Technology and Politics

by Smitty

With the advent of the webby-clouds, you can go to YouTube and watch a politician argue with itself over time, lining up beautifully contradictory statements on a topic. This collects a few links of historical interest and ponders technology and politics over time.

FDR had some ideas that seem swell in the abstract:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

What kind of an evil person are you for failing to agree that these "truths" are "self-evident"? You've had 65 years. How is it that you have not "accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights" as some kind of stare decisis? Why must you continue to waste time and public resources in this resistance to such a common-sense set or proposals? Aren't you ashamed that your country doesn't join with the rest of the "civilized" world in embracing these concepts? What about the children harmed by your narrow-minded, hide-bound opposition, you Bad Person?

Set aside the Constitutional issues, and the general financial insolvency of the results of the spiffy ideas of FDR. My curiosity is whether having the Internet available in the 1930s would have enabled a patriotic resistance to the implementation of these ideas at a federal level.

[Note that I'm not attacking these ideas as such. It would be quite interesting to see a distribution of states of various adherence to these concepts and see which dogs hunt, and which ones not so much. (The resistance of some to that kind of empiricism is telling).]

As implied by the full title of The Glorious Cause, the American Revolution was a slow-burn affair, with its pamphleteers. I recall from having read it a couple years ago that there is thought to have been a breakdown in thirds between those who supported independents, those who didn't care, and those who, unlike the modern left, did in fact go to Canada rather than deal with a pack of conservatives setting up a government emphasizing individual liberty.

A thrust of the Progressive movement has been the creation of the permanent political class, an American aristocracy, if you will. Also, it has a funding mechanism that could probably use an audit by now. The result has been to diminish the States as relevant in addressing issues. My Congresstool, on Tuesday, bemoaned the 800 families who've gone bankrupt as a result of health care costs in the last year (I think that was the scope of the remark) without mentioning Richmond as a source of any leadership.

I wonder to what degree the current crisis presidency and Congress realize that, if the US Constitution is to be defeated, the deed must be done now. Like a tiring magician, I think that the radical left realizes its ability to control the audience attention is fading. The serial failures of the Obama administration and the 111th Congress to manage public attention, drawing it away from the pesky details of sucking the remaining independence out of the States, is telling. Stage magic requires a pliant audience.

What about between now and the next election?

• This Saturday the Tea Party Express gets under way. Pray for peace as that trek unfolds.
• We have gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey in November.
• There is the wild card of the Massachusetts Senate seat. Do we get some vulgar display of legislation, or does the 2004 law stand, and they vote the seat?
  
• ???
• The 2010 election season starts up.

It's going to be exhausting. And, yet, your alternative is knowing that you stood by while all that was good about the country is replaced by a cheap imitation. Such is untenable.

Victor Davis Hanson bears quoting, in closing:

History tells all of us that nobody gets a pass. Your [country's] perpetual existence is not guaranteed. If you do not believe in yourself, and believe that you're better than the alternative, and have the educational skills to come to that empirical judgment, then there is no reason for you to continue, and often you won't.

CELEBRITY NEWS UPDATE: Shanna Moakler and the Child Molester

You remember Miss December 2001, Shanna Moakler. As an official of the Miss California USA pageant, Miss December decided that Carrie Prejean was unqualified to wear the crown.

You may also remember that Miss December once starred in a short-lived MTV reality show with her husband, rock musician Travis Barker, from whom she subsequently divorced.

Now, for today's celebrity news update, I owe a hat-tip to someone in the comments who asked me to link this TMZ story:

According to the Barrington [R.I.] Police, the drama began when Travis went to Shanna's Rhode Island home to drop off their two kids. When Travis noticed a car belonging to a convicted child molester near the home, he got into an argument with Shanna -- and she called the cops.
When police arrived, Travis told police he didn't "want to leave the kids in the residence with a pedophile and wanted a certified nanny with the kids."
Cops read the court order explaining the custody agreement between the couple, which stated that the man who owned the car was not allowed near the kids. . . .
Shanna's rep just told us: "It is really sad at this point that Shanna can't enjoy her children with her family in peace. Why would police let the kids stay if this apparent 'uncle' was actually there. Shanna and Travis need to work this out without the media being involved. There are young children involved and it's just not fair."

Note that, according to Miss December's publicist, the media pose a greater threat to the children than does a convicted child molester with whom, evidently, Miss December continues to associate.

Travis Barker deserves our sympathy, as it seems he has belatedly discovered the truth of a venerable proverb well-known in my native culture:

Lie down with trailer trash, wake up with herpes, child-support payments and a restraining order.

Genuine hillbilly wisdom, of the sort that inspired my online memoir, All Girls Named Tonya.

The least sincere form of flattery

Plagiarism? Let us hope not.

To be the victim of conscious plagiarism -- someone dishonestly endeavoring to obtain credit for another's writing -- is in some sense flattering. However, having long studied the Internet, I doubt that such an effort was deliberate.

Many people don't know basic HTML. They won't take the time to learn how to embed a link or properly configure a blockquote. They don't understand "fair use," or the importance of attribution and so they engage in what might be called accidental plagiarism.

This is not the first time I've been victimized in this way. When I was at The Washington Times, I'd write some article that some anonymous person would want to share it with their friends via e-mail. So, failing to copy the byline, include the URL or name the source, they'd e-mail the text of the article to their personal spam list.

The recipients of these e-mails might then post the article to an online forum, and it would be copied -- sometimes with minor revisions or additions -- from one discussion board to another, and these bowdlerized versions would in turn be e-mailed around to others, etc.

