Stuff to Read

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Harold Meyerson: The real “welfare queens” are red states!

I’m all for maintaining the presumption of innocence until someone is found guilty in court. But Ben Stein’s defense of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is the most sexist and elitist garbage I have seen in a long time. Shame on The American Prospect for hosting it. [The American Spectator, sorry] See also TPMMuckraker.

Senate Republicans refuse to cut subsidies to Big Oil. Another campaign issues to hang around your necks next year, dudes.

29 thoughts on “Stuff to Read”

  1. Ben Stein is a troll.

    I’m proud of the NYPD’s actions in detaining Mr. Strauss-Kahn and of the judge who wouldn’t give him bail.

    • of the judge who wouldn’t give him bail.

      I haven’t been following this closely, but I assume the NYPD has some pretty compelling evidence to have caused such a high-profile individual to be denied bail. The careers of the cops, prosecutors and the judge are on the line here.

  2. Yup, the NYPD had to be PRETTY SURE if they went to the trouble of boarding a flight to get this guy rather than let him go to Paris and defend himself from there.

    And I am, and always have been, an advocate of either making those Welfare States, with those old pickup-owning gray-haired buck’s and dame’s, pay their fair share, or kicking them out.
    Or let them secede.
    We beg you.
    GO!
    We admit it Lincoln was wrong! I mean, he was right on slavery, but wrong on holding the union together.
    Right now, this country is like an old married couple who are trying to stay together for the kids, who are already ut of the house.
    We need a divorce. It’s the AMERICAN thing to do!

  3. That’s It!! I’m boycotting that eyewash stuff he used to hawk!!!

    Diane Rehm had a guest who said there WAS evidence of past indescretions by Mr S-K. To Ben’s assertion that the lack of a “history” suggests that he may be innocent, you could equally assert that since the housekeeper had no record of making accusations of sexual assault suggests that she is telling the truth. If it’s resentment that the “have-nots” harbor for the “haves” then why didn’t one or two of the previous few thousand “haves” set her off? I know these are pretty obvious arguments, but, something about Ben Stein’s argument justs irritates me, so I have to vent a bit.

    That being said, presumption of innocence, and all that …

    “Right now, this country is like an old married couple who are trying to stay together for the kids, who are already ut of the house.
    We need a divorce. It’s the AMERICAN thing to do!”

    A lot of the time I halfway think this is true. I wish Rick Perry and the rest of the secesionists could just go ahead and go. The trouble is we’d be locked in miserable North/South Korean type pas de deux with a Randian superpower falling into the third world. The other trouble is I’d have to relocate to some island of sanity and those seem few and far between these days.

    Oh I forgot, the “Rapture” is supposed to happen this Saturday afternoon. Hey guys, I think our problems just might be over.

    —-

    A few months back,I read an article concerning California’s deficit. It said that if California could just collect what they pay in, for ONE year. They would have a budget surplus.

  4. Even though he does not have diplomatic immunity, DS-K is in a special position, so yes, the NYPD and the D.A.’s office has to have some strong evidence to backup their actions. The bail thing, I think, is more hinged on his being available for court appearances, in other words it was determined that he was a flight risk. He has the money and position to travel freely and to put himself beyond the reach of NY authorities. A blogger elsewhere made the point that the NYPD and the D.A. must have involved the state department in the decision making about bail and detention. Yes, a lot of people have careers on the line here.

  5. goatherd,
    Where have you been?
    He’s a rich person, so he gets presumption of innocence.
    She’s a poor woman, so she gets the presumption of guilt.

    And don’t worry, we’ll find a place for you in Upstate NY if the rapture doesn’t happen but seccession does.

  6. Note…it’s the American Spectator that published this, not The American Prospect…

  7. Well, I agree with most of the people deriding BS, I do have a bit of a problem with the “denying bail” bit. It is drastic to deny bail and we don’t have room in our jails, anyway. To deny bail is to punish before guilt is proven. So yeah, the evidence has to be physical and damning OR the DA and judge are making a point at this guy’s expense. Or maybe they can’t get DNA evidence any other way.

    As to the “did he have a knife?” accusation: how about, “did he threaten her job, her kids, her family?” You don’t have to coerce physically to have non-consensual sex. People forget that many women have not been given the means to defend against sexual advances and a chambermaid is not a position that a strong, educated woman usually takes (maybe actresses).

    Then the fact that he has no history, so he couldn’t possibly have done it. And the thing about him being a long-suffering public servant for the public good. At $425K salary per year and an almost unlimited expense account! Heck, I’d take that job. Try being a non-profit director for $40K a year. Or a public defender lawyer. Anyway, that’s why a $3000/night hotel suite is relevant. And I bet it has sound proofing, too. I’m back to demanding all public servants wear recording instruments everywhere.

