Huckabee is one terrifically stupid bastard, isn’t he?

During a speech to the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky Friday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee joked to the audience that an offstage noise was Barack Obama avoiding gunfire.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” Huckabee said. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Pointless, not funny, and just another moment revealing him to be a jerk. It is shocking that he seems to believe that things like this and his very public decision to, ahem, not make Mitt Romney’s religion an issue in the election are entirely reasonable coming from a man who wanted to win the White House.

Again I say: if McCain is silly enough to choose Huckabee as his running mate, I’ll be voting for someone else.

I can forgive a lot of my Republican candidate when the alternative is either B. Obama or H. Clinton, but choosing Huckabee as VP over someone, you know, good would lose my vote.

Bobby Jindal would be a remarkably good choice, although I continue to wonder if he’s even more useful in his current position. Mitt Romney wouldn’t be my first choice and he wouldn’t shore up all of McCain’s weaknesses, but he would be tremendous by comparison.

Until it’s official, I’ll consider it a useless rumor. If true, though, I won’t be voting Republican this year even though the potential cost would be monumental (more on that later this week). What I can’t personally accept is that Huckabee could be one heart attack, disease, accident, or impeachment away from the White House.

For people still worrying through their own voting strategy, this would be a good time to raise voices in opposition to Huckabee. If the GOP leadership and McCain’s strategists are listening, let’s hope they hear the disgust.

Read the story.

None of which changes the fact that updated information about the Interim Bash is coming up tomorrow--along with a little something about our benefactor. 

In the previous post on Stephen King’s The Mist, Andy left this comment:

Completely unrelated (but since I am not blogging anymore):

Am I the only one who finds it odd (sickeningly so) that we would willingly invade a sovereign nation when most of the world was against the idea (I supported it), yet now this Administration refuses to even consider airdrops of basic supplies and foodstuffs to help a dying people because the junta that rules Burma says we can’t?

I quit blogging and suddenly there’s a whole bunch of stupid in the news.  Ain’t it always the way?

I wrote a lenghty response intending to leave a comment--but the lengthiness got to the point where it just seemed a bit excessive. So, instead of a comment, it’s become a little post. Feel free to snipe away at my arguments.

If the Myanmarese government does not relent, U.S. officials are discussing other options, including bypassing the government and sending helicopters directly to the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta, where more than 1 million people may have lost their homes.

So, yeah, apparently they actually are considering direct aid and not just limited to haphazard airdrops.

I know that we already have one US ship in the area that isn’t being allowed to deliver its aid. We have approval for a single military plane to deliver food and medical supplies. US willingness to help is unquestioned, but the ability to give effective aid is being blocked by their government.

How useful would it be to just drop giant bundles of food and medicine? Without orderly distribution, is it likely to get to the people who need it or likely to be hoarded by those who get to it first regardless of need? How effective do you really think that will be? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t, but I am saying that much of the aid would be wasted and it would be far better if we could find an official avenue for aid distribution rather than dropping stuff out of the sky and hoping for the best.

If we force aid into the country, it will be a military operation with attendant risks. That the planning and negotiating isn’t done yet isn’t a surprise. Neither is it a surprise that some people want the government to act now without proper planning, consideration, or preparation. We aren’t talking about a full-on invasion, of course, but any time you send military vehicles into another nation’s airspace or plant your personnel on the ground without their government’s permission, you face political and military risks. Part of the consideration--which, for some reason, you don’t think has happened--is whether the results are worth the risks.

So far, the UN and much of the world is also against forcing aid--and with good reason. Aid money isn’t infinite and neither are the supplies that need to be sent; any way to maximize that aid instead of wasting it is just good sense.

Meanwhile, Kouchner’s proposal of forcing aid into the country gained little traction. Confrontation would not be helpful, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs David Holmes said Thursday, a stance echoed by the European Commission, China, and other nations.

“I can understand the sentiment of France’s foreign minister, but I don’t think it’s the solution,” says James Schoff, associate director of Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Mass.

“You could get to a point where [the UN] could just do drops from the air. But for the whole assessment process – I don’t see how you could do that without working with locals on the ground,” he continues.

Analysts are hard pressed to recall a natural disaster where the UN’s “responsibility to protect” – a phrase conceived in 2005 largely in response to atrocities in Rwanda and Darfur – has been invoked.

There is probably no other possibility for delivering aid to Burma right now, Mr. Schoff continues, other than slow diplomatic gains and persistence. In a few days, Burma might come around, he says.

