The Art of Politics

Measure Of The Man

Obama's speech has told me what I need to know...

What I learned from Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech...

Barack Obama will tell a bald faced lie if he feels it politically expedient. There is simply no other conclusion to be drawn, no other way to reconcile the denial of knowledge, and subsequent acceptance of knowledge, of Reverend Jeremiah "McCrazy" Wright:

March 15th: "But the sermons I've always hear were no different than the sermons you hear in many African-American churches. I had not heard him make such, what I consider to be objectionable remarks from the pulpit. Had I heard them while I was in church, I would have objected. Had that been the tenor of the church generally, I probably wouldn't be a member of the church."

March 18th: "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely..."

So which is it? It is, of course, the latter, the first claim was simply unbelievable. To return to an analogy we've used before, one does not eat at the same restaurant for 20 years and profess ignorance of the menu. He had might as well have said he attended the sermons, but didn't inhale - too incredulous and clever by half. So, now he's apparently got religion and copped to attending church with the full knowledge that the Reverend occasionally asked the Lord Almighty to use his omnipotent power to damn the United States. Now that we've cleared that up...

Barack Obama will use his own grandmother as a political prop. The wheels on the bus may go round and round, but it goes right over his poor Grandmother, who he felt he could toss under the bus - and who, if she could get the bus off of her, might be rolling over in her grave.

"I can no more disown him (Reverend McNutty) than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

The ease of using Grandma as a decoy buoy leaves a bad taste in ones mouth. Grandma loves me, but Grandma was... what exactly? A racist? A closet bigot? Not so closeted? And note that Grandma made him cringe, but 20 years of the Sermon on Mount Crazy didn't evoke any public comment until it started causing trouble with his campaign machinery.

Here's a question I am *dying* for someone to ask - did Barack ever take his white mother or grandparents to his church for a taste of Reverend Wrights bilious rants?

Barack Obama will present a Hobson's Choice as your only choice. This paragraph actually tells you all you want to know, and is masterful in creating a choice that actually is no choice at all. Let's pick it apart. Here is your choice, America:

"For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism." First, establish an onerous windmill to tilt against. "We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news." Okay, here he's attempting to establish both the middle ground and moral high ground - by choosing two well known racial touchstones and take his position as being distanced from each. It is an appeal to occupy a reasonable center. "We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words." Ah, here's the first punch - almost a soft, rhetorical blackmail that intones the playing of these videos - which are the center of this controversy - is part of the problem, part of cynical racial politics, is in itself a racially charged act. "We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card" The follow up punch, when stuck in the mud, attempt to drag your opponent down with you. This says "See Mom! It's not just me!" - rhetorical smoke screen. "...or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies." This is a shot at the solar plexus of the electorate. Translation - white males, you aren't going to be racist and vote for John McCain en masse are you? Or just the racist ones? Are you racist white McCain voters still beating your wives?

Setting up this almost caricaturish false set of alternatives uses a well worn rhetorical tool to create a choice that is indeed no choice at all.

Barack Obama will divine the victim in all of us. I guess the audacity of hope demands an abundance of despair. To be honest, the grievance politics of Reverend Wright and Barack Obama are not that far apart - we noted the hard left coating to the chewy center of Wright's obnoxious anti-American tirades. Both rely on the presupposition that we are all getting screwed - for Wright, it is white America, for Obama, corporations. Bogeymen of different stripes are still bogeymen.

Barack Obama wants you to pay no attention to that man behind the pulpit. As noted above, his speech has soft sold the notion that continuing to play the incendiary remarks of Reverend Wacko is an act that continues racial exacerbation - nevermind the net result is to bury a problem for him. The Reverend has almost been disassociated from being truly a party to his remarks: because he is a product of a segregated upbringing, because he baptized his kids, because Barack simply knows him better than us, and trust him, he's really not all that bad once you get to know him. He's been doing "God's work" which apprently when it doesn't involve invoking the Lord's damnation upon the nation he resides in, "housed the homeless", presumably put there by white racism, spent time "ministering to the needy", presumably robbed by whites, provided "day care services and scholarships and prison ministries", which I assume was the best place to inculcate hate and anti-social racist rhetoric, and "reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS", which I can presume also included letting them know their disease was caused by the US government and designed to get rid of minorities.

