Quite a remarkable trip through centuries of Western art via the morphing images of famous and nearly-famous paintings depicting the beauty of women throughout many eras and locales. YouTube link discovered via TigerHawk.
One of problems with America's Marxist-dominated cultural and artistic communities over at least the last 30 years or so has been their continuing effort, particularly in academia, to sever all modern connections with this kind of stuff, branding it racist, hegemonistic, whatever works to demonize it. Sitting through this presentation, one perceives instead that each morphing portrait exemplifies, in essence, the artist's imaginative conception of idealized internal and external beauty.
For earlier artists, in many cases, such an exercise in portraiture, as serially demonstrated above, served as their attempt, via their art, to somehow grasp, in a mortal portait, the essence of divine beauty and perfection. Nearer our own more cynical times, the artist was less concerned with the divine (which he or she probably didn't believe in anyway) than with capturing in time a fleeting, near-perfect moment of mortal beauty.
In the not too distant past, the Western artistic tradition was focused on the search for wisdom, perfection, and beauty in all things. Viewers of such portraits as these might very well be inspired to seek the same in their own lives. Modern art, however, is quite different in its approach. Divorced from spiritual idealism by a radical ideology and seething with resentment, today's artists can frequently betray only ugliness in humanity and nature. Divorced from tradition, or taught to scorn it, they can only paint hideous, negative, or ironic visions. And often, that hideousness is rendered either in the inexplicably abstract or worse, as an act of religious blasphemy and cultural vandalism.
I have noticed that over the last decade or so, I am seeing more and more artists turning back to the past for inspiration, however. I am seeing traditional portraits and serious still life work, often rendered in the manner of what some call "photographic realism," a term that doesn't do such work justice, so subtly are its visual cues blended into the apparently obvious. Perhaps abstraction and ugliness have run their course at last. It's earnestly to be wished for, but only time will tell.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Welcome RightMichigan.com
We've been quite impressed with the terrific missionary work being done up in our of our favorite (but currently godforsaken) states, Michigan, by the rightly named RightMichigan.com. With all the left-wing anti-capitalist crappola we see about Michigan in the news these days—particularly on the foreclosure front—it's encouraging to note that there's at least one site in blogland that fully understands how the Democrats are doing their collective best to transform Michigan's fast-dwindling business and employment environment into a national economic black hole by taxing the beleaguered state's already unemployed and underemployed citizens to death. Sadly, Michiganders keep electing Democrats to statewide and national office anyway, which we simply can't understand, as we thought voters always voted in their own best interests. Maybe there's something in the water. Or maybe these voters share the same kind of deathwish that has dominated Cleveland and northern Ohio for the last 40 years at least. Anyhow, at least we now have RightMichigan.com to light the way to salvation.
We're adding this site to our Good Guys section, and hope that they'll get around to listing us at some point. Even though Wonk hails (originally) from Cleveland, while Luther yet dwells glumly in Hillary Land.
We're adding this site to our Good Guys section, and hope that they'll get around to listing us at some point. Even though Wonk hails (originally) from Cleveland, while Luther yet dwells glumly in Hillary Land.
Back From Vegas. Merry Christmas.
Obviously, joy will break out across the land today as Wonker has returned from Vegas still solvent and nearly ready to resume blogging. Since it's already past Thanksgiving, we at HazZzMat can now welcome you to the beginning of the CHRISTMAS SEASON. Yes indeed, that happy time of the year when we get to be politically correct and use that widely-banned term to describe our favorite, er, "holiday."
Thursday, November 15, 2007
An Iconic Holiday
Thanksgiving blogging hiatus is upon us, as Wonker is about to transport to Las Vegas and thence to parts unknown. In advance, here's wishing all our readers a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday on that most, ah, iconic of America's national celebrations.
An Iconic Idea
Apropos of nothing in particular, take a gander at the following tease for an article in today's CNN/Money.com:
"Iconic" is defined at Answers.com (initial entry) as:
The second definition here is:
I suppose the latter covers the way the word is used in the CNN/Money blurb, but at best the usage here is imprecise. The NYC skyline might have approached being "iconic" when, sadly, the WTC twin towers were still a part of it. While the skyline is still recognizable, it's no longer distinctive in that sense, except maybe for oldsters who do remember the skyline when the Empire State Building was king of the hill or at least of Manhattan. Tragically, there's now nothing very distinctive about the skyline that causes instant recognition by non-New Yorkers, save for the enormous amount of very large buildings.
But we belabor the point. "Iconic" is now used to describe flavors of ice cream, business leaders, 3rd rate entertainers with weird hair, etc. It's the word writers seem to pull out when they need cheap hyperbole and don't want to make the effort to find something more creative.
In other words, "iconic" has turned into a new cliché, something you pull out and put in when you're brain dead. Used correctly and infrequently, it's still capable of being striking and effective. While I'm a classical music fan, for example, I could still buy Elvis' sequined white jumpsuit as being "iconic." But not Madonna's sleazy underwear. You get the picture.
Bottom line: "iconic" has turned into the cliché of the decade for lazy writers who'd rather lard on undeserved hype rather than describe something colorfully but accurately. There are bloody few things that are really "iconic" (like a Zippo lighter as opposed to a Bic). Let's please limit this word to describing such people, objects, or (perish the thought) religious artifacts. And maybe in computer geek talk where it has acquired an entirely different meaning. But, like other revered objects, let's pull it out infrequently and only when the occasion warrents.
Please.
Private equity firms and REITs may be charging into commercial real estate, but these multigenerational clans still control huge chunks of New York City's iconic skyline.So what's with "iconic," the second last word in the sentence? What's the deal here?
"Iconic" is defined at Answers.com (initial entry) as:
Of, relating to, or having the character of an icon.Which I always like in a dictionary entry because it means you have to spend time looking up another word.
The second definition here is:
Having a conventional formulaic style. Used of certain memorial statues and busts.Okay. "Icon," which is defined for you if you follow the above link, has several possible definitions, one of which was the sense in which I understood the word when I was younger—as a noun describing an ancient or revered (presumably traditional Christian or Eastern Orthodox) portrait of a major figure, often the Blessed Virgin Mary. Alternatively, the word came to describe objects on a desktop computer screen, as well as delineating a widely-known symbol, such as the White House (except when George Bush is in it, of course).
I suppose the latter covers the way the word is used in the CNN/Money blurb, but at best the usage here is imprecise. The NYC skyline might have approached being "iconic" when, sadly, the WTC twin towers were still a part of it. While the skyline is still recognizable, it's no longer distinctive in that sense, except maybe for oldsters who do remember the skyline when the Empire State Building was king of the hill or at least of Manhattan. Tragically, there's now nothing very distinctive about the skyline that causes instant recognition by non-New Yorkers, save for the enormous amount of very large buildings.
But we belabor the point. "Iconic" is now used to describe flavors of ice cream, business leaders, 3rd rate entertainers with weird hair, etc. It's the word writers seem to pull out when they need cheap hyperbole and don't want to make the effort to find something more creative.
In other words, "iconic" has turned into a new cliché, something you pull out and put in when you're brain dead. Used correctly and infrequently, it's still capable of being striking and effective. While I'm a classical music fan, for example, I could still buy Elvis' sequined white jumpsuit as being "iconic." But not Madonna's sleazy underwear. You get the picture.
Bottom line: "iconic" has turned into the cliché of the decade for lazy writers who'd rather lard on undeserved hype rather than describe something colorfully but accurately. There are bloody few things that are really "iconic" (like a Zippo lighter as opposed to a Bic). Let's please limit this word to describing such people, objects, or (perish the thought) religious artifacts. And maybe in computer geek talk where it has acquired an entirely different meaning. But, like other revered objects, let's pull it out infrequently and only when the occasion warrents.
Please.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Academic PC Under FIRE Again
Many bloggers, including ourselves, and even a few reporters in the MSM, surprisingly, have written about the increasingly draconian—and blatantly unconstitutional—PC speech codes and organized coercion that increasingly lie at the heart of today's Stalinist university community. Take this absolutely outrageous, yet oddly honest, snippet of pure race hatred that formed the core of Delaware's now-banished course, forcing mandatory class struggle indoctrination down freshman throats:
Small wonder our cultural traditions are disappearing. This is precisely the stuff that Wonker, a newly-minted English Ph.D., wanted to teach three decades ago. But the doors were already locked. Pre-Bakke, reverse racism and gender hatred, combined with the declining enrollments after Vietnam, put a permanent end to that career choice, as it did for literally thousands of other highly qualified would-be professors. Their "privileged" positions, however, were wasted as academia created self-perpetuating ghettos for "ethnic," "feminist," and "transgendered" studies, bogus academic fields of no use in the real world. Save for providing hate-mongers with highly-paid employment for life while helping drive up the cost of education by forcing the subsidization of useless and phony fields of study that waste parental and taxpayer funds while wasting the time of students who deserve something better. And more "authentic," perhaps?
