Shot In The Dark

Joint Statement - Scrappleface calls

Joint Statement - Scrappleface calls it exactly right.

The so-called 'blogosphere' today released an official statement on the potential 2004 presidential candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton. The complete statement reads as follows:

Please...Oh, Please...Oh, Please. Heh.

Indeed.

Heh.

OK - now I'll see you on Tuesday.

Blogging - the Foxfire Way

Blogging - the Foxfire Way - Day two without a computer. May have it back by Wednesday at this rate - maybe. Between the 60-minute limit they have at most libraries, and the demands of my job-hunting, I'm getting kinda pathetic, driving from library to library, cadging an hour here and there. But now, I'm done for the week.

I'm cutting out for the weekend here. I'll be seeing the great Franky Perez at the State Fair Bandshell tomorrow. I'll be the only 40-year-old, 6'5 guy in the place, I'm sure. Say hi.

Have a great Labor Day. Probably see you on Tuesday.

Or Sunday. The news never sleeps.

The Hateful Left - I've been wanting for the past ten days to blog about the controversy involving Indymedia (a internet lefty media "collective") that has come under allegations of anti-semitism in its "editorial" decisions, censoring a cartoon by talentless Brazilian cartoonist Latuff on primarily political (anti-semitic) grounds.

Chicago Boyz write the article I wanted to. Very much worth a read.

Crossfire - I'll bet anything today's bombing in Najaf is an extension of that most classic Islamic tradition - killing the moderates, those who express any rapprochement with the infidels.

The countdown for the left to blame this on Bush has begun.

Meet The New Left. Same

Meet The New Left. Same As the Very Old Left - The left - from Jeff Fecke to Josh Marshall and everyone in between - is all but declaring victory in 2004 already. They see the President's slip below 60% approval in many polls as a harbinger of electoral doom.

Podhoretz (via Instapundit and Jarvis) in the NYPost has an excellent piece today on the new left and the pitfalls - the culture of snobbery and hatred, as well as the preening overconfidence that seems to be swallowing so many - that await them.

The triumphant success of Howard Dean's once-quixotic presidential campaign in marshaling genuine grass-roots support and money over the Internet demonstrates that there is a large and hungry audience in the land for a leftist political-cultural message.

The Dean campaign is a more mainstream outgrowth of the popular demonstrations against the Iraq war organized last winter by the Stalinist anti-Semites of International ANSWER.

That's the part that so many relatively well-meaning people on the left miss - or, perhaps, just don't find all that bad (as I think we're seeing in the left's complete ignorance of North Korea and the cynicism of their spin in Iraq).

Part of what fuels this alliance is a feeling of powerlessness — of not being heard, of not being paid attention to. Note the rise of what I like to call "Foxanoia," the lunatic theory popular these days in leftist circles that the Fox News Channel has become the dominant voice in all of America and is controlling every piece of information that gets out to the American people.

This is, of course, what gave rise to "conservative talk radio", as well as the libertarian/conservative hegemony over the Internet.

I think it's interesting to watch what sort of media arise from these feelings of powerlessness:

• Conservatism - Decentralized media like the large, well-developed libertarian/conservative presence on the Internet, as well as entrepreneurial assaults like talk radio.
• Liberalism - Highly-centralized media hives, whether in the open market (the publishing industry, the media), or "independent" media that exercise a high degree of collective control (Indymedia).

Podhoretz continues:

...it's absurd to claim that, because Fox has bested CNN and MSNBC in the cable-news race, its influence surpasses the combined might of the three broadcast networks, the news magazines and the editorial guidance given at most of the major daily U.S. newspapers.

It's so absurd, in fact, that few on the right genuinely believe that people on the left genuinely suffer from Foxanoia. My fellow conservatives tend to think the argument that there's no liberal media anymore is simply a smokescreen, a sophistic dodge.

It's not. They do believe it, because they believe so ardently in the power of the media that they figure their inability to stop the Iraq war from happening can only be explained by the rise of a pro-war media.

In fact, they lost an argument about the nature of terrorism, rogue nations and world power after 9/11. But they can't bear to admit that, so they instead argue that Bush only prevailed because of lies he told, that Fox and Ann Coulter only succeed because they lie.

This last statement is interesting to me, personally.

This site has long documented the nearly-institutional condescenscion liberals feel for conservatives at large, but the extent to which this has devolved into open hatred.

This connects with the feelings of powerlessness Podhoretz addressed earlier. For indeed, what breeds hatred and bigotry but the feeling of powerlessness?

Examples abound throughout history:

• During reconstruction, Southern whites felt deprived of power. Disbelieving that their loss could be chalked up to the bankruptcy of racism, they blamed everyone - carpetbaggers, the Northern/Jew/Catholic media, conspiracies in every holler.
• As many empires or societies have decayed, the majority stakeholders have taken out their frustrations on their minority countrymen; Turks against Armenians, French and German skinheads against Turks, New York English against New York Germans...
• After World War I, German powerlessness combined with what Goldhagen referred to as the endemic, eliminationist antisemitism in German culture to lay the groundwork for the Holocaust.
• Yeah, I think the conservative exodus of the nineties may have created a lunatic fringe market for Michael Savage. Nostra Culpa.

Powerlessness breeds bigotry and hatred.

And the denial that goes with it...:

These folks believe a grotesque, nearly cosmic unfairness is going on — a wrong that must be righted. Everything — everything — has gone wrong since 2001. "The Bush administration has done virtually nothing good for the country," says Michael Tomasky, who as editor-elect of the American Prospect magazine will be making the more cerebral versions of the arguments offered in Franken's unabashed screed.

That is a powerful glue, the perfect opinion for the rise of a mass movement.

The problem for the Foxanoia axis is this: What, aside from hating Bush and the Fox News Channel, do they believe in?

Is there anything positive they can say about America? And I don't mean about George Bush's America — I mean about America in general.

Ask a liberal. Let's find out.

Most of them are out of practice.

Podhoretz continues:

Take almost any subject. On race, can a Foxanoid leftist say anything other than the relations between the races are in disastrous shape? On the environment, does a Foxanoid have anything to offer other than that the sky is falling and the earth is melting?

On economics, the Foxanoid mantra is always the same: There is a growing gap between rich and poor, a growing deficit that will eat away at everything, a growing job loss. Oh, and tax cuts are evil.

And don't even ask about the War on Terror, which according to the Foxanoids is a) going badly because we haven't been tough enough on al Qaeda and b) going badly because we've been too tough in the application of anti-terror laws and c) going badly because the world hates us and d) going badly because we deserve it that the world hates us.

What can the Foxanoids offer as a message of hope for the future? Cheaper prescription drugs? Please.

Bingo. It's a message not unlike that of Bob Dole's "At Least I'm Not Clinton", back in '96.

I want to highlight this next bit, for the Jeff Feckes and Josh Marhalls and Kos Kosensteins of the world to try to absorb. It's an important point:

Yes, the left is rising. But for the left to truly challenge the right for dominance of the intellectual debate, its leaders and thinkers will need to be able to offer a picture of a better, safe and wealthier United States.

And the problem for those who describe themselves as "progressives" is that they can see no progress anywhere. All they see is misery stretched out far into the future.

Bingo. There is not a single "progressive" vision for American that doesn't read like my daughter's vision for the hamsters she wants to buy; everyone taken care of, nobody wanting for anything (at great expense to Dad, but never no mind)...none of the stuff that the hamsters citizens themselves say, and feel in their guts, that they need to really live with confidence in this world. No More Terror. A Nation that can say it's done its part to rid the world of the type of human bacteria that carried out 9/11, that jail children, that rape women, that feed families into plastic-shredders.

Their failed philosophy has blinded them, left them incapable of conceiving of a positive future or offering even a road map out of their own misery.

Except, maybe, if somebody would come along and invent a rival to the Fox News Channel.

I can't wait for the fabled liberal talk network to go on the air. Expect wall to wall kvetching, wrapped in the invincible, myopic belief that everyone would really feel the same, if they just weren't so stupid (and susceptible to lies, lies, lies, of course).

Minister of Whaaaahuh? - Memo:

Minister of Whaaaahuh? - Memo:

To: Fraters, Hewitt
From: Berg
Subject: Feud

I'm not sure what's up with the dispute between the Fraters and Hugh Hewitt, on which Lileks opined this morning.

Cheese it, guys. We have a blogosphere to conquer.

MBerg

XOXO

North Korea - In the

North Korea - In the church I used to go to, there was a woman that always reminded me of the rampantly-bigoted South African woman in P.J. O'Rourke's "Holidays in Hell" - the one O'Rourke called, and I'm paraphrasing, ugly in the way that is a symptom of really bad character. Seventyish, boundlessly crabby, tall in a craggy sort of way, never a smile for anyone. I called her Hawk Woman, because she hovered like a hawk over all church activities, ready to pounce on any sign of political incorrectness - not in the sense of "we need to be inclusive", but more in a "More PC than thou" sense.

During congregational prayers, she'd always raise her hand, and respond with a prayer request for some fashionably lefty cause; "the Honeywell Project" or "an end to police brutality in Saint Paul" or some such.

One day, after the news broke in the mid-nineties about the cataclysmic famines sweeping North Korea, she asked us to pray "for the people of North Korea, who are caught up in a famine caused by the United States' imperialist aggression".

I sat, stunned (along with about three quarters of the congregation) - then raised my hand. The minister - a lefty with a great sense of humor who, alone in that church, knew of my conservative past - recognized me. "Let's pray for people who are being starved to death by Stalinistic dictatorships who are diverting their nation's food supply to the support of immense military buildups at the expense of their own people". I heard a few muted chuckles, and saw Hawk Woman glaring at me in disgust. Although she'd never actually spoken to me in the past, it was clear she Never Spoke To Me Again.

So goes the double standard with North Korea; leftists who are ferocious in their vigilance for human rights abuses among small-l/d liberal democratic nations, are completely, often willfully oblivious to the abuses of the likes of Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and of course Kim Jong-Il.

Google the subject sometime. See any major, left-wing media in the list?

Search any leftist publication - say, The Nation. Search their databases for articles on North Korea; you'll see serried ranks of stories about the whys and wherefores of negotiation over nuclear weapons; endless, yeshivic arguments about whether or not Yongbyon is really a serious threat; breathless justifications of the Clinton policy that may have led us to this showdown with the North.

But the refugees?

