Category: Uncategorized

Apparently Andy McCarthy seriously believes that petitions are a deadly danger to American lives. Didn’t National Review once consider it to be a basic truth that American liberties were more important than American lives?

The combatants will be raining their habeas petitions on the district courts starting today (if they haven’t started already). To protect Americans lives, it’s vital for Congress and the administration to act now.

As I wrote in today’s column, the Supreme Court’s detainee decision is both wrong and necessary. The decision is wrong because it’s the invention of a nonexistent right. But the invention was necessary in order to counter the much more dangerous unconstitutional fictions concocted by Bush and the Democratic Congress. Nevertheless, this does not bode well for the Republic.

Eric Alterman explains the unlamented demise of the daily newspaper:

The American newspaper (and the nightly newscast) is designed to appeal to a broad audience, with conflicting values and opinions, by virtue of its commitment to the goal of objectivity. Many newspapers, in their eagerness to demonstrate a sense of balance and impartiality, do not allow reporters to voice their opinions publicly, march in demonstrations, volunteer in political campaigns, wear political buttons, or attach bumper stickers to their cars.

In private conversation, reporters and editors concede that objectivity is an ideal, an unreachable horizon, but journalists belong to a remarkably thin-skinned fraternity, and few of them will publicly admit to betraying in print even a trace of bias. They discount the notion that their beliefs could interfere with their ability to report a story with perfect balance. As the venerable “dean” of the Washington press corps, David Broder, of the Post, puts it, “There just isn’t enough ideology in the average reporter to fill a thimble.”

Meanwhile, public trust in newspapers has been slipping at least as quickly as the bottom line.

The problem with newspapers is that they’ve been selling a fraudulent product for decades. Alterman is right, editors and journalists are totally convinced that they’re objective, even as they piss off at least a third of their potential readership with their obvious and overt political bias. It’s no secret why blogs and sites like WND have exploded in popularity; they don’t attempt to hide their basic perspective and you usually know what you’re getting with them. Visit VP and you know you’re going to get radical libertarianism, economic contrarianism, anti-equalitarianism and artistic cruelty directed at atheists, feminists, science fetishists, and Lakers fans. If you like that, you’ll read it, if you don’t you usually won’t.

The same is true for newspapers, but they are in denial about what they are: the propaganda arm for state and federal government, left-wing economics and skiffy social evolution. The market for that is limited. In summary, you can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time, but eventually it’s going to catch up to you and a business built around the fundamental concept of intentionally insulting your intelligence isn’t likely to survive as soon as an alternative presents itself.

Technology isn’t killing the newspapers. It’s merely providing alternatives to them that millions of people are gladly choosing.

Napoleons always have two lives, but the Lisbon Treaty campaign is looking a lot more like the one hundred days than the pre-Elba glories:

There is a determination in Brussels to carry on as if nothing has happened. In total defiance of the wishes of the Irish people, Germany and France have jointly called for the ratification process around Europe to continue. Britain is in on the act, too. Gordon Brown phoned Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday to promise that Britain would still ratify the treaty.

The Dutch prime minister has also called for ratification to proceed. Maybe I’m missing something, but didn’t two-thirds of his own people vote against the treaty? The president of the commission, Jose Barroso, said in reaction to the No vote: “The treaty is not dead. The treaty is alive, and we will try to work to find a solution.” With that kind of reaction, you begin to wonder why Ireland was allowed a vote at all….

The No vote is not the end of the story — it’s the start of a new battle. It looks like the Eurocrats are learning the wrong lesson. They think the No vote shows that in future the public must be cut out of the process entirely.

Tyrants have a strong tendency to make the same mistake. Because they are initially successful in bamboozling and running roughshod over the idiot masses, they begin to believe that they can do it indefinitely. Past success also causes them to overestimate their power, so when the idiots finally wake up to what’s going on and begin to dig in their heels, the tyrants errantly assume that they just need to push a little harder. Instead, their actions will provoke a much stronger reaction; if a second Lisbon Treaty vote is forced on Ireland, the No vote will probably hit 70 percent.

