Why Huntsman is behind in the polls

Joe Klein on Huntsman's speech in New Hampshire:

Others have suggested that [Huntsman] “offended” the Republican base by acknowledging his belief in evolution and man-made climate change. If so, the Republican base badly needed offending. But Huntsman’s real sin is deeper than that: his is a vitriol-free candidacy. There is no gratuitous sliming of Barack Obama or his fellow Republican candidates. There is no spurious talk of “socialism.” He pays not the slightest heed to the various licks and chops that Rush Limbaugh has made into stations of the cross for Republican candidates.

He is out-of-step with the anger that has overwhelmed his party and puts it at odds with the vast, sensible mainstream of this country. Because he has refused to engage in such carnival tactics–because he hasn’t had any oops! moments, extramarital affairs, lobbying deals with Freddie Mac or flip-flops–the media have largely ignored him. That makes us complicit in a national political calamity. But Republican voters have been complicit, too: a conservative party that doesn’t take Huntsman seriously as a candidate has truly lost its way.

I'm a lot more skeptical about "anthropogenic climate change" than Hunstman but he's more honest and sincere than his fellow-Mormon, Romney, and he's saner, smarter, classier and simply more adult than Gingrich, Santorum, Bachman or even Paul - and he's definitely not Palin!

Beehives, the Borg and group identity politics

From Thomas Seeley’s Honeybee Democracy:

We will see that the 1.5 kilograms (3 pounds) of bees in a honeybee swarm, just like the 1.5 kilograms (3 pounds) of neurons in a human brain, achieve their collective wisdom by organizing themselves in such a way that even though each individual has limited information and limited intelligence, the group as a whole makes first-rate collective.

Real human individuals can think for themselves. Humans who identity with a group (such as most leftists, unionists, gays and blacks) can't think for themselves as they do not possess individually fully-functioning brains.

War for peace

Mike LaBossiere on Pinker's thesis that the human beings are becoming more peaceful:

A rather interesting factor to consider is natural selection. Societies tend to respond to violent crimes with violence, often killing such criminals. Wars also tend to kill the violent. As such, centuries of war and violent crime might be performing natural selection on the human species - the more violent humans would tend to be killed, thus leaving those less prone to crime and violence to reproduce more. Crudely put, perhaps we are killing our way towards peace.

Looks like finally leftist intellectuals are figuring it out. Sane and civilized people have known this for centuries. The only practical way to deal with vermin is extermination.