Wow.

Whoa.

Dude.

That's like if you're on the street and out of nowhere you see a car hit a guy and your first thought is not "CALL 911!" or even horror; your first thought is just, "Well, I did not see that coming at all."

It's just shock that you saw what you just saw. Judgments and horror and 911 come later. First just comes: Wow, I just saw a human being fly up over a car's hood.

It gets... well not worse, really, but a different car hits first. The headline to this story is:

Democratic Congressman from North Carolina angers supporters by voting against health care bill

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the veracity of that statement? Oh, I'm sure some supporters are angered. But what about the rest of his supporters?

Anyone think that what is implied -- the vast majority of his supporters are angry -- is true?

Or do you sort of think maybe the vast majority of his supporters are against the health-care bill, which is kinda-maybe why he's voting against it?

Wow. Look. Guy's shoe flew off.

Just one shoe.

The other shoe stayed on.

Maybe I should stop gawking here and wondering about differentials in shoelace-tightness and torque and call 911.

Accuracy in Headlining? Brendan offers:

Democratic Congressman from North Carolina angers WaPo Headline and Caption Writers by voting against health care bill

Well... to quibble: they already said "supporters." Who do you think they mean by "supporters"? Voters in his district? Pshah. They mean people at the WaPo, so arguably they were technically accurate there. Just not.... clear.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (114)
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It's sot of disturbing to have to report this, but...

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters nationwide say that it would be better to pass no health care reform bill this year instead of passing the plan currently being considered by Congress. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 34% think that passing that bill would be better.

Middle-income voters are more likely than others to say that passing no legislation is the better option.

One reason for this is that most Americans now believe they will be worse off if reform passes. Fifty-four percent (54%) hold that view while just 25% believe they would be better off.

I wonder if Chris Matthews believes that 57% of Americans are fringey shouters.

I also wonder if he's upset that, when asking this question, Rasmussen did not show pictures of ice-cream-covered ponies to illustrate the ObamaCare position.

Ed finds some interesting stuff about people's desire to pass this monstrosity or "start over."

One interesting demographic, new to this poll, is that of Obama’s support categories. Those who “strongly approve” of Obama’s job performance support passage over starting over by an 82/7 split. However, among those who “somewhat approve,” that number drops to 52/30, while the Not Sure category splits 0/95 — and the disapproval categories speak for themselves. Only the Obama True Believers and the political class seem to be enthusiastic about this bill, which really is a redundancy anyway. But it shows that Olbermann, Dean, and others are in a very small minority of thought in this category, at least so far.

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (47)
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Barney Frank, the grotesque venomous toad, is actually doing something I approve of: seeking to delay a federal "crackdown" on illegal internet poker sites and casinos, and, I suppose, trying to revisit the issue (which got decided with almost no debate when Bill Frist inserted a midnight amendment into some omnibus spending bill) and maybe undo the crusade against Demon Gambling.

So that's all good, I think.

But this quote is spectacularly, macabrely ironic:

You wonÂ’t find the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee at a poker table or roulette wheel, as Frank doesnÂ’t gamble. But he said he does not want the government telling people what to do with their own money.

Right. Note the point I keep harping on. Barney Frank is a crusader against any efforts to impose or even encourage any sort of traditional morality by the government. He is -- as regards only traditional morality -- a libertarian.

Meanwhile, he's supporting the government's efforts to throw you in jail if you don't purchase a government-qualified health insurance plan.

Liberals -- leftists, really -- continue to "bravely" (is it brave anymore?) tweak and thwart traditional mores and taboos while simultaneously replacing them with new taboos and new Temperance Crusades even more onerous and obnoxious and freedom-destroying than the ones they're so "courageously" freeing us from.

IN: Government-permitted gambling

OUT: Government-permitted Ho-Ho's and Mountain Dew

IN: Gay "bathhouses"

OUT: Actual baths -- too much water and too much energy used!

