Category: Uncategorized

From NRO:

I disagree with the President on illegal immigration but I can’t honestly say that he “betrayed” me. Most of the stuff the base is mad about are things he openly championed in the 2000 race. He ran the most pro-Mexican, pro-federalization-of-education, pro-prescription-drugs-for-seniors campaign of any Republican Presidential candidate ever. The convention in Philadelphia was a non-stop riot of mariachi bands playing the Cucaracha alternating with cucaracha bands playing the Mariachi. I bumped into my own Senator, Bob Smith of New Hampshire, in downtown Philly and asked him how he was enjoying it. He said he’d tried to get in but he’d been denied entry. That’s how multicultural and diversity-celebrating it was: guys with suspicious names like “Bob Smith” couldn’t even get past security.

President Bush has, broadly speaking, governed as he said he would seven years ago. Unfortunately, a big bunch of sophisticated types in the Republican base told themselves, “Hey, don’t worry. This ‘compassionate conservative’ mumbo-jumbo is just a cunning feint to sucker the media and the swing voters.” Au contraire, he meant it.

I agree that Bush telegraphed his anti-conservative governance. But nearly every commentator vehemently denied this was the case and nearly every conservative Republican bought into those denials, not once, but twice, so it’s not fair to say that they were consciously signing onto his neosocialist program.

Conservative Republicans may be reliably stupid patsies, but they’re seldom overtly evil.

UPDATE: Dreher manfully admits it too:

Few of us stood up to Bush when he took us to this disastrous war in Iraq. Few, if any, stood up to him over his foolish support for Rumsfeld, long after it became obvious what a disaster Rumsfeld was. Few, if any, stood up to him over his amassing of power in the executive branch. Few, if any, stood up to him on the spending. Few, if any, stood up to him over the massive prescription drug benefit. Few stood up to him over the political hackery pervading his administration, which became distressingly obvious during Katrina (indeed, there are still Republicans now who insist that the corrupt politicization of the Department of Justice is a non-issue, because these people “serve at the president’s pleasure”). Correct me if I’m wrong, but the first time any of us stood up in significant numbers, and with full-throated voice, against the president was over the Harriet Miers debacle. And then we fell silent again, for the most part.

I merely note that he forgot to include the Patriot Acts, NAU and the various UN treaties.

If you want to know why men appear to be, on average, in better shape than women these days, here’s an anecdote. At the gym today, I realized there was not a single woman present when I started my workout. There were 18 men, ranging in age from 18 to 65, and the only man who was even a little overweight was the old guy who had the sort of round paunch that you see on plenty of 30 year olds.

They were regular, normal-looking guys, there were only two workout monsters with 19+ inch arms even though everyone was lifting free weights and using weight machines. Only one of the men ever used any of the 20 or more cardio machines, but you could see from his arms that he obviously lifted too. Over the two hours I was there, I counted 32 men and 4 women. There was one pretty girl who did machine weights and stretched, one thin but soft girl who only ran on the treadmill, one lumpish 30-something woman who did Stairmaster and her squatty friend who didn’t even change into workout gear but talked to a guy doing Smith squats the whole time she was there.

So, women, if you want to either get into shape or find yourself in an environment where you are surrounded by men who aren’t overweight, get thee to a gym with free weights. And focus on the weights, save the cardio for after you lift or for your off-days. You’re not going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger no matter how much you lift, don’t worry about that. Muscle takes up less space than fat, so you’ll likely weigh the same but be more slender.

Spacebunny has been after me to change my workouts around for about nine years now, so I tried switching from the usual 10-8-6-4 pyramid bench to sets of 12-15 at lower weights. I figured 205 would be low enough, but ended up dropping from 15 on the first set down to 7 on the fifth one. Verdict: hated it. However, she’s surely right and I don’t wish to imitate The Perfect Aryan Male in tearing my shoulders, so next time I’ll limit the first set to 12 and see how it goes. Doing higher-rep, lower-weight squat workouts has been easier on the knees and hamstring, although it’s hard to keep from screaming “IT BURNS, IT BURNS” on the last two or so reps. And I just about threw up after the eighth set the last time I did legs, so apparently it’s actually a harder workout even though it feels kind of like cheating when you don’t have that vaguely alarming sensation of being in trouble when your thighs are parallel to the ground.

