The Other McCain

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

Jerry Sandusky Is To Joe Paterno As. . .

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 22 Comments

by Smitty

. . .Eric Holder is to. . .

They told me that if I voted for John McCain, executive accountability would be for the little people. So far, they’ve been proven quite correct, no thanks whatsoever to that craven sack of a Senator from Nevada.

Just to belabor the point here, this post is not equating professional incompetence with being a sex offender. The point, rather, is directed at those in charge of the ones living in infamy.

Via Iowahawk on Twitter: as for Sandusky, may God have mercy on your blighted soul, sir. And justice be done. As a newly-minted father, I would really have to pray hard for the Almighty to deliver enough mercy to cover you, if the half of the rumors are true. So let them be false rumors, or, if true, let justice be served.

I’ve heard some say there are humans that “need killin'”.

Update: linked at The POH Diaries, with a picture of Sandusky.

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Eric Holder, Pennsylvania

Well-Informed Customers Are Well-Armed Customers

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Freakonomics discusses an NYU mashup that maps out subsidized housing:

As the article makes clear, this database performs a variety of worthwhile functions — allowing renters or buyers to locate affordable housing; letting affordable-housing advocates keep track of when subsidized buildings are scheduled to potentially lose their subsidized status; etc.
There’s one potential function the article didn’t mention, however. Am I a cynic (or a jerk, or maybe just a realist) for thinking that this database will also be used by renters and homebuyers eager to avoid neighborhoods that have a lot of subsidized housing?

It would be unsurprising, after a time, that if the application gains traction it drives the property values toward an inverted bell-curve. You’d think you’d go for a normal distribution, but subsidies do nothing if not queer a market.

When things get bad enough, you can bail out the subsidized market, because two bad policies form a double negative and make things all keen again, don’t they?

Oh, and speaking of great economists like Sowell, via @GinTheGin, we have an example in Herman Cain where the legal system has been sadly distorted:

The real scandal is that the law allows people to impose heavy costs on others at little or no cost to themselves. That is a perfect setting for legalized extortion.

The good news is that the people smelled rat, or at least John Edwards’ hair spray, and knew there was more to the story. Increasingly, where there is smoke, there is smoke machine.

Update: linked by Daily Pundit.

Category: Economics

Victor Davis Hanson Thinks Than Romney Is The Only GOP Candidate Who Can Win

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Roger Simon of PJTV interviews the mighty Victor Davis Hanson. The post was linked by somebody, then dropped. Probably a simple rescheduling, though, I’ll not cite the blogger, on the off chance that the retraction has some other meaning. If you blog enough, these odd corner cases of etiquette will pop up, I suppose.

Fascinating stuff. Hanson’s take on BHO is really quite interesting. He has far more respect for BHO’s political acumen than many, who figure BHO for a pure thug.

As for whether Romney is the only candidate with sufficient chops to stand a chance next year, well, if it is the case that we are needing any savior figure, I call that a loss in advance. If Romney does win the nomination and the election, it shall have been on the support of the Tea Partiers. He had better both know that and behave accordingly.

Category: Barack Obama, PJTV, Politics, Uncategorized

GOP May Gain Control Of VA Senate. Also, InstaVision Offers A Sarah Palin Tease UPDATE: A Sarah Palin ‘Vacuum’?

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 44 Comments

by Smitty

Jason Kenney at Bearing Drift reports that canvassing is done in Spotsylvania for the 17th Senatorial District, with a 226 vote margin for the GOP hopeful. This is good news, and will hopefully lead to results substantial enough to reach the misguided voters in Ohio.

Speaking of misguided, voters in my VA Senatorial District love the Democrat incumbent, and also hate bow ties as much as Paco. Somebody needs to tell Paco that bow ties are as traditional, masculine, conservative, squared-away and action-ready as the fedora.

For me, the neck tie is all about conformity. One calls a meeting at the office. Even when tarted up with a knot from Matrix Reloaded, one is still encumbered with the fact that the bulk of the chaps in the room are wearing, *yawn* neck ties.

And so you step out. You acquire a fetching bit of silk from Carrot & Gibbs or Beau Ties, master the art of doing at the neck what you’ve been doing on the shoe your whole life (for truly, anyone wearing a cheater is worthy of as much disdain as Paco has poured upon the humble bow tie) and wear it to the meeting.

Now, you have made a statement! Yes, you say, I understand this is business, and we have to comport ourselves to a certain standard. If you’re not as rich as Richard Branson, you cannot flit about wearing a cravat and walking into the meeting like you’re walking onto a yacht. Yet you have not been so quotidian as to wear Yet Another Necktie.

People notice.  “How do you tie one of those?” they ask. To which you gently reply, “The word ‘bow’ is an indicator.” Quite a few lads are bow-tie curious. It is not an occasion to condescend if they indicate the desire to man-up and have a go at the bow. Rather, encourage.

The bow tie, like sound conservative principles, may yet help save these United States.

