Ross Douthat, Political Scientist

Douthat draws on political science research at New York Times, "Waiting For a Landslide." And for a second I thought he'd blow it, because "realignment theory," which he discusses, hasn't accurately explained, much less predicted, partisan trends for decades. But Douthat adds this, which is just right:
In reality, the next election may be no more transformative than 2008 turned out to be. The next Republican president may find himself as hemmed in and frustrated as President Obama has become. Meanwhile, America will still have a credit rating to fix, and a deficit to close.
More at that link at top, and Douthat had a great piece a few days ago on the debt deal, "The Liberals’ Dilemma." Note especially:
... American liberalism risks becoming a victim of its own longstanding strategy’s success. Because yesterday’s liberals insisted on making universal programs the costly core of the modern welfare state, on the famous theory that “programs for the poor become poor programs,” today’s liberals find themselves defending those universal (and therefore universally-popular) programs at the expense of every other kind of government spending — including, yes, programs for the poor. It’s a classic example of putting liberal political interests ahead of liberal policy priorities. In the short term, the insistence on ring-fencing Medicare and Social Security has left Democrats defending a system that often just ends up redistributing money from the younger middle class to the older middle class while accepting caps on programs that might do more (both directly and indirectly) to help downscale Americans get ahead. In the long term, by postponing any reckoning with the cost of entitlements, it’s making it more likely that the inevitable crunch will hit the poorest recipients of Medicare and Social Security harder than it should.
Read that whole thing. Basically, progressives will never cut entitlements because gargantuan socialist welfare states form the core of socialist existentialism.



Douthat's coming of his own as a New York Times columnist, by the way. He had cold feet or something after leaving The Atlantic, but he's been more consistent in posting some excellent commentary of late.

Post Title

→

Ross Douthat, Political Scientist

Post URL

→

https://kimberlyinkeldavis.blogspot.com/2011/08/ross-douthat-political-scientist.html

Visit Kimberly Fashion for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection

Diagnosing the Left

A must-read, from David Solway, at FrontPage Magazine, "Diagnosing the Left."

It should be clear by this time that there is no medium of intellectual exchange with the left, that facts do not matter, that logic is helpless to convince or to prompt even the slightest reconsideration, and that practically every counter-argument can be turned on its head and interpreted as confirmation of the original idée fixe. As I wrote in The Big Lie, this is a tendency or disposition that bespeaks the resurgence of a political romanticism wedded to motives rather than consequences, unachievable ideals rather than practical values. It consists largely of the cryogenized remnants of an antique crusade for unperturbed happiness and tranquility, actuated by a child-like desire for transcendence that is the curse of liberal political civilization, and that, in various spiritual and revolutionary forms, has caused untold harm and suffering in the past.

Ultimately, it amounts to a prepossession that resembles a species of clinical paranoia, associated with symptoms like unbridled hostility where disagreement is perceived, extreme sarcasm often rising to livid vulgarity, an intense need for control and the belief in personal infallibility. It is, in effect, a squalid amalgam of hubris and the herd mentality. Obviously, the disorder is not exclusive to the left, but it is on that side of the political spectrum where it manifests most prominently and insistently.
RELATED: "W. James Casper is a Coward, a Fraud, and a Liar."

And a perceptive reader, from out of the blue, comments on clinical progressive W. James Casper:

Suzie Q said...

Has it occurred to you ... that you are a stalker??
Seriously. This is pure sickness.

RELATED: "British Progressives Allege Melanie Phillips Took 'Part in the Norway Massacre'."

Post Title

→

Diagnosing the Left

Post URL

→

https://kimberlyinkeldavis.blogspot.com/2011/07/diagnosing-left.html

Visit Kimberly Fashion for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection

'The Left hasn't been this giddy since Rep. Giffords was shot'

That's Darleen Click, at William Jacobson's entry, "My challenge to Charles Lemos."

Along the same lines, Darleen has her interesting entry at Protein Wisdom, "Kind of sums up what passes for principle on the illiberal Left."

And more of this at POH Diaries, "Tragedy In Norway Compounded By Left-Wing Glee."

Plus, Mollie Hemingway writes a beautiful essay, "The Atlantic has this terrorist all figured out."

And then check this post from Power Line, "IN DEFENSE OF BLOND NORWEGIANS":
The relief–not to say glee–with which many liberals greeted the news that the Oslo mass murderer was a “tall, blond Norwegian” was palpable. Liberals pilloried those who ostensibly leaped to the conclusion, in the first minutes after the massacre began, that it was probably the work of Islamic jihadists. Scott noted earlier such attacks on Jennifer Rubin.

As far as I know, liberals haven’t attacked me for the post I did while the attacks were in progress. But what I wrote was, I think, typical:
The perpetrators of these attacks have not yet been identified, but they likely were Muslim terrorists.
Was that wrong? Not at all. Any time mass murder attacks take place, it is not just likely but highly probable that they are the work of Muslim jihadists. Over the last several decades, jihadists have launched hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks. They dwarf, in numbers, similar outrages perpetrated by anyone else. That is why, whenever a bomb kills innocent bystanders or an armed man guns down children, the first thing everyone thinks is that it likely will prove to be another instance of Islamic terrorism.
See also: "SOMEONE IS PUTTING WORDS IN JEN RUBIN’S MOUTH." (Via Memeorandum.)

Post Title

→

'The Left hasn't been this giddy since Rep. Giffords was shot'

Post URL

→

https://kimberlyinkeldavis.blogspot.com/2011/07/left-hasn-been-this-giddy-since-rep.html

Visit Kimberly Fashion for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection

MSNBC's Ed Schultz Suspended After Attacking Laura Ingraham as 'Right-Wing Slut'

Here's this from the network: "STATEMENT FROM MSNBC REGARDING ED SCHULTZ." (Via Memeorandum.)

