Secret Admirer

You might remember a few weeks back that a death threat was delivered to Wisconsin lawmakers. I wrote about it at the time; it was a very sweet, loving message:

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

WE want to make this perfectly clear. Because of your actions today and in the past couple of weeks I and the group of people that are working with me have decided that we've had enough. We feel that you and the people that support the dictator have to die. We have tried many other ways of dealing with your corruption but you have taken things too far and we will not stand for it any longer. So, this is how it's going to happen: I as well as many others know where you and your family live, it's a matter of public records. We have all planned to assult you by arriving at your house and putting a nice little bullet in your head. However, we decided that we wouldn't leave it there. We also have decided that this may not be enough to send the message to you since you are so "high" on Koch and have decided that you are now going to single handedly make this a dictatorship instead of a demorcratic process. So we have also built several bombs that we have placed in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent. This includes, your house, your car, the state capitol, and well I won't tell you all of them because that's just no fun. Since we know that you are not smart enough to figure out why this is happening to you we have decided to make it perfectly clear to you. If you and your goonies feel that it's necessary to strip the rights of 300,000 people and ruin their lives, making them unable to feed, clothe, and provide the necessities to their families and themselves then We Will "get rid of" (in which I mean kill) you. Please understand that this does not include the heroic Rep. Senator that risked everything to go aganist what you and your goonies wanted him to do. We feel that it's worth our lives to do this, because we would be saving the lives of 300,000 people. Please make your peace with God as soon as possible andsay goodbye to your loved ones we will not wait any longer. YOU WILL DIE!!!!

Some very nice touches there. Well, now we know the author of that particular love note:

A 26-year-old woman was charged Thursday with two felony counts and two misdemeanor counts for allegedly making email threats against Wisconsin lawmakers during the height of the battle over Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill.

Katherine R. Windels of Cross Plains was named in a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Criminal Court. According to the criminal complaint, Windels allegedly sent an email threat to State Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay) March 9. Later that evening, she allegedly sent another email to 15 Republican legislators, including Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

The report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is pretty deadpan:

The subject line of the second email was: "Atten: Death Threat!!!! Bomb!!!" In that email, she purportedly wrote, "Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your families will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks."

"I hope you have a good time in hell," she allegedly wrote in the lengthy email in which she purportedly listed scenarios in which the legislators and their families would die, including bombings and by "putting a nice little bullet in your head."

According to the criminal complaint, Windels told investigators “I sent out emails that I was disgusted and very upset by what they were doing.”

Well, I guess "very upset" is one way of putting it. I would also suspect that we could have the J-S reporter drop the "alleged" business, but perhaps she just sent it out and it was some other criminal mastermind who actually wrote the thoughts. Or maybe they took turns. But I digress.

The internet is a remarkable thing, because it makes it very easy to learn things about people. So what do we know about Ms. Windels? Well, you can pull up this site and learn the following -- she apparently graduated from Madison Area Technical College in 2003 and has a psychology background. Abnormal psychology, apparently, but again I digress.

But you know what's really nifty about Windels? Her work history includes "Wexford Head Start" and the "Red Caboose." Do you know what the Red Caboose is? It's a day care center. That's right, folks -- she is someone who wants to educate young children.

At a certain level, I almost feel sorry for this obviously disturbed young woman. She's 26 years old and should have a long life in front of her, but she's committed a serious offense and is going to have a difficult time finding a way to escape her past. At the same time, I don't feel sorry for her at all. She's let hatred blind her to the implications of her actions. And I sure the hell wouldn't want her working in a day care center.

There's a real sickness in the heart of a lot of people. I wrote earlier today about haters and this young woman has a great deal of hate welling within her. You wonder what happened to her along the way. According to the online profile, Katherine Windels has lived in Madison, Cross Plains (a lovely little town west of Madison), Jericho, VT and in our area, in Inver Grove Heights. I've not been to Jericho, but it appears to be a lovely little town like Cross Plains. Inver Grove Heights is a comfortable, middle class suburban enclave. It's difficult to imagine that this young woman has ever faced any real hardship, at least financially. Something else has to account for the hate that seems to have creeped into her heart, a hate so all-consuming that she would threaten to put a "nice little bullet" in someone's head. I hope that someday she'll be able to move beyond the hatred she has now. But I also think a little stay in Taycheedah is in order, too.

