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Saturday, January 14, 2006
McCarthy Overpraised for Antiwar StanceIt's not particularly surprising, but this sort of nonsense should stop: Eugene J. McCarthy, the Minnesota senator who upended President Lyndon B. Johnson's re-election effort amid the Vietnam War tumult of 1968, was remembered at a service on Saturday as a man of sharp intellect, broad curiosity and a deep sense of justice and compassion.
An audience of about 800, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, Ralph Nader and John D. Podesta, President Bill Clinton's last chief of staff, gathered at the National Cathedral here, where lawmakers, relatives and friends spoke of a humble and independent-minded leader who opposed the Vietnam War and believed that politics could make a difference in the lives of ordinary citizens.
Mr. Clinton, who eulogized Mr. McCarthy, said he had been instrumental in building pressure to stop the war.
"It all began with Gene McCarthy's willingness to stand alone and turn the tide of history," Mr. Clinton said.
With the war taking thousands of American and Vietnamese lives, Mr. McCarthy, an unabashed liberal, stoked a national debate over the war and over the model of an all-powerful presidency. He challenged Johnson in the New Hampshire primary in 1968, and Johnson, facing almost certain defeat, withdrew from the race. The Democratic party machine then forced the nomination of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey to face President Richard M. Nixon. But Mr. McCarthy became the quintessential candidate of the Vietnam War protest movement.There are a couple of things wrong with that analysis. First, Johnson beat McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary in 1968. Second, we know know quite a bit more about Lyndon Johnson. For example, he threatened to drop out of the race in 1964 shortly before the Democratic Convention. It is clear that he was something of a prima donna, and his withdrawal in 1968 must be examined in that light. Note as well that his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, still managed to get the nomination despite officially supporting the Vietnam War. So whence comes the notion that McCarthy changed much of anything? He arguably got Johnson to drop out, but that didn't change things much. And he arguably helped get Nixon elected, although that's not the type of history changing that liberals are apt to get all teary-eyed over.
End of the Era?It's hard to say whether the Patriots will come back as a top team next year or not. They played competitively with the Broncos; indeed, you could argue that if Brady doesn't throw the interception to Bailey that New England would have been in the game right up to the end. I did think that the fumble at the end of that play should have been ruled a touchback; Patriots ball at the 20. Heck of an effort by Kevin Faulk (Correction: Ben Watson, pointed out by Crazy Politico in the comments) to get back and cause that miscue. The Patriots had five turnovers to Denver's one; it's very hard to overcome a net -4 in takeaways/giveaways. The game reminded me of the 1994 NFC Championship Game, in which Dallas had a bunch of early turnovers in their effort to three-peat.
NFL Divisional Weekend Preview: Saturday's Games The first game features the Redskins at Seattle. The Seahawks are favored by 9 points, which certainly seems like an overlay considering that Seattle hasn't won a playoff game since the Olsen twins were born, and that it's Joe Gibbs coaching on the opposite sideline. But over at Tradesports, it looks like the true line is more like 9.5. Obviously the big matchup of the day is New England at Denver. The line on this is 3. I am on the record as thinking the Patriots will prevail again today but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take the points. Tradesports appears to be pricing the game at around 2 points. Tom Brady is at the base of the pyramid of football immortality. The steps ahead are steep indeed. But he's pushed his case forward remarkably for his age and has given me no reason to doubt he will handle the pressure. BTW, the Broncos have been beaten at home in the playoffs (by Pittsburgh in 1984 and Jacksonville in 1997), so it isn't impossible. But, as you might expect, the Broncos do have a terrific overall record in the postseason in Denver; they are 11-2 when playing a mile above sea level.
Some Sanity on the Body Armor IssueThe author of this piece, who knows what he's talking about, is perhaps a little too kind to Hillary. THIS week Senator Hillary Clinton, citing a secret Pentagon report that suggested some marines killed in Iraq might have survived had they been wearing more body armor, became the latest in a long line of politicians to castigate the Pentagon for a supposed failure to adequately protect our fighting men and women. Well-intentioned as the senator might be, the body-armor issue, like so many in war, is just not that simple.
From 2000 until 2004, I was an infantry officer in the Army. I deployed with a light-infantry platoon to Afghanistan in 2002, then with a platoon of Army Rangers to Iraq in 2003 and back to Afghanistan in 2004. While I can testify that soldiers usually appreciate the protection body armor gives them, the load shouldered by the average infantryman often hinders his ability to fight - especially at high altitude as in Afghanistan.
