Bookworm Room

I grew up deathly afraid of guns.  This wasn’t like my fear of snakes and spiders, which seems to be pretty atavistic.  Instead, this was a learned fear:  Guns kill people.  Guns also kill innocent animals that should, instead, die nice clean deaths in factory farms, before being sliced up and packaged in cellophane.  I knew the truth:  guns are bad, very, very bad.

Then I went to England and learned that guns aren’t the only bad things.  My sojourn in England coincided with the explosive rise of soccer hooligans, louts who traveled the length and breadth of England, and periodically spilled over into the rest of Europe, bringing jack-booted violence with them wherever they went.  (Among the Thugs is a horrifying account of these louts and the carnage in which they delighted.) Up in the north of England, where I lived, I could always tell when the local soccer team was having a home game because all the businesses near the soccer stadium boarded up their windows.  England may not have had mass shootings, but it had death by a thousands cuts and boot stomps.

When I returned to America, I still hated guns (I had, after all, been carefully taught to do so), but I began to wonder — Are guns really the only bad thing out there? Will doing away with guns turn America into an Eden that sees that loutish lion and the helpless lamb lie down together?  England, which was a less armed country than America, wasn’t necessarily a safer one.  People still got victimized; it was just that guns weren’t the weapons doing the victimizing.

Upon my return to the states, Second Amendment supporters to whom I spoke told me that, while bullets have the advantage of distance, in the close quarters of a bar fight, knives or broken bottles are much more dangerous.  They made the logical argument, then, that no one ever suggests outlawing knives or bottles.  Likewise, the fact that more people die from car accidents than gunshot wounds doesn’t mean we’re about to outlaw cars.  (Although, I must say, the climate change people are making a good stab at outlawing cars.)

When I was still in my liberal phase, I always had the right answer at hand when I heard these logical arguments:  knives and bottles and cars all have a primary utility separate from their secondary, dangerous uses.  Guns, however, exist only to kill.

With age, thankfully, I’ve gained wisdom. I’ve figured out that guns are extremely useful:  you can get your own food if you’re nowhere near a market with tidy cellophane packages; you can have the sheer pleasure of target practice; you can discourage looters in the wake of a disaster; if you’re a woman and a large man is threatening you, guns are the great equalizer; if you’re alone and a crazy man is at your door, you don’t have to die like the screaming teen in a slasher movie; and guns are the only defense against the single largest and most deadly entity known to man — a totalitarian government that has turned on its citizens.

As I know from my gun hating years, even though all of the above are good reasons to cheer the Second Amendment, these facts make no headway with the anti-gun crowd.  Instead, they just keep pulling out this tired old poster:

Well, I think we’ve finally got a new poster in our Second Amendment arsenal:

Here’s an interesting point about those numbers.  In 1997, Britain’s Labour government worked overtime to remove guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens:

After Hungerford [a massacre in 1987], the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 criminalised most semi-automatic long-barrelled weapons; it was generally supported by the Labour opposition although some Labour backbenchers thought it inadequate.After the second incident, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 criminalised private possession of most handguns having a calibre over .22; the Snowdrop Campaign continued to press for a wider ban, and in 1997 the incoming Labour government introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, which extended this to most handguns with a calibre of .22 (there are exceptions for some antique handguns and black-powder revolvers.)

And not coincidentally, since 1997, the year law-abiding Brits were denied arms, violent crime in England has skyrocketed:

The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.

In the decade following the party’s election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million – or more than two every minute.

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

• The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
• It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
• The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
• It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.

The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.

Britain used to be famed as a polite society.  It is no longer.  It is also a society that full lives up to the saying that “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”

People will kill.  They always have, and they always will.  Culture matters, in that cultural norms can encourage or discourage violent crime.  But only guns will be there when you’re small and alone, and that’s true whether you’re facing a home invader, a street thug, or a modern-day Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin.

Tags: Britain, Guns, Hooligans, Knives, Second Amendment, Violence

5 Comments »

Perfumes are very personal.  What can smell wonderful on one person can smell vile on another.  Chanel No. 5 does not work well with me, nor do I like it much on other people.  There.  I’ve now admitted my bias.

Acknowledging my prejudice is important, because it might explain my incomprehension at using a disheveled, vaguely-dirty looking Brad Pitt to sell this fragrance:

Is it my bias speaking or is that a less than appealing advertisement for a classic product?

Tags: Brad Pitt, Chanel No. 5, Perfume

3 Comments »

Every week, you think “It can’t get better than this,” and then every subsequent week . . . it’s better.  This week, from the Watcher’s Council:

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – Policing the Schutzstaffel
• The Razor – Why I Oppose the Nomination of Susan Rice to Secretary of State (and You Should Too)
• The Political Commentator – Obama first-term critique! Failure, failure, failure…!
• Joshuapundit-‘Palestine’ – A Celebration At The Funeral
• The Independent Sentinel – Dear Sarah Palin – Is A Third Political Party Being Formed?
• Simply Jews – The phantoms of ceasefire, proportionality and other Middle East myths – Part I
• The Mellow Jihadi – Self-Reliance Versus the Collective
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – More Than Air
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Why I *still* don’t watch Sunday Night Football
• Bookworm Room – From the same people who brought you the constitutional right to privacy: “You have no privacy.”
• The Right Planet – Obama Admin Refuses to Criticize Egypt’s New Constitution That Allows Slavery
• Gay Patriot – Cut off* NPR & PBS in return for higher tax rate on “wealthy”?
• Rhymes With Right – Bob Costas Uses Halftime Show To Trash Second Amendment
• The Glittering Eye -The Chicken Game
• VA Right! - Over the River and Through the Woods and Off the Cliff We Go

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – AMERICA’S FUTURE… WHERE DO WE GO NOW… HOW TO WIN THE BATTLE… –
• The Pirate’s Cove – Owning A Gun Is Like Being A KKK Member

