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		<title>Make the Rich Poor: That’ll Show ‘Em!</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/07/make-the-rich-poor-that%e2%80%99ll-show-%e2%80%98em/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:41:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama’s greatest failing will be breaking his promise by raising taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year.  His co-greatest will be keeping his promise to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year.  He doesn’t even know when he should be lying.
The willingness to punish everyone who makes money is serving as his most [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Barack Obama’s greatest failing will be breaking his promise by raising taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year.  His co-greatest will be keeping his promise to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year.  He doesn’t even know when he should be lying.</p>
<p><a href="http://michellemalkin.com/2010/07/25/putting-the-tax-in-tax-and-spend-liberalism/">The willingness to punish everyone who makes money</a> is serving as his most glaring domestic failure.  Of course, Obama’s baffling desire to stick everyone in a level hole is a relatively secondary blunder compared to <a href="http://bigpeace.com/tgmccotter/2010/07/15/the-specter-of-chamberlain-obama-iran-and-appeasement/">an impending nuclear Iran</a> or irritably nuclear North Korea.  Those horrifying prospects serve as his potentially greatest worst accomplishments.</p>
<p>But even limiting ourselves to his domestic follies breeds brutal exasperation.  That’s especially true considering his attitude toward people who would be considered rich even though <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23796726/">they make much less than he did before he conned his way into the ultimate promotion.</a>  Even I have a fuller résumé than the President of the United States of America, and I’d have to check to see if I’ve ever held a job.</p>
<p>Personal work history-related memory lapses aside, I at least know that what’s yours is yours, and not just because you’ve emphasized repeatedly that you won’t give me a dollar.  I’m not bragging about my realization, as it’s not precisely a big deal to know more than the incumbent about anything.</p>
<p>Obama taking what he wants will leave everyone wanting.  While everyone will end up getting soaked by a plethora of new taxes, it’s especially true for people who already presently lose nearly half their untold millions to vast-government capriciousness.</p>
<p>The classless class warfare won’t help the recipients of ill-gained largesse, either.  By contrast, the well-off help everyone else live well when they spend away or try to get richer.  Obama expresses gratitude by setting out to ruin them.  He doesn’t strike me as one who’s liberal with dispensing words like “please” and thank you.”</p>
<p>Presidential grudge aside, there’s no justification for legalized pilfering.  For one, the jealous advocates of income appropriation proclaim that the targeted wealthy marks can afford to get by even if the government gobbles much of the prodigious checks.  But we can’t base tax policy upon a willingness to inhibit thriving.</p>
<p>Someone with 500 dollars in the bank can afford a Nintendo Wii and copy of Mario Kart.  Yet that doesn’t make it a wise purchase.  On a bigger scale, having enough capital set aside to buy a house without a subprime loan doesn’t mean that much of the pile should be surrendered to Washington.</p>
<p>That’s especially so because the receiver in question doesn’t precisely ask nicely.  Just because someone has funds in reserve doesn’t mean it’s wise to fritter away same funds, either through frivolous purchases or taxing.</p>
<p>Even worse, nobody is genuinely aided by redistribution.  Taxpayers end up obligated to throw sacks of money at whomever the feds think deserves it.  Based upon the government’s ability to recognize worthy recipients during the stimulus’s course, the impecunious are doomed.  A bloated, monolithic entity collecting mandatory payments doesn’t quite seem like the best means for assisting the needy.</p>
<p>And, oh yeah, sucking money away from those who earned it sinks the economy and naturally causes more poverty.  But don’t worry: there are federally-funded programs to combat the result of federally-funded programs.</p>
<p>Obama wants to place liens upon the earnings of the successful in the name of helping others.  Of course, nobody has yet through the course of human history created a society where <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/26/morning-bell-an-admission-of-failure/">spreading the wealth via involuntary handouts has benefited the economy</a>, to say nothing of those suddenly thinner fat cats.  At the same time, it was also never thought possible that we could have a president who could despise Britain and Israel while sucking up to Earth’s lowlifes.  So who could be sure what comes next?</p>
<p>What we do know is that state intervention is wholly unnecessary.  Importantly, rich jerks already help the less fortunate without using the feds as a middleman.  Um, they give them jobs.  At least that’s what I believe to be the typical result of free commercial transactions, although it’s tough for many Americans to remember firsthand.</p>
<p>The ivory- and silk-clad among us would love to be hiring people to work in their profitable foundries and dry goods retailers.  But there is presently a small quantity of affluent people who not only possess both enough to invest but also the willingness to do so.  Unfortunately, entrepreneurial risks are as rare under the conditions manufactured by the confiscator-in-chief as a genuine Blue Dog Democrat.</p>
<p>Further, it never occurs to Obama or his holdout backers that rich people might volunteer to assist the less fortunate.  He has apparently never written a check to <a href="http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf/vw-local/ways-to-give">the Salvation Army</a> or even dropped a few bucks in the Christmas kettle.</p>
<p>Why would he?  It’s Washington’s job to feed the naked, clothe the hungry, and buy all poor suckers health insurance, right?  Well, some charitable types who willingly give to worthy private agencies might disagree.</p>
<p>Where could people have acquired the concept of compassion without coercion?  Many of Obama’s fellow Americans learn the principle of sharing kindness on their own at church; sadly, he was instead learning to condemn the country from his pew.</p>
<p>Failing to grasp how money works is a common Obama theme.  Most strikingly, the multi-degreed president can’t figure out why opulent folks aren’t hiring after he initiated the process of taking even more of their currency.  The targets of economic envy should instead be permitted to do whatever the hell they want with more of what they’ve earned, especially considering their transactions help all us schlubs.</p>
<p>Tax breaks designed to reward the hiring of redundant broom-pushers won’t cut it.  Companies hire people when they need work completed, not to drive down the unemployment percentage for the White House’s benefit.  Why didn’t anyone else think that the best way to end joblessness is to hand jobs to people?</p>
<p>Alternately, allowing tycoons to keep more of their earnings would aid the economy than another century of Joe Biden-led recovery efforts.  Lower- and middle-class people get jobs as a natural byproduct of fantastically wealthy Americans building heliports on summer chateau roofs.  They have to buy their useless junk from someone, after all.</p>
<p>As with “stimulus,” “fault,” “teachable,” and a pocket dictionary full of other words, Obama doesn’t grasp the definition of “greedy.”  In reality, the truly greedy are those who feel they are entitled to redistribute someone else’s property.  They take your money and spend it as they want to teach you a lesson about selfishness.</p>
<p>Grabbing from those with ample means in the name of enriching the disenfranchised means that neither group will feel like working hard.  There’s also a practical crisis that accompanies the moral shakiness of taking an individual’s largesse and spreading it among people who have been conditioned to consider holding out empty palms to be work.  Namely, we’re running out of victims.  There are only so many people Washington can mug so many times.</p>
<p>But that won’t stop the White House from looking for easier innocent earners upon which to prey.  <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/26/will-secretary-tim-geithner-pa">In addition to</a> <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/438478/keep-the-bush-tax-cuts/deroy-murdock">the rich</a> <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/democrats-tax-smoking-and-tanning-poor-hardest-hit">and poor,</a> the Obama administration wants to <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/22/morning-bell-the-obama-tax-tsunami-is-here/">tax both the alive and deceased.</a>  There aren’t many planes of existence upon which to hide.</p>
<p>Our best bet is to have nothing.  Certainly, don’t try too hard to accumulate cash for about two and a half more years; consider it a vacation, especially if you’re already jobless like so many. <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2010/07/21/the_boundless_beneficence_of_big_brother">Unemployment benefits will last for a while, anyway.</a></p>
<p>These are inopportune times in which to earn, inherit, or win fortunes, as Obama is doing what he can to crack down upon success.  Everyone will finally be equal.  I still won’t like a lot of people.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>It Sells Itself</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:40:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Some claims are indisputable.  For example, disobedient monkeys are the most hilarious animals of all, beer with lime flavoring is for either sorority girls or commies, and all hand sports are superior to soccer.
