Twitterati to Arizona Injustice - Blogging By Numbers

I was going to open the week's blogging by numbers by mentioning that TSH is now on Twitter. As most of you know, CNN's resident "bald headed profit of doom" did the heavy lifting for me, making sure half the world knew before the paint had time to dry on my Twitter page. On Tuesday, CNN'S Chief Business Correspondent loaded up his trebuchet of rage and devoted an entire hour to lobbing a litany of agitated tweets at yours truly.

I remember a great article by Jonah Goldberg in which he recounts being called "an idiot" by George Will during a lecture at Groucher College. Regrettably, being called "idiotic" and a "neo-con" by a buffoon with a liberal pedigree that dates back to his days as a left wing activist at Queen's will probably not bring on a case of the warm and fuzzies 20 years later.

Well, at least he's a snappy dresser - Let the blogging by numbers begin!!!

1 - The Administration's decision to drag Arizona's new immigration law before the courts was problematic on several fronts. At it's core, S.B. 1070 simply re-asserts the authority of law enforcement officials to ask citizens to provide proof of their immigration status during the course of conducting their duties, such as traffic stops or investigating criminal complaints if there's a reasonable suspicion they're in the U.S. illegally.

Note "re-asserts". Most people forget that it's been a Federal law since 1940 that ALL citizens are required to carry proof of citizenship. Over at NRO, Mark Levin joins a growing list of legal scholars gob-smacked by Judge Bolton's Decision;

"This is a typical example of a judge stating the correct legal standard, but then ignoring it and applying the test in a fashion completely divorced from the facts of the case in order to reach a predetermined decision.

First, the court states correctly that the sort of constitutional challenge brought here — a facial challenge — is the most difficult challenge to mount successfully. It requires that the plaintiff (here the federal government) must demonstrate that the law can never be applied in a constitutional fashion. The test cannot be met with hypothetical arguments — yet that is exactly what the court relies on in its ruling: the assertion that the AZ law will impose an impermissible burden on law enforcement, which is to determine the legal status of a person detained pursuant to the AZ law on the reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally. The court does not provide any empirical basis to support its conclusion. It’s pure supposition."

This was sloppy jurisprudence and this matter is far from over. While the administration and their msm counterparts celebrate this short term victory, they should remember this will have ramifications that go beyond the Democratic wipe-out sure to occur this November. Americans have had Obamacare and financial reform rammed down their throats, and now the President has thumbed his nose in the eye of a State's right to enforce existing Federal laws. President Obama will soon join the list of one term Presidents. Let's just hope a new Republican Congress can help mitigate the damage in the interim.

2 - I know it's summer but before you slap on the sandals, make sure your toenails don't look like the Lamisil Monsters are about to jump out of your feet.

3 - Adam Liptak has written another one of those irritating New Time's Articles (are there any other kind?) that comes right out of the media's David Gergen-style, "Gee I'm so clever" school of punditry. The article tries to make the tenuous case that the Supreme Court under Justice Roberts is the most conservative in history. Seriously?

Mr. Liptak takes a widely discredited political science study that crudely separates Supreme Court cases and litigants into highly subjective categories then, using a magic formula plops them into a "liberal" or "conservative" bucket and assigns them a score. Even the author acknowledges how flawed the study is admitting it probably throws off the results of a few cases, but trudges full speed ahead anyway.

The study casually skips over the numerous cases where this clever equation doesn't apply. For example, the casually dubbed "conservative" justices almost always side with criminal defendants in cases where the constitutional protection of these defendants is in question.

Is Justice Kennedy more conservative than Powell? Powell voted to uphold Georgia's laws prohibiting sodomy and oral sex. Kennedy reversed that decision. Dozens of law scholars have been inundating the web with numerous examples that sweep away Liptak's knee jerk conclusions.

I wish this study had been correct. Some day Americans would be well served if they could call the SCOTUS a "Roberts' Court."

4 - Last month Muhammad and Waqas Parvez were convicted of the murder of Asqa Parvez and sentenced to life in prison. She was the victim of a violent death springing from a medieval and barbaric practice that takes the lives of over 5000 woman each year. This crime did not occur in the brutal theocratic dictatorship of Iran where adulterous women are stoned to death, minors are executed for the most fleeting of infractions, and religious and ethnic minorities are murdered and jailed without trial. This did not happen in the tribal regions of Pakistan where ad hoq Sharia law is still practiced and tolerated by local authorities. This happened in a quiet suburb of Mississauga, Ontario. She is estimated to be the 12th young woman to be the victim of an honor killing in Canada in less than a decade.

Dr. Amin Muhammad, a professor of psychiatry at Memorial University of Newfoundland who specializes in honor killings and cultural psychology predicts that; "...the cases are increasing, and very soon we'll have a problem in Canada."

The media barely devoted a day to the short life of Asqa Parvez - rest in peace.

5 - Have a good week and a warm welcome to all of our new readers. You can get updates from TSH by becoming a member of our fan club on Facebook.

6 - Take care!

Cordially

Joe

Weekend Must See DVD Review - Frost/Nixon

The tag line of Ron Howard's engaging film, Frost/Nixon, tells us quite a lot about what was otherwise a refreshing and sympathetic look at President Nixon:

"400 Million people were waiting for the truth - Their legendary confrontation would revolutionize the art of the confessional interview, change the face of politics and capture an admission from the former president that startled people all over the world . . . possible even including Nixon himself".

Well, not exactly. After the first of four segments, viewers were bored to tears, and tuned out for the rest of the interviews. The climactic scene of the movie - when the intrepid Frost (Michael Sheen) pins Nixon (Frank Langella) in a corner, causing the disgraced former President to fall into an endless moment of reflective silence followed by a semi-confession of sorts - is utter hog wash. Nixon revealed nothing new in the interviews, and virtually all major news networks were unanimous in their opinion that Nixon had bested the ill prepared, and at times star-struck, Frost. If you're doubting this, here's some excerpts from the major newspapers the day after the supposedly historic "gotcha!" moment:

What did Watergate super-sleuth Bob Woodward think?

