Category: News

We’ve all seen this video:

A lot of people are glomping on how unprepared the MSNBC hostess is to walk into that bit of a gaffe. Yeah, she’s unprepared and looks dumb.

However, more telling to her mindset is that she asks the question to dismiss the opinion of the member of Congress’s opinion; however, when the Congressman answers in such a fashion that his does have the credential to have a valid opinion, she dismisses that, too.

So asking for a credential is only important in so far that it can exclude others. If the other has the proper credential, that, too, is unimportant; the other must be excluded some other way.

(Video seen most recently on Boots and Sabers, but I think I saw it first on Ace of Spades HQ.)

The only reason we ever hear about Coral Gables, Florida, is when they decide (again) to enforce their pick-up truck ban.

2011:

Starting this month, the city of Coral Gables will issue warning notices to owners of pickup trucks who do not park their trucks inside their garages at night.

Since the 1960s, the city has banned people from parking their pickup trucks in their driveways or on city streets from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Flashback to 2003 and one of my first blog posts:

In Coral Gables, Florida, you cannot park your pick-up truck on the street or in your driveway between 7 pm and 7 am lest you be mistaken for someone who actually has to work for a living. The city enacted the law in the 1970s to preserve its sense of uniquely fake Mediterranean decorum, to keep property values and tax assessments suitably elevated, or simply to thrash property rights whereever it can, and most of Coral Gables was fine with it until recently.

The pick-up owners have rebelled. Now that pick-ups have evolved from utilitarian cargo haulers to 250 XXL Buses-With-Lidless-Trunks-For-Beds, the pick-up owners think their trucks are no different than SUVs, so the SUVs should be banned from driveways and streets at night. And the powers that fill the city’s coffers with ticket revenue agreed. Dadgum, SUVs are trucks!

History repeats itself, but on a shorter time cycle than Nietzsche imagined.

(Link seen on Dustbury.)

The New York Times uncorked this fact, which I’ve seen repeated elsewhere:

No American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.

Well, okay. But how many presidents have we since?

13. One of whom has yet to run for re-election.

So the 12 who have include:

• Harry Truman
• Dwight Eisenhower
• John F. Kennedy
• Lyndon Johnson
• Richard M. Nixon
• Gerald Ford
• Jimmy Carter
• Ronald Reagan
• George H.W. Bush
• Bill Clinton
• George W. Bush

Of those, one died in office, so he could not run for re-election (John F. Kennedy for those of you who went to public school and are not a baby boomer).

Here are the election results and the unemployment rate in November of the re-election year:

	Year as Incumbent	Unemployment
Harry Truman	1948	3.8
Dwight Eisenhower	1956	4.3
Lyndon Johnson	1964	4.8
	1968	3.4	Withdrew
Richard M. Nixon	1972	5.3
Gerald Ford	1976	7.8
Jimmy Carter	1980	7.5
Ronald Reagan	1984	7.2
George H.W. Bush	1992	7.4
Bill Clinton	1996	5.4
George W. Bush	2004	5.4

I’ve added LBJ in 1968 since he was sort of eligible to run again but he withdrew before the primaries, so maybe he would count as not winning a second full term in office (although he did win a second term, his first full term, in 1964).

So, who did not win reelection? Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush. That’s three, and it is assured that the unemployment was over 7.2% on election day for those fellows, although in Bush’s case it was coming down. Of course, this statistic does not account for the 1992 candidacy of Ross Perot, who ran on a ticket of more fiscal conservatism than “Read My Lips” Bush.

Why the cutoff at “topped 7.2 percent”? Because in 1984, Ronald Reagan won reelection with that very figure.

By focusing strictly on the unemployment, the New York Times and its repeaters do disservice to other factors, including the mood in the country.

So this factoid is more of a “Huh.” kind of thing rather than something we should accept as a scientific truth.

After kicking in the door in the middle of the night and shooting a veteran 60 times, the police justify execution of a search warrant, the spokesman for the police explains the guy had a picture of a drug figure of some sort:

Mike Storie, a lawyer for the SWAT team, said at a press conference Thursday that weapons and body armor were found in the home as well as a photo of Jesus Malverde, who Storie called a “patron saint drug runner,” according to KGUN.

Lord, love a duck. I have a stack of Wall Street Journals two feet deep (I’m a little behind). I’ve got photos of drug runners, inside traders, international terrorists, and contemporary athletes. What kind of nefarious man am I?

It’s sad that a law enforcement official had to trot that out. Seriously, a “patron saint”? Are we supposed to imagine a shrine with an altar and some candles burning here?