Obama has tried to inoculate this relationship, to create some kind of perverse equivalence that intones that we all have disagreements with the our pastors on some things, don't we?

Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

This is phony baloney - these aren't remarks which we disagree with, these are outlandish invective that go far, far beyond doctrinal or topical disagreement. There are topics upon which reasonable people can disagree - and Reverend Wright isn't bringing up a single one of them. That AIDS is a bio-weapon created by whites to off the earth's black population isn't something reasonable people can disagree upon, it is a lunatic proposition wholesale. Obama's ridiculous attempt to equate this idiocy with the differences one may have with your church on what to serve at the Sunday social or if full immersion is the only scripturally approved form of baptism is insulting. Recommending that his worshipers sing God Damn America instead of God Bless America is not a topic on which reasonable people can disagree, it is in fact a most unreasonable topic which reasonable people will find offensive.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, because he may be saying something crazy to the next President of the United States...

Posted by MEC2 at 03:27 AM | Comments (0)

Pastor of Crazy Town

At least Obama can put the whole Muslim thing to rest...

There is indeed one bright spot for Barack Obama for being linked to the Minister of Crazy, Reverend Jeremiah White, and the Trinity United Church of Christ and Black Victimization Identity Politics (okay, we made that last part up) for 20 years - we can put that whole "Is he a Muslim?" thing to bed.

The Reverend has since be jettisoned from the campaign, in a move that can only be described as "at the very least". What the head of this congregation has said is, frankly, clinically insane:

"America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ."

Concluding, Mr. Wright said: "We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

This is pretty boilerplate agitprop for the radical left, but includes outlandish claims even the most ardent fellow traveler would blush at - the AIDS virus has an empirical history that can pretty well be demonstrably shown to have emerged as most other diseases have, without malicious racist intent of Zionist American White Masters.

It has been argued that merely attending church with the good Reverend does not constitute an endorsement of any of his political views, and the Obama campaign has been quick to point out that Obama has repudiated these statements, saying "Most recently, you heard some statements from my former pastor that were incendiary and that I completely reject, although I knew him and know him as somebody in my church who talked to me about Jesus and family and friendships."

A good statement - but I cannot fully accept it. There remains a nagging problem for Obama - the campaign has had several hiccups with folks directly connected to the candidate that have somewhat aspersive in nature. Be it Michelle Obama's comments about being proud of her country for the first time (the insinuation of course being ashamed as a matter of course), or Reverend White's crazy America hate, or even the candidate himself drawing odd attention to himself over not wearing a flag lapel, or putting his hand on his heart during the national anthem. It's not the any one of these is a "Eureka!" discovery into Obama's true feelings, but a series of coincidences is no coincidence.

The test of the rational man is this - if I, attending a church, heard my pastor say any of these things, in church or out, would I continue to attend unless I, at a minimum, sympathized with the statements if not outright agreed? I believe the rational man does not compartmentalize faith and morals from each other, and no matter how much a man preaches the love of Jesus, if he preaches radical hate, be it of man or nation, there is no reconciling the two unless you believe them both.

If John McCain attended church where the pastor said he believed in Jesus and believed in racial segregation and opposed interracial relations, McCain would be given a wooden cross by the media and led to the nearest hill. Why? Because a rational man cannot in good conscious absorb one message without the other. Attendance is tacit approval of the message. One does not eat at the same restaurant for 20 years unless he likes the food. The same goes for the church.

We could create a dozen more off-the-cuff euphemisms - the simple fact is that church attendance is a voluntary choice, and associating yourself with this church associates you with what the church stands for. This includes Reverend McCrazy and his rantings, as well as the Reverend's less publicized affinity for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whose rantings are all to familiar to the testimonial nuttiness of Reverend White.

