This is pretty minor, just another day's work in the so-called liberal media:
I had heard many years ago that suicides by gun outnumber homicides by gun in the U.S., but I had not seen it in print for so long that I had begun to doubt my memory and my sourcing. The risk to loved ones and myself is one reason I don't keep my .22 rifle, a legacy from my grandfather, in my house.
Here's the approximate breakdown of fatalities (in 2005):
... and that's news, though less so lately.
Aside from the misplaced esteem for conservatism, he gets everything right."It probably wasn't any one thing," he said during our conversation last week outside the White House.
"But perhaps listening to the attorney general of the United States, in a purportedly conservative Republican administration of George W. Bush, justify to the American people that the writ of habeas corpus, the great writ, the foundation of civilized society as we know it, is no longer important. Watching a president and his attorney general try and torture the language of the law and the language of the Fourth Amendment to justify warrantless spying on American citizens in their own country in the name of being a commander in chief.
"Those are so dramatically inconsistent with any notions of legitimate, constitutional, conservative government, that I certainly could not be party to, or remain in a party that advocated those procedures."
John McCain's lack of command experience is soooo sad.
No matter how much the McCain surrogates may mewl and wail about Obama surrogate Wesley Clark's comments, it is an objectively unassailable fact that McCain has no command experience. Courage and military service, sure, but not in a command role.
It's interesting to note the McCain campaign's response is to pretend that Clark disrespected McCain's courage and service and to use that pretense to attack. The obvious on-point rejoinder that Obama has no military command experience either leaves the two candidates on par, and the McCain camp can't surrender their perceived advantage even though the fact is that McCain was what business these days calls an individual contributor.
Only rare human beings think for themselves. Most of us choose to follow along with the predominant crowd. In the state of nature and probably also in a developed society, this is adaptive behavior in the short run, but it risks a lemming plunge together over an easily seen cliff.
Peer influence is a tremendous prejudicial force in human groups (and groups of other animals, as well, I'm sure). It leads to the Gloucester 17, to obesity in relationship cohorts, to religious beliefs, to the acceptance of bald political lies.
If your friends are fabulists, their most outrageous lies become the received wisdom of your peer group, and it's afterward unshakable, despite the only evidence for it being rumor deriving from very unauthoritative sources such as "some guy" or an email or a posting on the Internet with circular or non-existent sourcing.
People believe what they want to believe, what they choose to believe. Only a precious few compare their beliefs to their experience and reject their false beliefs.
Now the Swifties are concerned with their good name. Where were they in 2004 when it mattered, when the Swift Boat Liars were everywhere? Why aren't they all pillorying T. Boone Pickens, Texas bullshit artist?
Look, non-proliferation has always been a liberal approach to a national security problem. The internationalists were for it, the conservatives simply wanted to use military force. Anyone ever heard of preemption? Of course, the internationalists were not all liberals, but the driving force behind engaging adversary and ally alike to reduce the spread of nuclear weaponry was us libs.
People who have a brain understand that arms control and preemption may both be needed at different times. You can tell liberals from conservatives by which stick they reach for first.
Mitt Romney gets points for saying so but only enough to get him the booby prize.
What's really stupid on his part, though, is that his definition of 'bipartisan' is "caving to the conservatives". I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he labors under this misconception, since that has been the Broderist, Liebermanesque definition for the past twenty years.
True to form, John Roberts totally misses the obvious logic of the story.
I'm actually glad David Addington and John Yoo took their surly, unaccountable Bushism before Congress. Maybe if they piss off enough Representatives and Senators, those two war criminals among others will wind up hog-tied on a slow boat to the Hague.
There is very little in intent that distinguishes the Bushists from Vladimir Putin (or even Robert Mugabe). Sadly, there is very little in effectiveness that distinguishes our Congress from the Duma or whatever rubberstamp legislature Mugabe is bullying at the moment.
I am dying to hear these words, "Sergeant-at-Arms, take these men into custody."
Antonin Scalia's Second Amendment:
Even so, the D.C. ordinance was too broad a restriction.A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
James Dobson can accuse Barack Obama of editing the Bible to fit his worldview, but he can't recognize his own editing. Dietary laws in the Old Testament aren't relevant, but despising homosexuality is. Etching the Ten Commandments in stone in Alabama in a courthouse is a cause celebré, but slavery is passé.
Dobson may call himself a Bible literalist, but the Bible, especially the Christian Bible, is so filled with contradictions that Obama is right to say that it's not a clear basis for a modern secular government. No matter what Dobson's "traditional interpretation" may be, there's no way it's less a distortion than Obama's.
And, of course, Jesus was a liberal (though not a statist liberal).
Still and all, Obama has to expect to be attacked about everything. His Christianity is just another thing that thoroughly political wingnuts like Dobson, far from trying to understand and accommodate even in honest disagreement, will try to muddy up with invidious comparisons.
