Sunday, February 28, 2010

Voting for Dollars


A Society of Criminals

What then do I mean when I say that we live in a society of criminals? I mean simply that the vast majority of people in our society are supportive of criminal acts committed against others. These so-called law-abiding citizens support robbery, assault, trespass, and sometimes even murder when these crimes are disguised in the respectable cloak of "public policy." The scorn with which they view common criminals is truly laughable when one examines the mass criminality that they do support.

All of the talk about free markets versus market intervention, capitalism versus socialism, regulation versus deregulation, and so on, is just a disguised way of presenting the basic dichotomy between a society of criminals and a society of law. This is the essence of the battle.

One Problem, One Bill




Politicians need a huge, confusing mess of a bill so they can hide the pay offs and all the other things they don't want you to see. Simple is better, it helps keep them honest. If that's possible.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Obama Gets Letters




Laugh out loud funny.

Not So Bad After all


The Patriot Act was quietly renewed by the Senate; the Democrats removed their objections to it when they realized that, despite its name, it doesn’t involve any actual patriotism.

Remember When?


Probably not.

The Blizzard of '88

They Can't Even Secure Their Own Computers


3 Homeland Security computers lost daily

Federal agencies also "lost" several computer switches valued at some $90,000 apiece and a multitude of vehicles, including a truck worth about $116,000.

What makes you believe they can secure the country?

"You really have to look at these inventories, and go through them page after page to get an idea of how obnoxious these losses are,"

1-800-Uncle Ted


These are older videos but still hold true.





Thursday, February 25, 2010

Save the Whale Trainers


SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau dies in killer-whale attack

"It is with great sadness that I report that one of our most experienced animal trainers drowned in an incident with one of our killer whales this afternoon,"

There was a little more to it than that.

Tilikum, the largest killer whale at any SeaWorld park, has been involved in two previous deaths.

You have to wonder what they were thinking trusting this animal, knowing its history. I would think after it killed one person it would have been retired from show biz.

Schlimmbesserung


We recently ran across an interesting new word, Schlimmbesserung. It describes the process of making something worse by "improving" it. That is a good word to have at the ready these days, since it covers the subject without the necessity of a long-winded explanation.

--Jeff Cooper

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Lead by Example


'It's my health, it's my choice'

With these words, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams defended his decision to hop the border and go under the knife for heart surgery in Florida.

A choice only the rich and privileged Canadians can make.

How to Lose a War


Get the lawyers involved.

When we have the terrorists in our crosshairs, we are still calling the lawyers to ask permission to fire.

Quite literally.

Save the Toads!


From the meat ants. That like cat food. And eat cane toads. Or something.

We went out and put out a little bit of cat food right beside the area where the baby toads were coming out of the ponds. The ants rapidly discovered the cat food and thought it tasted great."

But the cat food was just the appetiser. "When the young toads left the water, they were a perfectly-sized snack for the hungry ants," writes BigPond News.

"Meat ants are already killing millions of cane toads," Shine told Queensland's Cairns Post. "We're just looking to make it a bit easier for them."

Planned Parenthood for toads.

What are they going to do when they run out of cane toads? And cat food? I wouldn't want to live there then.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Idiocy


Anti-gun lunacy continues

We ought to be used to the stories by now — "Student suspended for toy gun"; "Boy Scout tool nets student suspension"; "Tweety Bird key chain cause for expulsion." Still, when we read of a fourth grade student being hauled into a school prinicipal’s office because his LEGO policeman figure is carrying a two-inch long plastic rifle, it is hard to resist the urge to pull at one's hair in reaction to the sheer idiocacy of the adults who do such things. This latest example of a grown-up appearing to be a simpleton in front of a child, took place at Public School 52 in Staten Island, NY.

I can't be around people like that. There is no reasoning with them. And it's not just with guns that they are intolerant and unbending. That's why I cannot send my son to government schools. Can't. Can't even stand setting foot in a government school. Don't have to, won't do it.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Welcome to Reptile World Serpentarium


I took James to the sepentarium Friday and we went back Sunday because they didn't have the milking show Friday. It was very cool. James got to hold an Indigo snake - he called it a ninja snake. They have a large turtle pool and that was his favorite part. And the alligators. He loved it. It's a small, humble place but it's got some awesome snakes. We got to see a huge King Cobra hood up, unfortunately I didn't get a picture. I took some video of the trip so hopefully I'll get it up on YouTube.





