Posts Tagged ‘LinkSwarm’
Monday, July 19th, 2010
A few random links to kick off your week:
- Wondering how congressional candidates are doing in the fundraising sweepstakes? This handy chart provides the lowdown.
- If you wanted to make conservatives and libertarians paranoid, how would you go about it? How about sneaking a provision into ObamaCare requiring dealers to report all gold and silver purchases? But what’s the big deal? It’s not like a Democratic President ever ordered the seizure of American’s gold before. Oh wait, yes he did.
- Europe is even more screwed than most of us think.
- For a look at where ObamaCare is leading us, take a look at Massachusetts.
- This story is about a guy’s horrible experience buying a used Saturn. I’m linking to it here because along the way it provides a pretty sobering look at the parts of the Hope and Change Economy that the usual media sources don’t cover:
I immediately began looking for work, but by this point the recession was in full swing and over half the yards on our street had ‘For Sale’ signs up. In fact, the town of Marion, SC has lost nearly 30% of its residential population since January, 2009. There were no jobs within two hours of the town and any jobs that were available were swamped with applications. The high school put up a notice that they were looking for two custodians. They had over 600 people show up for applications. The unemployment rate was over 50%, but people like myself, who didn’t qualify for unemployment benefits, and people on welfare, don’t go on the national unemployment statistic. It’s only for people receiving unemployment checks. Those who didn’t comprised such a huge chunk of that ratio, that the official statistic only stated a 19% unemployment rate for the PeeDee region of South Carolina. Yeah, MSNBC didn’t mention the fine points of that statistic, did they?
(Hat tips: Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, Fark)
Tags:campaign contributions, Europe, gold, LinkSwarm, ObamaCare
Posted in Democrats, Economics, ObamaCare, Republicans | No Comments »
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
A few tidbits to tide you over the Independence Day weekend:
- Dwight over at Whipped Cream Difficulties has a very interesting post up on Maywood, California closing their police department down. Summary: It has less to do with the budget crunch than with the entire department acting like corrupt, out-of-control thugs running roughshod over innocent people. Dwight and I both though of the similar situation in the (now thankfully dissolved) township of New Rome, Ohio.
- “I don’t know whether the Tea Party movement will die out. But I sure hope it hangs on long enough to take down Lindsey Graham.” (Yeah, this was already on Fark, with that exact headline, but since I was the submitter…)
- Former leftist, opponent of jihad, devout atheist and relapsed smoker Christopher Hitchens has suspended his book tour to be treated for esophageal cancer. Hitchens intellectual journey from being a (mostly) far-leftist to being a (mostly) neo-conservative has been deeply gratifying to those of us on the right, and as a voice sounding the alarm against radical Islam he’s probably only second (at least in the U.S.) to Mark Steyn. (So yes, the two most powerful voices against jihad in the U.S. are a Brit and a Canadian.) As an agnostic, I have no particular stance on the metaphysical certitude of Hitchens’ atheism, but I do believe he’s underestimated the vital role religion plays as a binding agent in a free society, as those societies which made atheism a central tenant (the Soviet Union and its ilk) don’t seem to have profited by it. (To paraphrase the late Octavia Butler, “I don’t believe in God, but the people growing up today don’t seem to believe in anything at all, and it’s scary.”) I always thought it would be interesting to debate Hitchens on the issue from the viewpoint of the social utility of religion rather than its metaphysical truth. BattleSwarm Blog wishes him a speedy recovery.
(Hat tips: Whipped Cream Difficulties, the Bookfinder Insider Mailing List)
Tags:cancer, Christopher Hitchens, Lindsey Graham, LinkSwarm, Maywood, New Rome
Posted in Crime, Jihad, Republicans, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
A collection of sundry links to enliven your day:
- Liberals are incensed that denizens of the Amazonian rain forest will actually be allowed to eat ice cream.
- Camilla Paglia essay on the wane of sex drive as a result of, um, something. Like many of Paglia’s essays, it skips around all over the place, ties together some highfalutin theory around a few interesting factual nuggets, and is frequently wrong in extremely interesting ways.
