Keith Olbermann Needs to go Back to Only Doing Sports Highlights

He just keeps showing how thoroughly unqualified he is to do serious news commentary.

For those of you who haven't been following, earlier this week, Keith Olbermann mocked Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle for saying of Abraham Lincoln, "He lost quite a few. But he won the big one." For this, Olbermann called her "obtuse" and insisted Lincoln only lost one election. Yesterday on this blog, Jeffrey Lord patiently explained why Olbermann was wrong, and his post was picked up by National Review's Daniel Foster. At this point, it caught Olbermann's eye, and the MSNBC host named Foster the "Worst Person in The World." Rather than acknowledge his error, Olbermann took the weasel's way out with a semantic loophole, embarrassingly insisting that he really meant that Lincoln only lost one popular election. As you know, at the time, there wasn't direct election of U.S. Senators.

But while Olbermann would like to discount several of Lincoln's losing political campaigns to bolster his case against Angle (including the 1858 Senate campaign), that's clearly not how Lincoln himself viewed those defeats at the time.

More here.

The Divorce Contagion

Brown University researchers have apparently discovered that if you are currently married your chances of getting a divorce are increased by 75 percent if you have friends who have gotten divorced. That's pretty dramatic.

The researchers describe the effect as 'divorce clustering' - and believe that break-ups within friendship groups force couples to start questioning their own relationships.
They say that a friend's divorce can also reduce the social stigma of splitting up, even when children are involved.
The findings come from a continuing study into the lives of more than 12,000 Americans living in the New England town of Framingham since 1948.

I'm curious to know what the percentage increase of divorce is, if any, for married attorneys who focus in the area of family law. If you know a study out there on this, let me know.

h/t National Catholic Register

Kagan Suggests the Catholic Church Would Have Been Banned From Recruiting Harvard Law Students

Of course Kagan doesn't say this directly, but it's clearly there when you watch the video below. This exchange between Kagan and Sen. Lindsey Graham (who's pretty much of a squishy Republican) is within the context of questions about Kagan's tenure as Dean of Harvard Law School and her banning of military recruiters from campus. Kagan allegedly imposed the ban because she believed the military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule violated the school's non-discrimination policy. Talk about a pretext for hostility. Too bad neither Graham nor the other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee pressed Kagan harder on this.



Video via CNSNews h/t Creative Minority Report

Happy Independence Day!

Hopefully, you know what it's all about.

Obama's "Science" was Actually Kagan's Political Hackery

The following video is part of a speech that then Senator Obama gave to Planned Parenthood in 2008. Obama here is specifically blasting the Supreme Court's ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart where the Federal ban on partial birth abortion was upheld. As you'll see and hear, the crux of Barry's criticism centers on the supposed failure of the Court to give full acknowledgement to a report by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) which concludes that partial birth abortion is medically appropriate in some cases. As we've recently learned, however, it appears that would-be Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who has absolutely no scientific background or credentials to speak of, inserted this conclusion into the ACOG report.

Think Barry knew this before he nominated Kagan?



h/t Powerline

Equal Protection Under the Law is for Suckers

Former U.S. Dept. of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams writes about his experience with the New Black Panther case that the Obama had dismissed despite clear evidence of voter intimidation. At least part of the reason for the dismissal was racial.

Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.

h/t Lex Communis

Joe Biden is as Thinned Skinned as Barry

Nice way to talk to your constituency. Not. If it had been me that Joe had called a smart ass, I would have reminded him that he works for me as an American citizen, and that I have a right to express my opinion to his face whether he likes it or not. Then I would have charged Joe $20 for the ice cream just because I think he's an asshole.

Correction: Frozen custard, not ice cream.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

Just ran across this informative website which promotes oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). According to the site, oil drilling in ANWR could have the effect of creating as many as 80,000 jobs in California. I ask this rhetorically: Why aren't we doing this?

Starbucks-like Lingo

I don't remember what her name is, but one of the Fox business reporters I saw on Hannity tonight made a great analogy to illustrate the inherent deceptiveness of the never before heard of "jobs saved" measurement that Obama keeps using to try and convince everyone that The Stimulus™ (aka Porkulus) is working. In short, the Obama measurement of "jobs saved" is kind of like what Starbucks calls the smallest cup of coffee you can buy at one of their stores: the "Tall" size.

BP Oil Spill Thoughts

Powerline's John Hinderaker posts some interesting thoughts about why he doesn't really think a provable lack of focus by the Obama Administration in the regulation of offshore drilling is a cause of the BP oil spill, and that it makes little sense the government would necessarily care more than BP about preventing spills.

Sort of along Hinderaker's line of observations, I'm wondering if BP had never been a self-identified and committed green company, would it still have conducted off-shore oil drilling as far out and deep in the ocean as it was when the oil rig exploded (notwithstanding stupid federal prohibitions on offshore drilling in shallower waters and on land in places like ANWR). I honestly believe BP would not have, in which case, a significant chunk of blame for the Gulf oil spill of 2010 - the problems of mitigating the damages it has caused in particular - has to be laid at the feet of left-wing political environmentalism.

Revenge of Ralph

Warning: The F-bomb is dropped a few times. As funny as it is (Ralph Macchio is 48?!) this mock trailer makes a pretty insightful criticism of Hollywood culture and values.

You Guys Call Yourselves "Colored People," Right?

The Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP somehow hears "black whore" instead of "black hole" in a graduation greeting card with a solar system theme. A shame Hallmark caved in and pulled the cards, thereby giving legitimacy to the L.A. Association of COLORED PEOPLE'S unsubstantiated claim.



h/t Matt Bramanti

Update: Racist! Racist! Listen carefully, they're saying "black whore"! Racist!

Cool Civil War Video

I'm kind of a buff of the era, especially anything to do with Abe Lincoln. The total number of casualties that were incurred during the war are mind blowing, even by contemporary standards.

