VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: A Tour Through Recession America. “In one of the most highly regulated, highly taxed regions in America, noncompliance at every level seems the norm. . . . I am as worried about the elite upscale yuppie as the poor illegal alien. The former have lost almost all connection with physical labor, the physical world, or the ordeal that civilization endures to elevate us from the savagery of nature.”
MORE “RUBES” self-identify. “Nearly all questions and audience feedback were negative, with virtually no applause for Sherman’s answers. There was lots of clapping for hostile questions, lots of hostile rumblings as he tried to answer charges, and some answers were booed. Even the moderator at the end basically accused Sherman of not actually answering a lot of the questions. The audience was not sold on Obama being pro-Israel, nor on Sherman’s excuses for the current situation.” You know, the mouth-breathing troglodytes of talk radio suggested that a serious lefty with the middle name “Hussein” might not be too friendly to Israel, while more sophisticated analysts scoffed at such simplistic analysis. . . .
VIA JEFF ROCHE, some pictures from the Cleveland Tea Party Express stop.
HE WAS BIGGER THAN HE LOOKED ON SCREEN. With most stars, it’s the reverse, in more ways than one.
ATTENTION MARK ADOMANIS: I think that this is the post you’re referencing, but I don’t think it quite reflects the meaning you give it without linking. Funny how lefties have to misrepresent my stuff to criticize it.
UPDATE: Thanks for the apology and correction.
UNDERWATER: Gallup: Obama Approval Hits New Low.
RASMUSSEN: 66% Say America Is Overtaxed. “When thinking about all the services provided by federal, state and local governments, 75% of voters nationwide say the average American should pay no more than 20% of their income in taxes. . . . Sixty-six percent (66%) believe that America is overtaxed. Only 25% disagree. Lower income voters are more likely than others to believe the nation is overtaxed. Not surprisingly, the tax issue provokes a wide gap between the Political Class and Mainstream Americans. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Mainstream American voters believe the nation is overtaxed, while 74% of those in the Political Class disagree.”
UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “That’s because the political class has no intention of paying their taxes.”
ED MORRISSEY explains things.
THE JOY OF RICE COOKERS. Never bought one myself. Should I?
UPDATE: About a gazillion readers respond with an emphatic “yes!” Okay. Just gotta figure out where to come up with the cabinet and counter space for my already gadget-heavy kitchen . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Quick writes that I should use this recipe instead. “I’ve known and used this technique for years. As for cookers: Almost none of them work as advertised, all are bitches to clean, and unless you are feeding an Asian family of six or so, you don’t need that much rice cooking capability.”
YEAH, BLOGGING’S SLOW TODAY: Busy with family and stuff. But if you missed it last week, check out my interview with Byron York about Tea Parties and the RNC’s shenanigans.
MICHAEL YON: Shooting by moonlight in Afghanistan.
THOUGHTS ON bias and expertise in the media.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD on the implications of Episcopal Priest Barbie.
OBAMA’S DIVERSE SUPREME COURT SHORTLIST:
No matter who he chooses, Obama will continue to break new ground, or at least help bolster some of the low numbers of people of certain arguably underrepresented backgrounds on the current Court. For example, Elena Kagan would become only the second former Harvard professor presently on the Court (joining Justice Breyer). Either Kagan or Wood would be only the second Chicago professor (joining Justice Scalia). Further, Merrick Garland would be only the second Justice on the Court who went to Harvard College; then Harvard Law School; then clerked for Henry Friendly; then clerked at the Supreme Court; and then worked at DOJ and was a partner at a big DC law firm before serving on the DC Circuit (joining Chief Justice Roberts).
Elena Kagan would also bring notable educational diversity to the Court. Kagan would be the very first Justice ever to have attended Princeton and then Harvard Law. Obviously, that would be a major break after two consecutive nominees who had attended Princeton and then Yale Law (Justices Alito and Sotomayor). Whoever Obama picks, I think it’s clear that Obama faces a major choice and that his selection will be a historic occasion.
Heh.
UPDATE: Reader John Steakley emails with a question for enterprising reporters: “Mr. President, do you believe that ANY of America’s public university law schools are competent to educate the next Supreme Court Justice? And if so, please name them.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael McMahon writes: “No more Ivy League Justices! Watch for this theme to develop. Stevens was a Northwestern Law grad.”
POPULAR MECHANICS: 10 Cars That Will Define the Electric Market-By Being First.
SO WHERE IS EVERYBODY? The Elusive Search For Aliens. “Fifty years ago this week, on April 8, 1960, a little-known astronomer named Frank Drake sat at the controls of an 85-foot radio telescope at an observatory in Green Bank, W.Va., and began to sweep the skies, looking for a signal from an alien civilization. It was the start of the most ambitious scientific experiment in history.”
