Category: News

Also from the same Steinberg column discussed below:

How the Republicans could have imagined there would be any upside in questioning John Kerry’s Vietnam record is a mystery. Doesn’t it all boil down to this: Kerry went to war and President Bush didn’t? Frankly, if Kerry had responded to combat by flinging away his gun and hiding in tears under a tarp on his swift boat, it wouldn’t erase the overarching fact that he put himself in harm’s way for his country, while Bush hid behind the privilege that was to eventually deposit him, blinking and amazed, into the White House.

Not unless you’re purposefully trying to oversimplify the matter.

Oh, I guess that’s what he’s trying to do by removing the context of each’s service.

In his latest column, Steinberg muses:

Why is Barack Obama an African American?

He presents himself that way, based on his father being a Kenyan immigrant. But his mother was a white woman from Kansas. Why couldn’t he just as easily decide he is a white man? Why does the black half trump the white half?

The answer has nothing to do with appearances, or affirmative action, or cultural pride, nothing to do with exotic Africa proving a more appealing back story than the bland wheat fields of Kansas. It doesn’t have anything to do with Obama specifically — anyone with a black parent and a white parent is thought of as black. Why is that?

The answer is: because of our unconscious reflection of 19th century racist attitudes, where one drop of “corrupting” blood — be it black or Jewish or whatever — is enough to put you into a certain racial camp. Obama’s great-grandfather could be black, and that would be enough to make him black. It is indeed the logic of plantation owners, accepted unthinkingly by a society that would otherwise reject it. A form of reasoning, I might add, all-too-gladly taken up by some activists, eager to pump their numbers and prestige. Thus Obama — and Halle Berry, and Tiger Woods and anyone else of mixed parentage — doesn’t get a say in how their heritage is viewed. The choice is already made for them.

Mind you, I’m not blaming Obama. He didn’t invent this. But I do think it is worth noting that we are using a very old scorecard when it comes to race, and as our society moves into the blended, multiethnic mix it is certain to become, we’re eventually going to have to come up with something new, and finally set aside the whole idea of “blood,” the biblical notion of viewing people through the prism of their parents and their parents’ parents, and instead see them for who they actually are. Finally judging them not, as Dr. King said, by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

He helpfully muddies African-American, which would denote origin, with black, which descibes skin color and is sometimes associated with origin, race, or ethnic heritage.

Blackness is more meaningless than any hyphenation which ends in -American because the second at least indicates that the noun modified by the adjective had the good taste to join those of us born here.

So, to recap: Is Barack Obama black? Look at him. Is he African-American? Second generation, so only by heritage. Is he a good man? Seems okay in character, but somewhat wrong on his philosophy.

AFP, which stands for “Agents of France Posse”, reports Blair refuses to accept US award, by which they mean the Congressional Medal of Honor:

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair is refusing to fly to the US to receive a medal bestowed on him by the nation for his support over last year’s Iraq war, a London newspaper reported today.

US President George W. Bush has put huge pressure on his closest ally to pick up the Congressional Medal of Honour in person, the Sunday Mirror said, quoting a senior British government source.

Well, that senior source can (how would a silver-tongued sub-Continental bureacrats understand it?) SMEG OFF. Tony Blair cannot recieve a Congressional Medal of Honor. Period. Source this to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, whose word I would trust over some government functionary leaking to the French any day:

The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress, it is often called the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The only way he could get it would be if he really were a bona fide US operative. Is that what they’re “admitting” here?

Reader Cagey sends in this example of so-called on CNN: Bush adviser quits after appearing in swift boat ad:

As a so-called 527 group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is barred from coordinating efforts with an election campaign.

Unfortunately, the authors of this enlightened piece do not actually misuse so-called correctly. Matthew Hoye or Phil Hirshkorn (Hi, fellows! I know you’re going to Google yourselves sometime!) uses so-called as a synonym for what is known as or also known as, which shortcuts the true power of the idiotm.

No, fellows, to properly use so-called to denigrate the noun it modifies, to diminish and sneer with journalistic “sophistication” by using this term, you should have written:

As a 527 group, Swift Boat so-called Veterans for so-called Truth is barred from coordinating efforts with a so-called election campaign.

Behold the true power!

