Not Pretty: Alec Baldwin Analyzes Auto Industry
We can only hope that Alec Baldwin never gets into a serious position of power. In an article that reads like a water cooler politics conversation, Baldwin blames automakers’ resistance to stupid environmental regulations for their current plight:
they spent billions of dollars attempting to bribe the Congress to avoid putting in seat belts and air bags, installing catalytic converters and reaching more ambitious fuel efficiency standards. For the most part, they succeeded. [emphasis mine]
Obviously, the industry did not succeed in it’s resistance to seat belts, airbags and catalytic converters. So, now we know that Baldwin has only green on the mind. More:
I feel horribly for every single man and woman who will suffer as the result of this heartbreaking turn of events. I was the voice of Chevy Tahoe TV spots for five years in the early 90′s. I drove a Tahoe then and loved it. Now, I drive a Prius.
LOL. Yeah, I’m sure he feel sooo “horribly” for them. So now we know that Baldwin drives an ugly fish-like car… er, I mean a Prius. And, finally, we get to the heart of Baldwin’s water cooler screed:
Let energy conservation and fuel efficiency rule the day. Let the carmakers go under.
So here we have Baldwin, who feels “horribly” for all those people “who will suffer” advocating for automakers to go under for the sole reason that they resisted idiotic environmental regulations. Nice.
Of course we all know that those people “who will suffer” would be the unions, who are the real reason US automakers are in the mess they are in. Unions are unsustainable in a free market, which is why they always attempt to regulate the market in their favor, etc. Automakers would be wise to abandon an impossible situation.
Baldwin’s popularity declined by 2% this week. If his acting is as lame as his attempts at political writing, that might explain it.
HuffPo: How DARE Amazon Mispronounce the Name of The One
HuffPo gets wacky with it (as of 9:32 AM 5/8/2009):
The NERVE!
Here we have the implication that Amazon does not worship (as everyone should for their own good) the Left’s One True Living God With Glistening Pecs: Emperor Obama. How could Amazon NOT consider the EXTREME IMPORTANCE of ensuring the Great One’s name is pronounced correctly? Only those who harbor RAAACIST HATRED would overlook such a detail.
It’s clear that Amazon is on the Angry Left’s hit list, especially after the GLBT book delisting debacle. HuffPo links to a NYT article and even the article acknowledges another instance of the Kindle mispronouncing:
Kindle owners in Boston, however, may want to avoid the sports pages for now. The Kindle pronounces “Celtics” with an initial hard “c.”
This must mean that Amazon harbors deep antipathy toward the Boston Celtics too!
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos debunks the idea that there’s anything amiss:
When asked about the error in pronouncing the president’s name, Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com, said, with his trademark laugh, “that’s unfortunate.”
The next day, an Amazon spokesman, Andrew Herdener, wrote in an e-mail message that Nuance Communications, the Massachusetts-based company that licenses its text-to-speech engine to Amazon for the Kindle, had added the correct pronunciation of the president’s name.
Once again, the Angry Left harms their credibility.
Yglesias Falsely Credits White Supremacists With Inventing Judicial Activism
Matt Yglesias lamely attempts to tie conservatives to white supremacists:
I wish progressives wouldn’t be so defensive about this. The idea of an “activist judge” is something that was cooked up by white supremacists in the 1950s and 60s who didn’t like judges bossing people around and telling them they had to let black people vote and go to school. To me, frankly, it’s a bit shocking that modern-day conservatives are still so eager to associate themselves with the legacy of the racist backlash of a couple of generations ago.
Do I even have to explain why this feeble-minded sewage is so wrong?
Ugh, I suppose I do, for Matt’s sake.
White supremacists did not cook up the idea of an “activist judge,” or judicial activism. The concept was around earlier, but the term itself came from a January 1947 article in Fortune Magazine written by Arthur Schlesinger.
From California Law Review’s THE ORIGIN AND CURRENT MEANINGS OF “JUDICIAL ACTIVISM”:
Schlesinger’s article profiled all nine Supreme Court justices on the Court at that time and explained the alliances and divisions among them. The article characterized Justices Black, Douglas, Murphy, and Rutlege as the “Judicial Activists” and Justices Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton as the “Champions of Self Restraint.” Justice Reed and Chief Justice Vinson comprised a middle group.
What’s even more fun is the article was about the New Deal - you know – one of Yglesias’ favorite pieces of legislation:
By 1947, none of the justices openly questioned the constitutionality of the New Deal. Instead, the Court split over the interpretation of legislation and “the proper function of the judiciary in a democracy.”
