Nice quote from Charles Darwin

"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

Nice quote from prince of leaves

I’m not voting against Obama because he’s black. I’m voting agains Obama because he’s red.
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/06/21/obama-drops-pre-emptive-race-bomb/

Nice quote from Chris Hitchens

“People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it.”

Nice quote from right-wing nut house...

It has been asked “Is America ready for a black president?” Maybe a more relevant question would be “Can America see through a racial charlatan who will shamlessly use the color of his skin to avoid debating the tough issues and call his opponents “racists” for disagreeing with him?”

Nice article from Steyn. This guy is so right...

Steyn on America
Sunday, 15 June 2008
The short version of the Democratic Party primary campaign is that the media fell in love with Barack Obama but the Democratic electorate declined to.

"I felt this thrill going up my leg," said MSNBC's Chris Matthews after one of the senator's speeches. "I mean, I don't have that too often." Au contraire, Chris and the rest of the gang seem to be getting the old tingle up the thigh hairs on a nightly basis. If Obama is political Viagra, the media are at that stage in the ad where the announcer warns that, if leg tingles persist for more than six months, see your doctor.

Out there in the voting booths, however, Democrat legs stayed admirably unthrilled. The more the media told Hillary she was toast, and she should get the hell out of it and let Obama romp to victory, the more Democrats insisted on voting for her. The more the media insisted Barack was inevitable, the less inclined the voters were to get with the program. On the strength of Chris Matthews' vibrating calves, Sen. Obama raised a ton of money – over $300 million – and massively outspent Sen. Clinton, but he didn't really get any bang for his buck. In the end, he crawled over the finish line. The Obama Express came a-hurtlin' down the track at 2 miles an hour.

But what does he care? Sen. Obama has learned an old trick of Bill Clinton's: If you behave like a star, you'll get treated as one. So, even as his numbers weakened, his rhetoric soared. By the time he wrapped up his "victory" speech last week, the great gaseous uplift had his final paragraphs floating in delirious hallucination along the Milky Way:

"I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people … . I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation."


It's a good thing he's facing it with "profound humility," isn't it? Because otherwise who knows what he'd be saying. But mark it in your calendars: June 3, 2008 – the long-awaited day, after 232 years, that America began to provide care for the sick. Just a small test program: 47 attendees of the Obama speech were taken to hospital and treated for nausea. Everyone else came away thrilled that the Obamessiah was going to heal the planet and reverse the rise of the oceans: When Barack wants to walk on the water, he doesn't want to have to use a stepladder to get up on it.
There are generally two reactions to this kind of policy proposal. The first was exemplified by the Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder:

"What a different emotional register from John McCain's; Obama seems on the verge of tears; the enormous crowd in the Xcel Center seems ready to lift Obama on its shoulders; the much smaller audience for McCain's speech interrupted his remarks with stilted cheers."

The second reaction boils down to: "'Heal the planet'? Is this guy nuts?" To be honest I prefer a republic whose citizenry can muster no greater enthusiasm for their candidate than "stilted cheers" to one in which the crowd wants to hoist the nominee onto their shoulders for promising to lower ocean levels within his first term. As for coming together "to remake this great nation," if it's so great, why do we have to remake it? A few months back, just after the New Hampshire primary, a Canadian reader of mine – John Gross of Quebec – sent me an all-purpose stump speech for the 2008 campaign:

"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it."

I thought this was so cute, I posted it on the Web at National Review. Whereupon one of those Internetty-type things happened, and three links and a Google search later the line was being attributed not to my correspondent but to Sen. Obama, and a few weeks after that I started getting e-mails from reporters from Florida to Oregon, asking if I could recall at which campaign stop the senator, in fact, uttered these words. And I'd patiently write back and explain that they're John Gross' words, and that not even Barack would be dumb enough to say such a thing in public. Yet last week his demand in his victory speech that we "come together to remake this great nation" came awful close.

Speaking personally, I don't want to remake America. I'm an immigrant, and one reason I came here is because most of the rest of the Western world remade itself along the lines Sen. Obama has in mind. This is pretty much the end of the line for me. If he remakes America, there's nowhere for me to go – although presumably once he's lowered sea levels around the planet there should be a few new atolls popping up here and there.

