Vox Popoli

Dustin Hawkins engages in some wishful thinking on Townhall:

But the pretend-conservative act is being carried onto a whole new playing field, one that has become wildly influential over the past few years and one that does not stand to be instantly recognized as a fake. That playing field is the blogosphere, which is then used in conjunction with massive e-mailings to “spread the word” (as one e-mailer insisted I do to my readers/e-mail list) to other conservatives.

The concept is the same: the blog or e-mail claims, first, that the said writer has been a conservative for years and that they have “had it with Republicans.” They then point to an issue that conservatives would likely be upset about such as excessive spending, immigration, or the expansion of government. Their supposed rage over the issue has convinced them to either not show up to vote in 2006, or, in order to really show Republicans, vote for the Democrat instead.

I am not a conservative and have not been for many years, but I don’t think anyone, on the Right or Left, would deny that I am a hard-core right winger. But I am a former Reagan Youth with fond memories of the Gipper and I despise Dear Jorge and the Bush Republicans every bit as much as I loathe Hillary Clinton and the UN-First Democrats.

There are many people here who voted for Bush in 2000 and did not vote Republican in 2004. (Raise your hand, you know who you are.) I suspect there are even more who voted Bush in 2000 and 2004 who will be sitting out 2006 or voting third party. (Another show of hands.)

This Three Monkey engages in some petty dishonesty of his own, by the way. “In general, my acquaintances take the position that it is better to vote for someone who is good on 8 out of 10 issues than bad on 9 out of ten.” I’m sure they do, but how does that apply here? If the Democrats are bad on 9 out of ten issues – I’d give them a ten myself – the Republicans are bad on at least 7 out of ten to anyone genuinely holding to conservative principles.

I’ll email the results to Mr. Hawkins at the end of the day.

UPDATE: I wonder if Mr. Hawkins also sees Tony Blankley as a fake.

I admit that it is hard to find a political professional who doesn’t see public opinion trending toward a decisive Republican defeat in November. On the other hand, nothing in those public surveys suggests that Republican and conservative ideas have lost their popularity. What the public is turning sour on is the Republican Party as an effective vehicle for delivering those ideas.

Occam’s Razor strongly suggests the public has reached this conclusion because it isn’t.

Hang it up, Mr. Favre. And many thanks for all the interceptions…. I know the realization that the gunslinger who loves to play football more than anyone else ever because he has more fun out there on the field than any human being has ever known is headed for retirement will likely cause Peter King and John Madden to be prostrate with grief throughout the summer, but perhaps by the time the season rolls around, the founding members of the cult of Favre will be able to accept the idea that the NFL just might survive his passing.

Seriously, it’s ridiculous. What he should have done is announce that he was going to play, taken a pay cut and arranged for a two or three year contract extension mentoring Aaron Rodgers as a backup. Why stars can’t manage to realistically assess the situation and arrange for a graceful and lucrative exit strategy is beyond me.

Dennis Bergkamp is the perfect example. Over the course of his career he transformed himself from a speedy striker accustomed to being the focus of the attack into a quasi-midfielder primarily creating opportunities for the younger, faster guns, especially Thierry Henry. He hasn’t played as much since Wenger bought Van Persie – his long-term replacement – last year, but he’s still a valuable weapon in the Gunners’ arsenal.

From Drudge:

DNA testing failed to connect any members of the Duke University lacrosse team to the alleged rape of a stripper, attorneys for the athletes said Monday.

Citing DNA test results delivered by the state crime lab to police and prosecutors a few hours earlier, the attorneys said the test results prove their clients did not sexually assault and beat a stripper hired to perform at a March 13 team party.

No charges have been filed in the case.

“There is no DNA evidence that shows she was touched by any of these boys,” said Attorney Joe Cheshire, who represents one of the team’s captains.

But… but… but women NEVER LIE about RAPE! Don’t you know that there are BILLIONS and BILLIONS of unreported rapes in the USA every year? And it’s a MYTH that more false claims of RAPE are made than ANY OTHER crime, I mean, haven’t you seen that TWO PERCENT number derived from the same place that it was proven how 450 MILLION American women are BEATEN to DEATH by their husbands every Super Bowl Sunday?

To think of all that outrage wasted at places like Pandagon, Feministe and the multitude of Angry Grrrl blogs. They’re “quite literally shaking with rage” while remaining convinced that there is only a remote chance that the woman is lying. I, on the other hand, am merely shaking with laughter.

