Nice Backhand!

Oh, man...

John Venlet eagled-eyed the crashing non-sequitur in a New York Times sniff of John Snow. I hadn't seen that story, yet. Since the alert, though, I'll be looking forward to an Augusta National paragraph in every Times story from now on out. I'm certain that Raines will see to it.

Meanwhile, Venlet has incised the angle on Snow. He has stepped outside the lines with his question (and answer, on which you can bet long). It's not nice to point right at the bullshit, you see, and his application for White Noise House press credentials would probably get bounced like a flat basketball, but that's okay by me. From where I sit.

This Is Not Fiction...

...unlike Ayn Rand's "Twentieth Century Motor Company", which anticipated this waterheaded nonsense by forty-five years.

That Woman was sane. That's the difference.

(Linked out of Layman's Logic.)

"Talking Point"

This is a direct cut & paste quote:

"Privatization of Social Security would be criminal. After cutting taxes so that no additional dollars could be used to shore up the system, there is no reason to attempt to loot the Social Security system just to put more dollars into Wall Street. Social Security should remain a program to supplement the pensions of workers—it's not the only answer for retirement income—but it's backed by 'The full faith and credit of the United States Government.' Nothing in the market can beat that for security."

There you have it. The The United Food and Commercial Workers Union ("North America's largest and strongest private sector union") is officially saying what only extremists (which means: not mealy-mouthed politicians or weezil-ass pundits) will say: Socialist Insecurity requires additional tax dollars to shore it up.

Think About It

Here's a good idea:

Let's submit US military action to the UN Security Council veto power of these guys.

Yeah. That oughta work out.

Did I Hear This Correctly?

[blink...]

I was just sitting here listening to Imus...

...and I think I just heard him describing a new situation involving New York City... which Imus appears to have attributed to Nurse Bloomberg... in which "all cars on all bridges and tunnels entering Manhattan will have four occupants, twenty-four hours a day."

Is this really true? I need someone to send me the facts as soon as possible... because it's been tumbling through my mind to drive down to The City... and I'm afraid that if I did that without knowing this and only discovered it on the scene and at the hands of some mini-Eichmann who was only doing his job, I'm pretty sure that I would go directly to jail.

Does this have anything to do with the flippin' transit strike?

Someone send word. Please.

Precedents

Charley Reese opens yesterday's piece with what I'll call a provocative truth.

There are things in that article that I could fight about, but the fact is that I would be doing so within a context that must, eventually, be broken down to the beginning of the end. In other words, these things require following the trail of historical bread-crumbs back to their origins.

"History is a list of consequences." (WJB III)

And if I argue that, say, Patton was correct about the Soviets, it's only because he and the Third Army were there on the scene in the first place, and the culture that sent them there was busy making all kinds of noise about "freedom" and making the world "safe for democracy". (And if I stipulate to that, then I insist on full integrity and including Eastern Europe, at least.) I can devolve that context to its constituents precedents, however, and say without contradiction that I would much rather that we had never gotten involved in the European war, as a matter of state. (Caveat: I can hold no complaint against private action.)

Since we're here at this point in history -- you pick it, and I'll stipulate -- then this is how we deal with it. But I'll always be able to point out that it's too goddamned bad: where we are.

Reese has a very important point to make.