Why Pay Attention

Here’s an interesting thing about the Jennifer Wilbanks affair. While she was missing, there was a national consensus that we should find out what’s going on with this desperate situation, and now that she’s found, there is a national consensus that it’s time to tune out. Why pay attention to old news?

Well, I would argue the direct opposite thing. While Jennifer Wilbanks was missing, she was another missing person, and I have to challenge the notion we had any reason to pay attention at all from Day One. People go missing all the time. Now that she is found, there is an abundance of reasons to follow along. I’ll list them here.

For starters: She lied in such a way, that put a great number of people into terrible situations, apparently with no second-thoughts or remorse from her, forcing them to spend vast sums of money, effort, emotional turmoil…attention. There are valuable lessons here. I’m pretty sure by the time I’m a hundred and fifty, I will not quite have figured out all the ways people can lie to me; I sure as hell don’t have a handle on it all now. Speaking for myself, I’m finding the prospect of a post-mortem pretty useful.

Secondly: Once one is done studying liars, it is useful paying attention to the behavior of those who have been lied to. The most important lesson, by far, is that when you don’t know everything you need to know, it is critically important to keep a running inventory of what exactly it is that you do not know. This really isn’t news to anyone. But keeping it in mind, and acting upon it, poses a stiff challenge.

Take a look at this monster-size, twenty-four page thread from a site called “websleuths”. The timeline involved in these posts deals mostly with the time when Jennifer’s whereabouts were unknown (someone announces Jennifer has been found near the bottom of page twenty.) The thread is chock full of people who “know” what happened to Jennifer Wilbanks. It’s very heavy on emotion, very light on thought, and in hindsight we can see most of these comments were a hundred and eighty degrees off course. I would expect that anyone who was looking at the prospective groom in a funny way during the actual disappearance, would find this glance in the rear-view mirror to be awkward, even painful. It’s a good pain.

Some notable exerpts:

I don’t want to pass judgement too quickly, but I was just watching her fiance on Greta…you’d think they were talking to someone who didn’t know her well. Not much emotion…just chatting about her routine, etc. It was just weird to me….to my husband too. He just didn’t seem upset….and as far as some of his earlier comments they are eerily similar to Mark Hackings. I hope I am wrong….just an observation.
————
…the wedding is right around the corner and all of a sudden it hits him and BANG he loses it! he isnt going to be single anymore and is going to have responsibilities! what kind of a man is this fiance? (Age, profession, been married before, that type of thing?) i havent seen him yet….
————
Hi guys just jumping in late here and I don’t really have to much to offer except that I have a real uneasy feeling about John Mason. He is just too nonchalant for me. I know that some folks like the secret honeymoon thing but dang, I would want to know what the climate was, did I need a passport etc. Personally I am beginning to think that there were no honeymoon plans. This whole case is giving me a sinking feeling.
————
Hmmm, interesting. What else do we know about Mr. Mason? Have the police checked the house? What’s his family situation? This huge expensive wedding leads me to think it has something to do with jealousy, money, something like this. Friends in high places can also bring enemies in high places.

And I’m not trying to put anyone down with this — we’re all susceptible to this. We’re conditioned, when no action whatsoever is required of us, to think as if action is indeed required of us. And when we are committed to action, our brains are already programmed to fill in the information that is missing…with…well, oftentimes, with crap.

Third: While Jennifer has turned out to be an irresponsible nutcase, and therefore, one of a large crowd and probably not very much worth watching, her fiancee John Mason is become a subject that you’ve just gotta watch. His dismissive comment on Fox News, �Haven�t we all made mistakes?� sums up what is wrong with so much around us. The idea has been advanced that perhaps, Mason can think straight after all — he gave the “correct” answer for public-relations purposes, to appease the feel-before-thought crowd which must always be appeased, and the next step for him is to run like hell.

Perhaps. But it does not appear so.

I think the guy is committing suicide and he doesn’t know it. Sure, if and when he marries Jennifer Wilbanks, he’s got another half century on the planet, maybe more. It’s even a possibility, perhaps even a likelihood, that he’ll be able to accomplish something on par with what he would have achieved if he were a life-long bachelor. Guys with ditzy wives can do things, too. Slavery in this country, after all, was ended by the husband of a nutcase.

But having a crazy wife is one hell of a pebble in your shoe. Sure, there are a lot of people who insist such a thing is tolerable, maybe even pleasant. These people all seem very sure of themselves. Only problem is, they’re all women and single men.

The bottom line, is this:

The story has just started to affect those of us who aren’t directly involved in it. When a woman goes missing, and there’s a lot of emotion because she was about to get married — sad as it may be for those directly involved — such a story has only a minimal potential for affecting our lives. But when a man resolves to marry a woman he already knows to be a dipstick, this has an effect on everybody. It lowers the expectation of what a woman should bring to such a union; it raises the expectation of what a man should be willing to tolerate.

Additionally, it raises some questions that appear to be unanswerable. John Mason is committed to marrying somebody. Who or what would he be marrying? Marriage isn’t just “Fornication Under Consent of the King”, it is a series of mutual commitments. To simply function day-to-day in a marriage, you have to be able to do things…have certain attitudes. You have to make obligations and live up to them.

You can’t marry an irresponsible person anymore than you can make a mortgage loan to a dog. Dogs may be wonderful creatures, loyal in every way; but they don’t have mortgage loans, they don’t have bank accounts, they can’t subscribe to Netflix. You have to be a certain age to be married. That’s one of the reasons why. Your legal ability to make commitments, and accept commitments from other people, is one of the requirements for a marriage.

Fourth: We’re learning something important about ourselves — chiefly, what poor decisions most of us make in determining when we should pay attention and when we should butt out. A broad, all-encompassing syndicate of “cluck-cluckers” has emerged, intoning that what happens from here-on-out is solely the business of John Mason and Jennifer Wilbanks. The rest of us should move on to other things because “there may be something in that relationship the rest of us don’t understand.”

No shit, Sherlock.

I’d like to know where you “we don’t understand what’s going on” people were when Jennifer was missing? With an attitude like that, you might have been among the few who nailed down exactly what was happening, or at least, what was not happening. You could’ve even made some decent money.

She Speaks Her Mind

Whatever passions I had inflamed against liberal Hollywood celebrities was mostly spent last year, and these things really don’t get too much of a rise out of me. But I get apoplectic when television personalities and talking heads promote cheap things as being valuable, like Geraldo Rivera and Rosie O’Donnell apparently did in this transcribed love-fest.

“You know, this President invaded a sovereign nation in defiance of the UN. He is basically a war criminal. Honestly. He should be tried at The Hague. This man lied to the American public about the reasons for invading a nation that had nothing to do with 9-11. And as a Democrat, as a member of this democracy, as somebody who is a mother who cares very much about the fact that our sons and daughters are being asked to give their lives daily, I feel I have a responsibility to speak out, as does every other person who disagrees with this administration. And it’s scary in a country that you can say something against the President and then worry about your career. That Dan Rather gets taken off CBS News for writing, for saying a report that essentially was true, that George Bush did not show up-”

Rivera jumped in to cut her off: “Okay, okay, we get it, we get it!”

O’Donnell: “Okay. There you go. But anyway. It infuriates me.”

Rivera: “Riding the Bus with My Sister is going to be a great film. Andie McDowell. Directed by Angelica Huston.”

O’Donnell: “See my publicist, she starts screaming, ‘stop talking about politics.’ It’s a good movie. It’s on CBS. But you know what, Geraldo, you always speak your mind. So when I’m with somebody like you, it encourages me.”

Rivera: “I throw you a kiss, I throw you a kiss. Good luck. One and only Rosie O’Donnell. You may not agree with her, probably don’t, but she speaks her mind.”

Yeah, she speaks her mind. And?

We have some kind of shortage of that lately?

Hey, I’m the first to sign up to the idea that when we all stop speaking our minds, democracy is as good as gone. I hope that day never comes.

But there’s a big difference between saying that, and saying we need more Hollywood celebrities to voice their opinions. Their poorly-informed, half-baked opinions. A game of ping-pong involving opinions, which in turn rest on nothing, doth not a discourse make. That is how I would summarize the exchange above, if Geraldo challenged Rosie. But alas, he did not. Read it again. Rosie reacts to the news, Geraldo applauds her for using her mouth. Rinse, repeat.

To really get the hang of how silly this is, substitute the word “opinion” with “fart”.

“Ooh, Rosie, that last one was silent but deadly. Well done!”

“Nice one! Did you have chili and cabbage last night?”

“Oh my! That actually smelled nice! Like chocolate or strawberries!”

Ludicrous, isn’t it? But that’s exactly the point. An opinion that rests on nothing, delivered with a temperament that is unprepared for, and will not tolerate, a dissenting response, does democracy no good. It is as much an underpinning for the freedoms we enjoy…as a left-cheek sneak. No more, no less.

He Has A Speaker Problem…And A Mouth Problem

We need more judges like this. Why? Because many among us are concerned about keeping their “rights” but aren’t willing to find ways to live among the rest of us as they exercise those rights. Those people in particular, every time they open their mouths, like the subject of this article does with the very last line therein — they are the ones curtailing their own rights.

Think about it. If they would simply keep their mouths shut, and put a little bit of mental-elbow-grease into “how do I enjoy my rights without interfering with other people” then they would be able to do pretty much anything they want. Anything, so long as, they didn’t disturb anybody else. Right?

ALEXANDRIA, La. – A judge has ordered a teenager who blasted his pickup truck stereo to remove all non-factory installed sound equipment for violating a noise ordinance.

Calvin Bennett Jr., 18, got the loud-music ticket in 2004 but missed his initial court appearance. Last Monday, he was arrested for contempt of court and spent the night in jail. He appeared Tuesday before district Judge Thomas Yeager on the loud-music citation.

The teen pleaded guilty, got a 90-day sentence suspended and was given probation. As a condition of probation, he had to turn in his drivers license for 30 days and remove his stereo equipment.

Yeager said he ordered the sentence to try to deter young adults from disturbing their communities with loud music. “It is a big problem but one that has a solution,” he said.

The Pineville and Alexandria police departments stay busy fielding loud-music complaints. Both cities have ordinances addressing loud noise, including drivers playing their radios too loudly.

“The sentence isn’t going to stop me playing music,” Bennett said. “I love my music.”

Over on FARK, the opinions seem to be split 50/50 between “Hooray!” and “This judge is a dick.” No, I didn’t go through and count them.

that judge is a dick. if old people don’t like it they should stfu and take out their hearing aid.
F*** old people who never had hos. They don’t know how i gets my hos in my truck. I am young and no all abouts my hos an my music

Hillary ’08
————
90 days suspended, and 30 day loss of license? for having a loud system? the “justice” system can suck my bawls.
————
You think that judge is being a big enough dick? this kid needs to get his buddies together for a drive-by bassing of the Judge’s house.
————
What I find hilarious is when I see an old clunker with a ridiculously expensive sound system in it. The owner could have MAYBE just bought a better car.

For just a second though, let’s hover a notch or two above this science of gathering hard facts and confining opinions strictly to those facts…and use a little bit of common sense.

It really isn’t about enjoying the music, is it? It’s all about being seen & heard listening to the music.

There’s a huge difference. I think we all would agree that if someone is concerned about just listening to his music, why, we all should be interested in finding a way for him to enjoy unlimited freedom in listening to it…and if we can’t find such a way, then he ought to be able to enjoy as much of this freedom as is possible without interfering in the lives of other people.

But we would also agree…if the motive is to be seen and heard listening to the music, as if it’s some kind of gang calling card, or mating ritual — why, you do NOT have unlimited freedom to do THAT. And yet, who would really stick his neck out and infer this guy just wants to listen to the music he loves so much?

Bet your bottom dollar? Your left testicle?

Bullshit. He is an exhibitionist. And nobody’s really got a good strong argument to defend your unlimited freedom as an exhibitionist. Cursory, introductory, paper-thin freedom, yes. But somewhere, that expression stops being “speech” and the freedom dissipates. Probably before a fat man wears a thong. Definitely before some punk jackass wants to listen to his music so loudly that he has to add more equipment to hear it the way he wants it.

You have a right to speak. You do not have a right to be heard.

I Don’t

Pay attention, single available men: Think of the unborn children that will be yours someday. Let us say there is a woman who would like to steal $150,000 from those innocent kids. Take it from their college savings, before they are born. Pilfer it from the fund set aside to pay their medical expenses as they grow up. Suck it down from the grocery budget, purloin it from underneath the Christmas trees. A hundred and fifty grand. Some woman wants it.

Would you give it to her?

Supposing she knew where the money came from and still wanted to come after it, would you make love to her? Several times?

Give her a ring? Suffer through an endless parade of rented Julia Roberts movies you can’t stand, for her? No?

Why on EARTH would you marry her then?