Update: In case you don't catch the quick flash of introductory text at the beginning of the video, it basically says 1 second of video equals 1 week of the war.



h/t The American Catholic

Chuck DeVore at Israel Solidarity Rally

Pretty awesome. Sure hope he wins Tuesday.



h/t RedState

Dude, You're an Effing Idiot

Ashton Kutcher lays the blame on "Drill! Drill! Drill!" Republicans for the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Mr. Demi Moore is obviously ignorant of the fact that the guy he probably supported for President also favored offshore drilling before the BP accident occurred. He's also probably ignorant of the fact that this oil spill and its resulting damage could have been significantly reduced and eventually stopped much easier and far sooner if companies like BP were allowed to drill in shallower waters. Thanks, however, to anti-drilling environmentalist groups, the likes of whom Ashton Kutcher probably mindlessly supports, the Federal government doesn't allow near coastal drilling.

It's a darn good thing that Ashton Kutcher is considered a good looking guy, and Hollywood places a great deal of value on his looks. Because if Ashton Kutcher had to heavily rely on his acting ability and intellectual prowess, he'd be out on the streets starving or some aging rich cougar's kept man. Well, he's kind of in the latter situation, but since Hollywood pays Ashton Kutcher a boat load of money just for his looks, he isn't dependent on Demi Moore to put a roof over his head. At least I don't think so.

Helen Thomas is a Moonbat

I mean this literally. First of all, there is no recognized nation state called Palestine. And to basically suggest that there were no Jews in Israel prior to the late 1940s is, well, moonbatty. How bad must the journalistic profession be if an ignorant hack like Helen Thomas is able to attain a high level of recognition within it?



Update: More disgusting Helen Thomas video. Driven by her obvious hatred of Jews, Thomas here basically berates Baghdad Bob Gibbs for the Administration's failure to condemn the IDF raid on the flotilla where pro-Hamas "demonstrators" attacked Israeli soldiers. h/t Matt Bramanti

America's Greatest Patriot Denounces IDF Raid on Pro-Terrorist Flotilla

I am, of course, referring to Ron "I Don't Want To Be Financed by Stormfront, But I'm Keeping the Money They Give Me Anyway" Paul. The hostility he has toward Israel can be palpably discerned from his outright mischaracterization of the Gaza blockade as a planned denial of food and medicine to Palestinians. Paul also distinctly says "Palestine" a couple of times, as if there is currently a sovereign country with that name. There isn't.



h/t Hot Air

History Denied

This should have been an unprecedented third perfect game in one season, let alone within a month. I do give Jim Joyce, the umpire who blew the call at first, credit for later admitting he made a big mistake. Who knows, maybe Major League Baseball, i.e., Commissioner Bud Selig, will correct this obvious wrong for the record books.



Update: As you've probably noticed, the above video has been taken down by You Tube. Whatever. In consolation for the unofficial perfect game he threw, Chevy gave Galarraga a new Corvette. Sweet.

Reason No. 892832932 to Keep Your Kids Out of Government Schools

I can't believe this middle school in New York state actually suspended a student for outwardly wearing rosary beads around his neck. Even more outrageous is that the school regarded the beads as a gang symbol. WTF?!

Ms. Ardent Catholic Claims Her Favorite Word is The Word

Given her untenable position on issues like abortion, I would have taken Pelosi more seriously in the video below if she had broken out into a song from one of my all time favorite movies growing up.



h/t Ann Althouse

Mass Scale War Crimes That You Probably Never Knew or Learned About

Hat tip to Stewart Baker at The Volokh Conspiracy who points out an intriguing investigative report on the biological warfare that Japan waged against China 70 years ago.

Jiang, a 70-year-old farmer, can’t remember a time when flesh-eating ulcers didn’t cover his legs. “They never go away,” he tells me. “They just get drier. Sometimes they hurt less.” He doesn’t know for sure how he got them, but his father told him that the wounds first appeared in July 1942, soon after the Japanese army passed through his village. His entire family developed the festering sores. His mother and younger brother died in unbearable pain a decade later as the untreated, mysterious infection crept up their legs.

Jiang is one of 15 elderly Chinese men and women whom Zhu is treating in his simple village clinic for what locals label “rotten leg disease.” A definitive diagnosis is no longer possible so many decades after the initial exposure and secondary infections. But Chinese, American, and other Western physicians who have examined the survivors, documented their histories, and photographed their wounds claim that they are victims of the most gruesome biological warfare attacks in modern history.

According to the article, Japan has only minimally acknowledged that it used bio-weapons, and the government has never apologized for doing so. Incredibly tragic, but also infuriating given the amount of noise Baker notes that many politicians and courts in Japan have made about how the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime.

Update: Thanks to the Age of Google, I've discovered there have been a handful of books written on the subject of Japan's history of biological warfare. The very earliest appears to be Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II, which was published in 1989.

Pauline Sisters Diddy

Kinda catchy. h/t American Papist

Rendering the Term "Pro-Life" Meaningless

Larry Kudlow is the latest right-of-center pundit I've seen to repeat the assertion that U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is "pro-life." No, she's not. At least not until she comes out and expressly says she does not believe there ought to be a legal right to abortion.

Obama Topping Himself in Bad Judicial Nominations

Meet Robert Chatigny, Obama's new nominee to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals:

"But looking at the record in a light most favorable to [Michael] Ross, he never should have been convicted. Or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death because his sexual sadism, which was found by every single person who looked at him, is clearly a mitigating factor...He can sit on his hands and sit mute and he may find not only that the death sentence is set aside, he may find the death penalty has been abolished. He may find that he gets the life sentence that he has repeatedly said he would take in an instant if it was offered to him."

The above should be read within the context of Michael Ross having confessed to murdering 8 women, 7 of whom he raped. Also, Ross didn't want to stay his execution, but his attorney did it after being strong-armed by Chatigny.

