Thinklets

Forget Rushmore - Put Obama on Yucca Mountain

2010-03-05T13:28:00-08:00

Yesterday President Obama airily round-filed the work of four former presidents and a taxpayer investment approaching 12 figures, when the Department of Energy (DOE) filed to withdraw the application for the completed underground nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

I can see why the money isn’t an issue. Everyone knows that after inauguration the president gets two things: The Nuclear Football and the Bottomless Magic Money Bag. But I am confused by the move in light of Obama’s recent support for nuclear power – unless that was just a bunch of jazz to soften up opponents of Cap and Trade.

Come to think of it, if you look closely at the video of Obama announcing loan guarantees for nuclear plants, you can almost see crossed fingers and winks at his environmentalist supporters.

Leslie Paige with Citizens Against Government Waste points out that the move didn’t hurt Obama’s buddy, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid’s, tough re-election effort in Nevada either.

"That decision, which is widely and correctly understood to be a political gift to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), has negative ramifications far beyond the near- term political expediency of appeasing Leader Reid and the anti-nuclear power crowd. In fact, it is patently illogical when viewed in tandem with the President’s stated support of nuclear power in general. The nation currently has 58,000 metric tons of commercial nuclear waste sitting at storage facilities at power plants across the country. President Obama’s crusade to close Yucca Mountain and permanently yank the facility’s license application will imperil the nation’s entire energy policy and cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars."

I wouldn’t be so cynical if the administration could come up with a good reason to blithely and unlawfully scrap such an expensive and necessary facility. And, as Paige further explains, the legal repercussions of this decision are significant:

"There are a myriad of problems associated with the politicized and short-sighted decision to abandon Yucca Mountain. First, and perhaps most importantly, it contravenes the law. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), first enacted in 1982, authorized the federal government to enter into contracts with nuclear power companies to remove their spent nuclear fuel to a permanent repository; the nuclear utilities would have the authority to charge their ratepayers fees to pay for that facility. The law, as amended, clearly designates Yucca Mountain as the only permanent nuclear waste storage facility and any alteration of that location will require a legislative change to the NWPA."

But this is the kind of thing that happens when the captain charts course with two compasses: junk science and political expediency.

Senate Shenanigans Delay Critical Funding

2010-03-04T17:15:12-08:00

An avalanche of criticism erupted last week when embattled senate Democrats briefly delayed a bill to fund unemployment benefits for struggling families, physician reimbursements, and highway safety projects.

Insane, hypocritical, mean-spirited, obstructionist, and calloused were just some of the epithets directed at Capitol Hill via the media and blogosphere, when the senators brought the bill up to the cash register and discovered that they actually needed their wallets.

I know it seems ridiculous, but you can’t really blame them. Senators never actually pay for the things they authorize, so there’s going to be a learning curve here.

And I’m sure it was a shock. You should have seen their faces when they found out the “Phony-Façade-of-Fiscal-Responsibility” legislation they passed last month (also known as “Pay-Go,”) had some fine print. I think it read something like this: “If you morons want something you’re going to have to find money to pay for it just like everyone else.”

Anyway, they were a little unprepared, a little out of practice, and they couldn’t come up with the cash in time to keep funding those appendectomies, shaky bridge repairs, hungry children, etc.

Some cynics said the legislation was delayed intentionally in order to manufacture a Pay-Go-exempt “emergency.” I have no idea why anyone once.would think that, except maybe because it has already worked for them once.

But I think we should give them a break. Paying as you go may seem simple to you and me, but it’s going to take a little practice for members of congress. And I don’t give any credence to the rumor that Senate Democrats take the phrase “You can’t get blood out of a stone” as a personal challenge.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Yesterday the senate voted to just take that unpaid invoice and toss it way, way up onto the top of the stack, and everything was all better on Capitol Hill.

In an unrelated incident Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) caused a stir at the Capitol on when he flipped the bird at some playful reporters who kept sticking their feet in his elevator door while he was trying to get to a basketball game.

Come on, get a sense of humor, Senator Bunning.

Katty Kay Touts Discredited Study to Promote Government-Run Healthcare

2010-03-01T07:58:00-08:00

My apologies to Mark Twain, but God save us from liars, damn liars, and patronizing European journalists, like “BBC World News” Washington Correspondent, Katty Kay.

