The Miami Herald’s Steven Thomma has a great Sunday editorial examining personal responsibility in our government and society and concludes that what began in the 60′s is now being fully embodied as our current leaders are leading the pack in side-stepping accountability and that it’s having an impact on business and culture as a whole:

”The Buck Stops Here,” said the no-nonsense sign on President Harry Truman’s desk. Today, it sits in a Missouri museum. And with it perhaps the sentiment it represented.

It was more than a slogan. The notion of accepting responsibility without passing the buck or blaming others when things went wrong was central to the work ethic and moral tone of the time.

By contrast today, leaders of the country’s great institutions infrequently step forward and take responsibility for failure or even honest mistakes. It is sometimes imposed by others, notably juries, but less so by the broader American society and virtually never invoked voluntarily in politics, business, religion or popular culture.

While Bush takes a full dose of scrutiny, thankfully that author doesn’t give Bill Clinton a pass either and posits that the former president is just as culpable in lowering the bar:

Former President Bill Clinton personified the trend.

When first accused of having an affair with a former White House intern, he angrily denied it and then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton blamed a ”vast right-wing conspiracy.” After he was caught lying under oath to conceal the affair, he lashed out at the politics of personal destruction. In his presidential library, he avoids personal responsibility and devotes most of an exhibit on his impeachment to blaming Republicans for trying to unseat him.

Certainly a refreshing analysis of our society’s dismissal of personal responsibility, but a worrying one as well.

» Personal responsibility: Where did it go? These days, it’s hard to find in our leaders [Miami Herald]

Apparently a zero-tolerance policy about cell phones in school has landed one 17-year-old a suspension after his mom — a soldier serving in Iraq– gave him a ring during his lunch period. HoT pal Joe Stump weighs in:

Granted it was during school hours, but give me a break. They say they suspended him because he used profanities and became beligerant when asked to end the phone call.

“When a kid becomes out of control like that they can either be arrested or suspended for 10 days. Now being that his mother is in Iraq, we’re not trying to cause her any undue hardship; he was suspended for 10 days.”

They act like they did him a favor. The real travesty would be if his parents grounded him over getting suspended (or would that be irony?).

Actually, I’m pretty sure it would be ironic if his parents grounded him and told him he couldn’t use his cell phone for a week.

UPDATE: The school has reduced the suspension to three days after a massive amount of public criticism. Good to see the rational power of the blogosphere rearing its head from time to time.

» Student suspended over call from mom in Iraq [CNN]
» School Reduces Suspension Over Iraq Call [SFGate] (via Engadget)

The good news today is that the Department of Justice under new Attn Gen. Alberto Gonzales is going to stay the course in its ridiculous war against adult entertainment (a.k.a porn, smut, skin flicks, skinimax, etc). Gonzalez, who is the less-Christian-but- more-Spanish-Inquisition successor to John Ashcroft, said “Enforcement is absolutely necessary if we are going to protect citizens from unwanted exposure to obscene materials.” Especially when they accidentally invite it into their bedroom at 12:30 am on pay-per-view. Don’t get me started on the irony of writing a memo that protects advocating torture where detainees can be forced to simulate sex with one another but two people willfully filming and selling that is somehow illegal.

But what really got my attention was the closing of the article, where it appears the DoJ can appeal the court’s decision when they lose a case or don’t like the outcome:

But a recent court decision in Pittsburgh could upset the administration’s plans. U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster tossed out an obscenity indictment against Extreme Associates Inc. and its owners, Robert Zicari, and his wife, Janet Romano, both of Northridge, Calif.

Lancaster ruled that prosecutors overstepped their bounds while trying to block the company’s hard-core movies from children and from adults who did not want to see such material. He said the company can market and distribute its materials because people have a right to view them in the privacy of their own homes.

The government has appealed.

This seems to be in flagrant violation of the 5th amendment (“double jeopardy”) clause:

… nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; …

That line is there for a reason: to stop cases from being retried over and over until the proscecution is happy with the outcome.

Now, granted they may have come up with compelling new evidence that warrants an appeal, but I’m guessing that they’re just hoping to shop the case to a more friendly judge who is more socially conservative when it comes to viewing adult material in the privacy of one’s own home.

Feds Stepping Up Obscenity Prosecutions [SFGate]

which will be squandered before the end of Q3

This may be some wishful fiction being floated, but the BBC picked up a story from NPR where the CIA had orders to go kill Osama Bin Laden in the days after 9/11 and deliver his head back on ice:

Gary Schroen flew out soon after the attacks on New York and Washington, helping to set up the 2001 invasion, he told US National Public Radio.

