Monday, November 29, 2010

Hypocrisy is Good, And Yes, I Really Said That

by ROSS
DOUTHAT
Yes, of course it is.  It's utterly hypocritical of anyone on the left to fail to condemn a federal employee the Transportation Authority.  Keep the groin-groping, water-boarding, prison without trials, and carpet-bombing for Muslims and others who are getting in the way of our oil supply.

Furthermore: There is nothing hypocritical in supporting hypocrisy.  The chance that a gloved hand touching my testicle is as much a danger to the Bill of Rights as Gitmo.  And there is no hypocrisy in this equivalence.  It's a slippery slope.  Or perhaps more of an upward gravity-defying slope, since we started with re-creating The Bastille, then our shoes lost their freedom, and now even my proud white male gonads are no longer protected by the Fourth Amendment.  My haploid cells, once safely ensconced in my undergarments and prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures, are now decreed to be free for fondling.  Such is the tragedy of our modern times.

And dissent is always good no matter how hypocritical.  Although I'm sure some asshole will mention that slavery was Constitutionally protected and there was  a very nasty war fought over ending it and then slavery ended anyway so one might ask that what was the good in that, and I'll tell you what it was--the Civil War made Shelby Foote a rich man.

And to those who would say, "But don't you see the hypocrisy in your advocacy of hypocrisy to fight hypocrisy?", I say this: It just proves that life is a Mobius strip and eventually you end up where you started--buried in it.  And then someone can plant something over your grave and poof you've come back as a turnip.  A hypocritical turnip.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Hypocrisy Mode /ON

by
GEORGE F.
WILL
Free speech.  We all love it.  Minus a few book burnings here and there.  Turns out though that the real villains are (you guessed it) hippies.  Not the funny hippies you see on South Park, but the worst kind of hippies: College professors.  They obtain a degree, publish a study, and pursue research--all in the interest of enslaving mankind.

Enslaving us, to their puritanical, feminine version of life--a world in which peace is celebrated over war, in which love is greater than violence, in which a bliss is sought over misery.

Well I am here to tell you America, that the there is no such world.  Life is a wretched chaos of filthy slugs fighting in the cesspool of Life for the few miserable crumbs of happiness that can be had.  And that's why I love America. The best most of us can hope for is to grab the half-chewed remnants of those crumbs as they ooze from those slugs greater than ourselves before they can reach down with their tongue and lick it back into their gaping maw.

Works for me, been doing it my whole life.

[Author's Note: Sadly, I was unable to research this article, or I might have turned up information about far-and-not-so-far-right extremists burning books or hanging abolitionists or banning books as 'unchristian' or filing ridiculous lawsuits...some sort of 'network' of 'information' with which one could 'search' the googleplexi of data or potential data out there in the word.....Sadly there is not, I suppose it would take a scientist to invent such a thing.  But that would be a balanced perspective, and my job is to sell opinions, not reason.  I'm sure you'll understand.]















Colbert I. King - Bush, Obama, and the 'socialist' label

Colbert I. King - Bush, Obama, and the 'socialist' label

Facts Are Nasty Little Things With Sharp Teeth And Should Not Be Fed Or Kept As Pets

by
MICHAEL
GERSON
Obama has failed.  This is simply a fact.  And this is not merely some sort of ego-defense employed by the ex-minions of possibly the worst president in American history. No no no, my friends, not at all.  Obama has failed.

And now the liberals must blame someone other than Obama.  Never mind that the filthy hippies have been bashing Obama since Day Two.  Nor that that the Republican Senators have endorsed 'bipartisanship' about as much as they would endorse their daughters dating a black guy.  Nor the unlimited (and anonymous) yet totally-legal  amount of cash thrown into political campaigns.  Nor that Paul Krugman has said for two years that the stimulus was too small.  Never mind.

Never mind those things.  Because those things are facts, and as everyone knows by now, Bush et al. don't do facts.  Facts are nasty little things with sharp teeth...there they are, hovering in the periphery, darting in and out and daring you to look at them square on because then they might bite you hard.  So never reach out to pet one or feed it.  It will only sink its needle-like incisors into your hand and you'll jump back, screaming for a tetanus booster.

