A Pinnacle of Irony

From an IBD editorial discussing the Federal spending I posted about yesterday:

More brutal was last week's assessment of Russia's Pravda, the former house organ for the Soviet communist regime: "The American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed."

Sorry, I can't top that.

From the "World Gone Insane" File

Madness. Sheer, unadulterated madness.

Via Veronique de Rugy at NRO we have this little gem:

"According to USA Today, this $546,668 per Household in federal obligations represents a 12% increase or an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt, and other government promises."

USA Today reports that key federal obligations are:

• Social Security. It will grow by 1 million to 2 million beneficiaries a year from 2008 through 2032, up from 500,000 a year in the 1990s, its actuaries say. Average benefit: $12,089 in 2008.

• Medicare. More than 1 million a year will enroll starting in 2011 when the first Baby Boomer turns 65. Average 2008 benefit: $11,018.

•Retirement programs. Congress has not set aside money to pay military and civil servant pensions or health care for retirees. These unfunded obligations have increased an average of $300 billion a year since 2003 and now stand at $5.3 trillion. . . .

That's quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined.

"We have a huge implicit mortgage on every household in America — except, unlike a real mortgage, it's not backed up by a house," says David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, the government's top auditor."

It's enough to make one want to whip out the Uzi. Of course, you couldn't possibly even identify, much less wipe out, enough of the perpetrators of this outrage to make a difference. What to do? Your guess is as good as mine...

Ida, The Missing Link?

The Independent news story on a recently publicized fossil (it was discovered 26 years ago) insists it's not the missing link between homo sapiens and earlier primates. True or not, it sounds like a fantastic find from which scientists are learning a lot. Indications are that it is very likely genuine and not a hoax. Hard to believe, given how well preserved it was when found, but after more than a year of tests the evidence is pretty good.

What is so special about the fossil?

There are several features that make Ida stand out, other than the almost miraculous preservation of about 95 per cent of its skeleton. The first striking anatomical feature – other than the absence of a penis bone or bacculum, making Ida unmistakably female – is the animal's opposable thumbs, which she used for climbing trees and picking up items of food such as berries and fruit. Opposable thumbs on a five-digit hand are a signature feature of monkeys and apes and were essential for the precision grip needed to make and handle tools, a key development in human evolution.

What else have we learnt about her?

Other anatomical features include the presence of a distinctive ankle "talus" bone in Ida's foot, another link to human anatomy. Only the human talus is obviously bigger, according the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, which was involved in the scientific analysis of the fossil. Further interesting features of its anatomy are the absence of a "toothcomb", a fused row of teeth in the middle of the lower jaw, and a "toilet claw", a grooming claw on the second digit of the foot. These features are attributes of lemurs but absent in monkeys and apes, indicating Ida's transition to anthropoid primates.

Furthermore, Ida's fingertips end in nails rather than claws, which is another link with monkeys and apes. Her eye sockets housed large, forward-pointing eyes that probably gave her good 3-D, binocular vision. Her big eyes would have been useful for a lifestyle of night-time foraging.

Amazing stuff, evolution...

Quote of the Day - Eisenhower

I never shared President Eisenhower's concern over the "military industrial complex." Still, I'm not insensible to the tendency of some businessmen to take advantage of political pull to increase profits. What's especially interesting though, even tragic, about this quote is the final sentence.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist... There is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.

Adherence to that one insight would have eliminated 90% of the economic disasters of the past year that have, even now, not yet fully played out.

Progressive Anti-Goals and How They Get Away With Them - Part I

People tend to focus on politics and politicians because those are the most obvious forces destroying liberty. But, the Progressives, today's smiley-face version of Facism-lite, are just a political type. There's a broader group — the Anti(s) — that want much more, and much worse.

Their fundamental goal is to transform modern American culture. Their method is more than simply to use the forms of capitalist, voluntary trade to enslave us by a slow progression of fascist regulation to take over businesses. The true Anti uses "cover" philosophies to hide their tracks as they march through the institutions, on their way to completely transforming America down to the root.

The environmental movement, for example, uses the cover of science to advance a radical, Luddite (and, hence, inherently anti-technology) agenda. The socialists in the Federal government use the cover of 'needed regulation' in order to nationalize the financial sector of the economy. The "organic Constitution" legal theorists use the rational forms of rights protection to undermine the rule of law.

