Oh, by the way

Iraqis voted. There will be female political representatives in Iraq. American feminists shrugged and congratulated themselves on some minor technicality change in an old law.

"Obama Hates White People"

At least, that is what I would claim after reading this news if I were as deranged as the Left was during and after hurricane Katrina. Instead, I will assume it is merely incompetence as a result of his lack of previous leadership in, well, anything. But maybe he can put together an inspiring speech with mellifluous intonation to those shivering in their homes .

Update: The Anchoress blames the media. I'd be content to have the media report hysterically when a Republican presides over a natural disaster and semi-hysterically when it is a Democrat. I would prefer balanced, even-tempered, objective coverage of both, but I could barely contain my laughter as I write this sentence.

Update: A lot of people are seeing the hipocrisy here.

Miscellany

Happy conservatives.

Mmmm! Bacon.

Jeeves wept: The death of the necktie.

Napping: An expert guide.

Mr. Darcy et al: Fictional men worth loving.

Curvy is the new fat

At 33, Kate Winslet has looked so stunning on the red carpet this awards season that's it's hard to believe she was once considered one of Hollywood's curviest stars during her 'Titanic' days.

Tabloids and the like have been using "curvy" as a euphemism for fat for a while now, actually. So they've taken a word once considered a compliment and turned it into an insult. But a very subtly veiled one; no one can actually object to being called curvy, but it's an insult all the same.

Of course, Kate Winslet, who was once referred to as Kate Weighs-alot by some bitchy director (I forget whom), isn't fat in either photo. But the allegedly fat photo was taken more than 10 years ago, so her makeup is dated. Add an unflattering hairstyle and a natural paleness and she's deemed unattractive.

A Poll for Rachel's Readers

Is this $900 billion stimulus good for our nation?
	a) Of course it is! It's just the stimulating stimulus we need!
	b) It has some good things and some bad things, but is mostly good
	c) This is an abomination and reflective of our corrupt political class
	d) I'd answer but I'm too busy stocking up on staple foods and weaponry
pollcode.com free polls

VDH

He is smart.

"Historically Huge"

says Linguist Liz of the Asinine AP.

What is amazing to me is that anyone thinks or deceives themselves into thinking that this bill is what governance looks like. I'm watching "Lost" right now and I am not sure if the show or reality is more bewildering.

Because After Bush Derangement Syndrome

The hate needed to go somewhere. Why not try a familiar target?

Obama and the infrastructure

Howard Husock urges the president to think big.

Financed by New York State, the Erie Canal, for instance, facilitated trade from the docks of Manhattan to the emerging West, in the process helping make New York the world’s financial capital. After the Civil War, land grants gave the Union and Central Pacific railroad companies an incentive to build and expand—knowing that their tracks were making the once-worthless adjoining land valuable to the homesteaders, builders, and ranchers who soon followed. The interstate highway system had a similar impact a century later—this time through direct federal financing—and sparked the suburban building boom. Even during the Great Depression, spending on big projects opened new economic frontiers. Thanks to Robert Moses, New York garnered the lion’s share of the New Deal’s Public Works Administration funding to help build the engineering miracle of its time: the Triborough Bridge, which put thousands to work and linked the Bronx and Queens to Manhattan, opening new neighborhoods for construction and improving the flow of goods.

Husock points out that state and local officials plan to spend their federal funds on small-ticket "shovel ready" projects such as upgrading sewage plants and fixing traffic lights while bigger projects languish in the planning process thanks to environmental activists, NIMBY-ists and assorted other roadblocks. He approvingly points to China.

Consider the Robert Moses-like vision motivating the soon-to-be-built Hong Kong-Zhuhai bridge, which will link Hong Kong’s Lantau Island (site of the city’s ultra-modern airport) with the Chinese mainland. The bridge will provide a direct highway link to exporters from as far away as Vietnam. Notably, though government will provide some support, the bridge will be a private, toll-financed project undertaken by the legendary Sir Gordon Wu, whose Hopewell Holdings has built such projects all over South China. By such efforts are economies energized.

Unless something drastically changes in the way we do business, I don't foresee this happening here. Also, do we really want to hold up China, land of the Three Gorges Dam as an ideal? Don't get me wrong--I love the infrastructure. I want more and bigger and better infrastructure. I just wonder if we can ever get past the paralysis. Even in our current economic climate.

Politicians of old

Offensive, perhaps, but not boring

The real shame about the inappropriate utterances coming from royals and politicians these days is how boring they are. It used to be the case that if you were going to offend, you’d do it with a touch of class. Churchill, as with most things in British politics, led the way. The day before he delivered his famous Iron Curtain address at Fulton, a ceremony was held dedicating a bust of him. When a buxom Southern lady told him, “Mr. Churchill, I traveled over a hundred miles for the unveiling of your bust,” Churchill gallantly responded: “Madam, I assure you, I would gladly return the favor.”

Bigger Problems than the Financial Crisis?

Sheesh. Should I go ahead and plan that trip to Europe we've been putting off?

Via Instapundit.com

Miscellany: Let them eat cake edition

Lost in translation: Cake 1. Cake 2. Cake 3

Why Google employees quit.

"Anodyne, sappy, superficial, derivative, fraudulently rebellious": Billy Joel.

United Statements of America: Mottos.

AP on the Case

Have no fear, fair citizens! The AP, part of the unelected 4th branch of government continues to dig deep to ensure that our government remains in check:

"OBAMA BREAKS FROM BUSH, AVOIDS DIVISIVE STANDS"
by Liz Zidoti
Barack Obama opened his presidency by breaking sharply from George W. Bush's unpopular administration, but he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. He focused instead on fixing the economy, repairing a battered world image and cleaning up government."

Keep up the great work, Liz!

Update: James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal has also taken notice of the AP's change in tone.

What would Jesus Barack do?

Susan Sarandon:

“He is a community organizer like Jesus was,” Sarandon said Tuesday night on the bright blue carpet leading into the Creative Coalition’s 2009 Ball at the Harman Center for the Arts in Chinatown. “And now, we’re a community and he can organize us.”

VDH and Hipocrisy of the Left

Victor Davis Hanson has some nice suggestions for the Left.

Thank you, President Bush!

Here is a site collecting "Thank you" notes for former President Bush. You can just click to say "Thanks!" but you can also write a personalized note.

He couldn't speak very well in public or articulate a vision; most of his administration's defense was outsourced to bloggers and talk radio. He also let a corrupt GOP leadership run roughshod over our fiscal affairs during the economic boom years. But we were kept safe from attack for 7 years, a monumental achievement no one thought posssible at the time. We have won in Iraq thanks to his courage. And literally millions of Africans owe him their lives. He also remains a good and gracious man despite suffering the slings and arrows of the Left and the Right. It was time for him to go (and probably for the Bush family in its entirety to resign from national political life), so he won't be missed, but he can still be appreciated.

Miscellany: Inauguration edition

Four fears: Obama.

Jenna and Barbara to Sasha and Malia.

"The curious progress of the New Yorker."

The many faces of Barbie: Slideshow.

On Sunday

Our Church, which I will venture a guess is 70% Republican, prayed for Barack Obama. Unconditionally, without pushing for particular policies, we prayed. We would like him to succeed and wish him well.

Update: In a similar vein, Katie Couric just commented, as President Bush flew off in the Presidential helicopter for the last time, "A very controversial President; many were cheering to wish him well, some just wanted him to get out of town."
You stay classy, Katie!

Creepy

Obama's private army.

Miscellany

Fantasy Island: Britney Spears

History will be kinder: George W Bush.

Le Burger.

Compare and contrast: Israel and the Palestinians.

Beethoven and Schroeder.

Israel Kicks Ass

From a captured terrorist: “Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air - something superficial. They’ll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in ‘48. What got into you all of a sudden?”

via Instapundit.

Well, it does feel like he's been in office several years already

Three terms for Barack Obama.

Why the animus against Starbucks?

Not just in this incident, in which Palestinian sympathizers trashed a store in London, but Starbucks is also derided by a certain class of people who have a habit of verbalizing the overpriced coffee store's name with a set of sneer quotes around it.

Starbucks has, for some reason, joined the likes of McDonald's, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart in the Corporate Hall of Shame. The first two have been consigned to that neighborhood because they sell POISON to the CHILDREN. The last because it sells to cheap consumer goods to those obese children and their even fatter parents.

But Starbucks sells expensive coffee and coffee paraphernalia to the middle and upper middle classes. Plus, Starbucks adds its own idiotic lingo, shrouds the whole coffee-making process in mystery and ritual and natters on about its corporate social responsibility ad nauseum. The sneerers usually love that shit.

So why all the Starbucks hate?

I wondered about this, too

After an NPR reporter very patiently explained how the IMF paid Geithner the money he owed in taxes. But then said reporter and his interlocutor seemed to think it so perfectly natural that Geithner made "an honest error" when handing over the cash to the IRS that I felt it would be rather churlish of me not to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt.

Miscellany

Criminal act: Dressing up your dog.

"It's like asking a blanket to bring world peace."

Back where it all started: Anti-Semitism in Europe.

Bone-chilling: Gold.

Coffee makes you hallucinate, maybe.

Quote of the day

Camille Paglia:

[O]f all the innumerable print and broadcast journalists who have interviewed me in the U.S. and abroad since I arrived on the scene nearly 20 years ago, Katie Couric was definitively the stupidest. As a guest on NBC's "Today" show during my 1992 book tour, I was astounded by Couric's small, humorless, agenda-ridden mind, still registered in that pinched, tinny monotone that makes me rush across the room to change stations whenever her banal mini-editorials blare out at 5 p.m. on the CBS radio network. And of course I would never spoil my dinner by tuning into Couric's TV evening news show. That sallow, wizened, drum-tight, cosmetic mummification look is not an appetite enhancer outside of Manhattan or L.A. There's many a moose in Alaska with greater charm and pizazz.

Credit still available for certain worthy ventures

Like boob jobs.

Well

So much for making nice nice.

How do you begin a conversation on diplomacy with people who burn you in effigy?
O: Lovely weather you are having here in this beautiful city of Tehran, isn't it?
Iranian diplomat: We will coat the streets with the blood of your people, infidel President.
O: Yes, the climate reminds me a bit of Kenya.

Two hours I'll never get back

I wasted a perfectly good dose of insomnia last night watching Atonement, yet another period piece starring Keira Knightley, animated coat rack. It is long. It is pretentious and it's boring as all get out. It also failed to cure my insomnia as I was up a good hour after the movie was over.


As is my wont, after it was all over I looked up reviews to see what the critics had to say about this particular cinematic endeavor. Only one came close to being as unenthusiastic as I was. The rest were in raptures. Raptures. Particularly over a single, long-winded shot of the Dunkirk evacuation that went on for about five minutes, but felt like five hours. I particularly detest these bravura gestures that do nothing to advance the plot or help us understand the characters but show what visual geniuses the director and cinematographer are. Yes, James McAvoy (SPOILER ALERT) dies before he's evacuated, but they could have killed him off so much faster.

As Elaine Benes of Seinfeld so succinctly put it when discussing an equally boring, pretentious and long-winded romance: "Die already!"

If you ask me

the whole thing is obscene.

What's Wrong with Minnesota?

This election should not have been close. But I guess the same state elected a former WWF wrestler to the office of governor.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to Rachel and all of her erudite readers!

I resolve to worry less about political happenings. How about you?