After all.  We Bushites made our way by avoiding facts.  Look at me, I'm writing for the Post, which will publish my opinions no matter how idiotic, I gots a gig on the Council on Foreign Relations, and Condie is at Georgetown.  Dubya just wrote a best-seller, and even Death Himself is afraid of Cheney.  And we've pretty got much that Iraq and Afghanistan thing licked, so I'd say overall--whatever it is I'm doing, it's fucking working.  So just remember: Facts bite.  Invite one into your home and you could be in serious trouble.  Keep that in mind. Then you'll always know what to do.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I Heart Cheney

by CHUCK
DEATHHAMMER

Liberals continue to be as paranoid and insane as ever, telling you wild and crazy tall tales, foaming at the mouth and screaming and shaking their fists in rage while imploring the sun god to show benevolence and compassion (while foaming at the mouth of course) as they perform strange bizarre rituals with the blood of a virgin ox while dancing around the fire.  (Just ask anyone who's had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Kucinich.)



Indeeed, one such mad man walked right up to me the other day and asked,  "You do realize that a mulitnational, wealthy corporation is powerful and able to influence  public policy to its own benefit, even if it is harmful to the public at large--don't you?"

Wrong again, Steve.  Not true.  Cheney is a pussycat who just happens to love a bit of torture now and then, Haliburton is loverly, Monsanto wouldn't hurt a mosquito except with it's wonderful pesticides and Massey Coal only occasionally buries its workers in preventable accidents.  Fortunately, America knows this, as the same 10% of our voting populace who seem to change sides every 2 years changed sides again.  I think this proves the wisdom of the American public versus the elitists overlords in D.C. (Not the billionaire elitists, those guys are fantastic!)

Furthermore, I have evidence that it is not true. I have labels.  And with those labels, numbers to accompany them. To wit: "Conservative: 42 percent. Moderate: 35 percent. Liberal: 20 percent."

So there you have it.  A label I haven't defined with a number.  If that isn't proof, what is?  I'm not going to say what 'moderate' might actually mean but that could make things messy and science is about labels and numbers and ambiguous, impossible-to-define terms.  Obviously.

And the American public is right to be afraid of the screaming bullet train of socialism rushing us to Europe.  For example: FRANCE.  There.  Frightened? You should be.  (If that doesn't scare you shitless you, you're not really an American and should probably fuck off to godless Western Europe anyway.)
(That most Americans do not speak a second language and barely have the foggiest notion of what happens outside of world affairs isn't important in this calculation.  What is important? FRANCE.  There, you see?)

Thank god, the train has now been derailed, progress has been interrupted, and people can stop fretting about The Greater Good and get back to worrying about whether their child is going to be accepted into the right pre-school.  (Or, will that plastic tarp you're living under hold up through the winter? Depending.)

So to briefly summarize, pollution is good, socialized medicine is only good when used by old white people who vote Republican, taxes are bad unless they're going to (you guessed it) old white Republicans afraid of change, and public demonstrations are good when it consists of old white people on Medicare and Social Security--but bad when it consists of (probably) odiferous Frenchmen.




Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Airborne Introduces New Daily Anti-HIV, Anti-Malarial, Anti-Tuberculosis, Anti-Leprosy PIll

Let Me Try To Explain It To You Again You Assholes

by
DAVID BROOKS

For many, many centuries, American politicians did not run up peacetime debts.  (Of course, we haven't been in peace time since the Cold War began, but let's not bother ourselves with a few trillion dollars worth of military spending.)  Then came the hippies with their Great Society MasterCards.

It wasn’t because they were unpartisan or smarter or more virtuous. It was because they were constrained by a mentality inherited from the founders: A nation rests on a fragile equilibrium.  Delicate and fragile, like a condom that's been in your wallet too long,  because we are flawed and fallen creatures. We cannot fully trust ourselves.  (For example,  and can’t quite trust ourselves. So all of us, but especially members of the leadership class, should practice self-restraint. 
(For example: Don't own too many slaves.  (Too big to flush.)  )
 So this non-moral idea of self-restraint.  And before you even ask, "Is self-restraint a form of morality?", I can say only one thing. Fucking cram it.
Certainly, one might point the the Ten Commandments or the Seven Sins as examples of moral self-restraint.   But that does not apply here.  Oh no.  For when we restrain ourselves from the impulse to kill one another, we act in the knowledge that we will in turn not be killed in order to inhibit the vengeful ghosts of our ancestors from killing our chickens with chicken-plague.  (Don't laugh, it happened to my dad.)  
Therefore we Americans exercise self-restraint not because we care about others--but because we care about ourselves.  And that is what made this country great.  Not caring.  
Moral anxiety--which as I clearly stated is not moral--restrained hubris (don’t think your side possesses the whole truth).  (With a few minor exceptions, such as the Civil War, Jim Crow, Separate But Equal, and a few lynchings here and there to keep trouble-makers in line, and more preventable industrial accidents than you could count in a month.  But all of that only consumed one century plus the enduring racism...not even worth mentioning. )  
Of course, that won't stop blowhards such as myself and Christopher Hitchens are never going to shut up from ever shutting up about how Iraq has become a shining beacon of Hope And Democracy.
Another effect of the non-moral moral restraint was its effect upon self-indulgence (debt corrupts character).  Which is why I don't own a house.  Home mortgages are a gateway--to Eternal Damnation!  And would I pay for an airline ticket with a Mastercard?  Hell no.  Frankly I don't believe in Bernoulli's Principle--I've never trusted wind tunnels, and as far as I'm concerned anything that goes on in one is suspect.
This non-moral moral equilibrium has now however, broken like Benjamin Franklin's , on left and right. The new mentality sees the country not as an equilibrium, but as a battlefield in which the people, who are pure and virtuous, do battle against the interests or the elites, who stand in the way of the people’s happiness.  Although why I rooted for the Republicans in the last election versus the Democrats wouldn't seem to make much sense if I abhor the policies of both.   Well, that's journalism for you.  If you want logical consistency, try Bertrand Russell.  This is business.


