Feb 16 2010

As it turns out, it’s truth that is inconvenient!

Category: Biden,Obama,politicsamuzikman @ 9:00 am

Our Vice President is at it again:  Just what kind of person does it take to trash and disparage the war in Iraq at every turn, then claim credit for its success?  Apparently for Joe there is no statement too outrageous, too inconsistent or too false.  But then truth is truly just a matter of inconvenience when you are a politician in power.

Our President is at it again as well.  Apparently there is no campaign promise too big or too small that cannot be broken.  But when you believe you are “the one” I suppose promises mean only what you need them to mean at the moment.  Am I the only one who remembers the oft-spoken Obama promise of no new taxes for those who make less than $250,00 a year?


Feb 04 2010

K.O. about to be KO’d

Category: media,politicsharmonicminer @ 2:29 pm

Keith Olbermann bloviates to shrinking audience

Has the countdown begun for the end of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann?” With his ratings in free-fall, and his hateful histrionics reaching new highs, even Olbermann’s former supporters on the left are tuning out. Bloggers at the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio noted the uberdork’s 44 percent drop in listeners ages 25-54 from January 2009 to last month. “Olbermann’s showboat is sinking,” one LA Times blogger noted. “Listing in you-know-which direction.” Jon Stewart ridiculed him on “The Daily Show” for calling Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown a “racist.” “There are creeping indications that the world may not have quite as much need of — or patience for — Olbermann and his shtick as it once did,” Jeff Bercovici wrote on DailyFinance.com. Olbermann struck back at Bercovici, naming him as one of the “Worst People in the World” and mischaracterizing the Web site as “right-wing.”

For a deeper understanding of why Olbermann is finally wearing thin with his audience, check out the movie advertised on this site, “Media Malpractice.” Just lick the picture in the upper right of this page.

Olbermann’s audience seems to be declining in a linear relationship with Obama’s public ratings.

Fool me once….

UPDATE:  OK, OK, enough already.  I’ve had about 20 emails/facebook messages and counting….  I meant CLICK the picture in the upper right.  CLICK the picture.  OK?

I suppose that’s what I get for typing at the spede of light.


Jan 18 2010

White privilege = having a father?

Category: government,politics,societyharmonicminer @ 9:32 am

I’ve written before about the real nature of the problem in “black America” (in quotes to make the point that there are MANY middle class black families doing just fine in the USA).  The articled linked here, Chicago’s Real Crime Story by Heather Mac Donald, covers the background of the problem of black crime in Chicago, most of which is black-on-black crime, of course. It’s a great article, worth reading completely for the perspective it brings. Here is how it ends:

Barack Obama started that work in a startling Father’s Day speech in Chicago while running for president. “If we are honest with ourselves,” he said in 2008, “we’ll admit that . . . too many fathers [are] missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. . . . We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”

But after implicitly drawing the connection between family breakdown and youth violence—”How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child?”—Obama reverted to Alinskyite bromides about school spending, preschool programs, visiting nurses, global warming, sexism, racial division, and income inequality. And he has continued to swerve from the hard truth of black family breakdown since his 2008 speech. The best thing that the president can do for Chicago’s embattled children is to confront head-on the disappearance of their fathers and the consequence in lost lives.

This kind of statement ought to be as obvious as 2+2=4.  It should be blindingly clear to everyone that when society and government provide incentives for bad behavior, we will get lots more bad behavior.  Nevertheless, the incentives to black women and girls to make babies out of wedlock are still there, despite “welfare reform.”  The lack of incentive to postpone sexual activity until marriage is also there, in the form of abortion mills ringing inner-city neighborhoods, making huge profits for white males who own them and operate them, and perform abortions in them.

The really tough fact to face is that even if we remove the incentives for early sexual activity and child-birth today, it will take a least a generation, perhaps two, to undo the damage that has been done by those incentives, however well-intended they may have been on the part of the politicians who enacted them.  It took us three innercity generations (about 15 years each, sadly) to get where we are today after the enactment of the Johnson Great Society programs that created those incentives, although the effects were obvious twenty years ago.

This means that it will take a degree of political will, in removing those incentives, that can withstand all of the horror stories, accusations that removing the incentives didn’t work and merely caused suffering, etc.  It will take about 20 years, at least, for the results to become unambiguously clear that removing incentives for bad behavior reduces the bad behavior, resulting in fewer births out of wedlock, fewer children abandoned by their fathers, fewer abortions, etc.