Yesterday on “Meet the Press,” Kay implied that our current system denies Americans “access to a doctor if they don’t have insurance,” and also cited an oft-discredited study in an attempt to lure Americans into a health-care tar-pit such as her compatriots endure.

Come on in the water’s fine, was Kay’s implied message to you and me. For proof, she then trotted out the tired old World Health Organization (WHO) study that ranked America’s Healthcare system 37^th in the world – the same study that the Wall Street Journal pointed out was riddled “nonsense ranking” and “so many made-up numbers,” according to Philip Musgrove, the editor-in-chief of the WHO report that accompanied it.

That ranking has been discredited so thoroughly I’m surprised it hasn’t been pronounced “settled science” by the likes of Kay and those who brandish it frequently in their quest to transfer a big chunk of the U.S. economy into the safekeeping of federal bureaucrats. At this point, however, they just cross their fingers and hope that no one will point out that it is a bunch of hooey.

But then accuracy is obviously not a priority for someone who touts a 10-year-old study like this: “At the moment America has globally the 37^th highest quality of care in the world. That puts it just above Cuba and just below Costa Rica,” Kay told David Gregory.

She didn’t explain why prominent Canadian politician, Danny Williams, chose to have life-saving surgery in the U.S. – not Costa Rica – after ditching Canada’s own government healthcare for greener pastures.

Maybe he looked at some meaningful and accurate statistics such as these – but don’t expect Kay to point them out.

Jon Stewart - License to Lie

2010-02-26T10:46:00-08:00

How does Jon Stewart get away with it? Night after night he fictionalizes the actions and statements of conservatives, building goofy, moronic straw men which he then tears to pieces in a hyperkinetic frenzy of invective and ridicule.

For example last night, during a recap of yesterday’s Healthcare Summit, Stewart said Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA) told President Obama that the government must get out of healthcare “completely.” Then Stewart introduced a video clip that seemed to show Cantor being blown away by a devastating comeback from our silver-tongued president.

Stewart was so thrilled about Obama’s supposed gotcha moment that I thought he was going to swallow his tongue. (He is seriously hyperactive for a middle-aged man. I wonder what he has for dinner before each show… cigarettes and 5-Hour Energy shots?)

Anyway, it would have been good political theater if it had really happened that way, but it didn’t. You can read the actual stultifying dialogue here. (If you must. Just don’t combine with alcohol or operate machinery at the same time.)

Yes, this is more proof that reality and the “Daily Show” rarely meet. They are usually separated by long hours of editing. For example, on last night’s show, Stewart introduced a video clip in which Cantor states, “It does have to do with our fear that if you say that Washington can be the one to define essential health benefits… If we assume that Washington could do that, could really take the place of every American and decide what is most essential, what -- what would be the consequences?”

Cantor was concerned about whether the federal government is going to define essential health benefits, rather than the people. However, Stewart then “paraphrased” Cantor’s remarks this way: “Cantor is basically making the argument that if we want to come together on this we have to agree to keep government out of it completely, because costs will skyrocket. He’s making the never-been-proven argument that smaller government is better because it costs less.”

Next, video is presented showing Obama’s acerbic one-line “rebuttal” to Stewart’s made-up statement from Cantor (Still with me?). Obama: “We could set up a system where food was probably cheaper than it is right now, if we just eliminated meat inspectors.” Sounds glib, but in real life that sentence was just a sliver of a long, dry Obama monologue, not a witty zinger.

This is vintage Stewart. A couple days before, while commenting on Glenn Beck’s keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) convention, he stated, with no corroboration, that Beck’s anti-progressivism requires elimination of all taxation and government services, including libraries. That was followed by a skit dramatizing a dangerous, polluted, and oppressive Beck-sanctioned future.

Such blatant, habitual dishonesty makes you wonder about the “Daily Show’s” loyal audience. Doesn’t anyone ever say, “Wait a minute! He didn’t say that! That didn’t happen! You made that up!”

But then, I suspect there is a scientific research paper in there somewhere among Stewart’s fan base, entitled The Effects of Long-Term Cannabis Use on Attention Span and Short-Term Memory.

