Dec 19, 2011

Moronic but sexy

Too much politics around here lately, so I rooted around for a  warmup in the internet collection of thinking man's cheesecake. And, lo and behold, found one with both skin and a glimpse of our cultural heritage.


Note the tag line.  It's safe to assume Chill Wills and Gabby Hayes were in the Luxless 10 per cent. 



Callista of Tiffany's

Now, before getting huffy and yelling at me for being sexist and shallow, please try to remember that I didn't stick Callista Gingrich into a tucker bag of campaign tools. Newt did. So did she.

Says Politico:   "A Gingrich campaign source describes Callista as the campaign’s '...chief morale officer'.”


I'm not part of the Gingrich campaign. If I were I would need  a morale booster. Callista would be as good a candidate as any, even better after scraping off about a cup of the makeup and using however much naptha it takes to thin out the Max-Hold. 

Dec 18, 2011

The Freedom Ferry

George Will of the Washington Post is maddening. Today Ayn Rand, tomorrow George Soros.

He talks the talk about American liberty, then lauds guys of the Romney caste to lead us to freedom. He has sometimes gone softer than squishy on self-defense rights. In 1991 he suggested we might repeal the Second Amendment.

This happens to be one of his better days. It occurred to him that that the libertarian idea of leaving folks alone can be pretty broad. It can even be interpreted to include  the right to earn a living without years of tugging your forelock, on bended knee before the bureaucrats, begging permission to do a little honest business.

George discovered Jim and Cliff Courtney, two brothers conspiring to create a new ferry service across Lake Chelan in the Cascades. The State of Washington has marshaled its might to say, "No. There's already a state-sanctioned ferry service, so get lost."

"...84 years ago,"  Will writes, " Washington state asserted a principle much favored by all of America’s governments:It may parcel out certain economic liberties sparingly and only to those who can prove to government that their exercise of their liberty will satisfy some government-concocted criteria."


(I doubt there are many better  better short definitions of tyranny in the English language.)


Jim and Cliff run a resort on one end of the 55-mile-long lake, far beyond the end of  any road. so you get to those environs by private boat or plane or  a seasonal two-vessel ferry service -- a government sanctioned monopoly. The two boats operate once a day, both sailing at the same time and, get this, in the same direction.


The brothers think they can do better. All they need is approval of  a couple of dozen bureaucrats to sign off on their application for a "certificate of public interest, convenience, and necessity." The bureaucrats tell Jim and Cliff to go pound rocks, and  the lawsuit begins.


Back to Will. He's referring to a couple of old Supreme Court decisions which hold that personal liberty does not necessarily mean personal economic liberty.



"It is now routine for government to have transactions with rent-seekers — private interests who want public power used to confer advantages on them, or disadvantages on competitors. This case from a remote region of Washington state explains much about a Washington 2,200 miles away. Start with a misbegotten constitutional principle that denigrates economic liberty as less than fundamental, and thus licenses government to ration such liberty. You end with the pandemic rent-seeking that defines the nation’s capital."


---


Yes, Sir.

And just a couple of personal notes. I fully agree with you that the might of government ought to be brought brought down on the designated hitter rule. On the other hand, may I suggest you seek treatment for your recurring attacks of  hoplophobia?

Dec 17, 2011

Yep, Romney

That didn't take long. Romney is The One.  Smart, experienced, moderate, and all that.

The Register (correctly, I think)  dismisses Gingrich as a flake. It rejects Ron Paul because:

"Ron Paul’s libertarian ideology would lead to economic chaos and isolationism, neither of which this nation can afford."


That would be as opposed to the current economic chaos accompanied by shooting all the Arabaic speakers who piss us off?  Bearing in mind, of course, that this  sometimes motivates the Arabs shoot back.