Hitler and hermit crabs

D.J. Tice, the regrettable hermit-crab proprietor of The Big Question, had a case of the vapors over Keith Ellison's use of the Reichstag fire as an analogy to the political aftermath of 9/11. Not much of a surprise here: so did Katie and Big Trunk. Let Spot reiterate what he said in the link to Katie:

What Katie is trying to do, of course, is intimate that Ellison believes that the Bush administration was the perpetrator of the September 11th attacks [although she does quote Ellison as telling her later that he didn't], and that he is equating Bush to Hitler. And, of course, he did neither. But the historical analogy is a good one, really, when you consider Ari Fleischer telling people to be careful about what they say in response to remarks by Bill Maher, the institution of a regime of torture in several places by the CIA and perhaps the military, the confusion of military and civilian justice, the indeterminate detention of residents of the United States without trial, the curtailment of habeas corpus, and the continuing foment of fear and hysteria in the American people.

Actually, Spot was wrong: it's not a good analogy; it's a damn good analogy. What is too bad is that a newspaperman, a presumed champion of civil liberties, including the First Amendment, could be such a low, mean, and odious scrub as to shriek in pretended offense when a remark hit home. And that's what Tice is doing, of course. Tice and his buddies do not focus on the logic of the analogy; they'd rather rant and pout about how unfair Ellison is being. Why is pretty obvious.

The day will come when historians will make a list of the cranks, frauds, and the sycophants who lined up with the Bush administration. We already know that Katie, Big Trunk, and D.J. Tice will be on it.

Technorati Tags: katherine Kersten, D.J. Tice, Keith Ellison, Hitler

Ship of fools

Alternate title: Ship of tools

Sometimes, the headlines write themselves. A thump of the tail to a reader who sent Spot this link. It's the story of a British journalist who went on a recent National Review (magazine) cruise. Do you remember, boys and girls, well of course you don't, but there was a television show a long time ago with Art Linkletter that had a segment called "Kids Say the Darndest Things!" So do conservatives, when they think the rest of us aren't listening. Here's the lede:

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

My, that was refreshing! How about this:

To my left [at dinner], I find a middle-aged Floridian with a neat beard. To my right are two elderly New Yorkers who look and sound like late-era Dorothy Parkers, minus the alcohol poisoning. They live on Park Avenue, they explain in precise Northern tones. "You must live near the UN building," the Floridian says to one of the New York ladies after the entree is served. Yes, she responds, shaking her head wearily. "They should suicide-bomb that place," he says. They all chuckle gently. How did that happen? How do you go from sweet to suicide-bomb in six seconds?

Spot has some ideas about how you do that, but it's a family blog.

This story by Johann Hari is the most remarkable piece of conservative stream of consciousness reportage that Spot thinks he has ever read. Podhoretz, Steyn, D'Souza, Robert Bork, Rich Lowry, Ken Starr, Kate O'Beirne, William F. Buckley, the whole crew of the H.M.S. Pinafore is there. And so are the people who love them.

Here's what Hari has to say about another dinner:

A red-faced man who looks like an egg with a moustache glued on grumbles, "If the Germans think they can take responsibility for the world, I don't care about German courts. Bomb them." I begin to witter on about the Pinochet precedent, and Kate snaps, "Treating Don Rumsfeld like Pinochet is disgusting." Egg Man pounds his fist on the table: " Treating Pinochet like that is disgusting. Pinochet is a hero. He saved Chile."

"Exactly," adds Jim. "And he privatised social security."

The table nods solemnly and then they march into the conversation - the billion-strong swarm of swarthy Muslims who are poised to take over the world. Jim leans forward and says, "When I see these football supporters from England, I think - these guys aren't going to be told by PC elites to be nice to Muslims. You're going to get fascists rising up, aren't you? Why isn't that happening already?" Before I can answer, he is conquering the Middle East from his table, from behind a crème brûlée.

"The civilised countries should invade all the oil-owning places in the Middle East and run them properly. We won't take the money ourselves, but we'll manage it so the money isn't going to terrorists."

The idea that Europe is being "taken over" by Muslims is the unifying theme of this cruise. Some people go on singles cruises. Some go on ballroom dancing cruises. This is the "The Muslims Are Coming" cruise - drinks included. Because everyone thinks it. Everyone knows it. Everyone dreams it. And the man responsible is sitting only a few tables down: Mark Steyn.

Spot doesn't think Katie made it this year. Pity.

Technorati Tags: National Review, conservatives, Muslims, social security

How many more Septembers, Norm?

Technorati Tags: Iraq war, Norm Coleman, surge, civil war, DFL

Katherine Kersten is sad to announce

Our Katie announced today that her column Northfield's heroin-linked woes symptom of a greater ill is no longer "operative." In the column, Katie—the sitting Commissioner of the Department of Troubling Signs—laid the cause for the heroin epidemic running through Northfield High School at the feet of suggestive and violent music videos. While Katie said she stood by the trembling and precarious logic presented in the column, the column went entirely stinko when it was determined that the premise of the argument, that Northfield had a heroin epidemic, was shown to be false.

