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President Barack Obama has called for an end to “the petty grievances” and “recriminations” of Washington. John Conyers intends to find out if the new president really means it.

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Isn’t it funny how laws designed to protect us from ourselves never do, but certainly attain their main goal of making more job security for bureaucrats?

Get a government job. You’ll be a robot, but you won’t ever be unemployed.

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“There were seven witnesses in the cafe. There had been no argument, no shouting” when the young woman was attacked, said Virginia Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski, confirming that Yang and been decapitated.

Hey, how about that gun-free zone, eh? Such safety! Such security! Send your kid there to be safe!

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

And I’d steer clear of the Rum Raisin in any case.

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The rot spreads even to Texas.

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An interesting article, but notice the not-so-hidden assumption: Unless you’re using the very latest black-turtleneck-and-pierced-body-parts technology, you’re living in the Dark Ages. Never mind that government technology, except in the military, is typically twenty years or so behind the “private sector”. The “six-year-old versions of Microsoft software” is XP, the same software most major corporations (including my employer) use.

Stuck in the next-to-last paragraph, however, is the most significant thing: ”

But there were no missing letters from the computer keyboards, as Bush officials had complained of during their transition in 2001.” So apparently the Bush administration doesn’t have the same proportion of arrested adolescents that the Clinton administration did.

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An interesting article, but notice the Hidden Assumption: Unless something is “supervised” at the federal level, it isn’t really “supervised”.

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When I got to my office this morning here on Capitol Hill, I picked up the Washington Post and started looking for its story on the annual March for Life, which usually brings somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people to the city to mark the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. There are times when the advance story makes the Metro front, but most of the time you look for something short inside the paper somewhere.

I’m still looking. Did I miss something?

Well, it serves as a useful reminder that the Washington Post isn’t really a newspaper but rather a spin machine for the Chattering Classes.

But beyond that, this incident serves to illustrate my earlier point that the Establishment Media no longer function as effective gatekeepers to the public brain; they no longer control what news is available and what slant that news will take. A good thing, I’m thinking.

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A significant distinction that many overlook.

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The administration’s plans are contained in an executive order calling for the “prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantánamo,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Washington Post.

Unlawful combatants, like pirates, may be executed on the spot. Somehow I don’t think that’s what the Obama Nation has in mind, though.

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The whole system of handling returns in the publishing business is insane. One of the silver linings of the current economic panic is that the system may be fixed.

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New research shows that while some parts of the frozen continent have been getting slightly colder over the last few decades, the average temperature across the continent has been rising for at least the last 50 years.

Turns out AlGore and his minions were wrong — again.

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And, of course, let’s not forget the Democrats, from FDR on down, who set up and expanded this system.

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And, since the Brazilians aren’t as stupid as we are, they may be allowed to do something about it.

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Yeah, that gun-free zone concept really works well, doesn’t it? If you’re going to kill somebody, do it at a school; you can be sure nobody is going to shoot back.

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Read it twice. This contains some highly significant ideas.

I argue that we should abolish the Freedom of Information Act and instead make transparency the default for government’s business, which should occur digitally and in the open, so citizens may search, link, comment on, and analyze it. Rather than our asking the government to release our information, the government should ask our permission not to.

Well, that ain’t gonna happen, and anybody who thinks that it might is smoking and not sharing.

The most interesting point is the one that the author entirely misses: The internet allows public officials, especially public officials who are trying to move beyond the comfort zone of the Nomenklatura, direct access to the public.

Reagan used radio and television to speak directly to the American people when he couldn’t get his programs past Congress and the bureaucracy. Then the dinosaur media caught on — and when Bush had some twitches in that direction, they went all passive-aggressive gatekeeper on him. But the Internet seriously degrades the establishment’s gatekeeper power, whether broadcast or print. And the various government-sponsored web sites are the key to that revolution.

IF OBAMA IS AS SMART AS HIS WORSHIPPERS ALL KEEP SAYING HE IS, the White House web site will have links to his position on every single scrap of legislation and every single controversial issue that pops up its ugly head — and he will have a position on every such issue. If you want to know what the administration’s position is on any subject, you won’t have to depend on the Spin Cycle media; just go right to the source and ask the horse. The danger here is the White House internal bureaucracy. As in any bureaucracy, control of information is power, and bureaucrats like sharing information/power about as much as they like spending their own money.

Let’s see if he (a) understands the opportunity and (b) has the balls to use it.

These will be interesting times.

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Not really news, but a useful reminder.

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Welcome to the Obama Nation.

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“Human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov told reporters Monday he would use all legal means to overturn the early release of the most senior Russian military officer ever convicted of war crimes in Chechnya. After walking out of the news conference, he was shot dead. A journalist with him was also killed.”

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

And quite often he’s dead on, too.

The Hog doesn’t do political commentary any more. Nope. Wouldn’t think of it. Just tools and food, and some religion here and there. That’s all. Nothing else.