My guess--and it is just as much a guess as your assumption that the Bush administration isn’t even “considering” airdrops--is that aid will be forced if accommodation can’t be reached in the next week or so. And if that decision comes, it could well be at the expense of international popular opinion again. Currently, naval vessels are heading to set up a base of operations to the area and planes and equipment have been moved to establish an operating base in Thailand--these are all moves that will give us the capacity to quickly deliver aid to the country whether we are officially allowed or not. Not exactly the stuff of a nation sitting back, unwilling to help people in their time of suffering.

In other words, these are I think that it is likely that not only has direct aid been considered, but plans are in the works to actually deliver that aid in the most effective possible manner if we can’t reach an agreement with their government.

I’m sorry, but I don’t share your sense of outrage.

My life needs instructions as simple as this.

“If you want to be arrested follow Reverend Sharpton,” an organizer, his profile framed against the Welcome to Police Headquarters sign, barked into a bullhorn. “If you don’t want to be arrested, don’t follow Reverend Sharpton.” Fairly simple instructions. Having been arrested a stone’s throw from the site while covering a protest during the 2004 Republican National Convention I personally planned to err on the side of distance, especially once I saw the rolls of orange netting and ungainly clumps of white plastic handcuffs protruding off police officers’ belts.

Just sayin’.

Via Shawn Macomber, who gets to go to all the good protests. Of course, he also has to deal with spontaneous outbreaks of bad poetry and accusations of supporting the white supremacists.

Tucked in there is this bit of wisdom from Shawn:

An hour later trash cans were stuffed with “We Are All Sean Bell” signs. Because in the end, we really aren’t.

No, indeed, we are not. Which is something that I occasionally shout in public when someone stupidly says, “We are all Columbine.”

Offering sympathy and help in the face of tragedy and disaster is all well and good. The irritating need to insert oneself into the pain and loss of others is just arrogant.

I want to hope that there are better reasons that this for the (in a practical sense) dismissal of a substitute teacher in Tampa Bay.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers.  He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue, you can’t take any more assignments you need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell and went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

In a day of mind-boggling stories--prison priests sexing up the inmates and Hillary promising to break up the evil oil cartels, for instance--this is far from the worst or most important story of the day, but I’d be hard-pressed to find another that stumped me quite so effectively.

Wizardry. And, apparently, someone was serious about that accusation over a simple magic (for the slower amongst us, it isn’t real magic) trick involving a toothpick. That isn’t the bad part, though, is it? I mean, some people think the Harry Potter books might shuffle their kids’ souls off right to hell.

What business does the school district have indulging that kind of idiocy, though?

I’m all for involved parents having a say in school curriculum. As with most things, though, there has to be a balance, and in this case the balance should be protecting the teacher.

The only potentially game saver here is this:

Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.”

It has to be viewed, though, in light of the fact that the supervisor apparently took the “wizardry” charge seriously enough to mention it to the teacher. Whatever cause might exist to want this man out of a classroom, being an amateur Dumbledore shouldn’t really be in the mix.

Read the story.

Hat tip to Andy who recently decamped to less bloggy climes.

Was anyone else surprised by the Fed’s quarter point rate cut yesterday?

I haven’t been following the financial sites lately, and apparently I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. It seemed like a good time to sit back and do not too damned much.

Does anyone else think that it’s sort of cool that the Chinese government now has a super secret underground lair?

Well, maybe not so super secret since everyone seems to know about it, but it does fit the bad guy image they’ve been cultivating of late, doesn’t it? And, no, I’m not particularly worried about the thing; I’m pretty sure James Bond managed to single-handedly destroy more impressive super secret underground lairs a few times in his career. Once call to our friends in the UK and that thing is toast.

Does anyone else think that Josef Fritzl is going straight to hell when he dies--and that his is a clear case where his government should give him a helpful push down the path?

There are reasons that we keep the words “monster” and “evil” in our non-ironic lexicon. He serves as a reminder that evil is very real, that there are monsters in the world, and that we need to remain vigilant if we plan to keep citizens safe from the worst of us.

Is anyone else terrified of the fact that we’re having a worldwide spike in food prices and availability because, largely, of destructive government policies?