Marc Ambinder is right. Obama's rhetoric is in a different "emotional register" from John McCain's. It's in a different "emotional register" from every U.S. president – not just the Coolidges but the Kennedys, too. Nothing in Obama's resume suggests he's the man to remake America and heal the planet. Only last week, another of his pals bit the dust, convicted by a Chicago jury of 16 counts of this and that. "This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew," said the senator, in what's becoming a standard formulation. Likewise, this wasn't the Jeremiah Wright he knew. And these are guys he's known for 20 years.

Yet at the same time as he's being stunned by the corruption and anti-Americanism of those closest to him, Obama's convinced that just by jetting into Tehran and Pyongyang he can get to know America's enemies and persuade them to hew to the straight and narrow. No doubt if it all goes belly-up, and Iran winds up nuking Tel Aviv, President Obama will put on his more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger face and announce solemnly that "this isn't the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I knew."

Every time I hear an Obama speech, I start to giggle. But millions of voters don't. And, if Chris Matthews and the tingly-legged media get their way and drag Obama across the finish line this November, the laugh will be on those of us who think that serious times demand grown-up rhetoric.

What we should do about the gas prices...

I've been listening to Hannity's radio show, and Sean is promoting a petition that would demand Congress to allow drilling in America (you can sign the petition here). Personally, I think this is not enough. I believe conservative radio talk show hosts, conservative writers, bloggers and all people of good will should organize a nation-wide 2-day demonstration in front of the gas stations (this could be done on the weekend) with conservatives showing signs like "Gas is so expensive because liberals don't want to drill in America" or "Republicans want to lower your gas prices - Liberals want to raise them to save caribous in Alaska".

If we could have many gas stations covered in one blitz attack - we could get quite a reaction from the citizens. Either American people will force liberals to let the oil industry to drill, or they will decide to vote for republicans in November. Americans are pretty pissed off today, GOP should use it. Of course, there is little hope that the GOP leadership can do anything, so it's up to citizen activists to do so. In reality, it should not be too difficult to organize. It could also be a good idea to link with truck drivers, farmers and others, and organize some acts of civil disobedience, road blocks in front of Capitol and the like. It could be a huge event, and it would shook the country.

Here is why I am pissed...

The Boumediene v. Bush decision by five liberal judges, Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, which granted enemy combatants harbeus corpus has been met with obvious glee from the left. The conservatives were understandably pissed off. Here is one possible explanation for the conservative reaction. Back in 2005, same five liberal judges Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer decided that the government has a right to take your property "to promote welfare" - i.e. basically, if the government likes it, it can take and pay you whatever it thinks it okay (see Kelo vs City of New London). In other words, same liberal judges grant more and more rights to terrorists, while fucking up the rights of law abiding Americans. Now, I wonder, why wouldn't this piss off the liberals? Could someone explain?

Very nice quote...

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded ≈ here and there, now and then ≈ are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck." --- Robert A. Heinlein

Liberals are so stupid, it's amazing....

A few days ago I read this article on internet. It was written by a Clinton secretary of labor, Robert Reich. The article is amazingly stupid. I mean, at some point, this guy should take a basic class on economics.

Reich's comments reminded me of a passage from an old Russian book "12 chairs". Two crooks got on the ship cruise, pretending that they were artists. At some point they were asked to paint a drawing. One crook asks another "I've got a question for you, as one artist to another, can you paint?".

Anyway, here is a nice passage that surprised me:

..(it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise, eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury more than $9 billion, and generate more pollution).

I would like to understand why would the consumers have zero benefit if the proposed tax cuts stimulate the demand? In other words, if the prices were not lowered by the tax cut, why would the demand rise? And if prices are lowered, wouldn't the consumers benefit from it?

To put it bluntly, liberal economists (nice oxymoron) would greatly increase their understanding of economy if they took time to familiarize themselves with the law of supply and demand. Mr.Reich, when are you going to take Macroeconomics 101 class? Seriously, this is embarrassing.

