February 06, 2013
— LauraW In reference to media silence on Americans being dispatched according to the President's pleasure.
Hey, Washington Post. Remember Jose Padilla?
The presumption must be that U.S. citizens can rely on the federal courts to oversee their prosecutions. And Mr. Padilla's abhorrent disappearance into limbo should come to be remembered as an aberration never to be repeated.
Hey, ACLU. Remember Jose Padilla?
In an era of popular movements in Egypt, Syria, Burma, and elsewhere, the United States cannot afford to lose further its credibility on human rights.
Hey New York Times. Remember Jose Padilla?
While the ruling was in the particular case of Mr. Padilla, the decision's larger message -- that there are constitutional limits on the president's power to deny basic civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism -- is one that protects the liberty of all Americans.
All of you. Your convictions and principles aren't as weighty as the pixels they're fancifully painted with.
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03:55 PM
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— Ace So when they complained, they were sandbagging American defense policy despite not believing their own claims at all?
Apparently so.
The problem here, for me, isn't so much the hypocrisy, or the faux-intellectual sophistry. These are personal failings of people I never believed to have virtue in the first place.
The problem is playing games with human lives. The problem is playing politics with the issue of Al Qaeda.
And that, as David Caruso says, ought to concern us all.
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02:29 PM
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— Ace He asked for a delay in the Stupid Vote to consider the Stupid Testimony offered by the Stupid Witness.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will not hold a vote Thursday on the confirmation of secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel, according to reports.“Hagel vote won’t be tomorrow in Armed Services,” Politico’s Manu Raju tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “Levin: “The committee’s review of the nomination is not yet complete.”
HagelÂ’s murky financial entanglements are a major concern in the delay, according to sources close to Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC).
Cruz wants all of these questions about his "financial entanglements" answered.
Like Chuck Hagel understands any of them.
I'm not saying he's stupid.
His tests and teachers and friends and postman are saying he's stupid. I'm just saying "Heed their words."
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02:00 PM
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— Ace Yes, it's filler, sorry. This ad played during the Super Bowl.
In the future, all movies will be Transformers 2 for fifteen minutes.
I do like their choice to make that computer-sensor sound effect important to the trailer. The original cast Star Trek movies were largely concerned about trying to get away from the TV show (at least in terms of superficial things like uniforms, sound effects, set design, etc.). The reboot on the other hand clings to those things, partly because it's a nostalgia trip.
But that sound does have some nostalgia to it. It's seared, seared into my memory, much like Secretary of State John Kerry's semester in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, to add a little something to a nothing post, Bruce Willis stands up for the 2nd Amendment.
It turns out that Bruce Willis is a big Second Amendment supporter. "I think that you can't start to pick apart anything out of the Bill of Rights without thinking that it's all going to become undone," he told the Associated Press. "If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn't they take all your rights away from you?"
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01:37 PM
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— Ace If a a legislative ban -- a restriction of freedom -- can save a single human life, we must take that action, no matter what the consequences.
A little more: the SLPC is a partner organization with the Justice Department. For "reducing hate."
And/or, sometimes inflaming someone to shoot some innocent citizens expressing their political opinions.
You know how Sarah Palin was responsible for inspiring Jared Loughner even though he wasn't a fan of hers and also wasn't even political (except he did believe in the left-wing Truther Conspiracy) but she was responsible for his actions because of a few words she once said?
Like how a single innocent thing she said became worse than the madman's shooting itself?
How the single innocent thing she said became, within 24 hours, the Real Reason for the madman's crimes?
Yes. Well. That doesn't apply here.
Because, that's why.
Correct:
SPLC is a hate group. They gin up fear in order to raise funds.They are the perfect example of moral hazard. They profit off of perceived hate and fear.
-- Ben
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12:27 PM
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— Ace TV is of course the Queen of the Arts.
Her problem is that in a show that is all about cynical manipulation and borderline-sociopathic personality types who take an almost sexual pleasure in dirty dealings, the female characters are depicted as being cynical manipulators with borderline-sociopathic personality types who take an almost sexual pleasure in dirty dealings.
Why in a show entirely about the sick, mercenary aspects of human behavior are the female characters (and the female characters alone) not portrayed as moral paragons like All Women Must Be Portrayed Always?
You know. The important stuff.
Dear Hollywood, don't you know that TV doesn't exist for interesting examinations of human behavior (at best) or (at least) entertainment? Don't you know the purpose of art is to relentlessly push a very one-dimensional and trivial political slogan?
I'll take you seriously when you start taking you seriously. As I wrote about the Decadent Phase of Feminism:
Many movements or eras -- most, probably -- enter a decadent phase at some point. I don't know of a textbook definition of a decadent phase, but my off-the-cuff attempt is this:a period marked by extremely minor variations on art or thought that has gone before, of recycling, of re-using old tropes rather than creating new ideas;
a period marked not by accumulation or creation of capital, whether monetary capital or capital of another kind, such as intellectual or influential or philosophical, but instead marked by the use/spending of previously acquired capital without replenishing same;
a period of sloth, whether sloth in intellect or sloth in industriousness, and a concomitant lowering of standards so that what little new work is done can be credited as good, important, or noble, albeit by a greatly reduced standard;
a period without vitality;
and, ultimately,
a period marked by inward-turning self-indulgence, of whimsy, of juvenalia and "childish things," and a focus on trivia.
I am not an unbiased critic of feminism, or at least "feminism" as is practiced by the the successors of the Frankfurt School on the left.
Nevertheless, I think it's difficult to argue against the point that feminism -- whatever it was in the past -- has entered a long, dreary Decadent Phase, largely focused on the past glories of a long-faded golden age, now rehashing the same three or four themes endlessly into (very slightly) different configurations.
You call it TV; they call it "texts."
I call it Liz Lemonism: The comforting soapy bath of mock-intellectual TV geekery, dwelling on ludicrously-trivial subjects that only Rich First-World White Women are blessed enough to be troubled by.
Exit Question: Was "Sliders" too cis-normative? Please discuss in the comments, drawing from your own experience and readings from this class.
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11:28 AM
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— JohnE. There have been a lot of complaints on the right today about BuzzFeed's interview with Marco Rubio last night. Most of it has been of the outrage-y variety for obvious reasons, so I'm content to let them handle that.
Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief, conducted a one-on-one with Rubio in the first of a new series called "BuzzFeed Brews". Some typical first-run production issues aside (fix the mics, guys), I thought it was a great interview. The idea appears to be to hold these events in a casual environment and mix in some pop culture and personal questions with the standard policy questions, which is a very BuzzFeed-like format. It's a great idea, in my opinion.
Now, whether BuzzFeed wants to admit it or not (or if they even care), they have have a major legitimacy issue with conservatives. I took this interview with Rubio as a bit of an olive branch with respect to that. Ben Smith was absolutely fair, if a bit awkward as a host. They took questions from Twitter and aside from a couple that certainly came from a liberal positon, there weren't any of the "gotcha" variety. Rubio navigated each quite well and managed to avoid accepting the premise before circling back to the more important aspects of the issues. He was well-engaged with the crowd and they even managed to have a laugh at Charlie Crist's expense. Overall, a great appearance, and I encourage you to watch it.
At this point, no complaints. Unfortunately, after the interview concluded, their immediate coverage looked like this (thanks to @exjon):
First, Rubio never actually said that climate change "didn't concern him". In fact if you watch the interview, he probably ventured a little too close to accepting the "consensus" of man-caused AGW for most on the right. The other two headlines are in no way representative of the seriousness of some of the major issues that they discussed or how well he performed. Either their reporters' penchant for chasing the clickable and linkable headlines (undoubtedly a BuzzFeed tactic) led them in this direction or it was a deliberate attempt to undermine Rubio himself (an oft-discussed complaint).
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one only because it would be a monumentally stupid move to torpedo your own interview series out of the gate and essentially warn every Republican media and campaign manager to immediately hang up the phone when the invitation to appear comes. This might seem like a bit of an overreaction to a couple of stupid headlines, but BuzzFeed has very little margin for error here.
They have done some cleaning up since last night and worked in some straight-reporting commentary on the interview and the event itself, both on their site and on Twitter. Unfortunately, I think the damage has already been done. I was not expecting BuzzFeed to take some remarkable turn in a rightward direction after this interview. I did, however, get the idea that Smith was excited about the prospects of the series and was looking forward to bringing on some of the right's up-and-coming stars.
Interestingly, a couple times Smith asked Rubio what Republicans could do to attract demographics that have been slipping away from them, notably Hispanics and the youth vote. This was all happening under the umbrella of an event that seemed to be at least partially designed to attract conservatives to a website they view as openly hostile. If so, I'm afraid it backfired.
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— Ace Since they can't get away with that, they're going to slap a 10% surtax on such games, thus penalizing a particular sort of expression in hopes it will reduce instances of that expression.
We should repeal the First Amendment, if it would save a single life. People sometimes say things that make other people upset and angry and that leads to violence, after all.
Plainly, we are not to be trusted with freedoms. We must reduce our freedoms so we can live longer lives.... without freedom, of course.
Tangentially Related: jwb7605 (Let it Burn) has an outstanding question in the last thread--
What was Obama's skeet score?
Or perhaps scores; after all, we're reliably informed, Obama does skeet shooting "all the time."
I posed the question in Punkmouth form at The Conversation.
(Punkmouth is what I'm calling it when you pretend to believe someone and do that punkmouth sarcastic thing. I'm calling it that because my real word, P****mouth, is probably not a good word for a blog with advertisers.)
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10:44 AM
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— Ace Again from @benk84. Matt Lauer is just beside himself.
During a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about the White House releasing a photo of President Obama skeet shooting to dispel doubt about his claim of doing it "all the time," co-host Matt Lauer worried about the precedent that had been set: "So like releasing the birth certificate a year or so ago, this is the next step, that now the President always has to back up his words with proof?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]Lauer's concern seemed to follow administration talking points perfectly. On Sunday's Today, correspondent Peter Alexander reported: "This weekend, the White House tried to shut down the doubters. The President's former senior advisor [David Plouffe] even referred to those who still question where Mr. Obama was born. [Image of Plouffe Tweet] 'Attention, skeet birthers. Make our day – let the photoshop conspiracies begin!'"
One point I've wanted to make about Skeet-Gate for a few days now is that conservatives tend to put themselves in the worst possible position rhetorically, and not just by accident; I think it's intentional. It seems to happen a lot.
What I mean in this: Obama claimed to shoot skeet "all the time." This claim is obviously a lie. Until this photo was released, we had zero reports of him shooting skeet, and zero photos of it. In his entire life I think this might have been his only reference to shooting skeet.
Now, given that, I think it's plainly untrue that he shoots skeet "all the time." Things one does a lot become naturally associated with one, because one is, again, doing it "all the time."
Thus, attacking Obama's untrue statement -- and his intended manipulation of the public, suddenly declaring himself, in effect, to be a "gun guy," with all this skeet shooting filling up his days -- would have been a slam dunk for us.
But we didn't do that, or at least enough of us didn't do that that the slam dunk eluded us. Instead, we put our chips on the proposition that he never shot skeet at all, not once, not ever, and now the media is basically running with the story "Obama wins again; Obama told the truth."
Consider how easy it is to win on the proposition that Obama does not, in fact, shoot skeet "all the time." And consider how easy it is to lose on the question of whether Obama has never once in all of his life shot skeet.
Consider that proof of a single incidence of skeet shooting tends to win the question for us if we advance the first proposition, and lose the question for us if we push the second. Also consider how unlikely that is-- I'm not a gun guy either, but if you push the "You've never, ever fired a machine gun" proposition against me, you lose -- I shoot machine guns "all the time." (By which I mean, as Obama apparently did, "once or twice" in my life.)
Instead of pushing the attack that was most difficult for Obama to falsify, we pushed the attack that was most easy for Obama to falsify.
And I do not think this was an accident. Time and time again we do this sort of thing. It is not enough for us to win small on any question; no, we must Win Big, so push the Biggest, most expansive point we can think of (instead of just scooping up our earnings with the small win), and then lose the point.
During the campaign, for example, a lot of conservatives got angry at Romney for conceding the economy was growing a little bit but not much, and certainly not growing anywhere near the way the economy typically grows after a recession. They wanted him to make the rhetorical point that the economy wasn't growing at all, and thought it was a betrayal of him to concede so much ground.
But in fact the economy is, by the GDP figures at least, growing slowly (or at least it was; now it's contracting). Further, Romney was also attempting to preserve multiple outs, as they say in poker, for the campaign. What if the economy posted a decent GDP growth number right before the election? He wanted to be in a position wherein the central justification for his campaign wasn't easily falsified by a single GDP release. He wanted to have a position and a fall-back position, too: Even if the economy grows, it's barely growing, and this meager growth is unacceptable.
But where Romney saw a very smart way to put himself in the best position to win over a range of possible late-election-cycle scenarios, many conservatives saw betrayal. Unless we're advancing the Strongest Possible Form of any argument -- including mere factual arguments, did this happen or did this not happen -- we're not being honest and we're not being truly conservative.
When you're losing -- and we are losing, make no mistake -- you always have to make sure that your frustration at losing isn't further compromising your performance. It happens to everyone. Professional football players start making stupid frustration-penalties when their team can't get anywhere. People can't get out of their own heads and start missing easy lay-ups.
I think this is where we are, as a group. And I think Obama is planning on just this -- he's planning on being so obnoxious and loathsome to us that we start racking up penalties and putting ourselves further behind.
We should resist it.
Skeet-gate was not all that important. No one will ever ask "Where were you when Obama released his skeet picture?"
But this is a tendency I keep seeing over and over again, the urge to grasp for the Strongest Possible Statement of an Argument (or Strongest Guess About a Fact in Dispute), which I think is caused by the same sort of thinking that causes a gambler on a losing streak to make bigger and bigger bets -- trying to recoup lost money by making larger wagers. And that, of course, is when you're supposed to walk away from the table and get your head on straight.
Actually, of course, you're supposed to leave the casino entirely, but we're not in a position where we can do that; we have to remain at the tables, and ride this grim run of horrible luck out until exhaustion.
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08:50 AM
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— LauraW Bumped by ace. I kind of squished LauraW's post:
Finally, we're hearing from some parents who aren't too happy that the only thing standing between their kids and violence is 'Lockdown.' Or utterly defenseless teachers.
Thanks to UncleDave.
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10:01 AM
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