#OWS is going to the Rose Parade . . .

And at the front of their little parade in LA . . .

Activist Leading ‘Occupy the Rose Parade’ Is a Convicted Thief, 9-11 Truther, and Former Democratic Assembly Politician

They have "float" for the parade too.

It is made of garbage bags.

Rather appropriate.

Remember Kosovo?

See: Arid Uka’s Gratitude

Remember Kosovo? Me neither. But it was big at the time, launched by Bill Clinton in the wake of his Monica difficulties: Make war, not love, as the boomers advise. So Clinton did — and without any pesky U.N. resolutions, or even the pretense of seeking them. Instead, he and Tony Blair and even Jacques Chirac just cried “Bombs away!” and got on with it. And the Left didn’t mind at all — because, for a modern Western nation, war is only legitimate if you have no conceivable national interest in whatever war you’re waging. Unlike Iraq and all its supposed “blood for oil,” in Kosovo no one remembers why we went in, what the hell the point of it was, or which side were the good guys. (Answer: Neither.) The principal rationale advanced by Clinton and Blair was that there was no rationale. This was what they called “liberal interventionism,” which boils down to: The fact that we have no reason to get into it justifies our getting into it.

Mark Steyn on Arid Uka, the Muslim terrorist that murdered two US Airmen in Germany this week.

It is worth a read.

[Update 11:49]

Correspondence Committee linked to the Mark Steyn Article today as well. The comments at C2 are often top notch. Take a look.

"Left-Wing Pothead" shoots Congresswoman in Arizona

See: Jared Loughner, Alleged Shooter in Gabrielle Giffords Attack, Described by Classmate as "Left-Wing Pothead"

The American Left tried to blame this tragedy on the American Right from the very first minutes that the reports of the shooting hit the newswires.

There was a small problem. Their meme clashed with reality.

The American Right can accept that this shooting had little if anything to do with politics. Can the American Left accept that as well? I have my doubts.

Jared's YouTube videos reveal a mind that is deeply troubled.

As of the time of this posting, his YouTube page is still up. You can see for yourself where the shooter's head was at. Take a look at the three videos that he posted and the one, the only one, that he listed as one of his favorites.

There is nothing even remotely right-wing about his videos or of the one he listed as a favorite. His "favorite" is a video celebrating burning the American flag. That is something that places this guy about as far away from the American Right as it is possible to get and still be in the same country.

As for Starhitshnaz, the person that posted the America: Your Last Memory In A Terrorist Country! video, I suspect that it is Jared as well. Note the first popup baloon "You didn't know that B.C.E isn't starting?" in the "favorite" video and the line in Jared's Introduction: Jared Loughner saying "B.C.E. years are unable to start."

I think that Jared Loughner is Starhitshnaz.

As for what Jared wrote on the YouTube page that he puts his name to, he wrote his self descriptions on that page in the "past" tense.

Interests: "My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. . .

- and

Books: "I had favorite books: . . ."

Jared's YouTube page suggests that he had suicide on his mind. Probably "suicide by cop" as suggested by his later actions.

From what his friends tell of him, he was a leftist and pothead. I don't think Jared's politics is relevant to this event.

Giffords was a high profile target that would guarantee an aggressive response by law enforcement.

The Giffords shooting was not political. It was tragic, but it was not political.

Those that are trying to lay the blame for this tragedy on the American Right are being shockingly mean spirited, ugly and shameful. You people need to get a grip.

About The Republican Redistricting Advantage

See: Will Redistricting Be a Bloodbath for Democrats?

Republicans took control of at least 19 Democratic-controlled state legislatures Tuesday and gained more than 650 seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The last time Republicans saw such victories was in 1994, when they captured control of 20 state legislatures.

Republicans haven't controlled as many state legislatures since 1928.

Across the country, the map for state legislatures has turned noticeably red as Republicans now control 55 chambers, with Democrats at 38 and the remaining yet to be decided. At the beginning of this week, Democrats controlled 60 of the country's state legislative chambers and Republicans 36.

Tuesday also was a historic day for many state legislatures. In Minnesota, Republicans won the Senate for the first time ever, while in Alabama, they took control for the first time since reconstruction.

The answer to the headline writer's question is yes! (Sort of.)

There will be a bloodbath, but if the Republicans forget about the future, they will just piss away the brief and ephemeral advantage that redistricting will give them.

Republicans will have a unique opportunity to shape the political landscape for the next decade. Redistricting in the States where Republicans now dominate will help adjust the balance of political power at both the state and the federal levels.

Red States will become more red. Blue states will become more blue.

The end result will be a deeper divide between the Constrained in the Red States and the Unconstrained in the Blue States.

Think San Francisco versus Boise.

Republicans should not get too full of themselves over their truly monumental and historic win. Republicans need to keep in mind that the opposition is still convinced that their Unconstrained world-view is the one that should dominate our nation politically and they still have a sizable following.

The main challenge for Republicans over the coming decade will be to seize this historic opportunity to reshape the political landscape by arguing forcefully and confidently for liberty as the best solution to our nations problems. On the other side, the left will argue for Statism as the solution to our nations problems. They will do so boldly and self-righteously. They will not just wither up and blow away.

