Interests and irritations to a guy on a red horse.
Quotes
"Fascism and communism both promise "social welfare," "social justice," and "fairness" to justify authoritarian means and extensive arbitrary and discretionary governmental powers." - F. A. Hayek"
"Life is a Bungling process and in no way educational." in James M. Cain
Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. Sir Winston Churchill
"summum ius summa iniuria" ("More laws, more injustice.") Cicero
As Christopher Hitchens once put it, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.”
"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan
"Law is where you buy it." Raymond Chandler
"Why did God make so many damn fools and Democrats?" Clarence Day
"If I feel like feeding squirrels to the nuts, this is the place for it." - Cluny Brown
"Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have." Owen Wister "The Virginian"
Oscar Wilde said about the death scene in Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth.” ~ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples
“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ~ Jonathon Swift
Heartless, profit-driven corporations like Walmart, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Co., and Nestle have pledged to donate millions of water bottles to the people of Flint, Michigan. Meanwhile, government officials are still pointing fingers and trying to figure out which state or local agency screwed up and allowed city residents to consume toxic water for months.
That these firms are stepping up to deliver water is good news for Flint’s schools and citizens in the immediate term. But a one-time infusion of gallons of fresh water doesn’t do much to address the systemic failures of government that led to the water crisis in the
first place. By making four for-profit corporations into a de facto public utility, the gift might actually risk making things worse in the long run.
Wait, what? How could the gift be a bad thing? Graham elaborates:
Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Pepsi aren’t just charitable organizations that might have their own ideologies. They’re for-profit companies. And by providing water to the public schools for the remainder of the year, the four companies have effectively supplanted the local water authorities and made themselves an indispensable public utility, but without any amount of public regulation or local accountability. Many people in Flint may want government to work better, but with sufficient donations, they may find that the private sector has supplanted many of government’s functions altogether.
Let me get this straight: when corporations put profits first, they are accused of undermining social institutions with their greed—when they unquestionable put people first… they are also accused of undermining social institutions!
The realization of what [Obama] and Mr. Holder have done ought to be enough to bring Mr. Obama to tears again. But the president is busy at work now on regulations to make it more difficult for the innocent and law-abiding to buy guns of their own for defense
and sports.
There’s life in Eric Holder’s ‘Fast and Furious’ gun scheme yet
Some of the chickens of Eric Holder, the former attorney general, and President Obama are fluttering over the chicken house again, looking for the roost. One of those chickens, as persistent as a tough old Dominecker hen, is the Holder scheme called “Fast & Furious.” This was a zany scheme put together by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms to pressure gun shops along the nation’s southern border to sell guns to criminals, who would then smuggle them across the border to the drug cartels wreaking havoc in Mexico. The guns would, in theory, make it easier to track the evil drug
runners.
Several gun shops at first refused to sell the guns to known criminals, but were “persuaded” when they were reminded that federal agents could revoke or refuse to renew the federal licenses they
had to have to stay in business. Many of the purchasers couldn’t pass a background check, but the government manipulated the National Instant Check System, supervised by the FBI, to clear them.
Before outraged federal whistleblowers whistled word of what their superiors were doing, more than 1,400 guns had made it across the Rio Grande. When a U.S. Border Patrol officer was shot and killed by a cartel gunman with one of Eric Holder’s guns, the Obama White House rushed into the stonewalling mode that has served the president so well in dealing with other outrages over his
terms.
Mysterious rogue agents were first blamed for the killing, but when the pressure of the facts became so great the president invoked executive privilege to resist congressional investigators determined to find out what the president knew, and when he knew it. The House of Representatives eventually held Mr. Holder in contempt for lying to Congress. ...
Since the reality of Gun Running into Mexico was not from the US dealers, Obama and Holder concocted, what ended as, a murderous and deceitful scheme to have the ATF pose as US gun sellers to sell guns to Mexican Drug Cartels. Their sick ends-justifies-the-means mentality backfired, got Mexicans and Americans killed and produced a tissue of lies from them that will continue beyond Obama's term of office. m/r
U.S. law enforcement officials have confirmed that a powerful .50-caliber rifle had been discovered in the Mexican hideout of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s that is linked to the controversial Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) clandestine gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, news sources confirmed this week to Conservative Base.
The .50-caliber rifle is known for its effectiveness during military combat against helicopters such as Apaches and Black Hawks.
