Two new books this weeks, both on the Kindle:

The first is Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010. Murray's thesis is that the real cultural gap in this country has less to do with race or geographical location than it does with IQ. I haven't read the book yet, but his thesis seems to be that the big cultural changes initiated in the 1960's -- women's liberation, promiscuity, pervasive divorce, single-parenthood, an abandonment of religiosity -- were largely abandoned by the elites by the 1990's as unworkable. But those of lower IQ found it difficult to go back to the traditional ways, even as the new paradigm ended up hurting them the most.

(You'll note that I use IQ rather than wealth or class as a grouping mechanism. I don't know if Murray does this explicitly, but it seems to me to be the obvious upshot of his thesis. Brighter people saw the harm the socio-cultural changes were doing to their lives, and reversed the trend; duller people, lacking the insight and mental capacity for this kind of change, remained mired in the dysfunctional "lower class".)

I expect that I'll find a lot to disagree with in Murray's book. For one, I believe that the inexorable rise of the welfare state has done as much to ruin the family as any other social trend in the past 50 years -- when women can turn to the government rather than their husbands for financial help and support with child-rearing, men become little more than distractions (and often burdensome ones) in their daily lives. The catastrophic destruction of the black family in the past 50 years may be only the first wave; similar patters are emerging in the hispanic and white poor communities.

I also picked up Scott Rasmussen's The People's Money: How Voters Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt. Rasmussen's thesis is pretty much conventional wisdom among Tea Partiers at this point -- politicians either will not or cannot arrest the slide of our nation into insolvency, so it will fall to the average citizen to do it, by sending a new breed of fiscal hawk to Washington. The 2010 elections seem to buttress Rasmussen's point, but the 2012 Presidential election will tell the tale: if Obama wins another term (as he very well might), then it will prove that the center of gravity in this country has simply moved too far to the left. If that's the case...DOOM.
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Posted by: Monty at 05:19 AM | Comments (121)
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Whoa! Romney won Nevada?

Didn't see that one coming.

Posted by: andy at 04:32 AM | Comments (173)
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Tis the eve before the Super Bowl. I'm rootin' for the G-Men for a couple of reasons. Mostly because my wife is a big time Giants fan but also because I really, really want to see the video that Paul 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald would put up on his site Townie News after losing to the Giants again. The video Fitzy's We Blew Super Bowl 42 was funny as hell and I so want some more of that. Kinda like how Cartman wanted Scott Tenorman's tears of sadness.

Fitzy's Super Bowl 46 pre-game video below the fold. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:33 PM | Comments (1049)
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In the last NY-NE Super Bowl, Brady had a hobbled ankle and couldn't move laterally well. So the Giants were able to blitz him straight from the nose tackle, and got him a bunch of times. He's healthy now. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:38 PM | Comments (357)
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West said:

"Can someone tell me how employment in the black community has improved at a rate three times the national average in just a few months?? With numbers like today, urban communities should be well on their way to economic recovery then! There is something suspicious about the job numbers released today and it has me very concerned," West wondered Friday. "Is this dramatic supposed decrease in black unemployment a result of job creation or is someone playing around with the census numbers??"

But economists immediately shot his suspicions down as "unfounded" and "paranoid."

Wait, no they didn't.

Economists reached by The Hill for comment couldn't fully explain the unemployment rate change for the black community. William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University specializing in African-American studies and economics, wrote in an email to The Hill that the decline could have been due to a smaller labor force. He called the drop an "unbelievably dramatic drop" but didn't rule out the possibility of someone tampering with the numbers; he said there was no evidence one way or the other.

The Hockey Stick Graph

Don't call it a comeback.

Thanks to vic.

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (202)
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A moron -- I mean that in a good way, a friend of the site -- shot a movie called Theater Bizarre now in limited release in 12 cities, including New York, LA, Columbus, Denver, San Diego, and Dallas. DC too. Click the link to check it out.

(Next weekend other cities are added, like Brookline (Boston)).

I'll do my own review tomorrow, but since it's in release right now (tonight and tomorrow night only for most cities), I'll just do a head's up post. It got a good write-up in... the WSJ, of all places:

As a macabre primer to this parallel universe [of off-kilter extreme horror/fantasy], we suggest "The Theatre Bizarre," a portmanteau both ghastly and intelligent, featuring a murderer's row of contemporary horror's more prominent practitioners. Producer David Gregory's conceit was to set half a dozen directors free to explore the traditions of Grand Guignol. The results—from, among others, South African cult director Richard Stanley, makeup wizard Buddy Giovinazzo and the talented Douglas Buck—are alternately shocking, shockingly existential and/or tender in ways that belie stereotypes. When horror makes it to the mall, it's generally a mess. "The Theatre Bizarre" may not be everyone's cup of tea. But within its genre, it's state-of-the-art.

Christian Toto similarly gives it a good review at Big Hollywood.

As I've warned before, the movie is for jaded horror film fans, the kind who sort of put their noses up at routine decapitation -- "Oh, terrific, I've only seen that in four of the six Final Destination movies."

It makes up for a lower budget by attempting a more intellectualized and conceptual form of horror, putting horror in mundane situations (such as a couple breaking up) rather than in Secret Government Laboratories.

It's a series of six short films each by a different writer and director.

I actually saw the premiere in New York last December. I liked it a lot. The final installment is called Sweets, and is especially good.

Sweets was really interesting to me, because I had seen the script in advance, and thought it the dialogue (about a break-up) was cliched.

But I didn't understand how they planned to play it. It was supposed to be cliched. I can't convey how well the actors performed it, except to say Is swear they were two of the most hysterical actors I've seen. The whole point was to have them act out the typical break-up dialogue in the most hilarious way possible.

