The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Sean Bielat: On A MA-4 Mission

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Sean Bielat is running for the Republican nomination for Congress for the 4th District in Massachusetts and will be running against Joe Kennedy III, who, other than looking like he fell out of an LL Bean catalog, has precious little to recommend him.

Bielat ran an insurgent campaign in 2010 against the risible Barney Frank, who, faced with a serious challenge, had his stuff packed, and retired.
Sean campaigns on three major points:

  • The economy
  • Fiscal responsibility
  • The role of government

He backs up his arguments with significant private sector and academic credentials. In other words, he’s not running on his last name, as though from some ersatz noble family with a hereditary claim to public office. JoeK has exhibited reclusive tendencies thus far, communicating at scripted media events,  or though his communications director. Perhaps this is because he has an enviable war chest.

Bielat’s latest campaign video:

Highlights from a 23 August blogger conference call:

Thoughts on the Paul Ryan plan:
It is a fantastic tool for focusing debate. It triggered a firestorm of criticism, followed by a vacuum. Oddly, there has been no opposing plan. The plan is in its third iteration. Overall, Sean likes the thrust of Ryan’s effort, overall.

The prospect of debates, after the GOP primary on 06 September:
Joe Kennedy doesn’t appear eager to engage. One student-led debate has apparently been accepted by the Kennedy campaign. But Joe is no fan of unscripted appearances.

With respect to the 2010 gerrymandering, how did the newly-formed MA-4 district break for McCain in 2008?
The district did really well against the Mass. average for John McCain.

Elizabeth Warren has tried to tie Scott Brown to Todd Akin. Has there been any tricke-down?
Social issues are a largely a distraction from economic issues. Maybe 3 towns in the district raise social issue questions, and those are in the north end. The Scott Brown campaign will not be doing endorsements until later, post primary.

What drives you, Sean?
Sean got into politics in 2010. He looked around, and saw no on running against Barney Frank. He thought he could do better. He thought he could focus on core economic issues, a Constitutional view of government restraint. He wants a better future for his two children. He does not want to see the U.S. become Greece. He’s not a careerist, and is willing to take the tough votes and the consequences.

Sean Bielat for Congress

Mass. needs another Kennedy victory about as badly as a lift from Joe.

Update: Ace of Spades had Slublog on the call, as well.

Update II: I guess Soopermexican didn’t buy off on my LL Bean gag.

Update III: Linked at Da Tech Guy’s place. When’s the interview, Pete?

Category: Massachusetts, Sean Bielat

We Are Once Again Reminded Why You Can’t Spell ‘Huckabee’ Without an ‘F’

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 37 Comments

Going back to 2007, at least, I’ve borne a grudge against Mike Huckabee. When the “Fredhead” phenomenon collapsed — when Fred Thompson proved to be a far weaker presidential candidate than we had hoped — the question became, “Who can stop John McCain?”

No conservative wanted McCain to get the nomination, but Republicans were horribly confused and divided in their search for an alternative.

Some people wanted Rudy Giuliani, but anyone with a lick of common sense could see that Rudy’s pro-choice position made him unacceptable: You can’t beat a “Maverick” with a liberal warhawk, OK? Mitt Romney thus became the consensus alternative — except for the Hucktards, who ruined everything and made possible McCain’s nomination.

Ann Coulter summed up the problem: Mike Huckabee is a pro-life Democrat. Whatever his merits as a Baptist preacher, or even a Fox News host, Huckabee is a wretched excuse for a Republican politician.

His presidential campaign organization included some of the least competent staffers ever employed in American politics. Ask anyone who worked on GOP campaigns in the 2010 cycle: Huck’s endorsement was quite nearly worthless, and the involvement of former Huckabee staffers was usually an omen of impending doom.

Are we in the least bit surprised to see the shadow of this familiar Arkansas albatross circling a certain doomstruck Missouri Republican?

