Blue Crab Boulevard

I think this is probably the best analysis of the difference between left and right that I have ever read. The Ace nailed this one, cold.

The left, to a man, considers itself to be educated and enlightened. It matters not how little actual schooling a particlular leftist may have had, nor how unintelligent the person might be. They all consider themselves intellectuals of sorts. If they dropped out of college after one semester, they just think of themselves as autodidacts whose genius could not be stimulated by the ossified and bourgeois teaching of the academy. If they're just plain stupid or crazy — like, say, Charlie Sheen — they indulge in farcial conspiracy-theorizing, reassuring themselves that they are intellectual because they know things others do not. They are one of the chosen few brave enough to see past the web of lies and glimpse the arcane truth behind, say, the implosion of the World Trade Center (a SEAL team planted those charges, you know?).

This conceit, usually wholly undeserved, of practically every leftist in the world is what makes leftism so intoxicating for the intellectually insecure, and what makes leftists so easily led and manipulated. It's an attractive doctrine for those who wish to conceive of themselves as intellectual and brilliant, for it provides an instant short-cut to the equivalent of an MIT education. If you simply believe these things we tell you to believe, you are one of Us, one of the Intellectually Elite, one of the Cultural Vanguard. Just as giving oneself to Christ, and believing in His power, and accepting the need for and gift of His redemption, instantly makes one "saved" and enters one's name in the Book of the Heaven, so too does accepting leftist tropes and core beliefs make one one of the Secular Elect.

Now, the things the left wants you to believe are not easy to believe. It's hard to believe that, for example, taxing work and investment will not reduce work and investment (especially when one simultaneously believes that taxing the use of gasoline or other energy will reduce the use of gasoline or other energy). Nevertheless, while it may be difficult to believe these things, it's certainly easier to simply give in and believe these things than to, say, earn a Ph. D. in literary theory or semiotics or even something stupid like science or engineering.

So, if one wants to conceive of oneself as an intellectual, one can either actually become an intellectual — which frankly takes a lot of work and reading, much of it terribly boring — or one can simply believe what Noam Chomsky tells one.

Having worked for many years among people educated in the hard sciences of engineering and mathematics I can attest to the fact that there are very, very, very few leftists among the ranks. I've also long noted that there are an inordinate number of people with degrees in the very soft disciplines (literature, philosophy and the like) who are very much to the left. Many on the left honestly seem to think they are intellectually superior, even when their arguments are, frankly, childish.

Leftism, and liberalism, and progressivism, and etc-ism. are not merely simple politics for most of these people. Their politics to them are a core part of their identity, and, more importantly, a central support propping up their egos. They are enlightened because they believe these things; someone who does not believe these things, and yet who, superficially at least, appears to be about as smart as they might be, represents a threat to their egos. The foundation upon which a crucial structure of their sense of self-worth is undermined if they discover that there may be people who can pass as normal and intelligent and yet do not believe as they do.

If one is smart, then one believes in progressivism.

If one believes in progressivism, then one is smart.

Those are the two assumptions that prop up their sense of self worth, and they are refuted by examples of smart people who don't believe in progressivism.

I really think Ace hit it here. Read the whole thing. It's a longish post, but well worth the time.

UPDATE: Callimachus at Done With Mirrors sees the same thing in action with another favorite target of lefty hate.

President Bush is asking for a compromise on immigration. Honestly, I suspect Bush missed the opportunity here. Had he supported border security first, most  of the rest of this could have been settled. Now, there are politicians reading polls and realizing they can't support a lot of compromise and expect to hold their seats.

I think this is a missed opportunity that will haunt Bush.

I also suspect the mess the Senate passed is DOA.

In the rush to judge everything America does as wrong, I see an article like this and wonder - yet again - how the left can remain silent to this. The Palestinians decided to test Israeli defenses at a checkpoint.

By sending kids toward the gate carrying toy rifles.

A group of Palestinian children were sent towards the Gaza Strip border fence holding toy guns on Thursday in order to test the vigilance of the soldiers on duty.

From a distance, troops noticed four apparently armed Palestinians approaching the border north of the Kissufim crossing.

When the four were some 400 meters from the fence, the soldiers realized that they were children, who looked to be about 13 years of age, and that their guns were toys.

The Gaza security fence has become the scene of almost daily incidences of would-be infiltrations from the Gaza Strip, attempted terror attacks, and occasionally exchanges of fire. Earlier Thursday, IDF forces arrested two unarmed Palestinians who breached the fence in order to cross into Israel.

Could someone - anyone - on the left have the human decency to decry this? Please? Instead of screaming about American soldiers, could you spare just a tiny bit of outrage for this?

For the sake of your humanity.

Just another couple of days in Parisadise it seems. Rioting unemployed youths rampaging through the streets of one of the suburbs, yet again.

