Mark Steyn uncovers the environmentalism scam.

In the name of “the environment,” the state gets to regulate everything you do. The cap-and-trade bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, is a bold assault on property rights: in order to sell your home—whether built in 2006 or 1772—you would have to bring it into compliance with whimsical, eternally evolving national “energy ef?ciency” standards, starting with a 50 per cent reduction in energy use by 2018. Fail to do so and it would be illegal for you to enter into a private contract with a willing buyer.

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The announcement (pdf) this morning that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is acquiring Burlington Northern railway raises some interesting questions. To begin with, if Mr. Buffett had $44 billion sitting around to spend, why did the taxpayers have to put $25 billion into Wells Fargo, $6.6 billion into U.S. Bancorp, and $3.38 billion into American Express through the Troubled Asset Relief Program? Berkshire Hathaway, as of its last annual shareholder letter (pdf), owned 13.1% of American Express, 7.2% of Wells Fargo, and 4.3% of U.S. Bancorp. These are significant positions, worth a lot more than the Buffett stakes in See’s Candies or the Washington Post Company that you read more about in the newspapers because they fit with the folksy, straight-shooting image Mr. Buffett likes to project. If Mr. Buffett had all that capital to spare, why didn’t he use it on propping up his own positions himself rather than accepting a government handout for which he later hailed Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner as “heroes”? And that doesn’t even touch the matter of Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in government-backed Goldman Sachs, on better terms than the taxpayers received for their Goldman aid.

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But you knew that.

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You know, we can debate about what the bedrock principles of the Republican party ought to be, and what they should not be. But I think — and feel free to call me a right-wing nutjob for entertaining such a thought — those principles ought not have a whole lot to do with helping Democrats win.

As a cause, it explains why the Republicans, and conservatives in general, will continue to be blitzed from all sides by this Scazzafava problem. All these David Brocks, all these Ariana Huffingtons, all these Andrew Sullivans. They’re just moral cowards. People with a desire to say stuff, to pretend they have something important to say, but really just want to go after whatever is the most popular.

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Wonder how much they’d charge for a simple pine box. Maybe you have to go to Target for that.

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Historians believe they have found the original recipe for Lea and Perrins’ Worcestershire sauce, which could be 150 years old.

Read it. Drat those Presbyterians, anyway … oh, wait….

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Some of these I like a lot; some are really silly. But it’s worth thinking about.

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Some critters just aren’t very picky.

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A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace. “We have no demands to present you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.”

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Another good reason to stay away from South Korea.

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Cue the Somali pirates.

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The Brooklyn Brewery is getting an $800,000 grant from the state of New York, the New York Times reports this morning.

Many of these taxpayers are less rich than this brewery owner is, making this deal another Reverse Robin-Hood.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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This must have all happened after I left in 1980.

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Of course. All it needs is an oscillation overthruster and you’re there.

This Is Just Cool.

We don’t have life, so we can pass the savings on to you….

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Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas.

Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so.

The debate, really, is over. High-tax states don’t deliver a better lifestyle–not for taxpayers, anyway. One of these days, voters will figure out that the same thing holds true at the national level. Higher taxes may be OK if you’re a public employee; otherwise, they’re a dead loss.

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Peace is not a process. Peace exists when one of two conditions is met: 1) two groups of people have no wish to kill one another (e.g., the U.S. and Canada), or 2) one or both of the groups would like to kill the other, but is deterred or otherwise prevented from doing so (e.g., the Cold War). In neither case is a “process” typically involved. Negotiation, unlike peace, is indeed a process. But negotiations, even when they lead to a treaty or agreement, cannot bring peace unless one of the above conditions is also met. (See Munich, Oslo, countless others).

People have been talking about a “peace process” in the Middle East for a long time, but those discussions have little or nothing to do with the actual existence of peace, which has depended on other factors. See number 2 above.

How do you make peace with a sickness?

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Recently, Democratic Representative Maxine Waters added an amendment to the bill establishing the CFPA that would add five seats to its powerful Oversight Board for “experts in the fields of consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgage loans.” All sorts of interest group representatives could easily get on the board under this amendment. For example, pretty much any bank or credit card company official could claim to have expertise in the “fields” of “consumer protection” or “fair lending.” Similarly, many banks can easily claim to “primarily serve underserved communities.” Finally, interest group representatives could pose as “representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgage loans.” For example, lenders and real estate developers located in such areas would surely qualify; after all, they live in the community too. The majority of the board will still be made up of various federal government officials. But these officials are far from immune from interest group pressure, and of course that lobbying will be facilitated by the fact that several interest group representatives will now be sitting on the board itself.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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I wonder whether they ‘simulated’ the NATO response as well? They’d have to get a half-black guy skilled at wringing his hands and whining to play Obama.

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While the Sarwar case is sensational by dint of the role-reversal and the method of attempted murder (throat-slitting), it’s also pedestrian: Over the past two years, there have been about a dozen attempted or successful honor killings committed in the US.

Muslim parents will attempt to kill their own children to prevent them from assimilating and becoming ‘normal American kids’. What possible justification could there be for allowing such people in this country?

Dvorak looks like Al Franken without the hair. Just sayin’.

Computers give us highly realistic games that suck people into playing them for hours on end. And I’d rather not even want to get into the time-killer called Second Life. Here a person actually creates a whole second life in which he or she can waste countless hours within that structure and waste time as another person.

Well, that’s lost productivity – if your goal in life is to work 24/7. Lighten up, John.

As a technologist myself, I have obviously promoted smart devices and computers, but I do look around at my own increasing disorganization and remind myself that I originally got into computers to get more organized and more efficient, not less. Instead I got less organized and less efficient.

So your personality deficiencies define how bad things are? Get over yourself, John. Go play a video game or something.