enormous iNCoNgrUiTieS|A Beacon of Intermittence

Sooo, you’re supposed to send Glenn an angry email when he doesn’t link your stuff:

UPDATE. Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link. I owe him an apology. When he didn’t link this post quickly enough to suit me, I sent him a cranky email.

I did not know that.

Sheesh, I dint even put the link in. InstaPunk is Mr Bold. And in this post he gives a good description of Obama

For a variety of reasons, we all know very little about Barack Obama. His life has been much like his campaign persona, featuring some point of contact for all people. If you’re poor and black, he at least is black. If you’re white and highly educated, he at least is highly educated. If you’re a struggling single mother, he at least was raised by a single mother. If you’re a Catholic or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Baptist, he at least belongs to a nominally Christian church. If you’re anybody who believes in the American Dream, he is at least, regardless of policy differences, a living embodiment of the American Dream. He has a finger in every pie. His speeches have been analogous. He wants things to be better. He wants less rancorous partisanship. He wants less conflict between America and the rest of the world. And he asserts his confidence, ever so believably, that all these utopian goals can be achieved because he is all of us, in one way or another.

Sounds kinda Manchurian.

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How is it when rights and freedoms are being usurped from the people in the name of safety and security the mantra is always, “Well, if it saves just one life it’s worth it.” But when it is the right of the police state to continue with their botched SWAT para-military raids enforcing the failed War on Drugs an innocent life here or there is not that big a deal?

I bet for a tenth of the cost I could come up with a better, more effective drug policy than the War on Drugs zero tolerance bullshit with which we are now saddled. And half of that amount would go into my pocket for being so smart. If we can damn near eliminate one of the most addictive substances known to mankind, nicotine, in a single generation with nothing but public disapproval and admonishment, then I see no reason why the same can not work for other addictive substances.

One reason why I think the decriminalization path is rejected out of hand is because the distinction between those who without the drug addiction have opportunity and those who don’t will be painfully evident to the social do-gooders. Better to point at the drugs as the failure point than to point at the true source of failure: Seventy years of failed social policy. For example, if you successfully take both a college grad and a poor slum dweller off heroine, the college grad has a real chance to make something of what’s left of his life whereas the slum dweller is still in the slum where the heroine still looks pretty good.

In the name of equality, it is fair then to throw them both in jail.

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This is why we wind up with more accidents with red light cameras, not less:

Dallas lawmakers originally estimated a gross yearly revenue of about $15 million for the system. The city is about $4 million below that estimate.

But were any lives saved, that’s the real question. Because even of only one life were saved the red-light cameras are worth it. Right? No?

So a very clever bean-counting half-wit comes along and says, “Hey, how bout we shorten the yellow lights? Yeah, that the ticket.”

(Via Instapundit)

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Heh, looks like I called it right on the Wal-Mart Muslim connection.

Managers say they seek peace with the neighborhood’s merchants — and vow not to undercut them on Middle Eastern specialties. But some experts and observers say Wal-Mart’s well-planned launch in Dearborn is bound to shake up the buying and selling in a community that has long supported its own. Southeastern Michigan is home to an estimated 300,000 people who trace their roots to the Middle East.

And another 30,000 who don’t have any roots to trace.

Not that there is anything wrong with catering to niche customers in niche markets, but I just knew Wal-Mart must have a Muslim sensitive operation going on to cave to some kind of demand from CAIR to pull all advertising from The Savage Nation.

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One of Emperor Palpatines Governors:

“The plot of the separatists will fail,” the head of Tibet’s government warned as [storm troopers] patrolled the main city of Coruscant.

State media said the 10 killed in Friday’s clashes had included business people who were “burnt to death” (Link)

Whoever decided to let China host the Olympics is a fucking idiot. I don’t know how to say it any nicer. I could have told ya that trying to treat a tyrannical communist dictatorship such as China as if they were a civilized culture just because they sell trillions of dollars worth of crappy merchandise to Wal-Mart was a big mistake.

I wonder how fun the Olympics will be after the Chicoms slaughter a bunch of Tibetan Monks?

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Some bailout. I’m sure the government had to convince JP Morgan (like, say with a $200B credit facility) to take the deal.

Pushed to the brink of collapse by the mortgage crisis, Bear Stearns Cos. agreed — after prodding by the federal government — to be sold to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. for the fire-sale price of $2 a share in stock, or about $236 million

Or one could have said, “One of the major contributors to the mortgage crisis, Bear Stearns…” But that doesn’t help the narrative that it’s Bush and the Republicans fault.

But Damn, Bearns (short for Bear Stearns) must have more than $250 million in liquid assets… which means Bearns must be so insolvent that even if they liquidated everything to the last paperclip they would still need billions more to come even.

Of course I don’t know any of this for sure, but it seems likely after considering it a bit. Why in the world would JP Morgan take on Bearns? If it were a good deal there would be a line of suiters making counter offers of eleven cents on the dollar.

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