"Richard Nixon in a dress vs. Jimmy Carter 2.0"

Clinton vs. Huckabee?

Ken Talton worries about the Mike Huckabee candidacy as a consequence of the migration of the religious progressives from the Democrat to Republican party:

Driven from the Democratic party by the venomous anti-Christian rhetoric of the Maoists who took over their party in the 60's and 70s, they were welcomed with open arms into the Republican party which was eager to return from the political wilderness. Despite their vast differences in views of the role and function of government the embrace of these people was rationalized...

Huckabee is unlikely to differ markedly from any Democratic administration on domestic issues except in the details of his attempts at social manipulations. He'll simply have a largely different set of personal behaviors targeted for harassment.

Then there's the problem of militant Islam. Read the whole thing.

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(I stole the title of this post from this comment by Mitch H.)

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Memo to James

I bought The Book. (scroll down, to "New book buying incentive.")

At the Barnes and Noble down the block, as it turned out.^[1] They had three copies, plus one of Regrettable Food and one of Mommy Knows Worst. Could have ordered on the web, but I suspect that the chains still put more stock in their brick-and-mortar sales numbers than their e-commerce ones. I fancy my in-store purchases as my way of doing my bit to encourage wider availabilty of the authors I like.

And it was everything I expected (it's Lileks, after all).

I still need my own copy of Interior Desecrations (gave one, which I found shelved in the "Art/Architecture" section, as a gift last year).

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^[1] Don't give me any static about "why not your independent bookseller." Don't have one. My other choice is Border's. Hey, at least it wasn't Costco.

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The Wikipedia discussion...

... can be found at Daily Pundit.

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The *wife* lived happily ever after

Tom Smith, on Premonition:

...the wife foresees that her husband is going to die, which he is going to do because he is going to cheat on her, but he doesn't because he loves her too much after all, but he is killed anyway, fate being what it is, but fortunately he has just bought a fat new life insurance policy so the wife gets to buy a big new house. The end. I wonder who thought that one up. Why not just kill the husband at the beginning and end the movie early so we don't have to watch it? My lovely wife Jeanne agreed that it was much better for the husband to die horribly, crushed by a big truck, than it would have been for him to live and cheat on his wife, better for all concerned, really.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 17:11:31 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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About that intelligence estimate

Howard says "I told you so"

Iran Lied?? No, They Don't Do That
Those of you who have been reading me for more than six months remember my posts (very well researched) that indicated Iran would have to have 50,000 P2 centrifuges in order to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb and that due to the near impossibility for them to get the correct rotors they were actually three years away 2010, and more than likely 2012. Dirty bomb? Possibly. HERE with links. I just think the Arabs are so good at lying that we bought Iran's bs like we bought Saddam's.

...then points us to "Spook86" for an explanation of why things changed. Short answer: New intel.

...the earlier estimate apparently lacked an important detail--corroboration by human intelligence (HUMINT) sources--insiders who could "fill in the details" on the Iranian effort and its long-range goals. Sad to say, but the new estimate suggests that western intelligence never had a credible source at the highest levels of the Iranian government...

...until now? Important reading.

UPDATE 071210 04:40:

(Update via Hot Air via Ace)

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Meet the new committee, same as the old committee

In the latest episode of the continuing saga of the SFWA copyright flap...

The Board of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has reinstated Andrew Burt as chairman of its copyright committee, despite the recommendations of the group that was chartered to investigate SFWA's work on copyright in the wake of August's illegal and damaging campaign against the text-hosting site Scribd. - Cory Doctorow

Best Link Roundup (and a good place to start):

Authors and others:

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Clipfile: December 4, 2007

“Catholics used to complain that anti-Catholicism was the Antisemitism of the intellectuals, but this was before the intellectuals went back to  antisemitism.” â€“ Tom Smith

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Oooh, that smarts!

Glenn Reynolds posted a pointer to this New York Times article by science writer John Tierney: "In the Future, Smart People Will Let Cars Take Control" Tierney notes the recent advances in "driverless" car technology, and extols its value in improving road capacity, traffic flow, fuel efficiency, and safety. But then he writes:

Smart cars will never be infallible, but they don’t have to be. They just have to be better than the drivers who now cause more than 90 percent of traffic accidents and kill a million of their fellow humans per year.

Tierney (and Reynolds) ignore two powerful groups: The Luddites, and the trial lawyers. It's easy to imagine the usual suspects railing loudly against introducing "inherently unsafe" smart-car technology,^[1] as the lawyers, demanding 100% infallibility, jump in to litigate it out of existence.

But all objections would be swept away through legislation making "smart cars," (however imperfect) mandatory. That would fit perfectly with the statist dreams of the gentry liberals (after all, anything that reduces the liberty of the rabble is a good thing, right?), while stifling the bar (if it meets government standards, who cares if it kills people?).

And should some future government busybody decide that the trip you want to make to grandmother's house for Christmas is "unnecessary," well, you'll never get out of the garage.


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^[1] You know, like those inherently unsafe nuclear power plants, which, in the U.S., have killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.

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Name that party - BBC version

(The highlighted headline reads: "LATEST: Labour peers visit UK teacher Gillian Gibbons in custody in Sudan")

Biased BBC:

As you can see, the two peers (and there were only two) on the diplomatic mission seeking Gillian Gibbons release from Sudanese 'justice', are the Labour peer Lord Ahmed and the Conservative peer, Baroness Warsi, yet for some reason, our Beeboid friends natural assumption is that both are Labour peers. Why is that?

According to Biased BBC readers, the same mistake was made in reports on Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live on Saturday afternoon. Oops!

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 03:01:26 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Working class need not apply

Connecting dots...
Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel:

...It's not driven by the lunch-pail concerns of those workers struggling to make it in an increasingly high-tech, information-based, outsourcing U.S. economy -- though it does pay lip service to them.

Rather, gentry liberalism reflects the interests and values of the affluent winners in the era of globalization and the beneficiaries of the "financialization" of the economy. Its strongholds are the tony neighborhoods and luxurious suburbs in and around New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and West Los Angeles...

Chiefly drawing on Wall Street, Hollywood and the Silicon Valley, this year's Democratic presidential candidates have raised 70% more money than their GOP counterparts, according to the Wall Street Journal. The securities industry, which awarded Republicans 58% of their campaign dollars in 1956, gave the GOP only 45% in 2006. In the newest sectors of the securities industry, most notably hedge funds, Democrats are favored. This year, hedge fund managers have given 77% of their contributions to Democrats in congressional races, reported the Journal.

Eric Scheie:

So, the Democratic Party — the party of the working class — is broadcasting tonight’s debate from an elitist network run by billionaire Mark Cuban that requires expensive equipment and high monthly charges to access.

What’s up with that? Is this a signal that despite the egalitarian rhetoric, that they’re actually the party of the rich and famous? Imagine the outcry if the GOP broadcast its debate from fancy network that ordinary people couldn’t access. There’d be cries that the Republicans were in a “gated community.”

(sings:) “Who needs to be a mil-lion-aire? YOU do!”


Via: Instapundit 1.2

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