Let me continue that thought for a moment: most modern food shortages occur because of natural events. Floods, droughts, disease--acts of God if you will. The food shortages now (because we are tying our food policy to our energy policy, because trade barriers are being erected, because the cost to bring food to market are growing wildly) are manmade. I’m sure that, as we always do, we’ll absorb the painful losses, change our policies somewhat, and adjust to new realities and costs. We always do. What scares me, though, is that if our policies aren’t changes wisely, what happens to energy costs, food costs, and food availability when God visits us will a really good flood, drought, or plant disease that severely limits the supply of some staple grain? Because what has happened over the last year or so has happened without dips in actual production.

I might be missing something that makes it all okay, but this has me worried.

Does anyone else think that the whole Lesbos/Lesbian thing is absolutely hilarious?

I’ve got nothing to add to that. It’s just funny, I tell you.

Does anyone else think that the Open Source Boob Project kerfuffle sort of goes to prove all the worst stereotypes about a certain subset of geekdom?

To the point, that this class of geek imagine themselves to be extra-special-evolved in cultural terms while the rest of us just recognize the reality of their sexually immature, juvenile social ineptitude. To try to somehow demystify breasts by making such a big deal about an ongoing gropefest seems a good way to miss the actual point of their point.

That’s only compounded by the native geek tendency to suck the spontaneous fun out of a thing by codifying it, over-explaining it, and extending it like overeager schoolboys into places where it doesn’t belong. All the while they see it as a way to make a social statement of some indistinct kind.

Hi, I’m socially evolved and don’t buy into the cultural taboos about boobs. Can I fondle you now? I promise it will be totally non-sexual.

Proving with impressive emphasis that some of the worlds smartest people can still buy into stupid like nobody’s business. Especially when breasts are the topic.

I originally saw this on Scalzi’s site. He’s nicer than I am.

For the record: any deals you make to grope or be groped by another consenting adult aren’t any of my business, I know. But pretending to some heightened sexual enlightenment because of something like the oddly named “Open Source Boob Project” just looks dumb.

In the face of high royalty payments owed by online radio stations, does anyone else think that we’d all be better off when the record companies had to pay for their stuff to get played?

Instead of working toward the destruction of Internet radio, we would see a boom in the number of stations, the variety of music, and the financial health of the businesses that, for all intents and purposes, are advertisers for the record companies. By comparison to this superhighway robbery, was payola really such a bad thing? Hell, I think it was more honest.

...How much Reverend Wright seems to hate Obama?

Can there be any other explanation for Wright’s willingness to keep a negative story alive? He has basically written the script for Republicans and told the world that Obama was being a typical, duplicitous politician who only pretended to distance himself from the Rev. Wright’s more outrageous statements?

If Wright cared about Obama’s bid for president, he might find it expedient to keep a low profile for a bit.

Not that I’m complaining.

The original WarGames--with a predictable, not particularly bright plot offset by the incredible charisma of young Matthew Broderick --will always be a guilty pleasure of mine. If I come across it while surfing channels late at night, I’ll stop and enjoy the little blast of eighties Cold War nostalgia that I also get from the likes of Red Dawn. It isn’t a good movie in the same way as, say, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but it still makes me smile.

But a remake (with an even dumber plot plopped on an apparently no-charisma zone) probably won’t be making anyone’s nostalgia tour two decades from now. Which might be why it’s skipping the theaters and going direct to video where only the plainly foolish might be suckered into watching the thing.

Yet again I feel surrounded by seas of stupid. You can see the trailer for the abomination at the link.

On the plus side, when we went to see the slight but funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall (with all of its surprising and unfortunate male frontal nudity), I saw trailers for movies that I absolutely cannot wait to see. Steve Carell was born to play Maxwell Smart--which might seem a small thing to be born for, but if it’s as funny as the original TV show, Get Smart will be one of the funniest movies I will have seen in years. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian looks to be a worthy followup to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Lastly, a new version of The Hulk, with no connection to what shall forever be known as Ang Lee’s worst film, with Edward Norton is coming up, too, and it looks much more fun than the last movie. It doesn’t hurt that Norton, apparently, contributed some of the writing. Between that and Robert Downey, Jr’s turn as Iron Man, I have to think that there is some good comic book action coming to theaters this year.

Anyway, the message is this: don’t see War Games: The Dead Code, but look forward to some fun, dumb eye candy while the Democrats continue to work hard at making presidential politics a real brutal contact sport.

