The Ryan Lizza defenestration is so obviously wrong, so offensive all across the spectrum, that human sacrifice — “I had no idea; we have accepted the resignation of the staffer responsible” — will be required for atonement.
Again.
Archive for the ‘Oppression’ Category
There will be blood
Posted by Ron Coleman on July 21, 2008
Posted in Medialites, Oppression, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Clogging up the lanes
Posted by Ron Coleman on July 20, 2008
At the grocery store, that is. We’ve all seen this. I’ve noticed it before: America’s underclass is eating itself to death.
Posted in Americana, Gelt, Heart and spirit, Oppression | 9 Comments »
Un-fabulous
Posted by Ron Coleman on July 10, 2008
The thing about the nuts that fall from Obama’s tree, it seems, is you get a good luck* look at the unappetizing meat in ’em when they crack open on the hard ground. Tales from the Unreality-Based Community:
A homosexual man who has a blog on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign website is suing two major Christian publishers for violating his constitutional rights and causing emotional pain, because the Bible versions they publish refer to homosexuality as a sin. . . .
Fowler alleges both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, with its King James Bible, manipulated Scripture without informing the public by using the term “homosexuals” in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9.
He told the Grand Rapids TV station in an interview he wants to “compensate for the past 20 years of emotional duress and mental instability.”
Zondervan, he contended, is misinterpreting the Bible.
“These are opinions based on the publishers,” Fowler said. “And they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life.” . . .
Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, says in his complaint against Zondervan that the publisher intended to design a religious, sacred document to reflect an individual opinion or a group’s conclusion to cause “me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.”
So much… so very, very much… that is so stupid, so nuts, so God – help – Michigan about this. Where to begin? How to say when?
First… if you want it… I’ve downloaded the insane, hand-written complaint here. Go ahead, you read it. Now, the bullet points: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Americana, Faith and Works, Lex scripta, O Mores!, Oppression | 9 Comments »
Massively cool, and right-wingy too
Posted by Ron Coleman on July 2, 2008
The AP reports great news from Colombia, where government forces have freed three longstanding US hostages, a kidnapped presidential candidate and eleven Colombian police and soldiers:
[It was] the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which considered the four hostages their most valuable bargaining chips. The FARC is already reeling from the deaths of key commanders and the loss of much of the territory it once held.
The Americans — Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell — were flying directly to the United States to reunite with their families, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said. They had been the longest-held American hostages in the world.
Santos said military intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrilla ranks and led the local commander in charge of the hostages, alias Cesar, to believe they were going to take them to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas’ supreme leader.
The hostages, who had been divided in three groups, were taken to a rendezvous where two disguised helicopters piloted by Colombian military agents were waiting. Betancourt said her hands and feet were bound, which she called “humiliating.”
The pilots, she said, were posing as members of a relief organization, but “they were dressed like clowns,” wearing Che Guevara shirts, so she assumed they were rebels.
But when they were airborne, she looked behind her and saw Cesar, who had treated her so cruelly for so many years, lying on the floor blindfolded.
“The chief of the operation said, `We’re the national army. You’re free,'” she said. “The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn’t believe it.”
The operation, Santos said, “will go into history for its audacity and effectiveness.”
I like audacity and effectiveness! They often make a great combination, as they did at Entebbe. I like it even better when they’re employed against commies. “U.S. President George W. Bush called his close ally Uribe to congratulate him, as did [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy,” continues the story. “Barack Obama issued a statement congratulating Uribe as well.”
Did Senator Obama know about the Che t-shirt part? (UPDATE: Heh.)
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds links to some cool analyses. “[A]nother embarrassment for the FARC terrorists,” he writes. Actually, isn’t it embarrassing enough to be called “FARC terrorists”?
Posted in Heart and spirit, Oppression | Leave a Comment »
The bloggers, the Associated Press and the Media Bloggers Association
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 18, 2008
You can’t have missed the story (indeed an earlier version of this post was on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®), in all its agony — its schlepped-out, melodramatic agony. I link to Glenn Reynolds because he’s a good aggregator here, but also because it’s interesting to see how he’s gotten caught up in this, too.
One weensy problem with the blogosphere: It’s so quick, so supple, so instantaneous, so plastic… that it is also reactive, and in its own way, reactionary. Its reactions have the tendency, from time to time, of pouring flames on fires, and painting parties and their antagonists into corners neither wants to be in. That’s what has happened to some extent with the Drudge Retort story.
In contrast, Bob Cox of the Media Bloggers Association (MBA) demonstrates what a grownup blogger attitude could look like.
Yes, I am involved in these discussions, as general counsel of the Media Bloggers Association, and am not wholly objective. But I do believe that the overheated nature of the j’accuse crowd speaks for itself.
