The Unbelievable NYeT!

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Yesterday the New York Times ran a story on a study by the General Accounting Office that was commissioned by Democratic Senators Carl Levin and Byron Dorgan. The study found that from 1998 to 2005, two out of three American corporations didn't pay any corporate income taxes. Levin and Dorgan trumpeted this finding as though it meant something. As usual, the Democrats were preying on ignorance. Today, a red-faced New York Times issued this correction: An article on Wednesday about a Government Accountability Office study reporting on the percentage of corporations that paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005 gave an incorrect figure for the estimated tax liability of the 1.3 million companies covered by the study. It is not $875 billion. The correct amount cannot be calculated because it would be based on the companies paying the standard rate of 35 percent on their net income, a figure that is not available.

Welcome To ANWR

clipped from reasonbellpundit.blogspot.com

On Pedagogy

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com Russia has long been a very pedagogical country. She likes to teach lessons to her neighbours. The smaller the neighbours, the more lessons they can expect to receive. Through most of the 20th century, Russia was at her most expansive. Thanks to the Yalta settlements, and the miracle of nuclear weapons technology, the whole world became Russia’s “near abroad,” and various little countries of eastern and central Europe became her disciplined pupils. She taught us all lessons in dialectical materialism and scientific socialism, until she collapsed under the strain of it. Vladimir Putin -- the strongman of Russia, regardless of passing titles -- is, in addition to being an old KGB officer thoroughly schooled in the ruthless barbarism of Communist power politics The notion that Russia -- whose land area makes her by far the planet’s largest single state -- could be threatened by a neighbour 1/245th her size, should not be confused with paranoia.

The "Resistance"

clipped from pajamasmedia.com In fact, under “classroom strategies” in the Norton instructor’s manual, teachers are told that they are likely to encounter the problem of students accepting the “truth” of what Solzhenitsyn has to say: “Because the story answers to most of the myths and preconceptions Westerners already have about Soviet life, the problem will be to make sure that students read it with the same degree of resistance with which they would normally confront any other piece of fiction.” Here we have the apologists for communism directing teachers: All that you’ve heard about the brutality of communism is merely part of our “myths and preconceptions.” Students must be reeducated to “resist” the testimony of Solzhenitsyn It is this kind of sophistry that Solzhenitsyn had in mind when he said in his commencement speech at Harvard in 1978, “Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable

A Yawning Memory Hole For Alexander

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Alexander Solzhenitsyn died on August 3, but if reigning English professors and textbook editors have their way, his writing will soon be disappeared. The murder of 100 million by communist regimes during the twentieth century is a fact ignored or rationalized by leftists everywhere, of course. In political science and history, a few like Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes fight such prevailing revisionism with fact. But in literary studies, the propagandizing comes under the clever cover of theories that purportedly embrace multiplicity and openness. Professor Yaeger intones, “As category confusion accelerates, we gravitate toward interstices and traces rather than clean causalities, binaries, or arrays.” Yawn.

Seeping California

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com For oil, California is the quickest relief. Existing platforms there would allow access to some of the leases companies paid $1.1 billion for in 1981, but have been precluded from developing for 26 years. California is the nation's largest consumer of gasoline, so it could go directly to their extensive refinery network, also. The estimates are that 10 billion barrels exist off the coast of California, and tankers full of imported oil and Alaska North Slope oil go through those protected waters every day. Santa Barbara is also home to one of the largest oil seep trends ever observed, and in one small area 100 bbls per day seep to the surface, except around an existing producing platform that releases the pressure causing the seeps. 100% of the oil on the beaches in Santa Barbara county, and 50% of the oil on the beaches of LA County are caused by Santa Barbara's seeps. The local group Stop Oil Seeps advocates drilling there to improve the environment.

