Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: We stood as we have always stood, for reward – in’ the men that won the victory. They call that the spoils system... When the Republicans had the docks under Low and Strong, you didn’t hear them sayin’ anything about graft, did you? No; they’ just went in and made hay while the sun shone – That’s always the case.
George Washington Plunkitt described "honest graft," in which instead of just pursuing your own interest (i.e. graft) you pursue the interests of your party, your state, and yourself. And if anyone thinks Ben Nelson voted solely on conscience Nelson himself clarifies that self-interest was indeed part of the calculation: "So far, the focus seems to have been on some people who are angry. They're ignoring the fact that not only were there good reasons to do what I did, but that there would have been a backlash the other way."
Sickening in any century.
---
"I DECLINE THE MOTIVE GAME AND RESUME THE DISCUSSION". C.S. Lewis was even cooler than I thought or so I concluded when I ran across this masterful put-down that I had never read before:
[Responding to a critic.] The Professor has his own explanation ... he thinks that I am unconsciously motivated by the fact that I ‘stand to lose by social change’. And indeed it would be hard for me to welcome a change which might well consign me to a concentration camp. I might add that it would likewise be easy for the Professor to welcome a change which might place him in the highest rank of an omnicompetent oligarchy. That is why the motive game is so uninteresting. Each side can go on playing ad nauseam, but when all the mud has been flung every man’s views still remain to be considered on their merits. I decline the motive game and resume the discussion.
From the Wikipedia entry on "Bulverism" quoting A Reply to Professor Haldane
Let's agree that Bulverism should always remain only a tactic employed by progressives. But let's also agree to identify their arguments as Bulverism at every opportunity. I see this almost daily in the comments to the Jack Webb Schools Obama on Healthcare video. Here's the most recent:
5random1 (23 minutes ago)
Old white men telling him what their lives are all about. Demanding buy-in to their system. Worked against "communism."
-- from an old white man - time for change - big change.
So apparently because the men speaking are old white men this in and of itself suffices to refute their statements. The only proper response is as Lewis said to "decline the motive game and resume the discussion."
20 DEC 09
LIBERAL BLOGS: SPITTING THE VENOM AT OBAMA THAT CONSERVATIVES WON'T: "Everyone from Bibi Netanyahu to the Japanese prime minister to sundry Iranian mullahs is stomping all over Mr. Happy.
And he doesn't even seem to realize it."
This from David Michael Green who blogs at The Smirking Chimp. He is a professor of political science at Hofstra University. Funny thing about Hofstra: a few years back a visiting Hofstra professor told me that Hofstra to this day is still best remembered as the opponent in the football game where Bill Cosby got kicked in the groin.
---
MAYBE THEY WILL LISTEN IF WE SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE: Progressive politicians seem deaf to the pleas of the 61% of us who oppose the healthcare changes they are debating. Maybe we aren't speaking in an idiom they appreciate? I'm guessing that a guy who will push the envelope so far toward state run healthcare is probably better petitioned through a poetry slam or stream-of-consciousness prose than an impassioned argument. So here goes.
Ode to the One
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Man who hasn't worked a demanding job
in his entire life
tells me to pay for my brother's viagra.
Thank you,
no.
Man who hasn't met a payroll,
or closed out a register,
or done a unit costing,
tells me to pay for my sister's gastric bypass.
Man with oil from Scandinavian hors d'oeuvres still on his fingers who hasn't installed irrigation,
or fixed his own faucets,
or laid down attic insulation,
or mowed his own lawn,
tells me to pay for my neighbor's abortion.
Thank you,
no.
What have I done that you must scramble the things I've worked so hard and so long for?
What makes you think I want your interpretation of help?
What will it take for you to leave me alone?
Remake America?
Go ahead and try.
You're ignorant of history...
...you don't know how badly you'll make us crash and burn.
And
if
you
succeed?
.
.
.
.
.
There's always Australia.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
19 DEC 09
USE GOOGLE's PHONE DIRECTORY SERVER "GOOG411" TO CONNECT TO YOUR SENATOR'S LOCAL OFFICE: I like using Google's goog-411 info lookup number (800 466-4411) to find the local office of elected representatives. For example, call 800 466-4411 and say "Senator Blanche Lincoln" and "Little Rock, Arkansas" and they'll connect you directly to the local office, not the office in D.C. I assume these guys here from the local office so the more points of contact you can make with them the better. Many senators have offices in different large cities, so if you've got a long morning commute entertain yourself by using goog-411 to find all the offices of Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, or Blanche Lincoln. Goog-411 is a great service and a great way to speak up to these folks who appear not to be hearing us right now.
Of course if you're serious about opposing the progressives in D.C. who want to roll the dice on whether you still have decent healthcare after a life of working hard for it, you've already got the house switchboard on your cell. If not it is 202-224-3121. Ask for your senator. I am surprised how many times you will talk to a staffer. It's fun to ask them what position their boss has on tort reform.
p.s. Dads: make sure all your kids have goog-411 on their cell phones; it's amazingly useful for finding stores, restaurants etc. in any town.
17 DEC 09
BREITBART TV LINKS TO THE NEW VIDEO. HOORAY! It is amazing how a link on a BreitBart site, InstaPundit, or HotAir can start an avalanche of links. It's six hours later and now linked at 1,000+ web sites.
JACK WEBB REMINDS THE PRESIDENT HE LIVES IN A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: With CNN reporting on 10 DEC 09 that 61% of us are against this bill, give the President a B+ for keeping a straight face while explaining how our only real choice is to pass a 2,000 page bill that includes no tort reform. Here's what I wish Jack Webb had said to him:
Obama: things are a mess, so let's roll the dice on your healthcare.
DO YOU KNOW OF A GREAT RANT FROM OUR COMMON FILM HERITAGE THAT SCHOOLS THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION? If so, please use the comments form to submit an idea. I'll edit the video and we'll share credit. And if it goes to a million hits on YouTube, then we've done the world a little good while making absolutely no money because you can't get a dime from the YouTube Partnership Program if you use copyrighted material.
Here are some ideas so far:
1. Jimmy Stewart's blessing out Potter in It's a Wonderful Life. (I'm thinking George Soros as the "scurvy little spider" who "think[s] the whole world revolves around you and your money.")
2. William Shatner to Charlie X on the "million things in this world that you can have, and a million things that you can't have." Obama is the natural target for this speech. 3. Paul Scofield amazing Give the Devil the Benefit of Law speech from A Man for All Seasons, with Reid/Pelosi who "cut a great road through the law to get to the devil."
And of course, any Dragnet speeches you can think of that we haven't used yet. To suggest an idea, please use the Post Comments Here link. ---
RANDOM THOUGHTS RESEARCHED POORLY: It's been a long week, and I deserve this.
Their best guys couldn't figure out the Cash for Clunkers program would run through it's first billion in six days. Let's please remind them that they can't possibly predict all of the unintended consequences of these 2,000 page health reform laws.
---
You can work for 30 years to keep a good job and get good things for your family, including good health insurance, and then your elected officials can decide to throw it all up in the air so that you may end up with the same coverage as some guy in his second week at Burger King. Good for him, not so good for you.
--- Please, with a show of hands, how many people think they have worked harder than Barack Obama in their lifetime? Yeah, I thought so. They say he was summa cum laude but that whole first year at Business International Corporation made him sound pretty weak. Especially given that he spiced it up for later consumption by progressives who would never know what it's really like to be a cubicle slave. Sure, you're working with international customers, but on the phone guys, not in the airport lounges. L.A. Law it wasn't.
---
And please, what person wouldn't rather be a community organizer than to work as a first year hire at a high power law firm? It's not enough to talk a good game, get a couple of weak committments, declare the project a success, and move on. You have to produce at these places, and you are under tremendous scrutiny to make sure that you do produce. Community organizer? Do you even have to get up early in the morning for that?
---
If they want to buy votes, why not give away something else I worked hard for, like 47" HD TVs? In fact I'd rather they gave away HD TVs. I value my kids health more than HD TVs, so leave my health insurance alone. Given the choice, I'm guessing a 20 something slacker would choose the HD TV over health insurance.