Non-Council Submissions

• Sultan Knish –The Working Class and the Governing Class submitted by The Noisy Room
• Bias Breakdown –Barack Obama’’s Country for Kids Who Can’t Add Good submitted by The Razor
• Pravda/Xavier Lerma -Obama’s Soviet Mistake submitted by The Political Commentator
• Victor Davis Hanson – Waiting for the GOP’s Populist Turn submitted by Joshuapundit
• The Lid – Fiscal Cliff UPDATE: Obama Rejects GOP Counter-offer submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• The Big Pharaoh – Is The US Repeating The Same Mistake In Egypt? submitted by Simply Jews
• TownHall – 7 Reasons Socialism Will Make You Poorer Than Capitalism submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Killer Apps – France joins the stealth drone club submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Timothy Wheeler @ The Corner – The Wickedness Inside All of Us? submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Dennis Prager-The World’s Most Dynamic Religion submitted by Bookworm Room
• Taki’s Magazine – Happy to Be on the Wrong Side of History submitted by The Right Planet
• Neo-Neocon -So, Mr. Whittle submitted by Gay Patriot
• RedState – Self-Awareness Matters submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Dr. Housing Bubble – Is the middle class dream an illusion for Californians? What we can learn from domestic and foreign migration patterns. submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Sunshine State Sarah – Rubio-sponsored amendment to protect military voting rights passes unanimously submitted by VA Right!
• Melanie Phillips – Sanitising Hamas in the worship of power submitted by The Watcher
• Seraphic Secret – The Drones Done Did It submitted by The Watcher

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John Hawkins, at Right Wing News, just published his list of the 60 Best Conservative Blogs for 2012.  You can only imagine how honored I am to be included as No. 25 on that list. Check the list out and see how your favorite bloggers fared.

I’ll just add that John is one of my favorite people in the blogosphere, not just because he’s a great political commentator and writer, but because he’s a person who constantly strives to be the best person possible.  Whenever he does posts at PJ Media about ways to live a better life, I make sure to read them.  This one, detailing some mind hacks that we can use to keep a positive attitude, is still one of all-time my favorites.  I routinely apply them to my own thinking, and encourage my children to do the same.

Speaking of PJ Media, after reading John’s list, David Swindle was inspired to write his own.  David is asking for your help in narrowing down his list.

Tags: Best Conservative Blogs, David Swindle, John Hawkins, Mind Hacks

3 Comments »

I have to admit that, while I enjoyed the first Indiana Jones movie back in the day (making it the only Steven Spielberg movie I’ve ever liked), the sequels didn’t thrill me, and none of them are movies I watch now with any pleasure.  My kids, however, do enjoy the movies and I understand why.  Steven Spielberg’s approach to movies is to turn everything into a broad-brush caricature.  Because Indiana Jones is fact a broad-brush caricature (a 30s cartoon character brought to life), Spielberg’s technique is just right.

Which gets me to my point:  If there’s someone in your family who would enjoy what is, in essence, a series of flashy Saturday-morning matinée style movies, you can get the complete Indiana Jones set on Amazon for 60% off the regular price (the set was $99.98 and is now $39.99), including free shipping.

Tags: Amazon, Indiana Jones, Steven Spielberg

5 Comments »

Tom Ammiano, San Francisco’s reliably far-Left supervisor, was in the local news today because he’s come out with a new proposal that can be called “the homeless bill of rights“:

Among other things, the proposed law would require legal representation for anyone cited under such laws as San Francisco’s sit/lie law or anti-panhandling ordinance.

It would give “every person in the state, regardless of actual or perceived housing status,” the rights to “use and move freely in public spaces,” to “rest in public spaces,” and to “occupy vehicles, either to rest or use for the purposes of shelter, for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

However, one provision of the bill can be interpreted to allow restrictions of those activities as long as they are applied equally to all people, and not just homeless people. That leaves wiggle room for evaluation of local ordinances that would probably not spell their immediate dismissal.

(You can see that Ammiano envisions himself as a modern-day Anatole France (“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”).)

Ammiano’s proposal makes the news in the same week as two other stories about society’s lost souls.  The first was the story of Larry DePrimo, the policeman who, frustrated by his inability to aid a barefoot homeless man, went into a shoe store and bought the man a brand new pair of all-weather boots. The second was the story of a crazed man who pushed a father-of-two to his death on the New York subway tracks.

All three stories revolve around a single issue:  what should a civilized, affluent society do about those who are too dysfunctional to live a stable life, but are just functional enough to survive on the streets without starving to death?

Any discussion about the homeless has to begin by recognizing that there are two different types of homeless in America.  The first type, the one that makes for heart-rending headlines telling us that we must socialize our economy, is the down-on-its-luck family.  These families are the economic tragedies, the ones who fell victim to a bad economy and lost first their livelihoods and then their homes.  The adults are functional, but have fallen through the cracks, created by bad luck and hard times.

These “working class” homeless are, in theory, quite simple to help.  Give them shelter and childcare, and then give mom and dad a job.  I understand that the procedure isn’t as easy as the theory.  I’m just pointing out that the remedy is a straightforward one, no matter how challenging it may be to implement it.

The second category of homeless people is the more vexing one.  These are the ones who are homeless because they have mental diseases or addictions that render them incapable of functioning in normal society under any circumstances.  Jeffrey Hillman, who was the beneficiary of Officer DePrimo’s charity, is a prime example (emphasis mine):

It turns out the homeless, barefoot man who captured the hearts of thousands isn’t actually homeless. Jeffrey Hillman, the recipient of a pair of boots given by a good samaritan New York City police officer, has an apartment in the Bronx, officials told the New York Daily News.

According to the Daily News, the 54-year-old Hillman lived in transitional housing sites called “Safe Havens,” from 2009 until 2011. He then secured his current apartment through a Department of Veterans Affairs program that helps homeless vets. Barbara Brancaccio, a spokeswoman for the city agency, told the Daily News that outreach services continue to try and help Hillman, but he “has a history of turning down services.”

I know Hillman’s type of homeless.  You couldn’t miss this type growing up and working in San Francisco.  Because San Francisco has a temperate climate, its downtown streets are dotted with filthy men (plus a few women) who sit on the sidewalks all day begging for handouts.

It is immediately apparent looking at these beggars that they are not simply slackers who prefer begging to work.  All of them show the signs of serious illness and advanced substance abuse.  Many of them are obviously seriously mental ill, with the scariest ones have long, angry conversations with invisible companions.

The paranoid ones, like Hillman, resist help.  They would rather live outdoors, even if outdoors means the mean, freezing streets of New York, Chicago, or Boston, than put themselves in one of the shelters that their delusional minds classify as dangerous.  To them, having your own primitive tent, cardboard room, or doorway, complete with tinfoil hat and nearby dumpster for food, is a much safer way to live than anything offered by the “enemies” who surround them.

It is these homeless people to whom Ammiano wishes to extend the virtually unlimited right to live on San Francisco’s streets and in her parks.  (Incidentally, in San Francisco they live that way already, simply because the City only intermittently enforces its vagrancy laws.)  By advancing this right, though, Ammiano manages to forget about the other people in San Francisco, the ones who are not homeless, who work, pay taxes, go to school, play, and otherwise try to live normal lives within the City.

