RSM on Mackey

Robert McCain supports John Mackey's free market ideas on healthcare, but he rips Mackey for being in the organic food business, here:

Considering my deep and enduring antipathy toward “Crunchy Cons,” I am more than willing to believe that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is a menace to society.

...and here...

What red-blooded American can resist the temptation to hate a man who made his fortune marketing stuff like organic vegetables, free-range chicken and all manner of whole-grain products appealing to the colonic-health obsessions of aging Baby Boomers?

I agree with RSM's larger point, the stupidity of the boycotters and the superiority of the market to supply goods and services. However, I think the above statements and the one he concludes with, "I stand ready to hate Mackey as a peddler of holistic hokum", are signs that he misses what should be a fairly large point to anyone who believes in the American free market system. Mackey found a market among aging hippies who worship their taste-buds and colons, and are easily manipulated by guilt about the environment, then he subsequently discovered ingenius ways to separate them from their money. I think that is cool. Shouldn't he be commended for coming up with this idea whether he himself buys it or not? Otherwise you could spend your life criticizing those who "sell the sizzle" not the steak; they are not in short supply in our society.

I know McCain would probably hate my saying this, but I think the harshness of his words reveal that he has fallen prey to the same narcissistic tendency as Dreher. He's placing his tastes over his belief in the freedom of the market. And if he truly believes there is something immoral about selling these organic products, how is that different than tilting at the Walmart windmill for selling plastic Chinese trash?

More Adventure is On the Way!

I heard a rumor that Teen World Savers 2 is on it's way. I can't wait! The first episode was a smash hit, so please review.

Here's a teaser trailer for the 2nd episode.

Yeah, saving the world is cool enough, but even cooler if you are a teenager.

I guess the "Terrorism Recession" is finally over

Under the Bush Administration, Islamic terrorism suffered a fairly awful recession of sorts. But under Obama, it appears that recession is over. Recent stimulus packages such as Obama's Ramadan speech, the freeing of the Lockerbie bomber and the omission of illustrations from a book about the Danish cartoons, against the advice of experts as well as the sensibility of normal people, have boosted the market for Islamic Jihad. I guess "happy days" are here again if you are into targeting civilians, caning women and mucking up elections in the name of the Prophet Mohammed and war and violence upon everyone else.

Ralph Peters has the scoop. Excerpt:

Scotland's craven release, "on humanitarian grounds," of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the mastermind of the bombing that killed 270 passengers aboard a Pan Am flight two decades ago, was merely the noisiest terrorist triumph during a week of shame.

And noisy it was: Libya's Moammar Khadafy staged a huge homecoming party for the terrorist. (Think that would've happened while W was president?) The gleeful Khadafy rubbed the West's snout in our feckless taste for appeasement.

Appeasement was also the watchword back in the United States, where Yale University Press delighted Islamist extremists by removing all illustrations from a scholarly work about the Danish cartoon debacle -- not just the caricatures of Mohammed.

Can't wait for that unillustrated Calvin and Hobbes retrospective. Or that exciting scholarly work on the philosophy of Charles Schultz sans pictorial representations of Charlie Brown or Snoopy; preview following:

Frame 1. [Shot of Snoopy with right ear draped over wooden dog house] Snoopy: (thought bubble) "Today is my first day as "Head Beagle". (secondary thought bubble) "As soon as my new secretary arrives, I can begin work." Frame 2. [Snoopy now sitting on dog house. Woodstock the bird approaches from left in upside-down flight pattern.] Frame 3. [Snoopy covers eyes with both anterior paws. Bird not shown; assumed to have struck dog house causing loud "Bonk!" sound and "pain star" symbol to issue forth from the soffit area of said dog house.] Frame 4. [Snoopy looks down at Woodstock who sits underneath dizziness scribble] Snoopy: "I had sort of hoped the head beagle rated a better secretary..." (source)

It's a go for the Tea Party Express in Canton, OH

WRT aforementioned Tea Party, I'm definitely planning on being there. I will be wearing my newly-acquired Dissent is Patriotic T-Shirt, of course.


Here is the link on Facebook and here is the official site link. This is the first time I'll have attended anything quite like this, so I will attempt to get lots of footage from it and even blog on-site it if that's possible.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes....

I'm going to be making a few changes here at ol' Est Quod Est. First off, I'm going to ditch the "Pile of stuff I've been reading" in the side-bar. If I'm reading something which I feel is worthwhile sharing, I'll just throw it in as a blog post. Anyone who cares will still be able to view to old pile here.

