Archive for 2012
September 25, 2012
A DESPERATE ELIZABETH WARREN PLAYS THE RACE CARD, BADLY:
Someone doing the “tomahawk chop” is himself playing the role of Indian. This Indian character making a stereotypical gesture can’t be read as expressing hostility toward Indians. The Indian is his hero. At a certain level of political correctness, the tomahawk chop is considered offensive to Native Americans, but somehow it’s not offensive enough to have stopped Atlanta Braves fans from doing it.
Anyway, these fake Indians, the staffers, are pretending to be real Indians, miming an attack on Elizabeth Warren on the ground that she’s a fake Indian. There’s a lot of fakery in there, but no one is expressing the view that it’s bad to be Indian. That’s all I wanted to say, and I do understand how real Indians might prefer not to be represented as stereotypical characters. And maybe they’d object even more if a non-Indian got a great job from an employer who was practicing affirmative action in hiring or self-promoting by claiming diversity.
Maybe they would.
OOPSY! POST-OBAMACARE HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS RISE DRAMATICALLY: John Merline over at Investor’s Business Daily reports that the new Kaiser Family Foundation employee benefits survey reveals that employer-based health insurance premiums have risen a whopping 9.5% in 2011 and another 4.5% so far in 2012, due in large part to the insurance “reforms” of Obamacare such as mandatory coverage of kids to age 26, mandatory loss ratios of 85%+, mandatory free preventive care, etc. So much for President Obama’s pledge to cut health insurance premiums by $2,500 in his first term.
Even worse news? Premium increases will skyrocket in 2014, when the (most expensive) remainder of Obamacare health insurance “reforms” kick in, including the mandate to buy health insurance, elimination of annual and lifetime coverage caps, mandatory community rating bands and prohibition of the use of pre-existing conditions for underwriting.
REPLACEMENT REFS CALL THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST. Actually, they’re angry that they have to be on the field at all.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Dealbreaker: He wore 3 condoms.
#ETHANOLFAIL: EPA Mandates Four-Gallon Minimum at E15 Gas Pumps.
NEITHER A PUPPET NOR A NEOPHYTE: James Kirchick on Paul Ryan’s foreign policy views.
NANNY BLOOMBERG AT IT AGAIN: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t satisfied with dictating what kind of oil your french fries soak in or how big your Big Gulp can be. He’s at it again, now proposing to ban all junk food in the city’s public and private hospitals. So if Mom is in the hospital for an operation, junior can’t be comforted with an ice cream. Spouse battling an infection or cancer and your tummy rumbling at 4 pm? No Snickers for you! News flash, Mayor Bloomberg: WE’RE ADULTS.
BOTTOM FEEDERS? A New Zealand man recently presented himself at an emergency room to have an eel removed . . . from his . . . arse. Luckily, for the man, the extrication went smoothly. According to this Huffington Post report, apparently this isn’t the first time an eel has been reported to have slithered to unusual nether regions.
IS THE WESTERN LIFESTYLE throwing your gut bacteria out of balance?
WHO SPEAKS FOR THE INTERNET? Well, according to Scott Cleland of the Precursor Blog, it isn’t the new Internet Association, headed by a former top staffer for House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton.
BOOK PLUG: Dan Riehl emails to recommend The Whistleblower: How the Clinton White House Stayed in Power to Reemerge in the Obama White House and on the World Stage.
DEBACLE: Obama’s Speech At The United Nations: “President Obama is so soaked in the State Department/Western European/ leftist intellectual goo of moral relativism and disdain for core American values that I doubt he understood how offensive were his remarks at the United Nations today. . . . The president’s policy is in deep disarray because his thinking is deeply misguided. When at the U.N., it would be appropriate for the president to say clearly and without caveats that the U.S. does not label obnoxious speech “slander” nor apologize for it. It defends liberty. Period.”
CHANGE: Israel Walks Out Of Ahmadinejad’s Speech at the UN — US Officials Stay Seated:
So, when it comes to Ahmadinejad… we walked out on him in 2011. We walked out in 2010. We boycotted in 2009. We left behind a single non-diplomat note taker in 2008. We left behind a single non-diplomat note taker in 2007. And 2006. And 2005. We have, in fact, been formally walking out on, spurning, and otherwise generally showing our public disapproval for aforementioned Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying theocratic nutjob since he was assigned to his position.
“Malice or incompetence: you never know, with this crowd,” Moe Lane adds.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, A JOURNALISTIC ENTERPRISE, IS AMBIVALENT ABOUT THE FREE EXPRESSION RIGHTS OF OTHERS: Which seems odd, considering they’ve hired Piss Christ “artist” Andres Serrano to illustrate at least one article (on Abu Ghraib, back in 2005).
But then, the Margaret Dumont of the publishing world gets the vapors over thoughts of you having soda, air conditioning and the Internet, let alone the First and Second Amendment.
Hillary wasn’t kidding when she said the 21st century Left was going to “take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
LIBYA’S ARMY is going after the country’s militias with some success. Libya had better succeed. The last thing the world needs is an oil-rich Somalia or Yemen across the water from Italy.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING, PART II: Eugene Volokh (guru of the Volokh Conspiracy), pointed out to me– correctly– that the Manhattan Institute’s study documenting the California exodus of 225,000 residents per year is more precisely described as “net domestic out-migration.” Translated: California’s population loss is “domestic,” meaning American and foreign citizens who live in California pack up and move to another State. The 225,000 figure does not include the continued in-migration to California of immigrants from foreign countries such as Mexico.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Maybe today’s students need a finishing school.
HERE COMES OBAMA’S NEXT SOLYNDRA: Smith Electrics, which got a $32 million Obama economic stimulus program boost to build electric delivery trucks for the Pentagon, cancelled its IPO last week and now, according to The Washington Examiner’s Richard Pollock, faces a bleak future reminiscent of Solyndra in its last days before going bankrupt.
MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE EV NANNIES: Tesla Motors is slashing its revenue and production projections, citing worries about insuring quality in its Model S offering, according to Bloomberg Business Week.
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ (NOT!): A recent study by the Manhattan Institute shows that California is no longer a magnet for Americans seeking a better life. Instead, the Golden State is losing residents at the clip of 225,000 net loss per year– 3.4 million since 1990. The exodus is fueled largely by a poor economic climate, population density, and the fiscal instability of state and local governments.
FASTER, PLEASE: A New Artificial Heart Pump That Mimics the Real Thing.
ONE OF THE BEST New York Post covers ever.
ELIZABETH WARREN: OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB!: Progressive poster girl Elizabeth Warren not only has small image problems defending Traveler’s Insurance and a large mining corporation against claims of the “common man,” but she also apparently, um, actually doesn’t have a valid law license in Massachusetts, where she has been practicing law for years while a Harvard Law prof. This isn’t just an oversight, folks: Every lawyer knows you have to be licensed to practice law. It’s chutzpah, arrogance, stupidity, or some combination thereof. Whatever it is, it isn’t the kind of character worthy of a potential U.S. Senator.