John Derbyshire, who I once came to the defense of, is alive and well; and has survived superstorm Sandy’s wrath.
Good show ol’ chap. 😀
I shall begin posting Derb’s Podcasts here, with proper credit links to said websites.
(H/T VDare)
Tag: politics
Sunday Thoughts: Phil Gramm was right, we are a Nation of whiners, thugs, and idiots
I just happen to be reading this over at InstaPundit and following the links; and I have come to a conclusion: Phil Gramm was absolutely correct, we are a Nation of whiners.
Compare and Contrast the following quotes:
New York Hurricane Sandy Victims:
“We’re going to die! We’re going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!” — “You don’t understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It’s been three days!”
Said on twitter before Hurricane Hit: (Via InfoWars)
“Bout to do some looting when this hurricane finally hits….gonna get a new laptop and tv…this hurricane might be the best thing to happen.” (SOURCE)
“If this hurricane gets real bad I’m looting stores ! i always wanted to do that.” (SOURCE)
“I’m gonna go looting once this hurricane hits Utica.” (SOURCE)
“Has #HurricaneSandy made landfall yet? My bitch ass is ready to go looting!” (SOURCE)
“helllll yeah I’m gonna go looting after the storm hits.” (SOURCE)
“Who wants to go looting with me when Sandy hits?! I need some new shit! (SOURCE)
….and you know what? They did too, Check out this report here, of people looting after Hurricane Sandy Hit.
In contrast, check out what Nashville Resident wrote after the Nashville Flood of 2010: (via FreeRepublic)
Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website.
What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.
If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.
The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.
Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite possibly the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.
But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.
Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.
Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.
And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.
Because we are Nashville
Now, I know what happened in New York was horrible; but I just cannot help but think that Phil Gramm was right. We are nothing but a nation of whiners, who expect the Government to cater to our every whim. It is a sick and sad, however, I do not place the blame directly on the people of New York City. I blame the media, and conditioning of people from their youth by public school systems. People these days are not taught self-reliance and how to survive, if something like a Hurricane comes up. They are taught from a young age, that the Government is your big protector and nanny and will keep you from harms way, and if you end up a victim, the Government will give you everything you need. This sadly, was never the intended role of any sort of Government at all.
Quite simply, it is simply a matter of common sense, if you know a Hurricane is coming up, you grab all of your personal items that you wish to keep; and you get the hell out of the path of the Hurricane! Now for the elderly, the common excuse is that they could not leave. There is always a way to get out, someone somewhere could have gotten those people out, and helped them get their important stuff out too. The truth is, either they did not want to leave or no one wanted to be bothered with them at all.
I know that I said that I was not going to politicize this, but the way I see it; if the NYT does not mind doing it and if the NY Governor does not mind doing it, neither do I. It is sick and sad that people are conditioned to rely on the Government for everything. I could get into a discussion about race and self-reliance, but I do not want to get called a racist, by the Frankfurt School types on the left and the right.
What gets me, is all the money that will be spent, in the name of “Humanity.” Money that we do not have, it is amazing, we talk about being broke; until a disaster comes and all of the sudden, the money comes out of thin air! My question is, where is all this money coming from? What programs are being raided, just so some idiot person, who was too stupid to get out of the storms path can feel taken care of?
It sounds heartless. But it is the truth.
—
Announcement: I am fundraising for the blog, care to help? (There’s a big different between Government being a nanny, and Conservatives helping each other out, for the benefit of the unlearned.)
Peggy Noonan knows what I have known for a long while too.
Please, go check out her latest. She writes so elegantly. If I wrote half as good as she did; I would be a multi-millionaire.
Peggy writes:
He faced big problems—an economic crash, two wars—but those crises gave him broad latitude. All of his stars were perfectly aligned. He could do anything.
And then it all changed. At a certain point he lost the room.
Books will be written about what happened, but early on the president made two terrible legislative decisions. The stimulus bill was a political disaster, and it wasn’t the cost, it was the content. We were in crisis, losing jobs. People would have accepted high spending if it looked promising. But the stimulus was the same old same old, pure pork aimed at reliable constituencies. It would course through the economy with little effect. And it would not receive a single Republican vote in the House (three in the Senate), which was bad for Washington, bad for our politics. It was a catastrophic victory. It did say there was a new boss in town. But it also said the new boss was out of his league.
