Loafers and Suck-ups - Environmentalism and the Leisure Class

Of course the environmentalist were watching out for icebergs and polar bears over the horizon just ahead of the coming Ice Age in the 1970s.

The American Spectator : Environmentalism and the Leisure Class

By WILLIAM TUCKER on 1.20.12 @ 6:08AM

In playing Keystone cop, President Obama protects his environmental flank for no good reason.

This week President Obama handed down what may prove to be one of the most fateful decisions of his entire administration when he rejected the plan to build the Keystone XL Pipeline carrying oil from the tar sands of Canada to the refineries of Houston. The decision did not win him one new vote but was crucial in protecting his environmental flank. The movie stars and Sierra Club contributors were getting restless and had drawn the line in the sand.

In turning down Keystone, however, the President has uncovered an ugly little secret that has always lurked beneath the surface of environmentalism. Its basic appeal is to the affluent. Despite all the professions of being "liberal" and "against big business," environmentalism's main appeal is that it promises to slow the progress of industrial progress. People who are already comfortable with the present state of affairs -- who are established in the environment, so to speak -- are happy to go along with this. It is not that they have any greater insight into the mysteries and workings of nature. They are happier with the way things are. In fact, environmentalism works to their advantage. The main danger to the affluent is not that they will be denied from improving their estate but that too many other people will achieve what they already have. As the Forest Service used to say, the person who built his mountain cabin last year is an environmentalist. The person who wants to build one this year is a developer.

Environmentalism has spent three decades trying to hide this simple truth. How can environmentalists be motivated by self-interest when they are anti-business? Doesn't that align them with the working classes? Well, not quite. You can be anti-business as a union member trying to claim higher wages but you can also be anti-business as a member of the aristocracy who believes "trade" and "commercialism" are crass and not attuned to the higher things in life. Environmentalism is born from the latter, not the former. It has spent decades trying to pretend it has common cause with the working people. With the defeat of the Keystone Pipeline, this is no longer possible. Too many blue-collar and middle-class jobs have been sacrificed on the altar of carbon emissions and global warming.

In 1977, I wrote a cover story for Harper's called "Environmentalism and the Leisure Class," my first story for a national magazine. Environmentalism was very young at the time -- born supposedly on Earth Day in 1970 -- but had already achieved a seat in the upper echelons of the Carter Administration. These freshly appointed bureaucrats began canceling dams, preaching the sins of fossil fuels, and raising obstacles to nuclear power.

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Ten Stories of Time-shares Floated on a Sunken Shingle - The Sinking of the West

Historic Decency, drawn from ages of firm Traditional Etiquette, the glue that holds society together, infirmly fell apart decades ago. A Captain and Crew abandoning a sinking cruise ship and its passengers is nothing new in recent events. It was unfortunately and still is done without shame! ♘

The Casta Concordia sinks in the cowardly "tradition" of the Oceanos.

The Sinking of the West - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

Mark Steyn 1-21-12

It’ll look more like the Costa Concordia than the Titanic.

Abe Greenwald of Commentary magazine tweets:

Is there any chance that Mark Steyn won’t use the Italian captain fleeing the sinking ship as the lead metaphor in a column on EU collapse?

Oh, dear. You’ve got to get up early in the morning to beat me to civilizational-collapse metaphors. Been there, done that. See page 185 of my most recent book, where I contrast the orderly, dignified, and moving behavior of those on the Titanic (the ship, not the mendacious Hollywood blockbuster) with that manifested in more recent disasters. There was no orderly evacuation from the Costa Concordia, just chaos punctuated by individual acts of courage from, for example, an Hungarian violinist in the orchestra and a ship’s entertainer in a Spiderman costume, both of whom helped children to safety, the former paying with his life.

The miserable Captain Schettino, by contrast, is presently under house arrest, charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship. His explanation is that, when the vessel listed suddenly, he fell into a lifeboat and was unable to climb out. Seriously. Could happen to anyone, slippery decks and all that. Next thing you know, he was safe on shore, leaving his passengers all at sea. On the other hand, the audio of him being ordered by Coast Guard officers to return to his ship and refusing to do so is not helpful to this version of events.