How ironic is it that the term “judicial activism” came about because, from the beginning, progressives have tried to change inconvenient laws to suit their paradigm. There is good reason progressives feel “defensive” about something so obviously unethical.
So judicial activism wasn’t invented by white supremacists – Matt will be very disappointed. He is either making this stuff up or repeating something he read/heard. But, again, the facts don’t matter much to progressive bloggers like Yglesias – it took me about 30 seconds to find the California Law Review paper.
Hmm… frankly, it’s a bit shocking, don’t you think?
Full Text of Article 3, What The Left Doesn’t Want You To See
The deceptive Andrew Sullivan calls coercive interrogation defenders ignorant because they allegedly don’t know that Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions bans “waterboarding, forced nudity, total sensory deprivation, slamming against walls, multiple beatings, hypothermia, stress positions, hooding, phobias (dogs, insects), confined coffin-like spaces, and brutal long-term sleep deprivation.”
How does he prove his point? By citing commentary about Article 3, of course! In Sullivan’s world, approved commentary = fact:
Article 3 has been called a “Convention in miniature.” It is the only article of the Geneva Conventions that applies in non-international conflicts.
It describes minimal protections which must be adhered to by all individuals within a signatory’s territory during an armed conflict not of an international character (regardless of citizenship or lack thereof): Noncombatants, combatants who have laid down their arms, and combatants who are hors de combat (out of the fight) due to wounds, detention, or any other cause shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, including prohibition of outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. The passing of sentences must also be pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. Article 3′s protections exist even though no one is classified as aprisoner of war.
The article text for Article 3 of the Second Geneva Convention differs from the other three Conventions in that it adds “shipwrecked” to the “wounded and sick.”
Article 3 also states that parties to the internal conflict should endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the Geneva Conventions.
Oh no! Whatever will the “torture lovers” do when they read this? Sullivan triumphantly beats his chest and authoritatively declares:
Notice that this isn’t just a ban on “torture” however legally parsed. But a ban on all inhuman treatment, including outrages on personal dignity.
Yes, Sullivan, that IS indeed what the commentary is implying. So, why, oh why, did he NOT cite the full text instead of commentary? What a GREAT question!
That would be because the spirit of the full text doesn’t fulfill Sullivan’s neurotic need for reality to conform to his viewpoint.
Here is the FULL TEXT of Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ‘ hors de combat ‘ by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.
My, my OH my – isn’t THIS interesting? So, according to Article 3 Section 1a, “torture” is grouped with “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment.” That effectively excludes ALL of the coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA; that would mean that they aren’t classified as torture. That’s what Sullivan means by “legally parsed;” yeah, that crazy technical leagalese, LOL.
Now it’s clear why Sullivan deceptively quoted commentary and tried to pass it off as the actual Article 3 – it makes him look like a dunce and obliterates his huffy puffy arguments on “torture.”
Paul Krugman: Crown Me Emperor of the World, Please
About Paul Krugman’s latest column supporting the economy-killing cap-&-trade scheme that liberals just can’t WAIT to get their grubbly little hands on – Krugman is so disingenuous – he has no desire to see the economy grow. He sees the economy as his playtoy – something to experiment on and to force us to “save the planet,” which is liberalspeak for “control your life” and “make me Emperor of the World:”
Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a card-carrying economist, I cringe when “green economy” enthusiasts insist that protecting the environment would be all gain, no pain.
Krugman is cringing because his buddies, the green economy enthusiasts, are really bad liars.
Instead Krugman wishes his green buddies would say this:
Consumers would end up poorer than they would have been without a climate-change policy.
But how much poorer? Not much, say careful researchers, like those at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
See? That’s a much better lie! You cite Big Important Authoritative institutions like the EPA and MIT.
To demonstrate the weakness of Krugman’s argument I’ll use his own words:
So why don’t they think the economy can cope with limits on greenhouse gas emissions? Under cap-and-trade, emission rights would just be another scarce resource, no different in economic terms from the supply of arable land.
Pure misdirection. This is and always has been about power. Krugman and the liberal elite want to be the ones who decide the details of “emission rights.” Krugman is advocating a the creation of new market (aka, “just another scarce resource”) over which the liberal elite will have control. As Will Wilkinson at Cato points out:
It is the failure of [politically induced] capitalism that accounts for the suffering of millions and explains our bitter decline. Yet President Obama asks for more. The controversial cap and trade scheme for limiting CO2 emissions is perhaps the most striking example. A cap and trade system would introduce a new market fabricated by government to regulate the entire economy of mundane markets. Cap and trade is based on the political invention of scarcity. But the problem of determining the ideal supply of emission permits is much like the Federal Reserve’s problem of determining the ideal quantity of government money. In both cases, bureaucrats must appeal to dubious mathematical models and pronounce on questions that remain the subject of raging scientific controversy. When the Fed produced the wrong answers, it helped inflate the housing bubble, which led to the ruin of our economy. Do we trust the government climate bureaucrats to do better?
