Why Gingrich?

It's pretty obvious that Republicans, especially conservative Republicans, have grave reservations about Mitt Romney, otherwise he would be well ahead of the pack at this time.  After all, Romney has been campaigning for this nomination for almost four years at this point, considering his run against McCain and his nonstop campaigning since?  Truth is many Republicans simply are not impressed with his record or his presentations of his qualifications. What's more they have doubts that he would hew to the conservative principles and is, in reality, a Big Government Republican in the mold of Rockefeller, McCain, Dole, Ford and all the other centrists of the past.  The grass roots Tea Party rebellion against the Obama Administration's huge overreach in healthcare and most other matters demonstrated how seriously these mainstream, largely Republican voters are about Big Government and its intrusion into individuals' lives.   Because of his actions as Governor of Massachusetts, these voters have great reservations about Romney's commitment to their Small Government philosophy.  In addition they seem also to be unsure of his oratorical skills  going up against those of Obama.  Gingrich, on the other hand, has a well documented conservative record in House -- 90% ACU voting record -- and is thought to be capable of burying Obama in the presidential debates.  His most serious negatives are a tendency to be somewhat unfocused and perhaps have too many solutions to all our many problems.  But, as things stand as of this moment,  Gingrich's strengths seem to be carrying the day an he is now the front runner.

A tale of two cities

Jeffrey Lord was the political director in the Reagan WH and here deconstructs an article and it's author, Alexander Heffner, a Harvard senior and Obama/OWS supporter, i.e., an Ivy League bred socialist.  This article is fairy long but does a very good job of exposing the liberal thinking process that led this country to elect Obama. It is disconcerting to think about all the little Obama clones like Heffner,  running about spouting such utter nonsense with liberal media providing the megaphone.  It better be the case, and hopefully is the case, these young iberals are in the minority of graduates from our elite schools, otherwise we are probably less than a generation away from disaster.

Climategate

Generally speaking to be informed on the East Anglia University climate study imbroglio takes a lot of study and background information. The  "Watts Up With That' site provides an extremely useful post by Willis Eschenbach here that helps one understand the controversy without having to spend a huge amount of time getting up to speed on all the background information on this subject.  Boiling it all down to a few sentences (it's necessary to read the whole post by Eschenbach, including the link he recommends and the replies from what appears to be mostly scientific community people) the record of temperature changes from many "stations" around the world, which provides the basis for the AGW claims, have been fudged to make the case.  In addition the EAU scientists have been busily deflecting inquiries under the FOI to provide raw data from the "stations" knowing full well that the data is compromised.  This is an important issue because it goes to the heart of government funded Solyndras and all the rest of the research that is going on to support the pro climate change cabal.  Al Gore is at the heart of this story and he should be very concerned for his cause, all based upon the flawed data provided by the government funded EAU directed study of climate change.

Alternative view of great 20th century leaders

Here is a book that must go on the MUST read list if you are a libertarian or have tendencies in that direction.  It is available at the Mises book store on line.

Give Carter some credit

When the final chapter is written on the Obama interregnum, which hopefully lasts but four years, it will be seen that he lost several opportunities to economically right the ship and that he failed miserably.  This article by the always reliable Holman Jenkins of the WSJ, hits the nail on the head.  Obama inherited a mess, of that there is no doubt, however instead of focussing on some fairly obvious fixes, he choose to pursue a radical plan of reshaping and redirecting the entire economy which in the end only made the mess he inherited messier.  Jenkins explains that because Obama had no real world experience organizing or running anything other than some community social justice program, he had no basis in the real world for making real world decisions during a crises.  Thus, he plowed full steam ahead with an experimental energy policy that in the best of economic circumstances could be helpful only at the margins, and he crammed through his democrat controlled Congress a redo of 1/7th of the US economy a socialized healthcare plan that was thoroughly rejected by the public just a little over a decade ago.  In addition he turned loose all manner of so-called czars whose mission was to re-regulate the economy while at the same time demonizing the producer class in the country and re-empowering unions.  All of these moves have been tried in different countries and even in this country before and they have failed repeatedly.  Like the only other academic in the history of the White House, another "progressive" Woodrow Wilson,  Obama has given us the specter of abstract thinking to address and solve real life problems.  How many times do we have to repeat the mistakes of the past before recognizing the need to apply proven solutions to our problems?  It's all very discouraging.

Who and what are Muslims?

This scholarly treatise is the definitive explanation of Muslim beliefs and why all others need to be very afraid.

The occupiers, Harvard freshmen, and Tea Party

The Occupy Wall Street movement is winding down largely because adults in the cities where they have been taking place have had enough.  Initially, at least, Obama and the democrats were supportive of (and may even have helped organize) the movement until it proved to be an unfocused, inchoate amalgam of malcontents, homeless, and grab bag of young throw backs to the '60's hippies.   Once it became clear the movement had degenerated all but the union support was nowhere to be seen.  There are, however,  some who still buy into the movement, despite its demise, and not surprisingly they emanate from an elite school in the northeast, Harvard.  In this article the immature mind of college freshmen (women) is on full display.  In support of the occupy movement freshmen students in an introductory Econ 101 class at Harvard, taught by the well known and highly regarded economist Nicholas G. Mankiw, decided to stage a "walk out" in protest against the "conservative" bias of the professor and also in support of the occupiers and their various causes and demands. This decision was  no doubt based on the freshmen's vast life experiences and store of knowledge.   Any rational administration would immediately refund these students' fees, tell them Harvard's not for them and offer their positions in the freshman class to someone who wants to earn a degree from the school based upon the curriculum offered in its course catalogue.  The students who walked out of Mr. Mankiw's course must have slipped through the admission process somehow since they failed to read and/or understand the Harvard syllabus prior to matriculation.  To state the obvious: The time for these students to object to a professor or course is not after having been accepted by the school and in turn having themselves accepted the offer to join the student body.  The administration should advise them that since they are not smart enough to do their homework on the kind of education Harvard offers, they are simply not Harvard material, and add that they might be happier out there with the occupiers camped out in some park rather than disrupting classes and those who want to learn.


On related front, the idea that the "occupy" movement is a construct of the democrat party and its main supporters (Moveon.org, unions, etc) stems from the success of the Tea Party movement.  Because the democrats were insanely jealous of the impact of the Tea Party on the 2010 mid-term elections and its effectiveness in turning public opinion agains Obamacare and the rest of the liberal agenda, they had to have some kind of galvanizing movement of their own.  Voila, occupy Wall Street.  While the Tea Party rightly focused on the corruption of the political process by both political parties (mostly democrats), its demands centered on reforming Washington and big government as the solution.  On the other hand, the occupy movement focusses solely on the evils of capitalism and it surrogate, Wall Street bankers.  One can make a pretty good case that what we are witnessing here is a shootout between Socialism and Capitalism as the way forward for our country.  Since there is ample evidence that socialism simply does not work, and lots of evidence that free markets and capitalism have provided all the wealth and material progress mankind has made over many centuries, there is little doubt which of these two isms should win this argument.  The 2012 election will determine the way forward.