Poor Martin Khor, Still Desperately Pushing Global Warming Which No One Else Believes in Anymore

I admit that I will gleefully engage in plenty of schadenfreude and I toooooooollllld you so when the global warming hysterians and hucksters are finally forced to eat their words. Especially Martin Khor.

Floods and global climate chaos

Global Trends
By MARTIN KHOR

…

Climate scientists are reluctant to link each of the floods directly to climate change, as this is hard to prove. But there is a general belief that global warming contributes to the increased incidence of flooding.

A scientist at the World Meteo­rological Organisation last year explained how the warming of the oceans increased cloud formation and contributed to the devastating Pakistan floods.

Dublin was affected by flash floods earlier this year. An Irish newspaper, linking it to climate change, cited a flood risk management report of the Office of Public Works in 2009 which claimed that “the frequency, pattern and severity of flooding are expected to increase as a result of climate change.”

Meanwhile, a United Kingdom government-linked report released last week described how climate change is likely to create hundreds of millions of refugees around the world as they try to escape from areas affected by global warming.

The refugees may have to move from their homes as climate change induces events such as floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves, according to the Foresight group, part of Britain’s Office for Science.

However, many of these refugees may move into even worse affected areas, such as coastal areas that are vulnerable to floods from storms and sea level rise.

The floods and the sobering predictions on climate refugees are sober reminders that political leaders need to take global warming more seriously. The interest to act globally on climate change has waned in the past two years.

So global warming causes more flooding, including the curent Thailand floods.

…Even though the globe didn’t warm in the past 15 years:

And maybe, just maybe, the world is yawning about climate change action because of the ever-mounting evidence that Anthropogenic Global Warming is bunk.

Or maybe it is semi-regular revelations of faked ‘science’ supporting AGW.

Or it could be that more and more scientists are refuting AGW:

– 900+ peer-reviewed papers skeptical of AGW.
– 31,000 prominent scientists deny AGW
– Another 1000 scientists reject AGW
– 230 signatories from the American Physical Society skeptical of AGW
– Nobel Prize for Physics winner quits the American Physical Society to protest its belief in AGW

But don’t tell that to Martin Khor, the tears of grief he sheds may cause another localized flood.

Ride My Dragon – Snarky Pseudo Heavy Metal Lyrics

Check out the lyrics first, then head over to the source at AoSHQ (via newer AoSHQ post) for the bolded parts.

“Ride My Dragon”

(The WarSong of the UnDaunted DeathFury)

A Heavy Metal Epic in Three Movements

by:

Steven “Little Stevie” Weber

Grade 8
Ocala Regional Middle School
Mrs. Noonan’s “Creative Expressions” Class

War-drums echo over the Orcish plain

the giants bludgeoning each other

their froth-flecked teeth are bared

stuck knee deep in sludge, begin to spatter

the tiny people at their feet with blood, bile and bilge

…

Ride My Dragon

Yeahhhh, Ride My Dragon, baby

Well My Dragon can take a mount baby

and it might as well be you.

It might as well be you.

…

Werewolf knights charge on raging bearsharks

The population has just come to

Eleven vile virgins scream in ecstasy

those most adept at hurling invective-laced loogies

are doing so with bewilderingly less commitment

and a significant decrease in phlegm

…

Well Ride My Dragon Baby

Yeahh-eahh, Ride That Dragon Baby

Well My Dragon Can seat two baby

So you might as well bring a friend.

Yeah, baby, you can bring a friend.

…

[Bridge]

the Old Guard has collected its booty

(Ride that Dragon)

in a stained pillow case and simply gone AWOL

(Ride it, ride it)

every volley of vitriol seems to slow in midair

(no I don’t like it when you play with my a$$)

and fall to the ground with a tinny clatter

(I didn’t say I was mad, I just said stop)

…

Ride my Dragon, Baby

Whoahhh, Ride that Dragon Baby

You got a pretty nest in your girl-forest

Where my weary Dragon can rest his head.

Yeah, My Dragon needs to rest his head.