Mike Huckabee: I’m All-In For
This Great Candidate Akin, and
If You’re Not, You’re a RINO

Dear God, why have you done this to us? What dreaded sin has America committed that you would have inflicted this damned fool on us? Why now, at such a crucial moment in our history? I’m driving to Tampa tomorrow. We’ll let Deroy Murdock have the last word for now:

Does Akin want to be the man whom history will recall as guaranteeing McCaskill’s reelection, possibly keeping the U.S. Senate in the hands of hardened liberal Democrat, Harry Reid?
Does Akin hope to be known in perpetuity as the cause of Barack Obama’s reelection, notwithstanding the multifarious merits of the Romney-Ryan ticket?

UPDATE: Allahpundit:

Now here comes the “social conservatives vs. RINO moderates” pitch. From the man who endorsed David Dewhurst in Texas.

See what I mean? Huckabee has an uncanny instinct for backing losers. It’s not a matter of ideology or grassroots, it’s just bad political judgment, and I share Allahpundit’s sense of exasperation:

Why are heavy hitters like [Tony Perkins] and Huckabee ready to fight and die on Magic Uterus Hill when there’s overwhelming bipartisan disgust at Akin for what he said?

My answer: Because we have been cursed by God, that’s why. The Almighty has determined to destroy America, Todd Akin is the weapon by which he means to accomplish this destruction, and Perkins and Huckabee are just following the Divine Command.

Category: Election 2012, Mike Huckabee, Missouri, Senate

President of a Black Fear

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 49 Comments

When I glanced at Memeorandum and saw the headline, it was impossible to suppress my groaning weariness with the worn-out theme:

Fear of a Black President
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2012

Show of hands: Nearly four years into the Age of Obama, is there anybody — anybody — interested in reading a 9,582-word “What It Means” essay about the racial significance of Obama’s presidency?

Would you be more interested if I told you that Ta-Nehisi Coates uses the Trayvon Martin shooting as the contextual prism through which he seeks this wisdom? Would your interest be whetted if I told you that Coates name-checks a list of right-wing villains — Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc. — en route to a rather nebulous conclusion about the persistence of white racism as the dominant and defining reality of America’s past, present and future?

Admit it, honky: You don’t want to read it.

You “white folks” (yes, he uses that phrase) don’t wish to recline on the psychoanalyst’s couch while Ta-Nehisi Coates explains to you that every reason why you don’t support Obama, when viewed through the lens of history, is irredeemably racist. You “white folks” don’t appreciate your own need for this therapeutic experience.

Why not? Because you’re in denial about your intractable prejudices.

So there you are, with Trayvon Martin’s blood on your hands, rejecting Ta-Nehisi Coates’s generous offer to expiate your sins. Confess your racism, whitey, and let Dr. Coates help you understand your “Fear of a Black President.” Because, you see, somehow the death of Trayvon reflects the hatefulness of those right-wing Republicans and their “strategy of massive resistance” — yes, massive resistance, as if suburban Orlando in 2012 were Mississippi in 1955.

More patient and able polemicists will likely give Coates the thorough fisking he deserves. We can hope that Ace of Spades weighs in with the kind of vicious sarcasm Coates deserves. While awaiting such treatment, however, I’ll force-feed you a few sample sentences.

Before the president spoke, George Zimmerman was arguably the most reviled man in America. After the president spoke, Zimmerman became the patron saint of those who believe that an apt history of racism begins with Tawana Brawley and ends with the Duke lacrosse team.

Coates comes very near to a point here, but misses it, i.e.: In addressing the Trayvon Martin case, the president politicized it, necessarily turning this controversy into a partisan affair.

This is an election year, and it would be impossible for the president seeking re-election to speak out on any controversy without providing his opponents an occasion to criticize him. I’m reminded of how President Bush’s “heckuva job, Brownie” comment about Hurricane Katrina became a club with which Democrats relentlessly pounded him. This is how 21st-century politics works: A politician says something dubious or offensive about a controversial subject, and his partisan foes exploit it to their advantage. Hello, Todd Akin.

Never mind that this is a general rule. In the manner of a crusading district attorney leading an election-year crackdown on drug dealers, Coates is prosecuting the perpetrators:

The moment Obama spoke, the Trayvon case passed out of its mourning phase and into something dark and familiar — racialized political fodder.
And even if white folks could moderate their own penchant for violence, we could not moderate our own. A long-suffering life on the wrong side of the color line had denuded black people of the delicacy necessary to lead the free world.

