Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Overly Broad Brush - Longtime "Shot" correspondent Dexter Van Zile writes about my post on Christopher Lydon, who may be hosting a political blog show at MPR:
The man did some tremendous shows at WBUR. One of his shows on classical music was absolutely brilliant. I can’t remember the name of the guest, but I was listening to it in my car and as the commentator was describing a passage of music, I was stunned by the exposition. I am not kidding. I pulled over and listened to the damn radio.

If he ends up at MPR, it will be a good thing.
I've heard Lydon - he is actually fairly good. Much better than Lanpher ever was.

But I think you could put Sean Hannity into MPR, and the show he did would come out warped to the left.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/21/2004 07:38:02 AM

Friday, February 20, 2004

Safer, Part II - Longtime "Shot in the Dark" corresondent Fingers - a fighter pilot - observed this about yesterday's posting on whether we're safer with Iraq free and Hussein in the bag.
Have you done anything on "where would you rather fight the WAR on terrorism, overseas in their battlespace or wait and fight it here in our battlespace?" Let's see, things blow up, bullets that don't hit what they're aimed at don't just evaporate (though you wouldn't be able to explain that to the Detroit residents who like to fire their weapons into the air on 'Devil's Night' (okay so I can't remember the name of 'the night' so pick me apart!).) so.....let me think.... we were able to stop the truck bomber from blowing up the White House ...except...he took out half a city block when we stopped him/her short of the intended target. -or- Several GIs were wounded today when they..... Oh, sorry, someone will now tell me that if we just stay home in the good old US of A that the terrorists will do the same and the threat will vanish!
And there's the big dichotomy on the "war on terror" between the Republicans and Democrats.

It's been said many, many times that the great difference between the parties re the War on Terror is that the GOP regards it as a military issue, while the Dems see it as mainly a law-enforcement and diplomatic issue.

Law enforcement, though, is inherently reactive. You'are always reacting to the enemy. You're always on the defensive - and that means the enemy always chooses when and where the battle will be. The enemy, whoever they are has the initiative. With most criminals, that doesn't mean much; crime is always with us, and even criminals have constitutional rights. But that means the battlefield will be here.

If your military is competent, you don't give the enemy that luxury. You seize the initiative. You hold the battle where and when it's inconvenient for the enemy.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2004 07:00:34 AM

Does Kos Know This? - The most important poll yet. All emphasis mine:
Here's a breakdown of the results:
-- 48% said, "I usually vote before work, and it's too late for that now."
-- 32% said, "I have not yet devoted enough study time to the issues and candidates."
-- 15% said, "I'm on the national Do-Not-Call registry, get lost."

The other five percent were equally divided between George W. Bush and "that Democrat named John."

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus nine months.
Of course, if Kos (and his many ~~sycophants~~ imitators) treated polls appropriately, he's have no material...

posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2004 05:00:54 AM

Poison Harpoon - Brainstorming points out this superb response by a retired Navy commander to Robert Byrd's specious criticism of the President's visit to the USS Lincoln.

The whole thing is great, and you need to read it all. I won't paste the whole thing...

...just this bit, which is a wondrous masterpiece:
"If you had spent some time in the service, instead of the Klan, you might understand the significance of that moment to all the men and women aboard the Lincoln, and indeed to all the men and women in the service who shared that moment vicariously. But you chose the bedsheet instead of the uniform, and so you don't.
I am half-tempted to move to West Virginia just so I could vote against you in your next election."
RTWT, natch.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2004 05:00:52 AM

Do What You Need To - The unnamed blogger from Fresh Bed Goodness plans to be the Northern Alliance Radio Network's first fan:
"Some of the boys in the Northern Alliance are getting their own show on the Patriot (1280). They'll have the 12-3 slot on Saturdays. Unfortunately, I'm more than 7 miles from Eagan and in the Mississippi River valley, so the Patriot doesn't come in for crap at our house. There's a Culver's in Eagan, I could stake out their parking lot for while, eat some custard, listen to the radio...mmmm, sounds tastes like a plan.
I think I know where to do our first remote...

(Via the Captain)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2004 05:00:17 AM

Can Minnesota Be Far Behind? - The New Mexico house just passed a law requiring a breathalizer interlock on car ignitions.
It would require the devices on new vehicles by 2008 and on used vehicles offered for sale by 2009.

Ignition interlocks prevent vehicles from being started when the driver is drunk.

The measure’s sponsor, Grants Democrat [what else?] Ken Martinez, says it would save lives.

He says putting ignition interlocks on every car, truck and commercial vehicle would shift the focus from punishment to prevention.

New Mexico already requires ignition interlocks for some convicted drunken drivers.

Opponents complain that requiring them on every vehicle would be costly to businesses and to the vast majority of citizens, who obey the law.

The bill now goes to the Senate.
Where, hopefully, it will die and disappear without a trace.

The Volokhs, however, do a fascinating comparison that shows the hypocrisy of those who favor such laws and trigger-lock guards on handguns in the home.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2004 04:50:30 AM

The O'Hair Paradox - Reason's Tim Cavanaugh tells us why Christians need to be thankful for the legacy of Madeline Murray O'Hair.

One of many money quotes:
She chased religion into the private sector, and there it flourishes, through homeschooling, through church-sponsored schools serving every creed, in overtly religious programming on network TV, in countless "spiritual" bestsellers. Most or all of these would have been anathema in the era of big-tent Cold War liberalism; in an age where the individual’s duty to the state is no longer so clear, we live with them comfortably. Lately even some atheists have gotten into the act, demanding to be called "brights" and respected for their deeply held beliefs. Such a wild ending could only have been cooked up by a master storyteller, but God, as we know from His published works, has little appreciation for irony.
Was religion an overfed, smug, complacent institution before O'Hair? I wasn't there, but it'd be another of those post-WWII institutions that I'd love to try to study.

At any rate - read it all. It's worth it.

posted by Mitch Berg 2/20/2004 04:44:24 AM

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Who's The Villain Here? - It was interesting to read the story yesterday of the LA teen who solved his own kidnapping by Googling his name for a class project.

His mother took him 14 years ago, as in many such cases, because the unthinkable happened: her ex-husband got custody:
"They were taking her child away, and she did what she had to do," said Goudreault's sister-in-law, Melissa Goudreault of Alberta, where the boy was living when he was snatched.
No, ma'am - she broke the law and deprived the child of his relationship with his father - a relationship that the courts in Canada, must have valued to an almost supernatural extent; fathers win custody in Canadian courts every bit as rarely as they do in the US.
Police said the boy's father in Red Deer, Alberta, had been granted sole custody of his son. But on a court-ordered weekend visit in 1989, Goudreault fled with the little boy, cops said.

Goudreault took the child on the lam to Mexico before settling in the Los Angeles area in 1995, police said.
Now, here's the part that frosts me; I just saw the piece on this story on the Today show.

The piece mentioned the basic facts - the Googling, the kidnapping itself. It then spent a long time going over what a wonderful person the neighbors thought she was, the two jobs she supposedly worked to get by, yadda yadda...

Unmentioned: She had illegally kidnapped her son, and deprived the boy of any chance of growing up with a father, to say nothing of the fact that his father had custody.
Police said the teen was upset his mother had been jailed. His grandmother said he may not want to return to Canada to be reunited with his father.
Fourteen years of brainwashing'll do that.
The father, Rodney Steinmann, 43, said he'd love to see his son. "I just think about him," Steinmann told the Edmonton Sun. "A conversation with him is a long time overdue. It would be a relief to ask him if he's okay."
Watch for the media - some parts of it - to portray this woman as some sort of folk hero, to manipulate peoples' sympathies. Watch for feminists to dredge up stories of abuse (conveniently without evidence). As the mother goes through what'll be a long, drawn-out extradition hearing, watch who's put on trial in the media.

I'm so mad could scream right now.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2004 07:46:27 AM

Firstest With The Mostest - MPR - Johnny-come-latelies that they are - are horning in on the Northern Alliance's act, looking at Chris Lydon do do a national show about political blogs, according to the Boston Glob:
"It's just possible that Chris Lydon's current gig as a fill-in host on Minnesota Public Radio's 'Midmorning' show could lead to bigger things. According to spokeswoman Suzanne Perry, MPR -- which produces such significant national programming as 'A Prairie Home Companion' and 'Marketplace' -- is starting to think about developing a national show about politics and blogging that would be hosted by Lydon, the former host of WBUR-FM's 'The Connection.'
Filling Kacklin' Katherine Lanpher's shoes is one thing.

But the piece doesn't mention Lydon's feelings about going up against the Northern Alliance Radio Network:
'We're always exploring new national programs,' Perry said. Reached yesterday in Minnesota, Lydon said, 'First, it's not that cold. Second, there are real radio professionals [here].
Yup. We'uns all clean up reeeal good.
Third, they're wildly interested, as I am, in the Internet extensions of media.' "
Read: "It'll be like "This American Life", with Josh "ua Micah" Marshall replacing Sarah Vowell.

More as details warrant.

(Via Spitbull and Fraters)
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2004 05:04:52 AM

Proving Negatives - We have a number of officers who do recall seeing George Bush on duty in Alabama thirty years ago.

So watch for the moonbat left to start trotting out an endless stream of people who don't remember him - as in this piece in the "Memphis Flyer", that city's equivalent of the "City Pages":
"Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain."
And they are certain of this because...?:
Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: ?I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.? But, says Mintz, that ?somebody? -- better known to the world now as the president of the United States -- never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.
Hm. I never met Bill Clinton, either - must mean he was never president.

So to the moonbat left, the word of someone who couldn't connect with someone who was on base once a month trumps the words of those who saw Bush on duty.

Next month - Atrios finds an Alzheimers patient who is certain George Bush doesn't even exist!
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2004 05:04:39 AM

John Kerry - Have Your People Call My People - I love great oratory - so even if you leave out his chameleonlike, pusillanimous record of defense and foreign policy and his worse-than-Kennedy domestic record and consider the record on oratorical skill alone, he's the last person I'd vote for for President. Kerry is stultifyingly bad orator. George Bush - himself far from Reaganesque - makes him look Demosthenean.

So it's in the interest of cooperation that I offer this advice to the Kerry Kampaign; if you're going to try to turn the President's actions into cleveroid plays on words, you're going to need to do a lot better.

For example, you started with:
Instead of saying "start your engines", he should be starting the engine of the economy!
Left over from your prep school student body president compaign, no?

We can do better. To wit:
Instead of landing on an aircraft carrier, he should be landing on single-payer health care!

Instead of liberating Iraq, he should be liberating people from prescription drug payments!

Instead of watching stock cars, he should be regulating the stock exchange!

Instead of worrying about nukes in Iran, he be giving rebukes to Enron! [that's got kinda a Sharpton-y tang to it - Ed.]
Audience? The Senator needs your help, too. I know you won't disappoint.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2004 05:03:36 AM

Safer - One of the left's most pernicious slanders these days is that we're no safer now that Hussein is gone.

How do they want to explain this?:
Investigators have discovered that the nuclear weapons designs obtained by Libya through a Pakistani smuggling network originated in China, exposing yet another link in a chain of proliferation that stretched across the Middle East and Asia, according to government officials and arms experts.

The bomb designs and other papers turned over by Libya have yielded dramatic evidence of China's long-suspected role in transferring nuclear know-how to Pakistan in the early 1980s, they said. The Chinese designs were later resold to Libya by a Pakistani-led trading network that is now the focus of an expanding international probe, added the officials and experts, who are based in the United States and Europe.

The packet of documents, some of which included text in Chinese, contained detailed, step-by-step instructions for assembling an implosion-type nuclear bomb that could fit atop a large ballistic missile. They also included technical instructions for manufacturing components for the device, the officials and experts said.
This is important exactly why?
The package of documents was turned over to U.S. officials in November following Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction and open his country's weapons laboratories to international inspection. The blueprints, which were flown to Washington last month, have been analyzed by experts from the United States, Britain and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
So why do you suppose that happened?

If you answered "Because the UN negotiated for it", you're mistaken. They've been on the scene forever. Nothing happened until we deposed Hussein.

Suddenly, all sorts of dominos started falling into place. Had we never invaded Iraq, Libya would still be taunting the UN, and the Khan network would remain undetected.

How bad would that be?
the blueprints would have been far more valuable to the other known customers of Khan's network.

"This design would be highly useful to countries such as Iran and North Korea," said Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security has studied the nonconventional weapons programs of both states. The design "appears deliverable by North Korea's Nodong missile, Iran's Shahab-3 missile and ballistic missiles Iraq was pursuing just prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War," he said.

Such a relatively simple design also might be coveted by terrorist groups who seek nuclear weapons but lack the technical sophistication or infrastructure to build a modern weapon, said one Europe-based weapons expert familiar with the blueprints. While such a bomb would be difficult to deliver by air, "you could drive it away in a pickup truck," the expert said.
But other than that, are we safer?

If it puts a further hole in the notion that the UN is a competent regulator of such things? Yes. Honesty helps.

(Via Instapundit.com )
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2004 05:01:38 AM

Better Living Through Steel - Sometimes, I think I could dive into the study of American culture from 1945 to 1955 with a Lileks-like devotion. It's a period that fascinates me; for all everone talks about the way the world is changing today, there is really no period in our history that compares with the post-war period for pure social upheaval. Before WWII, maybe a quarter of Americans graduated from high school, and a tiny minority went to college; a huge percentage of American still lived in rural areas; there was no "youth culture". The computer, the TV, the suburb, the mushroom cloud, and that most unfortunate artifact abused today by inferior irononicist cartoonists, the Modern Guy.

This screed was brought on by finding this website, a page on Lustron Homes - a post-war line of prefab houses made of porcelain-clad steel that were billed as completely maintenance-free (and, according to their owners, still are).

So amazing - and so forgotten.

Hm. Another project in the "someday when I have time' hopper.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/19/2004 05:00:54 AM

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

End Of The Beginning - Power Line notes the silver lining in a bad month for the President:
"The latest poll data, collected as always by the invaluable Real Clear Politics, show President Bush to be battered, but still hanging on after a dismal month. Polls conducted between Feb. 9 and Feb. 15 show, on the average, 50% approval and 45% disapproval.
It's time to start the campaign."
Definitely.

I think his NASCAR appearance was a good start. As long as perceptions of Bush are filtered through the media - as this past month, when the agenda was driven by their Kerry-driven exhumation of the National Guard story - he will fare badly. Now, though, he's moving around the media, and finally starting to go directly to the people, especially the masses in the Red states, and the more responsible, less-trivial Blue-staters for whom the War is an the issue.

Earlier this week, some of the left-bloggers were taking a long hit off the Kos bong, looking at a few polls and starting to measure the White House doors to see if they can fit Kerry's coiff through without damage.

Not so fast, folks. This thing hasn't even begun.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/18/2004 07:29:15 AM

National Service - Hugh Hewitt performed this nation a great service last night by playing the tape of John Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Driving home, I was dumbfounded - I'm sure my jaw was hanging slack below my mouth as the Lowry Tunnel gave me a moments' reprieve. The lies. The cynicism - soldiers (and sailors) just don't do that while their "comrades" are still in harms way, or in POW camps. It has consequences, as Hewitt noted:
Paul Galanti learned of Kerry's [1971] speech while held captive inside North Vietnam's infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison. The Navy pilot had been shot down in June 1966 and spent nearly seven years as a prisoner of war."

"During torture sessions, he said, his captors cited the antiwar speeches as 'an example of why we should cross over to [their] side.'"

"'The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield,' Galanti said, 'because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington.'"

"He says Kerry broke a covenant among servicemen never to make public criticisms that might jeopardize those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy."

"Because he did, Galanti said, 'John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with.'"

"Now retired and living in Richmond, Va., Galanti, 64, refuses to cool his ire toward Kerry."

"'I don't plan to set it aside. I don't know anyone who does,' He said. 'The Vietnam memorial has thousands of additional names due to John Kerry and others like him.'"
Elder from the Fraters says it best:
Hearing Kerry's testimony has also gotten my political blood boiling. This SOB should must be beaten (and beaten badly) in November. You want to fire up your conservative base Mr. President? Air this testimony from now till the election.
Absolutely. This stuff is chilling.

And what's more chilling is that there is no evidence that Kerry's changed in any substantive way. Hewitt notes:
I am more concerned about his judgment today than his judgment of 33 years ago. Kerry made his statement at the age of 27, after a first run for Congress, and his career since has been an unbroken campaign to neuter the American military though he would deny this from dawn till dark. He does not understand that America has real enemies today that won't play by his rules any more than he understood communism in 1971. He just doesn't get it. Period. His honorable service and his heroism in no way covers the terrible judgment he has displayed since he returned from the battlefield.
Hugh, it's worse than that.

Nobody can quibble with heroism - and thank God for our nation's heroes, people who will fly halfway around the world to topple a tyrant, or charge into a blazing skyscraper, or attack a houseful of Viet Cong, as Kerry did. But heroism and day by day rational, reasoned thought are two different things (although they can overlap), and in Kerry's case the two diverge drastically. We conservative pundits owe it to this nation to make sure everyone knows how drastically they diverge.

Jared from Exultate Justi cites a Krauthammer piece that explains it well:
The Democrats want to make the issue one of biography. It is, after all, no contest. Kerry has his Vietnam medals; Bush can barely produce his National Guard pay stubs.

...The Democrats simply did not understand that. They lost big. In 2002, past heroism was not enough. In 2004, it might just be. Why? Because Sept. 11 is fading.

The memory is still present enough in the national consciousness that the country demands someone minimally serious about national security. Dean collapsed because when people took a close look at him, he failed the midnight, red-phone, finger-on-the-button test. But the memory of Sept. 11 is now distant enough that, unlike in 2002, biography alone might be enough to meet the "seriousness" test.

Lucky for the Democrats. It is hard to see what Kerry has to offer beyond biography. The issue of our time is the war on terrorism. Bush's strategy throws out the old playbook on terrorism — the cops-and-robbers, law-and-order strategy of arrest and trial followed by complacency — and takes the war to the enemy. Kerry says terrorism is "primarily an intelligence and law-enforcement operation" — precisely the misconception that had us waking up on Sept. 12 realizing that while the enemy was preparing for war, we were preparing legal briefs for grand juries.
In terms of moral courage - ~~sticking by his~~ having convictions, Kerry makes Bill Clinton seem, in retrospect, like Winston Churchill.

I was going to work against Kerry no matter what. But I'm going to put that much more into it now. It's not political any more. Putting this hamster in office would be the greatest disaster for this nation since Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Hostages.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/18/2004 07:15:02 AM

Empty Suit - Hewitt also linked a wonderful piece from USA Today, by Judy Keen, that did something no Democrat seems to want done; analyze John Kerry's voting record:
Kerry and his advisors express confidence," writes Balz, "that his background as a decorated combat veteran in Vietnam and a voting record that occasionally deviated from liberal positions shield him from such ideological pigeonholing." Hard to hide 6,000+ votes over 19 years in the U.S. Senate, especially when the total of those votes,as scored by the Americans for Democratic Action, put Kerry to the left of Teddy Kennedy.

Keen's piece picks up on a Howard Dean point about John Kerry: He has done nothing but talk on Capitol Hill: "Dean's campaign did the research and e-mailed the results to reporters: Kerry has sponsored 371 bills. Nine became law and six of those were more ceremonial, such as renaming a federal building, than substantive. The other two bills related to marine research and one providing grants to women who own small businesses."

Kerry may look like a senator, but he hasn't acted like one.
Remember when the Dems were running the frivolous Mark Dayton against Rod Grams in 1990? The Dems claimed that Grams, a former TV anchor-turned-Republican politician, was an empty suit (a hilarious claim coming from the vacuous Dayton). But it looks as if Rod Grams, in one term in Washington, sponsored more, and more important, legislation than John "Gravitas" Kerry has in his entire interminable career.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/18/2004 07:10:28 AM

Did I Jump Or Was I Pushed? - Was it the ad featuring the grotesquely-misshapen rodent heads [it's a 1 meg Flash6 download] singing the gratingly-out-of-tune jingle?

Or was it Fraters Libertas' team coverage of the story that did it?

I don't know. But I did have a Quizno's sub last week. And all I can say is this:

Those ads would be a lot more effective if they weren't plugging a product that tastes like grilled styrofoam basted in expired library paste and ketchup.

That is all.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/18/2004 05:00:03 AM

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Billions of Years of Evolution... - (which I firmly believe to be not in any way discongruous with the story of Creation, but that's a separate post)...

...tens of thousands of years of human development...

...hundreds of years of focus on the advancement of human technology...

...fifty years of staggering progress in data processing...

...a generation of quantum leaps in the democratization of the access to that technology...

...allows me to sit with my laptop at the Rock Bottom enjoying a lunchtime root beer as I blog.

Just think; had Algore won the 2000 election, I'd probably be walking behind a mule pushing an iron plow right now.

OK. Too silly. Back to work.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2004 12:11:51 PM

Blast From The Past - From today's bleat:
You want to know why we invaded Iraq in 2003? Go back and read the papers in 1992. And you’ll find this quote:

“’If they’re such whizzes at foreign policy, why is Saddam Hussein thumbing his nose at the rest of the world?’”

Albert. Gore. Junior.
'nuff said.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2004 07:08:37 AM

Measure Of A Blog - I really enjoy doing this blog.

Now, for most of the last few months, I've been measuring a "good day's work" on this blog by one metric; does my day's output get to the hit counter (the little blue number way down in the right margin of this site, currently hovering in the 60,000s).

Reading over the last few months, I realized - that's a lot of stuff. Given that I have some new projects coming online, and work and family aren't getting less demanding, and that reaching that hit counter is (until today, the hit counter was below the list of archive links, which is getting longer every week), I've decided to take action.

So - I'll still write down to the hit counter every day. But I moved the archives down below the counter.

Sure, it's cheating. I'm drunk with power.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2004 05:10:48 AM

Blogless and Desperate! - What do you get when you combine two hot trends?

In the case of blogs (hot trend!) and urban singles (hot trend!), you get dateblogs (Not a trend).

Both of the Twin Cities' major dailies are running dateblogs - blogs hosted by people who are dating. And, might I add, dating, dating and dating.

The Pioneer Press' "Ruby" was in the business first - her "Single In The City" "dating weblog", which reads more like an advice column, has been around about nine months - and since she's a PiPress staffer, she's the better writer of the two. She actually offers the occasional insight, to the extent that any twentysomething has anything useful to say about dating.

She is also waaay too obsessed with clothes; you could make a fun drinking game called "Ruby's Clothing References" ("Every hip clothing reference, take a hit and pass the tall slammer around. If she refers to turtlenecks, whoever holding the slammer has to chug it!"). She is also, unfortunately, a bit of a bigot - as seen in this coment about a fling with a coast guardsman:
Unfortunately, it was doomed from the start – he doesn’t live in the Twin Cities and had no plans to move. The radical Republican slant made me kinda seasick, too.
...or in this response to reader email:
Relationships aren’t for everyone, and that’s OK, but if I wanted to live with that much unfounded fear, I’d vote for Bush .
And if your potential date wanted to be around someone who brings so much bitterness and political anger to the table, Ruby, he'd get jiggy with Rachel Corrie. Except she's dead. But I digress.