According to this Money Magazine article, which I stumbled across by reading about this awful Jennifer Wilbanks affair, that’s exactly what’s going on every time a wedding adds up to the average $26,327 in cake, dress, catering, jewelry, and gift registries. In 30 years, that compounds to nearly 150 large at six pertcent.

Yeah, sure, money isn’t everything. But let’s face it, gentlemen: A household that has $150k in the bank is better off than a household that doesn’t, and a household with no debt is better off than a household $150k in the hole. Come ON, fellas. This is just common sense.

When it comes time to buy a five thousand dollar cake, tell her no. Even you pussified men who love to listen to Michael Bolton and think it’s a woman’s job to make the decisions for the household. If you honestly believe that, and she’s the Captain of the ship…you are the first mate. If your bride wants to take on debt for an extravagant wedding you can’t afford, then the Captain is crazy and is going to sink the ship. You have to take command.

Now, then. The above is the situation if and when your fiancee does not run away, fake her own abduction, and turn you into Scott Peterson for a week. If this is what she does, things are changed…your next move should be obvious.

If you are a man, unmarried, not wanted in several states, with four functioning limbs and a working set of baby-makers & pipes, you have an abundance of God-given gifts. The job that has been entrusted to you by your Maker, boils down to this: Do not look back on yourself several years down the road and say to yourself “Eeh, masturbation would have been so much cheaper!”

It’s your life. Your choices. The biggest mistake you can make is to compare loneliness as it is, with marriage as marriage has the potential to be. Loneliness has potential too…and marriage can have a dark reality to it, too.

Yes I know, nobody will ever read that and if anybody does, if they’re in the position where they need to see it, it won’t affect anything they do one tiny bit.

But once upon a time, in generations past, every once in awhile, a woman got told no. Nowadays it doesn’t seem possible for this to be the case. Women make demands on men, and the manliness of the man is automatically correlated to his readiness, willingness and ability to grant the wish — as judged by the woman, who may or may not have the maturity to make heavy decisions for the not-yet-born household. The Jennifer Wilbanks saga is just the latest symptom of this nationwide epidemic. This is nuts. Men aren’t fairy godmothers, they’re men. They are trustees of the livelihood of their future unborn children. And the world would be a lot better off if the men who failed to realize this, and failed to act upon it, somehow also failed to reproduce.

Other than that, I really don’t have too much opinion about it.

I Am…Hercules

Hercules

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

Ouch II

Each time a column moves me to wince with an empathic sentiment of “that’s gonna leave a mark,” it seems the target is a public servant I thoroughly dislike, Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy. That’s just two so far. Two is a pattern, three is a trend. Four would be a habit. I’m hoping this becomes a habit. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.

Teddy Kennedy yelled at me! So shouldn’t he resign?
Clifford D. May
April 28, 2005

For 20 years I have kept my silence. I will do so no longer. In the debate over John Bolton’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, it finally has been made clear to me that a human being who yells at another human being does not deserve to hold high office. It’s what Sen. George Voinovich calls �the Kitchen Test.�

And so, it’s time I finally told the painful truth: Ted Kennedy yelled at me. He hurt my feelings. Therefore, those who believe John Bolton does not deserve to be confirmed must surely also agree that Senator Kennedy must step down. Here is the never-before-told story:

It happened in Ethiopia during the height of the Great Famine of the 1980s. Sen. Kennedy had come on a fact-finding mission. As Africa correspondent of The New York Times, I was assigned to travel with him.

One night, after we had flown into a small city northeast of Addis Abba, we repaired to a ramshackle hotel. One of the Senator’s staffers told me there would be no further events that evening. So I turned to Martha Radditz (now of ABC News but in those days a Boston anchor woman) and said something like: �Great! What say we go check out this burg?� Martha agreed.

We had a pleasant excursion but found no restaurant to our liking so we returned to the hotel early. We were shocked at what we saw: Senator Kennedy was holding forth at a dinner with local luminaries. As quietly as we could, we tip-toed into the dining room to take our seats — but the Senator spotted us. He was furious. He interrupted the proceedings.

�What do you think you’re doing?� he shouted for all to hear. �You’re either with this group or you’re not with this group. You don’t come waltzing in anytime you choose!�

I can’t recall whether his hands were on his hips; probably not since he was sitting down. I do know that he scolded us for what seemed a long time. To be candid, his words were a bit slurred. It was his custom, in those days, to propose a few toasts � and then a few more toasts – to Ethiopian-American amity.

In any case, Martha and I retreated, meekly, to her room, feeling like children sent to bed without supper. Not long after, one of Kennedy’s staffers knocked on the door.

�It’s been explained to the Senator that there was a mistake,� he said. �He now knows you were told there was no event tonight and you had left the hotel before plans changed. The reception is continuing and the Senator would like you to re-join it.�

We demurred. Our self-esteem was too badly battered. He insisted. �The Senator would really like you to return,� he said. �I would like you to return.� And something in the way he said it made us believe that if we did not respond to this entreaty, he, too, might feel the Kennedy wrath.

Downstairs, Martha and I approached the Senator to offer our apologies. �Oh, forget about it!� he said amicably. �Let’s just forget the whole thing.� He seemed in a much improved mood.

�Forget it, Senator?� I responded. �Senator, I will never forget it. I will forever remember the night that Edward Kennedy laid me to bat guano [I actually used a more common term] in Ethiopia.�

�Oh, don’t say that!� he exclaimed. �It was no big deal.�

And all these years, I have tried to convince myself that it was no big deal. People get angry. People yell. People get over it. Life goes on.

But now I know better. Now I know what happened was a terrible trauma. And what the Senator did was unpardonable. People who hurt people are the most hurtful people in the world � and they should not serve in positions of trust and authority. They should not serve as ambassadors, senators or maitre d’s.

It was what Sen. Voinovich might call: �The Dining Room Test.�

Clifford D. May is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and a Townhall.com member group.

I’ll tell you why this does my heart so good: I never thought too highly of this “He yelled at x” line of attack against Undersecretary Bolton. If I were a Democrat strategist sitting in a smoke-filled backroom trying to shoot down the nomination, this would likely be the one plan I would toss away first. It’s just stupid. This guy is accused of yelling at people when he gets ticked — people will wonder, what, is this the best dirt we can find? The nominee surely must be a saint. A yelling saint with a temper-tantrum, who plants his hands on his saintly hips.

You’ve got to hand it to Democrats though. They can play politics, and not bother with pretending they’re not playing politics. Nothing ever sticks to them. Sure, they get voted out, but nobody nurses a grudge against them — especially in Washington — because if they’re caught so grudge-nursing, they might be accused of trying to hurt poor people. That’s the plain truth of it.

Beltway Bullfight

Peggy Noonan, once again, finds a way to articulate what I’ve been thinking for awhile but didn’t quite know how to say.

Beltway Bullfight

John Bolton is blunt where others would be self-protective. This is bad?

Thursday, April 28, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

The case of John Bolton is about politics (unhousebroken conservatives must be stopped), payback (you tick me off, I’ll pick you off) and personality. People who have worked with him allege he is heavy-handed, curmudgeonly and not necessarily lovably so.

I don’t know him, but I suspect there’s some truth in it. Do the charges disqualify him to serve as American ambassador to the United Nations? If reports of his behavior are true–he is tough, pushes too hard, sends pressuring e-mails and may or may not have berated a coworker as he threw paper balls at her hotel door–the answer is no.

Bad temper is a bad thing, but in government it’s a flaw with a long provenance. Bob Dole once slammed a phone down so hard it is said to have splintered. Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos tells us, used to go into “purple rages.” There is a past and possibly future presidential candidate who would regularly phone one of his staffers at home and ream that person out by screaming base obscenities. (I was impressed to learn the staffer felt free to respond in kind, and did.)
Harry S. Truman, as president, once threatened in writing to kick the testicles of a journalist (a music reviewer who had been nasty about the talents of Truman’s daughter). Lyndon Johnson would physically crowd people and squeeze their arms painfully as he tried to get them to do what he wanted; in his case arm-twisting was really arm-twisting. Richard Nixon is said to have snapped to an aide who came to him with some issue, “You must have me confused with somebody who gives a sh–.” He also physically pushed and humiliated his press secretary, Ron Zeigler.

And so it goes, and all the way back. Jefferson was a man of public dignity and the meanest private plotting. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. (I here invite all readers who work in government to give, in one paragraph, their memory of Most Obnoxious Hissy Fit by or Most Appalling Style of any unnamed government official with whom they have worked, and what they learned from it.)

Bad temper is a bad thing in a public servant, but it is not the worst thing. Worse is the person who judges all questions as either career-enhancing or career-retarding, who lets the right but tough choice slide if standing for it will make him controversial and therefore a target. Mr. Bolton apparently never does that. Worse is the person who doesn’t really care that the right thing be done, as long he gets his paycheck. That’s not Mr. Bolton either. Worse still is the cynic who is above caring about anything beyond his own concerns. And that isn’t Mr. Bolton either.

What is interesting to me about the charges against Mr. Bolton is that he has not, apparently, been self-protective in the Washington way. People in government (and media, and the office tower across the street) are often courteous not because they believe deeply in the moral necessity of treating others with respect, but because they know rudeness is impractical. It makes enemies; it gives them something they can use against you. Government is inherently full of disagreement; why look for personal ones? It has long been said that in Washington a friend is someone who will stab you in the front. Mr. Bolton, again if the charges are true, has been a friend to many. He tells people off to their faces. That’s refreshing. As a human tic, if that’s what it is, it is probably more individually controllable than the temptation to damage people behind their backs, which is what people in intense environments more commonly and destructively do.

John Bolton is conceded by all, friends and foes alike, to be very smart, quite earnest, hardworking and experienced (undersecretary of state, former assistant secretary of state, treaty negotiator, international development official and old U.N. hand; he played a major role in getting the U.N. to repeal its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism). He is also known as jocular and tough-minded. He has been highly critical of the United Nations. These are all good things.

If he is confirmed he will walk into the U.N. as a man whose reputation is that he does not play well with the other children. Not all bad. He will not be seen as a pushover. Good. Some may approach him with a certain tentativeness. But Mr. Bolton, having been burned in the media frying pan and embarrassed, will likely moderate those parts of his personal style that have caused him trouble. He may wind up surprising everyone with his openness and friendliness. Fine.

Or he’ll be a bull in a china shop.

But the U.N. is a china shop in need of a bull, isn’t it? The Alfonse-Gaston routine of the past half century is all very nice, but it’s given us the U.N. as it is, a place of always-disappointing potential. May not be a bad thing to try something else.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of “A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag” (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), a collection of post-Sept. 11 columns, which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

You know, it occurs to me when one ponders what is in dispute about Mr. Bolton vs. what is not in dispute, an interesting pattern emerges. The senators most truculently announcing their intention to reject the nominee, consistently treat what is debatable as if it were not debatable. This is what I like about Noonan’s writing. She projects a demeanor that is soothing and calming, but beneath the surface there is a gritty determination to keep separate, things that are open to challenge, from things that are not. The list of factoids about Mr. Bolton that we ordinary citizens have been asked to accept, wholesale, uncritically, is growing to a length I find worrisome:

• Bolton gets angry with people to the point of acting unprofessionally — in dispute
• This disqualifies him from being a U.N. Ambassador — in dispute
• The United Nations does its best work when it is unchallenged — in dispute
• America needs to put someone on the U.N. who isn’t so hung up on America — WTF??

Most Americans wouldn’t buy a used car, as the timeless saying goes, from someone trying to convince them in a face-to-face meeting of the above four premises. Yet here we are teetering on the brink of using those four points to mold and shape our representation on the United Nations. Then, presumably, we’re going to give the United Nations lots of power and influence over our foreign policy so we don’t tick off other countries.

Oh and one more little thing…there is one item that is absolutely undisputed, which I notice under the Capitol Dome is treated as if it were, somehow, in dispute…

• There is something broken and in need of repair at the U.N.

Call me gullible, in fact, call me the pot calling the kettle black, for here perhaps I am promoting something that is not yet proven. In fact I can’t prove it…but…is it so unlikely that in the election just past, in which one of our parties pounded the ever-lovin’ snot out of the other party, perhaps the most decisive issue could have been that the U.N. is old & busted?

Just a crazy thought. We now resume our regular programming where the people who got their asses kicked in the election, who most of us don’t want deciding anything, get all pissy when they don’t get to decide things until we just let them have their way again.

He Said It

Last night & early this morning I had been tangling with several search engines, and perhaps my own ignorance in figuring out what to ask them, running down this quote from Senator Ted Kennedy that has been frequently cited by Neal Boortz and then run around the Internet by several other sources.

My curiosity was piqued after reading this item in yesterday’s “Nealz Nuze“:

A significant part of the Democrat agenda is the war on individuality. This was is no fig newton of my imagination. Master Democrat Ted Kennedy has made reference to this war in just those terms. Following a New England Patriots Super Bowl win several years ago Kennedy stumbled up to the microphone to share in the celebration, there to praise the teamwork of the Patriots, so welcome at a time that we are engaged in a “war against individuality.” So … his words, not mine.