IN: Transgenderism

OUT: Transfats

IN: Anal bulbs

OUT: Light bulbs

On this point I do agree with the libertarians. I often do tweak them, because they can be very, very silly. But there is no doubt that the impulse to control one's fellow citizens is always lurking about in society. And sure, it's annoying when it comes from (as Frist's anti-gambling amendment did) from the right, pushing their sense of probity and restraint on the rest of us.

Well-intentioned? You bet! And yet, still, a censor may be well-intentioned -- he doesn't want me to be scandalized by forbidden images, or have the wrong thoughts put into my head -- but I resent his unrequested brain-nannying just the same.

But few -- especially on the left itself, a group which seems to have almost no capacity for self-examination or self-reflection whatsoever -- seem willing to acknowledge that the left's Brave New World of Rational Secular Humanistic Bureaucrat-Promulgated "New Morality" is more hateful to freedom than anything likely to be passed by the right anytime soon.

Via PetiteDov's Twitter, and on her blog, a video "expose" on a similar point.

Do purveyors of dangerous, unhealthy fast food actually drag customers into the restaurants and force-feed them the fats and salt?

One brave documentarian decides to risk his very health but discovers that in fact no one kidnaps people and re-enacts the Nine and 1/2 Weeks sexual feeding scene by force-feeding them Chicken McNuggets.

Oh, and Here's Why Libertarians Piss Me Off: The right has largely lost in the culture wars -- the right is fighting them, but fighting to either regain huge swaths of territory already lost, or fighting to retain the few hills they still hold (like -- saying "Merry Christmas" in public).

The right's social agenda is actually pretty cramped in most areas. Much of it is purely gestural -- moral suasion and talk about family values and character and the like -- or is soft encouragement -- increasing the child tax credit.

And yet libertarian types tend to spend outsized amounts of energy, passion, and venom decrying these fairly limited and fairly cramped efforts at softly restoring some sense of social restraint.

Are these obnoxious restraints? From their perspective, certainly. And yet, the restraints themselves aren't backed (by and large) by positive legislation mandating the behavior.

And yet when leftists do just that -- no only attempt to impose their sense of morality on society, but with the teeth of actual government coercion and actual government threat of punishment for noncompliance -- libertarians often sort of talk much more quietly, or pull the bullshit move where they shout about the right's mostly-gestural politics in the same breath they shout about the left's legislatively coercive politics, as if they're the same thing.

And that pisses me off, because while I get that they want to smoke pot and have sex without government interference (PS, when's the last time anyone got busted for giving a Blowjob in the First Degree?), it just seems that 99% of their energy is spent on these subjects, sex and drugs, and 1% seems spent on health-care insurance mandates and Kelo and all of the rest of it.

Not all, of course. Instapundit hits the economic stuff all the time, more than the other stuff, and there are plenty of libertarians who do the same.

Perhaps it's selection bias; perhaps libertarians are talking about this other stuff a lot too, but I only wind up being directed to their articles when they're on about gay marriage or something.

There's probably a lot of that.

Still, I just think that for many self-styled libertarians, there's an angry, self-righteous, blazingly furious tone when it comes to the right's gestural efforts at social control, and an imputation of bad motivation, whereas with the left, at least, there seems to be this (admittedly unspoken) vibe that "Hey, well at least we understand why they're doing that; it's rational at least, unlike this irrational stuff coming from the right."

I'm not sure I really want to stand too far out on this limb, because I have a feeling that a lot of libertarians are going to tell me differently, and they'll be right... to an extent. They'll be right that there are a lot of right-ish libertarians, or libertarians balanced about these things.

But I do really think that a lot of libertarians focus disproportionate emotion on the right's largely-gestural efforts, and little emotion on the left's. They may still talk about both -- they may intellectually oppose both and intellectually argue against both -- but I always seem to sense this emotionally-invested hostility about the right's mostly ticky-tack efforts on this front, while there's not that same fire-breathing "I condemn you enemies of freedom!" passion in opposing the left's real legislative coercive stuff.

Again, I could be wrong.

Whoa! I just realized I insulted all the libertarians here -- and there are a lot of them. And I didn't even mean to!

