Seriously, are there any benighted semi-despots out there Tom Friedman doesn't have a bromantic poli-crush on?

Some eight years ago, in February 2002, I interviewed then-Crown Prince-now-King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his horse farm outside Riyadh. I shared with him a column I had written -- suggesting that the Arab League put forth a peace plan offering Israel full peace for full withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state -- when he feigned surprise and said: "Have you broken into my desk?" The Saudi leader said he was preparing the exact same plan and offered it up -- "full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations." He added: "I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs don't reject or despise them."

Yeah, I'm sure a fake peace deal will totally obscure the fact the Arab ruling class rarely misses a chance to make clear how much they despise Jews in general and Israel in particular. You know, like when they went to war with them. Three times. The Arab elites want to negotiate the destruction of Israel, nothing more or less, but they're more than happy to trot out these fake initiatives for the likes of Friedman to pant and drool over. Why not? It doesn't cost them anything, and the exercise gives them good PR with the gullible.

With the Cubans now apparently heading to the Chinese model, I expect Raul Castro will be the next authoritarian recipient of our modern day Duranty's wistful glances. "There's someone getting things done, unlike our messy constitutional republic with its obstructionist notions of rights and elections," he'll sigh and coo. It's really too bad he doesn't live in either country so we could chuckle when they respond to his global warming nonsense by eliimnating the emissions from his palatial estate. I suppose despots are prettiest when admired from afar.

Anyways, I just want it on the record that many of us recognized Tom Friedman was a fool well before the China bubble burst.

The anti-Tea Party left are having a field day over the discovery that a violently anti-gay bigot was heading a Montana Tea Party group.

One of the favorite headlines is "Tea Party president jokes about murdering GLBTQ people." (Right. As if this clown is the president of the Tea Party itself!)

Then there's "Montana Tea Party Leader Endorses Violence Toward Gay People."

And to convince the recalcitrant few who have any doubts about those awful Tea Partiers, try "If you still think the Tea Party isn't a bunch of violent bigots...."

What's being downplayed in the haste to indict the entire Tea Party movement as a bunch of bigoted homophobes is the undeniable fact that the board of the Big Sky Tea Party in Montana voted to expel the bigot who joked about hanging gays as decorations. Moreover, they did so quickly:

Montana Human Rights Network organizers said they became aware of the Facebook posting on Friday after a couple of Montana political blogs reprinted the exchange. Organizer Kim Abbott said her organization immediately called for Ravndal's removal and for the Big Sky Tea Party Association to clarify its position.

Two days later, Ravndal was gone.

"We think that they moved swiftly, they condemned the anti-gay rhetoric," Abbott told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "We're especially happy about the unequivocal statements that the tea party will not welcome this type of inflammatory, bigoted behavior into their party, and we hope they stick to it."

I have been going to Tea Party meetings and events since July of 2009, and the vast majority of Tea Party people I have met -- whether organizers or rank-and-file members -- do not endorse anti-gay bigotry at all. (Parenthetically, this would make the Tea Partiers less bigoted than the Montana State GOP, which recently declared in its platform that homosexuality should be a crime in Montana. I think that by any reasonable standard, wanting to put gays in prison is anti-gay bigotry.)

Now, while Tea Partiers I have met have not been anti-gay, it is important to remember that the gay issue -- pro or con -- is not and never has never been a Tea Party issue. Yet seemingly of nowhere, it has recertly erupted up with such intensity that I'm wondering about the timing. Might Glenn Beck's recent remarks about gay marriage have something to do with the present uproar?

As I keep saying, gay activists on the left and their dedicated anti-gay counterparts on the right have a common goal.

They want anti-gay bigotry on the right.

So, if that is the common goal, Beck's remarks must be a bitter disappointment.

Especially to poor old George Soros who has launched a major new effort to portray the Tea Party as a bunch of violent bigots.

* Soros's new anti-Tea Party website is prominently featuring this story with a huge headline at the top, of course.

A newspaper report out of Connecticut paints a dire picture of heroin use in America. The destruction of the country by these evil drugs is nearly complete. We have zombie Armies roaming the streets whose only motivation is drugs and death.

Painter also sees a misconception about heroin addiction, and the hysterical fears of a zombie army of junkies roaming the streets.

"The heroin addiction rate in this country is 1.3 percent and has remained steady for the past century," he says. "We are going to have heroin addicts no matter what we do. We are going to have alcoholics and nicotine addicts too and a lot of recreational use of these drugs. Finding drugs in urine is a violation of parole. We will never get rid of this scourge by sending people to prison for drugs in their urine. It's ridiculous. If they rob, OK, send them back. But so many people are in jail on technicalities, for dirty urine. What have we gained?"

Talk of the problems with drug sentencing eventually leads to the subject of prison policy. Brooks likes to cite the TV show "Lock Up" in which a squad does nothing but go through mail to find out how the drugs are getting inside the prison.

"If we can't keep drugs out of the most secure places in the country, how are we going to keep them off the streets? It is just unrealistic, a fantasy, to think that we can have a drug-free society," says Brooks, then adds, "The privatization of prisons is partly to blame. What's the best way to make a profit? By keeping the prison cells full. What's the best way to fill prison cells? Arrest and convict non-violent drug offenders, who will quietly serve their time."

Government can't make economies (deep thought, that). It can break them. But according to my conservative friends government is the perfect tool for stamping out vice (harming one's self). I fear my so called conservative friends have bought into progressivism. "Government can.....". I've got news for you: No it can't.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I'm a bit late to weigh in on the president's complaint that he's being talked about like a dog, but Glenn has a nice roundup of posts. The consensus is that the president plagiarized a Hendrix line, and that's received a lot of attention -- including from non-Hendrix-fan John Hinderaker.

I like Hendrix, and there is an obvious similarity of word choice but I don't think that ends the inquiry. As M. Simon was reminded of a Big Mama Thornton song, I suppose I have him to thank (or blame) for this flight-of-fancy post.

Music has a strange way of invoking mental associations, so the first thing Simon's Big Mama Thornton video reminded me of was not hound dogs, but the great John Lee Hooker. I made a beeline for YouTube, but alas! My favorite Hooker song ("We're All God's Chillun") was nowhere to be found.

"That's not fair!" I thought. So I had to create one. (Forgive the garbling at the beginning; my cheap-ass software doesn't convert low-bitrate mp3s to YouTube very well.)

Now, I realize that a song about how we're all God's children has nothing to do with the president's view that his critics are talking about him like a dog.

But is it really so bad to be talked about like a dog? One of my favorite topics in this blog is my dog Coco, and before that it was Puff. If I talked about the president like a dog, it would be in loving and always forgiving terms. So surely, the president cannot be including yours truly as among those who talk about him like a dog.

And what about those who talk about themselves as dogs in sympathetic terms?

Fabian's "Hound Dog Man" is a perfect example!

I think that if the president had some dog sense, he could adopt the Fabian song for propaganda purposes, and people might trust him more. What could be more heartwarming than a president who says "I wanna be your hound dog man"?

But what do I know? What the president said was "they talk about me like a dog."

Do they really? Is that strictly accurate?

To answer that, I think it is necessary to ascertain exactly how a dog talks about Obama.

Here's how one dog -- Mishka -- talks:

Surely where there's one, there are more.

I say, howl if you like Obama!