Most of all, it’s eternally infinitely better to do and not say than to say and not do.  Running off one’s mouth [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Some claims are indisputable.  For example, disobedient monkeys are the most hilarious animals of all, beer with lime flavoring is for either sorority girls or commies, and all hand sports are superior to soccer.</p>
<p>Most of all, it’s eternally infinitely better to do and not say than to say and not do.  Running off one’s mouth typically doesn’t coincide with stuff happening.  That’s unless you’re a particularly compelling speaker who can motivate disciples to alter the world.  Often, even the ability to read aloud convincingly doesn’t initiate positive change, as Barack Obama would admit when Skyping with Bill Ayers.</p>
<p>It’s better to complete positive tasks than talk convincingly about how you’re totally going to do them tomorrow.  In that light, Karl Rove admitted he was bad in the best way possible.</p>
<p>Specifically, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/15/karl-rove-my-biggest-mistake-in-the-white-house/">he conceded that the George W. Bush administration won the shooting war in Iraq while conceding the journalistic battle.</a> He admitted he should have sold the war’s virtues better.  But, while they only did it half-right, they at least addressed the important half.</p>
<p>After all, they weren’t the only ones who thought the fight was just.  Of course, many Democrats joined the rest of the determined war backers in maintaining that Saddam Hussein was rotten for far more than simply being Satan’s lover, <a href="http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103919">as depicted in the <em>South Park</em> documentaries.</a></p>
<p>It’s important to remember how treacherous Iraq appeared to us at the time.  Intelligence is like assembling a puzzle without the box picture and all the pieces turned upside down.  Even then, situation appeared grave based upon the incomplete picture.</p>
<p>Crucially, the war’s justification went beyond Iraq’s real-time ostensible mass destruction capability the then-White House cited.  Disregard the time the Hussein regime was given to scramble during the oddly interminable rush to war.  What was important is that Hussein was an American-despising bad guy with bad friends who wanted bad weapons.</p>
<p>Would it have killed White House officials to say that a few times?  I don’t even need to be classified as a speechwriter for pay grade purposes, although it would be nice.  At the same time, the administration was perhaps too busy to address the media on account of how they were driving Hussein out of his palaces and into a more appropriate dirt hole.</p>
<p>The Bush administration was more focused upon public actions than public relations.  By contrast, there is Barack Obama’s life.  While stumbling upward could be considered a skill, he’s still nothing more than a marginally efficient narrator who is rendered useless when he’s not reading his administration’s own rulebook off a screen.</p>
<p>Most notably, his entire foreign strategy is based upon saying pleasing things to nasty nations.  They appreciate him telling the world how weak he is, as it allows them to plan dastardly deeds accordingly.  Coincidentally, America’s present counterterrorism strategy is also sadly word-based: we recite prayers in the hopes that the next monster who attempts an attack fails like his recent loser buddies in Times Square and over Detroit.</p>
<p>Obama says all kinds of other pleasantly empty things, as he figured his electoral triumph would be sufficient to fix all.  By coincidence, he’s always saying that spending all our money or putting us in debt will keep us afloat.  Of course, our despondent economy proves that it’s not so.</p>
<p>His ability to waste our money without helping us explains why he has been rendered politically radioactive.  In his case, it shows why big talk can be preferable to deleterious actions.  But he’ll revert to emptiness soon.  Once he no longer has Congress in his pocket following Election Day, his statist boasting will undoubtedly, thankfully become fulltime idle talk.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Obama’s biggest teleprompter-licking fans emulate him.  <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/25/emails-reveal-post-reporter-savaging-conservatives-rooting-for-democrats/">The exposed JournoList </a>embody not only partisan nastiness but also people who are bigger talkers than doers.  The Daily Caller has provided an invaluable glimpse at banal nastiness by unearthing their dull invective.</p>
<p>For one, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/journolister-apologizes-for-rush-limbaugh-comment/">a classy lassy named Sarah Spitz made a name for herself by hoping to watch Rush Limbaugh die.</a> Maybe she’d like him more if he had been a Klansman or let a campaign worker suffocate.</p>
<p>Even better, total badass Spencer Ackerman spent his free time <a href="http://twitter.com/TeriChristoph/status/19260070237">fantasizing about throwing conservatives</a> <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2010/07/22/daily-caller-runs-pieces-obama-election-glee-journolist-plus-one-call-vi#ixzz0uQFftXsI">through plate-glass windows</a> when he wasn’t urging his secret handshake club to randomly pick a conservative and call him racist.  Like <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704684604575381083191313448.html">Fred Barnes,</a> <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/conservatives-karl-rove-and-fred-barnes-respond-to-journolist-racist-post/">Rove must have been flattered.</a></p>
<p>It would be easy to feel sorry for the JournoListers were they not so miserably hateful.  In a way, they’re in the perfect field: as media members, they’re more focused upon yapping than accomplishing.  They spent too much time in communications school, which is to say any time in communications school.</p>
<p>It’s not that my journalism degree and I fail to contribute to the problem.  But I try to be less of a drain on civilization than the nasty weenie schemers in question.  For one, I’m glad I faked my way through all those liberal arts classes so I could turn out well-rounded.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t conspire with my ideological buddies on the best way to sully the good names of others in order to advance my political cause.  I may have dozed through the classes where they taught such a skill, which means I inadvertently lucked out.  I knew I’d eventually be rewarded for slacking.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the fraternity’s released conversations are as infuriating as they are amusing.  Some tree house club members whine that the Daily Caller is only publishing the most salacious tidbits, which means that they’re upset that someone is employing editorial discretion.  Further, they can fume about their private e-mails getting leaked; <a href="http://michellemalkin.com/2006/06/23/more-blabbermouth-posters/">national security documents handed to them by unnamed sources are apparently still fine to share publicly.</a></p>
<p>And we’ve also learned that JournoList’s members are consistent: they’re self-righteously, insufferably smug whether at work or hanging out at their 1996-style internet lounge.  Did they use AOL private chat rooms?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, similarly wayward journalists have also shown themselves to be effective at rhetorical subterfuge.  Most prominently, the “Bush Iraq lie” meme took hold among much of the public.  That said, at least many are waking up and realizing that Iraq is a marginally functional democracy thanks to David Petraeus and countless other American superheroes persevering and crushing our dishonorable foes.</p>
<p>But JournoListy types will still try to damn the evidence and convince us that their cunningly nerdy spin reflects reality.  It is their custom.  They do the same thing when they proclaim that Sarah Palin said all the dumb things Tina Fey actually did, the free market and not Barney Frank-led intervention pushed us to the brink of collapse, and that Tea Partiers are racist for wanting to reduce the debt to 13 figures or less.  They also point out that same small-government protesters are raging monsters when they’re not engaging in aforementioned fantasies about Mr. Limbaugh passing away.</p>
<p>Their strategy is to repeat risible claims so often that they appear true.  While not particularly clever, such a path is marginally effective in a rotten way that doesn’t bring about anything tangibly beneficial.  Their own hollow bitterness doesn’t count as a worthwhile byproduct.</p>
<p>But I’m still entertained by their efforts.  My new life goal is to make myself prominent enough that the erstwhile Journolists attempt to paint me as someone who’s as bigoted as I am prejudiced.</p>
<p>Enduring such lamely baseless insults would be as fun as Media Matters obsessing over you, John Stewart displaying a crap-eating grin after mentioning your name, or being named the Worst Person in the World by an alumnus of Fake Cornell.  Being the target of dirt clumps thrown by dirt bags is a badge of honor, <a href="http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2010/07/brian-ries-of-daily-beast-masterminded.html">as Palin clearly knows. </a></p>
<p>Of course, the agenda-laden journalists don’t achieve much at work or otherwise even if some of their craven smears take hold.  Their inability to engage in any activity that doesn’t involve speaking or typing must get frustrating.  It also explains why they’re so eager to paint their enemies as monsters: same figurative painting is all they can do.  Their results don’t precisely inspire humanity.  It’s to be expected considering they use such drab art supplies.</p>
<p>For comparison’s sake, the Bush administration was focused upon enhancing global safety instead of worrying about how the actions would look on the next job application.  They did what was right instead of talking about what they might do that would be right.  Fighting evildoers beats saying that evildoers will disappear, Mister Current President.</p>
<p>At least Rove has plenty of time to sell his boss’s side now.  One who tunes into Fox News Channel at any random moment is as statistically likely to see him onscreen as an ad for The Villages; he can use his time to explain why they did what they did.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate that he waited for one administration too long to make his sales pitch.  But such an approach is worlds better than running commercials for a product that hasn’t quite yet been invented.</p>
<p>A gaggle of tough guy lefty journalists can keep trying the latter.  Maybe they should have switched majors to advertising, where we at least expect the practitioners to conniving.  Buy what Ackerman is selling or he’ll mess you up, yo!</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Off the Market</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:35:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Donald Berwick is smarter than you.  He didn’t say so, although he really did.  Instead, Berwick implied as much in his own rather tweed blazer and tote bag-style fashion.  The new Medicare and Medicaid Services head maintains that maybe you need a little bit of help buying things, specifically everything you could ever want to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Donald Berwick is smarter than you.  He didn’t say so, although he really did.  Instead, Berwick implied as much in his own rather tweed blazer and tote bag-style fashion.  The new Medicare and Medicaid Services head maintains that maybe you need a little bit of help buying things, specifically everything you could ever want to acquire.  Of course, that includes health care, as <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/12/bowdlerizing-berwick">the present administration is not going to dare let you address your own well-being.</a></p>
<p>He’s so smart that Barack Obama didn’t even need to show him off his astounding intellect to the Senate, although they admire him so much that <a href="http://twitter.com/michellemalkin/status/18604045541">they’re still trying</a> <a href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D3457D3A-18FE-70B2-A8707157C830E38B">to set up a meeting,</a> apparently just to bask in his cerebral glow.  In lieu of questioning, they should test his brain for steroids <a href="http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/07/20/unpacking-the-berwick-surprise/">if they actually get to share a room with him. </a></p>
<p>But I am suspicious in my thick-skulled way.  By trying to free us from the free market, Berwick embodies Obamunism better than even if Van Jones was duct-taped to Rahm Emanuel.  How could that be bad?</p>
<p>Yet some of us still feel the need to resist despite who we’re facing.  Like me, you don’t have an Ivy League degree, after all, and even if you do you were never president unless you are one of the George Bushes.  In that case, thank you for clicking here, Mister Presidents.</p>
<p>Setting aside that totally plausible scenario, my non-Bush president readers can’t compete with Obama’s résumé, even if it’s only three lines (education: Ivy; current position: prez; references: call Bill Ayers).  What would you know about making financial decisions, you non-commander-in-chief?</p>
