Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Sarah Palin: “She who must not be quoted!”

Posted: September 9, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Marc Ambinder says this:

So here’s a challenge to the media: if you want to do justice to conservative ideas and find some balance in your coverage tomorrow, book serious Republicans with original ideas on your programs. If you don’t, Palin is giving herself a voice at your expense and through little effort of her own.

He claims that Sarah Palin doesn’t have expertise in that area so she shouldn’t be quoted. As President Obama only had expertise in community organizing and Mr. Ambinder hasn’t declared him too experienced to talk on national health care, this can’t be true.

Therefore I must assume he actually means this:

Please please please don’t report on her! I know she is the most popular republican with their base and I know that she makes news and brings ratings, but we don’t want to risk engaging her and making fun of her isn’t working so please keep her from as many eyeballs as possible, because if they read her themselves they might discover that she is not the nut that we want to people to believe that she is.

You had Mika on board this morning but that’s not going to be enough.

As was said last month, if she was as irrelevant and as unserious as claimed she is they would have ignored her from the start.

I guess since the left has such a fear of her maybe if they just avoid the name they can manage not to wet their pants. Might I suggest they refer to her as “She who must not be quoted”.

If nothing else you can save on the depends.

Update: Riehl shakes his head in disbelief.

Update 2: The White House releases talking points specifically directed toward “She who must not be quoted!“, Sarah Palin counter-punches.

The key question for the middle east: “Which Troubridge is Israel?”

Posted: September 9, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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As my wife noticed every year I re-read the Guns of August. I think it’s very important to not only remember the lessons of Vietnam and World War 2, but the lessons of wars before that. Particularly World War 1 because it came at the end of a long period of general peace between the great powers , just like we have now.

As I’m a bit of a navel fan one of the most interesting stories to me is the pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau, two German ships in Mediterranean Sea at the very start of the war. British ships were ordered to intercept him including some commanded by Rear Admiral Ernest Troubridge.

Troubridge following a strict interpretation of his rules of engagement considered the ships a superior force and declined to engage. Accused of cowardice and court martialed he was acquitted but his career ended at that moment.

That would have been quite a shock to his ancestor Sir Thomas Troubridge who served with Nelson at St. Vincent, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Aboukir Bay and was the first Baron of the Troubridge Baronets.

It was likely a big shock to the Germans as well. The Kaiser had a healthy respect for the tradition of the Royal Navy and after a single battle of Jutland kept it pretty much in port.

It wasn’t fear of the reality of the early 20th century Royal Navy of Ernest Troubridge. It was fear of the memory of the early 19th century Royal Navy of his ancestor Thomas Troubridge and Lord Nelson.

And that’s how we get to Israel and the Middle east today. It hasn’t just been the fear of Israel’s nuclear power it has been the memory of each Israeli Victory in 1948 , 1956, 1967, 1973 and the willingness of Israel to do what had to be done to win.

The question on Iranian nukes really comes down to one thing: When the UN and the US under president Obama “fail” (assuming they are actually trying) to restrain Iran will today’s Israel act differently than the Israel of 40 years ago. Will it be Thomas Troubridge or will it be Ernest Troubridge? Iran, Europe and President Obama are betting on Ernest. I think it will be Thomas.

Andrew Sullivan doesn’t go over the edge…

Posted: September 9, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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…in this article at the London Times concerning the healthcare debate:

Nonetheless, I remain convinced Obama will win this fight. Not totally; not without political cost; but win it he shall. And the strategy is really very simple. The most popular elements of the bill will be kept in and the most contentious left out.

The fundamental issue of costs will be deferred. A bill that prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing illnesses; that creates healthcare exchanges, where people can buy their own insurance policy subsidised by the government; that brings agreed price reductions by the drug companies in return for all these new, previously uninsured clients: this will pass and be popular. How could it not? The option of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private ones will be either dispensed with or held in reserve. If, after a few years, health costs keep soaring and the private companies have not mended their free-spending ways, it could be brought back.

Obama has a solid majority and can achieve all this with Democratic votes alone. So why is he in such trouble? Partly it is that this kind of reform rightly stirs scepticism, and Obama has allowed a hapless and divided Congress to take the lead, muddying the message. Partly it is that the hard right is becoming more and more extreme and its fears have eclipsed the hopes of Obama’s supporters. But the most critical part, in my view, is the public understanding that after two massive bank bailouts and a vast stimulus package, with two still-intractable wars, the US cannot afford even the modest 10-year trilliondollar package Obama is proposing. And Obama’s inability to cut spending while the economy is so fragile means he is constrained from offering fiscal reassurance.

Not a bad bit of analysis on his part Bill Jacobson takes a look at it and says:

Well, yeah, if Obama drops the public plan and mandates he can get some measure of health insurance reform because most people want health insurance reforms without junking the whole system. New national and regional markets for insurance helping create the conditions for individual insurance empowerment. That is a plan that can pass.

It’s called the Republican plan, and it is as available now to Obama as it was six months ago. All Obama has to do is just say yes.

What I find interesting is his use of the word at the start “euthanasia” rather than the word “death panel” in his introduction:

The summer has been crammed with YouTube clips and television news reports featuring the angrier members of the Republican right railing against Barack Obama’s plans to inflict euthanasia on their grandmothers, abort their children and put them in concentration camps.

It is a word used very carefully and in my opinion deliberately. Euthanasia has a specific meaning and people in England know it. If he had used the word “death panels” I suspect he knows that the people of England would recognize and understand what that means. Sarah Capewell sure would.

It’s not a death panel: it’s ‘Council guidance’…

Posted: September 9, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
Tags: ,

a totally different thing altogether:

Guidance limiting care of the most premature babies provoked outrage when it was published three years ago.

Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child’s ‘best interests’.

The guidelines said: ‘If gestational age is certain and less than 23+0 (i.e at 22 weeks) it would be considered in the best interests of the baby, and standard practice, for resuscitation not to be carried out.’

Medical intervention would be given for a child born between 22 and 23 weeks only if the parents requested it and only after discussion about likely outcomes.

Well it’s not like hospital workers would refuse treatment to a live baby when his mother is begging for it, oh wait:

Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy – almost four months early.

They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.

Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support.

She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit…

…She told how she begged one paediatrician, ‘You have got to help’, only for the man to respond: ‘No we don’t.’

Jayden Capewell Born & Died Oct. 3, 2008

Jayden Capewell Born & Died Oct. 3, 2008


I found this story in the Corner, my son and I are both a bit shocked over it, him more than me because he is 18 and still innocent enough to not understand how a doctor can look at this baby and decide to let him die without any effort. It would seem contrary to human nature, I think the opposite, it is very human to duck responsibility whenever possible.

I have a message for the “death panel deniers” who don’t want to read editorials that use those words. You may not believe that they will exist, but let me tell you Jayden Capewell damn well believes in them.

I’m going to go all Catholic on you for a sec; it’s not the soul of Jayden that needs prayers, it’s the doctors and staff that let him die, they’re the people who you need to pray for.

Update: it’s just below the headline on Drudge. This is going to make for a fun day on Rush and on the talk shows tonight.

Update 2: Now in the green room, it will progress from there to the main page and I predict to Rush before the day is done and then to Fox.

Update 3: Don Surber has more examples while Darren Hutchinson calls it a conspiracy theory and equates it with Birtherism. Tell that to the Capewell family.

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