Above-the-Main-Post Update: John Stewart wanted to take the clown nose off for "torture author" John Yoo, but wound up being outclassed by him.

So much so that the had to apologize to his nutroots base for failing to be a better partisan hack.

They're crying at the American Prospect.

When Jon Stewart Fails.

There is an unexpected silence in the liberal blogosphere after last night's highly anticipated Daily Show episode, in which Jon Stewart hosted John Yoo, the author of many of the Bush administration's torture memos and one of the people most responsible for giving legal sanction to the practice of torture. That's probably because Stewart found himself completely outmatched by a charming, tactful Yoo who seemed far better prepared to defend granting virtually unlimited powers to the executive branch than ever before. Put simply, Stewart failed to make Yoo look like he had done anything wrong. In fact, he made him look entirely reasonable. Stewart fares slightly better in the extended interview, but on the whole he was visibly out of his weight class.

...

Stewart allowed Yoo to maintain the illusion that he was a good faith actor simply doing his job, rather than someone who had deliberately distorted the facts in order to justify the unjustifiable. After being outmaneuvered for nearly 30 minutes, Stewart grudgingly admitted that he was "not very equipped to handle the discussion." It was a sobering reminder that for years, a mostly pliant press has allowed a comedian to do a reporters' job. Yesterday, we were reminded how inadequate a solution that really is.

Waaah.

Thanks to LauraW. and Dahlhalla.

...

Like, every single mention and every joke.

If I find a vid that's great I'll note it. Assume they're all standard crap. (Watching: Second clip is decent.)

Via Via Jake Tapper's feed.

Posted by: Ace at 07:32 AM | Comments (152)
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Drew wrote about this case on Monday, noting that it appears the judge will allow Roeder to present evidence related to his belief that Tiller "presented a clear danger to unborn children."

Yesterday, the judge ruled that Tiller may bring that evidence. However, the judge noted that he has not ruled on whether the jury will get a manslaughter instruction and will not rule on that issue until later in the trial. In other words, the jury may not even get the option to decide that Roeder committed manslaughter rather than premeditated murder.

I agree with the prosecutors that the jury should not be given a manslaughter instruction and that allowing Roeder's lawyers to present a whole song and dance about his beliefs is just a way of seeking a hung jury by means of confusion and sympathy. If there's no chance they're going to get to decide on the lesser crime, this evidence should not be allowed.

In comments Drew noted the the Kansas use of force defense statute. Much of the conversation revolved around whether Roeder could be considered to have prevented an "imminent" abortion, as the statute requires.

I would have focused on another part of the statute:

Statute 21-3211: Use of force in defense of a person; no duty to retreat. (a) A person is justified in the use of force against another when and to the extent it appears to such person and such person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend such person or a third person against such other's imminent use of unlawful force.

(b) A person is justified in the use of deadly force under circumstances described in subsection (a) if such person reasonably believes deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to such person or a third person.

So the defense doesn't apply unless the defendant "reasonably believed" the other person's use of force is unlawful. It doesn't matter how you somehow stretch the meaning of the term "imminent" to include Tiller's Sunday prayer group as use of force against a child at some unspecific date in the future. Based on his comments in the media and his prior activism, there's no chance Roeder had a reasonable belief that Tiller's abortions were unlawful. He went gun-happy precisely because the abortions were lawful and this was the only way he could stop Tiller. In fact, there are reports that Roeder actually attended Tiller's trial in which he was acquitted of performing unlawful abortions! So the use of force defense is not going to apply and the jury should not be getting a manslaughter instruction or evidence about Roeder's beliefs.

(I'm assuming that "unlawful" in the statute has to come within the defendant's "reasonable belief." If that's actually an issue of law, then it is even clearer that the manslaughter instruction and this evidence should be denied. No matter how much I don't like it, abortion is indisputably lawful in Kansas.)

The only evidence that matters is whether Roeder killed intentionally and with premeditation. Since he admitted to that, it should have made for a short trial, notwithstanding his not guilty plea. Instead we get this politicized circus about abortion beliefs, something he's apparently been aiming at since his arrest.

And I know I should let this kind of thing slide, but really? Commenter Jim in San Diego got cute yesterday (and how the hell did I get dragged into it anyway? I didn't write that post.):

I'm just wondering if Gabe and Drew would would prosecute someone for murder who freed inmates from a death camp, but killed a few guards in the process?

Nope. I wouldn't. Good enough for you or do you want to make some more Nazi analogies?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:15 AM | Comments (158)
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And a pretty thin 43-30 margin on whether Obama has been a better president than The Fiend Bush.

Posted by: Ace at 06:59 AM | Comments (46)
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Based on statistical techniques I learned in high school called "guestimating" and "lying."

But Obama claims he "saved" or created (or... funded) 2 million jobs this quarter, so I'm pretty sure I'm good for almost a mil myself. Think about it: While you're goldbricking and slappin' pud on this site, there are other workers required to do your jobs, and even more workers down the line to correct your mistakes.

Anyway: "Stunning."

President Barack Obama is trumpeting a new White House estimate that his top economist calls "stunning": His stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs.

