So. I had to make a crucial decision; French II or Communications and Negotations. If I took Communications and Negotiations and then decided to go to China next trimester, then I would have to do a summer immersion course in France. This would ultimately mean I was spending more money than strictly necessary, since I only need one foreign experience to graduate, not two. If I took French II, on the other hand, there’s the chance that I wouldn’t be able to go to China, even if I wanted to, if CCC wasn’t offered in China. So, taking CCC is the safest choice, but it guarantees that the best choice isn’t available (China for next tri, summer internship) since french immersion over the summer would be necessary. But taking French II this term means that there’s the chance that I won’t be able to go to China at all, but, if I go, it’s the best China-route possible.
The drop/add period ends tonight. I switched into French II from CCC. Let’s see how that works.
I think Romney being mostly conservative will work fine, particularly if we get a republican Congress. It will take a cooperative team of the Executive and Legislative branches (with the Judiciary staying out of the way) to get us out of this mess- sort of like the Constitution originally envisioned . Guys like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul can bring the revolutionary ideas- I’m confident Romney will be willing to run with those ideas, as opposed to Newt, who probably won’t accept any idea that’s not exclusively his (remember “right-wing social engineering”?) because his self-image of being the smartest guy in the room won’t allow him to.
As far as Ron Paul is concerned, I’ve never heard him say anything about cutting entitlements- He specifically said that his reduction of the military and overseas operations will balance the budget, which is just incorrect. And he’s talking about more than just getting out of the nation-building business- We’ll be lucky to have a Coast Guard if he gets his way. But none of it will pay for entitlements if we don’t do anything about them.
But maybe you’ve heard more than I have, since I pretty much ignore him. As Santorum (I think) said- Most of his good ideas would never happen, but his bad ideas could be enacted almost immediately.
But I just don’t see Gingrich — I mean, he’s better than Obama, but who isn’t? I just think he’s pretty unstable and no one knows what he’ll say next- I also think it’s significant that the people who are most against his nomination are generally the people who worked most closely with him in congress when he was speaker.
But that said, I’d rather have a president I’m worried about than one that I know is going to make things worse, so once again, better than Obama.
Newt has obviously been helped by the extreme number of debates. If we didn’t have this many he’d still be in single digits. I’m afraid at some point, all this does is just identify the best debater. I fear that people are going to vote for Newt just because they think it would be cool to see him beat up on Obama in the debates. But Obama won’t agree to more than three debates, and I suspect the networks who sponsor the debates will structure the things in such a way to minimize Newt’s opportunities.
The other thing that I notice that Newt looks best debating the moderators rather than his opponents- that’s because the stuff that’s making him look good is stuff that everybody on the stage agrees with- he just says it better and more forcefully. Again, do we want to pick the best debater or the best president?
I hope this defeat energizes Romney a bit to stop playing just not to lose, which is what it seems to me like he’s been doing so far. He needs to vigorously defend himself from all these ridiculous charges he’s getting.
Finally, there’s some indication that Romney got hurt with evangelists because he’s a Mormon. The good news is that evangelists won’t be as much as a factor in the next few primaries. The bad news is that if Romney’s the candidate, and the evangelists stay home in November, we may get Obama back. The religious bigotry from “our side” is the most depressing aspect of this campaign. It’s not as if evangelists don’t know about being attacked for their faith.
WEF1 has come back with a flurry of posts! Wexforce is back! I like the idea of replying to posts with a front page post rather than a comment, so I’ll keep to that principle.
RE: Romney
Romney is interesting. I can see why he’s your choice, WEF1. Out of all the candidates, he seems to be the one most competent in terms of being an executive manager. He’s probably the only one who can beat Obama. And he’ll probably be mostly conservative. Unfortunately, mostly might not be good enough. And a lot of people think that only a very conservative program can stop the US from sliding into a debt-death spiral of big-government spending and entitlements. I agree with them: these problems won’t be solved by politics as usual. Unfortunately, the nation probably won’t face up to these problems until the problem gets even more out of hand.
