Thursday, December 2, 2010

House Votes to Extend Middle Class Tax Cuts

At LAT (via Memeorandum):

The House of Representatives has narrowly passed a measure to keep lowered tax rates for individuals earning less than $250,000 a year.

The final vote was 234-188, with 20 Democrats joining a nearly unanimous block of Republicans against the plan.

The vote in Congress' lame-duck session was a symbolic one boosted by Democrats, still in the majority, who sought to force Republicans to vote against a tax cut.

Republicans, who want an extension of the lower rates at all income levels, framed the vote as one that would raise taxes on small-business owners who create jobs.

Ohio Rep. John Boehner, who will take the gavel as speaker in the new Congress, called the Democrats' maneuver "chicken crap."

"We are 23 months from the next election and the political games have already started, trying to set up the next election," he said.

"I really do not believe we have disagreement on what this bill intends to do. It's just that some believe it does not do enough," Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on the House floor shortly before the vote.

The Senate is expected to hold a similar vote this week, though it is less likely to pass because of the threat of a Republican filibuster.
And from Patricia Murphy, "John Boehner Calls Vote on Middle-Class-Only Tax Cut 'Chicken Crap'."

NASA Reveals New Life Form Discovery

At NYT, "Subsisting on Arsenic, a Microbe May Redefine Life":

Photobucket

Scientists said Thursday that they had trained a bacterium to eat and grow on a diet of arsenic, in place of phosphorus — one of six elements considered essential for life — opening up the possibility that organisms could exist elsewhere in the universe or even here on Earth using biochemical powers we have not yet dared to dream about.

The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.

Scientists said the results, if confirmed, would expand the notion of what life could be and where it could be. “There is basic mystery, when you look at life,” said Dimitar Sasselov, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of an institute on the origins of life there, who was not involved in the work. “Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.”
And at National Geographic, "NASA Life Discovery: New Bacteria Makes DNA With Arsenic." With a link to NASA's homepage.

Misunderstanding WikiLeaks

There's some debate on the degree of international cooperation in apprehending WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. At Telegraph UK, "WikiLeaks: British Police Asked to Join Hunt for Julian Assange." Also at Memeorandum. And there's some breaking stuff at NYT that I haven't gotten to yet, for example, "Diplomats Noted Canadian Mistrust Toward U.S."

For now what's sparking my interest, and some frustration, is the easy accolades so many commenters are offering to WikiLeaks, with attention especially on claims that increasing transparency is a means to a greater libertarian end. And in this I'm finding, as a side note, through
Ross Douthat, that Will Wilkinson is now blogging at The Economist. I was a subscriber for three years while in graduate school. I read that magazine religiously. But like just about every other mainstream periodical in recent years, its quality has deteriorated badly. Outside the pages of Wall Street Journal, The Economist used to be the place to read the most rigorous analysis of free market economics. Yet now the previously classically-inclined editors at The Economist have jumped ship. (Alan Caruba captured this unfortunate descent just the other day, "Climate Change Idiocy and The Economist.") So I guess it makes sense that Will Wilkinson's blogging there now. The countercultural left has increasingly joined with ideological libertarianism to escalate the contemporary attack on the modern moral regime and the foundations of social order. To take that attack to its logical conclusion is to launch an extreme repudiation on state power, since it's the state that controls the monopoly of force and the means to prohibit certain activities, such as drug use and prostitution. But with the recent WikiLeaks dump, the left-libertarian alliance has metastasized into a romantic nihilism, which sees a heroic purpose to WikiLeaks when the exact opposite is true. My old infantile antagonist E.D. Kain gleefully provides a synopsis, which perfectly illustrates the verbose left-libertarianism's replacement of firm realism with fluffy fawning:
The government has a monopoly on violence; the media has only words. We should encourage underdogs like WikiLeaks who continue to fight an uphill battle, not against the United States – this country is more than its government, after all – but against the over-reach of the state. We have ceded so much of our own privacy to our government, perhaps now we would like to return the favor.

WikiLeaks may be a small player, really, in the bigger scheme of things. But to some degree it is also a bellwether, a forecast of things to come as information and technology continue to nip at the heels of the state. Perhaps we really are approaching a time when government becomes less relevant, less necessary, where other institutions both real and virtual can begin to supplant the role of the state in our lives, subversively at first but then more openly as time passes. I don’t know. I’m not even sure what that would look like in practice. Predicting the future is not among my talents; I cannot see where frying pans leave off and fires begin. But if I am at all correct then we should also realize that when an institution is threatened it reacts accordingly. Things will get worse before they get better.
If this were just a philosophical excursion vis-à-vis theories of federalism and government devolution, that'd be one thing. But it's not. We're talking about a 21st century non-state actor conducting information warfare against the United States. It's not a big surprise that WikiLeaks' most enthusiast backers are found among the world's anarcho-communist contingents. What's pathetic --- although not new, just even more pronounced --- is how willingly the libertarians jump on board this lame new vehicle toward alleged greater government accountability.

