Hello again, world.  I’ve been on a secret vacation with my partner John to Costa Rica.  Secret only in the sense that I didn’t “announce” it on the blog or on Twitter.  I get this strange idea that it isn’t smart to announce when your house is going to be empty for a week.  I’m funny like that.

Anyway, I promise I’ll talk about the cruise (yep, it was a Windstar Cruise!) more later with photos & videos.  I promise.

For now, I’m back to work on a hectic catch-up day.  And more travel for me this week (for work). 

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It seems for some gay activists, everything is political.  Mark, one of our readers, alerted me to a story about which he, while regularly disagreeing with yours truly, offers commentary that I find spot-on:  ”stunts like this make gay people look like idiots”.  Well, fortunately, most Americans (or so we hope) won’t judge all gay people by the juvenile antics of this one man who wallows in his (perceived) victimhood:

A gay man was excused from jury duty in New York last week because he said that discrimination against gays makes him a second-class citizen and therefore he couldn’t be impartial.

Jonathan D. Lovitz, an actor, model, and singer who will be on Logo’s upcoming show Setup Squad, wrote on his Facebook page, “I raised my hand and said, ‘Since I can’t get married or adopt a child in the state of New York, I can’t possibly be an impartial judge of a citizen when I am considered a second class citizen in the eyes of the justice system.’”

And instead of criticizing the man for this self-righteous stunt, the Advocate reports that some activists are encouraging “others to use the strategy”.   Such individuals have so internalized the victim mentality that they define themselves as second-class citizens.  Wonder why they need convince themselves of such status.

This is not to say that things are perfect for gay Americans, but the notion that we’re second-class citizens suggests we lack the fundamental rights and privileges associated with citizens, many denied African-Americans in certain states until federal legislation in the mid-1960s overturned discriminatory laws and practices. (more…)

When I first criticized the Democrats’ spendthrift “stimulus” now over two years ago, some readers faulted me for not recognizing the severity of the downturn and favoring a do-nothing approach.  While to be sure, I felt the executive branch should, as it were do “nothing,” I thought the legislative branch should act speedily to reduce the burdens it had placed on private enterprise. Instead of increasing federal spending, I would have cut it substantially, eliminating some federal agencies while reducing the scope of others.

I would have have set advisors to work on a plan to shut down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ending the need for further federal oversight of these government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).  And I would have cut the corporate tax rate, believing that the higher percentage enterprises keep of their profits, the more they can invest in innovation and expansion, investments which generate growth and create jobs.

Now, it appears, we’re heading the opposite direction.  Instead of our tax rate going down, in fewer than three weeks, the United States will have the world’s highest corporate tax rate.  While Japan’s is currently higher, on April 1

. . . both Japan and the United Kingdom are scheduled to lower their rates as well. Japan is planning to reduce its national rate by 4.5 percentage points, which will bring its overall rate to below 35%. The U.K. rate will fall from 28% to 27% as a first step of a multi-year plan to lower the British rate to 24% by 2014.

H/t Instapundit.

Writing for the Cato Inistute, in an analysis of the U.S.’s new status, Duanjie Chen and Jack Mintz from the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, University of Calgary  point out that a policy makers recognize “that the U.S. corporate tax system is a major barrier to economic growth“: (more…)

Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds linked a blog post today which helps explain why some of the most intelligent of liberals, particularly on university campuses, but also in the halls of Congress tend to be so narrow-minded. Over at National Review‘s Phi Beta Cons, David French offers an explanation of why it has “been so easy” for James O’Keefe to obtain footage exposing the prejudiced attitudes and disregard for inconvenient laws (i.e, ., in the Planned Parenthood sting, those restricting abortion) of individuals working for left-leaning organizations:

Because until now Planned Parenthood, ACORN, and NPR have not experienced real media accountability or real journalistic scrutiny — at least not to the extent that conservative politicians and organizations do. The mainstream media (and NPR is obviously part of the MSM) is sympathetic to their goals and purposes, and reporter calls tend to come from friendly voices seeking talking points rather than skeptical reporters demanding answers. In the MSM’s eyes, those organizations were the good guys, part of the home team. So millions upon millions of public dollars flow into their treasuries, while they bask in the goodwill of the cultural establishment.

