Year: 2010

Yeah, I’m A Total Jerk

Posted on Comments

Sometimes — and this happens far too often — I offend people accidentally. Carelessness, thoughtlessness, recklessness. I’m a jerk.

When I wrote earlier about the Hot Air buyout, I didn’t mention my friend Bryan Preston, who was the original video producer for the site and left in 2008. The omission was because I figured Bryan’s departure was a sore spot best left unmentioned. But the omission, it turns out, was even more offensive.

So by an attempt to be tactful, I treated my friend like an Unperson, “The Fifth Beatle,” as it were. But unlike Stu Sutcliffe, Bryan Preston is alive and well and working as Director of Communications for the Republican Party of Texas.

Weirdest Story of the Day

Posted on Comments

From Big Government:

Clintonistas are plotting a “push/pull” strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign.

Is this true? You hate to think that such stuff is so carefully coordinated. On the other hand, David Brock, Andrew Sullivan and Charles Johnson were “turned” easily enough, weren’t they?

Da Tech Guy: CPAC Cannoli Smuggler

Posted on Comments

Da Tech Guy has probably cleared security at Reagan National Airport in D.C. by now, so it can now be revealed that he’s brought two dozen cannoli with him for CPAC. Also, he’s brought spare fedoras.

Smitty is picking up Da Tech Guy at the airport. We expect to see them both later tonight in the lobby bar at the fabulous Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Neither of them is much of a drinker, but after a glass or two of lambrusco, Da Tech Guy may be persuaded to give a demonstration of his trademark Sicilian hand gestures.

Thanks to everyone who hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar to make his trip possible.

UPDATE 6:23 p.m.: Just got off the phone with Smitty, who confirms that Da Tech Guy the cannoli have made it safely to Northern Virginia. Now, if I can just get past this laundry/packing crisis at home, I’ll be ready to meet up with them. Used to be, I could deal with laundry, packing and other such duties on my own. Then I got married and Mrs. Other McCain took charge, and I’ve been helpless ever since.

UPDATE 7:25 p.m.: Mrs. Other McCain is now home, and my departure for CPAC is eminent. Da Tech Guy updates with photos of his smuggled payload of fedoras and cannoli.

Speaking of which: Holy cannoli!

Call it ‘The McCain Plan’

Posted on Comments

The New York Times reports:

Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.

My daughter was home-schooled through 9th grade, entered a Christian academy as a 14-year-old sophomore, graduated with honors at 16, did her freshman year at community college, turned 18 and did a year in Argentina in a full-immersion Spanish-language program, returned to complete her sophomore year at community college (receiving her associate’s degree with honors), and is now a 20-year-old junior at Frostburg State University. She’s only made one “B” in her entire collegiate career, and she’s engaged to be married in July.

America’s contemporary public-education system is funded on the basis of Average Daily Attendence (ADA), and the bureaucracy strives to maximize ADA in order to maximize revenue. Ergo, no matter how smart a kid is, the system compels them to go through 13 years (K-12) of school. This is accomplished via a dumbed-down curriculum geared toward the learning capacity of the “average” student, which aims to prevent bright children from learning at their own pace and graduating early based upon demonstrated content mastery.

This purposeful inhibition of learning on the part of bright students has a mirror-obverse effect on children with low academic aptitude. Just as the government education bureaucracy strives to retain bright children for all 13 years, so it is with low-achieving students who have no interest in academics and who receive limited benefit from chasing the high-school diploma that has been dumbed-down merely to provide a bonus for staying in school. Such young people would benefit far more from an apprentice program that, starting at age 14 or 15, allowed them to earn wages while being trained in some useful and remunerative trade.

Yet the egalitarian illusion of every 18-year-old receiving the same diploma serves the interests of the bureaucracy, which retains both the dullard and the genius for 13 years of taxpayer-funded public schooling. And the result — as can be seen in the hallways of any large “comprehensive” high school — is an insanely heterodox mixture of students, herded together willy-nilly so that they can all cheer for the same football team every Friday night.

“School spirit.” Go, Team!

