How Do You Confuse a Leftie?

You tell her she's "the establishment" now. Too bad the clip wasn't long enough to see her collapse in a puddle of tears.





(h/t Instapundit)

Bill Whittle on Game Theory and a Losing Strategy: Obama's Bad Judgment With The Prisoner's Dilemma

While we're talking about Bill Whittle, he has an Afterburner segment up at PJTV that you should watch. This one is on Game Theory and how it can be used to evaluate President Obama's approach to foreign relations. In short, his approach does not and cannot work. Bill will probably post a transcript at his blog in a few days and I'll provide the link when he does. In the meantime, watch the video.

Bill Whittle's First Essay, "Freedom", Re-posted

I link to Bill Whittle on a fairly frequent basis. He's a great writer and has a talent for articulating what I feel (and a lot of other people too) as if he were reading my mind and bringing forth what I want to say but don't know how to. I first found Bill's writing in the comments section of Rachel Lucas's original blog. She convinced him to cobble together an essay out of the comments he left there and the result was "Freedom", which he posted in late 2002. It is still as fresh today as it was then and if you haven't read it, you're really missing something. He went on to write at least a dozen more lengthy essays and eventually assembled them into a book called Silent America: Essays from a Democracy at War". Bill just re-posted "Freedom" the other day. If you've never heard of Bill or read "Freedom", do yourself a favor and do it now.

Warmongers vs. Peacemakers: Who Brings Peace and Who Brings War?

Bill Whittle has the answer to that question right here.

Ouch! Now That's Going to Leave a Mark......

Brit Hume asks how CNN and the other administration-approved news outlets like "being patted on the head" by the Whitehouse.




Will they take that lying down? Probably. Good shot, Brit.

Green Jobs Programs an Expensive Boondoggle

John Hinderaker at Powerline takes note of a German think-tank report on "green jobs." The conclusion; without massive subsidies most if not all of the jobs will go away and furthermore, green policies are "devoid of economic and environmental benefits."

Anita Dunn - Does the Whitehouse Care That Its Interim Communications Director Admires a Mass Murderer?

Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott writes about Whitehouse Interim Communincations Director Anita Dunn in his Beltway Confidential column today. Speaking recently to an audience of high school students she made the incredible claim that her two favorite politcal philosophers are Mao Zedong and Mother Theresa. Think about that; Chairman "power flows from the barrel of a gun" Mao, who conservative estimates say was responsible for the deaths of upwards of 60 million people. The vetters at the Whitehouse have demonstrated once again that they are either incredibly inept, or (and I lean increasingly towards this alternative) they know full well what her views are and they just don't care.

Talking about the types and numbers of people killed by Mao and his surrogates between 1951 and 1953, Tapscott makes the following analogy:

'In any case, these two passages make clear that Anita Dunn's hero was a man who thought nothing of decreeing the deaths of millions of people for no reason other than suspicion that they might not accept his ghastly totalitarian vision for China. To fully grasp what Mao did, just imagine here in America today millions of non-political middle-class Americans suspected of being Tea Party sympathizers being rounded up, tried, sentenced and executed merely on suspicion of their being opposed to "change we can believe in." '

Given President Obama's penchant for hanging out with people like Bill Ayers, who sat around with his fellow would-be revolutionaries in the Weather Underground, talking about the logistics of killing off 20-25 million Americans who didn't buy their vision for how the country should be governed, the scenario doesn't seem all that far-fetched.

Read the whole column.

(via Instapundit)

Walter Williams on the Future Prospects for Economic Liberty

Walter Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University gives us a refresher course in the constitutional limits on government and how government's growth has curtailed our freedom.

"One of the justifications for the massive growth of government in the 20th and now the 21st centuries, far beyond the narrow limits envisioned by the founders of our nation, is the need to promote what the government defines as fair and just. But this begs the prior and more fundamental question: What is the legitimate role of government in a free society? To understand how America’s Founders answered this question, we have only to look at the rule book they gave us—the Constitution. Most of what they understood as legitimate powers of the federal government are enumerated in Article 1, Section 8. Congress is authorized there to do 21 things, and as much as three-quarters of what Congress taxes us and spends our money for today is nowhere to be found on that list. To cite just a few examples, there is no constitutional authority for Congress to subsidize farms, bail out banks, or manage car companies. In this sense, I think we can safely say that America has departed from the constitutional principle of
limited government that made us great and prosperous."