Secondly—and I don't think this is nearly as radical as it might sound to some—I'm hereby extending an open invitation to any regular reader of this blog to become a contributor. Just leave a comment here or email me, and I will extend an official invitation with the signup link. There aren't any quotas you must meet to do this, and the "Golden Rule" should suffice as the blogging guideline. Obviously I'm the boss, but I'm the kind of boss that gets a kick out of people "taking advantage" of him. (That guilty look as you sneak a pile of wire bound notebooks or a stapler into your briefcase is... priceless. I know you'll be back tomorrow, laboring slavishly for cheap coffee and pennies on my dollar... MWA-HA-HA!)


Ahem.

Finally, I'm going to be making a concerted effort in the near future to find ways to promote this blog. This will take form in a few ways to begin with, as I see it. I'll probably begin attempting to write something of an editorial nature around once a week with a word count of between 500 and 1,000. This should increase the value of the blog by decreasing the percentage of the blog which is of a purely derivative nature. Also I'll probably be hat-tipping other bloggers more to acheive new traffic. Other ideas: book reviews, product reviews, local news... recipes?

Please think about whether you'd like to contribute to this blog, and don't be shy of giving me advice. This blog, albeit begun as sort of a joke, currently has an average of 40 visits a day. This places it firmly in the underachiever territory, but I think we can all turn it into something bigger and better and... who knows? What say ye?

Isn't Dissent Patriotic Anymore?

Andrew Breitbart exposes the inconsistency of those cheesed off at Whole Foods and its Founder/CEO, John Mackey for his aforementioned alternative health care reform article.

Yet amid the cries of "dissent is patriotic" - a phrase seen on the bumper stickers of cars in the Whole Foods parking lot - the antiwar movement grew and grew, unfettered by the war's supporters or by the party in power.

As the Hollywood Left churned out antiwar film screeds, it was creating a narrative of its victimhood as it victimized Mr. Bush and his administration with the false accusation that dissenters were being persecuted. But now that they are in power, Democrats are brazenly wielding punitive weaponry against dissenting Americans and are using the power of the state to shut up citizens.

The Democratic leadership - and its friends in the mainstream media - seem determined to brand opposition to the president's legislative agenda as illegitimate, even racist in origin. Individuals and grass-roots organizations are helping the statists' cause by advocating boycotts and other means of stifling dissent.

The strategy is clear: Intimidate people from speaking up or from attending public protests by telegraphing that anyone can be made a demon for standing up and exercising basic, constitutional rights.

To call these people hypocrites would be a grave insult to those who fail to live up to their own standards. Liberalism has never been about establishing a universal standard. Liberalism is simply intellectual cover for those wanting to gain political power and increase the size of the state.

Well, I think I'll mosey on down to a nearby Whole Foods store to check it out. If they really are "anti-union", then that sounds likes a business I'd be into supporting.

Mr. President, are wee having fun yet?

The answer is "yes". Listen to Obama:

"There's something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-wee'd up," the world's most powerful man observed. "I don't know what it is, but that's what happens."

Ooh, ooh! I know what it is! A majority of Americans don't like your big health care idea! They like you, though, so why don't you give up and watch your poll numbers bounce back?

"I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, '94, when [Bill] Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the midterm elections and we got the majority.' And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook," he said.

Hey, sounds like a plan to me. But seriously, isn't this phrased in a strange way? Is the placement of words this threatening in the collective mouth of a weak minority party convincing to anyone besides the haters and head-nodders? The Republicans should be commended for not being overly interfering as the President acts on his present political suicide wish.

But, mindful of his audience, Mr. Obama said he would "love to have more Republicans engaged and involved in this process," and even said he had sought input from the party now dwelling somewhere in the deep wilderness.

Riiiight. I guess the Democrats in the house never got that memo. It's all such a goofy narrative. Who buys it? The same people who bought Hillary's "right-wing conspiracy"? I don't know... at the time she said that the Rebublicans had taken the house and her husband was on the ropes. Well, I suppose we'll have to wait to see which way the political winds are blowing when the wee wee season is over.

Obama Hits Record Low in Recent Zogby Poll

Newsmax has the story.

President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a record low, with just 45 percent of voters now approving of his performance, according to the latest Zogby International poll.

Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity.

Those numbers also indicate that Obama clearly is in serious political trouble, Fox News analyst and best-selling author Dick Morris tells Newsmax.
among likely voters . . . he is in deep political trouble."

"As soon as Obama dropped below 52 percent . . . he was leaking real voters who had backed him in November," Morris tells Newsmax. "Now that he is down to 45 percent among likely voters . . . he is in deep political trouble."

I was interested in some remarks made by John Zogby about Walmart shoppers and investors. These are two of the poll questions he always asks in his online polls. I take these polls, probably once a month or so mainly out of curiosity. Then aren't as accurate as the old-fashioned cold-call telephone, but I guess he asks the same types of qualifying questions. Other standard group-identity questions include one about whether you are a Nascar fan and how frequently you attend religious services.