Another alleged “professional” writer deploys the bane of my existence. Eleanor Clift, writing in Newsweek, uses “so-called” to disparage something:

The fact that Kerry attributed the breakdown in military discipline to the policymakers in Washington is lost on these men, who take Kerry’s words personally. This is not about Kerry’s performance in Vietnam; it’s what he said when he came home. Kerry has never made extravagant claims about his heroism in Vietnam. He never said his wounds were serious, and he never said he didn’t want to get out of Vietnam. After three wounds, under military rules, he was entitled to ship out, which he did after a combat tour of four months and 12 days. Nothing these so-called Veterans for Truth have come up with contradicts what Kerry has said, but that’s not the point.

Come on, Eleanor; so-called makes your prose sound more juvenile than your content does. It’s “talk to the hand” or “whatever”; if you say so-called past age 23, your development has arrested.

(Link seen on Outside the Beltway, where James Joyner thoroughly fisks Clift’s column.)

Here’s the beginning of a story on CNN.com entitled Missing Arkansas girl found dead:

The body of a 7-year-old girl missing since Sunday was found Thursday night in a northeastern Arkansas field not far from where her shoes and pink bicycle had been recovered days earlier.

The family’s pastor, the Rev. Stephen Chitman, said police searching among corn and soybean fields found the body of Patricia Ann Miles, who disappeared Sunday morning after riding her bike to a grocery store. Television footage showed family members wailing after officers told them about her death.

Can anyone here tell me why the journalist who wrote this piece saw fit to include a detail about television coverage of this story, particularly an invasive convention widely deplored?

Just what do they teach in journalism schools these days?

Walter Olson at Overlawyered speculates on upcoming litigation after Hurricane Charley.

This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a pool!

Lawsuit	1 month	2-3 months	4-6 months	7-12 months	13-24 months	Over 2 years
Sue Vietnam over continued attacks from Charley.
Sue Alabama, Georgia for not allowing Florida penninsula to retract northward to safer location.
Sue Catholic Church for God’s wrath impacting the innocent as well as the guilty.
Sue Chinese entomologists for not controlling their butterflies.			Brian J.
Sue President Bush, Governor Bush for allowing Illuminati to perpetrate this disaster.
Sue Chicago; the Windy City and its jealousy are behind this somehow.
Sue landscapers for putting those dangerous trees in places where they can fall, split, break, or otherwise endanger people or property.		Brian J.
Sue automakers, except for Hummer, for not making vehicles heavy enough.
Sue utility companies for piping/transmitting dangerous gases/electricity through residential neighborhoods.

$5.00 gets you a square. Pick the lawsuit and timeframe in which you think it will be filed.

I hate it when rich capitalist developers aren’t too proud to beg for tax money:

Schnuck Markets Inc. plans to close its only store in East St. Louis, but the company has extended the store’s life for another 30 days while a developer tries to buy the building and negotiate a more favorable lease that would allow the store to remain open.

Clayton developer Jim Koman has the property at 25th and State streets under contract, but wants financial assistance from East St. Louis and the state of Illinois before closing on the property, which is held in a trust with a Belleville bank.

“If we don’t get some kind of support, it will be difficult for us to make this transition,” said Koman, the president of Koman Properties. And, he added: “We don’t have an agreement with Schnucks.”

So the only thing he’s guaranteeing is that he’ll take the tax dollars.

It’s not even begging, it’s extortion, and deals like this give capitalism its slightly darker tint. Unfortunately, city and state officials enable this stupidity when they spend the people’s money to ensure that developers with their own millions in liquid cash don’t have to risk anything to turn a profit.

Germany appeals to United Nations:

Make the Americans occupiers stay in our country.

President Kerry: Our Allies Need Our Troops to Support Humanitarian Missions

Our Military Spending Props Up Important Progressive States

Germany Blindsides France With Another Invasion

Seeks to Cure Unemployment with Military Adventure, Hostile Domestic to Occupation by American Imperialists

Make your own. Here’s the starter kit: Germans Wary of U.S. Troop Withdrawal
.

Steve Chapman comes out in favor of eliminating the electoral college. Because, I think he argues, it doesn’t empower individual states. And:

Another claim is that this system upholds federalism and decentralization. In fact, no state government would find itself weaker without the Electoral College, because it confers no meaningful authority on state governments.

Nor does it protect small states, which are granted proportionally more votes than large ones. Residents of Delaware and Idaho have no discernible common interests merely because they happen to live in small states. New York and Texas are both big states but, trust me, they don’t feel a deep and special bond because of that. Americans vote on the basis of ideology, religion, race, economic concerns and the personal appeal of the candidates, not on some hazy “state” interest.