Of Cucumbers And Nutjobs

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk Al-Qa'eda has lost credibility for enforcing a series of rules imposing their way of thought on the most mundane aspects of everyday life. They include a ban on women buying suggestively-shaped vegetables, according to one tribal leader in the western province of Anbar. Sheikh Hameed al-Hayyes, a Sunni elder, told Reuters: "They even killed female goats because their private parts were not covered and their tails were pointed upward, which they said was haram. "They regarded the cucumber as male and tomato as female. Women were not allowed to buy cucumbers, only men." Other farcical stipulations include an edict not to buy or sell ice-cream, because it did not exist in the time of the Prophet, while hair salons and shops selling cosmetics have also been bombed. Most seriously, Sheikh al-Hayyes said: "I saw them slaughter a nine-year old boy like a sheep because his family didn't pledge allegiance to them."

On Justification

clipped from www.slate.com So, yes, major combat operations appear to be over, and to that extent one can belatedly say, "Mission accomplished." If there is any Iraqi nostalgia for the old party and the old army, it is remarkably well-concealed. Iraq no longer plays deceptive games with weapons of mass destruction or plays host to international terrorist groups. It is no longer subject to sanctions that punish its people and enrich its rulers. Its religious and ethnic minorities—together a majority—are no longer treated like disposable trash. Its most bitter internal argument is about the timing of the next provincial and national elections. Surely it is those who opposed every step of this emancipation, rather than those who advocated it, who should be asked to explain and justify themselves.

God Bless Them, They'll Need It...

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The answer to what the Russians plan to do with Georgia has been given. They plan to conquer it. Russian troops took the key town of Gori after the Georgians fell back on Mtskheta, a town only 10 miles east of Tbilisi. Reuters reported that “Russian forces had captured the Georgian town of Gori, 60 km (35 miles) from the capital Tbilisi, but Russia denied it and Reuters witnesses saw no troops in the town.” Georgia — under its old borders — has effectively been lost to Russia. Moscow now sits aside the transportation links joining Tbilisi to the Georgia’s Black Sea ports. A Russian column has also reached the Senaki, at the western end of Georgia’s main flatland, the Kolkhida Lowland. The heartland of Georgia is now split in two. But the Georgian army remains apparently intact. God bless each of us. God bless the freedom of Georgia. God bless our soldiers, our heroes. Long live Georgia.

Rot In Hell

clipped from iowahawk.typepad.com As an alternative, won't you please consider making a donation of __$40, 6 BEAN SALAD, 48 PACK OF LEINENKUGEL___ to Accountable America? Together we can get this country back to grassroots progressive ideals like clean politics and civil rights. Bump it to __$200, 30 BEAN SALAD, 240 PACK OF LEINENKUGEL___ and we'll take care of that ugly database of yours. And as a non-partisan 501(c)4, your thoughtful donation to Accountable America will be completely anonymous!  Rot in Hell, Tom Matzzie Accountable America

O Kill Them

clipped from hotair.com This was no academic debate.  The issue arose when, as Freddoso notes. Christ Hospital in the Chicago area got outed for leaving these infants to die after a nurse blew the whistle on the hospital.  An investigation determined the truth of the allegations, and the Illinois legislature debated on whether infants born alive during abortions should be considered persons and require practitioners to provide care for them.  Obama, even with the redundant “neutrality clause” attached to the bill, said no. Clearly, Obama lied about his position.  It’s no small rhetorical matter, either.  His vote puts him on the extreme of the pro-abortion camp, so extreme in fact that not a single member of Congress would follow his example.  Obama voted to allow Christ Hospital and other facilities performing abortions to allow live children to die.

I Lost My Senior OThesis!

clipped from proteinwisdom.com 1. Occidental College records — Not released 2. Columbia College records — Not released 3. Columbia Thesis paper — “not available” 4. Harvard College records — Not released 5. Selective Service Registration — Not released 6. Medical records — Not released 7. Illinois State Senate schedule — “not available” 8. Law practice client list — Not released 9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released 10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released 11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None 12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None

On Designer Drugs

clipped from proteinwisdom.com Best titled of the lot is probably John McCain is ready to lead—drunk, overweight, nude bikers, because, face it, that’s really gross, whereas this sort of thing? Slender urban sophisticates on designer drugs speaking truth to power.

