"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
by Smitty
Check Da Tech Guy serving up the on-scene interview. Just didn’t see that one coming, though, in retrospect, it’s a straightforward play.
Maybe the people on the other end of that comparison should set out to mitigate this kind of comparison. OK, I see it as logical, so those people are beat.
American Power has additional Planned Parenthood reporting.
by Smitty
Stacy phones in the Interstate 81 report:
I stopped Resaca, GA, got gas and a chili cheese dog, coffee and chips @1300.
Stopped again in Bristol, VA to charge cel phone, have soul food and sweet tea at Cracker Barrel. Dessert was cheesecake (non-Rule 5) and coffee.
Stacy also wanted to highlight his teaching skills. As he sat enjoying his soul food, he perused the Bristol Courier Herald, where an intern from his Washington Times days, Deborah McCown, has a series on Mining Mountains. Quite a well-written, balanced article, from a quick glance. DM was Stacy’s WT intern the same year Monique Stewart, and he apparently preferred DM to MS. For which disclosure he shall be made to pay, one expects. More to follow. DM’s series is award-winning, says Stacy. EPA and tree huggers are trying to kill coal mining in Southwestern Virginia.
He got gas, coffee, and smokes in Bristol, now heading north in the rain, driving at an uspecified velocity.
Shortly after that he called with the musical update:
The DJ at 95.3 FM just played Katrina and the Waves, Walking on Sunshine.
by Smitty
Right there in Real Clear Politics:
Some years ago, for example, there was a big outcry that various mental tests used for college admissions or for employment were biased and “unfair” to many individuals or groups. Fortunately there was one voice of sanity– David Riesman, I believe– who said: “The tests are not unfair. LIFE is unfair and the tests measure the results.”If by “fair” you mean everyone having the same odds for achieving success, then life has never been anywhere close to being fair, anywhere or at any time. If you stop and think about it (however old-fashioned that may seem), it is hard even to conceive of how life could possibly be fair in that sense.
A wise Lieutenant was even more succinct 20 years ago: “Fa(ir|re) is what you pay to ride a bus” Pun shown as a regular expression.
People frequently are not using the concept of ‘fairness’ in a statistical sense of a truly random shot at accomplishing X feat in life.
Rather, one often sees ‘fairness’ brought up as a diplomatic delaying tactic; a play-action fake. When someone drops the f-bomb about about how the people in Accounting are treated, as opposed to those in Admin, reasonable people have to stop and consider if there is a basis for the claim. In the meantime, much background scurrying occurs.
Note that this discussion is purely on the INPUT side of life. What expectation of fairness we apply to the secular world as it comes at us should be low low low. We will be right, or pleasantly surprised. Affirmative Action gets beat with both the Iron Law of Bureaucracy and Quinn’s First Law. In defense of Affirmative Action, one could argue that there was a need to kick-start things back in the day. That need had an exponential decay curve associated with it, and that need may have passed its sell-by date. What to do?
Well, be fair! Even though you expect nothing more than an outburst of Kramerism:
Rex Kramer: Do you know what it’s like to fall in the mud and get kicked… in the head… with an iron boot? Of course you don’t, no one does. It never happens. Sorry, Ted, that’s a dumb question… skip that.
Choose to be the opposite. Under-react when other bloggers fail to grasp the sublime brilliance of your post. It is clearly unfair that Instapundit doesn’t link everything with my by-line, but what I can do is offer shouts out to all sorts of other bloggers. And space for other drivers to merge. And patience for that person in the checkout line who Really Needs To Get Their Act Together.
But let the ‘F’ bomb remain profane.
by Smitty
Read the writing on Gibbs’s hand, Alan Colmes: the word ‘jobs bill’ does not appear. Says Alan: “So far, there’s only sniping from the right.” You don’t really get it, Alan. If anyone at all thought sniper fire would help…but everyone realizes it’s worse than that. No unspeakable ‘silver bullet’ acts are going to help anything at all. The ship of state has a ludicrous port list. While rushing everyone to the port rail might have worked for Captain Keynes, the rest of us know that overcoming the righting moment really doesn’t work well above the kayak level:
Update: this link jumps 1:24 in, to make my point. The embed below dumps the time offset argument, to my chagrin.
No, the ship of state really needs something along more traditional, Hayekian lines.
As Tigerhawk puts it, “it will be a “jobs bill” only insofar as it destroys them.”
Instapundit has just linked a Mr. Scott Stein, whose “Put down the political pom-poms” goes directly to you and the RINOs, Mr. Colmes. Stein quotes a Mr. Nock, who is admirably topical:
Likewise, age after age, mankind have made the attempt to construct a stable and satisfactory nationalist civil system, unable to learn that nothing like that can, in the nature of things, be done.
You realize that the Tower of Babel was a liberal fascist stimulus project, Mr. Colmes? OK, that’s hyperbole: we’re not far enough along the Cloward-Piven strategy for the really hard authoritarianism and subsequent disasters. And, if you put down your pom-poms, we might avert such.
Update: Honorable Bob Belvedere provides a jolly graphic for the ToB quip above. Thanks, Bob!
by Smitty
I just don’t see a screw-in coffin as ever being a hit except possibly among the hyper-secular FTW set.
It really makes no difference how efficient it is, or how much cost is avoided at the funeral home. Cremation remains an option.
Best wishes to the inventor; clearly some thought went into the idea. Some areas of life are so blissfully Luddite that the market is unlikely to pay much attention to alternatives, however clever.
by Smitty (via Instapundit)
What in the name of Norman Rockwell is wrong with this country? From the Wikipedia entry on felony:
Crimes commonly considered to be felonies include, but are not limited to: aggravated assault and/or battery, arson, burglary, illegal drug use/sales, grand theft, robbery, murder, rape, and vandalism on federal property. Broadly, felonies can be categorized as either violent or non-violent (property and drug) offenses.
Continue reading Is The Legal System Just Another Industry? →
by Smitty
American Thinker has an excellent post concerning views on Socialism. AT quotes BHO’s NYT AF1 interview a year ago, which has some nuggets:
Q. Is there one word name for your philosophy? If you’re not a socialist, are you a liberal? Are you progressive? One word?
A. No, I’m not going to engage in that.
Later…(emphasis mine)
At 2:30 p.m., President Obama called The New York Times, saying he wanted to clarify a point from the interview. Here is a transcript of that brief call:
President Obama:Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter. It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement – the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it’s important just to note when you start hearing folks throw these words around that we’ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word socialist around can’t say the same.
He presaged the Pelosi-ism “Are you serious? Are you serious?”, and denied the watch three times. Elsewhere in the world, a cock crowed. Then he claimed to be operating “entirely consistent with free-market principles”, which he learned while running…something, as opposed to the current situation, where something is running him.
But in defense of the President, the last piece is telling: the genius of Progressivism has been to leach into the political and economic structure of the country over the course of a century.
The President can justify anything he wants by pointing out that he’s carrying out precedent.
Don’t hate the players: rework the game, people.
by Smitty (h/t Knowledge is Power)
It looks like part of the recent snowfall fallout has been some apparent damage to the NTP server at USA Today HQ in McLean, VA.
Sure, it’s stupid to speculate about technical details, but I’m trying to hold forth a fig leaf here. Editorial files could have become mangled, as witnessed by John Brennan’s USA Today outing:
Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.
Wasn’t the GOP doing that to discredit John Kerry? Isn’t that the textbook definition of Swift Boating?
The rest of the article is an attempt to justify the administration’s policies with respect to the underpants bomber, so that portion, at least, is of apparently recent vintage.
At the end, there is another bit that appears to be garbled with something older, emphasis mine:
This administration’s efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond — far more than in 2008. We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war.
Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America’s counterterrorism professionals and America’s system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.
Now, when those on the Right pointed out that politically motivated criticism offers succor to the foe, that was jingo-istic. Dissent was the highest form of patriotism. How, Mr. Brennan, do you (and any similar parties on the Left) expect to be taken seriously when you are so demonstrably hypocritical? You really have to put forward an iron-clad case on why “this time it’s different” to avoid sounding like a pack of whining children when arguing in this fashion. Instead of bolstering the case, and supporting the Administration, you have the unintended consequence of making it look very, very stupid.
Confidence remains in the counterterrorism professionals. Confidence is damaged in the system of justice by the unintelligible actions of Eric Holder. Confidence is dwindling in the rest of the Administration, unmentioned here.
Fix that NTP server ‘glitch’. Ponder useful policy. And for heaven’s sake, when you’re losing the rhetorical battle, don’t give the opposition ammunition. Such will be returned, arriving at an uncomfortable velocity.
Unrelated aside: Makes My Brain Itch would like to celebrate 5k posts since last August. Every blog begins with a Freud ProustFirst Post. Congratulations.
Also weighing in was Ace of Spades.
Update: NRO Online had a nice summary of a similar McArdle find.