---
We had a kid in high school who was "too big to fail." Quiet, average build, could use his hands well. Only sophomore with a car. Sat in the back of the assemblies, he and his buddies. They seemed to hang out in the cafeteria most of the time. Once the assistant principal caught him in the act of pulling a fire alarm. The school's response: put locks on the alarms. Too big to fail means I'll slash your tires if you fail me. A lot of D.C. seems to operate like high school.
--- Is there a single prominent writer or commentator who grew up a conservative and then as he matured and got a few life lessons under his belt found himself compelled by conscience to become a progressive? I would genuinely like to read what he has to say. For the progressive to conservative morph, read David Horowitz, Michael Savage, Dennis Miller, Andrew Breitbart, and Michael Medved. The most compelling first person description of liberal conversion I've seen is Evan Sayet's "How Modern Liberals Think". See especially the story starting at 1:55.
---
It is not safe to say this (sad but true) but I would like to go on the record to predict that in a few years when someone like Chris Gardner (of Pursuit of Happyness fame) runs for president there will be some talk that he would be our "first really black president" because he will be 1) of west African descent like most American blacks, 2) a man raised in a black family living in the continental US, and 3) a man who got out of a ghetto on his own effort. If I were a gambler I'd register that domain now, like somebody did for www.firstblackpresident.com.
14 DEC 09
ARKANSANS: HOW TO BAIL ON BLANCHE IF SHE VOTES FOR HEALTHCARE WITHOUT TORT REFORM: Very simple and very effective: go to www.SenatorGilbertBaker.com and donate to help get Senator Gilbert Baker elected. As of today her office reports that Lincoln has not come out either for or against the current bill being debated in the senate. Please let's get her attention and remind her that Howard Dean's admission that their party's unwillingness to disappoint trial lawyers by proposing tort reform will get her fired in 2010. Call her at (202) 224-3121.
26 OCT 09
BREITBART INTERVIEW EXPLAINS AND DEMONSTRATES PROGRESSIVE/CONSERVATIVE SPLIT: Maybe Andrew Breitbart had intended to produce the perfect lecture/lab training moment when he sat down for 27 minutes with C-SPAN on 22 OCT 09. The end result is certainly effective. After he explains his plans, his journey from liberal to conservative, and how the Democrat-media complex works, the callers make his point for him by demonstrating those behaviors he has just decried. One is so angry he can only state that Andrew (and Sarah and Bush and O'Reilly etc.) are evil. Another attacks Clarence Thomas on a private matter for no reason except to destroy him. One sneaks in on the Republican phone line. Another prays for his obviously condemned soul. Breitbart responds to them all with logical responses delivered without invective. Very effective.
Rarely does evidence follow so closely on the heals of exposition.
If you have a reasonable progressive friend or family member, this might be instructive. Rarely do you see evidence that supports a point of view come so quickly after the expression of that point of view.
16 OCT 09
CONSERVATIVE AND PASSIONATE: A favorite refrain from progressives is that law-and-order type conservatives are joyless, uptight squares who don't know the streets and aren't connected to real emotions. A favorite target for this stereotype is Jack Webb. Watch the episode of Dragnet 1967 entitled 'The Interrogation" to see great writing and acting put the lie to that unfair characterization.
Full episode "The Interrogation" featuring the"What is a cop?" speech at hulu.com.
This episode features at 17:00 the famous "What is a cop?" speech written by Preston Wood. "You're going to rub elbows with all the elite: Pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos, girls who can't keep an address and men who don't care." Great stuff. Wood also wrote the speech about America that resonates so well with people in the "Jack Webb Schools Obama..." video. A young Kent McCord is the angry undercover cop.
p.s. The bizarre use of a single kettle drum for all the music always seemed a strange but effective choice given the serious nature of the drama. It ends up, wikipedia reports, there was a musician's strike that forced this choice.
14 OCT 09
BIG BUDGET, IDIOTIC ENDING. Would you like Casablanca if it ended with this scene: Major Strasser gets the drop on Victor Laszlo but when he shoots Rick dives and catches the bullet between his teeth. That's what it's like watching big budget movies for those of us who work intimately with computers. From War Games in 1983 to 1996's Independence Day to 2008's The Dark Knight, Hollywood has demonstrated that it will not bother to ask the question "Does this ending make sense from a technical point of view?"
Here's an example. Take a look at the first 60 seconds of this clip from the Mathew Broderick 80s hit War Games.
Dumbest ending (for techies) to a Hollywood hit in recent memory
The W.O.P.R. computer needs to guess a 10 character launch code to launch nuclear missiles. So it sends random 10 character codes. At 0:27 we see that when one of the characters in the random 10 characters matches the actual launch code, that character is revealed. This approach--let's call it the "Wheel of Fortune" security strategy--is the equivalent of Humphrey Bogart diving across the tarmac to catch that bullet between his teeth.
The offense continues at 0:50 when 9 of the 10 characters have been guessed and it takes 5 seconds (yes, seconds, not milliseconds, microseconds, or nanoseconds) to run through the remaining 63 possible characters. So the two groaningly bad errors are 1) no security system like this would ever be put in production and 2) no supercomputer would ever take 5 seconds to cycle through 63 characters. (See p.s. below for a plausible ending.)
What's heart-breaking about these goofs is that there are SO many fascinating and unexpected ways in which comptuers can fail. Yet these real-life dramas are never told. One good example is when a slip of paper gets jammed into a computer's alarm mechanism in the 1971 The Andromeda Strain. Michael Crichton, of course.
p.s. If they had just asked me, I would have told them to have W.O.P.R. send random 10 digit characters and then analyze the time it takes for each code to be rejected. The longer it takes, the more initial characters are correct. Would that have been too difficult to explain? In 1946 Frank Capra explained a bank run in It's a Wonderful Life.
Capra explained a bank run. Can't Hollywood get things right anymore?
It would have been easier to explain that squirrels had burrowed into the bank and taken everyone's money, but thankfully Capra chose to be technically accurate.
12 OCT 09
JACK WEBB VIDEO NOW OVER 1 MILLION VIEWS: Hooray! With a YouTube video that shows copyrighted material and a buck, I can get coffee at McDonald's.
Norwegian Nobel Committee and the soft bigotry of giving awards based on high expectations.
NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE BECLOWNS ITSELF WITH EPIC AMERICAN SENSIBILITIES FAIL
Dear Thorbjørn Jagland, Sissel Marie Rønbeck, Ågot Valle, Kaci Kullmann Five, and Inger-Marie Ytterhorn:
This is our country, our foreign policy, our president. This award of yours is a nuisance to him. It is an obvious and demeaning encouragement that insults the president's independence and intelligence. If in your judgement you thought this would help him do his job then you must know by now that even his supporters say that it has not. If you thought that it might move our country, our foreign policy, and our president in the direction that you four ladies and one gentleman prefer, then you have probably done the opposite. In a way we conservatives could not, you have made the point that he is our president and he should do what's best for our country by the light of his own judgement and conscience. He does not require your approval and now that you have done this clumsy thing maybe he will begin to act that way. Awarding the peace prize with comment as to its significance was a mistake that we conservatives thank you for.
p.s. There's a subtlety to race relations in America that may not translate well. So in case you haven't heard, your action has given ammunition to those critics who would call the president under-performing and over-rewarded.
REFUSING AN AWARD: Jean-Paul Sartre refused a nobel prize in literature. CEO of Chicago schools refused an anti-gun violence award, saying "I don't feel I can quite accept this award, not quite yet."
2 OCT 09
THANK YOU GLENN REYNOLDS AND ANDREW BREITBART: They linked to the video about the child molester and it is getting lots of views. If you want to learn more, there's a very sad 36 page grand jury testimony by the victim. Hat tip to Patterico for finding this site that has pictures of the victim at the time period, showing how absolutely laughable it is for Polanski to have claimed he thought she was an adult.