Quite the villainous scheme, no? More from Wilkinson:
Each element of a political market invites political wrangling. Obama’s budget assumes the government will rake in over $600 billion from auctioning the initial round of emissions permits. But carbon-heavy businesses, already suffering from the recession, are lobbying hard to be given permits for free. Industries that fear they will be hurt by the increased cost of emissions will push for an oversupply of permits, to keep permit prices low. Companies that reckon a high emissions cost will give them an advantage over their competitors will favor a low cap that keeps permit prices high. But the higher the price, the more those harmed by them will clamor for exemptions and rebates, and many will get them. The reality of cap and trade will be a typical political market: an expensive ramshackle compromise of competing forces.
The cap and trade scheme is an attempt to gain power. Liberals cannot let people decide for themselves, they believe people cannot be trusted with their own lives. In their minds people need to be manipulated into behaving the way liberals think they should behave. The cap and trade scheme is about giving Liberals power over the lives of all Americans – especially the ones who disagree with them.
Krugman:
This short-run economic boost isn’t the main reason to move on climate-change policy. The important thing is that the planet is in danger, and the longer we wait the worse it gets. But it is an extra reason to move quickly.
So can we afford to save the planet? Yes, we can. And now would be a very good time to get started.
It is no mistake this sounds like a sales pitch for long distance phone service. Krugman wants you to be afraid of climate change but what you should really be afraid of is him and the liberal elite.
Actually, Sullivan, Winning is Losing
As I’ve become more familiar with Andrew Sullivan’s blog, I’ve begun to note his left-wing populism and intellectual laziness.
For example, Sullivan has attempted to dismiss Bill Kristol’s recent reasonable but brief analysis stating that Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democrats “may help produce greater GOP gains in November 2010, and a brighter Republican future.” Maybe so, maybe not, but what’s interesting is Sullivan’s response. He entitles his two word post “Losing is Winning.” The two words he wrote would be “Kristol Daydreams.”
I’m not a Harvard graduate with a PhD in Government, but Sullivan seems to be denying that political cycles exist. Maybe he skipped out on the American Government class? In America’s two party system, losing is winning and winning is losing. The Republicans are out of power for the moment, but it will last only as long as the Democrats don’t screw up the country too much. With a hard core socialist-leftist & zero executive experience n00b in the White House, Crazy Nancy in the House House, and Dirty Harry in the Senate House – that won’t take long.
Duh.
It appears that Sullivan’s visceral desire to see the Republican party marginalized has overwhelmed that intellectually superiour British brain of his. It’s all about gay marriage for him – I think he’s mad at the Republicans for not wanting the define marriage HIS way and he’s gonna make ‘em pay DEARLY.
Whatever.
Specter leaving the Republican party is good for the Republican party because when the Democrats screw everything up (and, oh, they WILL) it will make the Republican party as a whole look more attractive if it lacks leftist baggage. America is slightly center-right, which make the long term prospects of a center-right party quite strong – if that party manages to remain slightly center-right.
Specter is a backstabber – let him go backstab the Democrats for awhile; for them, winning Specter to their side is losing. :)
Crazy Bob: Hey, Let’s Gamble With American Lives!
There’s lots to challenge in this latest HuffPo post from Bob ‘conservatives please kill yourselves‘ Cesca, but this I found most amusing and disturbing:
On average, the same number of Americans who were killed on September 11 will die from cancer over the next two days. 40,000 people this month. More than half a million throughout the course of the year.
Your chances of being killed at the hands of a terrorist, on the other hand, are comparatively remote. Some estimates show the odds at one in 9.3 million.
So what if OTHER Americans get killed in a terrorist attack, it probably won’t happen to you so you need not be concerned. Forget that those odds can fluctuate depending on how well the Obama administration handles homeland security. Forget that another successful terrorist attack would have a disproportionate psychological effect, discouraging Americans and empowering terrorists. Forget the massive economic damage it would likely cause.
Just fugettaboutit! Ol’ Crazy Bob and his pals have everything under control.
Eeesh.
