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October 31, 2006
He said what?
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
So said Jean Kerry at a rally for Phil Angelides yesterday. "Phil who?" you ask. Forget him -- the rest of us have. Let's talk about Kerry, who continues to prove once again how blessed we are that he's not the Commander in Chief.
Is there anything more repugnant than a politician warning young Americans that only uneducated, stupid rubes wear the uniform of the United States military? Can you imagine the venal, moral emptiness at the core of a man who claims that defending America is a job of last resort, only for those with no other choices?
I find myself outraged -- again! -- by the belief amongst the Liberals that people who serve in the military are doing so only because they cannot overcome the keep-'em-down tactics used by The Man to suppress, repress and oppress the unwashed working-class masses. What contempt they have for them, for me, and for vets like my father.
I read a quote this weekend from a gay Dutch artist, who was lamenting the decline of Western Europe as it is absorbed into Eurabia. He said, "I never though about defending the West's freedoms. I never knew how to defend them; I only knew how to enjoy them."
Those very freedoms are defended by American troops who volunteer to put themselves in harm's way, to use their very lives in defense of this nation -- and the ungrateful poltroons who demean their service, simpering fools like the junior senator from Massachusetts.
The reaction to Kerry's slander against the troops is growing, and well deserved. Michelle Malkin has a thorough roundup here and a follow-up here, with links to the video of Kerry's speech, as well as some responses from the troops and their families.
Hugh Hewitt has been saying that it doesn't matter who the individual candidate is, a vote for a democrat is a vote for Speak Pelosi, Chairman Kennedy, and, of course, Chairman Kerry. Whatever the failings of the GOP-run Congress -- and they're many -- these are dangerous times.
Too dangerous to turn over the legislative branch to feckless crapweasels like Jean Kerry.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:35 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
October 30, 2006
Why athletes aren't role models
Virginia's Marquis Weeks caps off his 100-yard kickoff return for the touchdown. "That was just instinct. Kind of like running from the cops," said the senior tailback.
A friend sent me this photo, mainly because of the amazingly stupid quote contained in the caption. I did a quick search and confirmed the authenticity of the "running from the cops" line -- it was part of a story published in the Washington Post; you can read it here.
I'm old enough to recall a time when sports stars still tried to set an example for kids -- at least by word if not deed. My distaste for the more thuggish of sports organizations like the NFL and NBA (as well as the college arenas) is confirmed and reinforced when I read stuff like this.
Yeah, these are the kinds of lessons I'd want my kids to learn. No thanks.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 24, 2006
Real-life Seinfeld moments
Every so often life imitates art, when a slip of the tongue results in a moment of overwhelming social awkwardness, worthy of the ultimate show about nothing.
I offer two examples, one courtesy of Jay Nordlinger, the other wholly my own.
My wife and I took our three boys to New York recently, and we had a jaw-dropping Seinfeld moment. A Larry David moment, even.
As my family waited on a curb near our hotel, I stepped out into the street to hail a cab for that restaurant in Seinfeld at 112th & Broadway . . . but none in sight. Finally, I saw some a few stoplights away heading for us, and I said loudly, “Here come some taxis, or as I like to call them” — turning toward curb — “our yellow friends!”
And there were two Chinese gentlemen in suits standing next to my family.
Aghast and speechless, we all filed into the taxi, me in the front seat staring straight ahead trying to sort out what had just happened. After a moment I turned to the back seat and we all just sort of shook our heads.
I love that story. Reminds me of a time I committed a similar gaffe.
I work with a guy who suffers from a severe neurological impairment of his motor-functions; although he has to use a cane and occasionally takes a header, he's a talented attorney with a phenomenal memory.
One day, when I was in trial and working late, I packed up my stuff and headed home. As I was walking down the hallway toward the front desk, I saw my colleague slowly making his way toward me, laboriously traversing the length of the office.
As he drew closer, I noticed that he was wearing brightly-colored socks, visible beneath the cuff of his trousers. In my mind, I heard the words, "Hey, snazzy socks."
However, as we were about three feet apart, I listened in horror as I instead heard the words burst from my lips, "Hey, spazzy socks."
We both stopped and looked at each other.
"Sorry," I said, with a shrug as he stared at me, and we both continued on our way.
He never mentioned it again -- and neither did I.
I think my story's worse, as the fellow in the the taxi never saw his "yellow friends" again, whereas I am reminded of my jaw-droppingly stupid remark everytime I see my co-worker.
Posted by Mike Lief at 05:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Nothing is truly new
A great commentary on how everything old is new again.
My friend Emmy Chang — formerly of National Review, now of Princeton — told me something hilarious. It is the best commentary on today’s gadgetry I have ever heard.
She was thinking about IM-ing, and she wondered whether you’d ever be able to give voice commands, to speak words, rather than typing them.
And then it occurred to her: “I’ve just reinvented the telephone.”
Courtesy Jay Nordlinger (again).
Posted by Mike Lief at 04:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A life well spent
Nobody writes obits like the Brit papers, and nobody seems to live lives like the Brits born in the early days of the last century.
Eric Newby, who died on Friday aged 86, was the author of some of the best books in the canon of English travel writing, notably A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Love and War in the Apennines.
Informed by a pin-sharp eye and a self-deprecating persona, Newby's literary style was inspired by the comic portrait of the Englishman abroad presented in the writings of Alexander Kinglake, Robert Byron and Evelyn Waugh. In a preface to the book that made Newby's reputation, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958), Waugh identified the central elements of this humorous tradition: its quintessentially English spirit of amateurism and its tone of ironic understatement.
For Newby's "short walk" was in reality an arduous journey through the more remote parts of Afghanistan, culminating in a dangerous assault on Mir Samir, an unclimbed glacial peak of 20,000ft. The sum of his preparation for the mountaineering ahead was a brief weekend on the Welsh hills.
Some of the book's comedy is genuine, as when tribesmen test the waterproof nature of Newby's watch by immersing it in a goat stew. But much of its humour stems from a self-ridicule that borders on melancholy, such as the description of the exquisite pain Newby suffered from walking in new boots, literally flaying his feet. He was fortunately far tougher than his literary persona suggested.
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush climaxes with the most celebrated meeting between travellers since that of Livingstone and Stanley, when a tottering Newby encounters the striding form of Wilfred Thesiger on the banks of the Upper Panjshir.
The meeting is presented as that of inept amateur and professional adventurer, with Thesiger representing a certain Englishness to be both admired and satirised. When Newby and his companion begin blowing up air mattresses to cushion their rocky beds, Thesiger reacts with immortal disdain: "God, you must be a couple of pansies."
George Eric Newby was born in Hammersmith, west London, on December 6 1919.
[...]
