July 23, 2014
Quote of the Day
"It's Virtually Impossible to Be a Successful Modern President" declares the headline of a blog post by the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza. The post has drawn a great deal of ridicule, but to our mind most of the critics fail to appreciate just how feeble an effort it is. Our aim is to correct that. -- James Taranto
ah, I've missed Taranto, and do have time now that he's behind the WSJ firewall. Do they have an electronic-only subscription rate?
Posted by: nanobrewer at July 25, 2014 1:38 AMYes but. They have really goosed it up this year. There's a fan club of sorts on Facebook and many complained when he went behind Rupert's wall.
I thought "you bunch of whiners -- it's, like, $89 for the best newspaper in the known universe." Then my credit card bill came in it's more, like $240. Ow.
Yet I think I will stay with it -- if you chose not to, let me know anytime you'd like me to email a story.
Posted by: jk at July 25, 2014 10:13 AMAh yes, welcome to the "introductory rate until you stop checking your credit card statement for the auto-renewal price" sales gimmick.
Posted by: johngalt at July 27, 2014 11:43 AMYee-ow! I thought there was an OnLine subscription for something like $14/mo.? When I get a little freer, I'll take the free trial and report back...
I do have more time now that I'm not reading Hail-Taranto!
Posted by: nanobrewer at July 28, 2014 12:39 AMYou got it, jg. In fairness, I have subscribed for more than 15 years and the digital only was $89 - $99 per year until now. It is not quite the Comcast - HBO plan.
Posted by: jk at July 28, 2014 9:48 AMJuly 19, 2014
Quote of the Day
The 2014 midterm elections are shaping up to be similar to the wave elections of 1994 and 2010, particularly with an unpopular President and an unpopular piece of major legislation that will serve as a referendum on the sitting President. . . . A difficult political climate coupled with the rising unpopularity of President Obama could affect the Democratic brand as a whole and hurt Senator Warner.What right wing wackos are putting out this nonsense? Oh:
The Virginia Progress PAC, a Democratic committee supporting Senator Mark Warner, issued a list of talking points for potential donors that laid out the challenge the Obama albatross represents for Democrats this fall -- John Fund
July 16, 2014
Quote of the Day
Michael Walsh responds to Rolling Stone's amazingly stupid even for them Five Most Dangerous Guns."
The Five Most Dangerous Dogs:· Big dogs
· Little dogs
· Medium Sized Dogs
· Male Dogs
· Female Dogs
July 15, 2014
Quote of the Day
Twenty years after the phrase entered the American lexicon, "Soccer Mom" retains its power as hurtful speech. -- PJ O'Rourke
Mothers In Love with Fracking?
There's a terrorist outfit in the Philippines called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front - and I'm not making this up, but they have got to have the most unfortunate acronym in the history of revolutionaries and separatists. It cracks me up every time I see them mentioned in a newspaper.
Literally.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 16, 2014 1:10 PMYes, I kid you not - Mothers In Love with Fracking." A good article, worthy of whole thing read the, but scroll to the bottom for the relevant content.
Posted by: johngalt at July 16, 2014 1:49 PMThe T-Shirt model in jg's linked piece is the Centennial State's beloved Amy Oliver. Oliver is an energy analyst for the Independence Institute and is married to Weld County Sheriff John Cooke. Cooke lead opposition Sheriffs against Colorado's unconstitutional gun laws that was joined by 52 urban, rural, Democratic and Republican Sheriffs.
Posted by: jk at July 16, 2014 1:57 PMAnd also a talk show host. But still a mother!
Posted by: johngalt at July 16, 2014 2:41 PMI'm going to forgo the obvious reference to Ms. Oliver being a MILF, out of civility and not merely because her husband is who he is. Instead, I'll merely say I followed the link, read the article, and am not surprised at the behavior of know-nothing peckerheads who call themselves "Earth Guardians." I can't claim they're the only people I've seen this week that would benefit from some rough treatment with a taser and a firehose (I am in California, after all...), but they're definitely high. On the list, I mean.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at July 16, 2014 3:15 PMWe've missed you, KA.
Posted by: johngalt at July 16, 2014 3:26 PMJuly 9, 2014
Quote of the Day
Gotta sting a bit.
A true revolution would be a new breed of climate activist who admitted what they didn't know and toned down their absurd pretense that they're going to ban or seriously curb fossil fuel by fiat. If they were smart, they would put all their effort into winning government funding for battery research. But there are reasons, quite apart from lack of imagination, which is the nicest explanation of Mr. Steyer's shrill imposture, that this doesn't happen.Our political system is adept at making use of people like Mr. Steyer. Democrats will gladly spend his $100 million, then go back to their real environmental business, which is green cronyism. Happily Mr. Steyer's fate won't be that of the Hemingway character [in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"] --who finally got to prove his merit while accidentally being shot in the head by his wife. But like Al Gore before him, Mr. Steyer will be able to say of his impact on the climate debate: I softened up the public to be milked for green handouts that did nothing for climate change. -- Homan Jenkins
I'm going to have a hard time taking a guy seriously if he thinks that Francis Macomber was shot accidentally.
Posted by: AndyN at July 9, 2014 4:37 PM"But how is one to know about an American?"
Posted by: jk at July 9, 2014 5:00 PMJuly 7, 2014
Quote of the Day II
Finally getting to Jonah's awesome-on-stilts-so-far review of "Capital in the Twenty-First Century."
Piketty's occasional concessions to uncertainty about his most dire predictions illustrate one reason he shouldn’t be considered an orthodox Marxist. He has no grand Hegelian theory of the ineluctable progression of History with a capital H. But who needs dialectical materialism when you have algebra? -- Jonah Goldberg
UPDATE (Honorable Mention):
Still, if one takes all these critiques into account, one must conclude that what its supporters have hailed as an irrefutable mathematical prophecy might have to be downgraded by everyone else into the well-informed hunch from a left-leaning French economist--a significant drop in confidence level, as the statisticians might say.
UPDATE II: Blog Brother Bryan points out that GMU's Don Boudreax's review is very good as well.