It’s clear after the first few seconds, that each night’s studio audience comprises an informal convention of “The Nerdy Guy the Quarterback Let Hang Around Him Senior Year.” The stereotypical sycophant whose sole purpose in life is to bask in the glow of someone else’s eternal coolness. (And no one is cooler than Stewart.) They howl, scream, and whistle every time Stewart raises an eyebrow. It reminds me of that campaign rally in Texas when Obama got applause for blowing his nose.

Stewart is an ideological leftist who has an intentional and significant impact on public discourse. However, his satirist credentials give him inexplicable license to lie with impunity, position himself above the scuffle, and seize unfair advantage in the national debate.

Stewart bullies with his own particularly vicious brand of dishonesty and invective, only because he can. His adversaries know they would never get away with responding on his level, even if they wanted to. No one wants to get into a peeing contest with a skunk.

Tucker Carlson summed it up on CNN’s Reliable Sources in March 2009. “I think Jon Stewart is dishonest. And by the way, I also think he's a sacred cow. There's nobody who has the huevos to attack Jon Stewart because he's too popular. The press sucks up to him like I've never seen.... I would like to see somebody have the stones to come out and say, Jon Stewart's kind of a pompous jerk, actually.”

Biden's Reality

2010-02-19T19:38:00-08:00

Apparently, now that Iraq is an island of relative sanity within a region seething with murderous hatred for America, Vice President Joe Biden has pronounced it one of the Obama administration’s “greatest achievements.”

Interesting that he should say that, since President Obama wasn’t in office during the darkest and most desperate months of the war. But I’m sure he did what he could. I remember lots of helpful suggestions coming from the general direction of Capitol Hill around that time. You know, the usual: “Saddam Hussein is a harmless puppy-dog.” “This is a pointless war.” “The surge will never work.” “George Bush drinks the blood of babies.” Stuff like that.

I also seem to recall loud and frequent demands that President Bush set an exit date and sky-write it over Fallujah and Kandahar, but I can’t remember whether that was supposed to be before or after Iraq was divided into three separate countries – Biden’s very own bright idea.

We all know that Biden and Obama believe in “spreading the wealth,” but this takes it to a whole new level. Apparently they don’t intend to steal -- I mean spread – only material wealth around, but character attributes as well – like courage, sacrifice, and national honor.

See how it works? Biden is free to spread success in Iraq to Obama and at the same time spread the current high unemployment, looming inflation, and through-the-stratosphere debt over to Bush.

I realize it’s a stretch, but as Liz Cheney reminds us, Biden does have that “famously tenuous relationship with reality.”

It might actually work. They could throw one of those fabled White House parties, invite Cindy Sheehan, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Michael Moore – and maybe even get the gals from Code Pink to decorate.

Can’t you just picture it? All the high fiving, back slapping, and gloating about breaking up Saddam Hussein’s little I-hate-America club with Osama Bin Laden and dashing all his yellow-cake-shopping, eye-gouging, hand-drilling, and mustard-gas-oriented dreams and aspirations.

Heck, New York Times reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, might as well come as well. They could knock back a few and congratulate themselves for thwarting al-Qaeda’s scheme to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge – a mass murder plot that was foiled thanks to both enhanced interrogation and the National Security Administration’s super-secret electronic surveillance program. Yes, the same surveillance program that Risen and Lichtblau decided to rat out to our mortal enemies.

While we’re at it, why not honor Teddy Kennedy for winning the Cold War, President James Buchanan for freeing the slaves, and Benedict Arnold for America’s independence?

Indeed, Washington D.C. is a wealth-spreading dynamo on so many different levels these days. But “spreading the wealth around,” implies that it doesn’t all go in one direction.

Take the economy. Dr. Obama’s treatment plan is killing the patient, but he won’t consider changing the prescription, because he’s too busy pointing fingers and dodging responsibility. Obama recently said, "If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression ... the result is going to be the same. I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place."

Interesting theory, but where do Obama’s old buddies and colleagues, the busybodies at ACORN and Congress, fit in? Because the social engineers at ACORN intimidated banks into extending loans to non-creditworthy customers, but hit a roadblock when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac balked. That was when their cohorts in Congress stepped in and imposed quotas that saddled Fannie and Freddie with $1 trillion in undesirable mortgages.