One of his father's frequent fiscal crises, and Eric's persistent failure to pass algebra, saw him removed from St Paul's at 16. He joined an advertising agency, where he spent much of his time riding a bicycle around the office. He was mercifully released from this when his employers lost the Kellogg's account, and in 1938, aged 18, he signed on the four-masted Finnish barque Moshulu, engaged in the 30,000 mile-round grain trade between Ireland and Australia.
Newby later recounted his experiences in his first book, The Last Grain Race (1956), which gave a vivid description of the claustrophobic life of a sailing ship's crew.
Newby, age 19, aboard the Mushulu during the Last Grain Race.
It gave notice of his powers of observation, his unforced prose and his taste for the ridiculous. One memorable set-piece describes Newby's attempts at dentistry in a swaying fo'c'sle after an alcoholic Christmas lunch, with most of the molten gutta-percha spilling down the throat of the ailing seaman.
Newby also survived several close encounters with death, being once almost swept overboard in a hurricane, the rope stripped from his grasp by the sea "as though a gentle giant had smoothed his hands over my knuckles."
In 1940 Newby joined the Black Watch, serving in India before volunteering for the Special Boat Section, then operating out of Alexandria. In August 1942 his detachment was sent to sabotage a German airfield at Catania in Sicily. This highly dangerous mission, unpromisingly codenamed Operation Whynot, was designed to aid the passage of the Pedestal convoy, bound with vital oil to Malta.
When Newby landed from his dinghy it was the first time he had set foot in Europe. The operation was not successful — no one had thought to tell the SBS men that there were 1,000 German troops at the airfield — and Newby was captured by fishermen after failing to rendezvous with the waiting submarine.
He was sent to the prison camp at Fontanellato, in the Po Valley. The camp's hierarchy, he later wrote, resembled that of a public school, divided into the "socially OK and the rest", its kindly headmaster the prison commandant. With his connivance, the prisoners broke out into the countryside after the Italians surrendered in September 1943, Newby hobbling on a broken ankle. He related his subsequent adventures in perhaps his best and most original book, Love and War in the Apennines (1971).
Having been initially helped by his future wife, Wanda, Newby was later sheltered, at great risk, by the Italian peasantry. He passed the winter of 1943 on a farm, clearing the stones from a vast field, and then hid in a cave. Once he met a German officer out butterfly hunting, who recognised Newby but preferred to share a beer rather than ruin a sunny day with the business of war.
[...]
He was betrayed and captured after five months, and spent the rest of the war at camps in Czechoslovakia and Germany. He was demobilised in 1945 with a Military Cross, belatedly awarded for his bravery during the Sicilian raid.
Newby then worked for MI9, which was helping those who had shielded escaped prisoners. This allowed him to return to Italy and win Wanda Skof for his wife. They were married in the Bardi Chapel of the Church of Santa Croce, Florence, in 1946.
[...]
After the war, Newby spent 10 years in his father's dressmaking firm, later recalling his time in Something Wholesale (1962). Although his imagination was engaged by the trade's creations (one memorable horror he christened "Grand Guignol"), he was not suited to the grind of routine and responsibility.
Nor did he enjoy the financial uncertainties of business. Once he and his father took a taxi to a meeting with the Inland Revenue [British version of the IRS]; they returned home by bus.
[...]
In 1963 he and Wanda were the first to travel the 1,200 miles of the Ganges by rowing boat, a journey described in Slowly Down the Ganges (1966). Newby later made the first descent by a European of the Wakwayowkastic, a tributary of the Moose River in Ontario.
Rest in peace.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2006
Pardon me while I get my geek on
Is the Federation of Planets in Star Trek a fascist organization? Captain Ed wonders what's been going on for the last forty years outside the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
I always had some discomfort with the future that S[tar] T[rek] presented, especially on The Next Generation. It didn't take long to discover that hardly anything existed outside of Star Fleet or academia as far as Earth was concerned, and the various alien societies always contrasted against the sterile functionocracy of humanity in the 24th century. No one seemed to do anything but research or enlist in the military, which was made to appear as the pinnacle of all human endeavor -- even as the writers pressed their anti-war messages to the fore.
This week, I stumbled onto an essay by Dr. Kelley Ross of Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys that cuts to the heart of the dissonance I felt then and now about Star Trek -- and the cluelessness of Utopianism in general. In the essay "The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek", [Ross] points out the inherent contradictions in the Star Trek philosophy.
The good doctor finds some interesting parallels between the writings of 19th-century socialists and the folks trying to visualize a post-economic universe. Captain Ed later posted a response from another blogger.
The problem with Trek isn't that it's utopian; it's not -- else there wouldn't be any conflict among humans, though there is. It's that the creators of the newer series ... were groping for a depiction of a post-economic society ... and they didn't have the cinematic chops to do it right.
It all stems from replicator and holodeck technology, which is why we didn't see it in the original series. Once you have those two, then you're truly post-economic: if you get your hands on a replicator, it is essentially Aladdin's magic ring: anything else you want can be replicated, from food to machinery to great works of art. In fact, by the specs, a replicator can even replicate another replicator!
Every economic (monetary) system is ultimately based upon managing scarcity; it's a form of economic triage, shunting short resources to where they're needed. Thus, when there is no longer any shortage of any material object, any traditional material-based economy will collapse: capitalist, socialist, or barter-based.
[...]
But what the writers and producers didn't understand at all, in the beginning, and only dimly grasped even later (when they reintroduced the Ferengi as Julius Streicher-like caricatures of Jews), is that money didn't create humans; humans created money. I don't mean that simply glibly: humans will always find some way to recreate economic activity (witness prisoners exchanging sex for cigarettes). It's impossible to separate commerce from people; even in the Garden of Eden, humans will find something they can sell.
Replicators remove all material objects from the realm of commerce by making them as plentiful as leaves on the ground. So, starting from the assumption that "humans will always find something to sell," what do we get?
The most obvious thing available for selling is service: any human can sell his own services. Even if machines take the place of laborers, a person can hire himself out as a valet or butler, for those people rich enough to afford an actual human servant. It would be a lucrative profession; even now, such servants are paid far more than they were in the 19th century, when the supply of cheap human labor was more plentiful.
But creativity is also marketable: your replicator can make chicken, but it can't make my brand new chicken recipe that I just now invented! I suspect that copyright would still exist; it arose in the first place because it was necessary; creators refused to release their works without it. So a fellow could make a darned good living, even in the Star Trek post-economic society, by licensing his recipes to the replicator company. In fact, different companies would compete with different "license packs" of various dishes created by well-known chefs.
Original art would still have value (exaggerated value in a society where everyone had ample leisure time). There would still be a market for new novels, movies (holoplays, if you prefer), music, and indeed, for anything that hadn't been created yet. And naturally, a replicator cannot make a machine that has never existed before; so inventors would be rolling in green, or whatever color the "money" of that era was.
[...]
