Now that the Cripple and Tax energy-killing bill flogged by President Barack H. Obama is stalled in the Senate, where it doesn't have the 60 votes needed to advance (sounds familiar), we can take a breather, right? We're safe from the overwrought, hyperventilating, anti-Capitalist hysteria that is sweeping Europe; after [...]
Back when I was at university, I took judicial notice of an annoying fact about the major holidays: Nobody stuck around for them.
Take Thanksgiving; everybody goes home to his family, myself included. Same thing a month later for Christmas. Thus I never had a chance to attend parties with my [...]
There are two possible explanations for President Barack H. Obama's sudden rush to personally lobby and exhort senators to vote for ObamaCare:
It's scant days from passage, and Obama wants to be there for the kill;Or just the opposite: The fragile coalition is breaking apart, and this is a last, [...]
...But it still can't bring itself to admit there are reputable scientists who dispute the core theory of anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC).
In its article today, the WaPo finally raises the issue of Climategate -- gingerly, and with great sensitivity to the feelings of the climate hystericos:
Except now, much' [...]
Reuters announces that Roman Polanski was released into house arrest yesterday, December 4th, 2009.
The clock is now ticking...
We'll see who called it closest anent jumping bail.
The current pool positions stand as follows:
Release day: Captain Ned * December 6th: GW December 7th: Sachi * December 10th: Mr. Michael December 12th: Resolute December 16th: Dafydd December' [...]In our immediately preceding post, The Party of Mandatory Assent, we concluded that:
What weaves all these threads together is a common theme of "winning" debate -- legislative, administrative, judicial, and academic -- by gagging the opposition, by mandating assent, by locking out dissenters, and by throwing freedom of speech [...]The Democratic Party fantasizes that it's "the party of dissent." It's certainly true that an inordinate number of Democrats were "dissidents" when they were young; but that was when Richard Nixon was president, for the older members -- or when Ronald Reagan was president, for the rest (including the current [...]
I'm setting up a "betting" pool. Not with real money, of course; we have no way to force losers to pony up. This is just a fantasy-bet pool.
Pick how many days will elapse from Roman Polanski's release under "house arrest" until he splits down the Alps -- on the French' [...]
This time, for "the other dance show" -- So You Think You Can Hip-Hop Dance.
SYTYCD is really for the younger set; my sister and my brother's wife both love this show, but neither watches Dancing With the Stars.
In this dance competition, twenty dancers (ten each) are selected from literally thousands [...]
Another ultra-short post, the purpose of which is clearly (and crassly) to make readers come back several times a day, checking to see if any new pearls have been cast before them...
(Wait -- I just thought that silently, right? I didn't really say it out loud, did I? Didn't think [...]
Dear American Left;
Can we all agree on one result of the debate over ObamaCare, the latest attempt to wrench the United States over to the failed national health systems of Europe?
Can't we sign some kind of Medical Contract with America that:
After we voters rise up in fear and fury over' [...]From the New York Times, moments ago:
The [New York] State Senate defeated a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights, family and history. The vote means that the bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson, is effectively dead for [...]
Gallup just released the polling numbers on Barack "Lucky Lefty" Obama's Afghanistan policy; they polled from November 20th to 22nd, so this poll sets a perfect baseline for how the One's policy speech last night, and his new policy itself, affect his approval on this issue.
We'll check back in' [...]
At first, I was going to keep a scorecard of the strategic questions the president needs to answer, so we will have some idea of what strategy President Barack "Lucky Lefty" Obama plans to implement.
But the speech turned out to be so lacking in essential [...]
Big speech tonight, 5:00 PM PST; for all of youse who plan to listen (I probably will), it's urgent for you to pay less attention to the number of troops Barack H. Obama plans to send (30,000) -- and more to any hint he gives of the strategy he will [...]
