Is It a Self Identification Thing? 

Interesting article in The American Spectator this morning from Shawn Macomber, speaking of the Randi Rhodes thing, yesterday:

A Democratic Underground member went so far as to divine from the assault the opening salvos of “an ideology war between conservatives and liberals that will rip this country apart…a war that will be bloody, and claim lives….Hell, maybe this is what has to happen before we can start to take our country back.”

THE ONLY PROBLEM WAS, this hadn’t actually happened. As the New York Daily News soon reported, not only had Rhodes “never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging,” but her own lawyer insisted the talk show host’s injuries were the result of a fall, not a “hate crime.” (A fall outside a bar?) Air America followed this up with a short statement, which read in part: “The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded.”

End of story, right?

Wrong.

Despite the contentions of Rhodes’ own lawyer and Air America Radio — not likely members in good standing of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy — Rhodes’ fans refused to let the hate crime narrative give up the ghost. “We are likely to be more accurate on this board than the entire domestic news industry,” one aficionado declared at Rhodes’ official site. Another seconded that dismissal: “Unfortunately the AAR statement was so vague it only worsened the situation.”

Vague? The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded seems to be the sentence-length antonym of vague. And even leaving aside whether a person whose profile lists his location as “The 13th Floor of the Tower of Terror” and auto-signs every post with the refrain, “Republicans will never be happy until they have completely destroyed the earth and ended all life as we know it” is going to be more accurate than the entire domestic news industry, is he going to be more accurate than Rhodes’ lawyer and uber-liberal employer?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say…probably not. There is, however, something bigger going on here, encapsulated in the determination of Rhodes’ fans, against all facts to the contrary, to hold-tight to the pipe dream of right-wing fanatics hiring Blackwater agents to beat her as she walked her dog: They so wish it were true. As with global warming alarmism, these sorts of messianic martyr fantasies about neo-Nazi conspirators aligned against liberals’ salvation program for the masses are delusions designed to assure people clearly desperate for meaning in their lives that they are historically significant figures living in historically significant times. History, sadly, is not made within the virtual walls of online echo chambers.

You know what ?  I’m beginning to suspect that Shawn is on to something earth shaking, here.  Instead of seeking the truth, what these people of been seeking all along is self identification… totally lacking it otherwise.  

It’s the same “hurray for our team and screw everybody else” attitude that leads liberal Democrats to argue against defense of the country, and the culture, for the sole purpose of Democrats retaining governmental power. Trouble is, when you get to that level, you really don’t have a great deal of time or gray matter to worry about the consequences of such nonsense.

While I have Ace open in the other window, we’ll link another story from there, which matches the mold of the one about the deficit dropping to the lowest in five years…

Trend? Nah. I guess it’s only a story for conservative outlets like CNS News. The MSM wants the war officially won before they’ll lower themselves to reporting on it at all.

The casualty count from Iraq continues to decline for the first half of October, according to Department of Defense reports. In the first half of October, 14 casualties were reported, 12 of which were combat related. The most recent reported death was from Oct. 12.

Last year — during the same period — there were 44 deaths in Iraq, all but two combat related. That’s nearly three times the number of casualties as this year (for the first two weeks of October).

September 2007 marked a 14-month low in reported casualties — 68 deaths from Iraq, a drop in casualties the military credited to the 30,000 “surge” in troops that began in June. In the September totals, 41 deaths were from combat.

The first half of September had a total of 42 overall deaths, 27 of which were combat related — more than twice as many as the number reported for the first half of this month.

Yes, I would agree it’s a trend….  But I think it’s a different trend than what Ace in mind.  The trend here really is in the headline: “all the news that fits the narrative gets printed”… if it doesn’t fit the narrative, it doesn’t get printed. 

Ace notes something that I had observed yesterday, but didn’t have the time to comment on, given the events:

BizzyBlog corrects a bit and notes that the NYT (accidentally!) put a brief AP blurb about the story on page A22, but I’m going to count that cleanly as “not reporting the story.” A22 is where you bury stories. Certainly no NYT journalistic resources were devoted to the story.