Which means, since we would still have economic energy, we would still need the units of that energy: money. A faint cognition of that inescapable fact finally penetrated the semi-simian brains of the proprietors of the newer Trek series; they introduced "gold-pressed latinum" (GPL) as the unit of currency. To get around the replicator problem, they limply declared -- without explanation -- that this substance was the only matter known that "could not be replicated." Thus, it was a commodity that had a fixed quantity -- the perfect thing to use for currency. Like gold today, it was easy to test for the quantity of GPL in a trinket or a bar, and it could not be counterfeited.
And people thought it was just a silly TV series.
Heh.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2006
It's the economy, stupid
According to George Will, the ability to ignore the good economic news in the final weeks before the election leads one to conclude that the Democrats -- and the mainstream media -- are suffering from "economic hypochondria."
"Worst economy since Herbert Hoover," John Kerry said in 2004, while that year's growth (3.9 percent) was adding to America's gross domestic product the equivalent of the GDP of Taiwan (the 19th-largest economy). Nancy Pelosi vows that if Democrats capture Congress they will "jump-start our economy." A "jump-start " is administered to a stalled vehicle. But since the Bush tax cuts went into effect in 2003, the economy's growth rate (3.5 percent) has been better than the average for the 1980s (3.1) and 1990s (3.3). Today's unemployment rate (4.6 percent) is lower than the average for the 1990s (5.8) -- lower, in fact, than the average for the past 40 years (6.0). Some stall.
Economic hypochondria, a derangement associated with affluence, is a byproduct of the welfare state: An entitlement mentality gives Americans a low pain threshold -- witness their recurring hysteria about nominal rather than real gasoline prices -- and a sense of being entitled to economic dynamism without the frictions and "creative destruction" that must accompany dynamism. Economic hypochondria is also bred by news media that consider the phrase "good news" an oxymoron, even as the U.S. economy, which has performed better than any other major industrial economy since 2001, drives the Dow to record highs. ...
President Bush's tax cuts were supposed to cause a cataract of red ink. In fiscal 2006, however, federal revenue as a share of GDP was 18.4 percent, slightly above the post-1962 average of 18.2. And the federal budget deficit was $247.7 billion, just 1.9 percent of the $13.1 trillion GDP. That is below the average for the 1970s (2.1), 1980s (3.0) and 1990s (2.2).
Captain Ed's analysis is brutal -- and accurate.
Welfare-state proponents cannot stand prosperity, in a very real sense. The more prosperous a nation becomes through capital investment and reduction of federal burdens, the more desperate they become to sell gloom and doom to end it. Their raison d'etre disappears when market economies are allowed to function normally. They sell dependence on managed economies, and in order to survive politically, they have to paint the worst possible picture of economic success that comes outside of central management.
In a rational world, this desperation would be considered satire. Unemployment has dropped to near record lows, and all the Democrats can do is to treat the economy as if it were the Second Coming of the Great Depression. The reluctance of the media to respond with the economic facts turns this from satire to farce.
Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government, but it was better than all other forms. The same could be said of the GOP; it at least has the advantage of standing for a strong national defence and allowing Americans to keep more of their hard-earned cash, while the Democrats stand for what, exactly?
Yeah, as bad as the Republicans have been, let's turn over the keys to the economy and our security to Rangel, Schumer, Pelosi and Reid.
As Tommy Flanagan says, "Yeah, Democrats; that's the ticket!"
Or, as Jose Jiminez was wont to respond, "Oh, I hope not."
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A matter of honor for those with no shame
Donald Sensing has taken a look at the honor and shame culture that pervades the Middle East, and notes how it bears some resemblence to the value system that existed in the Antebellum South -- but for the part about slitting the throat of your sister because her rape-victim status reduces your standing with the neighbors.
Interesting reading; check it out.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2006
Unintended irony alert
I'm sitting on the couch, TV on in the background, when I see an ad that captures my attention. Two puppeteers are entertaining children with an elaborate show, marionettes on horses, hacking at each other with swords.
One puppet looks like Don Quixote, and the colors of the sets and characters are vibrant, like something out of the Italian Renaissance.
Suddenly, things take an unexpected -- and fantastical turn.
The lanky knight cuts his own strings, and as the puppeteers look on in consternation, the rider and his wooden horse leap from the stage, flying over the heads of the watching children. He then gallops down the aisle, sword waving over his head, pausing in the door for his steed to rear up and paw at the sky.
Then, the point of the whole exercise. On a white background, words appear:
Be more independent. PBS.
Which is just hilarious. It's easy to be "independent" when you're living off the public teat. So I guess the message is, figger out a way to get your neighbors to finance your dreams, 'cause it beats paying for it yourself. Because the key to independence is dependence on other people's money.
Just like PBS.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2006
Stop the presses! Clinton gets a pass from the media on torture
Alan Dershowtiz, no liberal's idea of a neo-con, notes that he was pilloried (not Hillaried) for suggesting that torture might be justified under certain circumstances, while Bill Clinton favors a more permissive use of the tactics -- and gets no criticism.
I proposed that the president or a federal judge would have to take personal responsibility for ordering its use in extraordinary situations.
For suggesting this approach to the terrible choice of evils between torture and terrorism, I was condemned as a moral monster, labeled an advocate of torture, and called a Torquemada.
Now I see that President Clinton has offered a similar proposal. In a recent interview on National Public Radio, Mr. Clinton was asked, as someone "who's been there," whether the president needs "the option of authorizing torture in an extreme case."
This is what he said in response: "Look, if the president needed an option, there's all sorts of things they can do.Let's take the best case, OK.You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States or some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy knows it. Right, that's the clearest example. And you think you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full of some drugs or water-boarding him or otherwise working him over. If they really believed that that scenario is likely to occur, let them come forward with an alternate proposal.
"We have a system of laws here where nobody should be above the law, and you don't need blanket advance approval for blanket torture.They can draw a statute much more narrowly, which would permit the president to make a finding in a case like I just outlined, and then that finding could be submitted even if after the fact to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
[...]
It is surprising that this interview with the former president has received so little attention from those who were so quick to jump all over me. Mr. Clinton goes even further than I did. He would, in extreme cases, authorize the granting of a warrant "post facto" by a specialized court, as is now the case with national security wiretaps. What I proposed is that the warrant authorization be issued before the use of extreme measures is permitted. A preliminary warrant could be issued in a manner of minutes, to be followed up by a more thorough, after-the-fact evaluation and review.
As Captain Ed notes, "Welcome to the club." And the Captain also points out that Hillary Clinton voted against the recent legislation authorizing treatment less severe than that lauded by her husband.
The Media coddles Slick Willie? Color me shocked.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:40 AM
Crisis of faith
Columnist Rod Dreher has penned an extremely revealing essay, explaining why he's left the Catholic Church, a move prompted by a tearful conversation with his wife wherein the couple discovered they were in danger of losing their faith.
Why?
In a word: coverup.
Dreher provides a very different take on the toll the Church's loyalty to pedophile priests has taken on its parishioners.