And that's what brings us to the “biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression,” that Obama mentioned. That’s right, the thing that happened when all those high risk customers stopped making their payments.

Meanwhile, remember the guy Obama practically dislocates his elbow pointing at whenever he screws up? That’s right, Bush. He foresaw catastrophe, proposed corrective action 17 times, and was blocked each time by Democrats in congress (including you-know-who and you-know-who).

So, just to recap: Who warned of trouble and called for reform? Bush: Seventeen. Obama and Biden: Zip.

That’s why it’s a little strange that Obama keeps blaming the recession on the “lost decade” of the Bush administration. But, if my theory is true, in some strange, tenuous reality, it is only fair. Obama was elected president, which means the wealth must spread.

If Obama can take Bush’s credit for winning the Iraq war, Bush must take Obama’s credit for ruining the economy. See? It balances out so beautifully. You could even call it virtue and competence redistribution.

If this works for Obama, he may even take it a step further. He may brand Bush a touchy, thin-skinned, dissembling, whiney-baby who can’t admit when he’s wrong.

Because that way Obama could be a class act.

Global warming alarmism stifles debate

2010-02-12T19:21:00-08:00

This week we witnessed an inspiring testament to the human spirit as intrepid Easterners dug themselves out of their snow-covered houses and driveways in a courageous quest to go on TV and squabble about Global Warming.

As I sat in front of the tube and observed all that fortitude and perseverance spewing about, I was somehow reminded of the Pilgrims and Galileo. After all, the Pilgrims’ first winter in the New World was no picnic either. Some might even call it a testament to the lengths some people will go just to be left alone.

Because the Pilgrims valued personal liberty enough to choose frostbite and starvation over intrusive government and suffocating state religion.

Illustrative of the Old World culture that the Pilgrims fled, it was around that time that Galileo was pronounced “vehemently guilty of heresy” by Pope Urban VIII for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun. He was forthwith imprisoned and commanded to "abjure, curse, and detest" those beliefs.

It wasn’t the weather that caused me to reflect on all this history. It was the cacophony of outraged protests that erupted when some suggested that being buried in snow and ice might mean the earth does not “have a fever” after all.

Here are some examples of the substantive and thoughtful discussion that ensued: “Anti-science!” Inappropriate!” “Unpatriotic!” “Denier!” “Heretic!” (The last one was implied.)

In light of that spectacle, I gotta ask, what next? "Abjure, curse, and detest?"

There is a religious fervor surrounding the climate change issue, despite its scholarly facade. Any question about that was settled the day that Barack Obama promised to “harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” The declaration that his inauguration would herald “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” was merely confirmatory.

If I recall correctly, President Obama also promised to “return science to its rightful place,” which makes wonder exactly where that is. A place where discussion, dissent, and skepticism are silenced and hysterical alarmism rules the day?

Because all I’m hearing is, the seas are rising! The glaciers are melting! The polar bears are dying!

And if you question, you instantly become a member of the “anti-science brigades,” according to Jeff Masters, or “inappropriate” and “unpatriotic,” according to Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Does that kind of language encourage the free flow of ideas? I think not. These guys may be scientists, but on this subject they’re looking a lot more like Pope Urban VIII than Galileo.

We can’t ask why Global Warming Alarmists now admit that they manipulated scientific information, stifled the publications of skeptics, and destroyed data that did not back up their assertions.

We can’t ask why the Global Warming Alarmists deliberately instigated fear and panic with false predictions of imminent crop failures, disappearing glaciers, and drought in Africa and Asia.

And we can’t ask why Global Warming Alarmists rigged the data that shows a recent warming trend -by leaving out temperature readings from Siberia, among other things.

We can’t ask. Because we will be told that the "science is settled" and "the debate is over." Then we will be compared with Holocause deniers.

And so we must be quiet and take our medicine in the form of crippling taxes, higher prices, less freedom, and not object as our elected representatives jettison big chunks of our national autonomy into the care of global regulators.

In other words, we must further tear at the sacred trust that has been carefully guarded with blood, sweat, and tears by every American generation since that first horrible winter at Plymouth Colony. Because if we don’t we’re all gonna barbecue.