Politics ain't beanbag. I get that. Still, this needs to be said. If you find yourself openly wishing for misfortune to fall upon your political opponents, you really need to start thinking hard about the role you've chosen to let politics play in your life.

The condition of your soul matters a heck of a lot more than whether or not your side prevails on any issue. Lately I've been reading things, written by people that I have considered lifelong friends, that make me believe that they have, as the British would say, lost the plot.

As Longfellow wrote: If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. To translate it into 21st century terms, don't be a hater.

Thug Life in Cheeseland

This is lovely:

Members of Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24, have begun circulating letters to businesses in southeast Wisconsin, asking them to support workers’ rights by putting up a sign in their windows. If businesses fail to comply, the letter says, “Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means 'no' to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members."

What a bunch of brownshirts. There's more:

In the letter from [Jim] Parrett to some businesses, he says that, “It is unfortunate that you have chosen ‘not’ to support public workers rights in Wisconsin. In recent past weeks you have been offered a sign by a public employee who works in one of the state facilities in the Union Grove area. These signs simply said, ‘This Business Supports Workers Rights,’ a simple, subtle and we feel non-controversial statement gives the facts at this time.”

Parrett is a "field representative" for AFSCME Local 24. Yeah, his approach is subtle. Subtle as a flying mallet. Let's think about what these swells are doing. They are demanding that people who would rather not be involved in their dispute become involved. They are conscripting people into a battle that isn't their particular concern. And they are threatening economic harm to those who do not comply with their wishes, regardless of the reason. This is the worst sort of behavior -- raw, unmediated thugishness.

One of the things that I cherish the most about this country is that, in the main, we have built a society in which coercion is disdained. It is difficult for me to imagine the kind of mindset that believes the cause of justice is served by coercing people to toe anyone's particular line. This is the worst kind of behavior and, since law enforcement seems to be siding with the unions in Wisconsin, it appears to be going on with impunity.

Riddle me this -- why should someone like Jim Parrett win? And what is happening in the State of Wisconsin that a guy like Jim Parrett feels like he can comport himself like this?

True and Irritating

Over at Fraters Libertas, Chad the Elder makes a point I've been meaning to make:

So this year when spring again rolled around (at least on the calendar), my wife decided to call the Twins ticket office and see about getting some ducs. And that’s when she learned that the Twins are too busy counting their money to worry about whether families can afford to attend their games. I guess you can’t really blame them. When it comes to sports, Target Field is the hottest ticket in town and with demand outstripping supply there’s really no reason for the Twins to offer discounts to anyone (well, except for those noble federal employees). Still, there’s something grating about an organization that was more than happy to dip their hands into the public coffers to scoop up as much as they could to build their magnificent facility not making more of an effort to allow more of the people who are paying for Target Field everyday to actually set foot inside it.

Just so. I don't know if you've priced tickets for Target Field, but it's getting damned near impossible for a family of four to attend the game for less than $100. If you want to sample the ballpark fare, you can safely assume you'll end up shelling out $150, or even $200 for the experience. As it happens, I have a family of four and I'm guessing we'll be able to attend 1, maybe 2 Twins games this year. While the Metrodome was a poor place to watch a baseball game, we were able to get there numerous times a season. Target Field is for the carriage class right now and unfortunately I'm not a member.

If you want to see the Twins and don't mind a longer drive, you might want to go see them in Kansas City instead. There's plenty to do in KC and if you make a mini vacation out of it you'll have a very good time.

Bottom Line in Wisconsin

You've probably seen the latest hijinks, in which Divine Right Monarch Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi has now turned her restraining order into fiat:

Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi said that her original restraining order issued earlier this month was clear in saying no steps should be take to advance the law. The GOP governor's administration did so after the bill was published Friday by a state agency not named in Sumi's earlier temporary restraining order.

"Further implementation of the act is enjoined," Sumi said.

"Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation of Act 10 was enjoined. That is what I now want to make crystal clear."

I don't know who died and made a circuit court judge the arbiter of such things. It should be clear to anyone who thinks the matter through that (a) Sumi has no standing, as a county judge, to essentially veto a law that the legislature passed and that the governor signed into law; and (b) that the Secretary of State doesn't have veto power, either.

The goal here has always been to push the thing until after the state supreme court election. Democrats and their union pals believe that a supreme court with a 4-3 Democrat majority, which would be the case if challenger Joanne Kloppenburg defeats the incumbent, David Prosser, would find some pretext to invalidate the law.

