Blogito, Ergo Sum - 2 May 2009

This NYT headline item gives us an interesting snapshot of what’s wrong with today’s labor unions, writing about the Chrysler bankruptcy:

It seems to me that labor unions lost sight of the fact that they always stood to benefit if the automaker thrives. Instead, unions got to the point where they considered their wages and benefits to be “entitlements” to be paid more and more each year no matter how well or poorly their employer was doing.

Employees, as a result, lost sight of the fact that the only reason they had a job is because their employer needed to make more money as a result of their labor then it cost him to pay them...somehow this even became a negative idea, a mark against the employer. I don’t know, maybe you have to spend some time being an employer, first, before that sinks in?

What the hell, Joe cost the tourism industry around the world only umpteen billion dollars or so. Word is he is being held in Cheney’s formerly-used undisclosed location and possibly learning about waterboarding first-hand.

Obama Has Chance to Select Justice With Varied Résumé

By ADAM LIPTAK

As Justice David H. Souter departs, the president could move the court back toward what it has been for most of its history: a collection of prominent individuals with broad experience.

GHW Bush appointed Souter but had no idea he would turn into the partisan liberal that he did. Nice to know that Liptak recognizes that he was not actually a prominent individual with broad experience.

The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”

The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders. ...

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

This item is titled on the front page as Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus. George Orwell’s name was not mentioned anywhere in the item. The fact that only warming, not cooling, is considered to be the problem should not matter. It’s actually only carbon dioxide that constitutes the problem, and even at that it is only anthropogenic carbon dioxide (except for exhaling, at least thus far) but why bring that up? And the word ‘trade’ can be replaced by ‘cash back’?

Orwellspeak is alive and well in Washington. Oh, yeah, and remember to wrap yourself in the flag of freedom while you are doing it.

A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

There might also just happen to be the fact that a majority of people actually believe that moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists ARE more important. Clearly Mr. Perkowitz is a good liberal who knows better than they do. The ignorant masses, you know, must be led by the hand.

The fact that some earth scientists know that the earth has been warmer than it is now and with much higher levels of carbon dioxide and yet plant and animal live thrived, doesn’t mean there isn’t cause for alarm this time, they assure us to our faces while they attempt to surreptitiously pick our pockets. Actual history doesn’t count when you are rewriting it to suit your own purposes.

Shakespeare knew the solution: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the geologists."

“If you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing,” Biden babbled happily on the “Today” show. He also assured Matt Lauer that he had warned his family away from subways and that he “wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” but unfortunately Lauer did not inquire whether the Oval Office counts as free range. ...

All the current evidence suggests that the new flu being spread around by Americans is no more serious than — flu. If the government makes things sound too dire now, it compounds the chance that people might ignore warnings in the future when something worse is looming.

But Biden, channeling his Average Joe, was superworried — a signal to the White House that it was time to make the flu more boring. The administration quickly ratcheted up its talking points about covering your mouth when you cough and issued a hilarious set of revisionist translations that suggested the vice president was only talking about telling sick family members to avoid planes and subways.

Give Biden some credit. Who can deny his right to be immobilized with worry?

Here’s why conservatives face a problem with a liberal Supreme Court Justice:

...President Obama yesterday who offered the praise of one pleasantly surprised. "He came to the bench with no particular ideology," Obama said after Souter informed him of his intention to step down. "He never sought to promote a political agenda. And he consistently defied labels and rejected absolutes, focusing instead on just one task -- reaching a just result in the case that was before him."

President Obama said Friday he will look beyond traditional legal experience to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter — to someone who can relate to average Americans. ...

"I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation," Mr. Obama said.

Conservatives believe that the job of the Supreme Court is to decide whether or not something is constitutional. Liberals seek “justice” instead, but then they have to determine what that is emanating from the penumbras when it isn’t clearly visible.

Four political watchdog groups that typically support Democratic causes want a congressional ethics panel to probe ties between three House Democrats and the defunct Washington lobbying firm, the PMA Group, which benefited from the lawmakers' help.

