Breaking news from the Onion News Network: Jacksonville Jaguars Experience Existential Epiphany:
We have it on good authority (almost as reliable as The Onion) that after the game was called the Jaguars players repaired to the locker room where they listened to their coaching staff read excerpts from Sartre's Being and Nothingness.
HT: Uncommon Descent
RLC
I was perusing the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal on Friday and was struck by a couple of the articles. One was an AP account of how community organizers are miffed at the merriment some GOP speakers enjoyed at their expense at the recent convention. The article pointed out that community organizers do good work, help poor people cope with a variety of stresses, and should not be belittled.
Well, of course they shouldn't, but that's not what was happening at the convention. What Republican speakers did was not deride people who are community organizers or the work they do, but rather deride the notion that that work is a qualification for the presidency of the United States. A community organizer is something like a secular missionary. Missionaries do wonderful work, and few would demean it, but three years in an inner city mission field is not the sort of experience that, by itself, prepares one for the Oval Office.
A second column, by an Intelligencer staffer named Jeff Hawkes, who apparently couldn't think of anything else to write about, fretted over Obama's safety during a campaign swing through Amish country last Thursday. I certainly don't wish to scoff at concern for anyone's safety, but the unspoken implication of Hawkes' overwrought essay, it seemed, was that Lancaster County is McCain territory and is therefore filled with, you know, lots of those right-wing, racist, extremist nuts. Hawkes cited a number of other fans of Barack at the Lancaster rally who harbored similar fears. One of them worried that "Every time there's somebody of promise, it's extinguished." He concluded his column by noting that "nothing bad happened" and breathed a sigh of relief as if we just missed tragedy by mere inches here in the US of KKK A.
Mr. Hawkes is perhaps unaware of the much more tangible threats against George Bush from both the rabid left and Islamic terrorists. If he is aware of them, I wonder how many anguished columns this worrywart has written about the very real risk George Bush takes every time he sets foot outside the White House, or if this is something Mr. Hawkes even thinks or cares about.
In any case, it seemed curious that Hawkes uniquely singled out senator Obama as the object of his concern. It makes one wonder if Mr. Hawkes, being a good liberal white man, may not have been exorcising the burden of his racial guilt. By going on about his profound concern for Mr. Obama's well-being, perhaps, he was assuring his minority readers and fellow liberals and perhaps himself, that, unlike so many other whites in Lancaster county, he is no racist.
That explanation may make him sound a bit pathetic, but it's a lot better than concluding that he just doesn't care about the safety of Republicans.
RLC
The USA Today/Gallup poll, taken Friday through Sunday, shows McCain leading Obama by 54% to 44% among those seen as most likely to vote. This doesn't mean much at this point, but it is a sweeping turn-around for McCain who was down 7 points going into the convention.
Picking Sarah Palin may well have resuscitated his candidacy, and the selection is rich in irony. The party which has been portrayed by the media for years as a collection of chauvinists, misogynists and miscellaneous neanderthals has a woman on the ticket, only the second time in history a national party has done this, and all those redneck wife-beaters are wild about her. Meanwhile, organizations like the National Organization for Women which demonstrated the depth of its concern for women by remaining almost completely silent during the sexual depredations of Bill Clinton, including allegations of assault, don't even try to conceal their dismay with Sarah Palin. Oprah Winfrey, who has championed the advance of women throughout her career, refuses to allow Palin on her show.
Women who despaired that Hillary's defeat in the primaries robbed them of any hope that a woman would be president in their lifetime, now have a surprising second chance. The question is, how many Hillary supporters are there for whom abortion rights are not dispositive and who would be willing to vote for a strong successful woman who exemplifies what they think a woman should be in most other respects? How many Hillary supporters are there who are so smitten by the idea that they, or their daughters, might well see a woman in the White House after all that they will subordinate their preference on abortion to helping to make history happen?
Personally, I think voting for Palin just because she's a strong and charming woman is as irresponsible as voting for Obama just because he's black or for McCain just because he was a POW. Even so, it'll be interesting to see how many Democrats who wanted to see Mrs. Clinton at the head of their ticket, or at least on it, will pull the lever for Palin just because she's a version, albeit a mirror-image, of Hillary.
