January 23, 2010
A quite bearable lightness
The Guardian on Gilbert & Sullivan: "a kind of late-Victorian Monty Python."
Second-rate productions can, undeniably, be tedious. Speech and music have to be seamless; timing is vital; the mechanism is as precise – and as likely to malfunction if done hamfistedly – as Rossini. The plot moves forward by way of the dialogue: do it badly and the show will grind to a halt. G&S can never work as a series of short, disconnected musical numbers; it is an integrated work of divine lunacy, propelled by an inner logic, or it is nothing.
Why not tax cuts?
Larry Kudlow asks important questions:
President Obama thinks his "remoteness and detachment" are the problems. This is nonsense. Obama's tax hikes and spending explosion are what caused the populist tea-party revolt that was punctuated by Scott Brown's extraordinary victory.And that leads to the next question. Are the Republicans listening? Do they really understand why Scott Brown was victorious? If they do, why aren't members of the Republican leadership loudly campaigning for an end to tax hikes, just like Scott Brown?
The cornucopia of tax hikes currently on the table includes higher levies on capital gains, top earners, dividends, investment (via the payroll tax), carbon, millionaires, banks, stock transactions and estates (via the death tax). It's a long Democratic wish list of anti-growth policies, and Scott Brown's triumph should signal the end of it. But it won't happen unless GOP congressional leaders make a big deal about it.
Not optimistic about the old guard at this point.
November 08, 2009
Freedom hanging by a thread
Words do matter.
It's going to take some time to deconstruct this lengthy masterpiece, but as you flip through the pages of the House bill, you will notice the word "regulation" appears 181 times. "Tax" is there 214 times. "Fees," 103 times. As we all know, nothing says "affordability" like higher taxes and fees.The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times.
The real stakes
Mark Steyn on why the fight over health care really, really matters:
[All] the poor befuddled sober centrists who can’t understand why the Democrats keep passing incoherent 1,200-page bills every week are missing the point.If “health care” were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it’s not about health or costs or coverage; it’s about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone.
Right now, they can trade anything - abortion, death panels, whatever. The trick is to plant the seed and let the ratchet effect of Big Government take care of the rest.
On to the Senate.
November 07, 2009
Cao's cave-in
So, the House Democrats got their health "reform" bill tonight but only by a narrow 220-215 vote. Thirty-nine Dems broke ranks.
One GOP member, Joseph Cao from Louisiana, voted for the monster bill (hmm, what deal did he make?). Amusingly, his entry in Wikipedia has been updated, defaced and then re-edited within moments. But here's what it looks like in Google's cache as of right now:
That's "Joseph Cao has no family. He was born of Satan and lost a soul the day he voted against republicans."
Gotta love the Internet.
October 31, 2009
October 25, 2009
Obscene profits? Not so much
AP fact check: Health insurer profits not so fat.
In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.
Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.
Darn those pesky facts.
October 24, 2009
Creating new problems
More reality: Obama's Doctor Shortage.
By drastically increasing demand while doing little to increase primary care physician supply, ObamaCare will turn health care into a consumer nightmare: longer wait times, shorter visits, higher prices, and decreased customer satisfaction. The U.S. will have to rely increasingly on nurse practitioners and physician assistants to meet patient demand. According to the WHO, the nurse-to-physician ratio in Canada and the U.K. are 5.3 and 5.6, respectively, compared to 3.6 in the U.S. And as fewer bright young people pursue medicine due to the profession's general malaise and oppressive bureaucratic regulations, we're likely to see an even greater physician shortage---not just in primary care, but in specialty care as well.A September survey by Investors Business Daily found that 45% of doctors would consider quitting if Congress passes its "comprehensive" health-care overhaul, largely because of the increased bureaucracy and liabilities and lower reimbursements. The U.S. is facing a John Galt-like protest from doctors. The Obama administration may soon be wondering: who is John Galt?
Tough guy?
Mark Steyn: Who are the real “Untouchables”here?