The current left, at its best, seems to share its grandparents' myopia for the sins of the likes of Kim, Stalin, Mao, Hitler.

And that's at best. At worst?

Abject support. Check out the likes of Indymedia - they know who the real aggressors are.

In the meantime, the story goes on.

More to come.

More On North Korea -

More On North Korea - Check out Fraters and the SCSU Scholars. Both are also answering Hugh Hewitt's call:

Like Rwanda, Cambodia and germany before it, North Korea today is a country of death. The few who raise their voices against this holocaust deserve every attention.

And, most of all, check out the Free North Korea blog. I'm going to be looking into it for bona fides - but it looks to be well worth a read.

UPDATE: Here are the pictures of the defectors who, like the Mrs. Cho from Claudia Rosett's article, seem to have disappeared back into the maw of the North Korean Gulag - and from the face of the world.

Cold Turkey - My computer

Cold Turkey - My computer is in the shop.

My office desk beckons to me, but when I sit down to try to write something, or surf my favorite site, there's no computer there. I sit, hollow-eyed, and start to shake.

Then I leap to my feet and run down to the library, where there are computers - but only for an hour. DAMN BUREAUCRATS! DAMN DAMN DAMN!

Deep breath.

OK. So blogging will be both limited and rather hasty for the next THREE TO FOR FARGING BUSINESS DAYS...deep breath...until my computer is back from the shop.

Aaaagh.

History Calling - Walking through

History Calling - Walking through the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC is, to say the least, sobering.

An elevator carries you up to the uppermost of the four floors, as a speaker plays a recording (or uncanny simulation) of an American unit's radio call on discovering a concentration camp - real or recreation, the static-y voice of the officer captures the unfolding horror the soldiers, no doubt veterans of untold horrors in battle themselves, feel on seeing the sights the visitor is about to see. Then, you work your way down. The top floor covers the pre-war years - the roots of German antisemitism, Hitler's rise to power, the Anschluss, the building of the legal and social groundwork that led to what we run into on the second floor.

The next floor - the third - covers the beginning of the war; the beginnings of the Endloesung, the Final Solution. An overwhelming grayness settles over you as you see the nightmare unfolding. While we all know how the story ends, you get the sense that it's all creeping up on you in its immense import.

The next floor - Two - is the nightmare in its full fury; the floor is dedicated to relics of the industrialization of murder. It's jarring and awful and shakes you to the very core of your soul, if you have one. My stepson - 14 at the time - had to bow out of the tour. It was too much for him.

The designers of the exhibits must have known what they were dealing with, because the final - First - floor of the museum lightens up. It's dedicated to the liberation of the camps, and the story of the Danish Resistance (which managed to smuggle the vast majority of Denmark's Jews to Sweden and safety) and a copy of Vad Yashem's list of the Righteous, the depressingly small yet hope-inspiringly long list of people who risked death to save Jews from the death machine.

Walking out of the Holocaust Museum, one whispers "no, never ever again" through teeth gritted to keep from crying, and hugs one's children a little more tightly.

Why do I bring this up?

Because it's happening. Again. And, just like the first Holocaust, you're not going to hear about it on the major media until it's far too late.

North Korea maintains a series of Gulags that put Stalin's - perhaps even Orwell's - to shame for their relative size and comprehensiveness and ruthlessness.

The horror is immense. And - worst of all - the truth is out there - somewhere. Just not in the New York Times, or the Big Three, or the BBC or CNN.

The Infinite Monkeys had an excellent digest of new, emerging information on the topic yesterday. It's very much worth a read.

The Monkeys link to a ghastly - and dead-on - article in OpinionJournal from Claudia Rosett. The article starts off noting the disappearance of one of the many refugees from North Korea, one of very few that had the "luck" to encounter Westerners after escaping to China. I add emphasis in places below:

America, erstwhile haven for the tempest-tossed, seems to have room for refugees from everyplace on earth--except North Korea. And though America serves as home to many a would-be-democratic-government in exile, there is no such North Korean presence here, no resistance movement. Nothing. Plenty of North Koreans have tried to escape the regime of Kim Jong Il. But, dear readers, have you ever met one? Or even seen one on television?

Instead, the free world looks to South Korea as the keeper of this important human trust--to offer a haven for North Koreans who value freedom. Usually, it is in such havens that exiles from tyrannies can form a base, get out the word about atrocities back home, offer insights into the vulnerabilities of tyrants and find ways to smuggle into the tyrannies some words of truth and hope.
But in today's South Korea, fat chance. This is the place where authorities have twice this past week roughed up German doctor Norbert Vollertsen, the single loudest voice trying for three years now to draw attention to the depravities of the North Korean government, the plight of the people still there, and the civilized world's utter abandonment of the refugees. There was some attention in the news last week to the efforts of Mr. Vollertsen and some of his activist colleagues to send solar-powered radios into North Korea, attached to balloons--which the South Korean authorities stopped them from doing. The prohibition and the beating of Mr. Vollertsen that accompanied it, underscore Mr. Vollertsen's message--which is not simply that conditions in North Korea rival the atrocities under Nazi Germany, and that some refugees are desperate enough to die trying to escape. It is also that the civilized world, South Korea at the forefront, simply does not want to see, hear, know, or help, and in ignoring the 22 million people of North Korea, while we parley with their jailers, we throw away our best hope of peacefully ending this nightmare.

One can not dig into this story long without getting that feeling from the second floor of the Holocaust Museum.

One can also find precious few references to the story in the major media.

On the eve of World War Two, most of the Western world buried the story of the Holocaust, until they couldn't bury it - when the troops started liberating camps. Before the war, it was an inconvenient stumbling block for diplomatic negotiation. During the war, the powers that be either doubted the story, or thought it smacked of WWI-style propagandistic overkill. In the end, they were both wrong.

The US State Department (along with the UN and the South Koreans), spooked by Kim Jong Il's blustering and the threat that the North may have nukes, wants smooth negotiations with the North. Talk of human rights is a prime target to get left off the table. It's inconvenient, when dealing with a petulant madman like Kim.

And so we get stories like those of Dr. Vollertsen (of whom more tomorrow):

Yet for all the horrors I witnessed in North Korea, here I once worked for 18 months as a medical worker for Cap Anamur, a German aid organization, I was never beaten by the police -- not even in my last days there as persona non grata, just before my expulsion for the expression of pro-human rights views.

Here, in South Korea, I have been beaten by the police -- among others.

During our balloon-launching attempt on Aug. 22, a young South Korean (well-fed, wanting for nothing) attacked me, threw me to the ground and escaped with a bundle of radios intended for his starving, destitute brothers across the border -- an assault carried out right under the noses of the riot police. Then I was attacked by the police themselves. One officer jumped on my twisted knee while I was lying on the ground. But even that was not as painful as the incident in March this year when some riot policemen kicked me in the groin while I was standing in the middle of their crowd during a protest in front of the Chinese embassy here in Seoul.

On Sunday, I was attacked by North Korean "journalists" at the World University Games in Daegu, while holding a peaceful press conference in front of the convention building there. The South Korean newspapers reported that I "exchanged punches with the North Koreans." In reality, I was standing on my crutches, still suffering from my injuries from the balloon-launch assault, and could barely stay upright. I was also wearing a neck-brace, and so was unable even to swivel my head to face my North Korean attackers.

Afterwards, the same newspapers called me an "extreme ultra-right-wing activist," even "fascist," which is ironical, given that I am doing what I am doing for the North Koreans mainly to atone for the shameful fascist history of my home country, Germany.

Attacking Kim - or Castro - today is like attacking Hitler or Stalin in 1933; despite their ghastly crimes against humanity, the lunatic left fears the beginning of a slippery slope.

The story may go away - it may never even arrive, as far as the consumer of American news is concerned. We - those who pay attention to these things, and the part of the Blogosphere concerned with actual rights for real humans - need to do our best to fix that.

I'll be writing on some variety of this topic for the rest of this week. Tomorrow (computer access willing) I'll be going over whatever I can find about the left's approach to this issue. Saturday - all caveats still apply - I'm going to try to write something about those who are the Danish Fishermen of 2003 - who, like Vollertsen, know the depth of this story and are speaking out.

Also, check out some of the other Northern Alliance blogs, as well as the Monkeys.

And stay tuned.

Just You Wait - My

Just You Wait - My computer is incredibly susceptible to humidity. First the mouse dies, then the computer locks up. When the humidity is low (say, at 4AM), I can work for an hour or more before lockup. When it rises (and with the impending thunderstorms, it's currently at "Junior High Locker Room" level), the computer frequently boots completely locked - it can take 2-3 tries to get a browser running long enough to type this before I lock up completely.

I'm on my way to get the computer overhauled - I can't afford it, but with more little contract jobs coming up, I also can't afford not to do it.

The drag is, I have a couple of very big pieces to work on. I'm going to post as soon as I can get into the library...

See you then.

Homecoming - Lieutenant Smash describes

Homecoming - Lieutenant Smash describes his homecoming from Kuwait.

It's a great read.

Welcome home, LT.

Grrrrr - I can work

Grrrrr - I can work on my computer either very late at night, or very early in the morning. Outside that window, it seems to work for a bit. Then, the mouse locks up, and I'm limited to using keyboard shortcuts. Then, the whole thing locks up, and I have to reboot.

It seems to get worse and worse as the humidity rises - at times during the mid-day, the computer will boot up completely locked.

So - until I figure this out, or can afford to overhaul this @$@%^ computer, my posting will likely be nocturnal.

Now - hopefully I get this posted before it locks up again...

Keep 'em Barefoot, Pregnant, and Helpless

The BBC wrote an incredibly stupid article about women and guns a little while ago, that's been on my mental "to do" list for this blog for a while.

Brian Carnell beat me to the job of fisking it.

Aiding and Abetting - Via

Aiding and Abetting - Via Powerline, this comment about the links between the UN and the institution of terror.

First, read the quote:

"For more than a quarter of a century, the U.N. has actively encouraged terrorism by rewarding its primary practitioners, legitimating it as a tactic, condemning its victims when they try to defend themselves and describing the murderers of innocent children as 'freedom fighters.' No organization in the world today has accorded so much legitimacy to terrorism as has the U.N."

Second: Ask yourself who wrote it:

a) Paul Wolfowitz
b) Jeff Abramowitz
c) Alan Dershowitz
d) Hugh Hewitt.

