TIMING IS EVERYTHING

The Obama administration’s decision to scrap the European missile shield may or may not have been wise, but the timing was atrocious.

[The] U.S. president’s cancellation last week of plans to place missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic ... came on Sept. 17, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

The Poles were not amused.

JIMMY CARTER, PLEASE SHUT UP

Haven’t you embarrassed yourself enough already?

There's an old saying you might want to keep in mind: when you're in a deep hole, stop digging!

NEA: SUPPORT OBAMA’S AGENDA

”An official at the White House Office of Public Engagement encouraged a group of artists on a conference call with the National Endowment for the Arts to produce works that supported the Obama administration's agenda ...”

What I don’t understand is why the Obama administration felt the need to ask.

Details here.

AN EMPTY SUIT

Historical anecdotes describe the Rio Grande as "a mile wide and an inch deep." Ed Morrissey (and others) have used that phrase to describe President Obama.

I think they’re overestimating his depth.

GIANT CATERPILLAR FOUND IN COLLEGE DORM

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING PRESIDENT

Chris Wallace (Fox News Sunday: “These guys, everything is personal. I gotta tell you, everything. They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”

Read through the comments for the post title.

FLEAS, AD INFINITUM

I’ve always been enamored of the couplet that contains the words “little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.” I always thought the author was Ogden Nash, or perhaps Lewis Carroll (“mimsy were the borogroves”) and was surprised to find the couplet has a
much longer history.

The couplet is from the great British mathematician Augustus De Morgan (1806-1871), who adapted it from the Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist and author Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).

De Morgan:

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

Swift:

So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ’em;
And so proceed ad infinitum

[Added Note]: The phrase “mimsy were the borogroves” is from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. It’s also the title of a science fiction book written by Lewis Padgett (aka Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore), published in 1943, which I read - and enjoyed - as a teen sci-fi addict.

NASA WATCH

Norm Augustine, chairman of the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (Augustine Commission) testimony to the House Science and Technology Committee (15 Sept 2009):

The Committee concludes that no rational exploratory program can be funded under the existing funding constraint and that plans for America's space exploration program would de facto be halted and human operations limited to low earth orbit.... The reason ... is, simplistically stated, that for sixty percent of the needed funds, one cannot go sixty percent of the way to Mars.

Given the proclivities of the current Administration, this doesn’t look good.

INSURANCE EXCHANGE RISKS

In an earlier post, I suggested that the health insurance exchanges proposed by President Obama which I agreed could be a good idea if the government would limit its role to writing the law allowing them to be created.

Regina Herzlinger, a professor at the Harvard Business School, adds detail to my concern, using the Massachusetts government exchange, the Connector, as Exhibit A.

I’d like to believe that the health insurance exchange concept would work, provided that exchanges are entirely private, have national reach, and enjoy the same tax status as employer-sponsored plans.

P*SS ON EARTH

Everything you didn’t need to know.



Over Hungary, by the Ruins of Essegvar. Last Wednesday, several skygazers scratched their heads when they saw this mysterious glow in the sky. To anyone who's ever pondered what urine looks like in space -- c'mon, don't be shy -- we say: wonder no more, because photos of the phenomenon have finally hit the internet.

Via Instapundit.

YOU DON’T SAY

'Racist' claims defuse once powerful word. Umm, why? Just because conservatives are using the word correctly?

Okay, so how about if I just call them bigots?

MUGGED BY REALITY

Irving Kristol has died. Kristol was known as “the godfather of Neoconservatism” for his definition of a neo-conservative as “a liberal mugged by reality.” It was a great gift: an unforgettable reminder that ideas matter because of the realities they nurture or discourage. Rest in Peace.

MAINSTREAM UNICORNS

From the comments section of a Hot Air post on race-baiting: ”Liberals painting their critics as outside of the mainstream is nothing new ....”

Of course not. Liberals believe they are the mainstream. They also believe in unicorns.

ADVANCED PLANNING DIRECTIVES

Much has been said and http://a-shadow-world.blogspot.com/2009/09/your-life-your-choices.htmlwritten about advanced planning directives under ObamaCare. Here are some lighter views.

From Brewster Rockit:





And my personal ObamaCare counseling invitation:



(with apologies to the cemetary; the mailing just happened to arrive at the right time)

OBAMACARE IS DEAD?

Are the Democrats signaling defeat on ObamaCare?

Maybe it’s time to start reading HR3200, the Republican alternative, which can be found here. As with the Democrat’s bill, it is only 1,000 pages long, which (to me) says it’s also problematic.

WHY ARE LIBERALS STILL ANGRY?

After all, they won the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Frank J. Fleming explains:

The most fundamental principle liberals have is that they are all very, very smart, and everyone should listen to them. Nothing angers them more than [having someone challenge] them.

Heh.

CLUELESSNESS

"We have seen an ongoing theme from Barack Obama of general cluelessness on private industry, and especially on profit. For Obama, profit is part of 'overhead,' or 'taken off the top.' "

"Profits are not taken off the top but are what’s left at the bottom, after expenses get paid — and expenses are the 'overhead,' which includes items like salaries, supplies, rent, and so on."

"By the way, that’s why it’s called 'the bottom line,' because that’s where people find the profits in a ledger. Profits come last."

WIMP OR WARRIOR?

"It's time for conservatives--mainstream Americans, in other words--to throw off the shackles and get aggressive. Our beliefs are correct, our values are the foundation of any society that doesn't have a death wish, and our interests, unlike those of the leftists, are legitimate. We deserve to govern this country, and before long, we will."

Yes.

GRADING THE QDR

The Center for Strategic and International Studies grades the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review:

The 2010 QDR seeks to answer the question of whether the US should posture its forces and focus its acquisitions on dealing with conventional threats from rising peer competitors or more asymmetric threats emanating from weak and failing states.

The search for answers is being structured around the concept of "hybrid warfare," ... a concept ... so loosely defined that it does not provide clear criteria for decision-making. Service efforts to define it have so far been little more that shopping lists for every possible contingency mixed with buzzwords that appear to have meaning only as long as they are not examined in any detail.

In practice, any concept that effectively justifies anything ends in justifying absolutely nothing.

The QDR is, at its best, a difficult high-wire act with no safety net, long on good intentions and short on successful actions. Given the dramatic philosophical difference between the Bush and Obama administrations and the demonstrated incompetence of the Obama administration with respect to its domestic agenda, dead on arrival looks right.

THE PROBLEM WITH YOU CONSERVATIVES

An enlightened leftist reaches across the aisle.

This would be funny if it weren't almost word-for-word the Pacifica radio script I listened to last month.