OPENING UP A “third front” against ObamaCare.
Archive for 2011
February 2, 2011
ANN ALTHOUSE: “When Did The Left Turn Against Free Speech?” When they started losing the debate. “Free speech was only ever a means to an end. When they got their free speech, made their arguments, and failed to win over the American people, and when in fact the speech from their opponents seemed too successful, they switched to the repression of speech, because the end was never freedom.” Nope. It was always about control.
Plus, from the comments: “I think the reason the Left so often opposes free speech now is that they have victoriously marched through the institutions and are now in control. And those in control don’t care for there to be further discussion that might threaten their power. Those who are not in power are the ones who want free speech.”
And, from Althouse herself further down in the comments: “A person from 1969 watching that video of me and Bob Wright would assume Bob was right wing and I was left wing. Bob’s ranting about law and order. The me of 1969, sitting in a room with my college friends, would have said ‘Nixon!’ and everyone would have laughed.”
ROBERT FARAGO: McCarthy and Reid Slip High Cap Mag Ban into FAA Re-Authorization Bill. “Republicans are trying to tack a health care reform amendment onto the FAA re-authorization bill. Democrats are retaliating by adding the high cap mag ban proposed by Carolyn McCarthy (10 years for 11 rounds or more).”
I agree that this is politically stupid on their part — the last thing the Dems need is to wake up the gun-rights folks between now and 2012. (Thanks to reader Carl Fumante for the link).
UPDATE: Not true? This may be the result of a faulty entry in Thomas. Or not. Stay tuned.
FIVE COMPLAINTS ABOUT MODERN LIFE that are statistically B.S.
HOW’S THAT “YOU’VE GOT ME” BUSINESS WORKING OUT? Sen. Ben Nelson trailing in polls by double digits. “The bad news for Democrats doesn’t just come in the head-to-head comparisons. Nelson’s overall approval rating is an abysmal 39/50, while his Republican colleague Mike Johanns gets a 59/28. Regardless of the competition, Nelson doesn’t get above 42% in any matchup; the only reason he leads two candidates is because they’re relative unknowns. For a two-term incumbent and former governor who has been on the statewide stage for more than twenty years, these numbers are almost certain indications of electoral doom.” I’m guessing Nelson wishes he’d voted the other way on ObamaCare now.
PROF. STEPHEN CARTER: Egypt Proves Bush Right. “Not long ago, President George W. Bush was considered naive for suggesting that the promotion of democracy in the Arab world should be a staple of American foreign policy. Two years ago, the same charge was whispered against President Barack Obama. . . . As of today, that essentially racist assumption is dead. That is the lesson of the popular revolution that has overthrown the ruler of Tunisia and caused the seemingly eternal president of Egypt to promise not to run for another term. . . . The much-maligned Bush Doctrine included a military component—fighting our foes on their soil rather than ours—that President Obama has fully adopted. It also included a moral component—the use of American influence to spread democracy and freedom—that was only rarely emphasized, perhaps because the Bush administration followed its own moral strategy only rarely.” We haven’t seen a lot of that from the Obama Administration, either, which is too bad. I think if we’d kept up the momentum in 2005 we’d be better-positioned now.
BRAIN ELECTRODE IMPLANTS relieve depression.
I’VE MENTIONED THE ROKU BOX BEFORE. Here’s a blog review from Ken Nelson. He likes it, too! “Super easy to install. Works great. I’m quite impressed.” That was my experience, too.
UPDATE: Reader Dave Rosenfeld writes:
Here’s my two cents on the Roku box:
I bought myself a Roku XDS (the top-of-the-line model) from Amazon just before Christmas. It’s one of the best entertainment purchases I’ve ever made. Setup was a snap. It can do 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless, so it works great with my dual-band wireless-N router.
My Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus subscriptions cost me less than $20 a month, total. For that, I get current shows plus a huge library of past seasons and old shows, in 1080p. Amazon video-on-demand gives me access to recent movies. Plus, it has Pandora. I used to get far less than this from the cable company for nearly $150 a month. What
more could you ask?
Yeah, it’s bad news for cable companies.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rob Minneman writes:
Since people are chiming in on the Roku box, I figured I’d give you my $0.02, too.
I bought a Roku HD right before Thanksgiving. Our family only has a 720p HDTV, so it seemed like the right idea. I love it; the Netflix streaming is great, and I think we’ll get onto Hulu Plus sooner or later. Plus, it’s got Pandora and MLB.TV.
