The Value Of This Book Really Held Up

I was at my local book store and found this gem in the dollar rack. It was a bit over the top, I thought.

See what being promised rainbows and skittle crapping unicorns will produce? Instead of a mediocre kids book, the author produced a book that brown-nosed BHO to the point of making Waylon Smithers look like Dolly, Jane and Lily.

Books like this always remind me of the this essay about The Artist and The Collective. The sad thing is the author went willingly into the collective void. No force needed, even Stalin would be impressed.

"Useful Idiots"

Via Ace (If Ace is Hot Air South, then this site is quickly becoming Ace of Spades South). He linked to this radio documentary about "Useful Idiots" about a week back but it's worth checking out. It's downloadable in two parts (Part I and Part II, both about twenty minutes long).  Put them on the iPod and listen to them on the way into work.  And tell people you're listening to the BBC.  It helps to make you sound classy and know more than they do (Not to mention giving you one up over those NPR listening snobs). 

Listening about the death camps in Part I wasn't shocking.  What was shocking was how many people liked and approved of them.  They were happy that some undesirables 'Went away'.  Stalin had the ability to take the brilliant piece 'Shut Up' by Andrew Klavan to a very extreme level.  

In trying to make the perfect system on Earth, utopia's always end with death camps. 

If you think that a perfect society isn't what the modern Democrat Party is looking for, then listen to what Alan Grayson says here.  If this doesn't chill you to the bone, I'm not sure what would.

"The Federal Government Can Do Most Anything in This Country"

The lady asking the question has a very valid point about Obamacare and how it institutes involuntary servitude. Also known as 'Slavery'.

Rep. Pete Stark answers back in a very honest manner.



For more about Pete Stark "Raving Mad", Michelle Malkin has an older video of him threatening to throw an interviewer out of a window.

A Couple Of Notes About The Journolist

Of the known Journolist members, it's a pretty pasty white crowd. I would have to go to a tea party to see a greater percentage of ethnic diversity than the first 100 members of the Journolist.

Also, it's members have more interrelations between political and advocacy groups than the cast of characters in your average daytime soap opera. It's downright incestuous.

So for an exit question, besides being like minded thinkers-- for lack of a better term-- and pretty much all if not most of them knew most of the Journolist inner circle-- at the very least, had access to it-- what was the real reason behind the Journolist if it wasn't for message coordination?

Besides the need to congratulate themselves while sipping on a juicebox?

Reading Between The Lines Of Ezra Klein's Reason Why He Is Closing Down The Journolist

The 'Famed' Journolist that Ezra Klein helped found is being scrubbed in the wake of fellow member David Weigel resigning from the Washington Post. All after Weigel's emails became public. The Journolist-- a place where liberal bloggers can practice epistemic closure and group-think in safety-- is going bye-bye. He announced the closing of the list the other day and I did what I could to separate what he said and what he really meant.

I began Journolist in February of 2007. It was an idea born from disagreement. Weeks, or maybe months, earlier, I had criticized Time's Joe Klein over some comments he made about the Iraq War. He e-mailed a long and searching reply, and the subsequent conversation was educational for us both. Taking the conversation out of the public eye made us less defensive, less interested in scoring points. I learned about his position, and why he held it, in ways that I wouldn't have if our argument had remained in front of an audience.

I wasn't allowed on other email lists. So I packed up my toys and started my own 'Cool Kids Club'. Joe Klein wasn't invited.

The experience crystallized an idea I'd been kicking around for some time. I was on all sorts of e-mail lists, but none that quite got at the daily work of my job: Following policy and political trends in both the expert community and the media. But I always knew how much I was missing. There were only so many phone calls I could make in a day. There were only so many times when I knew the right question to ask. By not thinking of the right person to interview, or not asking the right question when I got them on the phone, or not intuiting that an economist would have a terrific take on the election, I was leaving insights on the table.

There was always some token Republican or conservative on those lists. They made me feel yucky. Always making me doubt myself. I didn't want that. Plus, seeing how I was in charge of the list, I can always make sure my two cents were the last word on any subject.

That was the theory behind Journolist: An insulated space where the lure of a smart, ongoing conversation would encourage journalists, policy experts and assorted other observers to share their insights with one another. The eventual irony of the list was that it came to be viewed as a secretive conspiracy, when in fact it was always a fractious and freewheeling conversation meant to open the closed relationship between a reporter and his source to a wider audience.

