The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Chicken Isn’t Sufficiently Plucked Already (CISPA)

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Slashdot links RT, saying that after all the SOPA/PIPA kerfuffle, the Really Smart Folks in Congress have another variation on the theme:

H.R. 3523, a piece of legislation dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short), has been created under the guise of being a necessary implement in America’s war against cyberattacks. But the vague verbiage contained within the pages of the paper could allow Congress to circumvent existing exemptions to online privacy laws and essentially monitor, censor and stop any online communication that it considers disruptive to the government or private parties. Critics have already come after CISPA for the capabilities that it will give to seemingly any federal entity that claims it is threatened by online interactions, but unlike the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Acts that were discarded on the Capitol Building floor after incredibly successful online campaigns to crush them, widespread recognition of what the latest would-be law will do has yet to surface to the same degree.

According to Open Congress, this bill is sponsored by Michael Rogers, R-MI, and has 106 co-sponsors.

For a quick glance at the bill’s summary, it doesn’t seem especially evil.

And yet, informed geeks like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are less than excited (emphasis original):

would let companies spy on users and share private information with the federal government and other companies with near-total immunity from civil and criminal liability. It effectively creates a “cybersecurity” exemption to all existing laws.
There are almost no restrictions on what can be collected and how it can be used, provided a company can claim it was motivated by “cybersecurity purposes.” That means a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop cybersecurity threats.
Worst of all, the stated definition of “cybersecurity” is so broad, it leaves the door open to censor any speech that a company believes would “degrade the network.” The bill specifically mentions that cybersecurity can include protecting against the “theft or misappropriation of private or government information” including “intellectual property.” Such sweeping language would give companies and the government new powers to monitor and censor communications for copyright infringement. It could also be a powerful weapon to use against whistleblower websites like WikiLeaks.

Fortunately, there is no way this legislation could ever go pear-shaped, and lead to some Orwellian hell online. I mean, look at the fantastic job those guys are doing balancing the budget and making sure we don’t drown in debt? What could possibly go wrong?

Category: How This Here Internet Thingy Works

Rich Lowry’s Editorial Impotence?

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 107 Comments

A communiqué from the regime:

“Needless to say, no one at National Review shares Derb’s appalling view of what parents supposedly should tell their kids about blacks in this instantly notorious piece here.”

Yes, but have you fired him for it, Rich? What the hell kind of “needless to say” bulls–t are you trying to play on us here?

Mind you, I’m not saying you should fire Derbyshire: A commenter on a previous post raised the possibility that Derb was cleverly parodying a black racialist writer’s version of “The Talk.” So I suppose that some plausible explanation or defense can’t be ruled out.

“Needless to say,” however, they don’t pay you the big bucks to waffle in times of crisis, Rich. Your executive authority must be exercised and, with this howling Internet lynch mob demanding Derbyshire’s scalp, you must either satisfy the mob or deal with the consequences.

Obviously, Rich, it would do neither of us — nor Derbyshire, for that matter — any good for me to offer you unsolicited advice. You’ve never taken my advice before, and I don’t expect you to start now.

UPDATE: Vox Day calls Derb’s piece “a calm and perfectly reasonable collection of observable realities of race in America.” Lisa Graas offers, “Things I Don’t Say to My Kids About Black People.”

BTW, have you hit Lisa’s tip jar yet? I did.

UPDATE II: In case you haven’t been reading this blog regularly for three years, I’ve been arguing Lowry should be fired since 2009: “a lot of snotty nancy-boy whining about the uncouth Republican rabble.”

UPDATE III: Dan Collins thought this might be relevant:

Caught on camera — a tourist being beaten in downtown Baltimore and instead of helping him, a crowd laughs and steals his belongings.

Watch the video of the Bad Samaritans:

Has Rich Lowry been to downtown Baltimore lately? Not saying he should get punched in the face, although it might do him a world of good.