Emphasis added.  Read the whole thing.

For further proof of reporters as friendly voices, take a gander at how Katie Couric treated the vice-presidential nominees of the two major political parities in the 2008 campaign.  With the Republican, she was confrontational as if determined to take vengeance on her high school rival after that more attractive, charismatic and popular girl beat her out from prom queen.  With the Democrat, she was adoring as if doting on the kindly next door neighbor who always gave her flowers when she returned home from school.

Many on the left just aren’t accustomed to dealing with confrontational questions.  (Take a gander at how Barney walked off the set when a CNBC reporter asked him a question he wasn’t prepared to face.)  They think everyone they meet shares their worldview and looks down on conservative.  It’s what they come to expect since they were in college.

Perhaps, the problem begins the paucity of conservatives on university faculties.

So says blogress diva Ann Althouse:

For all the shouting and chanting and drumming and denouncing that we heard from the minority party, the majority party waited patiently, finally made a tough move, and engaged in no triumphalism. There was no “I won” from Governor Walker. Did you notice the graceful winning?

Via Reader Leah.

Some Democrats as well as their ideological allies in the media and the leaders of their various auxiliary organizations seem to see victory in their defeat in Wisconsin this past week.  ”AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka,” for example “dubbed Gov. Scott Walker Thursday ‘the Mobilizer of the Year’  for the labor movement, saying Walker’s move to take away collective bargaining rights for public employees will boomerang on Republicans.”  James Taranto summarizes E.J.Dionne’s recent column as saying that “Republicans won a legislative victory but overreached, just as Democrats did a year ago [with Obamacare], and they are going to pay a political price, just as the donks did in November.”

Now, to be sure, the recent poll numbers among Wisconsinites for Walker’s modest reforms don’t look much better than do those for Obama’s major health care overhaul.  Yet, here’s one distinction to bear in mind.  The intense debate over Walker’s plan took place over three weeks, a relatively compressed time frame for a debate of this magnitude.  By contrast the debate over Obamacare unfolded over three seasons (Summer 2009, Autumn 2009, Winter 2009-10), with the House passing the bill just after last year’s Spring Equinox.

The shorter time frame for the Wisconsin debate has not given people much time to consider all the issues involved in this reform/budget package.  Consider, for example, polling on Obamacare.  While Democrats had been talking about reform since the transition, the debate didn’t start heating up until the spring of 2009, becoming really intense that summer.  At the beginning of that sultry season, a slight plurality favored the Democrats’ reforms.  While people supported health care reform in the abstract, once they learned the details of the plan crafted in Washington, D.C., they became increasingly skeptical and indeed outright opposed.

Similarly, while people favor the rights of public employees to organize in the abstract, the more they learn the details of Walker’s reforms curtailing their privileges, the more citizens will realize how these reforms protect Wisconsin taxpayers from unions who have gained an inordinate amount of power in recent years.  As the reforms limit the unions’ privileges, they giving local governments (including school districts) greater flexibility in providing benefits to their employees. (more…)

Just over two years ago, the Human Rights Campaign issued a press release, faulting “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” for sending “a private e-mail to its members in Illinois urging them to contact state legislators and voice opposition to civil unions legislation currently under consideration.  Mormons,” HRC informed us

. . . have notably utilized private networks to torpedo pro-LGBT policies in the past, most recently in their home state of Utah, where a package of fair-minded legislation called the Common Ground Initiative was systematically killed in the state legislature. Most notoriously, Mormons funneled millions of dollars into California last year to pass Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that stripped lesbian and gay couples of the right to marry in the state.

