Kyle Smith isn’t impressed with WALL-E. Lileks loved it (though he’s an admitted Disney/Pixarphile).
Guess I’ll have to see for myself now.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
WASP Nation?
I’ve always thought that Allan Lichtman is an idiot. His book, per its title, and as reviewed by David Frum confirms my beliefs. One doesn’t have to be a conservative to think that much leftist criticism of conservatism is completely clueless, and brainless.
More Stuff White People Like
Changing their middle name to “Hussein.” As Glenn notes:
Our own lives are weak and meaningless. Only through identification with a great leader
can they achieve substance and purpose.
That About Sums It Up
Eric Raymond and I are on the same wavelength:
Gun owners who are (like me) libertarians and swing voters are in the same fix as SayUncle. Many of us have good reasons to loathe McCain; mine, as I’ve previously mentioned, is that I think BCRA (the McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reform” act) was an atrocious assault on First Amendment liberties. Others can’t stand McCain’s position on immigration, or the idiotic blather he tends to spew on economics-related subjects. But for those of us who think Second Amendment rights are fundamentally important, voting for anyone who would appoint more anti-firearms judges (a certainty from Obama given his past views) is just not an option.
That translates into votes for McCain. Probably including (though I shudder and retch at the thought) my vote. It’s not like there’s any chance Obama’s going to push for the repeal of BCRA. So I’m left with a choice between a candidate hostile to both my First and Second Amendment rights and one that supports the Second Amendment. (Normally I’d vote Libertarian, but the LP’s isolationist foreign-policy stance seems so batty after 9/11 that I can’t stomach that option in this cycle.)
Yup. One of the arguments that McCain will make with the bitter gun clingers is that he will be able to provide a Supreme Court that strongly, not narrowly supports gun rights. That’s going to be very important now as the various cases work their way through the courts to define the limits of the “newly found” (that is, one that has been there since the Founding, but which many have attempted to pretend didn’t exist for the past several decades) right.
Wonder How Many There Are?
I’ll bet that the Obama campaign does, too and worries about it. Hillary! supporters for John McCain:
I believe strongly that all of us should now unite for McCain because he needs all of badly…I am sure all of us won’t vote for Obama and then all of us want Hillary badly to return 2012…..
The only way to make sure that Hillary will be our President 2012 is to make sure that McCain will win 08….
You know that’s what Hillary! is thinking, regardless of the “Unity” speech.
[Afternoon update]
Here’s someone else who is bitter, though it’s not clear if he’s clinging to God and guns:
A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could “kiss my ass” in return for his support.
A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election.
Whatever else you want to say about Bill Clinton, he’s not politically stupid. Though perhaps his judgment is slipping, based on the behavior in the campaign (which could in fact be a result of his heart surgeries). Either way, this isn’t going to help heal the rift.
Thanks, Florida!
Florida just bought 300 square miles of cane fields in the everglades to return them to wetlands. They paid $1.75 billion. That buys out US Sugar that was responsible for 10% of the US sugar lobby. In April, in response to one of Rand’s posts, I wrote that we needed to find a way to buy out big sugar. For 6 MT times $0.10 implicit subsidy/lb, that’s $1.2 billion/year. US Sugar’s share of that is $120 million per year. So $1.75B is a pretty good price for their concession.
Sweet deal, Rand! Thanks for taking one for the team as a Floridian to lower sugar prices nationwide.
Has North Korea Been Defanged?
Wretchard says perhaps:
Time will tell whether the Six Party talks will succeed in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula or whether it will founder, as did the Agreed Framework before it, on some new difficulty. But two factors make the new agreement more robust than the 1994 agreement. First, the multilateral format means that any North Korean double-cross would alienate not only the United States, but South Korea, Japan, Russia and most importantly, Pyongyang’s patron China. North Korea has a lot more to lose by welshing on the Six Party Talks than it did on the Agreed Framework.
Secondly, because their fissile production line will effectively be dismantled — the Yongbon cooling will be demolished — North Korea’s remaining blackmail leverage consists of a mere handful of low-yield nuclear material. And with the United States positioned to watch Pakistan and Iran, the future of any clandestine program is in serious doubt.
Expect complaints from the Bush deranged in the peanut gallery, though.
The Better Part Of Valor
The Canadian Human WrongsRights Commission has dropped the charges against MacLeans and Mark Steyn.
In a sense, it’s too bad. They were probably starting to feel the political heat. Now they will be free to go on and continue to abuse the free-speech rights of less prominent people, rather than being reined in as they should be.
[Update a few minutes later]
Ah, no worries. They can move right on to the next heretic:
Earle says Canadians are too politically correct.
“They pissed me off so I said some rude things. Does that mean I should go to court because … they were based on some kind of minority or discrimination or something-something?”
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will decide whether Earle’s comments, which the complainant Lorna Pardy claims were “homophobic,” violated the Human Rights Code on the basis of her “sex and sexual orientation.”
Earle is now looking for a lawyer and he’s hoping his newfound fame might help pay his legal bills. He’s planning a comedy fundraiser for next month.
The complainants, of course, will have their legal bills paid by the province. Not that the lawyer will do him any good. It is foreordained that he will lose.
Obama’s Accomplishments
Jim Geraghty has some observations:
It’s easy to wonder whether the candidate who talks about “real change” and pledges a government that will “heal the sick” and “stop the oceans from rising” actually knows how to get big things done – or whether he had the patience. Obama would seem to have the skills and brains to be a legendary community organizer, or state legislator, or U.S. senator. But momentous accomplishments in each of those positions take time, and at each level, Obama hit a wall, and turned his attention to a position of greater power.
This election will be about form (and glamour) over substance.
Obama’s Accomplishments
Jim Geraghty has some observations:
It’s easy to wonder whether the candidate who talks about “real change” and pledges a government that will “heal the sick” and “stop the oceans from rising” actually knows how to get big things done – or whether he had the patience. Obama would seem to have the skills and brains to be a legendary community organizer, or state legislator, or U.S. senator. But momentous accomplishments in each of those positions take time, and at each level, Obama hit a wall, and turned his attention to a position of greater power.
This election will be about form (and glamour) over substance.