And if you’re looking for more raunchy comedy from the Judd Apatow machine, Forgetting Sarah Marshall will have you laughing and, true to form, has some touchingly real moments about how men and women screw up their relationships. It’s a joyously vulgar thing and, for all the talk of bravery for movies like Crash and Brokeback Mountain, Jason Segel showed true bravery in his willingness to bare himself in so many (often disturbing) ways and top it off by singing a portion of a melodramatic rock opera about Dracula’s desire to be loved. That’s courage, my friends.

Let us all, who have attended Rocky Mountain Blogger Bashes, give thanks that I am not a particularly courageous man.

In no way did Wesley Snipes deserve a three year sentence for misdemeanor charges of failure to file his taxes--and a piss poor way of saying thanks for the $5,000,000 in checks that he handed over before sentencing in an effort to show that not only had he learned his lesson, but that he had a newfound willingness to pony up.

As a bonus, I’m also pretty leery of government agents and agencies when they are looking to prosecute harshly in an effort to send a message to the rest of us. That is, quite baldly, a threat. Honestly, I don’t mind “We think it sends a real message” when it’s in the form of high explosives dropped in the laps of terrorists or long sentences doled out to murderers. This doesn’t quite qualify, though, does it?

It’s extremely rare to see a criminal prosecution like this (and remember that Snipes was acquitted of the harshest of the charges) and the prosecution admits to using Snipes’ celebrity to make a point to the rest of us--essentially delivering a different standard of justice to Snipes than I would have faced if I had made the same exceptionally bad decisions as the actor. It rankles when celebrities are given a free pass for stupid (and occasionally criminal) behavior; it’s no less wrong when celebrities are unfairly made into legal targets because of their social standing.

Update: Very kindly linked by Ted Bronson, who takes Broun to task in no uncertain terms. Rightly so.

I’m not a person who believes that there is anything wrong with a little healthy porn and, while I won’t be publishing pictures of nekkid ladies here on ResurrectionSong, I’ve seen a centerfold or two in my life. Which is why this bugs me no end:

Concerned that the military is selling pornography in exchange stores in spite of a ban, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to clean up the matter.

“Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., unveiling his House bill April 16.

His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of “sexually explicit material” on military bases.

The new language would “close existing loopholes” in regulations to bring the military “into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law,” Broun said.

“Allowing sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes, feeding a base addiction, eroding the family as the primary building block of society, and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad,” Broun said.

Firstly, I’d like to see some proof of his assertions of harm. Second, it’s nice of him to be working so hard to be protecting Military Honor and Decency, but I’m thinking that our men and women in uniform do a pretty good job of that themselves. Third, if those men and women who are serving our country in various capacities throughout the world want to relax with a few aesthetically pleasing pictures of nekkid folks, is that really such a crime?

The answer is no, of course. It might be a sin (I’ll leave that up to individuals to decide), but it most certainly isn’t a crime.

So, Congressman Broun, perhaps you could find something better to do with your time. Might I suggest bowling?

With a tip of the hat to Stuttaford.

I’ve been ridiculously busy these last few weeks between a Russian language publication, a few little freelance jobs, and my normal social and professional obligations. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t missed. Which won’t stop me from jumping back into the pool because, frankly, I need to get a few thoughts off my chest.

Like, who the hell thinks it’s a good idea to question the tax free pension a Vietnam vet gets from the many injuries that he sustained in service to our country? Most especially when those injuries came when he was tortured as a POW?

Apparently the LA Times thinks its a good idea when the vet in question is running for President of the United States. They think it’s a good idea to insinuate that either he doesn’t deserve it because he’s really not all that disabled or, if he was wounded so severely, then he might not be physically capable of serving as president.

The fact that he is legally designated with a disability pension may raise further questions.

“It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve,” said Robert Schriebman, a senior Pentagon tax advisor and tax attorney who recently retired as a judge advocate for a unit of the California National Guard.

If McCain can hike across the Grand Canyon, then why should he be getting disability payments from the government that are tax-exempt, Schriebman asked.

McCain shattered his knee and broke both arms when he was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.

In his autobiographies, McCain said that his knee still bothered him in cold weather and that he was unable to raise his hands above his shoulders.

See? Big fucking pool of stupid.

Firstly, he earned every penny of that pension in service to his country and I doubt very seriously that most Americans (we try to treat our vets well) will take the LA Times’ lead on this issue. I do not personally know the full extent of McCain’s injuries, but I do know that the military doesn’t just hand out 100%, tax free disabilities to everyone who gets a splinter. The injuries that he sustained had to have been severe.