“a much-touted television interview which shed little new light on the scandal.”

Hmm. What about Haynes Johnson, a colleague of Woodward's at the Washington Post?

“Last night’s program was billed as a dramatic and historic encounter between Nixon and his opponent, the relentless David Frost. It was nothing of the sort. . . . By the very end of the program, Frost looks as though he’s swept up by the Nixon responses. . . . The tables have been turned. Frost had met his match.”

What about you the supposedly exotic liberal foreign intellectual papers? Surely the Times of London must have seen the interview through different eyes? Nope.

“It was clear that David Frost let Mr Nixon escape in the interrogation . . . Frost finds less adulatory coverage this morning than his advance men expected. . . . whenever the matter strayed from his clip-board of notes he was not informed enough to counter some of Mr Nixon’s most brazen revisions. The main mysteries of Watergate are still intact.”

Public sympathy for Nixon actually increased after the interviews. Americans were somewhat more forgiving when they discovered that the President's chief motivation for lying about when he actually found out about the break-in was more out of loyalty for his friends than it was to protect his office at any cost. Some may justifiably find this behaviour inexcusable regardless of the motivation, but why doesn't anyone direct the same outrage at President Kennedy, who we now know ordered his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to bug the offices of Martin Luther King Jr?

So why did Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind/Angels and Demons), in tandem with one of the sharpest screen writers in the business, Peter Morgan (The Queen, Last King of Scotland), fudge the ending on what was otherwise the first refreshing look at Nixon in over a quarter of a century? The kindest explanation is that the building tension throughout the movie needed a dramatic climax - the so-called "money shot". A more plausible explanation is that Hollywood liberals can't refrain from the annoying tendency to be gripped by media hubris, or what James Bowman called "the saga of media triumphalism".

The good news is that movie breaks ground that no other Hollywood director - let alone media personality - dared to break before.

President Nixon was a kind, loyal, intelligent, witty and wonderfully eccentric - if somewhat insecure - man. To it's credit, Peter Morgan and the hypnotic Frank Langella capture all of these traits beautifully. This is the first movie in which Nixon is not a villainous cartoon caricature. Nixon is portrayed much like every aide and advisor who worked with him described - the kind of guy who despised the snobbery and intellectual elitism of what Jefferson called the "natural aristocracy", and who treated everyone from Henry Kissinger to the guy who washed the windows with respect. A White House janitor recalls that Nixon always remembered his name and the birthdays of his children. Nixon showed an interest in everyone. He found the tiniest details of people's lives fascinating. He inspired a unique and heart-felt loyalty from his staff and advisers, a quality that Kevin Bacon portrays with wonderful sincerity.

The movie partially redeems itself at the end when Frost pays Nixon a farewell visit at his villa:

"Those parties of yours. The ones I read about in the papers. Tell me, do you actually enjoy them?", asks Nixon.

"Yes, of course," replies a befuddled Frost.

"Really?", wonders Nixon. "You have no idea how fortunate that makes you. Liking people. And being liked. That facility you have with people. That lightness. That charm. I don’t have it. Never have. Makes you wonder why I chose a life which hinged on being liked. I’m better suited to a life of thought. Debate. Intellectual discipline. Say, maybe we got it wrong. Maybe you should have been the politician. And I the rigorous interviewer."

For all of what the movie gets all wrong, it's more than made up for with what the movie gets completely correct - and it's a must see for that reason alone.


Cordially

Joe

(Quotes from Bob Woodward, The Washington Post, and The Times of London were researched by National Review Online's Fred Schwarz)

The Curious Case of Shirley Sherrod

Robert Gibbs was acting contrite today. This is kind of like saying Charlie Sheen was enjoying a soda and chef salad at the church fund raiser, or Whoopie Goldberg made a coherent and enlightening argument today. I don't get it. Gibbs was distancing the White House from Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, claiming there was no pressure from the Administration to fire Shirley Sherrod, the state director of rural development in Georgia. Sherrod was forced to resign after a video was released which at first, appeared to show her making racially charged remarks at a NAACP banquet.

Stanger still is that NAACP CEO, Benjamin Todd Jealous, also wanted her head on a platter claiming the group was "appalled by her actions." The NAACP'S initial reaction was curious in light of the fact that Mr. Jealous loves to play the race game himself. Why should the NAACP, the MSM, and the administration get themselves in a twist over comments from some obscure government bureaucrat when other higher profile officials have done or said things far worse?

Sherrod is claiming that the administration was spooked after hearing she was going to appear on Glenn Beck to clear her name - the full speech is actually quite moving as she speaks from the heart about how she, an African American, overcame her own personal prejudices towards white farmers and became a colorblind advocate for all those who toil the land.

So, Vilsack is falling on his sword claiming there was no contact with the White House, and the media has moved on to playing a disingenuous game of self flagellation - chattering about their "rush to judgement" and how this is "a teaching moment." We've seen this act before. Remember Dan Rather, the 2000 election, Richard Jewell...?

Something isn't sitting right, and I just can't put my finger on it. Gibbs was walking on egg shells over the whole affair, and Gibbs is usually a smug little jerk. I don't believe for a second that the administration was in the dark about this. It is impossible that as this story exploded in the media, the White House had absolutely no contact with the department. Gibbs was lying, and to quote a famous movie - "I can't think of one reason big enough for him to lie about, that's small enough not to matter."

Anyway, there's lots more stuff coming on deck so stay tuned to TSH and remember, we're on Facebook so join the fan club!

Cordially

Joe

Justin Bieber, Blick v. Connecticut, and Blogging By Numbers

Justin Bieber creeps me out. Not just Bieber, but this entire Bieber fever. Grown women should not be swooning over a kid who's not even old enough to legally drink in Quebec. Ephebophilia aside, he looks like Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird, or a homeless Rice Krispies elf. That's what`s swirling about in our cultural vortex these days. Vampires and a 16 year old R&B singer who sounds like he wanted to be a castrato but chickened out half-way through the snipping, leaving us with nothing but a quasi mezzo-soprano abomination. How many years before that kid's sniffing airplane glue out of a Doritos bag on a curb somewhere with Lindsay Lohan?