The Torment of The Torture Debate
Left to Right: You WILL BELIEVE Waterboarding is TORTURE! GAGHKAAAAAAAA!!!!
OMG, the left has dramaticly convulsed with faux indignance about the not-torture memos foolishly released by Obama. The topic has now reached feverish proportions. I’ve noted, in their discourse, leftists are purposely confusing actual torture with hard core interrogation in order to keep themselves outraged enough to distract from the the painful truth they don’t want to face. The left needs something to be Extremely Upset about to keep themselves going, and the not-torture memos fit the bill quite nicely.
Brutal, Unpleasant Reality
The anti-interrogationists label those who oppose their view as “pro-torture,” but, here’s the thing of it:
Did you know that America trains some of it’s citizens to kill people with guns? It’s called an Army. Do you know what happens to the bodies fo the people on the receiving end of American Army guns? The bodies of people shot by guns die, are torn to shreds, mutilated beyond recognition or sometimes their brains explode, being hit with such extreme force that they spatter all about in a stomach-churning goopy mess. If a targeted person happens to survive being shot by a gun, the bullets that penetrate their body cause excruciating pain, internal bleeding and/or infection that often kills them anyway. If they survive that, the target can face major surgery, possibly amputation of a limb, and months or years of physical recovery. On top of this they will likely face years of psychological recovery – if they ever fully recover. Quite an unpleasant affair, no? Americans have been killing non-American people with guns for some time – no memos justifying that, though. Perhaps we should ban killing by Army guns too, considering how morally repugnanat it is.
Oddly enough, people have been involved in killing Americans, too. For example, this event happened about 7 1/2 years ago:
That video always puts things in perspective.
Facts of the Matter
Speaking of perspective, strange how the left didn’t stage a freak out when Obama recently fired missiles killing 15 people, including three children. So the left is OK with America killing children when necessary, but they have an epileptic seizure when a deranged psychopath bent on killing Americans capitulates after being strapped to the floor and having water poured on him six times a day for a month. And, some more moderate voices have joined the anti-interrogation madness. Fox News’ Shepherd Smith exclaimed recently, ”we are America, we do not f**king torture.” But Shep has no such problem with an American Predator drone strike killing children who happen to be in the vicinity of their terrorist relatives. Can you say ‘cognative dissonance?’
We encounter more dissonance in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. telephone poll released in November 2007. 58% of respondents said the government should be not be allowed to use waterboarding to try to get information from suspected terrorists. Altering the question to include the caveat ‘if the safety of you and your loved ones was credibly threatened’ would have significantly altered the percentage, probably placing pro-waterboarding respondents solidly in the majority. Asking that question (including the caveat) of the populace of New York in the months immediately after 9/11/2001 would likely show a dramatic majority in favor of waterboarding. It is easy to hold to lofty, unrealistic ideas over the telephone from the safety of home after six years of no subsequent terrorist attacks. Things change when people feel their safety is truly threatened.
Part of the reason there have been no subsequent attacks is because hard core interrogation has proved effective. The CIA confirmed that Khalid Sheik Mohammad supplied the intelligence that aborted 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles:
In the memo itself, the Justice Department’s Bradbury told the CIA’s Rossi: “Your office has informed us that the CIA believes that ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qa’ida has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.”
That’s called “actionable intelligence,” but the left is convinced we have placed ourselves in Grave Moral Danger by obtaining it through harsh coercion.
Blood-Colored Glasses
The humiliating truth is the left doesn’t have the stomach to face harsh, ugly reality. Protecting America is a dirty business and most leading liberals don’t like dirty – it offends their delicate sensibilities. They’d rather put the terrorists in therapy or send them home with reparations.
The debate the left is trying to usurp is about where we draw the line, about what is and isn’t too much. Waterboarding and the other coercive techniques used by the CIA walk up to that line, but not past it. It is good for America to question itself, to ensure we are doing the right thing, but the left keeps trying to rescue us from the thoughts they’re afraid we’ll have. They tell us there is no way they can be wrong, no way any opinion other than theirs can possibly be considered – and you’re vilified if you do. But, the leader of the left has already showed signs of retreat from his previous life as an anti-”torture” leftist.
Obama knows that he’s in dangerous territory by “banning” these techniques. His adminstration’s waffling shows he wants it both ways; to obtain vital intel without using harsh coercion – but I can’t help but get the feeling he wants the “torture” option in his back pocket. Obama is responsible for protecting the U.S. from another terrorist attack; he knows he has undermined himself and, believe you me, he’s worried about the ramifications. He needs hard core interrogation to stop those insane maniacs from killing more innocent Americans, but he promised to shut down Gitmo and gave the terrorists an interrogation resistance manual to boot.