We are left with the following truth - the primary spiritual advisor of Barack Obama - and potentially next US President - thinks the US invented AIDS to get black people.

Ask not who the crazy church bell tolls, it tolls for Obama...

Posted by MEC2 at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

Super Fat Tuesday and Wednesday's Ashes

Enough debris to keep a CSI episode going for weeks...

Let's first examine our prediction from two days ago. While delegates are still being assigned, we did pretty well - extremely well in fact. McCain's total is likely to be almost spot on. Romney ran weaker - much weaker - in the South than even we anticipated, and that weakness meant Huckabee was able to score some wins in states like Georgia and Tennessee and impressively almost Missouri. As a result, McCain took the lion's share.

Romney has no logical path to win the nomination, except John McCain's expiration. No other route exists. Huckabee seems to be boosting for position in the party, and likely stays in since his campaign has been high mileage on little fuel. Texas should spell the end of both campaigns.

This much you knew, since we told you so two days ago.

To the Democrats. A tremendous number of dynamics at play. Small state victories for Obama where youth voters at Universities - the only population centers in many of these states - help Obama rack up large vote totals. Clinton showing the results of long preparation in large states that contain traditional Democrat machinery.

Problems loom for both.

Obama has a problem - it's with Latino voters. I have seen it discussed, but there is an issue nobody is talking about - the notable Latino/Black tension emerging in urban areas. As a constituency party, Democrats are susceptible to a zero-sum struggle between the emerging Latino community and traditional Black Democrats. This is not something that is going to be solved during this election. Expect this to be a major problem for Obama in a general election. Also worrisome, blue-collar union voters are not Obama voters. Not NEA voters - these are easily in an Obama tent. But traditional union guys from the Local 533 Steamfitters union don't buy in during the revival-like speeches of Obama. Call them "Fuggedaboutit" voters, they will not take easily to an Obama candidacy. Why? They prefer straight grit to lilted prose.

Hillary has her own problems. Foremost, as reported today, she has money troubles. Hillary has more big donors, but those donors are easily capped at roughly $2k, where Obama's donors are more numerous wells he can return to as needed. The other problem she has is that she cannot secure the nomination anytime soon. She is unlikely to have good news until states like Texas, where a large Latino vote should give her delegates to counter what is likely to be a steady drip of losses in upcoming caucus states. Hillary also has a problem with men - very, very few like her, and that will not change in the general election either. The real question is what damage will be done between the traditional black vote and Hillary's campaign if the primary stretches to a convention where Democrat super-delegates go to the traditional uppercrust white candidate - especially if Obama manages to limp in with a slight delegate lead. Hillary will use whatever pieces of the Democrat machinery are available at the convention to secure the nomination - that's not underhanded, that's politics. That could create a notable backlash and leave a very bad taste in the mouth of black voters - the only Obama constituency likely to hold a grudge in such an event, as wealthy liberals will vote for Hillary in a heartbeat, and young voters will probably vote in the paltry underwhelming fashion they do in most other elections.

Hillary's strength right now is with women - there are more women than men, and more women vote than men. This is a natural advantage. But there is that cadre of women that against type do not like Hillary - where they may support Obama, they may find McCain an acceptable candidate - why? Because they will feel comfortable with a McCain that is "reasonable" to them - like Goldilocks, they can be convinced to go with a candidate not too right, not too left, but just right....

As of today, McCain has the nomination for the Republicans. We give the edge on the Democrat side to Hillary - she has the operators, she will win in traditional Democrat states, and at the convention, she has the brass ones to do what it will take to win.

The question for the general then becomes - will disaffected conservatives have the brass ones to do what it will taken to win...

Posted by MEC2 at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)

All For One

Just an oddity that strikes me as... odd...

Is it just me, or is there something just a little creepy about Utah voting *90%* for Romney? I mean those are pod-people numbers for a candidate.

Last time I saw an election where a candidate got 90% of the vote, Saddam was on the ballot...

Posted by MEC2 at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)

Number Crunching

Doing tricky math, so you don't have to...