George Soros is one of those people I absolutely cannot stand. IMO, there is no wicked deed, no sort of foulness, of which I would deem him incapable. Yesterday, I wondered out loud whether someone like him might consider funding the elimination of humanity by mad scientists using killer organisms:

...what would stop a rich billionaire from funding it; suppose someone normally considered a "philanthropist" like George Soros decided to embark on a kooky "philanthropic misanthropy" mission to save the planet from mankind?

So as there isn't anything I don't think Soros is capable of, and as one of my worst fears is a presidential assassination by left wing operatives posing as right-wing nuts, I wondered whether any conspiracy minded crank had ever speculated about a possible Soros connection with such a despicable plan.

While I didn't find what I was looking for (other than the fact that Soros has expressed dissatisfaction with the president for not being left wing enough), my search was not a total disappointment in the conspiracy theory department.

I'm afraid that my blog posts have been boring lately (I've been distracted with some of life's realities), but there's nothing like a good conspiracy theory or two to liven things up. If you enjoy being entertained by utterly fantastic conspiracy theories, I suggest taking a look at a long screed titled "Bernard Madoff and George Soros Linked to Bush-Clinton-Cheney-Mossad-Gary Best "TRUE COLORS" Assassination Teams." (It is one of the most convoluted and fantastic conspiracy theories I have ever read, with great pictures and superb flow charts!)

I soon learned this same crack investigative outfit has uncovered a number of gay sex rings at the White House, apparently under the direction of the Mossad, which the media have been dutifully covering up.

Here are a few stories the media might be interesting in covering because it fits their modus operandi:

1. When will the media divulge that a secret White House video tape exists showing former illegal White House occupant George W. BushFRAUD engaged in hot homosexual sex with his lifelong lover, former Yale classmate and former Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe, and White House male prostitute Jeff Gannon?

2. When will the corrupt media divulge the 1990s state of Virginia Police report detailing former First Lady, now dysfunctional Secretary of State Hillary Rodenhurst Clinton's felony assault on a former U.S. Secret Service agent with a heavy glass ashtray after the Secret Service agent caught Hillary engaged in hot lesbian sex with former Clinton Administration era female White House prostitute "Susan"?

3. When will the corrupt media report why alleged President Barack Obama is being blackmailed? The answer is, of course, President Obama's previous homosexual affair with cocaine snorter Larry Sinclair and his association with current White House Chief of Staff, closet homosexual and Israeli Mossad agent Rahm Emanuel to noted gay bath houses in the Chicago area.

The reason these misfits in the American media do not want to address these stories is because at least half of them are closet homosexuals and lesbians all being financially compensated by the Israeli lobby AIPAC and simultaneously being blackmailed by the Israeli Mossad.

All it takes is a little imagination, and this checklist of suspicious behaviors compiled in a handy marital assistance guide titled "Is My Husband Gay?"

Right now in America there are over 2 million couples secretly struggling with homosexuality in their marriages. Are you one of them? Are you having intimacy issues? Are you suspicious about your husband's late night activities? Or are you oblivious to a problem that could be putting your health and the livelihood of your family at risk? Don't tell yourself that you're simply being paranoid without taking a closer look!

late night use of cellphones and computers

lack of interest in spiritual issues

Overly fastidious about his appearance and the home

Gym membership but no interest in sports

Sassy, sarcastic and ironic around his friends

Love of pop culture

going shirtless in the back yard or at picnics when other men are around

heavy drinking

My only complaint about the above is that they left out the most suspicious and telling symptom of them all: does he deny being gay? Because, as anyone conspiracy buff will tell you, denial proves the truth of any conspiracy theory!

In light of Soros, though, having fun with conspiracy theories might seem like an exercise in frivolity. After all, who needs conspiracy theories when you've got a living, breathing, conspiracy?

Compared to him, the most sordid sex scandals look like a 1950s Disney flick.

Among many of life's seemingly minor petty annoyances is the disparate treatment meted out by the City of Ann Arbor's garbage collection unit. Whether they enforce the rules depends on trashiness of the residents, and their willingness to comply with the rules.

Now, you might assume that they would be harder on the trashier and less rule-abiding people, but this is not the case.

In my neighborhood, homeowners who live in their own homes are expected to follow the rules. A violation (typically having too much trash so the lid won't close or not putting the refuse cart in the street so it can be picked up by the trucks automatic grabbing arm) will earn a refusal of service with a sticker placed on the cart spelling out the "violation." Ditto recycling violations. Homeowners quickly learn that if they are not neat and rule-following, their trash will not get picked up.

However, where it comes to tenants occupying rentals, the situation is very different. Typically, these are students (often five or more males sharing a rented house), and they could care less about neatness, recycling, or complying with rules. They routinely put their carts in the wrong place and they are often overflowing to the point that the top won't close at all. But if the place has that trashy, non-law-abiding look, then noncompliance with the rules is no problem. The refuse takers will get out of the truck, move the cart to where it belongs (on the curb in the street with three feet of space around it), and they completely ignore it if the cart is so overflowing that the top won't close. It's as if they have an intuitive sense for which households can be expected to follow the rules and for which households following rules is a complete joke and a lost cause. In a way, I can understand this, because if they enforced the rules against trashy student renters the way they do against neater homeowners, the trash would just stay there because the students don't care. More would be thrown on the pile or on the ground, and I guess someone would eventually have to issue a citation to the landlord. Obviously, that's a lot of hassle, so the unwritten rule is that if the tenants are slobs, they get cut plenty of slack.

This is such a minor annoyance that it wouldn't be worth a post except that it touches on a larger issue, which is that laws are not only for the law-abiding, but they increasingly tend to be enforced only against the law abiding. If a homeless man takes a leak in the park, he will not be cited, but if a guy wearing a suit took a leak in the park and the cops saw it, they'd nail him. I can understand why; the latter is more likely to have ID, to show up in court, to pay the fine, and much less likely to give lice and bedbugs to the arresting officer. I have to say that if I were the officer, I would feel the same way. And who is more likely to have Child Protective Services called on her for, say, whacking her disobedient brat? A trashy welfare mom or a nice middle class working woman? I think the answer is obvious. And of course, the most frequent violators of the recycling laws are the homeless types who make a living basically stealing from the City the cans and bottles for their ten cent deposits, which are of course loaded into their stolen supermarket shopping carts. Not once have I seen one of them cited. (If an annoyed citizen complained to a cop about this, he would do nothing except maybe roll his eyes over the citizen's cluelessness while giving him a lecture about "police priorities.")

Need I mention littering? The few trashy people who litter (I mean the true littering classes who routinely throw garbage and diapers wherever they want and create 90% of the litter) are the very last who would get cited. That's because littering is what they do, so the laws aren't meant for them.

The worst offenders have become an exempt class.

Philosophically though, why should the laws (which are supposed to be the same laws for everyone) have more of a tendency to be enforced against people who are more law abiding? Aren't they in less need of the laws?

So instead of singling out the generally law-abiding classes, wouldn't it be better in the long run to treat everyone the same way?

MORE: To illustrate, I just photographed the carts placed in front of a typical student rental around the corner from me for collection.

Carts are supposed to be at the curb three feet apart, with lids closed all the way. If my trash looked like the above picture, it would not have been collected.

Hell, I might have even been cited for obstructing the sidewalk.

These kids make me feel like an old chump!

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Quick question for anyone who understands Facebook better than I do. (Which is probably most people, as it still baffles me.)

Earlier when I went to my Facebook homepage, I saw that someone using my name had posted the following phony endorsement -- as me!