In most cases, these "plagiarisms" are unintentional, the result of people who don't understand "the rules of the road" in terms of proper sourcing, attribution, etc. One learns to shrug at such things, except when they result -- as they sometimes do -- in the spreading of misinformation, caused by people making their own (false or distorting) additions to the original (factually accurate) work.

Nevertheless, I appreciate "Geisha Girl" taking the time to investigate this, and properly attribute whatever it was that happened at the WRAL.com site.

Satire? No, it's The Onion

'Kennedy Curse' Claims
Life Of 77-Year-Old
Tumor-Riddled Binge-Drinker

Chappaquiddick, in brevis, and an exegesis of the infamous 'incident'

Right Girl sums it up:

The death of Mary Jo Kopechne was an accident, but his actions at the time of and in the weeks following the accident were beyond the pale. Poor, scared rich kid gets strings pulled to make the whole thing go away.

She's got much more, so you should read the whole thing, but in two sentences she has accurately distilled the essence of the narrative arc. Excuse me, however, for betraying my Bible-thumping roots, as I indulge in what evangelicals call exegesis of the text.

"Accident," yes. Yet when a man guzzles booze all day and then drives off a bridge, it is certainly not an unavoidable accident. The idea of Chappaquiddick as a "tragedy" whose main victim was Ted and the "Kennedy legacy" -- which is the manure load Ted's MSM hagiographers are now peddling -- is debunked by two stubborn facts pointed out yesterday in our Kopechne Day remembrances:

• Mary Jo didn't "drown," but died of asphyxiation. The passage of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption dealing with Chappaquiddick (pp. 38-43) was researched and written by my co-author Lynn Vincent, who was emotionally traumatized to discover this reality. Mary Jo did not drown, a horrific enough experience, but one which would have killed her in barely a minute. Rather, she remained alive, underwater in Teddy's Oldsmobile, breathing the oxygen trapped inside an air pocket at the rear floorboard of the upside-down car. So, while Ted walked back to the regatta party at the Martha's Vineyard cottage and tried to concoct an exculpatory cover-story (as his own cousin, Joe Gargan, later explained), Mary Jo was still alive, frantically hoping for a rescue that never came, until finally she breathed her last.
• Mary Jo Kopechne was a dedicated young liberal woman of tremendous potential. This was pointed out by Jimmie Bise's co-blogger Paula at the Sundries Shack. Mary Jo had gone to Alabama during the civil rights era, having the courage to live out her own convictions. You don't have to be a liberal to say of her that, at least, she was neither hypocrite nor a coward. Nor could anyone rightly describe Mary Jo Kopechne as a lightweight bimbo, just another bit of womanizer Ted's incidental arm candy. Had Mary Jo lived . . . Well, the women's movement was just then coming into its own, and one could easily imagine an experienced Democratic political operative (for that's what she was) enjoying a long and successful career in her own right.

However, such are the mind-fogging powers of liberal orthodoxy that not even feminists -- who, of all people, ought to be denouncing the MSM's disgusting veneration of this privileged swine, Ted Kennedy -- will grasp these key facts as the bedrock truth of what Chappaquiddick really meant.

Instead, in story after story, we see dishonest passive-voice references to this "incident." Call it an "incident" or an "accident," but at all costs, avoid describing it as vehicular manslaughter or anything else that might attribute agency and responsibility to the responsible agent, the man behind the wheel. The New Republic covered itself in shame yesterday by publishing a Kennedy remembrance by Bill Clinton's Lewinsky apologist, Sean Wilentz, which featured this classic exercise in moral idiocy:

For many years, [Ted] did not understand how the incident at Chappaquiddick in July 1969 foreclosed the possibility that he would ever succeed JFK to the presidency or fulfill the promise of RFK's presidential campaign in 1968. . . .
The disgrace of Chappaquiddick helped cost Kennedy his position as Senate Majority Whip in 1971 . . .
He also carried the weight of a collapsing marriage, as well as of the public's lingering outrage about Chappaquiddick. . . .

So, according to Wilentz, the most important thing about the "incident" was its impact on Kennedy's political prospects, which Wilentz externalizes as the responsibility of those muddleheads who constitute "the public," and whose "outrage" so unforgivingly lingered.

The passive voice of willful ignorance enables Wilentz to avert his eyes from the scene of the crime, where the declarative-sentence facts might lead to a genuinely honest and enlightened historical understanding. And yet such liberal "intellectuals" wonder why we laugh at them.

By popular demand: Michael Kelly's'A Sober Look at Ted Kennedy

Michael Kelly was a brilliant journalist who was killed during the Iraq war. At least a dozen readers have urged me to link this February 1990 GQ article by Kelly:

Edward Moore Kennedy works harder than most people think, and this morning he is working very hard at a simple but crucial task. He is trying to face the day. It is 9:30 A.M, September 26, and Kennedy is in Room 138 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to introduce a bill to lure new and better teachers. This kind of thing is ice cream and cake for any practiced politician, a simple piece of business that will provoke few tough questions and at least a few approving editorials. But for Kennedy it seems a great challenge, and no fun at all. He hastens tonelessly through his prepared statement like a court stenographer reading back testimony to the judge. He passes off most of the perfunctory and easy questions to the other politicians and education-Establishment figures joining him, and he stares into space as the other men do the job. When he goes to the podium to introduce his fellow speakers, he walks with a nervous, cautious shuffle, like Steve McQueen after he's been let out of solitary in Papillon. When he holds out the piece of white paper to read the introductions of men he's known for decades, it flutters and shakes in the still air.
Up close, the face is a shock. The skin has gone from red roses to gin blossoms. The tracery of burst capillaries shines faintly through the scaly scarlet patches that cover the bloated, mottled cheeks. The nose that was once straight and narrow is now swollen and bulbous, with open pores and a bump of what looks like scar tissue near the tip. Deep corrugations crease the forehead and angle from the nostrils and the downturned corners of the mouth. The Chiclet teeth are the color of old piano keys. The eyes have yellowed too, and they are so bloodshot, it looks as if he's been weeping. . . .