…

Deep in the dark oblivion of spite, and/or Mordor

(Ride on, ride on)

I spy a light at the end of the Halliburton-constructed tunnel

(Grind on, grind on)

deceptively drawling ferocity

(Lay down, lay — what? what did he say?)

a neutron bomb of change is about to detonate

(is this guy making no sense or is it just me?)

formerly fertile fields of fetid fibbery

(wow. just… wow)

…

Well Pet My Dragon baby

Stroke that Dragon — right under his chin. Yeah.

Well My Dragon’s about to spit fire

You might want to shield your eyes.

Yeah baby, you might need to shield your eyes.

[quiet, slow fade; whisper:]

Cover your eyes baby

Cover your eyes

Whoops.

Warned you about that.

[hold on last note; end]

Actually does sound like the kind of stuff Megadeth sings. (And I still think that era of double entredes was more creative than today’s R&B “I think you sexay let’s f***” direct lyrics.)

Rick Perry Previews His Cut, Balance and Grow Economic Plan

He’s not good in debates, but I’m still pushing Rick Perry for the Presidency – and now, again on jobs and the economy.

Via AoSHQ, excerpts from The Wall Street Journal:

My Tax and Spending Reform Plan
Individuals will have the option of paying a 20% flat-rate income tax and I’ll cap spending at 18% of GDP.

By RICK PERRY

…

On Tuesday I will announce my “Cut, Balance and Grow” plan to scrap the current tax code, lower and simplify tax rates, cut spending and balance the federal budget, reform entitlements, and grow jobs and economic opportunity.

The plan starts with giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20% or their current income tax rate. The new flat tax preserves mortgage interest, charitable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 annually, and it increases the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals and dependents.

This simple 20% flat tax will allow Americans to file their taxes on a postcard, saving up to $483 billion in compliance costs. By eliminating the dozens of carve-outs that make the current code so incomprehensible, we will renew incentives for entrepreneurial risk-taking and investment that creates jobs, inspires Americans to work hard and forms the foundation of a strong economy. My plan also abolishes the death tax once and for all, providing needed certainty to American family farms and small businesses.

My plan restores American competitiveness in the global marketplace and provides strong incentives for U.S.-based employers to build new factories and create thousands of jobs here at home.

First, we will lower the corporate tax rate to 20%—dropping it from the second highest in the developed world to a rate on par with our global competitors. Second, we will encourage the swift repatriation of some of the $1.4 trillion estimated to be parked overseas by temporarily lowering the rate to 5.25%. And third, we will transition to a “territorial tax system”—as seen in Hong Kong and France, for example—that only taxes in-country income. [Scott: See How To Add $1 Trillion To The Economy With The Stroke of a Pen]

The mind-boggling complexity of the current tax code helps large corporations with lawyers and accountants devise the best tax-avoidance strategies money can buy. That is why Cut, Balance and Grow also phases out corporate loopholes and special-interest tax breaks to provide a level playing field for employers of all sizes.

To help older Americans, we will eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits, boosting the incomes of 17 million current beneficiaries who see their benefits taxed if they continue to work and earn income in addition to Social Security earnings.

We will eliminate the tax on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains to free up the billions of dollars Americans are sitting on to avoid taxes on the gain. [Scott: see High Tax Rates Makes People Avoid Taxable Economic Activities, Thereby Reducing Govt Income for more.]

…

We should start moving toward fiscal responsibility by capping federal spending at 18% of our gross domestic product, banning earmarks and future bailouts, and passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. My plan freezes federal civilian hiring and salaries until the budget is balanced. And to fix the regulatory excess of the Obama administration and its predecessors, my plan puts an immediate moratorium on pending federal regulations and provides a full audit of all regulations passed since 2008 to determine their need, impact and effect on job creation.

ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed and, if necessary, replaced by market-oriented, common-sense measures.

…

Cut, Balance and Grow also gives younger workers the option to own their Social Security contributions through personal retirement accounts that Washington politicians can never raid. Because young workers will own their contributions, they will be free to seek a market rate of return if they choose, and to leave their retirement savings to their dependents when they die.