Eric Scheie

I thought this survey stuff was BULL** but i swear I just used the Best Buy giftcard they sent me here http://apps.facebook.com/squareballs/ to buy a laptop!

28 minutes ago via Mobile Web • Comment • Like

Moreover, when I clicked on the settings I saw this:

Upload via Email
Use a personalized upload email to post status updates or send photos and videos straight to your profile. Your personal email is:
***************@m.facebook.com
Send my upload email to me now
Find out more

And of course, there is no way to report this or contact Facebook.

I'm beginning to lose patience with Facebook.

Wish I could sic Coco on 'em.

GRRRR.

MORE: The link to the laptop that "I" supposedly posted --

http://apps.facebook.com/squareballs/

is of course bogus.

Spam is bad enough, and I hate to get it. But do I have to post it, against my will?

UPDATE: I went through Facebook's account recovery process twice, and now another version of that same spam has somehow been posted. The new one reads as follows:

Eric Scheie I thought this survey stuff was BULL** but i swear I just used the Best Buy giftcard they sent me here http://apps.facebook.com/eatapples/ to buy a laptop!

17 minutes ago via Mobile Web • Comment • LikeUnlike • UnsubscribeSubscribe • View Feedback (2)Hide Feedback (2)

MORE: It gets worse. One of my Facebook friends just gave me this lovely news:

"Hey Eric, Its not just posted on here it sent me a private message too saying to check out apps I know you would never go to or send... Just wanted to let you know it was sent to me and a bunch of others."

I'm beginning to think that Facebook sucks.

AND MORE: Dave just sent me a link to a site which explains that the spammers have figured out how to use m.facebook.com (the portal designed for mobile users) to send their spam:

code has been published on more than one site that uses the Facebook mobile portal to push status updates to a facebook profile.

I don't use "Mobile Web," and never have. But obviously, someone has figured out how to use it and make it look like I did. Naturally, there is no way to deactivate a "Mobile Web" account I do not have. Typical.

In a piece in the Washington Examiner, Glenn Reynolds looks at a very scary doomsday scenario -- mass annihilation of humanity by violent scientific nuts. Glenn notes that so far, radical environmentalists have only committed "regular" acts of terrorism, but worries about scientific nuts crossing the line:

Holdren has since distanced himself from these views, but still. Lee was a violent nut, but not a scientist. Holdren is a scientist (who held nutty views, at least at one point) but he's not a violent nut.

But here's what worries me: What if we get the two in combination?

There are plenty of nuts out there. There are also a lot of scientists.

So far, we've been pretty lucky that there aren't more scientists who are also nuts. Though the "mad scientist" is a staple of literature, they're fortunately pretty rare in real life.

But biotechnology is getting more common and -- thanks to folks ranging from Paul Ehrlich (Holdren's coauthor) to Al Gore -- so are apocalyptic environmental views that treat humans as a cancer upon the earth.

[...]

With such views spreading, and with technology making it steadily easier for individual or small groups to try creating their own viruses or diseases to, in their mind, level the score, perhaps we need to hold the environmental movement responsible for its frequent use of eliminationist rhetoric.

Unfortunately, there already are scientists who fall into the nut category, and some who fall into what I would call the dangerous nut category. While none of them has yet put into practice what he preaches, that is hardly reassuring, because their existence is a warning sign that a scientifically engineered mass human holocaust may well be in the offing.

Four years ago, I wrote about professor Eric Pianka and his bizarre -- yet in his view scientifically reasonable -- ideas about saving the planet. He has stated that "Good terrorists would be taking [Ebola Roaston and Ebola Zaire] so that they had microbes they could let loose on the Earth that would kill 90 percent of people,", and in a lecture before the Texas Academy of Science, this "world-renowned ecologist, advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner."

I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola.

In Pianka's mind, any virus or disease agent would do provided it is efficient, because leveling the score is what it's all about:

One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, "What good are you?"

Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, "We're no better than bacteria!"

Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before it's too late.

Ebola to him is a favorite simply because of its efficiency:

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs.

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, "We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that."

Must now we worry that a Pianka-worshipping former student might someday become a professional biologist or physician with access to the most deadly strains of viruses and bacteria? I believe that airborne Ebola is unlikely to threaten the world outside of Central Africa. But scientists have regenerated the 1918 Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people. There is concern that small pox might someday return. And what other terrible plagues are waiting out there in the natural world to cross the species barrier and to which scientists will one day have access?

It is beyond dispute that such people are the common enemy of humanity. There are few of them, and a lot of us. But how do we stop them before they stop us?

It has long struck me that the biggest problem with the thinking of many environmentalists is the view that humanity is not -- or should not be -- a legitimate part of the environment. This illogical, irrational hatred of humanity is probably grounded in self hatred.

I agree with Glenn that radical environmentalists who spout eliminationist rhetoric should be condemned the same way that Holocaust advocates are condemned. The less legitimate they are, the less likely they are to work their way into positions of trust in the sciences. But that's not going to stop the availability of the technology. If a student can create morphine-producing yeast (which they have -- a development I think is ultimately for the good), then what's to stop a student from using similar technology for a genocidal purpose?

And what would stop a rich billionaire from funding it; suppose someone normally considered a "philanthropist" like George Soros decided to embark on a kooky "philanthropic misanthropy" mission to save the planet from mankind?

We can only hope that the same technology which would be used to destroy us to save the planet could be quickly harnessed as counter-technology to destroy the destroyer. If not, we might also hope that the same thing would give them pause that makes many a would be suicide bomber wimp out.

You know, the simple goal of wanting to live?

I think someone ought to be keeping an eye on the radical environmentalists who don't want to live...

What I would really like to understand is why this planet is so infinitely better than the species that happens to dominate it right now that the former must be "saved" at the expense of the latter.

It strikes me as a highly judgmental, earth-centric, and naively moralistic view -- the childishly simplistic essence of which boils down to this:

Earth good, man evil!

Can anyone explain how that passes for science?

Come on, where's the scorn and ridicule?

Where are all the usual skeptics? Are they asleep?

(You'd almost think they'd been intimidated by terrorists....)

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all.

Your comments are appreciated, agree or disagree.

Paul Krugman argues:

What's less well known is the extent to which the public drew the wrong conclusions from the recession that followed: far from calling for a resumption of New Deal programs, voters lost faith in fiscal expansion.

Having just finished Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man this weekend, I can say that while their attitude may confuse Krugman in 2010, Americans in 1937-8 had seen fiscal expansion's failure first-hand. Unemployment was still in the teens, compared to 3% in 1927, and the Dow was still far below where it had been ten years earlier. Over the 1930s GDP per capita had gone from being a third higher than Great Britain's to roughly equal (the Economist blamed "institutional obstructions to the free flow of capital"). The undistributed profits tax was stifling investment, FDR was outlawing holding companies (saying he wanted a "death sentence" for them), and the TVA was deliberately driving private competitors out of business. Even Keynes had written to FDR complaining the government's hand was too heavy.

Meanwhile, the Russian economic triumph FDR's programs were modelled on had begun to take on a very bad odor -- Stalin's paranoid, barbaric show trials of Russian heroes he perceived as threats to his rule were upsetting even his supporters in America. And the planners in Germany and Italy were turning out to be even worse.

Government spending had not even brought the economy back to pre-Depression levels, let alone delivered the economic growth proponents had promised, and everyone could see the ugliness unrestrained government was capable of. The mystery is that anyone alive in 1938 thought yet more government was the answer.