RLC
Almost as if to highlight a post on Viewpoint the other day, one of our local papers, The York Dispatch, ran an editorial Wednesday which serves as a fine illustration of why so many are growing so disappointed with so much of the media. Here's what they said:
[Sarah Palin's] candidacy plays directly to the evangelical and far-right conservative wings of the Republican Party -- a home run for anti-abortion crusaders, the National Rifle Association, heterosexual marriage-only supporters and abstinence-only sex education.
Apparently, The editor's idea of being "far-right" is to hold views that have been mainstream in this country for two hundred years. But that aside, I wonder at the choice of "anti-abortion crusaders" as a designation for those who call themselves pro-life. It's unlikely that the editor thinks it appropriate to call pro-choicers "anti-life crusaders", so why use the pejorative for pro-lifers? Why not call people what they want to be called?
It's a GOP melange designed to float undisturbed over conservative waters -- until it strikes the reefs of sheer ignorance that comprise the ridiculous tenets of creationism, also known so well to us as intelligent design.
Well, the "reefs of sheer ignorance" must extend all the way to the editorial offices of the Dispatch. Intelligent design is not creationism. Only those who are foundering on that reef of sheer ignorance, or those whose scruples don't prohibit dishonesty, continue to conflate the two.
The good governor, it seems, favors teaching it in school as a "science."
As we mentioned in our earlier post this is simply false. Either the editorialist's ignorance encompasses not only the nature of ID but also current events, or the editorialist is simply being deliberately untruthful.
What Palin said was: "...teach both. You know, don't be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools."
Later, Palin clarified her remark: "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
In other words, if the topic comes up it should be discussed, just like string theory should be discussed in physics classes if students show interest in it.
I will bet that if we were to survey the entire country and ask whether people agreed in principle with Palin's statement those who reply "yes" would comprise over 95% of the respondents. The other 5% would be mostly newspaper journalists.
The editorialist then embarrasses himself with this piece of incoherent pomposity:
A word to the unschooled: Science it's not. And to those who honestly believe the world was created around 6,000 years ago, another word: Fossil.
Well, shut my mouth. There's an argument for you. ID is not science because a newspaper editor says so, and if any of you yokels out there believe the earth is only 6000 years old you must have never heard of fossils. This is almost as compelling as the argument that ID isn't science because Judge Jones said it wasn't in the Dover case.
There's more:
On global warming, Ms. Palin, it seems, has yet to be convinced it's the result of human meddling. Certainly not good for polar bears in her home state and not healthy for the rest of us.
Aside from the fact that it's distressing that an editor of a newspaper seems to have difficulty writing in complete sentences, the juxtaposition of these two thoughts is difficult to decipher. If the Dispatch means that Mrs. Palin's skepticism about the cause of global warming bodes ill for polar bears and humans then it must be privy to proof that humans are causing global warming. If the editor does have such proof in hand then he's in possession of something that many in the scientific community are still looking for, and it would be helpful of him to share that proof with those of us less enlightened than he.
Gov. Palin's political merits and disabilities aside, former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat, had this observation on Palin's nomination:
"Are we comfortable in having a VP who represents the extreme right wing, including the advocacy of creationism and a denial of any human responsibility in climate change?"
"No, we're not", cheers our editor, as though he were freshly back from a political rally.
Tom Daschle, and presumably our editor, are uncomfortable with an extremist in the vice-president's chair. So am I, but I'm not exactly clear on how it is that beliefs shared by more than half the country are "extremist". And if the Dispatch is so concerned about extremists in the White House why is it not editorializing against Barack Obama whose political views make him the most liberal member in the senate and place him clearly out of the American mainstream?
Evidently, for those like Daschle and the good folks at our newspaper there are just two kinds of people: There are those who agree with them and there is everyone else. Those who agree with them are enlightened moderates. Everyone else is a far right-wing extremist.
It's pretty funny. Dumb, but funny.