Left wing opinion leaders have made a major misstep in selling the waterboarding-as-torture narrative, though given their warped ideology it was probably inevitable. The attitude which produced that narrative, ignoring all unpleasantries and hiding inside a hero costume made of faux morality and self-righteousness, is what undermines American security and will be ultimately responsible for the needless, preventable deaths of more Americans at the hands of terrorists.
Weak: Kos Attempts To Tie Conservatives To Killer Wannabe Daniel Cowart
Markos Zuniga must have run out of coffee considering how limp his attempt to tie all conservatives to some guy who planned on murdering 88 people and then trying to kill Obama:
So conservatives are suing the Department of Homeland Security for keeping a watchful eye over neo-Nazis and militia types, because apparently they’re all part of the same team.
Still, I just don’t understand why conservatives would want to embrace this crowd: <- [Original Kos link, maybe was mistake? I found the story quoted below here.]
According to testimony given in court yesterday, authorities originally believed Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, and 18-year-old Paul Schlesselman of Helena-West Helena, Ark., were planning a possible attempt to rob and kill Clark and Judy Cowart.
Cowart and Schlesselman were later charged with planning a crime spree that would have involved killing 88 people and decapitating 14 blacks. The spree would have ended with an attempt to kill President Barack Obama. They were arrested Oct. 22 and have been held without bond since then.
Yeah, there’s such an uprising of conservative support out there for Daniel Cowart. Then again, I guess the only big blogs talking about Cowart are Kos and LittleGreenFootballs. For being “part of the same team” as Daniel Cowart, conservatives have a funny way of showing it.
Aside from that, this really is Zuniga taking a crack at the conservative outrage over the DHS “rightwing extremism” report (pdf):
Seems logical that DHS would keep a close eye on potentially violent hate groups and extremist organizations, but conservative bloggers, and House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Fox News, and Rush, and Glenn Beck, and all the rest of that crowd think its outrageous that the FBI would keep close tabs on the likes of Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman.
It is logical to keep “keep a close eye on potentially violent hate groups and extremist organizations.” Attacks can come from the left and the right. However, conservatives have a right to be outraged at a report that casts such a wide net when defining right wing “extremism.” If you are “antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use’ then the report seems to be talking about you.
If McCain had been elected and his DHS pick produced a similarly sloppy report called “Leftwing Extremism…” what do you think Zuniga’s reaction would be? It would be epileptic.
I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I’m not convinced that Janet Napolitano’s DHS truly intended harm with this report. Anyone with half a brain would have known it would be a lightning rod. The DHS is a ginormous bureaucracy, which adds up to less than half a brain. It stinks more like overall incompetence to me.
Torture Us Not, John Aravosis
John Aravosis over at AMERICAblog has accused former CIA director Michael Hayden of cowardice.
Hayden has criticized Obama’s senseless release of the CIA “torture” memos:
“What we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an al Qaeda terrorist. That’s very valuable information,” Hayden said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”
“By taking [certain] techniques off the table, we have made it more difficult — in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine — for CIA officers to defend the nation,” he said.
Aravosis gets snitty:
Yeah, that’s cute. Except that the US agreed a long time ago that torture was off the table. And even John McCain is opposed to torture. But of course, Hayden has a more personal reason for opposing the release of information pertaining to the torture of foreign prisoners. Mr. Hayden, I suspect, isn’t very interested in spending the rest of his life in some foreign prison as a war criminal.
Yes, I’m sure Hayden is shaking in his boots.
Eerily similar to the Global Warming topic, all of Liberalati has declared the debate over where the line between interrogation and torture is drawn to be SO over. They sure to love to be in charge of definitions, don’t they? Take a look at Wikipedia’s waterboarding entry – it has Liberalati fingerprints all over it. Who are those “legal experts, politicians, war veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, and human rights organizations”, anyway? Phew! I’m smelling the putrid stench of “consensus.”
So, following in Aravosis’ footsteps, I’ve decided that I am the ultimate authority on what constitutes torture. I thusly declare reading Aravosis’ blog, AMERICAblog, to be a form of torture. I call on the Obama administration to finish taking over the internet and then shut down Aravosis’ blog due to the long term psychological damage his writing inflicts on those who choose to read it.
Huh, so this is what it feels like to be a modern liberal opinion leader? I feel almost god-like and I’m starting to think that I am.