The other argument Krugman makes is that WW II was a giant fiscal stimulus that produced prosperity, and therefore another one today will do the same. To the extent this is true of the war effort, though, all that extra GDP really "produced" was death and destruction in Europe, financed by war bonds that would not have been sold in normal circumstances. This is truly the broken windows fallacy writ large -- the overall effect of the war spending was to devastate the world economy out of all proportion to any benefit to the United States. Does anyone really doubt we'd have been better off overall if WWII had never happened?

While Krugman argues the war "boom" created long-term prosperity, it's much more likely the economy was finally experiencing a natural, long-delayed rebound as the onerous yoke of FDR's experiments was gradually eased, the economy reflated due to capital flight from Europe, trade resumed under the Bretton Woods agreement, and businesses went back to creating productivity improvements and innovative products and services.

If there's one lesson to be learned from the 20th century it's that you cannot centrally plan long-term prosperity. Massive government intervention can sometimes produce illusory short-term growth in GDP, but only at the cost of creating inefficiencies and misallocating resources in ways that willl hinder long-term growth.

John Derbyshire in a critique of the Glenn Beck Million Christian March (Well really Restoring Honor Rally - but...) mentions a few things about "conservatives" he doesn't like (I agree with his list - mostly). This is one of my biggest pet peeves:

the infantile narcissism of believing that all life's ills have a remedy in law

Except vice is when you do something bad to yourself. Well assign a policeman to every house, street, and place of business. And they need not be regular police - secret police will do. Or as we prefer in the US - undercover cops and informants. That will stamp out vice. Unless the informants and undercover cops are on the take. Which they are in any well established system.

There are some things about human nature that can't be fixed at the point of a gun. Economic activity and personal preferences are the big two. The best that can be hoped for is reasonable regulation (which is to say regulations that >99% will follow with no enforcement). Generally these days in America we have a Personal Preferences Party and an Economic Activity Party. Each side does its ratcheting against the other side and very little deratcheting is going on.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Isn't this more or less an act of war?

I was somewhat saddened to read that a 160 year old Michigan tradition has ended -- without my ever having seen it.

I refer to the Michigan State Fair. Having recently fallen victim to Governor Jennifer Granholm's budget cuts, it is to be no more:

DETROIT - Rabbit breeder Rob Usakowski typically spends the week before Labor Day helping his daughters show their Jersey Woolies and Holland Lops at the Michigan State Fair.

This year, he and his family are home after Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm canceled the fair, saying debt-ridden Michigan could no longer afford to subsidize it. Granholm's decision makes Michigan the only Midwestern state and one of few nationwide without a state fair.

The Michigan State Fair had been a state tradition for 160 years and held at Eight Mile and Woodward, within Detroit city limits, since 1905. But the fair had been running deficits and needed $360,000 from the state in 2008 to cover losses. Fewer than 220,000 people passed through last year. At its peak in 1966, the fair drew 1 million.

Let's get real. The State contributes a whopping $300,000 to $500,000 a year for this event that is a family affair for thousands. Did you read the number right- 300 to 500 thousand. Not millions, not billions- just thousands. Heck, as one person blogged, that's chump change for the State budget that is in the billions.

Many think the Fair should be self-sufficient. I couldn't agree more, and believe it could be if located in Lansing or basically anywhere else but Detroit. Let's face it, the Fairgrounds are old and in ill-repair. And the location- one of the worst in Detroit limits the number of out-state people who will pay to visit the fairgrounds.

I think Jenny G and all those other people we pay to look over our tax money ought to consider a new location. They should appoint a state fair czar and give him three years to make it self-sufficient. Now I know that's been done in the past- but that was expected at the current location, and Bill Gates, himself, couldn't make that situation profitable.

Now it would be somewhat, gutsy, because Detroit lawmakers will scream bloody murder. Don't you dare take our State Fair from Detroit, they will say. But let's face it, no one- and I mean no one, has been able to make that parcel of property work. It's in a terrible location and the buildings are ready to crumble. Like its surrounding, its an urban wasteland that needs to be demolished. In its place maybe Walmart or Meijer would build an inner city store.

In a New York Times piece discussing the future of the fair last year, "development" was mentioned. So was "the value of the property."

Ms. Boyd said that while Ms. Granholm was open to private efforts to continue the fair, she also recognized the value of the property on which it is located -- a 164-acre site along Woodward Avenue near Detroit's northern border, where the fair has been held since 1905. "It's property that could be developed to create jobs in southeast Michigan," Ms. Boyd said.

Take a brief look at some of the Detroit properties listed here. They start at $1000, and yes, that buys a fully functional house, into which anyone could legally move.

I found a three bedroom colonial brick home almost next to the fairground:

Nice 3Bedroom 1Bathroom 2 Story Colonial Brick Home. Hardwood floors. Fireplace in livingroom. Would make a Great Investment.

Contact Owner for additional Information

Asking $2,000

And because the fairground neighborhood is rapidly disappearing, it would almost be like living in the country!

The State Fair neighborhood has all sorts of different, unique pockets, but the common characteristic of the area remains the eerie, spreading countryside that replaced what was long ago a stable residential neighborhood, where people could walk to stores and restaurants and churches in safety and comfort.

Today, the neighborhood is post-apocalyptic, having passed through the worst standard stages of neighborhood decline: falling housing values, longtime residents moving to the suburbs, crumbling properties converted to rentals, a growth of criminal activity, abandonment by anyone who can afford to leave, and finally the disappearance of the houses themselves.

Now it's the realm of crickets and meadows, where besides the dope dealers, the hookers, and the walking dead ambling past empty fields, are regular but poor people who have to live surrounded by decay and misery, in a neighborhood most others are too scared to drive through, surrounded by grinding poverty and the dregs of society, the only world they know, utterly unaware that a normal, safe neighborhood once stood here but was wiped off the face of the earth.

Lest anyone think that the end of the Michigan State Fair spells doom for state fairdom, the article points out that other state fairs are doing better, and some are turning a profit:

The 11-day Iowa State Fair drew about 970,000 this year. Along with typical fair fare, including 4-H livestock judging, a cow sculpted from butter, and chicken and husband calling contests, it had a musical lineup led by country music star Keith Urban and pop singer Sheryl Crow.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: The Iowa State Fair coverup continues full bore, and a police spokesman has found herself "reassigned" simply for admitting to the possibility that what her officers had heard the attackers describe as "beat whitey night" might have had "racial overtones." I guess the "National Conversation" demands zero tolerance for such talk.

I have no idea whether similar problems might have been anticipated here, much less whether that factored into the decision to kill the fair. Unlike the Iowa fair, the one in Detroit didn't draw big name acts:

In contrast, the Michigan fair's top entertainers last year were the aging rockers in Starship and Survivor, along with Billy Squier. Several little-known country acts also performed.

"The Michigan State Fair being canceled, that's just tragic," said Jerry Hammer, general manager of the Minnesota State Fair.

He thought one problem was the fair's reliance on state subsidies because when those ended, the fair essentially collapsed.

"We don't have any government support here, and that is critical to our success," he said.

The Minnesota State Agricultural Society controls the fairgrounds in Minneapolis, approves the $36 million budget, sets rates and raises money for the event. Last year, the fair drew 1.79 million people and made $1.5 million in profit.