RLC
Some readers may be familiar with columnist and pundit Bob Novak, but whether you are or not you'll find his recent column interesting. Novak discovered after a minor traffic accident last July that he had a life-threatening brain tumor, in fact he was told he had only a few months left to live. He resigned from his career as a syndicated columnist, but has reemerged with this column that tells the story of his disease and the outpouring of graciousness from people he never guessed would be kind to him. It's a lovely account and reflects well on a lot of people in Washington and not so well on a few others.
You can read it here.
RLC
It would be worth a couple of hearty guffaws were it not so disheartening. Some in the media, specifically CBS, CNN, and the New York Times, are spreading a story they evidently gleaned from Daily Kos that, contrary to what Sarah Palin said in her acceptance speech about being an advocate for special needs children, she actually cut the Alaska state budget for such programs by 62%.
This will doubtless disappoint those suffering the fevers of what Michelle Malkin calls Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS), but the charge is false. In fact, the Special Education Services budget actually rose by 12% last year under governor Palin.
What happened was that one of the programs that had formerly been folded into Special Education Services, the Alaska Youth Challenge Program, was taken out of special needs and put elsewhere in the budget. This made it look at first glance as though the special needs budget had been slashed by 62% when in fact the Youth Challenge Program actually experienced a 12% increase in funding.
It took one stay-at-home mom about 30 minutes of googling on the internet to discover the explanation that eluded the vast resources of the media organs who are spreading the false information. It makes one wonder why everyone doesn't just get their news from the internet.
RLC
Climate change seems to have come to Pakistan, at least the security climate seems to have changed. President Musharaff, an unsteady ally at best in the war on terror, is gone, and the new regime seems much more committed to rooting out the Taliban and ending their ability to function as a fighting force. Stephen Brown at FrontPageMag writes that:
Finally, it's all-out war against the Taliban in Pakistan.
While the world's attention was focused on the conflict in Georgia, Pakistan's military launched a full-scale assault against the Pakistani Taliban. With former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf now out of the way, Pakistan's new military chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, wasted little time in sending the army in force against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (the Pakistani Taliban's proper name).
For the Bush administration, the offensive fulfills a long-desired American objective to eradicate the Taliban and al Qaeda bases in Pakistan's tribal regions. These rear areas provide major support for the enemy in the Afghan war, and it is hoped their destruction will substantially reduce that conflict's intensity, if not end it.
The severity of the fighting and the government's success can be judged by the fact the Pakistani Taliban has been "routed" in the Bajaur tribal agency, a Taliban-al Qaeda stronghold. The Pakistan army reported killing more than five hundred Taliban combatants while another 3,000 have fled into Afghanistan and 300,000 civilians have become refugees. Government forces almost nearly captured Ayman al Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda's second-in-command. On the army side, 20 soldiers are dead with another 50 missing.
Suffering setbacks, the Taliban had asked for a ceasefire, which the government, to its credit, rejected. Reflecting the new attitude in a post-Musharraf Pakistan towards Islamist militancy, the Pakistani government says it will not negotiate with the Tehrik-i-Taliban until it lays down its weapons.
The rest of the article explains the reasons for Musharaff's reluctance to go after the Taliban. Check it out if doings in the Middle East interest you.
RLC
As the campaign moves forward one of the knocks against Sarah Palin will almost certainly be that she is a "creationist". This accusation, intended to lump her in the public mind with snake handlers and other religious fanatics, will be based on her 2006 statement, given in response to a question, that we should:
"...teach both. You know, don't be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools."
Later, Palin clarified her remark: "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
So, the evidence is clear. She's a zealot.
What we will probably not be told, however, is that Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards all actually voted in 2001 to make teaching the controversy over evolution virtually mandatory.
Edward Sisson has the details at Evolution News and Views.
If Palin's suggestion that students at least be exposed to the debate places her out of the political mainstream in the U.S., where must we place senators who voted for this language in the Santorum amendment to No Child Left Behind:
It is the sense of the Senate that-
(1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and
(2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject.
As sensible as this amendment is it's actually much more "radical" than Palin's position which was simply to allow the controversy to be discussed if it comes up in class. It'll be interesting to see to what extent Palin is attacked for her view and whether the attackers will trouble themselves with observing that her view is mild relative to that of the aforementioned liberal senators.
RLC
Everybody's talking about Sarah Palin's outstanding speech last night, and the talking heads can't help but remind us every third minute that she, of course, didn't write it. It was written by Matthew Scully, a speech writer for George Bush, among others. Well, so what? No politician has written his or her own speech in its entirety since Abe Lincoln scrawled the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope en route to Gettysburg.
So, we're led to wonder: How often were we told last week that Barack Obama and Joe Biden didn't write their speeches? The answer, I suspect is pretty close to zero, which, if true, raises yet another question: Why does the MSM feel compelled to tell us that Palin didn't write this one? Is it because they just don't think that a woman could have done such a fine job unless a man helped her?
Or is it because they realize that her speech is a real threat to the Obama candidacy, and they feel constrained to deflect its power by suggesting that she herself is not really capable of such rhetorical excellence?
Either way, wouldn't the repeated reminders that Governor Palin didn't write the speech, were they made by Republicans about a Hillary speech, for instance, be seen as examples of sexism?
Just asking.
RLC
Barack Obama famously thrilled us with the soaring words: "We are the ones we've been waiting for." So, who are the ones Senator Obama is poised to grace us with? Who follows in his train? Thus far the list has failed to impress. It includes two wacky preachers (Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger), two unrepentant terrorists (William Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn), a crook (Tony Rezko), a financier of terrorists (Hatem El-Hady), and a senator with chronic foot-in-mouth disease (Joe Biden).
The above-mentioned Bernadette Dohrn once honored Charles Manson and his "family" with a three fingered salute symbolizing the fork they plunged into the stomach of actress Sharon Tate to kill her. "Dig it!" she told a rally in Michigan in 1969. "First they killed the pigs. Then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!" This odious woman and her husband, whose organization, the Weathermen, murdered several policemen, hosted a fund-raiser in their home to launch the political career of Barack Obama.
Senator Obama has asked us to vote for him on the basis of his judgment, but, since he has no record to speak of, the only way we can assess his judgment is to look at the people with whom he has associated. They don't inspire confidence. For his sake I hope there aren't too many more of the ones we've been waiting for waiting in the wings.
RLC
Comes word that Sarah Palin's 17 year-old daughter is pregnant, and the lefty blogs are in a tizzy. What political dunces. Imagine how receptive women all across this country, wrestling with trying to balance family and career, and struggling with both, are going to be to hearing these adolescent male bloggers yelling about what a bad mother Sarah Palin must be to allow her daughter to get pregnant.
It won't be pretty.
We're also hearing that the young Palin daughter's pregnancy somehow puts the kibosh on mom's argument for abstinence-only education, but I don't see how. Are we to conclude that a program is a failure if it doesn't achieve 100% success? If so, then what should we make of the fact that one out four New York City residents, most of whom are products of schools with very liberal sex education policies, is afflicted with genital herpes. Whatever we can conclude, one thing is certain: Had these herpes sufferers practiced abstinence they wouldn't have herpes.
It's ludicrous to judge a program, or the wisdom of a mother's support for it, on the basis of one young girl's mistake, but then the media interest in Bridget Palin's pregnancy is surely not about abstinence-only education. It's about doing whatever can be done to make Sarah Palin look foolish.
RLC
Perhaps you've seen the comments around the web to the effect that should Barack Obama win in November it will put an end to a period of our history marked by the exclusion of African Americans from the highest reaches of power. Maybe it will, but I doubt it. I think it more likely that if Obama prevails it will be seen by those who are vested in perpetual victimhood and grievance as only a partial achievement. Obama will be seen as a transitional figure since, the argument will go, he's not completely black and doesn't have "slave blood". His father, we'll be reminded, wasn't an American, and Obama was raised by whites and doesn't hail from a genuinely black family.