In the centenary year of the most famous of all maritime disasters, we would do well to consider honestly the tale of the Titanic. When James Cameron made his movie, he was interested in everything except what the story was actually about. I confess I have very little memory of the film except for Kate Winslet’s lush full breasts and some tedious sub-Riverdance prancing in the hold, but what I do recall traduced the memory of honorable men: In my book, I cite First Officer William Murdoch. In real life, he threw deckchairs to passengers drowning in the water to give them something to cling to, and then he went down with the ship — the dull, decent thing, all very British, with no fuss. In Cameron’s movie, Murdoch takes a bribe and murders a third-class passenger. The director subsequently apologized to the First Officer’s hometown in Scotland and offered £5,000 toward a memorial, which converted into Hollywood dollars equals rather less than what Cameron and his family paid for dinner after the Oscars.

On the Titanic, the male passengers gave their lives for the women and would never have considered doing otherwise. ....

-Read on at link-

Consistent in its Lack of Intestinal Fortitude - Nicolas Sarkozy Weighs Afghan Withdrawal After Soldier Kills 4 French Troops

Nicolas Sarkozy Weighs Afghan Withdrawal After Soldier Kills 4 French Troops - NYTimes.com

Who are the Criminals Now?! Arizona strikes back: State investigates feds over gun-running

Arizona strikes back: State investigates feds over gun-running - Washington Times

By Stephen Dinan January 21, 2012

Arizona's state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration's disgraced gun-running program, known as "Fast and Furious," the speaker of the state House said Friday.

Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.

It's a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state's own set of laws.

A law requiring businesses to check new workers' legal status was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, and the court has agreed to hear the case of Arizona's crackdown law that makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and gives state and local police the power to enforce that law.

Fast and Furious was a straw-purchase program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The goal was to try to trace guns sold in Arizona shops and then trafficked across the Mexican border, where they landed in the hands of drug cartels.

As part of the operation, however, agents let the guns "walk" — meaning they lost track of them.

-read on at link-

Many of the Jobs are Unpaid Internships! Obama at Disney

And for this he closed Main Street USA, an unanticipated metaphor.

Obama at Disney - By Greg Pollowitz - Media Blog - National Review Online

From 1-19-12 full short post

Obama at Disney

January 19, 2012 9:04 A.M.

By Greg Pollowitz

As the president is going to Disney today to pitch tourism jobs, I took a look at what kind of jobs are available at Disney World. Here are the latest postings from Disney’s website:

All part time with no mention of health benefits.
Dear Mr. President: These are not the jobs Americans are looking for.

There’s Something Creepy About Obama — No Kidding

There’s Something Creepy About Obama — Winds Of Jihad By SheikYerMami

by SHEIKYERMAMI on JANUARY 21, 2012

Ezra Levant takes a closer look… and what he finds is rather scary:

Milibandit in the Paki Bag

No honor, no ethics, no loyalty, no shame.

More on the Graft Czarina - The Worst White House Aide

Jarrett is Obama's administration in microcosm.

"She embodies its insularity, its cronyism, its cluelessness."

The Worst White House Aide | The Weekly Standard

JAN 23, 2012, VOL. 17, NO. 18 • BY MATTHEW CONTINETT

Valerie Jarrett’s perfect record . . . for giving bad advice.

If for nothing else, Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas will be remembered for an anecdote from 2010. After he spent hours disputing an allegation in the French media that Michelle Obama thought life in the White House was “hell,” press secretary Robert Gibbs encountered senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She told him the first lady was unhappy with his work. Gibbs exploded in a rage, informing Jarrett that she didn’t “know what the f— you’re talking about” and that if Mrs. Obama was displeased, well, “f— her too.” Subsequent relations between the senior adviser and press secretary were strained. Gibbs told Kantor he stopped taking Jarrett seriously “as an adviser to the president of the United States.”

It’s about time. Many have wondered—and the Washington Post asked last year—“What, exactly, does Valerie Jarrett do?” No one has a clear answer. Whatever she does, the U.S. taxpayer pays her $172,200 a year to do it. A confidante of the Obamas for more than two decades, variously described as the president’s “closest adviser” and a member of the “innermost ring” of influence, Jarrett clearly has the first couple’s ears. She seems to function as a sort of third party to the Obama marriage, guarding the president and his wife from bad news and outside influence while meeting with Lady Gaga. Her lack of any national political experience whatsoever—she had never been to Iowa before Obama competed there three years ago—has not prevented her from shaping the White House’s political strategy and influencing economic and foreign policies. One might liken her to Don Corleone’s consigliere Tom Hagen, bedecked in a designer shawl, except Hagen gave better advice.