Word also comes today that Northfield Chief of Police Harold Hill has requested leave from his post.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, Northfield MN, heroin addiction, Harold Hill, music videos

Mark Drake's worst nightmare

Mark Drake: Thank you all for coming to this press conference this afternoon. I want to tell you about the latest smear of the Minnesota GOP by CREW, the so-called "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington." The executive director of CREW is Melanie Sloan, who some of you know has appeared on Al Franken's radio show. This is so bold and shameless that I am almost speechless.

Q: We thought that CREW filed a complaint, not the Minnesota GOP.

MD: Well, now that you mention it, that's right. But CREW's action was so mean! We're planning to file our own complaint about their complaint.

Q: With whom?

MD: PAHRA

Q: [laughing] What's that?

MD: People Against Holding Republicans Accountable.

Q: You just made that up, didn't you?

MD: Did not.

Q: Did too.

MD: Did not. PAHRA was incorporated just this past week.

Q: By whom?

MD: The Republican National Committee. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take the organization seriously.

Q: Wasn't CREW's complaint about the Minnesota GOP made to the Federal Election Commission because of multiple, egregious violations of campaign reporting laws and regulations?

MD: Well, of course, that's what they said, but . . .

Q: Where did CREW get its information? Wasn't it a memo prepared by an insider at the Party?

MD: That's what CREW said, but again . . .

Q: Come on, Mark. Are you denying that the memo is genuine?

MD: No. But the memo says some really mean things about Mr. Carey and that nice old lady . . . what's her name?

Q: Marina Taubenberger?

MD: Yes! Thank you!

Q: So, is it true that the Party hid the extent of its debt and the fact that it made late payments due to staff members, or not?

MD: Let me say this about that: when the FEC finishes its investigation, some things may come out, and we will admit them at that time. Whatever they are. In the meantime, we're doing everything to get into compliance.

Q: So in other words, you admit to FEC violations?

MD: My, did I say that? Didn't mean to! Heavens! At the present time, there is no reason to admit to . . . I mean, I am unaware of any FEC violations. I know nothing! Don't you want to hear more about Melanie Sloan or the complaining party in Minnesota--this Gerth woman? Boy, there's a couple of harpies for you! Speaking of harpies, you aren't from the local press corps, but you look familiar. Who are you?

Q: I flew in for the day. I'm Helen Thomas.

MD: Okay, that's all. Thanks for coming everybody!

Technorati Tags: Minnesota Republican Party, Federal Election Commission, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, CREW

A true oxymoron

[hysterical laughter] Jeebus, Spotty. What is that?

You'll just have to go over to James Kunstler's site to find out, grasshopper.

Technorati Tags: sustainable development, oxymorons

Go ahead and cry

Long-time readers of the Cucking Stool--well, anybody who read as long ago as a week ago Monday--knows that Spot commented on the supposed heroin conflagration in Northfield, at least at Katie reported it. Katie's column that day was based on a wire service report of a press conference by the Northfield police chief. Katie swallowed it without chewing. Spotty said that it was unfortunate that nobody at the press conference seemed to be able to ask a single skeptical question, causing Spot to question the journalistic acumen assembled at the presser, not to mention, of course, Katie.

Now these questions are getting asked:

In the days since the news conference, questions have arisen about the key points made there:

• School authorities have dismissed the notion of a heroin ring at the high school.

• No heroin-possession indictments have been returned.

• Area hospitals report no evidence of young con artists at work.

• The record is mixed on thefts at local colleges, with an increase at Carleton but no such hike at St. Olaf.

Others have raised concerns about the number of young people reportedly using the drug.

Northfield schools Superintendent Chris Richardson, who learned about Smith's news conference only a couple hours beforehand, was dumbfounded by the chief's assessment.

"Our numbers just don't match up," he said.

Richardson added that in the 2006-07 school year there were 15 students referred for drug treatment who were heroin or oxycodone users.

"What I think many of us are questioning is, was this a significant exaggeration of the reality, and if it was, did we end up with a negative impact along with whatever positive there was?" Richardson said.

Boys and girls, your old friend Spotty realizes that, as a dog, his sense of smell is keener than your average human. But this one was such a stinkeroo that even Katie should have caught it.

Weep for the future of journalism.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, Northfield MN, heroin addiction, journalism

Who wrote this?

Who wrote this:

[Minnesota Commissioner of Education Alice] Seagren -- and many teachers -- are trying to do right by our kids. But higher standards and harder tests risk higher failure rates. Even the most dedicated educators won't succeed until the rest of us want higher standards and stronger skills more than we want high passing rates and grades.

Spotty, I am going to take a wild guess and say Katherine Kersten, our Katie.

What? You guessed Katie? That's right! But how could you know grasshopper? Katie loves high-stakes testing and the grim prospect of failure for children. She believes that fear is the way to motivate people. That was an un-Katie-like thing for her to write.