Creamy Goodness

clipped from www.classicalvalues.com Got that? German growth at a 1.5% annual rate is considered blazing. Any American rate below 2.75% is sluggish. Any rate below 1% is a recession. I'm glad to know the new definitions. I wonder what the financial arbiters will be calling the Italian contraction? I think the term most common will be "minor correction". Why? Because Europe is creamy goodness and America is evil incarnate where the moguls of finance are bleeding the poor for their own personal gain where as the Europeans have just made a few minor mistakes.

OWaffles

clipped from hotair.com McCain obviously took time to determine first that Russia had indeed attacked Georgia before demanding restraint from the victim.  It’s apparent that McCain has a better grasp of the situation and understood its ramifications as events unfolded.  Obama issued a boilerplate statement that generically demanded that everyone start getting along, and had to modify his stance as his 300 foreign-policy advisers had a chance to tutor him on the conflict. I’d rather vote for the man who gets it right and has spent years studying foreign affairs, warfare, and American strategic needs than the man who makes it up as he goes along.  McCain is right; this was a 3 AM moment, and Obama proved himself unprepared and unsuited to answer the call.

O's Soiled Utility Closet

clipped from bench.nationalreview.com ...is a place where some children born alive in hospitals are persons, and some are not. Some of these babies are entitled to legal protection, and some are not. Some get the best care which today's hospitals can give to a sick newborn. Some are put into a soiled utility closet at the hospital. Alone. To die.

Threshold Uncertain

clipped from www.npr.org There has been some debate within this group, for example, about whether the Sept. 11 attacks were a good idea in hindsight — given that they prompted the U.S. to go to war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and destroy the group's sanctuaries there. Brachman says such considerations may influence al-Qaida leaders as they consider whether to hit the U.S. again — and how hard. "That type of example — that we will react violently if the cost to the United States is high enough — shapes the way they calculate whether or not to use weapons of mass destruction in the future," Brachman says. "There's a certain threshold of pain we're willing to accept, and if you exceed it we will respond aggressively. And I think they are trying to keep the pain that they're inflicting on us below a certain threshold at this point." But neither Brachman nor other terrorism experts who monitor al-Qaida thinking can be certain what conclusions the group will reach.

ORules For Radicals

clipped from www.classicalvalues.com So let us have a look at Alinsky's handbook Rules For Radicals. Just so we can see the train coming and get off the tracks. Here is a list of the rules. RULE 1:"Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.) That would explain a lot of the current campaign's dynamics. Obama is running on the idea that a lot of people fear being called racists. If that fear is not there then his campaign has no power. McCain has neutered that whole line of attack. It may play well among the latte liberals (Tom Wolfe called them the radical chic) but it will not play well against the original anti-slavery party (Abe Lincoln was a Republican).

Stein's Britney World Update: Over The Target

clipped from www.spectator.org Now, this is perfect. First of all, Paris Hilton was a total nobody party girl in West Hollywood until she and her boyfriend made AND then "someone" SOLD a hard core video of Paris Hilton having sex. So basically, she got her start as a porn star. And she's being trotted out by the media barons to smear John McCain, as brave and patriotic a man as lives in this nation. This little tramp, who isn't even close to being pretty, is belittling a man who spent six years in brutal captivity for defending his country. And Senator McCain, a little note you might be familiar with: the flak is always heaviest when you're right over the target.

The Mask Slips: Green Luddism Today

clipped from www.theregister.co.uk Environmental campaigners, citing government-commissioned research, have said that the UK's claimed carbon emissions figures are "a big lie". The analysis adds carbon burdens associated with offshore manufactures, shipping and aviation to the UK total, and - according to the activists - shows that economic growth and carbon emissions are inextricably linked, and that the UK is actually responsible for much more greenhouse gas than it admits. John Barrett, one of the authors of the reports by the Stockholm Environment Institute at York (SEI-Y) for the government and campaign group WWF*, was quoted by the BBC today: "We are constantly battling against increases of wealth... There's a very fundamental problem here that no one really wants to talk about."