But in Iraq, as well, the "soldier's load" is often unbearable. Most studies recommend that a soldier should not be burdened with more than one-third of his body weight. But if you take a 160-pound soldier and put 40 pounds of Kevlar and body armor on him and then he picks up an automatic weapon, ammunition, water and first aid equipment, it's not long before he is carrying half his body weight - and he is then expected to run, jump and fight insurgents, themselves carrying little more than a 10-pound AK-47. All of this, of course, often takes place in 120-degree heat in the cities of Iraq.
Best Post Title Ever At the HuffPoI don't think anybody's likely to improve on this one: Rolling Stone Slanders The Transgender S&M CommunityOther than of course pointing out that a magazine like Rolling Stone is unlikely to slander; it's libel in print. It doesn't really get better (in fact it gets worse), but this was pretty good: If you didn't know any better, after reading this you might think that people practicing alternative sex and confronting their gender identity were damaged, self-destructive individuals in need of help.Thank God I know better!
Friday, January 13, 2006
Nope, Nothing In There...The YNC has discovered a future Democrat.
Outbreak of Honesty at the Huffpo?I was somewhat surprised to see this post at the Huffpo, entitled "Anti-Bush, Pro-Alito". Anything that damages Bush is a service to the world as far as I'm concerned but fair is fair. Just as the evidence convicts Bush of lying us into an illegal war that killed tens of thousands of innocents, the evidence I've so far heard, combined with Alito's explanations, exonerate him of ideological bias.Of course, the commenters have mostly not been pleased, including one R Fuqua, who decided to praise Ted Kennedy: I never really appreciated Edward Kennedy when I was growing up. He always seemed so small and feeble; dwarfed, perhaps, by the almost godlike popularity of his charismatic siblings. But in recent years, the Massachusetts Senator has come out of his shell and expanded enormously, becoming the patriarch of the Kennedy clan and in many ways the personification of the Democrat Party itself.
That’s why I took such great pleasure in seeing the ol’ Bear tear into the Chimp’s SCOTUS pick, blasting the trembling Alito for his questionable commitment to women’s rights, and for his unblinking hypocrisy.
Quite frankly I was surprised that Alito even showed up for the hearings. Far tougher men and a great deal of women have turned and fled from Ted Kennedy, and wisely so. Truer words were never spoken; a great deal of women have indeed turned and fled from Ted Kennedy, and wisely so. Moron Ted Kennedy at the Right Place.
Shadegg In Race for Majority Leader--Updated! He's my congressman, so I'm a little excited about the prospects. He's only been in Congress since 1994, so it's a bit of a leap. He's got a terrific 98 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, which certainly indicates that he's no RINO. Here's his Wikipedia Entry, which notes up front that: While Shadegg promised voters that he would adhere to the "term limits" they approved, Shadegg broke his three term promise and is now in his seventh term. Of course most of the congressmen elected in 1994 did not live up to their term limit pledge; about the only one I can think of who did is Matt Salmon. And Shadegg is in his sixth term, not seventh; he was elected in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004. Update: K-Lo likes Shadegg's chances. Update II: John Hawkins endorses Shadegg; a number of other bloggers endorsed his entry into the race if not quite his candidacy here. National Review is now endorsing Shadegg as well.
Must Read Post--Updated!Michelle Malkin has a post on the effect of the NY Times' revealing of the fact that the US was monitoring overseas phone calls to terrorist suspects in the US; the terrorists immediately went out and bought cheap cellphones. Fortunately, a suspicious clerk at Wal-Mart notified the police. This is the most important thing you will read today. See also our buddy Reliapundit's post on this matter. Let's see, the Times published their story on December 15, and the terrorist group in Midland made their attempted purchase on December 18; what a coincidence. Update: See also this article from a local reporter. However [FBI Agent] Vanderland said Thursday after the ABC report aired that assertions of a connection between a terror cell and the men who attempted to purchase cell phones from a Midland Wal-Mart were invalid.
"There is no known link or demonstrated link or any other kind of link at this point between the people here and any terror cell," he said.
Making Teddy CryOur buddy Buckley F. Williams has some onions for the Swimmer.