That might happen, of course. But would it really be a victory for anyone? The economics haven't changed in any fundamental way. Wisconsin has a huge structural problem with promised pension benefits and the overall compensation formula for state employees. The unions might be able to stop Gov. Scott Walker and the legislature from enacting reforms, but all that would mean is that the day of reckoning will come sooner and that the available choices will be a lot worse.

No one is going to be able to bail Wisconsin out. That's the bottom line. Wisconsin can either start to solve its problems now, as Scott Walker is attempting to do, or it won't. If it doesn't, when the day of reckoning comes, no one will be singing the praises of Joanne Kloppenburg, Maryann Sumi or any of the other luminaries who have been throwing spanners in the works.

And one other reminder. We face the same issues in Minnesota, but we won't be addressing things any time soon, because we have Brave Sir Mark Dayton, the bug-eyed DFL/union firewall, in the governor's chair. The legislature has been passing bills with regularity in this session, but Dayton will veto anything that might actually help. The drama going on across the St. Croix is a preview of what we might see here in 2015.

Definition

The Obama Doctrine: operating from the seat of your pants while simultaneously maintaining an impeccable crease in your trousers.

Just a reminder

The current President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii.

The "long form" birth certificate may (emphasis on may) hold information that Obama would prefer not to have known, but there's no reason to believe he wasn't born in Hawaii.

His mother was an American citizen. That means he would be eligible to be president, even if he hadn't been born in the United States. Which he was.

Even if there was a massive conspiracy concocted to fake all evidence concerning the origins of the president's birth, there would be no mechanism to remove him from office. Of course there is no conspiracy afoot.

There are myriad reasons to oppose this president, all based upon public policy considerations. There will be ample opportunities to air these considerations in the next 19 months. I fully expect that this feature will participate in those discussions.

Finally, I don't care what Donald Trump thinks. Neither should you. Just some friendly advice.

The Spores of Tripoli

I didn't watch President Obama's speech, since I was taking an after-dinner walk around the neighborhood instead. Seemed like a better use of my time. After having read the speech, which you can find here, it was definitely a better move. A few quick comments, based on the text. One thing that caught my attention was this passage:

Despite the success of our efforts over the past week, I know that some Americans continue to have questions about our efforts in Libya. Gaddafi has not yet stepped down from power, and until he does, Libya will remain dangerous. Moreover, even after Gaddafi does leave power, forty years of tyranny has left Libya fractured and without strong civil institutions. The transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the Libyan people will be a difficult task. And while the United States will do our part to help, it will be a task for the international community, and – more importantly – a task for the Libyan people themselves.

Translation: you're on your own, dudes. Bottom line here: we told Iraq the same thing in 1991. You might want to ask those Iraqis who sought self-determination how it turned out, but it would be difficult to do so without a seance, because most of them have been dead for about 20 years. Obama also couldn't resist a dig at his predecessor. Of course he couldn't:

The task that I assigned our forces – to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger, and to establish a No Fly Zone – carries with it a UN mandate and international support. It is also what the Libyan opposition asked us to do. If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air. The dangers faced by our men and women in uniform would be far greater. So would the costs, and our share of the responsibility for what comes next. To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq. Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our troops and the determination of our diplomats, we are hopeful about Iraq’s future. But regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.

This is pretty much crap from beginning to end. Bush took nearly a year to assemble a coalition for the Iraq theater. We had a variety of allies involved. What's more silly is the notion that somehow, now that we have intervened in Libya, we'll just be able to walk away and that the coalition that Obama has ostensibly assembled will just take it from there. Not a chance. And, of course, it wouldn't be an Obama speech without some high-minded nonsense:

There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are. Sometimes, the course of history poses challenges that threaten our common humanity and common security – responding to natural disasters, for example; or preventing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring regional security, and maintaining the flow of commerce. These may not be America’s problems alone, but they are important to us, and they are problems worth solving. And in these circumstances, we know that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help.

Africa is a vast place, but there is a country not far from Libya that puts the lie to this statement quite conclusively -- Sudan. We've known that genocide has been ongoing in Darfur for many years now and we've done little of anything to stop it. We also know that Bashir Assad is gunning down inconvenient sectors of the Syrian populace with impunity right now. We are doing nothing about that either, nor will we. It would be better, and a hell of a lot more honest, to stop pretending that we will do things we have no intention of doing. Barack Obama has chosen to get involved in Libya for reasons that could be defended. Perhaps some day he'll make a more compelling case for the actions he's taking than he did tonight.