Entitlements
If Social Security doesn’t get your knees knocking, I don’t know what will. It’s estimated, I’ve read, that we’re looking at a 50+ trillion dollar shortage over the next twenty years as WEF1 and friends retire. A radical approach to this problem would be to tell the truth: Social Security is not only unsustainable, but it is unconstitutional and needs to be phased out. Kudos to Perry for calling it a Ponzi scheme.
Ron Paul’s approach is about as drastic as you can get: cut five departments, lay off tens of thousands of federal workers, and end foreign nation-building. His plan cuts 1 trillion dollars out of the budget in the first year, and balances it within three. With the savings you’ve got there, you can begin to phase out Social Security by allowing young people to opt out, which is what Paul proposes. On Medicare and Medicaid, he moves these programs to the States, aiming to remove it as a federal program entirely.
Ron Paul is a libertarian, and more than anyone else, has a real plan to eliminate federal entitlement programs. More than anyone else, he’s prepared to eliminate vast chunks of the federal bureaucracy. And although he won’t be the nominee, and although he’d never beat Obama, he is (I believe) telling people what they need to hear: that we’re broke, that we’re going to get more broke, and that one way or another, the government is going to have to be gutted.
Interesting- The idea that by being so tied to modern rationality we mistakenly discount all truths that we can’t see, measure, and analyze makes sense to me. I’d maybe substitute “happy” or “wise” for “sane”, though.
And while I agree that there is truth beyond logic (ask Schrodinger’s cat) , I think he loses me when he tries to explain how Christian mysticism is better that other traditions because of an analogy he comes up with concerning one symbol (the cross) vs. another (the circle). At that point I would have appreciated a bit of more conventional logic to make his case.
I pretty much agree with every word that Perry said. Please clarify what part upset you and we can discuss.
And WEF3, If you don’t think what is happening in the schools and elsewhere is a systematic suppression of religion (particularly Christianity, and more particularly Catholicism) then you haven’t been paying attention. Also, I missed the part in Perry’s ad where he said anything about the death penalty, but in any case, capital punishment isn’t anti-religion, so that’s sort of irrelevant to the ad, don’t you think?
Yeah, everybody seems to have gotten their turn at taking on Romney, and now there’s no one left but Paul (unless Santorum can come up with something quick). In fact, I don’t think Paul has a chance of winning the nomination. The reasons he’s still standing are 1) he’s so far out of the mainstream that nobody’s bothered to waste time articulating why he’s so unfit to be president; 2) his supporters are by far the most enthusiastic, because he’s a radical and the radicals that support him tend to be enthusiastic and will never give up; and 3) his independent and democrat supporters are crossing over to vote in the Republican primaries.
For the record, I’ve been a Romney supporter from the beginning, and I find it a bit strange that there’s this much of an “anybody but Romney” attitude among conservatives. From what I can see, he’s by far the most solid, competent and reliable conservative in the race. I liked him four years ago, and if anything, he’s more conservative now. All the talk about him switching his positions doesn’t bother me much– Anything major was a while back, and all it means is that he was running (and governing) in a very liberal state, and he reflected the overall views of his constituents while advancing conservative programs where he could. What’s not to like? Besides, what’s the point of convincing someone to change their views more to our liking if we’re just going to give him a hard time about it? If you’re still concerned, remember that if this goes the way we want, we’ll have both the House and the Senate, and in that case, I think Romney will do just fine even if I’m wrong (which I’m not, natch).
Oh, and for those who don’t think he’s “exciting” enough, since when did conservatives start wanting exciting? I think one cult figure is enough for this decade. Do I have to remind those people whose portrait Reagan hung in the Oval Office?
–As usual. the closest representation of my views is Ann Coulter, so I invite you to actually read her and think about what she says. She’s almost always right, and she’s right this time too. If anybody doesn’t like some of the things she says while she’s busy being right, it’s probably time for them to get a new teddy bear–
So I’m not looking for someone I can support as an alternative to Romney– If I was, I think Santorum would be my guy. But even he’s too big government for my tastes, so Mitt is still head and shoulders above anyone else.