Because I wasn't clear who I was talking about.

I don't mean philosophical libertarians. I am specifically talking about professional libertarians -- that is, libertarians paid to be libertarian. Commentators, I mean. A lot of the staff at Reason, I mean. And not even all of them, either; just a lot of them.

I don't mean people who call themselves libertarian.

I mean instead the professional advocates of libertarianism.

It's from them I usually get this decided vibe that while they are, in fact, annoyed with the left's attempts at controlling them, they can at least understand that, because it's "rational" (i.e., has nothing to do with God or the Bible), and that their actual anger and venom is more often on display with the right's not-exactly-similar behavior.

Seriously, this isn't CYA or "walking it back." I really did have in mind, this whole time, libertarian writers I sometimes read.

(Several of whom I've met, by the way, and are nice enough fellows in the main. I don't really want to trash them too much, but I do always get this feeling from some of them that while they are angry about diminishments of freedom from any political faction, is the diminishments (tangible and gestural) from the right that actually get their lizard-brains buzzing and really get the heart revving.)

And to Further Apologize (Gee, Theme of the Week): Right now, if anyone from Reason or formerly from Reason is reading (which they're probably not) they're thinking, "What the hell are you talking about? We make the substantive case for liberty, including that case from the right, on a weekly basis, in polished columns; you just make dick-jokes all day."

And they're right. They do make the substantive, intellectual case for liberty, including the rightward case for liberty, better than I do. They're deeper thinkers. I am not a deep thinker and I've really made no secret of that; what saved me in law school, for example, is not that I was a deep thinker, but a facile thinker: I can pick up the superficial, bright-line, black-letter take-away from stuff pretty fast. And I can express that stuff pretty well. So well in fact that I often have tricked professors into thinking I knew what the hell I was talking about.

But on actual depth of thinking? If I were graded on that? Well, to self-grade myself, as Obama did, a Good, Solid B+.

So I confess these guys are both doing more and better substantive work in this area, including the areas I agree with them on, than me.

My complaint isn't about the intellectual case being made. It's just that when I see their prose is really crackling with energy and radiating genuine heat -- when they're not just tweaking, but railing -- I just seem to find them doing that most of the time with the right.

Like SNL political sketches, mostly (except for Dennis Miller and Jim Downey) -- the left tends to get tweaked puckishly, while the right gets the real stinkfinger.

Again, could be wrong. This could be entirely selection bias.

Edit: I stupidly called out two guys I rather liked as examples of what I'm talking about -- genuine passion when opposing rightish restrictions, tweaking when it comes to leftish restrictions -- and have by now realized that 1, I don't read these guys very much and have absolutely no right or even a fair foundation to say something like that, and 2, they're good guys, and 3, I really just should not have said anything like that from a position of near-perfect ignorance.

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (350)
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The silence actually began on Wednesday but continues through today.

Double-Post: Damn, Drew hit this a day or three ago. Should have known. Eh, the additional exposure can't hurt.

Almost all the milblogs are going radio-silent to protest the treatment of CJ at A Soldier's Perspective.

On Wednesday 16 December 2009, many milblogs — including This Ain't Hell, From My Position, Blackfive, Miss Ladybug, Boston Maggie, Grim's Hall, and those participating in the Wednesday Hero program — are going silent for the day. Some are choosing to go silent for a longer period of time.

The reason for this is two-fold. First, milblogs are facing an increasingly hostile environment from within the military. While senior leadership has embraced blogging and social media, many field grade officers and senior NCOs do not embrace the concept. From general apathy in not wanting to deal with the issue to outright hositility to it, many commands are not only failing to support such activities, but are aggressively acting against active duty milbloggers, milspouses, and others. The number of such incidents appears to be growing, with milbloggers receiving reprimands, verbal and written, not only for their activities but those of spouses and supporters.

