I, Pandora

New Co-Blogger: Tomorrow’s Thinker

Oct 232012

Tomorrow’s Thinker considers himself an “enlightened casual scholar”. While he differs from the other authors on I, Pandora in several significant core beliefs, his wide ranging background and thoughtful and erudite manner give him a clarity of observation I’ve come to greatly respect.

Tomorrow’s Thinker’s interests are as broad as any of the rest of us here on I, Pandora, and he will also be the primary author on a new section of I, Pandora: a Question and Answer section called “Let’s Look Into That” where he’ll address questions from readers in his own inimitable style.

Someday We’ll Look Back

I Pandora No Responses »

Oct 202012

Barack Obama “Hope” poster, originally by Shepard Fairey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Someday we’ll look back at ourselves today and shake our heads ruefully. We’ll think of how we put our hope and trust in a man, a man who only promised change. A man who promised only change and hoped we’d hope in him.

We’ll look back and shake our heads. How silly of us to put our hope in a man. A man is and can only ever be a man. That man is universally imperfect is a solid and irrefutable fact, and one who puts their hope in a man, who puts their hope in a man who promises nothing more substantive than change, is the silliest man of all.

Yet, for all those of us who will remember the halcyon days of our youthful idiocy, there are man who still do put their trust in the man of change, a second time, even. This goes beyond silliness, this is a destructive tendency which appears to be rooted primarily in the need to be right, to be justified in ones choices and actions, to never have to say “I was wrong”.

To err is human. To err repeatedly expecting a different outcome is insane.

Breaking: Government Issuing $3300 Checks To Every American

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Oct 182012

Without money (Photo credit: Toban Black)

Welfare spending in 2011 topped $1.03 trillion. That’s $1,030,000,000,000.

To put it another way, divide that astronomical amount by the number of people in the US (Google says it’s 311,591,917 as of this writing), and you get $3,305 per American.

If you think 108 million Americans are very much interested in keeping their handouts coming strong, that’s $9,537 for each and every one of them in 2011.

Just to be clear, this number does NOT include any of the following budget items:

Social Security (adds another $725 billion)
Medicare (adds another $480 billion)
health care for veterans without service-connected disabilities
veterans pension programs

From the Daily Caller (via the Daily Caller)

Update: 47% is those who pay no income tax, not those who receive welfare. Welfare recipients were around 108 million in 2011. Edited article to reflect.

Candy Crowley: Presidential Water Carrier

I Pandora 1 Response »

Oct 172012

At least she appears to have had a slight smidgen of decency and has admitted that Romney was correct in asserting that the President indeed did not call the murder of our ambassador to Libya an act of terror until weeks later. Nevertheless, Candy Crowley performed a profound disservice to herself and to you and me and the world when she carried water for the President and attempted to defend his indefensible actions on Libya during last night’s debate.

EvilBloggerLady thinks this may have actually damaged the President more than simply allowing the debate to progress:

This will hurt Barack Obama over time. Had Candy Crowley not intervened, Romney would have made his point. But it would have been one point in the debate. This elevated the issue. This story is going to get bigger now because of this.

Me? I’m interested in what Fact Checkers will now be able to say regarding this point. I imagined they’d see the words “act of terror” in the rose garden speech transcript and attempt a jig on their Romney’s effigy’s grave, but with THE MODERATOR having walked herself back, some of their fire may have been stolen.

From the President, September 12th, 2012:

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.

An oblique reference at best.

The American Political Press’s Psycho Moment | RedState

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Oct 142012

http://www.redstate.com/2012/10/10/the-american-political-presss-psycho-moment/

A few weeks ago in Benghazi, Libya, the American Ambassador was assassinated by Al Qaeda in a pre-planned attack. Within twenty-four hours the White House knew it. A few hours after the American media began running horrific stories about the assassination of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Barack Obama flew to Las Vegas, NV for a campaign event.

There is not an honest American, left, right, or center who thinks the media would have been as docile or compliant had George W. Bush done the same. But the press gave Barack Obama a pass on his campaign trip.