And I thought Obama couldn't possibly nominate someone worse than Goodwin Liu. Sure looks like I was wrong.

h/t Ace

I'm Starting to Think Jonah Goldberg is Kind of Stupid

On May 8, 2010, Jonah Goldberg posted a message he got from someone about the controversial Arizona illegal immigration law. The message was purportedly from a legal immigrant who said he didn't always carry around his green card, and wondered whether just carrying his valid driver's license would be good enough. Jonah didn't provide an answer, because he obviously didn't know. However, anyone who has bothered to read the Arizona statute, particularly 11-1051 B, would clearly see the answer to this person's question is "yes," a valid driver's license is good enough. I e-mailed Jonah this information, but never got a response (not even a one-word thanks).

Curiously enough, Jonah's May 8 post no longer appears to be on the NRO-Corner site. Click here, then click the link "The Arizona Law." Why it's gone, I'm not sure. But if I had to guess, Jonah may have gotten a lot of e-mails like the one I sent him, and he realized his posting made him look foolishly ignorant.

Now Jonah is making himself look not too smart again by asking why it should be a scandal if it's proven the White House offered Joe Sestak a job in the administration in exchange for him dropping out of the Senate Democratic Party primary in Pennsylvania. This is really nothing short of incredible. Jonah Goldberg is either too stupid or ethically challenged to not recognize what is by all accounts an act of bribery. I kind of had a hard time doing so before, but now I really can't take Jonah Goldberg seriously.

Just a Whole Lotta Stupid Going On

As David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap once said, "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever." The following from the makers of the Gringo Mask, a protest against the Arizona illegal immigration law, clearly falls into the former category. How so? For one thing, the Gringo Mask makers are assuming the Arizona law permits racial profiling, which it expressly doesn't. Also, William Jacobson at his excellent Legal Insurrection blog notes that wearing a mask is legal grounds for being detained and arrested in several states - but not Arizona.

Chicago Style Politics in D.C.

If Sestak is telling the truth about being "offered" a Federal job by the White House in exchange for dropping out of the U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Pennsylvania (which Sestak has since won), then a crime has been committed.



h/t Ace

Pac Man Fever

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Pac Man video game, Google has a playable version on its home page today. Just click the "Insert Coin" button and start chomping away!

Below is purportedly the first episode of the game-inspired cartoon. Never really saw any of them when I was a kid, of course, because I'd usually be scrounging around for quarters to go to the arcade.

So-Called Americans?

Everyone's favorite impeached federal judge[now Congress critter], Alcee Hastings, rips all you "Americans" who have participated in the YouCut initiative sponsored by House Republican Whip, Eric Cantor. According to hizhonor, one of you participants is obviously Osama bin Laden.



h/t Hot Air

Happy Draw Mohammed Day!*

More info about it here, in case you don't already know what it's supposed to be about.



*That should actually be, "Happy Everybody Draw Mohammmed Day!"

So For the Sake of Consistency, L.A. Will Be Boycotting Itself or All of California

Right?

And hey, our "anti-immigrant" law, unlike Arizona's, doesn't even prohibit racial profiling!

California Penal Code §834b

a)Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.

(b)With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following:

(1)Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status.

(2)Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States.

(3)Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity.

(c)Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly prohibited.

We All Originated From "Slime" (circa 2002)

Been reviewing some of my first blog posts, and thought this was worth reposting:

It would appear as though at least one Bible translation does not contradict the Darwinist notion that man was made from slime. According to Genesis 2:7 in the Douay Rheims Bible: "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Of course, how man was made from the "slime" remains a point of dispute between Darwinists and so-called "Creationists".

Sooo 2002

It's been a long time since I've read anything at Eve Tushnet's blog, and it's interesting to see she's still using the same blog template she had in 2002.

I wonder if Eve planned it that way in order to eventually achieve a point of differentiation from all the other blogs that's now out there. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it and trying to figure out why anyone would keep using such an obsolete template.

Miss OK is OK

I also personally think Ms. Woolard is a lot hotter than the pole dancing/might be a Hezbollah supporter gal who won.

Miss USA "Shocker"

Well, if she is Muslim, she's obviously of the more liberal variety.

AG Holder Won't Say "Radical Islam" Has Been A Cause For Terrorism

With so much supporting empirical evidence, you kind of have to wonder why.

New Blog Format

Hopefully soon.

Sarah Palin Shouldn't Have Endorsed Carly Fiorina

Actually, Palin really shouldn't have endorsed anyone in the California U.S. Senate Republican primary. Reason being is that it has predictably caused a riff among her supporters in California, many of whom are rightly suspicious of Carly Fiorina's conservative credentials. The fact that Fiorina was an advisor to McCain's presidential campaign and Chuck DeVore is the only bona fide conservative running in the GOP primary (who has as good a chance of beating Barbara Boxer as Fiorina and Tom Campbell) suggests that Palin's endorsement is less than sincere. I, myself, asserted in the com-boxes at the Conservatives4Palin blog that Palin's endorsement amounted to nothing more than cynical payback to McCain (oh, the flak I got for that!). Further support of my assertion can be seen in Palin's endorsement statement where she mischaracterized Fiorina's father as a humble "schoolteacher" of children (the late Joseph Sneed was a law professor at both Cornell and Stanford, and later the law school Dean at Duke).

Will this endorsement by Palin come back to politically hurt her? Maybe. At least in my eyes, though, her credibility as a principled conservative has been diminished.

Update: I just caught this from Palin's update to her endorsement of Fiorina: "And most importantly, Carly is the only conservative in the race who can beat Barbara Boxer." The issue of whether Fiorina is a conservative aside, Palin's assertion is most surely incorrect, as the Rasmussen poll I linked to above actually shows DeVore slightly ahead of Fiorina in a head to head contest against Boxer.

Happy Belated Star Wars Day!

h/t Darth Vader

Liu-dicrous Responses

Ed Whelan of National Review's Bench Memos blog has the following 4-part analysis of the responses given by Berkeley Law prof and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Goodwin Liu to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I sort of quickly read through all four parts, and my general take is that Goodwin Liu either literally refused to say anything without good reason, or he effectively contradicted things he's said in the past and is hoping not too many people will discover (e.g., calling free enterprise, private property ownership and limited government code words for an ideological agenda that is hostile to environmental, workplace and consumer protections).