It’s more likely that other countries will be forced to hold referendums on Lisbon than it is that the treaty will somehow survive. Vaclev Havel isn’t going to permit the fraud of pretending that it isn’t dead and his moral authority will set an example for other, less principled European leaders. The EU tiger is quite literally a paper one; when it begins to fall apart it will fall apart very rapidly indeed. Whereas it wasn’t that long ago that even the euroskeptics were convinced that a united Europe was generally a good thing, now many europhiles are beginning to wonder just how anti-democratic rule by an unaccountable foreign elite is supposed to be preferable to their liberal democratic national governments.

On the ratio of fouls called on the Celtics vs fouls called on the Lakers today? 3-1? 4-1?

With the same purpose as one of his in-your-face jumpers, Kobe Bryant leaned into the microphone.

He promised more NBA finals games to come.

“The series ain’t over,” he said. “It’s far from over.”

And the truth is, we all know that it isn’t. I don’t know where to check, but I’ll bet that Dick Bavetta reffing tonight in order to make sure that the series goes back to Boston.

Spacebunny went out of her way today to throw an extra special Father’s Day. There was a giant mocha ready upon rising. There was a talent show followed by invisible tea followed by an imaginary feast. There was lasagna with extra ricotta, the prosecco flowed like water and was followed by a chocolate cream pie complete with a graham cracker crust. There were presents; the pièce de résistance was the only current game system I didn’t have, a Nintendo Wii.

And then, she promptly rendered the entire exercise moot by trouncing me – yes, trouncing me – at Wii Sports Bowling. Not only did she win the first game by a score of 146 to 125, but she beat me in a best of three. Now, it probably won’t surprise you to know that I’m not a particularly good bowler, but it is nevertheless a video game, so I should probably hear the end of this right around the time that Heimdall sounds his horn. Spacebunny is many fine things; however, being a kind and gracious winner is not necessarily one of them.

I’ll have to buy her a Wii Fit. That way, we both win.

1. Sweden good. Spain better. David Villa en fuego.

2. Greece boring. Russians offside every other attack. Greek goaltender crazy and costs Greece the game.

That is all.

The OC is hosting a discussion of Joe Haldeman’s Nebula-winning SF masterpiece. Which status I, frankly, have never been able to figure out:

As I’ve said many times before, I read omnivorously and constantly. At the moment, along with everything else, I’m re-reading Joe Haldeman’s multiple award-winning science fiction novel, The Forever War. Is anyone else interested in discussing this one: what works, what doesn’t, what you liked about it, what you hated about it?

On a tangential note, it occurred to me that there are two things that science fiction and fantasy do very, very poorly. One is religion. The other is sports. I am beginning to suspect that this is largely because the people who write and edit SF/F have almost no experience of either. Think about how much impact both religion and sports have on society today, based on how much time people spend on doing them and discussing them, then compare it to how little impact they have on the characters in almost every single novel published in the genre. It’s really quite remarkable.

After five years, I am done coaching little kids. Starting last year, I detected a decreasing amount of patience with the kids; over time, seeing the same sort of mistakes over and over again tends to wear you down and it’s not fair to blame today’s kids for the mistakes that their predecessors were making four years ago. While I admire those endlessly patient sorts that can handle the Sisyphean task of witnessing the same absurdities over and over again for decades, I just can’t do it. The combination of a disappearing challenge – I know what works and how to win now – and my declining tolerance for inevitable mistakes means that it’s time to get out while I’m still effective. As every NFL fan knows, it’s not only athletes who come with sell-by dates.

It’s a good time, too, since we had a surprisingly good season this year. With only three older kids playing against as many as seven, we managed to finish sixth, fifth, and fifth in our last three tournaments, which was a spectacular result considering how badly we were overmatched in terms of age and size. In fact, we actually tied for second out of six and second out of five in our group the last two tournaments, but lost out on the semifinals both times thanks to goal difference.

We also had a huge surprise in that we actually found ourselves a keeper this year. We didn’t have one last year either, so in desperation I turned to the one of the three who was least useful on the field because he could punt the ball as far as his friend, our star player. He’s a bit of a dreamer, not very aggressive, and for the last two years he’s tended to go through the motions more than actually trying to win the ball or do anything useful with it when he’s got it. But his first time in the net, the tournament in which we finished sixth, he won the first two games for us before hurting a finger while making a save. Even though we lost the rest of our games once he went out, I didn’t begin to put two and two together until after the tournament, when a scout for Black, the pro squad to whom we’ve provided two very good players in the past, wanted to know if they could recruit him to join their program in the fall.

