KN@PPSTER

Election 2012: Early GOP Handicapping

2009-07-06T15:34:00.004-05:00

The 2012 GOP nomination field is already starting to come together in peoples' minds. Is it too early to start eyeballing the horses and making tentative predictions? I don't think it is.

The graphic to the right features eight faces that fit. No, they haven't declared, and some of them may not do so, but that doesn't mean they're not in contention. They've all got buzz to one degree or another as of right now; no one would be surprised to see any or all of them throw their hats in the ring.

I removed one face from the field before I even got the graphic together: Mississippi governor Haley Barbour's. He's apparently already on the stump, but IMO he's just got too much baggage to make it past the Iowa straw poll. I could be wrong. You may see him in future "field pics."

From the top:

Jeb Bush: He's the first Republican to ever manage election to a second term as governor of Florida. He's popular with conservatives. He's popular with Hispanic voters, and especially with the Cuban community. I don't think he'll run, though. Even four years of Obama is probably not going to be enough to give the Bush name a nice ring to the American ear again. It would be an uphill run, and the Bush boys seem to prefer that "sense of inevitability" in their campaigns.

Newt Gingrich: He futzed around with the idea of running in 2008 -- so much so that by Decision Time, everyone was tired of his futzing and the other candidates had left him behind. I think he's learned his lesson, I think he'll get in the 2012 race early and without reservations, and I think he'll do well. I don't think he'll win the nomination, but he's one of three candidates whom I believe might win it.

Mike Huckabee: This is the man to beat. You don't believe me, do you? Just you wait and see. He's got the executive experience (two terms as governor of Arkansas). He's got the populist chops. He gets "I told you so" credit for staying in longer and fighting John McCain harder than any other Republican in 2008. He's keeping his mug out front, but not so far out front as to get it slapped silly in the off-season. When he comes out ... well, like I said, just you wait and see.

Bobby Jindal: Maybe he'll run, maybe he won't. If he does, he'll be an early cull. Unfortunately, he probably won't have a shot at the VP slot, either, since the nominee will be a southern male and will be looking for a running mate from the north or west.

Sarah Palin: I won't be surprised if she runs. I will be surprised if she makes it past the first turn in the primaries as more than comic relief. Even if she manages to hold on to her weird "rock star" shininess for two more years (highly unlikely -- she passed out of "Las Vegas Comeback Special Elvis" territory some time ago and is headed for "Anyone Seen Big White Jumpsuit Elvis? I Think He's In The Bathroom ..." country at ludicrous speed), she'll be running against opponents who haven't resigned from public office twice without completing their terms, and who will be very keen to mention that at every opportunity. She's toast.

Tim Pawlenty: He's going to run. He's going to lose. But if he can avoid getting caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy or dropping the f-bomb in debate, he's got a good shot at the veep nomination. The top slot will go to a conservative southerner; a northern/midwest governor who tries to sell himself as "moderate" fills the bill out nicely.

Mitt Romney: Not a chance. I've already explained why.

Fred Thompson: My third "contender" pick -- but see "Gingrich, Newt" above and double the emphasis. If he wants in, he can't afford to dick around until late 2011 before saying so. He needs to announce early, and be out there throwing hands even earlier (like, say, yesterday). Otherwise, Huckabee and Gingrich will steal a march on him and his campaign will, once again, be over before it gets started.

Right now my money's on Huckabee ... but the campaigns won't be in full swing for two more years and a lot can change in two years. If "national security" issues move back to the forefront in a big way, Wonk Hawk from Hell Newt Gingrich or solid, comforting, "Reaganesque" Thompson may get an inside track.

Well, there you have it. That's the way I see it as of today. I'm sure that I'll see it differently as things progress, and that I'll say so ... but I don't memory hole my predictions when I get it wrong. If I've got it way wrong, well, this post will remain here for you to make fun of in perpetuity.

--

Photo Credits:

Jeb Bush -- Government of Florida, public domain
Newt Gingrich -- KyleCassidy, GNU Free Documentation License
Mike Huckabee -- David Ball, used with permission
Bobby Jindal -- Government, public domain
Sarah Palin -- J.delanoy, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0
Tim Pawlenty -- Office of Governor Tim Pawlenty, used with permission
Mitt Romney -- Mitt Romney Media, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
Fred Thompson -- US Senate, public domain

Anarchy: But seriously, folks

2009-07-06T11:58:00.002-05:00

My latest at the Center for a Stateless Society. Teaser:

You there! Yeah, you, the one who just told me I'm not serious and that a stateless society couldn't possibly work -- turn on your television and take note of the next few political stories you see. For the sake of argument, I'm going to throw out some examples of what's likely coming through the tube at the moment:

In New York, the State Senate is deadlocked into two bodies of 31 senators each. Each body claims to be the real Senate and refuses to acknowledge the other. Each body is one short of a quorum to legally pass bills. Last week, a Senator from one faction wandered across the other faction's floor territory looking for a soda machine. The other faction declared the existence of a quorum and hurriedly passed 100 bills while he tried to hunt up his cold beverage. No dice -- the lower house of the legislature declined to recognize bills passed by the Cola Quorum.