Read it all.

(H/T Bob)

Mirroring and Compromise - Bill Whittle Explains the Facts of Life

Bill Whittle jumps into an intra-company email argument and explains the facts of life to "Mary." You should absolutely read the whole thing but this really stands out:

"When the subject of Obama as a “peacemaker” comes up, people like Mary seem to think that the answer is to be nice and talk to people and the problem will go away. This is known as “mirroring,” and it is the blind spot that most people bring to negotiations — the idea that our opponents want the same things we do. In Afghanistan we are dealing with an enemy who insists on praying to Allah multiple times a day, who believes that women are subhuman, that homosexuals be killed on sight (preferably by crushing them under falling walls — look it up) and that any criticism of Allah, his Prophet (PBOH) or his clerics is punishable by beating or death. That is their IRREDUCIBLE CORE BELIEF SYSTEM and for that they are willing to die. We, on the other hand, believe in fundamental human dignity for all, the right to worship or not as we see fit, the right of women and homosexuals to live lives as equal members of society, and the fundamental right to say whatever we damn well choose. Those in turn are OUR IRREDUCIBLE CORE BELIEF SYSTEMS for which SOME of us are willing to fight and die.

Now Mary, perhaps you can tell me where the talking, Nobel Peace Prize-winning, negotiatable answer to this conflict lies? Jihadis will not be talked down into worshiping Allah only two times a day, allowing women out of the Burka on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays nor will they allow criticism of their religion on months that have an “R” in it. Likewise, I am not willing to be forced to pray to Allah on even-numbered days, nor will I give up my freedom to say what I think except on Freedom Tuesday.

So there you have it. Irreducible conflicts of FUNDAMENTAL BASIC INTERESTS will sometimes lead to war............."

Paying Legislators to Not Legislate - Bill Whittle May Just Be Onto Something

Bill Whittle posits that it just might be cheaper to pay off our legistlators and send them home than let them stay in Washington to further ruin our economy and bankrupt the country. It's PJTV, so I can't embed the video. It's PJTV, so I can't embed the video.

Just click here to see it.

Robert Reich - The Elderly Will Have to Die

It seems Alan Grayson misspoke and got his party affiliations mixed up when he stated which party's plan for healthcare was to let the old/sick die. In this 2007 appearance, Robert Reich lets the kitty out of the bag.






(at The Humble Libertarian, via Instapundit)

Update: As usual, there's a bit more of a context to these remarks than the YouTube clip lets on. Ricard Fernandez at Belmont Club has the particulars. Read it all of course, but this part is important:

"Although Reich is liberal he is also incorrigibly intelligent and his remarks were framed as a speech by a hypothetical candidate, who for perverse reasons, could only tell the truth. His main point was that the truth was untellable. And although his politics are left of center, his hypothetical unspeakable speech slaughtered every sacred cow the Berkeley audience held dear. So not only did Reich say the words above, but he said many other things besides, which I’ve marked in blue in my new laundry list below."

So, it's not necessarily that Reich was advocating these things (and not that he wasn't either) but that these are things that are true, but not viable for any politician to actually admit.

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize - The Onion?

I did a double take when I saw the headlines this morning and thought someone must have changed my homepage to The Onion. Al Gore must be livid that he has been bumped out of his third-place slot for the most undeserved Nobel Peace Prize in history. The Instapundit has a roundup of links to reactions from all over.

Maybe they meant to award him the newly created Nobel Appease Prize.

Update: The deadline for nominations for the prize was February 11, 2009, a bare 11 days after President Obama took office. He hadn't even gotten a start on his non-accomplishments since then.

Update to the update: This is obviously sinking in very slowly with me this morning. Just because the deadline for submissions was February 1, doesn't mean they waited that long. For all we know, he may not even have secured the nomination whne his name was submitted.

