BYRON YORK: Why Did Santorum Lose So Big In 2006? “Perhaps the most glaring weakness in Rick Santorum’s case that he can win the presidency is his 18-point loss when he sought a third term as senator from Pennsylvania in 2006. Santorum explains that ’06 was a terrible year for Republicans, and indeed the GOP, in the sixth year of George W. Bush’s time in the White House, did lose control of both House and Senate. But why, specifically, did Santorum lose, and why did he lose by such a large margin? Surprisingly, given the intensity of the campaign, the reasons are seldom explored at any length.”
Archive for 2012
February 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEWS AREN’T DEAD — just ask the Wall Street Journal.
AT AMAZON, Compact System Cameras And Lenses. These seem to be the next big thing. I think I’ll order one myself.
UPDATE: Okay, I ordered this one.
“PUNCTUATED BY SAD, AGE-INAPPROPRIATE DETAILS:” Tracy Quan on Demi Moore’s unraveling. “Moore’s alleged antics have turned her into a kind of negative cover girl, shining a light on the strange array of choices now facing affluent modern women. Is this an empowerment thing? A tragedy? Perhaps a bit of both.”
BEWARE OF “those CPAC trollops with their form-fitting dungarees and their loose morals.” I think these denunciations are just a scam to boost attendance next year. . . .
UPDATE: Charlie Martin emails: “I’m certainly more interested now.”
When someone drops out of high school, overeats, or fails to exercise, you tell us that their behavior is only “human.” But if a conservative or libertarian objects to paying taxes to help people who make these choices, you get angry. Question: Why are you so forgiving of people with irresponsible lifestyles, but so outraged by people who don’t want to pay taxes to help people with irresponsible lifestyles? This seems morally perverse.
Well, understand that people who are fat and stupid don’t undermine the power of the political class — they enhance it. People who object to paying taxes, on the other hand, threaten the whole feedlot.
A. BARTON HINKLE: FOOD POLICE ARE PRONE TO EXAGGERATION:
As Lewis said, such paternalism “stings with intolerable insult.” It stings all the more because in some cases the government has exacerbated the very problem supposedly requiring redress. Take high-fructose corn syrup, which the Nature piece urges regulating more tightly and which is widely used as a sweetener in the U.S.
Why is it widely used? Blame Washington’s import quotas on foreign sugar – and its massive subsidies for corn. Corn is the run-away winner in the farm subsidy Olympics: The Environmental Working Group estimates Americans have shelled out nearly $80 billion in corn subsidies over the past decade and a half.
So first we’re forced to pay on the front end for the overproduction of corn, thereby encouraging the use of high fructose corn syrup, and now we’re supposed to pay again on the back end, through soda taxes and the like, to prevent ourselves from drinking too much of it. Brilliant.
This is not an isolated case, either. Recently the EPA imposed strict new smokestack regulations on power companies to reduce, among other things, the release of highly toxic mercury emissions from electricity generation. Wouldn’t want people to breathe that, right? At the same time, new federal light bulb standards effectively have required consumers to purchase newer and more efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs.
And hey, guess what? The average CFL bulb contains about five milligrams of mercury.
This is what happens when the governing class is insufficiently afraid of the public.
IT’S NOT JUST NOISE, TRAFFIC AND CONGESTION: Why People Oppose New Development.
ROBOSEXUAL: Today’s Humans Ready to Love Tomorrow’s Robots. “A world of lonely singles finding comfort in the arms of a robot lover may be closer than expected in human hearts and minds.”
UPDATE: In Maryland, standing up against robosexual marriage. Nobody tell noted robophobe Matt Yglesias! There’s already a book-length treatment. And hey, I’m married to a Cyborg and it’s pretty great. You know what they say: Once you’ve gone Cyborg, you’ll never, uh . . . anybody got a rhyming dictionary handy?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader J.C. Hinds writes:
Allow me to nerd out for a minute or three as I’ve given the relationships between all-flesh humans, cyborgs and robots a little too much thought. My fellow online gamers could verify this, sadly. As someone who plays a cyborg I always figured starting a relationship with a cyborg would be referred to as “going metal.” It’s a reference to those who have gone through a full-body “just a brain and glands in a jar” conversion and early bodies would likely be made of metal. Anyway, the best rhyme I’ve used so far to promote the benefits of dating a cyborg is “Once you go metal, you’ll no longer settle.” Also I’m pretty sure that a few wiseacres among the cyborg set would say “Cyborg is outdated. The preferred term is Mecha-American.”