Read the whole thing
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 17, 2006
A slap on the wrist
Imagine an America-hating, treasonous coddler of murderers dedicated to destroying the United States, someone who loathes everything about the capitalist system and the nation most identified with destroying the Soviet Union.
Then take that person and picture that misshapen, twisted psyche encased in a body as ugly and twisted as its belief system, and you have Lynne Stewart, the defense attorney who fought tooth and nail to free the blind sheik from the U.S. legal system.
She was convicted by a jury of deliberately violating prohibitions on the convicted terrorist from communicating with his fellow killers on the outside. Stewart helped him continue his role as a leader of a terrorist organization. One of her co-conspirators was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
What did she get?
Let Andy McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. Attorney who convicted the blind sheik, tell you.
For an offense the point of which was to inspire proven savages to ignore the self-imposed restraints of a truce and begin killing again, Stewart was sentenced to a prison term of 28 months — not years, months.
This is inexplicable.
Given the mitigating factors of Stewart’s age (67) and medical condition (recovering from breast cancer), there was certainly an argument for a less severe sentence than the 30 years the government was urging. But anything less than ten years under these circumstances mocks the gravity of terrorism offenses at a time when terrorism is our top-tier national-security challenge. Indeed, even ten years would have been generous.
[...]
Stewart was convicted of providing material support to terrorists — specifically, of providing the Egyptian Islamic Group (Gamaat al Islamia, one of the world’s most barbaric terrorist organizations and an al Qaeda ally) with the guidance of its leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was otherwise unable to communicate with the outside world due to the sentence of life imprisonment he is serving for leading a terrorist conspiracy in the U.S. (the case I prosecuted).
And we are not talking here about just any kind of support. The message she conveyed was that Abdel Rahman no longer supported the Islamic Group’s ceasefire in Egypt. Translation: Let’s get back to slaughtering innocents, like we did in the 1997 Luxor massacre, in which the Islamic Group brutally killed nearly 60 tourists, inserting into some of the mutilated corpses pamphlets demanding the blind sheikh’s release.
Stewart was not a babe in the woods. She defended anti-American radicals her entire career. She was not an attorney for the Legal Aid Society or the federal panel of lawyers who routinely take on the representation of indigent defendants in any kind of case, no matter how trivial. She was, instead, a self-styled “political” lawyer — an outsider who volunteered to represent, as she put it, “unpopular” clients.
[...]
Stewart defended the blind sheikh through a ten-month trial in which she dealt, again and again, with his calls for massive killing of infidels, especially Jews and Americans. In her summation to the jury, arguing about allegations that the sheikh had solicited and conspired to accomplish the murder of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, she contended not that he was innocent but that the jury should see him as a “freedom fighter” who sought to displace the secular Egyptian regime “by any means necessary.”
Lynne Stewart knew what this was about. It was about murder. That the Islamic Group has apparently not acted on the sheikh’s instructions (at least, that we know of) is more a miracle — or a tactical respite — than a point in her favor.
And speaking of tactics, it is noteworthy that Lynne executed the standard defense sentencing playbook masterfully — and with great success. She affected contrition for what she portrayed as mistakes of judgment (not real crimes, of course), and pleaded with the sentencing judge to be lenient because she had already suffered enough with the loss of her precious law license. “The end of my career truly is like a sword in my side,” the New York Times reports her as plying the court’s heartstrings. ”Permit me to live out the rest of my life productively, lovingly, righteously.”
So what happened once she got the much sought after slap-on-the-wrist? Why, she marched right outside the courthouse and defiantly proclaimed: “This is a great victory against an overreaching government. I hope the government realizes their error, because I am back out ... [a]nd I am staying out until after an appeal that I hope will vindicate me, that I hope will make me back into the lawyer that I was.”
Translation: Despite my conviction, I won and the government lost. And once the appeals court fixes things, my conviction will be gone and I’ll be right back in business.
And what about the cancer, which sentencing judge John Koeltl also relied on to rationalize his ill-conceived beneficence? The Times relates that the “feisty” Stewart — sounding a lot more like a professional crook than a professional lawyer — brayed that if it eventually comes down to serving the 28 months, “I could do it standing on my head.” Apparently, she’s feeling better.
What a disgusting example of how our criminal justice system works -- or more properly, fails to work.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 16, 2006
Sanctimonious politician alert
As if I wasn't already going to vote "No" on Prop. 87, after finding myself frozen on the couch by the sight of Al Gore hectoring me to pass the latest screw-Big-Oil (and the taxpayers, too) initiative, comes yet another reason to reject this idiocy.
Yeah, Bill Clinton, telling me that I owe it "to the children" to prevent those disgusting capitalists from making a profit on gas; that I owe it "to the environment" to tax the crap out of myself; and that I owe it "to the economy" to cripple it by raising the cost of fuel.
Will we never be free from these sanctimonious, failed ex-politicians?
Out! Get out of my house! I never want to see Fat Al or Bilious Bill in HiDef again -- not on my big-screen.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to start my SUV and let it idle in the driveway. Just because I can.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Imagine Don Knotts, minus the charisma; then imagine his sister
Phil Angiledes has been whining up a storm -- and a political backer has filed a protest with the Federal Communications Commission demanding he be given equal time on The Tonight Show -- after Jay Leno had Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger on as a guest.
"Why should I care?" you ask, "and who the hell is Filbert Angeles?"
Exactly. Californians don't care about the Democratic candidate for governor; why would Leno want to subject his national audience to the charisma black hole that is known as Philomena Albertez.
The about-to-be-trounced candidate claims that the Fairness Doctrine requires that NBC give him equal airtime, to compensate for the "gift" given to the governor when he was invited to be a guest on Leno's show.
So, if a prominent politician appears on TV, are all the candidates running against him entitled to airtime? From every political party?
A ludicrous proposition, and a pathetic, crybaby move by the would-be chief executive of the Sunshine State.
"Phil who?"
Exactly.
What a maroon.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 13, 2006
Michael Ramirez
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 12, 2006
John McCain: Platitudinous crapweasel
Heard Sen. John McCain on the Laura Ingraham show this morning. The straight-talk-express man-who-would-be-president went on at some length about how "reasonable" Republicans and "reasonable" Democrats could, should and would work together to pass "comprehensive" immigration reform.
Because, he said, a guest worker program is necessary so we can find people who will do the jobs that Americans won't do.
Of course, once upon a time, the patron saint of the Latino Labor Movement, Caesar Chavez, was a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, 'cause he realized the only way to ensure increased wages and benefits for his union members was to choke off the supply of cheap illegal labor from south of the border.
Chavez went so far as to participate in an early form of the Minutemen Project, standing watch on the border.
Anyhow, back to McCain.
What a gutless, platitudinous crap-weasel.
