News of the Week for Nov. 25th, 2012
Hide the Decline
Environment &
“Green Energy”
World Leaders Face Riddle Of Lack Of Warming
The most recent global temperature record, released this week, shows the average global temperature fell last year for the second year. There is now general agreement that the rising trend has stalled.
A graphical look at worldwide CO2 numbers
Some numbers that you may find interesting, graphed by Ed Hoskins from France.
Obamacare
Government in Healthcare
How the Implementation of Obamacare Will Make the GOP a Majority Party
As we get closer to the day when Obamacare moves from threat to reality, it seems probable that the resulting catastrophe for tens of thousands of businesses, as well as the massive increase in premiums for many families, will propel Republicans to majority status in 2014.
Obamacare Meets Reality. Reality Wins.
For years the Democrat party has derided the GOP’s view of economics. Our view, essentially, is that your money is yours, not the government’s, and the decisions you make on how to spend it will inevitably be more lucid than anything the government comes up with. The corollary to this is that income redistribution is nothing more or less than theft which characterizes garden variety covetousness as fairness. They call this “trickle down” economics.
War & Terror
3 men from #Occupy sentenced in Ohio bridge bomb plot
A self-described anarchist who calls himself “Cyco” got an 11-year prison sentence Tuesday for his role in a failed attempt to blow up an Ohio bridge.
India hangs gunman from 2008 Mumbai attack
India executed the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack early Wednesday, four years after Pakistani gunmen blazed through India’s financial capital, killing 166 people and throwing relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors into a tailspin.
Graham to Obama: Give Us Benghazi Details Like You Were So Happy to Share After bin Laden Raid
While President Obama pardons Thanksgiving turkeys Cobbler and Gobbler today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) isn’t letting the commander in chief off the hook about Benghazi.
‘United Nations Wants to Use Drones’
The U.N. wants to use drones, the French news agency Agence France-Presse reports. “The United Nations wants to use drones for the first time to monitor fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda has been accused of aiding rebels,” says the report, quoting U.N. officials.
Russia Sends Warships To Gaza Coast
For the entire 8 day duration of Operation Pillar of Defense, there was one major geopolitical player who had been largely quiet and certainly absent from the scene: the same player whose unflinching position over the Syria conflict has so far prevented any intervention in the civil war torn country: Russia.
National
Rep. Darrell Issa Wants To Make It Clear That You’re Allowed To Rip Your DVDs
Back in October, we noted that in the latest triennial DMCA exemption review, the Copyright Office/Librarian of Congress refused to say it was legal for you to rip your own legally purchased DVDs so that you could watch them on a computer or tablet. That seems fairly ridiculous, especially given that similarly ripping your CDs is recognized as legal. Rep. Darrell Issa has apparently recognized how silly this and is planning a bill to fix the Copyright Office’s mistake.
Is Rand Paul the future of the GOP?
He’s certainly part of it, and an important part as the Republican Party tries to reach out to libertarian-leaning voters. His father found ways to excite and energize younger voters, a skill that the last few elections have shown the GOP sorely needs, as well as a message that matches up with their leave-me-alone mindset. But is Rand Paul ready to lead the party toward a resurgence of limited-government conservatism with his blend of devolved powers and social conservatism?
Democrats push to redeploy Obama’s voter database
If you voted this election season, President Obama almost certainly has a file on you. His vast campaign database includes information on voters’ magazine subscriptions, car registrations, housing values and hunting licenses, along with scores estimating how likely they were to cast ballots for his reelection.
Citizens rush council members as chaos erupts at Newark City Hall meeting
A behind-the-scenes political maneuver by Newark Mayor Cory Booker to fill a vacant council seat with his choice led to a near-riot in city hall tonight, with dozens of residents rushing the council stage and police responding with pepper-spray.
SEIU Leader Incites Riot After Cory Booker Makes Controversial Vote
On Tuesday, a leader of a Newark, New Jersey Service Employees International Union (SEIU) chapter incited a riot at city hall after he charged the dais at a council meeting, allegedly hit a woman and a child, and had to be restrained with pepper spray before he was arrested.
How A Failed Commune Gave Us What Is Now Thanksgiving
It’s wrong to say that American was founded by capitalists. In fact, America was founded by socialists who had the humility to learn from their initial mistakes and embrace freedom.
America’s first socialist republic
We provided the platform launching Professor Paul Rahe into the blogosphere. He is one of the country’s most distinguished scholars, but he has also proved to be a natural blogger as well. He now posts regularly at Ricochet.
Thanksgiving Celebrates Our ‘Original Sin,’ ‘Views Virtually Identical To Nazis,’ Journalism Prof Preaches
Forget all that turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, today should be a day of fasting and atonement for American “sin.” That’s according to Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Jensen, known for his hard-left politics, also calls Thanksgiving a “white-supremacist holiday.”
Criticism of Affirmative Action Draws Ire at Harvard Crimson
On November 2nd, a Harvard Student named Sarah Siskind published an article in the Harvard Crimson titled Affirmative Dissatisfaction, which was not only critical of the policy but asked serious questions about what it means to be a minority.