The Battle for the Best Deck Chairs on the Titanic--Updated!Howard Kurtz covers the ongoing war among the Democrats. The 2000 veep nominee, if you hadn't noticed, is drawing all kinds of flak from liberal activists, some of whom would like to sabotage his reelection bid (Lieberman's old nemesis Lowell Weicker is already making noises about running). But in a larger sense, the argument over Lieberman has become a proxy war for where Democrats should stand on the overriding issues of Iraq and terrorism. Which brings us to the editor of the New Republic versus Markos Moulitsas, properietor of the most popular liberal Web site.Good rundown of the Kos-Beinart (New Republic Editor) dust-up; just wish Howie would add a little of his own thinking to the piece. I'll make no bones about it; Beinart's right and Kos is wrong. The problem with the current generation of Democrat activists is that they lack the institutional memory that Lieberman and others have. Kos, by his own accounts, wasn't even paying attention to politics in the 1980s when the Democrats began to realize that their leftist agenda wasn't selling and that they had to shift rightward if they hoped to win. Clinton showed it could be accomplished if you had a candidate who campaigned as a centrist (and mostly governed as one). Update: See also John Ruberry's thoughts on this column.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Impeachment Watch IV(Welcome, fellow Ankle-Biting Pundits readers!) This is part of a continuing series on the "reality-based" community's effort to impeach President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney.  Elizabeth Holtzman returns to advise everybody that Bush's crimes and misdemeanors rise to the level of an impeachable offense. Holtzman was a long-ago member of the House Judiciary Committee. She's probably most familiar in the last ten years or so for her impassioned insistence that impeachment should not be for "personal" offenses when Bill Clinton was in the crosshairs. She noted that the Judiciary Committee had declined to include a charge related to President Nixon's personal income tax returns. The nobility of Holtzman's stance was a little undercut when it was discovered that Holtzman herself had voted for Nixon's impeachment on that count. Read Holtzman's other reasons for opposing Clinton's impeachment: Consider how much the country will be harmed by an impeachment trial in the Senate if the House votes any articles of impeachment. The trial, which could last for months, would disrupt the workings of the Supreme Court. The chief justice will have to preside every day over the Senate trial.
It will disrupt the workings of the Senate. It will disrupt the presidency. That is one of the reasons that impeachment cannot be voted lightly. The danger to the nation of having a president remain in office must be greater than the danger caused by the wholesale disruption of our government that an impeachment trial will bring.Gee, Liz, don't those objections apply doubly today, in a time of war?
Heroes of the YearReader's Digest has an annual competition. Be sure to click on the pictures to get the stories. I personally voted for "The Mom", but "The Visitors" and "The Neighbor" stories are compelling as well.
Child Rapist May Still Get Long TermI covered this outrageous story of a man who received a 60-day sentence for repeatedly raping a young girl over the course of four years last week; now it looks like the outrage has resulted in a potential for a revisiting of the sentence. Cashman explained he wanted to make sure Hulett gets sex-offender treatment. Under Department of Corrections classification, however, Hulett was considered a low-risk for re-offense, which meant he didn't qualify for in-prison treatment. Cashman decided then to issue a 60-day sentence and ordered Hulett to complete the treatment when he got out or face a possible life sentence.
Yesterday, however, Human Services Secretary Michael Smith announced his order to reclassify Hulett, making him eligible for in-prison treatment.
"The classification system cannot be used as an excuse not to mete out punishment," Smith said. "As a state official and as a father I have got to look out for the well-being of Vermonters."Of course, the idiot judge is unrepentant: Cashman said in a statement "the negative comments sting."
"I am aware that the intensity of some public criticism may shorten my judicial career," he said. "To change my decision now, however, simply because of some negative sentiment, would be wrong.
"I owe it to the judiciary and to my own conscience to maintain a stand that I believe is the best possible option in a very difficult situation," he said.
