Why is it important, Comrade, that we have leaders you can identify? Is not the true test of our revolutionary consciousness the absence of leaders? Do we not all know what must be done in these times when it seems that the very existence of the Republic is in danger? This is the crucial difference between the "sheeple" you disdain and the sheepdogs you fear. The dogs form their own packs and do what must be done, while the sheep mill helplessly, bleating piteously because they see no escape from the ravenous maws they imagine to be surrounding them. R. Stacy McCain and Richard Viguerie examine the phenomenon of the Tea Party Movement from different but similar perspectives; Viguerie in particular contrasts the movement's anti-Washington attitude to the careerist mentality in charge of today's GOP, a mentality often mocked by the Other McCain as well. See, for example, his critique of Rovian triangulation strategies.

Another factor feeding the flames of the Tea Party Movement is rooted in the Scots-Irish subculture, ironically enough identified by Senator James Webb (D-Va.) in his book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. Webb points out that the great leaders of this culture were chosen by the people, not set over them by the powers that be, and because the people chose them, there was a closer, more passionate bond. So, yeah. When the time comes, the populists of the Tea Party Movement will choose their own leaders, their own candidates, and will accomplish far more than the cynical "professionals" who have driven countless top-down candidates and their campaigns into the ground. Look for the mainstream media to be utterly surprised by this; they don't understand or appreciate populism for what it is, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

SDB has lost nothing for spending the bulk of his time on anime. This essay is proof. RTWT.

DHS protects America from those infamous scourges of freedom: role-playing games and the traitors who play them.*

In other tales of terrorism, Maziar Bahari reports on how Revolutionary Guards really feel about America: “He hated me and he was jealous of me at the same time because I had been to New Jersey.” While the article is entertaining enough, there are some real prizes in the comments.

The same is true of this smackdown of racist thug Woodrow Wilson; the bus riding comments alone would be worth the price of admission, if they were charging any.

Honduras gives the finger to Hugo Chavez, the OAS, and the 0bama Administration, not necessarily in that order. More commentary and links at Fausta's blog and Babalu.

ESR comments on the whole Global Warmening conspiracy hack: "For those of you who have been stigmatizing AGW skeptics as “deniers” and dismissing their charges that the whole enterprise is fraudulent? Hope you like the taste of crow, because I do believe there’s a buttload of it coming at you. Piping hot."

*EDIT It occurred to me some hours after composing this post that this is literally true of Paranoia players. It's right there in the rules.

Neal Gabler of the L.A. Times warns the media that the more they criticize Sarah Palin and try to diminish her, the stronger she gets with Main Street America. Interesting comparisons to Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon are made; RTWT. (Hot Air)

The late George Fraser Macdonald was none too pleased with what had become of Britain by the time he sat down to pen Quartered Safe Out Here, his account of the time he spent in the Border Regiment during the Burma Campaign in WW2. He was considerably less kind about it in a piece he penned for the Daily Mail last year, and it would appear that many of the surviving members of Britain's "Greatest Generation" agree with the older, angrier Fraser. RTWT.

Man, I'd pay good money to hear Al Gore, David Suzuki, or one of the other gorbal warmening crazies pop off with that line in public. Wouldn't it be deliciously ironic if the First World's economy, built as it is on cheap energy from coal & petroleum, were saved by a KGBFSB covert op aimed at hacking the databases of the AGW conspirators? Dan Riehl points out that the Russians certainly have an incentive to torpedo this latest environmental stupidity.

While we're on the subject of scientific illiteracy and the climate, may I recommend to you Fallen Angels?

Honestly, this made me LOL so hard I almost violated the Suiseiseki Sunday icon rule.
( Totally and completely NSFW. )

Matt Welch presents the Richard Hofstadter drinking game. Warning: playing this while reading a Paul Krugman column -like, say, this one) could be hazardous to your health and possibly fatal. (Hot Air)

...the people of Berlin got tired of waiting for Mikhail Gorbachev to show up, and tore down the Berlin Wall. Mitch Berg has an excellent post that covers the day*, and I'm not going to repeat what he has to say here. I'm not even going to tee off on the President for not joining in the celebration; that would be an easy -if cheap- shot**. I will link to this post cited by Instapundit, and this one on the refusal of the New Left to learn from history, even though the Wall has been down for twenty years and so much of the Eastern Bloc's dirty laundry has been exposed to any who had the will to see it.