<p>That is, other than everything?  Americans prove every Obama administration member wrong constantly.  Dissenters don’t even have to list specific reasons why <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/07/15/john-berlau-financial-counterproductiveness/">the eternal bailout</a> is a recession-extending, corporate behemoth-pleasing nightmare.  Simply, they do it by living their lives and buying things.  The best case against the president is made by spending while existing.</p>
<p>People don’t have to go to some fancy economics school to know what’s good for their personal budgets.  I for one chose a path that was worse than no college: I majored in journalism.  Yet I still know that people even as unwise as me are far better at choosing how to spend their funds than any non-<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/paul-ryan-rules-out-2012-presidential-run-talks-mitch-daniels">Paul Ryan</a> wonk who plies in Washington.</p>
<p>It’s too bad there’s no way to prove that lack of bureaucratic interdiction actually keys commercial success.  The only exception would be each voluntary purchases made throughout human history.  As an example, any American can visit any mall, supermarket, Target, bookseller, electronics retailer, restaurant, bait shop, or pretzel kiosk and buy any item desired at a voluntarily acceptable rate.  Other than that, the free market sucks.</p>
<p>All enjoyably worthwhile transactions are made via interaction with private sellers.  That’s true no matter one’s definition of “worthwhile.”  You may think that buying <em>Twilight</em> junk at Hot Topic embodies civilization’s nadir.  And you would be correct.</p>
<p>But that’s someone else’s decision about the value they get for their money.  The baffling spenders in question get to choose how to waste what they have even if same choices would appall and confuse people with infinitely better taste.</p>
<p>On the other hand, dealing with a governmentally-planned mini-economy invariably leads to misery, frustration, and comprehension of why Obama succeeds at failing.  It’s too obvious to cite the Department of Motor Vehicles as an example.  But it’s too much fun not to, either.</p>
<p>Wait: you mean you don’t enjoy renewing your license?  The lines, service, price, ease of transaction, and wait time for the product in question to be delivered are all familiarly dreadful.  One needn’t be reminded that the departments are not in private hands.  But it’s always worthwhile for people to keep this fact in mind, especially as the feds attempt to DMV up every industry.</p>
<p>Similarly, we can envision the real-world horror flick that matches Berwick’s vision of expertly-planned health care.  And we can see it, too, as long as we look north or south while standing on our tiptoes <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/2010/01/18/canadians-make-buffalo%E2%80%99s-health-care-industry-healthy/">while facing certain neighbors.</a>  Instead of seeking out the best care at a reasonable rate from doctors and hospitals who must offer excellent service in a competitive market, unfortunate residents of countries that already employ acute versions of Obamacare wait and suffer while going bankrupt for the privilege.</p>
<p>Worse, the antagonist is already on the loose in America.  We already have semi-socialized medicine, as the elderly or poor souls on one of the very Mediplans that Berwick now runs can attest.  Government provides simultaneously inefficient and lousy care because there’s no competition.</p>
<p>The fact that assigned schemers assure us that they’re better at managing real life than those they’re serving provides little consolation.  Berwick’s agency proves him completely wrong, which would make him feel embarrassed if he knew how.</p>
<p>Likewise, mandating emergency room care for everyone sounds noble, right until people realize they can get non-emergency care at any time for any reason.  Yeah, that’ll hold down costs.</p>
<p>When it comes to those who genuinely require assistance, no reasonable person claims that any hospital would turn away someone in dire need.  If they diabolically did, the free market media would rightfully shred the diabolical institution in question.</p>
<p>As for newsworthy words, the process of spreading ideas online works well precisely because there’s not a Cabinet official or Dot Com Czar attempting to chart the industry’s course.  People post or sell, other people read or buy, and everyone’s happy excepting the administration that hates seeing a vastly unregulated frontier succeed immensely.</p>
<p>You have probably noticed that the internet works.  As a matter of fact, you may be interested to know that are currently using the particular medium of information distribution in question.  That’s unless you curiously printed out a hard copy, which just means you visited the internet first.  Either way, you visited my column freely.  Nobody is blaming or accusing you of anything.  But you are choosing your own path right now.  Bless you.</p>
<p>The ability to select any information you want in lieu of having Katie Couric dictate what she wants to you is the best thing that has happened to the industry since the invention of <a href="http://hunch.com/cocktails/journalist-cocktail/2511713/">the journalist cocktail.</a>  Naturally, a prominent liberal recently proclaimed that he wants to change what works.  Specifically, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger <a href="http://twitter.com/mkhammer/status/18522813125">wants the government</a> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324782605510168.html">giving food stamps to the press.</a></p>
<p>You’d better listen: the call to quasi-nationalize the media came from the boss of Columbia, which is a school connected to Obama.  That in turn means he is more awesome than us at everything merely by association.</p>
<p>With that in mind, I’m all for more funding of my life’s work as a freelance journalist, especially considering said work so obviously amounts to not much.  While I should apply for a NEA grant to hold me over for now, I’m ultimately holding out for a federal columnist slot and an accompanying fat pension.</p>
<p>Of course, I’d still totally get to make fun of the president.  Um, right?  Why would the bureaucrats who pay my salary with money confiscated from you get to control what I say via governmental fiat?  I’ve no idea.</p>
<p>Federal funding for publications and broadcasts that fail to draw audiences would be rewarding failure, which would of course be an Obama administration first.  It further means we’d be effectively nationalizing an industry that most Americans think must absolutely remain private if freedom of speech is to endure.  But doing so will prove to them once and for all that central planning works.  Um, totally.  Yes!</p>
<p>The public will soon warm to distrusting their non-Berwickian intellects in favor of letting government pros make decisions for them.  After all, federal intervention never fails to ameliorate and improve our circumstances.  Please don’t check the unemployment rate after reading the previous sentence.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Tee’d Time</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/07/tee%e2%80%99d-time/</link>
		<comments>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/07/tee%e2%80%99d-time/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:33:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Air America]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will the liberal Tea Party apply for a stimulus grant?  I really hope so, as that would provide the most obvious of ample indications that they’re doing it wrong.  The amusing news that several left-of-center groups are bunching themselves together and yoinking another movement’s name is the equivalent of me setting out to take down [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Will the liberal Tea Party apply for a stimulus grant?  I really hope so, as that would provide the most obvious of ample indications that they’re doing it wrong.  The amusing news that <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/12/progressives-form-one-nation-coalition-to-compete-with-tea-par/">several left-of-center groups are bunching themselves together</a> and <a href="http://www.newser.com/story/95164/liberals-organizing-a-tea-party-of-their-own.html">yoinking another movement’s name</a> is the equivalent of me setting out to take down the Coca-Cola corporation by selling my homemade sodie pop.  I haven’t made a sale- yet.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I just can’t get the carbonation right, which means I should probably leave it to the people who already succeeded.  My marginal ability to recognize a campaign I shouldn’t wager still puts me ahead of the fake Party.  They’re trying to cultivate a lush lawn by yelling at individual blades until they grow.</p>
<p>The movement, which Politics Daily amusingly and apparently un-ironically refers to as “grassroots” despite the fact it’s more obviously staged than Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marriage, is pushing some march in October where the people walking past will outnumber the people participating.  Their head schemers are undoubtedly presently drawing up a detailed outline on how to be spontaneous.</p>
<p>You can’t be surprised they’re doing it backward.  Compare them to the originals.  The one true Tea Party’s greatest virtue is its organic nature, especially considering it is comprised of people who aren’t sold on the value of separating recyclables.</p>
<p>Instead, they congregated because they believed: enough people were motivated to not be robbed blind and babied by law anymore that they spontaneously amalgamated as a consequence.</p>
<p>By contrast, the success of the alleged liberal alternative is based upon the expectation that people will show up to their contrived soiree once they get around to inviting them.  Sigh: so much French onion dip goes to waste when you plan a party without guests. </p>
<p>You can also tell who’s real by who each side listens to enroute to rallies.  As expected, the small-government gang tends to choose Rush Limbaugh’s pontifications to accompany the journey.  “Choose” is an important word: the broadcaster gained a formidable audience he’s kept for years without initial corporate planning or backing.</p>
<p>He merely offered something people wanted, and program directors in virtually every market took notice.  He succeeded in a marketplace where people are free to choose; it would be cool if we had a name for it.</p>
<p>By contrast, liberals listen to nothing, at least when it comes to programming that your tax dollars don’t support a la NPR.  Their preferred option vanished into frequency oblivion.  Specifically, Air America doesn’t air in America anymore despite featuring such charming rays of sunshine like Al Franken and Rachel Maddow.  Why did it fail worse than the policies its hosts hyped?  Well, it sucked, for one.  And one is all you need when you actually have to compete.</p>
<p>Other than laughing about <a href="http://twitter.com/JCred/status/18629527759">how Ed Schultz</a> is <a href="http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2010/07/lefty-slice-of-life-ed-schultz-melts-down.html">a remarkable lunatic,</a> there is precious little that’s entertaining about leftists paired with microphones.  Air America’s dreamers thought that all they needed to succeed was funding provided by painfully rich Marxists.  Set aside that it’s an odd approach for anti-fat cats: what’s truly amusing is that they decided that the audience needed them.</p>
<p>Air America subsidies were like federal solar panel bribes: the reasoning behind each amounts to thinking that the only thing keeping them from dominating consumers was a vast pile of startup money.  Of course, there are insurmountable real-world limitations when nobody wants a useless product despite inconceivable subsidies.</p>
<p>The difference is that it was much more enjoyable to think about Air America’s failure, as the financial losers were rich jerks who burned their money on Janeane Garofalo’s prison tattoo fund.  By contrast, we all pay for useless sun collectors thanks to our generous, and generously naïve, federal government.  It’s just the millionth waste of our money that prompted us to assemble despite minimal administration.</p>
<p>That said, liberal “Tea Partiers” enjoy the inherent advantage of not despising minorities like we on the right of course do.  But I still can’t ditch the suspicion that the only thing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People advances is themselves.</p>
<p>Actually, that’s not fair: the clueless dinosaurs also push <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/naacp-considers-condemning-tea-party-racism/">their baffling theories about how the truest racists are the ones who never do anything racist.</a>  That’s us!  The one-time useful civil rights crusaders now shamefully busy themselves condemning narrow-mindedness that nobody has quite seen.  But they just know it happened.  That’s why liberal critics of the true Tea Party inevitably return to sputtering about the “N-word, spitting” narrative they’ve created, even though that <a href="http://biggovernment.com/sright/2010/07/15/naacp-even-when-they-make-it-up-they-get-it-wrong/">the accusation isn’t, in the word’s dictionary sense, factual.</a></p>