Speaking Out Against Jihad




The rest of the speakers can be seen at Atlas Shrugs

They are long but highly recommended. Don't be blindsided because you were not paying attention.

I Hope We Are On the Road to Stopping Them


When a president and Congress robs one set of people to enrich their cronies, when they violate the settled rule of law regarding bankruptcy to stiff secured creditors in the case of General Motors while rewarding self-anointed unsecured creditors -- their political allies, the auto unions -- the rest of the population cannot fail but conclude that we are no longer under the rule of law, but the rule of men, which is to say, the law of the jungle. Or, put another way, they -- the "authorities" -- can do anything that the citizenry can’t or won’t stop them from doing. This is the societal Catch 22 we are now in (and have been for a while) that I call "Waco Rules."

--Mike Vanderboegh


Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Foolish Things of This World


God chose the foolish things of this world. What are they? The things of wisdom, that is, things of Christian wisdom, the foolish things of the world. God's wisdom is the Cross whereby Righteousness is made possible. God has chosen the foolish things that He might put to shame the things that are wise, all the philosophies of men, which had not prevented Corinth becoming unutterably corrupt.

God hath chosen the weak things of the world. What are they? The things of righteousness, the things which in Corinth were held in supreme contempt as being weak: the things that men did not believe in, the things that men there did not take into account when arranging municipal or national affairs. Righteousnes was at a discount, it was a weak thing. God hath chosen the weak things, that He might put to shame the things that are strong. All the things in which men had trusted for the realization of human life individually, and socially, and nationally God will put to shame by the way of the things the world counts weak, which is righteousness.

Yet again, "the base things of the world, and the things that are despised." What are they? The things of sanctification, the things of holiness, the things of separation to God, the things of the spirit life, which the world looks on as despised things, base things, things not to be taken into account. God has chosen them.

Finally, "and the things that are not." What are they? The things of redemption, as the word redemption is used in my text. The particular Greek word here used is the one that signifies the ultimate in redemption: resurrection, the renewal of humanity, and the realization of full spiritual life in a realm beyond the material. The world says, These things are not. There is no life beyond. There is no resurrection. There is no spirituality which will ultimately triumph so that life shall be renewed in larger meaning, and for fuller purpose. The things that are not, God has chosen these.

Christ has come into the world to make known God's wisdom to men, and to carry out its purposes for men. God's wisdom is expressed in righteousness, in sanctification, and in the ultimate redemption and realization of human life. The foundation is righteousness, the process is sancitfication, the ultimate goal is that of full and perfect redemption. The wisdom of God is a wisdom that deals with humanity in such a way as to be able to save it from corruption, to realize it, and to remake and glorify it. Therefore we will not glory in the philosophy of Corinth, which loooks on the Cross of Jesus as foolishness; but we will glory in the Lord, through Whom God's wisdom is thus made manifest.


--G. Campbell Morgan, Wisdom: The False and the True, from The Westminster Pulpit

Bureaucratic Blackhole


The World Is Upside Down


The absurd trial of Geert Wilders

The judge in his wisdom has decided to deny the defendant the level of courtroom security they afforded to Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Theo van Gogh. Wilders lives under armed guard because of explicit death threats against him by Mr. Bouyeri and other Muslims. But he’s the one put on trial for incitement. His movie about Islam, Fitna, is deemed to be "inflammatory," whereas a new film by Willem Stegeman, De moord op Geert Wilders (The Assassination of Geert Wilders), is so non-inflammatory and entirely acceptable that it's been produced and promoted by a government-funded radio station.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

How True.


Abortion is sacrificing your child on the alter of convenience

--Adrian Rogers

Lessons


Forum comments made by Gabriel Suarez in response to this article about the shooting at the University of Alabama.

Lessons - I don't know what anti-gun rules the school has (I am sure they must), but notice that once again, such rules failed...totally and completely.

Lessons - Notice that there were some that could get to the killer and go hands on. Some skill in either disarming, or preferably in target elimination without weapons would have been handy. Sadly the best these people could do with one woman was "shuttle her out of the room".