It was the phrase "and many teachers" that was the tip off, Spot. You have chronicled Katie's criticisms and smears of teachers and Education Minnesota too often for us not to notice that Katie couldn't bring herself to say simply that "teachers are trying to do right by our kids."

Exactly the point that Spot was going to make grasshopper. You have learned well.

However, today's column does offer the heartening spectacle of Katie being hoist on her own petard. Katie has recently been delivered the news that Minnesota high schoolers are doing pretty well in a high-stakes writing test:

Minnesotans got what seemed like great news on the education front last month. The state Department of Education announced that in 2007, 92 percent of Minnesota 10th-graders and 91 percent of ninth-graders passed a writing test needed to graduate from high school.

Cause for celebration? I must confess to skepticism.

Frankly, Katie, Spot would rather see a little skepticism about the infallibility of the Pope, transubstantiation, and some of the other fairy tales you want to use to govern the rest of us.

But Spot digresses.

It must be distressing for Katie "test 'em until they drop" Kersten to confront a high-stakes test on which kids did well. It runs counter to what Katie, well, knows. The cognitive dissonance must have damn near killed her.

Spot remembers from his animal psychology course that when a person is confronted by attitudes held or behaviors that are in conflict, they have to be resolved, or the brain will explode, leaving its owner a drooling cretin. Here we have 1) high stakes test are good, and 2) Minnesota high schoolers are doing pretty well on a high stakes test. Since Katie knows that high school kids are a bunch of shiftless layabouts, and #2 has to be false, #1 has to be false, too.

As Sigmund Spot might say, Ve see dat za Katie iss villing to dismiss za high-stakes test ven its results are contrary to za basic opinion zat Katie holds. A classic case!

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, high-stakes testing, Education Minnesota, teachers

Meet Rousas John Rushdoony

A few days ago, Spot put up a post called That Giant Cracking Sound about the sham that charter schools are really public schools. The post got picked up at MNSpeak which Spot appreciates. There were a couple of comments over there that Spotty wanted to address specifically.

Here's the first one:

Somebody's got to take these extremists on both sides of the aisle out behind the proverbial woodshed.

"Those at the extreme enjoy the greatest leverage."

Mech. Eng. 101

Seriously, most of these left-wing blogs I've read have one thing in common ... a disconnect with reality. I mean, read this nitwittery for example:
Until we tamp down the private school plutocrats, the charter school crazies, the school voucher vultures, and the home school hyenas like Katie, Sticks, Rep. Buesgens, John Brandl, Spotty's own Geoff Michel, Alan Quist, Don Samuels, Governor Pepsodent, and all the rest, public schools, the backbone of democracy, will remain in peril. Theirs is an autocratic, theocratic vision entirely at odds with democratic and pluralistic institutions.

That's 180 degrees out of phase. The guy believes the educational freedom enjoyed by homeschoolers and charter schools are evil and autocratic, and the bureaucratic cesspools that are the governments schools are nirvana. heh. Real comedy central stuff.

»» Submitted by »»» mazasapa at 4:23 PM on July 12

Spot thinks this fellow is an engineer. When your only tool is a pocket protector, every problem starts to look like a leaking ballpoint! Or something like that, anyway. Spot had this response over at MNSpeak, which he would like to expand on:

mazasapa criticizes Spot's favorite paragraph in the whole post. The goal of public education to raise citizens who can think and who are capable of "operating" a democracy. All of the folks that Spot mentioned are bent on picking, picking at public schools to hive off some of its their funding for their own to education educate children in their own funhouse of irrational beliefs. Christian Reconstructionism or Dominionism is are what they are after.

A little later, this comment was posted:

So long as a home schooled child can be shown to meet whatever state or national standards exist that are appropriate for that child's age, I don't think there's a valid argument against home schooling. In fact, there are some good arguments in favor of it.

Yes, children can be taught young-earth nonsense. But that's going to happen anyway, and there are a plenty of adult YECs who went through the public school system. The state of science education in most states is quite parlous [that's a good word, boys and girls; it means perilous], in my view.

If they come out the other end as committed young earthers, they will likely not be able to qualify as biologist, geologists or physicists without compromising their YEC views, which should suit the scientifically minded just fine.

Frankly, I think that all school kids (home school or otherwise) should be required to show a reasonable understanding of the tenets of evolution; beyond that, it's up to them and their parents.

»» Submitted by »»» teucer at 6:14 PM on July 12

Teucer misses the point of home schooling. If home-schooled kids had to learn evolution, there would be no reason for home schools. Part of the home school/charter school/school voucher movement's deception campaign is to convince the public that it is mostly about quality. It's not: it is first and foremost about about the ideological control of children. It's about making sure that little Rebekah and little Jonah don't stray from the fold by hearing about the Enlightenment, the religious beliefs—or the lack of them—of some of the founders, and the real meaning of the First Amendment and especially its Establishment Clause.

It just frosts these people that they can't use public money to help keep their children away from becoming, well, enlightened citizens!