Thou Shalt ONot

clipped from hotair.com SEN. OBAMA: John, don’t put words in my mouth or anticipate what I am going to do. I’ve been opposed to Yucca Mountain from the start so if the suggestion is that John McCain who is in favor of Yucca right now should get a pass on that. He was opposed to telecom immunity at the start, supported public financing at the start, thought the surge would create more violence at the start, and so on, and so on.  “Don’t anticipate what I am going to do?”  No one can anticipate what he will do — that’s the problem. Jen Rubin says that the Obamessiah has apparently added another commandment: Thou Shalt Ask No Tough Questions of The One.  I’d add, Thou Shalt Not Anticipate My Actions Based On My Statements.

"Bad Luck"

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com The best thing the government can do is remove barriers to permitting nukes (and maybe also to selling retrofit kits for older vehicles so they can become PHEVs) and otherwise get out of the way. Clever, greedy people will take care of the rest. Obama can then villify and tax them. As I said, intelligent power management is key. And as for vilifying and taxing success -- that's what government is for. Otherwise the rest of the citizenry might develop self esteem problems. This was all addressed by Robert Heinlein, natch: Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."

Nissan Awakens?

clipped from www.breitbart.com Nissan Motor Co. unveiled a new prototype electric vehicle Wednesday with batteries twice as powerful as conventional technology, aiming to take a lead in zero-emission cars. Japan's third-largest automaker said the front-wheel drive, boxy-shaped car has a newly developed 80 kilowatt motor with advanced lithium-ion batteries installed under the vehicle's floor to avoid taking up space. The laminated batteries, jointly developed with electronics giant NEC Corp., pack twice the electric power of conventional nickel-metal hydride batteries currently used in hybrid and electric cars, it said.

Ingratitude

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Capitalism is the greatest system ever created for alleviating general human misery, and yet it breeds ingratitude. People ask, “Why is there poverty in the world?” It’s a silly question. Poverty is the default human condition. It is the factory preset of this mortal coil. As individuals and as a species, we are born naked and penniless, bereft of skills or possessions. Likewise, in his civilizational infancy man was poor, in every sense. He lived in ignorance, filth, hunger, and pain, and he died very young, either by violence or disease. The interesting question isn’t “Why is there poverty?” It’s “Why is there wealth?” Or: “Why is there prosperity here but not there?” At the end of the day, the first answer is capitalism, rightly understood. That is to say: free markets, private property, the spirit of entrepreneurialism and the conviction that the fruits of your labors are your own.

No Matter How Many Times We Explain It

clipped from hotair.com Jim Geraghty calculated at the time that, assuming a 10% improvement in gas efficiency, we could save about 330,000 barrels of oil a day through proper tire inflation.  Most experts put the actual improvement at 3%.   With our present consumption of 20 million barrels a day, that comes to a savings of 1.65% at the most generous assumptions, and more likely about 0.5%.  Current production of American oil is 8 million barrels a day; expanding drilling to the OCS and to interior shale would eventually provide millions more per day, not just the 100,000 barrels we’ll get out of our tires. So yes, inflate your tires properly and get regular tune-ups.  But if you think that will solve the supply crisis or make us independent of foreign oil, then you probably won’t get the joke no matter how many times we explain it.

Brother, You Have No Idea

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com Naturally, I was in the perfect mood to read the entire Gulag Archipelago. I got all three volumes from the drugstore – which should have told me something about the land in which I lived, that one could buy this work from a creaky wire rack at the drugstore – and it taught me much about the Soviet Union and the era of Stalin. After that I could never quite understand the people who viewed the US and the USSR as moral equals, or regarded our history as not only indelibly stained but uniquely so. Reading Solzhenitsyn makes it difficult to take seriously the people in this culture who insist that Dissent has been squelched. Brother, you have no idea.

