0Bama's Alberto Gonzales

The contest over just which 0Bama cabinet member has found himself or herself in way, way over his or her head, has apparently been made. Before you guess wildly, figuring they pretty much all fit that description, see if you can guess whose voice this is...

"I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

Think you know now? It's the same peanut who brought you the Enemies List! Hooray!

Jewish Culture

I just finished a very interesting book by Norman Podhoretz called Ex-Friends. He's one of the neocons, a label that must be spoken with special venom in Obama's America. The book is about his break with other famous leftist literati in and about New York when he began his political swing from the anti-Stalin left (which often meant pro-Trotsky left) to America-first neoconservatism. The "Family" of which he speaks included authors like Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. Many, many others were mentioned and the subject, the history of the Jewish intellectuals of New York in the 1950s to the 1970s is extremely interesting to me. I am especially interested in the similar milieu in the 1930s, when the fight really was Stalinism versus Trotskyism. So it occurs to me that I've enjoyed the books of a number of Jewish authors and others about Jewish high-brow culture, describing the Jewish intellectual community (and other things Jewish): I loved reading Rebecca Goldstein's The Mind-Body Problem and Incompleteness, Einstein in Love by David Overbye, Mark Helprin's short stories (especially "A Vermont Tale" and "North Light"), Arguing the World by Joseph Dorman, Night by Elie Wiesel, and so on. But for accident of birth, I think I would have made an enthusiastic Jew. Orthodox, probably. Neocon, definitely.

By the way, if Podhoretz is to be believed, the Trillings, Hellman, and Arendt were human beings with human failures; Ginsberg and Mailer were just slime.

Texas Secede! is Dumb

The Texas secession "issue" is out and about again. Only this seems to be the first time that I heard about it while not actually in the state of Texas. Back when I was going to school in Austin, it was fashionable for drunk UT students and drunk rednecks to shout "Secede!" at the honky tonk on Saturday nights. Then we'd sing "I wanna go home with the armadillo" and "Up against a wall, redneck mother" and then we'd stumble home. Ah good times. A few pickup trucks would sport a bumper sticker but, rest assured, it was a joke and it still is. Only now Governor Rick Perry has stuck his foot in it, which only makes him a clown and Kay Bailey Hutchison has to be ecstatic: she now looks like a towering intellect compared to the incumbent.

By the way, it isn't legal for Texas to secede. I have at least three direct ancestors who fought in the Confederate army, trying to make it happen, and it didn't. (Have I told you about my genealogy research?! Do you have five or six hours to talk right now? I can give you a brief summary... :-)

I Like Butterflies and Sunny Days

No, really! I even Google for them!

Anderson Cooper's Vile Joke

Crack CNN anchor Anderson Cooper made a funny joke about the tax protest "Tea Parties" going on today. I laffed and laffed when I heard it. It was as funny as... a "your mother is a whore" joke? No, that's not it. A joke about people dying of horrible diseases? No, that's offensive, everybody knows that. A joke about concentration camp cuisine? No, same deal. A joke that depends on simple irony? Hmmm. Could be.

The Enemies List

The Nixon Obama Administration has issued an enemies list, according to this Washington Times story. Really, it doesn't take much imagination to conceive that "people who disagree with us" could easily be construed as "right-wing extremists". And the the political appointees in this administration have as little imagination as anyone I've seen. Has anybody else been listening to the anti-war rhetoric for the past seven or eight years? The same people who won the election? Here's a quick list of categories of people who make the Obama administration uneasy:

• Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans (They know how to use guns and they're easily manipulated, I guess)
  
• Pro-life activists (Catholics, Evangelicals, and other assorted nuts "clinging to their religion"),
  
• Immigration activists (Only racists could possibly want immigration laws enforced)
  
• Gun owners (The second amendment? That's obviously a conspiracy!)
  
• Those who "reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority" (Watch out, Governor Perry!)
  

And they are careful to throw in references to Timothy McVeigh to make us all realize just how serious this is. Now of course there are serious domestic threats to the public. We did indeed see the so-called "militias" and "survivalists" on the news, on the Sunday talk shows, and in the newspapers, leading right up to the Oklahoma City bombing (and beyond) and they were indeed kooks. But that category necessarily also includes violent (but earnest and misunderstood) criminals like Kathleen Soliah, 16 Puerto Rican terrorists, Bill Ayers, et cetera, et cetera. So left-wing extremists are to be given a pass in Obama's America?

Biden Makes Stuff Up. Again.

Sheesh, this guy's a dick. You'd think Obama would have him tied up and gagged in the White House basement by now.

I Can Too Say Something Nice About President Obama

Just in case you thought I was suffering from Bush Obama Derangement Syndrome, here is proof that it IS possible for me to approve of something the president is doing. Here's a link to a news story about how the "stimulus" is providing 2.4 gigadollars (American) to develop electric cars and infrastructure. This is definitely what government should be doing and I look forward to seeing an adequate infrastructure developed -- using PRIVATE investment!!! -- to support widespread replacement of gasoline-powered cars with plug-ins and hybrids.

Even so... CRUSH THE LEFT IN 2010!!!

"Standing Athwart History and Yelling Stop!"

More visual content for my blog, which turns out to be more entertaining but isn't my own. Hat tip to Powerline Blog. The title of the post is a famous Buckleyism.