Brian Maloney broke the story, "DEPRAV-ED: Libtalker Ed Schultz Uses Vulgarity to Attack Conservative Host":
Michelle reported on Schultz this morning, before he was suspended, and she's updated, "More misogyny at MSNBC: Neanderthal host attacks Laura Ingraham as a “slut;” Update: Schultz off air one week, apologizes":
In January, I published “The progressive ‘climate of hate:’ An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.”
Review it here.
Part IV was a section on anti-conservative female hate, with tons of links on the sexist rhetoric of the Left.
You’ll recall that the “M” in MSNBC stands for misogyny.
Here’s a new entrant in the race to the bottom, from syndicated radio host and MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz, via Radio Equalizer Brian Maloney ...
RTWT.

Also, Ingraham's responded quite succinctly on Facebook.

Typical progressives. At least Ed Schultz isn't anonyomous, like the cowards at Sadly No!, who match this misogyny on a daily basis, "sick fuck adult losers."

Post Title

→

MSNBC's Ed Schultz Suspended After Attacking Laura Ingraham as 'Right-Wing Slut'

Post URL

→

https://kimberlyinkeldavis.blogspot.com/2011/05/msnbc-ed-schultz-suspended-after.html

Visit Kimberly Fashion for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection

Outing Tintin at Sadly No!

I'm on the verge of obtaining the mother of all tips on Tintin's identity. So until that information becomes available, and since Carl Salonen is threatening punitive retaliation against those looking into his shady activities, I'm temporarily pulling my previous posts in the series. Still available is "Excavating Pure Evil — Failed New York Actor Carl Salonen Revealed as 'Tintin' at Sadly No!??"

Interestingly, Tintin has agreed to delete any mention of Carl Salonen at Sadly No! The scrubbing conspiracy is complete:



For the record: Links to the mentions scrubbed from Brendan Keefe's (here), Lawyers, Guns and Murder (here and here), and Whiskey Fire (here and here).

Updates forthcoming.

Post Title

→

Outing Tintin at Sadly No!

Post URL

→

https://kimberlyinkeldavis.blogspot.com/2011/05/outing-tintin-at-sadly-no.html

Visit Kimberly Fashion for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection

The End of Family Practice

Or, at least the end of the neighborhood family practitioner who knows everyone's name, some of the same folks he spends time with out on the lake.

This is one more of those reports on the decline of traditional America, at New York Times, "Family Physician Can’t Give Away Solo Practice." It's Dr. Ronald Sroka in Maryland, who's been in practice for 32 years. He was looking to sell the practice, but no buyers. Sheesh, he couldn't give it away:
He tried to sell his once highly profitable practice. No luck. He tried giving it away. No luck.

Dr. Sroka’s fate is emblematic of a transformation in American medicine. He once provided for nearly all of his patients’ medical needs — stitching up the injured, directing care for the hospitalized and keeping vigil for the dying. But doctors like him are increasingly being replaced by teams of rotating doctors and nurses who do not know their patients nearly as well. A centuries-old intimacy between doctor and patient is being lost, and patients who visit the doctor are often kept guessing about who will appear in the white coat.

The share of solo practices among members of the American Academy of Family Physicians fell to 18 percent by 2008 from 44 percent in 1986. And census figures show that in 2007, just 28 percent of doctors described themselves as self-employed, compared with 58 percent in 1970. Many of the provisions of the new health care law are likely to accelerate these trends.

“There’s not going to be any of us left,” Dr. Sroka said.
RTWT at the link. And there's a video as well, at NYT's homepage.
When my wife and I moved to Orange County, in 2000, to get resettled for my new job at LBCC, we ended up looking through a big fat book of doctors who were part of our Blue Cross HMO. We picked a doctor just by the sound of his name, and we've been happy ever since. It's been just like the family doctor we had as kids. The doctor gets to know you. He's friendly and even offers his own personal counseling if necessary. It feels like the old days.
Yet it's been quite different with the pediatricians. Our oldest son was 5 when we moved down here from Fresno, and the first doctor we found --- also looking in the HMO physicians catalog --- was a prick. When my son was referred to a specialist for breathing problems, we ended up going with the new doctor, who had a large practice in Newport Beach, with about a half-a-dozen doctors. We're still visiting that office. Our youngest son is 9 and he's had a couple of different doctors from that medical group, but for a while it was just one women who was a specialist on learning disabilities. She helped us with some attention issues my son was having, and it worked out really well. But it's definitely a crap shoot if you don't have good references. You're picking names out of a book and ending up with these fancy, modern multi-physician practices where you'll be lucking if the doctors remember your kids' names. It's a nightmare, frankly, especially with a baby. So I can relate to this story about Dr. Sroka in Maryland. It's just him at the office. Unless he has some other local doctors to fill in for him on call he's screwed. That's why no one wanted to buy his practice. Here's the quote from NYT:
Indeed, younger doctors — half of whom are now women — are refusing to take over these small practices. They want better lifestyles, shorter work days, and weekends free of the beepers, cellphones and patient emergencies that have long defined doctors’ lives. Weighed down with debt, they want regular paychecks instead of shopkeeper risks. And even if they wanted such practices, banks — attuned to the growing uncertainties — are far less likely to lend the money needed.
That's interesting. It shows again how social changes --- especially affluence and the pursuit of leisure --- have influenced the way coming generations view traditional occupations.

In any case, what can you do I guess?

More later ...

Post Title

→

The End of Family Practice

Post URL

→

https://kimberlyinkeldavis.blogspot.com/2011/04/end-of-family-practice.html

Visit Kimberly Fashion for Daily Updated Wedding Dresses Collection