The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
You want to know what hasn’t changed a bit since 1971? Human nature. The biggest difference among Nixon and Holder and Hoover and Obama is the SPF of their preferred sunscreen. — Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
Cue shouts of RACISS! in 3, 2, 1…
I don’t have a brief for Snowden. He seems to be a new form of narcissistic international creep, similar to Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame. I hope he gets dysentery in Ecuador or wherever he winds up.
But he may have done us a favor, putting an exclamation point on the activities of the NSA so there are no doubts. He also has made obvious the utter contempt with which Russia and China treat the Obama administration. (Evidently this was surprising to Dianne Feinstein on Face the Nation Sunday. Go figure.)
Also interesting is that the heightened concern for our civil liberties under government digital surveillance crosses political and party lines. Given the plethora of scandals confronting the administration, this presents an opportunity for dialogue we haven’t had for many years. Who knows if it will happen?
But if it does, I hope it will be intelligent and substantive. — What Snowden Knew
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that one, Roger. What I find most interesting is who has come out in defense of essentially unlimited government snooping. That crosses political and party lines as well.
Arizona photographer Mike Olbinski has an interesting website. In addition to doing wedding photos and such, Mike’s also a storm chaser. I stumbled across him because someone posted a link to a time-lapse series of a supercell over Booker Texas he shot. For YMoZ, here’s a picture I call “Smite.”
(click for full size)
He describes it as “Lightning over Casa Grande, Arizona.” He doesn’t just do weather shots, though. (THAT was a close second for YMoZ!)
If you live in Arizona and you’re looking for a professional photographer, you might want to contact him. And if you like beautiful photographs, definitely check out his site.
Sort of a twofer:
I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
John Adams, letter to John Taylor (15 April 1814).The remedy, of course, was to form a Republic, and for over two hundred years the Republic endured. Now it is to be converted into a democracy, and the result is predictable and predicted. There are many good studies of what happens when a democracy commits suicide. If it is fortunate it gets a Claudius Caesar, but more often it must first endure a Caligula so that Claudius seems a blessed relief. And after Claudius as likely as not comes Nero. But I digress. For the moment we do not yet have Marius.
Fascinating study on that topic, concerning psychological journals commented on by Instapundit.
“Ouch” is right.
Now do one on “climate science.”
In a rare political post on his anime blog Chizumatic, Steven opines on the media’s reaction to the current Washington scandals in See no Evil. My only disagreement with Steven comes from this excerpt:
So even though we’re increasingly uncomfortable acting as a shill for the government instead of as an opposing force, the way we always thought the press was supposed to be, …
The press doesn’t take that position. The press has an administrative control bias that is decidedly Leftist in slant. They’re an “opposing force” only when the wrong people are in charge, or are doing something that the New York Times editors don’t agree with. The rest of the time they see their job as conveying the divine grace of government to the laypeople of the public.
Other than that, spot-on.
Perhaps now someone in addition to Sharyl Atkisson of ABCNNBCBS will do some actual reporting.
Nobody but the New Jersey legislature. Confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.
As Sebastian says,
You know what would help prevent gun owners from always being paranoid that gun control activists and politicians were after their guns? Not actually being after our guns.
From his post How it Works in Gun-Free Paradise:
After those rollicking crazy Boston boys blasted an eight-year-old into oblivion, they did a little workout at the gym and planned to head to New York City to party party party. A problemo surfaces…they only had one pistol. I mean, two terrorists, one pistol, not gonna look good on FaceBook, n’est-ce pas? So did the boys race to an Internet cafe to buy maybe a dozen or so full-auto assault weapons off the Internet, with same-day shipping? Speed to a LGS for the “Tuesday Terrorist Two-Fer, No NCIS No Way”? Wait for the weekend gun show where they could stock up on RPGs, grenades and those rifles with the shoulder thingie that sticks up?
None of the above. Instead, they went to the one firearms superstore where they were sure guns would be in stock…they walked up to the police car of MIT Officer Sean Collier, killed him in very cold blood and tried to grab his gun. The reason those lovable Holden Caulfield-esque urchins failed on that task was that apparently the Islamic Terrorism 101 class on the Internet doesn’t include retention holsters, disabling of. Don’t worry…I’m sure the curriculum will be updated any moment now!
Man, if we’d only had a law that made it illegal to transfer a gun without a background check! That would have stopped them dead in their tracks!
SO WHEN DEMOCRATS ARE PUSHING TO BAN PEOPLE ON THE “TERROR WATCH LIST” FROM BUYING GUNS, they’re really pushing to have a constitutional right blocked by your placement on a secret list put together by unaccountable bureaucrats with no due process. Just to be clear what they’re really talking about. — Instapundit
RTWT.