January 2008 – Page 72

Mitt H. W. Romney?

You never know which of Romney’s various personae is actually on the ballot.

Why Cloned Beef Is Green

The environmentalist opposition to food from cloned animals may miss the point:

Assuming the world (minus most of India) will continue to eat beef, which seems pretty likely, what is the most righteous position on the meat? Eating beef from free-range, humanely-raised living animals or lab grown cells?

Casanovas In Hell

Is the constant pursuit of sexual conquest a form of pathology? Psychology Today explores the question.

In Defense Of Laughter

A charming essay from uber-con, Roger Scruton:

A society that does not laugh is one without an important safety valve, and a society in which people interpret crude humor not as the first step toward friendly relations, but as a mortal offense, is one in which ordinary life has become fraught with danger. Human beings who live in communities of strangers are greatly in need of laughter, if their differences are not to lead to civil war. This was one of the functions of the ethnic joke. When Poles, Irish, Jews, and Italians competed for territory in the New World to which they had escaped, they provisioned themselves with a store of ethnic jokes with which to laugh off their manifest differences.

Norm Geras differs.

Move Over, Obama Girl

Here comes Clinton Boy. Better spin than Tracy Flick.

One Lesson From Michigan

The uncommitteds weren’t committed enough:

Let this be a warning to others running against the Clinton Borg. Still, even in defeat, Uncommitted did nothing his supporters need be ashamed of. Can the other side claim as much?

“The Lowest Risk Republican”

Tigerhawk on Romney. That could become a consensus. But it hardly rivals Democratic enthusiasm. I guess Romney can always hope that Clinton will pull it out.

Oh No! Ctd.

Now I’m one with John Hinderaker:

My guess is that Romney’s views on the social issues are similar to my own: he’s a social conservative, but doesn’t have much appetite for red-meat politics on abortion and gay marriage, and places much higher priority on the economy and national defense. With hindsight, I think there was a better way for Romney to position himself: as a conservative and supremely knowledgeable expert on the economy, as George Bush’s heir as a vigorous defender of the U.S. in the war against Islamic terrorism, and as a person who is himself a social conservative–just take one look at his family portrait–but who doesn’t talk much about those issues except in the context of the constitutional philosophy which will guide his appointment of judges. I think if he had followed this route, he would have been truer to himself and more credible to voters.

Absolutely.

Green Jewelry

Recycling gets more and more imaginative.

Oh No!

I’m agreeing with Michelle Malkin:

I need a man. A man who can say “No.” A man who rejects Big Nanny government. A man who thinks being president doesn’t mean playing Santa Claus. A man who won’t panic in the face of economic pain. A man who won’t succumb to media-driven sob stories.

A man who can look voters, the media, and the Chicken Littles in Congress in the eye and say the three words no one wants to hear in Washington: Suck. It. Up.

Yeah, but look what happened to McCain in Michigan.