THE ANSWER IS “YES.” Come November, will Dems miss Stupak and others from ‘purple districts’?
FISKING THE WASHINGTON POST’S pseudo-apology for bogus claims of Tea Party racism.
JACK LAIL: The iPad as “transformative device.”
DIXIE CARTER has died.
ATTENDING A TAX DAY TEA PARTY? PJTV IS LOOKING FOR CITIZEN REPORTERS:
Tea Party TV — the go-to place for news on the Tea Party Movement — will be streaming comprehensive coverage of the Tax Day Tea Party events. They are inviting citizen reporters to help cover those events. Last year, more than 800 citizen reporters submitted videos and photos to PJTV as they reported on the tax day events in their home towns. This year, 900 citizen reporters have signed up already. You may want to add your voice to these rallies.
If you do, here’s how to do it. Using your iPhone device, you can email the videos you take at the Tax Day Tea Parties right from the event in real time. And you can email the photos you are taking too.
Register as a PJTV Citizen Reporter at http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=pjtv-reporter-signup
Send your practice videos or photos at any time before April 15 to see how the whole process works.
On April 15, email your videos to us in real time, right from the tax day events.Email videos to: tpvideos@pjtv.com
Email photos to: tpphotos@pjtv.comRight now, all you have to do is sign up at http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=pjtv-reporter-signup
With people apparently planning to infiltrate the protests with fake “racism,” citizen reporting is even more important than usual.
BLOGGING FROM THE TEA PARTY EXPRESS in Clinton Township, Michigan.
There sure are a lot of women at these events. Maybe that’s why the men look so cheerful!
RON PAUL: Obama Is Not A Socialist. “He’s a corporatist.”
COPYRIGHT LAW turns 300.
PAUL HSIEH: The Deadly Tax On Medical Innovation.
EUGENE VOLOKH on the Republic vs. Democracy discussion.
NUDGE, NUDGE, WINK, WINK: Behavioral Economics And The Obama White House’s Regulatory Approach.
REPORTS FROM THE LANSING, MICHIGAN TEA PARTY.
More pics here.
UPDATE: Reader Eugene Dillenburg writes:
I attended, and brought a Polish flag to honor fallen American ally Lech Kaczynski. About half a dozen people recognized the flag and offered condolences (one even gave me some impromptu Polish lessons); another half-dozen asked what it meant, and we had some nice conversations.
Two things struck me about the rally:
As usual, a lot of Tea Partiers had signs warning about creeping socialism. Poland, of course, lived under the real thing for 50 years. And in all that time, its people never lost hope. Which brings me to point #2:
Another prominent sign read, “I fear for my country.” I don’t. The challenges we face, while real enough, pale next to those endured by others. And if the Poles could find the courage and the strength to fight their way back to freedom, then I have absolutely no doubt that America will, too.
Well, the Poles had outside help. But yes, I find the doom-and-gloom stuff from some on the right tiresome.
IF YOU MISSED IT ON SIRIUS / XM SATELLITE RADIO, the latest PJM Political is now online.
GROUP PLANS TO “Crash The Tea Party” with fake racist signs.
UPDATE: TigerHawk asks some questions. On the Internet, nobody knows if you’re a dog. But Occam’s razor still applies.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: “During the 2008 campaign, the Obama group argued that Bush & Co. were insensitive to allies and had acted in clumsy, unilateral fashion, permanently damaging our stature in the world. Given the first 15 months of foreign policy in the new administration, we can see now that Obama’s critique largely meant that we had damaged relations with supposed belligerents like Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela — inasmuch as right now, British, Colombian, Czech, German, Honduran, Indian, Israeli, Japanese, Polish, and South Korean leaders might privately prefer the good ‘bad’ old days of the supposed cowboy Bush. All of which raises the question: Why Obama’s shift in foreign policy? I offer four alternatives, uncertain of the answer myself.”
Plus this: “If only Obama treated Iran or Syria as he does Bush, Sarah Palin, and the top 10 percent of American taxpayers.”
CLAUDIA ROSETT: Our suddenly unlucky allies.
A REPORT FROM THE TEA PARTY EXPRESS’S MOTOR CITY STOP. Plus, Jon Voight.
TALKING ABOUT RACISM and debasing the currency. One way or another, debasing the currency is what it’s all about, apparently.
EXPLOITING THE DISADVANTAGED: Interns for me, but not for thee.
FROM GAIL COLLINS, the smell of fear.
MARKDOWNS ON grills and smokers.
JIM HOFT IS PLANNING FOR NEXT WEEK’S Tax Day Tea Party in St. Louis.
AT THE MOVIES WITH . . . Queers For Palestine?