California Dust Bowl

It's a man (mostly Democrat) made phenomena.

On a springtime drive through the Central Valley, it's hard not to notice how federal and state governments are hell-bent on destroying the state's top export — almonds — and everything else in the nation's most productive farmland.

Instead of pink blossoms and green shoots along Highway 5 in April, vast spans from Bakersfield to Fresno sit bone-dry. Brown grass, dead orchards and lifeless grapevine skeletons stretch for miles for lack of water. For every fallow field, there's a sign that farmers have placed alongside the highway: "No Water = No Food," "No Water = No Jobs," "Congress Created Dust Bowl."

Locals say it's been like this for two years now, as Congress and bureaucrats cite "drought," "global warming" and "endangered species" to deny water to this $37 billion breadbasket through arbitrary "environmental" quotas.

It started with a 2008 federal court order that stopped water flowing from northern tributaries on a supposed need to protect a small fish — the delta smelt — that was getting ground up in the turbines of pump stations that divert the water south. The court knew it was bad law, but Congress refused to exempt the fish from the Endangered Species Act and the diversion didn't help the fish.

h/t Powerline

Goodwin Liu: Intemperate Defamer Extraordinaire

This hack really doesn't deserve to be a judge (via The Wall Street Journal):

Speaking of the nomination of now Chief Justice John Roberts, Mr. Liu opined that words like "'free enterprise,' 'private ownership of property,' and 'limited government'" are "code words for an ideological agenda hostile to environmental, workplace, and consumer protections."

On the nomination of now-Justice Samuel Alito, Professor Liu was even nastier. In a statement reminiscent of Ted Kennedy's slur against Robert Bork, Mr. Liu wrote that "Judge Alito's record envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away with a stolen purse; where federal agents may point guns at ordinary citizens during a raid, even after no sign of resistance...where a black man may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man...and where police may search what a warrant permits, and then some."

Really, for Obama to nominate someone to the Federal judiciary who would make these sort of outrageous and reckless statements says something about the president's ability to evaluate character. But we kind of already knew that when he nominated the "Wise Latina" to the Supreme Court.

Democrats Have Absolutely No Sense of Self-Awareness

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy is bitching about Republicans allegedly "stonewalling" the confirmation hearings of unqualified ideological hacks like Goodwin Liu (who actually deserves to be filibustered). Leahy, of course, is ignoring the indisputable fact that Obama court nominees are getting hearings at a much faster rate than Bush nominees ever did. The craphead from Vermont (what is it with that state? - see, e.g., Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders) also doesn't seem to remember that he was instrumental in delaying the hearings of several Bush nominees, and voted to filibuster the nominations of Miguel Estrada and Samuel Alito.

So the only I thing I can take away from the hypocritical bloviations of Dems like Patrick Leahy is that they either have no sense of self-awareness, or they're counting on all of us to basically be stupid and not have a memory. Or perhaps it's a combination of both.

Goodwin Liu: Hypocritical Grievance Monger

Ed Whelan at Bench Memos lays out the obvious conclusions after providing remarks Liu once made about reparations for slavery (like a good liberal, he's all for them):

Let’s expose the game that Liu is playing. Just as Liu completely ignores the innocent victims of racial preferences when he urges the perpetual imposition of racial quotas as a remedy for “societal discrimination,” so he would make those who were not complicit in slavery pay the price of his grandiose reparations project. Moreover, he continues to use the term “segregated” so expansively that only the imposition of racial quotas will achieve the elimination of what he calls segregation.

Needless to say, Senate Republicans need to filibuster Liu's nomination.

Ewoks Crap Tribbles

Coffee Party = Democrat/Obama-bots Front Group

h/t Hot Air

Anti-Goodwin Liu

Obama has nominated Berkeley Law School professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. NRO's Bench Memos has important and illuminating background information about Liu, an intellectually underwhelming Left-wing hack, here, here and here.

Although it's probably expecting too much, my hope is that Senate Republicans come together and filibuster this joker, much as the Dems filibustered Miguel Estrada into abandoning his nomination by Bush to the DC Court of Appeals. Of course, unlike Estrada, filibustering Liu here would be justified given Liu's stated judicial philosophy and less than impressive credentials in the legal profession.

Update: Ed Whelan at Bench Memos easily smacks down a couple of Kool-Aid drinking pro-Liu bloggers.

Meghan McCain

Is it really that far from the truth?



Update: I am, of course, assuming the woman in the video is not really Meghan McCain.

Before Tim Tebow

Several members of the 1986 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, which included current CBS Sports announcer Phil Simms, expressly spoke out against abortion in this video produced by American Life League. This actually went beyond what Tim Tebow does in the Focus on the Family ad that will run during this Sunday's Super Bowl. Pretty awesome. h/t Kathleen McKinley

Obama Channels His Inner Frank Drebin

I guess I know what he meant to say, but still...

h/t The Anchoress

Roe vs. Wade Dissent

Hardly ever mentioned on the matter of Roe vs. Wade are the dissenting opinions that were filed by Justices White and Rehnquist. Of the two, Justice White's definitely had a lot more "oomph" to it as illustrated by the following excerpt:

As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but in my view its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant woman more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing women and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.

Where Justice White is wrong, of course, is the assumption that only one's values can determine whether the unborn is a human life. It is only under such an assumption that the last sentence of the above excerpt can be made.

Mao Ornaments?!

Marriage Centrally Involves Commitment to Self-Sacrifice

That's my understanding of it, and I think it transcends both religion and culture. What do you think? Seems to me if more people believed this about marriage before they got married, there would be a whole lot less divorces in our society.

Test Post From iGoogle

Hey, I might actually start blogging again if I can ever tear myself away from Facebook.

Phantom Evil

Conservative blogger Kathy Shaidle recently described swine flu as the Loch Ness Monster of diseases. I'd similarly say the same thing about enhanced interrogation of terrorists, e.g., waterboarding, with respect to anti-"torture" moralists in the Catholic blogosphere.

