Monday, December 23, 2013

Pajama Boy Nation...

Pajama Boy Nation...  Victor Davis Hanson.  A sample:
Pajama Boy is the bookend to vero possumus, the faux-Greek columns, the Obama rainbow logo, cooling the planet and lowering the seas, hope and change, Forward!, “Yes, we can!”, the Nate Silver infatuation, Barbara Walters’ “messiah,” David Brooks’ crease, Chris Matthews’ tingle, and the army of Silicon techies who can mobilize for Obama but not for Obamacare. These are the elites without identities who feed on the latest fad. They are the upper-crust versions of those who once mobbed stores to buy the last Cabbage Patch Kids doll, or had to have a pet rock on their dresser. Obama, after all, was the lava lamp and Chia Pet of the young urban progressive.

If I were to focus on just two of the many characteristics of Pajama Boy nation in the Age of Obama, one would be that the consequences of one’s ideology apply always to someone else. Obama obsesses on inequality, but cannot even go through the populist motions of avoiding Martha’s Vineyard, or not dressing like a nerd for golf at the latest tony course.

He is an arugula-eating man of the people who tries to bowl only during election season. Michelle rags on the 1%, but still hits Costa del Sol and Aspen. Obamacare for us; for congressional staffers and insiders something quite different. A Nobel Prize and a half a billion dollars for guru Al Gore; and dumping Current TV on a fossil-fueled, anti-Semitic authoritarian Middle Eastern regime to fund more good work of our green Elmer Gantry.  Amnesty for illegal aliens, but private academies for liberal kids far from the ensuing chaos of the public schools.  Pajama Boys are fiercely liberal so that they can fiercely avoid the people they so champion and are so afraid to live among.

Second, the architects of Pajama Boy nation always expect others to go on despite rather than because of them. The frackers must frack so that Obama can brag about their productivity, while he bites his lip and looks pained to billionaire coastal benefactors about pumping liquid into the bowels of their Mother Earth.
Go read.

But the science is settled!

But the science is settled!  Physicist Pierre Darriulat, former Director of Research at CERN, submitted a statement to the British House of Commons' Energy and Climate Change Committee.  He did this because he'd heard of their investigation of the IPCC report.  He had quite a bit to say (his full statement is online).  Here's one statement that will give you the flavor:
The way the SPM deals with uncertainties (e.g. claiming something is 95% certain) is shocking and deeply unscientific. For a scientist, this simple fact is sufficient to throw discredit on the whole summary. The SPM gives the wrong idea that one can quantify precisely our confidence in the [climate] model predictions, which is far from being the case.
It's been clear for some time that the “consensus” was largely a construction of the IPCC, but it's still instructive to see how professional scientists – especially those who are outside the climate change funding axis – respond to the posturings of the warmists...

Hitting the panic button, That One is...

Hitting the panic button, That One is...  Me?  I'm drinking deeply from my overflowing mug of hot, delicious, and sweet schadenfreude...

The voice of experience...

The voice of experience...  Mark Steyn (together with Ezra Levant) is all too familiar with the costs of giving in to those who would like to control free speech.  I was looking forward to his response to the recent free speech controversies (“Duck Dynasty” and the PR lady).  Mark didn't disappoint – here's his lede:
Having leaned on A&E to suspend their biggest star, GLAAD has now moved on to Stage Two:
“We believe the next step is to use this as an opportunity for Phil to sit down with gay families in Louisiana and learn about their lives and the values they share,” the spokesman said.
Actually, “the next step” is for you thugs to push off and stop targeting, threatening and making demands of those who happen to disagree with you. Personally, I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for the GLAAD executive board to sit down with half-a-dozen firebreathing imams and learn about their values, but, unlike the Commissars of the Bureau of Conformity Enforcement, I accord even condescending little ticks like the one above the freedom to arrange his own social calendar. Unfortunately, GLAAD has had some success with this strategy, prevailing upon, for example, the Hollywood director Brett Ratner to submit to GLAAD re-education camp until he had eaten sufficient gay crow to be formally rehabilitated with a GLAAD “Ally” award.
Read the whole thing...

ObamaCare support “cratering” ... with moms.

ObamaCare support “cratering” ... with moms.  They were the last demographic with a majority supporting ObamaCare – but not any more...

Paper is not dead!

Paper is not dead!  Via my mom...