Lessons - I wonder if the dead victim would have violated the school's rules if they knew that day would be their last?

Think about it.

Facts, Schmacts. Who Needs Them


Atlanta Progressive News fires reporter for trying to be objective

At a very fundamental, core level, Springston did not share our vision for a news publication with a progressive perspective. He held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News. It just wasn’t the right fit.

Objectively, being non-objective appears to be what passes for journalism these days.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Silent Spring


The Green Death

The resulting explosion of mosquito-borne malaria in Africa has claimed over sixty million lives. This was not a gradual process – a surge of infection and death happened almost immediately. The use of DDT reduces the spread of mosquito-borne malaria by fifty to eighty percent, so its discontinuation quickly produced an explosion of crippling and fatal illness. The same environmental movement which has been falsifying data, suppressing dissent, and reading tea leaves to support the global-warming fraud has studiously ignored this blood-drenched "hockey stick" for decades.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

And I Quote...


"Let us never forget that according to the Father of Our Country personal weapons are liberty's teeth. Liberty and equality are irreconcilable opposites. The only place you can have both at once is on a desert island."

"As you know, the war cry of the French Revolution was Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. As it turned out, the Jacobins were not interested at all in liberty. They were furiously enthusiastic about equality. As to fraternity, this is now generally banned on campus."


--Jeff Cooper

Government at Work as Usual



Millions wasted
on census as headcount approaches

The Census Bureau, a month away from its 2010 population count, has already wasted millions of dollars paying temporary employees who never did the work and others who overbilled for travel,

I Wonder...


I Wonder if the Murdering Professor was a Tea Partier

No, I guess not. What a shocker!

A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was "obsessed" with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.

It's Falling Apart


Language alert.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Denial is the Enemy


"Denial kills you twice: once because you are physically unprepared at the moment of truth and might die in the incident: twice because you are psychologically unprepared and, even if you physically survive, you are likely to be a psychiatric casualty when your 'house of cards' collapses."

--Lt Col. Dave Grossman, On Combat


Denial seems to be the modus operandi of so many people these days, and of our government. Political correctness is a house of cards, global warming is a house of cards and making excuses for Islam - house of cards. The stimulus, too. America's financial health, I could go on.

The truth is uncomfortable. Denial is the enemy.

Don't Pass This By, Watch It!!!


One of the Many Masks of Evil


From the Atlas Shrugs website: Former Muslims United press conference

"The worst kind of tyranny is of victims who are scared to speak." She explains that this is the situation of those who have left Islam. Being a Muslim, she says, does not involve a personal relationship with God. When it comes to Islam, however, one doesn't choose his religion, your birth certificate is stamped Muslim, and you have a relationship with the Islamic state.

Isn't that reminiscent of Communism? It's the same behind the mask.

The Muslim scriptures are inundated with commandments against those who leave the religion. It is being preached in mosques in America that one should kill the apostates wherever you find them. It is the law of Islam -- Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi'i and Maliki schools of law all agree that the person who leaves Islam must be killed. What's worse than the law, however, is when the religious and legal system tells Muslims that they can kill apostates and not be punished. Islamic law gives the right to the Muslim on the street to kill the apostate. Under Islamic law, such a murderer will not go to jail. This happened in Egypt -- Faraj Foda was killed in front of his house and the killer is not prosecuted. This is the source of the apostates' fear -- any Muslim on the street may kill them, and have no fear of prosecution.

This is the most severe aspect of Islamic law -- turning father against children, turning brother against brother. I have been disinherited by my family already. Marriage of an apostate is immediately annulled. There was a case in Egypt in which a man was denounced as an apostate and was subjected to a third-party divorce. This is perfectly in keeping with the laws of Sharia. And we have people right here in America who believe in these laws. We are living in constant fear of our lives because we have left Islam. There is not a day that goes by in which I do not think of that threat. Radical Muslims call me "Jew-lover," right here on college campuses in the U.S. Why did Wafa Sultan have to leave her beautiful home to live in an apartment? Why did I recently write an article about an Egyptian journalist who denied he was an apostate but merely criticized some aspects of Sharia law, and was accused of an apostate? 5,000 mosques declared he was an apostate and a heretic. Hosni Mubarak also was denounced as an apostate for giving this man an award. We don't have to declare that we are apostates. We just have to act at variance with Sharia -- like the girl in Canada who acted like an apostate by refusing to wear the hijab and was killed by her father.