If I had the good fortune to be allowed just one question, I would ask the Global Warming Alarmists this: “Don’t you care? Don’t you grieve the terrible costs of what you are proposing? Because this is not 1620, and we are not the Pilgrims.

There is no place left where one can go to be left alone.

Links for 2010-02-15 [Digg]

2010-02-16T00:00:00-08:00

Global warming alarmism prohibits discussion
This week we witnessed another inspiring testament to the human spirit, this time as intrepid Easterners dug themselves out of their snow-covered houses and driveways in a courageous quest to go on TV and squabble about Global Warming. As I...

Snapping at Palin

2010-02-11T13:06:57-08:00

Liberals divide people into two groups. Those they think are smart and those they think are dumb as a doorknob.

Group 1 is a small, exclusive club, of which Sarah Palin is the latest member. Group 2 is the rest of us.

Here is where it gets tricky. If you are in Group 1, it means you are smart, and you are not liberal. But liberals will call you stupid. Frequently. It’s a sophisticated debating trick that they learned from their sister when they were four.

“You are stupid!”

“Am not!”

“Am so!”

“Mommeeeeee!”

I would choose Group 1 over Group 2 any day. I’d rather endure politically-motivated ridicule and personal attacks than the ongoing gagging ministrations of those who truly believe I’m a moron.

Like President Obama, whose obvious concern for us flows daily. Don’t blow your life savings at Vegas! Read more books! But don’t read blogs or watch cable news! Make sure your kids do their homework! Eat your broccoli! Finish your milk!

It’s not as crass as your sister yelling “Dummy!” but the point is just as clear. Our president thinks we’re idiots.

For example, while liberal commentators have been snarling like rabid Chihuahuas about Sarah Palin’s hand notes, Obama just saw one more teachable moment, another opportunity to sprinkle words of wisdom over the knuckle-dragging masses by warning us not to write on ourselves with ink (“you could get blood poisoning”) and to always walk, never run, when carrying a pen or any pointy object.

Wait… I take it back. My mother told me that when I was five.

Sorry about that. Apparently, our benevolent leader’s admonishments have blended with all the other homilies I’ve been fed throughout my life – like big wads of sickening sweet cotton candy in my mind.

I wouldn’t mind so much, except when all this concern for our wellbeing extends to my bank account. It seems we lack the mental capacity to spend our money where we should, and it would be best if Mr. Obama managed that for us.

I must admit, I never would have chosen to purchase my neighbor’s 1989 Cutlass for $25,000 dollars (the final cost per car of Cash for Clunkers) and then scrap it. Not in a million zillion years. That’s why, in his superior wisdom, Mr. Obama had to do it on my behalf.

And I was so proud when my mother took her name off my passbook account when I was 12.

This kind of liberal solicitude makes me yearn for membership to Group 1 and the fangs and spittle of the rabid Chihuahuas. They make their target appear stupid for political purposes. Obama and our liberal leaders truly believe we are a nation of dullards in need of their help.

Now that is truly scary.

The Chihuahuas in the liberal media actually believe their Group 1 target is gifted and intelligent and therefore a threat to be neutralized - with metaphorical chainsaws if possible. Just think Dan Quayle.

They scrutinize every spoken word, and then use each inevitable misstep to brush their victim with stupid paint.

They did it to President Reagan, then they did it to President George W. Bush, and now they’re doing it to Sarah Palin. Don’t believe me? Go watch MSNBC for 15 minutes.

For example, I caught a few minutes of Keith Olbermann discussing Palin’s palm-notes with Howard Fineman on Monday. (No, Olbermann hasn’t been fired yet, although I’ve heard rumors that if another desk is ruined by bile corrosion, he’s out.)

Anyway, Olbermann suggested that the notes were written on Palin’s hand by someone else, while Fineman quipped that he was “losing IQ points” just by viewing her on television. (Good one, Howie!)

But you still gotta wonder how such a slow mind can expound for 45 minutes from notes consisting of a mere seven words. But then we must consider that she also successfully operated a private business, a town, and a state. Perhaps she’s some kind of a savant, but that’s a subject for another day.