    • It is drastic to deny bail and we don’t have room in our jails, anyway.

      In this case we do. I understand New York has stuffed him into a little-used section of the Rikers Island facility that he has to himself. So he’s not mixing with the general population. He’s got a room to himself with a television set. He’s confined because he is considered a flight risk. His lawyers are petitioning that he be confined somewhere else with an ankle monitor.

  8. When I was in high school and we were given detention after school for whatever infraction of rules we violated, we were required to spend that hour of detention writing. We were given three pages of lined paper and had to fill it completely on both sides with any subject we desired to write about. The only condition placed on our writing was that it had to be coherent and not just a rambling of unconnected thoughts to fill up our pages.

    Reading Ben Stein’s commentary reminds me of the type of writing that would suffice to complete a high school detention assignment. There is a thread of coherence that runs throughout, but it’s so disjointed in it’s logic that it just screams of the detention style. Asking questions which any thinking person writing it would know the answers before they asked..primarily just to fill the pages and complete the assignment. Remember,it doesn’t have to make sense or meet any responsible level of thought …. it only needs to resemble coherence. Stein succeeded!

  9. Here’s something to read for unemployed Florida residents who want to tighten their bowels with a real horror story..
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/18/rick-scott-jobs_n_863514.html

    The article doesn’t make mention of our recently enacted bestiality statutes.I’m sure it’s a pressing issue( more so than jobs) and that I’m just not aware of how rampant bestiality is in the State of Florida. But I do have to commend our legislators for their progressive enlightenment because they no longer put the animal involved on trial as a co-defendant, or impose a death penalty upon the animal found guilty in bestiality cases. We’re making progress..maybe not making jobs…but we’re moving in rapidly toward the 12th century.

  10. From what I read, DSK was detained without bail, because they would never see him again once he made it to France – the long reach of Amercan law only goes so far. My hat’s off to the people in New York who had the sense to hold this guy without bail, no matter how important he claimed to be.

  11. Regarding L’affaire Newt, this guy is always worth reading:

    http://www.davidcoates.net/2011/04/29/the-strengths-and-weaknesses-of-american-exceptionalism/

    “goatherd,
    Where have you been?
    He’s a rich person, so he gets presumption of innocence.
    She’s a poor woman, so she gets the presumption of guilt.”

    Yes, you’re right, what was I thinking? I guess I was in “La La Land” for a few minutes there. I think I saw Michele Bachmann there. I’m glad to be back!

  12. “And don’t worry, we’ll find a place for you in Upstate NY if the rapture doesn’t happen but seccession does.”

    Thanks, I’ll bring the Luksusowa. We had a dairy farm near Delhi, it’s probably a golf course now.

    Can I bring my 8-Tracks of Neil Sedaka? (just kidding, we ran that horse to death.)

    Read the David Coates article. He a great footnoter.

  15. Actually, I do have quite a few old 78’s, mostly Crosby, the Andrews sisters and old jazz stuff. My best is a set of Django Reinhardt with the Haute Club Five. If you looked at the Angelo Debarre vid I linked, you probably would have guessed. He really is a great guitarist. The Bobby Darin link brought back some memories. Thanks.

    You know, if I did have some Neil Sedaka 8-Tracks, maybe Ben Stein would be interested in them. He likes zombie economics. He may be into “oldies”. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

  16. Here’s a link to a song that my sister recorded back in about 1964. The song is featured on the Early Girls CD Vol II. It never made it to the big time…but it was a typical Long Island doo wop sound and brings back my memories of growing up in the 60’s…Billy Joel’s recording of” Keeping the Faith” is an accurite summation of the experience I shared growing up on Long Island in the early 60’s.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ81Gymn1w8&feature=related

  18. Actually, it’s kind of a relief to talk about music for a bit. The state of US politics at this point is so depressing (and we’re so powerless to change it) that there are times when I’d rather not think about it. Like watching a slow-motion train wreck.

    So with that in mind, I mentioned I like a lot of the new European music. In particular, there has been this revival of 1930s swing-era music, but somewhat electronically enhanced. It’s generally referred to as “acid jazz” or more commonly “electro-swing.” Just a few to listen to…

    Parov Stelar (Austria)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU3gsNahkdI

    Der Dritte Raum (Germany):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvmOPUTv8Yk

    Kormac (Ireland)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQE6bWXw7MI

    Pavlov & Mishkin (Russian, but I think they’re based in the UK now)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGVRkvvcRZ4&feature=related

    Analogik (Denmark)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp9rmNmE5Xo

    Bebo Best (Brazil)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNgYV0PN-Bo&feature=related

  19. Hate to get back to Rick Scott, but I gotta tell you Swami, Rick Scott doesen’t want to get rid of abortion, he just wants the right to perform abortion s according to his laws, and make a fortune

  20. Well, Dominique S-K has evidently resigned his post. I won’t conjecture.

    It’s funny, I was thinking of how we went off on the music tangent even though the news is so pressing and I thought, like Candide, that we were taking a break. I’ll check out your links. I am probably older and have a more folksy inclination and an interest in the instruments themselves (lutherie is a serious hobby of mine.) So, I like to cruise for music on instruments like the nyckelharpa or the viola da terra if that is any indication. But, “world music” is a great resource and a comfort as our own culture seems, well let’s say, being strangled to death by commodification.

    Swami, you must be proud of your sister, she had a great voice.

    ——–

    There was a show on NPR last week with a discussion of “out of character” moments and the presentation of research that was interpreted to show essentially that “good people” have bad moments.

    But, I am skeptical. I admit, I need to go back and listen to the show again. It treated the evolution of the brain and evolutionary psychology, which is an interesting field, but often strikes me as highly conjectural and rarely objective. Maybe, some day we will understand why people, often people who have the public trust and a great deal of power, do ridiculously stupid and often criminal things. Regardless of what underlying structures in the brain and the influence of a violent and competitive history might have had on us, poor impulse control is poor impulse control. And in considering an act like the sexual assault of a woman, I can’t understand why that would appeal to, let alone “tempt” any person who didn’t need serious psychological intervention.

    So my average brain falls back on the idea that power corrupts and that people who seek power usually have nacissistic proclivities. Somehow, power and privilege act like a drug and “Kicks, keep gettin’ harder to find.” (Please, let’s not get off on a “Paul Revere and the Raiders” thing.) So, people gradually take riskier and more egregious acts until the whole journey ends in a crash and a trail of injured souls. I am being simplistic, but for me, I can say simply, that I don’t want that kind of person in a position of power.

  21. Somehow, power and privilege act like a drug and “Kicks, keep gettin’ harder to find.”

    Goatherd, I was thinking something very similar this morning. I keep puzzling over Strauss-Kahn’s recent cryptic comment, about the impending likelihood of a woman being raped and blaming him, as part of a political conspiracy. The comment struck me as bizarre, and also creepy. Strauss-Kahn didn’t say “A woman might make up a rape, and say I did it;” instead, he said “Perhaps a woman is raped in a parking lot, and says I did it.”

    With that pre-emptive comment, was he trying to create a defense for himself? Had he been fantasizing about raping a maid in a hotel, and had reached the stage where he was planning to act on it? Granted, I’m not an expert on the behavior of sexual predators, but this seems typical to me.

    And frankly I’m disappointed in Ben Stein. Where’s his “GUILTY! He’s a SOCIALIST!!!”? The old coot is really slipping.

  23. I find it curious that so many men in positions of power have been reduced to quivering piles of geletin due to transgressions sexual in nature.
    The list includes Bill Clinton,Elliot Spitzer, Gary Hart, Gary Condit, Larry the wide stance, that page turner dude from Florida(?), AAHnold, half the Kennedy family,John Edwards, Newtie, Rudi. It just blows me away. I’ve been married to the same angel for 37 yrs, and have never strayed (beyond innocent flirting). I don’t get it; but I also don’t get why ordering the destruction of whole cities is O.K. while having a tryst is a mortal sin.
    Oh, as far as Ben Stein goes, he made a few valid points, but I consider him as exciting as a prostrate exam. There is something strange about that case; it looks like the classic “honey trap”. Time will tell. The most effective way to destroy a political rival is with the sex trap.

  24. Swami, with the new bestiality and baggy pants laws, my weekends are all but destroyed; and as luck would have it, the pasture up the street just got some new talent.(and an emu !) Kissimmee just ain’t the same old “Kow Town”.
    Do you think Scott will get another term?

  27. erinyes….I saw an emu just the other day at Lowery Park Zoo…I was surprised at how pretty their eyes are, and how long and full their eye lashes are. Although their toe nails leave a lot to be desired.

    I’m not to concerned about whether Scott gets reelected…My concern is whether I can survive financially the lenght of his first term..I’m truely scared by what I’m seeing coming out of Tallahassee. It’s like they’ve deliberately set out to destroy the economy by turning it into a capitalist fiefdom.

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