Following early January’s raid in the Mexican city of Los Mochis, police and military officials discovered several weapons inside El Chapo’s residence, including the Fast and Furious-linked .50 caliber rifle, said former U.S. drug enforcement agent Kevin McGinty.
“U.S. ATF agents processed the eight firearms found in El Chapo’s residence and were surprised to find that one of the two .50-caliber weapons was part of the ATF gun smuggling program,” said McGinty, an expert in Mexican organized crime. “Just when the Obama administrationbelieved the Fast and Furious scandal was behind them, this case opens up the same can of worms that embarrassed law enforcement. Even more embarrassing was the fact no one — not one person — was charged and prosecuted for the politically-motivated snafu,” he added. ...
Inside the corrosive agendas of Congressman Luis Gutierrez.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) reacted with elation to the Supreme Court's recent announcement that it will soon hear the case of Texas v. United States, to determine the fate of President Obama's “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents” (DAPA). That executive action, which Obama issued in November 2014 by circumventing Congress
and usurping its lawmaking authority, gave millions of illegal immigrants temporary legal status, work permits, eligibility for certain publicly funded benefits, and protection from deportation.
It's not at all surprising that Gutierrez avidly supports DAPA. Like all dutiful socialists, he has long viewed the heavy hand of centralized government as the indispensable linchpin of civil society. When he launched his political career as a Chicago alderman in the 1980s, Gutierrez was a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. Throughout his 23 years in the House of Representatives, he has been a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. And his political campaigns have drawn significant support from the Democratic Socialists of America.
In the mid-1990s, Gutierrez developed close ties to the New Party in Chicago. The goal of this socialist political entity was to endorse and elect far-left public officials—usually Democrats—as a means of moving the Democratic Party ever further to the left, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of a new socialist “third party.” The New Party's most noteworthy member at that time was none other than Barack Hussein Obama.
In casually disregarding basic security, Secretary Clinton harmed our country and helped our adversaries
Every few days, another bombshell appears in the media illustrating just how poorly Hillary Clinton, during her tenure as our nation’s foreign policy boss, handled communications security. By now, we have a complex portrait of someone whose mishandling of our nation’s secrets, by herself and her staff, beggars belief for anyone versed in such matters. EmailGate isn’t going away, no matter how much Ms. Clinton’s supporters want it to.
The number of “unclassified” emails that turn out to be classified, some of which transited Ms. Clinton’s unencrypted server of bathroom fame, now surpasses 1,300 and may go higher still. A couple weeks ago I explained howMs. Clinton’s emails included highly classified information from the National Security Agency, based on signals intelligence about Sudan at the Top Secret Codeword level (see this for an explanation of such classifications). How they got there has yet to be explained.
We’ve since learned Ms. Clinton’s “unclassified” emails also included Top Secret information from the Central Intelligence Agency, including espionage from a compartmented Special Access Program. SAPs, as they are called in the Intelligence Community, represent “crown jewel” information. Even for holders of Top Secret Codeword clearances, the highest in the U.S. Government, access to SAPs requires special permissions, on a strict need-to-know basis.
As Franklin Adams once said, I think the average American is a little bit above average. And under the circumstances I rejoice over the influence of the people over their elected leaders since by and large I think that they show more wisdom than their leaders or than
their intellectuals. I’ve often been quoted as saying I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.
Catch that line? That the American people “show more wisdom than their leaders or than their intellectuals.”
This Buckley thought, not anywhere near as famous as the line about the first 2000 people in the Boston telephone directory, came to mind as I read the assault on Donald Trump in Buckley’s legendary magazine, National Review.
I am not going to repeat what you have already read or heard. I am not going to say that what happened in Paris on Friday night was unprecedented horror, for it was not. I am not going to say that the world stands with France, for it is a hollow phrase. Nor am I going to
applaud President Hollande’s pledge of “pitiless” vengeance, for I do not believe it. I am, instead, going to tell you that this is exactly how civilizations fall.
Here is how Edward Gibbon described the Goths’ sack of Rome in August 410 AD:
“In the hour of savage license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed . . . a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and . . . the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies . . . Whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless . . .”
Now, does that not describe the scenes we witnessed in Paris on Friday night?
Vicars should grow BEARDS to reach out to Muslims in their areas, says Bishop of London
Yes, the Taliban comes to the Angliban Communion:
One of the priests praised by the Bishop of London, the Rev. Atkinson told The Telegraph he found having a beard had helped provide a connection with many people in his parish, around 85 per cent of whom are Muslim...