He recalled his orders from the CIA’s counter-terrorism chief.

“Capture Bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice,” he quoted Cofer Black as saying.

As for other leaders of Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan, Mr Black reportedly said: “I want their heads up on pikes.”

Defense Tech warns to take the story with “a large sackful of salt”, and I’m in agreement. After all there’s no corroboration from any current CIA officials on this mission and it’s curious that a plan this bold was never announced publicly until now, not even for for PR purposes (which the Bush administration seems keen to exploit).

However, I do have my suspicions that the CIA might be floating this piece of fantastic 9/11 fiction on order to turn national attention back to Bin Laden and the war against Al Qaida, in which case I applaud them for the effort and hope more news sources start digging into our seemingly stagnant efforts to hunt down OBL.

‘Bring me the head of Bin Laden’ [BBC] (via Defense Tech)

because that’s how teens have been getting pregnant and STDs, duh

A little offbeat, but has anyone else noticed the odd URL for the TSA government website PDFs on their prohibited items page? From the first PDF link on the page:

http://www.tsa.gov/public/interweb/assetlibrary/[...]

Interweb? WTF?

You mean like this interweb? Or maybe this one?

Interweb is a slang term referring to the Internet, sometimes more specifically referring to the World Wide Web. The spelling Intarweb is usually used with sarcasm or derision, chiding the “uneducated masses” who now frequent the Internet, threatening the once elite hacker culture that was prevalent in the early 1990s.

Who says the government doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Prohibited Items [TSA.gov]
Interweb [Wikipedia]
Interweb [Urban Dictionary]

A student was dragged out of an Ann Coulter speech Tuesday night at the University of Texas at Austin after asking pointed (yet apropos) questions comprised of lewd language:

Coulter said she supported the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman on the basis that a good woman civilizes and inspires a man to strive for something better, leading to a question that was met with a stunned silence.

“You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage,” said Ajai Raj, an English sophomore. “How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f*@k his wife up the ass?”

Police then seized Raj and dragged him out of the room and charged him with disorderly conduct. Personally, I’d like to know Coulter’s answer to Raj’s question and posit my own follow-up: “How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but masturbate horse phallus’s while his wife laughs and goes to see male strippers?” Oh dang, someone already beat me to that one. Maybe we can get the Austin police to issue a warrant on the FLOTUS on charges of disorderly conduct, no?

UPDATE: Vox Popoli says the attention Laura Bush’s jokes are getting is ridiculous. I agree, but I wanted to make a point about the hypocrisy. If it had been a liberal making those self-deprecating jokes you know the GOP noise machine would be in high gear.

SMOKING UPDATE: The Smoking Gun has the affidavit of the arrest.

UPDATE, HARD: How could I forget this gem of a satire from the Internet… “I Fucked Ann Coulter up the Ass, Hard.”

CONSTITUTIONALLY UPDATED: Eugene (a law professor) over at The Volokh Conspiracy weights in: “If the facts in the affidavit are accurate, then it looks like the student has an excellent First Amendment defense.” He doesn’t defend the rudeness of the question or the vulgarity, but notes: “Simply getting the crowd riled up doesn’t make the speech unprotected. Simply saying offensive things to Coulter doesn’t make the speech unprotected.”

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH [Drudge Report]
Laura Bush Talks Naughty [NYT]
Deal, You Losers [Vox Popoli]
Another Counter-Coulter Bust [The Smoking Gun]
I Fucked Ann Coulter up the Ass, Hard.
Arrested for Asking a Vulgar Question [The Volokh Conspiracy]

“The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.” Frederick Law Olmsted

“hey kids… this is illegal, so do as we say, not as we’re currently doing!” (via)

libertarians would be smart to make this a central campaign theme in 2006

running a campaign on the cheap using bloggers and contribution caps

crazy tree ornament of a fetus decked out with a gun

It’s on like Donkey Kong.

UPDATE: Apparently Donkey Kong doesn’t know shit about CSS… or even computers for that matter, because all he did was grunt and ask for another banana when I put the laptop in front of him. Luckily I was able to round up some illegal aliens trying to get into this country from Mexico and I found one who knows some web design and PHP (at first he tried to install some framing and drywall on the site, and I told him frame design was so 1998). I told that little bastard he’d better have it done before Cinco de Mayo (the day when all the Mexicans celebrate their independency by filling their kitchen sinks with mayonnaise and playing loud horn music all day) or else I’d report him to the Immigro Chupacabro Servicio. Let’s hope there’s no drywall littering the 404 pages when he’s done.