Anyway, Palin did manage to appear intelligent for 45 minutes with only seven words to prompt her - a miraculous achievement, especially if she is so dumb that the words had to be printed on her hand by some mysterious handler. (Come to think of it, where is Dick Cheney lately?)

Compare that to our brilliant caregiver-in-chief, who needs even brief statements and presentations to sixth-graders written out for him in full.

Or what about Olbermann himself? Could he do his entire show with only palm notes to aid his memory?

Like what about when David Letterman joked about Palin’s daughter being raped, and Olbermann stated that Palin’s protests revealed her to be, “Sanctimonious, holier than thou, exploitative, undignified, pedantic, childish, self-inflicting, insipid, backwards, embarrassing, over-reactive, overreaching" as well as a "delusional lunatic.”

Or this: “Without total mindless, morally bankrupt, knee-jerk fascist hatred, Michelle Malkin would be just a big mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it.”

Or this: "In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”

Could all that fit on his palm? Let me see… Hmmm… Maybe if he’s really good at short hand, acronyms, and mnemonics.

I’ll grant you that most liberals could rant about Palin for an hour with less than seven words to prompt them. I’m guessing words like: “stupid,” “ignorant,” “racist,” “hillbilly…” You get the idea.

It seems to me, however, that Olbermann’s level of venom would require a teleprompter. But what do I know? I’m in Group 2.

Live and let live

2008-12-10T15:54:00-08:00

Why does it bug atheists when others choose to have faith?

I’m scratching my head about that once again, in light of the current kafuffle at the Washington State Capitol Building. Governor Christine Gregoire approved a sign next to Christian and Jewish holiday displays, which states that faith in God “hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Wow. Merry Christmas.

I’m not sure if Gregoire should be expecting much in her stocking after this clunker of a decision. Because any pre-school teacher could have called this one better than she did:

Teacher: Kids, I want you to draw a picture showing what the holiday season means to you.

Johnny: I will draw a manger.

Teacher: Good Johnny.

Sarah: I will draw a menorah

Teacher: Very nice, Sarah.

Ronny: I will write that Johnny and Sarah and big dummies.

Teacher: No Ronny, it’s not nice to call people names.

Gregoire claims she had to allow the sign, because, as we all know, nasty insults are protected speech under the First Amendment. In that case, I’m going to make a sign that states, “The lottery is a tax on the stupid.” She better display it or I’ll sue.

But that still doesn’t get me any closer to understanding why the faith of some seems to threaten those with none. Because those shrill and hysterical lies, now displayed so prominently in Washington’s seat of government, reveal bald hatred and fury from the source. And I just can’t figure it out.

Hard hearted? Those with faith? Really? Those who courageously stood up against widow burning, slavery, and cannibalism? Those who founded orphanages, hospitals, and humanitarian organizations all over the world?

What about Abraham Lincoln, who said the following shortly before he was murdered for ending slavery in the United States: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

Those words from the 2^nd Inaugural send chills up my spine every time I read them. Yet, visitors and workers at the Washington State Capitol will be told this Christmas Season that they sprang from a “hardened heart.”

And what about those “enslaved minds?” Johannes Kepler, who after mathematically explaining the orbit of the planets around the sun talked of being “enraptured” by the work of God’s hands?

Or Galileo who said the “glory and greatness of the Almighty are marvelously displayed in all of his works?”

Or those who founded Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, and scores of other educational institutions – and increased the literacy rate in geometric proportions all over the earth?

Incredibly, this Christmas Season, visitors and workers at the Washington State Capitol will be told that they were all laboring under “enslaved minds.”

I respectfully disagree.

Links for 2010-02-12 [Digg]

2010-02-13T00:00:00-08:00

thinklets: Snapping at Palin
Liberals divide people into two groups. Those they think are smart and those they think are dumb as a doorknob. Group 1 is a small, exclusive club, of which Sarah Palin is the latest member. Group 2 is the rest of us. Here is where it gets tricky. If you are in Group 1, it means you are smart, and you are not liberal. But liberals will call yo

Palin's power to prevail

2008-11-16T20:13:00-08:00

Alaska governor, Sarah Palin’s, entry into presidential politics last summer seemed to make Democrats a little, shall we say, defensive.