Jeez.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

Dry run?

Minor delays on BART trains in Oakland Friday morning were apparently caused by an unruly passenger talking loudly about weapons of mass destruction, a passenger said on the microblogging website Twitter.

The police activity started at about 9:15 a.m. and was causing delays of about 10 minutes for trains headed into San Francisco, a BART dispatcher said.

Around the same time, someone named Michelle King posted on Twitter, “on the train to sf; Of the many crazy people, there’s one right now clapping loudly and talking about WOMD,” a reference to weapons of mass destruction.

Devious scenario:

Step 1: Get them to shut down the trains.
Step 2: Passengers back up in the train stations, leading to a very crowded venue.
Step 3: Poofit.

I hope the government has some fiction writers gaming this stuff out instead of keeping them all occupied in the White House information office.

(Link seen Edstapundit.)

The President is to speak. Well, he was to speak at 9:30 CDT, but I’m waiting.

The word is he’s going to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden. Say what you will.

President John McCain would have eaten Bin Laden’s heart on the live feed. I can’t wait to see what Obama says.

10:04: How triumphant will it be if Osama Bin Laden died of old age?

10:07: If Osama Bin Laden died of old age, wouldn’t you, as a Taliban, throw a couple grenades on him and drag the smoking wreckage to the Americans to claim the reward?

10:08: Yeah, I’m facile and cynical, but personally, I like my thoughts better than Geraldo on Fox going, “Uh, uh, uh, the son of a bitch (I am tough! I curse on Cable TV!) is dead!” and the guys on CNN going, “This, after 8 years of failure and 2 years of earnestly leading from behind resulting in resolution (not triumph or victory, we’re above that!”

10:12: I planned to spend the last hour reading. Now, I’m listening to a Washington Post photographer talking on C-SPAN about taking pictures. The President’s delay is elevating me.

10:14: Remember when President Bush interrupted our nights to say he had Saddam Hussein? Frankly, I caught it on the morning news after a Christmas party, and President Bush spoke on Sunday morning about it. We didn’t get the “Here’s a big announcement on Sunday night. Hold the wire!” thing.

Makes me wonder what news Monday will bring about other things.

10:18: Fortunately, the adrenaline has worn off in the 49 minutes since the President was supposed to speak, and the speculation has gone from (personally) uh-oh to the Osama Bin Laden, yesterday’s villain, has been captured. Now, I hope I can stay awake until the President speaks. Once he starts, though, all bets are off.

10:22: I sent the link to this liveblog to Instapundit. Considering that I am timing out writing to the database when I try to update this post for my own echochamber, I daresay it will all fall down if I get an Instalanche.

Sorry, Trog, but Danica’s sponsor does me wrong sometimes.

10:27: Just checked in on Fox News. Geraldo is still asking the only sober Fox person qualified for live broadcast to ask him what he thinks the president should say.

Me, I think he will say, “Let me be clear: On one hand, there are some people who say that my predecessor failed. Some people say it was impossible. I have done it.”

10:29: Did the President mean 10:30 CST because so many swing states are in the Midwest?

10:31: Maybe we should have put Petraeus in charge of the CIA years ago. The man, and his reputation, get things done.

10:33: In the past, when I live-blogged, I had a second computer (a Macintosh) running live feeds so I could post and keep up. In the second decade of the 21st century, I’m playing Civilization IV in another window and am going to paste it to the Dutch in just a second here. I’ll be kinda upset when the president drops in to take credit for the efforts of 10 years of American military men.

10:34: Maybe it’s just that the President doesn’t have to go to work in the morning.

10:35: When I was a boy, this was time to watch Dr. Who.

10:36: Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida? Kinda like claiming that the Tea Party is astro-turf, hey?

10:36: The White House feed is offset, so he’s not looking at the camera. Like Michelle Bachmamn’s response to a previous speech. Wonder if it will make SNL.

10:38: Well, he thanks the military. Good.

10:39: HE DID IT! He made Leon Panetta do it. But he did it.

10:40: President Obama is more butch than President Clinton, who pulled back at the last minute. Rock on! Maybe he should launch airstrikes against the leader of a foreign country under the auspices of the … and wait a minute….

10:41: It’s a good speech. I hope it doesn’t essentially throw Pakistan under the bus.

10:43: I wish this guy was president.

10:44: Except for the laundry list of things that we can put our minds to, as long as they’re as easy as killing one man.

Recap: Well, that was a very good speech. If George W. Bush had said it, I would have believed he meant all of it.