The analysis is part of the administration's quarterly report to Congress on the controversial $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts he signed weeks after taking office.

Obama planned to highlight the report Wednesday during a visit to a Lanham, Md., training center for union electricians that specializes in "green" technology.

Republicans have denounced the stimulus plan as an expensive flop, pointing to a national unemployment rate stuck at 10 percent and December figures showing the economy shed 85,000 more jobs.

But the report from the President's Council of Economic Advisers said the economy is a lot better off than it would have been without the stimulus. Citing its own analysis plus a range of private sector summaries, the council estimated the annual growth rate last year would have been roughly 2 percentage points lower, and there would have been 1.5 million to 2 million fewer jobs.

"That's truly a stunning and important effect", Christina Romer, the council's chairwoman, said in a conference call with reporters. "It has done exactly what we have anticipated it would do."

That is stunning, in so many different ways.

See Obama and Orszag's new "accounting" rules that say that a job should be reported as "saved" even if there was never any danger of it being eliminated in the first place. If a single federal dollar goes to an already-existing job which will exist, with or without federal money, far into the future, Obama racks that up as a "saved" job.

Saved from what? Well, saved from the employer having to pay the full salary I guess.

We're now using the standard "saved or created or partly funded."

Posted by: Ace at 06:47 AM | Comments (74)
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Servicemen Understand Service Better Than Your Average Politician

Who serves in an all-volunteer military? For the most part, people who felt innately called to duty. What they think about service when their tours are over will vary, of course.
But original character is durable; these are the kinds of folks who step up. And they tend to have the same basic idea of the United States that you do, and love it, and want to preserve it.

It is inevitable at this time in history that some would come home after their military ventures, look around, and say, "Oh look, more asses to kick. Excellent."

Iraq Veterans For Congress Political Action Committee

Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC, or IVC, is a federally registered political action committee supporting the congressional campaigns of conservative Republican Iraq Veterans.

We look for conservative Republican veterans who are determined to become a voice for our troops, military families, and hardworking patriotic Americans who believe that our country, our Constitution and our way of life are worth fighting for.

We are fast building on our success from 2008, our first year of operation, when Iraq Veterans for Congress (IVC) helped elect two rock-solid conservatives and battle-tested Iraq Veterans:

Congressmen Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Duncan Hunter Jr. (R-CA).

Now our sights are set on building on these victories in 2010.

And weÂ’re targeting those Liberal Democrats who are the biggest threat to AmericaÂ’s safety and security.

IVC has grown from just a handful to over twenty candidates, and they're still adding more.
These guys chose to give up their own freedom for a while, to preserve ours.

Now they want to serve again, in the political arena. And you know that their idea of what a public servant is, is wildly different from that of the molly-coddled lefty elitist pricks who currently infest office.

Please show these vets some love and help support their campaigns by supporting this very worthy PAC.

Posted by: LauraW at 06:39 AM | Comments (19)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:30 AM | Comments (28)
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I sure think so. Even if it means supporting someone who's not a "down-the-line conservative" in a deep blue state.

I'm goofy like that. I prioritize.

Democrats are openly talking about his election meaning the end of ObamaCare; with it would probably go cap-and-trade, Card Check, perhaps amnesty, the continuance of bailout nation, raising the debt limits, and so on. It would be the biggest psychological blow to big-government liberalism since the 1994 Republican Revolution, and probably trigger another slew of Democratic congressional retirements.

Yeah, that'd be kinda worth it to me. Even worth a few bucks (coward that I am).

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:11 AM | Comments (125)
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She said she didn't consider herself a hero, but I (and I suspect most of you) respectfully disagree.

Gies was among a team of Dutch citizens who hid the Frank family of four and four others in a secret annex in Amsterdam, Netherlands, during World War II, according to her official Web site, which announced her death Monday. She worked as a secretary for Anne Frank's father, Otto, in the front side of the same Prinsengracht building.

...Despite the legendary hardship she endured during the German occupation, Gies never embraced the label of a hero.

"More than 20,000 Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not enough," she says in the prologue of her memoirs, "Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family."

"There is nothing special about me. I have never wanted special attention. I was only willing to do what was asked of me and what seemed necessary at the time

May she rest in her well earned peace.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:46 AM | Comments (36)
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We have endlessly rehashed how jackass and brazen Obama's "saved jobs" fudge is.

But even with that massive fudge factor, he's still showing no job growth.

Well, duh. The unemployment rate is at 10.0% and the real unemployment rate is somewhere around 22%. (Think about that: More than one fifth of American workers are jobless.)

And it's going up to 10.5%.

So this jackass needs some sort of propagandistic lie, no matter how ridiculous, to hang his hat on.

So he's changing the already sketchy accounting on his "saved" jobs. Bear in mind, he previously ordered companies receiving federal money to report any job as "saved" if even a single dollar -- a single dollar! -- of federal money contributed to the salary or other costs involved.

But apparently the recipients of federal largesse didn't understand the wink-wink-pad-these-numbers-to-the-utmost nature of his order.