<p>Claims that Tea Partiers have raunchier mouths than mid-80s Eddie Murphy are this year’s “Bush lied, thousands died,” as leftists figure the claim will stick if they keep throwing it.  Maybe the wholly disproved charges would be more effective if they composed a rhyme.  The G-20 Starbucks smashers should get on the case.  Chanting is their only skill, after all.</p>
<p>On the other hand, maybe we are using secret racist code words again, Bravo Tango Quebec.  There I go again.  But I’d like to emphasize I mostly do not talk in clandestine riddles.  For one, I think the NAACP is a sadly rusted hull occupied by mean-spirited dolts who sadly engage in dreadful race-baiting that fails to correspond with reality.  At least they can’t accuse me of cloaking my language.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s true that the Tea Party is packed with bigots.  We’re intolerant about ridiculously high taxes, for one.  Also, people outraged at Washington’s current state of affairs are prejudiced against a 14-figure debt and an entitlement culture.  Above all, small-government backers are racists for hoping that America will someday have its first good black president.</p>
<p>Wait: judging the incumbent by his dubious character might actually prove our tolerance.  But the Bizarro version of our polite uprising still won’t accept that we don’t hate the president for his complexion.</p>
<p>As a result, tens of them will storm the capital.  But they still face planning-stage crises.  One of the things the Lefty Tea Party (I can’t bring myself to refer to it as “Leftea” even though I want to) needs to plan before their wholly improvised gatherings is what sort of slogans and flags they’ll use.</p>
<p>Maybe they could fly an ensign with an image of a Play-Doh snake captioned Please Tread on Me.  Or, they could wave a standard featuring a cannon reading Come and Take It, Really underneath.</p>
<p>Hmm, those don’t seem to work.  Extend the Fed, I Think You Know What Stimulus Means, It Doesn’t Matter What This Sign Says Because We’re Going to Call Our Foes Racist Anyway: none of the suggested placard mottoes sound quite convincing, at least on paper.</p>
<p>I might dislike their Yippee for Obama-themed banners because I am closed-minded and also hatefully sexist/homophobic.  But I’m not worried about them luring me away despite my desire to live as a decent non-secret Klansman.</p>
<p>The whole manufactured left-of-center outrage doesn’t appeal to me, probably since I oppose the stimulus just because it made things totally worse.  But that doesn’t mean you should aim contempt at the alternate Tea Partiers.</p>
<p>In fact, be nice to them.  Wave at their softball team-sized group as you pass them on the way to meet hundreds or thousands of fellow small-government enthusiasts at a genuine event.  As a result, you’ll feel like Americans of different persuasions can coexist even though the other side is bad at it.</p>
<p>We’re going to win soon, anyway.  I don’t have the heart to tell the left-wing rip-off artists, but they’ll figure out on their own late on Election Day that lamely attempting to steal the Tea Party concept is as effective as an Obama endorsement.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>You Got Nothing</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/07/you-got-nothing/</link>
		<comments>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/07/you-got-nothing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:53:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[It’s remarkable, in its way, to spend a trillion dollars and return empty-handed.  Even Jersey Shore’s human cockroaches could figure out how to acquire tangible goods if handed such a sum.  It’s true even if they can’t fathom 13 individual digits, much less what they represent.  But they’re still vaguely human creatures that know you’re [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s remarkable, in its way, to spend a trillion dollars and return empty-handed.  Even <em>Jersey</em><em> </em><em>Shore</em><em>’s</em> human cockroaches could figure out how to acquire tangible goods if handed such a sum.  It’s true even if they can’t fathom 13 individual digits, much less what they represent.  But they’re still vaguely human creatures that know you’re supposed to get items back when you give someone money.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>Our oily examples would undoubtedly come back with a fleet of Camaros featuring 8-ball gearshift toppers, crates of alcoholic malt beverage, and a Bowflex if presented with an inconceivable cash sum like that.  It might not be much.  On the other hand, making money vanish with absolutely nothing to show for it is a talent that requires vapidity on a presidential scale.</p>
<p>In that light, Barack Obama is acting out another New Jersey-connected classic, namely <em>Brewster’s Millions.</em>  He’s spending away without producing assets, which I assure anyone who has not seen <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/">the Richard Pryor non-classic</a> is the protagonist’s goal.</p>
<p>This stimulating-free version is even less amusing, and not just because Joe Biden is a pale imitation of the late John Candy.  As seen with his failure to produce anything for our money, the resident president seems so hollow in part because everything he does generates practical emptiness.</p>
<p>It’s not just that Obama fails to deliver as often as his beloved Postal Service: people know he shouldn’t even be promising the things he does anyway.  As <a href="http://twitter.com/pinkelephantpun/">Tabitha Hale</a> points out, <a href="http://twitter.com/pinkelephantpun/status/18067073790">Americans are making a habit out of checking our most beloved crinkly document.</a>  By doing so, more are discovering it’s designed to run our government, not our lives.</p>
<p>Minor-league constitutional scholars realize that our president’s promises during his ceaseless campaign are not quite precisely allowed under our current governmental system.  More importantly, his words are wrong in more than a “making us buy health coverage is unconstitutional, duh” sort of way: what he says invariably means nothing because he isn’t good at getting anything done.  The only occasional exceptions are for bad stuff, although we’ll remove one exception once we void his health bill before it makes us all ill.</p>
<p>What good things has he implemented?  Take your time.  Actually, you don’t need to take any.  The greatest present success on American property is a petroleum-spewing fissure, as the fact it’s in federal water adds irony to the ceaselessly indifferent cruelty.  We can only hope <a href="http://townhall.com/blog/g/1d85566b-9647-4a58-902d-a86df5027c7f?comments=true">the latest cap</a> <a href="http://www.rttnews.com/Content/BreakingNews.aspx?Node=B1&amp;Id=1357457">caps it,</a> although <a href="http://twitter.com/HeyTammyBruce/status/18485587108">the feds’ call</a> <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/13/bp-prepares-test-new-cap-installed-leak/">for more analysis first</a> makes it seem like they’re cheering for the oil.  Either way, big government comes up very little when something bad happens, as is being proven by its biggest proponent. </p>
<p>He thinks that wanting something to be swell is the last step before having it.  For one, he’s crusading against the same product that, as mentioned, is mucking up our Gulf instead of fueling motorized land trips to Chili’s and Target like it should be.  Despite his haranguing about bio-whatever, oil is intrinsically useful despite how much we wish we didn’t have to use it.</p>
<p>Switching to sunshine or breeze power is not about marketing: discussion regarding eliminating gasoline consumption-based emissions is pointless when the alternatives work so poorly that they’re destined to remain as alternatives.  Of course, His Wordiness doesn’t understand, as he’ll keep droning about an addiction to foreign blah yip yap as if his speeches could change human needs.</p>
<p>Besides, Obama’s more worried about <a href="http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2010/07/08/a-chart-of-unemployment-since-1995/">pretending he’s able to get people to work</a>  than doing other things like sucking up oil.  Check that: he wants you to be in charge of creating work, totally, and he completely means it even though he doesn’t.  <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/geithner-president-understands-deeply-governments-dont-create-jobs-businesses-create-jobs-98030949.html">Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s ludicrous claim</a> that <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/09/morning-bell-anti-business-obama/">the administration understands the private sector creates jobs</a> is as convincing as a Nancy Pelosi grin.</p>
<p>What does Geithner know?  Other than not much?  Well, he understands government work: the administration’s most prominent tax cheat <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Geithner#Early_career">has spent most of his adult life working for the national government</a> aside from brief stints at Washington-sounding places like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Kissinger Group.</p>
<p>Geithner is the perfect Obama Treasury Secretary in that he has spent his working outs treasuring your money without your permission.  That’s why he and his boss are always scheming to jury-rig the economy: it’s their way, even though there’s no way their way works.</p>
<p>Obama is reminiscent of a VH1 I Love the (random decade) special: he fills time in an utterly meh way when you’re not infuriated by how criminally stupid the programming is.  Viacom’s most disposable channel inspires people to counter-react by reading or visiting the outdoors; similarly, the executive’s prattling about how we’re in Year Two Anno Obami is getting people to patronize Tea Parties and <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/think-big">ask Paul Ryan for his autograph.</a></p>
<p>To be fair, liberals will point out that Adolf W. Satan was president before Obama.  But the incumbent still knew who his predecessor was when he assumed office.  Blaming Bush is an Obama hobby that’s even more boring than his golf habit.  That’s especially so considering that he’s basically acting like Bush Enhanced on many issues.</p>
<p>It’s true.  George non-Herbert Walker really wasn’t a conservative on many points, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/will-tea-party-move-culture-toward-more-limited-view-government">especially near the end.</a>  His constant financial profligacy was sadly accompanied by a conciliatory tone toward North Korea and Iran.  At least he still irritated liberals, although that wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>Bush in 2002 versus how he was by 2008 is the difference between seeing KISS in 1977 and checking them out today: you’re spending worlds more and getting much less in return.  If Ace Frehley isn’t playing, stay home and listen to <em>Alive!</em> instead.  That said, Obama is like seeing a KISS tribute band named Crazy Nights that doesn’t know all the chords for “Detroit Rock City.”  It’s bad things made worse.</p>
<p>And we don’t like it.  Media foes think Tea Parties are nothing more than torch-making seminars for Republican shills.  But we’re angry Bible-thumping mobster monsters when it comes to any elected money-waster.  With that in mind, <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/07/gallup-obama-approval-among-in">attentive independents</a> are <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/325631">discarding Obama</a> in their independent way as they see his postures don’t resemble his results. </p>
<p>It must be nice to be a political mercenary.  At the same time, the tradeoff is not having fixed ideals.  Many unaffiliated types may actually gain a philosophy after all this Obama hoo-ha, as the current four-year planned crisis will cause them to choose the opposite tack.</p>
<p>All it may take is the aforementioned Speaker of the House telling us that <a href="http://scaredmonkeys.com/2010/07/02/16595/">paying the unemployed is the best way to lower unemployment.</a>  She’s teaching <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704862404575351301788376276.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop">them while reaffirming us.</a>  It is beyond obvious to acknowledge that Pelosi embodies the arrogance of Obama allies.</p>
<p>Such a trait is inherent to anyone who thinks they’re both entitled to and capable of bossing you around.  Obama is still trying to plan your life, which isn’t as kind as it sounds.  It’s nothing personal, but you can’t even do it: draw an outline of what will happen during your next five years, then read it in summer 2015 and either giggle or weep.  Now recall that Obama is attempting to map out what will happen for the entire nation.  It’s as if he considers himself an omniscient deity.  Oh, right.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/12/AR2010071205453.html">shrinking band of Yes We Can holdouts</a> aren’t willing to give in because it was supposed to go differently.  They like him because they’re supposed to like him: Obama was convincing about uniting us and making us famous.  The plan for doing so is forthcoming, presumably, but the important part is believing, right?</p>