Meanwhile, it would be fascinating to read a book some day on whatever happened to the Lost Generation of the 1970s and 1980s, that sad (and continuing) diaspora of genuinely dedicated college teachers who might have made a difference. But it would never get published.
As far as the media and the professoriat are concerned, this academic diaspora simply never happened. But it did, and its consequences have been catastrophic for our country, although quite beneficial to the Stalinists who continue to shield themselves from accountability. Taylor describes the results:
"A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. 'The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists.' " [emphasis added]Hard to believe, no? National Journal writer Stuart Taylor, Jr. explains further that:
The quoted language appears in an August 2007 "diversity facilitation training" program for resident assistants. The RAs were, in turn, assigned to use far-left propaganda such as this in what university documents called the mandatory "treatment" of freshmen and the rest of the 7,000 students in university residence halls....This and dozens of other cases suggest to me that the cancerous spread of ideologically eccentric, intellectually shoddy, phony-diversity-obsessed fanaticism among university faculties and administrators is far, far worse and more inexorable than most alumni, parents, and trustees suspect.Delaware's forced indoctrination was exposed and ultimately terminated due to the efforts of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). But the price of freedom is eternal vigilence. Look for Delaware's sneaky Marxists (on the taxpayer payroll of course) to find a way to slip this stuff back into the mandatory curriculum while no one is looking. They have other skills, too, according to the author:
They are also ruthless in blocking appointment of professors whose views they don't like; are eager to censor such views; and in many cases are determined to push their own political views on students, who have few reality checks in their course material and are often too innocent of the world to understand when they are being fed fatuous tripe.Wonker knows all about this. He was a "privileged" first-wave casualty, in the late 1970s, of the kind of class-struggle reverse racism that's become institutionalized in America's universities today, where wholesale fraud has replaced the traditional liberal arts education that once included learning about American culture, history, and law. No more.
Small wonder our cultural traditions are disappearing. This is precisely the stuff that Wonker, a newly-minted English Ph.D., wanted to teach three decades ago. But the doors were already locked. Pre-Bakke, reverse racism and gender hatred, combined with the declining enrollments after Vietnam, put a permanent end to that career choice, as it did for literally thousands of other highly qualified would-be professors. Their "privileged" positions, however, were wasted as academia created self-perpetuating ghettos for "ethnic," "feminist," and "transgendered" studies, bogus academic fields of no use in the real world. Save for providing hate-mongers with highly-paid employment for life while helping drive up the cost of education by forcing the subsidization of useless and phony fields of study that waste parental and taxpayer funds while wasting the time of students who deserve something better. And more "authentic," perhaps?
Meanwhile, it would be fascinating to read a book some day on whatever happened to the Lost Generation of the 1970s and 1980s, that sad (and continuing) diaspora of genuinely dedicated college teachers who might have made a difference. But it would never get published.
As far as the media and the professoriat are concerned, this academic diaspora simply never happened. But it did, and its consequences have been catastrophic for our country, although quite beneficial to the Stalinists who continue to shield themselves from accountability. Taylor describes the results:
The PC sickness goes far beyond intolerance of dissent. It also has a pervasive effect on course offerings. History departments, for example, offer fewer and fewer traditional courses such as political and diplomatic history, to make room for courses portraying history as a tale of unrelieved oppression of minorities, women, the poor, gays, and everyone else by privileged white males.
Academia's "diversity" obsession is founded on hostility to diversity of opinion. To most academics, "diversity" is a code word for systematic preference of minorities and women over white males in all walks of life. The preferred groups include many faculty members who are manifestly unqualified for their positions and whose websites read like a "Saturday Night Live" parody of wacky professors.
Read the rest of this excellent article here. If you do, and if you're not already a confirmed Stalinist, you'll surely agree with the author's conclusion:
In academia today, a professor who falsely smears his university's students as racists is a hot commodity. And hate means never having to say you're sorry.Something that also holds true for Democrats, BTW.
Some Thoughts on Bush Hatred
A thoughtful piece in today's online Opinion Journal by self-described "progressive" Peter Berkowitz, who, without intending to, found himself suddenly enveloped in Bush Hatred, having made an incautious remark to "progressive" colleagues who instantly went into pit-bull mode in defense of the Party Line. Which is, "it is not irrational (and therefore, apparently, eminently logical) to hate George W. Bush." Berkowitz had the gall to question this orthodoxy, in a quizzical, academic way, and soon found himself in the center of an ongoing firestorm of criticism:
Both a professor of political theory and a nationally syndicated columnist insisted that I was wrong to condemn hatred as a passion that impaired political judgment. On the contrary, they argued, Bush hatred was fully warranted considering his theft of the 2000 election in Florida with the aid of the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore; his politicization of national security by making the invasion of Iraq an issue in the 2002 midterm elections; and his shredding of the Constitution to authorize the torture of enemy combatants.For which Berkowitz has the following highly unorthodox answer—unorthodox, at least, on the dogmatic left side of the aisle:
Of course, these very examples illustrate nothing so much as the damage hatred inflicts on the intellect. Many of my colleagues at Princeton that evening seemed not to have considered that in 2000 it was Al Gore who shifted the election controversy to the courts by filing a lawsuit challenging decisions made by local Florida county election supervisors. Nor did many of my Princeton dinner companions take into account that between the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, 10 of 16 higher court judges--five of whom were Democratic appointees--found equal protection flaws with the recount scheme ordered by the intermediate Florida court. And they did not appear to have pondered Judge Richard Posner's sensible observation, much less themselves sensibly observe, that while indeed it was strange to have the U.S. Supreme Court decide a presidential election, it would have been even stranger for the election to have been decided by the Florida Supreme Court.Read the rest by following the link above. We don't buy the whole thing, but it indicates that at least some people on the left have the instinct to resist total brain death.
Howard Dean: That Old Time (Democrat) Religion
We've often proclaimed here that the modern Democrat Party regularly violates their beloved, alleged Constitutional "wall of separation" between Church and State by forcing their own Socialist Religion down America's throats. Dems have vehemently denied this since time immemorial.
But loose cannon Howard Dean finally lets the cat out of the bag:
Clearly unfamiliar with syllogistic logic, Dean rejects theocracy, while at the same time citing theocracy as the basis for his party's philosophy. Of course, this kind of cognitive dissonance is perfectly at home in the dialectical universe of Karl Marx, enabling Democrats to perfect their patented political parlor trick of coming down on both sides of an issue without anybody noticing.
Fortunately, Eugene Volokh pins down the essence of the issue rather nicely:
But loose cannon Howard Dean finally lets the cat out of the bag:
"This country is not a theocracy," Dean said. "There are fundamental differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party believes that everybody in this room ought to be comfortable being an American Jew, not just an American; that there are no bars to heaven for anybody; that we are not a one-religion nation; and that no child or member of a football team ought to be able to cringe at the last line of a prayer before going onto the field."Okay, let's get this straight. America is not a "theocracy." But then, what does that make the Democrat Party, which believes "there are no bars to heaven for anybody"? A theocracy?
Clearly unfamiliar with syllogistic logic, Dean rejects theocracy, while at the same time citing theocracy as the basis for his party's philosophy. Of course, this kind of cognitive dissonance is perfectly at home in the dialectical universe of Karl Marx, enabling Democrats to perfect their patented political parlor trick of coming down on both sides of an issue without anybody noticing.
Fortunately, Eugene Volokh pins down the essence of the issue rather nicely:
...how ... can Dean assure Jews, or anyone else, that "The Democratic Party believes ... that there are no bars to heaven for anybody"? He can assure people that he believes in this; he can surely declare his own theology even if the Democratic Party shouldn't declare one of its own. He can assure people that the Democratic Party stands for civil equality without regard to religion, or make similar secular commitments (assuming that is indeed the official position of the Democratic Party). But he can no more make assurances about the Democratic Party's stand on salvation through works than he can about its stand on transsubstantiation or Papal infallibility.
