U.S.A.

Most Leftists of my acquaintance, or whose words I have read, seem to live in a world entirely made of emotional images, not facts, not reality, not reason, and whatever the loudest or most alluring emotional images is that persists in their brains, that is how they deem reality (to them, a flexible and plaint substance, like clay) can be molded.

The act is symbolic: none of them have read the bill, not even the people who voted for it. I suspect each part was written by a lobbyist in the pay of the Insurance company concerned with whatever particular advantaged them--and even they did not read the entirety. Passing this bill is merely voodoo, like sticking a pin in a wax doll, an action done to satisfy an emotional image, nor a reasoned response to an alleged political economic inequity.

Senate lefties have passed their first major hurdle toward enacting a health bill. It is 2,733 pages, including 383 pages of last-minute payoffs amendments. There is simply no way anyone who is voting knows what the bill dictates.

So what are they voting on? Wishes and platitudes:

"Today we are closer than we've ever been to making Senator Ted Kennedy's dream of universal health insurance coverage a reality," Sen. Tom Harkin said ahead of the vote, alluding to the late Massachusetts senator who died of brain cancer in August. 

The U.S. Constitution empowers and limits the government to protect and defend rights. The particular rights, powers, and limits depend on whether a person is a citizen or just a person.

According to Article One, only Citizens can be elected to Congress. But the 6th Amendment dictates that all persons—not just citizens—are owed a speedy trial with an impartial jury.

Betsy Newmark identifies the essential lawlessness of the health bill now before the Senate:

What amazes me is how this bill was crafted to treat some states, in perpetuity, differently from other states simply because those states had senators who were more powerful or more canny when it came to bargaining for their support. Politico has some of these details. Of course, we know about Ben Nelson's price for his vote. It is now being called the "Cornhusker kickback."

Nelson’s might be the most blatant – a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade.

Cobb on golf:

The game? A splendid waste of time and space, if not energy. An exercise in frustration with few rivals in any organized activity.

Actually, Cobb was writing about Tiger Woods and the small sphere of celebrity that shepherds our culture.

And thus the entire consciousness of average Americans are almost never more than a car bomb away from total destruction.

Which seems a variation the The Revolver Law. Destruction or salvation, dependent on who the car bomb eliminates.

In a Washington Post editorial, Sarah Palin distances herself from politics as usual:

Our representatives in Copenhagen should remember that good environmental policymaking is about weighing real-world costs and benefits -- not pursuing a political agenda.

What? Government policy has costs? All I’ve been hearing about are benefits. Who is this dimwit telling us that there ain’t no such thing as a free unicorn!

And, in the paragraph prior that outrage, Caribou Barbie seems to suggest that executives should act within the letter and spirit of the law:

The headline-making unemployment figure (currently 10.0%) is only one of several measures for unemployment. What we hear is called the U3 statistic. There is also a U6 statistic:

This isn’t a third-rate tribute band, it’s the underemployment rate, and it tracks people who work part-time, and people who’ve given up looking for work altogether. This rate is currently at 17.5%.

My previous comment on employment data was back in August. In the intervening months, the unemployment rate—a favorite for headline-makers—grew to double-digits. Now the November data is out, and blowhards of every stripe are jousting over the meaning of the first drop in that measure in a couple of years.

It’s all gas.

The unemployment rate is dependent upon too many variables and subject to too much manipulation for my tastes. I look at employment, not unemployment. What we really care about is how many people are adding value to our economy. And how much.

Hopefully you’ve heard that global warming/climate change has been exposed as a colossal fraud. They made it up.

Cobb wins my award for Best Metaphor Describing the End of Globalistical Warmening:

The swastika has been blown off the Reichstag.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Drive the biggest, safest vehicle you can afford, and turn up the thermostat. Gaia doesn’t mind.

Before the government became our collective nanny, insurance companies were primary defenders of our health and safety.

A house built to low standards, for example, would either be uninsurable or face premium surcharges. One might still build the shoddy house, but in case of fire, the loss would fall totally on the owner. And that owner would have to finance construction out-of-pocket, as no lender would make a loan against an uninsurable building.

A discussion not worth linking to reminded me of an important point. Our courts do not declare anyone to be innocent. All a jury or judge can do is find someone to be “not guilty”.

The way our common mindset operates, being arrested taints a person’s reputation. An arrest may not lead to any formal charges, but the arrest is public record, and thanks to the internet, the taint is forever.

One who is formally charged suffers a stained reputation. Even if the court returns a verdict of not guilty, that person will not be regarded as possessing the same innocence of one who was not tried or never arrested.

A commenter on Neo-neocon’s post about granting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a trial in Manhattan broadens the view:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

November 10th is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps.

As I’ve walked around the blocks in my neighborhood, the houses with proudest flagpoles out front are almost always the homes of Marines. There seems to be something truly special about the USMC culture.

Maybe the best tribute I’ve come across was this comment on a blog (I’ve forgotten which one):

On June 2nd, 2008 at 1:25 am, ChePibe said:

I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again:

I’ve never been in the military. The closest I’ve come is working as an intern at a U.S. embassy.

You’ve seen the bumper sticker icon for evolution—the fish symbol with feet. As a graphic, it’s great. It conveys a concise message and is easily recognizable. Quite a feat to get that much communication from a handful of lines.

I have come to find it annoying. It seems to be a proud profession of close-mindedness about the origin of man. Evolution is the answer, and if your fish symbol doesn’t have feet coming out of it, you’re some kind of simpleton who isn’t cool enough to laugh at the Bible.

Yes, there are some assumptions prejudices in my description. But it seems apt. Smug people who think they know it all bug me.

The non-customer is always right.

Quoted from: TJIC

Detroit gets all the attention as America’s signature urban failure. But let’s not forget Cleveland:

H/T: Maggie’s Farm

US political culture is at a point of high polarity. Yet, this rampant knee-jerk us-versus-them attitude has not led to more solidarity within each camp.

The lefties are worried that they’re not getting any lefty programs enacted despite their total control of the Federal government. The righties are fighting over which faction has the best chance leading an overthrow of the lefty hegemony.

Steve Sailer has a plan for the righties. It strikes me as brilliant:

I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation—from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.

Quoted from: Ronald Reagan

H/T: Neo-neocon

I have been accused of being a birther. My accusers never seem to understand the established fact that the current President has a long-form birth certificate which he has never revealed to the public. I don’t agree with their high opinion of Barry, so they apparently feel a need to call me bad names.

Funny thing is, I’m not insulted. Others who challenge the facts of Barry’s birth seem more concerned with the conclusions and fallout should we eventually discover that Barack is exactly as African as he seems. I’m not jumping to those conclusions. I want better facts first.