He's making it more explicit now that the goal is not to achieve any sort of honest accounting, but simply to pad the made-up figure with as many made-up "saved jobs" as possible.

[I]nstead of counting only created and saved jobs, it will count any person who works on a project funded with stimulus money—even if that person was never in danger of losing his or her job.

The new rules came out last month in a little-noticed memo (PDF) sent to federal agencies by Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. OMB said it changed the guidelines to prevent the kinds of errors and confusion that occurred when the first job counts came out in October.

But Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the Obama administration is making the job numbers even more misleading and is trying to pump them up by counting jobs that werenÂ’t created or retained.

Oh, and he'll also dump the current running-tally system in favor of a quarterly report.

I call shenanigans. In a running tally, if a job is "created" but then, as Obama's fake jobs tend to do, vanishes a month later, a running tally would have to record this (or should record it) as +1 and then -1, net zero.

Now, if you count them only according to jobs "created" in a quarter: Imagine in Quarter 1 you create a job, which disappears in a month. In Quarter 2, you create another job, which disappears in a month.

What does your tally look like in Quarter 3?

Well, in Quarter three, if you were keeping a running tally, you'd say you created two very short-term jobs which now no longer exist.

In a quarterly report style, you can say you created two jobs. After all, add the quarterly numbers together -- you created one in Quarter 1 and another in Quarter 2; that sums to two, right?

This system more easily allows you ignore jobs disappearing by only recording the pluses, and not the minuses.

In addition, I figure you can "save" the same damn job four times in the space of one year, one time each quarter. (Especially if it's not even a saved job at all, merely a partially-taxpayer-funded one, as the new rules stipulate.)

Oh well. We didn't get any jobs out of that $1.1 trillion, but we've got some sweet propaganda and accounting tricks that would make Enron blush.

And we've got something else, too.

A new report that reviewed 200 years of economic data from 44 nations has reached an ominous conclusion for the worldÂ’s largest economy: Almost without exception, countries that are as highly indebted as the United States is today grow at sub-par rates.

The report was written by two respected academic researchers who recently published a thick book on eight centuries of economic crises.

The study by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff — well-regarded economists from the University of Maryland and Harvard University, respectively — found statistical breaks at different points in the relationship between a country’s national debt and its gross domestic product. GDP is the broadest measure of a country’s trade in goods and services.

When a nationÂ’s debt exceeds 60 percent of its GDP, its growth rate slows precipitously, the study found. When that ratio exceeds 90 percent, nationsÂ’ economies barely grow, and can even contract.

The U.S. national debt is at roughly 84 percent of the countryÂ’s GDP, and it is projected to cross the authorsÂ’ 90 percent threshold late this year or early next year.

The implication is stark: The authors donÂ’t say that the U.S. economy canÂ’t grow briskly despite even higher debt, but if it does, it would be an outlier in roughly 200 years of economic statistics.

The man's going to have a legacy, that's for sure.

So, is it true, as Paul Krugman assured us, that every dollar of government spending somehow magically creates $1.50 in actual value?

Seems not.

Economic data contradict Keynesian stimulus theory. If deficits represented "new dollars" in the economy, the record $1.2 trillion in FY 2009 deficit spending that began in October 2008--well before the stimulus added $200 billion more --would have already overheated the economy. Yet despite the historic 7 percent increase in GDP deficit spending over the previous year, the economy shrank by 2.3 percent in FY 2009. To argue that deficits represent new money injected into the economy is to argue that the economy would have contracted by 9.3 percent without this "infusion" of added deficit spending (or even more, given the Keynesian multiplier effect that was supposed to further boost the impact). That is simply not plausible, and few if any economists have claimed otherwise.

Via Big Government and, I think, maybe... Instapundit? I dunno, I've had that debt-warning link open for a long time.

Posted by: Ace at 07:56 PM | Comments (148)
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(Sam Palmisano is IBM COB)

Being a former IBM'er is kinda like being a former Marine -- you remain one for life. Even though I left IBM around 15 years ago I still follow the company and maintain contact with a lot of people I knew and worked with.

Normally speeches by IBM executive types are kinda dry and not too exciting, I certainly slept through my share back in the day. But this one Palmisano gave in London is a little different - mostly because I agree with almost everything he's saying...at least on a conceptual level, although maybe not with all the specifics.

In a nutshell, what he talks about is how the world, its infrastructure, commerce mechanisms, etc will start to become "smarter" and more connected in the years to come and a lot more autonomous and adaptive. Sam largely focuses on the cheap/pervasive compute power and internet'ish connection aspects, savings to business/govt/etc.

I believe its going to go beyond that into the realm of adaptive materials we build "stuff" out of too. Adaptive in ways that don't require much if any compute power or connection to anything. Tentative "baby step" materials like the (now) commonly available TiO window films that pass visible light but largely reflect IR are one example. Its not unreasonable to expect in the future, we'll have a window film that can alter its IR reflectivity.

Adaptive industrial/commercial materials combined with the fine grained pervasive adaptive computational stuff Palmisano talks of could be a pretty powerful concept.

The whole Palmisano talk is here. Its worth a read.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:18 PM | Comments (56)
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