Is Torture Always Evil to the Catholic Church?

Here is the sole entry that I can find in the Catechism that expressly says anything about torture:

2297 Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that something like waterboarding is always torture, regardless of how it is administered (we, the U.S., apparently give prior assurrance to the person being waterboarded that he will not be allowed to drown, though he might feel that way).  Even with this presumption, I'm at a complete loss as to how the above from the Catechism is in any way run afoul or violated if the purpose of waterboarding a terrorist is to extract detailed information about an attack that said terrorist has threatened to be imminent, e.g., Khalid Shaikh Muhammed and the L.A. Library Tower.  Because we're talking about a future event that has been promised to occur, the information being sought from the terrorist cannot be logically regarded as a confession. 

Seems to me that Catholic opponents to interrogation by pain infliction are going to have to come up with a better argument than an assertion that the Church has declared torture to be an intrinsic evil, regardless of circumstance.  It just isn't true, as underscored by a plain reading of the above quoted passage from the Catechism. 

Update: Tom McKenna refutes the dubious claim that Pope John Paul II declared "torture" to be intrinsically evil in the encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor.

Stop the Bad Faith Argument

It's to be expected of the mindless Liberal Left, but I'm seeing far too many otherwise thoughtful conservatives, particularly those who are Catholic, haphazardly throwing around the word "torture" to describe CIA interrogation techniques, e.g., waterboarding, which entail an infliction of pain to the person being interrogated. Even more annoying is how these opponents to interrogation by pain infliction try to support their position by comparing it to the intrinisic evil of abortion.  

The ridiculousness of comparing an admittedly extreme interrogation technique like waterboarding to abortion is perfectly illustrated in this 2006 Catholic Answers piece by Fr. Brian Harrison. If waterboarding is morally comparable to anything, at least from the standpoint of the Catholic faith, it would be to something like capital punishment or the death penalty. Opponents to interrogation by pain infliction who throw around the "torture" label in a preemptive attempt to cut off debate would be well advised to remember this, lest they want to be regarded as making an unserious, bad faith argument.

I'm Still Blogging

Just doing it in 140 wordscharacters or less, and in the right hand sidebar.

The Incoherent Ravings of a Prop. 8 Opponent (Answer the Question!)

Starting last night and going into part of today, I got into a running "debate" on Twitter with an anti-Proposition 8 advocate who goes by the username @joconor. Suffice it to say, @joconor, like so many leftist ideologues, wasn't much interested in fact or reason as he kept repeating the fallacies that Prop. 8 expressly discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and actually forces people to do things on penalty of legal sanction or prosecution. Emblematic of @joconor's penchant for mindlessly filtering everything through an ideological prism, or maybe @joconor just can't read, is his repeated non-responsive answers to my partly rhetorical questions of whether he would support enacting laws which protect bald people from discrimination (bald folk, after all, don't choose to be or go bald):

Me: Well, God mad me bald (ed: my somewhat flippant response to @joconor's unsubstantiated assertion that God makes gay people gay). Should I have legal rights given to me, by judicial fiat, on that basis?!

@joconor: You should not not be excluded from civil rights on the basis of being bald.

Me: You didn't answer the question. Should there be a law granting legal protection on the basis of baldness?

@joconor: I would not support a law discriminating on the basis of baldness anymore than i would sexual orientation.

I swear, it was like talking to someone who didn't understand English.

Update: I included a parenthetical to the title of this post in order to more accurately reflect what it's about.

Update 2: A clear dipsh!t who thinks "logic" consists of unsubstantiated assertions and disregard of fact and reason.

The Path which Led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church

I'm sure I must have been told who the first governor of California was when I was in grade school many moons ago, but I only just discovered that Peter Hardeman Burnett was a Catholic convert. He even wrote a book about it, which you can read/download for free here. (h/t)

Notre Dame May Have Finally Decided to Stop Being Catholic

I am a big USC football fan, and so I was a little disappointed to learn yesterday that Manti Te'o, a highly recruited and prized high school football player from Hawaii, decided to play for Notre Dame and not USC. This disappointment, however, is infinitely minor in comparison to my disappointment with Notre Dame, and the seeming primacy of importance it places on football over its Catholic identity and foundation.

Because he is Mormon, Manti Te'o may very well be taking a leave of absence from Notre Dame after his freshman year in order to embark on a religious mission; a mission which entails proselytizing a Mormon faith that the Catholic Church does not deem to be theologically Christian. Should Te'o leave on a mission and be allowed to later return on full scholarship, I just don't see how Notre Dame can escape the charge that it effectively supported the proselytizing of a non-Catholic/Christian religion. Of course, maybe Notre Dame just doesn't want to be Catholic anymore.

G@ys: The Most Socially Privileged "Victims" in America

On reading the required textbook for the marketing class I'm taking, I came across the following bit of information about self-identified homosexuals in the United States:

Compared to the average U.S. consumer, respondents who classify themselves as gay are over 10 times more likely to be in professional jobs, almost 2 times as likely to own a vacation home, 8 times more likely to own a notebook computer, and 2 times as likely to own individual stocks. (Laura Koss-Feder, "Out and About," Marketing News, May 25, 1998, pp. 1, 20.

So how bad do individuals with homosexual orientations really have it here? Not bad at all, unless you're one of those incredible idiots who not only equates sexual orientation with race, but thinks that not being able to designate an otherwise legally recognized civil union as "marriage" is a denial of a human right.

Stay Close to the Soul

That's the slogan for Dewey Weber International, a small Southern California-based company that primarily makes and sells surfboards. The marketing class I'm taking for my MBA program has been "hired" by Dewey Weber to put together and present a plan to help expand its business and clientele. There's a really fascinating story behind Dewey Weber, and the possibilities for marketing its products and name brand are numerous. The fact that this class project involves surfing should make it a fun endeavor.