The Living Death Of Palestine

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com This is exactly backward. Of all the twisted and corrupt Arab cultures, the most dysfunctional, by far, is that of the Palestinians. This is because, for more than a half-century now, the Palestinians have been used by their fellow Arabs and Muslims as political tools. Abetted by the United Nations, the Palestinians' fellow Arabs have kept them living in "refugee" camps for generations. The Palestinians' commitment to terrorism has made it impossible for them to develop a functioning economy. Their educational system is a joke, dedicated mostly to perpetuating the same pathologies that have made the West Bank and Gaza among the world's most miserable places. If Israel were to disappear tomorrow, the Palestinians' pathetic situation would not improve an iota. If anything, it would get worse.

The Not Iraq

clipped from pajamasmedia.com And it is in the Middle East — in Iraq — that the Islamic extremism has been most publicly defeated and humiliated; it is in Iraq where a dictatorial Arab regime has been overthrown. An ordinary observer might be forgiven for thinking the defeat of al-Qaeda right next door to Saudi Arabia was a great victory on strategic ground, which makes the efforts to ascribe improvements in Iraq to Moqtada al Sadr, Iran or the Anbar Sheiks even more puzzling. And as for Afghanistan, even Barack Obama could not seem to muster much of an argument for its strategic importance. At a July 26, 2008 McClatchy Newspaper interview he said:

Ken Salazar: Lemming Party Discipline

clipped from hotair.com How high will Democrats let the price of gas get before considering the option of drilling for more oil?  Ken Salazar (D-CO) has set the bar in today’s action in the Senate.  Gas can hit $10 per gallon and the Democrats still won’t act: Republicans should use a very simple message. We have enough oil to satisfy American needs for at least the next 100 years, but Democrats won’t let you have it. They’d rather you pay $10 per gallon at the pump and watch food prices increase 250% rather than agree to drilling. If you don’t want $10 per gallon gas, vote Republican.

I'm ashamed to be a Coloradoan.

NYeT Stopped Clock Watch

clipped from campaignspot.nationalreview.com The New York Times writes on the canceled troop visit, but even they can't completely stifle a bit of skepticism on the Obama camp's official explanation. Assertions in early news reports that the Pentagon had told Mr. Obama he could not visit the medical center were incorrect, said Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman. He said the military personnel in Germany had made arrangements for Mr. Obama’s visit and were surprised when it was called off. The cancellation provided one of the few sour notes in an overseas trip that otherwise seemed to be well orchestrated. It offered an opening on a subject, military affairs, that the McCain campaign believes Mr. Obama is vulnerable on. If the story behind the story of the canceled troop visit has run its course, one question remains: Why didn’t Mr. Obama leave his aides behind, even the retired general, and make the visit by himself?

The OMemory Hole Today

clipped from www.slate.com In fact, the worst you can say of Obama's position on Iraq (where we also didn't declare war but where we did have a long series of U.N. resolutions putting the Saddam Hussein regime outside international law) is that he was a member of that quite large and undistinguished group that constituted the president's fair-weather wartime friends. Shortly after Baghdad had fallen at a then-cost of perhaps 100 U.S. fatalities, he said publicly that there was no serious difference between the Bush position and his own. It was only by retro-engineering his politics, and pointing to a speech he had made in Chicago very much earlier in the Iraq debate, that he was able to create the idea that he had been both braver and more prescient than his rivals for the nomination.

But Is It True?

clipped from blogs.abcnews.com Asked about these predictions on Sunday's Meet the Press, Obama told NBC's Tom Brokaw that "I know that there's that little snippet that you ran," referring to the MSNBC clip, "but there were also statements made during the course of this debate in which I said there's no doubt that additional U.S. troops could temporarily quell the violence. But unless we saw an underlying change in the politics of the country, unless Sunni, Shia, Kurd made different decisions, then we were going to have a civil war and we could not stop a civil war simply with more troops." This has become an Obama meme -- that during the debate over the surge he acknowledged that more US troops would mean a temporary reduction in violence. But is it true?

McCain Wakes Up At Last?