Quote of the Day
Still, Simpson-Mazzoli welcomed more people as citizens during a time of divided government. The president, Ronald Reagan, and the Senate were Republican, the House Democratic--the inverse of today's Washington. But this was "Morning in America," and Reagan's favorite words were "growth" and "opportunity." Mr. Obama is presiding over a fifth year of 2% growth, with his favorite words being "inequality," "us" and "them." -- L. Gordon Crovitz, WSJ Ed Page
July 5, 2014
Quote of the Day
I do like Megan McArdle. She has a great column on the ensuing Hobby Lobby boycott (pointing out that about zero of the boycotters shop there in the first place). I enjoyed the close:
It's perfectly sane to tilt at windmills -- as long as you don’t expect to unseat the windmills and win the tournament. -- Megan McArdle
Hat-tip: Insty
June 27, 2014
Quote of the Day
Our Margaret reviews Sec. Clinton's book tour:
Now she's Mom--mature, settled, with a throaty laugh and a thickening middle. Or grandma. After six years of presidential leadership from a lithe, supple, snotty older brother, Mom will seem an improvement. -- Peggy Noonan
Seriously? Peggy Noonan after her disastrous Obama vote will look to Clinton as an improvement. What is wrong with her? (Peggy)
Posted by: Terri at June 27, 2014 2:39 PMHardly a ringing endorsement...
Let the record show that I supported then-Sen. Clinton in 2008. "strategic" GOP friends suggested I should register D and vote for then-also-Sen. Obama, Because he would be so easy to beat. How's that Hopey-Changey working out for you?
I can damn with faint praise too: I think she would be much better than the current occupant -- but I hope we do not have to find out. Jonah Goldberg says in today's G-File that he would prefer Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D - Wahoo) to Sec. Clinton. Not gonna join him there.
Posted by: jk at June 27, 2014 3:01 PMJune 24, 2014
Vindication of the day
Nixon said in a May 1974 interview with a supporter that if he had followed the liberal policies that he thought the media preferred, "Watergate would have been a blip."The media noted that most of the reporting turned out to be accurate and the competitive nature of the media guaranteed massive coverage of the political scandal.
From the Watergate Scandal Wikipedia page.
Quote of the Day
Even better, Justice Scalia's [majority opinion in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA] explicitly defends the structure of the Constitution. Blessing the EPA's tailoring rule would be "a severe blow to the Constitution's separation of powers" where Congress enacts laws and the President enforces them, he writes. This remedial civics lesson ought to be unnecessary but with the Obama crowd it's essential. "We are not willing to stand on the dock and wave goodbye as EPA embarks on this multiyear voyage of discovery" that ignores the will of Congress, Justice Scalia writes. -- WSJ Ed Page
June 23, 2014
Quote of the Day
The thing about dogs eating homework is, it could actually happen. This can't. -- Kyle Smith, NYPostPart of a great column: imagine if Goldman Sachs had tried this defense... Hat-tip: Insty.
June 19, 2014
QOTD III
We're agnostic in the Indian symbol debate, though we've never understood why the critics think fans and athletes want their team names to represent something other than strength, courage or pride. If names were meant to convey dislike--of, say, Vikings, Yankees or the Irish--then Redskins owner Dan Snyder would have converted to the Washington Harry Reids years ago. -- WSJ Ed Page
Quote of the Day II
It's a Two-Quote Kinda day. Jonah has some fun with the President's penchant for straw man arguments:
Scour the Internet until your fingers bleed, and you won’t find a single person who has denied that Bowe Bergdahl is someone's child. -- Jonah Goldberg
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat...
Barack Obama created Darrell Issa. -- Dan Henninger
June 18, 2014
All Hail Insty!
June 17, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom. -Plato
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/plato_2.html#8puyA1pRkPdO2XYP.99
June 12, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
And if the 11 million illegals who live here obey the law, pay taxes, learn English, and understand the Constitution, they deserve legal status. Citizenship is an issue way down the road. And yes, we must include border security, where unfortunately Obama's lax policies have contributed to the calamitous surge in illegal-immigrant children. But temporary visas or work permits should be part of a sensible reform package. The E-Verify system can work.So, Mr. Brat, as a free-market economist, surely you know there's no reason why all this cannot be done.
Hopefully you will come to believe that sensible immigration reform is pro-growth and pro-GOP.
Larry Kudlow, 'David Brat, Right on Free-Market Economics'
(Quoting Kudlow on CIR, so's jk don't have toooooooo.)
Millions pay withholding on fake SSNs for which they can never get refunds or claim any benefits. This is something of a windfall to the treasury which is never computed in opponents' balance sheets. They also pay sales taxes, property taxes through rent, and any local fees. Not to say that zero are not using services for which they do not pay, but the balance is at the very least a lot more nuanced.
The line sounds great, Andy -- the orderly queue is the centerpiece of civilization and order. But in the case of immigration, it is an absolute fantasy. There is no line -- there are some with connections who hope to emigrate and there are a few with family already here that can hope for some unification.
But those who just want to live here, whether a newly minted PhD in Engineering from Stanford or a good worker who would like a shot at the better life -- which my immigrant have friends have received -- have no hope. One can fill out a form, but there is no line, there is no wait list where a name will come up someday. There's an H1-B system that fills its annual quota in a couple days.
These people could be starting exciting new business, providing the labor for others to start or grow one -- or just be legal taxpayers and customers. It strikes me as a pretty good deal.
1.2 million pay witholding on ITIN's, which probably do allow refunds and benefits.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Taxpayer_Identification_Number
Posted by: johngalt at June 13, 2014 10:57 PMJK - I'm aware that a lot of criminals, both foreign and domestic, use fake SSNs. I also don't deny that taxes automatically withheld from them may be a net financial gain for the government. However, if part of Kudlow's criteria are that foreigners who entered the country illegally deserve legal status because they pay taxes and obey all our other laws besides the ones they broke entering the country, acknowledging that a lot of them pay taxes by falsifying government documents isn't much of an argument against my original point. People who aren't legally allowed to be in the country can't both obey the law and pay taxes unless they're entirely dependent on someone else for their upkeep.
As for there being no line for immigrants wanting to come here legally - that H1B quota is a line. Is the permitted length of that line too short? Perhaps. I'm more than willing to entertain the possibility that we should be encouraging more legal immigration. That doesn't change my opinion that the criminals who are here now shouldn't be given priority treatment over people who've been waiting to come here legally all along. Those people also could be starting new businesses, providing labor for others to do so, or just be legal taxpayers and customers. And I'm inclined to believe they'll be less likely to violate our other laws than people who have a history of doing so.
Posted by: AndyN at June 14, 2014 8:53 PMAny body else had their tax return held up?
this:
https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofgetstatus.jsp
isn't helping....
Andy is right.
Increase the amount of visa's available.
That is not only the short term, but the long term solution to this problem.
I don't get why it isn't the 1st thing on the agenda. Perhaps equal to confirming we're going to work on being serious about a border or stop any talk of amnesty which just invites illegal activity.
Clearly, my work here is not done. <wink />
I know I go on about immigration, but after Facebook threads it is enriching to discuss with people guided by reason and appreciative of liberty.
