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eminists, beware!  I’ve got some science here that’s sure to make you screech, and it just happens to include the funniest line currently in print, courtesy of National Geographic:

Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.

Tools … objects … hmm.  The study then goes on to more “shocking” conclusions that are shocking only if you accept the feminized male idealized by the Left:

And in a “shocking” finding, Fiske noted, some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another’s intentions.

This means that these men see women “as sexually inviting, but they are not thinking about their minds,” Fiske said.

Let’s say it all together: “I am shocked … shocked! … to find that non-feminist thought is going on in here!”

Please note the carefully cropped photo … why bother with anything above the shoulders … that’s where all those fussy problems are, right? (I’m sensing some overstepping of bounds here.  Please note the “humor” disclaimer in the tags below.)

hat-tip: Mary Katharine Ham

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L

et’s not kid ourselves – politics in America has always been a raucus affair, as the fatal feud between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton proved very early on in our history.  The halls of Congress have been filled with flamers and ranters, racists and radicals, and I prefer that to our America becoming some refined, Euro-pansy country.  The longer we stay the land of the fronteir, the home of the mountain man, the longer America will be rooted.

But the raucus have always been the target of criticism, and always should be.  We wouldn’t want the Hill to be full of these sorts; we just need a few to be out on the edge so we can tell them to shut up and behave themselves.

Shut up and behave yourself, Michele Bachmann.  I’m all for rallying the people to the cause, but this?

“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”

I’m three words short of being with her; it’s that “armed and dangerous” line that puts this out of bounds, even for these intense and troubling times.  We might get to that point, but we’re not there now, and saying it just feeds the leftist machine.  Now she’s front and center on Huffpo and a passle of leftyblogs, so she’s given the Lefties a deterrent; they can talk about right wing violence and racist attacks on The First African-American President, and blow some more smoke into the smokescreen they’re trying to keep in place over DC.

But Bachmann is nothing compared to Mr. Shut Up and Behave Yourself himself, Barney Frank.  No sooner does Frank get caught on tape calling a justice of the Supreme Court a homophobe – that’s hate speech, you know – than he calls for attacks on families that have committed no crime:

Congressman Barney Frank has threatened to summon these [AIG] executives before his committee and force them to reveal their home addresses– which would of course put their wives and children at the mercy of whatever kooks might want to literally take a shot at them. (Thomas Sowell)

The man prattled off “homophobe” as easily as I say “airplane,” and it meant to him that Scalia was to be condemned for hatred (hatred that doesn’t exist, of course, but who cares?), then, practically in the same breath, he exhibits a far greater level of hatred:  A desire to see harm against innocent spouses and children for the acts of the fathers.

And if that’s not obscene enough, there are few more responsible for the current mess than Barney Frank himself.  No one pushed harder for cheap mortgages to the underqualified than Frank, with the possible exception of the similarly disgusting Chris Dodd, and had the mortgage market not been artificially inflated by Congress, the collapse would not have ensued. AIG would not have floundered, and bonuses would have been none of our business.

Bachmann and Frank, as much as they would be horrified at the association, are birds of a feather, thoughtlessly taking the public discourse to areas well outside bounds.  But Bachmann is doing it just from too much passion and not enough good sense, and the harm that results is to her party.  Frank is doing it out of immorality, shameless self-preservation and the arrogance that comes from being too long in power, and the harm that results is to our country.

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C

hristina Bellantoni, the WashTimes White House correspondent (Twitter tag: @cbellantoni), was not too impressed with today’s press briefing by Robert “Jive Talkin’” Gibbs, tweeting these two tweets from today’s press confab:

In re Gibbs teasing about Obama press conference, April Ryan: “Stop being flip”

Gibbs: “I’m all Russia’d out” after answering several questions on Russia

Maybe Gibbs was catching her tweets, since she followed up with:

Briefing now over. Realized Gibbs called on every person in first three rows except me and one other guy.

More on April Ryan from Michelle Malkin, who was tweeting on the briefing too:

And, most notably, he managed to irk one of the Obamedia’s biggest cheerleaders, journalist April Ryan, who asked a few questions about America’s reliance on foreign governments buying up our debt and whether there would be any “news” coming out of tomorrow’s presidential press conference.