Secondly, the office of the presidency is physically demanding--but not in the way that requires a guy who can run marathons in the morning before breakfast. As an example, and regardless of what anyone who thinks of FDR, he was exceptionally effective in acting as president with serious physical handicaps. I think McCain, even at his admittedly advanced age, can handle the stress.

And you know what else I don’t care about? His temper. I like that he gets pissed. I like that he isn’t always calm and level--there are things worth getting a little riled about.

As this political season continues (and, good Lord, can they possibly draw out the campaigning any longer? Will the next presidential campaign start before this one has even ended?) I find myself growing angrier. I’m tired of all the promises, the empty rhetoric, and the fact that none of the candidates will do the one thing that I really, really want: leave me the hell alone.

You know what else is making me cranky right now? Douglas Bruce is an ass, of that there is no doubt; but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t have the right to finish his statements about immigrants and a guest worker program being debated. To be sure, a guest worker program designed to bring in agricultural workers from our neighbor to the south isn’t a program designed to bring in college educated, highly skilled workers with literary ambitions. Our need for a guest worker program, whichever side of the argument you might take, is well worth debating, and, regardless of his insensitive statements, Bruce has a right to take part in that debate.

State Representative Douglas Bruce made the remark during a debate on the Statehouse floor. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill designed to ease a shortage of farm workers in Colorado.

Bruce was ordered to leave the podium immediately after the remark. But he says he knew exactly what he was saying.

And, anyway, adult literacy rates in Mexico are quite high, though, so “illiterate peasants” may have been factually wrong.

It would appear that he won’t be censured for his words--which is as it should be. I understand why so many people are upset, but he didn’t do anything illegal or unethical. He was merely being a bit of a jerk. Voters have ways of dealing with bad, non-criminal behavior in their elected representatives. That is also as it should be.

It starts out with this:

So, judged by your resume, you do not appear to be a right-wing reactionary moonlighting as an oil company stooge. How did a good soldier in the fight for environmental justice wind up in the company of such personae non gratae in your chosen field?

Then it goes on to talk about climate change and the politics of denial.

It’s a quick read, and, while Lawrence Solomon comes off sounding a little brusque, it’s intriguing enough that I’ll be picking up his book, The Deniers.

Check it out.

Update: Craig (who has been writing up a freakin’ storm) pointed out an article that made me cranky. Surprised me a little bit, too.

My buddy Mark called me a sucker the other day, and I couldn’t help but agree with him. See, girl and I would like to move into a new house, but the sad truth is that our current home would be near impossible to sell without losing money--significant amounts of money. But we aren’t going to abandon our house and we aren’t looking to the government to make our mortgage payments for us. We aren’t whining about not being able to make payments because she bought a place that wasn’t beyond her means, that didn’t have painful terms, and that didn’t require a lender to get playful in qualifying her.

All of which sounds pretty good (specifically, pretty responsible) to me. If the government goes on to bailout the idiots who signed loans for houses that they couldn’t afford and the companies who wrote those loans without much regard to buyers’ abilities to repay the loans, that’s a massive, tax-payer funded gift to the people who weren’t being responsible with their decisions. Which makes me--doing my best to do things the right way, yet potentially paying the way for those who weren’t so scrupulous--a sucker.

The markets don’t always choose right, I know, but tell me this doesn’t warm the cockles of your little capitalist heart.

Shares of Wells Fargo & Co. rallied Wednesday, gaining as first-quarter profit fell a smaller-than-forecast 11% amid signs that the lender employed relatively strict lending standards.

See, Wells Fargo apparently had responsible lending standards that minimized risk in the face of market downturns.

Indeed, Chief Executive John Stumpf said on a Wednesday morning conference call that the first quarter of 2008 “was one of the best we’ve ever had for our mortgage business”—a marked contrast to other banks beating a hasty retreat out of the mortgage market after a year full of billion-dollar write-downs.

Here’s to Wells Fargo for exhibiting fiscal responsibility and reaping the rewards.

Read the story.

It is so surprising for me to find that Oliver Stone’s film about President Bush (The Most Recent) might be biased, incomplete, inaccurate, and even a bit controversial. I mean, given his reputation as a stickler for historical details in his films, it’s so unusual to find that his centrist view of this White House might not be perfectly in line with reality.

Just weird.

Now that we’ve registered the proper amount of surprise, I say we go back to perpetually ignoring this movie that will likely shed absolutely no light on this presidency.

