Category Archives: Intelligence

The Blond Squad & The Economcis of Contraband

Conservatism, Crime, Drug War, Free Markets, Gender, Intelligence, Regulation

Brains are a hindrance to advancement in the age of the idiot; being a lightweight blond is helpful. Heredity is handy too.

Margaret Hoover “is an American political commentator, political strategist, and blogger. She is the great-granddaughter of former President Herbert Hoover,” a factor which probably explains her popularity on Fox News, for it is certainly not humor, originality or cerebral agility that explain the ubiquity of the Blond Squad (BS) on Fox News. O’Reilly especially prefers his women guests to be his inferiors.

In any case, the Blond Squad brainiacs–also called Culture Warriors (comprising MH and another compromised blond)—were bitching in unison about one of Obama’s praise-worthy initiatives. (The first of which was not doing squat about the Iranians’ revolt. I’ve documented the others in successive posts.)

This particular rare good news story the BS was condemning was the decision by the Obama administration to cease “criminalizing cancer and AIDS patients for using a substance that is (a) prescribed by their doctors and (b) legal under the laws of their state. …”

When I told Sean the reason Hoover gave for her objection to decriminalization, he rolled his eyes. I’m sure you will too. According to this woman’s calculus, once you decriminalize a drug, criminal enterprise corners the market.

Babe, it’s exactly the opposite. I know, it’s a hard concept, but the section “THE COSTS OF ILLEGAL MARKETS” in “Addicted To The Drug War” may help (on the other hand…):

“Prohibition—not drug use—is responsible for the current crime and chaos. Prohibition makes the price of drugs far in excess of their cost of production. The production costs of common drugs are low. These chemicals are derived from hardy plants. A poppy is not an orchid. Neither is cannabis a particularly fragile plant. As with other illegal commodities, the price is pushed up by the high costs of circumventing the law as well as by the reduced supply brought on by prohibition. The price of pure heroin for medicinal purposes is a fraction of its street price. The difference amounts to a state subsidy for organized crime. … When supply is reduced … prices shoot up. And what happens when prices go up? The potential profit causes a renewed influx of dealers into the trade, resulting in more crime. In the war on drugs, success is failure. A free market in drugs, however, will bring prices down drastically, inclining fewer pushers to enter the trade.”

Blonds would be more fun if idiots were not so scary.

Another Mao Man (Yawn)

Barack Obama, Communism, Democrats, Intelligence, Propaganda, Socialism

The energizer bunny that is Glenn Beck is relentless in tracking down Barack’s Bolsheviks. On the heels of the Dunn debacle comes this, also courtesy of Beck:

“Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom is the latest in a long line of White House officials who seem to just love Chairman Mao. Mao, of course, is the loving former Chinese dictator who killed 70 million people during peacetime, so what’s not to love? Bloom also mocked capitalism, ‘We know that the free market is nonsense.’ This is of course the sentiment you want from the guy trying to create jobs in the manufacturing sector. Glenn plays the audio and reacts to the latest idiotic quote, this time from Ron Bloom.”

[SNIP]

Much to my surprise, I’ve heard it repeated on this blog of seasoned, cynical, politics watchers that the administration must have failed to vet this or the other communist functionary. The mind boggles at such a comment—especially on this forum. I’ve literally cut and pasted from a blog post I penned when that feeble excuse-making began gaining traction–back when I made “a prophetic prediction (NOT)”:

“There are many Van Jones’ in the Obama administration. You’ll meet them in the fullness of time. Quit feigning surprise when they crawl out from their dank corners.”

AND:

“Spare me a repeat performance of the Jeremiah Wright farce, only with Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, substituting for the Obamas’ preacher; and surfacing in YouTube clips while delivering Wright-like jeremiads lambasting white men and Western civilization, as every liberal lunatic and wimpish WASP pretends Obamby hardly knew the jejune Jones.

Can we skip this? Can this country’s anointed cognoscenti at least pretend to be familiar with the concept of a learning curve?”

Sean keeps telling me to repeat the same themes in columns becasue nobody retains anything these day. Peter Brimelow once imparted the same lesson. I accept this truism—but not when it comes to regular readers of this space (with accesses to archives).