A reminder. If a gay man, a “minority” or a woman at a college makes an accusation of a crime that is outrageous enough to make the national news, it will almost always prove to be a complete fiction. I have yet to lose a bet based on this principle.

Yes, people do commit crimes. Even rich young white guys. But the real world isn’t a mirror of the movies, the bad guy is seldom the good-looking blond guy with a Porsche and one should never underestimate the desire of a 18-22 year old woman for public attention of any kind. The Duke lacrosse story demonstrates how there are few things that will command as much attention as crying rape or hate crime, or better yet, both, especially given a media so determined to find such stories that it will manufacture them if necessary.

In which one is found playing Calliope for Animate Matters as hereaches uncharacteristic heights of inspiration:

Vox Poetri

There once was an A.I. named Vox
Who envied our pate-spanning locks.
Myths of rife rapers
Gave him the vapors.
Now he’s touting plural wedlocks.

I tend to loath limericks, but that last line was actually rather good, although I think the meter needs a beat between “he’s” and “touting”. My favorite poem, of course, is “The Heart: A Tautology”, by none other than that literary great known as the White Buffalo, who somehow managed to get it published by an unsuspecting editor in a newspaper somewhere in Virginia. Any poem that contains the lines “My hopping, sneezing pomegranate” and “Agamemnon, slay my combatants” has to be quality, just ask any professor of literature.

Big Chilly and I recited the poem complete with interpretive dance at his wedding some years back. In watching the video, I’m not sure what was funnier, the performance or the fact that all of the WB’s friends and family were laughing themselves sick while the Gypsy Queen’s guests were all sitting motionless in their chairs, too stunned to do anything but watch in horrified silence.

I am not too modest to fail to note that I, too, am a published poet. One of my rare efforts was published in my university’s poetry journal – a publication which takes itself Very, Very Seriously – and was primarily noteworthy for the fact that half the staff quit in protest over its publication. I don’t remember what it was called, or even how it went, but I do remember the last line, which was apparently the one that set the little hearts to beating so:

“Why, then, does she let me fuck her?”

An innocent question, one of pressing concern to those inflicted with the human condition, and yet so powerfully raw, tearing the brassiere of self-deception from the flushed bosoms of the petit bourgeoisie. But whither Art if it fails to Shock? Alas, I am overcome with the weight of my burdensome genius! I am weary, I must lie down.

“I REFUSE TO GIVE THE STATE POWER OVER MY PANTIES!!!”

All the regulars are familiar with my skeptical view with regards to women in politics, but this lady running for governor on the Libertarian ticket appears to be a serious exception to the rule.

The sanitation theory of historical disease prevention gains traction:

What is surprising is that all the cases of polio that have been detected in India in the past few years, have contracted it despite being vaccinated…. Associate Professor, JNU Ritu Priya, says, “You need a twin approach. Vaccination plus sanitation, nutrition and clean drinking water. Only vaccination will not curb polio.”

I am not saying that all vaccines are inherently bad. I am, however, deeply skeptical that they are anywhere nearly as harmless or as effective as the Official Story has it. Given that I and most other vaccine skeptics would welcome a scientific, double-blind experiment of the effectiveness and potential dangers of the conventional vaccine schedule, one has to wonder how confident the vaccine lobby and government authorities that oppose such experiments are that their precious Official Story would not survive a truly scientific inquiry.

UPDATE: Larry points us to one large double-blind study for the polio vaccine. I’d like to see a similarly sized study done, with a control group receiving no shots compared with a group receiving all 23 shots before six months or whatever madness it now is.

Amandagon can’t handle the heat:

I’ve decided to tighten up my judgement on whether or not I’m going to approve right wingers who come here to comment. I approve the vast majority of people right away, unless they leave comments that use racial/sexist/homophobic slurs or are spamming. But lately I’ve decided to be a little tighter about it–right wingers who start a comment with something like, “Feminists hate freedom of speech!” and then list a bunch of out-of-context Dworkin quotes are going into the “deny” pile straightaway. I still let through the more entertaining ones, but I’m not feeling like wasting comment space on the idiots. What do you think?

I think this demonstrates, as if more proof was needed, that Amanda is another feminist neofascist who is far more comfortable with delivering criticism than receiving it.