I will never support this guy, not just for his muddle-headed position on illegal immigration, but for his execrable attack on political speech, aka McCain-Feingold, as well as his proud participation in the Gang-of-Fourteen's assault on the judicial confirmation process.
Did I mention that McCain's a platitudinous crap-weasel?
Where's my blood-pressure meds?
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The eternal teenager
What's the deal with Steven Spielberg? He's attending the premiere of Clint Eastwood's new film about the Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, Flags Of Our Fathers, and the movie mogul walks the red carpet looking like he just came from directing a garage sale.
I understand that Spielberg has more F.U. money than everyone other than George Lucas, but would it kill him to show a little respect for his fellow director -- not to mention the Marines who are the subject of the flick?
There's something about a grown man wearing a baseball cap in public that screams "eternal teen."
And next to the still virile Eastwood, looking classy in his suit, Spielberg looks more than ever like an adolescent imitation of a real man.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mary, Mary, au contraire(e) -- Or Why I'm Cross with Alex Cross
I just finished reading James Patterson's latest Alex Cross mystery, Mary, Mary, and while it's a quick read with familiar, entertaining characters and the requisite gory murders, it feels a little slap-dash, making me wonder at what point a popular writer gets a pass from the critics; the reviews on the cover are stellar.
Anyhow, there's a problem with the plotting that left me troubled when I set it down; it involves spoilers, so if you haven't read it yet and don't want to know whodunnit, stop reading. On the other hand, if you're curious to find out what the hell I'm talking about, read on . . . .
Patterson writes from a first-person perspective for both the hero and the killer, putting us inside their minds. The killer, "Mary," is revealed early on to be a man, assuming the identity of a female killer, and Patterson muddies the waters by adding passages in the first person by a third character, a woman named Mary.
The real killer is portrayed as someone with a grudge against the entertainment business, who begins his spree in a New York City cinema, then continues on the West Coast, with an excursion to Canada, where he hooks up with and later murders an old girlfriend, after revealing his new-found flair for homicide.
The author drops a couple of clues about the killer's job, mentioning an office setting, as well as co-workers who don't really know their colleague's true nature. Later, after the murderer decides to end his killing spree after the crimes are pinned on the mentally-ill Mary, he goes out to dinner with his friends to celebrate -- they think he's been signed to write a blockbuster Hollywood film, while he's rejoicing in having gotten away with murders. Amidst much beer and sushi, they toast the secret killer's success, and much fun is had by all.
The killer ponders the unearned (in his opinion) fame and fortune of one of his friends, who lucked into his own hit film. When they say good-bye, the serial killer leaves the gathering in his 7-year-old BMW, watching his truly successful buddy leave in a Bentley. Feeling somehow forlorn and empty, the bad guy ends the night sobbing on the front lawn of a low-rent house, somewhere in L.A.
Here's the thing. Patterson reveals the killer to be the husband of one of the victims, a famous Hollywood writer-director-actor type, living in a huge mansion with their three daughters. When F.B.I. Agent Alex Cross interviews the husband, he's a grief-stricken husband and father, surrounded by wealth.
The motive is supposedly the husband feeling that his career had stalled, while his much-more successful wife was going to divorce him.
But, and this is key, all the information revealed through the first-person narrative of the killer is entirely inconsistent with who we learn has been shooting, stabbing, slicing and dicing his way through the ranks of the Tinsel Town elite.
The passage that really doesn't make any sense is the dinner and drinks with his friends to celebrate his movie deal. Remember, he's recently widowed, his late-wife shot and mutilated at their palatial home, and yet there's no mention of this misfortune from any of his friends, even the one who's also a big-shot in the Biz.
It just doesn't scan, and makes me wonder if any of the critics actually read the books all the way through.
Look, lots of books have fanciful premises, requiring the willful suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader -- hence the success of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. But to work, the novel has to have some level of internal logic, to be true to the characters and their motivations.
Mary, Mary, au contrary, didn't make my smile grow.
Give it a pass.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2006
Take the GOP Straw Poll
Take a few minutes and add your voices to the first in a series of straw polls taking the pulse of political conservatives.
It's early in the race for the White House, and the field is still wide open.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 10, 2006
Spider central
It's been an arachnaphobe's nightmare in the backyard, with far too many creatures sporting too many legs scuttling about, raising goosebumps most appropriate given the fast-approaching All Hallows Eve.
This garden spider, one of two in residence in the Bailey's Acacia, hides during the day, then emerges at dusk to begin the repairs to the damage done to his web during his absence.
Here you can see the silk, still wet, emerging from the spinnerets as he guides it into place on the framework of the web using his back leg, gliding along the strand as he moves forward and up.
I'd have sent him to his reward long ago, but for the number of mosquitos he's been eating, the only critters I despise more than the arachnids.
When it comes to bugs, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:58 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Big trouble in a small package
Drudge had a headline earlier, citing reports that "experts" were saying that the North Koreans had not detonated a nuclear bomb; the seismic signature too small to signify an atomic blast.
However, other experts raised the possibility of a suitcase-type bomb, the Holy Grail of jihadis (can Muslims look for the Holy Grail?): a man-portable nuke. "Don't worry," we're told by more experts, "there's no such thing as a suitcase nuke. They're too bulky and heavy to fit into a piece of luggage."
Would that it were so. Almost 50 years ago, the U.S. was testing a nuclear weapon that could be carried by one man and launched from a jeep or a tripod.
This is the Davy Crockett, first tested in the early 1960s by the U.S. Army.
The W54 warhead used on the Davy Crockett weighed just 51 pounds and was the smallest and lightest fission bomb (implosion type) ever deployed by the United States, with a variable explosive yield of 0.01 kilotons (equivalent to 10 tons of TNT, or two to four times as powerful as the ammonium nitrate bomb which destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995), or 0.02 kilotons-1 kiloton. A 58.6 pound variant -- the B54 -- was used in the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), a nuclear land mine deployed in Europe, South Korea, Guam, and the United States from 1964-1989.
The Russians reportedly have lost control of somewhere between 50 and 100 tactical nukes, and should they no longer be serviceable, the North Koreans might have tested one of their own, seeing as how the seismic signature being derided by the nay-sayers is consistent with a nuke comparable in size to the Davy Crockett.
Wretchard has a number of links to information evaluating the possiblity of the NorKos becoming the newest member of the nuclear club, with pint-sized city-killers.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A peek behind the Iron Curtain
As the world ponders just what it will mean to have a nuclear North Korea, take a look at pictures taken by a Russian tourist of the impoverished nation, ruled with an iron fist by the roneriest of tyrants.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 09, 2006
Save the world! Obey Al Gore!
Just saw Al Gore on TV, pimping for California's Prop. 87, a tax on oil producers that will help bunnies and whales and, if that's not enough, it'll save the world FOR THE CHILDREN!