Inbreeding Happens Outside Arkansas

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Oct 102012

You would think there are plenty of other eminently qualified people who could have moderated this debate. Not that Martha Raddatz can’t be fair

American Broadcasting Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

as a moderator, but when you’re dealing with the potential leaders of the free world, the stakes are higher, and thus more care ought to be given. And like I said, it shouldn’t have been difficult to find someone who was less connected to either of the parties of this election to moderate this debate.

I suppose that because the mainstream “news” organizations and leftists politicians and intelligentsia are such an inbred and insular group, you can’t expect much better.

Good thing I don’t watch ABC (or NBC, or CBS) to learn what’s really happening in the world.

Moral Relativism Is Dead. What’s Next?

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Oct 092012

From http://hypernews.ngdc.noaa.gov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some claim that relativism is dying and needs only the status quo to end it’s messy march completely. While I’m not completely certain this is accurate, I’d at least agree that it’s control on our culture is being supplanted by other ideologies that must be addressed in their own way.

Helen Rittelmeyer, writing in the American Spectator, makes this argument and postulates that the newest, biggest ideological problem is one that, like relativism, has it’s enticements. From her description I can see how I myself have fallen prey to the idea of Utilitarianism, the idea that there must be a measurable and scientific reason behind any moral claim.

The great attraction of this new utilitarian mindset is its certainty—the fact that answers to such questions are not just a matter of opinion (and therefore, not relative)—which is why continuing to demonize the old enemy only makes the new one more appealing. Conservatives should be pleased, maybe even a little proud, that Americans are in the market for moral claims they can make with authority, but now it’s time to worry about which authorities they choose to trust. Economics can tell a country how to satisfy its desires efficiently, but not which desires are noble. Sociologists can put out a survey asking whether people are happy or fulfilled, but can’t give them the moral vocabulary they need to make sense of the difference between happiness and mere contentment, or between fulfillment and shallow self-regard. Some social-scientific studies make claims that turn out to be false, and others make claims that are correct on their own terms but not in the messy world of the human soul.

Romney Debates The Empty Chair In Chief

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Oct 082012

The cover of the October 15th, 2012 edition of the New Yorker. I hope this is further indication of a general disillusionment with the President on the part of the more stridently liberal members of the media. Even if it isn’t, it still indicates that it is The Governor who is setting the tone, the pace, and the topics for this election, and that is a good thing.

Jobs Report Mistruths

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Oct 052012

The economy added 114,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate supposedly fell to 7.8% (from 8.4%).

Now we need context:
114,000 was the number of jobs the US economy needed to create each month in order to maintain equilibrium 50 years ago in 1962. During the Bush years, the economy created between 400,000 and 500,000 jobs to stay even.

So how is it possible that around a quarter of the number of jobs needed to keep the economy EVEN 6 years ago is enough to LOWER the unemployment rate nearly half a percent today?

One way is that the employment numbers do not reflect people who have stopped looking for work. This is called “dropping out of the workforce”, and it’s what huge numbers of people have done as this “recession” (which, it was claimed, ended back in 2009) has muddled on.

Whatever the reason, the numbers released today stink and Romney is right in saying this is not how a real recovery looks.

Dear Mr. President: You Have Failed

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Oct 012012

Dear Mr. President: you have failed.

Your attempts at “softer” foreign policy have failed. You have been soft to those who genuinely seek to harm us, and cold to those who have been and would be our friends and allies.

You have not loved freedom here at home. Once you heard the siren song of power, you have lusted for it as any other and have signed laws and exercised authority that cements power at the expense of liberty.

You have been petty, small and selfishly ungracious. Where you should have been gracious and thoughtful, you instead gave an iPod full of your own speeches to the leader of our oldest and dearest ally.

You have been distracted and wasteful. While leaders of all the nations came together and gave you ample opportunity for important meetings and negotiations at this increasingly critical time in world relations, you went off to be “eye candy” on a daytime TV talk show. You have spent more time on golf courses than with your economic advisors and have spent more of our money ferrying your family to exotic locales for frequent vacations than would be reasonable given the belt-tightening most of us your employers have had to do lately.

You have failed. And because you have failed it is time for us to do our duty and send you back home.

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