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September 29, 2006
The case for prosecuting the NYT
In June, following the NY Times's disclosure of the SWIFT wiretapping program, I wrote that the paper should be indicted under the Espionage Act, concluding that the "Justice Department should aggressively seek to protect America's interests, like any lawyer is bound to do for a client, and pursue an indictment of the New York Times and those responsible for violating the law."
At the time, I frankly didn't have the time to walk through the statute piece-by-piece. Today, though, Henry Mark Holzer outlines the case and why the NYT is indeed indictable.
(H/T: American Thinker)
Posted by bill at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2006
Tom Cruise Joins Lollipop Guild
What's wrong with being 5'7"? Ain't nuthin'. Except if you're Tom Cruise.
Posted by bill at 02:50 PM | Comments (1)
A little history won't kill you
Gadsden Flag emails this essay by Gary Galles, which discusses America's Antifederalists, a group that opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution on grounds it would permit the "central government" to become too strong, and too influential -- "constitutional tyranny," in Galles' words. (It was the anti-federalist objections, he points out, that led to the Bill of Rights.)
Galles details the prophetic concerns of a New York judge -- Robert Yates, writing under the nom de plume "Brutus" -- specifically, the "immense" and "unprecedented" powers of the US Supreme Court. Ironically these are the concerns raised by modern Federalists; "process" conservatives regard today's Federalists as guardians of the Constitution, but Brutus might argue they are seeing precisely what their forebears ratified, over his objections, in 1787.)
Some of Brutus's concerns seem almost quaint by modern standards -- he wondered whether our form of governement could prevail given its geographic girth; and whether the legislature's war powers would permit a centralization of government. But Galles' article provides a valuable historical perspective regarding many a current issue concerning goverment authority.
History is good. Math is bad.
Posted by bill at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2006
Nanny state diaries, part II: Partially hydrogenated fascism
First, they came for the smokers.
Today, bureaucrats at the New York City health department proposed a ban on trans-fats in restaurant food.
Because they know what's best for us.
Posted by bill at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2006
Kristol: Never underestimate the Clintons
There's been oodles of commentary and reaction to Bill Clinton's finger-waving, angry interview with Chris Wallace (see it here) over his administration's failure to deal with an emerging threat from jihadists. Bill Kristol's stands above the rest, though, because his starting point is that Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton -- conniving and calculating -- and that every word out of his mouth is measured to achieve the maximum political benefit. It's a mistake for Republicans ever, ever to assume otherwise. As Kristol points out, there are plenty of reasons Clinton might have orchestrated this episode, starting with an Oscar-worthy performance with Wallce. Would you put it past him?
UPDATE (9/26) -- John Dickerson agrees, more or less, with Kristol, saying Bubba "knew the question was coming and he took advantage of it. Forty-three days before the election, he has provided a moment to rally party activists and attack the GOP at the heart of its perceived strength on handling terrorism."
But then, Dick Morris knows the "angry, sarcastic, snarling, self-righteous, bombastic bully" better than the rest of us do...
Posted by bill at 08:03 PM | Comments (1)
September 22, 2006
The case for government regulation of everything
In Harlem, "a 3-month-old infant fell off a bed into a bucket of her teenage mother's vomit and died," the AP reports. Read that sentence again.
Posted by bill at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
Kultursmog
Of jitterbugging and dry-humping. A "sign of the times" indeed.
(H/T: Gadsden Flag.)
Posted by bill at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2006
Breathless report of would-be Bush scandal doesn't strike most Americans as all that bad -- Details at 11!
In a 60 Minutes interview that coincides with, and heaps on, this week's anti-US ravings at Turtle Bay, Pakistan prez Pervez Musharraf says Richard Armitage, Asst. Secretary of State, told him soon after 9/11 that if Pakistan didn't cooperate with the US war on terrorism, Pakistan should "Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age.'"
Though Musharraf called the comment "rude," he also admits it had its intended effect. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation, and that's what I did," he said.
Kick ass.
Posted by bill at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
New York Times: Fact or Fiction?