The H1-B has elements of a line but no continuity. If there are 300 this year and I am number 301, that gives me no leg up next year; the line forms anew. That is a multi-winner lottery and not a line.
But I accept, to Terri's point and Andy's, that it could be expanded to create a line. I am all for that. But it will not happen.
There are those who oppose any increase in immigration for a variety of reasons. Some see zero-sum economics and believe every immigrant taking a job leaves one fewer job for US citizens (cf., South Park). Unions see a shift away from Union labor. Some have baser motives.
Even with a plurality remaining, neither would legislators on either side "give this away." This most popular chip is held hostage by the right to enact more security and on the left to get a path to citizenship. You can't give the abolitionists Missouri and then discuss Kansas.
If the H1B is fixed, we still have all the same messes. More Doctors around to treat everybody, which is nice, but there is a demand for low wage labor and a supply of it separated by a very narrow river. On that front, I most definitely hold my position that this "line" we keep hearing of is a fiction. There is zero legal path for a Mexican or Central American who would like to come here, work hard, pay his taxes, and establish a better life.
I am a law and order guy. It gets me kicked out of a lot of Libertarian events -- even the ones with a cash bar. If there were a legal path, I'd happily get tough on those who chose not to use it. As there is none, I'm sympathetic to those who make my life better and theirs, at great cost and jeopardy to themselves.
Posted by: jk at June 15, 2014 11:17 AMQuote of the Day
First, I apparently wasn't perceived by some people as a "serious" candidate. Given the fact that I was the only candidate in the race with an entire platform based on child poverty, mass incarceration, income disparity, diminishing civil liberties, domestic surveillance, student loan debt, corporatization and rule by oligarchy, passing a Green New Deal, and a Constitutional Amendment to rid corporations of the rights of personhood, I'm a little stymied as to what makes a person "serious" enough to pass muster with the so-called "serious" people who make such judgments. Indeed, mine was the only top tier candidacy that actually did make a serious critique of the political status quo.-- Marianne WilliamsonHat-tip: A Facebook friend who says "Imagine a world where the politicians thought like this.... Maybe one day."
June 10, 2014
Quote of the Day
Put down your Kleenexes, Sec, Clinton did not have it perhaps quite so bad as she averred...
Leaving aside for a brief moment how utterly farcical it is to use "struggle" and "houses" in the same sentence, the notion that the Clintons were presented in their post-presidency with anything other than a license to print money is unyielding in its abject hilarity. By 2001, Bill Clinton had made $200,000 per annum for eight years while paying nothing toward his housing or upkeep, and, in addition to the extraordinarily lucrative speaking gigs that American ex-presidents are now to expect, he had a lifetime of pensions and benefits to look forward to. (David Graham points out that, in the last 14 years, he has received nearly $16 million from the government.) By the end of the year in which he left office, the couple had made $16 million and enjoyed between $5 and $30 million in assets. By 2004, they had $50 million to their names. And by 2014, Clinton had become the highest-earning former president in America's history, with net assets of nearly $200 million. Being smart sorts, the couple knew full well that this was coming, which is why in 1999, with their apparently destructive legal bills still racking up, they bought a $6 million house in Chappaqua, N.Y., so that Hillary could legally run for the Senate. One suspects that if the Clintons had been genuinely worried that their legal fights might bankrupt them, they would not have done this, nor would friend Terry McAuliffe have agreed to loan them $1.3 million toward its purchase. -- Charlie Cooke
Hat-tip Jim Geraghty
UPDATE: In spite of the lengthy excerpt, whole thing the please read -- it is an impressive takedown of the Clintons which might come in handy over the next couple of years.
UPDATE II: Thanks, Facebook!
I'm not the world's largest Clinton fan, yet I find something to criticize in the above quote.
I will start by admitting I don't know exactly what Hillary said and I did not whole thing the please read so I may be way off base here...
BUT I have a problem with the argument that so and so could not possibly be struggling because they make X amount of dollars and have X dollars in assets. The Clintons income and asset numbers sound very large to me but I am certain the jg and dagny income and asset numbers would sound very large to some people as well.
I still feel entitled to complain that the economy sucks and my dollar doesn't go as far anymore. If you are in debt and struggling to pay bills, it feels bad no matter where on the income scale you fall.
As I do not believe that those lower on the income scale have a claim to what I have worked for, I therefore do not believe I get to tell those higher on the scale what their status should be.
The question of whether the Clintons actually, "earned," what they have is a different question and whole other matter. I would wish they hadn't collected an additional 16 million of taxpayer dollars but as JK noted in another post, that amount is in the noise range for governments.
Posted by: dagny at June 10, 2014 6:47 PMI do not think that we should engage in class envy against the Clintons -- even though it world be positively fruit juicy to turn that tactic back on those who claimed that Gov. Romney was somehow "too rich" to be president.
But I'm not sure I'll join on your -- or Sec. Clinton's -- right to whine. Yes, you possess it but said person on lower rung has a more absolute right to laugh at you for doing so. And her ability to make five time the median annual income for an hour's gabbing at some cronies justifies some good eye-rolling.
If you are missing any context it's that she trotted out this tear-jerk to defend herself against Diane Sawyer's questions about $200K speaking fees. Had she taken the dagny approach and said "Diane, I was awesome -- they should've tipped me and washed my car" then I'd be in. But this is because she is embarrassed to be in the class she's in.
She also complains about the taxes. My sympathy chip is perhaps not completely soldered in today.
A very enjoyable article! Not only does it reveal Empress Hillary's empty wardrobe, it suggests an erudite replacement acronym for 'ROFLMAO' with the phrase "unyielding in its abject hilarity." UAH? UIIAH?
Dagny's defense of the wealthy from attack for being wealthy is worthy, but not in the case of government royalty like Bill and Hillary Clinton, who lived rent and mortgage free in state and federal mansions for a couple of decades. However, what I found most interesting was HRH HRC's reference to taxes:
Her husband, she told Sawyer, "had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes."
"Because of, obviously, taxes." Is she suggesting that, prior to leaving government service, their incomes were not taxable? I find no support for that reality, so what did she mean? "Double the money" compared to what?
But leaving aside the obvious issue that "yes, Ms. Clinton, so does every working American" she was caught by Ms. Sawyer's inopportune question, which revealed the obvious parallel between "astronomical speaking fees" and "obscene profits" - the former being Sawyer's characterization of her and her husband's *ahem* "earnings" and the later being HRH HRC's characterization of any profit earned by anyone who is not a contributor to her campaign. Marie Antoinette comes to mind.
I do feel a twinge of sympathy for HRH however since, if she has parroted class-warfare egalitarian rhetoric long enough to convince herself it is morally justified, the cognitive dissonance must genuinely keep her awake at night. (Ready for 3am phone calls, perhaps.)
