Peggy is Shrill and Unrealistic....

I have been absolutely amazed at the inchoate rage that has seized the commentariat, in regards to the Gulf oil spill. The best example would be this piece by Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal.

No do not get me wrong the people of the Gulf region and most of the U.S should be gravely concerned with the what we are witnessing down there. I have nothing but sympathy for those that will suffer due to this. However most of the complaints are empty and baseless. The notion that the President should do "more" is hopelessly simplistic, an argument put forth by individuals have little to no clue of the difficulty involved in deep sea oil mining.

There are literal engineering limits involved here. I know this is of no comfort to anyone but there are some things that are hard to fix once they break. It is probably why we should consider more heavily whether we should even be doing the drilling in the first place. But that isn't my main issue with this tragedy. It is the tone of Mrs. Noonan that I find annoying. Her pieces is chalk full of the worst sort of know-nothing palaver that one could imagine. The sort of practiced faux-common man "there is a simple solution to every problem" bullshit that comes from years of political speech writing.

I was going to turn to some of the progressive voices out there to offer a defense for the Administration (here and here [not actually a progressive]), but instead (possibly the only time you will here me say this) I found this post at the NRO to be one that resonated with me the most. These people are no fans of the current administration and I do not agree with this Katrina comparison, but there is a kernel there that is articulated well about the expectations of the government that I find myself in agreement with:

We who live in the 21st century West have the least messy, least dangerous, least uncertain lives of any human beings in history. We should be very grateful for that, but we should not let our good fortune utterly distort our expectations of life, and we should not react with unrestrained indignant shock anytime the limitations of our power make themselves seen or the cold and harsh capriciousness of nature overcomes our defenses. We should expect a firm response from the institutions we have built to protect ourselves—science, technology, and modern government—but we cannot expect a perfect response. Not from Bush, and not from Obama.

This is something I can agree with. Now I will not completely let the Bush Administration off the hook for some of the tragedy of Katrina, I do not blame them for the root causes (improper/maintenance of the levies, the hurricane itself), but the general gist is correct. No matter how competent our government is, we will still have tragedies and catastrophes. That is the nature of life. What government does is try to mitigate the human tragedy to the degree that it can. Expecting more then that is juvenile.

-Cheers

In other news...

I had a rant about a large number of things, but instead of posting that I thought it was more important to mourn a great sports loss today.


Simona Halep got a breast reduction.

-Cheers

Drunk History.....

If you have never seen "Drunk History" I highly recommend it. The basic gist is they get historians/history majors drunk and then ask them to tell some historical stories.

Drunk History Vol. 5 w/ Will Ferrell, Don Cheadle & Zooey Deschanel from Will Ferrell

It is awesome.

-Cheers

Pulling the curtain back....

Sometimes you get to see what a candidate really thinks about a subject. This is Rand Paul newly minted Republican candidate for Senate in Kentucky on his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mr. Paul tries to cloak this as an issue of "property rights", by saying that allowing legal recourse against private business owners is some sort of infringement on the 1st Amendment and how most of the complaints against his stance are hypothetical. I highly recommend watching the sheer dissembling that goes on during the interview. The idea that discrimination isn't a infringement on personal liberty is obviously the position of someone who has never been followed around a grocery store, clothing store, or 'encouraged' to leave an eating establishment simply because they look different. I understand there may be a principled argument here, however, the actual historical atrocities that can be brought to bare on this subject out weigh most of them. The lack of acknowledgment there is striking.

Mr. Paul honestly has not seriously scrutinized the consequences of what he espouses. Or at least that is my hope. If that is not the case that is the most callous statement I have heard in some time. Some other thoughts on the subject here, here, here, and here.

Basically I am profoundly saddened that this sort of candidate can still win in the 21st century.....


--update
Seems Mr. Paul has had some second and third thoughts on this matter, TPM has more coverage on the issue.

-Cheers

These are the sorts of questions I wish were asked more often....

Glenn Greenwald brings some much needed clarity to the Sunday political round table circuit. It would be nice if more often people were pressed on the statements they made, instead of just getting to mouth talking point.

We need more of this not less.

-Cheers

Round-up...

Just in case I am unable to get a post in tomorrow, I thought I would round up a couple of the the articles/posts I have been mulling over the last few days.

First up we have the controversy over a leaked e-mail from a Harvard Law School 3L (more here).
Andrew Sullivan has been posting the responses he as been getting from his readers here, here, here, here, and here.

With a nice round up of opinions on the Atlantic Wire here.

And here is the relevant section of the email that has cause most of the commotion.
I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair.

In general I would be loathe to even talk about this issue, cause it bothers me on a very fundamental level. And I am not even even talking about the rank racism in the statement. It is the complete lack of any scientific rigor or intellectual honesty that gets to me. Here is the thing that I dislike. I really loathe with people who have no science background hold court on science topics. Especially topics such as this. Why? More often then not, they will claim a lack of information or consensus, when if they had taken the time to consult the relevant material, they could see that is not the case. This is especially true when talking about a subject as nebulous as "intelligence".