JACK WEBB SCHOOLS ROMAN POLANSKI ON SEX WITH CHILDREN: Here's the video:
Roman Polanski laughs, claims rape of 13 yr. old was not premeditated.
At 0:24 he claims there was no pre-meditation. It's an interesting world view he holds, no doubt very European, in which a type of non-premeditated "third degree" rape of a 13 year old does not carry punishment and instead is something you can guffaw about in an interview with Diane Sawyer.
27 SEP 09
OBAMA'S UN SPEECH AND ONE BY HIS ELDER THE NEXT DAY: Here's a video that compares Obama's recent speech at the United Nations to Netanyahu's the next day. It amazes me that in some quarters Obama's speech receives praise.
Two speakers on country, Iran, middle east, environment, and the future.
WAIT, WAIT, DON'T ASSUME I'M A PROGRESSIVE: Do you listen to NPRs "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me" as you go about doing chores on Sunday? I do. Do Host Peter Sagal and producer Doug Berman know that we conservatives will tune in to avoid the typical weekend radio on real estate and dietary supplements? Today's flippancy toward all things conservative was pronounced.
C.S. Lewis' tempter Screwtape describes flippancy in The Screwtape Letters this way:
But flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.
But moderns find nothing wrong with being flippant. They should be concerned, because, as Screwtape continues...
... the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy [God] that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practise it.
His observation that flippancy "excites no affection between those who practise it" Lewis, described 35 years in advance the situation I found myself in as a freshman at a liberal east coast university.
25 SEP 09
OBAMA VERSUS NETANYAHU ON HOW TO START A SPEECH: If you haven't watched Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations yesterday and you like the plain speaking of Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan, you should watch. He gets right to the speech part of the speech in 10 seconds.
By way of comparison it took Barack Obama on the previous day a minute and 34 seconds to start the speech proper. First was a lengthy salutation followed by an "I come before you humbled" line that, coming so soon after the preening he did during the first applause line, left me skeptical. Then there was a weak joke on the heavy toll the job has carried in the last 9 months. Someone should remind him that the events of the last 9 months have in some quarters caused much more sufferng that whatever he is feeling. The transcript of the president's speech at this link does what he should have done and omits the preliminaries.
16 SEP 09
A THOUSAND DISHONEST WORDS: The media in their tea party coverage have been trying to make us look like ignorant yahoos.
So here's something that tries to make them look like effeminate sycophants:
This journalism stuff is fun.
JACK WEBB SCHOOLS OBAMA ON RESPECT FOR POLICE: With all the diplomatic skill of that tall guy in Accounting at the water cooler the president of the United States wonders aloud how much or how little racial animosity motivated Sergeant James Crowley to arrest professor Henry Gates. It's a shame Jack Webb wasn't there to comment.
Some guy The president Monday morning quarterbacking the police.
Well Mr. President, I think it's fair to say number 1, you weren't there, number 2, you weren't there, and number 3, you weren't there.
13 SEP 09
JACK WEBB SCHOOLS TIMOTHY GEITHNER ON TAX MISTAKES: The confirmation hearing of Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary did not end with a scolding. Many wish it had.
Ever wonder where the term "shifty eyed" comes from? See it at 0:30.
12 SEP 09
DINOSAUR MEDIA SAYS "WE DON'T LICENSE TO YOUTUBE": When the Jack Webb video went past 200,000 views I got an invitation from YouTube management to start selling ads through the YouTube Partnership Program. The registration form warns you not to sell ads for copyrighted material. So I call Roni Lubliner in the Media Licensing group at Universal Studios, explain the Jack Webb Schools Barack Obama on Healthcare YouTube, and ask if it would be possible to license the 90 seconds of Dragnet in the video. She scolds me that the original writers and artists deserve to be paid. I said, yes, of course, that's why I called. I'm a big fan of Dragnet and would never think of stealing it. She said "We don't license to YouTube."
I understand the need to protect your brand, but it seems odd to turn down money. Especially given that Glen Reynolds' link at Pajamas Media and the "related video" traffic generated by my video has resulted in a spike in the other popular Jack Webb video. (To see this effect go to the "copper clappers" video and click on the "Statistics" link.)