Surely you can't be serious

"I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."

30 years later, I still giggle.

Rest in Peace Leslie Nielsen, and thank you for the giggles.

They are just doing their jobs

Film critic Roger Ebert has written an interesting blog post about the TSA's new screening procedures. For the record, he draws the line at proctological exams in the security line, and he wonders whether children traumatized during screening will grow up to inflict trauma on others.

Ebert also describes the unique challenge he faces as a passenger who has no choice but to present himself at airline security with bandages around his neck and large quantities of liquid food:

Meanwhile Chaz and Millie. my care provider, are trying to get through security with my medicines, my cans of liquid food, stuff like that. They have a letter from the doctor, but usually the TSA supervisor has to be called over. I understand that. My policy is to cooperate, because these are not evil people and they're only trying to do their jobs. (emphasis added)

They're only trying to do their jobs. Where have we heard that before?

Public acquiescence to misconduct by those in uniform is a necessary precondition for tyranny. For example, Kim Jong Il may be madder than a hatter, but he requires armies of bureaucrats and administrators drawn from the ranks of ordinary people, and ordinary people obeying those bureaucrats and administrators, to maintain North Korea as a hermit kingdom.

I am not suggesting that TSA's porno scanners and pap smear pat-downs are evidence that America is descending into tyranny, but the fact remains that evil cannot take hold in a society without public acquiescence to misconduct by those in uniform, and it is therefore critical that Americans do not develop the habit of suppressing our anger, objection, and humiliation with the justification that TSA staff are just good people trying to do their jobs.

Nor should we reassure ourselves that America is sufficiently different from other societies that have gone mad, that it couldn't possibly happen here.

In 1971, Stanford University professor of psychology Phillip Zimbardo designed and conducted a two-week experiment into the psychology of prison life.

From 75 student volunteers, he selected the 24 determined to be the most psychologically healthy and randomly assigned them to play the roles of prisoners or prison guards in a mock prison set up in a Stanford University building.

The experiment, now known as the Stanford Prison Experiment, was shut down after only six days, because the guards became sadistic and were subjecting the prisoners to escalating levels of cruelty. Even the prison guards who did not personally mistreat the prisoners did nothing to stop the cruelty inflicted by their fellow student volunteers.

A bunch of middle-class college kids, given uniforms and power over others, quickly began to personify a unique species of evil, that of people in uniform acting under government authority.

And now our government is insisting that law-abiding Americans must acclimate ourselves to physical humiliation at the hands of uniformed government employees, because it's for our own protection. For the love of a free society, we must resist.

Cross posted at Right Klik.

Freeze, and drop the scarf!

(h/t Red State) The website Torrent Freak has a fascinating story about the Obama administration's seizure of websites associated with sharing copyrighted material and with producing/selling counterfeit merchandise:

Following on the heels of this week’s domain seizure of a large hiphop file-sharing links forum, it’s clear today that the U.S. Government has been very busy. Without any need for COICA, ICE has just seized the domain of a BitTorrent meta-search engine along with those belonging to other music linking sites and several others which appear to be connected to physical counterfeit goods.

Visitors to seized websites are greeted with the graphic pictured above. Seized sites include such threats to homeland security as:

overbestmall.com
rapgodfathers.com
realtimberland.com
rmx4u.com
scarfonlineshop.com
scarfviponsale.com
shawls-store.com
silkscarf-shop.com
silkscarfonsale.com
skyergolf.com

I don't deny that copyright and trademark violations are a serious problem, but American law enforcement has more pressing matters to concern itself with.

At least we know what kinds of threats the Obama administration takes seriously. They can't close the borders, and they are looking for the weapons of mass destruction in women's vaginas, but darn it they'll pull out all the stops to protect you from a counterfeit Burberry scarf.

Feel safer now?

