This!

This, this, this, this, THIS...



ought to be on the lips of every conservative in the country. (Should be on the lips of every American, but fat chance).

Bully! Rep. McClintock.

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.

This Post

is for my sister ... and only she knows why!!!



Hot Jazz Band - Christopher Columbus



Christopher Columbus
Andy Razaf, Leon Berry 1936

Mister Christopher Columbus
Sailed the sea without a compass.
When his men began a rumpus
Up spoke Christopher Columbus:

"There is land somewhere
Until we get there,
We will not go wrong,
If we sing a swing song.

Since the world is round,
We'll be safe and sound,
Til our goal is found,
We'll just keep rhythm bound."

Soon the crew was makin' merry
Then came a yell, "Let's drink to Isabelle,
Hum, bring the rum, Ho Hum."

No more mu-tin-y,
What a time at sea,
With di-plo-macy
Christy made his-to-ry.

Mister Christopher Columbus
He used rhythm as a compass.
Music ended all the rumpus,
Wise old Christopher Columbus.


Happy Columbus Day!

One Of My Favorites

Two favorites, actually - the video and Mr. Whittle:



I rewatch this to calm down when the news of the day makes me want to bite someone.

Oh, and check this comparison of Palin's pre-order book sales vs. those of David Frum (one of those GOP "elitists" that Whittle speaks of) at Doug Ross:

Memo to David Frum, re: Sarah Palin

Heh. Keep going rogue, Sarah.

And Now For Something Completely Different or: A Major Link-O-Rama

Someone else I love (probably because I am a blockhead), Ian Dury! (More here)

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick




And the flip-side of the original single:

There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards




An 80s song I still love (it's one you either love or despise):

Puttin' On The Ritz - Taco




I wonder what Irving Berlin would have thought of that version of his creation. (Let alone this one). From "Irving Berlin in Hollywood," by Ian Whitcombe:

It was all very well for Broadway and Hollywood to call for the fashionable integrated song but the fact is that we remember the Berlin numbers and not the plots of these shows. Perhaps he knew this all along because after a follow-up movie, "Follow The Fleet" and other commissions for which he delivered the required work, he was happy to let Twentieth Century Fox in "Alexander's Ragtime Band" celebrate his hit-making life through a cavalcade of songs ranging from the ragtime years up to the current craze for Swing. Ethel Merman did her usual fine job of enunciating "Heat Wave" as if she possessed a built-in bullhorn. Berlin thoroughly approved of her way with his work (just as he did Jolson's and Astaire's) because she respected both words and music-something the Swing Musicians neglected, even ignored. After hearing Benny Goodman's interpretation of "Blue Skies", in which the tune got buried, he told the King of Swing: "That was the most incredible playing I've ever heard - Never do it again!"

Blue Skies -- Benny Goodman & His Orchestra (1935)

Just because, one of my favorite versions of that number by Maxine Sullivan, on whom I bestowed the highest honor that's in my power to give -- named one of my cats after her.

Blue Skies -- Maxine Sullivan & Her Orchestra (1937)

More great Maxine (the singer, not the cat):

Stop! You're Breakin' My Heart -- Claude Thornhill Orchestra with Maxine Sullivan (1937)


To prove I have the strangest musical tastes in the galaxy, here's a link to a really fine blog piece on someone else who fascinates me, Bert Williams. The whole blog is swell, nice writing with a huge range of music types. Just my thing.

Hit me! Hit me!


LATER: Unlike Allan Sherman, I still love the Beatles:

Happy Columbus Day

by Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547)

One more reason to like Mark Steyn.

One more reason to like Stoaty Weasel (as if we needed one). :-)

SHORPY

Just discovered this, thanks to a link from my brother. It's way excellent. From the blog:

Shorpy.com is the 100-year-old photography blog that brings our ancestors back, at least to the desktop. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a boy who worked in an Alabama coal mine near the turn of the century.

And:

Shorpy is a blog about old photos and what life a hundred years ago was like: How people looked and what they did for a living, back when not having a job usually meant not eating.

Fascinating, mostly very high-quality pictures. Go look now!

Heard On The Mark Levin Show

David Frum, on whither Conservatives, from Financial Times:

The country has changed since 1988. Polls capture a shift to the left on economic issues. The once decisive tax issue has faded altogether, and no wonder: 80 per cent of Americans now pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. Americans care less about taxes than healthcare and fuel prices, issues where Republicans offer few solutions and speak with something less than passionate urgency. Americans are expressing a new pessimism about upward mobility and their children’s chances of leading a better life – an understandable reaction to the stagnation of median wages since 2000. Even on the signature issue of the war on terror, Americans are turning away from Republican ideas. The proportion of Americans who believe that terrorism can be defeated by military force has sharply declined since 2002. (emphasis mine)

What, then — Fluffy kittens?





I don't think Americans are "turning away from Republican ideas" — How can you turn away from something that's not even being presented?

A great counter argument, from Victor Davis Hanson at NRO:

What's Wrong with Republicans?

On this great debate, I tend to agree with Mark Levin and others that conservatives should reach out with conservative principles better framed and presented, rather than change the message for the perceived advantage of the hour.

What the Republicans need is not an abandonment of conservative principles, but a smarter, more articulate defense of even more conservativism, not less.

. . .

I think in their depression, the Republicans fail to see that their problems were not in their principles, but rather in the sometimes sleezy and sloppy way they advanced them — and even more often in the manner that they abandoned them — and as a result, they are apparently eager to compromise on them.

The rest of both at the links. Arrrggghhhh.

Tax Day

"Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15." --Ronald Wilson Reagan

TAXMAN (1966)

George Harrison

Let me tell you how it will be

There's one for you, nineteen for me.

'Cause I'm the taxman,

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Should five percent appear too small

Be thankful I don't take it all.

'Cause I'm the taxman,

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,

If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat,

If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat,

If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.

Taxman!

'Cause I'm the taxman,

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Don't ask me what I want it for (ha ha Mr. Wilson)

If you don't want to pay some more (ha ha Mr. Heath).

'Cause I'm the taxman,

Yeah, I'm the taxman .

Now my advice for those who die

Declare the pennies on your eyes.

'Cause I'm the taxman,

Yeah, I'm the taxman.

And you're working for no one but me ....

Helen Keller

A rare and lovely photo of Helen Keller & her teacher Anne Sullivan was recently discovered in a family album (article found via a Dave in Texas comment @ AoSHQ). Experts believe it could be the earliest photo of the two together.