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March 7, 2008 - February 29, 2008

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

PSAYINGS.5A.35. Obviously, this could be a weekly feature, but it's more fun to hold it in reserve for special occasions. Like now.

You marines may get upset, but as all of you would probably admit -- at least over drinks -- there are marines who are bullies and self-centered pricks. That's evidently the case with Senator James Webb of Virginia. His public tantrum about wanting to punch the President for inquiring about Webb junior's welfare in Iraq was an alarm signal. So was his haughty and needlessly bellicose interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. He also suffers from the unfortunate facial anomaly that at rest, his mouth defaults to a sullen sneer. I won't mention the Nixonian eyes. All this admittedly sketchy evidence made me suspect that he might be wrapped too tight and not quite as admirable in person as his resume would indicate.

Now we know. He's a crumb. Not for carrying loaded weapons around, but for throwing a faithful friend overboard in his hour of need. The gun Webb has not yet officially admitted he owns landed longtime aide and fellow vet Philip Thompson in a DC jail overnight. Where was the former marine officer with loads of DC clout to show up at the police station, roust a judge out of bed for a bail hearing, and get his buddy back home where he belonged? Not there. At the very moment his friend was being arraigned on felony charges in court the next day, Webb was giving a guarded, self-serving press conference at the Capitol building.

I don't need to know any more about James Webb than that.

There's less to say about Chuck Hagel. He just conspired with the congessional Democrats in their desperately urgent attempt to lose the war in Iraq before the President, Petraeus, and the U.S. military can bring off the unexpected disaster of victory. I've noted previously that Republicans are stupid, but this Hagel character has to be the stupidest of all. He actually thinks he has a shot at the Republican presidential nomination. Let me repeat that. He actually thinks he has a shot at the Republican presidential nomination. Right. After single-handedly torpedoing his President's most crucial war-time policy stance -- not giving the enemy a U.S. surrender date -- he shouldn't be able to win the senate primary in his own state, and he certainly won't budge the needle off zero in any Republican presidential primary.

He's a stone loser, in every sense of the term, and if Nebraska Republicans had any character they'd mount an immediate petition drive for a recall election. They won't do it, of course, but if Hagel reads his email today, I expect he'll still get the drift.

Check that. He's too damn dumb to get anything ever.

Enough said.

CALLING ALL COMPUTER JOCKS. At the end of February, I proposed a challenge to the more skilled searchers of the Internet to measure the difference between the use of cursewords in blogs by lefties and righties. I offered criteria -- Carlin's seven dirty words -- I believed amenable to search engines.  Those who remember or review my original challenge will be aware that the catalyst was not cursewords per se, but the flood of lefty blog posts and comments wishing a swift and painful death on Vice President Cheney after his last health crisis. (There was a precedent case for this: the lefty response to Laura Ingraham's cancer.) I didn't think at the time that this sort of human indecency could be measured on the Internet, so I proposed a substitute in the belief that extreme rhetoric in a tangible, measurable area might also inform us about the incidence of extreme rhetoric in intangible areas such as the response to a political opponent's ill health. The response to that challenge was quick and overwhelming:. the left is quantitatively more foul-mouthed than the right.

Since then, I've observed that some perseverant lefties continue seeking ways of chipping away at the findings of those who answered my challenge. I haven't kept the links (sorry!) but enough additional searches have been performed by now for the purpose of defending the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, et al, that I must conclude they were bothered by the initial findings. Still, all they've managed to date is to build dubious arguments for reducing the ratio by which lefty cussing exceeds righty cussing, not for reversing the balance.

In recent days, a lot of new evidence has become available on the original prompt for my curiosity. The Elizabeth Edwards announcement. The Tony Snow announcement. And less known but even more sadly, the fact of conservative blogger Cathy Seipp's death from cancer. Not as dire but just as disturbing has been the experience of an apparently nonpolitical blogger named Kathy Sierra, who is now living in fear because of death threats over the Internet. (I remember but won't reference the equally scary instance of Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein with an Internet stalker who threatened his children because of Goldstein's conservative views.)

My challenge to the technically superior in these matters is to find some means of assessing the left vs. right responses to the past month's news about Elizabeth Edwards, Tony Snow, Cathy Seipp, and Kathy Sierra.