PARIS, May 31 — Small gangs of youths pelted riot police with rocks and set cars and garbage bins ablaze late Tuesday in a second night of unrest in the Paris suburbs, raising fears of a return of the disturbances that inflamed 300 French towns and suburbs last fall.

The violence of the last two nights — in which youths attacked police cars, government buildings and riot police — was sparked in part by mounting resentment toward the mayor of the northeastern Paris suburb of Montfermeil, who in recent weeks imposed a law prohibiting 15- to 18-year-olds from gathering in groups of more than three and requiring anyone under 16 to be accompanied by an adult on city streets after 8 p.m.

The French government last fall promised to improve living conditions and job opportunities in suburbs heavily populated by immigrant families and where unemployment is rampant, but little has been done and the government's main initiative — a youth jobs bill — ended with this spring's politically disastrous student demonstrations.

At the same time, police have said crime has increased in poor suburban neighborhoods, and frustration with the government has continued to fester.

The leftist blame the government. Maybe it's more important to point out that the unassimilated, unskilled people the French let is as "guest workers" could have been a bit of a mistake.

So tell me again why our government wants "guest workers"? Tell me again how letting scads of low skilled people in will improve the country.

Today my ongoing mission to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day led me over to Ace In The Hole, a blog from Texas. Texas Fred is a little bit annoyed at an immigrant rights group that wants to remove the Sheriff of El Paso County for actually doing his job. No, really. They do.

Carrying on with more conspiracy theories, Robert Kennedy, Jr. assures us that the election of 2004 was so stolen. Not proof, but lots of "troubling" factoids.

Trying to refight the last election is a particularly useless exercise, but let's address the suspicions, innuendo and fear-mongering with two easy steps:

Paper ballots and positive identification of registered voters via valid ID.

Problem solved.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl is real impressed, too. So Is Confederate Yankee. Common Sense And Wonder as well.

Bruce Kesler over at Democracy project has a post up about the basic rules of reporting. It also discusses professionalism and where you can and cannot see it at the moment. Go read the whole thing.

The New York State Comptroller is apologizing for making a remark about "putting a bullet between the President's eyes".

NEW YORK — State Comptroller Alan Hevesi publicly apologized Thursday for a "beyond dumb" remark about "putting a bullet between the president's eyes."

Hevesi hastily called a mea culpa press conference hours after putting his foot in his mouth at the Queens College commencement.

The Queens College media relations office said it had videotaped the commencement but could not immediately provide a copy of the tape or a transcript.

At the press conference, a contrite Hevesi repeated what he recalled saying in the speech. The comptroller said he was merely trying to convey that Sen. Charles Schumer has strength and courage to stand up to the president.

Nope, no out of control hate here. Nothing to see, move along.

There are a lot of people out there who really don't understand computers and how they work. So, it's fairly common for folks to take a computer in to someone to have a problem taken care of, or a computer upgraded. So here's a story that those of you who do not do your own computer work need to pay attention to.

A year ago, Henry and Roma Gerbus took their computer to Best Buy in Springfield Township to have its hard drive replaced.

Henry Gerbus said Best Buy assured him the computer's old hard drive — loaded with personal information — would be destroyed.

"They said rest assured. They drill holes in it so it's useless," said Gerbus.

A few months ago, Gerbus got a phone call from a man in Chicago.

"He said, 'My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea market in Chicago,'" said Gerbus. "I thought my world was coming down."

Gerbus and his wife had good reason to worry. A total stranger had access to the couple's personal information, including Social Security numbers, bank statements and investment records.

Through information listed on the hard drive, the man in Chicago was able to contact the couple.

"He said, 'Do you want me to wipe it clean or send it to you?' I told him to send it to me. I wanted it in my hands," said Gerbus.

Gerbus got the hard drive back but has no idea whether any of their personal data has been stolen. Gerbus was extraordinarily lucky that the person who bought the drive returned it.

I know a lot of warnings have gone out about this kind of stuff, but just to reiterate: Hard drives retain data that is retrievable even after you "erase" a file. The file is not really physically erased. There are commercially available programs to "zero" a drive, which actually overwrites existing data on the drive, but some data can often still be retrieved. If you want a drive really, really erased, it must be physically destroyed. Even a hard drive crash may leave a lot of data still there on the disk. Since I do my own computer work, I never have other people work on my computers, so it's not a big deal for me. Don't let it be for you.

Oh, and if you get a hard drive replaced, you should get the old one back and destroy it yourself.

British scientists have announced a new method to generate hydrogen to power fuel cells. Using only all natural ingredients, too! They fed a dilute mixture of waste caramel and nougat to Escherichia coli bacteria, which then began producing sufficient pure hydrogen to power a small fuel cell. The scientists say the method could be used in the future to provide energy. The headline for the story announces that chocolate eating bugs will provide the fuel of the future.

Let's be quite clear about this. No matter how bad energy shortages get if you try to take chocolate away from people like my wife, you are in for a big surprise.