However, if “unity” means “we celebrate together the military accomplishments of this nation but submit to the programs of Washington that I dictate,” I’m still going to pass. There was a day when the Federal government did sort of hew to that protect us from foreign enemies abroad but let us drill for oil on our land and hope to strike it rich and let us take whatever means we think is necessary to provide for our own health, but those days have passed in the last two years.

Crikey, couldn’t he have called a press conference for tomorrow?

I’m afraid for a Monday morning document dump now.

A couple dry springs and a couple wet springs like this one will produce an average rainfall that no year actually meets, which will be further proof that Washington, New York, or the Hague needs to control more of your life to support a statistical abstraction.

Exchange incandescent bulbs for CFL bulbs April 16:

The Partnership for Sustainability is partnering with Harry Cooper Supply to offer a one-to-one compact fluorescent light bulb exchange on Saturday, April 16.

Families can bring up to five incandescent bulbs to trade for up to five CFL bulbs. Fifteen-watt CFLs are equivalent to 60-watt light bulbs, but use 75 percent less energy and last five times longer.

Except, of course, I’ll run it the other way.

I just replaced a dead 100-watt incandescent bulb in the floor lamp that provides illumination for my reading station with a 60-watt bulb in to prepare for the new Pelosi Dim Age, and I don’t mind telling you, it sucks. Since it’s a floor lamp, it’s what the greens might think of as a Confined Mercury Release Program, where the poor, innocent Hg raped from the bosom of Mother Gaia (don’t ask about the inconsistent metaphor. Consistency, the greens maintain, is a hobgoblin of little minds) is returned to the earth from which it sprung when someone or somecat knocks over the floor lamp containing a fluorescent bulb. So I’ll have to keep it stocked with incandescents as long as I can of diminishing yield until I am forced to read by candelight.

Man, I need incandescence. Even if I have to barter for it in the post-Obamalyptic world of 2014.

Apparently, some New York public employees have misplaced some public property:

Officials have closed the Reptile House at New York’s Bronx Zoo after a poisonous Egyptian cobra disappeared from an enclosure that’s separate from the animal exhibits.

If they don’t find the cobra in the pocket of a dead man lying just outside the gates, you know what they need to do as well as I do: Open the honey badger cages. And get somewhere safe.

(Warning: salty language in the video below.)

You know what? If DARPA is not developing cybernetic assault honey badgers and is wasting its time on driverless tanks, it is doing the nation and national security a great disservice.

(Link seen on Ace’s sidebar.)

I’ve read an article on CNN.com about how Japanese residents are beginning to voluntarily absent from Tokyo, the largest city in Japan. The Tokyo metropolitan area is about 30,000,000 citizens, roughly one in four of Japan’s. I mention this because that rather blows my mind. Imagine if one in four Americans lived in New York City. That’s crazy dense.

But the article got me to thinking: What would a Japanese diaspora look like? Imagine that the nuclear problems that result from the earthquake/tsunami are worse than the authorities know or as bad as the most fevered anti-nuclear-power activist can nightmare up (some speculation from someone who might know). Suppose it renders part of Japan uninhabitable, and 40,000,000 or 60,000,000 people need to relocate, many of them outside the Japanese islands proper. What would that do to the world?

Personally, I would hope that the United States would throw open her doors to accommodate as many of the displaced as possible. It would be a great humanitarian gesture, and we would get some new citizen-track people with ingenuity, productivity, and excellent anime skills. Of course, it would cause a couple issues. It might weird the immigrants out completely to live in our heterogeneous society. They might be inclined to enclave up and make little Tokyos wherever they landed, but that happens enough now anyway. It would bump US population substantially, and we’d want to ease them into our population and society as we could. The illegal immigrants from Mexico and their advocates would raise holy kiri, of course, but a great natural disaster warrants one-time consideration that escaping from failed states and faltering economies does not. If we’re going to get cityscapes that match Blade Runner, great Japanese inflow would shortcut it. On the other hand, having all the anime companies stateside would probably make Steven Den Beste’s downloads faster, which might decrease his number of Hot Air Green Room posts further.

Where would they go elsewhere in the world if they did not come to the United States? Australia? China? Korea? Southeast Asia? South America? Europe? Africa? Any large, homogeneous influx like this will radically alter the composition of whatever nation or nations took them in. What would 500,000 Japanese do to the UK? What tensions would arise if 1,000,000 Japanese moved into the Pacific regions of Russia?