In California, the state is issuing IOUs instead of checks to cover tax refunds, payments to vendors, etc. After the electorate rejected several tax increase proposals, the legislature deadlocked on a budget. The main activity on the floor of the legislature seems, at this point, to be referring to the public as "terrorists" for refusing to hand more of their earnings over to the politicians so that said politicians don't have to make "tough decisions," i.e. spend only within their extremely substantial means.

In South Carolina, the biggest political issue of the moment seems to be whether or not the governor should resign because he has a mistress in Argentina.

In Alaska, the governor has resigned. Why? Who knows? It appears to have something to do with dead fish and basketball and Jesus, but until her speech is re-released with English subtitles it's anybody's guess.

Now, two things:

First, get "serious." Go back over those stories above and then try to tell me, with a straight face, that the state "works." Admit it: 90% of what the state does looks like a deleted early pilot of "Different Strokes" -- same cast, only with Joan Crawford as the adoptive mother.

Sunday bloggish navel gazing

2009-07-05T16:52:00.004-05:00

So many writers have said it in so many ways that I can't remember from whom I first picked it up (I can remember when -- I was 12 -- just not from whom): If one wants to be a writer, one must write.

I took the maxim to heart immediately, starting with club notices for my local newspaper, and in the 30 years since I don't think I've ever gone more than a few weeks without buckling down to write "seriously." The last such period which comes to mind is December of 1990, when I was just too damn busy (Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, getting read for the Big Show in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; once we were over there, I got some writing done).

Writing is what I do. I write -- sometimes badly, I'm sure, but for the last ten years I've been able to call myself a professional writer with a straight face. When I'm not writing (under my own name, or under someone else's), I'm editing (my own work, or someone else's).

All of which is just a long, boring lead-in to the analogous rule: If one wants to be a blogger, one must blog. If one wants to be a successful blogger (as measured in any number of ways -- traffic, links, money, etc.), one must blog regularly and frequently.

I became neglectful of this rule, and as a result, traffic at KN@PPSTER fell by about 80%, and Technorati "authority" (a status measurement reflecting the number of recent links from other blogs) by about 75%, over the course of a year. Income fell, too, but since it wasn't a major income source even at its previous height, I can't offer exact statistics.

That doesn't work for me. I've decided to get born again hard on the blogging thing. That means blogging every day (at least two posts per weekday, at least one each weekend day) ... and if there's nothing in particular I care to blog about, I'll by God blog about blogging, just to cultivate the habit. Which is what I'm doing right now, hopefully with a helpful veneer of industry news in the "I am the Blogosphere, and You Can Too!" vein.

Three basic rules:

1) Blog -- every day.

2) Promote -- in every way.

3) Monetize -- as much as I can get away with.

That third rule leads me to a matter of actual current interest to at least one reader, "steven," who writes:

[I]s there anything you can do about that goddamn ad page that comes up when I click on your website? I don't mind having to click on "skip the ad" to get back to you, but several times now I get stuck on that page with no way to get back except to log all the way off the internet and get back on (which I always do because I like your site). It's just a royal pain in the ass.

I'd love to be able to accommodate that request, steven, but Rule #3 says I can't just knock off those particular ads.

Here's the thing: In recent correspondence with a blogger whose traffic numbers were better than mine (that's changing, fast, now that I'm back to regular blogging), he mentioned his AdBrite revenues. They were all out of whack with mine, even allowing for the difference in traffic. I'm talking a full order of magnitude here -- mid-single-digits for me, low-triple-digits for him. The difference between his implementation of AdBrite and mine? He runs those funky "interstitial" ads.

We're looking at a potential revenue difference here of $90 or more per month. That's big money to me, and if I can grab it without burning my own house down, I'm going to.

I hope you'll stick with me, steven. I've sent AdBrite a note about the problem, and if there's anything I can do to fix it, I will. In the meantime, you might consider following KN@PPSTER via RSS -- Feedburner offers several options (My Yahoo!, Bloglines, etc.), and a supportive user has also syndicated it via LiveJournal. I hate sending readers off-site, but that's the only alternative I can think of to removing the ads, which I'm unwilling, for the moment, to do.

All right, then. Weekend blogging quota met. Take that, Anthony Trollope.

Attn: Thomas Van Flein

2009-07-04T22:42:00.004-05:00

Re:

Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein on Saturday warned legal action may be taken against bloggers and publications that reprint what he calls fraudulent claims.

"To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation," Van Flein said in a statement.

Short Response:

Blow me.