Denver Post reporter Susan Greene relates a story that needs to be heard about a young man arrested erroneously, held for eight days without a court appearance, held under a name that wasn’t his, and, ultimately, treated poorly by DPD. I agree with Greene that these are all horrible things and everyone who erred should be held to account. The apology offered to Mr. Muse Jama hardly makes up for shabby treatment.

But Greene makes this into something much larger than the facts seem to warrant. First, she suggests that the actions of the DPD are similar to the actions of militias in Somalia.

Jama’s family fled their native Somalia in 1994 partly due to that country’s own problem with people disappearing mysteriously without cause.

What happened to Jama was purely wrong, but it hardly compares to what has happened to hundreds of thousands of people killed and displaced since Somalia began its civil war and descent into anarchy in 1988. When someone “disappears” in a country like Somalia, they don’t generally come back a week later with even a perfunctory apology from a court.

The evils of the Denver police can’t be contained in an oblique reference to a country with no real, functioning government for more than the last 15 years, though.

What kind of twisted, Abu Ghraib reality are law enforcers working in when they insist — over several days and despite evidence to the contrary — that you are someone you’re not?

One can only imagine that Greene has some inside information about the torture or abuse of Mr. Jama that she hasn’t shared with the class. Accidental incarceration happens, is horrible, and always deserves attention and consideration. But that hardly makes what happened to Mr. Jama similar in any way to the detention and abuse of prisoners in any way similar to what happened to prisoners at the hands of Charles Graner, Lynndie England and Co. much less the even more terrifying years of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib under the rule of Sadam Hussein. The sickening part of Abu Ghraib isn’t that some people were mistakenly imprisoned for a few days, but that they were subjected to inhumane abuse at the hands of American soldiers.

Bringing the emotionally charged Abu Ghraib to this story is dishonest.

Innocent people are being plucked from their lives and caged because of police work that is beyond sloppy.

Yes, they are. In fact, Greene points out a grand total of three somewhat similar stories of errors made by Denver police. That doesn’t begin to justify the hysterical, unrelentingly outraged tone of Greene’s story or her suggestion that DPD is somehow similar to the militias of Somalia or the rogue US soldiers who abused detainees at Abu Grhaib. That distortion undermines her story, in fact.

Three documented mistakes (Are there more? If so, how many?) doesn’t constitute an epidemic of official misconduct. It does warrant investigation, public scrutiny, changes in policies and procedures, and punishment if criminal wrongdoing is found.

It’s just hard to see that the average Denver cop is working in some “kind of twisted, Abu Ghraib reality,” and her suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong. 

As problems go, this one seems pretty small. “Lloyd’s of London warned yesterday that an absence last year of natural disasters or man-made accidents was putting pressure on firms to reduce premiums in 2008.”

While I’m sure that a certain class of investor is a little worried, the rest of us are breathing a sigh of relief.

The problem with Putin’s request to “be friends...and engage in an honest dialogue” is that I don’t think he’d like what we have to say about his view of Russia or our post-Cold War international relationships. Frankly, he can take the entirety of the arctic circle (minus valuable natural resources, of course, which would have to be removed carefully beforehand) and shove it up his KGB-lovin’ butt.

I"m going to guess that’s not the kind of honest talk for which he was looking.

The problem with this is that it’s stupid. Which is Kenny Wright’s problem, too. Stupid. Which isn’t really unusual--the stuff gets all over the place if you aren’t careful.

The problem with wealthy, young socialites these days is that so many of them are intent on the dignified, smart use of their privilege, skills, intelligence, and wealth to support their philanthropic efforts, truly hoping to make the world a better place. Oh, wait, that’s not their problem at all. Their problem seems to be something else entirely.

Sorry about that.

The problem with pirates is that they aren’t much like that lovable, funny, yet desperately in need of some personal hygiene guidelines Captain Jack Sparrow. Which, if you look carefully, is also the problem with failed states (and, if you look even closer, the problem with fetishizing anarchy--but that’s a long conversation for another day).

The problem with today is that I’ve got a lot to do and no desire to do it. Which, as problems go, is a big one for me but not so much for you.

Just sayin’.

It looks like Jimmy “The Most Useful Idiot” Carter has thrown his sham of a Nobel Peace Prize and unique legacy into support for Obama’s presidential bid.

Damn. now I almost feel sorry for Obama. I wonder if this was some convoluted strategy to win the sympathy vote?

