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Saturday, June 24, 2006
‘‘Take a couple of Advil and go get 'em.''
Posted by on 6.24.06 @ 3:15PM
So said Roger Clemens after beginning his latest comeback on Thursday night for the Houston Astros.
If anyone from Advil is watching, it sure looks like the perfect ad line, to say nothing of the perfect, eh, pitchman.
Friday, June 23, 2006
O'Reilly Factor
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 6:01PM
Our Jed Babbin will be on the O'Reilly Factor tonight to discuss how the New York Times is destroying our national security. Be sure to tune in.
RE: Kicking the “Christianistsâ€
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 12:56PM
I enjoyed it too. "Chrisianist" is inflammatory, clearly intended to equate Christians who disagree with Sullivan to Isalmists.
I pretty much stopped reading Andrew Sullivan after his intellectually dishonest attempt to explain why he was voting for Kerry. He laughingly argued that it was because Kerry would do a better job of fighting the War on Terror, but anyone with a brain knew it was due to gay marriage.
Sullivan called those who made such a charge as engaging in an "unanswerable smear". But it is worth noting that if you go through his archives, you'll notice almost no criticism of Bush's handling of the Iraq War before February 2003, when Bush endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment. After that, Sullivan suddenly became concerned about the "administration's incompetence and arrogance in Iraq."
Coincidence? Yeah, right.
Rush and 24
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 11:49AM
Pop culture and government mix! Rush is in Washington, D.C., moderating a panel at the Reagan Building (hosted by The Heritage Foundation) about the ever-popular show, 24, and the War on Terror. The panel is subtitled "Fact, Fiction, or Does It Matter?" Panelists include Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, James Jay Carafano of The Heritage Foundation, the producers and writers of 24, plus some of the show's stars including "Chloe" and "Tony Almeida".
Read about how the panel came about here.
Listen/watch, here.
Another Leak
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 10:46AM
Both New York Times editor Bill Keller and LA Times Washington bureau chief, Doyle McManus have been speaking publicly about the supposed balancing act they made in facilitating leaks to terrorist groups about how federal law enforcement and intelligence organizations are monitoring their financial dealings.
Make no mistake, this may actually be a more damaging leak to U.S. anti-terrorism activities than the leak about international call monitoring or the secret prisons. Why? Because the increassingly successful ability to identify and track the money hurt terrorists in two ways: 1. it identified the sources of the dollars financing terror and 2. it gave intelligence and law enforcement a peek inside timelines, planning, techniques and individuals involved in the proces of laundering and distributing funds for terrorist activities. Six years ago, the U.S. capability to do this was weak. For a period, it was stronger. Now? Who knows?
We hear from sources in the LA Times newsroom out west that McManus's colleagues believed McManus never had an intention of holding the story. "Even before the phone calls and meeting with government officials, there was no way Doyle was going to play ball with them. He wasn't going to hurt morale by giving in to this administration. If he had, a lot of us would have lost respect for him."
At some point, the Department of Justice, Congress and the White House need to get active in this and make facilitating journalists and leakers pay for their duplicitous acts.
There They Go Again
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 8:39AM
The New York Times blows the lid on yet another classified, anti-terror program. Bill Keller claims they act in the "public interest." Um, thanks?
Saddam Ends Hunger Strike
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 8:25AM
After one of his lawyers was shot (we know not whether at his orders or otherwise) Saddam announced he was going on a hunger strike in protest. Appears he just skipped lunch. Perhaps the foi gras wasn't from sufficiently stuffed geese.
Re: Kicking the "Christianists"
Posted by on 6.23.06 @ 6:34AM
Loved R. Andrew Newman's contribution on the egregious Andrew Sullivan. I did a similar take for Enter State Right in '02 here titled "The Politics of Horniness." "Riding a hobbyhorse to the point of saddlesores." Loved it.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Re: The Korean Missile Crisis
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 8:04PM
John: Much as I hate to agree with two of the people most responsible for our lack of a credible missile defense (Levin being the primary obstructionist) Carter and Perry are right. We need to strike the missile on the NK launch pad unless they agree, forthwith, to abide by the international convention on missile testing.