You see, the problem of homelessness isn’t just a problem for the homeless.  It’s a problem for everyone.  The parks that used to see children playing while their mothers sat nearby in cheerful, chatting clusters quickly turn into needle, condom, feces, vomit, and bottle strewn bogs, complete with smelly, often violent men and women camped out on benches and under bushes.  The streets with the charming, inviting stores are now a dirty, smelly mess, repulsing casual shoppers.  Tourists, tired of being importuned by by a Calcutta-like stream of beggars, stay away.  And because the homeless carry with them lice and tuberculosis, they create public health risks.

More than that, as I’ve frequently argued, it is psychologically damaging ordinary people in a community to be told that they must allow a person who is manifestly mentally ill, whether because of disease or drugs, to lie around on the streets.  I hew libertarian in most respects, but my support for absolute individual freedom begins to fray when an individual is incapable of caring for himself.  Just as I wouldn’t say that a five-year old is free to make her own lifestyle choices, I’m loath to allow free rein to a person so mentally ill that he cannot perform basic human functions, such as seeking shelter or feeding himself. To me, he is as incapacitated as a five year old.

The problem is obvious; the solution less so.  In the old days, vagrants were thrown into prison, which had the virtue of giving them shelter and food, but also exposed them to criminals who preyed upon them and left them back on the streets when their sentences ended.  Another tactic was for the police to tell vagrants to “move along,” getting them off of one cop’s beat and putting them on another’s.

The 20th century saw a growth industry in “modern” psychiatric institutions, which treated the mentally ill as patients rather than as zoo animals, as was the case in old fashioned “insane asylums.”  Sadly, though, too many of inmates suffered terrible abuse in these institutions.  Because they’re unpleasant work environments, too many employees were lazy and/or sadistic, and too many of the doctors were mini-Mengeles, viewing the mentally ill as human chimps for experimentation.

The 1960s and 1970s, therefore, saw a coming together of the Left and the Right, both of which groups, for different reasons, believed the asylums were dangerous places for society and for the inmates, and passed legislation to close them down.  The law of unintended consequences hit hard when these institutions closed:  The mentally ill had no place to go but to their families, who either made them crazy in the first place or who couldn’t cope with their craziness, or to the streets.

I don’t have an answer to the question I posed in this post’s title:  How should cities cope with the homeless?  I know that I disagree strongly with Ammiano’s push to give the homeless a special set of rights that turns San Francisco’s streets into a vast homeless shelter with no recourse for the regular folks who live in and pay for the City.  That’s the wrong approach and, to my mind, a cruel one.  As humane people, I believe we have a moral obligation to care for those incapable of caring for themselves.  The old psychiatric institution model is a good one, because we know that mandatory treatment can work, but I’m at a loss as to how to prevent the abuse that once-upon-a-time made closing these institutions a reasonable decision.

Do you have any ideas?

Tags: homeless, Homelessness, Insane Asylums, Jeffrey Hillman, Larry DePrimo, Psychiatric Institutions, San Francisco, Tom Ammiano

9 Comments »

Blogs without newsletters are so “first decade of the 21st century.”  Me?  I’m always sort of up to the minute, so I signed up with MailChimp, a free (or, if you want or need the fancy stuff, paid) site that hosts email newsletters.  I’m actually rather impressed with MailChimp.  It’s very easy to use and, for a small blogger, provides more than enough in the way of free services.

If you’ve ever commented on this blog, you probably woke up to find a newsletter in your inbox.  If you didn’t get a newsletter, but would like to, you can sign up in the subscription box that you’ll find on the right-hand side of my blog. —>

The newsletter currently has two parts:  links to the major posts I put up recently and (to entice you to stick with the newsletter even if you’ve already read the posts) original content that you won’t find at the blog.  A small percentage of this original content will be blatant shilling for Amazon products.  As I mentioned the other day, if you reach Amazon through one of my links, I get a teeny percentage of whatever you ultimately end up buying.  If you’re worried about your privacy, don’t be:  I have no idea who is ordering from Amazon, what they buy, or how much they pay.  I just know that, once a month, I get a notice from Amazon telling me that there’s a small amount of money heading my way.

My one request is that, if you find a particular newsletter worthy, please consider forwarding it to any of your friends who won’t consider you a terrible pest for filling their inboxes with stuff they didn’t ask for.

Tags: Amazon, MailChimp, Newsletter

5 Comments »

Several Watcher’s Council members have tackled the question that’s on every political junkie’s mind:  The Fiscal Cliff — Let it Happen or Grand Bargain?

1 Comment »

O Holy Night is my favorite Christmas carol.  In an earlier post, I put up a video of Josh Groban singing it.  Old Buckeye responded with a link to this beautiful rendition by Ernie Ford (whom I always knew just as a funny guest on the I Love Lucy show, and Gordon MacRae, one of my favorite sing movie stars of the late 40s and early 50s.  It’s so lovely, I had to share it with you.

Tags: Gordon MacCrae, O Holy Night, Tennessee Ernie Ford

13 Comments »

I went out to run one errand and came back to discover that Egyptian President Morsi had fled his palace after protesters breached police barricades.  I have no idea whether this means Morsi’s brief sharia reign is over, or whether he’ll be be, redoubling the oppression.

What do you think?

Tags: Egypt, Morsi

3 Comments »

I adore traditional Christmas music, whether it’s the Old English Christmas Carols or the non-denominational Christmas songs that began to the music market with Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.  I’m as happy singing O Holy Night as I am singing Here Comes Santa Claus.  Christmas songs give me a huge endorphin rush.

There’s one class of Christmas song, though, that just revolts me, and that’s the modern “Peace” genre.  Those vapid paeans to navel-gazing peace leave me cold.

It is true that the old Christmas carols also shared a vision of peace.  Take, for example:

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
Gold and sinners reconciled.”

or

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
‘Round yon Virgin Mother and Child,
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

or

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And Peace to men on earth

Each of these songs envisions peace, but that peace is tied to a formalized religious doctrine that envisions both spiritual and behavioral commitments.  In other words, this peace isn’t cheap.  Jesus Christ made a terribly painful sacrifice to further this peace, and it is each Christian’s obligation to make that sacrifice a meaningful and essential part of his (or her) spiritual life and daily practices.

The modern Christmas peace songs, though, are so horribly banal.  Peace is brought about by vaguely proclaiming that you approve of peace.  John Lennon started it with his bathetic Happy Christmas (War is Over):

So, this is Christmas
And what have you done?
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong

And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let’s stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

War is over over
If you want it
War is over
Now

I enjoy listening to the pretty melody (John was always good at that), but the words are so insanely stupid:  “Let’s stop all the fight.”  What does that mean?  There’s no guidance there and no belief system.  The whole song is just a muddled assurance that peace will magically happen if we say that it’s a good thing.