In other words, until an actual descendent of African slaves in America is elected president, I expect that many blacks will see Obama's presidency as little more than Moses standing on the mountain viewing the promised land from a distance. The actual arrival will have to await, we'll be told, the election of an "authentic" black man.
Indeed, I doubt that even the election of an African-American woman would be seen as the full-throated herald of a new age, although it would certainly have historic resonance. Her election would not be completely satisfying to those of a certain mindset, perhaps, since it would still tacitly highlight the exclusion of black males from the opportunities enjoyed by even their African-American sisters in our society.
Despite how this election is perceived, it's guaranteed to be a significant achievement in our social history. We will have either the first president who is not of full European descent or we will have the first vice-president who is not a male. These are interesting times.
RLC
NPR interviewed Michael Dickinson about his work with fly behavior (audio and video here). According to NPR's Joe Palca, Dickinson found that these pesky little critters:
"...perform an elegant little ballet with their legs. They move their legs around to reposition their bodies so that when they do jump, they will push themselves away from the looming threat."
That ballet appears to give them a critical edge in escaping the swatter.
Dickinson says what's remarkable about this body position is how fast it happens. In less than a 10th of a second, the fly has to perceive the threat using its eyes, determine what direction it's coming from, and then make the appropriate movement with its legs so it jumps in the right direction. And all this is accomplished by a brain that's the size of a poppy seed.
"When you see a fly flitting around your hair, or your potato salad, you might see an annoyance," he says. "But in my lab you really see a marvelous machine, arguably the most sophisticated flying device on the planet."
Wow. More sophisticated, even, than aircraft designed by intelligent engineers?! Hmmmmm.
RLC
Jason Mattera of Hot Air goes undercover to mingle with the folks at a rally ostensibly supporting Mexican immigrants, including illegal aliens. The march took place at the DNC in Denver last week, and some of the sentiments expressed by the people Jason talks to are more than a little disturbing, not the least of which is the ease with which he manages to get people to go along with his faux organization, People for the Elimination of White People (PEWP, pronounced POOP). Nevertheless, you have to laugh at the guy:
You might save this video in case you ever encounter someone who says that the only thing illegal immigrants want is a chance to make their way in the world. I'm not sure that's true of quite all of them.
RLC
Just when you think our political discourse is going to rise above the mean, nasty and destructive, it slouches right back into the sewer. Unable to find anything critical to say about Sarah Palin that's anyone's business her opponents have resorted to smearing her by claiming her son is really her daughter's child, by blaming her son's mental challenges on poor prenatal care (Alan Colmes), and now by gleefully pointing out that the oldest Palin daughter is pregnant and not yet married (and Governor Palin is in favor of abstinence-only education, don't you know? Isn't the irony delicious?).
Someone for whom the labyrinths of the political mind are terra incognita might wonder what any of these allegations have to do with Sarah Palin's fitness to serve in the office she seeks, but relevance is not important. What's important is utterly destroying one's opponent and her family, if need be, so that the unthinking, uninformed masses will be dissuaded from voting for her. Unable to stand against the GOP on the field of ideas some on the left have chosen to retreat to the latrine where they find plenty of glop to lob at their foes. They're little more than adolescent political thugs hoping that if they toss enough offal in the direction of the Pailn family some of it will stick.
Thankfully, Barack Obama has dissociated himself from this, but it doesn't seem that all of his supporters are following his adjuration to leave Palin's family alone.
Then there's Don Fowler, former head of the DNC, chuckling about the fact that a hurricane was about to disrupt the Republican National Convention, and Michael Moore, delighted that a natural disaster was about to arrive on the first day of the convention and proclaiming that it was proof that "there is a God".
Neither of these men seemed to be much bothered by the fact that they were rejoicing at the prospect that thousands, maybe millions, of people stood to lose their homes and all they own in the storm. Such tragedies are not on the radar screen of these "compassionate liberals" who think only in terms of winning elections. The storm will throw a monkey wrench into the GOP convention so it a gift from God and an occasion for mirth.
