Archive for 2010
December 7, 2010
WELL, THE SAME KIND OF PEOPLE ARE IN CHARGE BOTH PLACES: Is all of America turning into Detroit?
UPDATE: Not buying it.
IRONY: WIKILEAKS IN CHAOS. “Now the embattled organization’s secrecy and compartmentalization are apparently hindering its operations.” Apparently it was run more like a monarchy than like a Distributed Republic. . . .
UPDATE: Reader Kim Sommer writes: “They should have read your book?” Well, yes. Had they done so, perhaps more of Assange’s followers would have realized that he was a tool, and they they were his tools, instead of swallowing the hope-and-change story.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “My boyfriend, as I mentioned before, looks much more like a terrorist than either I or my son do, and he went through security with no problems. . . . The bag, and my friend, had passed through security with no issues. How is this full-body scan supposed to be making us safer if 6-inch gardening shears can still make it aboard domestic flights undetected?”
JOHN SCALZI: The Incredible Scalzi Weight Loss Plan.
REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Keith Olbermann, Julian Assange, and the Holocaust Denier.
SCOTT JOHNSON: Whatever Happened To The Constitution?
BARACK W. OBAMA (CONT’D): Obama muffed U.S. motto.
IT REALLY IS THE 1970S ALL OVER AGAIN: Back in style: Rabbit ears and free TV.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, HICK PREACHERS WOULD BE LOBBYING THE FCC FOR CENSORSHIP. And they were right! Sharpton wants FCC to take Limbaugh off the air.
FROM THE INSTAPUNDIT SPORTS DESK: Teen Mathletes Do Battle at Algorithm Olympics.
CHANGE: Britain Is Freezing To Death.
Ann Althouse says put on a sweater, but a commenter observes: “When people in Blighty are freezing to death and the oldsters are dying of heat stroke in La Madeleine because nobody can afford heat (or AC)and their family doesn’t check on them because that’s what the government is supposed to do, you have the compassion of the Welfare State on display.”
Plus this: “My mother is 93 heading towards 94 and her internal thermostat is set differently. She likes to be warm when it’s cold and she likes to be cool when it’s hot. It’s okay. And her carbon footprint for her whole lifetime would be the equivalent of one of Al Gore’s bedrooms for a year.”
BRYAN PRESTON live-blogged Obama’s press conference. “He’s coming across as hectoring, defensive, and not well acquainted with the facts or the policy.” Later: “Well, that was pretty bad, the kind of presser Napoleon might have given after Waterloo.”
Related: “He has met the enemy, and they are him.”
UPDATE: A Wall Street reader emails:
Obama’s petulance sank stocks.
Stocks were euphorically higher most of today, thanks to the unexpectedly broad tax deal the administration hammered out with the Republicans. But during his press conference, Obama’s clear anger and call to unwind the deal in 2 years opened a trap door under prices, sending them to a negative finish. We had hope, and then it changed.
If this deal gave people the belief that Obama might grow in office, the press conference probably deep-sixed that.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Get that man a teleprompter! “Surely, if President Obama had been scripted this afternoon he wouldn’t have let loose with such a self-revelatory rant at the end of his presser. To this point, the hallmark of Obama has been his bloodlessness and lack of emotion, in almost any circumstance. North Korea could nuke Seoul and he’d come out and coolly pronounce it a regrettable event that proves we need to ratify New START. We’ve learned today that what really gets under his skin and makes him boil is criticism, and especially criticism from progressives. . . . We got a good look behind the curtain for a moment this afternoon, and it wasn’t pretty.”
MORE: The 2008 Obama Would Denounce the 2010 Obama.
STILL MORE: Megan McArdle: “So why are progressives so enraged? I’m not seeing a lot of complaints about austerity; rather, they simply seem to be mad that the Democrats were not able to thwart the GOP entirely. As Clive Crook says, ‘But is it really good politics for the party to keep telling the electorate that raising taxes on the rich is the one thing, in the end, it stands for? That nothing else comes close in the party’s list of priorities? Because this is the message that comes across.’ . . . Both sides, of course, are exposing themselves as the rank hypocrites they are on fiscal priorities. To say I despair for the financial future of our government is too weak.”
MORE STILL: Reader Kim Sommer writes: “Forget the 3am phone call. He’s not even ready for a 3pm press conference.”
WELL, WE CAN HOPE: Obama to cave on coal, nuclear power next?
WHILE AVOIDING ELECTROCUTION: How to safely work on hybrid electric vehicles.
SOME RECOMMENDED GIFTS under $100.
CHARLES GASPARINO: Obamanomics: Only the fatcats prosper.
FORBES: The Economic Incompetence of the Political Class. “The sovereign debt crisis now threatening Europe, as well as major American states and cities, discloses the sheer incompetence of a political class that has over-promised, under-delivered and squandered vast amounts of their citizens’ wealth.”
CONN CARROLL: Freeze Taxes, Freeze Spending, And Go Home.
AN END TO THE EURO? “I hear all the reasons that this has to muddle through. But I remain worried. Already, I am not hearing great things about the German economic team; the economists are having a harder and harder time persuading the politicians that this is a good idea and the voters are getting madder and madder. Angela Merkel is fiercely resisting expanding Europe’s emergency fund. Meanwhile, so are voters in Ireland who don’t see why they should have to pay through the nose to bail out foreign banks. As Herb Stein said, if something can’t go on forever, it won’t. And this can’t go on forever.”