Damn. Just . . . damn.

What exactly is Coates trying to say here? I’m not sure. He seems fond of eloquent insinuation, so that it is difficult to locate an argument that can be reduced to a syllogism. It’s as if we are being challenged to refute a Rorshach inkblot test. Coates goes off on tangents of irrelevant free-association, flinging around stylish prose that defies counter-argument because what it’s really about is emotional symbolism, and no one can dispute the reality of another’s feelings.

The “racialized political fodder” that Coates calls “dark and familiar” — yes, one way or another, we can all agree that it is familar. But insofar as the racialized fodder becomes political, or the political fodder is racialized, isn’t this unfortunate intersection at least in equal measure the responsibility of the president and his allies? Why must Coates attempt to fix blame exclusively to the president’s opposition?

Democrats have deliberately and shamelessly used Obama’s race as a bludgeon against Republicans, and every time anyone complains about this, their complaint is cited as proof of their racism. It’s a non-falsifiable hypothesis, a Venn diagram with two non-intersecting sets: (A) People who support Obama, and (B) Racists, where AB is a null set and thus the only way to disprove one’s racism is to support Obama.

Given the fact that racial discrimination is a federal crime, and has been since 1964, these provocative insinuations of racism are a type of emotional terrorism, a psychological warfare campaign of political intimidation masquerading as a desire for “social justice.” Cooperate with the Democrats’ political agenda or else you’ll be branded with The Scarlet H — hater! — and targeted for destruction.

Having lit this spark, Coates pours on the gasoline:

What black people are experiencing right now is a kind of privilege previously withheld—seeing our most sacred cultural practices and tropes validated in the world’s highest office. Throughout the whole of American history, this kind of cultural power was wielded solely by whites, and with such ubiquity that it was not even commented upon. The expansion of this cultural power beyond the private province of whites has been a tremendous advance for black America. Conversely, for those who’ve long treasured white exclusivity, the existence of a President Barack Obama is discombobulating, even terrifying. For as surely as the iconic picture of the young black boy reaching out to touch the president’s curly hair sends one message to black America, it sends another to those who have enjoyed the power of whiteness.

This is a familiar trope: Liberalism as a sort of ESP, imparting to the anointed a magical psychic mind-reading ability, so that the inner motives and beliefs of conservatives are always transparent to their liberal critics. It has been this way at least as far back as Theodor Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality. No matter how often we point out the bogusness of this style of “argument” (which is really just name-calling), liberals keep trotting it out, as if no one could possibly doubt their mystic ability to know the evil motives of their opponents.

Every so often, liberals will proclaim that what they want is a “discussion” or a “dialogue” about race, but any effort to actually have such a discussion is doomed by the liberal’s imagined intellectual and moral superiority — the “dialogue” becomes a monologue and the “discussion” becomes a lecture, because no conservative deserves to be treated with respect, as if his ideas might actually be valid.

Conservatives being manifestly inferior, the liberal is entitled to turn any “discussion” into a sermon on the moral wrongness of conservatives: “They gonna put y’all back in chains!”

Yes, Joe Biden is your moral superior, merely because he is a liberal Democrat and you are not. Your inferiority disqualifies you as a participant in the discussion, and your role as a conservative is to sit there in apologetic shame while you’re scolded. You may not talk back, no matter what provocations Ta-Nehisi Coates may shove at you:

When 9/11 happened, I wanted nothing to do with any kind of patriotism, with the broad national ceremony of mourning. I had no sympathy for the fire­fighters, and something bordering on hatred for the police officers who had died. I lived in a country where my friend — twice as good — could be shot down mere footsteps from his family by agents of the state. God damn America, indeed.

This is the Rorshach motif again: Coates describes his feelings — his emotional association of the 9/11 hijacking with his friend’s death in a mistaken-identity case involving Prince George’s County (Md.) Police Cpl. Carlton Jones — and dares us to argue with his feelings. Coates deliberately appeals to irrational symbolism and expects no one to quarrel with his provocative expression of anti-patriotism, because anyone who does so would be volunteering as a target, branding himself with The Scarlet H and inviting an angry lecture about racism. And in case you missed the extortionist’s threat, Coates gives you another hint:

In a democracy, so the saying goes, the people get the government they deserve. Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a country so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.