<p>Nope.  They should give in and cheer for an accomplisher who shows up the president daily via competence.  Specifically, Bobby Jindal is emerging as the <a href="http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/gov_jindal_local_officials_bla.html">most fantastic of leaders</a> while <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/12/morning-bell-oil-spill-response-is-stuck-on-stupid/">facing the aforementioned catastrophe,</a> largely because of how he does stuff that’s actually useful.  It takes substance to deal with the substance polluting the Gulf; in true federalist fashion, what works has emerged on the state level.</p>
<p>People still moaning about Jindal’s underwhelming State of the Union response need to give him a break.  Focusing upon <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/02/26/bobby-jindal-is-a-brady-bunch-sleeper-agent/">the seventh Brady kid’s</a> style plays to the obsession with making suckers feel cuddly with empty phrases.  That’s exactly the tendency we should be avoiding from the 45<sup>th</sup> president forward.</p>
<p>Jindal is too busy saving his state to, say, pause for iconic photographs of himself.  Of course, he’s addressing his present tasks before even considering moving on to higher office.  He’s not complaining about his chores, either; it’s his job, after all, and he voluntarily applied for it.  Of course, Jindal realized that dealing with bad things is far more effective than talking about good things.</p>
<p>As for the nation’s biggest mouth, Obama’s foremost problem is going to be getting out all his junk in January 2013.  Can anyone see him doing much heavy lifting?  He’ll instead give a speech about the potential of rainbow-powered moving trucks, and meanwhile everyone else will be doing the lugging.  At least Robert Gibbs will finally make himself useful, assuming he can lift half a couch.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Thanking Obama (Seriously, Sort Of)</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/07/thanking-obama-seriously-sort-of/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:52:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Have you thanked Barack Obama yet?  Actually, wait.  The notion of dashing off a note of gratitude to a limply delusional embarrassment of a condescending phony may not have crossed your mind, anyway, especially if you’ve recently been trying to find work before two Iranian mullahs turn their launch keys simultaneously.  Oh, and the president [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Have you thanked Barack Obama yet?  Actually, wait.  The notion of dashing off a note of gratitude to a limply delusional embarrassment of a condescending phony may not have crossed your mind, anyway, especially if you’ve recently been trying to find work before two Iranian mullahs turn their launch keys simultaneously.  Oh, and the president still listens to David Axelrod.</p>
<p>Unlike with the Obama, we think long-term.  His nice note will not be in direct regard of his disreputable treatment of our allies or money.  Conservatives are looking past the present when they think of the president: he’s sort of totally screwed up today, and tomorrow isn’t looking fantastic, either.</p>
<p>But at least the misguided dunces among us provide a standard which we may avoid.  While it’s not as good as being good, our president is at least setting an archetypical bad example.  He’s doing something important, namely preventing an Obama clone from being elected for decades.  It’s unlikely we’ll come across a sugar-talking commie of his kind soon, but even a slightly less mellifluous shyster won’t stand a chance with voters.</p>
<p>For one, everyone is now assured that a president can’t change the world if the doesn’t know how the world works.  Obama spends his free periods guilelessly, patronizingly attempting to reform hoodlum classmates.  He’s effectively sliding up to the bad kids hanging out by the high school’s loading dock and asking for a cigarette like he’s one of the gang.</p>
<p>Obama thinks he can get them to come to class, not to mention that he thinks it’s his job as student council head to do so.  But his actual role is to let them rot away as loser delinquents while taking kung fu lessons so he may vanquish them in the cafeteria if they attempt to steal or flatten his juice box.  Jerks are rarely ever won over.</p>
<p>Anyone who sees social work as a key component of foreign policy is presently being decidedly proven wrong.  We’re nominally led by a do-gooder of a suck-up whose greatest foreign policy success is convincing Iranians to kill a woman convicted of adultery by hanging <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10565103.stm">instead of heaving numerous rocks at her skull over time.</a>  <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10596934.stm">Maybe.</a></p>
<p>The pre-savior-electing chatter was that we needed a president who would smile and glad-hand our way to permanent peace.  Not quite enough voters recognized this wouldn’t work, as too many either forgot or never learned that suckers’ natural role is to get shoved.</p>
<p>But this administration is provoking historical comparisons: some people need to see a Neville Chamberlain-type suffer emasculation to learn what never changes.  One prompt per century is hopefully sufficient.</p>
<p>At least people accept that it’s preferable to have a mean president saying we have to rough up a global bully.  Nobody likes such rough talk.  But Obama’s unwillingness to stand up to anyone outside of Honduras’s democratically-elected leader or East Jerusalem’s prospective tenants means he serves as a frightfully vivid embodiment of the alternative’s consequences.  To recap, the result is that our enemies party apocalyptically while <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/12/america-in-retreat">our friends tell us justifiably to sod off.</a>  Other than that, we’re safer and beloved.</p>
<p>Glossy talk fails at home, too.  People are not being duped by unlimited fantastic jobs talk, <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/obama-jobs-poll-zogby/2010/07/07/id/364001?PROMO_CODE=7A0A-1&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=Link&amp;utm_campaign=7A0A-1">at least not anymore.</a>  And yet Obama’s present lousy poll numbers are going to look like a coffee break taken on the descent compared to how he’ll be viewed in five years. Folks will look back and wonder how we ever coped with chronic double-digit joblessness; hopefully, they’ll spot the same job-murdering traits present in future unqualified presidential applicants.</p>
<p>And the next clueless charlatan pining for our vote who claims we’re can’t unconsciously run a free market is going to hope we don’t remember right now.  Specifically, <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/07/the-wit-wisdom-of-dr-donald-be">new Medicare and Medicaid Services boss Donald Berwick’s contempt for health care competition</a> is as obnoxious as it is typical, especially considering the president just chickened out of letting the Senate have a go at him.</p>
<p>The one thing more terrifying than being responsible for your own health needs is someone who thinks they’re smarter than you doing it for you.  They have legal backing, too.</p>
<p>People just need to keep the lessons in mind. Apparently, some need a permanent to-do list Post-It glued to their computer monitor frame reading, “1) Buy stamps 2) Spending and bowing are two things we don’t want our president doing 3) Pick up Stan from piano lessons.”  Those suckered by Obama’s fluffy promises about making the Marshmallow Kingdom a reality may never learn that he’s actually dragging us to Black Jellybean Hell without such emphasis.</p>
<p>If they needed to take more drastic measures, they could write themselves a note on their palms Sarah Palin-style.  Anytime they’re tempted to think Obama can single-handedly bring about a world of cooperation, liberty from want and worry, or unlimited free Skittles can merely look at their hand and be reminded that “He’s full of it.”  It’s a way better tattoo than some dolphin or Japanese characters.</p>
<p>Some need that message permanently inked.  Otherwise, we’re going to encounter yet another fresh embodiment of horrid centralized planning far too soon.  Our past is streaked with them, after all: Woody Wilson, FDR, and LBJ all serve as reminders of what happens when presidents get to spend away in the name of fixing us.  Namely, we end up both broke and broken. </p>
<p>That’s not even to mention the president’s most obvious foolhardy heir, namely Grinning Jimmy Carter.  Obama’s greatest accomplishment may be making America’s most notorious irrelevant dunce feel better about himself.  That’s when Carter is not <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024524.php">threatening Israel</a> or explaining why it was his plan all along to let Iran to keep our hostages for a bit longer.</p>
<p>Obama may as well have plagiarized domestic and foreign policy from the guileless grinning clown.  Man, that is such a bad ex-president from whom to crib.  Joe Biden could have finally been useful to his boss and taught Obama about proper plagiarizing.</p>
<p>The biggest difference between the disco and Bieber eras is that the aforementioned Iranian hooligans are much naughtier and are working to get much nastier weapons.  Yes, things have gotten worse since the Alicia Bridges era.  Also, we can at least respect Carter’s Navy service, particularly compared to Obama’s voter registration service.</p>
<p>Carter and Obama are otherwise identical, especially when we need examples of naively rotten lunacy.  Let’s just keep this one fresh, shall we?  It’s easy to forget everything in an instant.  I blame the iPad and Wii Sports Resort, but it’s happening regardless of the cause.</p>
<p>Take me: even I can only think of any random topic until the open window says someone I follow has posted a new tweet.  But I promise to try to remember the current revolting presidential situation if you do, assuming I haven’t lost my train of thought by the end of this ooh I should check Facebook to see if anyone liked that I had Burger King for dinner.</p>
<p>No!  I must focus.  Yet one more memory-aiding device might help.  Specifically, we should all take a digital photograph of the nice notes we’re sending Obama.  Next, print the thank you for serving as a warning about the dangers of electing an incompetently delusional egomaniac and place it somewhere prominent, perhaps next to your child’s A minus phonics test on the freezer door.</p>
<p>Regularly seeing a note encapsulating what we don’t like about him will help prevent Americans from ever falling for easy utopian promises again.  Like remembering your Social Security number, spouse’s birthday, or <a href="http://www.millertime30.com/">Ryan Miller’s</a> birthday (July 17, of course), the folly of everything Obamaesque will then come to mind reflexively even after he’s back to organizing/irritating smaller communities.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Deal With It</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:29:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://smartgirlnation.com/?p=7633</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Principles are fine until you realize that there’s a switchblade being held to your throat.  That’s a prototypical moment where you might concern yourself less with sticking to your ideals and more with not being mortally wounded.  It’s natural to turn to negotiating in such a situation, resulting in a deal to relinquish your wallet [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Principles are fine until you realize that there’s a switchblade being held to your throat.  That’s a prototypical moment where you might concern yourself less with sticking to your ideals and more with not being mortally wounded.  It’s natural to turn to negotiating in such a situation, resulting in a deal to relinquish your wallet in exchange for retaining your life.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s best to avoid street thugs to begin with; failing that, one is advised to carry either pepper spray that can melt flesh or a hand cannon that could leave a dinner plate-sized hole in any psychopathic suckah foolish enough to even scowl at you.</p>
<p>But the streets can easily be overrun if the Anti-Barbarian Task Force is emasculated by design.  For example, America is presently enabling muggers to run rampant through the filthy alleys of this rather menacing planet upon which we’re stuck.</p>
<p>Cutting the best deal possible under the worst conditions is a sad but persistently acceptable reality.  Barack Obama didn’t learn about this in law school; sadly, that means his lecture attendees weren’t passed the lesson, either.  It’s evidence that counselors shouldn’t be allowed to govern nations, especially given Exhibit A, namely his administration.</p>