Here are some links and info to jump-start your research:


The lefties who criticized the first challenge tried first to disprove the quantitative findings. Then they fell back on the argument that there's nothing wrong with using foul language in the pursuit of passionate political convictions. What would they fall back on if the obvious fact can be proved -- that they, in all their enlightened tolerance, wish death and suffering upon their opponents far more than heartless conservatives ever do?

Are you curious? Then find a way to prove it, dammit.

UPDATE. Yet again, thanks to the incomparable Wuzzadem for the link. Even if you have nothing to contribute to this challenge, you have to go see what Mr. and Mrs. Wuzzadem are up to right now, including their entries on the pet food problem and Chuck Hagel, plus the solid-gold discovery of a conservative voice so brilliant that it recalls the history-making speech Ronald Reagan made on behalf of the Goldwater presidential campaign. In fact, Evan Sayet is so astonishingly on-target that we'll devote a post strictly to him when we've assembled the necessary, relevant links to our own past meditations on the state of the contemporary liberal mind. It's possible we'll be nominating Mr. Sayet to run for President. He's that good.

Here's our honest assessment. If you had to choose between InstaPunk and the blog of Mr. and Mrs. Wuzzadem, in all good conscience we'd have to tell you to pick Wuzzadem. They rule.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

FREEDOM! LaShawn Barber is a highly intelligent and perceptive lady of great religious faith, and ordinarily I find much plain-spoken wisdom in her commentaries. Today, though, I found myself instinctively recoiling from this little vision of paradise she posted at her blog:


Before I even got to the level of philosophical objections to this -- and there are a few -- my first, instantaneous reaction was: "B-o-o-o-o-ring! I'd go mad in such a place."

My next impression was visual, an unfair one perhaps, but one inspired by what seems her desire for uniformity, agreement, and utter acceptance. I see empty, smiling, well scrubbed faces at her grocery store and DMV and movie theaters, a kind of Stepford community of the "Bible-believing," with nary a hint of rowdy Irish Catholics (or Catholics of any variety for that matter), poets who are failed priests struggling with tides of faith and doubt, or scholars who dig through layers of ancient languages, layers of silt and stone, and layers of evolving scientific theory to reconcile faith with our continually expanding universe.

Yes, we all have dreams of escape, but this depiction of a gated community is especially alarming. It's as far as can be from a vision of real peace and serenity, which can withstand much mere human turmoil if they are nourished by the real treasures of creation -- the songbirds, trees, flowers, and streams of the land and its seasons, including the transcendent wheel of the stars and their galaxies above. The one is an infinite source of beauty and unfolding meaning. The other is a drab and sterile hiding place, a prison of stasis.

LaShawn's post sounds like the old plaint, "Stop the world. I want to get off." And perhaps that's so. It's all that turning and turning of things that created the protestant fundamentalists in the first place. They have always wanted the text of the Bible to stop moving around, to become a million word version of the original stone commandments. They want the ideas of man to stop complexifying into dangerous opposites of their origins, thus creating endless new categories of sin. They want the universe itself to return to the immanence of Genesis, with no uncomfortable infusions from the Hubble telescope, Darwin's perceptions of change, or Einstein's bastard spawn of quantum physics. They have even wanted to amputate the 1500 years of Christian history between Christ and the protestant fixers who would finally paralyze the whole mess inside a concrete totem of Jesus himself, cut loose from Judaism, historical ambiguity, and even the generations of non-persons who assembled their infallible, unquestionable [American English] Bible book by book.

Here, courtesy of Boortz(!), is the physical universe that corresponds to LaShawn Barber's gated community. It's modestly titled "The Earth Is Not Moving." Like her vision, this is a closed world that's small, well contained, black and white, and wearing the fixed smile of the unthinking cultist.

I'd like to suggest that it's not just the secularized and corrupted Christian traditionalists who have to find their way back to the basis of their faith if our nation is to survive the test of fanatical Islamic jihad. It's also the arrogant, overly certain exclusionists of the fundamentalist denominations who have to rediscover the infinite variety and vitality of a faith they seem determined to reduce to a lifeless fossil.

