Seven billionth human born this weekend: welcome, little stranger!

"There's just enough of me, but way too many of thee" is a prejudice as old as civilization. But it's notable that liberals--who feel themselves shouldered with the duty to run everyone else's lives--regard the rising population as mere mouths and stomachs. That is, as just another problem to solve (or at least to strike a concerned pose about). But the flaw is in liberals' base presumption: that humanity will inevitably rush headlong into ruin without their, liberals', intervention. (They never explain of what finer clay they are made, but that's another story.) They never quite believe that other people can solve problems, that other people can co-operate peacefully with each other, that other people are smart. It doesn't make them feel all affirmed & complete inside, to think that way, to have that kind of respect for other people, as patronizing people does.

Wealthy nations have lower birth rates. So, if liberals are serious about wanting the world's population to come down, they should recuse themselves from economic affairs, so that more people can get rich!

Is Occupy Wall Street the culmination of an Alinsky-ist plot?

You know, I don't believe in conspiracies, so much. But filling the unemployment rolls with thousands of Left-indoctrinated young people, with massive debts and degrees in worthless subjects, would be a socially disruptive move worthy of Alinsky himself. If it wasn't done on purpose, it certainly is playing to the hard Left's hand of cards anyway.

Occupy Wall Street law-breakers foreseen by Frederic Bastiat

Hey, when you practice civil disobedience--just like Gandhi did!!!!--everything you do is right, dood!

"What young man, going out into the world full of ardour and passion, does not say to himself: "The impulses of my heart are the voice of Nature, which is never mistaken. The institutions that stand in my way are man-made and are only arbitrary conventions to which I have never given my consent. In trampling these institutions underfoot, I shall have the double pleasure of satisfying my inclinations and of believing myself a hero" "
-Frederic Bastiat, 1848

Screwy Louie mourns Col Klink

Contemptible.

“I come to say to the world that the Nation of Islam mourns the loss of a great brother leader. Those who rejoice at his death, your laughter will turn to tears, and your joy will turn to sorrow and great pain,” Farrakhan said during the two-hour interview at WVON’s South Side studios.

Farrakhan had been a vocal supporter of the Libyan leader, traveling to Tripoli several times, and his Nation of Islam’s international headquarters, Mosque Maryam, was purchased with a $3 million loan from Gadhafi.

Pampered America-hater doesn't know what tears are.

Can any good thing come out of Berkeley?

Well, if we're talking about the hard physical sciences, yes. A project called Berkeley Earth went back and reviewed the climate change data that's been disputed over so much these past few years, and confirmed the findings. Something as complicated and omni-directional as climate can't really be crammed into a four word headline, or a 500 word blog post, even if I were qualified, which I'm not. So, click here and get up to speed.

I will, however, repeat my frequently voiced attitude towards global warming. I'm politically inclined to be dismissive of global warming. The image of failed socialist wackademic revolucionarios re-inventing themselves as environmental activists, seeking to shut down the means of production that they failed to win state ownership of, fits my mental template of the Left pretty snugly.

But, as voracious a devourer of popular science as I've always been, I must also admit that there seems to be more than a little something to global warming. I'm a big believer in the power of aggregate knowledge. If independent findings in many different scientific fields point to the same conclusion, then you've gotta take that seriously, the political coattail riders notwithstanding.

Greece, Eurozone, banks, and the 50% "Haircut"

Scenarios dire unfolded here and here.

Okay, thought exercise! In place of "banks" in this story, insert your name, and in place of "Greece", insert a needy, deserving unfortunate of your choice. So, the scene is this: The needy, deserving unfortunate and you had entered into a financial arrangement. The needy, deserving unfortunate has been borrowing from you, but is not able to pay you back. The looming default threatens to play havoc with your personal finances. Enter the government! It sizes up the situation and decides for you. It decides that you must simply take a bath on the bad loans. Which is to say, the money that you had lent the needy, deserving unfortunate is gone, and you will be on the hook for it and whatever collateral risk you took along with it. You may, however, receive a token bit of chump change from the government, to ease the sting. All for the greater good, of course--unless you're some kind of hater who has it in for needy, deserving unfortunates.

Okay, now you can take out the needy, deserving unfortunates, and substitute back in bloated, profligate, cafe society wannabe Greece. You're still on the hook, though.


Links via David Thompson and I forget who, sorry!