If you answered anything but "c", you guessed the way I would have. But no, it was indeed Dershowitz.

Our Enlightened Academy - Yesterday,

Our Enlightened Academy - Yesterday, we poked fun at Saint Cloud State's diversity training.

Today? Not funny anymore. King, from the SCSU Scholars, was there. And he wrote a letter to Limbaugh about it:

"If your office mate wants to listen to Rush Limbaugh -- you know, he's one of those dittoheads -- and wants to listen to Limbaugh, he can, but here are your headphones." (I was taking notes on my laptop as he spoke. I typed it as I heard it.) So the comparison is someone looking at scantily clad women on a calendar to someone listening to your radio show. I just shook my head, and thought well, the guy's a liberal, and taking a cheap shot at Rush is all in a day for liberals. I let it go.

But in a separate session this afternoon, he does it again. He refers to students listening to your show again as "dittoheads" and says "you know, so that they don't think, they just follow whatever Rush says." Laughter around the room. What I thought was a throw-away line appears to be a regular part of his training. Conservatives are not thoughtful, no better than visitors to a peepshow, just follow the script.

He finished the thought in his blog last night:

Now I confess to not being Rush's biggest fan, largely because his command of economics pales before that of his own guest host Walter Williams. But it struck me that the man felt perfectly safe saying this. Here he had discussed (in the afternoon session) how we won't speak out about racist or sexist comments unless there's a person of color or a woman in the room, but did anyone speak out against this rather crass treatment of conservatives?

Does part of his definition of diversity include "diversity of thought"? Hell, no.

It never does.

I think I've noted it in the past - I could write a blog, an only slightly less-prolific one, that merely catalogued the manifestations of Democrats' hatred for Republicans.

This is as good a rejoinder as any to those like Kos, or Marshall, or Fecke, who think that the Democrats have the momentum. No, they don't - not yet, not in any meaningful way. Because none of them are articulating any sort of vision. They are merely venting, at this point; Which of us hates hates hates Dubya more?

And while that truly wins momentum among Democrats - I'll wager Bush is back down to a minority of the Democrat base - it doesn't win elections.

Now That You've Caught Him,

Now That You've Caught Him, Time To Let Him Go - The Strib turns a blind moral eye to the Hatch/Pawlenty "feud".

Of course, like all reportage in Minnesota during Fair Season, it's got to start with a big plate of lutefisk and Pronto Pup references:

It's said that the State Fair is a reflection of Minnesota. This year, the politics being practiced at the fair is a reflection of the relationship between GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch. Step right up to the DFL and GOP booths, and see hostility and mistrust on display.

At the Republican booth, "DFL lies on a stick" have been catalogued in a handy take-away format that leads off with disbelief of claims by both Hatch and DFL state chair Mike Erlandson that Hatch did not participate in the party's coordinated campaign in 2002.

The stick being jabbed at Pawlenty by the DFLers is of the figurative type, but is still sharp. It's a postcard and e-mail campaign, appealing to the governor to release his tax returns to prove that he paid taxes on 2001-02 telecommunications consulting income that he only this summer disclosed. At the DFL corner, the word "recall" is being bandied about in a way that, for a fan of orderly democracy, is scarier than the fair's haunted house.

The editorial then gets down to business:

That's edgy partisanship, by State Fair standards. But it's tame compared with what's been going on at the Capitol. There, the Pawlenty-Hatch feud threatens to interfere with good government.

That is the impression created by a report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor, released last week. It details the steps that led to a settlement earlier this year with United American Insurance Co., accused of defrauding senior citizens in the sale of Medicare supplemental insurance policies. The report found fault with the settlement's confidentiality provision and its characterization of the required $103,000 payment as a "fee reimbursement" rather than a penalty or fine.

So far, so good. This would seem, according to the Legislative Auditor's report [warning - large PDF file], to violate state rules:

We think this characterization of the company’s payment is misleading since all companies having a market conduct examination are required to reimburse the examination revolving fund established in Minn. Stat. Section 60A.03, even in the absence of a consent order. The company was assessed and paid costs for the examination, pursuant to this section. However, the $100,000 payment from United American did not have anything to do with the cost reimbursement provisions of Section 60A.03, Subd. 5. When the department received the $100,000 payment, it deposited the moneys in the General Fund, as it would other fines and penalties, rather than in the revolving fund. We think the $100,000 payment would more accurately be described as a penalty, fine, or investigative fee. Department officials told us they were willing to characterize the payment as something other than a civil penalty or fine in order to achieve a settlement agreement.

Now, the Strib has long been accused of backing Attorney-General Hatch when the chips are down, at least in terms of editorial policy (as opposed to the work of the reporters covering the various stories). Is that what we're seeing here?

The Strib continues:

It described how "significant conflict" between the state Commerce Department and the attorney general's office contributed to the flawed settlement. Pawlenty administration officials told the auditor that Hatch's attorneys appeared to support the settlement in the early going, then backed away later. But the department staff refused to waive attorney-client privilege to provide documentation of their complaint.

The Strib's editorial phrases this to sound as if the Auditor thought the Department of Commerce was being evasive.

Here's what the Auditor's report actually said:

after the settlement had been signed, Assistant Attorneys General Aafedt and Goings sent a memorandum to four officials at the Department of Commerce highlighting several terms from the settlement agreement and consent order. Mr. LaVasseur said that the memo was the subject of a great deal of controversy at a subsequent meeting. In their statement to us, Mr. Aafedt and Mr. Goings said they drafted the memorandum to provide their interpretation of the unique settlement provisions. They also stated: “This Memorandum should not in any way be construed as our approval of the confidentiality provisions.” However, department staff told us that no one from the Attorney General’s Office had ever expressed any reservations or concerns about the no-comment provisions in the proposed and final settlement agreements. Because the Department of Commerce classified the memorandum from Mr. Aafedt. and Mr. Goings as protected by attorney/client privilege, we cannot quote its specific advice. The department also claimed attorney/client privilege for subsequent e-mails between the two agencies discussing the settlement and whether the department was allowed to post provisions of he settlement on its web site.

Commissioner Wilson, in his statement to our office, said he received limited advice prior to signing the consent order, and that he received no direct advice or counsel from the Attorney General’s Office.

So - the Department of Commerce claims it didn't get good advice, and the "Attorney-Client Privilege" seems to have been related less to evasion than to obeying existing rules about the release of information.

To the Strib, the answer is obvious:

"The conflict continues," the audit report states, leaving one to wonder where next in state government the public interest will suffer because Hatch's attorneys and Pawlenty's administrators don't get along.

Let's tally it up here:

1. Hatch tries to turn the American Bankers' settlement into a scandal, until his fingerprints in the controversy are revealed.
2. Hatch tries to turn a cut in the Gang Strike Force budget - for a group whose activities, vital as they are, can be considered redundant to what local police are supposed to be doing - into an anti-Pawlenty scandal - unsuccessfully.
3. Hatch tries to turn out-of-context talk about options for dealing with incarcerated sex offenders into an anti-Pawlenty scandal - and fails.
4. Hatch tries to turn the NewTel flap into a major anti-Pawlenty scandal, even though there's really very little "there" there (barring a possible issue with the Lawyer's Board for Professional Responsibility regarding Pawlenty's billing practices, which are a minuscule political issue compared to the charges of influence-peddling that Hatch and the major editorial boards tried to pin on the Governor
5. Mike Hatch's name seems to be writ large on the state's settlement with Qwest
6. Now, this - yet another controversy with Hatch's fingerprints every bit as prominent in the story as those he accuses.

The Strib's conclusion?

Naturally:

Partisanship is as much a part of the State Fair as cheese curds. But it ought not be an ingredient in the enforcement of Minnesota's consumer protection laws, or in countless other routine government actions. Hatch and Pawlenty are putting more than their own political futures at risk with their feud. A truce is overdue.

No. An accounting of the Attorney General's politicization of his office is overdue.

A truce that doesn't follow a reckoning for misdeeds is a Versailles peace - one that just leaves the principals, principles and motivations in place for a larger, uglier war later.

Marshall, Again - Longtime reader

Marshall, Again - Longtime reader EB noted my observations about Josh Marshall, and listed his own:

To:
Subject: "Dr." Josh Marshall

Don't let the bright lights fool ya; Josh Marshall is as ignorant as they come. He might know a few things but understands very little. This is a guy who writes about tax policy but doesn't know the difference between the payroll tax and the income tax. If it were not for the support he receives from other Clinton apologists and liberal media shills, his site wouldn't be worth the time it takes to load. The only reason to occasionally browse his site is to find out what the enemy is up to. The sad irony is while he is steeped in the netherworld of doublespeak, he has no idea how it works or how he is being used.

He's bright but poorly educated, or more accurately, thoroughly miseducated. "Indoctrinated" might be the better word. He's just another sock puppet for the Left and is a victim of the deformation of language that is pervasive in higher education these days. In other words, garbage in = garbage out. He reminds me of a guy who takes a course in college, relies on the booklist, sucks up to the professor, and then considers himself well-informed because he got an "A." It never occurs to him that there might be more than one class, more than one professor, more than one booklist, or that he got an "A" because everybody else got an "A."

The future result is as predictable as the saliva in Pavlov's dogs, as is true with most modern liberals today. They have no grasp of history before they were born. They just know what they know because that's what they've been taught, but they don't know how they know it, or why it's been taught, or even if it's true. They just know it's "true," because that's what they know. Doesn't "everybody" know? So, when the factual record contradicts their argument, it's just proof a right-wing "conspiracy" exists, you see, and thus is just one more example of how the jackbooted opposition wants to take over the world, kill all the babies, poison the drinking water, and throw the elderly in trash dumpsters, and so on and so forth.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Josh Marshall hasn't figured that out yet. I doubt he ever will.

As to Marshall - I'm going to read him in some detail for the next few weeks before I really render judgement.

As to liberal knowledge of history - oh, the stories I could tell.

Or, in fact, will tell, as time permits. Sometimes it seems as if an atrocious understanding of history - and the present - is essential to be a left-of-center believer.

Stay tuned.

A Pack, Not A Herd

A Pack, Not A Herd - Longtime reader MC was flipping through a copy of Lavender - a local gay magazine - when he saw this letter to the editor:

Subject: Lavender

I was in a coffee shop on Saturday night and was flipping through diferent magazines when I saw this Letter to the Editor. I haven’t ever read Lavender Magizine so I do not know if this is a normal editorial, but I don’t think so.

