Random Thoughts for the New Year

[Geee]

National Review:


Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Talk show host Dennis Miller said, “I don’t dig polo. It’s like miniature golf meets the Kentucky Derby.”

Nothing illustrates the superficiality of our times better than the enthusiasm for electric cars, because they are supposed to greatly reduce air pollution. But the electricity that ultimately powers these cars has to be generated somewhere — and nearly half the electricity generated in this country is generated by burning coal.

The 2012 Republican primaries may be a rerun of the 2008 primaries, where the various conservative candidates split the conservative vote so many ways that the candidate of the mushy middle got the nomination — and then lost the election.
Because morality does not always prevail, by any means, too many of the intelligentsia act as if it has no effect. But, even in Nazi Germany, thousands of Germans hid Jews during the war, at the risk of their own lives, because it was the right thing to do.

In recent times, Christmas has brought not only holiday cheer but also attacks on the very word “Christmas,” chasing it from the vocabulary of institutions and even from most “holiday cards.” Like many other social crusades, this one is based on a lie — namely that the Constitution puts a wall of separation between church and state. It also shows how easily intimidated we are by strident zealots.

If you don’t like growing older, don’t worry about it. You may not be growing older much longer.

[righteousmomma]

What do you call it when someone steals someone else’s money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else’s money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else’s money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice.

[Valin]

Nothing illustrates the superficiality of our times better than the enthusiasm for electric cars, because they are supposed to greatly reduce air pollution. But the electricity that ultimately powers these cars has to be generated somewhere — and nearly half the electricity generated in this country is generated by burning coal.

 

There is only one answer for this....

[Valin]

In the 1920s, Congressman Thomas S. Adams referred to "the ease with which the income tax may be legally avoided" but also said some Congressmen "so fervently believe that the rich ought to pay 40 or 50 per cent of their incomes" in taxes that they would rather make this a law, even if the government would get more revenue from a lower tax rate that people actually pay. Some also prefer class warfare politics that brings in votes, if not revenue.

 

Can you imagine a man who had never run any kind of organization, large or small, taking it upon himself to fundamentally change all kinds of organizations in a huge and complex economy? Yet that is what Barack Obama did when he said, "We are going to change the United States of America!" This was not "The Audacity of Hope." It was the audacity of hype.