The heart of the Cockney East End: 85 per cent Muslim. As they sing in Oliver!, "Consider yourself at 'ome!" So one must adapt as one can:
He said he had forged new links with people after growing his facial hair.
He explained: 'It is an icebreaker – St Paul said "I become all things to all men that by all possible means I might save some"...
Even after Leo Perrero was laid off a year ago from his technology job at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. — and spent his final months there training a temporary immigrant from India to do his work — he still hoped to find a new position in the vast entertainment company.
But Mr. Perrero discovered that despite his high performance ratings, he and most of the other 250 tech workers Disney dismissed would not be rehired for at least a year, and probably never.
Now he and Dena Moore, another American laid off by Disney at that time, have filed class-action lawsuits in federal court in Tampa against Disney and two global consulting companies, HCL and Cognizant, which brought in foreign workers who replaced them. They claim the companies colluded to break the law by using temporary H-1B visas to bring in immigrant workers, knowing that Americans would be displaced from their jobs.
Donald Trump’s rise this election season has been historic, amounting to something heretofore unseen in the annals of American politics. Given this, it’s perhaps not surprising that many are still befuddled by the phenomenon. Pundit Charles Krauthammer is bewildered, saying that “for some reason” Trump “is immune to the laws of contradiction.” (In reality, Democrats get away with contradiction continually; the only difference is that the media actually report on Trump’s.) Also in the news recently is that some find his appeal among evangelicals “inexplicable.” Of course, it’s all quite explainable.
In an earlier piece — which I strongly urge you to read — I expanded on certain factors evident in the Trump phenomenon. Trump is
tapping into anger against the Establishment and over immigration and is a plain-spoken breath of fresh air.
sounding a nationalistic note in an age where it is not the “elite” norm.
not campaigning as conservative but a populist, which, almost by definition, tends to make one popular in an era of mass discontent.
a crusader against hated political correctness, which has stifled tongues and killed careers nationwide. And in being the first prominent person to defeat the thought police (at least for now) — and by not cowering and apologizing to them — he has become a hero.
And as I wrote, “[W]hen you have a hero, leading the troops in the heat of battle against a despised oppressor, you don’t worry about his marriages, past ideological indiscretions or salty language. ...
Australians and New Zealanders are known as no-nonsense straight shooters, people who come to your aid without complaint in times of distress. On September 3, 1939, in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Australia and New Zealand were among the first countries to enter World War II. The countries’ soldiers have had an enviable reputation as first-class fighters since at least 1915. In World War I & II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, elite Anzac troops distinguished themselves as valued comrades in arms in the defense of freedom.
So it is perhaps not surprising that no one has made a greater contribution to the worldwide fight against climate extremism than Australasian scientist Professor Robert (Bob) M. Carter, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 74.
Born in England, Dr. Carter was raised in New Zealand. He gained his first degree at Otago University, received a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, and became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand before his final tenure at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. Although other climate realists may be better known in their home countries, none have had Carter’s international impact.
A more detestable regime than Saudi Arabia could not be found. Arguably the most repressive regime on earth. An absolute monarchy. A Wahhabist theocratic nightmare that arms ISIS. Only North Korea may be worse, and North Korea does not put women in burqas or have any areas where female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced. It is a close call. At least North Korea does not ban alcohol.
Make no mistake about it: Shi'a Iran, as bad as it is, is nowhere near as oppressive as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). There are churches in Iran, albeit persecuted. There are none in the KSA. Not even a façade of tolerance. If Iran and the Shi'a-led Hezb'allah are the world's chief exporters of terror, it is because they are more competent than Sunnis, not because their tyranny is darker than the KSA's Wahhabism.
The Saud family came from the Arabian interior (the Najd) to overrun the west coast of the peninsula (the Hejaz – the historic center of Islam) in 1925. The Najd had survived mostly immune from imperial expansion basically because it was a useless wasteland that no one thought worth conquering, a unique honor it shares only with Antarctica.
I personally never cared much for Charlotte Rampling's acting. I never understood the attraction. But now I have to respect her for forging a bit of honesty in the nonsense and dishonesty about the 2016 Oscars and race. Let's hope she doesn't crumble. Possibly one of the other, more socially righteous, nominees will step down to make way for a token black performer to to fill the "quota." m/r
The British actor, who is nominated for the best actress award, says black actors may not have been good enough to make the list of Oscar nominees
Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling has claimed the current campaign to boycott the 2016 Academy Awards over claims of a diversity deficit is racist to white people.
