Beldar: Dan Rather must be fired

Stating the obvious in a way which will hold up in court, Beldar says, "Dan Rather must be fired NOW!"

Dan Rather and everyone else at CBS News who had direct managerial authority over, and supervisory involvement in, the production of last Wednesday night's "60 Minutes II" broadcast about the Killian memos must be fired. Not retired. Not pensioned off. Not allowed to resign. Not given 30 days' or even three days' notice.

They must be fired — instantly, effective immediately, "for cause" and "with prejudice," forfeiting all unvested future benefits from their employment. They should be escorted by security personnel from the building, with their belongings sent to them in due course after they've been screened for relevant evidence. All of their computers, files, and other items of potential evidentiary value must be segregated immediately and secured under lock and key with a tight and explicit chain of custody. There must be no spoliation of evidence permitted.

This must be done publicly — before the close of business on Wednesday, September 15, 2004, and preferably before noon.

If it's not, then the executives who failed to do the firings should be fired before the close of business on Thursday, September 16, 2004.

...

If Dan Rather is still an employee of CBS News by next Monday, then the appropriate committees of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate should convene public joint investigative hearings immediately, with Dan Rather as their second subpoenaed witness.

The first witness must be an appropriate custodian of records from CBS News, who must be directed to bring every shred of paper, every email, every piece of videotape, every computer file, every outtake, every script, every memorandum of staff meetings — and every bit of advice rendered by inside or outside legal counsel to CBS News prior to the broadcast. There is no attorney-client privilege to shield advice rendered to assist a client in the perpetration of a crime or a fraud. See, e.g., Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399 (1998); United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554 (1989).

Beep Beep!

Acme Brand is cool!

relevant movie quote

In Force 10 from Navarone, the good guys are sent in to blow up a dam in enemy territory. After the initial explosion, the dam just sits there for a while, and it looks like they may have failed their mission. But the person in charge calmly says "wait for it...", and sure enough, a few seconds later, there is a crack in the facade, a small leak followed by a larger one, chunks start falling off, and then the whole thing crumbles.

Seeing the SeeBS stonewall yesterday, I have to say "wait for it...".

UPDATE: Here's one plummeting pebble.

UPDATE: Lots of pebbles now, plus some shaking in the canyon walls...

Boortz says something nice about Kerry

Upon hearing the news that Ted Kennedy is going on the campaign trail for Kerry/Edwards, Neal Boortz felt compelled to say something nice about Kerry:

He saved his daughter's hamster when it fell off a dock into the water. Kennedy wouldn't lift a finger to safe a young woman suffocating in his car in four feet of water.

Cold, but accurate.

Great Line

There's a great comment by 'Chuck' on this article discussing Kerry's Senate attendance record: "Does this mean that Kerry has been AWOL during the war on terror?"

News Typos

There seem to have been a few typos in this story about Kerry's health care plan. The "corrected" version appears below:

LANCASTER, Pa. - Teresa Heinz Kerry says "only an idiot" would support the health care plan proposed by her husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
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"Only an idiot would like this," Heinz Kerry told the newspaper for a story in its Thursday editions. "Of course, my husband is one of those idiots."
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"I can't sell it, because the little people don't want it," she said. "The common man looks at me as some rich witch. I talk about what I see through my ketchup-colored glasses. It has always been so. I judge people by their pocketbook, not by their actions."

Also, one anonymous source claims that she finished the interview by exclaiming "Let them eat ketchup!"

Hurricane Jitters

Flying Space Monkey wrote a Top Ten list of "Things That Say You Are Getting Too Anxious About An Oncoming Hurricane". (You wouldn't think he'd worry about hurricanes too much, seeing as how he can just FLY into SPACE to avoid them, but anyway...) Number 6 is "The plywood guy at home depot begins to recognise you by your panicked shrill screams."

That reminds me - why is there ALWAYS a shortage of plywood in hurricane prone areas? I certainly do not want to make fun of anyone endangered by these storms, but wouldn't you think that everyone who needs it would have enough for their house by now? Does it go stale when not in use? Is it a fashion statement to have this model year's boards on your windows? Have the windows outgrown the old ones? Just curious...

Thanks!

For all the linkage and help I've received in the last few days, may I quote a line made famous by a man being fed Skittles by a giant bird...




(In case you haven't seen that stoooooopid-funny commercial, click "Nest" on this page.)

You might be a blogger...

(With an insincere apology to Jeff Foxworthy), You might be a blogger, if...

You bought tickets for a cruise on the USS Clueless, and are disappointed that it was cancelled.

You are upset that there was never an X-Files episode about the Volokh Conspiracy.

You name your two dogs Chomps and Scrappleface. They are both Rottweilers.

You develop a love/hate relationship with monkeys, and think there may be an infinite number of them.

You stop hunting ducks because some of them might be right-winged.

You learn to fly because you love jet noise, but it becomes too expensive when you eject!eject!eject! on every flight.

You hope they open an Evangelical Outpost in your local mall.

You demand that your local grocery store begin selling Instapundit, and you ask why they don't stock certain brands of horseshoes and toothbrushes.

You have a framed diploma from the Adam Smith Institute hanging in your office.

You make up nicknames for everyone at work, and they all end in "-pundit".

You start using obscure latin phrases in everyday speech, and you exclaim "delenda est!" every time you finish a meal.

You only let your kids play with little green footballs.

You know what one hand clapping sounds like.

You climb utility poles to listen to the powerline, and to see if Mark Steyn is up there.

You dress up as Aquaman for Halloween, and you dress up as a ninja for all other holidays.

You have drawn outlines of the Northern Alliance and the Bear Flag League on your U.S. map.

You know more about the State Fair of Minnesota than you know about your own state's fair.

You. Include. Periods. Between. Every. Word. You. Type.

You awake every day with a feeling of common sense and wonder.

You don't need to click any of these links to get the jokes.

You thought of more of these and want to add them to the comments section here. (hint, hint...)

---

Additions: 9-12: SarahK (of IMAO t-shirt fame) has a few more.

9-13: Gut Rumbles has a few too.

You heard it here fir... also!

Just in case you hadn't seen this anywhere else...

CBS forged documents to discredit our President, but they tripped on a Little Green Football.

comment 107 of the thread reads:

"Promoting obvious forgeries as real is a crime in and of itself; promoting them for the purpose of overthrowing the government is a much more serious crime. CBS needs to be taken down, and taken down hard."

I wholeheartedly agree.

Funny A.I. Mistakes

Something that happened today reminded me yet again that although Artificial Intelligence has come a long way, it still has a lot of imperfections.

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Most of us on the web have seen pages with automatically generated advertising on the side, which is supposed to be related to the other content on the page. Quite often the ads show something seemingly unrelated, based on some unimportant keyword buried in the text. Or, the ad can try to promote something that the article is speaking against, like an herbal supplement on a page warning of its dangers. Occasionally mildly funny.

---

Next, there is the driving directions finder on places like Mapquest. Much of the time, the directions are reasonable, especially if you stick to the interstates. Often, there are some shortcuts that could be used to save a few miles. Sometimes though, the chosen path defies logic. Example: a few years ago, I requested Mapquest directions from Houston, TX to Abilene, TX. The nonstop highway route would be north on I45, then west on I20, total about 400 miles. Plus, there are many more direct routes available, if you don't mind slowing down through a few towns. The Mapquest directions, however, put the path through OKLAHOMA CITY, more than doubling the distance! Whhyyy?!?

---

But today, something happened, and I don't yet have an explanation for it. I was searching IMDB for info on an old black & white movie that was being rerun on UHF. Night Train to Munich (1940) is an above average WWII movie, set in Europe when Germany was already on the march. It had obviously chosen its side, but it wasn't mindlessly propagandistic like a few set in that era.

Near the bottom of IMDB's info screen, there is a line which reads "If you like this title, we also recommend..." Can you guess what movies might be included in such a list? How about, oh, I don't know, maybe something with a related plot and style, like:

Casablanca?
To Have and Have Not?

No, that's too much to ask. So how about another WWII movie, like:

The Longest Day?
Battle of the Bulge?
Midway?
Stalag 13?
Tora Tora Tora?
Pearl Harbor?
Kelly's Heroes?

No, it wasn't a war movie either. Well then, maybe just a classic black & white film, perhaps:

Citizen Kane?
Metropolis?
Battleship Potemkin?
Nosferatu?
Modern Times?
Stagecoach?

No, not black & white either.

Nor a romance.

Nor a spy movie.

The IMDB recommendation was... Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill (1999)

WHHHYYYYYY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


p.s. If you can think of a more unusual pairing, put it in the comments.

Lists for our times

From 'Imperfect but Forgiven' - another version of Why Did the Chicken cross the Road":

Coalition Provisional Authority: The fact that the Iraqi chicken crossed the road affirmatively demonstrates that decision-making authority has been transferred to the chicken well in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

Halliburton: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost the US government $326,004.

Muqtada al-Sadr: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed.

US Army Military Police: We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken rights violations.

Peshmerga: The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill.

1st Cav: The chicken was not authorized to cross the road without displaying two forms of picture identification. Thus, the chicken was appropriately detained and searched in accordance with current SOP?s. We apologize for any embarrassment to the chicken. As a result of this unfortunate incident, the command has instituted a gender sensitivity training program and all future chicken searches will be conducted by female soldiers.

Al Jazeera: The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to eye-witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens.

Blackwater: We cannot confirm any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident.

Translators: Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.

U.S. Marine Corps: The chicken is dead.

Navy: The chicken upon crossing the road was painted and lashed to the curb.

Kerry: "The chicken crossed the road before it did not"

Baghdad Bob: The chicken never crossed the road! He is safe in Baghdad, miles from the marauding vehicles of the infidel! THERE IS NO ROAD!

