I called up a Twitter search yesterday, on the word “tsunami.” My screen immediately filled with tweets logged “10 seconds ago,” with a few at the bottom logged “20 seconds ago.” Within a few more seconds, a message flashed: “44 more tweets since you started searching.” After reading the top 10, and observing that each was pointless, I returned to the BBC.

[...]

And this is the big truth here: that we are, collectively, descending through layer under layer of fatuity, or as it were, mining our way to Hell. Look around in street, office, and bus, at all the people plugged into small devices, “linked,” as if in some stupendous electronic chain gang. Rigidly held, by short spans of attention.

First of all, this kind of complaint — short attention span, youth plugged in — has become common for people of a certain age. Well, people of my age and older, I’m embarrassed to say. Because young people behave differently than we did at that age, we knee-jerk that they’re behaving badly. It’s the old “lock down Elvis’ hips” argument. Different is not inherently wrong, as I’m sure Warren would agree. However, this argument comes so easily to older people’s lips that I wish thoughtful commentators would reject it for its banality, at least.

Secondly, Warren (unknowingly) describes his own problem in the first paragraph. Bluntly said, he doesn’t know jack about using Twitter. Searching on a trending hashtag (“tsunami”) days, or even hours, after an event has occurred is asking for inanity and spam. Twitter is at its best within a half hour or less time frame for breaking news. You will literally not find information faster than via Twitter. Once the breaking news is over, though, you must look elsewhere for thoughtful commentary. You ask Twitter to be something it’s not if you look there for insight.

Also, as Warren’s first paragraph demonstrates, Twitter is information coming faster than you can consume it. Just looking at Twitter’s feed in this impersonal, unfiltered way will give you nothing useful. You must follow people. You must build a list of people from different businesses and perspectives so that the information you read is useful for you. Building a great Twitter follow list is a work of art. Humor, politics, news, sports — you personalize whom you follow. Then, when breaking news hits, you read your follow list for the updates but also the immediate commentary that means something to you. The Japanese astronauts, whom I follow, are prolific every day; however, since the quake they have been silent. Their tweeting absence tells me much about the state of emotions in Japan.

Quite possibly Warren is right about the state of “info debris” and our hellish relationship with it. Certainly the odds of him being right are better than the odds that I am. I object to the form of his argument, though. He demonstrates that he is ignorant about the subject. Let him educate himself and then comment. From my perspective, Twitter is a wonderful tool. Like all other technology, Twitter used wisely is an asset; Twitter used poorly is an offense.

Via The Weekly Standard blog.

When Iraq and Afghanistan were tasked to complete constitutions for their countries, they insisted on forming Islamic Republics based on sharia law. Oh, you all know this and so do I. We knew it at the time. In a way, though, we didn’t know it because we didn’t fully understand what sharia law meant. Over the years, unfortunately, we’ve received an education. In hindsight we understand we should have never, ever, agreed to such an evil monstrosity. We were ignorant and hopeful. We were trying to do the right thing.

Let Andy take over the post:

As Samuel Huntington explained, however, there are two senses of “civilization.” One assumes that all human beings, all cultures, are essentially the same and share the same concept of the higher form of life — that there is only one real civilization. The other holds that different cultures have very different ways of looking at the world — that there are several different civilizations, and what is an affront to one may be a convention to another.

The underlying premise of the democracy project is the former sense of “civilization.” As I argued at the time, the real world is the latter. And now, five years removed from the Abdul Rahman case, five more years of intensive, costly American entanglement with Afghanistan, Paul Marshall gives us the harrowing plight of Said Musa. When he told the Afghan court he was a Christian man, no Afghan defense lawyer would have anything to do with him — except the one who spat on him. [...] We think of this as an affront to civilization. They, on the other hand, think they have their own civilization, and that our civilization and Said Musa are affronts to it.

The affront here is our own betrayal of our own principles. The Islamic democracy project is not democratizing the Muslim world. It is degrading individual liberty by masquerading sharia, in its most draconian form, as democracy. The only worthy reason for dispatching our young men and women in uniform to Islamic countries is to destroy America’s enemies. Our armed forces are not agents of Islamic social justice, and stabilizing a sharia state so its children can learn to hate the West as much as their parents do is not a mission the American people would ever have endorsed. It is past time to end this failed experiment.

I stole a lot of text there. More exists at the site. Please pop over and read the whole thing so I don’t feel too guilty. However, when a writer clarifies an issue they way McCarthy has distilled this one, it’s best to present him in his own words.

“I’m not stupid. I see the opportunity. I see it. That’s not the reason to run,” Christie said, adding that a candidate must truly believe that he’s ready to be president, and “I don’t believe that about myself right now.”

