For Future Reference

Marvel Variants descended from his corporate Valhalla a few days ago and visited my office. 
He noticed this book on one of the shelves:

I mentioned that it's a useful corrective to anyone still enthralled with the idea that the State can be all, provide all, and cure all.  The book nails down the Marxist Body Count at 100 million.  Mr. Variants opined that he generally doesn't give Marxist apologists the time of day.  But I seem to be surrounded by them.  And hell, I occasionally need somebody to talk to. 

There are living, breathing people on this planet, individuals who can feed themselves without making a mess, who still believe in the legend of a benevolent Fidel Castro.  I've been in homes that have copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book on the shelf, a relic from the owner's "hippie days".  My little brother, a history perfesser, has casually mentioned that he worked with a couple of Marxist academics at a Methodist university in Tennessee.  Yeah, you expect to encounter some tweedy academics floundering around in the post-Marxist mist within some Ivy League Hot Houses and Reservations, but at Methodist schools in Tennessee?  In the year 2011?  WTF???  What color are the skies in their worlds? 

I've never understood why Nazi sympathizer idiots were treated with far more scorn than Marxist idiots.  The Commie Death Camps achieved ten times the death rate as their fascist competitors.  What gives? 

Here's a partial listing of the worst of the Marxist Apologists and their output, along with the work of a few others who've documented their delusions.  I'm posting this mostly so I can find this stuff later.  We owe this guy for putting it all together. 
The pieces with an asterisk are the "denial" works.  The rest are commentary.

*************************************************


General

Leopold Labedz, Of Myths and Horrors [PDF]

In the aftermath of the Cambodian killing fields, a leading Sovietologist shows how the “progressive” left supported totalitarian terror and mass slaughter while cultivating a self-image of pristine innocence.

Wojciech Roszkowski, In the House of the Hanged Man [PDF]

A leading Polish intellectual addresses the standard excuses offered by apologists for communist crimes.

Individuals

Neil McInnes, The Long Goodbye

Paul Hollander, A Man of Faith
Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm openly justifies the murder of millions.

Leszek Kolakowski, My Correct Views About Everything
The brilliant philosopher mercilessly exposes New Left guru E. P. Thompson.

Anders Lewis, An Ugly Anti-American
The totalitarian propaganda of New Left historian Gabriel Kolko.

Ian Williams, Ramsey Clark, The War Criminal’s Best Friend

Michelle Malkin, Ramsey Clark’s Bloody Resume
The ultra-leftist former US Attorney-General defends every anti-American mass murderer he can find.

Gerard Jackson, How the Diseased Left See the World
Apt comment on the communist apologetics of Philip Adams.

- Soviet Apologists:
-- Bolshevik Apologists

Richard Pipes, 1917 and the Revisionists
“Revisionist” historians portrayed Lenin’s coup as a popular revolution.

-- Terror-Famine Deniers

James Mace, Letter to the Editor of Ukraine Report
The history of attempts to deny Stalin’s responsibility for the terror-famine.

Roman Serbyn, The Last Stand of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide Deniers

On the notorious Soviet-sponsored denial tract.

Robert Conquest, James Mace et al., Replies to Jeff Coplon [PDF]

Exposing some of the lies in Jeff Coplon’s Village Voice essay.

Taras Kuzio, Denial of Ukrainian Famine and Terror Continues Unabated
David Marples, Debating the Undebatable? Ukraine Famine of 1932-33

Gijs Kessler, Mark Tauger on the 1932-33 Famine
Mark Tauger denies that there was criminal intent – even though Stalin seized grain from the starving, deprived villages of supplies, prevented foreign assistance and deliberately trapped the victims!

-- Sovietologists

* J. Arch Getty, Letter to the London Review of Books [PDF]

Paul Mitchinson, Another Kremlin Apologist?

Gabriel Schoenfeld, Review of The Road to Terror [PDF]
The discredited historian J. Arch Getty once reduced the death toll to thousands.

Misunderstood Stalin “Killed Only 1.3m”
Oxford University Press gives the deniers a platform.

George Walden, Back to the Soviet Future
Moshe Lewin’s attempt to rehabilitate the Soviet dictatorship.

-- Extremists

How Shaw Defended Stalin’s Mass Killings
George Bernard Shaw denied the Great Famine and justified the Great Terror.

Jason Maoz, The Abominable Izzy Stone
Radical journalist I. F. Stone was notorious for his Soviet sympathies.

Rocco DiPippo, A Scholar For Stalin

On the denial propaganda of English professor Grover Furr.

Ronald Radosh, The Left’s Lion

Historian Eric Foner regrets the demise of the USSR.

* William Blum, The Wonderful World of Anti-Communism

Bin Laden’s recommended radical doubts that Stalin murdered millions.

- China Apologists

Alan H. Ryskind, Red Refugees Refute Old China Hand [PDF]
Edgar Snow was undoubtedly the worst of the Maoist sycophants.

* William Hinton, On the Role of Mao Zedong
William Hinton was a lifelong champion of the Maoist revolution.

Exchange: What We Know About China and How We Know It [PDF]
Werner Cohn, Human Rights in China

Keith Windschuttle, Mao and the Australian Maoists
The role of academics in defending one of history’s bloodiest tyrants.

Bryan Caplan, China, India, and Maoist Apologists

Answering the arguments of the tyrant’s apologists.

Livingstone Compares Poll Tax Riots to China Massacre
Editorial, Ditch Livingstone

Far-left London Mayor Ken Livingstone belittles the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Jamyang Norbu, Acme of Obscenity

Eviscerates Tom Grunfeld’s pseudo-scholarly tract on the Chinese communist record in Tibet.

- North Korea Apologists

Anders Lewis, Useful Idiot
Historian Bruce Cumings is the premier academic apologist for the North Korean mass murderers.

- North Vietnam/Viet Cong Apologists

-- Pre-War Bloodbath Deniers

Anita Lauve Nutt, On the Question of Communist Reprisals in Vietnam [PDF]
Refutes various arguments by left-wing deniers of North Vietnam’s land reform bloodbath.

* Gareth Porter, The Myth of the Bloodbath: North Vietnam’s Land Reform Reconsidered [PDF]

The key bloodbath-denial work, relying on official communist propaganda sources.

Robert F. Turner, Expert Punctures “No Bloodbath” Myth: Gareth Porter Refuted [PDF]

Point-by-point refutation of Porter’s thesis. Porter could barely speak the language he accused others of mistranslating!

Hoang Van Chi, Reply to Gareth Porter [PDF]

An early historian of the land reform rebuts the charge that he was a CIA propagandist.

-- War Crimes Deniers

* Gareth Porter, The 1968 “Hue Massacre” [PDF]

* Edward Herman and Gareth Porter, The Myth of the Hue Massacre [PDF]
Porter and Herman denied the Viet Cong massacre of thousands in the South Vietnamese city of Hue - even though the perpetrators repeatedly admitted their responsibility.

Robert F. Turner, The Fonda Fallacies

Robert J. Caldwell, She’s Still Hanoi Jane

On Jane Fonda’s conduct during the Vietnam War.

-- Post-War Bloodbath Deniers

* Sophie and Paul Quinn-Judge, Viet Nam: Reunification and Reconciliation [PDF]
Far-leftists applaud the North Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam and paint a glowing picture of the concentration camps.

Stuart Elliott, Americans Still Traveling Down the Ho Chi Minh Trail

Sickening report on the conduct of Gareth Porter, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and other “apologists engaged in the systematic cover-up of genocide and gross violations of human rights.”

* Vietnam: A Time For Healing and Compassion [PDF]

Far-leftists deny the post-war bloodbath and reprisal policy, urging that the dictatorship “should be hailed for its moderation and for its extraordinary effort to achieve reconciliation among all of its people.”

* The Truth About Vietnam [PDF]

Far-leftists justify the concentration camps and boast that “Vietnam now enjoys human rights as it has never known in history.”