Back to Ron Paul- Where’s his economic program? Oh yeah, we can keep all the entitlement programs going full bore, because we’ll just pay for them by gutting the military! Another example (like I mentioned in my last post) of this guy buying tickets to the unicorn races. All it takes are minimal math skills and a whiff of curiosity to see that nothing we can possibly do will pay for these entitlements, even if we eliminate half the government (which we’ll have to do anyway in 20 years if we don’t cut entitlements). We could also confiscate every penny of the “millionaires and billionaires,” and it wouldn’t do more than pay one year’s bills, one time. That Paul doesn’t admit this means he’s either delusional or as dishonest a politician as all the democrats and most of the republicans.
I won’t even talk about this “newsletter” thing of years ago. Again, incompetent, racist, or a politician with no ethics that will do anything to further his interests? FWIW, I vote for door number three (because I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt). Of course he’s pretty much gotten a pass on this, but if people do begin to take him seriously, that won’t last for long.
Not to mention all the other insane things he’s said over the years that everybody is ignoring (for now).
Yeah, Barry (the good one) was the man back in those days. William Buckley also sounded a lot like that. And I know you’re thinking of Ron Paul, but there is a big difference. As I’ve said before, Paul says lots of things that are absolutely true and great to hear someone say, at least when he’s talking about domestic stuff and actually following the constitution for a change. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t get that we have to deal with the rest of the world, and that if we don’t, really bad things will happen. He just convinces himself that all the dangers out there are simply a result of our interactions with the world and if we just left it alone it would leave us alone. I know that’s how he’d like the world to be, because then his ideas would work just fine… But it didn’t work that way in 1800, and it sure doesn’t work that way now.
As a thought experiment, imagine what the world would look like today if we had withdrawn from the world after WWII. What would our chances have been to continue to live according to our constitutional principles for very long?
Barry Goldwater would have thought Ron Paul was a dangerous crazy on foreign policy.
BTW, I think I prefer to respond to posts with post of my own, like I did here, rather than use the comments function. This way it’s right up front for everybody to see.
Advent: December 14th. Memorial of St. John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor.
MYSTICISM keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say “if you please” to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.
~G.K. Chesterton: ‘Orthodoxy,’ II.
So, it is no secret that I like Ron Paul. He’s began to poll very well in Iowa, in some polls tied for first. And I think I know why . . . I posted a few weeks ago something by Rush agreeing with Ron Paul. And now today, I find something by Sean Hannity - an interview between him and Ron Paul where Hannity is very friendly, very encouraging. If the conservative activists begin to overlook some of Ron Paul’s foreign policy, as they seem to be flirting with, I think Ron Paul could actually have a chance at winning the nomination. It is certainly an indicator of how badly Romney is perceived, and of how badly every other conservative candidate has performed. Newt Gingrich is currently the flavor of the month. But as an article I read proclaimed, Newt’s baggage has baggage. Ron Paul is old old old, his foreign policy is at odds with most conservatives, and he has pet issues that come across as weird and/or paranoid. BUT . . . is he all that conservatives have left? Stay tuned! I’m especially interested in WEF1’s opinion, as I think he represents conservative thought pretty well. Is it possible to support Ron Paul over Romney, if that’s the only choice?
I know nothing of him, but ran across this quote by him. Wow.
Barry Goldwater pretty much explained the core philosophy of American conservatism in one paragraph of his famous 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative:
The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to the men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: ‘I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel the old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.’
These protests/riots/street theater going on are too depressing to comment much about, but here goes:
This is apparently what happens when society is more worried about the self-esteem of “the children” than their education.
It’s also a great example of where you end up when society (read Hollywood) tells you all your life that your feelings are more important than your intellect.
Do they teach Economics in college anymore?
I think these fools have confused the U.S. government with Mommy and Daddy- “Why aren’t they giving us more stuff?? Waaah!”
OK, here’s the big one- The “Fast and Furious” Gunwalker operation.
Apparently our friends in the Justice Department -specifically ATF, with apparent assistance from several other federal agencies- has been supplying weapons to Mexican drug dealers and those guns have been popping up all over the place while being responsible for the deaths of several hundred Mexican nationals and numerous U.S. border patrol agents.