This led Board of Director Bruce Bastian to accuse the Church of ”fighting an anti-gay crusade throughout the nation, targeting any form of equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.”  This past week, the Democratic Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates a bill recognizing same-sex marriages in his state because support had melted away:

One of its co-sponsors, Delegate Tiffany T. Alston, a freshman Democrat from Prince George’s County, had withdrawn her support, apparently bowing to pressure from her constituency, which contains a powerful religious community.

Two national groups that oppose same-sex marriage, the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, both highlighted African-American and religious opponents of the bill as central to its defeat.

“Particular thanks must go to the African-American pastors, church members and delegates who spoke out against the attempted hijacking of the concept of ‘civil rights,’ ” the Family Research Council said in a statement.

Disappointed “in the outcome,” Del. Doyle Niemann of Prince George’s County offered a similar assessment, “In my area, the power of the black churches was a big part of the problem. Those churches just haven’t come around on this.”  In its statement on the developments in the Maryland marriage debate, HRC did not mention those churches.

Wonder why HRC chooses to single out Mormons with such attacks.

Charlie Sheen may well be outsmarting us all in saying increasingly crazy things in order to keep himself in the news, but that need to have us all pay attention to him is itself an addiction.  He’s not seeking fame through good and noble deeds, but seeking it in order to fill an inner void.

Just as he used his star power to lure countless women into his bed.  Or used his wealth to buy whatever narcotic it was though could give him the quickest high.  Now, he’s found a new means to get high.  And the constant attention he craves may well only momentarily serve to fill the emptiness.  He may need try something novel to find the necessary excitement.

Another strange way to find validation through attention.  Kind of kind a child throwing a tantrum.

One day, people are going to start tiring of Sheen’s shenanigans.  Various media outlets will see their ratings drop and stop covering this particular celebrity.  And he’ll have to look elsewhere for his latest fix.

FROM THE COMMENTS: Sebastian Shaw offers a sage insight:

Charlie Sheen may very well end up dead from a drug overdose. Hollywood hasn’t helped him at all; in fact, it has hurt him along with the media trying to exploit his weirdness.

Indeed.

Remember when just about a year ago, the unhappy Barney Frank insisted that Republicans “differentiate themselves” from a few nasty comments made by irate Tea Party protesters and a lot of hateful rhetoric imagined by Barney’s own ideological allies. Wonder where that Democratic partisan is today given the amount of hate speech (and hateful antics) coming from interest groups backing his political party  in Wisconsin.

So does the New York Times describe the incumbent in an article dressing up his indecisive response to the uprisings in the Middle East as “pragmatism“:

In the Middle East crisis, as on other issues, there are two Barack Obamas: the transformative historical figure and the pragmatic American president. Three months after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself aflame and ignited a political firestorm across the Arab world, the president is trumping the trailblazer.

With the spread of antigovernment protests from North Africa to the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf,President Obama has adopted a policy of restraint. He has concluded that his administration must shape its response country by country, aides say, recognizing a stark reality that American national security interests weigh as heavily as idealistic impulses. That explains why Mr. Obama has dialed down the vocal support he gave demonstrators in Cairo to a more modulated call for peaceful protest and respect for universal rights elsewhere.

This is cheerleading dressed up as “news analysis.”  Via Weasel Zippers via Instapundit.

What appears to be the fifth largest earthquake since 1900 “with a magnitude of 8.9 rocked Japan Friday afternoon“:

. . . forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes, triggering a 10-meter tsunami that violently swept away cars and other objects in its paths and shutting down phone lines and transportation in most parts of the country. leaving at least five people dead.

The quake was originally reported at a magnitude of 7.9 but was later upgraded to 8.9. That makes it the fifth largest recorded world-wide since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Service, larger than the 7.9-magnitude Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo in 1923 or the 6.8 magnitude quake that hit Kobe in 1995.

The quake caused mass panic around Tokyo, where workers evacuated their buildings and power was cut off at 4.1 million households in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures.

I am watching images of the destruction on TV and it’s just overwhelming.  We’re hearing warnings of a possible tsunami in Hawai’i and even here on the California coast.  Given that I’m writing this just before 1 AM PST, by the time many of you read this, we’ll have a better picture of the damage — and the reality of the tsunami.