Posted by: johngalt at June 11, 2014 3:15 PMThe Refugee saw some of clips and it seemed to be HRH attempting to say, "I feel your pain." Unfortunately for her, it came off very hollow. Trying to imply that she and Bill were just a paycheck away from homelessness as they left the White House just doesn't pass the laugh test.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at June 11, 2014 4:26 PMJune 9, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
"Recoveries make a CHOICE......and our recovery was CHOOSING to stay away."
- From the newly released Graphic Edition of Amity Shlaes' 'The Forgotten Man.'
June 6, 2014
Quote of the Day
Jonah Goldberg points out [subscribe] that the White House's Hacks can't even do Hackery right:
In the old days, there was an unwritten rule of politics: Don't put the president next to a guy who looks like he just emerged out of spider-hole with Mullah Omar. But these are more relaxed and tolerant times. Still, in the Washington of yore, the president's advance team would at least go over with the president's guests what they might say when standing alongside the leader of the free world. You know just to make sure everyone is on the same page. But that's hard to do when the page is written in ... Pashto!
June 5, 2014
Quote of the Day
"We have to quit putting out fires," said one Democratic senator, who asked not to be named in talking candidly about internal party views of the White House. -- NYTimes (via Taranto)
June 4, 2014
Quote of the Day
I'm sure conservatives can find [CIA Director Leon] Panetta decisions they disagree with, but let's face it: In a national security team that included or includes the likes of Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Tommy Vietor, he looks like George S. Patton. -- Jim Geraghty [subscribe]
I would pay dearly to see one of our present day press gaggles question George S. Patton. How many of them do you suppose he could reduce to tears?
Posted by: johngalt at June 4, 2014 12:29 PMJune 3, 2014
Quote of the Day
Obama's move was an ultimate victory for those at the White House and the State Department who had previously argued the military should "suck it up and salute," says the official familiar with the debate. -- Massimo Calabresi , TIME
May 29, 2014
Quote of the Day
In recent weeks, people across the political spectrum professed to be aghast when a small coterie of "offended" students shut down commencement speeches by conservatives, centrists and liberals.At Smith College, they didn't want to hear IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. At Haverford College, they'd only let former Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau speak if he signed a letter of apology and guilt for his handling of the Occupy Cal sit-ins in 2011. How, the world of astonished adults wondered, have these students come to believe they could shut people up on any aggrieved whim?
They got it from the Majority Leader of the United States Senate and 49 senators. They got it from the many adults who think a little restriction on some speech is OK, and then cry shock when the mob goes too far. That Senate letter isn't just about the Washington Redskins. It's part of a broader, active effort to define and limit what people can say--not just in politics or sports, but anywhere anyone tries to open his or her mouth. -- Dan Henninger, WSJ Ed Page
Huzzah!
Posted by: johngalt at May 29, 2014 11:09 AMMay 28, 2014
Quote of the Day
Uh huh. Toyota introduced its mass-market small car in the U.S. in 1968 and 46 years later the car is still called the Corolla. Honda introduced its Civic in 1972 and it's still the Civic. In that time, GM offered the Vega, Chevette, Monza, Cavalier, Cobalt and Cruze. A commenter at MotorTrend.com neatly explains why GM spends millions to create and dump new small-car brand-names every few years--because "Vega, Cavalier and Cobalt all say mediocre now." -- Holman Jenkins, WSJ Ed Page
Harumph. I blame Consumer Reports.
Our friends at Consumers Guide could do that better, too - they seem to have a need to write "but not up to the best of the European/Japanese imports" at the end of every American review. Well, some of the imports aren't up to the best of the Americans - but we never read that.Posted by: johngalt at May 28, 2014 4:23 PM
May 23, 2014
Quote of the Day
I made a flippant comment about "Insert random Mencken Quote" the other day. A Facebook friend, friendly to liberty, but not to my knowledge a ThreeSourcer, complies:
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -- H. L. Mencken
May 21, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
"You may not like it but your pure principle of tolerance for everyone requires you to permit me to speak, even if I say something that sounds "intolerant" to you.""Then, after you have heard me, you are free to say 'I disagree.' Or not."
- me
May 20, 2014
Quote of the Day
Thus far, President Obama and his team have regarded the scandalous treatment of veterans seeking care from the government over which they preside as a political hiccup rather than an indefensible breakdown in competent management that has led to the deaths of at least 40 veterans. Late last week, McDonough assured us that Obama is "madder than hell" about the VA fiasco.Please. We've seen the president show genuine flashes of anger toward the GOP in general, the Supreme Court following rulings he disagrees with, and anyone else who has the temerity to disagree with him on anything. In the present case Obama has largely been silent, absent, and behind closed doors--content to let Secretary Shinseki and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney bear the brunt of the growing storm in the media. -- Ron Christie
May 16, 2014
Quote of the Day
"Texas has things to be proud of," says [Conservative Activist Michael Quinn] Sullivan, who runs Empower Texans, a political group that is playing big in the state's primaries. "Then again, we're like the least drunk guy at the bar. California is drooling on itself, Illinois is passed out in the corner. We look good simply because we can walk a straight line. We should be leading the way." -- Kim Strassel
May 13, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
They act as though Twitter and clenched teeth or a pout could stop invasions or rescue kidnapped children in Nigeria. They do not sound as if, when saying that some outrage is "unacceptable" or that a dictator "must go," that they represent a government capable of doing something substantial—and, if necessary, violent—if its expectations are not met. And when reality, as it so often does, gets in the way—when, for example, the Syrian regime begins dousing its opponents with chlorine gas, as it has in recent weeks, despite solemn deals and red lines—the administration ignores it, hoping, as teenagers often do, that if they do not acknowledge a screw-up no one else will notice. -Eliot A. Cohen 'A Selfie-Taking, Hashtagging Teenage Administration' WSJ
May 5, 2014
Bueno
Happy Cinco de Mayo, or as President Obama calls it, "Cinco de Quatro." (Chad Ochocinco could not be reached for comment.) I, for one, salute our country's proud Mexican-American community, as they join us Irish-Americans in seeing one of their most important holidays -- honoring their impressive effort in the global hobby of beating the French -- turned into just another occasion to drink a lot. -- Jim Geraghty
April 28, 2014
Quote of the Day
But thanks to fracking and the shale revolution, peak oil and gas have been postponed. They will run out one day, but only in the sense that you will run out of Atlantic Ocean one day if you take a rowboat west out of a harbor in Ireland. Just as you are likely to stop rowing long before you bump into Newfoundland, so we may well find cheap substitutes for fossil fuels long before they run out. -- "Rational Optimist" Matt Ridley in today's WSJ.