UPDATE IV: Leon Wolf accuses Lowry of displaying “an absolute lack of leadership and conviction.” But what else can we expect from “conservatives” who are in the tank for Romney?

BTW, has Mitt denounced Derbyshire yet?

UPDATE V: One of the things that has bothered me for years is the way some people want to treat political journalists as if they were actually politicians, so that anyone who writes about politics must be “vetted,” as if they were themselves candidates for elected office.

My own understanding of my job is write something people want to read, and get paid for it.

Having the “correct” opinion on controversial issues? Nobody’s ever offered to pay me for that, and I don’t expect any such offers soon. My writing therefore must stand or fall on its own merits, without regard for my ability to win any kind of popularity contest or plebescite.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin writes about an actual politician:

[Marion] Barry told supporters in D.C.’s Ward 8: “We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops. They ought to go.” Once pushed out, Barry, promised, he would replace the foreign invaders with “African-American business people.” Barry then took to social networking platform Twitter to expound on the perils of “dirty” Asian shops in his neighborhood.

The same people who support Marion Barry nevertheless want us to think the real problem in American race relations is John Derbyshire.

UPDATE VI (Smitty): via The Political Hat, it looks like NRO has parted ways with Derbyshire:

His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation.

Category: Journalism, Racism

Does The ‘NBC Editor’ Really Exist?

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

Daily- and Instapudit are on about Breitbart’s post concerning the fired NBC editor. Back at Breitbart:

The questions are only just beginning on Editgate. The release of the news of the firing just before the holiday weekend smacks of a cover-up; more than that, we know that the edit itself was not restricted to the Today show. Brian Williams and the brass at NBC News must provide answers. They are responsible for editorial output, not an unnamed producer. And they must be held responsible for an irresponsible and dangerous edit apparently deliberately designed to twist the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman story along racial lines.

NBC really loves them some voodoo editing.

Given their utter lack of forthrightness, both in pushing the initial lie about what Zimmerman said, and now the firing of this un-named editor, we really should ask: does this NBC jackwagon exist, or is NBC just stacking subterfuge upon misdirection?

And, even if this alleged jackwagon is produced, is he going to be fired fired, or just given the Full Imus? By that I mean, sent on what amounts to an extended vacation, and then brought back. In other words, how will the fundamental corruption of NBC be addressed?

The good news is that NBC’s perfidy has been exposed short of further tragedy. The bad news is that NBC is bad news.

Update: linked by The Lonely Conservative.

Category: Media Bias, NBC

Contrary To The 2008 Campaign? I Think Not

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

Via Power Line, Jay Cost at The Weekly Standard perceives a tension, which I may help him resolve, emphasis mine:

This is why Obama does not care if his attacks are unfair, untrue, unoriginal, unseemly, or whatever. He has only one goal: The state of the union stinks right now, and I must keep that stench off me.
So were you outraged by Obama’s smarmy remarks about the Supreme Court? Too bad, he does not care. He is not after your vote. He is after the vote of the fellow in the middle of the electorate, who may never have even heard of Marbury v. Madison, but certainly knows about $4 gas. If Obama can get that guy to direct his anger at somebody else for the next seven months, then he wins reelection. This week the fall guy was the Supreme Court. Next week it will be John Boehner or Big Oil or whomever. Really, it does not matter so long as it is not the president.
This runs contrary to the very premise of the Obama candidacy from 2008. Remember, he had little experience in national affairs, but that was supposed to be a great thing because Washington, D.C. had not corrupted him with its brand of divide-and-conquer gamesmanship.

Contrary, sir? I think not. The apparent tension is resolved by what appears to be a timeless bit of Ruling Class wisdom: people are sheep.

The entire Progressive Project is rooted in this assertion. #OccupyResoluteDesk is just the culmination of a century-long bladder load down the back, while claiming precipitation:

The survey result that one in four Americans strongly approve of this golden shower of malarky underscores the point: large numbers of people exhibit sheepish behavior, at least for a time.