First rule of Internet surfing: Before you get pissed off, find the source.

A little bit of searching revealed this was read into the Congressional Record of the 107th Congress. Wow that should be easy, right? Well to make a long story short, no not really. For one thing, there is no such thing as “Monday, February 7, 2002,” the date commonly cited for this quote, since that date fell on a Thursday. The Congressional Record can be flipped through one page at a time….not sure what the rationale is behind that, what with it being my record and everything. I really don’t want to go into further detail about such difficulties, but suffice it to say the sleuthing can be saved for another day, as the entire statement is posted prominently on Senator Kennedy’s web site. Here is your link.

Since September 11th, the courageous acts of countless Americans have set a new standard for the nation. Indeed, a new American spirit has been forged. That sprit is characterized by sacrifice, humility, and a refusal to quit in the face of adversity. At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for the greater good.

That example came from the top, and it came from the start of the season. Choosing to be introduced before the game as a team, not as individuals, the Patriots set the tone for their victory. Coach Bill Belichick stressed teamwork, saying that only by working together could the Patriots overcome their opponent, the best team in the NFL's regular season, the St. Louis Rams.

What does this mean? Granting the Senator the benefit of every doubt, he is extending his congratulations to the New England Patriots for accomplishing something as a team that might not have been achieved by any one individual. Is Boortz then taking something out of context and putting words in the Senator’s mouth?

I’ll leave it to the reader to decide. Certainly there is nothing about a “war against the individual” but there is that disturbing passage about “facing down individualism.” Back to the original question…what does it mean. I just can’t play Kennedy’s Advocate and make this pretty. The best spin you could possibly put on it is that Kennedy got his words mixed up, and meant to say “terrorism.” Does he really think individualism is something we all want to face down?

Individualism invented baseball, and invididualism discovered the principles of gravity upon which the game relies. Teamwork — now that I come to think of it — crashed planes into buildings on September 11, 2001 and killed nearly 3,000 people.

"...sacrifice, humility, and a refusal to quit in the face of adversity."

Screw you Senator Kennedy. Humility may have taught me a thing or two or three, but I never did achieve an awful lot with that. When the time came to actually get work done, throughout the life I can recall I got work done by shutting the humility off and telling myself “I can do this.” This is mutually exclusive from the refusal to quit in the face of adversity.

At the very least, Senator Kennedy is guilty of willfully preaching ignorance toward the contribution of the individual. He’s saying a spirit of “I can do this” will not get the job done, and a spirit of “we can do this” is the only thing upon which we should rely.

Honestly, I do not know what country he is talking about that is banding together and facing down individualism. He seems to be implying everybody who lives there is in agreement on it. I’m not living in any country like that. I live in a country that worships at the altar of freedom and opposes tyranny. Freedom will win this war, and everything else we set out to do: freedom to work on a team, to lead a team, to engage in efforts as individuals. Anybody who thinks individualism is all that matters, can build their own computer to argue the point — anybody who thinks teamwork is all that matters, can promote that viewpoint without lights or electricity, which are inventions contributed by individuals.

How Is Air America Doing?

Hey, It’s Doing Great!

In Portland, Ore., the Air America affiliate is among the top 10 stations. In San Francisco, only two stations are keeping listeners tuned in longer on average than the Air America outlet.

In Sacramento, Talk City 1240 – long a ratings black hole – has scraped its way to 21st in the market rankings. In the last two Arbitron ratings books, Talk City, despite a relatively weak signal, even finished ahead of the conservative news-talk station KTKZ (1380 AM) among listeners 12 and older, the broadest possible demographic.

And in perhaps the most telling sign of all, Air America’s biggest customer is now Clear Channel Radio, which owns 24 of the 53 stations that broadcast at least some of the liberal network’s programming.

It’s a notable change of direction for the country’s largest radio operator, which has long specialized in conservative talk radio – and whose top executives tend to be GOP contributors.

“Listeners across the country are asking for more progressive talk radio,” Clear Channel Radio chief John Hogan said in a statement when the company picked up Air America programming in Washington, D.C., Detroit and Cincinnati earlier this year.

No, It’s Kind Of A Dead Duck.

Wait a second, you say, didn’t I read that Air America has expanded to more than 50 markets? That’s true, but let’s put things in perspective: Conservative pundit and former Reagan official William J. Bennett’s morning talk show, launched at the same time as Air America, reaches nearly 124 markets, including 18 of the top 20, joining the growing ranks of successful right-of-center talk programs (Limbaugh is still the ratings leader, drawing more than 15 million listeners a week).

And look at Air America’s ratings: They’re pitifully weak, even in places where you would think they’d be strong. WLIB, its flagship in New York City, has sunk to 24th in the metro area Arbitron ratings � worse than the all-Caribbean format it replaced, notes the Radio Blogger. In the liberal meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Air America is doing lousier still.

I am…MPG

Which File Extension are You?

The Folly Of Atkins v. Virginia

I got some e-mail from an interested reader on this article I wrote up three years ago. The reader doesn’t agree with me, but I don’t care. It’s good to see people showing interest in this stuff. Sure the country is going to hell in a handbasket, but it’s not because of people disagreeing with me so much as it is because people are apathetic. I like seeing some people aren’t apathetic.

I’ll get to the reader’s comments and my reply to his comments, but for now here is the original article, with a link to the OpinioNet site that was kind enough to post it and keep it posted.

Disclaimer: I copied the hyperlinks in as they were posted then & as they are posted now. I can’t make any guarantees as to how many of them still work. If you find something is broken, use Google. Hey, thirty-four months is awhile. I’ll go through and fix them when I get time. If I do. Maybe.

The Folly Of Atkins V. Virginia

June 27, 2002

by Morgan K. Freeberg

“Seldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members,” chastises Antonin Scalia in Atkins v. Virginia. He is one hundred percent right about that. For those of you who haven�t cogitated long and hard enough about the Eighth Amendment�s cruel-and-unusual punishment clause, the decision enlightens you that it�s unconstitutional to execute the retarded.

Short background of the case: In 1996, Daryl Renard Atkins spent a day with a friend of his, getting smashed on booze and pot. Their supplies exhausted, the pair hatched a plot to scope out a convenience store and rob the first customer that looked promising.

Eric Nesbitt, a young airman from Langley Air Force Base, therefore picked a bad time to go shopping. He was abducted and forced at gunpoint to withdraw cash from his bank account. Ignoring Nesbitt�s pleas to be spared, Atkins put eight bullets in the young man�s body.

Good thing I�m not a defense attorney. I wouldn�t have known what to do about this.

Not to worry. After a variety of other appeals were shot down, some fine legal mind cooked up the protest that Atkins had an I.Q. of 59 and was therefore mentally retarded. Not only did this eventually, contrary to a few initial disappointments, work; it burst forward from the highest pinnacle, inundating our entire nation from the United States Supreme Court like molten lava spilling from the highest volcano, destroying everything in its path.

Now, capital punishment is practically banned, so long as an attorney can insinuate his client is mentally retarded.

You do realize, don�t you, that an attorney can buy any mental health professional testimony that he wants? And that in capital cases, an unusually high benefit-of-doubt is enjoyed by the defense? See where this is going?

***

In a strange twist of judicial wrangling, the Atkins decision violently contradicts the same earlier precedent that it uses as its foundation. In Penry v. Lynaugh (1989), the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) established its own “jurisprudence” of factors to use in deciding capital punishment involving the mentally indigent. Johnny Paul Penry was convicted of raping Pamela Carpenter, and mortally wounding her with a pair of scissors. In that case, as well, the defense protested that their client was mentally impaired.

SCOTUS determined, unanimously, the following: The Eighth Amendment does not categorically prohibit the execution of persons with Penry�s level of reasoning. It also established this: Any punishment is unconstitutional if it would be “cruel and unusual” at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified; or, if it violated “evolving standards of decency.”

Penry�s capital punishment would, SCOTUS determined thirteen years ago, fail to transcend either of these two boundaries.

Why then would Atkins� execution be unconstitutional? SCOTUS says the second of the two boundaries has been punctured. In Penry (1989), SCOTUS as much as promised to monitor the actions of state legislatures to figure out when-and-if execution of the retarded would violate our “evolving standards of decency.” Atkins (2002) basically says: Ding! It just happened.

SCOTUS isn�t necessarily offended; rather, they just figured out we�re offended, through the actions of our legislatures.

But courts don�t do this. Let�s examine for a quick second what courts are supposed to do.

Courts read law, which the court didn�t write. Those who sit on the court may like the law, or dislike the law, or feel indifferent about it. Doesn�t matter. The next thing they�re supposed to do is apply it to a specific case and speak on behalf of the law.

Other people make sure the law is written according to that all-important “Will of the People.” They are called legislators. Not judges, not justices. Those legislators are regularly re-elected, and they have the job of figuring out “what The People want.”

Legislators spend millions of dollars conducting polls, and digesting results of polls that others have conducted. They are then tested in their ability to follow these polls, through a process justices do not have to face, an election�I mean, good heavens, is this something I really have to describe here?

I guess the answer is yes, if your name is John Paul Stevens.

***

The process can be fairly compared to your credit card statement. You open the statement every month, and what you see is an organized blending of things to which you did, and did not, directly agree. There is a list of transactions you authorized. One would hope, behind each of these transactions, some proof exists that you consented to each of these. Any transaction that does not have this underlying proof, is ripe to be challenged in the Dispute Office. Just as any legislation that The People don�t really want, is ripe to be challenged for repeal by a legislator who can figure out which way the wind is blowing.

And then there are things to which you agreed only indirectly. There is a periodic finance charge, maybe an over-limit fee, perhaps a late fee. And then there is a final balance and a minimum payment due.

My point is: When the bill is printed, your bank doesn�t call you and ask if you�re “cool” with these things. Like judicial decisions, they are simple matters of cold hard fact and cold hard logic. You had an average balance of $3,000. You consented to an APR of 12%. Your monthly periodic finance charge is $30. It can�t be anything else. If you want to get mad about it, well, you just get as mad as you want.

In Penry and Atkins, SCOTUS has done a beautiful job of mixing up those factors under The People�s discretion, with those factors not subject to that discretion. They got them absolutely 180 degrees bass-ackwards. Consider for a moment what they did here.

There is a proposal that if you execute a competent person, that�s humane, but if you execute an incompetent person that�s cruel.

Did you get to vote on that? I didn�t.

In fact, it seems to me that if the dog pound is overpopulated, healthy dogs can be put down legally and ethically because they�re not people. They don�t have our intelligence; they can�t be made to understand what is about to happen. Partially because of this, the euthanasia is merciful and humane.

Someone comes along and proposes, if we�re talking about a guilty person instead of an innocent dog; but if he possesses the same reasoning ability as the hypothetical dog, suddenly such a thing becomes cruel.

I don�t agree with that. Am I in the minority? Maybe so, but my opponents should go through a process where they have to prove that I�m out-voted. We have legislative processes in place to do that kind of proof. If a federal standard is desired let it be passed as a law, not as a SCOTUS decision.

On the other hand: We have an Eighth Amendment that outlaws cruel and unusual punishment. Does that prohibit executing the retarded? The Atkins decision says yes, but only because it perceives our sentiments have changed since the days of the Penry decision, which decided the opposite.

In other words, the Will of the People changed the status of constitutionality.

The circumstances did not change. Johnny Paul Penry and Daryl Renard Atkins are purported to possess approximately the same levels of reasoning ability.

Did the Eighth Amendment change in the last thirteen years? Certainly not.

But SCOTUS changed its answer to a question that has remained fundamentally constant – and then – it passed the buck, blaming the instability on legislatures, and by extension, on us.

This is breathtaking. It�s like taking a vote to find the freezing temperature of water.

So SCOTUS let democracy decide things that are matters of fact and logic, which are not under the purview of democracy; then it denied the voice of democracy in a matter, which is emphatically the domain of democracy. They got it absolutely, positively, one hundred percent wrong.

***

What is this all really about?

Capital punishment is legal in all but twelve of the United States. In the thirty-eight states that allow it, there are some 3,700 prisoners on death row. Not a single one of them can be emphatically excluded from that now-revered class of people called “retarded.” The volume of litigation that must be initiated, now, is nothing short of stunning.

As a Californian, I am represented by two wonderful, radical-liberal-female senators. They are my gift from 1992, that media construct called the “Year Of The Woman.” Since 2001, these two wonderful liberal female senators have spent awesome reserves of energy blocking presidential appointments to a judicial bench that has nearly a hundred empty seats. They say they�re sending a message to President Bush that they want “moderation” on the bench.

Anyone who�s been paying attention knows that Atkins represents a shining example of what they mean by “moderation.” Public sentiment ignored where it should be better respected, and public opinion reigning supreme where, by rights, it ought to be discarded outright.