Having done advanced algorithmic gymnastics in our head, here is how we think the delegate count will shape up as of tomorrow:

McCain - win 629 delegates
Total - 722

Romney - win 308 delegates
Total - 385

That lead is insurmountable. With the big delegate winner-take-all prizes in New York, New Jersey, and Arizona, that's 206 off the top. Missouri is also WTA and as a fairly moderate bellweather (and is not a closed primary), that's another 58 delegates that go to only the statewide winner. Ironically, states where Romney is performing well, such as California and Massachusetts, will distribute their delegates among the candidates - even were Romney to win in California, he'd likely only clear some 15 more delegates than McCain. Romney cannot trade delegates, he must clear and shut out in order to gain ground.

There simply does not appear to be a path for Romney to pick up the delegates needed to derail McCain. After Tuesday, McCain can lose almost 2 to 1 and still win.

Tomorrow is Thunderdome. Two men enter. One man leave.

Posted by MEC2 at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

It Is Time

The sleeper must awaken...

Blogging should be reserved for those times when there is something worth saying. That time has now arrived.

The 2008 election season has commenced. And I can no longer stomach the whining from fellow conservatives who should know how to act like adults but have recently behaved like peevish, obnoxious cry-babies. I always felt that paranoia was predominantly endemic to lunatic fringes of the left. But conservative reaction to McCain's victory in Florida, and potential nomination, puts even the most brain-fevered hard left lunatic in a run for their money for who can spew the most outlandish, churlish, immature and frankly useless political polemics.

To the extent a voice among many can be heard to return sanity and order, I will attempt to raise it. I have awakened.

Posted by MEC2 at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)

Post Election Thoughts

Sometimes, you win, sometimes, you lose, sometimes, it rains...

Some notes on my underused blog about the elections...

Republican clouds have silver linings.

- It is the opinion of this writer that the nation is best served when we have effective Republican stewardship in the House and Senate. I'm not sure we've had that lately. Having the House and Senate in play makes BOTH parties better. If each party cannot take power for granted, this is a huge improvement over them simply swapping uncontested control of patronage and the purse every decade. Each party needs to govern like their survival depends on it.

- Much success for Democrats came from recruiting quality, middle of the road candidates. Many pro-gun, pro-life, low-tax Democrats won. Which is good. America needs a vibrant and viable Democrat party. Having moderates succeed helps pull the Democrats back to the middle, it empowers existing moderates in the party, and makes it harder for Republicans to merely run someone just barely better than a fringe nutcase.

- The Democrats now have a stake in success. I'm sure many have felt that Iraq and the War on Terror have been a bludgeon to beat them over the head with, since they have no voice in the policy on either. Now that they hold sway, thought barely in the Senate, it means they will have a vested interest in American success. I think this will allow many Democrats to "come home" on vital foreign policy issues.

- It looks like Wilson has hung on in New Mexico. Which is fantastic, because I've never seen a less competent person running for Congress than Madrid looked in her debate. Simply incompetent. It was closer than it should have been, and those voting for her really need to ask if it's worth putting a nitwit in office simply because they have your same party affiliation.

- George Bush matters again. This is contrary to initial wisdom, which is often not very wise. But Bush with Republicans in Congress had simply become a target for Democrats, with no real ability to do anything except take an egg to the face. Hard to believe, but Bush got a big donut hole after 2004. His energy went into Social Security reform which his own Congress simply ignored. His ability to move his agenda was dead. Now, Democrats have an operating majority but can't move anything without Bush's approval.

Bush is back in the game.

UPDATE: Not the only one looking at the cloudlining today...

Posted by MEC2 at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

Honor and Remembrance - September 11th 2001

Remembering Christopher Dunne... one of many we think of this day...

What words do we use when words are not enough? What words can we use when words cannot express? What words can you use to remember what you can not forget?