As these two writers more astutely point out, your right to an opinion does not equal a right to be immune to others opinions on your opinion.

The free speech/freedom of thought angle:

• Not only did one HLS student write an email literally saying that black people might be genetically inferior to white people, but she is being defended by other legal scholars under the pretense that any idea should be up for debate and no one should get offended and oh also maybe she's right. With no recognition of the fact that ideas of genetic inferiority underwrote slavery in this country ......free speech is not a shield from criticism and consequence. Yes, it is a shield against government persecution for your speech, but it does not mean that other people are not permitted to speak out against you; it doesn’t mean that other people should have to accept what you say without attaching words like "racist" or "sexist" or "bigoted" to what you say.
• Agreed "You have the right to express yourself, not to control the reactions of others," writes political science professor Scott Lemieux. "The underlying premise," he thinks, in this debate, "is that one should be able to express bigotry while being exempt from criticism that might make the person expressing the bigotry uncomfortable. And going along with this is the even sillier assumption that people who defend existing social privileges are the real iconoclasts. Please."

On the science front this I find to be a compelling point:

* Nor Is It a Matter of Scientific Inquiry, adds Jesse Taylor at Pandagon.

If you are going to lead a scientific inquiry about the relative intelligence of racial groups (assuming all definitional problems are solved and that "intelligence" is a single variable), then there are three potential outcomes, generally speaking:
1.) W (whites) are more intelligent than B (blacks).
2.) W and B are equally intelligent.
3.) W are less intelligent than B.
Whenever this tired old debate is brought up, the only propositions that are ever introduced are 1 and 2. ... Nobody I've ever had this debate with has ever mentioned 3. It's because the debate that you're having isn't about science’s ability to measure racial intelligence as a genetic factor - it's about the defense of racial stereotypes as something you can’t disprove and therefore shouldn’t be so damned sensitive about.

So I might take it a tad personally.

Next up a thought provoking piece in the National Journal called "Do Family Values weaken Families".

Can it be? One of the oddest paradoxes of modern cultural politics may at last be resolved.

The paradox is this: Cultural conservatives revel in condemning the loose moral values and louche lifestyles of "San Francisco liberals." But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate.

The country's lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts's enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not. The pattern is robust. States that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008 boast lower average rates of divorce and teenage childbirth than do states that voted for the Republican in both elections. (That is using family data for 2006 and 2007, the latest available.)

And finally, Sarah Palin does not know anything about history. The fetishization of the Founding Fathers is slightly disturbing.

-Cheers

So it is going to be Kagan.....

Got to say I am not impressed with the Presidents pick to replace Justice Stephens.

Glenn Greenwald lays out the case against Elana Kagan here. With follow-up here and here.

The problem here is a standard one with Mr. Obama, he constantly tacks to the middle, to avoid conflict. Ignoring the concerns of his core supporters and trying to court the ephemeral "middle". Especially in a time where the conservative base is rabid, and his own base is depressed.

I wanted a fire-breathing liberal to counter the likes of Justices Scalia and Alito, as well as a legal heavy weight. Diane Wood or Harold Koh would have been excellent choices. Yes there would have been a fight. There was going to be a fight anyways. Mr. Greenwald again (emphasis mine):

The New York Times this morning reports that "Mr. Obama effectively framed the choice so that he could seemingly take the middle road by picking Ms. Kagan, who correctly or not was viewed as ideologically between Judge Wood on the left and Judge Garland in the center." That's consummate Barack Obama. The Right appoints people like John Roberts and Sam Alito, with long and clear records of what they believe because they're eager to publicly defend their judicial philosophy and have the Court reflect their values. Beltway Democrats do the opposite: the last thing they want is to defend what progressives have always claimed is their worldview, either because they fear the debate or because they don't really believe those things, so the path that enables them to avoid confrontation of ideas is always the most attractive, even if it risks moving the Court to the Right.

Ms. Kagan's legal philosophy is a black box. She has done an excellent job of not leaving any trail. From what we do know her views on executive power, are at best disturbing. But I find the relative dearth of any record absolutely terrifying. She is, in many ways, as bad a choice as Harriet Myers.

I am sure I will be getting e-mails from OFA asking me to donate and support this nominee. I will not. Instead, I intend to write my senators to ask them to vote against her confirmation. He wanted someone young. But there were simply better choices.

If Mr. Obama and his administration want my support they are going to need to work for it and to stop expecting it.

A shitty birthday present Mr. Obama.....

-Cheers

Reason #7 Why I do not take the Tea Partiers seriously.

They are just not intellectually serious.

But before I begin, a couple of terms need to be defined.