Gerard Jackson, The Lies and Hypocrisy of the America-Hating John Pilger

The squalid performance of the “investigative journalist” John Pilger, who tried to conceal communist guilt in the mass drowning of the boat people and the attempted starvation of millions in Cambodia.

Mark D. Tooley, Hanoi Lifted Me

On the shameful conduct of the National Council of Churches in present-day Vietnam.

- Khmer Rouge Apologists

Sophal Ear, The Khmer Rouge Canon 1975-1979: The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia [PDF]

Important study documenting the far-left academic campaign to defend the Khmer Rouge during the horrors in Cambodia. The intellectual deniers of mass murder included Gareth Porter, George Hildebrand, Malcolm Caldwell, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

Michael Ezra, The SWP and the Eichmanns of Cambodia

Stuart Elliott, From Collective Guilt to Collective Silence

The far left’s early reaction to “one of the most brutal bloodbaths of modern history.”

* The Thoughts of Ben Kiernan [PDF]

The shocking record of scholar Ben Kiernan, who supported the Khmer Rouge during the slaughter and then defended the brutal dictatorship imposed by the Vietnamese communists. Kiernan has been described as “poacher-turned-gamekeeper in the field of genocide.”

* Human Rights in Cambodia: 1-10 11-25 26-40 41-56 57-70 [PDF]

Congressional hearings in which David Chandler expressed agnosticism about the bloodbath reports and Gareth Porter openly denied them. Porter’s performance was considered so disgraceful that one Senator compared him to apologists for Nazism.

Torben Retboll and John Barron, Exchange: Cambodia [PDF]

A typical example of the far left’s attempt to discredit John Barron and Anthony Paul, the two journalists who published the first full investigation of the slaughter.

Bernard Levin, The Evil That Men Do and the Men Who Call it Good [PDF]

Michael Ezra, Malcolm Caldwell: Pol Pot’s Apologist [PDF]

Andrew Anthony Lost in Cambodia: The Life and Death of Malcolm Caldwell

British academic Malcolm Caldwell, the most notorious intellectual champion of the Khmer Rouge, was murdered while visiting Pol Pot.

* Richard Dudman, Pol Pot: Brutal, Yes, But No Mass Murderer [PDF]

Radical journalist Richard Dudman, who had accompanied Malcolm Caldwell to Cambodia, was still downplaying the crimes more than a decade later.

- Frelimo Apologists

Paul Bogdanor, Western Leftists and Third World Sadists
A leading activist in Britain’s Stop the War Coalition celebrates a brutal dictator in Mozambique.

- Cuba Apologists

-- Myths

Norman Luxenburg, Castro’s Effect on Life in Cuba [PDF]

Alfred G. Cuzan, The Undisputable Achievement of the Cuban Revolution [PDF]

Kirby Smith and Hugo Llorens, Renaissance and Decay [PDF]

Refutations of the propaganda fantasies about stunning advances in welfare under the communist dictatorship.

Lawrence Solomon, Bad Cuban Medicine

Lawrence Solomon, Fidel Batista!

Lawrence Solomon, Cuba’s Cruel Joke

Investigative series reporting mass poverty under the communists.

Jay Nordlinger, The Myth of Cuban Health Care

Humberto Fontova, Moore’s Pro-Castro Propaganda Hides Cuban Suffering

On the filmmaker-clown’s grotesque propaganda documentary Sicko.

-- Mythmakers

Jeff Jacoby, Castro’s Cheerleaders
The seemingly endless list of apologists for the Castro dictatorship.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa, The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, From Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand

The absurd distortions of the Guevara cultists.

* Human Rights and Cuba

Liars pretend that “there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extra-judicial execution” in Cuba. Signatories include Harold Pinter, Tariq Ali, José Saramago, Rigoberta Menchu, Nadine Gordimer, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Ramsey Clark.

Michael C. Moynihan, Still Stuck on Castro

Fawning media coverage of Castro’s retirement.

- Sandinista Apologists

Alfred G. Cuzan, Tourists Duped by Sandinistas [PDF]

Alfred G. Cuzan, The Latin American Studies Association vs. the United States: The Verdict of History [PDF]
Radical leftists, having learned nothing, flocked to worship another dictatorship.

Alfred G. Cuzan, The Nicaraguan Election [PDF]

Robert S. Leiken et al., The Nicaraguan Tangle: Another Exchange
Sandinista apologists fell over themselves to assert the authenticity of the rigged 1984 election.

- Ethnic Cleansing Apologists

Marko Attila Hoare, Nothing is Left

Marko Attila Hoare, The Left Revisionists

Marko Attila Hoare, Srebrenica and the London Bombings: The “Anti-War” Link
On the far-left campaign to whitewash the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. Deniers discussed include Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Michael Parenti, Michel Chossudovsky, Diana Johnstone, John Pilger and Harold Pinter.

Balkan Witness, Bosnia / Kosovo

Articles debunking far-left deniers such as Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Diana Johnstone, Ramsey Clark, John Pilger and William Blum.

Alan Kocevic, Proving Genocide in Bosnia

Diana Johnstone’s denial arguments answered.

- Rwanda Genocide Deniers

Oliver Kamm, After Srebrenica Denial: Where Next?

Gerard Caplan, The Politics of Denialism: The Strange Case of Rwanda

Marko Attila Hoare, Srebrenica Deniers Get Their Mucky Paws on Rwanda
Noam Chomsky’s former coauthor Edward Herman and his new sidekick David Peterson have compounded their denials of the Srebrenica massacre by claiming that the Rwanda genocide never happened.

- Baathist Apologists

Charles M. Brown, Confessions of an Anti-Sanctions Activist
How Western far-leftists became propaganda tools of the Baathist mass murderers.

* John Pilger, Crime Against Humanity [PDF]

* William Blum, Great Moments in the History of Imperialism

Respect Watch, Galloway Backs Saddam’s Bloody Deputy
Far-leftists argue that Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein and champion his murderous foreign minister.

Oliver Kamm, Propagandists For Barbarism

Trotskyists line up to celebrate the terrorist mass murderers in Iraq.

- 9/11 Deniers

Panoply of the Absurd

“Judeosphere,” Conspiracy Theorists of the World, Unite!
The lies of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Mark Roberts, Loose Change Creators Speak [PDF]

Mark Roberts, Loose Change Second Edition Viewer Guide

“Internet Detectives,” Loose Change

The lies of Chomsky cultist Dylan Avery and his comrades, who cite neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers and mock 9/11 victims.

“Archontan,” Michael Moore on Afghanistan

The filmmaker-clown explains his doubts about bin Laden’s guilt.

Media

James Crowl, Concealing the Famine, 1932-1934 [PDF]

James Mace, Collaboration in the Suppression of the Ukrainian Famine
Publications such as the New York Times and The Nation covered up the worst peacetime mass murder in European history.

Media Research Center, Back to the “Peaceable” Paradise: Media Soldiers For the Seizure of Elian

The successful campaign to return a child to slavery after his mother gave her life to free him.

- New York Times

Marco Carynnyk, The New York Times and the Great Famine

James Mace, A Tale of Two Journalists [PDF]

Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times and the Moscow Show Trials [PDF]
America’s premier newspaper whitewashed the Ukrainian genocide and the Soviet purges.

Carl D. McMurray and Charles W. Dunn, Castro and the New York Times: An Image in Transition [PDF]

The newspaper’s disastrous misreporting of Cuba.

* Sidney Schanberg, Indochina Without Americans: For Most a Better Life [PDF]

This infamous commentary was published days before the Khmer Rouge victory.

- The Nation

* Alexander Cockburn, A Million Here, A Million There
Cockburn’s infamous column claiming that “Stalin did not plan or seek to accomplish genocide.”

* Editorial, Blood-Bath Talk [PDF]

* Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, Distortions at Fourth Hand
The Nation defends the Khmer Rouge.

