URLs du Jour

2018-10-14

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  • At NR, Kevin D. Williamson looks at the prose stylings of Eric Holthaus: An ‘Ecosocialist’ Heard From. (Ecosocialist being Eric's self-description.)

    Writing on Twitter, Holthaus declares: “If you are wondering what you can do about climate change: The world’s top scientists just gave rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism as a key require to maintaining civilization and a habitable planet. I mean, if you are looking for something to do.”

    That is a nearly perfect specimen of left-wing political writing in 2018: Note the familiar passive-aggressive construction (“If you are wondering . . . I mean, if you are looking for something to do”), the ceremonial invocation of “the world’s top scientists,” the dump-truck approach to meaningless but important-sounding modifiers (“rigorous backing,” “systematically dismantle,” “key requirement”), the assumption that scholarly expertise in one field (climate science) is seamlessly transferable to other fields (macroeconomics), the hectoring hall-monitor tone — I can think of no right-leaning parodist who could do better.

    I've noticed the tendency of Our Lefty Friends to "dump-truck" ever more meaningless words into their prose. My own (imagined) rule: Never say just one thing, if you can possibly think of two or three.

    A further Williamsonian observation: "American progressives in particular are a transparent bunch: Whatever the problem, the answer involves giving more money and power to people who are aligned politically and socially with American progressives."


  • Andrew Cline of the Josiah Bartlett Center shares some bad news for the inhabitants of Pun Salad Manor: Winter is coming (and it’s going to be expensive).

    On Wednesday the U.S. Energy Information Agency released its annual Winter Fuels Outlook. If you heat with propane or natural gas, you’ll be fine. If you heat with oil, you probably should buy more blankets. Or an alpaca.

    The EIA predicted average price changes this winter of -1 percent for propane, 3 percent for electricity, 5 percent for natural gas and 20 percent for home heating oil.

    I hit the themostat for the first time last night, and winced every time I heard the burner fire up, imagining "there's a dollar… there's a dollar…"

    Anyway: blame the ecosocialists, diligently working to prevent efficient pipeline delivery of natural gas.


  • I'm no Trump fan, goodness knows, but the MSM continue to reveal themselves as partisan hacks, willing to grab onto the thinnest out-of-context reeds to do some Trump-trashing. Latest case in point: Trump's comments in Ohio about Robert E. Lee, on the way to praising Ohio native U. S. Grant. Powerline ( (Dumbest Anti-Trump Slur Ever?) and the MinuteMan (We March To War) round up the usual suspects: Soledad O'Brien, the WaPo, the SPLC, and NBC "News".

    As a commenter at the latter site points out: they aren't even trying to tell the truth any more.


  • The University Near Here has a new President, James "Don't Call Me Jimmy" Dean. And the Google LFOD News Alert rang for his Installation Installation Remarks! (Yes, they call it an "installation". Like they're bringing in upgraded software.)

    I wonder if you know these slogans? Heart of Dixie…World Famous Potatoes…America’s Dairyland…Greatest Snow on Earth?

    Until recently, Live Free or Die was, to me, just another charming license plate slogan. But after only a few months in New Hampshire, I am beginning to appreciate its profound resonance among the state’s citizens.

    He continues, excellently, for a while, and I recommend it. For a while. But then:

    But it was in the State of the Union address in 1941, in the foreboding days between the Great Depression and America’s entry into World War II, that President Franklin Roosevelt captured the essence of freedom as many Americans understand it, identifying four essential human freedoms:
    1. Freedom of speech and expression;
    2. Freedom of every person to worship God in his or her own way;
    3. Freedom from want; and
    4. Freedom from fear.

    Well, that was a mere year before he signed Executive Order 9066. President Dean doesn't mention that complication.

    And it gets worse from there. Because, and I am not making this up: "True freedom depends on education". What follows is mostly trite and self-serving.


  • And I rarely put my own tweets here, but I saw this at Powerline's Week in Pictures and found it irresistable:

    Say what you will about George Lucas, he really wrote some good lines, decades ago.


Last Modified 2024-01-24 3:32 PM EDT