One of the reasons why rich kids tend to be liberal

Quite recently we started looking for a school for our elder kid. After some hesitation, we dismissed the government schools - since we knew that they were horrible. The only decent option was to go to private schools. Now, I hope you understand that we are not super rich, and it's not easy for us to afford a private school. Moreover, both of us, my wife and I are non-religious Jews, which meant christian schools were out of question. One school that caught our attention was a secular private school, pretty expensive, excellent SAT scores, good statistics for university admissions. One thing among others caught my attention. During the interview we asked the school bureaucrat about the kids who go to that school, and whether the private school prepares them to live in a real world, not in a gated community. The answer was quite amazing - we were told that the teachers understand our concerns, and that they do everything possible to let the kids understand the world and the community. One of the things they do is to send kids regularly to work in the kitchens for the poor folks.

Now, think about it. Say, you are from a very rich family. You are surrounded by rich kids in the kindergarten, school, university. Your neighbors are rich. The only people you see who are out of your circle are the bums, drug addicts and the like. I wonder if this is what pushes rich kids to become liberal and elitist. That - and uber-liberal propaganda in schools and universities.

What about them Supreme Court Judges?

Here is an excellent quote from the Goldberg's article .

Supreme Court justices must “solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God.”

Note the bit about doing right to poor and rich alike. Feeling sorry for the poor guy who violates the Constitution or the law has no role in how a Supreme Court justice is supposed to make a decision. Legislators can write laws based on empathy. They can invoke their pet theories about “how the world works.” They can even, as Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg are fond of doing, consult foreign laws and court decisions in their efforts to make a more perfect union. But Supreme Court justices are supposed to decide what the written law requires, not pick winners and losers based upon some sense of noblesse oblige. That’s why all of those statues of Lady Justice show her standing blindfolded, not bent over kissing the boo-boos of the unfortunate and the downtrodden.

Excellent quote from Mark Steyn

As for "gun-totin'," large numbers of Americans tote guns because they're assertive, self-reliant citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. The Second Amendment is philosophically consistent with the First Amendment, for which I've become more grateful since the Canadian Islamic Congress decided to sue me for "hate speech" up north. Both amendments embody the American view that liberty is not the gift of the state, and its defense cannot be outsourced exclusively to the government.

Read the full article here

QUOTE OF THE MONTH (From www.anncoulter.com)

"Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain."

--Thomas Sowell

This is an excellent quote

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted one will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Lyndon Johnson

Nice quotes about freedom of speech

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ~Henry Steele Commager


The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. ~Tommy Smothers


Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. ~Potter Stewart


We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764


The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book. ~Walt Whitman


Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire


I am thankful for all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech. ~Nancie J. Carmody


The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. ~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959


Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. ~Abbott Joseph Liebling, "Do You Belong in Journalism?" New Yorker, 4 May 1960


A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad. ~Albert Camus


To reject the word is to reject the human search. ~Max Lerner, 1953, on book purging


Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. ~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935


What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. ~Sigmund Freud, 1933


Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823


Every burned book enlightens the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


The paper burns, but the words fly away. ~Akiba ben Joseph


Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" ~Joseph Henry Jackson


If you don't have this freedom of the press, then all these little fellows are weaseling around and doing their monkey business and they never get caught. ~Harold R. Medina


Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture. ~Theodore Schroeder


Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. ~George Bernard Shaw, "The Rejected Statement, Part I," The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, 1911


I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it. ~Mae West


Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself. ~Dick Cavett


The test of democracy is freedom of criticism. ~David Ben-Gurion


If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859


To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor▓s prohibited list. ~John Aikin


To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves. ~Claude-Adrien Helvétius


Censorship offends me. ~Author Unknown


We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ~John F. Kennedy


God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide. ~Rebecca West


If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~Noam Chomsky


Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." ~Lenny Bruce


Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man! ~Thomas Carlyle


Books won't stay banned -
Ideas won't go to jail.
~Alfred Whitney Griswold


You can cage the singer but not the song. ~Harry Belafonte, in International Herald Tribune, 3 October 1988


I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire


The populist authoritarianism that is the downside of political correctness means that anyone, sometimes it seems like everyone, can proclaim their grief and have it acknowledged. The victim culture, every sufferer grasping for their own Holocaust, ensures that anyone who feels offended can call for moderation, for dilution, and in the end, as is all too often the case, for censorship. And censorship, that by-product of fear - stemming as it does not from some positive agenda, but from the desire to escape our own terrors and superstitions by imposing them on others - must surely be resisted. ~Jonathon Green, "Did You Say 'Offensive?'," as posted on wordwizard.com