What the hell is this “Al Roker standard”? Never mind.

What Coates is signaling to those “in the professional world” (presumably including his white Atlantic supervisors and co-workers) is that his own courtesy toward them is a careful masquerade, his “dulcet tones” a disguise for the barely controllable rage he feels toward them, his shame at having to seek “white acceptance” by soothing their “racial consciousness” in this “infantile” country.

This kind of self-dramatizing tantrum, of course, is exactly what we have come to expect from liberals. If Coates’s tantrum is more elegantly expressed than the incoherent chants of the Occupy mobs, it is still a tantrum. And he calls us “infantile”!

UPDATE: Figuring that nearly 10,000 words from Coates weren’t enough, Jamelle Bouie at The American Prospect piles on:

Of course there are politicians and political parties that capitalize on racism. Why wouldn’t they? The end of our state-sanctioned racial caste system is a recent event in our history; more recent than Medicare or Medicaid, more recent than the advent of computers, more recent than the interstate highway system, and more recent than Social Security. Taken in the broad terms of a nation’s life, we’re only a few weeks removed from the widespread acceptance of white supremacy.

Right. I’m 52 and was not yet in kindergarten when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law. Is there, “in the broad terms of a nation’s life,” some sort of expiration date on grudge-based politics?

Or are we not supposed to notice that Jamelle Bouie (University of Virginia, Class of ’09) was born during the second term of the Reagan administration and thus is rehearsing grievances that pre-date his birth by more than two decades? It makes as much sense, really, as invoking the Smoot-Hawley tariff or Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech as the basis of our politics. I’m anti-tariff and pro-gold, but these policy preferences have nothing to do with the interest-group politics of my great-grandfather’s era, and anyone would be puzzled if I were to argue as though we were living in the Gilded Age or the Roaring Twenties: “Standard Oil! Monopolies! Temperance! Child labor! Women’s suffrage!” 

Why, then, do most people not object when youngsters (Coates was born in 1975, and was not quite 2 years old when Jimmy Carter was elected president) invoke an increasingly remote oppression as if they themselves had endured it, or as if there were a danger of its return?

The politics of nostalgia is the politics of fools.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Racism

Blackmail: Paradoxical As It Is Raaaaacist

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Blogs written by lawyers tend to be high-quality and thoughtful. And the legal blogs, naturally pose thoughtful legal questions. But now and again you see one that really doesn’t seem so hard.

  1. I am generally perfectly free to publish embarrassing information about you — in fact, I generally have the constitutional right to do so. (The “disclosure of private facts” tort may constrain this in some instances, but the tort has been read quite narrowly, and much revelation of embarrassing secrets is not tortious and constitutionally protected.) Likewise, I am free to keep quiet about such information.
  2. I am generally perfectly free to ask you for money — or to ask you to do something else — in exchange for my doing something (here, keeping quiet) that I have no preexisting legal obligation to do. This distinguishes classic extortion, where I ask you for $10,000 not to burn down your store: Because I have a legal obligation not to burn down your store, it’s easy to explain why extortionate threats to burn down the store would be punishable. I will use “blackmail” to mean just threats to reveal information, not threats to commit illegal violence or property destruction.
  3. But if I ask you for money or a service in exchange for my not revealing embarrassing information about you, then that’s a crime. What’s the explanation? Legal scholars have debated this for decades, and to my knowledge have not come up with a perfectly satisfactory answer.

To be sure, the legal system often happily ignores conundrums such as this.

Two words: ‘seduction’, ‘rape’.

While it may be wildly immoral, there is nothing unethical about swindling people. That is, pushing external information at people in a non-coercive manner to separate the fool from the loot. Conversely, actual or implied violence used to coerce behavior (#2 above) is precisely the kind of Chicago-esque behavior that legitimate government seeks to minimize. Government is supposed to enhance liberty, and holding a monopoly on violence, including blackmail, is part of that whole social contract.

Taking the rest of Volokh’s quiz:

A. Look, if you are behaving at rest stops in ways that could prove embarrassing, recall Ancient Commenter Solomon:

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

Now, in the age of George Zimmerman, merely keeping your nose clean may not be enough in all cases. But, for the most part, if your powder stays dry, you’ll do OK.