They are socialism and socialist.
--------------

so·cial·ism

   /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Show Spelled[soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA

–noun

1.

a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2.

procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3.

(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

so·cial·ist

   /ˈsoʊʃəlɪst/ Show Spelled[soh-shuh-list] Show IPA

–noun

1.

an advocate or supporter of socialism.

2.

(initial capital letter) a member of the U.S. Socialist party.

-------------

Okay now that we have that out of the way.


The Washington Post has a "Live Web chat Q&A" with Judson Phillips, founder of the Tea Party Nation.

To say, that Mr. Phillips, does the Tea Party movement a disservice, would be an understatement. The sheer fecklessness on display is impressive. When presented with counter factual, Mr. Phillips merely denies their existence. Provides no substantiated rebuttal, just refuses to acknowledge them. So I would highly recommend reading through the whole exchange. There were a couple comments in particular that jumped out at me.

Nashville, Tenn.: "Judson -- Are you willing to admit that taxes have actually gone down for the vast majority of Americans under President Obama?

Judson Phillips: No"

Okay - can you provide actual evidence that taxes have increased or stayed the same under President Obama?

Judson Phillips: Let's start with him allowing the bush tax cuts to expire.

Now, it is simply a matter of fact, that when the ARRA (Stimulus Bill) passed, it included tax breaks for approximately 95% of tax payers. That is in the bill. On top of that, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts has not happened yet, and even when it does, it will only be sunsetted for those making 250k+. That is hardly a tax increase on the "vast majority of Americans".

Washington, D.C.: "Second, let's go through the entire federal budget and eliminate programs that are consumed by waste, fraud or abuse. Start eliminating them. "

This doesn't answer that poster's question at all. WHAT would you cut? Social Security? Medicare? National defense? What would you cut?

Judson Phillips: Let's start with entitlement programs. They are the biggest source of out of control spending. Then let's go to congressional pork programs. Since we have a war on terror or as Obama would call it, man caused disasters, I do not believe cuts in the defense budget are appropriate at this time.

It was nice for the questioners to actually demand answers and not the palaver that normally gets to pass from these sorts of political types. Notice how he still does not answer the question. Entitlement programs my follow up to this follow up would be, "So Medicare and Social Security, how do you want to cut them specifically? Scale back benefits, raise the retirement age, or perhaps some combination of the two, or even something else entirely?".
But just for clarification I want to toss out a picture of the governmental budget:

This is what the actual budge looks like. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and (more often then not) Defense spending are seen as mandatory spending. Add that to the "Other Mandatory" spending and you get about 80% of the federal budget. If you think you can balance the debt by cutting "pork" you are an idiot. It is a tiny part of the discretionary spending part of the graph. This is just one example of how unserious some of these individuals are. They deny anything that does not comport with their world view.

At no point does Mr. Phillip present any information to prove his assertion that President Obama is a socialist. He just asserts it. After the stimulus bill, health care (no public option), and the talks over Wall Street reform if Obama is a socialist, he is the worst one of all time.

Again, I highly recommend you give it a read.

-Cheers

A better type of commercial...

Seriously, I laugh myself silly every time I see one of these.



And



"I'm on a horse."
-Cheers

Douche-bag of the week

Lot of offerings this week. But to paraphrase Shakespeare, "Brevity is the soul of wit". Seeing as I lack most things in that phrase, I thought I would give it a try.

It is no secret that I have, what can only be described as an anti man-crush, on Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).

But this is the height of cowardice. Essentially what Sen. Lieberman wishes to do is strip the citizenship away of anyone the State decides is an actor for a terrorist organization before they have been convicted of that offense.

The founders and drafters of the 14th Amendment wanted it to be extremely difficult to rescind or remove citizenship. To keep it from being easy to circumvent the constitutional protections provided, unarguably, to a citizen.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [emphasis added mine]

The part I highlighted is what this is about. The essential thrust of Sen. Lieberman's bill is to make it easier to deprive, even a U.S citizen, of due process or equal protection under the law.

Advocating for that, in my book makes you a douche bag. So congratulations Senator Lieberman, you have sunk even further.

-Cheers

Summer Movies

Yeah I am going to see Iron Man 2, there is little doubt of that. But to be honest I might be a little more excited to see Machete (h/t Cation)



Yep I like me some pointless violence and hot women.

-Cheers

New Edition to the Blog Roll

David Weigel has a newish blog up at the Washington Post called Right Now.

Its main focus is on the movement conservatives out there, the Republican party and the right-wing of the conservative movement. Covering it and trying to explain its orthodoxies to us naive liberals. It is interesting and thought provoking take on a differing ideology. Well worth the time to read.


-Cheers

Last Son of Krypt.....err...Bollywood

Here is something a little different for you all. It kind of has to be seen to be believed.



I will give it this. It is more original then Superman Returns.

-Cheers