Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

I wonder if Violet will put up a follow up Coakley post?

Posted: December 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Back in November my favorite atheistic liberal feminist blogger Violet Socks at the Reclusive leftist wrote this:

On your blog, in your comments, everywhere. That’s how memes start. Coakley’s got the courage and the convictions. She’s raising her head above the parapet, right now, when it matters. Just as she did last year when she endorsed Hillary Clinton. Just as she did when she refused to surrender that vote at the convention.

Martha Coakley for President.

As you might guess by my description of her Violet and I have a serious disagreement on Abortion. Yesterday she quoted a post at a blog called Confluence:

There were a multitude of permutations that would have succeeded in covering poor and sick people but the Democrats picked the one that is most likely to piss off their own constituents in the highest numbers. Congratulations, guys.

But this abortion thing? I gotta wonder why it wasn’t sufficient to stick the knife into health care reform without adding the agonizing poison. You should have never even entertained Stupak and Nelson no matter how much they howled and screamed. That’s going to come back to bite you. And no matter how much theater comes up on the floor of the Senate during debate in the next couple of days to try to remove the amendments and compromises, taking them out is not going to make this bill smell any sweeter. The jig is up. We see through the distraction.

The actual post is interesting philosophically but bottom line is the abortion language makes the bill unacceptable.

Today the Boston Globe has this story about Martha the righteous:

“Let’s be clear on what’s principled here,’’ she said at the time of her opponent, US Representative Michael Capuano. “If it comes down to this in the Senate, and it’s the health care bill or violating women’s rights, where does he stand?’’

Obviously feeling the pressure, Capuano pivoted a few days later and said that while he voted yes in the House, he would vote no on final passage if the abortion restrictions did not change.

Coakley used her stark position on abortion rights to appeal to supporters for donations; in an e-mail, she declared her decision to make her position “a defining moment’’ in her campaign.

Asked last week whether she would vote against a bill that went beyond current law in restricting abortion coverage, Coakley said, “Yes, that’s right.’’

In a statement to the Globe yesterday, Coakley said that although she was disappointed that the Senate bill “gives states additional options regarding the funding mechanisms for women’s reproductive health services,’’ she would reluctantly support it because it would provide coverage for millions of uninsured people and reduce costs.

As Newsbusters put it:

Coakley is such a self-serving hypocritical flip-flopper than not even the Boston Globe could spin this story to make her look good. In almost any other state, Coakley would have very little chance in the general election but, hey, this is Massachusetts we are talking about here. Democrat candidates for senator aren’t so much elected as automatically coronated.

I have thoughts concerning Ms. Coakley, they are similar to my thoughts about Scott Harshbarger. Neither are printable so I didn’t say a thing at the time of the first post. As I want to keep my sense of decorum I’ll continue to restrain myself.

But I can’t wait to read Violet’s follow up post on this subject once she reads the Globe’s story. I’ll wager it is going to be an interesting but not work safe read.

The Brittany Murphy business reminds me of my cousin Bill

Posted: December 21, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news, personal
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…My cousin Bill was 4 years younger than me. He was a diver and built like a rock. Like Ms Murphy he was at the height of health. And out of nowhere he just dropped dead.

It struck me particularly, not because we were really close, or the empathy I felt for his parents as any parent does with their child (of any age) dies, but because I have overweight and older. It seemed unreal to me that he would what just dropped dead when I am still alive.

It reminds me of one of the greatest sermons I’ve ever heard, it was at the Latin Mass at Immaculate Conception. The priest went over and over talking about people who suddenly died and stressed the importance of the sacrament of confession. The priest stressed two phrases that have really stuck in me:

We are not promised the next morning.

It is a terrible thing to fall under the judgment of a Just God.

One should not let worry prevent one from living life, but a smart person will keep these two phrases in mind.

After all Ms. Murphy was young, fit and well off, yet she wasn’t promised that next day.

NOTE: As I neared the end of this post I noticed this:

Brittany Murphy’s husband, Simon Monjack, told hospital staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center he did not want an autopsy performed on his deceased wife, multiple sources tell TMZ.

We’re told, however, despite Monjack’s wishes, the L.A. County Coroner’s office will perform an autopsy on Murphy. As we first reported, Murphy went into cardiac arrest this morning and could not be revived.

This suggests that there might be more to this than meets the eye. Time will tell. Doesn’t change the main point of the post.

Small bad laws are just as bad as big ones

Posted: December 20, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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A lot of the right (and some of the left) is outraged over the impending passage of the heath care bill it it’s current form (whatever that actually is).

As I said to my old friend the rightwinggamer in comments:

This doesn’t actually bother me all that much in the sense that I didn’t expect better from this congress and that as a nation we made the foolish decision to elect them. We did this to ourselves so we have to take our medicine.

I’m actually much more outraged by this:

Private recycling programs weren’t good enough because the city wants to monitor our compliance. If there are all sorts of different recycling bins, placed where shopkeepers want them, how will the people — AKA the government — know if the mandate is boosting our bag-related virtue over the 10% level? The unenforced mandate, mind you. Now, not only will the people know how many bags are recycled, the people will know how much the mere idea of being supposed to do something produces the intended result. Think there will be a decline from the current 10%? You don’t know Madison.

My beef is really with this line from the actual story Ann References:

Fines for failing to recycle bags range from $100 to $400 a year, but city recycling coordinator George Dreckmann stressed that the city had no intention of enforcing the law emphasis mine

There is nothing that irritates me more than passing a law you aren’t going to enforce, it is a waste of resources and time. Even worse such laws can be selectively enforced to pressure or punish people if the desire arises. And this is local government, a national government might neglect or overlook some things due to its sheer size but a local government is close to the people it should know better.

I know very little about Madison, nothing from direct experience, I live in a city that is broke and where violence and drugs are a real problem.

If these are the people I’d be dealing with rather given the choice I think I’ll stay here.

In both cases the voters put these people in, and in both cases we the voters will get what’s coming to us.

What kind of people steal the sign at Auschwitz?

Posted: December 18, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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In Ashburnham ,the town next to mine, there is a street called River Styx Road. The road sign for years was constantly being stolen.

However I suspect this sign stealing has very little to do with a teenage kid putting stuff on his wall:

Thieves on Friday stole the notorious metal sign hanging over the entrance of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz that reads “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes free”), police said.

they don’t think it’s kids either:

Polish Ambassador to Israel Agnieszka Magdziak-Miszewska said that the Polish police believe the unknown perpetrators who stole the infamous sign at the entrance to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz meticulously planned out their plot because they were not caught on security cameras.

“Everyone is doing everything they can in order to catch those who did this,” she said, adding that the governor of the region declared a state of emergency. She also said that finding the metal sign is a national priority.

Pam at Atlas has a rather pessimistic view:

Perhaps they need it for this century’s ovens

Considering how much mass murder is going on around the world it is well to consider something I wrote a bit ago:

…the reason why there are holocaust museums today isn’t because of what was done, governments KNEW what was being done and didn’t give a damn.

It’s because an army of average American SAW it and were outraged. It could not be ignored or explained away. Excuses wouldn’t wash.

The generation of people who were born post Holocaust are now 65 years old Three generations of people from that age down know only what we have passed down to them. It is the responsibility of us to pass on this history and it’s significance to future generations.

At best this signifies our failure.

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