B. Again, Volokh posits that Person A has engaged in embarrassing Behavior B, and the Blackmailer C is using the information to alter behavior. Repent, A: your misery is based upon your clinging to B. Playing the ‘victim’ card no worky-worky unless you’re clean.

C. Indeed, exposing the behavior of a sloppy manufacturer is worthwhile, but the legal system is supposed to referee all that. So that it doesn’t veer into, you know, blackmail.

D.

. . .the principle that blackmail may be outlawed has not much expanded into areas that may at first seem to be analogous. “This is quite similar to blackmail, and should therefore be treated just like blackmail is” is an argument that courts are pretty cautious about endorsing, precisely because they realize that quite a few things that are quite similar to blackmail must remain legal, and may even be constitutionally protected.

We live in an economy predicated upon consumers remaining sheepish, and enjoying the sheer joy of getting shaved down. Consenting adults, and all that.

Category: Volokh Conspiracy

Like the New York Times, But Better

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 8 Comments

Dan Riehl called me the other day to tell me he was re-launching his site with a design similar to the New York Times.

The New RIEHL WORLD VIEW Is Here

The new design is impressive, and Dan provides an interesting selection of headlines, including this one:

Lesbian Charlie Rogers faked hate
crime to advance political agenda?

Let that be a lesson to you newbie bloggers: Never miss an opportunity to use “lesbian” in a headline. And this story of bogus homophobia is quite interesting itself:

A Nebraska woman was arrested for faking an anti-gay hate crime in which she claimed three masked men bound her, cut words into her skin and spray-painted slurs on her wall before setting her house on fire.
Charlie Rogers, 33, had told police that the three assailants broke into her Lincoln, Neb., home on July 22. . . .
Reports of the alleged assault outraged the gay community, and hundreds of people participated in rallies outside the Nebraska capitol building, and at a park in Omaha.

So she’s the Tawana Brawley of the gay-rights movement. But that’s just one of today’s headlines at Dan’s new site. A few more:

Notice that Dan’s choice of news is not all-politics-all-the-time. Dan understands that one reason readers turn to New Media is to seek a different perspective in aggregating and curating news.

It’s not all about politics and opinions, but rather about the ability of the blogger/editor to present the reader with facts that might otherwise go unnoticed. A blogger may have a specialty or a particular viewpoint that makes his work distinctive, but success in online New Media ultimately depends on the news value of the site: How well does it serve the function of keeping the reader informed? That’s one reason why Wombat’s daily “Live at Five” headline roundup has been such a valuable addition to this blog.

Not every site on the Internet is (or should be) a general-interest news site. But whatever the topic, the value to readers is in facts, not opinions.

Dan Riehl understands that, and his site’s re-design provides a new, improved format for appreciating his work. Good on ya, Dan.

Visit RIEHL WORLD VIEW Now

Category: Dan Riehl

Lowry to Climate-Change Zealot: Put Your Hockey Stick Where the Sun Don’t Shine

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 21 Comments

For my money, the funniest thing in National Review editor Rich Lowry’s reply to global-warming guru Michael Mann is this:

Is it too much to ask that world-renowned climate scientists spend less time on Facebook?

Mann posted a number of enraged Facebook rants because his notorious “hockey stick” graph, projecting a sharp increase in global temperatures caused by CO2 emissions, was brutally mocked by Mark Steyn.

Mann is on the faculty of Penn State, which claimed to have conducted an “investigation” of scientific fraud in Mann’s climate-change studies. Is Mann therefore “the Jerry Sandusky of climate change”? It’s a fair question, said Steyn:

If an institution is prepared to cover up systemic statutory rape of minors, what won’t it cover up?

Since the 2009 release of the ClimateGate e-mails — remember “hide the decline”? — it has become obvious to most lay observers that Mann and his colleagues valued their hypothesis more than they valued facts. Among other things, the ClimateGate e-mails showed that caretakers of the global-warming “consensus” conspired to delegitimize their critics and exclude skeptics from the peer-review process.

In response to Steyn’s post, Mann’s lawyer sent a letter to National Review demanding a retraction and an apology, and citing a number of investigations that had found no proof of deliberate fraud by Mann and his colleagues. Ah, but there’s the rub.

To skeptics, these investigations seemed very much like part of a cover-up, a whitewash intended to protect the climate-change industry, which has become a mammoth academic boondoggle funded almost exclusively through government grants. With hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants at stake, with major government agencies having staked their own prestige on the validity of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, the inherent incentives to suppress the appearance of scandal were obvious enough: Follow the money.

Mann’s threat of a lawsuit is, Lowry recognizes, merely a threat — and an empty one, at that. “Discovery is a bitch,” as the lawyers say:

If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.
And this is where you come in. If Mann goes through with it, we’re probably going to call on you to help fund our legal fight and our investigation of Mann through discovery. If it gets that far, we may eventually even want to hire a dedicated reporter to comb through the materials and regularly post stories on Mann.

Exactly. Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel (or pixels by the terrabyte, as the case may be). Above and beyond handing Lowry the journalistic license to go rooting around in Mann’s life and career, a legal fight with Mann would provide National Review with a lucrative fundraising opportunity and a publicity bonanza. How many Drudge links, talk-radio segments and Fox News interviews would be inspired by such a lawsuit?

By God, I envy Lowry for having received this threat from Mann’s lawyer. If I’d only known that calling Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate change” was the Golden Ticket . . . Wait a minute.

Look, I’m not saying that Mann has done anything illegal, OK? But just because something is legal doesn’t mean it isn’t scandalous.

For example, it is apparently legal to have sex with a 17-year-old boy at an interstate rest stop, but a Minnesota Democrats has decided that it’s sufficiently scandalous that he shouldn’t seek re-election.

Michael Mann: The Kerry Gauthier of Climate Science!

Sue me. Please. I need the money.

 





 

Category: Global Warming

LIVE AT FIVESEVEN: 08.23.12

Posted on | August 23, 2012 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Obama’s Divide & Conquer Strategy Versus Romney’s Focus On The Economy

The President sweet-talks part of his base

How’s that working? Not very well, apparently.

Romney’s Energy Plan: Independence By 2020
More oil & gas drilling, devolve some permitting to states



Tropical Storm Isaac A Threat To GOP Convention?
So far, no problem seen, but state emergency management is working closely with RNC



POLITICS
Washington’s Budget, Tax Impasse Could Make A Bad Economy Even Worse

Ground zero for the impending disaster

CBO projects contracting economy, increased unemployment if current standoff continues

Temple Massacre Has Sikhs Mulling (More) Gun Ownership



Akin Victory Seen As Difficult But Still Possible

Six Hidden Fault Lines In Obama Campaign

Networks Black Out Ann Romney’s Keynote Speech

Facebook Extends Its Reach Into US Politics With “I’m Voting” App

Fight Over Poll Hours In Ohio Isn’t Just Political



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Surges On Expected Stimulus, Gulf Storms: NYMEX $98.12, Brent $115.82
Gold Rallies To 16-Week High As Fed Indicates More Stimulus
PRC Manufacturing Activity Hits 9-Month Low
Sales Of Existing Homes Up 2.3% In July
Half Of Mortgage Holders Under 40 Also Underwater
FTC Approves Facebook’s Purchase Of Instagram
Sony Mobile To Cut 1000 Jobs, Move To Tokyo
Clumsy Computer Users Rejoice! The Washable Keyboard Is Here
Deathmatch: Windows 8 Versus OS X
Google Building Privacy “Red Team” After FTC Settlement
Facebook Messages Gets A Dual-Pane Makeover
How Nokia’s Asha-Series Basic Phones Are Buying Time For A Comeback
Beat Up Obama, Romney In “Infinity Blade” Creators’ New Political Game



SPORTS
Giants Sweep Dodgers With 8-4 Win

Giants SS Joaquin Arias racks up 5 RBIs including 2-run homer

Giants leave LA with 2.5-game lead in NL West

A’s Pitcher Colon Suspended 50 Games For Testosterone Use

PSU Ex-Prez Attacks Report’s Claims That He Covered Up Abuse

Jeter Suggests ESPN’s Bayless Ought To Check Himself For HGH Use

Mets Waste Another Fine Harvey Start, Lose To Rockies 5-2

Youngsters Pitch Snakes To Doubleheader Sweep Over Fish

Braves  Avert Sweep, Beat Detwiler & Nats 5-1



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Kennedy Mom: Taylor Swift Crashed Wedding

