A screed from Lileks (scroll down):
Not “encourage.” Not “exalt.” Not “inspire by example.” MAKE. It’s always MAKE with these people. If you can’t make people do things, how are you going to get anything done? That Volga Canal isn’t going to dig itself, you know.
Piers should go back to Old Blighty, which will be more politically accommodating to his incipient fascism these days.
“Yes, I planned all along to spend a thousand dollars on a gun that I was going to give away just to prove that an ex-astronaut with a sterling record could buy one.”
He bought the gun for exactly the same reason that everyone else buys one — it’s a great gun. Plus, he was probably concerned that he might not be able to do so in the future, if his campaign to take away the rights of the rest of us to do so is successful. And if his story is true, then he violated a federal gun law by signing a false statement when he purchased it.
Once he was caught, he had two choices. He could tell the truth, and be right with the law, or he could come up with this ridiculously implausible fairy tale, and be in violation of the law. So it’s apparently so important to him not to undermine his campaign to deprive us of our civil rights that he had to lie about it, and make himself a federal criminal (though of course, he won’t be prosecuted, because laws are for the little people).
Disgusting. He’s becoming this era’s Sarah Brady. And of course, accordingly, the media won’t give him the skepticism, even mockery, that he so richly deserves.
You know, we’re always being told by the Left that blacks can’t be racist, because only people with power can be racist. Well, it sure seems to me like these folks have plenty of power. And to note a continuing theme, sending kids to a public school is more and more becoming parental malpractice.
…that are just lapdogs when it comes to Democrats:
President Obama is no different. Whether it’s responding to Congress, media questions, or FOIA requests, this administration is no better than its predecessor. The big difference: Obama is a Democrat. And because he is a Democrat, he’s gotten a pass from many of the civil liberty and good-government groups who spent years watching President Bush’s every move like a hawk.
No one knows this better than John Kiriakou, the CIA agent who reported to federal prison two weeks ago for blowing the whistle on the agency’s use of torture. During an interview at an Arlington, Va., coffee shop, Kiriakou said the time has come for Washington watchdog groups—organizations like Public Citizen, Project on Government Oversight, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and others—to admit that President Obama hasn’t come close to making good on his promise to make government more transparent and accountable.
“Dan Ellsberg. He called me again last night,” said Kiriakou, referring to the man who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers and opened the world’s eyes to the United States’ long involvement in Vietnam. “We talk about this all the time. He keeps asking me, ‘Where is the outrage? If this were a Republican administration, people would be in the streets, right? We would be marching in the streets. But people cut Obama a break to the point of irrationality.’
Far beyond it, actually. Apparently, the only way we’ll ever get accountability in government is to put Republicans back in charge. It shouldn’t be that way.
America’s future under continued Democrat rule.
And of course, as always, we get to play “Name That Party” with (Democrat) Kilpatrick.
You’ve got it made in Washington:
Republicans, for their part, appear to be relishing the leaks out of the West Wing. Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck broadcast the remarks on his Twitter feed earlier today and mused, “I wonder if the president agrees w/his senior aide who tells National Journal the charm offensive is a ‘joke’ and only done for the media.”
If he does, he’ll never admit it.
Piers Morgan once again displays his idiocy:
If a Mayor can’t do things to make his city’s populace healthier – what’s the point of his job? Bloomberg’s 100% right on supersized soda.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 11, 2013
As Mark Steyn pointed out during Sandy, New York has a mayor who thinks that how much soda New Yorkers can have in their cups is more important than how much seawater they’re allowed in their subways.
Charlie Marting says “I told you so.”
At its best, science fiction imagines a future that illuminates the present, but on the subject of the social role of the corporation, science fiction has long been backward-looking, out of touch with the reality it would analyze. The cultural imagination at large shares this error, though it is difficult to say how much this defect in science fiction is a result of the cultural error and how much it is the cause. But it would be difficult to overstate how deeply the specter of the villainous corporation shapes American political thought. The influence is more visible the farther to the left one moves along the political spectrum. Occupy Wall Street was probably at least as much influenced by science-fiction visions of corporate dystopias as it was by any kind of organized political thought. There were unmistakably Maoist elements to Occupy, but the sinister connotations of the very word “corporation” are by no means heard by only those ears attached to the addled heads of committed leftists.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was set in 1992, Blade Runner in 2019, yet here we are, well into the 21st century, and there is still no colossal Tyrel Corporation bestriding the globe, and nothing like the corporate sovereignties of Jennifer Government. As myth, the corporate dystopia remains undiminished in its power. But the function of myths is to illuminate reality, and the reality is that there is no Tyrel Corporation today, and none on the horizon. If you want to know what the corporation of tomorrow looks like, don’t think Cyberdyne — think Groupon.
…The fetishization of the political through regulator-heroes such as Jennifer Government relies on the point-counterpoint of corporation and state; without the threat of the monolithic, immortal, all-powerful corporation hovering silently in the cultural background, the rhetoric and philosophy of (for instance) Elizabeth Warren is faintly ridiculous. Which is not to say it is entirely indefensible in every particular — Senator Warren is right in demanding to know, say, why nobody at HSBC has been charged with a crime as a result of the bank’s money-laundering case, which involved such worrisome entities as Mexican cartels and Saudi financiers of terrorism. (Senator Warren might think about addressing some of her questions to the president rather than browbeating his underlings at a politically safe arm’s length.) But the overarching narrative — if not for the far-seeing, brave, and selfless heroes of the political class, we’d end up living in the world of Jennifer Government — is a fantasy, and a childish one at that.
I’ve never understood the “progressive” mindset that fears big corporations more than it fears big government.
Not that I’m running, but a President Simberg would relieve this idiot of his command.