Maybe that's not what LaShawn means by her post. But it sure sounds that way to me. And I dare say I've been a "Christian" longer than she has. But if I ever passed through those gates of hers, it would be kicking like a mule and screaming bloody murder. I like to imagine heaven as a bit more colorful and exciting.

How about you?

UPDATE.  It's even worse than I thought. LaShawn has now posted the following "addendum:"

My post wasn't "contrary-just-for-the-sake-of-being-contrary." It was a response to the red flag she's raised about herself. Her addendum adds fuel to the fire. She actually believes what I feared -- that her gated community is heaven itself, the place she will spend eternity after God is finished working "through (her) to reach the lost."

She's not just in retreat. She's in full flight. What an impoverished existence she is likely to lead from here on if she doesn't pull her mind and soul out of this "Praise Jesus" coma. Sad. Very sad. Chances are, very very few of the "lost" are going to see any appeal in her vision of heaven. Not many people want to join a hideously strict club nobody interesting is allowed into. The members probably won't have any difficulty getting great tee times at the golf course, though. Small consolation, you say? Exactly what she's offering from the sound of it.

Friday, March 23, 2007

IF. Two small data points prompted me to write this entry. First, on the evening of Al Gore's Global Warming testimony before Congress, Brit Hume told his show's panel, "Nobody disputes that global warming is occurring and that there's some human contribution to it." He went on to say that the controversy was over how serious the situation really is and whether anything can be done about it that's worth the cost. Second, courtesy of Glenn Reynolds, I found an Ann Althouse "liveblog" entry recording her reactions to her first viewing of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. Here are a few brief excerpts:


Both Brit Hume's assertion and Ann Althouse's post are disturbing. If Brit had done his homework, he would know that there are serious scientists who dispute that global warming is occurring at all (a distinct minority, these days, to be sure) and more importantly, serious scientists who don't believe human beings are contributing to any warming that is occurring. (For example, if carbon dioxide levels rise in response to rising temperature levels rather than vice versa, as Gore claims, human CO2 output is irrelevant.) I suppose Brit doesn't much care about these disputes because he sees Global Warming primarily as a political issue, in which the policy mandate claimed by the environmentalists involves an indefensible strategy -- seriously sabotaging the world economy with measures that admittedly can't have much of an impact.

Ann Althouse is even more casual about the underlying science than Brit. How long has this topic been kicking around in the public domain? Twenty years? And with fairly high visibility for at least ten years. Yet, she feels no compunction about conceding, rather airily, that she has "no basis to test Gore's assertions."

Both Hume and Althouse are solid, meticulous professionals, regardless of how you view their political positions. (Hume is clearly a conservative, and Althouse admits in her post that she voted for Gore.) On the one hand, it's understandable that intelligent professionals have the humility to acknowledge they aren't expert in all things. On the other hand, their obvious remoteness from the actual science that's at issue directly contributes to the atmosphere of popular ignorance in which important political decisions are being made. If highly educated and politically involved figures like Hume and Althouse can't or won't understand the specifics of the scientific questions, then why should the average citizen even try?

Last week, I posted links to a movie that seeks to refute Global Warming alarmists generally and Al Gore's movie specifically. One of the reviews I encountered before posting the link was (alas, I can't find it again) from a political conservative who said it was interesting and persuasive, though perhaps overdone with respect to the sun's role in temperature changes on earth?! His or her personal take was that humans do most likely still play a role in temperature, but that there's significant question about how much difference we can make.

This kind of response represents one of the biggest dangers of the Hume-Althouse laissez-faire approach. If we all come to accept that the political aspect of the question is the only one that's accessible to us, we will likely come to believe that the right answer about its truth or untruth is also political -- that is, some kind of flabby compromise between the most extreme positions. That's how you get a lay reviewer who feels justified in combining two directly opposing theories, picking and choosing the elements of both that seem "reasonable" to an ignorant observer.

That's not how science works. Somewhere amidst all the theories and mathematical models and thousands of conflicting statistical citations and studies and methodologies, there is a correct answer. Just how near to or far away from that answer we really are is something individual non-scientists can learn. It's important to know at least that much because there's an enormous inertia already built up toward reckless actions that will injure developed economies and perhaps fatally wound undeveloped economies. These kinds of policies will affect all of us, even those who blissfully contend they have no responsibility because they lack the relevant academic degrees.