That convention requires international notices (NOTAM's -- notices to mariners and airmen) which publish time, distance and purpose of launch. If they don't, we should launch a cruise missile from a B-2 without notice to anyone.
The issue of using the Ft. Greely and Vandenberg interceptors is complex. (The following isn't classified). These interceptors have a .6 reliability, meaning they are 60% likely to succeed. To be sure, you have to use at least two. The ship-based "Standard-1" missiles on Aegis ships off Japan have a .5 reliability, or 50-50 chance of success. Because these weapons are probable, not certain, means of killing the NK bird, we need to use the tool that gives a 100% chance. B-2's ain't gonna be seen or heard. And we have mensurated coordinates (3-dimensional) on the NK bird. All Dubya has to do is decide, and the fly-guys will do the rest. Forthwith.
A Clegg Up on Voting Rights
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 6:45PM
The always-excellent Roger Clegg has a column today on NRO, which I just now saw, providing more good reason for Congress not to renew Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. (See my post below for more.) The Wall Street Journal also has weighed in, to the same effect, several times recently.
The Korean Missile Crisis
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 6:07PM
Two Clinton DoD hands, Ashton Carter and William Perry, say that firing our missile defense system if North Korea tests its Taepodong-2 missile, as the Wall Street Journal and National Review have called for, is not enough: We should be prepared to stop the test from even taking place by bombing the launchpad.
Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.Carter and Perry's plan, as they go on to acknowledge, has the drawback that it could trigger Korean War II. They argue that this risk can be minimized if we make our intentions clear beforehand, emphasize that South Korea has nothing to do with the attack, and be visably prepare to defeat the North if they do attack the South.The U.S. military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In theory, the antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into the Taepodong payload as it hurtled through space after the missile booster burned out. But waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to interdict it is risky. First, by the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country. Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the U.S. defense. Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have.
In my view, the answer depends on the odds of success (and at least some of the information needed to make the right decision is classified). A successful missile defense shot would be a major coup; the demonstration that we can't be threatened with ICBMs, coupled with ongoing progress toward providing missile defense to our allies worldwide, would discourage missile proliferation everywhere. Would Pyongyang even bother to go forward with construction of a long-range missile arsenal if they knew that the arsenal couldn't work in practice? On the other hand, Carter and Perry are right that a failed intercept attempt would undermine the deterrent value of our missile defense (and the WSJ editoral suggesting otherwise rings false).
The GOP's Fundraising Problem
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 4:18PM
You may have heard that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is behind the Democratic counterpart in fundraising. Hugh Hewitt speculates that it is because the NRSC supports an anti-war Republican. That's a solid guess.
Tack on our readers' generally negative response to GOP fundraising, and the picture becomes even clearer.
Going, Going, Ghana
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 3:33PM
U.S. eliminated.
And I don't really care either, Paul.
Voting Wrongs
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 2:51PM
Acceptably mild perjoratives just can't quite express the level of outrage that again and again is merited by the House leadership for its political cluelessness or its lack of principle of lack of ethics (sometimes all three at once). Every week, it seems, brings yet another example of how the leadership tries to use strong-arm tactics to substitute for serious policy debate and to overcome principled objections to its desired outcomes from either the left OR the right. The latest example is yesterday's dust-up over legislation to extend certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act, in which an expected vote on the subject was delayed after "rank-and-file Republicans revolted." The Washington Post story on the subject said that Speaker Dennis Hastert and his lieutenants were "surprised" by "the intensity of the complaints" about the legislation. If so, their surprise is just another indication of how (adjectival -- actually gerund -- expletives deleted) out of touch Hastert and Company are with the actualy policy implications of what they attempt to do for purely (and often badly judged) political reasons.
Memo to the Speaker: The opposition is intense because the proposed legislation stinks to high heaven. It's just that simple.
