I've said it before and I'll say it again. The government shutdown worked.

Gingrich famously called Dole "Tax Collector for the Welfare State."

So you're saying they are not best friends?

All that eyeshade stuff is great, but this legislation fundamentally transforms the relationship between State and Citizen. After ObamaCare, you are no longer a free man in any sense of the word. Your body and its constituent parts simply belongs to the government, and the government decides when and where it will be treated, if at all.  Socialized health care rips apart the concept of individual liberty, plain and simple.  That might be fine for a democratic socialist soft tyranny in Europe, but in principle it’s very un-American at its heart.

Funny, Jeffrey Lord doesn't remember Eliot Abrams saying that.

Some of us more than others. I think Margaret is misreading the quantum description of an electron. We have a pretty good idea where electrons are in atoms and molecules.

The GOP Establishment read Mark Steyn's book, but they don't believe him.

Even Paul Ryan doesn't.

<sigh>

Our own Peter Robinson had an answer to Eliot Abrams piece.

I think a good summation is found in the comments section of the article:

When you evaluate that against Mr. Abrams, one of Jim Baker's inner circle, this anti-Newt propoganda falls right into place. Bob Dole, Bush 41, Jim Baker, and legions of other RINO squishes are still holding a 30-year old grudge over Newt fighting moderates off of Reagan's coattails. Additionally, they've still never forgiven Newt for subverting Bush 41's biggest tax increase proposals in the early 1990's. That Newt is simultaneously winning massive support from real working folks while inside-the-beltway Republicans are drawing out their most venomous anti-Newt rhetoric is no coincidence at all. All you have to do is go back over all the old rivalries in Reagan's White House to understand where this anti-Newt fury is coming from.

In addition, there's this and this and this.

Right. I chose my words carefully.

In 1981 I was 11. I saw that shuttle go up and with Reagan as the newly elected President who was talking about a new day in America, it was inspiring.

In one of Mark Steyn's rambling books, he does make a point: There hasn't been much technological advancement between 1950 and now. While some folks suggest that NASA funding is not worthy, but military spending is, I will note that the same companies are contractors to both, which is where the majority of the funds are spent in both cases. 

I think America should be in the business of space exploration in the same way I think America should fund basic science (read Vannevar Bush) and in the same way England and Spain funded the exploration of the planet.

Is there an argument against British Imperialism? Because I think on balance, it was a win for the World.

Let's move on to the Solar System.

Velcro. The aerospace industry popularized Velcro.

Which candidate raised the top income tax rate from 7 percent to 10 percent, the sales tax rate went from 3 percent to 5 percent, the cigarette tax was increased from 3 cents to 10 cents per pack, the alcohol tax was raised from $1.50 to $2 per gallon, the bank and corporate tax rate went up from 5.5 percent to 7 percent, and the inheritance tax rose from a range of 2 percent to 10 percent to a range of 3 percent to 15 percent and then went on to raise taxes another 3 times in his state?

Which candidate signed one of the early permissive state-level abortion laws and set the stage for other states to follow?

Which candidate said: “Let him have the Fortune 500, I want our campaign to stand for Main Street, not Wall Street. I want us to stand for the worker, the shopkeeper, the entrepreneur, and the small businessman.”

Dose this statement sound remarkably like Occupy Wall Street?

That candidate? Ronald Reagan.

Purity is for Ivory Soap and Sigma-Aldrich chemicals.

Why is this bad? The first Space Shuttle took off in 1981, during the Reagan Administration. Is it wrong for America to dare, to dream of doing great things?

Did anyone fret when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?

Would anyone if we set up a moon base for scientific exploration from the moon? 

I think it would be cool after 20+ years of taking a space ship around the Earth to repair satellites. It would be cool to go somewhere.

(I thought some of you were Trekkies? How did that begin?)

It's like being a shark. You have the remoras. They're difficult, but here goes: 

1. That bastion of liberalism, the Hertiage Foundation came up with the Individual Mandate. A lot of Republicans stood for the Individual Mandate. He wants to overturn ObamaCare now. He didn't make the road map for it, and think it can't be repealed.

2. As a scientist who works at the edges of this field, I am dubious, but plenty of really smart people I know who work in the field are not. As a scientist, I cannot say it's settled; only the Laws of Thermodynamics are settled.

3. Cap and Trade. His position evolved to the point that he was solidly against it by 2008. In some circles, that would be called wisdom.

4. Fannie and Freddie. Buying the argument of the left, you want to ignore that Barney Frank is the culprit for Fannie and Freddie, not Newt Gingrich. 

 You can have 2007. I'll take the 1978-1998...

There's no way to substantiate this based upon his time in office or programs proposed in his platform. This talk is the GOP Establishment trying to get the Republican Base to not vote for Gingrich. To wit

1. He wants to balance the budget (which he did as Speaker of the House), pay down the debt, and cut capital gains tax to zero. He wants a flat tax of 15%

2. He is solidly Pro-Life

3. He wants to repeal RobamaCare.

4. He is Pro-2nd Amendement.

5. He is solid on Foreign Policy.

That's pretty damn conservative. 

You can nibble at the edges, but that's true of any conservative (besides me). 

He was an unbelievably successful conservative Speaker of the House. Getting Democrats to vote against him, easy. Getting the establishment Republicans (John Boehner) to vote against him was also easy. As this article points out, being conservative in Congress can cost you allies.

This piece of work:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

Has a 46 for reading level and -64 for readability.

I suppose this song isn't played at frat houses nowadays.