Author: VD

Mary Kathryn Gallagher Lopez is a poster girl for what happens when you send a woman to do William F. Buckley’s job:

I appreciate the kids’ wanting Rihanna to take some responsibility for her situation. She’s an adult, after all, as is Brown. And if she gets beaten, she should get the heck away from the person responsible. And as a best-selling artist, she has the financial freedom to extricate herself from her trouble. But where’s the outrage over what Brown is accused of doing? There’s something off when so many people blame the victim, not the aggressor.

Or, perhaps, you know, they’re blaming the actual aggressor for the situation, you clueless twit! I pay far less attention to American celebrity nonsense than the NRO gang does, and even I know that it’s been in the news for weeks that the black girl singer probably hit the black guy singer first. It’s only the entire basis of the guy’s legal defense, after all. It was fairly obvious from the start anyhow, since the most logical reason that Brown would have bitten Rihanna’s fingers was that his hands weren’t free when she went after his face. If – if – she was going for his eyes, that also might explain what otherwise looks like an extreme reaction.

“Sources say Rihanna was the first one to strike — slapping and striking Brown “numerous times” while he was driving, after seeing the text message from another woman. Supposedly, this version of events is reflected in the official police report.”

While I never had the need to use more than a single backhand to deal with a violent woman even before I became a Christian, I have no problem whatsoever with a man beating the absolute hell out of a woman who attacked him first. In like manner, I also have no problem with a bigger man beating the absolute hell out of a little man who attacks him. It’s simply not that hard to refrain from physically attacking another individual, the vast majority of men and women throughout history have demonstrated that humans beings are perfectly capable of living their entire lives without initiating violence. And from the materialistic perspective, removing violence-initiators from the gene pool should be regarded as a positive action on behalf of human evolution in a positive direction, regardless of the sex of the evolutionary dead-ender.

It’s really not that difficult. Either women are children and should be treated accordingly, or they are adults and should be treated accordingly. There is no reasonable middle ground here. While one may elect not to retaliate for Christian reasons – and I can testify that I have seen God claiming the vengeance that is His in a vastly amusing manner – there is no legal, moral, or social rationale for granting women carte blanche to initiate violence. If you choose to attack an individual who is more physically capable than you and get the smack beaten out of you, you’re not a victim. You’re just stupid.

Even the Keynesians are abandoning the sinking ship of the Obama administration now. As well they should:

The common element to the Paulson and Geithner plans is the insistence that the bad assets on banks’ books are really worth much, much more than anyone is currently willing to pay for them. In fact, their true value is so high that if they were properly priced, banks wouldn’t be in trouble.

And so the plan is to use taxpayer funds to drive the prices of bad assets up to “fair” levels. Mr. Paulson proposed having the government buy the assets directly. Mr. Geithner instead proposes a complicated scheme in which the government lends money to private investors, who then use the money to buy the stuff. The idea, says Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, is to use “the expertise of the market” to set the value of toxic assets.

But the Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. So this isn’t really about letting markets work. It’s just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets.

All bad economics are rooted in a single concept: objective value. This was most obvious in the Marxist form of assigning an input factor, but it’s also implicit in the Monetarist notion of government-backed paper currencies. Since there is no such thing as objective value – subjective value is the heart of Austrian theory, which states that all values are intrinsically dependent upon the moment and the acting man – any political action or economic theory based upon it is bound to fail.

In the case of the Paulson/Geithner plan, they are substituting “true value” for objective value, but it doesn’t matter what it’s called, the relevant point is that it diverges from what anyone is actually willing to pay for it at this moment in time.

No bonuses, no bailouts
I am not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. In fact, I have never voted for either a Democrat or a Republican in any of the past presidential elections for which I was eligible to vote. Ronald Reagan and Ron Paul are the only two Republicans for whom I would have been willing to vote; I was too young to vote for the former, and the Republican Party prevented me from having the opportunity to vote for the latter.