Open thread

We had a fun weekend here in the Neighborhood, highlighted with a chance to visit friends and colleagues at the MOB Party and an Eagle Scout Court of Honor, which Mrs. D details below. As for what's happening in the world? Haven't a clue. Sometimes that's a good thing. So we'll call this an open thread and encourage you to post on any topic that interests you today. As always, bonus points if you can work in a song reference.

Be Prepared for Life

Today we had the privilege of attending an Eagle Scout Court of Honor for one of the young men in Benster's Boy Scout troop. The rank of Eagle Scout is the highest award in Boy Scouts. A Boy Scout has to earn twenty-one Merit Badges in order to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. The Boy Scout also has to do an Eagle Scout service project, which includes planning the project, lining up the materials and the help for the project and leading the volunteers who work on the project. All the requirements for the rank of Eagle Scout must be completed before the Boy Scout's eighteenth birthday.

Congratulations to all Boy Scouts who have earned the rank of Eagle Scout. These young men have developed the skills to be leaders within their Boy Scout troop and within their high school.

Someday they will also be the leaders in our community.

The Bullseye and the not-so-public square

And now, another edition of Stuff I Actually Know About.

Dateline -- San Diego. We get another report of corporate perfidy. Those weasel gay-bashers at Target, right? You heard the latest?

A San Diego superior court judge will hear arguments Friday as to whether a local LGBT grassroots group should be prevented from canvassing in front of a Target store, San Diego Gay and Lesbian News reports.

In court documents, Target Corp. has alleged that the group, Canvass for a Cause, violates the retailer's no-solicitation policy and has exhibited "angry and aggressive" behavior toward shoppers outside a Target store in Poway, near San Diego.

Needless to say, the defendants are hardly feeling defensive:

"It's very David versus Goliath," Canvass for a Cause executive director Tres Watson told NPR. "We understand they're the Goliath in the room. They've got all money in world to get us to stop talking about gay marriage."

I worked for Target for nearly a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s in their store operations division. Target may be many things, but it has no desire to be an arbiter or advocate for or against gay marriage. They just don't want people out in front of their store. From the article:

In a statement to The Advocate, a spokesperson for Target wrote, "In response to feedback from many guests, Target long ago established a solicitation policy at our stores nationwide. To provide a distraction-free shopping environment for our guests, we do not permit solicitation or petitioning at our stores regardless of the cause or issue being represented. Target actively and consistently enforces its solicitation policy and, if necessary, takes legal action against solicitors who do not comply with requests to cease their activity. Our legal action was in no way related to the cause of the organization and was done so to be consistent with our long-standing policy of providing a distraction-free shopping experience by not permitting solicitors at our stores. Target has taken similar action against a number of organizations that represent a wide variety of causes and issues."

This is true. I know this because I personally played a role in the administration of this policy. I managed the vending machine management program when I worked for Target. Assuming you even pay attention to such things, you may have noticed something about Target that is very different than its competitors. When you walk into a Walmart, you run a gauntlet of candy machines, kiddie rides and other coin-operated vending. Sometimes it is right in the vestibule, other times it's in a separate room, but it's always there. If you walk in or out of a Cub Foods store, you see the same thing, along with soda vending in the exits.

When you walk into a Target store, you don't see that. Target doesn't want its shoppers solely focused on shopping, so there is no public vending at Target. We only allowed vending machines in the team member lounges. I had vending machine companies approaching me every day. I was offered opportunities to place public vending on Target property that could have made millions of dollars for the company. I turned down those offers every time and my superiors were delighted that I did.

The same policy of avoiding distractions holds for anyone soliciting on Target property. Target had once let the Salvation Army operate during the holidays, but Target put a stop to that about 6 years ago -- in fact, that decision was the topic of one of my very first blog posts here. You just don't see anyone soliciting on Target's property -- Girl Scouts don't get to set up a card table to sell cookies, there's no one selling wreaths or Tootsie Rolls. It's not the most neighborly policy around, but it makes good business sense. And there's another reason Target holds this policy about soliciting -- barring solicitors makes it easier to keep the grocery unions from trying to organize the workers in its stores.