Abraham H. Foxman, Letter to The Nation

The Nation is caught running an ad for Holocaust deniers.

- Monthly Review

Oliver Kamm, Divers Deniers

Michael Ezra, Leftists For Genocide Denial
This longstanding American Marxist journal has published apologetics for Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Milosevic and the Rwandan mass murderers.

- Z Magazine

Oliver Kamm, Chomsky’s Outlets
Kamm exposes a Holocaust denier at Z Magazine.

Balkan Witness, Debate: The Srebrenica Massacre

Z Magazine contributor Edward Herman denies the Srebrenica massacre, provoking outraged replies.

Balkan Witness, Edward Herman on the Lists of Missing at Srebrenica

Evidence refuting Z Magazine’s denial of the Srebrenica massacre.

- The Guardian

* Seumas Milne, Catastroika Has Not Only Been a Disaster For Russia

* Seumas Milne, The Battle For History

* Seumas Milne, Communism May Be Dead, But Clearly Not Dead Enough

“Harry’s Place,” So Goodbye Then, Seumas Milne
Denier stands up for Stalin, laments the demise of the USSR and thanks communist mass murderers for their “genuine idealism and commitment.”

* John Gittings, A Great Leap Backward?

Denier tries to rehabilitate Mao.

* Seumas Milne, Why the US Fears Cuba
* Brian Wilson, Revolution Revisited

* Richard Gott, The Future of the Revolution in the Hands of Teenage Pump Attendants
Deniers champion the Castro dictatorship.

* Jonathan Steele, Darfur Wasn’t Genocide and Sudan is Not a Terrorist State

Denial of the genocide in Darfur.

- New Statesman

* Christopher Hitchens, Iraq Flexes Arab Muscle
The Baathist mass murderers were praised in Britain’s major leftist magazine.

* Neil Clark, Milosevic: Prisoner of Conscience

Portrays the Serbian ex-dictator as a persecuted socialist dissident.

* James Sparshatt, The Communist Heaven That is Cuba

* John McDonnell, Why Cuba is a Beacon

The titles say it all.

Institutions

- Institute for Policy Studies

* Gareth Porter, Congressional Testimony on Cambodia [PDF]
The IPS defends the Khmer Rouge.

Joshua Muravchik, “Communophilism” and the Institute for Policy Studies [PDF]

Detailed analysis of the far-left think tank’s disgraceful record of support for totalitarian mass murderers.

- National Lawyers Guild

Jesse Rigsby, NLG: The Legal Fifth Column
The totalitarian ideology of the National Lawyers Guild.

Shawn Macomber, North Korean Lawyers Guild

Shawn Macomber, Real Revelations

Michael P. Tremoglie, The NLG: Shilling For Stalinists
The NLG’s revolting apologetics for North Korea.

- Amnesty International

Christopher Archangelli, Amnesty For Iraq
Argues that the leftist “human rights group” suppressed Baathist atrocities so that it could concentrate on denunciations of America and Britain.

* Canon Paul Oestreicher, A Line Has Been Crossed

The former UK chairman of Amnesty International compares Middle East terrorists to French Resistance heroes and justifies the killing of Israelis, Americans and Britons.

Ted Lapkin, Defining Terror

The secretary-general of Amnesty International whitewashed jihadist massacres.

Editorial, “American Gulag”

The secretary-general of Amnesty International asserts that American detention facilities for captured terrorists are no different from the Gulag.

Patrick Devenny, Amnesty: For North Korea

Amnesty International downplayed the North Korean horrors.

Jamie Weinstein, Amnesty Irrational

In just one year, “Amnesty produced more country reports on the United States than on Cuba, Syria, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia combined.”

Does this seem like overkill, to continue throwing up Red Scare warning flags this late in the game?  Maybe so.  But check out this recent statement by someone named Simon Winchester, remarking on the recent death of Kim Jong-Il:

India’s attempt to go it alone failed. So, it seems, has Burma’s. Perhaps inevitably, North Korea’s attempt appears to be tottering. But seeing how South Korea has turned out - its Koreanness utterly submerged in neon, hip-hop and every imaginable American influence, a romantic can allow himself a small measure of melancholy: North Korea, for all its faults, is undeniably still Korea, a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture. And that, in a world otherwise rendered so bland, is perhaps no bad thing.

Yeah.  They're still out there.  Come back, Joe McCarthy!!  We still need you !!

Occupy Gotham

I think Catwoman is pissed because she can't find a job that will utilize her degree in Transgender Limerick Studies, but still has to pay back her student loans. 
Batman is the 1%. 
(Yawn)

Bad Lip Reading - Newt Gingrich.

This doesn't make much less sense than his other flip-flops, but it is still funny.

Here's Newt Gingrich, courtesy of BadLipReading.com

Funny stuff. 

"NEWT GINGRICH" — a Bad Lip Reading Soundbite - watch more funny videos

Kim Jong-Il is dead !

I've been swamped at work for about two weeks, and have gotten behind. 

So....

KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD !  KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD !  KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD ! KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD !  KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD !  KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD !  KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD ! KIM JONG-IL IS DEAD !

Ah..., that felt good.  I don't believe in any of the various Hells, but in the words of my friend Denny, I kinda hope they invent one just for that Totalitarian bastard. 

How bad a dictator was Kim?  He was so bad that even our State Department wouldn't give him any support, training, or money, despite their willingness to hand out money to every other despot who asked.  Now that's a bad dictator. 

Let us all hope that Kim is closely followed by Fidel Castro. 

I'm not the only person to post this bit o' greatness from "Team America: World Police" in honor of this occasion:



The Kim goes to hell cartoon came from here. 

It's Allright Ma (I'm Only Lying....)

Here's a little more info on the panic that the National Transportation Safety Board is trying to create over talking, texting and driving.  Go here. 

For those who don't have time to hit the link, here's a summary:

They lied. 

(Perhaps they used the numbers that had been adjusted for Urban Heat Island Effects, El Ninos, Spatial Autocorrelation, etc.) 

Here's a totally unrelated video.  I just like it. 

On cell phone bans

I found these two almost-unrelated links on Instapundit.  Here's the first:

First, regulating cellphone use is not a federal responsibility, even on federal roads. This is not an issue that Washington has the authority to address.

Second, there’s no compelling reason for it. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that 3,092 traffic deaths last year involved distracted drivers. But using a cell phone is only one of many driver distractions. Eating and drinking while behind the wheel are two others, and they are far more dangerous than yapping on a phone.

In fact, a 2009 NHTSA study found that 80% of all car wrecks are caused by drivers eating or drinking — not cellphone use — with coffee-guzzling the top offender.

Then there’s this. According to federal data, traffic deaths have fallen from 2.1 per 100 million vehicle miles in 1990, when virtually no one had a cellphone, to 1.1 in 2009, when almost everyone does.

Here's the second link, a piece of greatness from Frank J. Fleming:

The National Transportation Safety Board wants a complete ban on cellphone use while driving, even on hands-free calls. Some will protest this as yet another government encroachment on freedom, but we should think twice before rocking the boat here.

After all, have you considered how lucky we are that the government lets us drive cars at all?

Imagine if cars hadn’t been around for a century, but instead were just invented today. Is there any way they’d be approved for individual use? It’s an era of bans on incandescent bulbs; if you suggested putting millions of internal-combustion engines out there, you’d get looks like you were Hitler proposing the Final Solution.

Even aside from pollution, the government wouldn’t allow the risks to safety. . . . Driving is basically a grandfathered freedom from back when people cared less about pollution and danger and valued progress and liberty over safety. They had different equations related to human life then: We could lose 10,000 men in a single battle in a war and call it a victory.

We’re talking foolhardy people who eventually sent men to the moon strapped to a giant rocket that had less computational power than it takes to calculate the trajectory of an Angry Bird. Their kids dangled from jungle gyms over pavement.

