Huffington's Huff of the Day

An oldie, from the day after Milton Friedman died:

"Did you hear? Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist, just died. 94 years old. It's true, only the good die young. Milton Friedman never had a moment of self-doubt in his life. And people without self-doubt always go straight to the burning torments of Hades. ... I'm glad he's dead. Not as glad as I was when Nixon died. Nixon knew what he did was evil. Friedman didn't know and didn't care what part of his work was right and what part wrong." -- Playwright Jeff Dorchen

John McCain's Daughter

Looks like a character from The Hills.

Funk Fund - Week 4

Merely for the sake of science, here are this week's bets, per week one's guidelines:

-- $20 6-point teaser on Giants (-3.5), Green Bay (-3) & New Orleans (-3.5) (payout: $52)
-- $10 straight bets on Giants, Green Bay & New Orleans (payout: $20 each)
-- $5 3-game parlay on Giants, Green Bay & New Orleans (payout: $36)

This week's total possible payout: $145

Current account balance: $-40

Isn't This What the Soviets Did?

Nanny-state operatives make kids rat out their parents' illicit behavior.

At what point will people say enough, I wonder? Ever?

Quote of the Day

"In a poll that should be shocking, but isn't, one out of of five Democrats think the world would be a better place if the U.S. lost the war. This means that four out of five Democrats are not being represented by their party." -- Rush Limbaugh

Real People, Fake Products!

A friend of the FunkyPundit, Matt McClain, is now writing for Super Deluxe. Enjoy one of his first skits:

Huffington's Huff of the Day

Introducing a new feature here on FunkyPundit. First, a little background: Every morning my in-box receives the Huffington Post's "Daily Brief." Generally I'll click the most offensive sounding article, read it, take umbrage, contemplate commenting, think better of it (why get lost in the weeds of pointless argument?), consider a blog response, think better of it, then, finally go on about my day, rather satisfied my life involves more than venting on a website.

Today it occurred to me that a typical Huff Post -- fallaciously argued, self-defeatingly offensive -- demands no riposte. Really, they speak for themselves. Just reprinting selected passages will do the work a thousand bloggers could not.

The first installment comes courtesy of actor Steven Weber commenting on President Bush's veto of a bill that would move two million children with private health coverage into inferior, government-run care -- it's a twofer:

"[National health care] is what the Commies would have done had they won the Cold War instead of us. They would have overrun their newly conquered slaves with affordable health care, those savages."

"George Bush would rather spend a trillion to kill Iraqi children than 35 billion to save American children."

Al Gore Debates Global Warming!

After refusing countless invitations to debate a global warming skeptic, the folks over at JunkScience.com have gone ahead and sponsored a debate on his behalf:


Steve Milloy explains the value:

Last March, the prestigious New York debating society Intelligence Squared sponsored a debate on global warming, which may be viewed here. A pre-debate poll indicated that, by 2-to-1 (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided), the audience believed that manmade global warming was a crisis. But in the post-debate poll, the audience reversed its pre-debate views - the ranks of the skeptics swelled to 46 percent, the believers plummeted to 42 percent and the undecided declined slightly to 12 percent.

"That's the power of debate," said Milloy. "Though Al Gore aggressively promotes global warming alarmism, he unfortunately seems to lack confidence in his ability to debating climate change against others. But Al Gore's curious reluctance will hardly stop the public from being able to see how his points stack up against that of climate experts," Milloy concluded.

America Falling Behind

The Pew Global Attitudes Project is releasing a survey today showing that while the rest of the world is moving ahead, Americans are becoming less understanding of the values in free trade. A few key findings:

• Large majorities think international trade is benefiting their country and multinational corporations that dominate global commerce generally receive favorable ratings.
• Still, enthusiasm for global trade has waned over the last five years in the West, especially in the United States.
• In most countries, majorities think people are better off under capitalism, even though that means some may be rich and others poor.
• Support for capitalism increased most in Latin American and Eastern European nations where satisfaction with income and personal progress have increased markedly over the past five years.