It's hard to tell, of course. The NY Observer reports that the Times is concerned, in the words of its design director, that readers "may get confused as to what stories are meant to have an individual voice, and which ones are straight news stories." And apparently they are serious. So the paper is trying to better delineate things, using page margins and justifications. The NYO straightens things out: "Straight news will remain, well, straight: laid out in justified columns, with even margins on the left and right. Stories that have been colored by analysis, commentary or authorial whimsy will all receive the layout previously reserved for columns: a straight left margin and a ragged right one.... So: News has even edges; opinion has an uneven edge. Except, that is, on the opinion pages. There, the columns will be justified like news, as always."
All of which means the NYT is still great for cleaning windows. Let's keep an eye out for ragged right-edged columns in the "news" pages, shall we?
Posted by bill at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
Waterboarding works
I watched Keith Olbermann last night for the first time in months, and I picked a good night, sort of. Just as Olbermann reminded viewers that coercive techniques "don't work" (it's a known fact, dummy) and around the same time Olbermann was taking a few silly shots at Bill O'Reilly, Brian Ross (ABC News) was a few blocks away on the Factorconfirming that torture - specifically waterboarding -- does, and has worked. And as Ace points out, "Ross's sources include people within the CIA who are opposed to the practices."
Ross didn't say anything about the utility of setting terrorists on ablaze and throwing them off burning skyscrapers, a technique I've been advocating for a while.
Posted by bill at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2006
Speaker Pelosi?
Jordan Ellenberg takes a lookie at the nauseating prospect.
Posted by bill at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2006
Exhibit 9 million something
For those of you who needed one more reason to believe Al Gore would make a lousy president, etc. word comes that Ted Turner is endorsing him.
Posted by bill at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
Christopher Hitchens is all wrong on the Pope
Christopher Hitchens' atheism gets the best of him in his analysis today of Pope Benedict's recent comments condemning jihad. Hitchens believes the Pope (CH sniffs: "Joseph Ratzinger (as I shall always think of him") "has managed to do a moderate amount of harm--and absolutely no good--to the very tense and distraught discussion now in progress between Europe and Islam."
Reserving an especially intense bitchiness for the Catholic Church, Hitchens goes on to espouse what amounts to moral equivalency between Christianity and Islam. Purportedly in an appeal to "reason" he urges his reader to read (and links to) the full text of the Pope's lecture and ignores the fact that angry Islamonutjob mobs won't bother; he ridicules Pope's "pathetic and unconvincing" apology and ignores that it was very possibly intended to be half-hearted and equivocal (Hitchens doesn't link to the apology itself; he links to the Washington Post's report of it (no indications CH bothered to read that).
In all, Hitchens' article drifts from one intellectual cloud to another, tethered only by a home-grown, seething contempt for Christianity that trumps all else. It isn't an appeal to reason at all; it is a condemnation of a society of Christians he believes are dimwits and fools that does "next to no good" in advancing discussion on an important issue.
To quote my nieces: Boo.
Posted by bill at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)
"The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free"
While Thailand's Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, hob-nobbed at Turtle Bay, his country's military declared martial law, suspended the constitution, parliament, and a piece of the court system.
If you're anxious to hear about the geopolitical implications etc., let's just say you'll have to look elsewhere. It just ain't in my bailiwick.
Posted by bill at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2006
"Head in the Sand Liberals"
Sam Harris, pointing out he's a dyed-in-the-wool liberal and reminding us he's no fan of the Bush administration, writes an important piece today in the LA Times skewering the liberal dogma that "Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities":
...my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith. On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.
Read the whole thing. H/T: Gadsden Flag.
Posted by bill at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)
World Ends; Poor hardest hit
This is astounding. There is enough negative spin in this piece to send the earth careening off into the sun. Note the lack of comparison to the economy when Clinton left office (including the higher unemployment rate). All during Clinton's terms, the press acted as his PR machine on the economy. Reading this article, you'd think we're in a deep recession and on the eve of a depression. The AP has no shame.
Posted by GadsdenFlag at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2006
Friday Pope
It's hard to dispute that Pope Benedict was purposely being provocative with his refreshingly clear comments on Islamic jihad.
For their part, the Left finds clarity in the recent comments by Rosie O'Donut to the effect that "extreme" Christians are just as "threatening" as dangerous as Islamonutjob (Evan Derkacz rushes to Rosie's defense here, at Alter Net). Still, the Pope should applauded for speaking with clarity on the evil of jihadism. To no one's surprise (except maybe Rosie) he's now a target, for now only of Islamists' rhetoric, where there's Islamic outrage, there's usually Islamic violence. Let's hope we're not headed there.
Wonder what the Pope is up to? In any case, maybe it's time to reinvigorate the Mohammad cartoon publication bonanza.
Posted by bill at 02:23 PM | Comments (1)
September 14, 2006
Don't believe everything you read.
This is worth a few minutes. Take a look at this picture, taken along the Brooklyn waterfront on Setember 11th:
For four years its photographer, Thomas Hoepker, withheld it from publication, since in his judgment those in the photo were "totally relaxed like any normal afternoon." The NY Times' Frank Rich, taking his cue from Hopker, recently went a few steps further: "Traumatic as the attack on America was, 9/11 would recede quickly for many," he wrote. "This is a country that likes to move on, and fast. The young people in Mr. Hoepker's photo aren't necessarily callous. They're just American. In the five years since the attacks, the ability of Americans to dust themselves off and keep going explains both what's gone right and what's gone wrong on our path to the divided and dispirited state the nation finds itself in today."
Lies! Yesterday Slate columnist David Plotz skewered Rich, explaining why neither Hoepkner nor Rich had any basis for their interpretation, other than preconceptions about the photo's subjects, and Americans' reaction to 9/11. As Plotz pointed out, given the context their interpretation was absurd. At Plotz's urging, one of those in the photo, Walter Wisper, emailed Plotz and confirmed Rich and Hoepkner were way off: "Had Hoepker walked fifty feet over to introduce himself he would have discovered a bunch of New Yorkers in the middle of an animated discussion about what had just happened. He instead chose to publish the photograph that allowed him to draw the conclusions he wished to draw...A more honest conclusion might start by acknowledging just how easily a photograph can be manipulated, especially in the advancement of one's own biases or in the service of one's own career."
I don't know what Frank Rich's vantage point was on 9/11, or that afternoon, but scenes like this one were common, especially in spots with a few of lower Manhattan. Wisper is dead-on. The arrogance that lead Rich to adopt the most cynical, tortured, and self-hating interpretation of the photo is absolutely astonishing. It also lends credibility to Billy Crystal's crack about journalists in When Harry Met Sally, to the effect that journalists spend their lives writing about people actually doing something with their lives. Did Frank Rich experience 9/11 as a NY Times journalist, or as an American? Is there a soul in there, Frank?
Mega-kudos to David Plotz for exposing Rich's lies.
Posted by bill at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2006
W Smackdown
For a few years, I've half-wondered whether President Bush would one day take the gloves off an announce he's had enough of the rhetorical bullshit. Anyway, the George W. Bush I voted for twice is in the video below. If anyone's seen him, kindly return him to the White House.
Posted by bill at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)
John Bolton's brave new world
Are the fatheads at the U.N. testing John Bolton? We haven't withheld our disproportionately large dues entirely, despite what the left might have us believe (even if we did, we'd simply be joining the ranks of perennial deadbeats Japan, China, etc.). Bolton did promise, though, that he'd withhold U.S. funding until much-needed reforms were in place, and he meant it. Bolton's being diplomatic when he says the U.N. is "severely challenged from a management and accountability point of view." What he should say, but won't, is that the U.N. is infested with criminals. If assholes could fly, the U.N. would be an airport; if the U.N. were a U.S. corporation, we'd already have convictions.
UPDATE -- Jim Kouri highlights a new study indicating Bolton's ass-kicking finds plenty of support among Americans. Then again, Democrats, for their part, might not care all that much what Americans think of John Bolton, aye?
Posted by bill at 04:44 PM | Comments (1)
Patriotic Dissent: We lose
Let's not even ask why Gadsden Flag is reading the Daily News, but he emails this article by Colonel Harland Sanders Richard Cohen, who concludes that we've pretty much already lost this war with Islamonutjobs. Cohen can almost hear OBL laughing at us, savoring his "glorious victory" over the hapless US effort.
Dirka, dirka.
Posted by bill at 04:15 PM | Comments (1)
September 11, 2006
The media's war on the war
Gadsden Flag emails this story, reporting that "The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years." I responded by asking what could've changed people's minds since 2002, to which GF responded by emailing a Media Research Center's study released today that's subtitled, "How ABC, CBS, and NBC Attack America's Terror-Fighting Tactics as Dangerous, Abusive and Illegal." It concludes that "the networks have chosen to highlight the complaints of those who paint the Bush administration as a danger equal to or greater than the terrorists themselves. Reporters could have spent the past five years challenging the administration with an agenda most Americans share, demanding that the government do everything within its lawful powers to protect the public and prevent another attack. Instead, liberal reporters have opted to join the ACLU in fretting that the War on Terror has already gone too far.
'Nuff said.
Posted by bill at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
Remembering John Adam Larson
Like so many on the morning of September 11, 2001, John Adam Larson found himself in the midst of decisions and chaos that, years later, still remain almost unimaginable. Yet those who knew him could hardly have been surprised when they learned of his simple, but remarkable heroism and calm demeanor that morning. Mr. Larson was an insurance broker with Aon Risk Services, Inc., with an office on the 103rd floor of Two World Trade Center. With a group of colleagues he'd made his way from the 103rd floor to an elevator bank on the 78th. Once there, though, his secretary and one other woman refused to board the elevator. Faced with what he must've realized was a grave decision, Larson stayed behind to remain with these women, and because he did so he perished when the tower fell. Those who boarded the elevator would survive.
John Adam Larson was just 37 years old when he perished, and he left behind his wife, Patti, two young children, aged 9 and 6, and a family life that included duties as a basketball coach, hiker, weekend pancake chef, amateur boogie boarder, and a devoted fan of Minnesota sports. A native of Butte, Montana, Mr. Larson attended the University of Delaware and graduated there in 1986, and soon thereafter married his wife, Patti. They'd moved into a new home near the Jersey shore in July 2001.
I did not ever meet Mr. Larson, nor did I think it would have been appropriate for me to attempt to contact his friends and family for the purposes of this tribute. But to learn about Mr. Larson's zeal for life and devotion to his family is to learn about a life truly lived, one filled with love, family and friendship. While Mr. Larson was one of many victims on that awful day, his was a contribution of love and compassion to a day filled with violence and hatred, one that today stands as an enduring testament of hope for those whose lives were spared that day. For this we must be grateful to John Adam Larson, pray for him, and indeed "never forget" Mr. Larson or those many other souls. May God bless them all.
[Note: The blogosphere is paying tribute to the victims of 9/11, in an effort organized by blogger D. Challener Roe.]
Posted by bill at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2006
Hail to the Lions
In college football, Penn State takes on Notre Dame at 3:30 today, in the first UND-PSU matchup since November 1992, when I was a freshman at Penn State watching the infamous (to some) "Snow Bowl". It's one of those games Joe Paterno wants to win more than he'd let on, IMO. In 1973 Notre Dame was selected over Penn State as national champions. Paterno was miffed enough that he bought his undefeated team championship rings, although it wasn't the first or last time an undefeated PSU team would be overlooked. Overall, the series is tied, 8-8-1. A preview of PSU/ND:
A biased prediction: PSU and the best linebackers in the country can contain ND, and run the ball better than they did last week; ND can't keep up with Air Morelli. 27-20 Penn State.
Posted by bill at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2006
Truth creep
Wonder if Michael Moore is available to direct a Bill Clinton-friendly version of "The Path to 9/11"? I wonder, too, whether Democrats will complain about the "post-9/11 censorship" if Bill Clinton succeeds and Sunday's program is pulled. Then again, no, I don't.
Posted by bill at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2006
Acknowledge, admit, disclose
The storyline on CNN's front page says President Bush "admitted for the first time" today that the US used secret prisons to hold 14 "high-level" terrorists. Admitted? That's a curious, obviously judgmental, term (one doesn't "admit" to having done nothing wrong; a better word (one also used by CNN, in the main story) is something like "acknowledge" or "disclose").
Can the pattern be any more obvious? -- breathlessly reporting a story as though the wrongdoing is obvious (others: Sy Hersh's story on secret American ops in Iran comes to mind, as does the NYT's publication of wiretapping and financial monitoring stories). The beat goes on, and the MSM is hoping this'll stick, and at the very least give Democrats fodder heading into elections.
Problem is, as with previous non-scandals, Americans will agree with Bush's rationale in holding these prisoners secretly. This is a war, after all. Let the Democrats complain. The more the MSM reports this, and the more idiotic comments coming from Democrats, the better Republicans look.
Posted by bill at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)