Making Radiation FUN Again

Radiation Worries for Children in Dentists’ Chairs - NYTimes.com





"“Kids love to see that 3-D image,” Dr. Sellke said in a Webcast sponsored by Imaging Sciences. “They can go into our computer and look at their skull.” Another orthodontist talked about coloring 3-D skulls in green and purple. “Fun for the kids,” he said."

So you see? It's fun.  F. U. N.


“So let me ask a question to the mother of a prospective orthodontic patient,” said Dr. Stuart C. White, former chairman of oral radiology at the UCLA School of Dentistry. “Would you like me to use a tool that is entirely safe — a camera — to record the position of your child’s teeth, or another method that may rarely cause cancer so that we can save time?”


Okay, well that's slightly less fun...


"Last month, The Journal of the American Dental Association allowed one of the leading cone-beam manufacturers, Imaging Sciences International, to underwrite an issue devoted entirely to cone-beam technology. That magazine, which the association sent to 150,000 dentists, included a favorable article by an author who has equated a cone-beam CT with an airport scan. In fact, a cone beam can produce hundreds of times more radiation, experts say."


"The cone-beam business is lucrative for manufacturers and dentists. According to one industry estimate, more than 3,000 scanners and about 30 different models have been sold, at prices up to $250,000."


Dentists, some of whom charge several hundred dollars per scan, can profit by owning their own machines. “More profit per unit chair time,” promises Imaging Sciences, the cone-beam manufacturer."


Okay, that just makes me want to vomit into a bucket and throw it at someone.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

TSA: Hands Off Our Testicles!

by GEORGE
  F. WILL
There are an infinite number of heart-breaking stories in the world. War. Famine. Disease. Death. Airport security guards.  And that's why today I'm going to talk about the most burning issue of Our Troubled Times: Airport security guards groping our genitals.  For there is no greater suffering that knowing that the Fourth Amendment rights of my testicles have been violated.  I prefer to get my kicks above the waistline, thank you very much.



First of all, airport security has never prevented any kind of terrorism. Except for that period from 1974 to 2000, when hijackings declined of U.S. passenger flights was nearly zero. So if we exclude that 25-year period in the 100-year history of commerical aviation (and the 50-year history of jet travel) we can safely say that airport security never works. If by 'never works' you mean 50% of the time. And 50% is so close to 0% that it's not even worth the bother to think about it.

The real heroes are not people fighting AIDS in Africa. No sir. The real heroes are those like that anonymous crank who scuffled with airport security guards to keep is privates private. Now that, my friends, is a hero. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "We did not wage war against England in order that my privates could be made public." And once to James Madison, ""Tarry ye not in my under garments, sir!" (I should note here that Madison always denied this story and till his dying day claimed he was just looking for his keys.)

Therefore, I shall regurgitate for the purposes of my quotidian spew for the readers who just skipped to the last paragraph due to being unabled to be buggered: The real heroes are social malcontents who refuse to pay fees for garbage pickup, sewage maintenance/repair, be checked for bombs before boarding a public transit machine that cruises six miles above the ground, or drive in the emergency lane because they're late for a dental appointment.  If we have a choice between functioning sewers and freedom, we must choose freedom every time.  Remember, America, we are but one grope away from facism.



