…but plenty to go. The House Global Warming Committee is no more.
Good riddance. It’s morning in America.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
The Country Is A Little Safer Today
Nancy Pelosi is no longer third in line for the presidency.
No, Ezra
…and Nancy, and other economic ignorami, ObamaCare will not reduce the deficit.
[Update early afternoon]
Garbage-Out, Garbage-In budgeting.
It’s Good To Be King
Seat-belt laws are for the little people. It would be poetic justice if he were to smash that pretty mug in an accident. I had trouble mustering up much sympathy for Corzine, blasting down the highway above the speed limit on the way to a political photo op, sans belt.
Shut Up And Sell Books
While there are some fundamental structural reasons for book stores to be failing, I’m sure that being politically stupid didn’t help Borders. It’s not a great business model to go out of your way to alienate many of your customers. It’s actually the same problem that much of the media has.
I have to say, though, that the downfall of the chain does sadden me, for nostalgic reaons. I knew Borders when no one had ever heard of it, when it was just the best book store in Ann Arbor three decades ago, before it became a chain. I wonder if the original one (actually, the original one moved into Jacobsons department store after it went under) in Ann Arbor will survive?
Exit
…lying:
At her final press conference as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”
The numbers tell a different story.
Well, no surprise. It’s the way she came in. For the last two years, we’ve been ruled by liars and thieves. Fortunately, they didn’t manage to rig the elections.
[Update a few minutes later]
And what a contrast with the incoming speaker:
Was all this humility a pose or was it real? Of course, I don’t know. But I suspect it was a mix, as many things are. Still, I would like to think that Boehner is a genuinely humble man because he is a assuming the role of speaker at what is arguably the most critical moment of our history since WWII.
True humility would give him remarkable strength against his adversaries who have been destroying themselves and us with over-weaning hubris. As we all know, our country is in jeopardy of spinning into serious economic decline. And no doubt the world would go with it. Supposedly brilliant minds have tried to save us from this, but to no avail. In many ways things have gotten worse.
It’s clearly time for a little humility. No more Mr. Know-It-All, governing with a sense of entitlement out of all proportion to reality. Will Boehner be the Anti-Obama?
We sure need one. More thoughts here: “Is John Boehner the real deal?”
[Update a few minutes later]
A man who brags that his humility is profound is not humble. A man who claims certainty that his nomination is the moment when the entire planet will begin healing is not humble.
Boehner, on the other hand, didn’t talk about himself being humble. Genuinely humble people rarely do. Boehner simply spoke humbly. Falsely humble people rarely do.
Sincerity is one of life’s most important attributes. If you can fake that, you have it made.
A Right To Bear Arms
…as long as you don’t leave your house? I don’t think this would stand up to SCOTUS scrutiny.
“Moderate” Muslims
This is encouraging. Not:
Even so-called moderate Muslim scholars praised 26-year-old Mumtaz Qadri for allegedly killing Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer on Tuesday in a hail of gunfire while he was supposed to be protecting him as a bodyguard. Qadri later told authorities he acted because of Taseer’s vocal opposition to blasphemy laws that order death for those who insult Islam.
As Qadri was escorted into court in Islamabad, a rowdy crowd patted his back and kissed his cheek as lawyers at the scene threw flowers. On the way out, some 200 sympathizers chanted slogans in his favor, and the suspect stood at the back door of an armored police van and repeatedly yelled “God is great.”
Many other Pakistanis were appalled.
“Extremist thought has become so mainstream that what we need to question in Pakistan is what people think constitutes extremism now,” said Fasi Zaka, a 34-year-old radio host and columnist.
Well, I’m glad that many other Pakistanis were appalled, but how would they be categorized? I wonder what “moderate” Imam Rauf thinks?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the “Great Garbage Patch” between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.
I’m shocked, shocked that an environmental issue has been overhyped by the media. This part had me scratching my head, though:
Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic itself;
Huh? If they’re talking about the mass equivalence of the energy in an Einsteinian sense, that’s obviously nonsense, but I’m sure that’s not what they mean. But what do they mean?
A Beautiful Sight
[Afternoon update]
Something else to celebrate — the fall of the House of Waxman:
The committee was an unending source of ghastly new legislative proposals for regulatory manacles to be fastened on one or another sector of the economy , ideas that with any luck we may now be spared for the next two years. Thus it appears unlikely that the Republican-led committee will give its blessing to something called the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786), introduced by Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), which — by mandating that all compounds found in personal-care items at any detectable level be expensively tested for and disclosed on labels — could have added tens of thousands of dollars of cost overhead to that little herbal-soap business your sister is trying to start in her garage. (Fragrance expert Robert Tisserand explains why most small personal-care product makers would not survive if the bill passed). Nor is it likely that the new leadership of chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) will be in a hurry to adopt Rep. Schakowsky’s H.R. 1408, the Inclusive Home Design Act, which would mandate handicap accessibility features in most new private homes.
He really is one of the more odious creatures in that cesspool. It’s a shame that he didn’t lose his seat completely, but that’s probably a forlorn hope in his West LA district. But at least he’s been defanged.