Face it: We’re just not those people anymore. We don’t do dangerous things where lots of people could be hurt . . . even if they’re really cool and fun ideas. You can say we value human life more now, but it’s probably more apt to say we’re much sissier.

The picture of the O.S.H.A. Cowboy came from here. 

From one of our colonies: A human rights update

From CNN:


Kabul (CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that a rape victim freed from prison after he intervened on her behalf has the right to make her own choice about whether to marry her attacker.
In an exclusive interview from Kabul, Karzai told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that the woman's case appeared to be a "misjudgment" that had to be resolved.
The woman, identified only as Gulnaz for her own protection, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after she reported that her cousin's husband had raped her.
But the 21-year-old was freed this week following the president's intervention, and is now staying at a women's shelter in Kabul, with the daughter she conceived in the attack and gave birth to in prison.
Her plight attracted international attention when it came out that she had agreed to marry her attacker to gain her freedom and legitimize her daughter.

Perhaps this legal concept will catch on in our other colonies like Korea and Germany, and then spread to the U.S.  If a woman turns down a guy's marriage proposal, he can walk away rejected, or....he can rape her. 

"Hey, how did you two meet?"
"You didn't read about it?  He raped me, and we've been together since, for the sake of the children.  It turns out we like a lot of the same TV shows and movies !"

Testing remote blog feature. Testing. Testing.

All you need to know about the Republican establishment

A Hypothetical Question About The Nobel Peace Prize

The last three Democrat adminstrations have produced three Nobel Peace prize winners.

Carter/Mondale - Carter won it, and then went off into full-time Foreign Policy interference. 

Clinton/Gore - Gore won it, and then went off to be a Green Scam Billionaire. 

Obama/Biden - Obama won the Peace Prize, and then went off to bomb the crap out of Libya, get involved in Pakistan, and then carefully maintain the other wars that we had on our plate. 

So....There's long been talk of replacing Biden on the 2012 ballot with someone who is marginally sane.  Now there's talk of replacing Obama on the 2012 ballot with someone who is marginally electable. 

If this happens, and the new Democrate Duo happens to win, is the Nobel automatically awarded to one of the new Statists?  Should it be, just to save time? 

Just wondering. 

Don Surber is despicable. Or maybe just misinformed.

Don Surber, whose writing I ordinarily enjoy, has been pushed over the edge.  It seems that Ron Paul's opposition to Hillary Clinton's and Dick Cheney's and Condi Rice's and George Schultz's and Henry Kissinger's foreign policy screw-ups have driven him over the edge. 

He's got a piece on his site entitled "Ron Paul Is Despicable".  Here's Mr. Surber: 

His (Ron Paul's) weird take on the Constitution is Jacksonian and I do not mean that in a complimentary manner. Republican Congressman Ron Paul envisions a world in which the USA is neutered as she was in the 1990s. He talks as if the last 65 years without a major European war are not worth the sacrifices our nation has made over the years in standing up to communism and in standing up for democracy in Europe and elsewhere.

Ok, lets look at the easy stuff first.  There hasn't been a major European war, only a minor one in Yugoslavia/Bosnia/Serbia.   But let's broaden our horizon to include continents that don't include so many white folks.  What about Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and the financial aid and training we've given to dozens of dictators? 

Never mind.  Those folks ain't white, and they talk funny. 

There are places in the world where nothing is more terrifying than the U.S. coming over to "stand up for democracy". 

Back to Mr. Surber:

But even if I agreed with him, I would think of Ron Paul as a despicable human being because of this, which he said to supporters, according to CBS: “Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.”

Well, if memory serves, we went into Iraq claiming that they had WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.  We never found any.  The flimsy evidence upon which we based our invasion was weak and flawed.  I repeat....WMD's were the only reason we had to invade Iraq at the time.  We went in.  We found nothing.  We were looking for anything, any excuse whatsoever, to go invade the place.  We were "gleeful" to have that excuse, as no others had presented themselves.  We're still there.  We now have the largest fort in the world over there, and it is disguised as an embassy.  We'll be there forever.  Mission accomplished.
And there was very little Al-Qaeda presence there until we showed up and started kicking over anthills. 

He is lucky we outlawed dueling, because I am pretty sure that given the opportunity, Dick Cheney would indeed issue such a challenge.

And if Dick Cheney's dueling skills are anything like his dove hunting skills, Ron Paul has nothing to fear.  Cheney's no better at hitting targets than he was at finding WMD's.   
 

UPDATE: Ron Paul need not worry about repercussions. No one in the Bush administration takes him serious. The London Daily Mail reported that Ari Fleisher, Bush’s spokesman during 9/11, tweeted, “The man is nuts.”

Ron Paul has peddled this bullcrap for years. Recall this exchange during the 2008 presidential debate season:

Ron Paul: “They attack us because we’ve been over there, we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.”

Rudy Giuliani: “That’s an extraordinary statement of someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.”

Ron Paul is a perennial presidential candidate whose first bid was in 1988. He has figured out how to make a buck or two off paranoid rubes who buy this swill. It is a cottage industry that others such as Lyndon LaRouche work quite well.

I defend his right to lie about honorable men because I trust that most people have the wisdom to understand how ignorant he is.

The day after this debate, Ron Paul's campaign took in one million dollars. 
Until Ron Paul dropped out of the race, he had the honor of receiving the most contributions from active military personnel. 

Here's something from the comments beneath Surber's article:

I wish Ron Paul was crazy. I wish Iraq really did have WMD’s. I wish the Federal Reserve really did have the knowledge and ability to maintain stable prices and full employment. I wish that our welfare programs were solvent and sustainable. I wish the sacrifices made by our troops were really necessary. I wish the Patriot Act was patriotic. I wish we didn’t have inflation and unemployment was only at 9%. I wish we could win the war on drugs. I wish the terrorists really did hate us for our freedom. I wish we were defending our national interests in Afghanistan. I wish our big banks really were too big to fail.

But I can’t believe these lies anymore, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who is brave enough to tell the truth. Open your eyes.

A terrifying glimpse into the mind of Barack Obama

Every now and then, someone pulls back the curtain and we get to see how Barack Obama's mind works. 
It is terrifying. 
Here is the Washington Examiner, quoting words that Obama said with his very own mouth:

As Obama called for passage of those bills, he also responded to a recent Republican push to require him to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. "However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline," he said, "they're going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance."

I'm afraid I'll have to spend the rest of my life listening to elected idiots blather about creating jobs, creating jobs, creating jobs. 

If The Obamessiah wanted to create jobs, he could outlaw use of the Interstate Highway System.  He could mandate that all freight be hauled in oxcarts.  He could sign an executive order stating that all fast food be cooked over campfires fueled by buffalo chips.    

All of these proposals would create more jobs than the Keystone pipeline.  But that is not the point of the Keystone pipeline.  The point of the Keystone pipeline is to save money on fuel.  The money saved could then be spent on other things, things that Barack Obama can't predict.  These things would (incidentally) create lots of jobs. 

The best way to improve an economy is to get people like Barack Obama out of the way so he can't take money out of the productive part of the economy.  Then unleash the entrepreneurs.  Millions of jobs will be destroyed, but far more will be created. 

Hell, how many jobs did the internet create in its first decade?  Hardly any.  How many typewriter factory employees became unemployed later on, all because of the internet?  Tens of thousands.  How many more jobs did the internet "create" later on?  Millions.  How many politicians (with plans, plans, and more plans) saw this coming? 

None of them.  Not a single one. 

I'm calling in sick today, as I intend to spend the rest of my time praying for the salvation of our nation. 

Good luck, everybody. 

Nanny State Update, with a light sprinkling of Cronyism

From The Huffington Post, on the actions of those who are trying to protect their contributors you:

NASHVILLE, Tenn.-- In June 2010 the Nashville Metropolitan City Council passed legislation raising the city's minimum fee for limo and sedan rentals, bumping it from $25 to $45. Drivers were prohibited by law from charging less. Other new regulations forbid limo companies from using leased vehicles, require cars to be dispatched only from the place of business, compel companies to wait 15 minutes before picking up a client, and ban parking in front of hotels and bars to wait for customers. More laws that take effect in January 2012 would also require companies to replace all sedans and SUVs over seven-years-old, and all limos 10-years-old and older. Vehicles older than five years cannot enter into service.

Passed under the guise of consumer protection, the net effect is to give large, existing car companies (also known as livery services) a huge advantage over smaller companies, and to effectively prevent any new companies from entering the market. Prior to the new laws, Tennesseans could purchase transportation from downtown Nashville to the airport in a limo or sedan for the same price as an average taxi ride. Nashville residents and visitors will now pay almost double for the same service.

Nashville folks in need of an affordable ride, and drivers looking to earn an independent living in a sagging economy, join a long line of people caught on the wrong end of a nationwide effort by big car services to squeeze extra profit by regulating competitors out of business. It's a case of regulations actually costing jobs and driving up costs, just as Republicans charge they always do. But this time, the regulations are being pushed by the GOP's so-called "job creators," the new name given to big business.

A transportation battle currently playing out across the country pits large, established car service companies against their smaller and independent competitors. State or local governments in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Oregon, have all passed minimum fare regulations. The fight over new laws in Nashville, where a group of smaller car service owners have filed suit in federal court, belies the black-and-white approach the both Democrats and Republicans take to regulation.

Wesley Hottot, an attorney for the Texas Chapter of Institute for Justice, a non-profit libertarian law firm, says the Tennessee Livery Association (TLA), a coalition of expensive limousine companies, pushed the bill through with a number of provisions that benefit only its members. “There is no point in this regulation. It has nothing to do with public safety. It has everything to do with economic protectionism,” Hottot says. Hottot and his team have litigated similar cases involving economic liberty and property rights in federal and state courts across the country.

Such minimum charges for non-taxi car services are common all over the country. In Austin, Texas for example, the minimum fare of livery vehicles is $45, in Houston it's $75, and in Portland, Oregon, the fares must be 35 percent higher than the prevailing taxi cab rate. Little Rock, Arkansas companies can charge no less than $50 for limousines, no matter how long the ride, and no less than $30 for SUVs and sedans.

Think about it.... the only way for an upstart company to squeeze into a marketplace is by better prices or better service.  The Nanny Staters are doing what they can to eliminate the pricing option. 
And speaking of silly licensing and regulatory requirements to protect existing businesses against newcomers, here's a fascinating piece from Style Weekly:

It looked like the least controversial cut on Gov. Bob McDonnell’s reform list. As part of his efforts to slim the state’s $39 billion annual budget, last week McDonnell proposed to deregulate three specific professions: hair braiding, interior design and mold remediation. The state no longer would license or certify people in those professions.

You might think the braiders, designers and remediators would be happy. Who wants more bureaucracy in their lives? But some of them are protesting the change, stirring up a small but fierce debate about government intervention in the free market.

“As a conservative, I understand the desire to deregulate,” says Christopher Good, an associate principal with Glen Allen design firm KSA Interiors. But if the state government steps back, he says, the profession suffers. “We’ll be essentially barred from competition,” he says.

Why? Interior designers who submit drawings for permits must be state-certified. The commonwealth — as well as the federal government and most localities — also requires certification for interior designers to bid on public projects, Good says: “So I assume they’ll have to rewrite that law.” Otherwise, he says, architects — who still are state-regulated — could snap up all the projects that require certification.

There are about 500 certified interior designers in the state and thousands of employees who work with them, Good says. Don’t call them decorators. Interior designers must know about fire codes, the proper placement of emergency exits and other safety practices. If unqualified and uncertified people begin practicing interior design, Good says, “we run the risk of there being catastrophic consequences.”

Highly unlikely, says Robert McNamara, a lawyer with the libertarian Institute for Justice. “There’s absolutely no evidence that anyone has ever been harmed in any way by an unlicensed interior designer,” McNamara says. McDonnell’s commission found “few, if any complaints” in interior design matters and very few regulatory violations.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice has battled interior-design regulation in several states, though not in Virginia. One Florida case is poised to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Who knew this was such a hot issue?

It’s a matter of economic liberty, McNamara says. Entrepreneurship is a fundamental American value, he says, yet requiring state regulation “serves as a way for established, entrenched businesses to keep new people from entering the marketplace.” He argues that interior designers should be able to practice freely without having to get a four-year degree, prove two years’ work experience and pass two exams — which Virginia requires for certification......

What about hair braiding, which is regulated for health reasons? Deregulation isn’t a good idea, says hair braiding instructor Dionne James Eggleston, who runs a salon and braiding school on Marshall Street in Richmond as well as a salon in Long Island, N.Y. “People need to be held accountable.”

In the hands of an unregulated, untrained hair braider, clients run the risk of being burned by hot water and “catching different things on their scalp,” Eggleston says. Getting licensed isn’t difficult, she says. After receiving 170 hours of training or an equivalent course, an aspiring Virginia braider must take a written exam on state regulations, sanitation practices and braiding techniques. Eggleston charges $2,000 for the 170-hour course.

“The hair braiding industry poses a minimal risk of public harm,” McDonnell’s commission reported. In the last five years, the commission found, Virginia has fined two hair braiders and one salon, and revoked one license.

The Institute for Justice doesn’t have a beef with basic, brief, health and safety training, McNamara says, nor with regulation of medical professionals. But it’s not the state’s job to make sure ordinary professionals, whether braiders or designers, are “good enough” to get an official stamp of approval. “That’s violating people’s basic right to economic liberty,” he says.

Professional regulation is an old Virginia tradition. One regulatory board, which licenses boat pilots in Virginia’s major shipping lanes, was chartered by the king of England in the 1600s. The state regulates dozens of other professions, including auctioneers, body piercers, boxing promoters, cemetery operators and property managers.

To shave $2 million off the budget, the governor also has proposed consolidating or eliminating dozens of other state boards and commissions. His list includes merging the Seed Potato Board and the Potato Board into “a single, unified Potato Board” to handle all research and regulation of Virginia potatoes. This suggestion has failed to spark any debate — yet

All of these links came from the great Radley Balko, to whom we should always be grateful. 

Why Newt Gingrich isn't all bad

Newt Gingrich would be a horrible president. 

He's an egomaniac, he made a vile Global Warming video with Nancy Pelosi, he was censured for major ethics violations, and he wasted a great chance to shrink government back in the 1990's. 

He then helped Fannie/Freddie destroy the economy in the 00's, and was paid millions to do so.  The cronyism that Gingrich represents is one of our biggest problems, and his past behavior shows that he would probably do nothing to end it.   

But....

Even Hitler loved his dog.  Everybody has some redeeming qualities. 

Here's Maureen Dowd, quoting Barney Frank:

Barney Frank told Abby Goodnough in The Times that Gingrich was “the single biggest factor” in destroying a Washington culture where the two parties respected each other’s differing views yet still worked together.

Good job, Mr. Gingrich.  Good job on that one. 

Which variety of wasteful spending creates the most jobs?

Our government employees are now arguing over which type of wasteful spending creates the most jobs - Military waste, or Domestic waste. 

From ThinkProgress:

Facing deep spending cuts, the Department of Defense, including Secretary Leon Panetta, and military-industrial trade associations have complained that tightening the U.S. security budget will cause greater unemployment. And even while toeing the (dubious) conservative line that government spending cannot create jobs, right wingers like Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) insist that military spending must stay high to keep unemployment from increasing.


But a new study (PDF) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) highlighted by economist Dean Baker shows that, contra the conservative talking point, non-military spending can create more jobs than money going to defense programs. (Blah blah blah blah blah....Hit the link at the top to read the whole thing.)  Among them, military spending was the lowest, creating fewer jobs per billion dollars spent than even consumer-oriented tax cuts.


Here’s a chart from the study showing how many jobs each area produced from a billion dollars in spending:

Great God Almighty, where to begin, where to begin....

Let's start with the motivations of entrepreneurs in the real world.  Think of the people you know who have started their own businesses.  I've never heard someone describe the experience by saying "Well, you know, I had this overwhelming urge to work 80 hour weeks, with no guarantee of a reward, so that I could hire a lot of people."
But letting entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses are the only way to grow the economy, and that's the only way out of the current swamp where we find ourselves.  Uncle Sam's remedies are politcally-oriented, not economically-oriented.  The Obamamedia have done such an outstanding job of parroting Barry's "jobs created or saved" bullshit, no Congressman will ever again stand in front of a microphone and boast of lowering taxes on businesses so they can grow and make a lot of money (and incidentally, maybe hire people). 

On to the next point....  Do domestic spending boondoggles create more jobs than military boondoggles?  That's an interesting question, one that I hope will be fully answered in the next life. 
In the meantime, debating such gibberish is contributing to the problem. 
It doesn't matter if we're going to the Middle East to blow up brown children, or preserving the Department of Education to destroy our own children.  If we're doing either of these to create jobs in the U.S., we're screwing up.  It would destroy fewer resources and minds if we paid the soldiers and education bureaucrats to stay home.  Long-term welfare, according to a lot of experts, is harmful.  But it's not as harmful as maintaining bad programs to "create jobs", right? 

Third, nowhere in this idiotic article does the author acknowledge that the money from this crap comes from someplace else: taxes, loans, or Bernanke's printing press. 
Taxes are a necessary evil, even at the lowest rates.  At worst, they stifle growth. 
Taking out loans to be paid by unborn fetuses?  Let's go ahead and call that bad. 
Bernanke's printing presses should be carefully disassembled, and the component parts distributed to the bottoms of lakes and oceans all over the world. 

I hope that I never wake up in the morning and read something like this again. 

Harry Browne and P.J. O'Rourke on Free Trade

Harry Browne on Free Trade - "We have only two choices.  Either you are free to buy whaterever you want from whomever you want, wherever that seller is in the U.S. or the world - or we turn over to the politicians the power to decide what you can buy.  If we do the latter, you know from all experience that what you can buy will then be decided by those who have the most political influence."

This reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's quip that "If politicians can determine what can be bought and sold, the first thing to be bought and sold will be politicians." 

An honest question about the effectiveness of pepper-spray

Buzzfeed has published what they call The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2011.  There are some great photos in there. 
Three of them caught my attention.....

A protester gets sprayed in the face with pepper spray at an Occupy Portland protest. (Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian)

A University of California Davis police officer pepper-sprays students during their sit-in at an "Occupy UCD" demonstration in Davis, California. (Jasna Hodzic)

84-year-old Dorli Rainey was pepper sprayed during a peaceful march in Seattle, Washington. She would have been thrown to the ground and trampled, but luckily a fellow protester and Iraq vet was there to save her. (Joshua Trujillo / seattlepi.com)

I've got one question.... Our government is pepper-spraying protesters who are rallying for more and more government power and control.  I repeat....Our government is pepper-spraying protesters who are rallying for more and more government power and control.
Have the protesters changed their minds already, or do they need to be pepper-sprayed some more? 

Hit this link to see the other pics.  There are some great ones in the Buzzfeed collection.
A fresh coat of Whitening to my friend Mike Coyne for opening my eyes to this phenomenon.   

You got served !!

From the greatness of Reason magazine, on how to deal with Nanny State legislators who don't know how to find their way out of a sack, but who believe they know what's best for you to eat:

San Francisco's ban on giving away a free toy with a child's meal containing a certain number of calories, salt, and other particulars is set to kick in tomorrow. McDonald's, the clear target of the ban, had a year to figure out a way to change its business practices. Seems like they used the time wisely, reports the SF Examiner.

The San Francisco ban on providing free toys to entice children to eat unhealthy foods goes into effect Thursday, but McDonald’s plans to comply with the law by charging 10 cents a toy for their Happy Meals and donating the money to the nonprofit Ronald McDonald House.

(Catch that nice bit of editorializing about what's "unhealthy" there?)

And from the SF Weekly:

In any event, it appears the fast food chain's sharpie lawyers have McTopped San Francisco's legislators. Count this city's lawmakers as the latest among the billions and billions served.

Good for McDonald's.  They got around the toy ban by charging a dime for the toy. 

 The Aggie grew up eating McDonald's Happy Meals, and has now upgraded to McDonald's Value Meals (or the WhataBurger equivalent) and she now has the body fat of a mop handle and can do enough pull-ups to qualify for Navy Seal training.  Out of 120 people who tried to make it into the YMCA's lifeguard training program, she's one of 12 who qualified, and one of only 7 who finally passed the class.  (Not that I'm proud or anything....)

There's a lot that's unknown about proper diet and health, but this much is clear:

1) The San Francisco City Council doesn't know jack shit about this topic.  The Federal Government knows even less.  Go here for a personal testimony. 

2) Michelle Obama tried to hop on the Food Nazi Bandwagon last year, releasing some guidelines from her throne for all of us who truly love our children to follow.  Go here for the pics of Barack feeding a hot dog into The Teleprompter's orifice a few days later.

3) When I was in the Literary Retail business, I sold every diet and nutrition book that was brought to market.  The new ones couldn't be kept on the shelf, they sold so quickly.  They had totally different content than the old ones published the year before.  The old ones couldn't be given away, mostly because they were old and had different contents than the new ones that were recently featured and slobbered over by Oprah Winfrey.  The only things these books had in common were dietician authors and a short shelf life. 

4) I grew up being told to eat my fruit, eat my fruit, eat my fruit.  But that stuff turns to sugar as soon as it is digested.  I don't eat quite as much fruit now.  I feel better.
    
5) All laws, rules and regulations have unintended consequences and create different incentives from the ones intended by the prophets who bring them down from the mountain.  As an example, Happy Meal toys are now cloaked in the righteousness of the Ronald McDonald Houses.  Good work, guys !

Here's the great Jonathan Edwards, doing his 1971 mega-hit "Sunshine".  (I especially like the line "Some man's gone, he's tried to run my life, he don't know what he's askin'.  He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine.") 

One last thing, totally off-topic....Edwards mentions performing this at an anti-war rally.  Are we going to have any more of those rallies, or do we have to elect a Republican president first????

On taking a chance by hiring a 55 year old

I had an interesting conversation today with a new employee.  He's 55 years old, works in another department, and he mentioned that he really felt grateful to have a job with us since many companies are no longer willing to take a chance on a 55 year old. 

The guy has plenty of experience, and probably has great references and credentials. 

So why wouldn't other companies take a chance on him? 

It's because if he doesn't work out and he has to be fired, he can sue his employer for age discrimination. 

Doh ! 

In my previous job, I hired, trained and promoted enough gays to staff the Disneyworld parade.  But the powers-that-be got nervous.  Very nervous.  I eventually got sat down and told about the realities of Civil Rights law, and that I might want to take it easy on hiring those fine folks.  Lots of lawsuits over minority firings were in the works.  (Comic episode:  I'm ashamed that I actually tried to comply with this.  I promoted 3 consecutive people who came out of the closet 15 minutes after I promoted them.  Ha !  I hope you're out there reading this, Betsy Batchelder.)

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, more companies would promote more racial minorites to better positions if the companies couldn't be sued for changing their minds later on????

If I decide to stop giving money to Joe's Plumbing Service and start purchasing the same service from Bill's Plumbing Service, do I have to prove that I didn't do so because of Joe's age, race, weight, sexual orientation, religion, voting record, or attitudes toward dachshund ownership?  No.  That's why excellent plumbing services owned by old, black, fat, gay, Mormon, Libertarian dachshund owners are likely to stay in business just as long as excellent plumbing services owned by young, Hispanic,healthy, straight, Presbyterian, Democrat cat owners.  Customers aren't punished if they take a chance on a minority employee and change their minds later.  (And if you hire a plumber, you are an employer.  The plumber is your employee.  Please hurry up and wrap your head around that concept !!)

Purchasing labor and effort should be just like purchasing pizzas or lug nuts.

If I decide to switch from Kroger to Wal-Mart, I don't have to fill out any paperwork.  I just purchase goods and services from Wal-Mart.  Same thing for the people who replace my roof after every hailstorm.  I don't think I've ever used the same people twice.  I probably change my mind every time, and it's none of Harry Reid and John Boehner's business.     

Civil Rights law doesn't apply to those situations, thank God.  It only applies to certain labor agreements. 

If you ever allow yourself to be placed in a protected category by the government, you might be in big, big trouble.    There is a good chance that The Law Of Unintended Consequences is going to kick you very hard.  Good luck. 

Damn, that's gotta hurt

I think it'll leave a mark. 

As an office-holder for the Libertarians, I can't endorse anybody running as a Republicrat or a Demoblican.
But this ad is freakin' vicious. 

Ron Paul didn't pull out all the stops in this one, and he didn't make fun of the early '90's laughable "Republican Revolution". 

Otherwise, it is pure, undiluted greatness. 

Well done, sir.  Well done. 

Happy Birthday, Mark Twain !!!

Sam Clemens was born 176 years ago today. 
Be grateful. 

A Modest Proposal For The Defense Of South Korea

We're spending a fortune defending South Korea from North Korea. 

We've been spending billions per year there ever since our unsuccessful Foreign Policy Adventure there in the 1950's. 

You can go here and here to learn more about the relatively small amount that the Republic Of Korea contributes toward this effort.  The rest is an outright massive subsidy of the Korean government.  And Korean industry. 

As long as Lockheed, Bell, Halliburton, etc. are contributing toward election campaigns, this isn't likely to change.

We keep sending our children over there to not fight, and then they retire at age 45 with massive pensions. 

We're 15 trillion in debt.  What to do, what to do? 

Here's a suggestion.....  Let's outsource the defense of Korea to the Koreans !!!!

Seriously.  We could start paying the Koreans to defend their own country.  It would cost less. 

We wouldn't have to move so many people around.  It would be a "green" movement. 

We wouldn't necessarily have to pay pensions for Korean retirees. 

As a cost-cutting measure, I see nothing wrong with this idea. 

In which the Occupy Wall Street movement starts to get a clue

I've had a glorious time ridiculing the Occupy Wall Street movement for the last few months.  They have no idea what they want, no idea about the root cause of their complaints, and their problem with homeless people mooching the food that was donated to THEM ONLY, well, that makes me wake up in the middle of the night with fits of The Giggles. 

But now they're getting somewhere.  See the chart below.  Bear in mind, this is only the "discretionary" spending. 

We're responsible for more than 40% of the world's military expenditures.  We have 6% of the world's population.  We have a massive % of the world's debt. 

Isn't it time for this sacred cow to get slaughtered?  Or at least put on a reasonable diet?

Where the hell did the Peace Movement go?  Are we going to have to elect a Republican before we hear from those people again?  Where's the freakin' outrage over Libya and Pakistan?   

p.s. - We really shouldn't spend this much on the other stuff either. 

Some More Settled Science Updates

Willis Eisenbach has published an open letter to Dr. Phil Jones of the University Of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. 
It's one of the most devastating things I've ever read. 

These guys invented global warming.  They just sat around made up some data, and scared the living shit out of everybody with it.  Now they can't find it.  They are cornered. 

They simply made it up.  Billions and billions have been spent on this scam. 

They made it up.  It really is that simple. 

If you're not totally sickened yet, go here.   Or you can go here.   
This one won't tell you anything you don't already know, but is a nice summary of the Return Of The Son Of Climategate emails. 

Remember when skepticism was seen by most scientists as a virtue and not a vice?  If you value Free Inquiry, I defy you to read these articles without crying. 

We no longer make decisisions

From John Shuey's Facebook page:

The US no longer does decisions. It can neither stop the drug traffic nor legalize it. It can neither win wars nor abandon them, neither make money nor stop spending it, neither stop immigration nor assimilate the immigrants. Washington can beat its thumb with a hammer, and notice that it hurts, but it can't stop beating its thumb. That would take a decision, and Washington doesn't do decisions."

Sometimes you've got to get a picture

I'm having a great time in Memphis.
That's me with my friend Patricia.
We've known each other since kindergarten.
You have to know someone really, really well before she will pose with you in front of the "Ram In The Bush Worship Center". 
See Genesis chapter 22:13 for some clarification.  
Or you can just keep giggling. 

On water leaks in bathtubs, as they relate to ObamaCare

I'm spending Thanksgiving in Memphis, Tennessee, with some high school friends of mine.  Because God loves us and wants us to be happy, we're crashing at the apartment of a surgeon who grew up with us in Mississippi. 
This loft apartment is near the river, has a pool table, a flatscreen that rivals the one Jerry Jones hung in the roof of his stadium, and a coffeemaker with more elaborate controls than a, well, a thing with lots of elaborate controls. 
I like it here. 
However, there is a water leak in the bathtub.  I said that our host's water bill is going to be $300.00 this month, and he better get it fixed before it gets worse.  (I speak from experience.)
One of my friends said "Oh, he doesn't have to pay the water bill.  It's included in the rent.  I'm sure he'll mention it to the landlord in a few months when it becomes a steady flow." 

And that is why socialism, outside of tight-knit family units, doesn't work. 

For the best thing ever written on this subject, go here. 

Happy Thanksgiving !!!

“Any man worth his salt would fight for his home but only a damn fool would fight for his boarding house.”
                                                                    -Mark Twain


Here's a story that I first heard in China several years ago, and I'm probably going to re-run this post about it every Thanksgiving until I die.  The best online account I've found is on the World Socialist Website (chuckle chuckle).  It's about some Chinese farmers who got tired of starving. 


On one night in Nov. 1978, 18 villagers of Xiaogang, including (leader) Yan Jinchang, risked their lives to sign secretly an agreement, which divided the then People's Commune-owned farmland into pieces for each family to cultivate.

This was a bold move, as it was seen as "capitalist" and might have led to severe punishment from the government at that time.

Thus, on that secret agreement covered with villagers' seals and red fingerprints, there was a wobbly line saying that "If any word about this is divulged and the team leader is put in prison, other team members shall share the responsibility to bring up his child till he (or she) is 18. "


The original copy of this agreement is now in a museum someplace in China.  It had a huge influence.  Instead of farming the land together, and putting up with slackers, loafers, regulatory parasites and the other inevitable Socialist baggage, this brave group of Chinese farmers decided that each family would be responsible for a certain section of the land. 


That clause about agreeing to care for each others' children was a simple insurance policy.  To the best of my knowledge, none of the farmers agreed to care for the families of those who didn't share their risks.  In other words, you couldn't waltz into the agreement AFTER losing your head of household.  There's not even a hint of Obamacare in this document. 


The facts proved that it's worthwhile to take the adventure. Allocating farmland to each household, also known as "household contract responsibility system", fired the locals' enthusiasm for agriculture production, which had been contained in the outmoded planned economy, and helped poverty-stricken locals out of starvation.


That's just what happened when they agreed to stop the collectivist nonsense.  Think of what could happen if they'd been allowed to own the land, instead of having it allocated to them by their "leaders".   


The grains that a local farmer turned over to the state in the following year almost totaled what he did in past two decades, recalled Yan Hongchang, one of the 18 Xiaogang villagers who initiated the contract system.

Their practice was later supported by Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and opening-up drive, and recognized by the Chinese government. Xiaogang has since been labeled as the pace-setter of the nation's rural reform.


Here's a similar story, from the Volokh Conspiracy.  This one hits closer to home.