Steyn on GlobaloneyBrilliant as always: Really? You know, I don't like to complain but maybe that Tarkine forest is part of the problem. Here's a headline from the National Post of Canada last Friday: "Forests may contribute to global warming: study." This was at Stanford University. They developed a model that covered most of the Northern Hemisphere in forest and found that global temperature increased three degrees, which is several times more than the alleged CO2 emissions. Heat-wise, a forest is like a woman in a black burka in the middle of the Iraqi desert. In my state of New Hampshire, we've got far more forest than we did a century or two ago. Could reforestation be causing more global warming than my 700m-per-litre Chevrolet Resource-Depleter? Clearly I need several million dollars to investigate further.Hey, no need for further investigation! Clearly it's time to cut down all the trees. This could be a golden opportunity for the environmentalists to link hands with the loggers! The Real Ugly American has similar thoughts. Speaking of globaloney, this article got a fair amount of attention yesterday. Scientists studying a fast-dwindling genus of colorful harlequin frogs on misty mountainsides in Central and South America are reporting today that global warming is combining with a spreading fungus to kill off many species.
The researchers implicate global warming, as opposed to local variations in temperature or other conditions. Their conclusion is based on their finding that patterns of fungus outbreaks and extinctions in widely dispersed patches of habitat were synchronized in a way that could not be explained by chance.Sounds awful, of course, until you start reading deeper: Paradoxically, the fungus thrives best in cooler conditions, challenging the theory that global warming is at fault. But Dr. Pounds and his team, in studying trends in temperature and disease around the American tropics, found patterns that they say explain the situation.
Because warming increases evaporation, it can create clouds that tend to make days cooler by blocking sunlight, and make nights warmer by trapping heat. In an interview, Dr. Pounds said those conditions could have created favorable conditions for the spread of the chytrid fungus.Well, you know how it is. If things are warmer, it must be global warming. And if things are cooler, it's still global warming. As Steyn remarks, any day now they'll start claiming that absence of climate change is evidence of global warming.
If James Wolcott Were Beheaded....Would the quality of his thinking improve? You'd have a hard time proving it would decline.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Tom Brady: How High Is the Sky?ABC noted that Brady has now set several all-time NFL marks. He's the first quarterback to go 10-0 as a starter in the postseason, he's the first to even win 10 consecutive postseason games, surpassing Bart Starr's 9 straight (which includes the bizarre 1965 playoff between the Colts and the Packers, in which Starr was kayoed on the game's very first play). Brady's 10 postseason wins overall is not a record, but it's easily the highest total among active quarterbacks and in the top five all time. Joe Montana had 16 postseason wins, Terry Bradshaw had 14, Roger Staubach won 12, and Troy Aikman had 11. (Update--Blew the stat; John Elway also had 14, so Brady's tied for #6 with Favre.) Notice anything about those QBs? Yep, they account for all of the NFL's dynasties since the 1970s. Brady's won two playoff games on the road, and his statistics in those games (67% completions, 8.2 yards per attempt, with two touchdowns and no interceptions) certainly do not suggest any dropoff in quality. He's shown extraordinary coolness under pressure, twice driving his team down the field in the Super Bowl with less than two minutes left to put the Patriots into position for the game-winning field goal. So I am reluctant to conclude that Brady will be unable to beat the Broncos this weekend and the Colts next. My dad likes to say that no tree grows to the sky. Tom Brady just might prove that old adage wrong.
Pardon Me If I Don't Get the VaporsReading this article about the "Concerned Alumni of Princeton" I was struck by one thing. The only example of the group's supposed racist and anti-female agenda consists of this passage: Democrats declared themselves "incredulous" that Alito was unaware of the group's attitudes toward women and minority students, and that his explanations for why he joined the group and mentioned it on an application did not add up. Kennedy read aloud a number of passages from the group's magazine, Prospect, that attacked women, minorities and gays.
One 1983 article, titled "In Defense of Elitism," began: "People nowadays just don't seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns, blacks and Hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and Hispanic. The physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports. And homosexuals are demanding the government vouchsafe them the right to bear children."You know how it is; if blacks and Hispanics are demanding jobs that they are not qualified for, just because they're black and Hispanic, then they shouldn't get them. If they are qualified, fine. The bit about the physically handicapped trying to gain equal representation in sports? I suspect that there's a particular instance that they are referring to, but certainly in the last couple years there was a golfer who had some handicap that prevented him from walking the course who demanded that the PGA allow him to play with a cart. And I don't quite get the bit about gays demanding the government vouchsafe them the right to bear children; that's weird, but again may refer to specific incidents from 22 years ago. Oh, sure, the article quotes Bill Bradley and Bill Frist denouncing the organization, but both also joined the organization prior to leaving it, so they must have found some of its positions appealing, although of course from the article you'd think it was akin to the Brownshirts.