<p>Everyone else is too busy living their lives to heed classroom idealism.  Take <a href="http://easterncampaign.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/hamid_karzai_2006-09-26.jpg">haberdashery devotee Hamid Karzai,</a> who has been <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/24/mcchrystal-lite-becomes-petrae">chumming</a> with <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-mcchrystal-must-go">bad dudes</a> as part of his duties running a tribal realm that happens to have a border drawn around it.</p>
<p>It’s fair to shake one’s head and fret about what will become of Afghanistan if their leader throws in his lot with brutish delinquents.  But what are his other options?  He simply wants to protect himself from even worse dudes if the world’s primary good guys <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/29/petraeus-the-commitment-to-afghanistan-is-necessarily-an-enduring-one/">suddenly become disinterested in him right around a year from now.</a></p>
<p>Our intermittent Afghani friend might be a corrupt chieftain with a brother more troubled than Roger Clinton.  But he’s also trying to keep his tenuous hold on a land of warlords.  Knowing that <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/24/timelines-gone-wild/">Obama is counting the days until Afghanistan is in our rearview mirror</a> doesn’t precisely inspire confidence.</p>
<p>With that in mind, Karzai is trying to cobble an alliance of misfits who are more concerned with projecting strength than democracy.  We used to do both simultaneously, but now avoid such jingoistic behavior.  Don’t you know that multitasking triggers the vice president’s migraines?</p>
<p>As a result, we currently talk big before whispering about withdrawing muscle.  With Stanley McChrystal relegated to guarding the White House arugula patch, Karzai is chiefly motivated by the desire to keep his head attached to his neck.</p>
<p>Resorting to scummy alliances is a global phenomenon that’s occurring across hemispheres.  Our wobbly pals in Brazil, who <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=179323">recently stopped sambaing long enough to dance with Iran’s jerks,</a> demonstrate the sad actuality.</p>
<p>But the Brazilians are only approaching the fabulously unfashionable Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because America is presently acting as weak as prison mess hall coffee.  If we’re not going to be good-guy roughnecks, fence-sitters will inevitably resort to joining forces with detention hall hoodlums.</p>
<p>Domestic conspirators are also prospering by shady affiliation, as the same basic rule applies at home.  Here, they trade ideology for federal assistance.  Most notoriously, Wal-Mart is the heartless retailer to Republicans and destroyer of liberal daydreams that also supported Obamacare.</p>
<p>They merely saw an opportunity presented by federal bullying.  Why try to trounce competing dry goods merchants in a free market when you can ensure their destruction by aligning with a meddlesome government intent on imposing a health plan with burdens and fines only behemoths can afford?  Wallyworld now sells socialism by the case; you can take some home with your crate of ramen noodles.</p>
<p>Also grabbing whatever deals they can are the professional gropers at Goldman Sachs.  The mysterious superrich conglomerate supports pure capitalism, except for how they attempted to cut themselves cushy arrangements by <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html">forming a lockstep alliance with the White House</a> while <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/misleading-rhetoric-disclose-act">giving other Democrats totally string-free cash prizes. </a> Getting in good beats going it alone, especially with pending financial legislation <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/29/morning-bell-the-dodd-frank-assault-on-economic-recovery/">murky enough that it may have been written by a rogue Ouija board.</a></p>
<p>The collusion gets sleazier.  The most famously unctuous Obama partner is naturally BP, which specializes in <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html">handing cash sacks to Obama administration officials</a> when they’re not fibbing about how many extra couple tens of thousands of oil barrels are turning the Gulf of Mexico into petroleum stew.</p>
<p>In lieu of competing fairly, the erstwhile British Petroleum most famously did what it could to implement cap and tax, a scheme which also would happen to drive tinier rivals to corporate bread lines.  There’s some sort of trend here.</p>
<p>Even a once-beloved cowboy has signed a Faustian pact with a cartoonishly mean developer in order to save the ranch.  Specifically, the National Rifle Association supports your right to keep and bear arms, but only in their spare time.  Their new full-time career revolves around supporting their right to unbearably keep <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/18/pelosi-pulls-disclose-act/">themselves armed</a> with <a href="http://townhall.com/blog/g/d3bafdba-a78a-49f2-bff9-980409b3420a?comments=true">an unfair advantage.</a></p>
<p>Their shameful championing of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/SmartGirlPolitics/posts/127613967277310">the hopefully-doomed DISCLOSE Act</a> reflects horridly on the present political environment, although they themselves don’t actually look too adorable right now, either.</p>
<p>The NRA has become the Charlie Crist of advocacy groups: they’ll do and say whatever they have to in order to induce you into liking them.  They’re begging the government not to leave, dear: they can change!  Ick.  They should move out, already.</p>
<p>Sadly and tellingly, the most right-wingiest of lobbyists is more concerned about preserving their existence than the guns; of course, that means they’ve forgotten that guns are the reason for their existence.  In a word, they’re sellouts.  As with <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-10-21-dylan-cadillac_N.htm">Bob Dylan appearing in those Cadillac commercials,</a> they should know better than to put themselves in such an unsuitable setting.</p>
<p>But the nation’s premier home for self-identified gun nuts is just trying to ensure it can continue to run off its mouth despite pending legislation designed to limit such yapping.  In that regard, they’re similar to both heartless conglomerates and pragmatic nations.</p>
<p>They’re all coping with imperfect circumstances, which Obama has proven itself quite proficient at creating and/or exacerbating.  This administration is far better at manufacturing chaos than jobs.</p>
<p>That’s the only thing they produce, in fact.  None of these White Housers have ever been near a factory, which is theoretically forgivable for dorks who chose public policy careers as a life path in junior high.  But they could at least respect the methods of those that are familiar with manual labor outposts, especially when it comes to understanding how workers and employers cooperate while mutually respecting self-interest.</p>
<p>For all the Country Joe &amp; the Fish idealism of the Obama administration, they have no idea how to get people to work together.  A hippie jamfest on the Mall won’t help, although Obama may next resort to suggesting such a positive vibe-inducing, stimulus-funded happening.  I bet nobody picks up their own garbage.</p>
<p>What else can the president do?  The one quarter-genuine job in Obama’s meager past, namely activating communities, has not translated into anything actionable at his present career.  Shrieking about racism when potholes aren’t promptly filled in inner-city neighborhoods turns out to be poor practice for America’s chief executive.  Sadly and frighteningly, it’s the incumbent’s only experience.</p>
<p>While it’s nice to think that he’ll have to change careers in a few years, it’s also mildly frustrating knowing he’ll get hired again in 2013 based merely upon his current position.</p>
<p>That provides further evidence that work samples should always be held in higher regard than a previous job title.  Hopefully, America can return to genuinely vigorous idealism that keeps nations and business from resorting to sleazy dealings at the same time Obama is begging for second interviews.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Oh, Yeah: the Oil Leak</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/06/oh-yeah-the-oil-leak/</link>
		<comments>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/06/oh-yeah-the-oil-leak/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:20:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The worst thing about a BP gush column is that I can still write a BP gush column and call it newsworthy.  It’s almost Canada Day, which falls on July 1 for those of you who can’t see North North America from the roof and are therefore unfamiliar with our favorite neighbor’s celebrations.
Hoser civics lesson [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The worst thing about a BP gush column is that I can still write a BP gush column and call it newsworthy.  It’s almost Canada Day, <a href="http://canadaonline.about.com/od/canadaday/a/canadachecklist.htm">which falls on July 1</a> for those of you who can’t see North North America from the roof and are therefore unfamiliar with our favorite neighbor’s celebrations.</p>
<p>Hoser civics lesson aside, we’re still waiting for a secret anti-spew plan more than two months after the initial burst.  Instead, Barack Obama operates at the speed of a Postal Service clerk after he’s given his notice.  Playing into stereotypes about government workers is just another service our president provides.</p>
<p>The spill will be a toddler soon.  The awfulness began on April 20, making this year’s Stoner’s Day far more than a mere annoying brush with languid self-righteousness that it typically is.</p>
<p>While Obama did issue a proclamation that day marking National Equal Pay Day <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-national-equal-pay-day">which in faultless left-wing fashion whined about “wage discrimination,”</a> he couldn’t bring himself to do something that required doing something.  Obama’s continually sluggish response can’t be chalked up to a severe case of the munchies without evidence, although it certainly would explain everything.</p>
<p>The Visine-Style President is unmotivated by trivial concerns such as the passage of months after a calamity’s commencement that directly affects the eight percent of states hugging the Gulf and indirectly the other 92 percent that eat fish and like tar-free beaches.  Castrofying our health care couldn’t wait one instant, but he’s promising to skim the petroleum tomorrow every day.</p>
<p>Go ahead and take your time, dude.  It’s not like professional basketball and hockey have both finished their playoffs since the breach’s inception.  Oh, wait: yeah they have.  Meanwhile, NFL training camps will open soon, and sadly many more sports dates may pass before the water’s clean.  The over/under might be set at America’s next World Cup victory.</p>
<p>And personal milestones are passing, too: I’ve switched from jeans to short pants during the unending disaster’s course, which the ladies naturally appreciate.  But exposed calves don’t simply remind us of the season change: my revealing daringness doubles as yet another milepost for presidential nonchalance.  Hopefully, Inaction Man will spring into action by the time jeans reappear in the fall.  But who knows?</p>
<p>Obama has had ample time to appear eager about preventing the Gulf of Mexico from becoming the dullest petroleum-centered tourist attraction outside of the La Brea Tar Pits.  We do pay him, after all.  Seriously: <a href="http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-53.pdf">he’s getting 400 large from us this year</a> to work at a Costanzaesque level of efficiency.</p>
<p>Maybe he’s just got more important things to do that don’t involve urgent catastrophes.  This spill is such a boring distraction for your president.  He’s got profound goals in mind such as sharing whatever money’s left among everyone and convincing our enemies to like us by prostrating.</p>
<p>Of course, he’d inspire more confidence in his comprehensive dreams if he could bother to respond to one specific event first.  This administration is going to transform Earth into heaven right after they figure how to cork a single breach in said planet’s hull.</p>
<p>Infuriatingly, he won’t even ink his rubber stamp to approve indispensable equipment others presently need.  While that refusal to use a petroleum product may give him street cred with solar power enthusiasts, he should accept the situation’s reality and brand as many documents with an [APPROVED] mark as necessary.</p>
<p>For one, would it be that hard to <a href="http://twitter.com/BobbyJindal/status/16404485514">let Bobby Jindal get the booms he wants</a> to, you know, keep crude from coating all the land in addition to the sea?  All we’d have left then is air, and we cruelly can’t live there unless we keep ourselves aloft in crafts that require liquid fuel.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/feds_halt_work_on_la_sand_berm.html">at least Jindal’s still trying to build berms.</a>  America’s beloved nerd governor has turned into the man who slugged Biff Tannen in the face of crisis.  On the other hand, his indirect superior is content to remain the subject of bullying.</p>