PREDICTING EARTHQUAKES WITH a network of iPhones?
“Each smartphone has an accelerometer built into it,” says Robert W. Clayton, a professor of geology at Caltech. “It’s primary function is to determine the orientation of the phone and to allow gaming. But it can also be used to detect seismic activity.” What’s more, the phone’s internet connection allows it instant access to remote servers. In essence, though consumers think of them that way, iPhones have the capability to serve as nodes in a distributed seismic sensor network. All they need is someone to organize that network. Clayton is part of a team aiming to do just that. Called Community Seismic Network, the project will debut this summer with a tight cluster of sensors in the Pasadena area.
That’s kinda cool. Sounds like something out of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, but then, that’s now only 15 years away. . . . (You can hear us interview Vinge about the book and the future here.)
FIGHTING ALLERGIES BY MIMICKING PARASITIC WORMS. “Mounting evidence in both humans and animals suggests that infection with these parasitic worms seems to protect against a number of inflammatory diseases, including asthma and allergy, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, and type 1 diabetes. Because parasitic infection is unappealing to even the most severe allergy sufferer, some scientists hope to decipher how these organisms control the immune systems of their human hosts and to develop new therapies that replicate the parasites’ beneficial effect.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to turn t-shirts into body armor.
COLLIDING RHYMES: The Large Hadron Rap.
LIMITING LEGISLATIVE LOGROLLING the Tennessee way. I’ve mentioned this approach before — called the truth in legislation amendment. I don’t think a copy of that proposal is online for free anywhere (it’s on pay sites), but I’m going to see what I can do about fixing that.
KENNETH ANDERSON on the spread of UAV technology.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE on faint hopes for a “liberaltarian” revival. “The math is simple. Public sector unions love big government. The Democrats need public union support. Hence, as long as the Democrats remain in thrall to the public sector unions (and, for that matter, lawyers), they will be the party of big government. It’s a matter of simple rational actor political economics.” This was obvious all along, but some were sucked in anyway.
THE CURSE OF KATYN: Arthur Chrenkoff writes on that Polish plane crash.
UPDATE: More from Richard Fernandez, who also invokes Katyn.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more from Jose Guardia.
OFF THE RADAR: Private jets hidden from public view. Is this good or bad?
PROTECTING YOUR HOME FROM THE WORST, with extreme building codes.
DAVE KOPEL: Judge Diane Wood on the Second Amendment. “Judge Wood chose to preemptively rule on the constitutionality of gun registration. Her ruling was bereft of the analysis that is necessary for judicial analysis of restrictions on any enumerated right. It is safe to say that Judge Wood has ample legal skills to conduct carefully-reasoned legal analysis when she chooses to do so. Accordingly, it is plausible to infer from her unreasoned opinion a disregard for Second Amendment rights.”
Plus, Merrick Garland’s disregard for gun owners’ rights: “Details here, regarding the 2000 case NRA v. Reno, and Judge Garland’s refusal to require the Clinton Department of Justice to obey the federal statute requiring the destruction of records of firearms purchases by law-abiding Americans. The decision also suggests a cavalier disregard for privacy rights in general, such as the right not to be put on a government list simply because one engaged in a lawful activity.”
SO IS THIS HOPE, OR CHANGE? Judge tells residents to “Arm themselves.”
Ashtabula County Common Pleas Judge Alfred Mackey was asked what residents should do to protect themselves and their families with the severe cutback in law enforcement.
“Arm themselves,” the judge said. “Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, because we’re going to have to look after each other.”
Ashtabula County gun dealers and firearms instructors tell WKYC their business has really picked up since the Sheriff’s Department cutbacks began some months ago.
Reader Fred Ray emails: “This was one of things that happened during the Argentine collapse — governments ran out of money and couldn’t pay the cops, leaving the citizens to the mercy of the criminals. Buy lots of ammo…” Well, we’re not Argentina yet.
TURKEY: Shut Up About The Armenians Or We’ll Hurt Them Again. Turkey has really gone downhill under Erdogan.
DAWN JOHNSEN WITHDRAWS HER NAME. I predict that the next nominee will be no more to conservatives’ liking, but will have less of a track record, and less concern with reputation, so I score this as, at best, a Pyrrhic victory — which is why I argued against the block-Johnsen campaign.
UPDATE: Reader Mike Behrens says that I’m wrong:
There was no way for the Republicans to block this. Obama had a filibuster-proof Senate for a long time and a Senate Committee supermajority and yet Johnsen wasn’t confirmed. Why is that? Perhaps, because he is following Bush’s counterterrorism strategy and Johnsen’s appointment, given her views on how terrorism should be handled, gave him second thoughts on whether he wanted her there overlooking things. Everything has an expiration date and a place under the bus is reserved in advance for all things.
