MARKDOWNS IN Kitchen And Dining.
Archive for 2011
April 2, 2011
RANDY BARNETT, profiled in the Boston Globe over his ObamaCare opposition.
CLIVE CROOK: About Those False False Choices.
WHAT’S WRONG with U.C. Irvine?
DARK DAYS AHEAD FOR TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT:
I give you two headlines that pretty much say it all:
Obama Receives Transparency Award at Secret Meeting
OMB prepares for open gov sites to go dark in May
It is relatively easy to make promises about transparency and to engage in all manner of posturing about it, but when push comes to shove it’s just a lot easier doing certain things (most things) when someone isn’t looking over your shoulder.
Well, on the pro-transparency side, you can see right through them.
POPULAR MECHANICS: Eyewitness Reports From Japan’s Ongoing Disaster.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Virtues Of Machiavelli.
SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO: SpaceX Will Officially Launch The Falcon 9 Heavy Rocket On April 5.
AUTO SALES by the numbers.
DON SURBER: “Are we losing the kinetic military action in Libya? No matter what one’s feelings are toward President Obama as a man or a president, this is not good news.”
Meanwhile, reader Brent Glines emails that it’s the Obama Curse, in which everything Obama touches turns to crap:
One aspect of the Libya debacle seems to have slipped by everyone in the punditocracy, but it seems obvious to me. The Obama Curse.
For the last couple of years, every time Obama backs either a particular sports team in a playoff, super bowl, world series, what have you, or a candidate running for office, the team or candidate endorsed by Obama immediately tanks. Doug Powers noted this phenomenon over a year ago, http://dougpowers.com/2010/01/27/the-obama-curse-continues/ , and there have been numerous other examples since then, most recently Obama’s NCAA picks.
So now Obama has backed the rebel cause in Libya against Moammar Gadhafi, so OF COURSE, the rebels immediately start to tank, and are now in full retreat on all fronts.
The Obama Curse. Fear it! And pray he never endorses your team, cause, or candidacy.
I’m safe. Er, except for the space-policy thing, where I strongly support Obama’s policy — and which, come to think of it, has also turned to crap.
DEMANDING A CORRECTION from the New York Times.
HEY, RUBE! SO MUCH FOR THE FIERCE MORAL URGENCY OF CHANGE: “As a candidate, Obama defined his approach as the opposite of everything Bush. Whatever the issue, Obama would be the photographic negative. But as president, Obama’s foreign policy has been slowly evolving toward the views of his predecessor. Obama’s pride will not allow him to admit it. His rhetorical imprecision obscures it. But behind the fog is the Bush Doctrine.”
Suckers.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: An Anti-College Backlash?
Start paying attention, and it becomes readily apparent that more and more Americans today are skeptical about the benefits of college. . . . Yet despite the mounting skepticism about the value of a college degree, and in the face of the economic downturn, colleges continue to demand ever higher fees, saddling graduates with crushing debt along with their diplomas. In June of last year the Federal Reserve released new figures showing that the nation’s total student loan debt now sits at about $830 billion – for the first time surpassing the nation’s credit card debt. Student loan debt, it should be noted, is in many respects less forgiving than credit card debt: “These loans typically can’t be discharged in bankruptcy,” explains the Wall Street Journal. “They have different repayment terms, some of which have heavy consequences for borrowers who miss payments.” Some commentators have even suggested that the crimp the financial downturn is putting on students’ ability to get loans may in fact be doing those students a favor.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark writes:
RE: Treacher’s comment on the Koran burning
It shouldn’t go unnoted that Obama’s military intervention, when juxtaposed with the Afghan riot, nukes the old canard that US military interventions in Arab countries run the risk of provoking the Arab street – not that this ever had much contact with reality, still it existed. With the governors on the Arab street now weakened or entirely off, you’d expect the grand explosion, long prophesied, to have taken place by now.
Good point.
THOMAS SOWELL ON LIBYA:
You don’t just walk up to the local bully and slap him across the face. If you are determined to confront him, then you try to knock the living daylights out of him. Otherwise, you are better off leaving him alone.
Anyone who grew up in my old neighborhood in Harlem could have told you that. But Barack Obama didn’t grow up in my old neighborhood. He had a much more genteel upbringing, including a fancy private school, in Hawaii.
Read the whole thing.
AT AMAZON, it’s the Outlet Sale.
MODERATES and other creatures.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Gold nanoparticles deliver DOX directly to cancer. “Another week, another miracle nanoparticle that promises to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly into tumors while leaving healthy cells alone. This time, it’s a team from the University of Syracuse with the promising little development. Their system hitches DNA onto gold nanoparticles, which then binds to the anti-cancer drug doxorubin, also known as DOX.”
ENERGY CONSERVATION, LIKE TAXES, IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Presidential limousine, security vehicles exempt from fed ‘green’ vehicle policy.
Don Surber: “Barack Obama: Talk loudly but carry a bunch of waivers.”
HEY, RUBE! Andrew Sullivan: “King Barack I.”
Little Miss Attila is gloating.
And Stacy McCain is . . . well, see for yourself.
UPDATE: Brian Dunn enjoys the lamentations.
And, well, meep-meep.
CRUELTY IN POLITICS: Rand Paul outsmarts, embarrasses slow-witted Democrat. “Makes me wonder if opinion on Libya inside Congress is already so sour that Democrats fear a vote to authorize the mission retroactively might not go Obama’s way.”
April 1, 2011
WISCONSIN UNIONS GET UGLY: Now they’re threatening businesses that stay neutral in the state’s budget battle.