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Archive for May, 2004
A white Ford pickup truck with a bumper sticker. Bumper sticker has picture of a cell phone with a circle around it and a line through it and the words: “Hang up and Drive!”
The driver of the vehicle is…on a cell phone.
The liberal radio network is apparently making some of its payroll. Al Franken is not being paid.
Feel free to think. All you want. In a crowd. It’s much safer than smoking.
Smoking More Hazardous than Thought
Today Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech at the West Point graduation ceremony.
The Associated Press lead paragraph:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, making no mention of the prisoner-abuse scandal that has led to calls for his ouster, told a cheering crowd of graduating cadets Saturday that they will help win the global fight against terrorism.
Other things the Secretary of Defense didn’t mention in his speech:
- The terrorist hostage-taking in Saudi Arabia.
- The report that former NFL star turned Army Ranger Pat Tillman may have been killed by “friendly-fire.”
- The news that four U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.
- The dedication of the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C.
- The relative prospects of pennant wins for the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox.
- The price of tea in China.
The press continues to behave like a bunch of drug-addicted hamsters.
See Rumsfeld. Push Abu Ghraib button. Receive praise from the liberal media. Repeat.
Those interested in politics can just skip this item. Warner Bros. announced this week that it would be penalizing video game publishers who put out bad games based on their licenses by demanding higher royalty payments.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter last week, WBIE senior vice president Jason Hall revealed that his company is now using review-aggregation sites such as GameRankings.com to determine royalty rates from publishers licensing properties based on Warner Bros. movie, television, or other media. If the game does not achieve an average 70-percent rating, the publisher will have to pay a penalty in the form of higher royalties.
“An escalating royalty rate kicks in to help compensate us for the brand damage that’s taking place,” Hall told the Reporter. “The further away from 70 percent it gets, the more expensive the royalty rate becomes. So, frankly, if the publisher delivers on what they promised–to produce a great game–it’s not even an issue.”
If such a system had been in place for the past decade or so among all game publishers, a lot of bad “Star Trek” games would have never seen the light of day — and that’s a good thing.
Of course, the flip side would be a good idea too. Then we wouldn’t have had “Wing Commander,” or “Tomb Raider.”
Though, done right, “Full Throttle” would make a great movie.
Paul Krugman complains that President Bush suffers from an “infallibilty complex.” To resort to a schoolyard retort (the level of Krugman’s arguments): “It takes one to know one.”
On a related note: Over at Random Jottings, they’re updating Paul Krugman’s job chart.
Slate’s one-trick pony, Jacob Weisberg, author of their “Bushisms” feature has stuck his foot in it again.
“I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.”—Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004
As Eugene Volokh notes, and anyone who had been following the story would know, the “hand” the president was going to shake was actually a high-tech prostheses. This is supposed to make the president sound stupid? Nope, it just makes Jacob Weisberg look stupid.
Human rights organizations, and others, often make the argument that we should follow the Geneva Conventions because if we do not, then our opponents in future wars would use that as an excuse to mistreat American soldiers that they capture. This argument is often applied (bizarrely) by human rights organizations to terrorists who do not qualify for POW status under the Geneva conventions.
America follows the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war for two reasons. First, because we signed the agreement. Second, because humane treatment of prisoners of war is in line with American values.
American troops should be under no illusions, however, that they will ever be treated according to the Geneva Conventions if they are captured.
A soldier initially listed as killed in action while riding in the same doomed convoy as former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch actually had been captured by Iraqi fighters before he was killed, the Oregon National Guard said Thursday.
More than a year after the March 23, 2003, ambush, the military released new details to the family of Sgt. Donald Walters of Salem, Ore.
The Pentagon investigated his death after his mother filed Freedom of Information requests, believing the Army had not given her son credit for actions first attributed to Lynch, such as fighting until his ammunition had run out.
Walters “was held separately from his fellow soldiers and killed while in custody,” according to a news release from the National Guard.
“He was executed – shot twice in the back,” Guard spokesman Maj. Arnold Strong said in a telephone interview Thursday. “An Iraqi ambulance driver witnessed six fedayeen rebels standing outside a building guarding him while he was still alive. That same witness evacuated his dead body to a hospital.”
Defense investigators confirmed the account by matching Walters’ DNA to blood splatter on the wall where he was executed, Strong said. He died from two gunshot wounds to the back, fired from more than 20 feet away, according to Strong’s account of the investigation findings.
Walters’ murder is a war crime.
Don’t expect it to get as much press coverage as naked Iraqis in Abu Ghraib.
I’ve often said that the problem with zero-tolerance policies is that they are a poor substitute for common sense.
But there’s always the exception that proves the rule — where administrators demonstrate they are so bereft of common sense that a zero-tolerance policy is needed to make up for this moral flaw.
This is a case in point.
Courtney Glowczewski has a small right arm and leg because of cerebral palsy, a disability that her teachers say has not kept her from working hard in school and being a good student.
“I do really good in my classes. My teachers tell me, ‘Good job,’ and, ‘You’re doing very good,’ and ‘Excellent girl,’” said Glowczewski.
But her physical appearance has made her a target of taunting and of physical attack, which she said has never been addressed by the administration at Martin Luther King Middle School. Last week, she said the bullying got worse when she said she was threatened and assaulted by a seventh grade boy.
“He pulled out a knife, a silver knife, a pocket knife, and then he said ‘What!?’ So I was scared and didn’t know what to do,” said Glowczewski.
As she walked to her seat she smelled smoke and one of her classmates was patting her hard on the back.
“I looked and there was a black spot on the back of my shirt. And then I saw some black hair falling from my hair,” said Glowczewski.
So, a girl is set on fire and what does the school do? It tells her not to come to school for the rest of the year.
And what happens to her attacker? Who would appear to be facing multiple felonies (possession of a weapon on school grounds, terrorist threats, attempted murder).
7NEWS discovered that while Glowczewski was sent home, her alleged attacker is still in school, even though administrators confirmed he had a knife.
The principal has now admitted her staff did not call police, did not interview potential witnesses, and did not conduct a proper investigation.
Every administrator at that school who was aware of the incident should be fired for showing criminally bad judgement, and possibly face charges for failing to report the abuse to authorities.
This is why we have zero-tolerance policies, even with all of the harm they do — some administrators can’t be trusted to have common sense.
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