I Could Not Detest This Person More

bangs head repeatedly on desk ... I just can't stand it .,..  Breitbart gone, this vermin still extant. 


Thanks to Ace.

SCOTUS And Kelo

LauraW (at Ace of Spades), on the aftermath of Kelo:

SCOTUS' Chickens Come Home To Roost In New London

This cannot be emphasized enough.

The people who run your city, the politicians who are full of bright ideas for improving your life by infringing on others' rights, and the black-robed genius who is tasked with interpreting our founding documents; NONE of these people are smarter than you.

NONE of these people are gifted with superior insight on how better to run your life or use our native resources. But they believe that they are. So without the brake of morality or explicit law, these geniuses and pols and town busybodies will extend professional courtesy to each other as they go about dismantling your life for some dubious utopian idea.

Think hard about those words, particularly in the context of the current healthscare debate.

From the comments of that post:

I have kept saying this since the campaign. Obama is sooooo smart. Why? Well, uh, he got accepted to Harvard Law School (finishing is not a problem, the day you are accepted, they print your diploma). He wrote that super-awesome book about himself.

First, none of this is a serious intellectual task. There ain't no math. It's not about solving problems, it's about empty rhetoric at best. Just because pretentious people, who like to think they are smart (David Brooks) can understand nothing more complicated than prose in their mother tongue, doesn't mean someone who does it well is intelligent. Just the opposite, in my experience.

Second, this is why I rag on lawyers. If lawyers were like accountants -- experienced, professional specialists who (Doug Hoffman aside) don't try to parlay their education into some sort of divine right to rule -- then I'd have no problem. But there ain't nothin' special about lawyers. They're idiots by my scale. They usually have trouble with math. Send a native-English speaking PhD mathematician -- one of the two of them left -- to Harvard Law and see him laugh at the trivialities involved.

Law school is where you go when math is too hard for you.

So not only are these self-styled philosopher kings not smarter, they're dumber. But even if you do get a true genius, he doesn't know anything. Look at the brilliant economists who said that the unemployment rate wouldn't get above 8%. Has one of them apologized? Committed hara-kiri?

One thing math tells you is that everything, in the real world or theory, is waaaaay too complicated for even the most brilliant person to understand. It is one of the reasons American democracy has worked so far. We have resisted the siren's song -- more or less -- of the ubermensch and we are better for it.

Posted by: AmishDude at November 11, 2009 10:56 AM

What he said.

More & more excellent comments at the link.

LATER: Related only in the style over substance sense, Snapped Shot on President Pose & Prose.

h/t Carin, at Is This Blog On?

EVEN LATER: Uncle Jay Explains The News.

What's With These Chicks?

And I say that as a chick myself.

Two terrific takedowns of female MSM journos this week, one the unabashedly liberal Maureen Dowd of the NYT, the other the allegedly conservative Peggy Noonan of Reagan speech-writer fame.

Jeffrey Lord, of the American Spectator, on MoDo -- The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Maureen Dowd:

So how does the Times stable of Op-Ed columnists stack up against the standards "White Mo" Dowd sets for the rest of us? You know, one's race being critical in order "to bring a fresh perspective" and avoid the "disgrace" of being "stocked with white men."

Of the eleven columnists the Times advertises as its team of Op-Ed page writers, nine are whites. Of those nine, seven are -- ouch! -- the disgracefully whitest of white men! Which is another way of saying 81% of the Times Op-Ed columnists are white (White Mo included) and 77% of the columnist team is, to use White Mo's phrase about the Supreme Court, "stocked with white men" -- guys like Frankly White Rich who are as white as sheets. If one is obsessed with viewing everyone and everything in America through the prism of race, then the 88% white New York Times editorial board and the white paper's stable of 81% white columnists clearly don't read their own editorials. No wonder Black Bob Herbert is so cranky all the time. One of the two black tokens on the Op-Ed page, Black Bob is forced to work with more white guys than David Duke. Black Bob would actually see more black faces if his white bosses let him take the company limo and its black driver over to New Haven to catch the next five-alarm. As for a wise Latina or Latino on the page? Nada.

