Interesting stuff this morning *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Nov 19 2009 at 11:20 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
I feel as if there’s a big post building inside of me, but I have no idea what it is. Right now, I’m just reading other people’s stuff, which I’ll pass on to you here (along with my inevitable comments, of course);
The mother of a 9/11 victim explains to Holder, very clearly, why the decision to put KSM on trial in New York’s federal court is a bad idea. Lindsay Graham, the loose cannon of the right, also comes out shooting in the proper direction, when he asks Holder about the inevitable Miranda rights for terrorists.
Karl Rove notes the procedure behind Obama’s announcement about the KSM trial: it was a Friday news dump, which is Obama’s standard approach to releasing stories he knows will disgust and offend people. People are getting wise, though, and the Friday dumps aren’t hiding the news any more.
American Thinker is on fire today, with several articles that I think are just great: a comparison between mass murderer Jim Jones and ACORN maven Wade Rathke; an optimistic assessment (if you’re a conservative) of the 2010 election prospects; a reminder of why I now use Bing, not Google, as my search engine (although I’m still dependent on my gmail); and a round-up of a few liberal sites that are beginning to figure out that they worshipped a false Messiah.
The President’s war on the pro-capitalism Chamber of Commerce is having its effect at the grass roots level. Protesters greeted the CofC’s convention in San Francisco. The shallowness of the protesters’ understanding about what capitalism is about, and the way in which they are being used by Gore-ian profit-seeking “environmentalists” is perfectly illustrated by the quotation that closes the article: “The Chamber of Commerce is so 20th century,” said Danny Kennedy, co-founder of Sungevity, a Berkeley solar energy firm. “The story of the 21st century is solving climate change, creating green-collar jobs and a clean economy. We need to kick (the chamber) into the dustbin where they belong.”
I don’t know her political affiliation, but I have to assume that a departing member of the College of Marin Board of Trustees is a conservative — or should be. After serving on that board for awhile, she’s finally figured something out about unions: In her final appearance as a member of the College of Marin board, Trustee Annan Paterson launched a Parthian shot at the faculty union, accusing professors of bullying and intimidating both students and fellow teachers. [para.] “The antics of a small group of leaders who are chronically angry, mean and small-time bullies come across as just that to the community at large,” Paterson said in the closing moments of Tuesday’s board meeting. “This type of union leadership is caustic and does not serve the faculty well.” The union members claim not to have used classroom time to campaign against Paterson, but I’m inclined to believe Paterson, not the union.
Got to run. Updates with follow.
Here’s the more I promised:
Does it surprise any of you that the White House is shrinking its annual Hannukah party by 50%? Doesn’t surprise me. Might surprise a few Jews around America, though.
At the Corner, you can read about the way in which Jeffrey Toobin misinforms New Yorker readers (as if the readers of that magazine need more misinformation in their lives). That’s another thing that doesn’t surprise me, as I discovered years ago that the much admired Toobin (I used to admire him myself, because he’s a clear writer, although a less than clear or honest thinker) has been a font of misinformation before.
The sharks are circling and Obama is the new chum. It’s good news for those of us who always believed Obama was a con man, but it’s only helpful if the growing disenchantment clips his wings before he can do too much lasting damage at home and abroad. Maybe part of the problem is that he’s making it up as he goes along. I mean, come on — the guys got a whole State Department devoted to giving him rules of conduct. He’s either failing to consult them, or he’s ignoring them, or they are as inept as he is.
And more:
If you want the good news hidden behind the bad news, Michael Fumento contends that, as with so many things, the media is conning is about the swine flu. It’s not that bad: “What’s truly unprecedented about this swine flu is its incredible mildness. The CDC estimates seasonal flu annually kills 36,000 Americans, again spread over four months. That compares to 4,000 swine-flu deaths in the current cycle. The seasonal-flu death rate therefore ranges from 0.06 percent to 0.24 percent, while the CDC estimate puts it at only 0.0182 percent for swine flu. So seasonal flu is three to twelve times deadlier per case.”
Related posts:
- Tuesday morning round-up of really interesting stuff
- A portmanteau post with all sorts of interesting stuff *UPDATED*
- Interesting stuff
Email This Post To A Friend
12 Responses to “Interesting stuff this morning *UPDATED*”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Holder wants to see how many white people he can terminate directly or indirectly.