The other thing I noticed was that all of the various exercise classes were taught by women and appeared to be primarily for women. This tends to support the idea discussed a few weeks ago that women have a preference for seeking out structured group activities instead of simply doing things on their own.

Rachel Lucas is welcomed back by the wrath of the feline-infested:

In my post about online dating, the first tip was, no photos of your cats.

Notice how it says no PHOTOS of your cats.

So I was just looking through my referral list, and I apparently have a hate following now among a few “kitty” forums. Which sounds sexier than it really is. People are actually saying things like “bite me” and that “no man is more important than my cat!” and “Rachel Lucas can kiss my ass.”…

But hey, kitty forum folks: thanks for proving my point for me. I’m not surprised to see so many posts by single women who say their cats are far more important to them than any man will ever be. Have a great time staying single for the rest of your life – not because you keep felines in your house but because you actually believe that a non-sentient animal can and will fulfill you emotionally in ways no human ever could.

Gentlemen, here’s a simple rule of thumb. If she’s single and she has a cat, be very wary and skedaddle at the first sign of feminine psychosis. If she’s single and she has more than one cat, immediately run, do not walk, for the exit. If she’s single and she owns a dog, marry her.

Worked for me, anyhow.

Shakespeare’s Skank doesn’t understand the difference between seduction and rape:

If a man “steals” a woman’s virginity, it’s called rape. Even if it is “prom night” or whatevthefuck an underage-looking girl in a tacky party dress is meant to represent.

No, it’s not called rape. Stolen virginity refers to a seduction in which the seducer obtains the woman’s virginity under false pretenses, usually involving insincere promises of love. Hence the sartorial dichotomy between the “bad” boy and the “good” girl as well as the prom night symbolism which so mystifies the cognitively shaky sister.

It’s a metaphor, but as is often the case with too-literal, lower-order minds, Shakespeare’s Skank confuses the metaphor with material reality. It really requires single-minded pedantry to do so in this case, since rape requires force, (although feminists would insist coercion will do), while theft doesn’t even require the presence of the victim.

Not content with being embarrassed by those who correct her by pointing out that “stolen hearts” and “stolen kisses” are not literally stolen and that “lost virginity” is not physically misplaced, the Skank stands firmly on her shaky ground:

“Stealing” doesn’t mean coercion or trickery. It means taking without permission. And when you take sex from someone without her permission, that’s called rape…. as Dorothy pointed out above, “stole your heart” is a metaphor. No one’s literal heart is literally stolen. “Stole your virginity” is not.

Yes, and “anti-semitism” doesn’t literally mean “Judenhassen”, and yet that’s precisely what it means, not “a general opposition to all Semitic peoples”. Where does one put a “literally stolen” virginity anyhow, in one’s pocket? In any case, Shakespeare’s Skank could make her literal case, albeit a silly one, if the ad had said “robbed your virginity”, as robbery implies physical presence and the use of force in the same way that stealing implies the use of stealth and subtlety.

The Skank reminds me of an Italian friend who got very upset with his American girlfriend when, while feeling frisky, she told him “I want you bad”. Since “ti voglio bene” (You I want good) actually means “I love you”, he thought she was angry and was telling him that she hated him based on his too-literal translation of her statement. Of course, since Italians are so unexcitable and readily responsive to cool reason, the matter was quickly explained and resolved….

I think the ad is brilliant, as it appeals to men by mocking the clueless nice girls who insist on giving their hearts* to overtly predatory boys, and it appeals to women by giving them something to complain about. Women like nothing better than to portray themselves as victims, this ad is simply appealing to that female mindset which is, ironically enough, exhibited in full E-F-F-E-C-T in the comments at the linked site.