USAF: "As you can see here in the target video, the bomb was locked onto the chicken...and there it goes...the chicken is still moving...still moving...and unfortunately passed out of the parameters of the guidance system so that the bomb completely missed it and hit the weasel instead. Gotta admit thought, it's impressive footage..."

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From Damascus Road - Modern Military Terms:

Engage the Enemy means "to blow something up."

Surgical Strike means "to blow up something small."

Decapitate means "to blow up their leaders."

Collateral Damage means "to accidentally blow up something of theirs."

Friendly Fire means "to accidentally blow up something of ours."

Target of Opportunity means "to blow something up on a whim"

Kinetic Targeting means "to blow up something that's moving"

Ordnance is "something that that does the blowing up"

An Asset is "something that can be blown up"

Embedded Media means "a report that's blown out of proportion"

They're Terrorists, Not Activists

"They're Terrorists, Not Activists" is the title of this article, which points to another article that contains helpful hints for the safety of journalists in Gaza:

Never use the word terrorist or terrorism in describing Palestinian gunmen and militants; people consider them heroes of the conflict and ideals.

The first article then lists twenty euphemisms that have been used by the press to describe terrorists:

Activists, Assailants, Attackers, Bombers, Captors, Commandos, Criminals, Extremists, Fighters, Group, Guerrillas, Gunmen, Hostage-takers, Insurgents, Kidnappers, Militants, Perpetrators, Radicals, Rebels, Separatists

I have a few more appropriate terms not included in the previous list that are both more colorful and more accurate. Feel free to use any of these terms in your next article:

Bloodthirsty Sadists, Homicidal Maniacs, Islamofascist Thugs, Pathetic Scum, Psychotic Murderers

UPDATE: Rightwing Duck has "found" a copy of the New York Times guideline to correct word usage.

Big Picture Thinking

I'm not sure I agree with every single point that this article about the shifting role of government makes, but it certainly is interesting.

Some of its main points are:

"...we are now in a transitional period from the Nation States that dominated the 20th century to the Market State that looks to define the 21st."

"The Nation State was defined and legitimated, in part, by its ability to ensure the material well being of its citizens. In contrast, the Market State earns its legitimacy by providing the opportunity to its citizens to advance their own well being."

"The government simply cannot fulfill its core function of protecting its citizens from modern dangers and fulfill the material promises (cradle to grave security) of the Nation State."

RTWT

It's a start...

According to this article , "Images of dead, wounded and traumatized Russian children being carried from the scene of a rebel school siege horrified Arabs, prompting forthright self-criticism and fresh concern about an international backlash against Islam and its followers."

Arab leaders, Muslim clerics and ordinary parents across the Middle East denounced the school siege that left more than 340 people dead, many of them children, as unjustifiable. Some warned such actions damage Islam's image more than all its enemies could hope.

You think? Islamic terrorism just seemed so noble during its first few centuries of mass murder (\snark)

A couple of Arab journalists got it right:

"Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture," Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, wrote in his daily column published in the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under the headline, "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!"

"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," he wrote. Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless "we admit the scandalous facts," rather than offer condemnations or justifications.

"The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."

"If all the enemies of Islam united together and decided to harm it ... they wouldn't have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have done by their stupidity, miscalculations, and misunderstanding of the nature of this age."

I hope those journalists live long enough to see the end of the madness.

UPDATE: This article was relevant to a couple of my other posts, but I thought it fit best here.

WMD yet again

Bad Example has a list of statements that may have 'misled' our President into thinking there were weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's Iraq. Perhaps we should ignore any 'intelligence' these sources offer us in the future, and make sure they can no longer influence government decisions...

Pataki at RNC

There's tons of commentary out there on the speeches given at the RNC - far better than I can write. But there was one particular idea expressed by Gov. Pataki that has always bothered me, the well-meaning but glib phrase that after 9/11, "we are all New Yorkers".

No. I am an American.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to New York, but I am not a citizen of your city, by birth and by choice. As an American, you are free to choose your city of residence, and place any amount of your personal identity in that choice as you wish.

How silly would it be if after November of 63, people said "we are all Kennedys", or after the USS Cole incident, people said "we are all sailors", etc.?

Were my home city attacked, I would not expect or even desire anyone to claim to be a citizen of it either. I would hope for your support as an American, as I would support you.

Flight Humor

Found these on Ken Bauer's homebuilt airplane site:

The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might just be another airplane traveling in the opposite direction.

You start out with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before emptying the bag of luck.

--- author unknown

President Schwarzenegger?

Some people have discussed the possibility of repealing the law prohibiting foreign-born persons from becoming U.S. president, so that Governor Schwarzenegger could be elected. Although I think he would be an acceptable candidate, I object strongly to removing that restriction. How would you like the possibility of an Annan-Soros ticket?

Inappropriate Toys

Rightwing Duck has a list of inappropriate toys you should read. He forgot one though: Choke'Mon, from the makers of Jagged Metal Krusty-O's!