Nemesis Comes Calling for Obama

Victor Davis Hanson says President Obama has caught the attention of the goddess, Nemesis. She really, really isn't someone you want taking an interest in your doings. Not at all. She possesses the power of payback.

"I have believed in the power of the goddess Nemesis (“dispenser of dues”) ever since I was introduced to the concept as a teenager studying classics, especially in the texts of Hesiod, Herodotus, and Sophocles.

Some of you know her also as a variant of eastern Karma, or the folk notion of ‘what comes around, goes around’, or the now common “ain’t payback a bitch”? We all agree on the symptoms: overweening success and surfeit (koris) lead to hubris (gratuitous arrogance), which in turn promotes destructive behavior (atê), that at last calls you to the attention of divine Nemesis—who ensures your ruin. At Rhamnous on the Attic coast there is a beautiful temple to the goddess, proof of her ubiquity and power."

Read the whole thing.

How to Build an Art Career With the NEA

Ed Driscoll and Iowahawk show you how you too can have a lucrative career in producing political propaganda for the NEA, regardless of actual artistic talent. Bonus; you can do it with plausible deniability too!

Watch.

The Dog Ate My Global Warming Homework - Part II

The other day I posted a link to a National Review piece about apparently missing climate data. This is the data used to justify all manner of government interventions in the global economy, from Kyoto to Cap & Trade in the name of The Environment ^TM. Of course it's much less about stopping climate change (impossible) than it is about control. One of the people who has done a lot, if not most of, the work in exposing the junk science behind much of the laws on global warming, climate change or whatever we're calling it today is Ross McKitrick who, along with Stephen McIntyre have shown quite conclusively that the famous "hockey stick" graph is faulty. McKitrick has an article in the National Post explaining just what is wrong with the data. Of course you should read it all for yourself but here is an excerpt:

"Steve and I showed that the mathematics behind the Mann Hockey Stick were badly flawed, such that its shape was determined by suspect bristlecone tree ring data. Controversies quickly piled up: Two expert panels involving the U.S. National Academy of Sciences were asked to investigate, the U.S. Congress held a hearing, and the media followed the story around the world.

The expert reports upheld all of our criticisms of the Mann Hockey Stick, both of the mathematics and of its reliance on flawed bristlecone pine data. One of the panels, however, argued that while the Mann Hockey Stick itself was flawed, a series of other studies published since 1998 had similar shapes, thus providing support for the view that the late 20th century is unusually warm. The IPCC also made this argument in its 2007 report. But the second expert panel, led by statistician Edward Wegman, pointed out that the other studies are not independent. They are written by the same small circle
of authors, only the names are in different orders, and they reuse the same few data climate proxy series over and over."

Obama's Olympian Copenhagen Clusterf**k

I haven't commented on President Obama's Olympian Copenhagen Clusterf**k. Other people already have that quite well covered. Other people including Bill Whittle:

"Barack Obama is not accustomed to getting the kind of faceful of egg he was given at Copenhagen. I had hoped that this would be enough to perhaps persuade him to look at the results rather than the desire, and perhaps conclude that there is almost nothing — not even a really good speech — that can persuade people into acting against their own self interest, and that he might perhaps reflect upon the fact that instead of Oprah and the First Lady, Chicago would have better been served in my friend Scott Ott’s words, by sending “traffic flow specialists, civic engineers, architects, economists… all the experts needed to convince the IOC that Chicago was up for the task.”

In other words, lead instead of cheerlead. But this President seems incapable of doing that. I don’t know how many days he has spent actually behind the desk in the Oval Office as — you know — Chief Executive, but given the number of town halls, events, ceremonies and other on-camera activities I would be willing to bet the number is not large."

One thing I'd ad is that the president was not going to go to Copenhagen at all. The decision to make the trip was apparently very much last minute and at the behest of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, arguably one of the key people in making Barack Obama's political career possible. When he said "jump", our president asked "how high?" It's less than comforting to think that the ostensible Leader of the Free World can be still be prevailed upon to do the bidding of the Chicago Machine. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Richard Daley will know, if anyone does, where the bodies are buried.

Click through and read it all, of course.