<p>Worst, the ass-kicked president is currently being pushed into lockers <a href="http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/06/24/pensacola-beach-closed-due-to-obamaspill/">by humble goo.</a>  The mess is insatiable.   For example, the ooze is worryingly now threatening <a href="http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/06/it-begins-plans-to-evacuate-tampa-bay-are-put-into-place/">one of our most picturesque cities in Tampa.</a>  I spent a weekend in <a href="http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/florida/entry/cigar_city_tampa_nickname/">Cigar City</a> ruining a friend’s wedding in 2008, and it was paradisiacal even though all the scenery spun for some reason.</p>
<p>I’ll be ticked if Obama allows the nicest of Bays to get ruined by failing to react.  The crude slime will apparently have to creep to the Potomac or Lake Michigan before the president springs into proficiency, although in his defense it appears he might not be capable of competence at all.</p>
<p>Obama ran on the principle that whatever he couldn’t fix with a magic wand could be repaired by placing his hands upon it.  The leak’s location, namely under a mile of water, should be irrelevant to our first president who can breathe without oxygen.  It’s possible that tales of his superpowers may have been mere braggadocio.  Still, he was the one who let the public believe some of the taller tales about him were laced with truth.</p>
<p>He started it.  Candidate Obama promised to <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=d912vd200&amp;show_article=1">literally alter the planet’s existence for the better.</a>  Yet, he can’t even organize the cleanup community despite how he’s had 17 months or so of practice.  Is it fair to hold him to the impossibly high standards he set?</p>
<p>Well, yes, of course it is.  For one, it’s fun to cite examples that encourage humbleness among a most immodest president.  But he’s proving that big government can’t respond to one localized event, which makes an airtight case against an ever huger government responding to everything.</p>
<p>And we don’t want your help no matter who you are.  One of his innumerable promises was to encourage hand-holding with every one of our fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth.  But he’s suddenly keen on slapping away some of the same hands.</p>
<p>It seems that our present foreign policy is based upon adoring villainous hives while despising assistance offers from virtuous enclaves.  We’re acting as ungrateful as the French, and I’m in a suitably foul mood about it.</p>
<p>We’d only accept responses to our distress call if the nations in question would unionize.  As it stands, Sweden isn’t even considering card check, so <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/24/flooded-with-help-but-oil-spill-cleanup-still-flailing/">they can keep their oil-sucking boats in the fjords.</a>  The same goes <a href="http://twitter.com/HeyTammyBruce/status/17200254508">for the Dutch,</a> <a href="http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html">who offered to help</a> without even suggesting that we go Dutch on the cost.  They’re paying, and we’re still refusing.</p>
<p>At the same time, it’s not as if Obama seems particularly fond of domestic sea-cleaners, either.  As a result, the languidly chaotic response remains in effect.  Delegation would help: decent bosses trust their underlings’ wisdom and know-how, and give them the resources they need to get things done.</p>
<p>But those types of bosses have been bosses before.  Of course, the president has never managed anything until now, as he brutally reminds us with every decision he makes.  His business card-sized résumé remains an issue because he keeps it as such.</p>
<p>He just might not trust anyone who’s mentally inferior to him, which is of course everyone.  Obama knows that he is the smartest guy in any room he’s occupying, which is why he can’t let others upstage him with their scrawny brains that are nowhere near as meaty as the president’s.  To be fair, he’s usually polite enough not to mention the fact aloud.</p>
<p>It’s hard to comprehend that someone who adores an activity as tedious as golf could be disinterested in particulars requiring his attention.  Obama’s biggest handicap is caring about his handicap.  We’ll stop criticizing his incessant golfing when he stops incessantly golfing.  But he remains famously, astoundingly tone-deaf to the perception that his only devotions are leisurely in nature.</p>
<p>He probably doesn’t hear the charges, as he’s too busy thinking about hitting whatever the hell the “links” are.  It never occurred to me to start golfing, but it should be apparent to him that he should relinquish his astoundingly dull hobby, at least for a bit.  Just stop golfing: is that asking too much?</p>
<p>Apparently, it is.  Suggesting he considers an 80-hour work week is out of bounds even as our favorite Gulf is coated in a film of darkness.  One of the few pleasant things about most attorneys is their willingness to live in the office.  By contrast, the nation’s highest-serving lawyer takes 5 p.m. quite seriously.</p>
<p>At best, Obama micromanages heedlessly.  As with the nation on the whole, he can’t trust anyone but himself to fix stuff, which leads to brutal troubles when he’s unenthusiastic about the particular stuff that needs fixing.</p>
<p>The eternal campaigner might have responded more adeptly if he had expertise managing situations aside from his own promotion.  But he’s not skilled at any and all tasks.  Basic oversight of a discharge within federal waters would have limited the disaster’s scope.  Instead, the response has been worse than the incident.</p>
<p>It’s not quite Watergate on the water, but his reaction isn’t provoking faith in his ability to cope with the office’s core challenges.  At least this sad example settles an argument: when it comes to nearly any imaginable scenario that doesn’t require dialing 911 or calling the military, don’t rely on the government in general and Obama in particular.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>Unfeminine Feminists</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/06/unfeminine-feminists/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:22:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[I’m totally a feminist, and I don’t just say so in order to get ladies to like me.  Yes, I hope it helps my case.  But let’s be honest: I don’t need the assistance considering that I am the mack daddy, meaning my feminism-based interest isn’t based in self-interest.  My affiliation is wholly altruistic.
In fact, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’m totally a feminist, and I don’t just say so in order to get ladies to like me.  Yes, I hope it helps my case.  But let’s be honest: I don’t need the assistance considering that I am the mack daddy, meaning my feminism-based interest isn’t based in self-interest.  My affiliation is wholly altruistic.</p>
<p>In fact, I’ve dedicated whatever career I’m in to advancing female issues.   Of course, female issues coincidentally generally tend to match humankind’s issues, meaning I haven’t had to change my focus much at all.  So, I’m no big shot despite what you’ve heard on the streets.</p>
<p>Sensible goals are universal.  While there are certainly a handful of issues which elicit extra feminine attention, what’s good for ladies also tends to be typically good for that other fiercely repugnant gender.  A small government that frightens both local and overseas punks appeals to astute males and females.</p>
<p>Conversely, the criminally ruinous aims of Obamacare and the folly of befriending Iran’s ruling hooligans are sucky policies no matter what one thinks of Jackie Chan movies.  It’s nice knowing certain lousy presidents unite cleverer members of the sexes.</p>
<p>But Barack Obama’s women’s studies fans are as progressive as they are close-minded.  To wit, they don’t appreciate conservatives claiming that feminists might not necessarily wear or at least sympathize with Che shirts.  As a side note, another thing they don’t appreciate is anything.  Just watch how they talk and act, and you’ll begin feeling stridently sad vicariously.  Please only do so in limited spurts.</p>
<p>Regardless, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/SmartGirlPolitics/posts/130954423596567">everyone is discussing the term’s nature</a> thanks to Sarah Palin, who found the eight trillionth way to vex her enemies by doing nothing more than <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/newsweek-cover-paints-sarah-palin-as-a-prophet/">serving as the subject of an unauthorized Newsweek profile.</a> The magazine’s staff probably deserves gratitude, too, although I’m guessing they didn’t inspire the amusing debate purposefully.</p>
<p>The combatants are waging an as-yet bloodless semantics battle.  Palinistas maintain that feminism is a broad category that includes any bad-ass female who can kill a mountain lion with her bare hands and process the meat into a casserole she serves her children after picking them up from soccer practice following spending the day writing books and before making a Sean Hannity show appearance.</p>
<p>On the other hand, constricted leftists think the nebulous word in question can only refer to untainted Marxists who think that civilization’s greatest threat is Hooters’ existence.  There isn’t much overlap in the Venn diagram.</p>
<p>With that impassable chasm in mind, we may as well make fun of the other side.  They despise laughter, meaning teasing them is an extra-fun way to provoke them.  The only thing the hard left hates more than allegedly oppressive men is enjoying things.</p>
<p>It was inevitable that they would end up this way considering the nature of their fundamental flaws: they somehow demand unqualified equality while simultaneously treating guys and ladies as if they’re different species.</p>
<p>Take the left’s unceasing focus upon “women’s rights,” which confuses fairness with sameness.  Their preoccupation implicitly suggests that the gender in question is not only institutionally mistreated but must patronizingly be given artificial opportunities to control same institutions in order to impose an estrogen revolution.  As a result, we get Sonia Sotomayor blazing trails thanks to her innate characteristics, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/436872/roberts-rules/andrew-c-mccarthy">not to mention doltishness.</a></p>
<p>Of course, they also treat men as brutish oppressors for acting like gentlemen.  Any gesture intended to treat a woman respectfully is huffily refused as an implication of weakness by the same types of females who bafflingly don’t like being told they look nice, either.  I’m a chauvinist pig who still opens car doors and pulls out restaurant chairs, which means I’ll never get to date <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_Fair#Dates_and_venues_4">a Lilith Fair revival patron.</a> This is my loss.</p>
<p>Most notoriously, their parochial definition of feminism mandates that anything short of mandatory abortions as a tacit endorsement of womanly slavery.  Man, they love abortions.  After all, it’s the cheapest form of empowerment available: the barbaric practice is a shallow, brutal, and ironically childish way to preserve a life dedicated to dodging consequences.</p>
<p>Of course, endorsing unfettered abortion access means failing to recognize legitimate dissent.  Namely, maybe some women and other humans find that permitting the procedure serves as the equivalent of claiming robbers and rapists are making a personal choice.  In reality, your rights end when you’re bringing harm to another.  Fetuses can’t exactly fight back</p>
<p>The indignant ladies of the left fail to grasp that, while your uterus is your property, its contents may include another human being.  It may not seem fair that only one side bears babies, but there’s no do-over for the genetic lottery’s results.</p>
<p>And women get the advantage of not having hairy, utilitarian vessels in which their souls reside, so it probably works out to be even.  Besides, it’s best that men can’t lug around offspring in their abdomens, as they’d rest dip containers upon the bulge.</p>
<p>But there’s no room for debate.  Why would lefty femmes accept that there might be alternative views?  It’s easier to indulge in their preferred technique of phrasing issues so that anyone who disagrees is as dumb as they are diabolical.</p>
<p>Their hobbies include portraying those who don’t want to terminate pregnancies at their leisure as proponents of confining women while hassling them.  They never consider that being permitted to do anything you wish may be bad for both females in particular and humans in general.</p>
<p>It’s not the first time: to cite a classic example, Sotomayor’s bench mate in Clarence Thomas has been famously portrayed as a race traitor because he advocates restraining the government in general and the judiciary in particular.</p>