Is That A Gun, Or Are You
Happy To See Me?
By Brent M. Saba

In regard to all the gay bars and predominately gay establishments and businesses in the Twin Cities that have posted signs "GUNS ARE NOT PERMITTED IN THESE PREMISES":

You are sending a message to all of the antigay people and those who wish to do us harm by informing them that all of those seen exiting your establishment late at night will be unarmed, and, therefore, an easy target. You are sending a message that we are still unable and unwilling to fight back.

If I personally am ever victimized by such an attack because I chose to leave my firearm secured in my vehicle in order to enjoy an evening in any establishment that is posted "NO GUNS"--gay or straight--I intend to file a lawsuit against that establishment for violating my personal right to defend myself.

Not only are those signs informing that patrons are unarmed and easy victims, it also lets any potential wrongdoer know that the respective business or establishment is also a much easier target for robbery.

Basically, it is a big red flashing neon sign that says, "ROB US"!

It has already happened at eight bars in the metro area, all of which were posted: "NO GUNS PERMITTED."

Wouldn't it be better and safer for all of us if those who hate us and wish to do us harm didn't know whether or not we were carrying a weapon?

Exactly.

It's interesting to me that some of the most ardent supporters of concealed carry reform are the people most affected by violence - women (the Second Amendment Sisters) and gays (the Pink Pistols).

Unspoiled - So Lileks spend

Unspoiled - So Lileks spend the week partying with Hewitt, and breaking bread (or cracking cylinders) with Medved.

In the meantime, the Fraters guys were either sucking up to Hewitt for a ride in the Jag, or chasing Patriot glitterati around the paddle boat.

Powerline? Yep - on the air.

That leaves me, I guess, as the sole member of the Northern Alliance unspoiled by temporal fame.

(Well, I guess the Scholars didn't get on the air - but had they been in Saint Paul...)

Hot, Hot, Hot - I

Hot, Hot, Hot - I hate heat. I'm a winter person.

It could certainly be worse, though. France may have suffered 10,000 deaths from heat in the past month.

According to Virginia Postrel (via Instapundit), France's addiction to socialism may have been part of the problem:

but isn't it interesting that the fabled solidarity of French socialism leaves old people alone to die from the heat as the whole country goes on vacation at the same time? Yet that seems to be a consensus view of what happened.

She quotes Jacques Chirac from a USA Today piece which ends:

"Critics turned on the French themselves for going on vacation while leaving aged relatives alone.

"These dramas again shed light on the solitude of many of our aged or handicapped citizens," Chirac said.

Far-fetched? The weather was little cooler in Germany - but Germans, marginally less-socialized than the French, were also in town...

Professor Gerd Jendritzky, a doctor who works for the German Weather Service, said that the situation in this country could not be compared to the disaster in France, where as many as 10,000 deaths have been attributed to the intense heat that plagued Europe in the first half of August. In Germany, he told F.A.Z. Weekly, “I expect a few hundred people died who would have lived without this heat.“ Jendritzky said a major difference was that Germany does not “close down“ as France does in August, meaning there were more people around to look after elderly, the most common overheating victims, and hospitals were well staffed.

C'mon, snow!

The News Cycle, 2003 -

The News Cycle, 2003 - The Lemon has it figured out.

Hilarious.

(Via Bovious)

Dream, Accomplished - Call it

Dream, Accomplished - Call it "aiming very low" if you'd like, but I've always thought it would be a kick to have one of my offhanded comments included in some other blog's masthead.

And now - voila!

You could observe "Maybe you need bigger goals in life", and you'd be right. But it's a kick, anyway.

Words Matter

Josh Marshall seems to be the leading blogger of the left these days.

Truth be told, I have a hard time reading most lefty-bloggers. I'm not talking the ignorant, stupid ones (I have a hard time reading ignorant stupid conservative blogs, too, and there are plenty of them - including a couple on my blogroll). No, I'm talking about the A-list liberal blogs.

The Daily Kos gets a lot of attention. He's behind the Political State Report, a large group-blog featuring writers from every state, and officially all political outlooks. But at the end of the day, most of his material seems like DNC spin. And occasionally he uncorks a real lulu, as today:

Saddam was, whatever else you can say about him, a bullwark against Islamic fundamentalism. The US is increasingly unable to push back against the rising tide of fundamentalist in that nation. And in the long run, that may prove deadlier than an impotent Saddam.

Atrios Eschaton? He loses a lot of points for the name. The blog is occasionally interesting, but takes things like the LA Times polls at uncritical face value; when a conservative blogger parrots Fox News, the left taunts and ridicules. I think the irony is self-evident.

Marshall seems to be the Tiffany name among lefty-blogs lately. I've read Marshall a few times (he's a good writer) and heard him on the Hewitt show (he's a good writer).

But three things bug me. Two of the aren't Marshall's fault - well, not entirely. He uses three names - it's "Joshua Micah Marshall" - which strikes me as groaningly pretentious, but is also none of my business. He seems to seed his writing with generous dollops of urban wonk lifestyle droppings - which bothers me a lot than middle-aged single-dad musician lifestyle droppings.

But Marshall writes like a wonk - which is fine, because he is a policy wonk, and does it for a living, the lucky sod. But it also shows something of the perspective from which he writes. Like this piece.

Words matter. Often, that's just a conceit of people in the word business. But it's also true.

A few moments ago I was in a cab heading toward the DC train station. On the radio, the president was commenting on the recent troubles in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism.

He said something to this effect: We're in a war on terrorism. When the civilized world expands democracy it's a challenge to the terrorists' totalitarian vision. And so they strike back with increasing terror. They're hoping the civilized world will flinch. But we're not going to flinch, and so forth.

I understand what the president's saying. I recognize a general truth in it.

But the generality, vagueness and abstraction is the problem. They are becoming the engines of policy incoherence and the cover for domestic bad-actors who want to get this country into fights few Americans signed up for.

Leave aside that the war in Iraq exposes what must be the biggest perception gap in American history (the vast majority of Americans approved, and continue to approve, of the war that "few Americans signed up for").

Are generality, vagueness and abstraction "the problem?"

No, not in and of themselves. One of the keys to communicating is knowing ones' audience. Bush's audience, the American people, are not only not policy wonks - I'd argue most Americans are cordially irritated by policy wonkery - but really don't care about the details of how government implements the policies that they heard about on their seven-second soundbites. It's anathema to the way a wonk operates. The man and woman in the street just wants government to work. The wonk wants to know the details.

A good communicator - and a good leader - knows this, and figures out how to express the goal to the people, in terms that everyone from custom combiners to policy analysts can twig to. Ronald Reagan spoke in generalities, certainly - and policy wonks excoriated him for it. But the people aren't wonks - and the goals, or as Marshall would put it, "vague, abstract generalities," resonated with the voters. In contrast, Al Gore and Bill Clinton, being people in love with the inner machinery of government, spoke in specific, concrete terms about their goals for government; it can be argued that neither was (or would have been) anything like the leader Reagan was - but wonks (like Marshall) loved them both for exactly that reason.

Most importantly, Reagan accomplished a lot - his "vague, abstract generalities" eventually became reality, through tax cuts, the demolition of the Berlin Wall, wholesale decommissioning of nuclear weapons, a peace dividend, and a boom that only unravelled during the last years of the Clinton Administration.

Bush's administration is still a work in progress. The stakes are immensely high. And while the people generally have little background in policy, they have immense background in results. Expressing a "vague, abstract, general" vision that never substantiates itself will eventually destroy the administration.

Words matter, indeed. But that phrase cuts both ways. Marshall continues:

We've heard critiques of this phrase, the 'war on terror,' ever since 9/11. But only now, I think, are we seeing the full effects of its mystification. We're at war with al Qaida and any and all radical Islamist groups who threaten mass casualty terrorism against America or her vital interests abroad. We are at war, even if it's a war fought by non-conventional means against non-conventional, non-state entities. That's who we're at war with: a loose-knit network of radical Islamist groups who practice mass-casualty terrorism against us.

Radical Islamist revisionism is a primary foreign policy challenge for the US and probably will remain so for a very long time. That understanding should (and already has) decisively shape our policies toward the various states in the Middle East. But we're not at war with it any more than we were or could be 'at war' with right-wing or left-wing extremism in the second half of the 20th century.

If words truly matter, then I'd like Mr. Marshall to suggest a better word to convey to an audience of non-wonks exactly what we're doing in a mortal struggle with people that want to achieve their ends through killing their opponents (or enough of them to terrorize the rest)? People whose ideal, in their own words, is a version of theology applied through totalitarian means, and who operate in groups that are "Fascist" by any rational definition of the term?

Because if, indeed, Marshall's complaint is with "vague, abstract, general" language, isn't it his job to be specific and concrete?

Just as vague and abstract language makes for bad prose, it is also the handmaiden of bad policy and the abettor of buck-passing.

All this talk about civilization, totalitarianism, fascism and terror is just preventing us from looking at what's happening and recognizing what our own interests are.

While Marshall is right in the sense that it can happen, I don't think that's the case here. I think the Administration has recognized our interests, and is acting in what it sees is their best interest. Remember - it's not the Administration's job to necessarily get complete consensus as to what our interests are - but I think you'll find broad electoral agreement they include:

• Removing WMDs from the terrorists' catalog of options (and whether Iraq "would have" had WMDs in five to ten years or not, it's a safe bet they won't now)
• Preventing Islamofascism's threat to the entire Western (as in "free world") economy,
• trying to head off the next 9/11, and to choke off the supply of funds and weapons that are making the streets of Israel run red, and hopefully prevent that from being imported to the US

Did the Administration express a case toward these goals in terms that were "vague, abstract and general?" Arguably - and the argument is coming from people whose language itself, like that of Marshall, isn't any more specific.

They also make it possible for some people to convince themselves that it's not a screw-up that we've turned Iraq into a terrorist magnet. After all we're at war with 'the terrorists' and it makes sense that 'the terrorists' would attack us anyway, if only in a new venue. And we always knew it would be a long fight, a long twilight struggle, and yada, yada, yada and the rest of it. Same with the mumbo-jumbo about totalitarianism.

Marshall says this as if all is a given. Among his audience, no doubt, it is...

Look at the difference thus far between Afghanistan and Iraq. In the first place, we drained the swamp. In the second, we've made the swamp.