The idea, according to the Feds, was to get visibility on the path the weapons took to help find the top bad guys. But the feds never tried to trace the movements of the weapons from the point of origin (i.e., when they provided them to the bad guys) but seemed to be content to wait until crimes were committed with the weapons and to go from there. They didn’t have much interest in preventing the killings and other crimes being committed with the weapons. Strangely enough, the local U.S. law enforcement community is a bit upset about this, not to mention the Mexican government.
Of course the Justice Department is stonewalling for all its worth. I don’t think Holder is planning on investigating himself.
There are lots of questions about the rationale behind the program: Following up a stupid claim about the “normal” source of weapons by trying to make it true (see the “90% claim)? Demonizing guns shops in (another) attempt to scare up support for gun control? Who know? It’s a complicated story, and there’s a lot more, but people are already starting to lose their jobs, and hopefully someone will go to jail– and I mean besides the attorney-general for perjury.
Read the latest on this story here. Sorry, it’s a conservative web site- it’s hard to find a decent MSM account of this fiasco, since the press has been doing it’s best to pretend it isn’t happening. That may be about to change, as they just got suckered in to reporting on it, when the Administration tried to defend itself by (surprise!) claiming that the Bush Administration did the same thing. It seems the MSM was only too willing, even anxious, to report that. But it turns out that’s not true (another big surprise) and now the MSM is probably stuck with continuing to report on the story.
You should really start following this one- it’s going to get a lot better.
Remember the good old days (about three years ago) when the press thought that their job was to keep the government honest, rather that defending it at all costs? With any luck, they’ll finally remember about that right around 20 January 2013.
“Sure as I know anything, I know this – they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people… better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin’. I aim to misbehave.” – Mal Reynolds, Captain: Space Boat Serenity
I spent last weekend watching the series Firefly once again, and it’s still incredible to me how good that series was, especially compared to the garbage that passes for hits on TV these days (Mad Men? Doll House? you gotta be kidding).
It is one of the culture’s great sins that this show was cancelled. I mean, c’mon, couldn’t the network have hung in there for at least the three seasons that the original Star Trek did? Even with that they’d have made money hand over fist for years in reruns!
And the series actually had a message, being one of the great libertarian shows ever made (hmm… Do you think that may have had something to do with it getting cancelled by Hollywood? …Naaaw!)
Coincidentally, Firefly is in the news again, as it wins one more victory over the forces of darkness.
Alan Baldwin, who played Jayne on the series, explains.
Both Baldwin and Nathan Fillion, who played Mal (the Captain) weighed in, along with FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education).
Result- Classic Weasel words from the University of Wisconsin-Stout:
The recent discussion resulting from the removal of two posters hanging outside the door of a University of Wisconsin-Stout professor in Harvey Hall has raised serious First Amendment concerns, both on campus and across the country.
It is important to note that the posters were not removed to censor the professor in question. Rather, they were removed out of legitimate concern for the violent messages contained in each poster and the belief that the posters ran counter to our primary mission to provide a campus that is welcoming, safe and secure.
In retrospect, however, it is clear that the removal of the posters – although done with the best intent – did have the effect of casting doubt on UW-Stout’s dedication to the principles embodied in the First Amendment, especially the ability to express oneself freely. As many people have pointed out in the days since this issue surfaced, a public university must take the utmost care to protect this right.
Therefore, UW-Stout has reconsidered its decision to remove the two posters from outside the professor’s office, meaning he can display them if he so chooses.
The administration also is reviewing its procedures for handling these kinds of cases, and a new protocol is being developed in the hopes that a similar situation can be avoided in the future.
As blogger Jim Treacher commented:
“Firefly was all about pursuing liberty and refusing to bend to overweening authority. No wonder the Wisconsin university system doesn’t like it.”
As I understand it, this was these fools’ solution to not having a PA system (not the locker people, the leftist morons).
I don’t recommend listening to this whole thing, because it will make you despair for humanity. Suffice it to say that these people are blithering idiots.
For more entertainment, here’s their manifesto. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they like corporations.
Finally, here’s a useful translation of the above .
