Posted by aog11:17 on 09 December 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Who should just die already according to the Australian Broadcasting Company because they are making Gaia cry. At what point can we finally admit that the Green simply hate people?

Posted by aog20:52 on 01 December 2011 Comments (9) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Judicial Watch reports:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

That this isn’t a front page scandal every day, Iran-Contra or anything done by President Bush is one more blatant example of Old Media bias. I become more convinced as time goes on that this was actually about President Obama’s effort on gun control under the radar. Unless he and his Administration are even dumber than I think they are (possible, I suppose).

[source]

Posted by aog20:46 on 01 December 2011 Comments (13) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

The Tea Party (I’m not a member) was an actual angry reaction to Leftism gotten out of hand. OWS, on the other hand, was/is seen as just the Left doing what it normally does with all the coherence that it normally has. OWS, even though it was fawned upon by too-many left-leaners, just appears to be a bored Left letting off steam because unless there’s a Republican president, it’s not kewl to have anti-war, anti-capitalist, etc., cop-fighting demonstrations. Trying to attach thoughtful motives to fairly typical acting-out is probably a waste of time.

— Mnemos

Ann Althouse wonders

The Occupy movement seems to have dropped out of the news lately. Why did that happen?

I agree that it’s basically for the same reason Cindy Sheehan was disappeared once former President Bush was out of office. Which ties in with the first quote.

Posted by aog13:10 on 30 November 2011 Comments (13) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

I dislike defending a President I despise, but I find this kind of thing ridiculous —

Declassified Memo Hinted of 1941 Hawaii Attack. “Three days before the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt was warned in a memo from naval intelligence that Tokyo’s military and spy network was focused on Hawaii, a new and eerie reminder of FDR’s failure to act on a basket load of tips that war was near.”

Yes, I’m sure there was such a memo. But what’s left out is that FDR was getting hundreds (if not thousands) of memos like that every day. It’s so easy, now, after the fact to go back and find the single memo in that massive pile that was important. It’s just a bit harder to do so in real time beforehand.

If you want to impugn FDR’s general handling of the looming war with Japan, that’s fine. FDR had, after all, been acting very aggressively with Japan for a number of years (a foreign policy I agree with, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have readily foreseen consequences like a military response). But to expect him (or anyone) to have magically picked out the one memo is just silly.

Posted by aog10:53 on 26 November 2011 Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

The family has become big fans of Stargate SG-1 and although I find I can barely stand to watch any sort of TV these days, I do catch parts of the occasional episode. One episode in particular, Revisions, involves a computer system on another planet that runs a village inside a force field to protect it from the otherwise poisonous atmosphere. When its power supply starts failing, it shrinks the force field and sends some of the villagers outside so that the remaining ones can fit in the reduced area, and then rewrites memories so the villagers don’t realize what’s going on.

All I could think of, watching this, was how much I wanted to hire the team that wrote it. But the episode completely ignore them. Ah, such is the fate of poor code slingers like me.

Posted by aog20:27 on 24 November 2011 Comments (12) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Nobody doubts why the poor vote for Democrats. They are voting for their benefits. They know that the Democratic Party is the party of the little guy and the traditionally marginalized.

Maybe the rich are just like the poor, and vote their pocket-books too. If you figure that your average Millionaire Next Door owning a couple of small businesses votes for the Republicans, then that leaves the crony capitalists, the green energy promoters, the high-level government administrators, the academic grant recipients, and the trustafarians all voting for the Democrats and bigger government. Otherwise you wouldn’t get to 52 percent voting for Obama.

That makes the Democratic Party the party of the poor and the crony capitalist rich. What does that make the Republican Party? It is at least the party of the middle class. We know that because John McCain won the middle class vote in the middle of an economic meltdown. The middle class stands for limited government and low tax rates, in part on the principle that it cramps the style of class warriors and crony capitalists. That’s because the middle class is nothing if it does not aspire to a better life for itself and its children.