Tragedy and grief lead us to ask why and how of God in angry terms. Senseless loss makes the scales seem so unbalanced, with our grief and terrible ache against acts of evil men, we often want some greater meaning for something the exacts such a terrible cost. Yet we find our way home to those we miss when we don't look for meaning in their passing, but realize we find meaning in their lives. When we think of the loved and lost, it is not their end we recall, rather we think of who they were, and how they made our lives fuller for having been part of it. They are not remembered best as victims of 9/11, but as parents and spouses, neighbors and old friends, a kind face seen in passing.

It is in this spirit of remembering the lives, not the passing, of those who left us on September 11th, that I speak today about Christopher Dunne. I don't know if he preferred Chris or Christopher, but my guess having learned just a small amount about him is he'd have been happy with either, and his friends seemed to know him as Chris. We would proudly acclaim to be counted among such friends to him today.

Chris worked at Marsh and McLennan, Inc., an insurance brokering firm. Marsh and McLennan moved into the World Trade Center Tower One in 1998 - the last large block of space leased in the Twin Towers, taking floors 94 through 100. On September 11th, at 8:46 A.M., American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into WTC1, impacting floors 94 - 98 - the heart of Marsh and McLennan. Chris was one of hundreds of employees of MMC that were lost to us that morning.

Chris worked in tech support at MMC, in a job probably amazingly similar to mine - I too work in computer support, and I considered it somewhat poignant that Chris's name came to me to be spoken of on this day. Chris was 29 years old in 2001, the same age as my my younger brother, who was also 29 in 2001. My brothers name? Christopher...

These similarites make Chris more familiar to me, but I cannot say of course that I knew him, of what kind of man he was. Yet I feel I've come to know Chris somewhat through the comments of some of his friends who remembered him and expressed their thoughts about him at Marsh and McLennan's memorial page for Chris, especially the following:

I’m not exactly sure when I first started hanging out with Chris. When he began working at our company, he was relatively quite and kept to himself. He was only known as “Khakis” since he wore khakis to work every day. All I know is that somewhere along the way, he started hanging out with us after work, became more comfortable, and started to show who he really was. And things were never the same afterwords.

Chris loved to have fun. He was always cracking jokes, always making sarcastic comments, or acting out a dialog between two different people by himself. When we went out, he would be the first to buy a round, and the last to go home. But what I really found amazing about Chris was that he seemed to be so comfortable in his own skin. The way you know some people hold back and don’t completely show who they are, I never got that feeling from him. I’m guessing that if we could see the way he acted when he was at home alone, it would be the exact same as the way he acted around people. And being around that kind of person made me more comfortable, and allowed me to be freer around him.

I’ve never met a person like Chris before and I doubt I ever will. I am glad that I got to know him and will never forget his jocular spirit, unique sense of humor, and his kindness and openness. I miss him dearly.

But for a tragic fate, those who would have met Chris and become his friends still can come to know him when his memory is shared with us by those who knew him. And it is in the sharing that who Chris was stays with us. Each of us live on in the memories of those who came to know us and in whose lives we came to play a part. Chris stays with those who remember him, and those who never knew him still are influenced by his those who cherish how he enriched their lives.

I never had the opportunity to meet Chris in person, but everyday, sometimes two and three times a day I would talk to Chris. I miss him tremendously. I still talk to Chris...when I run, when it's quiet, in the early morning, when we are all together and laughing.

Thanks for making me laugh QA Manager Type Guy. I still remember your number.

It's not always easy to see the difference we make in the lives of others. Few of us realize how we enrich the lives of those around us, like Chris has. It isn't heroic intervention that makes the difference , it's the small things - a small kindness shown, a friend to listen, a helping hand, an easy humor eager for a smile.

There are three-thousand stories like Chris' today - and yet still only one for Chris. After five years, it is tempting to be melancholy, to be brought low with sadness, yet Chris didn't seem the type to want that - smile, he'd say. Laugh a little today. Remember the good times. When you do, I'm right there with you.

And pass it on...

We encourage you to read the stories of others like Chris today, of those who perished that day yet still touch the lives of those who knew them, and who's names we honor best when we celebrate all they brought to the lives of those who remain to remember them...

Posted by MEC2 at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

I Have No Point And I Must Scream

The first resort of intellectual bankruptcy - frothing demonization...