I can’t help feeling some excitement over the inauguration of a black President. I just wish it were someone else.

Hear, hear. Thomas Sowell, perhaps. Or Walter Williams.

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Versailles had nothing on Pennsylvania Avenue. I’m surprised that the President’s Study hasn’t been named the Monica Lewinsky Memorial Relaxation Room. Democrats — no respect for history.

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A review of a new book on Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell.

The review is by Diana Gabaldon, one of my favorite historical novel writers.

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Me want.

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I’m sorry, but this guy ought either to (a) not wear a suit or (b) cut his fargin hair. He looks like a retard stuck in the sixties.

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Slow news day.

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Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

As I reported last September, even though the four Sand States (which have 21% of the country’s population) accounted for about half the foreclosures, they must have accounted for an even higher proportion of the defaulted dollars, which is the key variable in setting off the world financial crisis. That’s because median home prices in California were almost triple that in the rest of the country at the peak of the bubble.

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Hey, don’t say we never have useful stuff here.

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The persistent problem with environmentalism is that every fashionable alternative to common everyday processes, especially in the energy field, involve stuff on the backend that are even more unfriendly to the environment. But of course the True Believers can’t be bothered to worry about that. Life is a process of which they only see the final step — that’s why they typically have no knowledge of history prior to the day they were born.

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Darwin Award: We have a winner.

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I especially like

3. President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save three million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $50,000 a year.

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We can tell that the “culture wars” are not over because Democrats and liberals are still fighting them. We know culture warriors won’t disappear from national politics because one of them just won the presidential election. And if Beinart means that conservatives are losing the culture wars, that’s far from a certain bet, and one the Democrats would be ill-advised to take.

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Al’s the man.

No one can ever bribe or twist

A noble mainstream journalist;

But seeing what they tend to do

Unbribed, there’s just no reason to.

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

Now, I’m not a doctor, but it’s my impression that rather than our “uncomfortable feelings about sexuality” that “have caused STDs to be stigmatizing,” it’s more the oozing sores.

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Contrary to the Geneva Convention, I might add. But they know that the Israelis won’t shoot kids who aren’t obviously armed.

Not really news, but a useful reminder.

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One really loathes seeing tastelessness, self-indulgence, and lack of intelligence jump up onto the table and loudly defend itself.  If you need to dress like a young boy well into your 30s and 40s because you are psychologically crippled or otherwise unable to shrug off adolescent immaturity, that’s fine, but at least have the decency to acknowledge this as a weakness of character.

This guy is one of us.

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A team in America compared the DNA taken from healthy skin cells with that from cancerous cells in a 50-year-old woman who later died from acute myeloid leukaemia, a form of cancer that affects the cells in the bone marrow that make blood.

They found 10 important genetic differences in the cancerous DNA, eight of which had never been linked to this form of cancer before.

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And you will participate, whether you want to or not. That’s what passes for democracy and free markets in these degenerate times.

New regulations require, for instance, that a typical 100-watt bulb be replaced by one that provides the same amount of light with 72 watts. Light bulbs will have to be even more efficient by 2020.

Now what business is this of the government? At all?

I thought that the whole point of the American Revolution was to get the government out of things like determining our light bulb choices. Apparently I was wrong.

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Steve Sailer is always worth reading. This was done back in November and I put it in my “ponder at leisure” stack; it’s still worth thinking about.

My basic theory is that Democrats do best in states with metropolitan areas where land for homes is scarce because they are hedged in by oceans or Great Lakes; while Republicans do best in inland areas where homebuyers can look around for homes in a 360 degree radius around job sites. I call this the Dirt Gap: Republicans are found more in areas with more dirt and less water.

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Really, who hasn’t done that every now and then?

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Slow news day.

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More than 200 secondary schools are shunning traditional subjects to teach “life skills” such as team-building and communication in themed classes.

If those were my kids, I’d ask for my money back.

Oh, wait, the government pays for schooling over there.

Well, then, as a taxpayer, I’d still ask for my money back.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. And probably is.

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Stick a 50-cal turret on the sucker and I’m there.

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Hakimzadeh, who is a director of the Iranian Heritage Foundation and a published author, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of theft in May.

He was jailed for two years at Wood Green Crown Court on Friday.

The 10 British Library works which he admitted defacing were worth £71,000 alone.

Two years seems … inadequate.

Well, being Iranian he’s probably a Muslim, so we ought to do it the Muslim way: Cut his hand off.

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Mr Niemoeller used resin-soaked paper processed to form thin, light and strong panels. The material is also an excellent insulator, and is flexible, making it appropriate in earthquake-risk zones.

Not to mention incredibly flammable, and easy to get rid of when the government wants to clean an area up for tourists.

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Needless to say, this is as silly as a Muslim cab driver refusing to drive somebody carrying alcohol.