It's really that simple.

Only if you either claim clairvoyance or look at the world through a lens that is every bit as rosy (to your worldview) as Marshall would no doubt claim his opponents do.

Marshall continues:

Bear in mind that the author of these words is a fairly convinced Wilsonian, a strong supporter of our interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, someone who's convinced that our values cannot be divorced from our national security interests, a believer in the power for good of American military might, and someone who thinks progressives who recoil at this administration's excesses should avoid the safe-harbor of foreign policy Realism (creeping Scowcroftism).

And I can respect the views of the Democrats who realize that in an imperfect world we may have to enforce peace and security through imperfect means - while adding that the actions Marshall lists, Kosovo and Bosnia, were all about values, and concerned "National Security Interests" only in a "vague, abstract and general" way.

But the White House is being run by men and women who've already made a lot of really stupid mistakes that are going to cost a lot of American lives, money and credibility. And now they're trying to hide from accountability in their own idiot abstractions.

Leave aside that the jury is still very much out about how things are going in Iraq. Marshall believes his sources, I'll believe mine.

The real point? Sometimes an "idiot abstraction" is exactly what is needed.

Marshall's ideological forebears wailed and fumphered about Reagan's "Evil Empire" incantation, and the "vague, abstract, general" nature of so much of his policy. The only way they'd have been right is if the implementation of the policy had also been vague, abstract and general. It wasn't.

The Administration's challenge isn't necessarily to be as specific about its goals as a policy wonk wants it to be. It's to implement the "vague, abstract, general" goals successfully.

Dollars for...Diversity - The SCSU

Dollars for...Diversity - The SCSU Scholars report that their administration has resorted to bribery to get faculty to attend diversity training:

Today comes word from the new Dean of our College of Business that the President of St. Cloud State University will award “discretionary dollars” to that college on campus that has the highest percentage of its faculty attend this week’s “non-mandatory diversity training sessions,” keynoted by a Penn State administrator profiled earlier by King.

Scholar Dave also has the official line on which of Saint Cloud State's constituent colleges will win the "Discretionary" dollars:

College of Education: 2-5
College of Social Sciences: 4-5 (would be co-favorite except Econ dept. is here)
College of Fine Arts & Humanities: 3-1
College of Science & Technology: 20-1
G.R. Herberger College of Business: 500-1

We'll await the results.

The Terrorists Have Won -

The Terrorists Have Won - First they came for the smokers. And I said "I'm not a smoker, it doesn't affect me."

Then they came for the SUVs. And I said "Pfft. I drive a Saturn. Get lost."

Then they came for our guns. I waved my CCRN card in their faces.

Then they came for McDonalds', and I told them "Piffle. If I eat fast food, it's at Wendy's, and only rarely at that."

But now...the barbarians truly are at the gates:

The sound of bagpipes has always been a distinctive and somewhat acquired taste.

But acoustic experts claimed yesterday that, as well as inducing earache, the instrument could be linked to hearing loss, repetitive strain injury and alcoholism.

A survey has also found that having a passion for the pipes can contribute to the breakdown of players' marriages.

Once used as an instrument of war, the bagpipes are dangerous and should come with a health warning, says the report by Piper & Drummer magazine.

That this report exists is one thing; that it comes from the relatively conservative Telegraph merely adds insult to injury.

Of course, the insults are fairly easily dealt with:

James Bousquet, a bagpiper and acoustics expert, measured the noise from a single instrument and found that it reached 122 decibels - louder than a chainsaw or a plane landing.

Well, duh. How many people go into bagpiping thinking it's going to be quiet and sedate?

About 10 per cent of players said their hobby had ended their marriages

...but I'm willing to bet any hobby will end ten percent of marriages.

...while 84 per cent knew pipers who were alcoholics.

What does this mean? I'll bet 84% of Yogis know of an alcoholic Yogatiste. For that matter, I'll bet 100% of the reporters at the London Telegraph know alcoholic reporters - or are alcoholic reporters.

I'll bet 84% of humans know an alcoholic human.

Mike McNeill, a former World Pipe Band Championship contestant, said: "Piping can take over your life. Your social life tends to revolve around hard drinking with other members. It can really take its toll."

Downside: I suspect he's right. Although the band I'm learning pipes from doesn't seem to be any more alcohol-based than any other group of adults, it does eat up a lot of time for a lot of the participants. Upside: I'd be happy to have a social life at all at this point.

Dr Robert Sataloff, an American lung disease expert, said pipers often developed large stomachs because the bag acted as a breeding ground for spores.

"Pipers are more likely to have an hour-glass belly in which they develop distended stomachs filled with the air from playing the instrument."

Good point. We should all play the autoharp, sing sixties folk music, and eat granola.

(From an email from longtime reader EB)

Ninety-Five Posts - Midwest Conservative

Ninety-Five Posts - Midwest Conservative Journal is all over the gradual drift of the Anglican/Episcopal Church into a non-Christian institution.

Even though I'm in a denomination that trends toward the far-left politically, I guess I'm still shocked - newly-so, which means I'm probably sheltered - at the extent to whcih many churches are turning not only into whiffle-ball versions of Christianity, but in fact seem to be edging away from the divinity of Christ.

Through an explanation of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, participants begin to uncover the man and his teachings from layers of theology and dogma that surround and hide him. The assumption is that as we reach toward Jesus, his experience of God and how he sought to live that out in his relationship to people, principalities and powers, we are helped to discover our own divine reality.

Scroll around on MCJ - there are quite a few posts on the subject.

If I were an Anglican or Episcopal, I'd be really upset right now.

No Pix - Went to

No Pix - Went to the State Fair Friday night:

• Had an eggroll (Mmm, good), a Chicago dog (I'm still feeling it), and a couple of beers.
• Met Lileks for the first time in about fifteen years.
• Saw Gary Puckett briefly at the Bandshell. The guy - who had two hits in the late sixties - is a walking testimony to the Branson Cocaine Diet; in his commercial heyday, he was a pudgy guy. Friday night, he was as thin as Mick Jones in his heyday. Puckett, of course, was one of the very lowpoints of my stint in oldies radio - and he hasn't improved one iota in thirty-odd years. Note to self; next year, wait a day, see Suzy Bogguss instead.
• Had a generally low-key time. Lots of fun.

But no pictures. Or spam. Or - and I want to make sure we're perfectly clear on this count - No Pronto Pups.

But I did sort of gel with my next big million-dollar invention - the deep-fried, breaded White Castle Slider on a Stick. Look for it at the fair next year.

Got Our Mojo Workin' -

Got Our Mojo Workin' - Jeff Fecke writes Blog of the Moderate Left.

He did a piece last Friday, claiming that the left - lefty blogs - had seized the initiative:

"Before the war, the righty blogs had all the mojo. Reading Insty or Lileks or Mitch Berg's site was fun, because they were so damn giddy. They knew they had the momentum, they knew the big issue of the day favored them, and they were joyous.

Meanwhile, the lefty blogs were either dispairing or furious or, in my case (and a few more notable cases, like TPM), circumspect. The left knew we were on the wrong side of the White House door, and while not all of us opposed the war outright, most all of us were leery, to say the least, at the way the war was sold and prosecuted.

Fast-forward six months, and look around. Kos is at the top of his game, Josh Marshall is witty as Hell, Pandagon has found his voice, Atrios rules, and...well, pretty much any lefty blog you stumble into is sweetness and light, while righty sites grumble about media coverage and why people don't see things like they do.

And I realize something:

We've got the mojo now."

A couple of key points here:

1. Kos is at the top of his game - and his game is channeling DNC spin directly through his blog.
2. Atrios rules...but rules what?
3. Marshall is witty as hell - and he's going to need to be, because he's rapidly shaping up as the only left-of-center site anyone will take seriously. And that's assuming people really do take him seriously - accusations that he operates more from ideology than reason are piling up.
4. More seriously - no, the right still has the mojo.

Although I really hate the term "mojo" - it's such an ephemeral notion. The better metaphor is "Possession Time".

Conservatives have the ball. Once you get the ball - and get over the giddiness of fielding the punt - you have to move the ball down the field.

• The election was a messy punt return that got us out of the endzone to the 10 yard line.
• Pushing through the incremental tax cut was a messy squib that the President managed to scramble out of bounds for four yards on first down.
• September 11? A broken-field tip (caused by crowd interference) that ended up as a 20-yard gain.
• Afghanistan? The prez led off on first and ten with a surprise reverse to Rumsfeld via Powell, that broke through on first for a dime, getting to the GOP 44.
• Iraq? A blitz broke into the GOP pocket, and part of the crowd started to boo - just as Bush rifled the fastest screen of all time to Wolfowitz in the right flat, for 14, to the Democrat 42.
• The occupation? Phase one was a fullback-up-the-middle that got three yards in a cloud of dust for second and seven.
• Phase two - a lateral to Powell - ended with a two yard gain (which the New York Times sports reporter Paul Krugman called "A Thousand Yard Loss") and an injury on the play, as Annan (the left end) decided to tell the rest of the team that he didn't want to run his pattern (instead opting to stand immobile at the line of scrimmage, where he got blindsided and left the field with a bloody nose).

So it's third and five, and Bush knows he has to convert. A field goal is not an option.

And the hogs on the front line - conservatives and Republicans nationwide, in the streets and on the internet - are hunkering down, listening to the Democrat cheerleaders prancing about the left sideline: "We got the mojo! Look at the polls!", waiting for the snap, listening for an audible ...

Mojo, Schmojo. We've got the ball. Until they get the ball away from us, it's our game to lose. By the same token, it's ours to win.

We're in that in-between time - no major news is going on, just the daily grind of winning a limited counterinsurgency war, conducting a war on terror that's moved to the shadows, out of media range, and carrying out politics-as-usual in a country that barely realizes it's at war, getting ready for an election (against a full-court hostile media press). It's not a time for giddiness, for "mojo"; it's a time for hard work and grim determination.

Third and five is not about giddiness or mojo. It's about toughing it out.

Al Franken Is a Boring,

Al Franken Is a Boring, Passe Idiot - And a lucky one - Fox News' lawsuit against him was dismissed.

Ernest Svenson comments:

"Fox, and its lawyers, seem to have bungled quite badly --losing not only the battle but perhaps also the larger war. In the wake of the lawsuit, Franken's publisher, Penguin Group, added 50,000 copies to the publication run, which had originally called for 270,000 copies. Penguin also moved up the book's release date from September to last Thursday. The book is currently the #1 bestseller at Amazon.com.