You can and should read the whole thing, including the account of Chappaquiddick. Yet I think those first two paragraphs tell an important story in themselves, and that I shall have more to say on this subject.

OediPOTUS Wrecks: Scene III

by Smitty

(Start here) Character List
Synopsis:

1. In the Prologue, a Rose Garden press conference announces a connection between the tanked economy to a monstrous evil pertaining to the death of the 42nd POTUS.
2. Scene I brings in a prophetess with a palindromic name and a chip on her shoulder. Verbal sparring ensues, ending in an accusation.
3. Scene II has Ramen the Chief of Staff trying to clear himself as a suspect. The question of the death of the 42nd POTUS looms. His widow, Cthulia, the Secretary of State under OediPOTUS, arrives to try to defuse the situation.
4. Scene III has an old family friend come to announce the death of the man who was a father to OediPOTUS. The news brings little comfort, as unsustainable tragedy begins a methodical turn to farce.
5. Finally, farce grinds to a halt as the mysterious Rosor ties the tubes up for everyone.
   

Cthulia wanders into the Rose Garden, thinking aloud

Cthulia: What to do with OediPOTUS? He's so wrapped up in the past. None of my usual means of reaching him appear to be working…

Sandy Hamburger enters

Sandy Hamburger: Do you know where OediPOTUS is? I have news that he should really hear first.

C: Oh, come on. What else has gone wrong.

SB: I never said this to you, but Kerry Kennedy has died.

C: I see. This is bad news, but maybe it will get his mind off of that evil Hanah woman and her accusations.

Enter OediPOTUS

OediPOTUS Wrecks: Cthulia, you sent for me?

C: There is news.

OW: Who is this man, and why is he standing oddly, as if there was something in his shoe?

C: Sandy Hamburger has lost some weight lately, so maybe you fail to recognize him. He stands like that out of the longstanding habit of keeping reading material in his footwear. But that's not important right now. He is just come from Martha's Vineyard. Your father has died.

OW: This is horrible news. What happened, Sandy?

SH: He signed up for POTUScare. The Death Panel decided that his usefulness to society was expended, and some deadbeat should receive treatment instead. We tried to argue with him against the patriotic folly of signing up for POTUScare, but, well, you know how stubborn he could be about the need for Progress at all cost. Including, we see, his life.

OW: Well, that whacky Oedipus Rex prophecy is disproven, as I haven't seen the old duffer since I won the election.

C: See?

OW: Well, Olga von Kleindrubble Kennedy, my mother, is still alive. A partial fulfillment would be horrible on several levels.

SH: Olga? What's the worry, modulo the fact that she's beyond botox? She may have carried you to term, but she's not your mother.

OW: Run that by me again?

SH: Look, she survived ovarian cancer before she married Kerry Kennedy. She was medically incapable of producing a child.

OW: This gets weirder by the moment. So if she is not my biological mother, is Kerry Kennedy my father? Do I have any clue as to my heritage? Do I even have time to deal with this whole mystery of where I came from and who killed Williams, and why the economy is tanked? This situation is completely wee-weed up.

SH: All I can tell you is that you should rely on the judgment of Ramen and Cthulia.

C: Why don't you keep your mind focused on the economy. We can have a combination Roots and Ellery Queen episode later.

OW: Right. Ramen is still on my poo-pooh list. But I have to know, or it will eat at me: where did I come from?

SH: You could ask your old family doctor, from back in the day before POTUScare. Coincidentally, he was my doctor, too, so I have him on speed dial.

Pulls out cell phone, makes a call. Brief exchange, nods.

He'll be on a flight here in two hours, and can explain everything.

C: Listen to me. Why are you wasting time on this? How do events of forty years ago have the slightest bearing on the current problems? Do you think that this doddering old fool doctor has records of what went on? You should drop this irrelevant inquiry right now.

OW: Cthulia, you're not my mother! I will not listen to you, do you hear? The truth must be made known. You know as well as I do that the economy is still going to be tanked in months out. I can't unwind in one year the mistakes that Sphinxor made over eight. The fact that I can have success in pursuing the answer to a small, yet important question like 'How did I get here?' is crucial to me holding on to sanity right now. This question represents the bottom of this current quagmire. We get through this, and the slope is totally positive on the other side. The question is a millstone around my neck: I have to deal with it.

C: You absolutely miserable fool! You're so stupid as to defy description. I've had all I can stand of this crap!

Cthulia runs off

OW: Bring on the crap. I have to know this. I'm an American citizen, born the usual way. Even if my mother was a hamster and my father smelled of elderberries, I'd need to track down this answer. That's just the way it…is.

Tomorrow, 28 August 09, 12:01 EST: OediPOTUS Wrecks: Finale.