The Latest Hill and Huma Siting
Picked this rather humorous video up from Camille Paglia's latest commentary on Salon. (Wrongheaded commentary, of course, as is increasingly Paglia's wont, but certainly more erudite than most stuff you see coming in from left field.) Aside from the unintentionally hilarious and highly symbolic cascade of recalcitrant flags—an armada of "patriotic" Democrats obviously can't coax the banners into standing at attention in the presence of a closet Marxist—we get a live-action "glimpse of Hillary's top aide, the elegant Huma Abedin, wielding one of her formidable designer handbags," according to an approving Paglia, whose own romantic proclivities unabashedly tilt toward the distaff side of homo sapiens. Hmmm.
Without any help from the complicit MSM one way or another, we continue to try to track down the truth or falsehood of the Hillary + Huma rumah, but still no smoking gun. The Hillary camp's new and improved 21st Century Media Cone of Silence has clearly been perfected by the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
Speaking of Camille's latest pronouncements—sadly, she next stoops to praising extravagently the genuinely moronic California Senator Dianne Feinstein and the ultra-rich, ultra-Marxist Speaker of the House (and chronic botox-abuser) Nancy Pelosi. Camille can do better than this. Fortunately she does return to Planet Earth just in time to blast the legion of loonies who've successfully transformed seemingly all extant media into nauseating "green" machines, the better to propagandize the weird science of "global warming":
Without any help from the complicit MSM one way or another, we continue to try to track down the truth or falsehood of the Hillary + Huma rumah, but still no smoking gun. The Hillary camp's new and improved 21st Century Media Cone of Silence has clearly been perfected by the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
Speaking of Camille's latest pronouncements—sadly, she next stoops to praising extravagently the genuinely moronic California Senator Dianne Feinstein and the ultra-rich, ultra-Marxist Speaker of the House (and chronic botox-abuser) Nancy Pelosi. Camille can do better than this. Fortunately she does return to Planet Earth just in time to blast the legion of loonies who've successfully transformed seemingly all extant media into nauseating "green" machines, the better to propagandize the weird science of "global warming":
This facile attribution of climate change to human agency is an act of hubris. Good stewardship of the environment is an ethical imperative for every nation. But breast-beating hysteria merely betrays impious tunnel vision. Thousands of factors, minute and grand, are at work in cyclic climate change, whose long-term outcomes we cannot possibly predict. Nature should inspire us with awe, not pity.Yep.
A Shocker from Tom Stoppard, Rock and Roll
The central character in the latest Tom Stoppard play, "Rock and Roll," which has just arrived on Broadway from London, is a familiar figure, an unashamed academic Soviet apologist named Max, played with pugnacious vigor by Brian Cox...There was no act of barbarism by the Soviets too wicked to defend, no individual act of courage by those opposed to the dehumanizing effects of communist rule too valiant to be dismissed as "bourgeois individualism."...Trapped in their entrenched positions, too proud to admit a mistake, too closed in their minds to appraise the mounting evidence against their case, they maintained a pious air of superiority over those they dismissed as suffering from "false consciousness."...Without the conspicuous presence of Max and his comrades, it has become far less easy to identify those who, posing often as guardians of liberty, curtail free speech by stifling views they cannot abide...Among those who ostensibly devote their lives to gender equality, racial tolerance, and academic meritocracy are Maxes — and Maxines — galore, ready to close down debates and discussions with which they do not agree....Conspicuous Presence, review of Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll, Nicholas Wapshott, New York Sun, 11/14/2007
Things change. Back when the great Lady Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, the West End was not a place for those with such views as those suggested by Stoppard's play. John Cleese noted in an interview decades back that a person who mentioned Maggie's name in a favorable light at a cast party in London would be henceforth banned from the theater social circuit. And as brilliant as some of Britain's political dramas have been, both on stage and on screen, such as the dazzling House of Cards trilogy or A Very British Coup, the villains have always been on the Right. Being on the hard Left was in the tradition of the thee-a-tuh (and its child, the movies) since Shaw and the Fabians invented British socialism in the late 19th century. Unlike the U.S., where big theater, that is to say, Broadway, has relapsed into the near-vaudevillean silliness of the early 20th century, the Brits haven't lost their theater chops as playwrights. Stoppard is unquestionably Shaw's heir as the greatest playwright in English, and deservedly so. He's brilliant, insightful, and a gifted dramaturgist willing to take many risks to enliven an ancient art form. His sharp, brilliant focus on the unmentionable pathology of Leftism (and its ghastly heirs) in the Academy is very, very welcome. Go see it, but you'll have to wait until the strike ends.
Luther
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
McCain and Hillary: Compare and Contrast
The fun part of this clip is the opening question to John McCain. Which, unfortunately, is spelled out for you before it suddenly happens. But what the heck, it's funny anyway. Shows McCain in a positive light. Also puts on display the strong negatives regularly emanating from the Smartest Woman in the World.
Whose people, BTW, are now trying to intimidate liberal Wolf Blitzer to ask even more liberal milquetoast questions of Her Highness during the next Dem "debate" rather than subject her to something so embarrassing as a REAL question. Like Tim Russert, a notably new arrival to the vast right wing conspiracy. Maybe Hill needs more people to plant questions, eh?
Enjoy:
Whose people, BTW, are now trying to intimidate liberal Wolf Blitzer to ask even more liberal milquetoast questions of Her Highness during the next Dem "debate" rather than subject her to something so embarrassing as a REAL question. Like Tim Russert, a notably new arrival to the vast right wing conspiracy. Maybe Hill needs more people to plant questions, eh?
Enjoy:
Jimmy Carter: A Personal Retrospective
Apropos of nothing in particular, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs dropped the following quotation on his readers today before moving on to the usual daily outrages:
I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a “learning experience.” Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a “learning experience.” It makes me feel less stupid.
— P. J. O’Rourke
For over 30 years, Wonker has been haunted by bad memories from the 1960s. But his worst memories of all date from the fall of 1976. Broke, unemployed, and trying to feed his small family on food stamps and hope, Wonk concluded that the Democrats would inflate the economy, thus giving him a fighting chance to find a job. In a remaining moment of rapidly waning liberal weakness, he pulled the lever for Jimmy Carter that November. And Jimmy delivered the goods all right, in a way none of us could ever have imagined.
O'Rourke's pithy observation is balm for the truly repentant sinner. (I may actually get some untroubled sleep tonight.)
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Harvard Hypocrisy on ROTC
Powerline notes today, with some approval, the seemingly reasonable comments of Harry Lewis, a professor at Harvard University, concerning Harvard's banning of ROTC on campus, allegedly due to the military's "anti-gay" stance. Always the hypocrites, Harvard is happy to allow those of their students who dare to desire a military career, to attend ROTC training at nearby MIT, which allows it. Of course, MIT gets to spend the dollars to support the Harvard students as well, without any reimbursement from their obviously smarter and clearly more smug compatriots. Writes professor Lewis:
Correct. Harvard's stance is NOT morally tenable. It's moral posturing, substituting the appearance of virtue for virtue itself.
Professor Lewis perhaps fails to recognize the underlying hypocrisy in this "stance." The military's position on homosexuals is quite simply the current excuse for the current Harvard ROTC ban. If the military declared tomorrow that the ban were lifted, Harvard's academic hypocrites would simply move the goalposts and figure out another reason to ban ROTC.
Greg Mankiw offers a more interesting challenge to the Harvard hypocrites:
But can we achieve moral purity for ourselves in one area by shifting a separate moral burden to other shoulders?
I admire the idealism of those who have fought for gay rights over the past 40 years and who have educated us about their importance. Like many, I believe the ban on homosexuals in the military is unwise and will eventually be lifted.
But I don’t think Harvard’s stance on ROTC is morally tenable. We should not attempt to remove the barriers facing some of our students by placing stumbling blocks in the path of others.
Correct. Harvard's stance is NOT morally tenable. It's moral posturing, substituting the appearance of virtue for virtue itself.
Professor Lewis perhaps fails to recognize the underlying hypocrisy in this "stance." The military's position on homosexuals is quite simply the current excuse for the current Harvard ROTC ban. If the military declared tomorrow that the ban were lifted, Harvard's academic hypocrites would simply move the goalposts and figure out another reason to ban ROTC.