Putting aside the fact that taxing oil does nothing to save the environment, protect us from the depradations of OPEC oil sheiks, or bring back Puff the Magic Dragon, there's always the painful truth that higher taxes hurt us, the consumers, and no scheme devised by man will ever keep a corporate tax from eventually being passed on to the customer through the magic of higher retail prices -- hence the stupidity of taxing businesses.
All that being said, it's great seeing Al taking to the airwaves, flacking for the latest cause to garner the support of the liberal elites. I can't think of a better spokesman to motivate conservatives to turn out and vote against any ballot initiative than Gore.
Mark my words: Prop. 87 goes down in flames. You can put that in your lock-box.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Journalistic smackdown
The New York Times sends its ace interviewer to grill Fox News' Chris Wallace, and the sardonic anchor makes quick work of the snarky, hostile Deborah Solomon.
Q: As the host of “Fox News Sunday,” you recently became a news item yourself by seeming to cause President Clinton to have on on-air meltdown. Do you think it was fair for you to mention that his administration had failed to capture Osama bin Laden?
A. I think it was a straight news question, and I think it just touched a very raw nerve. The business I am in is asking probing questions and trying to get interesting answers. I think I succeeded admirably in my job.
Q. The part that amazes me is that his outburst became national news. Is political discourse in this country so scripted and dull that if someone displays a flare of authentic emotion, it makes headlines?
A. This was Bill Clinton unplugged — the good, the bad and the ugly.
Q. I didn’t see it as bad or ugly. I saw it as a genuine expression of feeling.
A. You weren’t in the room.
Q. You became host of the show only three years ago, replacing Tony Snow, who later became the White House press secretary. Why did he leave television?
A. Because he was interested in becoming a radio star.
Q. That doesn’t sound very convincing.
A. I am sorry you’re not persuaded.
Q. What led you to take a job at Fox after decades in the news divisions at the major networks?
A. I used to sit in my office in ABC and have cable news on and wonder at the fact that for the vast majority of the day, ABC, CBS and NBC were in the selling-soap business, while the cable networks were actually doing news.
Q. But why go to Fox News, of all channels, which has been criticized for having a conservative bias?
A. I thought it got a bad rap from the national media and the chattering classes. It did a fair, aggressive and extremely watchable job of presenting the news during the day. People confuse the basic mission of Fox News for the political-opinion shows they have at night, which clearly are conservative.
[...]
Q. What political party do you belong to?
A. None of your business.
Q. Your father, the legendary newsman Mike Wallace, has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq.
A. Is that a question?
Q. No, it’s a statement. After your father criticized President Bush recently, why did you say publicly that he had “lost it”?
A. I was teasing. Some people apparently don’t have much of a sense of humor.
Q. As the son of Mike Wallace, people assume that you had your career handed to you on a silver platter, but your life has not been so easy. Your parents were divorced when you were only a year old.
A. That’s true.
Q. And your brother, Peter, died tragically when you were in high school.
A. That is true. Growing up, it was my mother and my older brother and me against the world. He was on a summer trip in college to go around Europe. And he was in Greece, and went up to see a mountain — he had gotten interested in mountain climbing — and, in just a terrible tragic accident, slipped and fell and died.
Q. I’m sorry. How often do you think of him?
A. It’s 40-plus years later. You don’t think about it every day, but when you do, the wound is still raw. My oldest son, Peter, is named after my brother.
[...]
Q. If I have a follow-up question, may I call you tomorrow?
A. You’re done. I didn’t have an opportunity for a follow-up question with Bill Clinton. You get your chance, you take advantage of it.
"But why go to Fox News, of all channels, which has been criticized for having a conservative bias?" Oh, that's rich. As opposed to going to the ever-so-impartial NPR? Or the bias-free CBS? Or the never-prone-to-side-with-the-jihadis BBC? Or Al-Reuters?
Please. The question says a lot more about the interviewer than it does the interviewee.
And I love this exchange.
You became host of the show only three years ago, replacing Tony Snow, who later became the White House press secretary. Why did he leave television?
Because he was interested in becoming a radio star.
That doesn’t sound very convincing.
I am sorry you’re not persuaded.
Because, when you have an opportunity to interview Chris Wallace, what better time to discuss the motivations of another journalist? And Wallace's response it simply brilliant in its contempt and disinterest.
I can't think of a better example of the reasons why I've stopped reading the Times -- at least on a regular basis.
"Paper of record"? Not bloody likely.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 08, 2006
The end of Western Civilization, Part 4,872
Meet Bruce Potts. He teaches public speaking at the University of New Mexico. I'm glad he wore a coat and tie for the photo; wouldn't want people to get the wrong impression.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Barone in the box
I've been thinking about jury service lately, and how different it must be to experience a trial from inside the jury box, a passive participant instead of a litigator.
Political maven Michael Barone recently served as a juror, and his observations are as astute as you'd expect from the Capital Hill maven.
I was struck by the high quality of the judge and of both the prosecutor and the defense counsel. Years ago, from 1969 to 1971, I served as a law clerk to a federal appeals court judge, and reading the transcripts of state criminal cases, as I sometimes had to do, left me feeling that the judicial process in big-city criminal courts was often pretty bad. I got a much better impression as a juror this year.
The judge did a fine job, keeping firm control of the courtroom, maintaining a serious but also a friendly tone, treating counsel, jurors, and every witness with courtesy and respect. So far as I could tell, his rulings on evidentiary matters seemed correct and fair.
The prosecutor and defense counsel were both well prepared and carefully professional. In their closing statements, they even rose to some level of eloquence. Defense counsel, by the way, was from the D.C. public defender's office. I couldn't understand the point of some of their questions, especially on cross-examination, but that may just be because I didn't understand the facts and the law as well as they did.
[...]
A curiosity. One of the clerks, when she swore in witnesses, ended the oath with "so help you." The other ended it with "so help you God." Does the first clerk take the position that the First Amendment prohibits the use of the word "God" in court?
[...]
One juror, who wore different colored wigs and football T-shirts to court and was missing two of her front teeth, made the point that we had never seen the knife and suggested that it was possible that the defendant used a bigger knife. I replied that it didn't make any difference, since there was no question that a stabbing had taken place. But as the discussion went on, I changed my mind and agreed with her and others that the point was worth noting.
[...]
I have heard of D.C. juries over the years in which some black jurors refuse to vote to convict, saying they don't want to send another black man to jail. There was nothing faintly like that in our deliberations.
Barone's account of how the jury reaches a verdict is interesting, mainly because the deliberations process is such an opaque process to those of us who actually put on the show -- and almost never get a chance to serve.
Take a few minutes and read the whole thing.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 05, 2006
Michael Ramirez
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Guns, Gawd and Nascar
It's as if the big-city, coastal libs are living on a different planet than the folks in the heartland. The difference is astutely observed by the author of The Right Stuff, one of my favorite books.
TOM Wolfe says a jarring scene he recently witnessed in Tennessee convinced him that writers who live in New York and on the Left Coast are out of touch with the rest of the country.