I get a snoot-full of these songs every Christmas, because my kids have been in various choral groups.  Last night, I got to hear Rita Abrams’ “All we want for Christmas is peace.”  As with Lennon’s song, it’s got a catchy melody and nice harmonies.  But the lyrics!  This sampling, with due respect for fair use, gives you an idea:

All we want for Christmas is peace,
Peace is all we’re asking for,
All we want for Christmas is peace,
It’s peace we’re hoping for.

There’s more talk of giving and love and dreams, but the song mostly assures the young ‘uns that peace is just something you need to ask for, along with the Malibu Barbi and X-Box already on your Christmas list.

I’m not just engaging in pointless fulminating here.  This notion that “peace happens,” without any commitment or changes on your part, or on the part of those with whom you deal, whether as an individual or a nation, can be toxic.  Just today, Bruce Kesler posted an absolutely splendid rant about the way in which the mindless peace-mongers on the Left open the door for unlimited bias on the part of those who don’t have a pluralistic peace as their goal:

Most of the most prominent in the West who claim to want peace in the Middle East are, instead, prime facilitators of hate.

By disdaining those Muslims who are closer to Western values, instead pandering to Islamist extremists, or one-sidedly denouncing the defensive measures of the only Western oriented nation in the Middle East, Israel, the claimants of upholding peace have consistently encouraged those who believe and act out of hate.

For your pleasure and sanity, please read the rest of Bruce’s rant here.

As for me, I’m spending a little time listening to my favorite Christmas carol:

Tags: Christmas Carols, Happy Christmas (War is Over), Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, John Lennon, O Holy Night, Peace, Rita Abrams, Silent Night

13 Comments »

This is my mind right now:

Yeah, that’s right.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  I’m getting vertigo looking into the blank, black hole of my own thoughts.

3 Comments »

A couple of weeks ago, I said to my sister, “Kate’s pregnant,” referring to the Duchess of Cambridge.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because,” I told her, “the British press was filled with daily stories about her, showing her going her and there, and always talking about her perfect style.  Suddenly, though, she’s vanished.  She’s not showing up anywhere.  so I’m betting that she’s pregnant and suffering from morning sickness.”

I was right, not only about the pregnancy, but also about the morning sickness:

The acute morning sickness suffered by the Duchess of Cambridge causes nausea and vomiting for up to five months of pregnancy – or, in rare cases, until the baby is born.

Known as hyperemesis gravidarum, it  afflicts one pregnancy in 50 and is much more serious than the nausea commonly experienced by expectant mothers.

The condition can lead to severe dehydration and puts both mother and baby at risk of being deprived of essential nutrients.

[snip]

Sufferers can be left vomiting up to 30 times a day, with exhausting and hazardous consequences. They cannot eat or drink without retching and may lose up to 10 per cent of their body weight, which can trigger a build-up of toxins in the blood or urine known as ketosis as the body tries to compensate for lack of food by mouth.

Hospital treatment for these women is essential, as without intravenous feeding and fluids they are at risk of becoming dangerously dehydrated.

That was me during both my pregnancies.  As I would tell anyone who would listen, Charlotte Bronte died from hyperemesis gravidarum.  Fortunately for my pregnancies and my health, I was able to benefit from Zofran, a medicine created for people undergoing chemo and radiation.  While I was beyond miserable 24/7, for more than nine months, I didn’t throw up so much that I had to be hospitalized.

Sadly, this misery was nothing new to me.  As a young woman on the Pill, I also suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, since the Pill tricks your body into thinking it’s pregnant.  It took over a year for the doctors to stop telling me I was neurotic and start connecting my 24/7 vomiting to the Pill’s toxic effect on my body.  I therefore never got any medicine to treat the nausea. During that very long year, I lost over 20 pounds off an already small frame, and my cumulative GPA plummeted by 12 points.  That same year, one of my friends almost died from a blood clot brought about by the Pill.

You can understand, therefore, why I view the Pill with deep, deep suspicion and think it’s unconscionable the way the Leftists in government and in the medical establishment want to give it to young women like candy.  The same people who rant against cigarettes are totally copacetic about something that has the potential to be just as, if not more, harmful than tobacco.

I got one more side-effect from hyperemesis gravidarum — it wore me out.  I was younger the three times I was so sick, and had fairly good physical and emotional reserves.  I never missed a day of school or a day of work despite the fact that I was driving the porcelain school bus between five and twenty times a day (and night).  I had goals and I had my pride.  Now, though, when I’m old enough that I should have deeply engrained discipline, I don’t.  If I like it, I do it.  If if I must do it, I will do it.  And otherwise, I find it hard to motivate myself.  This is especially so when I get sick to my stomach.  I can power through pain, but I can no longer power through nausea.

I wish Kate much luck.  She’ll need it.

Tags: Charlotte Bronte, Duchess of Cambridge, Hyperemesis Gravdarium, Kate Middleton, Morning Sickness, Pregnancy, the Pill

3 Comments »

You know how there are some people who never get nominated for things?  I am not one of those people.  When I was in junior high school, I was nominated “Most likely to be a librarian” (wrong!) and “Most likely to wear braces forever” (which seemed likely to be true for a while).  In high school, I was nominated “Most likely to spend her life with her nose stuck in a book” (how did they know)?

Children, especially teenagers, can be cruel, and I have to admit that, aside from being mildly grateful that my classmates even knew my name, I found those nominations a just a wee bit hurtful.  This latest nomination in my life, though, just thrills me:

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to hold the competition last year for the most coveted honor in the right-o-sphere, the title, Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.  As you know we here at GayPatriot define a diva as “a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men.”

“A conservative blogress diva”, we noted in 2009, “need not be conservative  per se; all she must do command the respect (or have otherwise earned the admiration) of gay conservatives.”  In 2006, I observed that some nominees are are libertarian. And others, while more centrist, distinguish themselves by their iconoclasm and the manner in which they take on the silliness of certain leftists — and conservative pretenders, i.e., those who, in the words of one of our nominees, “drive . . . liberals nuts.”

Please indicate those blogresses, whom you feel, meet the criteria for Grande Conservative Blogress Diva.

Me!! A Grande Conservative Blogress Diva!  Except that I’m not yet.  If you read the post, you’ll see I’m among suggested nominees.  If you would be good enough to comment at the best moving from me from “suggested” to “actual,” I would be most grateful.  If the honoree of being a nominee for something flattering, rather than, well, yes, insulting, becomes mine, I will be sure to let you know when the vote rolls around!  Incidentally, I’m so impressed by my potential nominee competition that I don’t cherish any hopes of winning.  I’m just excited to be potentially nominated.