Rampling, 69, is up for the best actress prize for her role in the British drama 45 Years, from director Andrew Haigh, where she will compete against Room’s Brie Larson, Carol’s Cate Blanchett, Joy’s Jennifer Lawrence and Brooklyn’s Saoirse Ronan. Asked for her take on the current furore over all-white lists of nominees on French Radio network Europe 1 on Friday morning, the British actor did not mince her words. “It is racist to whites,” she said.
“One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list,” added Rampling. Asked if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should introduce quotas, a proposal which no current advocate of increased diversity has mooted, she responded: “Why classify people? These days everyone is more or less accepted ... People will always say: ‘Him, he’s less handsome’; ‘Him, he’s too black’; ‘He is too white’ ... someone will always be saying
‘You are too’ [this or that] ... But do we have to take from this that there should be lots of minorities everywhere?”
Not even a special performance by singer Demi Lovato improved the mood of some supporters who were unimpressed by Democratic candidate’s brevity
Hillary Clinton left her audience cold in Iowa City on Thursday night, after she spoke for less than five minutes to a crowd of more than a thousand people, some of whom had lined up for more than an hour to see her.
After a day marred by a new poll showing Bernie Sanders leading her by eight points in Iowa, Clinton might have been expected to go for broke during a rally at the University of Iowa, which featured a performance by popstar Demi Lovato.
But Clinton did not refer to the Vermont senator, or much else, in her speech. The lack of length and substance of her address appeared to upset some in the crowd.
“It was like a political commercial,” said Allison Steigerwald, a 24-year-old graduate student at the university. ...
It's my fault, Spike Lee. I'm to blame for the "White Oscars." I'm an Academy member and I didn't even bother to vote in the nominating process. And, to make matters worse, I would probably have voted to nominate Straight Outta Compton, the raucous story of the ground-breaking hip-hop band N.W.A. for Best Picture and possibly for Best Original Screenplay as well. It's no masterpiece, but it was entertaining and energetic enough to have made my top ten.
Was my not voting then an act of racism? I'll leave that for Spike to decide. For me it was an act of sloth, coupled with a general distaste for the entire process. To put it bluntly, I am so over that overblown fiesta of narcissism known as the Academy Awards, not to mention the idiotic knee-jerk liberal rhetoric that almost always accompanies it, that the idea of voting made me a little sick to my stomach.
On top of that, I wasn't that impressed with any of the movies I saw. Sure, some of them were
reasonably good, but worthy Oscar winners? Oh, please. Not a single one would I ever consider seeing again. It's obvious: movies, as an art form, are, if not over, basically asleep. It's been years since we've seen films of the quality of Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Chinatown or Casablanca. Nothing even close. The movies are not central to our culture anymore.
They're just another entertainment choice in a seemingly endless stream available on our smart phones.
So when I hear the various black millionaires in the industry whining about their lack of Oscar nominations, you'll have to excuse me if I roll my eyes.
National Review's Definition for Conservative is as distorted as the Democrat's strange definition for Progressive.
National Review (NR) has had its collective pants in a bunch since Trump called for controlling the borders. It has too long been part of arrogance found Inside the Beltway. It has slipped too far since the death of William F. Buckley. One had to always bear in mind that NR would always be, editorially, favorable to big government (this stems from the anti-Soviet strong defense time), supportive of the big donor political class, the entrenched Washington GOP and, strangely, too Catholic.
The Old-Boys of the GOP County Club work hard to self-destruct at every presidential election launch. m/r
How Trump’s media critics and the GOP establishment have hastened his rise.
My wise and well-read sister, Joan Turrentine’s recent comment to me produced an “aha” moment regarding Donald Trump’s extraordinary popularity. Joan was observing the way the media — particularly as they critique the presidential debates — influence what the public thinks about the candidates, deciding which ones to focus on, which issues are top priority, and which candidate is a “winner.” She summarized her thoughts by quoting Alexander Pope: “Expert criticism, once destined to teach that which is to be admired — the poet’s art — now presumes to be master.”
Indeed, there are many parallels between the literary critics and their skirmishes in Pope’s day with what passes for political commentary and analysis today. Whether it is poets or politicians, wit and creativity are always at war with conventional wisdom, with the latter’s champions demanding surrender to and conformity with its logic and assessments.