Even those who believe the most devoutly in the catatrophic consequences of Global Warming have a responsibility to move beyond the position, "It's so critical and so far advanced that it's riskier to do nothing than to try everything we can think of." Why? Because there's a Catch-22 out there waiting for them if they are right. If human beings do exert a massive influence on climate because of our behaviors, then the more we attempt to change climate, the greater risk we incur from the law of unintended consequences. What subtle but vitally important unknown variables might we affect disastrously by acting in too much haste? Don't we have real-world experience of environmental catastrophes created by the best of intentions? There was a time when scientists thought it was a good idea to import species from other continents to correct an ecological imbalance of some kind. Killer bees, anybody?

I'm arguing that we all have a responsibility to go beyond head counts of how many scientists from which institutions are on which side and perform a political calculation about who's right. Further, I suggest that it is possible to learn enough about the central scientific issues to determine whether scientists have accomplished enough for us to believe what the most vocal advocates are telling us.

For some people a good first step is viewing the Gore movie and the movie I linked to last week. But there are also those who (rightly) suspect that all forms of film production are subject to emotional manipulation, visual tricks, and artful (or cynical) omissions. Some people also respond better to the written word, and there are books on both sides of the argument to be found at Amazon.com and other booksellers.

Still others -- perhaps blog readers in particular? -- prefer to make the acquaintance of a topic by kibbitzing on a debate conducted by people other than politicians. For them I have a recommendation that may be helpful. One of the books that tackles both the scientific and political issues is The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. I'm not steering you directly to the book, which is obviously arguing against the alarmist viewpoint. I'm directing you to the customer reviews of the book, which are numerous (over a hundred), often rational and concise, and most significantly, commented upon by other reviewers and advocates for various viewpoints. The result: a lively back and forth that may test your own talent for objective logic.

It's true that many of the book's critics are shrill, ad-hominem, and obviously writing without having read the book. But if you keep digging, you will eventually find calm and fact-filled reviews on both sides, which may collectively give you enough of a feel for the issues that you can go on to do your own research. You'll find thumbnail descriptions of publications on both sides that you may want to read, depending on your own interests, and you'll find references to specific facts at issue which you can pursue further through scientific journals. Best of all, you'll find that it is possible for a layman to follow and understand discussions about science and even find them interesting.

I'm not trying to trash Hume and Althouse and others who have been keeping a respectful distance from the scientific battleground. But I do want to offer a whispered tut-tut. You and they are better than that.

UM. After the Edwards press conference yesterday, I expected both sides of the aisle to offer best wishes for Mrs. Edwards and some mixed reviews for Edwards himself. I did NOT expect that his own part of the decision would draw no criticism at all and attract more praise than trepidation. I'd prefer to remain silent myself, because I wish both of them well in this private matter between them. But somebody has to say it. John Edwards's conduct in this matter is highly questionable precisely because he has made an intensely private and personal matter a public affair with extremely public potential consequences.

The reason there's "No Image Available" for this post is that nobody can imagine just how ugly this situation could get. I'm going to be allusive rather than vivid here, since I don't like to be discussing this at all, so activate your mind's eye. Network television cameras where nobody wants them, except they will be there. An official party nominee in the final stages of an election campaign who suddenly resigns (or doesn't), putting his party and nation into a miserable quandary. A distracting siege in the White House itself, with few willing to voice the extremity of a leadership crisis at a critically inopportune time. Yes, these are all eventualities that could happen to any first family, but the probabilities here are, well, different.

Worse, and perhaps even uglier, a husband who simply cannot be there to hold hands during all the routine checkups (scary), tests (scarier), treatments (scary and painful), good news (joy), not so good news (terrifying), and, well, enough of that. Yeah, I know, a strong woman may be determined not to seem to need this kind of support, but there's also a certain kind of husband who knows when to overrule even the strongest woman and make it clear he's going to be a sticking plaster to share the ordeals, protect her privacy from prying eyes, and be with her because he doesn't want to be anywhere else.