This would seem to confirm the WSJ poll Karol highlights: Republicans Grow Skeptical on Free Trade:

The poll shows that six in 10 Republicans believe free trade has harmed the U.S. economy by reducing demand for domestic goods, wiping out American jobs and importing products that may be unsafe.

The solution, I think, is obvious: People need to stop watching Lou Dobbs!

Who Knew?

Apparently I'm a Brownback man.

Who's your candidate for 2008?

Jimmy Rollins, Prophet?

Last January the Philadelphia Phillies shortstop caused a stir in predicting the Fightin' Phils were "the team to beat" in the National League East -- this despite the Mets only looking stronger than last year's near-World Series season. Well, 162 games later, the Phils fought from a disappointing, last-place start to the division title. The late-season surge marked the biggest comeback in Major League Baseball history, having been down seven games as recently as Sept. 12th. It's the first time in 14 years they've reached the playoffs, but for this Phillies fan, it seems far longer than that.

What accounts for this dramatic comeback? Many of the qualities that animated, and I do mean animated, the '93 team are seen in this team. Think of '93's stand-out players -- Lenny Dykstra, Darren Daulten, Micky Morandini, John Kruk, Mitch "The Wild Thing" Williams, Pete Inkavelia ... these weren't coddled, well-manicured professional athletes, but a rag-tag bunch of hard-nosed ballplayers who hustle every play and only blame themselves when things don't go well. Today's Phillies -- Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Pat Burrell, Aaron Rowand -- exhibit many of the same qualities: a lot of personality, little ego, and an obvious passion. No steroid scandals here. In the last stretch, the Phillies late-game bullpen -- J.C. Romero, "Flash" Gordon, Brett Myers -- were being worked like dogs. Asked how his body was holding up, Myers said concerns for his physical health could wait; the playoffs were his priority.

Contrast this with the Mets, where instead of collective sense of purpose competing egos tore the team apart. Billy Wagner, a former Phils closer now with the Mets, blamed Mets Manager Willie Randolph and pitching coach Rick Wilson for the bullpen's late season fall-off. "We've been throwing four innings a night!" he whined to New York Magazine. "[Wilson] has no idea what if feels like. And neither does Willie. They're not a lot of help, put it that way." It's attitudes like that that plague a club house. (After Wagner left the Phils, he criticised the team for apparently not sharing his own professional qualities. Burrell said Wagner is "a rat.")

Anyway, congrats to my boys. The last two times they've made the playoffs, they reached the World Series. My prediction of a Yanks/Phillies series is looking less ridiculous every day!

Funk Fund -- Week 3

Looks like it's time to things with the booky to the next level. Here are this week's bets, per week one's guidelines:

-- $20 6-point teaser on Houston (-2.5), Green Bay (-1) & Dallas (-13) (payout: $52)
-- $10 straight bets on Houston, Green Bay & Dallas (payout: $19 each)
-- $5 3-game parlay on Houston, Green Bay & Dallas (payout: $36)

This week's total possible payout: $145

Current account balance: $-25

The Lengths Pols Will Go To Take Your Money

Someone please explain to me what America is coming to.

People being imprisoned for a minimum of one year for possession of cigarettes? Cars being impounded for possession of just three cartons? In Tennessee?? I mean, here in New York, sure -- but Tennessee??

A Bollinger Critic

Scanning today's newspapers, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger seems to be getting near universal praise for his surprisingly harsh introduction of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The New York Sun said Bollinger did "pretty darned well"; The Daily News, which has led the charge against the appearance, said "Bollinger did a creditable job."

But not everyone appreciated Bollinger's toughness: Columbia undergrad John Host took to the Huffington Post to express his wish that Bollinger had "done better."

I found his petty insults (at one point he charged "I doubt you have the intellectual courage to answer these questions") to be unnecessarily aggressive and uncivil. He promised a "robust discourse" and delivered a bait-and-switch public admonition, to which Ahmadinejad rightfully took offense, as a guest of the University.