Fun with maps

Ever wonder what a map of the United States might look like if the states were given the names of countries with similar Gross Domestic Products? Someone did, and the results are above, courtesy of Frank Jacobs over at Big Think and his love of curious, freshly-imagined maps. (For a larger view of the map, along with Frank Jacobs' commentary, click here.)

The most amusing part of this map is that California, which already mimics France in wine, weakness, scarves, and snobbery, also mimics France in GDP.

One important difference between France and California: I haven't heard anyone talking about the French needing a bailout.

Time for a cute animal break

Is that a tampon string, or is it a fuse?

If you are a woman of childbearing age, or if you know a woman of childbearing age, you need to read this.

A menstruating woman went through one of those new backscatter porno scan devices at airline security, and her menstrual pad showed up on the scan. As a consequence, she was detained and subjected to an invasive, traumatizing groin search by TSA staff. (h/t Legal Insurrection)

If you are a woman of childbearing age and you are not pregnant, there's roughly a one in six chance you will be using a feminine hygiene product when you pass through airline security. How do you feel about the possibility of being required to engage in a deeply personal unveiling before TSA staff?

When the TSA starts taking body cavity bombs seriously, are menstruating women going to be required to prove that the string is from a tampon and not a fuse?

The Thanksgiving Boycott may have fizzled, but harassing, humiliating, and traumatizing menstruating women may be TSA's last stand. Being subjected to a groin search by someone other than our gynecologist is traumatizing enough under ordinary circumstances, but when we are receiving our Monthly Gift, we are emotional, cranky, and perhaps a little quicker to anger.

And do you know what happened that last time a bunch of women became angry?

After Rick Santelli planted the seed, they gave birth to the Tea Party.

The humiliation experienced by law-abiding travelers passing through airline security will only escalate. As long as everyone is a potential terrorist, menstrual pads and tampons will raise alarm during the screening process and menstruating women will be subjected to humiliating searches. The next frontier will be elderly passengers wearing incontinence products.

If the TSA continues closely screening everyone, they obviously can't exempt odd packaging in or around passengers' genitalia, but there is no way that American womanhood is going to consent to these supremely invasive groin searches.

The TSA is going to have to change its search paradigm and figure out a way to determine which passengers require additional screening, and stop treating us all like criminals.

Obama says his supporters can see Russia from their houses

In 2008, Governor Sarah Palin said that Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her special insight into America's relationship with Russia.

The Credentialed Left reflexively rejects the opinions of anyone who lacks an approved academic pedigree, and they roundly mocked Governor Palin for suggesting that proximity leads to insight. On Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey summarized Governor Palin's comment as "I can see Russia from my house," to approving titters.

If you laugh at the same people the smart people are laughing at, you become one of the smart people. It's an exercise in group identification, masquerading as humor, and substituting for thought.

Well, another politician is making the proximity argument, so Tina Fey should suit up for another simplistic, mocking impersonation on Saturday Night Live. Her target this time is Barack Obama.

Barack Obama boasts that his new START arms control treaty with Russia is supported by "those who live right next door to Russia...who have the most cause for concern."

That's the same proximity argument made my Sarah Palin.

Perhaps as a consequence of the long holiday weekend, I have not heard the peals of derisive laughter emanating from Cambridge and Berkeley.

Or perhaps, now that Obama has employed it, the proximity argument is considered Received Wisdom?

Don't forget about TSA theft rings

I moved a few years ago, and I had no choice but to carry my jewelry onto the airplane in my carry-on. Mostly, a box with multiple rings.

The ring box caught the attention of the TSA personnel working the x-ray machine, and they decided to take the ring box elsewhere for further examination.

Problem is, they weren't letting me accompany my jewelry, and the TSA employee in posession of my jewelry would not wait for the x-ray staff to finish scanning the rest of my carry-on items. As a TSA employee began hurrying away with my jewelry, the TSA staff at the x-ray machine were detaining me on the grounds that they needed to run my flip-flops through the machine a couple more times. Oh, yeah.