For some good follow-on wonkery, do watch Michael Barone on Instavision. Toward the end, Insty throws out the Palin bait. Barone gives the notion of Sarah pulling a Reagan a solid ‘Meh’. Too late for the early state primaries. Intellectually, I’m in full agreement. In some emotional dimension, it would be momentarily cool, but remember this: Barack was elected with a lot of irrational exuberant rah-rah, as well. Repeat after me: There Is No Political Savior. If you want the U.S. to turn around, it starts with you, not candidate X, Y, or Z.

Although, pot-stirrer that I am, note this: I can’t help but think that if X, Y, or Z persuaded Sarah to join the ticket as VP, it would be an astounding win-win. That candidate would gather her phenomenal grass-roots support, and she would garner the executive résumé bullets. Furthermore, after eight years of X, Y, or Z, Sarah steps up to President (the way St. Albert of Gore did not). If you actually want to make course alterations for the ship of state away from the current European-style Welfare State Debacle heading, having Sarah on board would be an awesome way to go.

But who listens to me?

Update: Quigley at The Hill, emphasis mine:

Newt Gingrich rises, in opposition to MSM. He appears the best option now to face Romney. But is his appeal broad enough, and can the professor appeal to plain folk? That is the question and that is the question that Sarah Palin should be asking this morning. Possibly she created “the vacuum on the right” when she got off the bus and took it back to Alaska. As per last night it is safe to say there is still time to get in simply because nothing else is working. And the failure of the other contenders works positively in her favor.

I don’t know that it’s a bad thing for conservatives to get past the ‘quest for a rock star’. Nor do I blame Sarah Palin for looking at the banal nature of politics and opting for a role with a lower ‘ick’ factor.

Sarah will, I trust, prayerfully carry out the Divine will for her life as best she can, which is about all that can be asked of anyone.

Category: Blogging, Virginia

The ‘Go-Away’ Money Game

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 38 Comments

Washington, D.C., has a very rigorous “employment rights” regime, as opposed to, say, Floyd County, Georgia, where I had been working before I joined the staff of The Washington Times in 1997. And the sense of entitled grievance-mongering fostered by “employment rights” was profoundly harmful to the workplace environment.

Specific examples? Yeah, sure, I could cite specific examples, but why bother with any examples from my own experience, when we can talk about Karen Kraushaar?

Kraushaar’s former supervisor at the INS, who was named in Kraushaar’s complaint, characterized the 2003 complaint to ABC News as “frivolous,” and said Kraushaar may have been offered a few extra sick days as compensation.
The supervisor alleged that Kraushaar had a “poor work ethic.”

“Poor work ethic”? Why, you mean to tell me that the kind of people who habitually file workplace complaints aren’t the most industrious, cooperative, team-spirited employees? I’m shocked.

Ace slaps Kraushaar around for her complainin’ ways and says:

Apology time: This woman is not credible at all, plainly wants to be paid to not work, and yes, I should have been more skeptical of her.

So we have Kraushaar, who demands that her employer send her to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, because she didn’t think an e-mail was funny. And we have Sharon Bialek, who has a “history,” according to Bill Kurtis, and also seems to be a serious credit risk.

These two women are 50% of Herman Cain’s known accusers, and does anyone want to bet that the other two (still anonymous) accusers have something in their biographies that would suggest bad motives?

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Scandal, Sex

Nicely Worded Lawyer-ese That Really Hacks Me Off

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

Over at Volokh:

The modern Supreme Court is reluctant to directly overrule precedents, especially well-entrenched precedents, but is not at all reluctant to distinguish precedents, even when the distinctions in question are quite strained.

Why on earth are the 9th and 10th Amendments, the Bill of Rights, permitted to be overruled, then? This whole century of Progressivism has been an over-ruling of Article V in the Constitution, and conservatives should be thoroughly hacked off about it. Ken Cuccinelli, at least, gets this.

It occurred to me while driving to Philadelphia this afternoon that, for all #OccupyResoluteDesk is into spreading the wealth, Obama and the rest of the Ruling Class are not interested in sharing any power. Quite the opposite. All the power continues to drain into DC.

Sadly, precious few of even the GOP candidates are discussing the problem in any way that that will amount to a fart in a thunderstorm. Last night’s GOP economics debate substantially featured candidates talking about stylistic changes to the tired old Progressive Fail Train.

Our Constitution is the answer. That Constitution outlines a Federalist machete which, wielded judiciously, would hack the jungle back to something non-stifling. The Enumerated Powers are the guide. But doing that means the lawyers have to get on board with liberty, and quit buying into decades of Postmodern crap disguised as legal opinion. Attempting to turn Progressive sophistries into Constitutional truth by careful degrees would have made an interesting intellectual exercise, if it wasn’t so flipping expensive and difficult to turn around. Overrule precedents? Why, yes: yes, we should. Every opinion that doesn’t maximize liberty is an enemy of liberty.

One recent example of the kind of cloudy thinking that pervades our day comes from the GOP Economics Debate. One moderator (and props to CNBC for keeping things moving a relatively substantive) asked Ron Paul where the ‘government jobs’ would go if we started whacking whole agencies. Let us draw a distinction. Let us call a ‘job’ a private sector billet for a worker, which has a positive economic input. Let us call a government billet a ‘position’, and quit conflating jobs that add to the economy with positions that, necessarily, detract from the economy. The public has tolerated too much handwaving along these lines, too much anti-liberty thinking from lawyers, just because they came from Hale or Yarvard. I am not impressed.