Oh. Yeah!
Or, maybe if consumption is reduced too much, we will never run out. If abiogenic origin theories are correct, petroleum is still being produced. If we stop extracting and using it carefully we might again be "Out one day just a shootin' at some food, And up from the ground came a bubblin' crude. Oil that is. Texas Tea."
"Exploiting" petroleum fuels may be the most environmentally conscious thing man has ever done. And since methane is a "greenhouse gas" preventing its natural, uncontrolled venting into the atmosphere by drilling, capturing, refining and combusting, may actually be COOLING the earth.
Posted by: johngalt at April 30, 2014 2:34 PMBringing to mind the good people of Santa Barbara, California. Nearby denizens prefer to let the oil seep into their world class beach rather than extract it and relieve pressure.
I like where you're headed. This would be a pretty good SciFi novel: the world switches to cheap cold fusion power; all the animal habitat is ruined by oil because nobody remembers how to get rid of it.
Posted by: jk at April 30, 2014 3:48 PMBingo. Let's flesh out a screenplay and split the rights.
Posted by: johngalt at April 30, 2014 4:48 PMApril 25, 2014
Quote of the Day
Funny story: Recently, the Dalai Lama visited AEI (Big hitter, the Lama). I was out of town for it, but Ramesh Ponnuru attended his talk. At one point, His Holiness turned to Ramesh and said something like "You're from India, you know what I mean" (not exact quote). Ramesh replied, "Actually, I'm from Kansas." Then Arthur Brooks apparently quipped something like, "Don't worry your holiness, everyone in Kansas looks like Ramesh."Now, I think that's all hilarious and utterly harmless. But apparently, what Ramesh should have done is stand up, point his bony finger of condemnation at the Dalai Lama, and scream in his best Cotton Mather voice "Microaggressor! Burn him!" -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
April 23, 2014
Quote of the Day
"This is once again politics at its worst, In another gutless move, the Administration is delaying a finding on whether the [Keystone XL] pipeline is in the national interest based on months-old litigation in Nebraska regarding a state level challenge to a state process--and which has nothing to with the national interest. They waited until Good Friday, believing no one would be paying attention. The only surprise is they didn't wait to do it in the dark of night." -- FOX News Commen, er -- Republican Strateg, er -- Laborers' International Union chief Terry O'Sullivan
April 22, 2014
Quote of the Day
Language about "appropriation" suggests that we live in an endowment economy, as does the claim that post-World War I wealth inequality fell "so low that nearly half the population were able to acquire some measure of wealth" (350). Endogeneity, anyone? -- Ryan DeckerHat-tip: Blog friend tg in the comments below. The entire piece is a superb and serious answer to Thomas Piketty's new book, "Capital in the 21st Century."
April 16, 2014
Quote of the Day
"We have this congenital disease, which is in midterm elections we don't vote at the same rates," President Obama said at a Houston fundraiser the other day. He means that the Obama Democrats are now what they call the "coalition of the ascendant," made up of minorities, young people, single women and affluent, college-educated cultural liberals. The problem is that this year they may be a coalition of the disappointed, so Democrats are trying to scare them to the polls with pseudo-controversies. -- WSJ Ed Page
April 15, 2014
Quote of the Day
The comparison is especially apt because Illinois Democrats are doubling down on their strategy in this election year. Governor Pat Quinn has announced plans to make permanent the "temporary" tax hikes that were supposed to sunset at the end of this year. -- WSJ Ed Page What's the Matter with Illinois?I just don't understand. It was a temporary tax hike. Now they want to make it permanent? Man, if only somebody might've seen that coming...
April 8, 2014
Quote of the Day
They cannot even handle adhesive, and they wonder why the Google guys are wealthy:
Today, Twitter accounts using the names Occupy Oakland and Defend The Bay Area claim they stopped a Google bus in the street and attached a sticker to it, with the words "Die Techie Scum" on it. The protesters tell Business Insider that the sign didn't stay attached, and the bus was later allowed on its way.
From a very sad Richard Fernandez piece (Hat-tip: Insty)
Quote of the Day
Yet Mr. Piketty has no interest in expanding capital ownership: It doesn't even make his list of inferior alternatives, and he dismisses capitalized pensions with a few uncharacteristic rhetorical slights. Like others on the left, he seems to have concluded that the only way to promote economic equality is confiscatory taxation--redistribution of capital returns rather than wider distribution of capital ownership. After Marx's idea of comprehensive state ownership of the means of production proved to be hellacious and tyrannical, progressive attentions turned in a different direction. They would leave ownership--with all of its risks and tribulations--alone, and control its rewards through taxation and regulation. -- Christopher DeMuth
UPDATE: I emailed this to a friend of the blog. While we're ripping off Mr. Murdoch, this link should be good for seven days. (I recommend it highly.)
Brilliant!
I rather liked this line:
"The statist intellectual imagines redistributing capital profits while leaving owners with the losses, but the opposite--profits for owners and managers, losses for taxpayers--has been frequently observed in the wild."Posted by: johngalt at April 8, 2014 5:57 PM
It is a very interesting article. He makes a pretty interesting case.
I would really like to see some details on how we would go about capitalizing the masses. There was talk of a "stockholders Republic" back in 50s, and that didn't really pan out.
I would be very interested in a long form essay version or policy paper version of his take.
Posted by: T. Greer at April 9, 2014 3:57 AMDeMuth references both President Bush's call for ownership in Social Security accounts and the 100x more radical Chilean model. I don't know that there is no model so much as no will: W was going to let people keep a microscopic part of their SS withholding and we were promised Armageddon.
I'm in -- if he writes more, I'll read it. But I think there is a more fundamental question of whether we seek to let labor share in the benefits of capital or do we empower the government to redistribute those gains.
Who doesn't remember the term "ownership society." That is the alternative to the redistributionist welfare-state dystopia to which Democrats, Progressives and other leftists tell us we should all "aspire." But the message seems to have been forgotten, or at least is no longer forcefully advocated.
Posted by: johngalt at April 9, 2014 12:44 PMStep 1: Teach small children how to win at Monopoly.
Posted by: dagny at April 10, 2014 2:20 PMApril 4, 2014
Quote of the Day
Andrew Sullivan has not had a approbational reference from this blog in some time. But he earns it today:
Will [Former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich] now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me -- as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today -- hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else -- then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us. -- The Dish
Hat-tip: Taranto
Woo freakin HOO.
Posted by: johngalt at April 5, 2014 12:39 AMSlate actually published something worthwhile on this: Lets purge all 35,000 people who donated to Prop 8!