I'd heard about the way TSA theft rings work in tandem to separate passengers from their valuables, and I refused to stand there as my jewelry disappeared into the chaos of the airport and they refused to eject my flip-flops from the x-ray machine.

I crawled up on the x-ray machine belt ("Ma'am, get off the belt!"), pulled the tray out, grabbed my flip-flops and chased down the TSA employee who was hurrying away with my jewelry. And then I sat with the TSA employee in what looked like an employee break room as she swabbed my grandmother's diamond ring with Q-tips to test it for explosives.

Right. The TSA employees knew they were looking at jewelry when they saw it in the x-ray machine. I am convinced that, had I not chased the TSA employee down, my ring box would have been a bit "light" by the time I recovered it, if I ever did.

While we are focusing on the TSA's new role as perpetuators of "security theater" and sexual assault, don't forget that TSA employees already have another longstanding shameful practice, that of stealing from passengers.

If you read one thing this week, read this

h/t Legal Insurrection for bringing this work of utter brilliance to a wide audience:

My Rebuttal to a Progressive who Admonished Me to Play Nice

Read it, read it all the way to the end. Just do it.

Fix bayonets.

TSA-related New Years Resolution

Right Klik's blog features a very disturbing video showing TSA agents strip-searching a child in the middle of the screening area.

I can't even bring myself to intone "if we stop flying, the terrorists have already won." Between the TSA's inability to detect body cavity bombs and my personal aversion to a pre-flight crochtal groping, I'm not going anywhere unless I can drive there.

But just in case I have to fly for work, my New Years Resolution is to get into swimsuit shape, henceforth known as TSA Pat-Down Shape. Wise clothing choices can disguise pot bellies and love handles, but the TSA sees all and feels all. How embarrassing would it be to have the TSA agent mistake adiposal evidence of indulgence around my midsection for an explosive belt?

As I approach security, I'm going to strip down to a bikini (OK, at my age maybe a one-piece) and dare them to select me for a pat-down. If I can stay off the Cookies & Cream, it might make for compelling viewing.

Coming soon: the TSA body cavity search

Back in January, in the aftermath of the failed attempt to bring down an airliner with a pantybomb, I posted some random thoughts on Umar Farouk "Fancypants" Abdulmutallab and his incendiary underwear. Among other things, I wondered whether the presence of a pantybomb wouldn't noticeably alter a man's gait because of the rearrangement necessary to accommodate an explosive device in one's drawers.

The focus on airline passengers' genitalia has been renewed thanks to John Tyner, whose trip aboard an airline was aborted but who soared into history by warning a TSA employee to not "touch his junk." (The Time Capsule commentary on this matter belongs to Charles Krauthammer and his wildly enjoyable WaPo column entitled "Don't Touch My Junk.")

In January, I wondered whether bomb-sniffing dogs would be deployed to sniff out explosives in our undergarments, and whether Muslims (who consider dogs to be unclean) would claim a religious opt-out from close contact with a dog. Right on cue, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations is advising Muslim women wearing the hijab that TSA is not allowed to subject them to a full or partial body pat-down, that TSA only allowed to pat down their head and neck area, and that Muslim women can request to perform their own pat-downs of their head-and-neck area. (When a CNSNews.com reporter asked Janet Napolitano whether she would require Muslim women to go through full body pat-downs prior to boarding airliners, she dodged the question, promising that "with respect to that particular issue, I think there will be more to come.")

In the meantime, while Muslim women are claiming the prerogative to pat themselves down, breast cancer survivors are being forced to remove their prosthetic breasts and show them to TSA staff, bladder cancer survivors are being drenched in their own urine after talentless, clueless, careless TSA staff break the seals on their urostomy bags, and women are claiming sexual assault after having their labia touched by TSA staff.

Richard Reid tried to bring down an airliner with a shoebomb in 2001 and we've been taking off our shoes at security ever since; thanks to the Pantybomber it's going to be open season on our private parts in the security line for the foreseeable future, or at least until the Muslim world realizes that American elected a transformative young President who is going to make the world love us again.

