There’s an entertaining article at the New York Daily News about how Fox refugee Paula Zahn is not earning her keep at CNN. Apparently, her show is an expensive ratings disaster. I particularly liked the caption on the picture:

Paula Zahn: Provocative, supersmart and, oh yeah, just a little bit overpaid.

Sixty Senators blithely ignored their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, and passed McCain’s execrable Campaign Finance Deform bill.

I hope that the President remembers his oath, but I’m not optimistic.

Neely Tucker and Sue Schmidt inform us via headline that “Ray Concludes There Was No Wrongdoing on Part of Clintons.”

This is not just misleading–it’s a lie. Ray concluded no such thing. His report did not absolve the First Felons–it simply said that there was insufficient evidence to convict.

This is no doubt true because:
a) much of it was shredded, or witnesses were intimidated or paid off, and
b) it would have been difficult to find a jury that wouldn’t have one or two die-hard supporters, resulting in a hung panel (as happened with Susan McDougal).

There was never any way to get the goods on that gang without an all-out RICO prosecution, and Janet Reno’s Department of Injustice was never going to allow that.

And before I get a lot of nonsense about innocence until proven guilty, that applies only to courts of law, not courts of public (or private) opinion.

[Update at 2PM PST]

Compare and contrast the Washington Post headline with this (accurate) one from Fox:

Final Report Shows Clintons Benefited from Criminal Transactions

Whether this is a good summary of the report is, of course, disputable, but unlike the WaPo headline, at least it’s true.

[Update at 3:20PM PST]

Down the ol’ memory hole…

Now the subhead on the Tucker/Schmidt article has been changed from the above to Ray Criticizes Comments by Former President Clinton. You’ll just have to take my word for it as to what the subhead was originally.

I wonder if they got a lot of angry email and calls, or if some editor just noticed it on his own. Thanks to The Sanity Inspector for pointing out the instant rewriting of history.

This kind of stuff really makes me angry, because it was ongoing throughout the entire eight years of the Administration. Clinton spinners and defenders would continually equate “insufficient evidence to convict” with “proof of innocence.” So the public, who didn’t necessarily actually read the underlying reports (whether Pillsbury, Starr, or whatever) would come away with the vague impression that the Clintons never did anything wrong, but were simply always under attack by the evil VRWC.

Foxnews is apparently rotating guest bloggers on Wednesdays. Ye Olde Blogger Andrea Harris is up to bat today, and she competently expands on my own deepening disgust with Harry Browne.

I found an interesting post about the Afghan situation over at Brink Lindsey’s web site today, which I mostly agreed with, but I found one sentence somewhat discomforting.

Specifically, we have to use our power to keep warlordism in check while the fledgling national government gets established, builds an army, and otherwise develops the capacity to project authority nationwide.

As someone (Harry Browne aside) who considers himself a libertarian, this grated. The purpose of an “army” is not to be used against a nation’s own people. If there are warlords in Afghanistan to be quelled, and said entity is a nation, keeping down “warlords” is a job for the police, not an army. Armies (where they are justifiably used at all) are to be used against outside agressors–not against internal subversives.

I have no objection to Acting-President Karzai building up a force to pacify the Afghan nation, but to call it an “army” is to confuse terms, and potentially lay the foundation for a future police state.

I found an interesting post about the Afghan situation over at Brink Lindsey’s web site today, which I mostly agreed with, but I found one sentence somewhat discomforting.

Specifically, we have to use our power to keep warlordism in check while the fledgling national government gets established, builds an army, and otherwise develops the capacity to project authority nationwide.

As someone (Harry Browne aside) who considers himself a libertarian, this grated. The purpose of an “army” is not to be used against a nation’s own people. If there are warlords in Afghanistan to be quelled, and said entity is a nation, keeping down “warlords” is a job for the police, not an army. Armies (where they are justifiably used at all) are to be used against outside agressors–not against internal subversives.

I have no objection to Acting-President Karzai building up a force to pacify the Afghan nation, but to call it an “army” is to confuse terms, and potentially lay the foundation for a future police state.

I found an interesting post about the Afghan situation over at Brink Lindsey’s web site today, which I mostly agreed with, but I found one sentence somewhat discomforting.

Specifically, we have to use our power to keep warlordism in check while the fledgling national government gets established, builds an army, and otherwise develops the capacity to project authority nationwide.

As someone (Harry Browne aside) who considers himself a libertarian, this grated. The purpose of an “army” is not to be used against a nation’s own people. If there are warlords in Afghanistan to be quelled, and said entity is a nation, keeping down “warlords” is a job for the police, not an army. Armies (where they are justifiably used at all) are to be used against outside agressors–not against internal subversives.

I have no objection to Acting-President Karzai building up a force to pacify the Afghan nation, but to call it an “army” is to confuse terms, and potentially lay the foundation for a future police state.

Scientists have come up with material that has the properties of a thermal diode (that is, it allows heat to pass in one direction, but not the other). At first glance, this seems to violate at least one of the laws of thermodynamics, but I’ll have to read more and think about it more to have a firm opinion.

William Saracino has the best mainstream analysis yet of why Simon beat Riordan. It matches up quite closely, of course, with my own analysis.

The Riordan operation resembled a bus carrying no one who knew how to get where it was supposed to go. The campaign hierarchy, filled with partisan Democrats, had no idea how to appeal to Republican primary voters. It is drilled into Democrats from their youths that Republicans, especially those terrible ?right-wingers,? have neither hearts nor minds ? that they are idiots devoid of ?compassion.? So it should be no surprise that those driving the Riordan bus lacked directions for reaching GOP voters? hearts and minds or that, in the end, they came nowhere close to their destination, winning a Republican primary.

In the epic liars contest between Bob Reich and Bill Clinton, Robert Musil comes down on Reich’s side, after laboriously and amusingly parsing the Big He’s words. Just proving, once again, that when it comes to the ex-President, Josh Marshall is all too credulous.

Note to Josh. Bill Clinton never says anything “pretty clearly.”