Hmm. Good point.
WHY KARL LAGERFELD is against gay marriage.
SPECIAL INTERESTS flock to donkeys.
IN MICHIGAN, political arson? “I think the idea of committing arson in order to get federal stimulus money for government jobs is about as perverted as it is possible to get. It’s the sort of thing we traditionally associate with kleptocracies, and I am sorry to see it happening in the United States. And I think what’s worse than the fact that it happened is that it isn’t being widely reported.”
UPDATE: Some background.
THE JOYS OF DEEP-FRIED GREEN BEANS. And they must be healthy, because they’re vegetables!
POLISH PRESIDENT killed in plane crash.
UPDATE: Some people are suspicious. Nonsense. With Vladimir Putin taking personal charge of the investigation, the truth is certain to come out.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS in transparency.
PRAY FOR INFLATION: It’s Our Only Hope!
ED MORRISSEY AND KERRY PICKETT INTERVIEW Gov. Gary Johnson.
FINALLY: Episcopal Priest Barbie. I think I prefer SpongeBob Barbie.
AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.
JUST GOT BACK from the Tennessee Law Review banquet, where Attorney General Bob Cooper gave an excellent speech on the Tennessee Constitution. I think Tennessee’s unique system, in which the Attorney General is appointed by the state Supreme Court, has a lot to recommend it — we tend to get real lawyers, instead of political hacks or showboats running for higher office.
PHOTO ESSAY: A world without nuclear weapons.
A BUNCH OF cool minitools. Mini cool tools?
DR. ZERO: No Representation Without Taxation.
OBAMA ON ISRAEL: Out Of Step With America.
ATTACK OF THE Exotic, Off-Brand hand tools.
DAN RIEHL: Does the Tea Party Movement Need A Federation? “In my opinion, the existing loosely-conglomerated, somewhat state-wide model that looks to have created itself is doing well and could easily lose more than it gains by forming into somefederation. . . . Given the state of communications today, I’m not nearly as afraid as some seem to be of the group not having a significant political impact because it isn’t somehow more organized. And given the potential pitfalls such an organization brings with it, no matter how well intentioned the effort, I’m simply not sold on the need for a federation.” I’m inclined to agree.
HAPPY TAX FREEDOM DAY.
JONAH GOLDBERG: If America is Europeanized, Europe Is In Trouble. Who will they free-ride off of, then?
HOW TO COMPETE with the Apple iPad.
IS THERE A personal cell tower in your future?
MICHAEL SILENCE: Is Obama Palin’s Press Secretary? “Why did he even respond? He just put the story on the nightly news networks. Oh, well. I guess they really do know how to fish in Alaska.”
IN BRITAIN, scientists get political.
TALKING SPACE POLICY: Rand Simberg: A Conversation with NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.
ANDREW KLAVAN on Talking Crap.
BUSINESS WEEK: Cuomo Blamed For Mortgage Crisis. “Republican candidate for New York governor Carl Paladino on Tuesday blamed Democrat Andrew Cuomo and his policies as President Clinton’s housing secretary for the sub-prime mortgage crisis that helped trigger the recession. The millionaire Buffalo developer said Cuomo initiated policies that helped poor people qualify for adjustable rate mortgages they didn’t understand and couldn’t afford once rates rose.” This campaign should be interesting.
SHOCKER: Yes, There’s Bloat in New Jersey’s Schools. Well, bloat and death threats.
DANA LOESCH: Not impressed with the idea of a “national tea party federation.” (Bumped).
PETER SUDERMAN: Chaos In The Massachusetts Health Care Market. “Want a preview of ObamaCare in action? Check out the Massachusetts insurance market—which earlier this week entered a state of ‘market chaos’ after Governor Deval Patrick denied a host of health insurance rate increases.”
GAS PRICES UP, could hit $4/gallon. Some worry that it will kill the recovery, but I say look on the bright side: If it does, it’ll reduce global carbon emissions!
BOB ZUBRIN WEIGHS IN on the Obama space policy.
CHANGE: 33 states out of money to fund jobless benefits. Instead of building up their reserves during good times, states just spent the money on other stuff.
IS BURNING COAL the path to spiritual enlightenment?
RICK MORAN reports from New Orleans. “The combativeness of attendees and speakers at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference bodes ill for Democrats in 2010.” Plus, a correction for the folks at Politico.
WHEN CONGRESSMEN GO WILD: Alan Grayson Interrupts Republican District Meeting. “On Thursday, April 8th, 2010, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat in Florida’s 8th district, interrupted a district meeting of the local Orange County Republican Executive Committee. The meeting was being held at Perkins, a family restaurant.”
EIGHT COFFEEMAKERS put to the test. More scientific than my own coffeeblogging.
