Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Afternoon Delight

Some of the things you can learn over your lunch hour:

• Andy McCarthy, who prosecuted the Blind Sheik in the original WTC bombing case back in the 1990s, points out that the President has already given Khalid Sheik Mohammed grounds for a mistrial:

In a meeting with the press in China, President Obama said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be "convicted" and had "the death penalty applied to him" . . . and then said he wasn't "pre-judging" the case. He made the second statement after it was pointed out to him — by NBC's Chuck Todd — that the first statement would be taken as the president's interfering in the trial process.
Of course, we've been assured here recently that the President is a graduate of nation's most prestigious law school, where he ran the law review, by the way.

• Remember those cool statistics from Recovery.gov website that detailed all the activity going on places like Minnesota's 57th congressional district? Well, it turns out that the guy who is in charge of the data can't vouch for it.

Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, responded to questions posed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., late yesterday to say the board can’t vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding.

“Your letter specifically asks if I am able to certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable. No, I am not able to make this certification,” Devaney wrote, in a letter provided to ABC News.
I am certain that this administration will do a much better job of administering the health care system, though.

• Al Gore has been telling us for some time now about how important it is to follow the scientific method when it comes to Global Warming Climate Change. He's also pretty fond of geothermal energy, although he seems a little confused about the basic science when he was chatting up Conan O'Brien the other night:

Conan: Now, what about ... you talk in the book about geothermal energy ...

Al: Yeah, yeah.

Conan: and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that's generated from the core of the earth ...

Al: Yeah.

Conan: ... to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?

Al: It definitely is, and it's a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy -- when they think about it at all -- in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot ...

As it turns out, that's not quite right. There's some dispute on the actual answer, but it's in the thousands of degrees. So, Al is off by about 10,000%. Ordinarily, we expect our science to be a smidge more precise than that, but we're really talking about scientism here and the Rev. Al Gore is a pretty smart preacher.

8 comments:

my name is Amanda said...

Haha.

Well, I was convinced that the president is an intelligent man, but let me tell you, this completely turns it around for me. What an idiot. I'm sure Sarah Palin wouldn't have said something so dumb!

Mr. D said...

Couldn't resist the shot, Amanda. :)

There's a distinction between being dumb and being thoughtless. The problem is that repeated thoughtlessness can make people think you're dumb.

I forget who came up with the term initially, but Obama's problem is what's called "the ignorance of certainty." It's the same thing as when he said the Boston cop "acted stupidly" in the Gates incident earlier this year. He had to backtrack on that and he'll have to backtrack on this, too.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Amanda, well dodged. After that deft re-direction I've almost forgotten about Obama's daily blundering.

But, in fairness, we all make mistakes. Every president makes mistakes too. I'm not so concerned with little blunders (like inappropriate bowing) as I am about the big ones (like economy-killing kissing of Keynes).

I don't expect liberals like Amanda to concern themselves with the former type, but I would hope that they don't give free passes for absolutely everything the man does. Some of his blunders are actually important.

Mr. D said...

I dunno, WBP. I'd say trying KSM in a civilian court is a pretty big mistake. And prejudging the results is an even bigger mistake.

The thing is, Obama, Holder et al. want to have a show trial. But the people they really want to put on trial are the denizens of the former administration. And by making an ostentatious show of doing things differently, they get to point out their moral goodness.

K-Rod said...

If the turban does not fit, then you must acquit.


I am not surprised in how the libs always make the claim that Obama [or some other Democrat] is just sooooo darned smart but Bush [or some other Rethuglican] is just soooo darned dumb.

Remember how the Dems and the media played it that Kerry was so much smarter than Bush. Those of us that kept informed knew the truth of that matter.

Gino said...

they called reagan an idiot for 8 yrs.

its their standard attack, because actually defending their ideas would make them look stupid, instead.
and they can't debate the conservative ideas,either.

we saw that with the GOP attacks on Ron Paul. so, its not just a democrat thing.

both parties are stupid, and their idiots rise to the level every time they're offered the opportunity.

my name is Amanda said...

He does make thoughtless remarks, it's true. I'd hoped the Gates incident would have taught him to shut up about local police business, but apparently for a US president the are many, many opportunities for blunders.

The incident has made me feel a little jaded about the trial and its purpose, however.

Bike Bubba said...

I don't think Obama is dumb, but I do think he's got an amazing ability to ignore data that contradict his views.

Gore, on the other hand, is busily proving that his Ds in college science were not a fluke. (and he's also amazingly good at ignoring contrary data)