What Valerie Jarrett does best is represent the Obama administration in microcosm. She embodies its insularity, its cronyism, its cluelessness. Born in Iran to a prominent African-American family from Chicago, she took degrees at Stanford and Michigan Law. She worked briefly as a corporate lawyer but hated every moment. So she decided to “give back,” which is Chicago code for cashing in. She campaigned for Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, and worked for him in the corporation counsel’s office. Washington died in 1987, but Jarrett remained in government, working for his successor, Mayor Richard M. “Richie” Daley, son of legendary boss Richard J. Daley. It was all upward from there.

Before long Jarrett stood at the intersection of private interest and public power.

-more at link-

speak truth to power

A vacuous phrase used by some on the political Left, especially the denizens of the Democratic Underground website.

Just the same as his films and his acting 'Sundunce' Redford has no depth or substance

Any fool can spend time in France and Italy and still make lousy films as Redford has!

Redford slaps Romney as Sundance filmfest opens

1-19-12

"In terms of what's going on there... in terms of Mitt Romney. I mean, I'm not going to get into politics. The fact is you can see the (Republican) debates going on, this mushroom cloud of ego hovering over everybody," he said.

"It's kind of silly and stupid and I'm sorry about it... Mitt Romney can go and see what he wants to see. If he likes 'Transformers,' great, it's there for him, but that's not where we are," he added.

Redford recalled the time he spent in France and Italy when he was a student, saying it probably still influences his outlook -- and even the Sundance Film Festival, which he launched in the 1980s.

CRUISE DIFFERENT - Costa Concordia passengers told to 'go back to cabins' after cruise ship hit rocks

Amazing satellite photo.

Costa Concordia passengers told to 'go back to cabins' after cruise ship hit rocks | Mail Online

20th January 2012 By NICK PISA

• Crew member's plea came as luxury liner was fatally holed
• Ship's cook claims captain ordered food nearly an hour after striking rocks
• Moldovan ballerina 'cavorting' with Schettino on bridge defends captain
• Investigators probe owner's role in 68-minute delay of abandoning ship
  
• Search suspended as ship slipped slightly from its rocky resting place
• Fears rose again that it could soon plummet 100m to bottom of sea
• 11 confirmed dead, 21 still missing

Dramatic footage of a Costa Concordia crew member telling passengers to 'Go back to your cabins' has emerged.

The plea came despite the luxury liner being fatally holed and underlines the chaotic situation in the moments after the ship struck rocks.

Holidaymakers wearing red life jackets can be seen milling on the deck of the Concordia in the mobile phone footage which was posted on Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera's website.

Emergence of the footage came as a cook from the ship said Captain Francesco Schettino had ordered dinner at 10.30pm - nearly an hour after the liner struck rocks at 9.41pm.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089339/Costa-Concordia-passengers-told-to-cabins-cruise-ship-hit-rocks.html#ixzz1k2Tb6vbo

How Jack the Ripper's first victim puts America's literacy level to shame.

Mark Steyn's "After America" is a deeply important book. It makes historical, political, economic and literary connections not seen since James Burke's "Connections" in the 1970's.

Why does Jack the Ripper continue to fascinate? Because it feeds into Victorian myths – Telegraph Blogs

By Ed West Politics Last updated: August 31st, 2011

...Yet despite the caricature of pre-statist Victorian society that we are all taught, English society had made tremendous progress since the 1830s in reducing squalor. The East End was poor, but absolute poverty was easing, and this had much to do with both physical and spiritual improvements in people’s lives. And this often had little to do with the state. As Mark Steyn notes in his new book about statism, After America, a letter sent by Jack the Ripper’s first victim Mary Ann Nichols shows a level of literacy that would shame many of today’s university students – and she was born in Holborn, arguably London's worst slum, 25 years before the Education Act.

Crime was relatively low by 1888, which is why such murders were shocking. The English homicide rate by the end of the 19th century had reached under 1/100,000 after decades of improvement, and would continue a decline until the mid-1950s, after which it would rise to its current level of 1.2-1.3/100,000. How was this achieved? Education and material improvement helped, but it’s telling that when Nichols’s body was found, at 4am in the worst district in London, three policemen were found within ten minutes, each walking the beat. ...

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