What Recession?



A recession is defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth of real gross domestic product. For some time now, the lefties have been crowing that the US economy is going into recession, scarcely unable to conceal their delight.



So, the economy grew at the positive rate of 0.6 percent during the first quarter. This in spite of the fact that residential fixed investment dropped by 26.7%.

We don't have a recession. Perhaps real GDP might drop in the second and third quarters of this year, but we won't know that until some time in November.

The Racist ABA

Gail Heriot in the WSJ discusses how the American Bar Association forces law schools to adopt racial preferences in admissions policies:

If you have ever wondered why colleges and universities seem to march in lockstep on controversial issues like affirmative action, here is one reason: Overly politicized accrediting agencies often demand it.
Given that federal funding hinges on accreditation, schools are not in a position to argue. That is precisely why the U.S. Department of Education, which gives accreditors their authority, must sometimes take corrective action. George Mason University's law school in northern Virginia is an example of why corrective action is needed now.

GMU's problems began in early 2000, when the American Bar Association visited the law school, which has a somewhat conservative reputation, for its routine reaccreditation inspection. The site evaluation team was unhappy that only 6.5% of entering students were minorities.
Outreach was not the problem; even the site evaluation report (obtained as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests) conceded that GMU had a "very active effort to recruit minorities." But the school, the report noted, had been "unwilling to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program." Since most law schools were willing to admit minority students with dramatically lower entering academic credentials, GMU was at a recruitment disadvantage. The site evaluation report noted its "serious concerns" with the school's policy.

Having worked in academia, I can testify that accreditation agencies such as NCA and SACS can often be a joke. The main criteria for whether or not a university receives accreditation is how well they can prepare the reports that the agency requires. That is why diploma mills like the University of Phoenix and Nova Southeastern can get accredited, even though degrees from those universities have little or no meaning.

In such an environment, it is not surprising that charlatans like the ABA would use their authority to promote their hateful political philosophy.

It would be interesting to know what Barack Obama's undergraduate GPA and LSAT score were when he was accepted at Harvard Law School.

Boo Hoo for Barack!

As is well known, Barack Obama attended a church for about 20 years where the pastor routinely said things like "God Damn America" and claimed that the US government invented AIDS to commit genocide on blacks.

Now the North Carolina GOP are running an ad with film clips of the race-baiting Reverend Wright in order to criticize two Democrats who have endorsed Obama. This is a perfectly valid political tactic. We can often judge people by the company they keep.

Predictably, the leftwing media are crying foul. The New York Times calls it a "Shameful, Ugly Ad". Bonnie Erbe at USA Today says "GOP Dirty Tricks Dupe Media". Bonnie goes on to compare the ad with the 'Willie Horton' ads used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race, ignoring the fact that it was Al Gore who first raised the issue, during the Democrat nomination battle that year.

CBS News says "Amid Negative Ads, McCain Claims High Road", McCain is free to run his campaign however he wants, but he should know that if he had attended a church run by a pastor who made anti-American statements from the pulpit, the Democrats and their lackeys in the leftwing media would be all over him.

Tough luck, Barack. You chose to attend Wright's church for 20 years and you knew damn well that he was spewing lies and hate. You showed a lack of judgement and the voters will take this into account.

More on Vlaams Belang, Fascism, Gates of Vienna, and Little Green Footballs

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has lately been on a tear. First he calls Dymphna at Gates of Vienna a 'fascist sympathizer', because she has disputed his accusations that the Belgian party Vlaams Belang are fascist. Then he claims that Gates of Vienna 'toys with genocide' because they publish an essay that theorizes that the result of muslim immigration into Europe may be genocide.

Hey Charles, if I were to write a biography of Timothy McVeigh, would that mean that I approve of blowing up buildings?

I have previously written about how Vlaams Belang do not sound like a fascist party. To illustrate the difference again, I will first quote from some people who really were fascist.

Adolf Hitler, Speech in Munich. April 12, 1922:

At the founding of this Movement we formed the decision that we would give expression to this idea of ours of the identity of the two conceptions: despite all warnings, on the basis of what we had come to believe, on the basis of the sincerity of our will, we christened it ''National Socialist.' We said to ourselves that to be 'national' means above everything to act with a boundless and all-embracing love for the people and, if necessary, even to die for it. And similarly to be 'social' means so to build up the state and the community of the people that every individual acts in the interest of the community of the people and must be to such an extent convinced of the goodness, of the honorable straightforwardness of this community of the people as to be ready to die for it.

Benito Mussolini, "Doctrine of Fascism" (1932)

7. Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence. It is opposed to classical Liberalism, which arose form the necessity of reacting against absolutism, and which brought its historical purpose to an end when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man, and not of that abstract puppet envisaged by individualistic Liberalism, Fascism is for liberty. And for the only liberty which can be a real thing, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people.

