. That's a pretty high level of ignorance on foreign policy. As for Newt Gingrich, one might say he had a better week than Dominique Strauss-Kahn. -- Michael Barone on the state of the GOP 2012 race.
May 22, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
I believe this one is worthy of elevation to the senior "Quote of the Day" franchise but I must let JK decide...
In reply to AlexC's FB entry on yesterday's scheduled rapture which read,
Seriously.If you're response to the Rapture is to say you're here, well, you haven't been raptured... aka "Sinners"
It's the people who haven't posted on Facebook after 6pm that you need to double check on... aka "potential Saints"
Commenter Jose Garcia wrote:
Just got my Wi-Fi hooked up. Heaven is totally underrated!
Like.
Posted by: jk at May 22, 2011 12:51 PMFunny. When I read it the first three times the word "underrated" appeared in my brain as "overrated." Apparently the wi-fi there is free, always available and always streams video without dropouts.
Posted by: johngalt at May 22, 2011 1:52 PMMay 21, 2011
Quote of the Day
And even if he does, so what? Everybody knows what McDonald's is all about. If you don't want your kids eating it, don't take them there. If you don't want other people's kids eating it, move back to Nazi Germany. -- Jim Treacher
May 10, 2011
Quote of the Day
I can't listen to that much Wagner.....I get the urge to conquer Poland. -- Woody Allen.I like to say "I don't hate anybody," but with Mister Allen, it is close. Still, he is quite the master of the bon mot.
Hat-tip: JustStrings.com
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was a contemporary of "Mad" King Ludwig II, builder of Neuschwanstein, and having been deceased before young Adolf's birth was related to Nazism only by the word "Deutschland."
Posted by: johngalt at May 10, 2011 6:01 PMI don't hold The Beatles responsible for Sharon Tate's murder, but one cannot disassociate Manson with "Helter Skelter."
But an even better Wagner quote is Mark Twain's "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." No idea if it is real but I picked up a few viruses investigating.
Posted by: jk at May 10, 2011 6:20 PMWagner was notoriously anti-Semitic, though I can't see how he could be charged with influencing Naziism. Europe already had centuries of evil thinking, which were of far greater influence.
That said, the second-best gift I ever gave my old man (exceeded only by the big box of Scotch and beer that turned out to be his last Father's Day gift) was a full set of The Ring, conducted by Georg Solti (look him up to see his original name, which is a pretty obvious clue to his family's religion).
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at May 11, 2011 10:50 PMApparently that quote is from Edward Nye, quoted by Twain.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/555.html
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at May 11, 2011 10:51 PMGenerally, a good rule of thumb is "anytime you're quoting Twain or Samuel Johnson, your quote will be proven bogus." I really thought I had it that time, thanks for proving my rule.
Posted by: jk at May 12, 2011 11:11 AMAwesome Father's Day gift PE. I hope it was his latest such gift, however, rather than his last.
Posted by: johngalt at May 12, 2011 3:10 PMMay 9, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. -Thucydides
Quote of the Day, Today
This one has to go to Brother JG for his comment a few posts down:
Islamists consider cohabitation with dogs to be proof of our wretchedness; I consider canine villification to be proof of theirs.
Spot on.
I was going to say "Amen," but feared he would take it the wrong way...
Posted by: jk at May 9, 2011 10:45 AMThanks brothers.
No, I say "amen" too. 'Contemporary vernacular' and all that.
Posted by: johngalt at May 9, 2011 2:35 PMMay 2, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
The surprise ending from an ABC News story titled Osama Bin Laden Burial Breaks With Islamic Tradition, Say Scholars
"As one who is devoted to Islam and its ideology, it makes me nauseated and sick that someone would make sure he had a religious rite given to a man like this because he was an evil barbarian who declared war against our nation." -- American Islamic leader Dr. Zuhdi Jasser
"'Dumping the body into the sea is not part of any Islamic ritual,' said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a physician of internal medicine. 'Koranic scripture says God created him and he must return to the earth.'" Fine, Zudhi; you go fetch him, and give him whatever ritual or ceremony you want. My thought: we showed more respect for his carcass that they do for ours - no beheadings, no dragging through the streets. In some parts of that world, they celebrate jihad actions by cheering and passing out candy. When we counter by sticking bin Laden's head on a pike at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge and giving each other bacon in the streets, he can talk.