It's very sad that our society has degenerated to the point where such people are rewarded with positions of power and wealth, but that's where we are. Indeed, those of a certain age will recognize that the left has had long years of practice in destroying people. Just ask Robert Bork or Clarence Thomas.
Despite the sliming of her family and the invasion of her family's privacy I'm told Mrs. Palin is undeterred and upbeat. When asked yesterday about the attacks and her response to them, she said: "Do you know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick".
RLC
A candidate's selection of his running mate tells us much about the candidate himself. It's ironic that the prophet of hope and change offers us as his pick a lifetime Washington insider in Joe Biden while John McCain chose someone who really does represent genuine change and has actually achieved it as Governor of Alaska. For Senator Obama change we can believe in is Joe Biden, for McCain it's Sarah Palin.
Governor Palin has been faulted for a lack of experience, a charge that sounds hollow coming from Obama supporters whose man has much less of the kind of experience relevant to serving as a national CEO than does the Alaskan Governor, but one thing in which she is surely experienced is battling political corruption.
This article in the Weekly Standard by Fred Barnes fills us in a little on who Sarah Palin is, and why she's so popular. She really does represent what Barack Obama claims to represent - a new kind of politics. Palin has been the scourge of shady politicians in Alaska, but unlike reformers whose focus is only on malefactors in the other party, she seems to have gone after her own party first.There's much about her for both conservatives and liberals to like. I wish she had been Governor of Pennsylvania.
Thanks to Jason for passing the article along.
RLC
The other day we linked to this essay which was very critical of socialized health care. One of the criticisms of the Democrats' plan to nationalize medical care is that people in countries which have adopted similar plans must endure extremely long waits before they can have even critical procedures done.
This cartoon by Ramirez pretty much sums up what many experts think we can expect if we ever do adopt a European style system:
Ramirez has a special talent for making a picture speak a thousand words.
RLC
Carl at Israel Matzav has a fascinating discussion of the Iranian nuclear situation. First he reports this:
The Israeli cabinet has reached a 'strategic decision' not to let Iran go nuclear.
According to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, whether the United States and Western countries will succeed in toppling the ayatollah regime diplomatically, through sanctions, or whether an American strike on Iran will eventually be decided upon, Jerusalem has put preparations for a separate, independent military strike by Israel in high gear.
So far, Israel has not received American authorization to use US-controlled Iraqi airspace, nor has the defense establishment been successful in securing the purchase of advanced US-made warplanes which could facilitate an Israeli strike.
The Americans have offered Israel permission to use a global early warning radar system, implying that the US is pushing Israel to settle for defensive measures only.
Because of Israel's lack of strategic depth, Jerusalem has consistently warned over the past years it will not settle for a 'wait and see' approach and retaliate in case of attack, but rather use preemption to prevent any risk of being hit in the first place.
Carl goes on to talk about why Europe is not interested in either diplomacy or sanctions and how it therefore seems as if the only options left, unless the U.S. acts, are an Israeli strike or allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
It's a very informative piece.
RLC
Ed Morrissey considers the arguments against Sarah Palin seriatim and gives each the back of his hand. Here are the objections that have emerged from different quarters. You'll have to go to Hot Air to read his replies:
This last, of course, is very odd. Even if it were true, why is it an argument against Ms Palin's fitness to serve that she encouraged her daughter to birth the child and is raising it as her own? If anything, and given that the child has Down's syndrome, it would be to her credit were it true. Of course, the far-lefties at DailyKos think that one has a moral obligation to abort children in cases like this so they see this rumor as a stain on her character and a serviceable enough clump of sleaze with which to smear her.
RLC
My thanks to Jared for pointing out my mistake about sons of candidates in Iraq. It turns out that contrary to what I wrote, Senator Biden, like Governor Palin, does indeed have a son headed to Iraq later this year.
My apologies to the Senator and to our readers for the error. It was a dumb mistake.
Nevertheless, the main point is still valid. Both GOP candidates have children serving in the war zone so the criticism levelled at politicians, usually Republicans, that they have no personal stake in their decisions to use force, won't work against McCain and Palin.
RLC