There is very little hope for reform in Islam. Nobody knows why Sadat was killed. I was a young woman living in Egypt. The radicals condemned Sadat as an apostate for making peace with Israel. Sadat told many of his confidants that he knew that by agreeing to peace with Israel he was signing his death warrant.

Why did I form this group, Former Muslims United? I felt extremely saddened when I saw children fleeing their homes in fear for their lives because they are apostates. We are going to have many more Rifqa Barys. I know kids in Los Angeles who are not attending mosques, and their parents are threatening them. We have not been speaking up. We have been in hiding. But now I have formed this group with Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, Muhammad Asghar, Amil Imani. We are also calling upon Muslim leaders to sign our pledge. It is on our website. We hope that all the good and peace-loving Muslim groups will sign our pledge to show that they reject tyranny and fear. The worst kind of tyranny is when the person who is tyrannized is afraid to speak. We are also trying to reach the Federal Government. We have written to Attorney General Holder. We hope we can all work together to never allow this kind of tyranny to survive in America. The West is doing Muslims no favor with political correctness. By being politically correct, we are empowering those who want to kill us. The religion must pass the litmus test of human rights. By tolerating intolerance, we are telling the victims of Sharia, go fend for yourselves. We cannot help you.


--Nonie Darwish, at the Former Muslims United press conference




You have to fight evil or it will overtake you. It is as necessary as going to the bathroom or taking out the garbage. It's one of those unpleasant chores we wish we didn't have to do, but when you don't do it for a while things start getting very messy. It's much easier to nip it in the bud than wait, as we have done, until it's a life and death struggle.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Unsettled


Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

...the professor's concessions over medieval warming were 'significant' because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.

A Refreshingly Truthful Answer on Islam




Hopefully this video works, it's been having "technical problems." Seems to be this particular video, the rest of YouTube seems to be working fine.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Liberty


It is an uphill struggle, but I wish that we could distinguish more carefully between freedom and liberty. These conditions are not the same, though they are certainly related. Freedom is the absence of restraint - a physical circumstance. Liberty, on the other hand, is a political situation denoting the lawful capability of the citizen to defend himself and his near and dear without interference from the state. Note that the Declaration of Independence forcibly and particularly establishes the blessings of liberty upon ourselves and our posterity.

--Jeff Cooper

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Sad News for Deadliest Catch Fans


Captain Phil Harris of Deadliest Catch fame has died. He was 53.

The Seattle-based skipper of the Cornelia Marie suffered a stroke two weeks ago was recently placed in a medically induced coma to reduce brain swelling. He awoke last week and was reportedly showing signs of improvement. Harris passed away in the hospital. Details are not yet available.

F/V Cornelia Marie

Captain Phil Harris

Atlas Shrugs


Pamela Geller Speaks in Texas. She has a lot to say and it's all worth hearing. This video rates 5 stars.



Straight on the heels of the latest Muslim attack on America, I spoke in Texas at the McKinney Performance hall for the Collin County Conservative Republicans. The heart and soul of America was in that auditorium.

Her website: Atlas Shrugs

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

A Mouse, Two Turtles, and a Can of Worms


Frank J. comments, in his own inimitable style.

Green Police


Tick, Tick, Tick


China's debt bomb

By their carelessness Congress and the Obama administration are steadily handing over control of America's economic and financial future to a handful of Chinese officials and generals in Beijing. Those who think the Chinese won't use that control if they feel they have to are ignoring history -- and the Chinese.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

CZ Custom Shop


I like CZ pistols. These videos highlight custom guns made at CZ Custom Shop, shot by World Champion shooter Angus Hobdell, who shows us how it's done.



Saturday, February 06, 2010

Independance Day


A 2007 sermon by Ronald L. Dart on Liberty. I can't recommend it enough in these times of waning freedoms.

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA


"The yearning for freedom is as old as the desire to take it away."

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Do It With the Lights Off




Turn off CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, blogs - go talk to the people who don't care.