That Times Editorial Board 15-2 ratio, however, is precisely the kind of thing that supposedly drives White Mo crazy. Or at least when it involves the Supreme Court or New Haven firemen and not her own turf. She somehow must hope the rest of us have forgotten that neither White Mo nor the whiteys writing those Times editorials with White Rosie wanted the only black man now sitting on the US Supreme Court to be there at all. Justice Clarence Thomas's very nomination, the Times foamed at the time in language worthy of The Birth of a Nation, was designed to "incite." Got that? You don't wanna put any black man on the Court who upsets the white massa's of the Times by going the uppity route.

Stuart Schwartz, at American Thinker, on Noonan -- Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin Jealous:

You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. But it's not the normal kind of jealous, the kind reserved for girlfriends who can squeeze into size 2 jeans. No, it's the kind of jealous that hurts, that grabs your gut and twists, that has you howling with rage into your pillow in the middle of the night, screaming "It's not fair" like a two-year-old denied another piece of cake. It is Sarah Palin jealous...and it is consuming you.

You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. You are a card-carrying member of the intellectual conservative elite, a PBS-anointed expert on family values who worked for both Ronald Reagan and Dan Rather, a talented speechwriter and wordsmith. And you are fuming: Sarah Palin refuses to be yesterday's news. You just can't get her out of your mind.

And, what's worse, everyone continues to talk about her. You've tried everything, using your mainstream media platforms, your Wall Street Journal columns, and powerful friends -- so many of them -- to savage her, to give her a rhetorical beating so fierce that it would bring a smile to the face of Vince McMahon -- if you knew who he is, and if you had ever watched a WWE wrestling match, which he heads. "She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon," you wrote, your $300 manicured fingers shaking on the keyboard.

Read 'em both -- they're worth it.

Sarahcuda

Victor Davis Hanson -- at NRO.

Russ from Winterset -- at AoSHQ.

Andrea Harris (two different links) -- at Spleenville HQ.

The Anchoress -- at First Things.

Mark Levin -- at marklevinshow.com (show of 07/03/09).

Tim Blair -- at The Daily Telegraph.

Doctor Zero -- at HotAir's Greenroom.

Jay Valentine -- at American Thinker.

MataHarley -- at Flopping Aces.


What they said.




UPDATE 07/07/09: Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

David Kahane -- at NRO.

John F'n Kerry:

Still stupid, and just as funny as Letterman.

Also: Favorite new right-wing haterz name for Teh Won -- "Lord of the Flyswatters."

Heh.

I Laughed, I Cried,

I damn near choked on my Earl Grey. You have to ask why? Iowahawk, of course. I have to stop reading this at work ... my office mates think I'm having fits.

First, the outrage! over Joe the Plumber having the effrontery to attempt to write ... a ... BOOK!!1!!!11! (that link to Tim Blair, with ample linky goodness to explain the controversy to those who have missed it):

Silly Plumber, Lit Is For Crits


Then (once again with Blair explanatory linkage), that little Illinois Governor flap:

BREAKING: Feds Seize Blagojevich eBay Account


I bow to thee, Iowahawk (and Blair, too).


BONUS! Play a rousing game of "Naaaame That Party!" with AoSHQ. For the lightning round, name who's the next one under the President-Elect bus (with another excellent Slu-shop).


And Carin, at Is This Blog On? muses:

At best, Obama is a dupe who couldn't recognize corruption while he was lying next to it. At worst, he knew and just attempted to make sure he wasn't smeared by it. Not very changy, if you don't care about corruption within your own party. That seems remarkably not-changy.

That's ... samey.

The MSM

Meant to mention this from Michael S. Malone last week, but got too busy. It's old, as they say at AoSHQ, but totally worth it and now has a thoughtful followup.

Also, on the same subject, Treacher (in its entirety):

November 08, 2008

JUST TO PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

It has been 21 months since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

It has been four weeks since Joe Wurzelbacher asked Barack Obama about his tax plan.

Which man do you know more about?

The Charlie Rose-Jon Meacham-Evan Thomas WTF? interview.

Funny, they're amazingly aware, now that it's over.

