The UK is a failed state

With the resignation of Sir Kier "Two Tier" Starmer, the UK is poised for its seventh Prime Minister in ten years.  That's what happen in failed states.

[Homer Simpson] The seventh Prime Minister in ten years so far.[/Homer Simpson] 

Busted Knuckles has an unimprovable sendoff for Sir Kier. 

Quote of the Day - Everything They Have Told You Is A Lie edition

This post by Adam Piggott is simply unimprovable.  RTWT, but this is a taste:

And really, they’re just profiting off modern man’s shallow desire to live just one more day no matter what the cost. That’s why they’re trying to jab 12 year olds with this toxic crap so the old fucks can live just one more day, it’s all I’ve got, hey, did you see my boat and my Porsche and the ski lodge?

Everything they have told you is a lie. Don’t take their pills, don’t take their jabs, don’t follow their dietary recommendations, don’t do their exercise routines, don’t take 0.7 glasses of wine per day while you have your 1.2 kids, don’t listen to their music recommendations, or their reading material, or watch their evil films, don’t do any of it. Don’t be a boring shitless bastard that does just what he’s told and then has the sheer stupidity to try and lecture those of us who haven’t fallen for the crap and are trying with some very small success to wake you all the fuck up.

Awesome. 

Understanding liberals

So the Democrats had a debate last night, yadda yadda.  Rather than delving into particulars, it's important to keep sight of the forrest, rather than the trees.  This post from ten years ago explains how:

Nothing I could write would improve on that sentence, part 4

The Czar of Muscovy* looks at Thomas Freedman's wistful "Now why can't our Government act like Philosopher Kings like the Chinese" Op-Ed, and dissects it. It's well worth your time in an intellectual well-balanced-dinner sort of way, but he ends with this delicious morsel for desert

The Czar has said before that if you really want to understand liberals, progressives, the news media, and Hollywood, it helps to learn about how spoiled high school freshmen girls think.

Yum!

I'd ask what's with all that liberal yearning-for-a-strongman thing, but it's already been explained. At length.

* Not a fake Czar like in the Obama Administration, but rather in an Internet Pseudonym sort of way. All in all, much more respectable and credible, if you ask me.

Quote of the Day: Blowing things up edition

Miguel is simply unimprovable here:

If I ever have enough money to go back to school and get another degree, I am going go to New Mexico Tech and get a Masters in Explosives Engineering in association with the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center. 

I cannot imagine anything cooler than saying “I have an advanced degree in slowing shit up.”

But then he rolls up his sleeves, spits on his hands, and methodically blows up the new Democratic Party.

Quote Of The Day: ISIS edition

This is impossible to excerpt, but exposes the complete bankruptcy of our miserable pseudo-intellectual ruling class.

As TJIC once said on his late, lamented blog, this post is simply unimprovable.

iOS vs. Android: it's a knife fight

Err, literally:

Tulsa, Oklahoma, TV station KTUL is reporting that two men were left with “cuts all over their bodies … covered with blood” after an argument over the merits of Android and iOS “escalated”.

The station's report suggests the two were discussing the competing merits of the iPhone and Samsung's new offering – probably the Galaxy S6 - within the confines of their shared flat. A few drinks later, the conversation kicked up several notches.

I'm not sure that there's anything I can add that will improve on this story.

What the real Obamacare debate is about

Word.  This analysis is unimprovable.

Quote of the Day - how health insurance should work

Nothing I could add could possibly improve this:

The banning of catastrophic-only plans infuriates me the most. Those are the only plans that are actually financially sensible for a healthy individual to purchase. Everything else on the market is a perverse by-product of the employer-based insurance system.

Worst case scenario with a catastrophic-only plan is you end up with $10,000 in debt. That’s a debt load many times smaller than what the Federal government thinks students should take out to get a college degree. We’ll let you borrow $100,000 to get a sociology degree but, we think that $10,000 is an unconscionable amount to pay for medical expenses? So unconscionable that we have to FORCE YOU to buy a plan with more extensive coverage?

Of course, we all know the real reason for this. it’s meant to force healthy young people to subsidize healthcare for older sicker people. Just force them to pay more for insurance than they ought to, and force them to buy more extensive coverage than is rational.

Word.

Remember

Old NFO tells us that it is Band of Brother's day, and posts with humility on his service:

To the cool men that have touched my life. Here's to you!!! I was never a hero, but I am thankful I served among them.

A real Brother walks with you when the rest of the world walks on you.

