That’s what Barack Obama, and anyone who supports US ethanol price supports and tariffs against Brazilian imports is.
I agree.
By the way, so are Algore and James Hansen…
Category Archives: Political Commentary
“Criminal Against Humanity”
That’s what Barack Obama, and anyone who supports US ethanol price supports and tariffs against Brazilian imports is.
I agree.
By the way, so are Algore and James Hansen…
An Ally In The War?
This would be an interesting development:
As Father Dall’Oglio warns darkly, Muslims are in dialogue with a pope who evidently does not merely want to exchange pleasantries about coexistence, but to convert them. This no doubt will offend Muslim sensibilities, but Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem – from the East.
As Spengler notes, the Muslims should be worried. That truly would be the first real challenge to them, if not since the founding of the religion, at least since the Crusades.
Whose side do you think that the left will take? How many guesses do you want?
[Evening update]
In comments, Carl Pham asks:
What’s to be appalled about in the Crusades, eh? Is this just regurgitating some politically-correct pap y’all were fed in public school?
I’m only appalled by the Crusades in the same sense that I’m appalled by the Middle Ages in general (I don’t actually recall learning about them in public school, which in itself, regardless of the learning content, is an interesting commentary about public school in the sixties and early seventies. It’s no doubt worse now, since it’s better to know nothing of the Crusades than to be mistaught them).
And in being appalled, I’m judging it by modern sensibilities. As I said, Islam was more (much more) appalling in its behavior.
Then. And more importantly (and even more), now.
But I’m sure I’ll get more Anonymous Morons in comments, whom I’ll take great pleasure in appropriately naming, unwittingly making my point about which side the leftists will take.
Also:
If you want to look for unpleasant proselytizing by Christian nations, take a look at South and Central American under the Spanish in the 1500s and 1600s. The Crusades do not quality. Islam is only pissed about them because they coincided with the high-water mark of Islam’s own effort to conquer the world.
Agreed. Latin American’s dismal state is a consequence of having been colonized by Spain (and it was a Christian Spain). It continues to be mired in a feudal culture, which has only transmogrified into a socialist/fascist one, as exemplified by “liberation theology.” Which is (unfortunately) not that far off from the “black liberation theology” of Senator Obama’s former church.
The Seal Is Dead
Or is it a sleeping possum?
Am I the only one to think that this was a misfired strategy by Obama to be all things to all people? The latte drinkers would be impressed by the Latin, and the possum would appeal to the bitter guns’n’God clingers. You know, the ones with the bumper stickers that say “Eat More Possum”?
Nahhh, the campaign is clever, but it’s not that clever. Or maybe it’s too clever by half.
“New Deal Narcissism”
Amity Shlaes, on Barack Obama:
The New Deal exists principally on an emotional plane for Obama. To him the New Deal is something you play like a song, to make you or your constituents feel better. Let me be clear: It’s too early to judge Obama on economics. But he does seem unaware of the economic consequences of government expansion that happens under the New Deal name.
Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism.
We could afford to burnish our social contracts if there were no competition from abroad. But there is.
Which is one reason why the so-called progressives hate globalization. And ironically, one of the primary reasons for the Great Depression, and certainly for its length and depth, was economic isolationism in the form of Smoot-Hawley. The New Deal was a flawed, fascist attempt to make up for our economic disengagement from the world. The war ended the depression. Unfortunately, much of the New Deal, and the mentality that led to it, remains in place. Obama is simply the latest Great Man, a man of Change, and Action, to want to preserve and expand it.
“New Deal Narcissism”
Amity Shlaes, on Barack Obama:
The New Deal exists principally on an emotional plane for Obama. To him the New Deal is something you play like a song, to make you or your constituents feel better. Let me be clear: It’s too early to judge Obama on economics. But he does seem unaware of the economic consequences of government expansion that happens under the New Deal name.
Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism.
We could afford to burnish our social contracts if there were no competition from abroad. But there is.
Which is one reason why the so-called progressives hate globalization. And ironically, one of the primary reasons for the Great Depression, and certainly for its length and depth, was economic isolationism in the form of Smoot-Hawley. The New Deal was a flawed, fascist attempt to make up for our economic disengagement from the world. The war ended the depression. Unfortunately, much of the New Deal, and the mentality that led to it, remains in place. Obama is simply the latest Great Man, a man of Change, and Action, to want to preserve and expand it.
Resume Padding?
Even under the most generous reading imaginable could any of that count as passing legislation that extended health care for wounded troops? The Chicago Tribune noted the problem on its blog last week but defended Obama by pointing out that John McCain didn’t vote for the bill either. That would be an interesting piece of information if John McCain had cited this bill as among his chief legislative accomplishments.
The Obama team’s desire to pad the resume is understandable — it’s awfully slim after all. But this kind of dishonesty will catch up with them…or at least it should.
Yes, it should, but maybe it won’t. Bill Clinton’s supporters didn’t seem to mind that he was an inveterate liar. But Obama’s supporters (which includes much of the media) not only don’t mind, but actually hope he is.
[Afternoon update]
Is he finally losing his teflon?
Hate Crime
I’m sure that Ian McEwan will be arrested presently:
‘As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist.
“This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist.
‘And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on – we know it well.
It will be interesting to see if the authorities come after him for this bit of politically incorrect truth telling. He’s lucky he doesn’t live in the police state of Canada.
Speaking of which, Professor Reynolds has a pithy comment:
When the stormtroopers wear clown shoes instead of jackboots, it’s easy to forget that they’re still stormtroopers.
And so far, the circus up there continues.
Not Ready For Prime Time
More historical ignorance from Senator Obama:
Obama’s unfavorable comparison of the legal treatment at Gitmo with that at Nuremberg suggests either that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about – or that he feels free to exploit the ignorance of audiences that don’t know the truth of the matter.
Hey, it’s all about fooling the rubes. The sad thing is that the press never questions him on this kind of thing.
Media-Induced Malaise
Lileks has more thoughts on the subject:
It is amusing, really – after sticking people’s heads in the muck every day for years, promoting every faddish scare, fluffing the pillow beneath every yuppie worry, swapping the straight-forward adult approach to news with presenters who emote the copy with the sad face of a day-care worker telling the children that Barney is dead – in short, after decades of presenting the world through the peculiar prism that finds in every day more evidence of our rot and our failures, they wonder why people are depressed. Hang the banner, guys: Mission Accomplished.
Of course, not everyone feels this way; I’d guess that people who watch television news are more inclined to pessimism. But there’s another side to this: the pessimism among some may not stem from some impotent feeling that one is a cork toss’d in a sea of cruel destiny, that you can’t do anything, that nothing will get better – no, the pessimism may arise from the suspicion that there’s something abroad in the land that’s had a good hardy larf about “Horatio Alger” and all the other manifestations of individual initiative for 30 years. The cool kids and the clever set have always smirked at that sort of stuff. You can get them going if you make a speech about our ability to solve things, but you’d better phrase it in the form of a government initiative, or brows furrow: well, then, how do you propose to do it?