Asked at a Manchester, N.H. town hall meeting about last week’s killing of the American-born Al Qaeda leader, the Texas congressman said impeachment would be “possible,” but that he wants to know more about how the administration “flouted the law.
Paul called the killing a movement toward“tyranny.”
“I put responsibility on the president because this is obviously a step in the wrong direction,” Paul said. “We have just totally disrespected the Constitution.”
Apparently Paul thinks that if an American citizen joins a force that has declared war on the United States, the only thing we can do is arrest him and put him on trial. Otherwise we just have to leave him completely alone. That’s crazy on several levels. You can argue against the Predator strikes, but it’s difficult to argue that an American citizen gets special consideration when making war against the United States.
Well actually, according to the Constitution, I suppose he does. We get to execute him for treason.
At least Barry’s doing something right. Of course he’ll never come out and admit that Bush’s tactics were correct and justified, even thought he’s continuing those same tactics.
For those WEFers who can’t keep up with the latest Washington follies as election year approaches, here’s #2 in the series: The Solyndra Fiasco- In a nutshell, the administration seems to have used the “stimulus” to pick winners and losers in the marketplace in order to help out failing “green industries”, while ignoring pesky things like facts. Throw in some cronyism and you have a cool half Billion down the drain- Oh, and the Solyndra executives took the fifth when questioned about government involvement.
I tried to find as neutral a article as possible- you are invited to further research it on your own, to, you know, inform yourselves.
>>>>>>>>>>>
The big story marring President Obama’s jobs tour Wednesday is the $535 million loan his administration doled out to Solyndra, a solar panel company that has just gone belly-up, leaving taxpayers on the hook.
President Barack Obama visited the facility in May 2010, and said it was “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” But only a month later, the company laid off 100 employees and cancelled its plans for a public stock offering. Two weeks ago, it filed for Chapter 11 and fired 1,000 workers. FBI agents promptly raided the company’s California offices.
So what exactly happened? And how big will the fallout be for Obama?
The accusation
Republicans on the House and Energy Commission are accusing the Obama administration of ignoring multiple warning signs that Solyndra was a bad bet. The Commission lays out its case against the administration’s handling of the loan in a report released Wednesday, following a months-long investigation.
Under the Bush administration, the Department of Energy rejected Solyndra for a loan in early 2009, worrying that the company didn’t have good long-term prospects. Yet only two months later, Obama’s newly appointed Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the government would give the company a $535 million loan, funded with money from the stimulus. Last year, government accountability investigators criticized the White House for scheduling a groundbreaking at a Solyndra plant before the Energy Department had even finished filing all its paperwork. “This deal is NOT ready for prime time,” a White House budget analyst wrote only nine days before the agreement was announced.
At issue are two main things. One, emails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity show that White House officials asked the Department of Energy to make a decision on the Solyndra loan so that they would know whether they could schedule President Obama for a visit to the facility to publicize the loan. Republicans say this is evidence that the White House pressured the Energy Department, or used undue influence, to approve the loan before they knew whether it was a good bet. Republicans also mention that a big private backer of the deal, Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, also raised money for Obama’s 2008 campaign.
The second accusation is that once the loan went through, the Obama administration ignored warning signs that the company was failing and then refinanced the loan in a way that left taxpayers twisting in the wind. A few days before the groundbreaking on the new Solyndra facility in September 2009, a Department of Energy official completed an analysis that concluded the company would run out of cash by September of 2011–a forecast that turned out to be right on the mark.
But it wasn’t until last February that the government decided Solyndra was about to default, and refinanced the company’s original loan with the help of $75 million from private investors. As part of the deal, the government agreed that if Solyndra ever went bankrupt, it would have to pay back the $75 million to investors first, ahead of disbursing any money back to the taxpayers.
Center for Public Integrity reporter Ronnie Greene told The Lookout that Republican members of the subcommittee suggested Wednesday that cutting such a deal was illegal, in violation of a provision of the Clean Air act.
Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, defended the restructuring at the hearing Wednesday, arguing that it was less costly to taxpayers than liquidation or any other option would be.