The chick was awesomely deadpan (and, by the way, super-hot; I got to meet her and tell her what a super fan I was).

The guy on the other hand was... emotive beyond all reason. I don't want to spoil it. Let's just say he was funny.

Oh, and then there's like four minutes of excessive gore.

As I've said before, strong content warning for the trailer.

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Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (123)
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I wish they were serious about this. I'd sure like an end to the left's incessant "He said a dirty word" childish tattletaling and, even worse, the silly crap we on the right respond with in kind, to make the point.

I get the reason to make the point, to notify the left of what the same rules feel like when used as a weapon against them. But despite that defensible point, I feel silly about doing it. It doesn't feel like us. It feels like them. It feels like imbeciles who shriek at the sight of a mouse.

Jonathan Martin of Politico recently referred to the "cracker counties" of Florida (those bordering Georgia and Alabama), and the right has taken him to task for his very own Macacca Moment.

After he complained how silly that all was, now a fellow writer at Politico writes about how silly the game is, generally.

I agree. But let's remember that going forward, huh? Let's not just realize it's silly when applied against a co-worker, eh?

Yes, he's talking about Romney's gaffe. But I think he's really thinking about Martin's.

Now that Romney has done his part in the ritual by admitting he said a dumb thing, it might be time for everyone else to make a similar admission: The whole uproar was a dumb thing.

It was a vivid example of the indignation industry that drives the modern political-media culture and makes it more shallow and phony. Virtually everyone who is around politics — as candidate, operative or journalist — is familiar with the taking-umbrage business, as both participant and victim.

On both left and right, the cycle of huffing and puffing over the outrage du jour is now so ingrained in daily life that, like a smoker who lights up without even thinking about it, most people no longer pause to notice that nothing about it is on the level.

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Schnur predicted this week’s Romney episode will pass soon enough — but that more such episodes are coming.

“The primary value of this type of controversy is to rile up the party base,” he said. “In a general election campaign in which neither nominee is going to be able to motivate his party’s loyalists to any great degree, you’re going to see more and more of these manufactured controversies designed to rev up the true believers.”

A little insight into Romney, here. You probably all know this, but his dad was considered the front-runner for the 1968 Republican nomination (and would have been a favorite to win the presidency) until he was asked to explain why he had initially supported the Vietnam War, but now was rethinking that. He said that he had been "brainwashed" by generals when given a tour of the country in 1965.

Not literally, of course. But that one remark entirely derailed his candidacy.

I think Romney's dad explains a lot about him. It explains why he's determined to be President despite apparently not having much political talent or any noticeable interest in ideological imperatives like freedom. This is personal; this is winning one for dad.

And I think the "brainwashing" comment might explain why he's so relentlessly programmed. He has his own version of Vietnam Syndrome, learning the lessons of the last campaign a little too well.

Yes, one word can derail a campaign. But a lack of any genuine words -- with focus-group pablum offered at every turn -- can also derail one.

Back to Politico's point: It's a great point. I'm glad someone in the liberal media made it.

And I expect they'll drop what they know about the essential falseness and triviality of the Indignation Industry the next time the Democratic Party and Obama for America needs them to.

Overstated: Adjoran says that my claim that Romney was "cruising, easily" to the nomination was wrong. I've changed it. He says:

I was there, Fauntleroy. He imploded long before a single delegate had been selected. And while he would have been a contender, Nixon had spent three years quietly traveling the country raising money for Republican candidates for Congress, Mayor, and state legislature, and for state and local parties, charging no fee for coming. He was earning a lot of chits the hard way, and probably would have been the favorite over Romney, who lacked the national base. And most in the GOP (and the country) in those days wanted more forceful prosecution of the war, not second-guessing.

And Romney was out before it was ever clear that LBJ was so vulnerable, before McCarthy even entered the race.

I changed it to "considered the front-runner." As for the bit about it not being clear that LBJ was vulnerable -- fine, but that would have emerged no matter who the Republican candidate was. Whether or not people understood, in late 67, that LBJ would become so unpopular he would vow to not seek nor accept the Democratic nomination by 1968, that still would have happened.

Assuming (which I do) that events on the Democratic side would have unfolded in much the same way, whether Romney or Nixon was the candidate, then any acceptable Republican candidate would have won. And George Romney seemed, prior to the brainwashing comment, to be pretty acceptable.

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Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (109)
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Ace recently had this to say about "Rolodex socialists":

Democrats are just a collection of rent-seekers, beak-dippers, and vig-skimmers, who have convinced themselves that it is not only acceptable that they should collect rents, dip their beaks, and collect a vig on everyone else's transactions, but that to deny them such rents, dippings, and vigs constitutes the most hateful, vicious, and fundamentally un-American behavior they can conceive.

Mark Steyn makes a related point about the mindset and methods of these beak-dippers:

As Senator Obama said during the 2008 campaign, words matter. Modern “liberalism” is strikingly illiberal; the high priests of “tolerance” are increasingly intolerant of even the mildest dissent; and those who profess to “celebrate diversity” coerce ever more ruthlessly a narrow homogeneity. Thus, the Obama administration’s insistence that Catholic institutions must be compelled to provide free contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. This has less to do with any utilitarian benefit a condomless janitor at a Catholic school might derive from Obamacare, and more to do with the liberal muscle of Big Tolerance enforcing one-size-fits-all diversity.

Reptilian tribalism. Territoriality. Enforcement. It's all very primitive, isn't it?

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Posted by: rdbrewer at 08:50 AM | Comments (213)
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He's the One™ we've been waiting for since the big bang. more...

Posted by: andy at 07:17 AM | Comments (121)
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This SMOD character's entry into the race caused quite a stir this week, but I'm thinking of taking a second look at All Dead Inside.

Posted by: andy at 03:38 AM | Comments (272)
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