So we canceled the cable. That saves us $55/month (and our cable bill is low, compared to some people I know!) So, for $70 (including the HDMI cable) we wiped out a $55/month bill. And $10/month in Netflix has wiped out our monthly movie rental charges of $15-20.
My only regret is that I bought a Roku HD, instead of an XDS, and upgraded our wireless router to dual-band. I’d have been better off with higher-speed equipment, I think, as we don’t often get HD signals across our lower-speed
wireless network.
I’ve got my Roku plugged into a Monster Powerline adapter. That works very well.
HMM: Watts Bar Project Manager Who Was Fired Had Sent Large Sums To Iran. “The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant project manager who was recently fired by TVA sent large sums of money to his native Iran, according to documents in his divorce case. TVA officials have not said why Masoud Bajestani was dismissed – only that it was not related to his job performance.”
I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO VERIFY THIS, but I got an email saying that the Democrats are going to try to sneak Carolyn McCarthy’s full-capacity magazine ban into the FAA bill today. Anybody know anything about this?
THE NEW YORK TIMES’ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY: You can’t say The New York Times is wrong. And more on their odd editing policy here. I used to have letters in the NYT pretty regularly back in the pre-blogging days. Usually the editing was okay, but if I was expressing a criticism of the NYT’s views or a politically incorrect view generally, it did seem to become a lot more aggressive. Now that I have a blog, of course, I don’t much bother with letters to the editor — I can express my own views right here, and probably to more readers anyway.
That said, on a couple of occasions, like this one, they were pretty generous with space for politically incorrect views.
DAN MITCHELL: Comparing Reaganomics and Obamanomics.
CHANGE: Study Finds Jump in Immigration Prosecutions. They told me if I voted for John McCain . . . well, no, nobody told me that voting for McCain would produce stricter immigration enforcement. Nobody’s that dumb.
DID CLAIRE MCCASKILL double-cross St. Louis?
A SNAP REVIEW of Rupert Murdoch & Steve Jobs’ The Daily.
Related item here. “First, people really do want news.”
AUSTIN BAY: Islamist Mensheviks Versus Islamist Bolsheviks — Egypt’s Next Crisis? Key: “The 1979 Iranian Revolution began as a popular rebellion against the authoritarian Shah. Opposition to the Shah united liberal modernizers, workers, nationalists and Muslim militants led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Khomeinists eventually imposed their own dictatorship because they were willing to kill other Iranians. One dictatorial clique replaced another. . . . At some point, the Militant Islamists will resort to terror and assassination in their bid to secure unrivaled power. It will take a resilient alliance of Egyptian secularists, moderate Islamists and the military to defeat them. Encouraging this alliance should be America’s foremost diplomatic goal.” So can secular moderation survive if its opponents are willing to kill, but its supporters are not?
WELL, THERE’S LOTS OF UPSIDE GROWTH POTENTIAL THEN: First full month sales show Chevy Volt with 321, Nissan Leaf at 87.
Related: Report: Ford Focus Electric to launch without DC fast-charge capability.
WELL, THE FINANCIAL TIMES PEOPLE ARE BRITS, SO THEY CAN’T BE EXPECTED TO UNDERSTAND THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION, but as I noted yesterday, state-enacted gun mandates don’t have anything to do with a federal healthcare mandate because in America, states aren’t limited to enumerated powers, as Congress is, or at any rate is supposed to be. One would expect more American commentators to appreciate the difference, though.
UPDATE: Oh, my mistake: The Financial Times story doesn’t link the gun-mandate to ObamaCare. That’s all Taegan Goddard’s doing. Here’s a little remedial reading on enumerated powers.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I see Taegan has updated his post to note my earlier discussion.
ALEX EPSTEIN: Why Businessmen Should Say “Happy Birthday” To Ayn Rand.
INCREASING OPTIMISM? U.S. General Sees Success Even if Pakistan Doesn’t Act. “Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the No. 2 commander in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that the United States and NATO could succeed in the war even if Pakistan refused to shut down a lawless frontier sanctuary that militants use for staging attacks on forces across the border in Afghanistan. . . . The general’s assessment is the latest evolution in the thinking of American intelligence and counterintelligence officials, who have been long frustrated by Pakistan but say that the country’s inaction has produced at least one unintended benefit: The concentration of so many militants in North Waziristan makes it easier for American drones to hit them.”