P asked me not too long ago what I thought, how I felt when the Wall came down. It's hard to remember now, but I seem to recall being really really happy, filled with joy. It was over. The Cold War that had smoldered since 1945 and burst into flame all around the world from Greece to Malaya and Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua...it was finally over. The Captive Nations were free again, after half a century under the Soviet yoke. Even the Chinese had turned away from the madness of Mao, paying lip service to his words while steering their country toward the open sea of capitalism. The only places that still claimed to believe in Communism were Fourth World shitholes like North Korea and Cuba. (Okay, college campuses, but that's Roger Kimball's³ and David Horowitz's⁴ turf.) I felt that we'd beaten the Russians when all the "best and the brightest" claimed it wasn't possible, run their economy off the cliff without even trying that hard, and set millions of people free. Something to celebrate, no?

What came after the Wall came down wasn't always pretty and it wasn't always neat, but there's no question in any sensible person's mind that it was a damn sight better than what we had during the Cold War. I don't agree with everything Fouad Ajami says in his essay, but he makes a good point. Where once we stood at risk from Soviet ICBMs, now we worry about Islamofascist mass murderers using whatever tools come to hand. Where once we had academics and TV talking heads blathering about "moral equivalence" between East and West, now we have generals blithering about the importance of diversity and Homeland Security chiefs gassing about purely theoretical "anti-Muslim" backlashes.

I'm still happy about the Wall coming down. Mainly because I don't have to worry about SS-18's incinerating my friends and family any more. YMMV.

Related.

* Complete with a clip of Ronaldus Magnus throwing down the gauntlet to Gorbachev in his epic speech at the Brandenburg Gate and another of just plain folks going at the Wall with hammers, crowbars, rocks, and construction equipment.
** Imma let Toby Harnden and Der Spiegel do it for me. ;) (Ace)
3. Tenured Radicals
4. One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy

To quote Ed Driscoll:

“[Robert] Gibbs: Can you imagine if, five years ago, protesters had compared our government to Hitler?”

As Allahpundit writes, “You know what? I think I can.”

RTWT, It won't take you long.

Avoiding an Italian future: why we need to do this. Luigi Zingales' article describes how Italy's pro-market politicians got eaten alive by the pro-business faction after their (eventually) successful defeat of the Marxists. This is something that's still thrashing itself out here, where the difference between Main Street and Wall Street is more obvious than it might have been in Italy. (Instapundit)

You know, for somebody that was going to unify us all in a post-partisan glow with his cleanliness and articulate speech, 0bama and his crew sure manage to piss a lot of people off. Even people that wanted to believe what he was saying. (The Corner)

Kids without parents have a tough time getting it together in school. Not exactly news, but some people just don't get why the single-mom thing is such a bad idea. I saw links to this earlier in the week but forgot to post them. (Instapundit)

Been wheezing and coughing up stuff today so decided not to go to Mass and share it. Ironic, I'm taking all these antibiotics, and some damn virus moves in to mess with me. Ffffffffffffffffffffffffff.

Back in the 60s, Dr. Leary's call to the youth of America was "Tune in, turn on, drop out!". This has usually been misinterpreted as an encouragement to live (brief) lives of drug-soaked uselessness, but in fact Leary saw psychedelic drugs as a gateway to revelation and self-discovery. He wanted people to find themselves through disciplined drug use and drop out of what he saw as a psychologically diseased society so that they could create a sounder one - ultimately, one that would get humanity off a ruined Earth, but that's another essay for another time.
( Cultural maundering followed by political stuff )

This sort of thing has been making the rounds of the dextrosphere lately. I think it would have been better with some different pix, but even so some of these are pretty good. If you aren't a Sarah Palin fan, maybe not so much.
Personal favorite:
(click to embiggen, Picasa is being difficult today)

A lot of the political blogs I read have been concentrating on this Congressional race in upstate New York, which has turned into a three-way race between a Democrat, a socially liberal Republican chosen by the party leaders, and a a rogue Republican running on the Conservative party ticket.
( Who's in charge here? )
If nothing else, perhaps our Senators will be emboldened/frightened away from pulling shit like this with the defense appropriation bills.