Greg Mankiw offers a more interesting challenge to the Harvard hypocrites:
Some faculty see the Harvard ROTC ban as a protest against the federal government's treatment of gay military personnel. But to me the form of the protest seems particularly sanctimonious, as the faculty are asking for a sacrifice from others (in particular, from potential ROTC students and from other students who would benefit from a more diverse student body), while giving up relatively little themselves. I propose that any professor who wants to protest federal policy can do so personally by refusing to apply for or accept any grants from the federal government.The military's position on homosexuals is simply the latest dodge employed by another bunch of intellectually and morally bankrupt academics to conceal their true position. They HATE the military. They're merely hiding behind their latest excuse. If you take that excuse away, they'll quickly come up with another. A miserable conclusion to draw on Veterans Day. But a correct one.
Friday, November 09, 2007
CUNY Union Local Sues a Satirist "Brother"
The faculty union of the City University of New York known as the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) has a penchant for aiding and abetting terrorists and supporting political causes with the member’s dues. Now determined to forever silence all criticism, one of the prominent union big wigs has just filed a $2 million lawsuit to shut down the one remaining gadfly, Dr. Sharad Karkhanis Professor Emeritus from Kingsborough Community College who has been tirelessly exposing the malfeasance of the PSC and the incompetence of its leaders in his influential internet newsletter The Patriot Returns....Free Speech for Sharad, Phil Orenstein, Front Page Magazine, 11/9/2007
If you can't succeed in silencing a critic with shunning, threats, or denial of tenure, file a nuisance lawsuit. Dr. Karkhanis probably isn't surprised, but we should be disgusted by a faculty union representing people who claim to offer diverse viewpoints using legal action to silence a critic.
Name-calling may offend, but it never harms one’s life or limb, or sets fire to one’s home or property. Criticism may hurt someone’s feelings, but cannot injure one’s reputation. O’Malley has caused more damage to her reputation [as a union leader] by suing a distinguished retired professor for criticism, than the criticism itself has wrought....(Free Speech for Sharad, continued...)
Indeed...if you'd like to read what has caused such outrage, and cost so much lawyer time, at the CUNY Union Local, click her for Dr. Karkhanis's The Patriot Returns You might also look at Free Speech CUNY, a site recommended by the writer who suggested we point to CUNY, not NYU, as the issue here!
Luther
Indoctrination University Paradigm Confirmed by AAUP
The AAUP’s new doctrine is a transparent attempt to justify the transformation of the university into a home for these sectarian creeds by shielding them from the scrutiny of scientific method. In the new dispensation, political control of a discipline is the sole basis for establishing “truth,” and closing off critical debate. The idea that political power can establish “truth” is a conception so incompatible with the intellectual foundations of the modern research university that the AAUP committee could not state it so baldly. Hence the disingenuous compromise of “truth within a relevant discipline.”...The End of the University as We Know It, David Horowitz, Front Page Magazine, 11/9/2007
Wonker won't be surprised, as he experienced this decades ago in his brief university career, but it is depressing nonetheless that the principal faculty union, the American Association of University Professors, has responded to a decade-long counterinsurgency against university indoctrination by essentially saying "we've got a good thing going here; screw you".
Horowitz writes a strong, detailed analysis of the historical precedents (and resistance to) this conclusion which, more or less, says that if a professor is passionate about a subject, that alone makes how a professor addresses the subject "true." Desolate -- it's like going back to the medeaval university.
However, students know something that professors don't seem to grasp. For every point of view espoused in the classroom as absolute truth, if only in a given discipline, there are a dozen others, as forcefully argued, on the Worldwide Web. The politically heuristic cave is full of holes which any student with a Web-enabled cell phone can escape through.
Nonethelss, AAUP has now put itself on the side of the political absolutism of any given professor, making what had been ad hoc policy the official position of a major faculty union. This is a disgrace to the union and to the professors and universities associated with it. It is a move one might have expected in the defunct Soviet Union, not in the "free" West.
Luther
Thursday, November 08, 2007
"Global Warming": Greatest Scam in History?
Weather Channel founder John Coleman teed off but good yesterday on the "global warming" freakologists:
These comments, BTW, are taken from Coleman's remarks that appear at a website called ICECAP, which is supported by various "individuals" who aren't named. I figured I'd get out front with this, as the lack of ID is likely to attract the usual scurrilous attacks, like "Cheney and Halliburton are paying for this." (On the other hand, most lefty sites are careful to hide their paper trails as well.)
Nonetheless, I'd fail to see why this site's mysterious supporters should be any more nefarious than the mysterious supporters who fund sites on the left. Bottom line: Coleman is right. But his comments here will either draw the usual, shrill, scurrilous denunciations. Or, in true academic style, they will not be "noticed" at all.
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.That about sums up what's going on, doesn't it? We've been saying much the same thing here, but Coleman has a way with words.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmentally conscientious citizens.
These comments, BTW, are taken from Coleman's remarks that appear at a website called ICECAP, which is supported by various "individuals" who aren't named. I figured I'd get out front with this, as the lack of ID is likely to attract the usual scurrilous attacks, like "Cheney and Halliburton are paying for this." (On the other hand, most lefty sites are careful to hide their paper trails as well.)
Nonetheless, I'd fail to see why this site's mysterious supporters should be any more nefarious than the mysterious supporters who fund sites on the left. Bottom line: Coleman is right. But his comments here will either draw the usual, shrill, scurrilous denunciations. Or, in true academic style, they will not be "noticed" at all.
Structured Hybrid Investment Tranches
As our small legion of regular readers knows, HazZzMat occasionally ventures into the realm of investment arcana due to Wonker's experience as a stockbroker many years ago and his continued involvement in the currently frustrating world of investments.
As any sentient being knows right now, the markets are being mightily roiled by the chaos caused by mass quantities of subprime mortgages re-setting, defaulting, and destructively rippling through the system. We won't get into the details, but if you're in stocks, you're not having too much fun right now.
A major part of the current mess is that most institutions who issued these teaser-rate subprime mortgages—mortgages that are now re-setting and driving mortgage holders into foreclosure at an accelerating rate—either sold them off to mortgage servicers and/or other institutions who sliced and diced them into little pieces, put them in bond-like packages, and sold them off to other lending institutions, hedge funds, private investors, whatever. Again, not to drill down too deeply, these packages have acquired various names like CDOs, SIVs, etc. (Note: Google this stuff if you're really interested.) All the lay investor needs to know about these package deals right now is that, since significant pieces of these artificial constructs are collapsing, no one really has a clue as to what they're worth anymore.
Hence the ongoing market panic. Your entire balance sheet becomes suspect, and perhaps several quarters of booked earnings may now, in fact, turn out to have been smoke and mirrors. In other words, bottom line, your Chief Financial Officer (CFO) no longer has a clue as to what your company, earnings, etc. are currently worth, and several previous quarters' reported earnings may very well have been intentionally or unintentionally bogus. This is certainly not what anyone, ranging from company officials, to institutional, international, or individual investors want to hear. "Oh, those bonds I sold you. I don't have any idea if they're worth anything now. Have a nice day."
Following this stuff is a brain buster unless you're a CPA which I am not. And even legit and highly skilled CPAs are absolutely confounded when looking at these hybrid instruments. But this is why I subscribe to a few pay services whose gurus have been pretty good keeping me on track. Most useful to me at least is Decision Point, which is run by a retired air line pilot, Carl Swenlin, and offers some of the best and most useful technical info around. Carl occasionally posts excerpts from other pay-per-view services as a way of offering further market insights while cross-marketing those he thinks his users might find useful if they subscribed.
One of these services is Alan Newman's "Crosscurrents." The Crosscurrents excerpt currently posted on Carl's site has perhaps the nicest, pithiest explanation ever of the mess I just outlined for you above, and introduces an acronym that provides us with an excellent handle on precisely what we're dealing with here:
Carl's and Alan's services, as I said, are pay per view so I can't give you live links. However, I don't think Alan will mind my short excerpt above, as I think it deserves a wide airing amongst frustrated individual investors. If you want more info on Carl's Decision Point, click on the link earlier in this post. And if you're interested in seeing what Alan has to offer in Crosscurrents, just click here.
Oh, and watch out for the SHIT.
As any sentient being knows right now, the markets are being mightily roiled by the chaos caused by mass quantities of subprime mortgages re-setting, defaulting, and destructively rippling through the system. We won't get into the details, but if you're in stocks, you're not having too much fun right now.