The next frontier is, inescapably, the body cavity search. In August 2009, al Qaeda operative Abdullah "Butt Boy" Asieri made it past airline security and Saudi palace security with a pound of explosives and a detonator concealed in his rectum. The Butt Bomb was detonated via a text message (OMFG!), but the Saudi prince who was the target of the assassination attempt sustained only minor injuries.

So far as we know, Butt Bombs have not been used to try to bring down an airliner; the TSA being an entirely reactive operation, they will not address the body cavity threat until a Butt Bomb is deployed against American interests. In other words, not until it is too late.

The backscatter porno scanners currently in use cannot detect items concealed within the body, and the TSA pat-downs are not penetrative; the only way to detect internal explosives is by a body cavity search, or by a medical-grade x-ray.

The medical x-rays will be time-consuming and expensive, and frequent exposure will create independent health risks for frequent flyers. And I cannot under any circumstances imagine families traveling home for the holidays or business travelers headed to a meeting in Cleveland agreeing to bend over and spread 'em in order to board an aircraft.

Body cavity bombs are the next frontier in airline security, and the only two screening options available are complete nonstarters. The threat posed by body cavity bombs, and our complete inability to detect them by any reasonable physical means at our disposal, should serve as a wake-up call that our reliance on physical screening is not making us safer, and that we need to embrace behavioral screening.

It should, but it isn't. The TSA is still focusing on the last threats, in shoes, underwear, and water bottles.

I only pray that my next post on this matter begins with a reference to a terrorist who tried and failed to bring down an airliner with a body cavity bomb.

Charlie Gasparino rebuts small furry animals

"But my plumber also has a nice beard, and I would not trust him to play God with the economy."

Such is the fruit of the digital revolution: YouTube videos featuring small furry animals explaining quantitative easing, and mocking Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Charlie Gasparino thinks Ben is unjustly being made the fall guy, and that anger over the stalled economy should be directed at Barack Obama:

To be sure, QE-2 will probably work as well as QE-1, which means it probably won't do much to spark an incredibly weak economy staggering under the weight of 9.5 percent unemployment. But that doesn't mean Bernanke deserves all the crap he's getting. He doesn't because attacking Bernanke obscures some of the big problems facing the American economy as we conclude the second year of President Obama's hope and change agenda that clearly isn't working.

Charlie's thoughts on the matter are worth a read.

Do the right thing

Celebrity media-whore attorney Gloria Allred is representing Meg Whitman's former housekeeper, Nicky Diaz, in a back-pay dispute before California's Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement.

In an hour-long meeting today, Gloria Allred urged Meg Whitman to "do the right thing" and pay Nicky Diaz whatever sum she alleges she is owed, between $8,000 and $10,000.

I'm sure Gloria Allred wants to close this case as quickly as possible. She delivered a blow to Meg Whitman's reputation a few weeks before the election, and helped defeat her; that was all she really wanted. Nicky Diaz is no longer of any use to her.

The value of Allred's billable hours in this case already exceeds the amount of the back pay claimed by Nicky Diaz. And then there is that messy allegation of legal malpractice swirling around Allred, who outed her client as an illegal immigrant and an identity thief in pursuit of a $10,000 claim.

Thanks to Gloria Allred, the world knows that Nicky Diaz is an illegal immigrant who falsified Social Security documents, both federal crimes.

If anyone at the state or federal DOJ is interested in doing the right thing, they will press charges against Nicky Diaz for her immigration and Social Security Act violations. And then Nicky Diaz can use Meg Whitman's $10,000 to secure the services of a lawyer and sue Gloria Allred for legal malpractice from behind bars, or from her new home in Mexico.

No bailouts please, we're Californians

It is a very difficult time to be a Republican in California.

Watching the Big Red Wave roll across the nation on November 2 was like watching a New Years Eve Party through a window. I am happy for you all, I really am, but California just voted itself into a nuclear winter.