We would tell dick jokes. A lot.

At the beginning, I set two rules for the membership. The first was the easy one: No one who worked for the government in any capacity could join. The second was the hard one: The membership would range from nonpartisan to liberal, center to left. I didn't like that rule, but I thought it necessary: There would be no free conversation in a forum where people had clear incentives to embarrass each other. A bipartisan list would be a more formal debating society. Plus, as Liz Mair notes, there were plenty of conservative list servs, and I knew of military list servs, and health-care policy list servs, and feminist list servs. Most of these projects limited membership to facilitate a particular sort of conversation. It didn't strike me as a big deal to follow their example.

Obviously the first rule was flexible. The second was ironclad. There was a third rule. "No Girls Allowed". That soon went away. Besides, this was my list. Where else can I safely announce that I grew my first pubic hair?

But over the years, Journolist grew, and as it grew, its relative exclusivity became more infamous, and its conversations became porous. The leaks never bothered me, though. What I didn't expect was that a member of the list, or someone given access by a member of the list, would trawl through the archives to assemble a dossier of quotes from one particular member and then release them to an interested media outlet to embarrass him. But that's what happened to David Weigel. Private e-mails were twisted into a public story.

David Weigel must have really, really pissed someone off.

In a column about Stanley McChrystal today, David Brooks talks about the union of electronic text, unheralded transparency, 24/7 media and a culture that has not yet settled on new rules for what is, and isn't, private, and what is, and isn't, newsworthy. "The exposure ethos, with its relentless emphasis on destroying privacy and exposing impurities, has chased good people from public life, undermined public faith in institutions and elevated the trivial over the important," he writes.

This is both good and bad. The good is that we can help craft a media message for someone like George Allan and the word, "Macacca"* and keep it alive until it sinks his candidacy. The bad is there is no way in hell we can spin any good out of Bob Etherigde and his assault on two students. But to in an effort to spin gold out of straw, we did our best to make sure the story is dropped soon.

There's a lot of faux-intimacy on the Web. Readers like that intimacy, or at least some of them do. But it's dangerous. A newspaper column is public, and writers treat it as such. So too is a blog. But Twitter? It's public, but it feels, somehow, looser, safer. Facebook is less public than Twitter, and feels even more intimate. A private e-mail list is not public, but it is electronically archived text, and it is protected only by a password field and the good will of the members. It's easy to talk as if it's private without considering the possibility, unlikely as it is, that it will one day become public, and that some ambitious gossip reporters will dig through it for an exposure story. And because that possibility doesn't feel fully real, people still talk like it's private and then get burned if it goes public.

There will be a blood oath in order to get on the next list. And whoever leaks this list, their nuts will be on an anvil. Hence, the no girls rule again.

Broadly speaking, neither journalism nor the public has quite decided on how to handle this explosion of information about people we're interested in. A newspaper reporter opposing the Afghanistan war in a news story is doing something improper. A newspaper reporter telling his wife he opposes the war is being perfectly proper. If someone had been surreptitiously taping that reporter's conversations with his wife, there'd be no doubt that was a violation of privacy, and the gathered remarks and observations were illegitimate. If a batch of that reporter's e-mails were obtained and forwarded along? People are less sure what to do about it. So, for now, they use it. Facebook pictures get used too, though there's a bit of shame in it. If the trend continues as it is, people will become much more careful in those forums. For now, we're in an awful transition, where we haven't quite adjusted for the public sphere's ability to appropriate the freshly-enlarged private sphere.

We aren't the gatekeepers of information like we use to be. And more and more people are starting to hold us accountable for what we say and do.

It was ironic, in a way, that it would be the Daily Caller that published e-mails from Journolist. A few weeks ago, its editor, Tucker Carlson, asked if he could join the list. After asking other members, I said no, that the rules had worked so far to protect people, and the members weren't comfortable changing them. He tried to change my mind, and I offered, instead, to partner with Carlson to start a bipartisan list serv. That didn't interest him.

Neener, neener. Tucker couldn't join. Hindsight being what it is, maybe I should have let him joined.

In any case, Journolist is done now. I'll delete the group soon after this post goes live. That's not because Journolist was a bad idea, or anyone on it did anything wrong. It was a wonderful, chaotic, educational discussion. I'm proud of having started it, grateful to have participated in it, and I have no doubt that someone else will re-form it, with many of the same members, and keep it going. Hopefully, it will lose some of its mystique in the process, and be understood more for what it is: One of many e-mail lists where people talk about things they're interested in. But insofar as the current version of Journolist has seen its archives become a weapon, and insofar as people's careers are now at stake, it has to die.