Long Response:

Bring it on. You've got no case, and unless you slept through class on the day they taught law in law school, you're well aware that you've got no case. Wanna put that to the test? I'm your huckleberry. If you file your baseless, groundless, frivolous complaint in the US District Court for Eastern Missouri, I might be persuaded to waive diversity of jurisdiction issues so we can move straight to the real scrap. Need an address or other information for service purposes? No problem -- feel free to contact me via comments on this blog or by email at the address listed in my profile and I'll hook you right up.

Video Response:

Addendum, 07/05:

Memeorandum's tracking a couple of different threads related to Palin's Tantrum Of Threatened Litigiousness: Here and here.

What's behind Sarah Palin's resignation?

2009-07-04T03:09:00.004-05:00

I'm still going with my first blush reaction: "Best guess: Palin, or a close family member, just got very bad medical or legal news."

Here's video of yesterday's lakeside train wreck:

The event was obviously thrown together on short notice. Her speech was rambling and at times barely even coherent, indicating lack of preparation. She thanked her husband for flying in the night before to stand with her, and it's a reasonable supposition, based on the way this thing rolled out, that her decision to resign was made after he arrived -- made, in other words, under some kind of perceived pressure, without taking time to pre-spin it and set things up for a smooth announcement.

Rumor Has It: According to Brad Friedman, citing Shannyn Moore and hat-tipped to, three guesses but you'll only need one, memeorandum, I may have been spot-on with the "bad legal news" guess.

If these guys are right, there's an ongoing investigation -- possibly about to bear fruit in the form of indictments -- into who paid for the materials used in the Palins' house, with strong suggestions that those materials may have been "donated" as a bribe-in-kind by a subcontractor who made out on then-mayor Sarah Palin's white elephant: A budget-busting ice rink and sports center for Wasilla.

In other words, the kind of shenanigans politicians pull all the time, and that Democrat politicians usually slick their way right through without substantial damage. Sounds plausible. Whether or not it's true, I guess time will tell.

The conspiracy theorist in me keeps coming back to the fact that the GOP seems to be in serial implosion mode at the moment, and wondering if there's not some external reason for that. Could Republican politicians be getting little notes: "I've got your FBI file. Out yourself or I'll out you. xoxo, Barry?"

Pressto Change-o

2009-07-04T02:37:00.003-05:00

My latest at the Center for a Stateless Society:

I'm shocked -- shocked -- to learn that the White House plants questions at press conferences, that the Washington Post flirts with openly selling "access" to lobbyists, and that the ABC television network shills for President Barack Obama's health care scheme.

Now that I've got the fake shock out of the way, let's get to the real shock: I'm shocked that anyone finds any of this (other than perhaps the fact that the most visible recent planted question was planted with an Internet-based publication, the Huffington Post) shocking.

There are reasons the "mainstream media" are called the "mainstream media," and those reasons shouldn’t be difficult to figure out.

Hehe ... he said "dickweed!"

2009-07-03T15:36:00.004-05:00

You know, Dennis Kneale does look like Beaker. And I disagree with his conclusion that the recession is over. But I do maybe sympathize with him a little about the whole buzz-crush temperament of the blogosphere. Not too much, but a little.

Anonymity? Screw that. That's "Knapp," with two pees. The z is silent.

(h/t -- Andrew Tuttle)

Palin, bailin'

2009-07-03T15:07:00.003-05:00

Not only will Sarah Palin not seek a second term as governor of Alaska, she's resigning the office, effective later this month (hat tip, as is so often the case, goes to memeorandum).

I've already seen some speculation to the effect that she's "freeing herself up for a long presidential campaign," but c'mon -- that just doesn't make any sense. "I bailed three quarters of the way through my only term as a governor" isn't good presidential stump speech material. She might be contemplating a Senate campaign next year, but that wouldn't be much better. Quitting a job isn't the way to get promoted.

Nor does it strike me as likely that she's breaking under recent rounds of criticism/attack. Love her or loathe her, she just isn't the type to wither under that kind of fire.

Best guess: Palin, or a close family member, just got very bad medical or legal news. I could be wrong -- or to put it a different way, she could be stupid -- but it's the only thing that makes much sense.

Krugman, you ignorant slut

2009-07-03T13:55:00.003-05:00

Sez Paul Krugman:

All of this is depressingly familiar to anyone who has studied economic policy in the 1930s.

Why yes, Paul, yes it is. Or at least it should be. Seeing as how you're a Nobel laureate in economics and are spouting off on the subject, you're presumptively of those people. So what's up with the howler that follows?

Once again a Democratic president has pushed through job-creation policies that will mitigate the slump but aren't aggressive enough to produce a full recovery. Once again much of the stimulus at the federal level is being undone by budget retrenchment at the state and local level.

(h/t -- Memeorandum)

Hello, McFly? It wasn't that FDR's "job-creation policies" weren't "aggressive enough." Those policies extended the Depression for a good five years and it eventually ended in spite of, and not in any way because of, them.

Furthermore, the real kickoff to that Depression probably wasn't the 1929 stock market crash so much as the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which you yourself are pushing a direct analog to.