- Liberals still can’t fathom why their budget-busting Big Government initiatives are so unpopular.
- Daily KOS admits its polls were fabricated. Come December, when defeated Democrats in congress start packing up their belongings, they might pause a moment to contemplate how living in the “reality-based community”‘s fantasy bubble brought them to that juncture.
- In a development that will surprise absolutely no one, Capital Metro’s Rail Program is an underutilized, expensive failure.
- Of course, this is the same company that spent $61,000 defending itself against a $500 fine. Your tax dollars at work!
Hat tips to Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, Slashdot, Whipped Cream Difficulties.
Tags:Austin, Camilla Paglia, Capital Metro, light rail, LinkSwarm, mass transit
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Economics, Media Watch, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
A few links for whiling away the day:
Tags:anti-semitism, Bobby Jindel, Budget, Father's Day, Helen Thomas, Israel, LAPD, LinkSwarm, oil spill
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
A swarm of links for your perusal:
Tags:bond ratings, BP, Euro, Greece, Helen Thomas, LinkSwarm, Mark Steyn, Obama, oil spill
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Media Watch, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
A few random links to while away your day:
- It must be hard for the New York City teacher’s union, the United Federation of Teachers, to make ends meet, what with the $183,603 per year they have to pay for office space. That is to say, their office space in Boca Raton, Florida.
- “Environmentalists, like feminists, are just another arm of the Democratic establishment: ‘running dogs’ to be loosed or reined in as politics require. It is thus unnecessary to pay attention to what they say, since it’s just politics anyway.”
- “Europe’s Lehman Bros. is actually Europe.”
- Lifestyles of the rich and famous drug lords, including lots and lots of guns.
- When you’re Barack Obama, and Maureen Dowd (of all people) says that Joe Biden (of all people) has better relations with the press than you do, you may have a problem. Also this about Obama: “he is an elitist, too, as well as thin-skinned and controlling.” However, I’m not buying Dowd’s attempts to defuse the “media as Obama worshipers” problem: “The press traveling with Obama on the campaign never had a lovey-dovey relationship with him. He treated us with aloof correctness, and occasional spurts of irritation.” However, if that was the case, I don’t recall seeing a single report from the mainstream media in all of 2008 that mentioned it, which rather confirms the idea that the media buried any negative reporting during the campaign because of ideological solidarity and wanting him to win, doesn’t it?
- California’s Proposition 14 may have just insured that Green and Libertarian Party candidates never get on the general election ballot.
- Wednesday before Dutch election: Geert Wilders is irrelevant. Friday after Dutch election: Geert Wilders is a kingmaker.
- Am I just going to link to every damn Mark Steyn piece that comes down the pike? Why yes. Yes I am.
(Hat tips: Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, NRO’s The Corner)
Tags:California, Crime, drug lords, Geert Wilder, gold, Green Party, Guns, Joe Biden, Libertarians, LinkSwarm, Mark Steyn, Maureen Dowd, media bias, Obama, Proposition 14, unions
Posted in Crime, Economics, Media Watch, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
A handful of links you may find of interest:
CHL carriers get an express lane through Texas State Capitol Security. This is a testament to how effective the CHL program has been.
Catholic Bishop killed in Turkey.
George Will on the conflict between the limited government of the founders and Progressivism’s vision of unlimited government power to meet an ever-expanding array of material “needs.”
Victor David Hanson on Europeans waking up to History returning to Europe, “from Mediterranean insolvency, to the threat of radical Islam, to demographic decline, to new international dangers on the horizon.” But I’m guessing Europeans will hit the snooze button a few more times before they will bother to rouse themselves from their slumber. And by then it may be too late.
A statement of the obvious, sure to infuriate those on the left: “The U.S. can’t afford to provide everyone with food, clothing and shelter, not to mention medical and child care, college tuition, a low-interest mortgage and a Social Security check until death.”
Tags:CHL, Europe, Foreign Policy, Guns, links, LinkSwarm, Welfare State
Posted in Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Welfare State | No Comments »