Two Sundays ago Howie Kurtz asked representatives of the Washington Post and CNN why the plunge in Iraqi deaths (and US servicemen’s death) had gotten almost no play at all in the MSM. They robotically claimed it was because they couldn’t be sure the trend would hold. Though they agreed that if deaths rose, that was automatically a story, no need for a “stable trend line” to be newsworthy.

The deficit figures put lie to this claim. Check out BizzyBlog’s chart and there is no doubt whatsoever that we have a sustained five-year trend. Five years. Consistent trend. And yet the media will claim they’re not reporting on this because… hmm, the likely candidate is that it’s such an obvious trend that it doesn’t need to be reported at all.  It’s just “more of the same,” which is not newsworthy.

Of course, the reason that it’s not getting printed, is again, that it doesn’t fit the narrative.  The usual narrative, for situations like this use the Republican tax cuts cause deficits.   Obviously, it’s not true.  Equally obvious is the idea that the mainstream media, who traditionally pitches for liberal ideas and ideals, doesn’t want to admit the truth by actually reporting it.

A thoughtful, caring post from RightWingDuck at IMAO today:

Ms. Rhodes was doing nothing wrong at the time except walking her dog. Many on the left are saying that this could not possibly be random. I agree, nothing is out of place as much as a person in New York being mugged. On a positive note, it’s nice to see something NOT being blamed on global warming. You see, a lot of people would say, “Hey, this mugger (or muggers, the details are still sketchy) should be locked up and put in jail for carrying out such a horrible crime.”

I cannot stand this sort of intolerant reaction. Instead of seeking the perpetrator, we should be looking at the root causes of these crimes and make sure we address them. IF these crimes were carried out by a fanatical right winger, I would say that we need to fix the current social injustices.

Problem: Poverty. Many Republicans these days have scant resources. Personally, my stock in Halliburton and shares of Zionist Management International haven’t been doing much lately. I blame the current political climate.

Solution: Money. I prefer tens and twenties but any amount will do. As long as it’s a tall stack. You might be saying, “But Ducky, why don’t you get a job instead of holding us ransom and threatening to mug us even more.” You might say that, but then I’d pistol-whip you. So make with the money you uncaring Libtard fascists!!

Disenfranchisement: Nothing is worse than feeling like you’re not part of the process. Conservatives right now are having to fight against the threat of abortion, gay marriage, and gun control. And that’s just against our own GOP candidates! Personally, it’s enough to make me go after some liberal radio host – and her little dog too.

Indeed. Let’s hope we can come to some understanding, here.

(snort!)

(Snicker)

(BWAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

(Sorry… it kinda slipped out)

Boortz, yesterday;

A priest in London is being investigated for inciting racial hatred after expressing his Christian views in a parish newsletter. Father John Hayes commented on a case involving a Muslim girl who wanted to wear her full veil in class. The girl claimed it was her “human right” to be allowed to wear the veil. (By the way, the girl apparently lost in court.)

The priest was quizzed for over an hour by police to determine whether or not he committed a hate crime. The article points out that none of the inflammatory remarks of Muslim preachers have been investigated by the police as hate crimes. Well of course not! Wouldn’t that be (gasp!) racial profiling? Can’t have that, you know.

This is simply more of what I’ve been talking about for several months now, years in fact.  Our culture is being overrun, and the attacks against that are being facilitated by the one entity that was supposed to be protecting it; government.  Of course, that facilitation is being done in the name of “equal rights” ignoring, of course, the questions of which culture is responsible for better facilitation of those rights, And what happens to those rights when western culture falls.

It’s as I said last night in the Ramble:  The problem on this kind of thing as with everything else, is that those outside of the mainstream are far more vocal, and usually far more violent than are the rest of us inside the mainstream of western culture . Which is why I have been urging those of us on the inside of the mainstream of western culture to start speaking up and be heard.

Alas, I think it’s already too late for England.

Michelle, this morning, makes note of something we’ve noted here previously;

Innocent black Americans are being harassed, driven out of their neighborhoods, and targeted for murder.

Why isn’t it on the front page of every national newspaper? Why isn’t CNN doing special documentaries? Why aren’t Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton up in arms?

Because the perpetrators are illegal alien Latino gangs. Doesn’t fit the old white vs. black narrative.

“all the news that fits the narrative gets printed”

The question that you need ask yourself is whose rights are being served by witholding this information from the American public?