So to be clear: Julian Assange despises America with all he's got. There's nothing good about his agenda. And libertarianism is deathly nihilism if folks can't get their heads around the idea that there's little functional alternative to the nation-state in today's post-modern advanced democratic societies. That's not to say we can't limit the expansion of the state nor improve government performance and accountability. But we'll destroy ourselves by radical attempts to tear it down. And back over at The Economist is a deep clue to the ideological confusion. Folks apparently never got the memo from earlier this year on the bogus WikiLeaks Apache video "Collateral Damage." There's wasn't anything "objective" about it. But tell that to The Economist:
WikiLeaks's release of the "Collateral Murder" video last April was a pretty scrupulous affair: an objective record of combat activity which American armed forces had refused to release, with careful backing research on what the video showed. What we got was a window into combat reality, through the sights of a helicopter gunship. You could develop different interpretations of that video depending on your understanding of its context, but it was something important that had actually taken place.
A lot of commentators apparently act as though they're offering profound insights of democratic theory when expounding on WikiLeaks. I note E.D. Kain as one exhibit, although Glenn Greenwald comes to mind as well. But it's really not such a super sophisticated or intellectually glamorous issue. WikiLeaks wants to destroy authority. People are going to get killed, and not in the name of any state interest that could be otherwise checked by the processes of democratic governance. IBD had a great editorial on Julian Assange the other day, and I'll close with this, "An Infoterrorist?":
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the soon-to-be chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is absolutely correct in calling for Assange's outfit to be classified a terrorist organization under U.S. law. King has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to charge Assange with a crime under the Espionage Act. While Holder's office has announced an investigation, don't hold your breath.

But what of Assange's accomplices in the U.S. and foreign media?

The New York Times, where Assange gets to dump "all the secrets fit to leak," boasts that its collaborations with WikiLeaks give "the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions" — hardly a rationale for endangering our liberty.

This is a continuing, slow-motion disaster for the U.S., and our government has done little beyond having a State Department lawyer send a huffy letter to Assange's lawyer in Sweden.

These leaks must be plugged — by force if necessary — before it is American blood we find flowing.

At the video, more radical left-wing Wiki-boosting from communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!

RELATED: From Peter Feaver, "
WikiLeaks Only Interested in Damaging U.S. Foreign Policy."

Disemboweling Sarah Palin

It's Gwar.

Althouse says
leftists love this, and Repsac3's hating band of nihilists gets off on stuff like this, and more:

But to be fair, Gwar's bipartisan, as a commenter indicates:
Thanks again Ann for your one sided fanning of partisan hate. This crappy band according to Wikipedia has trashed on stage every president since Reagan, also John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. But don't let the facts get in the way of throwing more red meat to your Althouse Hillbillies. They might just buy a toaster on Amazon for you!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The 2010 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

I watched last night: "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2010: Katy Perry, Akon and a $2M Bra," and "Katy Perry Rules The Airwaves With Grammys, Victoria's Secret Shows."

Barbara O'Brien: Hate-Enabling Progressive

The comment I left at Mahablog after Barbara O'Brien called me "Mr. Douglas" and admonished me to "chill":
That would be Dr. Douglas, Ms. Barbara. Problem is, I “took my lumps” and moved on. You, on the other hand, have ignored the substantive points I’ve raised. It’s one thing to call folks “stupid.” It’s another to be willfully ignorant, as is your wont. You continually call me out, Ms. Barbara, while allowing the most vile personal invective to pollute your comment threads. You, my dear, are an enabler of hatred and an anti-intellectual. Chill that.
The Mahablog is a hate site. The commenters there as as bad as anything on the web, further substantiated by the demonic racist Repsac3.

PREVIOUSLY: "Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog: Apparently Not the Place for Scintillating Debate."

Noam Chomsky on WikiLeaks

At communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!

Fanatical Muslim and Reconquista 'MEChA Boy' to Lead Neo-Communist Congressional Caucus

The report's at Politico, "Ellison, Grijalva to Lead Progressives" (at Memeorandum):
Reps. Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva were elected co-chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Wednesday night, according to liberal lawmakers. Rep. Donna Edwards finished third in the three-way race for two spots.
And on Keith Ellison see:
* "Keith Ellison, CAIR, and Ties to Terror."

