Archive for December, 2007
Mike Huckabee = Jimmy Carter–UPDATED
Thursday, December 13th, 2007Remember last week when I said that I don’t like Mike Huckabee because he reminds me of Jimmy Carter? Well, evidently I’m not the only one whose made the connection. This is what I said:
I don’t like Mike Huckabee and it’s not because I have antipathy for politicians from the great state of Arkansas, although I can’t quite shake that either. No, I don’t like him because he reminds me of another politician who I really, really don’t like: Jimmy Carter.Jimmy Carter wore his folksy, unforgiving morality on his sleeve disguised as Christianity when it was just a method to intimidate people of lesser moral stature (anyone who disagreed with him). Like Carter, Huckabee loves government solutions. The government can make everything better, he believes. That stands in stark contrast to the considerable evidence to the contrary.
Ann Althouse voted for Ford instead of Carter because of Carter’s “smallness”, “I’d decided he was a small man. He didn’t fit the Presidency.” And then she references Huckabee. While Carter would go back to his peanut farm, this is what Huckabee said:
Today, I read an email from my son John with the following quote and the question: “Remind you of anyone?”‘‘If you aren’t for some reason elected president, what cabinet position would you be suited for?’’ I asked. Huckabee paused, considering. ‘‘Secretary of health and human services would be one,’’ he said. ‘‘Secretary of transportation, or the interior.’’ Perhaps aware that this wasn’t a Mount Rushmore self-evaluation, he quickly added that he doesn’t really want a cabinet position or any other government job. ‘‘I’d be just as happy to go back to Arkansas and open a bait shop on a lake,’’ he said.
That’s exactly my feeling, too. Huckabee’s a small man. He isn’t big enough for the presidency.
He can keep his folksy wisdom and banal platitudes. I just don’t want to hear it. Too many important world events face the new American president. We don’t need a guy playing his harmonica on the front porch of the White House. We need a leader.
Update: Rich Lowry has more thoughts on Huckabee. Ones you’ll recognize here:
After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.Like Dean, Huckabee is an under-vetted former governor who is manifestly unprepared to be president of the United States. Like Dean, he is rising toward the top of polls in a crowded field based on his appeal to a particular niche of his party. As with Dean, his vulnerabilities in a general election are so screamingly obvious that it’s hard to believe that primary voters, once they focus seriously on their choice, will nominate him.
You can like him, but he won’t ever get elected in America. You might as well vote Hillary and get it over with.
Meanwhile, In Afghanistan
Thursday, December 13th, 2007We’re kicking Taliban ass. Oh wait, you missed that on the news tonight? Yeah, well that happens. A lot.
It’s Not A Hate Crime….. –Updated
Thursday, December 13th, 2007……if you’re white. If you’re white, it’s “simple assault”.
Update: Here’s the assaulted white guys. And here’s the city’s response via Gateway Pundit:
The City of Baltimore is denying that this was a racist attack.The victim of the first bus attack, Sarah Kreager, has been placed in a witness protection program, after a cousin of one of the accused sent her a threatening message at the homeless shelter where Kreager stays, according to a law enforcement source.
Can you imagine if these people were black? Where’s Al Sharpton? Where’s Jesse Jackson? Their silence equates racism.
Cholesterol Levels
Thursday, December 13th, 2007So, American’s cholesterol levels finally fit the neat little government parameters. Americans now have normal cholesterol compared with 1950 when the average 222. Cholesterol is down, but other health problems are up. I’ll get to that in a minute.
First, there is no causation associated with cholesterol levels and any disease. None. I know, this is shocking with the obsession-compulsion you hear from doctors, the media and now prominent bloggers. But there’s no scientific evidence that high cholesterol is bad.
Second, your body makes the biggest proportion of cholesterol. Diet provides a small percent of the body’s need. In fact, when we don’t injest enough cholesterol, our body bumps up production. Why? Because cholesterol is very important. Brain function, hormone production and a myriad of physiological processes rely on cholesterol. (A good article here.)
What about statins and cholesterol lowering drugs? Don’t they cut heart disease? Um, no. They might help if you don’t have heart disease, but if you do, they do nothing. So what’s the point of taking them? Most people put on statins take them because they’re diagnosed with heart disease.
And then, there are the side effects. Statins and cholesterol lowering medications are not the benign medical marvel they’re made out to be. Certainly they work, but if you avoid one potential problem only to face another life-threatening or life-altering one, they might not seem so miraculous. So here’s a few things that statins can do:
- Muscle wasting, myopathy
- Memory loss
- Reduced lung capacity, shortness of breath
- Liver disease (best link)
- Depression
- Lowered sex drive
It is actually this last symptom that people find the most egregious. Without cholesterol to make hormones, a person’s sex drive plummets. This is no small thing. Quality of life is nearly as important as quantity of life. A guy who has high cholesterol and trades his sex drive for the right numbers might actually prefer to have a heart attack. The statins aren’t the only thing that changes a person’s libido. Combined with blood pressure medication (which it often is), the medication taker can feel depressed, anxious and lose vitality.