…

Mr. Perry, a Republican, is the governor of Texas and a candidate for president.

UPDATE 1: The actual plan announcement.

UPDATE 2: The expert opinion is in, and it is looking good:

Using static analysis, the Perry Plan would raise $23.8 trillion from 2014-2020, or $4.7 trillion less than the CBO baseline of $28.5 trillion over that span. Using dynamic analysis that assumes growth effects from the redesigned tax code, the Perry Plan would raise $26.8 trillion, or $1.7 trillion less than CBO baseline.

…

Under Perry’s plan, the economy would be $3.5 trillion bigger than under the CBO’s estimate of current growth.

Bersih 2.0 vs Himpun – Double Standards, Doubly Insulting

Malaysiakini:

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Malaysia Chronicle:

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Text from my original:

Bersih 2.0 vs Himpun – Double Standards, Doubly Insulting

PM Tun Haji Abdul Razak is saying that the Bersih 2.0 rally should have been held – all nice and orderly like – in a stadium instead of invading the streets of KL. Just like how the wonderful and cooperative Himpun rally was held in Stadium Shah Alam this past Saturday.

Let’s recap why Bersih 2.0 was not held in a stadium..

When PM Najib was forced to accept the breadth and depth of public support for Bersih 2.0, he moved quickly to try and wrest control of the situation. Bersih 2.0 was verbally legitimized and even promised the use of a stadium for their rally. They decided on the historic and symbolic Stadium Merdeka which has capacity for 30,000 people.

Abruptly, their request to use the stadium was turned down and Bersih 2.0 was delegitimized again – despite PM Najib’s overtures and promises – with the excuse that the expected 300,000 attendees would be way over Stadium Merdeka’s capacity. That would be ten times too many people for the stadium to hold.

Way to troll the entire population of Malaysia! You can almost imagine our IGP’s face scrunched up in a a wry smile, going “PROBLEM?”

Outraged at this about-turn, the rally went ahead anyway, bringing its message of clean and fair elections to streets (and worldwide via sympathetic rallies). After everything, Bersih 2.0 claims 50,000 attendees showed up. Meanwhile, the media estimates between 10,000 to 15,000 people – well within the capacity of Stadium Merdeka. And the police mockingly put the number at a pathetic 6,000. (“PROBLEM?”)

Wherefore then the justification for denying Bersih 2.0 the use of Stadium Mereka? Can a measly 6,000 people not safely gather and chant their slogans as the tear-gassing, chemical-spraying police in full riot gear close in on the stadium? /sarc

Now let’s look at Himpun.

The full title of the rally itself clues us in to the hoped-for turnout – ‘Himpunan Sejuta Umat’, 1 million people.

Yet Himpun was cleared to use Stadium Shah Alam – in record time nonetheless – even though the venue can only accommodate between 70,000 to 100,000 with some squeezing.

Similar to Bersih 2.0’s original planned turnout-to-stadium-capacity ratio, Himpun would have had ten times too many people for the stadium to hold. But Himpun’s planned excess of 900,000 people is a completely different paradigm from Bersih 2.0’s mere excess of 280,000!

How can PM Najib and the authorities justify and handwave away the blatant double standards shown here? The hypocrisy is insulting enough, but expecting us to swallow it is doubly insulting!

(Don’t get me started on the narrow, factional prupose of the Himpun rally – protesting ‘apostates from Islam’, which carries worrying echoes of the official + mob persecution of Christian Copts in Egypt which is often triggered by rumours of converts leaving Islam.)

And just for the record, a paltry 4,000 attendees actually showed up for Himpun. Can we take that as a resounding Malaysian TAK NAK!!! to religiously divisive politics?

So in this Bizarro World, fringe gatherings with disruptive aims are to be commended and legitimized… While broadly-appealing rallies with noble goals are actually lawbreaking riots bordering on rebellion and civil war.