Newt Gingrich once called high school “subsidized dating,” which is an apt eptithet for this misguided system organized more on the basis of political or social purposes, rather than for any goal than can truly be called educational.

Every child liberated from the swirling cesspool of public education is a victory. Better a teenager should be in juvenile detention than in a public high school. Not that there is any meaningful difference, but at least the juvenile delinquent has no illusions about being a prisoner of the state.

So if this new program lets smart kids skip two years of high school, that’s a tremendous improvement — a small step toward the abolition of the entire infernal apparatus. A simple plan:

  • Fire all the teachers.
  • Sell all the school buildings, buses and other equipment at public auction.
  • Return the saved revenue to the community in the form of tax cuts.
  • Pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting any future government involvement in education.
  • Laissez-faire and best of luck.

If a child turns out to be a complete ignoramus, parents henceforth would have no one to blame but themselves. And hey, the world needs ditch-diggers, too.

Good News! Allahpundit Now Employed by ‘Christian and Family-Themed’ Media Conglomerate!

Posted on Comments

This certainly should be interesting:

Mediaite has learned that leading center-right web site Hot Air has been acquired by Salem Communications for an undisclosed sum. . . .
Salem Communication defines itself as a leading U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values.

Ed Morrissey: “Neither Allahpundit nor I will have any official comment on this until tomorrow.” Anybody guess that Allah’s unofficial comment about being sold to a Christian conservative outfit wasn’t exactly “family-themed,” eh?

Congratulations to Michelle Malkin on divesting herself of the atheist Eeyore — at a handsome profit, we certainly hope.

UPDATE: The announcement was time to coincide with CPAC. It was at CPAC 2006 that Hot Air made its big rollout (and I scored some swag, a coffee mug and refrigerator magnet). Hot Air initially specialized in original video production — remember “Vent”? remember those cute Mary Katharine Ham videos? remember Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch videos? — but that emphasis changed after 2007, without explanation.

Ace of Spades speculates:

Although Michelle Malkin is the owner and got most of the money, presumably Allah and Captain Ed have also got a nice chunk of change in the deal and contracts, too.

This presumes more than we actually know, and contradicts my own educated guesswork. In 2008, Salem purchased my friend Nathan Tabor’s site, The Conservative Voice, and shut it down. No notice, no archives, nothing — the URL just became a re-direct to Townhall.

Like Michael Corleone said, it’s just business.

UPDATE II: James Joyner:

And hearty congrats to Michelle Malkin on what one presumes was a lucrative buy-out. While her politics are harder right than mine and her writing style more polemical, she’s a sweet lady and an incredibly hard worker.

That’s certainly true. If you’ve ever seen Malkin at work, she works. Blogging, syndicated column, Fox News appearances, books, speeches — a real dynamo. Were I asked to hazard a guess, I’d guess that we’ll soon hear that Malkin has signed a deal for her own talk-radio show. Perhaps with . . . er, Salem Communications.

Guy Benson, a kid I never heard of until five minutes ago:

Unlike many, I happen to work for Salem. I’ve spoken to a number of the people involved on both sides of the reported deal, and I’m unable to confirm or deny any details of the story at this point.

Considering that there were only three people (Ed, Allah and Michelle) on one side of the deal, which ones did you talk to, Guy?

Max Fisher of the Atlantic Monthly is spectacularly clueless, from his headline — Sale of ‘Hot Air’ Shakes Up Conservative Blogosphere — to his observation, “Hot Air is known for the blogging team Ed Morrissey and the pseudonymous ‘Allahpundit.’ They’ve earned wide readership for their sharp analysis and tendency to break from conservative orthodoxy.”

First, there’s no “shake up” — unless you count Little Miss Attila threatening to “stomp [her] little feet” —  and second, where does Fisher get this breaking-from-orthodoxy meme? Would he care to cite examples of the aforesaid heterodoxy? Because, yeah, we all remember how Allahpundit advocated immediate withdrawal from Iraq in 2006. And then there was the time Ed Morrissey endorsed Chuck Baldwin for president . . .

For the benefit of Max Fisher and any other leftoid commentators: HotAir.com is a property, a commodity of value. Its proprietor sold it to another company. Think in terms like profit, assets, entreprenuership, business — you know, capitalism.