More here.

While completing work on my dissertation last fall, I found my mind sometimes wandering as I pondered two great issues, those of sex and of happiness.  As to the former, I continued my ongoing (and long-running) internal dialogue on where was the appropriate place for a single man to draw the line on sexual activity.  As to the latter, I noticed that on days when I was most productive, I usually felt happier than on those when I slacked off.

And as I drove around neighborhoods adjacent to my own where creative artistic types, many sporting tattoos on their incompletely covered bodies, live in close proximity to Hasidic Jews, most wearing near identical clothing almost entirely covering entire bodies (save their faces), I wondered if those who adopt more constraints on their clothing (as well as their personal appearance) could be as happy as those who have eschewed such religious constraints and dress however they please.

While I have been reminding myself to blog on these topics (and the intersection thereof) since I successfully defended my dissertation, this week it seems the universe has been reminding me as much.  While browsing at Barnes & Noble, I caught site of this display table, featuring books on happiness:

Then, this week, Memeorandum linked Ross Douthat’s column on monogamy where he wrote about research suggesting a “significant correlation between sexual restraint and emotional well-being, between monogamy and happiness“.  Later, Glenn Reynolds linked Douthat’s followup post where the Times columnist noted that in the wake of the sexual revolution:

Female happiness has dropped since the 1970s, despite enormous female economic gains. Marital happiness has dipped as well, even though fewer people get married and it’s easier to leave an unhappy union. (more…)

In the twelve years following Log Cabin setting up shop in Washington, D.C. with a national office, its leadership did little to correct the false impression many gay people have of the GOP as a party whose guiding principle is maintaining straight while male privilege.  Indeed, to some degree, it contributed to that inaccurate impression by focusing its attacks not on big-government Democratic initiatives on Republican politicians.

At the same time, the national office did little to convince rank-and-file Republicans of the organization’s commitment to conservative principles of limited government, judicial restraint and a robust national defense.  That began to change in 2005, when Log Cabin signed on to support the Social Security reforms then-President George W. Bush was promoting.  Not only did this show the group’s commitment to conservative reforms, but Chris Barron, then its political director, showed how those conservative reforms would benefit gay people.

Now GOProud, the new gay conservative group Chris spearheaded, is pushing for similar reforms, calling on Congress to include personal savings accounts in any Social Security reform proposal. Executive Director Jimmy LaSalvia explains:

Personal savings accounts would provide gay and lesbian couples with the same opportunities as other Americans to provide for their retirement security. . . . Personal savings accounts are not just good for gays and lesbians; by creating wealth, empowering individuals to control their own retirement and improving the American economy, they are good for all Americans. [As] the property of the individual, they would . . . allow gays and lesbians to pass their hard earned money on to whoever they choose.

And as GOProud has shown how conservative ideas benefit gay people, Log Cabin has (finally!) begun to articulate a conservative approach on gay issues.  In taking issue with Speaker Boehner on the constitutionality of DOMA, R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin’s Executive Director praised the Ohio Republican in keeping the focus on fiscal discipline:

Americans sent Republicans to Congress to address our challenging economy, and thus far under Speaker Boehner’s leadership our party has kept its eye on the ball, cutting spending and beginning to confront the deficit. Now is not the time to fall for the president’s ploy to distract Republicans with divisive social issues like the Defense of Marriage Act. . . .  While Log Cabin Republicans firmly believe that DOMA is an unconstitutional intrusion on states’ rights and a violation of individual liberty, we agree with Speaker Boehner that the constitutionality of this law should be determined by the courts, not by the president unilaterally. (more…)

Democratic attacks on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker notwithstanding, it appears that good man was indeed willing to compromise with Senate Democrats who fled the state.  It’s only that the state’s minority party proved intransigent:

It appears the Democrats had not accepted the concessions outlined by Walker in an email to some Dem senators (an email his office released). These were discussed below. They allowed collective bargaining over a broader range of issues, but kept the provision ending mandatory union dues checkoff, which is arguably the change unions fear the most. I doubt there was ever a route to a mutually acceptable compromise unless the dues-checkoff provision could itself have somehow been compromise

