THOUSANDS LINE UP AT TYSON’S CORNER for Mark Levin’s Ameritopia book-signing.
Video. Note the officious security guard.
Archive for 2012
January 29, 2012
YOU CAN HELP OUT INSTAPUNDIT READER MARK MARTIN by voting for his presentation.
TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: “I missed the State Of The Union. I was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with my daughter, and decided that that was more important.” Ah, seems like yesterday. Now we watch Big Bang Theory while she does statistics and chemistry homework.
IN FLORIDA, an epidemic of Mitt-Mania. “Attention young conservatives: Your grandma loves Mitt Romney. The phenomenal shift in the polls here in the Sunshine State — which has provoked much commentary and analysis about ‘strategy’ and ‘messaging’ — may in fact be little more complicated than that. And the massive crowd that turned out in downtown Naples today to hear and see Mitt was certainly evidence of how real Romney’s Florida surge is.”
Plus this: “If you set aside mere politics long enough to see the two Florida frontrunners as the average Republican voter sees them, it is hard to miss the contrast between Mitt — the tall, lean multimillionaire entrepreneur with dark hair and chiseled features — and Newt, the pudgy intellectual. Maybe you don’t judge presidential candidates by such standards, but it makes a lot of difference to Republican grandmas, and there are lots of Republican grandmas in Florida.”
ANTI-GUN SHERIFF CAUGHT IN GUN-CONTROL NET HE HELPED CAST:
Although San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi was a strong advocate of gun control while on the Board of Supervisors, he surrendered 3 handguns when police recently booked him on misdemeanor domestic violence charges,” KCBS reports. “If Mirkarimi were convicted on the domestic violence charge, he would not be able to carry a gun as sheriff,” reporter Joshua Sabatini claims.
True, but it would entail more than that. If convicted, “thanks” to the infamous Lautenberg Amendment, he would be a prohibited person under federal law, forbidden not only to carry a gun, but to own or even touch one—forever.
And a protective order is enough to disenfranchise him from his fundamental right to keep and bear arms prior to being convicted of anything.
While it appears corroborating information of a pattern of previous abusive behavior against female partners is emerging, along with documentation of his “well-known temper” and his own lawyer calling him “a bit of a tyrant,” it’s important to remember Mirkarimi is innocent until proven guilty, and also to keep in mind partners in failed relationships sometimes lash out motivated by revenge.
But even if convicted, a prohibition of a fundamental natural right over a misdemeanor is overkill.
True, but sauce for the goose. Michael Petrelis is calling for him to resign.
UPDATE: Reader Susan Harms emails:
EVEN THOUGH this seems like poetic justice, I cannot side against him — women have all the cards when it comes to claims of “violence”. A woman can do ANYTHING short of killing a man and when he acts in kind, she screams “he’s violent”. This is a war on men, and I cant take part.
Sadly, that’s fairly accurate. And as the Mary Winkler case shows, sometimes even murder generates a mere slap on the wrist after rather unconvincing claims of abuse.
IN TENNESSEE, a real common-sense gun law. New York needs something like this. . . .
IT’S GETTING CROWDED UNDER THAT BUS: College presidents alarmed over Obama’s cost-control plan.
Fuzzy math, Illinois State University’s president called it. “Political theater of the worst sort,” said the University of Washington’s head.
President Obama’s new plan to force colleges and universities to contain tuition or face losing federal dollars is raising alarm among education leaders who worry about the threat of government overreach. Particularly sharp words came from the presidents of public universities; they’re already frustrated by increasing state budget cuts.
Academia has been a major source of money and footsoldiers for Obama. This kind of talk won’t help. And while he could bash Wall Street in public, then cut sweetheart deals in private, the academic world is too diffuse for that approach to work, I suspect.
Plus this: “At Washington, President Mike Young said Obama showed he did not understand how the budgets of public universities work.”
It’s not at all clear that Obama understands how budgets work in general.
UPDATE: Reader Kendall Gelner writes: “At some point, you are charging enough tuition.” Heh.