In the upcoming book, "Telling True Stories," the "Bonfire of the Vanities" novelist says he watched in amazement at a NASCAR race last month as a National Rifle Association honcho got a rousing standing ovation, and was followed by a minister who "asked the Lord to look out for these brave drivers and these loyal fans . . . in the name of Thy Only Son, Christ Jesus."
Writes Wolfe: "Anyone who introduced an event that way in San Francisco or New York would risk arrest for a hate crime. New York writers really must cross the Hudson River, and writers in Los Angeles really must go as far as the San Joaquin Valley. Most of the meaning of America lies in between the coasts, I'm afraid."
The same thought struck me when I was watching the premiere of NBC's new series Friday Night Lights, previously mentioned here.
There were several scenes featuring characters praying together, speaking of there being a higher purpose to their existence, and unapologetically incorporating religion into their lives, in what felt like a completely authentic and uncharacteristically un-snarky Hollywood portrayal of Christians.
I turned to my wife after the players prepared for a game by thanking Jesus Christ by name and said, "all across the East and West coasts, secular humanists' heads are exploding." Even as a Jew, I found the professions of faith to be touching, their non-ecumenical nature notwithstanding.
If you have an opportunity to catch a repeat of the show, give it a try.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 04, 2006
Why you hate lawyers
In case you're wondering why I support tort reform, it's because I know that if the loser is forced to pay the legal costs of the other side, we'll have fewer patently ridiculous cases -- like this one.
A New Jersey jury awarded a local college student $179,001 because the manufacturer of a “loft bed” failed to warn users of the bed that if they fell out of it, they could hurt themselves.
Honest. I won’t lie and say I couldn’t make that up. I could. But it would require more tequila than I can keep down at my age.
I am presently staring — incredulously — at the opinion of the poor three-judge panel that had to confront this verdict. I tell you, people don’t have any idea how hard appellate work is. Imagine having to explain all the things wrong with giving someone $179,001 because no one warned him against falling out of bed.
[...]
According to the opinion, “At about noon on October 11, 1999, plaintiff was asleep on the bed when his pager went off. . . . Plaintiff did not hear the pager at first, but his roommate, who also had been sleeping, woke up and yelled to plaintiff to ‘turn . . . off’ the pager. Plaintiff testified that ‘when he yelled over to me to wake up, or, you know, get up, I was startled, and I — the next thing I knew, I was — I fell off the bed, I was on the floor.’ ”
[...]
But despite what that quote might suggest about him, our plaintiff was capable of learning from his mistake. According to the opinion, “Plaintiff resumed sleeping in the loft bed, but subsequently positioned himself ‘all the way against the wall,’ as far as possible from the open edge of the bed, because he ‘didn’t want to fall off the bed again.’ ”
But the damage had been done. $179,001 worth.
Tragically, “There were no warning labels on the bed, and it had never ‘cross[ed his] mind’ or ‘occurred to’ plaintiff that he could fall or that the bed was dangerous in any way. He testified that had he seen a warning, he would have been ‘aware of the hazard that was present’ and slept closer to the wall, as he had done after the accident.” Honest. Says so right in the opinion.
And he had an expert, George Widas, who testified that industry standards in the bed-making industry require that the manufacturer affix a warning “that says make sure that you protect yourself from this fall hazard.” According to Widas, the warning label should have had “black letters on an orange background” and included a warning that both identified the hazard and explained how to avoid it.
So the label should have said — in Day-Glo green letters on a phosphorescent-pink background — “THIS IS A BED. USE ONLY WHILE AWAKE.” Or perhaps “IF YOUR IQ IS NOT THIS TALL, YOU CANNOT RIDE ON THIS BED.” Or how about an arrow pointing downward, with the legend “FALLING IN THIS DIRECTION COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. FALL ONLY UPWARD OR TO THE SIDE.”
The poor CEO of the bed company, who probably felt like he’d wandered into a Kafka novel, testified that federal regulations governing warnings on such beds expressly “exempted colleges and universities and military.” Nonetheless, the jury, confronted with only a cause of action for failure to warn and presumably more familiar with the intellectual capacities of college students in the state than I am, found that such students could not be expected to figure out the whole bed-floor-down-owee thing and awarded the plaintiff “three trash bags fulla twenties and four tokens for the turnpike.”
Read the whole thing to find out what happened on appeal.
Gawd, stuff like this makes me ashamed to be a lawyer.
An interesting discussion on this case -- and tort reform -- in the comments section here.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The sun has set on the English Empire
Want more proof that the end of Western Civilization is fast approaching -- at least in England? This story provides proof galore that between the self-loathing of the elites and the forces of Political Correctness, the Brits are doing to themselves what the Luftwaffe could not.
A Muslim police officer has been excused from guarding London's Israeli Embassy after he objected to the duty on 'moral grounds'.
Alexander Omar Basha - a member of the Metropolitan Police's Diplomatic Protection Group - refused to be posted there because he objected to Israeli bombings in Lebanon and the resulting civilian casualties of fellow Muslims.
In a move which has caused widespread astonishment at Scotland Yard, senior officers in the DPG agreed that that PC Basha should be given an alternative posting.
The officer, who carries a gun, is now thought to be guarding another embassy.
Critics accused Met chiefs of bowing to political correctness, saying the decision set a dangerous precedent.
[...]
Met [Police] insiders blame [Commissioner] Sir Ian Blair for creating a culture of political correctness since taking over as head of the force in February last year. One of the first initiatives taken by Sir Ian after taking up the post was to change the Met's log from a handwritten style to a bland type in capitals because it discriminated against short-sighted people.
Next he approved the hiring of 24 'diversity advisors' to give advice on race and gay issues to police investigating major crimes.
[...]
Ex-Met Flying Squad commander John O'Connor, said: "This is the beginning of the end for British policing.
"If they can allow this, surely they'll have to accept a Jewish officer not wanting to work at an Islamic national embassy? Will Catholic cops be let off working at Protestant churches? ... The Metropolitan Police are setting a precedent they will come to bitterly regret."
Between allowing cops to pick and choose who'll they'll protect, to Western nations mulling adopting Sharia, there is a crisis fast approaching, when entire nations will have to decide if anything is worth fighting for.
It sounds like the answer in England may be, "No."
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 03, 2006
Tales from the Moonbat Zone
Check out Cindy Sheehan at her book signing and tell me she doesn't make your skin crawl.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Remembering our heroes
A comment on a previous post making no distinction between a killer and his victims made me realize that I hadn't done enough to pay tribute to those victims, murdered during a routine traffic stop.
So I'd like to remind everyone that the Florida Polk County Sheriff's Office and law enforcement families across the nation will have a chance to farewell to Deputy Vernon Matthew Williams today at 1 p.m. at Victory Church, 1401 Griffin Road, in Lakeland.