Friday, November 19, 2010

How The Hippies Killed Newsweek

In the 1950's, everything was wonderful--America was a Garden of Eden. Very few people were ever lynched and they probably had it coming. People read National Geographic and Reader's Digest. They were content and happy with the lot God had proscribed for them.

Then came hippies.  And with them came an entire train of dross--the Civil Rights Act, and all hell broke loose. Somehow this led to the invention of the transistor, computers, cellphones, and Craigslist and Google Ads. And before you knew it the news industry was going down faster than the Bismark. But what really caused all of this? A cynic might think that money shifted marketing to the industry--but truly only an utter fool would believe such a thing.

The truth: Hippies did it. The Fender Stratocaster made Ladies Home Journal look dull and silly; or reading about the lastest bloodshed in the world that no one could stop dull, pointless and depressing.

But the truth is quite different: Hippies did it. By subverting our fine white 1950's morality into a love of hippie-ness, beatnik poetry and flirting with Oriental heresy, and rejecting materialism, this somehow led to later generations embracing materialism.

So there: You killed NewsWeek, hippies. I hope you're very fucking happy with yourselves.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

All Taxes And No War Make David Go Something Something

by
DAVID
BROOKS
People frequently stop me on the street and ask me me funny questions, such as, "You're really a writer?", or "Seriously, you actually make a living as a writer?", or, "What do you really do for a living?"





Yet others ask me, "You work for the Times? Isn't that like Lucy Ricardo working in a bomb factory?"  To which I say, "At least someone is paying attention."  Other times people ask me, "Does anyone ever notice that your entire so-called philosophy is less like a coherent outlook and more of an inchoate blob of what ever factoids conveniently flow by, postulating that ignorance makes people somehow morally superior while supporting the destruction of educational equality?"  To which I say: "Balls." 


Golly jeepers no! Many of the psychologists, artists and moral philosophers I know are liberal, so it seems strange that American liberalism should adopt an economic philosophy that excludes psychology, emotion and morality. Isn't that WEIRD? Perhaps Andy Warhol should have studied supply/demand relationships.


(Even though the truth is that classical economics postulates the entire concept of rational markets...so really this is at best delusion on my part, and at worst an outright lie.  Either way I'm a pure hypocrite.  But at least I'm purely something. Unlike liberals who want to mix their blacks and whites in the blender and come out with something like grey pea soup.)


So I say NUTS to liberal economists how want us to act like emotion-less robots! If you're angry and unemployed, smash a shop-keeper's window (if it's run by a Muslim).  Burn down a Persian rug store! As Stephen Colbert said, we need to feel, but feel with our fists.  Like George Bush, or some wonderful tapeworm, we need to think with our digestive system.  


And for god's sake, stop trying to make the world a better place. Carpet-bombing ungrateful foreigners is good no matter how bad it feels.  Sending food to ungrateful foreigners is bad no matter how good it feels.  And that's the paradox of morality: The worse you feel, the better it is.  When Milton Friedman summoned his inner dickishness to say, "Greed is good," he didn't mean that greed feels good--not at all.  What he meant was that you should feel bad.  Feeling bad means you're doing good.  Sheesh, I'd have myself nailed to a cross if I didn't know that I had a special misssion to accomplish here on Earth--always being right, regardless of facts.  After all, liberals--espcially the sciency liberals who always want to bore you with their so-called 'evidence'--liberals can only see what they want to see. That means that I see what they are incapable of seeing.  Which in turn proves my point about me always being right.  




Liberals also want to use things like "models", "numbers", and "data", and "facts" while ignoring the human element.  If you cut a dollar, does it not bleed? Sure, if that dollar is made out of cow spleens.  Which is why I'm proposing an entire new monetary system based not on phantoms such as 'floating money', but real commodities.  Such as chicken wings. (Think about it--after The Apocalypse, you can eat your food! Very useful since Jesus continually postpones the end of the world so you never know when to cash out for canned soup, ammunition, and Spam.)




Conservatives, unlike the robotic machine-like liberals (who are also at the same time emotionally overwrought hippies, go figure), are overrunning with fucking compassion.  And they are right to be worried--what happens when we run out of money for bombs?  Because if America can't bring the pain, then America is no longer special.  And if America isn't special, than I am not special.  And if I'm not special, your life isn't even worth living.


So this isn't about me selling my soul to shill for the billionaire elitists. It's about the Asian/Jewish academic elitists and their middle-class elitism.  Shouldn't we judge the results of science, not by results, but whether or not those results agree with my belief system?  What have we gained from knowing that the earth revolves around the sun? Nothing that I've ever heard of. 