Background: The permanent parts of the Voting Rights Act, which ban poll taxes and literacy tests and racially motivated voting impediments, etc., are not at issue here. They are permanent because they deserve to be permanent, because they are important and manifestly good policy to combat racist actions. What is at issue NOW, though, is the IMpermanent Section Five of the act, which never was supposed to last beyond about a decade and instead has been in place for some 40 years -- and now is threatened to be renewed for years more. The most important part of Section Five requires that southern states and a few other scattered counties receive "preclearance" from the Justice Department for ANY change in voting procedures, even ones as small as moving a polling location from, say, a high school gymnasium to the same school's cafeteria. The idea is that these southern states are guilty of racist intent until they prove themselves innocent, and that they therefore can't be trusted to run their own elections under ordinary rules of review (meaning, of course, in every other state, that any ILLEGAL elections changes can be challenged in court, which is all the protection needed for two-thirds of the country).
Congressional staffers and state attorneys-general's offices have volumes upon volumes of examples of how Section Five is unduly burdensome on state and local authorities, and how at times the delays at main Justice have created serious problems with holding elections on time, etc. Section Five also has contributed mightily, de facto, to the racial gerrymandering of districts so that many legislative districts look like nothing so much as electoral apartheid, with all the blacks herded into one district by use of bizarre district lines while all the whites are put into another one. In short, it breeds racial separatism.
Meanwhile, some provisions in the pending legislation would mandate bilingual ballots in many places. Intelligent people have written volumes about why doing official government business in languages other than English is a big mistake, so I won't belabor the point -- other than to say that those provisions are particularly disturbing, and rightly so, to most of the GOPers who rebelled yesterday.
Of course, all of these provisions amount to an unfunded mandate on states and localities, which is yet another problem. WHich is all the more reason why A) most of Section Five should not be renewed at all and B) the leadership's refusal even to allow some amendments to alleviate some of the problems, and its strong opposition to other good amendments that it will at least allow to be voted on, combined with its arrogance in not even previously listening to reasonable concerns about the bill, is, in toto, utterly obnoxious, reprehensible, and inexcusable.
Finally, an important note: Although the Post (predictably) said only that "some Republicans" in several southern states complain about the unfairness of singling out only certain states for the provisions at issue, the fact is that the respected opposition to most of Section Five is bipartisan and biracial. For instance, Thurbert Baker, the black, Democratic Attorney General of Georgia, is on record in court filings as being opposed to much of Section Five. On this particular point, I'll have more to say later, because what I'll say later shows the incredible superciliousness, the awful cultural condescension, of the section's supporters.
Conclusion: Hastert and his ilk may be afraid of being accused of being against "voting rights," but that's no excuse for their refusal to even consider the possibility that opponents have legitimate concerns. The refusal is a sign either of lack of principle, or lack of political courage, or both. Shame on them.
The Examiner's Slide in to MoveOn-Land
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 12:13PM
Dave, I'm equally baffled. First, the mystery is why Mark Tapscott, the Examiner's new editorial page editor, has been taken in by the pro-regulation nonsense. Has he forgotten his Heritage Foundation roots so quickly? (Or, given Heritage's support for RomneyCare, has Heritage forgotten its free market roots? You decide.)
Thankfully, there are still some clear thinkers at Heritage, like James Gattuso, whose excellent web memo on the topic Tapscott must have missed. Gattuso answers the Examiner's paranoia about the imagined crackdown on speech that could occur without "net neutrality."
Gattuso writes,
Such concerns, however, are largely hypothetical. To date, the only instance of Web site blocking in the
occurred in 2005, when a small telephone carrier in U.S. briefly blocked Vonage, an Internet phone carrier. In fact, all major network owners have pledged not to engage in such practices. North Carolina Certainly, network carriers have the technical capacity to block or impede particular services or Web sites, but they are hardly unique in that regard. Many of the firms that advocate neutrality regulation have similar abilities. For instance, Google could easily block or bias certain search results to disadvantage rivals or to favor political causes.