* "
Keith Ellison, CAIR, and Hamas."

* "
Keith Ellison shills for Hamas."

* "
Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Congressman Keith Ellison Smears Defenders of Freedom."

*
"Rep. Keith Ellison, the Islamists' Man on Capitol Hill."
On Raúl Grijalva see:
* "Despicable AZ Boycotter Rep. Raúl Grijalva Falling Behind in Polls, Rocket Scientist Conservative Ruth McClung Pulls Ahead."

* "‘
MEChA Boy’ Raúl Grijalva Tries to Save Face on Push for Arizona Boycott."

* "
Mexican Reconquista Raul Grijalva in the U.S. Congress."

* "
Open-borders extremist Raul Grijalva running scared."

* "
Mexican Reconquista Slob, Congressman Raul Grijalva Evades Border Security Question."
RELATED: "Communist: 'Progressive Caucus... Will Now Have a More Prominent Role Within... Democratic Caucus."

South Bay Murder Suspect Got Three-Strikes Leniency

Poster-suspect for the soft-on-crime set.

At LAT, "
Multiple Murder Suspect Had Benefited From Three-Strikes Leniency":
To hear him tell his story, John Wesley Ewell was the victim of an overly harsh criminal justice system.

The South Los Angeles hairstylist complained to journalists over the last decade about the unfairness of the state's tough three-strikes law, saying he lived in fear that even a small offense would land him back in prison for life.

He even appeared on the "The Montel Williams Show" to argue the case against three strikes. A caption that flashed on the screen when Ewell spoke read: "Afraid to leave his house because he has 2 'Strikes.'"

But Ewell is now charged with murdering four people in a series of home invasion robberies that terrorized the South Bay this fall. On Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty during a brief appearance at the Airport Courthouse.

Far from embodying the severity of the justice system, Ewell benefited from its lenience over the last 16 years, according to a Times review of court records and interviews.

Ewell has a lengthy criminal history that includes two robbery convictions from the 1980s. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office decided on four occasions against seeking to use the full weight of the three-strikes law when he was charged with new crimes.

And this year, after Ewell was arrested three times for allegedly stealing from Home Depot stores, a judge agreed to delay sending Ewell to prison so he could take care of some medical problems.

It was during that delay, authorities say, that Ewell robbed three homes and killed the victims.

"He should have been in prison a long time ago," said Leamon "Kelly" Turnage, whose parents were among the victims. "It is a shock to me that no one is willing to take responsibility for letting this killer go."

Ewell's case is likely to fuel more debate about the practice of many California prosecutors to seek less than the maximum sentence for some three-strikers.
No word on this from LGM's resident (non)constitutional expert Scotty Lame-ieux.

Progressive Trolls

Robin of Berkeley relates her experience with netroots demons, "The Care and Feeding of Progressives:
When I started my little blog, it didn't occur to me that trolls would come out in droves. Why would leftists expend their energies on me? And why would they subject themselves to scrutiny by a licensed psychotherapist?

But apparently, numerous trolls have been drawn to me, like venomous bees to honey. These trolls use the same weaponry of other extreme progressives: shame and degradation. They try to use ridicule as sort of stun gun, immobilizing the other. (Another interesting tidbit: People with character disorders do the very same thing. Coincidence?)

As a psychotherapist, I can see right through them to who they are and how they operate. Nonetheless, I still remain curious about these creepy crawlers, whom I have dubbed "My Friends, the Enemy." (This is my generally futile attempt to be magnanimous like the Dalai Lama, who uses the phrase to describe the Chinese.)

I wonder to myself: Where do these trolls come from? Where do they live and breed? ...

The most hardcore of the leftists seem almost feral, wild, and undomesticated. Many lack even the most rudimentary of social skills; some people may very well be diagnosable on the autism spectrum.

Many militants are devoid of an essential ingredient of being human: empathy. While they exude endless compassion for an endangered snail, they are contemptuous of living, feeling human beings. This is why they can cavalierly imagine snuffing out Granny, a late-term fetus, or, in fact, anyone who gets in their way.

With the progressives in charge, we now live in "interesting times," to quote the Chinese curse. There's a breakdown in the basic rule of law that keeps a society knitted together. Without the moral fiber to stitch us, it's survival of the fittest -- every man and woman for themselves.

It's no coincidence that God has also been shunned, because God is the thread that weaves together the rich tapestry of life. With Judeo-Christian values missing in action, the left engages in a manic free-fall-all. They afford themselves free rein to act out their basest of impulses.
Robin is more analytical than me. They're evil, plain and simple. This is why I've switched permanently to comment moderation, and I've closed comments on some post when the LGM and Sadly No! demons are sent my way. And that's to say nothing of the freaks at American Nihilist, for whom no undomesticated attack is out of bounds.

