A New New Deal?

Okay, so we’re in an economic quagmire. Also, by Obama’s own admission, we’re facing the prospect of trillion-dollar deficits for the forseeable future.

So the answer is to add 600,000 government jobs to the federal payroll? Some of these will be federal assumption of government employee wages for cash-strapped states. This is wrong enough in itself. But many will be new government bureaucrats. We somehow need MORE non-producing, pampered drones sapping our economy? In a time of high-unemployment, the answer is more burdensome regulations driving businesses overseas? Natch.

And on top of that, we’re going to shell out for a New New Deal. Cause that last one worked out so peachily. Maybe he could also arrange a New World War II to get us out of the New Great Depression, like the last one did?

I think Saturday Night Live has the answer to the idea of massive new spending:

Just a bit more on the transition

If you’re the type to get up in arms about partisan abuses, this might be the time: the House is going to try to take us back to the era of Jim Wright and Dan Rostenkowski, to the era that inspired the original “Throw The Bums Out” movement.

Or maybe you don’t want to get up in arms about this….you decide.

Be careful of bottles that say “Drink Me”

David Kahane opens up a very large bottle of “Whoops! Aggressively Snarky Satire” on the Democratic Party’s having cleverly chosen to back an untried Chicago Machine hack for President–they may have won, but who collects the jackpot really is a bit open to debate. But let him say it:

And here we Democrats thought the Clinton administration could never be topped!

You people had better get used to it, though, because hijinks and shenanigans like these are going to be the order of the day for at least the next four years. After all, we are the Tammany Party — the party of Slavery, Segregation, Sedition, and Surrender — so this sort of thing is not exactly new for us. Just look at our track record: We rightfully opposed the tyrant Lincoln with a loser general running on an antiwar platform, we perfected defensive election theft with Boss Tweed to save us from the plutocrats and goo-goos, and we formed an unholy alliance with gangland to get Franklin D. Roosevelt the Democratic nod over Al Smith at our convention in (where else?) Chicago in 1932.

We are the party of Barack Obama and the Daley Machine; the party of the Clintons and their amazing alchemistic Library, which turns Saudi dross into altruistic gold; the party of Tony Rezko and Norman Hsu; the party of vaporizing fundraisers, absconding bagmen and sitting New Mexico governors (and a recent presidential “candidate”) currently under federal investigation for allegedly steering a state contract in the direction of one of his big backers, David Rubin of CDR Financial Products in Beverly Hills. Now comes word that Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state-designate, Congress and the Emoluments Clause willing, got millions of dollars for a mall in Syracuse shortly after the developer coughed up a hundred grand for the Bill Clinton “Foundation.” That’s what I call commerce!

For a newsier take, check out Rich Lowry’s article on my home state’s dear governor, now the most embarrassing source of schadenfreude you could ask for; or Mark Goldblatt’s long view.

If you see an egg on a wall, just push.

farther from God and nearer to the dust. . .

I’m doing preps for the community college history courses I’m teaching this spring, and it’s put me in a reflective mood. T.S. Eliot’s line The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries/ Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust keeps playing in my head. It comes from T.S. Eliot’s pageant play, “The Rock.”

Here are the opening lines of the chorus:

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

Also in the choruses, Eliot penned a fitting epitaph for secularized, decadent Western Civilization:

And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”

Erm, Merry Christmas?

the machine grinds on

Once in a while–once in a great while–the wheels of justice grind just a bit more quickly. Today comes the news that the corrupt Illinois governor who, along with corrupt developer Tony Rezko, put Obama on the track to power, has been indicted.

It may be too late for the nation to avoid some massive disruption, but let’s don’t sell this short. That’s a very significant part of Obama’s Chicago Democrat machine base already caught. There may be some potential for self-correction left in this government of ours. We’ll see.

Paintball in Sarasota-Bradenton

Hey all! If anyone’s interested in trying out paintball in the Sarasota-Bradenton area, drop me an email at conservativeintelligencer@gmail.com.

The guys (and a couple of gals) from my church get together about once a month. It’s a great intro to the sport — everyone is nice even while mortalizing you, the field is free-of-charge, and we have a few loaner guns so people can try it before investing in a gun. Our upcoming sessions include this Saturday, 24 November and Saturday, Dec. 13th!

Obama taps head of EMILY’S list for WH Communications

I just saw that Obama has picked Ellen Moran for White House Communications Director. This is going to give her a central role in shaping the message of the Obama presidency, including both day-to-day press briefings and the State of the Union address.

Definitely not a heartening choice for those of us who care about Life issues. EMILY’S list (Early Money is Like Yeast), has spent the last twenty years pouring tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns. Its members are “dedicated to building a progressive America by electing Democratic pro-choice women to office.”

Private school for mine, but not for thine. . .

The Obamas just announced that their kiddos, Malia and Sasha, will be attending the posh Sidwell Friends school next year. Marvy! Another Democratic president; another champion of public schools with his kids in an elite private school.

Not only that, but Obama hopes to eliminate the DC school choice voucher program (McCain wanted to expand it.) The Obama kids’ new school, Sidwell Friends, participates in the voucher program. If Obama gets his way, some of Malia and Sasha’s classmates may be thrown into the nasty DC public school system.

Elite public schools for the wealthy and devil take the hindmost. Now THAT’S change we can believe in!

When I said I wanted more Evangelical filmmakers in Hollywood. . .

. . . I didn’t mean Thomas Kinkade!

Here’s the trailer for The Christmas Cottage: Love is the Brightest Light of All.

Let’s just hope he didn’t do the film’s lighting effects himself. Also, how did he rope Jared Padalecki into this turkey?

Sarasota Stuff — Ringling Art Museum hosts Romanian artists

In all my travels in Eastern Europe, one of the nicest surprises was Bucharest. Despite Ceau?escu’s best efforts to remodel the city after Pyongyang, North Korea, it’s still quite pretty. And they have the Palace of the Parliament, a crazy Stalinist wedding cake that’s the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon.

For all you Sarasotans and Bradentonians, Ringling Art Museum is hosting sixteen Romanian artists in their Selby gallery.

Here’s Vlad Naca’s “30 Years of Social History: The Dacia” –

This painting disturbs me more than any since Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, though I have a good excuse. My only experience with the venerable Dacia was getting robbed by a gang of gypsies on the streets of Bucharest at six in the morning. They were all cabbies. Yep, genuine gypsy cabs.

Asides

• Quoth the inimitable Derb, after doing the job a working literary critic wouldn't dare: "Oh, well. Let’s console ourselves (more...) #
• A good day for the Marine Corps. . . #
• Um, Hold that New Cold War! Reuben Johnson has an encouraging look at the "resurgent" Russian military. Not quite the force for evil they used to be. And remember, this is after several years of crazy-high gas prices funding Putin's expansion. (more...) #
• Amazon.com has a fun interactive map that charts the political reading habits of Americans. Even Connecticut looks pink. . . #
• Patronizing and stupid, in one neat package: (more...) #