Thirty images that will drive you nuts.
I’ll confess to trying to end-zero a gas pump, but I’m not a fanatic about it.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
But He’s “Likable”
Obama hits all-time lows:
Obama’s woes are not limited to honesty and his managerial skills. Fifty-six percent say he is not a person they admire, and an equal number say he does not agree with them on important issues. Fifty-six percent also say he does not inspire confidence, and 53% don’t view him as a strong and decisive leader. All of those figures are all-time records for Obama in CNN polling.
OK, so they don’t agree with him, they don’t believe or trust him, they don’t think he’s competent, they don’t admire him, or think him a strong and decisive leader. But they like him.
I don’t know how to explain this cognitive dissonance except it’s the last bastion of the fear of being thought a racist.
The Hunger Games
Five reasons childish leftists (if that’s redundant) love it.
The House That Jack Built
Deconstructed. Scroll down.
Education
…in a free society:
The present essay calls for the complete separation of school and state, indicates what a fully free market in education would look like, and explains why such a market would provide high-quality education for all children.
Log overdue.
The ObamaCare Debacle
Will it kill Big Blue?
Edsall is simultaneously overestimating the policy sophistication of the white middle class and underestimating its morality. While it is true that, as Edsall points out, Obamacare is an aggressively redistributionist program that intends to shift hundreds of billions of dollars away from the middle class to the poor, I don’t think many voters have done the math on this. They are not reacting to the $455 billion in Medicare cuts that help to feed the Obamacare beast because not many people really understand how the new system is supposed to work. And at the same time, unlikely as it may sound to the finely tuned consciences of the New York Times editorial page, there are scores of millions of middle class white Americans who don’t hate minorities and would actually like to see things go better for them.
Sorry, lefties, the race card is maxed out.
The Science Of Slut Shaming
It’s women who do it, for pretty obvious reasons.
It’s nice to see psychologists trying to do real science.
Schadenfreude
I suspect that one of the reasons Obama’s approval rating is in free fall is because of his obvious surprise and petulance in his public encounters over the disaster of Obamacare. He has made some grudging half apologies, but it is clear that the only thing he is sorry about is that he cannot — not yet, anyway — simply decree what happens with health care in this country. He believes himself above the law and is impatient about finding a means of achieving that discretion. For our own good, of course. Many observers on the Right have long known this about Obama. Suddenly, though, it is out there for all to see. The American people don’t like tyrants, even smooth-talking, Harvard-educated ones. The great trek away from Obama and what he stands for — above all, government unlimited — has begun. The journey will not be pretty, but I think it is all but certain to continue.
Let’s hope.
Obama’s Learning Curve
I wouldn’t call it “slow.” It actually basically vertical:
The education President Obama received at Columbia University and Harvard Law School — and delivered to others as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School — encourages the fantasy of a political world subject to almost limitless manipulation by clever and well-orchestrated images. This explains why the harsh exigencies and intractable forces of politics keep stunning the president, each new time as if it were the very first.
How might higher education be reformed to produce political leaders more familiar with how the world really works, more alive to the realities of social and political life and better able to discuss them honestly with the American people?
He’s lived his entire life in a bubble of unreality. A lot of us realized this in 2008, but a few million too few.
When The Lies No Longer Work
It would appear that day has arrived.
The Dems on the Hill aren’t very happy with him, either.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is the most encouraging poll result, I think:
Gallup has been asking the question since 2000. “Prior to 2009, a clear majority of Americans consistently had said the government should take responsibility for ensuring that all Americans have healthcare,” the firm reports. The proportion answering “yes” peaked in 2006 at 69%–27 points higher than today’s number. Then it began declining, to 64% in 2007 and 54% in 2008.
The current 42% is the lowest figure ever recorded, but the percentage answering in the affirmative hasn’t risen above 50% since 2009. Remember what happened in 2009? . . .
Perhaps the most dramatic finding: The proportion of Democrats who say it isn’t the federal government’s responsibility in 2013 (30%) is higher than the proportion of all voters who said the same thing in 2006 (28%).
This could provide a political opportunity to get the federal government out of a lot of things it has no business doing and isn’t very good at.