Finally, I’m going to risk making readers fed up with US/Malaysia political comparisons – but US politics offers us key lessons about what might be up with our local politics. (And hey, there’s a good reason I was snidely dubbed ‘Leading Malaysian Neocon’, a label I have since adopted.)

For a few weeks now, Occupy Wall Street and its related protests have been touting their narrow, factional demands which basically amounts to END CAPITALISM FOR FAIRNESS but which as a practical matter translates to PEOPLE WHO WORK HARD ALL DAY SHOULD GIVE FREE STUFF TO SLACKERS LIKE US – complete with plenty of vulgarity, violence, crassness, lawbreaking, hundreds of arrests, and even the occasional defecating on police cars.

However, the media has been coddling the protests with carefully edited coverage, focusing only on the few individuals who seem the least abnormal, ridiculous and unreasonable. The ABC, CBS and NBC networks gave them 33 full stories or interview segments in just the first 11 days of October 2011.

Meanwhile, the massive nationwide Tea Party protests against wasteful government spending – comprising hundreds of rallies, each with thousands of very normal, job-holding attendees – were given only 13 total stories by ABC, CBS and NBC in all of 2009.

Even then, they are usually depicted as hateful, potentially violent and radically extreme – despite the total lack of observational evidence and about zero total arrests. They even pick up their own trash, instead of pooping on the street!

So in this Bizarro World, fringe gatherings with disruptive aims are to be commended and legitimized… While broadly-appealing rallies with noble goals are actually lawbreaking riots bordering on rebellion and civil war.

Wait, didn’t I just use that whole paragraph earlier?

You see, it all depends on who is favoured by certain political parties and their crony mainstream media… And who they oppose as a threat to their precious status quo of power and control.

SCOTT THONG, ‘LEADING MALAYSIAN NEOCON’

Lim Guan Eng’s Family, Latest Target of the Wholly Unoriginal BN/MSM Complex

My third letter in a series comparing dirty Malaysian and American political/media smears.

First letter: Sarah Palin, Anwar Ibrahim and the Politics of Alinsky

Second letter: Proven – the BN/MSMS Complex is Using Alinskyite Tactics

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Malaysia Chronicle:

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Malaysia Today:

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Free Malaysia Today:

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The smear job image as mentioned, via Malaysia Chronicle:

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Text of my original letter, with extra embedded links:

The Legend of Ganondorf (His Side of the Story)

Loltastic, especially if you follow the Zelda games. Love the lyrics and Ganondorf’s party dude personality!

Via Dueling Analogs:

Mohamad Azhar Hashim Should Occupy Some Non-Mainstream Media and Get His Facts Right

Yet another utter ignoramus in The Star.

This time it’s Mohamad Azhar Hashim in these excerpts from The Star 18 Oct 2011:

Warding off corporate bloodsuckers
IKIM VIEWS
By MOHAMAD AZHAR HASHIM
Fellow
Centre for Economics and Social Studies, IKIM

The voraciousness of a mere segment of the population has managed to sprout untold misery and poverty for the rest, as highlighted by the peaceful gatherings in the US eponymously called ‘Occupy Wall Street’.

So peaceful, that they have only resulted in more than 1500 arrests.

Claiming to represent an overwhelming 99% of the US population from the low and middle-income groups, the demonstration bands Americans of various walks of life to rally together on a common stand.

Actually, they are the 47%.

With a visible show of their strong number and placards, they say they will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the top 1% of the population – the rich and wealthy, symbolised by the great Wall Street.

The 99% of the American population are the ones who have been made homeless, forced to scrimp, denied basic healthcare yet suffer from environmental pollution and also work long hours for little pay, yet have no rights.

They have worked hard, long and diligently, yet are underpaid, and typically unappreciated.

For more insight into the layabouts, see this page.

It stems from the fact that the US government was so swift in using taxpayers’ money to bail out several major institutions, which collapsed during the financial crisis in 2008.

…

In contrast, we Malaysians are lucky to have a government that has embarked on various direct and indirect measures to solve the nagging socio-economic predicament.