CWCID: Ace commenter Dennis with the intel, at "Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog: Apparently Not the Place for Scintillating Debate."

Amazon Bounces WikiLeaks

Update to this morning's entry.

At AoSHQ, "
Amazon Kicks WikiLeaks Out of the Cloud." And at WyBlog, "Three Cheers for Amazon.com, they pulled the plug on WikiLeaks!" Also discussed at Hot Air, "Pentagon: We could have shut down Wikileaks but chose not to" (via Memeorandum).

And in related news, "
Sen. McCain Wants Heads to Roll for Wikileaks, But Others Say Not Likely: New Wikileaks Express U.S. Fears Terrorists May Get Pakistan's Nukes":

Incoming Taliban Speaker John Boehner to Create Women's Restroom Adjacent to House Floor

Yeah, because Republicans treat women just like the mullahs in Afghanistan — "hostile to women's equality," as some progressive asshats might say.

At
The Hill (via Memeorandum):

Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) intends to commandeer a swanky office space adjacent to the House floor and build a women's restroom for female lawmakers.

For years, men have had the luxury of using facilities located adjacent to the House floor, just outside the Speaker's lobby. But women have had no such option.

If women need to powder their noses, they must instead go downstairs or to a restroom several halls away from the chamber.

But Boehner wants that to end, and plans to direct the Architect of the Capitol to construct a women's bathroom in the space currently occupied by the House Parliamentarian.

Boehner said on Wednesday evening of his decision that "as we continue to evaluate ways to open up the people’s House, it’s encouraging to be able to make changes like this that are long overdue.”
Amazing how outgoing Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't think about "opening up the people's House." Well, okay. It wasn't really the people's House. It was the Politburo's House.

Update: Linked at Lonely Conservative and SWAC Girl. And Dana Loesch links on Twitter.

Mark Harvey, a.k.a. 'Snooper', Now at Collin County Conservative Examiner

Just got the notice from Snooper, coming soon at the Examiner:
Mark L (Snooper) Harvey began serving this nation straight out of High School. First, as a police officer and then as a member of an anti-terrorist tag-team. Mark started paying greater attention to the highly volatile political circumstances of the late 1960s after his brother was killed in action during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The things he observed during that time often left him troubled and wondering what was happening in America. Why was radically anti-social and dangerously irresponsible behavior being appeased and then excused as nothing more than normal “teenage angst”. Why were so many Americans willing to allow the enemies within to run amok virtually unopposed? Mark served the United States honorably both in and out of military from 1976 to 2004. During that time he began a crusade to inform and educate others about the often subtle, sometimes radical reeducation and indoctrination efforts.

China and Korean Reunification

Update to my earlier post, "Prospects for Regime Change in North Korea."

It turns out that the cable dump has some interesting information on Beijing's strategic thinking. See Simon Tisdall, "
Wikileaks Cables Reveal China 'Ready to Abandon North Korea'." Check the link. China's ready to deploy troops to the border to prevent a massive influx of North Koreans. Personally, I doubt Beijing would let Pyongyang go so easily, and so is Professor Daniel Drezner (who rarely takes a controversial position while blogging). That said, here's this at LAT, "Beijing Support for Korea Reunification Not So Clear, Despite Leaked Cables":

Is China really willing to dump its old ally, North Korea? Would Beijing support a German-style reunification of the Korean peninsula in which economic powerhouse South Korea absorbed its wretchedly poor communist neighbor?

These may have been the impressions left by a stash of U.S. diplomatic cables relating to North Korea made public this week by WikiLeaks. But analysts who have followed the long entanglement of China and North Korea say that much of the information in the outed memos amounts to little more than dinner party chatter that reflects outdated opinion or wishful thinking.
RTWT.

Turns out
that:
The reclusive Kim Jong Il has made two trips to China in 2010, receiving lavish red carpet welcomes, and in October, Chinese Politburo member Zhou Yongkang had a front row seat at a military parade where Kim's son and designated successor made his public debut.
Right.

And next they'll be throwing these guys out on their asses?

At the video, John Bolton's fairly sanguine on all of this — which is amazing for an EVIL NEOCON WARMONGER!!

Cyber Monday Breaks Record With More Than $1 billion in Sales Online

The report's at Los Angeles Times.

But this gives me a chance to post the Target lady one more time. She's not on the Internet:

Why America's Enemies Love Obama's New START Treaty

From the Center for Security Policy:

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Evokes Reagan in Push for New Start Treaty," and "Trust Russia on START?"

