As Goes California, So Goes Hawaii

Tim Cavanaugh on the GOP, particularly the California GOP:

Aging, compromised, morally bankrupt RINOs are no longer just a subgroup within the party. They are the default setting of the party. This is especially true in California, where Republicans happily vilify Barack Obama and Jerry Brown but somehow can’t get around to opposing high-speed rail, fighting the cap and trade system that came in this year, or in any other serious way distinguishing themselves from the Democrats. Worse still, the GOP actually opposed Brown’s efforts to abolish redevelopment agencies.

The Republicans’ inability to engage the Tea Party or the broader libertarian insurrection has been a problem everywhere, but in California, where the Tea Party never happened, the party of Reagan and Prop 13 has almost no libertarian mojo. Given the California GOP’s crisis of demographics and relevance, that’s a real problem.

One prominent Hawaii GOPper was quoted some time back saying that rich supporters give money, the religious supporters give their labor, and the libertarians sit around and complain. Seems about right: libertarians are not interested in being political: we want to be left alone. We don't want our lives ever more politicized: we want to be left alone. We don't want the politicians making decisions for us: we want to be left alone. The Republicans despise that idea: They don't want to leave us alone.

The party is marginal and becoming more so, but the leadership is deathly afraid of the one proven source of Republican energy and enthusiasm – because that source is considered too marginal. If the California Republicans continue distancing themselves from the libertarian movement, they will continue to suffer, and so will everybody else who has to live in a state where one party has absolute power and the other refuses to compete.

It does sound like Hawaii. Just look at the school system: widely acknowledged by all that it is a mess, controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the Democratic Party for half a century, but it occurs to no one, including the Republicans, to hold the Democrats responsible.

Maybe that is actually a great school system: It teaches one and all that the Democrats must always have all the power, without any accountability.

Mark Steyn on the Perversion of Rights

This is too depressing to quote, but it is worth a quick read.

Greek Shareholders Have to Provide Stool Samples?

Oh, come on now, that can't be true:

Antonopoulos and his partners spent hours collecting papers from tax offices, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the municipal service where the company is based, the health inspector’s office, the fire department and banks. At the health department, they were told that all the shareholders of the company would have to provide chest X-rays, and, in the most surreal demand of all, stool samples.

Well, they are a start up. I guess the government needs to be sure they aren't stopped up.

Then, of course, the bank bureaucrats had to get involved:

Once they climbed the crazy mountain of Greek bureaucracy and reached the summit, they faced the quagmire of the bank, where the issue of how to confirm the credit card details of customers ended in the bank demanding that the entire website be in Greek only, including the names of the products.

“They completely ignored us, however much we explained that our products are aimed at foreign markets and everything has to be written in English as well,” said Antonopoulos.

Now we may know why Greece's economy is in the toilet.

Tell me again: Just why are we supposed to be sympathetic for the Greeks' plight? Didn't they bring it on themselves?

Santorum vs Libertarians

Fair Warning: Rick Santorum is no Libertarian.

US Representative Maxine Waters on Demons

She apparently wants them exorcised from the halls of government:



I wonder if she will solicit help from the Catholic bishops.

As she said, she is next in line to chair the Financial Services Committee if the Democrats take back the House.

God Bless America: the trailer

Fair warning: Watching this trailer could get you arrested in NY, NJ, CA, and Chicago. And HI, of course. Don't ever forget HI.



It does seem like an argument for allowing pre-victims to carry weapons, though.

The Museum of Broken Relationships

Well, why not? Maybe someday they'll include an exhibit on the EU.

For now, this will have to do. At least the ax was used after the break up, not as the mechanism.

"Lawsuit: Defendant Breached a Duty Not to Shoot Bottle Rockets Out of His Anus"

This sounds a lot like Fraternity Row on Langdon Street in Madison back in the glory days of the 1970s. Well, I mean, so I've heard. I think I read a magazine article about Madison in those days.

Follow the link.