Fire them all

The Hill:

The leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee are calling on President Bush to back away from threats to kill funding for lawmakers’ pet projects.

Poor babies!

The pre-emptive warnings from the top Democrat and Republican on the panel are the clearest signs yet that President Bush could face a bipartisan backlash if he uses his executive authority to wipe out the more than $7 billion in earmarks.

And as Everett Dirksen used to say^[1], “a billion here, a billion there...”

Bush... has indicated he might direct officials at federal agencies to ignore the nearly 9,000 member projects written in the bill’s report language...

Yeah? Come on, George! Show us you've got the guts!

The executive order... would roil already poor relations between the White House and the Democratic Congress —

That's not a bug, it's a feature.

... not to mention infuriate many Republicans touting the projects to their constituents.

Those “Republicans” need to be “infuriated” (not to mention slapped upside of the head, reminded of party principles in a LOUD voice, and then tossed out of office).

A spokesman for Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.)...

Ah yes, Senator Pork himself!

accused the Bush administration of hypocrisy...

snicker!

...for considering an executive order telling federal agencies to ignore earmarks since no such order was issued during Republican control of Congress...

So because Bush didn’t do the right thing before, he shouldn’t do the right thing now?

Byrd’s counterpart, ranking Republican Thad Cochran (Miss.), agrees that such a plan would hinder the appropriations process.

“hinder the appropriations process” == “get between the boodlers and their boodle”

“Just as Congress takes the president’s budget request under very careful advisement...

Stop it, I’m dyin’ here!

...so should the president honor the report language Congress writes to accompany bill text,” said Margaret McPhillips, a spokeswoman for Cochran.

...as she struggled to maintain a straight face.

“Requiring all budget specifics to be included in bill text would be highly inefficient

...because then they'd be right out there, in front of God and everybody!

...and would cripple an already difficult budget process.”

Bwahahahaha!

...
But the move could create a sharp backlash within Bush’s own party...

...nothing compared to the backlash he’ll get if he lets all this pork go through.

...and anger senior Republicans touting their projects back home, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.)...

Sounds like a good target for some letters.

Oh, to hell with it. Just fire them all.


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^[1] Or maybe not:

"Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so go that I never bothered to deny it."

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Merry Christmas, cheeseheads, here's your police state

If you're ticketed by Green Bay [Wisconsin] police, you'll get more than a fine. You'll get fingerprinted, too. It's a new way police are cracking down on crime.

If you're caught speeding or playing your music too loud, or other crimes for which you might receive a citation, Green Bay police officers will ask for your drivers license and your finger. You'll be fingerprinted right there on the spot. The fingerprint appears right next to the amount of the fine.

Police say it's meant to protect you -- in case the person they're citing isn't who they claim to be. But not everyone is sold on that explanation. - WBAY-TV

They're going to fingerprint everybody because of about 5 cases a year in which the person ticketed presents someone else’s ID.  But the report quotes a lawyer who says it’s “optional.”  Yeah, right.  Wanna argue with a cop?


Via Slashdot firehose.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 17:16:06 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Making it "better to be a litigious jerk"

School punishes the victim, in the name of "zero tolerance."

According to the Williamson County [TN] School System, self defense is no defense when it comes to getting suspended for fighting.

At Fairview High School, at least, it is an automatic five day suspension. -- WKRN.com

The victim was suspended despite a surveilance video and a Sheriff's department investigation. Oh yes...

The Williamson County School District declined to comment on camera...

There's nothing like accountablity. (Too bad this is "nothing like accountability.") Weasels.

More: Darren at Right On the Left Coast:

Perhaps a lawsuit or two and administrators will wake up to this rabid injustice.

Glenn Reynolds:

[If self-defense is no defense,] I think she should sue the school system and principal for failing to protect her...
In general, it's probably better to be a litigious jerk in these circumstances. They've made clear that that's the behavior they want to reward.

A couple commenters to Darren's post point out:

...the school officials aren't the ones who pay-out the fees and awards over the course of protracted litigation. The taxpayers do.

My response: So who elects the school boards who appoint those officials? Santa Claus?