(Reason's Hit & Run)

Kind of related: Cheerios Reign of Terror Must Be Stopped! Seriously, wtf is wrong with these people?
(Instapundit)

Up at 0530, sucking down coffee and reading the comics. Thought I went to bed too late to get up this early, but I guess I was wrong.

Returned the USB cable to Staples last night and indulged in a Five Guys burger for dinner. I think the key to a perfect FG bacon cheeseburger is to avoid the veggies and the condiments, and just go with the grilled onions.

Today, the plan is laundry, getting the Kia inspected, and fixing any problems that keep it from passing. Hopefully this will all come in around $200 or less, since Wells remembered where I lived and called about the truck payment. They only wanted $98, which was weird, kind of doable, but still leaves me stretched pretty thin.
( Speak no evil of the dead? )

The head of Whole Foods suggests a private-sector alternative to the horrible mess Congress and Obama are pushing. If someone in the Stupid Party got a brain flash, they'd make this 2010's Contract with America.

A helpful collection of misinformation about the proposed health care reforms - supplied by the President himself.

The whole thing comes down to one simple question: how much do you trust the Federal government? I don't think it's any accident that those of us who have had the most to do with it (on the slimy end of the stick, at any rate) are least enthusiastic about this.

Also, if you're planning on bracing your "representative" about this bill, King Banaian has some pertinent questions about some of its sections. In case you haven't read the bill yourself yet, and at 1000 pages, who could blame you? Your Congressman, on the other hand - it's his/her job, and they have no damn excuse for not doing so. Me, I have the disgustingly corrupt Jim Moran (D-VA) for a Congressman, so there's no point in even talking to the pork-bloated bastard. Yours may not be quite so bought and paid for. King is skeptical about the "death panel" provision, Article 1233, which has gotten so much attention of late, partially due to Sarah Palin's outspoken opposition to it. It's worth pointing out that Charles Lane of the Washington Post had the same concerns, though.

Megan McArdle tees off on Ezra Klein, wunderkind of the Juice Box Mafia that seems to be making a (weak) case for being the Vicious Circle of the 21st century.

It's a weak case, because instead of being witty, knowledgeable men and women of the world with something interesting to say, the Juice Box Mafia are a bunch of over-educated, ignorant yentas who think they know it all and would be only too happy to school us ignorant rubes on the way the world ought to be. You know, the "best and the brightest", version 2.0, only without the World War II experience - or any damn experience, really. Perhaps worst of all, these thimblewits show zero intellectual curiosity and seem to be of the opinion that anything they don't know isn't worth knowing, which in 21st Century America is a dangerous delusion, especially if you're in the business of opining in public. They may consider the term a badge of honor, but that just supplies further proof of what idiots these people are.

So, no, Megan, you weren't too snotty. I'd say you weren't snotty enough by half. They deserve all the mockery and ridicule the market can bear, and then some. Too much ought to be just about right for those people.

This Friday is brought to you by the late Jim Varney (watch the whole clip for extra-delicious hilarity right at the end)
(Ace)

and by Federally-funded gorilla porn. (Ace)

Also, the Nationals lost 7-3 to the Brewers yesterday afternoon. It's not all Mike McDougal's fault, but he did a good job showing why he's not closing for the Royals these days.

Our best days are behind us? I don't think so. Part of the reason is, as in Europe, the "Silent Majority" that put Nixon, Reagan, and Bush the Younger into office is stirring again. They don't much like the way socialism has been radically expanded, and rather nakedly exposed as a "who-whom" transaction in which the politically favored Ins get to profit at the expense of the unconnected Outs. That may be the Chicago Way, but it's not the American Way, and come 2010 I think we're going to see a political counterrevolution that looks like 1994 all over again.

I hope the Stupid Party has learned its lessons. They could start proving they have by implementing market-driven medical reform, and decimating the Department of Health & Human Services appropriately. Better yet, they should abolish that department entirely and devolve its functions to the several states, but one step at a time.

Props to Instapundit, The Other McCain, and Instapundit again.