Thought that might help you to a better understanding of this new world where metal & fleshy bits get a little cozier than expected. It may also say that I’ve read way too much science fiction in my life. Thanks for writing such an enjoyable blog for all these years.
There’s no such thing as reading too much science fiction!
So, leftist WaPo Columnist Dana Milbank “inadvertently” mocks latinos by stating “The Chimichanga? It may be the only thing Republicans have left to offer Latinos.” And subsequently Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina tweets that this is “the line of the day” and the twitterverse is afire. Lots of Hispanic folks on the right side of the aisle are insulted by not just the insensitivity of the original remark, but the supporting tweet by none other the the President’s Campaign manger.
I can understand why some of us would be insulted. The remarks are definitely insensitive. But there are two things which insult me even more than these statements.
First, the abject hypocrisy of the left, with their holier than thou bullshit with regards to racial and ethnic issues, who have, whether through silence or excuses, defended Milbank and Messina.
Second, and most importantly, the silence from most of our “liberal” Latino brothers and sisters, who have almost collectively stuck their tails between their legs and hidden in a corner and ignored these blatant acts of racial discrimination. As if ignoring this will make it any less egregious or any less insulting or any less real.
Here’s my message to those liberal Latinos: Come on over to the dark side, amigos. Where you’ll be considered equals, where your success will be limited only by your determination and where you won’t be treated like chimichanga eating chattel.
Not that there’s anything wrong with chimichangas.
MUSCLE BEACH and the dawn of huge. “I couldn’t bring myself to train. I was so in awe. All my idols in one room! Arnold and Denny Gable, Bob Birdsong and Franco Columbu; these beasts working out with no shirts or shoes and a crowd of people watching from the street.”
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Gallup: Health Costs, Gov’t Regulations Curb Small Business Hiring.
CLOWN SHOW (CONT’D): Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted for TSA Body Scanners.
INSIDE MEDIA MATTERS: What Did Ben Smith Know and When Did He Know It?
WHEN SECONDS COUNT: Why I Carry A Gun At Home. Not sure this story really makes the point.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Business Leaders See Higher Education as Hampering Economic Growth. “The rising cost of higher education, its indifferent quality, its resistance to change, and its lack of accountability are endangering the nation’s prospects for future economic growth, according to a report on the views of business executives that was released today by Public Agenda and the Committee for Economic Development. The report, which draws on focus groups last year with 27 executives in Ohio and Texas, and on telephone interviews with 12 others, echoes the concerns that business leaders have expressed in two other recent reports that cover similar terrain.”
WASHINGTON POST: Federal funds flow to clean-energy firms with Obama administration ties. “Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.”
THE REASONS TO research romance.
OLD IMMUNE CELLS missing big DNA pieces.
TOM MAGUIRE SAYS THE NYT HAS buried the lede on the contraception-mandate controversy.
UPDATE: More from Ed Morrissey.
ED DRISCOLL: Just NBC The Gas Hypocrisy. “If Matt sounds even more robotic than usual reading the script in his ‘prompter, that’s because the dean of NBC newsreaders anchormen pleaded with incoming president-elect Obama on Meet the Press to raise gasoline prices, when they were temporarily at their lowest, back in early December of 2008.”
WELL, THAT WOULD DEPEND ON HOW I MADE MY ELECTRICITY, ACTUALLY: If you were 95% dependent on imported oil, you’d want EVs, too. Like, if I had a bunch of nice clean nuclear plants, I might feel that way. But if I were burning fossil fuels, not so much.
JIM TREACHER: If Media Matters is “dedicated to correcting conservative misinformation,” and the Daily Caller is misinformed, where’s the correction from Media Matters? “They haven’t responded to any of TheDC’s requests for comment. There isn’t a word about any of it on their site. All those millions, all those minions, and yet David Brock has nothing to say about any of this stuff? Media Matters isn’t exactly known for clamming up when criticized. The lack of a denial, or a non-denial denial, or anything, is glaring.”
They do seem to have been uncharacteristically reticent.