Archive for 2012
March 8, 2012
WASHINGTON POST: The Influence Industry: Obama gives administration jobs to some big fundraisers. “More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.”
WELL, HE DIDN’T CARRY TENNESSEE: Gingrich’s future hangs on successful Southern state strategy.
MICHAEL TOTTEN IS NOW AT World Affairs Journal.
A HELPING HAND TO THE 1%: Obama Bails Out Irresponsible Housing Speculators.
LOOKS LIKE THE TURNOUT WAS PRETTY GOOD: A report from the Boston Breitbart memorial.
And here’s another report from New York.
Let me know if there are any others going on.
Related item here.
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: Remedial constitutional education for Kos.
DANA LOESCH: When Will Buzzfeed Vet The Prez? Second week in November, 2012.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: January Consumer Credit Surges As Government Blows Student Debt Bubble To Epic Proportions.
BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Women are strong! Except they wilt when they are called names!
Tough and enduring, save for when harsh words fly.
Steadfast and unyielding, until they wilt or shatter from the mean things people say.
Feminists are Greek columns made of styrofoam; a Potemkin village of bicycled fish.
The political reaction to “slut” was opportunistic, of course, but it worked with a lot of women because — apparently, even in this age of sexual liberation and “slut pride” — women are still somehow deeply affected by charges of wanton and undiscriminating sexual behavior. This might even account for the importance of the contraceptive issue, because mandated contraceptive coverage may be seen as representing not just a modest monetary benefit, but also perhaps some sort of societal validation. I would have thought that a strong independent woman wouldn’t need a stamp of societal approval for her choices, but apparently I would have been wrong. I leave it to the evolutionary-psych folks to work out why the “slut” charge retains such power in liberated times.
Apparently, however, it is especially wrong to “slut-shame” even though lefties feel no compunction about shaming people regarding other personal choices — from not recycling to owning an SUV to, worst of all, being a Republican. As I say, there’s something more going on here. And if the “shaming” part of slut-shaming isn’t bad, because shaming is fine in other contexts, then it must be the “slut” part.
Related: Self-Described Austin Sluts Protest Use of the Word ‘Slut.’ “They’re sluts and they’re proud, at least until someone else uses the term (and apologizes for it).”
There’s a very real kind of sexual insecurity underlying this, it seems to me. Very odd, after so many decades of liberation. Perhaps some of the ev-psych bloggers will comment.
UPDATE: So far no evolutionary psychology, but the pickup artist community is weighing in.
Still looking for evolutionary-psych comments. . . .
Another thought: I suppose the counterpart slur for men is something like “wimp.” But it seems to me that men are much less bothered by imputations of unmanliness than they used to be. Am I right?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Sarah Hoyt writes: “I think women are naturally more group-opinion conscious. I think it’s an evolutionary thing. The children of the women who fit in best got watched by their friends and therefore survived more?”
That’s interesting. If true, this would mean that women are more concerned about other women thinking they’re sluts than about men thinking that.
March 7, 2012
JOHN HINDERAKER: The Party Of Hate. “Barack Obama has been a terrible president in many ways, but perhaps his most poisonous legacy is his cynical fomenting of partisan hate to advance his own political interests. After three years, we have learned that ‘hope’ is not the word that we should associate with the Obama presidency.”
NOW THAT HE’S IRRELEVANT: Keith Olbermann Apologizes To SE Cupp And Michelle Malkin, Suspends Worst Persons Again. But maybe they’re feeling the heat from cable cancellations?
UPDATE: Reader Justin Lipner writes: “Keith Olbermann is still on TV?”
THE LIMBAUGH/BREITBART connection.
I got a call from Danny Sepulveda of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office. He says that I have misread the Wired article that’s linked in my FoxNews piece, and that Boxer has never taken a position on digital copy-protection legislation. Well, that’s not how I read the article, but OK. He says that she would prefer a negotiated private sector agreement to legislation.
This is the first time I’ve ever gotten a call like this from a Senator’s aide, which suggests to me that Senate Democrats may be feeling some heat. Which, I think, underscores what a potent political issue this might be.
And yet the Republicans were never smart enough to take advantage with it, I presume because they couldn’t bring themselves to side against big business, even big business that’s their sworn enemy. Idiots.
KICKSTARTING Meryl Yourish’s Nephew’s band trip.
YEAH, BUT ARE WE DESPERATE ENOUGH TO TRY IT YET? “Capitalism is an alternative for what we have now. I highly recommend it.”
OUCH: CNN Guest: Don’t Know How Obama Will Explain Check From Maher To Sasha And Malia. “My question is whether the President will give back the million dollars Bill Maher gave him. I don’t know how he’s going to explain that to Sasha and Malia, when that guy uses language that would make Rush blush.”
UPDATE: Obama’s Waiver For Bill Maher.
2012 a Republican year? All I know is that even if Obama ends up losing every state, the press coverage will make him sound invincible right up until it happens, “unexpectedly.”
AT AMAZON, 25% or more off on Men’s Jeans.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: The Insincere Push To Crush Rush. “These umbrage episodes that have become the principal narrative line of our politics are orgies of insincerity. Pols declare that they are distraught, offended, outraged by some stray remark by a political opponent, or judicial nominee, or radio talk-show host. They demand apology, firing, crucifixion.”
UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry! Plus, an image to go with it, as threatened earlier. If Obama’s going to spread the hate — which, given the close White House / Media Matters coordination that the Daily Caller uncovered, is what he’s doing — then he needs to take responsibility for the hatemongering that has already resulted in Limbaugh’s getting death threats. Hope is what he promised. Hate is what he’s delivering.
AMERICA THE FIXABLE: Undoing the web of obsolete laws.
America is mired in a tarpit of accumulated law. Reformers propose new laws to fix health care, schools, and the regulatory system, but almost never suggest cleaning out the legal swamp these institutions operate in. These complex legal tangles not only set goals but allocate resources and dictate the minutest details of how to meet those goals. Most are obsolete in whole or part.
Congress treats most laws as if they were the Ten Commandments — except they’re more like the 10 million commandments. Most legislative programs do not codify timeless principles of right and wrong. They are tools of social management. These laws allocate social resources — almost 70 percent of federal revenue in 2010 was consumed by three entitlement programs enacted a half century or more ago. Congress almost never goes back to rationalize these programs. Running government today is like trying to run a business using every idea every manager ever had.
At this point, Democracy is basically run by dead people. We elect new representatives, but society is run by policy ideas and political deals from decades ago. Congress has a tragic misconception of its responsibility — it sees itself as a body that makes new law, not one that makes sense of old laws.
Read the whole thing, which is by Philip K. Howard.
DOUBLING DOWN ON CELLULOSIC ETHANOL:
Despite of years of federal mandates, the cellulosic biofuels industry—which aims to make ethanol from wood chips and similar plant matter instead of corn—has yet to start commercial-scale production.
But the fledgling industry got some good news yesterday when Virdia, a company that converts cellulose into sugar, announced that it had raised over $100 million in private and public financing to go toward building its first commercial-scale plant. Converting cellulose to sugar is the most difficult part of making cellulosic biofuels. Once the sugars are produced, they can be converted to ethanol using the conventional process for making ethanol, which uses corn sugar.
If you’re going to make ethanol fuel, it should come from non-food.
ENABLING HATE: Jan Schakowsky Refuses To Condemn Misogynistic Language From Top Obama Donor. Citizen-journalist video at the link.