But what seems to be getting no mention at all in the write-ups lamenting the loss of the official State Fair is that there is a very successful alternative in the form of the Upper Peninsula State Fair -- now billed as "Michigan's Only State Fair." Like the fair in Detroit, the Escanaba fair in the north also faced the budget axe, but local citizens and businesses raced to the rescue and it was saved:

Thankfully for fans of the fair, and the businesses in Escanaba and surrounding Delta County, it wasn't news that was taken lying down. The U.P. State Fair Authority worked since Oct. 1, 2009 to secure the funding and the sponsorship needed to ensure the fair came back to the area. Thanks to that tireless work, Escanaba can proudly boast this year that it is playing host to Michigan's one and only state fair.

There are a slew of events -- like every year that has come and gone before -- for fairgoers to enjoy. Of those are the notable Kenyan Safari Acrobats as well as the Whispering Pines Animal Kingdom, which features exotic animals. Of course, there will also be the Upper Peninsula International Raceway Triple Crown Race, an Antique Gas and Steam Engine Village and the Miracle of Life exhibit.

Government bureaucrats are too inefficient to run important and complex industries like state fairs.

They should stick to running simple industries like the health care system, and then we would all be safe.

News reports about the beheading threat against Geert Wilders caused me to Google the man who called for the beheading, one Sheikh Feiz Muhammad. There's an in-depth profile of him here. He's considered the most dangerous sheikh in Australia:

Here, we profile Feiz Muhammad (a.k.a. Feiz Mohammad, Sheik Feiz), an Australian citizen now residing in Malaysia, who has been labeled Australia's "most dangerous sheikh" due to the number of connections he has to known and suspected terrorists.1

Muhammad's target audience is young Muslims worldwide who feel disaffected and disassociated from local Muslim communities, where mosque clerics show "a lack of interest toward the youth."2 His lectures frame the United States as the enemy of all Muslims, including those living in the United States and in other Western countries. He emphasizes that Muslims should regard Western culture as corrupt and immoral, and Muslims should not associate with non-Muslims.

As to where this disgusting specimen of human savagery got his "religious education," look no further than the petrodollars generated by your own gas tank. Yup, Saudi Arabia:

Feiz Muhammad's parents emigrated from Lebanon to Sydney, Australia, where Muhammad was born in 1970.3 On his web site, he describes his family as being "so-called" Muslim, and wrote that while growing up he "never placed any effort in understanding the deen of truth due to the negative influences that surrounded him."4 He participated in boxing and bodybuilding at a competitive level, and trained horses professionally.5 After a troubled adolescence that included the use of drugs and heavy drinking,6 Muhammad became serious about Islam. At the approximate age of 19, Muhammad went to Saudi Arabia where he spent two years studying Arabic, and subsequently, he attended the University of Medina to study Islamic law for four years.

Currently, Muhammad is living in Malaysia where he is reportedly working toward earning his doctorate in Islamic law. He also teaches at "various places in Malaysia, and also on the Internet."11 According to Muhammad's YouTube channel, he lectures every other week at the Al-Khadeem Centre in Sg Kayu Ara, Malaysia.12

In a 2007 interview with The Australian, Muhammad said that he was reluctant to return to Australia because he felt that Muslims were treated with suspicion there. "I can't walk through the airport without hundreds of eyes on me. They are like foxes trying to eat sheep."13

His views are typical Saudi Salafist fare. Muslims who disagree are not even considered Muslims, but apostates.

Feiz Muhammad is a Salafi jihadi and refers to Muslims who are not Sunni, as well as those who do not practice the faith according to the strictest interpretation, as apostates. For example, in a series of talks that can be found on YouTube titled "The Deviant Sects," Muhammad rails against the Shia, calling them "kuffar" because they give their leaders "divine attributes of absolute infallibility."17

Americans are, he claims, causing Muslims to have diseased thoughts:

"Those American pigs, the Zionists. . .they are also attacking in a secret, subtle way . . . The ideological attack is more devastating than military warfare. The eventual outcome will be that Muslims will be diseased in their thoughts." "He will want to wear a Yankee shirt! . . . We will love what they want you to love." "They [Americans] are evil. . . We've given allegiance to the non-Muslims by befriending them. . .They are evildoers." "What happens when you become loyal to the kuffar? Our further destruction."

In another lecture titled "Ruling on Mixed Colleges/Universities", Muhammad states that if a man allows his wife to attend a university in which there are co-ed classrooms then he is a cuckold.

In a lecture simply titled "Homosexuals", Muhammad stated that if Islamic law were to be implemented then homosexuals would be killed. However, because "we live in the West we can only warn against his homosexuality; the worst, disgusting, scummy, dirty, filthy, abominated, act on the face of this earth."24

Among those his teachings have helped inspire have been "Duane Reasoner who was Major Nidal Hasan's protege from his Killeen, Texas mosque," and Rabiah Hutchinson, aka "Australia's 'Jihad Jane.'"

Moreover, he is said to have a following in the United States:

Feiz Muhammad has a large following of young Muslims worldwide, including in the United States. His speaking style is engaging and persuasive, and, although he is not as well-known as Anwar al Awlaki, Ali al Tamimi, or Abdullah al Faisal, his lectures are often featured with theirs on radical Islamist web sites.

I'm wondering whether the terrorists who want to kill Americans are regarded as the Alphas, by the social experimenters who regard the rest of us as Betas.

Look, I'm not into being a macho male or any of that stuff, but it just bothers me to think that these guys are seeing us as total wimps. And laughing.

Just primitive savages being manipulated by the men behind the curtain.

Via Dr. Helen, I am reminded of the obvious fact that the Alpha Male is dying in Hollywood:

The masculine, alpha-male movie star - brought to life in films such as "Rambo," "Die Hard," and "Rocky" - is becoming extinct in Hollywood, according to actress Michelle Rodriguez.

"The alpha man is dying in film, the warrior is dying," she told us. "Hello geek."

Like I'm supposed to care? I don't take direction from Hollywood, and I have little respect for people who do. Nor do I care whether someone is an "alpha male," or thinks he is.

But the "geek is better than alpha" thing is not limited to Hollywood. Here in Michigan, Rick Snyder won the Republican gubernatorial primary on precisely such a platform.

His campaign slogan is "One Tough Nerd"

Nerds have active, curious minds. They seek input from many sources. Nerds pay attention to what's going on around them. They develop plans, and follow though, no matter what. Nerds know how to work with others to get things done. Nerds don't take "no" for an answer - and they quickly tire of those who say "this is the way we've always done it." Nerds aren't concerned with taking credit. In fact, they understand that amazing things can be accomplished if one doesn't worry about who gets credit.

What the hell. Obviously, they're screwing around with the pecking order.

And I predict that no matter how much they screw around, some people will always end up on top.

MORE: I should point out that as an individualist, I tend to dislike pecking orders, especially those based on unearned authority, as they are often based on tyrannical groupthink authoritarianism.

Whether alphas belong "on top" is a secondary consideration.

AND MORE: What does "on top" mean?

Sorry if I am dense, but I have known too many tops who really aren't.

(Little wonder the bigots like to accuse the homos of ruining society and the culture and all that everything stuff.... You've gotta, um, respect the roles. Because, when roles fail, Rome falls. Or something. The less sense things make, the more sense there isn't.)

In a comment some one was complaining about the tiny clique of Jewish libertarians. Tiny but influential. Take Alisa Rosenbaum for instance. A lot of people have.

Pat Caddell, Jimmy Carter's pollster, says the Republicans will do well this November despite their unpopularity.