Some say the burial in the world's ocean was to prevent Islamofascists from turning his burial site into a martyr's shrine. Maybe it's also to give Americans and other freedom-loving people the opportunity to take a day at the beach and urinate on his grave.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at May 2, 2011 3:19 PMWrong preposition, KA. Millions of fish, and quite a number of four-year-olds, are pissing IN his grave.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at May 2, 2011 8:06 PMI'm also going out on a limb and say that bin Laden was not greeted by 72 virgins, but I hope they cut his balls off just in case.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at May 2, 2011 8:10 PMIn a just afterlife, if he were to be greeted by said virgins, they would all look like they play on the offensive line for the Redskins, and use bacon fat for lube.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at May 2, 2011 9:54 PMApril 21, 2011
Looter of the Spirit
When I explain to people that environmentalists and some in the government don't really have any aspirations of their own, they just want to deny the aspirations of others, they typically ask me why anyone would choose to live that way. Here's an excellent explaination derived from Ayn Rand's novel 'Atlas Shrugged' courtesy of Shmoop dot com:
But then Jed Starnes died and his three children took over the factory. These children were all horrible people who ran the factory into the ground and inspired Galt to begin his crusade. The kids preached the slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Basically they did away with salaries and had people "vote" on what others should earn based on their "needs." This turned into a disaster.Ivy Starnes was considered the worst of these kids. Jeff Allen, a man who worked in the factory, has this to say about her:
"She had pale eyes that looked fishy, cold, and dead. And if you ever want to see pure evil, you should have seen the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to her once and who'd just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing above basic pittance." (2.10.1.110)
Dagny herself actually met Ivy and tried to get answers out of her, back when she was searching for the elusive inventor of the motor. Ivy sadistically preys on people's emotions and enjoys tormenting them. In this respect, she is what Galt calls a "looter of the spirit" and has a lot in common with James Taggart, who also enjoys destroying people for his own amusement. What's truly terrible about Ivy is that she acts sadistically but speaks in terms of charity and brotherly love. She embodies the very worst of what Galt considers looter ideology.
I had a difficult time with the Rand villains, most notably Ellsworth Toohey. I did not see, as a young man, what was in it for a Toohey or the charming Starnes children.
Then I met a couple hundred of them.
Misery loves company, and sadly it's easier to spread disappointment and failure to others than enthusiasm and perseverance.
Btw, my take on AS is that it won't be very successful if at all. Artistically, it well captured the spirit of the novel, but that didn't make for a compelling story.
nb
Posted by: nanobrewer at April 27, 2011 9:48 AMFebruary 24, 2011
Quote of the Day
This sharing of powers in wage determination and conditions of employment through the negotiation process has in turn diminished public officials' authority in other areas of policy involving organized employees.The net effect has been to create what amounts to a two-chamber local government. One chamber is made up of elected representatives and chief executives--aldermen, councilmen, county board or commission members, mayors or other chief executives--the traditional decision-making body for local government. The other chamber comprises the organized public employees who have gained official recognition to negotiate. The public business on wages and conditions of work, and therefore indirectly on policy, cannot be carried on without mutual agreement between these two Chambers. . . .
The implications of this new method of reaching decisions in local government put an entirely different aspect on the sovereignty of councils and executives and elected officials as well. The challenge of organized public employees can mean considerable loss of control over the budget, and hence over tax rates and over government programs and projects.
The gravity of the challenge was recognized by some municipal officials at least ten years ago, but most of them took the position that to study the new phenomenon was to encourage it. As is usually the case, the ostrich stance was a mistake: When employee organizations suddenly burgeoned, municipal officials were not prepared with effective rejoinders before legislatures and in negotiations.
That is the former Socialist Party mayor of Milwaukee, Frank Ziedler, in a 1969 magazine article. (It is reprinted today in the WSJ's Notable and Quotable.)
Fascinating. This caution against public-sector unions comes from a Socialist Party member. Taken with another celebrated version of the same opinion, one wonders why these collectivists would ever have been opposed to what has become the most powerful method of "freely" electing leftist politicians in modern history.
I think I have the answer: Leftist politicians don't really care about "the little guy." They care only about their own power. And even as powerful unions help them to gain power, they also threaten and diminish that power. And as we've seen in the Middle East, too much power in the hands of a mob can be a dangerous thing.
Posted by: johngalt at February 24, 2011 3:39 PMFebruary 16, 2011
Quote of the Day
From Andrew Malcolm in the LA Times:
Sweeping hand gestures were the order of today as President Obama defended his budget at a news conference, reflecting widespread skepticism over the seriousness of his spending "cuts." At last, bipartisanship to believe in.
And runner-up goes to Speaker Boehner:
The president apparently believes a $607-billion budget deficit is 'living within our means.'
February 12, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
While looking for publication numbers for Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' I found the data on this review page. It included this sarcastic quip by the New Yorker magazine in their review of the book upon its release:
The review in the New Yorker called the theme unbelievable and pointless. "After all," wrote the reviewer, [in October, 1957] "to warn contemporary America against abandoning its factories, neglecting technological progress and abolishing the profit motive seems a little like admonishing water against running uphill."
Nah, those things could never happen in contemporary America.
Insightful and prescient as ever over at the Times. Mister Toohey write that himself?
Stunning.