Franken, was obviously pleased by the first round victory (the court simply denied Fox's request for a preliminary injunction). He was also pleased with the performance of all of lawyers involved: 'In addition to thanking my own lawyers,' Franken said, 'I'd like to thank Fox's lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I've ever seen in my life.'

I didn't see the briefs so I can't comment on that, but I did read the complaint that was filed in state court and I can say it was, not only devoid of legal merit, but also highly unprofessional. I invite you to read the complaint, in particular the allegations in paragraph 77. It is obvious, to me at least, that this lawsuit was brought because of the documented disputes between Franken and Bill O'Reilly. Clearly, the two men don't like each other, and at least one of them may have been openly rude to the other."

Of course, many lefty blogs are pitching this case as a setback for the conservative media.

Hogwash. It's a setback for Bill O'Reilly. And attenuating O'Reilly's incessant browbeating yammer can only be good for conservatism.

Flush - The current status

Flush - The current status of Iraqis in the "Deck of Cards".

Accidentally Like A Martyr -

Accidentally Like A Martyr - Powerline draws our attention to this superb NYTimes piece by Anthony DeCurtis (the only Rolling Stone writer today worth wasting ink on) on . Warren Zevon.

It's all worth a read. I liked the close:

Mr. Zevon had to stop working on "The Wind" for several months earlier this year as his health worsened. Then, in the spring, he recovered sufficiently to complete two final songs at his home, including "Keep Me in Your Heart," the ballad that closes the album. It's a wish that is both honest and modest: "Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath," he sings. "Keep me in your heart for a while." Few artists get to write their own farewell as Mr. Zevon has here. It is high praise to say that "The Wind" would stand honorably beside his best work even if he were not dying when he made it.

The phone won't ring,
and the sun refuses to shine.
Never thought that I would pay so dearly
for what was already mine,
for such a long, long time...

In a year or so filled with musical deaths (Ben Orr, Stuart Adamson, Joey and Dee Dee Ramone), Zevon's terminal cancer is one of the most depressing stories of all - and also potentially the most enlightening and ennobling. Zevon was one of few rock stars to make recovery from alcoholism more than tabloid-fodder - to bring the insights from his recovery, articulately and unstintingly, to his music, and to great effect.

Lose great artist, gain some great art. Not a good exchange ratio...

Extremely Funny - Davejames' "Curious/Furious"

Extremely Funny - Davejames' "Curious/Furious" is now on my weekly read list. He should be on yours, too.

Houserockers - In the late

Houserockers - In the late seventies, there was a group from Pittsburgh called the Iron City Houserockers.

Now, normally at that point of the post I'd link the name "Iron City Houserockers" to one of the host of fan sites that has sprung up in absurd profusion over absolutely everything in our society, from "Hamster Dance" trivia sites to appreciation pages for C-list porn stars.

But I can't do that for the Houserockers, because no such fan site exists.

Existed, anyway. Because one does now.

The Iron City Houserockers were the best band you never heard, especially their four critically-praised, commercially-near-miss albums between 1979 and 1983. During that time, there was no better, fiercer, harder-edged, more passionate rock and roll band in the world. That they are not synonymous with eighties heartland rock, mentioned in the same breath as Mellencamp, Petty, even Springsteen, is a testament to the incompetence of MCA records. They were led by my songwriting idol, Joe Grushecky. Their fanclub includes Steve Van Zandt, Ian Hunter, the late Mick Ronson, Steve "Play It, Steve" Cropper, and the Boss himself - all of whom have produced the band's records over the years.

And they were a band whose music is a lynchpin of the musical soundtrack of my life.

So while I would never waste the time it would take to make up a common fan site, this is more than just fandom. This is righting a colossal injustice. For every time someone mentions "Great American Songwriters" without including Joe Grushecky, an injustice is indeed taking place. I'm just doing my part.

Here it is. Go forth and be better educated.

This Doesn't Count - Next

This Doesn't Count - Next week, we'll be talking about:

• Alpha Boys
• A death penalty case that's kinda interesting
• My first attempt at a fan site
• Mike Hatch
• Urban Conservatism. Really.

OK. Now I'm off for the weekend.

How The Other Half Lives

How The Other Half Lives - How nice must it be to be an Andrew Sullivan. He holds a fund drive, and rakes in $80,000 twice a year. Then, he takes off the entire month of August. And when he comes back in September, he'll still be getting a hundred thousand visitors a day, and he'll STILL earn a living from the site, and he'll still one of the Big Four Blogs ( Instapundit, Mickey Kaus, and The Volokh Conspiracy along with Sullivan).

At this time last year, Shot In The Dark was averaging about 20 visitors a day, mostly friends, relatives, and a few politics junkies drawn by my constant, shameless cross-promotion on the E-Democracy MN-POLITICS mailing list. During the run-up to the election, it rose to between 30-50 a day.

Then Instapundit linked my fisks of Garrison Keillor and attacks on the MN DFL's culture of hate, giving my humble little blog a couple of 10,000 visitor days. Through the winter I averaged 250 visitors a day - which boggled my mind. It only got better - I currently average around 800 visitors a day, with occasional spikes when the likes of Reynolds or Lileks or Powerline link me.

By the way - yesterday was a fun milestone for this blog. It was the first time Instapundit linked me without my sending him an email saying in effect "HEY, CHECK OUT WHAT I'M WRITING ABOUT TODAY! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!" (although the Professor has been gratifyingly and flatteringly amenable to my writing in the past year or so). So in the midst of this very difficult year, it's fun to see something going right.

And while my donations link doesn't pay the mortgage, it covers my hosting (and, some months, a bit more), which is not only a relief, it's flattering. Thank you all.

But because of that, it's very, very hard to settle for any time off. Something - my ego, maybe - thinks it'd be a personal setback if I took a week off and came back to 30 readers a day, again. I got here (whereever "Here" is) by writing. A lot. It's been fun - my morning ritual involves getting up at 5:30AM, rounding up the usual suspects (when all else fails, Doug Grow and Laura Billings are bottomless sources of fodder) and dashing off a couple of posts. But it's also work, trying to keep enough quality (hahahaha) material coming to keep you all coming back. There are times I truly envy some of the Twin Cities' excellent group bloggers, like Powerline and Fraters Libertas, with a deep stable of excellent writers (to say nothing of people like Lileks or Reynolds or Sullivan, who are just plain good enough to do this all. The. Time).

This screed has no point, other than to say I'll be taking the weekend off. REALLY off! Not in the "Yeah, Mitch, you say that every week, and then Saturday night you post five column-feet on something or another". I mean, I'll see you Monday.

I am, however, going to try to see Lileks at the fair tonight. So if you're around, say "hi". How will we meet each other? Simple; just stand in front of the "Patriot" booth and yell "BLOG! BLOG! BLOGGIE BLOG BLOG BLOG!" at the top of your lungs. I'll find you.

Til Monday, thanks for reading. I truly, genuinely appreciate it.

Not Just For Sandbags Anymore

Not Just For Sandbags Anymore - Pioneer Press columnist Nick Coleman has noticed that sometimes the National Guard has to be soldiers:

"The Minnesota National Guard is seeing a lot of action these days. Maybe too much. Instead of sandbags, the unspoken undercurrent, in wartime, is about body bags.

I always drop by the National Guard booth at the Fair in the hopes of seeing an old friend or just to take the pulse of things. I've developed a lot of appreciation for the Guard over the years from watching it work through flood or tornado. But the National Guard is being asked to do a lot more than help out in the Red River Valley or St. Peter. More than at any time in the last 50 years, members of the National Guard are under fire."

Perhaps over those fifty years Mr. Coleman never noticed this, but It's A Military Force! The National Guard is Part Of the US Army and Air Force! They exist to Go Places And Kill People when called upon!

With nearly a quarter of the Minnesota Army and Air Guards either overseas or on deck for deployment, Coleman does note a key problem:

Almost 1,100 Minnesota Guard soldiers are en route to Bosnia, where they will take over the lead role in peacekeeping efforts. Another 500 are on their way to Europe to beef up security at U.S. air bases, and 1,000 more will head to Kosovo this fall. Add smaller deployments to Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf (almost 200 are in Iraq and Kuwait) and you will have a quarter of the Minnesota Guard — 3,000 men and women — overseas. For some members of the Air Guard's 133rd Airlift Wing who are being redeployed to the Persian Gulf, it will be their third overseas assignment in less than two years.

Although morale is strong in general, it has begun to suffer in the 133rd Airlift Wing.

"I don't think their morale is very good right now, and mine wouldn't be, either," says Col. Denny Shields of the Minnesota Guard. "Frankly, we're concerned. Because when you keep going to the well, more and more you get midterm people — people who have 10 or 12 years' experience — who might end up pulling the plug. That's a lot of experience to waste, and we really hope it won't happen."

It's a fair point; Guard and Air Guard units that have much needed skills - like the 507th Chemical Recon Company from Fergus Falls, or the 133rd Airlift Wing - are going to find themselves on tap for a lot of duty time. The military relies especially hard on them for their technical skills, the sorts of things where the Guard's long-term part-timers with ample civilian-world experience are invaluable.

But Coleman concludes:

High school kids thinking about joining the Guard are weighing the college aid they would receive against the chance they'd be called to fight and die for their country.

It ain't just about filling sandbags anymore.

In my hometown, the National Guard company had fought in the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII (Guadalcanal, New Guinea, the Philippines, and a solid year of occupation duty in Japan) and Korea. I don't know that many of us contemplating a hitch in the Guard had any illusions about spending a career filling sandbags.

Are kids today any dumber?

After 9/11, I doubt it.

State Fair - I live

State Fair - I live in the Midway, so the State Fair usually means snarled traffic (although as a resident, I know all the shortcuts that the madding mass of fairgoers don't) and endless lines of tired or drunk people at the gas station on Snelling.

And the concerts, with few exceptions, have been nothing to write home about. But I've always loved the Bandshell shows. I've seen a lot of people there, including a very young Alison Krauss and a hyperkinetic Doug Kershaw.

This year has its moments:

"Suzy Bogguss, who's leaning toward jazz these days, will also try to make up for the surprising paucity of country by holding forth from the Bandshell on Saturday and Sunday.