Updated: Chairman Anita’s ‘Mao Moment’

Barack Obama, Communism, Democrats, Intelligence, Propaganda

Journalism just gets less inquisitive and more far-fetched and fatuous by the day. This Christian Science Monitor “writer” believes that when White House communications director Anita Dunn delivered (earlier this year) a long, labored, meaningless address to students, in which she referred to Mao Tse Tung as a favorite “philosopher”—she was merely using irony in the best of Socratic tradition.

This is insane. The woman, Dunn, was incoherent—not an individual capable of deploying subtle rhetorical devices. And she was perfectly serious. She quoted Mao’s meanderings for her sub-intelligent message, and proceeded to draw life’s lessons from the Chairman’s asinine utterance. This was for real. She had “crafted” the message.

The clip (below) was an ugly thing to behold. Like a lizard (or like Larry King), Dunn kept licking her lips and flicking her tongue as she mouthed Mao’s wisdom. Our liberal literati’s explanation? Dunn may have been speaking above Glenn’s head.

Here are the dunderhead’s exact words:

“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa — not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is ‘you’re going to make choices; you’re going to challenge; you’re going to say why not; you’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.”

What bellies Dunn’s attempt at a retraction is that she coupled Mao and MT as her favorite political philosophers; she made one statement and applied it to both individuals. If she was being ironic about Mao being her Man, then she was also being ironic about Mother. The CSM writer is too stupid to analyze the simplest of texts. Moreover, if she was deploying irony, why would she deliver a lesson to her audience based on the mindless (and menacing) Mao quote? Was the “do it your own way” (à la Uncle Mao) also a twist of irony?

These days stupidity is the default position.

Update (Oct. 19): Writes Roger Kimball:

“Jeremiah Wright. William Ayers. Van Jones. Where does the rogues’ gallery of Barack Obama’s radical friends end? These people are not liberals. They are not ‘progressives.’ They are radicals who hate America and in many cases have advocated or even perpetrated violence in an effort to destroy it.

Thanks to Glenn Beck, the American public has now been introduced to yet another radical member of Obama’s inner circle: Anita Dunn, Interim White House Communications Director, former top advisor to Obama’s political campaign, and wife of Obama’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer. …”

Updated: Chairman Anita's 'Mao Moment'

Barack Obama, Communism, Democrats, Intelligence, Propaganda

Journalism just gets less inquisitive and more far-fetched and fatuous by the day. This Christian Science Monitor “writer” believes that when White House communications director Anita Dunn delivered (earlier this year) a long, labored, meaningless address to students, in which she referred to Mao Tse Tung as a favorite “philosopher”—she was merely using irony in the best of Socratic tradition.

This is insane. The woman, Dunn, was incoherent—not an individual capable of deploying subtle rhetorical devices. And she was perfectly serious. She quoted Mao’s meanderings for her sub-intelligent message, and proceeded to draw life’s lessons from the Chairman’s asinine utterance. This was for real. She had “crafted” the message.

The clip (below) was an ugly thing to behold. Like a lizard (or like Larry King), Dunn kept licking her lips and flicking her tongue as she mouthed Mao’s wisdom. Our liberal literati’s explanation? Dunn may have been speaking above Glenn’s head.

Here are the dunderhead’s exact words:

“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa — not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is ‘you’re going to make choices; you’re going to challenge; you’re going to say why not; you’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.”

What bellies Dunn’s attempt at a retraction is that she coupled Mao and MT as her favorite political philosophers; she made one statement and applied it to both individuals. If she was being ironic about Mao being her Man, then she was also being ironic about Mother. The CSM writer is too stupid to analyze the simplest of texts. Moreover, if she was deploying irony, why would she deliver a lesson to her audience based on the mindless (and menacing) Mao quote? Was the “do it your own way” (à la Uncle Mao) also a twist of irony?

These days stupidity is the default position.

Update (Oct. 19): Writes Roger Kimball:

“Jeremiah Wright. William Ayers. Van Jones. Where does the rogues’ gallery of Barack Obama’s radical friends end? These people are not liberals. They are not ‘progressives.’ They are radicals who hate America and in many cases have advocated or even perpetrated violence in an effort to destroy it.

Thanks to Glenn Beck, the American public has now been introduced to yet another radical member of Obama’s inner circle: Anita Dunn, Interim White House Communications Director, former top advisor to Obama’s political campaign, and wife of Obama’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer. …”