Year: 2010

Is The Legal System Just Another Industry?

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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.

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President Obama Makes A Good Point

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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.

NTP Server Possibly Damaged In Snowstorm

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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.

Ron Reagan Jr. Acts Like A Colossal Goon

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by Smitty (h/t Gateway Pundit)

My hat is off to Pamela, again, this time for tolerating the insufferable Ron Reagan, Jr. What a Solomon to Rehoboam transition for that family. Nancy, you love your son, I’m sure, but the same mouth that knows Governor Palin “hasn’t got a thought in her head” is entirely too quick to slice Pamela off at the ankles for “not having met my father.”

What a contemptible, cretinous performance by the son of a great American. Wikipedia says that he’s been lurking on MSNBC and Air America. The reasons are obvious. Sadly, I’d say his career has already peaked.


I’ll paraphrase an Onion horosocope I saw at some point in the past:

Junior, you’re your own man, and no one can tell you what to do, but you’ve really got to quit snorting all that Drano.

Update: Linked by Da Tech Guy, who still needs support to make CPAC.

Update II: Another Black Conservative: “PDS zombie Ron Reagan was feeling particularly butch.”

Global Philosophical Warming: This Kant Be Happenin’

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by Smitty (via PuffHo)

Bernard-Henri Lévy had some data problems, reports the Telegraph, out flogging another tome, On War in Philosophy, which can’t be linked at Amazon, yet.  His thought seems mildly interesting, as, according to Wikipedia, he has founded an Institute of Levinassian Studies. As with all philosophers, I’m tempted to put him in a room and force him to incorporate his ideas into something practical, to filter excessive navel-gazing.

The story is that a writer created a fake philosophical persona, “Jean-Baptiste Botul, whom [Lévy] describes as a post-War authority on Kant”. You would think that Lévy himself would have met a Kantian authority. But Botul, and the school of philosophical thought called ‘Botulism’, are as rare as sunspot activity of late.

Maybe the current blowback will be theraputic:

Mr Lévy took the humiliation on the chin last night in appearances in a series of evening TV shows. “I found the book astonishing,” he said, adding that Mr Pagès was a “very good philosopher”.
“Hats off to the this invented but truer than real life Kant whose portrait, whether signed by Botul or Pagès still seems in line with my idea of (the philosopher),” he told the Libération.

Al Gore, hunched over his snow-blower, refused to comment.

Ah, The Blame Game

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by Smitty

Pundit & Pundette points to to The Hill:

The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

Rahm is a less than sympathetic character in the whole ordeal. To paraphrase Winston Churchill,

“You can always count on Americans to arrive at the correct analysis – after they’ve tried everything else.”

Note that by Americans, I mean the citizens at large. I explicitly hold forth 0 hope whatsoever for the goofballs in office or the pack of Fester Addams characters staffing all of those cushy, quasi-tenured civil service positions. Over decades they have created, and now enjoy, a jolly good crisis. None of their prescriptions start with the admission that the system, itself, is the problem.
So the people were asleep at the voting machine switch for a long time. And now the Information Age alarm clock has triggered another Great Awakening:

They were right. The Tea Party movement is bottom up, not top down. Lots of Tea Party people think well of Sarah Palin, but I doubt that many, even among the attendees at this weekend’s convention, would do much of anything just on her say-so. People I’ve talked to, both there and at other events, aren’t looking for a charismatic leader.

I submit that the requirement for the single name getting the blame/credit will diminish over time. Adults don’t require micro-management. They require transparency, simplicity, and reproducibility for policies. The Federal payroll, one would think at first blush, should taper off over time. The fact that it’s increasing is bizarre and counter-intuitive if you take ‘civil servant’ at face value.
Those who are stuck in a legacy mode of personality-driven leadership are going to continue to make big deals over Potty Mouth Rahm or Inky Palm Sarah.
A different, dare we say, unprecedented approach would be to exercise Article V of the Constitution. Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion of the Beltway reforming itself. Congress is a financial molester, and if you hope for anything save recidivism, you’ll become an expert hoper. They. Won’t. Fix. Jack. Willingly, at least. I say that to dampen in advance the expectation that an unprecedented November avalanche at the polls will deliver the necessary colonic irrigation to DC:
No, I think it’s worse than that, and that nothing less than a bottom-up tsunami of State legislatures sharpening Article V Amendment knives is going to halt the slide into Europification of this country. The passion of the people is great, but it needs to be transformed into cold analysis and structural rearrangement to amount to much. If we don’t mend our ways, merely changing out the names will leave all the blockage in place, awaiting the next blame game.

Update: linked at The Classic Liberal

Heading North

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — I’m heading out this morning, back to snowbound Maryland, where the forecast is snow, snow, and more snow. My wife’s worried. I’ll be OK.

Thanks to all the tip-jar hitters who’ve made this trip possible. Some road reading:

Clearly, when casino operators in Alabama start talking like that, it’s a hint for me to hit the road.