Brainiac?

Malone, pithy and devastating, on the President’s intelligence:

I’ve never seen any evidence of that, at all. Extremely intelligent? Extremely modest intelligence, would be my rating of Obama’ s smarts. And very swift on the con. Driven by self-love and megalomania.

Obama’s a packaged product, and was always more hype than substance. One of the standards of extremely intelligent people is good judgement. Twenty years in Jeremiah Wright’s church kills that. Obama is an obfuscator and prevaricator. Bad character. Not too smart.

Intellectuals are experts in manipulation of words. Since they fancy themselves to be intelligent, they assume that intelligence “looks like” their verbal skill set.  Since Obama speaks crisply with few slip-ups, he is ipso facto intelligent. (as opposed to “potatoe” and “Is our children learning?” — and Joe Biden is, I would maintain, a special case) This effect is multiplied by “the soft bigotry of low expectations” multiplied by a contradiction in liberal thought: they can observe (because they have been castigated for making the observation) that Obama speaks better than most black people, but “black people” are equal to “white people”. Ergo, if Obama speaks better than other blacks who are equal to white people, then Obama is superior to everyone.

I’m not sure I want to totally buy into the “multiple intelligences” gobbledygook that educarats use to explain away their failures. But my wife, who admits to being a disaster with language, thinks for herself, can perceive reality clearly,  and is a better mechanic than I am.  Obama’s alternative skill-set, had he grown up in Africa without his education, would have made him a successful “solicitor” in your email, asking for your help in resolving a rich man’s estate.

I’m not buying it either

(V)ery (A)bsent (T)hought
By admin on bookstore
(Bookstore | London, UK)
(After confirming the price of every single item in a customer’s basket as it goes through the till, I finally hand her the receipt.)
Customer: “Wait, what’s this thing here? It was really expensive!” *points at item on her receipt*
Me: “That’s VAT.”
Customer: “What’s that?”
Me: “Value Added Tax.”
Customer: “I didn’t buy any of that.”

Funny how the “clueless” customer is right on.

Jonny Dukes down, 2 to go…. and the price of justice

Jonathan Dukes was indeed found guilty of all counts…no surprise there. I have to wonder whether it was in spite of or because of the defense’s sole argument, which I griped about earlier. Whitaker called exactly one witness: Dr. Jonathan Arden, a Steven Hayne clone from West Virginia, who had the gall to claim (without having examined the body) that the cause of Lowther’s death was “removal from ventilator”…a cause which he had never listed in his past 2300 autopsies.

E-portage, which has done a wonderful job on this trial, notes:

Verified by Dr. Arden, he expects to be paid $400 an hour for his time evaluating documents and $4000 per day for testimony.

OK, I don’t know what his billable hours were (10 maybe?) so let’s ignore that. Give him a couple hundred to drive up from the hills. That leaves, oh $3800 for this gig, which took him maybe a day in total. That’s a nice chunk of change. I’m sure there are forensic pathologists in Cleveland or Akron who would do the job… though maybe they have professional standards in the big city. So I have to wonder how Whitaker found this guy…and whether any of that $3800 finds its way into Whitaker’s pocket. Not that I have any reason to believe that, mind  you, but it would be so convenient. It’s a lot of dough anyway for such nonsense. In fairness, Whitaker had to do something to earn his pay, and it’s not like he had a case to work with. At least, unlike Oliver’s lawyer, he only made a forensic pathologist look stupid, as opposed to destroying some working stiff’s livelihood.

Judge Kozinski: 4th Amendment is dead

The opinion misapplies Supreme Court precedent, conflicts with our own case law and is contrary to the great weight of authority in the other circuits. It is also the only case I know of, in any jurisdiction covered by the Fourth Amendment, where invasion of the home has been approved based on no showing whatsoever. Nada. Gar nichts. Rien du tout. Bupkes.

Whatever may have been left of the Fourth Amendment after Black is now gone. The evisceration of this crucial constitutional protector of the sanctity and privacy of what Americans consider their castles is pretty much complete. Welcome to the fish bowl.

Unfortunately, a dissent. Details here.

Another Blackwater/Xe crime against humanity:

saving Rep Alan Grayson’s worthless tuchus from the coup in Niger.

US: 6x broker than anyone else

The CIA says so. Would the CIA lie (about this, anyway)?

We are scrod.

Let’s take another “for the children”

Pediatricians in the United States are calling for hot dogs to be redesigned to reduce the risk of children choking on them. In a new policy statement published yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics says hot dogs are the food most commonly linked with choking deaths among children

The Pediatrics article says round candy, grapes, marshmallows, meat sticks, sausages, chewing gum and peanut butter are also high-risk foods that can act as plugs in the throats of young children.

“Food manufacturers should design new foods and redesign existing foods, including meat products, to avoid shapes, sizes, textures and other characteristics that increase choking risk to children, to the extent possible,” the group recommends.

Or…we could have family sit-down meals where the little savages are taught not to eat so damn fast.

California hasn’t had enough Kraut governor?

(AP) — SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Prince Frederic von Anhalt-Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband and a tabloid fixture-says he’s ready for his next role: governor of California.

At least his platform looks better than Ahnold’s:

His political platform includes lifting the import ban on Cuban cigars, and legalizing marijuana and prostitution, then taxing them all.

That Cuban cigar thing would be a neat trick, as not even we fans of nullification, interposition and secession see a way around Fed law on that one.

Not on my dime

‘Octomom’: Can’t rule out another kid in future

I could. Got a knife?

Great writing, crappy software

There’s a really fine post up at Atomic Nerds on libertarians vs. the religious right and their struggle for the soul of the conservative movement. Unfortunately, there’s a really retarded spam filter in the comments section…so I’m posting my comment here:

Yes, libertarians have to take over the conservative movement. But to do it, we’ll need two things:

1. Advocate for a strong national defense that does not involve a large standing army and being the world’s policeman. A large military is incompatible with a small government, but “Weak on defense” is the mantra that causes movement conservatives to run screaming from Ron Paul. Defense is, after all, why we have a state. American can be like Switzerland.

2. Respect religion. There are a number of constituencies in the libertarian movement (Objectivists, Wiccans, gays, militant atheists, etc.) who hate Christianity and are vocal about it. They need to STFU. The Religious Right isn’t going to go away. Part of it could go to the Democrats, which would be very bad indeed: fewer votes for us, and moderated and hence more electable Democrats. The anti-side can spend some time learning about the Church’s historic role in American freedom. Pro-religion folks can catechize their brethren on why and how preventing sin at the point of a gun is contrary to God’s word and ineffective.