“Moderation” means, to them, a castle of jurisprudence built on shifting sand of public opinion – not sober, sound, logical conclusions based on existing law – and devastating hiccups of legislation blossoming forth as a result. They are determined to send this message to the president, and with good reason. Justice Stevens, author of the Atkins decision, is one of the most liberal justices on the court. He is 82. Chief Justice Rehnquist is the next-oldest justice, and staple to the conservative wing. Rehnquist is 77.

Obviously, anyone with an ideological leaning one way or the other, who has some say about judicial placement, is clamoring to make sure their message is heard.

My wonderful radical-liberal-female senators belong to a political party which we call “Democrats.”

Democrats are funded by donations from trial lawyers. If you�re a trial lawyer who donates to political causes, most of your money goes to Democrats.

What happens to a trial lawyer�s bank account when there is more litigation? Democrats don�t want a well-oiled, smooth-running machine of justice. They want burned-out O-rings, under-lubricated bearings, fouled plugs, leaky gaskets, thrown rods, the whole works. They want chaos, because chaos leads to litigation. Litigation means more money for their constituents.

Our Constitution assumes that the Supreme Court, whose members are appointed to lifetime terms during their good behavior, is above all this. Six justices just proved that wrong.

It�s the old saying: Follow The Money.

***

So what exactly is this – some would say – badly worded and troublesome Eighth Amendment all about?

Contrary to the supposed wisdom of the Penry decision, the meaning and sentiment of the Eighth Amendment has very little to do with standards and sensibilities in 1791. Like much of the Bill of Rights, this amendment was lifted – verbatim – from the English Bill of Rights ratified in 1689.

To appreciate what “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” is all about, it is necessary to go back even further than that.

After The Restoration, the period in English history where the monarchy was restored following the Interregnum of Oliver Cromwell, Charles II ascended to the throne in 1660. He had the faith of a nation, being the first-born son of Charles I who was martyred during the Revolution in 1649. One of the most embarrassing incidents of his 25-year-reign was the Popish Plot. In more ways than one, it would be fair to compare this incident to Susan Smith�s adventure at John D. Long Lake, where she claimed a black man abducted her two young sons.

A young rogue named Titus Oates ingratiated himself with the nobility, including King Charles, by insinuating he knew of a plot to assassinate the King. Like Susan Smith, he concocted and embellished a fanciful tale, then kept adding on to it to further enhance his growing popularity.

His libelous statements resulted in the arrest, trial and execution of several innocent people. But his ultimate transgression was to embarrass both the elite and the commoners, once his deception was discovered.

By this time, Charles II had died without heirs, causing a problem of succession that would fester until the House of Stuart was eventually brought down. His younger brother became king as James II. According to contemporaries, James was just as pernicious and unreasonable as Oates, himself. As the schism between Catholics and Protestants grew to a frenzy in Great Britain, James presided over a system of justice determined to make Oates pay for the embarrassment suffered throughout the land.

Remember our widespread, vitriolic anger at Susan Smith when we discovered the real fate of her young sons? It was the same situation, and Titus Oates was less popular than that. Death was far too good for him, Parliament declared.

He was to be pilloried in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster Hall, to be pilloried again in front of the Royal Exchange, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate. After two days, he was to be whipped again, from Newgate to Tyburn.

After all that, if he was to survive, he was to be kept prisoner for life. Five times every year he was to be brought forth and exposed on a pillory for more thrashings. Before his second punishment, it was discovered that the villain had somehow steeled himself against his punishment with strong drink.

In summary: Confident that his punishment could never equal his crime, the system of justice would toy with him, like a cat with a mouse. Basically, laying into his flesh with a cat-o-nine-tails until its collective arm got tired.

This was in 1687. The following year there was a revolution. The Protestants defeated the Catholics, placing Prince William of Orange on the throne. The new government of William III, determined to define its superiority over the previous, Catholic regime, drafted a Bill of Rights in 1689.

And right in the middle of it, “�excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Pretty much everyone agrees this was inspired by the Titus Oates affair. So what did they mean by this?

***

If you�re very sharp, maybe you�ve figured out from my obscure ramblings where I�m going with this. Sometimes, with late-Renaissance-era law, it is necessary to study the history of that law; completing that, you get a perspective very different from where you started.

Titus Oates petitioned officials, both Protestant and Catholic, to reduce his sentence. He had very little success. As was the case with Susan Smith, there was little-to-no desire in the nation to confer mercy on his miserable hide. This man libeled people, sending them to an undeserved death. He was regarded, throughout all factions, as deserving of whatever he got.

But the Protestants drafted this precursor to the Eighth Amendment. They didn�t give a rip about the well-being of Titus. They cared about the civilization of their society.

They knew their penal system existed, ultimately, to protect the safety and well-being of the innocent from the guilty. They knew the Oates sentence was generated from passions that cared very little for this protection-of-the-innocent; and cared very deeply for old-fashioned, sadistic, savage, thirst for hot steaming blood.

They knew this was beyond a civilized society, and beneath a civilized society.

Any interpretation outside of that spirit, is a reworking of the Eighth Amendment.

***

I�m not opposed to “evolving standards of decency,” but we have a place for the manifestation of such things.

It�s called a Congress.

Someone should tell six of our justices about it.

Excellent…Needs To Be Seen

The Cooling World

http://www.globalclimate.org/Newsweek.htm

Yet another “stub” I’ll get back to at a later time. Go ahead and read up. Notice anything peculiar?

How To Read News

Take a look at this, boys and girls. Once Invincible Schwarzenegger Looking More Mortal, ABC News. Lesson One, know when to stop reading.

The story is that Arnold backed down in dealing with the unions. Across several different articles, on this one story it is shocking how difficult it is to get to the meaningful details. Look at this. Paragraph One: He’s showing himself to be a mere mortal, polls down sharply. Three words about the union deal – “significant policy retreat”. Paragraph Two: The numbers that show his popularity down, and high-level details about the poll. Nothing about the union. Paragraph Three: Meaningless and completely disposable.

Paragraphs Four and Five: Now we’re interviewing the experts for some bites. On my own, would I want to go to Phil Trounstine, director of the San Jose State University institute to get his opinion? Do I wake up each morning thinking about all my difficult decisions in the day ahead, with WWPTD on my lips? Phil may be a great guy. I got no quarrel with Phil.

But Phil doesn’t need more publicity. People are already talking about his poll, and they wouldn’t be talking about it if it wasn’t different from everybody else’s. By all means let’s interview Phil, but ask him questions about why we should believe his poll. And I’m not doubting the poll, it’s just that opinions about Gov. Schwarzenegger are in great supply. They’re cheap.

But back to my original point. Once we’re interviewing experts asking for their take on things, we’re done reporting things in the article. Time to go onto another article or get on with your day.

Interestingly, Google serves this story up to me so I can find out what’s going on lately, along with, SwissInfo. SwissInfo begins “California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is showing himself to be an ordinary mortal afterall with a significant policy retreat and a new poll showing his approval rating down…” uh, er, hey wait a minute. This seems familiar. I think I’m done reading SwissInfo. That’s Lesson Two.

Lesson Three: Understand labor unions and newspapers. Chicago Tribune serves up this bite. ” SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — Under pressure from firefighters and police officers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday backed off, for now, his plan to privatize California’s public employee pension system.” Get that? Firefighters and police officers. Oh, that is so rich. The Governor visited a fire hall to find out how everybody’s doing and ran into a bunch of angry faces. No, wait. They burst into his office with their fire hats and police hats and parkas and badges, and let him know how angry they were. Why are you screwing with our pensions, Governor?

Remember this: Newspapers love unions. Unions make news. News is made whenever unions get their way. Like Kevin Spacey said in The Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing people he didn’t exist.” The greatest trick unions ever pulled, was convincing people they don’t exist. Newspapers, reliably, help out with this. The Peace Officer’s Association doesn’t want something; the police want something. The Fireighter’s Association didn’t pressure Arnold; the firefighters pressured Arnold. United Autoworkers Union doesn’t demand things; autoworkers need things. See how this works?

This may very well be the beginning of the end for California, or at the very least, of Arnold. Certainly it’s the beginning of the end of politics that might have had a hope of being responsive to all of the voters and taxpayers. It’s bad news, a critically important story, and it’s being played like “the police and firefighters can breathe easy, knowing that Arnold is done messing around with their death and disability benefits, for now.”

How to speak English

I’ll comment further on this soon.

I’m pretty happy about this. The needle on my DVDRI gauge has gone down a couple points.

The ruling makes a lot of sense. Naturally, I am quite sure it will be reversed at some point and the ruling judge will be forced to make a humiliating apology. But for now, a guy can dream.

Ouch!

If you read Ted Kennedy�s speech on Thursday, you�ll see all the things you�ve come to expect of Democrat speeches. Beginning with the first word, proceeding to the last one and reading everything in between, you see what emerges as a compelling argument, or at least, an argument that on the surface looks compelling. To those inclined to agree with the Senator, a viable excuse is offered to hop on his bandwagon. We have 157,000 troops in Iraq, and that�s what we had in Vietnam in 1965 when the trouble was still ahead of us. Who can doubt, then, that Iraq is another Vietnam? Or at least, that the situation is in dire danger of degenerating into a repeat of the episode 35 years ago.

It is typical of the best Democrat speeches. Like the argument from a sixteen-year-old about why he should borrow the car for his date, it nails each and every one of the facts that support the proposal, carefully avoiding the facts that would cause it some logical trouble.

Those in favor of seeing our operations through to the end have seized, rightfully so, on the message this would give to the terrorists that our media outlets popularly call �insurgents�. Ted Kennedy, they say, has just put a bulls-eye on the back of each soldier we have out there. I agree.

Neal Boortz has gotten particularly nasty, comparing Kennedy�s �cut and run� message to his actions in Chappaquiddick in the summer of 1969. His rejoinder is abusive, gratuitous and something of a stretch. But I�m for it. Neal�s right; there is a terribly disturbing parallel here � a reluctance to do what is difficult, dangerous, uncomfortable, right just and good � and you�d better believe there�d be Democrats pointing it out if a Republican was in Ted Kennedy�s shoes.

We can argue about whether Kennedy is correct about where Iraq is headed. Absolutely we can, and that�s the point isn�t it? It is not beyond reasonable debate, nor can it ever be, that Mary Jo Kopechne was still alive when Kennedy cut & ran. Who has the right viewpoint? Who is championing the �right� facts and promoting the �right� theories? We get to pick it by which party label we individually choose to support, just as we�d root for our favorite teams at a football game. That is the nature of the argument that Kennedy has chosen to start, and I�ve got to believe a smart guy like the Senator chose to make it go that way on purpose.

But the real �ouch� comes from the �Best of the Web� column that appeared the following day, by Opinion Journal editor James Taranto, who compares some of the things Ted Kennedy has to say with some of the things Jack Kennedy had to say. Taranto�s remarks form a good lesson: When comparisons are little more than matters of opinion, and when the facts are disputed and proof is lacking, our paths can be lit by an examination of the spirit in our leaders and what those leaders say. Even Ted Kennedy�s most loyal followers will acknowledge this. Asked to name the highlights of Ted�s 42 years in our Congress, they�ll go into the tag �em and bag �em Robin Hood schemes stealing money from our most productive citizens and giving the bounty to others. �Worked hard� is a phrase that no doubt would pepper the accolades, as would the word �provide�. They�ll ascribe positive attributes to the Massachusetts hero, attributes more logically bestowed upon those who actually earned the money.

But in twenty years or so, Kennedy supporters are highly unlikely to point out �he gave a speech that said we should get out of Iraq.� They�ll happily talk about Jack�s challenge to land on the moon. Linking Thursday�s �Get Out� speech to that grand vision of 44 years ago, even as a footnote, would be a highly implausible exercise. It doesn�t fit. One speech says, �Do�, and another speech says, �Don�t�.

Speaking for myself, I�m proud to be an American. I�m not proud to be a citizen of a country that doesn�t do things; I�m proud to be part of a country that does.

And this is why Ted Kennedy�s party got spanked so badly in the elections. The �big middle� of the American electorate sees we have a problem: Crazy middle-eastern men are out there, trying to kill us. Republicans don�t only see this problem; �neutral� people and apathetic people, moderate liberals see this problem.

A leader, who recognizes a problem, solves it, starting by forming a vision. Say what you want about George W. Bush�s plans, but he has a vision. Democrats seem to be laboring under the assumption that this is something that has not inflamed the passions of the �big middle� and they can distract us from it. They can talk about what Bush is doing wrong. They can imply that September 11 was just a fluke and will never happen again, or that we �deserved� the attacks. They can indulge in legal flim-flammery, implying that the terrorists are entitled to fundamental rights as our prisoners that, in reality, have little to do with them.

But to solve the problem, Bush has proposed that we neutralize the threat. That may offend the dickens out of those who have subscribed, since the Earl Warren years, to the school of thought that crooks are always innocent and cops always lie. But it�s a vision. When a candidate with a vision runs against a candidate without one, it is highly unusual for the latter to prevail.