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com The bottom line is that Senator Obama's words, for all their eloquence and passion, don’t mean all that much. And that’s the problem with Washington. It is not just the Bush Administration, and it’s not just the Democratic Congress. It's that everyone in Washington says whatever it takes get elected or to score the political point of the day.  If Senator Obama doesn’t have the strength to speak openly and directly about how he will address the serious challenges confronting America?  How will he be strong enough to really change Washington? We don't need another politician in Washington who puts self-interest and political expediency ahead of problem solving. We need to start putting the country’s interests first, and come together to keep American families safe and help them realize their dreams for a better life.

NYeT! NYeT! NYeT!

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com For the Times, this whole election is just that: "the ultimate test of racial equality."  If Obama loses, it can only be for one reason:  America failed this test, and is irremediably racist.  Debates about Iraq, the economy, energy, taxes, and all the rest, are just sideshows.  If you're racially enlightened, you'll vote for Obama.  If you're not you won't.  It must be so gratifying, and self-satisfying, to think like this.  No need to think.  Just divide the world into right-thinking people and evil racists who vote for Republicans.

NYeT!

clipped from www.city-journal.org The Wall Street Journal, it should be noted, had no difficulty grasping the two main findings of the Science study: that “girls and boys have roughly the same average scores on state math tests,” as Keith J. Winstein reported on July 25, but that “boys more often excelled or failed.” That the New York Times, in an article over twice as long as the Journal’s, couldn’t manage to squeeze in a reference to the fact that boys outperformed girls at the top end of the curve should put its readers on notice: trust nothing you read here.

The Miasma

clipped from www.strategypage.com The offensive against al Qaeda and the remaining Sunni Arab terrorists continues. For many Iraqi troops involved, this has become a training exercise with real bullets. The Sunni terrorists are outnumbered, out-thought and outfought. Many more are surrendering and accepting amnesty. Continuing police corruption is ruining this reconciliation opportunity. But corruption and factionalism are the twin curses that really make Iraq such a hellhole. It's long been ignored by the rest of the world. But with the religious fanaticism, and all the oil money, these local problems become international ones. The Middle Eastern miasma is not going away by itself.

Kingdoms Of Fauxtoshop

clipped from pajamasmedia.com And so we are facing a situation vis-a-vis Iran that is remarkably similar to the one we had to contend with re: Iraq.  A hostile dictatorship, actively attacking American soldiers, sponsoring terrorism, and crushing its own people.   Oddly enough, Iran’s greatest risk is convincing us they are on the verge of an atomic bomb.  And they’re trying. Of course, we’re not their only audience, a lot of their deception is aimed at their own people.  They are trying to convince Iranians that there is no hope for them from the West, because the Islamic Republic is just too potent.  But that, too, runs the risk of backfiring. And that’s why they’re killing anyone who steps out of line.  Thirty in one day today. How will this play out?  I don’t know.  This administration certainly doesn’t want to attack Iran.  But we may be deceived into doing it.

Seismicity Lost

clipped from hotair.com John McCain continued to press Barack Obama on the aborted visit to Landstuhl today.  In speaking with George Stephanopolous, he underscored the event as a demonstration of poor judgment and skewed priorities by Obama and his campaign.  He scoffed at the notion that the Pentagon would tell a Senator that he could not visit wounded troops on a trip abroad, and McCain told Stephanopolous how he would react if told that: In Landstuhl, Germany, when I went through, I visited the hospital. But the important thing is that, if I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn’t visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event. And so, I believe he had the opportunity to go without the media. And I’ll let the facts speak for themselves.

Over At Last?

clipped from hotair.com International pressure seems to have finally had an effect on South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki.  The man who almost singlehandedly shielded Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe from regional and global efforts to oust him has finally told his crony that he has two choices — resign or face prosecution for a myriad of crimes.  Mugabe must hand real power to his political enemy, Morgan Tsvangirai, or else face complete isolation: The US, UK, and most of Europe can congratulate themselves on keeping pressure on Mugabe and Mbeki.  Russia and China should be ashamed of their intercession at the UN on Mugabe’s behalf.  And South Africans should take a long, hard look in the mirror to see the dissipation of their moral high ground in their country’s active protection of Mugabe for most of the last decade.

I'll believe it when I see it...