Equality Is Unconstitutional, Left-Leaning Federal Appeals Court Rules
On November 15, a federal appeals court, dividing along ideological lines in an 8-to-7 ruling, struck down a provision of the Michigan state constitution prohibiting racial preferences in state college admissions, in Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the University of Michigan.
Party Hard: State Dept to Send Rocker Andrew W.K. to Bahrain
Andrew Fetterly Wilkes-Krier is one accomplished dude: international rock icon, music producer, club owner, motivational speaker, and television host — and soon, he’ll be known as a world statesman.
Economy
& Taxes
Forget the Fiscal Cliff, How About Copyright Reform?
Move over patent reform. Copyright reform may be the next big IP issue headed for public debate.
Last Friday, the Republican Study Committee, an influential conservative caucus of House Republicans, released a report advocating major copyright reform that could have helped win the hearts and minds, to say nothing of the votes, of young, tech-savvy citizens who view U.S. copyright law as restrictive and outdated.
Don’t Look Now, But . . . Is Economic Growth Over?
While everyone has his gaze fixed on the “fiscal cliff,” Paul drew our attention this morning to the fact that France is already mid-air after leaping of their version of the fiscal cliff. And that’s only the beginning. The can of European fiscal woes has been kicked so hard and so far down the road that they’re having to borrow new cans to kick from central bank recycling bins. How else to explain the backtracking and backfilling on terms of the crocodile tear-jerker that is the Greek bailout? How else to read the news that European finance ministers are trying to stretch out loan terms for Greece? There’s an obvious Groundhog Day quality to headlines like today’s (“Finance Ministers, IMF, Seek Greek Debt Solution”). Haven’t we been meeting to “solve” the Greek problem for more than two years now?
Let Them Eat Cake: As Hostess Workers Get Hurt, Bakery Union Bosses (& Their Kids) Do Well
Even Muni Bonds May Be Targeted in ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Talks
Politicians working to avert the “Fiscal Cliff” may take away some of the advantage of tax-free municipal bonds, dealing a blow to investors as well as local governments.
Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War
Evidence from public opinion polls and corporate bond markets shows that FDR’s policies prevented a robust recovery of long-term private investment by significantly reducing investors’ confidence in the durability of private property rights. Not until the New Deal/war economy ended and resources became available for peacetime production did private investment—and the nation’s economic health—fully recover.
None Dare Call It Default
A nicer term for what’s about to sock the middle class is ‘entitlement reform.’
To call Greece First World may be a stretch, but Greece has defaulted once already, and it is only a matter of time until Greece defaults again. Welcome to default-o-rama, the next chapter in the First World’s struggle for fiscal sustainability.
Student Loan Interest Deduction Phasing Out: Another Screw For Obama Voters
It appears that along with reducing taxes on rich people (those making more than $250,000 per year), allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of the year is going to have a bunch of other interesting effects, including: “The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.” I have never paid any attention to this, because it has been decades since I have paid student loan interest, but my daughter tells me — and what I can find poking around — tells me that a lot of Obama voters are going to be in for a rude awakening on this subject.
Is France the Financial Time-Bomb of Europe?
As Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy make difficult cuts in an attempt to make their economies more competitive, France is pushing back against austerity and in danger of becoming the socialist rump of Europe.
International
Citing Deadlock, Egypt’s Leader Seizes New Power and Plans Mubarak Retrial
With a constitutional assembly on the brink of collapse and protesters battling the police in the streets over the slow pace of change, President Mohamed Morsi issued a decree on Thursday granting himself broad powers above any court as the guardian of Egypt’s revolution, and used his new authority to order the retrial of Hosni Mubarak.
Protests rock Egypt after Morsi seizes new powers
Demonstrators storm Brotherhood HQ in Alexandria, pelt Port Said office with stones, and call for Egyptian president’s ouster in Cairo.
Egypt’s Morsi: statesman abroad, a ‘pharaoh’ at home?
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has won high praise for brokering the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. But can he implement the truce? And on the domestic front, is Egypt’s new president turning into its next pharaoh?
Muslim Brotherhood offices torched, Morsi on defensive
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi defended his latest decree granting himself sweeping powers before supporters in Cairo as anti-Morsi demonstrators set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in cities across Egypt on Friday.
Foster parents ‘stigmatised and slandered’ for being members of Ukip
A couple had their three foster children taken away by a council on the grounds that their membership of the UK Independence Party meant that they supported “racist” policies.
Opinion
California, Home of the Destitute
Cultural riptide
It is far too soon to tell; this may simply be an outlier. And yet, it is rather remarkable to see Hollywood move away from the “woman as victim” model it has been relentlessly pushing on audiences for decades. If one reads Flaubert and Tolstoy, it’s clear that they see the adulterous wife as the villain, while the filmmakers often preferred to see the villains as anti-heroes. Now that so many young men have grown up in homes where their mother left their father, or they’ve never even had a father, it is arguably going to become harder and harder to sell the idea of women being intrinsically pedestal-worthy by virtue of their sex.