A major part of the current mess is that most institutions who issued these teaser-rate subprime mortgages—mortgages that are now re-setting and driving mortgage holders into foreclosure at an accelerating rate—either sold them off to mortgage servicers and/or other institutions who sliced and diced them into little pieces, put them in bond-like packages, and sold them off to other lending institutions, hedge funds, private investors, whatever. Again, not to drill down too deeply, these packages have acquired various names like CDOs, SIVs, etc. (Note: Google this stuff if you're really interested.) All the lay investor needs to know about these package deals right now is that, since significant pieces of these artificial constructs are collapsing, no one really has a clue as to what they're worth anymore.
Hence the ongoing market panic. Your entire balance sheet becomes suspect, and perhaps several quarters of booked earnings may now, in fact, turn out to have been smoke and mirrors. In other words, bottom line, your Chief Financial Officer (CFO) no longer has a clue as to what your company, earnings, etc. are currently worth, and several previous quarters' reported earnings may very well have been intentionally or unintentionally bogus. This is certainly not what anyone, ranging from company officials, to institutional, international, or individual investors want to hear. "Oh, those bonds I sold you. I don't have any idea if they're worth anything now. Have a nice day."
Following this stuff is a brain buster unless you're a CPA which I am not. And even legit and highly skilled CPAs are absolutely confounded when looking at these hybrid instruments. But this is why I subscribe to a few pay services whose gurus have been pretty good keeping me on track. Most useful to me at least is Decision Point, which is run by a retired air line pilot, Carl Swenlin, and offers some of the best and most useful technical info around. Carl occasionally posts excerpts from other pay-per-view services as a way of offering further market insights while cross-marketing those he thinks his users might find useful if they subscribed.
One of these services is Alan Newman's "Crosscurrents." The Crosscurrents excerpt currently posted on Carl's site has perhaps the nicest, pithiest explanation ever of the mess I just outlined for you above, and introduces an acronym that provides us with an excellent handle on precisely what we're dealing with here:
We have long argued that the growth of indexing of U.S. stocks is destroying pricing efficiencies, since indexing tends to underrate fair values and overrate poor values, according to the time tested methods of security analysis. In the same fashion, the continuing rapid growth of derivatives threatens to understate overall systemic risk by securitizing literally everything, the bad along with the good. The world of CDOs, SIVs and most recently M-LECs is well on the way towards the creation of Structured Hybrid Investment Tranches (SHITs). All of the former are suspect. We fully expect to someday be buried in the latter.I think Alan's conclusion is about right, don't you? Meanwhile, don't miss today's exciting Wall Street action which will feature yet another round of opaque Ben Bernanke testimony interpretations.
Carl's and Alan's services, as I said, are pay per view so I can't give you live links. However, I don't think Alan will mind my short excerpt above, as I think it deserves a wide airing amongst frustrated individual investors. If you want more info on Carl's Decision Point, click on the link earlier in this post. And if you're interested in seeing what Alan has to offer in Crosscurrents, just click here.
Oh, and watch out for the SHIT.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Kucinich to Be Inducted into the Moonbat Hall of Fame
Well, this hasn't happened yet, because Hillary won't earmark it unless it's located on the Woodstock site. But Dennis definitely wins our November Glass Navel of the Month Award for outstanding Idiotarian behavior.
HazZzMat has already dealt at length on the severely moonbat proclivities of Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Moonbat-OH). Dennis the Menace as he's affectionately known, was responsible many moons ago for accelerating the still-continuing decline of Cleveland, Ohio, Wonker's hometown, back in the 1970s when he briefly and disastrously served as mayor of that Colossal Wreck. Once representing a slice of West Side Cleveland voters, his gerrymandered 10th Congressional District has now encroached on a swath of surrounding territories which seem to pretty much include all of Western Cuyahoga County, the county primarily occupied by Cleveland.
Denny is apparently prepared to let all his constituents go to hell as he continues in his neverending Quixotic quest for the Presidency he will never win. (Or perhaps his objective is simply to break the record of futility owned by the late Republican Harold Stassen who ran failed presidential campaigns throughout most of Wonker's early life.)
Digging hard for yet another 15 minutes of fame instead of doing his job, Dennis recently junketed to Syria to commit treason, denouncing the Bushies wherever he traveled for everything, from "global warming" to a pandemic of hangnails. While sucking up to tinhorn dictators, he continued to ignore his hapless constituents, whose unemployment and mortgage foreclosure rates (not to mention their property taxes) are among the highest in the nation with no sign of abatement or relief.
You'd think that residents of Lakewood and the rest of Kucinich's Cuyahoga County constituency would urge their Congressional Knight of the Burning Pestle to ride to their rescue and try to do something to help, right? Well, maybe they have, but Dennis Kucinich now prefers to ride his Rocinante (to mix our metaphor) on another quest: this time, to impeach Vice president Cheney for the high crime and misdemeanor, apparently, of serving as a good soldier in the Bush Administration.
Unfortunately, so wrapped up is Denny in his latest idiotic quest that he jumped the shark this week, made a fool of himself, and torqued off the House Democrat leadership to boot. (That's a great way to help your constituents.) Don Surber tells the whole story, leading off with a wonderful, descriptive quote from successfully impeached Judge (and now Congressman, of course) Alcee Hastings:
After that swell hed, Surber dives into the pea-soup fogged world of the man who has finally topped Congressperson Maxine Waters (Marxist-CA) as the most delusionary Congressman alive:
HazZzMat has already dealt at length on the severely moonbat proclivities of Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Moonbat-OH). Dennis the Menace as he's affectionately known, was responsible many moons ago for accelerating the still-continuing decline of Cleveland, Ohio, Wonker's hometown, back in the 1970s when he briefly and disastrously served as mayor of that Colossal Wreck. Once representing a slice of West Side Cleveland voters, his gerrymandered 10th Congressional District has now encroached on a swath of surrounding territories which seem to pretty much include all of Western Cuyahoga County, the county primarily occupied by Cleveland.
Denny is apparently prepared to let all his constituents go to hell as he continues in his neverending Quixotic quest for the Presidency he will never win. (Or perhaps his objective is simply to break the record of futility owned by the late Republican Harold Stassen who ran failed presidential campaigns throughout most of Wonker's early life.)
Digging hard for yet another 15 minutes of fame instead of doing his job, Dennis recently junketed to Syria to commit treason, denouncing the Bushies wherever he traveled for everything, from "global warming" to a pandemic of hangnails. While sucking up to tinhorn dictators, he continued to ignore his hapless constituents, whose unemployment and mortgage foreclosure rates (not to mention their property taxes) are among the highest in the nation with no sign of abatement or relief.
You'd think that residents of Lakewood and the rest of Kucinich's Cuyahoga County constituency would urge their Congressional Knight of the Burning Pestle to ride to their rescue and try to do something to help, right? Well, maybe they have, but Dennis Kucinich now prefers to ride his Rocinante (to mix our metaphor) on another quest: this time, to impeach Vice president Cheney for the high crime and misdemeanor, apparently, of serving as a good soldier in the Bush Administration.
Unfortunately, so wrapped up is Denny in his latest idiotic quest that he jumped the shark this week, made a fool of himself, and torqued off the House Democrat leadership to boot. (That's a great way to help your constituents.) Don Surber tells the whole story, leading off with a wonderful, descriptive quote from successfully impeached Judge (and now Congressman, of course) Alcee Hastings:
‘Dennis Kucinich is on a quest of his own. He sees flying saucers and he acts like one, too’
After that swell hed, Surber dives into the pea-soup fogged world of the man who has finally topped Congressperson Maxine Waters (Marxist-CA) as the most delusionary Congressman alive:Suffice it to say, Democratic leaders are pissed at Dennis for bringing up impeachment
I love it. Fox News is reporting that the Democratic leaders in Congress are seething over Dennis Kucinich for dragging impeachment onto the political stage.
Kucinich is an embarrassment to the party. He’s like the Crazy Aunt who spills all the family secrets.
They want him to go back into the attic.
Republicans are handing him a megaphone. Spill, Auntie Dennis, spill.
Are you loving this? That last sentence by Surber alludes to the fun the Republicans have been having at the House leadership's expense due to Kucinich's unadulterated lunacy. Already under siege for having declared General Petraeus' Iraq surge strategery a failure while it was succeeding, the few remaining adult members of the Democrat's House leadership cadre was in no mood to let their Chief Moonbat make them a laughingstock again. But the Repubs were only to happy to encourage Dennis' attempts to bring his delusions to the House floor. But let Don tell it:
Steny Hoyer, who as the House’s No. 2 Democrat has taken over for the incompetent House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi, tried to kill the Kucinich impeachment resolution.Republicans were all set to help him until it occurred to them, screw Hoyer. What has he done for Republicans?