So the troika of Dunn, Emanuel, and Axelrod were dispatched to the Sunday talk shows to lay down the law. We all know the lines from The Untouchables — “the Chicago way,” don’t bring a knife to a gun fight — and, given the “pay czar”’s instant contract-gutting of executive compensation and the demonization of the health insurers and much else, it’s easy to look on the 44th president as an old-style Cook County operator: You wanna do business in this town, you gotta do it through me. You can take the community organizer out of Chicago, but you can’t take the Chicago out of the community organizer.The trouble is it isn’t tough, not where toughness counts. Who are the real “Untouchables” here? In Moscow, it’s Putin and his gang, contemptuously mocking U.S. officials even when (as with Secretary Clinton) they’re still on Russian soil. In Tehran, it’s Ahmadinejad and the mullahs openly nuclearizing as ever feebler warnings and woozier deadlines from the Great Powers come and go.
Even Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is an exquisite act of condescension from the Norwegians, a dog biscuit and a pat on the head to the American hyperpower for agreeing to spay itself into a hyperpoodle.
September 27, 2009
Dust in Sydney
Jeepers, those dust storms in Australia were worse than we first thought.
September 26, 2009
Ken Burns back in the spotlight
Documentarian Ken Burns has a new film about America's national parks premiering shortly on PBS. Wildly successful, he draws plenty of criticism, apparently much of it from leftists who think he's too pro-American. That just makes me want to watch all the more, along with millions of others.
If he's assaulted critically -- for being too slow, too longwinded, too sentimental -- it's not because he hasn't thought deeply about the parks, their place in American history and the challenge of translating it all to film.The key difficulty of the project, Burns says, was "how to transcend beauty. This is not a travelogue, not a recommendation of which lodge to stay in. It's a history of the ideas and the individuals that made this uniquely American thing possible for the first time in human history: Land was set aside, not by kings or noblemen or the very rich, but for everybody for all time. That's what we celebrate, but how you wrestle that to the ground is full of peril." He's aware, for instance, "that beauty is itself anesthetizing."
So he's worked to capture more than just the spiritual and political impulses that made the parks possible, the paintings that made them famous, their stirring implications for democracy,
September 12, 2009
September 11, 2009
Eight years and counting
The memories of September 11th will never leave us. We will not forget the burning towers, and the last phone calls, and the smoke over Arlington. We will not forget the rescuers who ran toward danger, and the passengers who rushed the hijackers. We will not forget the men and women who went to work on a typical day and never came home. We will not forget the death of schoolchildren who were on a school trip.And we will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks. And we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief and our mourning.
- President George W. Bush, address to the FBI, September 10, 2003
Learn more:
• Pentagon Memorial Project
• Flight 93 National Memorial
• 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
• Popular Mechanics - Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report
Ways to help:
• Fisher House Foundation
• Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust
• Wounded Warrior Project
September 06, 2009
Hero, not victim
Lots of controversy over the past few days about the editorial judgement, or lack thereof, by the Associated Press for publishing a graphic photo of a fallen Marine in Afghanistan, against the stated wishes of both the family and the DoD.
Donald Sensing, veteran and minister, puts it in perspective.
The very real suffering of the troops deserves to be displayed and explained (but not, I think, this nakedly). Yet if the AP wishes to show its readers the anguish of war, being "fair and balanced" would lead it to present the heroism and profoundly stirring sacrificial spirit among our men and women in uniform. As is, this photo sadly continues the media's tradition of presenting our troops as victims.Lance Cpl Joshua Bernard fell in battle, but he was not a victim. He determined at the hazard of his life to be honorable in his young adulthood, to make sure of his duty, and to leave everything else for later, though later ever came. He gave over to hope his chance of lifelong happiness and the uncertainty of final success, and in mortal danger he relied only upon himself, his buddies and the Corps itself. He chose to risk death young as a free man rather than live long as one conquered. And when fearful lethality loomed he resolved to resist and suffer, rather than flee to save his life; he ran away not from danger but from dishonor. On the battlefield he stood steadfast, and in an instant, at the height of his resolve, he passed away from this life but not from our lives or the destinies of generations yet to come.
Such was the end of this man's life. We need not desire a more heroic spirit than his, although we do pray that others and their families suffer no such fate.
Lots more to ponder. Read the whole thing.
August 29, 2009
The Soviet archives speak
Breathtaking history from 1983: Sen. Edward Kennedy's offer of aid and comfort to the USSR's General Secretary Andropov, behind the back of his own nation's president.
RIP? Maybe not.
Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.
August 16, 2009
Bad x 10
From Wired: 10 Sci-Fi Movies We’d Like to Throw Into a Black Hole.
I'd sure agree with this on #8, the execrable Event Horizon: "At Hollywood’s worst, we have this movie."
