Barnes Ignoble

Jonah Goldberg has a problem. Perhaps an innocent lack of foresight, or perhaps a grand evil scheme, but apparently it can be hard to find Jonah's new bestselling book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, at Barnes & Noble bookstores.



Many people have piped in to Jonah with their own example of futile searches for the title in the brick & mortar stores. The weather was crappy here today, so I figured I would see how B&N fared online.

The result...not much better....

If you go to their website and look up the book, will find that it is "Usually available in 1-2 weeks". Hey, not bad for an Amazon #1 seller, and a NYT top 10 bestseller, right??


(Click on picture...I also like the fact that you can buy the book used starting at $122.98!)

The B&N website has another option, to check availability at your local stores. So how did my area stores fare? Uh, not so good.....

When I provided my Zip Code, I got the results for 6 local stores. According to the system, only 2 had it lested as "In Stock". I wonder if the 'Audacity of Hope' had these problems?



So, while it may not be a vicious leftist bookstore worker conspiracy to keep the conservative word down, it certainly ought to be a lesson to Barnes & Noble that perhaps their business model, both storefrint and online, could use a little more flexible.

Astronomical Bureaucracy

Instapundit points to a great feat by some Wisconsin HS kids...

AN ARMY OF CLYDE TOMBAUGHS:

Three Racine sophomore students were notified on Monday that a
celestial body they discovered during a science project had been
verified as an asteroid.

The students at Racine's Prairie School will be able to name the
asteroid, temporarily identified as "2008 AZ28," in about four years,
according to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., the
international authority on known objects in the solar system.

I actually wrote about this very phenomenon in An Army of Davids. Astronomical work that used to require a university is now routinely done by amateurs.

It may be work that is being done by amateurs, but astronomy apparently it is still a field controlled by bureaucrats.

FOUR years to name a celestial body? I have heard of scientific rigor, but c'mon! That's more like scientific rigor mortis. The asteroid could have hit us by then and we wouldn't have known what to call it.....

One Down, Two to Go...

Pats 31, Jags 20

Come Vote in NH - Part II

On the night of the New Hampshire primary, I speculated (slightly tongue in cheek) that perhaps some Dems had crossed into the state to vote for Hillary.

Instapundit has posted this about other possible election shenanigans:

DAILYKOS: Vote for Mitt!

UPDATE: In the same vein, a reader emails:

I've been wondering if it would make sense for Republicans to cross over in states where they can and vote for Hillary hoping that if Clinton is the Dem nominee, then blacks may vote Republican in November or sit out.

I dunno, but it seems a bit tacky. Doesn't it?

Of course these types of machinations are probably what have gone on in smoke-filled political backrooms for years. Only now they are being discussed by amateurs.

I would think that the very fact that the general public is now conspiring (because, yes, this would be a conspiracy) on how to manipulate elections should be cause for states to re-look at their types of elections (like cross party primaries) and their rules for voting eligibility.

A good start would bea voter ID requirement. Are you listening Indiana?

Come Vote in NH

Update: Numbers below have been updated this AM...

In 2004, in a desperate battle to try to unseat the fascist Bush war regime, the Dems managed a grand total of 217,401 votes in the pivotal NH primary.

This year with a much more open, and winnable, race for the Presidency, the Dems have a total of 278,068 votes. But that is with 96% of the precincts counted. If you project this rate out to 100%, that would predict ~289,650 total votes.

So I guess my question is....where did those extra 72,000+ votes come from? I am sure there are a number of factors, from new voters, to the wandering NH independents. But I also have to wonder how many of those Hillary supporters who were shipped in to pump up the volume might have stuck around to vote? What are NH polling place criteria anyways?

OK, I know I an cynical....

Lost?

Confederate Yankee points out how Barack Obama's Foreign Policy plan seems to be "damaged and unreadable"



However, when I go to his link to the Obama policy, I get the following:

Lost? That seems to be an apt description, based on what I have heard thus far....

The Audacity of Fascism

I love it when I find the unintended comedy of idealogical irony.

One instance of this occured in today's print edition of USA Today (Thanks Holiday Inn!)

On page 13A we find Jonah Goldberg's delicious little opinion piece on Vladimir Putin's love affair with his "ideological ally" FDR, titled 'Putin's role model'.

Jonah asks us to remember that the New Deal was socialism incarnate, and was adored by foreign fascists across the globe:

"Even so, we forget how martial FDR was, long before World War II loomed on the horizon. Almost every New Deal program was rooted in the logic of Woodrow Wilson's "war socialism." The dubious constitutionality of the New Deal was rationalized under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. In his first inaugural, FDR dubs all of America a single "great Army" he would lead in a "disciplined attack upon our common problems." In fireside chats, he'd call for such things as a great "summer offensive against unemployment."

No doubt the editorial staff at USA Today was holding their nose, since they were obligated by contract to run Jonah's insights. Thus to counteract this they decided to place a column right next to his that extolled the great virtues of Barack Obama in his ability in "transcending racial divide".

No doubt in their zeal to provide balance to Jonah, they forgot to actually read the column on Obama, which helped demonstrate Jonah's point that liberals still like to declare war on their problems of choice....

"Back in July, I asked Obama whether he could lead a new
war on poverty given the historic resistance of taxpayers to
funding these kinds of programs."

Not that I needed one, but I guess this is another convincing reason to buy Jonah's new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.