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Nightly Ramble:The Free Internet Edition

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the Free Internet editionsign41 [1]

  • Suicide by Billing Rates: Let’s call this what it is; the Associated Press is busily committing suicide. [2]The fact of the matter is they need all the good vibes they can get from both their members and their readers and listeners. What they’ve been doing the last several months is a sure fire way to move in exactly the opposite direction.
  • Politics from the bench: So now a judge has gotten around to ordering an investigation [3] of the prosecutors who prosecuted Alaska senator Ted Stevens.  It’s an interesting move.  I may be mistaken on this one but I seem to recall the judge in this case being a Clinton appointee. Oops. Yeah, there’s the reference to that appointment right in the linked article, in the New York Times. Well, now we know why the Times spent so much effort on coverage of the event.  Gee, no chance for political motivations in those calls for investigation, is there? After all, watching the democrats ignore the crimes of William Jefferson, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, and however many denizens of Chicago democrat politics you’d care to name, and yet go all out on Ted Stevens, we all know that the Democrats are immune to politicizing criminal investigations, aren’t we?   I still say the reasons behind dropping the charges against Stevens was to get the whole thing out of the sunshine as quickly as possible to avoid embarrassment for a democratic ministration and a democrat Congress.  That said this Clinton appointee doesn’t appear to be interested in playing by those rules. one can only assume he has political motivations all his own.  That said, this investigation is going nowhere.
  • Save yourself: A word, please, about Microsoft Internet Explorer version 8: Don’t. At least, not yet. particularly, those of you in business. The old axiom about never using version one of anything Microsoft releases, would seem to apply in this case.
  • Charles Johnson: Kool-Air Sampler? I expect this kind of nonsense [4] to show up from places like Media Matters.  To say the least, little disappointed in Little Green Footballs.  he has apparently decided without consulting with the rest of us that he used to be the arbiter of what is and is not a conspiracy theory, what is and is not conservative thought, what is right and wrong.  Funny thing; He never seemed particularly principled, before. Nor, frankly does he now.  Closer to the mark,  the Kool aid was just too tempting.   Trust me; When Glenn Beck says something, the man has is documentation in order No tinfoil hat wearer, he.   He’s proven that, time and again.  Stacy McCain, notes the same thread, and suggests correctly: [5]

    A successful movement cannot be built by a process of subtraction, and this “urge to purge” inevitably weakens the movement. There will always be grassroots elements whose motivations and beliefs would be embarrassing to discuss on “Meet the Press.” Yet the Democratic Party never bothers to apologize for the support they receive from, inter alia, MALDEF or Code Pink, while there are always Republicans denouncing and repudiating some grassroots constituency of their party.

    To that excellent point I would add that if anyone has any solid proof that anything that Mr. Beck has offered on his program is a falsehood, offer it up in comments.  I’ll be interested to read it.  Leave out the words “Conspiracy Theory” and stick to the facts. Barring a reasonable answer there, I would suggest that what’s going on here is what Stacy suggests is “Letting your enemy define you”.

    If Republicans would stop acting so defensive and guilty, like they’ve got something to hide, the “ransom note” [6] hooligans wouldn’t be able to roll them like they rolled George Allen in 2006. Nobody ever credibly asserted — or ever could credibly assert — that Allen hated Indian-Americans. And yet his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, hit the panic button and next thing you know, Allen’s on an “apology tour,” begging forgiveness from people who’d never even heard of a “macaca” before.

    Correct. And frankly, there’s something that stinks about the way this has come together.  I am particularly annoyed at Charles Johnson, over this one.  I’ve never really paid tremendously close attention to what the man’s been writing over the years, though what I have observed in the past has been good.  But if this is an indication of the way he’s planning on going in future, he can forget about that crown and robe.  Still, one wonders what prompted the change in direction.

  • The Right Way? Ummmm… no. Rod Dreher intones, [7]yesterday:

    I am opposed, as you know, to gay marriage, but if states are going to have it, Vermont just got it the right way [8]: democratically, through legislative action. Of course it didn’t start that way in Vermont, but that’s how it’s ended. A social experiment as radical as same-sex marriage should not be attempted without democratic consensus. Vermont has that now, and even though I think they’ve done the wrong thing, at least the elected representatives of the people have done this.

    Sorry, I happen to like Rod,  but this makes far too many assumptions for my taste. Perhaps most discordant with the facts, Rod makes the assumption that the legislature is reflecting the actual views of the electorate, and that thereby this wasn’t yet another attemnpt to impose the will of the minority on the majority… that this wasn’t using the power and force of government to change the social fabric.    I raised the question at Outside the Beltway yesterday [9], if this thing would have passed in a referendum.  Frankly, I doubt it would.  (For those who don’t know, I regularly hold court in the comments section there. )  As I said there, whatever you think of SSM, trumpeting this as some kind of victory for “small d” democracy seems a bit out of place. Big D Democrat seems a closer description of the happening. Even among democrats, and yes the polling numbers suggest even in the far left wacko state of Vermont, the same sex marriage is a nonstarter among the Democrat rank and file.  And yet, we see the state legislature taking this action.

  • Vote Fraud? No. Couldn’t be. A side note to the idea of actually representing the people, comes in the form of word that Detroit actually has more registered voters than it has residents.  Gee I can’t imagine why democrats continually win in Detroit year over year.  Can you?
  • He’s just a little racist: OK, let’s watch this.


Now… can you imagine the reaction to a white person saying this about blacks, even in jest?  I’ve got a message for you to Gary: You can kiss my skinny white backside.  The odd part about it is you won’t even have to bend over very far.I had a boss years ago that reminds me of him. Both were real maggots.  The kind of individuals you would love to burn down if somebody would give you 50¢ to justify it.   Both suffer in the extreme from what I will call “yappy little dog syndrome”.  In both cases they had to keep running their mouths to let everybody else know how big and important they are .  And of course it goes without saying that Coleman in his infinite wisdom is decided to play the race card here.  Unfortunately for Coleman, that particular crutch is taller than he is.

  • I’ve told you ten billion times don’t exaggerate: I notice John Dickerson at Slate [10] today Obama and his proclivity for exaggeration.

    Obama exaggerates to free himself from the demands of the news cycle, which he described in France: “In an age of instant gratification, it’s tempting to believe that every problem can and should be solved in the span of a week. When these problems aren’t solved, we conclude that our efforts to solve them must have been in vain.” When it comes to the economy, polls show that people are very patient. What Obama hopes to do though this exaggerated description is make all criticism seem like an irrational rush to judgment..

    Which is an interesting observation, given that 90% of his campaign was a rush to judgment about the Bush economic policies and the Bush policies in the Middle East, most of which in both cases Obama himself has adopted.

  • Keep to the code: I note with increased alarm the sailors ... American sailors [11], mind you, taken hostage off the coast of Somalia. Reports are that the sailors were  freed.  That said, however, it’s interesting to me that these pirates decided to pick just now after being quiet for so long to take these people hostage.  Interesting, because it happens in such direct proximity to the response to the aggression from North Korea, which was to propose a cut in military spending, and the rather childish notion of eliminating nuclear weapons by Liberal fiat.    Here once again we see that predators attack perceived weakness.  The White House still hasn’t gotten the message that the message they are sending; is that of weakness.  I will defy my readers to tell me what policies that Obama has put into place that make us safer, and how they do that.  That question becomes particularly potent now that we’ve seen results from Obama policies… results which can be considered nothing but disastrous.