August 15, 2009
August 10, 2009
Could be trouble
Uh oh: Facebook use fuels jealousy, hurts relationships.
Worried that your relationship is going south? Maybe it's time to get off Facebook.A study released by the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, shows that the Facebook social network creates increased jealousy in users' romantic relationships.
The study, which was published in the latest issue of the bimonthly CyberPsychology and Behaviour publication, concluded that the more time people spend on Facebook, the more jealous they get.
Modern times
A good question: What If You Pull a Literary Hoax and Nobody Notices?
[G]iven the lack of response to what had been a relatively transparent con, "Did any regular readers of the journal ever even read, really read, the review?" (The uncomfortable inference being, does anyone read any literary-studies articles?)
August 09, 2009
Lifting the curtain, a bit
Interesting: How Netflix gets your movies to your mailbox so fast.
After a period of pretty-pleasing Netflix to let me poke around its clandestine Chicago-area hub, and see what wonders await and how its ubiquitous red-enveloped packages are processed, I was given an address and a time to arrive and asked not to blab about it.... To get there, I was told to go to Carol Stream, to be there around sunrise. I imagined it was like coming upon Narnia -- one stares at it awhile until the entrance becomes evident, which turned out to be sort of true.
Majority voices, not so silent any more
Here's Rich Lowry sums up the current question about who gets to speak out, and who doesn't.
Like Richard Nixon, Barack Obama wants to govern on the strength of a silent majority, although with a twist. Obama wants the majority that opposes or questions his policies to stay silent.Obama’s White House and its allies have unleashed a barrage of criticism and condescension at people daring to show up at town-hall meetings and ask their elected representatives pointed questions. “Fired up and ready to go!” apparently works only one way. If engaged citizens shower Obama with adoration at stage-managed rallies, they are the very stuff of American democracy. If they boo their congressman, they are a scandalous eruption of fake or hateful sentiment.
Make sure your representatives know where you stand. Period.
July 04, 2009
June 06, 2009
D-Day Anniversary 2009
Sixty-five years ago, Allied forces landed in Normandy, France to start the final liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny.
Last year, Donald Sensing imagined the implications for history if the Allied landing had failed.
The specter of defeat on June 6, 1944 was overwhelmingly dreadful. The Allies had no other plans. There was no Plan B in case the landings were repulsed.There are many "pivot" days in human history, when the course of human events swung in a new direction because of discrete actions. It is hard to find another moment in all history when so much rested on an outcome of one day as rested on the success of the Allies' landings on Normandy. In military history, no other day in American history compares.
A Houston-area veteran went back this week to be inducted into France’s Legion of Honor to commemorate the battle’s anniversary.
Decades passed before Houston’s Clyde Combs told his children he was part of the massive D-Day invasion when Allied troops fought past Nazi mines and machine guns to storm France’s beaches and march on to liberate Europe.Neither did he mention he was aboard a superfast attack craft on June 6, 1944, and helped protect the west flank of invading forces as they established a beachhead, fished dead sailors out of the sea, and hunted for German soldiers fleeing in the darkness.
The 84-year-old former Navy PT boat crewman didn’t tell, he said, because he didn’t think anyone cared.
“It wasn’t considered a big deal,” said Combs, who still has a full head of hair and is probably lean enough to climb into his Cracker Jack uniform. “You were in the war, and you made it back and whatever,” he said. “No, I didn’t discuss it.”
Ronald Reagan spoke of their courage and sacrifice in 1984, and understood why they did what they did.
You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
May 25, 2009
Memorial Day 2009
On Memorial Day, we honor the fallen heroes from our armed forces and acknowledge the great sacrifices they and their families have made to preserve our freedoms.
At Arlington National Cemetery, more than 250,000 flags have been placed on grave sites to mark the day.
The tradition, known as “Flags In,” dates back to 1948, when soldiers of 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as “The Old Guard,” began the annual Memorial Day tribute.This year marked the sixth year company-size elements of sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen joined about 3,000 soldiers in placing a U.S. flag at the base of the gravestone and columbarium niche of every servicemember buried or inurned at Arlington.
Yesterday afternoon, the troops fanned out across the cemetery’s hills and valleys, carrying rucksacks bulging with bundles of flags. They approached each headstone, centering a miniature flag exactly one boot length from the base before sinking it into the ground.
“I can’t say how lucky I feel to have the opportunity to do this,” said Army Sgt. Daniel Sonntag, a member of the Old Guard’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion.