Posted by: T. greer at April 7, 2014 9:40 PMI'll raise you one: Mother Jones published OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too. Thanks a lot for starting this, lads!
Clearly it would save time if anyone who ever supported an opinion which differs from George Takei would just quit his or her job and beg on the street. The rest of us will take over.
Posted by: jk at April 8, 2014 10:08 AMGeorge Takei? I know he's the Captain of the USS Facebook but can we at least make it his old boss, William Shatner? I might stand a chance matching opinions with him. Otherwise it's "Brother... can you spare a dime?"
On the serious side, may we observe that the rabid, barking dog that is the crusade to require acceptance of homosexuality by everybody, everywhere, has now finally reached the end of its very long leash? Despite the many appearances that this may be so, Ross Douthat suggests that they won't settle for mere plurality but instead are bent on full-blown absolutism.
Posted by: johngalt at April 8, 2014 2:59 PMH8er!
Posted by: jk at April 8, 2014 5:26 PMWho, ME? I H8 the h8ing h8ers!
Posted by: johngalt at April 8, 2014 7:05 PMApril 2, 2014
Quote of the Day
In the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Obama reported that 7.1 million people had signed up so far, confirming a Monday night White House news leak. "That doesn't mean all our health-care problems have been solved forever," he conceded with customary modesty. -- WSJ Ed Page, The ObamaCare Copperheads
I don't believe much of anything anymore.
He needed 7 million for his "win" and suddenly he's got 7.1 million.
Call me suspicious.
Similar to his jobs created or saved number. He chose the number first, then came up with the news.
Posted by: Terri at April 2, 2014 12:50 PM"If you want 7.1 million 'buy my product, or else' customers you can have 7.1 million 'buy my product, or else' customers."
After all, that figure represents just 6.1 percent of the number of discrete American households. (Or 2.2% of the population. Or 14.6% of the uninsured. - Choose your statistic.) Like the man said, "Buy it, or ELSE."
Posted by: johngalt at April 2, 2014 5:51 PMMarch 28, 2014
QOTD III
On the Next Episode of Undercover BossOkay, I know it really seemed like I was about to stop there, but I just had a great idea. They should do a show where Rich Lowry goes undercover to work with the guys and gals in the trenches at NRO. Returning from his "research villa" on the Aegean, Lowry could toil with the associate editors, chained to their drafting tables like so many Korean animators. He could spend a day in the editorial hot box, where such miserable wretches as Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson are locked away until they almost literally sweat out another editorial on debt reduction or steel tariffs. For once Lowry would have to tie Ponnuru's shoes and hand-crush each cube of ice for Kathryn's margaritas. Potemra could swing by Lowry's desk instead of poor Helen Rittelmeyer's and drop some 500-page tome in the original Greek in Lowry's lap with the order "Summarize this by morning." -- Jonah Goldberg
Alert readers have surmised from three QsOTD by 11AM Mountain that a) I have a very important work project; b) I am now on critical path; c) it is late; and d) I am finding it difficult to devote my full attention.
More than 48 hours after his last post on this site, it seems that br'er jk finally found his dedication.
It's been oddly quiet, has it not?
Welfare check in 10.............................9........
Posted by: johngalt at April 1, 2014 2:48 PMQuote of the Day II
But Larry [Kudlow]'s friendship has been far better for me as a person. Larry taught me how to disagree without being disagreeable. He taught me about the value of indefatigable optimism. Most importantly, he taught me that when life puts your butt on the mat, you need to get back up. That's the true measure. Oh, and when you're climbing back to your feet, it sure helps to have a few good friends around to lend a helping hand. Those friends you never forget. -- James Pethokoukis
"Indefatigable optimism." Yup.
"Disagree without being disagreeable." Yup.
"Get back up" and "helps to have a few good friends." Yup.
Good stuff!
Posted by: johngalt at March 28, 2014 1:01 PMThe final week's shows feature small homages to Kudlow from frequent guests, colleagues and contributors. It is heart-warming in the extreme to see the esteem in which he is held. Traders, journalists, politicians and pundits of all stripes respect, admire, and love that man. Very touching.
Last show tonight with Steve Forbes -- set DVRs to "stun."
Quote of the Day
The new ThreeSources Entertainment and Celebrity Channel: 3!
[Gwynth Paltrow] added, "I think it's different when you have an office job, because it's routine and, you know, you can do all the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening. When you're shooting a movie, they're like, 'We need you to go to Wisconsin for two weeks,' and then you work 14 hours a day and that part of it is very difficult. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as, of course there are challenges, but it's not like being on set." -- Lily Harrison E!
I, like, never considered that. And what is this E! Network? It sounds like a direct rip-off of 3!
Hat-tip: Jim Geraghty's J! Morning Celebrity newsletter [very selective subscription list -- not providing a link because you'd be disappointed when not accepted...]
March 24, 2014
Quote of the Day
After Chief Justice John Roberts upheld ObamaCare, the refrain on the political left was "it's the law," but the last year has proven that the White House thinks the law is whatever it says it is. Mr. Obama has conceded that "obviously we didn't do a good enough job in terms of how we crafted the law." The right and only lawful way to repair ObamaCare is through another act of Congress. In Halbig, the judiciary can remind the Obama Administration of this basic constitutional truth. -- WSJ Ed PageFrom a superb editorial on Halbig v. Sebelius "The plaintiffs are merely asking the judges to tell the Administration to faithfully execute the plain language of the statute that Congress passed and President Obama signed."
Observe the irony wherein Republicans attempted to defeat or delay the Obamacare *snarkyvoice*[it's the Affordable Care Act... Affordable, Care, Act]*/snarkyvoice* law, one of them even staging an old-fashioned fillibuster in that effort and, having failed to delay it, now seek to prevent Obama delaying all or part of his own law.
Presidential loyalists may reflexively charge the Republicans with hypocrisy for he's only doing what they begged him to do in the first place. What they don't see, or don't admit, is that the Republicans. Were. Right.