An online story notes the following about government-supplied food stamps:
Nearly half of Americans, and 90 percent of blacks, now receive food stamps at some time before reaching 20, according to an analysis of 30 years of national data that sociologists at Washington University in St. Louis published in early [...]I love beginning posts with personal anecdotes, which you can deduce from the fact that I never do it. No time like the present to start!
One week in high school, my all-time second-favorite social studies teacher, Lyle Thornton Wolf, presented us with a fascinating unit:
On Monday, he passed out forty-eight [...]
We haven't posted since Thursday because for us, Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet; it's a complicated dance involving my sister's in-laws and trying to juggle two Thanksgivings at two different locations, coupled with several other family members having made commitments for Friday and Saturday -- don't ask! So we're doing our [...]
Happy Gotdankbar!
...And I hope you had matzoh-ball turkey noodle soup. And wear your overcoat. Don't make so much noise when you eat, you want people should think you were raised in a barn? Oy!
' [...]Well, surprise, surprise: a Swiss court has abruptly and inexplicably reversed itself; it will now grant Roman Polanski bail in the amount of $4.5 million, though that might still be reversed on appeal:
A Swiss court granted Roman Polanski bail on Wednesday, accepting $4.5 million to allow him to remain [...]
When we accused Democrats of trying to unplug Grandma from life-support to save a few bucks, they called us fear-mongers. They called Sarah Palin "delusional" when she rightly pointed out that medical rationing would amount to a "death panel." But a recent airing of CBS's 60 Minutes offers a textbook [...]
It's worse than useless unless accompanied by a change in strategy from the Vietnam-era search and destroy, which seems to be our unstated current strategy -- or its close cousin, Slow Joe Biden's "counterterrorism" strategy -- to the one that Gen. Stanley McChrystal insists is the only strategy that can [...]
Sen. Joseph "Smilin' Joe" Lieberman (I-CT, 85% Democratic) has drawn his foot in the sand:
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: "I'm going to be stubborn on this."
Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul [...]
One pitfall -- or do I mean pratfall? -- into which a disturbing large percent of conservatives fall -- including Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and a rasher of conservative columnists -- is to pooh-pooh such supposedly "elitist" pastimes as dance, serious music, and art. I suspect that if you scratch [...]
The mighty New York Times has abruptly woken from its slumber to discover that President Barack H. Obama hasn't been doing too well recently on the approval front; Adam Nagourney has finally noticed a couple of disturbing facts:
Mr. Obama’s decline a year into his term comes as he struggles' [...]
...You'd only have to rely upon ObamaCare to cure you!
This post by John Hinderaker at Power Line is fairly typical of what I've been reading:
Mary Landrieu announced today that she will vote for cloture on the Democrats' government medicine bill tonight. The Democrats now have 60 votes and will' [...]The national-defense syllogism of President Barack H. Obama is pristine in its consistency:
The war against the Iran/al-Qaeda axis is over! It ended on January 20th, 2009, when the One We Have Been Yearning For was finally inaugurated.It was just one more of those failed policies from the previous administration. The [...]
Generally we use the "Matrimonial Madness" category for discussions of same-sex marriage; but not this time. Today, in a bolt from the blue (staters), the Senate Democrats have snuck a ringer into Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid's (D-NV, 70%) version of ObamaCare... they created a new tax with a nasty [...]
Many, many years ago -- around the time of the battle of Gettysburg, I think -- I heard a radio commercial for some MBA school. For some unknown reason, it was seared, seared in my mind.
The advert has a number of employees gathered around the water cooler (I suppose; it's' [...]
Politico notes that when Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT, 85% Dem) announced he would not merely vote against ObamaCare but would filibuster it -- at least the final motion to call the question -- he burnt many bridges back to the Democratic Party:
“My sense [...]
The Washington D.C. City Council is poised to slap same-sex marriage (SSM) on the table in our nation's capital, whether the citizens want it or not. And now, to add insult to penury, the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics [sic] has made its own contribution to democracy... [...]