My grandma worshiped FDR, too. Matter of fact I'm pretty sure she thought he sat at the right hand of Jesus in heaven. But she didn't run around trying to pass herself off as an economist.

It's the economy (of scale), stupid!

2009-07-03T10:36:00.006-05:00

Megan McArdle:

I find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's "capitulation" on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition.

You can say that again, sister!

I find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's "capitulation" on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition.

(h/t -- Little Miss Attila)

Not rocket science, folks.

First, Wal-Mart is legendary for manipulating hours so as to keep most of its employees below the threshold for most benefits. The company will likely only be on board with a "national health care" plan so long as that plan maintains a distinction between "full-time" and and "part-time" employees which allows it to avoid most of the burden of the mandate entirely.

Secondly, to the extent that it does fall under the mandate, Wal-Mart is the biggest employer on Earth. It will get the best group rate on the planet, or it will "self-insure" to the bare minimum requirement of the mandate.

Every company has to pass its operating costs on to the consumer as part of the price of the product. Wal-Mart is positioned to keep the increase in operating costs represented by ObamaCare to a minimum. Its prices will go up, but they won't go up as dramatically as other stores' prices will. It will retain, perhaps even enhance, its competitive advantage on price.

Startups generally are not big enough at birth to maintain the kind of "human resources management" overhead required to either administer all these mandates or shuffle operations around to avoid them. ObamaCare is like putting up a big "DON'T BOTHER -- JUST BUY WAL-MART STOCK INSTEAD" sign in the path of would-be new entrants into the retail business sector.

Wal-Mart is playing this masterfully: Cutting the legs from beneath its existing competitors, aborting its would-be competitors in the womb ... and getting cookies and milk for "corporate social responsibility" in the process!

Nothing new under the sun, of course -- from anti-trust to utilities to you name it, "big business" has always been the moving force behind the "progressive" initiatives supposedly intended to bring it to its knees. Big Government and Big Business are symbiotes.

Serendipitous Fourth of Julyery!

2009-07-03T09:36:00.003-05:00

I've committed myself, for the moment, to a minimum of two blog posts per day, every weekday (I'll cut myself some slack on weekends). That commitment is already bearing fruit in terms of traffic, incoming links, etc., which was the whole point of making it. Sacrificing a goat to Glenn Reynolds wasn't enough; if I want the blog to succeed, I have to actually write regularly.

Of course, nobody said it would be easy. Some days the stuff practically writes itself, other days not so much. Some days I feel like I'm serving up prime rib; other days, the best that can be said is that it's hot and there's plenty of it.

So anyway, this morning I found myself Googling a phrase to explain the work ethic involved ("Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able; the seventh the same, and pound on the cable") and lucked out. I knew I'd read that phrase in a Heinlein essay, and I was pretty sure I remembered which one. Not only had I remembered right, but it's available online.

That essay -- "The Pragmatics of Patriotism" -- is primo Fourth of July discussion fodder:

As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, an adult male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him -- which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon ... but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a leopard. The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him. Keep your eye on that baboon; we'll be back to him.

Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled 'intellectuals' to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. 'Warmongers' -- 'Imperialists' -- 'Hired killers in uniform' -- you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.

I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack.

Rubs a bit rough against knee-jerk hyper-individualism, doesn't it? As well it should -- it originated as a speech to the Brigade of Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy, not exactly an institution of distinction in the "be yourself, let it all hang out" catalog.

Still, I think there's a hard shining core of truth in it, especially if you can untangle that core from the nation-state references.

Well, there you have it: Heinlein quote + controversial assertion = blog post.

What's good for the goose ...

2009-07-02T11:11:00.003-05:00

Sez the Lost Angeles Times:

With budget negotiators at a loggerheads and California government facing a cash crisis, the state controller's office will start printing IOUs this afternoon for the first time in 17 years.

The presses are set to start at 2 p.m., churning out 28,742 IOUs worth $53.3 million that will be dispatched mostly to residents throughout the state still awaiting their income-tax refunds.

At the very least, if an employee brings one of these "Governator Owes You" notes to work, the employer should cease state income tax withholding for that employee, cut a full paycheck until the amount is covered, and send Sacramento the IOU in lieu of withholding receipts.

Another option would be for those owed tax refunds to get together, pool their IOUs, and sell them for a portion of face value to, say, Peter Milano or Frank "Skinny" Velotta. A few broken legs ("I fell down the stairs -- really, I did!") in the Senate and an unexplained disappearance or two in the Assembly would probably clear the matter right up.

Full-scale tax revolt would be better, though. Imagine if next week, instead of checks and wire transfers from California employers representing all that state income tax withholding, Sacramento got a boatload of notices: "When you get your act together, let us know; at that point we'll re-evaluate your credit rating and consider sending you money again. Maybe."