James Watson, as quoted by Reason Magazine:

“There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”

Evolution is a process in which a species adapts to its environment.  There is no reason to suppose that two populations, in two separate environments would evolve the same.  Yet it is political suicide to suggest otherwise.

Racism is an assumption based on race.  Therefore to assume that two races are cognitively equal is in of itself racist.

So Watson’s observation is not racist.  It is not an assumption. However those who would disagree with Watson are themselves racists, in that they are assuming equality where none has been shown to exist.

Hat tip: Memorandum.

LOWELL -(Lowell Sun)- Democrat Niki Tsongas of Lowell defeated Republican James Ogonowski of Dracut today to capture the 5th District congressional seat vacated by Marty Meehan earlier this year.With 195 of 195 precincts reporting, Tsongas captured 54,363 votes, or 51 percent compared to 47,770 votes, or 45 percent, for Ogonowski.

There’s a lot of arms getting twisted out of joint as leftie blogs pat themselves on the back. Normally, you wouldn’t think that this closer race would be cause for such self -congratulations.  I suppose they need a diversion from yesterday’s Randi Rhodes fiasco.

But in the end, serious analysis would be that for the Democrats to come so close to losing on what is arguably their home turf of Massachusetts, should put fear into the heart of any Democrat for what it says about November ’08.

Update: (Bit) Byron York goes into the details, and draws the same conclusion we did here.

OK a few notes left over from tonight….

Mind you, these are in no particular order.  It’s too fricking late to be that organized.

• No, Adkins, traffic was never a problem.  I should tell you that it did manage to drive traffic to the site; I’ve had smaller Instalanches… (Thanks again, everyone!) and I anticipate another big day tomorrow.  (No, Chuck… not from you… but from a huge number of others, who also, apparently didn’t find your ‘joke” funny. ) Actually, we’ve been having big days all this week, web traffic wise, though today was bigger. But what you need to understand is it’s not the numbers in question, but who reads you.  This blog has some of the best readers in the sphere….  certainly, the smartest…. and that’s exactly why it’s lasted as long as it has.
• I notice that Err America’s Jon Elliot has apologized, and said that his comments were based on the motion of the moment.  Well, I can certainly believe that.  That is, after all, the core of Democratic party politics; pure emotion and no logic.  But now that raises an interesting point… and it’s one that I think John Gibson brought up yesterday afternoon on his radio show; should we not be getting apologies for his reckoning of George W. Bush, Republicans in general, Karl Rove, the Iraq war, SCHIP, and the reaction to it, and so on?  I mean, it seems reasonable to ask if all of his judgments are not equally suspect.  Then again, these are the same people that hold Che Guevara, 40 years after his death, to be a Christian influenced Romantic, when in fact he was a Marxist thug.  I guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up for more a inclusive admission of error huh?
• I started getting into the second season of baseball.  Now that the Yankees aren’t in the picture, I’m sure it will be entertaining.
• I notice Hillary Clinton has come down on both sides of ending the war in Iraq.  Initially she said she wouldn’t be bringing the troops home, by the end of the first term.  Today, she says, she’ll end the war on the first day she’s an office.  Then she says within 60 days of taking office she will make the arrangements to bring the troops home.  So, which statement offers do we trust? Allow me to remind you of a tax cut pledge made by her husband.  That is, if you believe in past being prologue.
• Speaking of the Wicked Witch of the South, Suitably Flip is doing a fabulous job of tracing the Norman Hsu donations, which she was supposedly returning.  Big surprise; a lot of it isn’t there yet.
• I’m sitting here looking at two bottles of pink RV antifreeze.  We’re likely not going to take the camper out again this season.  I know this.  But I can’t seem to bring myself to use the antifreeze to winterize the RV’s systems, because of an overwhelming feeling that I would be putting an exclamation point on the end of an all too short camping season.  I’ll probably get around to it on Saturday.  But I don’t have to like it.
• I commented the other day about how Mrs. Fields Cookies had taken Christmas cookie gives off their “holiday ” catalog.  I’m seeing reports that they have gotten so much in the way of blow back that they have reinstated Christmas.  The problem on this kind of thing as with everything else, is that those of the mainstream are far more vocal, and usually far more violent than are the rest of us inside the mainstream of western culture .  Which is why I have been urging those of us on the inside of the mainstream of western culture to start speaking up and be heard.  The change in direction for this country will be very positive, overwhelmingly so.  And this thing is just an example.
• I see JPOD is going to be the new Editor of COMMENTARY. Congrats to JPod but I’ll miss him at The Corner.
• My new server is up and running, alongside the old one. That makes three, if you count the one 166mhz toaster I’ve got doing printing and faxing chores. (Shrug)  The new file server and the old one do serve each their own special purpose… (Apologies to Steve Martin) but they also back each other up.