Bogguss was one of the higher points of working in country radio in the early nineties; a genuinely talented singer who visibly strained to break free of Music Row "Generic Female Country Product" ghetto. Worth a listen.

And next week?

Other headliners include pop-rockers of disparate resumes, rookie Franky Perez (next Friday and Aug. 30) and ageless Midwestern roadhouser Johnny Holm (Aug. 31 and Sept. 1).

"Ageless roadhouser" - that's one way of describing Holm, the midwest's answer to Sha Na Na (not to take anything away from Holm, a great showman).

I've already raved about Perez in this space. His CD is solid, with a little bit of filler - but he's the best live performer I've seen in years. I'll be there.

He Who Owns the Press

He Who Owns the Press - Good news from the FCC, as Michael Powell appears to be leaning toward approving low-power FM radio licensing.

The licensing - which would allow FM stations with a range of around 3 miles - would open up non-commercial broadcasting for community groups. This was the norm until FCC rule changes (pushed by NPR and the National Association of Broadcasters) changed the rules in the late seventies. It's significant that the "community" radio stations currently active - including KFAI and KMOJ in the Twin Cities - were all started before 1978.

According to Reuters:

Additionally, Powell wants to accelerate the licensing to get more low-power FM radio stations on the air. Low-power FM was launched a few years ago to provide non-commercial programming to audiences in a radius of 3.5 miles.

Good idea or bad? Glenn Reynolds (on whose site I found the story this morning) likes it.

As James Plummer wrote here a while back, ending the suppression of microradio is a better way of promoting diversity than more regulation. If Powell really believes in broadcast diversity, then now that the bogus interference concerns raised by NPR and the National Association of Broadcasters have turned out to be, well, bogus, he should endorse the growth of low-power FM stations.

Who opposes the idea?

The National Association of Broadcasters and National "Public" Radio.

(Via Instapundit)

Dirty Harvey? - Fraters brings

Dirty Harvey? - Fraters brings us the story of Hennepin County judge Harvey Ginsburg, who took the law into his own hands (allegedly) when he caught some boys who'd allegedgly stolen his son's bike:

One teenager told the officer that Ginsberg asked which one of them had stolen the bike and then slapped both of them in the face.

The first boy, who admitted taking the bike and hiding it behind the drugstore as a joke, said he rode away on his bike because he didn't want to get hit.

The judge grabbed the other boy off his bike, threw him onto a wooden bench, held him by the throat and threatened, "If you mess with my family again you will be dead," the complaint said.

That boy was able to free himself and told Ginsberg he was going to call police. Then Ginsberg said: "Go ahead, I'm a judge and I'll have you charged with a felony for temporary theft."

But the money quote, from Fraters' Elder:

Bike thieves in St. Louis Park be warned. Judge Harvey Ginsberg is on the case. And he's not afraid to open a can of pat ass either.

Torn. Sooooo torn.

Will the Real Arianna Please

Will the Real Arianna Please Stand Up? - Susan Estrich on the depths of Huffington's opportunism - which is now affecting her family:

"On the day she announced her candidacy at 'A Place Called Home,' in South Central Los Angeles, her children moved out of hers in Brentwood and into their father's. 'Our oldest daughter has been devastated by it,' her dad said.

'A Place Called Home,' according to its Web site, was created to give inner-city kids somewhere to go after school to do their homework, watch TV, play with their friends and 'be with people that care about them -- basic rights that all kids should have.' That's what most kids get from their mothers...

Huffington has no chance of winning. Never did. The only reason to run was her ego, self-aggrandizement, attention -- at the expense of her kids.

She is running on a platform she didn't even believe in a few years ago. Nor is it one she lives by.

How could she do that to her children? my own children ask.

In Huffington's case, of course, it may be a bit more complicated than that, financially speaking, since it's slightly more difficult to live off your children's child support when your children aren't living with you. But don't bet against her. This is, after all, the woman who runs against oil interests and lives in a mansion financed by oil money, rails against pigs at the trough and pays no taxes, runs as an independent and supports a guru. She's even got a documentary crew following her for the campaign. I wonder if they filmed the children moving out."

Michael Medved took her tax record (she pays none) sternly to task earlier this week; she's a poster child for the need for a consumption, rather than an income, tax.

Daschle and the Media -

Daschle and the Media - South Dakota's major newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, has been in bed with Tom Daschle throughout his career.

Talon News - a web site which has been working the story - takes it from here:

After two weeks of stonewalling, Randell Beck, Executive Editor of South Dakota's largest newspaper, the Argus Leader, finally acknowledged the relationship of its political reporter to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD). Wednesday's admission of David Kranz's 35-year friendship with the Senate Minority Leader came during a Sioux Falls radio talk show hosted by Greg Belfrage on station KELO AM.

Kranz and the Argus Leader have been at the center of a controversy that began when potential Senate candidate Neal Tapio revealed the ties in a press release. Tapio implied that the newspaper's reporting has been excessively favorable to Daschle and the Democrats and unusually harsh to their critics and Republican candidates. The New York Times and Washington-based Roll Call criticized the Argus Leader's biased reporting in the 1990 South Dakota senate race.

In addition to the obvious media bias angle, the story includes hints of the new media/old media conflict; Talon News doesn't get any respect from South Dakota's elite news organizations:

KELO's Belfrage declined Talon News request for a representative to appear on the program. He wrote, "Midcontinent Radio considers this to be a dispute between Talon News and the Argus Leader." A call to KELO's General Manager Mike Costanzo with the same request was not returned.

Full Disclosure: I used to work for a Midcontinental affiliate. They were the most half-assed media company I ever encountered.

Janklow - South Dakota Politics

Janklow - South Dakota Politics has coverage on the accident involving Rep. (and former Governor) Bill Janklow and Minnesotan Randolph Scott. Janklow allegedly ran a stop sign and hit motorcyclist Scott, killing him.

South Dakota Politics is an excellent blog that's been getting heaped with attention. That's no surprise. The surprise, to me, is that the blog is written by a law student. Growing up in North Dakota, I had no idea that South Dakota even had a law school.

(Via Powerline)

Davis Toast, Arnold the Most

Davis Toast, Arnold the Most - According to the Today show, 59% of Californians favor the recall, and Ahnold is leading by five points.

Kids TV - This is

Kids TV - This is the first summer in memory the kids have had TV.

I'm only exaggerating a little. Two years ago, our TV broke just about the time school let out. At least, that's what I told the kids. There was nothing wrong with it, of course - I just wanted to see what would happen if they went a few weeks without TV. The experiment lasted all summer. The results were astounding; when school let out, my son was reading at a second-grade level (which was fine, since he was in second grade). The next fall, he tested at a fifth-grade level. Or forget about the assessments (which are frequently bogus) if you'd like; he cordially hated reading in May, and he audibly loved it in September.

Last year, the TV actually did break right about the time school let out. I didn't bother replacing it until the fall. No problems - the kids never really even asked me to fix it.

This year, since I'm home full time, I left the TV alone. Yep, I'm that awful parent who uses the TV to babysit, when nothing else jumps to mind. Mea Culpa.

No, I keep it to a relative minimum. But I've heard a lot of what passes for kids' TV this summer (heard, not seen; I usually hear it in the background while I'm working, cooking, or whatever. The biggest impression for me, by the way, is the theme songs. Oh, lordy, the theme songs.

The shocking part isn't that so much of it is as bad as it is. The real shock is that so much of it isn't horrible.

A partial list:

• Rocket Power (Nickelodeon) - When "Rug Rats" came out all those long years ago, I (and lots of parents) waffled back and forth; is this cartoon fairly decent, or is it irritatingly awful? "Rocket Power" - which seems to be about a bunch of adolescent Rug Rats on skateboards - shows that it could have been either, or both; its hamfisted animation manages to make stunt skateboarding look dull, and its hammer-to-the-forehead dull storylines make Rug Rats' cutesy baby tales seem pretty good in retrospect. The theme song - faux surfer punk that combines the Offspring's sound with the pure irritation of Dexter Holland's voice, with none of Holland's wry humor, is a harbinger of tedium. D-
• The Amanda Show (Nickelodeon> - Amanda Bynes is to Hillary Duff what the Dave Clark Five were to the Beatles; why buy one when you can have the other? The funny part - most of the kids watching it are completely unaware of the irony of the show's format (a "variety" show, with music, a monologue, and endless, groaningly repetitive skits - like a grammar school Carol Burnett). Bynes can act - she was just fine in the surprisingly good Big Fat Liar with Frankie Muniz and Bart Giamatti. But the show is so dull, even my kids tune it out. Unfortunately, they don't do it in time to tune out the show's wretched theme song - "Amandamandamandamanda, AmandamandamandamanDA, Amandamandamandamandamanmanmanda shoooooooooow", which could be used to wrench testimony from the most dedicated mafioso. D+.
• Ed, Edd and Eddie (Cartoon Network) - Easily the worst cartoon ever made. The show seems to be about three kids named Ed - a retarded one (done with the most grating voiceover in the history of psychological warfare), a nerd and a criminal. They try to scam their friends...oh, who cares? I'm not sure which is worse - the fact that the animation actually, physically induces a headache, or that there was obviously some intelligence spent (misspent) on this show; it's clear that there is some sort of writing and animation talent in the crew behind the show. It's just all gone terribly, terribly wrong. I cordially hate this show, and have taken to turning it off immediately. Ironically, the theme song - which sounds like it was lifted from a faux big-band, perhaps the Squirrel Nut Zippers - is one of the best of the bunch. It doesnt' save it from its grade, G- (I needed a grade worse than F).
• Lizzie McGuire (Disney) - Surprisingly un-awful. PC, of course, but not relentlessly so. Clever. The parents are portrayed as relentlessly dim, but that's to be expected (especially on Disney, which seems to have declared war on parental respect). Hillary Duff has a future - not that you'd know from the dismal "Lizzie McGuire Movie" (oh, the kids programming I've had to sit through...). The theme song - a not-entirely-unpleasant bit of powerpop treacle - would make a better single than any of Duff's upcoming onslaught of songs. B-.
• Sister, Sister (Disney) - On SNL in the mid-nineties, there was a spoof Afro-American game show starring Chris Rock. First prize was something fairly innocuous. Second prize? "Your own series on the WB!". The only reason I remember this was that the skit flashed a little graphic showing a bunch of circa-1995 WB shows, including one showing...Sister Sister. Well, Disney has exhumed this one (as they did "Boy Meets World", of which more later). That it shows everything that's wrong with the WB is obvious; the relentless pandering to the lowest common denominator among the Afro-American audience has to be insulting. The worst part, though? No, not the awful and unappealing Mowry twins. Not even the atrocious Jackee, who has to be the Amos and Andy of the 1990s. No, it's the fact that it stars Tim Reid. Reid is a wonderful actor (He was Venus Flytrap on WKRP, and he starred in the wonderful, underappreciated Frank's Place in the late eighties), writer and producer; that he's had to sink to this to earn a living is a tragedy. The theme song - a dismal piece of pseudo hip hop - signals drear. D
• That's So Raven (Disney) - Not as bad as I'd expected. Theme song is dismal fake-hop, and the show is pretty predictable. But it's one of few shows that still do old-fashioned, Lucille-Ball-style pratfalls 'n slapstick, and does it fairly well. C.
• Boy Meets World - Another show rescued from the networks, BMW (which ran a total of seven years, but is still unescapable in reruns) is relentlessly earnest, occasionally very well-written, and featured the crusty William Daniels playing a crusty teacher. Theme song? Good question. The show had at least three, all of them variations on one power-pop theme or another. C+
• Even Stevens (Disney) - Too good for kids. Sends up most of the PC cliches of kids programming with a nudge and a wink. The scheming little brother Louis (Shia LaBoeuf, whose unforgivable name is balanced by some talent - he starred in the excellent adaptation of Holes) is very clever, and the older sister Ren (Christy Romano) is the best pseudo-conservative teenager since Alex Keaton; she's a fine role model indeed. The music is often relentlessly clever, the writing is sharp, the parents are played less as morons than like true founts of comic wierdness. The show is a pleasantly twisted treat. The theme song is fairly generic, but very identifiable, fake rockabilly. A