“Not many people get to do something like this,” said Sonntag, who deployed to Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division in September 2006 and has friends buried at Arlington. “This is something small we can do to honor those who have fallen before us. … It’s a way to recognize how important each one of these men and women here really was.”
Via Fox News Sunday yesterday, we learned about veteran extraordinaire Tom Day, who has organized Bugles Across America, a nationwide effort to ensure that a live bugler is available to play the 24 notes of Taps at every military funeral. Not only does he recruit volunteers across the country, he has provided horns, drums, uniforms and flags as needed, often at great personal cost. This family has made a donation to support this beautiful cause.
May 03, 2009
Jack Kemp, RIP
Jack Kemp, former NFL quarterback and long-time political visionary, has died of cancer. He was a thoroughly unconventional, sometimes wacky, politician, and an indomitable public figure. He'll be missed.
UPDATE: Bill Bennett remembers his friend and colleague:
Republican Analyst Bill Bennett told CNN Sunday that with the death of former GOP vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, "we lost part of our heart today."In 1993, the two men co-founded conservative think tank Empower America.
"Well, we lost part of our heart today, John, one of our great voices, one of our lions," he told CNN's John King on State of the Union. "You know, there's a lot of talk, these days, about who will be the next Ronald Reagan. A few of us were thinking, this morning, who will be the next Jack Kemp?"
Bennett praised Kemp's efforts to increase the diversity of the GOP and reach out to urban areas and minority voters.
"He led this party into the inner city and said freedom is for everybody; opportunity is for everybody; enterprise is for everybody," he said.
March 07, 2009
Star Trek
The new trailer (#3) for Star Trek seriously rocks. My expectations for May 8 are rising.
He looks like he needs a cigarette
This isn't exactly reassuring: Barack Obama 'too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown.
Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest. [...]Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.
A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".
Rookie mistakes can be even more dangerous than misguided ideology.
March 03, 2009
Thumbs down
The Wall Street Journal on The Obama Economy:
The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.
The investor class votes "no confidence." John Galt, anyone? Oh yeah.
February 09, 2009
Stimulus fakery
So, President Obama held forth for an hour on national television tonight to sell his so-called "economic stimulus" plan. The transcript confirms further what we've been seeing for weeks now as he and congressional Democrats try to ram their scheme down our throats: the only way they can get this thing passed is through brazen falsehoods and the hope that the public won't wake up in time.
This, for example, is flatly untrue:
"It also contains an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability so that every American will be able to go online and see where and how we're spending every dime. What it does not contain, however, is a single pet project, not a single earmark, and it has been stripped of the projects members of both parties found most objectionable."
This is a misleading strawman:
"And if there's anyone out there who still doesn't believe this constitutes a full-blown crisis, I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside-down because they don't know where their next paycheck is coming from."
Every day brings new revelations of cunning leftist provisions tucked into the package, like a stealth strategy to assert unprecedented control over our medical choices.
If it was all so good, they wouldn't have to lie.
Congress, just say no.
February 01, 2009
Office space
Our new president may off to a bad beginning on more than pure politics and policy. Karl Rove advises us to watch out for the behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts aspects - for example, staffing and cubicles.
Aides say Mr. Obama believes the cabinet structure is "outdated." His appointment of czars to oversee technology, automotive and environmental policies underscores this belief because each new czar weakens cabinet and agency involvement in policy decisions. The White House has always had overlapping lines of authority, which creates a certain amount of conflict while everyone figures out who really has clout. But Mr. Obama has added to the confusion by making declarations that multiple people in his cabinet or on his staff have more authority and responsibility than their predecessors. In addition to creating a protracted power struggle within the West Wing, Mr. Obama's management decisions may lead to more intrusive, larger government policies gaining traction. Why? Because left-leaning aides will be unimpeded by the White House's budget director or cabinet secretaries as they push new policies.It is rumored that as many as 160 people will be in the West Wing under Mr. Obama. Under President George W. Bush there were about 60. My old, modest-sized office has been carved into four cubicles. This reduces the space for ad hoc meetings in personal offices, where so much West Wing work once took place.
The space crunch comes because Mr. Obama has moved several positions that once had offices in the EEOB into the West Wing. These include public liaison, intergovernmental affairs and political affairs. This reflects the importance he places on these offices' marketing efforts.