I can assure the folks at Canvass for a Cause that, as a matter of public policy, Target is utterly disinterested in the topic of gay marriage. As the old saying goes, it's not personal, it's just business.

Bachmann for President?

So is Michele Bachmann going to run for president? Sure. Why not?

She might as well. As a practical matter, she's got no other path to higher office in Minnesota, because she would be highly unlikely to win statewide office. There's no clear favorite in the race up to this point and Barack Obama is going to be vulnerable. Bachmann is ambitious and she'll have a chance to advance her brand in ways that could lead her out of the box she's in here.

In the end, I don't suspect Bachmann could win the GOP nomination and I'd imagine that Bachmann actually knows that, too. My guess is that she's in the race for two reasons:

• She wants to move the debate to the issues she cares about, which are primarily fiscal, despite her reputation as a social issues politician. While there's been a certain amount of opportunism involved in her effort to capture the Tea Party banner, she has been pretty consistent concerning the need to cut spending and the size and scope of government. And because she isn't especially interested in compromise, she isn't compromised.
• She's also a bit of a stalking horse for two other candidates. The obvious one is Sarah Palin, who is acting like a presidential candidate in some ways, but may not run this time around. The other is Tim Pawlenty. The conventional wisdom concerning the relationship between Pawlenty and Bachmann is that they are competitors and the pool of available voters for their respective campaigns is finite. I'm not convinced of this. Mitch Berg has posited that Bachmann can play a similar role to that of Brian Sullivan, a businessman with rock-solid conservative credentials who ran a tight race against Pawlenty for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2002. Sullivan effectively pushed Pawlenty to the right then and in most ways, Pawlenty governed Minnesota as a bona fide conservative. Will Bachmann's red meat approach lead Pawlenty to be a bit more bold? Potentially.

Guilty Pleasures Part Seventy-Seven -- Fearless Maria Gets Groovy

Fearless Maria is here this evening and she's been thinking about some really old music.

Yep -- so old that the Ojibwe Indians even sang it!

Are you sure about that?

Oh yes, of course, haven't you ever read a 5th grade history textbook? Or did you skip 5th grade, too?

I didn't much like 5th grade, to be honest. We moved across town that year and I had to go to a new school and the kids weren't so friendly at first.

Crying. Should I be crying, Dad? Sounds pretty sad to me! Maybe we should pick out some songs, because sad stuff is boring and no one wants to read boring stuff. Like your political posts, right Dad?

I do value your honesty, Maria.

Somebody has to keep you in line! Honest and fair, friendly and helpful, something something something is in the Girl Scout Law after all, and I am a Girl Scout!

Sounds like you need to brush up on the law, though. . . .

Hush! Hush! Wait a minute, I think that's the name of a song from 1968!

Funny you should mention that, Maria. It is. Here's Deep Purple, hanging out someplace that we can't in good conscience recommend, but the clip isn't too bad:

Hush

Boy, that singer has some shiny pants! I think that's why the organ player needs sunglasses! And what's with their hair -- maybe a hairspray malfunction? It looks like a bunch of hairy Old English Sheepdogs with tight shiny pants! I bet they had to call the Humane Society!

But did you like the song?

Nah nah nah nah. Actually it was pretty good. But I bet you can find something better. Should we stay in 1968?

We can. I don't know if I can find better, but I can definitely find weirder.

I was afraid you were going to say that, Dad! What do you have this time?

How about a guy named Arthur Brown with a flaming headdress?

Fire

I think that guy needs help, Dad. Professional help. I mean, what were they? A bunch of Lord Voldemort wannabes giving a seance? And is it true that the band used his flaming headdress to roast marshmallows over later on? I just hope they never get this confused with that cartoon aardvark Arthur on public television, because that would scare the little kids!

Maybe they could use him for a pledge drive?

A pledge drive? Absolutely not! In the name of wacky headdresses, incorporated!

I bet Garrison Keillor would look good wearing one of those on A Prairie Home Companion.

C'mon, Dad. Now you're just being weird. That would be more like a prairie fire home companion!

Okay, I take your point, Maria. But 1968 had some other stuff that was weird in a different way. How do you feel about sassy country singers wearing go-go boots?

Dad, how am I supposed to feel about it? Oh dear, this sounds (begin Southern accent) lahk one rampage in the humdingah shack, y'all! Livin' a little to hah on the hawg! (end Southern accent).

