DAN SAVAGE RETRACTS HIS WISH THAT ALL REPUBLICANS WOULD DIE. Well, he should — without them, who would pay for all those government programs he likes?
Of course, given his past efforts at waging germ warfare against Republicans, his sincerity here may be doubted . . . .
THE SURPRISINGLY BOOZY LIFE OF MALTA.
AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals.
FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T SUBSCRIBE TO PJTV, Here’s my Jerry Pournelle interview on YouTube.
MOCKING THE DISABLED at GQ magazine. I don’t think Down’s Syndrome results from inbreeding. . . .
BLAMING IT ALL ON THE TEA PARTY:
With the breakdown of negotiations on a so-called grand bargain on the debt limit demanded by President Obama, liberal commentators have sought a convenient scapegoat to account for the impasse. Not surprisingly, they have begun by rounding up the usual suspect: the Tea Party. Its intransigence, so the line goes, has sunk this great deal.
For two years now, “Blame the Tea Party First” has been the Democrats’ favorite mantra. “Firsters” invoke the Tea Party to make sense–for themselves–of the otherwise inexplicable fact of large-scale public opposition to President Obama, and they hold the Tea Party responsible for many of the nation’s deeper problems, from incivility in our discourse to an inability to set aside intransigent partisanship.
Generosity in describing one’s foes is a rarity, especially among conspiracy theorists. But Firsters have carried their animus against the Tea Party to unprecedented heights by failing to credit it with what is today right before everyone’s eyes. Without the Tea Party, there would be no debt limit negotiations going on, just as there would have been no budget reduction deal last December. Without the Tea Party, President Obama would not be posing as the judicious statesman, but would be pushing –as in truth he still is–for more stimulus and further investments in high-speed rail. Whatever pressure now exists to treat the debt problem derives directly or indirectly from the explosion of energy that has been generated by the Tea Party.
In lambasting the Tea Party movement for its stubborness, Firsters have silently acknowledged what for two years they had all but denied. Instead of being in fact a front for racism or opposition to abortion, the “baggers,” as they have been derisively called, are genuinely insistent on cutting spending and containing the growth of government. Everything is less complicated than it seems. Supporters of the Tea Party are who they said they were.
People who read InstaPundit, of course, knew that all along.
FASTER, PLEASE: Superbug antibiotics: New drugs advance amid R&D investment shortfall. “Today, there are only two Big Pharma companies, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, with active antibiotic R&D programs . . . . In 1990, there were nearly 20.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: 43% of College Grades Are A’s.
BUT WHERE WILL WE GET PENS AND POST-ITS? Goodbye Office Hours, Goodbye Office? “I see this as a highly predictable result of ongoing de-industrialization of business. . . . How long before a major corporation — not a boutique ad agency or software development outfit — decides to abandon the idea of having an ‘office’ altogether?”
SMARTPHONE APPS for losing weight. I’ve had good luck with the Livestrong calorie/exercise tracker, which let me take off 10 pounds pretty painlessly last semester, and which has let me keep them off even more painlessly this summer.
KENNETH ANDERSON ON NGOs: “Accountability” as “Legitimacy”: Global Governance, Global Civil Society and the United Nations. NGOs, in general, have neither accountability nor legitimacy, for reasons that he discusses. “The essay focuses upon the latter, external accountability, and argues that the transformation of international NGOs into ‘global civil society’ signaled an ideological move with regards to legitimacy in the global community, one which asserted claims of ‘representativeness’ and not merely interest or expertise. The essay criticizes this legitimacy move, suggesting that it arises from mutual interests on the part of international NGOs and public international organizations such as the UN to confer legitimacy upon each other in the interest of promoting a mutually congenial form of global governance.”
ANOTHER CAPTIVATING INSTA-POLL: So we’ve heard Obama compared to everyone from FDR and JFK (by his supporters) to Nixon and Carter (by increasingly large numbers of non-supporters). Which President fits best? Have I left out a candidate? If so, discuss in the poll comments.
AS THEY SHOULD BE: Criminal Charges Over Mich. Woman’s Front-Yard Vegetable Garden Are Dropped.
THE BEST PLACE IN AFGHANISTAN.
“YOU WERE WAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE,” a reader emails, along with a link to this story: China to Release Pork Reserves as Prices Soar.
As I noted in my earlier post, the idea of a Strategic Pork Reserve is quite appealing. I do, at least, have a strategic bacon reserve, though now I wish it were bigger. . . . .
WHY MICHELE BACHMANN IS NO FUN TO PICK ON: “Bachmann’s strong showing in the Iowa straw poll should have raised her profile to Palinesque heights. But it hasn’t. Bachmann might yet be president, but she’ll never be a star. . . . Heading up Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone profile is a caricature in which a a wild-eyed Bachmann sits astride a horse, wearing armor and brandishing a sword. This is not really a picture of Bachmann at all; it’s a picture of Sarah Palin with Bachmann’s face, or something like it. If the media really expect to rattle Bachmann, they’re going to have to put that kind of wishful thinking to bed.”
WANT TO HELP WOUNDED SOLDIERS? Support Project Valour-IT.
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in books.
ED DRISCOLL: Mister, We’ve Got A Man Like Jimmy Carter Again.
LAWRENCE SOLOMON: A Tea Party Budget. “Scrap the Department of Education, a failed Carter-era experiment that had its roots in president Dwight Eisenhower’s desire to imbue the education system with Cold War thinking, and out goes a US$77-billion annual expense. Likewise, scrap all or parts of the Department of Energy, the Small Business Administration, the Federal Transit Authority, Federal Highway Administration, Housing and Urban Development and other federal areas that intrude on state and local responsibilities. Apart from the dollar savings from eliminating duplication and cancelling perverse projects, the quality of public services is likely to rise when the former federal functions move closer to home in state or local government, or become privatized and are delivered in the private sector.”
MICKEY KAUS: Scientists Discover Alternate Universe In Which Obama Has “Rolled” GOP: “It’s as if Obama has avoided emasculation by becoming a star in a fake little drama of his own creation, in which the audience (so far) consists mainly of MSNBC viewers, source-greasing reporters and Bloomberg editorialists. No wonder he has ‘reality tv’ on his mind. …”
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