Redistricting will help Republicans on the margin, but it is not a long term solution to our nation's problems. Our nations's problems are in our culture. Only by reshaping our culture will we be able to help our nation step away from the Statist precipice that the left has brought us.

With every issue that comes up in our nations future, we must argue for increasing individual Liberty as the best solution. Whenever our counterparts on the left offer Statism as a solution to a problem, we must aggressively challenge them and their assertions that surrendering our liberties to the state will solve our problems. Make them defend their assertions. They aren't used to being challenged on their core principles, so this can be fun too.

This is a long term generational project. Do not expect or even hope for quick results. Changing a culture takes time, patience and persistence.

Look to the future, not to just tomorrow.

Enableing Savagery.

The following is a security-cam video of a savage beating that took place in Seattle a few weeks ago.

Warning. This is brutal.



This is what an emasculated culture devolves into.

The thugs become the De Facto rulers of the city.

The guards will not protect you. The bystanders will do nothing, especially if there are guards their doing nothing. Guards in uniform. Guards looking all the world as if they are there to prevent this kind of savagery from taking place. Guards guarding nothing.

The victim of the attack in the video thought that the guards could protect her.

See: Girl, 3 men charged in tunnel attack

The 15-year-old girl who was beaten and robbed in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel as security personnel watched said she had headed straight for the guards because she thought they would help her.

"I went to the security and told them that these kids were trying to jump me," the girl wrote in a statement to King County sheriff's investigators. "I know that I am about to get jumped and I am hanging around the guards to try and get protection. ... I thought the security guards would defend me."

But the girl was wrong.

The guards were following "policy."

According to the Sheriff's Office and King County Metro, the guards followed policy by not intervening in the Jan. 28 attack. Instead, they alerted transit officials, who summoned police.

The attack has prompted Metro to discuss contract changes with Olympic Security Services, whose guards were in the tunnel during the attack. It also has sparked widespread anger at the guard policy and with the suspects accused of the attack and robbery.

It was policy? Policy to not intervene?

What kind of madness puts such a policy in place?

What kind of madness requires adverse publicity from a video like this being released to make a change to that policy?

Do you believe that if this video had not been released that any change would have been made to their "policy."

Madness.

David Frum Versus Charles Johnson

David Frum tries to talk some sense to Charles Johnson.

Charles Johnson, editor of the Little Green Footballs site, has written a post declaring his personal breach with the American right.

He offers 10 reasons, but they all boil down to the same one: His outrage at the bad characters found in right-wing media and blogosphere.

And yes, there’s no shortage of bad characters. No shortage on the left-hand side either. Or the middle, for that matter. But why surrender to them? Why let them get away with their claim to define your movement?

David, you are wasting your breath.

Charles needs to go his own way. He was never very comfortable with ours. Ours was never "His" movement.

Let him go.

He, and we, will all be the better for it.

Will They Try To Regulate The Carbon Content Of Our Diets?

The environmental movement has the potential to be truly dangerous.

Consider the following two paragraphs in a Times Online article.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

(Emphasis mine)

That last sentence is interesting, is it not??

Do these people understand the role that carbon plays in the diet of carbon based life forms? Do they really mean to propose that government, politicians and bureaucrats should attempt to regulate or otherwise control the carbon content of our diets?

Have they any idea how preposterous that is?

Do they have any concept of the misery and death that would result if they tried?

In the long run, John Maynard Keynes is still dead

The ABC News website has an article by Mark Trumbull discussing the waning expectations that the "stimulus bill" will be able to help "stimulate" any future economic growth.

Americans hoping for a big economic boost from President Obama's economic stimulus programs got a douse of cold water Thursday: The White House's top forecaster said the largest impact of the stimulus on economic growth is probably in the rear view mirror.

That's the case even though unemployment continues to rise and many of the stimulus dollars haven't been spent.

"Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009," Christina Romer, who chairs the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said in testimony prepared for Congress. "By mid-2010, fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to growth."

In the long run, John Maynard Keynes is still dead. Unfortunately, his economic prescriptions will not die.

When government spends money, it is spending other peoples money. There is a natural disconnect of the value placed on the money by those who earned it when it is spent by those who merely appropriated it.

Stolen money is cheap. Earned money is dear.

Earned money is far more likely to be spent with care than looted money.

No politician and no bureaucrat can ever be as invested in the outcome of the spending of an appropriated dollar then the person that originally earned it. Whether that dollar is spent on a pleasure or invested for the future, the one who earned it is the only one that is able to truly appreciate what that dollar cost him to earn.

To a person that earned a dollar, the notion that it should be used to pay one person to dig a hole and to then pay another person to fill it, sounds like utter madness. To a Keynesian that appropriated a dollar earned by someone else, it is eminently economically sound.

Rush Versus “Unconstrained” Demagogues

Rush discusses the recent controversy over his attempt to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

As I explained on my radio show, this spectacle is bigger than I am on several levels. There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. "Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.

These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.

For the unconstrained, justice is found in the result, not in the process.

The unconstrained are easily seduced into acting on a "the ends justify the means" way of thinking.

When a person believes that justice is dependent on the result, not on the process, they will think it “just” to change the rules and processes from one person to another depending on what result they have predetermined to best serve justice.

For the unconstrained, there is a natural preference for "the rule of men" over "the rule of law."