What do you guys think so far?

It should be done tonight (yeah, like that’s gonna happen), I’ll fix the broken links… I’m sure there’s a few.

UPDATE: I know about the comments page… this is still a work in progress and I should have it all done later tonight. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let my website look like ass :)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Seth fixed my email after I goofed it up and a bunch of crap bounced. The good news is that I got the email anyways, the bad news is that they all have the same subject: “Undeliverable email report.” Oh well, I’ll reply to everyone when I get to that pile of work (1000 emails, a lot of spam that no longer flags my filters)

Well, that’s what happens when you have sketchy hosting on a comp account and the guy who owns the server doesn’t realize there’s a live site still up. Big thanks to Seth Cohn, who I’ve moved the site over to while I find some hosting.

A major pain in the ass, but the plus side is that there are backups of everything and I’m taking this opportunity to upgrade WordPress to 1.5

The downside is that I have to throw a new template together and fix a lot of shit on the site.

Anyways, I should have all this sorted soon and get back to the real meat and potatos of the site, which is talking smack about the LNC — oh yes, you folks emailed the shit out of me and I have a tally of how the secret ballots were cast. If your rep never got back to you, now would be a good time to email me letting me know about that.

This is quite possibly the most awesome toy you could give your kids, that is if you hate your kids and want to induce sweat-soaked nightmares: Microsoft has unveiled “Teddy,” a robotic bear that will watch your children, turning its head to follow movement across a room and talking to them. ABC News has more in Robots to Watch Children Showcased:

The teddy bear sitting in the corner of the child’s room might look normal, until his head starts following the kid around using a face recognition program, perhaps also allowing a parent talk to the child through a special phone, or monitor the child via a camera and wireless Internet connection.

[...] Plenty of companies are already building robots for the work place, and toy companies have created plush dolls that know a child’s name or can incorporate other personal information. But Steven Bathiche, a research and development program manager with Redmond-based Microsoft, said his company’s projects go further.

And because it’s from Microsoft, you can guarantee the thing will be hacked a week after it’s released.

Right out of a scene from Chucky: “Billy, I want you to turn on the stove gas and then we can go play outside for a while.”

How could I miss this wonderful bit of hypocrisy:

A Springfield woman [Annette "Flirty" Stevens] who began lobbying against gun violence after her son was shot to death in 2002 was arrested last week when police allegedly found an illegal gun and drugs in her home.

[...]
The handgun, which had a scratched-off serial number, and drugs allegedly were discovered Friday morning inside Stevens’ home in the 2500 block of South 15th Street. Authorities said they obtained a search warrant for the residence as part of an ongoing investigation of a recent series of drive-by shootings.

[...]
Last fall, she appeared with other anti-gun advocates at a Statehouse news conference to urge federal officials to renew a ban against semiautomatic assault weapons.

So the same Bill of Rights she’s been trying to undermine (2nd Amendment), she flees to when the shit hits the fan (4th Amendment) and she’s indicted on charges that she’s been fighting to strengthen for the past three years.

You hear that? That’s the sound of the world’s tiniest violin playing the world’s saddest song for this stupid bitch. I hope the judge has an acute sense of humor and throws minimum sentencing guidelines at her, maybe she’ll have a change of heart after realizing the error of her ways, but I doubt it.

From an address to the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan defied analyst predictions and was hawkish on the deficit:

“You cannot continuously introduce legislation which tends to expand budget deficits because down the road the impact of an ever-rising deficit, especially as a percent of the GDP, creates some significant weakness in the structure of the economy [...] Addressing the government’s own imbalances will require scrutiny of both spending and taxes. However, tax increases of sufficient dimension to deal with our looming fiscal problems arguably pose significant risks to economic growth and the revenue base.”

Plain and simple translation: stop spending more money than you collect from taxes. Congress responded by slapping it’s forehead so hard its brain flew out the back.

This is becoming a bad habit, I’ve noticed before that the Pentagon has an affinity for putting critical budget items into supplemental requests as some kind of afterthought, but Defense Tech points out that apparently the new trick is to inflate the yearly budget by putting popular items into supplementals as well:

Last month, the Bush administration announced that, in the Pentagon’s 2006 budget, there would a big bump in the so-called “death benefit” for military families. If a soldier was killed in war, administration officials promised, his loved ones would get a $100,000 lump sum — up from just $12,420 — plus an extra $150,000 in life insurance payouts. It seemed like a great idea. Everybody cheered.