Copyright 2009, Christopher L. Smith

VIDEO: Glenn Beck exposes White House 'Green Jobs Czar' Van Jones

Van Jones featured in the (Oakland, Calif.) East Bay Express, Nov. 2, 2005:

Convinced that American society needed a wake-up call on race, Jones abandoned his plan to become a journalist, concluding that he would rather make news than report it. "If I'd been in another country, I probably would have joined some underground guerrilla sect," he said. "But as it was, I went on to an Ivy League law school."
He arrived at Yale Law School wearing combat boots and carrying a Black Panther bookbag, an angry black separatist among a sea of clean-cut students dreaming of Supreme Court clerkships. "I wasn't ready for Yale, and they weren't ready for me," Jones said. . . .
In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia.

Oh, yeah, and wait until you hear about the "diversity czar" at the Federal Communications Commission, Mark Lloyd, and Lloyd's "battle plan" to shut down conservative broadcasting.

Sarah Palin is backing Beck against the boycotters who are trying to drive him off the air.

'Tap' + 'Amber' = linkage

If you want me to link a post titled "100 Ways You Can Tap Into More of Your Brain," it helps that the post is e-mailed to me by someone named "Amber."

The article tells you how you can be "more creative, insightful, sensitive and productive" and offers handy advice like:

Take care of your teeth: Gingivits and poor oral health can contribute to cognitive decline.

My teeth are grody. However, I know how to spell "gingivitis." But it was sent to me by someone named "Amber," so I linked it anyway. Does that make me a sleazy, amoral scumbag? Or have I just spotted a "Microtrend"?

Right-wing kooks spread 'misinformation' that Newsweek's Sharon Begley is ugly

Newsweek's incredibly attractive science editor, Sharon Begley, says that " some of the loudest opposition" to ObamaCare "is the result of confirmatory bias, cognitive dissonance, and other examples of mental processes that have gone off the rails":

Obama's opponents also need to find evidence that their reading of him back in November was correct. They therefore seize on "confirmation" that he wants to, for instance, redistribute the wealth, as in his "spread the wealth around" remark to Joe the Plumber -- finding such confirmation in the claims that health-care reform will do just that, redistributing health care from those who have it now to the 46 million currently uninsured. Similarly, they seize on anything that confirms the "socialist" label that got pinned on Obama during the campaign, or the pro-abortion label -- anything to comfort themselves that they made the right choice last November.

Well, there you have it, folks: It's science, and only crazy people argue with science.

Borderline schizophrenic Jeff Poor of the Media Research Center accuses the stunning Sharon Begley of having an "elitist persona." Obviously, Jeff is suffering from cognitive dissonance, and this derogatory comment is an effort to comfort himself for the feelings of inferiority caused by his recognition that he'll never be worthy of a sexually magnetic woman like Sharon Begley.

Another pathetic example of "mental processes that have gone off the rails"? Ace of Spades, whose pathological obsession with the irresistibly alluring Sharon Begley leads him to "seize on confirmation" that she's hot for him:

• Sharon Begley, May 2007: Bush is mentally ill, suffering from delusions due to deep denial.
• Sharon Begley, June 2007: Democrats lose elections because they target the rational side of the brain, while Republicans target the irrational side.
• Sharon Begley, October 2007: Those who deny global warming are kooks and cranks like those nuts who deny the moon landing.

All of which is clear scientific evidence that Ace of Spades suffers from dangerous erotic compulsions toward Sharon Begley. But then again, don't we all?

Remember, denial is part of the problem. If you think President Obama's modest health-care reform agenda is "socialized medicine" or if -- like Ace -- you refuse to acknowledge your overpowering attraction to Sharon Begley, you have already begun losing touch with reality and should seek professional treatment immediately.

Understatement of the day year century

"I'd say Stacy seems to be taking Teddy's death rather well."
-- Bob Belvedere, Camp of the Saints

Hey, did anybody ever notice that Mark Penn is a sleazy, amoral scumbag?

And that he is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal?

Mark Penn, the strategist who dashed Hillary Clinton's presidential hopes, is the Wall Street Journal's "Microtrend"-spotting columnist. He's also CEO of PR giant Burson-Marsteller. Only a scumbag would abuse the former to drum up business for the latter. . . .
Mark Penn's latest . . . column is about "glamping" -- glamorous camping. It ran last weekend. By Monday, according to an internal email obtained by Gawker, Burson was already trying to recruit companies from the industry featured in the column as clients. . . .

You know, it's amazing know a sleazy, amoral scumbag -- a political operative who has never worked as an actual journalist -- can nevertheless get himself a newspaper column.

It's also amazing how the newspaper business -- the industry in which I worked for 22 years -- is now circling the toilet bowl.

Randomly occurring phenomena . . . or "Microtrends"?

Bill O'Reilly is an obnoxious douchebag

"Talking Points Commentary," Aug. 26, 2008, with my notes in italic:

• Early this morning Ted Kennedy died from brain cancer, leaving behind a 46-year-record legacy in the U.S. Senate.

Also leaving behind a 28-year-old civil rights activist in an Oldsmobile he drove off a bridge while drunk.

• Unfortunately, there have been some vicious postings on the Internet about Senator Kennedy and they are disgraceful.

I think this is a reference to this "Talking Points Commentary" about Kennedy being "posted on the Internet." "Vicious" and "disgraceful"? Couldn't have said it better myself!

• If you're a religious person, you know that personal judgments should be made by God alone.

Unless you post negative things about Ted Kennedy, in which case God has deputized Bill O'Reilly to condemn you as "vicious" and "disgraceful." Moral Consistency [TM] is a registered trademark of Bill O'Reilly LLC; patent pending; all rights reserved.

• All of us are flawed and none of us have the right to demean a public servant who has just died. . . .

Saddam Hussein should have tried that "public servant" defense before they hanged him. Obviously, the Bill O'Reilly Principle here is that, once somebody becomes a "public servant," this negates whatever First Amendment rights you might otherwise have.