<p>They declare that it is unacceptable to consider that either certain races or genders might be okay without comprehensive federal intervention and income redistribution.  You’re probably not against war or pollution either, are you, heartless conservative?  P.S. You hatemonger.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, womyn with a y are unconscionably defensive when they encounter people who see the world differently.  Why would they be willing to accept that someone might frame a term more broadly?  It’s tough to pull off for those who are so reflexively insufferable.  Maybe writing an indignant blog about how Fox News Channel’s primetime hosts are fascists who are mostly non-female would be cathartic.</p>
<p>In that light, it’s just tiresome to argue over whether the feminism’s reach extends to any strong women or merely a narrow band of non-leg shavers.  I advise letting the other side win.  The scuffle for the word’s soul is one that conservatives should gladly concede.</p>
<p>If the nasty, male- and self-hating left wants the word “feminism” that badly, let them have it.  For one, we wouldn’t have to argue with them anymore, which leads to the intuitively obvious advantage of not having to interact with them.</p>
<p>More importantly, they’ve ruined the one-word term, anyway.  “Feminism” is tainted with the cooties of a stridently despondent belief system.  It’s not worth capturing and re-branding considering the BP-level damage they’ve inflicted upon the label.</p>
<p>Let them pulsate with anger.  They can continue to spend their waking hours and much of their dreaming looking for imaginary gender-based slanders.  Further, they can fume about pay discrepancies without considering that some mothers don’t want to carry their children up the corporate ladder.</p>
<p>On top of that, the shrill can continue to stammer about how the two sexes may generally pursue different careers; the fact more men, say, pursue scientific careers upsets them because it suggests the profoundly reactionary notion that men and women may be different.  Only my fellow cave-dwellers and I would even consider such a possibility.</p>
<p>But I’m hoping to locate more people to join our intransigent tribe.  Are there any delightfully smart-alecky women who agree with me?  Of course, this very site’s existence demonstrates that conservative beliefs appeal universally.  The same, to use my beloved late grandfather’s term, gals with SGP profiles are the ones who happily acknowledge that physiological differences make life fun more than anything else.</p>
<p>Such a complicated, two-component human actuality only serves as a foreign concept to the nasty harpies that couldn’t even imagine talking to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/georgewbush">a George W. Bush Facebook fan</a> or <a href="http://takethatmedia.com/index.php/category/sgn/">Smart Girl Nation podcast listener.</a> Foes of Tea Parties complain about society’s injustices and become indignant whenever anyone notes even mild gender differences.  Then they wonder why they men find them off-putting.</p>
<p>Such confusion is to be expected from women who despise the word “chick” like they do, which serves as the most telling difference between leftist and conservative feminist versions.  Those chicks need to lighten up.  Such hypersensitivity invariably leads to overwhelming bitterness.  Don’t they get lonely?  Oh, yeah: they do.  And, oh, yeah: that explains much.</p>
<p>What’s important is that the word “feminism” has been ruined by liberals as much as “stimulus” has.  The goal is to eject them from power before they can inflict any more damage upon Mister Dictionary.  Naturally, the rotten shrews will brand me a sexist for assuming the dictionary is male.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>One Hundred Percent or Zero</title>
		<link>http://smartgirlnation.com/2010/06/one-hundred-percent-or-zero/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:36:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Anthony Bialy</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Is everybody happy?  No.  Of course not.  And the pall of misery is not contained to those trying to make a living on the Gulf of Mexico or watching MSNBC, as even people in such dire situations may be able to eventually leave behind their personal trauma.  Innumerable perpetual gripers with no real concerns have [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Is everybody happy?  No.  Of course not.  And the pall of misery is not contained to those <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/15/usual-gulf-vacationers-rethink-plans/">trying to make a living on the Gulf of Mexico</a> or watching MSNBC, as even people in such dire situations may be able to eventually leave behind their personal trauma.  Innumerable perpetual gripers with no real concerns have cases of the Mondays all week, such as, oh, me.</p>
<p>The inescapability of irritability applies more generally, too, as striving to make every adult happy is like giving Red Bull to five-year-olds and expecting them not to be fussy during naptime.  My suggested science experiment on kindergarteners might be considered by some uptight parenting experts to unlawful, immoral, or both.  Thankfully, we don’t need to conduct it: we already know that the individual humans comprising humanity can’t all get their joyful way, much less at once.</p>
<p>Short of researchers uncovering methods for generating unlimited free pizza and building roller coasters in place of highways, complete contentment will never be attained, especially since so many people seem to prefer wallowing in crumminess.</p>
<p>That cantankerous fact is immutable: even Barack Obama, who is of course the human quintessence of decency and sunshine, cannot mandate that his fellow Americans must ditch the permanent grumpies.  He’s still sadly trying, which is actually only infuriating us further.  Many are responding to his efforts to do so by gleefully waving at the executive with one finger.  Perversely and perfectly, the brazen gesture ameliorates gloom.</p>
<p>Of course, we have little about which to complain no matter how much damage George W. Bush has inflicted upon our wallets during the Obama presidency.  Even in the commanding, controlling year of 2010, <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/08/new-poverty-measure-doesn%E2%80%99t-add-up/">most Americans enjoy astoundingly high living standards that are the envy of virtually all people ever.</a></p>
<p>Barons from earlier centuries would weep upon being exposed to the luxuries enjoyed by contemporary American bank tellers.  Poor people here are uncommonly blessed, although you may not always hear them praising the nation over the combined din of the microwave, air conditioner, and Margaritaville blender.</p>
<p>But the availability of ample simple comforts to most just isn’t enough for Obama.  It’s still not fair here, you see: some people aren’t able to McMansion themselves or tool around the burbs in a Range or Land Rover.  Why should only Wall Street goons get nice things?  Therefore, Obama’s guiding principle following his ascension has been to smack down the opulent in the name of assuaging the incompetent, ungifted, and/or hardscrabble at every occasion.</p>
<p>But confiscating from the rich while handing shady mortgages to the poor turns out to be <a href="http://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2010/06/14/long-hot-summer-begins-congressman-attacks-student/">as dangerous as asking Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC) a question.</a>  Hey: we’re all broke and fearful.  When Washington tells us to empty our wallets, they stay empty.  Blame the present administration for thinking everyone is entitled to nice things, only not too nice.</p>
<p>Of course, Whole Foods franchises aren’t the only ones penalized into oblivion when the rich are dragged down: the people fat cats employ get shafted, too, along with the respective Whole Foods register and cart jockeys.  And marginal homeowners aren’t precisely thriving post-foreclosure, either, unless they’re good squatters.  Spreading the wealth doesn’t work if there’s no wealth to spread.</p>
<p>The notion of broadening agony also applies to universally wretched health care.  The insurance system that not all but most mainly liked just wasn’t good enough.  In lieu of stitches, <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/14/morning-bell-the-government-bailouts-must-end/">Obama slashed the patient until he was in debt, and also deceased.</a>  To make it fair, Obama will make it so everyone hates their health treatments and costs equally; it’s an odd but technically accurate form of consensus.</p>
<p>Further, we can’t tap all the oil we can out of Mother Keg because it would sadden yaks, <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2010/06/14/the-obama-window">not to mention their human defenders.</a>  <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/blogs/yeas-and-nays/Hot-mess_-Laurie-David-was-Al-Gore_s-love_-Star-magazine-reports-96428604.html">The recently-single Al Gore</a> and his evergreen minions can’t imagine a world where an airplane-sized chunk of Alaska is sullied by bulldozers, meaning oil that would help all of us goes unused to placate them.</p>
<p>The dirt adorers are joined by a handful of the rich twits who don’t like having their views obstructed by human creation.  Obama is supposed to loathe these opulent parasites.  Unfortunately, they wouldn’t donate to him if there’s a blip on the Gulf of Mexico’s horizon, so drillers can only ply their trade in the deep.  <a href="http://twitter.com/BobbyJindal/status/15786421528">That</a> <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-15/obama-oval-office-speech-was-stubbornly-passionless/">may</a> <a href="http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/06/15/barack-obama-embraces-his-inner-jimmy-carter/">have consequences.</a> </p>
<p>The stab at fueling America without burrowing in or near it embodies how the president tries to give 100 percent of people everything they want.  How’s that working, Santa?  Ironically, his policies cause the precise opposite of widespread happiness, so at least there’s a reason you presently feel like junk.</p>
<p>His delusions about consensus are an international problem.  The man absolutely guaranteed to be a future United Nations Secretary-General loves the painfully turgid bureaucracy and consumer of souls that is the waste of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Bay,_Manhattan">Turtle Bay</a> real estate.</p>
<p>The love for all things UN stands as Obama’s most defining broader aspect, other than his love for basketball that bigots like me feel obligated to mention.  What wouldn’t he like?  The pompous/puissant diplomats from national hovels who barely deserve flags embody noble human goals by occupying their assigned seats and telling Israel why it sucks.</p>
<p>More specifically, the Security Council epitomizes Obama’s idealized model of selflessly benevolent cooperation that all our planet’s peoples desire.  On an unrelated note, it’s merely coincidence that <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/11/sesame-street-celebrates-40th-anniversary-with-premiere-on-november-10th/">Obama was eight when <em>Sesame Street</em> premiered.</a>  But the ideal doesn’t quite match the wretched reality.  In practice, the parking ticket-ignoring factory’s upper echelon is a practical example of why demanding unanimous consent is an undisputedly useless approach: some people are jerks, and it’s best to disagree with them.</p>
<p>In fact, the majority of the Council is comprised of nations who you’d duck at the reunion if they were high school classmates.  I’ll take the United Kingdom’s identical vote as a propitious sign, if only because I’ve seen the Rolling Stones twice.</p>
<p>But I don’t ever want to agree with the non-oatmeal stout-championing nations of France, China, or Russia at once on anything.  Finding ourselves in accord with all three varyingly disagreeable nations simultaneously is a sign to grab your flash drives and photo albums before rushing to your bunker.</p>
<p>But Obama wouldn’t see such a 5-0 vote as agreeing with the disagreeable.  After all, he thought that his soothing lectures were the only thing Americans and other Earthlings would adore more than his take on collectivism.</p>
<p>To Obama, the only American who should be held responsible for his actions is George W. Bush.  But absolving everyone else of accountability in the name of communality thankfully isn’t enough of an enticement for us to like him.</p>
<p>The president thought we all loved him while disregarding that he won under 53 percent of the popular vote.  Factor in <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll">how many of his former supporters aren’t interested in being fooled again,</a> and it’s clear Obama can’t even cobble together a majority, much less full unity.  Don’t let him talk you into ordering pizza toppings you don’t want even if he plays the national harmony card.</p>
<p><em>Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in </em><em>Western New York</em><em>.  He blogs at <a href="http://thebuffalobean.com/">http://thebuffalobean.com</a> and tweets at <a href="http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy">http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy</a>.</em></p>
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