May
31
2007
Must Police Stay Out?
Filed Under Law and Ethics | 3 Comments
Must Police Stay Out?
Filed Under Law and Ethics | 3 Comments
I have a question that perhaps a reader can help answer.
On Friday May 18 I joined a buddy at a local bar to catch up on things. Soon after I arrived we met up with some other friends, one of which was the owner of the English Pub I used to frequent. As we talked we kept noticing people we all knew from Joe’s days as Pub owner. All of the fun ended when I said, “and there is that one-armed man that used to work in your kitchen”. It turned out that Everett had been arrested while their employee and Joe’s girlfriend had put up his bail. Everett had not shown for his court date and Joy lost her $500 bond. The police had not been able to catch up with the guy, and here he was partying in the same bar as Joe and Joy. Joy called the police, and they sent four cars out to arrest the dude.
But, once they arrived, they stayed at the back of the parking lot, and it seemed they would never enter and apprehend Everett. We remained patient, not quite knowing why they were waiting, until Joe’s pal Brady insisted that Joe would have to stage a fight with Everett so that they would have reason to enter. I said no way, and begged Joe to give me time to go talk to the police; I offered to tell them exactly where Everett was and give them a description. Not waiting for a reply I headed outside. Once I made it clear to the police why I was approaching them and where they could find their man they headed around the side of the building and into the outdoor smoking area where Everett was sitting. Joe wasn’t patient, and he let Brady talk him into starting something, so when they police arrived the staff was pulling him away from Everett, and perhaps only my friend Mike’s interference, telling the police, “that’s the one you want” while pointing at Everett, kept them from arresting Joe as well.
Anyway, back inside we went back to our business with one new point of discussion; could the police have come inside on their own accord, without my tip or Joe’s commotion? Brady insisted that they couldn’t come in, “that would be Nazi Germany” he hissed. “Nazi Germany?” I scoffed, “are you crazy?”. I tried to explain the common interpretation of Godwin’s Law, to no avail, and then I tried to explain the difference between the Nazi’s actions and those of police responding to a citizen complaint, also to no result, and we basically had a standing disagreement on that topic (can the police come in) all the rest of the evening.
So, what do you think, could the police have entered and looked for Everett without further cause?
Btw, perhaps there needs to be a corollary to Godwin’s Law that covers the non-internet introduction of Nazi/Hitler into a debate. Not so modestly, I propose Jones’ Corollary to Godwin’s Law; The predictions made in Godwin’s Law apply in real life discussions at the same rate as with online discussions.
May
31
2007
Sadly, I didn’t think up that particular critique, but I’ll restate it. Time and energy prevent me from elaborating, but I do have to ask: does that mean CNN’s thread (aka their last rating point) is over?
May
30
2007
I suspect that knowledge of the existence of a comedy magazine/group called National Lampoon is a generational thing, and I am of the generation that was buying the rag. More often I bought their comedy albums, it was my aural period, in those years reading took too much effort, to tell the truth.
the magazine quickly grew in popularity during the 1970s, when it regularly skewered pop culture, the counterculture and politics with recklessness and gleeful bad taste.
An example of the bad taste is the song from their off-broadway production, Lemmings which included one song that would not be permitted today. In fact, it has been stricken from the recordings of that shows soundtrack. A commenter to the Amazon site linked above says;
But VERY DISAPPOINTINGLY omitted from this CD is the Joan Baez spoof PULL THE TRIGGERS _IGGERS(“Pull the triggers, _iggers- we’re with you all the way… right across the bay…”). As offensive and politcally uncorrect as the song is in its brevity, it’s hysterically funny- and I’m bewildered why National Lampoon would edit the song out of this revue. Anyone know why?
Yes, “Trampyre”, they took it out because this nation no longer finds anything funny in the use of that word. Sure, in some circles it is still permitted language, but only in the crude parts of society, not in polite company, and especially not on terrestrial radio. Now they spell it differently, and claim that it has a different definition if spoken by a certain clique too. And, besides, who among us would find it ironic to have a white peace activist sing as though she were a black militant? Not me. It really wasn’t ever funny, though I am sure that I laughed uncomfortably back then, just shocking. And, as Don Imus can attest, shock as a form of entertainment (and revelation about where we are as people) is no longer protected by the first amendment.
I wonder if this spoof would make it today?
The caption says, “If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkwagon he’d be President today”.
Anyway, the next time you hear Joe Biden ask how many shock jocks we had in this country in the seventies you can answer that he has asked the wrong question. The question is, how many shock jocks were we training in the seventies?
Of course, the answer is unimportant really, for we all know that it isn’t what is said, it is who it is said about. So, we know that the VW ad would be in trouble, it mocks one of the untouchables.
May
30
2007
Bob Dylan is an icon of the 60’s cultural revolution, the poet intellectual whose sometimes cryptic song lyrics seemed to lead the challenge to establishment views. But, even as he inspired so-many others; he was always his own man. When the folkies thought that he was theirs, he plugged in an electric guitar. When he was labeled a rocker he went religious. If the media or fans sought to define him within their terms he always gave an answer that left them confused while he continued on, as unpredictable as ever.
Jann Wenner got a taste of that the other day. Wenner is Rolling Stone magazine, and he made the mistake of believing that Mr. Dylan shared his, and Al Gore’s, hysteria over the climate change.
The poet prophet of the 60s is being questioned by Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, and Dylan refuses to relive the old protest days.
“Do you think it’s gloomy on the horizon,” Wenner asks Dylan. “In what sense do you mean?” Dylan replies. “Bob, come on,” Wenner says. “No, you come on. In what sense do you mean that?” Dylan demanded.
Bronson writes, Wenner tries again: “We seem to be hell-bent on destruction. Do you worry about global warming?” “Where’s the global warming?” Dylan asks. “It’s freezing here.”
Beautiful, and classic Dylan, a man who thinks for himself. Wenner is just another lemming.
John Gibson put it well.
Dylan may have disappointed Jann Wenner and all of the old hippies who now drive a Prius and still like to lecture the rest of us. But for me, with that one exchange, he proved himself an intellectual hero all over again.
PS- By way of full disclosure, to the best of my knowledge I am not Dylan’s Mr. Jones. 
May
30
2007
And the hat is almost through the ring!
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And the hat is almost through the ring!
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Fred Thompson is one step closer to being an official Presidential candidate and, IMHO, the front-runner for the GOP nomination.
Hat tip to Drudge, as usual.
UPDATE: Shit!
May
27
2007
Get ready for Hummelgate
Filed Under Lies, Corruption and Scandals | 7 Comments
Get ready for Hummelgate
Filed Under Lies, Corruption and Scandals | 7 Comments
Ace and Charles Johnson are hot on the case of more apparent forgeries – this time involving a suspicious-looking PDF, an image stolen from a commemorative figurine company, and the Washington Post reporterette propping up the whole fiasco.
I’m not ready to proclaim it a genuine Rathergate just yet, but it’s great street theater either way.
UPDATE: It’s beginning to look like someone in the State Department is sending out (what are to him) important-looking inter-office memos in a non-official format. The scandal isn’t that they’re fake, but that someone down the food chain is spreading questionable information that just so happens to get manipluated (yet again) by every armchair general and self-serving pundit from Washington to Baghdad trying to tell us the war is lost.
As I say over at Ace: “We’ve gone from ‘fake, but accurate’ to ‘real, but unauthorized, unsourced, and exaggerated’. Is that supposed to be progress?”
UPDATE2: I managed a bit of deduction to suggest an answer to one of the minor mysteries floating about.
Use of an eagle figurine is confusing. Why bother with it when your unit already has its own letterhead? Why even both making a .pdf when a simple e-mail message would do the trick?Thank you, Dave – you’ve solved the mystery of the differing dates and differing file formats.
Col. Lang posted the document as a Word .DOC on 23 May, but the .DOC itself was created the same day as the date of the memo – 21 May. Whoever created the PDF took the same file Lang has (from the same or a similar source, or from his site) and used Word to convert it to PDF.
Why? Because the MS Word .DOC is an insecure file format commonly used to transmit worms. Only an idiot sends a Word .DOC over the Internet as an attachment. (And only an idiot opens a Word .DOC he finds on the Internet, but I decided to take one for the team on this.) The person who created the PDF was either unwilling or unable to transmit the .DOC (some networks are properly configured to prevent their transmission).
Now…. who would be sending that email with the PDF attached, and to whom?
Any bets that the WaPo server is configured not to accept .DOC files?
UPDATE3: And my work gets noticed again this month. First I was mentioned by Taranto. Now by Ace.
I’m ready for a beer… blocking spam, chasing trolls, solving the mysteries of astrology, PDFs, and the universe – this blog stuff is hard work. It is curious, though, that both these stories came out of The Washington Post. Think they’re trying to catch up with the New York Times?
May
25
2007
Lesbian loudmouth Rosie O’Donnell is the last person I wish to be talking about, and if you are also bored by her act, please accept my apologies for inflicting her upon your thoughts. Today it was announced that she would not be completing the final three weeks of her time on the View television show, she punked out after the sole conservative on the show held her accountable for her own words. Imagine that, an adult has to defend their own words, what have we come to (insert sarcasm here)?
On her blog Rosie’s assertion that we have killed 655,000 innocent Iraqis and therefore we are the terrorists is being defended. Some other goof is making the defense, and it is laughable.
According to the contributor, Rosie wasn’t calling our soldiers terrorists, just America. She says the troops are dupes who are only following orders; the real terrorists are those back here who are in command. Which we all understand to translate into, “it’s Bush’s fault”.
Of course that is ridiculous. Even if there were orders from on high for our soldiers to kill civilians, which is so much crap in itself, any soldier who obeyed such an order would be equally guilty. Anyone who goes to the movies knows that. Didn’t she see A Few Good Men? Don’t these Hollywood types see each other’s works? (Sure we could cite statute and code of conduct and real life situations to make the point, but that would be too real for the truthers, and since I could not recall a standup comic explaining the point, I went to next best source for the pseudo-intelligent, the movies).
In that movie two enlisted men are ordered to give a third soldier a “Code Red”, which is an illegal beating used as inducement to conform. LCpl Dawson and PFC Downey follow the orders too well resulting in the death of PFC William T. Santiago. At the murder trial of Dawson and Downey their commanding officer breaks down on the stand and admits that he ordered the “Code Red”. But, Col. Jessup’s confession does not exonerate his soldiers, for by the military rules of conduct they were expected to disobey the illegal order. So, even when, in that situation, the boss was shown to have ordered the wrong thing, the perpetrators did not get a pass.
So, even if the BusHitler and Darth Cheney had ordered the execution of civilians, (yeah right, like that would happen), any soldier who followed that order would also by guilty. Meaning, that in spite of the denial on her blog, and Rosie’s own suggestion, post-comment, on the View that she wasn’t calling our troops terrorists; she was calling them terrorists. And she was wrong. And now she is being the coward, turning tail, cutting and running, and living in a state of denial.
In so many ways Rosie has become the perfect metaphor for the left in America; loud and wrong, angry and unpatriotic, dumb and dumber by the minute. Also, I believe Rosie and left know they are wrong, but are too vain and too invested in their hate America attitude to admit their errors. If they come clean they will lose the support of their fellow travelers, they would lose their support system of like-minded loons, and they are too fragile to face the ostracism that would follow. Cowards all.
Additional- Math problem:
If 655,000 Iraqis die in four years, how many died on average each day?
365 days in a year times four equals 1460. Subtract one day for the leap year which happens once every four years, and we have 1459 days. Divide 655,00 by 1459 and we get 448.94. So, by that metric, about 449 Iraqis have died each day since May 1, 2003? As bad as it has been over there, I do not remember one single day when that many people have died. And our anti-American press agents would have surely told us if 449 people were killed in a twenty four hour period. I say that 655,000 dead, is a myth.
May
25
2007
In 1858, South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond, a wealthy plantation owner, made the following statement on the floor of the US Senate in which he laid out his Mudsill Theory in support of the continuation of slavery:
In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill.To his thinking, not just South Carolina but the country as a whole needed this mudsill in order to prosper and grow:
It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.Today it seems as though we have a new Mudsill – a new social class of people to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. And those people are the Illegal Aliens.
…the American economy would suffer tremendously. I don’t know who’s going to cut all those lawns, I don’t know who’s going to do all this laundry, I don’t know who’s going to dig all those wells, and pick all that fruit…Now, before you start typing out those nasty e-mails, let me just say that I am not the one advancing this thinking. I believe that such thinking, as with the thinking of James Henry Hammond regarding slavery, is as wrong-headed as wrong-headedness can be. No class of people should be exploited for the benefit of others. No, the person who spoke those words is none other than Juan Williams of National Public Radio (on Special Report with Brit Hume, 2/3rds of the way down, in the Panel discussion segment).
When I heard Juan say these words I felt as if someone had just slapped me across the face. I could not believe that a man who identifies himself with the African-American community (even though he was actually born in Panama) could actually verbalize an argument espoused by antebellum proponents of slavery.
I’m not sure if Juan is aware of the historical parallel and irony his words betray – because I think if he did he would not have uttered them – but it is obvious his words provide evidence that there is a segment of this country that believe as he does, that the prosperity of this country is dependent on the perpetuation of a semi-subservient under-class of people.
Now, just as then, people that believe this are just plain wrong. Our country, our society, and our government were not built on the mudsill of an under-class of people, but on the bedrock of the Constitution and the rule of law, the Liberty that document enshrines, and the hard work and ingenuity of all who have come to these shores. To suggest anything else, whether consciously or not, is but an erosion of those principals.
I guess George Santayana was right…
May
25
2007
Thanks, Comcast
Filed Under Internet and Blogging | Leave a Comment
Thanks, Comcast
Filed Under Internet and Blogging | Leave a Comment
I’ve been aggravated (and I’m going into withdrawal) by the fact that internet connectivity at home has been out for the last 48 hours. And as my bad luck would have it, now is the time I happen to get a Tarantolanche. For any new readers, please feel free to take a spin around the site and enjoy what we have to offer, and I promise to get new content up as soon as I can. I’m sure if we guilt them into it, the other contributors might add something during the void.
May
23
2007
It has been more than a year since I wrote;
“All the King’s horses, and all of the King’s men can not create enough laws to correct our illegal immigration situation, unless someone has the fortitude to enforce the laws.”
And that is just as true today as it was then. Our President and the US Senate got together last week and forged a compromise plan to deal with all of the foreign citizens who have crept into our country and taken up residence here. We are told that the plan will not grant the invaders any of the gifts contained therein until we secure our borders, thus, supposedly, putting an end to the uncontrolled flow of the invasion, and only then will we give away our heritage to the uninvited. I notice that we already have laws which forbid the unsanctioned transit into our country; and those laws are not being enforced. So, I am not impressed by any promises of future enforcement, no matter how pretty the law that promises enforcement, no matter how clever the explanation of the tenets of the new law.
I say to Washington DC, first prove that you can enforce the borders, and then we’ll talk about the next step.
That next step, for many is to bestow all manner of privilege upon the invaders; they seek to reward the invasion rather than reverse, or punish the invasion. Or even to manage entry into our land. In that respect, the rewards, I see a parallel to Kehoe and other recent eminent domain cases wherein the government seizes a man’s property for public use, paying the owner an amount which is less than enough to motivate the owner to sell on his own accord. And, the public use component of the deal is often spurious, or clearly not the facts.
As with the cases where the government forces the transfer of land title from citizen to, for example, a real estate developer who will use the land not for public use, but for private financial advantage; some of our lawmakers are attempting to take from us a portion, at least, of our heritage and our powers as citizens and deliver that property to others for their private use. It seems no concern to them that with each invader given domain to be a citizen the voice, a property, of the existing citizenry is diminished. Or, that as with a homeowner who does not wish to move, we do not desire to give up our property as citizens. Which is what will happen as we add more people, for the larger the pools of voices shaping this country the less impact each voice can deliver. And I haven’t even mentioned the burden which will be added to our already strained network of social services. And how many other ways will an increased population diminish each of our shares in this great land. A system which will fill the voids in our work force is one thing, an understandable thing, one which gives away our national property without our consent is another.
But, the Supreme Court said the Kehoe vs. New London case was Constitutional. So, I conclude that private property rights are dying. And with so many lawmakers intent on giving away our control over our most precious commodity, the right to be an American, to anyone who sneaks in and refuses to leave on their own accord, maybe that is lost too. I doubt the success of a lawsuit to settle the matter, but let me suggest that if we call the US population Kehoe, then a Kehoe vs. New America should be tried. If it fails we can save so much money on borders, enforcement, and especially on lawmakers who create legislation which we don’t have the stomach to enforce.
Additionally (5/25/2007)- I heard a caller on Sean Hannity’s radio show today put the matter into a form that would fit on a bumper sticker”Our immigration law isn’t broken, our government is. How true. If we would enforce the laws now on the books we would be on our way to solving the problem. Alas, those we pay to represent us do not understand that one simple concept, they think new laws solve problems when it is the enforcement of law that is the solution.
May
20
2007
Two out of three ain’t bad
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Two out of three ain’t bad
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David Frum over at NRO (the website I sometimes love to hate), manages to score twice and strike out once in my reading of his bloggage from last week.
First, let’s get the easy homer out of the way: an effective analysis of punditry’s most famed schizophrenic, Andrew Sullivan. ‘Nuff said there.
Frum’s unforced error (pardon the mixed sports metaphor) pontificates on rationalizations for the eventual defeat of Republicans in next year’s elections.
Let me advance an oddball thought. Despite all the excitement over this uniquely open and protracted presidential race, could it be that it may not matter very much?David, did Mother Frum never tell you not to start a column with, “an oddball thought”? Worse yet, here comes conventional wisdom again. I don’t care how bad it looks right now, and I don’t care if it actually comes true. Advancing these kinds of defeatist ideas about an election 18 months away are nothing short of absurd in the age of 12-hour news cycles.Unless Congress acts affirmatively to extend them, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in the next presidential term. Regardless of who wins the presidency, it seems inevitable that the Dems will hold both houses of Congress, and probably expand their majorities in each.
There’s a reason pundits love to say, “Anything could happen, but…” It’s because “anything” has a freaky tendency to happen often enough that more than a few pundits who don’t say it end up looking like idiots. Especially when they put something in writing that says, “It seems inevitable that…”
How about we get more columns about how to move forward and beat the liberals, and not so much about how we need a strategy how to remain relevant when your cheap self-fulfilling prognostication comes true?
A great example of how NOT to play the dime-store gypsy was yesterday’s submission that listed eight reasons why the GOP has “detonated the slow-motion trigger on a Republican debacle in 2008″ by fighting over immigration. Despite that particular quote, this is blunt analysis of today’s realities, without all the repetitive doomsaying. Although Frum could do well with some Reaganesque optimism and a few prescriptions to reverse the damage he highlights, he goes a long way toward understanding what it will take to revitalize conservative control of the Republican ship of state.
And, I might add, of the eight reasons, only one tangentially relates to “amnesty”. The word itself only appears once in the entry. Considering the drumbeat some people are playing with that focus-group-tested word, this is a remarkable achievement.
May
18
2007
UPDATE: Welcome BOTW readers! If you start to roam about the site, please forgive the lack of recent material.
—-
I was reading Best of the Web’s commentary about Wednesday’s idiotic vote to end the war when I decided to check how my senators voted. Leave aside the unintuitive design that requires you to click each party’s name to see the actual names of the members. Tolerate the egocentrism required to break down all generations into “Baby Boomer” and “Pre-Boomer”. Ignore the presumption that establishes a list of regions, but fails to explain how they distribute the states amongst the regions. What I really want to know is:
Who at The Washington Post thinks that astrological sign is a meaningful stratification of Congressional votes?
May
17
2007
I sent the following terse email to the “Immigration” mailbox of my Republican senator:
Subj: All I want to know is…And that comes from someone who tried in vain to defend this boondoggle almost exactly a year ago.Do you really want to be a 1-term senator?
Look, I’d prefer that we do all those things we keep getting told won’t work: build a fence, deport every illegal currently inside our borders, make the crime a felony, etc. But in our republic, what I want isn’t what we get; it’s what can be hammered out in legislation… which then has to be enforced. You’re right, we don’t see anyone enforcing the laws. But enforcement is the job of the policing authorities under the jurisdiction of the executive. All we can expect from the legislative branch is the promise of tougher laws and oversight.As I’ve pointed out before, 150 years ago, the Republican Party was formed when the Whigs decided to compromise with the Democrats on the devisive issue of their day: slavery. The abolitionists who could not abide such a position were forced to form a new party, and the irrelevant Whigs quickly collapsed.
The immigration issue today doesn’t quite reach the same level as slavery did, but it’s weakening us tremendously. Just after the mid-term elections, I observed:
The idea that the leadership of my party is so ignorant of the political dynamics occurring within the rank and file is… well, it’s beyond my ability to characterize effectively. Hell, I was even one of the Republicans trying to convince people that comprehensive immigration reform wasn’t such a bad idea, and even I can see that handing the Democrats a victory on that issue now will completely capsize the Republican ship.Just this week, a candidate from the other side of the slavery-like issue of our day – abortion – did himself a lot of good maintaining his shaky lead for the party’s nomination. I suspect that if no one can stop Rudy Giuliani from winning in the primaries (or John McCain, for reasons other than abortion), there won’t be enough of the Republican Party left to make it even into 2nd place next November.
May
17
2007
The religion of the left redux!
Filed Under Religion | 2 Comments
The religion of the left redux!
Filed Under Religion | 2 Comments
A while back I created a post in which I stated that radical environmentalism and global warming had become the new religion of the elite liberal left. Read the comments, because not only was there a bit of contention as to the legitimacy of my claim (well, one guy actually, but very insistent), but both Rick and Chris added links to different article in support of my assertion.
And now we can add another story in support of the thesis, thanks to James Taranto/The Wall Street Journal/Opinion Journal/Best of the Web Today (3rd story down). According to the article Taranto links to:
Environmental activists are building a replica of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat—where the biblical vessel is said to have landed after the great flood—in an appeal for action on global warming, Greenpeace said Wednesday.An interesting nexus, wouldn’t you say? Environmental activists,biblical and global warming not just in one story but in one sentence. I can think of no better way to say it than Taranto does…
Does anyone still doubt that global warming is a substitute religion?Are you still out there Walter?
May
16
2007
GOP Debate Night
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GOP Debate Night
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. In the primary I can’t vote for:
- The candidate who isn’t pro-life, or
- The candidate who isn’t pro-Constitution.
When asked how he would defend America after a terrorist attack, John McCain spent all his time lecturing us about how torture is a bad thing, and promising he’ll never do it. Can we save the country first, THEN argue about abortion?
And as for Romney, he didn’t shine tonight, and I think he needed to make some real headway to stay credible. At this point, I’m ready to cast a primary vote for Huckabee just to avoid having to settle for one of the McRudney brothers.
Of course, I just need a thumbs up from the FRED! and I don’t have to settle for anything. The FRED! has it all.