Apart from the truly �safe� seats in our national congress and our state legislatures, Democrats will never win a single election until they come up with a vision of their own.

Some Democrats think Ted Kennedy delivered another �rousing� speech that makes plain & clear how they can get back into power. I hope they go right on thinking that. Until the Democrat party goes the way of the Whig party.

Christmas Shopping

I haven�t been seen or heard lately, partly because I�ve got this weird thing going on where in my mind, the election is over and it�s time to get on with holidays. Of course I�m following the news, but everything that�s going on is receiving comment by folks who are much more up to the task for now than I am.

That includes, oh, where to begin? The racist jokes from Democrats and liberals over the nomination of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State; more of the same over possibly elevating Clarence Thomas to the position of Chief Justice; politically correct control freaks smacking around the Boy Scouts, and Christmas itself; the Oil for Food scandal. The list goes on.

But while Christmas shopping I can�t help but notice something gradually changing culturally, which I�m sure is much more pronounced for me than it is for others since I hardly ever go shopping. Things are changing. As usual, everybody is in a hurry and they don�t know where they want to go. People seem to get in each other�s way, much more often than they have to. Know what I mean?

The gentleman across from the cinnamon bun shop is engrossed in the camera shop. I could walk to his left, between him and the cinnamon bun shop, and not get in his way right? Of course I could. He�s all about cameras. So I pass him, and, whoops, he has to get a cinnamon bun. I�m in his way. Pardon me all to hell buddy.

Yes, it�s small potatoes but bear in mind this is going on every five seconds�or four�or three. It is what walking through a shopping mall is all about. Twenty times a minute you�re in some insane contest with someone oncoming, to claim right-of-way. The world won�t end if you lose the right-of-way, but if you lose every single challenge that comes along you could be there a LONG time. So it gets cutthroat. It gets that way quickly, and it stays that way for the entire time you�re there.

And there are people who feed off of this and feel energized by it, believe it or not.

The first wave of Christmas shopping was the right-of-way of the oblivious. You�re on a collision course with somebody, and historically the right of way goes to whoever is not looking where he is going. This just makes sense, right? You can�t slow down or weave around somebody else if you�re not looking where you�re going. But if you can see a collision is imminent, and the dumb cluck is refitting the lid on his mocha caramel latte, it�s up to you to avoid the collision right? So shopping malls are full of people talking to each other, �noticing� store displays, or � my favorite � studying the tile work in the ceilings or the skylights. Hey, that way you can walk in a straight line. It�s up to everyone else to make room.

Everyone has to do this at some time, because if you don�t you can get to the mall right after work and still be there at ten o�clock, trying to find just one stinking item. I�m a ceiling-scholar. Studying cracks in the sidewalk is equally effective but it gives off the illusion of low self-esteem. People are much more primitive than they think. They pick up these signals like sharks or wolves, after they notice one among them is weak. Encroach on and cannibalize the weakest among us? You�re goddamned right we do it all the time. We�re programmed to. No setting brings us closer to our most primitive nature than a shopping mall.

And then came the second wave. Oh, boy! Here come the baby carriages. No more studying cracks in the sidewalk or ceiling tiles. Step in back of a baby carriage, and slice through that crowd like a hot knife through butter. Who can possibly cut in front of a baby carriage? Not only do you look lower than a snake�s belly, even in the social strata of a shopping mall, as an added bonus you risk getting hurt. As the years have gone by, notice children ensconced in baby carriages have gotten older and older. They look like they should be out delivering newspapers instead of riding in carriages.

Now we call them �strollers�. Strollers aren�t like baby carriages any more. They weigh a ton. You didn�t think that was all about protecting the child, did you?

This year we have the third wave: Cell phones. Believe it or not, we�re still at the stage of novelty that cell phones give people a natural high. Ooh, look at me, I�m talking on a cell phone. It seems silly, with cell phones having been around for awhile by now. Getting prestige and an adrenaline rush from talking on a cell phone seems like doing the same by using a microwave oven.

You should see this one guy who cut me off at Sears last night talking on his cell phone. I thought I was charging ahead, loaded for bear, four or five feet between my paces. I was a man desperate to charge in, buy the thing, and get the hell out of there. But this guy cut me off like I was standing still. Zoom. Worst part was, he had a buddy who was trying to keep up, running half the time to do it. Good luck pal, your alpha male cohort is talking on his cell phone. And not even in English.

It�s a triple threat. You�re a shaker and a mover in the world or you think you are�you are making noise so the other party can�t claim to not know you�re coming�and you�re oblivious. The crowd parts like the Red Sea before Moses, and in you go.

It�s like paper-scissors-rock. The two-ton toddler-stroller has the right of way over the oblivious old man guzzling his caramel-latte; the cell phone guy has the right of way over the baby-stroller.

I hate shopping. You know most of the problem with the crowds, is that at any given moment in time some 80% or 90% of us are a good distance away from where we want to be, because we misunderstood where something was. Could the malls be designed better to keep that from happening? I�m sure there�s lots of room for improvement, but what would be the point? Hardly anyone gets hurt from shopping in a mall, and if someone does, somehow, it�s not worth making a fuss over. Nobody ever wants to admit to it, whether they like shopping or not.

Being offended by someone calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree? Oh, we�ve got people who will bellow over that all day long. Being run over by a toddler-stroller that could disable a bulldozer? It�s like the guy getting beaten up by his wife; it must never happen, because it�s so seldom reported.

And a good chunk of the purchases in shopping malls are impulse purchases. Probably all of them save but a tiny fraction. Who in their right mind would design a shopping mall, so that you could drive up to the right store, and shop like a man? Park, dash in, pick up, cash out, exit, check the stopwatch. No way, Jose, they want you rambling around, brain-dead, lurching zombie-like from one corner of the foundation to the other and back again.

I�d start ranting about the trivial conversations I overhear being muttered into the cell phones, but I�m getting off topic. That�s a subject for another day.

The Day After The Day After Tomorrow: A Sequel

Just finished watching The Day After Tomorrow. Normally when a movie makes a profound effect on me I write up a quick review, but to be realistic this movie didn’t make any profound effect on me. That could be because of my mental handicap that compels me to get my science stuff from scientific things and my entertainment stuff from entertainment things; I’m not like these enlightened “nuanced” movie audiences who mix the two together.

However, I was inspired to write up a quick synopsis for a possible sequel. This probably would make only a limited amount of sense to someone who hasn’t seen the Emmerich movie.

(May Contain Minor Spoilers)

The events of the first movie, it is discovered, have killed off all the vegetation in the western hemisphere and therefore left that part of the world permanently uninhabitable. The United States of America is subordinated to a mere province of the “third world country” from which President Becker was speaking at the end of the film. The American dollar is devalued, discontinued, and replaced with scrip which Americans earn by making shoes, toiling in rice patties, and milking cows for the third-world people.

Global starvation ensues. The United Nations triples the annual dues that are requested of America, from 25% of the U.N. budget to nearly all of it, and sends the bill to the last known address of Congress. Naturally, it goes unpaid. Dennis Quaid is forced to move into a mud hut with his son Jake Gyllenhaal, ex-wife Sela Ward, Jake’s girlfriend, and Sela’s boyfriend who is played by Russell Crowe. He must beg and borrow, and pawn his pick-axe, until he can buy enough equipment to continue his research. Years roll by as he continues this terrible, demeaning process within a global society that no longer has an economy. After decades of building sophisticated instruments from natural resources like the Professor from Gilligan’s Island, he makes a startling discovery: The flash freezing from the first movie had NOTHING to do with any human activity whatsoever!

Starvation, and starvation-related diseases, sweep over the entire human race. Sela Ward runs off with her boyfriend, Jake Gyllenhaal dies of starvation in the arms of his father. In one of the dreariest, darkest endings of all time, Dennis Quaid finds himself in his deathbed, his ribs poking painfully through his skin, dying of black lung, gangrene and scurvy in the same room as President Becker who is in the same final stages. The two men commiserate about how terribly wrong they were to blame natural climate changes on the most productive people and corporate entities, which, on reflection, throughout history, have done so much to ease human suffering and so little to cause any of it. Both men wish they could go back and repeat history to avoid the terrible mistakes they have made. Reading the Bible that the atheist guy saved from the library, they come across the passage about coveting your neighbor and realize this is where they went wrong. They wish they had not been jealous of these corporations. They wish they had not been so quick to believe the scientists who chased federal research dollars with politically correct prejudices in their research, and so slow to believe the scientists who did not. They wish they did not base so much of their “science” on glossy Hollywood productions. Belatedly, they realize there WAS indeed a money-grubbing, greedy industry in Old America that was truly bad for humanity, which went completely unregulated. This was the movie industry. But it’s too late for any of this now.

The doe-eyed cancer patient from the first movie is sworn in as the new President. The poor fellow who was flash-frozen from the helicopter accident, is thawed out, and he becomes the Vice-President. Nobody cares very much now though, because the United States is made into a non-entity. The rest of the world rejoices about this, for a brief time, until somebody remembers there’s no food, no foreign aid, and no military strength to protect anyone from the gangs of thieving marauders who roam the wasted planet at all hours of the day and night. “Day After The Day After Tomorrow, The” is hailed by critics as deep-thinking, poignant, dark, moody, and thought-provoking. It is also the most depressing story ever told right after “Grapes of Wrath”.

Hey…Roland Emmerich can have an agenda, so can I. 😉

We’re Not Not Not Sorry You’re Sorry?

Nov. 16 I had an update that the “We’re Not Sorry” page, in which real Americans show their pride that the best man won the presidency, is no longer working. So at that time, the current situation was that the liberal dickholes had their “Sorry Everybody” page, where they photographically apologize to the rest of the world for the fact that there are less of them than there are of real Americans, and the real Americans had a “We’re Not Sorry” page that was out of commission while the dickhole page worked just fine.

Since then there are at least two interesting developments of which I’m aware…

…the foreign dickholes joined in the game with our domestic dickholes and put together an “Apology Accepted” page.

The good guys have redirected the defunct website to a brand-spanking new “You’re Welcome Everybody” page. Check it out.

Bashing the Boy Scouts

All you lawyers out there, this is why your profession is not liked. Look what is going on here with the Boy Scouts, which tend not to be lawyers, and the ACLU, which are exactly those.

I’ll make it real simple, okay?

There are good reasons to like the Boy Scouts.

There are good reasons to like the ACLU…I suppose.

There are reasons…perceptions, really…to dislike the Boy Scouts. Some canard flying around about it being a hate group. I’ll debate that below.

There are good reasons to dislike the ACLU.

Which organization has to constantly defend itself?

And what is the ultimate effect of each. I know, out there in left-wing-nut land you can go on about the ACLU defending civil liberties, and the Boy Scouts fostering hatred and intolerance. But that’s left-wing spin and I don’t think anyone, even should they agree with the spin, would argue that. What happens when you consider both sides of each? The good and the bad done by the ACLU? The good and bad done by the Boy Scouts?

Come to think of it, to debate what I promised up above that I’d debate, what factual evidence do we have about any harm done by the Boy Scouts? I’ve heard the arguments, the theories, the hurtful invective about “hate groups” — which is an especially wicked moniker to attach to this venerable organization. What is the foundation? How would you argue this in court, you lawyers? I know you maybe get much more popular, and get invited to all kinds of more left-wing cocktail parties when you spread this hurtful propaganda about the Boy Scouts being a hate group — more of your left-wing Earl Warren thinking, “I said it’s a hate group now prove me wrong.”

Does it pass the “left nut” test?

Drop ’em, and put your left testicle on an anvil. Are you willing to bet your left nut you can prove that the Boy Scouts fosters hatred?

Are you willing to bet your left nut that they do?

Of course not. It’s just a crazy, whack-job left-wing idea that gives you a hard-on when you go around thinking it.

But know this. A lot of people are willing to bet their left testicles that the ACLU does substantial harm. Some of them would be able to do this with the utmost confidence, since they have personally suffered the harm. Not just a few Boy Scouts officials, I am sure.

Some of our very most effective and benevolent historical figures in our nation’s history have been former Boy Scouts. Some of the most hurtful and disastrous ones have been lawyers.

Now the ACLU has achieved a widely reported “victory” by forcing the Department of Defense to issue a memo. The effect is much more pronounced in terms of P.R. than in terms of actual policy change, but that doesn’t stop the press from playing it up. And the lawsuits go on. To what end? Are you ACLU people just terrified of more young men learning to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent?

What’s the matter? Would this cut into the ranks of future ACLU recruits and left-wing nazi politicians?

Ever since the Supreme Court upheld the Scouts’ First Amendment right to bar Scoutmasters who are openly gay, the ACLU has looked for softer targets. The suit against the military is one of a series aimed at getting communities to deny access to public facilities. The original lawsuit also challenged the city of Chicago’s sponsorship of troops in public schools, another venue where sponsors aren’t always easy to find. The city settled.