The Strib, on the other hand, was good enough to hire a regular guy - or so he seems, from his writing style.

But the anonymous blogger from "Wrecked in the Cities" (I'll kiss the editor of the first newspaper dateblog that doesn't use a play on "Sex in the City" for its title. Figuratively, i mean) could stand to relax a bit:
My date blog is starting to feel like a political campaign. While I am waiting for the results to come in from one speed-dating event, I am off meeting people at another.

Speed-dating is creeping into my dreams. Last night, I dreamt that I met enough people to place third in the Minnesota Caucus. According to the Zogby results, I would have placed second if I had done better among the NASCAR demographic.

That'll teach me to doze off to CNN. Still, it's becoming apparent to me that I need a break from speed dating. And fast. Before this blog gets weirder
Don't worry, buddy - your blog's not wierd. It reads like the diary of every guy who goes back into dating after a long time out of the racket; it reeks of desperation at every turn. "Am I ever going to find someone who really loves me, ever again? Or am I just another desperate, dateless, lonely loser?" Then denial ends, and you realize "Yes, I am". Then you relax, start enjoying yourself, and become someone that a woman who's not every bit as much a desperate nutjob as you are (if only temporarily so, for both of you) might like to be around.

I'm still in stage two, myself. Hang in there, buddy. And watch out for that Ruby chick. She's got all sortsa baggage, and oy, does she gossip.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2004 05:08:47 AM

Core Incompetency - In this space, I frequently advise liberals "never, ever try to write about defense, or anything military in nature. Your ignorance doesn't just harm your credibility; it makes you look like a laughingstock".

We need to add "Disaster preparedness" to the list.

Doug Grow writes about the Hennepin County Sheriff's department's "Homeland Security Unit". Grow snarks:
Hmmmm. The sheriff of Hennepin County with his own Homeland Security Unit. Is this necessary?
By way of proof, Grow cites Henco commissioner Mike Opat, (D - North Minneapolis)
Commissioner Mike Opat was the Hennepin County Board chairman in December and opposed McGowan's request. Opat, who has been replaced by Randy Johnson as board chairman, said he was surprised when he learned of the county's new role in the war on terror.

"I don't know the details of what he has in mind, but we have the FBI, the Secret Service, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the National Guard already," Opat said. "I have to wonder where's the value added."
Now, Grow would seem to answer the question himself earlier in the piece, with the example of a similar unit in Ramsey County:
People in Ramsey County already are sleeping better because Sheriff Bob Fletcher has established a Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit. (Seriously, that's what it's called.) Among other things, Fletcher's 10-member unit kept an eye on the Ice Palace leading up to the recent NHL All-Star Game. (Really. This is true. Members of the unit were stationed in an undisclosed building near the Ice Palace.)
Grow notes:
He says his unit will be trained in dealing with nuclear, biological, chemical and explosive weapons. He also said his unit will play a key role in training and coordinating efforts with other law enforcement agencies in the county and state.
Note Grow's snide postironic snarking. Yeah, Doug, I guess I do feel a bit better knowing that if someone finds a dirty bomb in Saint Paul, my sheriff will be on the scene going all Buford Pusser on the perps, while across the river Mike Opat is still waiting for the FBI, the Secret Service and the National Guard to return his phone calls.

Grow notes:
Yes, all of this sounds like what the FBI's Terrorism Task Force already is supposed to do.
Classic Grow; ensure you're dependent on the highest possible level of government.

Note to Doug Grow; What should the people of Hennepin County do while waiting for the FBI to show up in the event of a problem? Wrap themselves in back issues of the Strib?
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2004 05:06:07 AM

What If They Had A Strike, And Nobody Came? - Metro area bus drivers are getting ready to strike:
"Metro Transit workers overwhelmingly rejected a final contract offer on Monday from the Metropolitan Council and gave union leaders the authority to call a bus strike to strengthen their bargaining position.
Before drivers could idle buses, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 would have to file an intent to strike notice with the Bureau of Mediation and the Metropolitan Council.
If memory serves - didn't they strike about ten years ago?

Wasn't it a disaster?

Just checking.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/17/2004 05:00:15 AM

Monday, February 16, 2004

Suffering Fools - Ordinarily, I ignore Counterspin, a blog by an anonyblogger named "Hesiod". His stuff has all the spittle-flecked consiracy-mongering cachet that you'd expect to find on Democrats.com, but none of the writing talent [file under damnation by faint praise - Ed.]

But I've seen a few otherwise decent people cite this piece of bilge attempting to respond to last weeks' WashTimes op-ed supporting the President's record in the Air National Guard.