Ooh ooh, you know who else repeatedly bailed out failed institutions using taxpayer money?

As with most of the liberal mob, he totally fails to comprehend that nobody forces you to buy corporate products. This is compared to mandatory government edicts and religious dictators.

You think they’re making obscene profits by charging unfair prices? Boycott them personally and buy from a competitor!

Oh but wait… Sometimes you can’t, because of like the Malaysian govt imposes on behalf of PROTON. So who is the ‘corporate bloodsucker’ here?

As the situation in the US exemplifies, the extent of the voraciousness of a mere segment of the population has managed to sprout untold misery and poverty for the rest.

Should similar circumstances inflict us, we may be hindered from achieving economic development with social justice.

This should be far from becoming a reality in Malaysia.

Neither should the emergence of “modern feudalism”, whereby our hard work and pains are just for the sake of fulfilling the insatiable lust of top corporate citizens.

I would very much like to imagine he’s penning a subtle attack on the crony politicians who live in mega mansions and buy multi-million price tag diamonds using the Rakyat’s money. But sadly, I know better.

Wong Chun Wai and Warrenn Buffett’s ‘Tax the Rich’

From the following excerpt from The Star 14 Oct 2011, I get the vibe of his supporting Warren Buffett’s proposal (which would be in line with his known Obama/liberal-philic tendencies):

Will you take the RM10O?
Why Not
By Wong Sai Wan

…

The middle-class now cites Warren Buffett’s recent statement to justify the need to tax the rich.

As one of the world’s richest men, he acknowledged that his secretary paid more taxes than he did. (He said this when trying to justify US President Barack Obama’s plan to tax wealthy Americans.)

Buffet is the third richest man in the world and is worth US$47bil (RM147bil) at last count.

Some are even arguing for the immediate imposition of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) so that the per­­so­­nal income tax could be reduced.

The middle-class claims that the GST is a consumption tax that means one is only taxed if one buys something.

So if you are frugal as Buffett, who does not buy much for himself, then you will pay minimal tax.

As I noted lengthily in my reply to commentor eternal’s remark, Warren Buffett is by no means being wholly altruistic by wanting higher taxes:

Buffett Profits from Taxes He Supports

Buffett regularly lobbies for higher estate taxes. He also has repeatedly bought up family businesses forced to sell because the heirs’ death-tax bill exceeded the business’s liquid assets. He owns life insurance companies that rely on the death tax in order to sell their estate-planning businesses.

Buffett Profits from Government Spending

Buffett made about a billion dollars off of the Wall Street bailout by investing in Goldman Sachs on the assumption Uncle Sam would bail it out. He also is planning investments in ethanol giant ADM and government-contracting leviathan General Dynamics.

If your businesses’ revenue comes from the U.S. Treasury, of course you want more wealth.

– Stop coddling Warren Buffett, Beltway Confidential

And The So-Called “Buffett Rule” Wouldn’t Even Touch Its Ostensible Target, Warren Buffett.

And yet more:

Warren Buffett recently claimed that he had paid only $6.9 million in taxes last year. But Berkshire Hathaway, of which Mr. Buffett owns 30%, paid $5.6 billion in corporate income taxes. Were Berkshire Hathaway a Subchapter S corporation and exempt from corporate income taxes, Mr. Buffett’s personal tax bill would have been 231 times higher, at $1.6 billion.

And of course:

But if he were truly sincere, perhaps he might simply try paying the taxes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says his company owes? According to Berkshire Hathaway’s own annual report — see Note 15 on pp. 54-56 — the company has been in a years-long dispute over its federal tax bills. – Warren Buffett’s taxing hypocrisy

The way to boost the economy, employment, standards of living – you name it! – is by permanently cutting taxes, not by temporary ‘Stimuluses’. History proves it. Modern history reaffirms it. Learn from history.