Google, however, does not engage in systematic bias for the same reason that network owners such as Verizon or Comcast do not: competition. Blocking Web sites or impeding disfavored services would quickly send customers packing to another provider.
(I should mention that Google is blocking some conservative website from Google News. For example, it regards RedState LGF as a hate site.) But no matter -- when consumers don't get the content they want through one network provider or one content provider, the market affords them the choice to go elsewhere.
I am with you, Dave. I'll still get my WSJ fill. But now that the Examiner has forgotten basic economics, my computer won't be loading it very often.
Kos on the Defensive
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 11:58AM
As the blogosphere wonders about Markos's shifting positions when politicians hire his friend Jerome Armstrong, Kos has shifted into serious defense mode, threatening libel suits.
The best timeline demonstrating the apparent correlation between Kos's public statements and Armstrong's business relationships is the work of Jim Geraghty.
Privately, Kos's response has been silence (until today). Earlier in the week, he instructed left-wing bloggers to stay silent, the New Republic reports.
Examiner Pulls A Fast One?
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 11:58AM
Dave: I'm wondering if I'm missing something here. The DC Examiner editorial page comes out in favor of Net Neutrality by saying that "Congress should keep its hands off the Internet." Huh? If Congress were to "assure Net Neutrality", as the Examiner advocates, wouldn't that mean that Congress is getting its hands on the internet?
The rest of the editorial seems just as silly. For example, the editorialists argue:
If Congress doesn't require major cable and telephone companies that control access to the Internet to follow "Net neutrality," here's what could very well take place: The New York Times pays Verizon enough money to assure that its Web site loads more quickly than the Wall Street Journal.
The proper response to this is: So? If the Times is willing to pay and Verizon is willing to sell, what business is it of the Examiner or, more importantly, Congress?
And this seems like an equally puerile argument:
Failure to assure Net neutrality would also go a long way toward stifling the innovation that has made the Internet a frontier for new, advanced ideas. Could a Web site like PayPal have ever taken off if it didn't already have the venture capital needed to pay the huge fees other, larger companies were doling out to get a faster, more user-friendly Web site?
First off, larger companies already have advantages over the upstarts, like being able to pay for better website designers. Second, if a website is really a good idea, either venture capitalists will fund the extra cost for faster access; or consumers will like the website enough that they won't mind waiting a few extra seconds for it to load. I don't know about you, Dave, but I'm not going to spend all of my time reading Pinch's rag and ignore the WSJ just because the former loads faster.
After urging Congress to assure Net Neutrality, the Examiner ends with this non sequitur:
This is no way to run an Internet, which is exactly what Congress needs to learn: Keep its hands off the Internet and not try and run it at all.
If Congress shouldn't run the internet, doesn't that mean it shouldn't mandate Net Neutrality? Again, Dave, am I missing something here?
Chrysler's Big Push
Posted by on 6.22.06 @ 11:02AM
This is aggressive: Chrysler is getting ready to reintroduce "employee discounts" (remember those from last summer?), along with a 30 day money back guarantee.
Ford and GM came to regret their run at employee pricing. Chrysler is in a much better position over the other two automakers this year. So the question will be: do Ford and GM jump in to protect their dwindling market share, or do they stay small and safe? I'm guessing they will choose the latter.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Kerry Once Opposed "Cut and Run"
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 7:33PM
Tim Chapman has the goods. In a 2003 speech, Kerry said setting "troop withdrawal dates" "is tantamount to a cut and run strategy."
If You Are Not Reading James Lileks...
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 6:27PM
...you should be.
(Hat tip: Jay Nordlinger.)
Progress Canadian Style
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 6:23PM
Wait times for knee and hip replacements are down, according to the Peace Arch News:
The B.C. Health ministry is reporting progress in dealing with its longest and most stubborn surgical wait lists, those for hip and knee replacements.A new surgical unit at UBC Hospital in Vancouver has been specializing in joint procedures since April 2005, based on a successful pilot project at Richmond Hospital. The new unit has completed 205 surgeries, 60 per cent of them hip replacements.