 If you don't believe Spot, he would like to introduce you to Rousas John Rushdoony, or just "RJ." RJ is a somewhat less spittle-flecked version of Pastor Fred Phelps.

Rushdoony's next [after panting over the works of that great democratic thinker John Calvin] focus was on education, especially on behalf of homeschooling, which he saw as a way to combat the intentionally secular nature of the U.S. public school system. He vigorously attacked progressive school reformers such as Horace Mann and John Dewey and argued for the dismantling of the state's influence in education in three works: Intellectual Schizophrenia (a general and concise study of education), The Messianic Character of American Education (a history and castigation of public education in the U.S.), and The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (a parent-oriented pedagogical statement).

And there is no question; RJ was a Christian Reconstructionist:

Rushdoony's most important area of writing, however, was law and politics, as expressed in his small book of popular essays Law & Liberty and discussed in much greater detail in his three volume, 1894-page magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law. With a title modeled after Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Rushdoony's Institutes was arguably his most influential work, though, due to the work's perceived denial of the Holocaust and defense of segregation^[8] and slavery,^[9] it did not gain an immediate following. In the work, Rushdoony argued against "inter-religious, inter-racial, and inter-cultural marriages, in that they normally go against the very community which marriage is designed to establish."^[10] But his condemnation of inter-racial marriage appears to have been his personal view and not related to the biblical text; it was not shared by other Reconstructionists.^[11] The book garnered more attention starting in the 1980s when Francis Schaeffer began espousing many similar ideas .^[12] In the book, he proposed that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society and that there should be a Christian theonomy, a concept developed in his colleague Greg Bahnsen's controversial tome Theonomy and Christian Ethics, which Rushdoony heartily endorsed.

In the Institutes, Rushdoony supported the reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.^[13]

Although supporting the separation of church and state at the national level, Rushdoony understood both institutions as under the rule of God, and thus he conceived secularism as posing endless false antitheses, which his massive work addresses in considerable detail. In short, he sought to cast a vision for the reconstruction of society based on Christian principles. Rushdoony's work has been used by Dominion Theology advocates who attempt to implement a Christian theocracy, a government subject to Biblical law, especially the Torah in the United States. Economics, penology, authority, behavioral boundaries and the like would all be governed by biblical principles in Rushdoony's vision, but he also proposed a wide system of freedom, especially in the economic sphere, and claimed Ludwig von Mises as an intellectual mentor; he called himself a Christian libertarian.

Rushdoony was the founder in 1965 of the Chalcedon Foundation and the editor of its monthly magazine, the Chalcedon Report. He also published the Journal of Christian Reconstruction and was an early board member of the Rutherford Institute, founded in 1982 by John Whitehead. He later received an honorary Doctorate from Valley Christian University for his book, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum.

RJ shuffled off this mortal coil a few months before the events of September 11, 2001, so he didn't get to live to see the opening kick off in the grudge match between the Islamic and the Christian fundamentalists. Sniff, he would have enjoyed it.

Spotty says, hey, if you want to equip your kid to work for say, the Olive Tree Ministries, fine, but don't expect rational people—or taxpayers—to help you do it.

Technorati Tags: home schools, RJ Rushdoony, Christian Reconstructionism

Only Women Bleed: The Convention

What a week in St. Paul! We were treated to the presence of the Leadership Conference of the Abstinence Clearinghouse right here in our fair city. The SUV's with South Dakota license plates and "Jesus Loves Me But Not You" and "God does not believe in atheists" were out in full force. I've written about the people my fair city welcomed this week here and here, but nothing like seeing the freak show up close and personal.

Jeff Fecke attended the press conference, and has a three part write-up on the convention that can be found here, here, and here. He has a well-written, balanced look at the absolute joke that is taxpayer-supported abstinence education in the Bush Theocracy.

But we here at the Cucking Stool aren't going to just attend the press conference, we're going to take you behind the scenes and show you a few photos taken by the Cucking Stool spy team. Now I learned just today that I wasn't the only one who snuck in to try to capture the forbidden images of people telling other people why they shouldn't have sex. It turns out that a undercover documentary crew managed to break through the security zone. They were caught and asked to leave. Being a polite, middle aged, slightly overweight lady dressing conservatively, I looked just like the participants and had free run of the joint.

But you, dear reader, are not here to learn the tricks of the Cucking Stool spy program, you want photos. So photos I give you.

The major theme that jumped out at you was how COOL and HIP everyone was trying to be. I half expected the creepy, Purity Ball soft-image stuff to be the majority of the vendors. No so. Most were doing their best to both keep graphic artists in business and to convince kids that it is so totally groovy to believe that sex=death. Virginity Rocks! was probably the "edgiest" display, if virginity can be defined as urban and "edgy."


That isn't to say that there weren't pretty pictures of white women in romantic poses extolling the virtues of sexual ignorance; there were plenty:


The one booth that was never empty at the show was the one run by Illusions: Uncovering the Truth About Pornography. I don't know if they were being shunned by the rest of the group, or if they were afraid that someone would look too closely at their fuzzy danger-filled images, but they were always present at the booth.