In Connecticut the ACLU has succeeded in getting the state to remove the Scouts from the list of charitable institutions to which public employees may make voluntary contributions. And earlier this year it settled a suit against the city of San Diego, which agreed to evict the Scouts from a public park they have been using since 1918. The Scouts countersued, lost, and the case is now on appeal before the Ninth Circuit.

The question no one seems to be asking is, who’s better off as a result of these lawsuits? Surely not the 3.2 million Boy Scouts, whose venerable organization is part of the web of voluntary associations once considered the bedrock of American life. If anything, the purpose of the ACLU attacks is to paint Scouts as religious bigots. Other losers are communities themselves, which are forced to sever ties to an organization that helps to build character in young men.

You ACLU hacks either enjoy doing the work you do, or you can’t find a better way to earn a paycheck. Either way, you make me sick.

Economic Turkey

The nice thing about Thanksgiving is that it’s a time for us to be thankful for the love of friends & family, and on top of that, to be thankful for the more material things we have. Of course that is what Christmas is all about, but during Christmas we attach a stigma to the acquisition and possession of material largess, even while we celebrate having it. That’s why Thanksgiving kicks ass. There’s a certain sincerity about it. We don’t gather around and say “We have wonderful friends and hot food in our bellies and we feel really guilty about it” which would really be a crock of bullshit. Instead, we are thankful. We don’t feel like we’re better people than others who lack such essentials, but we don’t feel like we’re worse people either. The message is simply that we are blessed. It is one of the few holidays where we promote an attitude that is truly healthy, and from which we could learn much during the other 364 days of the year.

I’m thankful for the rare snippets of commentary like this one. It’s a little known fact that today, our perception of each of the 43 presidents our country has had, is mostly tradition. We have some really widely-disseminated common perspectives of some of these presidents, that are woefully out of step with historical reality. One of these perspectives is that the guy on the fifty-dollar bill was a bad president. Ulysses Grant was a great leader, wildly popular and for good reason, whose contributions to our country very likely saved it from ending altogether. Another far-flung perspective is that the guy on the dime, was a great president, who turned everything he touched into gold. Hey, great at some things, maybe. But some of his mistakes lengthened the depression, and were the result of misguided economic policy as well as vacillating leadership & lack of vision.

FDR�s �Thanksgiving economics� turned out to a real turkey. But it was emblematic of the misguided economic thinking put forth throughout his administration. FDR�s economics was about putting more control and resources in the hands of politicians and government bureaucrats. His policies and often his rhetoric attacked the businesses, investors and risk takers that create economic growth and jobs. That simply led to a deeper and more prolonged economic downturn. Rather than engaging in pointless efforts like changing the date of Thanksgiving, it would have been far more productive for FDR to roll back the enormous tax and regulatory burdens that he and his predecessor (Herbert Hoover) had placed on the private sector.

Ever since FDR�s time in the White House, too many people view the government as the driving force in our economy. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Government has an important responsibility to protect life, limb and property, but then it largely needs to get out of the way. It is the innovators, the inventors, the investors and the entrepreneurs who produce economic growth and create jobs, and freedom allows them to do so. That is how we produce such a great bounty in this nation, and is something to be thankful for on the fourth Thursday of this month.

The simple fact of the matter is, the “Brain Trust” wasn’t responsible for creating the wealth that would ultimately end the Depression. The businesses that the Brain Trust was choking to death, get that credit.

SUVs To Get Tobacco-Style Warnings

Do-gooders in the United Kingdom, which is a country in Europe, which is that continent that doesn’t like America and which we’re supposed to be fabulously worried about because they don’t like the way we do things here in the U.S., are recommending that SUVs be required to carry health warning stickers.

Without having any access to irrefutable proof of the theory of man-made global climate change, since none exists, and lacking the authority to force SUV owners or manufacturers to carry these disclaimers around, the propeller-heads nonetheless blossomed forward with their proclamtions about what everybody should do and the British press gobbled it up. I’m glad they ran the story because it is wonderful entertainment.

Gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, the increasingly popular all-terrain cars, should be forced to sport labels just like cigarette packs announcing their terrible health and environmental impact, a British think tank said Thursday.

Just like smokers in the European Union buy tobacco marked with “Smoking Kills” and other dire warnings, New Economics Foundation (nef) offered its own slogans for super-stickers which they said should be slapped onto the hoods and sides of cars.

“Global warming kills,” “Climate change can seriously damage your health” or even “Driving seriously harms you and others around you” were among the list of warnings proposed by the London-based think tank.

“SUVs are dangerous, fabulously polluting and part of a wider transport problem that is, according to the World Health Organization, set to be the world’s third most common cause of death and disability by 2020,” nef policy director Andrew Simms said.

There is something in the water in Europe and we do not want to borrow any more cultural values from this continent than we absolutely have to. Think about what is going on here. Person A is a white-coat-wearing-pinhead, Person B is not. Person B does something Person A doesn’t like. Here in the good ol’ U.S.A., Person A is required, by social customs if not by statute, to like it or lump it…get used to it, baby. Sure, a lot of times it gets way out of hand, but think about the alternatives. Over there, the social expectation is that Person A gets to waggle his Person-A-finger in the face of Person B, through their powerful nationalist agencies and the dictates & proclamations these agencies come up with hand-over-fist. Person A gets to make Person B do things. Person A gets to stop Person B from doing things. Person A gets to regulate every li’l thing Person B does and generally become a painful carbunkle in Person B’s ass.

Put this warning on your SUV. No drinking after dark. No guns. No swearing. No sandwiches. Ninety percent income tax after fifty thousand dollars a year, or something. Register. Apply. Apply. Register. Notify. Must. Should. Ought. Prohibited. Are not to be. Should, ought, must, ought, should, should, must, ought, should.

Remember this the next time some high-minded Birkenstock-wearing gray-ponytail hippie over here in the Land of Freedom and Plenty gets on his high horse about “in Europe, they don’t have our hangups & they let women sunbathe topless” or some such. Hey, bub, you want to talk about hangups. Why don’t you move there and then you can talk about hangups.

Don’t forget…politically powerful forces over here in USA, want us to do things here the same way those things are done over there. Scary stuff.

Control Freaks

Essay Completed June 27, 2004:

The older I get, the more aware I become of a salient fact: Most people are control freaks. It seems we find the decisions that concern things under our own control, decisions for which we�re responsible, boring. We like to decide things for the other guy. Our neighbor may have handicaps we don�t have; he may be accountable to other people to whom we don�t need to answer, under any circumstances. It doesn�t matter. We want things done by other people, done the way we think we would do them if we were they. Each year, I�m more convinced than I was the year before that all the world�s problems come from people like this.

In fact, watching people make decisions that affect a lot of other people, I see one common factor in the decisions that are most universally regarded, later, as bad ones. The factor is not poor judgment; it�s ignorance. Once our interest is piqued in how a thing is done, and we know someone�s doing it differently than the way we would do it, we all have this tendency to issue statements & commands when the wisest among us would be asking questions. If, that is, the wise would see fit to poke their noses into the matter at all. Lilliput wants Blefescu to open eggs on the little end. Left unasked is �exactly what catastrophe will ensue if they don�t?�

This is Kerry�s one shot at getting into the White House. Islamic terrorist thugs want us to do things the Islam way; Europe wants us to do things the European way. We have a bizarre political environment thriving right now, in which it�s perfectly okay to pontificate �Bush should have done this� and �Bush should be doing that.� And these statements at least have the makings of perfectly legitimate campaign issues. To evolve to that point, however, those statements have to mature into arguments, and before they can be reasonable arguments there are questions to be answered. What happens if he doesn�t, and why? What misfortune befell us when he did something, how do you link it to what he did, and where was the opportunity to avoid the misfortune? To say nothing of, Mr. Huffer-Puffer, how do you know all this?

In this way, the President�s most vocal detractors share some characteristics with the people our troops are fighting. This war started because Lilliputians don�t like the way we open our eggs. To them, words like �dominion,� �bailiwick� and �jurisdiction� are foreign concepts. They want things done their way. It matters not at all who�s doing them, or why, or how far-reaching the effect is.

Now admittedly, Iraq affects everybody � it is certainly not the President�s private breakfast, and the consequences of his worst decisions would be far-reaching. But the point stands, whether it�s a private affair or not, it�s still his job, and the respect for presidential authority in military matters has sunk to a depth I find rather shocking. The decisions we argue about interminably belong to the President. He heads up the Executive Branch � not the �Agent Branch�.

I�ve heard since before the invasion of Iraq, from many directions, that the President �rubbed nations the wrong way� when he didn�t �build a coalition.� That was all fine and good so long as it didn�t interfere with doing the job. But now, such military endeavor is made at the behest of several factions with disparate interests, and we�ve really hurt ourselves.

To start with, we�re losing momentum through the perception that we�ve changed the goal in invading Iraq. Weapons of Mass Destruction; Collusion with Al-Qaeda and other organizations; liberating the people of Iraq � which is it? This is a valid criticism. It�s a myth, however, that the goal has changed across time � the goal has changed across the several factions in the coalition we did build. The correct response is �of course we have several goals, what do you expect?� That�s the price of building coalitions. This seems to be one of the reasons why decades ago, wars were fought and won with clearer definitions of success. Back then, we installed a team � an executive team � and trusted them to do the job.

This is a political cost, not a tactical one. But the benefit of building a coalition was supposed to be entirely political to begin with, and although some may not be clear on how it�s so, a political misfortune can cost lives. Bush has incurred anger not through his failure to build a coalition, or to put it under the control of the UN, but from capitulating � successfully � to those who would require a coalition to begin with. The demands for a coalition belied underlying control-freakishness. I say that because, to the level of my own satisfaction, the �plan� leading from a coalition to a greater likelihood of tangible success, was never really demonstrated and I have serious doubts that it existed.

What we�re seeing here, is a lesson. Our most strident liberals, those so entrenched in the liberal mindset that they engage passionately in trying to sell it to people, hurt themselves when they use this situation to damage Bush. He has created a possibility of failure for himself this November, by behaving in a way that, according to them, is always correct. As resentment and recalcitrance rose to greet him, from out of nowhere came the idea that negative feelings could be mollified if he modified his methods. The lesson � and I really doubt Bush is learning it for the first time � is this. When people constantly criticize what you do, a lot of the time it has little to do with what you do, they just don�t like you. They�ve already made up their minds they want you gone.

This is true of most control freaks. It�s true of the people we�re fighting right now, and when John Kerry talks about what Bush should have been doing, keep in mind it�s true of Kerry as well.

Separation of Declaration-of-Independence and State

A principal in Cupertino has stopped one of her fifth-grade teachers from handing out exerpts of documents from the founding of our country, including the Declaration of Independence, because these papers mention God. The teacher has filed a lawsuit asserting he has been singled out for censorship because he is a Christian.

I hope this principal starts returning phone calls soon so we can know what her side of the story is. Unfortunately, I’m fairly sure I know exactly what she’ll say. How long have we got before the Constitution is ruled unconstitutional?

A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God � including the Declaration of Independence.

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.

“It’s a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful,” said Williams’ attorney, Terry Thompson.

“Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country,” he said. “There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence.”

Vidmar could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose and claims violations of Williams rights to free speech under the First Amendment.

The Smoking Gun has the actual complaint here. On page 6 item 40, there is a list of materials Mr. Williams has been prevented from handing out, which is the following:

a. Excerpts from the “Frame of Government of Pennsylvania” by William Penn;
b. Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence;
c. Excerpts from various state constitutions;
d. A handout entitled “What Great Leaders Have Said About The Bible”;
e. “The Rights of the Colonists” by Samuel Adams;
f. Excerpts from George Washington’s journal;
g. Excerpts from John Adams’ diary;
h. Excerpts from “The Principles of Natural Law” by Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui;
i. A handout entitled “Fact Sheet: Currence & Coins — History of ‘In God We Trust.'”

It would appear from items (d) and (i) that perhaps the teacher is pursuing an agenda of promoting his personal feelings about separation of church & state or lack thereof. Liberal web sites such as Seeing The Forest, Raw Story and The Blue Lemur have siezed on this, calling banning of the Declaration “bogus” and “a lie”. As posted on Forest and echoed on Lemur —

The school did not “ban the Declaration of Independence” — that is just a lie. This story is like when you hear that a man was “arrested for praying” and you find out he was kneeling in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour and refused to move.

I would have to agree with that, if the Declaration of Independence was not included on the list of banned materials. At this point, it seems pretty clear that whether or not the teacher abused his position and gratuitously handed out prosyletizing materials, thereby bringing down on himself this “short leash” list of contraband that pertained only to him, the fact is he was so restricted, and the restrictions included prohibition against handing out legitimate copies of founding documents.

So as usual, when the left bandies about the word “lie” they’re doing it a little bit too loosely.