An American nuclear meltdown or whatnot would not cause great outflows. Our country is wide and not densely populated. Force everyone in New York City to move out of New York City, and you could spread them across New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maine, and a lot of us would be none the wiser. But in Asia, blocking off a small portion of habitable land will displace a lot of people.

All speculation aside, I’m more sanguine than this as to what will happen when the Japanese get those nuclear plants cooled down. But I do like to speculate for speculation’s sake. There’s a novel or series of novels in these questions.

The government junkies need more and more stimulus to get their thrill. Witness:

Deep spending cuts by state and local governments pose a growing threat to the fragile economic recovery that is already grappling with high unemployment, depressed home prices and the surging cost of oil.

Lawmakers at state capitols and city halls are slashing jobs and programs, arguing that some pain now is better than a lot more later. But the cuts are coming at a price — weaker growth at the national level.

Get it? Scott Walker and Chris Christie are bringing on the double-dip!

Suspected Cattle Rustler & Officer Shot in Sequoyah County:

Investigators say a Sallisaw police officer accused of rustling cattle in Sequoyah County was shot by the man who owned the cattle Monday afternoon. Police believe the shooting happened on Cherokee Avenue just before 1:00 p.m.

Officers arrested Mark Sweeney, 40, less than an hour after the alleged incident. They say Sweeney shot Officer Wendel Hughes, 35, in the chest. Hughes is accused of stealing more than 100 cattle from Sweeney.

Who needs western novels when you’ve got the news?

Economist ‘encouraged’ despite jump in area jobless rate:

Kansas City-based BLS economist Linda Nickisch said there was an upside despite the 9.3 to 9.5 percent increase in local unemployment from October to November.

“It’s encouraging because it could mean that more people are out there looking for jobs,” Nickisch said.

It could also mean that in that time period, unemployed people thought that their unemployment benefits were going to end in December and were taking action to get a job, but now that they’ve got another year or so to lollygag about, they’ll get back on the sofa and bring that unemployment number back down.

Economics is the PhD equivalent of going to WheresGeorge.com and using its sample to not only tell where all the dollar bills in the country are right now, but also where they will be in 2 years and 8 days.

AP ain’t rooting for the home team in this article: 2010 a record year for deadly disasters:

This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 — the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.

First, the Earth does not have intention, no matter how fervently its worshipers want to anthropomorphize it. Seriously, what the hell kind of “journalist” writes like that, where the planet is at odds with humans? Sorry, I lost my head there. This is an AP wire story. No news was intended nor implied.

Secondly, the deadliest year in a generation? A generation of what, exactly, that has been born in the six years since the Indonesian tsunami killed almost a quarter million people on one day alone. Given the inclinations of these writers, perhaps they’re thinking of more than a generation of Toyota Priuses.

How uncritical do you have to be to fall for this kind of “reporting”? What kind of gull do you have to be to write it?

Back in 2008, the choice of future foreign policies was clear: An old prisoner of war known to have a temper who joked about bombing regional superpowers for fun and who might actually have been just a little crazy and a professor.

Well, we know what we elected.

Our enemies might not have respected McCain, but they probably would have feared him a little bit. And let’s just cut the crap about multipartitism or international organization and treaties and soft power. At the very root level, the least lawabiding regimes in the world and those who would twist international cooperation to their own ends don’t care about the kabuki of the United Nations or the Hague or anything. They care about their well-being, and if the United States makes it perfectly clear that it’s not going to revoke diplomatic impunity, they’re going to do what they want regardless of international harrumphing.

Would North Korea still have shelled South Korea with McCain as president? Probably. The Chinese still played bumper cars with our electronic surveillance plane when Bush was President (albeit before he toppled a couple regimes).

But I would feel better if I didn’t suspect President Obama’s response to a dirty bomb in Topeka or a nuclear explosion in the port of Long Beach (or even a truck bomb at a holiday ceremony in small town Oregon) would be very similar to this dissembling response, albeit slightly less dissembling because he’d have his teleprompter contrast set as high as he could.

(Video seen at A Trainwreck in Maxwell.)

I cringe when law enforcement gets “creative“:

Creative law enforcement isn’t new to St. Clair County Sheriff Mearl Justus.

. . . .

On Tuesday, his deputies lifted a plastic tarp to unveil his newest idea: an armored truck to park in problem neighborhoods as a vandal-proof platform to transmit live pictures.

“I thought about a lot of names … I thought ‘The Cockroach’ would’ve probably been appropriate, but we settled on ‘The Exterminator,'” Justus told reporters.