Meanwhile, I’m off humming to myself ‘Yeah, baby, I’m a suggested potential nominee for Grande Conservative Blogress Diva!  Woo-hoo!”

1 Comment »

In 1973, the United States Supreme Court created a federal right to abortion by finding that abortion falls into an unstated Constitutional dimension called “the right to privacy.”  (Note:  British and American common law has always recognized a right to privacy, but the Constitution makes no mention of it.)  Thus, in Roe v. Wade, the Court explained the constitutional protections for abortion as follows:

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution.

[snip]

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

With the Court’s pronouncement about the huge reach of the Constitution’s unexpressed “right to privacy,” Democrats, Liberals, Communists, and Progressives pronounced themselves satisfied.  The 10th Amendment, which once upon a time reserved to the states those rights not expressly delegated to the federal government, was meaningless.  If the Left thinks it should be in the Constitution, then — voila! — it is in the Constitution. Since 1973, therefore, Americans have believed that a person’s right to privacy is all-encompassing, and prohibits the government, as well as arms of the government, such as state founded or funded universities, from poking their governmental nose into anything that pertains to our own bodies.

With the exception of abortion, which is the most challenging issue because there are competing right’s (the woman’s and the fetus’s), most libertarians would agree with a common law (and therefore worthy of full respect) right to privacy, even if they would argue, as I do, that it’s tremendously damaging to the American body politic to pretend such a right is constitutional.  If we want a constitutional right to privacy, the Constitution spells out the procedure:  amendment, not judicial fiat.

Once they established this new constitutional principle, however, Progressives realized that they should have been a bit more careful in institutionalizing privacy as a core constitutional doctrine.  As they’ve discovered, the best way for a state to control individuals is through controlling their sexuality.  By asserting increasing state dominance over people’s sex lives (which is different a society enforcing traditional moral codes), the state can break familial bonds, destroy an individual’s sense of his inviolable self, interfere with core religious doctrine, and hand out sexual treats at opiates for the masses, all of which consolidate state power over individuals.

The problem for the Progressives arises if individuals are old-fashioned enough to believe that their sexuality is nobody’s business but their own. And no, traditional marriage is not necessarily proof that people are screaming their heterosexuality out loud. Having grown up in San Francisco, I’ve known of many marriages that involved agreed-upon sexual arrangements that had very little to do with traditional heteronormative behavior, and everything to do with people wanting to live their lives their way, free from prying eyes.

Progressive’s frustration with old-fashioned notions of personal privacy — the same notion that they promoted and cheered in Roe v. Wade — came to a head in 2008 at the University of Delaware.  In academia’s never-ending push to turn people into malleable little clumps of victim-hood, and class-, race-, or sexuality-based identity groups, the University of Delaware realized that it would need to force recalcitrant students to state whether they’re LGBT, GLBT, STR8T, BI, AC/DC, or LMNOP (oh, sorry, got lost in my alphabet soup there):

A female freshman arrives for her mandatory one-on-one session in her male RA’s dorm room. It is 8:00 p.m. Classes have been in session for about a week. The resident assistant hands her a questionnaire. He tells her it is “a little questionnaire to help [you] and all the other residents relate to the curriculum.” He adds that they will “go through every question together and discuss them.” He later reports that she “looked a little uncomfortable.”

“When did you discover your sexual identity?” the questionnaire asks.

“That is none of your damn business,” she writes.

“When was a time you felt oppressed?”

“I am oppressed every day [because of my] feelings for the opera. Regularly [people] throw stones at me and jeer me with cruel names…. Unbearable adversity. But I will overcome, hear me, you rock loving majority.”[1]

She is not playing along like the other students, and the RA confronts her using his “confrontation training,” but it isn’t working. He becomes so appalled by her resistance that he writes up an incident report and reports her to his superiors. After all, this is the University of Delaware, and the school has a zero-tolerance policy for anything remotely resembling “hate speech.”

This one-on-one session was not meant to be a punishment, some kind of mandatory sensitivity training for a recalcitrant student who had committed an infraction. It was mandatory training for all 7,000-odd students in the University of Delaware dorms. The sessions were part of a thorough thought-reform curriculum, designed by the school’s Office of Residence Life, to psychologically “treat” and correct the allegedly incorrect thoughts, attitudes, values, beliefs, and habits of the students. The ResLife staff considered students too intolerant of one another, too “consumerist,” and in dire need of reeducation to become responsible world citizens who could meet the planet’s environmental crisis and the requirements of social and economic “justice.”

(FIRE successfully mounted a campaign to force the University of Delaware to abandon this forcible effort to extract personal information from vulnerable freshman, but I use it as an example here, because it so perfectly encapsulates the Leftist attitude towards privacy and sexuality.)

Aside from having a girl-crush (but not an LGBT girl-crush, just an intellectual one) on the young woman who spoke of being opera-oppressed, I’m shocked, disgusted, appalled, etc. — the usual range of emotion a liberty-loving person experiences when an institution takes vast sums of money to control a young person’s life and future and then uses its coercive power to extort deeply private information from that same vulnerable student.

What makes this Progressive attitude even more distasteful is the fact that Universities claim to be all about privacy — at least when that privacy means isolating students from their own parents, despite a reasonable presumption that these same parents, unlike the vast, impersonal institutions, truly have their children’s best interests at heart:

College and University students have a right to privacy. In the United States, it’s called FERPA: the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. And there are a lot of rights and protections that you have as a student eighteen or over, and that you must respect as both a parent and a professor.

As a student, your grades, enrollment, assignments, and interactions with professors are all completely confidential. As a professor, I am not allowed, legally, to give out any information whatsoever about a student without that student’s explicit permission.

And, like practically all professors, I don’t. But this message is most important for parents, and for students who are worried about their irate parents.

Put another way:  your parent, who is probably paying for some or all of your education, cannot ask about your grades, but your university, which will have taken a minimum of $100,000 from you over the course of four years, while promising you a diploma with at least some market value, can force you to state your most private personal information.

I was going to end this post by saying the Left can’t have it both ways:  it either recognizes individual privacy or it doesn’t.  Then I slapped myself in the face and said “Don’t be stupid, Bookworm!  In Obama’s Leftist, narcissistic America, the Left can have it any way it likes it, both coming and going, as long as its demands drive the bottom line towards statism.”