More Wikipedia Nonsense?I thought I'd do a little research on Senator Joe Biden's plagiarism from British politician Neil Kinnock. I went to Wikipedia, which contains this whitewashing: Controversy broke Biden's candidacy for the U.S. presidency in the 1988 Presidential campaign. He was alleged to have plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. After Biden withdrew from the race, it was learned that he had correctly credited Kinnock on other occasions but failed to do so in an Iowa speech that was recorded and distributed to reporters by aides to Michael Dukakis, the eventual nominee. Dukakis fired the senior aide responsible, but the damage had already been done to Biden.So I'm thinking, "Gee, looks like Biden was just careless and forgot to mention that he was quoting somebody else." But then I looked a little further and found this citation. Here are Neil Kinnock's words: Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?
Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.Here are Joe Biden's: I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college?
Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? . . . No, it's not because they weren't as smart. It's not because they didn't work as hard. It's because they didn't have a platform upon which to stand.Now, given what Biden said, how in the world would you go about crediting Neil Kinnock?
Impeachment Watch IIIThe "reality-based" community continues to pretend that they are going to overthrow "King" George. The Democracy Cell Project quotes Mike Hersh (I know, who?), who cheerfully admits to wanting to impeach Bush even prior to his inauguration in 2001: My name is Mike Hersh. I'm here representing Progressive Democrats of America, Convict Bush Cheney dot Org, and After Downing Street dot Org. I've been working to impeach Bush and Cheney since 2000, even before they took the oath of office, on the theory that if fibbing about [oral sex] is sufficient reason for impeachment, then cheating in the elections, losing, and having your friends on the Supreme Court throw out the votes to put you into office is grounds for impeachment and removal from office.You know how it is; never mind that the recounts conducted by the media revealed that Bush would have won the recount requested by Gore's lawyers, and the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, and never mind that Clinton's crime was fibbing under oath. Hersh repeats one of my favorite canards: In his chilling cautionary tale It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis warned: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Sound familiar? That was in 1935.Unfortunately for Hersh, that phrase appears nowhere in It Can't Happen Here. Here's a link to the Impeach Bush Coalition blog. Pretty lame, but I suppose the air must be going out of the effort with Bush's rising poll numbers.
Senator FoghornAnkle-Biting Pundits takes a close look at the Alito hearings, with a focus on the number of words that Senators used during their "questions" and the number of words spoken by Judge Alito. Not surprisingly, Joe Biden spent the most time talking and the least time listening, although the Ankle-Biters may have erred by including the word count for Biden; who's to say those aren't Neil Kinnock's words?
Stick To What You KnowAs you all know, I'm a Republican. I'm pretty well plugged into the national party, read all the conservative magazines (except Pat Buchanan's), and have a pretty good knowledge of trends within the party. So it always strikes me as somewhat odd when a liberal friend mentions some sort of rift within the Republican party that I've never heard about. For example, a couple of months ago, a liberal friend mentioned that there was a big battle within the Republican party in 2004 over retaining Dick Cheney on the ticket because he was a political liability. I tried to explain that there had been some discussion as to whether another veep choice might be best in terms of setting somebody up as the heir apparent in 2008 (since Cheney's health is rather precarious), but there was no concern that he was going to hurt Bush's chances of reelection in 2008. That's the way I feel about Todd Gitlin's piece in today's LA Times. Gitlin's one of the ubiquitous 1960s radicals who've burrowed into the universities and are trying to spread their leftist philosophy to their students (with decidedly poor results I might add). His piece is entitled "The Right Divide". With binocular vision, people tend to see only two sides in politics. So right and left alike have frequently misunderstood conservatives as a solid monolith. Republicans' control of Congress and Bush's 2004 victory gave weight to the belief that the GOP is not only a victory machine but a unified bloc.