And I've posted way too many racist jokes and Buffy fan/fiction stories on that list. I'm scared crapless if someone leaked that.

But did you think the Journolist is going away for good? Journolist 2.0 goes into effect later this evening. As soon as I figure out who leaked Dave's emails, they will be black-balled.

As for Dave, I'm heartbroken that he resigned from The Post. Dave is an extraordinary reporter, and a dear friend. When this is done, there will be a different name on his paychecks, but he will still be an extraordinary reporter, and a dear friend.

I said there were two rules to join the list. There was another set of rules after you were admitted. Weigel broke the first two of those rules. Never admit to being on the list.

People on the list can be outed because of a leak or two. That's acceptable to a certain level. But better the mystique of being on the list and not a member than saying you are a member and then outed as never being on it. At least, that's how I tried to portray it to potential recruits.

Anyhoo, by outing himself, Weigel tried to get in front of a breaking story about the Journolist but the internal rules are set in stone. Dave did the noble thing by throwing himself under the bus.

But don't cry for him. Media Matters is hiring and is looking for someone and I heard (through the Journolist, no less) that they like the cut of Weigel's jib.

*Yes, "Macacca" was before Journolist's time but not other email lists that were active.

So It's Come To This

Comparing the Border Patrol with the KKK.



Before she complains about Arizona, she should take a long walk down 8 Mile Road to see how Detroit has been ran into the ground.

Barney Frank: "Give Us More Authority"

Via Real Clear Politics.

To be fair, Republican do this as well from time to time. Paint their opposition in broad strokes if only to set them up as easy targets to knock down. And most of the time they have legitimate reasons to paint their target as such. But not to the level of rhetoric that liberals use.

Progressives and liberals like to prop up caricatures of what they think a
Republican is in their mind and then have a two minute hate session. Think Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984. I know I've used that analogy before but it's an apt example. Which is where you get Whoopi Goldberg asking John McCain if he wants to bring back slavery.

And even here. With Barney Frank talking about how the Republican party has moved "so far to the right" (laughable in it's own right) that the Republicans will start
dumping motor oil into the rivers as soon as they are in power again. Or something.* All to the cheers and whoops of the useless idiots in the room.

Needless to say, this man does not need anymore power ceded to Congress and the President.



*As for damage to the environment, Captain Kick-Ass has been sitting on his hands for almost 2 months now with a non-stop oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. But that's another posting for another day.

It Goes To Show. . .

. . . That George continues to be the Beatle with the most talent and class.

Welcome To The Party, Orrin

About time you bought a clue as to what Obama is doing.

But you will save your powder in the Senate Confirmation hearings for a real battle and give Elena Kagan a pass. No need to ruffle the feathers of your poker buddies.

The same way you kept your powder dry on Eric "I can call the US a 'Nation of Cowards' but can't call Radical Islam 'Radical Islam'" Holder.

The same way you kept your powder dry on that Wise Latina Woman.

The same way you kept your powder dry on Janet "J-Nap" Napolitano.

And the same way you kept your powder dry on Timmy "Turbo Tax" Geithner. Who, according to the senior Senator from Utah:

[C]alled [Geithner] "brilliant" and "honest" and said that, despite his tax errors, "I don't think we can get a better person for this position. . . . He has the kind of background that should be very helpful to us at this time."

May you go the way of Bob Bennett.

How I Spent My Earth Day

I was the one with the drum.

Insane Blogger Charles Johnson Scrapes Bottom, Tries To Dig Deeper

I'm not linking to the ponytailed aging hippie. The screen capture below captured the basic gist of what the idiot posted.

But should you be so inclined to google the name and click over, CJ is pretty quick to whip out the lable maker and punch out "RAAAAACIST" and stick it on anyone or any political group that dares to disagree with him. When your only tool is a hammer then the entire world is a nail.

In this case, he's seeing around 18 different corners playing 7 dimensional chess to make a some sort of connection between the Tea Parties of today and those protesters of segregation from way back in the 1950s.

Besides holdings signs I mean.

Thanks to Bite Me Comics for the capture.

Do They Not Screen The Names That Sign Up On Their Email List?

I signed up for the Health Care For America Now! (or 4 years later like the bill specifies but why quibble over details?) email blasts under the name 'Harry Nutsack'.

Today, I received this email:

Harry:

The vote is tomorrow. Today is your last chance. It's time to pick up the phone on behalf of Regina Holliday.

Regina's husband was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer, but their insurance company forced them out of the hospital into hospice care after only four weeks of treatment

[Blah blah blah, anecdotal sob story, phone number to my Representative, more blah blah blah. . . ]

After 100 years of fighting, after more than a year of debate, the time has come. Let's win this thing!

To your health,

Jason Rosenbaum
Health Care for America Now

It's a numbers game. HCFAN can say they have X amount of people on their mailing lists. Which they can spin and say that the same amount of emails addresses support their cause.

Sometimes. . .

. . .There are just no words.

John Yarrington was hired, fired and arrested by the police all in the same afternoon.

The 23-year-old Falmouth resident accomplished the dubious feat Tuesday, when the police agreed to make him a confidential drug informant. But less than 10 minutes after participating in a controlled hand-to-hand drug purchase from an East Falmouth dealer, Yarrington used his $100 police payment to buy drugs for himself.

Thanks to Charlie.

Overreact Much?

The Blogfather, Glenn Reynolds publishes a photo from the White House's own Flickr account and this pops up overnight.

The politics of the fanboy. The besteth, most awesometh President evah has his army of mindless zombies and useless idiots that pounce on anything that remotely criticizes President Toonces.

Via Little Miss Attila. If someone ever analyzed my body language the first on the list would be to 'Step Away From The Buffet Table'.

Separated At Birth: Too Good To Check Edition

Especially after hearing about Ricky Hollywood.


Thanks to Carol at No Sheeples Here for the picture.

Jon Stewart Is A Moron

Daily Show Full Episodes

Let me get this straight.

Rush Limbaugh is leaving NYC. Selling his condo, leaving his studio and relocating somewhere else. In the mean time, the people he employed at his condo, his studio and elsewhere are out of a job. Restaurants, and anyone else who depended on Rush as a customer are out that much money due to his lack of patronage. The multimillionaire is leaving town and taking his spending money with him.

And Jon Steward says “Finally”?

What a moron.

Video clip from Hot Air because I don't watch The Daily Show.

War Of Subterfuge And Politics

In the comment sections of any number of political blogs last year, there was someone always claiming to be a conservative but was 'worried' about McCain in some form or another. It was always the same formula. McCain's health, age, mental capability. The 'Concerned Conservative Christian Person' comments hit high gear after Gov. Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's running mate.

Their MO was obvious enough. Ace had them dead to rights.

The script--

1. The Pledge: I'm a conservative/I'm a Christian/I'm a conservative Christian

2. The Turn: My heart is with you guys, really... but I have these concerns...

3. The Prestige: I hear all these great things about Obama and/or did you hear this horrible stuff about Palin?

And of course the simple whitebread, just-plain-folks psuedonym. [Scott, Tom, Eric and the like]

The mission was obvious. To help demoralize the GOP into not voting or even switching their votes for Obama.

Which brings me to Andrew Breitbart.

Political leftists play for keeps. They are willing to lie, perform deceptive acts in a coordinated fashion and do so in a wicked way - all in the pursuit of victory. Moral relativism is alive and well in the land of Hope and Change and its Web-savvy youth brigade expresses its "idealism" in a most cynical fashion.

The ends justify the means for them - now more than ever.

Much of Mr. Obama's vaunted online strategy involved utilizing "Internet trolls" to invade enemy lines under false names and trying to derail discussion. In the real world, that's called "vandalism." But in a political movement that embraces "graffiti" as avant-garde art , that's business as usual. It relishes the ability to destroy other people's property in pursuit of electoral victory.

It's worth reading the entire article.

"Fly, My Monkeys, Fly"

Obama is getting his grassroots (I don't think that word means what he thinks it means) to get his message out as if the TV, print, and internet medium isn't enough.

In what’s shaping up to be a different kind of permanent campaign than is usually waged by Washington’s political consultants, thousands of volunteers across the country took to the streets over the weekend at Obama’s behest. They knocked on doors, stood in front of stores to collect signatures, and urged their neighbors to call their congressman.

With this canvassing operation, the Obama administration is taking traditional presidential strategies for building public support to a whole new level.

The Obamanaughts have their orders. Here are yours:

• Be welcoming and friendly. "Oh, I'm so glad you came by!" Invite them in, ask them to have a seat. Be the gracious host and offer them snacks and beverages. Assure them that you will do anything to help Obama.


• Remember your Prime Objectives. Your objectives are (a) to waste the maximum amount of the Obamanoid volunteer's time, and (b) to ensure that, when they eventually leave, they are as demoralized as possible. Only by intense concentration on these twin objectives can you be fully successful.


• Assure them that you are a loyal Democrat who voted for Obama. The fact that your address is on their clipboard list means that somehow, somewhere along the line, you clicked a link or signed up for something that makes them think you're one of them. Do nothing to spoil this valuable illusion.


• Express extreme disappointment with the president's disastrous beginning in office. You are disappointed -- nay, you are heartbroken beyond words -- by Obama's failure to fulfill his campaign promises of balancing the budget, cutting taxes, etc. You sincerely admire Obama, but are certain that there must be some bad advisors at the White House, or some evil influences among congressional Democrats, who have led Your Dear Leader astray. (Bonus points for you ladies if you can actually work yourself into a crying jag.)


• Draw them out. When you mourn that Obama is destroying the Democratic Party (and remind them again that you have devoted your life to being a loyal Democrat, of course) the Obamanoids will protest to the contrary. Let them talk. Hear them out. Waste their time. Engage them. "Let me get you some more sweet tea, dear . . ." And then find some new angle of attack.


• Be specific. Try to point out specific instances of Obama policies that will hurt women, minorities, the elderly, gays, etc. If you've got an elderly relative who's had his retirement savings wiped out by the market decline, make sure you blame Obama for that, and don't let the clipboard carriers persuade you that it's all Bush's fault.


• Know where to put the knife. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will guarantee a long rant from an Obamanoid as much as when you compare Obama to George W. Bush. "I can't believe it! I've been a Democrat all my life, and I never thought I'd live to see a Democrat president doing this to decent, hard-working Democrats like me. He's ruining my life! It's like he's a closet Republican or something. He's just like that damn George Bush!"


• Save your best for last. When, after you have wasted as much of his time as possible, the Obamanoid finally looks at his watch and says he must leave, be apologetic. "I'm sorry if I've been a little negative." Try to get the Obamanoid's contact information, "just in case I need to talk to you again." And as you walk them to the door, express regret that they are being "forced to work for those damned bastards" who have backstabbed Obama and are destroying the Democratic Party that you have supported your entire life. And then . . .

Read the rest to find out the killing thrust.

UPDATE: Virginia is on notice.

Typical HuffPo Blogger Responds In Typical Fashion

Frank Schaeffer is still in his perpetual tizzy because Republicans and conservatives will not line up and kiss the ring of Obama.

Shorter Schaeffer: Obama good no matter what. Republicans bad no matter what.

However, this one piece of ignorance (out of many) stood out:

There would be less special Olympians if we had decent health care for all, because less children would be born with problems.

How would that be possible unless abortion factored into the equation somehow? The ugly truth that 90% of babied diagnosed in the womb with Down Syndrome where aborted surfaced last election season, due to Gov. Palin's youngest child. With the universal health care, like Frank is calling for, that number of abortions for healthy children will go even higher if the mom-to-be does not need to pay for it. Not to mention the amount of abortions if the child might be diagnosed as special needs.

But that's okay because Barack will heal the world, in Frank's eyes. Much the same way Barack went out of his way to address the people of Iran but gave British PM Gordon Brown a diplomatic slap to the face (one of these countries is not like the other).

Linked by P and P. And by RSM.

---

With the exception of the open letter, which he saves for when he's outrageously outraged, he stuck to his four rules. He did mention two other books he had written instead of 'Crazy for God', one being the book he co-wrote with his son (who is a Marine). Kind of a hybrid twofer.

Carville Backpeddles

James Carville, Democrat Party bigwig(think about it), is out playing a game of cover his ass today. After first saying he wanted Pres. Bush to fail on the morning of September, 11th, he's now saying that he took it back too so it shouldn't count.

"Thank God that I had the good sense to realize that the United States was at war and that changed everything, Carville said. "Once I found out that the country was at war, I said: Whatever I said, disregard it; it's inoperative."

Whatever you said, you had meant, James. The fact of the matter is that you didn't want to appear to be the world's biggest asshole wanting the Commander in Chief to fail minutes before a very obvious act of war was waged on US soil.

H/T to the Hot Air Headlines.