Alexander Pope
First, we have to recognize that Trump’s popularity with his supporters is not totally manufactured. His success with conservatives is also about truth and having the strength and wit to express that truth in a way that resonates. Clearly Americans are “hugely” frustrated with the elites’ dominance of the conversation; it’s about the public’s distaste for having its views and values “dissed.” It’s about having to put up with so much politically correct baloney that Main Street Americans recognize intuitively is “hugely” at variance with truth and reality. It’s about knowing things are going seriously wrong and wanting someone to say so plainly. It’s about wanting someone who is strong and brash enough to effectively rebut the babble that fills the airwaves on the news, in commentaries, that’s expressed throughout the culture in entertainment, on college campuses, around corporate watercoolers, and in everyday discussions in coffee shops and while waiting in grocery store lines,
that even spills into Presidential State of the Union Addresses. People are fed up with demands that they submit and conform to pretentious pseudo-sophisticated nonsense from the elites who presume the superiority of making up their own rules, and who make fun of and treat as ignoramuses those who hold common-sense values in general and Judeo-Christian beliefs in particular.
In short, Trump is someone, in the words of Alexander Pope,
“… whose truth convinced at sight we find,
that give us back the image of our mind.”
Even Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., while acknowledging that Trump is not the most religious or pious of the candidates, appreciates that Trump is willing to “speak the truth publicly” and that he is not a “puppet of major donors.”
The "Masters of the Universe" are lining up against Trump. They are not the GOP or the Democrats, they are the World-Wide Socialist-Fascists-Statists who are making myths and lies. Watch their efforts turn toward Clinton as she avoids indictment. m/r
Concerns over protectionism and U.S. reputation bubble up
Ex-White House advisor still thinks Trump will be nominee
If Donald Trump as president of the United States is the ghost that’s stalking Davos, many among the global elite hope he’ll be banished by spring. Others see that as wishful thinking.
“I think the nominees will be Donald Trump for the Republicans and Hillary Clinton” for the Democrats, Donald Baer, a former White House adviser under President Bill Clinton, said at a panel co-hosted by Bloomberg and WPP Plc. “The next year will be a very uncertain, chaotic period.”
Eric "Eddie Haskel" Cantor
The prospect of Trump in the White House is ratcheting up anxiety among the 2,500 business and political leaders gathered at the Swiss ski resort for the annual World Economic Forum. With less than two weeks before voting in primaries gets under way and Trump in the Republican Party lead, those who fear a rise in protectionism and economic mismanagement are speaking out against the billionaire property developer.
“Unfortunately I do think that if there were to be a Trump administration the casualty would likely be trade,” said Eric Cantor, a former Republican House Majority Leader and now vice chairman of Moelis & Company. “That’s a very serious prospect for the world.”
Hong Kong's freedom is on the line! Were they kidnapped by China? Five Hong Kong booksellers have gone missing. Each was involved in a bookstore that sold books critical of Mainland Chinese officials like Chinese leader Xi Jinping. But with false confessions and mysterious phone messages left for loved ones, is there more to this story than meets the eye? Find out on this episode of China Uncensored.
A Semi-Automatic Handgun Ban Wouldn’t Stop Mass Shooters
By John R. Lott Jr. — January 20, 2016
President Obama’s timing is off. Just as he tries to assure us that there’s no conspiracy to take away our guns, Democrats across the country are calling for banning most firearms. From Georgia to California, Democratic legislators have introduced bills to ban all semi-automatic rifles or even all semi-automatics, period. In the New York Times this month, Thomas Friedman called for “bans on the manufacture and sale of all semi-automatic and other military-style guns.” The city council of Lexington, Mass., is seeking to “ban the ownership of semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons able to hold ammunition clips containing more than ten rounds.”
Well over half of the guns sold in the U.S. are semi-automatic. And, if a gun can accept a magazine, that magazine can be of pretty much any size. So the “ten round” rule is meaningless. So, with the exception of a few specialty guns, these rules would in effect ban all semi-automatic guns.
This Democrat goal is nothing new, of course — in 1998, Illinois state senator Barack Obama supported a “ban on the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons” — but for years, gun-control advocates wanted to ban guns based on appearances. Now, instead of arbitrarily going after guns because of how they look, Democrats are at least being logically consistent and talking about banning guns based on how they function.
