Month: June 2009

Totten calls it a “revolution”

Michael J. Totten, one of the better independent journalists around, is calling what’s happening in Iran a revolution now. He’s blogging it here[*1] .

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”

US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive[*1]

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.

Actually, there’s a germ of a good idea here. Unfortunately, considering the general economic illiteracy of those currently in power, they can be trusted to implement the idea in the worst possible way, resulting in a situation in “Rust Belt” cities that’s even more miserable than what we have now.

The psychotics are coming out

June 7th, a deranged psychotic assassinates notorious abortion doctor[*1] .

June 8th: a deranged psychotic assassinates one soldier, and wounds another in Little Rock[*2] .

Next, a deranged psychotic kills a guard at the Holocaust Museum[*3] .

In all cases, everybody EXCEPT the deranged psychotic is blamed, mainly to score some kind of political point. As you see at the last link, the Holocaust suspect apparently belonged to just about every wacko fringe movement, without regard to “left” or “right.”

Sometimes, a deranged psychotic killer is just a deranged psychotic killer. The one in Wichita was an anti-abortion fanatic. The one in Little Rock was an Islamic fanatic. The one in Washington, DC. was just plain nuts. I’m not sure how much more analysis of them is necessary or prudent.

Commercials I hate

Any of the Progressive Insurance “Flo” commercials.

Any pharmaceutical commercial.

Any commercial that includes a phone number.

There are probably more, but those would be a good start . . .

Statutory rape fantasist David Letterman

The title says it all. Forever more the CBS late night show host should be referred to as:

“Statutory rape fantasist David Letterman”

You said what you said, Davey boy. It can not be unsaid. You, and any writer or producer who participated in the writing of—or knew the contents of—that “joke,” and still allowed it to be broadcast, should resign. If you don’t resign, you should be fired.

That would be the beginning of an acceptable “apology.”

Are politicians, as a group, insane?

Thought for the day: the desire to be a politician is itself a sign of mental illness.

I was thinking about this on the way home from breakfast. So what do I find, linked at Instapundit[*1] ? This Esquire[*2] article:

On January 20, Barack Obama became president of a deranged nation. He did so apparently taking no notice of the fact that a good portion of the country, a country that otherwise repeatedly voiced its support for him in poll after poll after poll, continued to be completely out of its mind. He was calm and reasoned, and he spoke in measured tones about the challenges he and the nation were facing. And then he seemed to go manic on us.

I wonder though, if the impulse which sends individuals to seek political power of any kind might not be some kind of mental disorder.

A cheerful though, is it not? This might be why I have the general opinion that anybody who wants to be President probably shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Washington, D.C., let alone the Oval Office.

Update: Dr. Helen[*3] (the wife of Instapundit, linked above) graciously and quickly answered an e-mail I sent her on this subject, and I think the thrust of her reply was that “insane” is probably too strong. She notes that (many but perhaps not all) politicians are prone to narcissism–and for whatever reason, the rest of us are prone to vote for narcissists. So perhaps I should be asking “Are politicians, as a group, mentally ill” instead, as narcissism is a recognized mental illness[*4] .

Helpful hint for the coming depression

Don’t REALLY put all your money in your mattress[*1] . Or if you do, make sure you don’t have a daughter that likes to surprise you:

An Israeli woman unknowingly threw out her mother’s old mattress which contained $1 million in savings, the Yediot Ahronot reported on Wednesday.

The woman, identified only as Anat, said she wanted to give her elderly mother a surprise and had bought a new mattress on Monday, throwing the old one out.

However, the “surprise” turned into despair for the mother, who kept all her savings in the mattress, and the news initiated a mad, desperate search through Tel Aviv’s myriad of waste tips.

The search has already been going on for three days but there has been no trace of the $1 million-dollar mattress, which may be hard to find among the 3,000 tons of trash dumped every day at the site.

Oops.

GMRetardation.com

A link to gmretardation.com[*1] . As Moe Lane[*2] notes, the person or persons behind this site are “not happy”.

I predict that they will have much more company in the next six to twelve months, given the economic illiteracy of our rulers.

“See how we totally screwed over the American taxpayer.”

Question Authority. Buy a Ford.