The solution, of course, is more medication and surgery. Anti-depressants, drugs for erectile dysfunction, and hysterectomies for the female problems sure to surface. It is my belief that statins will be the next big medical hoax following HRT and arthritis drugs.
Be wary of magic pills. Good health comes from good diet, exercise, and happiness. Oh, and good genes don’t hurt, either.
Murder In The Least–Update
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007Has the rash of random violence overwhelmed a rational person’s ability to integrate the evil? Aaron Hanscom writes an excellent commentary detailing examples of young people refusing to use condemning language for everything from Nazism to the Virginia Tech murderer (his name shall not be written) who killed 32 people in one day. Glenn Reynold’s asks, “Is murder a victimless crime?” Even young people who should clearly know better get it wrong:
One wonders if Gutmann would have also found the humor in the Nazi costume Prince Harry wore to a party in 2005. Harry would have fit in perfectly in the class of one Harvard University professor, who has described his shock upon learning that the majority of his students didn’t believe anybody was to blame for the Holocaust. He referred to his students’ attitude about the past as “no-fault history.”
There are whose answer to the world’s evil is to simply pretend it doesn’t involve them. It is a supremely selfish perspective and an unthinking one. Some other acquaintances cannot or will not concede that evil exists.
How convenient! If evil doesn’t exist, then there is no reason to fight injustice or wrong. It’s really a perfect world view. It requires nothing of the believer and offers absolution for cowardice.
Changing the terms, defining down makes a society where no heinous action is condemned and may even be extolled:
Apparently murder isn’t even enough to retire the usage of the diminutive form of the murderer’s name. In fact, the reporter also referred to Hawkins as “Robby” when asking the friend questions like “What are you thinking about now that you know that Robby was involved in this shooting?” (The word “commit” can’t be used by the nonjudgmental.) It’s hard to disagree with talk show host Dennis Prager when he makes the case that such rhetoric is symbolic of society’s inability to make moral condemnations. But aren’t some crimes so horrific that everyone should abhor them?
The answer to the last question is “no”. To abhor would be to judge and that would be wrong. The murderer simply acted the way he did because it made sense to him at the time. Our job is to understand his motivation so we can help little future murderers choose more helpful behavior.
Just when I think America is more cohesive than the media would have us believe, an article like this comes out. The divide in America may indeed be moral. Will every one of these relativistic people have to have a friend or family member raped, killed or dismembered to know evil exists? Or will they stay in the soft comfort of amorality even then?
Update: It occurs to me that the reason people deny evil exists is based in narcissism. These people don’t want anyone telling them that what they’re doing is morally repugnant or wrong, so they refuse to condemn any behavior no matter how heinous. The guiltless murder is all about them. This short-circuits empathy. It short-circuits the impulse for justice.
This doesn’t bode well for the future. Wars started to end justice or for self-preservation will be forgone in favor of comfort food, entertainment and whatever self-centered pursuit is trendy.
The future won’t be good men doing nothing. The future will be filled with amoral men doing nothing. There will just be a sliding scale of bad.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” [Edmund Burke]
We need a more than a few good men.
Generational Generalizations
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007Is the Greatest Generation, so-called, that great? Are the Baby Boomers vapid jingoists intent on self-actualization through plastic surgery? Are the Xers the forgotten generation, smashed between the Gen Y and Boomer vice?
Well, I know quite a few of the Greatest Generation who ain’t so great. And I know some spectacular Gen Y-ers. We should use caution when generalizing too much, I think.
Gun-Free Liability Act
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007Remember the other day when I said, “Sue them!” so enraged was I that the people in the Mall in Omaha were sitting ducks for an armed psychopath? I said, there oughta be a law. Well here’s one.
This is very important legislation. I hope it passes. Any place that says it’s a gun-free zone better provide excellent security or be liable for the damages.
H/T Instapundit
Chinese Cyber Attack?
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007I’m concerned about stories like these. It’s going to happen more and more. The thing is, people don’t have to be in the United States to threaten or harm us. And more than that, with the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) kind of threat, the terrorist or foreign government wouldn’t want to be here.
Guns Save Lives–UPDATE
Monday, December 10th, 2007An undercover female guard took the sociopath down with her gun in the Colorado shootings. He still managed to kill two people in the church, but it would have been more, no doubt, had he not been stopped.
UPDATE: Well, my impression was that the “undercover” woman was actually a plain-clothes security guard. Turns out that she was just an attending church member with a CCW permit.
More:
Directly from the head pastor at New Life Church, the “security guard” who stopped the shooting was an unpaid volunteer, not a police officer, and “used a personal weapon.” The CNN link confirms the information I just received in an email from a source at New Life Church.So the facts are now that a concerned, armed citizen, acted to in defense of the lives of others and risked her own life by moving rapidly to the shots and engaging the gunman. This woman is truly a hero, and deserves the highest congratulations we can offer.
The killer “hated Christians“.
The press needs to get this shooting right, for once. There are benefits to carrying a concealed gun, legally. The bad guys always conceal theirs.
H/T Glenn Reynolds