Dean Barnett wrote a beautiful, empathetic, and oh-so-subtly doubtful essay about the decision the Edwards have made. He knows whereof he speaks, but his point of view is inevitably tilted toward the perspective of Elizabeth Edwards, whose courage and present mindset he undoubtedly understands better than I do. My only disagreement with him has to do with John Edwards's role in this decision, which -- given the national affairs issues involved -- merits at least some thoughtful, and skeptical, questioning rather than unbridled praise.

I'll say what no one else will. This gives me greater doubts than I had before about John Edwards as a man and a candidate. I'm sorry if this sounds inappropriate, but the truth is it is appropriate because it's not just his business anymore. He made it my business about 24 hours ago.

And now it's your business too. Remember that.

REDUXITUDE. We've had multiple previous reasons for calling out Neal Boortz for his boor(tz)ishness. Yesterday, no doubt, he thought he was just being wickedly provocative and generating a flood of amusing phone call-ins with this little gem:


This is the kind of remark he employs to generate a tide of illiterate email condemnations, which enable him to ridicule the ignorance, irrationality, and spelling idiosyncracies of his most illiterate listeners. When he reprints negative emails, he never includes any that employ logic or decent grammar. In other words, his native mode is to act like a bully. Which is precisely the mentality he is revealing here without being aware of it.

I know what his argument would be. Cats are never going to understand that he's insulted them, and so the invective he receives from cat fanciers is automatically irrelevant and laughable.

He's full of it. He hasn't the wit or consciousness to envision the innumerable (other) Boors in pickup trucks and Lincoln Towncars who go out of their way to run over cats on the roadways. There is some vestige of crude adolescent macho, of which he himself is an example, that thinks it manly to despise, deride, and mistreat cats. It's just a joke. Even when the result is a beloved family pet lying on the road with every bone in its body crushed. Ha ha. At present, there are viral videos celebrating the torture and death of cats orchestrated by teenage boys who are simply younger versions of Boortz himself. What the Big Boor hasn't bothered to think about is the example he sets for crackers younger than himself for good or ill. If he thinks killing cats is funny... or if he thinks killing cats is, maybe, not funny... A huge talk radio audience does bring with it some responsibility beyond hawking your own books and inciting furious commentary.

If you care about cats, email this post to Boortz. He'll never print it or respond to it. But let him know that some of us have his number. A joke like this is harmful, whether he deigns to acknowledge it or not. If he hears it enough, though, he may forgo such jokes in the future. If he's more than a superannuated teenage thug. That's the best we can hope for.

Unless it turns out that there really is a Jaguar God such as the Mayans had. Wouldn't that be interesting?

POSTSCRIPT. Speaking of Mayans.... and lunatic adolescent adults... what was Mel Gibson drinking thinking the other night? Could he possibly be so naive as to believe that Mayan descendants aren't as post-modern as other descendants of primitive cultures? Sure, the Mayans were a bloody and bloodthirsty gang of killers. So were their south-of-the-border colleagues the Incas and Aztecs. And their north-of-the-border cousins the (newly) sainted American Indians. And every other empire in history ruled by a  royal bloodline and vassal "nobles" or priests. You're just not allowed to say it anymore. It hurts their precious feelings. And when one of their politically correct victimologists stands up to denounce you for mentioning it, you have no right whatsoever to tell her to "F*** off!"

Sheesh. How dumb can you get in this day and age? Go to jail, Mel. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go and do not collect $200. Your whole image makeover has to start again at square one. Maybe if you announced you were going into rehab...?

POSTSCRIPT 2. Izzie is pissed.


Nobody with half a brain wants that. But who can speak for Boortz? Well, who cares?

UPDATE 3/27/07. A couple of great laughs from Boortz today. Suddenly, for some reason, he's trying to take credit for his humane feelings about animals. Turns out he can't stand to watch big animals preying on little animals on the new documentary Planet Earth. The camera's too close to the action perhaps? Maybe if predation could be accomplished more remotely -- by poison or off-road tires -- he'd feel different. What a self-important, superficial bozo.

EXTRA CREDIT for InstaPunk readers who can spot the howler at the end of this typically learned Boortzian paragraph about reparations:


Don't think so, Neal.

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