Occupy Wall Street vs Tea Party Cartoons Collection

Finally decided to collect them, because of first cartoon following via Networked Blogs via AoSHQ:

By Michael Ramirez:

Related:

Via AoSHQ, via Doug Ross, from The Jawa Report:

Via excellent daily newsletter The Transom (sign up FREE here), from AoSHQ:

In just the first eleven days of October, ABC, CBS and NBC flooded their morning and evening newscasts with a whopping 33 full stories or interview segments on the protesters. This was a far cry from the greeting the Tea Party received from the Big Three as that conservative protest movement was initially ignored (only 13 total stories in all of 2009) and then reviled.

UPDATE: They’re socialists. Read more at AoSHQ which opines:

The media found the one or two racists in the Tea Party and made them the face of the movement; meanwhile, it finds the one or two people who are not avowedly Marxist and makes them the standard-bearer.

Curiously, the only point universally agreed upon by the protesters and their admirers in the Democratic Party and the mainstream media is that “Occupy Wall Street” should be compared to the tea party. Yes, that would be the same tea party that has been denounced and slandered by the Democratic Party and the mainstream media for the last three years. – WINGLESS, BLOODSUCKING AND PARASITIC: MEET THE FLEA PARTY!

And what a contrast from the We are the 99% losers. Take a look:

Above from We are the 53%.

Above from GetaDamnJobYouHippie.org.

Above from Recording Artist Ava Aston’s Blog.

And the reality is Barack Obama is the 1%:

After all, who is the biggest recipient of Wall St money?

Above: Evil Corporations Get Unwitting Support at Wall Street Protests

From Michelle Malkin here and here.

Though a few representatives of minority groups have appeared among the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters in New York City, photos and videos of the left-wing mini-throngs indicate they suffer from a serious lack of diversity. And the protesters themselves told The Daily Caller on Tuesday that they are conscious of the issue, if not the inconsistency it demonstrates. A 40-photo Washington Post slideshow showing hundreds of angry protesters in New York and other cities includes no more than 15 clearly identifiable minority protesters, and just six African-Americans. The rest of the protesters shown are white, and most are male. In 26 photos from San Francisco and Chicago gatherings posted on OccupyTogether.org, only one person from a minority group is clearly visible, and it’s unclear whether he is a protester or a bystander. Minority groups are similarly underrepresented in photos and videos posted on OccupyWallSt.org, the self-described “unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street.”

Compare against:

Above:

Above: Compare Garbage After Tea Party Vs. Obama Inauguration

The Tea Party is supposedly less popular than #OWS. But that’s because the Tea Party has concrete policy goals, many of which are controversial — the American public likes spending money it doesn’t have — and has fought tooth-and-nail for these agenda items for two years.

What has #OWS fought for, so far? Time Magazine presents their agenda as a gauzy populist reform movement which — incidentally — could also be used to describe the Tea Party. The Tea Party, of course, despises the crony not-capitalist system, too. (Where OWS and the Tea Party differ, of course, is on which alternative model to pursue. For the Tea Party, it’s genuine capitalism; for OWS, it’s socialism.)

– Time’s Poll Claiming #OWS is Popular Stacks The Deck

Via Gateway Pundit:

For the Record… More Blacks Supported Tea Party Movement Than Support #Occupy Movement

Today the Washington Post reported that African Americans, who are 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, make up only 1.6 percent of Occupy Wall Street.

It’s too bad the Occupy Movement couldn’t be like the tea party.

An April 2010 Gallup poll found that 6% of tea party support came from non-hispanic blacks.

Via AoSHQ:

But asked whether they have a higher opinion of the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movement the Tea Party wins out 43-37, representing a flip from last month when Occupy Wall Street won out 40-37 on that question. Again the movement with independents is notable- from preferring Occupy Wall Street 43-34, to siding with the Tea Party 44-40.

Tea Party Ideology More Popular for Americans Than Occupy Wall Street:

In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,031 American adults, 51 per cent of respondents say they are angrier about the amount of money that the government spends, and how high taxes, the national debt and the federal budget deficit currently are.

Two-in-five Americans (40%) are angrier about social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of commercial interests and lobbyists on the U.S. government.