Most small states, in fact, get zero attention. During the 2000 general election campaign, says Edwards, only six of the 17 smallest states were visited by either presidential candidate. Many bigger ones (like Illinois) also got shortchanged–and are getting similar treatment this year.

Why? Because of the Electoral College. John Kerry will get millions of votes in Texas, but none of its electoral votes. No matter what Kerry does in California, he’s almost guaranteed its electoral votes. Neither he nor President Bush has any incentive to waste much time in those places. They focus instead on the few states where the outcome is in doubt. Under a direct election, by contrast, candidates would go where the votes are–giving most Americans actual exposure to the campaign.

The electoral college preserves federalism, and although it doesn’t give any small state a lot of power, it does ensure that presidential candidates pay attention to regions comprised of small states. Make no mistake about it, if the candidates only had to pander to the interests of the populous coastal states and not to the Midwest, the plains, and much of the South, they would not–and our government would tip further to a rule by the coastal elite, who don’t care if gas taxes go to ten dollars a gallon because they live in small states where if they trip in Maryland, they bang their heads in Delaware, or who think eliminating all guns is noble because they won’t be called upon to reason with a bobcat or a bear.

But Steve Chapman lives in Chicago, which would be the lone visit between coasts for candidates, and I guess he wants his exposure to them.

Police want you to pay for their wire taps:

Canada’s police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals.

Swell. So once again, the phone companies get a new surcharge to charge everyone to pay for something that only a few will use. And police want to make it so.

(Link seen on /..)

From CNN:

Oprah Winfrey was expected to make an appearance at the Cook County Criminal Court — for jury duty.

A spokeswoman for the talk-show host confirmed Friday that Winfrey would report Monday.

She won’t get picked for a jury, but it’s good to see she’s doing her civic duty when she could have easily gotten off.

Instapundit’s keeping track of nutbars blogging in the path of a hurricane.

Nutbars!

Listen, boys and girls, I read Condominium, and I have effectively, pre-emptively evacuated myself to the middle of the country for the duration of every hurricane season and, just in case, all of the other seasons as well.

Oh, sure, you more worldly types laugh, but I still remember the fear of a seven-year-old young man in 1979 who knew just enough geography and just little enough meteorology to fear Hurricane David. Don’t worry, his supportive mother said, hurricanes only occur on the ocean. But I had enough imagination to suspect hurricanes could come up the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi River like a steamer, and then across the state of Wisconsin to imperil me in Milwaukee.

Sure, some of you laugh at the notion, and my therapist tells me that I, too, will someday find humor in it.

But not yet.

So if you or I lip off to a TSA official at the airport, we’re going to prison for a couple years for some handy felony or another.

So these two men show up in full “I Am A Terrorist” regalia at a charter helicopter hangar in the St. Louis suburbs in Illinois:

Arlene Thomas grew suspicious when two men with out-of-state drivers licenses and a large wad of cash came into her Sauget helicopter hangar Wednesday morning and said they wanted to see St. Louis landmarks from the sky.

The men, whom Thomas described to police as of “Middle Eastern descent,” were carrying a duffel bag and a backpack and drove up in a rental car with Texas license plates.

The signs pointed to terrorism – that’s exactly the impression the two men, an NBC News producer and cameraman, were trying to create.

They’re met with a warm greeting:

Thomas called police, who searched the bags and the men and found a butane lighter, box cutter, two knives, duct tape, a powdery substance and a bottle filled with a clear liquid. The men also had maps of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and St. Louis with major landmarks highlighted in yellow.

But because they’re news people, they’re special:

Four hours later, the NBC employees were released without charges but with the wrath of airport director Bob McDaniel.

“I’m absolutely outraged that NBC News is out here trying to create news rather than report news,” McDaniel said after meeting with members of the Transportation Security Administration. “This clearly scared the hell out of a lot of folks and wasted a lot of valuable resources, tying up emergency forces, and all of it was entirely unnecessary.”

NBC defends its actions:

NBC defended its actions in an e-mail statement to the Post-Dispatch, saying that the employees did nothing wrong in determining the security measures at helicopter charter services.

“Nothing they did or carried was illegal,” said NBC spokesman Allison Gollust. “In Illinois, the system worked and … our reporting will include this part of the story, evidence that civilians like those in Illinois are making attempts to keep the skies safe.”

Spare us the sanctimony, hey? You’re pissing in the pool of resources and are diminishing the vigilence of the population by making them wonder, hey, is that a terrorist, or just a national news media exposé on how small town hicks profile men who look middle eastern and who are doing perfectly legal, but suspicious, things while carrying perfectly legal, but suspicious, things.

