May 13, 2008

Dear Albert ... or who's an atheist?

There's a new letter today in which Einstein is pretty explicit about his views on religion, calling it "childish superstition." I've felt that way a lot of times too. I've also thought that Marx was right in at least one thing -- that religion is the opiate of the masses (except that he got the drug wrong -- it's more like PCP).

But on other occasions, I've agreed with an opposing statement from Einstein: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Most of the time I don't know what I believe.

So here's my guess: Einstein, titanically brilliant as he was, was similarly conflicted. That would be reasonable, wouldn't it? The people who have resolved this issue are the ones who scare me.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:04 AM
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May 12, 2008

Bad Times at Ridgemont High

What a day...

The self-aggrandizing blowhard Bob Barr is running for President.

Susan Estrich writes morally bankrupt nonsense promoting some kind of equivalence between the Willie Horton affair and Jeremiah Wright. What planet does the women live on? Horton was an accident of bad policy with only a tangential relationship to Dukakis. The execrable racist Wright was the deliberate choice of mentor of Barack Obama. Dukakis was barely responsible. Obama is totally responsible.

Another Congressman demonstrates his low IQ and even lower impulse control. (Can you believe his paramour was an intelligence officer?)

And then of course there's China, Myanmar, the Midwest tornadoes, etc.

Posted by Roger at 10:30 PM
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Anti-disestablishment-libertarianism

I don't like ideologies. Many theories have some purchase on the truth, but taken to their extremes they make you blind. They also can become cults.

That includes libertarianism--for all its vaunted freedom and respect for the individual. Much of it is attractive, but followed through to its conclusions it is almost solipsistic. No man is an island, as that British fellow said. So I appreciated Glenn Reynold's review of Ron Paul's book today, with Glenn's differentiation between Rombardian and Heinleinian libertarians. Clearly I would be more comfortable with Heinleinian, not just because I loved Stranger from a Strange Land as a boy. But I still wouldn't want to join them. I had my flirtation with Marxism when I was younger, and, free of tht, I'm not keen on signing up for other "isms." For the rest of my life I think I'll remain a Groucho Marxist--as in "I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member."

For similar reasons, I don't think folks like this and this are living in the real world.

Posted by Roger at 12:07 PM
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May 11, 2008

Simple minds, simple answers

Or perhaps more fairly... Fuddy-duddy minds, simple answers.

Frank Rich writes in yet another endless column today: "For five years boomers have been asking, "Why are the kids not in the streets screaming about the war the way we were?" The simple answer: no draft."

How about an even simpler answer? Different war.

Of course, you'll never see anything like that out of Rich whose entire weltanschauung hasn't changed a jot since he heard his first Crosby, Stills & Nash album. How conservative, in the true sense, is that! What I would love to see is Rich parodied on South Park. But I doubt the guys would bother. They may not even have heard of him.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:49 AM
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May 10, 2008

Climate Change - the real 57-variety pop quiz

Barack Obama had his junior "senior moment" the other day, mixing up our 50 states with varieties of Heinz ketchup (Freudian slip?). Marc Ambinder is correct when he notes that the media would have been all over this had McCain made this gaffe.

But if you want to see some real gaffes, as opposed to the normal fatigue-induced version above, ask any of the candidates a serious scientific question about climate change, even though they all seem to have an opinion about it. Now I went to the same Ivy League schools most of them did and did considerably better academically than George W. Bush, John Kerry and Al Gore (It wasn't that hard, I might add. I wasn't exceptional). But I couldn't answer those questions with authority. I know this all the more from just having finished Climate Confusion by former NASA scientist Roy Spencer. Climatology is complicated stuff. Not for beginners. I wonder if any of our politicians could really understand it after reading the book. Yet they have assured opinions on the subject. Lucky for them the media is equally uneducated. They wouldn't even know how to pose the questions.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:00 AM
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May 9, 2008

Obama's Secret Beliefs

I am trying to figure out more about Barack Obama because I think there is something strangely disconnected about the man. One theory I have... and I welcome others... is that he doesn't take religion seriously at all--not just for himself, but in general. It is only something to be exploited. Therefore he thinks the words of Jeremiah Wright are "just for show" and he is free to cherry-pick what he wants and finds useful. Simultaneously, he doesn't believe Ahmadinejad or Hamas, thinks their religious principles are baloney, just like Jeremiah Wright's, and that they are simply exploiting them. Since it's all a schuck, the Islamofascists can be reasoned with. I couldn't imagine a worse man for our times.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:17 AM
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May 8, 2008

Kudos to Daniel Henninger

Best short paragraph of the week (or month or maybe more):

"The superdelegates are faced with choosing between the Clinton machine's brutal demographic math and thinking well of themselves. No contest."

He has interesting things to say about the Obama-McCain battle as well.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:18 PM
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Mirror, mirror on the wall..

... who's the most emotionally disconnected Hollywood star of all? Well, it's close. But today's front runner is...

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:28 PM
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May 7, 2008

While America plays primary poker... Iran plays centrifuge

It's disturbing to read the latest about Iran's nuclear program in the midst of a primary campaign where the big issue issue of the week was whether to roll back the summer gas tax. You never know about the reliabity of these reports, of course, but this new one from the JPost contains this tidbit: Israel is also concerned that Teheran is developing a cruise missile that can evade interception by the Arrow, the IDF's anti-ballistic missile defense system. Iran is suspected of having smuggled Ukrainian X-55 cruise missiles and using them as models for an independent, domestic project. A cruise missile, which flies at low altitudes to dodge radar detection and interception, could be used to carry a nuclear warhead.

Many try to throw cold water on alarmist Israeli reports like this one, but I would remind us all of one thing. Nuclear weapons are mid-1940s technology. This is 2008.

Posted by Roger at 10:54 AM
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Rob Long loses shirt - better luck next time

The PJM Political Poker results are in and.... I'm not one to brag... [there's a whopper-ed.]... but Rob Long owes me 400 Big Ones on the Indiana (Hillary by twelve percent? Twelve toes was more like it.) and North Carolina (Obama by under ten??) Primaries. Okay, because I'm a good guy, I'll take his marker. Who do you like in West Virginia? [Will there even be a primary?-ed] Oregon? Obama by unanimous vote of all chardonnay growers.

BTW, no Pajamas Media commenters guessed right on Indiana and North Carolina -- not even close. [Why don't you give them all a t-shirt consolation prize anyway?-ed. Thinking about it.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:56 AM
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May 6, 2008

Don't forget to bet it up

Rob Long and I are gambling men and welcome you to bet along with us -- and maybe win a PJM t-shirt. (I know. We're cheapskates. Write me and we'll try to get you a free t-shirt anyway)

But meanwhile, I'm trying to stay in a good mood, because I am feeling really depressed from this election. Since I admittedly favor McCain, I should be feeling good, watching the spectacle of Hillary and Obama demolishing each other, but there's something ominous in all this. With a supposedly post-racial candidate now living off race, it's hard to see we are headed for happy times. But I will go to lunch and try to forget. By the time I'm back, those usually inaccurate exit polls may be ready.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:49 AM
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May 5, 2008

Laura Bush, Myanmar and Morford

Remember that reactionary twit Morford who writes that sexist drivel for the San Francisco Chronicle -- Laura Bush, doormat? I wonder how that supposedly-liberal fuddy-duddy feels today with Laura out front and center on Myanmar? I don't see him front and center on anything himself except the preservation of old ideas that haven't altered for decades. The Chronicle itself is in bad need of a heavy dose of Lipitor.

Posted by Roger at 4:53 PM
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May 4, 2008

Reactionary Rich Tells a Whopper!

Yes, I love to call pseudo-liberals reactionaries and none more than Frank Rich who gave me plenty of ammunition in his part-silly, part desperate column today: The All-White Elephant in the Room. Hoping, I suppose, to rescue Obama's cratering campaign, he again tries to generate some equivalence been Hagee's support for McCain and the Wright-Obama relationship. Rich gives us the crux here: Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee's calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright's. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee's church.

Parishioner?

Now there's an understatement. Let's go over this for those who have spent the last few months an Alpha Centauri. OBama chose to join Wright's church. Wright married the Obamas and baptized their children. Not only that... and here's the most important part... Obama was so in love with the Quotations of Chairman Jeremiah that he chose them for the title and theme of his book "The Audacity of Hope."

Okay, now go over with me one more time McCain's relationship with Hagee. Shame on Frank Rich. He's so full of it, it's coming out of his ears. (And he plays the race card... Quelle reactionnaire!)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:44 AM
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Obama Campaign Craters: Tries to Sell Us Brooklyn Bridge

That's been done zillion times before, of course, but not quite this baldly. According to Reuters, Obama is trying to wrest the 'Straight Talk' mantle from McCain.

White House hopeful Barack Obama sought on Saturday to wrest away rival John McCain's campaign theme, casting himself as the "Straight Talk" candidate willing to level with voters about tough choices facing the country.

Yes, you read that correctly. The man who spent twenty years in the pew of a wretched, racist, sociopath and claimed not to know how bad the execrable minister was is now projecting himself as a "paragon of the truth." (How many different versions of that story did we hear? I've lost count.) And that's not even getting into Rezko, Ayers, etc.

I know - surely he can't be serious. It's too ridiculous. But it does make some bizarre sense if you follow the psyche of Barack Obama. Anyone who thinks he deserves to be President at the age of 46 because of a couple of years in the Senate and, in his words, "years of community organizing" has a sense of entitlement the size of, well, Brooklyn. Why not try to sell us the bridge?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:04 AM
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May 2, 2008

The Big Kumbaya at Daphna Ziman's

Making the video at Daphna Ziman's house yesterday was a moving experience. I found myself face-to-face with Eric Lee, about whom I had written some nasty things without knowing him. He probably deserved them, but he was a chastened man when I met him and all was quickly forgiven - by everyone present. Lee was no Reverend Wright. Far from it. No white men gave us AIDS insanity or anything remotely like it. Lee said all the right things and you sensed it was genuine. He was contrite. We moved on. Daphna Ziman moved on. You have to do it. What other choice is there but Kumbaya in the end? You just to have to make sure you don't do it prematurely.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:07 PM
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What did Dr. Johnson say about London?

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life... or something like that. Well, I was, I have to admit, under the execrable Red Ken. But now another Johnson (Boris ) has been elected mayor and I'm ready to go back. And, guess what, the dollar's up today. [For how long?-ed. You would say that.] By the way, check out the new Johnson's acceptance speech at the link. Good show!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:52 PM
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May 1, 2008

Why Party Ideologues Bore Me....

In short because they always have to say stuff they couldn't possibly really believe.

This came to the fore today because Joseph J. Andrew -- someone whose name, frankly, I didn't recognize -- is getting his fifteen minutes of Warhol fame for switching allegiance from Hillary to Obama. He has explained himself on the Huff Po, puffing on about party unity and adding portentously: "I believe that Bill Clinton will be remembered as one of our nation's great Presidents..."

Como se dice? The laugh lines are almost too obvious. But outside Monica, what exactly did happen during the Clinton presidency? Well, ta welfare cut back, a Republican trope, if there ever was one. We took care of Milosevic, on balance a good thing, although that part of the world remains unstable. But that's about it for eight years. The rise of Islamofascism was largely ingnored, but you can't fault Clinton entirely for that. Almost everyone else was ignoring it too. The economy was mostly in good shape and it was also mostly in good shape during Bush's eight years. In actuality, the economy may not have that much to do with the President anyway. It seems to be slowly rebounding again right now. But did Bush have anything to do with that? Doubt it.

So back to this Andrew's fellow. In what way precisely is Clinton a great President?

Posted by Roger at 11:01 AM
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Johann Hari dancing in his robes

Hari Hari Rama Rama
Hari Hari Krishna Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hari Hari
Hari Hari Orwell Winner
Hari Hari Self-indulgent
Narcissistic Reactionary
Hari Hari Obscene Hater
Hari Hari Krishna Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hari Hari.....

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:44 AM
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Mirror, mirror on the walll...

... who's the Amazon best-seller of all? (hint: it's not Arianna Huffington)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:29 AM
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