The silence of the MSM

The New Neo Posted on by

Among all the other disturbing trends of the Obama era, we have the specter of an MSM that has completely abdicated its duty to report fairly and to (remember this quaint phrase?) question authority. Many have pointed out that this has let Obama and the current crop of Democrats get away with actions that previous administrations would have been called on.

But it’s even worse than that. A silent, complicit, and enabling MSM doesn’t just let this administration get away with things. It emboldens its functionaries to escalate their offenses and to believe that they can operate that way indefinitely and with impunity.

If things seem to be getting worse and worse, the outrages more egregious, and our elected officials more open and shameless about them, that’s not just a coincidence. We are seeing the effects of a corrupted press. A more honest MSM would have helped to keep the forces of a power-hungry and corrupt government in check.

It’s rather like a functioning immune system. When that system is no longer working properly, then bacteria can multiply freely, take over, and sicken a previously healthy organism. This is what has happened to our body politic.

Merry Christmas: here’s my gift to you

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a holiday recipe. I posted it once before, but that was in my first year of blogging, and most of you probably never caught it.

This was brought over from Germany sometime in the mid-1800s, and was my favorite of all the wonderful goodies cooked by my great-aunt Flora, a baker of rare gifts. She and my great-uncle were not only exceptionally wonderful people, but to my childish and wondering eyes they looked very much like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.

The name of the treat is lebkuchen. But it’s a different version from the traditional recipe, which I don’t much care for. This is sweet and dense, can be made ahead, and keeps very well when stored in tins.

Flora’s Lebkuchen:

(preheat the oven to 375 degrees)

1 pound dark brown sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 oz. chopped dates
1 cup raisins
1 tsp. orange juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. lemon juice

Sift the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon).

Beat the eggs and brown sugar together with a rotary beater till the mixture forms the ribbon. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and extracts to it.

Add the dry mixture to it, a little at a time, stirring.

Add the raisins, dates, and walnuts.

Grease and flour two 9X9 cake pans. Put batter in pans and bake for about 25 minutes (or a little less; test the cake with a cake tester to see if it’s done). You don’t want it to get too dark and dry on the edges, but the middle can’t still be wet when tested.

Meanwhile, make the frosting.

Melt about 6 Tbs. of unsalted butter and add 2 Tbs. hot milk, and 1 Tbs. almond extract. Add enough confectioner’s sugar to make a frosting of spreading consistency (the recipe says “2 cups,” but I’ve always noticed that’s not exactly correct and it needs considerably more). You can make even more frosting if you like a lot of frosting.

Let cake cool to at least lukewarm, and spread generously with the frosting. Then cut into small pieces and store (or eat!).

‘Twas the Blogger’s Night Before Christmas

The New Neo Posted on by

‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the ”˜sphere
Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near.
Their laptops were turned off and all put away
The bloggers were swearing to take off the day.

Their children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of extra time danced in their heads
With a father or mom not distracted by writing
No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.

But we know that vows were just meant to be broken
And the vows of a blogger can be just a token.
There’s always a chance that some sort of temptation
Will rise up to make them of fleeting duration.

For instance, there might be found, under the tree
An Apple; well, what better sight could there be?
And who could neglect it and wait the whole day?
It has to be tried out, one just can’t delay.

Or maybe somewhere there’s a fast-breaking story
Important, and complex, and covered with glory.
It can’t be ignored, there’s really no choice,
So add to the din every blogger’s small voice.

And then there are some who may just like to rhyme
(I’m one who at times must confess to this crime),
And it’s been quite a while since Clement Clarke Moore
Wrote his opus (though authorship’s been claimed by Gore)””

So it seems about time it be newly updated
And here’s my grand effort””aren’t you glad you all waited?
Forgive if it sounds a bit awkward to read.
Writing, I set a new record for speed.

I had to get under the wire and compose it
Before Christmas Day. Now it’s time that I close it.
But let me exclaim (or, rather, I’ll write)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

[NOTE: Reprint of previous effort. Merry Christmas to you all!]

Senate places lump of coal in America’s stocking: historic health care “reform” bill passes

The New Neo Posted on by

Yep, it’s a historic vote all right. A milestone (or is that millstone?)—setting a new record in partisan-driven, mendacious, incoherent legislation that ignores the will of the American people while affecting our lives in the most intimate of matters.

President Obama calls it “the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the 1930s,” and I agree with him. We disagree, unfortunately, on whether this new act a good thing or a very bad thing. Suffice to say I hope it will be repealed by the 2010 or 2012 Congress, or improved to the point of non-recognition—and to the point of actually benefiting the American people, for a change.