(And no, I won't make any crude comments about that one woman on her knees in front of the one sitting down. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

There was plenty of swag at the convention. Remember these were people trying to sell their abstinence learning tools to others who had taxpayer money burning a hole in their pockets. They know that there's gold in them thar hymens, and they're going to hand you more crap than at the State Fair so that when your school district's federal abstinence-only funding cash flows in, you think of them and their materials first. So buttons and temporary tattoos and posters and rubber band bracelets (white, of course) were in abundance. My personal favorite was the "I'm Worth Waiting For" flashing strobe light:

Words

[Our language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946

By now, I'm sure you've heard about the criminal sexual assault trial in Nebraska where the judge has prohibited the witnesses and counsel from using the terms "Rape," "Sexual Assault," "Victim," "Attacker," "Assailant," and "Forced."

What's interesting is that this is apparently the second trial where the trial court judge has banned the use of the words and the jury hasn't been told that the words are banned. After the victim testified for thirteen hours at the first trial using the tortured language imposed by the judge, the jury predictably couldn't reach a conclusion (although one does wonder what the verdict form looked like).

This time around, though, Judge Cheuveront has already declared a mistrial, claiming that the pretrial publicity surrounding his order has tainted the jury pool, and he blames the accuser:

"The inescapable conclusion from the petition promoting the rally is that Ms. Bowen and her friends hoped to intimidate this court and interfere with the selection of a fair and impartial jury," Cheuvront wrote in his order released Thursday afternoon. "The gatherings and the speeches ... were widely reported in the media. Unfortunately, this resulted in publicity that would make it virtually impossible to summon additional jurors who would be untainted by the media reports on these activities."

As opposed to a jury tainted by the actual allegations being made about what happened.

Sad news

Spotty is going away for a while, boys and girls. Actually, it's only for the weekend, and MNO has promised some treats for you in Spot's absence. Nevertheless, Spot expects you all to be on your best behavior.

Spot has a couple of items for you before he goes.

First. You should be reading Charlie at Across the Great Divide. He's had some really good posts in the past couple of days about Lady Bird Johnson, executive privilege, and an unexpected penny.

Second, at a recent liberal blogger bonding event, Flash loaned Spot a new book called Deer Hunting with Jesus, by Joe Bageant. Spot finished it a couple of days ago; it is just as irreverent as it sounds. And good, too. Turns out, Joe Bageant has a website that's part commiseration with readers and part essays. Joe has a recent essay called The Ants of Gaia that Spot recommends. Here's a taste:

If mankind were discovered on a dog's hide the owner would give the dog a mange dip. Or if the earth were a Petri dish, we would be called pathology. Problem is though, mama earth tends to shed pathogens off her skin, which for us pathogens, is the ultimate catastrophe.

It's kind of a Jared Diamond on moonshine essay. Please read it.

Technorati Tags: Gaia, global warming

Monkey read, monkey write

Spot was pretty sure that Katie was going to write about Keith Ellison today.

Oh, come on Spot. Katie is predictable, but nobody is that predictable!

Prediction had nothing to do with it. All you had to do, grasshopper, was read Power Line. Here's Scotty a day or two ago:

Yesterday in "The truth about Keith Ellison" I noted Ellison's comments earlier this week to a meeting of Twin Cities atheists. Among Ellison's deep thoughts was this one comparing 9/11 to the burning of the Reichstag as reported by the Star Tribune:

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that. After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it and it put the leader of that country [Hitler] in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted. The fact is that I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box -- dismiss you."

Scotty goes on to throw a hissy fit about the historical analogy. You know what's coming, don't you, boys and girls?

Katherine Kersten: Ellison's use of Reichstag fire goes overboard was not, well, unexpected. In describing a meeting at which Ellison spoke, Katie writes:

But even the "impeach Bush now" crowd might have raised an eyebrow when Ellison compared the Sept. 11 terror attacks to the burning of the Reichstag, or Pariament building, in Nazi Germany in 1933.

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," he told applauding atheists. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

Why the nerve of that man! Making a crowd raise an eyebrow!

What Katie is trying to do, of course, is intimate that Ellison believes that the Bush administration was the perpetrator of the September 11th attacks [although she does quote Ellison as telling her later that he didn't], and that he is equating Bush to Hitler. And, of course, he did neither. But the historical analogy is a good one, really, when you consider Ari Fleischer telling people to be careful about what they say in response to remarks by Bill Maher, the institution of a regime of torture in several places by the CIA and perhaps the military, the confusion of military and civilian justice, the indeterminate detention of residents of the United States without trial, the curtailment of habeas corpus, and the continuing foment of fear and hysteria in the American people.

But you're right, Katie, Bush is no Hitler. Iraq has experienced, oh, maybe only one million "excess deaths" since the invasion began in 2003. Hitler had six million in his column. Boy that George Bush: what a piker!