Instapundit may soon go on the auction block. While I’m always for rent, no one has yet tried to buy me. On the other hand, I’ve had several lucrative offers for Smitty . . .

The Protocols of the Elders of CTHULHU XII. Re-engineering ‘Freedom’

Posted on

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The third glance pulled it all together: a coffin, ringed by a dozen chairs, each its own horror story.

The door opened inward, but I could not see who was in the hallway. There was a man’s voice, but his mind sounded badly broken. “…glaciers…data…bastards…lost…hockey stick…” were some of the rantings.
The old man had made it near the door, and the voice retained at least one functioning eye, for there seemed to be recognition as the old body shambled forward, raising its arms to the gestures of the squid on the table.
“Mr. Buh-buh-buh-buh…thank god for a friendly face! Your sponsorship was so important, but you’ve got to save–wha-wha-NOOOOoooooo….” as the old man left the room, followed by the functionary, and the door shut.

“Freedom is the right to do that which the law allows.

Freedom of speech and press shall not in any wise exist in our novus ordo seculorum.

The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification. I beg you to note that among those making attacks on us will also be organs established by us, but they will attack exclusive points that we have pre-determined to alter.
Not a single announcement will reach the public without our control.

…

Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals.

The three ranks of media outlets shall be:

  1. …organs of an official character
  2. The media.
  3. …our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the ery antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

We, of course maintain our poker face.”

The room was nearly back to where it had begun, but the squid in the fishtank seemed larger still.

Navigation:

The Protocols of the Elders of CTHULHU XI. Global Constitution

Posted on

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The second glance revealed that it was not actually rectangular, but a hexagon, with vertices one third of the way along the surface, away from the wall screen marking the head. Also, it lacked legs, being full from top to floor.

The madness of the situation, of 11 live, 2 dead, 1 ambiguous person and a squid, in a cold cold room, listening to a lecture blending Machiavelli and Mephistopheles was nearly enough to snap my mind like dry tinder. Yet the only thing to do about it was write. Try to capture every insane detail.
The squid on the table, one tentacle looped over the lip, held two others out like arms. The bodies of the functionary and the old man slowly moved and pulled themselves up by the table with the most obscenely robotic movements.
The old man was clearly dead, the functionary still shrouded, and the speaker was going on about a global Constitution, while the two bodies shambled around the head of the table for the door, and the outside moanings got louder and more human.

“The general direction of all of the failures of the proletariat is upward.
As we have more global information, and more media control, we will increasingly flood the mob with information pointing to the fact that the world is falling apart, for all it really only has the narrowest deviation from historical mean, overall.
We exist to create apparent problems for which we are the most convenient solution. A natural analogue is a constrictor using every twitch from the prey to tighten the grip.
The local situation and government are a failure, so the State must fix it. The State is a failure, so the EU, Federal Government, regional hegemon, or the UN is the next stop. Above that level, of course, is us, shaking everything, at a medium pace, to keep power wafting up to us like so much smoke.
Each crisis makes some sliver of sovereignty a reasonable exchange,

…we shall keep promising them to give back all the liberties we have taken away as soon as we have quelled the enemies of peace and tamed all parties…

When? Three words: Real Soon Now. The Americans, I should note, may require a relatively more final solution than others.”

Navigation:

Newt Gingrich on CPAC

Posted on Comments

At Human Events:

Tomorrow, for the 37th time, conservatives will gather in Washington to discuss, debate, and forge new solutions at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. . . .
In 1975, then-Governor Ronald Reagan inspired a dispirited conservative movement to revolution at CPAC. In a message that resonates to this day, President Reagan proclaimed, “Our people look for a cause to believe in,” and then asked: “Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”
President Reagan’s first speech to CPAC was in its inaugural year in 1973. According to CPAC organizer David Keene, that year, 125 Americans came to CPAC to hear Reagan speak. This year, attendance is expected to top 10,000.

Read the whole thing. Newt’s OK, even if he doesn’t spend enough time hanging out at the lobby bar at CPAC.