podpolia

I ran across a good link on Power Line today: Our Mission is Finally Accomplished… Anyone Care? It’s a really good article, and worth the reading.

I have now seen several blogs mention the “Roadmap for America’s Future“, and I decided I should take a look at it. I was quite thoroughly impressed. It looks like what they have created is a comprehensive alternate plan for government — and generally following most of the common-sense proposals that have been languishing for years. It’s simple, easy to understand, and who WOULDN’T want a “highly simplified income tax system that fits on a postcard”? (The US tax code, as of 2006, comes to 16,845 pages. Ouch.)
I strongly suggest that you take a look at the website above, or if you’re like me and want to skip all the flashy advertisement, take a look at the PDF of the entire report. I know it’s 99 pages long, but just take a look through the summary on pages iii through vii to get an idea of what it’s like, and read the full report for the parts you’re interested in. Even if you’re not so interested in the policy aspects of it, the historical analysis of how we got to where we are today is very good, and worth a look.
I have worried for some time now that while politicians could still bitterly denounce the policies they oppose, they were unable to create a simple, workable replacement for the current scheme. I’m glad to see that I was wrong.

There’s an interesting piece here by a passenger on Flight 253 on what he saw versus what the government has been saying. It’s pretty clear that there’s more to the story than the government wishes to admit, and for once we have somebody who knows what went on that is willing to challenge the official version of the story. Definitely food for thought.

Some of you may have noticed (ok, so probably nobody noticed, but you’ve noticed now that I have said something about it) that I have deleted Little Green Footballs from my blogroll. I’ve been considering doing it for some time, and finally decided that it had to be done. I posted my reasoning in the comments on his post on “Why I Parted Ways With The Right.” The post has capably been disassembled by Rusty and his furry minions, but I felt that I wanted to make my own objections clear. I will repost it here, as I believe that it is something that should be said, and Charles seems to have been deleting the posts of those who similarly indicated their displeasure with (and their intention to disassociate themselves from) him, referring to the idea that it “is a form of mental illness” for people to think he will leave their posts up. Admittedly, he refers to them as “hate-filled,” but as they have been deleted, I am unable to judge whether they were indeed hate-filled, or simply opposition-fille (or jelly-filled, perhaps?). I suppose time will tell if my post is hate-filled enough to get it deleted, but here it is in its entirety:

Well, it has been an interesting few years during which I regularly read LGF. One of the things that I liked initially about this site, Charles, was that you were a moderate who was willing to focus on issues rather than parroting a party line. Unfortunately, we have come to a parting of the ways.
I have become more and more concerned recently, Charles, with your willingness to paint everyone on ‘the right’ with a disturbingly broad brush. Does the Republican party deserve criticism? Yes. Is it productive to accuse virtually anyone that you disagree with of secretly being racist / homophobic / religious fanatics / bigots / insert-derogatory-term-here? No, it is not.
Perhaps the most important thing that I learned while doing my undergraduate degree in political science was that in really good debate, you have to be able to focus on the ideas rather than on your thoughts about the people who you perceive as holding those ideas. It’s possible to have a productive political debate with people you find morally reprehensible, just as it’s possible to strenuously disagree with people you really like.
Political discourse is cheapened — often to the point of worthlessness — when it simply becomes an ad hominem slug-fest. By all means, disagree with others, make moral evaluations of their actions and words, and share your opinions. However, when you start attacking the characters of those you disagree with instead of engaging on the topic at hand, expect productive political debate to expire quickly.
If you want to declare this post to be a “goodbye, cruel world” post and delete it so that others will not be able to see it, go right ahead. You may delete my user account as well — I would save you the trouble, but after a cursory examination of the account settings page, I could not find a way to delete my own account.
I wish you the best, Charles, and I hope that one day I will be able to return to regularly reading and enjoying your commentary. For now, however, I will be deleting my bookmarks.

UPDATE 12/3/09 15:29: My suspicions were correct. My post apparently was ‘hate filled’, as it has also been deleted. Charles’ comment — apparently on deleting the post — was “And another one. Amazing.”