Take a trip back to the past, when Dems were still Demons.
http://neoneocon.com/2007/11/23/guess-who-wrote/#comment-134476
Books, the Google story is in error. The guy misspelled Carly’s name; what he proved is that Boxer sites can’t spell. If you spell it correctly you don’t get any Boxer results on the first page.
My kids just happen to be watching the “Chum is Fum” episode of Spongebob as I read this – now there’s a whole new subtext for me! (I’m not seeing a great deal of air between Patrick and Robert Gibbs at the moment anyway.)
I guess if you can’t cut Jerusalem by 50% … be a party pooper a take it out on Chanukah.
No gelt – no guilt is the party theme this year.
I know we don’t like to be critical of the military here in Book’s domain, but there’s another story out there that must be written about. And no matter how you take it, the military gets a severe black eye.
The subject: Who else? Our wonderful psychiatrist soldier turned mass murdering Islamic fanatic: Major Whoever Hasan.
From the American Thinker:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/a_top_psychiatrist_at_walter_r.html
The top psychiatrist at Walter Reed evaluated Hasan and was DAMNING. Yet the military did absolutely nothing about it. Not only was Hasan proselytizing his patients on Islam, he was profoundly incompetent, incredibly lazy, and totally unprofessional. The article didn’t name these two names, which is unfortunate, but it did say: “When shown the memo, two leading psychiatrists said it was so damning, it might have sunk Hasan’s career if he had applied for a job outside the Army.”
So… is our military simply completely incompetent… or did they get hit with a case of galloping PC-itis, in the Islamophobic sense, where they didn’t dare be critical of Hasan, or deny him his chosen profession, despite EVERY reason to do so? We like to think of the military as the last bastion of sanity in this country, but it is clear that there is significant weakening even within the military. This Hasan case highlights the fact that everything may not be as wonderful within our military as we like to think (pretend?) it is. How widespread *is* this kind of rot within our military?
This Hasan loser and monster should *never* have been posted to Fort Hood.
Mike: The military absolutely deserves criticism here. It violated its job of putting the mission first, it violated its job of being egalitarian, it violated its job of protecting its own, it violated its duty to be competent — and all in the name of political correctness. Political correctness will go down in history, assuming there is anyone left to write it, as the single most poisonous doctrine ever to hit the American body politic.
Maybe part of the problem is that he’s making it up as he goes along. I mean, come on — the guys got a whole State Department devoted to giving him rules of conduct. He’s either failing to consult them, or he’s ignoring them, or they are as inept as he is.
Maybe someone at the State Department is sabotaging Obama by giving him poor advice on foreign ettiquete. One way to do this would be to get rid of all of the decades of State people who know all the ways a POTUS should conduct himself abroad, and replace them with ignoramuses.
The sad truth is that the military is subject to much of the same PC rubbish as everyone else, and has been for a long time. Perhaps more so, since they are a federal entity, subject to rigorous inspection, and compliance to rules and regulations is taken very seriously. Any veteran can relate tales of absurd regulations and mind numbing bureaucracy. Following common sense instead of regs is a sure fire career killer.
Check the article for numerous samples:
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/20/bureaucrats-with-badges
This is not to say that Hasan’s superiors are without fault, but they wouldn’t have made a move without an air tight, extensively documented case.
Perhaps the biggest factor is an environment where officers come and go every couple of years, and the continuity required to produce such a case is difficult. The sheer number of people who thought Hasan was a potential problem is an indication of how quickly they, and Hasan, came and went. His supervision was constantly changing. The simple fact is that the officer corps moves around so quickly that accountability does suffer.
It’s probably more like they shipped to somewhere else as soon as they could, once they realized he was a zealot.
The Left also likes to taunt us with how we like the military’s performance in Iraq, and that this mean we must like the government run military.
Not so, of course, as Hasan demonstrates. But don’t expect the brain dead Leftists to understand that. They need to have an anti-lobotomy first.
If the name Shannen Rossmiller doesn’t ring a bell, it’s only because she has been busy since September 11, 2001 studying arabic (fluent in reading and writing) while becoming a first class cyber sleuth. In early 2008, upon request, provided a detailed overview and analysis of threats inside the military. Her report detailed what steps needed to be taken to avoid what we saw happen at Ft. Hood. Rossmiller, had previously deterred other internal jihadists from inflicting the damage perpetrated by engaging the ‘wanna be monsters’ online. I suggest reading all about her at the link below. I don’t know where to send you to read about PC stupidity, other than the headlines.
http://www.shannenrossmiller.com/index.htm