This is what it has come to - when engaged on issues, the first, and last resort of many on the political fringe is to rely on sloganeering and groupthink keyword appeal. During an appearance on Fox News, former Democrat candidate for the Ohio 2nd District Paul Hackett decided his only response to the always erudite Dan Senor's arguments about US policy in Iraq was to, well, panic and call Senor a Nazi...

(Hackett)...I mean to have Herr Senor on your set as a military expert is something of a joke... (Hackett, responding to Kasich asking who he's talking about) I'm talking about your guest, little unterfuhrer of propaganda Mr. Senor there, who's an apologist for the failings of the CPA.

There, now Hackett doesn't have to respond to any of the points Senor made, because he's a Nazi. With his argument plummeting to earth, Hackett pulls the ripcord and deploys his safety chute of ad hominem redirection and heated, splenetic invective. This is increasingly dominant on the out-of-power fringe left - who feel justified in defaming and slandering anyone who occupies another political space. The longer they go without being taken seriously, the more unserious they become, red-faced and spittling still louder, still loonier rhetoric.

This will surely destroy this Republic more thoroughly than any attack from without can. This is pulling on the lynchpin. This is fouling the foundation. This is poisoning the well, the kind of destructive, toxic rhetoric that seems tied directly to an absence of external political validation. Without success at the ballot box, this seething political hysteria has no outlet - it merely festers into a wound that eventually bursts forth in the kind of ugly inhumanity that Hackett displayed.

Let's remember, Hackett lost a closely watched and vastly overhyped special Congressional election in Ohio, and then was unceremoniously pushed under the bus by his fellow Democrats as he geared up to run against Mike Dewine for Senator from Ohio. Yes, that's what we need in the U.S. Senate - an ill-tempered wretch who'se only skill in debate is hyperbolic rhetoric and appeals to the worst invective.

What a touch of class Paul Hackett is - especially nice is equating Senor, who I am nearly certain is Jewish, with Nazism. Tomorrow, Hackett will equate Campbell Brown with Eva Braun, Bill Cosby with the Klan, and the ghost of Elizabeth Montgomery with the Inquisitors of Salem...

Posted by MEC2 at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)

Streets Of San Francisco

What is, what might be, what may yet come...

I have, since 9/11, at times worried about not what grand, spectacular attack may come to pass in the United States, but rather what easy, mass casualty attacks that don't require planning, explosives, training, merely someone willing to kill in the name of Allah.

When I heard about someone driving his SUV into people in San Francisco, my antennae went up immediately. Now at this point we are still discovering information - and I warned against jumping to conclusions ahead of the curve a full two weeks about Mr. Karr regarding the Ramsey killing. But this is one of the scenarios I feared. Turns out, with some digging, that the driver is one Mr. Omeed Aziz Popal - why his middle name is not spelled out like John Mark Karr's was for the infinite number of news stories is not known. This isn't the first run-in Omeed has had with the local constabulary. Ouch, first run-in, that was an unintended pun...

This could simply be a man driven to this (oh dear, another unintended pun, when did vehicular vernacularisms work their way so deeply into our lexicon?) by work, a girl, or something else. But my first reaction reading this is... another person who thinks God wants to him to kill us all. Now, mind you, Andrea Yates also apparently thought God wanted her to kill, so this doesn't have to be solely about religion.

But I am waiting. For terrorists to figure out they don't need a nuclear weapon, or a huge truck bomb - merely a huge truck. Ten committed men in ten trucks can kill 300 people in minutes. Go to a mall, or a theater, or a stadium, anywhere you see lines of people, and you are looking at a potential mass casualty attack with nothing more than a truck you can rent for $30 at Hertz.

I would hope to be wrong, but hoping to be wrong won't change the fate of those victims today, one of whom has already died. It won't matter why they are dead, what motivated their senseless demise is frankly important only to the living.

I will be watching with great interest what we hear, and what we are told, about this person...

UPDATE: Uh oh...

The SUV struck two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, a few blocks from where the rampage ended.