Health Minister George Abbott said creation of the unit, plus $25 million in funding for B.C.'s five health regions to spend on joint replacement, has reduced the median wait time by 15 per cent for hips and 12 per cent for knees. The median wait for hips was reduced to 19.9 weeks for hips and 25.6 weeks for knees.
Today on the Michael Medved Show
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 2:38PM
I'll be subbing for Michael today (3-6 pm EDT on Salem Radio Network). We'll be starting strong with Larry Kudlow of Kudlow & Co. on CNBC. Other guests include Katherine Bierman of Human Rights Watch (on Gitmo) and Andy Maybo, of the Capitol Hill Police on the Cynthia McKinney exemption to the crime of assaulting a police officer. Hope you can join us. Call in on 800-955-1776.
Meyerson Defends Democracy--for the Left
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 12:42PM
Over in the Washington Post today, Harold Meyerson takes a swipe at Joe Lieberman for some seemingly "undemocratic" comments. Lieberman claimed in an interview that his position on the Iraq War, "is a challenge for the party -- whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line." Meyerson calls that a "stunning assertion" because if "parties were based on the acceptance of diversity of opinion on the most important issues of the day, they would lack the definition to be parties at all." He concludes, "Lieberman's problem is not that he faces expulsion from a sect but that he has chosen to stand outside what remains a big, messy tent of a party."
But when it comes to the GOP and tax cuts, Meyerson sings a very decidedly different tune. When Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich are attacked by the administration and groups like the Club for Growth for failing to back the Bush tax cuts, the good Senators' problem isn't that they "stand outside" a big tent of a party. As Meyerson wrote in LA Weekly, they were subjected to "the same kind of over-the-top vilification it had hitherto reserved for Democrats." He accused the neocons of being "at their Jacobin moment":
…they have dispatched the ancien régime and the constitutionalists like Lafayette. Now they must turn on their Dantons and Marats, their fellow revolutionaries who have failed to get with the Jacobin program. All prudent Republicans must now swear allegiance to Wolfowitz and Rove.
So, when Senator Lieberman is being attacked for his pro-War position, it's not that he is being subject to over the top vilification by the likes of MoveOn.org or DailyKos. It's democracy. But when Snowe and Voinovich are attacked for not supporting tax cuts, the attackers are the equivalent of guillotine-happy folks of the French Revolution.
I wish I could say it took a lot of work to track down Meyerson's hypocrisy. Yet all I had to do was type his name and "Club for Growth" into Google. Smacking the left for hypocrisy is about as difficult as shooting fish in the ol' barrel. And if it wasn't so much fun, I'd stop doing it.
Kerry Supreme
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 12:35PM
At least in his own world. His colleagues are not comfortable with his withdrawal rumblings, the New York Times reports.
Stump for Steele
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 10:42AM
We're hearing that Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele -- and the presumptive Republican Senate candidate for the open U.S. Senate seat in the 2006 election cycle -- was a standout at a function this morning at the offices of the lobbying shop Preston Gates in DC.
Preston Gates is a decidedly un-Republican firm in town, and the fact that Steele would show up and wow them is impressive. "He was exceedingly engaging and straight with us about his challenges in Maryland," says an attendee. "Given his background and the work he has been doing in Maryland, he's going to have a slightly easier time getting Democrats and independents to look at him in the race. He's very impressive."
And the Democrats know it. In a year's time Howard Dean and Chuck Schumer (head of the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee) have allowed Steele's credit report to be stolen and used for opposition research, allowed racist bile to be used against Steele with no recriminations against Democrat operatives, and spent more than $1 million of party funds to do media and voter outreach against him.
"Santorum may be a slightly bigger race, but the Steele race may be the most important election in the country," says a Republican political consultant. "If Steele and the Republicans can run what amounts to an urban campaign with an conservative, Catholic African American and win, we've not only re-written the campaign playbook, we've changed the rules for Democrats in a bunch of different venues. We need Mike to win."