Another what? Another “hate-filled” comment? Apparently. It would be interesting to know exactly which of the comment guidelines I broke — “Obscene, abusive, silly, or annoying remarks”? Containing personal information or claiming “First!”? Advocation of violence? It certainly brings some light to bear on his statement that “Disagreement and debate are welcome”. If a post like mine is considered “insult[ing] or abus[ive]” and thus not acceptable disagreement, one wonders just what kind of disagreement is allowed.

By the looks of it, only cheerleading posts are allowed. Surprise, surprise.

One of Rusty’s furry minions has an interesting post about a recent confontation between an outspoken veteran and Code Pink. Here is the interview that a local channel was trying to have with the veteran — note the Code Pink people shoehorning their way into it. I particularly like his statement from about 1:50 to 2:11. The confrontation is here, starting around 1:50. It looks to me as though he was trying to talk to her (note the attempt to sidestep the bullhorn) and she then pushed the bullhorn into his face at least once before he knocked it away. I can’t tell what happened shortly after that when one of the women says he pushed her — it looks like he bumped her while gesturing, she shoved him, and he shoved back, although part of it seems to be happening behind her and off camera, so it’s hard to tell. She keeps yelling at him as he tries to retrieve his beret, and it looks like he and two of the code pink demonstrators push back and forth for a while.

Note that while the demonstrators claimed at the beginning that the Air Force had no right to make them leave the area in front of the base sign at the beginning of the video, they treat the soldiers who show up and step into the middle of the argument as authority figures until the police show up and they all start clamoring to press charges against him (it sounds like about 3 of them want to press charges for him pushing them — something the video may or may not support). The freepers’ report of the incident says that no charges were filed — good for the police. They say that Cindy Sheehan  (the woman with the bullhorn, who incidentally was later complaining that she got a ticket for obstructing traffic) was going to look into “legal action” against the vet. From the evidence in the video, I’d say she hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell — you can’t push a bullhorn into an angry man’s face and then claim you were assaulted when he slaps it away. There may be more chance for the woman who first claimed that he pushed her, but I think that just about anyone would be able to see that she was intentionally trying to start a confrontation of some kind, and be less than sympathetic.

In the end, good on the veteran for standing up for his principles and his country. It may be a good idea to stay one step farther away the next time, however.

In the past I have been very hesitant to believe that the anthropogenic global warming movement was a ‘conspiracy’ of any kind. It is generally silly to automatically paint any organized group that one disagrees with as a conspiracy to hide the truth. However, ‘conspiracy’ may be closer to the reality than I suspected.

If the leaked data is actually legit, there needs to be a major shake-up in the ranks of global warming supporters. The entrepreneurs and others have been basing their arguments and behavior on the scientific foundation, and this may have shattered that foundation.

H/t my dad.

It’s no wonder that Obama was concerned about the price of arugula during the campaign last year if this is the place he buys his.

Almost makes you think that the open mockery from the right during the campaign was justified, doesn’t it?

As some of you may have seen already, the White House is on the lookout for “fishy” statements about health care reform. This has prompted some people guilty of thoughtcrime against the President’s initiatives to bravely turn themselves in. I (as the model citizen I am) have been on the lookout for similar offenses against the sainted words of our Dear Leader, and I believe I have found one. I herewith append my denunciation:

From:     Chris Barner <cbarner@podpolia.com>
To:     flag@whitehouse.gov
Subject:     A Fishy Report
Date:     Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:28:43 -0400

Dear White House,
I wish to report something fishy that I have seen about the health care
debate. I found a video of someone purporting to be President Obama and
saying all kinds of things about how he supports “a single-payer health
care plan” and “a universal health care plan.” This is OBVIOUSLY far
different than what the President has repeatedly said he wants during
the recent debates on the topic. The link to the video is here:
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-in-03-id-like-to-see-a-single-payer-health-care-plan/
I thought you would want to know so you can expose this man (whoever he
is) as a liar.
Good luck finding and correcting him!
Chris Barner
–
Chris Barner
cbarner@podpolia.com

http://www.podpolia.com

That will teach whoever that guy is.