It’s much easier to blather on about environmental “sustainability,” without dealing with how well our culture can sustain itself with fewer and fewer fathers in the home, especially in minority neighborhoods.

We do need to do what we can do for those who are now in our society, but not at the cost of dooming yet another generation to the same circumstances.  But that is exactly the effect of nearly all current public assistance and welfare programs, because they encourage more people to engage in the behaviors that will create more and more people who “need” such assistance, and encourage the birth of more and more children in worse and worse situations.

There are many people now living whose situations we simply don’t have the power to fix, absent their own realization of their responsibilities, and determination to do something about them.  We DO have the power to reduce the number of people in the future who are born into similar circumstances, if we use it, simply by reducing the incentives to make babies who will be raised without fathers, and by increasing incentives to postpone sexual activity until marriage.

Sadly, I doubt that our politicians, of either party, will summon the necessary will to make the case with sufficient clarity and force that such changes in entitlement law are necessary, and are the only way to solve our current problems of poverty and crime.


Jan 12 2010

Everybody and every group and every ideology is equal in everything…. NOT

Category: left,politics,rightharmonicminer @ 9:12 am

In a recent discussion here, I tried to illustrate that saying about a negative behavior that “everybody does it” is generally misleading, unless some numbers are put to the observation. Yes, some groups have some bad apples. But some groups have a lot more than others. Some ideologies have had unfortunate consequences… but some have had far worse consequences.

Especially perverse is the notion that both sides have the same numbers of people with equally good motivations, so that we must “respect” all those on the other side as if they really want the same things we do, and have the same values we do.  So in a fit of undoubtedly childish sarcasm, I illustrated the absurdity of the notion that “everybody does it” and “everybody really means well” this way:

There is no difference in behavior between the right and the left. Both sides are equally respectful (or disrespectful) of the other. Both sides are equally right. Both sides are equally wrong. Both sides have the same tendency to speak hatefully of the other. Both sides have the same number of radicals. Both sides care equally about everybody and everything. Both sides have the same number of people who are committed to doing the moral thing. Both sides have the same numbers of people who are committed to their perspectives for purely selfish reasons. Both sides lie exactly the same amount. Both sides celebrate equally the personal misfortunes of the other.

Everyone is just as equal in everything as it is possible to be. We’re all just the same. No one is any more correct than anyone else. There are no absolutes, no one knows any more than anyone else, and everything is up for reconsideration at any time.

Furthermore, the communists in the Soviet Union were no worse and no better than any other political party or entity in any other nation, because everyone is basically the same, and there are no real moral differences between people who believe different things honestly.

In fact, the Chinese Communist Maoists were no worse than the Whigs…. just different. Who is to say whose values are better than whose? What gives anyone the right to say that one side’s values and policies are better than the other’s?

After all, good Christians were in favor of slavery, and quoted scripture to support it.

So nobody really knows anything with any certainty. In fact, stating one’s opinion too strongly is probably a sign of intellectual immaturity and possibly colonial intentions.

Can’t we all just get along?

(my tongue is starting to hurt, and I will now remove it before it becomes permanently bonded to the inside of my cheek)

Manifestly, everyone and every group and every ideology is NOT the same in negative consequences, negative motivations, and just plain evil.  I believe that it is far more often the Left that makes the claim of a false equality, especially by saying “the Right does it too” when some really obvious transgression is pointed out regarding the Left.

Very simply, I have the impression that the Left is rarely embarrassed, or will admit being embarrassed, by anything that anyone on the Left says or does. On the other hand, when someone on the Right goes over the line, they are likely to be chastised FROM the Right.   For example, very many on the Right were very critical of the overspending, pork barreling, and ear marking of the Republican congress before 2007.  So were many on the Left.  But the Democrat congress has topped Republican excesses by at least an order of magnitude…  and the Left is mostly silent about it.

The difference is telling.


Dec 28 2009

Powerpuff Policy

Category: national security,politicsharmonicminer @ 9:28 am

Picture 16

I just watched an episode of the Powerpuff Girls in which the Gangreen Gang, so named because they all seem to have green skin, is placed in the Powerpuff Girls’ kindergarten by Jack Wednesday, Truant Officer, who seems unable to distinguish adolescent troublemakers and arch-criminals from kindergarten-age kids.  I suppose he can’t be blamed, since the teacher seems to accept these obviously too-large and too-mean “kids” into her class with open arms.