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Naming Names:

STILL MORE:  Hey, maybe somebody should ask them about this:

Unsafe School Choice Policy - Under the Tennessee State Board of Education's Unsafe School Choice Policy, any public school student who is the victim of a violent crime as defined under Tennessee Code Annotated 38-111(g), or the attempt to commit one of these offenses as defined under Tennessee Code Annotated 39-12-101, shall be provided an opportunity to transfer to another grade-level appropriate school within the district.

So if you blame everyone equally, well hey, there's no victim, right?

Via: Instapundit.

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Civil Forfeiture may come to your computer, thanks to Congress

Read the proposed law. It seems obvious. Sure looks like they've been bought:

* Any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime could be seized by the Justice Department and auctioned off. The proceeds would be funneled to the agency's budget. The process is called civil asset forfeiture, and typically the owner does not need to be found guilty of a crime for his property to be taken.

Yes folks, all the fun of the drug war, now coming to copyright enforcement!

Oh yes, the proposed law also creates a new federal agency

Probably the most extensive part of the PRO IP Act is its creation of a new federal bureaucracy called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER.

...a federal agency to enforce CIVIL law.

Before I would have said they're crazy. Now...

Naming names: The guilty are:

Via: Slashdot

UPDATE (Related) 071211 17:50:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 18:11:37 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Pay no attention to the gang on the press bus

The media's sudden interest in the Mike Huckabee candidacy has dismayed a number of conservative commentators^[1].  All that media attention lends an air of inevatiblity to his nomination, despite the fact that the process hasn't even passed the Iowa caucuses yet.  Are we getting an accurate picture?  What's actually going on here?

Republicans need to keep in mind that Huckabee (or any other "religious" candidate, for that matter) is the kind of candidate that the media believes Republicans would nominate. What's more, he is also the kind of candidate that the media would like Republicans to nominate. But neither of these qualities makes him the kind of candidate that Republicans (necessarily) should nominate.

more...

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The *wife* lived happily ever after

Tom Smith, on Premonition:

...the wife foresees that her husband is going to die, which he is going to do because he is going to cheat on her, but he doesn't because he loves her too much after all, but he is killed anyway, fate being what it is, but fortunately he has just bought a fat new life insurance policy so the wife gets to buy a big new house. The end. I wonder who thought that one up. Why not just kill the husband at the beginning and end the movie early so we don't have to watch it? My lovely wife Jeanne agreed that it was much better for the husband to die horribly, crushed by a big truck, than it would have been for him to live and cheat on his wife, better for all concerned, really.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 17:11:31 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oooh, that smarts!

Glenn Reynolds posted a pointer to this New York Times article by science writer John Tierney: "In the Future, Smart People Will Let Cars Take Control" Tierney notes the recent advances in "driverless" car technology, and extols its value in improving road capacity, traffic flow, fuel efficiency, and safety. But then he writes:

Smart cars will never be infallible, but they don’t have to be. They just have to be better than the drivers who now cause more than 90 percent of traffic accidents and kill a million of their fellow humans per year.

Tierney (and Reynolds) ignore two powerful groups: The Luddites, and the trial lawyers. It's easy to imagine the usual suspects railing loudly against introducing "inherently unsafe" smart-car technology,^[1] as the lawyers, demanding 100% infallibility, jump in to litigate it out of existence.

But all objections would be swept away through legislation making "smart cars," (however imperfect) mandatory. That would fit perfectly with the statist dreams of the gentry liberals (after all, anything that reduces the liberty of the rabble is a good thing, right?), while stifling the bar (if it meets government standards, who cares if it kills people?).

And should some future government busybody decide that the trip you want to make to grandmother's house for Christmas is "unnecessary," well, you'll never get out of the garage.


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^[1] You know, like those inherently unsafe nuclear power plants, which, in the U.S., have killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 15:54:53 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just shut up!

Let me see if I understand all of this correctly.

• We are supposed to remain silent about a predominately black culture that romanticizes treating all women as “hos,” advocates murder, especially of police officers–and whose top examples have actually engaged in gang warfare that has resulted in public murders, because it’s a cultural thing and who are we to judge.
• We are supposed to remain silent about female genital mutilation, which traumatizes young girls and wrecks any chance for a normal sexual life, because it’s a cultural thing and who are we to judge.
• We are supposed to remain silent about jihad, because contrary to all observable evidence, it doesn’t mean that an jihadi is a fanatic ready to commit mass murder on the premise that he is a soldier for Allah who is promised an adolescent’s idea of paradise full of virgins– because it’s a cultural thing and who are we to judge.