Already doing dialect in the fifth grade? Well, I guess that's okay. Anyway, as promised, here's a look back at Miss Jeannie C. Riley:

Harper Valley PTA

You know what the good thing about this post is, Dad? Now I have a lot of possible candidates for my next Halloween costume! Maybe I could wear a flaming headdress and robe, but with white go-go boots! And I can bring all the candy to the Harper Valley PTA! The song was all right -- I like the pedal steel guitar, but she must have used, what, 14 or 15 cans of hair spray on that do? Is that why they say there's a hole in the ozone layer, Dad? Should I be sending a letter to Jeannie C. Riley? Or maybe a bill?

You can try, Maria. But she wasn't the only one to blame. Consider the strangely lush hairstyles sported by this next band. It's Steppenwolf, flying through the hole in the ozone layer on their:

Magic Carpet Ride

You know what, Dad?

Tell me what you're thinking, Maria.

I think I'm going to take their advice and close my eyes so I don't have to see that bushy hair, especially on that organ player guy! How many wigs were they wearing? I don't think it's a magic carpet, I think it's just a ride on a shag rug just to make money!

Well, I don't doubt they made money, Maria. Perhaps enough to get a haircut eventually.

Well, they might consider using hedge clippers. Just keep them away from that Arthur Brown guy and his flaming headdress!

Seems like good advice. But the thing about 1968 was that even the pop bands were a little weird. Consider the clothing choices made by Tommy James and the Shondells:

Mony Mony

Yeah, yeah! So Dad, did these guys just come back from New Orleans?

Actually, I think they were from Michigan.

Are you sure -- they wearing Mardi Gras beads! And maybe they got hair style recommendations from the parade marchers! I do know this -- Mardi Gras beads and a Nehru jacket is a pretty weird combination. Though I must say I liked the song. It's catchy and a lot of fun. And they even got through it without using a flaming headdress! I'm glad someone did.

I take it that you weren't that impressed with Arthur Brown, then?

Not unless he brings marshmallows, Dad!

I'll tell him to stop by the market before he comes over. Anyway, it's getting to be time to wrap this up.

You did reject a few songs, right?

Oh yeah. There's no way we'll ever use these songs.

That's a relief, Dad! Okay, people! Vote for your favorite in the comments section! Maybe if you're lucky, we'll send you a toasted marshmallow in the mail And lay off the hair spray!

Good advice, Maria -- I'd especially lay off the hair spray if you're near Arthur Brown.

The Ghost of Christmas Future

In Lisbon, Socrates quaffs the hemlock:

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates submitted his resignation Wednesday after parliament rejected his minority Socialist government's latest austerity measures.

The rejection "had taken away from the government all conditions to govern," Socrates said in a televised statement. He said his government would remain in power in a caretaker capacity.

The parliament's rejection of austerity measures—as well as Socrates' resignation—comes just a day before a European summit.

Socrates has said rejection of the austerity plan would force the debt-laden country to follow Greece and Ireland and seek an international bailout, which he opposes.

There's a lot in those few paragraphs, but I thought the key thing was the quote from Socrates. Portugal, like Greece and Ireland, is effectively bankrupt. They have no way to pay the debts they owe, many of them structural because of benefits promised to a bloated government sector. Socrates is a socialist, so if he's pushing austerity, it's safe to assume the situation is dire.

The problem is that the government workers are the ones who are making it impossible to govern:

Large protests have been held against austerity on the past two weekends and on Wednesday train drivers went on strike to demand higher wages, creating traffic chaos around Lisbon as commuters were forced to take their cars to work.

If this sort of thing sounds familiar, it should. We saw similar protests in Greece last year and what's been happening in Madison has similar roots. We saw calls in Wisconsin for a general strike when the budget repair bill was passed, so it would be foolish to imagine that we are immune from this sort of behavior. And are we on the same path as Portugal? Well. . .

The United States is on a fiscal path towards insolvency and policymakers are at a "tipping point," a Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday.

"If we continue down on the path on which the fiscal authorities put us, we will become insolvent, the question is when," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said in a question and answer session after delivering a speech at the University of Frankfurt. "The short-term negotiations are very important, I look at this as a tipping point."

But he added he was confident in the Americans' ability to take the right decisions and said the country would avoid insolvency.

"I think we are at the beginning of the process and it's going to be very painful," he added.

As Scott Walker can attest.

Answer to a question you weren't likely asking

So whatever happened to Cindy Sheehan?

Res ipsa loquitur. And then some.

Just so we're clear

I think it's official, at least in my experience. Worst. Winter. Ever.

What does that tell you?

One of Jay Nordlinger's readers asks yet another good question, this time concerning the BBC, but one that by extension can be asked about other news gathering organizations:

Our reader further writes, “The people who claim to be feminist and pro-gay” — i.e., the crew at the BBC — “oppose the one country in the Middle East that does not subjugate women and persecute gays. What does that tell you?”

What does it tell you?

The Limits of Schadenfraude

Writing at Patterico, Aaron Worthing asks a fair question concerning Hillary and Barack's Excellent Adventure off the shores of Tripoli:

But before we hammer the President too hard, ask yourself a simple question. Is he right, right now? Forget what he said when he represented one of the most liberal jurisdictions in America, but is he right, right now? If he is, then we have, to a degree, a patriotic duty to put those criticisms aside. Maybe the President is too small to admit it, but either 1) he was full of it when opposing the Iraq War, or 2) he has changed his mind. And if you think he is making the right decision, we shouldn’t make it too difficult, politically, to do the right thing, or else he might stop doing the right thing. In other words, please lay off.

As I wrote on Friday, I'm skeptical that our incursion into Libya is the right thing to do, especially so late in the game. But there's a larger question involved, which Worthing gets to later on:

Yes, yes, we watched the left unfairly and dishonestly malign the Iraq War, giving our enemies aid and comfort as we fought that war. Hell, we have watched our media give out enemy propaganda that has actually led terrorists to kill our troops. The temptation to turn the screws on them is powerful. But sometimes patriotism requires us to suck it up and/or bite our tongues.

Then again, we were told, rather a lot as I recall, that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. So should we really get in line even if we doubt the decision?

These are not easy questions. It's one thing to ask our military to obey orders and execute a strategy, it's quite another to expect lockstep from the civilian population.

I've never thought it wise to expect lockstep from anyone, anywhere. We are a quarrelsome species and we will disagree in fundamental ways. I do marvel at the worldview that some on the Left seem to have, in which Scott Walker is a greater enemy than Gadaffi -- I've seen signs to that effect in the protests in Madison. I can't ever hope to understand how someone could draw such a conclusion because I'm just not wired that way.

Rather than having a little schadenfreude, what I hope is this -- that people on the Left now understand is that the previous administration faced a lot of bad choices and were, in the main, quite honorable in how they approached those choices. Were there mistakes along the way, and were some of the bad choices the result of questionable decisions? Of course. And it's not a problem to say as much. Perhaps some day those on the Left who were quick to condemn, including the current Leader of the Free World, might acknowledge that there was honor involved. But if they don't, there's not much we can do about it, except to be as honorable, and honest, as we can be.

Events are in the Saddle

Assuming this is true, it could get really interesting:

There have been serious demonstrations against the Assad regime all over the country for weeks now, with near-zero coverage. Yet, from the standpoint of American interests, this is way more important than Libya, since Syria is a vital cog in the Iranian-led war against us.

That's the opinion of Michael Ledeen, who is one of the more astute observers of events in the Middle East and beyond. Syria is pretty much the Keyser Sose of the region, with a hand in just about everything that goes on. The thing about the Assad regime is that Bashir Assad, like his father, is an Alawite, an minority offshoot sect that is considered heretical by some Muslims, so he has had to maintain power by force alone. Assad's father was an especially brutal man who thought nothing of wiping out entire villages when it suited his purposes. Things could change quickly if the protests in Syria start to gain traction.

Forget it Andrew, It's Chinatown

Dawn breaks slowly over (at) the Atlantic, as at long last Andrew Sullivan is forced to board the clue bus:

There is no actual or imminent threat to America from Libya. I supported Obama against first Clinton and then McCain because I knew full well that both Clinton and McCain were unrepentant fans of presidential war-making powers and had both supported almost every war in their political lives. I wanted someone with more restraint. But the president we supported is not, it is now clear, the president that we have.

Dennis Green knew. Dennis the Peasant knew. Dennis the Menace probably knew. Heck, even Flounder got the story eventually. Maybe Al Gore can clue you in. Most of these clips are NSFW, by the way, although the one without profanity might be the most offensive to some readers.