The catalyst has been the treatment of milblogger C.J. Grisham of A Soldier's Perspective (http://www.soldiersperspective.us/). C.J. has earned accolades and respect, from the White House on down for his honest, and sometimes blunt, discussion of issues — particularly PTSD. In the last few months, C.J. has seen an issue with a local school taken to his command who failed to back him, and has even seen his effort to deal with PTSD, and lead his men in same by example, used against him as a part of this. Ultimately, C.J. has had to sell his blog to help raise funds for his defense in this matter.

An excellent story on the situation with C.J. can be found at Military Times: http://www.armytimes.com/offduty/technology/offduty_blogger_120809/ While there have been new developments, the core problem remains, and C.J. is having to raise funds to cover legal expenses to protect both his good name and his career.

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Comments (39)
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The president is in Copenhagen, and is doing his best impression of a bird on the wire. *

I imagine this is the biggest workout his neck has gotten for years.

His message, btw? Skeptics are to be ignored as the science is settled. You all (the conference) are acting stupidly for not having a treaty ready for me to sign. And my favorite:

"I come here today not to talk, but to act."

UPDATE: AmishDude suggests watching it without the sound to get the full comic effect.

(vid after the break) more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:18 AM | Comments (254)
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"We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?"

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:19 AM | Comments (133)
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That is a boatload of indulgences.

However Gaia is not sufficiently appeased, so she's going to kick some ass in the northeast this weekend.

Before Twitter got hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army last night (handy email address in the logo) I saw ace mention that he and his brother have decided it'd be a good idea to start making up awards to give to Obama in order to distract him for a while. This idea has the virtue of simplicity and high likelihood of success, in that it appeals to his 8-lanes wide streak of narcissism. I suggest the next major award celebrate his unwavering commitment to the little guy getting screwed over by the credit card companies, the 2010 Reduced Lines of Credit and Lifetime Write-Off Achievement Award.

He's more than earned it.

So let's come up with some awards. What the hell, it's FiAF and I know you weren't planning on doing any work today.

Thanks to ace. The real one.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:07 AM | Comments (114)
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Some call it parental neglect.

Gary Busey calls it Top-Drawer Daycare at Cut-Rate Prices.

A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It's a strange story, but also a sad one.

April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree. Now she's just glad he's okay and says she won't let it happen again.

The child, Hayden Wright, was found around 1:45 am Tuesday, wandering the streets of his neighborhood. In a police reports, officers said he was wearing a little girl's dress and drinking a beer.

The kid actually had to have his stomach pumped so it's got a sad side to it. I mean, a more sad side to it.

Why'd he do it? This is a really sad bit:

The child's mother, 21-year-old April Wright, tells WTVC-TV the boy "wants to go to jail because that's where his daddy is." Wright says she and the boy's father are going though a divorce.

The mother is being investigated by police, but they declined to release their report.

Thanks to several people... sorry, had these stories open since last night.

Another Game of... t-bird:

You notice how they hide the party affiliation of this young Congressperson?

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 PM | Comments (166)
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[Okay I managed to erase the original ONT while attempting to remove some spam. I blame myself, the late hour, and all the cough syrup I drank but mostly myself. So here's a replacement ONT to make up for it.]

Evening M&Ms. Christmas approaches so here's a little something to get you in the proper spirit.

“Fairytale Of New York” by The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl
You scumbags and you maggots and well you know the rest. Interestingly in 2007 the BBC started censoring the song due to its use of the words 'faggot' and 'slut'. After complaints they relented and played the original version.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (24)
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Thanks to Guy Fawkes for putting me some information.

Oh: That headline is of course the name of Chazz Michael Michaels' book of poetry, as mentioned in Blades of Glory.

More: Waterhouse:

I'd like to thank Al for opening up a whole new field of poetry, namely incoherent bullet points cribbed off a boring Powerpoint slide.

Implemented barcode check for SMT
98.6% throughput
Fallout pareto on next slide

Blazer--

Maybe his pen name can be Gaia Angelou.

somegoodman--

I liked Khan's version of this poem better:

I shall leave you
As you left me
Marooned
For all eternity
On a dead planet!

Buried alive...

Dramatic reading by Moe Lane, with annoying poet-flute:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:10 PM | Comments (182)
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