We all look at how he handles himself in New Jersey and think he’s ready for anything. However, click through here and watch the embedded video. It’s a moving town hall where Christie helps a woman whose son is dyslexic. His breadth of knowledge about the minutiae of his state is astonishing. I would argue that his knowledge is what gives him the confidence to be bold. No one is going to catch this guy flat-footed. We’ve seen it in marvelous video after video.

If his knowledge is the secret to his power, then I understand when he says he’s not ready to be president. Imagine if he knew the U.S. government to the extent he knows his state. Whoa. And, I believe, if he did run for president in 2012 and we elected him (which we probably would), and then he showed an ineptitude, we would never forgive him.

We need a great candidate in 2012. I think Christie could eat Obama for breakfast on the stump. But we also need a great president in 2012. When Christie says he is not (yet) that man, I trust his judgment.

The Five Men have been the stuff of fiction for a long time. I seem to recall the fictional account of the Kennedy family, the tawdry and trashy novel Captains and the Kings, premising this theory (Joe Kennedy being one of The Men). The Michael Douglas movie The Star Chamber (which appears slated for a remake) also delves along these lines. It had all struck me as inordinately silly.

Until now. (Cue thriller music.)

Please o’erglance this article about Pimco, the world’s largest bond investor. Both Part 1 and 2 are fascinating. I can hardly pluck a quote out of context, because the whole content is so . . . instructional. Here’s a poor man’s sample:

SPIEGEL: One could also say, more bluntly, that you have the ability to direct markets in a fashion that is beneficial for you.

El-Erian: Our primary obligation is to protect and enhance the investment and retirement assets for people from around the world. And we have safeguarded our clients’ investments through a variety of economic and market cycles, including the global financial crisis.

What I deduce (and I look forward to hearing if you gleaned the same) is that no socialist oaf who may happen to be elected president of a certain country can destroy its economy too far because these dudes at Pimco will not let him. Money is money; investment is investment. The rules do not bend for charisma or pigmentary affirmative action. Financial returns must be guaranteed. I found the whole presentation quite cheerful.

Surely, a subject upon which principled conservatives can agree is that we must destroy “political correctness” in all its forms. Fascism of the mind and the tongue, PC is used by the Left as a bludgeon, in order to render discussion on certain topics (especially their little darlings, “fairness,” “tolerance,” and “diversity”) off limits.

So says Michael Walsh as part of his discussion of Maj. Hasan, the unacknowledged jihadist who attacked Ft. Hood. This topic, PC fascism, may be the root of all our disagreements in this country. In “fairness” to women we must pretend babies aren’t murdered during abortion. In “tolerance” of religion we must pretend that the Koran doesn’t direct faithful Muslims to kill the rest of us. Complaints against Obama must be the product or racism, rather than political differences, because “diversity” commands we pretend that pigment has some bearing on a person’s character. If we could finally speak the truth, instead of bowing to the PC golden calf, we might make progress in this country.

But, hey, we could have it worse: we could live in Europe where Geert Wilders is on trial for speaking the truth.

The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom loving citizens who criticize islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between islam and crime buy prescription drugs online without prescription or honour killing, must suffer and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger.

We aren’t there . . . yet . . . and the time to redirect our course is now.

So far the tactic of conservatives is to point out the hypocrisy (tolerance only applies for certain liberally-loved groups) inherent in PC. See the latest mini-outrage:

Last summer, the NAACP passed a resolution that charged the Tea Party movement with racism, despite a lack of evidence to support this claim.

Ironically, the civil rights organization appears to be much more tolerant of well-documented racism at left-wing rallies. At a Common Cause–sponsored anti-Koch demonstration last week, protesters were caught on camera calling for Justice Clarence Thomas to be “sent back to the fields” and lynched. And yet, the Daily Caller is reporting, the NAACP has refused to address these comments

Reports like this happen every day. These teapot tempests will continue on forever if all conservatives can do is point at PC-fueled hypocrisy and yell, “See?” For crying out loud, quit giving these people an ounce of wind. Like Walsh recommends, agree to invalidate their entire argument. They are granted legitimacy when we move to refute. Tell the truth, ignore the PC-blusterers, and walk confidently forward. We won’t take our country back until the PC is dead.

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From 1930 to 2010, tax-revenue collection in the United States has never topped 20.9 percent, averaging 16.5 percent of GDP over 80 years. This despite the drastic historical fluctuation in tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.

This is called Hauser’s Law, after Standford University professor Kurt Hauser.

Chart originally seen here.

Hauser’s article in the WSJ laying out his plan here.  A lot of interesting economic info in the Hauser piece, including arguments for why conservatives are correct regarding the Bush tax cuts and the Obama administration is (surprise!) prescription pills online wrong.