— Christopher Cantrill

What high taxes and over regulation does is hollow out the middle class, leaving only the already very rich (who become part of the Aristocracy of Pull), their clients (who live off the largesse of the rulers), and peons, who do what they’re told and expected to produce the wealth for everyone else. As far as I can tell, this is the desired end state for the MAL who think they’ll all be in the ruling class while those bitter clingers end up on the work farms.

This is what President Obama meant when he said he was going to fundamentally transform America.

Posted by aog11:28 on 26 October 2011 Comments (29) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

That conservative greed that drives the GOP has struck again!.

Oh, wait, that article is about how the accused donated very heavily to the Democratic Party and its leading lights. But clearly, the take away is that it is the GOP that is the party of the Wall Street fat cat thieves.

Walter Russel Mead weighs in as well. My (serious) take away here is that this is a prime example of why the government should restrict itself to regulation and not be involved in any way with actual investments and economic intervention. If it is, then this corruption simply migrates to the Aristocracy of Pull, where those with friends in government are excused because that sort of thing is apparently unexceptional in the public sphere..

P.S. You write a post and more related stuff just shows up in your RSS feeds. I think it should not be forgotten that this kind of thing about government corruption and failure is a never ending stream — I don’t have to dig in to history to have examples, I just have to read my news feeds for a few hours. Over and over and those who rail about private sector excesses just don’t seem to care.

Anyway, while corporations are being hit with ever more pointless yet draconian financial reporting requirements, the equivalent for unions are being relaxed. Mean while President Obama is buying the youth vote with hundreds of billions of taxpayer money without any Congressional input. I of course expect no one who complained so vociferously about President Bush’s inflated opinion of the powers of the Executive Branch to breath one word of disapproval. It’s about the tribes, not the actions for them.

Posted by aog13:41 on 24 October 2011 Comments (4) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Jonah Goldberg writes about something I covered long ago but I laughed out loud at a comment. At one point Goldberg writes about the “Mars need women!” style of alien invasion

why would super-intelligent squids want to get jiggy with our bipedal and mammalian lady folk?

“Ask the Japanese” responded one commenter.

Hahaha. If you don’t get it, you’re probably happier not knowing.

Posted by aog08:46 on 24 October 2011 Comments (4) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

While the State of Illinois is drowning in debt and “being a deadbeat to NGOs”:, it nevertheless is willing to gift million dollar pensions to union officials. While the poor have their services cut due to the state simply not paying its bills, the legislature is doing what it can do make sure rich union officials get richer. Yet I am expected to trust these same people to regulate private businesses.

Perhaps that could explain how the Democratic Party is “becoming a niche party” in Louisiana. …

Nah. It must be those racist, religious bigot Tea Party cells with their Bircher Constitution study guides.

Posted by aog10:35 on 21 October 2011 Comments (19) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Lawrence O’Donnell lectures Herman Cain on how to be black in the segregated South — that’s what you get in Old Media for being “Black while Conservative”.

Posted by aog10:55 on 17 October 2011 Comments (7) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

The Tea Parties are basically normally people, to which some fringe elements have attempted to attach themselves. OWS, in contrast, seems to consist primarily of the fringe. Can anyone point at me at the non-fringe speakers / representatives / leaders of OWS? Paid partisans don’t count. And let’s not forget the increasing amount of calls for violence from OWS (and the resulting encouragement of the whackos). Old Media is doing what it can to cover for OWS but even they can’t seem to quite manage it due the heavy fringe component.

Given the funding sources for these protests, one wonders why those concerned about fascism aren’t concerned about unions and political parties creating cadres of paid agitators who cause trouble in the streets and call for violence.

P.S. An excellent article on young people who are really making a difference.

P.P.S. Evidence emerges that Old Media isn’t just slanting its reporting on behalf of OWS, but actually working directly with the movement while pretending to “report” on it.

Then there’s the OWS incipient violence as according to a respected pollster, 31% would support violence to advance their agenda. How can you look at them as other than street agitators?

Of course, as others have noted these “protestors” are having problems with people taking their rhetoric of the evils of capitalism and consumerism a bit too seriously. After all, it is other people’s stuff that should be free, not theirs. It’s also hard to take them seriously when some of the items stolen are $5500 laptops, iPods, etc. At least their tarpaper shacks should keep the rain off their consumer electronics.

Posted by aog12:05 on 15 October 2011 Comments (21) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

According to a recent indictment —

Two individuals have been charged in New York for their alleged participation in a plot directed by elements of the Iranian government to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with explosives while the Ambassador was in the United States.

[…]

Both defendants are charged with […] conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) […]

There you have it. The FBI considers any explosive to be a weapon of mass destruction, and there’s very little doubt that the Ba’athist regime in Iraq used explosives. Can we now simply laugh at all those claims that there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Posted by aog14:37 on 14 October 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Senator Dick Durbin, who I vote against every chance I get, has managed to once again create legislation that hurts the poor while championing their cause. At what point do you get to presume that this kind of a result is the goal, not an unintended consequence?

Posted by aog14:35 on 14 October 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. calls for suspension of the Constitution “because congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate ‘states in rebellion.’”

Posted by aog11:01 on 06 October 2011 Comments (48) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

What does OWS [Occupy Wall Street] want? A single term provides the answer: rent. These people are, every last one of them, rent-seekers. They seek nothing other than to be provided with the fruits of other people’s labor, innovation, entrepreneurship and risk-taking.

They do not seek greater liberty to innovate or take risks, nor do they want greater freedom to succeed in enterprise. They do appear to want jobs (some of them), but they seem to believe that jobs are existing, free-floating things that someone can and should be required to give them.

— Danube of Thought

The essence of Modern American Left.

Posted by aog15:25 on 15 August 2011 Comments (8) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Gun Crime Drops At Virginia Bars And Restaurants After Liberalized Carry Rules

In other words, exactly what carry advocates predicted, and exactly the opposite of what anti-gun folks predicted. Again.

— Instapundit

I don’t post these so much so I can write “I told you so!” (although I do enjoy that aspect) but far more to illustrate how there are so many things the MAL consider beyond debate that are, in fact, quite debatable, even if the standard response is “you crazy extremist racist theocrat!”.

Posted by aog16:38 on 14 August 2011 Comments (35) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Apparently the FBI thinks anyone preparing for civil disasters needs to be watched because obviously a good subject citizen will sit passively waiting to be rescued by The State. It would be unseemly at best to take care of one’s self, and at worst damaging to society (just look at the hoodlums who dared to try to stop the misunderstood and underserved youth of London — don’t they know that the government has everything under control?).

Of course, it wouldn’t be the government if it didn’t provide a guaranteed failure, with the Department of Homeland Security encouraging people to be prepared. But maybe that’s just so it’s easier to justify watching everyone.

If the government were actually concerned about helping people with disasters rather than fostering dependency, civil defense and preparedness would pay enormous dividends without being particularly expensive. Unfortunately, like feudal lords, our ruling class and their minions can’t stand the thought of the serfs living lives that aren’t controlled by the ruling class. Those bitter clingers would be simply unable to cope if they did not have their betters in charge.

It certainly makes the idea that public transport is much more about control than economy or ecology quite plausible.

Posted by aog13:15 on 12 August 2011 Comments (3) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Apparently in response to the illegal gun running to Mexican gangs by the ATF (and possibly a number of other federal agencies) the Department of Justice intends to impose additional regulations on gun shops. And there are those who wonder why I just laugh when it’s claimed that government regulation is intended to prevent the recurrence of a problem.

Posted by aog09:42 on 11 August 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

While speaking to a crowd in Pennsylvania, [President] Obama scoffed at the notion of high gas prices and told the peasants voters that if gas prices were too high, then maybe they should eat cake instead buy new cars instead

— Hot Air

I am sure Old Media savaged him for this insensitive and out of touch comment…

Posted by aog09:36 on 11 August 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

From Instapundit, a point I have tried to make several times.