"They don't care, frankly, about majorities and minorities, and process, and this and that, they just want to know, are you delivering for me?"

They want to be able to do what they do in the dark. They can't do it in the light because if we knew all that was going on we would probably have them all thrown in prison or hanged. They rely on the people who don't care, the people who just want to get paid, to get elected. Throw them a bone now, screw them later when they can't fight back.

Voodoo Science


Credibility is what's really melting

"Climate change" is not a story of climate change, which has been a fact of life throughout our planet's history. It is a far more contemporary story about the corruption of science and "peer review" by hucksters, opportunists and global-government control-freaks.

Mark Steyn details how glacial melting became "settled" science beginning with a "quickie telephone interview with a chap called Syed Hasnain of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi." Read it, good stuff.

See, this what happens when people watch what these hucksters are doing, the truth comes out and we can kick them to the curb. But no, turn off the TV, turn off the internet, don't watch what they are doing. That political stuff is messy and not at all interesting, go listen to your iPod and trust them to take care of you. They got your back - with a knife.

Save the Freedom


Hanging Together

Folks, it is much easier to keep a freedom than to regain it if lost.

Please do not respond with, "Why should I have to fight for what is clearly supposed to be a Right?" Folks, I AGREE. We should NOT have to do this, but it is what it is and if we do not, we will lose this Right.

It really is that simple.

I hope that more and more of us will refuse to lay down to the anti-freedom politicians from federal to local levels and stand up for the Second Amendment. If we do not, it will be gutted and soon after its demise, the antis will be wiping their asses with what's left of the Bill of Rights.

Join the NRA

ZoNation




I especially like what he says on race, starting at 6:15.

Babysitting 101: Chinese Style


Rickshaw driver chains two-year-old son to a post while he's at work.

Yes, there are pictures.

They say they secured their son, Lao Lu, with a padlock around his ankle because his four-year-old sister Ling was 'stolen' from them last month.

Child snatching is rife in China, where strict laws govern the size of families.

Seems like if someone really wanted to steal him it wouldn't be so hard.

She's the Bomb!


Women have explosive breast implants

Well, not all women.

Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives – usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) – are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.

Similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers. In their cases, the explosives are inserted in the appendix area or in a buttock. Both are parts of the body that diabetics use to inject themselves with their prescribed drugs.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

“Civilizations Die from Suicide, Not from Murder."


The Seductions of Decline

Is America set for decline? It’s been a grand run. The country’s been the leading economic power since it overtook Britain in the 1880s. That’s impressive. Nevertheless, over the course of that century and a quarter, Detroit went from the world’s industrial powerhouse to an urban wasteland, and the once golden state of California atrophied into a land of government run by the government for the government. What happens when the policies that brought ruin to Detroit and sclerosis to California became the basis for the nation at large? Strictly on the numbers, the United States is in the express lane to Declinistan: Unsustainable entitlements, the remorseless governmentalization of the American economy and individual liberty, and a centralization of power that will cripple a nation of this size. Decline is the way to bet. But what will ensure it is if the American people accept decline as a price worth paying for European social democracy.

That's a good article, read the whole thing. There's much more to it than that quote.

House of Cards


Currency collapse in America's future?

Folksinger, songwriter and ever-sharp wit Oscar Brand got a nice laugh out of me when he recalled that his father once worked in western Canada as an interpreter between the local Indians and the Hudson Bay Company. He said his father could not speak the Indians' language, but the only way the Indians could convey that to the Hudson Bay Company was through his father!

I've long held the silent feeling that somebody in government is deliberately failing to convey certain vital facts of monetary life to the American people. My silence owed to my ignorance of advanced economics and my sappy assumption that somebody in Washington was an expert. I now conclude there are no experts, only varying degrees of ignorance; so suddenly I value my own opinion enough to express it.

Look for the Union Label ... and Burn It


Obama adviser: Amnesty to ensure 'progressive' rule

"We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters," stated Eliseo Medina, international executive vice-president of Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.

Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting? We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle."

They can't get Americans to go along with the destruction of America so they want to bribe foreigners who have no understanding of the American way to vote for them.