Sanford and sunk

2009-07-02T08:09:00.004-05:00

I didn't and don't care where South Carolina governor Mark Sanford was or ~~what~~ who he was doing over that "lost weekend," but he seems pretty insistent on making sure everyone knows the details. How long before we get to the Argentinian lady's diaphragm size?

He's even branching out into additional confessions. I'm not sure if he's trying to unburden a very guilty conscience or just yanking everyone's chain, but either way it's starting to creep me out. Didn't care where you were or ~~what~~ who you were doing, dude. Don't need to know where you stuck that thing.

And then there's this:

Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. -- South Carolina Code of Laws, Section 16-15-60

Actionable with respect to Mark Sanford in a legal sense? Probably not, although I guess that depends on whether or not any of his ... adventures ... took place within the borders of South Carolina (if so, he'll probably blurt that out in Technicolor/THX before the week's over).

His own party's had enough (h/t memeorandum), though, and who can blame them? It's one thing for the state's chief executive to discretely dip his wick in legally unsanctioned wax. It's another thing for him to get caught. And it's yet a third thing for him to prance from newspaper office to TV studio to press conference detailing the ways, shapes, manners and and forms of said wick-dipping. [Oh dear God ... he's got a book deal]

Time for Sanford to take his proclivities and attendant obsession with displaying them back to the private sector.

Ba Da Bing!

2009-07-01T20:11:00.003-05:00

I'm a fairly compulsive stat watcher. Just today, I finally saw what I believe to be probably KN@PPSTER's first three hits from Bing. Don't know if that means they only just now got around to crawling the blog or what, but new sources of traffic are, of course, always welcome.

Breaking Google's grip on search is obviously a daunting task. Heck, even with a search engine of my very own, I forget and default to Google 99% of the time. I've tried Bing a few times and will keep an eye on it. Wolfram Alpha is also pretty neat.

Karl Malden, 1912-2009

2009-07-01T18:36:00.004-05:00

I don't think I've ever seen Karl Malden's face on the cover of the National Enquirer. No disheveled mug shots, DUI "sugartits" outbursts, ran a red light and popped a cop in the schnozz and had to wear an ankle bracelet for a month, etc.

Married to the same woman for 70 years (she survives him). If there were any bimbo eruptions along the way, they don't seem to have made the press.

They don't make'em like that any more.

Guy could act, too. I never really caught The Streets of San Francisco (its heyday was a little before my attentive-to-non-cartoon-TV years), but from what I remember he was solid as Mitch Mitchell in A Streetcar Named Desire and Father Barry in On The Waterfront (I think I'll watch both of them again Real Soon Now).

He was 97.

Give the conspiracy theorists a couple of hours, and we'll learn that he was the real target the whole time -- Ed, Farrah and Michael were his secret security detail while he was working with Billy Mays on a new project of incredible slice and dice proportions. You think I'm kidding? Just wait.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

2009-07-01T13:33:00.007-05:00

Los Angeles Times:

Despite a violent crackdown on their protests and the closing off of legal channels to challenge a disputed election, opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went on the offensive today, decrying his government as "illegitimate" and vowing to continue their fight to have the vote annulled.

Jerusalem Post:
(h/t Memeorandum)

As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Without corroboration, I have to take Israeli reportage on Iranian politics with a grain of salt, but not too much salt -- Iran's clerical regime has a long history of politically motivated murder, so this wouldn't be exceptional in any way.

It's too late for surrender -- it's been too late for that since the minute the protests began. This thing is ugly, and it's going to stay ugly because ugly is the only language the mullahs understand. Better ugly in the streets, where some good might come of it, than behind closed doors in the regime's torture cellars. The choice is uprising in earnest or surrender without expectation of quarter.

Seize the day, and good luck.

Pretty hate machine

2009-06-30T11:30:00.005-05:00

The Other McCain (as seen on Instapundit and Outside the Beltway!) is a-hatin' on the Palin-haters. Seeing as how I resemble that remark, might as well swoop in for a piece of the action and hopefully a grand FMJRA slam. Speaking of which, I guess I should work in the applicable Memeorandum references ASAP: Here and here (serious side note: McCain pointed me to Memeorandum once when I complained of writer's block. It is Teh Cure).

Yeah, I guess I'm a Palin-hater. I wasn't pre-disposed to be one (I encouraged McCain to pick her months in advance, and if I damned that pick when he made it, at least I did so with faint praise).

My first step toward Palin hate was the realization that she is not (the assurances of people in that crowd, assurances I had made a little blogosphere bank on notwithstanding), repeat not a "libertarian Republican" in any meaningful sense of the word. I have to take the hit for that one. I fell for the hype of a known hypester there.

Beyond that early error on my part, though, it's all on her. Vice-presidential nomination in hand, she proceeded toward every iceberg in sight at flank speed, almost immediately making Tina Fey's impressions of her superfluous. Her public rallies looked like some kind of mutant offspring of the 700 Club and heyday-era Jerry Springer. Her personal interviews? It was obvious who prepped her for those:

Contra the fun stereotyping of (The Other) McCain, I don't hate Palin because I'm a gay man with mother issues (I'm fairly heterosexual, and Mom's a great lady). Nor do I object to attractive female politicians with children (an attractive female politician is the mother of two of my children).

If I hate Palin -- I think that term is a bit strong, but hey, let's just keep rolling with it -- here are a couple of clues as to why from the new Vanity Fair article referenced in that second Memeorandum link:

What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? ... she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency ... The clouds of tabloid conflict and controversy that swirl around her and her extended clan -- the surprise pregnancies, the two-bit blood feuds, the tawdry in-laws and common-law kin caught selling drugs or poaching game -- give her family a singular status in the rogues' gallery of political relatives. By comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon, and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection.

And that's just the adult relatives (excluding near-adult, but still young and vulnerable, Bristol's pregnancy)! Poor Bristol, Piper and Trig just got used as cheap campaign props to hype the "loving mom" and "we don't smoke abortion in Wasilla" memes. It was disgusting, and all it gave us to look forward to are the future tell-all memoirs of middle-aged, post-detox Palin offspring. (The Other) McCain may be right about "mother issues," but I think he's looking in the wrong place for them.

In all fairness, I shouldn't hate Palin. If the game is "how do we destroy the Republican Party?" she's going to be any sane manager's top draft pick for the 2012 season. As unsympathetic to the GOP as I may be, however, I'm also, well, embarrassed for them. If Sarah Palin is the best they can come up with (and to all appearances that's the case), they should either pick a random name out of the phone book or call it quits.

Some of their best friends are gay

2009-06-30T03:08:00.005-05:00

Quoth AllahPundit (hat tip -- Little Miss Attila):

What does a president get from a gay audience when he's publicly against gay marriage, unwilling to take bold action to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," and so terrified of the political consequences of challenging the Defense of Marriage Act that he'll actually defend it in court? Why, he gets "thunderous applause," of course — if he's a Democrat.

And his veep? Six figures for the DNC war chest, baby.

Question for my LGBTQ friends who keep voting for Democratic candidates and writing checks to the Democratic Party and waiting/hoping for the payoff: How's that working out for you?

There's a better way of going at this.

Zelaya Agonistes

2009-06-29T17:16:00.001-05:00

My latest at the Center for a Stateless Society. Teaser:

From an anarchist perspective, there’s a lesson in the Honduras story which may not be obvious. It’s the same lesson emanating from Iran, the same lesson to be found in Al Gore’s decision to concede the 2000 US presidential election even though he could be reasonably sure that he had won it (as was subsequently proven to a high degree of probability to be the case).

That lesson is this: The state, regardless of whether its apparatus is controlled by “left-wing” or “right-wing” actors at a given moment, is organically conservative. Its pieces and parts have evolved, through a sort of natural selection process, toward the object of maintaining the status quo at all costs.

While an individual state actor may press for change (good change or bad), or articulate a desire for change (honestly or dishonestly), the machinery of an established state is big enough, it’s heavy enough, and it has enough momentum that it’s usually going to roll right over that actor unless that actor has hitched his wagon to forces that have amassed considerable weight and momentum of their own — in other words, revolutionary forces external to and in competition with the status quo.

Madoff: Small fry

2009-06-29T15:19:00.006-05:00

No other white collar case is comparable in terms of the scope, duration and enormity of the fraud and the degree of the betrayal. -- US District Court Judge Denny Chin on the Madoff scam

Oh, I'm pretty sure I can think of one.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison today, and also ordered to forfeit $170.1 billion, representing the total proceeds/property of the specific crimes he was sentenced for.

Madoff's a piker: The Social Security scam's take in 2008 alone was more than four times as much ($805 billion). It turned an annual profit of $180 billion.

The difference of degree between what Madoff did and what Social Security does is that Social Security is a much bigger con.

Differences of kind? The Social Security Ponzi hasn't fallen down and gone boom -- yet. Its victims aren't given the choice of buying in or begging off. And the culprits running the Social Security racket remain, for the moment, at large.

Let me explain

2009-06-29T05:56:00.006-05:00

From Politico:

Mitt Romney says publicly he's not considering another presidential campaign, most recently on Sunday during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." But many of his loyalists expect one and remain at the ready for 2012.

Ain't never gonna happen, and I can explain why in one word: RomneyCare.

Between now and 2012, one of two things will happen. Either President Barack Obama will manage to ram through his own health care plan, or he'll fail in the attempt. Either way, Romney's screwed as a potential GOP standard-bearer.

If ObamaCare passes, Romney will lack the credibility to persuasively critique it -- he was the architect of its state-level prototype, after all -- nor will those who supported his idea need him to implement it.

If ObamaCare fails, even with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, then Romney is still hoist with his own petard. If that Democratic majority won't give ObamaCare to Obama, it's even less likely to give RomneyCare to Romney. And even as feckless and stump-silly as Republican congresscritters are, I can't imagine them signing off on it either, not even for a Republican president. Nor can I imagine GOP primary voters rallying to Romney: If he promotes RomneyCare, they'll reject him. If he renounces RomneyCare, they won't believe him.

So, it all comes down to a simple question: Will health care still be a big issue by the time the 2012 presidential campaign heats up? Unless !Teh 911! Evildoers! take center stage again in a big way, you can bet it will be.

Get over it, guys. He's done.

Meanwhile, back at the A-Jad ranch ...

2009-06-29T04:25:00.004-05:00

The demonstrators haven't given up.

I don't speak Farsi, but allegedly the chant is "death to dictators." I'm puzzled as to how these people are able to walk ... every one of them has NBA regulation size balls to still be out on the streets facing down the regime.

Win or lose -- and whether or not what they win turns out to worth a plug nickel -- I find it impossible not to stand awed by the courage on display.

In other news: Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and Billy Mays are still dead.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit, via memeorandum.

Blogging goals and baby steps

2009-06-29T03:49:00.003-05:00

Last week, I decided to get back to blogging here at KN@PPSTER regularly, with an eye toward turning it into a money-making proposition. Not necessarily a "get rich" proposition, but at least renumerative enough to keep myself hooked on it instead of moving back and forth between "blogging a lot" and "I wonder what's on the Discovery Channel?"

The Reign of the Terrible Ads has returned. Yes, I know the "interstitial" ads where you get taken to another screen and have to click to get back can be annoying, but it needed to be done. I recently corresponded with another blogger whose revenues from AdBrite were substantially higher than mine in a way not explained by the difference in traffic numbers, and I want a piece of that action. They're set to only do that to any given user a maximum of once per six hours.

My politics aren't going to change, of course, and I'll continue to offer ~~boooooooorrrrrringggg~~ trenchant commentary on the issues of the day and the occasional ~~boooooooorrrrrringggg~~ enlightening theoretical piece. However, you'll also see more of the stuff I've been doing the last few days (like this), when I decide something like that is interesting. Why? Simple -- it gets eyeballs here, those eyeballs see ads, and I make money.

Ditto for the occasional and seemingly gratuitous use of phrases like "donkey sex" and "Britney Spears sex tape." Eyeballs and ads, folks, eyeballs and ads -- and I'm going to follow scripture on the eyeballs end of the process.

Short-term goals:

- As of today, KN@PPSTER is averaging about 300 visitors per day (up from less than 200 at the beginning of last week, and down from about 1000 during its last Golden Age). By the end of July, I want to be at 1,400+ visitors per day (10,000 per week). If you've got friends you don't mind pitching stuff at, please send them the URL.

- As of today, KN@PPSTER's Technorati "authority" is 52, down from a height of nearly 200 during the aforementioned Golden Age. By the end of July, I want to see it back at 200. If you have a blog and don't link here, pretty please with sugar on top do so. And if I'm not linking to you, let me know in comments or via email and I'll hook you right up.

Long-term goals: Donkey sex! Britney Spears sex tape! World domination!

Update: Maybe I should have gone with "John Edwards sex tape." Or, rather, I guess I just did. But ... ewwwwwwwww.

Top Michael Jackson conspiracy theories

2009-06-28T07:30:00.008-05:00

They range from the inevitable (he's alive, just like his ex-father-in-law, Elvis) to the not entirely implausible (assisted suicide) to the truly bizarre (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had him killed to draw the world's attention away from the streets of Tehran).

What? You think I'm trying to puff up my blog traffic with sensationalism? You're damn tootin'. This thing is going to be a circus whether I score hits off it or not. Might as well throw in, as long as I try to add some value (analytic value, entertainment value, whatever).

Let's go through the standard repertoire first:

Assisted suicide

Jackson held assets of variable value, such as a back catalog of records and recordable songs which might sell faster or slower depending on how high his public profile was at any given moment. He also had huge debts (the numbers I've seen are in the $400 million range), and three kids whose futures he probably wanted to provide for.

He was 50 years old, with past injuries (broken leg, broken vertebrae) and about to kick off a physically intensive "comeback" concert series.

25 years ago, there was nobody who could move like Michael Jackson, and that amazing bodily fluidity was just as big an element of his public persona as the voice or the songwriting talent. At 50, after a decades-long hard ride on his own body, could Michael Jackson himself move like that?

Maybe not. Maybe his body was telling him, in the rehearsals, that this was just not going to happen -- that he was more likely to break down injured after a couple of shows and leave the crowds disappointed than to pull off a triumphant return.

If his post-death financial affairs are competently handled, there's every chance that sales of albums, story rights and such over the next few months will be big enough to wipe out his debts and leave his heirs an unencumbered estate. People have killed themselves for similar reasons before.