Explaining Broadband Regulation
Posted by on 6.21.06 @ 9:08AM
A reader asks us to explain in greater detail "net neutrality." He is right -- it is a confusing term, because it is a benign sounding political label to a pretty nefarious idea.
Though the Prowler and the Heritage Foundation have explained it in greater detail, essentially it would lock in the Internet's status quo. As nice as that may sound, the key part they want to lock in is that the network providers, those who build the backbone of the Internet and carry the information from content provider to consumer, do not pass on costs to content providers. Verizon and AT&T are investing billions of dollars for the next, video-driven phase of the Internet. While providers like Google, Yahoo, etc. make their billions from the free bandwidth, they do not want to pay for their free ride. The network providers would like to establish tiers of service, much like cell phone companies and even the post office do.
Essentially, net neutrality/broadband regulation is the first enormous step of government regulation of the Internet. It is hostile to the free market principles which have so well fueled the Internet's growth up until now. And if the government penalizes infrastructure investment by barring the network providers from passing on those costs, get ready for high prices and Internet-style bread lines.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Keeping Terrorists Straight
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 11:52PM
A correction: Earlier this month I wrote that "Zarqawi will probably be replaced by the Egyptian Abu Hamza al-Masri." I copied that name down during a press conference from one of those summary subtitles that Fox News uses; not sure if it was the mistake of the military spokesman who was talking at the time or of Fox News, but that seems to be a conflation of two different pseudonyms for the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. You can read more about him here. Abu Hamza al-Masri is actually the name of a different person, a radical cleric convicted in the UK for inciting violence and wanted in Yemen for alleged involvement in bombing plots.
Nutty Net Neutrality
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 6:01PM
RedState has the goods on one of the key proponents of so-called "net neutrality" in the "nutroots" movement that supports the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org. As we've been reporting, individuals -- from corporate officials from companies like Google, Amazon.com and eBay to paid consultants and lobbyists for the companies and their trade organizations -- have committed millions of dollars to hit consumers with higher cable TV and Internet access charges so that the companies don't have to pay their fair share.
For some consumers, the cost of "net neutrality" could mean as much as $40 to $100 more a month in charges for broadband Internet access.
It appears that Jerome Armstrong has been actively pushing issues and political candidates -- and before that bad stocks -- as a gun for hire. That's not to say that the opponents of "net neutrality" don't have their own hired guns. It just appears that they have been more honest and forthright about it.
Why does all of this matter? Because folks like Sens. Olympia Snowe and George Allen have been conned into supporting a policy position that is so anti-consumer and anti-free market that only the likes of Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi could love it.
This issue is again coming to a head, this time in the Senate, where the Commerce Committee will markup a bill on Thursday that if passed would ensure not only competition to cable, but billions more in funds to deploy broadband lines to rural communities, libraries and schools without hitting the taxpayer up for additional tax dollars. By most accounts, the legislation, if passed, would save consumers as much as $200 a year in savings on their cable bill. So why is someone like Senator Allen backsliding? That's a question he got a lot in Iowa over the weekend, and this answers weren't very good. Not a good sign for a guy running as a Reaganite on economic issues.
Truthout Inaccuracies
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 4:55PM
We're just catching up to this story that Truthout editors posted on their site. You can read it here.
It's getting to the point now were Truthout's lies simply can't be sustained. It was one thing when the stories dealt with unconfirmable "meetings" and "phone calls" and "documents" from "sources close to the investigation."
Now they are citing court records and claiming that, in fact, their sources are telling them that Karl Rove has in fact been indicted, only that Fitzgerald is somehow holding it back or has transformed the indictment into some form of a carrot to ensure cooperation from Rove. This is all legally impossible, according to folks who understand this kind of thing.
If a grand jury indicts someone, it is not possible for a prosecutor to simply pull back that indictment, particularly if, as Truthout insists is the case, the indictment has been filed with the court. Truthout cites an indictment file number that would indicate that the indictment, while sealed, has gone through the court process. That's it. Rove has been indicted. And Fitzgerald would have no communication to Rove's counsel that he was no longer a target.
