The Other McCain

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

The Death of a Cop-Killer

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 26 Comments

I haven’t blogged about last night’s execution of convicted Georgia cop-killer Troy Davis, in part because Ann Coulter and Ace of Spades already said pretty much what needed to be said. There isn’t really any need for me to dogpile the story except to observe that, even if you have doubts about the death penalty in general, executing cop-killers seems necessary to a civil society.

When a violent criminal is confronted by police, do we want the criminal to surrender peacefully? Or do we want every arrest to turn into a violent struggle in which the police officer’s life is at risk? If the policeman’s safety is not worth defending by the strongest possible penalties, no one’s life is safe — not even the criminals the policeman pursues.

Think about it: If the cop knows a rapist or armed robber is likely to shoot him, why shouldn’t the cop just shoot first, claim self-defense and be done with it? Read more

Category: Crime, Georgia

Let’s Not Go Lefty Over Technology

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Twitter is cool. You should follow me. Also, you should follow Ladd Ehlinger, a cat most cool, who shared a tidbit about Twitter:

Multiple conservative Twitter accounts are complaining that they are spontaneously “unfollowing” other conservative Twitter accounts. I’ve had it happen to me, where my account has “unfollowed” people without my consent or knowledge. Simple bug? Maybe.
An anonymous source, who claims to be with Twitter, contacted me today claiming that there’s a “hacktivist” on Twitter’s payroll who’s having a little fun at the expense of his ideological opponents. I can’t confirm this as just a simple rumor or hoax, since the upper
management of Twitter is beyond impossible to contact.

I’ve been hit with this, too. However, I’ve also been surfing quite close to the ‘follow limit’, which seems to be around 91% follow/following, as far as I can tell.

Could some smarmy Lefty be playing tee hee hee games? It’s not impossible, but what would you do? There is no evidence, and, even if you had some information, would there be a court case? I haven’t read the Twitter service agreement either, but I’m confident the service is made available on an “as is” basis.

Should we be upset? Let me say that I have been tinkering heavily with software across all operating systems and licensing regimes for a decade, and I say: no. We’re capitalists, and we’re getting what we pay for. If a free service is sucky, then it bespeaks a business opportunity. It’s actually feasible to acquire some hardware, load some open source software, arrange for internet presence, and set up shop. Oh, staffing, funding and eyeballs? Let’s go back in time and locate rich parents.

Are we willing to pay for some service level guarantee? I might not mind, but the value of Twitter diminishes as people eject in favor
of FaceBook.

As with YouTube, conservatives need to put a bit of thought into the value of the political expression under consideration, and be willing to pony up some treasure to protect it. It starts to sound Lefty if we get screwed with by the hypothetical tee hee hee employee and then whine as though some entitlement had been tarnished.

Category: Ladd Ehlinger, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Starting With Bogus Principles Leads To Contradictory Beliefs

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

Crooked Timber is one Lefty blog I have subscribed. “Contradictory beliefs,” by Chris Bertram, lays out four ideas which seem in tension, especially if you don’t believe in the market.

Belief 1: As a keen reader of Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong (yes, really), our own John Quiggin and other left-leaning econobloggers, I believe that most Western economies need a stimulus to growth, that austerity will be counterproductive, and that without growth the debt burden will worsen and the jobs crisis will get deeper.

The cart cannot be the horse. If you mistake momentum for stimulus, you can flatter yourself temporarily that the cart can drag the horse. Witness the global slowdown. Feel the folly of believing that the cart can be the horse.

Belief 2: As someone concerned about the environment, I believe that growth, as most people understand it, is unsustainable at anything like recent rates. Sure, more efficient technologies can reduce the environmental impacts of each unit of consumption, but unless we halt or limit growth severely, we’ll continue to do serious damage. There are some possibilities for switching to less damaging technologies or changing consumption patterns away from goods whose production causes serious damage, but the transition times are likely to be long and the environmental crisis is urgent.

Some people have played environmental fear like a Steinway. We are now in the process of calling all bluffs and fact-checking a few clowns. Why not wait until all the raw data are validated, and the models have a bit more review? It may well prove the case that these Lefty guilt-mongers are so full of hooey as to be overflowing.

Belief 3: Some parts of the world are just too poor to eschew growth. People in those parts of the world need more stuff just to lift them out of absolute poverty. It is morally urgent to lift everyone above the threshold where they can live decent lives. If anyone should get to grow their consumption absolutely, it needs to be those people, not us.

Look, you can’t care about the environment, and spread the guilt about economic growth, and then turn a blind eye to the purported deleterious effects, just because the effects land on a foreign country. Such ‘situation ethics’ are laughable. How condescending, bordering on raaaaacist, is it to permit ‘the other’ to live in economic squalor, just so they can ‘grow’?

Actually, you can, if you hate markets.

Belief 4: The relative (and sometimes absolute) poverty that some citizens of wealthy countries suffer from is abhorrent, and is inconsistent with the status equality that ought to hold among fellow-citizens of democratic nations. We ought to lift those people out of poverty.

How can you rate the abhorrence without context? What if people are, you know, happy where they are, e.g. the Amish? What if, like Iceland, the people, wittingly or no, supported untenable policies?

One is tempted to wonder if Bertram agrees with what I feel is the Most Risible Statement Ever By A Public Figure:

“the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption“

Do some believe any government implementing the rule of law can provide the answers to the ultimate existential questions? If so, then, it probably follows that such a government could provide all the stimulus, environmental management, growth, and wealth that anyone needs.

As a reader of this blog, you might have already glommed onto the fact that government is not god. Government isn’t even demi-god. Government maintains problems, while nattering on about solving them.

But the Bertrams will always be with us. Rather than taking initiative and doing, somebody will always be moaning about getting the government to pass a law and using force. See Buffet on paying more taxes. We must accept the Bertrams. As we care about preserving the country, we must keep the mockery heaped upon these anti-capitalistic ideas, and seek to minimize their impact on the market.

Sorry, Bertram: your contradictions will plague you until you fix your assumptions about the rightful place of government.

Via Instapundit, Philip Klein comes at the point thusly:

Obama thinks it’s OK for government to risk taxpayer money on business ventures that he deems worthy of investment. But he’s outraged at the suggestion that younger Americans be allowed to have more control over the allocation of their own tax dollars.
This derives from the liberal belief that a central authority run by experts will spend money intelligently (in the case of Solyndra, by jump-starting alternative energy), whereas individuals will act irresponsibly if left to their own devices (in the case of Social Security reform, by blowing their retirement on personal accounts).

Category: Economics, Liberals

Obligatory: Doug and Courtney Stodden Get a Reality Show Development Deal

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 17 Comments

Wombat headlined this in “Live at Five,” but given how much attention we’d previously given the Hollywood teen bride, here’s some more:

Teen bride Courtney Stodden has signed a deal with a production company to produce her reality show Radaronline.com has exclusively learned.
The 17-year-old and her Green Mile actor husband Doug Hutchison have signed a deal with Roy Bank, the president of Merv Griffin Entertainment. . . .
“The reason we went with Roy is because we feel that he is the man who will be able to place Courtney’s show in front of the best network for her,” Krista Stodden, Courtney’s momager, told Radaronline.com. . . .
“They are going to be very, very open about their lives,” Courtney’s mom said. “They want everybody to see their life. Nothing is off limits.”

First of all, it’s necessary to explain what a “development deal” is: The producer has contracted with Hutchison-Stodden to develop a show, which the producer then expects to place with a network. So camera crews will now begin recording footage of the couple, which will then be edited into a rough-cut “episodes” and shown to network executives in “pitch” meetings.

It’s the reality-TV equivalent of a rock band signing with a producer to record a demo. Read more

Category: Celebrities

Solyndra’s ‘Green Jobs’ Included Employment for D.C. Lobbyists — Including Former Democrat Aides

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 19 Comments

Executives at bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra went on a lavish spending spree after they got a $535 million federal “stimulus” loan. This  Washington Post story is curiously vague about certain details:

Company executives ramped up their Washington lobbying efforts, hiring a former Senate aide to work with the White House and the Energy Department. . . .
[P]ublic records show that since 2008, Solyndra has spent more than $1 million on lobbying inside the Beltway.
Lobbying expenditures of $160,000 a year in 2008 and 2009 accelerated as Solyndra’s financial and political troubles mounted. By 2010, such spending had grown to $550,000. So far this year, Solyndra has reported spending $220,000, but that number will grow as more reports filter in.

The phrase “former Senate aide” caught my eye. For which senator had this lobbyist formerly worked? Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner has the answer:

Solyndra’s other well-connected lobbyists include green-lobbyist extraordinaire and former Appropriations staffer Steve McBee and John Kerry aide Gregg Rothschild.

Carney further reports that Solyndra’s lobbyists included Andy Quinn, former chief of staff for top Democrat Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

So it turns out the “green jobs” meant well-paid employment for lots of well-connected D.C. lobbyists. Good thing Nancy Pelosi drained the swamp and got rid of the Culture of Corruption, huh?

UPDATE: Just in case you’ve forgotten:

“The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra . . . The future is here. We’re poised to transform the ways we power our homes and our cars and our businesses. And we’re poised to lead our competitors in the development of new technologies and products and businesses. And we are poised to generate countless new jobs, good-paying middle-class jobs, right here in the United States of America.”
— President Barack Obama, May 26, 2010

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!


Category: Barack Obama, Corruption, Democrats, Environmentalism, Scandal

Senator Frist Thinks ObamaCare Will Remain Undead

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty (via Digg)

Here is a cheery thought:

Frist told a Sioux Falls, S.D., audience Wednesday that even if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual insurance mandate at the core of the law, it can still be implemented successfully.

“It’s going to survive,” Frist said, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “It’s not going to be repealed.”

To be sure, the former Senate majority leader isn’t a fan of the individual mandate. He says it’s unconstitutional. Federal appellate courts havesplit on that question, and the matter ultimately will be decided by the Supreme Court.

Frist said other provisions in the law will inject enough money into the health care system even if most Americans aren’t required to buy insurance.

Republican candidates are going to have to run on scuttling this monstrosity, and then supported with a fat enough margin that it is gob-smackingly clear that this economy killer Must Go.

But we can’t stop there. Progressivism is an anti-liberty cancer. There can be no rest until the federal over-reach of Progressivism is completely amputated. Sorry to sound so firm on the point, but that’s the way it is.

Category: Health Car

LIVE AT FIVE – 09.22.11

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 32 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Cop Killer Executed After 11th-Hour Appeal Fails

Protesters from Howard University demonstrate outside the White House

Texas executes white supremacist for James Byrd killing

Treasury Yield Declines To Record Low On Fed “Twist”
Fed looks to put pressure on long-term debt


House GOP Leaders Regroup After Surprise Loss On Spending Bill
Too tight-fisted for Democrats, too generous for Tea Party



POLITICS
Criticism Increases Ahead Of Debate

Governor Mitt Romney talks during a town hall meeting in Miami

GOP candidates exchange fire on issues, records

Vermont Schools Seek Normalcy Post-Irene

Fullerton Police Charged In Death Of Homeless Man





Ralph Nader Wants A Primary Challenge To Obama

LA County Poverty Jumps For Third Straight Year, Hits 17.5%

In Philly, Higher Poverty, Lower Income

California Couple Fined $300 For Home Bible Study Meetings

Congressman Darrell Issa Targeted By Liberal Critics



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Fed Outlook, PRC Rattle Investors
Asian Stocks Tumble After Fed Meeting
Mulling Meg Whitman: HP Considers CEO Shakeup
Moody’s Cuts Credit Ratings On BoA, Citigroup, Wells
United Technologies Agrees To Buy Goodrich For $16.5 Billion
Oil Drops To Two-Week Low As Fed Sees Downside Risk; US Pumps More More Crude
“Mango” Update To WinPhone Ready For Rollout
Why Facebook Fatigue Isn’t Helping Google+
10 Reasons Why Google Wallet Won’t Dominate Mobile Payment Space
Verizon Defends AT&T Deal
Get Library Books On Your Kindle



SPORTS
Doubts Gone, Yankees Take Title In AL East

Jorge Posada strokes a two-run single

Double header sweep against Rays and BoSox loss to O’s locks it up

O’s Rally As Reeling Red Sox Blow Late Lead Again

Beebe Out As Big 12 Commish?



NFL Cracks Down On Fake Injuries

Mike Modano Retires After “Amazing” Year With Red Wings

Angels Pull Even With Rays In AL Wild Card Race

Healthy Crosby, Malkin Make Pens Favorites In East

Lannan Finally Notches Win In Philadelphia As Nats Hang On For 7-5 Win



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Fired “Real Housewives” Star Jill Zarin: Show Is Toxic

Jill Zarin


“Nobody likes to not be asked back to the party.”

“Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills” Come Unglued

Courtney Stodden Signs Deal For Reality Show

Emily Deschanel: It’s A Boy!


Minka Kelly Explodes After Groping On “Charlie’s Angels” Set

Gwyneth Paltrow To Do Musical Movie With Ryan Murphy

Denise Richards Turns Down $100K Offer To Appear On “Two And A Half Men”



FOREIGNERS
Palestinians Remain Determined On UN Statehood Bid
PRC Butthurt Over US Deal To Replace Aging Taiwanese F-16s
Taliban Bomber Waited Days To Deliver Lethal Embrace To Rabbani
US Accuses Pakistani Intelligence Of Using Haqqani Network In Proxy War
Kim Jong-Un Unleashes Reign Of Terror
Unathorized Assange Autobiography Due Out
Ahmadinejad Weakened, Isolated As He Faces UN



BLOGS & STUFF
Ann Coulter: Cop Killer Is Media’s Latest Baby Seal
Wizbang: Elizabeth Warren – A Real Live Statist
Hit & Run: San Juan Capistrano Fines Family For Reading Bible Without Permit
Weasel Zippers: Former Solyndra Employee Says “After They Got The Loan Guarantee They Were Just Spending Money Left And Right”
Ricochet: Is Herman Cain VP Timber?
Weekly Standard: Paul Ryan Weighs In On Perry/Romney Social Security Dispute – “They’re Both Right”
Hot Air: Chicago Union Bosses Raking In Millions From City Pension Fund
Power Line: Ron Paul Yuks It Up


For your consideration.
(h/t Troglopundit)

Category: Live at Five

Has This Blog Mentioned That Allahpundit Is The Greatest Within The Last Ten Minutes?

Posted on | September 22, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

This
blog would
like to take
a moment
to thank
ALLAHPUNDIT
at HotAir for
what may go
down in ‘net
history as the
cheapest linkage
stunt in evar.
Thanks, Your
Anonymity:
you’re the best.

Those curious as to the basis for this post are invited to click the ALLAHPUNDIT link above. Because throwing web traffic is a neighborly act for a blog, if perhaps a tad redundant when it’s the wee mouse blog feeding the 800lb gorilla blog. It’s not precisely the same as citing a reference in an academic paper; the only grader here is public opinion, after all. Nevertheless, we must cheer the coolness of ALLAHPUNDIT: he da man.

(h/t AmericanGlob, an example of a mensch.)

Category: Hot Air
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin