A paleo blog I hadn’t noticed before, though it seems to have been around for several years (at least in one form or another).
The Road To Damascus
Neither the Bush or the Obama administration seemed to understand this.
Time To Clean House At DoD
This is idiotic. A jihadist shooting up Fort Hood is “work-place violence,” but people who believe in the Constitution are extremists. This is the worst part:
The SPLC is listed as a resource for information on hate groups and referenced several times throughout the guide.
Morris Dees and his SPLC is itself a “hate group.” Unfortunately, nothing will be done about this until we get a president who cares, instead of one who supports this Bravo Sierra.
The Chicken
I tend to rinse and run water through it, in a deep sink. I’m pretty sure that I don’t make the mess shown here.
Missing The Point
Scholars and Rogues imagine that they have a useful critique of our latest filings in the MannSuit, but they completely misunderstand the situation:
These examples demonstrate that both NR and Steyn were aware of ongoing investigations, and that NR was certainly aware of the results of at least one of those investigations. Furthermore, it is not realistic to imagine that NR cultivated a culture where authors writing about the same subject (climate change/global warming) were so isolated from each other that they never discussed the results of the various investigations among themselves. As such, it is virtually certain that NR and Steyn were aware of the investigations’ results and thus cannot credibly claim ignorance of those same results. [Emphasis in original]
This, with all respect, is stupid. Or it’s smart, but a complete straw man. None of the defendants have claimed that they were unaware of the results of the investigations. In fact, the original blog post that I wrote was all about the results of those investigations, and why we and others disagreed with them. They (and Mann) are attempting to claim that the investigations a) properly investigated all accusations of malfeasance against him and b) exonerated him of all such claims. Both are (in our opinions) untrue. The investigations, to the degree that they happened, were limited in their scope, and for the most part cursory (e.g., the Penn State “investigation” basically consisted of asking Mann if he did anything wrong, without questioning anyone else, and when he replied in the negative, “exonerated” him). That is what the entire dispute is about, so it’s obtuse and pointless to claim that we claim that we were unaware of the investigation results.
Broken Promises
Barack Obama’s long list:
I’m sure people could add to this list, but there’s enough here to establish a pattern. Even if you stipulate that politicians often make claims they can’t keep–that some are the product of cynical deception and others the product of unforeseen circumstances–Mr. Obama is in a category all his own.
Does it matter? I think so, in part because I don’t believe it’s good to have as president someone for whom words have no objective meaning and who believes he can construct his own narrative to fit his own needs. But I also think we’re seeing an accretion occur. It’s happening later than I would have hoped, but the public does seem to be tuning out the president. The latest pivot to the economy–has that pivot occurred a half-dozen or a dozen times before?–is meaningless. Nothing has happened before; why should anything happen now?
Mr. Obama talks, and he talks, and he talks. My how he loves to talk. But his words don’t translate into anything real. And eventually that does take a toll.
Actually, his words often do translate to something real — it’s just that it’s the opposite of what the words would indicate.
Impeachment
It’s not crazy to talk about it:
The Framers intended impeachment as the ultimate accountability. Without at least the credible threat of it, there is no realistic checking of a president who seems increasingly disposed to abuse his awesome powers, in fulfillment of a promise to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America. Maybe we are already transformed. The Framers did not see impeachment as outlandish; it was a realistic response to an imperious executive’s seeking to upend our constitutional order — the specter of which gripped the constitutional convention with fear.
I think that we’d be a lot better off, historically, if more presidents had been impeached and removed (Wilson certainly comes to mind — Clinton should have as well). Such examples might rein in their dictatorial tendencies. Unfortunately, the Founders didn’t anticipate political parties or the degree to which party loyalty would overcome legislative-branch jealousy in their prerogatives.
Climate Change
…is causing climate models to fail.
Is there anything it can’t do?
An Anti-Satellite Weapon
Has China launched one?
Reusable Rockets
Megan Gannon has another article on this past weekend’s DC-X meeting in Alamagordo.