And speaking of the SEIU, unions have officially jumped the shark many years ago and as long as I have any say in the matter my money goes to non-union products - sorry union members, who are mostly good people. Unions are not for the worker, they are for their agenda on the backs of and in spite of the worker.

Canadian Healthcare - FAIL


Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Let Freedom Ring!


I was thinking how much I hate posting all the political stuff on this site, that it seems to have taken over most of what I post. It must seem as though that is all I think about. It's not, not even close. But the fact of the matter is we are under attack and we must defend our liberty.

Everyday I see more and more evidence of my country, and the liberty and freedom that it holds dear, being attacked and whittled away from within and without. Marxism, socialism, communism, fascism, progressivism - whatever you want to call it these days - is on the offensive. It is that philosophy that is on the attack.

A socialist could easily live in a free country with no ill effect, no restrictions as long as he left other people to live as they believe. The reverse is not true.

The socialist philosophy is a lie. It is a theory that does not translate into reality. It never has and it never will. It destroys the human spirit and enriches the few at the expense of the many - which is exactly what they wrongly accuse freedom lovers of doing. They are liars. Look at the former USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Vietnam, all over Africa. Failure after failure after failure. Death, starvation, firing squads, prison, mass extermination of unwanted populations and horrid living conditions for the living. It is among the most vile forms of government ever foisted upon mankind. It is slavery on a massive scale. It is satanic.

Wake up to the truth. It is worse that you can imagine. Please don't let it happen here. We are on the road. We may have a way to go, but we will suddenly come upon the end if we continue. We are in the warning period now. This is the time to change it. We need to get off. We need to get back to the beginning, to the founding of this great nation. Liberty is "where it's at."

God help us.

More Truth Coming Out


Global Warming Makes the Case Against Global Government by Alan Caruba

The sheer magnitude of the deception, directed and orchestrated from within a United Nations entity, given support by United States and British agencies, and further supported by multi-national groups such as the European Union, made it difficult for the average person to believe anything other than the elements of the hoax that were constantly proclaimed and then reinforced by the media and Hollywood.

When the global warming dam burst, millions around the world would conclude what they had always suspected; there was no global warming and all the billions spent in the name of “reducing greenhouse gases” or “clean energy” was part of a massive fraud, a set-up to permit new forms of taxation and to enrich the participants.

That is the case against multinational organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, to name just two. They are, too often, giant propaganda machines whose agenda is to eliminate fundamental concepts of individual liberty and freedom, replacing them with faceless bureaucrats with no obligation to be responsive to citizens anywhere.

The Truth Begins to Come Out


Free James O'Keefe

Their real crime was disturbing the peace and quiet of the nation's liberal establishment and embarrassing ACORN.

Monday, February 01, 2010

"Trust in government is exactly NOT what this country was founded on."


What's the matter with you Americans?

More years ago than I'll admit, I was a student in a class of the man who became my mentor, Tom Willett. The course was in economics and public policy, and the early part of the syllabus had us read on the nature of arguing about economics. One line that stuck out to me like nothing else was this: Saying "if you knew what I know you'd agree with me" is poor argumentation. I may know what you know, my professor argued, and yet find a flaw in your logic or add another piece of evidence that leads me to a different conclusion.

The notion that we know enough to know what is in someone else's best interest is evidence of this fallacy, and I have found over the succeeding decades there are many academics that fall into it. Applied in the political sphere, it takes the form of "why does the public not understand what we are trying to do?" We heard it in President Obama's State of the Union address last week in his claim that his failure on health care was "not explaining it more clearly to the American people."

Mark Steyn


In Obama's America you'll all work for the government

The ever tinnier, more perfunctory sophomoric uplift at the start and finish can't conceal the hope-killing, jobs-slaying, soul-sapping message in between, which is perfectly consistent, and has been for two years. As President Obama sees it, whatever the problem – from health care to education, banking to the environment – the solution is more Washington.

Simply as a matter of internal logic, this is somewhat perplexing. After all, when he isn't blaming George W. Bush, Obama blames "Washington" – a Washington mired in "partisanship" and "pettiness" and "the same tired battles" and "Washington gimmicks" that do nothing but ensure that our "problems have grown worse." Washington, Obama tells us, is "unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems."

So let's have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything!