First, my definition of peace. I don’t think it’s the definition they have in Oslo:

Peace is a situation in which all malevolent entities who would bring harm to the defenseless, lacking any moral code that would restrain them from doing so, are placed in situations that make them unable to do so.
:
“Unable”…does not mean unwilling or unready, for those are temporary characteristics. It means vanquished. It means defeated. Like the Soviet Union after the arms race. Like the Japanese Empire after the surrender. Like Saddam Hussein after he was fished out of his little hole.

Liz Cheney (Wizbang, via Rick) gets it, she knows exactly who gets the credit, and her idea is brilliant:

I’m having a disagreement with CaptainDMO, but I’m not entirely sure about what, or even if there is one. It’s got something to do with the psychological projection of liberals; as I read through the theories gathered, it seems to me his recognition is that projection is the point of the exercise, whereas in my opinion the projection is a by-product of something else.

My words…

Liberals, promoting their ideas over conservative ideas, behave exactly the way they claim conservatives behave. And it’s probably because they start thinking in exactly the way they claim conservatives think.

And his response —

It’s a matter of Liberals behaving as badly as they ALWAYS do, and “suddenly” finding emboldenment in projecting their own worst recognizable faults onto ANY critics, in a desperate Hail Mary preemptive attempt to quietly put at LEAST a borrowed petticoat on their Emperor, and TRY to shuffle the first and second heirs apparent into a closet.

The root of our disagreement, I think, lies in whether these “recognizable faults” are really bad.

It shall come as no surprise whatsoever, to anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention to what’s been going on, that the leash by which liberals stake their opponents to the ground is so short as to defy logical explanation. It long ago became far less work to create a profile of those who do not arouse liberal indignation, than one of those who do. Working in private industry outside of Hollywood; being one of those hated “executives” in health care, home lending or tobacco; working in government, but for the wrong side; working for no paycheck at all, but rather to raise your children into responsible adults and keep the house clean while your husband works; oh, and let us not forget you’re “basically a war criminal” if you had anything to do with starting the War on Terror. Of course those folks started no war. The war was underway already, and their crime was really just to point at something evil and call it what it really was. But why sweat the details?

You don’t need to criticize liberals to end up on their “Hate You Forever And Ever” list. You really don’t need to do much of anything at all, because the anger is already churning acridly away before the liberal ever starts to know you, let alone see what you say and do. They are like walking clothes washing machines, always at the high point of the cycle, sloshing pure acid around in their innards instead of water.

The anger has nothing to do with critics or any other outside party. It is caused by the inherent contradiction of liberalism. To understand the anger, you have to understand the contradiction; in order to understand the contradiction, you have to understand Star Trek.

You remember Star Trek, right. It started in the 1960’s during the Cold War era and enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980’s that continued until…well, form your own opinion on that. In the years leading up to Y2K, it suffered from a decline caused by a creeping and increasingly central theme of soft-socialism. No individual exceptionalism allowed…save for that of the Starship Captain. In 1991, Captain Picard insisted on communicating with a crystaline terrorist rather than on destroying it, at one point loftily intoning that it had more right to be in space than his crew did. In 1993, the Federation imposed an intra-galactic speed limit of Warp 5 after finding out their engines were tearing the space-time continuum apart. In 1996, in a feature film, he let slip another tempting morsel about 24th century society: Complete communism. No money. Workers work for the state. People labor for the betterment of themselves, rather than to accumulate material possessions.

It is not a perfect ambrotype of liberalism, but it certainly is a better-than-adequate one. Let’s add up the vital elements…

Agreement Over Clarity: You’ll notice nobody ever says…”What we need to do is sit down with our enemies, talk out our differences with them and specifically tell them or learn from them this one item…” This is not an endeavor to end war; it is a crusade against specifics.

Denial of Right to Own Property: Everyone’s on equal footing because there is no money. Of course this is inherently hypocritical, since Captain Picard’s sense of judgment (at least in the episodes where he hasn’t been possessed by an alien) is absolutely superior to everyone else’s. Now you’re seeing the beginnings of the contradiction that makes liberals so angry before they’ve had a chance to be angered by anyone. There is a vertical organizational structure, and yet, at the same time, the society that has been built is rigidly egalitarian. This is irreconcilable.

Freedom From Want: People are somehow driven to better themselves, and yet they enjoy absolute security in their access not only to the staples of life, but to a not so insignificant elevation of the standard of living above the bare minimum. If they are hungry or thirsty, they simply describe what’s missing to a “food replicator” and the stuff magically appears.

De-Valuation of Labor: This one goes all the way back to the beginning. After some hasty and somewhat heated exchange of words between a couple of egotists on the bridge, some last-ditch decision is made and the “order” is given for the vessel to proceed with all due haste to this destination rather than that one…a one-way trip of several days…often with no better justification than somebody’s “hunch.” That’s four hundred souls on board in the old series and over a thousand in the new one. In the days that follow, these perfect people who never have to worry about eating or paying rent, are somehow roused out of bed by their sense of “duty.” The duties do not have to do with making decisions about what needs to be done…unless you’re the Doctor, the First Mate or the Captain. They have nothing to do with handling emergencies, unless you’re the robot. There is no inspection that needs doing in order to figure out how something works, or why it does this thing instead of that thing…unless you’re the Chief Engineer. All other hands on board receive “orders” about what to do, and they do it. Security to the bridge. Warp Factor 8 dead-ahead. Report to Transporter Room 3. Get that man to sick bay, on the double. No wonder these people can’t make any money. In a world full of smart robots, who needs ’em?

Raw, Naked Egotism: If the Captain gives an order to the crewman and the crewman doesn’t carry it out, that means the crewman has been possessed by a deadly space virus or an evil incorporeal alien. If Starfleet gives an order to the Captain and the Captain doesn’t carry it out, that means Starfleet has been possessed by a deadly space virus or an evil incorporeal alien. The message is crystal-clear: Since you as the audience are supposed to identify with the Captain, that means when someone tells you to do something you don’t want to do, that authority is being evil, but if you want someone else to do something they should snap-to and get it done right away. In this respect, Star Trek…and the liberalism that later consumed it…is perfect programming for the young weaker mind to become an extraordinary butthole.

Unified Central Source of All Greatness: In a futureworld in which all human needs have been met and supra-lightspeed travel is an everyday occurrence, somehow innovation has become rare. People spend their entire lives content to perform their “duties,” the vast majority of whose hours must be spent on welding. Welding cross-beam number 34 of 100, into section 127 of 360, on the floor panel assembly of deck 27 of 43, on the skeleton of what is one day to become the USS Yamamoto or some damn thing. That’s some poor schmuck’s entire career, welding that one beam in place. A task made entirely meaningless until & unless there is perfect coordination with some central authority, who is giving similar orders to all the other welders who are welding all the other beams. Very little ingenuity taking place. Here and there, things do get invented…always by a “Doctor” so-and-so, who seems to have become some “fellow” in the Federation, which recognized his or her greatness many years before and elevated that person to a position where the magic could be worked. So everything that makes life worth living was invented by a “Federation Scientist.” The Federation is never, ever blindsided by a Jobs or Wozniak building a computer in a garage. There are no Edison-versus-Tesla rivalries.

Universe Without Borders: After we eliminated hunger and disease from the human equation, we explored the universe and built this Federation with humans and Vulcans. The Klingons declared war on our new union, but we made nice-nice with them at the Khittomer Conference. But the Romulans were still mad at us. So we made a peace treaty with them. Then the Ferengi were being all “We’re going to charge you money for stuff and be nasty people” but we made friends with them. And then the Borg tried to blow up Earth, but eventually we became their friends too, and now we’re all a big happy family. All you have to do is understand each other, and click those red glass slippers together three times. In reality, I would think the reconciliation with the Borg would have happened first. The Federation doesn’t seem too terribly different from them. Which one would swallow-up which other one — would it really matter?

So we have the seven vital items — of both Star Trek and of liberalism. They are loaded with contradictions. So the lazy mind doesn’t have to go scrambling too far to give credit, all that is good radiates from some central point…these great ships half a mile in length are designed by some mastermind, which in turn performs the actual construction by coordinating everything and giving the right orders. But we value agreement over clarity. It is far more important to adjourn the meetings with this vibe, this feeling of “we’re all singing from the same hymnal,” than to have any meaningful information exchanged there (this is the one part of Star Trek I personally find most realistic). People are supposed to spend their lives bettering themselves in such a way that property is entirely meaningless, and yet this stellar level of “bettering” is accomplished by pushing a button or pulling a lever when the Captain tells you to. You’re somehow motivated to do this bettering when nothing is at stake. When you receive a bad order, you’re morally obliged to disobey it. Oh no wait, no you aren’t. Oh no wait, yes you are. Whoever’s way up at the tippy-top of this organized authority structure, must really have everything on the ball and give good orders all the time. Oh no wait, no he doesn’t. Oh no wait, yes he does.

Star Trek seems to have a number of different ranks though; to the best I can make out, they are very close to pay grades O-1 through O-11 in the United States Navy, plus “crewman” for all enlisted personnel and “President” for the Federation President. Liberalism really has only four…

There is the icon at the center of all wonderfulness, which would be whatever liberal has demonstrated the greatest ability to peddle bullshit…to present things as the opposite of what they really are and get away with it. He is awarded the superior rank needed to get this bullshit sold, with astonishing speed. I’ll leave unmentioned who exactly that would be at this time, it’s just too obvious.

There are those who are close to the icon, who help to form the policy. “Policy” is a loosely-used word here. The most important policy by far is what talking points to use against the next conservative you want to browbeat. It can mean other things too, like putting up a billboard that says “Americans didn’t vote for a Rush to failure.”

There are the “good” people who follow the policy. They donate their five dollars to whatever they’re told to donate it to, they read the AARP newsletter and repeat what they read there as if it is their own opinion. They dutifully start their fights on Democratic Underground and Daily KOS. In short, they push the levers the Captain tells them to push…to better themselves.

And then there are the pariahs. People like me, and perhaps you, who don’t buy into the crap. We are not part of the Universe Without Borders. We are not Klingons, Ferengi or Borg. Those creatures, as noted above, were brought into the fold. We will not be. We are despised. We are loathed. The loathing against us is a badge of social stature for those who exude it. We’re like Star Wars fans.

There’s yet another contradiction, and this one might be the most imposing one. That is my point. The critical vision to form is one of the Universe Without Borders…negotiate with the Silicon Avatar, and all the pain will stop everywhere as we learn to understand each other. Not so with conservatives though — they are to be ground to dust beneath the heel of the regulation Federation dress uniform clunky-boot. Set phasers to kill.

Shortly before CaptainDMO disagreed with me, I got a “Please Forgive Fredo” speech from an old friend who worked with me at an old job where I saw some shenanigans going down. Destructive shenanigans. Done by someone who was and is decidedly unrepentant…and making a habit out of damaging things. No discussion at all about what was done, or what will be done, just a quote from Corinthians. See, not all liberals hate the Bible. They aren’t trying to be liberal, and they’re not mean. A lot of it comes from just not wanting to face truth. Clinging to this notion that nothing and nobody can ever be declared harmful. Except for those who oppose what they’re trying to do…which was my original point.

We haven’t invented supra-light travel just yet. So without a universe waiting to be explored, the process that slowly creeps toward center-stage is one not of exploration, but one of — destruction. That’s all that is left. There is nothing to create, nothing to preserve, nothing to explore, so all that is left is to destroy. Surely you’ve noticed this? Does a “Obama/Biden 2008” bumper sticker represent a desire to create something? Not nearly quite so much, as a desire to overthrow George W. Bush and anyone aligned with him. Every single liberal platitude, cloaks a desire to attack and destroy…something. Yet they pretend to be in the process of building something.

Another piece of irony is that in this culture they’ve constructed wherein negotiation is oh so important and yet specifics and details are to be expunged from such negotiations so everything is kept fuzzy, happy and abstract — there is always this obsessive-compulsive desire to define what has already been defined, again and again and again. Liberals are better than their counterparts…we have to keep telling ourselves that. We all have a right to free healthcare. Equal pay for equal work. Barack Obama is SO awesome.

That’s why the peace prize went the way it did. Yes, some of it was purely pragmatic diplomacy, as well…this is an international community hoping to get stuff. But it was mostly emotional. Another day, the sun comes up yet again, and Barack Obama is still awesome!

It backfired big-time, because a big piece of the liberal constituency holds this hyper-egalitarianness as a belief to be cherished above all others. A central point source of all good things is alright with them…just as long as it’s kept veiled behind something opaque. Just as some Christians aren’t too wild about the face of God being revealed in paintings, or Muslims don’t like Muhammad the Prophet to be illustrated in drawings or cartoons. This half of liberalism is wondering something like — enough of that already? We donated our five dollars to your cause, so you could build OUR world. A world in which nobody is wonderful, and where there are no ranks.

In fact, it did worse than backfire. I think it caused a schism in the liberal/Star-Trek universe.

So I don’t think liberals always behave badly. I certainly don’t think they try to. They’re just deeply conflicted people. They want great things to be built, but with no single individual taking excessive credit for the construction of those things or even for the design of those things. But they also want to stifle the exchange of any details technically meaningful. Details offend them, terribly, for reasons I don’t think anybody can ever understand. Least of all them. Of course you can’t build things without exchanging details. The realization of that, I think, offends them more than anything…

They want conversations to be dulled, muted and fuzzy so it becomes impossible to coordinate on the construction of so much as a pencil, let alone a starship, or a beam that is a part of the starship.

What they really want to do is get rid of religion, and replace it all with yet another religion. All things good radiate from some nexus somewhere, but it is not for you to ponder the identity or characteristics of that nexus. Just know that the closer you are to it, the more wonderful you are…and yet we are all equally wonderful…but find a way to better yourself…without money or property…but showing you’ve really got what it takes to be great, by pushing a button when you’re told to.

Scratch that. Comparing that to religion is a disservice to religions. This is more like a cult.

Speaking of Doolittle: I was scrolling back over his archives to see if he should be added to the blogroll. His talking points, even if he doesn’t agree with their substance, are good ones and this suggests a capable mind. We have lefty blogs in our blogroll…quite a few…whoever I find that can put out stuff with regularity that makes you stop and go “hmmm.”

So while I was trying to figure out if Doolittle made the cut, I came across a note of celebration about that goofy survey that says America’s “stature” in the world has been on the rise.

Here’s what Neal Boortz had to say about it:

This one is not too hard to figure out. We go back to the Pew Research poll conducted in Europe in 2008. That poll showed that nearly 60% of Europeans wanted the United States to be weaker. They didn’t like the US being as strong in economic and worldwide political affairs as we were. Soooooo … along comes Barack Obama, and at every turn he projects American weakness. He trashes the European missile defense system. He kowtows to Russia’s Putin. He absolutely fails to take a strong stance on Iran and their nuclear ambitions. He disengages from Iraq and continues to show indecisiveness in Afghanistan. The shrinks at the sight of Hugo Chavez. He won’t meet with the Dalai Lama because it might make the Chinese mad. Weakness at every turn … just exactly what the respondents to the poll said they wanted! A weaker United States!

So now our popularity in Europe is on the way up! Really tough to figure out why, isn’t it?

Given that context, Doolittle’s foam rubber finger looks a little bit…how shall we say it…out of place.

It’s also a betrayal of the ultimate left-wing dichotomy. When liberals promote liberal ideas, they behave in a way that directly contradicts what they’re trying to make other people do. Liberals, promoting their ideas over conservative ideas, behave exactly the way they claim conservatives behave. And it’s probably because they start thinking in exactly the way they claim conservatives think. Something to do with “we are so so so very right and those other guys are so so so very wrong.” And “hooray for our side.” And “us forever.” Foam-rubber-finger stuff.

I let the post sit there without bothering to comment on it, figuring it would get along just fine without the benefit of my wisdom.

Um….

Ha ha. You know better than that. But I did spread a thick layer of subtlety over my point, laced with a strong dose of verbal irony.

Love that foam rubber finger. It’s somewhat at odds, though, with the ideals that have raised our country’s status so much in these post-Bush months. You know, the ideals that made the country great in the first place…written into the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Humility. Diversity. Classic femininity. Submission. Willingness to admit our mistakes, and talking endlessly about them as if no other country has made any, even when it’s grossly off-topic. Cutting our carbon emissions. Making deals with people who want to kill us. Arugula. Yes, these are exactly what America has always been about, and it’s high time we got back to it. No wonder the world loves us again.

And yes, as a matter of fact I did have fun writing that.

It is interesting that one of those things inexorably morphs into the other of those things. The prize is supposed to be about bringing and sustaining peace. In a perfect world, wouldn’t that be a different thing from speechmaking? In a world without glaring problems with how people think out weighty, taxing problems, wouldn’t these at least be somewhat different things?

Well, analyzing speeches can be a useful exercise…if for no other reason, than that speeches are designed to pack an influence on evolving events. And so it piqued my curiosity when James Fallows analyzed each of the four paragraphs President Obama delivered — yes, once again, about Himself and His thoughts — and evaluated each one. Fallows awards the President something equivalent to an A-plus, and I agree. Every Obama speech brings on a rush to anoint said speech as the “Best One Evar!” but Obama speeches really rise above other Obama speeches when there is a vexing public relations problem to be taken on, one that would defeat the efforts of a lesser speechmaker. This is when President Obama’s talents are really put on display for all to see.

Which of course, leaves the question of how & why there is a vexing public relations problem arising from what is supposed to be an enormous personal and political win. The question is certainly there…but for the time being I’ll leave it to others.

Fallows linked to Jerome Doolittle, who has ten points handy for a Republican response. Doolittle is a lefty blogger so I’m not sure what the intent is here. It seems to be a prediction of what the opposition is going to be doing; the old “if I can predict what it is going to do, that says something against it” argument. But ninety percent of these, accidentally or otherwise, are good points. Especially #7.

1. What do you expect from a bunch of socialists?

2. Not that I’m a racist, but I know affirmative action when I see it.

3. Carter, Gore, Obama? Do we see a pattern here?

4. A clumsy attempt by Europe to save a failing presidency.

5. The Norwegians are just using Obama to slap George W. Bush in the face.

6. Besides, who cares what a bunch of geeks in Oslo think? The International Olympic Committee speaks for the whole world.

7. No thinking person has taken the Nobel Peace Prize seriously since Reagan didn’t win one for ending the Cold War.

8. We elect a president to keep America safe, not to win prizes.

9. True leadership is not an international popularity contest.

10. Peace is no big deal anyway. No, wait a minute. Strike that last one.

I would modify #10 to say something like this: As is the case with all of the rest of us, the Nobel Prize committee fails at its mission when it fails to define what it is. The failure to acknowledge Reagan’s victory in bringing about exactly the kind of world that was desired by liberals for generations, proves that for the benefit of anyone who would seriously question it. To achieve victory at anything, you have to define things.

We call on the Nobel Prize Committee to renew their commitment to their mission, by defining what it is. What is peace? Does hope have something to do with peace? Did hope ever have anything to do with peace? Does peace have something to do with people feeling positive about recent events…or public figures…like Barack Obama. Does it have a close kinship with feelings of excitement and inspiration? I’ll leave it to the readers of my words to invoke the Godwin rule, for Hitler doesn’t have much to do with what I’m talking about — but let’s face it, he made a lot of people hopeful, excited and inspired. So the peace-and-positive-feelings connection is at the very least disturbed, if not rent asunder.

How about feelings of security? Are they peace? Do all wars erupt from people feeling insecure, like they’re facing an uncertain future, and can achieve lasting prosperity by no means other than to hurt others? Or would it be more accurate to say our smaller skirmishes, great wars, and conflicts of any magnitude between result from people who simply lack moral restraint occupying positions of great power…and then when looking for ways to make their power even greater, realizing a benefit is theirs for the taking.

These are deep thoughts. There is, perhaps, no panel on the face of the earth better suited to noodle ’em out. I/We call on the Nobel Prize Committee to do so. They need to. As noted before, we all fail in our more challenging pursuits if we don’t take the time to define what exactly they are. The Committee has failed to define what exactly it is trying to do…or to adhere to it, anyway…and this is to its detriment.

Here’s my suggestion.

Peace is a situation in which all malevolent entities who would bring harm to the defenseless, lacking any moral code that would restrain them from doing so, are placed in situations that make them unable to do so.

“Unable” has nothing to do with a treaty. Treaties are enforced by means of carrots and sticks; carrots can be only so juicy and tasty, and sticks can sting only so much. Treaties, therefore, are antithetical to genuine peace. A smaller prize to be won by the making of war, may be trumped by the promise of the carrot or the sting of the stick, but in that situation all it takes for a more coveted prize to come along and make the “impossible” war a certainty. You won’t be receptive to the point made if you’re the kind of person who demands I make a list of historical examples…I shouldn’t have to…

“Unable” means unable. It does not mean unwilling or unready, for those are temporary characteristics. It means vanquished. It means defeated. Like the Soviet Union after the arms race. Like the Japanese Empire after the surrender. Like Saddam Hussein after he was fished out of his little hole.

“Prizes” for this situation would logically, therefore, be awarded to those who put it someplace where it did not exist before. If that were to be the case, the Prize Committee would look much, much better than they did yesterday.

You guys need to go somewhere and work at defining peace. It’s just your job.

And don’t worry, I won’t be insisting you retroactively award a peace prize to George Bush for ripping out the old Iraq and putting in a new one. But on that subject — if, in the unlikely event you were to do such a thing, it would make a great deal of sense.

Andy and Daphne are in my inner circle of closest blogger friends, so it kind of bugs me that I got too technical for them in the previous post about my Western Digital Passport. Just looking back over the title, I gotta admit…if you’re not a techie geek it might look a little cryptic. Western digital passport? What’s that? You’re heading toward Alaska and some Canadian border guard starts giving you too much guff, so you give him the finger and he lets you through? External hard drive does get the job done better. Leaves some stuff unsaid, maybe, but we can dispense with that.

Daphne sez…

No, just add some girly/non-electronic porn to the front page. Ripped, tan abs would be good.

Andy sez…

So what’s wrong with saying “external hard drive?” I would have been clued right in. Here’s your whole post, revised for, well, for me:

“Hey kids, I got a new external hard drive, and I really like it.”

See how easy that was?

I haven’t tried it. Let’s give it a go, shall we. Your wish is my command, after all, folks.

(Clears throat.)

(Morgan using his new external hard drive)

“Hey kids, I got a new external hard drive, and I really like it.”

Say, that was easy. Hope that washboard stomach of mine doesn’t sour you on all the lesser specimens, Daphne.

Typical review, for those who might not have read up quite yet.

Mine showed up Tuesday night. Huge win. I got the tracking notice at work, and stopped off by the hardware store on the way home to pick up velcro before I even saw the thing. Now it sticks on to either one of the two laptops, and I’ve installed a Subversion repository on the Passport. M-U-C-H better arrangement for the important files than just sitting in a “My Documents” folder somewhere.

This is actually working out better than a “real” home network. Fits what I’m doing better. Some of these files are “hot”…as in…getting hammered with updates, weekly or more than once a week, for years. But it’s just not practical to presume all the hammering takes place in the same little cubbyhole all the time. Think I might have put together the ideal setup here; we’ll see how it works out over the long term.

Time to quote myself again. Daphne’s news item is fast-becoming the big 72-point font headline of the day.

For those not in the know, Mister Wondeful in the White House has just won the Nobel peace prize.

He should be enjoying this kind of life. It’s to be expected. He’s offering people exactly what they’ve always wanted: A way to pretend they’re solving all the problems, while engaging in exactly the mindset that caused them in the first place.

History will record it that He won the Nobel first, and that is what inspired us to elect Him as our new President. And then he did all kinds of wonderful things to fix our economy, but something got in the way and kept it from working as well as it should have…although His Nobel-Prizey ideas did stop things from getting much, much worse. Just like LBJ’s Great Society, FDR’s New Deal and Wilson’s Fourteen-Point Peace Plan.

That is the litany. You read it here first.

Stephen Colbert once said “truth” has a well-known liberal bias. Yes, of course, he’s right…how can he not be. Liberal ideas never, ever, ever fail. They don’t succeed either, but they don’t fail. There’s always something else that jumped into the situation and messed everything up. Kind of like the “bubbins” of the family…every family has one…his repeated failures always expressed in passive voice. He didn’t lose his house, the man from the bank came and took it away. He didn’t fail at his marriage, his wife left him. He didn’t lose his job, the boss came in one day and fired him.

I think people can smell that kind of a “no-blame bubble” and react to it subconsciously…with “I wanna get in on this thing.” Nothing is ever Barry’s fault, so if you cast your lot in with Him, nothing will ever be your fault either.

Viewing it in that way, you realize — why, He really is a kind of a Messiah, in a sick sort of way. And He really does deserve to live a charmed life, and win every award that can be won.

So I’ll be saving all my outrage for other things.

And buying gold.

Update: Round-up by Byron York of the mainstream press’ reaction. They’ve been in the tank for His Holiness for years now, but even they are having a bit of a “Whaddya Thinkin’??” reaction to this.

Small-tee tim the godless heathen comments at Rick’s blog,

Somebody wake (or take me AA) me when this crap is over. Mmmm, mm, mm.

And I had to respond to that:

Respectfully disagree with small-tee tim. I want to catch every single instant of this. I want to TIVO it. We are learning things about human nature that are not often revealed…at least, not often revealed this starkly.

I babbled on for a little bit longer than I intended in Bullet Number One about How to Motivate Large Numbers of People to Do a Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating the Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On. The gist of #1 is this: Once people sit down together in a group to decide on something (especially when they’re voting on something, as a committee) the mission is no longer one of laboring to produce the best results. Instead it becomes the mission you remember from K-12: Try to get everyone to watch you when you feel like you know what you’re doing, and look somewhere else when you’re feeling like maybe you don’t.

It isn’t that “everybody” has all this hope in Barack Obama’s efforts, it’s more like everybody wants everybody else to know they have the hope…

The award decision itself is fantastic. In fact, it’s not enough. I think they should make this a special year and put out three awards. Just to make sure the message really gets out about how awesome they all think Barack Obama is. Make sure we really know what the Nobel committee is all about. Wear it on their sleeve. Don’t be shy.

That way, when history records all the situations that result — good or ill — from Obama stewardship and tutelage, future generations will know the Nobel committee was a zillion and one percent behind it all. Which if anyone has a brain in their heads by then, will benefit them immensely.

Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that man behind the tree.

Steven Malanga writing in RealClearMarkets. Go check and see if your state is one of the ones that has captured his attention. Mine is barely mentioned. Yeah, that’s right…California is barely worth a mention. Our state laboratories are giving us that many lessons on how to govern stupidly.

The pain might not be so intense if residents of these states were getting something for all of this extra taxation. But in fact the state motto in some of these places could be “High taxes, lousy government.” Jersey, with the highest state and local taxes, has one of the worst performing governments in the country, according to Governing Magazine, and it invests so little in its infrastructure its roads have been rated the worst in the nation. New York, which spends much of its state budget on a Medicaid program that is twice as large as any other, doesn’t have a healthier, better-cared for low-income population. California, which spent billions of dollars to lower public school class-sizes, has seen no payoff in higher test scores or graduation results.

The really bad news, however, is that there is no easy way out of this for many of these states. Their budget problems are structural and long-term and can’t be fixed merely by trimming a little waste and pork here and there. Most of these states have wracked up huge debts, for instance, so that bond payments are now weighing down their balance sheets. Their bondholders must be fed or chaos will ensue.

These states also suffer from huge public employee pension and benefits obligations that are often guaranteed by law. In fact, the pension funds of these states are so underfunded they make the Social Security Trust Fund look solvent by comparison.

These long-term structure problems are one reason why prospects for local tax revolts of the type we saw in the late 1970s and early 1990s have been slow to materialize. Any reformer who looks closely at these budgets understands that the only way out are service cuts that will be felt by virtually everyone in the state.

Faced with unpalatable choices, these states sit and hope that the answer comes in the former of even more stimulus money from the Obama administration given directly to states to spend on government operations. But rising anger from politicians and citizens in states that have been fiscally responsible will make that harder.

In the next few years, it seems, we will truly test the notion of whether people will get up and move simply because of high taxes. Oh, and bad government.

Hat tip to Sister Toldjah.

I’m afraid when my grandchildren are in college they’ll be asking me “but back in 2009, before that awful thing that happened right afterward, you said the Laffer Curve was controversial and some people called it all-but-discredited; how’s that??” And I’ll have to tell them, “I don’t know.”

The idea isn’t a terribly complicated one. Taxes may be compulsory, but they aren’t so compulsory that you can just raise them and raise them and sit back and wait for the money to roll in. People always have the option to cease & desist. That is, unless you want to pass a Directive 10-289…

…well anyway. Here’s one for the “tax the rich” states. Perhaps the only glimmer of hope they’ll be getting for a long, long time:

Sowell…

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.

Recognize any professional acquaintances from present or past in those two paragraphs? I certainly do.

David Harsanyi writing in Reason probably did as well (hat tip to Maggie’s Farm)…

[I] have two imaginary friends named Mr. Hoover and Jim.

Mr. Hoover knows everything. He attended a highbrow graduate school and worked as a Senate aide before becoming a policy expert. He is a man who craves acceptance from the other smart people who surround him.

Jim is pretty smart, too, but hasn’t squandered his talent working in Washington. Rather than theorize about economics, Jim takes an authentic risk by starting a business.
:
If you told [Mr. Hoover] to solve an intricate problem, such as global warming, he’d assemble a group of similarly dazzling thinkers to centralize the entire energy economy for the next 40 years through taxation, subsidies, mandates, and corporate giveaways. He does this because he knows precisely what the weather will be like in 2050. That’s how smart he is.

Now, Jim, I’m afraid, would be far less impressive. If you asked him to “solve” global warming, he’d question the costs and benefits of federally controlled energy production. He understands, from his own life experiences, that you can’t decree an economic outcome.

The Bastidge doesn’t like the way I bastardize the classic ancient Asian notions of “yin and yang,” claiming I am confusing and muddling the terms. He’s right. And he’s welcome to suggest other names I could use. Until he does, though, Yin and Yang are the best words available.

Some of us do stuff…which necessarily means drawing a perimeter around the things we do, then focusing our energy inward on that contained work area. As we do work.

Others among us radiate outward, spending the bulk of their energy trying to impress others. They are not concerned with results…for they cannot be. They live in the here and now, creating the best possible impression on the community. Today. Just for today. Planning ahead would depend on acknowledging that events lead to other events — and you can’t bother yourself with such mundane things when you’re laboring so hard to be fun for other people to watch.

It’s strictly a one-or-the-other proposition.

National Geographic.

Thanks to blogger friend Buck for the find.

Boortz says he didn’t write it, but I’m not so sure I believe him because it’s loaded with his customary typographicals and missing verbs.

But does it really matter.

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.

If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t` eat meat.

If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
:
If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.
:
If a conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.

A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended”.

Reflecting over the sound bites I’ve heard from the pro-socialized-medicine crowd, I entertain two thoughts. Both thoughts have visited me and revisited me again in recent years…very, very often.

One, it must be a terribly bleak thing to go through life thinking about every decision you need to make in terms of bumper sticker slogans.

Two, some of these talking points conflict with other talking points. If I’m seeing evidence of how well people can coordinate with each other when they put their minds to it — I’ve just thought of a new reason I don’t want pencil-pushers managing my health care, because I see no coordination here at all. Looks more like desperation.

The slogans I recall from the past two years — and they are close to an exhaustive listing of all the pro-reform arguments that have come my way — are these:

1. 43 million uninsured
2. 30 million uninsured
3. We’ve waited plenty long enough
4. It won’t change anything
5. Let’s do it for Ted
6. Everybody wants it
7. People wearing white coats (the ones we gave them) like it
7. People with swastikas don’t want it so it must be good
8. If we don’t do it right now we may never get this chance again
9. Putting the government in charge will bring the costs down (for the first time ever)
10. Nothing else will revive the economy

Did I miss anything?

The point, that is. He looks only at numbers of persons covered, and infers from these that the new health care bill won’t change too much about our everyday lives.

It will look a lot like our old health-care system. Unless you’re uninsured, or on the individual market, this bill is not expected to affect you…Remember this next time you hear some congressman talk about how this bill will revolutionize the American health-care system, either for better or for worse…

What a fool. I know you shouldn’t jump to such a conclusion hastily about anyone who writes for a living; it’s a coveted position to have in life.

But I find it difficult to conjure up respect for anyone who thinks, just because the car’s headed in the same direction for the time being — the situation is essentially unchanged even though different hands are now on the steering wheel. If he isn’t a fool, he’s a manipulator. This is Politics 101 stuff, is it not?

Other opinions on health care:

Bob Dole thinks it’s going to happen.

Congress could be close to passing comprehensive health reform. The American people have waited decades and if this moment passes us by, it may be decades more before there is another opportunity. The current approaches suggested by the Congress are far from perfect, but they do provide some basis on which Congress can move forward and we urge the joint leadership to get together for America’s sake.

“For America’s sake.” Hey Bob, read what Ezra had to say. Won’t change much. Why the drama? The country’s done pretty good for 233 years without socialized medicine.

Karl Rove doesn’t seem to agree with Dole, and he has some heavy numbers to offer:

Passing health-care reform could be harmful to the health of congressional Democrats.

Just look at how President Barack Obama’s standing has fallen as he has pushed for reform. According to Fox News surveys, the number of independents who oppose health-care reform hit 57% at the end of September, up from 33% in July. Independents are generally a quarter of the vote in off-year congressional elections.

Among college graduates, opposition to health-care reform is now 50%, while only 33% support it, according to Gallup’s Sept. 24 poll. College graduates are slightly more than a quarter of the off-year electorate.

Among seniors, opposition to ObamaCare hit 63% in last month’s Economist/YouGov Poll. But the number from that poll that should spook Democrats is this: 47% of seniors said they “strongly” oppose health-care reform, just 27% “strongly” support it. Seniors are the biggest consumers of health care, and their family members will probably take their concerns seriously. Seniors will likely cast about 20% of the votes next year.

I have two proposals to offer. And I suggest both the pro-reform and anti-reform sides take me up on it…although one from among them really won’t like my ideas at all. Nevertheless, there is no reasonable justification for refusing either one of them.

One: Set a target date for the end of next year. As Dole pointed out, we’ve been waiting for decades. We can wait a little while longer. If the plan has to be slammed down our throats, it probably isn’t good. If it’s good, it can wait.

Two: Stop calling it “reform.” The word doesn’t pose a danger until such time as it obscures detail for the benefit of those who wish to pass it…which is undoubtedly the situation applying here. We’ve been fooled too many times by the “reform” shell game. If it’s a good plan, you don’t need to sell it to us with that obfuscating word.

Hat tip to just about everyone — this is taking the innerwebs by storm, and rightly so.

This frankly sounds like a bit of shtick itself, but CNN last night “fact checked” the SNL skit that was a send-up of Obama. The segment included an interview with Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times’s PolitiFact. Said Adair,

I think “SNL” tended to kind of gloss over what is a–a fair amount of progress by this administration, about sending two additional brigades to Afghanistan. We rated that had a promise kept. On Iraq, “Saturday Night Live” said not done and, of course, that’s true, they’re not done. But they hadn’t promised to be done by now.

Okay, class, let’s review the number of times CNN and/or PolitiFact “fact checked” SNL skits about George W. Bush. Better still, do you remember the investigation into SNL’s not terribly flattering send-up of Sarah Palin by Tina Fey?

Taranto opines:

It’s as if CNN and the St. Petersburg Times are trying to reinforce the impression that they are in the tank for Obama. Even Democratic operative Paul Begala, who appears on a panel after the “fact check,” seems embarrassed by the exercise: “Come on. It’s comedy. . . . I thought it was amusing that we actually went to people to fact-check a comedy sketch. It’s comedy. It’s supposed to be silly and funny.”

There’s another way to look at it, though: If only we’d had CNN and PolitiFact back in the 1970s, we would have known that Gerald Ford wasn’t really as clumsy as Chevy Chase’s portrayal of him, that Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin weren’t really two wild and crazy guys from Czechoslovakia, and that Jane Curtin is not an ignorant slut.

I’d like to see an argument about why any so-called “fact checking,” particularly from CNN, should ever be taken seriously again. Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but I think an era has just come to an end. The emperor has no clothes; this thing we call “fact checking” is just an attempt to have the last word on something, nothing more and nothing less. It has become unsustainable and unsupportable to argue otherwise.

Here’s what cried out for the fact checking:

And here is the checking. It’s a little embarrassing just to embed it.

The lady this story quoted, along with the perhaps thousands that she represents, has a chance at the top slot in my list of people I absolutely, positively, do not trust.

“Autism is a major public health challenge, and this study is another call to action that we need to be able to provide care across the lifespan,” she [Geraldine Dawson, chief scientific officer of Autism Speaks] said.

An earthling would say (or think), “This study is another call to action that we need to figure out what in the blue fuck is happening and take some steps to prevent it from happening some more.” Whatever is your favorite pet theory: It’s over-diagnosed, kids aren’t getting a whack in the seat of the pants when they need it, single mothers don’t know how to relate to their sons and are “ordering” a diagnosis when they simply don’t know what to do, the power lines over the house are poisoning the babies, they’re eating lead-based paint they peel off the side of the house, there’s mercury in the water…

Whatever your view on those, we should all come together on this. We should all like my thought a hell of a lot better than hers. For starters, it doesn’t just completely reek of the smell of “money-grab.” And then there’s the desire to offer a normal life to the millions of kids not-yet-born, who might have a chance not to suffer from this affliction be it real or imagined.

Gawd, I’m sick and tired of the arguments that it “exists.” Of course it exists! But this has led to a stigma against proffering the notion that this or that child might not have it. And so according to our prevailing notions, any child that might possibly have it, must have it. Nobody wants to be stigmatized.

Just how centrist is this guy, anyway? It seems The Man Who Argues With Dictionaries might still have an agenda or two that, in spite of all the speechifying, haven’t quite scrolled up on the world’s most famous teleprompter just yet.

[T]he war that has become unexpectedly intense in recent days isn’t about any particular policy. It’s the war over personnel — the president’s choices to fill important but not necessarily high-profile jobs in his administration.

Some of [President Barack] Obama’s choices have been people with radical pasts — or radical presents. Others are so overtly political that they can’t see any line between serving Obama and serving the public. The presence of each has made it increasingly difficult for their boss, the president, to present himself as a centrist.

There follows a listing of the most problematic of Obama appointees, which raises the question:

How many friends do you have like this? Can you even think of one?

It’s takin’ a beating:

The credibility of the government’s $700 billion financial rescue program was damaged by claims a year ago that all of the initial banks receiving support were healthy, a new report contends.

Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky generally found that the government had acted properly in October 2008 as it scrambled to implement the Troubled Asset Relief Program to avert the collapse of the U.S. financial system.

But the report said that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other officials were wrong to contend at an Oct. 14 press conference that all nine institutions receiving the first round of support — $125 billion — were sound.

They passed this thing over the hollering of everyday people like you and me…and Michelle Malkin, who goes back to document her impressive record of speaking out against it. Not a Paulson fan is she.

Some doctors don’t think the President’s proposal is all that swell of an idea, but they weren’t invited to the happy-talk. So with all that free time they had from not being invited to things, they wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal instead.

Today, Medicare already reimburses doctors less than what many of their treatments cost to provide. Now the government is saying that additional Medicare cuts are coming—thus forcing doctors to try and make up the difference in volume, by seeing more patients. If you ask patients about this, they understand that more volume means less time with the doctor. That’s something that all patients and doctors should oppose. In time, it will be difficult to find a physician.

If the goal of reform is to provide the best possible patient care, let’s take the government-controlled “public option”—and any legislative trick that could lead to a public option—off the table. It will result in long waiting lines to see a doctor, substandard care, and an end to medical discovery.

I thought when the Government urinated all over the First Amendment, it required an Act of Congress. Silly me.

The Federal Trade Commission will require bloggers to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.
:
The FTC said its commissioners voted, 4-0, to approve the final guidelines, which had been expected. Penalties include up to $11,000 in fines per violation.

The rules take effect Dec. 1.
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Decisions about violations will be made on a case-by-case basis, but if someone receives cash or an in-kind payment to review a product, it’s considered an endorsement.

Yet another fascinating discussion sprouts underneath Cassy’s post about folks who are about her age (b. 1984), and her disappointment in them. I was particularly interested in the comment from Mat:

Actually Cassy,

Most of the Millenials are morons and they’re pretty much indefensible. Yes there are a few here and there like yourself who think for themselves, but from where I’m sitting at my university job, I’m just seeing a bunch of twits living in some kind of friggin’ dreamland. Cripes, one of my student workers told me the other day that he wasn’t worried about the unemployment because there would be plenty of “guvmint programs” he can work for when he graduated. Yeah kid, good luck with that one. Another one said she wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes, “if it would help me and other people out.” Yeah kid, try making that statement when you’re losing 35-40% of your check to taxes while paying for a car, house and other things. I’m not making this crap up (I sincerely wish I was).

Also bear in mind that the Millenials are the first generation to get indoctrinated by leftist ideals from the cradle (even the GenXers didn’t have that). It could easily swing to the point where the Millenials, instead of going more conservative, will just throw a temper tantrum and cry out for more “guvmint programs” to help them out. Personally, I think the latter will happen.

Someone please tell me he’s wrong.

And speaking of fascinating discussions. More than a week’s worth of dust has grown on this one, but I had to pause and take note of what happened when Dr. Helen witnessed the colorful interaction between bagger-girl and grocery cashier. I’ll save you some time — no, there was no conversation taking place about men or pigs. It was just something to chirp out spontaneously, kind of a “You Go, Girlfriend!” moment between bored co-workers…in front of customers. It would seem words have been had with them from management, thanks to Dr. H’s unwillingness to let things lie.

Daphne told me in an off-line she’s in a dark place the last few weeks, and one can see from her pages lately she’s made no secret of it. But what a fascinating discussion takes place as a result.

Weather Sealed, via Free Market Fairy Tales, via Maggie’s Farm.

Look what Santa-in-a-brown-suit dumped on my doorstep. For some reason there were two copies of it instead of just one…I’ll have to double-check that Amazon order and see what’s up.

Once again, reality has dealt liberal thought one of the harshest of blows; and liberal thought saves some face by conjuring up a translucent image, partially based on fact but partially photoshopped, of an angry, slobbering, vitriolic, emotionally unsettled hardcore “right wing” taking pleasure and pain from all the wrong things. In this case, people like me are taking “glee” in President Obama’s defeat in trying to bring the Olympic games to the City of Chicago.

The plaintive cry wails forth once again: What is wrong with us?

Let me put it in terms so simple it’ll be impossible to misunderstand, sparky.

What I am feeling is not “glee.” What I am feeling is roughly analogous to the parent who, after years of watching his child leap out into the street while obviously not looking at what’s comin’, discovers the child was finally hit by a car. But harmlessly. Had the absolute freakin’ bejeezus scared out of him. Piping hot tears running down his face and dripping down his chin.

Nothing amiss except a few token scrapes on the knees and hands where he landed. No broken bones. No bruises at all. And, unfortunately, an absolutely mortified driver who’ll never forget the lesson either…but perhaps that is a lesson well-learned too.

Watching people vote for Barack Obama is exactly the same feeling as watching one’s own child graduate past the age where he should’ve learned to watch for cars, and realizing the lesson won’t come until some impressive disaster takes place. This is the feeling I had a year ago that you didn’t have, chuckles. It is a sickening, ominous, foreboding, nauseating feeling. It is a feeling of “some massive failure is inevitable, what it is I do not know.”

I’ve gone through both those experiences. The feeling is almost exactly the same in both cases.

Well, the disaster has taken place. As I pointed out at Rick’s place, quoting three smart men:

“Those who value security over liberty, deserve neither.” — Ben Franklin

“Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana

“Those who sacrifice everything for popularity, end up with nothing.” — Morgan K. Freeberg

This was as inconsequential a decision as a decision can possibly get. Thank God. Yeah that’s my feeling: Gratitude to the cosmic kismet that decides such things. Your inevitable lesson was a cheap one.

Look to your momma to kiss your little scratches, and hug you and make you feel better.

This daddy is taking the classic daddy approach: Did you learn anything? Did you learn that when you sacrifice everything for popularity you end up with nothing? If so, then I have reason to feel this gratitude. If not, then all that happened was an illustration…not a redemption. I am hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

Because you, like the child — let us face it, shall we? — ignored lots of warnings about looking both ways before crossing the street. Lots. Years and years of ’em. You may not be altogether stupid, but it’s been proven to me whether I’m receptive to it or not, that you can be impressively dense. So first things first. Tell me what you learned. I have a great deal more curiosity about this next piece, than a truly “gleeful” man would.

When I first met my gal, I was so impressed with her inventive, practical mind and her fearlessness in trying new things that I rewarded her with a vicious browbeating about reading Atlas Shrugged until she eventually caved in. The very next Valentine’s day I made a bracelet out of Rearden Metal and sent it to her. She still has it, I think…although she’s lost the printed-out Atlas Shrugged excerpt that went with it. I know this because she’s asked me to reprint it many a time, and unfortunately I lost the Microsoft Word document I made for it. The bracelet remains. A little five dollar trinket with baked-on green food color…suitable for mounting on a wall, but not for wearing lest the wearer be left scrubbing away that evening on a green-shaded wrist. It is a symbol of all the positive things we see in each other, or some of those things, anyway.

Readiness, willingness and ability to put one’s efforts — and name — behind plans that are calculated to work. As opposed to strongly resemble, to the point of being indistinguishable from, some other milquetoast “normal” plan from history that might or might not have worked.

Fellow Sarah Palin blogger Karen Allen, over at Palination.com, is currently on vacation…but still courageously blogging away. And she sees a similar parallel between Alaska’s former governor, and SpongeBob ice cream.

And therein lies a message for us all, I think. How many times do we catch ourselves playing it safe…and ending up with nothing, not even the prize we were trying so hard to keep safe. Sometimes a little bit of “recklessness” is the only way to victory.

Thing I Know #287. To live a life devoid of recklessness, is the most reckless thing any thinking human can do.

Just heard a recording of David Letterman’s speech. This is going to be a short note that ties in to Memo For File 98, which in turn observes that — while Conservatives would much rather have Sarah Palin watch their kids over the weekend than the typical hard-left liberal political superstar, liberals, also, would strongly prefer Sarah Palin watch their kids rather than the typical hard-left liberal political superstar. In other words, when we disagree about whether Palin is more qualified than, say, Obama; we aren’t disagreeing quite so much about who has what qualities, but rather about what qualities are germane to discharging the “real” responsibilities involved in the Oval Office.

In other words, on the left side the mindset is…

Hockey Mom in the White House! What an abomination. Better stick a Chicago politician in there who can hide things.

There exists, today — and it was manifested in Letterman’s audience as he spoke about his ordeal — a rather striking and unexplored antipathy toward decency. It’s as if it’s become a common phobia that has swelled up to engulf suburbia, that we’re all in imminent danger of being blackmailed with our various shenanigans. And we should fret over this so much that we should find some slime to discharge the duties in our highest public offices, since that’s the only way we can be protected from extortion by anyone cleaner than we are.

It would do my heart good to learn anyone has the attention span needed to engage in such hijinks. Dirty laundry of the commoner? People like me? I don’t deny it’s there; but knowing what’s in it, to me it looks more like a cure for insomnia than anything.

Seriously though, this is not a good thing. I realize people are out there saying Palin is an incompetent boob, but that’s just liberal propaganda. And it seems to have barely mustered up the sense of decency to fall into a retreat formation this year…purely out of necessity. Don’t see a lot of people running around right about now saying “Thank God we kept that tundra dimbulb out of there and we have responsible wise people running the show” or anything like that.

But this is not a good thing. We seem to be in search of unclean people to make our weighty decisions…so that we can own them before they can own us. I’d applaud it if it were a resurrection of the Spirit of 1776, the notion that government should fear people and not the other way ’round.

But this hooting and hollering during Letterman’s speech, didn’t sound to me very much like that.

Byron York, writing in Washington Examiner…

At a Sept. 23 committee hearing, Sen. Al Franken, the newest member of the committee, challenged the constitutionality of such wiretaps, and in the process left an Obama Justice Department official — who supports the law — muttering in frustration.

That official, Assistant Attorney General David Kris, tried to explain to Franken that the law allows, and the courts have held, that investigators can wiretap a suspect based on a specific description of that suspect’s activities, even if investigators don’t know his name.

Franken, who pointed out that he is not a lawyer, was unimpressed. “That’s what brings me to this,” he said, pulling a copy of the Constitution from his coat pocket. He read aloud the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”

Is the Patriot Act’s roving wiretap provision consistent with the Constitution? Franken asked.

“I do think it is,” Kris answered, “and I kind of want to defer to that other, third branch of government. The courts, in looking at — ”

“I know what they are,” Franken joked, as the audience laughed.

Kris seemed taken aback. “This is surreal,” he said under his breath.

Yes it is.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey put together an excellent summation of what exactly is on the chopping block:

Up for renewal this year is a provision that permits investigators to maintain surveillance of sophisticated terrorists who change cell phones frequently to evade detection. This kind of surveillance is known as “roving wiretaps.” Also up for renewal are authorizations to seek court orders to examine business records in national security investigations, and to conduct national security investigations even when investigators cannot prove a particular target is connected to a particular terrorist organization or foreign power—known as “lone wolf” authority.

Roving wiretaps have been used for decades by law enforcement in routine narcotics cases. They reportedly were used to help thwart a plot earlier this year to blow up synagogues in Riverdale, N.Y. Business records, including bank and telephone records, can provide important leads early in a national security investigation, and they have been used to obtain evidence in numerous cases.

The value of lone wolf authority is best demonstrated by its absence in the summer of 2001. That’s when FBI agents might have obtained a warrant to search the computer of Zacharias Moussaoui, often referred to as the “20th hijacker,” before the 9/11 attacks — although there was no proof at the time of his arrest on an immigration violation that he was acting for a terrorist organization. But a later search of his computer revealed just that.

Rather than simply renew these vital provisions, which expire at the end of this year, some congressional Democrats want to impose requirements that would diminish their effectiveness, or add burdens to existing authorizations that would retard rather than advance our ability to gather intelligence.

One bill would require the government to prove that the business records it seeks by court order pertain to an agent of a foreign power before investigators have seen those records. The current standard requires only that the records in question do not involve a person in the United States, or that they do relate to an investigation undertaken to protect the country against international terrorism or spying.

The section of the Patriot Act that confers the authority on investigators to seek these records was amended in 2006 to add civil liberties protections when sensitive personal information about a person in the U.S. is gathered. It passed the Senate overwhelmingly with support that included then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The same proposed legislation would make it harder to obtain a real-time record of incoming and outgoing calls—known as a pen register—in national security cases. It does so by requiring that the government prove that the information sought in this record relates to a foreign power. Currently, the government can obtain a court order by certifying that the information sought either is foreign-intelligence information or relates to an investigation to protect against foreign terrorism or spying.

While the changes may sound benign, they turn the concept of an investigation on its head, requiring the government to submit proof at the outset of an investigation while facts are still being sought. In any event, a pen register shows only who called whom and nothing about the content of the call, and thus raises none of the privacy concerns that are at stake when a full-fledged wiretap is at issue. Moreover, the underlying information in a pen register is not private because telephone companies routinely have it.

I note that people in Franken’s camp are not nearly so cavalier about dismissing court decisions they find more beneficial to their causes. That’s true especially when the “Government versus People” balance of power spins around 180 degrees relative to that cause. For example, there is the Second Amendment; prior to the DC versus Heller decision, the “standard,” such as it was, was a filmy, muddled thing to be found in the 1939 US v. Miller decision, which liberals recited with glee. Among other things, it held (erroneously) that The People did not enjoy a right to bear shotguns since shotguns were not used for military purposes. And let us not forget Roe v. Wade. Would Al Franken so casually dismiss such casework for some chuckles from the spectator gallery?

This is the real weakness of the liberal argument, and I would hope the Republicans have the sensibility to hammer away at it day and night: This notion that government is to be trusted completely some of the time, and not to be trusted at all at other times. It’s like a special strain of extremism that doesn’t even have its guts filled in. It just says to let the chips fall where they may. It’s just a big bunch of “alwayses” and “nevers” looking for something to which to affix themselves.

Meanwhile, one of the very few laws that authorize the federal government to do what it is supposed to do with — get ready liberals, I’m about to get judgmental and non-values-neutral here — this terrorist scum, is set to be jettisoned. And it happens so soon after the health care defeat.

It’s as if the message is “Well fine, you won’t help us to get the government to do what it isn’t supposed to be doing, we’re going to stop it from doing what it should be doing.”

Holly Weber, contender in last week’s contest, is challenged by Famke Janssen‘s co-star in Goldeneye, Izabella Scorupco:

It’s a little bit of an unfair contest since I’ve not seen Holly Weber act in anything.

But Izabella’s performance was amazing, so I’m gonna give it to her, although both ladies are feast for the eyes.

Blogger friend Rick links an intriguing piece at The American Thinker. It doesn’t take anything special to talk about pure evil, or about our President, but it takes extraordinary balls to connect the two of them together. Oooh…

Blogger friend Buck brought to our attention a year ago this thoughtful piece from Neptunus Lex about Ms. Palin — which is surprising, if you’ve been following Buck’s none-too-complimentary attitudes toward Her Tundra-ness.

Just got done conducting a failed search in my own archives, in which I made the point about liberal superstars throughout the ages…and trust. To bottom-line it: If you’re a conservative, you’d much rather have Sarah Palin watching your kids on the weekend than Barack Obama. And if you’re a liberal…you, too, would much rather have Sarah Palin watching your kids on the weekend than Barack Obama. Or John Kerry. Or John Kennedy. Or Ted Kennedy. Or either one of the Clintons. Or Joe Biden. Or…or…or. We don’t really disagree on which of these people are more reliable, truthful and trustworthy; we disagree on which qualities are more relevant to this thing we call “leadership.” It takes a certain testicular fortitude to search for the same attributes in your leaders as what you are trying to cultivate in your children. Some of us have it and some of us don’t.

The “There’s Just Something About Him!!” savior of the left-wing, across the generations, possesses this definite and constant set of personal aptitudes and strengths. They are not the things any of us are trying to cultivate in our children. We would not be happy seeing these things take root there. These have something to do with the power to present situations as the opposite of what they really are, and to get away with it. To sell ice cubes to the idiomatic eskimos. Character and integrity don’t seem to have an awful lot to do with it, in fact, they see to have an antagonistic relationship from what is truly being sought. In the leaders.

I guess it all comes down to this supposition we have formed that it’s a bipartisan desire to look for a “transparent” government. This seems, to me, a mistake. We don’t all want that. About half of us have defined competent leadership has the readiness, willingness and ability to keep government opaque. To marshall abilities not a single one among us would want to see developing in our own children. To present a situation as the opposite of what it really is, and get away with it.