The Penalty for Early Withdrawal

Should a law be established, with penalties in the form of fines and incarceration, which dictates that individuals are legally bound to dial 911 if they stumble upon a situation wherein an innocent individual’s life is in danger of being snuffed out, or is simply in some type of emergency situation?

I think not, though there are six states that have such laws on the books.

So asks John Venlet, yesterday.

This is an improper use of state powers, and just another attempt to legislate morality.  The events which have been the catalyst for Smith’s decision to push for such legislation do indeed produce feelings of sadness, but laws should not be established based on feelings, but reason.

John, I tend to agree, even though I think the laws well-intended.  But I think it ought to be pointed out that this law in the states where it is law, and the proposals where it isn’t, are the direct result of our overly litigious society.   With the possibility of getting sued simply for doing the right thing, can you imagine why people might not want to?  Were we not just the other day talking about Congress defeating or not defeating the “John Doe ” clause in the whistleblower law?  With that trend in mind, who can blame John Doe for not wanting to get involved even at this level?

A man with a hammer, of course, thinks every problem is a nail.  Therefore and ironically, to these lawmakers, the solution to law and government, and our increasing reliance on the court system is is more law and government, and more reliance on the court system. It ends up, unintentionally, as yet another power grab by the government.

Interesting response from NATO, to the questioning of Chuck Simmins, about why they don’t publish numbers of enemy dead.

It is ISAF policy not to release enemy lossses. This is not a measure of success for us.

Ummmmm…. Yeah…. Okaaaayyyyyy…..

I would respectfully suggest that if that’s truly the case, then one of two situations is in force:

1. That they truly don’t understand the nature of the war they are in
2. That publishing numbers of enemy dad is less useful to their purposes than publishing numbers of coalition did, including U.S. forces.

The other possibility, of course, is that that’s not truly the case.  Frankly, I’m not sure which one frightens me more.

About time…

WaPo- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday ordered quarterback Michael Vick not to report to training camp with the Atlanta Falcons until the league has reviewed his legal troubles stemming from federal dogfighting charges.

Vick’s playing status is to be determined by Goodell, and the NFL gave no timetable for the decision other than to announce that the review would be completed “as soon as possible.”

“While it is for the criminal justice system to determine your guilt or innocence, it is my responsibility as commissioner of the National Football League to determine whether your conduct, even if not criminal, nonetheless violated league policies, including the personal conduct policy,” Goodell wrote Vick in a letter yesterday, according to an NFL statement.

Better late than never, I suppose.  Goodell has the players union to deal with, after all.

And frankly, I have to wonder here a little bit, about that. where is the players union on all of this?  We have not seen any overt defense of Vick as yet, but neither have we seen their condemnation of him either.

Before you get the impression that I think Goodell is the good guy here, let’s remember that he met with Michael Vick last April, following the discovery of dogfight in equipment during a drug raid on Vick’s Surrey County Property. the man should have been cut loose back then.  He was not. As far as I’m concerned, Goodell is now an accessory after the fact. 
Lest you think this is “let’s dump on Michael Vick”, I would also ask if the silence from the players union, and Goodell himself, isn’t because of their recognition that this kind of thing goes far beyond one man.  We have already discussed the idea that this is as much as anything else a difference of cultures… so the question becomes, how many others in the NFL are involved? My guess is a fair few. My guess also is, this thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and there’s going to be a lot of cover-up going on, between now and the beginning of the next season.

James Taranto has an op ed up as of yesterday that will interest those of you who noted our posting on the Joe Bruno/Elliot Spitzer/Andrew Cuomo thing here in NY, yesterday.

Culture of Corruption
Imagine if top aides to President Bush ordered the FBI to produce damaging but false information about Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. Now that would be a scandal. And that is what is happening in New York state, as the New York Post reports:

Gov. [Eliot] Spitzer suspended a top aide and reassigned another yesterday after Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released a bombshell report concluding they conspired with the State Police to damage Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by cooking up a plot claiming he misused state aircraft.

Spitzer, who had recently insisted that neither his staff nor the State Police had acted improperly, said communications director Darren Dopp was suspended without pay for an “indefinite period” of at least 30 days.

William Howard, the governor’s assistant secretary for homeland security, will be reassigned to a position outside of the governor’s staff.

Cuomo’s report also recommended disciplinary action be considered against acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, but none was taken.

The scathing, 53-page report detailed a months-long scheme in which Dopp, Howard, and Felton–at times with the partial knowledge of Spitzer chief of staff Richard Baum–used the State Police to gather and create misleading and inaccurate records on Bruno’s use of state aircraft to travel from Albany to Manhattan in hopes of showing he was using the flights strictly for political purposes, a possibly illegal action. . . .

The report confirmed a week’s worth of investigative stories in The Post beginning July 5 that found aides to Spitzer, including Dopp, used the State Police as, in effect, a spy agency as part of a broad conspiracy aimed at destroying Bruno.

For what it’s worth, Spitzer is a Democrat and Bruno is a Republican. The New York Times, in covering the report, described Spitzer as ” a former prosecutor who came into office less than seven months ago with a reputation for integrity and who promised to bring a new ethical climate to Albany.”