Enough.  I’ll catch up with you in the morning.

TEN SUSPECTS DETAINED DURING OPERATIONS TARGETING AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ

Posted: 16 Oct 2007 06:08 AM CDT

TEN SUSPECTS DETAINED DURING OPERATIONS TARGETING AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ

BRIGADE COMMANDER NOTES PROGESS IN NORTHWESTERN BAGHDAD

Posted: 15 Oct 2007 07:28 AM CDT

BRIGADE COMMANDER NOTES PROGESS IN NORTHWESTERN BAGHDAD

THREE TERRORISTS KILLED, 20 DETAINED DURING OPERATIONS TARGETING AL QAEDA

Posted: 15 Oct 2007 07:20 AM CDT

THREE TERRORISTS KILLED, 20 DETAINED DURING OPERATIONS TARGETING AL QAEDA

Our sympathy to Randi Rhodes. May she get well soon.

Our deep felt animus the Bitsblog’s Jerk of the Day, Err America’s Jon Elliot, who manged to enage his gator sized mouth before activating his brain.  Barooosk, Talking Radio :

Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying “it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home.”

Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that “this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging.”

“Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own,” he asked. “Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we’re winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us.”

I wonder if the one conservative in Manhattan, has a case for slander?   Mr. Elliiot, an apology is in order.

You don’t need a thug to silence Err America.   The marketplace already has.

Hat tip:  Memorandum.

Addendum:  

I note that Mr. Elliot has apologized.

While looking around the left side of the sphere just now, I found what is perhaps the most blatant double standard I’ve seen all week… I’ll give you a screen cap and the address.

http://thepopulistblog.com/2007/10/16/randi-rhodes-victim-of-mugging/

Drill this one for full size display

Note the headline on the first story. …

Randi Rhodes Victim of Mugging

…in which the author of the page decries violence. The story line of course, that’s going around is that she was attacked for speaking her mind.  And yet, look at the headline slug he’s running…. In case you don’t recognize the person the gun is aimed at, it’s Ann Coutler.

Nuff said?

Update: (Bit)

Now, of course, the guy’s removed the graphic from rotation. Which is why I posted the screen cap, here. I knew as soon as I posted this, he’d chicken out. It always happens when they get confronted.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Now, he CLAIMS it was “all a joke”.

OK, let’s test this. Let’s say I came out and said I was glad Randi Rhodes got herself thumped. Think the left, including yourself, would take it as a joke?  Sorry, Chuckles, no sale. That’s not humor. That’s a sickness. And in much the same way as I wouldn’t expect the inmates to be able to run the asylum, no more do I expect you to be able to tell the difference between sickness and humor.

You’ve been outted. The joke is YOU.
Give the boy credit, though, at least he didn’t deny it and claim I’d fabricated the whole thing. That’s more than most lefties would have admitted to when caught like this.

Thanks for links from Little Green Footballs, Cold Fury, and The Jawa Report

And a nod to Captain Ed, who gets it right, particularly on point 2’s first sentence which can very easily be applied to this screencap:

So what are we to make of this?
1. Air America lies, even when stories involve their own personnel. No one thought to give Randi a call to see how she was doing before Elliot decided to air his report? And no one thought to do so afterwards? The police ended up calling to see why no one reported the incident to them. That’s just marvelous journalistic ethics.

2. Anyone who thinks that bigotry has no place in the liberal mindset has — once again — just received a material lesson to the contrary. Even without knowing anything about the attacker, several bloggers just decided that it had to be a politically motivated assault by a conservative. That’s not leaping to conclusions, that’s flying at jet speed to Paranoialand.