It all makes one doubt the wizardry of the economic surgeons and appreciate the old wisdom of common sense: simple regulations, low debt, high savings, hard work, more war and then even more war. You don’t have to be a genius to come up with an economic policy like that.  And believe me--I'm a fucking idiot. 





Sunday, November 14, 2010

Cat Drinking Technology Inspires New Generation Of Sexbot Designers



Cats Lap With Just Tip of the Tongue, Engineers Find - NYTimes.com

Cyborg technologists have discovered that the ability of the family Felidae to lap water through a complex tongue -flicking mechanism could have important implications for sexbot technology in aerospace, education and lonely ham radio operator applications.  "Just imagine the enhanced efficiency of a tongue moving  four times per second in the typical wankfest!" exclaimed one scientific researcher in an online bulletin.  Experiments are reported to be currently underway in laboratories and basements world-wide.


Monday, November 8, 2010

The Future Has Been...CANCELLED!

Hark! The Deficit Angels Sing!

by GEORGE F. WILL
I was polishing my trophy collection (I won the Pulitzer for "Most Insufferably Smug Bastard In Journalism" several years running) while listening to election returns. And then I polished my unbearable smugness--that alienates me from everyone else in the human race, other than my noxiously smug reactionary colleagues


As a friend of mine once said, "I'm dying of a 100 good symptoms."  Well actually it was an immigrant child whom I took off of life support--not on my tax dollars! Yankee Doodle I  Don't Think So!  (I did the right thing.)

And now the Democratic Party is dying, because the 5-10% of the idiots who believe anything they hear on TV voted the other way.  Once again, the inherent wisdom of the voters who change their minds every fucking election has been born out, and the messages is: "We want our cable TV!"  (Advertising doesn't work--that's why people spend so much money on it.  It has no influence on behavior. (Makes sense to me, what's your problem?))

Obama's expansion of government can now be brought to a halt! And lo! I foresee a beautiful vision of America's future.  Where roads are not maintained.  Where drugs are not tested.  Children are not treated for preventable medical conditions but cattle are! Where pollution is free to go where it wants! Hark! The angels are singing and they sing, "Bring back leaded gasoline!"

Congress is not there to enact the will of the people.  They are there to enact the will of Will.  And Will will's this: By no rule but by profit shall ye abide.  So now please excuse me, I must to the bell tower and as they peal, you may hear a cry: "Greed is the greatest good! Greed is the greatest good! Greed is the greatest good! Greed is the only good!"



Sunday, November 7, 2010

Moderate Your Wisdom

by DAVID BROOKS
If Balzac were alive today, he would plant himself in the Rust Belt.  Why? I'm guessing, because his name is easily turned into "Ballsack" and this region is lousy with South Park fans.
Here Balzac would definitely feel at home.  Like the beautiful corroding tentacles of some giant iron octopus, its rotting, rust-stained tendrils spreading from majestic Pittsburgh to gleaming Ohio to Damp Wisconsin and Moist Arkansas, this area remains wonderfully Talibanesque in its fear of change, fear of the future, fear of education, fear of progress.   (And who was Balzac anyway? An Algerian, most likely.)
 In this, the angry, fearful, bitter, post-working-class, post-industrial, de-employed, dis-informed region, we find "the beating center of American life".  By which I mean there but for the Grace of God Himself, go I.  (Alas The Fates have destined me to exile--New York City.)    
It would take a Balzac to understand the perplexities and contradictions one finds in these neighborhoods.  Certainly I can't.  But I can pander to their fear of African-Americans, Latin-Americans, Asian-Americans, people who major in the humanities, the very small number of Americas who are tenured college professors, scientists, the Asian-Jewish meritocracy, elitist smartie-pants giving them the high hat (such as Lincoln with his high hat) and any other other type of verbal sticky shitty hate and fear I can dream up. In the name of "moderation", of course.  (Hey, don't blame me, I'm just a Republican.  It's what we do.)
In some places, as many as a 2% majority of these voters switched parties in the last election. Although since at least these same idiots switch in every election, one might really seriously question as to whether these people would just do this no matter what.  But this isn't the time for me to question my rhetoric: It's the time for me to state that I Was Right All Along And That's Why The Democrats Lost.  Not that I've ever been wrong about anything.  Besides, we're talking about the people who bothered to fucking show up on Election Day--and as we all know, the elderly are the smartest and wisest amongst us.  I mean, have you ever tried to play bingo? Not as easy as it looks.
In other words, these seemingly utterly irrational, vote-jumping, band-wagon-hopping, Social-Security-&-Medicare-Loving, Government-&-Tax-Hating, apparent-morons are in fact the wisest folk in our nation.  And, they must be listened to.  
Because no matter what: They're going to show up on the next Election Day and vote for the other guy.  And if that isn't wisdom, I don't know what is.