Reader Dave Ivers emails: “Having just had a discussion with a close friend on the Left, I truly believe that Obama and probably all of the Left think that 3.5% GDP growth year on year is some sort of natural phenomenon and that no matter what they do it will happen. They then proceeded to trash the things that make that 3.5% growth happen.”

I suspect it’s tied to the general lack of introspection

Once again, the Robert Heinlein quote:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”

What I find fascinating is that so many of the MAL find physical laws rather flexible and human nature malleable, but the fragile conditions that sustain our technological civilization utterly unalterable.

Posted by aog09:20 on 11 August 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed.

Obviously, this means taxes and spending aren’t high enough. After all, it worked for FDR.

Posted by aog09:11 on 11 August 2011 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

While we watch the riots in London, there’s something similar brewing locally with increasing incidents of flash mob violence. Some good links to start with are

• Here with lots of secondary links.
• The Tinderbox
• The Milwaukee Mobs
• Promoters of London rioting

I think we have to ask ourselves how much the class warfare rhetoric of the MAL has done to enable this problem. One might wonder about MAList policies which excuse and minimize the consequences of such actions for certain segments of the population (which makes it, to me, unsurprising that we’re seeing this mainly from those segments).

In that vein, I await with trepidation the first time one of these mobs encounters armed resistance. I have no doubt that when one of these thugs is killed, all of the usual MAList commentators will put the entire blame on the person who resisted civil violence, not the instigators. Which is precisely the attitude that has done so much to enable this behavior, which we can see in the police concerns during the London riots, the kind of thing the MAL has worked for decades to bring to America.

P.S. One notes that these mobs are primarily (entirely?) in cities that are very strongly controlled by the MALists. Should it not be the opposite, where conservative regions that flood the streets with guns have the violence? Should not cities with more progressive policies be more peaceful? I remain confident that no matter what happens, or what policies these MAList cities pursue, it will be the fault of Reagan / Bush / Tea Party / tax cuts / right wing rants.

P.P.S. More results from MAList policies.

Posted by aog09:03 on 11 August 2011 Comments (1) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Unions make threats

Unions hassle uninvolved citizens

I think we might add all the calls for increased social spending in the wake of the London riots. “Pay off the rioters or they’ll do it again”.

P.S. I think the results of the Gladney case were a travesty.

Posted by aog17:45 on 02 August 2011 Comments (1) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

The stories just stack up so fast …

Let’s start with this from the New York Times regarding their reporting about hydraulic fracturing. Even if we skip over the disreputability of that kind of reliance on anonymous sources, check the list of made up titles used by the NYT in the article. I don’t see how that can be described as other than outright lies. We might further note that the purpose of this dishonesty was to influence government policy. I eagerly await the outrage from those journalists who still value their reputation.

Now let us skip across the globe to Australia and a hit piece on Tim Blair which is notable for the blatant and completely fabrications on which it is based. I also note the reflexive “Fox! Murdoch!” accusation which seems to be a replacement for the fading power of “racist!”.

Finally we can look at something with real meat, the entire Global Warmening hoax and its supporters in Old Media. I note that new satellite data puts a big damper on the idea. There’s the CERN data on csmic rays and cloud formation which is being inhibited. We can recall the “anti-science” diatribes against President Bush — perhaps we can hear something similar about this?

But the essential point is all of the “the science is settled!” reporting, when it wasn’t. The mocking abuse of any critic or skeptic (such as the “climate denialist” label). All of it intended to influence, if not control, public policy and the economics of the entire planet. Is this still not big enough to demand the termination of those news organizations that participated?

P.S. There’s the aiding and abetting of the gunwalker coverup as well. Let’s not leave that behind.

Posted by aog14:18 on 02 August 2011 Comments (27) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Ann Althouse asks “Why do Democrats want high taxation as their brand?”. Basically for the same reason a feudal lord told his serfs to work harder. You don’t have to read much from the MAL to see that the mentality is effectively identical.

Let’s go ahead and drop this in, an article that notes that rising taxes have been percentage wise the leader in the economic burdens on the middle class. One is left wondering whether the Democratic Party is stupid or cruel. I say, why not both?