January 18, 2011
Otequay of the Ayday
No Good TV's Carrie Keagan on FNC's 'Red Eye' program this morning, discussing efforts to permit women in combat roles in the U.S. military:
"I mean, there really shouldn't be any difference between a man and a woman, but there is."
UPDATE: Corrected to the exact wording: There "really shouldn't be" instead of "is really no reason for there to be..."
December 14, 2010
Quote of the Day
Since we've been taking some shots at the ethanol subsidies on these pages lately, this comment from Rich Lowry, writing in the New York Post and reprinted on RealClearPolitics.com, seems to sum it up the politics of it:
Too many people will have a vested interest in continuing the scam, and its supporters -- like Harkin and Grassley now -- will always argue that any change is too disruptive. We'll still be mandating ethanol long after the internal-combustion engine is obsolete.
drivin' my ethanol truck, wearin' my mohair suit, eatin' my gub'mint cheese...
Posted by: jk at December 14, 2010 11:31 AMDecember 7, 2010
Snarky Quote of the Day
Apparently the new $100 bills are so counterfeit-proof that even the Treasury can't print them correctly. We now have $110 billion sitting in a Ft. Worth, TX vault waiting to sort the good bills from the bad. A Yahoo news report concludes with this gem:
The new bills are the first to include Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's signature. In order to prevent a shortfall,the government has ordered production of the old design, which includes the signature of Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. That, surely, is not the only respect in which the nation's lead economic officials would like to turn back the clock to sometime before the 2008 financial crisis.
The government plans to destroy the misprinted bills. However, The Refugee would bet that collectors all over the world would pay enough for these items to at least make a dent in the $120 million mistake.
I was wondering how to get one. But it's not really an upside down picture or "United Stites" or something that is visible. That seems to dampen supra-numismatic value, doesn't it?
First we had, "Just plug the damn hole!"
Now we have, "Just print the damn cash!"
Some of the sheets wrinkled in the press causing blank spaces in the bill. That would seem to generate a deal of numismatic uniqueness.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at December 7, 2010 12:50 PMTeachable moment for the press (yeah, good luck with that...):
This is not a $110Billion dollar problem, this is a problem with $110Billion of denominated currency. I'd get a warm fuzzy feeling inside if I thought any of them understood the difference.
Posted by: jk at December 7, 2010 2:02 PMNovember 16, 2010
Otequay of Esterdayay
... Since I didn't get a chance to post this yesterday, but I think it's good enough for belated honors.
A male caller to Mike Rosen's radio show in yesterday's 9 o'clock hour, who claimed to be a school teacher with over 20 years of experience, regarding the culpability of administrators for the failures of America's public education system:
"I don't think it's [administration] part of the problem, I think it's eighty-five percent of the problem."
Here's hoping he doesn't teach math. Or grammar. Or logic.
In fairness, he may have meant to say "I don't think it's just part of the problem..." He didn't have the advantage of a teleprompter, you know.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 18, 2010 10:28 AMBased on the context I can tell you he had intended to say, "it's the whole problem" but realized before he said it that it wasn't true. Then he was stuck with making up some high percentage figure estimate.
You are right that this was extemporaneous speech but with the caveat that this man is a school teacher, I think this ranks up there with the teacher who asked me what "statist" means.
Posted by: johngalt at November 18, 2010 2:38 PMNovember 11, 2010
Otequay of the Ayday
From a WSJ story on the unofficial proposal floated by the President's deficit commission today:
Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) said he wouldn't vote for it, saying that "there are things in there that I hate like the devil hates holy water."
Interesting choice of analogies for this tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.
Sen. Durbin (D - Undead) might well be a Vapmire -- he's got the complexion and the conscience.
Posted by: jk at November 12, 2010 12:00 PMNovember 8, 2010
Quote of the Day
Writing in today's New York Post, Michael Goodwin:
Obama's problems are magnified by Pelosi's daffy decision to try to become minority leader. Having led her House troops to a historic defeat, her announcement that "our work is not finished" reads like a parody.Any more "work" of her kind and the country will be finished.
House minority leadership is pretty inconsequential, is it not? Only political insiders had any clue who Rep. Boehner was, which made their campaign to run against him pretty silly. I think a smaller, more insular, more collectivist Democratic House Caucus will be served well by Rep. Pelosi's leadership, And the GOP will be well served in 2012 running against her.
Win-Win!
Minority leadership usually is inconsequential to the electorate, unless it is a high-profile personality with through-the-roof negatives.
Another money quote from Goodwin in the same article was this:
Because the president already ruled out dumping Joe Biden, the Dem lineup for 2012 is set: Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Reid. How's that for change?
Ike Skelton is gone -- completely different look...
Posted by: jk at November 8, 2010 12:19 PMNovember 2, 2010
Otequay of the Ayday
Not from today, actually, but brought to us today by Thomas Sowell:
Guess who said the following: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." Was it Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Karl Rove?Not even close. It was Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of FDR's closest advisers. He added, "after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . And an enormous debt to boot!"
September 20, 2010
Otequay of the Ayday
Maybe it's just me, but this one had me laughing myself off the chair:
"There's been no witchcraft since. If there was, Karl Rove would be a supporter now."
Deleware GOP Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell referring to "hang[ing] out with questionable folks in high school.
Not just you. That threatened the keyboard a little bit earlier.
My Facebook friends have decided that she is "even worse than [Gov.] Sarah Palin!" To be fair, they have a much more damming quote:
Bill Maher: "Christine O'Donnell said American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."
Jon Hamm: "She might be confusing American scientific companies with American ANIMATION companies!"
Proving nothing good ever comes from being on O'Reilly.
Posted by: jk at September 20, 2010 3:43 PM
You've probably already contemplated this, but your FB friends need to read Shannon Love's explanation for Palin Derangement Syndrome. (Unless you're convinced that they prefer to view themselves as inferiors - inferiors who can't do for themselves what some superior elite so benevolently volunteers to do for them.)
Posted by: johngalt at September 20, 2010 4:11 PMSeptember 7, 2010
Quote of the Day
In an earlier post, JK mentioned the wildfire burning west of Boulder, Colo. The fire, as of this morning, had consumed 7,000 acres and nowhere near containment.
Governor Bill Ritter, quoted in The Denver Post online, had this to say:
"This is a very volatile situation."
Ya think, Guv? With insight like that, we now know why you're a one-termer and the budget never got solved.
August 27, 2010
Quote of the Day
When commenting about the US' apparent bribary of Mohammed Zia Salehi in Afghanistan on Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, Charles Krauthammer had this to say:
"Your Honor, I stand before you in defense of bribary. War is difficult and if it's a choice between bribary and killing, I choose bribary."
Gen. George S. Patton might have disagreed. War is all about killing:
Chamberlain tried bribing Hitler with the Sudetenland. How'd that work out again?
The French tried bribing the Barbary pirates. I vote for killing.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at August 27, 2010 12:35 PMJust one thing to say about bribery or waging war: do it on your own dime, and don't drag me along if I don't want to.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at August 27, 2010 12:58 PMThat Patton speech isn't so much about war as it is about winning.
"Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in Hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans."
Or at least, to SOME Americans.
Why did a majority of Americans support the Iraq war (when it begun) and withdraw that support as the nation-building dragged on? Because it began with the Bush Doctrine (ver. 1.0) and "evolved" into spreading democracy to combat terrorism via preventive war conducted in accordance with the theory of "just" warfare. Americans judge the stragegy of war on one scale: Does it work? Do we win (and then go home)? Patton's approach understood this.
Posted by: johngalt at August 29, 2010 11:38 AMJuly 20, 2010
QOTD II
During an interview on The Today Show, Newt Gingrich had this to say:
The fact is, President Obama is like a teenager with a credit card.Classic.
A teenager with a credit card is likely to get only himself in trouble (yes, I know Newt is alluding to the out-of-control spending, but his metaphor dodges the issue of "who's going to pay it when the bill comes due?"). To plagiarize from a more colorful writer, Obama is like a teenager turned loose with a bottle of Wild Turkey and the keys to the Hemi. Everyone in town is going to wind up taking a hit.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 20, 2010 11:56 AMNot to cut too fine of a line, but with the teenager, the kid runs up the tab and the parents pay. In this case, Obama runs up the tab and the public pays. Sounds apropos to me. The hemi analogy works, too.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at July 20, 2010 12:09 PMNoted and agreed, br -- but if I'm daddy, I'm not giving him the AmEx in the first place. The visual of a flaming, twisted wreck on the side of the road just seemed a little more to the point...
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 20, 2010 12:36 PMDaddy didn't want to, but Mommy did. (Remember that just under half of U.S. workers don't pay federal income taxes, and it's worse when you consider how many Americans might pay some taxes but get far more back from the government.)
Daddy's the one parent who's working himself to the bone, wondering how he'll ever make enough to pay for all the household's spending and steadily accelerating debt. Mommy works part-time but keeps it all for herself. She doesn't pay for any part of the household expenses because she says Daddy should earn enough to pay for everyone. Then she decided little Barry should be deciding the household budget -- which is principally what to spend on Mommy.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at July 20, 2010 1:31 PMThe Analogy Police called. They're willing to let us off with a warning this time.
Posted by: jk at July 20, 2010 3:12 PMRelated: Yesterday on FNC's 'America's Newsroom' ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer said of the Washington Post CIA expose-
"It seems to me that the Administration and the Washington Post are being managed by a bunch of adolescents." [I had to paraphrase, not having access to the transcript.]
Posted by: johngalt at July 20, 2010 3:17 PM