Holder And Gun Control

David Kope who writes with the Volokh boys, says this morning:

Holder

Earlier this year, Eric Holder–along with Janet Reno and several other former officials from the Clinton Department of Justice–co-signed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller. The brief was filed in support of DC’s ban on all handguns, and ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home. The brief argued that the Second Amendment is a “collective” right, not an individual one, and asserted that belief in the collective right had been the consistent policy of the U.S. Department of Justice since the FDR administration. A brief filed by some other former DOJ officials (including several Attorneys General, and Stuart Gerson, who was Acting Attorney General until Janet Reno was confirmed)took issue with the Reno-Holder brief’s characterization of DOJ’s viewpoint.

So, since Heller won the case, and not those urging more gun control, doesn’t that end it?
No.

But at the least, the Reno-Holder brief accurately expressed the position of the Department of Justice when Janet Reno was Attorney General and Eric Holder was Deputy Attorney General. At the oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson, the Assistant U.S. Attorney told the panel that the Second Amendment was no barrier to gun confiscation, not even of the confiscation of guns from on-duty National Guardsmen.

Gee... looks to ME like he was taken at the point of a gun...

Oh, by the way…

Holder played a key role in the gunpoint, night-time kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez.

Why is that of import to this discussion?

The pretext for the paramilitary invasion of the six-year-old’s home was that someone in his family might have been licensed to carry a handgun under Florida law. Although a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showed a federal agent dressed like a soldier and pointing a machine gun at the man who was holding the terrified child, Holder claimed that Gonzalez “was not taken at the point of a gun” and that the federal agents whom Holder had sent to capture Gonzalez had acted “very sensitively.”

So clearly, to Eric Holder, the truth is no barrier to his political objectives. This is an example, dear reader of the best and brightest Obama can find to help him along to his political objectives, which apparently he feels Holder shares.  I tend to agree; these are values the two share. Which of course leads me to a question:

Do you even begin to understand what we’re in for, as a country, and how badly we’re screwed?

Go read the Volokh article.

Noted a site called typealyzer.com being used over at OTB, and on a whim, decided to try it here. Here’s the result for this blog. I guess I can live with the result.

The analysis indicates that the author of http://bitsblog.theconservativereader.com is of the type:

ISTJ – The Duty Fulfillers

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

A.J Strata, Strata-Sphere, compares Barack Obama(BO) to a rock,  and makes the rock seem smart.  At least a rock is not stupid enough to believe in anthropogenic global warming.   The sane can not be said of BO:

What kind of President will Obama be? We only have vague and conflicting impressions because his statements to date appear to be incoherent (at best) on a range of subjects. For example, he wants to eradicate al-Qaeda but run from Iraq. If we left Iraq and focused on the tribal regions of Pakistan, where does Obama think al-Qaeda might go for sanctuary? We really can’t afford to be playing whack-a-mole with terrorists.

Meanwhile, Steve Gilbert, Sweetness & Light, points out that the One wants to emulate FDR’s failled policies whch gave the longest depression in our naation’s history::

FDR Policies Prolonged Depression By 7 Yrs

All of this talk from Obama and his acolytes about how the President Select is going to be the new FDR and push through the new New Deal makes this three year old article even more timely.

 Don’t say you were not warned.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble…

…where we pound out a few rhythms every weeknight for your dining and dancing pleasure. Let’s get it…

