The guy with the camera looks a bit like Will Folks:
Hey, I already own the “Elena Kagan nude” Google bomb. Thanks to G.G. for the tip on this one.
Do Liberals Really Care About The ‘Human Condition’?
by Smitty
Jay Nordlinger over at the Corner offers this:
I’m grateful to both Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters for something: They admitted, yes, the media are liberal, and a good thing, too. It has to be that way, they said. For — and this is Walters talking — journalism involves the “human condition,” and liberals care about the human condition. Unlike conservatives, who of course couldn’t give a rat’s a** about the human condition.
Beyond all of the whinging and finger pointing at conservatives, I’m stymied to come up with any evidence of such. How is it, exactly, that you ‘care about the human condition’, when you create bloated bureaucracies, disintegrating social services, and an unimaginable debt?
Seriously. Intent, while not counting for nothing, has to answer to results. If the theory fails to produce desirable results, then intellectual honesty dictates that the theory, not the results, go under the bus. The theoretical basis for the US Government hasn’t failed. Rather, the Progressive ‘Human Condition’ nonsense of the last century has proven a complete stinker.
I can think of a two-word phrase to offer these liberals, the second of which is “you“.
Obamanomics: Still Not Working
As of 12:40 p.m. today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off more than 230 points, down below 9,900. This decline — about 2%, and roughly twice what the futures market had signaled overnight — is probably due to a sharp drop in consumer confidence. This is being interpreted as a strong indicator of a double-dip recession.
Timely advice from Rick Santelli:
Somehow, this video also seems timely:
BONUS: “Unexpectedly“!
UPDATE 4:10 p.m. ET: The final close was 9,870, down 268 points, and everyone on CNBC is now saying “double-dip.” We might say that the apostles of “recovery” — who were high-fiving each other in April, when the Dow was 1,300 points higher — now have about as much remaining credibility as that Daily Kos pollster.
How to Lose $56 Million a Year
Hire Jon Meacham as editor of your magazine:
The auction of Newsweek looks to be heading to some sort of ending.
Final bids for the troubled weekly are expected by 5 pm Thursday at investment bank Allen & Co., according to the New York Post. There are five parties in the running, including Newsmax Media, OpenGate Capital, Thane Ritchie, Sidney Harmon and Fred Drasner, the one-time partner of Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman.
Much has been made about the financial state of Newsweek, the legendary weekly that produced $56 million in operating losses in 2009 and an $11 million loss in first quarter. . . . “The amount of money they lost is shocking,” said one buyout executive who saw the Newsweek books but passed. “It’s a classic old world publishing business that did nothing to adjust to the new world reality.”
Yeah. A one-year subscription to Newsweek is $40. You can read this blog for free, but if you want a “Certified Tip Jar Hitter” mug, I think we’d consider $40 in the tip jar as an acceptable mimimum, although $56 million would be OK, too.
(Hat-tip: Ben Domenech.)
Subversive Newspaper Columnist
No, not Paul Krugman or Dave Weigel. I’m talking about Vicky Pelaez, a columnist for the Spanish-language El Diario for more than 20 years, who was among the suspected Russian agents rounded up by the FBI yesterday. Patrick Ishmael at Hot Air Green Room:
Dig around the Internet and you’ll find a few choice nuggets written by Ms. Pelaez, mostly in Spanish. US prisons as modern-day slavery? Check. Arizona’s “unholy” immigration law as modern-day Nazi legislation? Check. The United States as wanton human rights violator? Check. . . .
UPDATE: Speaking of Dave Weigel — and, yeah, I know our readers are thoroughly sick of hearing about him — he just scored a regular gig at MSNBC (where he appeared Monday night to discuss Rick Barber’s latest ad). Daniel Foster of National Review has a long interview with Weigel, the most important part of which is this:
I was an a**hole, basically.
Basically. And I’m an a**hole sometimes, too. Which may explain why I’m more tolerant of Weigel than those of you who are not a**holes.
Recommended Reading From Top Hayekian Public Intellectuals
Since being named a “Top Hayekian Public Intellectual” in April 2009 — we have a secret handshake and meet in a treehouse behind Thomas Sowell’s garage — I’ve striven to uphold the honor of the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian School economist.
A devotion to “spontaneous order” means that admission to our ranks is open to all, and Greg Ransom at the Hayek Center offers a list of recommended readings for would-be Hayekians:
Glenn Reynolds, Stacy McCain and Dr. Helen Smith have been recommending Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice (Law, Legislation & Liberty, Vol. 2). McCain calls the book, “One of the finest treatises Hayek ever wrote.”
If Ransom’s list was intended as ‘Lanche-bait — I was a hard-boiled cynic long before I became a Hayekian — allow me to suggest that the proper method is to invoke “Professor Glenn Reynolds.”
Perhaps not quite as sure-fire as “Cthulhu,” but . . .
Witness for the Prosecution
On the list of witnesses for the Kagan confirmation hearings is a name I know well:
Capt. Flagg Youngblood, United States Army
Flagg is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, but I know him better as a former campus organizer for the Young America’s Foundation — we sat at the same dinner table at a YAF conference in 2008. He’s a Nashville native and Yale University graduate. Because Yale had abolished ROTC, Flagg commuted 70 miles to participate in the ROTC program at the University of Connecticut.
What kind of witness will he be at the Kagan hearings? This is from a column he wrote yesterday for Human Events:
If Kagan’s confirmation is to be stopped, conservatives must reach beyond the purview of our normal public policy concerns, and ask all dissatisfied Americans to take a moment from their busy lives to share a simple message with their senators. Namely, Obama’s policies are destroying our economy, our national security, our environment, our future. Elena Kagan cannot be permitted to permanently enthrone the Obama agenda on the Supreme Court.
And this is from a column Flagg wrote shortly after Obama nominated Kagan:
Elena Kagan, the President’s pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, is an affable and intelligent Trojan horse.
Obama’s high court nominee has been groomed for years, standing ready for the judicial mission of advancing the secular-progressive agenda, if confirmed, for decades to come.
Conservatives can (and must!) build a coalition to defeat Kagan’s nomination.
The title of that column? “Supreme Court Sleeper Agent: Elena Kagan.” Heh. She’s a sleeper agent, all right:
Let’s Cut Out The Buffett Blasphemy Right Now
by Smitty
Update: I am rightfully taken to task by the Wondering Jew, in the comments, for my non-command of spelling in the title. I blame too much blood in my margarita system.
This blog is witnessing some extremely un-mellow comments, as witnessed on the Insulted Again thread. The Wondering Jew offered this completely unacceptable observation:
If you listen to Jimmy’s early albums you will also see some of the best singer-songwriting out there. He was a really talented chronicler of a certain Southern-fried, beach oriented, hard-living, anti-authority lifestyle. But later on Jimmy got too in love with being cute and if you ever listen to one of his newer albums or go to a Buffett show today, it’s all about Margaritaville Tequila and drunk fratboys.
Wrap your ears around around this Katrina memorial, and sin no more, you:
Now you sunny beaches know how I feel.