Furthermore, his death leaves that "comeback" a gleaming, never to be realized potential ("he was back on top of his game when he went out") instead of a distinctly possible failure ("after two shows, Jackson was hospitalized for exhaustion; his body had given out under the strain of attempting to dance like his 25-year-old self"). Once again, it wouldn't be the first time someone committed suicide for "legacy preservation" purposes.

He's alive! It was all a fake!

See above -- especially those debts and the possibility of a failed comeback. Add to that the now decades-long history of sexual abuse allegations that hung over his head, constantly threatening to come back at him in the form of extortion, ruinous lawsuits or even criminal charges.

Maybe he socked a few million away in hidden places, secretly had a retirement villa built in the jungles of Paraguay, and then just got off the bus.

This one strikes me as much less likely than suicide due to the sheer technical demands of pulling it off ... but hey, he wouldn't be the first person to fake his own death in an effort to escape creditors and enemies.

X had him murdered!

A-Jad? Er ... doubt it.

On the other hand, there may have been parties who stood to make more -- or lose less -- money from his death than from his continued life, even counting the costs and risks involved in having him taken out of the picture. Enough said.

What I Think

Personally, I think Jackson's death is probably exactly what it looks like: An aging star with a dysfunctional childhood and family life, an apparently sad and lonely personal -- and increasingly physically painful -- existence, and a permanent cloud of suspicion over his head, finally hitting the full chamber in an ongoing game of Russian roulette with the prescription drugs he used to numb the physical and mental pain.

I was never exactly a fan, but there's no disputing that Michael had enormous talent -- singing talent, songwriting talent, dancing talent and the ability to put that all together. In that last area alone, pretty much every choreographed pop dance routine since 1982 is shot through with his influence.

Yes, that talent made him rich and famous, but he paid a huge price for it from the very beginning -- first as a crassly exploited child star, then as an object of ridicule for his personal physical problems and alterations, and finally as an accused predator and effectively a recluse. His life was transparently a sad thing in many ways, and his death is sad also.

That doesn't mean that it isn't all fair game for weird, exploitive theories, and if someone's going to drag in the clicks with said theories, it might as well be me. So, on to the "entertainment value added" stuff, the stuff even more bizarre than "Ahmadinejad had him assassinated."

Michael Jackson was the Alien Contact Interface

Some time in the early 1980s, the Greys finally decided it was time to start revealing themselves to us Earthlings. Knowing that we'd find their physical appearance strange and disturbing, they decided to first spend a few decades acclimating us to that appearance, using a well-known human as an "interface" who would alter his own physical appearance to match theirs.

Those who wish to detect (read: create) hints at this most secret of all secret missions will find them, among other places, in the video for Scream.

He's not dead. He's just finally been allowed to collect his reward -- an all-expenses paid cruise on the Mother Ship.

Michael Jackson was also Kurt Cobain

He's faked his own death -- and a completely different life -- before! Think about it ... have you ever seen them together?

Into what container is the legendary entertainer moving his talents now? I have my suspicions.

Update:

Too cool not to include, if for no other reason than that it gives me an excuse to point a hat tip link at the Fred whom I suspect to be the Fred who pointed it out:

--
Credits:

The Michael Jackson photo is a public domain mug shot from his 2003 arrest.

The Grey is a public domain drawing by Wikipedia user LeCire.

The Kurt Cobain head shot is by Elena M., published at Diccionari Per Aociosos under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license.

Another reason to end the war on drugs

2009-06-27T23:37:00.003-05:00

As reported by New York Daily News:

A Brooklyn day care center where kids slept through a robbery and gunfight was actually a drug house with 10 pounds of marijuana and $100,000 cash in its basement, police said Saturday.

If marijuana was legal, more people would grow their own, the people who bought it would buy it at Walgreens, and the amount of cash lying around wouldn't be much different from any "legitimate" enterprise.

Because it's illegal, nobody wants to get caught with a plant on the window sill, so they buy their weed from dealers who assume the risk of growing it, transporting it, etc.

Because of that risk, it goes for outlandish prices.

Because of those outlandish prices, everyone knows the dealers are handling large amounts of cash.

Because selling pot is illegal, everyone also knows that that cash isn't going into a bank vault, or at least not immediately. It's going under a mattress or into a rinky-dink wall safe until some of it can be used to front for more product and the rest can be "laundered."

Finally, because selling pot is illegal, most dealers aren't going to call the cops to report a robbery. In this particular case, the cops did get called, but this case was an exception. Maybe the caller panicked because his wife was in the clutches of a gunman. Maybe he has a conscience and wasn't willing to let the gunmen run wild a minute longer in a building full of children. Maybe both. But I'd bet money that if the robbery had come off cleanly and he had heard about it only after the fact, 911 would never have been dialed.

For all practical purposes the "war on drugs" might as well have been designed, on every major point, to create situations just like this one. The war itself is far, far more dangerous and deadly than the drugs ever were. There are many good reasons to end it, but this incident proves that the old standby, "for the children," applies in spades.