...I would have imagined that Pizza Hut would encourage their drivers to not only arm themselves but provide firearms safety courses and assistance in acquiring concealed carry licenses in those localities where such is legal.

But what the hell would I know?

“We have policy against carrying weapons. We prohibit employees from carrying guns because we believe that that is the safest for everybody.”

Again, I would have imagined that it would be safer for everyone if the bad guys knew they were risking a bullet every time they did something stupid. Might cut down a bit on the stupid.

Whatever the case, I’ll be raising a glass to Mr. Spiers tonight.

There are some takeaways from Think Progress’ discredited accusation of plagiarism against McCain, and they apply to more than just the folks at that site.

The first thing to learn is that searching Google for an answer shouldn’t qualify as due diligence when accusing someone of misdeed. In a comment on the post after it was learned that the accusation was completely wrong, 5th Estate had this to say:

The link provided in the update did not appear to show up in my specific Google search. I didn’t notice any link to McCain’s website in the returns I got from Google–they all appeared to be general blog posts and reiterations of the words relating to the latest Mar 29 2007 speech.

Now if you advance search the phrase, there are 371 links ( I just tried it). I guess I though checking 50 out of a hundred possible source constituted due diligence. Apparently not. I didn’t present my original research as irrefutable fact, but rather a high probaability that deserved further investigation.

I think that anyone who might imagine themselves to be a journalist (citizen or otherwise) might realize that doing a Google search isn’t enough when you’re accusing someone of plagiarism. After doing the initial checks, these folks should have called the McCain campaign and asked for an explanation. That might have saved a good bit of embarrassment.

The second thing to realize is that extreme partisanship and an urge to get the big story before someone else does leads to bad decisions. It was a bad decision to make these accusations before properly exploring the information and that’s a caution to all of us. This isn’t just about bloggers--the New York Times and the LA Times have had similar problems in recent months, which, to its credit, the LA Times owned up to their mistakes.

Drudge makes a living off of linking the “breaking” news before it’s been properly vetted--Edwards’ supposed affair leaps to mind--and writing often mildly misleading headlines for his links. With the exception of the traffic and the money, though, I don’t imagine most of us want to emulate him in the least. Unfortunately, when we try to get that big, shocking story first instead of getting it right, all we’re doing is a sort of long form of precisely the same thing that Drudge is doing. Or, if you prefer, we’re doing precisely what 60 Minutes did when it failed to properly vet the documents and sources of the accusations in the Bush - Texas Air National Guard story that it ran in 2004.

I know I’ve been caught at least once saying something that I later had to retract, but that was during the last presidential election cycle. When I wrote a few articles for publication this year--the ones I actually got paid for, although unfortunately for a publication that doesn’t seem to have survived--I did everything I could to get the story right even to the point of leaving out certain things when I couldn’t find documentary evidence to support what I thought I knew. It weakened my story in one instance, but I knew that I wouldn’t have to apologize for something that proved to be incorrect.

What Think Progress did was to make an easy mistake. To their credit, the people involved have apologized and taken responsibility, but mistakes like this damage credibility. I’m trying to internalize this lesson so that I don’t have to find myself in their place, apologizing for something because I was too eager to get the story up and not eager enough to find out if my words were correct.

As an aside, for the first time in a couple years, I picked up a Sunday Denver Post a few weeks ago. I was shocked at just how slim, just how truly bad, the newspaper had become. All the talk of the demise of newspapers finally hit home and I realized it was true: newspaper journalism is dying a slow death in the United States. This made me wonder a couple things

First, where will people be getting their news ten years from now? Consolidated regional newspapers instead of local papers? Fragmented TV news at the local level? Blogs and talk radio (I shudder at the thought)? News Web sites that don’t carry the same financial burdens as their print counterparts and are able to react more quickly to breaking news? Or do most Americans just want to tune out, go to work, and vote their biases without having to think too much about the process?

Second, where will all the journalists go? The job opportunities in traditional journalism must be shrinking drastically right now. I’d hate to be in that field; it has to be something like being an autoworker in Detroit right now. Ugly.

And I’m going to stick to my guns. Here’s what they say; here’s what I say.

For whatever it’s worth.

Update: There might be a reason that, as of the time of this writing, RSong pops up first when you search for “gore no more” on Google. And, because I’m obsessed with these things, can the dems bring back gore on Google, too.

(By the way, the answer to that last question is, yes, the dems could bring Gore back. But they ought not to.)