It is a mark of how truly terrible this bill is that Olympia Snowe, seasonally-named Maine Senator and RINO extraordinaire, who almost never met a Democrat-sponsored bill she didn’t (sorta) like, greeted the news with the following statement:

I was extremely disappointed…there was zero opportunity to amend the bill or modify it, and Democrats had no incentive to reach across the aisle…[the bill could have] a dampening effect on job creation and job preservation.

On the other hand, Rhode Island’s Democratic Senator (and fearless vampire slayer) Sheldon Whitehouse (another serendipitously named legislator) indicated the bill would help drive a deserved “stake through [insurance companies’] cold and greedy heart.”

I say that it takes one to know one—a cold and greedy heart, that is.

Responses to this Congress?

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s a great deal of anger on the part of voters about the direction Congress and this administration are taking and will be taking in the time left them before the elections of 2010 and 2012. Here are some possible ways to harness that outrage in a productive direction:

(a) consider state nullification

(b) think about a general strike

(c) organize tax refusals on large scale

(d) campaign against incumbents

(e) legislate term limits

(f) attempt recall of state representatives (in states where this process is both justified and permitted)

Jimmy Carter on how not to apologize

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s being widely described as an aplogy to Israel, and I suppose technically it’s true that Jimmy Carter has offered something of the sort, whether to enhance his grandson’s Atlanta election bid, or as a reflection of that old-fashioned Christmas spirit.

But as apologies go, it’s almost a primer in how not to ask for forgiveness. Look at the text itself. About three hundred words long, it is devoted to a Rodney-Kinglike wish that everyone could get along and be nice to each other, treating each side as equally bad or good in the usual morally relativistic fashion. Of course, considering Carter’s past history of excoriation of Israel, that’s a step up. But here’s the only apologetic part:

…[W]e must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel…I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.

A classic way of seeming to apologize without really doing so in any meaningful way. In other words, a cop-out.

It’s that tiny little three-letter word “may” that somehow snuck in there. It indicates that Carter can’t truly acknowledge that many of his words did stigmatize Israel. And he knows just what words they “might” have been. He needs to list a few.

Time to abolish the CBO?

The New Neo Posted on by

I was thinking today that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) serves no useful purpose anymore.

It’s not allowed to tell the truth. Instead, it has become the tool of a Congress willing, eager, and all too skilled at tailoring legislation to achieve a certain desired CBO score based on assumptions everyone knows are invalid. The CBO is not allowed to call Congress on its games when it evaluates bills.

So why bother? The CBO has become a way to give the imprimatur of fiscal propriety to bills that are essentially scams, and the CBO is powerless to do anything but be a yes-man to whatever a clever and duplicitous Congress manages to come up with.

Megan McArdle appears to agree. She writes:

…[I]n order to get [the Senate health care reform] bill passed, the Democrats basically gutted the CBO. Not because they were working with the CBO to get estimates—that’s the CBO’s job, to provide Congress with a cost. But rather, because this bill was something novel in the history of legislation. Previous Congresses wrote bills, and then trimmed them to get a better CBO score: witness the Bush tax cut sunsets. But the Congressional Democrats started out with a CBO score they wanted, and worked backward to the bill. They’ve been pretty explicit about the fact that no one wants this actual bill; rather, the plan is to pass basically anything, and then go and totally rewrite it when the budget spotlight is off. I’m not aware of any other piece of legislation that was passed this way.

Essentially, the Democrats have finished the process of gaming the CBO scores. They’re now meaningless. You don’t pass a piece of legislation that bears any resemblance to what you intend to end up with; you pass a piece of legislation that gets a good CBO score, and then go and alter it piece by piece.

Change you can believe in.

A bill to restore Glass-Steagall

The New Neo Posted on by

I almost missed the fact that last week John McCain proposed a bill to reinstate Glass Steagall (see these articles for my previous thoughts on restoring the act). This is a reminder of why John McCain, with all his very considerable faults, would nevertheless have been a much better president than Obama.

Obama came to power in the midst of a great financial crisis. What has he done about to make things better? Thrown a huge amount of money at it, to almost no avail. Made it harder for small businesses. Rewarded his cronies. Put the fear of higher taxes into the mix. Expanded government. Ignored job creation, and lied about it (“created or saved”).

Instead, he should have focused like a laser on the entire issue and made it the first and foremost issue of his entire presidency, including some needed overhaul of the banking system in order to prevent a repeat. Instead, he has declared class war on the financial sector to suit his leftist purposes.