Posted by: johngalt at March 24, 2014 2:09 PMMarch 21, 2014
Quote of the Day
WHY DEMOCRATS DON'T LIKE KOCH ADS: BECAUSE THEY WORKThe left likes to pretend that the free-market message promoted by industrialists Charles and David Koch represents a narrow special interest. But a New York Times report suggests that the message is increasingly resonating with voters in swing states. Citing improvements in advertising and field operations at Americans for Prosperity, the outfit supported by the Kochs and others that promotes limited government, the Times describes incumbent Senate Democrats under intense pressure. "Americans for Prosperity is now producing testimonial-style ads and carrying out an elaborate field effort, spending more than $30 million already in at least eight states with crucial Senate races and in some House districts as well." -- James Freeman Morning Editorial Report
March 17, 2014
Quote of the Day
All Hail:
His slogans were vapid even by the standards of political sloganeering: "Yes, we can." "Hope and change." "We are the ones we've been waiting for." He was often called a "rock star"--a celeb, not a cause. It's as if the Beatles came to America in 1964 to run for president rather than to sell records, and got elected on slogans like "Let it be," "Please please me" and "I want to hold your hand." Half a century later, the Beatles' tunes have an enduring appeal to their once-youthful, now-elderly fans. Had they been forced to face the exigencies of governing, it's unlikely a Lennon-McCartney administration would be remembered much more fondly than Johnson-Humphrey is. -- James Taranto
"Roll up, roll up, for the Obamacare Mystery Tour!"
We've got everything you need.
Satisfaction guaranteed.
We'll delay it when we please.
Dying to take you away, take you away.
Posted by: johngalt at March 18, 2014 2:44 PMMarch 14, 2014
Quote of the Day
Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics. -- Godfrey Harold HardyHat-tip:
Hat-tip to hat-tip: Blog Brother AlexC on Facebook. Happy Half-Tau Day, Yall!
Next I suppose they'll be saying Pluto shouldn't be called a planet.
Posted by: johngalt at March 14, 2014 1:32 PMMarch 4, 2014
Quote of the Day
The warming alarmists might earn more support if they acted less like they had something to hide and actually allowed open debate. Perhaps they could respond to their critics rationally instead of reflexively branding them heretics, suitable for whatever is the modern university and research center equivalent of burning at the stake. Real science does not fear those who challenge it, does not work to have challengers' articles banned from science journals, and does not compare skeptics to Holocaust deniers or, as Mr. Kerry did in Jakarta, members of the "Flat Earth Society."A movement with confidence in its scientific theories would be able to admit there are many climate factors beyond carbon dioxide that are not yet well understood, and that some climate models have been shown to be unreliable. Such a movement would not downplay or whitewash leaked emails evincing the possibility of massaged data. When it criticizes its skeptics as hired guns of the fossil-fuel industry who are influenced by money, it would be willing to acknowledge that it thrives on government and private funding that would shrink if its research did not continue to say warming is here and getting worse. And there would be more confessions such as Al Gore's belated acknowledgment that his support for ethanol was misguided. -- Pete du Pont
It strikes me that an actual flat-earther would be treated to far more scientific inquiry: "Well, how do you account for ..." Nobody would say "97% of geologists have concluded ..."
Posted by: jk at March 4, 2014 7:29 PMMarch 1, 2014
Quote of the Day
Some people say that I tend to write absolute gibberish as throat-clearing before I get to the point because vests have no sleeves. I say to them: Trieste belongs to the Italians! -- Jonah Goldberg [subscribe]
February 28, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
The Tea Party rightly concluded from the battles over Obamacare that what we are seeing in our politics these days is not two clashing interpretations of the same Constitution, but increasingly two different Constitutions in conflict: the old Constitution of 1787 and a “living” Constitution that is not just a different approach to the original, but an alternative to it. The extraordinary fight the Tea Party was willing to put up arose from this fact—that Obamacare amounted to a colossal battle between two different ways of government. And it was the Tea Party and President Obama who shared a clear understanding of the stakes; mainstream Republican leaders understood them with much less clarity and intensity.
From this month's excellent issue of Imprimus, by Hillsdale College.
Quote of the Day
Our Miss Margaret can still turn a phrase:
In the dark screwball comedy that is ObamaCare, the Congressional Budget Office revealed last month the law will provide disincentives to work. Don't worry, said Nancy Pelosi, people can take that time and go become poets and painters. At first you think: Huh, I can do that, I've got a beret. Then you think: No, I have to earn a living. Then you think, poor hardworking rube that you are: Wait a second, I'm subsidizing all this. I've been cast in the role of Catherine de Medici, patroness of the arts. She at least had a castle, I just get a bill! -- Peggy Noonan
February 25, 2014
Movie Quote of the Day
Requiescat in pace, Harold Ramis. All hail the libertarian masterpiece.
But the WSJ chooses a ThreeSources-worthy exchange from "Caddyshack:"
Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and I make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over there in the Himalayas.Angie D'Annunzio: A looper?
Carl Spackler: A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald . . . striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one--big hitter, the Lama--long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. You know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga . . . gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteen and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
Quote of the Day
Bottom line -- We "played nice" in Ad Age because the people involved are all, well....nice. I'm just at a point in my career where I want to associate myself with messages that speak directly to the issues that are important to me. That's why the Walmart ad was so appealing. A $250 billion investment in US manufacturing is worth talking about, and very much in keeping with the goals of my own foundation. If any other "Oppressors" are looking to make a similar investment in America, drop me a line. I'm happy to "shill" for any company that get this country back to work. -- "Shill for the Oppressors," Mike RoweI've mentioned that I struggle with a full three cheers for a "Buy American" message, but I like the cut of this guy's gib. Joe the Plumber lacked the chops for a political career, but this young man? He could go as far as he wished.
You mean, even to the ultimate "dirty job" - POTUS? I could see that.
Posted by: johngalt at February 25, 2014 1:01 PMThese people who criticize WalMart's "Buy American" ad are the same ones, I'm pretty sure, who told us the reason WalMart sucks is they only sell us cheap Chinese-made crap. #Hypocrite #NeverHappy
Posted by: johngalt at February 25, 2014 1:12 PMFebruary 5, 2014
Quote of the Day
If you have not read Dylan Farrow's NYTimes accusations against Woody Allen, I envy you; it is deeply disturbing. But I suggest it is necessary to know the extent of depravity that can be forgiven in a wave of a hand by the glitterati of this nation. Jim Geraghty points out that this un-American acceptance of caste is limited to entertainment.
The problem with this set of cultural rules and expectations is that's not us. We never chose to set up our society by those rules; the movers and shakers of Hollywood did. (There aren't many other communities and professions that operate by those rules. Maybe professional and high-level college athletics, although you can argue that's just a sub-set of the entertainment industry.) You don't see accountants saying, "You've got to look the other way on that guy's incestuous pedophilia, because he's really good at adding up those numbers." The other sectors of society seem to grasp the inherent danger of establishing an accountability-free class of super-wealthy hedonistic narcissists. -- Jim Geraghty
I counter -- and intend to contact Mr. Geraghty -- with one other: Democratic politics. Mimi Alford, anybody?
Backing off my assertion. (It is easy to cool off when you're walking the dog and it is 0°C.)