Being portrayed as pulling the wings off children over SCHIP chafed Republicans. So they decided to give Kucinich enough rope to hang all the Democrats.
86 Democrats were serious in voting for the resolution. 165 Republicans voted for the resolution just to send a message to Democratic leaders. Shelley Moore Capito was among the Republicans voting for the resolution.
Technically the motion was to table, so the 162 votes for tabling were against the resolution, while the 251 no votes were technically for the impeachment resolution.
Besides Kucinich and the rest of the Tinfoil Caucus of the Democratic Party, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel voted for the impeachment resolution.
Maybe Democratic leaders should stop playing games and start cutting deals with the Republicans in order to get legislation passed.
Surber then includes the reasonably straightforward AP version of Kucinich's latest antics. Link here to follow the fun.
What's not funny, though, are the suffering residents of Cuyahoga County who could really use some help to get up off the economic barroom floor. Sadly, as long as they continue to elect and re-elect the same dreary parade of Democrat charlatans and hacks, just as they've been doing for the past half century or so, there'll be no help coming for them anytime soon. The best they've been getting are the choreographed sucker punches thrown at the Bushies by Congress' one and only Boy Blunder. I suppose it's entertaining when you have nothing better to do.
In all honesty, we wonder when Cleveland area voters are going to wake up and elect an adult to represent them in Congress as opposed to the aging, Marxist Peter Pan they keep sending back to Washington. What does it take, folks?
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
The Real Clinton Scandal
Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has taken thousands of dollars in cash donations from Islamists under federal investigation for terror-financing, money laundering and tax fraud, WND has learned....Hillary takes cash from terror suspects, WorldNet Daily, 11/4/2007
Former NJ Governor McGreevey skillfully avoided being recalled or impeached by throwing himself as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of homosexual rights. LOOK AT THE VICTIM, the headlines cried. As they did, they conveniently ignored a remarkable level of corrupt practices in McGreevey's administration, practices perhaps ordinary in New Jersey, but which nonetheless would have put the now ex-Governor, current gay martyr Jim McGreevey, in prison. Watch this doesn't happen with Senator Clinton with rumors about her after-hours sport. Part of her campaign is being financed by large, surreptitious funneling of cash from the People's Republic of China, an assortment of freaks like those mentioned in WorldNet Daily, an array of enemies of the United States. Like her husband, she's willing to trade her country's future for power. That's a real scandal. Who cares about gossip regarding Huma?
Luther
BBC Report on US Foreclosures: The Usual BBC Objectivity?
Cleveland, Ohio, is an industrial city on the banks of Lake Erie in the US 'rust belt'...It is the sub-prime capital of the United States. One in ten homes in the city is now vacant, and whole neighbourhoods have been blighted by foreclosed, vandalized and boarded-up homes....Foreclosure Wave Sweeps America, BBC Report, 11/5/2007
No offense to Clevelanders, but choosing this city as representative of the sub-prime mess is about like picking Chernobyl as a good example of a city developed by nuclear power. Fact is, with the best efforts of local politicians, not to mention the federal government, Cleveland has been sinking for half a century. A downtown revival does not rebuild a metropolitan center nor replace productive enterprises that have found better places to do business. And throwing subprime mortgages out like so much raw meat in Cleveland, as in Buffalo, another city where massive government subsidies have not been able to reverse decades of local and state government misconduct, was just stupid, not to mention mendacious and politically manipulative.
The writer recalls similar exercises in banker stupidity and is not impressed. As with those who threw billions at Filipino colonels and African dictators in the 1980s, the senior officers of banks who offer loans to people who can't afford them, and are unlikely to pay them back, should be fired. They won't be, however, and they know it. As with the merry band of loan pranksters in the 1980's, they know very well that a massive credit problem will force Congress to offer legislative relief to banks that should be allowed to fail for their bad business practices.
It will be offered in the guise of "helping the average American." Right -- the collusion of bankers and creditors to loot the taxpayers is justifiably described as criminal behavior, not as the innocent gulled by Satan's agent at Citigroup. However, as with the S&L disaster, it won't matter which party dominates Congress. The loot and plunder philosophy that's informed American bankers and their creditors since the "sovereign debt" days of the 1980s to the subprime market of today will be upheld in Congress and ignored by the Courts.
Don't expect this to be reported by the BBC.
Luther
Space Elevator: DeWitt Clinton Would have Approved
Like the Erie Canal, a space elevator would be more than just a testament to...American ingenuity...It would have broad, practical economic and political ramifications...Just as the Erie Canal lowered the cost of shipping a ton of flour from $120 to less than $6, a space elevator could similarly open up space by radically reducing the price of hauling the equipment and supplies into orbit...If America is serious about establishing a permanent presence on the moon -- and, ultimately, Mars -- this country will need a dramatically more efficient process for delivering cargo and personnel into a space. Our present system of using individual rockets is about as efficient as hauling flour by horseback....A Modern Day Erie Canal, Jack Uldrich, TCS Daily, 11/6/2007
Uldrich's article calls to mind the greatest fear held by advocates of human expansion, not only into space, but into new endeavors on earth. There's always some Nanny-Statist who wants to put off an entrepreneur's request for funds in order to pay for the welfare needs of a new constituency. As Uldrich illuminates, the 19th century Clinton, New York's governor, was not shy about spending the colossal sums (by 19th century standards) required to built what was a highly risky project. He understood that a current constituency may be valuable, but the future value of the state's economy, and its well-being, was more important.
Luther
Chavez, Si. Musharraf, No Way.
Glenn Reynolds poses an interesting question this morning at Instapundit:
Problem is that, as Glenn indicates, "OUR son-of-a-bitch" Musharraf is defined by today's despicably biased MSM as "BUSH'S son-of-a-bitch." And thus, Musharraf is well-worth trashing while Chavez is not. The demonstrable fact that Chavez actively works 24/7 to expropriate American interests in Venezuela; while the increasingly hapless Musharraf has at least made an effort and and has endangered his own life to help us against the Islamofascists. But he's "helping Bush," so let's throw him out.
An additional reason for this illogical yet dialectical dichotomy is that Chavez is a Commie while Musharraf is most certainly not. And, reliving those Golden Days of old—when the MSM worked hand-in-hand with the increasingly leftist Democrats to throw the barely-Republican Nixon out of office and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam—America's defeatist left once again can't stand the thought of allowing a Republican President to gain a military victory since it would likely keep the Democrats out of the White House for another term. So they'll undermine him every step of the way, including mounting campaigns against anyone aligned with the U.S. in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
For the Democrats, it's all about power, but never about responsibility. And at the very bottom of their list, after stealing every available wallet via massive tax increases, is the safety and welfare of the American people. Narcissists and elite Marxist poseurs, the American left today could ultimately prove fatal to democracy as we know it if their treasonous behavior is sanctified via the ballot box in 2008. They are the ultimate irresponsible adolescents.
This is what Glenn did NOT say. But we're sure he meant to!
WHY IS THE WORLD MORE CONCERNED with Musharraf's coup than with Hugo Chavez's emerging dicatatorship? Because enemies of the United States, like Chavez, get a pass.Glenn's answer, too, is a good one. I have read where Saint Franklin Roosevelt, when queried as to why we were supporting yet another dictator-thug in another era, is said to have responded, that he "may be a son-of-a-bitch. But he's OUR son-of-a-bitch." The wealthy Father of American Socialism got that about right.
Problem is that, as Glenn indicates, "OUR son-of-a-bitch" Musharraf is defined by today's despicably biased MSM as "BUSH'S son-of-a-bitch." And thus, Musharraf is well-worth trashing while Chavez is not. The demonstrable fact that Chavez actively works 24/7 to expropriate American interests in Venezuela; while the increasingly hapless Musharraf has at least made an effort and and has endangered his own life to help us against the Islamofascists. But he's "helping Bush," so let's throw him out.
