Archive for 2012
May 15, 2012
LIFE LESSONS: What I learned about money in my twenties. Key bit: “Looking back on my twenties, I realized that I spent my money mainly because I wanted to feel richer than I actually was.”
This is a common problem.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Earmark recipients filled Akin campaign coffers. “People for whom U.S. Rep. Todd Akin helped secure $31 million in earmarks have paid him back handsomely: The Missouri Republican has raked in nearly $80,000 in campaign cash from people tied to those firms. The five-term representative is in a hotly contested primary race for the Republican nomination to oppose incumbent Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of the Senate’s most ardent earmark foes.”
STEVEN HAYWARD: Let’s Call Them “Hydrocarbon Deniers.” “Thus we can say that Saudi Arabia is the America of oil, except that we have more than they do. Maybe we should start exporting oil to China and join OPEC?” Don’t get cocky, kid.
#NARRATIVEFAIL: CBS Poll Shows Romney Leading Among Women. If you look at the full results, it’s Romney 44, Obama 42 among women. What’s more, that’s a big improvement for Romney since last month, when it was Obama 49, Romney 43. So apparently this whole “War Against Women” narrative hasn’t played too well for them. . . .
POINTS AND FIGURES: President Obama’s Business Record. “Actually, you can’t attack Obama because he never was in the private sector. He never did anything of note before he was President. I call that a government bureaucrat or hack. My kids have contributed more to GDP already in their young lives than Obama has done in his.”
ANCIENT DISEASES of human ancestors.
JAMES TARANTO: Gay? Yay! Straight news gives way to propaganda.
Paul, Kentucky’s junior senator, “joked about President Obama’s changed postion [sic] on gay marriage in a speech in Iowa Friday: ‘Call me cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer,’ ” BuzzFeed.com reports. Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek, dubbed Obama THE FIRST GAY PRESIDENT on the magazine’s cover, which featured a photo illustration–at least we assume it wasn’t a straight photo–of the president with a rainbow halo. The New Yorker’s cover is a tamer version of the same joke, showing the White House with its Ionic columns in gay-rainbow colors.
Paul’s joke was widely condemned, with the lefties at ThinkProgress.org crowing that “even Tony Perkins” of the conservative Family Research Foundation found it “unacceptable.” Of course although Paul and Brown made essentially the same joke, the tone was different. Paul’s joke was mocking, perhaps even mean-spirited, while Brown’s (promoting an exultant piece by Andrew Sullivan) was a sympathetic in-joke.
Yet if you think about the substance of the joke rather than the tone, Brown’s version was worse, or at least was representative of something worse. Paul, it seems safe to say, was expressing the views of the majority of his constituents, nearly 75% of whom voted in favor of a 2004 constitutional amendment affirming the traditional definition of marriage. Politicians are supposed to take sides on questions of public policy.
News reporters are not.
Well, that was once the case. Now they’re just unpaid Democratic Party opeatives for the most part. The idea of an independent media has been eclipsed by crony journalism to go with the crony capitalism. As a blog commenter said the other day, “We may not quite be living under communism, but we are certainly living under its media apparatus.”
THE BURDEN OF small-business licensing.
May 14, 2012
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Running Shoes.
JIM TREACHER: Ain’t no politics like identity politics ’cause identity politics don’t stop. “What wonderful chaos Joe Biden hath wrought! . . . Who’ll win, the race-baiters or the homophobe-baiters? Either way, it’s going to be fun to watch.”
HOW CONVENIENT: Report: Obama friend who allegedly tried to bribe Rev. Wright is same crony who just got $5.9 million HHS contract. One hand washes the other.
HMM: White House getting blowback from African-American churches over gay-marriage stance. “Obama drove turnout in 2008 in part through the enthusiastic participation of these very same churches. Having now sided with the people who call these black pastors and congregations ‘bigots,’ especially in North Carolina where two-thirds of black voters supported Amendment One, Obama is not at risk of having them flip to Mitt Romney — but he does risk losing that enthusiasm, fundraising, and organization.”
Related: Video: Preachers in Baltimore blast Obama for same-sex marriage stance. “He has said to his base, African-Americans, ‘I am going against your beliefs and your thoughts.’”
RACISM ON MSNBC: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to Black Pastor: ‘I Hope You Evolve.’ I’d hoped America had moved past such vicious racial stereotypes. . . .
SPACE PORK: The Constellation Empire Strikes Back. Empires usually do.
ANDREW FERGUSON: The New Phrenology.
EXERCISE: CAN LESS BE MORE? The 20 Minute Workout. “Instead of asking how much exercise we need, some scientists are looking into how little we can do and still get maximal health and fitness benefits. The answer appears to be a lot less than most of us think — provided we’re willing to put in some effort. That’s the secret behind high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, an approach to training that compresses all of your exercise into only a few minutes.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “Where are all the Strong, Confident Men?”
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: The 8 ghosts that haunt “Dreams From My Father.”