Beat my man at PT to the punch again. Plus, I have a better title...

Michelle Malkin also has a blog roundup...

Posted by MEC2 at 07:17 PM | Comments (0)

Dingleberry

Let's look at the latest malady being peddled by the dysfunctioneers...

When the history of the decline of the West is written, some passages surely will be devoted to how wealth and abundance led to intellectual and moral complacency and the compaction of all matters of import great and small into a singularity of paralyzing self-analysis so compact not even perspective can escape - in other words, we worry about alot of stupid shit. Exhibit A should be the latest tripe from the phony malady factory - that supposedly people are addicted to their Blackberry in a similar fashion to drugs.

This is a laughable, unserious conclusion about a laughable, unserious subject.

The study, carried out by New Jersey's Rutgers University School, claims the Blackberry is fuelling a rise in email and internet addiction, with sufferers able to survive only a few minutes without checking for new mail.

What? Able to survive only a few minutes without them? Did this study result in the unintended deaths of some Blackberry users before they figured out they needed the Blackberry to survive? How many poor souls lost their lives, found perished desperately trying to claw their way out of the study room to the life-support system hidden in their Blackberry? This kind of breathless reporting is intellectually vacant - only less so than the concept behind such a study in the first place.

One key sign of a user being addicted is if they focus on their Blackberry ignoring those around them.

Uh, yeah, like the same way people do with television, computers, books, music, woodworking, car repair... have these people ever used a Blackberry? Is there some sort of hybridized human that can carry on extensive human interaction while simultaneously thumbing out a response to their boss on a PDA?

But the effects of becoming addicted to the device can be 'devastating', said Professor Gayle Porter who led the study.

She added: 'Employers provide programmes to help workers with chemical or substance addictions. 'Addiction to technology can be equally damaging to a worker's mental health'.

And here's the payoff - when in doubt, follow the money. The mental health community has become a source of crackpot, junk science with a single goal - perpetuating the mental health community. This is another in a series of phony maladies that is being peddled by sophists in order to perpetuate the cottage industry of mental wellness. Psychosomatic projection of everyday life into an infirmity requiring treatment keeps them in dutch. These are the same people who brought you Katrina fatigue - mind you, not from having been in the Hurricane, but having been overexposed to coverage of it. Any deviation from a slackjawed stupor will eventually be diagnosed as a condition requiring treatment or study, and of course a name, we won't get tired of politics as usual, we will have acute disassociative pre-emergent sociopathy.

Enough is enough. Universities should be studying real mental health issues, not this valueless pap devoid of intrinsic value.

Posted by MEC2 at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Word Of Caution

Before we get the rope and find a strong limb...

Just a brief note on the arrest of John Karr (or John Mark Karr, given our penchant for giving the full name of murderers and assassins) for the arrest of Jon Benet Ramsey - if there is no corroborating DNA evidence, be very wary of this confession. Something doesn't pass the smell test fully on this, I've read statements of his that indicated Jon Benet was killed when her father was in the basement, I've seen no information indicating the man was in Boulder at the time, in fact his ex-wife indicated he wasn't in Boulder at the time, nor how this person would have access to the Ramsey house. Something is very, very odd with this.

But if the DNA comes back with a match, I'll tie the noose...

Posted by MEC2 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

Newt

The white haired dark horse...

A word to the wise - those seeking the Republican nomination for President should hope for a non-entry, or at least an early exit, for one Newt Gingrich. Don't expect his name to do your work for you, if you don't knock him out, you will have real trouble.

Why?

Because few people are able to share the same stage with him and not come off sounding like lesser entities. Newt has a devastating combination of command of language, historical knowledge, and political savvy. If you let a contest come down to debates, you will likely lose.

Recent focus group polling confirms this. People are put off at first by the awkward name or reputation, but Newt nearly always converts people with a very measured delivery and confident perspicacity.

Do not underestimate his ability to gain support if he can get to the later rounds.

Posted by MEC2 at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

Turn The Screws

Pakistan does the dirty work, so we don't have to...

It appears some of the information that helped avert the terror attacks on British flights destined for the United States may have been, well, coerced :

Reports from Pakistan suggest that much of the intelligence that led to the raids came from that country and that some of it may have been obtained in ways entirely unacceptable here. In particular Rashid Rauf, a British citizen said to be a prime source of information leading to last week's arrests, has been held without access to full consular or legal assistance. Disturbing reports in Pakistani papers that he had "broken" under interrogation have been echoed by local human rights bodies.

Here's where the metal meets the meat on torture - what precisely is so disturbing that a conspirator plotting the murder of thousands was physically coerced into telling us his plans? Would they rather be undisturbed, free to know that when those planes started exploding, and thousands dying, that at least no terrorists were injured trying to uncover the plot? It is absolutely preposterous.

These people weren't going to rob a liquor store or smoke some weed, they were plotting death on a massive scale. And yes, in this case, torture is not only acceptable, it is mandatory. Failure to do everything to extract this information is putting the comfort of the conspirator over the lives of the victims. I have referred in the past to the Mohammad Atta test - if you, on September 10th, had captured Atta and knew he had information about an imminent attack, would you permit any and all methods to extract information from him? If you do not answer yes to the previous question, you have no business in a position of public responsibility.

Rather than pretending torture is an absolute evil - which it is not, and of which there are few - we need to define the policy better, and for what it is. Some have complained about Americans involved in such interrogations - John McCain in particular as a person who suffered at the hands of his captors in Viet Nam. But let's be specific - there was no moral end to McCain's mistreatment, no good, even for North Viet Nam, to be gained. It was mere abuse, savage, misanthropic, animal. Nobody supports this, ever, nor should they.

And despite the overweening consternation expressed about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, that was not torture, yet nor was it acceptable. Abu Ghraib's happen in prisons in every corner of the world - people held captive abused by those with unchecked control and inadequate supervision. Abu Ghraib has no bearing on the torture discussion, because the acts depicted were not truly coercive in nature - they were abusive. While discussions about "prepping" prisoners for interrogation was used as a defense, it's easy to recognize abuse when you see it.

Which hopefully helps us narrow our focus down to what American policy regarding coercion should be - the use of physical and mental maniplulation and coercion to obtain information only in those cases that warrant it. This is the challenge. Everyone should pass the Mohammad Atta test. Hindsight indicates it. But policy is carried out in the field without the benefit of a crystal ball. Who is the next Atta? Who isn't? How do we ensure that strong-arm tactics are only used on those who have information that can potentially be used to save lives?

Some would argue the only way to be sure is to not use coercion at all. That line of thinking puts one mans moral precepts ahead of another mans life and liberty, and that does not balance on the scales of justice. It's all very easy to unburden ones conscience without being burdened with responsibility. Those who have the responsibility of protecting the lives of Americans don't have the convenience of easy moralizing about how to treat evil men.

It is time we discuss forthrightly the use of coercive tactics to interrogate individuals. In the appropriate cases, with a high probability of having information that can save lives, this is a moral tradeoff worth making.

UPDATE: Great minds thinking alike at Politechnical...

Posted by MEC2 at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)

Concealed Carry

Remember, guns don't kill people... people with guns kill people...

As the world pursues a 'peace at all costs' solution to intractable Middle East problems, it appears that the cease fire in effect in Lebanon that calls for disarming Hezbollah is already being gelded:

Hizbullah will not hand over its weapons to the Lebanese government but rather refrain from exhibiting them publicly, according to a new compromise that is reportedly brewing between Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Preposterous on its face. We have feared what a long series of half-measures may mean, and here begins the payoff - Hezbollah won't have to disarm, despite the fact they are an armed terrorist entity occupying South Lebanon. How the Israeli government can stand if this is allowed to go forward I do not know - however, we are counting down the days until Netanyahu retakes the leadership in Israel.

In related news, Iran no longer wants Israel wiped off the face of the Earth, agreeing rather that Israel not be exhibited publicly.

Posted by MEC2 at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)