3. How long do you think it will take for these same bloggers to offer an apology — one not accompanied by a litany of rationalizations about how mean conservatives are, and how it was impossible not to convict an entire class of people for an imaginary crime? Longer than the next time they trot out an argument for innocent-until-proven-guilty for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, I’d bet.

Another update:

Another quote which works well to this situation, particularly as reards the claims of this moron that this was all a joke, comes, fittingly enough, from Kos:

Apparently, Jon Elliot went on-air and claimed she’d been attacked by a right wing nutjob.  The fact that this may not be the case will now unleash the usual hysteria from the right wing noise machine about how dare, DARE, anyone theorize that the peace loving non-racist complex thinking koolaid drinkers on the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity side of the aisle would ever commit actual unhinged violence. …

There is an undeniable fact about the venom spewers on Fox News and all over Clear Channel that no one wants to speak about, but I will, and it’s this:

When talk show personalities paint one side of the aisle as a “Fifth Column,” as threatening to destroy the country from within, as threatening the very fabric of America, don’t be surprised when unhinged listeners take it upon themselves to “do something” about it.

So if we jump the gun and assume another unhinged “patriot” fired up by Sean Hannity’s hate speech decided to “do something,” it’s a god damned reasonable assumption.

So, now that the whole thing was reveald as a headline reading :”Drunk falls over after leaving NYC dive”, perhaps we can apply some of Kos words against the left, by editing Kos’ comments thus:

When talk show personalities paint one side of the aisle as a “Fifth Column,” as threatening to destroy the country from within, as threatening the very fabric of America, don’t be surprised when unhinged listeners take it upon themselves to “do something” about it. Such as in the “Please shoot Ann Coulter” poster.

So if we jump the gun and assume another unhinged leftie fired up by Randi Rhodes and her drooling hate speech decided to “do something,” it’s a god damned reasonable assumption that someone posting such a poster on their website is encouraging exactly the same thing.

Mrs.  Clinton feigns being rightous.    Mrs.   Clinton is adamant that her standards for attorney general include having one of whom we can be proud.

Question for Mrs. Clinton, was your hand picked choice for attorney general, Janet “Butcher of Waco” Reno an attorney general of which your fellow citizens were proud? 

So if Reno was not an attorney general of whom Americans could be proud, when did your standards change?

Hat tip:  Sweetness & Light.

The Left-O-sphere is all a-twitter this morning, with reports that Err America host Randi Rhodes was attacked on Sunday night, near her apartment in New York City.  One of the posts to the effect is up at Talking Radio, (Link repaired) as linked by Memorandum
Of course the immediate assumption is that she was attacked for political reasons.  Several on the left hand of the sphere have been making mention of other attacks on leftist talk show hosts in history .  The obvious lean here is similar to the one with Bill Clinton and the church burnings across the south of his youth.

And there’s a lesson there…

I have no doubt that she was attacked, and I wish her a full recovery.  But you’ll forgive me if I don’t take as accepted fact that her attack was politically motivated.  This is, after all, The Liberal Mecca of New York City we’re talking about, here. Muggings, there are not exactly uncommon, by any stretch of even her wild imagination.  Moreover, the woman’s mouth getting ahead of her, is how she makes her living.  It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to see where that would get her outside of the studio.  And , let’s consider the idea that untruths have been coming out of this woman’s mouth, almost as a reflex, for years.  Are we really to accept that she’s telling the truth about this attack?

Sorry, I’m not. I don’t buy it.

Sorry you got hurt, Randi, I really am.  I wish you well in your recovery efforts.  But you’re not telling us the whole story here.  And I’m not buying the illusion you’re pushing.  Sorry.

Oh… they say that conservatives are liberals who have been mugged.  That having happened to her, will she still be the bleeding heart on crime that she’s been the last few years, following this experience, I wonder?  I wonder if she’s actually smart enough to change direction on that point?

Somehow, I doubt it.

Update:(Bit) Whizbang seems to agree: (Speaking of the guy who made the announcement on Err America)

One the one hand, it infuriates and offends me that he would automatically assume that it was a right winger who did this. There are all sorts of crazy types in New York City who have attacked innocent people unprovoked.  On the other had, I feel sorry for him and others on the left who live their lives in fear that some made up, figment of their imagination “right wing hate machine” is out there lurking in the shadows waiting to “silence” them.

Here again, we see the trend; the left has to view everything through the prism of their own weird fantasies.

Update ][:(Bit)

UH-oh. via Memeorandum, The NY Daily News says she WASN’T attacked at all.

A police source said Rhodes never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging. Cops from Manhattan’s 17th Precinct called her attorney, who told them Rhodes was not a victim of a crime, the source said.

Rhodes’ lawyer told the Daily News she was injured in a fall while walking her dog. He said she’s not sure what happened, and only knows that she fell down and is in a lot of pain. The lawyer said Rhodes expects to be back on the air Thursday. He stressed there is no indication she was targeted or that she was the victim of a “hate crime.”

UH-oh, indeed. How many leftie blogs are regretting jumping on the “It’s all the Republicans fault” bandwagon?

The story has an interesting twist from my angle:

“The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded,” the statement read by a receptionist at the network’s New York offices said. “Ms. Rhodes is looking forward to being back on the air on Thursday.”

Still, the tale lived on in the blogosphere.

“What the %$#$ is WRONG with you people?? Are you that SICK in the head that just because you don’t agree with someone’s political views you believe that they deserve to be mugged? Are you on the right that DEMENTED??,” a blogger called neddlenosehanty posted on watchingthewatchers.org.

Yeah, well, about that….  look at one of the double standards I found being applied to this story.

BBCT: Michelle

Update: Word is what mugged her wasn’t a Republican, or even your typical NY thug… but rather, 14 Bloody Marys.

Adrian Kingsly Hughes over at ZDnet hits very close to where I live, since I’m a end user support type:

 On Friday I posted briefly about yet another potential problem with Windows Update (my ZDNet blogging colleague Mary Jo Foley covered the issue in greater detail here and here).  Initial investigations of PCs at the PC Doc HQ have turned up no leads but I have discovered something else that broken about Microsoft Windows Update mechanism – trust.

See, here’s the problem.  To feel comfortable with having an open channel that allows your OS to be updated at the whim of a third party (even/especially* Microsoft … * delete as applicable) requires that the user trusts the third party not to screw around with the system in question.  This means no fiddling on the sly, being clear about what the updates do and trying not to release updates that hose systems.  While any and all updates have the potential to hose a system, there’s no excuse for hiding the true nature of updates and absolutely no excuse for pushing sneaky updates down the tubes.  Over the months vigilant Windows users have caught Microsoft betraying user trust on several separate occasions and this behavior is eroding customer confidence in the entire update mechanism.

This is a water cooler argument that I’ve made several times over the past year.  The loudest objection that I had was the pushing of IE7 by Microsoft as a critical update, as opposed to an optional one. the problem was, at the time, I was supporting a number of people who were  running a program which would not run correctly on IE7, but did on IE6. After months of internal back and forth, and back and forth with Microsoft, who swore up and down that they would not be pushing IE7 as an critical update, imagine my annoyance when I came into work one morning and found that it had in fact been pushed is a critical, and I now had every desktop in the place effectively out of action.

If Microsoft wants to know why so many people are so very unknowing with them in terms of what is perceived as their arrogance, this is a primary example.

Since that time, I’ve seen a number of systems come up which ultimately take the update process out of Microsoft’s hands.  I use one of them here at Casa De Bit. it downloads the updates from Microsoft as Microsoft makes them available, but waits until I clear them, before installing them across the LAN,  here. generally speaking, I refuse to clear anything until such time as a week as gone by, so as to ensure that I will not have smoking hulks waiting for me when I arrive, as I did the morning of the IE7 push.

At the bottom line of the reason behind all this extra mechanism is an issue of trust.   or, more correctly, the lack thereof.  Given that they are just about the only player in town, any more, Microsoft probably feels a certain immunity to these customer trust issues.  It’s not like the customer has a great deal of choice in the matter.  But after a certain amount of broken trust, other solutions to various problems have a tendency to arise rather quickly.

Come to think of it, that line could be applied in the political world, as well, given the trust that’s been broken by Congressional Democrats…  And likely, will, come November next.