An attack on the middle class?

How is wanting to impose restrictions on public-sector unions an attack on the middle class? I’m middle class, and I’m not a member of a union—let alone of a public-sector union.

It’d be more accurate to say that public-sector unions are themselves an attack on the middle class, since they’re funded on the backs of the (non–public-sector) middle class.

Avoid TidySongs like the plague.

That is all.

Hitler was not a conservative.

Hitler was not right-wing. Hitler was anti-Communist not because he disagreed with the policies or the goals of the Communists but because he did not like competition. He saw the Communist party as a threat to his own goal of world dominance—but where the Communists wanted to foment internal revolution toward their goal of one world government with Moscow at the center, the Nazis just wanted to conquer other countries outright (although the Soviet Union’s “liberation” of eastern Europe from the Nazis sure looked a lot like conquest); while the Communists were internationalists, the Nazis were nationalists.

Likewise, Hitler was anti-union not because he disagreed with the policies of the goals of the labor unions but because, here too, he did not like competition. The confusion over Hitler’s treatment of labor unions results from a superficial understanding of the Nazi party—but then, what else can one expect from a public school education, where history becomes more of a survey course than something that is used as a source of experiences from which to draw conclusions.

I expect most people think that Nazi is an abbreviation for National Socialism; I expect relatively few people know that the Nazi party was not simply the National Socialist party but was actually the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated NSDAP. What need could Germans under the Nazis have for labor unions? The party was the union. Similarly, what need could Hitler have had for other labor union leaders when he himself was the leader of the Nazi party?

Hitler was not a conservative. And Tea Partiers are not Nazis.

Updated based on an offline comment from my brother: “Hitler was not right-wing by the definition used today in the U.S.”

I would buy a Kindle tomorrow if...

I would buy a Kindle tomorrow if I could get electronic copies for free of all the hardback and paperback books in my collection.

A note to all Canon PowerShot SX120 IS users out there

After removing the memory card from a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS, turn on the camera and then turn off the camera again before re-inserting the memory card; otherwise, the camera will not recognize the memory card—and since, unlike some other digital cameras, it has no internal memory it will not take pictures at all.

My choice for the 2012 Republican ticket

Based on this chart, courtesy of Le•gal In•sur•rec•tion: Palin-Bachmann.

The anti-ticket? Romney-Huntsman.

On How Media Bias Can Be So Pernicious

From Herman Cain’s book, They Think You’re Stupid: Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It, page 105:

Both political parties spend millions of dollars trying to sell their brand identity during elections, when a lot of the perception of their brand is created between elections by . . . (drum roll) the media.

My IMWNO List

I don’t have a bucket list—but I do have a “If Money Were No Object” list. Things I’d buy IMWNO:

Apple iPod nano 16 GB Graphite (6th Generation)
OK, I know it’s only $165, but I already have a 120 GB Apple iPod classic; $165 seems like a lot to pay for a tiny FM radio.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II 21.1MP Full Frame CMOS Digital SLR Camera
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Standard Zoom Lens
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro Lens
As I young man, I spent a lot of time walking around with a 35mm film camera and some lenses, eventually acquiring a Canon A-1, a Vivitar 28-80mm zoom lens, and a Vivitar 70-210mm zoom lens with a macro ring for taking close-up shots. Somehow, a point-and-shoot digital camera just isn’t the same. $6481 is a lot of money, though. (Why not just use the old lenses on a new body, you ask? They won’t fit—different mount types. Everything’s built for auto-focus nowadays.)

2011 Jaguar XKR Convertible in Spectrum Blue Metallic.
’Nuff said. $111,250.

If such a thing were available: a Red Lobster franchise so I could eat there anytime I wanted (sadly, they’re all company-owned).

Run, Sarah, Run

And I hope she wins, too—I'd love to see liberals’ heads explode (metaphorically speaking, of course).