"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
OK, so I was watching the “Academic Vagina” video I posted earlier, and then I noticed another video from the same site. Watch it:
Did you see the guy at the 35-second mark, playing Tekken in class?
If that’s not Ace of Spades, it’s his twin brother.
“Consider if you will, the rhetoric the left used against Reagan when he ran in 1980. I was twelve at the time, and our school was all about the election. . . . Back then, we all did the ‘Weekly Reader’ thing in school. They had us vote in their mock election, which, they had bragged, had never been wrong in predicting Presidential elections. I voted for Reagan, and made the apparent mistake of sharing that information. The result? The teacher said he would start a war. My classmates said he would start a war. Hell, even my mother said he would start a war. I would not have been surprised if a voice came over the PA, saying, ‘He’ll start a war, kid.’ Obviously, the left did manage to create the narrative that Reagan was a warmonger, and would trigger the apocalypse shortly after taking office. It was a knee jerk reaction from Democrats — almost like an old talking toy with a drawstring. You say ‘Reagan,’ and pull the string, and a Democrat says ‘warmonger.'”
— Matt Ross, Conservative Hideout
Lee Fang at Think Progress sees a conspiracy afoot:
This weekend, David and Charles Koch, co-owners of the Koch Industries conglomerate of chemical, timber, oil and manufacturing interests, are hosting their twice annual meeting to coordinate strategy and raise funds for the conservative movement. . . .
Among those in attendance at the meeting in Rancho Mirage, California, is Herman Cain. Still a year to go until the Iowa caucuses, and he’s already got ’em shaking in their shoes.
“Because if we were good at life, we wouldn’t need more school.”
(Via Snaggletoothie, who posted this video the day before he suffered a fatal seizure last week. R.I.P., Chris Monson.)
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! By the way, an earlier installment in this video series appears to have starred Ace of Spades.
by Smitty
Tyler Cowen’s little book, “The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better” is interesting, but I’m nonplussed by this notion:
Right-wing ideas, in their least viable forms, have become more popular in this political environment. From the American right, tax cuts are one way to raise incomes immediately, and so politicians market tax cuts to voters. Shortsighted voters usually favor tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts. So, in the short run, real incomes will be higher, but we’re just running up debt and postponing and indeed intensifying our dissatisfaction.
This is among the prime irritants of the Progressive Faith (not to accuse Prof. Cowen of adherence, mind you): a blind acceptance that the status quo is somehow proper, and a confinement of discussion to a small enough time frame to make it all seem ‘normal’.
The notion that tax cuts are merely a populist power ploy misses the point that the federal over-reach has been achieved by trampling the spirit of the Constitution in a systematic way over the last century. Sure, the ignorance of the people and the SCOTUS have been fig leaves for the problem. Also, one would be unsurprised to discover that the math involved in tax cutting has been dodgy. Fine. However, if intellectual (“It won’t work”)and historical (“We’re pissing on liberty”) appeals fail, then what should be done?
The tax cutting approach, possibly, will be viewed in retrospect as a “reverse Piven” strategy. Instead of establishing a guaranteed national income, break the input to the national income on the front end.
In the information age, liberty should abound, not be sacrificed to bureaucracy.
“I have to pay 150 pounds a day to bribe police officers to let me sell on this pavement. How can I be this educated and not find proper work?”
— Ramadan Mohamed, Law graduate selling sunglasses on Cairo street
Don’t try this at home, kids. It takes a special kind of stupid:
“Leading off tonight: Unrest in Egypt. Proving the Iraq war wasn`t needed, these protests in Egypt, as well as in Yemen and Tunisia, are all aimed at dictators supported by the U.S. The demonstrations have not yet turned anti-American, but they could. These are the events the Bush administration hoped to encourage by lying about weapons of mass destruction and invading Iraq.”
Noel Sheppard tries to make sense of Matthews’ idiocy, but it’s a waste of time trying.
UPDATE: Adjoran in the comments: “If it weren’t for conservatives monitoring his show to catch his gaffes, he would have no audience at all.”
Meanwhile, Matthews says the Panama Canal is in Egypt, and Instpundit is almost moved to pity: “It is, of course, the kind of mistake anyone can make on the air. But it’s true — if Palin made it, it would be proof of stupidity.”
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