Taylor Swift goes boating with Conor Kennedy over the weekend

“She’s no wedding crasher,” Swift’s publicist replies

Wills Not Impressed With Harry’s Nude Pix

Vivienne Jolie-Pitt Lands Role In Mom’s Movie “Maleficent”

LL Cool J Lays Beatdown On Home Invader


Avril Lavigne Shows Off 14-Karat Engagement Ring

Unspeakable Armenian Indulges In Rear-End Action On LA Freeway

John Mayer Goes To Dinner Without Katy Perry

Ellen DeGeneres In Talks To Return For “Finding Nemo” Sequel



FOREIGNERS
PRC Telco Keeping Syria On The Internet
South Africa Mourns Victims Of Mine Violence
PRC Talks Tough With Japan But Reins In Senkaku Island Activists
UN Chief Brushes Off International Pressure, Will Attend Tehran Summit Of Non-aligned Movement
Death Toll From Intra-Muslim Fighting In Lebanon Climbs
Queen Not Amused By Harry’s Nude Romp In Vegas
Ethnic Clashes In Kenya Kill 52
US, Turkey Meet To Speed Assad’s End
Egyptian Tank Deployment Tests ’79 Treaty With Israel
Tokyo Re-Examines Cooperation With Seoul
NDA Sticks To Demand For PM Singh’s Resignation



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: The President’s Utility – How Chicago’s Exelon Reaped Stimulus Cash And Fast-Track Merger Approval From The Administration
WyBlog: Now We Know How To Spell Ohio In Austrian
Modicum Of Insanity: Look Who’s Jumped In On The Akin Pounding
Power Line: Are The Democrats Delusional On Abortion?
Lonely Conservative: Democrats Finally Settle On Convention Theme – It’s An Abortion Festival!
Jammie Wearing Fools: Bourbon Soaked-Lush Maureen Down Calls Paul Ryan “Just A Fresh Face On A Taliban Creed”
Wizbang: The First Rule Of Fight Club Is That You Do Not Talk About Fight Club
Kevin Williamson: Like A Boss
Ralph Z. Hallow: GOP Takes Tough Platform Approach
Gateway Pundit: Video Shows Obama On Board With Late-Term Abortions
Twitchy: “O-I-H-O” – Obama’s Dan Quayle Moment
NewsBusters: WaPo Reporters Claim Actual, Embarrassing Photo Was Really Photoshooped
Riehl World News: Lesbian Fakes Hate Crime To Advance Political Agenda
Jim Pethokoukis: No, Stephanie, Obama Hasn’t Created More Jobs Than Reagan
Weasel Zippers: Joe Biden Is Like “A Sunny Day”
Professor Bainbridge: Skeel On The Eroding Rule Of Law

Category: Live at Five

R-Money, Alpha Male

Posted on | August 22, 2012 | 15 Comments

Kevin Williamson of National Review got all Darwinian about how Mitt Romney is such a dominant beast — a living expression of primal urges — and the funniest thing about it is the reaction (via Memeorandum) from a certain blogger we call Jazzy McPonytail:

You’ll never see a clearer depiction of right wing values, and it’s not a pretty picture.

Lighten up, Charles. Your own beta-male failures are not Mitt’s fault.

UPDATE: Permit me to point out the extreme irony of Charles Johnson’s whiny I’m-so-offended objections to Williamson’s article.

Who does CJ hate worse than anything? Creationists who are skeptical toward evolutionary theory. Yet here is Williamson, taking Darwinism to what is arguably its logical conclusion — the science is settled! — and Johnson rejects it because Williamson’s conclusion is “right wing.”

However, let some fundamentalist invoke the authority of the Creator — as in, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator,” etc. — and Johnson would have a conniption about that, too.

Lacking self-awareness, CJ is blind to his own contradictory biases and yet adamantly certain of his own intellectual supremacy.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . .”

Category: Charles Johnson
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