Tags: Abortion, Constituion, Right to Privacy, Roe v. Wade, Sexual Identity, Sexuality, University of Delaware

12 Comments »

I know that you’ll recognize these words immediately upon reading them.  I’ve only had to change them slightly to maintain their relevance to today’s issues:

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Progressives, with an army of government workers, agencies and the IRS to enforce their tyranny, have declared that they have a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

[snip]

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both. Obama’s first object is, partly by threats and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their money and receive mercy. George Soros recommended the same plan to the Democrats and Obama, and this is what the MSM call making their peace, “a peace which passeth all understanding” indeed! A peace which would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye Americans, do reason upon these things! Were Americans to give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Islamists, who are all armed: this perhaps is what some Progressives would not be sorry for.

[snip]

I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it.

[snip]

By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — a ravaged country — a depopulated city — habitations without safety, and slavery without hope — our homes turned into micro-managed branches of the government, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

December 23, 1776/December 3, 2012

Tags: The Crisis, Thomas Paine

1 Comment »

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a plan.  To protect your daughter from . . . you, it wants all girls who could be sexually active (that means every girl 10 or older) to have her own personal stash of “Plan B,” aka “the morning after pill:

During Thanksgiving week the American Academy of Pediatrics announced its recommendation that “morning after” prescriptions be issued to adolescent girls as a matter of course, allowing them the false security of what has long been described by advocates as a “fire extinguisher” in their purse to counter at least some of the consequences of risky behavior. “There’s no good reason” why there should not be follow-through on the recommendation, the San Francisco Chronicle asserts.

This is a heinous idea at so many levels.  I freely concede that there are young women out there who have the profound misfortune to be the daughters of abusive or unloving parents.  But I’m willing to bet that most young women have parents who love them.  The AAP is taking a problem for a minority of young women and trying to create a disaster for the majority of young women.  This is a plan that alienates young women from those who care for them most deeply — their parents:

“Girls often need support in order to avoid coercive early sexual activity, and the support of parents and medical providers is critical to enabling them to make healthy decisions,” [Anna] Halpine [founder of the World Youth Alliance and CEO of the FEMM (Fertility Education and Medical Management) Foundation] observes. “Girls want to be loved, not just used, and being affirmed in their pursuit of education and long-term dreams is a necessary part of the empowerment of any girl. Happiness is not an illusion; there are concrete things that can be done to achieve it, and explaining that to our girls is our responsibility and obligation. As the hookup culture grows ever more pervasive, it is matched by rising rates of female depression. We need to take these indicators of our young women’s development seriously, and make sure that we provide them with clear messages that help them fulfill their potential and achieve their dreams.”

Yes.  Yes, and more yes.  The government doesn’t care about my daughter, but I do.  The government cares about masses and batches of people, and the more dependent on the government they are, the better.

The government doesn’t only have no interest in young people when it comes to their emotional needs, it also doesn’t care about their physical needs.  Hormones are powerful medicines.  Every woman knows that the pill can interfere with the basic biologic function of pregnancy.  Most women know that the pill can bloat them and make them moody.  A significant number of women know that the pill can make them vomit uncontrollably.  The pill is also a not-so-rare factor in blood clots and strokes.  This is powerful stuff.  Girls who need parental permission to get their ears pierced or their bodies tanned are going to be handed hormones in sufficient doses to mess with their body’s natural functions.  Why aren’t more people outraged?

I’m not done yet, though, because I promised you a matched set.  Here’s the match:

The elite University of California, Berkeley has seen a blow to its uber-serious reputation with a controversial article from a student boasting about her marathon campus sex sessions.

Nadia Cho’s detailed account was part of her weekly column in The Daily Californian, Berkeley’s independent, student-run newspaper.

Cho writes that she and an unnamed male student started their romp in Berkeley’s library, Main Stacks, the day before Thanksgiving, when the campus was ‘marvellously empty’.

[snip]

But other students were in the library studying while the two performed and more than one student walked by them in mid-act, Cho writes.

She and her partner then moved into one of Berkeley’s classrooms, as she graphically describes.

‘Sex isn’t always about c****** and having orgasms. Sometimes it’s for s**** and giggles,’ she writes.

It’s impossible to imagine Cho’s attitude in a world where parents preach a loving, caring morality and birth control pills and abortifacients aren’t handed out like candy.  Again, I know that not all parents are loving, caring or even moral, and I know that many young women have sex without birth control or rely on things other than the pill, but the fact is that Cho is the product of a society that’s saturated in sex untethered to love, morality, family, or even plain old decency.

Tags: Abortifacients, American Academy of Pediatricians, Birth Control Pills, Morning After Pills, Nadia Cho, UC Berkeley

5 Comments »

“Who’s Thomas Sowell?” my daughter asked.

“He’s a genius,” I replied.

“Why?”

“Because he has the rare gift of simplifying very complex ideas without dumbing them down.”

See for yourself:

After listening to Sowell, my blog’s motto seems appropriate:  “Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.”

Hat tip: American Thinker

Tags: Economics, Economy, Thomas Sowell, Walmart

7 Comments »

Nothing in this morning’s news, or in my own life for that matter, is moving me sufficiently to justify a full post on a single subject or idea.  I did find some interesting things online, though, that I’d like to share with you.  Also, I always appreciate it when you share interesting things right back at me.

***

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that I must get myself a copy of Greg Lukianoff’s Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.  George Will wrote about it today:

In recent years, a University of Oklahoma vice president has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” The College at Brockport in New York banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. Rhode Island College prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.” Texas Southern University’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” Texas A&M promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” Davidson banned “patronizing remarks.” Drexel University forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.” Western Michigan University banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators.

Many campuses congratulate themselves on their broad-mindedness when they establish small “free-speech zones” where political advocacy can be scheduled. At one point Texas Tech’s 28,000 students had a “free-speech gazebo” that was 20 feet wide. And you thought the First Amendment made America a free-speech zone.

Young people, rather than being taught mental toughness, are having their brains turned into jello.  They are left like two-year olds who scream “No” loudly and repeatedly whenever anything challenges beliefs or desires.  What’s really frightening is that they have now become the intellectual equivalents of feral animals.  They cannot have their minds changed through reason, since they do not know reason.  They can have them changed only through brute force and bribery.

***

The Leftist mindset encourages racism against whites, because under Leftist rules, it’s impossible for whites to be the objects of discrimination (emphasis mine):

The San Francisco Housing Authority, which runs more than 6,000 units of public housing for the city’s poor, is headed by an executive director who discriminates against white employees in favor of African Americans and regularly employs offensive, outlandish language and behavior in the workplace, according to a lawsuit filed by the agency’s own lawyer.