The slain cop will be interred at Auburndale Memorial Cemetery, and his canine partner, Diogi, will be cremated, his remains buried with Deputy Williams.
If you have a moment at 1 p.m. today, put aside the daily grind for a moment and think about the brave men and women (and dogs) who risk their lives every day to keep us safe, and say a prayer for them -- and for Matt and his partner.
For those of you who'd like to help his family through this awful time, checks made out to The Matt Williams Family Trust Fund should be mailed to:
Wachovia Bank
c/o Marilyn Watson
203 Avenue A
Winter Haven, FL 33881
I'd like to think that Matt Williams and Diogi will long be remembered for their bravery and sacrifice.
And I take some small satisfaction in knowing that the thug who took their lives will be reviled -- and then forgotten -- his very existence erased, but for the terrible impact he had on the friends and family of Matt Williams and Diogi.
Rest in peace.
Posted by Mike Lief at 05:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Best quote ever about a cop-killer's demise
The manhunt for the crook who executed a Florida K-9 cop and his german shepherd partner ended in a most-suitable blaze of gunfire.
MIAMI - A fugitive gunman accused of killing a Florida sheriff’s deputy was shot 68 times by SWAT team officers who found him hiding in the woods, according to autopsy results.
Police fired 110 shots at Angilo Freeland, 27, the target of a massive manhunt in central Florida following the shooting death of Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Williams Thursday.
“That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.
Of Arms and the Law notes a most interesting fact about the arrest: "They fired 110 shots total, giving a hit rate of about 60%. Not great marksmanship, but better than usually seen."
Even figuring in the cost of ammo, that's still a cost-effective resolution.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Sounds like must-see TV
There's a new series premiering tonight on NBC, and it sounds like a winner, if the rave review from the N.Y. Times is accurate.
Lord, is “Friday Night Lights” good. In fact, if the season is anything like the pilot, this new drama about high school football could be great — and not just television great, but great in the way of a poem or painting, great in the way of art with a single obsessive creator who doesn’t have to consult with a committee and has months or years to go back and agonize over line breaks and the color red; it could belong in a league with art that doesn’t have to pause for commercials, or casually recap the post-commercial action, or sell viewers on the plot and characters in the first five minutes, or hew to a line-item budget, or answer to unions and studios, or avoid four-letter words and nudity.
[...]
“Friday Night Lights” is a wonder. It’s a big drama, and even seasoned pilot skeptics — and their bookies, who rank shows based on the odds they’ll be canceled — will have a hard time not getting choked up at tonight’s episode. At this rate, “Friday Night Lights” might just bring old NBC the state championship. It’s been a long time.
I'll give it a try -- at least for the first couple of episodes -- despite my fundamental belief that baseball is a much more interesting sport.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 02, 2006
Worst tag line ever in a commercial
There's an American GI, sitting outside some old barracks, in his t-shirt and ACU pants talking to the camera. He tells us that his girlfriend says he has to stop smoking. She's tired of him coming home smelling like smoked sausage and bacon. "So," he says, pulling out a big burger and taking a bite, "I'm going to Carl's Jr."
Then he looks into the camera and says, "Let them smoke my sausage."
Uh, yeah, that makes me want to go there for lunch.
Am I the only one who thinks there's something quite unseemly about this ad?
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A message for Bogie's canine compadres
For the love of Lassie, don't let your dogs eat sugar-free treats!
Veterinarians warned on Friday that a commonly used sweetener might cause liver failure in dogs, and perhaps even kill them.
Their report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association appears to strengthen the suspected link between the sugar substitute xylitol, thought to make dogs sick, and possible liver failure.
Xylitol, a naturally occurring product, is found in many sugar-free chewing gums, candies, baked goods and toothpastes.
[...]
One dog who had to be euthanized had eaten four large, chocolate-frosted muffins containing about 1 pound (0.45 kg) of xylitol.
"People don't think sugar-free gum can kill their dog. I didn't before I got into this. But this is something people should be aware of," Gwaltney-Brant, who co-authored the study with Dunayer, said in a statement.
Gwaltney-Brant said for dogs, ingesting even a small amount of xylitol can trigger significant insulin release, which drops their blood sugar and can be fatal.
"A 22-pound (10-kg) dog who consumes one gram (0.03 ounces) of xylitol should be treated," she said, adding that further studies were needed to definitely establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
I've been careful over the years to not give Bogie scraps; nothing but Nutro kibble and treats for the fella. An added benefit is that he doesn't beg, 'cause it doesn't work. Keeping him on a consistent diet of high-quality dog food has kept him healthy, with no digestive problems at all.
Now it seems that there's an added benefit to avoiding having Bogie finish the leftovers: he won't shuffle off this mortal coil, courtesy of a sugar-free treat.
Posted by Mike Lief at 01:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Conversations with the Devil
Patterico has begun a fascinating series of posts giving us a bone-chilling look at the enemy, thanks to a man who studied them in a certain facility off the Florida coast. Take a gander.
"I know Zarqawi," the terrorist said to the American. "I am going to have Zarqawi cut off your family’s head while you watch. Then he will cut off your head."
The terrorist said it all in a matter-of-fact way, looking the American straight in the eye.
The American was not frightened. There was little danger that the terrorist was going to carry out his threat . . . at least any time soon.
The terrorist was a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the American was an Army nurse who worked with Guantánamo detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems. For six months, he spoke with detainees on a daily basis, and built a rapport of sorts with some of the most troublesome terrorists at Guantánamo.
More details will be coming over the next few days as Patterico recounts his conversations with the Army nurse, who has looked the enemy in the eye -- and listened to what he has to say.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 01, 2006
Juan Williams does it again
I'm watching Fox News Sunday, and Juan Williams just finished saying that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that jihadis receive the same protections as U.S. citizens, provoking an exasperated guffaw from Brit Hume (and me on my couch).
Williams was responding to the passage of legislation in the House and Senate authorizing continued interrogation of our enemies, legislation opposed by the Democrats, who voted against it in overwhelming numbers.
There was a lot of crosstalk between the two men, but when Hume asked in a disbelieving tone if Williams was saying that we need to treat the terrorists the same as Americans, Williams blathered back about who we are as a nation is reflected by how we treat the throat-slitting jihadis (my words, not his).
Hume gave him his patented "Good Lord man, are you retarded?" looks, then said, "We had hundreds of thousands of POWs during WW2; were we less of a nation because we were denying them their Constitutional rights?"
Williams then responded that we were facing a different threat then, that they were soldiers -- a marvelous non-sequitur. Following Williams' meager logic, lawful combatants, i.e., uniformed enemy combatants like the Germans and Japanese, who are arguably signatories to and bound by the Geneva Conventions, are entitled to fewer protections than unlawful combatants, who follow no internationally-recognized code of conduct in their battle against the West.
Simply breathtaking in its moral obtuseness and stupidity.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack