Intemperate Commentary

I was looking at the headlines on Drudge, and I realized, "You know, I don't want to blog any of these." So, it's time to rant.

They're still going on about the child of that Smith woman who died... how long ago was it now? Explain to me a world in which we have international conflict, large national issues at stake... heck, we even have baseball season now. Why in the world is the kid of someone who I couldn't even begin to guess why she was famous still news at this point?

Meanwhile, there's this whole controversy brewing over what some announcer named Imus said. All I could think upon opening up the story to read about it was, "People got upset over what some guy who looks like he's freshly dug up said? Really?" I mean, sure, I can see why people would be upset over what he said (link here, including the picture I'm talking about), but c'mon, the guy looks warmed over. I'm not sure I could take anything the man said seriously at this point, even if he were just reading out of the phone book. On the serious point for a moment, I think Mr. Boortz has it absolutely right when it comes to the people referring to Imus' statements as racist: "Racism is the belief in the inherent genetic superiority of one race over another. There was nothing racist -- not by definition -- in Imus' remarks."

On a completely different thread, I was reading up on House Resolution 73 earlier. Even though I'm sure it's just a small cross-section of the total number of such occurrences, I was about ready to spit nails upon reading the third point under Findings (section two), about people who were prosecuted for using firearms in self defense. Seriously, if we can't use guns for self defense, what's the point of having them? (Okay, hunting and such aside.) Thankfully, Representative Bartlett is a right-thinkin' kind of guy on this. We'll see what comes of it, though. Death in committee wouldn't particularly surprise me, after all.

Don't Give Them What They Want

The obligatory link: Please Bomb Me!

Victor Davis Hanson has interesting takes on a pretty regular basis, but this one struck me. Basically, he puts forth the idea that Iran is trying to get itself bombed in order to raise morale and its standing in the middle east. In addition, he's got a bit of the history of that country's doings. Definitely worth a read.

Going Whole-Hog

The obligatory link: Senate war bill features $20B in pork

I know, at this point, nobody is really surprised by the ways that congress goes about spending money. Sad, but true. Still, you'd think that they could at least keep their snouts out of the trough while passing spending bills relating to military action. ... ... ... Well, no, you wouldn't think it, and neither would I, but I suppose we could wish it.

Meanwhile, senator Byrd was quoted as saying that the bill as laden with pork is "common sense and good economics". To twist a favorite quote to fit the circumstances, "What part of this looks like good economics to you, huh? What part of this?" And who's surprised that they're still trying to appropriate more money because of hurricane Katrina?

Of course, the House doesn't come out of this clean, either. They tacked on $20B or so of their own pork on their version of the bill.

Another Body Blow For Personal Responsibility

The obligatory link: Poll: The Politics Of Health Care

You can click over and there's a PDF with the full results, but let me just hit the highlights so you can tear your hair out now...

Most Americans believe government can play a role in fixing the health care system. Two-thirds say the federal government should guarantee that all Americans have health insurance.

I don't even need to finish that series I've been doing on the constitution to know that this one is none of the federal government's business.

Eighty-four percent of Americans favor expanding government programs in order to give health insurance to all uninsured children.

Again, no real surprise. We could probably even get some of the regulations out of the way of nuclear power if we could convince enough people that it was "for the children".

Still, there is a minimal bright spot in all of this:

Less than one in three, however, say the government would do a better job than private insurance companies at actually providing medical coverage. Forty-four percent said the government would be worse as a health care provider than private companies.

Maybe Heinlein Was Right

The obligatory link: Flying Beverage Cup Has Another Driver In Hot Water

Actually, I've thought this way for a while, but there really may be something to the whole "an armed society is a polite society" idea. After all, if you think about it, isn't road rage a whole lot like some of the rants floating around the internet? You know, the kinds of things that wouldn't happen if there was the barest chance that the target could fight back, whether or not they did?

It's a project beyond me, but looking into the decline of such things as individual weapon ownership and pistols at dawn in relation to the statistics of assault, the rise of road rage, and so on. The level of insanity needed to do such things would likely rise as the chances of the target being armed rose, at the very least.

Just to touch on a different part of this story for a bit, it should be interesting to see what kind of a sentence this guy gets (the maximum is ten years, according to the article), since the previous instance mentioned involved a woman who got sentenced to the minimum (two years) and then let out after seven weeks. For some reason, I'm not expecting a comparable sentence.

Dismissing Jurors

The obligatory link: Judge Dismisses CIA Leak Trial Juror

My fascination with this (admittedly obscure) topic began back when I read the book "Runaway Jury", which, unlike the movie, was rather gripping, and quite the page-turner. Anyway, with all the exhortations from the judge in that book not to see or have other contact with material about the case outside of the courtroom, the story was obviously setting up to play on that point (it did)... but I couldn't see for the life of me how real people could actually do such a thing. As I've found in paying attention since then, though, judges orders to juries seem to be along the lines of a "wet paint" sign. (What do you do when you see a sign that says "wet paint"? You touch the paint to see if it's still wet, naturally. It's an action to regular human curiosity.) Really, it says a lot more about human nature than it does about the nature of judges and juries.

Meanwhile, of course, normal case watchers are just waiting for the verdict to come in. That should be interesting in its own right.