The donated and rebuilt armored truck, once used to carry cash, is fitted with cameras, digital recorders and gear to stream live video. Deputies will park it in front of the “dwellings of troublemakers” — for days at a time, if necessary — to reduce nuisance crimes.

“It sends a message,” Justus said. “We will not tolerate drug trafficking, littered lawns, loud noise and other neighborhood nuisances.” He said the cameras should keep criminals on the run and give residents peace of mind.

Those budgets aren’t going to spend themselves, and the newspaper pages won’t just spontaneously print images of the Chief unless the department takes creative action.

Will it be effective? It depends upon whether you believe its goals are to fight crime or the aforementioned budget/news pictures.

Enlightened European socialism in action:

As authorities prepared for another national strike Tuesday, a larger swath of the population was already feeling the effect of nearly a week of continuous strikes by workers, especially in the energy sector, who were joined early Monday by truck drivers who blocked major roads around France, driving at a snail’s pace in “escargot operations.”

Despite government assurances, fears of gasoline shortages pushed drivers to fill up their tanks, causing more than 1,000 of France’s 12,500 gas stations to temporarily run dry.

“The most serious concern is fuel,” said Richard Laisne, 58, a Paris taxi driver. “Because if there’s a fuel problem, there’s no work for me.” He said he filled up his tank Sunday.

Government leaders continue to assure the public that there was no reason to fear a shortage, and Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Sunday, “I won’t let our country be blocked.”

A spokesman for the Energy Ministry said trucks were on their way to restock gas stations that ran out of fuel.

Flight cancellations and delays are expected Tuesday as airport and public transport workers plan to strike. The government again advised airlines to reduce the number of flights they have planned to Paris and to arrive with their fuel tanks as full as possible, despite insisting there was no risk of fuel shortages at France’s major airports.

With striking workers blocking roads, trains, gasoline depots and refineries, there could be a long delay before hard-hit gas stations are able to function normally.

Throw in some occasional riots of youths of unnamed ethnicity, and you’ve got a virtual Utopia. Why don’t we do that here?

Oh, yeah, we are.

News story covering events:

A Chicago man has been charged with plotting to bomb a strip of crowded night spots around the time people were leaving a Dave Matthews concert at Wrigley Field over the weekend.

Sami Samir Hassoun, 22, was arrested as he placed a backpack containing what he thought were high-explosives in a trash can in front of Sluggers, about a block south of Wrigley Field, according to the FBI.

Houssoun had also discussed other violent plots in Chicago, including a biological attack on the city, poisoning Lake Michigan, attacking police officers, bombing the Willis Tower and assassinating Mayor Richard Daley, the FBI said.

Thoughtful analysis from the left, in this case, Eugene Robinson:

When did the American right become such a bunch of fraidy-cats and professional victims? Or is it all just an act?

Of course, he was not analyzing the related story. He was casting aspersions on the right, moored only in his preconceived notions.

On the plus side, when you stick your head that far into the sand, you can actually hear the earth’s core bubbling.

So, how many people like this who’ve got their knickers in a twist about a proposed bicycle ban on public roads:

Today the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on the ongoing efforts of St. Charles County Councilman Joe Brazil (R-Defiance) to get bikes banned from rural Southwestern St. Charles country roads – seems he listens closely to those folks who resent having to share the road with bicyclists. As a person who frequently commuted to work by bicycle when I lived in the San Francisco Bay area – where, incidentally, droves of bicycles regularly share narrow, curving mountain roads with cars with few accidents – I could easily visualize the type of folks who might complain.

I have vivid memories of elderly people on deserted streets who, despite having acres of space in which to pass me as I hugged the side of the street, instead reduced their speed to a crawl and made exasperated faces and gestures as they followed me slowly along the street. Or the teen-age girls who yelled obscenities at me as I followed prescribed procedure for making a left-hand turn in traffic. This didn’t happen too often in Palo Alto, and the perpetrators were not people whom one would accord much credibility. In retrospect, however, their rather irrational sense of entitlement suggests that they might have been just the type of folks who would be at home at a Tea Party – which could explain our Republican pol’s concern for their druthers rather than those of bike riders.

are the same sorts of people who are all a-flutter to tell other people who own businesses that they cannot allow smoking on their private property?

Yeah, I’m going with 89% myself.

You could even make the same sorts of public health trumps private property rights arguments. Bikers hit by cars cost the public money! Emergency services aren’t cheap!

Ah, well, as some might very well misquote, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Just for the record, I favor the rights of the property holder in both cases. However, the urbane busybodies of the world who want to dictate what you can do with your property want unfettered access to their property to make you do it.