Gaddafi reported to be dead

So long, Col. Klink. The Mussolini of North Africa meets a fate quite similar to that of Il Duce. Cue The Clash:

But in these days of evil presidentes,
Workin' for the clampdown
Lately one or two have fully paid their due
For workin' for the clampdown




Else-web, I see that liberals and proggs are out in force, labeling him a creation of the U.S. That gives me an opening to post one of my favorite examples of American military heroism, right at the beginning of Gaddafi's regime, in 1969:

“One day Khadafy ran a column of half tracks through my base—right through the housing area at full speed. I shut the barrier down at the gate and met Khadafy a few yards outside it. He had a fancy gun and a holster and kept his hand on it. I had my .45 in my belt. I told him to move his hand away. If he had pulled that gun, he never would have cleared his holster. They never sent any more half tracks.”

That's the late Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr., a legend in the Air Force. "Where do we get such men?"

Occupy Wall Street protesters *don't* want to tax the rich?

In a Guardian column rebutting some criticism of the OWS movement, Amanda Marcotte makes this strange claim:

It's fun to pick apart the illogic behind the conservative obsession with federal income tax, but what is most remarkable about We Are the 53% is how off-topic it is. Supporters of the 53% Tumblr seem to be under the impression that Occupy Wall Street posters are demanding a higher tax burden on everyone who pays federal income tax. There is simply no reason to believe this, especially since both We Are the 99% and Occupy Wall Street have repeatedly emphasised that they object to the 1% of Americans controlling 40% of our wealth.

Very odd, counter to everything I've heard the protesters themselves saying. See for yourself.

Occupy Wall Street and The Tea Party Movements

The Tea Party and the OWS movement are mirror images of each other. The Tea Party is demanding that Washington stop robbing generations yet to be born of wealth yet to be earned, and leave productive citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Occupy Wall Street is more European, demanding that "somebody" give or continue to give them free stuff, or preserve them from the consequences of their actions, since they've already gone to all the fuss and bother of existing. The sight never fails to disgust, whether it's this OWS stunt or a more typical demo: Unemployable post-post-post-post-docs who couldn't run a lemonade stand (not least because their kind have all but outlawed them) presuming to dispose of the earnings of their more capable fellow citizens, all for "the greater good". Neighbors, if you knew how to handle wealth wisely, you would also know how to earn it--and you wouldn't need to occupy Wall St., because you'd be able to be generous with your own earnings.

Mikhail Gorbachev: We should have preserved the Soviet Union

This on the 20th anniversary of the dismantling of the Soviet Union. He also says the U.S. should have done more to bail him out during the attempted coup. Mmmmm, nope. Good riddance to the Soviet Union, the most evil regime to have ever arisen in Europe. Not Nazi Germany? No. Hitler was as evil as Lenin and Stalin, but he didn't have the means or the time to match their body count. Plus, he lacked their friends in the West. Nazism was based on racial hatred, while socialism is based on class hatred. By the 1930s, racism was becoming an atavism, whereas the Depression had given socialism renewed appeal to the herd of independent minds. The Nazis never claimed to be slaughtering their millions for the salvation of all mankind. So the luckless victims of socialism were done in on a more resplendent altar in a better-attended political temple.

It all reminds me of this old Jules Feiffer cartoon, shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved.

When that fool, Reagan, called the Soviet Union `the evil empire', I knew we were headed for war.
When that fool, Reagan, gave a blank check to the arms race, I knew the odds favored nuclear annihilation.
When that fool, Reagan, launched star wars on the premise that the Soviet Union would go broke trying to keep up, I knew he was a dangerous kook living in a never-never land.
When the Soviet Union went broke, surrendered its empire and called off the cold war, I knew it was Gorbachev's genius and Reagan had nothing to do with it.
Because if that fool, Reagan, was right all along...
What kind of fool am I?

The difference between progressives and children

Children demand the right to do whatever they please. Progressives demand the right to do whatever they please and consider themselves heroes for doing it.

#occupywallstreet Protesters Attack Police

Via The Jawa Report: Occupy Wall Street protesters attack police, as seen in the video below. Bet you've only seen the videos of the police's pushback, haven't you? Fautography from radical proggs? Well, knock me down with a feather... Ever notice how it's the union goons, the anti-globo rioters, the street-brawling anarchists, who are forever warning about the always-imminent but completely non-existent threat of Tea Party violence?