• There is no question that the Chappaquiddick incident where a young woman drowned in his car haunted Kennedy throughout his life.

Classic use of passive-voice construction to obscure Kennedy's active agency in the euphemistically described "incident." Also, as noted previously, she didn't drown, she asphyxiated. But you, Bill the Bozo, wouldn't know anything about the facts of this case, because your "talking points" were prepared by your underpaid 26-year-old staffers while you were playing racquetball at the health club. "Vicious" and "disgraceful."

• Kennedy was responsible for some excellent legislation . . .

When you've got the kind of wealth and privilege that can turn an open-and-shut case of vehicular manslaughter into a misdemeanor "leaving the scene of an accident" charge, it's a piece of cake to get yourself elected and re-elected to the Senate for 46 years, during which time, yeah, you might be "responsible for some . . . legislation." Anyone who's willing to accept Bill the Bozo's judgment as to what constitutes "excellent legislation" should avoid becoming involved in politics, or even voting, and for that matter, you probably shouldn't operate heavy machinery, either.

• Talking Points believes the Senator was well-intentioned in public policy . . .

Also "well-intentioned": Robert Mugabe, Timothy McVeigh, Pol Pot, Charles Manson . . .

• Like him or not, he was a patriot . . .

Who conspired with the Soviets to undermine Ronald Reagan's policies during the Cold War.

• . . . who was well thought of by many conservatives.

Name one. You can't. There aren't any.

Because you, Bill the Bozo, are not a conservative. You are an obnoxious douchebag and we understand that you are bound by the Douchbag Honor Code, which requires douchebags like yourself to say nice things about fellow douchebags when they die.

So if you, Bill the Bozo, get run over by a bus tomorrow, this means that Geraldo Rivera will be obliged to denounce me as "vicious" and "disgraceful" when I write "postings on the Internet" reminding people what an obnoxious douchebag you were.

On the other hand, if Geraldo Rivera gets hit by a bus tomorrow, this means that when the Grim Reaper comes for you, Bill, there may not be a douchebag sufficiently obnoxious to defend you.

Cage Matches We'd Like to See

by Smitty (h/t Dodgeblogium)

Don't miss Daniel Hannan on health care with Reason.TV.
I'm thinking a cage match between DH and Howard "comparative effectiveness" Dean would be quite interesting. My wife says (and I paraphrase) that CE is sort of like Procrustes meets your pharmacist. As long as your body chemistry is kosher with whatever usually works for the condition, you're OK. Because it's all fair and they saved us from the awful capitalism, and stuff.

Also, it looks like he's got a one year program to un-bake England. May fortune favor the man.

Remember, the DoD and VA are success stories

by Smitty (hat tip Paco)

Paco graciously links my missive to my Congressman.

He further links Director Blue enumerating a few government successes on the back side of the success/fail coin.

Ross at DB says:

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that "services" you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?

What you'll hear from, say, Jim Moran is that the DoD and VA count as government successes.

As a Constitution fetishist, I'll point out that unlike much of the Progressive oeuvre, the DoD has clear Constitutional roots. You can jump off the literalist cliff and say that the Air Force is un-Constitutional. Ho-hum.

A more interesting question is whether you think that DoD health care is any good. My experience is, yes. As a squid on a ship, I started having trouble sleeping, winding up fetal on my left side. As you might expect, next we pulled into port, I was admitted to Balboa and gave birth to my only offspring thus far, a diseased appendix. I will not say how many liberals voted for it when I ran it for Congress in California, not wishing to embarrass our left coast readership.

Would you like to know some major reasons while DoD (not VA) health care is successful? Here are a few factors:

• Rigorous screening prior to joining. You can argue that the DoD health care doesn't deny service based upon pre-existing conditions, and that is absolutely true. If you didn't pass the physical, you never joined in the first place.
• They can order you to maintain fitness standards. The bar isn't too high, and it's certainly a Good Idea to stay in shape, but it will force you to do something, unless you are one of those Stacy McCain built-like-a-toothpick types. (Grr)
• They can order you to exercise. Not as big a threat for squids, but if you're on shore, and the CO has a feeling that everyone is falling in for a team building evolution at 0600, then guess where you'll be at 0600?
• Being a service member is a privilege, and they can punt you for any number of reasons. If you're medically discharged or retire, then you move on to the VA. I can tell you that my father has to drive many hours to make use of his benefits, and he's something of a grumpy old man about it. But that's anecdotal.

Summary: the DoD/VA combination are not bad, but an overtly authoritarian system like the military is going to seem...odd to many civilians. Then again, we seem to see much oddness these days.

Crank up them funky Socialized hits

by Smitty

Say you're a bazillion-copy-selling band with decades of top-notch material. Stacy McCain trashes you for insufficiently bluesy content, but never mind that.

What if, instead of having the freedom to buy your own instruments and record what's on your soul, you get handed a pre-fab system with cheap pseudo instruments and no capacity for expression.

For example, Rush, attempting to do a Rock Band version of Tom Sawyer:

As they sang on 2112, "Just think about the average, what use have they for you?" Indeed. When the Procrustean bargain of Socialism, in the name of unholy Fairness, forces all of society to regress to the mean, you'll be saying: why wasn't I doing more to prevent this crap?

I hope you watched Beck tonight. While Glenn's style is frequently over the top, his substance is spot on. Last night's town hall with Jim Moran recalled a worship service at a denomination I shall not name, (as it wouldn't be tasteful) but at which the average individuality was, let us say, substantially diminished. Will Jim Moran expend any effort to halt the FCC's diversity czar? If his apparatchik performance last night was an indicator, the answer is NO, with an optional expletive prefix.