Needless to say, nominating John McCain looks just as foolish in retrospect as it did at the time. It seems he wasn’t quite as electable as his media champions repeatedly insisted he was….

A former Star & Sickle journalist also views Nicolas Kristoff’s lament for days gone by with a skeptical eye:

I’m not saying this is utter rubbish (how’s that for a left-handed compliment), but I am convinced that the so-called objectivity, nothing-but-the-facts model really doesn’t do the trick, especially when the facts are being chosen, ordered and told by reporters, 80 to 90 percent of whom are liberals.

It’s remarkable that after all this time, there are still only a few journalists such as Eric Black who are capable of recognizing that, in hindsight, maybe they weren’t collectively all that objective after all. I’ve known a fair number of journalists over the years, from NPR stars to wannabees putting in their time at the little local papers, and I can count on one hand the number that didn’t hold completely predictable left-liberal views on every major issue.

It was particularly amusing when I sent in three sample columns when the St. Paul Pioneer Press decided they wanted a new columnist to replace their token conservative who was departing. Keep in mind that at the time, I was not only their video game columnist, but I’d written one or two editorial page pieces on technology issues that no one there had been capable of grasping, such as the Unabomber’s manifesto and, more importantly, was the only columnist at the paper to be nationally syndicated in years. I can’t remember what the third column was, but the first two were explaining how the economics of taxpayer funding for sports stadiums didn’t add up and showing that conceal carry laws never lead to the oft-predicted bloodbaths.

The editor was very uncomfortable in trying to explain that while my writing was good enough for the Tech page, I just “wasn’t right for the Editorial page”. Translation: “your opinions aren’t right for any opinion page over which I have any say”. Needless to say, I was shocked that I didn’t get the slot. I think he seriously thought I was crazy, as opposing taxpayer-funded stadiums is downright heresy to any newspaper editor who depends on filling up his Sports page with news about the local team and selling advertisements to their fans.

I’m not in the least bit bitter about it, but I’m certainly not shedding any tears for the gatekeepers either as the technology-enabled barbarians storm the gates. Nor, I think, is any other right-of-center newspaper reader who had to put up with that faux objectivity for decades. In the news business, you don’t have to tell people what they want to hear, but you really do have to avoid insulting their intelligence. Newspaper readers may read at only a eighth-grade level on average, (or, more likely, that’s just the lowest common denominated target for which editors aim), but even an elementary school child can detect when you’re pulling one over on him if you do it every single freaking day.

This post brought to you courtesy of the Fraters Libertas, who, after yesterday’s post, I doubt I’ll be visiting on NARN anytime soon… I am renegade, Ice…man.

Powerline’s John Hindraker finally sees fit to take exception to an unconstitutional action by the Congress. And, as you’d expect of a staunchly tone-deaf Republican, he’s outraged by the Congressional attack on the bailout bonuses:

I’m stupefied to find that some people are defending the constitutionality of Nancy Pelosi’s discriminatory, confiscatory and retroactive tax on people who receive bonus income from companies that got TARP money. I would have considered it a bright line rule that the government can’t identify a class of unpopular people and impose a special tax on them. What’s next? A 100% income tax on registered Republicans, retroactive to last year? If Pelosi’s bill passes muster, why not?

Spare me. Hindraker and his fellow Republicans defended one abuse of the Constitution after another when it was George Bush and the Republican-led Congress spying on Americans and invading countries without declaring war. They ridiculed Ron Paul when he pointed out those and other massively unconstitutional issues such as the paper dollar, foreign aid, and the various military occupations around the world. They worked hard to elect the Senate’s champion of the unconstitutional banking bailouts, John McCain, and many of them, including Hindraker, publicly supported the bailouts.