Katie also cannot resist taking a swipe at Ellison for his tolerance of atheists. Here's the lede from the screed:

On Sunday, Fifth District Congressman Keith Ellison found a wildly receptive audience in what might seem an unexpected place: a gathering of Minnesota atheists. "You'll always find this Muslim standing up for your right to be atheists all you want," he told them. (You might want to check the Qur'an on that, Rep. Ellison.)

Spot doesn't know about you, boys and girls, but he finds it funny that not only is Katie such a Biblical literalist, but that she finds time to point out to adherents of another religion when Katie thinks they have strayed from their religion's doctrine. Just another service cheerfully rendered by our favorite communis rixatrix! Katie projects her beady-eyed religious literalism on everyone; she's very ecumenical in that regard.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, Keith Ellison, athiests, Reichstag fire, Nazis

Seduced and abandoned

Long-time Faegre & Benson partner John French has the resume you would write if you sat down to make up the resume of a great lawyer: Harvard Law School, Law Review, clerk to Justice Felix Frankfurter. A DFLer, French nevertheless threw the weight of his not inconsiderable opinion behind John Roberts when he was nominated to be the new chief justice of the Supreme Court. Based on Robert's record as an appellate judge (including recently having voted to deny Salim Hamdan Common Article Three protection under the Geneva Conventions and upholding the president's military commissions, a part of which Scott Horton later said could not be called kangaroo courts without offending kangaroos), Spot was mystified by French's support of Roberts. French has some second thoughts, too:

Letter of the day: Restraint, thy name is not Justice Roberts

Published: July 12, 2007

When the Senate was considering the nomination of John Roberts to be a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, I wrote a letter urging that he be confirmed.

I based this recommendation on Roberts' public representations that he was guided by the principle of judicial restraint and that he most revered such great practitioners of judicial restraint as Justices Holmes, Brandeis, Frankfurter and Jackson.

Now, let's look briefly at some of the decisions in the Supreme Court term that just ended.

Notwithstanding decades of judicial support for affirmative action to rectify racial discrimination in the public schools, the court ruled that the use of race to determine placement at a school, even for the purpose of preventing resegregation, violated the 14th Amendment.

In the antitrust field, the court overturned one of its own price-fixing precedents that had stood for 96 years.

The court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act even though, in the year 2000, it had struck down a nearly identical state ban.

An inmate whose federal appeal was filed late because a judge gave the inmate's lawyer the wrong date lost his right of appeal even though the court had to overturn two earlier precedents to reach this result.

An important provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law was struck down even though a 2003 decision of the court had upheld that statute.

And so on and so forth. As Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in one dissent, "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much."

Chief Justice Roberts joined the majority in all of these cases. So much for Justices Holmes, Brandeis, Frankfurter and Jackson, and for the principle of judicial restraint.

JOHN FRENCH, MINNEAPOLIS

By the way, boys and girls, guess who else French has endorsed?

Who, Spotty?

Rachel Paulose.

Really?

Yes really.

Technorati Tags: Supreme Court, judicial restraint, partial-birth abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance

The new TCF Gophers logo!

This from a University of Minnesota press release:

TCF Bank Stadium logo to be unveiled to signal start of Gopher football stadium construction

What:
TCF Bank Stadium construction kick-off and logo unveiling event

When:
11:30am-1pm, Wednesday, July 11th

Where:
Future site of TCF Bank Stadium

Contact:
Justin Ware, University News Service, (612) 626-1720

(7/9/2007) -- *For safety reasons, access to construction site limited to media and invited guests only

Gopher head football Coach Tim Brewster will be rolling out the construction equipment alongside representatives from M. A. Mortenson Company and TCF Bank to officially kick-off the construction phase of TCF Bank Stadium. The event, which includes the unveiling of the stadium logo, will start at 11:30 a.m., July 11, on the stadium construction site.

And here's the logo:

Artwork by Avidor.

Technorati Tags: University of Minnesota, Minnesota Gophers

Spotty Award: Strong Stomach Division

Evil Bobby, who Spotty thought was bound for the barren steppes of Central Asia to teach the natives to make better goat cheese, is still around and fired off a really good post a couple of days ago. Evil Bobby earns a Spotty™ for Andy Aplikowski: Chickenhawks are War Heroes Now? It's in the Strong Stomach Division because that's what you need to read Residual Forces. Here's a bit of Bobby:

Andy Aplikowski from Residual Forces (You know? The guy who has no balls) is back at it. Once again we find Andy, who refuses to serve in the Military (but sure hopes you’ll do it for him), pulling up his beer belly and pretending it’s his chest in calling out Republican Senators for finally realizing a basic truth: Support Endless War in Iraq, and lose reelection in 2008.

Remember, boys and girls, that a Spotty™ is awarded to the author of a letter to the editor, an op-ed piece, or a blog post or comment that Spot wishes he had written himself.