On Monday, Gallup released a new weekly poll showing Republicans leading Democrats by an unprecedented ten-point margin, 51 to 41 percent, in congressional voting preferences -- the largest gap in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot. "I have never seen numbers like this," Caddell says, shaking his head. "Unless Republicans can find some way to screw it up, they will win big, even though nobody really likes them, either."

The use of government in the culture wars is an admission of weakness. And given the choice between the strong horse and the weak horse, what do most people generally choose? As long as our system is biased towards privacy, a government enforced culture war is a losing proposition. I suppose that is why so many culture warriors are on about "there is no right to privacy in the Constitution", despite the plain wording of the Fourth Amendment. But that is not the real determining factor. The question is: do the people want to be free from government intrusion? Because privacy from government intrusion - a cherished American value - is a threat to the culture warriors' social engineering schemes.

So maybe there is a clue - the Republicans should stop threatening the American people with more laws. Maybe it should be like a balanced budget. No new laws unless older ones are repealed. The proportions are harder to define of course. But it wouldn't hurt to uphold the sentiment.

What would I like to see? A fiscally responsible party that was amenable to social liberty. I'm tired of the "there ought to be a law" party. I have a friend or two who feel the same way. Could be a signal. Or a trend.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Is Krugman-style Keynesianism dead? This sure sounds like a funeral for the kind of massive government spending the left's premier Nobel prizewinner has been arguing for. (I've lately become increasingly skeptical of this quasi-superstitious notion shiny pieces of metal conferred by leftish Swedish officials really grant one particular perspicacity anyways.) Is the administration tuning him out?

Krugman, of course, had been saying we actually needed a much bigger stimulus, something in the multi-trillion range. The problem with this argument is that government isn't very good at efficiently allocating resources, and gov't spending is already at 45% of GDP. It seems unlikely that the amount of government spending we have now is healthy (studies suggest optimal gov't spending rates for growth are about half the current rate), and so the notion gov't can efficiently spend another 10% of GDP seems wildly fantastic, especially when a recent Harvard study found pork spending actually hurts the private sector.

Really, I don't know why anyone familiar with the 20th century thinks we can centrally plan prosperity -- had every major country embraced good free-market policy rather than experimenting with unhealthy levels of government control, the increased growth rate might have us enjoying a per capita GDP of around $100K today. We need private enterprises developing productivity improvements and innovative products and services, not politicians sending their political buddies taxpayer money.

Of course, the good people at CATO (and a couple hundred economists) have known this all along.

In the wake of the psychotic environmentalist gunman who took hostages at the Discovery Channel, a lot of people are wondering what it is with Al Gore and his vast power to do what the left so loves to accuse Rush Limbaugh of doing?

As Glenn puts it sarcastically in his roundup,

"Won't Al Gore please stop it with his extremist, eliminationist rhetoric before he inspires still more violence?"

This is a topic I have discussed in so many posts that it's painful to repeat myself, and I wouldn't normally consider Al Gore and his books to merit another post but for the fact of a very disturbing pattern.

Anyone remember Al Gore's Earth In The Balance? It was loaded with junk science and half truths, and so much New Age nonsense that it reads like a religious tract. (Among many other mis-truths, Gore blamed the "ozone hole" for blind sheep in Patagonia, and it turned out the sheep were suffering from pink eye.) I am sure Gore would love to have us forget about the inaccuracies of Earth In The Balance, and while some die hards are still calling him "Ozone Al," for the most part, few remember.

Even fewer remember the role of Al Gore's book in inspiring ecoterrorist Ted Kacsczynski.

among his only possessions was an underlined copy of Al Gore's Earth in the Balance.

Kaczynski apparently was quite taken by Al Gore's missive. His copy of Earth In The Balance was dog-eared, underlined, marked and well worn. He obviously saw himself as some sort of "resistance "fighters.

the Unabomber is known to have owned a well thumbed copy of Earth in the Balance. Indeed, parts of the book are indistinguishable from his manifesto. Lest I be accused of engaging in the same type of insidious comparison that I just accused the President of, let me make it clear that I don't believe that Al Gore caused the Unabomber. But I would note that the two men display a similar kind of dysfunctional animus towards technology and human innovation that smacks of a modern day Luddism.

Did Al Gore say it? Or was it the Unabomber?

It may be more difficult to decide than you think.

The double standard notwithstanding, I of course support absolute freedom of speech for Al Gore -- even though he has made it clear that he takes a dim view of freedom of speech where it comes to disagreeing with him.

But in light of the violence his dishonest rhetoric has repeatedly inspired, might it not be time to reconsider the propriety of awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize?

Via an email from a friend, who commented on Palin's latest victory ("another win for Palin, and I love how she drives the left insane") comes a trivia question he likes to ask his leftie friends:

"Who's the most significant US politician to come out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana?"

Last night when I was feeling very gloomy, I complained about the bad choices we get and said that "sometimes, a choice is not a choice."

Well, a choice between Palin and Gingrich is a choice, and a real choice. I would vote for her over him in a heartbeat without any hesitation. (Had to strike "in a heartbeat," because they can hesitate.)

In the second part of his excellent series (Part I of which I discussed here), Zombie concludes with a question:

It all comes down to a matter of intent. WHY does each side mutilate the truth? To what end?

In the case of the left, the ultimate goal is to overthrow the United States as we know it.

In the case of the right, the ultimate goal is to preserve and strengthen the United States.

What choice do I have, therefore, but to support the conservative side as the lesser of two evils?

So, while I am always willing to support the conservative "side," just don't expect me to like it. And don't expect me to respect people I don't respect (and who don't respect me).

If I were forced to choose between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, of course I would choose Ronald Reagan. But at the rate things are going, the choice might become like one of my worst fears: having to choose between a Jesse Jackson and a Jerry Falwell. I can't vote for the Jerry Falwells of the world, so I would have to vote libertarian.

Why should such choices be forced upon us? Why should a country in which the vast majority does not agree with either the Jesse Jacksons or the Jerry Falwells be forced to make such a disgusting choice?

What is wrong?

It's as if the majority does not count.

Despite some people who insist on fighting a war, President Obama has announced the forthcoming peace in the Middle East, declaring that war will not be an impediment to peace.

WASHINGTON - Condemning Mideast peace "rejectionists," President Barack Obama convened a new round of ambitious talks Wednesday and vowed not to allow a fresh burst of violence dim hopes for an accord creating a sovereign Palestinian state beside a secure Israel.

Obama, who met separately at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, assailed those responsible for the killings of four Israelis near the West Bank city of Hebron. The militant Hamas movement, which rejects Israel's right to exist and opposes peace talks, claimed responsibility.

Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broke off nearly two years ago, in December 2008, and the Obama administration spent its first 20 months in office coaxing the two sides back to the bargaining table. Obama was adamant Wednesday that extremist violence would not derail the process.

You see he learned everything he needs to know about politics in Chicago.

Or maybe he is a George Orwell fan.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. - Ulysses S. Grant

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Nate Silver is discussing Democrat prospects for this coming November (bad and getting worse) and says the results are overdetermined.

...there is reason to be skeptical of two types of analyses: those that claim that Factor X definitely isn't contributing to the Democrats' troubles, and those that assert that it definitely is. For instance, I'd urge some caution in reading this article at Real Clear Politics by Jay Cost -- which rightly critiques those who have entirely dismissed the role that health care played in the Democrats' decline, but probably goes too far in trying to argue the contrary. Mr. Cost is right, for instance, that the Democrats' polling decline was steepest during last summer, when health care began to be debated -- but when one delves in a little deeper, the timing of the sharpest periods of decline do not line up very well with specific events in the health care debate.