Read the whole thing (via Instapundit).  Moe Lane explains why unions fear ending that mandatory checkoff:

Simply put, what automatic checkoff does is make it trivially easy for unions to collect dues: the employer (in this case, the state government) simply deducts the money from an union member’s pay and sends it along. No fuss, no muss, no debate… it’s just one more thing that the government takes from your paycheck. This turns the collection of union dues into a guaranteed revenue stream (instead of the colossal pain in the neck that such things usually are); most people don’t even notice, frankly. And it’s from union dues that unions get the money that they use for political advocacy*.

Read that whole thing too.  In short, the bill is indeed about a “power grab” as some have described it; the unions and the Democrats have long since grabbed it.  Not, once the Walker reforms pass, Wisconsin Republicans will have taken the power away from a Democratic interest group — and restored it to individual public employees.

*”Which is, by the way, mostly being used on the behalf of Democrats, at a ratio far out of sync with how their members vote.” [Footnote in original]

**and California law (as well as that in other states).

. . . can we claim a right to his?

I mean, this guy who acts as if he is today, something he never was, a member of the working class, shocks the audience on Rachel Maddow’s show “by telling the rich and bankers that ‘we have a right to your money!’”  And well, with the success of his movies, the guy can really count himself among the rich.

Noting that Michael Moore had declared in the same clip that “This is War”, Glenn Reynolds quips,

I guess the “new civility bullshit” is officially over. Bear that in mind as you contemplate a response. I don’t think these people realize that they are setting precedents that they may come to regret. They are as feckless in this behavior as they are in their fiscal approach. The consequences are likely to be insalubrious.

As I was reading about the Wisconsin Senate’s vote to curtail the privileges the state had granted pubilc employee unions, I was watching Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted which provided footage of various MSM reporters concerned about allegedly violent rhetoric at McCain-Palin rallies and asking Republicans to denounce it.  Interesting how concerned they were about violent rhetoric when they had no actual evidence of such rhetoric.

I wonder how many reporters will call on Wisconsin Democrats — or any Democrats for that matter — to distance themselves from Mr. Moore’s incitement to violence.

UPDATE:  Yes, the media who seem obsessed with imaginary conservative violence seem oblivious to actual liberal antics as per Bryan Preston’s observation: (more…)

You can learn a lot about the silliness of certain liberals just by going to the gym. I say that because that’s where I get my daily dose of CNN which seems to be constantly playing on the television monitors in the cardio area.

First, some background.  When Wisconsin Senate Democrats didn’t like some provisions in the budget bill that the state’s elected governor presented, they fled the state in order to prevent the elected state Senate from voting on the bill.  Democrats were unhappy that the party elected to majority status in the legislative chamber had the votes to pass the bill.  While Republicans had the votes, they lacked a quorum of “20 senators to be present for bills that authorize spending money.”

Had Democrats remained in the state, they could have debated the bill, raised objections, offered amendments.  Instead, they preferred life on the lam.  So, after three weeks, Republicans, as John Hinderaker put it finally lost patience.  A committee ”stripped some financial elements from the bill, which they said allowed them to pass it with the presence of a simple majority.”  The remaining provisions curtail the privileges the state had long granted to public employee unions.

As Governor Walker reminded his fellow citizens in a statement, “The Senate Democrats have had three weeks to debate this bill and were offered repeated opportunities to come home, which they refused”.   And now with “exquisite irony,” Allahpundit quips, supporters of the truant Senators “are screeching, ‘This is not democracy!’” (more…)

So writes Jacob Sullum in the face of Democrats wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth at the Republicans’ “mean-spirited” budget cuts:

How else should one greet a New York Times editorial that concedes the federal deficit, projected to be $1.6 trillion this year, is “too large for comfort” but calls $61 billion in cuts “ruinous”? Or a press release from the Every Child Matters Education Fund that deems them “harsh” and “extreme”?