All these types know that the American public is not quite ready - perhaps still a generation away - from being willing to openly accept statist chains. So, there's still a need for cover. But they want more than just to take over industry, more than to establish dictatorship, the way Soviet Marxists did a hundred years ago. They want to entirely eliminate the American philosophy as a reality by changing the American mentality.

The destruction of freedom is just the tip of the iceberg. They want to erase from the citizens the memory of a country that was once self-reliant and competition-embracing, proud and honorable. They want more than to overturn two decades of 'Reaganism', more even than to marginalize Madison and his achievements (not to mention the dozens of giants who built America - like J. J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford).

They want to re-make the country into an irrelevancy, an historical artifact where no one remembers its history. They want to eliminate the very idea and fact of a people proud of the heritage of individuality, their focus on hard-won achievements, their "can do" attitude.

The only way they can achieve this is by systematically decomposing the American philosophy and re-writing its history, by changing what is said in university classrooms, over the airwaves, and in the dominant publications, driving - as much as possible - any genuine opposing viewpoint out of the public limelight.

They've already largely done that, succeeding through 100 years of activism. We've arrived. Welcome to Progressive America.

The centuries-old works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and others are still venerated in Italy. Yet, there are now two generations of Americans who know the name, face, and views of the pipsqueak Barack Obama but have never heard of Commodore Vanderbilt (mid-19th century transportation innovator), Frank Whittle (early 20th century jet engine pioneer), or even Nancy Wilson (singer, still living, whose records sold as well as the Beatles in the 1960s).

A country that doesn't remember and celebrate its glorious past – either through ignorance, indifference or, worse, denigrating and apologizing for it — is hardly likely to find the strength to create a shining future. It's not too late, but the clock is ticking.

Film Review: Persuasion (2007)

How to Ruin Classic Literature in 3 Easy Steps

Hire mediocre actors and give them a dull script, then put in charge the most pretentious director in the history of cinema. The net result is the ruin of a powerful novel by one of literature's greatest writers.

Most Austen adaptations are quite good; this version is dreadful in every respect. The camera work is awful, full of long, swirling shots to no purpose. The acting suffers the same problem with pauses long enough to squeeze in another scene between. The music is incessant and badly chosen, like spending an evening at a Wyndham Hill piano concert. The pace is as if the director tried to make a film not of the early 19th century but in it. He also seems to have confused Austen's Persuasion with Dicken's Bleak House and the mix-up is no benefit to the audience. The combination creates a funeral dirge devoid of Austen's wit, insight, humor, and drama.

We can only be thankful that the planned production of A Passage to India, scheduled to be directed by the same amateur and starring the same lead actress, has been canceled due to lack of funds. Pity it wasn't owing to the producers having screened this film and come to their senses.

If you like Austen, or simply want to avoid being bored and irritated by unending narcissism for nearly two hours, pass. Pick up the 1995 version with Ciaran Hinds instead, which is excellent in every respect.

TARP Arm Twisting Documented

Recently released Treasury documents strongly suggest that former Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke arm-twisted major bank CEOs to take TARP funds whether they wanted or needed them or not.

We don't believe it is tenable to opt out because doing so would leave you vulnerable and exposed.

If a capital infusion is not appealing, you should be aware that your regulator will require it in any instance.

Of course, it will never happen in this Administration, but both Paulson and Bernanke should be brought up on charges relating to this threat. If proven, each should receive the maximum prison sentences such crimes carry.

Beyond the legal issue, both should be run out of any responsible office, if not the country. They are worse than Bernie Madoff in their perfidy and the practical damage they've done to the economy.

However, it takes no prescience at all to predict that no unpleasant consequences will come to either man. Quite the reverse; Paulson will continue to be ignored while Bernanke is lionized by the press. Both will receive huge fees on the lecture circuit later.

The Federal government has passed the point of caring about morality or enforcing the law, unless the issue aligns with Progressive goals. For that reason alone all Progressive politicians and policies should be expunged from American life. That, too, won't happen, at least not until there is a sea change in the culture. When it comes, we can only hope it's a flood large enough to wash away 100 years of pragmatist evil.

[Hat tip: John Hindraker at Powerline]