Amazon Hosts WikiLeaks?

Oh, great. What a way to start the morning. I sell Amazon products on my blog and I learn that Amazon hosts WikiLeaks on its servers? Sometimes there's no justice in the world.

At WSJ, "
WikiLeaks Using Amazon Servers After Attack":
WikiLeaks, the website that published a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic cables on Sunday, is using Amazon.com Inc. servers in the U.S. to help deliver its information. It sounds like an odd choice, but it could make sense.

The site cablegate.wikileaks.org, which WikiLeaks is using for the diplomatic documents, is linked to servers run by Amazon Web Services in Seattle, as well as to French company Octopuce. Wikileaks.org, the site’s front page, links back to Amazon servers in the U.S. and in Ireland. Several Internet watchers, including technologist Alex Norcliffe, reported earlier on WikiLeaks’ use of Amazon services.

Amazon and WikiLeaks did not return requests for comment.

The choice of Amazon, a U.S. company, seems strange given the amount of criticism WikiLeaks has received from the U.S. government. Rep. Peter King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Sunday saying he supported charging WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange under the Espionage Act.

But experts said it was unlikely that Amazon would face legal action for selling services to WikiLeaks. For one thing, now that the information disclosed by the site is already public, it might not be considered contraband, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of law and computer science at Harvard University.

“If that data happens in the moment to be in the U.S., that’s really good because we have a First Amendment,” said Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia Law School.

Mr. Moglen added that, although where hardware is located can make a difference legally, there wouldn’t be much point in getting Amazon to stop providing services to WikiLeaks. “For all practical purposes … if the law is unfavorable, that Web server process will go somewhere else,” he said.
Maybe it's no so bad after all: "It’s Good That Wikileaks Is Using Amazon’s Servers."

Palin Hauls in Nearly $500k In Just Over a Month

I wrote "Can Palin Win the 2012 GOP Nomination?" in July 2009, when Sarah Palin stepped down as Governor of Alaska. She was the "it girl" back then as much as she is now, which is amazing considering how much has happened since then. But one of the points I raised on Palin's chances for the 2012 nomintion was campaign finance:
Palin's two biggest goals can be summed up thus: Iowa and New Hampshire. Politically, Palin needs money. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama raised $100 million in 2007, the year leading into the primaries. The "entry fee" for the 2012 primaries will probably be twice that.
I expected Palin to be a blockuster fundraiser, and it's happening. See Jay Newton-Small (via Memeorandum):
Sarah Palin raised $469,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22 bringing her total for the year to over $3 million, Tim Crawford, SarahPAC's treasurer, told TIME exclusively. Crawford attributed the surge of funds to energy surrounding the midterm elections, Palin's endorsements and her TLC reality show “Sarah Palin's Alaska.” Her second book, America By Heart, came out Nov. 23.

The PAC spent $64,000 buying advance copies of her books, “just as we did last year” with her first book, Going Rogue, Crawford said. “They're a great fundraising tool for us.” Palin is in the midst of a two-week cross-country book tour.

Overall the PAC spent $581,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22. ...

Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog: Apparently Not the Place for Scintillating Debate

I've been blogging long enough to know better. Barbara O'Brien, who posted on WikiLeaks, writes "Donald Douglas is too stupid to recognize obvious sarcasm, mistaking it for 'fawning'." Perhaps. But I thought the charge merited a response: "Progressives and WikiLeaks."

I tracked-back at Barbara's, and what do we find?

Barbara
responds dismissively, "Some people don’t know when to quit." I guess that's supposed to be sarcastic, if not original.

And then c u n d gulag, Barbara's in-house demonic pustule,
left this:
DON’T click on AmericanNEOCLOWN’s link!!!

This turd pops up on the web and does this all the time, hoping to get people to go to his insipid website. Hey, NEOCLOWNIE, I’m sorry to see you back. I figured the cops finally had you on moral’s charges when you exposed your thimble-sized member to the JH School boys gym class. I guess there wasn’t enough evidence, huh?
I've seen c u n d gulag's similarly crude remarks before. Sadly representative of the intellectual firepower of today's netroots secular demons. I'm frankly astonished sometimes at the depths of leftist vulgarity. And the commentary is hardly better at LGM, where I also tracked back. Serves me right, in any case. I'm idealistic enough to believe that a reasoned, evidentiary argument would elicit a reasoned response. Call me stupid. Oh, wait, they already did.

NewsBusted — 'Jihadist Teen Arrested for Attempted Oregon Bombing'

Via Theo: