Archive for July, 2009

Civil War open thread

I won’t be blogging tomorrow (Sunday), because I’ll be at a Civil War reenactment.  It’s wonderful fun and has become a summer tradition for us. Consider this an open thread.

Why I can’t rouse myself to mourn Cronkite’s passing

I grew up watching Walter Cronkite.  He was a fixture on the TV in my household and, in our little world, had a great deal of credibility.  Had he died 20 years ago, I would have mourned him sincerely as the passing of a childhood icon.  I know better now, though. While I send my [...]

Must read about health care myths

Stumbling On Truth has an amusing and devastating deconstruction of the myths fueling the Democratic side of the health care debate.  (Hat tip:  gpc31)  Here’s just a small sample of this longer article: Myth #1 Health Care Costs are Soaring No, they are not. The amount we spend on health care has indeed risen, in [...]

Bad times deserve bad jokes

With the news being unrelentingly depressing (especially news, not of things as they are, but as the Dems plan them to be), I thought this would be a good joke: Four little old Jewish ladies are sitting around the table. “Oy,” sighs the first. “Oy, vey,” moans the second. “Oy, vey ist mir,” wails the [...]

No excuses, and things that are inexcusable *UPDATED*

I really like this article from the Anchoress about the need to hold ourselves to high standards (a need, surprisingly that Obama articulated to the NAACP), and Babs Boxer’s grotesque demonstration of what happens when we hold certain segments of our society to low standards.  The Anchoress also has a great laundry list of inexcusable [...]

Swine flu and Britain

Here, at home, it’s barely news.  In England, it’s a true epidemic, with the current spread and death rate hinting at up to 65,000 deaths as the disease runs its course. Are we in the U.S. hit less hard?  Are we hearing less about how hard we’re hit? I’m asking, but I’m sure not answering, [...]

The best anti-Obama ad is . . . Obama himself.

The GOP did a great job with this one (although, frankly, they had a lot of good material at hand): I wrote to all my Congress women today telling them that, if they vote for the health care bill, they can count on a no vote from me next time their elections roll around.  Since [...]

Wise Latina in on the Supreme Court

It was a foregone conclusion, but it’s still irksome that the RINOs piled on for Sotomayor.  It’s not just that she’s a judicial activist who dislikes self-defense, lies about her record, and shilled for a radical Puerto Rican group.  It’s that the hearings showed something very, very specific about her:  she’s a complete mediocrity.  The [...]

Someone needs a class in remedial thinking

I can just hear the wild screams of laughter, and the front page coverage, if a Republican president had said something this stupid (at about 45 seconds): Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Hey, I’d like to make a change to change, too. Hat tip:  Tom Elia at the [...]

Context can be so amusing

My home page is BNO News on Twitter, which is a headline aggregator.  This morning, I was greeted with this series of headlines: AP: Obama adviser says US has come substantial distance back from the abyss of economic disaster.about 1 hour ago from BNO Headquarters Michigan’s unemployment rate in June rose to more than 15 [...]

A bombing in Indonesia. I wonder who’s behind it?

I’m away from my computer for a few hours and return to find the headlines filled with stories of a terrible bombing at two luxury hotels in Jakarta.  I’m going to guess that Catholics are not behind the bombing.  I’m also going to guess that Hindus, Jews, Protestants, animists, Wiccans, Sun worshippers, and atheists are [...]

Best Watcher of Weasels submissions evah!

I say that every week, but this time I really mean it.  Usually, I open up all the submissions in tabs and read them one after the other.  If an article doesn’t take my fancy, I close the tab immediately.  I consider only the open tabs when casting my vote.  Usually, I have two, maybe [...]

Only I can own me! — by guest blogger Danny Lemieux

This clip of today’s Sotomayor hearings may just have hit upon the most important constitutional question that faces us all as we confront our devolution into the Obamatopian State. In this segment, Senator Tom Coburn (R., OK) asks Judge Sotomayor whether she agrees that Americans have a basic right to self defense. The ensuing silence [...]

Obama’s lying again

Obama’s lying again, which is always fascinating, because his lies fall into the “who are you going to believe — me or your lying eyes?” category.  That is, it’s not as if he has a guilty little secret, and is lying.  Nor is it a simple he said/she said scenary, in which you know one [...]

Boxer wonders where that new hole came from

I have no idea who he is, I have no idea what this is about, but I sure do love seeing someone exposing in Barbara Boxer the condescending racism that is a global characteristic of liberal whites:

The world gobbles up blood libels against Israel *UPDATES*

Most of the world’s media members, if asked, would undoubtedly identify themselves as sophisticates, who are too cynical and world-weary to take anything at face value.  Their mental self-image almost certainly falls somewhere between wise-cracking Cary Grant (His Girl Friday) and idealistic Woodward and Bernstein.  They care deeply, but they’ve seen it all.  To which [...]

Prescient writers

At NoisyRoom, Terresa has a list of all of the czars that Obama has appointed — so far.  You should definitely check that list out.  It is, as is the case with so many Obama initiatives, unnerving. What’s really fascinating is that Terresa has commenters as wonderful (and informed) as mine.  One of them left [...]

Congress figures out new way to fund health care

This morning, the headlines were filled with the House’s plans to fund health care, plans that include significant taxes on the well-to-do (whose numbers will shrink despite increasing demands for their wealth to fund the program), and financially onerous burdens on small businesses. This afternoon, Congress has figured out a better way to fund health [...]

Last week’s Watcher’s winners

I like alliteration so much, I was tempted to pull an Elmer Fudd and title this post “Wast Week’s Watcher’s Winners,” but I restrained myself.  I’ll just give you the winners, sans alliteration: Winning Council Submissions First place with 2 1/3 points! – The Provacateur – How Bonds Work (and How Current Policy Will Wreck [...]

Ella Fitzgerald

Do you sometimes get the urge to listen to one of the best singers ever?  I do.  So here’s some Ella:

Obama acolytes continue to deny human nature

Tom Elia links to an utterly fatuous statement from a 25 year old Obama supporter (who nevertheless gets a bully pulpit in a WaPo blog), saying that killing the profit motive will have no effect whatsoever on pharmaceutical innovation.  In the face of such stupidity, I have to drag out my family history once again. [...]

John Holdren gets creepier all the time

Barack Obama’s science czar turns out to be a long-time, committed eugenicist.  In other words, his 1971 publication calling for mass sterilization was not simply a youthful fling with a bad idea.  As Michelle Malkin details, he still clings to those ideas and only recently cited as his intellectual mentor one of the most extreme [...]

It’s red pencil time

With California getting perilously close to bankruptcy, you’d think that the government might want to trim or cut a few extraneous budget items.  What’s insane is that, despite an endless list of possibilities, our government claims that everything on the budget is absolutely necessary and cannot be cut.  People — we get the government we [...]

Sotomayor a true judge — incoherent *UPDATED*

You know that I don’t like judges.  I’ve certainly made no secret of that fact, and it’s no doubt a by-product of practicing law in a region crawling with activist judges.  Listening to Sotomayor struggle to articulate things — and to avoid her own footprint — in response to Sen. Lindsay Graham’s questioning is painful.  [...]

Getting care in Canada

Steve Crowder looks at the Canadian health care system.  Some of his experiences are similar to those in any busy city emergency room, such as a long, long wait for a low level problem.  Others, most notably statements by nurses, make your eyes bug:  Three years to get an appointment with a personal physician?  The [...]