And in your own way terrifying people for your own gain. What does that make you again?

From the New York Times: Red-Footed Falcon Debuts in Western Hemisphere:

So Mr. Laux, an ornithologist who has led birding trips all over the world, recruited island friends with telescopes and digital cameras to send images of the bird to Jeremiah Trimble, an expert birder and curatorial assistant at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. When Mr. Trimble arrived at his office on Tuesday, he looked at the photos, consulted his reference materials and left immediately for Martha’s Vineyard. Mr. Laux had spotted a red-footed falcon – Falco vespertinus – the first reported in the Western Hemisphere. And now birders from all over are arriving to see it.

Undoubtedly, this single bird will eat all the tasty small rodents and will mate with the local falcons to spawn a new race of super falcons with European accents. We cannot allow this to happen. We must kill it now, and we can grill it later!

Unless it eats snakehead fish, in which case we should bring a dozen over from its native habitat so it can eat all the tasty snakehead fish and mate with local falcons to spawn a new race of snakehead-eating super falcons.

Man, I am glad I am a Republican, because being environmentally sensitive is confusing and tiring. One snakehead fish is bad, because making the local ecosystem more diverse with token representatives of outside species can ruin the delicate balance of a natural system which has survived for aeons, but a single red-headed stepchild falcon is a tourist attraction, good for the local economy.

As the partially-educated like to quote, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Here’s the teaser for Bill McClellan’s latest column in the St. Louis Post-Distpatch: After 30 years, he’s faced with life on the outside. So I started to read it.

Here’s the heart-rending:

“I’m about ready to give up,” he told me Tuesday afternoon, and I thought for a moment that he was going to cry. I asked if he were happy to be out of prison, and he shook his head.

His story was front-page stuff 30 years ago. He was 36 years old, and by all accounts, a simple man. He had a seventh-grade education. He had never been in trouble.

Man, that does sound like a rough bit. He’s been in prison for a long time, and a lot of the world undoubtedly must seem strange to someone who flashed forward three particularly changing decades. I sympathized with him. Hey, armed robbery, drug dealing, maybe a repeat offense for burglary, and suddenly you’re in a time warp.

Except this guy:

In November 1973, his wife left him and took their young son. Epps went to the police and filed a missing person report. He said he thought his wife’s family knew where she was. A patrolman drove him to his in-laws’ house, but they said they had not seen her. The patrolman took Epps back to the station, but he returned to the house and shot and killed his wife’s mother and her grandparents.

End of sympathy, and shame on you, McClellan, for presenting him as a tragic figure. Yes, I see he’s only had a seventh grade education and thus missed the Don’t Kill Your Inlaws unit in eighth grade social studies, but I am not sparing any of my compassion on him.

Couldn’t you have written about another little man who needed defending from the iniquities of the real world, McClellan?

Rush Limbaugh’s going off on Steve Chapman’s column in the Chicago Tribune today, wherein Chapman goes off on Kerry’s new hawkishness.

Limbaugh offers this column as a sign of the left’s solidarity fraying. Limbaugh calls Chapman a liberal. Perhaps his imagination cannot fathom an isolationalist libertarian.

Poor form, Rush. Read a little more, and don’t oversimplify it for your radio audience. We’re not as dumb as you think we look.

So authorities investigate a burglary in Georgia and bust the homeowner and his son for having an AT-4 anti-tank missile and some other things that they apparently picked up hiking (illegally, of course) on the ranges at Fort Stewart. They’ve even been arrested on the base before. But the best part of the story is the charges levied against the pair:

The charges included illegally possessing automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as harassing an endangered gopher tortoise with a Rottweiler, said Steve Hart, spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield.

Apparently, the pair had not parked illegally while conducting their expeditions onto the gunnery range.

Will Smith explains to a Frankfurt (Germany) newspaper:

When asked if 9/11 had changed anything for him personally, Smith answered:

“No. Absolutely not. When you grow up black in America you have a completely different view of the world than white Americans. We blacks live with a constant feeling of unease. And whether you are wounded in an attack by a racist cop or in a terrorist attack, I’m sorry, it makes no difference.”

I’m not going to write off Will Smith movies because he’s an enjoyable actor, and although Hindrocket from Powerline doesn’t remember, he started out as an amusing rapper.

I don’t think I’ll look to him for political insight, though. Or judgment, really, for joining the cavalcade of stars who make their politics known in Europe but wouldn’t poke their American audiences in the eye directly.