Pajama Pundits

Emily Metzgar's dictionary of Louisiana political terms.

While Louisiana is near the bottom of state rankings in many categories, in political shenanigans, we're a national leader. I've heard rumors there are some other states trying to knock us out of the top spot there, so these terms may be useful nationwide.

Examples:

–Campaign: An opportunity for elected officials to rewrite history in the hope that voters aren’t paying attention. A time of selective truth-telling and exceptional creativity during which elected officials endeavor to blend fact with fiction about job performance in pursuit of continued job security. See also rhetoric.

–Children: Second only to “recovery” as justification for action/inaction on a given measure. Particularly effective when exercised in the context of health care, education or poverty.

–Harassment: Distribution of information about an elected official’s voting and attendance records. Circulation of statistics, voting records and other fact-based performance indicators. Viewed by incumbents as unwelcome political speech.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

I have mixed feelings about the student sent home for wearing a camouflage outfit.

The reporter had fun:

Shilo Lewis just wanted to blend in with the crowd.

Did the school spokesman really say "some camouflaged students meld into the scenery," or was the reporter paraphrasing?

Most amazing is the mother's insistence is that the outfit was okay because the girl was "dressed from head to toe matching." Mama always encouraged that, of course. Can you imagine the matching mother/daughter outfits of their recent past?

Would Mama encourage her little darling wear one of these? Matches head to toe, so it must be good.

Head to toe matching anything sounds so not fashionable for any occasion other than a wedding or debutante ball. Both the Lewis women should read this:

So what's the attraction? Uniform equals strong, and strong equals sexy. Also the broad colour spectrum means you can mix and match with just about anything already in your wardrobe. Camo works particularly well in a block-colour plus camo combo. On the flip side camo on camo is not a great idea unless you are in the armed services and about to commando roll your way across town. Although a personal rule is “More is more”, too much camouflage is a very bad thing. In relation to military style in camo colours, an epaulet here, a pocket there, a badge placed with coordinated abandon and you have struck camo sheik.

“I think it's best to choose one item and leave it for people to find it themselves, don't throw it in their faces,” says Ms Walsh. “A fitted army-green military jacket with super skinny denim jeans and stiletto boots is a look that can't be done wrong, unless it's on the wrong body, that is, an unconfident body. You have to work it.” Instant attitude with kick-ass connotations. Make a statement through understatement. That's if people notice you.

A poorly developed sense of style shouldn't get you sent home.

I have to admit I'm not up to date on current styles and had failed to notice that camouflage was in style, again. I wonder what reasoning is behind this response to the mother's argument that her daughter's clothing wasn't revealing or vulgar and that others at school weren't sent home for wearing camouflage:

"We might not catch everyone, just like police don't always catch every speeding driver on the highway,” Jack said. “She was covered, but it was military dress, and we've decided at the school that isn't allowed.”

Compare that to the remark by the Headmaster:

“This has nothing to do with the military. We allow Reserve Officer Training Corps to wear military gear because they wear it in a respectful manner. It's the gang relation. If it's controversial or if it has gang associations, we won't have it,” Samaras said.

Unless JROTC has changed a lot, those students don't wear camouflage military gear, or BDU's, except at summer camp or for special team events. They are generally issued Class A or Class B uniforms to wear to school on uniform days.

I wonder what the school rules are on wearing stars and stripes? Would a flag patch on a blue jean jacket get you sent home? Is aging biker out this year, aging hippie in?

The idea that if a gang chooses a color, or in this case -- a print -- it must be banned simply "empowers" the gang. How important would their "colors" be if everyone wore them? Imagine white dresses banned because the KKK wears white robes.

Police Chief Edward Davis confirmed that many different gangs wear camouflage as a reflection of current styles in movies and on television.

Since when did gangs acquire exclusive title to current styles?

I'm left wondering if the school is trying to subtly discourage interest in the military, or hunting, or anything remotely related to guns, by banning the wearing of the camo. Perhaps they are simply trying to avoid controversy, but all this banning stuff really annoys my anti-authoritarian side. (Be sure to read that last link all the way to the end, including comments.)

A reader, in response to my previous post on Jimmy Carter, lent me None But A Blockhead, which contains King's 1976 Esquire article, "We Ain't Trash No More!"

I couldn't find a link to this article anywhere on the net. That's a pity, so my excerpts will be a bit longer than if I could link to the whole thing. (I wonder if the copyright was renewed?)

Jimmy Carter has proved he's smart and tough; I also suspect he's about half mean. This conviction is based on more than the observation that his mouth often smiles when his eyes do not. He's a "born-againer," an evangelical. You can shake every goober plant and magnolia bush between here and Stone Mountain without finding a group more wedded to its absolutes or less tolerant of dissent. Jimmy may prattle on about love and Jesus, and believe it, but at the bottom that soft spiritual goop is a bedrock conviction that the vengeful Old Testament God, extracting eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth, is what makes the mule plow.

Evangelical proponents of anything make me suspicious, whether it's politically right or left, spiritualism or materialism, PC or Mac, Coke or Dr. Pepper.

Ain't no free lunch, you see. You gotta pay the piper for all dances. Jimmy Carter's creed teaches that what you sophisticated Damyankees often call fun is the sort of sinful mischief certain to be taxed — even to the extent of eternal roastings. Maybe that's why you'll never discover more than a nickel's worth of humor in Jimmy. Fun is for the frivolous, and Jimmy sees the world as a hard and serious place.

A humorless world view is a bleak one. Only a humorless man could have engaged in "the most remarkable exercise in presidential navel-gazing in American history." [Steven Hayward, Reagan biographer]

That navel-gazing produced the "Crisis of Confidence" speech, called by some the most important speech of the Carter presidency. It was at least equally responsible for his failure to get re-elected as the Iranian hostage crisis. It was a sermon. And liberals today worry about George W. Bush's religious roots?

...home boys who've learned the difference between Pouilly-Fuisse and RC Cola, or who've had their tastes for Moon Pies replaced by craving for caviar, may find Carter more a throwback to laissez-faire, simplistic Rotary Club solution or even Nixonian repressions than will comfort them. Jimmy's talked a fair liberal game, sure. But Mo Udall wasn't just whistling Dixie when he cracked, "If Carter's elected he'll never make Mount Rushmore because there's not enough room for two more faces." Jimmy is as hard to get a handle on as a greased pig, which is about as elusive as a lightning bug.

Getting a handle on Jimmy may be easier today, but I think King had a pretty good one in 1976.

Awright. I'm admitting my reservations. My fear is that I've seen hundreds like the man, ruling boondock courthouses and marking up prices in their shops on the square, and, yes, I gotta squirm a little bit when a humorless man grins like he's in a grinning contest. But there's this history, all this goddam haunting history, of the South having been shut out for so long that even us lontime expatriates defensively feel that should Jimmy Cah-tah prove to be a sumbitch, then at least he's our sumbitch.

And, dammit, that's what Jimmy has forgotten about: loyalty to your own sumbitches. He's already forgotten his own words, "Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country." Instead, since at least 2000, he seems to be going out of his way to say not-so-nice things.

Shocking, I know.

I once said that even though Jimmy Carter was a horrible president, that as a person I'd be happy to invite him into my home because he was a decent man. This was in contrast to Clinton, who I thought was a much better president, but not as decent. Forget it, Jimmy. I rescind the dinner invitation.

Maybe Jacques will invite him instead?

I nearly choked on my coffee when I read that entry on Instapundit. Of course, I clicked through! The link finds Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek describing a West Wing episode.

He says Alda's performance was "...the best defense of limited government I've heard from a candidate since Reagan. It figures, as a friend pointed out, Alda and Reagan are both actors."

And they say truth is stranger than fiction.

and nobody hears it, is he still a waste of a good law degree?

Lightning can strike twice, in the same way, if not the same place.

October 30, 2005 AP WACO, Texas

A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning after grabbing a microphone while partially submerged, a church employee said.

The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, was standing in water up to his shoulder in a baptismal at University Baptist Church when he was electrocuted, said Jamie Dudley, a church business administrator and wife of another pastor there.

The woman Lake was baptizing was not injured, Dudley said.

A little over a decade ago, a similar accident happened during a time when the author of the following story was pondering on religiosity and crime entering politics.

MYSTERIOUS WAYS

By Stuart Wood

Associated Press 2/23/94 – LAROSE, La. – A public address system or faulty heating elements are suspected of causing the electrocution of a minister in a baptismal pool.

The Rev. John Allen, head pastor of Victory Life church at Lockport, was shocked Sunday afternoon as he prepared to baptize about 15 people.

He died shortly after church members pulled him from the waist-deep baptism tank at Christian Fellowship church, which was being used because his own church did not have a large-enough pool, investigators said.

Now, this event was no doubt profoundly traumatic to the family and congregation of Reverend Allen and the premises liability carrier of the invitor church, but is also caused great consternation within St. Peter’s massive intake facility at the Pearly Gates when the case was assigned to the Political Section, which is presently headed by St. Nicolo di Bernardo. The former prince stormed, diplomatically of course, into the former fisherman’s sanctum later that Sunday afternoon:

“Peter, there’s some things we gotta talk.” With his usual misdirection, di Bernardo continued, “First, I get no answer about fixing up the longitudes so Sarajevo and the Palestine got different time zones. You should hear the crazy exemptions and dispensations they want, like they all went to Harvard Law School and Yale Divinity before they got whacked. If you’re gonna move California anyway, couldn’t you put Bosnia over around Iceland someplace? The paperwork is all over the place, and I gotta have more staff.”

St. Peter was accustomed to these outbursts, but was always, or more precisely, eternally, chagrined by the vulgar demise of language exhibited by his Latinate deputy, a recent devotee of Puzo.

“Well then,” said St. Peter, as he was putting the final tiny minute knot on the tiny little fly clamped in the miniature vise in the middle of his vast desk, “You should have some good staff candidates right on hand there. You’ve got to learn patience, Nicolo. Did I ever tell about the time I was on the upper Snake in Idaho and waited fourteen years to catch Ol’Bigtail? Why, you’ve never seen such a battle. First, he takes the leader upstream about four miles and –“

“Patience! I got patience! I’m just finishing up the last old Nazis, except I don’t see why we gotta come down so hard, I mean – well, nevermind. I just get through with them and I’m getting a bunch of neo ones. Amateur city—just kinda venom and ignorance in peanut shells with SCUD rockets and nerve gas.” Nicolo paused to catch his breath.

“Plus, and this is the big one I can’t figure out and how come we need to talk. You’re giving me this preacher from Louisiana. I run the Political section, so how come I got him? He never ran for any office sinecure.” Nicolo used his Latin when he could. “He never even took the bar exam. He’s probably a nice guy, probably should go over to Premature & Unexplainable.”

Peter is silent, contemplating the elaborate dark brown, red, tan, yellow, maroon, and white fly shining in the brilliant starlight of his limitless office, thinking maybe some green. Nicolo, no mean contemplator himself, suddenly understands, or thinks he does.

“Oh no, oh please don’t give me political and religious correctness. You’re not gonna give me this guy because he was maybe supposed to baptize sixteen people. You’re not gonna me give Oral Roberts just because he was a couple of million short. Or Tim or Jimmy or Tammy or Katy or Larry or Jerry and… and all the James’. Come on, this ain’t political, except maybe the swindling part, and has gotta go to Theological Errors and Omission. I can’t handle it. We’re not set up to do any more TV makeup.”

“Actually we’re thinking of washing our hands, as it were, on Mr. Robert’s situation. But I’m sorry, Nicolo, we’ve seen this coming for a while,” Peter said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to move Religion over to Politics in Louisiana and all the other states, just like it always has been in the rest of the world.”

“What! You can’t do this! What about the big noble experiment? Separation of Church from three equal branches of State? For the People. Life, liberty and the purfuit of happineff (the Prince had read only the original). I thought you guys even helped with the weather in Philly and that First Amendment thing.”

“No, not really, but we thought it a fairly good earthly human effort, along with the Fourth and Fifth.”

“The Fifth, the Fourth! This is a hint, right? You’re gonna give me Crime in America, too?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. It appears that both Crime and Religion in America, at least temporarily, have become entirely Political subjects because the politicians need the diversion. They’re quaintly American, three strikes and all that. Ross Perot paraphrasing a coin, and vice versa. The Supreme Court taking medical evidence. The Second Amendment and the ATF. Penumbras of privacy. Fascinating. I remember Ol’ Bigtail was hiding under the penumbra of this huge blue spruce, but I came up there just before daylight and –

“No!”, the Prince screamed, “No! This is impossible. I can’t take on drive-bys and carjackings and embezzlement.”

“Nicolo, please sit down. I almost regret to tell you the rest of the changes. Human corporeal health is also now Political. You will of course be sharing that with the Pure Avarice & Greed people and their Corporate Iniquity group, but it’s your primary classification job. SIT DOWN, Nicolo, you look like you’re having a stroke.

St. Peter paused here, to allow St. Nicolo time to regain his composure. “Yes, you will have to deal with Religion, Crime, and Health Care Reform, which if it’s to work will logically have to include premiums from worker’s comp, liability, and even RTD’s and AMTRAK.

“There is, however, good news in that THE BOSS has decided to give you a break on a couple major items. First, the universal health insurance premiums on your new staff are going to be off-budget.” Peter usually got a chuckle from the other department heads with this one, but the Prince remained morose.

“What could THE BOSS possibly do? This is a disaster for the Political Department. Diseases and car wrecks aren’t political. It’s stretched too thin. We’re gonna have to totally reorganize. You could at least move legislators and judges over to Heinous and Unforgivable.”

“Okay, that’s definitely in the works. Especially in Texas. But we’ll need to discuss that later,’ Peter said. “We recognize your problems. The other good news is that in order to compensate fully for these added complications, we’ve decided to turn the first six months of Denver International Airport operations over to the Unsolved Mysteries Section. I know that one has been costing sleep.”

Prince Machiavelli, relieved and jubilant, tried to express his thanks by washing St. Peter’s feet, but he was deterred by the Saint’s L.L. Bean hip-length wading boots. He left happy anyway, ruminating to himself, thinking, lemmesee, I need ol’ Abe. He suspended habeas corpus. Then I’ll sober up Senator Joe, who just barely made the cut, and check out this free speech and association and Fifth Amendment stuff. He was unsure on religion. Machiavelli had experienced a partial epiphany in his later years and had gained his position not entirely through simony. He generally agreed with Adlai Stevenson, who found St. Paul appealing but Vincent Peale appalling. He would have to ponder that appointment. But AMTRAK. All right. The Prince would have to make some extremely long distance phone calls to the Duce, but those little trenos would hereinafter run, into whatever, on time.

Technorati tags: religion crime politics fiction

...explained by Sortapundit, with a little help from a 70 year old Iraqi woman.

I find myself in total agreement with Oliver Willis. (via protein wisdom)

No contest, you're thinking? Bloggledygook has evidence you're thinking right. (via HEH.)

(Transcribed from notes made while reading the latest Scientific American and S.1765 by generator-powered lamp.)

Damn... the Japanese, the U.S., and the European Union are trying to dig a hole to China. That had to be as irresistable to write as all the pithy observations about the spiciness of Louisiana politics.

What the ship Chikyu is designed for is drilling through the earth's crust to the mantle and extracting samples.

This amazing ship carries a drill pipe that is 9.5 kilometers long -- 22 times the height of the Empire State Building and it cost only $540 million to build. For perspective, that's just a little over 2% of what Louisiana's Congressmen and Senators want to rebuild after Katrina, none of which could possibly be called pork, right?

And let this be his campaign slogan:

(via Ace of Spades)

UPDATE: Video here.

UPDATE II: Of course I was laughing when I typed the title to this post, but it's not that bad an idea. Gen. Honore is capable, competent, organized, honest, respected by those who work with him... all perfect opposites of the Louisiana politician. (There may be exceptions. Please put examples in the comments!)

There is a Recall Kathleen Blanco site up. I've requested a petition to sign. Even if ultimately unsuccessful, I think this is a worthwhile effort for at least two reasons:

1. Louisianans have accepted that political corruption is a way of life here. Maybe we have some variation of Stockholm Syndrome.

2. Such a petition could serve as a sort of wake-up call for other public servants in the state, all the way down to dogcatcher. They'd likely hit the snooze button, but with the voters having set the alarm, it's unlikely all of them would toss the clock out the window.

In California, prior to the successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis, only four of more than 107 recall efforts since 1911 qualified for the ballot. We've got to start somewhere.

Another thing we can do is tell our lawmakers we'd like to be able to recall them a little more easily. Of course, they're not going to like that idea, but they might throw a bone or two our way. Mostly Cajun sums up what it currently takes to recall an elected official here:

...the state legislature provided that a recall election requires a petition with hand-written signatures of a THIRD of registered voters, with a separate petition filed in each of Louisiana’s 64 parishes (counties) within 180 days of the filing of the original petition of recall.

I don't know if the statute has been refined by court decisions, but it could use some clarification. At first, it doesn't appear that a petition must be filed in each parish, as the "voting area" for governor is the entire state. Then again, it later says that "The signed and dated petition shall be submitted to the registrar of voters for each parish within the voting area..." Does this mean a third of voters in each parish must sign or that if a third statewide sign, that at least one signature in each parish is required?

The least the legislators could do is clear up what they mean.

The applicable code is here: Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 18. Louisiana Election Code, Chapter 6-C. Recall Elections, § 1300.2. Petition for recall election; campaign finance disclosure.

UPDATE III: There's now another website devoted to the recall of Gov. Blanco - R.E.C.A.L.L.

Our bathroom remodeling project is a quagmire. It has become so obvious that it can no longer be ignored. Initially, it was an astounding success. The evil bastard plumbing had been in place for over 30 years, slowly choking off the clean water supply, diverting it to the floor, while allowing the critical waste removal system to degenerate.

That's gone now. But the rebuilding is more difficult than we imagined. So many decisions to be coordinated and financed. I insist there be no improvised plumbing devices (IPD) while my husband insists they have their uses. I want the flooring with the 25 year guarantee so we won't have to do this over again in 10. But that's harder to install, says my husband.

Agreeing on the installation of a cabinet?. Well, let's just say that negotiations have been extended for at least a week.

Outside influences with their own agendas are also intruding. His pickup protested the diversion of cash and attention from it to the plumbing by imploding the steering column. The Air Conditioner (this is the South, Air Conditioner is properly capitalized) displayed its ability to adversely affect our lives by freezing up its fan motor.

Not only that, I demand the woman's right to have access to a bathroom on demand be respected here. The stability of our marriage and our property value is being eroded by protesters outside the door of the one functioning bathroom.

"How much longer are you going to be in there?"

"What are you doing in there?"

In case there are any sexists out there thinking women spend too much time in the bathroom, I'm the one standing outside the bathroom door with crossed legs demanding answers. I have absolute oral authority.

Last night, in my dream, Christiane Amanpour was outside our house giving a report of the situation by satellite phone, explaining in detail the lack of facilities here. Inexplicably, she was shivering and her hair was blowing in a nonexistent breeze. Other reporters were calling from their well-plumbed rooms at the Holiday Inn, secure in their ability to flush the truth without actually witnessing it.

On TV, Neil Cavuto and Brenda Buttner were talking about plumbing futures and the rising demand for plumbing in China. They showed appallingly graphic images of lines outside women's restrooms.

There was a knock at the back door. It was Kofi Annan. He was offering a deal. UN Chamber Pots. 50% kickback to him. He was mumbling something about fearing he'd end up without a pot to piss because Claudia Rosett just won't quit.

KBR called, offering a professional crapper prefab unit for $500,000. No bid contract, of course. I explained we only needed a one-holer and could get one for a $1000.

Then I woke up. I had to go to the bathroom. Too many blogs right before bedtime.

ADDENDUM: Maybe I got the title wrong. It should be This is my brain on blogs.

No... tell me it ain't so! Not in Louisiana! Not Democrats! Taking dirty tricks into the blogosphere

The Sheehan demonstration at Crawford is disturbing on many levels, but the one comment that really stuck in my craw was Maureen Dowd's statement:

...the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.

"No it's not!" was my initial reaction. Then I got to wondering just exactly what "moral authority" is. It's one of those things you think you know until you try to define it. Google usually comes to the rescue, but this time, pickings were slim. I found only three links that seemed relevant.

One explanation from infed (an organization about which I know almost nothing) is:

If we are heeded it is mainly because people see us as deserving of respect. If we are not then people will ask why should they listen to us; why should our example be followed; and even why bother to engage in conversation with us?

In this relative view, it is up to the listener to grant the speaker moral authority. In that case, if Maureen Dowd thinks Sheehan deserves respect, then she's got moral authority. However, I'm not quite willing to accept a pronouncement from Dowd as the gospel truth.

The Glittering Eye, in commenting on Clare Short's absurd statement about the UN, identified three sources of moral authority, might makes right, top-down - derived from God, and bottom-up - the will of the people.

Sheehan has no might to make her right, and I doubt even her most avid supporters are going to claim "the divine right of kings" for her, so all that remains is to determine whether she was granted this moral authority by the will of the people.

As in the first example, those people who see her as Maureen Dowd does, would likely grant such to her. But, absolute? Wouldn't that be akin to a national unanimous "yea" vote? That's not happening, folks.

Butler Shaffer, who likely agrees with Sheehan that there is no noble cause in the Iraq war, writes:

Those who would express moral authority against coercive power must be persons devoid of conflict, not only within themselves, but with others. Such persons must be capable of transcending the partisanship that fuels the conflicts of the world. It is not a role to be exercised by those with divisive interests that separate humanity into competing groups, with political systems acting as the arbiter of disputes they have created. It is for men and women who grasp that one attribute of equality worthy of defending, namely, the inherent and undifferentiated worthiness of each individual to live and act for their own purposes.

Since Sheehan is actively seeking a confrontation, I think that qualifies as conflict. She has certainly not transcended partisanship and her actions are certainly proving to be divisive. The attribute of equality applies to her son's actions, but I do not see how it can pass from the son to the mother, due to the cause of his death.

Sheehan has no more moral authority to demand anything of anybody than any other law-abiding citizen. I'm sorry for her loss, and I hope she can get past this crisis in her life.

I've had an America Online account since 1993. I've kept it since broadband became available in my neighborhood for two reasons, a way to access the internet from anywhere there's a phone line, and this one little message board I got addicted to - originally called something like "How Important Is the Right to Keep and Bear Arms?" It's now simply called "The Gun Control Debate" and has been relegated to AOL's unmonitored (and relatively unsupported) section.

Over the years, various AOL monitors tried to keep the board "on topic" preventing forays into side issues. Always difficult, that proved impossible after September 11, 2001.

One of the reasons topic control was difficult is that a person's stance on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is sort of a litmus test revealing the process used to formulate political and social opinions.

It was discouraging to find out that so many people didn't have a process beyond 'whatever my friends think, I'll think', never bothering to even try to figure out whether the position had merit or from what ideological plant it bloomed.

Beyond those, I learned that many came to a conclusion then formulated reasons and twisted facts (or manufactured them) to support that conclusion - Humpty Dumpty thinkers. These people exist in every hue of the ideological rainbow and they annoy the hell out of me.

The rare individual is the one that looks at facts first and then comes to a conclusion without being influenced by ideology.

Most of us, being human, are a hybrid of the three processes. Regardless of that, we can and should expect better of those we elect to represent us. I consider it their job to use that rare process of considering facts before coming to a conclusion that something should or should not be law.

Today I am again disappointed in too many of our legislators, though I am enjoying watching my Democrat husband yelling at Democrat Senators and the fact that my Democrat brother is in wholehearted agreement with me concerning Senate Bill 397. Passing it will not harm the ability of citizens to bring valid suits against gun manufacturers. For a Democrat, who is also a lawyer with product liability experience, that's a pretty strong endorsement.

I have to wonder if some of them (including a few of the Republicans) have read the bill. My husband thinks they have and their ignorance suggests that passing a reading comprehension test should be a requirement to run for office.

As Eric from Classical Values puts it:

I'm getting a bit tired of opponents of this bill saying that it would protect manufacturers and gun dealers against ordinary negligence actions.

In fact, the bill specifically preserves the right to sue when a seller or manufacturer is negligent or in violation of laws governing the sale of firearms.

One has to wonder if the real objection some of the pontificating Senators have is that it also states as a Finding that "The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" and that it "...protects the rights of individuals, including those who are not members of a militia or engaged in military service or training, to keep and bear arms."

Perhaps they also object to this stated purpose:

(3) To guarantee a citizen's rights, privileges, and immunities, as applied to the States, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, pursuant to section 5 of that Amendment.

The Brady Bunch and VPC are screeching.

Now, go read the rest of Eric's post and find out why it's the fault of the South that crimes with guns happen in New York. And then wonder why I want to add a logic test to my husband's reading comprehension test.

It is something of a comfort to know that, as the moonbats complain louder and louder about; Rush, Fox News taking market share from CNN, the allegations about Rove being treated like the trollish baiting they are and how much gas everyone else's SUV burns (becase they have theirs for a reason, you see); Doonesbury pen Trudeau seems to be clamoring for attention...

... the same way 4 year olds often do.

Only, he's not 4 anymore, and it appears that some people won't stand for that sort of behavior from a theoretically grown person.

From Sky News:

Bombers have again targeted London's transport system - with up to four explosions reported.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the devices were set off across the city "almost simultaneously".

He added that the explosions were small and that police had the situation under control.

Instapundit notes behavior of "idiot" correspondents:

Some idiot correspondent asked Blair if the attacks were his fault because of the Iraq war. And others are taking an equally negative line -- one asks if the propaganda war against terror is being lost.

I do like his translation of John Howard's logical and polite answer:

Translation: You're idiots, cowards, and political hacks. Yes! The preening, point-scoring irresponsibility of the press, which is if anything worse in Britain than in America, is one of the most striking things about this war, and it will be decades before it recovers. If it does.

It's time to note (again) that a free press is no guarantee of an intelligent press. How many times has the 'blogosphere' been characterized by "professional" journalists as unworthy, supposedly because it's just a bunch of people with opinions and an agenda. Isn't it time they acknowledged that is exactly what they've been for decades? Their denigration of the blogosphere is properly called projection.

AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawnmower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitroglycerin and idle at 120.

Read the rest here.

And the U.N. wants to run the internet?

Kevin Drum wants somebody to buy 'one' of us amnesiac conservatives a subscription to Nexis.

I'm willing to 'forget' a lot for one of those.

I could 'forget' that it's not that the allegations of contacts between Osama and Saddam are not true, it's just that it was later discovered they may not have led to significant dealings.

And then I could 'forget' that Osama has never been the only purveyor of terror.

Yessiree, I could 'forget' a lot with a Nexis subscription handy to refresh my memory.