UPDATE: Oh my gosh! Really, the comments in that discussion run mostly along two lines: “Don’t confuse me with the facts,” and “I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon!” At one point — several actually — Rogers Cadenhead himself actually checks in to clear the air. He’s the Drudge Retort guy himself who got the DMCA takedown notices, and all the outraged “experts” tell him, “Shut up, what the hell do you know?”
Posted in Blogophilia, Medialites, Oppression, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Fakeout
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 18, 2008
I wrote a piece about Chinese intellectual property reform at LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® that readers of a more political and less legal bent may find interesting. So go read it!
Posted in Gelt, Lex scripta, Oppression | Leave a Comment »
Which side are you on?
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 12, 2008
Bill Clinton still has the reflexes:
Bill Clinton on Tuesday canceled a commencement speech at the University of California, Los Angeles, because of a lingering labor dispute. . . .
(Click for a cool pink link)
“Due to the ongoing labor dispute, he regrets that he will be unable to participate in commencement this year and he wishes the UCLA graduates the best of luck,” Clinton’s office said a statement.
Being a Democrat still means, evidently, not caring about the merits of a “dispute.” Picket lines are not crossed because “labor” is presumptively on the side of the angels when it institutes an “action” against “management.”
How exactly is that “New Democrat”? True, here “management” is a publicly-funded university, which, unlike the auto industry, can be bled indefinitely for concessions. So I suppose there is, from a welfare-state point of view, no tipping point in this case: More is always available for the next contract, the public trough being bottomless.
But as a general proposition, when do Democrats, or anyone else, move past the concept that the mere declaration by union management leadership that a “labor dispute” exists establishes an irrebuttable presumption that labor is on the right side of that “dispute,” and is entitled to total deference — even to the extent of broaching a prior commitment? For we know how particular President Clinton is about his commitments.
Answer: This Old Left presumption will be challenged when union gelt and manpower, especially public employee union gelt and manpower, cease to be the single most important component of the Democratic Party coalition. In other words, not any time. Ever.
Posted in Gelt, Oppression, Sisyphus | 10 Comments »
Judge grants himself raise, appoints himself king
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 11, 2008
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner today gave the Legislature and Governor David A. Paterson 90 days to adjust the pay of the state’s 1,300 judges to reflect the rise in the cost of living since their last raise nearly 10 years ago.
Justice Lehner found that the Legislature and the governor had “unconstitutionally abused their power” by neglecting to raise judicial pay. He concluded in Larabee v. Governor, 112301/07, that the executive and legislative branches had violated the separation of powers doctrine by linking judicial pay to extraneous legislative issues such as raises for the legislators themselves and campaign finance reform.
Wow. It’s good to be the king!
The objection here, obviously, comes precisely from the concept of the separation of powers. I have not read the opinion, but it is astonishing to suggest that a judge can make a policy decision as to judicial pay — his own salary — and call what may very well be a very poor, an awful, a scandalous policy, “unconstitutional” as a basis for ordering a legislature to make what is obviously a legislative decision: Setting the pay of state employees, whether they wear robes or not.
Let’s see how this plays out. Considering that this litigation strategy has been more than endorsed by the Chief Judge of New York State, Judith Kaye, it’s hard to imagine how this judicial coup d’etat can be stopped.
On the other hand… what if the legislature doesn’t “obey”?
New York State seems to be on its way to achieving banana republic status.
Posted in Lex scripta, Oppression, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Freeman Hunt: People Are Not Pets
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 6, 2008
Is it immoral to give people the opportunity to exit the stone age?
Posted in Homo sapiens, O Mores!, Oppression | Leave a Comment »
Shoot him now?
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 4, 2008
From the New York Times blog:
This morning, a Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama,” in neatly stenciled letters on the plate glass windows at street level. . . .
“The Secret Service had to do a whole questionnaire with me,” he said. “It was about an hour of questioning. They asked if I owned guns, if I was a violent person, if I had ever been institutionalized.”
Mr. Arboleda answered no. Nonetheless, he said the Secret Service asked him to take down the exhibition title from the window.
“I’m renting that space; the space was allocated for an exhibition and it’s my right to put those words up,” he said. “They said it could excite someone to do something crazy, like break the window. It’s terrible, because they’re violating my rights. If someone breaks a window, they’re committing a crime.”
He added, “The exhibition is supposed to be about character assassination. It’s philosophical and metaphorical.”
I wonder whether anyone has ever pushed a legal challenge to this generally well-understood, and popular, policy that the Secret Service has certain extraordinary legal powers it can execute in connection with a perceived threat to any person it is in the business of guarding.
It does seem constitutionally problematic. Because it seems here as if the authorities may have overreacted.
I would prefer merely a broad prohibition on “performance artists.”
Posted in Americana, Ars Longa, Metropolis, Oppression, Politics and Poker | 1 Comment »
