Ask me a easy one.

Bryan Caplan (via @JonahNRO) asks:

…”Is there any socialist analog of Liberty Fund?”  Is there any leftist charity whose chief mission is to organize small seminars where the participants read and discuss classic political writings?

The answer is simple: sure!  They’re called “American Commies.”  Small seminars where people talk about their favorite Commie writers is about as high as those Commie idiots can reasonably aspire, organizationally speaking.

Moe Lane

#rsrh Cheney’s second-unkindest cut of all.

While I agree with Allahpundit that the single unkindest cut of all would have been for Dick Cheney to criticize President Obama’s counter-terrorism policy from the left, that wasn’t going to happen.  Honestly, when it comes to that sort of thing the President – like virtually all contemporary Democratic politicians, really – still has to be graded on a curve.  It’s going to be a long time before that party is going to be comfortable with electing another Truman (unfortunately for the country, they’re probably capable of electing another LBJ a lot sooner), mostly because a critical generation of power brokers is only now reaching the point where its members are starting to die 0f old age.

Still, Cheney genially praising Obama for showing the elementary good sense to follow George W Bush’s lead on the GWOT is pretty good stuff.  My only quibble there is that the former Vice President didn’t observe that the current President had really ‘grown in office’ in that regard; but then, that can be a killing insult, inside the Beltway.  The doctors probably told Cheney to take it easy until he’s more comfortable with his cyborg body*…

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Cheney’s second-unkindest cut of all.

NYT: Tucson bias was in our very genes.

Ah, the New York Times.  Not only did their recent attempt to declare the Tucson shootings an episode of political violence spawned by right-wing rhetoric fail; it actually encouraged a minor episode of political violence spawned by left-wing rhetoric*.  This has made the paper look even worse than usual, so they need a good excuse to explain away the problem.  Said excuse?  It’s all the fault of the media’s genetic condition.

Seriously.

Jerry Ceppos, dean of the journalism school at the University of Nevada, Reno, said journalists’ impulse to quickly impose a frame on a story is “genetic.”

“Journalists developed automatic framing protocols generations ago because of the need to report quickly,” he said. “Today’s hyper-deadlines, requiring journalists to report all day long and all night long, made that genetic disposition even more dominant.”

Two things from this: Continue reading NYT: Tucson bias was in our very genes.

QotD, That’s Actually Really Good Advice edition.

David Morgan-Mar has set himself a seemingly-impossible task: to wit, trying to make the Star Wars prequels make sense.  Being a clever fellow, he has done so by re-imagining the whole sorry mess as an extended tabletop roleplaying game campaign – which works.  It works frighteningly well.  Jar Jar Binks makes a hell of a lot more sense when you realize that he’s being run by a twelve year old girl who is just getting into this entire gaming thing.  You even like the character, then.  Or will at least forgive him.

Anyway, while trying to make sense of the idea that the Wookiees would charge an enemy assaulting a beachhead when they’ve got all these lovely ranged weapons handy, David writes this bit on how to achieve victory conditions in warfare:

If attempting to defend an impossible position with bowmen and knights on foot against Genoese crossbowmen and tens of thousands of armoured, mounted knights, make sure you are heavily outnumbered. If attempting to repel a force of cavalry and men-at-arms with longbowmen on St Crispin’s Day, make sure you are vastly outnumbered. If defending a hospital stockade against Zulus, make sure you are enormously outnumbered.

You can choose a different, and more creative, path by doing the opposite of what the losers did. If you field an overwhelming force against a paltry number of defenders, whatever you do, make sure the defenders are not English!

Damn straight.  To paraphrase The Boomer Bible, those guys aren’t happy unless they have no choice but to do things the hard way.

#rsrh Quick observation about hanging Saddam.

Turns out that you can hang a bloodthirsty, genocidal dictator and not create a martyr and/or long term problems for yourself.  Go figure.

That’s it: I was just meaning to bring that up eventually, and I figure that four years is a reasonable amount of time to wait before doing so.  Also: read that link.  Pre-Surge Iraq coverage by the regular media never ceases to amaze with its passive-aggressive schadenfreude.

#rsrh Unfair to creationists, really.

Calling anti-vaccination hysteria “Left-wing creationism,” that is.  *I have yet to have it explained to me why I should worry more about my kid being around another kid whose parents believe that the universe was created six thousand years ago than I should be worried about my kid being around another kid whose parents believe that the MMR is the tool of Satan.  Creationism doesn’t cause encephalitis, meningitis, and/or deafness; mumps can.

Anyway, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear is not the Book of the Week.  While I will pick books that I have not yet read, I try to pick ones that I’m pretty sure that I will read, once they come out; and this particular book is probably superfluous to my needs.  I’m already quite aware that there’s an unscientific fringe group out there pushing a false link between autism and vaccinations; and that said group is putting my kids at risk with their nonsense; and that the typical believer is, ah, generally not on my side of the political spectrum.  You may still want to check out the book anyway.

See also here and here.

Moe Lane