IT’S ESSENTIAL TO BE PRO-CHOICE, except when it’s not. “I vividly remember back around 1990, the progressive gay-rights-type people I knew were intent upon portraying sexual orientation as a choice. I won’t name the famous lefty who snapped at me for entertaining the notion that homosexuality might have a biological basis: If it exists at the biological level, it will be perceived as a disease and people will try to cure it. That was really the same point as Besen’s, oddly enough, in that it was about acceptance as opposed to treatment.”
Plus this: “Does he want truth to win out or something more like good policy or political pragmatism?” Or, as usual, my tribe.
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Running Shoes.
Also, Women’s Running Shoes.
ELECTION PERSPECTIVE: F.A. Hayek on “The Great Utopia.”
TIM CAVANAUGH: How many public transit expert/advocates actually ride on public transportation?
I have met more than three folks, in and out of the establishment media, who speak with authority about mass transportation yet somehow can never get around to using it in the heat of their daily struggles. Judging by this storied Onion headline, I’m guessing others have met such people as well.
But how frequently, really, are we getting our fix of transit-solution bloviation from people with no practical experience of the “systems” they’re diagnosing and claiming to cure?
I wonder this every time an expert makes the case for more intelligently planned transit networks featuring smarter coordination throughout the hub or loop or grid. There’s one thing you learn by your second day of using transit when you actually don’t have a choice: For every transfer in your itinerary, you need to double the time allotted for the trip.
Yep.
UPDATE: Reader Donald MacQueen writes: “The Washington DC area public transit system is run by WMATA. WMATA’s board consists of elected officials from DC. Maryland, and Virginia, all of whom, you will be shocked – shocked! – to know, have reserved parking spaces for cars at WMATA headquarters. Public transit, like all the other things our elite betters say is good for us, is for the little people.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Greg Reihing writes: “As a former bus operator in Toledo,Ohio I know first hand of the inefficiencies in Public Transit. Only one board member ever used the bus regularly and even he rubber stamped the management ideas. I tired of explaining to the riders why it took 2hrs to get to their job when a car ride would take 20 minutes. The claims of energy savings and environmental benefit are all bogus. There aren’t enough seats available to make one iota of a difference in air quality. Safety? Public transit is a big target for litigation. The entire industry is influenced by the American Public Transit Association (APTA) who lobbies congress for funding. It’s a boondoggle-first rate.”
NEXT ROMNEY CAMPAIGN TALKING POINT: 4 Reasons Why Space Sex Sounds Like An Awful Idea. Take that, Newt!
UPDATE: Jim Bennett writes: “Talk about speculation in advance of data! But seriously — those are arguments for a lunar colony, not against one. All of those potential problems apply only to zero-G on current facilities like the ISS. Lunar gravity might be the optimum tradeoff between acrobatic potential and useful anchoring forces. But I for one refuse to leap to conclusions before the issue is joined. So to speak.”
SCIENCE: Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again): Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years. “The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.”
Getting more and more like Fallen Angels every day.
UPDATE: Thoughts from Mike Stopa. “Suppose it turns out that CO2 has essentially nothing to do with the earth’s climate. How will the history of this colossal mistake be written?”
MORE: Don Surber comments. “Do not expect the American press to pay any attention to this story. The Associated Press offered no re-write of the London Daily Mail’s blockbuster story.” Doesn’t fit the narrative. But watch the polls, which already show vastly increased skepticism over just a couple of years ago. Nowadays, the truth gets out.
Bad news for bankrupt governments, though, which were hoping that carbon taxes to “save the planet” would save their balance sheets. Now voters and taxpayers will be unlikely to go along.
MORE STILL: Maybe the Daily Mail’s willingness to report what the New York Times won’t explains why it has passed the Times to be the #1 newspaper in the world.
WASHINGTON TIMES: Obama’s Twisty Light Bulb Logic. “Some critics have charged that hyping mercury poisoning in MATS was just a cover for the EPA to ramp up its regulatory assault on the coal industry. Trace amounts of mercury from coal-fired power-plant emissions affect a small number of Americans, chiefly those who live near the emissions sources. At the same time, however, the Obama administration has been trying to force Americans to accept even greater mercury risks by insisting that traditional incandescent light bulbs be replaced with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). The mercury vapor in CFLs is at a much more dangerous concentration than anything coming out of power plants.”
The incandescent phaseout is underway, but it’s still not too late to stock up!