Like I said, it would be good if we could hear from the other side to figure out what’s going on. Based on what we have now, we seem to have a situation where a teacher is being stopped from educating his students about the Declaration of Independence, because it mentions God, which is exactly how the situation was first promoted. To me, anyway.

Interestingly, item #60 in the original complaint, p. 8 (see link above) pretty much seems to nail this whole thing shut. Unless there’s a big piece of information somewhere I don’t have, the teacher’s case against the principal is air-tight:

60. California Education Code � 51511 states:

Nothing in this code shall be construed to prevent, or exclude from the public schools, references to religion or references to or the use of religious literature, dance, music, theatre, and visual arts or other things having a religious significance when such references or uses do not constitute instruction in religious principles or aid to any religious sects, church, creed, or sectarian purpose and when such references or uses are incidental to or illustrative of matters properly included in the course of study.

Letter From A New Yorker

My thanks to Democratic Underground for making this frustrated lady’s thoughts visible by putting them in a prominent place where we can find them, and for providing me with such entertainment. My response to this misguided soul comes in this post, following the text of her letter:

I am writing this letter to the people in the red states in the middle of the country — the people who voted for George W. Bush. I am writing this letter because I don’t think we know each other.

So I’ll make an introduction. I am a New Yorker who voted for John Kerry. I used to live in California, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. I used to live in Washington, DC, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. Kerry won in all three of those regions.

Maybe you want to know more about me. Or maybe not; maybe you think you know me already. You think I am some anti-American anarchist because I dislike George W. Bush. You think that I am immoral and anti-family, because I support women’s reproductive freedom and gay rights. You think that I am dangerous, and even evil, because I do not abide by your religious beliefs.

Maybe you are content to think that, to write me off as a “liberal” – – the dreaded ‘L’ word – – and rejoice that your candidate has triumphed over evil, immoral, anti-American, anti-family people like me. But maybe you are still curious. So here goes: this is who I am.

I am a New Yorker. I was here, in my apartment downtown, on September 11th. I watched the Towers burn from the roof of my building. I went inside so that I couldn’t see them when they fell. I had friends who were inside. I have a friend who still has nightmares about watching people jump and fall from the Towers. He will never be the same. How many people like him do you know? People that can’t sit in a restaurant without plotting an escape route, in case it blows up?

I am a worker. I work across the street from the Citigroup Center, which the government told us is a “target” of terrorism. Later, we found out they were relaying very old information, but it was already too late. They had given me bad dreams again. The subway stop near my office was crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs, policemen in heavy protective gear, soldiers. Now, every time I enter or exit my office, all of my possessions are X-rayed to make sure I don’t have any weapons. How often are you stopped by a soldier with a bomb-sniffing dog outside your office?

I am a neighbor. I have a neighbor who is a 9/11 widow. She has two children. My husband does odd jobs for her now, like building bookshelves. Things her husband should do. He uses her husband’s tools, and the two little girls tell him, “Those are our daddy’s tools.” How many 9/11 widows and orphans do you know? How often do you fill in for their dead loved ones?

I am a taxpayer. I worked my butt off to get where I did, and so did my parents. My parents saved and borrowed and sent me to college. I worked my way through graduate school. I won a full tuition scholarship to law school. All for the privilege of working 2,600 hours last year. That works out to a 50 hour week, every week, without any vacation days at all. I get to work by 9 am and rarely leave before 9 p.m. I eat dinner at my office much more often than I eat dinner at home. My husband and I paid over $70,000 in federal income tax last year. At some point in the future, we will have to pay much more – – once this country faces its deficit and the impossible burden of Social Security. In fact, the areas of the country that supported Kerry – – New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts – – they are the financial centers of the nation. They are the tax base of this country. How much did you pay, Kansas? How much did you contribute to this government you support, Alabama? How much of this war in Iraq did you pay for?

I am a liberal. The funny part is, liberals have this reputation for living in Never-Neverland, being idealists, not being sensible. But let me tell you how I see the world: I see America as one nation in a world of nations. Therefore, I think we should try to get along with other nations. I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people. I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we should give women more control over their bodies. I see that people have awful diseases.

Therefore, I think we should enable scientists to try to cure them. I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld. I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me. It seems so pragmatic to me. How do you see the world? Do you really think voting against gay marriage will keep people from being gay? Would you really prefer that people continue to die from Parkinson’s disease? Do you really not care about the Constitutional rights of political detainees? Would you really have supported the war if you knew the truth, or would you have wanted to spend more of our money on health care, job training, terrorism preparedness?

I am an American. I have an American flag flying outside my home. I love my home more than anything. I love that I grew up right outside New York City. I first went to the Statue of Liberty with my 5th grade class, and my mom and dad took me to the Empire State Building when I was 8. I love taking the subway to Yankee Stadium. I loved living in Washington DC and going on dates to the Lincoln Memorial. It is because I love this country so much that I argue with my political opponents as much I do.

I am not safe. I never feel safe. My in-laws live in a small town in Ohio, and that town has received more federal funding, per capita, for terrorism preparedness than New York City has. I take subways and buses every day. I work in a skyscraper across the street from a “target.” I have emergency supplies and a spare pair of sneakers in my desk, in case something happens while I’m at work. Do you? How many times a month do you worry that your subway is going to blow up? When you hear sirens on the street, do you run to the window to make sure everything is okay? When you hear an airplane, do you flinch? Do you dread beautiful, blue-skied September days? I don’t know a single New Yorker who doesn’t spend the month of September on tip-toes, superstitiously praying for rain so we don’t have to relive that beautiful, blue-skied day.

I am lonely. I feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies. I feel unprotected. Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don’t understand what you are thinking. You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world. You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq, where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists. You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq. You voted for a man who doesn’t want to let people love who they want to love; doesn’t want to let doctors cure their patients; doesn’t want to let women rule their destinies. I don’t understand why you voted for this man. For me, it is not enough that he is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys. Why did you vote for him? Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to persuade us to go to war? (Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.) Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation? Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11?

Most of all, I am terrified. I mean daily, I am afraid that I will not survive this. I am afraid that I will lose my husband, that I will never have children, that I will never grow old and watch the sunset in a backyard of my own. I am afraid that my career — which should end with a triumphant and good-natured roast at a retirement party in 2035 — will be cut short by an attack on me and my colleagues, as we sit sending emails and making phone calls one ordinary afternoon. Is your life at stake? Are you terrified?

I don’t think you are. I don’t think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you. I wanted you to know that.

And here is my response:

I am writing in response to your letter to the �people in the red states in the middle of the country � the people who voted for George W. Bush.� I am one of the latter, not one of the former. I cast my vote for Bush out of California. Before I lived in California, I lived in Michigan, and if I lived there now I would vote for Bush. Before I lived in Michigan I lived in Washington State, and if I lived there now I would vote for Bush. Kerry won all three of those regions.

The angry words you have written cause me to worry about you, as well as the many people whose sympathetic feelings are inflamed by your letter. I know there are many people like you, albeit not enough to sway an election. What causes me to worry about people like you most, is the way you think. How you think. Your ability, or what is left of it, to think. How your strengths and weaknesses in that area affect your ability to conduct a happy life. Let me explain.

Six hundred and eighty-one words into your 1,576-word screed, you begin to show some promise by articulating exactly what it is you have seen and how this affects the opinions you hold. This is a healthy sign, although you go nowhere with it. Example: �I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld.� I agree with you in that regard. What has this to do with casting a vote against Bush? What parts of this Constitution are you afraid would not be upheld? Looking up those parts and seeing what they say, what do you think they mean? How do you think they should be interpreted? Based on your introduction, I figure your education and your profession, have something to do with law. It should therefore come naturally to pose an argument substantiating that Bush is some kind of enemy to the constitution, if such an argument can be posed. But you managed to avoid doing this. Why would that be?

You say, �I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me.� New Yorker, perhaps it will help express my sentiments to you, and resolve some of the questions you have, if this time I tell you what people like me have been seeing. I saw that in the late winter of 2003 we argued, not about whether Iraq posed an imminent threat, but whether it was proper to take action against Iraq before it posed an imminent threat. You may have lost track of what exactly the hubbub was about; red voters, living in red states or in blue ones, did not. We know danger when we see it.

Did you know it is beyond any dispute that Iraq was armed, and it possessed munitions it was not allowed to have under international law?

Did you know it is beyond dispute that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before, and was trying to get them again?

You say, �I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people. I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we should give women more control over their bodies.�

You should read that Constitution that you say you see. Gay people are already guaranteed equal protection under the law. And our government is not authorized to �give� people control over their bodies. What has this to do with a vote for the President of the United States? You do not say.

In fact, much of your letter deals with bad feelings you have, resentments, grudges, and blame � while going very light on any connection between these issues and who is to be our President. Eleven hundred and seventy-nine words into your lengthy dissertation, you abandon the promising thread about things you see and what you think, and lapse into the more comfortable region of what you feel. Lamenting the lack of safety that you feel, you say you �feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies.� New Yorker, what is the difference between a provoked enemy and an unprovoked one?

You personally witnessed the destruction caused by men who were willing to die for their cause, for their own feelings of anger, anger not unlike your own. They were provoked? Tell me please, you who are so finely tuned to your feelings of impending doom, that you keep running shoes on your desk: Let us say these deranged men are still present but no longer provoked. Let us say we mollify them instead. Appease them. Find out what it is they want, and give it to them. How safe does that make you feel?

You ask, �Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation?� I elected him because that is precisely what I think. Again, let�s spend a couple seconds thinking about what I have seen in my lifetime. I have seen our messiest wars, the wars that dragged on the longest, the wars that resulted in the most inconclusive, fragile and tenuous times of superficial �peace� � fought with the fingerprints of �international cooperation� all over them. Did you know the United Nations issued seventeen resolutions against Iraq, which Saddam Hussein then ignored, with little to no consequence? Did you know that the United Nations refused to enforce their own resolutions until George Bush castigated them for becoming irrelevant, and even then stood fast against doing anything about Iraq?

Did you know the United Nations member nations were bribed against enforcing these resolutions? Bribed with dirty �Oil For Food� money that was supposed to help poor Iraqis?

What do you suppose Saddam Hussein was doing that justified parting with billions of dollars in cash to bribe officials to look the other way? He probably didn�t spend billions of dollars just for fun. Does that make you feel safe yet?

You�re right; you don�t know us. I know you can form an opinion. But by failing to demonstrate any connection between the facts you have collected, and the opinions you have reached, you left yourself unable to assign any value, any weight, to those opinions. Faced with a choice where you find two opinions conflict, and you must maintain fidelity to one opinion while becoming an apostate of another, you�d be absolutely lost. Yet such a choice is something real adults must face all the time. This is the essence of making tough decisions, when you know valuable things are depending on the outcome of the decisions you make. By maintaining only a �collection� of cherished opinions, nursing ignorance regarding how much foundation each opinion enjoys, you have alienated yourself from this mindset and therefore the ability to think like an adult.

This I know, from reading what you have written.

Yet when you said �You think that I am immoral and anti-family� � and �You think I am some anti-American anarchist� � you had not yet read anything I wrote. You spun these beliefs about my thoughts out of whole cloth. Again, you formed an opinion without foundation. The opinions I have formed about you, I have formed as a result of the foundations that support those opinions.

That is why you don�t know us.

Even like-minded liberals chafe at the blistering close of your letter, in which you lay blame at the feet of voters such as myself for some future attack. May I assume then that logically, you are extending to us the credit that thus far you have not been attacked?

I hope your fears continue to pass into the ether of history, never having been realized. I hope you and everyone you love, enjoys a long, full, happy life. And to make sure that happens, since I know I haven�t a scintilla of hope of ever changing your mind, about anything, I hope every election you see disappoints you. I would so much rather see you inflicted with post-election depression, than killed.

And THAT is why I voted to re-elect George W. Bush.

Turn Your Back On Bush

I just subscribed for e-mail updates to the “Turn your back on Bush” website, which is all about a synchronized about-face during the re-inauguration ceremony so that lots of people face away from the President as he drives past.

I just love liberals. They win by 50,000,000,001 to 49,999,999,999 and it’s “The Will Of The People”. If it goes the other way, you get this…

The election is over. The fight is not.

Bush’s election is bad for the US, and even worse for the rest of the world. But elections are only one part of democracy. We need to think strategically about direct action, learn from a rich history of nonviolent activism, and develop new tactics to take on this administration.

Let’s start from the start: Inauguration Day.

On January 20th, 2005, we’re calling for a new kind of action. The Bush administration has been successful at keeping protesters away from major events in the last few years by closing off areas around events and using questionable legal strategies to outlaw public dissent. We can use these obstacles to develop new tactics. On Inauguration day, we don’t need banners, we don’t need signs, we don’t need puppets, we just need people.

We’re calling on people to attend inauguration without protest signs, shirts or stickers. Once through security and at the procession, at a given signal, we’ll all turn our backs on Bush’s motorcade and continue through his speech and swearing in. A simple, clear and coherent message.