Obama May Select Kathleen Sullivan to be Solicitor General

As reported by Bloomberg. (h/t) Sullivan, who is apparently a lesbian (natch), is a former dean of Stanford Law School. I'm really only posting this news item because it affords me the opportunity to mention the relatively amusing fact that Sullivan, a graduate of Harvard Law, failed the California Bar, i.e., law licensing, Exam in 2005 (she passed it on her second try in 2006).

In case you're wondering, I passed the California Bar Exam on my first try right after graduating from a no-name law school in 2001. On average, over 60 percent of first time takers pass.

My New Year's Resolution: Chew More Gum

I've finally figured out how to "cure" my tendency to become frustratingly drowsy every time I drive for more than 30 minutes on the freeway or read a book. Just keep my mouth and jaw moving by chewing gum.

It's been years since I've chewed gum, so when I went to go buy a pack the other day, I was little surprised to learn at how many different brands of gum are out there. And practically all them are sugarless. It's going to be a great 2009; I can feel it.

Recall Jerry Brown!

Somehow, I just knew Moonbeam was going to give the majority of California voters the finger. What an ass!

CA Dems Vote for $11 Billion Tax Hike

According to my State Assemblyman, and 2010 Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Chuck DeVore. The Dems have passed this tax hike even though they didn't garner the constitutionally required 2/3 supermajority vote of the State Legislature (see Article 13A Section 3). How are the Dems, who are the majority party in the Legislature, trying to get away with this? Basically by disingenuously referring to the taxes as "regulatory fees." An example of such a fee would be the money you might have paid for your driver's license or library card.

This is just maddening. Hopefully, lawyers for the State Republican Party, or some tax watchdog group, are busily drawing up a lawsuit to stop this illegal tax hike from being imposed.

Update (12/19/08): Looks as though Ahnuld will veto the bill, but not necessarily because of the illegal tax hike. Whatever. As long the thing dies a deserved death. (via Chuck Devore)

Mug Shots of the Year

See if you can spot what they've all got in common.

It's Like Auburn's Hiring of Gene Chizik

The Good Old Boys' Network is alive and well in DC as Barry taps Chicago Schools Chief Arne Duncan to be Education Secretary, despite the fact that under Duncan's watch only 17 percent of 8th graders in Chicago can read at grade level. In sports terms, that's almost like being named the head coach of a traditional college football powerhouse, even though you've just compiled a 10 game losing streak at another school.

Time Magazine is No Different Than Mother Jones

Just a couple of weeks after Time magazine ran an article that mindlessly concluded Pope Benedict was a "Scrooge", there's news that the magazine's Washington bureau chief, Jay Carney, is going to be the communications director for Vice-President Elect Joe "I'm Not a Pope John Paul II Kind of Guy" Biden.

I don't know about you, but Carney's hiring by Biden raises all kinds of red flags for me on the supposed objectivity of Time magazine's past election coverage.

A Photo a Day in the Life...

What a great idea. (h/t)

Obama Has Short Coattails - Freezer Boy Gets Ousted

Soon to be Congressman Joseph Cao appears to be a GOP superstar in the making.

Revisiting the Trial of the Ages

Michael Foley has a nice recap and evaluation of a conference held last month at the University of Dallas on the trial of St. Thomas More. Man, I wish I could have attended.

Every aspect of the trial was scrutinized. What did it mean to take an oath in the sixteenth century? What were More’s legal rights, and were they respected? Was due process observed during the trial? Did Richard Rich perjure himself, or did he merely misremember his conversation with More that became the most damning piece of evidence submitted? How much pressure were the judges and the jury under from Henry VIII? Which, if any, of the four extant accounts of the trial is the most accurate? And how did More ensure that his side of the story would be heard through his writings without incurring further suspicion of treason?

The conference was filled with surprises. For instance, did you know that we have no copy of the oath which More famously refused to take? That no official transcript of the trial was made? That we are not certain whether there were one, three, or four formal charges? That, contrary to current legal practice, the more grave the case, the fewer the rights of the accused? That More’s civil rights, as defined by English law at the time, may have been more or less respected? In other words, there was nothing procedurally unusual about More spending years imprisoned in the Tower of London, undergoing several interrogations, being suddenly brought to court for trial, and hearing the charges against him (read in Latin) for the first and only time. And there was considered nothing untoward in having judges sitting on the bench with a vested interest (to put it mildly) in seeing More condemned, such as an uncle, a brother, and the father of Anne Boleyn.

As for those charges, there were at most four in number: that Thomas More maliciously refused to acknowledge the king’s supremacy over the Church in England; that he had conspired against the king with Bishop John Fisher; that he had instigated sedition by calling the Act of Supremacy a two-edged sword; and that he had, according to the testimony of Richard Rich, “maliciously, traitorously, and diabolically” denied Parliament’s power to declare the king head of the English Church.

'SC Continues to Rule L.A.

The fifth ranked Trojans secure a spot in the Rose Bowl against Penn State with a solid 28-7 win over cross-town rival UCLA. But for an early season loss against Oregon State, and the media driven overhyping of the South Eastern Conference, USC really should be playing in the National Championship Game next month/year.

Jeff Israely of Time Magazine is an Ignorant Asshat

Israely unjustifiably calls the pope "Scrooge", then gets his panties all in a wad over the pope's desire to reign in the often overindulged "sign of peace" exchange during the Mass.(h/t)

Tapping Hillary for Secretary of State Now Makes Perfect Sense

Damn Skynet!





(Pictures from the "Hillary was Sent Back in Time to Kill John Connor" group)

County in Alabama Declares Obama Holiday

This was only mildly annoying. This , however, takes the cake for complete absurdity. (h/t)

A small central Alabama county whose mainly black residents gave Barack Obama more than 70 percent of the vote on Election Day has created an annual holiday in honor of the president-elect.

The Perry County Commission voted 4 to 1 to observe the second Monday in November as "The Barack Obama Day." County offices will close and its roughly 40 workers will get a paid holiday.