But just review the last month for a fuller picture. A Republican-run Congress, over White House objections, has opposed torture and disallowed oil drilling in Alaska. It refused to extend the Patriot Act for more than five weeks while it took time out to consider civil liberties. Congress also passed a fierce measure against immigration without Bush's guest-worker program. Stringent budget cuts that the White House had supported passed the Senate only thanks to Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote. Bagman-lobbyist-crony Jack Abramoff is poised to blow the whistle on conservative legislators.They did pass the torture bill, which annoyed me to no end. But the Republicans were pretty solidly in favor of opening up ANWR to oil drilling; it was only the unanimity of the Democrats in opposition and the peeling off of a few Republicans that doomed it. The Patriot Act extension was supported by all but a few Republicans. And of course, Abramoff has nothing to do with rifts within the party; that's just a little bit of padding by Gitlin. The rest of the article is mostly about how President Bush has been unable to get some of his campaign pledges accomplished. Gitlin does make some decent points, and seems to have a real idea of who the neocons are and their relative strength in the party, as compared to most liberal commenters who use the term as a shorthand for "Republicans who are for the Iraq war". But I suspect that in the end, this is just another in a long line of articles intended to buck up liberals that ends up coccooning them instead. There have been any number of articles talking about the impending implosion of the Democrats; hence the need for somebody to take the opposite tack and talk about the impending implosion of the Republicans.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
How to Succeed in J-School Without Really TryingOur buddy Mr Right got a look at the final exam: 4. The economy is on an upswing with massive growth, relatively low unemployment, the lowest interest rates in a generation, low taxes and almost no inflation. An election is approaching and the incumbent Republican President is running for a second term...
A) You honestly and accurately report the good economic news to the public.
B) You try to report on other, much more juicy things and ignore the good economic news. Good news is so boring anyway!
C) Check with your friends at the DNC for the latest talking points to see how you can make some nice sour lemons out of this icky sweet lemonade and hurl them at the Republican dufus! Be sure to remember that growth can be "sluggish," various areas of "bad news" may be found in a day or two of rough trading on Wall Street, energy prices could be high, the poor are always suffering somewhere, left out of the President's supposed "strong economy" and you can always find some "economist" to predict that the next Great Depression is just around the corner due to the President's "ill-advised" tax cuts "for the rich"! Go get, him, tiger!
Pie Thrower at Coulter Pleads GuiltyBut you gotta love his explanation: Felix said in an e-mail to the Arizona Daily Star that Wolff knew before he threw the pies there would be consequences.
"He took this 'pie-rect' action knowing there would be a consequence, but sometimes the medium is indeed the message," Felix said.
"A letter to the editor saying that the columnist's views were so extreme and inflammatory that she deserved to have a pie thrown at her just doesn't get the same message across — to the same audience — as throwing the pie and accepting the consequences."You see, it's really a form of free speech. Lord knows, they can't argue with her, so they tried to shut her up by throwing a pie at her. How noble of them!
Carnival of the Clueless AlertRick Moran's got links to many posts documenting the cluelessness of the libs.
A Victory for RacismThat's the way the NCAA must feel about its decision to allow the Bradley (University) Braves and the North Dakota Fightin' Sioux to continue to use their "racist" team names and mascots. Yes, this is petty and silly of the NCAA, and no, I don't think that the names are racist. My chief concern is that the NCAA isn't being brave enough in standing up for its principles. Perhaps somebody should Sioux them!
Monday, January 09, 2006
Fearless NFL PredictionsNone of these games are fun to pick, but what the heck: Carolina over Chicago. I like experienced quarterbacks. In the "what have they proven" department, Jake Delhomme has won four playoff games and taken his team to the Super Bowl. Rex Grossman is starting something like his seventh game. Indianapolis over Pittsburgh. I could see this one going either way, with a modest suspicion that Indy's going to be rusty and Pittsburgh has to be pumped, but in the end I think Manning's experience will tell out. Seattle over Washington. Flustering a young man like Chris Simms is one thing; sucking on offense is another. I really hate to pick Hasselbeck here because he's proven nothing in the playoffs, but the Seahawks have much better offense and an equivalent defense to the Skins. New England over Denver. Of course, if Denver wins I will claim vindication for my proclaimation of Jake Plummer as a budding superstar way back in 1998--even before he beat Troy Aikman in a postseason game on the road. But it's Brady in the snow, Brady in the cold, and Brady even in the rare air.
Conrad Burns Retiring?Credit Ankle-Biting Pundits with the (possible) scoop. This may work out for the best, but look for the liberal blogs to be salivating over their prospects for Burns' seat. They have convinced themselves over the last few years that Montana is very much in play (never mind that President Bush beat John Kerry there by 20 percentage points).