• With all the Democrats in the Senate headed for an Obama White House, that means John Kerry gets to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,  A move of sheer attrition, of course. Last one left, etc. I’ll tel you; If you needed another reason to keep The Democrat Party in whatever form out of the White House, that would be one.
• Perhaps the most damaging and disappointing thing to come out of the election; Henry Waxman as Chair of the Energy Committee. Trust me, the lower energy costs we now have won’t be around long with this bozo.
• Oh, great. Janet Napalitano gets DHS. She’s one who’s been pushing shamnisty on us for some time, now. I’m warning you; don’t expect national security to improve, gang, particularly as regards the soft invasion from Mexico. Michelle sees the story too and has more.
• For all the word on the street that we’re all broke, will someone please eplain to me why Obama’s getting such a party on the taxpayer dime?
• Some people who may not be happy about this coronationerrr… inauguration… is the anti-war left, who is just now figuring out this wasn’t the Obama they knew. Perhaps you guys should have spent more time on vetting him? Or maybe, he’s adjusting to something the anti-war left has alwys missed out on, conceptually… REALITY.
• Oil’s below $50/bbl by the time you read this.
• I note there’s folks till rebuilding out among the wildfires in California. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that barring insurance and tax breaks, both of which the rest of the nation pays for, these multi-million dollar homes would never have been built in that tinderbox in the first place, much less rebuilt? They keep doing it simply because we keep willingly paying them to do it.
•  The 10 Sexiest Everyday Men Of 2008 list is out. The fools; I’m not on it.
• I see PC Magazine is dumping print, for online. That was just a matter of time, that one. Interesting, though, the degree to which their culture had to change to get them to this point. When the internet started becoming ‘a thing’ years ago… back when Grok was still clan leader, and when Harold Webster and I were still running the Free File Farm BBS, I asked the publisher… sorry, 30 years gone, now, his name escapes me… if it would ever come to this.  Heck, no, he said. We’re in the business of selling magazines, not files. (Remember, the concepts of the net were still a few years off for most folks.)   I guess what this comes down to is proof of what I’ve been saying since this site came online; It’s the content, not the medium that matters.  Now, if the content justified the rather odd medium for the purpose, they’d have stuck with print. As it is, anything in the magazine is available online, in a more timely fashion, anymore… and for less money. There’s a lesson there for the troubled New York Times..  Why on earth would you buy a left-slanted fishwrapper, when you can get the same content online at the Democratic Underground ?
• FWIW, McCain wins Missouri. The only effect this has, really is that their statistical streak of picking presdients is now over.
• So much for Obama and his promise about linkages to lobby types. The drill just now is Tom Daschle is getting HHS,which apparently creates a serious conflict, given his wife’s job.  Can you imagine the press being silent over sich conflicts under, say a McCain administration? I can’t, either.
• So, Prop 8, as expected, goes to the California Supreme Court. Apparently, the rights of homosexuals to win votes has been compromised. These folks are all about democracy, until such time as they coem out on the losing end of it.  The bottom line, though, is they hqve no case, and this too will go down in flames… you should pardon the pun.
• This site will be around for another year, anyway. The bill got paid last night. I’m still tying with getting this thing off the Windows servers it’s on. It really doesn’t need to be here; Linix will serve as well, or better, and certainly cheaper. Originally, when I started doing business with IX webhosting,  I’d planned on a website for my older boy who at the time was working in FrontPage. That meant Windows servers were something of a requirement if he wanted the Windows extensions.  (Yeah, I know, “Front Page… eeeeewwww…” but what the heck, ya gotta start somewhere)  But the Windows stuff costs more, and tend to be slower for WordPress which is the software we’re using here at BitsBlog.  The issue for moving off the MS servers at this stage is the major move itself, and the problems that always come up with that… along with the downtime involved.. perhaps a day. I suspect if it happens, we’ll do the move sometime around the end of February, since then if anytime oughta be a bit slower. (I certainly wasn’t going to make such a move before the election!)
• Indianna State corrections inmate sex is through the roof, so to speak.
• I note with some amusement the statements from the supposed number two in AlQuieda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. (Actually, I think him the leader, since we have no real evidence BinLaden isn’t a small stain under a mountain somewhere.)  The tone of the message was quite different, from when he was dealing with Presdient Bush. There was an undercurrent of fear in those messages from those days. This one yesterday was one of pure derision. Remember, gang, these are the same folks who told us they wanted Obama as President. Apparently, if the comments are to be taken seriously, the reason they wanted him in the White House was bacsuse they needed to be dealing from a position of stength, which, thanks to Obama’s election, they know they now have. By the way; I’m reliably advsed that thing on his forehead makes a fair mark for targeting.

Here’s a partial list we’ve gotten here of stores and their plans after the first of the year:

• Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
• Ann Taylor 117 stores nationwide closing
• Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide
• Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
• Cache will close all stores
• Talbots closing down specialty stores
• J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots) Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
• GAP closing 85 stores
• Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
• Wickes Furniture closing down
• Levitz closing down remaining stores
• Bombay closing remaining stores
• Zale’s closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
• Whitehall closing all stores
• Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
• Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
• Home Depot closing 15 stores
• Macys to close 9 stores after January
• Linens and Things closing all stores
• Movie Galley Closing all stores
• Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
• JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
• Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
• Wilson Leather closing down all stores
• Sharper Image closing down all stores
• K B Toys closing 356 stores
• Loews to close down some stores
• Dillard’s to close some stores

Now, why would that be an issue just now for gift giving?