In an act of collective amnesia, Jerry Moonbeam Brown was given a third term as Governor. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was elected Lieutenant Governor, Senator Boxer was given 6 more years to insult the military, and state and Congressional Democratic incumbents were overwhelmingly re-elected.

November 2nd's wound is being ripped open slowly. A handful of California races have been too close to call, but it now appears likely that California's 11th and 20th Congressional Districts will remain in Democratic hands. (I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.) In addition, San Francisco's District Attorney, who made a name for herself with the cases she refused to prosecute and the penalties she declined to seek, may very well be California's next Attorney General. (Note to self: stock up on ammo, because California's justice system is no longer in the business of protecting its residents.)

And then there is our budget. In October, after missing the state's Constitutional budgetary deadline by 100 days, Sacramento passed a budget that is already $6 billion in the hole, and the budget for fiscal year 2011-2012 is already projected to be $19 billion in the hole.

California is going to request a federal bailout, but California needs an infusion of cash like a junkie needs the needle. Don't give us any money, not one red cent. In order to break the state's cycle of political lunacy that is crippling the state with high taxes, high energy prices, and a hostile business climate, and whose overwhelmingly Democratic Congressional delegation is holding back necessary national reforms, California needs to hit bottom.

The good news is that, thanks to a couple of successful ballot initiatives, California may be closer to hitting bottom than ever before.

California law currently requires a two-thirds legislative supermajority vote to pass a budget, and every year the Republican legislative minority forms a firebreak against the Democratic majority's reflexive preference to prop up a bloated budget with tax increases. On November 2, the voters passed Proposition 25, which allows a budget to pass with a simple majority. The Republicans have lost the limited power of the supermajority, but now California's budget woes are squarely, and solely, in the hands of the Democrats in Sacramento. (It is arguable whether Prop 25 permits taxes to be raised with a simple majority or a supermajority, we'll have to wait and see.)

There is some suggestion that voters are beginning to lose patience with Sacramento's fiscal hijinks. On November 2nd, voters passed Proposition 22, which prevents the state from raiding local funds to close state budget gaps, and rejected Propositions 21 and 24, which would have increased the vehicle license fee and eliminated three pro-business tax treatments, respectively.

These results could be the light at the end of the tunnel, a glimmer of hope, or maybe the light at the end of the tunnel is from the oncoming $50+ billion high speed rail boondoggle that California bureaucrats seem determined to build despite the lack of money, ridership, or community support.

California has been passing Potemkin budgets based on unrealistic fiscal scenarios and the promise of federal funds, but the deficit has grown so large that it cannot be papered over. Without a federal bailout, things are going to get very hard in California.

And that's the point. Lehman Brothers wasn't too big to fail, and neither is California. If California is ever going to free itself from the shackles of its tax-and-spend, nanny state, redistributive mentality, it needs to finally be fully exposed to the consequences of its own behavior, and it needs to be painful. I don't know whether California's nuclear winter will result in a voter awakening, some sort of receivership akin to bankruptcy, or riots in the streets, but something needs to happen. We cannot continue as we are.

Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has warned you not to approach drowning Democrats. What I am asking you, for the good of the state and of the nation, is to please let California drown.

Cross-posted at Right Klik.

Give 'em hell, Smitty

Smitty, United States Navy reservist and official blog sidekick at The Other McCain, has announced that he is taking a hiatus from his blogging duties and deploying to Afghanistan.

His announcement is lyrical and literally poetic, both in the original Gaelic and in translation. He wraps up with a line of poetry that translates as "Come, you sons of hounds, and I will give you flesh," and continues:

‘Come, you sons of hounds, and I will give you flesh’.