Technorati Tags: Chickenhawks, Spotty award

Polar insanities

Andrew Koppelman, one of the writers at Balkinization, put up an absolutely brilliant post a little while ago on market intervention. Spot commends it to all of you, but especially Sticks, the boys and girls at the Institute for Justice, and perhaps D.J. Tice. It is short enough that it is difficult to find a meaningful excerpt without ripping the whole thing off (which you had better read, because there will be a test, boys and girls), but here's a sample:

Think about the question of treatment of illness – just on the individual level, as the individual decides what to do about his disease. One can imagine analogues to the communist and libertarian offering him advice. One advisor, let’s call him Dr. Frankenstein, suggests the following: “The problem with your body is that it operates by chance natural processes, without human direction. What you need to do is let me completely dismantle your body and put it together again in a completely different way, following a logic that I have carefully worked out, sitting here at my desk.” The other advisor, Christian Scientist, responds: “Your problem is that you haven’t got enough faith in the natural processes in your body. No intervention of any kind is appropriate, other than the prevention of basic physical trauma and starvation. Your body is a wonderfully self-regulating mechanism, which obviously takes care of itself most of the time without any medical intervention at all. It’s a mistake ever to try to interfere with its natural operation.”

Both Frankenstein and Christian Scientist are, not to put too fine a point on it, insane. The person needs medical intervention. The hard question is what kind of intervention he needs. There are sane presumptions that bear a family resemblance to both of these crazies: one can think that illness is evidence that intervention is appropriate, and one can also notice that, given the body’s capacities for self-regulation, intervention can sometimes do more harm than good. But both of these presumptions must await empirical testing, and each can be convincingly refuted in particular cases.

Please also read Spot's posts on the subject, Invisible hand job, Invisible hand job II, and A Spotsian dialogue.

Technorati Tags: Libertarians, market intervention, Invisible Hand, Frankenstein, Christian Science

"Green Zone" equals "bulls eye"

From Professor Cole this morning:

On Tuesday, guerrillas launched some 20 katyusha rockets and mortar shells into the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, killing 3 persons, including a US soldier, and wounding 25 persons.

The Green Zone was originally supposed to be the safe place in Iraq, with the area outside it (everything else) called the "Red Zone." The US Embassy in Baghdad appears to have forgotten what the phrase "Green Zone" means, since a spokesman there told the LAT, "There's fire into the Green Zone virtually every day, so I can't draw any conclusions about the security situation based on that . . ."

Let me draw the conclusion. If you've got fire into the friggin' Green Zone every day, then we can draw the conclusion that the security situation in Baghdad sucks big time. When you've got people killed and a large number of people wounded in the one place in Iraq that was supposed to have a "permissive" security environment, then security in general is the pits.

Sometimes, academic language is just not up to conveying what Professor Cole has to say. It is nice to see that he has some linguistic range.

The professor's post continues by describing the increasing attacks on the Green Zone that past few months. That, and the fact that the Iraqi director of security for the Green Zone was recently kidnapped.

Technorati Tags: Informed Comment, iraq war, Green Zone

That giant cracking sound

The sound that you heard this morning when you picked up your Star Tribune off the porch, boys and girls, was the sound of the façade that charter schools are public schools falling away and collapsing in a heap. Sure, charter schools get their money from the taxpayer, but that's where the egalitarian, equal opportunity institution ends. The evidence was in plain sight, but it took a concerned mom from St. Paul to figure it out:

A St. Paul mom's concern about the application process for her son to apply to a charter school may force many more Minnesota charters to change their student application processes.

The schools are asking for more information than state law allows, according to the Minnesota Department of Education. The information -- such as whether students are receiving special education services or their ethnicity -- could be used to deny admission.

A perusal of charter school websites by the Star Tribune quickly found a dozen schools asking for details about prospective students that go too far.

What? You mean the people at the Department of Education were asleep at the switch, Spotty?

No grasshopper. They're inert when it comes to charter school oversight. Which is not to say that Governor Pepsodent's minions didn't rush to assure us all that none of these charter schools actually used the illegally-collected information. Heaven forfend! Here's what nameless mouthpieces, somewhere in that oily, glad-handing pond of piety we call the Pawlenty administration, had to say:

Officials were quick to point out they have no evidence that schools used this information to deny admission.

Of course not. What the officials didn't say, naturally, is that we have no evidence because we've never looked, and we frankly don't care! Any edge we can give to charter schools to try to make them look better at the expense of the public schools, hey we're good with that!

And what a constellation of rat holes we have created! Here's a sample:

Skills for Tomorrow (algebra, English, chemistry, and physics are so yesterday), New Voyage Academy (beam me up, Scotty!), Face to Face Academy (another combat school, apparently), Family Academy (where you can bet your arse they don't discuss family-making), Ascention Academy (a Big Coop special no doubt; Spot would like to look at the curriculum for that one), F. Scott Fitzgerald Writing (for all the parents who wanted to write the next Great American Novel but now hope little Johnnie or Janey will), Loveworks Academy (Spot's not touching that one with a stick), Higher Ground, and one of Spot's favorites, Great Expectations! (Spot added the exclamation point, but it seemed like a natural)

Not that the cool names or selective admission practices have done any good.