The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the agency’s assistant general counsel, Tim Larsen, paints executive director Henry Alvarez as a mercurial bully – a description echoed in interviews with The Chronicle by several others who have had close contact with Alvarez since his arrival at the Housing Authority in 2008.

[snip]

Larsen, who is white, has worked at the Housing Authority for eight years and says that he was repeatedly passed over for promotions and plum assignments in favor of African American employees.

Alvarez is African American, and according to Larsen’s lawsuit, screamed at Larsen daily; gave him menial jobs such as organizing recycling; and told him to “stop being so Anglo,” that he “did not have enough kink in his hair,” and that “if you had more melatonin in your skin, I could make you my deputy.”

[snip]

Amos Brown, president of the Housing Authority Commission, staunchly defended Alvarez, saying Larsen’s lawsuit “is not about Henry.”

“You have someone who’s white, someone with specious, fallacious allegations, filing a suit that he was discriminated against,” said Brown, who is African American. “It’s a joke. How can he be discriminated against?”

***

Racist!!!  (I mean, it is racist if you criticize a black person, isn’t it?)

***

Europe is allowing itself to live with and be controlled by another Big Lie.  This lie is that it’s Israel’s own fault that they hate her so:

For Israel’s European critics, “Greater Israel” is no longer all of the West Bank, which even Netanyahu has conceded may be ceded for a real peace deal, nor even retention of an undivided Jerusalem. They are now acting as if any Israeli government that acts as if it is going to hold onto all of the Jewish areas of Jerusalem is a foe of peace. In doing so, they are not only distorting Israel’s position — which is still perfectly compatible with a two-state solution based on the ’67 lines with swaps — but also covering up or ignoring the fact that the Palestinians have refused Israeli offers of a state and now no longer even wish to negotiate.

Only by ignoring history can Europe pretend that it’s position is just. The Palestinians also specialize in Orwellian historical rewrites.

And these are the people Obama so desperately wants us to emulate?

No one is better at self-delusion than a Leftist.  I watched the first few minutes of Anthony Bourdain’s Layover, this one about what one can do with 24 hours in Paris.  The videos on the Travel Channel website consist of short clips from the show, focusing on the substance of what he says, which is interesting.  What the clips don’t include is the introduction Bourdain gave for the full half hour show:  In it, he lauded Paris’s free medical care, long vacations, short work weeks, and focus on the good life of eating and recreation, all of which he attributed to France’s socialism.  How elite.  How sweet.  How sadly out of date.  Piercing this gauzy veil of cliches means acknowledging that France’s economy is a disaster.  Its free medical care, long vacations, short work weeks, and good life are unsustainable.  Only by clinging to the delusion, rather than the reality, can Leftists continue to justify pushing socialism on the United States.  (And in this vein, please check out this tongue-in-cheek letter to Forbes.)

***

On a topic that is related only because it involves Israel, the IDF website has a fascinating story about the way in which it analyzes mistakes so as to avoid them in future.  It’s so tempting, when things go wrong, to look away from them, or to find a scapegoat, in order to avoid dealing with the unpleasant possibility that you erred.  However, unless you confront that possibility, you cannot avoid precisely the same error in the future.  In the wake of the election, Republicans need to focus on identifying and correcting errors, rather than spending their time whining and scapegoating people (i.e., saying “Romney was a boring technocrat who ran a lousy campaign,” rather than saying “Romney’s campaign should have done this differently.  Now we know better.”).

***

Taking a page out of Glenn Reynold’s book, it probably behooves me to remind you that I’m an Amazon Associate.  This means that, when you access Amazon through a link on my page, even if you don’t buy the linked item, I get a penny (or fraction thereof) on every dollar of goods you purchase.  I don’t know what you purchase or even who makes those purchases.  I just know that the more people who reach Amazon through my portal, the more pennies I get.  If you’re thinking of doing a little Christmas shopping online, I would appreciate it if you’d use this Amazon home page link or if you’d link through the Amazon ad in the sidebar (listing books and other items I recommend).

Tags: Anthony Bourdain, Barack Obama, Big Lie, Europe, France, Free speech, Greg Lukianoff, Higher Education, Israel, Racisim

16 Comments »

I wish I could get paid $100 for every time I’ve ended up in fourth place on the Watcher’s Council list.  I’d be a much richer woman today if those payments had happened.  As always, though, it’s all good and the top winners truly deserve the recognition they received from their fellow Council members:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes! Joshuapundit –The Next Islamist Domino – Jordan
• Second place with 3 votes – Simply Jews – The Pillar of Defense fiasco
• Third place with 2 votes – The Right Planet-Wrapped Around the Axle
• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room-Second Amendment day: shooting the Glock
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – The Noisy Room-The Islamic Pharaoh Rises
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – VA Right!-Why The ‘Clinton Tax Rates’ Didn’t Create Prosperity in the 1990′s
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye-“Balance Sheet” Or Not?
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Independent Sentinel –  A Moral Dilemma
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Razor –Party Like It’s 1999? Why I’m All For it
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator –James Clapper – Why does this man still have a job in the Obama administration?
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi –  I Am Guilty Of Stolen Valor

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 votes! – Sultan Knish-War Is The Answer submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place with 1 2/3 votes – Mark Steyn –Jill Kelley For Secretary of State submitted byJoshuapundit
• Third  place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Barry Rubin –Lessons for the World From a New Gaza War   submitted by Simply Jews
• Third place  *t* with 1 1/3 votes -Holman W. Jenkins/WSJ-None Dare Call It Default submitted by The Watcher
• Third place *t*  with 1 1/3 votes Kausfiles -Krugman’s Twinkie Defense submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Yid With Lid –Hamas: Killing Jews is worship of Allah submitted by VA Right!
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Pat Condell – Peace In The Middle Eastsubmitted by The Right Planet
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Quadrant Online –Doomed Planet submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Maggie’s Farm –Giving Tuesday submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Right On The Left Coast –Must Be An Election Year  submitted by Rhymes With Right
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -CNS News –One Third of Schools Receiving Stimulus-Funded ‘Student Improvement Grants’ Showed Declines submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Taki’s Magazine –The Petrayal of Petraeus submitted by The Political Commentator
• Fifth place *t* with /3 vote -Danger Room –Leon Panetta Has a Few More Drone Wars Ready to Go  submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -First Street Journal – Economics 101: A failure to understand   submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey

1 Comment »

I’ve had the same ten tabs open in Firefox this entire day.  I feel like a madman, trying to create order out of the chaos in my mind.  I’m convinced that there’s a thread tying together these articles, but I can’t figure out precisely what that thread is.  Maybe it’s just that each is another indicator that we’re starting to slide very quickly down some slippery slope, and I don’t think that we’re in for a soft landing.