Says Taranto:

The Post’s scoop and its consequences are an object lesson in the importance of an independent press in holding public officials accountable.

Well, I don’t know is I go quite that far.  It’s only a matter of import, if consequences ensue.  Since the attorney general in this case is also a Democrat, it’s pretty much a given, but Spitzer is facing no consequences whatever. Still, he has a point as regards the mainstream media versus an independent paper.  The New York Times, predictably, is playing its usual game of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no truth, if it involves a Democrat”.  Says Surber as regards the Times Coverage:

A few days late and a few dollars short, the New York Times finally reported today: “Spitzer Aides Cited for Use of Police to Tarnish Bruno.”

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s political affiliation is disclosed in the 7th paragraph. Maybe that’s how newspapers should handle the political affiliation of fallen Democrats: Gov. Spitzer, 7th paragraph-N.Y.

Unless the shouting gets real out on this from other sources, my take is that this will be the last time we’ll see this entire situation mentioned in the New York Times. I can’t imagine that non-reaction were Pataki still in office, can you? We both know the Times would be leading the Lynch mob.

We were warned, last year, that we were going to have a monster of a hurricane season.  The proximate cause, we were told, was global warming.  Of course, that fizzled.  And the beginning of 2017 along, and the usual suspects were making noise again about how we were going to have a record hurricane season, again, because of global warming.  Guess what?

NEW YORK (Reuters) –The 2007 hurricane season may be less severe than forecast due to cooler-than-expected water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, private forecaster WSI Corp said on Tuesday.

The season will bring 14 named storms, of which six will become hurricanes and three will become major hurricanes, WSI said in its revised outlook. WSI had previously expected 15 named storms of which eight would become hurricanes and four would become major hurricanes.

“Because the ocean temperatures have not yet rebounded from the significant drop in late spring, we have decided to reduce our forecast numbers slightly,” said Todd Crawford, a WSI seasonal forecaster.

At some point, they’re just going to have to admit they haven’t the foggiest idea what they’re talking about, and let it go at that.  Warning us of cataclysmic events because of “global warming”,  which then don’t happen because the ocean is cooler than expected, tells me they this stuff is being made up on the fly, and hyped by pols for the purpose of political power.
Al Gore, call your office. The alert is over.

The Global War on Terror, on the home front:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration took action Tuesday against an Iran-based foundation, including its U.S. branch, for allegedly providing support to Hezbollah, a terrorist group the United States has blamed for bloodshed in Lebanon

Enjoy the security while it lasts.  No Clinton administration would ever raid an Islamic charity front.

More, Michelle Malkin.

Spitzer denies any knowledge of what his closes aide was doing, which seems improbable.

But hang on. Even he didn’t know, isn’t this the same guy who wants corporate executives held criminally liable for the mistakes of their underlings, even if they had no knowledge of those mistakes? Isn’t this the guy who wanted to make not knowing about those mistakes a crime in and of itself?

And if anything, shouldn’t someone who holds high political office ought to be more accountable than the executive of a private company?

Radley Balko, Agitator.

Hat Tip, Pajamas Media.

?

• If one more person asks me what my “carbon footprint” is, they’re going to be able to take measurements of my carbon footprint on their own backsides.  Idiots.
• Speaking of carbon footprints, I’m willing to bet this guy left a few behind. This is called Darwin in action
• By the time you read this, Ward Churchill, he of the “Little Eichman’s” fame, will have been booted.  Personally, if I were you, Argentina, I wouldn’t shed any tears for him. First off, you know as well as I do, that even assuming the regents kick him out, as they ought, he will immediately go to court claiming his constitutional rights in been violated.  That, of course, will fall through as well.  Where’s he going to end up in the long run?  My guess is he’ll be working for the university of Maine, alongside such luminaries as Scott Erb. The two of them deserve each other, though the tragedy there is they’ll be teaching young minds full of mush.  As of 7:15 pm, when this is written, nothing as yet. But you know it’s going to happen. (Update… that did happen, he’s gone… and of course he’s now filing suit. Michelle has the details.)
• I know to report earlier today by Fox news that there was some stomping on ‘charities’ in the Dearborn, Michigan area. Let’s see… Dearborn. That would make these groups radical right wing Christian groups, right?  Yeah, right.  Apparently the “Martyrs Foundation” and the “Goodwill Charitable Organization” were the targets… Turns out they have been helping with funding Hezbollah . I see Michelle has been following this one. Debbie has been tracking this one too.
• While I have the editor open I notice that protein wisdom denizen Jeff G’s grandmother has passed on.  Our condolences, Jeff.
• The other side of that comes from Dan Drezner who reports that his great aunt Shirley celebrated birthday number 106 last month.
• Jawa is linking a New York Times has poll, which says support for the war has gone up, not down.  This in spite of the best efforts of the democrats to cast our actions in Iraq has the worst Of any possibility.  It strikes me that what we’re dealing with here, is the reality surrounding the early reports of success of the surge.  Which, no surprise to anyone, the Democrats have been trying to downplay, as well.  There are very few people in America, who do not recognize that the New York Times has become the Democratic Party’s House organ…. the claims of Kos to that title not withstanding. When even they admit that the democrats are losing ground, you’d better figure there’s much more to the story than they’re telling us.

By way of McQ, we see John Bambernek at Blog Critics… well, I’ll let him say it:

Today I filed an Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against Kos Media, LLC., better known as DailyKos.com.  I allege that they operate as a political committee and are therefore subject to FEC rules.

I first thought of this complaint during the Cindy Sheehan debacle over at Daily Kos, where Cindy pledged to run as an independent against Nancy Pelosi, and the Daily Kos basically turned on her. While some conservatives took great delight in this, I really didn’t care because it’s politics as usual. The right has thrown their fair share of people under the bus for not drinking the Kool-aid too.

However, the statement that the DailyKos was about electing Democrats stuck with me. I always assumed it was a standard left-wing group blog spouting the latest and greatest in left-wing diatribe. However, the statement that the blog exists to get Democrats elected is repeated in various places around the site, including statements by Kos himself.

…

In the end, the DailyKos is bound by its own statement that it exists to elect Democrats. They’ve made themselves subject to the FEC when they decided to be an arm of the Democratic Party.

First, let me point out that this new piety, this new reluctance to engage in leftist vitriol, I mentioned  day before yesterday… from the very person has defined the phrase for the last couple of years, may in fact be explained by this FEC suit, and the light being shed on Kos and his drolling band of idiots.

Secondly, …..does anyone think the reverse would not have happened at some point during the campaign? That some Democrat wouldn’t have tried a suit against some center to right blogger?

And finally, let’s examine the idea that this lawsuit is based upon the assertions of Daily Kos being a Democrat blog, incidental to kicking Cindy Sheehan off the site. After all, one can be overly leftist, or rightist for that matter, without being specific to one party or another. There is a major difference between being “highly partisan” and being “dedicated to electing democrats”, particularly from a legal perspective. I suggest that line got crossed in his reaction to Sheehan.

.
When Kos crossed that line, vis’a’vie’ Sheehan, is when he got himself into trouble. His mouth got too big. So, he’s busy telling everyone else to ‘cool the vitriol’ for reasons of self-preservation.

This strikes me is the reaction of someone who has just realized he has located a pile of Great Dane excrement with his shoe.

Who is the 14% supporting Congress?

Jed Babbin says, it’s not as good for the Democrats as the 14% would seem to suggest.

Some of them must be people who are, um, a bit too busy to take pestiferous calls from pollsters. Like the mom who’s rushing out the door. It’s 3:02 pm, the kids are home for all of five minutes, changing into their sports gear and gathering up what they need for the school play rehearsal, most of which needs to be created from scratch by 3:05 pm. She’s bailing out the door, cramming them into the car with juice boxes, baseball helmets, soccer cleats and Frisbees. (Nobody is lucky enough to have all the kids playing the same sport the same year).

So mom answers the phone, thinking it’s her husband and wanting to tell him to pick something up for dinner, but it turns out to be some pollster who goes through a long spiel about how important the poll is. When he finally gets to the first question, Sally starts screaming about Jimmy throwing her Frisbee out the car window and mom passes her mood on to the pollster: “SURE CONGRESS IS DOING FREAKING GREAT. WHO CARES? G’BYE,” and slams down the phone to run after the flying disc, now about forty yards down the street. So let’s say two or three percent are people like mom. Add to that the teenagers who tell the pollster they’re of voting age just to be funny, and who think the word “congress” is boring unless used as an adjective attached to “sexual.” We must be up to five percent by now.

Some of the 14-percenters must be the Dems employees, relatives and friends. (Don’t forget, there are at least 30,000 Congressional staffers, and more than half are Dems.) Subtract from them all mothers-in-law, some pain in the butt brothers-in-law and rival siblings, and even that base can’t be very large. Ok, that brings us up to maybe six or eight percent. Then there’s the Dems’ most loyal constituency, the press.

… And so on.  A good read.  It’s also a read that goes directly to my point the other night, when I suggested that the only thing the Democrats had managed to do was to unify the country… against the Democrats in Congress… and give themselves a pay raise for doing it.  No small feat, that.

Michelle Malkin says:

The newspaper that was hoaxed by Jayson Blair covers the magazine that was hoaxed by Stephen Glass, and which is now under tough scrutiny over the work of pseudonymous soldier “Scott Thomas.”

I am not altogether comfortable with Michelle’s use of words, here.   The use of the word “hoax” suggests that the newspapers in question were not willing participants , that the writers pulled something over on the paper.  “Hoax” may very well be an accurate description, but the frequency with which this is occurring suggests that the actual hoax is being perpetrated by the papers, on the American people.

This perception would seem to be reinforced by the speed with which the papers want to print with these questionable articles , without apparently having vetted them.  Again, the frequency of this occurrence is a key element. Even assuming that this is unintentional on the part of the papers, we are left with the impression that the reason these stories did not get vetted fully is because the stories matched with the worldview of the editors and owners of the news outlets in question.  “Fake but accurate” leaps to mind.