Month: August 2009

More Good Faith Negotiating

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by publius Ezra Klein found a relatively new fundraising letter from Chuck Grassley, the Democrats' point man on health care.  Note the classy dig at Ted Kennedy (who was alive at the time, but close to death).  Ezra posted the pdf, but I've provided an excerpt below.

That Explains It

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by publius It's actually in the Constitution: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Sunday morning shall pass without John McCain being interviewed, … Read more

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: Torture edition

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By Lindsay Beyerstein Washington Post reporters Peter Finn, Joby Warrick, and Julie Tate lend credence Dick Cheney's fallacious argument that because Khalid Sheik Mohammed began cooperating with U.S. authorities after he was tortured, torture made him cooperate. The story is based the reminiscences of unnamed intelligence officers who observed Mohammed in 2005 and 2006. They … Read more

Questions for Althouse

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by publius Ann Althouse, defending and celebrating "harsh interrogation techniques": Critics of "harsh interrogation techniques" — they, of course, call it torture — bolster their moral arguments with the pragmatic argument that it doesn't even work. How unusual it is for the media to disillusion us about that and force the moralists to get by … Read more

Mike Enzi, Good Faith Negotiator

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by publius Baucus's self-appointed Gang of Six is really making some nice progress.  Here's good faith negotiator, bipartisan mediator Mike Enzi: A key member of the Senate Republican Conference on Saturday blasted Democrats for offering a healthcare solution distinctly at odds with his party's goals. Democratic healthcare reform will drive up the deficit, discriminate against … Read more

Unpublished

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by von

I've retracted this entry because the first comment is correct.  McKinneyTexas says:

Many well meaning white people view themselves as being passed the race issue and project their own, often under-developed sense of maturity and enlightenment onto others, particularly minorities. Best just to avoid being cleverly edgy or worse, condescending. 

There is such a thing as being too clever — by which I mean too in love with one's own perceived cleverness; or, to adopt McKinney's great turn of phrase, too in love with one's own "often under-developed sense of maturity and enlightenment."   I am neither mature nor enlightened, but that doesn't mean that I can't write something stupid on occasion, even when my ultimate point is (I think) right on target.  You can be right and still do it wrong, after all. 

Retraction does not mean deletion, however.  The original text — in all its original retracted goodness – is below the fold.

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A Precedent that will Reach to Himself

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by Eric Martin Andrew Sullivan is right:  The document reads, like so much else from the Cheney years, like a document from a South American  dictatorship in the 1970s or 1980s. If someone had told me a few years ago that it had popped up in the Soviet archives, I would have believed him. Read … Read more

The FCC’s Wretched Website

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by publius It's ironic, but fitting perhaps, that the agency in charge of broadband policy has a website from the Flintstones era.  It's truly the worst.  Q-Bert arcade games from the 1980s are more advanced than today's FCC website.  Retro cool is fine, but it's not very functional. For instance, I'm currently researching for filed … Read more