Curious, isn't it, that no matter which Democrat Chris Matthews asks, no one either can or will explain what the difference is today between a Democrat and a socialist? Watch in the video above how uncomfortable Senator Chuck Schumer (D) gets when Matthews poses the same question that both Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton have avoided answering.
On his MSNBC show, Matthews poses the question directly: "What's the difference?"
Schumer begins squirming immediately: "Oh, it depends on how you define each one, doesn't it?"
"Well, you do it."
"Well, I'm not gonna get into it, but uh..."
Matthews notes that both Hillary Clinton and the Chair of the Democratic National Party won't answer him either. "You guys are well-schooled in political polemics and language and nomenclature. You're quite capable of describing the difference between a socialist, self-described, and a Democrat, self-described. What is it?"
by Mark Steyn Ten Years On
Ten years ago this month - January 2006 - The Wall Street Journal and The New Criterion published my first draft of what would become the thesis of my bestselling book, America Alone. The Journal headline sums it up: "It's the Demography, Stupid." Opening paragraph:
Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.
The argument was straightforward. The western world is going out of business because it's given up having babies. The 20th century welfare state, with its hitherto unknown concepts such as spending a third of your adult lifetime in "retirement", is premised on the basis that there will be enough new citizens to support the old. But there won't be. Lazy critics of my thesis thought that I was making a "prediction", and that my predictions were no more reliable than Al Gore's or Michael Mann's on the looming eco-apocalypse. I tried to explain that it's not really a prediction at all:
When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the Western world is that they're running out a lot faster than the oil is. "Replacement" fertility rate--i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller--is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?
From left, Boston Red Sox pitchers Hideki Okajima, Daisuke Matsuzaka,
Itsuki Shoda and Junichi Tazawa bow their heads during the moment of
silence for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan during
pregame ceremonies before the game between the Red Sox and Florida
Marlins. (Brita Meng Outzen/Boston Red Sox)
Is that why there is not the same interpreter rule for Japanese players? m/r
Major League ball will now feature designated English-speakers.
An apt definition of a multiculturalist is someone who tries to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and in the process creates real problems.
Case in point is Major League Baseball which, with the support of the players union, announced that beginning with the 2016 baseball season every Major League team will be required to supply a full-time Spanish language interpreter for its players. One questions the necessity of such action, as the integration of the Spanish-speaking player in Major League Baseball has been a rousing success till now. In 2013 it was calculated that over 28% of Major League players on opening day rosters were foreign born, with the overwhelming majority coming from Latin America. Nor is this a new phenomenon. Latin American ballplayers have been excelling on the baseball diamond for many generations now.
Prior to this season, teams used a variety of methods to help foreign-born Latino players learn English. The old school way was fairly simple but effective as the player would learn the language by the day to day activity of playing baseball and traveling with his teammates during the course of the long season. Were the results perfect? Of course not. Some players took longer than others to learn, and a few never quite got the hang of it. But that is true in any endeavor in life, and for the overwhelming majority of players, life without an interpreter worked out fine. The numbers don’t lie. By any measure, the Latin America player is thriving in Major League Baseball.
Perhaps not seeing the irony of their action, Major League Baseball and the players union for the last 30 years have lamented quite publicly and loudly their disappointment in the lack of non-whites in leadership positions such as team managers and those who run the teams’ baseball operations, such as
general managers. But by mandating full time interpreters, Major League Baseball has unwittingly delayed the immersion of the Latin American player in an essential skill that one needs to reach the pinnacle of leadership in Major League Baseball: the ability to speak English fluently.
I too was one of the lucky people to Alan Rickman on Broadway in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Stage presence is a gross understatement for him. He reeked of evil and charm. His every word resounded over the audience and he was the person on stage who commanded your attention. To add to his great performance, he dueled with steel swords that was convincing enough to wonder how, on the small stage area, he didn't impale his adversary and a call to audience for a doctor in the house would follow. m/r
More or less exactly thirty years ago, I saw Alan Rickman in the role that made his name - as the Vicomte de Valmont in Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican Pit. Theatre critics are overly fond of the phrase "a commanding performance", but I've rarely seen anything as commanding as Rickman on stage that night: he was a very palpable flesh-and-blood embodiment of the title. From about 20 minutes after his entrance, you could feel all around you that approximately 90 per cent of the female audience and 30 per cent of the male were just longing to be taken by him. I made the mistake of inviting a young lady along, and at supper afterwards she did her best not to make it too obvious that she found me wanting by comparison.