That was the impression I got, anyway, considering that they immediately declared DEFCON 50 and implemented the only version of the Strategic Defense Initiative the left will ever approve: insults and ridicule lobbed at the Palin family like Patriot missiles via the mainstream media.

Welcome to election-year politics. Disgusting, but hardly surprising.

What caught me off guard were all the potshots lobbed at Palin from the McCain camp – friendly fire that we now learn started well before the end of the campaign.

Or were they potshots? Maybe not. Perhaps Palin’s aides were just trying to show the world what a remarkable woman she really is.

For example, thanks to “Anonymous Staffers” we know that in private moments Palin sometimes expressed righteous anger in response to the daisy cutters that democrats were routinely dropping on her.

Correction. Actually those “Anonymous Staffers” used slightly differently terminology. For a moment, I forgot the rules of semantics when describing the emotions of a female as opposed to a male. Women don’t express “righteous anger” even under the most trying circumstances.

According to Fox News reporter, Carl Cameron, those “Anonymous Staffers” told him that Palin threw “temper tantrums.”

They didn’t mention whether one of those “tantrums” took place after they put her on the phone with a developmentally-delayed radio prankster and told her it was the president of France.

On the other hand, maybe those “Anonymous Staffers” meant to commend Palin for keeping the “tantrums” private and putting on a brave face in public. For example, when they booked Palin for a comprehensive oral exam with CBS’s Katie Couric (called an “interview”) Palin didn’t slap Couric when she repeatedly demanded details of John McCain’s regulatory votes over the past 26 years.

She did seem a little gun shy about giving specific answers to other questions, though, didn’t she? Maybe because she knew it would go something like this:

Couric: What newspapers and magazines do you like to read?

Palin: I enjoy Time, Investors Business Daily, and the Wall Street Journal.

Couric: Can you give me a brief biography of the publisher of Investor’s Business Daily, and while you’re at it the page count and five headlines from the last issue of Time?

In fairness, perhaps those “Anonymous Staffers” were just expressing gratitude that Palin hadn’t fired them yet, especially after they sent her into an interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson with an fish head poultice under her blouse. (If you doubt that, look up the interview on YouTube, check out Gibson’s attitude toward Palin, and tell me if you can think of a better explanation. Although, I suppose it’s plausible that Gibson simply needed new glasses and thought the interview was with Stalin instead of Palin.)

Anyway, my point is if you believe those “Anonymous Staffers,” Palin is an intellectual Helen Keller, with an amazing, even miraculous, ability to achieve great things despite significant handicaps.

For example, those “Anonymous Staffers” said that when Palin and her family joined the McCain campaign they were a gaggle of “Wasilla Hillbillies,” dressed in animal furs, I would imagine, and spitting on the floor. Who would have known?

Apparently, Palin eighty-sixed the moose antlers, salmon guts, and chewing tobacco; lined up dental work and grammar lessons; popped in and out of Neiman Marcus; and then showed up at the convention with a brood that rivaled the British Royal Family – while clutching a scorched RNC credit card.

But that’s not all. According to Cameron’s sources, Palin is an ignoramus with “real problems with basic civics, government structures, municipal, state, and federal responsibilities” – yet boasts a stellar background as a successful mayor and governor!

Furthermore, Palin has conducted extensive business with Canada – as a private business owner and the governor of Alaska – yet still hasn’t caught on to the basics of international commerce and NAFTA.

Even more shocking, we learn that she actually passed the third grade without knowing that Africa is a continent!

To some this might look bad, but I say it is a testament to Palin’s ability to overcome her handicaps and get the job done.

Think about it. No knowledge of “Wilsonian Doctrine” (as Cameron breathlessly announced on the day after the election) and yet Palin still gets up in the morning, dresses herself, and ties her shoes.

I think she could be tutored in time for the 2012 election. We would only have four years to do it, but I for one think it’s worth a try. Imagine the things that woman could accomplish if she was literate.

Or better yet, imagine the things she could accomplish if her “Staffers,” anonymous or otherwise, are loyal and competent.

(This post was originally posted on the Oregonian web site)

Obama world

2008-10-17T20:21:00-07:00

I was surprised last weekend when Obama justified higher taxes to an entrepreneurial-minded citizen: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you that they’ve got a chance at success too… I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Let me clarify that I was astonished by the presentation, not the sentiment. Obama is always saying things like that, but sugared-down with flowery feel-good rhetoric – channeling John Lennon as opposed to this professorial paraphrase from the “Communist Manifesto.”