The other day a lady called on the phone; during a conversation about something else, she asked me, “Mr. Ross, do you dislike women politicians?”
I immediately replied that I liked Sarah Palin, to which she shot back, “But that’s only because she’s foxy!” I should have said, “I really like [...]
Strongman Attorney General Eric Holder has announced formation of a new "Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force;" the new task force was created via Executive Order by the stroke of Barack H. Obama's magic signing pen:
"Mortgages, securities and corporate fraud schemes have eroded the public's confidence in the nation's financial" [...]
Because it takes a two-thirds majority of the legislature to raise taxes in California, the lawmakers and the governor last summer came up with something called “an involuntary tax-free loan” from you and me to the State. That did not require a two-thirds majority.
All of us who get paychecks now [...]
According to the Recovery.gov website, California -- with its 101 congressional districts -- has created or saved a total of 110,185 jobs since the Obamic stimulus bill passed.
Oddly, other, less reliable sources report that "the state has lost 732,700 jobs over the last year."
And those same other sources [...]
John Hinderaker adds a chilling but disturbingly plausible appendix to the end of a Power Line post by Scott "Big Johnson" Trunk. The post examines the likely effects of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other high-profile terrorists in civilian court; at the end, Scott wonders why President Barack H. [...]
If Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack H. Obama argue that an American federal district court has jurisdiction over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- all of whose alleged crimes were committed outside the United States -- simply because he plotted to kill Americans... then would they also argue that the [...]
In the first hour of his show today, Michael Medved was objecting to the staggeringly stupid decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, each accused of planning the September 11th attacks, [...]
So reads a t-shirt often worn by Adam Savage, one of the two original starts of the Discovery Channel's series Mythbusters, which I have slavishly watched since the very first episode (I think that was the episode where they busted the myth of the rocket-propelled car launching [...]
Yesterday, rumor swept the dextrosphere that President Barack H. Obama was prepared to accept the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal; the president, quoth the Great Mentioner, would send 40,000 troops to Afghanistan.
And who could doubt the gossip? After all, it came from CBS, bastion of unbiased and utterly [...]
Just an update to our earlier post, Could He Ever Bring Himself to Say It? Obamic Options 004. I posed the following question:
[W]ould President Barack H. Obama ever admit to the American people that -- contrary to the knee-jerk FBI statement -- such a shooting under these assumptions would [...]What is missing from these two articles?
The first is from the Associated Press, commemorating the anniversary of the historic day when the Berlin wall came a-tumblin' down:
Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev crossed a former fortified border on Monday to cheers of "Gorby! Gorby!" as a' [...]
There are so many categories for this post because it touches on so many hot-button issues; but I picked "Dhimmi of the Month" as the primary category. We never did get the polling software off the ground, so you can't vote on it... but I'll still use the category when [...]
Today, the House of Representatives passed the aptly named SqueakerCare bill... "aptly named" for two reasons:
It was introduced, and the favorable vote extorted, by Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%);It squeaked by with 220 Ayes to 215 Nays... 218 being the bare minimum needed for passage.
The bill [...]
I picture Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) writhing and twisting in frustration; with all those Democrats, surely she can scrape together 218 to vote for SqueakerCare!
Surely not, at least not yet:
House Democrats acknowledged they don't yet have the votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of the' [...]
Our friend and worthy co-conspirator responds to my response to his original article in Mondo Cult about the Roman Polanski case:
The following is an addendum to my article, "Repent, Roman!" and is simultaneously available at both the Mondo Cult Forum and Big Lizards.
I'd like to thank everyone for' [...]
Regarding the shooting at Fort Hood; let's assume for sake of argument that the following reports are correct:
The main shooter was Major Malik Nadal Hasan (or Nidal Malik Hasan -- I've seen both versions);Hasan was a recent convert to Islam;
Hasan was "violently hostile" to the deployment of American forces in' [...]