Does that mean Mr. Cost is wrong? Not at all. Health care dominated the political discourse for about nine months; it seems implausible that it hasn't played some role. But he hasn't offered much in the way of proof -- nor is there much of it to be had: overdetermined phenomena usually beget underdetermined attempts to explain them.

.i.e. I'm a voter who hates the Health Care Bill and TARP. I only have one vote for two issues. So to get my vote you have to head in a different direction in TWO places.

I don't think the Democrats are constitutionally suited for the changes they need to make. Either the disease or the cure is likely to kill them.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Instapundit called this "a disturbing photo essay" when linking to it a couple of weeks back.

It did disturb me, but perhaps not in the way me he meant it to. (No, I'm not sure. It never does to second guess Glenn Reynold's intentions.)

What disturbed me more than the pictures was the tone of the post which seemed to - universally - assume that "then" was better than now.

This romantic fallacy, the idea that the past was "simpler" or somehow "cleaner" or "nicer" seems to be part of how humans are built. And it is almost always a hundred percent wrong.

Let me start at the top. First, the "then" pictures are not the same as the "now" pictures. No, not in the obvious way, but in the nature of the shots. The "then" pictures are all, without exception, posed, even those that don't look it. Trust me on this. I grew up in the sixties and seventies, in a society where few people owned a camera, film was expensive and developing film even more expensive. There is a reason why I - a tomboy in t-shirt and shorts - only have childhood pictures in pretty dresses and holding dolls. This was my mother's idea of what I should wear and how I should spend my time, and by gum, that's what we'd show the camera.

Need I tell you that nowadays you can use your phone and take pictures when people aren't even aware of it? I hope not. At least not if you're living in the same universe.

So, what is being compared is the "image" someone wanted to project to candid shots. That's the first issue - and let us pause and be grateful for the material wealth and tech progress that allows us to capture candid shots of men outside Walmart, before we move on.

Let's move right on to the picture of the people saying grace before the barbecue dinner. Do you see how all the men are dressed more or less alike? All the women are in their Sunday best? This while they're having fun, mind. And they're ALL saying grace. (read more...)

As the idea of government health care becomes ever more unpopular with the taxpayers, the federal government's top health care bureaucrat has issued a statement which is at least insensitive, and (in light of the word used) quite possibly inflammatory:

As a widely-watched survey shows support for the new health care reform law slipping, the leader in the reform effort says the administration has "a lot of reeducation to do" to reverse the trend.

The poll, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, shows more Americans now oppose the reform law than favor it, 45 percent to 43 percent, reflecting a seven-point drop in support from the organization's last survey, released in late July.

Since the law's passage in late March, the monthly Kaiser survey has been highlighted by backers of health care reform as evidence of increasing support for the measures, as it suggested a slight upward tick in the number of Americans embracing the reforms -- rising as high as 50 percent in last month's poll. Now, much of the gains have been erased.

The current survey shows only 39 percent of Americans believe the country will be "better off" under the health care reforms, a new low in this poll. Slightly more than half of those questioned say they're disappointed in the new law.

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken in July, 50 percent of Americans disapproved of the president's handling of health care, with 45 percent saying they approved. Those who disapproved did so more strongly than those who favored the Obama administration's actions.

In an interview before the latest Kaiser results were released, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told ABC News that the sustained opposition to the Democrats' health care reform efforts has mainly been a function of "misinformation."

"Unfortunately there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn't," Sebelius told ABC News Radio on Monday.

With several vulnerable House Democrats now touting their votes against the bill, and Republicans running on repeal of the law, Sebelius said "misinformation given on a 24/7 basis" has led to the enduring opposition nearly six months after the lengthy debate ended in Congress.

"We have a lot of reeducation to do," Sebelius said.

The word has several definitions:

* A euphemism for Brainwashing, efforts aimed at instilling certain beliefs in people against their will
* Reeducation through labor, also called laojiao, a form of penal detention in China; or the Soviet gulags for "re-education of class enemies" and reintegrating them through labor into the Soviet society
* Rehabilitation, therapy to remove or restore a habit or condition, usually medical or penal
* Adult education, education for adults
* Re-Education (Through Labor) a single by punk rock band Rise Against from their 2008 album Appeal to Reason

Couldn't she have said they are in need of "education"? While that would have been condescending (as it implies that people who dissent are ignorant), at least it doesn't have the unmistakable totalitarian ring that "reeducation" does.

Of course, this may be a job pitch of some sort. We already have a Department of Education (headed by a man called the Education Czar); perhaps the next step is the creation of a Department of Reeducation, with a Reeducation Czar commanding an army of reeducrats.

But I guess that's not in the Constitution, so we don't have to worry that they'd ever do such a thing.

In what I think is a very important post titled "Ideological War Spells Doom for America's Schoolkids," Zombie touches on an issue near and dear to my heart which I have ranted about for many years. That is the way the culture war tends to be exacerbated by increasingly extreme ideological positions at both ends.

As I keep saying, they fuel each other, and drive normal people away, leaving the playing field to themselves.

I won't live forever, and because of the nature of repetitive blogging, it sometimes feels as if I am preaching to a choir consisting of myself. (See my long collection of posts in "Sinners and scolds, feasting together in a cornucopia of collusion!") So nothing makes me happier than seeing an articulate blogger like Zombie saying what he is saying:

In one camp are conservative Christians and their champion, the Texas State Board of Education; in the other are politically radical multiculturalists and their de facto champion, President Barack Obama. The two competing visions couldn't be more different. And the stakes couldn't be higher. Unfortunately, whichever side wins -- your kid ends up losing.

That's because this war is for the power to dictate what our children are taught -- and, by extension, how future generations of Americans will view the world. Long gone are the days when classrooms were for learning: now each side sees the public school system as a vast indoctrination camp in which future culture-warriors are trained. The problem is, two diametrically opposed philosophies are struggling for supremacy, and neither is willing to give an inch, so the end result is extremism, no matter which side temporarily comes out on top.

Both visions are grotesque and unacceptable -- and yet they are currently the only two choices on the national menu.

That this is happening in America is just awful. I have tried to joke about how the obsession with things like condoms on bananas serve as a distraction from whether children are getting a basic education.

The process is fueled by the unbearable old "you are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem!" meme. Here's Zombie:

Innumerable liberal critics condemn the anti-science and partisan revisionist lunacy coming out of the Texas school board meetings. And you know what? The criticisms hit home. It's next to impossible for a sensible person to defend the TSBE's often ridiculous proposals.

On the other side of the fence, you'll find countless conservative pundits and angry parents increasingly outraged by the ever-escalating political correctness and equally egregious (but mirror-image) historical revisionism which dominates public schooling away from the Texas sphere of influence. And you know what? They're right too. Left-wing activists have basically taken control of the educational system and have for years been brazenly transforming it into a training ground for young radicals.

But what you won't find is anyone willing to say that BOTH sides are unacceptable. (Until now, that is. I'm saying it.) Either you're on the left and you bash the Texas standards, or you're on the right and you bemoan the progressive curriculum. Each published criticism only tells half the story, so the argument never goes anywhere, since each side refuses to even acknowledge the points made by the opposition.

Another example of the way the shrillest of culture war nuts drown out common sense is over the gay issue. And I do not mean the debate over gay marriage.

For many years, I have tried to point out here that here is something that the gay left and the anti-gay right very much want in common:

anti-gay bigotry in the Republican Party.