Now, there is a case to be made that Columbia breached standards of decorum by inviting a guest to its campus only for its chief to bash him. But it's odd Mr. Host took exception to the line, "I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions." First, it's more a prediction than a slur. Second, Bollinger said far more caustic things ("you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator"). But mostly because it was obvious this is precisely what Ahmadinejad would do, and Bollinger, having some experience in intellectual skirmishes, knew it would be more effective acknowledging this up front, rather than pretending to be aghast afterward that his questions went unaddressed.

Meanwhile, harsh introductions aside, Ahmadinehad has already succeeded using his Columbia speech for purposes of propaganda. If Iranians believe the things they read in state-sponsored media, the Columbia appearance garnered him unearned legitimacy.

UPDATE: For those still unsure what to think about Columbia's invitation, I highly suggest Roger Kimball's blog post at Armavirumque:

Universities are institutions dedicated to the pursuit and transmission of learning and the furtherance of civilization. They are not circuses for the exhibition of politically repugnant grandstanding. Free inquiry is not a license for moral irresponsibility. At a university, as at every other human institution, freedom can thrive only when it is limited by allegiance to certain positive values--the value of historical truth, for example, or the moral truth that human dignity is worth preserving.

FunkyPundit, Newshound

Just took Pew's "News IQ" quiz and scored 12 of 12 -- though the questions seemed unfairly easy.

Put your own current-events knowledge to the test, here.

Funk Fund -- Week 2

First, a correction: Last week I immediately subtracted the bet amounts from the Fund, leaving it at $55 before the games began. I have since realized I forgot to include the price of the straight bets in the value of the possible payout (meaning, a $10 straight bet pays $20, not $10, as you're essentially doubling your money on 2-1 odds.) That means the current balance is actually $65.

This week's bets, per last week's guidelines:

-- $20 6-point teaser on Carolina (-4), Indy (-6.5) & Denver (-3.5) (payout: $52)

-- $10 straight bets on Carolina, Indy & Denver (payout: $19 each)

-- $5 3-game parlay on Carolina, Indy & Denver (payout: $36)

This week's total possible payout: $145

Current account balance: $10

UPDATE: Once again, only one bet hit, leaving the current balance at $30.

What Ebbets Field Wasn't

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn highlights a New York Magazine piece contrasting the differences between Brooklyn's fabled Ebbets Field with the Nets Arena proposed for the Atlantic Yards:

But as a metaphor, it’s the exact opposite of Ebbets. Ebbets was a tiny, neighborhood-uniting orthodox baseball temple that was built, in less than a year, on an old dump crisscrossed by goat paths. Atlantic Yards is a huge, neighborhood-raping megadevelopment, pinned between two of its developer’s own malls, that violates every design principle of the borough’s small-scale, organic history. Construction is scheduled to take ten years. It is pure real estate, with sports as a footnote. The Nets haven’t grown, like the Dodgers did, directly out of the Brooklyn soil—they’ll be transplants, a squad of mercenaries paid to sell the neighborhood’s new regime. It’s hard to envision the natives finally bonding with the gentrifying hordes over $50 seats at a Nets game. (Bruce Ratner has skillfully scrambled the racial politics of the project, enlisting—some say buying—widespread black support and casting opponents as selfish gentrifiers.) Atlantic Yards is Dodgers nostalgia run amok: New Brooklyn getting rich on the dying myth of Old Brooklyn—a supposed tribute to the borough that may well end up defacing the Brooklyn it’s pretending to honor. The Nets are less a karmic reversal of the Dodgers tragedy than its logical conclusion. O’Malley ruined the borough by leaving; Ratner will ruin it by moving in.