An additional reason for this illogical yet dialectical dichotomy is that Chavez is a Commie while Musharraf is most certainly not. And, reliving those Golden Days of old—when the MSM worked hand-in-hand with the increasingly leftist Democrats to throw the barely-Republican Nixon out of office and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam—America's defeatist left once again can't stand the thought of allowing a Republican President to gain a military victory since it would likely keep the Democrats out of the White House for another term. So they'll undermine him every step of the way, including mounting campaigns against anyone aligned with the U.S. in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
For the Democrats, it's all about power, but never about responsibility. And at the very bottom of their list, after stealing every available wallet via massive tax increases, is the safety and welfare of the American people. Narcissists and elite Marxist poseurs, the American left today could ultimately prove fatal to democracy as we know it if their treasonous behavior is sanctified via the ballot box in 2008. They are the ultimate irresponsible adolescents.
This is what Glenn did NOT say. But we're sure he meant to!
Monday, November 05, 2007
Salt Lake Trib Shills for NEA
I've been following Utah's voucher battle off and on for the past several months and have become increasingly discouraged that this statewide ballot measure may go down to defeat at the polls tomorrow. The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized against the pro-voucher measure today, helping the NEA do its dirty work, and thus helping assure that disadvantaged Utahns, like their brothers and sisters across the U.S. have no choice but to attend increasingly lousy public schools.
As is so often the case these days, the editorial begins, not with an argument but by smearing proponents backing this perfectly logical measure, which is, essentially, an endorsement of freedom of choice:
Apparently, the left-wing ideologue who penned the Trib's anti-choice editorial has no problem, however, turning over "the taxpayers' money" to his or her fellow left-wing ideologues in the NEA's re-education combine. What a joke. The left is famous for accusing its innocent opposition of the sins they themselves regularly commit.
In addition, while denouncing allegedly right-wing out of state support for this measure, the Trib editorial writer neglects to mention the substantial, and indeed, LARGER amount of money flooding in from LEFT-WING out of state interests. Apparently, though, that's okay, because they're smart and we're not. But let's get back to the Trib's editorial rant:
Referendum 1 was forced onto Tuesday's ballot by a groundswell of opposition to vouchers by a populace unwilling to compromise their neighborhood schools by allowing tax revenue to be siphoned off to pay private school tuition.
Wrong again. Referendum 1 was forced onto Tuesday's ballot by well-funded socialists, spearheaded by the NEA which takes no prisoners when defending its monopoly on re-education camps, I mean public schools. These people are also ideologues by the way, proving that some ideologues are more equal than others. But wait, there's more:
The anti-religious tone here is unmistakable, taking on the same ugly cast as it did in the last century. In which century, by the way, Protestant religious readings and lessons were an expected part of public education, as exemplified in the McGuffey Readers, still in use by some home schoolers and a regular part of, surprise, the public school curriculum.
This diatribe masquerading as an editorial concludes with a self-righteous frenzy:
Utah's voucher law also fails as an antidote to the expected influx of 145,000 new students, many of them low-income immigrants, in the coming decade. Most poor families cannot afford private school for their children, even with a $3,000 voucher.
We'd urge sensible Utahns to ignore the Tribune's vicious and wrongheaded editorial screed and vote "FOR" Referendum 1. A "FOR" vote will do two things. First of all, it will improve education in Utah by breaking the left-wing NEA stranglehold on Utah's public schools. And second of all, it will send a strong message to the smug Marxist who wrote today's propaganda hit piece on a perfectly sensible piece of legislation that all right-thinking Utahns should be proud to endorse.
As is so often the case these days, the editorial begins, not with an argument but by smearing proponents backing this perfectly logical measure, which is, essentially, an endorsement of freedom of choice:
The Republican legislative leadership would have you believe that the voucher law on Tuesday's ballot is a solution to the problems plaguing education in Utah. It is not. Rather, it is a product of right-wing ideologues far from Utah who would like nothing better than to take education out of the hands of the taxpaying Americans who pay for it and turn it over to private interests.Excuse me? "Right-wing ideologues far from Utah" want to take education out of the hands of taxpaying Americans? Excuse me? Voucher measures, in fact, cause quite the opposite to happen. Vouchers take a helping of the same tax money that goes to support overpaid, tenured NEA teachers who run underperforming public schools and channel it instead to the parents, allowing them to opt-out of this corrupt monopoly and sending their children to privately or religiously-run schools. The children thus have access to schools that will provide them with a safe environment (as opposed to public schools) as well as with a LEARNING environment, as opposed to the socialist re-education camps run by NEA deadbeats more interested in showing Al Gore's bogus movie than in teaching science, reading, and the arts to their malleable young charges.
Apparently, the left-wing ideologue who penned the Trib's anti-choice editorial has no problem, however, turning over "the taxpayers' money" to his or her fellow left-wing ideologues in the NEA's re-education combine. What a joke. The left is famous for accusing its innocent opposition of the sins they themselves regularly commit.
In addition, while denouncing allegedly right-wing out of state support for this measure, the Trib editorial writer neglects to mention the substantial, and indeed, LARGER amount of money flooding in from LEFT-WING out of state interests. Apparently, though, that's okay, because they're smart and we're not. But let's get back to the Trib's editorial rant:
Referendum 1 was forced onto Tuesday's ballot by a groundswell of opposition to vouchers by a populace unwilling to compromise their neighborhood schools by allowing tax revenue to be siphoned off to pay private school tuition.
Wrong again. Referendum 1 was forced onto Tuesday's ballot by well-funded socialists, spearheaded by the NEA which takes no prisoners when defending its monopoly on re-education camps, I mean public schools. These people are also ideologues by the way, proving that some ideologues are more equal than others. But wait, there's more:
Beyond the radical political and philosophical goals of the voucherites, there are other sound reasons for pounding a stake through the heart of this perennial push on Capitol Hill: the potential of vouchers to rob public schools of funding, and the questionable constitutionality of sending public funds to religion-based private schools.Note the hyper-heated rhetoric here. Supporters of vouchers are "voucherites," a sly adaptation of 19th century anti-Catholic know-nothing rhetoric. Worse, the Trib's writer, in effect, wants to "pound a stake through the heart" of these "voucherites," slanderously characterizing them as bloodsucking vampires. Which, of course, they are to the writer of this screed, since they are potentially sucking away $$$$, the lifeblood of the destructive NEA public school monopoly. Nowhere is it explained why the public schools are deserving of such a monopoly, nor is it shown why private schools are not.
The anti-religious tone here is unmistakable, taking on the same ugly cast as it did in the last century. In which century, by the way, Protestant religious readings and lessons were an expected part of public education, as exemplified in the McGuffey Readers, still in use by some home schoolers and a regular part of, surprise, the public school curriculum.
This diatribe masquerading as an editorial concludes with a self-righteous frenzy:
Utah's voucher law also fails as an antidote to the expected influx of 145,000 new students, many of them low-income immigrants, in the coming decade. Most poor families cannot afford private school for their children, even with a $3,000 voucher.
The bottom line on vouchers is simply this: Sending tax money to private schools is a bad idea. Vote "AGAINST" Referendum 1.In poiny of fact, this editorial notwithstanding, it is demonstrably and measurably a "bad idea" to throw money down the hole of the unaccountable, corrupt, and failed public education system that holds a monopoly over our nation's public education system.
The voucher law was not intended as an "antidote to the expected influx" of new students. It was intended to help ALL students who wished to, to escape the clutches of the left-wing NEA-public school re-education combine. And the second sentence above is an outright falsehood. Most established private schools build or will build scholarship funds to fill the tuition gap for poorer students.
We'd urge sensible Utahns to ignore the Tribune's vicious and wrongheaded editorial screed and vote "FOR" Referendum 1. A "FOR" vote will do two things. First of all, it will improve education in Utah by breaking the left-wing NEA stranglehold on Utah's public schools. And second of all, it will send a strong message to the smug Marxist who wrote today's propaganda hit piece on a perfectly sensible piece of legislation that all right-thinking Utahns should be proud to endorse.
Friday, November 02, 2007
No Bull on SCHIP For a Change
The government would be absolving people who have means of their responsibility to provide for their own children, while foisting that duty upon those who never asked for it. And there is nothing moral whatsoever in that...The left is attempting not only to co-opt the language of morality, but to do so with the up-is-down postmodern rhetoric that makes middle class people the "working poor" and calls coercive redistribution to them a "moral duty"....A Moral Case Against SCHIP Expansion, Max Borders, TCSDaily.com, 10/31/07
This a must-read for Republicans especially, a sharply argued defense of refusing to expand SCHIP.
Max Borders also blogs at redclaycitizen.com.
For those wringing their hands about a sudden diminution of ideas on the right, here's a good place for a refreshing dip in a lake of reason.