But then, something curious happened. Or rather, didn’t happen. The Pentagon never included the money for a bigger death benefit in its budget. So now, the Army has gone to Congress, asking for an extra $348 million to keep the administration’s word.

The money is part is a larger, $4.8 billion package of Army “FY06 Shortfalls and Requested Legislative Authorities” — programs that the service’s chiefs felt should have received more money from the Pentagon budgeteers. Every year, the Army, Navy, and Air Force appeal directly to Congress to infuse these programs with more cash. This year’s Army list also includes $443 million for more M16s and other small arms and $227 million for night vision equipment, Inside Defense notes.

Like I said before, Congress needs to find a way to keep the Pentagon budgeteering in check before they start shaving stuff like payroll funding from the budget proposals or just spending that money outright and asking for supplementals to cover it later. You know this kind of budget juggling is only going to get worse the more they find they can get away with it.

Several of you commented and emailed about the secret LNC vote to double the membership dues to $50 and against the UMP increase.

This spawned a idea to do a little covert fact-checking and find out just who voted for both items and essentially smoke them out just by seeing how they respond. The way I see it, the LNC just shoe-horned themselves into a corner when it comes to voting delegates in the next convention by holding a secret ballot: if they come clean about their vote for the increase, they will be easy targets for removal, and if they all lie and say they voted against it, replacing the whole LNC just became incredibly easy (there is another possibility in this scenario that the vote was rigged from the beginning by whoever was counting the votes, which is a whole other can of worms that we can dissect if there’s a hint of impropriety).

Here’s what I propose: send a letter to your regional representative simply asking how they voted on the dues increase and the UMP increase that was also proposed, report back here or email me with their reply and I’ll post a list of the votes and the responses within a week. It would help if at least two people from each region would email their reps so that I can corroborate responses.

Here’s an example letter that I highly recommend you modify yourself so that it does not appear to be form-letter astroturfing (we don’t want to tip them off to our data collection do we?):

Dear representative name,

I recently found out that a secret vote was held in which an increase in membership dues from $25 to $50 was passed while a second vote for UMP (Unified Membership Program) payments to the state parties did not receive enough votes to pass. As my regional representative, I am asking for your disclosure of your vote on both matters in order to maintain transparency in the Libertarian organization.

Thank you for your time,
Your Name

Again, send replies to me via email. If the response is long or has sensitive information you can truncate it to: rep name (region); dues increase yes/no; UMP increase yes/no. I’ll keep email information confidential if you request and won’t use anyone’s name unless you authorize it. If your representative doesn’t respond within a week, let me know as well. I hope everyone will help out with this project and let other libertarians know about it as well so that we can find out just what happened and how to proceed.

Joe Stump goes off on a rant about Senator Ted Stevens’s (R-AK) proposed cable decency bill which would extend public television decency laws into the private spectrum of cable and satellite television:

But what about the children?!? Screw you and the children. Just because you’re too stupid to enable and use the plethora of parental controls available to you (V Chip, TiVo’s parental controls, your cable box’s controls, etc.) or you’re too lazy to actually pay attention to what your kid watches doesn’t mean I should suffer. I’m sick and tired of people ducking their parental responsibilities.

It’s funny that Republicans are keen to use the argument that they are doing something for “the public good” (won’t someone think about the children?) when it comes to piety but are quick to kick liberals when they use the same rationality for entitlement programs.

On an ironic note, you can find all the indecency you crave in a conveniently condensed format just by visiting the Parents Television Council website.

UPDATE: Vodka Pundit weighs in as well: “Keep the Democrats out of my wallet and the Republicans out of my entertainment. Please.”

This is some incredibly good news for libertarian discourse in the news: bonafide libertarian John Tierney has been tapped to replace William Safire (ahem, “You don’t replace William Safire.”) as the conservative op-ed columnist for the New York Times. Editor and Publisher has the details in ‘N.Y. Times’ Picks John Tierney for Op-Ed Page:

Safire, reached at his office at the Dana Foundation, a non-profit group he now oversees in Washington, D.C., praised the choice of Tierney. “He’s a fine reporter with a definite libertarian streak and a good sense of humor,” Safire told E&P. “I’m rooting for him.” Safire also said that another conservative voice on the page is positive.

I give it 3 months before the liberal crowd is either nailing him to the wall on his columns or praising him for his rational insight. Obviously I don’t have a crystal ball to see these kinds of things, but the cynic in me is betting that he won’t sit too well with leftist readers of the Times (not to say Safire did either).

(via Hit & Run)