And that the attitude that must be presented to the enemies of liberty; Taliban in Afghanistan, or Progressives closer to home. Thinking you stupid, they will continue to say that you ‘vote against your own interest’, and turn down their bread-and-circus substitutes for Liberty. Liberty ain’t cheap, and rejecting Progressivism may resemble pain for a while. That’s not pain. That’s Socialist weakness leaving the country, and don’t let these liars sell you otherwise. Stand and deliver, the way a Progressive cannot, for, at heart, modern Progressivism is a synonym for cowardice.

Smitty, thank you for your service to America, past present and future.

(Smitty requests that we make his announcement, entitled Cogadh no Sith, the most linked post in The Other McCain history, so spread it around!)

h/t @JakeTapper

jaketapper

Odd photo of @SenJohnMcCain in New Delhi Sunday Pioneer. http://twitpic.com/34tandabout 4 hours ago via Twitpic

Race hustling in Oakland

In the early hours of January 1, 2009, BART transit officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant as Grant was being restrained face-down on the platform at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, California. Officer Mehserle testified that he intended to draw his Taser, not his gun, and that the shooting was accidental; in July he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter with a gun enhancement. I've posted thoughts on this matter previously, both before and immediately after the July verdict; in summary, I believe the event was a horrific accident, precipitated by a flawed weapons training program at BART that did not adequately stress the development of muscle memory.

Race is relevant to this story. Johannes Mehserle is White, Oscar Grant was Black.

On Friday, Mehserle was sentenced. The judge threw out the gun enhancement, which could have added up to ten years to Mehserle's sentence, and sentenced Mehserle to two years, the minimum possible prison term for involuntary manslaughter, with credit for 279 days already served.

I am pleased that the judge threw out the gun enhancement. As I've stated previously,

Of course he was using a firearm, he's a cop. Cops don't have the luxury of limiting their exposure to criminal penalties by leaving their firearms at home, they need their guns to protect the public and to protect themselves while they are protecting the public. The gun enhancement penalizes cops for the work they do and the hazards they are uniquely exposed to simply as a consequence of showing up for work.

There are some people who are not happy with the short sentence given to Mehserle. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the sentencing was used as an excuse for race hustling and hostile rhetoric against law enforcement and the American justice system.

John Burris, the Grant family attorney, and Cephus Johnson, Oscar Grant's uncle, got up in front of the cameras and twisted the Grant family's grief into self-destructive and senseless anger for every Black person within earshot.

Johnson said the sentence was proof that the criminal justice system is racist, and as much as I disagree with him, I am willing to give family members a pass when their loved one is lying in a box.

As an attorney, John Burris should be held to a higher standard, but it was attorney Burris who engaged in the most inflammatory rhetoric of the evening. In lengthy remarks, he said that the sentence was no surprise, and that it should serve as a reality check that America's legacy of injustice has been carried forward. Burris told the crowd of protesters gathered outside Oakland's City Hall that the sentence delivers the message that a young Black man's life can be taken without just cause, and without penalty.

So inspired, and despite some excellent containment measures deployed by the Police, the peaceful protest turned into a riot. Ominously, the rioters strayed from their customary rioting grounds in downtown Oakland and moved into nearby residential neighborhoods, smashing car windows, tearing down fences and trashing lawns.

The Oakland Police decided they'd had enough when a protester grabbed an officer's gun; the Police declared an illegal assembly, and arrested 152 people.

Judging by the outcry over Oscar Grant's death, you might think this was the only homicide Oakland had experienced in a while. You would be mistaken.

There were 101 murders in Oakland in 2009, and according to the Oakland Police Department there have been 67 murders in Oakland between January 1 and October 31, 2010.

The Urban Strategies Council issued a report on the homicides committed in Oakland during 2008, and the demographics were saddening: 9 out of 10 homicide victims were male, 8 out of 10 were African American, and 2/3 were under 30 years old. Based on my anecdotal experience as a Bay Area resident, those demographics have not changed.

Therefore, since Oscar Grant's death, roughly a hundred young Black men like Oscar Grant have been killed in Oakland, mostly by other young Black men.