‘Blindsided’ - A President’s Story - NYTimes.com


I'm glad she liked the book. Are we really supposed to believe that there wasn't a team of editors and ghostwriters churning out yet more propaganda for The Gullible Right? Geez, they probably started working on this book during his first campaign. Right thoughtful of them.

‘Blindsided’ - A President’s Story - NYTimes.com

Bush Writes Buddy Comedy Screenplay On Spec

"I'll be the veteran cop and Stevie Wonder there will be my
comical side-kick."

Dear Mr. President,



(Part of my continuing series wherein I give people in power my advice which I'm sure they take very very seriously.)
Where's the lofty rhetoric? The soaring oratory? The Gettysburg Address was written during a war. Not as a chapter in a pre-campaign autobiography.  Propaganda, like power, abhors a vacuum.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Unmeasurable Effect of God (Betrand Russell's Teapot)

"Man, I am so
stoned right now."
Betrand Russell's teapot:
Just because something can't be observed doesn't mean it can't exist.  This is why prayer only seems to not work--you need a very, very, very small ruler. (I'm talking really nanoparticles here.)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

NOVEMBER 2010: IT'S ALL HAPPENING AGAIN.

And suddenly, a million voices cried out, "IT'S 2004 ALL OVER AGAIN.  THIS IS WORSE THAN THE PHANTOM MENACE. WAY, WAY WORSE. ITS A NIGHTMARE FROM WHICH THEIR IS NO WAKING. IT'S A MADHOUSE, A MADHOUSE...."

And then there was the sound of a million cans of Foster's Lager being opened, and then...silence.

Monday, November 1, 2010

For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option -- Opinion Focus with Eugene Robinson - The Washington Post

For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option -- Opinion Focus with Eugene Robinson - The Washington Post:

Excellent read. I think Eugene Robinson is becoming one of my favorites.

For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option -- Opinion Focus with Eugene Robinson - The Washington Post

For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option -- Opinion Focus with Eugene Robinson - The Washington Post

Abe Lincoln: The Smuggest Elitist

It should be noted that long, long before Theodore Roosevelt implemented Marxist ideology by introducing laws to "preserve" the environment in which we allegedly live (John Galton, I'm sure, would have quite a bit to say about that--and if you can't rely on a fictional character, whom can you trust?), there was the most snobbish elitist of them all: Abraham Lincoln.

First of all, he wanted to violate the rights of states that were clearly enshrined in the Constitution--the right to give black people permanent job security.

(Though now that I think about it, that smacks of socialism...)

Lincoln, like many elitists, could read and write.  Also, he wrote speeches which suggested that he might be more talented than many (Another sign of common sign elitism.)  And like many of our present-day liberal elitists, he thought he knew better than many of the citizens of his nation.  Especially the ones who wanted to end it.

Unlike Ayn Rand, whose love for the common man was well-known (especially the ones who made skirts from the skin of fat women), Lincoln was the apotheosis of the all-around high hat smartie-pants know-it-all.  And he literally wore a high hat.  Is it any wonder he gave America--or parts thereof--the high hat? Not really.

And rather than allow the South to go on in the mode of the rural paradise it no doubt was at the time, instead Lincoln went on about 'saving the Union' and 'ending slavery', wagging his finger at the Southerners as though they were naughty schoolchildren, not adults perfectly capable of thinking for themselves.  To their undying honor, however, the Confederacy showed the extent of their disagreement by allowing themselves to be butchered in vast numbers.  I hear John Galt silently nodding in approval, however.  Because no one gives John Galt the high hat (or he'll burn your house down) (rather like I did with this very noisy neighbor I had a few years back...but I digress).

On the other hand, the Civil War led directly to the creation of country-western music, so I suppose that is something we should all be thankful for.

More on the Mortgage Mess - NYTimes.com

More on the Mortgage Mess - NYTimes.com

I'd like to see what libertarian/TeaKnob/conservative reacts when they're home is foreclosed upon. I'm sure they'll go quietly without complaint. I'm certainly sure they won't complain about the injustice others do to them. Naw.