In a letter Thursday to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the groups Common Cause, Public Citizen, Democracy 21 and U.S. PIRG asked for the panel to investigate whether Reps. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, Peter J. Visclosky of Indiana and James P. Moran of Virginia were influenced by campaign contributions and other financial benefits when they approved special pet projects, or earmarks, for clients of the PMA Group, in violation of House ethics rules.

Republicans had been asking for a formal investigation into the relationships between the Democratic lawmakers and PMA for some time. But with high-profile Democratic allies such as Common Cause now joining the fray, the pressure will mount on committee Chairman Zoe Lofgren and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrats, to act.

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself. ...

...during the presidential campaign Mr. Obama criticized the commissions, saying that “by any measure our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure,” and declaring that as president he would “reject the Military Commissions Act.” ...

When President Obama suspended Guantánamo cases after his inauguration on Jan. 20, many participants said the military commission system appeared dead.

But in recent days a variety of officials involved in the deliberations say that after administration lawyers examined many of the cases, the mood shifted toward using military commissions to prosecute some detainees, perhaps including those charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The more they look at it,” said one official, “the more commissions don’t look as bad as they did on Jan. 20.”

Administration officials said Friday that some detainees would be prosecuted in federal courts and noted that Mr. Obama had always left open the possibility of using military commissions.

Always, even if you might not have realized that precisely. Doesn't it depend upon the meaning of 'reject' and 'always'?

While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J.Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540.

That’s right: These sneakers - suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps - are made by French design house Lanvin, one of fashion’s hottest labels. They come in denim and satin versions, and have been a brisk seller all spring…

“They’re shoes,” the First Lady’s reps sniffed when curious reporters inquired about the fancy footwear.

Haute couture at a food bank. We should chip in and buy a pair for Palin in hopes that she’ll wear them to a bake sale or something, just to watch the media scandal erupt over how such a supposedly “down to earth” woman could be so thoughtless as to flaunt her wealth in front of common hard-working people.

Lest you doubt that this was indeed an issue for a 24-hour media cycle or two last year, click the image and scroll down. CNN — bouncing off a HuffPo post, natch — devoted three minutes of airtime to it, emphasizing the contrast between McCain and the heroically modest Democratic candidate who owns but four pairs of shoes.

Here’s an interesting side-note to the Specter transformation, from Hot Air:

Update: A fascinating procedural quirk on the replacement’s confirmation via scholar Michael Dorf: In order to push the nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats need at least one Republican on the committee to approve the nominee. Specter normally would have been that one, but he’s a Democrat too now. Which means all eyes are on … Lindsey Graham.

In another area, here’s a laugher from Snopes about a rumor they say was true but ‘Darwinized’ such that the facts were far from accurate in detail. Snopes has seemingly managed to convince themselves and others that they know the absolute truth about everything and can distinguish fact from fiction like no one else can, but I have to laugh at some of their pontification. In this case they were writing about the case of the dumb robber who attempted to rob a gun shop complete with armed customers, a clerk, and a cop, who promptly shot him. Mostly true, they say, as they then rather heavily correct with this paragraph:

“Although the Darwinized account presents the encounter in the humorous light of a hapless robber waving a pop-gun being felled by a hail of bullets by a mass of heavily-armed gun shop patrons, that wasn’t precisely the way of it. Zaback’s weapon was a .38 caliber semiautomatic pistol, not the .22 target pistol of the emailed account. The clerk, Morris, fired a 10mm semiautomatic pistol, not a .50 Desert Eagle, and the policeman, Lally, fired a 9mm semiautomatic pistol.”

This paragraph wraps around a clip-art drawing of an extended arm holding a pointed handgun, hammer cocked threateningly. It’s a snub-nosed revolver, not a semiautomatic weapon, which struck me as kind of humorous since they are such sticklers for detail when others get careless. In an item where all of the pistols used were semiautomatic then shouldn’t the picture actually show us one?