A year later, Rickman and Lindsay Duncan reprised their roles on Broadway and were the toast of the town. Another year later, Hollywood anglicized the title - Dangerous Liaisons - and Americanized the cast - Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer. Like Julie Andrews getting passed over for Audrey Hepburn in the film of My Fair Lady, it must have distressed Rickman. But his Mary Poppins came along in the form of Die Hard, and from then until his death a few days ago he was always in demand.
Ruining Bruce Willis' Christmas, he more or less inaugurated what ought to be an Oscar category - Best Brit Villain in a Hollywood Blockbuster. Hans Gruber is a German terrorist but played by Rickman with an icy Englishness so irresistible that, as political correctness scared the studios off any too obviously ethnic bad guys, he paved the way for a decade of supercilious sneering anglo-psychos - Jeremy Irons, Gary Oldman, Charles Dance... Rickman himself was hard to beat on this turf: indeed, he brought something of his Die Hard English villainy to the ascetic, bespectacled Eamonn de Valera opposite Liam Neeson in the Irish biopic Michael Collins. One wonders whether Kevin Costner had any regrets about letting him steal the show quite so thoroughly as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - although it's hard to think of anyone else who could pull off lines like, "No more merciful beheadings! And call off Christmas."
Hillary Was Interviewed on Lifetime and It Was the Worst Thing Ever
I almost threw up.
By Katherine Timpf — January 14, 2016
Last night, Hillary Clinton was interviewed on a Lifetime show called “The Conversation” by host Amanda de Cadenent and a bunch of “YouTube stars,” and I must admit that it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.
It was much, much worse.
Earlier this week, Politicotouted the interview as something that would be “showing off a softer side” of Mrs. Clinton. In other words: It would be her campaign’s 9 billionth attempt at humanizing her, an attempt to get voters excited about Hillary the Gal and not just Hillary the Candidate.
There’s just one problem: Hillary is not an exciting person. I’m a young and energetic insomniac, but this “interview” had me wanting to pass out before 11 p.m., and had I not been repeatedly jarred awake by the urge to vomit in disgust, I’m sure that I would have done just that.
It opened with Hillary (her chyron: “presidential candidate and grandma”) and de Cadenet sitting on a couch, gazing into each other’s eyes and smiling sheepishly like two high-school kids who had been left alone in one of their parents’ basements.
Chants Including ‘U-S-A!,’ ‘Air Ball,’ and ‘Scoreboard’ Banned at Wisconsin High Schools
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association sent out a reminder to schools that chants including “U-S-A” and “Air ball” and “Scoreboard” are officially banned at its games.
You know — because they might hurt people’s feelings.
Among the other cheers considered “sportsmanship infractions” according to the WIAA’s guide: “Overrated,” “You can’t do that,” and the popular “Na-na-na-na . . . hey hey hey, goodbye” song.
Unsurprisingly, the Wisconsin State Journal reports that there has been some backlash over the policy. One tweet shows a photo of students with duct tape over their mouths and the caption “Is this approved?”
But the WIAA is not backing down. Rather, it took to Twitter on Wednesday to remind everyone that it was not enacting any new policies, but simply reminding schools of the existing ones.
Judges will use even the most absurd rationales to enable illegal aliens to remain in our country. As our own Allan Wall recently revealed, an illegal alien homosexual from Mexico named Jose Crespo-Cagnant was allowed to stay in the country because of the nonexistent persecution of gays in Mexico. But the enablers of this kind of fraud have names. And one name patriots need to remember is Ursula Ungaro-Benages.
The number of “unclassified” emails that turn out to be classified, some of which transited Ms. Clinton’s unencrypted server of bathroom fame, now surpasses 1,300 and may go higher still. A couple weeks ago I explained howMs. Clinton’s emails included highly classified information from the National Security Agency, based on signals intelligence about Sudan at the Top Secret Codeword level (see this for an explanation of such classifications). How they got there has yet to be explained.
We’ve since learned Ms. Clinton’s “unclassified” emails also included Top Secret information from the Central Intelligence Agency, including espionage from a compartmented Special Access Program. SAPs, as they are called in the Intelligence Community, represent “crown jewel” information. Even for holders of Top Secret Codeword clearances, the highest in the U.S. Government, access to SAPs requires special permissions, on a strict need-to-know basis.
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