Ms. Alford, Ms. Kopechne, and Ms. Lewinski were each over 18. I don't know that that excuses slavery, homicide, and workplace harassment -- but those are different than Woody Allen's and Roman Polanski's crimes.
Posted by: jk at February 5, 2014 3:25 PMLegal age of consent notwithstanding, the term "accountability-free class of super-wealthy hedonistic narcissists" is tailor made for many lifelong politicians. Including, per Drudge, our 42nd President.
Reflecting on the story I wonder why Ms. Hurley would consent. If personally servicing a POTUS is some sort of empowering achievement, is not refusing his advances an even greater one?
Posted by: johngalt at February 5, 2014 4:47 PMJanuary 29, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
"Almost two months married.... A better wife I never hoped to have.... She bears with my "innocent peculiarities" so kindly, so lovingly.... Let me strive to be as true to her as she is to me. Let me too be loving, kind, and thoughtful. Especially let me not permit the passion I have to see constant improvement in those I love, to be so blind in its eagerness as to wound a nature so tenderly sensitive as I know I sometimes have done. This is indeed life. The love of wedded wife! Can anything enjoyed on earth be a source of truer, purer happiness—happiness more unalloyed than this? Blessings on his head who first invented marriage!"-Rutherford Birchard Hayes
From a dictionary.com definition for unalloyed.
The first president with "a phone and a pen."
Beautiful. Thanks for posting.
Posted by: jk at January 29, 2014 1:22 PMJanuary 14, 2014
Quote of the Day
A bit apocalyptic but, if the whitewash of the IRS stands, Bryon Preston is right.
We had a good run as a republic, but if this stands and no one responsible is punished, then the Internal Revenue Service will be a tool of partisan politics for the foreseeable future. No one who criticizes a sitting president will be safe from harassment and abuse from a federal agency that can absolutely destroy lives.
January 13, 2014
All Hail Taranto
If you're reading this, you can be thankful at least that you don't have to rely on ObamaCare's Spanish-language website. It's called CuidadoDeSalud.gov, which, as the Associated Press notes, literally translates as "For the Caution of Health." It sounds as if Señora Sebelius relied on Google Translate--or maybe on the guys who translated the Japanese videogame Zero Wing into English, creating such comedy classics as "All your base are belong to us." -- James Taranto
January 3, 2014
Otequay of the Ayday
It should have been a banner year for the re-elected Barack Obama. In January he promised us the rollout of new health care and climate change legislation, immigration reform, more gun control and new federal spending initiatives. Instead, his approval ratings dived to the lowest level at this point in a president's second term since Richard Nixon's.Why the sudden unpopularity of the mellifluous and charismatic Obama? He forgot the old rule that a president can mislead, misstate and misquote only so many times.
-- Victor Davis Hanson on Investors' editorial page.
December 30, 2013
Quote of the day
No, not her either. Although it is rather striking that Sebelius has outlasted Mike Shanahan. Amanda Carpenter: "Seems like the only accountability in D.C. is in sports." -- Jim Geraghty
Do a poor job in the private sector and "You're fired." But in the public sector it seems there is no such thing as a poor job. Consider Illinois, for example, where the governor is not the highest paid state employee. In 2010, 3,062 public employees were paid more than the Illinois governor, totalling nearly $1Bn.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. Maybe those three thousand bureaucrats are doing an awesome job of running the state in a profitable manner, and are worth every penny of taxpayer money they stuff into pillow sheets! [cough, cough]
Posted by: johngalt at December 30, 2013 11:49 AMTo tie it up: if my lefty Facebook friends' posts are to be believed [cough, cough but this one has verisimilitude...] the college football coach is the highest paid public employee in most states. And actually has some accountability.
Posted by: jk at December 30, 2013 12:14 PMDecember 27, 2013
Quote of the Day
Heh. One from Insty. He gives and gives to this blog.
December 12, 2013
Quote of the Day
In the creative category, one of the strangest campaigns ever waged was the one by George Smathers against Claude Papper for the U.S. Senate in Florida in 1950. In his campaign speeches, Smathers began by referring to Pepper as "a known extrovert." He spat out the words with such disdain, many in his audiences assumed the worst of Pepper. While Pepper was trying to figure out how to respond, Smathers revealed that his opponent's sister was "a thespian." He then accused Pepper's brother of being "a practicing homo sapiens." He charged that while attending college, Pepper "matriculated on campus," and that he "engaged in celibacy" before he was married. Smathers won the election. -- Thomas Ayres
From the book "That's Not in My American History Book: A Compilation of Little Known Events" Hat-tip: my biological brother via email
As if we needed any evidence beyond the current placeholder at 1600 Pennsylvania that few candidates have ever lost an election due to underestimating the intelligence of the average American voter.
Posted by: Keith Arnold at December 12, 2013 11:52 AMHey Look, it's a vocabulary lesson for my children. Thanks JK!
This makes me think of articles I have seen explaining the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.
Posted by: dagny at December 12, 2013 12:30 PMIlya Somin, call your office!
Posted by: jk at December 12, 2013 12:47 PMDecember 10, 2013
Quote of the Day
Can anyone think of a more boring, banal, irrelevant, or stale speech than the one [President Obama] gave this Thursday in Washington D.C.? The speech was allegedly on the economy, but more likely it was to divert attention from the Obamacare catastrophe. Whatever the motive, his idea that the defining challenge of our time is to reduce income inequality is completely wrong. In truth, the defining challenge is to restore more rapid economic growth, create substantially more jobs, and significantly reduce unemployment. -- Larry KudlowUPDATE: On the Other hand, Richard Epstein loved it!
No one, not even the United States, can be that good. In fact, our present national status will only become worse if we do not understand that the American position has eroded from its glory days, in part because of the very policies that the President champions as the solution to our issues. But where to begin? The President manages to pack so many economic and historical falsehoods into his speech that it is nearly impossible to take them all on at the same time.In one of his illustrative sentences, he says: "The truth is we'll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who's best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who's best at busting unions, who's best at letting companies pollute as much as they want." For the President, each of these goals represents the ugly end of an economic "race to the bottom" that the U.S. should do its best to avoid. Unfortunately, his statement is wrong on every point.
The United States once enjoyed a period of prosperity that some might refer to as "glory days?" Huh. I thought that was just some cruel Republican myth.
Posted by: johngalt at December 10, 2013 3:11 PMWell, yeah, after FDR rescued us from the Great Depression! Did you never read of the "New Deal?" It was in all the papers...
Posted by: jk at December 10, 2013 4:04 PMOh, look... you're right!
Posted by: johngalt at December 10, 2013 5:07 PMDecember 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