I thought the scout was nuts and didn’t think a whole lot more about it until last week’s tournament, when our new keeper only permitted two goals that were potentially saveable and racked up several very good saves and two clean sheets in our three wins. When the coach for Blue, the other big youth program, asked about his availability in the fall after our game against them, I realized that I probably should have tried the kid in goal a long time ago. Yesterday, we were significantly outgunned against some much larger clubs, but the boys still managed to win one game and tie another; that was enough to give us a shot at fifth place. That game, the last one at this level for the three oldest kids, finished 1-1 and went to penalty kicks, which worried me because two of their teammates can barely kick the ball.

Our first three shooters, all of whom I expected to score, each put their penalties away, as did the first three penalty-takers from the other team. Both goalies were diving like mad, but didn’t have a chance at any of them. The other team scored again, then the little kid who won’t run but has a nice strong foot kicked it right at their keeper. Blocked. I figured we were done, but then their next kid fired wide of the post to even it up. The next two both hit, which meant it was 4-4 and we were into sudden death. A defender in whom I had zero confidence actually caught the ball squarely for once, and our goalie nearly stopped their next one, but it went in anyhow. 5-5. I had no choice but to put up the other little one, a lefty who just stabs at the ball with his right foot and seldom touches it.

“You can use your left foot, use your left foot,” I told him, since he’s always being told to use his right foot during drills in practice. Thump! Perfect, curving shot, right in the right corner; their goalie never had a chance. 6-5. Our keeper came out and crouched down on the line, looking vaguely nervous but not scared. I thought he was positioned a little too far to the right, but I didn’t say anything since I didn’t want to break his concentration. The shot came in towards his left shoulder, he got both hands up, stepped left, and slapped it firmly away. Game over! A mad celebration ensued, as they’d not only won fifth place, but also claimed bragging rights since the other team was supposed to be the best one in the local area. I was very proud of them.

That was a very satisfying way to end my coaching experience with the little ones. I’ve been asked to manage a veteran’s team, which I may do someday but not yet. For the time being, I’m going to stick with my club and assist the coach at the next level, where I’ll be reunited with most of my old players and the mistakes will be new and different for a while. But when we lose to Black, as is usually the case, defeat won’t sting quite as much as it has in the past. And if their new goalie elects to rub it in, he just may find himself getting sent to bed early that night.

The quiz covering the events of Book Five, which took place during the tenth through sixteenth years of the war can be taken here. It looks like we’re down to a bare 30 from the original 120, so if you’ve made it this far, you should be proud of yourself. Only three books to go! Discuss freely… next week’s reading is Book Six. And yes, there will be a final exam of 25 questions.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 1.1 to 1.115.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 1.116 to 2.46.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 2.47 to 2.103.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 3.1 to 3.116.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 4.1 to 4.135.

The likelihood that the NBA is rigged whenever the commish wants to extend a series or improve a landmark franchise doesn’t mean that people are have to enjoy it any less. Pro wrestling seems to be doing just fine, after all:

According to a new survey of 907 people released exclusively to Ad Age today, more than one-third (37%) of respondents believe that the National Basketball Association somewhat or very likely alters the outcomes of its games.
Even prior to disgraced referee Tim Donaghy’s allegations earlier this week that NBA executives and referees manipulated game results to boost ticket sales and TV ratings, more than one-third of respondents believe that the NBA somewhat or very likely alters the outcomes of its games. The YouGovPolimetrix Omnibus Poll found that among “casual” or “avid” fans, an even higher number, 41%, think it’s either very likely or somewhat likely that the NBA alters the outcome of games.

The ominous factor here is that the more you watch the NBA, the mroe likely you are to believe that it’s occasionally fixed. This doesn’t seem to take a rocket science, considering the two big and questionable trades that have miraculously resulted in a rehash of the classic Celtics-Lakers Finals.