The Odd Thing About This Story....Is that the book described became a best-seller, not that the guy made it up. Here's another literary hoaxer outed by the New York Times. Same thing here; who would want to read a book like the one described: JT Leroy has published three critically acclaimed works of fiction noted for their stark portrayal of child prostitution and drug use.
Kate Michaelman Remembers the 1950sHad to chuckle at this one: Today many people have a stylized, ''Pleasantville" vision of the pre-Roe era in which I grew up. They imagine fondly that almost all families had a Daddy at the office and a Mommy in the kitchen; that almost all family relations were well-ordered and unthreatening; in short, that life looked like ''Leave It to Beaver" -- and that, with a few legal adjustments, it could do so again.Actually, most families were like that in the 1950s. I don't fantasize that with a few legal adjustments, it could be so again. But consider what has happened since the 1950s. The social adjusters assured us that sex education would reduce teen pregnancy; that sure didn't happen. They told us that legal abortion would reduce the number of children born out of wedlock; again a result much to be desired turned out to be exactly the opposite. She goes on to lie about Alito's record: He sought to uphold abortion restrictions that would have treated a grown married woman no differently from a child, forcing her to notify her husband in all circumstances, including abuse and rape, before obtaining an abortion.In fact, there were exceptions built into the Pennsylvania law that simply required a woman to certify that she was fearful that her husband would abuse her if she consulted with him on obtaining an abortion.
Kerry's Tire-Slashing Crew Goes On TrialWho says Republicans are the party of dirty tricks? Fourteen months after President George W. Bush was re-elected without carrying Wisconsin, five men who worked for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, including the sons of two prominent Milwaukee politicians, go on trial today on felony counts of vandalism in the tire-slashing of more than 20 vehicles rented by Republican campaigners.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Wild Card Weekend WrapupWell, now you know why I emphasize playoff experience at the quarterback position; in each game this weekend, the quarterback who had been in more postseason games won: Brady over Leftwich, Brunell over Simms, Delhomme over Manning and Roethlisberger over Palmer/Kitna. If that holds true next weekend, the Patriots should handle the Broncos, Indianapolis should beat the Steelers, Washington should upset the Seahawks and Carolina should outlast Chicago. Not sure I want to make any of those predictions right now, just pointing it out.
Today's GamesI'm going to stick with my assessment from last week. The Steelers should beat the Bengals and the Giants should handle the Carolina Panthers. I'm more cautious about the latter game, though, since Jake Delhomme has a fair amount of postseason experience while Eli Manning's getting his first taste. I note that the gents over at Tradesports have the same idea; the Steelers are shown as having a better chance of winning the Super Bowl than the Bengals, while the Giants and the Panthers are about even, slight edge to NY.
Impeachment Watch IIMark Steyn, in must-read form, points out the hilarity of Barbara Boxer's muttering about impeachment. This isn't a hypothetical situation. Consider Iyman Faris, a naturalized American citizen also known as Mohammad Rauf and nailed by U.S. intelligence through the interception of foreign-U.S. communications. He was convicted in 2003 for doing the legwork on an al Qaida scheme to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. A "hardworking truck driver," he was introduced to Osama bin Laden while enjoying a well-earned vacation at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan in 2000. At the request of bin Laden's aides, he researched the terrorist possibilities of "ultralight" aircraft. In 2002, he was commissioned by al Qaida to return to America and procure the materials for severing suspension-bridge cables and derailing trains.
Do you want Iyman Faris in jail? Or do you think he should have the run of the planet until he's actually destroyed the bridge and killed hundreds of people? Say, the Golden Gate Bridge just as you're driving across after voting for Barbara Boxer and congratulating yourself on your moral superiority.Meanwhile, you might have missed that this is Impeach Bush Sunday; the day when a bunch of liberals are planning on putting up Impeachment posters, stickers, flyers, etc., all over the country. You might notice one or two if you live in San Francisco or Santa Cruz. Meanwhile Lileks comments on the 2006 elections: Midterm elections went better than expected for the Republicans. The Democrats ran on the platform of “We’re not saying what we’d do with a majority, but it rhymes with Imbleach. Other than that, whatever. ” Republicans run on the platform of “Warrant? I got your warrant right here.” For the first time they sweep both New York and New Jersey. Despite the victory, Democrats were successful in blocking ANWAR drilling forever, insisting that the answer to shortages isn’t finding a new resource to tap, it’s reducing consumption.
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