I remember that well, very well. I remember thinking, “Why is Obama doing this backwards? Why is he spending and tinkering with health care, instead of working on making a climate for job growth?”
Indeed, Obama was over his head.
Remember this come November 6.
Revenge Versus Love
First off, please head over to NRO’s The Corner for context of these two videos.
Okay, now that you have read that; watch these two video:
Obama wants you to vote for this reason:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZHMsivjr04
On the other hand, Mitt Romney wants you to vote for this reason:
Okay now that you have watched this, I would like to you to watch the following video. Scroll to the 00:50 mark in the video and take in the music video, which is very much awesome and the speech by the person who gave inspiration to the Tea Party movement and motivated this writer to abandon the Democratic Party for good. Trust me, it is something that you want to watch. 😀
This is why I am politically active and sit in front of this laptop for hours writing, despite being ignored by many and not really getting paid. This is why I have lost friends, and lost readership, this is why I have strained relations with my family. Because I dare to stand for something different.
For the future, for liberty and for Country.
I cannot wait till November 6.
Interesting political e-mail of the day
When I saw the title, I thought it was from a Conservative group; it wasn’t. It was from these guys:
The title?
“Turn off MSNBC”
The e-mail:
|
|
|
Wow! When the AFL-CIO is telling people to turn off MSNBC, you KNOW something is wrong in hamburger helper land. If you catch my drift. I am thinking that the liberals are already conceding defeat.
I have a really good feeling about this election, I really do. I do believe that the silent majority is going to vote and things are going to change once again; for the good.
If you will allow me to just blather on for a second here; the Democrats have no one to blame, but themselves. They did it to themselves. They chose skin color over real experience. They chose to follow in the footsteps of Carter, instead of Roosevelt. They chose to pursue far-leftist ideology, over pragmatism. They chose to run to the far-left, instead of a moderate Democratic agenda. They chose to attempt to alter the Nation’s healthcare system, instead of trying to fix the economy. They did it backwards; and now, they are paying the price for it.
I said this long ago, that the Democrats would pay and pay dearly for it; and now it is coming to pass. There are consequences to overreach, just like Republican-controlled Congress suffered under Dennis Hastert in 2007. Just like Democrats suffered in 2009, when they lost big. You cannot overreach in politics, when you do, you suffer for it. George H.W. Bush did it, Clinton did it, but managed to stay in office. George W. Bush did it, and John McCain lost.
I am pretty much thinking here, that if Romney wins this election, that the Democrats are going to suffer a huge setback and that the party could very well fall apart. I hope not; I hope that more saner, moderate voices will take that party back and move it more towards the center. I believe in divided Government, and I believe that the Democrat’s future is in moderation, not in extremist policies.
However, because I am a realist, and I know how progressivism works; I happen to know that, once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no putting it back. Let’s just say that the big black genie was let out of the bottle in 2008 and the Democrats are going to have a heck of a time getting him back in that bottle.
Hope requires Faith, and now, I just do not have much Faith in the Democratic Party of today.
The Saturday Night Music Express Presents: Led Zeppelin
Simply in response to, and inspired by this here and yes, this here too.
November 6’th cannot come fast enough for me here.
Lyrics:
“No Quarter”
Close the door, put out the light.
You know they won’t be home tonight.
The snow falls hard and don’t you know?
The winds of Thor are blowing cold.
They’re wearing steel that’s bright and true
They carry news that must get through.
The snow falls hard and don’t you know?
The winds of Thor are blowing cold.
They’re wearing steel that’s bright and true
They carry news that must get through.
They choose the path where no-one goes.
They hold no quarter.
Walking side by side with death, The devil mocks their every step
The snow drives back the foot that’s slow, The dogs of doom are howling more
They carry news that must get through, To build a dream for me and you
They choose the path where no-one goes.
They hold no quarter. They ask no quarter.
The pain, the pain without quarter.
They ask no quarter.
The dogs of doom are howling more!
Video: a very funny, but fake political ad
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg exploits hurricane Sandy for political purposes
As you all remember, I hollered at people on the right and the left for doing it and even praised Chris Christie for not making hurricane sandy into a political issue.