Her rationalization would be more convincing if it wasn’t demonstrably clear that almost every single feminist absolutely opposes freedom of speech. If you don’t believe me, go tell a feminist that she’s attractive and you’d like to see her take her clothes off. (Don’t worry, she probably won’t do it, but bring a fork and be prepared to quickly gouge your eyes out just in case.) Better yet, tell it to a feminist at the office who reports to you… I’m sure you’ll discover just how free speech friendly they truly are….

If you prefer to preserve your job and your vision, simply wait until your unfriendly neighborhood feminist brings up something political – they always do, since they can’t distinguish between the personal and the political – then tell her that you don’t believe women should have the right to vote. At least seven times out of ten, she will tell you that your views should be outlawed and that you should physically suffer for the crime of merely harboring such illegal thoughts, much less speaking them aloud.

All that being said, Amanda has a perfect right to ban anyone she wants from her blog, and she certainly should ban someone who has proved himself to be a genuine troll, regardless of his political persuasion. If she wants an echo chamber, that’s fine, although it will only make it that much easier for people to destroy her arguments on the rare occasions that she ventures out from the safety of the yes-girls and yes-eunuchs. There are certainly no shortage of blogs both Left and Right that prefer this sort of thing; avoiding that intellectually stultifying effect is the reason I do not manage comments here.

And on a tangential note, I’m rather looking forward to seeing the gulls of Pandagon deal with the realization that the Duke lacrosse affair that has so outraged women across the country was yet another rape that wasn’t. Here’s a clue… if it happened on a college campus, if the “victim” is gay, black or a woman, and the crime was outrageous enough to interest the national media, it’s almost surely a fiction concocted by the would-be victim. I did not mention it before today because I assumed the accusations would fall apart even faster than they have thus far.

An old Republican laments the fate of his party:

I think the passing of time has allowed events to ripen sufficiently for me to offer my conclusion as to the state of American politics in the 21st century. After years of striving, the general election in 2000 finally yielded to the Republican party a goal for which it has striven for quite a while. The GOP won the presidency as well as majorities–and their cherished committee chairs–in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

What has followed is an astonishing development. The only thing the Republican Party leaders wanted was to prevail. They achieved control and have subsequently abandoned all traditional Republican principles and subordinated themselves to the Democratic leaders.

Why, then, have I almost invariably voted for GOP candidates? It is truly because of my conviction that two Federal government functions stand out above all others in operational significance. Those are the Federal judiciary and committee chairmanships in the national legislature. With respect to those, consider the Republican approach: They have deferred to Tom Daschle and then Harry Reid with respect to the judiciary. They have allowed weaklings to serve as committee chairmen….

I am too old to lead a reformation, I think. I would run out of breath climbing the steps to a speaker’s podium, and would be unable to address the throng assembled. About all I can do is write an occasional letter to office holders pointing out their disservice to us or to send letters to the press. About the only recourse I have is to continue to vote in Republican primary elections to replace the incumbents. And do you know what is the problem with that? The incumbents at that level are usually unopposed.

Some day I shall take the time and do the research required to do justice to this topic of Republican betrayal of their contributors and supporters as well as betrayal of their stated principles and of the Republic itself. Until then I will have to continue to say what has become customary when GOP organizations ask me for contributions: “Sorry, you guys are too far to the Left for me.”

I recommend that Republicans loyal to the nominal principles of the party instead of the team colors either vote third party or stay home in 2006. Yes, Democrats will take the country down the road to ruin, but so will the Republicans you elect. At least you will know that you were not complicit in the destruction, and that you opposed evil when you still had the chance to do so.

Remember that supporting the lesser evil is still a conscious choice to do evil. One does not argue that the thief commits a morally positive act when he refrains from murdering his victim, after all.

From ESPN:

Asked about his supposed elation over finding backup quarterback Mike McMahon available as a free agent, Brad Childress responded aptly in a manner befitting his personality.

“I don’t know if I deal in ‘happy’ that much,” began the Minnesota coach’s reply.

The question became irrelevant, but the flat, blunt tone and the stone face provided a perfect snapshot of the method Childress will use to run his new team. In all seriousness.

This is promising, I think, although I’d have been a lot happier if they’d gone after Drew Brees, who I think is a very good quarterback. If they can get Matt Schaub from the ATL, that might be all right, but I can’t help but think of how the entire league got excited about Scott Mitchell some years ago.

And I must confess, the use of words such as “Marine sergeant” and “military-like efficiency” sent a little frisson of eldritch horror down my spine, reminding me as they did of the dread era that was the Les Steckel debacle.