As the day proceeds, the Gangreen Gang lives up to its billing by stealing cookies, pouring milk on students, throwing paste in the other kids’ faces, etc.  Each time, the teacher somehow seems not to notice who the real miscreants are, and when the Powerpuff girls try to stop the depredations of the Gangreen Gang, the teacher admonishes them that “there’s no fighting in school” and “you just need to learn to trust strangers.”   The Powerpuff Girls protest that the Gangreen Gang aren’t strangers, they are nearly-super-villains, to no avail.  The teacher says that *she* hasn’t seen the Gangreen Gang do anything especially bad.  Of course, she hasn’t really been paying attention, a fact obvious to any viewer.

This back and forth becomes so extreme that at recess, it’s the Powerpuff Girls who are given a “timeout,” while the Gangreen Gang essentially commit assault in a game of “dodgeball” with overmatched 5 yr olds.  And even then, when the Powerpuff Girls try to tell the teacher what’s happening just outside the schoolroom window, the teacher shushes them and returns to reading her book, right up until one of the balls breaks throught the schoolroom window and nearly decapitates the teacher, who finally notices the near-carnage on the playground.

In the denouement, when the Powerpuff Girls beg to be allowed to set things right, the teacher insists there is “no fighting at school,” but with a very broad hint to the Girls, she sends them out to play (and finish) a particularly violent game of dodgeball, that leaves the Gangreen Gang on the ropes, and ready to be picked up again by Jack Wednesday, Truant Officer.  We’re supposed to think the teacher is cool because she authorized the Powerpuff Girls to “fight” without really “fighting,” though only after intolerable provocation and injury to the rest of her class.

It is, of course, only a cartoon.  Nothing like this would happen in the real world, right?  But President Obama’s foreign policy seems at least this cartoonish.

He seems not to have read or been briefed on any of the history (old or more recent) of the players, from Iran to Venezuela’s Chavez to North Korea to Russia to China to Islamofascism in all its forms.  He acts like every day is a new day, and maybe today they’ll all play nice with him.  He seems bent on following some misplaced notion of “international law” and honoring the U.N. and its ridiculous “community of nations,” including a “human rights commission” staffed by some of the most abusive governments on the planet.  In this, the U.N. is more cartoonish than the Powerpuff Girls.  It’s as if the script writers had put the Gangreen Gang in charge of the entire school district, with the more lowly gang members in charge of the welcome wagon for new students.

Obama’s inexplicable support for illegal, unconstitutional actions by former President Zelaya of Honduras, his feckless approach to a nuclear-arming Iran, his tried-and-worthless approach to the Israel/Palestinian conflict, all of these make the actions of the Powerpuff Girls’ kindergarten teacher seem positively wise and far-sighted.

At least she knows when it’s time to bend the rules.

In the meantime, Obama gives obeisance to everyone who intends ill towards the USA, including the UN, the IPCC, and every third world dictator he chances to meet.

Hope and change.  Only now, there isn’t much left of the former, and only bad omens for the latter.


Nov 21 2009

Bribery, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Category: Congress,healthcare,legislation,politicsamuzikman @ 11:57 pm

Imagine you are a police officer who has just stopped a vehicle for speeding.  When you make it clear that you intend to write a ticket, the driver offers you $100 to change your mind.  This action, a felony, is called Bribing a Peace Officer and carries a maximum penalty of $10,000 and two years in jail.

Now imagine you are a United States Senator from Louisiana who is unsure of how to vote on the so-called health care bill.  Another Senator tells you they will see to it that your state receives $100 million dollars to ensure that you vote “yes” on the aforementioned piece of legislation.  This action is called political hard ball, is apparently legal, and carries no fine or threat of imprisonment if found guilty.

it would seem that our political leadership has abdicated any real responsibility to deal with the issue, let alone the merits of this 2000+ page monstrosity of a bill.  It has become entirely about politics and money.

Is there anyone out there who can say with a straight face they truly believe this is at all about improving the health care system in this country?  If so, why don’t you hop on your unicorn, fly over and meet me at the end of the rainbow.  I’ll introduce you to a lovely little leprechaun who’ll point out the pot of gold we can use to pay for government-sponsored health care.