Well, true to his partisan hack self; the idiotic Mayor of New York City endorses the President and cites, yes, climate change as his reason. Seriously.
Via Bloomberg:
The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast — in lost lives, lost homes and lost business — brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief.
The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods — something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable.
Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be — given this week’s devastation — should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.
Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan — PlaNYC — has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group — a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities — local governments are taking action where national governments are not.
Go read the rest of that mind-numbing stupidity. Let me be clear here, I am not saying that I deny climate change at all. I simply believe that it is an unsettled science and I also believe that it is a science and cause that got horrible politicized by the left. I also believe that the results of the science, so far — have been horrible hyped by the left. Global warming studies and climate change studies ought be done away from anyone having anything remotely to do with politics.
In other words, I would like to have the studies done with some sort of integrity. Furthermore, I believe this science should not be a political football or wedge issue. Just like the auto industry, whom my Father actually worked in for 31 years. The auto industry became a political football, because of the TARP loans. This was disappointing to me, because when the auto industry is in your family like that, to see something that many men and woman worked to build for so many years; become a political football — it just hurts. 
Before anyone says it; Yes, I know about the Romney ad. I was not happy to read about that and I wish Romney had not went there, at all. But, that, as they say, is politics.
Just like this endorsement — it is politics — and sometimes, politics sucks.
Others: The Atlantic Online, Washington Wire, CNN, GOP 12, The Hill, BuzzFeed, Wonkblog, New York Magazine, , Election 2012, Politicker, Weasel Zippers, Mediaite, ABCNEWS, msnbc.com, The New Civil Rights Movement, The Daily Caller, The Political Carnival, Capital Tonight, CBS DC, First Read, Poynter, Guardian, The PJ Tatler, This Just In, Lynn Sweet, Booman Tribune, Gothamist and Connecting.the.Dots, more at Mediagazer »
The Obligatory Dominican Republic Hookers rat out Democratic Party senator posting
Ho hum, another sex scandal; big deal.
Via Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller:
Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.
In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.
The women spoke through a translator in the company of their attorney, Melanio Figueroa. Both asked that their identities remain obscured for fear of reprisals in the Dominican Republic.
Of course, the Senator’s office says:
Asked about the allegations, Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright refused to answer any questions on the subject. “We’re not going to respond to a completely false accusation,” she wrote by email.
So, the question is, who is telling the truth? Hard to say; the Ladies faces were obscured, so the guy cannot ID them. So, it is a situation of Tucker’s word against the Senator’s. Truthfully, this is a bad path to take for Tucker, it can get him sued and it tends to hurt his credibility.
I just think that there is a better way to fight this battle; instead of gotcha politics, we should just stand on principles. It is too bad that no one listens. 🙁
Update: Whoops forgot this:
Related: Kerry Picket / Washington Times: Flashback- (VIDEO) Sen. Menendez called for secret service agents to be fired over prostitution scandal
Roundup of echo chamber: The New Civil Rights Movement, TPNN, Mediaite, FishbowlDC, The Other McCain, protein wisdom, Riehl World News, GayPatriot, Patterico’s Pontifications, Wonkette, Nice Deb, The PJ Tatler,National Review, The Right Scoop, PoliPundit.com, The Gateway Pundit and The Greenroom, Weasel Zippers, Pat Dollard, The Daily Caller and The Other McCain
Alan Dershowitz : The Jewish Judas
You remember ol’ Alan Dershowitz? The man that went after Media Matters? Turns out he’s nothing more than you’re a-typical self-hating liberal Jew.
Via Tablet Magazine who observes:
If President Barack Obama is so bad on Israel, why are some of his most prominent Jewish critics planning on voting for him anyway? The list of these critics is long, but it includes former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, and media tycoon Haim Saban. All three spent Obama’s first term laying into the president on his Israel policy as if it were their litmus test—and all three are now publicly supporting his re-election.
Powerhouse lawyer Alan Dershowitz criticized Obama in the Wall Street Journal for not sending a tough enough message to the Iranian regime, and he even wondered openly if the president might be remembered as “the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century.”