Yet the majority of Republicans (and the majority I have seen in the Tea Party movement) are by no means anti-gay. Sure, they don't support the gay left and its ridiculous demands, and many disapprove of gay marriage, but where it comes to basic lifestyle tolerance -- simple acknowledgment of gays as citizens with a right to be left alone in their bedrooms, the overwhelming majority of conservatives have no argument with that. However, an increasingly noisy group of anti-gay conservative activists does have a major argument with that. They do not believe in tolerance for gays on any level, and they think gay conservatives are a "fifth column." They shrilly attack conservatives who disagree with them and call them "RINOS" not for being RINOS -- but simply for being insufficiently anti-gay, and for not toeing the line of the anti-gay right. Even Ann Coulter -- who is about as conservative as it is possible to be -- has now incurred their wrath. Why? Simply because she agreed to speak to a group of gay conservatives. Anti-gay leader Brian Camenker was apoplectic, and WorldNetDaily retaliated by canceling her appearance at their "Taking America Back" conference -- but Coulter didn't exactly take that lying down.

The mechanics operate in the same manner that Zombie describes in his post about education. Just as you're given the choice of being an anti-gay bigot or a homo-loving RINO, you also have to be either a Darwin hater or a Marxist multiculturalist!

Ditto abortion. The more extreme the activists get in their demands, the less likely reasonable people are to be heard. But I am repeating myself. Again.

I am hardly alone in noticing that like-minded, single-issue activists often associate with -- and tend to exclusively surround themselves with -- other like-minded, single-issue activists. The result is what many call an echo chamber -- or "the choir." But I think "echo chamber" and "choir" are less than accurate terms, because the implication is that people are simply getting together and agreeing with each other in groups. When group dynamics are factored into single issue fanaticism, a lot more happens than mere group agreement. Because people are naturally competitive, many activists want to prove to the group that they are not only devoted to the cause, but more devoted than the others. This leads to extreme hyperbole, and the taking of positions which normal people would consider laughable.

This is a big mistake. Normal people possessed of common sense need to be speaking up. But few will dare cross an ideologically extreme activist.

Which is why my hat's off to Zombie.

UPDATE (9/02/10): Wow, thanks everyone for all the great comments! And thank you, Glenn Reynolds, for linking this post!

(I've been outa comish the past couple of days, and I guess the title of this post reflects it....)

I an article on age discrimination in the high tech industries a commenter came up with this analogy.

memomachine

Hmmmm.

Actually to me the software industry appears to have more in common with prostitution.

1. Time is money.

2. You can't be choosy about customers.

3. Everybody wants you on your back with your legs up.

4. Getting older and more experienced is not necessarily a positive development.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Sorry not to have had anything to say today. I've been swamped with errands, and poor Coco (who has been inexplicably sick) had to be taken to the vet for innumerable tests. She has an acute GI infection and according to the vet she is so filled with gas that they're going to have to pump her full of barium. No idea what caused it, but I worry that it had something to do with the late-night skunk encounters I mentioned previously, because her energy levels have been waning since. They don't think that a toxin is responsible, though, so I'm clueless.

Surely, there is something going on in the world. But what?

How about a "comment" that got nine passengers thrown off a plane? CNN won't say what it was.

(CNN) -- Nine passengers aboard a plane at Dulles International Airport were removed before takeoff due to a comment made to a crew member Sunday night, a United Airlines spokeswoman said.

Megan McCarthy told CNN she had no information early Monday morning about the nature of the comment. She said United employees came to the gate, spoke with the crew and then spoke with the passengers taken off the plane.

BRAVEDAVE61:

"Megan McCarthy told CNN she had no information early Monday morning about the nature of the comment. "....I smell COVERUP! Great reporting, CNN!...next up...what's for lunch, and what exaclty is that stuff on my winshield anyway?

Uh....ok. Can I get a hint about the comment? Can we play 21 questions so I can try and guess the category of the comment? Did all nine passengers say the comment all at one time? Was it yelled? Are the nine people denying they said whatever was said? WHAT DID THEY SAY?!?!?!!?

That's the way it is around here.

I never know what I am not allowed to say, or when I am not allowed to say it. I never know what I am not allowed to not say, or when I am not allowed to not say it, so I have to rely on commenters to tell me what I said that I should not have said, and what I have not said that I should have said.

I also never know when I am going to be accused of saying what I didn't say, and of not saying what I did say!

It's comforting to know that there's always an inexhaustible supply.

I just had a rather unsettling experience while running (from which I just got back), and were I a superstitious person, I'd be convinced that I'd had a "premonition" beforehand.

For no particular reason (other than the fact that the thought just popped into my head), just before the run I recalled a legal ("equitable estoppel") doctrine I learned about decades ago in California when I was doing personal injury work. It's the "lulled into a false sense of security" doctrine, stated this way in Carruth v. Fritch (1950) 36 Cal.2d 426, 433 [224 P.2d 702, 24 A.L.R.2d 1403].):

"One cannot justly or equitably lull his adversary into a false sense of security, and thereby cause his adversary to subject his claim to the bar of the statute of limitations, and then be permitted to plead the very delay caused by his course of conduct as a defense to the action when brought."

Why this would pop into my head before my run, I do not know. Had it not been for an accident in which a car came so close to hitting me that I had to jump out of the way, I would have dismissed it as just a passing random memory. I suspect that what makes people think these passing thoughts are "premonitions" is when something happens latter which reminds them of the otherwise passing thought.

Onto what later reminded me of my "false sense of security" "premonition." I was running on the sidewalk beside a major, heavily-trafficked through street, when a car leaving a driveway crossed the sidewalk directly in front of me. I made eye contact with the driver, who looked like a nice guy. Polite, even. So, while I could have run in front of his car (I generally prefer to run behind cars that are moving forward), without slowing down, I veered sharply to the right, where I could run behind him. No biggie, just being polite. And it seemed to me that he accelerated to get out of my way, as if acknowledging my politeness by hurrying out of the way. Normally, neither of these acts of mutual politeness would have been a big deal. Quickly forgettable.

Except, no sooner did he accelerate into the street than there was that instant, high decibel BLAM! sound of a car crash, and at the same time, the poor guy's car (which had been struck very hard by a car coming from the left) was thrown in a huge 270 degree arc, sending it over the curb, then onto the sidewalk and the yard, until it was coming directly towards me! I had just heard the noise and was still in the process of stopping my run, and I had to jump out of the way or else I would have been hit.

The next thing I noticed was smoke inside the now-stopped car that had been going straight. Both cars had serious front end damage, and the passenger door of the car in the street was opened by a man who was rubbing his jaw in pain. Both airbags had deployed, and the woman behind the wheel looked dazed and confused. I didn't have my cell phone, but I asked if everyone was all right. Then I saw that the driveway driver had pulled out his cell phone, and they didn't need me for anything, so I resumed my run.

While I did nothing wrong, I felt a little guilty for not doing the impolite thing, and running in front of the guy's car. Had I done so, he might have thought I was a pushy jogger, but there would have been no accident.

I didn't lull him into a false sense of security, of course, and in any event that doctrine does not apply to accidents. He was supposed to look before entering the street, although I think the other driver had to be going well above the speed limit to do that kind of damage. Even if I had waved him through (as if to give him the right of way -- which I didn't, nor would I, as I couldn't see cars traveling behind me), he could not rely on that.

Still, I felt bad, because I was just being polite, and I hated to see people harmed -- even as an indirect result.