I'm occasionally asked how a pro-growth, pro-development, free-market conservative such as myself opposes a project like the Atlantic Yards. This piece gets to the nut it: If preserving a neighborhood's character is a priority (and for me, it is), growth cannot be imposed from the outside; it needs to come from within, to be organic, and its sponsor can't cheat, using the heavy-hand of government to steal private property to make way.

'Columbia's Astroturf'

In today's Post, I take a look at how Columbia is managing its campaign to cultivate grassroots support for its planned expansion into West Harlem:

COLUMBIA University is making great efforts to pre vent community objections from derailing its plan for a massive expansion in West Harlem. But its methods seem to rely more on big-money power politics than on listening to the folks who live and work where the school wants to build.

At a meeting held last month by West Harlem's Community Board 9, for example, a good chunk of the school's "local supporters" looked to be patients from an East Harlem drug-rehab clinic.

Several people were outside handing out pamphlets castigating area business owner Nick Sprayregen, the expansion's most vocal critic. Visnja Vujica -- a recent Barnard grad and member of the anti-expansion Student Coalition on Expansion & Gentrification -- says she discovered that the pamphleteers were patients from East Harlem's Addicts Rehabilitation Center (ARC).

"I talked to one man, J.R., I think, who was wearing one of the 'Future of Manhattanville' stickers. He said he was paid; wouldn't tell how much, but said something like, When you're given pretty much a blank check, you don't ask questions," she said.

Read the rest here.

Accompanying is another piece look into Columbia's dealings with AKRF, an environmental consulting firm with a rich, storied history with the city:

TO realize its planned expansion in Man hattanville, Columbia University will need the power of eminent domain -- that is, the ability to force property owners to sell at a "fair" price, below what they'd otherwise hold out for. The prospect of such takings has probably caused more resentment than any other part of the school's plan.

Technically, the power would be exercised by the state-run Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC) -- which must first reach a formal finding that the area is "blighted."

But the ESDC has subcontracted the study that will make that determination to the consulting firm of AKRF -- which Columbia itself has already hired to help sell its overall plan to city officials.

Here's the piece.

Tonight, Manhattan borough President Scott Stringer will hold a hearing on the expansion. More fireworks no doubt to come.

October 12th

The end of Israel?

When Democratic Delusions Collide

"According to a Heritage Foundation estimate, some 70,000 families that would become eligible under SCHIP [a federal government-run health insurance program intended for poverty-stricken children] would at the same time also be paying the Alternative Minimum Tax aimed at 'the rich.'" -- Brendan Miniter, in today's Political Diary, describing one of 11 spending bill Congress is preparing to send to the president. He has threatened to veto 10.

Also good is today's Quote of the Day:

"The average net worth in 2006 of Forbes 400 members without a college degree was $5.96 billion; those with a degree averaged $3.14 billion. Four of the five richest Americans -- Bill Gates, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen -- are college dropouts" -- from the new book "All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make -- And Spend -- Their Fortunes," by Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan.

The Brain Is a Curious Thing

Brain surgery leaves boy speaking like the Queen

Crash victim wakes up speaking English

He Should Have Been Tazered Twice

This kid was acting like a jack ass, and clearly wanted to get the kind of response he did:
Story here.

UPDATE: He agrees.

Curing Your Case of the Muuundays

One disturbing/hilarious website at a time.

Hot Chicks With Douche Bags -- The site description is pretty apt: "Pictures of hot chicks with total and complete douche bags. With commentary."

Marry Our Daughter -- Like Amazon.com, except instead of books, buyers purchase teenage brides with only limited self-esteem issues. The testimonials lead me to believe it's fake.

Something tells me the Internets actually have lots more to offer. Know of anything?

Please kindly deposit links in the comments section. Your generosity is appreciated.

Quote of the Day

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

-- Mark Twain

'Funk Football Fund' - Update

Terrible kick off for the Funk Fund, losing all but one bet yesterday. With two big upsets -- the Bengals' loss to their home-state rivals in Cleveland as well as the Saints falling to Tampa Bay -- things were off to a bad start from the get-go.

The account now stands at $55.