However, it seems that Dershowitz was sufficiently impressed by Obama’s seriousness regarding Iran when, in a personal meeting in the Oval Office, the president assured him, “I don’t bluff.” Now the professor is stumping for the president in Florida, and yesterday he officially endorsed him in the Jerusalem Post, writing that “the case for the reelection of Barack Obama is a compelling one, based not only on his past record but on the specific policies he has proposed for the next four years.”
Ed Koch famously sent “a message to President Obama that he cannot throw Israel under the bus with impunity” last year in the New York Times. He ripped the president in 2010 when the administration made a big issue out of continued Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. “What they did is they wanted to make Israel into a pariah,” he said of the White House. “It’s outrageous in my judgment.” Koch noted that he campaigned for Obama in 2008, and pushed Jews to vote for him, arguing he would be just as solid in his support for Israel as the Republican candidate, John McCain. “I don’t think it’s true anymore,” said Koch.
But now the mayor is back in Obama’s fold, if somewhat reluctantly, “I believe that he is going to win whether I vote for him or not,” Koch told a radio interviewer in September. “So, wouldn’t it be better that he wins changing his positions?”
In 2011, Haim Saban was angry with the administration for airing its grievances with Israel in public—and he went on CNBC to say so. Now that the election is around the corner, the Israeli-American billionaire is singing a different tune. The president’s “support for Israel’s security and well-being has been rock solid,” Saban wrote in a heavily circulated New York Times op-ed last month. “What’s the case against Mr. Obama? That he hasn’t visited Israel since he was a candidate in 2008? Perhaps these critics have forgotten that George W. Bush, that great friend of Israel, didn’t visit Jerusalem until his seventh year in office,” Saban added. Somehow Saban seems to have forgotten that he is one of those critics.
So, what gives? Obama’s record on Israel, as Koch, Dershowitz, and Saban have all helpfully pointed out, is not good. The president’s strained relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unlikely to improve in a second term when Israeli-American relations will be more crucial than ever with Iran on the verge of nuclear breakout. Obama says he has Israel’s back and reminds us regularly of the trip he took to Sderot as a candidate. But who can forget that he started his first term telling a group of Jewish leaders he invited to the White House that it was important to put daylight between the United States and Israel?
Maybe former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz was right when he wrote after the 2008 election that no matter how dire the situation for Israel, Jews simply cannot bring themselves to vote for Republicans. As much as American Jews care, or claim to care, about the Jewish state, they are not one-issue voters. They care just as much, if not more, about issues that other liberal voters care about, like abortion and gay rights. (Podhoretz had hoped for “buyer’s remorse” among Jews who supported Obama in 2008, but no such luck. The latest Gallup poll shows that Jewish voters are going for Obama over Mitt Romney 70 to 25.)
Yes, I do highly recommend that you go read the rest of that; as it is a very good piece and I really hated to have to quote so much of it; but I wanted everyone to get the gist of what is happening here.
Now, I realize that not all Jews are Zionist; yes, I understand that is a collectivist mentality and I am not much into group thought at all. However, my argument that supporting the Democratic Party would be like a Jew supporting Hitler; is one of an moral argument than anything else. It just to me, as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christian American; an outsider —- does not make any kind of sense at all. Maybe I am just a weirdo or something. Because you would think that seeing all of the stuff, and I do mean ALL OF THE STUFF that the Jews have went through in the last 70 years; that every single cotton-picking Jew in America would want to be on the side that support the Jews one hundred percent and Israel one hundred percent.
This is not to say that Democrats have always been this hostile towards Israel and the Jews. Look what Roosevelt and Truman did during World War 2. The problem is, that is not the same party anymore. In fact, the Democrat Party since 2007, has gotten downright nasty towards Israel, Jews and the sort of stuff. I know, I was over there once.
Something else too, earlier, I wrote a posting ripping William Kristol a new butthole. I also tossed Podhoretz in there, the lovely screwball. Anyhow, as much as I find their foreign policy a bit off-putting. I give them this bit of credit; at least they actually support their own homeland. Which is more than I say about this onion headed idiot Dershowitz! 
I mean, why doesn’t he just say, “Yes, Palestine, Please, kill me, rape my children and steal my money and get it over with.” It is a bit of a sick way of making the point; but I am sure most of you get what I mean.
I guess the further I go here; the less I really understand the Jewish culture; they are a diverse group; and in the case of Israel and her defense — that is a great American tragedy.