Returns, for one thing. Gift cards, for anoher. Let’s say, for example, you were to buy a gift card for a staore that was planning on closing afte the new year. The card isn’t worth much, is it?

Now, the list, which isn’t mine by the way, but a readers,  seems accurate in what I’ve managed to look at. All I’m saying is, Ask.

Is there some law to prevent the abuse of mental retreads?    Not only is Patterico abusing Miss Andrea Sullivan, he is enjoying it.   I’d send a formal protest note, but can’t I seem to find a postage stamp.

This Ain’t Hell…

So, this morning, reading my usual news sources, I find on Michelle Malkin and Moonbatterythat some whining cry baby sued eHarmony, the online dating service, because they didn’t have opportunities for same-sex singles to meet. CNN writes;

Under terms of the agreement with the New Jersey attorney general’s office, eHarmony Inc. will start the service, called Compatible Partners, by March 31.

“With the launch of the Compatible Partners site, our policy is to welcome all single individuals who are genuinely seeking long-term relationships,” said Antone Johnson, eHarmony vice president of legal affairs.

The company and its founder, Neil Clark Warren, admit no wrongdoing or liability.

“Even though we believed that the complaint resulted from an unfair characterization of our business, we ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the attorney general, since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable,”

OK, well, not only was eHarmony forced to set up an entirely different data base just for these people, they also had to offer a six months subscription free. I’m sure gays across the world will take advantage of this – even though they already control the date-matching market in airport bathrooms and in rest stop foliage.

It’s like suing a Chevy dealer because he doesn’t sell toasters, too. There’s no civil rights issue here – it’s just the camel finally getting his tail under the tent.

Quite so. Recall, please, what I said in last night’s Ramble, as regards lawsuits:

Now, when the ADA first came out, it was clearly going to build into something along these lines. Then again, so it has been for every leftist cause. Think about it; What did Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the rest make their money on? Molski, in short, was trying to become the white, paraplegic Jesse Jackson. Of course this stuff has it’s victims.

I’d like you to consider other parallels, here. Remember our position that the faux concern over ‘redlining’ was in the end, what caused our current financial issues? What was that but a number of people using the court system in systematic extortion? I suggest the enviro-whackjob types can be similarly labeled. Tort reform, anyone?

And so, we come to it; Is this just one more situation where extortion rules the day?

As the bard might say… and leaving aside the social issues surrounding homoseuxual “marriage” for the moment, I think it be.

Opening up the social issues, one comes to see clearly that the opponants of Prop 8 are attacking religious institutions as the source of their problem. we’ve seen attacks against Morman and Roman catholic churches, recently on that logic. Religion, however is not the source of their problems, of course and on several levels, but think about this…   Around 50% of Americans consider themselves ‘religious’, and yet last polling I saw on this issue showed around 75-80% against homoseuxual “marriage”. Consdier that even in socially liberal California, where church attendence is even lower, the vote on prop 8 was overwhelming.

Clearly, what we’re dealing with is not a religious issue per se, but a cultural one, of which the religion aspect of it is only a subset, albeit a quite symbolic one. Using extortion to over-rule society and social norms doesn’t seem a profitable way of dealing with such issues… even assuming your position from an ostensibly neutral and unbiased POV has merit.  (Reality; they are not unbiased, nor does their case have merit)

We have seen disaster happen when law and government try to come in and over-ride society, and for reasons I’ve spoken of previously.  Culture is not the servant of government. rather it’s supposed to be going the other direction:

 Culture is by far a more powerful force than government, over time. Indeed; Where governments have gotten themselves into problems over the centuries, is invariably where governments have tried to alter the culture artificially, by means of law. Culture eventually triumphs

What we have here is the diminishing of law by virtue of using law for exactly the opposite of it’s intended purpose. And the votes we continously see on matters like this one, tell me that the voters see that on levels I doubt many could explain well.

What a businessman, turned poltician, knows that leftards like Dirty Harry Reid and Mrs. Pelosi don’t, on what needs be done to fix Detroit, via Ace:

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

It costs the Deroit three circa two thousand dollars more to produce car than it does her Japanese rivals. Detroit can not compete with such disadvantage in cost structure. Until, and unless, the cost structure is remedied, any bail-out of Detroit is only a waste of our tax dollars. Tell Drity Harry, Mrs. Pelosi and BO no to anymore good tax dollars down a bad drain.