Now he’s trying expressing outrage over one more Congressional unconstitutionality that might take a bonus away from a high-income banker? This isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s utter political idiocy. Good luck getting the pitchfork-bearing masses worked up about the theoretical plight of a banking employee married to a wealthy lawyer. (That was a remarkably explicit example, by the way, does his wife work for Wells Fargo or something?) Regardless, the lawyer Hindraker clearly doesn’t understand that most Americans would vastly prefer to see this theoretical lawyer garrotted with piano wire than to see his wife take home a $10,000 bonus from a bailout bank if given a choice between the two. Hindraker may consider a mere $10k bonus to be a paltry sum, but it is 18 percent of the 2007 median Minnesota household income.

And Wells Fargo wasn’t “forced” to take the bailout money. (Hindraker omits to mention that it was the Republican Bush administration, not the Democratic Congress or the Obama administration that “forced” them to take it.) Wells Fargo could have refused it. They didn’t.

The United States entered the lawless territory of a banana republic a long time ago. It’s a pity that it took influential Republicans like the Powerline guys so long to notice it, but that’s what happens when you prefer to defend the people in power and ignore the abuses they are committing. Back in September, when it still mattered, Hindraker said his “instinct has been to support the bailout proposal“. Now his instincts tell him that “there is nothing wrong with the AIG bonuses“.

With all due respect, Mr. Hindraker, your instincts suck. You were on the wrong side then and you’re on the wrong side now. Once you have embraced the expansion of federal power, you don’t get to complain that you don’t like the particular direction in which it is now expanding. If, under heavy pressure from the Republican White House, Congress hadn’t handed over billions to the banks, the bonus tax that so outrages Hindraker wouldn’t exist. But if you’re going to hook for a living, you’d better understand that every now and then, your pimp is going to bitch-slap you.

The presidential gaffe machine is clearly operating on all cylinders:

After comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics on “The Tonight Show” Thursday, President Obama called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize before the program even aired. “He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving,” Shriver said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down of people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes.”http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5604161

I love the way that Obama keeps screwing up and the media tries to frame his efforts to make things right as a sign of his depth and sensitivity. Bush’s communications were tragedy; the man tried but he just couldn’t speak smoothly. This guy’s are just pure farce. Didn’t I tell you his administration would be an unending source of amusement?

And the punch line is that this is the guy that liberals genuinely believe is going to fix the economy!

Nicolas Kristoff mourns the media’s loss of control:

When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about. Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves. That’s because there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices.

I don’t dispute that people seek out information that confirms their prejudices, as I’ve noticed that very few individuals of any stripe go out of their way to acquaint themselves with how rival ideologies think. And of those who do visit sites belonging to what, for lack of a better term, we shall call “the other side”, a large percentage oare trolls who have no intention of actually paying any serious attention to what they are skimming in the interest of seeking grounds on which to base what is usually a shallow and spurious criticism.

But the assumption underlying Kristoff’s concerns are ludicrous. All of the major organs of the mainstream media have been uniformly left-liberal for generations. The Wall Street Journal that Kristoff bravely declares he is going to force himself to read is one of the few notable exceptions, along with Human Events and The Washington Times. The appearance of talk radio, then Fox News, and now online alternatives doesn’t mean that everyone is now locked in an echo chamber, it means that conservatives and libertarians are finally able to escape being subjected to constant left-liberal assault.

Left-leaning individuals like Kristoff are still safely ensconced in the same liberal echo chamber they’ve always inhabited, and the recent revelation of JournoList shows how much the left’s media elite prefers groupthink to the marketplace of ideas. The only thing that has changed is that now everyone, of all political stripes, isn’t forced to listen to just one side of the story anymore.

He was hoping to discover the source of two itching, irritating lumps that had appeared overnight in his rectum. Was this what hemorrhoids were? What were the symptoms of rectal cancer? Surely it couldn’t be… he scratched fretfully at his bothered bottom and for a moment knew a pang of bitter remorse for that drunken night spent with a tattooed sailor so many years ago.

The doctor gestured, and the powerful Chairman of the Federal Reserve dropped his pants.

“Bend over,” the doctor said, reaching for a flashlight. “A bit more, please.”

“What is it, doctor?” asked the nervous banker, too worried to protest the indignity to which he was being subjected.

“Not to worry, Mr. Bernanke,” replied the doctor, removing his rubber gloves and tossing them into the trash. “You’re perfectly well. It’s only Jack Welch and Larry Kudlow.”

KUDLOW: Jack is he [Bernanke] making the sale in your judgment? Is he winning the support of the people? This is such a controversial issue. Opinion polls show that folks do not like these bailouts. Do you think Bernanke himself personally made the sale last night?

WELCH: Well he gave a tremendous presentation Larry last night. He was thoughtful. He was measured. He really radiated confidence. And we need more than anything else, confidence. And he also laid out the challenge for the political forces. He said the pressure will be do we have the political will to make the fix? And that is a real challenge for Washington. He said we’re going to need to go after it with a vengeance. He studied the Depression more than anyone. He’s making a lot of right moves; he’s made a lot of right moves. I’ve been supporting him in our column for the last four months. I think he’s made a ton of right moves, and I happen to believe that he laid the gauntlet down to Washington. Do they have the political will to back up what he needs, the firepower he needs, to get the job done Larry. I think he did a magnificent job.

KUDLOW: You know, I worked for Arthur Burns and Paul Volcker at the New York Fed. Of course like you I knew Greenspan very, very well. I think this is the best television communications performance of any Fed chairman in my lifetime. And I agree with you sir, he did get the job done. And I think he did more to help Obama and all the issues toward recovery than anything we’ve seen so far. He stood alone. He deserves reappointment doesn’t he?

WELCH: Absolutely Larry. He did a job on a broad spectrum. He grabbed the country and he challenged the politicians.

Now you know the economy is headed for the deepest of dismal dire. I haven’t heard praise this obsequious and wildly over the top since the CNBC crew were committing acts of public auto-eroticism over Alan Greenspan’s “masterful” performances while he was inflating the housing bubble. There’s nothing that talking heads and big business love more than the sound of printing presses rolling. You would think that after the financial carnage of the last six months, they would have learned to look more than a quarter ahead.

The amazing thing is that the ever-retarded Republicans are actually opposing this eminently reasonable – and extraordinarily popular – action.

U.S. House Votes 328-93 to slap a 90-percent tax rate on bonuses paid on or after 1/1/09 to persons with family incomes above $250,000 if said persons are employees of a company that received more than $5B in federal bailout money in 2008.

I have no problem with this. No problem at all. The principle of retroactive taxation was well-established under Clinton, so I’m completely for it. And any conservative pundit who wants to lament the idea that the government is getting involved in petty matters beyond its ken is a moron, especially if they supported the bailouts in the first place.

What else did they possibly think was going to happen once the the federal fricking government started picking and choosing who would or would not be permitted to fail? A political circus? Of course it’s a political circus, it’s been a political circus since Paulson predicted economic apocalypse if his buddies weren’t given billions of dollars immediately! What the hell else did anyone expect? Americans weren’t able to get Congress to pay attention to them when they shouted down the first round of bailouts, now that we’re on round five or so it should come as no surprise that they are starting to feel like putting the heads of bonus bankers on pikes.

The floodgates are open! Pump away madly, Federal Reserve. Jack every taxpayer’s taxes up to 90 percent, Congress, and hand out vast sums to those who pay nothing. The system broke some time ago, these are just the thrashings of a mortally wounded beast. I recommend sitting back and watching the fountains of spurting blood as if they were fireworks.

Print a trillion… oooooh! Bail out another bank… ahhhh!

And never forget. This isn’t just the fault of the idiot liberals. This is the fault of the conservatives and moderates who were being pragmatic and sacrificing their priniciples because it was a “crisis”, because it was “necessary”. It’s far too late to raise limited government objections now, Republicans. You can’t dance with the devil and complain when he steps on your toes. Please be sure to buckle the straps on your handbasket, the descent may be a bumpy one!