BUT… :

It is the complaints–sometimes vicious–about American cultural traditions that we are most supposed to remain silent about. Under this meme, Christopher Columbus was a genocidal, greedy maniac and Santa Claus is an evil tobacco addict, fat slob and a potential child molester, who shows his racism and contempt for other cultures by wishing people a Merry Christmas and offering a jolly “ho, ho, ho”, because this is an automatic, and unbearable, insult to anyone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, or who might be a whore.

Have I got that right? It seems to me that the only constant is that we are to remain silent no matter what.

-- "saltydog" at Jules Crittenden^[1]

Above prompted by this story:

America’s top doc told the Herald yesterday that Santa Claus should slim down, in the latest blow struck in a global politically correct crusade against the jolly fat man.

Mike Hendrix:

...Since when does the Surgeon General dictate how much a Christian saint should weigh? How is this not state encroachment on religion? ... Do you really think you clowns get to redefine the legend of Santa Claus for the rest of us by your silly little proclaimations?

You want cultural warfare, you got it. Just be careful what you wished for.

More reaction:

Related (via Blair):

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^[1] with slight typographical (and 2 words of rhetorical) enhancement - o.g.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 22:56:48 GMT | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Another adventure in customer service

Tam tries to work out some problems with her cellphone.

Me: "I'd like to replace this old Audiovox."
Him: "What features do you want on a phone? We have..."
Me: "Cheap. All I want is covered buttons and more talk time. Your cheapest phone should be fine."
Him: "Well, even our cheapest phone is going to be $109."
Me: "That sign says $69.99 and the phone looks like what I want..."
Him: "That's for new customers."

How to chase customers away. I for one have resolved never to get involved with cable TV, because I'm unwilling to expend the energy to even consider the prospect of dealing with Comcast. Last night, talk over dinner with friends turned to cell phone companies, the first thing out of anyone's mouth was, "Remember, they're all weasels."


Related: From a story^[1] in today's Wall Street Journal:

A vote today on a proposal that could lead to stricter regulation of the cable industry was in jeopardy yesterday, as internal squabbling at the Federal Communications Commission and outside pressure from Congress and the White House threatened to delay, if not completely derail, the plan...

A rejection... would be a blow to [FCC Chairman Kevin] Martin, who has come under pressure from fellow Republicans and free-market advocates to back off his cable-regulation plan.

Given the public's hatred for cable providers, instead of fooling around with more regulation the Republicans ought to be calling for a Waco-style assault on the cablecos' headquarters, taking care to sow the grounds with salt afterward.

It'd set 'em up to win in 2008, for sure.

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^[1] FCC Proposal on Cable Industry May Die in Last-Ditch Haggling, WSJ, November 27, 2007, page A3

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Aversion therapy and Hollywood's troubles

Two fascinating comment threads about what's wrong with Hollywood, one at Libertas, the other at Ace of Spades. In the crosstalk, this vital point was raised:

I remember having ‘Judgment at Nuremberg’ recommended to me by a friend. I looked at the poster, looked at the date it was made (1962), and I assumed it would be a one-sided American indictment of the Nazis. It would be preachy, smug, and have no drama. Even though I’m firmly anti-Nazi, there was no way I would want to watch something like that. Being lectured to is no fun, even if it’s something you agree with.

Years later, I finally saw the movie. More than anything I’ve ever seen, it showed how Nazi Germany worked. It’s a brilliant movie. It actually allowed you to understand — but not agree with — the motivations of senior Nazi figures.

Hollywood has forgotten how to do this. – “autonomoussource,” in the thread at Libertas

To which, “Looking Glass” at Ace:

Hollywood's contempt for its audience is reaching back in time to spoil great movies. The well is thoroughly poisoned...

...The learned reflex is that any given movie is not only bad, but insults the audience, with a slap in the face coming.

This is the result of years of aversion therapy, training people to cringe at the thought of a Hollywood movie.

Hollywood had better hope this attitude doesn’t spread very far among its audience, or it is doomed. An applicable story, about symphony orchestras, below the break...
more...

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