…know that Barack Obama is a liar.
I’d tweet that, but I don’t want to establish a precedent for actually using my Twitter account.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
A Demonstration Of American Democracy
That was apparently the theme of Gilligan’s Island.
Do Guns Cause Crime?
Some thoughts on the ignorance and stupidity of hoplaphobes.
The Mainstream Media Can’t Stop Lying
Automatic weapons were not among those being trafficked from American gun shops to Mexican cartels.
Not a single one.
They have been heavily regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934, and in the 77 years since that became the law of the land, machine guns like those you would find in a a few specialized gun shops have been used in just two illegal homicides.
In yet another unsigned editorial, the New York Times leads with the blatant fabrication that 70 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States. This is the most recent talking point created by Democrats, released just before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard testimony from ATF whistleblowers about Operation Fast and Furious in June.
The statistical misrepresentation is a variation of the 90 percent lie that the Obama administration has been using since the president was inaugurated. In actuality, 83 percent of guns used by the cartels come from somewhere other than the United States, and of the 17 percent traced to U.S. origins, roughly 8 percent were traced to U.S. gun shops.
Plus, we now know that a substantial portion of the weapons that transited gun shops did so as a direct result of federal law enforcement agencies telling dealers to make questionable sales to suspected cartel gun runners.
A fact the Times conveniently and purposefully ignores.
It’s hard for them to not lie, or be mistaken about guns in general, given how ideologically driven and ignorant they are on the subject.
On Being A Non-Leftist SF Writer
…like all the arts, writing is a liberal’s game. Science fiction, too, I think encourages extreme ideologies, which almost inevitably default left. It’s part of creating a world. You start thinking you could create “logical” rules for “this” world. (I tell you, if Lenin had written SF instead, we’d all be happier.) The climate in the field can best be judged by the fact that I could stand up tomorrow in the middle of a conference room full of my peers and announce I was a communist and they’d all applaud. However, if I announced I’m anti-communist, they would laugh. Some of them might laugh nervously and sympathetically but they would laugh.
Anyone clinging to Marxist theory is immediately believed to be very smart, and someone who goes against it is considered a lightweight.
Do they intentionally discriminate against Libertarians and conservatives? I don’t think so. Not the vast majority of them. The vast majority of my colleagues are decent people. They are also, like the vast majority of the human race, conformists. Most of them attended good schools and grew up in upper middle class neighborhoods (at least most of them who came into the field in the last fifteen years. Yes, there are reasons for that, which I’ll mention rapidly later, if I have time.) Their parents were taught in college about class struggle and that money was evil. They got it at home. They got it from schools. They got it from magazine articles and newspapers. The books they read growing up were infused with unconscious Marxism. OF COURSE they assume anyone who doesn’t agree with them is either stupid or evil. And would you give a leg up to the career of someone who is evil? Would you help them?
The funny thing that always startles me a little is hearing myself addressed as a “conservative.” I’m full of wild-eyed radical ideas not proposed out loud since Thomas Jefferson talked in his sleep, and I’m a “conservative” because I am, ultimately, anti-communist. This is a through-the-looking-glass world, since the establishment is as close to soft — (and sometimes hard) — communism as someone can go without sewing hammers and sickles into all their undies.
And that’s part of the problem there too — I don’t think any of them means to discriminate against me. Some of them even like me, in a slightly bewildered way, but they don’t know what to do with me. I was born in a Latin country, I am female, and yet I don’t consider myself a victim and you truly don’t want to get me going on a-historical theories of great mother goddesses. They don’t know what to make of me, or what to do with me. I make them uncomfortable, and it’s easier to ignore me or not to have me around too much.
It’s always been a little weird, being into both folk music and science fiction, because the prevailing political attitude in both has been leftist, at least for most of my life. One does have to be a little careful of what one says in such groups. And of course, it’s always amusing to see the confoundment on some peoples’ faces in the space activist community, who read my blog and fantasize that I’m a conservative or Republican (or worse, like RAH, a “fascist”), and see me defend Barack Obama’s space policy.
[Update a few minutes later]
For those who haven’t read Darkship Thieves, for which she just won the Prometheus Award, please give me a cut
The President’s Bluff
James Taranto has some thoughts on the fading/faded powers of Barack Obama:
A lot of people have been making fun of the president for supposedly saying, “Don’t call my bluff,” as if he’s admitting he’s bluffing. That seems to us a bit pedantic. Surely what he meant was something like “Don’t think you can call my bluff.”
What got our attention about this exchange as reported by Cantor is the president’s threat to take his case “to the American people.” Would those be the same American people who aren’t paying attention and don’t understand all this complicated stuff?
This seems to us an empty threat not least because since his election, Obama has a poor track record when it comes to taking his case to the American people–who still overwhelmingly oppose ObamaCare, give him poor marks on the economy, and think the debt limit shouldn’t be raised even though it pretty much has to be. He always ends up wishing he’d done a better job “explaining” his position, which at least sounds more humble than saying the American people don’t get it.
Of course, even if that’s what he meant, he’s still implying (in fact clearly stating) that it’s a bluff. And he’s right.
[Update a few minutes later]
Charles K. — “Call Obama’s bluff.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Eric Cantor — “This is not a game.”
[Update a while later]
“Sounds like Obama won’t even call his own bluff.”
The Auto Bailouts
The truth about them.
They Must Have Just Become Racists
The “Republican Candidate” now leads Barack Obama for next falls election by eight points in the Gallup poll. That means it’s an even wider gap in likely voters.
Doubling Down On The Bluff
Apparently the DSCC is as clueless about the concept of bluffing as the president is. Hilarious:
Don’t call my bluff.
These were the strong words President Obama had for Eric Cantor, leader of the Congressional “Hell No” Caucus. These Republicans are so bent on destroying the president, they’re willing to create an economic meltdown to try to tie it on the Democrats.
The president and Democrats are holding strong against this obstinacy, but in no time, the GOP will go on the attack. If a debt ceiling deal is not reached, they will spend millions blaming Democrats. And we will need to fight back against every single lie.
And note the usual leftist projection about the “lies.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Debt crisis today, or debt crisis tomorrow? Why just raising the debt ceiling doesn’t solve the problem.
The Enduring Dangerous Legacy
They’re not liberals.