He must be feeling quite confident in his poll-numbers to present his socialist credentials in such uncharacteristically unadorned language.

In the meantime his running mate, Joe Biden, is so obsessed with what’s going on at kitchen tables throughout America, that he wants to give Big Brother a special seat at each one – all the better to poke his nose into your private affairs.

Welcome to the Obama World. At first you might even be glad you voted for him – until you realize that you’ve just created a snoopy Gladys Kravitz monster, and she’s no longer content to only stand at her window and rubberneck. “Abner! Marv Kowalski just got new Corvette, while the Cruxbergers are still driving that Buick with the fake wood peeling off! That’s not neighborly!”

“You know perfectly well that’s because Fred Cruxberger was out shooting road signs and smashing mailboxes while Marv was studying to be a brain surgeon,” Abner replies. “Now put down the binoculars and mind your own business.”

Anyway, if Obama’s views are demonstrable by history, then Henry Ford and Thomas Edison contributed nothing to society, except the famine and misery that must have rose among the masses in levels directly proportionate to their success.

Similarly, I’m trying to recall the food shortages and bread lines of the 1980’s when Bill Gates founded Microsoft. In Obama’s view, he raked in so much money that there couldn’t have been any “chance for success” left for those “behind” him.

After such horror stories, it’s easy to yearn for the sunlit, pristine Obama World now within our reach; where birds chirp, children frolic, and Americans always “share” their wealth – because if they don’t he will throw them in jail.

It could have been compassion for Ford and Edison’s victims that prompted prominent Chicago socialist, Saul Alinsky, to write, “‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

On the other hand, we have Adam Smith, also known as the father of modern economics, who believed that government should merely be an instrument of law, order, and justice, and taught that state interventions that eliminate a family’s interest in self-betterment lead to poverty and tyranny.

I wonder whose book is most likely to be found on Obama’s bedside table, Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” or Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” I’m thinking the latter. Especially since it’s common knowledge that Obama embraced Alinksy’s methodology during his years as a Chicago community organizer.

Nevertheless, Smith was right. Facing big problems at the kitchen table leads to fire in the belly that in turn leads to ingenuity and a pioneering spirit that when mixed with liberty becomes the catalyst for the American dream. Oregon was built by hardworking, determined people who were driven by that fire.

In Obama World, if elected he says he will “take back America,” and “reclaim the American dream.” I guess he’s referring to the good old days when Americans were forced to be “neighborly” have “empathy,” and politicians were free to “spread the wealth around” as they saw fit.

I must have been sick that day in history class.

Perhaps it’s in the memoirs of pioneer girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Like when grasshoppers destroyed her family’s wheat crop and the Little House on the Prairie was instantly besieged by an army of left-wing community organizers who registered Ma, Pa, Laura, Mary, Baby Carrie, and Jack the dog to vote for a silver-tongued politician who blamed their neighbors for their misfortune?

Actually, no. If you look it up, it turns out Charles Ingalls walked 300 miles in worn-out boots, found work, paid off his debts, and Wilder never mentions anything about him blaming anyone.

Senator Obama, that’s the America that needs taking back.

Nothing will be built by the lofty, inspirational phrases that Obama routinely swipes from stories of true American sacrifice and pastes into speeches carefully crafted to spread petulance and envy throughout our land.

“The journey will be difficult, the road will be long. I face the challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people,” he said at the Democratic National Convention.

Indeed, it must take prodigious “profound humility” to declare yourself anointed to reach into American’s wallets and confiscate the fruits of their labor because they can’t be trusted to spend it on the things that you think they should.

America, wake up! You don’t want Barack Obama and Joe Biden at your kitchen table, oozing virtuous concern while they drone on and on about “empathy gaps” and “fairness issues.” It might sound good at first, especially if you are on the receiving end of the largesse, but you soon find out that Big Brother is the ultimate unwanted guest who won’t leave.

And then where will you be if that greedy neighbor who pays for everything and still gets kicked in the teeth, someday decides to quit?

(This post was originally published on the Oregonian web site)