From Vlaams Belang's Website:

Het Vlaams Belang kiest uitdrukkelijk voor de democratie als politiek model. Het volk beslist. Dat is meteen de kern van het Vlaams-Belangstandpunt terzake.Het Vlaams Belang wil een overheid die in haar inrichting en dienstverlening neutraal staat ten opzichte van de politieke opvattingen van haar burgers. In een democratische samenleving zijn de rechten van alle burgers, ongeacht hun politieke overtuiging, in het gedrang, indien de overheid - die een zo belangrijke rol speelt in onze complexe samenleving - geen neutrale overheid is of zich ten aanzien van de politieke mening van die burgers niet neutraal opstelt.

In English:

Vlaams Belang chooses explicitly for democracy as a political model. The people decide. That is the core of Vlaams Belang's beliefs.

Vlaams Belang wants a government which in its institution and services acts as a neutral state with respect to the political conceptions of its citizens. In a democratic society the rights of all citizens are preserved, irrespective of their political convictions. The government plays in this way an important role in our complex society - by establishing itself as a neutral party with regards to the political convictions of its citizens.

Clinging, Bitterly

Atlas Shrugged a Movie?

There have been several failed attempts to make a movie or miniseries out of Rand's novel. Will the newest attempt succeed?

It will be difficult to do the novel justice.

A Thin-Skinned President?

Senator Obama is revealing himself to be a very touchy person. A president can't afford the luxury of being irascible. Jed Babbin speaks of Barack's glass jaw:

The supposedly-brilliant Democratic wunderkind can’t take a punch. Like a Hollywood actor, he’s only comfortable, quick and charismatic as long as the crowd is oohing and ahhing. But the moment that he is challenged -- as we first saw in his presser after he lost the Ohio primary in March and again last week in the ABC debate -- the mask shatters. What we see is what we would get with an Obama presidency: a man whose range is so small and ego so huge and fragile that when taken out of his comfort zone, he not only fails to shine, he barely is able to speak.

Whoever is president has got to be figuratively bulletproof. And sometimes literally.

Edgar Degas

The next featured artist in the Provocateur art gallery is Edgar Degas. His depictions of dancers are very lifelike and compelling.

PJ Visits a Carrier

P J O'Rourke, former National Lampoon writer and libertarian par excellence visited the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and gave us his thoughts about John McCain vs. the Democrat candidates:

I look from John McCain to what the opposition has to offer. There's Ms. Smarty-Pantsuit, the Bosnia-Under-Sniper-Fire poster gal, former prominent Washington hostess, and now the JV senator from the state that brought you Eliot Spitzer and Bear Stearns. And there's the happy-talk boy wonder, the plaster Balthazar in the Cook County political crèche, whose policy pronouncements sound like a walk through Greenwich Village in 1968: "Change, man? Got any spare change? Change?"

Pope Benedict

Since Herr Ratzinger has deigned to grace us with his presence, I thought it would be interesting to reflect back on the time when many of our ancestors left the catholic church and became protestants.

The Papal Jurisdiction Act: "Concerning the jurisdictioune and autoritie of the bischope of Rome callit the paip", passed by the Scottish Parliament in 1560:

In the Parliament haldin at edinburgh the tent day of Julij the yeir of God JmVc&lx yeiris and thairefter continewit to the first day of august nixt thaireftir following with continewatioune of dayis vpoun the tuenty foir day of the said monethe of august The thre estaitis then being present vnderstanding that the Jurisdictioune and autoritie of the bischope of Rome callit the paip vsit within this realme in tymes bipast hes bene verray hurtful and preiudiciall to our soueranis autoritie and commone weill of this realme Thairfoir hes statute and ordanit that the bischope of Rome haif na Jurisdictioun nor autoritie within this realme in tymes cuming

And from the Westminster Confession of Faith:

There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.

British PM Gordon Brown Praises Bush

"The world owes President George Bush a huge debt of gratitude for leading the world in our determination to root out terrorism, and to ensure that there is no safe haven for terrorism and no hiding place for terrorists."

Huh? Drop in Bank Profits Leads to Stock Market Rally

Two of the five largest banks in the USA: JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, reported decreases of 50% and 11% respectively in their first quarter earnings.
The stock market, desperate for good news, interpreted this as a good sign that the banks' earnings weren't even worse.

Obamania

After stepping in the doodoo last friday, Barack just keeps wading deeper and deeper into it. The poor clown doesn't understand what a huge faux pas he has committed. Hillary is beside herself. She can't believe her good luck, just when it looked like her campaign was almost finished.

I think the problem is that Barack isn't getting very good advice. All he has for advisors are people who think just like him. It's common knowledge to his clique that those of us who live in flyover country are just a bunch of stupid inbred hillbillies. Barack and his crew can't believe that we understand the level of contempt they hold for us.

Even though Hillary feels the same way as Barack, she has some good advice and is pumping this for all she can. Listen to her talk to the press. She sounds like a Republican now.

Obama's Non-Apology

Snobama made a lame attempt at an apology today:

“Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that,” Obama said in a phone interview with the Winston-Salem Journal.

The important word to note is the word "IF". By including it in his so-called apology, he verifies that he is insincere. That's how I always feel when I hear someone make an apology conditional, by including an IF.

If Barack truly felt contrite about his statement he made while speaking to the beautiful people in San Francisco, he would have said something like "I deeply regret wording things in a way that made people offended". By including the if, he weasels out of admitting any wrongdoing.