Until we tamp down the private school plutocrats, the charter school crazies, the school voucher vultures, and the home school hyenas like Katie, Sticks, Rep. Buesgens, John Brandl, Spotty's own Geoff Michel, Alan Quist, Don Samuels, Governor Pepsodent, and all the rest, public schools, the backbone of democracy, will remain in peril. Theirs is an autocratic, theocratic vision entirely at odds with democratic and pluralistic institutions.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, charter schools, private schools, school vouchers, home schools, Tim Pawlenty, John Brandl, Alan Quist, Geoff Michel

Katie gets hooked!

In picking up this Associated Press story, Katie tells us today that Northfield, Minnesota has become a cesspool of heroin addiction. Yes, let our Commissioner of the Department of Troubling Signs be among the first to link violent and suggestive music videos to the wanton destruction of another burg in small-town America! Katie went after this wire story like a pike after a minnow, not pausing to examine it before inhaling. Before discussing Katie's fight of fancy, however, Spot wants you, boys and girls, to look at the AP story.

When you read the AP story, you will see that it is nothing except the account of the Northfield Chief of Police's hysterical presser.

Well, come on, Spotty, hear him out, anyway!

We will grasshopper. Here are the opening grafs of the article:

Northfield, Minn. — (AP) - Police in this upscale college town say they're fighting an unusual heroin epidemic among high school kids.

More than 150 kids are hooked on the drug, Northfield Police Chief Gary Smith said Tuesday. He decided to publicize the problem with a news conference, where he said that as many as 250 current and former Northfield High School students could be involved - some feeding heroin habits of as much as $800 a day.

The epidemic has increased crime and caused consternation in Northfield, one of the most educated and affluent cities in Minnesota, and home to both Carleton and St. Olaf colleges.

"This is affecting our ability to deal with other community concerns," Smith said. "We find ourselves more often reacting to crimes than preventing them."

Spotty thinks the chief wants a bigger budget! Here's some more from the article:

Smith said investigators first caught wind of the problem when crime started spiking, including a doubling in burglaries and tripling in thefts from autos from 2005 to 2006. It led them to the informal heroin ring at the high school of about 1,300 students.

The ring is comprised mostly of students from white, affluent families who police believe are viewing heroin use as a status symbol. Many are popular students successful in academics and athletics, including one who recently graduated with a 4.0 grade point average.

Let's review, boys and girls.

 
High school student

 

 
Heroin addict

You can often identify the heroin addict by the needle marks in his or her arms:

The chief says that Northfield experienced a spike in the crime rate in just a year, and that upwards of 250 present and former Northfield High School students are involved. According to the article, there are about 1300 students at the high school.

Spotty, that about one in five!

Yes, grasshopper, thanks. Now, boys and girls, Spot wants you to think about whether you believe that twenty percent of Northfield High School students are heroin addicts, out committing street crimes to pay for their habits. If we assume that the freshmen and sophomores aren't pulling their weight—sigh, underclassmen rarely do—the addiction rate has to be even higher among the upperclassmen, including, apparently, our straight "A" graduate. How probable do you think that is?

The AP's stenographer apparently couldn't be roused to ask a single skeptical question. Nor, apparently, could WCCO. Jeebus Christmas, people, where did you all go to journalism school?

[update]

Spot, how much horse has been seized in this city-wide dragnet?

Four ounces, according to the 'CCO piece.

[/update]

Back to Katie. This latest "Sky is Falling" tale is perfect for Katie to infer the imminent demise of Western Civilization. After lamenting the sad state of moral rectitude in Northfield, Katie recounted a personal experience. You'll remember, boys and girls, that recently Katie and her brood went to the Robo-Date wedding of the Sister of Katie in California. This apparently happened on the plane ride:

I remembered a recent plane trip, where I was seated next to my daughters and several families with small children. During the flight, TV monitors suspended in front of us began to play what appeared to be music videos. I didn't have a headset, so I just watched.

One video could have been set in a brothel. It featured a scantily clad, tattooed woman and two men. The three slapped each other, and the woman and one man confronted each other in erotically charged bathtub and bedroom scenes.

The video had a dark, tantalizing element, a hint of violence just below the surface. Behavior like this is scary but cool and carries an illicit thrill, it suggested. The thrill of danger.

The video's edgy message didn't surprise me. Today, we encounter it in many places, from "thug" rap lyrics to the occasional graphic ad coupling sex and violence in the New York Times Sunday magazine. What did surprise me was that a staid airline company had shoved this video in our faces, and that not one person -- so far as I could tell -- had objected. [including, apparently, Katie]

Katie's weary un-surprise turned to joy when she got home and read about Northfield! She could tie the two together! Somehow.

Update: Ask Charlie sometime why Katie has it in for Northfield.

[furtherupdate] The Wege did a great post on Katie's column here, complete with Katie doing her best Harold Hill impersonation. [/furtherupdate]

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, heroin addiction, Northfield MN, music videos