The sponsoring commissioner, Albert Turner Jr., said the holiday is meant to highlight the Democratic president-elect's victory as a way to give people faith that difficult goals can be achieved.

Harry Reid Says You Stink

In particular reference to those of you who may have visited DC during any summer before the completion of the new and over priced visitor center on Capitol Hill.



P.S. In addition to a boondoggle, the new visitor center is apparently an homage to the pagan/secular Left.

Seventh Straight Over the Irish!

Fight On! Beat the Bruins!

Death Certificates

Planned Parenthood's depth of evil knows no bounds.

Planned Parenthood, which in past years has promoted a "Choice on Earth" abortion campaign during the Christmas season, has a new outreach, offering Christmas gift certificates to be used for abortions.

"It is difficult to think of a more tasteless, ghoulish thing to give anyone. I refuse to refer to these financial instruments as gifts as they are nothing more than a legal way to put a hit out on someone," said a participant in a forum at the online Lone Star Times, where the plan was reported.

"Planned Parenthood, this generation's King Herod, you know, the guy who ordered the mass slaughter of babies when Jesus was born," added WND columnist Jill Stanek, who also documented the plan on her blog.

Best TV Theme Songs

The all times list isn't bad, and I agree with what's ranked number 1, but the current shows list is sorely wanting. Egregiously omitted from the latter list are the themes songs from The Office and Smallville. (h/t)

Miami Judge Says Sexually Disordered People Can Adopt Children

That's not expressly what this clown jurist said, but her ruling presumes an unproven fact; namely, that same sex attraction, i.e., homosexuality, is perfectly normal.

B. Hussein Obama Public Elementary School

Believe it or not, there now is One. (h/t)

People are gonna feel really dumb when this guy turns out to be, at best, a mediocre President.

Get 'Em Ready Just In Case

Though it appears unlikely that the California Supreme Court will once again overrule the will of the people by striking down Proposition 8, I'm hoping that recall petitions have been prepared and ready to be immediately circulated in case the Court ends up doing the inexcusable.

FYI: Chief Justice Ronald George, along with Associate Justices Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdeger and Carlos Moreno, all voted to strike down Proposition 22, the statutory precursor to Prop. 8.

No Zoning Variance For You!

See the "loving" Beaufort County South Carolina councilwomyn explain why the Church's "ideological" positions on womyn's ordination and abortion are reasons for denying a local parish's rezoning application.

Sure she later issued an apology, but only for unintentionally offending anyone. In other words, she's not sorry for publicly expressing her bigotry. (h/t)

Eric Holder Should be Vigorously Opposed

More details about Barry's Attorney General selection from National Review:

Holder was the Clinton administration’s last deputy attorney general, succeeding Jamie Gorelick in 1997 under Janet Reno. That appointment marked the final elevation in a series of Clinton-era promotions that punctuate his résumé. Holder’s rise, like Obama’s own, is of symbolic significance, as he now has been nominated to be the nation’s first black attorney general. Symbolism, however, cannot camouflage the fact that Holder is a conventional, check-the-boxes creature of the Left.

He is convinced justice in America needs to be “established” rather than enforced; he’s excited about hate crimes and enthusiastic about the constitutionally dubious Violence Against Women Act; he’s a supporter of affirmative action and a practitioner of the statistical voodoo that makes it possible to burden police departments with accusations of racial profiling and the states with charges of racially skewed death-penalty enforcement; he’s more likely to be animated by a touchy-feely Reno-esque agenda than traditional enforcement against crimes; he’s in favor of ending the detentions of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and favors income redistribution to address the supposed root causes of crime.

(...)

Much has been made, and appropriately so, of Holder’s untoward performance in the final corrupt act of the Clinton administration: the pardons issued in the departing president’s final hours. Of these, most notorious is the case of Marc Rich, an unrepentant fugitive wanted on extensive fraud, racketeering, and trading-with-the-enemy charges — but granted a pardon nonetheless thanks to the intercession of his ex-wife, a generous donor to Clinton’s library and legal-defense fund.

Holder’s role was aptly described as “unconscionable” by a congressional committee. He steered Rich’s allies to retain the influential former White House counsel Jack Quinn (Holder later conceded he hoped Quinn would help him become attorney general in a Gore administration); he helped Quinn directly lobby Clinton, doing an end-run around the standard pardon process (including DOJ’s pardon attorney); and he kept the deliberations hidden from the district U.S. attorney and investigative agencies prosecuting Rich so they couldn’t learn about the pardon application and register their objections.

There’s more. In 1999, over the objections of the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and prosecuting attorneys, Holder supported Clinton’s commutation of the sentences of 16 FALN conspirators. These pardons — of terrorists who even Holder has conceded had not expressed any remorse — were issued in the months after al-Qaeda’s 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, when the Clinton administration was pretending to be the scourge of terrorism. The commutations were nakedly political, obviously designed by Clinton to assist his wife’s impending Senate campaign by appealing to New York’s substantial Puerto Rican vote.

Equally noxious were the stealthy pardons of Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans — Weather Underground terrorists associated with Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn — issued on the same day as the Rich pardon. Rosenberg and Evans had been serving decades-long sentences for bombings targeting American government facilities. With Holder again helping to circumvent the pardon process and to evade objections from prosecutors, the terrorists’ jail terms were commuted just weeks after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.

Borrowing from former NFL head coach Dennis Green, Obama is who we thought he was with the selection of Eric Holder for U.S. Attorney General. Namely, a radical leftist.

Fight the Future

Increasingly Looking More Like Clinton Part III

There's definitely a pattern to the staffing of Obama's incoming administration. And while the linked to blog post jokes about Janet Reno, I heard on the Laura Ingraham Show this morning that she is actually being considered by Barry for the spot of Attorney General!

Update: Newsweek reports that Eric Holder, a Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton era who pushed through the pardon of Marc Rich, is being tapped by Barry for the AG position. (h/t)

Update 2: Byron York at The Corner recounts the following exchanges between the late Tim Russert and Eric Holder just prior to and after the Elian Gonzalez matter in 2000:

Russert: "You wouldn't send a SWAT team in the dark of night to kidnap the child, in effect?"