The notion that government is overspending and taxes are too high—which has been the main message of the Tea Party movement—resonated in all areas of the country, and is particularly popular among Republicans (79%). Conversely, the proportion of respondents who are angry about economic inequality—as expressed in several Occupy Wall Street rallies—is highest among Democrats (58%).

And compare the Occupy mob against volunteer troops”

the troops would not complain to the cameras even if there were any left in the war zones documenting their struggles. They aren’t whiners. They may be the same general age as the Occupy Wall Street gang, but they occupy a very different, less frivolous world.

…

Our troops likely don’t give any thought at all to these spoiled adolescents. But if they did, they might suggest that if these Occupy Wall Street losers really wanted to fight injustice and build a better world, they would get a haircut, head to a recruiting station and occupy a pair of combat boots.

Who is Violent – Left or Right? (310++ Cases) – Occupy Wall Street and other places from no. 315 onwards.

Tea Party Crasher FAILs

In Search of People of Colour (at: 9/12 Rally)

Name That Party! MSM Almost Always Omits Mention Democrat Party Affiliation of Convicted Politicians

Presidential Double Standards: Bush and Obama Given Different Treatment on Same Issues

Comparing US and Malaysian Current Politics

Obnoxious Hollywood Liberals, And How They Can Afford Their Destructive Royal Lifestyles (But Their Fans Can’t)

Excerpts from National Review (which as a whole is actually focusing on how Marie Antoinette is very unfairly smeared as having said “Let them eat cake”):

Marie-Antoinette Goes to Hollywood
by Jonah Goldberg
Life in LaLa Land.

…

I got to thinking about all of this when I stumbled on an article explaining that Jennifer Lopez won’t allow anyone to photograph her elbows.

Stick with me.

I’ve long been of the opinion that celebrities, specifically movie stars, behave and, more importantly, think like old European royalty. Before I get into that, some tidbits.

The article detailed some of the typical demands that Hollywood “Divas” make on their staffs and producers. The phenomenon was hardly new to me, but this piece offers some nice additions for my file. Mariah Carey has an assistant whose only job is to hand her towels. Also, wherever Mariah goes, her courtesans must first remove posters of rival “divas,” lest they offend her delicate sensibilities: Thou shalt have no divas before me!

Incidentally, if you read your supermarket tabloids you’d know that Carey is now in some sort of psychiatric rehab clinic — the modern equivalent of a fainting couch or royal baths, I suppose.

It goes on: Kim Basinger is “allergic” to the sun and requires an assistant to carry an umbrella to protect her on the off chance she might be exposed to dangerous solar radiation. John Travolta has a staff of 12 assistants, including a personal chef. Sylvester Stallone once refused to continue with an interview until his hotel room was painted a more “likable” peach. Mike Myers (whom I like) almost quit the filming of Wayne’s World because he didn’t have any margarine for his bagel. Sean Penn made an assistant swim the dangerous and polluted currents of New York’s East River just to bring him a cigarette.

And then there is the increasingly commonplace demand from numerous stars that no one be allowed to look them in the eye uninvited. For example, only members of Jennifer Lopez’s “double-digit entourage” are permitted to gaze into the windows of her soul. Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise, and of course Barbra Streisand are just a handful of the folks who think they’re on the same plateau as Japanese Emperors, Turkish Pashas, and Medieval Kings.

There’s also all the stuff in my files about people like Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and countless others who require full time aromatherapists, masseuses, acupuncturists, etc., etc. Or people like Alec Baldwin, who demands scripts be written out fö-net-tick-ally bee-kauz hee’z 2 stoopid 2 reed wurds that R speld fun-nee. Okay, I’m making that last one up, but it’s a reasonable assumption.

…

I think it goes directly to the fact that they live the lives they do. Their cultural liberalism is derived largely from the fact that they can afford their bad habits. If they want to ditch their wives or husbands, they can afford to pay them off. When Catharine Zeta-Jones married Michael Douglas, her lawyers demanded and got a $5 million dollar “straying fee” in the highly probable circumstance that he, as a “recovering sex addict,” might get the Jones for someone else’s Zeta (for more on this see my article “Just like Ozzie and Harriet“).

Or take Madonna. It’s an understatement to say Madonna was a champion of cultural libertinism. Early in her career, she taught 12-year-old girls to embrace their “sexuality,” and to throw off all those bourgeois hang-ups about sex, marriage, heterosexuality, whatever. Basically, she was a peripatetic evangelist of sluttiness. But when it came time to settle down and have a husband and kids, she could, quite simply, afford to. The question is what happened to the lower-middle-class girls from Jersey City who took her advice?

Sure, it’s easy for Madonna to ridicule the Catholic Church and tutor girls about getting kinky-dirty with complete strangers. Currently on tour, Madonna has a 400-person entourage. She recently explained to the Sunday Mirror, “I don’t have any problems with [diapers], because I have never changed one.” Tell that to the thirty-year-old single mom who works as a hairdresser, and who had great fun one night as a teenager following Madonna’s example.

I don’t mean to get all judgy here, and besides, that’s not a word. But if there’s a single factor which best explains why Hollywood stars loved Clinton, endorse sexual licentiousness, and denounce religious conservatism, it is that they can afford, socially and economically, to live like moral reprobates. They have the money to pay for the inconveniences, and they have the glamour (and the peers) that makes it impossible for them to be shunned.

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Movie stars are the only self-made rich people who, as a group, can be relied upon to endorse socialist economics. “You can do both [capitalism and socialism] and I think Cuba might prove that,” Chevy Chase declared a year or two ago.

There are a lot of factors to explain this. Unlike businessmen or inventors, actors value their emotions above all things. So if you “feel” that poor people should have more, it must be so. If you “feel” that conservatives are Nazis, it must be so. And, since most stars must know, at some fundamental level, that they don’t deserve the money they earn, all the usual guilt complexes of liberalism must be especially acute.

But the most relevant factor, I think, is the arrogance of simple ignorance. Barbra Streisand said to Larry King in 1995, “[D]oes it make sense to you . . . the things that they’re proposing, to give tax cuts to the rich, to give tax cuts to me? I don’t need them.” Perhaps — but Barbra Streisand can also auction her soiled bathroom linens for more than a thousand dollars (as she did at an auction a few years ago). The economic realities for a Hollywood star are so distorted as to be as unrecognizable as those of Monarchist France. Can you imagine a CEO halting a merger because there’s no margarine for his bagel? The outraged stockholders would make the French mob look like a bunch of toddlers with Nerf bats. So it’s no surprise that people like Alec Baldwin and Barbra Streisand think “fixing” the country’s policies is simply a matter of demanding they be fixed. When Melanie Griffith was asked, by the thankfully defunct George Magazine, what she would do if she were president, she responded that the first thing she’d do is pass a law saying “no one should make more than $1 billion a year.” See, it’s just that easy.

Then there are the renowned bleeding hearts — like Streisand, Michael Moore, and Rosie O’Donnell — who care about poor and working people, so long as they aren’t working for them. Famed for being nasty, demanding, and often vicious bosses, these liberals find an emotional connection with abstract people like “the poor” or “the blacks.” They argue that life should be easy, better, and even sexually adventurous for these abstractions, precisely because they can imagine themselves walking in their shoes. But when it’s real people — people with real problems, people with names, hell, people who swim the East River for their cigarettes, or look at their feet when the boss enters the room — they change their tune. Suddenly, it’s not Barbra’s problem. Sure, let them eat cake, but I’ll be damned if I pay for it out of my own pocket.

When Sharon Stone attended a “policy conference” with Bill Clinton a few years ago, Barbra Streisand was reportedly scandalized: “What does Sharon Stone know about policy?” shrieked the jealous and infatuated diva. This raises a better question: What does Ms. Streisand — perhaps the most famous “great princess” in Hollywood today — know about policy? My guess is, probably as much as Marie-Therese did. But that won’t stop Babs from declaring, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche,” whenever she gets the chance.

Via Verum Serum via AoSHQ.