I'm not sure which is worse - the fact that I could actually write a column about kids' TV, or that I'm sitting here wondering which shows I've missed...

Citizens for Disarmed Victims -

Citizens for Disarmed Victims - The "Repeal Concealed Carry" "movement" is taking one mighty swing at relevance.

They'll be staffing a booth at the State Fair this year. I plan on stopping by and going through their literature, point by point. By point.

Hmmm.

Attacking the "information" on the Citizens for a Supine Safer Minnesota website is sort of like clubbing baby harp seals. Here's a bit from their site:

CONCEAL AND CARRY DIDN'T PROTECT HIM

New York City Councilmember James Davis, who was shot and killed inside City Council Chambers on July 23, 2003 was a former police officer and was armed at the time of the attack. He and the shooter, Othniel Askey, bypassed the metal detector located at the building entrance. The shooting occured at one of the most heavily protected sites in the city. Mayor Michael Bloomberg now requires everyone, including city council members, to pass through the metal detectors.

Ironically, Mr. Davis was killed just as he was about to introduce a resolution to prevent workplace violence.

So according to Citizens for a Supine Safer Minnesota - if granting permits to the law-abiding citizen doesn't instantly end all crime and prevent every wackjob from commtting every crime of passion or insanity, then Concealed Carry is worthless?

Also note: you can pelt opponents of Shall Issue with dozens of real-life cases of people deterring crimes, with or without shootings, and it won't matter to them; let one NYC cop get shot by a wackjob (never mentioned in the excerpt in the CSM website) and suddenly the threshold of proof drops to one case.

You can smell the desperation.

The tide continues to swing against them, by the way. The one defeat that "Shall Issue" laws have suffered in recent years - its rejection in Missouri in 2000, followed by a veto of a bill in the Legislature - may soon be reversed:

The Missouri legislature is poised to soon override the veto of Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat, and validate a bill passed this spring allowing the right to carry concealed weapons.

Colorado will also join the ranks of shall-issue states before long, while the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently overturned a ban on concealed weapons of any type - which may lead to a shall-issue effort in the coming session.

Clearly, the national trend is very much against the Repeal gang.

By the way, it's funny to notice that the Repeal Concealed Carry NOW! website hasn't been updated since sometime in May.

That's dedication.

Shopping List - My pal

Shopping List - My pal Flash from down the street (not his real name) has been hearing my endless list of things I want/need to get when I finally get a job above subsistence level. He said I should put it on my blog - so he wouldn't have to hear it anymore.

Fair enough! So without further ado, Mitch's Post-Unemployment Shopping List:

1. 15 gallons of paint- due to dreadful planning last fall, I finished scraping and priming the house, just in time for the weather to get too cold to paint. Naturally, I planned to finish the job in the spring. No job, no paint. Gotta finish it - my house is an eyesore on my street.
   
2. A Bunch of Lumber - I need to build new beds for my daughter and I, not to mention kitchen shelves and a decent bookshelf in my bedroom.
   
3. Major Overhauls - for my pickup truck and my computer.
   
4. Presents - Both of my kids have had birthdays since I've been on the beach. Both have gotten very simple birthday parties, with not a whole lot of presents. Not bad, really, in the great world scheme of things - but I'd like to throw them a slightly bigger to-do.
   
5. Kitchen Stuff - my kitchen is a disaster. Not in the sense women think of "disaster" (the china clashes with the wallpaper) or in the "Queer Eye..." sense of the term (the pots are so 1998). No, I mean in the "avalanche wipes out Austrian Village" sense of the term disaster.
   
6. A TV bigger than my Toaster - I don't watch a lot of TV. I surely don't like my kids watching much. But my TV is about the size of a security camera monitor. Not that that's a biggie, but for the rare occasions when I actually do want to watch something...
   
7. Windows - My house is about 118 years old. Most of the windows are, if not original equipment, at least dating to before WWII. I'm tired of heating the neighborhood.
   
8. DVDs - I haven't had a working VCR in years. I always hated videocassettes - big, delicate, subject to degeneration. I bought a cheap DVD player for Christmas, and was converted instantly - just in time to have my entertainment budget drop to near-zero.
   
9. New Camera, preferably Digital - I need one, badly. I've been way too remiss in taking kid pictures - sorta the anti-Lileks. I need to fix that, and I need to do it now.

That should cover it.

Forget Arnold? - Longtime reader

Forget Arnold? - Longtime reader PZ writes:

Also there’s another conservative in the CA governor’s race who isn’t getting much press, but I thought you might want to check out her website if for no other reason then to add her name to the ever-growing pantheon of Conservative Babes

Excellent point, P. Although some of her stuff is hardly hard-core conservatism - check the Issues page.

But PZ is right on both counts; she's more conservative than Arnold, and a definite candidate for inclusion in the Pantheon.

Whenever I build it.

Hmmmmmm.

Northern Alliance Trivia Slapdown?- Fraters

Northern Alliance Trivia Slapdown?- Fraters see themselves as trivia buffs.

I may have to try this Keegan's place.

Kids In America - I

Kids In America - I wouldn't say that my college was "conservative". Far from it - most of the faculty was as solidly left-wing as anyone at MacAlester. But most of the students - the children of farm kids and small-town businessmen and teachers, with a smattering of kids from the Twin Cities and Chicago who were there because they couldn't get a scholarship at a Division I school - were apolitical. Neither the College Republicans nor their Democrat counterparts ever really drew a crowd; most students were working too hard to bother. My major adviser - who'd gone to Rutgers, NYU and Marquette - expressed amazement at the school and its students; "12 credits here is as hard as 16 credits anywhere I've ever taught", he said.

He was also one of very few conservative English professors you'll ever meet ("I consider myself a monarchist", he joked). He lent me a copy of "Modern Times" by Paul Johnson, and had me dig hard into the political critiques woven into "Crime and Punishment", and he started me on my path away from the liberalism I inherited from my parents to the conservatism I got from Reagan.

"Whatever", said my dorm mates, who were cramming for a chemistry exam.

I knew, of course, that there were other colleges out there. I was the editor of the college paper, and I got a weekly package of canned copy from the Collegiate Press Service - stuff that was skewed far enough to the left to make the BBC blanche. And when I finally moved to the Twin Cities, I met college kids that not only had time and energy to focus on things like politics - it was their major. It was why they'd gone to school in the first place. Places like the U, Mac, Hamline and St. Kates were breeding grounds for young DFLers (or Greens).

Fast forward twenty years.

The SCSU Scholars have an interesting piece on the rightward drift on campus today.

They link to a fascinating piece on Economist.com, which notes the statistics:

Bob Dole lost the 18-29-year-old vote by 19 percentage points; Mr Bush lost by two points. Students have been sceptical about bossy governments for years. Now they are increasingly sceptical about the “Ab Fab” values of the 1960s generation—particularly in regard to casual sex and abortion—and increasingly enthusiastic about America's use of military might. A poll by Harvard University's Institute of Politics in April found that three-quarters of students trusted the armed forces “to do the right thing” either all or most of the time. In 1975 the figure was about 20%. Another poll, by the University of California at Los Angeles, found that 45% of freshmen supported an increase in military spending, more than double the figure in 1992.

The article also delves into the why - students' natural sense of rebellion, of course (and what is the campus left but the status quo?) - but something more; a desire to have a nation worth going on to lead:

Another reason is September 11th, which not only produced a surge of patriotism but also widened the gap between students (who tended to see the attacks as examples of evil) and Vietnam-era professors (who agonised about what America must have done wrong). The Harvard Institute of Politics found two-thirds of students supporting the war in Iraq. Pro-war groups sprouted in such liberal campuses as Brandeis, Yale and Columbia. At Amherst College many students were noisily furious when 40 teachers paraded into the dining hall with anti-war slogans.

The Economist also struck on a parallel that I find fascinating, one I've been flailing about to try to find for months. It makes sense:

They needed troops on the ground. In 2002 College Republicans (together with gun activists) played the same sort of role in the party that trade unionists and blacks have long played in the Democratic Party.

King Banian of the Scholars notes:

Combine this with 9/11 and the fact that Republicans right now are doing a good job of recruiting youth to their programs like College Republicans or YAF, add an enthusiastic leadership from people like the CRs' Scott Stewart, and the groundswell, argues The Economist, turns into a youthquake.

Of course, like all youthquakes, it can change with the turn of a generation and its influences. That's what got us here in the first place.

But consider the possibilities: We have a generation that is edging to the right, coming up through the system. In 20 years, when they move into positions of leadership in academia, business, the media, we could be in position for a major change in the outlooks of American institutions.