I continue to wonder why these individuals, most of whom are most eloquent about their rejection of religion and the morality derived from it, continue to express any moral objection to the act of rape. If morality is derived from evolved consensus and the social consensus is that rape is acceptable, then it is obvious that rape is entirely moral, the subjective opinion of the raped individual notwithstanding.

* Note to Shakespeare’s Sister: by using this phrase, I do not mean to indicate that a surgical operation has taken place, with or without the consent of the girl or her parents.

Dennis the Peasant is obviously crazy jealous… or is that smitten? I can never keep remember which one is the only reason to ever criticize Ms Malkin:

But as bad as cable is, what passes as news and political commentary on CNN, MSNBC and Fox on a nightly basis is simply beyond ghastly. And it doesn’t really matter whether your bent is Conservative or Liberal… It is all unbelievably bad. It’s as though every programming chief at every network vies to find the most obviously unsuitable politico in the entire 50 states and hand them their own hour-long show….

Working off the theory that most present-day Conservatives aren’t really looking for a place to think things though, and having seen the work of Surnow, no doubt Roger Ailes is simply to the point of demanding that Fox stock up on eye candy if real talent isn’t available. This, of course, explains why the passably pretty but absolutely batshit crazy Rachel Marsden was given a chance on Red Eye. After watching her only twice, I’m pretty sure she didn’t get the gig because either her intellect or her sense of humor overwhelmed everyone at Fox.

So now the only question is whether they’re going to be stupid enough to give Michelle Malkin her own show. You’d think someone over at Fox would have sat down and read In Defense of Internment and realized just about any guest on any given night could overmatch Michelle, but evidently that is not the case. I’ve watched her more than once over the past several weeks, and in a perverse way, I’d like to see her get a shot at her own show. Then again, I’m the sort of person who reads the obituaries for fun. The reason I think she’d be the Titanic of the airwaves is simple; television diminishes her strengths (such that they are) and magnifies her weaknesses. It would be a marriage made in Heaven… And genuinely hilarious television.

From what I’ve seen so far, here’s how Malkin’s dry run on O’Reilly’s show is shaking out:

First of all, Michelle Malkin is utterly humorless. As in devoid of all humor. Although this became pretty clear when she dressed up as a cheerleader and did the “Defeatocrats Cheer” on YouTube, the depth of her humorlessness doesn’t really come across in her blog. And her sense of self-importance is to the point of being painful… It’s so bad as to be almost Kerry-esque.

Second, the woman cannot think on her feet. In my own opinion, this is because she isn’t particularly bright. For all the trumpeting about her as an A-list Conservative blogger, there really isn’t a whole lot of “there” there on her blog. Her lack of any sort of grounding in the history, policy and political options in most major issues is both obvious and limiting… Especially when she’s face to face with people who are on top of things.

I truly, madly, deeply hope Me So Michelle will get her own show on Fox. If she does, I might even consider watching Fox for the first time in years, because it will certainly be more amusing than the average TV comedy.

And you wonder why I’d rather write books in obscurity than perform as a Washington lapdog for the visually-oriented pseudo-intellectual mini-masses.

When doubted, deny. When caught, lie:

Just two days after President Bush slammed critics of his immigration policy, the Republican National Committee has reportedly fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, as donors are said to be furious over the president’s stance to give legal status to millions of illegal aliens.

“Every donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue,” a fired phone-bank employee told the Washington Times.

Ousted staff members told the paper Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitors and told them they were out of work, effective immediately. They claim the reasons they were given were an estimated 40 percent plunge in small-donor contributions, as well as aging phone-bank equipment the RNC said would cost too much to modernize.

The committee, however, is denying any drop-off in the influx of cash. “Any assertion that overall donations have gone down is patently false,” RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt told the Times via e-mail. “We continue to out-raise our Democrat counterpart by a substantive amount (nearly double).”

Always parse a politician’s words very carefully. Of course the “overall donations” haven’t gone down, it’s the rate of new donations coming in that has declined. As for the comparative fund-raising, how can the RNC possibly know how much the DNC has raised in the last three days? Is there some sort of nightly report?

Of course, they’re probably counting on everyone forgetting about this by the time the next quarterly report or whatever has to be filed. But even if the equipment has to be modernized, how does it make any sense to fire all of its experienced solicitors? Have they replaced them with an entirely automated system or are their former employees simply incapable of working with a newer system?

“We write these comments up from each call, and give them to a supervisor who passes them on to the finance director or the national chairman,” he said. “But when I talked with the White House, the people there told me they got nothing but positive comments on the president’s immigration stand.”

Yeah, so how’s that pragmatism thing working these days?

This is why the leading Republican candidates must be rejected:

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker–“At this point the break became final.” That’s not what’s happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn’t need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don’t even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don’t like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don’t like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from “Too bad” to “You’re bad.”

They think you’re stupid. They think you’re bad. They think you want what is wrong for America. Why do you support them? Why do you reject someone like Ron Paul, who actually believes in the principles you claim to hold?

Electability means nothing but “acceptable to the party leadership”.

And stand up, all of you who told me that I was wrong back in the lead-up to the 2004 election, who insisted that Bush was a good man with a double-secret conservative plan, that the prescription drug entitlement and Patriot Act and massive increase in social spending were merely necessary concessions to the Left and national security. I haven’t noticed a single one of you Three Monkeys publicly admit that you were completely and utterly wrong.

Al apparently hasn’t read through the column archive:

So for you to brag about how you’d kick ass in a debate with someone on the “other side” is greeted with cheers from your squirrels, and derision from those who think your position is merely another subjective opinion.

That’s because those on the other side haven’t read through my case yet. What you have seen written in my columns and on the blog is far from the substantive case I am making against Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens. That’s merely the starting point from which I began my research and I’ve since learned that the empirical evidence is even stronger against them than I had hoped.

You can be as skeptical as you want, but I note that Sam Harris has already ignored the invitation of the Northern Alliance guys to debate me on their radio show. Given how poorly Hitchens faired against Wilson’s logical assault, he has absolutely no chance whatsoever against my primarily empirical and historical approach. Harris is a hopeless case, as my atheist editor said after reading the chapter devoted to him, “okay, you got him.”

Dawkins, being surprisingly evasive in his language, is a little harder to effectively destroy.

There’s something going on here that very, very few of you realize; I doubt one in a thousand of the Christians and atheists interested in this subject even understands the underlying purpose of these attacks on religious faith in general and Christianity in general.

In fact, I have no doubt that there will be more than a few atheists, perhaps even a majority, who will find themselves in much stronger agreement with my general position than with Harris despite my theism and their atheism.

If you doubt me, then by all means encourage Mr. Harris, Mr. Dawkins or Mr. Hitchens to debate me, whether it’s now or after the book comes out. I’d be perfectly content to have fair-minded atheists in the mode of Brent Rasmussen judge who won; I somehow doubt the New Atheists would be as comfortable in having an evangelical Christian do the same.

Ann Althouse recommends careful use of breast power:

Women know what their breasts look like in their clothes. It doesn’t just happen. “Breast power” is real. We can pretend we don’t know, but we do.

While I’m never offended by even the most egregious abuse of breast power, I find it extremely irritating when women claim to be simply dressing for themselves or somehow unconscious of the effect created by displaying their breasts to their best advantage.

Women seldom dress for themselves when they’re going out in public. They’re usually dressing to interest men while simultaneously trying to avoid criticism from other women, but however the net effect turns out, it’s seldom accidental.

And it’s very simple to demonstrate that the display of sexual attributes is distracting to either sex and isn’t simply the audience’s problem. Consider the effect on an office full of women by a man sporting a massive erection under a loose pair of slacks, especially those women seated at their desks and forced to meet Priapus at face level.