Where are the riots? Murders in Oakland are so commonplace that they hardly make the news. Every so often, a group of grieving family members and earnest young people will stage a candlelight vigil to mourn and swear an end to the violence, but the violence continues. This past summer, someone opened fire at a vigil, killing a 19 year old woman and injuring half a dozen more.

Maybe John Burris is right; a young Black man's life can be taken without cause and without penalty. But the perpetrators are other young Black men, enabled a Black community that would rather focus on a cultural narrative of external oppression than focus on the devils in its own midst, including a broken family structure that devalues fathers and cedes childraising to the streets, and too often rejects the dominant culture that is the source of educational and employment opportunities.

Yes, there is a problem is Oakland, one that ought to be drawing every resident to the streets in protest. But to help the protesters focus their attention on the real problem, their angry placards should all be adorned with mirrors.

And be prepared for the wound to be ripped open afresh when the Department of Justice decides whether to file federal charges. Whatever the outcome, there will be no winners.

Free Keith Olbermann!

I've heard it said that politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is ridiculous. I have no choice but to defend Keith Olbermann.

On Friday, MSNBC suspended famously partisan Keith Olbermann of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" for having violated an ethics policy barring campaign donations. MSNBC's action is misguided and bizarre, and should be immediately reversed.

It is deeply hypocritical of MSNBC to invoke an ethics policy as a guardian of journalistic objectivity and purity after it has allowed itself to evolve into the go-to cable channel of the Left.

MSNBC gave Olbermann a forum to engage in highly partisan rhetoric in front of millions of viewers night after night. The value of that forum to Leftist causes and candidates, in terms of Olbermann's ability to shape the dialogue and persuade viewers, is immeasurably great, far greater than $8000 Olbermann reportedly gave to a handful of Democratic candidates in the last campaign cycle.

For MSNBC to be shocked, shocked that its on-air personalities have ideological leanings is, well, shocking. Say what you will about Keith Olbermann, he never pretended to be anything other than what he was, and throwing him under the bus in a grasp for objectivity is both transparently desperate and ineffective.

Those of us who complain about media bias will not be satisfied with a sacrificial lamb like Olbermann. The news analysts aren't the problem, the sickness at the heart of liberal media bias is analysis masquerading as straight news.

Olbermann might be a symbol of what's wrong at MSNBC, but he isn't all that's wrong at MSNBC. Put him back on the air, and stop insulting your critics by offering us his neck.

Cross-posted at Right Klik

The 2010 election isn't over

The election was two days ago, but a candidate still needs our help to win the seat.

Renee Ellmers ran against incumbent Bob Etheridge in North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District. You may remember Bob, he put a college kid in a headlock when the kid had the temerity to ask him a question on the sidewalk.

Renee Ellmers ran with the help of independent groups like Freedom Works, Sarah PAC, and Ten Buck Fridays donors, but without any assistance from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Despite being frozen out of funding, she ran a spirited campaign and currently leads the incumbent by 1,600 votes.

Bob Etheridge has indicated that he plans to call for a recount, and we all know that the Democrats will pony up cash to help influence the recount so that the Congressional seat stays blue. Unfortunately, the NRCC has denied Ellmers' request for assistance in paying for the lawyers necessary to defend her slim victory, so it is up to us to help make sure the recount is fair and that North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District takes its rightful place among this week's Republican gains.

Please visit Renee Ellmers' website and donate what you can to the recount. She won, let's keep it that way.

There Will Be No Blood

All day long, Americans streamed to their polling places.

These polling places were not surrounded by armed guards, and voters were able to walk in freely, without fear of retribution.

The results are a clear repudiation of the policies of the nation's sitting President, and numerous incumbents have lost their jobs or leadership positions.

And yet no doors will be kicked in tonight. No one will disappear.

When Americans return to work tomorrow, the streets will be free of tanks, troops, and gunfire.

There will be some grumbling. But there will be no blood.

And it takes my breath away, every time.