Join our mailing list to get updates on this action.

The stuff we’d be least likely to see, had the election gone the other way, is in bold.

I used to try to tell these people to get a clue, we hada referendum on this it’s called an “election,” there are more people like me than there are like them. I did that until, I think, the first weekend after election day or so. Now I just sit back and laugh…yes by all means, keep me posted on your “demonstrating.” We know what your opinion is, we know there are a lot of you but not enough to sway an election…so I’m curious as to what you think you’re accomplishing. But send updates my way. Please. Should be hilarious.

Anybody got any updates on “public dissent” being “outlaw[ed]”?

Michael Moore Is Uninspiring

Director Michael Moore, whose anti-Iraq war film “Fahrenheit 9/11” sparked a firestorm of controversy before becoming a post-election footnote, topped an annual list on Monday of Hollywood’s “coldest” celebrities.

The outspoken documentarian, who seemed to be everywhere during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, urging defeat of President Bush, ranks No. 1 on this year’s “Frigid 50” roster of lackluster stars published by online movie magazine FilmThreat.com.

The Web site, known for an anti-establishment take on the entertainment industry, said its list names the stars it found to be the “the polar opposite of the hottest celebrities: these are the least powerful, least-inspiring, least-intriguing people in Hollywood.”

Well, now this is a little more like it. I’m tellin’ ya, the end of the world is at hand. I’m running out of things to wish for that aren’t already going my way.

I know, there’s much more serious stuff…Iran’s nukes come to mind – but I’ll certainly accept seeing Michael Moore knocked off his holy pedestal just this once. Note, the link doesn’t go to the filmthreat web site, as I post this it is having some kind of problem. But let me make a quick comment on what kind of intellectual damage Moore has done to our national ability to think. Yes, I do believe to some extent it is nationalized…I’m winding up a long year of having the following conversation over, and over, and over again…

LIBERAL: So…

MORGAN: ?

LIB: Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11 yet?

MKF: No.

LIB: I just saw it this weekend. Man, you really should go see that. You really should.

MKF: I hope you liked it.

LIB: There is a lot of information in there that you really ought to know about. It has a lot to do with the issues in this election, which I know you have some strong opinions on. I just think you ought to know all the facts.

MKF: If any “facts” come along, by all means let me know. You didn’t really buy into it that that was a “documentary” did you?

LIB: No, I’m not saying everything he says is a hundred percent correct…but it’s like…why won’t you see Michael Moore’s stuff?

MKF: Oh, I’ve seen some of his stuff. I’ve watched Bowling For Columbine from beginning to end. Have you seen that?

LIB: Ah…no.

MKF: It’s kind of interesting to get an overview of what Michael Moore’s tactics are. I’m pretty sure at this point I have a good handle on what he’s all about, how he works, and based on that I’ve made a decision that the work he puts together doesn’t bear an adequately strong relationship to the truth to interest me very much.

LIB: Well I’ve already said I know what he says isn’t 100% true…it’s just that the Fahrenheit movie makes certain points, which…well like for instance. There’s this scene where President Bush is commenting on the war while he’s playing golf…this isn’t commentary by Moore, it’s actually footage. Ya just gotta be there, man.

MKF: Columbine had “actual footage” in it too.

On and on it goes. I emphasized the passages that impress me most deeply, which, it seems, I’ve heard over and over again more than anything. What he says is not necessarily true. But he said this thing that you really ought to know about. What is up with that mindset.

Let’s try projecting that out & seeing what we come up with shall we?

My uncle lies like a rug but he says Ed McMahon handed him a check for 10 million dollars.

My grandfather is schizo but he swears he heard voices.

My brother never takes responsibility for anything but he says his debts are not his fault.

The neighbor’s kid always blames things on my kid but he says my kid broke the window.

My aunt doesn’t know what she’s talking about but she’s pretty sure she saw a UFO.

My speedometer is busted but it’s telling me my car isn’t moving.

You’ve got to wonder about the mental health of someone who will refuse to vouch for the dependability of an information source, and in the same breath right after the word but, assert that that very same source came up with some nugget of “information” and assign some kind of weight to the information. You know what this comes from? Decades and decades of partisan, unreasonable thinking. This is something I could write on all day, so I won’t go deeply into it here, but let’s summarize.

If you form opinions, and solidify them into conclusions, based on intellectual reasons you have found for doing so, that is reasonable thinking. I walked into the kitchen thinking I had earlier turned everything off. Facing away from the stove, my face felt cooler than my back. Facing toward it, I noticed my back felt cooler and my face felt warmer. I have an opinion now that I might have left the stove on and I didn’t have this opinion earlier. I look at the light on the stove and it’s on, now I have a conclusion that I have left the stove on.

Unreasonable thinking comes mostly from the grandfather of all unreasonable ideas, which was formed with the best of intentions. A man must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The stove can be on or the stove can be off. Since my prejudice is that the stove is off, I must maintain that opinion until it is proven that the stove is on. That means while I’m feeling this warmth come from the stove, I must maintain the opinion against reason that the stove remains off, since that is my stated position. I will not flip-flop on this until I look down and see the light is on. Until that very microsecond when I have proof that the stove is on, I must maintain fidelity to the premise that the stove is off.

Just as until I get a videotape showing a man firing a bullet into the chest of a murder victim, I must maintain my established opinion, against reason, that he didn’t kill him. Powder burns, several witnesses, fingerprints, motives don’t matter because they are not “proof”.

This kind of mindset was formed to protect the innocent from false imprisonment, but it doesn’t logically follow that today it is maintained through such altruistic motives. No, what the motive really is, is a childish fear of being the only guy in a crowd to have a certain opinion. If you adhere to a set of rules – “the stove must be presumed to be off until it is proven to be on” – you have assurance that a large number of other people, properly adhering to the same set of rules, will always have the same opinion at any moment in time that you do.

There really isn’t too much that can go “wrong” and leave you with an opinion that is the polar opposite of what your peers hold. You can disagree about where to assign your initial prejudices, of course – you may settle on “A” as the desirable prejudice and your brethren may settle on “Not A”. But that’s usually resolved through partisan politics: President Bush says the stove is on, you & your dorm roommates all hate President Bush, so it’s kind of a given that we’ll all assume the stove is cold as a tomb.

You may disagree on the standard of proof. But that’s about it. Once a roomful of people has refused to gather the courage to think as individuals, they’ve pretty much made a “pact” without even knowing about it, that they’ll all have the same opinion at any moment in time and that can be very comforting. This is the essence of un-reasonable thinking – thinking things without having a reason to think them, and without pondering the degree of certainty we feel justified in investing in those opinions.

If you rely on reason to form your opinions – engage in reasonable thinking, form opinions you have found reasons to support – then you are relying on your observations, and necessarily, on your ability as an individual to conduct and evaluate those observations. The payoff is realized when you begin to take on adult responsibilities and therefore must place a personal stake on the conclusions you have reached. I am responsible, therefore I stand to lose something if my home burns down, therefore, I shall form an opinion I have reason to support about whether the stove is on. I am looking for reasons to think that it is hot and reasons to think that it is cold. My initial assumption, until I have proof one way or the other, is…nothing. I shall maintain knowledge of what it is I do not know.

That is very frightening to some people. To them, if you engage in this “reasonable” thinking, presuming nothing, just noticing things & evaluating what this could mean about what you do & don’t know, you are exposing yourself. Several times in one day you leave yourself open to the likelihood that a lot of people will think one thing, and you’ll think something opposite. Then maybe you’ll have to defend it, with your own ideas.

I understand why Michael Moore makes a lot of money, and I understand why many of the people who pay good money to see his movies come away believing they have seen a “documentary”. I understand why there are millions of such people.

What I don’t understand, is why I’m having this conversation with people who are actually very intelligent, assertive, and shouldn’t be the least bit afraid of having an opinion with which large numbers of others may not agree. Why they are in my face telling me the narrator is unreliable and untruthful, but his movie has something in it, and this something has some kind of meaning. Would Fahrenheit somehow manage to clear this question up for me this if I chose to see it? I don’t know. Having not seen it, I will not comment on what is in that work, only on Moore’s general style.

But if it cannot be widely recognized that when Michael Moore says something or puts something in his movies, this doesn’t mean very much…even when it is widely recognize that he is a deceptive piece of editorial pond scum…I’m glad that, at the very least, it is widely accepted that he is un-inspiring which is why I find his inclusion in this list to be such a refreshing change.

The Clint Eastwood Problem

Lately Bill Clinton is making something of an ass out of himself, and I’m afraid he won’t realize until it’s far too late that the only reason his comments appear reasonable at the time he’s making them, is because nobody is close enough to offer him criticism save for those loyal followers who will criticize nothing.

This brings to mind a situation that came about in Hollywood during the late seventies. Clint Eastwood had started to shack up with his Josey Wales co-star Sondra Locke, and soon after that began churning out some mediocre-to-terrible movies with her, including: The Gauntlet (1977), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), Any Which Way You Can (1980), Bronco Billy (1980) and Sudden Impact (1983). In all fairness, these movies weren’t half as bad as some of the rigli awful and sigli (pronounced “really awful and silly”, what could I be thinking of) movies before & since showcasing real-life love duets. But Sondra’s acting ability, screen presence and hotness, along with the on-screen chemistry she shared with her leading man…let us just say it was obvious why she was picked.

The point is that a punk kid in the seventh grade doesn’t know that much. Next to nothing, really. But at the time, it was abundantly clear to me that all of the following events were going to happen.

1. Clint and Sondra would make a lot of movies together.
2. The movies would be kind of bad.
3. The duo would not spend the rest of their lives together, they’d split after just a few years.
4. Sondra would take Clint to court and win a lot of money out of him, trying to win even more.
5. Sondra wouldn’t do an awful lot in Hollywood after the break-up.
6. Sondra would nurse a grudge that Clint Eastwood had ruined her life.

Hey, I’m no Oracle of Delphi. But it all happened. And you know what, it’s not that I’m especially smart or even that Clint Eastwood is dumb. The lesson is that when you’re too close to a situation, some fairly obvious things aren’t that obvious.

Right after Newt Gingrich was elected Speaker of the House, he began to say some things to show off how unintimidated he was by The Press. Had Newt picked up the phone and asked me what to do, I would have warned him this would be his undoing later. Once again – I’m not that smart. Newt’s probably a lot smarter than I am, but the fact that several mere mortals could see this coming, and he couldn’t, goes to show: Behold, with trembling fear, the power of the Curse of Clint.

There’s a reason Bill Clinton looks like a self-pitying ass right now. It’s because he is one. But go easy on him, he can go a whole lot further in self-pity mode, at the moment, than the rest of us without having anyone correct him.

You Stupid Citizens

You’re using grocery bags. Thank Goodness the San Francisco City Council has the good sense to change your behavior, or try to.

City officials are considering charging grocery stores 17 cents apiece for the bags to discourage use of plastic sacks.

Plastic is the choice of 90 percent of shoppers, but the sacks are blamed for everything from clogging recycling machines to killing marine life and suffocating infants.

Paper is recyclable, but city officials propose to include them as well to help reduce overall waste.

“One thing we’ve learned is that sending a financial signal to the marketplace tends to modify behavior much better than voluntary approaches,” Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We all have a responsibility to promote a healthy and sustainable environment, and by doing that, it means we need to help change people’s patterns, and that even means their shopping patterns,” said [Supervisor Ross] Mirkarimi, who will take office in January.

This is why you can’t depend on the media to define for you what is “liberal” and what is “conservative”; what is “this side” of an argument and what is “that side”. Scrounging around for a dissenting viewpoint, I guess, the Associated Press found this gem from one Tim Shestek, spokesman for the American Plastics Council.

This tax is going to hurt those who can least afford it.

Great Jumpin’ Jehosephat. That’s the reason they should think about maybe not doing this, huh. Nothing about setting a bad precedent having elected officials dictate the behavior of citizens rather than the other way around. Naw…c’mon, I must be dreaming.

The obvious implication is that, gee whiz, if they could find a way to herd the citizens around like cattle, without taxing those who least afford it, nobody would object right? What planet are these people from.

Notice…they want to include paper bags too. I guess you’re taking your pet carrier to the grocery market or something. Maybe dump Grandpa’s ashes out of the urn so you have something to carry your toilet paper and canned green beans home in.

Gnome Body Parts…Or Something

BERLIN (Reuters) – Thieves have stolen scantily clad garden gnomes from a gnome peepshow in an eastern German amusement park, park manager Frank Ullrich said on Thursday.

“The gnomes display naked body parts — the same ones you’d expect to see in a human peep show,” Ullrich said of his missing stars.

The adults-only attraction at Dwarf-Park Trusetal, where visitors peep through keyholes to see the saucy German miniatures in compromising poses, was smashed open early on Thursday morning.

Ullrich said he feared the gnomes would not be traced.

“I doubt they’re standing in someone’s garden, they’ll have to have been hidden inside.”