At this point, there is one way to clear this matter up, and it doesn't involve Rove's people putting any "cards on the table" as Truthout would have them do.
No, it is the responsibility of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to be a man, forget about his own ego, and step forward and state that the Rove portion of the investigation is over and done with, and that Rove cooperated fully and has stated he will cooperate where needed, just as everyone in this case has done throughout. Instead of hiding behind "no comments" and giving aid and comfort to the nutroot fantasists, Fitzgerald should have his people stop playing games and start acting like the legal professionals they claim to be.
The Age of Missile Defense
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 4:20PM
Today's news that the US has an operational missile defense system is a big milestone. Alan Dowd has lots of info over at TCS Daily on the technological progress on missile defense and the emerging international concensus on its importance.
And Now, Some Good News
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 4:13PM
From the Business Times:
UnitedHealth sees explosion in HSA and HRA enrollmentsNationally, membership in its HSA and HRA plans jumped 75 percent from June 2005, with more than 750,000 new individuals participating in the last year.
"Consumers are becoming much more comfortable with account-based plan designs," said Mike Tarino, CEO of Definity Health, the UnitedHealth unit that manages these health plans. "More than 13,000 employers have already turned to us to incorporate a consumer-driven design into their benefits strategy, and our CDH membership among large, national employers alone recently topped 1 million."
Judicial Action
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 3:58PM
It appears the Senate is finally moving on the Boyle, Haynes, and Wallace judicial nominations.
It's All Conservatives' Fault
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 3:48PM
E.J. Dionne can be pretty slick sometimes:
In the past, judicial overreach was associated with liberals. But with conservatives now enjoying a majority on the Supreme Court -- it's likely to get more conservative if President Bush gets another appointment -- the danger of overreach comes from the right.Note the use of language. Judicial overreach wasn't necessarily practiced by liberals; rather it "was associated" with them. It begs the question of who did the "associating." But given Dionne's political leanings we can probably figure it out.
Meanwhile, judicial overreach isn't just associated with conservatives. Now that more conservatives are on the Court, that danger "comes from the right."
To sum up: Conservatives are to blame for both their own judicial overreach and the fact that liberals "are associated" with judicial overreach.
Today on the Hugh Hewitt Show
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 2:49PM
I'm in for Hugh again today. We'll be talking to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles Stimson about Guantanamo, Gen. Tom McInerny about the Murtha Madness and North Korea's possible missile launch and a whole bunch more. Hope to see ya on the radio. Salem Radio Network, 6-9 EDT.
Will 'Chunged' Become Synonym For Drunk?
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 11:39AM
You might want to administer alcohol before viewing this.
“Barbarically†Killed
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 9:07AM
So says Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, about the two
Update: The Times now acknowledges the torture in its latest version. The CNN report does not appear to have been updated, probably because the site is too busy with World Refugee Day.
Too Close To Home
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 8:31AM
I was in New York State preparing for my wedding last week when a Muslim lunatic walked into a movie theater a few minutes away from my townhouse in Maryland and shot a randomly selected Jewish man. (I just learned about this from Jesse Walker's Reason column.) How unsettling.
The shooter was mentally ill, according to his family, and refused treatment. "Because doctors said he wasn't a threat to himself or anyone else, the family couldn't force him to get help, [his sister] said." Bad call, doctors.
U.S. Open
Posted by on 6.20.06 @ 6:49AM
Nice going, Quin. I thought I was the only one who had noticed that the 1999 U.S. Open and the 2001 PGA ended with the exact same sequence of strokes from the winner.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Conservatives Backed Schori at Gen. Convention
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 10:35PM
VirtueOnline reports:
VirtueOnline was told that Schori was brokered in by a cabal of West Coast bishops, liberal bishops who hated Griswold, and a number of conservative bishops who wanted to make it clear to the Anglican Communion that the Episcopal Church was hell bent and would never repent or do a U-turn away from its revisionist agenda. They wanted to make it crystal clear where the church was heading, and a vote for Schori would do it.