He starts bad:
Ed. How ****ing stupid does this guy think we are? RICHARD NIXON was President in 1970-1971. Not Johnson].
This involves a bit if something called "History", "Hesiod". I'll write slowly.

President Johnson made a decision not to call up the Guard to serve in Vietnam. The Guard is very closely tied to mainstreet USA. He didn't want that - as someone else pointed out, when a Guard unit suffers a casualty, a whole town feels the pain; when a draftee gets hit, one family suffers. Politically, it was an easier decision for him. It turned out to be disastrous for the military - which is why after Vietnam the military adtopted the "total force" concept, meaning that to deploy oversease the military had to have Guard and Reserve units involved. That way, the political leadership would have to make sure they really thought a war was politically worth it before they went into action.

As Nixon's goal was to leave Vietnam, there was no reason to call up the Guard en masse while Bush served.

Now - some air guardsmen were called up individually to go to Vietnam, and I believe a few units flying aircraft useful in Vietnam (attack planes, transports, etc) may have been mobilized. Other pilots volunteered to go - and according to Campenni, Bush volunteered for the program to send ANG pilots to Vietnam, but he and his unit flew a plane that was not suited for use in Vietnam (neither an attack plane like the F-100 and F-105, nor a capable dogfighter like the F4). As it would have taken a year to re-train him in a new plane, one not supported by the unit to which he was assigned, and the Guard wasn't accepting less-experienced pilots like Bush at that point (the war was winding down), there was no purpose in him going.

Reading the rest of "Hesiod"'s rant is an exercise in self-control. For example, on Col. Campenni's remarks about the liberal strawman about Bush not passing a drug test, he says:
[Ed. Another bald-faced lie].
Hm. A thoughtful retort, that. But Hesiod unaccountably fails to tell us why this is a "bald-faced lie". It's the word of an Air Force colonel against that of a spittle-flecked rantblogger.

"Hesiod" also cites another rantblogger who claims Bush wasn't a good pilot. Whether it's true or not (and I doubt it - the Air Guard could afford to be selective at that time, with the Air Force being downsized and lots of Regular pilots looking for part-time flying billets), I have to ask - so what? How far do we move the goalposts, here? As each layer of the smear is debunked, the moonbats try to piece together another, with the full connivance of the media. What's next? He served, he wasn't AWOL, he was in Alabama, all credible and documentary evidence says he was a decent pilot... At this rate, by October the moonbats will be attacking him for having shot down no Russian nuclear bombers?

It's not that Mr. "Hesiod" totally abjures the concept of "evidence", of course. He prints an email from a World War II veteran who, while not addressing any of the points in either Lt. Bush or Lt. Kerry's military records, does manage to make himself sound a mentally incontinent Democrat zealot. Proof enough for "Hesiod" and those who consider him anything other than a tinfoil-hatted crackpot? Perhaps. Not for the rest of us.

This par for the course for Mr. "Hesiod", of course - as we saw in this piece last fall, where we were told Algore would have been a better president because he's a clairvoyant superhero.

I got this link from Flash at Centrisity. I like to pass on bits of wisdom to newer bloggers; pick your sources carefully. "Hesiod" is to credibility as McDonald's is to food.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2004 05:10:53 AM

Watch the Spin - The media will spin the news of the terrorist attacks in Fallujah as a defeat. So will every half-witted leftyblog.

And the story sounds gnarly, indeed - many Iraqi police killed, some prisoners released in a classical commando raid:
It was unclear how many attackers there were. But [Iraqi police commander] Hammad and other Iraqi police and military officials said the attacks all began about 8:15 a.m. with a cascade of rocket propelled grenade and machine gun fire at the five different locations. Fighting continued for nearly an hour.
Pretty scary stuff, that.

It's about here that the less informed leftybloggers will start crying "quagmire".

Not so fast, though:
No American troops were involved in the fighting. Officers from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed a 10-minute drive away could hear the battle clearly. They offered help but the Hammad said it wasn't needed. The Americans did provide additional ammunition and weapons, including light machine guns.

After the battle, soldiers at the civil defense base proudly displayed a light machine gun and a pair of rocket propelled grenade launchers they had captured from the attackers. Thursday, insurgents fired a pair of rocket propelled grenades at this same base while Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, was staging an inspection. Abizaid was unhurt.
The Iraqi police got beaten up. And then they hit back.

They took worse than they gave, but - and this is the important part - they didn't buckle and run. They told the 82nd Airborne to hold off. And they did the job themselves.

And that is a key step toward victory; when the US can leave Sunni towns like Fallujah behind, and the locals will fight the Islamofascist scum as hard as we do.

It's not a victory; you can't win too many victories when your ratio of losses is 5-1 against.

But as the Iraqi cops win a few more, and learn how guerrillas are fought - and remember, only the enemy's first team does these sorts of raids - the body counts will straighten out. And so will the situation.

Belmont Club put it well;
That when dying and bleeding, beset by the flower of terrorism, with pistol to set against automatic rifle and grenade, the Iraqi police did not ask for help from 82nd Airborne. They asked for ammunition.
If John Kerry were president, these men would be human meat in the Hussein sausage machine.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2004 05:04:42 AM

Dadublogger - Last week, in a note about my piece on Nick Coleman's column about school closings, King from the SCSU Scholars quipped "I'm not going to be the only edublogger in the NA for much longer, at the rate Mitch is going. ".

Thanks, King! But my only qualification as an edu-blogger is having two kids in school...

...or so I thought, until I read this piece in SCSUScholars, which brought back memories of the one semester I taught, as a community faculty member, at a MNSCU university.

One of my more interesting experiences was my exposure to the InterFaculty Organization (IFO), which is the MNSCU teachers union. When I signed on to teach, I was given the option; join the IFO as a full voting member for $112, or join as a "fair share" member for $100. I figured it was worth being a full member, if only because forevermore I could tell my DFL friends while debating "are you actually a union member? No? Well, i am, you scab!"

Now, I'm not clueless about the life of the teacher and the college professor. My dad has taught at high schools and colleges for the last 40-odd years, some of my best friends are professors, and I know it's not all easy. That being said, I doubt anyone's confused it with a sweatshop.

It was at faculty orientation that I learned different. The school's IFO steward - a skinny English prof who looked a bit like Don Knotts via James Taylor - visibly seethed with anger when he talked about the recent negotiations, teeth at one point gritted when he described the Regents' negotiations, as if he were Cesar Chavez addresing a band of Mexican farm laborers rather than a group of well-padded, ultra-educated Midwesterners. I looked around - the faculty were nodding along, although to be fair I don't know if they were nodding with him or nodding at him. I fully expected him to lead us in a Wobbly Woody Guthrie song before he left the podium.

All by way of saying, the IFO is not without its agenda, and those agendas fit comfortably with all our other teachers unions.

King from the Scholars reprints Scholar Dave's letter to the IFO regarding their current letter writing campaign:
I share with you my dismay at the stance taken by (and even the existence of) MnSCU. Since its inception I have noted:
a serious "dumbing down" of academic standards toward mediocrity at what used to be our flagship state university here in St. Cloud,
a growing siphoning of taxpayers' dollars away from our students to fund a largely redundant and ever burgeoning administrative bureaucracy in St. Paul,
evidence of finger-pointing between the Chancellor's office and SCSU's Administration with respect to accountability for the settlement of lawsuits,
a failure to establish quantitative goals against which progress can be assessed,
an alarming and growing collectivist bias toward micro-managing our local affairs (down even to the level of seeking to design our university's transcripts),
an apparent lack of respect for the unique talents and efforts that university professors bring to our profession, and
an apparent unwillingness to bargain in good faith.
Over the past two weeks I have expressed these feelings in two separate e-mails that I sent to the IFO (action@ifo.org). My hope was that they would be added to you website's list of comments ...

My first question, Mr. Brown, is why have my comments not yet been posted?
Read the whole thing - and, in fact, if you're concerned with education at all levels, you owe it to yourself to read the Scholars daily.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2004 05:02:12 AM

Lard From The Front - Right after 9/11, my pal Mark the Graphics Guy and I were walking around Richfield discussing responses to the government's call for "unconventional responses to terror". My idea; a "sprinkler system" on airliners and other public transit that could, in an emergency, spray high-pressure, liquified pig fat over everyone on board the plane. Pigs are, of course, trayf in Islam; a good, pious Moslem is supposed to go to an Imam if they come in contact with pork or pig byproducts, and get purified; if they die before this is done, they end up in Hell.

Like most of my "comic" ideas, I find I can't make it up fast enough, as we see in this piece Mark sent me:
A prominent Israeli rabbi has proposed hanging bags of pig fat in buses to deter Muslim suicide bombers who may want to avoid contact with an "unclean" animal, an Israeli official said on Thursday.

The idea -- suggested by Rabbi Eliezer Fisher, a rabbinical judge, in a letter to police -- signaled the extremes to which some Israelis may be willing to go to stop Palestinian bombers who have killed hundreds of Israelis in recent years.

Judaism, like Islam, considers pigs unclean. But the ultra-Orthodox rabbi has ruled that special dispensation can be given for placing bags of lard in buses and public places in an effort to prevent attacks.
Of course, suicide is also strictly forbidden in Islam, as is the wanton killing of innocents. These strictures never affected the intifada or the 9/11 hijackers, either.

But it's always nice to be two years ahead of the curve...
posted by Mitch Berg 2/16/2004 05:00:57 AM