When Gibbs tried to snark his way out of one of her questions, Ryan retorted: “Stop being flip!”

When he chuckled through her follow ups, she complained: “I’m serious.”

Too bad they weren’t more serious before Obama took office.

So is Gibbs the worst presidential press secretary ever? Paraphrasing Gibbs, “Well … um … ah … um … maybe … um … just … ah … maybe.”

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C

alifornia’s professional greenhouse gas worrywarts are insensitive dolts.  They have actually picked the hallowed March Madness festivities as the ideal time to announce their latest madcap scheme in their war to save the planet that doesn’t need saving:  Ban big screen TVs.

Yes, folks, you’ll be huddled around your 12″, peddle-driven black and white watching the Final Four if these hysterics get their way. Here’s the report, from OC Watchdog:

The California Energy Commission is considering a proposal that would ban California retailers from selling all but the most energy-efficient televisions. Critics say the news standards could take 25 percent of televisions off the market — most of them 40 inches or larger.

The TV industry points out that this is needless meddling by California’s ubber-Greens, because the feds already have set energy efficiency standards. The Energy Commissars counter that you can save $18 to $20 a year (OOOOH!) by buying a more energy efficient model.  Since that’s obviously no motivation whatsoever, the Commissars are turning to heavy fisted regulations.

Incredible Daughter #1 makes her own point:

Morons. The economy sucks, so let’s take products OFF the market.

She’s right. Televisions are the fastest growing consumer appliance in California. Let’s figure out how to sell more of them, and let people make their own decision based on the unit’s relative electrical efficiency and how much keeping up with the Joneses is required.

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S

orry for the repetitious Geithner flag pictures, but I just can’t get over how flag-crazy the Obama admin has become since he was criticized for not wearing a flag lapel pin.  Anyway, flags or no flags, the market might be up, but the prognosticators are down, including me.

It’s obvious the latest offering is more of the same:  an offer of federal cover for downside risk in return for letting the federal fox in the financial hen house.  There is no free market at work here, since individuals’ downside risk is guaranteed, so it’s just a costly postponement of the inevitable.  As for those with more financial pundit prowess than yers truly, a quick scan of headlines at Real Clear Markets reveals that cynicism and anger are overwhelming optimism over the newest rehash of Bush’s, now Obama’s, Wall Street bailout.

I already quoted Paul Krugman; here’s one more cut at his column:

And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing.

It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. And by the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone.

Even the Keynesian Klugman is seeing the wisdom of an application of free market Draino to the financial sector.

At the New Republic, John Judis is pretty straightforward, calling his piece The Geithner Disaster:

As my colleague Noam Scheiber has suggested, Geithner’s plan could work if the bad loans and seamy securities that the banks hold are actually worth something–say, 60 percent rather than 30 percent of their original value. If not–and there are plenty of skeptics who question that–then Geithner’s plan will transfer more money from taxpayers to private investors and bankers without reviving the big banks. That will amplify the growing populist outcry against the Geithner and the Obama administration, and make it more difficult to do what is necessary to revive the economy.

Sorry, Sec. Geithner, but re-naming the toxic sludge of Wall Street mega-errors “legacy” funds will not increase their value to anywhere near 60 percent of their original value.

Here’s the obvious solution from RCM columnist Louis Woodhill. Too bad it’s got zero chance of going anywhere:

Unfortunately, the government is now trying to solve a problem created by printing too much money by printing even more money (plus tax increases, plus economic-superstition-based “stimulus” borrowing and spending). This will not work.

What will work is the Constitution of the United States. On February 3, Congressman “Judge” Ted Poe (TX-02) introduced H.R. 835. This bill would require the Federal Reserve to “regulate” the value of our money by making the dollar equal in value to 0.002 ounces of gold. The Fed would do this by using its Open Market operations to establish and maintain a gold price of $500/oz. H.R. 835 would also give a powerful supply-side stimulus to the economy by providing “first year expensing” for all capital investment.

Once the integrity of the dollar (and the Constitution) is restored, the markets can begin to right themselves. Stabilizing the dollar is an essential ingredient in any recipe for economic recovery.

Finally, over to the WSJ’s story on the market’s positive response to Geithner’s announcement, where I found this cynical reader comment:

Now remind me, wasn’t this what we were told they needed the first Trillion in TARP money for? Oh, wait, we used that to pay bonuses and allow banks to make foreign loans. Why does anyone on wall street think they will actually use another Trillion for the purpose the initial Trillion was to be used for?

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Pres. Obama’s weak start out of the block, with scandals, deficits, Obamarxist schemes and foreign policy blunders has opened a door for GOP fundraisers who just two months ago were facing bleak times.

In February, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee raised $2.67 million – exactly the same amount as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will report. Reports Politico:

The NRSC now has $1.05 million cash on hand at the end of February, with $2.7 million outstanding in debt. Last month, the committee held more than $4 million in debt. The NRSC’s fundraising total is up significantly from last month, when it raised just $1.8 million.

Meanwhile, the Dems still have much more cash on hand – $3.7 million – but in a move reflective of the man at the head of the party, they elected not to pay down a penny of their considerable $10.9 million in debt.

Perhaps they’re just planning to pass it along to their Democratic children.

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im Geithner is holding his breath. Will his announced new financial plan result in a repeat of his last debacle, when Wall Street roller-coastered downward after he ineptly punted on his plans? Early signs – the Dow opening up nearly three percent, Tokyo, Hong Kong, U.S. market futures up – indicate no, he won’t single-handedly destroy billions in wealth today.

But is it a good plan? The test of any plan is simple enough:  Will people accept it and get on board, or in this case, will financial institutions bundle toxic assets – now called “legacy” assets in a ridiculous bit of sophomoric word play – and sell them through a federal program?  Here, Geithner has real problems. The AIG bonus bruhaha, complete with radical zealots on bus tours by AIG exec’s homes, has made a lot of financial institutions wary of taking public funds – and the new plan has disincentives in spades. It’s not in Geithner’s op/ed, but Bloomberg reports:

Geithner will also announce plans later this week to ask Congress to give the Treasury and the Fed authority to step in and more easily tackle problems at systemically important financial institutions that are in danger of failing. Such powers would give the government the ability to limit payments to creditors, break contracts on executive compensation commitments and provide guarantees on particular categories of debt for companies that need bailing out.

It’s not clear whether these heavy-handed new powers will be wielded on all financial institutions (gasp!) or only on those who cozy up to the feds on the new plan (suckers!), but it’s evident that Obamarx and Geithner see statism as the solution to the economic problem – we give you guarantees, you give us power. I don’t think  Wall Street is about to go cowardly into the night, giving up authority and decision-making to the folks who run Amtrak, the post office and social security.

Paul Krugman doesn’t see it that way. Of course, he sees too much Bush in the plan:

Over the weekend The Times and other newspapers reported leaked details about the Obama administration’s bank rescue plan, which is to be officially released this week. If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy — specifically, the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.

That’s hardly the lead Geithner was hoping for.  Krugman says the new plan is just rehash number three of the first Obama/Geithner plan, with more bells and whistles, as if they were obsessed with one idea and unable to move on to another.  He can’t quite get his fingers to type the words “free market,” but his advice to Obama:  Don’t subsidize the assets as this plan does; let the market price them, get them off the books no matter the cost, and move on.

That’s far too foreign to Obama’s belief system, so he’s let his Treasury Sec move a plan forward that is a high risk one for the admin.  If it doesn’t work out, Obama will have wasted time the economy doesn’t have to lose.

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Hat-tip: Watcher of Weasels

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So what if imposing a false economy on energy will cost the U.S. $2 trillion a year during dire times – $2 trillion that will be passed wholly onto taxpayers, $2 trillion that will make us less competitive globally – Obamarx is forging ahead with his insane cap and trade scheme.  Exhibit One:  His nomination of Cynthia Giles to be the Assistant Administrator for EPA Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.

In Rhode Island, Giles worked on a policy initiative to have Rhode Island join the RGGI (cap and trade), and in her work at the Conservation Law Foundation, she was a key player in getting Rhode Island to adopt California’s high-cost and probably unmeetalbe standards for reducing green house gas emissions from cars and trucks.

At the Conservation Law Foundation, she earned a reputation for hard-edged litigation against business, and a strategic vision for forcing green onto the U.S. through fiat, not free markets.  In June 2008, Giles supported the Rhode Island Global Warming Solutions Act that sought to cut GHG emissions by 80 percent by 2050 – an impossible goal, except, perhaps, if the people pay the price – and that’s what the act proposes, through mandatory emission caps and “required investments” (i.e., mandated losses) in clean energy “solutions.”  If they’re solutions, they don’t need false economies to succeed.

In Nov 2008, Giles stated her support of the US Federal District Court for RI dismissing a legal challenge from two car manufacturers and two auto trade associations, which argued that the California-like auto emission standards that Giles had supported were infeasible, costly and unneeded.  She urged the manufacturers to drop their litigation, saying that it was necessary if the car makers wanted to convince everyone they are serious about change and federal support.  What about if they’re serious about surviving?

In March 2007, Giles and CLF launched a campaign to shape New England energy efficiency and demand response efforts that were the most “progressive” (i.e., least free-market) in the US.  She advocated for a power market that would allow energy efficiency to “fairly compete” with generation and transmission, saying this would also improve reliability, allowing the region to meet its power needs in cleaner and lower cost ways.  Nice code there.  The way you make conservation more competitive with generation and transmission is, ta da!, to make generation and transmission less competitive through high taxes. 

Gilles is going to be Obamarx’s hatchet gal, attacking lower-cost energy wherever she sees it, on a crusade to obliterate fossile fuels long before there’s a viable, competitive alternative available. You’ll have her to thank as your cost of living goes up during the Obamarx regime.

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T

he sheer, uncomprehendable horror of Islamic female apartheit through female genital mutilation (FGM), and the unforgivable fact that Western Civilization is allowing it due to uncontrolled liberalism, is downplayed in this Times (UK) article, which starts:

The [National Health Service] is to advertise free operations to reverse female circumcisions, with experts warning that each year more than 500 British girls have their genitals mutilated.

Despite having been outlawed in 1985, female circumcision is still practised in British African communities, in some cases on girls as young as 5. Police have been unable to bring a single prosecution even though they suspect that community elders are being flown from the Horn of Africa to carry out the procedures.

African?  As in primitive religions forgotten to the rest of the world? No, Aftrican as in Islamic, following the laws of the Prophet, shielded by the crushing multi-culturalism of England.  Indeed, the words “Muslim” or “Islam” do not appear at all in the article, which says the mutilations are carried out for “various reasons, such as religious and cultural traditions.”

This is reporting?  This is giving the people the facts they need to be intelligent citizens? Disgusting.

Let’s get real about Islamic mutilation of girls.  The lucky ones may just have their clitorus hacked out, condemning most of them to a life without sexual love, reducing them to little more than sex slaves.  The less fortunate lose their outer and inner labia in addition to their clitorus, and are left disfigured and humiliated in their roles as sex slaves.  The term for this particularly brutal form of FGM is tahur—which means “cleansing” or “purification.”

 According to Frontline, more than 130 million women are living today with the results of this barbarism, and more than two million girls – 5,000 every day – are assaulted by it each year. The practice, which is frequently carried out with a piece of broken glass, frequently results in death, or in lives full of chronic pain and infection.  “Approximately 75 percent of women cannot achieve orgasm without clitoral stimulation,” the article continues, “thus, the possibility of sexual satisfaction has been obliterated for millions of women in the Muslim world.”

Frontline’s article is much more forthright than the incoherant, PC gibberish published in the Times, making it clear that it is not Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist girls who are being mutilated:

The Muslim communities who practise FGM will not easily abandon their barbarity. The Egyptian government, for example, banned FGM in 1996, but an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997. The problem is that the clitoris mutilators point to traditional teachings that sanction FGM. Islamic tradition, for instance, records the Prophet Muhammad emphasizing that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” A legal manual of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence, ‘Umdat al-Salik, which is endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo — the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world — states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls.

To borrow the take-away line from Frontlines, the British government seems to think that protecting little girls’ genitals is less important nowadays than protecting itself from the charge of being Islamophobic.  How pathetic, and how appalling that the once-proud British people are allowing this horror to continue on their shores – you’d think this might cause the people to break through the phony barrier of “Islamophobia” and put an end to Islam’s uncivilized, barbaric practices, like FGM and jihad.

hat-tip: What Bubba Knows

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