That the Ryan budget, which isn’t vigorous enough in reforming the problem, in my opinion, is a case in point: a rational entry into what is far too emotional a discussion.

The difference between the Left and Right is that the Left grasps the fundamentally emotional nature of the national discussion. It is irrelevant, for example, that a rational view of the Trayvon Martin tragedy would encourage caution and a thorough investigation before reaching a conclusion. Shag that. There is tremendous power to be gained from playing the raaaaace card early. Fret not that those pesky facts and meddling bloggers will overturn the narrative; the emotional hit is the important part.

Or so the Left thinks. The sheep aren’t capable of the intellectual reflection necessary to see through this demagoguery. And so you have the spectacle of BHO delivering a speech that could have rolled smoothly off of the lips of Chavez or Castro, if either of those thugs were in the habit of permitting the kind of political dialogue enjoyed in this country.

I don’t think Barack Obama, the flock-head of the Left, is capable of evolving his weltanshauung to encompass the idea that the American people are rational. And so he’s going to ride the sheeply theory into his political grave.

Update: Power Line brings Alexis:

A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

Update II: linked at BPI Campus, a Lefty blog, in what amounts to a cute format.

Category: Barack Obama

They Told Me If I Voted For McCain, ‘White Folks’ Would ‘Keep’ Charter Schools For Themselves!

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

“If charter schools were so good, why didn’t the white folks keep them for themselves?”

This isn’t just wrong; it’s discouraging. When you look at the photo album of Washington DC charter schools, they may not fit the Chicago narrative. Nor, in fact, does the funding news.

But its not the reality of charter schools as both (a) racially agnostic and (b) genuinely helpful that is the bummer.

Nor is it the media and Raaaaacism Industrial Complex (RIC) insistence that only people of European extraction, plus certain useful exceptions like George Zimmerman, are  the only racists. That they’re conservatives who want to poison children. This while other actors like the speaker in Chicago, Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson are fighting for ‘justice’ when they play their games.

Nor am I given to any special guilt at the implication that I, as a member of the ‘white folks’ (when the inevitable binning has to occur) have in any way dealt with academics whatsoever. I have not so much as thought negative thoughts on the topic.

What I have done is serve my country in the military, which is shockingly, shockingly! (to any RIC rollers) integrated, egalitarian, and meritocratic, not only toward other service members, but toward the whole country. That is, I did not just don a uniform out of enjoyment of tooling around in a uniform, going to all kinds of exotic places I never would otherwise. No, I actually considered it an honor and privilege to support the ideals inherent in our Constitution for all Americans of all genetic backgrounds, religious persuasions, sexual orientations, education levels, medical conditions, economic profile, and, indeed, every single categorical line along which the Left is attempting to divide and conquer the country.

And for that reason, lady in Chicago whom I do not know, but I hope someone gets you copy of this post: I forgive you. It’s possible some people in Hyde Park or wherever actually measure down to the implication of your statement. However, know that, while “they’s some men you just cain’t reach”, the more accurate statement is that the bulk of people in this country just aren’t RIC members. I pray that enlightenment finds you, and you find yourself welcome in the egalitarian America which most of us enjoy, but by your very words, your eyes are too closed to see.

Update: linked by Daily Pundit. Thanks!

Update II: linked by Sentry Journal.

Category: Education, Racism

Use ‘Derbyshire’ as a Verb

Posted on | April 7, 2012 | 84 Comments

It’s an interesting word-game concept, eh?

For years, I’ve advocated the overthrow of the decadent Rich Lowry regime at National Review, hoping that Jonah Goldberg might lead the coup. So my main interest in this remarkable controversy is whether or not it serves to undermine Lowryism.

What you might not notice is that this is a skirmish on the fringes of the Trayvon Martin controversy, which has turned into a stalemate, so that now frustrated people are in scalp-taking mode. The NBC producer got taken out by conservatives and now, for some strange reason, NR‘s John Derbyshire just volunteers himself as a target for the Left?

The smart thing to do would be to stay away from this, but Dave Weigel wandered over and made some remarks, and now the Left is going after Weigel: He’s not sufficiently outraged for their tastes.

The Left is intolerant, opportunistic and unprincipled. While it is impossible to imagine any scenario in which Lowry won’t be forced to fire Derbyshire now, I’m actually more fascinated by the Left’s attempt to bully Weigel for failing to denounce Derbyshire in strong enough terms.

This is a sort of Maoist tactic, the demand for conformity and solidarity. The Left is enraged by the fact that Weigel is an ideological wild card, yet employed by a “mainstream” news operation. So now they’re trying to indict him as “soft on racism,” and I suppose it wouldn’t help Dave any for me to say how much I’ve always liked him, huh?

Probably not. Anyway, the other day, a conservative friend of mine pointed out that, given Jen Rubin’s annoying pro-Romney bias, maybe some people are wishing they’d never gotten Weigel fired from the Post.

And now the Left’s trying to get Weigel fired from Slate?

Be careful what you wish for, lefties. It could be worse. Trust me.

Also, here’s the best headline yet in the Trayvon Martin controversy:

Armed Neo-Nazis Now Patrolling Sanford, Say They
Are “Prepared” For Post-Trayvon Martin Violence

Remember what I said about the “riot ideology“? Some people will be disappointed if the Trayvon Martin controversy doesn’t provoke a riot.

UPDATE (Smitty): linked at The Conservatory.

UPDATE II: Some interesting comments below, including this:

99% of the homeowners who are appalled by that article bought their house in the “whitest” school district they could afford.

UPDATE III: Also, Dan Riehl describes his own experience, and this is an important point: Everybody forms their own opinions based on their own experiences, and it is difficult to argue with people’s experience. That is to say, when discussing the military, lifelong civilians must defer to the combat veteran.

So when Dan says, “Here is an experience I went through, which exemplifies a general tendency,” your argument that no such tendency exists must be based on first-hand experience to the contrary. But if you’ve never been in a schoolyard fight — the subject of Dan’s anecdote — your personal experience is inapplicable as evidence.

One problem I’ve discovered in trying to communicate with intellectuals is that so many of them are wimps from sheltered backgrounds whose mamas wouldn’t let them play football — apple-polishing goodie-two-shoes who never strayed outside the confines of their safe, wholesome, upwardly-mobile affluent cocoon.

Dan’s from New Jersey and smokes Marlboro Reds. Deal with it.

Category: Dave Weigel, Florida, Racism

Moe Tkacik Nukes the Bridge

Posted on | April 6, 2012 | 17 Comments

In 2008, Moe Tkacik was hailed as a ‘literary it girl.’

“I know of one wretched hack who lists ‘Thought Leader’ as his occupation on his Twitter profile; he recently scored a fellowship with the American Enterprise Institute.”
— Moe Tkacik, The Baffler No. 19

Sometimes there is nothing so wonderfully educational as seeing someone else react badly to a problem you have yourself encountered and, perhaps, handled in less than an exemplary manner.

Being both ambitious and a journalist is generally a formula for bitter disappointment. No matter how talented and hard-working you may be, your ambitions will almost always exceed your achievements. The root problem, of course, is that many talented people share similar ambitions, and there are only so many hours in a day in which you can attempt to out-work them. Furthermore, there are factors other than talent and hard work involved in the processes by which career opportunities are allotted, and the people in charge of these processes are not obligated to give a damn whether their choices are “fair” — the scare-quotes necessitated by the impossibility of defining fairness.

OK, so . . .

If Maureen “Moe” Tkacik is a writer whose name rings a bell, that may be because in December 2010 she rather famously got fired (or resigned) from the Washington City Paper after she made the unilateral decision to publish the names of the two Swedish women who had accused Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of rape.

That made Moe the object of feminist wrath, which called her to the attention of Donald Douglas at American Power, which in turn led me to enter the battle in Moe Tkacik’s defense: Whenever any woman is under attack by feminists, I figure she must be a good woman.

Once that controversy subsided, I lost track of Moe’s doings, until someone called to my attention this article she had published in The Baffler, a left-wing journal that publishes people like Thomas Frank, Matt Taibbi and Barbara Ehrenreich.

Moe’s article is a 5,400-word laser-guided weapon of journalistic destruction targeted at The Atlantic, most especially the magazine’s publisher, David Bradley. It includes some fascinating history, as well as a vicious jab at David Weigel as a “pimply blogger.”

What Moe’s article does not contain, however, is a disclaimer.

According to at least one source close to The Atlantic, Moe Tkacik once applied for a job at the magazine — and didn’t get it.

So while it is said that some people burn their career bridges behind them, Moe evidently decided to nuke that particular bridge.

Was this a wise decision? I dunno. Applying crude math to a 2008 item that describes her as having been an undergraduate at Penn in the late 1990s, Moe is in her mid-30s and has paid her dues, writing for the Wall Street Journal and other publications before joining the Nick Denton Online Sweatshop Content Factory (i.e., Gawker Media) about five years ago. She is therefore at that awkward stage of her career where she is no longer a Promising Young Talent, but rather an Experienced Journalist Who Hasn’t Written a Bestselling Book Yet.

Thank God I spent a decade in the newspaper business before I had access to this “Internet” thing, or I might have gotten messed up on that same kind of hyper-ambition trip. I didn’t make it to the Big Leagues until 1997, at which time I was a 38-year-old married father of three and was quite frankly grateful merely to be in the Big Leagues. While my ambitions were lofty — perhaps even to become a “public intellectual” at some point — I never harbored any illusion that my upward ascent would be swift or easy. Having worked hard to get as far as I had, I knew I’d have to work even harder to get any farther.

My perspective on Moe’s nuke-the-bridge career tactic is therefore prejudiced by the fact that, when I was her age, I was making about $20,000 a year as an assistant editor at the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune.

Moe’s evident decision to cast her lot with the anti-capitalist crowd — I mean, c’mon, Barbara Ehrenreich? — might bring her opportunities she would not have otherwise had, without being what you’d call a really good career move. At some level, I can relate to Moe’s plight: She has recognized that there are people who play the role of Status Arbiters, whose favor must be curried if one wishes to advance within whatever sphere of influence where the Arbiters wield influence.

Moe describes them as “Omniscient Gentlemen” and, if what my source says is correct, her resentment of them is quite personal.

Well, OK, fine. But it’s a free country, and there’s a whole world out there where David Bradley has no real influence. And in offering that advice to Moe Tkacik, I realize I’m talking to myself, eh?

Anyway, Moe’s article is worth reading, if only because of what she tells us about the people who hold the hoops through which ambitious journalists are expected to jump. Ambition is a cruel master.

Category: Journalism

BHO Bummed You Didn’t Get The Janice Joplin/Starland Vocal Band References

Posted on | April 6, 2012 | 33 Comments

by Smitty

#OccupyResoluteDesk is a man of obscure references, that’s for sure. So many people, for example, have misconstrued his famous 2008 remarks:

“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan. . .electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Nobody is telling you that you can’t build a coal-fired plant, any more than they are telling you not to hang out with Bobby McGee. Bankruptcy is synonymous with ‘nothing left to lose’, which is precisely the kind of liberty that #OccupyResoluteDesk wants you to enjoy.And ‘prices will necessarily skyrocket’? Who alive, or who’s seen Anchorman, fails to recall ‘skyrockets in flight / afternoon delight’?
It really is just a crying shame that more people are missing BHO’s classic rock references, and getting all hung up on these pesky economic/employment/foreign policy/electoral fraud/budget deficit/national debt/war on religion/critical race theory/crypto-marxist/total non-command of the Constitution/crony capitalism/2nd Amendment crushing/politicized unemployment statistics issues.
How is a poor President to help us win the hope and change the future?

via Instapundit

Category: Barack Obama
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