Many people believe that after suffering through a severe winter, the Pilgrims’ food shortages were resolved the following spring when the Native Americans taught them to plant corn and a Thanksgiving celebration resulted. In fact, the pilgrims continued to face chronic food shortages for three years until the harvest of 1623. Bad weather or lack of farming knowledge did not cause the pilgrims’ shortages. Bad economic incentives did.


Time to quote Thomas Sowell for the 10,000th time.  Laws and policies should never be evaluated by their stated goals and objectives, but by the incentives they create. 


In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on equality and need as determined by Plantation officials.


Like we're about to do with healthcare. 


People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. The problem was that young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.


In other words, when the hardest-working, most creative Pilgrims realized that they were working themselves to death for people who didn't want to work as hard?  They started Going Galt.   


Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.

This change, Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once the new system of property rights was in place, the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability.

Once the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal economic system and adopted one with greater individual property rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the corner.


And what have we learned from this? 

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing. 

Return Of The Son Of The Bride Of Climategate Part II: The Final Conflict (in 3D !!)

Dang it, if you're going to fleece the taxpayers, it's not smart to reveal how and why you're doing it. 

It seems that the ClimateGate Boys have been naughty.....

Here's James Delingpole of London's Telegraph:

Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the "scientists" at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they'd like it to be.

In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism. This, it seems, is what motivated the whistleblower 'FOIA 2011' (or "thief", as the usual suspects at RealClimate will no doubt prefer to tar him or her) to go public.

I've only had time to browse through a few of these, and all I can say is Holy Shit !!!  What a bunch of phonies.  Publicists.  That's all they are.  A bunch of guys in lab coats massaging the data for the benefit of press releases.  Publicists. 

Here are a few random samples, culled from here and here and here and here.  Browse through this stuff when time permits.  I'm going to say it once more.  Holy Shit !!!!

&1939> Thorne/MetO:

Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical
troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a
wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the
uncertainty and be honest. Phil (Jones), hopefully we can find time to discuss these
further if necessary [...]

<3066> Thorne:

I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it
which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

<1611> Carter:

It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much
talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by
a select core group.

<2884> Wigley:

Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of
dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]

<4755> Overpeck:

The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s
included and what is left out.


<2495> Humphrey/DEFRA:

I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a
message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their
story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made
to look foolish.
<0813> Fox/Environment Agency:

if we loose the chance to make climate change a reality to people in the
regions we will have missed a major trick in REGIS.

<1583> Wilson:

any method that incorporates all forms of uncertainty and error will
undoubtedly result in reconstructions with wider error bars than we currently
have. These many be more honest, but may not be too helpful for model
comparison attribution studies. We need to be careful with the wording I think.
<4165> Jones:

what he [Zwiers] has done comes to a different conclusion than Caspar and Gene!
I reckon this can be saved by careful wording.

<2440> Jones:

I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself
and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the
process
<2094> Briffa:

UEA does not hold the very vast majority of mine [potentially FOIable emails]
anyway which I copied onto private storage after the completion of the IPCC
task.
<2459> Osborn:

Keith and I have just searched through our emails for anything containing
“David Holland”. Everything we found was cc’d to you and/or Dave Palmer, which
you’ll already have.
<1473> McGarvie/UEA Director of Faculty Administration:

As we are testing EIR with the other climate audit org request relating to
communications with other academic colleagues, I think that we would weaken
that case if we supplied the information in this case. So I would suggest that
we decline this one (at the very end of the time period)
<1577> Jones:

[FOI, temperature data]
Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we
get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (US
Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original
station data.

Holy Shit, Holy Shit, Holy Shit.  That's all I'm gonna say.  Holy Shit !!!!!!!!!!
And here's more talk about hiding the decline.  Unbelievable. 

Yep, if you only show the peaks and not the valleys, the world looks like a very hot place. 
This is going to be a fascinating couple of weeks. 

Children: The Ultimate Renewable Military Resource !!

From Big Daddy John Spivey's Facebook page:

Hey GOP buddies! 6,327 US Soldiers dead;
22,490 US Soldiers Wounded;
$4 Trillion total price tag (just for the wars);
700+ International US Military Installations;
$711 Billion Defense Budget (2011)...
If you think we should or even CAN continue on this way, please don't vote for Ron Paul.
He's the only one with plans to completely reverse this.
I guess we can always have more kids and print more money!

Are you smarter than a Wall Street Occupier?

A representative of New York magazine ventured into Zuccotti Park to ask the Occupy Wall Street Protesters a few basic political and economic questions related to some of their demands.  Call it a civics test.   

Hit this link to take the test.  The pollsters have supplied you with helpful charts showing the answers given by the occupiers.  (heh heh heh....)  Hit the link beneath each chart to see the correct answer. 

(Obligatory chest-thumping.... I got 'em all right, including #8.) 

Please brag and boast about your scores in the comment field. 

Overseas correspondents may add 2 points to their total. 

The link and the pic came from Denny's site. 

James Hansen and the Corruption Of Science

From The Powerline Blog:

It recently came out that James Hansen, one of the two or three most prominent global warming alarmists on whose work the IPCC reports rest, “forgot” to report $1.6 million in outside income, as required by his government contracts. Is that significant? Well, yes: A handful of scientists, including Hansen, have gotten wealthy on climate alarmism. They have an enormous financial interest in the faux science they have done so much to perpetrate. It is more likely that the Pope would renounce Christianity than that Hansen, Michael Mann, etc., would change their minds about global warming, regardless of the evidence. (I say that because the Pope has far more intellectual integrity than the climate alarmists.)

IMHO, the Pope sometimes plays the same game.  More on that later. 

Beyond that handful of leading alarmists, if you are involved in any way in climate science, you have a financial interest in alarmism.

Ok, let's take a brief timeout here.  This is why there has been no need for a grand conspiracy of evil scientists working in a hollowed-out volcano.  I repeat: this is why there is no Global Warming Conspiracy.  Dump this many trillion dollars on the table, and the market will take care of the rest.  There are billions in it for everybody.  Except you, of course. 

Even minor climate scientists get consulting contracts and are invited to present papers in exotic locales. And if you are not an alarmist, you have little or no chance of cashing in on the billions of dollars in government grants for climate research.

Remember what happens to journal editors who allow heretical opinions into the AGW Liturgy?  They suddenly resign in disgrace. 

Essentially, the closed world of climate “science” has been bought and paid for, largely with our tax dollars. Under these circumstances, it is remarkable that so many real scientists have been willing to forgo financial advantage and blow the whistle on the alarmists’ frauds.

Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, comments:

NASA’s James Hansen is back in the news for two reasons. He has a new paper claiming that the Moscow heat wave during 2010 and the Texas heat wave during 2011 provide a form of statistical proof of global warming. The pause in warming must be justified somehow! The study was quickly refuted by several commentators, most devastatingly by Lubos Motl.

The second reason Hansen is in the news is that he failed to report some $1,600,000 of outside income over several years as required by his contract for government employment. Normally, TWTW would not bother with such, but this is an exception for a number of reasons. One, in 1988 with great publicity, Hansen announced with great certainty that global warming threatens humanity. Two, with great publicity, Hansen declared that President Bush was trying to muzzle him. And, three, he was cited as the scientific advisor of Al Gore’s scientifically disgraceful film. Apparently, Hansen believes that his celebrity status exempts him from the regulations that govern other government scientists.

We can’t say it enough: global warming alarmism is not science. It is politics at best, outright fraud at worst.

But in a way, it is beautiful. 
Sometimes I have to sit back and marvel at it. 
Weather/Climate/Rain/Cold/Heat have all fluctuated wildly for billions of years.  Primitive people have usually believed these changes were their fault, and made sacrifices to their gods to appease the clouds, the sun, the rain or the volcano. 
Priests of various species have usually been willing to take charge of these sacrifices in exchange for a percentage off the top.
And the weather just keeps on doing what it is gonna do.