Here are the articles, which I present in the order the presented themselves to me as I read through my normal websites and my email today.  If you can catch the elusive thread tying them together, please let me know.

***

I admire Jack Cashill greatly.  He’s a smart man and a superb investigator.  Nevertheless, I’ve long thought he had something of a bee in his bonnet with his insistence that TWA Flight 800 was anything more than a tragic disaster.  Now that I’ve had the dubious pleasure of watching the Obama administration work with the media to cover up events in Benghazi in order to salvage his reelection, however, I’m much more inclined to believe Cashill’s theory about the 1996 plane explosion — namely, that it was a terrorist attack, possibly of Iranian origination, and that Clinton and the media covered it up in order to secure his reelection.

***

I know this sounds callous, but I think that the only way to save America is to let Obama take it off the cliff.  Here’s my thinking regarding the “fiscal cliff” talks:  The Republicans have three choices:  (1) compromise; (2) stonewall; and (3) walk away.  If they compromise, they’ve lost, as a smugly victorious Obama clearly is not in a compromising mood.  He knows that, once the Republicans are a party to any economic plans, no matter how minimal or reluctant their participation, they will get the blame when things inevitably go wrong (or, in the unlikely event things go right, Obama will get all the credit). The Republicans will be irreparably smeared and become irrelevant.

If Republicans stonewall, the exact same thing will happen:  the media will blame them for anything that goes wrong, and give Obama credit for anything that might stay right.  And as this election showed, Americans listen to the media, despite knowing that it lies and conceals.

The only thing left for Republicans is to tell both Obama and the American voters, “The voters wanted Obama and his economic plans, so they shall get them.  We wash our hands of this.”  If things go well, then Republicans will have to accept that their policies are wrong.  If things go badly — and I suspect that they will, and quickly too — Republicans will finally have a convincing platform from which to sell true fiscal conservativism, rather than once again being enablers for Progressive profligacy. That platform, I believe, is the only thing that can return America to her status as a light of freedom and constitutional prosperity.

***

California health insurance rates are skyrocketing.  The usual suspects are blaming the insurance companies for having the temerity to want to earn enough money to pay their employees, pay-out to their insureds, and have money for stockholders (who are, after all, the ultimate owners of these companies).  You and I knew that this was inevitable under ObamaCare, since people no longer need to buy insurance when they’re healthy, but can wait until they’re sick.  And we knew that the media would blame the insurance companies — just as we know that, if there’s a single Republican fingerprint on any budget plan, the Republicans will get the entire blame for any failures.  Being a Progressive means never having to acknowledge that you’re culpable.

***

Speaking of the appalling, biased media, the IDF provides a detailed glimpse into the way the media and the Palestinians work hand-in-hand to destroy Israel, both in the battlefield and in the war for hearts and minds around the world.

***

It’s official:  Harvard will have a student society dedicated to S & M (that’s “sadism and masochism” for the innocents among you). Please remind me why Harvard is still considered a respectable educational institution, worth the millions of dollars taxpayers that send to it, both by funding direct federal grants and by picking up the costs of all the taxpayer-guaranteed loans its students conveniently forget to pay upon graduation.

***

Yes, Susan Rice is every bit as bad as you think she is — and it has nothing to do with her skin color and everything to do with her personality, political ideology, and ugly track record.

***

One of my high school friends calls himself a life-long conservative, something I did not know about him back in high school.  I think, though, that he could more accurately be summed up as a libertarian, since he is not at all a social conservative.  To that end, he’s expressed dismay with the increasingly high profile of fervently religious candidates in the Republican party.  He’s wondering if he can twist himself around to believe in the Democrat party, which he sees as non-religious.  I countered his concerns by sending him Dennis Prager’s article explaining that socialism is not just a religion, it’s currently the world’s most dynamic religion.  I recognize that the Republican party can be weak and pathetic, and that it is too often made up of RINOs or true ignoramuses who hide behind religion to excuse that ignorance.  Nevertheless, my friend needs to understand that the alternative is worse.

***

One of my long-time peeves (and one of the things that turned me to conservativism) is the way that Progressives mangled Title IX, which was, in relevant part, supposed to remove hurdles to women’s participation in college sports.  Equality of access?  It’s a good thing.  What Progressives have done, though, is to demand perfect equality of numbers.  Because college women have stubbornly refused to participate in college athletics at the same rate as college men, the only way to achieve this artificial parity is to slash men’s athletic programs.  James Taranto explains here, and makes us fully aware of yet another travesty inflicted on America thanks to Progressive politics.

***

And finally, it wasn’t your imagination that, for the first time in America, the 2012 election was openly predicated upon socialist class warfare. Just to make it official, a top Democrat political action group (conveniently working with George Soros funds) has started a website explicitly dedicated to class warfare.

***

So, was I right?  Is the common thread to these links the dissolution of America at every level?

I’m sorry if I sound bipolar.  Yesterday I was enthusing about the possibility of an American Margaret Thatcher and today I’m talking about imminent Armageddon.  The latter is how I feel; the former is how I want to feel.

In any event, I’m not sure one can ever fight a battle unless one simultaneously fears the opponent and feels optimistic about ones own abilities. In other words, success requires an honest assessment of the forces arrayed against you, as well as the belief that it is possible to prevail.  Without that belief, why bother to fight?

Tags: Barack Obama, Fiscal Cliff, Israel, ObamaCare, Palestinians, Progressives, Republicans, Susan Rice, Title IX, TWA 800

12 Comments »

His public speeches are even better than his setpieces:

[http://blip.tv/davidhorowitztv/bill-whittle-6444929]

4 Comments »

A simple but effective video:

Hat tip: JoshuaPundit

Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Terrorism

4 Comments »

In an earlier post, I ranted about the nasty vapidity that characterizes the “posters” my liberal friends put up on Facebook whenever an election draws near.  I also mentioned that my conservative friends consistently post more substantive articles and images.  This one, from my brother-in-law, manages to be both pithy and substantive.  It packs a world of ideas into a picture and two sentences:

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything before that so clearly distinguishes the fundamental differences in the premises from which socialists and capitalists operate when they make their political arguments.  This poster provides a perfect visual to Winston Churchill’s own epigrammatic statement that “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

Tags: Capitalism, facebook, Socialism, Winston Churchill

8 Comments »

Hat tip: Danny Lemieux

Tags: Cats, Dogs

No Comments »