Luther
Left & Global "Warming": Keeping the Poor "Safe" from Wealth
Capping international economic growth means preventing industrialization in the Global South. It means Indians and Congolese and Chinese and Nigerians and Indonesians and Brazilians and countless others will not have refrigeration, or air conditioning, or easily potable water, or cleans ways to heat their homes. For the Global South, freezing the global economy in a ephemeral attempt at affecting the climate means permanent poverty, with reduced life spans, continued plagues, unsanitary living and working conditions, and diminished opportunities for education, for Western-levels of medical care, and for convenient and safe transportation...But Western environmentalists and the Religious Left, preoccupied by their own political goals, and blinded by their own wealth, prefer not to admit these consequences for the world's poor. In the Religious Left' mythology, much of the world remains poor only because the exploitative West is rich....How Global Warming Activism Hurts the Poor, Mark D. Tooley, Front Page Magazine, 11/2/2007
As with environmentalist hysteria surrounding DDT, and its associated pseudo-scientific rhetoric (not to mention not-so-scientific intimidation and extortion), the pseudo-scientific hysteria surrounding global "warming" has had real consequences. Unfortunately in both cases, the consequences have been, and will be, devastating to the poor. It is estimated that more than 30,000,0000 poor people have died of a preventable disease (malaria) since the banning of DDT by the United Nations. Cutting off developing world industrialization might have an even more devastating effect. But, as is true with most "humane" programs of the left, humanity itself seems to be the primary target.
Read all of this fine Front Page article. And the next time you hear someone pitch a socialist program, duck. It may be aimed at your head.
Luther
Quote Of the Day, Rep. Anthony Weiner
“There’s some dispute as to whether Huma’s actually human or not.” Hillary's Mystery Woman, Spencer Morgan, The New York Observer, 4/1/2007
Double-negatively speaking, no one ever said The New York Observer wasn't catty.
Luther
Nanny State vs. Mother Nature
The absence of logging and the emphasis on fire suppression in these national forests have produced diseased and dying forests. The gentle fires of the past have turned into to monster fires like the ones we just experienced in California that destroy homes and critical habitat and cost billions...The nation's privately held forests stand in stark contrast. Most are well-managed and thriving. Some, like the ones managed by International Paper Company, welcome hunters, hikers and campers. The fees collected help keep these forests healthy and produce profit for shareholders....How Environmentalists Fanned California Fires, Jane Chastain in Politically Direct, WorldNetDaily.com, 11/1/2007
The writer can offer anecdotes on this subject. In the 1990s, during one of Wyoming's many droughts (a history of them going back centuries before Europeans arrived), Yellowstone had its worst fire since opening to the public a century ago. All of that space in northwestern Wyoming is of course government-managed land. In adjacent pine forests, those under private forestry range management suffered almost no damage. With established fire breaks and fire trails, as well as equipment stationed with a mix of company and private volunteers, a firestorm in the national park was prevented from spreading to privately managed land. Why would this be so? A national park is considered a political plum. As such it's subject to political whims, which since the 1970's have included some truly bizarre notions of forest management. A privately managed forest has somewhat more limited objectives; it is considered not only a source of current income but a legacy for future profits as well. The small patch of forest the writer's family has had dominion over since the early 20th century has been logged dozens of times and still looks about the way it did when the writer first saw it in 1955.
Luther
Arsonists Cause Global Warming
The reward for helping capture and convict arson suspects that intentionally set some of the fires in California has now been increased to $250,000. The California fires destroyed an estimated 1,800 homes, causing well over 1 billion dollars of damage and burning 461,000 acres...Two of the fires, in Orange and Riverside counties, are believe to be the work of arsonists...Arson: California Fire Reward Now $250,000, Five Arrested, Brenda Jones, National Ledger, 10/26/2007
On 60 Minutes a week or so back, the reporter on the California fire story kept asking leading questions of the fire marshall working on one of the major fires near San Diego. He kept pushing for the marshall to say that things are different now; it must be global warming. In the past decade, arson has been behind many fires. Of special note are fires set by radical eco-groups, American homegrown terrorists who aren't, surprisingly enough, part of the Christian right. Look for a new story soon, perhaps by someone who looks like a young Dan Rather, about how global warming causes disturbances in behavior, such as starting fires.
Luther
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Hillary's Pal, Huma?
What is with our Halloween and All Saints Day obsession with Hillary? Well, this stuff is just coming out and we've just had to post it.
Apparently, we've been behind the curve, however, on one interesting item. Pop quiz: who is the following individual?
Aw, shucks, the inset gives you a hint.
Hot rumor is that this sleek, charming individual, Hillary's personal assistant, Huma Abedin, is also, er, well, more deeply involved with the Smartest Woman in the World than you might think. Rumor has been around for awhile, but now, Mickey Kaus, no right winger, has seen fit to bring it out into the open, revealing that the LA Times has been sitting on a story about this for awhile. Who knew?
Making things more fun, Huma was raised in Saudi Arabia and is a practicing Muslim! Hokey Smoke, Bullwinkle! Or, maybe more appropriately, what would Allah think? Then again, this could be a convoluted and deviously clever form of Wahhabi jihad. Shades of Judith and Holofernes, although the jihadists might not appreciate our allusion.
Rumor are fun. We don't always have the time or the resources to sleuth them down, so we can't confirm this one, as much as we'd like to. But we'd have to observe that it's just like the media to cover up this kind of stuff for lefty Democrats—all the more so when something like this has been going on for a long time.
To be honest, given Bill's philandering and shameful abuse of perfectly fine cigars, we can't say we'd blame Hill for seeking a little solace elsewhere. But if this rumor is confirmed, it's not going to go down too well on the campaign trail.
Makes you reflect, too. Maybe that's why Hill has "stood by her man" all these years. We've always assumed that, like most leftist trolls from the 1960s, Bill and Hillary have what was then known fashionably as an "open marriage," i.e., you were married and all that, but if an interesting opportunity arose, well, then, who are you to interfere with your partner's pursuit of happiness?
We have also long suspected that Hill is actually a switch-hitter. Which would nicely explain a whole lot of things that we think the media knows already but has never bothered to explain.
Much more productive to dig for "fake but accurate" memos that make Republicans look bad.
Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for getting us started on this.
Don't miss the next exciting episode. Which might actually happen somewhere other than HazZzMat. And might depend on what the definition of "is" is.
Apparently, we've been behind the curve, however, on one interesting item. Pop quiz: who is the following individual?
Aw, shucks, the inset gives you a hint.Hot rumor is that this sleek, charming individual, Hillary's personal assistant, Huma Abedin, is also, er, well, more deeply involved with the Smartest Woman in the World than you might think. Rumor has been around for awhile, but now, Mickey Kaus, no right winger, has seen fit to bring it out into the open, revealing that the LA Times has been sitting on a story about this for awhile. Who knew?
Making things more fun, Huma was raised in Saudi Arabia and is a practicing Muslim! Hokey Smoke, Bullwinkle! Or, maybe more appropriately, what would Allah think? Then again, this could be a convoluted and deviously clever form of Wahhabi jihad. Shades of Judith and Holofernes, although the jihadists might not appreciate our allusion.
Rumor are fun. We don't always have the time or the resources to sleuth them down, so we can't confirm this one, as much as we'd like to. But we'd have to observe that it's just like the media to cover up this kind of stuff for lefty Democrats—all the more so when something like this has been going on for a long time.
To be honest, given Bill's philandering and shameful abuse of perfectly fine cigars, we can't say we'd blame Hill for seeking a little solace elsewhere. But if this rumor is confirmed, it's not going to go down too well on the campaign trail.
Makes you reflect, too. Maybe that's why Hill has "stood by her man" all these years. We've always assumed that, like most leftist trolls from the 1960s, Bill and Hillary have what was then known fashionably as an "open marriage," i.e., you were married and all that, but if an interesting opportunity arose, well, then, who are you to interfere with your partner's pursuit of happiness?
We have also long suspected that Hill is actually a switch-hitter. Which would nicely explain a whole lot of things that we think the media knows already but has never bothered to explain.
Much more productive to dig for "fake but accurate" memos that make Republicans look bad.
Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for getting us started on this.
Don't miss the next exciting episode. Which might actually happen somewhere other than HazZzMat. And might depend on what the definition of "is" is.
Wicked Witch of the East: Postscript
One of our Halloween readers apparently had an instantaneous and negative reaction to yesterday's holiday pictorial post.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled broadcast.
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