Also, from the fabulous Nice Deb, The Most Clueless Headline of 2008.

One guy with a clue, from Peter Hitchens/UK Daily Mail online: The night we waved goodbye to America ... our last best hope on Earth.


Bleaarrrggghhh.

(image from I Can Has Cheezburger)

UPDATE: This WTF moment brought to you by protein wisdom.

ONE MORE: Found this at Doubleplusundead, "You Stay Classy, NYT" -- and it's already changed!

First: Obama Will Visit Bush, Watching Out for
Tacks on Chairs in Oval Office

Now: A Visit Both Historic and Perhaps Awkward

ANOTHER!: From Nice Deb -- "Poor Bill Ayers. He was quite taken aback by the fact that people were appalled by his past words and actions."

AND YET ANOTHER: From Treacher (first link from AoSHQ, for background): From The 52 IQs To The 49th State -- Sorry, Sarah Palin! (Artwork by Batton Lash).

ANOTHER: (Stop posting, people, I can't keep up) IMAO -- United States?

LAST ONE: Snark Patrol says "Time To Hibernate."

W... T... F...

BUMPED: Ann Coulter -- Spot On

AND MORE NEW: JUST TO PILE ON the Silky Pony, this from doubleplusundead.


MORE NEW! Post (AoSHQ) from Ace:

I really can't fucking believe the media is now deciding whether to report big stories of national scope based on whether someone they like might be distressed by their reportage.

Of course I can believe it; I have to believe it. It's what they're doing, obviously.

I guess the New York Times didn't like Cindy McCain all that much when it reported on McCain's non-affair with his non-paramour.

Should media organizations be required to disclose which people they "like" and wish to "protect," and which people they "don't like" and "don't wish to protect," so that we might know beforehand where their biases may lie?

Seems like a bona fide conflict of interest, more so than many others. If the media is in the tank for Elizabeth Edwards, we need to know that, in order to properly evaluate their coverage of her husband.

As Ann Coulter said in the column (see below) that started this post, if this had been Mitt Romney, the media would have been camped on his front lawn since the first mention, chasing his wife through the supermarket and accosting his grandkids at their elementary schools to "get the TRUTH!" And it would have mattered not-at-all that he was no longer in the running for the nomination or was not currently in some political/public service position.

*sigh*

FATS WALLER & HIS RHYTHM (1936) -- "It's A Sin To Tell A Lie"


NEW! 08-08-08: AoSHQ by DrewM "Edwards Admits Affair, *NUANCE* But Denies Child"

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

As one of the commenters puts it: "Well, that puts the whole 'love child' thing to rest."

********

Ann Coulter on the non-coverage of the John Edwards (alleged) love-child scandal (which is just a microcosm of the problems of most of today's media coverage).

A Washington Post reporter defended the total blackout on the National Enquirer's John Edwards' love child story, telling the Times of London: "Edwards is no longer an elected official and he is not running for office now. Don't expect wall-to-wall coverage." This was the perfect guy to talk to because if there's one thing they're careful about in London, it's tabloid excess.

Isn't there some level of coverage between "wall-to-wall" and "double-secret probation, delta-force level total news blackout" when it comes to a sex scandal involving a current Democratic vice presidential and Cabinet prospect?

Hey, what sort of "elected official" was Ted Haggard again? He was the Christian minister no one outside of his own parish had ever heard of until he was caught in a gay sex scandal last year. Then he suddenly became the Pope of the Protestants. And yet, despite the fact that Haggard was not an "elected official," the Post gave that story wall-to-wall coverage. And what sort of "elected officials" were Mel Gibson, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett?

*snip*

I assume it would be jejune to point out that the MSM would be taking the wall-to-wall approach, rather than the total blackout approach, to the love child story if it were a story about Mitt Romney's love child or, indeed, Larry Craig's love child. They'd bring Ted Koppel out of retirement to cover that. Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson would be anchoring the evening news from Romney's front yard. They might even get Dan Rather to produce some forged documents for the occasion.

So true, especially the fourth paragraph. Read the rest here.

UPDATE: Heh - Tim Blair: Unknown Story Referenced.