Update: linke at The Camp of the Saints.

Category: Progressivism

LIVE AT FIVE – 11.10.11

Posted on | November 10, 2011 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

TOP NEWS
GOP Candidates Target Housing Market, Tax Reform, And Bailouts In Latest Debate

Participants in the 11/9 Michigan GOP Presidential Candidate Debate

Candidates focus fire on Obama Administration, avoid attacking each other


Has Rick Perry The Brain Worms?!?!?




Paterno, Spanier Out At Penn State
Trustees fire legendary football coach, school president in wake of pedophilia scandal

Italy Struggles To Placate Markets As Crisis Mounts
Parliament works feverishly on reform measures; Berlusconi expected to resign over the weekend once measures are in place.



POLITICS
Cain Blasts “Character Assassination”

Herman Cain at the Michigan debate

Crowd reacts angrily to moderator’s question about harassment; Romney declines to comment: “Look, Herman Cain is the person to respond to these questions. He just did. The people in this room and across the country can make their own assessment.”

Alaskan Storm Batters Bering Sea Coast From Barrow To Bethel

Mississippi’s Defeated Initiative 26 May Be Just The Beginning

Alabama’s Jefferson County Files For Largest Municipal Bankruptcy

Republicans Take Control, “Responsibility” In Virginia

GOP Senators Backing Internet Sales Tax Bill



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Stocks Dive As Bond Yields Push Italy To The Brink
PRC October Exports Growth Weakest In Eight Months
Ag Department Shelves Christmas Tree Tax After Uproar
Cisco Beats The Street Despite Q1 Profit Drop
Home Prices Keep Dropping
Apple Drops Flash For Phones
Net Bandits Charged in $14 Million Ad Fraud Case
Amazon Ups Orders From Kindle Fire Suppliers To 5 Million Units
BlackBerry Loses App For GMail



SPORTS
Penn State Scandal Shatters An American Institution

Joe Paterno walks away from his Nittany Lions

“Once again, the uneasy relationship between powerful college football programs and universities’ role as educators, community hubs and stewards of young people is being harshly scrutinized.”

NBA Owners, Players Meeting As Deadline Expires

Connolly’s OT Goal Lifts Lightning Over Flyers

Bucs Claim Haynesworth On Waivers

With Haynesworth Gone, Will The Pats’ Other Big-Name Underachiever Stay?

Nationals Catcher Wilson Ramos Kidnapped In Venezuela



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Mariah Carey Sings Praises Of Jenny Craig After Postpartum Weight Loss

Mariah Carey, post-baby weight drop

Pop star drops thirty pounds, signs as new celebrity spokesman for weight loss chain

Dakota Fanning’s Advert For Marc Jacobs Banned

Eddie Murphy Drops Out Of Oscars Telecast


Howard Stern Defends Brett Ratner, Slams Hollywood As “Loony” (Video)

Michael Jackson’s Deathbed Up For Auction

Robin Williams Won’t Host Oscars, Says Billy Crystal “May” Be Interested

Madonna: The Director’s Cut



FOREIGNERS
Deal On Greek National Unity Government Collapses
Turkey Quake Kills Five, Scores Trapped In Rubble
Syria Crackdown Prompts PRC, Russia To Call For End To Violence
India, Pakistan Hold Summit In Maldives
UN Admissions Committee Unable To Find Consensus On Palestinian Bid



BLOGS & STUFF
Clayton Cramer: How Much More Evil Dos Our Culture Have To Get?
Don Surber: Feds Investigate Paterno
American Power: Republicans Believe Romney Most Likely To Win Nomination
Rasmussen Polls: Florida – Cain 30%, Romney 24%, Gingrich 19%
Megan McArdle: The Financial Folly Of Fairness
Jammie Wearing Fools: More Antisemitic Lunacy From Zuccotti Park

Category: Live at Five

Who Lost The GOP Economics Debate

Posted on | November 9, 2011 | 31 Comments

 

by Smitty

Candidates who:

  • Accept that working through the IMF to help out Europe is a good idea.
  • Accept the continued evil of the Federal Reserve.
  • Accept the existence of the IRS, and want to change the shade of lipstick on the pig.
  • Accept that the existence of Fannie and Freddie is justified. Unwind them. With a shotgun.
  • Think that bi-partisanship is possible. You make the case for liberty. Reaching across the aisle to mix with fascism is ++ungood.
  • Think that Social Security is some kind of moral imperative. ‘Moral’ is a subjective, religious call. However, Social Security is not even an ethical consideration. It’s a 10th Amendment violation. Screw Social Security. To the wall. With a bridge abutment. Liberty, Mike Foxtrot: liberty!
  • Accept that federal involvement with individual student funding is acceptable.
  • Would dare to panda to China. Everyone knows that China eats, shoots and leaves.

From the Department of Just Sayin’:

Overall, it was a good debate, modulo one moment of sheer agony brought on by Rick Perry. Come on, man!

Category: Debates
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin