One of the great benefits of living in a city full of vibrant cultural diversity and hyper liberal white people is being relieved of the feeling of a civic responsibility to vote. When primaries were held here in my New York City enclave of Park Slope back in September, I took a glance at the slate of candidates and what they supposedly stood for, mostly out of curiosity, and came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to be governed by any of those damn people. I vowed never to take part in the New York electoral process. I momentarily considered voting against Bloomberg yesterday in the mayoral, just to teach that arrogant killjoy a lesson, but the race was too close, and I was afraid Bloomberg’s black liberal, Sharpton-endorsed opponent, Bill Thompson, might actually win. I surmised that abstinence was still the best policy. (Unfortunately the Constitution Party, or a similar type outfit, hasn’t made any inroads up here, which would have allowed me to have at least lodged a principled protest vote of some kind.)*

My frustration aside, it’s hard for me to summon even one cheer for the supposed nation-wide “conservative revival” I’ve been reading about perusing the right-of-center blogosphere. Robert Stacy McCain, for instance, has annoucned, “the [Doug] Hoffman congressional campaign has ignited a revolution within the Republican Party, the results of which are already being felt.” A “revolution”? Really? Let’s look at where this accountant from New York’s 23rd stands on the issues:

Health care reform

Although universal health care sounds great in theory, we can’t afford to do everything at once… especially when it means adding an additional trillion dollars to the deficit we are handing to our children and grandchildren. I believe our first step should be to bring the spiraling costs of healthcare under control so the cost of healthcare does not destroy the budgets of hardworking families and retirees. Then, as the economy picks up we can work to insure everyone.

Socialism, just not all at once.

Immigration:

There is no question that our immigration policies are flawed. The answer, though, is not to put up a wall and stop all immigration. The answer is to create an easier path for immigrants to enter the United States—and to work here—while at the same time getting tough on illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

This is a typical Republican pose in which the illegality of mass immigration is opposed, and yet the candidate expresses his desire to make it even easier for Third World migrants to enter the country. 

Spending

I would cut the pork and wasteful earmarks.

Oh yes, we wouldn’t want to touch anything else. And clearly, cutting earmarks for bike trails and pet projects would make a big dint in the $70-100 trillion in unfunded liabilities that will be coming due in the next few years.

Stacy also quotes Erick Erickson of RedState.com, who claims that the Hoffman campaign “demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. … The GOP had better pay attention.” Ooh! Taken for granted no more!  Well, perhaps Newt can’t count on the Tea Parties to follow his every order, as I feared might be the case. But to me, this recent episode proves just how few politicians—even ones like Hoffman, who, one would think, have absolutely nothing to lose—and professional conservatives understand the crisis we’re in, or are willing to talk about it.

Perhaps Obama has “lost the middle class” with his spending programs and inept comments about his good friend at Harvard, HL Gates (though I think it’s far too early to date the end of the white middle-class’s willingness to vote for someone like our Multiculti Messiah.) But if the Middle American Radicals have no alternative force to turn to, then their incipient rebellion at the Tea Parties and Obamacare town halls is nothing but noise. 

*Why someone with my views would ever live in this city remains a mystery to many. Not too long ago, the Times did a special report on the one family in my neighborhood that dared display a McCain-Palin yard sign—the estate seemingly “as lonely an outpost as the Alamo.” And the Observer has investigated the disquieting rumor that an active Republican was a member of the renowned Food Co-op on Union St. Without question, I’m the only ones in Park Slope who’s ever made a tax-deductible donation to VDARE.com.

Scott Richert has continued the discussion about Richard Dawkins’ recent attack on the Catholic Church for its outreach to disaffected Anglicans.  Of particular importance is Scott’s second piece, which argues that Dawkins’ target is Aristotle as well as Christ.  For those who are interested, Scott’s first piece may be found here and his second piece may be found here.

In his StupidParty article, Ellison failed to mention that the GOP’s new webpage is also honoring a certain misunderstood captain of industry. 

(ht: World-of-Crap)

I got a kick out of yesterday’s front page story in the New York Times on the “unexpected” profits of Ford.  In particular this paragraph made me chuckle:

Ford, which earned $997 million in the third quarter and made money in North America for the first time since 2005, has turned itself around largely by cutting costs and introducing cars that consumers want to buy, rather than resorting to deep discounts to lure shoppers into showrooms.

What?!?  Cutting costs?  Making a product consumers want?  This is how business’ are supposed to succeed?  What about asking for handouts from taxpayers?

When Ford chose not to ask for government loans, the company was freed to continue spending on new products like its Fusion and Taurus sedans.

G.M. and Chrysler, by comparison, had to rein in much of their product development programs to conserve cash while they awaited federal aid.

A report by the Government Accountability Office released on Monday said that the federal government was unlikely to recover much of the $81 billion that was invested in G.M. and Chrysler, their suppliers and related financing companies.

Amazing.  It turns out socializing failed companies doesn’t always pay off.  Who’d have thunk it? 

Friday’s New York Times had a report on the rent-a-bike system the city of Paris has been operating since 2007. For about $1.50, a Parisian can pick up a bicycle for half an hour from any of hundreds of unmanned rental stations and return it to any other station. Like other cities with similar systems—Oslo, Stockholm, Vienna, Luxembourg, Milan—Paris is preening itself on having gotten people out of cars and onto bikes.

Alas, the people who set up what’s known as the Vélib’ system forgot that Paris is not all yuppies and tourists. Certain Parisians, for example, burn cars for sport. July 14th, Bastille Day, is a favorite day for it, and this year, despite stepped-up patrols and 240 arrests, immigrant “youths” reduced 317 cars to cinders—a new record. New Year’s Eve is another time for burnt offerings, and the national total in January was 1,147—a few percent off the all-time record but still up by eight percent.

With even just a few of these “youth” about, you can be sure that sturdy, $3,500 bicycles that you can rent with the swipe of a stolen credit card are not always going to come back. About 40 percent of the initial fleet of 20,600 bikes have been stolen and another 40 percent have been burned or busted beyond repair. Bikes are showing up in Eastern Europe and even back home in North Africa, and the company that operates Vélib’ has to fix 1,500 smashed up bikes every day.

No one even pretends not to know who is doing the smashing. Bruno Marzloff, reported to be a sociologist of transportation, concedes that most of the thieves and vandals are angry African immigrants. “It is an outcry, a form of rebellion; this violence is not gratuitous,” he says. It’s no doubt all in the spirit of that favorite graffito of the immigrant suburbs, Nique la France (Fuck France).

The Times story especially struck me because just the night before, I had been talking about bicycles with a charming lady who spends half the year in northern Montana. She told me that outside town she finds collections of unlocked bicycles at school bus stops. Children drop them off in the morning after they have ridden from home to take the bus, and their bikes will still be there when the children get off the bus to ride home in the afternoon.

Why does what works in Montana not work in Paris? Aren’t all people everywhere the same? No doubt Mr. Marzloff, sociologist of transportation, could explain it to me.

Here’s a truly scary Halloween tale told to me by a long suffering resident of America’s leading hipster landfill; Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For those unacquainted with this Mecca of pretense, let’s just say the folks there don’t wait for Halloween to act like brain-dead zombies.

So yesterday my friend was in a video store, and a little girl waltzed in dressed as an axe murderer. She was covered in fake blood, and was wearing an apron with something hanging from it. The predictably bearded hipster at the counter took a break from mentally undressing Obama to ask what was on her apron. The girl told him it was a severed hand.

The hipster’s apparently earnest reply?

“Ugh, in a vegan neighborhood?”

Is there any way we can get these emotional invalids to just secede already? How about a Civil War that forces them OUT of the Union? I say give them Long Island. They can call their new country Indignation.

Unfortunately, my friend lacked the presence of mind to chop off the hipster’s hand and give it to the young lady. Nothing says Brooklyn like a little authenticity.

Above, Steve Phillips, former ESPN analyst, is pictured with Brooke Hundley, the ESPN employee with whom he had a brief fling which resulted in her stalking him, going to his home, writing a letter to his wife, and Facebook-friending his son.

Phillips is now reportedly receiving treatment for sex addiction.

I’d always thought that “sex addiction” was mostly just a pseudo-psychological excuse for errant male behavior.

After seeing the picture above, I realized, it really must be a disease.

Disclaimer: I would never mock someone on the basis of their appearance alone. But once they’ve done something like rape a 13 year old girl (like Polanski), or stalk someone and his family, their looks become fair game.

Good news and bad news. First the bad, Tom Woods has been keeping an insane schedule for some time now. It was only a year ago that he gave me a call saying that he was going to be a bit late with a Takimag article because he was writing a book on the financial crisis. This book was, of course, Meltdown, a New York Times bestseller and sound introduction to Austrian economics which Tom wrote in a frenzied six weeks. Since then he’s been touring and lecturing with the Campaign for Liberty and has simply hit a wall. His wife has wisely ordered him to get some rest, and he’s had to cancel a couple of events, including the Mencken Club meeting. 

We definitely plan to have Tom come speak to us next year. Stepping up to pinch hit will be Steve Sailer, who’ll lecture us on Jewish liberals and how they got that way. Though we’ll all miss Tom, I’m sure Sailerholics will be happy to learn that they can get a double dose of Sailer this weekend.

The good news is that the response to the Mencken Club has been tremendous. We broke triple digits in attendance last week, and I expect a surge in registration over the next two days.

Many Takimag types—people who “think like us,” so to speak—think that they’re all alone in a world gone mad. They are not alone. And I can’t imagine a better place to meet like-minded individuals and rub shoulders with the likes of John Derbyshire, Sailer, Kevin Gutzman et al.  Get your last-minute tickets here. 

The recent brouhaha between the White House and Fox News, and subsequent comparisons between Fox and MSNBC, spurred me to quantify an impression I’d had in the past: that primetime Fox News regularly has guests with opposing viewpoints, whereas MSNBC does not.

To that end I watched both Bill O’Reilly on Fox and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC from 8 to 9PM on Monday and Tuesday evenings. (Olbermann wasn’t on Wednesday night.) I flipped back and forth to make sure I didn’t miss any guests.

My impression was confirmed.

On Monday evening, most of O’Reilly’s guests had conservative views, but he did have Juan Williams, a liberal, and also Mary Ann Marsh, a Democratic strategist. Williams generally tones himself down when on Fox, so let’s count Monday night’s tally as one and a half Democrats. On Tuesday, O’Reilly interviewed Joe Sestak and Anthony Weiner, both Democratic Congressmen. He interviewed Alan Colmes, one of Fox’s two token in-house liberals. And he had on legal expert Jennifer Smetters, who argued vigorously with O’Reilly, although she didn’t seem a political animal—though all lawyers are liberal. We’ll call that three and a half Democrats for Tuesday night.

Keith Olbermann had on exactly zero Republicans Monday night. His guests included Chuck Schumer, Ariana Huffington, Chris Hayes (the Washington editor of The Nation), Richard Wolffe, an MSNBC analyst, and author Susie Essman. Tuesday night’s lineup also featured zero Republicans. Olbermann had on Senator Wyden, Rose Ann Demoro (from the National Nurses Organizing Committee), Howard Fineman, an MSNBC analyst, and Gene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist.

This trend tends to continue, by the way, for the next hour. Sean Hannity of Fox has Democrats on (though generally not as many as O’Reilly), whereas Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has no Republicans on her show.

What does it say about a talk show host that he won’t allow any opposing viewpoints? Is he afraid to get into an argument because he knows, or at least senses, that the facts won’t back him up? Is it intellectual laziness? Is he afraid that the brittleness of his personality will be exposed by having to face an actual opponent?

Is it all of the above?

Liberals are always forever congratulating themselves on their open-mindedness. Yet one would think true open-mindedness would require at least hearing the counter argument. But neither Olbermann nor Maddow is willing to do this. (So much for “diversity.”)

This is in keeping with attitude of liberals on campus, who will often shout down conservative speakers in an effort to prevent them from getting their message across. Part of the reason for this, of course, is their fear that an audience might be swayed by their opponents’ arguments. (Conservatives on campus simply don’t do this to liberal speakers.)

In election years, candidates will often try to make it appear that their opponent is the one unwilling to debate. Fox seems to have won this battle.

Watch O’Reilly, and after a while you get the feeling that his crocodile smile exudes smugness. His driving force seems to be egotism. Watch Olbermann, and it quickly becomes apparent that he’s driven by hate, the emotion liberals love to disparage yet themselves indulge in so frequently. With Olbermann, it’s his very lifeblood. You’ll never hear him say much positive about the left; he far prefers to spend his hour insulting Republicans.

There are also undercurrents of hysteria and compulsiveness that pervade Olbermann’s presentation. He doesn’t seem able to help himself: he absolutely must sneer at every Republican he mentions. On Tuesday night alone, Obermann referred to Rick “Mad Dog” Santorum,” “Failed presidential candidate Fred Thompson,” “Lead teabaggist Dick Armey,” “apparent Adirondack expert Newt Gingrich” (who had gotten into an argument with other Republicans over whether to support the Republican or Conservative candidate in a local race), “streetwalker for the insurance industry” (in reference to a Republican who didn’t support the health bill, I didn’t catch the name), and “the torture President” (Bush).

The reference to Armey, for those unfamiliar with it, was Olbermannn’s way of twisting the Republican term “tea parties,” named after the famous Boston one which preceded the Revolutionary War, into “teabagging,” a sexual practice among gay men. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other, making this a completely gratuitous and nonsensical reference on Olbermann’s part. Had a Republican said this, he would of course have been accused of being homophobic.

When O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have Democrats on their show, they are generally polite, if argumentative. One gets the sense that this would be beyond Olbermann’s capacity.

This isn’t even an indictment of all of MSNBC. Chris Matthews, a liberal who hosts an earlier show, exudes earnestness and good will. Pat Buchanan, of all people, is a regular commentator. Unfortunately, MSNBC has reserved prime time for their most extreme voices, both of whom, especially Olbermann, are rigid to the point of brittleness.

A reader informs me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed:

I just wanted to alert you to the Snopblocks urban legends) explanation of this… the store manager may have been a kind of Muslim-Borat naif in his celebration of a particular Islamic moveable-feast, but he apparently wasn’t trying to celebrate 9/11 as such:

* Imam Ali was not a hijacker, but a 7th century religious figure… attacked by an assassin while praying in a mosque… and died two days later, so the 21st day of Ramadan is (among the Shi’a branch) a day of special significance, a day for honoring the martyrdom of the Imam Ali.”;

* The months of the Islamic [lunar] calendar move around from year to year with respect to the Gregorian calendar. In 2009… the 21st day of Ramadan… coincidentally fell on the date of September 11;

* Store manager Imran Chunawala was stunned [by the reaction] because the holiday had nothing to do with 9/11… ‘If people thought that that’s what this was about, I apologize,” Chunawala said. “That was not what this was about. I’m clarifying once again and I seriously am sorry for any misunderstanding that this caused.”