The cuts represent less than 2 percent of the total budget, less than 4 percent of the deficit, and less than 5 percent of discretionary spending, which rose in real terms by 75 percent from 2000 to 2010 and by about 9 percent in each of the last two fiscal years. If the House-approved reductions would be “the largest one-year cuts in history,” as the folks at Every Child Matters say, that is a sad commentary not on Republican cold-heartedness but on the fiscal incontinence of both parties.

Read the whole thing.  (H/t:  Instapundit.)

According to Gallup, the president’s weekly job approval has taken a tumble:

President Barack Obama averaged 46% job approval the week of Feb. 28-March 6, his lowest weekly average since mid-December. Obama’s weekly approval rating had steadily improved from mid-December to late January, peaking at 50% during the final two weeks in January, before dropping below that mark in February. . . .

The seven-week period from mid-December through the end of January was the longest stretch Obama has had of stable or improving ratings. Prior to that, there were several periods when his ratings either held steady or improved four weeks in a row, including a stretch from April to May 2009 that saw his approval ratings improve by a total of five percentage points.

Compared with the final two weeks of January, when Obama averaged 50% overall approval, his recent drop in support has come mainly from Democrats and independents

.

Andrew Malcolm quips that the president’s numbers are down “even without a viable announced Republican opponent. Even with the unemployment rate down a smidge to 8.9% (it was 6.9% when Obama was elected). Even with 192,000 jobs created last month. Even with Joe Biden out of the country.”

His 2012 prospects can’t be that great when his approval ratings — at their highest — were only at 50.

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey looks at these numbers and toward the 2012 election:

A 46% approval rating isn’t exactly a number that guarantees re-election, but it’s not low enough to make it out of the question, either.  (more…)

Maybe it’s a good thing that Sharron Angle lost her race for the U.S. Senate last fall.  Well, perhaps, it’s not a good thing for the state she wanted to represented, but it is a good thing for the GOP.  The man who defeated her, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is the gift that keeps on giving:

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

If Sarah Palin talked like that, it would lead the evening news. The Senate’s top Democrat just said that tens of thousands of people wouldn’t exist without government funding.  Guess the takeaway is that he and his caucus now believe that government funding is now necessary for the creation of individual human beings.

You’d  think with a deficit far in excess of the entire federal budget in 1989, Senators would understand the need to make sacrifices, especially when the White House Press Secretary has made said that “The President, as you know, is committed to reducing spending.”

Over at the Washington Examiner, J.P. Freire sums it up:

Just keep this in perspective when people talk about which party is willing to reach a compromise. One party levels ad hominem attacks over cutting funding to poetry festivals. The other… wants to cut funding to poetry festivals.

Wonder what Clint Eastwood would say about a cowboy poetry festival that couldn’t survive without the federal government’s support.

Conservative blogs yesterday were all over a story the Daily Caller broke early in the day about a video apparently capturing “National Public Radio [NPR] senior executive, Ron Schiller . . . on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement”:

“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,” declared Schiller, who runs NPR’s foundation.

That a senior executive for a news organization could say such a thing helps prove the conservative point about media biased against us.  Anyone who thinks that the Tea Party is not just involved, but “fanatically” involved in “people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian” hasn’t been paying much attention to the actual issues motivating so many people to participate in their protests.

It seems Schiller has a standard template for all conservative movements, that these folks want to run people’s lives, a template he likely derives not from actual reporting on actual Tea Parties, but from a prejudiced view of the right.

It’s one thing for such a man to be part of a supposedly non-partisan news organization.  It’s quite another when that organization takes federal money.  With federal budget deficits of over one trillion dollars, the solution is simple:  the federal government should defund NPR and let it fend for itself in the marketplace.

As does FoxNews.

UPDATE:  Commenting on this case, Michael Barone reaches a similar conclusion:

. . . with a new large Republican majority in the House of Representatives, NPR leaders could hardly have done a better job of persuading Congress to zero out public radio funding. (more…)