Holder: "No, we don't expect anything like that to happen."

(The day after Elian was seized by SWAT eqiupped agents)

Russert: "Why such a dramatic change in position?"

Holder: "I'm not sure I'd call it a dramatic change...We waited 'til five in the morning, just before dawn."

Kmiec Spins for The One at St. John's Seminary

Carl Olson does a mini Fisking of DK's Obama apologia.

Kmiec, it seems, is of the belief that the Freedom of Choice Act, which Barry has said he would sign if elected President, will never make it out of the House of Representatives. Dougie doesn't seem to mention whether he would publicly renounce his support of Barry if it did.

How Obama Got Elected

He won the ignoramus vote, which in large part was created by the Lame Stream Media.

All Around Jerk Gets Charged With Insider Trading

Mark Cuban is not only one of the most obnoxious team owners in professional sports, he is the a-hole who helped bankroll the anti-military and Bush assassination-chic films "Redacted" and "Death of a President" (both of which were box office flops). I'm not a believer in karma, but it seems more than a little coincidental that bad things always seem to eventually happen to bad people.

I Knew I Should Have Made a Money Contribution!

For me, being on the enemies list of the lavender mafia would be a welcomed opportunity to widely expose these people as the ideological fascists that they are. (h/t)

In addition to protests, gay activists have begun publishing lists online exposing individuals and organizations who have donated money in support of Proposition 8. On AntiGayBlacklist.com, individuals who gave money toward Proposition 8 are publicized, with readers urged not to patronize their businesses or services. The list of donors was culled from data on ElectionTrack.com, which follows all contributions of over $1,000 and all contributions of over $100 given before October 17. Dentists, accountants, veterinarians and the like who gave a few thousand dollars to the cause are listed alongside major donors like the Container Supply Co., Inc. of Garden Grove, Calif., which gave $250,000. "Anyone who steps into a political fight aimed at taking away fundamental rights from fellow citizens opens themselves up to criticism," said Wolfson. "The First Amendment gives them the right of freedom of speech and to support political views, but people also have the right to criticize them."

Even before the passage of Proposition 8, Californians Against Hate compiled and published a "dishonor roll" of those individuals, along with their company affiliations, who gave $5,000 or more towards supporting the measure. Telephone numbers and Web sites were added along with commentary about some of the larger donors to public information obtained through the California Secretary of State's Office. "My goal was to make it socially unacceptable to give huge amounts of money to take away the rights of one particular group, a minority group," says Fred Karger, a retired political consultant and founder of Californians Against Hate. "I wanted to make the public aware of who these people are and how much they're giving and then they could make a decision as to whether or not they want to patronize their businesses."

The negative publicity is having effects on both companies and individuals. Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, whose $1,000 donation was listed on ElectionTrack, chose to resign from his post this week to protect the theater from public criticism. Karger says a "soft boycott" they started against Bolthouse Farms, which gave $100,000 to Proposition 8, was dropped after he reached a settlement with the company. Bolthouse Farms was to give an equal amount of money to gay political causes. The amount ultimately equaled $110,000.

Aide to Barbara Boxer Arrested for Kiddie Porn

Dollars to donuts this sick pervert undoubtedly shared his leftist boss's opposition to Proposition 8. Not that there's necessarily a direct correlation between opposing a traditional definition of marriage and a disordered love for kiddie porn, but when the basis of each arises solely from thinking with one's libido, the correlation is unmistakable.

Stop Calling It a Ban

You know, I wish people, i.e., the supposedly objective MSM (snort!), would stop calling a legally codified definition of marriage as a "ban" on anything. Nothing is per se being outlawed.

Obamajugend

I honestly don't want to think the worst of Barry, but when he's proposing stuff which evoke troubling images of similar endeavors from not so very long ago, it isn't easy. (h/t)



p.s. Rahm Emmanuel is, or will be, Obama's Chief of Staff.

Ninth Circuit Gets Punk'd by SCOTUS...Again

This time in the case of Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a case involving the Navy's sonar program. Also rolled by the SCOTUS in this case is the trial judge, Florence Marie Cooper, an otherwise unimpressive Clinton appointee who decided that dubious, i.e., unproven, environmentalist claims were a lot more important than our country's national security.

Chuck DeVore for U.S. Senate 2010

He's currently a California State Assemblyman who represents my district in Orange County. Go here for his campaign website.

Whether DeVore has a shot at beating the far left Barbara Boxer in two years, much less winning the State Republican Party nomination, remains to be seen. It'll be an uphill battle for sure, if only because DeVore has almost no name recognition outside of Orange County. But he has a couple of years to work on it, and with a little help of expected incompetency from a Democrat controlled Congress and White House, you just never know. It's why you play the game.

Just in Time for Christmas

If I didn't think it would be perceived as me having ODS, I'd buy one and wear it for the irony.

Is it Plausible Chris Matthews is an Idiot?

Absolutely. But in this case, his mistaken reference to Africa as a country rather than a continent was clearly a slip of the tongue, and not something he believes to be true. Be nice if Matthews gave the same benefit of the doubt to Sarah Palin and the anonymous smears that have made against her. Don't hold your breath on that happening.

You Suck, Arnold!

Schwarzenegger gives encouragement to anti-Prop. 8 goons.

In past statements, he has said he personally believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and has rejected legislation authorizing same-sex marriage. Yet he has also said he would not care if same-sex marriage were legal, saying he believed that such an important societal issue should be determined by the voters or the courts.

Following that position, he publicly opposed Proposition 8, which amends the state Constitution to declare that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Today, Schwarzenegger urged backers of gay marriage to follow the lesson he learned as a bodybuilder trying to lift weights that were too heavy for him at first. “I learned that you should never ever give up. . . . They should never give up. They should be on it and on it until they get it done.”

I always knew Arnold was a RINO, which is why I never voted for him. And damn the California Republican Party for supporting this squish when he ran for reelection back in 2006.