An already ugly situation is uglier than previously thought. When word gets out that conservative bishops helped elect Schori to promote division, that won't sit well with those who only wished well for the ECUSA.
ECUSA Rift?
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 4:23PM
If the new Episcopal Church presiding bishop wants to spark a rift, this is a great way of going about it: saying homosexual acts are not sinful.
More: Fr. Richard John Neuhaus places Bishop Schori's election in the context of the last 30 years of ECUSA history, arguing that she is another step in a long march away from orthodox Christianity. Another mark against her: she is reportedly a friend and supporter of the notorious Bishop Spong, "who has long agitated against core doctrines of historic Christianity."
God Bless Texas
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 3:18PM
Okay, there was a gang shooting in N'awlins last weekend and Nagin is already naggin' for troops to restore order. Houston had 11 inches of rain last night, and is suffering Katrina-like floods. And what are the Texans demanding? Nothing. Nada. They're taking care of bidness, and will let us know later. Can we just annex Louisiana as part of Texas? Or is that too cruel to the Texans?
Zoellick Out
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 3:18PM
The loss of Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick should not be overestimated. It isn't clear that Zoellick was being put to good use by SecState Condi Rice, which was one reason Zoellick began looking outside of the State Department about four months ago, if not a bit earlier.
We hear that Zoellick lobbied for the Treasury Secretary's job, which ended up going to to the boss of the shop where Zoellick is now going, Goldman. When it became clear that Zoellick wasn't in line for that job, he began looking outside of the administration. There has long been talk that Zoellick felt he was being underutilized and, when he was being utilized, utilized poorly. Instead, Rice was turning to career State Department hack Nick Burns (he being the face of the Clinton administration-era State Department).
Zoellick should go down as one of the key contributors to what successes the Bush administration had related to expanding free trade around the world. He was a classy, disciplined and innovative thinker on the global scene and he will be missed.
Rumors are now flying that current deputy Treasury Secretary Bob Kimmitt may be in line for Zoellick's post.
Sad Times for the ECUSA
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 3:13PM
As you may have heard, the Episcopal Church General Convention elected Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori as its presiding bishop this weekend. Major media is playing up the sex angle, as she is the first woman to lead a church within the Anglican Communion.
But the real story is how her election further divides a fractured ECUSA by continuing along a radically unorthodox path. The American Anglican Council lists major concerns, including her vote to consecrate Gene Robinson as bishop, her support for the church to bless same-sex marriage, and her vote against a resolution affirming basic tenets of Christian doctrine.
Her election sends a clear message to the Anglican Communion that her leadership will continue the revisionist agenda of the Episcopal Church.
The Ethanol Farce
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 11:24AM
Ethanol isn't the answer, the WSJ reports today. In fact, it is inflating gasoline prices now that 10 percent is added throughout most of the country. Since its adoption as an additive, its price has increased by 65 percent to about $4.50 a gallon.
"We'd probably have retail gasoline prices between $2.30 and $2.40 a gallon if not for ethanol," estimates economist James Glassman of J.P. Morgan.
Why is ethanol suddenly more expensive? Two major reasons: 1- The ethanol market is facing artificial constraints. If ethanol must be mixed at a fixed proportion to gasoline, its price will closely reflect gasoline's price. The normal rules of supply and demand don't follow. 2- Ethanol costs more to produce because it requires gasoline for transportation. Yep, we're burning fuel just to produce and add a more expensive commodity to the fuel supply. Poor economics make a poor product.
Sunday Murtha Madness
Posted by on 6.19.06 @ 7:55AM
Even on Fathers’ Day, there was More Murtha Madness. Cut and Run King Jack Murtha (D-France) was back on Meet the Press yesterday to shout that we need to withdraw from
Now I’m no George Patton or Tommy Franks, but
The only way forces could get from
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