Author Archives: OGHD

This stuff is child’s play when your opponents are children.

Announce outrageous power-grab with vocal minority support.

• This will arouse powerful and justified opposition.

Amid furor, weakly defend worst part of it.

• This will focus opposition on an easy win for them.

Announce that the worst part will be withdrawn.

• This will energize your friends and placate your opponents.

Resume the bad parts but in different phrasing.

• You now have a free hand because the tension surrounding the issue has been discharged, and those who rightfully point out what you are doing will be dismissed as unreasonable.

The key is to keep several of these processes in motion at all times; long … Continue reading →

I recall Steve Jobs’ point about looking out the window and realizing that everything you see was built by people not better than you or me.  Not smarter, not stronger, just working toward a goal.  Jobs said that thought changed his life.

The #Occupy types have committed a stupid error, incited by the Marxist destroyers of our culture.  When faced with a realization like Jobs’ above, you see it for what it is: not a fact about other people, but a choice about yourself.  Those who accomplish nothing of note must convince themselves that they did not fail.  They do this by trying to convince others that they did not fail, and thus mutually reinforce their conscience-salving illusion.

This is similar to the way that those who have … Continue reading →

I propose the blanket legalization of abortion if the putative mother will file charges of rape or incest in court.

Whenever I debate abortion with a person who favors it, the incest or rape issue is trotted out as the big reason that none of my points are valid.  There is a saying that hard cases make bad law, and at any rate, the Pareto principle tells me not to waste my time with the numerically insignificant intractables.

1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).   –The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform

I was … Continue reading →

Here’s the graphic.  I’m going to bed. 

Correction: This activity is not confined to the plate boundary, but is in a region from the boundary to the coast.  Close enough for government work.

Professor Paul Rahe has opened an artillery barrage on candidate Romney.  Expect this to echo off the hills for a good long time.

Romney is a managerial progressive on the model of Herbert Hoover, Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, George W. H. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain. He is what Dewey called “a New-Deal Republican.” He was a consistent supporter of programs like Obamacare until this election campaign, and the minute he thinks that he can get away with it, he will once again show his true colors. We may find in the Fall that we have to vote for him because the other alternative is far, far worse (which it undoubtedly is), but we should not kid ourselves about … Continue reading →

One of the fundamental difficulties with conservatism is that it is by nature a defensive position.  Each new attack is clothed in a new and flashy style, guaranteed to amass large numbers of those least likely to be bothered by logical inconsistencies, and who have heard all of our arguments before.  After all, when we defend a position, any defense based upon the soundness, consistency, and moral desirability of our position will not change from one attack to the next.

The key to this is to defend fixed position by breaking up attacks before they get close enough.  This was Breitbart’s specialty.  He recognized the significance of the fact that the media is on the other side.  One implication is to stop trying to convince our enemies that … Continue reading →

If the word “slut” has any meaning, it certainly includes a woman who publicly proclaims that she cannot afford the amount of contraception she uses. The “prostitute” part comes in when she then attempts to arrange for that payment to be made by others, whether involved or not.

Nobody on the right made this an issue, and nobody on the right even thought that statements like those made by this woman had any place in a hearing on the separation of powers. Which is what it was, until Pelosi blew it up with this circus stunt to deflect attention from the President’s tyrannic power grab.  To be clear, Ms. Fluke’s remarks were staged, a scripted appearance with a handful of Democrats and filmed by a compliant media to … Continue reading →

Obama to Iran and Israel: ‘As President of the United States, I Don’t Bluff’

via Obama to Iran and Israel: 'As President of the United States, I Don't Bluff' – Jeffrey Goldberg – International – The Atlantic.

Of course you don’t.

Bluffing requires competence, whereas this President is barely qualified to read the diktats handed to him by his Politburo.

Briefly, I’ll note that the Obama Presidency is the best thing to happen for China since, well, the Clinton Presidency.
Under President Obama:

• Pakistan has accepted Chinese promises of protection against America while we have bases in Pakistan.
• Brazil has rejected a paid-for “agreement” to develop oil resources off the coast of South America–they let the new leases to China.
• Canada (fricking Canada!) has announced that they will build a mountain pipeline to get oil to Chinese ships in British Columbia because America will not build a pipeline over flat ground to the world’s foremost cluster of refineries.

This compares favorably (if you’re Chinese) to the Clinton administration’s mere missile guidance technology transfer to the Reds.

Continue reading →

The CIO is the guy who can say “Screw this–next year we’re moving to (from) Macintosh .”

If that’s outside of your power, you’re not the CIO.