Faux drums and fake guitars are the like the cheap substitutes for liberty proffered by those who'd like to own you, dearest reader.

"He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was 'a special pile of human excrement'?

Frankly, I never thought of the fat drunken lecherous senior senator from Massachusetts either as "special" or particularly "human," but . . .

Andrew Breitbart Unleashes
A Torrent Of Invective
Against Sen. Ted Kennedy's
Legacy On Twitter
Early this morning, news broke that Sen. Ted Kennedy had passed away after serving in the U.S. Senate for nearly 50 years. Soon after, conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart began a sustained assault on Kennedy's memory, tweeting "Rest in Chappaquiddick."
Over the course of the next three hours, Breitbart unapologetically attacked Kennedy, calling him a "villain," "a big ass motherf@#$er," a "duplicitous bastard" and a "prick." "I'll shut my mouth for Carter. That's just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement," wrote Breitbart in one tweet.

(Note to self: Carefully study Breitbart's "Torrent Of Invective" Twitter technique. Emulate. Practice. Improve. If you can't out-invective Breitbart, go back to Mary Jo Kopechne riffs.)

Kopechne Day: A Solemn Tribute

"Mary Jo Kopechne wasn't a scion of one of American's wealthiest families; she was just a girl from an average, middle class family, whose idealism led her to Birmingham, Alabama, during the Civil Rights era . . . We'll never know, of course, what direction her life would have taken . . ."

UPDATE: Unfortunately, today's tributes to this courageous woman are in danger of being overlooked because some people are engaging in partisan politics:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office sent an email to reporters at around 2:30 a.m. today, just hours after his death, calling for the passage of health care overhaul. “Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” the statement read.

(H/T: A Courageous Woman Who Believes in Racial Equality.)

UPDATE II: Time to acknowledge some of the many bloggers who have joined today's commemoration of Mary Jo Kopechne's life:

• Skepticrats
• The Daley Gator
• Daily Pundit
• No Sheeples Here
• Carolyn Tackett's Closet
• Jules Crittenden
• Bit's Blog
• The Western Experience
• A Conservative Shemale
• Gold Plated Witch on Wheels
• The Sundries Shack
• At the Point of a Gun
• Wyblog
• Reaganite Republican
• Underground Conservative
• Once Upon a Krischel
• Ed Driscoll
• Kuru Lounge

If you have posted a Mary Jo Kopechne tribute that I haven't linked, please link this post in your tribute post, and e-mail the URL to me. I'll try to update later.

UPDATE III: Obi's Sister tries very hard to conjure up sympathy for Ted Kennedy. Well, it's the thought that counts.

UPDATE IV: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Please be sure to visit The Sundries Shack, whose memorial to Mary Jo Kopechne inspired this post.

You may be surprised to learn that such remembrances are "an orchestrated movement" by "ghoulishly insensitive right-wingers." Which means that liberals consider it "sensitive" to forget Miss Kopechne and "ghoulish" to remember she died in an Oldsmobile that a drunk drove off a bridge. Well, I never understood liberal logic, but I do understand two things:

• Bill O'Reilly is an obnoxious douchebag; and
• Liberals are exploiting this occasion to try to push through legislation that would do for the American health care system what Senator Kennedy did for Mary Jo Kopechne.

Readers ask me, "Gee, Stacy, what can we do?" You can give generously to The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund.

(ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund is neither non-profit, charitable nor tax-exempt. So far as anyone can determine, all proceeds go to help pay the bills of Robert Stacy McCain, his wife and six children who, as luck would have it, are among the umpteen kazillion uninsured Americans that liberals keep whining about. However, because Mr. McCain's children are neither illegal immigrants nor Democrats, liberals don't give a damn about them. Any resemblance between The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund and a so-called "tip jar" PayPal account is probably coincidental. IYKWIMAITYD. Contributions to The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund are not tax deductible, although it's possible you might get a little kickback by way of a free beer if you should ever catch me in a bar with cash in my pocket. And good luck with that. GIVE NOW -- it's for the children!

Liberals exploit opportunity, rename it, 'Mary Jo Kopechne Health Care Bill'

No sooner had the "fat drunk who killed Mary Jo Kopechne" reached room temperature than Ted Kennedy's only rival for senatorial shamelessness, Kleagle Robert Byrd, sprang into action:

Byrd said he hoped healthcare reform legislation in the Senate would be renamed in memoriam of Kennedy.
"I had hoped and prayed that this day would never come," Byrd said in a statement. "My heart and soul weeps at the lost of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend, Ted Kennedy."
Byrd's wistful statement focused on the work accomplished with Kennedy during decades together in the Senate, and called on the healthcare bill before Congress to be renamed in honor of Kennedy.
"In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every white Gentile American . . ."

(Hat tips: Memeorandum, Gateway Pundit.) BTW, we've had problems with the editing process here lately, and that last quote might be slightly garbled.

However, there are no garbles in the ongoing stream of tributes to the late Mary Jo Kopechne who, today, is receiving the fitting obituary remembrance she was denied 40 years ago. It's enough to touch the heart of Ann Coulter.

UPDATE: Thanks to Bob Belvedere for this image:

We do hereby declare and proclaim August 26, 2009, to be MARY JO KOPECHNE MEMORIAL DAY

UPDATE II: Because so many have been inspired by this tribute to Miss Kopechne -- as well as by my farewell remembrance of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's foreign-policy legacy -- some readers have asked the question, "But Stacy, what can we do?" And therefore, I urge you to give generously to The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund.

(ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund is neither non-profit, charitable nor tax-exempt. So far as anyone can determine, all proceeds go to help pay the bills of Robert Stacy McCain, his wife and six children who, as luck would have it, are among the umpteen kazillion uninsured Americans that liberals keep whining about. However, because Mr. McCain's children are neither illegal immigrants nor Democrats, liberals don't give a damn about them. Any resemblance between The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund and a so-called "tip jar" PayPal account is probably coincidental. IYKWIMAITYD. Contributions to The McCain-Kennedy Kopechne Memorial Health Care Fund are not tax deductible, although it's possible you might get a little kickback by way of a free beer if you should ever catch me in a bar with cash in my pocket. And good luck with that. GIVE NOW -- it's for the children!)

OediPOTUS Wrecks: Scene II

by Smitty

(Start here) Character List
Synopsis:

1. In the Prologue, a Rose Garden press conference announces a connection between the tanked economy to a monstrous evil pertaining to the death of the 42nd POTUS.
2. Scene I brings in a prophetess with a palindromic name and a chip on her shoulder. Verbal sparring ensues, ending in an accusation.
3. Scene II has Ramen the Chief of Staff trying to clear himself as a suspect. The question of the death of the 42nd POTUS looms. His widow, Cthulia, the Secretary of State under OediPOTUS, arrives to try to defuse the situation.
   

Still in the Rose Garden

RLC: My job is to support and defend the President, in spite of these heavy accusations. And that's what I intend to do, even if I'm getting hit with some fragments while on the job.

MO: Everyone was getting just a little bit spun up. That lady sure knows how to push peoples' buttons. I'm not sure I've ever seen the President that distracted.

RLC: The implication that I had put those words in her mouth stung a bit.

MO: Again, I wouldn't take it too seriously. She provoked him.

RLC: Are you sure? Was it clear that he wasn't fully deliberate when he said that?

MO: I'd rather avoid speculation, but here is OediPOTUS himself.

Enter OediPOTUS

OW: Ramen: you're back. Are you so stupid that you don't think I've got your number, or so brazen that you think you've got mine? It's obvious that, since no one would vote for you in the election, you simply discredit me, and have Vice President Folderol nominate you as his VP, then arrange for his impeachment, and become President yourself. Who said Fordism is dead?

RLC: Am I allowed to speak at any point?

OW: You can confess everything.

RLC: I would appreciate the privilege. I confess that I have no idea what crimes I have committed, save completely honorable loyalty and devoted service.

OW: Sending for Hanah was your idea, no?

RLC: Absolutely, and I wouldn't hesitate to restate the suggestion.

OW: Fair enough. Now, when exactly did Jefferson Williams--

RLC: Williams? What's he got to do with Hanah?

OW: How long, exactly, since Williams perished?

RLC: Nine years, seven months, plus or minus a week.

OW: And Hanah, was she representing some Alaskan hell-hole in Congress at the time?

RLC: Sure. Quite a bridge-builder, she was.

OW: Did her bridge building reach me?

RLC: No, you were still cruising on the Chicago radar scope at the time, way below the national picture.

OW: Right. Now, Sphinxor's inquiry into the death of Williams: was my name anywhere in the report, even in a draft?

RLC: Well, no. I've only looked at the final version, but your name would have stuck out, were it included.

OW: So, is it reasonable to assert that, if Hanah had evidence on me in the case at the time, and said nothing, then the guilt is all on her?

RLC: I'm not sure. That would depend on the nature of the evidence.

OW: Well, if she didn't get that evidence from someone conspiring against me, say, you, I don't know how she'd have formed the accusation that I killed Williams.

RLC: If she said that, then she must have somehow gleaned it from you. But let me cross-examine you.

OW: Fair enough. I'm no killer.

RLC: First, then: you're the President?

OW: I won.

RLC: And I work for you?

OW: For certain conspiratorial values of 'work'.

RLC: Let me walk you through my thinking. First, look at how much you've aged in a year. Have I told you how much I enjoy my mattress? As your Chief of Staff, I enjoy the substantial benefit of your aura, without so much of the stress.

When I call on your behalf, to carry out your policy, I get results, but I'm not a slave to policy, getting my face ripped off by the conservative blogs on a daily basis. Monthly, perhaps. However, right where I am is just fine by me: helping you get the credit, while substantially dodging the blame. Prior to this day, the arrangement had seemed a good one.

But let us re-open the investigation. If you find me in any way guilty of doing anything other than the best job possible, including bringing in cranky old Hanah for advice, or even conspiring with her to do something unspeakable, then fire me.

However, don't debase leadership capital through questionable accusations. Seek facts.

MO: Very well said, Ramen. Judgments too quickly formed are dangerous.

OW: Oh, really? That speech was more than a play-action fake? Something meant to distract, while other actions occur off-stage, so that you can spring a trap on a man who spends too much time thinking and talking, and not enough time taking action?

RLC: Hey, if you're interested in a resignation letter, I can make that happen.

OW: No, I want your duplicity laid bare, so that the entire, suffering country is clear as to the source of my problems and theirs.

RLC: So you're insisting on clinging to accusation, at the expense of investigation?

OW: Why should I even listen to you?

RLC: It looks like you picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

OW: You are evil incarnate!

RLC: Maybe, just maybe, you've misjudged the entire situation.

OW: Yet, I'm the President, and I have to press on.

RLC: Not if you've already run your ship aground.

OW: Oh, the poor country.

RLC: It's my country, too, Mr. President.

MO: Gentlemen, the Secretary of State has come from Foggy Bottom. Possibly she can employ a bit of diplomacy, and diffuse the situation.

Enter Cthulia

C: What is all the noise about? The country is falling apart and metaphorically burning, and you two trade riffs on the fiddles. Ramen, if you'll excuse us, I need to discuss some policy with the President. Let's set aside the trivia, please.

RLC: Trivia? I'm close to being fired for sedition here.

OW: Seriously, Cthulia: he's plotting against me.

RLC: I'd take the death penalty if that was true.

C: Give it a rest, Mr. President.

MO: Seriously!

OW: OK, then what should I do?

C: Take Ramen at his word.

OW: Oh, fine then, and let me be kicked out. Wherever Ramen goes, hatred will follow him.

RLC: Thanks for nothing. Your personality is your punishment.

OW: You can resign, you know.

RLC: Considering it. My reputation is intact with everyone but you.

MO: Madame Secretary, didn't you request a meeting with the President?

C: Yes, but first, just what is all of the racket about?

MO: There has been a series of accusations this afternoon between Hanah, Ramen, and OediPOTUS, but no follow-up yet.

C: Specifically?

MO: We'd be better off to let it go, and consider the economy. Everyone is frazzled.

C: Hm. OediPOTUS, blasting Ramen and Hanah helps how, exactly?

OW: Ramen and Hanah plot against me.

C: Oh, really?

OW: Yes. Ramen accuses me of murdering your husband.

C: Husband? Oh, yes: him. Yes, I had successfully put away the…pain. I should thank you--I mean, uh, we should be thankful that we have a legal system that requires evidence in these cases. Has Ramen got any?

OW: No, he just brought in Hanah to drop accusations.

C: Oh, well, she doesn't have anything that could stand up in court. Did you know that, when Jeffy and I were newlywed, he was a Rhodes Scholar, and we were in England?

OW: Something about bad air over there, and he couldn't inhale freely?

C: Right. I was young, and wanted to get the children out of the way, but, well, Jeffy had some problems with sperm count. He simply wasn't the man you are, wink-wink. So we had to use a fertility clinic. I was impregnated, and we went to Devon on a weekend. Some distant cousin of his was in the cast of Oedipus Rex at a theater called the Oracle.

The tragedy was on us, though. The fetus was imperfect, and did not survive. Oedipus means "swollen foot", you know, and the shepherd was supposed to tie up the infant's feet prior to exposing the child.

Now, Jeffy could have been running around on me even then, and sired the terrorists who killed him, I suppose. But I doubt it. Things hadn't soured between us, as far as I knew, until we made it back to Louisiana.

At any rate, unless you were running around in the Middle East somewhere in your youth, I don't see how you're tied Jeffy's…sad demise in any way.

OW: I just had a weird tingling sensation run up my leg. The Oracle at Devon…

C: Yes?

OW: After I finished up at Harvard, I went on a highly educational vacation to Europe for a few months.

C: Is that where you learned that one thing you do with--

OW: Don't distract me, you. While wandering England, I happened through Devon and also caught Oedipus Rex at the Oracle at Devon. A strangely compelling production.

C: Hm. Well, that's fine trivia, but it isn't helping either the domestic or the international situation. Maybe we need another offsite in Aspen, just you and me, to…focus.

OW: No, we need to get to the bottom of this here and now. What was Jefferson Williams like? They always paint the portrait early in the administration, before the real grind sets in.

C: About your height, graying at the temples, certainly exhausted by eight years in the job that should have rightfully been mine, you naughty little campaigner. Why don't we have the FBI send over an agent familiar with the case for a debrief?

OW: Yes, please do. The economy, the death of Williams. It all seems so weighty, but disconnected. I may need to see a shrink.

C: You can confide in me, too..

OW: You're right. I feel like I'm about to explode. My parents were Kerry and Olga Kennedy. I grew up in Newport, Rhode Island…sailing…swimming. I was partying at Harvard, naked, of course, when a tipsy fellow announced to all present that I'm not a natural Kennedy. Talk about shrinkage.

So I asked mum and da about it when next I visited the Martha's Vineyard compound. They became very defensive, and called my classmate a scurrilous, foolish, drunken idiot. He didn't seem that drunk at the time, but I mostly forgot about the whole thing.

Then, I saw Oedipus Rex, and realized I needed to make sure that I never saw Kerry or Olga again. And I stayed away from home for a couple of years. But that was stupid, so, when they were hosting a fundraiser for you and Williams after Pettifogger lost the election to Sphinxor in 2000, I decided it was time to man up and go see them again.

Unfortunately, and this is the weird part, I never made the party. I woke up in Newport, Rhode Island, with no recollection of the week leading up to that party, or why I'd not been in attendance.

Now, I'd been the one driving in the head-on collision that killed Williams, and been thrown in the water, I could have swum to Rhode Island. I was into distance swimming at the time.

The good thing is that Kerry Kennedy was not in that car. Otherwise, in a spooky way, I'd have been carrying out Oedipus Rex. To think that I was the source of the manslaughter. Heh. That's nearly as twisted as the economic situation.

MO: Well, there is still the file to review. And maybe some DNA comparisons would be a good idea.

OW: True. Also, there is the matter of the report of Williams dying as part of a terrorist attack, not some prosaic car crash. That overshadows any spooky aspects of my memory.

C: That's absolutely true. Let's not fret more about these premonitions until we've studied the facts.

Exit

(Scene III)

Copyright 2009, Christopher L. Smith