 Amen, Brother.  His post reminds me of the humility so often on display by heros who did simply indescribable  feats:



The quote, of course, is from Shakespeare, in perhaps the greatest of all the great Bard's works:



If you haven't watch the Kevin Branaugh "Henry V", get thee hence with all speed.  It is perhaps the manliest of manly films, from perhaps the manliest of all highbrow plays.  And I don't say that mockingly; defiance combined with recognition of their situation make this inspiring beyond words:

We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field;
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;

Herald, save thou thy labour;
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald:
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
Which if they have as I will leave 'em them,
Shall yield them little ..

I posted before on this, on Shakespeare, the 503rd, and on our heroes today in Afghanistan.

Thanks to all our heroes, on this day and on all days.

UPDATE 4 February 2012 21:25: All out heroes.

Via Theo.

Best. Harry Potter. Review. EVAH!

Srlsy.  I'm totally a Shirley Henderson fan.

Nothing I could write could improve on Sonic Charmer's awesomeness.

Nothing I could write could possibly improve that

From TJIC, regarding the environmentalist's new War On Dogs:

You know, the way to move me from thinking “your side is muddle headed” to thinking “your side is profoundly anti-human, and perhaps should be exterminated” is to tell me that we can’t live with dogs, and joke that we should eat them.

At least they only want to starve children to save Mother Gaia. Most of them. For now.

Now that's how to appologize

Mrs. Sandra Burt likes to sing. She'd sing at the office, until she was asked to stop. By the Performing Right Society, who wanted her to get a performance license:

Sandra Burt, 56, who works at A&T Food store in Clackmannanshire, was warned she could be fined for her singing by the Performing Right Society (PRS).

...

The village store where Mrs Burt works was contacted by the PRS earlier this year to warn them that a licence was needed to play a radio within earshot of customers.

When the shop owner decided to get rid of the radio as a result, Mrs Burt said she began singing as she worked.

Even the PRS figured out that this was a little over the top, and apologized. A real apology, not one of those "we're sorry if someone was offended" pseudo-apologies:

In response to the furore created by their initial hardline, the PRS contacted Mrs Burt to apologise.

In a note attached to a large bouquet of flowers they said: "We're very sorry we made a big mistake.

"We hear you have a lovely singing voice and we wish you good luck."

Flowers and a proper apology. Well done, lads.

Nothing I could write would improve on that sentence. part the sixth

TJIC looks on the International Global Warming Movement, and brings the snark:

… while environmentalists pointed to the deadly floods in the Philippines to illustrate the already devastating impact of climate change.

Yes, deadly floods were unknown before Henry Ford bit into the apple of knowledge of good and carbon, which angered Gaia can caused Her to expel us from the garden of sustainable delights and led her to unleash floods upon the world…

Nothing I could write would improve on that sentence, part 4

The Czar of Muscovy* looks at Thomas Freedman's wistful "Now why can't our Government act like Philosopher Kings like the Chinese" Op-Ed, and dissects it. It's well worth your time in an intellectual well-balanced-dinner sort of way, but he ends with this delicious morsel for desert

The Czar has said before that if you really want to understand liberals, progressives, the news media, and Hollywood, it helps to learn about how spoiled high school freshmen girls think.

Yum!

I'd ask what's with all that liberal yearning-for-a-strongman thing, but it's already been explained. At length.

* Not a fake Czar like in the Obama Administration, but rather in an Internet Pseudonym sort of way. All in all, much more respectable and credible, if you ask me.

Nothing I could write would improve on that sentence, part the fourth

Via TJIC, we find Camille Paglia bringing the smart:

By a proportion of something like 10-to-1, negative articles by conservatives were vastly more detailed, specific and practical about the proposals than were supportive articles by Democrats which often made gestures rather than arguments and brimmed with emotion and sneers. There was a glaring inability in most Democratic commentary to think ahead and forecast what would or could be the actual snarled consequences

Smart lady. That sound that you hear is Daniel Patrick Moynihan spinning in his grave.

Nothing I could write would improve on that (last) sentence

The Czar of Muscovy provides the Last Word on "Green Czar" Van Jones, as one czar to another:

Van Jones has just resigned—although as the victim of a smear campaign, he wants us assholes to know that his crackpot beliefs about September 11th are, naturally, our fault. Well, then, mea culpa, you commie dirtbag. As your last act as “Green Car,” get the lights on your way out.

That last sentence is quality snark, yessir. And I dig this new meme.

Nothing I could write would improve on that sentence, either

From Samizdata:

America has "Czars" because there are still a few respectable people using the titles of "Capo" and "Don"

Grade A snark, right there.

Nothing I could write would improve on that sentence

TJIC offers a new Internet Meme, and quite a good one it is. Pass it on.

And he provides a perfect example just a couple posts below:

“I pushed for more regulation, and yet - somehow - the industries being regulated, which stand to make or lose tens of millions of dollars, managed to get regulations that aren’t what we do-gooders wanted.”