Anyway, I better get to some actual punditry or my Editor, The Lovely Mrs. Leger, will discover a provision in the 25th Amendment for dealing with delinquent writers. Let the blogging by numbers begin!!

It's about to get judicial up in this mug.


1 - Justin Bieber has nothing to do with Blick v. Connecticut but I had to rope you in somehow.

2 - Speaking of Blick v. Connecticut, June was a month of surprising victories for conservatives in the courts. On June 21st, a Connecticut trial court soundly rejected a petition by two doctors seeking to legalize physician assisted suicide. What is significant about the Blick decision is that firmly quashed the game of punting legal euphemisms about in an attempt to try and circumvent the state's manslaughter laws . The court clearly asserted that using the term “aid in dying” to describe what the doctor's claim is “the choice of a mentally competent terminally ill individual” still constitutes suicide. As William Saunders & Mailee Smith of Bench Memos noted;

"Looking back at the history of the Connecticut manslaughter statute, the court found that official comments by the statute’s drafters “make it quite clear” that the prohibition was intended to include physician-assisted suicide. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that suicide advocates have tried and repeatedly failed to amend the statute."

- and for all of you anarchists, I mean, libertarians and RINOS out there the court also held that such matters are best left in the hands of the legislature, not the courts, providing that such laws do not jeopardize the rights of the elderly, mentally challenged or other vulnerable persons.

3 - Speaking of "would you like some hemlock with your Geritol?" the Supreme Court in Montana overturned Baxter VS Montana, a lower court ruling that stated physician assisted suicide was "a right" and not subject to the state's homicide laws. While the decision was a victory for conservatives, it shied away from explicitly outlining any boundaries protecting those most vulnerable should the Montana legislature decide they want to be the next Switzerland where you can take your elderly mother skiing before strapping her to a bed with a glass full of Nembutal.

4 - It's really creepy that Microsoft Office knows how to spell check "Nembutal".

5 - If you've ever pondered whether Gonzalo Higuain, Thomas Mueller, or Mesut Ozil is the most impressive rookie, chances are you're a pretentious douchebag who should have a vevuzela rammed up your a%*.

6 - While Elena Kagan tried to explain away the astoundingly stupid White House memo in which she compared the NRA to the KKK during her SCOTUS confirmation hearings, the very same bench she is aspiring to sit on handed down the most resounding and definitive ruling on the 2nd amendment in the court's recent history. In a landmark ruling in the case of in McDonald vs. City of Chicago, the court declared that the second amendment applies to federal and state governments. David Rittger`s opined that;

The McDonald decision is a harbinger for the end of gun prohibition as an idea. The simple, undeniable truth is that gun control does not work. McDonald brings the law up to speed with reality, where advocates of gun control have been wrong since the issue became a national discussion.

A generation from now, legal and policy discussions will look back and see gun control for the sham that it has always been. The real shame is that it took decades of political action, millions of dollars in litigation, and thousands of lives lost to end the preposterous idea that governments can reduce the number of victims of violent crime by first taking away their means of resistance.

I couldn't have said it better myself - so I won't.

7 - Anyway, for those who haven't left to do whatever it is people do in "Café World", reason scored yet another victory in June when U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman overturned President Obama's 6 month moratorium on drilling. The MSM briefly acknowledged the ruling to allow for the perquisite feigned outrage, then quickly went back to the business of pretending it never happened. Judge Martin's ruling may well be overturned but we would well served to remember that the executive, or legislative branches for that matter should not as a rule, engage in reactionary legislation. Government mechanisms should jump into action to stem the bleeding from acts of God or man-made mishaps, but politicians should resist the urge to "do something" in the way of legislation, bans or massive government spending every time the wind blows a tent over. The President assured the American people that the moratorium would last no longer than 6 months, but as the lovely Mrs. Leger loves to remind me;

"There's nothing as permanent as a temporary government solution".

Take us out Hugh!

Cordially

Joe

From The Archives - Rick Sanchez and The OJ Effect

(During our down time I will be posting some favourites from the past years - Enjoy)

I've often said that the Washington Post bares the brunt of the blame for the sub-standard level of journalism we see today in the form of cable news networks. Were it not for the relentless and vengeful glory-seeking attack on President Nixon by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - the douchebags that launched a thousand careers - perhaps the news would contain more reporting and less smug editorializing by the likes of Rick Sanchez and Solodad O'Brien. Sanchez's endless self-aggrandizing - like using twitter and Myspace to generate publicity for his frequent appearances on CNN - would almost be comic, were he not spinning in a constant state of self-righteousness. You would think that someone who not only hit and killed a pedestrian while driving intoxicated, but also fled the scene of the accident, would have some semblance of humility. You would be wrong.

In an industry that loves to shout "HYPOCRISY" at any conservative politician who so much as jaywalks, it was almost surreal to watch Sanchez endlessly replay footage of the day he chased down a Georgia State Legislator who refused to overturn a 2006 prohibition that would have reduced the prison sentence of Genarlow Wilson. The legislator - who worried that changes to the law could possibly allow convicted sex offenders back on the streets - was relentlessly badgered by a sanctimonious Sanchez, whose usual tunnel vision blinded him from appreciating the difficult situation the man was in. Maybe someone should have played the tape from the mid-eighties that forced Sanchez to resign from his job as a Miami TV anchor when he was unexpectedly caught accepting favours from a corrupt political operative during a police sting.

I'm picking on Rick because he is perhaps the best example of how low the bar has dropped since the age of "Gotcha!" journalism erupted. In the post-Watergate cable news world, he proves that as long you are in constant attack mode, your own credibility - or past criminal conduct for that matter - is of trifling importance. Stranger still is that Sanchez lacks even the respect of his own peers. After a recent "tweet" claiming he could easily get a job at Fox News as a Latino "sellout", the industry erupted in a cacophony of laughter, and prompted a Fox News' spokesman to wryly reply "Everyone knows that Rick is a joke, he shows that he's a hack everyday. And he doesn't have to worry about working at FOX because we only hire talent who have the ability to generate ratings."

Perhaps Ace Smith and James Bowman were right to lament about how our society has abandoned the quaint notion of shame.

But what about the OJ Effect? I'm not talking about the popular urban usage of the term, which implies money buys justice. I'm talking about the birth of modern media-created spectacles that turn virtually unknown and unexceptional people into overnight celebrities. What brought this to mind was Jeffrey Toobin's rather odd "brief" that appeared in the New Yorker magazine critiquing the Stupak amendment. Not only did the article skirt the boundaries of outright plagiarism, it was plagiarized from a 1989 Supreme Court briefing, whose contents were later proven to be entirely fraudulent. It appears that Toobin has been a "legal analyst" for so long he's forgotten he's an actual lawyer.

Shortly after former Heisman trophy winner OJ Simpson was arrested for the double murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, murder became not just news, but entertainment, and CNN needed a ready slew of "legal experts" to keep up appearances. Suddenly an adjunct faculty member from Georgetown Law of no particular distinction named Greta Van Susteren became a household name; OJ's freeloading house guest, Kato Kaelin, is now a regular fixture in a variety of TV and radio shows, resulting from nothing more than hearing a bump in the alley below his window; A Los Angeles prosecuting attorney named Roger Cossack is now enjoying a cushy job as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University School of Law, as well a good paying gig at ESPN. As for Toobin, he has the distinction of being the "First TV Legal Analyst" at ABC - all a direct result of being plucked from virtual obscurity to provide commentary during the OJ trial (as a matter of fairness, I must admit I've always had a grudging fondness for Cossack).

There seem to be more self-professed analysts making the daily rounds of cable news stations than there are actual journalists. One hour of watching CNN produced commentary by a "Gaming Analyst", a "Fashion Analyst", and even a "self esteem expert", whatever the hell that is. There was a time when the only kind of analyst who had any business being anywhere near an anchor desk was a "Financial Analyst" or a "Political Analyst", and even the latter have been wearing out their welcome as of late.

Could anyone have envisioned a world, even years after Ted Turner cut the ribbon on CNN in 1980, where people would tune in every night to watch disgraced former prosecutor Nancy Grace speculating on the contents of bottles seen in grainy pictures of the inside Anna Nicole Smith's fridge?

The "news as entertainment" shtick is an old hobbyhorse of writers who fancy themselves a cut above the pack for making such a painfully obvious observation. What I'm really driving at is why a news anchor like Rick Sanchez sometimes doubles as a financial commentator on CNN's "Your Money". Why does Jeff Toobin sit in every election night as a political commentator, when he can't even avoid being duped by a dubious Supreme Court briefing? Everyday we watch the village idiots act like interchangeable polymath titans playing a bizarre game of musical chairs.

As I write this, Rick Sanchez is reminding us that using words is much better than settling disagreements with bats and clubs (I had no idea), after quite deliberately referring to a band of thugs who are on rampage in Mumbai as "conservatives" because they are "anti-Muslim". He's making sure to repeat the dishonest conservative angle, and has it blazed across the screen, just in case someone's not listening. Really Rick, how do you know they aren't liberals? Did you interview any of the looters to find out if they thought free markets, limited government, personal responsibility, and fiscal restraint was the answer to India's third world conditions?

My wife, a graduate of a grueling 2 year massage therapy course, said that when we hear that an elderly person fell and broke their hip, it didn't really happen that way - their hip broke first, causing the fall. Her comment reminded me of a buffoonish Rick Sanchez, clumsily trotting about in a post-Watergate post-OJ news world. Sanchez's daily rantings and Toobin's half-baked legal ramblings aren't what caused the media to break, it was broken long before they got there.

Cordially

Joe

Multi Multa; Nemo Omnia Novit - Blogging by Numbers!!

If the Latin in the title escaped you, it means "Everything tastes better with Nutella" - Caligula was a big fan of the stuff. He claimed the hazel-nutty goodness soothed his neurosyphilis. Actually it means "many know many things; no one knows everything", which is a good description for blogging by numbers. It might sound a little pretentious, like those people who decorate their kitchens with replicas of obscure French advertising posters from the 1920's (actually, I'm one of those people - which makes me a bit of a douchebag, I guess). I bring it up because there's been a rather curious debate amongst our friends at NRO over the habit of using a foreign word or phrase when an English one would have been equally suitable. John Derbyshire and James Bowman are probably the worst offenders (if this can even be considered an offense), but in Mr. Bowman's recent article The End Of History, he makes the best case against dumbing down society in his critique of Christopher Alden's rather flighty take on Don Giovanni.

"What else was Christopher Alden doing by taking away Don Giovanni’s tragedy and terror and making him into a rock star avant la lettre? What else was what Maria Aitken doing with As You Like It but converting Shakespeare into an extended essay in celebrity-worship? The idea in both cases was to make the works "accessible" to modern audiences — which sounds like a good idea until you reflect on what it takes to make something accessible to those with no interest in history."

I like fart jokes and making armpit zerberts by flapping my arms like an epileptic duck as much as the next guy, but I've often noted the weird trend of people using texting acronyms in conversation. OMG's were bad enough, but over the weekend Claire and I overheard people loudly exclaiming "Question Mark!" in the place simply saying (or asking) "pardon?" I don't even know where to begin with the myriad of problems I have with this, or the overarching implications of such a thing for our society in general.

Let the blogging by numbers begin.

1 - Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs like to dig through the trash. Around these parts we call them hobos, but over at the Huffpo and The New York Times they're the next Woodward and Bernstein. Lewis and Briggs, students at California State University, brought two bags of garbage to Attorney General Jerry Brown in a pathetic attempt to bring trumped up ethics violation charges against the university administrators under a vague public disclosure law. The students claim to have found five pages of a contract for an upcoming speaking engagement featuring Sarah Palin stuffed within 2 massive garbage bags of shredded paper.

The university has shot back, claiming (correctly) that they are "...protected by both a privacy clause in her contract and a state law that shields public university foundations from the Public Records Act."

The students are motivated by nothing other than pure hatred of Sarah Palin, who Attorney General Brown has stressed is in no way involved with the dispute. They are wasting both tax payer money and time trying to smear former Governor Palin's name by proxy. No public funds are being used for Governor Palin's speaking engagement, and the details of a private contract between the university and a speaker should be of no concern to anyone. The university has not violated any laws, but the students' very public appearances, garbage bags in hand, and the media's eagerness to imply impropriety has certainly left the University in a difficult position. Lewis and Briggs should focus more on their studies, and to quote The Narrator from Fight Club ; "...maybe you shouldn't bring me every little piece of trash you happen to pick up"

2 - The Hype will be updated less frequently in the coming months. My mother is battling cancer, and I'm sure you can appreciate that family concerns are my immediate priority. Mom is doing well and asks for your prayers. Well wishes and emails of support for her can be sent directly to TSH's mailbox at joe_leger@hotmail.com .

3 - Mark Steyn proposed an interesting scenario for contemplation on National Review last week;

"...imagine Neville Chamberlain in 1938 hosting a conference on the dangers of rearmament, and inviting America, France, Brazil, Liberia, and Thailand . . . but not even mentioning Germany."

True enough. If the president was truly committed to non-proliferation, he would have made actual global threats such as Iran, North Korea, and Syria the focus of the summit. That sort of bold action would have been, to quote the President, “what this moment in history demands".

4 - Our good friend Jonah Goldberg managed to finagle a sweet gig over at the American Enterprise Institute as a visiting fellow. I guess they figured he can't screw it up any worse than David Frum...At the very least, he'll show up. He may show up drunk, but he'll show up. I joke of course. Jonah Goldberg has not only become the face of National Review, he has repackaged conservatism to a new audience without compromising any of the core principals of our ideology - though I've always suspected he's reluctant to define conservatism as an ideology (see H Stuart Hughes). We wish Jonah nothing but the best in his endeavours to protect us all from a fiery death by being a staunch advocate for the latest in volcano lancing technology.

5 - Have you not heard?

6 - That is all.

Cordially

Joe

Easter? What's Easter?

It's the end of the Easter weekend, a time when we remember the day the Easter Bunny rose from the grave to punish bad children by giving them bellyaches caused by cheap chocolate from Walmart. Each year we hide eggs in an attempt to confuse his spirit, in the hopes that he will leave our homes and families untouched until the next year.

I joke of course. The Easter weekend is a very integral part of the Catholic faith, as it is for those of other Christian churches and faith traditions. At one time, even those of a more agnostic mindset still used the occasion as a time to be with family and partake in the more secular traditions of the holiday - some universal, some long-standing and personal to the family. Observing tradition (my editor, the lovely Mrs. Leger, hates it when I repeat the same word too many times) is one of the cornerstones of preserving culture and heritage in our society. Leonard Cohen (a man who holds tradition with the greatest of reverence) foresaw almost 2 decades ago that we would one day be compensating for "the hole in our culture" with all sorts of superficial banalities.

I remember when we used to bemoan the commercialization of this or that holiday years ago. If only we could have flashed forward to the present day, to watch as 12 year-olds receive Ipods and X-Box's for Easter while their parents dismissively quip "It's just another weekend to me". In the blink of an eye, generations of a family's cultural identity - of joyous dinners, Easter Egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, and watching the Ten Commandments - is gone. They remain only as curious and dusty artifacts from an age that seems alien to us.

It reminds me of a scene from the brilliant, funny, and touching Canadian movie The Barbarian Invasions (if you've never seen it, leave work and rent it today to see what Obamacare has in store for you). The scene shows a melancholic Catholic priest walking though a basement filled with discarded statuary and relics, remnants of an odd phenomenon that occurred in Quebec in 1966 when, as the priest explains, "...everyone stopped coming to church, and they never came back."

And so it goes with our once-cherished holidays like Easter. Once upon a time kids got dressed up in their new Easter clothes, went to mass, came back and gorged liked Romans on ham (yeah, I get the unfortunate irony of that metaphor) or turkey if you're french, then ate chocolate until they went Linda Blair all over the kitchen floor.

Last year I took some comfort in watching parents and relatives scrambling to get the few remaining chocolate items at a local pharmacy on Easter eve, whispering into their cell phones like cold war double agents when they overheard there were still a few hollow chocolate hens to be had at Walmart. This year the shelves were still looking healthy by Easter Monday. The jerks haven't even discounted the Lindt gold wrapped bunnies yet - and I like my Lindt gold wrapped bunnies.

Let me indulge in an analogy (one my editor isn't completely buying into). There's an entire line of study dedicated to the year 1948. Much of it is left-wing academic nonsense that focuses primarily on the cottage industry of postwar victimization. You've probably heard the old mantra that 20- something year old alternative rock singers like to put into their songs to showcase their vapid intellect about how "They made it past the enemy lines, just to become enslaved on the assembly lines". This irritates me, because it blindly skips over millions of "The Greatest Generation" who took advantage of the GI Bill and forged a nation. But underneath the intellectual bravado lies a certain longing for a time gone by, a faded snapshot of a past that's but a fleeting memory.

We can't stop the march of time, but if we are to jettison tradition, it should be for a better reason than the misguided belief that any Sunday is just another Sunday.

Easter is important to me as a Catholic. I don't preach on this blog, nor do I preach in my personal life. I will admit the secularization of religious days of observance is a sad thing, but to see even the secular remnants be tossed away so easily is all the more tragic. We once watched Charlton Heston part the waves as Mom cooked turkey - or ham for you weird english people. Now moms and dads watch "Jersey Shore" as little Sally downloads the latest Lady Gaga tune to upload into the latest gadget she will soon discard. After all, it's just another Sunday, except with presents.

(Oh - Happy Passover to all our Jewish friends. The Obama administration has abandoned you, but this blog will forever be a steadfast ally.)

Cordially

Joe

Bubble Trouble - Sunday Musing

My editor has been "gently reminding" me of the lack of regular updates lately. She has a point - The Hype is starting to look more barren than David Frum's blog over at AEI (BA-ZING!!). With the sincerest respect for my fellow Canadian Mr. Frum, who showed me nothing but utmost kindness in our brief correspondence years ago, I am beginning to suspect that since his adoption of the term RINO as a badge of honor, he is on a fast track to becoming a daily columnist over at the Huffpo. I don't think he's reached the level of sharing elbow space with Andrew Sullivan and David Gergen yet, but he certainly is one of the loudest cheerleaders on the sidelines of those holding the ridiculous notion that the GOP's opposition to bloated government is "outrageous", "dangerous" and "ineffective". Colin Powell may have liked the idea of a "Big Tent GOP" during his dud of a speech at the 1996 Republican National Convention, but right now the tent is filled with free market conservatives who champion the idea of limited government. Frum and Powell are welcome to squeeze into the tent, but no one is buying into their vision of a soft socialist nanny state, so they don't get dibs on the megaphone - not that the Wolf Blitzers and Chris Matthews' of the world aren't more than willing to oblige their favourite pastime of playing whack-a-mole with fellow conservatives.

Hey, remember last week when we talked about how the President created another housing bubble that's going to burst? Well the bubble is a-burstin' (again) and the Treasury is deciding where 50 billion dollars of your tax money under TARP should go. On Friday, the US Treasury announced they want to "modify" the existing plan - that's Washington speak for "take out your wallet". What the President and the Treasury want to do is so monumentally stupid it defies reason. Let me break it down for you.

In the waning years of the Clinton administration, the government decided that banks should grant home loans to people who couldn't afford them, or who had such bad credit not even my cousin Knuckles the loan shark would give them $20. Doesn't make much sense, does it? If you have bad credit and your monthly income is lower than what your monthly loan payments are, you can't afford a loan, and you're going to lose your home while the bank gets stiffed. Still with me? People like President Clinton and Congressman Barney Frank didn't seem too bothered by this, and pressured banks to hand out loans to people who didn't have the money to pay the loans back.They even pressured banks to allow people who had already defaulted on their loans a chance to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage - kind of like a do-over for grown-ups. If you don't eat things off the floor of public washrooms, you probably have trouble imagining how anyone could be so stupid. Well, never underestimate the power of government when it comes to being moronic.

The government felt that owning a home was a right - a right that banks were obliged to provide to poor people and those with bad credit. That sounds nice. Most people like the idea of a poor family having a nice roof over their heads instead of an apartment in a bad part of town. The problem is that by dangling a magic carrot in front of them, you are dooming them to financial ruin, and putting them on the road to homelessness - and that's exactly what happened. People envision fat cat banks preying on struggling low income families, but a closer examination can be very revealing. My friend and fellow blogger, the talented Ace Smith, discovered just such a case in his own backyard in June of 2008. A lady living across the street was regaling the neighbourhood with tales of the predatory bank coming to take her house. When Ace dug a little deeper, this is what he discovered:

"Two months after closing on the mortgage, she secured a $20,000 home equity line of credit on the home. A month after that, she somehow was able to get another line of credit for an additional $30,000. Based on my recollection, this is roughly around the same time she started driving a spiffy, new BMW 335. Retail price: $40,000. I also noticed several big ticket items appeared around this time, including a top-of-the-line 56” television that was clearly visible through the living room window from the street, and the delivery of various furniture and new appliances."

To top it off, during the same time, the average American household owned 13 credit cards. By October of that year, 936 439 American homes had completed forecloser, and the housing "crisis" began (I've quibbled over how much of an actual crisis this was in the past, but that's a debate for bean counters much smarter than I).

You would think that everyone would have learned their lesson by now, but you'd be wrong. What the government had once considered a fair shake for every American to own a home was now being referred to as "predatory loan practices". The same banks that had been pressured by the government to "help" the poor were now being accused of taking advantage of them. Let's ignore the fact that most of the so-called "poor" had stacks of plastic credit the size of a deck of cards and some snazzy wheels in the driveway and entertain the false notion that the banks were the sole culprits in the bubble burst. Logic would dictate that this was a bad idea, that the government had made a terrible mistake, and we should never allow banks to engage in this sort of tomfoolery again. You would think that government had learned their lesson. Again, you would be wrong.

President Obama rolled out his massive TARP scheme, thinking he could do the same thing all over again and expect different results. Despite a projected foreclosure rate of over 60%, the administration decided to throw billions of dollars of your tax money into the exact same scheme, only this time they allowed even more people to make the same mistake, and gave yet another chance to the idiots that had already screwed up under the provisions from over a decade ago the opportunity to screw up again. The gas was thrown onto the fire, and we're still smelling the smoke.

Which brings me back to the Treasury's announcement, if you're still with me and haven't surfed over to Youtube to watch "epic fail" videos - The President wants to "restructure" the TARP bailout to decide which of the 4 million Americans currently on the rocks with their mortgages (again) qualify for help. The Treasury says they're not going to give any of the 50 billion smackaroos to those who have been irresponsible, but this is the exact wording of the what the guidelines are:

"Homeowners must live in an owner occupied principal residence, have a mortgage balance less than $729,750, owe monthly mortgage payments that are not affordable (greater than 31 percent of their income) and demonstrate a financial hardship.”

That sounds like the definition of irresponsibility to me. If someone bought a 3/4 of a million dollar house, with mortgage payments equaling about a third of their income, and they can demonstrate the vague provision of having "financial hardship", everyone else (that's you, by the way) has to fork out 50 billion dollars of tax money to let some idiot keep his sweet pad. The talk about 'modification' is troubling because many suspect the Treasury intends to allow those who bought even more expensive houses and can't afford them to be able to put their snouts in the trough as well.

Hollywood likes to portray the banks as heartless scrooges and the families an inch from losing their homes as victimized saints. In the recent movie "Armored" the main character is trying to take care of his younger brother after the death of their parents, begging for double shifts from his boss and bumming rides to work to keep his no-frills home. It tugs at your heart strings, because we like to romanticize those in need as being victims of forces beyond their control. This is because Americans are good people. They see the best in everything and everyone. It's why I think the United States is so wonderful, but if you stop the movie projectors and take a closer look at reality you'll discover that the supposed "down and out" are living beyond their means, drowning in credit card debt, and buying flat screen TV's, IPOD's and big shiny trucks.

As hard as it may be, and as counter-intuitive as it is to our nature, we have to let people be idiots and suffer the consequences, or they keep on being idiots. President Obama - health care aside - is on the verge of creating another crisis, only this time he's making the people who aren't wearing dunce caps pay a stupidity tax.

No matter how hard it tries, government can't magically make the house you can't afford available to you by strong-arming the bank into giving you a loan you can't repay. The problem trickles down to responsible citizens because the money has to come from somewhere to make all this magic happen - and magic is just an illusion pulled off by a clever slight of hand.

Cordially

Joe

Kittles 'n Bits - Blogging By Numbers

When I was a kid my next door neighbour ran over his cat Kittles while backing up in his driveway. Had I been the investigating officer for the cat police, my report would have listed several contributing factors that led to the incident. The first thing I would have noted was that the victim enjoyed sleeping under the shade of the car's back tire - not exactly a smart life plan for Kittles. Another factor would have been age, both of Mr. Pierce, an 89 year old British ex-pat who made Mr. Magoo look like the poster boy of vehicular vigilance, and of Kittles, whom I suspect may have been 124 in cat years. Mr. Pierce would have fiercely contested my findings, as he blamed my brother - who had been reading an Archie comic book on our front porch over 60 feet away - for having intentionally distracted him, a bizarre claim to which he held steadfastly until the Church of England laid his tired bones to rest.

I bring this up because, like Mr. Pierce, the Obama administration has "run over the cat" politically, and, also like poor old Mr. Pierce, Robert Gibbs and the President are placing blame where it doesn’t belong, which brings us to our favourite feature of the Hype - It's blogging by numbers time!!!

1- Now that my brother has hopefully recovered from reliving the traumatic berating of our posthumous childhood neighbour, let's get back to the blame game on Capitol Hill. With the Democratic party in both Houses and the President at record low approval ratings, it seems the administration is in full finger-pointing mode. The White House has blamed everyone from President Bush to Glenn Beck to the tea parties for their woes. It all rings a bit hollow. The President promised to bring a new tone to Washington, to rise above partisan politics, and of course to bring lots of "hope" and "change". He also promised job creation, tax breaks for the middle class, and a new direction in foreign policy that would repair America's supposedly tattered image abroad.

Well, President Obama got his stimulus package, and a chance to play the foreign appeasement game as well. Over a year later we now have double digit unemployment (10.4% as of February 2010), threats of tax hikes on the lower middle class, an Iran that has gone nuclear, an emboldened Kim Jong Il (who has gone nuclear in more ways than one), and the contempt of not only the Arab world but of the sycophants in Europe who were once so entranced with the young senator from Illinois.

It was the President who decided to throw billions of dollars in seemingly aimless directions under the misguided Chomskyesque belief that government can create jobs. It was the President who provided a provision to allow those who had already defaulted on their sub-prime mortgages to renegotiate the terms of their loans, despite a projected default rate of almost 68%. Appeasement has led to an emboldened Iran and attempted terrorist attacks on American soil for the first time since 9/11. Robert Gibbs likes to complain that the Reid/Pelosi legislative juggernaut has come to a grinding halt because of an "obstructionist Republican party". I believe a more honest assessment shows that all fingers point to an arrogant Democratic administration.

2 - In James Bowman's review of Burn After Reading, he draws attention to a curious bit of banter between the Coen brothers near the end of a New York Times interview. In an exchange that had no relevance to the discussion at hand, Joel quipped ‘didn’t Karl Popper go after Wittgenstein with a poker?" This is a very telling remark, not only because it's false (it was Wittgenstein who had the poker), but - like their movies - it was forced and contrived, as if it's only purpose was to showcase the towering intellect they seem to believe they possess.

There is no denying the Coens are filmmakers of incredible talent, but as I've noted before, the well of their talent is running rather dry as of late. Their latest film, A Serious Man, like No Country For Old Men, is another banal romp in mindless nihilism that seems to be all the rage in Hollywood lately. A Serious Man is a retelling of the story of Job set in the mid-1960's, but unlike the biblical God of the Old Testament’s story, the Coens' Deity is one who seems to revel at the misfortunes he hurls in the way of Larry Gopnik, played by the talented Michael Stuhlbarg. The sufferings of poor Larry are meant to serve no other purpose than to amuse us (and presumably, the Coens’ "god"). That's not to say that the misfortunes of others can't be funny, but in order for the audience not too take the subject matter too seriously, we must get the sense that the filmmakers don't take themselves too seriously. As of late, that seems to be an almost Job-like pox to expect the Coens to endure.

3 - If you are above the age of 18 and still use the expression "helloooooo", or even worse, "It's like...hellloooo", you may not be an idiot, but you sure do sound like one.

4 - President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have waged a war of words on Israel that has left no ambiguity as to the hostile nature the administration has chosen to take in its diplomatic relations with the embattled nation. On March 11th, in a statement approved by the President, Secretary of State Godzill...I mean, Clinton spewed forth a 45 minute condemnation of Israel, claiming it was not showing a serious commitment to the peace process.

This is utter nonsense.

In today's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer reminds us that Israelis have been

"...dying for peace since 1947, when they accepted the U.N. partition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. (The Arabs refused and declared war. They lost.) In these long and bloody 63 years, the Palestinians have not once accepted an Israeli offer of permanent peace, or ever countered with anything short of terms that would destroy Israel."

President Obama continues to fawn over tin pot dictators like his "amigo" Hugo Chavez, and make conciliatory gestures towards the leaders of brutal Islamic theocracies, but spits in the face of a steadfast ally. What could possibly be the motivation behind such a heavy-handed and unwarranted Carter-like approach to Israeli diplomacy? The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick may have the answer:

"The final explanation for Obama’s behaviour is that he is using his manufactured crisis to justify adopting an overtly anti-Israel position vis-à-vis the Palestinians. On Thursday, The New York Times reported that administration officials are considering having Obama present his own “peace plan.” Given the administration’s denial of Israel’s right to Jerusalem, an “Obama plan,” would doubtless require Israel to withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel some 700,000 Jews from their homes."

With friends like this....

5 - This blog started out with a story about a dead cat. No cats were harmed in the writing of this blog...except the one I stuffed in a bag and threw over a bridge.

Cordially

Joe

From The Archives - The Folly of Youth and the Simple Truth

The following appeared in the July 2009 edition of The Straight Hype


While having coffee with two very bright and thoughtful young friends, one of them said something which could only be referred to as "whiplash-inducing". After briefly describing the bizarre plot line of the fun but incredibly hair-brained movie The International, he took a sip of his French roast and wondered aloud how such a movie could have ever been made in Hollywood. What was disconcerting about this statement is that it wasn't an attempt at sarcasm. He was actually surprised that Hollywood was finally speaking truth to power - that such a film would not usually get the green light under the watchful eyes of the financial puppeteers who are part of a larger international network of duplicity and greed.

Truth is, these types of movies - in which America, the media, world banks, and the CIA are entangled in a web of deception - have been Hollywood's bread and butter for the last 20 years. Think Syriana, State of Play, The Corporation, The Bourne movies, Lord of War, W., Orwell Rolls in his Grave, The Conversation...well, just look up at the marquee and 4 times out 5, the bad guys won't be crazed Jihadists or jilted lovers. Oh no, your villains these days will more often than not be the international cabal of evil, the military-industrial complex, or the "Christian Right".

My young friend is by no means some uninformed, knee jerk liberal. In fact he is educated, charming, and very well spoken. The problem is that he's yet to realize that like an audience member at a magic show who is desperately trying to see how Marvin the Magnificent is pulling the rabbit out of the hat, he's been duped by misdirection, and still hasn't figured out the trick.

It's the ever eternal "folly of youth", and even we ardent conservatives were probably of a similar mindset before we hit our twenties. It's a curious phenomenon. People believe with great sincerity that Rupert Murdoch's media empire is controlling the flow of news for the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush/Christan right brigade while soulless companies are anaesthetising the populace into buying things they don't need. Most of us have heard all of this before, but those who really buy into this particular school of thought think they are in possession of a great secret - like they've just received the shiny ring from Bilbo Baggins and must hurry to Mount Doom to dispose of it in the fires of Mordor.

Here's the great irony - Watch any thriller at the multiplex, or tune into CNN or MSNBC for less than an hour, and you'll find out they're shoveling out this very same nonsense at a quicker pace than the Shamwow guy mops up those nasty spills. They've missed the bait and switch, and failed to realize they've been as easily duped as the guy they believe has somehow been subtly coerced into buying that exploding Prius he can't afford.

At the heart of the discussion was the BCCI, the now defunct bank whose questionable financial dealings eventually led to their downfall. Many people believe that the bank was caught red handed undermining the financial and governmental workings of third world countries in a Machiavellian scheme to secure absolute control over their development. The BCCI became the most scrutinized bank in financial history, and it was the focus of an intense investigation by American and British agencies, including Manhattan's district Attorney's Office. The third world financing scheme is utter fantasy, but like the 9/11 "Truthers" who believe the attacks on the World Trade Center was the work of "The Jews" and "The Neocons", they demonstrate that a conspiracy theory is like a wildfire - hard to put out once started, and leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

The truth about BCCI is far less sexy than we would like to believe. They cooked the books, used false identities to open accounts (and even banks) for questionable clients, and there were charges of tax evasion brought against former partners in the bank. They certainly were dirty, but the more outrageous claims, like The International, are pure fiction. In fact, most of the more credible evidence points to the BCCI acting as a agent to finance anti-American, and anti-Israeli operations. A conspiracy can be twisted to fit the whims of anyone's particular political leanings. Even my own.

So what are we to conclude once we wade through the mess of international intrigue, media conglomerates, and unabated capitalism? Well, when the government pressures banks to make loans to people who can't afford them, those people are going to default 68% of the time. The pretty lady on TV can't force you to buy that flat screen plasma TV on your nearly maxed credit card. Detention of enemy combatants has been a practice of every armed conflict in history, and if the Bush administration really wanted to bilk middle eastern oil that badly, wouldn't it have been a lot easier just to re-negotiate the oil deals they struck in the mid-eighties? Why are rational people so eager to believe their government conspired with Israel to slaughter thousands of it's own citizens for a few Haliburton contracts?

Did the US deal with some shady middle eastern characters in the past? Yes, but as NR sagely noted, should they have continued to do so for consistency's sake?

It's a short walk down the road to Lochness, and the path is filled with bogeymen, creepy crawlies, and things that go bump in the night - but by engaging in these fantasies, we turn our heads away from the real dangers of this world. There have been dozens of honor killings in the past 2 years in the US, the UK and Canada, and like it or not, there are people who live by an ancient and barbaric honour code who want to kill Americans and wipe Israel off the face of the earth - Not because of something so trivial as middle eastern domestic policy, but because radical Jihadists believe Westerners are infidels for being tolerant of women's and gay rights, coupled with a sincere belief that Jews are descended from apes and rats. It is proclaimed daily on Palestinian TV shows, the most disturbing being children's shows.

There is an old latin expression; "Libenter id hominus quod volunt credunt". It means people believe what they most desire to be true. Yes, the world is sometimes an ugly place, but not for the reasons many well intentioned people believe.


Cordially

Joe