Barack Obama, a/k/a BO, campaigned as the post-partisan candidate.   Personally I didn’t buy into the fantasy that the left most libtard in the Senate was going to somehow become a post-partisan President.   As BO fills out his administration, he has opted for recycled Clinton administration hacks.   There was nothing post-partisan about the Clinton administration, and nothing post-partisan about BJ”s hacks.

Maybe the most vile of BJ’s hacks was Mrs. Clinton’s hand picked choice for Attorney General, Janet “Butcher” Reno.    Now BO has reaches to pick the Butcher’s last deputy, Eric Holder, for Attorney General.  National Review sums up Holder:

He [Holder] is convinced justice in America needs to be “established” rather than enforced; he’s excited about hate crimes and enthusiastic about the constitutionally dubious Violence Against Women Act; he’s a supporter of affirmative action and a practitioner of the statistical voodoo that makes it possible to burden police departments with accusations of racial profiling and the states with charges of racially skewed death-penalty enforcement; he’s more likely to be animated by a touchy-feely Reno-esque agenda than traditional enforcement against crimes; he’s in favor of ending the detentions of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and favors income redistribution to address the supposed root causes of crime.

In short, there is nothing in Holder to indicate either any belief in post-partisanship or any commitment to justice at all.   Holder seems to buy into the notion that Justice needs to be distributed, that is taken from some groups and given to others.   I am sure Holder’s boss will approve.   Will the American People?   Eric Holder, Janet Reno with a tan.

Welcome everyone, to the most intense nightly read on the ‘sphere… Bit’sBlog’s Nightly Ramble

Midweek. Three inches of snow on the ground and a few thousand morons who can’t remember how to drive in the stuff, every friggin one of them aimed at my fenders. Had to be at least a dozen people drove off the road, along my usual 20 mile drive into work this morning… most of them econo-boxes, inclduing two Priuses, which did my heart good. Meanwhile, my little Rainier did just fine. Not even a twich of lost traction. Now, if I can keep the morons out of the way, I’ll be fine. Let’s get to this.

• I see Romney finally figured this thing out with the UAW Bailout. That he’s so vocal about this now means we’ll be seeing him in the presidental horse races in ’12.
• Oil groups are now predicting what I predicted here 6 months ago,: $40 oil.
• Time magazine dropping 250 from it’s payroll. The Dinosaur is dying. Faster, please.
• Will Obama negotiate with these animals, without preconditions as he clained?
• 

  Holder

  Ah, yes. Eric Holder. OK, maybe you don’t remember. He was, among other things, Clinton’s acting AG… and was the guy who was involved in the pardon of Marc Rich. Obama, the changemeister, wants Holder as AG. Not only is the not positive change, it doesn’t even qualify as change. Even the usually unstable FiredogLake (Who I will not link here) is starting to figure out not all is well:

  “I think I am having an aneurysm. Why in the name of all that is sensible would Barack Obama want a Clinton re-tread as AG? Not just any Clinton re-tread, nope, the brain trust behind the Marc Rich pardon. Do you know how many brilliant, talented lawyers with great judgment he has advising his campaign?”

  Well, maybe you guys should have vetted Obama a bit more, huh? I mean, you’re the ones who were about getting this guy elected. We toldyou his resume was shorter than a McDonald’s menu… Do you listen? Noooooooo. Oh… and since Holder is black, aren’t you being racist, Firedog, even asking such things? Isn’t that what you told us when we questioned Obama’s fitness to serve?

• Speaking of Obama and reactions to him, did you know today is National Ammo day? Interesting timing, given what we suggested yesterday was a surge in firearm sales due to the election outcome and the economic problems.
• Yes, it may be true that right of center bloggers will help remold the Republicans. Then again…
• Can someone explain to me how we don’t have money for things we should be spening money on, and yet we have $23MUSD for a mural for the UN?
• So, we have an obesity issue in this country. Yet we’re being told that Hunger is still a problem? Oh.. and it’s the kids… we need to help the kids….
• Attention, Michelle Malkin. I’ve recently turned up evidence that laptop screens on D610 laptops do not work well after having coffee sprayed into them by an operator who has just opened up this page of yours.  Shame on you, and keep it up.
• It’s particularly satisfying to me to see Chuck Hagel pack up up his office. He should have been gone long ago. The Democrats can have him. That slimeball will fit right in.
• Leaving aside the ethical questions of using these things in modern society, one wonders about it’s usefulness in preventing cell phone triggered bombs.
• Speaking of those kinds of things, we keep killing off these AQ types. Think they’ll get the message before they all meet at Allah’s place?
• From the LATimes, we see that Jarek Molski can’t file any more lawsuits. As you might expect, there’s a pretty big backstory, here.
  

  The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the case of Molski vs. Evergreen Dynasty Corp., owner of a Chinese restaurant in Solvang, Calif., in a legal Waterloo for the 38-year-old Woodland Hills man. Molski filed more than 400 suits under the Americans With Disabilities Act before a federal judge barred him from future litigation.In a highly unusual action in 2004, U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie, who has since died, branded Molski a “hit-and-run plaintiff,” accusing him of systematic extortion of businesses across California.

  Molski, who has used a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident two decades ago, sued restaurants, bowling alleys, wineries and other retail outlets for insufficient handicapped parking, misplaced handrails and other violations of the disabilities act, demanding that business owners be fined $4,000 for every day their facilities failed to meet exacting federal standards.

  Now, when the ADA first came out, it was clearly going to build into something along these lines.  Then again, so it has been for every leftist cause. Think about it; What did Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the rest make their money on? Molski, in short, was trying to become the white, paraplegic Jesse Jackson. Of course this stuff has it’s victims.

  I’d like you to consider other parallels, here. Remember our position that the faux concern over ‘redlining’ was in the end, what caused our current financial issues? What was that but a number of people using the court system in systematic extortion? I suggest the enviro-whackjob types can be similarly labeled.  Tort reform, anyone?

• Now, how in the world would they know this?
• Republicans: Watch this guy.
• Bubba now says Chelsea Clinton is the “…most talented public servant I’ve ever worked with”, huh? I’ll tell you what’s up with that one… by virtue of her ostensibly being his daughter… she’s the first one he’s ever had to judge on abilities other than sucking the chrome off a trailer hitch.

James at OTB is saying:

Senator Ted Stevens, who looked to have narrowly won re-election to the Senate weeks after being convicted on felony corruption charges, has now apparently lost as absentee ballots are slowly counted.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn’t survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats within two seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

[…]

Tuesday’s tally of just over 24,000 absentee and other ballots gave Begich 146,286, or 47.56 percent, to 143,912, or 46.76 percent, for Stevens.

Ted Stevens

A recount is possible.

Interestingly, I’m not seeing any cries of Foul, as has been the case in Minnesota, where new votes for Al Franken seem to be discovered on an hourly basis.

Well, first of all, I would attribute that to a lesser Democrat party orginization in Alaska, than there is in Minnesota. That said, trust me, if Franken wasn’t close enough to make a court case,, all those lawyers he’s got tied up there would be in Alaska before the next snowflake fell.

Even absent all that, I doubt the Republicans will push a recount. However such a recount falls out, it’s bound to be used as a wedge issue up there, going forward.

The New York Post is reporting ABC News will do an interview with a whore:

The prostitute at the center of the salacious scandal that brought down former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and generated national headlines is going to dish on her life as a pricey escort

So the question is, of the two females pictured, whoch one is the real whore?

Hat tip:  JammieWearingFool

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

Snow on the ground, today… first of the season.  Just what I needed to brighten my spirits. Not…

• I know David has his questions about all the rattle and hum on Hillary Clinton as Secratary of State. I do too, frankly, for all the reasons David lists and more. Frankly, those are concerns are offset in my view, that Obama would have little to gain in the long term by sending this out as a smoke screen, and then picking someone else. His interest in her for the role may well be misguided, as are many things he says he’s committed to… but I judge the probability that his interest is sincere to be high. Interesting how quickly we fal into the mode os trying to see through the smokescreens already. Just like we learned to do under Bill Clinton. Maybe we’d better keep the ice handy.
• I know I’ve written to the issue of the Big Three auto bailout previously, but this will be short and sweet. Republicans should come right out and say that if the Democrats are so high on bailing out the Big Three,  fine… let them… but they then should attach a condition that all union contracts with the companies being bailed out are null and void. Barring that, let the big three… all of them… go bankrupt, which would have the same effect. We hear Democrats complaining loud and long about the suppsoedly excessive pay structure of bank officers of banks that have been bailed out. Notice, please that these same people have held their silence on excessive union wages and bennies of car companies they propose to bail out. Should make you wonder why, says I.
• I wrote, this morning about Jonestown and the cult that Obama has gathered, and how they compare. Howard Kurtz, God bless him, is seeing the same thing.
• A second place AND an Honorable Mention at OTB’s Caption Contest. Let’s just say that one presented a target rich environment.
• Speaking of OTB, Joyner mentions:
  

  Joe Lieberman is going to keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee after all but, in a stunning rebuke over years of constant disloyalty to the Democratic Party, he’s being stripped of his Environment and Public Works subcommittee.

  Well, yeah… you can understand the thinking here. We’re going to get clobbered wth enviro-whackjob laws pretty quckly… and they want someone in those positions who will tow the line. They’re not all that worried about DHS… in fact their base would be happy if that got trashed… so, help yourself, Joe.

• I mentioned the then- just- breaking  Mark Cuban /Insider trading thing yesterday.  I questioned if it was payback for raising questions about Obama. The New York Times, apparently oblivious to all that, questions if it’s because he’s gone after Bush in the past. Whatever’s going on, we’re not going to be able to figure it all out because of the smokescreen Cuban himself is hoisting, here. I don’t trust a damn thing any one of them is telling us about this. Why on earth would an SEC official be contacting Cuban in an official capaity as he claims?  Sorry, no sale. The most obvious conclusion to draw is that Cuban is guilty as hell, knows it, and is mouthing accusations about it being all George Bush’s fault out of defensive reflex. Bainbridge has more.
• We remakred the other day, here about how the war in Iraq was won, and yet most people don’t know. Here’s why. I’d say this kinda thing plays heavy, too. (And yes, David has more on THAT, too. )
• I remarked here yesterday abut how Spam is doing pretty well of late. Reynolds links Spam sales and Gun sales , which also have been doing very well indeed… and wonders if it’s in reaction to what’s coming. I made the connection on the guns, myself but not the Spam. Makes sense, though, and I wish I’d thought of that angle.
• Ted Kennedy came to Capital hill again, yesterday. He’s been working with Max Baucus whose socilaist healthcare efforts David blogged about. Teddy’s all about the healthcare, these days. I guess after denying a drowning girl healthcare, he wants all of us to pay for his crime.
• Comsumer prices dropped by a record 2.8%. Not to worry, though; most of that’s Gasoline, though some of it is housing. Can’t be all that bad, though when you see Gold falling.
• Couple inches of snow on the ground this morning, and more since. The first few snowfalls around here tend to be like the Bumper cars at 6 Flags as people remember how to drive in the stuff. Bloody amaing, you should pardon the pun.

I trust that none of the twelve voters on the video read Bitsblog.   However the sheer vapidness of the answers are stunning, video:

More, Ed Morrissey, Hot Air; Michelle.

An amazingly insightful article from Bruce Walker at The American Thnker has caught my attention this morning. It’s so good I wish I could post the whole thing here. As it is, I’ll give you enough to make you go read the thing.

It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia.  November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.  Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become “Big Brother.” Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell.

Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans like you and I, had become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism.  These were Orwell’s Children.

OK, hold the phone. First of all, I want to to pay particular attention to the use of the term ‘communist’ being attached here to Jim Jones. This is perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen anyone acknowledge that fact.  Certainly the press of the day was quite careful to ignore this salient point. You can guess why.

We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described.  Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown:  Orwell’s children — a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.

Sounds rather like Obama Nation, doesn’t it? Of course then, too, it sounds for all the world like Stalin, Hitler and, any number of other, as Walker calls them “odious totalitarianisms”. Each has their symbol.  The comparisons don’t end there.

Immutable oppressors are the final nasty element in dystopia.  Hitler blamed Jews for everything.  Stalin blamed kulaks and his enemies in the party for everything.   Subjects of Orwell’s Oceania saw Emmanuel Goldstein as the eternal, immutable enemy of the party. Today there is a drearily predictable list of oppressors.   Christians, men, white people, the “rich” (whatever that is supposed to mean), America, and Israel are oppressors and nothing can ever change that.