Read the details.  Senatorial votes are for sale to the highest bidder.


Oct 05 2009

The race card… again played by the Left

Category: freedom,government,politics,raceharmonicminer @ 9:07 am

Star Parker on Cavuto


Sep 09 2009

Black Christians and political leaders

Category: politics,race,religionharmonicminer @ 9:07 am

When color trumps Christianity

How can black Christians allow race and color to trump Christian principles in driving their support for a leader?

Read it all.


Jul 11 2009

Why we’re losing: we brought a knife to gun fight

Category: media,Palin,politics,Republicanharmonicminer @ 9:00 am

You really have to read this whole thing. But here’s a taste.

I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin

One of the most terrifying moments of my political life came last summer at the Republican convention in St. Paul. No, I don’t mean seeing John McCain careering around the Xcel Energy Center like Eyegore in Young Frankenstein, his face frozen in a Lon Chaney Sr. rictus grin as he reached across the aisle to his erstwhile friends in the media and got his hand bitten off. Rather, I’m referring to the aftermath of Sarah Palin’s outrageous acceptance speech, which whipped up the Rotary Club delegates into a frenzy of white-boy fury that not even heckling by a brave Code Pink embed could deter. Truly a fascist classic and one that sent shivers down our collectivist spines.

Even worse was the glaze of horror on the phizzes of the assembled heroes of the Mainstream Media. Andrea Mitchell, yes, the very same Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, whose employer saw no conflict of interest at all when she married then Fed pooh-bah Alan Greenspan, stood there gaping like a frog while the rest of the assembled Finemans and Matthewses and Olbermanns scurried around like roaches when the light gets turned on: What the hell just hit us? For one horrible moment, it looked as if the carefully crafted plans of David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, George Soros, and the Second Chief Directorate, first department, of the old KGB were about to gang agley.

Really, read the whole thing at the link above. Then start planning something. Anything.


Jul 05 2009

We’re in the Twilight Zone, Part 1

Category: government,healthcare,left,legislation,politics,societyharmonicminer @ 8:27 am

There is a Twilight Zone episode called “Button, Button “ in which an unhappy couple is given an unusual offer. Push a button on a box and someone they don’t know will die, but they will get $200,000.

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis are unhappy. Their car is broken. They live in a cramped one-bedroom apartment. They’re often bickering. One day, their doorbell rings but there’s nobody there. A package addressed to both of them was left by the door. Inside it is a wooden box with a plastic dome on the locked lid. A note on the bottom says a “Mr. Steward” will come that night. He comes on schedule and explains the offer to Mrs. Lewis. If she unlocks the lid and pushes the button under the dome, someone they don’t know will die and she’ll receive $200,000, tax-free. She tells the details to her husband and he’s adamantly against it. He opens up the bottom of the box and finds nothing inside. Cynical, he throws the box into a dumpster but she retrieves it after he’s asleep. They continue to argue about whether to push the button. Finally, Mrs. Lewis presses it. Mr. Steward appears and gives them their $200,000. They’re incredulous and wonder what will happen to the box. Steward explains that it will be reprogrammed and the same offer will be given to another couple, “somebody you won’t know…”

The story is based on a short story by Richard Matheson, with a slightly different ending, but the gist of the story is the same, namely the willingness of people to receive benefits that don’t belong to them, when the only risk — really, certain doom — is to strangers.

It seems to me that this is a perfect model for the desire of many people who want to have nationalized health insurance of some sort.  Particularly if they are people who don’t now have health insurance, and want a national system to give it to them, they are perfect examples of the willingness to damage other people —  all strangers, of course — for selfish gain.

Imagine a rewrite to the story.  You are offered a button which, if you push it, guarantees that a stranger will not receive the health care they’ve always paid for, resulting in their likely death, but the reward for pushing it is that you have a minimal level of health coverage for life.

There seems to be a lot of people who are only too willing to push the button.

Of course, the entire class of people who stand to benefit the most from national healthcare — the Lefty political class that will claim it has done America a great service — will be the group that doesn’t have to live with the arrangement.  Does anyone think that the political class will settle for the DMV standard of medical care to which the rest of us will be doomed?

Button, button, who’s got the button


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